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[00:00:05] Well, this is the Q&A podcast and I'm [00:00:07] your host, Peter Slen. Thanks for [00:00:09] joining us this week. It's a [00:00:11] conversation with Will Hey, whose most [00:00:13] recent book is about the black [00:00:15] experience in Vietnam during the civil [00:00:17] rights movement of the 1960s. [00:00:20] That conversation begins in a moment. [00:00:27] During the early years of the Vietnam [00:00:29] War, black soldiers reinlisted at higher [00:00:32] rates than their white counterparts. [00:00:35] Why? Besides patriotism, according to [00:00:38] author Will Hey, the Vietnam War was [00:00:41] America's first truly integrated war, [00:00:44] and African-Americans saw opportunity to [00:00:46] advance. But as the war dragged on and [00:00:49] the civil rights movement at home heated [00:00:51] up, the one impacted the other. For [00:00:54] many, it was a two-front battle. In his [00:00:57] book, A War Within a War, Will Hey draws [00:01:00] on primary sources who served at home [00:01:03] and abroad, and he highlights the black [00:01:05] experience in Vietnam, especially where [00:01:08] 300,000 black soldiers served and 7,300 [00:01:13] gave their lives. Our conversation with [00:01:15] Will Hey, begins now. [00:01:19] Will Hagg Good, what are the images on [00:01:21] the cover of your new book, The War [00:01:23] Within a War? [00:01:25] It's a picture of Skip Dunn who went to [00:01:28] Vietnam who I met on my street in [00:01:33] Columbus, Ohio. [00:01:35] I was in uh seventh grade. Skip lived [00:01:39] directly across the street from me. [00:01:42] He was a friend. He was a neighborhood [00:01:44] hero. He was a high school athlete. He [00:01:47] taught me how to throw horseshoes at the [00:01:49] playground in the summer. [00:01:52] And so one day I realized I hadn't seen [00:01:56] Skip. One day turned into two turned [00:01:59] into a week. And so I asked my sister [00:02:02] who went to high school with Skip. I [00:02:04] said, "Diane, where's Skip?" And she [00:02:07] said, "Skip's gone to Vietnam." [00:02:10] And so [00:02:14] my neighborhood hero was off to this war [00:02:19] that I knew very little about. And [00:02:24] uh [00:02:25] at the end of my four and a half years [00:02:28] of research [00:02:30] on the book, I thought one night in the [00:02:35] middle of the night, I said to myself, [00:02:36] "What ever happened to Skip Dunn?" I [00:02:38] wonder uh [00:02:41] in the next day I was committed to [00:02:45] looking for Skip. [00:02:48] I got in touch with his widow because I [00:02:50] found out that he had passed away. [00:02:54] Now at this point, as I said, the book [00:02:56] had been finished, all the photographs [00:02:58] sent in. Uh, [00:03:02] I asked his widow, Neva. I said, "Neva, [00:03:06] can you send me a picture of Skip just [00:03:09] for sentimental reasons because he meant [00:03:12] so much to me as a kid when I was [00:03:15] growing up?" And she said, "Oh, sure, [00:03:18] Will." [00:03:20] All the photos had been handed in. The [00:03:22] art designer in New York was thinking [00:03:25] about what [00:03:27] he might put on the cover. He sees the [00:03:30] picture of Skip Dunn [00:03:33] and immediately [00:03:35] has a has a visceral reaction to it [00:03:40] and they got in touch with me my editor [00:03:43] and say it will we think Skip Dunn's [00:03:46] photograph should go on the cover and [00:03:49] that is the cover photograph of the [00:03:52] book. [00:03:53] >> What is it about that photograph? [00:03:56] I think it's the eyes. [00:03:58] Skip Dunn seems to be speaking for every [00:04:04] young African-American [00:04:06] soldier who was snatched up out of their [00:04:09] neighborhood uh and had to go to [00:04:13] Vietnam. What was unique, I think, about [00:04:17] my boyhood on North Fifth Street is that [00:04:21] there were six [00:04:23] African-American [00:04:26] teenagers. [00:04:28] Uh, and I knew all of them. Larry [00:04:31] Wilson, Skip Dunn, Robert Morris, Steve [00:04:34] Collins, I knew them all. [00:04:38] All of a sudden, [00:04:40] one moment in my life, big moment in [00:04:43] their lives, they were gone to Vietnam. [00:04:46] And so you have this little kid, Will [00:04:49] Haggood, [00:04:51] who's living in the orbit of six Vietnam [00:04:56] bound [00:04:58] Marines and soldiers. [00:05:00] >> Of those six, did they all come home [00:05:02] alive? [00:05:04] >> Except one. Robert Robert Morris was the [00:05:09] one who died in Vietnam. So, five of the [00:05:13] six came home, which is amazing [00:05:16] uh in of itself. [00:05:18] >> And Mr. Hey, good are we talking about [00:05:20] 1964, 1965, [00:05:23] those that era? [00:05:24] >> Uh yes. uh 1965,667 [00:05:30] of course uh soldiers had one year tour [00:05:34] of duty, some signed up for a second [00:05:37] year. Uh [00:05:42] but simply getting to know them that [00:05:45] year, that [00:05:47] year, and then my mother moved to the [00:05:50] segregated [00:05:52] uh part of town, the east side of [00:05:54] Columbus [00:05:55] uh in the spring of 1968. [00:05:59] So there were [00:06:01] uh uprisings, [00:06:04] rebellions, the east side of town, Mount [00:06:08] Vernon Avenue and Long Street were on [00:06:10] fire. [00:06:12] And so [00:06:14] by the age of 14, [00:06:18] I had known people who were going to [00:06:20] Vietnam. And then I was caught in the [00:06:23] mastrom [00:06:25] of uprisings on the east side of town. [00:06:28] And I found myself as a 14-year-old kid [00:06:31] running from National Guard tanks during [00:06:35] the riots. [00:06:37] I don't think it was until I really got [00:06:39] deep into the research of this book that [00:06:42] I realized [00:06:44] that these two epical moments in [00:06:49] American history, Vietnam and the draft [00:06:52] and then riots that I saw elements of [00:06:57] both through my own eyes. [00:07:00] So, Skip Dunn takes up about twothirds [00:07:03] of the war within a war, but there's an [00:07:05] image at the bottom as well. [00:07:08] >> Yes, that is uh