This week on From the Vault, we decided to explore the art of cinema from the perspective of the Pacifica Radio Archives; as we began research for this program some time ago, we intended to explore the thoughts of every film director recorded within our collection; of course, we found some of the most important film directors of the 20th century – greats like David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, Mel Brooks, Francis Ford Coppola, and Robert Altman to name a few. But, the more we listened, the more we kept returning to one interview in particular… in 1960 legendary Pacifica reporter Dale Minor recorded a very animated, opinionated and charming Jean Renoir, reflecting on his films as he perhaps approached the twilight of his career. Renoir, who was a son of master impressionist Pierre-August Renoir, was relatively unknown in the United States, yet undeniably influenced the art of film with such iconic pictures such as Grand Illusion (1933), Rules of the Game (1939), Diary of Chambermaid (1946), and The River (1951). After this interview, which is considered to be one of the treasures in our collection, Renoir went on to direct only two more films before his death in 1979.

This week, we also debut our newest Revolution Rewind Moment featuring the greatest film critic of all time, Pacifica’s Pauline Kael.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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Hey, Curtis Metcalf here — we’re gonna have some fun on this edition of From the Vault… When I began volunteering at the Pacifica Radio Archives in 2002, I saw an opportunity to contribute to Pacifica by helping make important programs from Pacifica’s rich broadcast history available to a wide audience. In that first year I discovered a shelf of old recordings from the San Diego Folk Festival that caught my attention– it just so happens that I have a personal interest in many types of folk music, including country blues, 1950’s country western, African and reggae. When I took a closer look at the musicians performing at the San Diego Folk festival I noticed some amazing names like Rose Maddox, Patsy Montana, Lydia Mendoza,and The Balfa Brothers — all names that made me want to take these programs off the shelves and have a good listen. And when I listened, I just knew that I had to share…

This week, I’m happy to present some of the songs that would amaze me if I heard them on the radio today… so please - sit back and enjoy this priceless collection of live recordings from thirty years past, courtesy of the Pacifica Radio Archives.

(Originally broadcast on June 22, 2007.)

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

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Robert F. Kennedy, affectionately known to all as Bobby Kennedy, against the advice of his brother Senator Ted Kennedy and many of the leading Democratic Party leaders, entered the Presidential race on March 16th, 1968. Pacifica Radio was there to record his meteoric rise from late comer to his murder in the early morning hours following his victory in the final and most coveted Primary of the race, California on June 4th, 1968.

We begin by playing one of Bobby Kennedy’s early speeches of his campaign in late March 1968 on the Campus of San Fernado State Valley College later named Cal State Northridge in 1972. He begins by playfully taking a jab at Richard Nixon, who Kennedy believed would be his opponent in the 1968 Presidential election. After his speech he fielded a handful of questions; we’ll hear him respond to one concerning the belief of Ted Kennedy and other Democratic Party leaders that Bobby’s entrance into the race would split the vote of the Democratic Party, and hurt the Party’s chances of defeating the Republican nominee in November.

Many thought that Bobby Kennedy’s support of the Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers in their Delano Grape Strike would hurt his chances of winning the California Primary — a concern that would prove to be untrue. We’ll listen to Bobby Kennedy state his position on the Farm Worker Struggle.

By 1968, the United States’ involvement in Vietnam was increasingly unpopular due not just because of the resulting cost in lives, money and resources, but because it was thought of as an “immoral war” — a war we had no business being involved in. We’ll listen to Bobby Kennedy address these concerns.

The question that may have been the most difficult to answer for Bobby, was the question of whether he would open the National Archives, which contained the sealed information on the murder of his brother President John F. Kennedy.

A few weeks later Bobby Kennedy was back in Los Angeles to speak in front of a gathering of business and financial leaders at the Biltmore Hotel on April 19th, 1968. Again we’ll hear Kennedy’s charm even when facing a hostile audience.

