Speaker 1:
From the library of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City, you're Inside the ICE House, our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange on markets leadership and vision and global business, the dream drivers that have made the NYSE an indispensable institution of global growth for over 225 years. Each week, we feature stories of those who hatch plans, create jobs, and harness the engine of capitalism right here, right now at the NYSE and at ISIS, Exchanges and Clearing Houses around the world. And now welcome inside the ICE House. Here's your host, Josh King of Intercontinental Exchange.
Josh King:
With Willie Nelson's On the Road Again serving as an all-encompassing anthem of national wanderlust, it's really fascinating how our nation's highways and byways have been immortalized in some of the most iconic tunes of the great American songbook. There's Nat King Cole's Route 66, Zac Brown Band's Highway 20 Ride, Jimmy Buffett's A1A, and Simon & Garfunkel's meditation on the New Jersey Turnpike in American Tune. And if you're looking for an up-tempo accompaniment to a long slog up I-95, set your Spotify for Rascal Flatts' Life Is a Highway and AC/DC's Highway to Hell. But predating any of these roads is the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental traverse for the newfangled invention of the automobile. But where's the song mentioning the paved route for our 16th president? That, my friends, could be an original assignment for Luke Combs on the heels of his cover of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car.
In 1912, the nation's highways were emerging from what might be described as the dark ages of road construction. Back then, railroads still held sway over interstate transportation of both people and goods, relegating roads to local conveyance. Paved tracks were a rarity with many roots consisting of little more than dirt or mud paths connecting rural areas, sometimes escape routes for bootleggers that eventually paved the path for NASCAR's dominance in the hinterlands. Carl Fisher, manufacturer of Prest-O-Lite headlights, was the visionary, like Theodore Judah of the transcontinental railroad in the 19th century who first proposed the idea of a cross-country corridor for cars. He set a target of completing the project by May 1st, 1915, just in time for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. With a budget of $10 million, Fisher believed that his dream of a coast-to-coast connector could become a reality. Ultimately, it wasn't until the 1930s that the last section of the Lincoln Highway was completed. This milestone marked the beginning of a new era.
Though I'm sure not even Mr. Fisher could have predicted that less than a century later, 70% of all goods would be born on those paved roads. Our nation's supply lines snaking across the continent became apparent to all during the early 2020 lockdown months as backlogs of everything from toilet paper to Tylenol turned critical.
Against this backdrop, our guest today, my old friend, Frank Barry, got into Charley an RV from Winnebago Industries, yes, that's NYSE ticker symbol, WGO, and embarked on a journey spanning the highway's length from Times Square here in New York to San Francisco, California several months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Sheltered in place in the Catskill seeking refuge from COVID with my family, I lived vicariously through Frank's dispatches from the journey that were published by Bloomberg. I wrote to him, somewhat jealous of the freedom he found amid the lockdown, hoping that someday a book would result from the Steinbeckian serenade, From Sea to Shining Sea. Sure enough, we are now, as readers, blessed with Frank's latest book, Back Roads and Better Angels: A Journey into the Heart of American Democracy, out now from Steerforth Press.
In today's episode, we're going to dive into Frank's writing, exploring the nation's quest for unity amid political discourse and what direction lies ahead. Our conversation with author Frank Barry is coming up right after this.
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Josh King:
Welcome back. Remember to subscribe to Inside the ICE House wherever you listen to your podcast. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts if you would so that other folks know where to find us.
Our guest today, Frank Barry, is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and member of the editorial board covering national affairs. Previously served as chief speech writer to Mayor Mike Bloomberg in New York City Hall and during Mayor Bloomberg's ill-fated and all-too brief 2020 presidential campaign. Frank is the author of The Scandal of Reform and has just released his newest book, Back Roads and Better Angels: A Journey into the Heart of American Democracy, out now from Steerforth Press.
Frank, thanks so much for joining us Inside the ICE House. Get out from behind the wheel, take a load off your back at America's most famous intersection, the corner of Wall and Broad Streets, home of the New York Stock Exchange.
Frank Barry:
Thanks for having me.
Josh King:
Before we recount your trip, it's too bad you can't drive Charley right up to the door of the NYSE. The Exchange District is closed to vehicular traffic. Where is Charley now? We all want to know.
Frank Barry:
We still have Charley. He is in storage. It's hard to keep an RV in Manhattan where my wife, Laurel, and I live, but when we got back from the trip, we didn't know what we would do with Charley. We had never owned an RV before and the trip was such an incredible experience that we weren't ready to part ways. So we have continued to take trips, not as ambitious or along as our cross-country journey, but we have been having fun exploring the northeast when we can in Charley.
Josh King:
Where is that storage and how often do you take it out or just go sit in?
Frank Barry:
Just seasonal. So it's up about an hour and a half north of New York City, so I go up time to time to start the engine and do some other fun housekeeping things that I've learned as an RV owner need to be done over the offseason.
Josh King:
We're going to get more into RV ownership and what kind of people it would apply to because you and I may not be the standard demographic for Winnebago. But during the summer 2020, our country already was several months into the pandemic protests and demonstrations all over the nation. A lot of us felt the need to break free from the confines of home. Among those, like me, you entertained the idea of embarking on a cross-country adventure tracking the historic Lincoln Highway, but unlike most folks, you actually did it and had the idea of cataloging the entire trip, tracking your memories, experiences, and stories along the way. What first gave you the idea to do the trip and write about the journey and turn it into your second book?
