and religious movements. boston public library hosted seat and. it's about one hour and ten minutes. .. and in 1999 was elected to the american academy of arts

and chair of department of africa and african african-american studies and director of the w.e.b. dubois institute of africa and african-american research. has written a number of books on history and literary criticism criticism, one which one the 1989 american book award. i suspect professor gates has appeared, his picture and biography have appeared in media around the world but this month, he appeared in something that i think will unique in his long curriculum vitae. this is the wb news, which is the monthly newsletter of the funeral home industry. [laughter] and he has a full page picture and drinks of tonight's lecture. so you are reaching many audiences. [applause] >> thank you. bill, thank you.

>> are you okay? >>. [applause] >> got it? can we get the screen? thank you, bill. thank you so much for that very kind, kind introduction. i'm still, my mind is blown the fact i'm in this funeral home director thing. i'm glad that know about it [laughing] glad that i'm still alive but, thank you so much for coming out this evening and thank you for inviting me, mr. and mrs. cash. the i'm here. my really good friends. and they asked me if i would come. i've been to mount auburn cemetery a zillion times. i like to walk through there. but i had no idea, i literally, i knew that harriet jacobs buried there because that is a fame now story. until i got this marvelous brochure on african-american heritage trail at mount

auburn cemetery i frankly had noed how many distinguished african-americans are there. harriet jacobs and her brother john. josephine saint peruffin. joshua bowen smith. william henry lewis. benjamin franklin roberts and as bill said, clem meant morgan. from the time i was a little kid i grew up in the hills of west virginia in banks of potomac river. it a thousand people. i don't know what the definition of a village is but it is a small town. and it was an irish-italian paper mill town and there were a handful of black people. most of them are related to me. most of them were my cousins but for some reason at an early age, i was born in 1950, i became fascinated with what we then called knee grow history and we later called black history and after crow american history.

i after row american history. i could speak negro the newspaper. it was affinity. i was raised to be a doctor by my mother. i was my mama i was pre med. and with my daddy i was prelaw but i had a burning passion for african-american and african studies. and i used to encounter names. it was very, very difficult, but until, the late '60s, it was difficult even to encounter these things but when i did there was a certain majesty and resonance to the names. harriet jacob and luoisa jacobs. i wanted to know about them. i wanted to know about them. i think of it being secular equivalent of a talmudic scholar. when you master your people and dedicate your life to passing that tradition or those traditions on and that was the calling that i believe i had and, i was

premed up until the age of 25. i graduated from yale. i went off to the university of cambridge. and even there when i was a graduate student in english i was still taking premed courses on the side because i was so guilty about leting my down. my brother is five years older than i am and he is chief of oral surgery at bronx lebanon hospital and was dean of the dental school, acting dean for a year down at farlegh dickinson. he is famous person. he satisfied the medical requirement of my family. my mother when i go home for christmas holidays or thanksgiving or easter, when someone call for my brother, dr. gates. i really don't think ph.d should be called doctors. should be professor. is dr. gates there, my mother would say, which one do you want? laugh laugh. i -- [laughter] i would say okay, mama you can cut that out. i finally told them i was not going to be a doctor and

i was terrified. my mother was, she was pointed she said, skippy, everybody knows that is my nickname, skip. skippy we want you to be happy and besides you will be a doctor anyway and i haven't looked back. it's been, it's just been riveting for me. so when i found out when mrs. cash asked me to come and i found out all of these african-americans, i had been walking through the cemetery, i've been here 15 years at harvard. first lived in lexington and then cambridge and i walked past all these african-americans and i didn't know, it made the semiry even more special. and i hope that one of the things we can do, i'm going to end, if i forget, remind me of the virtual tour at the end of my talk, i would hope that maybe we could collaborate between the dubois institute at harvard and cemetery so we can do a virtual tour of the african-american sites in mount auburn cemetery and maybe even our institute might even contribute to that i think it would be a

great thing for black history, a great thing for boston. [applause] but now, i'm going to take you a on a little riding in 190 which my hero dubois. which is why i slanered clement morgue's name. my man is webb dubois. i don't deserve it, i have the honor of being dubois professor at harvard. harvard was dump be enough to make me the professor i'm dumb enough to accept because he was my hero. in 1909, webb dubois, greatest african-american intellectual in the world woke up one day, seemingly out of the blue he had a vision and a dream in his sleep. that vision was most efficacious way to fight antiblack racism a editing a comprehensive enpsych i can't about the entire black world. dubois was a genius. he could have a idea on his

own but he just so happens that the encyclopedia judaica was published in 1907. dubois saw all the good press the jewish people got because of this insigh close media. he never wrote it but i'm sure i was -- by idea. why was he star? he graduated in 1888 from historically black fisk university. he had grown up in great barrington in the west of the state, not exactly a center of african or african-american culture. and he what he really wanted to go to harvard and they told him no. there was very strict racist quota aner of blacks could go to harvard. first black man to graduate from harvard college was richard greener in 1870. there had been been a couple. they said, go toistic fisk and prove yourself he went to fisk and a star at fisk. took his batch lar owes degree in 188 and applied to

harvard. in 1890 he took the ab degree as we call it at harvard, from harvard. in 1891 he took the am degree, becoming the first african-american to take a master's degree in any subject. dubois studied history n 192 he went off to the university of berlin to do graduate work. why did he want to do that? he wanted to do that because the scholars at berlin, people such as faber, were busy ining a new subject and that subject was called sociology. it didn't exist in the united states. dubois didn't want to be father of african-american socialology. he wanted to be the father of american sociology. he went to berlin. said first time he felt like a human being, not african-american human being. he fell in love with a german woman. it was funded by the slater fund. the slater fund was under the direction of former president, rutherford b. hayes.

