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TIM PUGMIRE: Good morning with news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Tim Pugmire. Public and political debate over funding new sports stadium has continued without an actual legislative bill. Some lawmakers believe language of a bill is close to completion and might surface at the Capitol today. Senate Minority leader Dean Johnson says sentiment from his constituents continues to run against public financing of a stadium, but supportive of other means of financing.

DEAN JOHNSON: They seem to talk about it in respect to the user tax, the admissions tax, or the hospitality tax of some kind, and they understand the struggles we have not using property tax and sales tax and income tax. Now, what the plan is that's supposedly coming before us today, I have not a word about it-- not heard a word about it. And so we're waiting.

TIM PUGMIRE: Johnson and House minority leader Steve Sviggum say if the retractable roof is eliminated from the design, the $125 million saved would mean funding of a stadium would not have to take place in the legislature at all. Stillwater school officials go to court tomorrow in Washington County to defend a change in bus schedules that has angered parents of children in private or charter elementary schools. Saint Croix Catholic School in Stillwater sued the district last summer because the change forced the school to begin and end an hour later.

State forecast, warmer and windy with some areas of blowing and drifting snow in the Northwest this morning. Highs from the lower seconds to lower 40s. And the Twin Cities clearing. Breezy and warmer. A high in the upper 30s. At last report, Duluth, 22 degrees. Saint Cloud, 25. Rochester, 26. And in the Twin Cities, 27 degrees. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Tim Pugmire.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by the Twin Cities Food and Wine experience, February 28 through March 2 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Minneapolis. Show programs available. 371-5810. It's Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Chris Roberts, sitting in for Paula Schroeder.

[JAZZ MUSIC]

Today on our Voices of Minnesota interview, two people tell of their family's perseverance in facing racial discrimination. In a few minutes, we'll hear from Archie Givens Jr. how the commitment to education led his father to collect and then donate one of the nation's richest collections of African-American art and literature to the University of Minnesota. First, we'll hear Barbara Cyrus tell of her family's move to escape discrimination in the south, only to encounter it in the North. Cyrus mother's parents were landowners in Kentucky.

Their neighbors were the Bond family, whose grandson is former Congressman Julian Bond. Both families moved-- the bonds further South, the Cyrus North-- because their children were not allowed to attend school. Barbara Cyrus worked as a writer at IDS and Control Data among other employers. Often, she was the first or the only African-American woman in her workplace. Cyrus told Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson. Her family landed for a time in Waterloo, Iowa, looking for jobs and a chance for education.

BARBARA CYRUS: They moved there because, although my grandmother taught school in the mountains there in Corbin, there's the story that she rode horseback to teach in this little school. And at the time, their own children, though-- eventually, it came to the point where their own children, being children of color, could not go to the schools, although my grandmother could teach. And my grandfather, I think, taught part time. And also, they had a huge farm. And I know my mother always said-- she used to say that when she was a little girl, that when you looked out, that you could see their own farm as far as you could see that they owned their own land.

DAN OLSON: Why did they have to leave Kentucky?

BARBARA CYRUS: Well, they left because of the education and because there wasn't education for their own children. And the Bonds, at the same time, that was why they moved South.

DAN OLSON: They had to leave because the schools would not allow the children to--

BARBARA CYRUS: Yes, the schools did not allow their children, the children of color to go.

DAN OLSON: But then as the family moved on, new economic opportunities had to be found, and especially for African-American men, as you've pointed out in some of your writings, besides the railroad, hotel work, and including hotel work in Minneapolis.

BARBARA CYRUS: Yes. Well, now, there wasn't hotel work in Waterloo, especially, because there were only a couple of small hotels there. But my mother met my father in Waterloo. My father had left the South, and he had been living in-- he had lived in Kansas City for a while. And he also was in search of education. And he had come to Madison, Wisconsin. He had read about the colleges there.

And he had written and had been accepted. And I think it was something to do with the YMCA that he had-- through that he had got in touch with this college. But when he got there and they saw that he was Black, then it turned out that they did not accept Black students at that time at this particular college. Some of these stories, you just almost think they can't be true.

But I remember they had told him that he could look through the window and through the open windows and he could pick up what they were talking about in the lectures from the outside, but that he could not sit inside within the classroom.

DAN OLSON: This was your father?

BARBARA CYRUS: This was my father. But he could work there. Well, of course, that was a major kind of disappointment. And he thought about it. And then he also looked for employment there. And he didn't find anything in particular. So somehow or other, he made his way to Waterloo. And he worked there. He met my mother there.

DAN OLSON: This would have been a crushing blow for a young man.

BARBARA CYRUS: Well, yes, it was. It was a disappointment. But he met my mother, and they were married.

DAN OLSON: Your parents must have been typical of other families of color who just had to be light on their feet and constantly in search of any economic opportunity they could find.

BARBARA CYRUS: Yes, I certainly think that's true. And, you know, I guess all of us inherited it as children. You know, we were always looking for the main chance. And, you know, it was kind of funny. I was thinking about it the other day. When I was very small, I had the idea that you had to grow up and get a job, and we all felt that was part of growing up, was being employed. Well, of course, at that time in Minneapolis, there just was no Black employment anywhere.

Black people just weren't anywhere. When you could go downtown all day and never see a Black person employed anywhere. And so we used to laugh and say that you'd better hang on to your car fare because if you lost it, there wouldn't be anyone you could go to borrow money to get home on. But--

DAN OLSON: Minneapolis's African-American population was very small.

