AMERICAN EXPERIENCE FILMS
HARD HAT RIOT
NARRATION: In the midst of the Vietnam war, lower Manhattan becomes a battlefield.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: Word came down that there’s going to be a demonstration. We got a major war going on, we got our soldiers being killed and then you have demonstrators who seem to be rooting for the other side.
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REPORTER: The reaction on the campuses was swift and predictable. The students and many of their teachers were against the President.
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PROTESTOR: We’re gonna stop Wall Street tomorrow. We're gonna stop New York City on Monday, and we're gonna bring the whole country down with us next week. And then Nixon's gonna have to respond.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: Whether the government is right or wrong, with a war, you should support the troops.
DAN ROSSI, SHEET METAL WORKER: And you take that flag and throw it on the floor and step on it? You’ve just made it personal.
NARRATION: A clash between anti-war protestors and New York City’s working class begins to redraw political party lines.
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ABBIE HOFFMAN: We are the second American Revolution. We are winning.
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WORKING MAN: I approve of what you’re doing. Because it’s gonna cause a revolution, but not your kind, MY KIND.
MICHAEL BALZANO, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: We watched that riot, and I thought what we were looking at was the beginning of a class struggle between, let's call them a university elite, and the working class.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Richard Nixon will seize this moment and shift the Republican Party from Blue Bloods to Blue Collar. [AND] ultimately write a culturally populist playbook that would guide Republican candidates for more than a half century after.
GARY LABARBERA, PRESIDENT, NYC BUILDING & CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL: Hardhat. Hard is the right word. This is a tough industry to work in.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: You're working on cooling towers on a building that's 50 stories high and the wind's blowing. And it's wintertime. And it's sleeting. And you're working outside.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: Over on the World Trade Center, you could trip and fall out. Believe me. They had no barriers. They had no safety lines for you. You held on for dear life.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: When I was a 19-year-old kid, my uncle and I get assigned to the 20th floor. So I proceed to walk out on about a 15-inch beam, which is pretty wide. And the far fall is on my left, which is 20 stories. And I froze. I'm standing there. My uncle's yelling at me, “What's the matter, kid? What's the matter, kid?” I said, “I can't move.” After a while, you learn how to walk steel. And you do what you have to do. When you work hard, and you finish up a day's work, it's nice to look up in the air and say, wow, we did a great job here. I feel very proud of it, I'll be honest with you. We left our mark on New York City in the construction industry.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: It’s the second skyscraper age in New York City. Thousands of workers are downtown remaking New York City’s skyline. But two America’s are emerging. Construction workers see from their steel perches above, an antiwar movement on the streets below that is cheering for Ho Chi Minh, cheering for those harming American boys overseas.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
April 30 - May 8, 1970
“The most critical week this nation has endured in a century.”
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RICHARD NIXON: Good evening, my fellow Americans. In cooperation with the armed forces of South Vietnam, attacks are being launched this week to clean out major enemy sanctuaries on the Cambodian Vietnam border.
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PROTESTORS: End the war! End the war!
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REPORTER: President Nixon announced that American and South Vietnamese troops had moved into Cambodia. That announcement touched off another round of demonstrations
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Richard Nixon won the presidency ultimately by promising to end the war in Vietnam with honor and to bring stability to the nation's tumult. Then, shockingly, at the end of April this Cambodia announcement makes it feel like the war is expanding. This explodes on campuses nationwide.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: When the Cambodian incursion happened, I was ready to be involved in a revolution, because we can act on this! We can move forward with this. We can – this is when it can happen.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: To us, as the working stiff, let's put it– or blue-collar, you would just have people go to college to beat the draft. And they had money, and they let the working class people fight the wars.
DAN ROSSI, SHEET METAL WORKER: I knew early on that I was going to go into the service. I thought it was something that you're supposed to do. And I was 17 years old. I joined before I graduated high school.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: No war since the Civil War had asked more of those with less. The people doing the fighting and dying in the Vietnam War are overwhelmingly blue-collar and impoverished whites or struggling Blacks.
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RICHARD NIXON: This is not an invasion of Cambodia. But we will not be humiliated. We will not be defeated.
DAVID FRIEDMAN, STUDENT: My first year of college, a good friend of mine, he had his cousin who was a soldier over at his house. And this cousin of his was serving in Vietnam. I asked him, “Well, what about the people that we’re helping?” He said, “They hate us. They all hate us.” It didn't make any sense. Why were we there trying to help people that hated us?
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PROTESTORS: Hell No, We Won’t Go!
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON, Aide to President Nixon: The cause for American involvement in Vietnam really related to the so-called “Domino Theory.” If one country fell to the communist control it would start a whole collapse of other contiguous countries.
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PROTESTORS: Peace now! Peace now! Peace now!
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REPORTER: The reaction on the campuses was swift and predictable. The students and many of their teachers were against the President.
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RICHARD NIXON: If when the chips are down, the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.
DAN ROSSI, SHEET METAL WORKER: When I was in Vietnam, I flew medevacs to help people. I knew going in there that we were going to go into a hot zone. People were going to shoot us. We can't shoot back. I knew it. But there was somebody down there that needed help.
RAY MELVILLE, LATHER: You're going out into hostile areas. You were hunting them and they were hunting you.
DAN ROSSI, SHEET METAL WORKER: As far as picking up dead Marines, that always gets a little churn in you. I started to carry the wounded and dead. And we carried a lot of guys. One guy was there with a bag, putting pieces in the bag. And that was our baptism.
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: During Vietnam, compared to the Park Avenue crowd, the odds were stacked against us, the working class, white kids in Brooklyn.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1970
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: As soon as I arrived at NYU, where the film school was pretty young, I became strongly anti-war. And my experience at NYU, was a real radicalizing thing. There was this feeling that we have to fight this. We have to. This is awful. Nixon, he announced the incursion. And at NYU, somehow there was a gathering of lots of people, students. And it was a pretty radical group. We were all in a room. And we were like talking about what could we do, what could we do.
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Street Scenes, MARTIN SCORSESE : It's going to fold up in three days. But Bruce Tabor, Bruce Tabor-Fields--
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: Marty Scorsese, who was our teacher, he was an advisor. We respected him. And he was helpful. And so we called ourselves the Cinetracts Collective.
CARD: MADE BY, NEW YORK CINETRACTS COLLECTIVE, may 1970
CARD: STREET SCENES, 1970
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PROTESTORS: The murder! Stop the killing!
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: The whole idea was that it was the information arm of the revolution on the East Coast. So we would produce these films and send them down to Florida or North Carolina or wherever and we were going to distribute them.