Frank Barry:
I had been wanting to do the journey for four years at that point, really. The idea of driving the Lincoln Highway first came to me in 2016. I had forgotten that the Lincoln Highway exists, even though Mayor Bloomberg did help dedicate a street sign. If you go to the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street in the heart of Times Square, there is a street sign that says Lincoln Highway. That's where it begins. So in 2016, I thought, here we are, the country is being torn apart by a sense of division that I had never experienced in my lifetime. And I thought, "Well, one way to look at this rather than following the campaign, which everyone else was doing, would be to go out on the Lincoln Highway and tell the story of what holds America together." And, of course, work got in the way and time overtook me and I didn't do it.
And so come summer of 2020, we're in lockdown, and in talking with my wife, Laurel, we realized that ... And she, of course, had been along for this Lincoln Highway dream of mine and we realized it was now or never. We've got to go do this now, seize the moment, and that's what we did in short order. We did not have an RV. We knew nothing about RVs. In July of 2020 and several weeks later, I was driving one up. We bought a used RV, I was driving one up from North Carolina to New York figuring it out as we went.
Josh King:
You raised the topic of marital bliss and despite the challenges of the pandemic, you were navigating, really, I think your first year of marriage to Laurel. This meant not only convincing yourself of the trip's merits, which you had been contemplating for those four years, but also persuading her to embark on the journey with you. Laurel is not like Steinbeck's faithful hound, Charley, but she was an obedient companion, nevertheless.
Frank Barry:
I wouldn't say obedient, but she was game. She was willing and I give her huge credit for having that spirit of adventure because it was a completely harebrained idea. We had no actual plan, we had no experience driving an RV. We were both working. She would need internet access on the road. So would I. So we really took a chance in doing it and, of course, it did work out, but it was a gamble and she was game for it. So I'm greatly, really appreciative that she did [inaudible 00:09:56].
Josh King:
I can appreciate an opinion editor needs just a good laptop and good connectivity. What were her sacrifices in being able to hit the road for you?
Frank Barry:
Well, she was on a laptop, too. Both of our offices were closed. And so we were both doing Zoom meetings constantly. So we really just ... It was have laptop, we'll travel.
Josh King:
Adding to this complexity, as you described this trip down to North Carolina to pick up the Winnebago, neither of you had ever purchased a car and now you had to make your first vehicle purchase of that Winnebago. Did doubts ever creep into your mind about Laurel potentially vetoing the trip? I mean, couples will always make checklists before embarking on a family road trip. What was the kitchen table conversation like?
Frank Barry:
Well, she did veto it several times and I kept working on her and I think it helped that in the beginning, I had talked about doing the trip in more of a van. And so when I finally began poking around the market and found something that was bigger, although the RV that we bought was 25 feet, which is actually very small for an RV, but it was the biggest RV I wanted to drive and about the smallest RV that we wanted to live in. And so in the end, she came around to it.
Josh King:
But important for both of you is the important ability to continue drawing a paycheck. You also had to convince Mayor Bloomberg and the higher-ups at Bloomberg, like my old friend David Shipley, that this project was worth pursuing. What was the process in getting their approval and who did you find more challenging to convince, Laurel eventually or the mayor?
Frank Barry:
The mayor and David Shipley and everyone at Bloomberg was incredibly supportive of the idea. I think they all recognized the potential of, while everyone was in lockdown and reporting on the campaign from either their homes or from DC, this was an opportunity to go talk to Americans about national issues, but from a more local and personal perspective. So the mayor and everyone at Bloomberg was super supportive from the get-go.
Josh King:
I mean, like my friend Howard Wolfson who's worked for the mayor for a long time, he prizes loyalty. You've been there for a long time, so this was something that he would-
Frank Barry:
Howard was one of the sparks that helped make it happen actually. So I owe him a lot for the trip, too.
Josh King:
Sketch a little bit your path that led to that point, your relationship with the Bloomberg world and your coming to become an opinion columnist.
Frank Barry:
So I had worked under Mayor Bloomberg for almost 12 years in City Hall. I began as a legislative assistant and ended up sitting with the speech writers, who were overworked. My work was a little up and down. And so I just started volunteering for assignments. Next thing I knew I was full-time speech writing. That's the story of almost every speech writer I've met. No one really plans to get into it and somehow they fall backwards into it. And so I loved it. It was a great run. And when it ended, I ended up at Bloomberg, the company, on the editorial board.
Josh King:
As people do, whether at the philanthropies or at the company.
Frank Barry:
Right, right. And so joined the editorial board, continued to write or begin writing an occasional column under my own byline and continued to do work for then-former Mayor Bloomberg, mostly on behalf of the foundation that he runs.
Josh King:
Where did you grow up?
Frank Barry:
I grew up just outside the city, Rockland County, about 30 miles northwest.
Josh King:
And the training that led you into showing up at City Hall, where was Frank before you joined the bullpen?
Frank Barry:
Well, I had gone to college at Notre Dame, had written a senior thesis on campaign finance reform. As it happens, New York City has a great campaign finance reform program. And so was lucky to be hired at the city agency that runs it. So did that for a couple of years and then went back and got a master's and that was the way I ended up in City Hall.
Josh King:
As you think about the journey that spanned places like Wayne, Pennsylvania, Goshen, Indiana, Fort Collins, Colorado, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, among so many other stops, what was your method of capturing and recording the stories and experiences that you encountered? I mean, this feels a little like Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in the first season of Walking Dead. Were you on the lookout for anyone walking in town or were you more deliberate about the folks that you would approach?