dubois had to cajole them, argue with them, insult them, threaten them for them to fund him to get a ph.d in berlin because they set the slater fund up for vocational education for negroes. they didn't think negroes could get a ph.d. slavery ends in 1865 with the end of the civil war. why does a negro want a ph.d? he should be like booker t washington and should dedicate his life to [train crashing] ing other negroes in the vocational arts & sciences. but dubois, we have you will correspondence edited by a great historian between hayes and dubois. hayes capitulated and gave dubois a fellowship and he went off to berlin. to get a ph.d you needed to live three years to satisfy the residency requirement. and slater fund wouldn't renew him for a third-year. so to his enormous disappointment and great bitterness dubois returned to cambridge and in 185

became the first african-american to take the ph.d in history or any subject from harvard. in 1896 he embarked on the first sociological study after black neighborhood in the united states. he got a job at the university of pennsylvania as lecturer to do a survey of the black community but it was so racist at time, ladies and gentlemen they wouldn't even put his name in the catalog. wouldn't give him an office. no research assistant. he had to do all the research himself. measured the size of negroes heads in philadelphia. this was published under the title, philadelphia negro. in 1900 he wrote a sentence that turned out to be prophet tick for the 20th send. the problem with the 20th century would be the problem the color line. and that certainly turned out to be case. in 1903 he published a book hailed as a classic before the ink was dry, that was the souls of black folk, which became the bible for

african-american intellectuals then and remains the bible for african-american intellectuals today. in 1905 he cofounded an organization called the niagra movement that set itself up to fight the more conservative or accommodationist policies of the great educator, booker t washington. in 1909 that was called the niagra movement. in 190 the niagra movement metaphor missed itself to into the naacp. we think of it all black organization today. it wasn't. that was year they dream, this vision he could liberate african-americans from racism if only he could publish the compendium of scientific knowledge as he put it. scientific knowledge about the negro, the negro in africa, or as it were the african in africa or african oar negro in the new world. in 1910 became editor of crisis magazine which was then and remains to this

today the official original gan organ of naacp. in 1909 he was on fire. he wrote to all the great scholars and in rome and oxford and, some of his harvard professors. wrote to the great william james with whom dubois studied philosophy in emerson hall in yard yard. james is father of american psychology but psychology like sociology didn't exist as a discipline at that time. red read the critique of pure reason as he said in his autobiography in an upper room in harvard yard. albert bushnell heart, great reconstruction and did dissertation of on of african slave trade. wrote to president elliot himself and all these people save one wrote back they would be pleased would be honored on dubois's board of thetores. that one person you might haved was president elliot, at harvard who said he was much too busy taking this

boy's finishing school in a grand cosmopolitan center of international graduate learning. much too business is in that to actively participate in a board of editors for encyclopedia project. he wanted to give dubois two bits of advice. do not ignore the presence or significance of islamic religion and culture in sub-saharan africa. took me years to realize that, ladies and gentlemen, as embarrassed as i said to say that. that was president elliot in 1909 which is quite as astonishing. respect for president elliot, considerable figure in education went up when i discovered this letter in the archives of vard university. but the second bit of information that he gave young dubois, which as you will see in a few minutes out to be prophetic was this. don't, he told him, embark on this project unless you have the money. so, as i said, dubois went on that year to cofound the naacp and a year later was

at this timing the crisis. toosy to edit this encyclopedia. besides he didn't any money. he put the idea on the shelf. cut to 1931 on upper east side of new york a white man very rich named stokes goes to bed one night minding his own business. he wakes up. gets excited. phelps stokes association still exists it is a philanthropy now in washington. he assembled his staff and he had a dream and vision. what was that vision? the most way to he had it encyclopedia of the entire black world. he called it the encyclopedia of the negro. he held a meet the carnegie library on harvard university invited all the great scholars of race, but didn't invite webb dubois and carter woodson. you know who cart i woodson was even if you don't.

carter wood soon was the second african-american to take ph.d in harvard. that's not why you know him. carter woodson in 1926 founded something called negro history week. negro history week in the '50s become negro history month. became black history month. in '80s became african-american history month. i predict in 20 years, ladies and gentlemen it will be neo-knewian history month. [laughter] jim cash we're only people that change our names every generation. you know love jesse jackson. a friend mine. every time jesse gets in trouble, this is joke. every time gets in trouble we have a press conference and our names, right? [laughter] jim cash used to run the harvard business school as far as i was concerned. somebody at harvard business school should do a survey how much it costs african-americans to tear up all that stationary and destroy all those signs every time we change our name.

the egyptians have been egyptians for 5,000 years. chinese people have been chinese for 5,000 years. this one african-american will go to his grave, as apafrican-american. i am not changing my name ever again. but he didn't invite carter gwoodson and webb dubois. of the honor of being dubois professor at harvard. harold bloom is dear friend and person i admire. harold bloom has a saying. harold is very theatrical. he teaches great poetry class at yale. cast of thousands like in this room. and he finds a way to interveef into one of his lectures each year the following sentence. he will say we shouldn't speak ill of the death and harold will pause for evect. he repeat it. they say we shouldn't speak ill of the dead. but look at the students and say, but if we don't, who will. ladies and gentlemen, webb dubois was the most arrogant

negro on the face of the earth. webb dubois slept in a three-piece suit. at times of intense i am intimacy allowed his wife shirley graham to call by his first name, doctor. kids say today who is your daddy, dubois said, who is your doctor. dubois heard about the meeting and went crazy. wrote to fells many and said how dear you hold this meeting without me? i am i am the negro. dubois said you tollen idea from me. i had the idea in 1909. i called it insigh close media "africana" project. he he wrote to dubois and apologized profusely and begged dubois to forgive him first and begged him to come

to a second meeting of the board of editors on the campus of howard university. which was convened on january 6th, 1932, again in the carnegie library on the campus of howard university. and at that meeting dubois reluctantly at last minute allowed himself to be persuaded to attend. at that meeting, surprise, surprise, dubois nan mousely elected editor-in-chief encyclopedia of negro project. a capacity held with great distinction between 1932 and 1946. after 1934 dubois had a lot more time to the project because he was fired from his position as editor of the "crisis" magazine. he always had enemies on the board. he and walter white, a black man running it, hated each other. that is only way you could put it. dubois wrote essay on field and function of negro colleges as we say today, historically black colleges and he said that since the goalposts of civil rights movement appeared to be receding remember, it is

1934. it is great depression. and he had been trying to get federal antilynching bill in the congress and congress never passed that. since the goalposts of the civil rights movement appear to be receding perhaps it would-be who have the negro to develop separate social, political economic and cultural institutions until the dream of integration could occur. ran counter of ideology of naacp then. probably runs count tir to the ideology of naacp today. so they fired him in 1934. he threw himself trying to get this project off the ground. couldn't raise any money. wrote to eleanor roosevelt. federal works project administration, feller foundation, general education board. nobody would give him any money for this frivolous thing, editing a encyclopedia when people had soup kitchens and bread lines. it was the depress. he needed $250,000. finally went to anson phelps stokes.

you have to help me, this encyclopedia though counterintuitive will free the negro sooner other later, the negro in africa and neeg grow in the new world. phelps was bankrolling office in harlem. he says i will give you $125,000 on matching basis. as you know that means one to run. debows raised a dollar he would give him a dollar up to $125,000. dubois said that is very kind but what good is that? anson phelps said i will do more that. i will go to frederick kepel of the carnegie of corporation and do my best to persuade him. he went to see kepel and kepel rerelented at. i'm having a meeting of my board of the carnegie corporation and they have to vouch safe my decision. they have to vote for my decision. and he said, promise you won't tell dr. dubois?