TEXT ON SCREEN: Street Scenes, 1970
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WORKING MAN: Go back to the middle class. Yeah, that protects me. It's a completely middle class, upper class movement. It's nothing to do with working people. You can't even make contact. You can't even make a contact with the working class in this country, and you know damn well I'm right. The revolution is confined to the campus, and that's where it's going to be confined. I approve of what you're doing, because it's going to cause a revolution, but not your kind, my kind.
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ABBIE HOFFMAN: Political pigs, your days are numbered. We are the second American revolution. We are winning.
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POLICE: What's your name, miss?
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PROTESTOR: None of your business. Pigs!
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WORKING MAN: I think the way they're going about this protest business is all wrong, going down there shouting obscene language down the street.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: Watching TV at night, that's all you heard was the war protest, the war protest, the war protest. And you didn't hear much about support of the troops.
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REPORTER: May Day action called for demonstrators to obstruct entrances to the selective service building. Money and draft cards were burned.
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PROTESTORS: No more war! No more war!
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: This little card was probably the center of our universe. It was going to tell your future. We were pulling towards this big 1969 change with the draft.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: This draft lottery starts for the first time since World War II. And a lower number means they're more likely to go to war.
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: The evening of the lottery, it was a scene for me because all of our friends gathered at a local bar.
TEXT ON SCREEN: December 1, 1969
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: And they had it on TV, and it was almost like you'd see a bingo game.
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LOTTERY ANNOUNCER: September 14th
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: A number of my friends were called very early on. And then there was my friend Georgie, and he was watching. And he drew number nine, which was very, very early in the lottery. And the bartender said, oh, he stumbled out of here about a half an hour ago. Georgie had managed to go out and work and save money to buy a Camaro, which for working class kids like us was a big deal. So when we arrived at his car, he had spray painted the number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine all over his brand new Camaro. And his explanation was, well, I'm going to die anyway. So I don't need this damn car.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1970
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
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REPORTER: The fire at the Army ROTC building was spotted minutes after several hundred students rallied on the commons, chanting anti-war slogans and tossing cherry bombs. Reportedly, about five militants tossed railroad flares through broken windows, immediately setting the structure on fire. Some firemen were pelted with stones. Efforts to extinguish the blaze were hampered by exploding ammunition housed in the building. This morning, things were calm as National Guardsmen began a cleanup. And Governor Rhodes, who visited the campus this morning, called it the worst violence in the state of Ohio and promised a crackdown on those involved.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: We got a major war going on. We got our soldiers being killed. And then you have demonstrators who seem to be rooting for the other side. Hence, you got a boiling pot.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
MONDAY, MAY 4, 1970
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
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KENT STATE STUDENT: Oh my god, this girl's shot. And he picks her up. And she has this bloody spot on her jacket. And there's blood coming out of her mouth.
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REPORTER: The town of Kent and the Kent State campus erupted in violent demonstrations against America's involvement in Cambodia and Vietnam, demonstrations that ended when four students died in a volley of National Guard gunfire.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Among those dead is this Long Island boy, Jeffrey Miller. And he is the boy pictured in the most iconic photograph of Kent State lying face down, bloody. This shakes America.
DAVID FRIEDMAN, STUDENT: The National Guard killed four kids. What's next? Is it going to be 20 kids, 30? Are they going to just start firing weapons at demonstrators? It was really upsetting
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: Kent State, that was a big sting. This could have happened to me.
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RICHARD NIXON: When you do have a situation of a crowd throwing rocks, there is always the chance that it will escalate into the kind of a tragedy that happened at Kent State.
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PROTESTORS: We want peace! We want peace!
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Across America, the arson, the bombings, the violence escalates as never before.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: It changed the conversation. Suddenly, it became, they're killing us!
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NYU STUDENT: I think we're a little angry though because four of us just got shot.
TEXT ON SCREEN: Street Scenes, 1970
POSTAL WORKER: What four of you got shot? Too goddamn bad they didn't get more.
NYU STUDENT: You like people getting shot?
POSTAL WORKER: Why? What the hell? In other words, you people can go to college, set fire to buildings. What are you striking for? So you don't have to study the rest of the year? To get pushed through? Half of you couldn't come out of here and shovel shit in an alley.
NYU STUDENT: We're striking for peace.
POSTAL WORKER: What peace? You never fought for anything. What the hell did you ever fight for?
NYU STUDENT: What did you ever fight for?
POSTAL WORKER: For my country. What did you ever fight for?
NYU STUDENT: We're fighting for our country.
POSTAL WORKER: You are like hell!
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REPORTER: Sandy Scheuer was 20 from Youngstown, Ohio, not much interested in politics and mainly liked to cook. Apparently she was not involved in the rally and was just walking by. William Schroeder of Lorain, Ohio, a member of the ROTC. Allison Krause, 19, from Pittsburgh. Jeffrey Miller was 20 from Plainview, New York. Said to have been studious, not rebellious, and active in sports.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
TUESDAY, MAY 5, 1970
NEW YORK CITY
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PROTESTORS: Peace Now! Peace Now!
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REPORTER: Here at City College of New York, a group of students invaded the building housing CCNY's ROTC unit.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: There's tumult across the city.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: The protest movement just [boom] got so much bigger, and pointed, and excited.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: And then you have this mayor, John Lindsay, who had come out early against the Vietnam War.
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JOHN LINDSAY, New York City Mayor: We can find little logical or moral justification for sending 18-year-olds to fight and perhaps die in the morass of South Vietnam.
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: John Lindsay was the first major Republican figure in this country who came out against the war.
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JOHN LINDSAY: Today we seek a solemn, somber day of personal inquiry. Those who charge that this is unpatriotic do not know the history of their own nation.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Word spread that John Lindsay had called the draft dodgers heroes. For blue-collar America they feel like those villainizing the soldiers in Vietnam are treated as heroes and the heroes are treated as villains.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Lindsay was controversial for reasons far more than the war. To understand why you gotta backtrack to the forces squeezing the working class city by the mid 1960s.
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: The campaign really captured the imagination. We had these rallies that were incredible. Liza Minnelli.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: He's on the cover of the biggest magazines. He is treated as a national star.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: He was handsome. He was tall. He was glamorous. He sparkled. And we believed we could make the world a better place. We really truly believed that.
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: I said, this is where I want to be. I want to be with him. And I never left his side.
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JOHN LINDSAY: Many of you asked me the question, well, Mr. Lindsay, if you get elected mayor, are you going to come back to see us? Well, I have, and I am. And I'll come back again, and again, and again, and again.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: John Lindsay is also emblematic of the excitement of New York City, which was described as “Fun City.” But almost as soon as he becomes mayor, that fun will turn into a biblical tide of obstacles.