BARBARA CYRUS: Yes yes, the population was small as well, so we certainly should have been-- it should have been possible for us to have been absorbed into the general population.

DAN OLSON: You had reason to--

BARBARA CYRUS: We were certainly no threat ever.

DAN OLSON: You had reason to believe, though, based on personal experience, that people, majority culture, the white people living in Minneapolis were not accepting of African-Americans.

BARBARA CYRUS: Yes. Well, it was very strange. And I can remember, as a child, sensing the hostility. And I can remember being on the elevator in Dayton Store with my mother, and I can remember clutching her hand and looking around at all of these faces glaring at us. And I never could understand. It was kind of frightening because there wasn't anything you had ever done to deserve this kind of dislike. But it was something that you grew up with, and you were accustomed to it. And you just kind of stayed away.

DAN OLSON: The downtown life, though, in Minneapolis, included employment for some Black people, and I gather, though, in only a very few jobs.

BARBARA CYRUS: Well, I think the only employment-- now, there were a few restaurants and places like that where they might employ a maid, but there was no employment in any of the department stores, anyplace like that. And in fact, that didn't happen until World War II really opened up employment.

DAN OLSON: Shortage of workers, I suppose.

BARBARA CYRUS: Yes, there was a shortage of workers. And everybody who had worked at the lower-paying jobs got into the defense plants as fast as they could. But fortunately, because of federal laws, Black people had to be employed as well. And it was only those federal laws, I think, that made it possible for so many Black people got into those plants at that time, and it gave them a start.

DAN OLSON: Did it affect your family, those laws?

BARBARA CYRUS: Well, yes, it did. We all went to work in the defense plant, my sister. My brother, of course, had gone into the service, and we were all feeling very, very patriotic. And we all felt that this was the opportunity to show what good Americans we were.

DAN OLSON: Was there satisfaction in that regard? You had a chance to be in the work--

BARBARA CYRUS: Yeah, it was kind of interesting. I learned to run machines that were very difficult and I was pleased that I was able to learn this so quickly. And it was kind of interesting also, there were many people there who said they would not work on a machine with a Black person.

DAN OLSON: The defense jobs of World War II must have been very important. I suppose among the many effects of World War II was this revolution that occurred where people realized that there were jobs that they could hold, they could have, they could perform, and that opened up brand new opportunities. That must have created an individual and collective revolution in some people's minds.

BARBARA CYRUS: Well, it really did. And, you know, it was a wonderful thing to have your own money and to be able to go to the bank. And people bought homes. And all of these things that had been just taken for granted by other people were suddenly within the reach of everybody.

DAN OLSON: How long Did that job last at the ammunition plant?

BARBARA CYRUS: Well, it lasted throughout the war and then, I think, maybe a couple of years after the war. But I was married after I'd been there about two years. And I did move to Seattle. Well, I had had a great deal of responsibility in Seattle as I was in charge of the ordnance library there. And it meant that I had security clearance. And so much of the material in that library was classified.

And so I very often had to hand carry it different places. And it was kind of fun because I had a chauffeur and, you know, I felt pretty good driving around, you know? It felt like in the first time in your life, you know, you are being somebody. Well, I came back to Minneapolis and then I started looking for another job. Well, I went everywhere.

And all of a sudden, it seemed like the good times were over because at the end of World War II, then everyone came back from defense jobs and they went back in where we had recently been employed. So there were very few openings. And I remember going to Donaldson's and I thought, well, I'd apply for, you know, an office job or a clerical job or something like that.

And when I did that, they were just kind of in a state of shock. And they said, well, they just had absolutely no kind of clerical job. And of course, they didn't have saleswomen or anything like that. But they told me that the maid in the restroom was going on vacation, and that if I wanted to, that I could work in her place for the two weeks that she was on vacation. Well, of course, I was in a state of shock at this point. [CHUCKLES] And of course, I couldn't do that.

DAN OLSON: It's striking to be having this conversation in 1997 about color consciousness. You have seen a lot more history in this country than I have seen. And it's interesting that we are still talking about skin color as a dividing line, as a defining characteristic of people in this country.

BARBARA CYRUS: Well, I think that that's going-- always going to be, unfortunately. Well, I'm a great reader and I have read so much history, and it goes back so far. And if you look in Shakespeare and beyond and before Shakespeare, you will always find references to color. And so I've come to accept it. And people use it as such a weapon. And it is so sad that, as humans, that we haven't achieved a kind of grace where we could judge one another in some other way.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Barbara Cyrus talking with Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson. You're listening to our Voices of Minnesota interview on Midmorning. The University of Minnesota's Wilson Library in Minneapolis houses one of the nation's richest collections of African-American literature. The Givens Collection, named in honor of prominent Black Minnesotan businessman and philanthropist Archie Givens senior, features everything from original copies of slave narratives and first editions by Harlem Renaissance writers to novels by Black mystery and science fiction authors.

Next on Voices of Minnesota, Archie Givens Jr, president of the Givens foundation for African-American literature, talks about how his father's lifelong commitment to education inspired the Givens family to contribute towards the acquisition and convince other Black families to do the same. He spoke with Minnesota Public Radio's Stephen Smith at the Wilson library.

