BackStory; The Green Show

this is back story i'm peter of it's the fuel of hollywood monsters of a person of color for nascar driver recent fashion magazine editors it's a shade associated with envy money and toxic waste but it's also a vibrant symbol of the environment and healthy living a staple of irish american pride it's the color of the jimmy carter and the white house in nineteen seventy six when other presidential candidates preferred to campaign in red white and blue and every once in a while the limits for literature gatsby believed in the green light for gas to keep that year by year recedes before us it alluded us then but that's no matter tomorrow we will run faster stretch out our arms farther this week on backstory we're seeing green an american history and major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor university of virginia and the national endowment for the humanities and the joseph it robert corell memorial foundation's

braun the virginia foundation for the humanities says business back stories bastion of the american history guys chat picture a track like you know three rollins is red on top yell in the middle and green on the bottom and less you live on temporary deal in syracuse new york has a very unique traffic signals seo leeway those states that features the green land's over the red john mccarthy a photographer who grew up in tipperary he'll he's looking at this traffic signal with a green light on top in the red on the bottom and the old days when we were kids we caught three members hanging out on the corner as a teenager and watching drivers put little like some of them were colorblind and they would stop a green light and we all star yellen and say go go beyond that say now in our ny

midway was often and then the next thing you know the pull out it's a red light they plot against lightening here tires squealing and we asked her laughing with elite all of louisville so having this green light on top it's been such a safety hazard was still there i don't know this for a fact that i know is is that a myth was created around this like to understand them yet you need to know that temporary deal in syracuse has been an irish neighborhood says the mid eighteen hundreds irish immigrants settled in the area after working on the erie canal in nineteen twenties traffic circle started going up in cities across the country are open to re your god it's like the locals were not impressed girls want to be young guys around and they're in their teens and were first thing they decided to do when they saw the red ones above the grain was destroyed the local legend has

it that the guys in the neighborhood were outraged that read which was associated with the english dominant place but about green the irish color so they threw rocks at the light and so they kept breaking the light the city would have to come up the next day if it's like this is a busy intersection a few weeks ago by the kids break the light the city's fixes the kids break the light and finally the alderman lived in the city fathers and said you know i think they're not going to stop this unless you put their greenland's over the red the alderman was successful the neighborhood got its upside down tropical so joe mccarthy doesn't vote but stock in that story about throwing stones but a lot of the people do in the nineteen nineties a local pub owner succeeded in getting a statue to stand for hours directed right next to an intersection whatever the details of the story

it's clear that the people who see the light it's a potent symbol of irish immigrants turning traditional our dynamics other hand they left oppression end and when they ran up against their here in search using it in america they knew about the game they knew and they knew that there was a strike the numbers and they knew that they could change since it together and all that history is encompassed up to this very day in a suspended little circle that's color green liveliness not like a primary during scanlon terrible siam color ms binns you're right goal of this project and then the show we're doing something a little different most

weeks we read the topic from the headlines and spinach our pricing its history over three centuries but today we're mixing things up and instead of the brain you're sort of grand and stories with absolutely nothing in common except all have something to do that's right peter in honor of saint paddy's day were dying our show three stories about that conference that to an iconic queen book and an iconic means what we're getting here for your favorite color in the american revolution a setback for the idea of green eyeshade stamps and maybe cut it if we were slaves and germany's data storage facilities in december at sixty two northern and southern troops faced off on the slopes of marie's heights in fredericksburg virginia the union assault on the container protected hill

behind a stone wall would amount to a suicide mission among the northern troops was a unit called the irish brigade known by the emerald green flag its soldiers carried into battle that what is day in fredericksburg the brigades battle worn emerald flag was making its way back to new york for some much needed repair and so the irish troops instead puts brakes of boxwood in their caps to identify their irish heritage the northern troops were slaughtered and that battle but in the years after the war it was commonly said that no one showed more bravery in the faces certain death and the troops with a green in their hats craig one is an english professor at penn state yuri he says that this tale of irish triumph hides a much darker story and that it was the low point in the war for most of irish america twelve hundred soldiers who took part in the battle five hundred and forty five were killed wounded

