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AMNA: GOOD EVENING.
AMNA NAWAZ. AWAY.
THE ER
S THE NG A CRIME
DATA SHOWING A THIS ROLE
TARGETS AND KILL
S IN GAZA
AS COUNTRIES PLAN
TO RECOGNIZE
THE PALESTINIAN STATE.
HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
RD-LINE ADMINISTRATION
--
AFFECTING
NURSING HOMES ACROSS UNTRY.
>> IF THE
IMMIGRANTS NOW FILLING E JOBS GO
AWAY ,
THEY JUST
♪
>
MAJOR FUNDING FOR THE PBS WS
HOUR , THEY JUST WON''T BE
ED. ND
INCLUDING LEONARD AND NORMA KLORFINE.
♪
MOVING
OUR ECONOMY FOR 160
BNSF
, THE
ENGINE THAT CONNECTS
THE FORD FOUNDATION, ON THE
NES OF SOCIAL CHANGE. AND
WITH THE ONGOING
SUPPORT OF
♪
THIS
PROGRAM WAS MADE POSSIBLE THE
CONTRIBUTIONS YOUR PBS
STATION BY
VIEWERS LIKE YOU. .
AMNA: WELCOME TO THE NEWS HOUR. PRESIDENT TRUMP ANNOUNCED TODAY
AND A ONAL GUARD
IME. BUT
RITIES AY HE IS
WRONG TO SAY CRIME HAS SPIRALED OUT OF CONTROL.
THIS IS LIBERATION DAY IN D.C.
AND WE ARE GOING
TO TAKE
A RENEWED PROMISE FROM THE PRESIDENT
TO TACKLE
WHAT HE SAYS
IS A CRIME AND HOMELESSNESS
OBLEM. OUR CAPITAL
CITY HAS
BEEN OVER
BY VIOLENT GANGS AND
T MANIACS AND HOMELESS
. THE PRESIDENT DECLARED A
BLIC SAFETY EMERGENCY
, HIS ATTORNEY GENERAL
AKE CONTROL OF THE SEAS CE
FORCE AND THREATENING THE
CTIVE-DUTY TROOPS. YOU ARE
GOING TO HAVE A LOT
MILITARY AND WE
WILL BRING IN
THE MILITARY IF
IT
TODAY''S ACTIONS MARKED A MAJOR
ESCALATION
OF A FEDERAL
. OVER THE
WEEKEND, MORE THAN 100 TS PATROLLED D.C. STREETS.
HEIGHTENED PRESENCE THAT THE D.C. MAYOR SAYS WAS WHOLLY
NECESSARY. ON IS
DENTED, I N SOME OF THE
HE PAST THAT WE ARE SURPRISED.
WHEN WE THINK
OF EMERGENCIES
OLVES SURGES IN >>
DESPITE THE
PRESIDENT''S
VIOLENT CRIME IN D.C. HIT
IN 2024
AND VIOLENT
CRIME HAS
DROPPED 26%
ACCORDING TO D.C.
THE PREDATOR -- PRESIDENT HAS
STEPPED UP CALLS
SINCE IT FF OR WAS
K WHILE
TRYING ARJACKING.
[] CHANTING
IT IS NOT
THE FIRST TIME TRUMP
AUTHORITY DURING
HIS FIRST TERM,
HE MEN AND
ENFORCEMENT TO FORCIBLY R LARGELY PEACEFUL PROTESTS
THE POLICE KILLING OF GEORGEFLOYD.
Y THEY WILL BE PPORT OF LAW
TRUMP''S
L GUARD
THERE WAS AGAINST
UNLIKE
THERE, WASHINGTON IS A RAL DISTRICT.
[CHANTING] ON
D.C. STREETS
TODAY, PROTESTERS RAILED AGAINST THE
PRESIDENT''S ACTIONS. I''VE
TAKEN PLACE US UNDER RY
PATROL, THEY WILL
CARRY TO OTHER
CITIES. WE
ARE NOT GOING
TO LOSE OUR THIS AND THIS WILL
ER. AMNA:
FOR MORE OWN
OF THE
ON AND
UTURE OF D.C.,
I''M JOINED BY
A PROFESSOR LAW AT THE GEORGETOWN
SITY LAW CENTER. GOOD
TO SEE YOU.
THANKS FOR HAVING ME.
WHEN IT COMES TO THE PRESIDENT''S
LIGULA AUTHORITY, DIFFERENT.
ARE THE PRESIDENT''S ACTIONS
DAY LEGAL AND CAN HE DO IN HER CITIES WHAT HE IS DOING IN
D.C.?TO THE FIRST
NICALLY YES. NT ANSWER TO THE
ION IS ALMOST
THAN ANY PLACE IN THE
E WAY BACK
C. IN
1801,
INCLUDING THE TWO POWERS
UMP INVOKED TODAY. THE POWER
TO USE
THE D.C. HOUT FEDERAL
IT, THE POWER TO TAKE THE
POWER FOR 30 DAYS. WE HAVE NEVER
SEEN A PRESIDENT
USE THESE AUTHORITIES IN A
UAL DUBIOUS
CONTEXT. THESE
ARE D.C. SPECIFIC POWERS AT COULD NOT BE
USED FOR MOVES
IN NEW YORK,
LSE. WE KNOW
THERE IS A
LEGAL A ABOUT
THE PRESIDENT''S DEPLOYMENT OF
NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS THERE.
COULD HIS DEPLOYMENT IN D.C. BE
EGAL IT COULD, BUT I THINK THE
GAL ISSUES ARE DIFFERENT. CALIFORNIA, PRESIDENT TRUMP
REPORTED TO FEDERALIZE THE TIONAL GUARD.
ATE NATIONAL GUARD HEM INTO FEDERAL
T IN
LREADY THE OF THE D.C.
D.C.
IS THE ONLY PLACE IN THE COUNTRY
WHERE WE DON''T HAVE THE
QUESTION THAT HAS ARISEN IN CALIFORNIA,
THE VALIDITY OF A FEDERALIZATION.
THAT IS WHY FOLKS WERE SO CRITICAL
ABOUT NOT
USING THE D ON JANUARY
AMNA: PUT THE USE OF THIS
AUTHORITY INTO SOME BIGGER
R US.
>> THE FIRST IS THE USE OF
ONAL GUARD. WE HAVE SEEN THAT
BEFORE
PRESIDENT EARLIER
THIS TERM IN CALIFORNIA D IN D.C.
WHAT IS REALLY NOVEL IS THE USE OF THE D.C. POLICE
DEPARTMENT. THIS
PROVISION TO TAKE CONTROL THE METROPOLITAN POLICE
RTMENT WAS PUT IN
THE HOME IN 1973 BUT IT HAS
EN USED. WHAT
WE WILL NEED TO WATCH OUT FOR
IS HOW EXACTLY THE ITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT''S
DAY-TO-DAY WORK OVER THE NEXTDAYS AND WEEKS DIFFERENT FROM
WHAT IT WAS DOING OVER THE FIRST
I THINK THE REAL KEY IS FORFOLKS TO NOT GET DESENSITIZED TO
RADICALISM
OF USING AND MILITARY
IN ORDINARY LAW
CONTEXTS. IT MIGHT BE
LEGAL IN
THE HISTORICALLY UNCONSTITUTIONALLY
UNIQUE CONTEXT OF WASHINGTON,D.C.
IT DOESN''T MAKE
IT RIGHT AND IT
WOULD BE A VERY DANGEROUS PREC
EDENT IF YOU
START TO SEE
TO BUILD ON THAT IN
HE COUNTRY. HOW
DO YOU
SEE THIS
COULD IT BE EXTENDED BEYOND 30 DAYS?
> THE STATUTE IS A LITTLE BIT AMBIGUOUS.
EMPLATE THAT THE PIRES.
TRY TO ENCY TO
AT
E LL BE
THE THESE
POLITICALLY, BUT LEGALLY AS
WELL ONLY
TO THE
UNIQUE PROBLEMS RISE IN THE NATION''S
PITAL. THANK YOU.
♪
MNA: WE START THE
DAY''S OTHER HEADLINES WITH
THE WAR IN
PRESIDENT TRUMP SAYS HE IS
O DISCUSS
UKRAINE''S RS WITH
PUTIN WHEN THE TWO MEET IN
ALASKA FRIDAY.
TRUMP CALLED IT A FEEL OUT MEETING
DURING WHICH HE WILL AND PUTIN
-- BURGE PUTIN TO END THE WAR
BUT NOT WITHOUT CONCESSIONS
OTH SIDES.
THERE WILL BE SOME LAND SWAPPING
GOING ON.
FOR THE GOOD OF UKRAINE. STUFF, NOT BAD STUFF.
OME BAD STUFF FOR BOTH. : THE ODDS OF RUSSIA
SHING UKRAINIAN LAND IT ADY CONTROLS HER LOW AND
E IS MOUNTING FEAR THAT THE U.S. WILL
AGREE TO LAND SWAPS
FAVOR RUSSIA WITHOUT
EEING. PRESIDENT
ZELENSKYY SAID PUTIN IS REDEPLOYING
FORCES THAT
POINTS TO NEW MILITARY ATION.
CHANCELLOR INVITED
D OTHER
KEY MEET ABOUT FURTHER
FOR ACTION
TO PUT
HERE AT
HOME , A
FEDERAL JUDGE
IN YORK REJECTED A
REQUEST TO Y
RECORDS FROM
MAXWELL SEX
THEY
SAID THEY COULD REVEAL
NEW INFORMATION
ABOUT CRIMES MAXWELL TED WITH JEFFREY EPSTEIN.
THE JUDGE CALLED THAT IDEA
NSTRABLY FALSE,
ADDING THE
DOJ''S REQUEST TO RELEASE THEM IS
AN ATTEMPT
TO CREATE AN ILLUSION
PARENCY. MAXWELL
IS SERVING A 20 YEAR
FOR HELPING
EPSTEIN
SHE RECENTLY APPEALED HER CASE TO THE SUPREME COURT.
FFICIALS IN PENNSYLVANIA SAY ONE PERSON IS CONFIRMED DEAD
AFTER AN EXPLOSION AT A U.S. STEEL PLANT.
NEARBY HOSPITALS ONE PERSON IS
THE TIME LAPSE VIDEO SHOWS THE
OFFICIALS
SAY IT HAPPENED AROUND
THIS MORNING. THE PLANT
IS ONE OF FOUR
MAJOR HE
STATE HOUSAND
THE COMPANY''S CEO
SAYS IT IS WORKING WITH
AUTHORITIES TO WHAT
CAUSED THE
WE HAVE A FOLLOW-UP ON LAST WEEK''S
SHOOTING AT
THE CDC
AN THE
ACCORDING TO INFORMATION
AGENCY,
THE FIRED 180 SHOTS
TTACK ON THE
LAST
FRIDAY AND BROKE ABOUT 150 WINDOWS,
INCLUDING BLAST WINDOWS,
LEAVING GLASS FLOORS OF SOME
AUTHORITIES HAVE
NOT YET SAID
WHETHER HE
TOOK HIS OWN
LIFE OR E.
PARTS OF WISCONSIN ARE
STARTING NPRECEDENTED
RAIN BROUGHT
FLOODING THIS THE
STORMS SET IN OFFICIAL STATE
RECORDS. POURING
MORE THAN 14
INCHES OVER THAN 24 HOURS IN THE
KEE AREA. MOTORISTS ABANDONED THEIR
HICLES DURING THE MAJOR LEAGUE BALLPARK IN THE FLOODWATERS
CANCELED THE FINAL DAY OF THESTATE FAIR.
ORNING, NEARLY 3000 RE STILL WITHOUT POWER
FATALITIES HAVE BEEN ED SO FAR.
ONIGHT DO NOT E NEARLY AS BAD.
UMP SIGNED AN R TO EXTEND A
ITH CHINA ANOTHER
THE ORDER WAS SIGNED HOURS
RE MIDNIGHT
WHEN THE HIGHER ET TO TAKE EFFECT.
IT KEEPS
U.S. TARIFFS ON CHINA
LOW AT 30%
COMPARED 145%
AFTER THE DEAL EXPIRES CHINESE
TARIFFS ON U.S.
SET TO GO UP
TO 125%.
TODAY''S MOVE
WAS LARGELY
ALKS BETWEEN
THE TWO SIDES LAST MONTH IN
NVIDIA AND
AMD HAVE
AGREED TO
15% OF THEIR REVENUE FROM INA WITH THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.
THAT IS ACCORDING TO ARNMENT OFFICIAL WHO
D DETAILS FIRST REPORTED HE FINANCIAL TIMES.
ANIES AGREED TO THE ENTED TERMS TO OBTAIN
LICENSES TO RESUME SALES CHINA.
HALTED SALES DUE
NS. ON WALL
STREET, STOCKS ENDED
LOWER AHEAD OF TOMORROW''S HIGHLY
ANTICIPATED AND NATION REPORT.
THE DOW SLIPPED 200 POINTS.
THE NASDAQ FELL MORE THAN 60.
THE S&P ALSO ENDED LOWER. AOL
IS FINALLY PULLING THE PLUG ON
ITS DIAL-UP INTERNET SERVICE.
[DIAL-UP SOUNDS]
YES, DIAL-UP STILL EXISTS.
THOSE ICONIC BEEPS, STATIC
BOUNDS, AND SCREE
CHES WERE THE WAY
PEOPLE ACCESS THE
INTERNET
IN THE 1990''S.
ONLINE IS
AS COMMON AS MAKING
A PHONE CALL FOR MANY
S. COMPANIES LIKE
AOL ACT MUCH LIKE COMPANIESL, PROVIDING
NNECTION INTO CYBERSPACE. NA: BY THE EARLY 2000S,
-SPEED LINES REPLACE E LINES.
E UP ABOUT S.
ILL UED
STILL TO
COME, A TEXAS MAKER DISCUSSES
PARTY''S ATTEMPTS TO REDRAW
IONAL DISTRICTS. TAMARA AND
AMY BREAK DOWN THE
ICAL HEADLINES. ♪
>>
THIS IS THE PBS NEWS HOUR FROM
THE DAVID AND RUBENSTEIN UDIO AT
WETA IN WASHINGTON
AND LTER
JOURNALISM AT UNIVERSITY.
AMNA: PALESTINIANS IN GAZA TODAY
BURIED FIVE STAFFERS
FROM THE
ARAB NETWORK AL JAZEERA TARGETED
OUTSIDE A HOSPITAL BY ISRAEL.
IT ALSO REPORTED SOME
OF THE
MENT IN HEALTH
AUTHORITIES REPORTED 34
AELI PRIME NETANYAHU
CONTINUED TO
TO OCCUPY
T CITY, GAZA CITY. , THE STORY SO OFTEN
H TODAY. THOSE WHO
STORYTELLERS FELL
SILENT .
JAZEERA , THEY MOURNED
STS. THERE
IS A FIERCE PRIDE AND
BROTHERHOOD AMONG GAZA''S JOURNALISTS.
AND TODAY
, THEY PRAYED OVER THE
CONSIDERED A
MENTOR AND SHARED THEIR STORIES.
AL SHARIF
WAS A WELL-KNOWN
O BEGIN REPORTING
FOR AL JAZEERA
AFTER THE
WAR BEGAN.
IN GAZA HE WAS
LACK OF FOOD
DESCRIBING OF A WOMAN
COLLAPSED WITH HUNGER
BROKE ADCAST.
A MISSILE
FIRED BY AN
ISRAELI D FOUR OTHER
JOURNALISTS IN A TENT THEY WERE
IN
OUTSIDE. >
WE DID NOT ONLY LOSE
S HARIF,
LOST THE VOICE OF JOURNALISM,
RE
LITARY AND RANSLATED
ENTS AND PROOF.
AL JAZEERA CALLED THEM
FABRICATED AS PART
OF A
CAMPAIGN AN JOURNALISTS
THE
COMMITTEE TO PROTECT LIST MIDDLE
EAST REGIONAL
>> TO US IT
IS PLAIN AND SIMPLE,
A MURDER.
THEY TARGETED
HIM AND HIS HEY KILLED THEM.
OR US, THIS IS A WAR CRIME
. >>
THEY SAY
WHY HUNDRED 92 HAVE BEEN KILLED
OBER 7
ATTACKS, MAKING DEADLIEST
WAR FOR JOURNALISTS
IN HISTORY. >>
THEY ARE THE ONLY JOURNALISTS ABLE TO REPORT ON WHAT IS
HAPPENING. ATIONAL MEDIA
T
BY KILLING THEM, ISRAEL IS NDING A CLEAR MESSAGE THAT
EY WANT TO HIDE THE TRUTH. GAZA WILL BE
DEMILITARIZED. ISRAEL WILL HAVE OVERRIDING
SECURITY RESPONSIBILITIES. ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER
NETANYAHU DEFENDED HIS PLANS TO
PY GAZA CITY
A ND THE
CAMP RIBED AS A
WE NEED A
DEAL, I DEAL TO END
NETANYAHU PUSHED THAT PLAN
THE
OBJECTIONS OF HOSTAGE
AND WHAT FORMER ICIALS
DESCRIBED TO AS
RESISTANCE FROM GENERAL
STAFF, WHO
CONTROL OF LY AFTER A
PAUSE ED BREAK.
GIVEN HAMAS''
REFUSAL TO
LAY CHOICE
JOB AND COMPLETE THE
HAMAS. U.S. AND ISRAELI
OFFICIALS
ALSO SAY ISRAEL
AND HAMAS WILL
RE NEGOTIATIONS. UNTIL THEN, THE
WAR TAKES ITS OLL INCLUDING ONE
LLEST VICTIMS, A BOY. AHMED CRIED OVER HIS
ER''S BODY, FILMED BY A JOURNALIST SHARING AND LIVING
THE REALITY OF THE WAR.R THE PBS NEWS HOUR, I''M NICK
SCHIFRIN.
AMNA: TEXAS
GOVERNOR GREG ABBOTT
EXTEND HIS
STANDOFF WITH REPUBLIC --
WITH DEMOCRATIC
>>
TEXAS STATE HOUSE IS
STUCK IN MATE.
THE REPUBLICAN EFFORT BEING
IDENT TRUMP AND ABBOTT,
WHO CALLED THE SION.
ON THE
AGENDA, FLOOD RELIEF, BUT
EW ELECTORAL MAP
THAT COULD YIELD
REPUBLICANS UP TIONAL CONGRESSIONAL
DEMOCRATS CRIED
FOUL WHEN THEY O RUN OUT THE CLOCK
NG OUT OF TEXAS. OW IS STATE REP CARL
HO SITS ON THE COMMITTEE AND HELP
ROPOSED MAP. H FOR JOINING
W
OU X
OF THE
SPECIAL SESSION WAS ABOUT DISTRICTING.
YOU SAID
"THE TRUMP ANTS TO SEE
IF WE
CAN SQUEEZE
OUT TWO, MAYBE
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS,
ICTS IN TEXAS. THAT
SEEMS LIKE
A PRETTY HONEST N, IS THAT
RIGHT? >>
TRUMP CHALLENGED US
TO FIND
L SEATS M.
I THINK WE SHOULD HAVE
DONE IT
M GLAD HE''S GET
HERE .
>> DEMOCRAT STATES HAVE
ALSO
CONGRESSIONAL
MAPS AND THEIR
ADVANTAGE, ILLINOIS, NEW YORK,
IFORNIA. WOULDN''T YOU SAY WHAT YOU ARE
DOING IS
UNUSUAL ?