Frank Barry:
Well, it was an unusual time to be traveling because the pandemic meant that things were not open as they ordinarily would be. Some businesses were, some were not, but you couldn't just count on necessarily running into people. And I also didn't want to do the trip that was just random interviews. I wanted to be a bit more deliberate about who we spoke with and to seek out the stories that I thought were important for the time. And so the good thing about the pandemic was people had time and everyone, almost without exception, was happy to meet me and sit down and talk. So talk to activists, talk to mayors, try to have a broad range of people in different walks of life running different businesses to talk about the issues that were most important to them and to do it in a way that was not connected to the 2020 campaign so that people could come to these issues without layering on their own political perspectives on top of it, which so often ends conversations rather than begins them.
Josh King:
When you talk about talking to activists and mayors, you and Laurel are in an RV, you've got a phone and a computer, but are you using your Bloomberg Opinion cred to email City Hall to walk into the mayor's office and just seeing people in a diner? How does it work?
Frank Barry:
Yeah, well, both. When I would email someone to inquire about an interview, I would, of course, always be upfront about who I was and that I was doing a weekly column for Bloomberg and I was interested in talking with them about what they were going through. But there are lots of other times when we would just meet someone and we have a conversation and some of those are recounted in the book as well.
Josh King:
The book's cover is adorned with these bold black letters, Back Roads and Better Angels, featuring, there it is, Charley, the Winnebago on it as well. The creative process behind the title and the inspiration for the selection, of course, has to recall Lincoln's first inaugural address when the president said in 1961, the mystic cords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. When did better angels become part of this?
Frank Barry:
Better angels was really the spirit from the beginning. The working title of the column during the 2020 campaign was looking for Lincoln. And the two, of course, are related. And so Lincoln really does lie at the center of the story and the search for better angels, which is not just a nice person that you meet along the way, but Lincoln was talking about the better angels of our nature, the better angels within us, and that is the spirit that I've tried to draw out all along the route.
Josh King:
In the prelude of the book you write, this is not another book about Trump, but like so much of American life now, he hovers around it, nor is it a book to explain Republican voters to befuddled Democrats, a mission that liberal writers have spent two decades attempting with little success. Now, that befuddled Democrat, Frank, may define me. So it's not a book about President Trump's influence across America or a book to explain those in the heartland to those on the coasts, which also may define me. What was your aim in writing it?
Frank Barry:
The aim was simpler, really, to bring people along on a journey and to meet people along the way, to bring people into conversation with us about issues that are affecting people in more personal terms, to excavate from the landscape that we passed some of the history that is deeply important to who we are, and to use music. You opened this by talking about music. Music is an unbelievably important part of this story because it shapes our shared identity. And to use history, politics, music, and culture to help highlight what binds us together. So many of the books that I've read have been about what separates us, what makes us different, almost fetishizing national differences rather than looking at commonalities. And I think there's a lot more to the common denominator than we often read about and think. And so that was the mission of the book. And to bring people along and to do it in a way that I hoped would be new and fresh and to give people fresh eyes into older issues.
Josh King:
We reflected a little bit earlier on Charley, the Winnebago. That vehicle becomes a central character in the journey, flaws and all, including the recurrent broken toilet pedal. But despite its imperfections, Charley serves as your trusted mode of transportation, faring you and Laurel from city to city and enabling the completion of the journey. What's the story behind Charley's christening, a nod to John Steinbeck?
Frank Barry:
Yes, we named Charley for John Steinbeck's dog that he brought with him on Travels with Charley, which, of course, is a seminal work of American road reporting. A wonderful read written in 1960 ending really with the inauguration of JFK. And, of course, our journey essentially ended or at least built up to the inauguration of Biden because it began or, I should say, our trip began on September 11th here in Lower Manhattan. And our plan was for it to end on election day at the end of the Lincoln Highway in San Francisco. But, of course, the election kept going and the debate over who won and the Stop the Steal movement continued. And so we continued, but Steinbeck was, in a sense, as he is for anyone who takes to the road to write and to look for America, so to speak, a part inspiration for this journey.
Josh King:
So, Frank, your goal was to follow the Lincoln Highway as I talked about the nation's first transcontinental route across the northern states and, as you say, arrive in San Francisco for election day that year, November 3rd. You could have taken a bunch of routes, you take the Lincoln Highway rather than typical road trip that some of us might have done during the pandemic when places like Yellowstone reopened. So many of your friends and family thought you might be going into a place like that once you take Charley into possession. Mapping out that Lincoln Highway and your route, the place you'd stay overnight, why did the Lincoln Highway become your outbound path?
Frank Barry:
The Lincoln Highway, in addition to the idea of using Lincoln as a north star, so to speak, to guide the journey, it provided the wonderful excuse to get off the interstates. So we almost entirely avoided the interstates. And when you're on the interstate, you're going from point A to point B. And the point of this trip was never to get from point A to point B, but to see everything in between. And that's a pretty rare gift to have the time to be able to drive the back roads and it's time-consuming, but it was a wonderful way to see the country and not just to be racing to the next national park.
Josh King:
Those places in between that you talk about as we delve into this seven-month 10,000-mile journey across the country back and forth, let's pause a little bit on who I mentioned earlier, the inspiration, Carl Fisher, the visionary behind the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He pioneered the concept of a paved road spanning America. I want to listen to a clip from a Wyoming PBS documentary discussing the uniqueness at the time of Fisher's idea.