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: Father was a very aggressive, very successful businessperson in Minnesota, born and raised here, grew up pretty much on his own. After the age of 16, I mean, both his parents had died. And I guess in those days, they might have said he was a person of-- a kid of the streets, meaning he had extended family that looked after him and took care of him. But he was really determined on his own way back then.

STEPHEN SMITH: So he was 16 years old and he was suddenly without mother or father kind of living on, not on the streets of Minneapolis, but sort of with the wits of the street?

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: With the wits of the street.

STEPHEN SMITH: What did he make of it? What was his what were his first enterprises?

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: The first things that I remember, and that's-- he had what they call an ice cream bar, which was akin to a 31 flavors Baskin-Robbins kind of on the corner of an ice cream stand in North Minneapolis, right in the heart of the neighborhood, primarily African-American neighborhood at that period of time in Minneapolis. And he and my mother, they worked this little ice cream bar and worked it hard. And I think there was-- I remember there was a Barber shop either attached or right next door. And so it was just a little entrepreneurial corner, if you will, of Black owned businesses, which catered to the community.

STEPHEN SMITH: He is credited with being Minnesota's first Black millionaire. Is that true?

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: He was. After he did the ice cream business, he went to work for the Minneapolis Housing Authority and was in charge of property management. And they were demolishing a lot of homes in North side, again, to build some of the public housing that's in place now. And I think that's really sort of sparked his interest in real estate. And he went and got his broker's license, which again, was sort of an accomplishment at that period of time.

And then found it-- the opportunity to build some homes in South Minneapolis, which was totally off limits, color limits for homes and homes ownership. And sold the first integrated housing in Minneapolis. So he was always pioneering and always doing some first in terms of business, which helped lay the foundation and help contribute to that recognition. And that led on to developing and building the first modern nursing home at the time. That was in the late '50s, '58, '57, thereabouts.

STEPHEN SMITH: We're sitting in the rare books area of Wilson Library at the University of Minnesota in a sort of reception area that is dedicated to the Archie Givens Sr. collection. There are pictures on the wall around us of great African-American artists, writers, a few sports figures, some musicians. But the spine, if you will, of this entire collection is literature. Was your father a reader? Did the interest in this collection come from some interest of his?

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: I know he was a reader, but he also was a very keen on history and passing down in terms of understanding the need to know more about our African-American history and culture. And so he was a teacher, if you will. Even though he never went to college, he never attended school after graduated high school, he still instilled this belief in history and knowing more about us as a people.

STEPHEN SMITH: What's the story of the collection? This wasn't your family's personal collection of literature.

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: No, it was not, not our family's collection at all. Basically, it was collected by a professor out in New York, a non-African-American professor, Richard Hoffman, who had just an interest. He was an English professor, had a keen interest in this area. And so he began collecting them. And he was about to get married, as the story goes. And from him, we'd learned this. It was a choice. His wife-to-be said, something's got to go, Richard in this little one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. The books are me. His whole apartment was full of these boxed-up books. And so he decided to make them available for sale. The University of Minnesota got information about the availability of collection and immediately did something unusual for a university or any institution, I guess, just said, yes, we want it. We'll take it, lock, stock, and barrel. And at that time, about 2,500 volumes that they made a commitment to acquire without any money--

STEPHEN SMITH: Sight unseen?

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: --sight unseen, just titles only, and called in Dr. John Wright, who's a professor here and our scholar and historian on the literature. And he was amazed by the numbers of books and concurred with the decision to do it. Somehow, they approached our family. We got in the mix somehow through the University Foundation and other friends of ours at the university, and we immediately recognized that it was important, significant.

It fed into my dad's belief in education as a value. He really preached that, that it's-- once you have it, it's something you can't ever lose, that will never go away from you. So it really fit a basic underpinning value of his the value of education. And what a better way for us, as our family sat and thought about it, to participate. So we just took it on as a challenge immediately.

STEPHEN SMITH: You have a Givens Foundation. Did this exist before the collection of books?

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: It was an Archie and Phebe Mae Givens-- my mother's name-- Foundation. And the primary purpose when it was developed was for scholarships for young African-American students. And then when the literature piece came into play about 10 years ago now, we kept the same arching theme that Givens Foundation was the basic premise. And now what we've done is made it into the Givens Foundation for African-American Literature.

And that really more clearly defines what our mission has become, and that's really to promote African-American literature, celebrate our culture and history through literature and language and books. We've developed and are just finishing an annotated bibliography, if you will, a resource guide for young male readers. And we have 105, 106 titles, all of which can be found in the collection here. So we're introducing readers to African-American writers. We're introducing them to a concept for literacy can be interesting and fun, but also they can take home some values.

STEPHEN SMITH: So why men?

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: I think, you know, when you look at the statistics, so many young men go to jail and you look at the whole dropout rates, you look at all the endangered African-American male as a problem in our society. That's how this came to be. But we have taken it now as a need to do a counterpart for young women also because the same philosophies, the same values, same things need to be transmitted. And so we will. be developing a similar bibliography geared for young women readers and young girls as well.

The purpose is to provide this bibliography to, like, the YMCA and who may have reading groups or work with young-- obviously work with young men. We'd like to have one available in every school library, particularly in the state of Minnesota. We'd like to have one in all the public libraries so that the library staff, they know what books to acquire and keep on their active list as young readers come requesting specific books.

A lot of libraries don't even stock these books, even though they're somewhat available as third editions or paperback. But unless you know to acquire them or to have them or someone's asking about those particular titles, odds are, won't find them.