he said, i promise. as soon as kepel left his office he picked his phone and called up dr. dubois up in harlem. i have great news. i have to swear you to secrecy you can't no tell a soul you promise. dr. dubois promised on 3:00, may 13th, 1937. board of carnegie corporation will meet and call you. when he calls you they matched my $120,000 you have you can't tell anybody that you promise. i promise that too. he as soon as he hung up dubois called raver logan, raver lowing again like woodson and webb dubois, was a rafr logan was that black woman's name was leticia gates and leticia gates was

my great-aunt. i got to know rafer logan very well. he told me the following story never in print well before i put it there. and the story goes like this. all dubois said, logan be at my office 3:00 p.m. on may 17th, 1937. logan showed up right on time. he walked into and to his astonishment, dubois had this beautiful old mahogany desk. on the desk to logan's as meshment sat a ice bucket ice bucket was full of ice. in the ice bucket sate chilling a bottle of vintage champagne. next to it was one of old time black telephones. logan couldn't figure out. logan sit down. see that clock even as i speak the board of the carnegie corporation is meeting and at 4:00, that phone on that desk will ring, and it will be the voice of frederick kepel informing us that they have matched anson phelps stokes generous donation and we will do the encyclopedia of the negro. remember, ladies and

gentlemen, the 18th century was greater era of encyclopedias. the france, the encyclopedia britannica in the united kingdom. we didn't have a encyclopedia and jewish people didn't have encyclopedia until 1907. dubois turned to logan and said this is our 18thth century and we'll bring enlight ent meant to our people and to the world with knowledge about the african in the old world and african in the new world. they were so excited. they slapped five. actually, when i think about it, i don't dr. due boys slapped much five in his lifetime. they did whatever dr. dubois did when dr. dubois was happy which ladies and gentlemen, was not a hell of a lot of the time. finally 4:00 comes. waiting for the phone to ring. 4:10, no phone call. you know how it is with new business. 4:15. 4:20. 4 en30. 4:. 4:45.

finally 10 minutes to 5:00, dubois looked at clock and looked at logan, looked at ice bucket, looked at phone. reached the bottle of champagne by the neck and yanked it out of the ice bucket and slammed it against the bookcase behind his desk. the phone never rang. he had been lobbied against by among others, carter woodson. you see, ladies and gentlemen, those days there was tension between african-american int lek walls. [laughter] -- intellectuals. i'm pleased to say our generation is free of those tensions and anxieties. front page of the baltimore african-american historically black newspaper still being published, 1936, carter woodson accused dubois stealing idea of encyclopedia from him. he said he had the idea in 1921. dubois is mortified. he never responded publicly but privately wrote many,

many people. no, i had the idea in 1909. he enclosed a piece of that stationary i mentioned earlier to prove it. in addition, board of the naacp had lobbied against him. people thought dubois was radical old man all his life. they thought it would be dangerous for him to he had it the encyclopedia. well, as i said in, 1946, dubois gave up. 1945 he published basically annotated biblyinggraphy called preliminary volume to the encyclopedia of negro project. a biblyinggraphy, africans, blacks in latin america and united states. it was quite valuable. it was most valuable for me introduction of the need for encyclopedia of the negro which many years later became the bible for my dear friend and come as we try to fulfill dr. duboises dream. cut to 1951. ma -- mccarthy era. famously dubois is arrested accused of being a

communist. he was acquitted. he was not a communist. he was on the left but wasn't communist but very antiwar and antinuclear weapon. and was monitored by the fbi of course. his passport was confiscated as were the passports of so many americans and african-americans, including paul robeson. in 1958 as a result of class-action suit dubois gets his passport back. what is first thing he does when gets his passport back? dubois visits every communist country on the face of the earth. went to east berlin, to the university of berlin and they gave him, the honorary doctorate in songsology which rutherford b. hayes and company depride him of in of 1894. he said it was happiest day of his life. he went to moscow where khrushchev gave him the lenin prize. went to china and hung out with mao tse-tung. until recently a dubois's birthday was national holiday in china. when dubois died a few years

after this, the longest personal greeting his widow shirley graham received was from cho en-lai himself. shortly thereafter the young president of the independent republican -- republic of ghana. who shared a platform with dubois in manchester, at the pan african congress inch 1945, all the young, african freedom fighters, kinyatta, incruma all revered dubois. father of pan africanism and father of anticolonialism. so he wrote to dubois in 1960 and he said, dr. dubois whatever happened to that encyclopedia "africana"? dubois responded and told him the same sad tale i told you. he wrote back and said move to ghana and he had it the encyclopedia on free african soil. in 1961, ladies and gentlemen, w.e.b. dubois at age of 93 did three things.

he and cherylly graham joined american communist party. they renounced american citizenship and repatriated to the independent republic republic of ghana where he establishedded the secretariat of encyclopedia "africana". he held the first board meeting of the editors of encyclopedia "africana" project. he recounted history of his idea just as i have done this evening. he said unlike the first two incarnations of his encyclopedia project, which were truly pan african, as i've said about the african in the old world and the african in the new world this is the third incarnation and i quote, will be an encyclopedia by africans for africans and about africans. dubois, when he was being harassed by the john foster dulles state department was really abandoned by the civil rights negro leadership. they thought he was a communist too. and very few people stood up for dr. dubois. he was quite angry about that. dubois in retribution cut

them out of the encyclopedia. cut whole american knee grow people out of the encyclopedia. it was only going to be about africans. well, cut to 1963 what is the greatest thing happening in the world in august 1963? march on washington. dub boys goes to sleep. writes out a message to martin luther king, message cabled to washington. dubois goes to sleep. next day martin luther king, greatest speech of the 20th century, i have a dream. roy wilkinson was emcee. following hysteria over the speech, dr. king's remarks and looked at audience, having, written that message, dr. dubois had gone to sleep and he never woke up again. he died in his sleep. when i first heard about w.e.b. dubois and encyclopedia "africana" when i went to yale, i was one of 96 african-american men and women went up to yale in 1969, we were the

affirmative action generation. why do i say that? i say that because of class of '66, jim, had six african-american males. went coed in 69. my class had 96. was there a genetic blip in the race and all of sudden 90 more black people intelligent enough to go to yale in, i'm sorry, in, 1969 than there were in 1966? of course not. yale had a strict racist quota on number of african-americans who could matriculate. if you look at class of '65 it had six. class of '64. yale even had a quota on roman catholics i believe 1963 yet alone jewish people. i would never have gotten into yale without affirmative action. why do i say that? i say that because if you look at biographies of six black boys to graduated in '66. one's father was equivalent after lawyer. one was dent at this time. one was undertaker.