Speaker 5:
Before the Interstate Highway System, before famed Route 66, before highways were even numbered, there was one road that captured the public's attention. One road that led to new horizons, one road that changed America forever. Beginning in Times Square, New York City and ending in San Francisco, it was America's first coast-to-coast automobile road, the Lincoln Highway.
Josh King:
What drove Fisher to conceive the plan for the highway, especially during the early era of automobiles and what strategies were employed as he tried to transform that idea into reality?
Frank Barry:
Fisher was one of the great stuntmen of American history. He was, as you mentioned, an entrepreneur who began building and repairing bicycles, went into car sales, ended up selling headlights, and making a fortune in headlights. But throughout that process, he never stopped performing stunts that captured the public attention and drove sales. And so he would drive cars off a four-story building and drive off to cheers. He would ride a bike across a tightrope between two buildings.
So there are all kinds of other things that he did that were amazing at grabbing attention and increasing sales. So he was very successful at that. And this idea is part of it, it's connected to it. It was the idea that if we build a paved road, which will be a spectacle, automobiles were still so new. Most people didn't have them. Anyone who had an experience with them knew what a huge pain in the neck it was because everybody got stuck, you didn't know where you were going. The cars broke down. I don't want to say it was a nightmare, but it was a very, very laborious process to drive any distance.
And so his idea was, let's capture the public attention by building a paved road from coast to coast. And guess what that will do? It will drive demand for automobiles. And so it was, in the most American fashion, both spectacle and business plan. And in one sense, it was a spectacular failure because the road really was never built, at least not as he conceived it, but it was also an amazing success because it did what he hoped it would do, which was to lodge into people's heads the possibility of what this could be for them and for their communities and what it could mean. And it did help drive demand for public support for road building.
And so within a few years, you see the beginning, for the first time ever, of federal funding for roads in 1919. So only six years after the highway is dedicated. It's still essentially a dirt road. A very little of it has been paved and the army takes a convoy with returning veterans from World War I from DC across the Lincoln Highway to San Francisco. And the idea was to show how difficult it was to move an armored convoy from one coast to the other at a time when you could be facing attack from a foreign threat, when part of the land could be occupied by a foreign nation. And so part of the purpose of it was to drive public support for road building. One of the people along for that ride was a young soldier named Dwight Eisenhower and he credits that in his memoir, that experience of getting stuck in the mud continually. He credits that partly for the inspiration of the Interstate Highway System.
Josh King:
We all know somewhat the story of the creation of the Interstate Highway System, the need not only to convey man and material during times of national crisis, but also in many of its straightaways to be able to turn them into makeshift airports if needed. Then comes, Frank, the decision if it was a stunt and a spectacle on Fisher's part, a marketing campaign, parts of his business, to name it and dedicate it for Abraham Lincoln. This comes nine years before the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, Daniels Chester French's sculpture of the fallen 16th president. This is also a time with the rise of the lost cause of the Confederacy, the naming of many American military installations after Confederate generals. Yet this highway was going to be a counter to that.
Frank Barry:
Yeah, it was dedicated and they conceived of the idea while there was a political debate going on about the Lincoln Memorial and it hadn't been approved, what we know of today, had not yet been approved when they adopted the name. And there was some discussion about creating the Lincoln Memorial not as the Greek temple that we know in Washington today, but as a road from Washington to Gettysburg. And that plan fell apart. And when it did, Carl Fisher and his chief supporter, Henry Joy, who's also absolutely instrumental in the creation of Lincoln Highway Association, decided to coop the name. And they said, "We'll create the Lincoln Highway Association and adopt Lincoln as our patron saint in a sense, the man who held the country together. He will be the name of our road that connects the two coasts and, for the first time, connects the whole country."
Josh King:
My friend, Ted Widmer, wrote that beautiful book a couple years ago of Lincoln's journey from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, DC for his first inauguration. And this is, in some way, creating the second half of that.
Frank Barry:
That's right. And no one, I think, it's fair to say, would have loved the idea of a road across the country more than Lincoln, who spent most of his career championing public works so early in his career, that meant canal building, later signed the bill creating the transcontinental railroad. So Lincoln, throughout his career, was a huge champion of public works. And so, in many ways, the Lincoln Highway is the most fitting memorial to him.
Josh King:
You write that the idea that had always underlane the Lincoln Highway that we will be a stronger, more unified nation if we are connected to one another through personal interaction and experience survives. Do you think that while the physical realization of Lincoln Highway may have fallen short when Fisher initially planned its completion, its overall purpose of promoting a stronger, more connected nation was ultimately successful?
Frank Barry:
I do think that it did help people think more about the need for national connectedness. And so the early Lincoln Highway slogan was See America First at a time when it was faster to get to Europe from the East Coast than it was to get to San Francisco. Most of America hadn't seen much of America at all beyond their own towns. Train travel had changed that some, but the car is really what would transform it. And so I do think that the Lincoln Highway played an important role in helping people to believe in the need for the country's physical infrastructure to be stitched together more closely.
Josh King:
Leaving New York on September 11th, 2020 marked a very poignant anniversary, obviously a day etched in our history as the darkest hour since Pearl Harbor, yet one that may have, back in 2001, united the country in ways that were reminiscent of the unity during World War II. Much thanks, obviously, to Mayor Bloomberg for his efforts to complete the rebuild of downtown. Also, my friend, Michael Arad, a former guest on the show who designed the 9/11 memorial. As your trip began 19 years after the attacks, really around the corner from where we sit, the nation was as divided as it might have been during Lincoln's time. How did that symbolism drive the departure date for you and Laurel?