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Newsreel: As a new mayor takes office, 6,000 subway cars lie idle, 230 miles of track lead nowhere. Never before has this marvel of mass transportation ground to a stop with the men on the picket lines.
JOSHUA FREEMAN, HISTORIAN: Lindsay believed there was a kind of alliance between many of the labor unions and the Democratic party that served their interest but didn’t serve the greater population of the city of New York.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: All this promise that John Lindsay represents is grounded and it does not help that Lindsay lacked personal ties with these unions.
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: You shouldn't have a transit strike. How do you go to work? And if you don't go to work, you don't get paid. How do you support the family?
JOSHUA FREEMAN, HISTORIAN: Lindsay, in spite of all his pledges and rhetoric, in the end, basically had to give in, concede to the transit workers.
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JOHN LINDSAY: And the buses and subway cars are beginning to roll.
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REPORTER: 6,000 buses are back on the street, an agreement that will cost the city from $50 to $70 million in the next two years.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: And weakness with one union will invite strength from the other unions.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: There's a sanitation strike. 100,000 tons of garbage stinks New York City.
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: You know, John Lindsay used to say, if you stand next to garbage long enough, you begin to smell. And we had a lot of garbage out there.
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REPORTER: And the mayor says that this is not collective bargaining, that what you're doing is blackmailing.
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SANITATION WORKER: He's blackmailing us because he's the mayor. He wants to be the dictator. He gets up in the morning and says, “I'm Mayor Lindsay. I do what I want to do.”
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: In the next several years, we're going to bring a teacher strike, a police slowdown. I mean, unheard of in the city. These were when the unions were really coming into their own.
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: He obviously was a man of privilege. You could look at him. And where we grew up, you knew a guy of privilege. You knew it. I grew up in Woodside, Queens. And we really were a blue-collar community. It was an incredible area to grow up.
JAMES LAPHAM, ELECTRICIAN: I was born in the Bronx. It was all basically a hodgepodge of working people. Wasn't a wealthy neighborhood. There was no rich people there.
DAN ROSSI, SHEET METAL WORKER: The neighborhood I came from was Villa Avenue. It was three blocks long. It was all Italian. Even if you weren't Italian, you were Italian to us. I didn't even know there was other things besides that.
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: Bay Ridge was the quintessential working class neighborhood. Everyone I knew, their parents were either working on the docks or they were cops, firemen.
JAMES LAPHAM, ELECTRICIAN: My father was a strong union man. One hundred percent. He would organize all over Brooklyn, Queens. My father told me, President Roosevelt changed everything. He pushed the workers' rights. He pushed workers' jobs. And this was the way. We have a guy that's going to change things.
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FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: The civilization of the past 100 years, with its startling industrial changes, has tended more and more to make life insecure.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: The Great Depression will sink what gains a lot of these blue-collar ethnic groups had made. And FDR's New Deal will give them opportunity. Whether it's jobs programs or simply hearing his voice on the radio, there was a sense that someone cares about them.
JOSHUA FREEMAN, HISTORIAN: During the 1930s, during the Great Depression, there was a kind of revival enhancement of this kind of imagery of the ordinary working person as the symbol of America. New York was a great blue-collar city at the end of World War II. It was the greatest manufacturing center in the United States by far. In the decades after World War II, New York started changing, and you began to see a decline in the blue-collar world. Manufacturing relocated. Many of the port jobs moved from New York to New Jersey. And at the same time, there was an emerging kind of headquarters city that was growing up.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: But for too many New Yorkers in too many places, this blue-collar New York City gradually becomes to feel alienated from this patrician mayor because they are suffering the deindustrialization of America. They are suffering a crime wave before it hits much of America. Their New York City is declining and the mayor appears to be aloof at best or at worst seem to care about everyone but them.
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WORKING MAN: We’re not forgetting the situation in the sanitation. We’re not forgetting the situation that we can not walk down our street in safety. There are a lot of things. And the voters of the city will vote him out completely!
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NEW YORKERS: Booo!
RONNIE ELDRIDGE, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: Barney Frank, who was a congressman, was an old friend of mine. And he said, John Lindsay is giving good intentions a bad name. People were calling him a limousine liberal. And that became the term for John Lindsay.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: The year after John Lindsay becomes mayor, the building of the World Trade Center starts. So you have these icons of American promise. This is the '60s! There is this aspirational America. But the American economy is changing. And the decline of New York City is an omen of the trauma that will hit blue-collar America nationwide in the years to come.
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JOHN LINDSAY: It is a fact, I think, that civilization throughout history has risen or fallen according to the strength of the central city area. And the reason one has got to operate under the assumption that these great cities are not only governable, but can be civilized, is that there is no alternative.
NANCY SEIFER, HEAD OF THE MAYOR’S OFFICE OF ETHNIC AFFAIRS: My background was very much like the other people at City Hall, the mayor's assistants, sort of an upwardly mobile, college-educated group.
NANCY SEIFER, HEAD OF THE MAYOR’S OFFICE OF ETHNIC AFFAIRS: But the people who were providing the services that kept the city alive, all the jobs that keep the wheels going, those were the jobs held by people in these white ethnic communities. And they had lived their lives so differently. The struggle that they went through most middle class people had no idea about just to make ends meet. And what gave comfort to their lives was family, and often church related community.
GARY LABARBERA, PRESIDENT, NYC BUILDING & CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL: God and country, those are our values. Those are our values. I'm not going to apologize to anyone for those values. Those are our values.
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: When there was church on Sundays, it was expected everybody went to mass. There was the 6:30 mass, the 8 o'clock mass, the 11 o'clock mass, the 12 o'clock mass, and the final 1 o'clock mass was for the late sleepers. And every mass was full.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: I went to Catholic school from kindergarten to eighth grade. And my mother, every year, would say the same thing to Sister so-and-so, whoever it may be. If he gets out of line, just smack him around a little bit. And I say, Ma, you don't have to tell them that. They do it automatically.
DAN ROSSI, SHEET METAL WORKER: You know, there was never any of this thought that you're going to be something beyond that sanitation worker. That's what we lived. The goal in our neighborhood was to get a city job. Or construction, you know. And my father, he was a laborer. So I went towards the construction end of it. The trades, all the trades, were always father, son. You want the best mechanics, let your father teach you.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: So you feel pretty bad about it if you lose that. And that's what the government did, actually, when the government was pushing integrating the union.
JOSHUA FREEMAN, HISTORIAN: The pressure was growing by the 1960s, and both on the local and the federal level, you begin to see initial steps to pressure the construction trades to open their ranks to people who are being kept out.
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JOHN LINDSAY: And I know that New Yorkers know that the Black man who came out of starvation in Mississippi, and the Puerto Rican who left destitution in San Juan, that that man is the brother of our fathers and our grandfathers, who fled oppression in Europe for opportunity here in New York City.