The death of Robert F. Kennedy marked the culmination of one of the most tragic years in United State’s history, preceded by the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a few month’s earlier, student protests and rioting in major cities around the country, and the increasing death toll of US soldiers in Vietnam — not to mention the assassination years ago of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. There was an unease in this country that was articulated in this recent interview with USA Radio Networks White House Correspondent Connie Lawn, who was a young journalist getting her first major work covering the Presidential campaign with Robert F. Kennedy. She spoke with the BBC’s Joanne Griffith about her experience on the campaign trail with Kennedy and the relevance of the historic events of 1968 today. Woven into this interview as she describes the evening of Bobby Kennedy’s shooting by Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan is event actuality from the Pacifica Radio Archives.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

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From the fields of the rich California farm lands to the gritty landscape of urban reality, there was a growing Movement in 1968 within the Mexican American community. Many Mexican Americans have felt at one time or another a foreigner, or an uninvited guest in the United States.

As the Civil Rights Movement lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. showed the world the strength of the African American spirit and capacity for organization and solidarity, The Mexican American community began to recognize their self worth and value in American society.

There was a growing consciousness that they did not sail across an ocean and establish themselves in a foreign land. The truth is they were always here, for thousands of years. This renewed sense of value translated into demands for equality and justice in the workplace, in the schools, in society. We see the establishment of the name Chicano to capture the renewed sense of pride and identity in the community.

Thanks to leaders like Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the fields and Rodolfo Gonzalez, Reis Lopez Tijerina and Bert Corona in the cities, we saw a renewed sense of value in the Latino Community spread across of the entire South West United States. With events like the 1968 United Mexican American Student’s Symposium at UCLA, and the work of activist and producer Moctezuma Esparza, the discouraged were given hope. This week on From the Vault, we’ll pay special tribute to those leaders and activists, in their own words.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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In 1968, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was planning The Poor People’s March on Washington D.C. as part of the War on Poverty. Dr. King was adamant that the Poor People’s March and campaign did not focus just on poor African Americans but included poverty-stricken people without deference to race, creed or color. Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Asians, Native Americans, and Caucasians, particularly from rural Appalachia were recruited to join the campaign. He planned to lobby congress for an Economic Bill of Rights which would include affordable housing and a guaranteed annual income for the poor of this country.

Dr. King would not live to see the March. But thanks to the efforts of the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, who took over the leadership role of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and others such as Jesse Jackson, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, poor people from around the country began their trip to Washington, DC by any way they could manage. For most of these poor people, this trip was an enormous financial sacrifice, yet a necessary burden - they would hand-deliver their message to Washington. Some of this journey was recorded by Pacifica producer Arthur Alexander along the road from Memphis Tennessee to Washington DC.

Once in Washington DC, activists constructed an encampment on the Washington Mall dubbed Resurrection City. This was used as a base camp for strategy meetings, teach-ins and speeches. On May 13th, 1968, the first sojourners arrived at Resurrection City, and Pacifica producer Ellen Kohn was there to record the events as they unfolded and to interview those who were there. Kohn captured the opening ceremonies, where the new president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Abernathy - now dubbed ‘Mayor of Resurrection City’) delivered a moving address. But perhaps the most powerful moment of the campaign was when the Reverend Jesse Jackson lead the €œcitizens€ in his call and response anthem I Am Somebody.

Mid-June of 1968 saw the population of Resurrection City peak at 50,000 people; but after heavy rains, dampened spirits, confused agendas and the assassination Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Resurrection City was closed on June 24th, 1968. Although the campaign is viewed as a failure, the experiences of those who took the journey– recorded, preserved, and made accessible by Pacifica Radio Archives — is critical to the dialog of race and poverty in America.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

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In 1968, the war in Vietnam, United States imperialism, and the racial divide were all part of the impetus that saw students raising their voices in protests, rallies, and demonstrations around the world. Predating NPR, PBS, and modern public broadcasting, Pacifica Radio was there to record and document the experiences and philosophies of these young people during this tumultuous year. In this episode of From the Vault, we revisit the May 1968 student protests in Paris, France through archival recordings recently digitized from the Pacifica Radio Archives collection.

It began in March of 1968, when students at the University of Paris (among other schools in France) spoke out against class discrimination in French society and the bureaucracy of University funding. By May, in hopes of quelling the student unrest, university officials made moves to close the school — and ordered a massive police mobilization on campus to help see this through. It had quite the opposite effect, as over 20,000 highly-charged students, together with the teachers’ union and other supporters vigorously marched to the school to protest the university’s abrupt closure. A riot ensued as police attacked the advancing protesters with batons and tear gas, and the protesters retaliated by throwing rocks and bottles — setting the stage for a series of events that would nearly bring the French government to its knees.