STEPHEN SMITH: For decades now, especially within African-American communities, but also, I think, in the culture at large, there's been something of a tension between, on the veneration of the Black sports hero or the Black musical hero or actor as the only heroes that get promoted and certainly get recognized in a crossover sense in white communities.

There's been a tension between that and the other heroes, some of whom you may have been talking about in terms of these books that have been written, but aren't in libraries. And even in the room that we're sitting in here, there's a mixture of-- there's a picture of Countee Cullen, the great Harlem Renaissance writer. But there's also-- there's a picture of Muhammad Ali. And there are probably even on these walls, more sports and musical and sort of entertainment figures really, than literary figures.

Is this still a problem, do you think? Or is it still a challenge to try and convince both Blacks and whites that there are people to venerate who have nothing to do with the stereotypical music, sports kind of achievements that America has almost sort of allowed Blacks to--

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: Yeah.

STEPHEN SMITH: --to have, but maybe not literature.

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: Yeah, you know, I think it is a challenge because, you know, everybody gets star struck. You see dollar signs. You see a lot of things associated with athletes. So we are trying to show other heroes-- not trying, just to identify them because they're, you know? They're there to be found and discovered. And that's what I think the other excitement for this collection is that it's a whole wealth of people, of characters of-- you know, even if they're fictional characters, you know, that people can get lost in and can follow, can-- and can relate to in a variety of ways.

And the writers who produce these stories, these poetry and images are as significant to our culture as the athletes because they maintain the history and integrity that travels through time.

STEPHEN SMITH: Regarding the collection, what do you hope to see happen with it?

ARCHIE GIVENS JR: I'd like to see it grow. And right now, actually, it's a little over just about 6,000 volumes. So it has grown dramatically in the 10 years that it's actually come here at the University. I'd like to see it maintain the same integrity and quality. We might take it to get a more of a Midwestern or Minnesota influence. There's a whole movement or whole philosophy that's developing on the Black art movement of the '70s.

And so we might like to enhance the Harlem renaissance, which is very unique with the Black art movement, which is probably the same impact that the Renaissance had at its time. So there are some areas that we could really fine tune and specialize in. But I think the most important thing we want to do is to keep it active and alive and to keep it available to the larger public.

[JAZZ MUSIC]

CHRIS ROBERTS: Archie Givens Jr. spoke to Minnesota Public Radio's Stephen Smith. The Givens Collection is part of the University of Minnesota's special collections and rare books department at the Wilson Library. It's open to the public Monday through Friday from 9:00 to 5:00. Our Voices of Minnesota series is produced by Dan Olson with help this week from Stephanie Curtis and interns Laura Zellen and Charles Mains.

BILL KLING: Hello. This is Bill Kling, president of Minnesota Public Radio. Edward R. Murrow used to say about radio that all really matters is what comes out of the loudspeaker. For you, as a listener, that's probably true. You want good radio and you probably don't want to know too much about the complexities of providing it to you. We can make that bargain, as long as you keep your membership current. This year we have more members who've joined us over the past few years as our federal funding dropped by more than $1 million, whose memberships are due to be renewed than ever before. And we're worried about it.

Your membership support has been a major part of the success and maintaining quality radio. It's just as urgent that you renew that support as it was that you join as a member when you did. Renew your membership today by calling us at 1-800-227-2811. Public radio is a great design that responds directly to you. We've made 30 years of great radio with your support, and we can continue as long as we have your support. We're looking forward to receiving your membership renewal.

CHRIS ROBERTS: It's Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio. 28 minutes now before 11 o'clock. Good morning. I'm Chris Roberts, sitting in for Paula Schroeder. Today's program-- rather, today's programming is supported by 3M, who generously matched more than 900 employee contributions to Minnesota Public Radio. Strike the flint of Holocaust revisionism-- the belief the Holocaust never happened-- against the steel of the free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, and you set off the sparks that fly in the Illusion Theater's latest production.

Denial is a play written by former Minneapolis resident and Jerome Fellowship winner Peter Sagal. I spoke with Sagal recently, and he told me that four years ago, he made a conscious decision to apply his craft on a more personal level, which meant facing his Jewish identity. The film Schindler's List was playing, adding further inspiration. But Sagal, a non-observant Jew, was still hesitant to explore that side of his life.

PETER SAGAL: When I started thinking about writing something about being Jewish, the first thing I-- the first thought I had was, well, I have absolutely nothing new to say on this topic that hasn't been said many, many times before by people my far my betters. And then I started thinking about the Holocaust and started vaguely thinking about a Holocaust play. And I immediately thought, well, what do I have to say about the Holocaust? I have absolutely have no right to talk or, you know, write about this subject because like most American Jews of my generation, I have no personal connection to it.

I mean, I am not descended from survivors. I certainly didn't go through it, nor did anyone in my immediate, you know, circle. But once I started thinking about that, I realized that the Holocaust was, in fact, central to my life, that as a Jew growing up in New Jersey, in the middle of a, you know, relatively standard Jewish upbringing, the Holocaust was, you know, central. I learned about it in Hebrew school. We talked about it constantly. It was something that, you know, we know that is so central to our identity.

And then I came across the Holocaust denial. I read Deborah Lipstadt book called Denying the Holocaust. And it struck me at that time, in addition to just being appealing to me because it's sort of a zany conspiracy theory and I'm kind of interested generally in the darker side of human nature in my writing. But in addition to that, it occurred to me that, strangely enough, these guys who deny the Holocaust have a very profound understanding of how central the Holocaust is to American Jewish identity. They know it's very important to us, that's why they attack it.