had to get that in for the mount auburn cemetery and one was a numbers runner [laughter] now that puts you in the black middle class at that time. you see black people invented numbers, ladies and gentlemen. it was so successful that the mafia took it over. mafia made so much money, it was so successful, ultimate mafia, the federal government took it over. [laughter] i'm making that up about the numbers runners. my point that only, only, middle class black boys were allowed to make it through the fillers of the race, to go to a place like yale. every black person here knows what i'm talking about. rosa parks had to look like rosa parks to be rosa parks. rosa parks, studied non-violent course institute at berea college. i'm sure her action was spontaneous but it was conditioned spontaneous response. in fact a young woman named coleman, never forget it, my mother was a coleman. and she did sit down

spontaneously on a bus in montgomery. but she had a child out of wedlock and she didn't look the part. say perhaps she was too dark for us at that time because were color struck. couldn't be too dark. you had to, your hair couldn't be too kinky. had to look a certain way. you had, in other words, to look like rosa parks. and you had to be artic like rosa parks. what happened when the woman spontaneously sat down, miss coal? they found out about her past, they just said, lady, we're just going to forget that you sat down on this bus. next time you're tired, call one of us we'll come and give you a ride. it had to be orchestrated. likewise those negroes who went to yale in 1962 graduated in the class of 1966. my father, my father's 93 years old, my father, ladies and gentlemen, worked two jobs for 37 years. to put me and my brother through college. my father was a laborer in the paper mill in the

daytime. go to work at 6:30 in the morning. mill whistle, piedmont, west virginia a company town. milltown. irish italian paper mill town. mill whistle would blow at 3:30. daddy would come home. we get it of the school. we wash up. have our evening meal at 4:00 and go to his second as janitor at chesapeake potomac telephone company and get home 7:30, 8:00 at night. do a crossword puzzle at work and read alfred hitchcock's magazine. father is so funny. my father makes redd fox look like an undertaker [laughing] when my brother and i had a 90th birthday party for my father, daddy we've been very successful. anything in our power we'll give you. what would you like? we give you, you sacrificed so much. my mom died in 1987. you sacrificed so much, what can we give you, daddy to say thank you. without missing a beat, boy all i want for my 90th

birthday to bump bob dole off that viagra commercial. [applause] i said, i don't want to go there, daddy. that is disgusting i didn't want to think about that. ladies and gentlemen, i wouldn't have the class background no matter how intelligent i may or may not be. i would have had the class background in 1962 to make it through the filters in the race to be one of those black boys who graduated in 1966. affirmative action as lanny grenier said eloquently was class escalator for our generation and it was. if you look at students i teach at harvard today, were children of people like me. people in the crossover affirmative action generation. old colored middle class as my mother put it, and became new members of the white middle class. they used to have colored money. now the same group of people two generations later have white money. people like me in the working class, became members of the middle class. now as lani goes on to say,

affirmative action has become a class bridge through which we per pet rate wait our middle class, upper mid class, class status, for me, who benefited so much from affirmative action, who in the american academy, let's be real, has benefited more from affirmative action than i have? for me, to become a gait keep, no matter how small my gate, it would be disingenuous to say i'm not some sort of gatekeeper for this society. for me to become a gatekeeper and stand at the gate to block other americans to gain in affirmative action would make me a hypocrite as justice american clarence tom -- thomas and not that kind of person [applause] so i went off to yale and, through this miracle, and it was so great. i remember when i saw the library since we're in one of my favorite libraries in the whole world and i thought it was a cathedral.

it was sterling memorial library. and i went to the rare book library. and the library is visual pun because it has translucent marble. lighthousing rare book is truth. the people who did that were just so brillability. when you're inside, i wrote my dissertation with pencil because pens weren't allowed and we didn't have computers of course. and when i would look at that light coming through that translucent marble, i'm a poor color boy from piedmont, west virginia. i had the chance of a lifetime because of affirmative action. so my duty to my mother, my father, my people and myself was do as well as i could do. i did well thank god. i have a had a blessed life. i was always at home in the classroom my whole life. i sucked as athlete. you're a big basketball star, i was score keeper for the basketball team. i wanted to be close to athletes and particularly the cheerleaders. only way i could do that was

be a statistician or be the score keeper for the baseball team. but when my, cousins in the '50s wanted to be hank aaron or willie mays, piedmont is halfway between pits and washington. my cousin, greg hill, wanted to grow up to be jackie robinson. my dad revered willie mays. those were heroes for the race. when other people fantasize about hank aaron and willie mays i fan sized by being a rhodes scholar. i don't know why. i wanted to go to harvard or yale and go to oxford or cambridge. in my senior year i got to go to cambridge. i applied for rhodes, fulbright and i didn't get any of those fellowships. i was black junior year phi beta kappa and i was couple ma assume laud. i was from after lay cha, i figure they give it to my because there was only one of me. it was humiliating, stressful i turned down for all the fellow.

i figured i was being artificial not true to myself. finally i decided i was down to the last fellowship. i decided to go in and be myself because what more could i lose. to my astonishment i they gave me mellon fellowship. i called my parents and my father fixed up the phone n those days you didn't have two phones. you had extension phone. remember that? daddy put mom on the extension phone. mama got on. mama, daddy never believe it, never believe it, got a mellon fellowship i'm going to university of cambridge. i'm first afro-american, as we said then to get a medical mon fellowship. >> you're first negro to get mellon fellowship, yeah, daddy. huh, they're going to remaim it the watermelon fellowship from now on [laughing] armed with my watermelon fellowship i went off to the university of came. i met two africans who changed my life.

woel soyinka. he spent solitary confinement in the biafra war. we remember that horrible experience in the history of africa. when he got out, he immediately, wrote a book criticizing the military government that imprisoned him. a brilliant prison memoir, the man died. so they tried to kill him all over again. he fled. he ended up at university of cambridge, happenstance. churchhill college. i was at claire college. in claire college there were two other africans. one was a young african prince whose uncle was the king of the asanti people in ghana. whose symbol of authority is gold stool which descended from the sky in the late 17th century according to asanti legend and anthony was this man's nephew. and anthony was a genius. graduated from cambridge in philosophy with a double star first. a++. and, he and i became best

friends. we're still best friends even though he teaches at princeton unfortunate and not still at harvard. but you all know that story. anyway, soyinka became my pro. i wanted to study african literature and mythology. i said after i do that come back and go to med school maybe at harvard or maybe at yale. this is 1973. and it was soyinka ushered me into the african world of literature and myth. on the first monday, in october of the 1973 he took anthony that's father, joe was like john adams of ghana. was his best friend at one time. roommate in london until he put him in jail because he protested inkruma's corruption. he wally invited anthony and me to indian restaurant. i had never eaten indian food before. now it is my favorite food. this is african. and they loved hot food. and soyinka also loves wine.