Frank Barry:
That was a big reason why we left on September 11th. I was in New York for September 11th and, of course, lived through the aftermath and the inspiring months that followed as difficult and painful and unthinkable as they were. There was something good that came out of 9/11, which was a sense of unity that was shared not only by people in New York region, but by people across the country. And that was a powerful thing that lots of us remember, but lots of people also are too young to remember. And I think it was really the last moment as a country that we had that type of moment and the pandemic, in some ways, could have been a version of that. Instead, it became the opposite. It became political fights over masks and eventually over vaccines, over closures. And maybe that was inevitable, but I don't think it had to be. And part of the idea of going out on September 11th was to not necessarily recapture that spirit of September 11th, but to channel it and to bring it along with us as we went.
Josh King:
Before we head into the break, the chasm between the political parties is palpable, illustrated through many of the anecdotes in Back Roads and Better Angels. Whether it was discussions that you've had with folks like Matthew Schuring, a barber in Massillon, Ohio, or Tom Sullivan, native of Centennial Colorado, or your personal encounter regarding masks at the Four Deuces Saloon in Tombstone, Arizona, there are diverse perspectives from both Democrats and Republicans alike in the book. How did these encounters influence your perspective on just how divided we are as a country?
Frank Barry:
Well, I think that I came away without ... Certainly didn't come away thinking, "Oh, everything's hunky-dory." But at the same time, by keeping our conversations away from the 2020 campaign and talking more about the issues and people's experiences with them, what came out of almost every conversation, maybe that's slightly exaggerating, but not much, was a frustration. People felt frustrated at how divided the country was. And that was true of both Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. And I thought that was a healthy insight into the way people are experiencing these issues without blaming one side or the other. I think it's really important, too. And so that's where the conversation usually becomes this side is the problem, that side is the problem. And if you turn on cable television, that's what you're going to get. Pick your channel, you're going to get a version of that.
And the truth is that both sides are deeply frustrated over it and both of them have reasons to be frustrated. And I try to explore some of those reasons with small business owners like the barber and small business owners like the ranch owners that we met in Arizona, mentioning two small businesses, but activists as well. The idea was to talk to people on both sides of the pandemic debate, on the political debate, but to do it in a way that allowed them to express themselves more fully than just, "Oh, Biden's the problem, Trump's the problem."
Josh King:
Expressing oneself more fully after the break. Frank Barry and I are going to continue to discuss the lessons learned and dive deeper into the experiences he and Laurel encountered in Frank's new book, Back Roads and Better Angels: A Journey into the Heart of American Democracy. All that is coming up right after this.
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Josh King:
Welcome back. If you are enjoying this conversation, want to hear more from guests like Frank Barry, remember to subscribe to Inside the ICE House podcast wherever you listen to your podcast. Please give us a good rating and also a review on Apple Podcast so folks know where to find us.
Before the break, Frank and I were discussing his new book, Back Roads and Better Angels: A Journey into the Heart of American Democracy, the writing process behind the book, and also the history of the Lincoln Highway place that we all love and revere. Frank, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during the early stages of your journey, you meet Peter Carmichael, the director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. He highlights President Lincoln's refusal to pass judgment even amid the turmoil of the Civil War, emphasizing the significance of recognizing everyone's perspective. As your conversation with Peter concluded, he poses a question that resonates through history and into the present, can we have justice and reconciliation? Can we have it both ways? How would you respond?
Frank Barry:
Well, I do think it's an incredibly important question, an incredibly difficult one, but one we have to wrestle with. And, of course, it was a question that the country wrestled with coming out of the Civil War and continued to wrestle with for the century that followed without great success and, of course, we're still wrestling with it today. But the question of justice and reconciliation gets to the idea that they're intention and they usually are because the demands of one side are not just opposed by the other side, but often violently so, and the other side will see it as an obstacle to reconciliation. So you could ... The tension between justice and reconciliation was true in 1865. It was true in 2020 with Black Lives Matter. No justice, no peace was a chant that we encountered in Lancaster and one you'll see at almost any march that you go to.
And so, yes, we want justice, what does it require? But let's not forget reconciliation as you work towards justice. And as I say, those two are often intention and they require good faith conversations between people and groups that are very, very difficult to have that don't have clear answers and that require, above all, a level of trust between groups that is so often lacking, and that's part of what makes the challenge so difficult.
Josh King:
Your exploration of Gettysburg brought to light the concept of the alternate reality that we often construct diverging from historical reality of the time. For example ... Well, we don't often acknowledge this as we recite from memory the Gettysburg address. The address avoids words that might have been divisive at the time. Words like emancipation, words like slavery, as he was primarily focused on reuniting the country before his assassination. In your opinion, how does the creation of inaccurate or manipulated realities affect our perception of historical events and their influence?
Frank Barry:
Well, the Gettysburg address is a good example of that because it has become as much of a national creed as we have, government of the people, by the people, for the people. So we often have divorced it from the ground upon which it was spoken. As you say, it was, at its heart, a political speech. It was a campaign speech even by a president who was struggling mightily to reconcile two sides of a war. And so, as you say, he did not mention slavery in speaking about freedom. He did not mention emancipation. Why? Because he did not want to antagonize the other side.