Today, we feature historic recordings of participants and eyewitnesses to the 1968 Paris student uprising, like National Secretary of the Young Socialist Alliance, Mary Alice Waters; chairman of the student Communist Revolutionary Group, Jean Dubé; and student leader Yves Salesse. Also, we’ll hear an interview with French artist and poet Jenny Batlay, who discusses the 1968 dynamic between artists and their turbulent environment; and the recollections of longtime Pacifica producer and National Correspondent Larry Bensky, who was living in Paris at the time of the student uprising.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

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Continuing our 1968 Revolution Rewind on From the Vault, this week we hear Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin. Rustin is perhaps one of the most understated leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. He helped with the formation of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942, which was conceived as a pacifist organization based on the writings of Henry David Thoreau, and modeled after Mahatma Ghandi’s non-violent resistance against British rule in India. Bayard Rustin would devote his life to the non violent pursuit of equal rights for all.

This episode features historic audio of Bayard Rustin from Pacifica Radio Archives. Five years after organizing the 1963 March on Washington and securing a global audience for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s monumental I Have a Dream address, we’ll listen as Rustin ponders the changing roles for African Americans in society, in a speech entitled The Future of Minorities. Then, we revisit a rare debate between Bayard Rustin and Malcolm X entitled A Choice of Two Roads, where the two leaders discuss the direction of the civil rights movement.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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In this episode of From the Vault, we explore how May Day celebrations manifest themselves in different ways here at home and around the world, using historic audio from Pacifica Radio Archives.

We begin with excerpts from an original Pacifica Radio Archives series called Club Evolution. We compiled archive material which captures the essence of May Day as it evolved from the commemoration of the struggles of the Labor Movement to include the fight for peace, equality, and justice. Author and activist Sabina Virgo weaves together these common threads in this inaugural program called May Day and the American Labor Movement.

Next, we look at how May Day is celebrated around the world as Pacifica correspondents Daniel Singer, Alan Snitow, and others report from Mexico City, Italy, Mozambique and Angola, in a program called May Day 1977.

Finally, while May Day celebrations in the United States are relatively tame compared to other parts of the world, WBAI producer Bruce Soloway, armed with a tape recorder and a New York City Police Department-issued press badge, reports on an especially confrontational May Day demonstration in 1971 from Washington D.C.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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Like the crackle at the center of a firestorm, students at Columbia University intensified the anti-Vietnam War movement on April 23, 1968 by starting a revolt against the school administration — seizing campus buildings and barricading themselves for days. Eventually the police moved in with military-style force, injuring 140 and arresting more than 700 participants.

Pacifica radio station WBAI 99.5 FM in New York was there to cover it all, raw and unfiltered, with much of their coverage - not surprisingly - contradicting mainstream media reports. WBAI reporters also recorded the rallies in the days after the unrest, and interviewed various students, student leaders, and thinkers - including Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez, award-winning radio producer Barbara Bernstein, and author Ayn Rand. This week, on From the Vault, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of this watershed 1968 student strike by revisiting this historic audio preserved within our vault.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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The Black Panther Party is one of the most controversial and misunderstood groups coming out the the Black Power Movement in the 1960’s. The Black Panther Party was founded in October 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, who created a ten-point program to address political oppression, poverty, joblessness, hunger, housing, and the lack of justice in the Black community.

Most people remember intimidating images of armed patrols of Black Panthers. Few people recall the intensity of racial profiling and police abuse in Black neighborhoods. Even fewer know of the Black Panther Party’s proactive measures to assist the neglected Black community such as the Breakfast Program that provided hundreds of the thousands of meals to children across the nation.

In February of 2008, Pacific Radio Archives Production Coordinator Edgar Toledo teamed up with longtime Archives volunteer Debbie Demery to help make sense of the controversy by sifting through a mountain of material to produce a six-disc box set of the most relevant Black Panther Party materials from our collection. This week on From the Vault, we feature true Pacifica treasures — historic recordings of Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Kathleen Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, voices from the Black Panther Party Breakfast Program, and the Panther 21 from New York. You’ll also hear music from Elaine Brown, former Chairperson of the Black Panther Program; Brown released two albums, Sieze the Time (1969) and the self-titled Elaine Brown (1973), both arranged by late Jazz great Horace Tapscott.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

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Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

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