I mean, these are people who are motivated by malice, after all. And they have chosen, I mean, from their purposes quite wisely, to strike us where we live in this particular part of our identity. Which raises this whole question of why is it a central part of our identity and why are we so vulnerable there? Which is actually a line from the play. And in addition, I was interested very much so in issues of civil liberties and the First Amendment and very much in the-- I was very much interested in the question of where, for any given person who believes in reason and free speech and the given place and ideas and the marketplace of ideas-- where, for any given person, does that tolerance or that belief end?

Because I think for almost everybody, there is a place, that they may not be aware of where it ends. And it occurred to me that if I wanted to write truthfully about these issues, I should have to write about something that really made me mad. And this was something that really made me mad. So all those things came together. A few plot ideas drawn from real life and from my imagination, and off to the races we were. A lot of times when we talk about the First Amendment, we tend to talk about it in terms of things that we don't necessarily dislike.

So for example, I mean, there's been a lot of talk about this movie about Larry Flynt, which purportedly shows, you know, how the first amendment, by protecting the lowest among us, protects the best. But you get the feeling that-- I haven't seen the movie, but you get the feeling that to the filmmakers who made the movie, Larry Flynt really isn't so bad. You know, he's a pornographer. Yeah, naked girls, that's not so bad. Other people, of course, you know, speak as if he really is very terrible to them. I think it's much more interesting to talk about the First Amendment in terms of people who we really hate, people who really, really make us mad, Who test our tolerance because that's when it comes into play.

And that's what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write about somebody who makes you so mad, that you want to hit him. And then let's start talking about what rights he has to do that.

SPEAKER 1: Socrates, Galileo, Sir Thomas More, Tyndale all punished because their truths were unacceptable to the orthodoxy. I ask you, who am that the government should try so hard to silence me? Could it be that they are afraid someone may listen to what I have to say? That is my question. What is yours? Yes. No, no, not at all. I am not in the least bit anti-semitic, whatever that means. In fact, I feel I am doing the Jewish people a great service. I bring them the news their co-religionists did not die after all. I don't understand why that makes them so upset.

Yes, you there in that lovely jacket, yeah. Oh, that's quite simple. Many of the Jews allegedly killed actually emigrated to the United States, the New York area. Well, have you ever been there? Would anyone notice a few thousand more [CHUCKLES SOFTLY] No, I'm quite serious. Don't I sound serious? Yes? No, no, no, ask away. I've got all day.

CHRIS ROBERTS: The main characters in the play are Professor Bernard Cooper, who is himself a Holocaust revisionist--

PETER SAGAL: As he would himself call it, yes.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Right, and very open about that fact.

PETER SAGAL: Oh, yes.

CHRIS ROBERTS: And an attorney, a rather liberal Jewish attorney whose name is Abby Gersten, who is chosen, I think, by the professor to defend him when his files are confiscated by the government. How did this storyline enter your head?

PETER SAGAL: Well, it was inspired by a real life case that happened in 1993 in Texas, where a Black lawyer named Anthony Griffin, who worked from time to time for the ACLU, was asked by them to defend the rights of a Klansman, somebody whose mailing lists and files had been seized by the Texas State government in an attempt to investigate connections between various right wing and racist groups. And this lawyer, Anthony Griffin, knew that by doing that, they were violating precedents of civil rights that actually, ironically, had been set in key Supreme Court cases in defense of the NAACP and related organizations back in the '60s.

So Anthony Griffin did what he thought his duty as a lawyer and as a constitutionalist was, and he defended this man's rights. And he, in fact, won the case, won the hearing and got the government to back off the Klansman. But for doing that, he received a tremendous amount of outrage from his friends in the NAACP and other liberals, you know, saying, how could you defend a man who, you know, would hang you, would Lynch you, who is a vicious, anti-Black racist?

I mean, I thought that was interesting. How do you-- you know, defending your enemy, I think, is the way some people have put this problem. And I simply-- well, not simply, but I began with the idea of transposing that situation to the area I wanted to write about. Take a Jewish lawyer, face that Jewish lawyer with the same kind of commitment to civil rights with someone who is as offensive to her on a personal level as a Klansman would be to a Black man, and go from there.

SPEAKER 1: The Germans killed people using poison gas called Zyklon B. True or false?

SPEAKER 2: I should let you do this, I really should.

SPEAKER 1: True or false?

SPEAKER 2: The judge would come down from the bench with all the witnesses and they'd tear you to pieces like a pack of dogs.

SPEAKER 1: True or false?

SPEAKER 2: I might help them.

SPEAKER 1: True or false?

SPEAKER 2: True beyond all doubt. I've read this book, Mr Cooper. I was required to read it. They would push the Jews into the chambers, hundreds at a time. And then they would shut the doors and guards on the roof would pour Zyklon B into vents and it would kill them in minutes.

SPEAKER 1: Says who, besides that book? I mean, I have a book too.

SPEAKER 2: Says the dead.

SPEAKER 1: Oh, they don't talk to me. But Zyklon b, really? Zyklon means cyclone. It's a brand name like Raid Black Flag. It was insecticide.

SPEAKER 2: That's what they had.

