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November 04, 2003

Hope Dies Last–An Hour with Legendary Broadcaster and Author Studs Terkel

• Studs Terkel, His books include My American Century, Division Street, Hard Times, Working, The Good War (which won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction), and Spectator. His latest book is Hope Dies Last featuring interviews with presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, Voices in the Wilderness founder Kathy Kelly, Tom Hayden and many others.

TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: “Trouble of the World”, Mahalia Jackson.

Our guest today certainly knows about Mahalia Jackson. We are now joined in our studio by Studs Terkel. Studs Terkel, who has graced not this studio before, but we have spoken to him in both Chicago and here in New York. He has a new book out. It is called Hope Dies Last.

Studs Terkel- for half a century, broadcaster and author, probably more, spent an hour every weekday on his nationally syndicated radio show conversing with the famous and not-so-famous guests, with a loyal audience of Chicago listeners.

We want to thank you for being here today, and we want to start off by talking about what happened yesterday in the Senate. It’s not clear who was on the floor of the Senate when this vote took place, but it looks like George Bush got everything he asked for.

STUDS TERKEL: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: $87 billion.

STUDS TERKEL: It’s as though a coup has already been accomplished. The coup that began with the November election of the year 2000. You have one voice- and this is ironic, the conservative Senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd. The one eloquent voice, by the way, who throughout has been talking about the dangers of a coup, the dangers of no longer being this country that is so proud of its democratic spirit and openness. The one voice, and I heard the voice of Biden going along with Lugar.

And we hear the perversion of our language itself. Biden is generally considered ‘middle of the road’. Some call him ‘liberal’, and Senator Byrd is called ‘conservative’, which tells me that our language as well as our thoughts are being perverted. And the fact that his is the only voice—you would think this would be headlines! Byrd, the Dean of the Senate—we know what he has been saying in the past- remarkably eloquent about John Ashcroft, who by the way my fellow alumnus will talk about that in a moment, and The Patriot Act and how it connects to me with the witch hunts of Salem Massachusetts way back- it’s a tale i’ll tell you later on- the connecting link between him and me, that is abstract.

But right now, the thought of Byrd being the only voice is mind boggling.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to a break, and when we come back after 60 seconds, we’re going to hear what Robert Byrd had to say about this $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan, for George Bush. Stay with us.

[MUSIC BREAK]

AMY GOODMAN: Mahalia Jackson, “Move On Up A Little Higher.” You’re listening to Democracy Now!, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. By a voice vote the Senate yesterday approved giving President Bush nearly everything he asked for in his $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan. This is what Robert Byrd had to say. The Washington Post reports the bill was one of the largest military and foreign aid bills in U.S. history. Senator Byrd of West Virginia was the only Senator—remember this was a voice vote-–that could be heard saying ‘no’ when the voice vote was held. Let’s take a listen to some of his comments.

[TAPE]

SENATOR ROBERT BYRD: it has been said many times on the floor of this senate that a vote for this supplemental is a vote for our troops in Iraq. The implication of that statement is that a vote against the supplemental is a vote against our troops. I find that twisted logic to be both irrational and offensive.

To my mind, backing a flawed policy with a flawed appropriations bill hurts our troops in Iraq more than it helps them. Endorsing and funding a policy that does nothing to relieve American troops in Iraq is not in my opinion a Support The Troops Measure.

Our troops in Iraq and elsewhere in the world have no stronger advocate than Robert C. Byrd, Senior Senator from the great state of West Virginia, where mountaineers are always free.

I support our troops. I have been supporting our troops for more than 50 years, as a member of the Congress of the United States. I pray for the safety of our troops. I will continue to fight for a coherent policy that brings real help, not just longer deployments and empty sloganeering to American forces in Iraq.

The supplemental package before us does nothing to internationalize the occupation of Iraq, and therefore, it is not, I say not, a vote for the troops in Iraq. We had a chance in the beginning to win international consensus on dealing with Iraq, but the administration was in too big a hurry. The White House was in too big a hurry. The administration squandered that opportunity, when the President gave the back of his hand to the United Nations and preemptively invaded Iraq, under this administration’s Iraq policy endorsed in the President’s so-called victory on this supplemental.

It is American troops who are walking the mean streets of Baghdad. It is American troops who are succumbing in growing numbers to a common and all-too-deadly cocktail of anti-American bombs and bullets in Iraq.

