signing table up front, if you want to take this with you. thank you all. >> how is c-span funded? >> donations. >> federal funds, grant funds? >> private contributions. >> honestly, i don't know. >> i would say from commercials.

>> something from the government. >> how is c-span funded? 30 years ago america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, a private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money. >> the arthur laffer and member of ronald reagan's economic advisory board joins economist steven moore of the "wall street journal" an investment adviser peter tanous to discuss tax policy in the economy. vitco wrote the book, the end of prosperity. this is an hour. >> being the least famous of the three authors it is my privilege to start first. you all know steve. he is the ubiquitous presence on tv. at every time i turn the tv on, no matter what channel he seems to be on an art of course probably the best known economist in the united states. my field is the investment field so i'm going to leave the tax part to my distinguished

co-authors and i'm just going to make a couple of comments about the investment climate and a little bit about the stock market. now, to meet the good news is that the freefall in the economy seems to have been contained. we can debate about whether we like the actions that have been taken, whether we like or don't like the stimulus bill, but it leaves something was done and for now, the free-fall appears to have stopped. that doesn't mean we are in recovery mode or not but if we are looking for some good news, that may qualify. what concerns me of course, and i am sure concerns you, it is the cost of all of the bailouts and recovery measures and all of the other things that are taking place. i notes id before to others that i have been in the investment business for over 40 years and

until this year, i never recall using the word trillion. now, i use the word trillion every day. it is interesting because when you think of the concept of trillionth, when would we have ever had the chance to use the word trillion? i don't think about trillions of anything but now i think about trillions of dollars we are spending that unfortunately we don't have, so we are basically running printing presses and if that isn't a source of concern for you, from an economic and stock market point of view, i don't know what could be. but let's put this some some sort of context. what are we going to do with these trillions of dollars were printing and we don't seem to have? well, we are going to borrow money of course. we are going to sell treasury bonds, which is what the

treasury does. this year and last year, it is estimated that the treasury will issue roughly $3.5 trillion of securities. to put that in context, the historical context, that amount is nominally greater than the total amount of treasury securities issued in the last 27 years. so, this gives you a sense of the scale and the worry. what does all of this money mean, going into circulation? to me it is pretty clear, economics 101 and the professor hopefully will agree, that means inflation somewhere down the road. how far down the road? i will speculate in say 12 to 18 months. so, from an investment point of

view i have to tell you we are looking at things like gold, the treasury inflation protected securities, energy and other commodities that we think should be part of portfolios and indeed we have a chapter in the end of prosperity that talks about that. so, given that the name of the book is the end of prosperity, i am going to turn it over to my fellow co-authors force a more cheerful news in keeping with the title of the book, and thank you for your attention. [applause] >> good after noon folks. i am stephen moore. it is great to see so many folks here. thanks for dezenhall and christian. i appreciate your hospitality and it is great to see so many supply-siders here. we are kind of a dwindling group these days so it is great to see

mark blumfield who people call mr. capital gains was the guy responsible for so many of the great policy changes happening. you are back here in 1978, right? he is responsible for the 1923-- >> that was the disasters in 78. >> and jimmy p from u.s. news who is a good friend and is one of its top leading writers on economics these days. >> you can pronounces last thing. >> we just call him jimmy p but he is one of the great reporters. i am going to talk for a few minutes about how the book came into being and by the way, my good friend is here who is one of the great biographers of ronald reagan. when is your note-- new book coming out? september. he wrote a book on the 76 reagan campaign and now has a book coming out about 1980 and reagan is the central figure to our

book. i am a big fan. it is so funny mention this issue about the trillion dollars because i was thinking about that in 1987 when it briefly worked for ronald reagan, remember when jim miller was the head of the budget office? we did something arthur in 1987, this was after a comet was in in the first or second term but we did something we were not proud of. we passed the first trillion dollar budget under ronald reagan. that was a big thing back then and i remember the first time i appeared on national television was "the today show" when he came out with that budget and jim miller could not appear, so as somebody he was working for him they ask me to go in. i was very nervous because it was one of the first times i had been on tv and katie couric. i spent the entire weekend because they call this on a friday and it was monday morning we were going on the air. i spent the entire weekend cramming to know every detail of