NANCY SEIFER, HEAD OF THE MAYOR’S OFFICE OF ETHNIC AFFAIRS: There was reason for Lindsay and people like him to feel compassion and empathy for people in Black and Puerto Rican communities. But that same empathy wasn’t aroused by the plight of white working class people because of the thought that if you were white you should be able to make it in America, so if you weren’t upwardly mobile it was your own fault.
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WORKING MAN: I don't believe the mayor of New York represents the working people of New York City, the people who have to work for a living, and therefore I will boo him and vote against him.
WILLIAM SALES, POLITICAL SCIENTIST: I think there were a large number of working-class whites that didn't understand what the hell was going on. All they knew, that their life was changing, and it wasn't changing for good. They felt that, you know, their economic problems were increasing, but only Black people's problems were being dealt with, and they were angry.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: When the integration came on, my personal feeling is, in the beginning, I was dead against it. I have to be honest. I was a young, foolish man. And the unknowns. Because I felt as though this was our thing, and we want to keep it. Because there was a lot of nepotism in the trades. And I was proven wrong, no question about it. Hey, some of these guys became real good friends with me. All of a sudden you get enlightened. And I used to kid some of my Black friends when they used to say “Billy, can you help me get my son into the local.” And I’d say, “Nepotism’s not too bad now is it?” [LAUGHS] Kid them!
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: 1968 will rock American life unlike any time since the Civil War.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: The Tet Offensive happens, which makes Americans wonder if winning is ever possible in this war in Vietnam.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: From the Tet Offensive ‘til there after a majority of Americans, including blue-collar America will not approve of the Vietnam War. Then Martin Luther King, Jr. is killed.
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: Harlem started rioting, and we were called in. I was assigned to a sergeant who said, "We're taking a hold-back approach to this riot.”
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ROY WILKINS, NAACP Leader: You know what John Lindsay did tonight? John Lindsay went right up into Harlem and walked up and down 125th Street and talked to the people face-to-face. That's what every mayor in the city, in the whole nation, ought to be doing.
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: I can't describe exactly how important it was that he was there that night. This city survived when other cities were burning.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Cities burn across the country, but also something else burns– This hope for a better America. What’s left of that hope is invested in Bobby Kennedy.
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BOBBY KENNEDY: I give thanks to all of you, and now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win this!
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: But he too will be killed that year.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: So on top of this tragedy a radicalism rises with the antiwar movement in 1968. Campuses are roiling across America, first at Columbia.
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MARK RUDD: Our program is gonna be to come back on the campuses and hit them harder than they've ever been hit before.
JOSHUA FREEMAN, HISTORIAN: The Columbia University demonstrations in 1968 were one of the biggest and most dramatic till that point. And the immediate issues was the involvement of Columbia University in military research that necessarily involved the war in Vietnam, but also the relationship of the university to the nearby Black community in Harlem.
WILLIAM SALES, POLITICAL SCIENTIS: I was one of the people who was early on involved in the formation of the Students Afro-American Society. We had a rally in front of HaDENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER Hall, and the suggestion is then subsequently made, "Let's go into HaDENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER Hall." Then the question becomes, "What are we going to do?"
JOSHUA FREEMAN, HISTORIAN: Protests ultimately led to the occupation of campus buildings. Well, this was a huge national attention.
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REPORTER: Mayor John Lindsay of New York City is known nationally for his feeling that civil disorders can best be met with restraint on the part of the police.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: But Lindsay’s got a problem. The leaders of Columbia want him to order in the police, but Lindsay wants the leadership of Columbia to ask for it.
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GRAYSON KIRK, Columbia University President: After nearly a week of efforts at conciliation I must ask the police to take the steps necessary to permit the university to resume its operations.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: After seething for days over these Columbia activists the police are ordered into Columbia. The police are overwhelmingly ethnic white Italian and Irish.
APRIL 30, 1968
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: And to those cops it’s shocking for the time to see kids of privilege demean them. They call them pigs, insult their mothers.
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: When I got there, the lieutenant said, "Okay, we're going to assign you to the chancellor's office. There's nobody to come through that door nor through the window. You make sure of that." So I got on the phone, and I called my mother, and I said, "Ma, your son has finally made it to Columbia."
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COLUMBIA ADMINISTRATOR: We have been informed that the police department will take all the necessary action in connection with our complaint against you. You will be subject to proper disciplinary action by the university in any event.
WILLIAM SALES, POLITICAL SCIENTIST: The police came and arrested everybody on campus who was involved in the demonstration. Beat up numerous people. The kind of energy the police committed to hurting these kids had much more to do than what was going on at Columbia. It had to do with the whole history of how poor white ethnic groups have felt disrespected and mistreated in American society.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: From early 1969 to spring 1970, there are more than 4,300 bombings across America because some antiwar radicals feel progress is too slow. They aim to bring the war home.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: Everything was radicalizing. You know, you had townhouses blowing up.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
Greenwich Village, New York
March 6, 1970
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REPORTER: The home of wealthy advertising and radio executive James Platt Wilkerson was torn by explosion and fire last Friday badly damaging the two neighboring homes, one belonging to actor Dustin Hoffman.
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: The weathermen were building a bomb and it went off. And it took half the building down with it. I responded there for crowd control and whatever they needed.
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REPORTER: Police say they found 60 sticks of dynamite, 30 blasting caps, also the literature of SDS and the radical left.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: You know, it's a revelation. They're building bombs. These were people who, more than I, were devoted to revolution. All these things that make you feel like the world that you respect is either in revolt or is being destroyed.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: With years of accumulating tragedies America really seemed to be breaking apart by May 1970.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1970
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Three days after Kent State the funeral in the city for Jeffrey Miller, the Long Island boy killed at Kent State takes place.
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News reporter: Nearly 5,000 college and high school students crowded the streets outside while family and friends of the dead boy sat silently inside. It was a subdued and thoughtful crowd.
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News Reporter: As the family left for the cemetery in the suburbs, most of the young people headed for rallies in the city.
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: I was sitting with the mayor in the mayor's office, and we're just talking about what we could do to recognize the memory of these four college kids who were killed by National Guard. The mayor says great. So he issued an executive order that the flags on the municipal building and at City Hall would be lowered to half mast. Who could object to that?
TEXT ON SCREEN: Street Scenes, 1970
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PROTESTORS: Avenge Kent State! Avenge Kent State!
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REPORTER: Several hundred college and high school students declared a war of disruption on New York City today. The demonstrators gather on Wall Street.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: The masters of finance are seen as the masters of war, and a center of New York City protest is at Federal Hall, this square next to the New York Stock Exchange.