or missing oh man because the brigade suffered such around this casualties and because so many people on the home front lost their loved ones and neighbors and it was alternately one of the reasons that many irish turned against the war and done many irish americans decided that what happened was that the irish brigade had been a wantonly sacrificed during the battle by generals who saw them simply as cannon fodder and that's because of their irish heritage that's just because they were seen as something less than full citizens that's right as are results they just said decided that war had nothing there's nothing that would benefit the war effort wasn't bringing people around to see the irish as true americans and so they turned their backs on that war effort and that decided that it was not worth investing for their time energy lives and money into and that it's not too much to say that you can draw a straight line between the battle of fredericksburg

and the known york city draft riots of eighteen sixty three rows of those happened in this summer of a cane sixty threes have roughly six or seven months after the battle that's correct there were mass riots in the streets of new york there is a mob of white protesters who did a number of their destructive things are smashing buildings so finding african american freed men in the streets in day lynching a number of them it took actually detachment soldiers from the army of the potomac to come into the city and restore order and at the end of this encountered the vast majority of the riders who were killed or were imprisoned or of irish descent and so this really was a black eye for the irish american population during the war and convinced a number of other americans that in fact they were not loyal to the war effort

now i have i've seen references to the irish brigade and the story of their heroism i never see any reference to move the draft riots are actually the response back home that you just described so explain how that got erased from history what happened was after the war irish brigade veterans forged a remarkable body of literature that took the low point of the irish brigade says history and the battle of fredericksburg when after which they effectively ceased to operate as a brigade and transformed it into the brigades most glorious moment and they did this by publishing a series of memoirs are the champions of the irish author that portrayed him in the best light sibyl and which you know showed his suffering and sacrifices that such places as anti villain especially at fredericksburg as his ultimate sacrifice on behalf of his american

nation and all of them wanted memory of irish for just a patient in the war to remember the irish brigade soldiers on the field not riding irishman back home in new in the city and so they did everything they could to elevate and even mythology ice the irish soldier during what he means elevator mythology it to have any examples one of the emphases that we find in the memoirs of irish brigade veterans is the story of the irish brigade encountering awful brigade of confederate irish who supposedly recognize their countrymen by though spriggs of boxwood in their caps and whom though reluctance fired into those ranks standing by their southern convictions and that was enhanced an unbalanced in the post war memoirs to be seen as this tragic poignant ironic a conflict between irishman north south so let me

get this straight being loyal to the confederacy proof that these southern irish soldiers were true americans even though they were fighting against america that's right how does that work in the late nineteenth century there is this move towards reconciliation aisha and there became over time this understanding that as long as one approaches abated in the savoy or andrea fodder for one's a section and had stood up for one's believes then that person had demonstrated their loyalty to the american experiment and each word fart fighting for american ideals before the union navy for the confederacy but the idea was there to have participated in the war was what mattered so so in the mythology of what all of this man thin and eighteen again we're looking back at this from roughly what

saved at nineties what this was saying from the irish perspective was don't worry we will be loyal to the ideals of the principles of america we're not going to be just loyal to our fellow irishman we're not going to participate in machine politics in the cities we're not gonna hire irish over other ethnicities well we're capable as irish of being loyal in fact dying for ideals and principles it is actually we had the message was that contrary to prewar believes that the irish were not true americans that they are interested only in the state of ireland's across the atlantic instead these men were willing to fight and die for their adopted country and for their homes to be a north or south and that that was a stronger connection ultimately then the shared heritage and do you think that these memoirs helped with american

acceptance of irish immigrants in the late nineteenth century i believe so and i think that their strategy worked there was a wide scale celebration of the civil war veteran during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth maine there was a receptive audience for stories about soldiers in uniform than in their adventures and achievements and sacrifices and so this story unfolds the irish american story into the larger story that we so often hear about the civil war and that is that it was a brothers war and the irish memoirist stress this as a way to show that they were as true americans as any other citizens of the united states set more he's a professor of english at penn state here will post a way to his article that's i was actually review dot org take a short break now don't go away we got back was actually meant to americans before they turn green you're listing to back stories and we'll be