i never drunk wine. my generation, ladies and gentlemen, did not get inebriated by drinking alcohol. we used more vapor russ forms of estimate. we did buy wine but used it to fill water pipes with. the wine had such color names as, purple jesus and pink pussycat. if you had, or rwlmuscatl. if you had a heavy date you buy something called cold duck. you remember cold duck? it had a little frenchman andre on it. i had worst hangover from cold duck. it must be the most rot gut. cheap burgundy and cheap champagne. i'm back in the indian restaurant. my mouth is on fire from the indian food. i'm getting drunker by the minute drink this wine. he thinks amount of wine appropriate to consume at table of three is three bottles wine slowly over course of evening he always cautions me when he hears me say that there was i was,

ladies and gentlemen, sitting at this table, tears run down my face. my mouth on fire. drunker by the second, trying to represent the american negro people vis-a-vis these two great africans and finally, to save my position desperately i asked them if they ever heard of w.e.b. dubois and encyclopedia "africana" project. they said they heard the dubois but not encyclopedia after fri kahn n. that night we made drunken pledge at indian restaurant at edge of university of cambridge we would he had it dubois's encyclopedia. we would fulfill his dream. took me 25 years to raise the money. i tried in 1979. i was a newly minted ph.d from the university of cambridge in english language and literature. i got $50000 from the national endowment of the humanities. and i, developed a prospectus and i sent it to charles van doren at the encyclopedia britannica

company. charles van doren will be mention for quiz show scandal but unfortunately was great. he was fired from nbc when that scandal broke. the mortimer adler, the great philosopher hired him for vice president of editorial at encyclopedia britannica. if you want to get encyclopedia company to do it is no-brainer. i wrote to them. van doren responded. flew anthony and me out there. i was 29 years old. he said he wanted to think about it, doing marketing survey. six weeks later he called had good news and bad news. i said what is the good news. good news we do your encyclopedia. he said bad news, what could possibly be the bad news? you have to raise $20 million for to us do it. can you do it? i said i can do it. as i said i raised $50,000, ladies and gentlemen, just from, enough money to have one meeting of board of editors in new haven, connecticut and just enough

money to print my own stationary. [laughter] but obviously, how could a 29 -- i can't raise million today let alone in 1979. so i put the idea on the shelf. 1991 anthony and i came to harvard. we stole evelyn brooks higgenbotham i hope here by now, the now the chair of the department of african-american studies. first african-american female to be hired in the history of the department harvard. we hired her. she the spousal problem. we to great a job for her husband, the honorable lee on higgenbotham who had been democratic president would be on supreme court today instead of clarence thomas. pause to consider, how history would have been changed by, by that. then we hired, we stole cornel west from princeton and put a big red bow around william julius wilson. press called us the dream team. so we were hot. i turned to qwami and that is name, 1959 i said never

be hotter than we are now. got to go for the encyclopedia. i tried all the publishers. tried random house, my trade publisher. they said they were interested in doing this. by this time i had become friends with quincy jones. he had give mean me $62,500 to prototype of encyclopedia. i got a match. random house said you had to do it on cd rom. i didn't know what a cd-rom was. ceo of random house which at time was 201 east 50th street on east side. big mirrored building. you can do it on cd-rom. of course i want to do it on cd-rom. why do you want to do it on cd-rom. in 1990 the encyclopedia britannica company, first edition of britannica, 1768, britannica made more profit it made since 1768. in 1991, young computer geek from redmond, washington bought all the rights to funk and wag nell's encyclopedia. you remember the encyclopedia?

funkist psych seeing of all. cousin bill, you know, every year, in black history month, black people come forward and say, they're deed from thomas jefferson. ladies and gentlemen, they can have thomas jefferson. even as i speak i have the geneologists busy, right now, trying to find common gene logical link between the william gates family and henry gates family. [laughter] and when they find that, i'm the man. i'm to be the man, jim. i'm going to go out to redmond, secretary, have an pointment, just tell them a family member is. $10, brother. no scandal by slavery. i will be out of your life. [laughter] so we had to do a prototype after cd-rom. so i left random house that day, with $125,000 and i went across the street, i swear to god this is true. i called anthony on one of those open phone boots with

three phones. waited to make sure nobody from random house was around it was right on the street. qwami, we have to the match quincy's investment. that is great. do a prospectus. only one problem? he said what? what is cd-rom and can we do one? i swear to god i never heard of a cd-rom. i so afraid vitali would have me follow-up question. can we do it? we required hired two computer geeks as they call themselves from the rhode island school of dine and -- design and flew all executives from random house up from new york. had a letter from the president of harvard, and, the provost, albert carnasale, formerly chancellor at ucla until last year. even came to the dem strax. i did the demo. 45 minutes, it was smoking ladies and gentlemen. after i got standing ovation. i sat down we needed $2 million. remember dubois needed

$250,000. we needed $2 million to do our encyclopedia and vitali said, you have done well with our investment. i'm sure quincy jones was pleased. he was. anthony and i flown out tosy's house in bel air the week before to show it to him. he was delirious. and he said, that's good news. my head popped up. i was thinking what is bad news? bad news, last six months the bottom has fallen out of the market for cd-rom reference works. he said, if you can do it as a game? [laughter] now, ladies and gentlemen, you might have gathered i'm a pretty up person, but i sat there, batting back the tears. my two million dollars, can touch it. walked out of the room and flew back to laguardia from boston logan with alberto. this project is doomed. it will never happen. thatted about two weeks. i pounded pavement of new york. ladies and gentlemen, i keep

a box of 25 rejection letters. i was rejected by every major publisher in the united states. oxford and cambridge, a who are ward and yale. mcmillan and scrivener's. they loved the idea and how much this cost? $2 million. and eyes would over. you raise the money and you get back to us. finally i threw a hail mary pass to cousin bill in redmond washington. to my astonishment he caught it. craig bartholomew flew is out to redmond and we made our pitch. they were interested and wanted to do a marketing survey. what did the marketing survey consist? wanted to count number africans americans who owned pcs. i said, okay. anthony and i flew back from seattle to boston. thought, what could i do? i went to my office in harvard square. i called all my black friends computer-literate, all my friends. this is bill gate's e-mail. write to him, i am black, i

have a computer. [laughter] and you think i'm joking. i am not joking. but i didn't hear anything from microsoft. finally peg guy -- peggy cooper who fall duke he will link ton school of the arts and called me one day. a mutual friend, frank pearl. wanted to start a new publishing company. called persis books. he created an print. he wanted a huge, large-scale reference work and she told me and i called him and for 26th time, ladies and gentlemen i made the pitch, for the encyclopedia "africana". he had a swooirt at suite carlisle hotel. it had a crimson cover on it. i will never forget. for the 26th time i made a pitch with the funky computer. only thing i could do was make the cd-rom.

