that all publishers need to learn how to use, the whole wide world or, social not working. it's a brave new world for publishers and we are all fast having to get used to it. >> to they recognize the publishing company today? >> walker is very much alive so yes, pam pass when number of years ago. i think he would have had trouble in this world. and i think it is a very different world than the one he had it but that actually is quite plant in the new technology is and so i actually think she's rather enjoying it. .. by margaret

washington and black behalf receipt, tmr heights by david beito both books were published this year by the university of illinois press in 2009. i am eric arneen at the university of chicago and i'll be talking with professors washington and beito and beito today. but first a few introductory remarks. the name sojourner truth is a familiar one. along with harriet tubman she is generally recognized as a female abolitionist who challenged racial and gender conventions of

her day and provided a moral voice for the evils of chattel slavery. that she did and her story is more complicated as is the explanation of her world in these pages by professor washington who teaches history at cornell history. sojourner truth's life is crucial but little recognized facts. that the economy of the northern states at one point relied heavily upon the labor of slaves. and antebellum reform embarrassed a wide range of issues including temperance, spiritualism and women's rights as well as the all-important issue of antislavery and abolitionism. professor washington's study is more of a biography of a remarkable woman though she brings this out in vivid detail, brings out the suffering and triumphs of her subject. her book is a story of society, religious reform and impulses toward perfecting a deeply

flawed nation. mention the name theodore roosevelt mason howard and i'm willing to bet that few people would nod in recognition. even among scholars of civil rights, it's safe to say the pioneering efforts of howard go unrecognized but david beito and linda beito demonstrate that howard was a formidable figure innim crow mississippi in the mid-20th century and a maverick and colorful reformer here in chicago in the late 1950s through 1970s. a doctor, an entrepreneur and a civil rights figure, howard didn't look like or act like more recognizable activists like martin luther king, jr., or roy wilki wilkins. they show a period of a civil rights movement by chronicling efforts of a now-forgotten figure whose challenge disenfranchisement and segregation preceded the

montgomery bus boycott. our authors will discuss briefly their subjects and we'll open up our conversation to our audience for questions. first please welcome professor washington. [applause] >> the april publication of sojourner truth's america started a shrining sojourner truth bust in the capitol visitor center. i'm sure i was only one of thousands who wrote letters and sent contributions in support of that memorial in washington, d.c. where truth worked during the civil war and during reconstruction. frankly, i had lost track of that effort as i slugged away over this biography. and that effort took over 10 years.

finally, holding sojourner truth's america in my hand, i was also reading about the washington ceremony. secretary of state hillary clinton's testimonial of sojourner's legacy and the campaign to place the memorial was a fitting tribute to a woman whose social justice strategy was bottom-up. actor sicily tyson recitation of her speech "ain't i a woman" shows her struggle for emancipation. first michelle obama bond bespoke how far we have come as a nation. there was unplanned synchronicity in those two events. i was inspired to write a biography of sojourner truth because she was a radical, an egalitarian and a humanist who did not read and write but nevertheless was extraordinary

in rising above enslavement, poverty, nonliteracy and gender proscriptions. at a time when mainstream society identified women and african-americans as other, sojourner truth defied that category. most notably, she helped foment the second american revolution, black emancipation. but as a radical reformer, sojourner embraced many other progressive causes, among them women's rights, temperance, anticapital punishment, and she worked tirelessly among her freed people for a homeland. one of sojourner's cohorts remarked that her exploits could fill an entire library for a nonliterate woman, she left quite a paper trail. she had three separate lives that i recount in the book, slave, preaching woman, and the last 40 years for which she is so well-known, a radical

reformer traveling through 21 states and the district of columbia. the 19th century press tracked sojourner's movements, her expanding presence, she stood over 6 feet tall, her immense speaking ability, shees particular lated as she walked back and forth, her singing, mostly songs of her own creation and as one of her friends said, magnetic power over an audience made her good copy for the press. and she called the newspapers the last gospel. verbal acumen the sojourner's deeds and her response to the turbulent times gave her a place in the american imagination at the time as well as american history. writing a definitive biography, i had to grapple with the sources of sojourner's radicalism, analyze her popular appeal and examine the profundity of her personality.

