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Discounts not available in all states and situations. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday morning. Imagine a virus that paralyzes tens of thousands of children around the world. For anyone alive in the 1950s, that scenario isn't hard to imagine because it was reality.
The virus was polio. It disrupted the lives of many, many and brought terror to many more. For much of the world that changed in nineteen fifty five, with the introduction of a safe and remarkably effective vaccine that all but eradicated the dreaded disease.
So this morning, with perspectives and policies on vaccine use changing, Dr. John Lapouk explores if polio is poised for a comeback. Violin virtuoso Itzkok Perlman became partially paralyzed from polio at age four. Like hundreds of thousands of other children, he was infected before there was a vaccine to protect him. You missed it by about six years.
Yeah. My life was changed forever. My parents were upset. They were. They were so upset.
Ahead on Sunday morning, could history repeat itself as more of today's parents avoid the vaccine? The versatile actor Rose Byrne has comfortably performed in everything from the raunchy comedy Bridesmaids. to her most recent dramatic turn in If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You. That role earned her a Golden Globe and a Best Actress nomination at next month's Oscars. She'll be talking with Tracy Smith.
I look ugly. No, I don't. I don't really look ugly. Rose Byrne knows how to make us laugh, but she's just as good at making us feel. I try very hard to be in control of her and everything, but um.
Maybe as well, not even be there at all. Did you have a sense I need to do this? I did, and I thought, what a gift. Like, how could I not do this? You know, like, I just didn't want to mess it up.
Rose Byrne's Journey from Starving Actor to Toast of the Town. Later on Sunday morning. Getting sources to talk. is at the heart of investigative journalism. It's an art few, if any, have practised better than Seymour Hirsch.
But this morning He does the talking about his legendary career with Leslie Stahl. At heart, you're a hunter. And you're going after the fox. I wish it was that simple. Investigative journalism is a complicated game, and few have succeeded at it like Seymour Hirsch.
Story in the Times and the Len by Hirsch. I mean, the son of a bitch is a son of a bitch, but he usually write, isn't he? Cy Hirsch and the right stuff coming up on Sunday morning. There's a woman's name on the Declaration of Independence. Plus Mo Raka talking with Nora O'Donnell about untold stories of women who helped shape these United States.
A story from Steve Hartman. America will get better. Thoughts on the passing of the Reverend Jesse Jackson from our Mark Whitaker. Keep hope alive. And more.
On this final Sunday morning of the month, February 22nd, 2026. We'll be right back. Mm. I was one of the first kids to get a polio shot back in 1955.
So with vaccines and their safety very much a public health debate these days, we've asked Dr. John Lepouc to take a closer look at the vaccine that changed the world. Yeah. When 13-year-old music prodigy Itzkot Perlman performed on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958, viewers could see his extraordinary talent. What they couldn't see were the braces and crutches he needed to walk.
So I was forced, so I was already running and walking and I even remember one morning when I got up and I couldn't I couldn't stand. I usually would stand up in the bed and then I would go out and get dressed and so on and all of a sudden it was like stop. Can't do that anymore. Perlman, like hundreds of thousands of other children around the world, was infected by the poliovirus before the first vaccine against the disease became available in 1955. You missed it by about six years.
Yeah. I'm here to tell you that that's what happens when you're not vaccinated. My life was changed forever. My parents were upset. They were.
They were so upset. Heartbreaking it is for parents to watch helplessly the ravages of the disease on little ones. The poliovirus could cause paralysis so severe, some children needed machines to breathe. At the height of the pandemic in the late 1940s and early 50s, Thousands of children were kept alive by these iron lungs. There was no protection and there was no cure.
You could be a hands-on parent, a hands-off parent. It didn't matter. You could not protect your child from polio. Historian David Oshinsky is a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and author of the Pulitzer Prize winner, Polio, an American Story. Poliovirus is spread through water, food, and close contact with an infected person.
There is no cure or FDA-approved antiviral treatment. Oshinsky remembers the toll it took on his childhood in the 1950s. You had to stay out of crowds. You couldn't go bowling. You couldn't go to the movies.