Mr. President, the terrible violence in Iraq on Sunday, the deaths of 16 soldiers in the downing of an American helicopter, the killing of another soldier in a bomb attack, and the deaths of two American civilian contractors in a mine explosion is only the latest evidence that the administration’s lack of post-war planning for Iraq is producing an erratic, chaotic situation on the ground with little hope for a quick turn-around. We appear to be lurching from one assault on our troops to the next while making little if any headway in stabilizing or improving security in that unfortunate country.

The failure to secure the vast stockpiles of deadly conventional weapons in Iraq, including shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles such as the one that may have brought down the u.s. Helicopter on sunday is one of many mistakes that the administration made that is coming back to haunt us today.

But perhaps the biggest mistake, the costliest mistake, following the colossal mistake of launching a preemptive attack on Iraq is the administration’s failure to have a clearly defined mission and exit strategy for Iraq. The President continues to insist that the United States will persevere in its mission in Iraq and that our resolve is unshakeable.

But it is time—past time for the President to tell the American people exactly what that mission is, how he intends to accomplish it, and what his exit strategy is for the American troops in Iraq.

It is the American people out there. It is the American people who will ultimately decide how long we will stay in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Robert Byrd on the floor of the Senate yesterday.

He was the only Senator who could be heard in the voice vote for the $87 billion that George Bush requested saying ‘no’.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, here with Studs Terkel. As you listen to Robert Byrd, your thoughts.

STUDS TERKEL: My thoughts. I’m looking at The New York Times right now, and I thought there would be a headline, “Robert Byrd, Senior Senator, Conservative West Virginia and his very eloquent speech.” I find it obscene. It had nothing in it about that. When he made his previous speech equally eloquent as he was this moment, we heard so moving and so true, so obvious to the ordinary, average American, I know that’s so, we have the cringing aspect of both parties giving in here, so how come the New York Times ain’t got his speeches or headlines. I’m talking about the so-called best paper in the country. Other papers, too. This is the big question, isn’t it? How the intelligence of the American people as well as sense of decency is being so assaulted by the senatorial cave, as it is at this moment.

AMY GOODMAN: Just a week ago, the newspaper In These Times published a piece that you wrote called “No Brass Check Journalists.” Talk about what you mean.

STUDS TERKEL: 1916, Upton Sinclair, known best for The Jungle wrote a book called The Brass Check. Now back in those days, when a John went to visit a brothel, $2, that’s before inflation. He would pay her $2 and get a brass check from the madam. The brass checks would be presented to the girl. At the end, the girl brought in all her brass checks to the madam and she received a half a buck apiece. He referred to the press, Upton Sinclair referred to the Press as the girl from the brothel. Today it’s call boys and call girls. A respected centrist journalist David Broder after 9-11 what did he call President Bush, do you recall? Close to Abraham Lincoln. See, we have this cringing aspect—

AMY GOODMAN: He landed on Abraham Lincoln on May 1, the “USS Abraham Lincoln.”

STUDS TERKEL: Is that it? Boy, oh, boy, so we have this—so Upton Sinclair was talking about the girls and boys in the brothel who are owned. We do know that the difference between 1916 and today is technology, radio and TV as well as press. We do know that more and more of the media is controlled by fewer and fewer. We know that an Australian neanderthal named Rupert Murdoch, one of the most powerful media moguls in the country is in on it. We know that the son of Colin Powell, who is the butler to Bernie Wooster, our president, remember P.J. Woodhouse. He’s his butler. It so happens that Bernie Wooster, Bush, has a british butler in Tony Blair, but he has an elegant african-american butler in Colin Powell. His son is the head of the FCC. His son has declared that they can take as many—one guy can own as many stations as possible. So, what Upton Sinclair said in 1916 is true now, doubly troubling as it was then.

AMY GOODMAN: Studs Terkle, you mentioned the FCC. The book begins with a dedication on one page. It’s blank, it says, “Remembering Clifford and Virginia Derr.” Who were they?

STUDS TERKEL: They were two great Americans. Cliff and Virginia Derr were two white people out of Montgomery, Alabama. Clifford was an FCC member under Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Roosevelt died and the Cold War began and McCarthy came into being, he was told that all his staff had to sign loyalty oaths. He said, I refuse to do so. And Harry Truman said, Cliff, they knew each other, it doesn’t apply to you, just to your staff. He said, I will not demean my staff by forcing them to sign those. He resigned.