DOING IT SIX
YEARS EARLY.
TTEMPT TO RIG
AGAINST --
PRIOR TO
I THINK IT HAS BEEN RIGGED AGAINST
US. , THAT
T I AFFECTED
I UNDERSTAND OULD BE AFFECTED
IKE SAN ANTONIO, LAS, AUSTIN WHERE A
LACK AND HISPANIC TEXANS AND VOTE.
MAP IS A FAIR ON OF TEXAS?
IT IS NOT FAIR ENOUGH.
HISPANICS VOTED
54% TO
55% FOR ELECTION AND
THAT IS A
TROUBLESOME DYNAMIC DEMOCRATS RIGHT
NOW HISPANICS
AN
SIDE. THEY DIDN''T LIKE
SEEING ILLEGAL
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
STOLEN AND
THEY ARE
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS AND THEY
TRUMP.
WHEN WE SET
THE LINES DOWN WE SENT THEM BETTER.
I UNDERSTAND YOU HAVE A ROLE IN HOW THE NEW MAP WAS CREATED.
I HEARD YOU SAY ON THISINTERVIEW SOMETHING REALLY
INTERESTING, THAT YOU KNOW WHERE THE VOTERS ARE, YOU KNOW WHO HAS
AL .
THER LICANS
YOU
>> THAT''S ALLOWED.
WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DRAW BY
RACE, BUT
WE ARE ALLOWED TO
MAPS AND THAT IS WHAT RE GOING TO DO.
THE COURTS
HAVE BEEN
VERY CLEAR IS WHAT WE ARE
WE ARE NOT GOING TO LIE TO YOU.
THESE ARE PARTISAN
MAPS AND
THESE ARE MAPS
THAT FRANKLY ARE
GOING TO BE REPRESENTING OUR
ENTS AND VOTERS. TELL ME HOW
ALL OF
THIS IS
THE AGENDA
AND THE SPECIAL SESSION,
NOTABLY RELIEF FUNDS FOR CENTRAL
XAS. >>
IT''S NOT HOLDING UP ANY OTHER
. WE
PUT SOME FLOOD RELIEF AND
RESPONSE IN THE CALENDARS IS MORNING FOR TOMORROW.
THE ONLY THING HOLDING THINGS
UP, RELIEF FOR THE FLOOD
VICTIMS, FOR PROPERTY TAXPAYERS,
WE HOPE THEY COME BACK
ILY. I KNOW THESE ARE DEMOCRATIC
COLLEAGUES YOU
PROBABLY HAVE
SUES. NED WITH
ITH GETTING FICE.
TO COME
VOLUNTARILY RETURN.GHTER]
ME HOME OLLECT THEIR
BY THE WAY, PROBABLY 90% OF THE
SE ON AND VOTE TOGETHER
THERE ARE A LOT OF POTHOLE
ISSUES OUT THERE.
WE SEE A POTHOLE AND WE ALL
FIX IT. BUT THERE
ARE SOME
PARTISAN ST
ANOTHER ONE
DISAGREE
HOME AND
SPEAK OUT FORCEFULLY BUT THE NEED TO BE HERE TO DO
THAT. IT DOESN''T
SOUND LIKE YOU
ARE YOUR
DO YOU DISAGREE
WITH THE TTORNEY
WANTING TO POTENTIALLY
ARREST THEM? I''M FOR ALL OPTIONS ON THE
TABLE TO GET THEM BACK,
BUT OBVIOUSLY
I WOULD LIKE TO BRING
K PEACEFULLY.
HINK THE ODDS INT THAT PRESIDENT
THE NEW CONGRESSIONAL WANTS TO SEE?
ODDS ARE 100%. A QUORUM AND STICK
S. ENSE
LOOKING TO A
DEAL, WE ARE
EGOTIATE. THAT IS TEXAS STATE
TATIVE CARL TAPPER. APPRECIATE
IT. ♪
MNA:
FOR MORE,
I''M JOINED BY
OUR POLITICS MONDAY DUO, AMY
LTER AND TAMARA
KEITH. GOOD
TO SEE YOU BOTH. WE STARTED AT
THE TOP OF THE
ABOUT THE
PRESIDENT PLACING
DCP CENTER FEDERAL
CONTROL AND
TIONAL TROOPS
, HE SAID IT
IS CRIME EVE
N THOUGH
DATA CRIME HAS BEEN DECLINING.
Y IS HE DOING THIS? HAVE BEEN SOME VERY
FILE INSTANCES OF CRIME .C. THAT HAVE COME CLOSE TO
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AND GOTTEN ONE OF THE PRESIDENT''S
RADAR.TING TO TAKE OVER
RUN CITIES
SINCE HE THE FIRST
THIS IS
NOT A NEW THEME IN ANY
IT IS CERTAINLY AN ESCALATION
IN CITY WHERE HE
R TO DO THIS. E HAS
TO DECLARE
AN EMERGENCY QUESTIONS ABOUT
MUCH THIS IS
AN EMERGENCY
ARGE NUMBER OF MURDERS
THAT DO TAKE PLACE IN GTON, D.C.
OTHER CITIES ARE HIGHER BUT IT
STILL A HIGH NUMBER
OR HIGH RATE.
IT IS THE LOWEST IT HAS BEEN IN
30 YEARS
BUT IT IS STILL HIGH. HE
IS GOING AFTER THIS AND
SEND CITIES
, YOUR SOMEONE
HAPPENED IN LOS ANGELES ING IN THE NATIONAL
GUARD. HE
IS TRYING TO SEND A SIGNAL TO
E CHICAGO AND WANTS THEM TO BE
INK. THE
IF YOU ASK WHY IT IS BECAUSE HE
MINUTE
HE ANNOUNCED IN
2016 , IT HAS
THEME
SPECIFICALLY IN THE SECOND TERM.
HAS BEEN USED ON
WILL BE TALKING THE REST OF OUR
DRAWING CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS
IS THE
PURVIEW OF THE STATE ATURE.
THIS WAS DIRECTED BY THE
PRESIDENT INTO
TERRITORY LATURE
RADITIONALLY ,
CONGRESS HAS A SAY
IN CONGRESS DID HAVE A
SIGNIFICANT SANCTIONS BILL THAT
TABLED IN PART
BECAUSE O CUT THE
THIS IS THE MESSAGE HE LIKES TO
SEND. I''M THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO DO
IT.CIES AND
TO TAKE A WE KNOW THIS IS A MAP THE
PRESIDENT
PUSHED FOR. HE WANTED TO SEE
THIS
H. OW DO
YOU SEE THIS ENDING? >>
AS THE REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER
SAID,
HE SAYS CHANCE
THE MAPS
ANOTHER. I
THINK WHAT IS
HAPPENING IS AN
GERRYMANDER
EVERY POSSIBLE VOTE, EVERY
LE SEAT OUT
OF THE MIDTERM
IT IS
NOT JUST TEXAS, THERE
WAS TALK
OF INDIANA.
DEMOCRATIC STATES LIKE ILLINOIS AND
CALIFORNIA MISS
THAT --
ESPECIALLY WHERE GAVIN NEWSOM SAID
HOW ABOUT YOU DON''T DO
THE G AND WE
DO THE CALIFORNIA
OULD OFFSET HEY HAVE SAID THEY DON''T LIKE
GERRYMANDERING IN ONE WAY ORANOTHER.
NPOPULAR BUT THIS YET ANOTHER POLARIZED
PART OF THE FIGHT.MY
GERRYMANDERING MIGHT BE
OK BUT THE OTHER GUYS IS REALLY
BAD. AMNA:
IN TEXAS, THERE IS FUNDING
R FLOODING
THAT NEEDS TO GO
ELD UP. COULD
THERE BE
BACKLASH AGAINST LAWMAKERS FOR TRYING
H THIS THROUGH
WITH THE
FLOODING IN TERMS OF HOW
PEOPLE IT
AND THE TERM
ABOUT
>> THAT
IS DEFINITELY AN OPEN
. >
DEMOCRATS GET BLAMED FOR
NOT GETTING
ENOUGH MONEY
FOR FLOOD EY CHOSE TO
LEAVE THE STATE RATHER
THAN COME
AND HAVE THIS CONVERSATION WITH
THE PUBLIC. THIS
IS WHAT I LOVE TO TALK ABOUT
WHICH AS YOU CAN DRAW ALL
TRICTS YOU WANT AND THEY
MAKE THEM AS IBLE BUT YOU
VE CAMPAIGNS AND ND THE ENVIRONMENT
ENT WE ARE IN MATTERS
U ID IN
N ALL OF PRETTY STRONG
YOU LOOK AT HOW HE 2020,
AND SOME
OF THOSE BIDEN WON
THOSE DISTRICTS WON
BY A SMALLER
REPUBLICANS ARE
COUNTING ON THAT
TO LOOK A
LOT MORE LIKE 2024
THAN 2020. THERE IS NO
GUARANTEE EVEN
IN THIS
ERA WHERE YOU CAN GERRYMANDER WITHIN THE
MILLIMETER , THERE IS NOT
A 100%
GET ALL THE SPOTS
>>
THE PRESIDENT IS GEARING
UP NG WITH
PUTIN .
LIKE THE
GOING TO
WE ARE SEVEN
MONTHS IN. CAN HE
HOPE TO GET OUT OF
>>
THIS IS A
FRUSTRATION OF HIS,
EEN ABLE TO
WAR THAT HE LD HAVE
HAPPENED T.
HE IS ALREADY LOWERING ATIONS FOR THE SUMMIT.
T WAS FIRST ANNOUNCED HE TALKING ABOUT GETTING A
E DEAL AND A CEASE-FIRE AND NOW HE IS SAYING I''M JUST GOING
FRUSTRATED BY PUTIN AND HAS BEEN
UTIN
TS TO HEAR, PEACE
AND THEN
E. HE
IS GOING TO FIND OUT WHAT
SUM AT
WHETHER PUTIN
IS ONG.
E HAS A
DOWNGRADE IN ROM WHERE
HE WAS >>
IF INDEED THIS
DOES NOT TURN TO
BE A BIG WONDERFUL PEACE DEAL
OR THINGS PAUL APART
WHERE HAPPY
WITH THE
OUTCOME, WHETHER THEY DO
IONS BILL
PUT
SIGNIFICANT SANCTIONS
OIL
THIS WOULD BE ANOTHER IMPORTANT TEST FOR HOW CONGRESS WANTS TO
GET IT SELF-INVOLVED OR WHETHER
THANK YOU SO MUCH. TO BE HERE.
MNA: MORE
THAN ONE MILLION WORK IN HEALTH CARE
U.S. AND
THE MAKE UP AN
INCREASING SHARE OF CAREGIVERS
ELDERLY AND
DISABLED INCLUDING MEDICAL
ALS, BUT ALSO THE HOUSEKEEPERS
AND THE
JANITORS HOMES RUNNING.
HE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION''S IMMIGRATION
POLICIES COULD
MAKE IT EVEN
MORE DIFFICULT TO FIND
>>
THE PLACE THAT
HAS BEEN THEIR
HOME FOR 18
YEARS SUDDENLY
THAT WAY ANYMORE. SHE FLED HER NATIVE
HAITI AND FLORIDA
. AFTER
THE DEVASTATING 2010 EARTHQUAKE
, THE OBAMA
NTED HER AND ER HAITIANS
TED STATUS OR OWED THEM TO
ITED STATES AND BUT DIDN''T PROVIDE
TH FOR PERMANENT RESIDENCY. SHE GOT MARRIED, BOUGHT THIS
HOUSE, SHE HAS A DAUGHTER WHO IS SIX AND
HAS AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. SHE ENROLLED IN SCHOOL
WORKING ASSISTANT AND A
URSE IN NURSING
>> I LOVE WHAT I''M
DOING .
SOME OF THEM, THEY HAVE
NO
FAMILY MEMBERS. WE
ARE FAMILY. DO YOU FEEL
LIKE YOU HAVE
>> I
TRY , I DO THE RIGHT
THING I
WEL COME WITH
N. >
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
IF I WASN''T ELECTED PRESIDENT,
> IS THIS SOMETHING YOU ARE WORRYING ABOUT EVERY SINGLE DAY?
>> EVERY
SINGLE DAY. DON''T KNOW
HOW LONG I HAVE.
>> TPS
WAS GRANTED A
RELIEVE ICT COURT
RULED THAT THE DEADLINE
MUST BE EXTENDED UNTIL
NEXT FEBRUARY, BUT THAT IS LITTLE
COMFORT FOR
HER AND HER FAMILY.
>> I HAVE TO
WORK. I DON''T KNOW.
I CAN''T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. >>
THE LOOMING
END OF TPS IS NOT
R HER
AND F
IS PUTTING
A STRAIN
NURSING HOMES
WHERE A LITTLE
WORKFORCE ARE
NONCITIZENS. THERE
ARE ALREADY HUGE NUMBERS
SING HOME WORKERS.
AWAY, THESE BE FILLED ALMOST
ADER
>> HOSPITALS AND EMERGENCY ROOMS
THEY ARE NOT
ABLE TO CARE
FOR IS A
HOME TO TAKE CARE OF
THAT
IS GOING TO MEAN BACKUP.
> THESE POLICY
CHANGES COULD
DOZENS OF WORKERS
MIGHT
THIS FACILITY INCLUDES
T AND ASSISTED LIVING, RSING
HOME AND
A MEMORY CARE
JOB LOSSES WOULD INCLUDE HEALTH
WORKERS BUT ALSO SUPPORT
STAFF .
HAITI AGO
WITH HER YOUNGER
SHE IS WORKING UNDER TPS.
>> I CRY EVERY DAY.
TELL HIM IT''S GOING TO BE OK.
ARE
NOT JUST EMPLOYEES, UP BECOMING FAMILY
MEMBERS ,
FRIENDS, AND
RACHEL BLUMBERG IS THE CEO.
>> THEY HAVE CHILDREN, THEY ARE
HOMEOWNERS, THEY ARE
HARD-WORKING, THEY ARE NOT
IN JUNE,
SHE HAD
TO LET 10
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
ENDED A RMIT
PROGRAM THAT HAD BEEN STARTED BY THE
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION. THERE WERE A LOT
OF QUESTIONS OF WHAT
HAVE I DONE
WRONG? WAS
YOU HAVE DONE
NOTHING WRONG,
IT IS RE YOU
BORN ,
WHICH DOESN''T SEEM IR AT ALL.
IT WAS THE
HARDEST DAY OF MY
CAREER. >> SHE SAYS LOSING THESE WORKERS
WOULD NOT ONLY BE HARD ON THEIR
WITH R-OLD ISABEL HAS LIVED
OR ALMOST A DECADE AND SHE S GONE VERY -- GROWN VERY
OSE TO VANESSA. YOU
TAKE CARE OF US AND I
OU. THANK YOU.
>> I
KNOW. >>
I LOVE YOU TOO.
>> THE
PEOPLE I CARE ABOUT ARE PEOPLE WORKING WITH
US AND
WE NEED
THEM UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES.
HESE PEOPLE ARE NOT BEEN
TO WORK
, THERE
WON''T BE CARE OF US.
THESE COMMUNITIES THAT HAVE
Y PEOPLE
, THERE
ARE NO Y
WANT TO DO >>
VANESSA''S EARNINGS HELP SUPPORT HER
MOM AND
FAMILY BACK
HAITI. OF WHAT
HAPPENS WITH
TPS, THE
GANG ACK IS
>> I
LIKE WORK HERE, WE ARE
BUT
IT IS SO
HARD, HARD, HARD,
I CAN''T -- SOMETIMES I WOULD
LIKE TO SEE MY MOM BUT I CAN''T.
.
ON. GIVERS
THE TRUMP
ADMINISTRATION IS
IN THE
CASE THAT DELAYED THE
ENDING OF
TPS UNTIL EARLY NEXT
RECENTLY, THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SAID
PRESIDENT TRUMP AND
SECRETARY GNOME ARE
O OUR SYSTEM
AND RETURNING
L STATUS
, COME HERE.
BACK IN ORLANDO, THIS NURSE
IS BRACING FOR THE NEXT SHOE TO
DROP.
IF IT COMES
DOWN TO THE
U HAVE TO LEAVE, WILL
YOU GO BACK
TO HAITI TO GO SOMEWHERE ELSE?
> IF
THEY SAY THEY
WILL KILL
WILL. AND MY DAUGHTER.
SHE BELONGS HERE. >>
WITH FEDERAL IMMIGRATION
HANGING ALMOST DAILY,
THE LIFE SHE RICA COULD SOON
ND. ''M
CENTRAL ♪
MNA: WE WILL BE BACK SHORTLY,
BUT FIRST TAKE
A MOMENT TO
HEAR FROM
YOUR LOCAL PBS STATION. >> Hello and
welcome to the
studios here
at PBSWisconsin. We're
taking ashort break in the
NewsHour. The
most important
hour ofthe
day. For these next few
minutes, these could be
the most
important minutes of
the day.
This is the
time we
come to you to
ask you tosupport the programing. Thatmeans
so much to you. Andyour support
means so much
more now than
ever. Because with the
loss of federal
funding, PBS Wisconsin has a lot of work
to do
to make upsome ground, and we're hoping that you will
be partof that. Your
support hasmade PBS Wisconsin one ofthe
foremost sources
of news,
information, history,
culture, children
, shows fordecades and
decades. And
your support will make it
possible for the
decades tocome.
But the importantthing
right now is
to make a gift. Make a
gift at a level
that you can afford and help us close the
gap that
wasopened. With
the recent lossof
federal funding
forpublic broadcasting.
We're here
for you. We hope you'll
be here
for the programsthat
mean so much for
you.Make that call
right now,won't you ?
>> Hi, I'm Linda
Berman, a
volunteer here at PBSWisconsin, and we
are celebrating you. We're
celebrating you and
your support.
You are
what provides the
financial security that we
have forthe
years ahead.
We have some very
special thank
you gifts when
you call andpledge your
support. We haveat the
$15 a month
we haveor $180
a choice. You
can get
our PBS Wisconsin
B mug,which
is left
handed, right
handed. You get a
differentthing on each side
, or the
PBS tote, which is
great.You can wear that across
your body and
put it inbags, put
in water
bottles,hiking, walking, or
you canget
both of
them at $24 a
month or
$288. You get
boththe mug
and the
wonderful tote.
And I am here
to say it's your
support that
matters. We are
celebrating that. And
yesterday we had
a very
substantial gift
from people
who wanted
to show that
they believed
inquality programing.
We want to thank
Linda and David
Maraniss for their
very generous
check, because they
wanted to show that
they believe
in quality, quality
news. Thank you,
Linda andDavid, and I
hope you willjoin
them in supporting us by
writing a very
good check
for us. But
it starts with your
call at one (800)2
363636. >> Hello, I'm
Christopher Kilgore, a
volunteer here
at PBS, and I would
like togive a huge shout out and
thank you to the Sustainers,an ongoing
monthlycontribution, something t hatyou
can set
up or call.
Our phone bank
is here to helpyou if
you call on in. Nowcalling
one (800)2 363636.
It is a vital
plays a vital
role in the
ongoing supportfor the
programing that you
hold. Very important
news hours.
All of the other
things that you get
fromPBS. These are
vital times
to make sure that these arethe
kinds of things that youcan
ultimately set it and
forget it. You can make the phone call. Our volunteers
are here to help you setthings up.