back in a minute is is utah washington post fence that off from a non violent missionary or won't review about the average a gentle green bay we're back with back story to show that looks to history to explain the americas today on brian bellows and there's an arbiter of today on the show we're reflecting on episodes in american history that have something to do with the color green our next story focuses on perhaps the most iconic green object in america the statue of liberty what you may not know is that the

statue did start out grain what it was installed in new york harbor and at eighty six the statue was actually brown copper to be exact over the years the copper oxidized and by nineteen ten lady liberty had developed an interesting model to look have browned and have green by nineteen twenty she was completely covered in that familiar green party now at the very same time the statue was also undergoing a transformation in meaning the today we associate the statue of liberty with immigration americans at the dedication ceremony were not much concerned with welcoming the huddled masses yearning to breathe free that you're a producer designer britain has the story of how the statute changed from an austere symbol of republican values to a monument known as the mother of exiles it all started in eating sixty five at a french dinner party near versailles guests mostly intellectuals and artists were not fond of the current french government

are oppressive regime headed by emperor napoleon the third they wanted to find some way to celebrate the values important to them or talking about guido liberal values this is peter skerry a political scientist at boston college individual writes the importance of freedom of the press freedom of speech and those guys were not flourishing in france but they did seem to be flourishing in the last which had just abolished slavery and so the dinner guest dreamed up a grand gesture that would help connect france to the american story of expanding free audits a statue of liberty lifting a torch and crushing a broken chain beneath her feet it would be a gift from french citizens to the us representing franco american friendship the expansion of liberties in both countries and the hope for world peace but one thing it wouldn't represent was immigration the notion of the united states as a refuge or a goal for for

migrants wasn't part of what the french liberals had in mind at all nor were americans particularly pushing the idea of us as refuge by the times that she was finally inaugurated twenty years had passed it was the fall of at least six americans were feeling decidedly skeptical about immigration that spring the haymarket bombing in chicago that killed eleven people and injured dozens more the actual bomb thrower was never identified but eight men were convicted of conspiracy and six of them were immigrants or so five months later but the statue of liberty's inaugural festivities he market was still in many americans' minds the main speaker made sure to emphasize that the us was only interested in welcoming some immigrants there is room in america and brotherhood for all who will support our

institutions and eight in our development but those who come to disturb our piece and a throne our laws are aliens and enemies forever three years later the editor of the atlantic monthly wrote a similarly anxious palm about the statue its title and guarded gates oh live at white goddess is it well to leave the gates and guarded on thy breast fold sorrows children suit their herds of fate list the downtrodden but with hand of steel steam those who to this sacred portals come to waste the gifts of freedom however care of course today there is another poem associated with the statue of liberty give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free this on it was written by emma lazarus to commemorate the plate of jewish refugees fleeing violence in russia it was auctioned off to help support the statue of liberty's installation but he didn't have a direct connection to the statue until

seventeen years later when a friend of lazarus had a plaque made and that plaque is put in some roads away obscure place on the inside of the pedestal and in nineteen oh three and there it sits for several decades roads were really unknown during those decades immigration to the us plummeted and the quota system introduced in nineteen twenty four a sharply limited admission from what many believe to be undesirable groups asians jews southeastern europeans but meanwhile lady liberty was as popular as ever on the fiftieth anniversary of the statue to the nineteen thirty six franklin delano roosevelt came to was celebrate that city's anniversary and nothing was mentioned the bottom allow citizens saw that nothing was mentioned immigration or refugees that around the same time some people were starting to connect the

statue with immigration and with refugees in particular one of them was a journalist named louis dimock who wrote books with names like america and the refugees he was especially concerned about the rise of nazi ism in germany and argued that the us should admit many more jewish refugees but in nineteen thirty nine a bill that would've allowed an additional twenty thousand german jewish children into the country died in committee the same year a fortune magazine poll suggested that eighty three percent of americans favored retaining the limits on immigration it wasn't until after that again exposition became mainstream footage of us troops liberating nazi concentration camps reinforced many american sense that their country was on the side of the street but it also raises troubling questions about the us government's resistance to admitting refugees before the war that blend of pride and uneasiness led many to embrace and new more welcoming version of the brain