You couldn't go swimming. Beaches were closed, swimming pools were closed. I remember my parents every week giving me a polio test. Could I touch my chin to my chest? Could I touch my toes and the slightest stiffness would bring a panic?
You remember the fear. I do. What's happened to that fear? What happened to that Fur of vaccines? The first polio vaccine was developed by Dr.
Jonas Salk in 1954. Before it was released, it was tested on nearly two million children. with some getting the vaccine and some getting a placebo. Try to think. of an instance today where they would have an experimental vaccine and you'd have parents rush two million kids into line.
It's unheard of today. He men took it with a smile as they participated in the experiment that could end the menace of polio. The vaccine was found to be safe and effective, and cases of paralytic polio plummeted. parents rushed to get their kids vaccinated. What did your mother do?
Ha ha. pushed me into line. In 1961, an oral polio vaccine developed by Dr. Albert Sabin, essentially vaccine drops given with a cube of sugar. was widely adopted in the United States and abroad.
Uh It even inspired a classic song from Mary Poppers. Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down in a most delightful way.
However, today the virus still circulates in certain parts of the world. If that virus comes to the United States, And we have a significant percentage of the population unvaccinated. Polio is going to come back. It is only a plane ride away. If a person with polio comes in contact with enough people who are immune to it, the virus hits a dead end.
That so-called herd immunity helps protect the unvaccinated and the estimated 20 million or more Americans with weakened immune systems. All 50 states require polio vaccination for school attendance. But in recent years, more and more parents have used exemptions to avoid vaccinating their children. raising concerns polio could return. Doctor Milkholm, welcome to Why Should I Trust You?
During a recent podcast interview, Dr. Kirk Milhone, the head of the CDC's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, implied it might be time for the polio vaccine to become optional. We need to not be afraid. to consider that we are in a different time now than we were then. Our sanitation is different.
risk of disease is different. And so that those all play into the evaluation of whether this is worthwhile of taking a risk for a vaccine. or not. doctor Milhone declined our request to be interviewed for this story. This seems to be a situation where children's lives are at risk.
And that changes the dynamic. Why do you think some parents believe that polio vaccine is not necessary? Most people think polio is gone. They really don't have a sense that it's still percolating in parts of the world. Just four years ago, an international traveler brought the poliovirus to an undervaccinated community in New York State.
Without herd immunity to protect him, a 20-year-old unvaccinated man became paralyzed. Yeah. For Itzhak Perlman, the choice to vaccinate against the disease that left him paralyzed. is clear. For seventy years, we have been doing very, very well and almost.
eradicating polio. Why take a chance? Don't take a chance. Believe me, it's not worth it. It's really not worth it.
Following the passing of the Reverend Jesse Jackson Tuesday at 84, Mark Whitaker remembers an American icon. In 1988, the Reverend Jesse Jackson ended his outsider campaign for president. with a stirring speech for the history books. We must never surrender. America will get better.
And better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. In a decade when America was turning against big government, Jackson ran on a message of economic support and faith-based compassion.
for the working class and poor of all backgrounds. He called it his Rainbow Coalition. Although Jackson fell short of the Democratic nomination that year and in an earlier race in 1984, His two campaigns produced a surge of new voter registration. and received more than ten million primary votes. Those then-record numbers for a black candidate paved the way for the election 20 years later of Barack Obama.
Change has come to America. whose victory speech Jackson watched in tears. And since then, Jackson's grassroots playbook has been has been adapted by political insurgents from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump. Born in 1941 to an unwed teenage mother in Greenville, South Carolina. Jackson turned heads early with his fierce drive and athletic ability.
Diving into civil rights work, he became one of the youngest aides to Martin Luther King, junior. and he was by King's side in Memphis the week he was assassinated. From his base in Chicago, Jackson extended King's movement to the business world. organizing consumer boycotts. and pushing for more blacks on corporate boards.
He became a player on the world stage, too. with missions to free Americans taken prisoner in foreign war zones. But Jackson will also be remembered for private failings, that left him repeatedly seeking public forgiveness. He was suspected of exaggerating a story about cradling doctor King's head in his hands. He was caught using a crude slur for Jews.
and carrying on an extramarital affair that produced an out-of-wedlock child. By the time Jackson was honored at the 2024 Democratic Convention, His once thundering voice was silenced. by an incurable neurological disorder. But in the age of social media, Reminders live on. of what made Jesse Jackson such an American original.