Now, Virginia Derr is a southern belle, daughter of a Clergyman. One day I heard her in Chicago. She was on tour with Mary McClead Bethune, Dr. Bethune, the distinguished African American educator friend of Eleanor Roosevelt—on tour against the poll tax. This is in the 1940’s. This speech of Virginia Mae was so powerful that a number of us went backstage to shake her hand and I offer my hand and she said, thank you dear. And in my hand she puts a hundred leaflets and says, now dear, you step outside the curb, pass them out. In a half hour, in two hours, Dr. Bethune and I will be speaking at the Baptist church on the south side. It was outside. I’m doing a takeoff on her dialect. This is Virginia. She and her husband were then ostracized by the community. She could have gone three ways. Virginia could have been the southern belle, Gone with the Wind type, nice to her quote, unquote, colored help and join a garden club, or she could have gone crazy if she had an intelligence and conscience and did nothing as did her college mate, Zellda Fitzgerald. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife. Went crazy. She was a friend of Virginia Derr, or she could have been a rebel and said this is wrong. And she took the third course. These two people, whom I dedicate the book to, represent that hope, that prophetic minority. There’s always been a prophetic minority. There used to be 15 of them marching down the streets of Montgomery and Birmingham and you would be egged and tomatoed and threatened.

Then, in 1965, August, 200,000 people gathered for the Montgomery March. Remember that in 1965 two years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington. 200,000 gathered. Originally, there were 15. Those 15 people were in the home of the Derr’s at that moment, at 2 Felder Street. Among them was Myles Horton, the founder of a school. White and black organizers taught. And Martin Luther King went there. So did Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks happened to be a seamstress who worked for Virginia Derr. Virginia Derr encouraged her to go to the Highlander School. It’s not accidental that Rosa Parks did not get up off the seat that day. The big thing is that George Wallace went on the air that night. We were at the home, the 15 original people and others at the home, C. Van Woodward was there too and others were there.

We here—am i still on? Can you hear me?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes.

STUDS TERKEL: My hearing is on the blink. We’ll talk about that later. We hear George Wallace excoriating people who are in that room as being subversives and commies going to that school with Martin Luther King and Parks. That’s when Myles Horton said, isn’t that remarkable? Remember, there were 15 of us and we knew each other by name. Now, 200,000 showed up. 200,000. I didn’t know a single one. They didn’t know me. Wasn’t that a marvelous moment? That’s what I mean by a prophetic minority. 15, and then there were 200,000.

AMY GOODMAN: Studs, you interviewed Martin Luther King, didn’t you?

STUDS TERKEL: Oh, several times, yeah. And through Mahalia Jackson. Mahalia, of course was quite a character, she was tremendous. It was at her bedside. Well, she said, Martin wants to see you. Well, he didn’t know me from Adam, but she insisted. But I did introduce him at a couple of times at the rallies. One of the things that we talked about was sense of humor. I was telling her about my friend Big Bill Brunsey, the blues singer who was also a friend of Mahalia. I was recounting a moment of humiliation and he’s laughing. Why, I asked this of Dr. King, this matter of humor, sometimes there’s a chuckle while there’s a moment of humiliation recounted. Like Big Bill teaching a young white kid how to be a welder. As soon as the kid became a welder they fired Big Bill. He said, that’s our saving grace. Without sense of humor, without the laughter through adversity, we would be gone. That’s one of the things that we talked about.

AMY GOODMAN: You co-hosted a radio show with Mahalia Jackson.

STUDS TERKEL: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: What show was that?

STUDS TERKEL: That’s a long tale. As you can gather, I have a big mouth. And Mahalia said, Studs, you have such a big mouth, you should have been a preacher. She says well it, happened, I was a disk jockey way back in the early days. My program was eclectic. I played opera and jazz and folk. And I—played Mahalia records, I was the white jockey who played her and she saying, much too much credit, I let white world know about her. She would have been known anyway, but in the meantime TV comes into being. TV was new. 6-10 at night Chicago had free programs. It was not the sales medium it is today. They had “Garroway at Large.” Dave Garroway, he was an easy jockey. He was the first face ever seen on daytime TV, a program called “Today.” He was the first host. The second program was a puppet show, “Kookla, Fran and Ollie,” a wonderful puppeteer, who made these little rags in his hand come to life. The third was a program I was involved in, “Studs’ Place.” All three were improvised nature. Everybody was looking at these free programs as examples of TV.

I was considered hot property then. It’s just at that moment, the McCarthy era came into being and the Cold War and I signed all sorts of petitions. I always say, I never met a petition I didn’t like. Anti-poll tax, anti-lynching, anti-Jim Crowe. Sure enough, a guy comes from New York and he says, we’re in trouble. I love that we stuff. He said, we’re in trouble. You signed all these petitions. He said, do you know that commies are behind those? That’s when I get cute. I said, suppose Communists come out against cancer, do we have to automatically come out for cancer? He said, that’s not very funny. I said, no.