this involved as i wanted to do it, going to the premise and understanding the woman who named herself sojourner truth by examining her life as isabella, born a slave in 1797 in the hudson valley of new york where she lived in a dutch world, no english was spoken. african religious slavery and the dutch milieu shaped her years. as a result of that background and into an industrious outspoken and mystical person. enslavement, i maintain was the determining factor in her pursuit of a progressive agenda. and spirituality was the guiding engine. her verbal and oratory skills were the fuel. she first embraced methodism but

found institutional religion too confining, too conservative and unreceptive to women. nonetheless, methodisms egalitarian spirituality, its teachings of biblical discipleship and its ability to convince her that doing good was the best way to pursue change bound her to the teachings and the doctrines of methodism even though she rejected the institutional church. the philosophy of methodism and her 1843 epiphany as sojourner truth converged into a divine dispensation that had her speak against the evils of society. she was summoned by the spirit that speaks to me. she was confident, bold, and unafraid to as she said go where others dared not follow. for years she was the lone black woman on the public stage. i cannot read, she said, but i can hear.

what she heard comprised the majority of her speeches. she subscribed to newspapers and had them and the bible read to her. she listened to lectures and speeches and she formed opinions on social and political issues and used sacred texts as metaphors to define the times in which she lived. she delighted audiences with her homespun political parables based on rural farm life. as she said in akron, ohio, in that famous "ain't a woman" speech. woman is a tight place. the man is surely caught between a hawk and a buzzard. sojourner's stories of new york bondage moved sympathetic audience to tears but proslavery audiences heckled her. when that happened sojourner

would often turn down and pull down the bodice and rely her scars. that she said that would be her answer in heaven when god asked her why she once hated white people. her wit and odd way of interpreting english and famous one-liners were deft verbal weapons in her persuasive extemporaneous speaking arsenal. in my biography there is new information, new interpretations and some revisions. i follow sojourner and the antislavery apostles through england, the mid-atlantic, and the west of what we call today the midwest. where they experienced mobbings, arrests, physical abuse and sometimes even death. and dissecting sojourner's "ain't a woman" address i talk about the account while recognizing the racist caricature of truth by engage. -- gage.

harriet beecher stowe ministered the truth. as sojourner truth said she laid it on too thick private letters attest her warm and general relationship with many white women reformers and writing about sojourner's audience with abraham lincoln, who some writers consider racist for autograph graphicing her book to auntie, i accept her word that lincoln treated her kindly and i discuss the complexity of the term "auntie" itself but racism wasn't played when sojourner truth was prevented from attending an open white house inaugural reception while frederick douglass was admitted. my treatment over the troubling guide of the 15th amendment does not place sojourner on the side of elizabeth cady stanton and susan b. anthony as other writers do. while sojourner's greatest personal triumph was probably winning the hearts of her own

people, her activism was broader than that. and her sacred ethos had large, secular aims of human progress. religion without humanity, she said, is a poor human stuff. thank you. [applause] >> we are next going to hear from the two authors of "black maverick" the biography of trm howard and his fight for civil rights. and the first of those two authors professor linda beito. [applause] >> one benefit of the book is that it allows for those hard-working lovers of freedom to be known. dr. howard is an example of success in a time where few african-americans can make such a claim.

he was by the 1950s a millionaire banker, on the board of tristate bank in memphis, a successful surgeon, a plantation owner, owning over 1,000 acres and a freedom fighter. he controlled and started successful boycotts. when he walked into a room everybody knew it. the wife of slain civil rights leader medgar evers one look told you that he was a leader. kind, affluent and intelligent. that rare negro in mississippi who had somehow beaten the system. dr. howard gave medgar evers his first job out of college selling insurance for dr. howard's business, the magnolia mutual life insurance company.

while selling insurance, medgar wood encouraged people to register to vote. while dr. howard started out as a poor sign of tobacco twisters in murray, kentucky, howard leaves behind a legacy, a legacy of self-help, individualism, and the idea that success is yours. you have to create it. in creating he created businesses like -- and these businesses are in mount bayou mississippi. mount bayou, mississippi, is an all-black community since shortly after the civil war. he created the green parrot inn and an olympic size swimming pool, the first in the state for blacks, a medical center he called the friendship clinic. and not to mention which david will some of the other works he did here in chicago.