Bye. Like the time he went on Sesame Street. to teach the kids his favorite poem.
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That's odoo.com. Most reporters are lucky to have one big story. But investigative reporter Seymour Hirsch has had far more in a remarkable career. He's now in the news himself thanks to a Netflix documentary. Our Sixty Minutes colleague Leslie Stahl has the scoop.
You've been a reporter all your life. Right? Is there anything about reporting you think you don't know? You're a aggressive reporter. I think everybody's attraction to it has to be different.
And what do you love about it? The same thing you love about it. Are you kidding? Is there anywhere more fun than being on air with a good story? Seymour Hirsch is a good story.
It was left to a reporter, you know, with an American Express card and five bucks in his pocket running around finding this story. For six decades, Hirsch's reporting has changed public opinion and government policy. The torture that he revealed at the Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq war was just one scoop and a long run that began with his account of the slaughter of hundreds of civilians by US soldiers in Vietnam. The whole army ran on body count. You measure success by how many kills you have.
Westmoreland needed numbers. The back story of this towering, sometimes controversial investigative journalist is the subject of cover-up. I couldn't believe the gussy head. He was accusing higher-ranking generals of gross misconduct. A documentary by Mark Obenhaus and Laura Poitras.
I said, I'm here to see Paul. I said, I'm a journalist and I wanted to talk about what happened in the Army. And then she said this line that will stay in my head the rest of my life. She said, I gave them in a bitter voice. I gave them a good boy and they sent me back a murderer.
He loves people, even though he can be a little cranky. A little cranky? A little cranky. Laura Poitras won an Oscar in 2015 for her film about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. It's another thing.
Her description of the sometimes volatile Hirsch could read like the job requirements for an ideal investigative reporter. Consistently adversarial to power, never seduced into the club, right? Consistently going after the highest powers, the president, for instance, over and over. Curious, obviously. About human beings, how they tick.
Would you call him courageous? Yeah, absolutely. He's somebody who's really driven by. His pursuit of the truth, no matter where it leads him and who it might anger. And anger he did, not only the subjects of his stories, but sometimes his bosses.
It took Poitras twenty years of schmoozing to bag her subject until Hirsch, now eighty eight, had enough reasons to say yes. Older, time to quit, time to back off. You thought you might quit. But you can't give it up. It's a drug.
You're addicted. Can you give up what's going on now? Can you really walk away from being a reporter now, what's going on? I mean, no. Look where we are.
We're in some place we haven't been. Where are we? Chaos. When Cy Hirsch started out reporting at the Pentagon, he got his information not just from formal briefings, but by walking the halls, knocking on doors, and chit-chatting with junior officers. We talked football, we talked Redskins.
You're charming them, aren't you? I was straight with him. I don't know if that's charming or not. If you talk to a guy and you don't write anything. They get to trust you.
He got a tip during the Vietnam War that the army had accused a soldier of a terrible atrocity and set out to find his name. One day I saw one of my Colonels in the army that had gone to Nam, Vietnam. I saw him limping in the hallway. And I said, What do you know about this shooting up of a village? And he stopped.
And he went like this: hit his bad knee. He says, That kid, Callie, didn't kill anybody higher than that.
So I had a name. It took me a long time. I spelled it wrong. I didn't dare ask him how to spell it. And I'm sure I said, oh, I'll hear you.
Yeah, whatever. I'm sure I said something. But we sometimes pretend we know more than we do.
Sometimes? Are you kidding? We always pretend we know more than we do. His reporting on Lieutenant William Calley and the Milai massacre caused Americans to re-examine the role of U.S. forces in Vietnam.
and it won Seihirsch a Pulitzer Prize. Quite an achievement for a kid who grew up working at his dad's dry cleaning store on the south side of Chicago. While his twin, My brother had to go to college and I had to run the store and my father died when I was 15. It was just a bad break. You know, I was smart, obviously.