in nineteen forty four outside the main entrance the moves solidify the association between immigration and the statue of lady liberty was no longer the white goddess instead she was the mother of that silence and in nineteen sixty five the restrictive quota system was replaced by a new law on the baseline for current immigration policy when president lyndon b johnson signed that bill into law he did so where else at the statue of liberty tours where you can sleep callers ago today joyce on the golf course

jessica engebretsen it's one of our producers tell the story with peter skerry a political scientist at boston college will link to his article about the statue of liberty's changing meeting backstory radio dot org in the early and mid twentieth century african americans often had a hard time when the

troubled many hotels gas stations restaurants both in the north and the south refuse to serve black patrons so in the early nineteen thirties a new york city postman named victor green began collecting contact information for local businesses that would serve african americans he figured that by collecting and publishing this information he can help others avoid the inconvenience and humiliation of being turned away greenstein expand the project to cover the entire country in nineteen thirty six he published the first edition of the negro motorist green book the green book for short it looks something like a phone book with the names and addresses of friendly businesses as well as private homes willing to large african american visitors the green book was published for decades and became a staple of african american households but dr green hope that eventually his book will become irrelevant in the introduction he imagined quote a day sometime in the near future when this guy will not have to be published when we as a race will have equal rights and

privileges in united states with the passage of the civil rights act of nineteen sixty four the green book ceased publication for good ironically letters from northern blacks recounting their experiences with discrimination on the nation's roadways they've played a role in getting that landmark legislation passed historian susan roux has researched these sweaters in an interview from a few years back she told us about how vacation and blacks help shape one of this century's most important political debates listen for star we were trying as you would say blacks vacationed and i began to resent that as a very racist remark of course they vacationed a half the households united states after the war on a car by nineteen sixty three quarters or eighty percent of households and the idea of the car for blacks was if we have a car then we don't have to sit in the gym cross section on the train ride it promise them more freedom

more opportunity and so to randomly run into this discrimination must have been very sobering dear madam i'm writing to find out of something to be done maybe bringing is suing a small oil company because of that incident that happened in shreveport louisiana media may focus its attention on with buses and the more violent confrontations these were everyday confrontations what i call that the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement who would just write in and they had all of this evidence of people being discriminated against we asked for the restrooms and more informed they didn't have restroom facilities for colored this i am a member of the end of a lace ep their letters were sent to headquarters a lot of them especially in the most egregious cases and thurgood marshall at that early on it just before his appointed to the court would look at them at constance baker motley would look at them and they didn't take action in court since the attendant a manager left their legs loose deliberately and when we was a good ways out on highway

sixty seven the wheel ray and all the rim contacted by negro motorist traveling through the south often for long weary miles unable to be sure of finding adequate accommodations for taking care of the normal physiological functions in the body and for rent first two plays a slave societies but we were unable to that accommodations because there have been richer they use these guidebooks the green guide to negro tourism and travel guide another guy in part to tell them where they could stay and not be turned away and the slogan of one of those boxes of vacation without humiliation people to the left the right in front and behind were served finally i've since they were being ignored if you think of all the black people who packed a lunch in their car who couldn't buy lodging that was adding up and this is where the change in travel and transportation industry

comes through because as it becomes corporate as as it becomes changed then the end of lazy p puts pressure on chains like helmand at the top where there is some reasonable what conventions to get changed in the south and throughout the country they were on their way to and use restrooms they were in plain sight and had to be called back we then had to stop on the highway like animals we remember ways my sense is that the civil rights leaders recognized the power of the family image in a time when the family was the dominant image of domesticity this nuclear family and i think they play together in the hearings and certainly roy wilkins placed the band says imagine a family on vacation and this is july when he's talking it's hot in washington the senators are probably thinking when is the congressional break and then go on vacation and sell their families and they can relate to

this stranded family that sleeping is car it must've had an incredibly powerful impact are on political leaders at least thinking about how their constituents are going to feel about this is powerful enough for them to vote for the civil rights act so i think it was it was effective i venture to predict that it will not be too much longer before concentrated action is taken by negro americans to combat this evil which is held sway for far too long along the nation's highways sincerely yours says jewel el gresham doctoral student columbia university susan lucci is the historian at brigham young university we are we there yet the golden age of american family vacation it's time we give back to make the case for his favorite historical personage with every connections to say you will be disappointed