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PROTESTOR: We’re gonna stop Wall Street tomorrow. We're gonna stop New York City on Monday, and we're gonna bring the whole country down with us next week. And then Nixon's gonna have to respond. I don't know. Maybe he's gonna come down with his fist. A lot of people probably think so. But let's find out now! No more shit! We want to find out where it's at now!
PROTESTOR: Here come the patriots. Here come the patriots.
PROTESTOR: What?
PROTESTOR: Here Comes the patriots is right.
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HARDHAT: We’ve seen pictures of Che Guevara on 4x4 red posters, a large red banner with a white star in the middle being hoisted behind these demonstrators. Now if anything we thought we’d bring the American flag down into the demonstration because this is the country we represent, as we went down with the American flag I was jumped on and attacked by a couple of people, along here and the flag was ripped out of my hand, ripped off the pole right here in many pieces.
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PROTESTOR 1: Stay back! Stay back! Don’t you fuckin people understand? No, man, no violence! Just wait a second. Shut up!
PROTESTOR 2: Kick their motherfucking ass! Show them where you at! Kick their motherfucking ass!
PROTESTOR 3: What do you want to do, start a riot?
PROTESTOR CROWD: 1, 2, 3, 4, we don't want your fucking war, 1, 2, 3, 4, we don't want your fucking war!
JAMES LAPHAM, ELECTRICIAN: I served, and most of them were World War II and Korean vets. How would you feel?
DAN ROSSI, SHEET METAL WORKER: My father was a World War II veteran. My uncles were World War II veterans. For that family, we had a pretty good number of us went.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: My brother was in the Korean War. My stepdad was in World War II. You know, we grew up that you support the United States of America.
DAN ROSSI, SHEET METAL WORKER: I was 5 years old when I went into first grade, and when I went up there, they teach you the Pledge of Allegiance, you know, and the sister would tell us what to do, hold your hand to your heart and everything. And as she's saying that the men and women that died for this flag, it just hit me. And, you know, it just got to me where I started crying and everything. That kind of cemented me with the flag. I can't see desecrating the flag. I just can't.
RAY MELVILLE, LATHER: When I first landed in Da Nang you recognize that there are bodies in bags lined up being sent home.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: When they would come home, there was never a welcoming for troops. The people here. A working-class guy took offense to that.
RAY MELVILLE, LATHER: We were told don’t wear your uniform when you go on leave, just try to avoid any confrontation with anybody.
DAVID FRIEDMAN, PROTESTOR: What Vietnam veterans need is a good parade. They were heroes, really. They were--I mean, it wasn't like World War II where you were fighting, and the people you were fighting for were, like, you know, throwing roses and flowers at you.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
May 8, 1945
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: New York City, on May 8, 1945, celebrates V-E Day, the end of the war in Europe, victory over the Nazis. On Friday, May 8, 1970, 25 years later, V-E Day is scarcely remembered.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1970
“BLOODY FRIDAY”
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: My best recollection of May 8th was the usual routine, coming out onto the street, but you could hear a lot of activity at 7-- it was too much for 7 o'clock in the morning. We were all aware that protests were going to happen.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: That morning, John Lindsay began his day playing tennis uptown. He is planning to attend an anti-war rally at Foley Square, which is within blocks of City Hall.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: Word came by word of mouth that there's going to be a demonstration, down in Lower Manhattan.
JAMES VERMUELEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: We were assigned to come in early to the precinct, and we were told we're going down to Wall Street.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: After we left our job sites, we got on the train with a lot of my fellow workers, and we saw other tradesmen getting on the train.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: There was hundreds and hundreds of construction workers at different locations, so everybody that you’d seen was in line with that, they were energized by it.
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REPORTER: You’re setting up these field hospitals around wherever there’s–
RED CROSS MEMBER: That’s right.
REPORTER: You think trouble might occur.
RED CROSS MEMBER: That’s right.
PROTESTORS: Peace now! Peace now! Peace now!
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: It was really crowded. The place was full. The entire square was full. We were in a crowd of protestors, and then beyond them was a crowd of Wall Street investment people, stockbrokers or accountants.
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WORKING MAN: It’s ok for you to yell, but I can’t, right? Because I’m for America. I love America! I do. I do. I love America.
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: I was assigned at the bottom of the steps on the Federal Building, but there was no violence going on. Nobody was attacking the police. We were sort of a perimeter to keep them where they were and to keep them in place.
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PROTESTERS: When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!
DAVID FRIEDMAN, STUDENT: I knew that there was going to be a demonstration of protestors in downtown Manhattan. I sort of fancied myself as a documentary filmmaker, so I had brought my Super 8mm camera along, and I was going to film some of it. They were displaying the Viet Cong flag, which, you know, I certainly personally did not agree with, but there it was. And I heard in the distance, I heard chants of, "USA! USA!" And then these hardhat workers, they were marching. It was like a march. It was like a parade. They were marching on the street.
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: As they approached closer, we saw two streets also having large groups of people walking towards us, very large people, wearing construction helmets.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: So I said, "Oh, this is interesting." So we turned the camera on them, and I'm thinking, "Oh, this is, you know, this is good footage." Because they were like spoiling for a fight.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: And then one thing, push comes to shove, words started back and forth. They would call them baby killers, and that's when it started getting a little rowdy.
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PROTESTERS: One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fuckin war! One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fuckin war!
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: You know what’s coming. You know there’s gonna be a fight. You know what’s on their mind. Maybe it’s not on their mind to beat people to death, but what’s on their mind is coming in and taking some swipes at people and they’re going to have a fight that day.
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PROTESTERS: One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fuckin war! One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fuckin war!
DAN ROSSI, SHEET METAL WORKER: On May 8th, I was broke. But you can go and get a part of your pay downtown. There was a disbursement center for the military guys on leave. When I got out of the train, I walked right into the middle of this thing. I didn't know anything about demonstrations. I didn't know anything about any of this stuff. All I wanted to do was go try and get a few dollars so I could last the last week. You knew these kids were going to get hurt. So I wasn't sure if I wanted to help the kids get hurt or if I was on the side of the construction workers. Until I saw them disparaging the flag, that drew the line with me. I’m a marine and you take that flag and throw it on the floor and step on it, you just made it personal. They’re stepping on the bodies of the men that fought, that died in Vietnam next to me.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: At that moment, this one man in a suit, who looks like a man of the establishment, ascends to the statue
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: And what he wanted to do was tear up the flag, spit on the flag, spit on them, really making them crazy. And I’m seeing two other guys. I’m shouting, “Watch out!” Bang! Smashes him in the side of his head, and he goes down. He goes down, he falls down. Now let's kick him. Now let's, you know– I thought he was dead.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: And all of a sudden, boom, everybody's swinging. I could fight, believe me. If you get hit by a construction worker, you're going to know it compared to being a college student, put it that way. I felt they had a beating coming.