Then he said, you have to stand up and be counted. I stood up like Charlie Chaplin. He said, sit down, that’s not funny, either. He said, then, there’s a way out, you were duped. You were stupid. You didn’t mean it. You were taken by them. I said, but I wasn’t duped. And to this day, Amy, this day, people say Studs, you were so heroic. I was scared crapless. But the point is, my ego was at stake. My self-esteem. That’s what I think it’s all about. So, I got canned. I’m black-listed. Then I go on FM radio station in Chicago, that was my saving grace, WFMT. I was on for a long time. I played Mahalia records. One day Mahalia is now internationally known. CBS is offering a program, Mahalia on the radio. Network on one condition, she said that Studs be the host of it. Reluctantly they agreed. A couple of weeks before while the show was on the air, a guy comes onstage. We’re still rehearsing. He says, will you sign this please? It’s a loyalty oath. I said, of course I won’t. Back and forth, our voices are going. Mahalia says, is that what I think it is, baby. I said yeah, are you going to sign it, I said no. Let’s rehearse. Miss Jackson, Mr. Terkle has to sign it. It’s from CBS, New York. She says, if you fire Studs, find another Mahalia. You know what happened? Nothing. He disappeared. He vanished. She said no to the official word. And she proved what America is about, really, more than General Sarnoff, more than William Paley and all that put together. She represents what Virginia and Clifford Derr represented years ago. That’s what I mean by what this country is about.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to—you’re watching, if you’re on public access TV station channel in your community or a Pacifica station, a community radio station, NPR station that’s broadcasting Democracy Now! in this largest public/media collaboration in the country, Studs Terkle. That’s right, none other. He has another book out. I think that makes it a dozen, but it may well be way more. And it’s called, “Hope dies last.” Let’s turn to a little Mahalia Jackson.

AMY GOODMAN: “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” Mahalia Jackson.

STUDS TERKEL: Only she could sing it that way. When I heard her first on an old 78 RPM Apollo record, it was called, “Move on up a Little Higher,” written for her, by the way, by Professor Thomas Dorsey. He was a great writer of gospel songs. He did, “Precious Lord Take My Hand,” which is Martin Luther King’s favorite song, wrote that for Mahalia. You know as I was thinking, Senator Byrd is on my mind. Someone in that book, toward the end of it, named Kathy Kelly.

AMY GOODMAN: Studs Terkle’s book is called, “Hope Dies Last.” Kathy Kelly, the last chapter.

STUDS TERKEL: I call her the pilgrim. This book is—these are vignettes of various people who have spoken out, members of dissent. Those who have dissented. “Hope Dies Last” a phrase that was coined for me by Jesse Del La Cruz, a farm worker. When times are bleak, we say in spanish, [ speaking spanish ] “Hopes Dies Last.” Kathy Kelly was up for the nobel prize, won by this remarkable Iranian woman, who Kathy knows by the way. Kathy was a candidate too. Kathy founded a group called Voices in the Wilderness. She’s a disciple of Dorothy Day. One day Dorothy Day was asked, why do you get in such trouble, you could lead an easier life. This was asked of Kathy, who weighs 85 pounds, by the way. And Kathy said as Dorothy Day said, I’m working toward a world in which it would be easier for people to behave decently. One day, Kathy was bearing witness in Basra and Baghdad. But this one incident, she’s describing going to a missile site.

As you know, we have hundreds of missile sites, and some places where corn was grown. The corn can’t grow there because of the missile sites. So, Kathy one day goes through and starts planting some corn at a missile site. And calls up the authorities. She is violating the law. Sure enough, the assault companies come. The truck, the general hollers, will the personnel on the missile site get off and come down and be handcuffed and kneel? And it’s Kathy Kelly. She’s the personnel. She kneels and is handcuffed. A young soldier boy, he’s the one Senator Byrd was talking about. A young soldier boy of 19 years old has a gun to her head. He is trembling, because here’s the enemy, Kathy Kelly. She says, do you know what I’m doing now? He said what, ma’am. He’s a southern kid. She said, I’m praying for the corn to grow. Wouldn’t you want the corn to grow? He says, yes, ma’am. Will you pray with me for the corn to grow. The kid kneeled down with her and prays with her for the corn to grow and then the kid looks at her, he still has the gun pointed at her head. He said, ma’am, are you thirsty? She said, oh, god, yes, i am. He puts the gun down, which i’m sure is a violation of what he’s supposed to do. He takes out his canteen. He says, ma’am, will you lean your head back a little. She pours—he says—he pours the water in like worms into the mouth of a little bird. There he was. This is the kid with the gun to my head. And that’s the kid in Baghdad today, whom Senator Byrd was defending and the others who voted for Senator Byrd didn’t give a dam about. That’s what it’s all about. Who’s for this kid? It was Senator Byrd saying no. It’s Kathy planting corn. And that’s the truth of it, and the audience knows that. Your audience does, of course. I think a great many others do, too. It’s cringing, this obscene giving in to Birdie Wooster. Which birdie is beyond that, to this appointed chieftan. That to me is so obscene.