SPEAKER 1: Yes, they did. They had it in copious amounts to kill insects. That's what the invoices say, for delousing purposes. Here, take a look, page 571. Look, a few invoices for insecticide. Perfectly businesslike, efficient, normal, waved about bloody shirts. But really, what kind of murderer issues a receipt?

CHRIS ROBERTS: Were you aware as you were writing this play of the case of Arthur Butz?

PETER SAGAL: Oh, I knew, I knew, I knew about Mr. Butz. I had researched a lot of-- I mean, most of my research was sitting in the University of Minnesota library, which, surprisingly, has a lot of this stuff, including Arthur Butz's book, including a subscription to the Institute of Historical Reviews, Journal of Historical Review, which is a faked academic-looking journal that is filled with various kinds of Holocaust denials.

CHRIS ROBERTS: We should say that he is an engineering professor at Northwestern University who happens to be using Northwestern's web page as a place to publicize his views on the Holocaust.

PETER SAGAL: He's been doing this regularly since about 1975 after he got tenure. And he took a sabbatical and he came back from the sabbatical with this book called The Hoax from the 20th Century-- The Hoax of the 20th Century, which has become, if you will, the Bible of the Holocaust denier movement. It also gave them their modus operandi. It showed them that by pretending to be academic, pretending to be scholarly in the way that Butz does in this book, you can get much more-- you can seem to be much more credible than just ranting about the worldwide Jewish conspiracy. So he sort of set the tone for the movement.

The recent controversy, of course, arose over this web server debate. It's interesting. I mean, there's already a tremendous amount of Holocaust denial materials available on the internet. A lot of racists and white supremacists have moved to the internet as a much more efficient way of disseminating their information. But yeah, I certainly was aware of, Professor Butz. I've never spoken to him. I have no desire to speak to him. I have no desire to make him any more notable than he already is.

CHRIS ROBERTS: What was it like doing all the research that you did, kind of wading around in the murky world of Holocaust denial and revisionism? What effect did that have on you?

PETER SAGAL: It made me mad, which actually ended up being the kind of key to finding my way into the play because I sat down to read this stuff. And I was just taking my notes and, you know, writing, trying to decipher their arguments so I could, you know, use them and replicate them. And one day, after doing this for a few weeks, I came home and I said to my wife, you know, God, you know, I'm sitting there and reading this stuff. And after a while, I just get so furious. I just want to get up and hit somebody. And she said, well, that's how they feel about you. And I realized at that moment that what this stuff is, is that it is-- although I never come across this before, it is violence through reason.

It is people using reason as a weapon to strike at somebody by subverting it. And I realized that emotional state to which it had sort of made into a kind of froth was very much what they want to do. They are, I think, proselytizers of hate, and they do it in the most kindly way.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Is that the direction you wanted the audience to go in viewing this play? Where did you want to take the audience? Did you want them mainly to question their own commitment to the First Amendment?

PETER SAGAL: Well, what I wanted them to do was I wanted them to look at it from a different way they had looked at it. I think I personally believe that the most interesting kind of theater is theater that asks questions as opposed to answers them. And the questions I wanted to ask are sort of those that I've already discussed, which is, you know, OK, you think you're committed to the first amendment. But have you thought about it in this context? And I also wanted to ask people who aren't, you know, committed to the First Amendment who think there should be restrictions on speech. And I wanted to say, well, have you thought about the price of that? Have you thought about what that's like? Have you thought about what that would do to us?

What I've been saying and I still feel very strongly about is I want people to come to the play and leave the play saying to themselves something along the lines of, well, I hadn't thought of that or I never thought of it that way before. I want them to, in some ways, experience something that sort of changes their thinking in any direction that I don't think I can control. And you know, the response I've gotten to the play over the one or two years that it's been produced has been very gratifying in that regard.

People come to me and they say, you know, we love this play and we've been talking about it all week. I mean, that's what more can a playwright, you know, ask for except to get inside somebody's head that way?

CHRIS ROBERTS: You've been criticized, to some degree, for giving a platform to a Holocaust revisionist. What's your response to that?

PETER SAGAL: It's an interesting question. What's funny is that people don't say-- they generally don't say to me, you're giving a platform to this revisionist. But they say, are you worried about that? And the answer is, I did worry about it at the beginning, but I came to realize, first of all, that if you're going to talk about something and you're going to talk about something evil-- and I do think it is probably ultimately evil-- and you want to talk about the various kinds of responses to it and the difficult responses to it, you have to show it.

I don't think we're doing anybody any favors by lying to people and saying something isn't as bad or as virulent or as strange or as disturbing as it really is. I think that anybody who sees the play and listens to the play will see this character for who he is, which is a very elaborate and very intelligent and very charming liar, which is, you know, what he is, but a liar first and foremost. And I certainly don't think-- I certainly don't think that anybody could come away from this play after listening to it even half heartedly and believe that there's any doubt in anyone's mind, especially mine, about the truth of the Holocaust.

I think there is a responsibility as a dramatist, even dare I say it, as an artist, to tell the truth about what it is that I'm writing about. I think that is a large responsibility that speaks to the role of the theater, that speaks to the experience of the audience and respecting the audience. I think in this case, I had a responsibility to tell the truth about what these people are and what they do.