You can make theone
(800) 236-3636 phone call
or go
to the go to the
internet and you
can go ahead and log in
and they'lldo the same services
thereagain. One (800) 236-3636.Your
ongoing monthly
contribution is incredibly,
incredibly appreciated
. >> You
watch the NewsHour
soyou know
what's in the news.
And that means you understand
that PBSWisconsin
and every publicradio
station and every
public television
station inthe
country have
lost their
federal funding
. Decades and
decades of
funding from the
federal government have
allowed us
to do many of the
things that we do today. Butyou know what?
PBS Wisconsinwas here before the re
wasfederal funding, and we willbe here
long after that funding
has gone away.What's been
here before
federal funding
was your support
and what must
carry us to the
future even
more than
ever . Is your
financial support,
your gifts. Thatmakes
our programing
possible. We've got
some adjustments to do here
at PBS Wisconsin, and we'll
bedoing them,
and we'll be
relying on you
to see usthrough to help
us find theway
forward in this new
environment. Please
makethat call
one (800)2 363636.
>> And PBS Wisconsin is
a national
leader in public
television. Even
within the
state, people
call throughout
the state
and Minnesota,
Iowa, Illinois
saying, we
support your
programing. We
love it.
Andit's because
of you.
The member
support is what
makes us great. So
we ask you
tocontinue with your
support now,
especially during these
tough times. But
we know we
can make it because of you. We have
special thank you gifts at the
$15 a month
sustainers. We also
offeryou this wonderful
Bmug I love
it! It's got
a great B
on one side,
it's insulated
and it's got
PBS Wisconsinon the other side. So you
can be left handed or righthanded and
you get a greatview on either
side at the.You
also have that
same option.
Is this
wonderful cross
shoulder tote
bag. It's
really not that
big,but it's
perfect for travel
and hiking.
At $24 a
month,you get both
the mug and the tote.
What we're saying
now is
commit your
time,
your efforts,
and your financial
support to us
now our
volunteers are
waiting to talk with
you. 1(800)2
363636. >> You know
when you're amember in
supporting PBS,there are
a lot of added
benefits and some kind ofinsider
information or insider,
you know,
bonuses. One of those
things is the
airwaves. "Airwaves"
guide. I
actually spend
quite a bit of time
kind of lookingthrough this and seeing wh
atprograming is coming up,what I
can look forward to,
what I need to remind myself
to watch, and what I need toremind
friends or family towatch. Another
thing is the PBS
Passport. You can
log inand
get just a
whole list
of programing and additional
content, things that
you already are
interested in,that you'll get more
information about
as you log
into the
internet. And
again, an
endless resource
by calling
one (800)2 363636.
You can make
surethat you can continue thisprograming and
continuegetting the information
andthe wonderful
programing you're
looking for.>> Thank
you for being
with us for the
NewsHour. And during this
important fundraising
drive, this
thistime around, you
know, the
loss of federal
funding has
meant millions of
dollars are
leaving the PBSWisconsin
budget. Now,
we'renot asking
you to make upthose millions
of dollars personally,
although ifyou're able to,
please feel free.
But if every
family inWisconsin
becomes a
member,if every member
increasestheir gift
a little
bit, we'll
find our way through
to the other side,
and we'll
continue to provide
you theprograms that you've
alwaysfound to be
so valuable.Thank you
. [MUSIC]
PROBABLY EIGHT YEARS. UMING THERE IS A
G BOOM AT ALL. OHIO.
AFTER STRUGGLING TO FIND DOCTORS
WHO TREATED MENOPAUSE
SYMPTOMS, SHE CREATED MIDI HEALTH, A VIRTUAL
CLINIC
G THIS
LIFE TRANSITION.
HER TAKE
ON 'S HEALTH
>> WHEN I WAS IN MY 40''S.
I HAD A BIG
JOB I
WAS ANGRY A T
SLEEPING , I
HAD A OF HOT
FLASHES, I DIDN''T KNOW
WHAT WAS GOING ON AND I DN''T HAVE A LOT OF
MODELS TO
TELL ME I WAS EXPERIENCING
PERIMENOPAUSE AND
I SHOULD DO T IT.
>> ARE PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL
LIVES ARE TIED TOGETHER.
IF YOU
ARE SLEEPING
AND HAVING OU GO TO WORK THE
DAY , IT
IS HARD TO PERFORM. OVER 50% OF WOMEN ARE NOT
PLYING FOR A RAISE AT WORK CAUSE OF THESE MENOPAUSE
TOMS AND 10% ACTUALLY LEAVE THEIR JOBS BECAUSE OF MENOPAUSE
SYMPTOMS THAT ARE 100%EATABLE.
D A PROVIDER OK ME ABOUT A
TO THAT PROVIDER A SIX MONTH WAITING
I WAS SAD
IT TOOK
ME THAT LONG
WOMEN HAVE THE
RIGHT TO EXPERT
IT IS
A NATIONAL VIRTUAL CARE
KE CARE OF ALL
OF THE
ISSUES OF MENOPAUSE.
WE HAVE HUNDREDS OF
PROVIDERS AND WE GIVE
THOSE PROVIDERS
VISITS
COVERED BY THEIR
THE MOST REWARDING THING ABOUT
COMPANY IS HOW GRATEFUL
WHEN
WE STARTED THE
COMPANY, OUR TO LAUGH.
THEY SAID WITHOUT WE WERE
ANY BUT
THE WOMEN
SAY, I WAS
SEEN AND HEARD.
LISTENED AND PAID ATTENTION
TO ME
AND ACKNOWLEDGED S.
THEY FEEL LIKE THEY HAVE
COMPLAINED
ABOUT THEIR SYMPTOMS E DOCTORS HAVE SAID GRIN
BEAR IT, THAT IT IS NORMAL ING AND WHAT WE HAVE REALIZED
IS THAT WOMEN DON''T NEED TO BE
RECENTLY WATCHED SOMETHING ON MY INSTAGRAM CALLED MENOPAUSE
WITH MY MOTHER WHERE I INTERVIEW
AMONG YOUR FRIENDS,
WOMEN''S
MEN CARE ABOUT THE WOMEN THAT THEY
LOVE. WHEN
THOSE WOMEN
ARE FRUSTRATED
SLEEPING OR HAVING ANXIETY,
IT IMPACTS THE ENTIRE
THIS
IS MY
BRIEF, BUT TAKE
ON ADVOCATING
''S HEALTH CARE.
AMNA: AND
YOU CAN WATCH MORE ONLINE
AT PBS.ORG/NEWS
AND
THAT IS THE NEWS HOUR FOR
I''M AMNA NAWAZ
. TEAM,
YOU FOR JOINING US.
>> FRIENDS OF THE NEWS HOUR.
>> CREATING A TRUST TO KEEP THE CRAFT ALIVE.
IT GETS TO
KNOW YOU, YOUR
WAY YOU
ENRICH
LIFE WELL-PLANNED. >
THE JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION COMMITTED
TO BUILDING A MORE JUST, VERDANT
ND WITH THE
ONGOING SUPPORT OF STITUTIONS.
THIS WAS MADE
POSSIBLE BY CONTRIBUTIONS
FROM VIEWERS LIK
E
♪
>> Program support for PBS Wiscon
sin
is provided by...
The Mead Witter Foundation, Inc.
in Wisconsin Rapids.
Proud to support PBS Wisconsin.
) - [Narrator] Explore new worlds
and new ideas through programs lik
e this.
Made available for everyone
through contributions
to your PBS station from vi
ewers like you.
thank you.
- Hello, I'm Paula Kerger, pres
ident of PBS.
For nearly 40 years,
Ken Burns has been making
groundbreaking films.
Films that challenge us, fi
lms that start conversations
and reveal new dimensions
to our shared history
and it's all thanks to you
r support.
Today's program celebrates
Ken's epic documentary,
The National Parks: Amer
ica's Best Idea.
We interviewed Ken and hi
s team to understand
how this film came together
over almost 10 years.
An insider look at what it
takes to pull together
such a monumental project.
We simply couldn't do it
without your support of t
his station.
From the entire PBS family
, thank you.
(light music)
- [Peter] The national parks
are perhaps America's mo
st valued treasures.
Thousands of acres of the w
orld's
most spectacular landscapes
owned and preserved by a
ll U.S. citizens.
The idea itself is truly America
n,
born from the democratic ide
als that birthed us as a nation.
Ken Burns set out to tell the stor
y.
- All of my work exists in a
kind of inhalation
and exhalation between us
and the United States,
between us and US, the U.S.
And I think the national par
ks sort of perfectly represent
that we couldn't have done
it without a country
that was willing to cons
ider new ideas.
- [Man] "Everybody needs beau
ty as well as bread.
"Places to play in and pray in
.
"When nature may heal and
give strength
"to body and soul alike.
"This natural beauty hunger is
made manifest
"in our magnificent nati
onal parks.
"Nature's sublime wonderlands,
the admiration and joy of
the world."
John Muir.
- When you're making films as
Ken and I do
and all of us at Florentine
Films,
you wanna make it as accu
rate as possible,
you wanna make it compelling
but your big dreams are that
it will reach people somehow
and prompt something in them.
And with the parks, we realize
d
that it's not just a stor
y about history,
it's a story about that con
nection
that people have with th
ese special places
and how can we make sure tha
t that is communicated too?
- [Narrator] In celebration of
Ken Burns' film,
The National Parks: Amer
ica's Best Idea,
we revisit the series an
d take a closer look
at the story that inspired
a new generation of visitors
to these national treasures.
- It's important to tell th
e story
of America's national parks
because to a great degree,
the story of the national parks is
the story of America.
How do we know who we ar
e unless we stand up
and look in the mirror and
see what's reflected?
And I think that the nation
al park film
to a great degree and I thin
k that many of Ken's films
are a mirror that's held u
p to America
and looking in that reflecti
on,
we can see who we really are
as opposed to who we think
we are.
And I think that's the be
auty of a reflection,
it doesn't add, it doesn't
detract,
it just literally reflects
what's there.
- The idea that there is a
continuity in this country
and that the land is part o
f the continuity,
the land that Jefferson sent
Louis and Clark to explore,
the most magnificent plac
es in that land
are being preserved for us.
And if this film can help r
emind people
that these places are impo
rtant,
even if one never gets there
,
the simple fact that one kno
ws that these places are there
and we are preserving th
em makes a difference.
- [Peter] Please join me,
Peter Coyote,
for Ken Burns: The National
Parks.
Hi, I'm Peter Coyote.
I'm so thrilled to be host
ing this celebration
of Ken Burns' six part d
ocumentary,
The National Parks: Amer
ica's Best Idea,
which I had the honor of
narrating when it first aired.
This project was particularl
y exciting for me to work on
because like many of you,
The National Parks
filled me with memories.
Memories of trips with my
family and loved ones
and memories of pure amazeme
nt
as I took in the breathtaki
ng surroundings
in parks across the country.
And now it's up to us as co
llective
owners of these parks
to ensure their preservation
so that the next generati
on of visitors
can create their own memorie
s.
Since their conception,
the parks now include
60 national parks across the
nation along with 400 sites
that are part of the National P
ark Service.
Ken Burns' extraordinary
documentary
shows us how these parks
define us in many ways,
not only as windows into our
past but as brilliant examples
of how our Declaration of
Independence
can be put into contempo
rary practice.
They are a treasure house of natur
e's superlatives.
84 million acres of the most s
tunning landscapes
anyone has ever seen.
(light string music)
Including a mountain so massiv
e,
it creates its own weather
whose peak rises
more than 20,000 feet above sea l
evel.
The highest point on the con
tinent.
A valley where a river disappea
rs into burning sands,
282 feet below sea level.
The lowest, driest, and hott
est location in the country.
They became the last refuge
for magnificent species of
animals
that otherwise would have
vanished forever.
And they remain a refuge for hum
an beings
seeking to replenish thei
r spirit.
Geographies of memory and ho
pe
where countless American
families have forged
an intimate connection to
their land
and then passed it along to
their children.
Many of us have had the privil
ege of visiting
at least one of our nation
al parks
and yet, few of us know the
ir history.
Of course the land has been
there forever
but its continued preserva
tion was the result
of people like you and me wh
o fought tirelessly to save them
not just for ourselves but for th
e greater good.
The parks represent an ac
tive political generosity.
With the Louisiana Purchase i
n 1803,
the United States had doub
led in size.
At less than three cents per
acre for 828,000 square miles,
it was the greatest land bargai
n in U.S. history.
- Jefferson looked across America
from the portico at Monticel
lo
and he saw wilderness al
l the way out.
So he couldn't conceive of
a national park
because for Jefferson, Am
erica was a national park.
This country is Eden and
we Americans
had this glorious opportunity
to see the world in its infan
cy.
So America in a sense had
been kept as a symbol
of what the world once was.
- [Peter] Jefferson could no
t have imagined
that it would take less tha
n a century
for us to settle the West.
The once uncharted territori
es were quickly being built up
so rapidly that if something
wasn't done soon
to preserve the most preciou
s
and spectacular of these lan
ds,
they would be gone forever.
This was a one time opportu
nity,
an opportunity missed by man
y countries older than our own.
- Americans feel that the Unit
ed States
is somehow inferior to Europ
e
where the United States doe
sn't have
the ruins of Rome or Greece,
it doesn't have the Acropolis,
it doesn't have the Partheno
n.
And so it seems like we'r
e an inferior nation.
And yet, the one thing we do ha
ve
is a nature that looks close
r
to the new morning of Go
d's own creation,
closer to paradise than a
nything that
Europe has to offer.
- We can see this continent
the way it was seen
not just by the first European
explorers
who think they discovered
these places
but the native peoples wh
o it was their home
and that's an amazing in
heritance.
- Sacred means different things
to different people
and to the American Indians,
sacredness means you can go
in there
and walk as your ancestors d
id.
You can go in there and
you can see
what the creator has made
for us
and you can feel it, you
can feel the spirits.
But we can take it one step
further
because the environment is
still there
as in the time of creation,
we believe that it is stil
l alive.
- The national parks are th
e classrooms
where we can learn about
ourselves by exploring nature,
by absorbing the enormity of
these natural wonders,
we're inevitably challenged
to look within and question
our place in the world.
I'll never forget my first trip to
the Grand Canyon.
I'd always heard about ho
w big it was
but it wasn't until I was
standing there myself
gazing out over the Canyon's
lip that I truly understood.
I never before had ever felt so sma
ll
and yet so connected to t
he divine.
And it was not just my e
xperience,
I was one of thousands fr
om all over the world
who had looked across that
Canyon
with the same wonder and awe
.
It was a deeply personal
experience
and sanctified by the fact th
at not a single reminder
of the hand of man was visi
ble anywhere.
- (Ken) Nature permits us the o
pportunity
free of the distractions of
the city and of our busy lives
to ask the fundamental qu
estion, who am I?
What is my purpose here?
And it helps negotiate a qu
estion that
more often than not
gets relegated for some
people to Sunday morning
and unfortunately, for many
, many people,
it's not asked at all.
- To go inside, you go outsi
de
because you need to know yo
urself in context.
Not the big "I" that you us
ually feel you are
as you go trotting through
your daily life,
but to find that added di
mension of yourself,
that innermost essential yo
u that is there.
- [Narrator] "At the gates of t
he forest,
"the surprised man of the wo
rld
"is forced to leave his city
estimates of great and small,
"wise and foolish.
"The knapsack of custom fa
lls off his back
"with the first step he take
s.
"Here is sanctity which
shames our religions
"and reality which discredits our
heroes.
"Here we find nature to be the
circumstance
"which dwarfs every other
circumstance
and judges like a God al
l men that come to her."
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
- In Ken's film, we're remin
ded that Ralph Waldo Emerson,
one of America's greatest wr
iters and philosophers,
father of a non-denomination
al American faith,
transcendentalism, drew
his inspiration from nature
which he believed to be inherentl
y good
and deserving of preservatio
n.
- When president Abraham Linc
oln
signed the Yosemite Grant
on June 30th, 1864, it set
aside Yosemite Valley
where we are today in the Maripos
a Grove
as a federal reserve.
This was the first time
a federal government
set aside a piece of land
purely for preservation
for all of the people.
And the all of the people pa
rt
is what really resonates
with me,
being a park ranger and
working here.
Yosemite belongs to the
American people
but it really belongs to
the people of the world.
When visitors say to me, Sco
tt,
thank you for taking care o
f the parks,
I say, the parks belong t
o all of us.
- Ken and his team make the
point
how uniquely American it
was to award equal ownership
of the national parks to all i
ts citizens.
There are currently abou
t 325 million people
who call the United States
their home
and so I am as one of them
a 1/325 million owner of
these parks.
It's my right to visit them
and my duty to preserve
them just as it's yours.
- When you're in a national
park, there is no hierarchy
in terms of someone's bett
er than someone else,
we're all reduced or elevate
d
to that same level of aston
ishment
when we're looking at the G
rand Canyon
or looking down into the
Grand Canyon
or looking up at a mountain
peak, we're in the same space.
And so it literally equalizes
all of us,
it's a great reducer and ex
pander of consciousness.
- What could be more democratic t
han owning together
the most magnificent places on
your continent?
Think about Europe.
In Europe, the most magn
ificent places,
the palaces, the parks ar
e owned by aristocrats,
by monarchs, by the wealthy.
In America, magnificence
is a common treasure.
That's the essence of our democracy
.
- [Peter] National parks,
the writer and his story and
Wallace Stegner once said,
"are the best idea we've ev
er had."
- It is the best idea we've
ever had
once we became a nation.
And the reason it is is be
cause it's connected
to the value that created
us as a nation,
the national parks are the
Declaration of Independence
applied to the landscape.
We're all created equal as
owners
and as stewards of these
special places
for our own pursuit of life,
liberty and the pursuit
of happiness.
- (Ken) What would we be l
ike without
the national parks, right?
Zion and Yosemite would
be gated communities
for only the very rich.
The realm of the Grand Ca
nyon would be,
the access to it would be
limited
because there would be a
ll these mansions,
the Everglades would be drai
ned
and there'd be endless go
lf courses
and strip malls and deve
lopment.
Yellowstone would be down
on its luck,
secondary resort called Gey
ser World.
It's not that.
These are the pristine l
andscapes,
our portals that permit us
to access the past.
- I think that every time we wa
lk into a national park,
we make vows.
We make vows that we will
live beyond ourselves,
we make vows that we will n
ot just care
about short-term gains,
but long-term vistas.
We remember the sweetness of engag
ement
that this is the open space of
democracy.
And it is as John Muir has remin
ded us,
the beginning of creation.
- Coming up, we'll learn
about some of the individuals
who fought to preserve th
ese lands from the start.
It was because of their pe
rseverance and diligence
that these stunning landscap
es
are still available to u
s today.
Please stay tuned.
>> Well, we'll get
back tothis
phenomenal show in just
a couple of minutes. National
parks, America's
great idea.
We have another
great idea we want
to talkto you about. Hi. I'm
Malcolm Brett. Welcome to the
studios of PBSWisconsin. The
great idea.We want to talk to you aboutright
now, before we go back to more of this
terrificprogram, is the idea ofsupporting
PBS Wisconsin .Great
programs like Ken
Burns, National
Parks. They
don't come out of nowhere.
They come out
of great
filmmakers. A lot of research
and very,
very meticulous
television production.
And that means
we have to support them. And
that means financial
support, National
parks needour
support, and
PBSWisconsin needs our
support and needs your
support. Now more
than ever,
we hope you'll
step up
and make your donation
a PBS Wisconsin.