AMY GOODMAN: Studs Terkle, the war abroad and the war at home. What’s your connection to John Ashcroft, the Attorney General of the United States?

STUDS TERKEL: He and I—I must make this confession. We are fellow alumni of the University of Chicago Law School. Now, he came there a generation after I did. I’m about 25 years older than he is, perhaps 30. But it’s much—he’s much older than I am. I figured it out, John Ashcroft is 350 years old. You know why? We saw him at a previous incarnation, Arthur Miller’s Play, “The Crucible.” Now you recall “The Crucible”, the salem witch hunts of the late 17th century. 1690, around there.

Salem, Massachusetts, the women were accused of being terrorists. The witches. Here comes this evangelist, Reverend Parris, and that is John ashcroft, word for word. If you’re not with me, you’re against me. If you’re not with the word of God, which I represent, You’re consorting with the devil. The women were hanged, the ladies. John Ashcroft is 350 years old. Second oldest guy of our species next to Methusla. He and I went to law school together.

AMY GOODMAN: But you are only 91.

STUDS TERKEL: Yeah, I’m 91. And he’s 350 years old.

AMY GOODMAN: Being 91, a young one that you are. My grandmother is 106, so she would call you sonny.

STUDS TERKEL: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You have seen a lot in this country. You talked about the loyalty oaths. You talked about standing up to them, and Mahalia standing up for you, standing up to them. But how would you characterize this time? How would you, God forbid, put it in a historical context, something that the media, that word history seems to have blotted out?

STUDS TERKEL: Yeah. There is a time in which the people themselves—I hate to use the word people, capital P, which ordinary persons afraid it is like because it’s patronizing the anonymous person, the those that make the wheels go around, are so far ahead of the political figures, the cringing ones who voted for the military budget and for all of these phoney pundits, the shallow low pundits who are brass check artists as Upton Sinclair would call them are so far ahead it is not even funny. They’re ready for someone to speak. As did Senator Byrd, the Senator. This is the exquisite irony of it all, the language has also been perverted. I think the words, liberal, conservative and moderate should be wiped out of the vocabulary. Issues only. Let’s stick with it. Byrd did it on the button. We live in a remarkable moment. The candidate who has the least chance of winning the nomination, who is by far the most qualified of the Democrats would be Dennis Kucinich. Because of his track record, as the boy mayor of Cleveland, defying corporations and winning. Give him a chance of winning in Chicago. He’s super bold. The point is that the people are far more ready, I think, For what is good and decent in the world. That involves reviving all of the new deal programs that are now under attack. Of course. We know that. But more than that, they’re ready, far more than those who seemingly represent them.

AMY GOODMAN: You talked about having something in common with John Ashcroft. You also have something in common with Rush Limbaugh. You both are—well, he became deaf for a time, hard of hearing, though perhaps what you don’t have in common is that you can still listen.

STUDS TERKEL: I can still listen, but the thing that deafness does. Sometimes comes—it works in my favor. Sometimes deafness works in favor. For example, during the triumphal days—during Bush’s liberation of Iraq, the few days, remember that? The phrase was, embedded journalists. Embedded journalists. To my defective hearing comes out, in bed with, journalists. You see being deaf sometimes eliminates euphemisms and brings a further truth. For example, I hear the name Mr. Justice Scalia. We know he’s the most powerful man in the country. We know he appointed a new chieftan. It doesn’t come out Scalia to me it, comes at Scarpia. For those who knew Opera Tusca, has a villain before whom Rome tumbles. He’s the John Edgar Hoover of Rome at the time, following the French Revolution. His name was Scarpia. Scalia comes out Scarpia. Embedded comes out, “in bed with,” the hearing difficulty that I have sometimes works to the benefit of truth.