and so the whole system was the resident assistants india that americans even as immigrants have felt tired to go from one place to the next and they're just something bad or whether it's for a job or for lander for an opportunity greene mrs backstory i'm peter if i'm brian balogh and amir there's

today on the show we're marking st patrick's day with an entire episode devoted to the color green there so far we've been hearing about things that happened in the twentieth century and the nineteenth century but our eighteenth century guy peter on earth has been chopping at the bit here gets in the eighteenth century he says this is the perfect opportunity to revive the story that is key to understanding the founding of our nation even though it's a story that's been all but forgotten at all tied very conveniently to the color green are out so what is that green thing that he was so worked up about the green mountain boy i'd love for bluegrass album so peter our producers probably very unwisely have agreed to give you a four stay out of the layers of pain but first you gonna let any nice catch the story as we kind of know it right it yup ok

it takes place in the green mountains in a place that's going to be called vermont green queen the story starts and seventeen forty nine is no vermont but there's a new hampshire and the governor new hampshire's doing what governors in those days did he's handing out land he's basically selling land that's as states got revenues no problem right now there is a problem because new york is selling say that is that that is a real problem and new york dance in this huge fight says there should you can be so honest words we're still in this way and so it's such a huge fire as rebecca daddy back over london and you know it is at sixty four basic new york you're right that they'd be given at the slam before and suddenly all this new hampshire claims are pretty worthless and this is where a main character enters the scene ethan allen is a small time farmer from connecticut he starts buying up a bunch of these worthless new hampshire claims on the cheap and he knew what he was doing right and i mean he he knew he was getting the

deal doesn't mean he brings a little ahead of the idiotic so he heads back up to the land in question there on the western side of the connecticut river and was a graph that he put together a militia they call themselves you guessed it the green mountain boys and the next several years they terrorize the settlers from new york they burned her cabins they destroyed their crops they basically daring them to stick around here or this goes on for several years and everybody knows new york's a much bigger powerful state fair about ready to squash this pain in the neck militia when guess what happens in the american revolution breaks out and see that at this point palin always the opportunities takes his so called militia this ragtag team and he's still haunts the british ford fort ticonderoga capturing at seizing their missiles like alright so this guy who's a

speculator a kind of a get of vigilante all the sudden he's a war hero in our fight with the british so was along for our was captured by the british had a different battle somewhere else and was imprisoned his compatriots make a play for statehood they call themselves vermont i kind of imagined french fried version of green mountains but the new american governor says no despite a cool name you're still in new york and this goes on for fourteen years alan gets out of prison he is once more at the helm of the state a movement and finally and seventy nine it won the new american government says fine we need some ice cream and george martin in law becomes the fourteenth state but by that point in canals already dead right so peter you two questions for you wanna jump did brian i get the story right yeah and two why do you think it's opportunistic fund is so key are entering a major story of america's founding and historic green what i want to focus

on is ethan allen how he represents what i think is really the spirit for better and for worse of the american revolution and the big picture for me of course as property we talked about his gray speculators inopportune as well as science george washington even the sainted thomas jefferson everybody's in it for the lamps because after all you think about it you don't eat lamb to guarantee your civic existence that is you're not your citizenship is not contingent on your only net farm out there no land is not important in that way anymore but it is everything and ethan allen's date and what the settlers of vermont what the founders of vermont want that was secure title in their land so they can live decent lives if we wanted secure title we should have gotten to its effected provided out there that isn't cockamamie land on a lot you know about new york under your we have these enormous

manners with tenants who don't own their own land and the land claimants in the green mountains in what were called on him for grants they want monopolize the land the people who are coming up from connecticut like ethan allen or tried to get inside the earth well they're just you keep settlers ok and then there was no established farms that was debra katz and that's where we get to the new state movement vermont had a constitution and seventeen seventy seven it was functioning as a state and i was looking around for opportunities if you don't want us they say to congress you don't want vermont to be the fourteenth stage and you're mighty union we will take our marbles and will see maybe we can play ball and mixing metaphors maybe we can play marbles with a british empire can sound more like benedict arnold anything allen to me peter what ethan allen and his allies want is recognition that what he wanted an empire to tie into