the budget so i was ready for any question that katie couric might ask. i knew what the budget was for the peace corps, for the army, i knew what the debt was down to the sixth decimal point, so we start the interview and katie couric says mr. moore i see that ronald reagan it's introducing america's first trillion dollar budget today. how many zeros are there any trillion? it was the worst interview i ever did in my life. i just melted down. it was all about-- all down hill. by the way, does anyone know how many zeros there are? 12. i know that now. the real question we have to start asking ourselves is what comes after 100 trillion? i think you make a good point that the numbers we are talking about now are so large, dear unfathomable and i think maybe this is the sinister part of me but i think when the obama administration was talking about

the silly economic stimulus package, that they introduced and passed back in january or february i think, we could ask for $100 billion or ask for a trillion dollars and most of the people don't have any-- and then our friend arlen specter said, not a trillion dollars, only $800 billion. and they got the package through. when we started writing this book, which was about a year-and-a-half ago now, the three of us got together and make it see the coming economic storm coming. we looked at the four policy variables that arthur tots so many of us about the about the four things that have an impact on the economy, free trade over protectionism, as low tax rates over high tax rates, a sound currency, and keeping control of government spending and debt. when the three of us got together and looked at these three variables and by the way this was during george bush's

last year in office and we were not trying to be partisan. we were convinced that all of these policy variables that roughly for the last 25 years have been pointed in the right direction of the seven they look like they were going to be pointed in the wrong direction so it looked like tax rates for likely to be going up for the first time, not down. that was a very scary prospect to us. it looked like the consensus that had emerged over the last 25 years to move towards free trade and to reduce trade barriers, and by the way right in the midst of writing the book was when hillary clinton remember and barack obama were common during the primaries, and they were going the rounds states and we are going to get rid of nafta and get rid of all this free trade nonsense and that scared us because obviously the kind of political consensus for free trade has always been very fragile. and then we looked at what was happening with the currency and

just the explosion in the amount of money that has been treated and are there has a wonderful graft in one of his most recent economic analyses that shows what the money supply is increased by-- how much? >> a little over 100%. >> more money creation in the last six months then perhaps the last 60 years. that certainly scared us because we believed in the old-fashioned milton friedman idea that inflation is simply too many dollars chasing too few goods and i agree with you peter that money creation is a real scary thing and i'm worried about inflation too. then we could see what was happening with spending and debt and again this didn't start with barack obama. this started actually under george bush. if you look at what happened under the bush presidency, one of the reasons he will be regarded as a failure, the federal budget when george bush entered office was $1.9 trillion. when he left office it was close

to $4 trillion of beside doubling in spending over the last eight years. one of the themes of the book is simply that policy really does matter. it is interesting, last night i was on the larry kudlow show on cnbc and i was debating that someone obviously on the other side and he was basically saying, the reason the economy has collapsed and we are in this freefall of a recession right now is the republicans listen to people like art laffer and peter tanous and you and larry kudlow. i said, i wish they had listened to us because i don't think we would be in the trouble we are in but i really think over the last six months, and i am speaking for myself now, i think everything that we have done on the economy, every single measure that congress has taken has been exactly the wrong thing to do. it is amazing, they are batting 1,000. again, that starts with bailout of bear stearns and the auto

companies and aig and freddie mac and the 700 billion-dollar bailout of the banks and i think in my opinion, the $800 billion spending stimulus bill is simply not going to work and one of the things that are there and i have talked a lot about is, for the price of that 800 to $8 trillion spending bill that we did we could have suspended the income tax or a year. i would make the case to everyone in this room that if we had simply gotten rid of the income tax for a year we would see more jobs than you possibly imagine and the tragedy by the way of what we have done, especially with the stimulus bill and all this debt is in so much we are taking on debt. i have never been one that has been overly concerned about that. the real issue is whether you find for the dead and the real tragedy is we are not getting anything for this debt. we are buying a car for every federal bureaucrat and things like that but those are going to have much of a high return.