I mean, I tested high, but there was nothing I could do. I had to do it. You weren't bitter? About that? No, I don't I I had just it just was it is what it was.
You know, I had to take care of my mother. Still, Hirsch managed to earn a college degree and found employment reporting. And I got to see Chicago from a different point of view as a police reporter. Chicago was tough. The mob, I couldn't write about police corruption.
And I couldn't touch the mob. I loved it, and I also understood the limits of it.
So it was a different world. But it was a world where you had to develop sources. It was a world where you had to be first on a seed. He got a job at the New York Times, a newspaper that was not first on the scene for one of the nation's biggest political scandals. Talk about Watergate.
and the competition with Woodward and Bernstein. Did I not want to do that story? Until Cy got into it, Woodward and Bernstein had the story mostly to themselves. And I got something. I got something great.
I first learned from news reports. What he got was that the Watergate burglars were being paid hush money by intermediaries linked to the Nixon reelection campaign. The New York Times was in the game, and President Nixon knew it. Not that. At this story in the Times and the one by Hirsch.
He doesn't usually go with stuff that's wrong. I mean, the son of a bitch is a son of a bitch, but he's usually right, isn't he? His next big scoops were about the CIA's role in illegal domestic spying and foreign assassination plots. In case anybody cares, this is less and less fun. In the documentary, Hirsch's former reporting partner, Jeff Girth, explains one of Hirsch's techniques.
Zy has found a way of trying to get people's attention. Screaming is certainly one way to do it. It's not his only. Tool, but he definitely has a short fuse sometimes. What the f is this doing in your hands?
You know, I'm looking at thinking, what is this? My favorite moment in the film is when he quits. I'd like to quit. I'd like to quit. Why did he stop?
Sai just got fed up and nervous about the fact that we had so much access to his notebooks and felt very protective of his sources. And were the sources' names in his notebooks? Yeah, that was the trigger. This is really what makes him tick. To get the story, to expose wrongdoing, and to protect his sources.
You know too much about what I'm doing. You have too many people. What happened? How'd she get you back in the street? Hirsch and his wife Elizabeth, the psychoanalyst, have been married for 61 years.
What did she say to get you back in that chair? She just told me what a hole I was. That psychoanalysis for you. He returned to the documentary and then some. We did 42 interviews, over 120 hours of footage, just psi.
So did you become friends? Were you collaborators? Were you partners? I would consider him a friend. But you also have to have a journalist relationship to the filmmaking.
So I had to ask him about some of his reporting where he had misses that had to be part of the film. Like being duped by forged documents showing an affair between JFK and Marilyn Monroe, which Hirsch had to pull from a book prior to publication. And he was taken in by then Syrian leader Bashar al Assad and intelligence sources, who told him that Assad did not use chemical weapons on his own people. You take your licks. I didn't disappear.
I kept on doing what I did. Here's one thing I'm surprised about in our conversation. You haven't mellowed at all. There's so many good stories now that make you angry. Oh, no.
Is that your motivating force within you? No, no, it's so much more. I came from nowhere. When I was a kid reading sports stories, the kid from nowhere who became center fielder for the people who make it. This is an amazing country, and we deserve better leaders, and that's what I feel very strongly.
But when you see what you've uncovered, You've come upon such dishonesty, such dishonor. Such corruption. Look, I could be shocked. I was always shocked. America, for me, you know, you got to remember, I started.
Where was I at age 15 running my father's store? There's no bar. It's a great country, and I think this president is dishonoring it, but that's okay because we will survive him. I mean how can you not be enamored by where we live. And our our time is just an amazing country.
Among this year's Oscar Hopefuls for Best Actress, first-time nominee Rose Byrne. But Tracy Smith tells us whether or not her name is inside that envelope. The versatile Australian is already a star. There she is, maid of honor.
So. Lovely to meet Lillian's childhood friend. You're so pretty. You're so cute.
So, you might know Rose Byrne as a condescending bridesmaid.
Well,. Good morning. Morning. Your ears must have been ringing last night. Or as a dramatic actor going toe-to-toe with Glenn Close.