it was wired for me, easy to use version. and after that 45-minute present, frank pearl turned to me said this is great. how much do you need? i said, $2 million. and he stuck out his hand, said, you got a deal. and i looked at him, don't mess with me, frank. [laughter] said, you got a deal. i said, six months ago i pitched it to microsoft and, they didn't get back to me. but if they do, i'm commit to do it on cd-rom. said, tell you what. if they get back to you. give you million dollars. get a million dollars from miblg soft. they will do it on cd-rom. we'll do it as book. wanted to do same format of columbia encyclopedia. one big mother volume. mothership of blackness. next day that i night i flew back to harvard square. anthony and i went out open ad bottle of champagne. woke up with hangover. i remembered why. this is great. he had it the encyclopedia. next day at 2:00 okay my darling secondary, joann kendall and italian grandmother, been my

secretary over 10 years she buzzed me and said, microsoft on the line. i was very, i started to say kiss , because i knew they were going to say toast. they were calling me to be polite. it was craig bartholomew, skip we finished marketing survey. yeah, yeah. he said, i have great news. we're going to do encyclopedia. we'll call it encarta after fri kahn n. 24 hours, ladies and gentlemen, anthony and i had our two million dollars. only one caveat. microsoft insisted we he had it and deliver $2 million word encyclopedia in 18 months. can you do it? i can do it. anthony and i hired 45 people and staff on heart sqard -- harvard square. next to the divinity school. i wrote to 450 scholars. anthony did too. some in africa. some in china. some in india. some in israel. some in russia. i didn't care where they were. if they were expert on black

experience, wrote to them. 18 months later, november 1998 we shipped as they say in microsoft parlance, shipped not two million words, as the contract, specified, but 2.25 million words. on january 19th, it was born, thank you. [applause] and now, two things i'm going to show to you. since 1999, we have been through, cd-rom revolution, and then of course the internet revolution. i want to show you how we tried to keep pace with that technological revolution.

i show you last edition of the encyclopedia on, cd-rom, which is my favorite. con sises now of 10 million words. ♪ . >> that of course is the south african national an. anthony and i debated whether, to use, lift every voice and sing, the negro national anthem written by james johnson. but this is the truly pan african national anthem. if you come onto the page of the cd-rom, that's what you get. click on articles.

comes out anywhere. an article on the blues. over in the find window, type in a name. somewhere. there you go. my father, as i said, still today, san francisco giant fan. this is honor of my daddy. this is the article on willie mays. and that is willie up there in the corner. if i click, see that icon? means we have historical film footage. if you click there? >> [inaudible]. there it goes. back, back, back, who can forget that great catch and throw by willie mays? >> isn't that amazing ladies and gentlemen? i show my father that, boy, how did you do that? where is the videotape? where is it? [laughter] many people think that bojangles, greatest dancer of the 20th century. so much of black culture is non-verb. how do you teach a non-verbal medium? well, if i go to the article

on bill, b bojangles, robinson. you see the text on the left. again we have historical footage. you can bring bilbo jiang gels robinson into your study or into the classroom. ♪ . >> isn't that marvelous? that is so great. now we found all sorts of fantastic archival footage. you know, we have thousands audio clips and, video clips, but we found a speech that

booker t washington recorded. booker t washington's fame news 1895 atlanta exposition speech. this is the voice of booker t washington. >> one-third of the population of the south is negro race. -- [inaudible] this population and reach the highest success. >> that is the voice of booker t. washington. every time i hear that, i get, chills. marcus garvey, the father of pan africanism in the 20th century. this is the article on marcus garvey. we can watch marcus garvey in a parade in harlem. >> marcus garvey advocate -- advocated black pride through the nia. they displayed parades in new york where garvey was in

full military regale yaw or elaborate academic robes. >> if i go back to the article on garvey, this is audio clip. this is marcus very's voice. >> i -- [inaudible] you may ask what organization is that? -- [inaudible] 40 million of the south and central america, 280 million people of africa or the our industrial, commercial, educational, and political -- >> marcus garvey. and marcus garvey's most direct and legitimate descendant, of course was the great malcolm x.

this is my favorite malcolm x speech, called what's your name. >> where are you? you don't know. don't tell me negro. that is nothing. why did you allow the white man name you negro. and what did you have? what was yours? what language did you speak then? what was your name -- or jones or smith or powell. that wasn't your name. they don't have those kind of names where you and i came from. what was your name? >> yes, sir. >> and why don't you now know what your name was then? where did it go? where did you lose it? who took it? and how did he take it? what tongue did you speak? how did the man take your tongue? where is your history? how did the man wipe out your history? malcolm x, ladies and gentlemen. just so stirring. show you one more video clip and show you a couple features and then, i'll show you what we recently did.

i told you that woel soyinka was my advisor. he game the first african to vin the nobel prize in literature my wife and i were his guests and this is stockholm, december 10th. . .

this lucy and her fine self fred their. [laughter] and it goes all the way up to the present, if we go back to the teachers are in the second edition with quincy jones we did a black music time line that goes from the jubilee singers of 1870. ♪ we even have a future on minstrels. a with the racist tradition part of our past. ♪ when ♪ we need to say that to appear,

and it goes all the way back -- sorry -- it goes all the way up to a hip-hop. but i want to stop and in 1959 so if you click on 1960 we can go backwards in time here and here is john coltrane, let's click on this. we see an image of on going to expand, miles davis and john coltrane april 1958, ladies and gentlemen. ♪ ♪ john coltrane, miles davis, ladies and gentlemen. we have other lectures by how my

angelo, secretary general and then the enemy, will become a quincy, cornell west, general colin powell, we have a historic sites in africa, video coverage from my pbs africa series and have this interactive africa map. every african nation if you click on botswana, it lights up, you get into a ready reference. if you are going to botswana on safari you get this ready reference and click on the icon of the play again. you click there and expand and you get the national anthem of every african nation. ♪ one of the things you learn it is in the brilliance of an african polyrhythms did not extend to the creation of

national anthems. [laughter] we have an interactive map that shows the slave trade using the scholar david else fantastic trade data base, it maps the trump 15 million africans ships to the new world between 1519 and only 500,000 came to the analysis states. how did the poli-sci then press because shipping records, capitalism and they kept great shipping records and so david said the bill is to bring those people to gather under the auspices of practice day of the w.e.b. dubois as it did so we know where they came from and where they landed. in the new world in which parts they came here. the and then finally i will end to this section and the final will be brief. resends i ask to remind me about virtual stores in $0.3 a photographer with free have resisted degree camera to brazil, to black paris, slave castle in senegal, as a harlem,