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FRIEDMAN: Yeah, I was just standing there and like they were having that march, the construction workers and yeah I was just watching. I was giving them the "V," and they were giving me the finger. I was just standing there, and all of a sudden, wham!
DAVID FRIEDMAN, STUDENT: I felt something slam into my face. I was on the ground.
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FRIEDMAN: And all of a sudden like about four or five guys were kicking me around.
HARDHATS: Hey hey what do you say? Let's support the USA! Hey hey what do you say? Let's support the USA!
DAVID FRIEDMAN, STUDENT: I was helped up. I think I was probably in a state of shock.
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HARDHATS: We took the steps! We took the steps!
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HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: Jesus! Shit!
HARDHAT: What’s your problem with this camera? You stop taking pictures. Right now! You hear me?
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: We stopped!
HARDHAT: You stop it.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: Stop!
HARDHAT: Ahh fucking traitor!
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HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: We were filming construction workers and we were filming them on the sidewalk and we thought that it was going to be safe, but it turned out not to be, and then they put me down on the ground and kicked me.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: And they kicked me at some point at the base of my spine, and from there it wasn’t a conversation.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: One takeaway is clear: too many police did too little.
JAMES VERMEULEN, NYC POLICE OFFICER: I never saw that. There weren't that many arrests that day. Well, what are you going to do when you handcuff a guy and everybody else is pushing you and oh you gonna let them? You can't, but when you can, you do.
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REPORTER: The construction men left Wall Street and headed uptown.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: The riot starts spreading, and there's this sudden new alliance.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: You had people marching with the construction workers who were like office workers-- you had service workers.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: I was in the middle of the pack. The adrenaline was rushing. I was part of a mob. We were in something big.
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POLICE OFFICER 1: Uhh, there's a large group of construction workers in the vicinity of Wall Street. Alert the unit at City Hall, okay?"
POLICE OFFICER 2: Respond down at City Hall. They may need a STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXONhorn at this time, ok.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Mayor Lindsay is not at City Hall as the riot escalates. John Lindsay was at an anti-war rally at Foley Square, within blocks from City Hall. And instead of going into the storm he retreats uptown to Gracie Mansion. In City Hall, the man in charge is the deputy mayor, Dick Aurelio, and he is the man who has to deal with this in John Lindsay's absence.
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HARDHATS: Raise the flag! Raise the flag!
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: That flag atop City Hall has been lowered in honor of Kent State.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: With the heat of what was going on, to lower the flag, I mean, that was crazy. It only provoked it more.
NANCY SEIFER, HEAD OF THE MAYOR’S OFFICE OF ETHNIC AFFAIRS: I was inside City Hall. The hardhats were really angry. At that time everything that Lindsay stood for and City Hall stood for was anathema to them.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: Everybody was pissed off when you really get down to it, all right? You're enraged. That’s when the police more or less held everybody back. And then someone said, "You might as well raise the flag 'cause this is getting out of hand."
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Eventually, Dick Aurelio, the deputy mayor, decides to raise the flag to calm down the mob outside. So someone goes on the roof of City Hall and raises the flag.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Then a young mayoral aide named Sid Davidoff is coming towards City Hall.
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: Huge crowd in the parking lot of City Hall, construction workers cheering. It’s Kumbaya, everybody's happy, the cops are with them.
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY: There's a guy on the roof of City Hall, and he's putting the flag back to full staff. Now, I went nuts. I ran across the street, got into the back of City Hall, and get up there, and we find it's the postman. Literally, I threw him down the stairs– There’s a ladder there, that I threw him down that hole. Hope he wasn't injured– and I then put the flag back to half-mast. I went to the edge of the roof, and I gave the peace sign.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Of course, that peace sign in this moment is gasoline on a fire.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: Everybody at the scene was upset and then one thing led to another and it started being a riot.
SID DAVIDOFF, AIDE TO MAYOR LINDSAY:: A whole different picture than was there 5 minutes ago before I did what I did.
JAMES LAPHAM, ELECTRICIAN: They almost stormed City Hall.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Dick Aurelio again does the hard decision and orders the flag again raised because they couldn't control it. As the flag is raised again, there's this college across the roadway called Pace.
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: As the day progressed, from my vantage point– it was going from one class to the other to the other– someone informed us that people should be aware and should be, you know, worried for their security. We were in lab, we had to finish what we were doing. You know, you’re not going to walk away with reagents boiling.
MICHAEL BELKNAP, ATTORNEY: I could hear noise all morning, so I decided at lunchtime. I would go out and just check it out. On the Pace building was a bed sheet with an anti-war slogan.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: And across from City Hall at Pace, a group of students start chanting against the war.
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PROTESTERS: One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fucking war!
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: And then at some point, it just broke loose. It just went crazy.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: At City Hall, about 50 to 75 construction workers turn towards Pace and charge across the roadway.
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: We started hearing students screaming and yelling in the hallways outside of the labs. We decided to do the only thing we could figure out to do, which was, you know, lock ourselves in the lab.
MICHAEL BELKNAP, ATTORNEY: A bunch of construction workers attacked the students. I saw one of the students knocked on the ground and was being hit and kicked. And so I went over and said, "Stop, he's hurt!" And that's the last thing I remember. I'd been knocked unconscious. Some point later, seconds, minutes, two medics were kneeled over me, treating me. They said, "We've got to get you out of here." They helped me up, and at that point, I felt incredible fear. That sense that I could die.
DAVID SEDERHOLT, STUDENT: And you hear the heavy clang of either a hammer or those big wire cutters that most of those guys carried. It was pretty terrifying stuff. At Pace we were working class kids, you’re confused because it’s almost like getting beaten up by your big brother.
MICHAEL BELKNAP, ATTORNEY: I could have been killed, and the police did nothing.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: The police didn't jump in because they were probably on the side of the construction workers.
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HARDHATS: Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!
HARDHAT:
We got the flag where we wanted. We proved we’re all Americans.
HARDHATS:
Hooray!
HARDHAT:
Let’s go pick up our paychecks and get drunk!
TEXT ON SCREEN:
LATER THAT NIGHT
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: The night after the Hardhat Riot, it's Game 7 of the Knicks-Lakers, and as a Sports Illustrated writer later put it “if there is harmony left in New York City, it was invested in the Knicks.”
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SPORTS CROWD: Three, two one!