Those bookends are hideous. Take some home. Or maybe as half of a Hollywood power couple with actor Bobby Cannavalle. This guy's gone for a week. There's no one working on it.
But now, in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Rose Byrne is just a woman at the end of her rope. I have a right to sit in my car without you harassing me. Her character's life is a smorgasbord of disaster. This isn't supposed to be what it's like. This isn't it.
This can't be it. A working mom with a demanding job with a very sick kid who's been forced to live in a motel after a plumbing disaster ruined their apartment. Hey, we just got home and you would not believe it. Oh, you can die. Not even her therapist, played by Conan O'Brien, is much help.
Wasn't paying attention. You didn't respond to the email that I sent you about my dream. I don't respond to my clients' dream emails. It's a portrait of a woman stretched to the limits, and Burns says she just had to play her. I'm trying to put myself in your shoes when you first read that script.
What was your gut reaction when you read that script?
So it was really like nothing I'd read before. It was very unique. And then I gave it to Bobby, my husband, and he's always my first sounding board. And he was like, oh, she's got something to say. You know, find out what this is.
Did you have a sense I need to do this? I did, and I thought, but I'm so, I was like, oh, gosh. Where to begin. I was like, this is incredible. What a gift.
Like, how could I not do this? You know, like, why wouldn't I do this? I just didn't want to mess it up, you know. Of course, she didn't mess it up. Roseburn's performance earned her a nomination for the best actress, Oscar.
This is such a shock. And she's already won a Golden Globe. I know you're a great actress, but you seem genuinely surprised. I was. I was.
I mean, oh my gosh, those performances, the actresses in my category, I really was very surprised, and my speech was ridiculous. I went totally unprepared. And mom, thanks to, you know, my mum and dad who bought Paramount Plus so they could watch the Golden Globes from Sydney. Seems she's been making mom and dad proud for a while now. Born outside Sydney, Australia, Mary Rose Byrne first got noticed in a big way for her role opposite Heath Ledger in the 1999 crime comedy Two Hands.
We gotta do something. What do you want me to do? I don't know, something. And just like the girl in this scene, people in Hollywood saw something in her that was captivating. And with the help of Heath Ledger, her career began to take off.
It was life-changing? It really was. I mean, Heath was very instrumental. He would introduce me to casting agents and get me in on the books and shepherded you in the world. Oh, yeah, very supportive.
He was very generous. Yeah, he had a very generosity of spirit. He had a big house where we would all used to congregate, all the Aussies. Would you sleep on his couch sometimes? We all would.
I mean, all these young actors were out there, and Heath would be off working. I think when you come from far away, from Australia, and it's a very small population, you hang on to people you meet along the way and you help each other out. In the early 2000s, she shoveled back and forth between home in Sydney and Hollywood. And this is her old neighborhood. I used to stay at that hotel, too, sometimes, like for a week and audition at right next door.
Yeah, the Beverly Laurel, which is still there. And then come to Swingers. And then come down to Swingers. How often would you come to Sweden? Three meals a day.
Three meals a day. Maybe. Don't give me. Back in the day, she'd hang out at Swingers with friends like fellow Aussie actor Joel Edgerton. For starving actors, the place had just what they needed: low prices and great fries.
Was it scary coming here? I mean, I know you knew Heath and you knew a few other people. It was intimidating. No, it was. It was also like you have to walk through the fire, you know?
You're like, Are you homesick? Yes! Oh my gosh, I would get so homesick. But by 2004, things were looking up. What's he waiting for?
The right time to strike. when she started landing roles in movies like Troy with a nearly naked Brad Pitt. And I mean, you're in this very famous scene of Brad taking off his clothes. Very focused on the scene. Tied up.
It was the TV series Damages that helped establish her reputation as a serious actor. But a few years later, she made a conscious decision to move into comedy and show the world that she could be as funny as anyone. I'm sorry for making fun of your shoes behind your back. What's wrong with my shoes? You're really ugly.
Can you remember what was going through your head riding this wave of bridesmaids? Oh, yeah, I mean it was really joyful. We all really got along really well and that's lovely. And you know, that's not always the case. I'm sure you've got a million actors in this chair of like the experience you have doesn't always reflect how the film's received or really does.