we talked a lot in the book about what happens in the '70s, '80s and '90s and the kind of premise of the book is the 1970's was a lousy decade, one of the worst decade in american history. arthur no's all of the statistics on this, i learned them from him but if you look at the stock market or family incomes are any measure of the of the economy in the 1970's under nixon, ford and carter the economy was just a disaster. the stocks lost in real terms something like 50%? >> to 35 in real terms. >> that is a pretty bear market. in fact one of the things that annoys me to know and in the current economic discussion is when people say, barack obama has inherited the worst economic crisis since the great depression. that is flat out false. what ronald reagan inherited in '81 was substantially worse than what we are in now and the reason for that is, and i'm not

trying to discount that, we are in a big economical but what obama has inherited is a nine month recession. what reagan inherited was a 14 year recession essentially with the economy kept going down and down and down. we talk a lot about how the supply-side ideas that reagan brought into the white house in 1981 helped turn the economy around. the two pivotal things that happened in the early '80s, where arthur laffer's ideas about tax rate reductions, the top tax rate fell from 70% in 1980 down to 50% and then down to 28 by 86. that is a pretty significant reduction, from 70 to 28 means the after-tax rate of return on investment increase from 30 cents on the dollar to 72 cents on the dollar so it shouldn't be a bit surprised that we saw a big stock market them once the tax rates-- the other thing that happened which i don't think

reagan gets enough credit for was the disinflation that happened in the early 1980's. if you look at a chart of inflation, and the charges in the book, inflation hit 14.5% in jimmy carter's last year in office. i always tell the story that when i was working as a grocery store clerk after school i was 19 years old at the time. this was before they had the bar codes on the cans of vegetables and things that you actually have the sticker things that he put on the cans of vegetables and the boxes of wheaties, so am i challenge are there one that would come into work was to try to get the higher price down before somebody could take the wheaties of the the lower price because prices were rising so quickly. people kind of forget about that era of raging inflation. the inflation rate in the 1980's came down from 14.5% in 1980 to by the end of 82 the inflation rate was down to 3% and that is

something almost no economists thought was possible. overbeck whole next 25 year period, inflation was and what we call the sweet zone where the dollar retains its value. reagan talked so often, his school was to make the dollar good as gold and that happened in the 80s and 90s in 2000. by the way as an aside, we think the whole period 1982 to 2007 was the greatest period of prosperity perhaps in the history of the world, as the belly is a 1980 rebellion by the federal reserve at $18 trillion. by 2007 there were valued at $58 trillion do we saw a 40 trillion-dollar increase in wealth over that period, which is a pretty amazing ride. we lost 10 trillion of that in the last six months but still we are way, way ahead of the game especially if we can turn things around.

the jobs, it is an amazing story of what happened to the jobs in the united states over the period of 82 to 2007. the united states created 46 million new jobs, which is three times as many jobs as all of europe and japan created at the same time. people say yeah, sure it was a great boom but only the rich really prospered. if you look at household wealth and it more than doubled over this period. if you look at the range of things that people have today that they didn't have as recently as 1980, one of the things that makes me so angry is this idea, the middle class's made no gains over the last 25 years which is just nonsense. if you look the things that people have today versus what they had in 1980, everything from cell phones to ipod's and all of these things that did not even exist in 1980. in fact a love to tell the story, i was watching this

movie, wall street, whatever the movie is with michael douglas. there is a famous scene in the movie, michael plays the movie of-- portf gordon gilgoff and there's a famous scene where he picks up the cell phone and it is like a brick with little antennas coming out of debt and the amazing thing about that, as we go back and look at the prices of these things, in 1987 the price of a cell phone was $4,600. it was only things that rich people had and now they well give them away for free. this was prosperity and it wasn't just reagan. it was reagan, paul volcker and bill gates and yes it was bill clinton. we were big fans of what bill clinton did on the economy. we did the welfare reform, the capital gains tax cut. we balance the budget by 2000. i would like to see more of bill clinton and barack obama's policies. one of the things that concerns us as the democratic party is

that is not a democratic party any longer. it is kind of an old democratic party. the democrats talk over and over about how this thing to come in new deal we are facing right now. this is the last thing i will say and i will turn it over to arthur. we have a chapter in the book about the great depression and this is one of the things that is so troubling to me, we can even agree on what happened in the past led loan but we should do in the future and if you look at the new deal, if you look good the objective. we debate our friend robert reich eulace clinton's labor secretary, a good guy. we both enjoyed being with him but he keeps talking about what a great success the new deal was and we talk in the book about what really happened during the 1930's. in fact by 1940, this is the only statistic i will give you about the great depression but eight years after the new deal was launched, the unemployment rate in the united states was 51.1%. it is hard to believe that