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INTERVIEWER: Mr. President, I wonder if you would give us your view of the state of the American society and where it's heading.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
May 8, 1970
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: That very night, people are getting together to go to Washington.
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NIXON: The very fact that the President of the United States asked the district commissioners to waive their rule for 30 days' notice for a demonstration, when you have that kind of safety valve, you're not going to have revolution, which comes from repression.
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: I don't think it was ever apprehensive that the country was going to go under, but we were pretty close to revolution. We were very, very close.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1970
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: On this very night, sleepless and tormented, Richard Nixon gets this idea of going to the Lincoln Memorial, sending the Secret Service into a panic.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: He had gone out, like, dawnish to the Lincoln Memorial, and there it is, Nixon talks to his protesters. He was seriously approaching these people and saying, "I want to know." But on the other hand, that's what I wanted to do myself.
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: It was a typical Richard Nixon move to surprise the heck out of the world by going out and meeting the demonstrators, probably 99% of whom would like to beat him up.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
May 9, 1970
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REPORTER: President Nixon heard today the voice of the campus in a massive appeal for peace now. Thousands strong and mostly young, protesters against the Indochina War rallied in Washington Ellipse within sight and sound of the White House.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: There was tens of thousands, probably 100,000 people who had gathered to protest. The entire White House was surrounded with buses. There was energy. All this stuff that was like, strong and powerful and real.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
Street Scenes
1970
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: We went back to the hotel, we had the conversation that you've seen in Street Scenes. Scorsese was there.
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NYU STUDENT 1: What's this strike all about and where the hell are we going and how long is it going to last? What do you think?
NYU STUDENT 2: Well, look, it don't look like it's going to hold together much longer.
MARTIN SCORSESE: You think it's going to fold up in three days, right?
NYU STUDENT 2: Do you honestly think that by cornering 40-year-old people, that you're really going to get them to walk out of the insurance office?
HARVEY KEITEL: Do you think you're going to get them to walk out by saying, "Hey, you fucking dumb construction worker, you fucking goon." The same way Mr. Nixon and his crew, his advisors, can't relate to us and what we feel. The same way we're missing something here and feeling what these people who don't agree with us are like.
NYU STUDENT 5: What we're doing is we're making the construction workers our enemy instead of directing the enemy, you know, who the real enemy is, we're making the construction workers our enemy.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: I just felt so completely like that energy that was there when we went into Washington. That souffle had fallen. It was a familiar feeling of powerlessness.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: After the riot, local CBS sent out people to say, "Who can we talk to who was there?"
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JOSEPH STERN, Glazier: One illegal act does not condone another illegal act but for every action there is a reaction. We were the reaction.
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: I’m telling you buildings are burned and that is bad, people are stomped and that is bad–
JOSEPH STERN: Why do these things?
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: Why do you stop me?
JOSEPH STERN: Why shouldn’t I stop you?
HARRY BOLLES, STUDENT: Why shouldn't I burn my building, damn it?
JOSEPH STERN: It’s my building, I paid for it. We're fed up with the attitude that they can do whatever they want or please. And we bust your heads and we’re actually chastising you in our own way, we’re showing you that you can’t do these things.
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REPORTER: The construction workers march from Wall Street to New York City Hall, there were bloody fights all along the way and at City Hall Plaza.
MICHAEL BALZANO, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: We watched that riot, and I thought what we were looking at was the beginning of a class struggle between, let's call them a university elite, and the working class.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Day in and day out, for the next few weeks, thousands of construction workers demonstrate daily.
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HARDHAT: You come off a job, going to lunch, they call you nothing but a low-life so and so. This provokes it, this starts it.
HARDHAT: Now, I never got a chance to go to college. These guys have a chance and they’re out striking 90% of the time.
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CROWD: USA all the way! USA all the way!
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RICHARD NIXON: I was virtually alone and then one day a very exciting thing happened. The hardhats marched in New York City.
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: A man by the name of Chuck Colson joined the White House staff. I guess a couple of weeks after the so-called hardhat riot, I wrote a memo to Chuck. And I started out by saying words to the effect of, "Great job organizing that activity up there with the construction workers." But I was only kidding him. And then I went on to say, "This may be an opportunity."
TEXT ON SCREEN: "The key is to broaden the base of participation that will cut completely across racial and economic lines ..."
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: Because these really are really our people. And these are the president's people.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
May 12, 1970
Graphic on screen: "The key is to broaden the base of participation that will cut completely across racial and economic lines ..."
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HARDHATS: USA all the way! USA all the way!
RAY MELVILLE, LATHER: Peter Brennan became the city and state president of the building trades. And he was a strong supporter of the labor movements and the veterans within it.
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HARDHATS: Impeach Mayor Lindsay! Impeach Mayor Lindsay!
JOSHUA FREEMAN, HISTORIAN: Very quickly, Peter Brennan stepped in and effectively endorsed the idea that construction workers and blue-collar workers should mobilize in defense of the government against these anti-war protesters.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
“WORKERS’ WOODSTOCK”
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: Just like they had a rally with thousands of people, we had a rally with 150,000 people.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
May 20, 1970
JAMES LAPHAM, ELECTRICIAN: Every trade was down there. It was the biggest demonstration you'll ever see.
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Reporter: They were for the most part bricklayers and ironworkers, printers and plumbers, longshoremen and steamfitters, many of them veterans.
RAY MELVILLE, LATHER: What a beautiful thing is happening here. Flags all around and New York City coming up to an area to say thank you to the men and women in the Vietnam era that nobody ever said thank you to them.
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PETER BRENNAN: Because we take what they call a rag and look at it. This symbol, this flag, if you read the history of our country, is more than just a piece of cloth. Men died for it. The men who made our country here.
RAY MELVILLE, LATHER: That day was a very important part of my life. Very important part of my life. And I always think of Pete Brennan, who was a Democrat, putting that together.
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REPORTER: At least two points were made today. That supporters of U.S. foreign policy could organize a mass demonstration and that the term “silent majority” is rapidly being lost in the dim of the counter protest.
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HARDHAT: It’s the best thing that happened to this country. Everybody gets together to stand behind the president.
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: This is what the Republican Party really ought to be. We should no longer just be kind of the elite group of business-oriented political people.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: That was a great feeling. It’s like the common worker is being respected. You made the headlines that day.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
May 26, 1970
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REPORTER: Several leaders of the construction workers union talked to the President today and said they would continue their street demonstrations in support of him and the war.
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: I think the president really enjoyed that. I think it was one of his best days.
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REPORTER: They presented the president a hardhat, which has become a symbol of both violent and peaceful acts by construction men in New York. Mr. Nixon told the 22 union leaders that peaceful support to him was very meaningful.