And for me, it was both. It was a joyful experience shooting it and then having the success of it. Yeah. Does this mean you're going to kill me too, Sergio? I'm afraid so.
Rose Byrne and Bobby Cunavalli have appeared together in films like the 2015 James Bond spook Spy. But Rose says their other collaboration, their two children, has been a bit of a game changer for her life and her career. Have you said no to more things? Of course, absolutely. No, things won't work out, or I can't do it.
Made mistakes along the way, always making mistakes. I thought, didn't I should have pushed for this more or that more, or I should have said no, or I should have said yes. I am a. I I was as imperfect as the next person of trying to figure it out. Yeah.
What do you think Rosebyrne, who came here back in the day, would think of Roseby now and what's going on in your life now? I think she wouldn't be able to believe it. I think it's a really, there's no guarantees in this business. I'm firmly aware of that. Maybe too much.
For her next act, she'll be moving to Broadway this spring to appear in Noel Coward's Fallen Angels. But for now, she's on the exhilarating and exhausting ride of an Oscar nominee and truly happy just to be here. I can't have expectations around anything because I can't it's so out of my control. All I can control is what I do between action and cut. And I can put effort into other stuff, but that's what I love.
And that's what I'm, that's the moment that I love the most.
So, and it's mine, you know. From Steve Hartman this morning. A special delivery. Folks in Damarest, New Jersey packed into a local restaurant recently. all of them wanting a picture or better yet a hug from Joe DiTorre.
Take care of yourself. Because for the past 33 years, Joe has really delivered for the people in this community. I mean he has really Delivered. But now Joe the mailman is retiring. and oh, how he will be missed Joe knows about when I've had medical issues.
He knows if I've left my garage door open at the wrong time. If he sees something wrong, he'll call you, text you. Seriously, list him as an emergency contact. Before becoming a mailman in 1992, Joe owned a small business, painting houses. And although he loved helping people, he hated charging them.
So he found a job where he could still be the person he wanted to be. Jose. For free. I always tell people I'm around if you need me. People need like help with a little errand.
If it's in town, yeah, I mean, but beyond being a helpful hand and watchful eye, Joe has been a real source of comfort for many endemists. like Aaron Kitsey. When Aaron's beloved dog Cooper died, She told Joe first. And then he gifted her this bracelet with her dog's name on it. I love my dad, but like, if I honestly sort of like see him like a father figure.
And for all those years of seemingly small acts of kindness, I'm gonna miss so much. I'm gonna miss you. I think Layla's gonna miss you. Residents wanted to make sure Joe knew just how much it truly meant. He just genuinely cares.
And in response, we care for him. He doesn't know how to be any other way. I hope That I can come by and check in on everybody occasionally.
So you're still going to do the route basically. Oh, my God. I'm not, this is, I have to, you know, I can't just say goodbye. You just won't have the mail with you. Exactly, you know.
Because when you care that deeply, People often respond in kind. They say you give back what you give, but in my case I received it tenfold. I won't miss you. Or the package set. Handle with care.
A motto for packages. and people. Among the many reasons to celebrate these United States in our 250th year, A new book by our CBS colleague, Nora O'Donnell. She's talking with Moraka. I'm used to asking people questions, not answering them.
So, is this outside your comfort zone? Yes. Nora O'Donnell has interviewed a lot of people in her long career, including some of the most important women of our time. But when it came to women in history, she was shocked by how much she didn't know. I went to a good big public high school in Texas.
I went to Georgetown University. And yet my own understanding of women's contribution to American history. has been limited. I can't believe I didn't know that. You know that emoji that has the head exploding?
It was sort of like that at every turn. In her new book, We the Women, O'Donnell tells the stories of many of these hidden heroes, from Civil War surgeon Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor, To Congresswoman Patsy Mink, author of Title IX, which allowed legions of young women athletes to battle it out on the playing field. O'Donnell kicks things off with America's founding document. I've never seen the this is an original?