There was so little righteousness in Lincoln, and that is one quality that I do so admire in him, and that is often lost in our consideration of him. There was no triumphalism when he spoke at Gettysburg. There was no we beat those bastards and they had it coming to them type of sentiment, just the opposite. It was all about bringing people together. This is true in his second inaugural most famously, but it was true throughout Lincoln's time that he never engaged in that type of rhetoric, even as others did and even as others called him to do.
Josh King:
Talking about righteousness and revisionism, the mark of a great writer and journeyperson is your ability to find stories not that are on the tip of everybody's tongue, like being able to recite the Gettysburg address, but things that have escaped our memory in some respects, you recount the 1898 Wilmington North Carolina massacre, one of really the deadliest acts of terrorism in American history in which a white mob overthrew the local government. They killed dozens of Black residents. The president of the United States at the time, William McKinley, refused to condemn the attack or really restore leadership. And yet that event itself, as we look at it in the present day, is often not taught or even remembered. This represents just one example of the forgotten historical moments that you write about in your book. How does such instances shape our understanding of national narratives and the legacies attributed to historical [inaudible 00:41:16]?
Frank Barry:
Well, we often get a one-dimensional version of them, which is the problem with statues, is that each side will pick its one dimension and say, "This is what this statue represents," when, of course, it's a much more complicated story. And I'm glad you mentioned the 1898 Wilmington massacre, because when we talk about justice and reconciliation, there's really no better example than this case in 1896. And we visited ... We went through Canton, Ohio where McKinley was from. He was a congressman before becoming governor. There's the McKinley home. McKinley is an important part of the Canton visitor experience, part of their economic strategy and economic development plans in terms of bringing in visitors and all the business that goes with it. But McKinley is a complicated figure. And in 1896, he runs on a platform of national unity and reconciliation between North and south that still had not reconciled. And that's admirable in one sense.
On the other hand, for the first time ever in 1896, as part of that effort, the Republican Party, of which McKinley was the standard-bearer, dropped the plank in support of Black suffrage. And so that's the justice side of this. If we want reconciliation, we're going to sacrifice justice. Well, that has consequences. And very tragically, those consequences played out not just in Wilmington, but really across a whole new era of multiple generations of Jim Crow. And so I don't want to put reconciliation on its own pedestal without putting justice beside it. You have to have the two. You're not always going to get the mix right, but if we only celebrate reconciliation and we only celebrate what McKinley did, and there are accomplishments that are worthy of celebration, we lose sight of another really important part of our history that shaped life for all Americans, but particularly for Black Americans for three generations to come.
Josh King:
Staying in the Buckeye State in Ohio, you crossed paths with first-generation farmer, Chris Gibbs, reflecting on his own political evolution from Republican to an independent. He shared how it affected his life and Chris remembered to you, if you're a member of a party, you're assigned values, you get a starter kit, pro-life, pro-trade. When I became an independent, I didn't have a starter kit. Now, all of a sudden, it's a la carte for me. So I'm wondering, Frank, in today's polarized landscape, losing party identity often invites criticism, maybe some social isolation. What experiences did Chris face and how did they shape his views on [inaudible 00:44:03]?
Frank Barry:
So Chris had been the chair of the Republican Party for about a decade, had spent his life in local Republican Party politics, and he voted for Trump in 2016. But over the course of the several years that followed, found himself increasingly at odds with Trump, which I go through in the book, but essentially can be summed up by Trump's treatment of national intelligence services. And in addition, he's a farmer. He was absolutely apoplectic about the tariff subsidies, but, sorry, the tariffs the Trump administration put on, other reasons. People can fall out with parties for any number of reasons, but to me, the most important part of this story is what happens after he does. So he becomes an independent. And what happens? He loses his friends and the people that he thought were friends no longer want to speak to him and come up to the diner and give him icy cold stares when he's sitting in a diner.
So that was a shock to him. And it speaks to how much politics has become personal. And this is not just true in the Republican Party, it's true in the Democratic Party as well, that there's less tolerance for abiding political differences than there ever used to be. And that was something that I heard from a lot of people along the route, including someone at the Lincoln Highway Association in Illinois who had likewise long been involved in Republican politics, was still a Republican, talked about being very close friends with a local Democratic leader and how they had just the night before been out for a beer and the Democrat said to him, "This just isn't fun anymore. We used to go work for the other candidate and we'd fight tooth and nail and, at the end of the day, we'd sit down and have a beer. And now when you sit down with someone on the other side, someone walks away not talking to each other." And that type of thing is something that I think everyone probably has experienced on some level in their families. Social media is part of this, where people just up and go, "I don't want to talk to you." And conversations go from zero to 100 very quickly and relationships end up getting fractured and lost. That's very sad.
Josh King:
I mean, talking about people with certain political labels, I mean, you've been identified in the past as a Republican, I've been identified in the past as a Democrat. You and I have known each other a long time. That's why I'm hoping you'll join me tonight at Whisky Wednesday when we talk not about current politics and our division, but when America was truly unified in the fight to defeat Hitler and Nazism in that ultimate year, 1944 to 1945. So I think that's where people can find a cord. But when you're talking, Frank, about icy cold stares, you also ... And we mentioned earlier, when you see protests, people holding signs, Black Lives Matter, no justice, no peace, you found such a person holding such a sign, Fort Wayne, Indiana, a woman was at an intersection with two homemade posters. When you were talking with her, she shared insights on the diverse reactions she got from passersby, motorists, prompting you to ask through the differences what she thinks binds the nation together. How did she respond?