uh image [00:07:13] of Alabama [00:07:15] um [00:07:16] right in Birmingham [00:07:19] uh during a protest. And of course, we [00:07:22] all know the story of the state of Al [00:07:25] state of Alabama, civil rights murders, [00:07:28] uh [00:07:30] the four young girls who were uh bombed [00:07:34] at the 16th Street Church. And so on the [00:07:38] book jacket, uh [00:07:42] you're right, Skip Dunn takes up about [00:07:44] twothirds of the book jacket. And then [00:07:47] there's that [00:07:49] that image of um of someone being uh [00:07:55] manhandled by a sheriff's deputy [00:08:00] in Alabama. Uh folks have seen that [00:08:04] photograph, I think, or or maybe they [00:08:07] will be introduced to it. Uh but that [00:08:10] photograph with Skip Dunn's photograph [00:08:14] echoes the whole theme of the book that [00:08:17] there was a war within a war for the [00:08:20] young black soldier. They [00:08:24] they came out of the shadow of [00:08:26] segregation and Jim Crow America and [00:08:29] then they were transported uh many many [00:08:32] many many miles away across the ocean to [00:08:35] fight another war uh also against ethnic [00:08:38] people. So there had to be like a split [00:08:42] screen to them to these young guys. Uh, [00:08:46] wow. My mother is having a hard time [00:08:49] voting [00:08:51] uh in Alabama [00:08:54] and yet the country that's doing that to [00:08:57] her is sending me to fight other people. [00:09:01] So, it had to be psychologically to them [00:09:06] a war within a war. [00:09:09] In your book though, you report early on [00:09:11] during the Vietnam era, there was quite [00:09:14] a bit of patriotism coming from the [00:09:17] black pulpit and that black Americans [00:09:21] were reinlisting at higher rates than [00:09:23] white Americans. [00:09:25] >> Yes, [00:09:28] that's been a theme down through [00:09:29] history. [00:09:31] Blacks would often [00:09:35] volunteer, go off to war [00:09:39] to show their patriotism, [00:09:41] to try to inch [00:09:44] their race of people [00:09:47] uh toward toward to toward true freedom. [00:09:51] Frederick Douglas [00:09:53] begged begged President Lincoln to allow [00:09:57] blacks to fight in the Civil War. [00:10:01] It took Lincoln some time before he [00:10:04] said, "Okay, [00:10:08] let's put the Union uniform [00:10:12] on the black man." [00:10:16] When the call went out, 200,000 [00:10:20] black men volunteered [00:10:24] and they were told immediately word [00:10:27] seeped to them. Word reached down [00:10:32] from the Confederacy that if you are [00:10:35] caught, you will be hung by the neck. [00:10:38] You won't be sent to jail [00:10:42] or to a prison camp. We will hang you [00:10:45] because [00:10:47] we want to enslave you again. And so [00:10:54] in World War I, [00:10:56] America didn't want blacks to join the [00:11:00] war effort. So thousands of blacks took [00:11:04] a boat [00:11:06] to France to join the French army. And [00:11:10] they say to the French army, I love my [00:11:13] nation, [00:11:16] America, even if America doesn't love [00:11:19] me. So, you're fighting with the [00:11:22] Americans. Allow us to fight with you [00:11:26] and maybe my country will see that I [00:11:31] love my country and I should be treated [00:11:33] as a full citizen. [00:11:36] It is an I mean it is just astounding [00:11:40] that blacks despite segregation in the [00:11:46] civil rights murders always look toward [00:11:52] the military as a way to prove their [00:11:54] patriotism and that still goes on. [00:11:58] >> Was Vietnam the first fully integrated [00:12:02] war in American history? [00:12:03] >> Yes, it was. And was it a racial [00:12:05] experiment as you describe it? [00:12:07] >> Yes, it was. Absolutely. Uh [00:12:12] it was the first war where we knew [00:12:18] white couldn't survive without black and [00:12:22] black couldn't survive without white. [00:12:26] You had this [00:12:29] an immediate intermingling [00:12:32] of the black soldier [00:12:35] and the white soldier. [00:12:38] They were training together now and they [00:12:40] were also fighting together. [00:12:43] In past wars [00:12:46] that wouldn't happen. You had segregated [00:12:49] units. [00:12:51] But in Vietnam, [00:12:54] it proved as the war went on and on and [00:12:57] on that this was a lethal [00:13:01] fighting force. The North Vietnamese, [00:13:04] they had all sort of tactics. They would [00:13:07] fight [00:13:09] on foot, of course, boats, the air. I [00:13:13] mean they were a force that kept growing [00:13:16] and growing and they were willing to [00:13:19] sacrifice [00:13:21] a lot of bodies uh to say to the world [00:13:26] uh [00:13:28] this is our nation [00:13:30] and we believe we believe in communism [00:13:34] leave our country [00:13:36] but the Americans had a mindset that [00:13:40] we are here to stay. So one year turned [00:13:42] into two, the three, the four, the five, [00:13:45] and it was just this endless war as if [00:13:48] we had dropped down this rabbit hole. [00:13:50] But by the same token, [00:13:54] uh [00:13:56] you had the emergence [00:13:59] of black officers, [00:14:02] uh [00:14:04] young men who who had come out of West [00:14:06] Point. They were there to prove their [00:14:09] medal. [00:14:11] And now they also had [00:14:14] in back of them the 1964 Civil Rights [00:14:17] Bill, the 1965 Civil Rights Bill, and [00:14:20] then the 1968 bill. And so the longer [00:14:24] the war went on, the more rights [00:14:29] the black soldiers knew they had back in [00:14:33] America. And so they wanted uh their [00:14:37] fellow soldiers, [00:14:39] fellow superior officers to know, hey, [00:14:44] not only have I got this rifle, and not [00:14:46] only do I have my [00:14:49] my love of country, [00:14:52] but I also have the law behind me now. [00:14:55] And the things that were done to me in [00:14:58] the USA, you cannot do that to me while [00:15:03] we're at war. And so it was this [00:15:07] it was this astonishing mix that [00:15:10] soldiers never had [00:15:13] in earlier wars. So now