This is a
program that meansso much
to all of us. The
parks mean so much
to all of us. And when we're not
outdoors enjoying the parks
, PBS Wisconsin is
your windowto the
world and
you are our
most important
sponsor. Won't you
make your gift
right now
? >> Hi, I'm
Linda Berman,
a volunteer
here at
PBSWisconsin, and it truly
hasbeen a
delight for
all ofyou who've been
calling intalking to some of thevolunteers who
said one person called up and said, I
love what you're doing, I'mgoing to make
another a $500pledge in addition to what
Inormally give. This
isgreat. We are pulling
together as Wisconsin
loversof quality
programing. PBSWisconsin is
what's bringingus
together, and we
have special
thank yous when you call,
especially now duringthis
amazing, amazing
program. First, we
have the guide to
the National Parksof the
United States.
Thisis from National
Geographic. It's
really it's
525 pages
of information
how to get to
the parks, where to
go, what visitor
centers are there? The headquarters,
camping, lodging.
That's the very
easy to do at
$10 a month, $15 a
month. You
get theprograms we're watching
now,the National Parks America's
best idea.
It's an option
between DVD
or Blu
ray at
$25 a
month, you
get all of
it. In addition
to the American
Buffalo, another
film by Ken
Burns, as well
as the
Great PBS Wisconsin
baseball cap.
This is our
way to say thank
you forbeing
our sponsor, but it
starts with
your call at 'one(800)2
363636. >> Hello, I'm
Christopher Kilgore and we're
honored that
over 75,000
families give
at whatever rate that
they feel
works best
forthem . And
that is really the
key to
this, is that whatever
feels best for you,
each family,
each contribution,
each gift
makes a difference.
And tothat point
of going out and
enjoying the outdoors,
enjoying the outdoor spaces,
getting some fresh air,
you feel
better in this
space. Iwould argue
that this is also
one of those cases where in the process
ofgiving and the process of
becoming a member, and the
process of becoming a ainer,
you're going tofeel better.
One(800) 236-3636 ensures thatthis
type of wonderful
programing that you're ying right now,
being able
to see the parks fromthe
comfort of wherever you
are watching this currently,
being able to understand
more about the
spaces thathave been so historic
and so
instrumental in providing
good feelings and
good vibes
for so many people
for so many
years. One(800) 236-3636 and you
canhelp continue that
legacy .>> Ken Burns
has been part of PBS Wisconsin for over
40years now, and
as you watchthe national parks, it's
easy to see why he knows
what stories are important. He knows how
to tell them,
and he knows how to relate
to all of us and
to you. Youknow,
the parks are
part of our national
identity, ournational
psyche, and
PBSWisconsin is part of
our our state
identity and part ofour psyche
has been
fordecades and
decades and decades,
24 hours a day, 365
days a year.
PBS Wisconsin is here
for you. We hope
you'll be here. For us, it's
more important than
everthat we have thisconversation
about how tomake
PBS Wisconsin viable
and how to make
it flourish.
You're a big
part of thatstory.
It all
starts whenyou go to the
phone or goonline and make your gift.Why don't
you do it right now?
your gift does meanso much
to us. This isensuring our
financial stability
ahead so that
programs such as the
National parks, you can
count on
watching. You know
,what's so
exciting is all of
the phone volunteers havebeen
so busy
because it'sthe
programing you're
calling in for, and that's
why we're here at
PBSWisconsin. We have very special thank
you gifts, such as
at the $10 a monthlevel, you
get the National
Parks, the
United States,the
National Geographic
Guidebook, and this
really 525 pages
telling you
anything and
everything youcan
imagine about thedifferent
parks at the
$15 a month level.
You get a
choice of the
DVD set,
whether it's DVD
or Blu ray
in the high
definition. And
this is
all about the national parks, the
program you're watching. What a
great opportunity to share with your family and
yourkids. Show
them where you're
going to be going
or where you'd like
to go $25 a
month. You get
not. You get the whole
package. You
get not only the
National Geographic
Parks Guide, you
also get the
national Parks
program that you're watching on
DVD or Blu ray. You
also get
an addition. TheAmerican
Buffalo, another
film by
Ken Burns, as
well as
the PBS Wisconsin
baseball cap that you
can proudly
wear as you go
on your travels. Most
importantly, know that we
are here for you
and we
so appreciate you
being there for us.
And you can do
thatwith your call at
one (800)2 363636.
>> You know, at
any of the suggested levels, you can
also qualify
for the PBSPassport. I always call
thisthe behind the scenes
Passport. For all of the
wonderful programing that you've
been enjoying, accessto
other Ken Burns filmslike the Civil
War, like The American
Buffalo, like
Vietnam. Also,
just a
wholelist of other things
. Youcan learn more
about thehistory that you're alreadyobviously fascinated wit
h by
watching this,
by watchingthe show
that you'rewatching this evening, andagain
by calling one (800)2 3636361 way to do
it. Also to go
to. To go
to make contact with a
person who'sanswering the phone,
aperson that's here volunteering and helping out
and making sure that thistype of
programing continues
to work. Why do we go
toparks to get fresh air?
Whydo we contribute toprograming like this?
To seewhy that impact is
soincredibly important
to. >> The
beautiful scenes that
we see in national
parks? They've been
here since the
planet began,
but the parks
became the
parks because someone
had a vision
and somebody
acted on
it and the
country got behind it, andthen
the parks became accessible and they became
developed, and we
learnedmore about
their significance, and we got
toenjoy them.
Well, broadcasting has
been aroundfor all of
our lives. Andthen
someone had the idea
of public broadcasting,
ting for you, only
for you, not
foradvertisers, not for anyother
interest, but your
interest. So this great
idea came
along and it
flourished because of
support from people
like you.
And we will
continue to flourish as long
as you maintain. And
hopefully in these
hard times,
increase that support
a little bit. Or
if you'reable to
a lot. We understand
that our programs like the
National Parks
, inspire so
much of
our lives.
We hope
you will
fund some of that inspiration with
your membership
gift. Your renewal
gift, or maybe an
additional gift to show
how important the
programs are to you and
to help us flourish.
Despite these
current funding
challenges, won't you
make that gift.
>> And your gift of
support really
does matter? And
ourway to say thank you
isnumber one.
Quality programs.
Second thing
we offer is
our airwaves
magazine, which you
will get
every month. It
has a
listing of what you'll seeon our
airwaves, so you can
accordingly plan
your viewing, but
also inaddition,
especially withthis
program, you can get at
$10 a month.
The National
Geographic's National
Parks Guidebook, which
is 525
pages, packed
with information
and that at
$15a month,
it's a six DVD
set.You have the choice of
whether you want Blu
ray or regular
DVD, and
a $25 a
month. You get not
only the guidebook
and the six DVD
set, you
also get the
DVD, The
American Buffalo
by Ken Burns. It's
a great film. It
is on DVD
as well
as our PBSWisconsin
baseball cap,
which this is mine,
by the way.
It's your
calls that matter.
We're here
for you, and we
thank you so much
forcalling. And while
we're on our break, you
can call one(800)2
363636. Thank you
so much
.
Welcome back to Ken Burns: The National Parks.
Hello, I'm Peter Coyote. In the first part of our p
rogram,
we looked at how Ken Burns
and his Florentine Films team
explores the diverse landsca
pe of our national parks.
The uniquely democratic ideals b
ehind them
and how they serve as ins
piration
and gateways to our past.
Without a doubt, the nation
al parks
are some of the greatest
spots on earth.
But Ken reminds us that the
story of the national parks
isn't just a story about the
places,
it's equally the story of
the people
who fell in love with those
places,
who became so devoted that
they pledged
to do anything they coul
d to save them.
- In our film, we point ou
t all of the people,
you know, famous, unknown,
rich, poor, men, women,
African Americans, Hispanics, Ang
los, whatever,
who each of them individually
or with another group of
people
fell in love with a place
and then devoted themselves
to doing what they could
often over many years and a lo
t of struggle
to finally get the federal go
vernment
to do what it should do
so it could be preserved
in a way that people that
they would never meet
and generations that they would
never know
would have the same oppo
rtunity to go to that place
and feel that sort of special
connection.
- This didn't just happen,
it was the works of peop
le like John Muir,
of Theodore Roosevelt,
of people coming together
and saying,
not how can we make some
money right now
but what is the heart an
d soul of this country
and how do we preserve that?
How do we bring that back
to the public,
how do we make sure that
100 years from now,
that same wild place will
be a wild place?
That those bears are stil
l gonna be able
to fish that salmon, that
there is something
essentially important in
our national soul
about having these special places
.
- The preservation of these sp
ecial places
was a test of national will.
History tells us that it's
in our nature
to exploit, possess, or t
hink we can improve
on what nature has so pe
rfectly provided.
The simple fact is once a n
atural wonder
is marred or desecrated,
there is no recovering it
s original splendor.
One of the most obvious exam
ples of this
was Niagara Falls.
- [Narrator] By the 1860s,
the country's most famous
natural landmark,
Niagara Falls, had already
been nearly ruined.
Every overlook was owned
by a private land owner ch
arging a fee.
Tourists could expect to be bad
gered
and often times swindled
by the hucksters
and self-appointed guides
who swarmed the railroad de
pot and carriage stands.
European visitors publicly belitt
led Americans
for allowing such a maje
stic work of nature
to become blighted by co
mmercial development
and offered it as further
evidence that the United States
was still a backward unci
vilized nation.
- We thought in the early part
of the 19th century,
it'll take a 100 generations
to fill up this continent
e, the Buffalo are gone,
the place has been staked ou
t and then the anxiety,
existential anxiety is can we
save just a little bit of it?
Can we set aside Yosemite in Ca
lifornia
and let California take car
e of it?
Yes we can, Abraham Linc
oln agrees
with a senator from Californ
ia
and that happens in the
midst of the civil war
when 2,000 casualties a day
are coming back to Washington
and overflowing not just the
hospitals but the cemeteries.
But he says yes, just as he
says yes
to the transcontinental ra
ilroad,
he understands the directio
n of the country
and then president Grant in
'72
is gonna set aside more land
where the greatest collectio
n of geothermal features,
geysers, are in the world
in what is not a state,
it's in mostly Wyoming territory
with a little bit in Montana
and a little bit in Idaho
but there's no government th
ere
so we have to make it a fed
eral thing,
a national park and boom.
- The most well-known hero
of the national parks
is probably John Muir, an
inventive genius
who could've been an equal
of Thomas Edison's,
John Muir's true passion led
him to a different destiny.
When a factory accident
temporarily blinded him
for several months,
Muir fled his workday world
and set out on a 1,000 mi
le walk.
Pursuing his passion for
the natural sciences,
little did he know that
accepting a job at Yosemite
would change not only his life
but how our country values
its natural landscapes.
- [Narrator] We are now in the
mountains and they are in us
kindling enthusiasm, making eve
ry nerve quiver,
feeling every pore and cell
of us.
Our flesh and bone tabernacle
seems transparent as glass
to the beauty about us.
Neither old nor young, sick
nor well, but immortal.
- The phrase of that time, gove
rnment phrase
is when you were settling a
place,
you were quote, "redeeming it
from wilderness
"to serve the hand of man."
John Muir said, "No, it's
just the opposite."
People do not redeem wil
derness,
wilderness redeems us an
d we have to keep
at least enough of that as
the storehouse of nourishment
and helpfulness and just America
nness.
We've got to preserve some of
those places
and as a writer myself,
I learned really early
that my main job as a writer
was to get out of the way
of John Muir
because nobody can top how
eloquent he was on that.
- [Narrator] "The great wilds of
our country
"once held to be boundless
and inexhaustible,
"are being rapidly invaded
and overrun in every direction
"and everything destructible in
them is being destroyed.
"How far destruction may go is
not easy to guess.
"Every landscape low and high s
eems doomed
"to be trampled and harried.
"
John Muir.
- [Peter] Muir threw himself
into what became a pitche
d battle
to preserve the high country
.
Vested interests and oppo
sing politicians
lied about his past, ques
tioned his motives,
and publicly impugned hi
s integrity.
Muir was hurt but endured
it all,
speaking directly to the peo
ple
who soon flooded congress
with letters and petitions.
Finally on October 1st, 1890,
president Benjamin Harrison
signed a bill setting aside mo
re than 900,000 acres,
nearly 1,500 square miles
creating Yosemite Nation
al Park.
- (Scott) It was John Muir who
really brought it
within our collective consciou
s
that these are wild places,
they're sacred places, they
're beautiful places
and they need to be pres
erved not only for now
but for future generations.
- Another hero of the national
parks is Theodore Roosevelt.
A born naturalist, Roosevelt
spent his childhood stud
ying animals and plants.
As president, he made it his mi
ssion
to put policy in place to
protect
vast regions of the country
for future generations.
One of his most radical steps
was signing the Antiquit
ies Act,
which gives the presiden
t the authority
to set aside federal land
s to be preserved
as national monuments with
the stroke of a pen.
As president, Roosevelt
provided federal protection
for almost 230 million ac
res of land,
an area equivalent to the
entire eastern seaboard
from Maine to Florida.
He set aside 150 national f
orests,
the first 51 federal bird r
eservations,
five national parks, and the
first 18 national monuments.
Many of these efforts were bit
terly opposed
by commercial interests.
- I would say that a story
that really struck a chord
with me
was president Theodore R
oosevelt
after his visit with John
Muir here in Yosemite in 1903
which is sometimes referred to
as the most significant camp
ing trip in American history.
- [Peter] They awoke the next mor
ning
covered by a light snow
that had fallen in the high
country during the night.
Rather than feeling inconv
enienced,
the president couldn't have
been more delighted.
"We slept in a snowstorm la
st night," he exclaimed
to the crowds that had be
en patiently waiting
for him on the valley floor.
"This," he said, "has been
the grandest day of my life."
And when he spoke at the state c
apital
in Sacramento a day later, Ro
osevelt's words sounded
as if they could've come from t
he lips of John Muir.
- [Narrator] Lying out at night un
der those sequoias
was lying in a temple bu
ilt by no hand of man.
A temple grander than any huma
n architect
could by any possibility bui
ld
and I hope for the preservat
ion of the groves of giant trees
simply because it would be a sha
me
to our civilization to l
et them disappear.
They are monuments in themsel
ves,
I want them preserved.
We are not building this co
untry of ours for a day,
it is to last through the ages.
- [Shelton] The effect of m
eeting with John Muir
and the doubling of that
effect,
because he's in the Yosemite
National Park itself,
was so powerful in him that
it seems to have really
struck a change or struck a
chord or created a fire in him
that was not burning so hotly b
efore
and he became at that point
the greatest conservation
president of the United S
tates history.
- Stephen Mather, the first direct
or
of the National Park Service
was also a heroic player
in the preservation of o
ur national parks.
He and his first assistant di
rector, Horace Albright,
went on to support and im
plement
the Organic Act of 1916
which created the National
Park Service as we know it.
Its mission, to conserve the sce
nery
and the natural and historic
objects and wildlife therein
and to provide for the en
joyment of the same
in such manner and by such
means
as we'll leave them unimpair
ed
for the enjoyment of futu
re generations.
- [Man] Now I want you to
know that our job is not over,
it is just beginning.
Remember that God has given
us these beautiful lands
but none of this will mean anythi
ng
unless we have a safe haven
for these wilderness places.
We must have a National Park Se
rvice.
Everyone of us must pull our ore,
go out and spread the gospel
.
- Well, if you're thinking
about heroes
in the national parks,
you have to talk about Steph
en Mather and Horace Albright.
I mean the first director of the
National Park Service,
the second director of the
National Park Service,
they created an agency that
didn't exist before.
They created its culture, th
ey created the uniforms,
they created the entrance s
tations,
they created so much of
what we take for granted
that is part of the icon
ography of national parks,
meaning when you go to a par
k,
you know you're in a nation
al park.
Someone had to think that
through,
they had to think of some so
rt of defining characteristic
that was physical, intellectu
al and spiritual
so that when people arrive,
they knew they weren't in a
state park or a county park,
they knew they were in something
that was absolute much more
profound
and that's a national park.
That all had to be invented.
And Stephen Mather and Hora
ce Albright
are the architects of the
National Park Service.
So how can you not take
off your hat to them?
- [Narrator] The parks will
have a constantly enlarging,
revivifying influence on
our national life
for which there is no ot
her public agency.
They are our antidote for nation
al restlessness,
they are national character
and health builders.
They are giving a new impetu
s
to saying "living in thi
s country."
- These are just a few of the ma
ny selfless people
who played essential roles i
n saving these natural marvels.
In Ken's documentary,
you'll learn about the coun
tless others
from all walks of life who al
so dedicated themselves
to saving one or more of
our national parks
including those who expanded
the idea of embracing
not just our natural treasures
but our historic ones as wel
l.
- You've got Franklin Roosev
elt
who doesn't get as much cred
it
as his distinct cousin Theod
ore
who helped set aside many p
arks,
but Franklin Roosevelt un
derstood
that it wasn't just the savi
ng
of the great natural and
scientific wonders of the world
but we needed to add our
cultural and historic
so many of the battlefields
and many of the historic sites
that were in a haphazard pla
ce,
some in the department of
war, some other places,
he aggregated and put Ge
ttysburg into it
and other places
and all of a sudden,
his system started to grow
in leaps and bounds. - [Peter
] Under the new plan, the park servi
ce
was now expected to prot
ect and interpret
more than a dozen non-milita
ry historic sites as well.
The Statue of Liberty in New Y
ork's harbor.
Mount Rushmore in South Dako
ta.
And many of the District
of Columbia's
most hallowed places, in
cluding the Lincoln Memorial,
the shrine to the president who
in 1864
had given the national par
k idea
its first tentative expressi
on.
National parks now embrace the id
ea of America itself.
- We've now even gotten to the
point that we've saved places
that reflect even darker a
spects,
there are slave plantations
and the slave quarters,
we've saved Washita and Sand
Creek on the Great Planes
where the United States Cava
lry
massacred unarmed Native Am
erican women and children.
Central High School in Little R
ock, Arkansas
still an inner city high sc
hool,
is also at the same time a Na
tional Park Service site
commemorating the beginnings
of desegregation in the mid-1
950.
Shanksville, Pennsylvania
where the heroic passengers
on United Flight 93 saved
that plane
from going into the White
House or the Capital
and instead drove it into th
e ground in Shanksville,
That's a national - I know
of no other country on earth
that's willing to lift up th
e carpet
and sweep out some of th
e dust and say, look,
this is part of our history
too
and it's to our credit th
at we do that.
- These irreplaceable hi
storic sites
help remind us of the fu
ll range of our history
and in some cases, they've
also served
as meaningful reminders abou
t what our country stands for.
(crowd applauding)
- I have a dream
that my four little children
will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged
by the color of their skin
but by the content of the
ir character.
I have a dream today.
(crowd cheering)
- The idea of the national parks
certainly was appreciated
by Abraham Lincoln.
In the 1860s, a century late
r,
here is Martin Luther King giving
his great speech,
"I have a dream," before a vas
t audience
before Abraham Lincoln
and with a park ranger st
anding by him.
You have a sweep of history,
you have these dramatic turns,
you have these marvelous coincide
nces and ramifications
that extend from Lincoln to Kin
g,
from the idea of the national par
k
to the park service offi
cer standing by King
when he gives his "I have a dre
am" speech.
The parallels of history are in
finite and limitless.
- When we come back, we'll go beh
ind the scenes
with Ken and his team at
Florentine Films
to learn how they strategize
d telling this intricate story.
We'll also learn what we
can do to help preserve
the national parks for ge
nerations to come.