I think if anybody were to walk away from this play saying, oh, gee, well, I guess the Holocaust didn't really happen, or there are some legitimate questions that it didn't really happen, I think they would be willfully misunderstanding me to such a play that they're beyond anybody's ability to address. I mean, I think it's like people, you know, going to see Othello and saying, ah, I see the moral of that play is no mixed race marriages. I mean, you know, that's such a perverse expression of their own bias. There's really nothing you can do to prevent it.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Did you ever think for a moment that you may had taken on too much in exploring the First Amendment and Holocaust denial?

PETER SAGAL: Every day. I mean, you know, there's so much arrogance involved in being any kind of artist, I think, any kind of writer. I mean, I sometimes feel ashamed that I'm asking people to come in and spend two hours in a dark room and I don't let them read or talk, you know? That makes me embarrassed. Who am I to take somebody's time like that? And then you start talking about, you know, stuff of real significance, the first amendment, the Holocaust.

Who am I to talk about the Holocaust? Who am I, you know, little suburban me, to discuss, you know, this vast subject of horror for so many? But I remember, you know-- but have you ever seen a movie called Heart of Darkness? It's a documentary about making Apocalypse Now.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Yes.

PETER SAGAL: Well, there's this moment where Francis Ford Coppola goes, you know, you're just so terrified of being pretentious. You don't want to be pretentious. You don't want to be pretentious. But then he sort of says something to the effect of, but if you don't try to be, if you don't try something, what's the point of doing anything? And I feel very strongly that if I am going to invite people to come into a theater or if I'm going to ask a theater to put on my play and charge people money for it to come see it, I have a responsibility, you know, to do a number of things, and one of them is to really address stuff that is important, that is relevant to them in the lives that they're living, that I think further isn't really addressed by most of the-- if you excuse the expression-- entertainment options that may be considering.

I think that the theater, you know, has been marginalized by the, you know, vast expansion of radio and music and TV and film. You know, it's just one choice among many. And we don't have special effects. And we don't have fabulous stars. And we don't have, you know, Baywatch. And we don't have all these other things.

CHRIS ROBERTS: [CHUCKLES]

PETER SAGAL: But I think what we do have is an opportunity to really tell the truth. I mean, and that sounds completely arrogant, but it's all we got left. So yeah, I did feel terribly, you know? I felt, you know, completely humbled by this topic. And I felt foolish trying to talk about it. But I couldn't think of anything else I could do and still feel good about asking people to come in and spend-- I mean, I didn't think I could talk about something irrelevant or pointless or something that's talked about every day on Seinfeld, you know, like the difficulties of renting a good movie or whatever, you know, tonight's Seinfeld episode is going to be about.

CHRIS ROBERTS: The First Amendment has always been a hot button issue in this country, ever since our democracy was founded.

PETER SAGAL: Right.

CHRIS ROBERTS: It seems, however, that there's been a flurry of artistic activity generated by the First Amendment. And you mentioned The People versus Larry Flynt and of course, your play, and I'm sure there's a lot of others, the remaking of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. What's going on here? Do you think the First Amendment is in danger? Are people really contemplating revising it or narrowing it?

PETER SAGAL: I do think that there is a tremendous-- I mean, there are attempts to change or to challenge the First Amendment even as we speak. There has been an Amendment that's been supported by Rodd Graham, Senator from Minnesota, to alter the First Amendment to legalize flag burning. There's another talk now. President Clinton, it turns out, is in support of a constitutional amendment to make it easier to control finance reform. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, or in the Twin Cities area, we have two or three significant cases in the last five or 10 years.

We have the pornography motion that was passed by the Minneapolis City Council back in was like '88. And we have, of course, the Saint Paul anti-hate speech code. So there's a constant attempt from all sides of the political spectrum, left and right, to try to limit free speech. Certainly, I think there's been a kind of backlash in the last few years that may have to do with the ending of the Cold War and the ending of external enemies. But it may have to do with just the backlash of the last 30 or so years.

One of the things I hear about is I hear about, you know, a lot of conservative people complaining about the counterculture, you know, that arose in the '60s and wanting to beat that back. And they talk about a lack of morals. And they talk about a lack of appropriate behavior. And they talk about things like pornography. And they talk about things like, you know, rap lyrics that say these horrible things. And I think they're legitimately concerned about those things. I mean, some of these things are awful.

And you look at them and you say, what kind of society are we living in if this is what people are doing with their freedom, you know? What is the use of freedom if someone takes their freedom and indulges in these horrible things. This couldn't be what our country was supposed to be about, to write and listen to songs about murdering people and to, you know-- and to rail around and say racist things and how the Jews or the Blacks or the Asians or whomever it is ruining things for you or whatever it is, whatever ugliness we're confronted with.

And I think that the urge to control that and to end that is a really understandable human urge that's-- again, getting back to the play-- that the issue of the First Amendment is not about what you want to protect because you want to protect it from other people who hate it, but what you-- what has to be protected because you hate it.

[MELANCHOLY MUSIC]

CHRIS ROBERTS: Playwright Peter Sagal. His play, Denial, is being performed at the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis through March 8.

GARY EICHTEN: A few weeks ago, a couple of heavyweights in the American theater scene squared off to discuss the role of race in American theater. Gary Eichten here inviting you to join us for a lively debate between Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson and New Republic Theater critic Robert Brustein. Should whites write about Blacks? Should women write about men? Is colorblind casting a form of exploitation? Race, cultural power in the American theater coming up on Midday. Midday begins each weekday morning at 11:00 on Minnesota Public Radio, KNOW FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Coming up in the 11 o'clock hour of Midday, we'll hear about a plan in the state legislature to attack the problem of gangs in the state of Minnesota. Also, Perry Finelli, sitting in for Gary Eichten today, talks with State Senator John Marty about a report showing that PAC money influence in state government has actually increased over the past two years, despite state laws created to control it. Those stories and more coming up in the 11 o'clock hour of Midday, which is just about seven minutes away from now.