they had the law [00:15:15] behind them and they had a president [00:15:18] they had a president Lynden Johnson uh [00:15:24] who was for freedom who was for black [00:15:27] rights. He was the one, of course, as we [00:15:29] know, u who did more for blacks from the [00:15:34] White House uh [00:15:37] than any president since Lincoln. [00:15:39] >> So, early days of the war, 1965, the [00:15:42] American public is supportive of this [00:15:45] effort to contain communism. [00:15:48] About 184,000 US troops are in Vietnam [00:15:52] by 1965. [00:15:54] African-Americans, 12% of the US [00:15:57] population, [00:15:59] 30% of the combat troops. Were they [00:16:02] seeing, first of all, talk about that, [00:16:06] but also were they seeing faces in [00:16:09] leadership that look like them? [00:16:13] >> It was President John F. Kennedy [00:16:17] when he sent advisors into Vietnam [00:16:21] in 1961 [00:16:23] 1962 [00:16:26] he started telling his staff hey we have [00:16:29] to be careful [00:16:31] this cannot be seen as quote a white [00:16:34] man's war [00:16:36] because he knew that all of the figures [00:16:39] on TV who were talking about the war [00:16:42] were white men and Yet you look in Life [00:16:46] magazine [00:16:48] or Look magazine, you see a lot of black [00:16:51] faces right at the front lines. [00:16:55] Uh [00:16:58] so that parallel [00:17:00] made people inside the State Department [00:17:04] nervous. [00:17:06] They're starting to think, "Wow, [00:17:09] there's a lot of black kids dying in [00:17:12] Vietnam. [00:17:14] as opposed to the numbers that they [00:17:17] amount to in the states. And so some of [00:17:22] that some of that came down to the fact [00:17:25] that the draft boards [00:17:27] were lily white. Uh the draft boards [00:17:31] across the country were about 90% 94% [00:17:36] white. And so [00:17:39] they were drafting a lot of black kids [00:17:43] willy-nilly. I mean, and since you had [00:17:47] more whites going to college, then the [00:17:49] blacks couldn't get the college [00:17:51] deferments. [00:17:52] Uh [00:17:55] something else that I think was [00:17:58] very painful [00:18:00] in as you mentioned [00:18:03] in churches on Sunday in the black [00:18:07] communities. [00:18:08] Nothing would make the minister more [00:18:11] proud than to look out in the [00:18:14] congregation and see a sharply dressed [00:18:18] black soldier [00:18:21] or black marine or someone from the Navy [00:18:25] home on leave visiting his mom sitting [00:18:29] in that pew because that said to the [00:18:32] minister and to the churchgoers [00:18:36] uh [00:18:37] our son [00:18:39] is making a sacrifice [00:18:42] uh for his country. And that was a point [00:18:45] of pride. And their picture would often [00:18:47] wind up in the local local black [00:18:50] newspaper, in the white newspaper [00:18:52] sometimes, but often in the local [00:18:56] negro newspaper as they were called, uh [00:19:01] because it was a point of pride [00:19:03] in the community. I remember when I was [00:19:06] a kid and these six six guys who I've [00:19:10] mentioned uh Larry and Robert and Steve [00:19:13] uh and Jimmy uh I would see them home [00:19:19] in their respective uniforms and wow as [00:19:22] a kid you would come out on the porch [00:19:25] and your mother would say look look [00:19:28] that's what you might that's what you [00:19:31] might grow up to be like Skip Dunn He's [00:19:34] a Marine. And Skip would be so sharp and [00:19:38] so proud. I mean, it was like seeing a [00:19:41] version of a movie star to us. Uh, and [00:19:45] so that was a big thing. [00:19:47] >> And C-SPAN's Q&A podcast continues in a [00:19:50] moment. [00:19:51] >> In your book, Will Haggood, I hope I [00:19:53] read this correctly, March 7th, 1965, [00:19:57] Selma, Alabama, and the first black [00:20:00] combat soldiers arrive in Vietnam. all [00:20:03] on the same day. [00:20:05] >> Yes. Stunning coincidence. Absolutely [00:20:10] stunning. Uh you know, you had people in [00:20:13] Selma, Alabama marching across the [00:20:16] bridge who would be attacked. You had [00:20:19] heroes [00:20:21] like John Lewis who would grow out of [00:20:23] that uh moment in that movement. And [00:20:27] then in Vietnam, you had [00:20:32] you had black soldiers [00:20:35] uh who were forming these bonds. And [00:20:39] these bonds were linked by what's known [00:20:42] as the DAP handshake. It was like a [00:20:45] handshake. You know, sometimes you'll [00:20:47] see the NBA games now and the players [00:20:50] doing all that. Well, [00:20:53] in Vietnam, the black soldiers would [00:20:56] link up with each other with this that [00:21:00] handshake. And it was their way of [00:21:02] saying, [00:21:03] "We know what time it is. We know that [00:21:07] even though we're marching off in the [00:21:10] jungle, we haven't forgotten that last [00:21:13] week, [00:21:15] uh, I walked out of my tent and saw a [00:21:21] Confederate flag uh, pushed into the [00:21:24] ground in front of my tent. So somebody [00:21:28] did that while I was sleeping and they [00:21:32] would they would consciously [00:21:35] and always be aware of these little [00:21:38] things that were were happening even [00:21:43] while they were at war. [00:21:45] >> Well, this goes back to an earlier [00:21:46] question. Were black soldiers seeing [00:21:49] faces that look like them in leadership? [00:21:53] >> No. [00:21:55] At the outset of the war, there were [00:21:57] maybe 1% [00:22:00] black officers. So, you could literally [00:22:03] you could literally, Peter, do your [00:22:05] whole uh tour [00:22:09] your whole 12 month or 13-month tour in [00:22:12] Vietnam and not be under under the [00:22:16] guidance [00:22:18] or under the leadership of a officer who [00:22:22] looked like you. And and [00:22:26] >> did that matter? [00:22:28] >> Yes. Now there were there were white [00:22:31] officers who were very good who saw [00:22:34] through the saw through the [00:22:36] misunderstanding and the hatred from [00:22:39] their hometowns in the south especially. [00:22:42] They