Please stay with us.
Make the call
right now,won't
you? Okay.
>> That's right.
Your support
is what
allowed this
program to be made.
It took
six years. Six years
to film this
from Yellowstone.
Arcadia .
Gates of
Alaska. All the
different parks.
Sixyears. But because of
member support,
your support,
wewere able
to get it done.
And broadcast so
you can enjoy
it. And our
way of saying thank
you to you foryour
support. We've got some
very special gifts at the
$10 a month
gift level. We
have the amazing
National Geographic
Guide to the
National Parks of
the United
States. It's
over 500
pages telling
you going
east towest,
north to South,
Midwest , where
you can findthe
parks, where
to camp. What
you can see and
whatyou can do
there. $15 a
month you have the
opportunity for the six DVD
set, whether you want it
onBlu ray or
DVD. The
national parks you're
watching now.
Imagine sharing this
with your kids
to plan. Where do
we want to go? Where wouldwe love
to go? $25 a month.You
get the whole
package. You get
the guide
to theNational parks. You get the
six DVD set. In
addition, you get
the DVD,
the American
Buffalo by
Ken Burns.
This is an extraordinary
film. Absolutely
extraordinary,especially when you
see the majesty of
the of
the buffalo and
you get the
PBSWisconsin baseball cap.
Iwear this
proudly every
timeI go out
walking, which
could be almost every
day,and especially down to the
farmers market. So people
know I'm
supporting PBSWisconsin
to show your
support. We're asking you
for your call now at
one(800)2 363636.
>> You know, the
sustaineris the fastest
growing typeof
membership here at
PBS. One of the
easiest things you can
do figure
out an
amount that is
affordable toyou
monthly. Something that
you can
set up with
one ofour wonderful folks
at the call
bank here.
And then you
can just kind
of let that
do its
work by calling
one(800) 236-3636. It's thing
that you can makesure is helping provide
wonderful programing
likethat. You're
watching this evening.
It's like
getting a
park pass.
It's like
getting a pass
for adventure. Getting a pass
forinformation, getting a pass
for education. But it's also
most importantly,
doing things
to support, not
only getting that information
andgetting that
wonderful programing
for yourself, butmaking
sure that others have
access as well.
One of thewonderful things about
thenational parks is
that they are open
to all andaccessible
to all, and that
is something that we wantthis type of
programing tomake sure we can continue
toprovide by making sure
it's accessible
for the present
and for the future, bycalling
one (800) 236-3636.One of our wonderful
operators here will be ableto help you
get things set up. Sustainer is the way
togo. It's the
fastest growingway to support. I
encourageyou , especially with
thischallenge in mind, to accept
challenge. >> Are you watching
the KenBurns? You know, the national
parks? They go from
Acadia to Yellowstone
to Yosemite, straight
across the country,
north, south,
east and west.
PBS Wisconsin goes north,
south, east and west
allover the state.
And we're here
for you every day.
Wehope you'll
be here and make your pledge. Right now
we'vegot nine pledges so far during this
break on our way
to 40. If you've
made a call. Thank
you so much. If you haven't made that
callyet, please become part ofthis
process right
now. Your
support is so
important toour
ability to bring you programs like
this .
KenBurns describes the
national parks
as America's
greatest idea.
Public broadcasting
is a
close second,
then, and
you're a part
of public broadcasting when you
watchit. When you
talk to your kids
about it, when
it's inyour kid's
classroom. And
yes, when you make
your gift to support,
you're part of
PBS Wisconsin. It's so
important. We're
not quite sure what
the future isgoing to look like
rightnow. We are workingfuriously to establish a
bright future in the
wake of
our federal funding
cuts. You're part of
that futureboth as
an audience and
as a sponsor.
So why don't youmake your
gift right now during this challenge
breakand your gift will be matched dollar
for dollar.Thank you. ll of our
volunteersseem to be
busy on thephones.
Keep trying. Youalso have
the option of
doing PBS
PBS if you'd like to go on your
computer, but I
think making it
the personal touch.
That's whywe
are here.
Giving of ourtime, because we
want toreach
you. The
supporters of PBS Wisconsin and our
volunteers have been super coming
in to take your
calls, and they want
toremind you that you
have theopportunity at $10
a month to get
the guidebook from National
Geographic. The
guide to the National Parksof the
United States. It is
phenomenal. Looking through
it, just
telling you aboutthe
different magical
scenes. You'll
see what
you'll see, the different
scenic drives,
where tocamp,
where the
ranger stations are,
important details,
very good
guidebook, $15 a
month youhave the
opportunity to getthe program we're watchingnow.
It's a six DVD
set, and
whether or not
it's a Blu
ray or the regular
DVD, it's
yours , so you
can share it
with your family in the
nextgenerations. $25 a
month,you get
all of it.
You get
the guidebook as
well as the six DVD set
and the
DVD. The
American Buffalo,
as well asthe
wonderful PBS Wisconsin
Baseball cap.
These can
allbe yours with your call and
your pledge. Give us
a callone (800)2
363636. >> Oh,
sorry. I was
reading "Airwaves" looking to see
at the next program is
coming up. Is going
to be
one of the easiest ways toget that information
is by calling
one eight hundredtwo three
six three sixthree six, getting a copy
of"Airwaves" yourself. You cansee what's com
ing up. Youcan see what's streaming,you
can get the informationkind of a roadmap
of sortsfor what the
next programsto come. Maybe what you'
regoing to watch later today,
maybe what you're going towatch later
tonight, some ofthose upcoming things forpeople
like Ken Burns is a
new 12 hour, six part
documentary, the
American Revolution,
I think
something that you'd be
interested in watching,
considering you're watching
what you're watching
rightnow. So
one (800)2 363636 is
a wonderful and easy
way toget in touch
with somebodywho can help
set up
something like the sustainer
membership for you
. Again, roadmaps
airwaves ,exploration,
education, something that
you can playa
role in by
calling again.
One (800) 236-3636 right
now .>> Ken Burns
history with
PBS has been
phenomenal. 40 years. You
can name the
programs the
Civil War
, baseball, the
War, Vietnam,
the Roosevelts,
so many high
impact programs. Ken
will tell
you, he couldn't
do hiswork
anywhere else. And why
is that? Because
PBS is the
place that
exists solely forthe
benefit of our audiences,
our families,
our students
and teachers
. No other
broadcast medium
exists just
for you. We
don't deliver
at audiences
to advertisers. We deliver
programs to you. And when
itcomes to the best, well,you're
seeing it tonight.
Ken Burns
stories about
our national
parks are
just inspiring.
Every bit as
inspiring as the
experience of being
at the parks.
Wecan't always
get to theparks, but we can
alwaysturn on our TV. We can
always get some
streaming media, we
can always enjoy
PBS Wisconsin, and we
can always do it
only because ofyour
financial support.We've had
14 calls
duringthis challenge break.
We're well on our
way to that goal
of 40.
If you haven't gottenthrough on the
phone justyet, keep trying because wewant
to tell you
in this
challenge break. Thanks foryour call
.>> And you know,
this is a
challenge break
and you can
double the gift.
So we have
people calling
in and saying, I
really I want to give a one time
gift of $300so I can get the
wholepackage. That's
$600 for
PBSWisconsin. So it's a greatopportunity
to do that.
And you
can also
say, I'm
going to renew my
membership, butI want
the gifts to go to
someone else . Fantastic.
Wouldn't you like
to renew your membership and give
thegift of the guidebook
for$10 a month
to somebody you love,
or $15 a
month? The
six DVD set and
say, I
wantmy kids and
grandkids tohave
that so they
can seethe
parks, our national
treasure. And that's
at $15a
month. At
$25 a month, you
can get the guidebook
as well as
the six DVD
set, whether
it's Blu ray or
regular DVD, as well
as the DVD
on the American
Buffalo, which
alone is
phenomenal. And
of course,
the PBSWisconsin
Baseball cap
toshow your
pride in the
station that
we love.
Andthis is a
great opportunity.And I know, as
Chris toldyou, you will get "Airwaves"
magazine with
every levelthat
you choose
to become a member at.
But it startswith
your call
at one 800
2363636. >>
PBS Passport is
yoursource for Ken
Burns and
so much
more. Easy
way to set
things up
to be able to
takea look around, to be able
to look at your
leisure. Andthat's one of the thingsthat
we're really interestedin doing nowadays. We'retrying to
make thingseasier. And so this is
oneeasy way to do it. Setyourself up
as a sustaineragain by calling one (
800)2 363636, but also making
surethat in the process of doingso,
you take advantage of
that and you look
into what that offers
and what thewhat
the what the perks,
what the bells and whistlesare, if you
will, looking behind the scenes, looking
programing, looking atwhat
the new informationabout that program is,looking
to see when the nextprograms are
coming. Soagain,
one (800)2 363636
folks at the
phones will behappy
to help get things setup
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't seen
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>> Your investment makes
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So join
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. >> America has
always been
acountry about
potential, starting
with the Revolutionary
War, the
vision it
took to create
our national
parks programs
likethe American
Experience, programs like Finding
Your Roots
are all about
vision and
possibilities and potential.
And that's what
PBS Wisconsin is
all about,about
fulfilling your potential
, feeding your
inquisitiveness, teaching
your family,
your students,
your kids,
your neighbors.
Making us think about
the things
we know
and the things we
like to know more about. That's what's so
special about PBS Wisconsin.And it
all comes to you right in your
living room, on your phone,
on yourcomputer, on your
TV set.
We're here for you.
It's so important that you be part
of this process,
especially now
, by calling
and becominga
member, especially during
this challenge
break. Show
us how much
you'veappreciated the 40 years of
Ken Burns
or the hundredplus
years of
Wisconsin public
media coming
to your home,
enriching your
life with
your pledge
right now?
Won't you make
that gift ?>> And
especially now, where
it can double
the impact
of every dollar
that you
call in
during this challenge?Break is
fantastic because
PBS Wisconsin is here
foryou to show you your
past, to
show us the future,
toentertain, inform,
as wellas
educate for our
generations, for the future
generations we have
at the $10 a
month level,
theguidebook so you can sharewith
your family the
guides to the National
Parks. Wehave the
six DVD set at
$15a month.
At $25 a
month, you get the
guidebook with the six DVD
set, the
amazing DVDon
the Buffalo, and
ofcourse, our
PBS Wisconsin Baseball
cap. But
it allstarts with
you, our
viewersand our
supporters, and we
can't thank you
enough forcalling.
So thank
you .
[MUSIC] ) We're back with Ken Burns: The
National Parks. Ken Burns has dedicated himself
to telling the stories th
at shaped America.
The civil war, jazz, basebal
l,
Louis and Clark, The Vietnam
War.
Whatever the subject, Ken
and his team dive deep
to explore these topics
and how they impacted wh
o we have become.
This series, The National Pa
rks
was an important addition
to his work
as the storyteller of Americ
a.
- It took us 10 years
because we had a big beat
to cover.
It was to the Hawaiian Vol
canoes
where we're making new land,
it was from the Everglades an
d also the far Tortugas
off the Florida Keys.
It's to the gates of the
Arctic up in Alaska.
So we had to cover these place
s
sometimes in multiple season
s
and so we collected hundre
ds of hours
of live cinematography th
at we did.
- Everyday working on th
e National Park series
brought some new joy, so
me new wonders,
some place that I hadn't
seen before
or if I was back in a place
I had already been before,
a new way to experience it.
So I did many trips to Y
osemite,
many trips to Yellowstone,
many trips to Alaska, but
every time I was able
to find some new piece of it
.
- You know our 16-hour film
is sort of my own equiva
lent of home movies.
More likely than not, I was
standing next to the cameraman
when we took that shot.
And so I can see shots fr
om the film
and I remember that moment.
It's like looking through
a family album if you will.
Oh yeah, I remember that day
.
(deer bleating)
- Whenever someone enters a nat
ional park,
it's like going to another
world.
And I think that people fe
el that transition,
they feel that sense that
they've gone
to some place better
than what they've left behin
d.
But the irony is that wh
ere they have gone
is the place where they've
always been.
It's just now they understa
nd it,
now they see it, now they
feel it
because parks are like goi
ng home.
- The story of the national pa
rks is a complex one.
In the course of this series
,
we see not only some of
the best
cinematography ever shot
by Ken and his team,
but also some of their most
intense archival research.
In the 10 years it took
to produce this film,
the production team put in
countless hours of research,
discovering, cataloging
and utilizing
the thousands of images from
public and private archives
necessary to make this st
ory clear and compelling.
- We in fact were able to give t
o the park service
a hard drive with our da
tabase of photographs
because while at Harpers Fer
ry
which is sort of their head
quarters
for that sort of stuff
has a lot of photographs in
each place and each location,
we dug deep and went to hu
ndreds of other archives
around the country to fi
nd other photographs
of that period or of that pa
rk
or of the individuals resp
onsible for saving it.
- [Dayton] Our research proc
ess
is also part of our film
ing process.
So while we're in a park, we
might be filming in a park
before I've written a script
.
And while we're there, the ra
nger that has showed us
a particular view point
mentions some story
that we were unaware of
and that works its way into
the script.
- [Ken] And then you had to
figure out
how you told an ongoing stor
y that was weaving together
this complicated narrative like a Rus
sian novel
of characters famous and no
t so famous
that made it possible alongs
ide this spectacular scenery,
alongside the archival p
roof of it.
- [Peter] In late 1915,
on the train ride back from
San Francisco
to their home in Lincoln, N
ebraska,
Margaret and Edward Gehr
ke decided to take
the one day side excursion
to the Grand Canyon.
Margaret had never seen a
nything like it
before in her life.
- [Woman] A few things in
this beautiful old world
are too big to talk about.
One can only weep before
so supreme
a spectacle of glory and of
majesty.
- [Peter] Edward's passion was do
gs and fishing.
And photographing everything
he saw.
Margaret's was dreaming
about the yearly excursions
the childless couple beg
an taking
over the course of nearly 3
0 years,
Edward would bring along hi
s Kodak camera,
snapping pictures Margaret
would later
carefully place in photo alb
ums
to commemorate their advent
ures.
- [Woman] Let those who will buy
lands and hoard money.
We will have our memories,
glad memories of golden
experiences together.
- Throughout this process,
we had the most wonderful
co-conspirators in the form of
the park rangers
who every single place we went
,
just did everything they co
uld to make our lives easy,
to give us the access we ne
eded.
I had rangers flying me arou
nd
in their bush planes in Alas
ka,
I had rangers taking me
through the Kenai Fjords o
n their boats
and I had rangers looking ou
t for me
telling me where I could
go at what time of day,
at what time of year to
be wherever they had had
the most fundamentally movin
g experiences of their lives
and they would lead me r
ight to it.
- One of our favorite - I
wasn't even on the shoot
but Dayton was describing
this time
where they had scouted out
where they thought it would be
but we arrived early in
the dark in the morning
and trying to figure out,
we have a compass,
we know where the sun is gon
na rise
and we're going from here
to there
in the complete darkness
with flashlights
and finally we find the
perfect spot
to record the sunrise at
this great park.
And the sun comes up, we get
the shots and just we look down
and there's a sign that says
, perfect Kodak moment place.
The park service was way ahead of
us.
They'd figure out and as
Dayton likes to say,
whenever it says go to arti
st point
or inspiration point, go the
re.
Because they are not going
to steer you wrong.
This is a place not just
to take a picture
but it's also to have tha
t in a sense
of open heart surgery wh
ere you just suddenly
make yourself available in
a way
that we're kinda guarded
in what we do in our lives.
And the parks tend to kinda
loosen that grip that we have
and provide us with expe
riences and emotions
and relationships that reall
y are durable and long lasting.
- Our national parks are places
of pilgrimage,
a place where we return
over and over again
to be still, to be contemplative
.
And not only do we save the
se lands
or save these national pa
rks, they save us.
There's something about this w
ild continuity
that gives us courage,
that allows us to be the bes
t of who we are as human beings.
- Many of us have this relationsh
ip to the park
and it's usually born fr
om our parents taking us
and there was for a time
particularly
in post World War II America
,
the iconic summer trip wh
ere you loaded kids
into the station wagon and
you basically went out west
and what you were doing
was making a big circle of
national parks
and so, people have memo
ries and snapshots
and relationships with the
ir dad
and you caught a fish here
or your mom did this
and you remember all of t
his stuff
and it's really personal.
- I'm sitting here as a par
k ranger
in Yosemite National Park
because my family
brought us up here on va
cation every year.
I grew up in Los Angeles,
my brother and sister
and my parents came up here
in our wood-paneled stat
ion wagon,
camped in the campgrounds, I
went to the ranger programs,
I rode the shuttle buses, ev
ery year we came here for a week
and we did that all throug
hout my young years.
I ended up backpacking, go
ing to college,
and 40 years later, here I a
m.
(soft music)
- [Narrator] "The National Park
Idea,
"the best idea we ever ha
d was inevitable.
"As soon as Americans learned
"to confront the wild contin
ent not with fear and cupidity
"but with delight, wonder, and aw
e.
"Once started, it grew like the
backfire it truly was
"burning back upwind against th
e current
"of claim and grab and raid.
"Proving that our rapacious so
ciety could hold its hand
"at least in the presence of stu
pendous scenery
"and learn to respect the ea
rth
"for something besides it
s economic value,"
Wallace Stegner.
- The gift of our national
parks
also confers a great resp
onsibility.
All of us now alive
are the current stewards
of these precious lands.
It's our collective obligati
on not to take them for granted
and to ensure their cont
inued legacy
for the next generation.
- You can see that the pa
rks wake us up
and it was in that spirit th
at we wanted to make the film,
to celebrate the political geni
us
that allowed the parks to take
place
and the amount of constant v
igilance
it would be required to kee
p them there
and free of the kind of a
cquisitive aspects
of our own selves that loo
k at a river
and wanna put a dam over it,
or look at a stand of beauti
ful trees and think board feet,
or see an incredible canyon
and wonder what minerals
can be extracted
to the detriment of that
canyon.
- The question for us as A
mericans, I believe,
and particularly if you are
a believer in the national parks
is not whether those peop
le will be there,
those threats will arise, t
he question is
will we make new generations
of park champions?
Of people who will say, no, not her
e,
this is a sacred place and we'r
e saving it
for our children and their
children
and their children's childre
n.
- We have to remember tho
se words
that are in the Organic Ac
t which is kind of,
not kind of, it is essential
to the National Park Service.
But I think that all Amer
icans to some degree
should never assume that
what is inviolate
and what is sacred will
always be perceived
as being inviolate and sacre
d.
We have to always be holding
that torch, that flame
just so that it's lighting up
what needs to be lit up a
ll the time.
Like the Statue of Liberty,
liberty and freedom,
they're not free, you have
to work
toward assuring that tho
se freedoms
actually exist every single
day for the rest of eternity.
It's just a constant vigilance.
- Sometimes we seem to m
ake progress
and we do and we have and
we will
and sometimes we seem to retr
eat
and we have and we will.
And it's so too with the
national parks,
sometimes they'll feel li
ke the crown jewel
and everybody accepts us a
nd other times
you'll feel like suddenly it
's a political football
and why is it that, it's
not about politics,
it's the most bipartisan
thing you could possibly want,
it's actually born out of
conservative impulses
and liberal progressives
buy into that.
So it just means we have to
be vigilant about the parks
just as we have to be vigila
nt
about the hallmarks of ou
r democratic selves.
- [Narrator] Keep this great wo
nder of nature as it now is.
