A Word on Words

Description

For years the legendary John Seigenthaler hosted A Word on Words on Nashville's public television station, WNPT. During the show’s four-decade run (1972 to 2013), he interviewed some of the most interesting and most impor­tant writers of our time. These in-depth exchanges revealed much about the writers who appeared on his show and gave a glimpse into their creative pro­cesses. Seigenthaler was a deeply engaged reader and a generous interviewer, a true craftsman. Frye Gaillard and Pat Toomay have collected and transcribed some of the iconic interactions from the show.

Featuring interviews with:
Arna Bontemps • Marshall Chapman • Pat Conroy • Rodney Crowell • John Egerton • Jesse Hill Ford • Charles Fountain • William Price Fox • Kinky Friedman • Frye Gaillard • Nikki Giovanni • Doris Kearns Goodwin • David Halberstam • Waylon Jennings • John Lewis • David Maraniss • William Marshall • Jon Meacham • Ann Patchett • Alice Randall • Dori Sanders • John Seigenthaler Sr. • Marty Stuart • Pat Toomay
(From the Introduction to Part I: Civil Rights)

John Seigenthaler was a young reporter in Nashville when the civil rights movement began in that city. Partly because of that, and partly because of his experience with the movement as a member of Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department, Black struggles for equality became a recurring theme on A Word on Words.

These five interviews are grouped chronologically according to the subjects they cover. We begin with Arna Bontemps, a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance and one of the most prolific African American scholars of the twentieth century. At the time of his interview with Seigenthaler, Bontemps was head librarian at Fisk University and had released two books that year: Free at Last: The Life of Frederick Douglass and Great Slave Narratives.

John Egerton, a renowned journalist/historian living in Nashville, won the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for his book Speak Now against the Day, telling the story of a generation of Southerners who worked for racial progress before the beginning of the civil rights movement. As Egerton explains, these were men and women, Black and white, who looked at the racial order in the South and said, “This won’t work.”

One of Seigenthaler’s most iconic guests on A Word on Words was John Lewis, who emerged from his leadership role in the civil rights struggle to become one of the most beloved members of the US Congress. He talks about his memoir, Walking with the Wind, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award.
Introduction: The Breadth, Depth, and Passion of John Seigenthaler, by Frye Gaillard

Part I: Civil Rights
Arna Bontemps, Free at Last: The Life of Frederick Douglass and Great Slave Narratives
John Egerton, Speak Now against The Day
John Lewis, Walking with The Wind
David Halberstam, The Children
Frye Gaillard, Cradle of Freedom

Part II: Literature
Jesse Hill Ford, The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones
Pat Conroy, The Death of Santini
Ann Patchett, The Patron Saint of Liars
Dori Sanders, Clover
Alice Randall, The Wind Done Gone
Nikki Giovanni, Chasing Utopia

Part III: Music
Marshall Chapman, Goodbye Little Rock and Roller
Marty Stuart, Country Music: The Masters
Rodney Crowell, Chinaberry Sidewalks
Waylon Jennings, Waylon: An Autobiography
Kinky Friedman, The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover

Part IV: Sports
Charles Fountain, Sportswriter: The Life and Times of Grantland Rice
William Marshall, Baseball’s Pivotal Era, 1945–1951
William Price Fox, Satchel Paige’s America
Pat Toomay, On Any Given Sunday

Part V: The Presidency
Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals
David Maraniss, Barack Obama: The Story
John Seigenthaler Sr., James K. Polk

Epilogue, by Andrew Maraniss
Books Featured in This Volume

Sujets

• Writting
• Disciplines
• Civil Rights
• Language Arts
• Tratado de No Proliferación Nuclear
• WNPT
• 20th century in literature
• Southern literature
• Region
• Civil and political rights
• NPT
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Regional
• History
• Interview
• John Seigenthaler
• National pipe thread
• Music
• Nashville
• Tennessee

