Learn more about our work and new book at https://schoolofgravity.com/. You can reach us at hello@schoolofgravity.com.This episode was presented by the author, Steven Titus Smith. Here’s the transcript (copyrighted):This is part one of the book, I Am Gravity: radical humility. It assumes you’ve read or listened to the intro, the center of human gravity. this is a little more impromptu than everything else you’ve heard (or will listen to) in part because a piece of our work on humility is still under construction (for the book), so, this isn’t everything, but it is something.The epigraph for part one is from French philosopher, political activist and teacher Simone Weil. “Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.”After taking the presidential oath of office in 1969-- amid the atmosphere of the Vietnam War, civil unrest, and assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, --Richard Nixon turned his attention to the economy and the war. In his first budget, Nixon proposed slashing government funding for National Educational Television, a cut that would jeopardize what would later be the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). At the request of PBS executives, and in response to the budget of a newly elected president, a 41-year-old Fred McFeely Rogers (the children’s television personality better known as Mr. Rogers) sat down at a table on May 1, 1969, before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications in Washington, D.C., to bargain for his future and PBS.The hearing was chaired by the smart, abrupt, stubborn, connected and slightly egotistical Senator John Pastore of Rhode Island. The Senator had, as one politician put it, made his “congressional bones,” by attacking public television. Rogers and his PBS colleagues had to make their case to a committee under pressure to slash PBS funding. Money meant viability. PBS wasn’t even “PBS” yet. It was the two-year-old Corporation for Public Broadcasting.Fred’s first job in television came as an assistant (which he said meant getting “coffee and Coke’s” for everyone) and floor manager of music programs for NBC in New York. In 1953 he was hired to work in programming by the new, chaotic, underfunded WQED TV in Pittsburgh. “All they had,” wrote Rogers’s biographer Maxwell King, “was their imaginations.” The next year he co-produced The Children’s Corner with Josie Carey, a new show allowing Rogers to reach his young audience. Rogers worked the puppets, Carey talked to the puppets and hosted the show. Then in the early 60s, Fred made his first appearance as “Mister Rogers” on a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show called Neighborhood. As his experience grew, so did his aspirations. He earned his divinity degree in 1962. At his ordination, the Presbyterian Church asked him to serve children and families through television. Soon, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood on PBS was born. For Rogers, funding meant children’s mental health, a chance to heal issues of the day for a wider audience, and his own creative ambitions.As the hearing wrapped up its final day—according to Pastore a disappointing waste of time—and with less than ten minutes left in the meeting, the lead PBS executive finished his opening statement and slid the microphone across the table to Rogers.“In Boston, they prefer Fred Rogers to Superman, I Spy, Batman, Thunderbird, even Perry Mason and Merv Griffin. Mr. Rogers estimated 99,600 homes with kids 2 to 11 represents a third of that audience. The show reaches an estimated 113, 000 homes for an overall rating of 4 and a share of 10. Mr. Rogers is produced by Pittsburgh WQED TV.Now, Mr. Rogers is certainly one of the best things that’s ever happened to public television, and his Peabody Award is testament to that fact. We in public television are proud of Fred Rogers, and I’m proud to present Mr. Rogers to you now. All right, Rogers, you’ve got the floor.Senator Pastore, this is a philosophical statement. And would take about 10 minutes to read, so I’ll not do that. Uh, one of the first things that a child learns in a healthy family is trust. And I trust what you have said, that you will read this. It’s very important to me. I care deeply about children. My first children...Will it make you happy if you read it?”In nine words and two seconds, Pastore story changed the entire atmosphere of the room and the trajectory of the conversation.Pastore lived by a law of social physics: an object at rest stays at rest, or if in motion stays in motion, unless acted on by an outside force. He knew exactly how to use political force to change the speed and trajectory of people like Rogers and their proposals. Competence alone couldn’t prepare Rogers for this moment. His B.A. in music composition and day-to-day focus of songs, puppets, and children—brilliant as it was-- wouldn’t be enough for budget-shifting discussions with D.C. ...