Leave it as it is.
You cannot improve it.
The ages have been at work o
n it and man can only mar it.
What you can do is to keep it
for your children,
your children's children and
for all who come after you
as one of the great sites whic
h every American,
if he can travel at all, sh
ould see.
- The best way to ensure that o
ur national parks
remain unspoiled is to in
troduce them to our children.
When you experience them first
hand,
it's almost impossible not to
fall in love with them.
And when you do that, you
inspire a new generation
to fight to preserve not ju
st the parks
but their memories as well.
That's the dual goal Ken was
seeking when he made this film.
He wanted to tell us the story
but he also wanted to encou
rage us
to experience them for ours
elves.
- One of my most special memo
ries
was at Jenny Lake in Gran
d Teton National Park,
it's just an astonishingly
exquisite view.
And my family in the late
'50s would camp there
and my mother for the rest
of her life
would always comment that that
was probably
the most beautiful thing sh
e'd ever seen.
And so 40 years later, I o
f course
brought my family to the shores
of Jenny Lake.
And standing there, look
ing across that lake
at those mountains,
exactly the same as what
I had seen as a boy,
holding the hand of my daughter
named Caroline Emily Duncan
which was my mother's name, and
time both collapsed and explod
ed in that moment.
Holding her hand, I could feel mys
elf as a young boy
holding my mother's hand looki
ng at that
and I could feel that someda
y,
she would be standing ther
e with a child of hers
looking at the exact same thin
g and that to me is what,
One of the incredibly important
and special things about na
tional parks.
There's so few places le
ft that you can go
and have that memory brou
ght back to life
because it looks the same, becaus
e it has been preserved.
So national parks do a lot o
f things
that are very important
for ecological reasons,
for just the reasons of d
emocracy,
for the fun that you can hav
e,
but they are safe keepers
of precious memories.
- We're measured less
by the good times than b
y the bad times.
And when we're in those ba
d times,
we realize this is where
character is revealed.
And in all of these films,
the underlying thing
and certainly in the nationa
l parks is about character.
Who are you?
Are you willing to sacrifice
the I want for the we need?
Or are you just your own indepe
ndent free agent
and the United States
is just a playground for
your interests?
If that's it, then if en
ough people do that,
we're in big trouble.
But if as I believe we a
lways do,
we realize that the exquis
ite tension
between individual freedom,
what I want,
and collective freedom, w
hat we need,
when what we need wins out,
then we ensure that we will
be
as the framers of the Cons
titution said,
"a machine that will go
of itself."
- [Narrator] "One learns that the
world though made
"is yet being made.
"That this is still the mo
rning of creation.
"This grand show is eternal
"it is always sunrise somewh
ere.
"The dew is never all dried at onc
e,
"a shower is forever falling,
vapor is ever rising,
"eternal sunrise, eternal sunset
,
eternal dawn and gloaming.
"When sea and continents and i
slands
"each in its turn as the
round earth rolls."
John Muir.
- After the film first aired, the
parks reported
a surge between 12 and 15
million new visitors.
These new visitors were tellin
g the rangers
that they saw a documentary
on public television
and it inspired them to go o
ut there and remind themselves
and their kids of what th
eir birth right is.
This exquisite inheritance
we call our national parks.
So now why not watch Ken Burns
wonderful documentary series,
The National Parks: America's
Best Idea
and begin planning your trip
to one of our magnificent
national parks?
Maybe I'll see you there.
Thank you for joining me.
>> Good .>> This
program is so inspiring. It's
just awe inspiring.
We love the
national parks
and we love
Ken Burns
because he
is America's
storyteller and he's been
doing it fornearly 40
years right
hereon PBS Wisconsin.
How is itpossible?
Well, it's possible
because PBSWisconsin is
here for you.
That's what brought
Ken Burns
to our air.
And it's possible
because of your
financial support
over thelast
40 years and
stretching back
even further.
And yoursupport
is more importantthan
ever. We're about
toembark on
another great
experiment, and
that is
public broadcasting. Without
any federal
support. It's
been a
modest part of
our budget,
but an important
part. And it
is gone.
But we are not.
We are
here. We are
resilient and ever
more reliant
on you,
our audienceand our
donors to make
theshows possible.
Let's fundthe
next ten years, the
next20 years of
Ken Burns documentaries.
Put a little
in the bank to make those
programs keep coming your
way. Call
right now
or go online and
make your pledge
to PBS Wisconsin
right now
.>> I'm Linda Berman, a
volunteer here at PBSWisconsin, and
I am so
thrilled with the
outpouring of
support from
you, our
viewers, that
challenge break
was very
successful,and we know
that you care
about quality
programing. We
also know that you
really want
to get this
guide tothe national
parks. That has
been the number one giftthat people
want to see. And
I will tell
you, there's a
whole section
just on the
Midwest, places I
didn't even know
about in the,
inthe just
in the Midwest,
the Cuyahoga
Valley and
the Gateway
Arch , South
Dakota ,Indiana
, Minnesota, North
Dakota, South
Dakota. Theseare
part of
the beautiful
information you'll get at
$10 a month with this
National Geographic
guidebook, $15 a month,
you have the opportunity with
the six DVD
set, whether
it's on the
national parks we're watching now, whether
it's the Blu
ray or
theregular DVD,
as well as the
whole package at
$25 a
month, the guidebook,
the six DVD set,
the amazing
DVDon the
American Buffalo,
as well
as our wonderful
PBSWisconsin baseball
cap, this
can all be
yours with yourpledge of support at
one(800)2 3636
or online at
pbswisconsin.org dot org
.>> You know,
quite a fewmembers are
coming in as the
sustainer level.
A lot of
other people
are actually
changing their membership tothe
sustainer level,
something you can set up
with your bank account or ur credit
card. Again,something that is just
ongoing. You can
kind of set it up and walk
away from it.
Ultimately knowing that
it's doing
something on a
monthly basis to help
incredible programing like this.
Calling one (800) 236-3636is one
of the easiest ways
to start doing
that. You
know that. Terms
of challenge I
challenge all of
you to consider the
sustainer level,
but anything is
something. Another thing
that you know,when we're
talking aboutwhat we learn on
PBS, mathis important. And the more
you can add to this process
and the more that you
canadd to this experience, the
better off we all are. One (800)2
363636. >> I'm a
volunteer now, but
I used to work
here at PBSWisconsin. I
came here
alittle over
40 years ago,
just about
the time Ken Burns came
to PBS. And
throughout that time, there
have been
two constants. Oneis
terrific programing
, day in
and day out, year
in andyear out. And the
other iswe come and talk to our
audience and ask for their pport. Some
would say wedid it maybe a little moreoften than
they'd like. Well, that equation
has changed a
little bit right
now, and
this request
foryour investment
in PBSWisconsin
is more importantthan
ever. We've
changed alot
over the 40
years that
I've been involved. We've anged a
lot over the 70some odd years
that PBSWisconsin has been
here, andwe
will continue
to evolve, sometimes through
very hard
times, like right
now as we
adjust to this
shock, to our
budget. But
it's created a
great conversation
about how important
PBS Wisconsin is
in the lives
of ouraudiences
and your
life, andyour family's
life and your children's
life in your
classroom. PBS Wisconsin
is here,
and it's important.
And it's essential.
And you're
essential to keeping
it vibrant and
growing and evolving. So
please make a
generous gift right now,
won't you
?>> And just
an example, the
evolution of support
for PBSWisconsin
in my neighborhood,
twoenterprising young
sevenyear olds held
an art
sale to benefit
PBS kids. They raised
over $150.
Here is one of the
art pieces.
Is that
great? The
other one is
a screen
print by the
other young
artist. All to benefit
PBS Wisconsin. So
won't you
join them
in with their
support? You
can do it
now. $10 a
month was
amazing. Guidebook.
The National
Geographic Guidebook,
whichis fantastic.
525 pages
telling you
how to go,
where to
go, when to go,
to seethe parks
at $15 a
month,you have the
opportunity for
the six DVD set,
whetherit's a DVD,
regular DVD,
orhigh definition Blu
ray $25a
month, you get the
whole package of the
National Parks
Guide. You
get the
National Parks
America's best
idea, the
programyou're watching now,
as wellas the
Buffalo, the
DVD onthe Buffalo,
and our
PBSWisconsin cap, if
you'd likethat
separately, you
can tell one of our
wonderfulvolunteers that's what you'd
like. And remember
every single
level you pledge at.
You will get
our airwaves
magazine, but it
starts with
you and
your call at
one 800 2363636.
>> You know, PBS, we're
still here
and we're excited, looking
forward atsome of the amazing
programing that's coming.
Some of the
Ken Burns
workthat's upcoming.
That's a teaser. You'll have
to staytuned.
Also, documentaries
like Bucky, a
local , local
made and
local bred
documentary about
this area.
Again, for those
of us thatare excited about
Wisconsinhistory, something to keep
track of
. One (800) 236-3636is the
best number
to use ,and
again, the
easiest thing to do
is to set up somethinglike a sustainer members
hip, something that you
can setup through your bankaccount, and
something thatwill be here as a
gift forthose
in the future.
Again,looking forward,
looking ahead,
being excited
aboutthe program that we're
offering, but also
making sure that you can
play arole in that.
1(800)2 363636.
>> We want to thank you.
If you've
made a gift, ifyou're about to make a gift,
please go ahead and do
that.We really appreciate yoursupport.
I want to take a minute to thank members of
the Heritage Society. My wife and
I are
members ofthe Heritage Society.
What that means is
we've madeplans
in our state.
We madea planned
gift to
PBSWisconsin. One day
we won'tbe
here, but
PBS Wisconsinwill be here
for generationafter generation.
You can dothat
quite easily.
Please give it
a level that you canafford
now, but also pleaseconsider mak ing a
planned gift to
PBS Wisconsin. You can
go to the website.
Itwill walk you through it, oryou
can get in touch withone of our
folks on ourstaff, either by talking
to someone on the phone
rightnow, or by going on the
website and asking them to
get in touch with you.Making a planned
gift toWisconsin is
so satisfying.
You're planting a
tree. Someone else
will sit under
the shade
of that tree. Itis
really gratifying
to know that
you can
invest ingenerations
to come. By
making a planned gift
to PBSWisconsin. And if you're
already a member of the
Heritage Society, thank you so
much. Your
gift means a
lot. If
you're not ready
tomake that kind of a
decision, please
make an annual
gift right now.
Maybeas a sustainer
month after
month, your
support canbring you
programs that come
to you month
after month after
month. Make that giftright now,
won't you? >> And there's
still time to
hear from you.
Before we goback
to more programing,
remember, PBS Wisconsin is
here for you
to entertain you
, educate you,
and inform
you. And I'm
informing you of our
way to say thank
you,reminding you at the $10
amonth level, you
get this wonderful
book, The
Guide to the National
Parks of the United
States. You and
your family
can just go throughit and just
look at it andrealize the beaut y
we havehere
in America and how we
are celebrating
that. And weare
celebrating you
and your
support. At $15
a month, wehave
the six DVD
set, whether
it's the
Blu ray orthe
regular set.
And at
$25a month, you
have the opportunity to
get the whole
package of the guide to the
parks from National
Geographic Ken Burns
programare watching now,
the American
Buffalo CD
again, excuse me,
DVD by
Ken Burns,
as well as
this wonderful
PBS Wisconsin cap. And thisI said,
I proudly brought
my cap
to show because I
wear this and
I am so happy
tosay I am a supporter
andsponsor of PBS Wisconsin.And
remember again,
every level
you pledge at, you
will get our
airwaves magazine
so you know what's
happening on our
airwaves. And
the reason you'recalling and
supporting or
going
online at PBS is
because you believe
in quality programing and we
can't thank you enough
foryour support. And
we hope
you continue it and enjoy
our programs. And
thank youso
much for watching.
>> Yes .[MUSIC]
(light music)
- Hello, I'm Paula Kerger, president of PBS. Thank you for join
ing us for our celebration of Ken Burns' The National
of Ken Burns' The National
Parks: America's Best Idea.
I hope you enjoyed it as
much as I did,
I'm already planning my n
ext trip
to Shenandoah National Park.
We're so grateful that yo
u continue to watch
and support this, your P
BS station.
- [Narrator] Explore new worlds a
nd new ideas
through programs like this.
Made available for everyone
through contributions
to your PBS station from vi
ewers like you, thank you.
- [Narrator] Be more, PBS.
YOU'RE WATCHING
PBS
) ♪
NARRATOR: 250 years ago, a new
nation was born.
This fall, Ken Burns tells th
e story
of the American Revolution.
BURNS: We want to convey what it
was like
to experience the birth of o
ur country.
NARRATOR: Now get an exclusive i
nside look
at what it takes to bring histor
y to life.
Don't miss "The American Revolu
tion: An Inside Look."
Coming up next on PBS.
Corporate funding for the prod
uction of
"The American Revolution" was
provided by Bank of America,
with funding from The Better
Angels Society and its members.
And by the following...
By members of The Better Ang
els Society,
The Corporation for Public B
roadcasting,
and by Viewers Like You.
Thank you.
VO: We are in the very midst
of a revolution,
a most complete, unexpected,
and remarkable
of any in the history of nat
ions.
Objects of the most stupendo
us magnitude
and measures in which the li
ves and liberties
of millions yet unborn are in
timately interested,
are now before us.
John Adams.
We were locking our film on the
Vietnam War,
and just as we had decided to
do that,
as we were locking the film on
the Second World War,
I just had this thought:
The next war we had to do was
the American Revolution.
As horrible as wars are, they
tell us hugely important things
about who we are and the period
that we're in.
You began to realize that the
whole question
of this American project, whic
h has been my project,
is born in the Revolution, an
d to ask questions
of the Revolution seemed absolu
tely imperative.
RICK ATKINSON: War never follow
s the script
that you have written for it
when you set out to make war.
The British objective is fir
st and foremost
to suppress the rebellion.
It's to teach the rascals a less
on.
It's to force them to acknowl
edge
the primacy of Parliament and
the authority of the King.
And so now the decision has been
made that we will use force.
And there's a presumption that
it won't take much...
but it's going to go on for
8 years.
Blood, treasure,
catastrophe, really, for the
British Empire.
The Revolution is obviously in
some ways
the central, most important
war in our history.
All wars leave us with myths.
What did Patrick Henry actual
ly say?
What was Paul Revere's midnig
ht ride actually about?
What happened in the Boston Te
a Party?
Did Washington cross the Dela
ware
in the daytime or the nightti
me?
Who made the first flag?
When did the war start and when
did the war end?
It's been an extraordinary jou
rney to
try and tell the story about
our founding,
about our origin story.
JANE KAMENSKY: I think to bel
ieve in America,
rooted in the American Revolut
ion,
is to believe in possibility.
That, to me, is the extraord
inary thing
about the Patriot side of the
fight.
I think everybody on every sid
e,
including people who were denied
even the ownership of themsel
ves,
had the sense of possibility
worth fighting for.
When we think about war in o
ur lifetime,
it tends to be away from the
United States.
A lot of people, a lot of Ameri
cans
have lived through war, but
it's not
in our backyard, typically.
This war was.
What we have to first unders
tand
is that it's a civil war.
Maybe a quarter of all the civi
lians
in the colonies are loyalists
and remain loyal to the Crow
n and the laws,
and they don't want to upset t
he apple cart.
And so this is a bloody, bloody c
ivil war.
ALAN TAYLOR: The loyalists are
essentially the conservatives.
They're the people who believe
in law and order.
They don't like mobs.
They don't like committees tell
ing them what to do.
They don't see King George th
e Third as a tyrant.
VO: We are preparing for war.
To fight with whom?
Not with France and Spain,
whom we have been used to think
our natural enemies.
But with Great Britain, our
parent country.
My heart recoils at the thought
.
Andrew Eliot.
♪
SCHMIDT: The American Revoluti
on is our story.
It's everyone's story. It's w
here the country began,
and so much of who we are toda
y
came from the story of the Amer
ican Revolution.
The revolutionary generation th
ought about us,
the unborn millions.
They talked about posterity.
In 1777, John Adams wrote to h
is wife Abigail and said,
"Posterity, you will never kno
w what
it cost the present generation
to preserve your freedom."
And I think this is our oppo
rtunity to let
our present generation know w
hat they did,
what they went through, and
how much it matters
to us today that they did.
BOTSTEIN: This is a young war.
George Washington is in his fo
rties.
Thomas Jefferson is in his thir
ties.
People fighting the war are 14
to 50.
It is a young country and a yo
ung war.
They were rebellious, feisty,
youthful patriots
trying to figure it out.
The people we all have heard of
in grade school, middle school
,
high school, maybe studied in
college.
And all the people we haven't
heard about
whose histories haven't been
told.
War exposes the best and the
worst in all of us.
It inspires and repels us.
War is, unfortunately,
the history of the human expe
rience.
BURNS: It turns out that this
film is arriving just before
the 250th anniversary of the
signing
of the Declaration of Indepe
ndence.
And so we're very happy to hav
e our film come out
in advance of that, to help le
ad what we hope
is a much more dynamic conver
sation,
one that is not sort of suffus
ed with nostalgia,
but something that has a litt
le bit more complexity.
I think everyone will find so
mething to identify with,
because the story is our story
,
and it is not just one set of
us.
It's all of us.
And that's the story that we st
ruggled
for a long time to try to tell
.
WILLIAM HOGELAND: Once it's a sh
ooting war,
as with Lexington and Concord, i
t's a war.
There's no doubt about that.
But independence was not in any
way
officially on the table as a g
oal
of the Americans at that point
.
The idea of independence was stil
l controversial.
The official position was th
at the fight
was essentially for redress,
for "Let's get back to the way
things used to be,
back when things were good, wh
en you left us alone."
Making a film about the Amer
ican Revolution
poses instantaneously some pr
etty obvious challenges.
First of all, there are no p
hotographs or newsreels,
and so it forces us to recal
ibrate,
in every sense of the word,
how we're going to use imagery
to tell a very, very complex
story.
So live cinematography becomes
hugely important,
as it always has been for us.
But in this case, our traditiona
l aversion
to re-enactments, we actually
had to lean into.
Some of my favorite footage
in the film
are the very high-up drone shots
where you're seeing the re-ena
ctors and it's incredible.
You just, you could be a bird i
n the sky
looking at what's happening.
We haven't worked a lot with r
e-enactors,
and these re-enactors were a
n extraordinary
part of our process.
BURNS: We have worked with do
zens and dozens of groups
all up and down the East Coast
.
BOTSTEIN: We spent a lot of
time with them,
before we had cameras on, to l
earn from them.
And they are fastidious in ho
w they study, where they go,
how they move, what they're r
eading.
They get really into it.
BURNS: We film them very imp
ressionistically.
It gives us an ability to see
the war
but not see their faces
and be disturbed by a kind of
modern context.
The re-enactors give that kin
d of intimacy.
BOTSTEIN: We would find ways
to film the big reenactments
that they do every year or
two,
and then work with small groups
of them to try to demonstrate
what it was like for a soldier
in his group of 5 guys
in the middle of a blizzard
going up a mountain.
And we did that.
And Megan Ruffe, our extraordin
ary Producer,
just toughed it out with Bud
dy Squires,
and I think it's some of the most
unusual
live cinematography that we've
ever filmed.
There is a kind of mystery an
d a poetry
to the reenactments that helps
tell the story,
and helps fill in for the ab
sence of photographs.
You begin to have a visceral
sense of what happened
when you see people, just feet
going through mud, or snow,
or hands trying to warm them
selves by the fire,
or gripping a musket.