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: The other people in the White House might have opposed this, have been shocked by this. But I know that people like Chuck Colson and myself thought this was really neat. And maybe that was the beginning of a change in the Republican Party.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Richard Nixon will seize the breach and shift the Republican party from blue bloods to blue collars.
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NIXON: I know from the experience over the past three years that when the chips are down, organized labor is for America. And that's why I'm here before this convention today.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: When I was a kid, it was pretty commonly known the Democratic Party supported labor, supported the working man, whether he was union or not. Supported social programs and little by little over the years, in my opinion, they drifted away from that.
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: There was a meeting of people like Haldeman and Buchanan and Chuck Colson and the president talking about kind of a blue-collar strategy. Some of the quotes from Nixon were things like, "The construction workers are the people with guts."
MICHAEL BALZANO, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: And Nixon said, "We don't have anybody on this staff whose working class background would indicate that he can at least talk to them." Well, it's never going to be a Republican.” ”Well, I don't care!" Two or three days later, an article appeared about a former garbage man who got a doctor's degree from Georgetown. They wrote me a letter and said, "Nixon wants you to work in this White House and we want you to be the working class liaison with the country." When I first met Richard Nixon, I said, "Look, I voted against you twice." And he said, "Well, you didn't know me. I don't want people to change parties. I want them to support me because of the policies that I'm pursuing."
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: As the 1972 election gets underway, Richard Nixon does not know who he's going to face.
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REPORTER: The great political conventions of 1972 were both held in Miami Beach this year.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: The 1972 democratic delegates were diverse by race, they were diverse by sex, but they were not diverse by class. And on the new left there is a shift also going on from social class to social identity.
JAMES LAPHAM, ELECTRICIAN: You know, the working man sees the Democrat Party as an elite party and giving up the average worker.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: An AFL-CIO leader looks around the convention, a political leader, and says “we’re not going to be taken over by these Harvard and Berkeley camelots, but of course they can’t stop them.
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GEORGE McGOVERN, Democratic Nominee: I accept your nomination with a full and grateful heart.
STEPHEN BULL, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: In 1972, when George McGovern was nominated, the Nixon machine was getting pretty well oiled by then.
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RICHARD NIXON: I again proudly accept your nomination for the president of the United States.
DAVID FRIEDMAN, STUDENT: And then you know the phrase was “peace with honor.” And the war continued. And American lives were lost. Not to mention all the people who lost their limbs. I guess it still upsets me.
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58,220 American GIS were killed in the Vietnam War.
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GEORGE McGOVERN, Democratic Nominee: We’re going to have to think about this war that Nixon has continued another four years, probably continue another four if he gets elected.
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RICHARD NIXON: The question you see is not ending a war, the question is ending a war in a way that you discourage those who will start another war and therefore have a generation of peace for America and that is what we’ll do.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: We felt he did the right thing, all right? Supporting the troops, supporting the construction trades all over the United States.
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PETER BRENNAN, Labor Leader: Republicans can be friends to labor, Republicans can do the right thing for labor. And although most of the people here, including myself, have been registered Democrats all our life, we find that we support the candidate as a man and what he will do for labor rather than party labels.
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RICHARD NIXON: I believe in the American dream because we’ve seen it come true in our own lives.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Richard Nixon would ultimately write a culturally populist playbook that would guide Republican candidates for more than a half century after.
WILLIAM ABBATE, STEAMFITTER: I ended up voting for Nixon. It's just a sense at the time that things were turning.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Richard Nixon would win a landslide equal to FDR and he would do that with FDR’s working man.
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RICHARD NIXON: I've never known a national election when I would be able to go to bed earlier than tonight.
MICHAEL BALZANO, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: Nixon was committed to building a new majority by appointing Democrats to high-ranking positions.
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PRESS SECRETARY: President Nixon has asked me to announce today his intention to nominate Peter Brennan for the cabinet position of Secretary of Labor.
MICHAEL BALZANO, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: People in the White House screamed about Peter Brennan because of his "Dees dem and doze it, he carried a gun." I mean, yeah, this is what the president wants.
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PETER BRENNAN: We have different men in the cabinet. We have a lot of snobs on the cabinet. Well I don’t intend to get uptight. I’m as damn good as anybody on this cabinet or any other cabinet.
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RICHARD NIXON: Pete Brennan never sells out on anything. He fights for what he believes all the way down the line.
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REPORTER: Brennan’s appointment is part of President Nixon’s strategy to make union members who voted Republican in the last election a permanent part of a new Republican majority, but Brennan’s views on many labor issues conflict with those of the administration and will make cooperation difficult.
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PETER BRENNAN: We're here as Americans. We're here even though we disagree with many things that may be said by others. We're the fellows who build this country. We're the fellows who build the hospitals when they need them when they're sick. We build the bridges and tunnels for them to get around in. We build the schools that they want to burn down. And we also build all of the other things in this country.
JOSHUA FREEMAN, HISTORIAN: You know, at the time of the Hardhat Riots, construction was one of the most heavily unionized industries in the entire United States and also in New York City. It was a bastion of labor unionism. What no one realized at the time was that it was on the edge of a cliff.
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Spring 1973
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: The World Trade Center rises as New York City is sinking. And at the core of that decline is blue-collar New York.
DENNIS DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: The '70s were kind of bad, you know, for construction. We had 1,300 members and only 650 were working. You didn't even do construction. I mean, I did other things to support my family.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: Construction workers would never earn again what they earned in 1973. And the average working man would 45 years later also not be earning more.
GARY LABARBERA, PRESIDENT, NYC BUILDING & CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL: Wages did not rise with the explosion of corporate wealth. Corporate America has been trying to destroy us since the beginning of things.
DENNIS MILTON, IRONWORKER: Only elites have all the money, and they don't want to share it with nobody. It’s not going to be good for the working class today.
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HARDHAT: After this job is over, maybe 15 years from now, I'll bring my children back here, my three sons, and I'll show them what we built here.
JOSHUA FREEMAN, HISTORIAN: The United States conceived of a new kind of world economy. And the World Trade Center ended up being the manifestation of the command and finance center of a new American century. You know, this is gonna be the world’s tallest building.
DAVID PAUL KUHN, AUTHOR, THE HARDHAT RIOT: The World Trade Center, which in its name becomes an icon of free trade, is built by the very class of people that will in time be decimated by globalization and free trade. These men built an America that will leave them behind.
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HARDHATS: USA all the way! USA all the way! USA all the way!
MICHAEL BALZANO, AIDE TO PRESIDENT NIXON: But see, this is what Nixon saw. They were performing a function that was essential to the survival of a society. They wrapped themselves in that flag because that flag was the whole history of their country wrapped up. It's a different culture. And the culture is you defend the things you love.