wanted to overcome that. Uh, and [00:22:46] some of them did. [00:22:49] In battle, when the bullets are flying [00:22:52] and when the grenades are being thrown, [00:22:55] skin color tends to [00:22:58] uh, vanish. [00:23:00] You want to save Joe and Joe want to [00:23:03] saves you. Joe wants to save you because [00:23:06] Joe and Skip Dunn and and Robert Moors [00:23:11] and [00:23:13] and Charles Balden [00:23:16] out of Columbus, Ohio from North Fifth [00:23:18] Street, they all have one goal in [00:23:21] common. They want to get back home. [00:23:23] Everybody wants to get back home. which [00:23:26] is why this great social experiment [00:23:31] of having a racially integrated war [00:23:33] might have been tough on a lot of [00:23:35] people's psyche. [00:23:38] Uh [00:23:41] it might have been [00:23:45] shocking to some white southerners to [00:23:49] all of a sudden take orders from a black [00:23:52] major. [00:23:54] But it helped unite the nation [00:23:59] in a way that said [00:24:02] if we are to move up this road of [00:24:05] civility [00:24:07] in our society, [00:24:10] then we're going to have to link arms. [00:24:12] We're going to have to have to come [00:24:14] together. Of course, all this happened [00:24:17] and the rebellions on the streets would [00:24:19] not stop. They were still going on. So [00:24:22] literally, literally, Peter, every black [00:24:25] soldier who came home [00:24:28] uh during the Vietnam War was greeted to [00:24:32] uprising, was greeted to some form of [00:24:39] uh [00:24:42] tension tension in the streets. Uh, and [00:24:47] then you turn on the radio and then [00:24:49] you'd hear Marvin Gay singing, "Oh, [00:24:51] what's going on, brother? Brother, [00:24:54] there's too many of you dying." And [00:24:57] you'd hear that and you'd wonder, you [00:25:00] say to yourself, "My God, what have I [00:25:03] been fighting for? It's still not free [00:25:06] in my own land." [00:25:09] One of the people you profile in the war [00:25:12] within a war [00:25:15] who did overcome quite a bit, Fred [00:25:18] Cherry. Who was Fred Cherry? [00:25:25] >> Fred Cherry is a genuine [00:25:29] American [00:25:31] hero. [00:25:33] He was an Air Force pilot. uh [00:25:37] >> one of the few black pilots. [00:25:38] >> Yeah. One of the few black pilots [00:25:41] in the Air Force. It took him a long [00:25:44] time [00:25:45] to convince the Air Force hierarchy to [00:25:49] send him to flight school, but he would [00:25:51] take the test and he aced all the test. [00:25:54] So there was no option. We got to have [00:25:57] this guy. He's good. He's good. He can [00:26:00] do the job. And so uh he was in the [00:26:04] Korean War. He got medals and then [00:26:07] Vietnam came along and uh all of [00:26:13] all of his fellow pilots uh [00:26:17] thought he was a he was a hot shot. Uh [00:26:21] he was a top gun before the term was [00:26:24] established. Uh [00:26:27] and he was shot down over Vietnam. [00:26:32] He had a broken leg. He has some other [00:26:35] injuries, but he was dragged off to a [00:26:38] camp uh and he was tortured. He was put [00:26:43] in the cell with the white [00:26:48] uh [00:26:50] white American [00:26:51] >> southerner, [00:26:52] >> a southerner at that military officer. [00:26:55] And the North Vietnamese in their [00:26:58] mindset, [00:27:00] they sat back and said, "Hey, these two [00:27:02] guys are going to kill each other." Uh, [00:27:06] but just the opposite happened. As I [00:27:10] said earlier, white couldn't survive [00:27:12] without black and black couldn't survive [00:27:14] without white. Uh Fred Cher's cellmate [00:27:19] White [00:27:22] helped mend him, helped help helped [00:27:24] nurse his injuries, [00:27:26] uh help help literally save his life. Uh [00:27:31] and [00:27:33] over the course of four years, these two [00:27:36] men formed a wonderful, wonderful bond. [00:27:41] Um, and I think it was but one example [00:27:45] that there was a lot of uh, how do you [00:27:48] put it? A lot of [00:27:51] a lot of beautiful [00:27:55] uh, stories of race that came out of [00:27:58] this this hard lone war. [00:28:03] >> Fred Cherry was the first black P in [00:28:06] Vietnam, you report? [00:28:07] >> Yes, he was. Did he come back a to a [00:28:10] hero's welcome to a successful [00:28:13] fulfilling life after four years in P [00:28:17] camp? [00:28:17] >> No. Um it was very sad. His uh his wife [00:28:25] told uh told the kids [00:28:29] that Fred had died in Vietnam. So he was [00:28:34] sitting in a cell, [00:28:37] you know, during these long years and [00:28:39] his children thought he was dead and [00:28:44] he was released. He came home to [00:28:48] Virginia and [00:28:52] there was a local [00:28:55] local celebration for Fred Cherry. His [00:28:59] arm is mangled now. And [00:29:03] he stood up [00:29:05] in front of this crowd, mixed race [00:29:08] crowd, of course, blacks and whites. [00:29:12] And French here said to the crowd, he [00:29:14] said, [00:29:17] "I've spent years being tortured [00:29:20] and [00:29:23] people expect me to be bitter [00:29:27] and [00:29:30] I would do it again because you, my [00:29:34] fellow Virginiaians, [00:29:37] you, my fellow Americans, [00:29:41] are free today. [00:29:45] I mean, when I [00:29:48] read the the speech that he gave after [00:29:54] he came home, it literally brought tears [00:29:56] to my eyes. I mean, Fred Cherry looked [00:29:58] out at those people [00:30:01] and said, "I do it all again." [00:30:06] echoing the 200,000 [00:30:09] black soldiers who volunteered [00:30:12] during the Civil War to help the Union [00:30:15] Army Save this Nation. [00:30:19] From your book, A War Within War, quote, [00:30:22] "For many black men, the service, even [00:30:25] during war, was the best of a number of [00:30:27] alternatives to staying home and working [00:30:29] in the fields or buming around the [00:30:31] streets of Chicago or New York." You are [00:30:34] quoting Army Captain Joe Anderson. [00:30:38] >> Who is he? [00:30:39] >> Boy, Joe Anderson, uh, he's another [00:30:42] hero. He's another he's another American [00:30:45] hero. Fred Cherry has since passed away, [00:30:48] but Joe Anderson, [00:30:50] he's alive and well. He lives in [00:30:52] Michigan. Uh, he went to West Point. Um, [00:30:56] sharp guy. Uh, he get he gets to [00:31:01] Vietnam. [00:31:02] Uh [00:31:05] he has a regiment that he's over. He [00:31:08] gets orders one day to go find some [00:31:12] soldiers uh who are trapped. Uh and he [00:31:17] marches off uh he's a leader. He marches [00:31:20] off and and and he saves as many of [00:31:23] these men who were trapped as he can. Uh [00:31:29] he comes back to camp. A French [00:31:33] filmmaker uh hears about about Joe [00:31:37] Anderson. Uh now this is interesting. [00:31:41] A French filmmaker hears about a black [00:31:45] leader in Vietnam. [00:31:48] Word had gotten out [00:31:51] in the press [00:31:54] that Joe Anderson had led to his man, [00:31:57] you know, he's probably going to get a [00:31:59] medal, which he did in the end. And [00:32:03] so there were US there were US [00:32:07] filmmakers [00:32:08] uh uh uh who were making documentaries [00:32:12] in Vietnam, but none paid attention to [00:32:15] what Joe Anderson just did except for [00:32:18] this French filmmaker. And so the French [00:32:23] filmmaker goes up to Joe Anderson and [00:32:25] said, "Hey, can I by any chance go out [00:32:29] with you [00:32:31] on one of your patrols? I'd like to make [00:32:34] a film about you. Uh, this is [00:32:37] interesting. You're a black leader in [00:32:41] Vietnam [00:32:42] and your country, America, is on fire [00:32:46] because of race." And Joe Anderson said, [00:32:49] "Well, it sounds good to me. So, let me [00:32:51] check with the higherups. And the [00:32:53] higherups sort of thought, well, let him [00:32:56] go and do it. This French guy, I mean, [00:32:58] nobody will ever hear of the movie, you [00:33:01] know, he's out in the jungle wasting [00:33:03] film. Who cares? And so Joe Anderson and [00:33:08] the French filmmaker Pierre Shand doer [00:33:11] Pierre Shan Dofer [00:33:14] I don't know if I'm properly saying it [00:33:16] right but he's a Frenchman and very good [00:33:19] very known in France has won film awards [00:33:22] they go out he's fascinated he's [00:33:25] fascinated by what he sees he makes a [00:33:27] lot of film they're in some firefights [00:33:30] and [00:33:33] he thinks at the end of this journey uh [00:33:37] with Joe Anderson that he has a film uh [00:33:41] uh he has a documentary film he makes it [00:33:45] shows uh in France first but then the [00:33:49] film gets shown in some small theaters [00:33:53] in the USA and lo and behold it's called [00:33:58] the Anderson platoon anderson platoon [00:34:02] about a black leader in Vietnam [00:34:07] gets nominated [00:34:09] in the documentary section [00:34:12] of the Oscars. [00:34:15] Will it win? It's one of several films [00:34:18] up for the Academy Award. The French [00:34:20] filmmaker [00:34:22] flies to America and goes to the Academy [00:34:26] Awards. [00:34:27] And when uh when the announcement is [00:34:32] made on stage, it says in the winner in [00:34:37] the documentary category for the Academy [00:34:40] Award is the Anderson platoon. And so [00:34:45] Joe Anderson suddenly becomes the first [00:34:50] uh African-American cinematic star of [00:34:55] the war. And [00:34:58] he's tickled pink. And Joe Anderson came [00:35:02] out of Topeka, Kansas. [00:35:05] He was in the same class, the same [00:35:08] school as Linda Brown. Linda Brown is [00:35:12] known to all of us uh because it's her [00:35:15] name on the Thood Marshall le Supreme [00:35:18] Court case, Brown v. Board of Education [00:35:22] uh which was argued and ruled on in 1954 [00:35:29] which desegregated the school system in [00:35:33] this country. So that [00:35:35] that is a heck of a story, isn't it? I [00:35:38] mean, Joe Anderson, Linda Brown, Kansas, [00:35:43] West Point, Vietnam, [00:35:46] >> and [00:35:47] the Oscar [00:35:49] >> graduated West Point 1965, I believe it [00:35:52] was, 579 grads. [00:35:55] >> You report that hundred of them came [00:35:57] back injured from Vietnam. [00:35:59] >> Yes. [00:36:00] >> But was Joe Anderson the only [00:36:02] African-American in that class? [00:36:04] >> Uh, no. There were in his class at West [00:36:09] Point, there were seven blacks [00:36:13] >> out of 579. [00:36:15] >> Yes. Out of 579. [00:36:17] And not all of them graduate. I think [00:36:19] five. Five out of his class. [00:36:21] >> Well, in telling that story, Will [00:36:23] Hagood, in your book, you taught us [00:36:27] something else, which is about Henry [00:36:29] Flipper in 1873. Who was Henry Flipper? [00:36:35] Henry Flipper was the first black [00:36:39] graduate of West Point. Uh the treatment [00:36:44] that he had to undergo. [00:36:47] Uh nobody would room with him. Of [00:36:50] course, he roommed by himself at West [00:36:52] Point. Uh and they gave him something [00:36:56] which is called the silent treatment. [00:37:00] And and folks watching would wonder, [00:37:03] well, what is a silent treatment? It's [00:37:05] it's [00:37:07] when you walk across campus, no one says [00:37:10] hi to you. When you go eat, no one [00:37:13] speaks to you while you're eating. Uh [00:37:18] you're silently ostracized. Uh and Henry [00:37:22] Flipper had to go through that uh for [00:37:25] four years. Uh he was met with the [00:37:28] silent treatment. Uh he gets out of West [00:37:32] Point. Uh he goes out west. He fights in [00:37:35] the Indian wars. Uh he knows what he's [00:37:39] doing. Uh and yet uh he gets inshed in a [00:37:45] scandal, not of his own making, but he [00:37:47] was accused of stealing money at [00:37:51] one base out west. and he was thrown out [00:37:55] of the military. Uh, and so his career [00:38:00] echoed [00:38:02] this nation and how it treated uh [00:38:06] someone like Henry Henry Flipper. Uh, [00:38:11] he got a [00:38:14] he got a posumous [00:38:16] posumous pardon. [00:38:18] Uh, and so now his record is clean, but [00:38:24] every