They help you realize what it'
s actually like.
ATKINSON: A shot rings out.
No one knows where the shot c
ame from.
MAN: Fire!
ATKINSON: That leads to prom
iscuous shooting...
mostly by the British.
It's not a battle. It's not a
skirmish.
It's a massacre.
We shot all over the East Coast
and beyond.
Colonial Williamsburg, Saratoga
National Battlefield, Yorktown.
These places are preserved to
look as much as
they could like they did then.
The film is a celebration of
the vast,
beautiful landscape of North A
merica.
We were able, over the course
of 6 or 7 years,
to film in every part of the 13
colonies
in almost every season.
Imagining fighting a war at the
hottest, most awful,
humid months in the South
to the coldest, most horrific
freezing temperatures in the
north.
That all happened.
One of the great improbable for
ces
in this film is weather.
I walk where I live in New Ha
mpshire, out every day,
and I suddenly realize where I
was walking was little changed
from the 18th-century world
that this is taking place.
And so I would start taking m
ovies.
There's snowstorms that I filme
d in,
and it's that wonderful text
ural quality in the film.
NATHANIEL PHILBRICK: America
is this huge continent.
There's tornadoes, there's hu
rricanes,
there's winter storms.
Turns of weather that we know
are coming for weeks on end
hit the people of the 18th cen
tury
completely by surprise.
♪
They're not just fighting each
other.
In a profound way, they are fig
hting
the American climate and geog
raphy and topography.
This is a difficult place to con
duct a war.
One of the great archives of th
e time
that are accurate archives of t
he time are the maps.
The French made maps, the Br
its made maps,
the Germans made maps, we mad
e maps.
We are using more maps in thi
s film
than in all the other films
combined.
When we think about what ani
mates a story
that we want to tell, maps t
ake on huge significance.
We have CGI 3-dimensional ma
ps.
We've taken these beautiful
works of art, archival maps,
to show intimacies in the mids
t of these grand schemes.
It's been exhilarating. Chal
lenging but exhilarating.
And I think that one of the
constants for me
throughout the process was
mastering the complexity of the
story.
NARRATOR: The American Plan
called for two small, noisy,
diversionary feints to draw de
fenders
away from the attack's real t
argets.
Meanwhile, Arnold and his men
would circle around
Quebéc City from the north,
while General Montgomery would
approach from the south.
Together, they would storm th
e citadel's steep walls.
BURNS: We want to convey,
in the most direct and honest
way,
what it was like to experience
the birth of our country
in violence, not just all thos
e great inspiring ideas.
♪
VO: I did not solicit this c
ommand,
but accepted it after much e
ntreaty.
As soon as the public gets di
ssatisfied with my service,
I shall quit the helm with a
s much satisfaction,
and retire to a private station
with as much content
as ever the weariest pilgrim
felt upon his safe arrival in t
he Holy Land.
George Washington.
♪
I'm interested in the U.S.,
but I'm interested in us.
And too often I think our hist
ory books
have presented a kind of top-down
history.
Nothing wrong with it. The most
important person
in our story is, without a doub
t, George Washington,
and I will defend that to the
end.
We don't have a country with
out him.
But there are lots of people
who contribute to this;
bottom-up stories.
And if you're going to tell t
hat, you've got to be
faithful to the whole cast o
f characters.
SCHMIDT: I previously worked
on a film about
Benjamin Franklin, who was an
extraordinary individual,
but he is only one person.
And I'm very grateful to have
this opportunity
to work on a film about 3 mi
llion Americans.
And if there's 3 million peop
le,
there's a lot of stories that m
ost of us don't know yet.
I think we were all surprised
to find
how many people left behind
their memories.
BOTSTEIN: There are wonderful
young men who signed up
for the war when they were,
I would consider, boys,
14, 15 years old and served
valiantly and patriotically
through the whole conflict.
There are Native Americans wh
o made decisions
to side with the British
and those who decided to fight
with the Patriots.
And we tell both those stori
es.
DARREN BONAPARTE: For us, the
Mohawk people,
it was survival--period.
And you didn't know which side
was going to be the best choice.
We kind of gravitated mostly
to the British
because they had kind of won
our respect,
beating the French and pretty m
uch having our interests
when they dealt with the regu
lar colonists.
♪
VO: The disturbances in Ame
rica
give great trouble to all our
nations.
The Mohawks, our particular
nation, have on all occasions
shown their zeal and loyalty
to the Great King.
Thayendanegea.
BURNS: You get to know a Native
American warrior
named Joseph Brant, who's--has
his painting painted.
He's allied with the British;
he's trying to help them.
There are African-Americans
who are trying to make
a huge decision whether to go
with the British,
who are, in some cases, offe
ring them freedom
if they'll leave their rebel,
as the British called us, or P
atriot owners.
And so, you've got huge dynam
ics:
Do I go with the British, do I
fight for the Patriots?
VINCENT BROWN: We know that
about 15,000 Black people
actually joined the British,
or ran away
to the British lines,
versus about 5,000 ultimately
entering the Patriot cause.
And that's because for many
of those enslaved people,
the British represented free
dom.
The Patriots did not.
We've always been a country
with a wide variety of people,
a wide variety of cultures,
a wide variety of opinions.
We tell the story of Elizabeth
Freeman, an enslaved woman
who goes to court for her freedo
m in Massachusetts
and has an amazing story.
Judith Jackson, who was an ens
laved woman
who sided with the British an
d wanted to leave
and had to be separated from her
daughter at the end of the war.
And Phillis Wheatley, who wa
s the first published
African-American in the United
States,
who was a beautiful poet,
corresponded with George Washi
ngton himself,
and came here on a slave ship.
VO: I, young in life, by see
ming cruel fate
Was snatch'd from Afric's fanc
y'd happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must
molest,
What sorrows labour in my pa
rent's breast?
Steel'd was that soul and by
no misery mov'd
That from a father seiz'd his ba
be belov'd:
Such, such my case.
And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrann
ic sway?
Phillis Wheatley.
One of the characters whose
stories we follow is
Joseph Plumb Martin of Conne
cticut.
He was, I think, 15 when he sig
ned up in 1776,
and he served for the duration
of the war.
He was at Yorktown, he was a
t Germantown.
And in the 1830s, he wrote a
memoir of his experience.
VO: Our sergeant major inform
ed us that the regiment
was ordered to Long Island.
It gave me a rather disagree
able feeling,
as I was pretty well-assured I
should have to
sniff a little gunpowder.
The horrors of battle then pre
sented themselves
to my mind in all their hideou
sness.
I must come to it now, though
t I.
Joseph Plumb Martin.
He talks a little bit about
the Battle of Fort Mifflin.
He was bombarded for weeks,
along with his fellow
Connecticut soldiers, by the
British Navy.
He says, you've never heard
of this battle
because there wasn't a Washin
gton or a Wayne there.
But I was there.
VO: What could officers do w
ithout such men?
Nothing at all.
Great men get great praise.
Little men, nothing.
SCHMIDT: He really gives us
an opportunity to understand
what the average soldier went t
hrough.
When you can bring all of thos
e stories together
and all of those thoughts toget
her,
all those people's perspectiv
es together,
you just get a much better un
derstanding of, of the war.
The voices are so varied. They r
epresent all of us.
Rebecca Tanner, who is a Native
American woman,
loses 5 sons in the American
Revolution
fighting for the Patriot cause
.
VO: No suffering which Britain ca
n inflict
will reduce America to submi
ssion.
The thunder of their artillery
may lay waste the cities,
but the spirit of the people is
unconquerable.
Mercy Otis Warren.
We're really lucky that people
like Abigail Adams
and Mercy Otis Warren were wr
iting as much as they were
about what they experienced
and what they thought
during the war.
There are many women you ha
ven't heard of before.
Betsy Ambler, who was a 10-yea
r-old when the war began
in Yorktown, Virginia, and wr
ote beautiful musings
for her sister to understand
what their family had lived th
rough.
VO: The plan laid down for our
education
was entirely broken in upon
by the war.
Instead of morning lessons,
we were to knit stockings.
Instead of embroidering, to mak
e homespun garments.
And in place of the music of t
he harpsichord,
to listen to the loud, clanging
trumpet and never-ceasing drum.
For in every direction that
we traveled, and heaven knows
we left but little of Virgini
a unexplored,
we heard naught but the din
of war.
Our late peaceful country now
became a scene of terror
and confusion.
Betsy Ambler.
You allow a story to have many
different perspectives.
You have hundreds of voices of
people: civilians; loyalists;
Native Americans; Black, free an
d enslaved;
patriots; women; and then you u
nderstand
there is a much more complex
story.
18th-century war is not mecha
nized.
You either walk by foot
or a four-legged creature is t
aking you.
And men didn't go alone. They w
ent with their families.
So, behind the armies are thei
r wives, their children.
And the women, therefore, are su
pporting the troops
in a way that many of us are un
familiar with.
Women are always at the center
of a story of war.
VO: In the new code of laws,
I desire you would
remember the ladies and be mo
re generous and favorable
to them than your ancestors.
Do not put such unlimited power
into the hands of the husbands.
Remember, all men would be tyr
ants if they could.
BOTSTEIN: Women in war are
enormously brave,
enormously strong, enormously
important to the cause.
They made hundreds of shirts.
They publicized the actions
of their husbands.
They not only took care of ever
ybody, but they made
the revolution something people
wanted to be a part of,
and they participated in it in
many, many ways.
ANNETTE GORDON-REED: Crisis c
hanges people,
and it gave women different id
eas
about what they should be do
ing.
KATHLEEN DUVAL: Women were t
he main consumers
in colonial society, and they
were the ones
who made sure the boycotts w
orked.
Women stopped drinking tea.
Women started making their own
fabric.
Women started making toys for
their children.
And they didn't just stop buyi
ng British things
and start making their own thin
gs.
They publicized it.
TAYLOR: One of the key forms
of political theater
during the resistance movement
would be for a local minister
to invite the women of the co
mmunity to come down
to the church and to spend the
day spinning and weaving cloth.
And it would be a competition
to see which community
could produce the most homespun.
It would be published in the n
ewspaper.
And these women would be praised
as great American patriots
for having produced so much
homespun cloth.
BURNS: This is a story in which
women are a central part
of the resistance initially, an
d the revolution later.
SCHMIDT: We're going to be able
to hear a lot of their stories
because the war and the Revo
lution
impacted them personally and im
pacted millions of people
within the original 13 colon
ies and beyond.
It really was just a world-shat
tering event.
>> Hi. Welcome to thestudios of
PBS Wisconsin.
I'm Malcolm Brett, a
volunteer here. Thank
you for joining
us. Hope
you're enjoying this
sneak previewof
Ken Burns
latest .Unbelievable,
phenomenal, awe
inspiring film
on the American
Revolution some 250
years in the making.
Well,when did America
start? Was
it when the
first pilgrims
got here?
Was it
when the
revolution started?
Was it the Native
Americans who lived here?
Lots to think
about. Lots
and lots and
lots to hear
about. And it's
all coming your way from Ken
Burns and PBS Wisconsin this
November, November 16th.
It'll premiere, but we're
getting a sneak
preview tonight,
and we're
inviting you
to enjoy this sneak
preview and
to support your
favorite public
television station,
PBS Wisconsin. Wecouldn't
do this work
without your support.
Ken Burns
has been working on
this film for ten years. It
takes money
to make great,
inspiring, educational,
entertaining , significant
programs. That's what
we do all the
time, and the only
way we can do it is throughyour
financial support.That's
why we're here
tonight, asking you
to makeyour pledge,
to make these
great programs
come your way
now and
well into the
future. A little more
abouthow we say thank you. Let'sgo
over to Linda. >> Thanks,
Malcolm. I'm
Linda Berman, a
volunteerhere at PBS Wisconsin.
And I know
that programs
like the American
Revolution take
time and
effort and
money. Your
support is what's
bringing it
to us. You'regetting to enjoy the
preview. It's
not going toappear
until November, andit's going
to be for sixnights,
12 hours. It's
truly monumental,
and our way
tocelebrate, that is to say,
we have some
very special
gifts that won't even ship
until November
. At $10 a
month, you can get
the I
heart PBS tote
bag. This
isa 16
by 13 inch tote
bag with 22 inch
straps. This
is one that you can
take toFarmers Market and really
load up
at $20
a month. Youget
the six DVD
set of the
American Revolution,
or youcan
get this
hardback book
which actually
has incredible prints
and drawings and
maps of
information that you will
actually see on the
program. At
$25 a month, you
will get
all of it. You will get
thetote bag and the six DVD
set, as well
as the American
Revolution DVD
and the book
This can all Be yours,
butagain, it will not shipuntil
November. You'll bethe first
ones to have
it, but it
starts with your call
at one (800)2
363636. >> You
know, thanks to your
support, this
documentarywill be enjoyed
by folks
intheir homes,
by people
intheir classrooms.
But you know, we
always say folks in their homes. But
the amazingthing about Wisconsin
publictelevision is that you can
stream it. You
can watch iton your
iPad, you can watchit on your phone, you
canwatch it at home if you
wantto do it there. And
there'sjust a whole variety of different ways to engage
and to enjoy
Wisconsin public
television. By
calling one (800)2
363636. Your
help. Your
support is one way
to make sure that not only you can
enjoy it, but so
can a whole variety
of other people. Thediversity,
if you will,
of support
again. 1(800)2
3636360. >> Thank you
Chris. I'm
joined now by Jason
Smith, a project
manager here at
PBSWisconsin. Welcome, Jason.
Hi, Malcolm.
Chris talked a little bit about
engaging inthe
classroom and engaging
people. This
is a phenomenal
program. And if you
sit andwatch it
in your living room, you're
going to havean
extraordinary experience.But ther e
are so many more
ways to appreciate and
learn from and
gain from the
program. On PBS Wisconsin.
And certainly
American Revolution is going
to goingto take advantage
of some ofthose things. Why don't you
tell us a little bit aboutwhat
PBS Wisconsin is goingto do with the program?
>> Absolutely. Thanks, Malcolm. I'm working
withour community engagement team to kind of move
beyondthe screen. Our team, I wantto give
a shout out to
Andrew and Melissa. That'sour team,
and we're workingwith many others around thestation on a
statewide initiative called
America at
250. Now, this is
inspired by
Ken Burns American
Revolution. The
initiativeis a way
for communities toconnect
and reflect
during the
250th anniversary
of America
.>> Well, that's
wonderful. Imean,
this these
programs stand on
their own.
But ifyou can
reach out to
theclassroom, reach out
to thetown square,
partner with
organizations around thestate.
Can you give us
alittle bit more of a flavorof
what that's going to belike?
absolutely. We'reproviding $500 grants and
resources. Clips from
the film
discussion guides,
alot of materials so that
communities can have their
own conversations talking
about those
kind of
great American
democratic values
that came up
during that
time service, you
know,democracy, freedom. What are
all these things
mean to
usright now?
And looking
atthat film and
having thoseconversations, we ho pe
again, will kind of helppeople
connect and reflectand think a little bit
aboutwhat this moment means tous.
>> We'll come back and talkwith Chris a
little bit morein just a minute. The
Amazing American Revolution,an audacious
experience forthose who are
in it, and an amazing experience
for those of us who
are going to hearabout it.
More from KenBurns. This fall, we'll talk
with Jason a
little bit moreabout that. But first, makeyour gift to Wiscon
sin. PBSWisconsin help these
programs keep coming your way.
We've got some greatways to say
thank you whenyou do,
and Linda will talkwith you abo ut
those .>> Thanks,
Malcolm. Yes? This is
your investment. It's an
investment inhistory. It's an
investmentfor your family
tounderstand and expand
your understanding.
We have
these. Amazing
thank you gifts
because the revolution
has so many
different, I
should say,
points of
view. And
the amazing
photographythat you'll see
from it.
Youcan get a clearer
understanding. At
$10 a month, you
get that. Ofcourse, the
iHeart PBS. That
really doesn't
help with theunderstanding, but it
can always
carry everything youneed,
including the
$20 amonth. The
six DVD set, the
American Revolution,
or youhave the opportunity
to getthe hardback
book. Now, that
book is
about 608
pages. It
weighs a lot.
That's why you'll need
the I
PBS tocarry it. But
the whole point
is it's going
toexpand the knowledge that
you have. You can
be some ofthe first people
to get thebook and the
DVD when youcall,
because at $25
a month, you
get the
tote and you
get the DVD
set. The
sixDVD set,
as well
as the
American Revolution
book, This
Is Yours.
And now
we're saying,
give us a
call one(800) 236-3636
to order yours by
becoming a supporter
, or go
online at
PBS. >> You know, as
humanbeings, we always try tolook for
the easy way to dothings. One of
the easiest ways to watch
Wisconsin Public
television. If youhave a
streaming device, is to download
the PBS app.
The app
Apps standing
forapplication, and this is oneway that
you can apply your support
to something like Wisconsin
Public Television
by calling
one (800)2 363636.
Being an ongoing
sustainer, that's something
that again, you can do.
It's easy.
Our folks over
herevolunteering at the callbank
are more than
happy tohelp walk you
through it. You can kind of
set thingsup and essentially andvirtually walk
away, but then you'll
be able tovirtually stream a
lot ofthe amazing programprograming,
including having
access to the
PBS Passport.So again, one (800)2
363636. >> So,
Jason, most of the
folks who are watching
tonight are watching in their
living room. And whata great w ay
to enjoy PBSWisconsin. But a
program of this magnitude
of this significance,
you're really spending a
lot of energyinto
helping people
have community
screenings, and you've got
one coming up
inBaraboo. Sure, we've got a
great community screening coming
up on October 16th
at the AlRingling
Theater. We're
working with our
community partners,
the Wisconsin
Historical Society,
to havean event. We'll
show a
clip,a screen
screening clipwould be different
from the one you're
seeing tonight.And then we'll
have twoepisodes of the
Lookback,which is
our PBS Wisconsin
education series from
that reaches out
to kids grade
four through six,
and then we'll
have a panel
discussion featuring
alittle exploration
of hidden
histories of Wisconsin
toreally excavate that
andtalk a little
bit more again, about
those American
revolutionary themes of
service, freedom,
democracy that'll
all come up in that
conversation. great.
Our history
certainly took an
amazing turn with the
revolution. There's
an amazing
turn coming your
way in
the next few minutes
and enjoy what's
coming up .
[MUSIC] [Playing banjo]
♪
That's cool.
[Violins playing]
BOTSTEIN: One of the big elemen
ts in all of our films
is the music.
We set out to try and imag
ine
what was the sound of North Ame
rica.
So, there's obviously classical
and baroque influences.
There are folk and traditiona
l influences.
There are religious influenc
es.
There is the music that free an
d enslaved black people
were listening to.
There's the range of Native
American music and voices,
and how do we put that all tog
ether?
So, I grew up in Williamsbur
g, Virginia,
and I worked in Colonial Wil
liamsburg.
I'm really happy that I had
the opportunity to walk
and experience something that
came before that mattered.
I played the fife.
I walked in shoes with buckl
es.
I wore knee-length pants and st
ockings.
One song that you'll hear in
the film is a song called
"Over the Water to Charlie,"
which came right out of my fi
fes and drums sheet music.
We only have that song, I--I
realized later,
because one of the main char
acters in our film,
John Greenwood, had kept his sh
eet music from the war,
and it was transcribed from t
hat
by the Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation.
And we got some of the profes
sional musicians
to re-record it for this film.