this absolutely because if you don't get recognized even that sovereign claiming at this is my property will who says it's your property i get their land that finds the patriot land defines this city's said yeah but then you have to justify o'brien that's the big challenge the ultimate justification used to be that it came from a grant for mccain but now we're not saying that anymore if it's not the king who is and i'll tell you who it is it's god what kind of god was the god who gives good title it's nature's god as jefferson calls and it's the god who is organize those marvelous universe it's the god who has made this green earth who has given us this mountain home and this is the first american colleague or state that calls itself after the land itself it's not in new hampshire it's not named

after some kind of indian name it's not massachusetts it is the land itself speaking through ethan allen who's channeling nature's god we don't need it came to be the agents of god some pseudo divine right came to say oh all that was one group as do you know we are taking title from god directly as he meant us to take it because we are improving the land we are supporting our families said peter i mean i'm pretty much sold but tell me why the next joe schmuhl regular salt of the earth guy can't come along and take away ethan allen soil brian is this is interpreted in god's will thing sounds pretty dangerous to me well you're exactly right the central problem were of lucius everybody could start a country in fact that's what's happening in the connecticut river valley town was in new

hampshire and vermont are voting which state would be part of brown girl well they would be part of new york was his town sovereignty will think we can break up tells you get presents sovereignty we can have true energy which is the thing that everybody fears and then you'll have property ok so maybe the answer to my other question will answer everything because earlier in this what i thought was going to be a short platform for you you said they're ethan allen had gone in search of a network of an empire something larger that would recognize him that's right so you got to give up a little bit of your direct line to god willing right but what he's saying is that all americans have an interest im supporting this idea of the sovereignty of the people of third man for right to their own land no no artisan argue with that they just argue with the implications of that and so i'm saying is it is an older prisons i think of the three important dimensions of the american revolution

first that need to establish effective control over land to secure a proper exit as taxation against other property claims to get clear title seconds to get that title security is a collective security arrangement of a union that will them guarantee stay dressed another that happened after he got it right and then the third thing is to confirm to affirm the fundamental principle of revolution and that is the right of the people by nature by nature's god to govern themselves on their own land that is the justification that's the ultimate prince one that's what ethan allen really cares about you doesn't care about the vast acres you can accumulate vast acres he doesn't own slaves he doesn't have a vast plantations like thomas jefferson but what he has achieved is independence as a former his neighbors have independents and they have club together to secure their rights and then to vindicate those rights through the recognition of the other states in the

union new york comes to terms they no they're not going to get the new hampshire grant's back and new york capitulate and it's just a matter of time before they cut the deal they make the treaty vermont becomes part of the eu go green if you're just joining us this is a backstory and we're devoting today's show to stories about the past that have something to do with the collard greens in the early nineteen sixties new comic book heroes like spiderman the fantastic four and the x men all created by stan lee and marvel comics seem to be rescuing the industry from a sales slump in the nineteen fifties but as the sixties progressed sales decline yet again the vietnam war civil rights struggle and overall generational a people had realized what young people were looking for they want comic books

to take on the issues they were facing every day so come to turn the page by the early nineteen seventies iron man had shut down his company's weapons division captain america had teamed up with a black superheroes day job was being a social worker in harlem but branson know comic represented the ship better than a series that featured two green superheroes who had gotten their start nearly thirty years before green lantern and green arrow backstory producer andrew parsons has the story in early nineteen seventy denny o'neil walked into dc comics for his weekly editorial meeting dc was the home of batman and superman but when he got there his editor put a different here on the table he said in effect that the green lantern book was floundering so yes we try handing it is the answer was yes after years old when neil as part of a new generation

of comics writers filling the places of pioneers who had been promoted to editors and this new generation was young enough to be part of the highly political counterculture protesting the vietnam war protests were really o'neill style i was never going to be a fiery leader it'll overthrow the man but i felt i should do something in that i had access to comic books have a heavy kind of day he had been given a blank slate green lantern had been predicted the early forties and was basically named denny o'neil he was an establishment that always busy fighting villains and other galaxies for an ancient alien police force so when neil decided that the series would bring lantern down from space and education about what was going on in america racism drugs violence pollution but he also went into more anti establishment voice of justice so he revived