Briefly checking the weather. Good news. Warmer, windy conditions this afternoon throughout the state becoming partly sunny in the West and south, remaining mostly cloudy in the Northeast. Highs from the low 30s in the Northeast to, yes, indeed, the low 40s in the Southwest and possibly in the Twin Cities as well. We'll wind things up on Midmorning with Garrison Keillor and the Writer's Almanac.

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GARRISON KEILLOR: And here is the Writer's Almanac for Monday, the 17th of February, 1997. It's President's Day in the United States. Used to be celebrated as George Washington's birthday on the 22nd and Lincoln's on the 12th. And now we have this day. Whether it honors Washington or Washington and Lincoln or all presidents is, I guess, up to you.

It's the birthday of novelist Chaim Potok, born in the Bronx in New York, 1929, who wrote The Chosen, The Promise, and other novels and stories. He grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family. His brother became a rabbi. Both of his sisters married rabbis. When he told his mother he thought he'd spend his life writing stories, she said, you want to write stories? That's very nice. You'd be a brain surgeon, and on the side, you write stories.

The first issue of the New Yorker Magazine came out on this day in 1925. $0.15 a copy with Eustace Tilley on the cover. It was on this day in 1909, Geronimo died of old age on a reservation in Oklahoma, the great Apache warrior chief who had finally surrendered 23 years earlier after years of guerrilla warfare and taken up ranching.

It's the birthday of radio announcer Walter Lanier Barber, Red Barber, born in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1908. A Major League Baseball announcer for the Reds, the Dodgers, and the Yankees for almost 30 years. Red Barber, who called the baseball diamond the Pea Patch. And when a long fly ball drifted toward the fence, he was the one who said, back, back, back, back. And when the fielder made a stunning catch, he said, oh, doctor.

It's the birthday of the man who wrote the Australian National anthem, the unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda, Andrew Barton Paterson, known as Banjo Paterson, born in Narangba, New South Wales, 1864. The poem, "Once a Jolly Swagman Camped Beside a Billabong," story of a friendly tramp who catches a sheep and stuffs it into his bag, his Matilda. It was on this day in 1938 the first color television was demonstrated in London, a transmission from the Crystal Palace to the Dominion Theater.

Here's a poem entitled "TV" by Rodney Jones. All the preachers claimed it was Satan. Now the first sets seem more venerable than Abraham or Williamsburg or the avant garde. Back then, nothing, not even the bomb had ever looked so new. It seemed almost heretical watching it when we visited relatives in the city, secretly delighting, but saying later after church, probably it would not last. It would destroy things, standards, and the sacredness of words in books.

It was well into the age of color, career, and Little Rock long past before anyone got one. Suddenly, some of them in the next valley had one. You would know them by their lights burning late at night and the recentness and distance of events entering their talk. But not one in our valley. For a long time, no one had one. So when the first one arrived in the van from the furniture store and the man had set the box on the lawn, at first, we stood back from it, circling it as they raised its antenna and staked in the guy wires in the door.

And I seem to recall a kind of blue light flickering from inside and then a woman calling out that they had got it tuned in. A little fuzzy. A ghost picture, but something that would stay with us. The way we hurried down the dirt road, the stars, the silence, then everyone disappearing into their houses.

[RELAXING PIANO MUSIC]

A poem entitled "TV" by Rodney Jones from The Collection Things That Happened Once published by Houghton Mifflin Company. Used by permission here on the Writer's Almanac for Monday, February the 17th. Made possible by Cowles Enthusiast Media, publishers of Historic Traveler and thehistorynet.com, where history lives on the world wide web. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

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CHRIS ROBERTS: That's Midmorning for this Monday, February 17. Join us tomorrow. We'll be discussing epilepsy with Dr. Ritter from the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota. Last night, ABC featured a movie called First Do No Harm, which highlights a high fat ketogenic diet that's prescribed for children to control their epileptic, rather, epileptic seizures. Our guest will talk about the efficacy of the diet and for whom it works best, as well as the latest research and treatments. That's coming up on Midmorning tomorrow. Meanwhile, stay tuned for Midday with Perry Finelli, which is coming up next.

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JOHN GORDON: Cheaper phone rates for the world, more hate speech on the internet, and the world wide web as television. I'm John Gordon. You can hear those stories on the next Future Tense. Future Tense in one half hour on Minnesota Public Radio, KNOW FM 91.1.

CHRIS ROBERTS: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio 30 years of great radio, thanks to you.

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Partly sunny and 30 degrees at KNOW FM 91.1. Minneapolis Saint Paul. Twin Cities weather for this afternoon, mostly sunny, breezy and warmer. Get this, highs in the low 40s. Woohoo. Tonight, mostly cloudy and mild lows in the mid 20s. It's 11 o'clock.

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PERRY FINELLI: Good morning. This is Midday on Minnesota Public Radio with Monitor Radio's David Brown. I'm Perry Finelli, in today for Gary Eichten. In the news, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is on her first major foreign tour. The future of NATO is central to many of the meetings she's having with world leaders.