every black graduate who goes to [00:38:29] West Point uh uh they honor Henry [00:38:35] Flipper and they pay tribute to him. [00:38:38] While I was doing this book, I wanted to [00:38:41] uh [00:38:42] interview [00:38:44] uh the then Secretary of Defense, Lloyd [00:38:48] Austin, who became this nation's first [00:38:51] African-American [00:38:53] Secretary of Defense. And so I'm sitting [00:38:59] in his Pentagon [00:39:01] uh office [00:39:04] uh [00:39:06] and I asked him what inspired him to go [00:39:12] to West Point and he said [00:39:16] Henry Flipper. And I said really and I [00:39:19] said why? He said, "Henry, Henry Flipper [00:39:22] and I come from the same small town in [00:39:26] Georgia." And I said, "Wow." I mean, and [00:39:30] then [00:39:32] I had been sitting [00:39:34] at a small table in his office and there [00:39:38] were some pictures on the wall. Uh, but [00:39:41] when I walked in, my back was to those [00:39:44] pictures and so I hadn't seen those [00:39:47] pictures. And [00:39:50] as I'm sitting with him, uh, he says, [00:39:55] "Look over there on that wall." And in [00:39:58] the secretary's office, there was a [00:40:00] gigantic picture of who? Henry Flipper. [00:40:04] Uh and [00:40:07] you know it just seemed a wonderful uh [00:40:11] circle uh to get from [00:40:15] the war then back to Henry Flipper and [00:40:18] then to the office of the secretary [00:40:21] >> and C-SPAN's Q&A podcast continues in a [00:40:24] moment. [00:40:25] >> In 1961 3,200 military adviserss were in [00:40:29] Vietnam. By 1965, [00:40:32] 140 184,000 [00:40:35] uh troops were there, including combat [00:40:37] troops. By 1968, [00:40:40] over half a million American troops were [00:40:42] in Vietnam. And then 1972 down to [00:40:46] 24,000. [00:40:47] Just to contrast that a little bit, [00:40:49] especially that 1968 number, about 3 [00:40:52] million US troops were in Europe at the [00:40:56] end of World War II. As troop strength [00:41:00] grew in Vietnam, did the support for the [00:41:03] war go down? [00:41:07] >> Yes. I I think uh you know you know some [00:41:12] siminal things happened. Uh, [00:41:16] one of those was there was a life [00:41:19] magazine spread and it was a two-page [00:41:23] spread and it showed uh the number of [00:41:28] soldiers who had died [00:41:31] in one concentrated time in Vietnam. [00:41:37] So you would be at home, whoever you [00:41:39] were, in Iowa or Texas or California or [00:41:43] Georgia, and you open that issue [00:41:46] of Time magazine and you saw [00:41:51] uh all these deaths from these small [00:41:55] towns who had died and it seemed like [00:42:00] something was being sucked up out of the [00:42:02] country. youth, youth, youth. Some of [00:42:06] our best and brightest youth were being [00:42:09] um, you know, had died in Vietnam. And [00:42:14] then you had the merging the merging [00:42:18] kind of late but it happened of the [00:42:22] civil rights groups SNICK and core [00:42:26] and [00:42:28] in the southern Christian leadership [00:42:30] conference. They started issuing [00:42:32] statements saying [00:42:35] we are not in support of the war. And [00:42:38] that was very rare because so many of [00:42:43] the civil rights uh groups leaders [00:42:49] uh had taken their [00:42:55] sort of leadership [00:42:59] style from Martin Luther King Jr. And [00:43:02] Reverend King would not [00:43:06] he would not criticize the war effort [00:43:09] until the day he did. He went to [00:43:11] Riverside Church in New York City and he [00:43:14] gave a famous speech and he said, "The [00:43:17] war is taking money from civil rights [00:43:19] programs. The war is taking money from [00:43:22] the hungry. The war is taking money from [00:43:25] our school systems." And he blasted the [00:43:29] war. And uh he was criticized for that [00:43:34] not only by not only by Jay Edgar Hoover [00:43:38] and the FBI, but he was criticized by [00:43:41] some fellow fellow black ministers [00:43:44] because they thought that was tricky [00:43:47] territory to question [00:43:50] the nation's war, to question [00:43:53] patriotism's [00:43:55] goal, which was to [00:43:59] read countries of communism. Uh and so [00:44:05] that became a fraught time, a very tense [00:44:08] time. And so you had these [00:44:11] these figures in the US Senate and the [00:44:14] US House um all of a sudden seeing that [00:44:19] wow the civil rights emotions [00:44:23] are evolving over into the antivietnam [00:44:29] emotions. And so [00:44:33] that was a big moment in this nation's [00:44:36] history. That war within a war now [00:44:42] now laid over the top of two big [00:44:46] movements. Anti-war [00:44:48] uh in civil rights. [00:44:50] >> The reaction of the president [00:44:53] LBJ. How is it possible that all these [00:44:56] people could be so ungrateful to me [00:44:58] after I had given them so much? Take the [00:45:00] Negroes. I fought for them from the [00:45:02] first day I came into office. I tried to [00:45:05] make it possible for every child of [00:45:07] every color to grow up in a nice house, [00:45:09] to eat a solid breakfast, attend a [00:45:11] decent school, and to get a good and [00:45:14] lasting job. Just a little thanks, just [00:45:17] a little appreciation. But look what I [00:45:20] got instead. Looting, burning, shooting. [00:45:27] It was very difficult for Lynden Johnson [00:45:30] who I have a lot of admiration for [00:45:34] uh of course uh and because he took on [00:45:38] the south and he was a southerner. He [00:45:41] said to the south uh much like Lincoln [00:45:45] said. Lincoln had said a house divided [00:45:48] cannot stand. And Lincoln knew that was [00:45:50] true. He knew this nation would rip [00:45:52] itself apart over slavery. [00:45:56] Lyndon Johnson knew this country could [00:46:00] not survive [00:46:02] uh with segregation and with civil [00:46:04] rights workers being lynched. Uh he knew [00:46:07] it. Uh and yet [00:46:13] he went down the rabbit hole. [00:46:16] Uh there were senators [00:46:18] namely Richard Russell, a Georgia [00:46:21] senator [00:46:23] who was a mentor to Lyndon Johnson [00:46:26] >> and a strong segregationist [00:46:28] >> and a strong segregationist. [00:46:34] Lyndon Johnson needing southern votes [00:46:37] for civil rights bills had listened to [00:46:42] some of the southerners and some of the [00:46:44] southern senators said, "Hey, [00:46:47] one of the ways to get these black kids [00:46:50] out of our communities is draft them. [00:46:53] Draft the hell out of them. Send them [00:46:56] over to Vietnam." Lynden Johnson [00:47:01] listened to that [00:47:03] and [00:47:05] he often said, "I'm not going to be the [00:47:07] first president to lose a damn war." [00:47:11] And so [00:47:14] he kept pouring money into the war [00:47:17] effort, more bombs, uh, and [00:47:22] and civil rights suffered, started to [00:47:24] suffer. Um, [00:47:27] and he was he was caught he he was he [00:47:32] was caught uh he was caught in a [00:47:35] terrible place. Um [00:47:39] uh and it's it's [00:47:43] really sad. There's a whole chapter in [00:47:45] the book about [00:47:48] him being on his farm after [00:47:52] he didn't run again as we know for the [00:47:54] White House. Uh, and he went to his his [00:47:57] farm in Texas and he would sit there and [00:48:02] he would brood. He would brood just, you [00:48:06] know, just from the words that you had [00:48:08] just read. And you [00:48:13] study his life and you feel so sorry for [00:48:16] the man because he [00:48:20] he saved the country [00:48:23] from [00:48:26] a racial war, but he couldn't save [00:48:32] his ego uh from keeping us in that war. [00:48:38] Uh, and so [00:48:42] there's a scene in the book, late in the [00:48:45] book, when he's in Texas and he brings a [00:48:48] lot of civil rights leaders uh to uh his [00:48:53] library and he says uh [00:48:58] uh we aren't finished yet. [00:49:02] The the march toward freedom is not [00:49:05] totally finished. [00:49:07] Uh he says uh but here at this library [00:49:13] this week we have [00:49:16] uh the actual [00:49:18] emancipation proclamation [00:49:22] in a glass case [00:49:25] on display [00:49:27] uh for visitors to see. [00:49:32] And I can't imagine what was going [00:49:36] through his heart and soul [00:49:39] uh [00:49:41] when he he knew [00:49:44] what Lincoln's hand had done and he knew [00:49:49] what his hand had done with those [00:49:54] three civil rights bills. [00:49:58] But [00:50:00] like with Lincoln, [00:50:04] there was a lot of blood on the grass. [00:50:07] >> Will Hey, good long career at the Boston [00:50:09] Globe, the Washington Post, the author [00:50:11] of eight or nine books. [00:50:14] >> Yeah. 10 [00:50:15] >> 10 books. And [00:50:17] >> un fortunately or unfortunately, the [00:50:20] first line of your obit is going to be [00:50:21] Will Hagood, 100 years old, author of [00:50:25] the butler. [00:50:26] >> Yeah. Well, that [00:50:29] Well, let's hope that I have some time [00:50:32] to do some more books. But yes, you [00:50:35] know, I I [00:50:39] I'm very proud of the butler. It was a a [00:50:42] story that I wrote when uh when I was at [00:50:45] the Washington Post about a gentleman [00:50:48] who had worked uh 35 years at the White [00:50:51] House by the name of [00:50:54] Eugene Allen. And uh you know how you [00:51:00] know sometimes it happens for a writer [00:51:02] you know [00:51:05] something almost magical happens [00:51:07] somebody in Hollywood saw it then they [00:51:10] got the story they got the story to Lee [00:51:13] Daniels who's a wonderful director [00:51:17] and then Danny Strong he wrote the [00:51:21] wonderful [00:51:23] u lyrical screenplay. play and and uh [00:51:28] Laura Ziskin, who's no longer with us, [00:51:31] was one of the movers uh who made the [00:51:33] movie happen, [00:51:36] her and Pam Williams. And and then the [00:51:38] movie opened and it did, my goodness, [00:51:41] very well. It won awards. [00:51:45] Um and it's played in many, many foreign [00:51:48] countries and it's had a dream cast. [00:51:51] Oprah Winfrey, Forest Whitaker, Jane [00:51:55] Fonda, Vanessa Red Grave, [00:51:59] Lenny Kravitz. It just had an amazing [00:52:03] amazing cast. [00:52:04] >> But that was one of your 10 books. The [00:52:06] war within a war is your most recent. [00:52:08] You've also written about [00:52:10] >> Third Good Marshall, [00:52:12] first African-American on the Supreme [00:52:14] Court. Correct. [00:52:15] >> Showdown. Yep. I wrote a book uh Sweet [00:52:18] Thunder about uh about the great prize [00:52:21] fighter [00:52:23] Sugar Ray Robinson. I wrote a book [00:52:26] called In Black and White about Sammy [00:52:28] Davis Jr. Uh I wrote a book about [00:52:32] growing up in Columbus called The [00:52:35] Hagoods of Columbus, a family memoir. Uh [00:52:40] >> and now you're teaching at Miami of [00:52:41] Ohio. [00:52:42] >> Yes. Now [00:52:44] I'm a visiting professor at Miami of [00:52:47] Ohio which is my alma mater which in [00:52:51] 1964 [00:52:54] uh it was the Western College for Women [00:52:58] which is now a part of Miami which [00:53:01] hosted the Freedom Summer [00:53:04] uh Freedom Summer volunteers [00:53:08] uh right across the road from [00:53:11] uh Miami of Ohio and three of those uh [00:53:18] freedom summer workers who went to [00:53:21] Mississippi uh in 1964, James Cheney, [00:53:25] Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman [00:53:28] were murdered. Uh and so that happened [00:53:32] during the Vietnam War, of course. And [00:53:37] so now there is a uh memorial to to the [00:53:42] three uh murdered civil rights workers [00:53:48] on the campus of Miami University in [00:53:50] Oxford, Ohio. [00:53:51] >> Was everything This is a pretty modern [00:53:54] era of media back in the 60s even. Was [00:53:58] were the events happening in the US were [00:54:00] they filtering into the soldiers in [00:54:03] Vietnam? Were they aware? [00:54:06] >> Yes. Yes. I [00:54:09] Yes. Not like it would be now, of [00:54:12] course, but yes. Slowly but surely. I [00:54:15] mean, especially with the black