another forty superhero one the looked a lot like robin hood green arrow green arrow were presented the counterculture for him authority would then we'll have to prove itself but what really made the green lanterns green arrow of lines different was the villains previously green lantern have thought powerful aliens mad scientists one of his nemesis have a bulging oversized brain with top committee powers daniel's new portrait of evil look quite a bit different he's overweight he sneers he smokes a big smelly cigar and he rigs arrogance the bad guy he's describing for more on the series first issue evolved inner city building owner named yuval slave is trying to evict african american candidates at first inside only to be called a nazi billionaire

and the lanterns eyes are eventually opened people's lives in this ghetto same and remember i work for the blue skinned town of planet someplace shout out they aren't skins you've done considerable for the purple skins the latest and you never bothered with like skins that one and how can answer me that mr vreeland turn him in the last panel green lantern when they said by saying i kept them arrest of it is so green lantern going against islam more but that doesn't mean he uses many superpowers after the storm would hires men to kill the two super heroes green lantern and green your team up with a local district attorney to help takes laid down that kind of set the tone for the rest of the series honestly when i read this issue it struck me as kind of like an after school special a bit cheesy and i'll be over there is a bunch of action and adventure but green arrow is

also prone to these mini speeches about injustice in one he starts out with a line about how good black man was killed in memphis and a good white man in los angeles here's timmy o'neill describing the rest are something's wrong something is so you're so some hideous moral cancerous body armor and so's as greta gerwig is a green lanterns green arrow a lot of the times this is historian bradford rate he wrote a book on the history of clicks the mainstream press your client the wall street journal usually came out one minute and it's relevant to characterize the comic book that had the series wasn't the first in the relevance trend the green lanterns green arrow possessed morgue all it was directly calling out

of forty figures for acts of injustice and it didn't take long for politicians to recognize the utility of comic books for their own messaging campaigns near city mayor john lindsay about a page in dc comics and the nixon administration asked marvel to put an anti drug message and spiderman a message green lantern and green arrow were quick to pick up on are hungry orange and green arrow speedy green arrow five kids are shooting up with is a green arrow discover the five tickets a junkie the series a critical acclaim it only lasted a few years but a mid seventies the industry was ready to move on one day it you had all of the

records in other words superiors had kind of stunning super heroes these days green lantern still around but he's fine without his liberal partner and is battling outside super villains again in the two thousand eleven green lantern movie one of the members of the intergalactic green lantern corps warns of the evil a force that's when you know it's half destroyed it's a far cry from the villains of the relative strength and we're bad guys were recognizable people with a recognizable agendas now in the age of the war in terror government surveillance and the great recession maybe we're just more comfortable with villains and the shadows ones we don't fully understand

and reporters is one of our producers you can read more about that nineteen seventies golden sprint and rapper wright's book coming nations will post a link to that along with a few friends in the green lanterns green arrow series of backstory radio or in the forested area but before we go one last thing you might remember that on our recent oscar show we open up voting for the history the film the best captures a historical subject you warm weighed in with your votes and your reasons them so without further ado we present the first ballot all this do awards brian ed could have a dnr points right wise agreement all right the winner of the first annual

history is but rather than about twelve years a slave woes and it's a landslide he came in with a whopping seventy two percent of the vote and i have to acknowledge that worries aids pick thanks so much to everyone who shared their thoughts on this year's oscar nominees as always we'd also love to hear your thoughts about today's show let us know what you think is the most important green thing in american history and you can weigh in at backstory radio dot org or reach us by email at backstory at virginia tech ed you don't be a stranger today's episode that story was produced by andrew parsons and jesse dukes and we try not to use our research was whether ordinary and jamal known as our engineer special thanks to you know john miller he thinks

she'll and sean howe a special shout out to the jolly green giant factory sits at the producer is andrew wood major supporter backstory is provided by an anonymous donor university junior the national endowment for the humanities majors and robert formal memorial foundation additional funding is provided by weinstein properties in history channel history at every day brian balogh is a professor of history at the university of virginia your opponent is professor of history emeritus at a senior research fellow at the cello and heiresses president and professor of history at university of richmond that's really was created by your window it would be