havana, egypt, zimbabwe and the serengeti plain, we're going to end this session by taking of town to harlem and if i hold my mouth down this is our virtual tour works. when you walk down the streets of harlem. isn't that great? we think of to 25 or so to worse odds. and for a ticket to the law famous apollo theater, lets you display there today. duke ellington, billie holiday, every the franklin pierce u.s. check out every the franklin. sing to. ♪ ♪ response, ladies and gentlemen, it was called respect that a young african-american harvard graduate in 1909 will go one day and if you have a vision and that was the most

efficacious way to fight anti-black racism would be the editing of a comprehensive encyclopedia. anthony in the holly and the eye with the help of microsoft and frank pearl are pleased that we were able to fulfil w.e.b. dubois not dream. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] [applause] just in two minutes my friends

would kill me, cd-roms are going at a business, they are like a tracks. everything is being put on the internet. a year ago oxygen university press bought the rights to "africana" and only a couple months ago created this fantastic web site called the african-american studies center, very lucky to ask me to be the editor in chief and includes projects that we're doing right now which is in the african-american national library project that will include 4,000 biography is of african-americans from cotton mather's servants who told him about traditional african methodist of inoculation for smallpox, all the way up to colin powell and condoleezza rice. it will be on this web site, on the internet now. i think we expect to finish that next year. they bought the rights to the encyclopedia of african-american history which will go from 1619

to the presence and it is about paul fink, and, darlene clark times, black women in america, and all the rights to the inside the area africanas soon be putting on the media up. in the esther and companion to african american literature. all of these reference works including the black sections of the dictionary in advance and that national biography an encyclopedia of food and drink in america and dictionary of the hejaz and music, more than -- 1100 images, to have your primary documents, thousands and thousands of pages, millions and millions of works. you won't ever again have to buy cd-rom and have to have a cd-rom drive to be able to go right to the internet for this website www.oxford aasc.com police

searchable. we have brought every major black reference work cross index into this website. do know that means? it means our people's history in africa, the caribbean, latin america and black america will never be lost again, never be lost again and that's when i go to my grave may be at mount auburn cemetery or wherever. [laughter] i want on my tombstone the co-editor of the encyclopedia africa on a project, thank you very much. [applause] >> henry louis gates is a the w.e.b. dubois professor of humanities and humanities chair of the department of afro-american studies at harvard he is the author of colored people, co-editor of "encyclopedia africana" and a frequent contributor to the new yorker. he has received many honors

including the macarthur of this intelligent and national humanities metal. for more information, please go to the website. >> joseph lowndes enter new broke "from the new deal to the new right", you argue that the modern conservatism was founded in the south, y? >> the reason i made that claim is i think that often people talk about the southern strategy and capture of the south by the gop after the 1960's beginning with the goldwater and then nixon '72 election but i think in some ways the situation is the reverse as southerners pedicure role in development both in the conservative capture of the republican party itself and then the republican ascendance nationally and in certain ways a combination of southern segregationist policies and of an economic conservatism and blend in the overtime and won by various political actors

in a way that allowed in national language of racial resentment and opposition to federal same power and the democratic party generally. >> two questions arise from that answer, number one how did they blend and when did this begin? >> i think the story begins decisively in the 1940's, and the '30s and congress there is a conservative coalition was comes together after 36 to resist some of fdr's political imperatives but it is after world war ii when entering the chairman administration when he begins to push for a federal employer practice commission in desegregation of the military that you have a southern political elites suddenly declared independence from the national democratic party and first running in dixiecrats for says right revolt in 1948. the strategy was to try to get

enough elijah ocala's was in the south to throw into the house of representatives was to the work began a process of separating southern democrats from national democrats generally and from but with growing racial liberalism of the national democratic party and a thin them what happened was conservatives in the north frustrated with eisenhower, frustrated with what they saw as the maid to of the republican party and the new deal era began to look south toward it for allies in kind of a new coalition to rebuild a conservative party and push back against the new deal southern national review magazine for instance began surviving segregationist's writers and journalists and others to pay editorials and read articles from national review. some conservative republican strategists began to try to build the republican party in the south which had not ever been a viable party certainly

not after reconstruction so both of law level of intellectual discourse and party strategy begins to look south florida and. >> the shared times rep. economic? >> and racial i think. partly southerners segregationist's saw segregation as a struggle going to remain regional and was that divine allies outside the region and convince other white southerners who are quite a loyal to the new deal that they needed to abandon the democratic loyalty for politics that would really resist the racial liberalism of the national party so i think it is that and northern conservatives who didn't have a big stake in arrays prior to the 1950's began to find ways to see how racial politics with enemies northern audiences and begins to peel off segments of the white working-class and others who and

hegemonic democratic party so is really kind of both as a. >> who are some of the leaders of this movement? >> in the 1940 certain dixiecrat leaders, charles wallace collins in particular, the intellectual guru of the dixiecrat revolt in not only the heart of white supremacists segregationist's later, but is one who really seeks to convince strom thurmond, john temple graves and other seven inmates that they really have to articulate a conservative anti-government politicians, a business conservatism as well as a kind of a ratio anti-government politics so he is one of the leaders. in the 19 fifties and sixties buckley, william f. buckley who is not often remembered but he really makes erratic efforts to bring seven years into the conservative coalition, he pens an editorial in 57 arguing and

that's dwarfed the denial of of the vote to black citizens in the south is perfectly justifiable because of these people have now reached a level of civilization that would allow them to participate democratically, goldwater clearly is someone not when he runs in 64 outside of his own state of arizona only wins a handful of deep south states, now or else in the nation is the strong figure. >> why did he win the state's? >> in the 1964 election one of the major issues was the civil rights bill and that johnson had proposed and goldwater's opposition to the civil-rights bill who was one of the things that was used by his other reporters over to try to get his votes. and so really it was of a rise in the south articulated as a strong constitutionalism and the

states' rights, but an individual is kind of ideology. >> joseph lowndes, what is a southern strategy? how would you define that? >> what people refer to as the southern strategy they begin with either goldwater or nixon and the idea is number republicans hope to win over southern voters and to win southern states in national elections by pushing the race issue, by articulating either a coded or open lang bridge for nixon anti buffing and goldwater opposition to civil-rights bill. so that is what people refer to women talk about the southern strategy. but again of what is missing and that is the agency inactivity of seveners themselves to help put this on the table and provide a language of racial politics that apply not just in the south but in gary indiana run in detroit,

