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On January 18, 1968, Eartha Kitt was invited to the White House for the First Lady’s “Women Doers Luncheon”—an event about crime prevention and juvenile delinquency. What began as an innocent brunch of chicken and seafood bisque, ended in a controversial monologue from Kitt about how the youth of America were rebelling in the streets because of their anxiety about the Vietnam War. Her “outburst” became the hot topic of the day, revealing not only the country’s unease about the escalating Vietnam War, but also timeless truths about the way we respond to protest.
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Find Kaz Rowe’s video about Eartha Kitt here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PECF0ZupS28
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One of your absolute best videos ❤
This is going to be great. Wobder if you'll mention her Hi-NRG/post disco records?
courage vs. manners is used to this very day. It would be lovely if people would recognize this feat of propaganda, especially when Gazan lives are at stake. to say nothing of other peoples, whose representatives in mainstream media have to wear a especially confining kind of corset when they speak up.
The First Lady was too stunned to speak.
i just finished watching the new yorker short about this very thing right after i finished watching all of the old batman. so this is interesting timing!
the cunt per minute served in every eartha interview is incredibly iconic. great video and analysis as always! i really enjoy how often your videos get me stewing on smt i tangentially knew about but never gave deeper thought to. my only critique is that there was not nearly enough Hoover bashing for me lol but you more than made u for it with some Nixon bashing😁 I am awestruck by Kitt's bravery, though nothing she said was controversial, i cannot imagine any celebrity today doing what she or Jane Fonda has done today.
nothing pisses me off more than the pathetic framing of "how something was done" that comes from liberals and how quickly the media latches on to it. let's not focus on the substance but instead get outraged over someone, often a black woman, stepping "out of line." let's not focus on genocide in Palestine but let's talk about property damage (re: easily washable graffiti) and decorum (re: people emotional over atrocities witnessed via sm)
I love Eartha Kitt and everything she stands for, and I have serious doubts that she was rude to the Johnsons, but I'll play the ultimate devil's advocate with this question: What would Marjorie Taylor Greene take away from this video? Are her rudeness and crudeness justified? I don't really want an answer, but the line is blurred.
The fact that ladybird was actually just mad at the fact that eartha Kitt was actually trying to partake in politics and change things makes me so mad-why are you in politics if you’re afraid of people actually asking real questions that might have hard and necessary answers? Clearly politics was just a form of publicity and power-she and other politicians aren’t clearly in it with the desire and aims to do good.
And even if earths kitt HAD been scowling and stepped in front of the president to stop him going-what’s the harm in that. She was rightfully angry at having her real concerns dismissed and the president and politicians must be able to be held accountable for things-rather than walking out every time questions and topics change to difficult ones.
what i'm most wishful for – is that we go back to this line of blatant Manners VS respectful Courage. because protests of any sort today, and on TV especially are so violent and disrespectful, and most of all – hateful. Both Ms Jhonson and Ms Kitt conducted themselves with respect, despite the brewing tension below. I wish today there was a speckle of that.
phenomenal video
YES an excellent video topic about an amazing woman! They really disrespected her, it was awful
The hoops she had to jump through for being "rude," the audacity ! America should be celebrating Eartha Kitt! What a remarkable person. Using her voice advocating for change, etc. True powerhouse!
oh eartha what a queen stop asking about that white lady to her!!
"A spiteful paranoid motherfucker" chef's kiss
more proof that the right invented cancel culture 🙂
Love this video, and so timely. Eartha Kitt is one of my biggest inspirations (I own some of her memoirs!). The way she stands firm and speaks to the President is one of my favorite moments of hers. You can see the eye contact, you can see her breathing heavily, it was scary for her too, but she did it anyway. I hope I have the same conviction.
uuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmm no big deal just James dean casually in the background
The idea that its somehow a holy honour to sit in front of the first lady or the president is such a pathetic load of bullshit they're not greater human beings or somehow more worthy of our respect than everyone else just because they have a specific job
Be the Eartha Kit of Today 🇵🇸
Love your channel! Thank you for making such quality videos on interesting topics!!
1:36 reminded me of Zoe Saldana in Colombiana, she has a timeless look.
Ladybird Johnson dramatically asking herself "is this a nightmare?" because Eartha Kitt brought up something political at her political luncheon is really getting me.
44:00 love the articulated rage and solidarity of this woman. I love Eartha Kitt, I'm glad people didn't let the narrative bulldoze her completely here, and I'm glad she got the last laugh.
V interesting to learn about this historical incident. So glad Ms Kitt had the chance to vent so gloriously with Whoopie G.
To me, Ms Kitt's body language did express some frustration — although it appeared neither wild nor shrill. The unproven exaggeration by LadyBird, the papers disturbs me deeply. What a brutal example of an earlier incarnation of cancel culture.