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 31 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780826505743
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Word on Words
A Word on Words
The Best of John Seigenthaler’s Interviews
Edited by
Pat Toomay and Frye Gaillard
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY PRESS
Nashville, Tennessee
Copyright 2023 Vanderbilt University Press
All rights reserved
First printing 2023
These interviews originally aired on the Nashville Public Television show A Word on Words and appear here courtesy of Nashville Public Television, Inc. These episodes are available for viewing online at https://www.wnpt.org/a-word-on-words-john-seigenthaler .
“Chasing Utopia,” “Robert Champion,” “Allowables,” “The Right Way,” “The Significance of Poetry,” and “Still Life with Apron” from Chasing Utopia by Nikki Giovanni. Copyright 2013 by Nikki Giovanni. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
“Good-bye Little Rock and Roller”
Words and Music by Marshall Chapman
© 1986 Tall Girl Music (BMI)
All Rights Administered by BMG Rights Management (US) LLC.
Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Seigenthaler, John, 1927-2014, author | Toomay, Pat, editor. | Gaillard, Frye, 1946- editor.
Title: A word on words : the best of John Seigenthaler’s interviews / edited by Pat Toomay and Frye Gaillard.
Other titles: Interviews. Selections
Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Vanderbilt University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022053765 (print) | LCCN 2022053766 (ebook) | ISBN 9780826505736 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780826505743 (epub) | ISBN 9780826505750 (adobe pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Authors, American—Interviews. | Seigenthaler, John, 1927–2014—Interviews. | Word on words (Television program) | Television talk shows—United States. | Television scripts. | Interviewing on television.
Classification: LCC PS138 .S45 2023 (print) | LCC PS138 (ebook) | DDC 973.09/9--dc23/eng/20230126
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053765
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053766
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: The Breadth, Depth, and Passion of John Seigenthaler , by Frye Gaillard
I. CIVIL RIGHTS
ARNA BONTEMPS, Free at Last: The Life of Frederick Douglass and Great Slave Narratives
JOHN EGERTON, Speak Now against the Day
JOHN LEWIS, Walking with the Wind
DAVID HALBERSTAM, The Children
FRYE GAILLARD, Cradle of Freedom
II. LITERATURE
JESSE HILL FORD, The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones
PAT CONROY, The Death of Santini
ANN PATCHETT, The Patron Saint of Liars
DORI SANDERS, Clover
ALICE RANDALL, The Wind Done Gone
NIKKI GIOVANNI, Chasing Utopia
III. MUSIC
MARSHALL CHAPMAN, Goodbye Little Rock and Roller
MARTY STUART, Country Music: The Masters
RODNEY CROWELL, Chinaberry Sidewalks
WAYLON JENNINGS, Waylon: An Autobiography
KINKY FRIEDMAN, The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover
IV. SPORTS
CHARLES FOUNTAIN, Sportswriter: The Life and Times of Grantland Rice
WILLIAM MARSHALL, Baseball’s Pivotal Era, 1945–1951
WILLIAM PRICE FOX, Satchel Paige’s America
PAT TOOMAY, On Any Given Sunday
V. THE PRESIDENCY
JON MEACHAM, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Team of Rivals
DAVID MARANISS, Barack Obama: The Story
JOHN SEIGENTHALER Sr., James K. Polk
Epilogue , by Andrew Marannis
Books Featured in This Volume
INTRODUCTION
The Breadth, Depth, and Passion of John Seigenthaler
FRYE GAILLARD
WHEN PAT TOOMAY AND I first started talking about this book, it occurred to us that we were part of a very large group—writers and journalists whose work had been supported by John Seigenthaler. Some members of that group are household names: Jon Meacham, John Lewis, Nikki Giovanni. Others are people like Pat and me. We have worked at the craft, have known sporadic moments of success, but Seigenthaler saw value in what we were doing regardless of the public response.
For more than forty years, beginning in 1971, he hosted a public television show, A Word on Words , in which he interviewed authors about their books. He was never paid for it, and despite the fact that the show aired primarily in Nashville, writers of every level of renown were eager to sit for these conversations. Part of it was simply Seigenthaler’s style.
“Being interviewed on TV by John was like a conversation between old friends,” remembers Roy Blount, who made multiple appearances on A Word on Words . “We did go back quite a ways, to the early sixties, when he was the new editor of the Tennessean and I was still in college. And he always welcomed me, on air and off, as ‘old friend,’ which was an honor for me to hear. But usually one friend drawing out another on camera entails a shift of gears, which can be awkward. John made it seamless.”
The setting itself was relaxed—a studio designed like a living room or den, comfortable chairs, coffee table in between, a bookcase and semi-soft lighting absorbed by mustard-colored walls. “It was designed to feel like an intimate space,” said producer Jonathan Harwell.