soldiers [00:54:19] in Saigon. There was an area called Soul [00:54:22] Alley. And it was just a a street uh I [00:54:27] don't know, maybe two and a half blocks, [00:54:29] three blocks long. Had soul food [00:54:31] restaurants. And then the vendors would [00:54:35] get [00:54:38] uh the AfricanAmericanoriented [00:54:40] magazines and they would sell those [00:54:44] magazines. Maybe they'd be two or three [00:54:47] days late, but still. And the [00:54:49] African-American soldiers who came to [00:54:52] Soul Alley, they would be up on the news [00:54:55] about what was going on in Dayton or [00:54:59] Newark, New Jersey or Los Angeles with [00:55:02] the Watts riots. I mean, they would be [00:55:04] up on the news. [00:55:07] One of the things that did filter in was [00:55:09] the music and antivietnam songs became [00:55:13] part of the popular culture. This is [00:55:15] from 1972. We're going to play a short [00:55:18] audio clip from Guess Who's Coming Home. [00:55:22] >> This wall shouldn't be going on. [00:55:25] We don't have any business here. [00:55:27] >> The reason why I think that we shouldn't [00:55:29] be over here, simple reason is because [00:55:30] we have a wall going on back home. and [00:55:32] we should first clean up our own [00:55:34] backyard before we try to clean up [00:55:35] someone else. [00:55:36] >> They call a brother with a with a afro, [00:55:38] they just click him down to the brick [00:55:40] and cut all his hair off and throw them [00:55:41] in jail. And here it is all all these [00:55:44] beast walking around here [00:55:45] with their hair looking like goddamn [00:55:47] girls and we can't wear our hair [00:55:50] 3 in long. [00:55:51] >> The day after Martin Luther King died, [00:55:54] there was a mass flag raising and the [00:55:57] flags that were flying were not American [00:56:00] flags. They were not black power flags. [00:56:03] They were Confederate flags. And they [00:56:06] flew for approximately 3 days. Nobody [00:56:08] said anything about it. [00:56:09] >> Would you join a group like the Black [00:56:10] Panthers? [00:56:11] >> I damn sure would. I'd either join the [00:56:15] Black Panthers [00:56:17] or SDS. [00:56:19] Preferably SDS, man. [00:56:20] >> Right. [00:56:21] >> Cuz they down on the whole thing, man. [00:56:23] They down on this war. They're [00:56:25] down on society, right? Establishment, [00:56:27] man. Because society and establishment [00:56:29] is up, man, and it needs change. [00:56:33] >> Will Hey, good. Barry Gordy was part of [00:56:35] that. Founder of Mottown, right? [00:56:36] >> Yes, he was. Yes, he was. [00:56:40] Barry Gordy had to be convinced to start [00:56:43] making spoken word albums, uh, you know, [00:56:47] that [00:56:48] really touched upon, uh, social issues, [00:56:52] civil rights, civil rights issues as [00:56:54] well. And he did, of course. and uh he [00:56:58] was he was behind the seminal Marvin Gay [00:57:01] album, What's Going On? Marvin Gay had a [00:57:04] brother who went to Vietnam and he came [00:57:06] back and uh uh he was much affected by [00:57:11] the war. Uh I think that's something too [00:57:15] that really took a toll [00:57:19] on Americans who were black in the war. [00:57:22] It took a psychological toll because you [00:57:25] had to come back to a nation that wasn't [00:57:28] still quite free yet. Yes, there were [00:57:31] laws on the books. There were laws on [00:57:34] the books, but not everybody got in step [00:57:37] with the spirit of those laws. So, you [00:57:40] you still even when you were out of the [00:57:42] war, you were still fighting a war [00:57:45] within a war. [00:57:47] as you write [00:57:49] talking about LBJ, his black and white [00:57:52] army in Vietnam was still fighting, but [00:57:55] his black and white army in America was [00:57:58] afraid. [00:58:01] >> Yes, it was frayed. Uh there were [00:58:05] marches in Washington, [00:58:08] anti-war marches. Uh [00:58:12] there was a lady who I write about in [00:58:14] the book by the name of Ma De Victor in [00:58:20] Chicago and she really [00:58:24] uh put her career on the line and trying [00:58:28] to trying to get to the bottom of the [00:58:32] Agent Orange crisis. Uh, [00:58:35] Agent Orange of course was a defoliant [00:58:40] that the US sprayed a top trees trying [00:58:43] to [00:58:44] >> You report 20 million gallons. [00:58:46] >> Yes. 20 million gallons. And it was to [00:58:51] sort of sort of make the trees and the [00:58:54] leaves vanish so that American forces [00:58:57] could more clearly [00:58:59] see the North Vietnamese troops. One of [00:59:03] the soldiers, Peter, who I talked to, it [00:59:06] said uh he walked out of his tent one [00:59:09] morning and he looked up the sky and [00:59:14] there was some orange stuff droplets. It [00:59:17] was kind of cool and it was dropping [00:59:19] down and he stuck his tongue out because [00:59:22] he thought it was orange crushed soda. [00:59:24] He thought it was a pop. He thought it [00:59:26] was a soft drink that that was being [00:59:30] dropped on them simply to cool them off. [00:59:33] But no, it was something that could kill [00:59:36] you, that could sick uh sicken you very [00:59:38] severely. Uh but this lady who I [00:59:42] mentioned, Ma [00:59:44] uh Ma [00:59:46] the Victor [00:59:48] uh went around talking uh black and [00:59:52] white soldiers, all soldiers uh and [00:59:57] she was trying to unravel the mystery uh [01:00:01] of Agent Orange, you know, why it was [01:00:04] sickening so many people. And that's one [01:00:07] of the stories that Will Hey, good tells [01:00:09] in his book, The War Within a War: The [01:00:12] Black Struggle in Vietnam and At Home. [01:00:15] We appreciate you're spending an hour [01:00:17] with us here on C-SPAN. [01:00:18] >> Thank you so very much. It's been my [01:00:20] honor. [01:00:22] >> And thanks for joining us for the Q&A [01:00:24] podcast. Next week, we talk with former [01:00:27] Congressman Steve Israel, who's now not [01:00:30] only an author, but a bookstore owner in [01:00:33] Oyster Bay, New York.