Unfortunately, the seeming inspiration for this short — to analogize the righteousness of student protests of the wars in Vietnam and Gaza — doesn't really make sense to me. This comment isn't the place to enter such a morass. Rather, I will conclude with a factoid. There is, in fact, an aspect of the 1968 student protests that is cited as wrong-headed: the chant “One side’s right. One side’s wrong. We’re on the side of the Viet Cong!”
Feel free to go off and google the Viet Cong and decide if that chant, in retrospect, was wise.
great video! i love eartha kitt and was excited to watch ur video and learned a lot 🙂
I always thought she wasn't attractive with her wide face.
LBJ was a malevolent figure in US politics who occasionally promoted minor projects for the good. His wife was much more blunt and direct in her disdain and negative influence on US culture — at least for anyone who wasn't of a personal interest to her [that would be a very small group of very white people].
To this day you can’t say certain things “ free speech absolutist” my ass. When it comes to Israel as it came to Vietnam in Eartha Kit’s day to Julian Assange, free speech is reserved for such bread and circus, as who wore it best?
"Maybe the students at Columbia were right" x 2 genius editing.
The amount of white privilege in that White House luncheon would be astounding if it wasn't pretty much to be expected. The "angry black woman trope" and calling her "negro singer", I mean, did they report about Lady Bird as "the white First Lady"? Everything Eartha Kitt said was right. I was only a kid in the 60s, but I remember how angry everyone was about the war.
Eartha Kitt was a hero.
"That's her problem" oh my gosh I have so much respect for Eartha Kitt, this relentless grilling, guilting, tone policing, scapegoating she dealt with, it's all utter bs. This was an incredible video!
Lady Bird made Eartha look like the "big bad black woman" and the media went right along with it.
This is a perfect example of how racist white women will use their tears and privilege to mess with the lives of black women who dare questions them or have them look at a reality outside of their white bubble. My uncle was in 'Nam, so Eartha was always deemed a hero among the vets for speaking out.
Lady Bird really "cried" because Eartha told them the truth
Just about every black woman has been through this.
I love that you brought up the southern hospitality aspect of it.
Being a woman from New Orleans, this is VERY accurate on how grief is mostly silence in white homes compared black homes where it is expressed more
28:59 "to be clear, Lady Bird was a staunch proponent of the civil rights act."
Is that true though? Her husband certainly was not even though he is now painted to have been. He was AGAINST the civil rights act until he decided strategically to pass it.
He was a proven racist. And is credited with saying "we will have these [N-words ]voting democrat for the next 200 years".
Doesn't it seem more likely his wife had similar views?
This is revealing. Thanks.
Yet and still, when people see revelations like this; of how the media will twist, distort, and lie; they still take narratives, such as something that happened in January, a couple of years ago, at face value, and believe every lie they are fed.
58:28 you mentioned lessons learned from this. All good ones and a major one that should be taken is DONT TRUST THE MEDIA!
Eartha's dignity throughout this story is iconic. And she's so funny and cool telling the story in the interviews I have to replay each clip 10 times. It's the kind of story that makes me happy to see how black women have always been a voice of dignified resistence, but soooo sad and tired to realise we still need to deal with people calling us angry, rude and shrill more than half a century later. Thanks for this! Eu AMO demais esse canal <3
What a fantastic video! So interesting and on a subject I had no idea I wanted to learn about.
Mmmm, I'm not sure I believe that video doesn't exist. I think film back then just kept rolling.
By 1968, President Johnson was not running for a 2nd term. Kitt would be more effective talking to Congress. Also, did she not know that President Johnson came from poor circumstances. He knew very well about poverty & was recognized for his civil rights & anti poverty legislation. I think Ms. Kitt was playing to the media.
It's wild to me that negro followed eartha around , I can't imagine if I was famous and in every paper it's was Chelsea white woman or white woman Chelsea like what does that have anything to do with anything. It is important that she's black only related to what she had to say was extremely truthful and lived thru the exact problems she's fighting to fix. They weren't using the word negro for that tho is was for a negative way and that's why it's crazy to me that that was ok.
Anothing fantastic video! Cool Classics did a wonderful documentary of Ms Kitt. I learned so much from your video. Love the Dick Cavitt clips, too
👏👏👏
Seeing that video of Kitt and Johnson, her petite and clearly timid but courageous form juxtaposed against his massive frame as he glowers down disdainfully at her and mumbled out a maundering dismissal of her question, is such an incredible window into the quality of each of them. She was so clearly small and scared, and all he needed to do was to acknowledge the validity of her concerns and express his shared interest in solving them in as much as he was able with the legislative bodies as they were. It's clear, however, that it never occurred to him that he should ever have to bring himself to answer to any woman, much less a Black woman. That's why he saw it as an ambush – she was not meant to have a voice here, but she was not so willing to be treated like a prop. The woman interviewed at 44:05 has it right on the money: the Johnsons never intended on actually engaging as equals with these people who were so far below them, and it was offensive to their sensibilities.
Fucking Nixon! 🤬 If it's not him, it's Reagan or Thatcher