Frank Barry:
She said ... She held up her signs to me and said, "We can do this. That's what makes America different. We can do that." She can stand on that street corner holding a sign and someone else who feels the opposite can do the same. And I thought that was a really important answer that that's what makes us different. That's what binds America together, our ability to say what we want, to express our views, to protest, to speak openly, and to accept that everyone else has a right to do that as well. And that's something we often take for granted.
Josh King:
Can people hold a sign in Hamilton Hall at Columbia University or at Harvard Yard?
Frank Barry:
Well, they can hold a sign in Harvard Yard. They cannot hold a sign if they have taken over a building and not expect to pay consequences for it, as we've seen. There are still laws that you've got to follow. Holding a sign doesn't give you the right to break laws. And so we're seeing that play out on campuses now.
Josh King:
On election day 2020, as you reached the culmination of your journey at the end of Lincoln Highway, San Francisco, you reflected on the interactions with all these people that you've met along the way. Throughout, you asked, I think, the same or version of the same two questions, what is your biggest fear or concern about the future of the country and what binds us together as Americans? In response to the first question, no one really raised relations with China, Russia, or Iran, nor did they bring up concerns about nuclear war or terrorism. The overwhelming majority seemed to tell you was their biggest fear, and I'm going to quote you here, the divided state of our country, politically, economically, and socially. How did that answer compare to what you thought you'd get when you and Laurel set out from time to time?
Frank Barry:
That's a great question. I did not go in with preconceived notions about what we would hear. I think I probably would have guessed that there would have been more cultural answers, but, no, I don't think anyone said, "Well, we're so divided over abortion or so divided over climate change." It was very rarely that specific or any number of issues like that. It was a lamenting of the fracturing of the country.
Josh King:
While your trip westward along the Lincoln Highway was complete in San Francisco, the eastward expedition back home was set to bring new opinions and interactions, as you put it, the two places that loom so large over our national divisions, the Mexican border and the old Confederacy. You write about how you could have taken the easier route back along Eisenhower's interstate, got back in a much shorter time, thanks to what that system allows us to do now going coast to coast. But why was it important for you to detour down south?
Frank Barry:
Well, so much of what this journey is about and what the book is about and that I hope people will take from it is challenging people in both parties to reconsider issues within. We're so busy pointing fingers at what's wrong with the other side. We rarely take the opportunity to look within and to consider how our party is failing to live up to the values that are so important to the country. And so at the center of so much of today's political debate is immigration. And in 2020, especially, at the center of so much of the political debate was around racial justice. And both of those things are still true today. We're in a bit of a rerun on 2020 in that sense. But the idea was, okay, the election is over, but it's not over. There's still a debate about who won. And so let's go to the center of those two debates. Where does that bring us to the Mexican border and through the heart of the old Confederacy?
Josh King:
You mentioned that what we're facing now four years later is a rerun of 2020. Given our proximity to the looming election with the same candidates as four years ago, do you think if you were to begin the journey again, a lot of the insights and perspectives you got along the Lincoln Highway would remain true?
Frank Barry:
Absolutely. There's a timelessness to them and a timelessness, of course, to the lessons we can draw from Lincoln. And so that's partly why I'm hopeful that people will pick up the book. I think more than ever, this is the year to be reading it because there's so much from Lincoln that we can draw from. There's so much from the people we met along the way, the history that we uncovered that is even more relevant to 2024 than it was in 2020.
Josh King:
And there's also the great soundtrack that goes along with the journey both west and east and the music and lyrics mean so much to your writing from Uncle Sam's Farm to Willie Nelson as the Red Headed Stranger, even the Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter.
MUSIC:
Mm, a flood is threatening.
My very life today.
Gimme, gimme shelter.
Or I'm going to fade away.
War, children.
It's just a shot away.
It's just a shot away.
It's just a shot away
Josh King:
War, children, it's just a shot away. Entertainment Weekly named Gimme Shelter, the greatest Rolling Stone song of all time. Reflecting on your journey, how did music and songs shape your experiences?
Frank Barry:
Well, you can't take a road trip without listening to music. At least I couldn't. Who would want to take that road trip? And so the idea was to thread the bit of the American songbook along with us. And there's so much of music that shapes who we are, shapes our sense of ourself that helps tell our history. And the genius of American music is the breadth of it. So the book includes everything from rock and roll, to hip hop, to folk, to bluegrass, to the blues. American music is so rich in its variety. And, of course, what does that mirror? The American people. And so I try to tap into some of that both to highlight the heritage we share and also to highlight the spirit of that music that binds us together.
I had an interview early on with Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie in Philadelphia. He's a Philly guy. Went to his house in the pandemic while he was taping a show. And he talked about how his parents had grown up in the '60s and late '50s. And that was a time when it seemed like music had the potential to bridge racial differences. And Black kids and white kids and everybody else went to the same clubs and listened to the same music. And he was lamenting that that's not true anymore. And he was very thoughtful about why it's not true. There are lots of reasons for it. But one of them, as he said, is that artists don't make the effort. And so he told a story about his record label telling him, "Well, who do you want to go on tour with?" And we want to put you on tour with the Kings of Leon, which is a big rock band. And he's a rock band. [inaudible 00:54:54] said, "No, I want to do that. I want to go on tour with Janelle Monae. I want to go on tour with a Black R&B artist." He turned down a very lucrative opportunity because he believed there was a bigger mission to serve.
