History Book: Crossing the Grand Canyon

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, June 26th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming up next, the WORLD History Book. Today the first successful tightrope crossing of the Grand Canyon. Plus, one of the most important Presidential speeches of the cold war. But first, lifting immigration quotas after World War II. Here is WORLD Radio executive producer Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed to enter the U.S. It assigned a national origins quota as the basis of who could enter the country. During the 1930s and 40s millions of Europeans were being displaced by the war with Hitler’s Germany—but many who wanted to seek refuge in America could not because of the immigration quotas.

In 1943 The U.S. government joined with 43 other UN nations to try and alleviate suffering of displaced peoples through the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt:

ROOSEVELT: This agreement shows that we mean business in this war. In a political and humanitarian sense. Just as surely as we mean business in a military sense.

The U.S. funded nearly half of the program to help European refugees, but U.S. immigration policies still prevented many of them from finding refuge in this country. So on June 25th, 1948, The United States Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act. It temporarily allowed war refugees to immigrate to the United States above quota restrictions. U.S. President Harry S. Truman:

HARRY TRUMAN: But there was an immediate need. Those displaced persons had to have a place to live and it was up to us to find it.

The first displaced persons arrived in the U.S. on October 30th, 1948. By the end of the program in 1952, a total of 393,542 people started new lives in the United States.

Next, June 26th, 1963. U.S. President John F. Kennedy is in West Berlin.

JFK: I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished Mayor.

President Kennedy addressing a crowd of more than 100,000 people from the steps of city hall:

JFK: What is true of this city is true of Germany—real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice.

Kennedy is in Berlin to offer support to democratic West Germany just two months after the Soviet-backed East Germany erected the Berlin Wall.

JFK: Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.

In the 1960s there was a growing number of international and domestic voices suggesting that the world could learn to cooperate with the USSR. In one of the most poignant moments in Kennedy’s speech, he points to the Berlin Wall as an example as to why that isn’t true:

JFK: There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.

The speech is remembered today for how Kennedy opened and closed his remarks … saying that the fight for freedom in Berlin makes every free person in the world “a Berliner.”

JFK: All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner." [APPLAUSE]

Finally this morning, we return to June 23rd, 2013:

NIK WALLENDA: Whew! That’s a view there buddy. Praise you God. Praise you Jesus.

10 years ago the “King of the Highwire” Nik Wallenda takes his first steps across the Grand Canyon. The Discovery Channel broadcasts the event.

WALLENDA: The winds are way worse than I expected. It’s nothing that you haven’t encountered before. I just need to relax more. That’s right. It’s kind of hard to relax when you’re 1500 feet off the ground. I hear you.

Nik Wallenda is the seventh generation of circus performers. He began walking the high wire when he was just two years old—though he didn’t perform publicly until becoming a teenager.

Conquering the Grand Canyon has been a life-long dream.

SOUND: [WALLENDA WALKING GRAND CANYON]

It’s taken six years of planning and training. The 1-inch wire sways in the 48-mile an hour wind. Wallenda carries nothing more than a balance pole. A camera is mounted to his chest. He is completely untethered as he walks 1300 feet from one side of the canyon to the other..

Millions of people watch on television, but his wife and children wait for him at the end of the wire. Wallenda spoke with WORLD’s Steve Coleman ahead of the stunt:

WALLENDA: I do find my peace in my Lord and Savior, but I do not feel in any way that God keeps me on that wire. I feel that God's given me amazing talent, a unique ability and it's up to me whether I train properly or not. And he provides me with a peace of knowing if I do fall and die where I'm going to go. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord.

After 23 minutes of carefully placing one foot in front of the other, Nik Wallenda arrives safely on the other side. He sprints the final yards, jumps down, and kisses the ground. He then hugs his wife and kids. He becomes the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a highwire.

Wallenda topped this stunt by traversing 1800 feet over the mouth of an active Nicaraguan volcano in 2020. He currently holds 11 Guinness World Records and was inducted into the Circus Hall of Fame last year.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

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