PBS America’s 1964 Film Night

The Film Night

About the Film From Bryan Lowry, in Variety, January 10, 2014:

“For those who want to better understand the roots of the American current social, cultural and political discord, the PBS film 1964 is a must see… the events of a half-century ago clearly echo through to the present conversation, from the arrival of the Beatles to the Civil Rights Act, from Barry Goldwater’s unapologetic brand of conservatism to the counterculture movement. …this American Experience presentation is an illuminating road map that details how we got from there to here.

America…entered 1964 still reeling from John F. Kennedy’s assassination just six weeks earlier.  But even with that as a jumping-off point, a dizzying number of seismic events happened during that year in which ‘every kind of split in American life suddenly became open and visible,’ as author Robert Lipsyte puts it.

Perhaps foremost, Johnson’s advancement of Kennedy’s policies—pushing through the Civil Rights Act and his Great Society programs—continue to be litigated to this day.  Similarly, Barry Goldwater’s emergence, espousing what became the foundation for modern conservatism, despite his overwhelming defeat in 1964, paved the way for Ronald Reagan and the current political strain that has come to define and dominate the Republican Party.

Interviewing a wide assortment of historians and participants in the era, writer/director Stephen Ives doesn’t stop with politics, widening the lens to include momentous events in culture and sports…

Narrated by Oliver Platt, 1964 is the very embodiment of George Santayana’s line, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

Yet after two hours of this thought-provoking production, the realization is not so much the U.S. is repeating the past as it is still arguing about it.”

For more about the film please click here.

About The Film Night Speakers

The after-screening discussion was led by a panel of DAUK members, including journalist Richard T. Gibson, former DAUK Chair Bruce Gornick, and Sandy Segal who worked in the Johnson administration on the Equal Employment Opportunities program.

Sandy Segal graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in political science in 1965.  Her years at the university coincided with student protests on campus caused by the civil rights movement and the war in Vietnam, which helped to shape her world view. Like many of her fellow students, she went to work in Washington after university. She became a research assistant for the Equal Employment Opportunities program, first in the Department of the Navy, then Department of Defence, seeing the workings of Affirmative Action close at hand.  She took time out to travel, and met her future husband in London. After she married she worked at the Race Relations Board in London, then Unilever. She did an M.A. at UCL in American Studies, which helped with her understanding of the differences between American and British culture. After having her children she went to art school, and has been a ceramic artist for the last 30 years. However, Sandy has never lost her interest in politics, and has been a member of DAUK for most of the years she’s lived in London.