This is an original. You know, the one declaring independence and bearing the names of 56 founding fathers and one very brave woman. See, Mo right there? Printed in Maryland by Mary Catherine Goddard. When the founders decide they want the first official printing of the Declaration of Independence with all the signatories' name on it, Who do they turn to?
a printer in Baltimore. Mary Catherine Goddard. There's a woman's name on the Declaration of Independence. And remember too, putting your name on the Declaration of Independence was treasonous.
Now, Mary Catherine Goddard had printed the text. At Philadelphia's Museum of the American Revolution, Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Matthew Skick, showed us what's known as the Goddard Broadside. This is showing that she has her own business. It's showing that she is a revolutionary, just like John Adams, just like John Hancock. Yet a century after Goddard's bold act women still couldn't vote.
So on july fourth, eighteen seventy six, a group led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony gathered here at Philadelphia's Independence Hall. They'd been denied speaking slots during America's centennial celebration. And what do these suffragists do? Since they weren't included, they storm the stage and go up there.
And what they have with them is a Declaration of the Rights of Women. That they wanted to read aloud and make the point that women deserve the right to vote and more. Still, it would take 44 more years before women won the right to vote in 1920. This is why we have to study history. I mean, I'm 52 years old.
It was just about 50 years ago that women could open up a credit card in their own name. could get a mortgage. to have financial freedom. Women couldn't serve on juries. in all fifty states until the early nineteen seventies.
Hello? Also in the book, Babe Diedriksen, the first female sports superstar. The one and only Babe Diedriksen Zahariat, again the winner. Frances Perkins, the first female cabinet member. I think we don't boast enough of what our American democracy can do.
And Constance Baker Motley. She was the first black woman to argue in front of the Supreme Court. Even so, when it came time to name a new Director Counsel of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, the job went to a man. She gets passed over. And guess what?
With rejection for her becomes redirection. She gets elected. to the New York State Senate. My elevation to the state senate gives me an opportunity. President LBJ makes her the first black woman to serve on a federal bench.
And because Constance Baker Motley becomes a federal judge, A young Katanji Brown Jackson reads about her as a little girl in a magazine. and sees that they have the same birthday. and thinks maybe she could be a lawyer too. If you can see it, you can believe it, O'Donnell says, which is why she thinks these stories aren't just inspiring, they're necessary. Mo, I cannot tell you how many times.
that I have experienced. sexism. One example she did share happened while she was interviewing at CBS News to cover the White House. And I meet with this senior person at CBS. And he says, So you have Three young children?
I said, yeah. He said, well, how are you going to cover the White House with three young children at home? And I felt the blood. rush up my neck. and I blurted out, Do you ask men that question?
But I did not allow his misogyny to change the path of my career. And if I had, I wouldn't have sat in Walter Cronkite's chair. You were the second woman to solo anchor the CBS Evening News after Katie Couric, Connie Chung, had. co-anchored. Right, before Diane Sawyer over on ABC.
Now there are three guys doing it. Does that? tell you something? I don't think it's a good thing. You know, I certainly like all of the men that are in that position and they deserve to be in that position.
But I do think there should be a woman leading one of the evening news broadcasts. I do think it's important. Uh to have representation. But when it comes to women and the future, Nora O'Donnell is an optimist. I think certainly in my generation there was a lot of, look, I'm sorry, but Or, I hope I'm not offending anyone, but maybe we should.
I'm sorry, but I have to ask you this. Yeah. That kind of a thing. Yeah. I think that's starting to end.
Early in your career? Younger women that I work with don't do that. They don't do that. Younger women don't apologize. Or wait for the men to finish speaking in a room.
They just speak. Yeah. They just say what needs to be done, and they do it efficiently. clearly, authoritatively, collaboratively. And then Their record stands on its own.
That is a sign of progress. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning.
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CBS Fridays are a smoke show and they're hotter than ever. This is the greatest job in the world! First up, Marina Bakeran stars in Sheriff Country. We'll do whatever it takes to protect our people. Followed by an explosive fire country.
I'm right here with you, no matter what. Then it's Donnie Wahlberg and Sonequa Martin Green in Boston Blue. Got them? Yeah, I got them. ZBS Fridays, starting at 8-7 Central and streaming on Paramount Plus.
