Clinton author speaks storytelling's power in history

Former President Bill Clinton hasn’t been in office in a nearly a decade, but Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch still had plenty to say about him Tuesday night.

Branch, a UNC alumnus and Morehead-Cain Scholar in the class of 1968, won a Pulitzer for his trilogy about the civil rights movement. Branch has given UNC many of his personal notes, pictures and audio and video recordings from his work related to Clinton and the civil rights movement.

The author came to Wilson Library to speak about his experience writing his latest book, “The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President.”

Speaking to a nearly packed room, Branch joyfully recounted anecdote after anecdote about his time spent with the former president.

Tim West, the curator of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, introduced Branch, highlighting the importance of his donation to the collection.

“Taylor has been called ‘Confessor to a president,’” West said.

Branch spent a significant amount of his speech extolling the virtues of oral history.

“The reason my papers are here upstairs on Martin Luther King Jr. is not because I went to Carolina, but because Carolina pioneered oral history,” he said.

Branch, a journalist and historian, interviewed Clinton 79 times in the White House. His book was published in 2009.

Branch and Clinton became close while participating in activism against the Vietnam War and worked together in Texas to try to unite the Democratic party.

Through these experiences, Branch and Clinton became friends, despite eventually working in separate professional fields and being out of contact for nearly 20 years.

“I wrote this as a memoir of this experience and as an advertisement for this kind of history,” Branch said during his speech.

Branch said he remembered when Clinton asked him whether he believed the records of the presidency would be useful to future historians.

“Records were more voluminous and less useful for a historian who wants to know what really happened,” Branch said.

When asked about Clinton’s response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Branch said that Clinton seemed unfazed by it at the time and once remarked that the scandal created enormous audience attention to his presidency.

The event in Wilson Library ran out of chairs for the audience members, who numbered at least 50.

“Bill Clinton was the first president I was able to vote for, and much like Barack Obama, is a real icon for the younger generation,” attendee Shane Hudson said. “Bill Clinton was that icon when I was in college.”


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