people who knew him include jesse owens, that great famous olympian, mahalia jackson, representative william l. dawson, representative charles digs, malcolm x and thurgood marshall. so it is with that small introduction i start you to wonder, hopefully, about dr. howard to the point that you'll want to buy the book. i don't want to tell you too much of it because i want you to read it. david? >> i sort of i want to reiterate one point there. this is a great story. and not because of our writing. i think it almost told itself, you know, here's a guy who started out children of tobacco twisters in rural kentucky and became a prominent surgeon and civil rights leader and entrepreneur. now, if anyone would qualify as a renaissance man in black history i think it would have to

be trm howard or he would have to be high on the list. he was not only one of the wealthiest blacks in mississippi, he was a successful surgeon but he was also a pioneering civil rights leader. and he was a pioneering civil rights leader in the belly of the beast. that's the mississippi delta. probably the worst place to be a civil rights leader in the early 1950s but four years before the montgomery bus boycott, howard's regional council of neagree leadership organized a successful boycott of service stations that refused to provide restrooms for blacks and also organized a campaign against police brutality that was also relatively successful. as linda point out without trm howard we probably would have never heard of medgar evers. also without trm howard we probably never would have heard of fannie lou hamer who gained her first exposure to civil rights while attending howard's -- the annual rallies of the regional council of negro

leadership in mount bayou. they were held every year. they would sometime draw crowds of 10,000 people and feature speakers such as thurgood marshall and congressman dawson of chicago. howard played a key role in the search for evidence and witnesses in the emmett till case who was a young -- well, boy basically, 14 years old from chicago. was visiting relatives in mississippi when he was brutally murdered. two white men were put on trial for the murder. howard's home was a refuge for journalists who were covering the case. emmett till's mother stayed with dr. howard during the trial and he provided an armed escort to the trial. some people might say today that his home was an armed compound, weapons were everywhere including howard thompson's submarine gun. after the acquittal which he

predicted. a white man has as much chance for being convicted of killing a black man in mississippi for being convicted for hunting deer out of season, he gave speeches under the sponsorship of the naacp as wilkins arranged for these speeches. spoke to crowds of thousands as a result of this work, had california eagle called him the most hated and best-loved man in mississippi. he constantly pushed the argument in his speeches that more than two people were involved in the murder. it wasn't just the two. more than 50 years later we now know from an fbi investigation or at least it's been confirmed that, yes, more than two people were involved in the murder of emmett till. his speeches also criticize the fbi which is something a 1955, which you did not do very often. the fbi was at the height of its power. he so enraged j. edgar hoover

that he wrote an open letter to howard which he released to the press which he called howard's charges baseless. this letter was the topic of editorials and nearly every black newspaper in the country which praised dr. howard and was a topic in virtually all the leading white newspapers in the south which condemned him. he was public enemy number one. 1956 dr. howard moved to chicago where he made his mark as a prominent surgeon on the south side. he had a ready medical practice from a lot of people he had known in mississippi and knew of him. played an important role in the emerging independent movement against the the daily machine. he was one of the organizers and donors to the chicago league of negro voters in the late 1950s. it wasn't always successful. he ran for congress as a republican in 1958 against dawson.

and it did not turn out well for him but it was a campaign where a lot of people who were involved, later became quite prominent in the independent movement were involved in. continued to be -- play a role in civil rights in the 1960s. he was the chicago chair of a special fund set up to help the children of slain leader malcolm x. he provided crucial financial support to a young and then unknown theology student named jesse jackson. operation push was founded in dr. howard's basement. and he was chair of the finance committee but he was mostly behind the scenes helping out organizations like the afro americans patrol men's league which exposed police brutality. he also indulged in his favorite past time, favorite hobby which was big game hunter. he boasted he was the leading black big game hunter in the world. i don't know how much competition he had but he went on many safaris to africa and