AMY GOODMAN: You say hope dies last. Do you think people should have reason to be hopeful right now?

STUDS TERKEL: Yeah, I think so. This is not being a pollyanna. I know it’s a hell of a time to say it. There are many groups. There are scores, hundreds of groups on different issues. It could be lights for the community, it would be environment it, would be peace, it would be civil liberties, but there’s no umbrella group. It needs an umbrella group. It’s happening. As the guy on the book, John Doney, a priest who happens to be married, married a Panamanian woman. He tells of hope. He came to this panel with a bag of coffee. The coffee was so great, far better than starbucks. The coffee was made by the peasants of panama. One day he speaks to a certain priest in Panama whom he knew. He said, how much money is in the house. There’s $18 bucks altogether. We’ll buy some salt. Here they patronized company stores all run by agribusiness. They bought salt, they bought dough and some other things and started making their own coffee. Now it’s in millions. Now it’s a company. This coffee is sold everywhere. It’s this cooperative coffee made by these peasants, themselves. This stuff is going on. Francis Moore Lapace speaks of that in Kenya and other places, but here, too, in this country, there’s various moments, but they need this one umbrella, I think.

AMY GOODMAN: Studs Terkle, you are 91 years old?

STUDS TERKEL: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: You have just published “Hope Dies Last.” What next for you, and how do you keep going? What continues to give you hope?

STUDS TERKEL: I have to keep going, of course. I’m not going to fade out. I’ll check out. I could be talking to Amy Goodman right now and I could pass out. That would be pretty dramatic, wouldn’t it? You would be in the headlines—not headlines, but it would be a good obituary column.

AMY GOODMAN: I would have passed out, also.

STUDS TERKEL: basically, I’m working on a book on music is my—no, I have had different musical guests, operatic and folk, and jazz and certain singers approach certain roles, good and evil.

AMY GOODMAN: You interviewed Louie Armstrong, didn’t you?

STUDS TERKEL: Way back, yeah. But also his first wife, Mrs. Armstrong. She played the piano, you know. She was fantastic. She taught him all of the little amenities of city life when he came to Chicago, to work with King Oliver. But there was Tito Goldbeam, various ones, opera singers. Young—young—Bob Dylan, early interview with him, but then Pete Seger’s legacy, his family, coming from an old, old world of troubadours. That could be anything, jazz, Dizzy Gillespie and his adventures but his thoughts about the rest of the world are very fascinating.

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of sound, in your latest book, “Hope Dies Last,” you profile or you bring us your conversation with your sound engineer, who is also an independent filmmaker. He’s the sound engineer at the Chicago Historical Society, Usama Olshibi .

STUDS TERKEL: he is a palestinian kid.

AMY GOODMAN: Born in Iraq.

STUDS TERKEL: I have known him a long time. He’s my sound engineer. I said, Usama, tell me the story of your life, of your childhood. He tells the story of what it is. He’s a Palestinian during the time of the Iraqi Iranian War when our ally was Saddam Hussein. We were on his side, you know that?

AMY GOODMAN: Speak for yourself.

STUDS TERKEL: We were on his side, speak for myself! But in any event, he tells us what it’s like to be a kid under fire. He did is so calmly. He’s my engineer. He did it so calmly, so casually, you saw the terror. But at the very end, he’s sworn and he couldn’t make my 90th birthday party, a big celebration there, and Garrison, Kielor showing up, but he couldn’t make it because that’s the day he was sworn in as a U.S. Citizen. The judge made a beautiful speech, you’ve got to speak out and dissent if you think that the official word of the government is wrong. Usama has done that now and again with some difficulties. But there he is. It’s a casual way he told the story, what it’s about to be under fire.

AMY GOODMAN: You are about to win the Eleanor Roosevelt Award with Senator Byrd?

STUDS TERKEL: There are five of us. It’s an Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt Award. It’s up in Hyde Park. Naturally being there with Byrd is something. Laura Suerta, and Father Drynan and George Mitchell. I think that’s it. In any event, being with you, it’s so good because you know what’s happening. That’s a phrase that Preacher Cassie used way back, remember, when the Jobe family’s going to California, he says, I want to go with you because something is happening out there. I feel as you and I are talking right now, something’s happening out there.

AMY GOODMAN: Any closing words for George Bush?

STUDS TERKEL: Oh, closing—yes. Get out. Just—that’s it. Step down. Of course, he won’t. Closing words for me—I’ll tell what you my epitaph is. Make it e

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