There was one more thing that set these interviews apart and sometimes astonished Seigenthaler’s guests. He read every word of every book. “Without fail,” remembered his son John Michael, who had a long career in television news. “I remember him reading late into the night. He only got three or four hours sleep. He was able to consume these books in a way that he could remember and comprehend. He wrote notes and questions in the front or back, wherever he could find a blank space. He talked constantly about books. Sometimes for the show, he would do five interviews in a day—sometimes two days in a row—particularly during the Southern Festival of Books when a lot of authors came to town. That’s a lot of books to read and comprehend, and he did it with ease. I worked in television for a long time. I knew what it took. Sometimes I would have to just skim a book before an interview, but he never did. When you talked to the authors Dad interviewed, they all said, ‘He read the book!’ ”
Pat Toomay and I remember our amazement at that fact, an astonishment compounded by the fact that we knew what Seigenthaler did for a living. For much of his life, he worked as editor, and then publisher, of the Tennessean , one of the great newspapers in the South. He had made a name for himself as a reporter at that paper. Once, covering the police beat, he rushed to the scene of a potential suicide. It was an October day in 1954, and a fifty-five-year-old man on the edge of a bridge in downtown Nashville was threatening to jump. The muddy brown waters of the Cumberland River swirled just below, as Gene Bradford Williams vowed to take his own life.
Speaking calmly as he approached, Seigenthaler grabbed Williams’s collar just as he leapt from the Shelby Street crossing and pulled him to safety. He never believed in journalistic detachment.
“It’s not about objectivity,” he told a young reporter. “I’ve never met an objective reporter in my life. But if you can be fair and honest, if you can be angry and cry when you see injustice, you can be a reporter for me.”
Eight years later, at the age of thirty-four, Seigenthaler became the Tennessean ’s editor, stamping it with a passion for advocacy journalism, including relentless coverage of racial injustice, abuses of power, and changes being wrought by the civil rights movement. One of his reporters, John Haile, would remember those days almost as a calling: “It was our job to explain the evil of injustice, the harm it causes, what it does to our community—and what you could do to make it right. That was different from a lot of newspapers at the time, and that came from John.”
In the course of his work, Seigenthaler became friends with Robert Kennedy and was drawn periodically to the world of politics. In 1961, when Kennedy was chosen by his brother to be attorney general of the United States, Seigenthaler became his administrative assistant. In the spring of that year, RFK sent him on a dangerous mission. On May 4, thirteen freedom riders, six white, seven Black, boarded two buses in Washington, DC, and set off on a journey through the South. This was not an act of civil disobedience. The US Supreme Court had already ordered the desegregation of buses and of the terminals serving interstate travelers. The freedom riders were merely testing the law.
There were only sporadic acts of violence until they reached Alabama. But everything changed when they crossed the state line. Their Greyhound bus was burned in Anniston, where only the intervention of an undercover police officer saved the riders from being killed. The second bus, a Trailways, was attacked by the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham. There were no police in sight. The beatings were savage, Klansmen using bicycle chains, black jacks, and baseball bats, whatever they thought might do the most harm.
“One man made his way to the waiting room still vertical,” reported newsman Howard K. Smith, “but his head was a red mass of blood. Another was on all fours and could not get up.”
On assignment from Robert Kennedy, Seigenthaler flew to Birmingham, where he arrived to find a terrified group. They were huddled in the corner of the airport; traumatized by the fury of the mob, they were trying to board a Delta Airlines flight to New Orleans. Bomb threats had grounded the plane, while another mob gathered outside. Seigenthaler could see that time was running out. “I went to see the people at Delta,” he remembered, “and told them, ‘This is what we want to do. Look through the baggage, make sure there is no bomb, then don’t take any more phone calls until the plane is in the air.’ ”
The airline officials did as he asked. Seigenthaler flew with the riders to New Orleans where they were met by a group of supporters and friends. At last, they were safe. He remembered going to bed that night, thinking to himself, “Well done, young man.” But at 2 a.m. his telephone rang. It was RFK.
“John,” he said. “This is not over.”
As Kennedy explained, another group of rider