anyone can save this was a successful program when one out of it seven or one out of the americans were still unemployed after eight years of this program and get this is still held up as a model for the u.s. in 2009 and beyond. i am going to end by simply saying this, people's me what is going to happen with the economy? i think this program will fail, unfortunately. the whole premise of the book "the end of prosperity." the good news is that the americans have, people have a very short attention span. they abby gary, we live in an instant gratification society. of the year from now the economy is in substantially better think americans will say what comes next, and then i think we will get back to the kind of pro-growth policies that will cause greater prosperity, and then if we do that i think america is well poised for another 25 to 30 year run of great increases in wealth and

prosperity, so arthur i will turn it over to you but i just want to say it was so much fun writing this book with you and peter and we have got to do-- do another one again soon. [applause] >> the one thing i always-- i can values raise the microphone after they spoke. it is not that funny. if i can, i just want to remind you of the story. i was the first chief economist when the omb was formed in 1970. i was george shultz's right-hand person back then and these numbers were big numbers, at least thought they were, and i wrote my mom and i told my mom and a number that is 49 million or less we round to zero. [laughter] 100 billion was .1, which gives you a flavor. now what is that now? bill safire had the greatest phrase. he called the magaw numbers

which he spelled-- which he claims stood for my eyes glaze over. i wanted to two quick things. i want to make sure that steve and peter both mentioned this but let me mention it seriously. it is not about personalities, it is not about people, it is not about any of that stuff. it is very political but it is not partisan what we do. we all loved bill clinton as the president. i voted for him twice and i want to make sure you understand that i thought he was a disgusting person but i thought he was a great president in my view was that if he hadn't been elected he would been a disgusting person but we would have lost all the benefits of his leadership as president of the united states, and that mean that seriously. it is not about people and i want to go, especially this administration, this man, barack obama is one of the most impressive human beings i have seen in my life and politics. i am awestruck. he represents so much that is

wonderful about our country. a black african father, a white american mother. if that is not the melting pot, i don't know what is. raised in a nurturing, wonderful environment. his mom and grandmother. to many nurturing agreement. he went to columbia university. he then went to harvard law school where he was head of law review. you don't get that by affirmative action. let me tell you, you have got to be really good. he taught at the university of chicago, where i taught for most of my life and i can assure you only geniuses are on the faculty there. [laughter] just having fun but this man is really cool. not only that, if you look at his family, you look at michelle obama. she is not only gorgeous, she is the professional in the first order. this is ozzie and harriet on steroids. if you went to central casting and try to find an american hero, barack obama would be at

the top of the list. this has nothing to do with barack obama as a person. i am literally very impressed by this man. my view, and i shared with my co-authors, i think he is wrong on every single issue and it is not because he is not a good guy. he is a good guy but my view is ultimately economics will take over and i'm going to give you one example today. there are lots of examples that the one i want to do with you is simply to look at the appointment on the energy and environment issue. fox as me to be there corresponded to respond to the appointments that obama was making to energy and environment, so i was the guy sitting there and the president came up and announce them and of course as you know chu was selected as head of this. chu poksda portfolio is-- he is not only a professor, he is chairman of the department of physics at stanford, where i got

my ph.d.. not only that, he is cutting nobel prize in physics. this guy has credentials to the end of the earth. he introduced chu and then chu was followed by carol browner. as you may know she was the environment person for clinton, and then was followed by think lisa jackson, one of the governor schwarzenegger's people on this so it is an all of this team. he announced them, when two role of their resumes. he announced his policies that this administration is going to go along with signs and he hesitated in that word, signs. there was an implication that no one else had heard of that but he was going to go along with science and then said we wanted to have energy independence. we worry about the improvements, the research on the globals stuff. fin chu came up and he to mention science many times hesitating, but the words came

out, hit the table and crawled toward you. let me come if i can come and go a little bit on the energy policies here. one of the goals of this administration is energy independence and of course i'm an old journeymen. i am an economist, i worry about how things could put together, the capital resources and help people get them so and comes, i am worried about very mundane, boring stuff. i am just an old german economists, but when i hear someone talk about energy independence, that is almost a rope-a-dope mistake. let me if i can just describe this because this is david ricardo. have any of you heard about the gains from trade, david ricardo? when i look at the world i see the middle east has tons and tons of oil and they don't know what to do with it. i look at the u.s. and we know what to do with it and we cannot use more but the simple thing is that we and they are both better off by them selling as the oil and we using it.