india. his career really culminated in chicago at least in 1972 when he opened the friendship medical center named after his clinic in chicago which was the largest black privately owned medical center in the city. so just to sum up dr. howard. here's a man before martin luther king who was a pioneering civil rights figure. he comes out of a self-help mutual aid tradition which really, you know, a booker t. washington tradition on a way and he built on a foundation of fraternal societies and black entrepreneurship. he also just goes against the stereotype of a civil rights leader. he wasn't a leftist, particularly. he was an anticommunist. he wasn't really an ideologue in any sense. he wasn't a gandhiian figure. he wasn't an advocate of nonviolence. well, he was but he was always -- he always had weapons

with him just in case. and he provided a foundation for later successes in civil rights and left an important legacy. people like medgar evers and fannie lou hamer and perhaps rosa parks. however spoke in montgomery on the emmett till case on the eve of the montgomery boycott. it was still headline news when rosa parks refused to give up her seat on a montgomery bus. rosa parks said at that moment she was thinking of emmett till. three days before that, she had attended howard's speech where the topic was emmett till so take it for you what you will. but in any case we have very much a neglected figure that deserves more recognition. so please by the book. thank you. [applause] >> i now get the opportunity to ask the first questions of our panelists. and i have a number of things on my mind that i hope we can explore and i would like to

start with professor washington and the issue of sojourner truth and her image or her persona. one of the things you bring out in the book is the difficulty sojourner truth had in controlling her own persona. other people spoke of her, wrote about her, mischaracterized her in a way that was not really recognizable to you as a scholar who explores her life. harriet beecher stowe did much to contribute to a false portrait of sojourner truth when she wrote i believe in 1863 an atlantic monthly article that really reduced her and rendered something of a caricature. could you talk about the difficulty of being a public figure, an african-american woman in the mid-19th century and the question of persona and image and how sojourner truth

worked to, struggled to reclaim that image and/or present her own? >> when harriet beecher stowe did that article in 1863, sojourner was already a very popular, very well-known figure among progressive americans. so in some ways her image was already made. but what stowe article's did was, first of all, it introduced her to the entire north as opposed to the progressive north. and then it also caricaturized her but it made her very popular but it was kind of ajj negative popularity. sojourner attempted to regain control of her own image and she did that in a number of ways.

one was she began to carry what she called a book of life. and the book of life were actually three autograph books that someone -- i think it was a reporter had given her who said you ought to put some of the important things that have happened to you in your life in this book. so it was a compellation of memorabilia, things people had written about her, words people had attributed to her and it was also her narrative. another way in which she was able to control her own image was by her narrative. and the newspapers in some ways did a great deal to help her create her own image. at the same time, the newspapers, because harriet beecher stowe was the most popular author in america, the

newspapers sometimes willy-nilly embraced the harriet beecher stowe image. so some ways it was a double-edged sword. stowe made her popular in the whole nation but at the same time she had to constantly struggle against this basically racist image but those who knew sojourner truth before 1863 understood that was really not sojourner. but stowe was only one aspect of what she had to struggle against. another one was her age. when she died, her tombstone read that she was 106. she was 86. but for various reasons people wanted her to be older than she was. so she was always struggling with this age issue. and she would often, sometimes she'd get angry about it, sometimes she'd make a joke

about it, but it was always a form of caricaturizing sojourner truth to make her old sojourner. so there were a number of aspects of her personality that she had to struggle against. but because she couldn't read and write, this was difficult. the amazing aspect of it was that even though she was nonliterate, she did manage to assume a great deal of control over that image and that persona. >> if i could extend this discussion forward in time -- so this is her image in the 19th century. i'm wondering about her image in the 20th century. as i read your book, the portrait of sojourner truth's life and the things that motivated her are deeply spiritual, are profoundly religious. and correct me if i'm wrong here, but my sense of the popular image of sojourner truth today is not one that fully recognizes the complexity of her moral and spiritual life the way

you've portrayed her. she's rendered if not an entirely secular figure, than a figure we can in our so-called secular times more readily identify with. how would you respond to that? does your portrait challenge the ways in which school children and average americans -- when they think about 19th century figures like sojourner truth think about her? >> i think it does challenge that image, the contemporary image. it's important to understand that america was a very religious society. and sojourner truth did not separate the sacred from the secular. so i emphasized to a great extent the importance of spirituality in her life, in her works, in her words and i say spirituality as opposed to religion because she]