VO: I was so fond of hearing th
e fife and drum
played by the British, that s
omehow or another I got
an old split fife and fixed it
by puttying up the crack
to make it sound, and then le
arned to play several tunes.
I believe it was the sole cause
of all my travails
and disasters.
JOHNNY GANDELSMAN: I was thinki
ng maybe I--
I mean, we have the arrangement
from--from Mayna
for the quartet in--in F.
And I was thinking maybe if it
was you guys,
it might be nice in D? Man: Y
eah.
And like, how-- you know, what
kind of...
[Playing several notes]
[Snapping fingers and hummin
g]
We were extremely fortunate
to work with
a wonderful music producer,
Johnny Gandelsman,
who helped us corral and figure
out and curate
all the different musicians
and music that we recorded
for the series.
And then Rhiannon Giddens came
in and Yo-Yo Ma came in,
and a wonderful Tuscaroran wom
an,
Jennifer Kreisberg, came in.
Dave Cieri wrote some of the
most beautiful original music
for this series that he's ev
er done,
some of it really inspired by
Haydn, Handel, Bach,
and the classical harpsichord
music of the time
and some just the dissonant,
lonely, scary sounds of war.
And we made a soundtrack that
reflects the unique sounds
that were thriving in--in North
America in the 18th century.
BURNS: This is narration 6.094
take 1, when you're ready.
PETER COYOTE: When the time
came
to choose the first president
under the Constitution,
George Washington was the only
choice
and won the vote of every single
elector.
[Horse whinnies]
He was inaugurated in New York
City on April 30, 1789.
We have a cast of first-person
voices that bring to life
what the country sounded like
.
We read with Joe Keery, Josh H
utcherson,
Alden Ehrenreich...
Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Samuel
L. Jackson...
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: I need not
point out the absurdity
of your exertions for liberty
while you have slaves in you
r houses.
Sir Kenneth Branagh, Damian L
ewis, Paul Giamatti...
SCHMIDT: Morgan Freeman, Jon Pr
oudstar, Laura Linney.
To hear Maya Hawke read Bets
y Ambler's words
and to bring life to what we fo
und was incredibly gratifying.
BOTSTEIN: Thomas Paine is a grea
t voice throughout
the film, brilliantly read by
the unbelievably talented
Matthew Rhys.
Josh Brolin as George Washin
gton,
Jeff Daniels as Thomas Jeffers
on,
Liev Schreiber as Nathanael G
reene
has been one of the great pe
rformances
in any film I've worked on.
LIEV SCHREIBER: People comin
g from home
with all the tender feelings of
domestic life
are not sufficiently fortified
with natural courage
to stand the shocking scenes
of war.
BURNS: And what they do is the
y read off-camera these diaries,
these letters, these journals,
these military dispatches,
the newspaper reports, and al
l of a sudden you realize
they're real people,
they experience things the wa
y I do.
SCHMIDT: And we're just so lucky
that all these people
offered of themselves their ti
me and their experience,
their expertise, their skill
to tell our story, our history.
BOTSTEIN: They lent their craf
t. They got really into it.
They love bringing history to
life in this way,
and we're really lucky to have
worked with all of them.
[Gunfire]
ATKINSON: It's our creation my
th, our creation story.
It tells us who we are, wher
e we came from,
what our forbearers believed
and what they were willing to
die for.
That's the most profound quest
ion
any people can ask themselv
es.
[Shouting and gunfire]
BOTSTEIN: One of the best parts
of my job is to figure out
who the historians are who ha
ve spent their lives
studying this subject.
Who is a scholar of this peri
od in the war?
Who is a writer about this co
nflict, this battle?
[Gunfire]
We take that story of the Amer
ican Revolutionary War,
and we infuse it with interpret
ations
of those moments with leading
scholars on the subject.
We have about 2 dozen of the
m.
Many of them are on camera,
and they hold our feet to the fi
re the whole time.
They want to get it right, to
o.
FRIEDERIKE BAER: This inabil
ity to really figure out
who is the enemy here is a p
roblem.
They're marching through the co
untryside
and they don't know-- this f
arm--
is this farm--is this-- are
these loyalists?
Are there--are there rebels in
there?
Are you gonna shoot at us out
of the window?
Which does happen.
[Gunfire] Who do you trust?
BOTSTEIN: We spend a lot of time
thinking about those people
and going to meet them and ge
t to know them.
And then we build a board of a
dvisors.
Some of them are on camera,
some of them are behind the
camera, some of them do both.
And they're with us all the way
from the first drafts
of the scripts 'til the locked
shows are fact-checked.
There's not a objective tr
uth,
but there's lots of differen
t ways to see this.
And so what you want to do is
employ as many different
scholars and writers who know
about things--
military folks,
people who understand the Nati
ve American dimension.
What you do is, you aggregate
a number of people,
not saying that one particular
philosophy of history is right
or one particular view of his
tory
is the only way to see it.
You allow a story to have many
different perspectives.
TAYLOR: Throughout, it's ver
y visceral,
and I think the quotes were a
ll great.
I liked seeing the Aiken epis
ode,
but I think you want to reconsi
der sticking it
between Fort Washington and
Fort Lee falling.
KAMENSKY: I think it'll go w
ell in episode 1.
It's a breadcrumb for what you
do here.
BURNS: And there is a good re
ason, therefore, to use it,
but I thought, Maya, that we go
t to it
a little bit too soon.
CHRISTOPHER BROWN: Part of wha
t happens in the years before
the American War is that libertie
s are kind of broken out
of a national context.
These are not English libert
ies.
These are transcendent liberti
es.
These are liberties that all in
dividuals have
by the nature of being human.
One of the reasons that I lo
ve making films
for Public Television is that
the films live on
in the classroom.
PBS reaches every classroom in t
he country,
and we're privileged to meet
a lot of those history
and social studies and Englis
h classrooms.
To see somebody light up with
the fact that history
gives you a kind of sense of yo
u've just taken
a very powerful vitamin,
and it gives you a perspective
on this moment.
Film is a powerful teaching t
ool,
and I think every school kid
in America,
every high school kid, every
college kid,
every person who watches the fi
lm
can hopefully find some thing
in this history
that relates to them.
I don't know a greater teache
r than history.
It tells you where we've been
in order to figure out
where you are in order to know w
here you're going.
BURNS: Well, we're pretty much b
ooked up to the end
of the decade.
We're working on a massive seri
es
called "Emancipation to Exodus"
about Reconstruction,
the period after the Civil Wa
r,
one of the most misunderstood
periods in American history.
How people were self-emancip
ating,
the Emancipation Proclamation,
what it did with the 13th and
14th and 15th Amendment,
and then what the country did
struggling in the years afte
rwards to try to make good
on the promises of the Civil War
and then the aftermath.
The Exodus is, of course, the be
ginning of
the Great Migration of Afric
an-Americans
out of the South to enjoy, as
Richard Wright said,
"the warmth of other suns."
I'm serving as an Executive Pr
oducer on a film
that Lynn Novick is producing
and directing and writing
called "Crime and Punishmen
t;"
the history from the pillo
ries
and the shackles of our colo
nial period
up to the present day.
I'm serving also as an Execut
ive Producer on a film
about Henry David Thoreau.
Yes, that's how you say it--
Thoreau (Ther-ow)--
and his wonderful, prescient
years before his time,
decades before his time, unders
tanding of nature
and climate change, even, and-
-and all sorts of things.
And then, you know, we're al
ready thinking
in our head about different pr
ojects.
Sarah Botstein and I are also
working on a film, and we've
been working on it for years
about
"LBJ & the Great Society."
BOTSTEIN: I'm very fortunate
to be working on a film
with Ken and Lynn and Geoff Ward
again about LBJ.
I think the farther we get fr
om his presidency,
the more interesting it is to s
tudy.
And there are extraordinary
tapes, not just of his voice,
which I think many audiences
are used to hearing,
but Ladybird kept an audio di
ary, so you'll hear them
in conversation in the film.
And we're really excited about th
at show.
We're now going back.
We're just about to start up
interviews on that,
now that we see the light at t
he end
of the Revolutionary tunnel.
It's a few things.
TAYLOR: So, what's gonna come o
ut of this revolution
is attempts to create an Ame
rican national identity.
And somebody like George Washingt
on becomes quite
eloquent in trying to persuade
people.
"You're not Carolinians, you're
not New Yorkers,
you're not New Englanders. we
're all Americans."
[Horse whinnies]
BURNS: I love my country.
My favorite holiday is the Fo
urth of July, by far.
And every Fourth of July at the
lake, I get up,
and after a big meal, I make
everyone listen
as I read the Declaration of Ind
ependence out loud.
And my 4 daughters have had
to suffer through this
years and years and years.
I've been doing this for 50 y
ears, making films
about American history.
And I had the supreme pleasure
in this film to do a scene
on the Declaration of Indepe
ndence as full and as
complete and as, I think, as tri
umphant and joyful
and complicated as you could
possibly ever imagine.
BOTSTEIN: The 2 or 3 things
that I was surprised to learn
were so central to the histor
y are, one,
how unlikely it was that we
were gonna win.
[Gunfire]
And I think Washington knew,
as a great leader,
that he wasn't gonna win big;
he just couldn't lose.
North America sat on the glob
al stage at this time.
It really was a global war.
The prize of North America was
an important piece of a global
chess board that everybody wa
s looking toward
as these empires were shrink
ing and growing.
And so, the American Revolution
is much more than
13 colonies throwing off the
Crown and trying to figure out
and establish what the United
States might be.
SCHMIDT: The more you learn ab
out the people
of the revolutionary generation,
the more you read about them,
the more you know what they did
and what they saw
and what they felt,
the more you realize they're
people just like us.
And I think that demystification
actually makes me
love them all the more.
These are people, and they went
through an extraordinary time,
and we are the product of that,
we are that legacy.
I'm glad that we're gonna give
people the opportunity
to know more about them.
BURNS: We've tried really hard
as we lock the film
to make sure in that, "speak now
or forever hold your peace,"
that this is the right length
of a shot, that this is
the right music for a shot,
that this is the right
movement of the arrow on the
map of the shot, that we were
able to gather all this mate
rial and put it in service
of a complex narrative that I
think will be riveting
to Americans who are curious
about that simple question.
My question: Who are we?
But in this case, where did we
come from?
What is our moment of origin?
That's the whole thing.
I don't think you'll come away
from these 6 parts and 12 hours
without a sense of your own ow
nership of this story.
STEPHEN CONWAY: The American
Revolution changed the world.
It's not just about the birth
of the United States.
It has ramifications across the
globe.
[Gunfire]
So, studying The American Revo
lution, understanding it,
and putting it in a global co
ntext, I think, is vitally
important for us to understand
why we are where we are now.
>> A DVD.
Well, we're
takinga break
from the
constantly amazing
Ken Burns. Hi.
I'm Malcolm Brett. I'm a
volunteer at PBS Wisconsin.
We'll be going back
to this intriguing
preview of Ken
Burns upcoming
Revolutionary War
American Revolution
program. But first, we're
taking a break.
We're askingyou
to take a step at this
really important time
tobecome a member
here at PBSWisconsin. As
you probably
know, federal
funding forpublic
media is no more.
It's been
a cornerstone ofour
budget for years, and
now we're moving
on without
it. And we will
move on
andwe will evolve, and we will
rely on you more
than ever.That's
why this
break is so important. This is a
challenge. Break. Current members
have made an
extra gift
to a special fund
set aside
to match your
gift ,dollar
for dollar. Duringthis break.
The first
20 callers, the
first $2,000
pledged will be
matcheddollar for dollar. We'relooking
for 20 callers. We
hope you will be the
first or
second of those callers.And if you're
not first orsecond,
you can be third
orfourth. The
important thingis that you
call during this break. Your
gift will be matched dollar
for dollar.You'll have a tremend ous
impact on our budget as
weretool and
reassess and
reinvigorate PBS Wisconsin
in the wake of our
federal funding
decline. A littlebit about
how we say thankyou.
Here's Linda. >> Thank you.
Malcolm, I'm Linda
Berman, a volunteer
here at PBS Wisconsin.
Andwe are
celebrating you.We're
celebrating Ken Burns,
American Revolution, and
you and your
support for it.
You're getting a
little sneak
preview because the
program itself is not
actually premiering until
November, but you
can be thefirst
if you call
in now toactually
reserve the CD
.Excuse me, DVD
of the program, $10 a
month, you get, first
of all, this really
adorable tote
bag. I
heart PBS and
we really meanI
heart PBS.
We love
it and you
love it to show
your support
with it.
$20 a month, you
get the six DVD
set of
the American
Revolution . Or
it's a choice. You
can get the
hardbound book, which
is about
608 pages,
that has
extraordinary pictures
and paintings and
texts and
examples of pamphlets
fromthe time
period. This is
away to expand your
understanding. $25
a month,
you get them
all. You getthe
tote and the
six DVD set,
as well
as the
book. This
is for you. Our
way ofsaying
thank you. It starts.If you
want to go online
at pbswisconsin.org
or give us
a call, we've got
volunteers. We want that
challenge break met.
So give us
a call at one (800)2
363636. >> Yeah
.>> Challenge. Challenge. This is a
challenge. So
ifyou are
already a member oryou're
considering your first
gift to
PBS, now is the
time to act. It isalmost what I
would call arevolutionary idea
bycalling one (800)2
363636 the
one the folks that
areat Cal Bank here are justamazing.
They're going tohelp you walk through
howyou can set up your
yourgift based on what you fee l
is reasonable. Again,
sustainer is the
wonderful way
to set it up. Be able
tokind of forget
about it, if you
will. There are so many
things that we have to mber on a daily basisthat
this is one of thosethings that the
folks heremake extremely easy.
Soagain, one (800)2
363636I would
you know, I would
urgeyou to think
about how youfeel
when you watch thesethings, how you go m
ore thannot, how you remember these
things and talk about these
things for days to come.That is
reliving history that is creating
newmemories. 1(800)2
363636. >> You
know, when Ken
Burnsmade the film
A Civil
War 30
years ago,
it changed theway people
understood whattelevision could
be. Andhere we
are 30 years
later, and Ken
Burns is still
changing the way peopleunderstand
what television
can be.
Joining me again
, weare happy
to have you back,Aaron. We are.
Jason. We
are looking
at different
ways toengage
with the
programing and you
as a project
manager for the
250th anniversary
American Revolution, are
doing a lot of that
work. Tell us a
little bit what
wecan expect coming with that. >> Yeah. Thanks,
Malcolm.We've got an educational
component here
for our America
at 250
initiative. You know, we
talked a littlebit
about the,
you know, the
community screenings.
Wetalked a
little bit about the
resources and the clipsand
the things that we'reproviding communities forthese
conversations are
education, resources. Our
education team is working on
resources, media resources.
They're known for standards
aligned, trusted
media resources
and PBS educationis
developing . Those
twoepisodes of The Look Back,which
we talked about for
grades four through six, aswell as a
bunch of other wonderful
resources kind of
built around the American
Revolution film
for studentsand teachers to have
those conversations about those
elements. We talked
about democracy,
service, freedom.What are these
things mean
?Next summer in particular?
We're going
to cap off this
is the summer of
2026, rightafter
the 4th of July celebration.
We're going tohave
a summer
civics institute
held in Wisconsin
for educators that
reallywant to incorporate
more civics into their curriculum
and learn how to use these
resources in classrooms and in
other teaching settings.>> Well,
we were we
began as educational television and
we became
public television,but we've never
walked awayfrom
those roots of
education. Thank you,
Jason, for
all you and your team
are doing
to expand the footprint
of what's going
tobe an
extraordinary experience
of watching
American Revolution,
but bringing it
to the classroomand the
town square and
theaters around the state.We're
looking forward not
only to the
program, but tothe work you and your teamare
doing. So thank you.
This is challenge break.Match the challenge.
Makeyour gift count. Double callright
now .
>> And following up
on Jason
and Malcolm were
saying, you know, that's
what PBSWisconsin is
about. Education
, entertainment, information.
And it allhappens because
of you,
theviewer. You
want it, you're
supporting us. That's
whywe're here.
And when youcall
and pledge your support,
we have some very
special thank you
gifts atthe
$10 a month
level. Wehave
the iHeart
tote. I love
that little
tote and it's
really a
big tote. It'sabout
16in by
13in, solid
canvas . At
$20 a month, you
get the six DVD
set, the American
Revolution, which
you will not
be getting until
November after the
premiere . At
25, you
havealso the
choice of either
getting the
DVD set
or the hardback
book at the
$25 a month. You
get the tote,
you get
the DVD
set six DVD
set, as
well as
the book.
And Iwant to
remind you, no
matter what level
you pledgeat,
you will
get our airwaves
magazine. This is
here for you.
You look up
and you see a
week at a
time, what's on,
what's highlighted, what's
special. A
little synopsis
about it.We
depend on
this in our home to know what's
going tobe on our airwaves. You can
too, but you have
to become a
member right now,
and thisis the perfect
time with the challenge. So give us a
callat one (800)2
363636. >> There's a lot to look
forward to with
PBSWisconsin. And using those
words again in
a different way.
Looking forward,
makingsure that you're setting
things up in
a way that you can not only
enjoy thosethose programs and all of
the amazing
educational information that you get
along the way, but
others can
as well. Again,
one(800) 236-3636 is the number
to call.
You know, thinking
about this from my
ownperspective, I grew
up on PBS.
My kids grew
up on
PBS.I remember
actually being
here backstage watching my
mother on the call
banks way
back and
thinking about the
legacy that
she had kind of created for me, the
one thatI'm able to do for my
children, one that you cando
for those around you and for the future of
everyone that would be
enjoying. Andwe know they would be PBSWisconsin.
So again, one(800) 236-3636 is the
number to call
. >> This is
a challengebreak. We've got
19 calls
sofar. That's
terrific. We're
looking for 20.
But we'd
like to go
way past
20 and just
blow that out of thewater. If you
haven'tpledged now double theimpact of your
gift bygetting in
touch with usright now
during thischallenge break. You know,one of the
beneficial sides
of this
extraordinary cut infunding
from the federalgovernment over the last
few months has been the
national conversation about the
significance and the
importance of
public broadcasting. No
one hasdoubted that significance.
No one has
challenged its
importance. The way
we're funded,
though, is
evolving, and
we are becoming
ever more
reliant on
the fundingfrom
people just
like you.
So if you've
been a donor,
thank you.
Please give again. If
you've never givenbefore,
this is the
time tocreate a new
habit. And that's the
habit ofsustaining PBS Wisconsin,
making our
budget work
, and building our
budget forfuture
years so we
can sustain
great programs.
Bring you more from KenBurns, more from
nature,more from
Nova, more from
American experience,
andmore for your
classroom. Make
your call and make
thatpledge right now,
won't you? >> And
we are reliant
on you, our
viewers, and
we are so
excited that the
next generation
is taking
advantage of
this. Our
neighborhood two seven yearolds
held an art sale
tobenefit PBS kids.
They raised over
$158. Here's
oneof the
art pictures. Is this
great? You can be
part ofthis at one (800)2
363636. Show your
support. Right
now. We are
here. Our volunteers
will be here.
Andwe thank
you so much
forwatching. >> 970.
♪
NARRATOR: Corporate funding
for the production of
"The American Revolution" was
provided by Bank of America,
with funding from The Better
Angels Society and its members.
And by the following...
By members of The Better Ang
els Society,
The Corporation for Public B
roadcasting,
and by Viewers Like You.
Thank you.
) ♪