michigan and baltimore, maryland and philadelphia, pennsylvania or issues of open housing, open unions, other anti-discrimination measures and things that are focused directly on race potentially can not reach a broader white audiences. >> had to get from the new deal to the new right today? >> well, i began by the sorry i tell is by looking and elements both in and outside of the new deal, and democrats in northern republicans conservatives and western republicans to begin to bring their political perspectives together in opposition to the new deal and to finally a place where by 1980, ronald reagan whins collectively and by 84 even most are in in the beginning of a national realignment in racine change which is what i think are

at the end of now. >> ronald reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign i believe in mississippi, why was that significant? >> it wasn't just mississippi, it was in the show accounting, mississippi where the side of the three solarize workers, james chaney, andrew and michael former had been slain by klansmen in 1953 so this was a place and that was steeped in a racial history, steeped in meaning for mississippians and it was trent lott to brought him to give a speech to their parents so reagan says in that speech like you i believe in the states' rights which he could have meant two any other things but as certain as to was carried gordon that moment. >> what is a state in your view of today's new rights or conservative movement? >> i think we are kind of at a twilight of the reagan

revolution and in france many of the soldiers of the revolutions in the same thing, pat buchanan, newt gingrich and others. i think what happens in american political history is that certain ideas dominate and certain political imperatives shape the landscape and that over time this are to reign as the political questions arise and circumstances and the players come onto the scene to change political identity. i think now in some ways like democratic liberalism in the 1970's, the republican rice has kind of run avgas or is an air of splintering. major internal fights over the future direction of the parti. >> it was interesting to see in the primaries you have a whole range of candidates none of whom could fully crenelated claim credentials and all of them in voting reagan over and over.

>> and what does that mean for the south? >> you know, this sounds very much in play in the way it has not been in a generation. in this last national election presidential election you saw in north carolina, south carolina, georgia, mississippi, across the south i think black voters, are playing a more defensive -- of by several m. previously latino voters were in and i think white voters of themselves much more pragmatic. part of this has to do with the changing political identities and a strong enforcement of the voting rights act in the south. more so recently which is open up the territories of exciting changes can and this is your first book, what is your day job? >> a political science professor commodities at the university of oregon. >> what duties? >> american politics, right now a course on compares of conservatism u.s. and europe with my -- and ice t's a course

right now on racial politics will come amid 20th-century to the present. >> what comes a comparative politics but in the u.s. and europe and conservatives, what is the difference? >> one difference is that america was founded on the liberal ideas, classical liberal ideas and the way that european states don't have and so here if you look to the origins of american conservatism uc strains of hamilton, hamilton's ideas about the manufacture and capitalism and markets and centralize power, and jeffersonian notions of enticed sadism and pastoralism. etkin the blended together in the 20s century and so here there is no clear murky tory tradition, links lacked either an aristocracy and to try to our ally whether or a mob to defend against and so in some ways you don't have a dual traditions, will. in the same way.

>> professor joseph lowndes of the university of oregon "from the new deal to the new right". >> bois joan catapano is editor in chief of the university of illinois press, with new books does the university have coming out this year? >> actually all of the posters on the table top display here, these are all brand new books and as you can see we have a series of new books coming out on african-american history including this biography of sojourner truth. a biography of of it t. r. m. howard it in early civil-rights one. >> two enzi? >> actually a conservative civil-rights advocates that doesn't get the sort of attention and respect he should the. but with an instrumental in moving toward a lot of sort of a black agenda as in the south.

>> joan catapano, why did you decide that sojourner truth needed another biography at this time? >> the author has a new and unusual angle, it's different from the ones published recently in is a substantial biography so she touches on new material that other people have been treated in the past in. >> and what other books would you like to point out? >> well, let me say, with the this is the story of an josephsons end of their sort of a nightclub in new york city rather actually was an inkling of the races back and that was in town much, it is a very readable kind of book that sort of gives a picture of the times, the era and the people who sort of a frequent places like that. >> and what is the locus of the university of illinois press? >> we published heavily in the u.s. history with specialization is an african-american history, labor history, women's history,

ethnic history in general particularly latino kind of history, and the american music. >> how is in the business model for university press changed in the last couple years? >> our printing runs are much shorter and our prices are going up as a result because the market is soft, we are selling fewer copies of the books one and is difficult. >> joan catapano is editor in chief of the university of illinois press. >> novelist e. lynn harris discusses his memoir, the "what becomes of the brokenhearted", the book follows mr. harris from his early family life with an abusive stepfather to his success as a new york times best selling author. he also addresses his struggle to except his homosexuality, his depression, and attempted suicide in 1990 and why he feels the riding save his life. e. lynn harris died on friday.

the parent gallery in little rock, arkansas who said the advent, it is 35 minutes. >> wong puebla [applause] >> unwilling want good evening. when it is always good to be back in little rock, it is always good to be at pyramidion bookstore, this is one of the bookstores and that has supported made throughout my career and was one of the first places i did at a signing ads. many have you known this is,, this is my most personal book. and it was the most difficult one to write to me over seven years, but i think it is my best book because i have poured my house on every page usually i started my book tour is at home, voice are added little rock but

as i got more and more successful it became a requirement that we start in new york because of the new york media up their peer down but i'm always glad to be at home and the low rock. i will probably be here more because starting this fall i will be teaching at the university of arkansas and so i really excited about that. [applause] one before aga started at this but what becomes of the broken hearted my ninth book and by the way currently number six on "the new york times" bestseller list. [applause] it calls for celebration and a little bit of history if you will because by debuting and number six on "the new york times" best-seller list i've become the first african-american man to ever make both lists so i am very proud. [applause]

at the beginning of the book like a sense, this is my most personal book and special book and normally i don't read this but i am going to read this evening. on the dedication, the book is dedicated from my mother, for unconditional love and for being the most remarkable woman i know. my mother is sitting right here. [applause] and then some advice to live by pierre.org like you don't need the money, dance like nobody is watching, and love like you've never been heard. take that to heart. the book starts off in washington d.c. doing a very difficult time of my life and a lot of people ask me why i wrote this book and what ever of it now. i wrote this book because i think as some of the lessons i learned will help other people and help a lot of readers.

i can tell already from the e-mail's i have gone i am getting about a thousand a day for this book because it's such a lot to lot of people and that i'm thankful, my grandmother used to wish that i would become a minister is using that one day i would and so many ways she has got her wish in the ninth that my story has touched so many people. i said the bookstores with a suicide attempt in 1990 in washington d.c. and after that i started going to their be almost every day. finally after about two or three months of the doctors suggested i come back to little rock and this is something i was not really keen on doing because i thought a lot of the problem started right here. i would later find out that was not true but in the more i read about coming home and see my mother and grandmother and either one of them knowing what happened or what i was going to have a suffering depression and i rise in the memoir during the visit a tiny table in the corner of paramus tiny studio apant