Jon Meacham Interview: On the Struggles that Define America

Jon Meacham explains why all history comes out of conflict and explores how the soul of America is shaped by the dueling forces of “our better angels” and our worst instincts by drawing from examples that include: Reconstruction after the Civil War, the rise and fall of the KKK and the creation of the NAACP. Jon Meacham is a renowned presidential historian, contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review, contributing editor at TIME, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Society of American Historians, Meacham is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. He has written for The New York Times op-ed page, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and Garden & Gun. Meacham is also a regular guest on “Morning Joe” and other broadcasts. Born in Chattanooga in 1969, Meacham graduated from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, with a degree in English literature. He previously worked as a reporter for the Chattanooga Times, an editor-in-chief at Newsweek, and an executive editor at Random House. A trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, The McCallie School, and The Harpeth Hall School, Meacham chairs the National Advisory Council of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University. From the HBO / Kunhardt Film Foundation (KFF) Documentary “The Soul of America.” Based on Jon Meacham’s bestseller that illuminates our present-day fraught political reality by exploring historical challenges, including the women’s suffrage movement, the incarceration of Japanese Americans, McCarthyism, and the fight for Civil Rights. Subscribe for access to interviews, series, films, and educational materials that address issues of social justice, history, politics, the arts, and culture by spotlighting relatable human stories of purpose and meaning. Learn about our work and how to support our mission here: For extended versions of these interviews and more, visit: @lifestoriesinterviewarchive Follow us on Instagram: Jon Meacham, Presidential Biographer and Historian Interviewed by: Katie Davison Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:07 Importance of implication 01:04 History out of conflict 02:25 The Constitution 04:18 The American experiment 07:09 Reconstruction 09:33 Appomattox 11:46 The Lost Cause 13:19 Uniting the Union 14:42 Lincoln 15:46 Andrew Johnson 17:13 The Civil War 18:22 Unite the Right rally 19:36 War of ideas 23:40 Confederate monuments 25:02 White supremacy 25:32 Religion in The Lost Cause 27:02 Fighting The Lost Cause 30:06 Importance of history 32:16 The KKK 43:55 Woodrow Wilson 44:51 The NAACP 45:32 . Du Bois 47:40 Al Smith 48:58 Nativism 49:46 The Red Scare 51:58 Attacks on the press 53:39 Five elements that shape an era 55:30 Scopes trial 57:17 Fall of the KKK 01:00:31 Harding and Coolidge on race and equality 01:04:01 ​​Women’s suffrage movement 01:10:22 Women’s rights today 01:11:51 Patience and persistence 01:15:29 Listening to activists 01:16:39 FDR 01:26:09 Ego in the presidency 01:26:55 Populism in the 1930s 01:30:41 Fear in the 1930s 01:32:11 Totalitarianism 01:33:12 Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Cause 01:34:17 Birth of a Nation 01:35:39 Overcoming stereotypes 01:36:47 Growing up in the South 01:40:16 Cultivating curiosity 01:42:23 Grandfather’s influence 01:45:06 Journalism 01:48:23 Relationship with politics 01:50:57 Career trajectory 01:52:55 Finding journalism 01:54:54 Soul of America 01:57:21 Being a writer 01:59:13 Perennial forces in the 1920s 02:00:07 Politicians and their base 02:01:03 FDR 02:03:03 The presidency 02:04:11 Internment of Japanese Americans 02:06:26 The isolationist movement of the 1940s 02:08:42 Handling crisis 02:10:08 FDR’s death 02:12:15 Eleanor Roosevelt 02:13:42 The dual nature of reality 02:14:34 Joseph Stilwell 02:15:16 Learning from history 02:17:12 Social reform 02:18:35 Private and public working together 02:20:54 America’s extremes 02:21:55 McCarthyism 02:24:27 Politics as entertainment 02:25:08 Failure of McCarthyism 02:26:26 Conservative movements of the 1950s 02:27:33 Conspiracy theories of the 1950s 02:28:09 The Civil Rights Act 02:30:50 Civil Rights in the post-war era 02:32:08 Lyndon B. Johnson 02:40:06 Cause for change 02:41:53 MLK 02:42:34 The Selma Marches 02:45:54 George Wallace 02:50:35 Lyndon B. Johnson’s last speech 02:51:30 Divisiveness in American 02:53:51 Progress made between the 1860s and the 1960s 02:55:32 LBJ not running for re-election 02:56:23 Lessons © Home Box Office and Kunhardt Film Foundation. All Rights Reserved. #JonMeacham #kunhardtfilmfoundation