Josh King:
I just finished Alex Gibney's great documentary, In Restless Dreams, about Paul Simon and his incredible career. In Chapter 47 of Back Roads and Better Angels, you make note of Simon & Garfunkel's The Boxer. Just want to listen to a short segment of their lyrics or Simon's lyrics sung by the duo.
MUSIC:
I am just a poor boy.
Though my story's seldom told.
I have squandered my resistance.
For a pocketful of mumbles.
Such are promises.
All lies and jest.
Still a man hears what he wants to hear.
And disregards the rest.
Josh King:
I've been singing those lyrics to myself for 45 years, all lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Sound familiar?
Frank Barry:
Yeah, of course, they do.
Josh King:
I mean, you quote those lyrics when you write about the events of January 6th from your travels. Is the tendency to hear only what aligns with our beliefs while disregarding other folks' viewpoints one of the most significant challenges that we've currently faced [inaudible 00:56:20]?
Frank Barry:
Absolutely. It's a huge challenge and it's one of the most difficult ones to tackle. And you can't do it just by telling people they're wrong. You can't do it by beating people over the head with the same information over and over again. You can't do it with fact checking. Not to say that fact checking is not important and important to get the truth out, but there has to be more. And that more really lies in relationships and lies in conversations. And it lies, I argue in the book, in a willingness to do the introspection yourself and to recognize that as Lincoln did, and I draw this out in various points, you may not be right. Here in New York City, one of Lincoln's most famous addresses he gave at Cooper Union. It was the address that essentially launched him to the presidency. And its most famous line is, let us hope that right makes right. It's a wonderful line. What follows it is often forgotten, which is, it's the effect of, and let us do our duty as we understand it, as we understand it. Here, Lincoln is making an argument against the spread of slavery and he's grounding it in the Constitution, but he's recognizing that he might be wrong. And there's so often an unwillingness in both parties to recognize that, you know what, we just might be not quite all right on this one. And so let's listen, let's think through, and let's be willing to acknowledge that maybe there's some movement we could do here.
Josh King:
As we begin to wrap up, Frank, Lincoln Highway passes through 13 states, and on your way back from San Francisco, you traveled through many others. From your experiences, what insight was gained about the gap in perspectives between individuals living on the coasts and those in rural America? Is there a failure to understand how people of different backgrounds live?
Frank Barry:
Yeah, I think it goes both ways. I think given that the press is mostly centered on the coast, there's more attention around the coast's inability to understand the heartland, so to speak, but there's also difficulty in the heartland understanding the coasts. And both of those challenges are important to tackle and both sides should be more open to it. And there's merit in those explorations.
Josh King:
People on the coasts may head east to the Hamptons this summer, people in California may head west to Hawaii. Is there benefit and value and recommendation you'd make to heading into the center again?
Frank Barry:
Of course.
Josh King:
If so, what tips would you and Laurel have to doing the trip right?
Frank Barry:
Stay off the interstates. That's the start. And don't just go to the national parks. National parks are ... They're truly incredible. Anyone who's ever been to them know that they're magical places, but there's more to the country than national parks. And the only downside I would say of the national parks is that people plan their vacations entirely around them and miss what exists in the communities around them and the communities that are not near them. And there's a ton to be gained, not just learned. There's a ton to be gained from visiting and spending time in those communities.
Josh King:
And great fishing in Livingston, Montana.
Frank Barry:
Absolutely.
Josh King:
The woman in Fort Wayne, Indiana that we talked about earlier mentioned hope as a unifying force during your conversation. Are you hopeful that we can navigate past these Civil War undertones you highlight in Back Roads and Better Angels and return to a time when there was mutual respect and acknowledgement of our differences, akin to what Lincoln's talked about?
Frank Barry:
Well, I am hopeful, but partly because there was never that time. We have always been fighting, in a sense, over something. And that's part of what I try to draw out on the journey is that part of the American experience is an argument, a never-ending argument, over who we are and what our values are. And that history does give me hope because we have always found ways to get through it, to overcome it, not perfectly by any means and not without making tragic errors, but we have done it. And I am hopeful that we'll continue to do it. And I think the more that we can recognize that we are not living through this for the first time, that terrible partisan divisions is not a new phenomenon, it does help to, I believe, restore some sense of hope that, "Okay, we've been through this. We've had challenging times before and we'll get through it," but how do we get through it is the question. And that's what the book tries to point to in terms of the values that are necessary to do it.
Josh King:
A never-ending argument about who we are and what our values are. Back Roads and Better Angels: A Journey into the Heart of American Democracy. Frank Barry, thanks so much for joining us Inside the ICE House.
Frank Barry:
Thanks so much for having me.
Josh King:
That's our conversation for this week. Our guest was Frank Barry, author of Back Roads and Better Angels: A Journey into the Heart of American Democracy, out now from Steerforth Press.
If you like what you heard, please rate us on Apple Podcasts so other folks know where to find us. If you've got a comment or a question you'd like one of our experts to tackle on a future show or to hear from people like Frank Barry, please make sure to leave us a review. Email us ICE House at ice.com or tweet at us, @ICEHousePodcast. Our show is produced by Lance Glenn with production assistance, editing, and engineering from Ken Abel. Pete Asch is the director of programming and production at ICE. And I'm Josh King, your host, signing off from the library of the New York Stock Exchange. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.
Speaker 1:
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