energy independence is one of the dumbest idea as i have ever heard of my life. it denies all the gains from trade. it is just plain in economic terms, stupid. if i look at this thing, it is not just obama, every president since eisenhower has espoused the idea of energy independence and of course every year we have become more and more dependent on foreign energy, which is the negative thing in these people's eyes. it is a wonderful thing in my eyes. i think it is the silliest thing in the world to imagine minnesota growing bananas. that is the gains from trade. when i look it does, just comparing advantage. it is basic economics, it is basic economics one stuff. i imagine a world with the u.s. is independent. today we import 52% of the oil we use. can any of you imagine what the united states economy would look like today if we were denied the

use of 52% of the current oil we use? what would the price of a gallon of gas be? it is crazy, silly. these guys don't know straight up from succumb when it comes to basic economics. it is a catastrophic set of policies. if you look at this stuff and look at the gains from trade and all the arguments, the response in the arctic, you don't understand. the people who own the oil and have that are bad guys. i will stipulate that. they are bad guys. i stopped going to beach parties with hugo months ago. i have not played doubles in tennis with ahmadinejad for a while and i am no longer sharing with vladimir putin. i am sick and tired of these guys and i don't like to me there but do they not understand the bhagwati theorists. don't they understand that you always want to direct your

policy problem, not in direct. you never use trade as a political weapon. view just plain don't. if embargoes worked, north korea years ago would have become a democratic pro-growth capitalist nation. ..

it is about the dumbest solution. it is guaranteed the solution is worse than the actual problem. you know, using the baghwati theorem we have bad way of dealing with government. we do. in a very simply we have the bully pulpit. the president can go up there, if that doesn't work we have another department, and will have a year, called the state department, attache is and all these things. that doesn't work we have a big one, the defense department. we just shoot them. that is what the defense department is for, to deal with bad government. you never do is trade as a weapon and these are basic, simple mistakes of enormous consequence. and i don't mean to belittle this administration. it's not just these guys, they just don't know each on one and if you think i am wrong ask any economist of out of the trade

and the baghwati theorem. its basic simple economics. then they talk about the environment and i was a member of the world wildlife fund a long time ago when one of my classmates was its executive founder. i had one of the best private tree collections in the country. i am on the national sue board. i am really a tree hugger and i really am a tree hugger. i love the environment and i take oil spills really seriously. they are something to be avoided like the plague, and i am not joking. five weeks ago they had this bill in australia the beach was polluted, 30 miles of beach, that is eight sin. these are things you must focus on and you must make sure these things don't happen. and my country is one of the leading countries in trying to solve and protect against these

types of problems. what these people don't understand is if we don't do offshore drilling indonesia will. and if you think we are sloppy about oil spills and what happens to the environment you can't believe how sloppy indonesia is. the disaster in indonesia is a thousand times worse than it would ever be here and what happened far more frequently. you get one of these little animals covered by oil they will light a match and watch how long it can run. it is a catastrophe. what they don't understand is the world as dynamic. if we don't stop offshore drilling it doesn't mean everyone else will. they won't. they will increase to do this stuff. you've got to understand basic economics in this. you know, i see the nuclear issue. and i will stop with this one, but i was on the board for years

and i used it over to france. i was the only american on the board. i had some of the most from political discussions with them by the way. i would go to every board meeting with them which was six a year until my wife told me she was no longer wanting to go to paris, she was bored silly so i resigned from the board. but i noticed paris works pretty well. france works pretty well. do you know how much of their energy is nuclear? it is over 70, 80, something like that. it's pretty safe. i want to tell you i don't understand anything about nuclear power. i don't know any of the physics or that kind of stuff but i know how to make a safe nuclear power plant, and i do. it's simple. if you've got nuclear power facility make sure the board of directors and officers of the corporation live on premise and send their kids to school on premise. i will assure you it's safe. what you want to do is a line incentives, make sure pilots of

airplanes don't have parachutes. you don't want them getting off and new lighting the plan the rest of the trip and i mean this. it's aligning incentives and these people don't understand incentives. if you tax people who work and pay people who don't work do i need to say the next sentence to you? you're going to get lots of people not working. you tax rich people and give the money to poor people you're going to have lots and lots of poor people and know rich people. the last one which i did, i moved from southern california to san diego to nashville, tennessee for one simple reason california has 10.5% income tax rate and national has zero. i hope i'm not going way over your heads today, but if you have two locations, a and b, if you raise taxes and b and lower than in a manufacturers are

going to move from, to? that's all this book is about. unfortunately this administration is going the opposite way and peter i think was the guy that fault of the title here and, you know, but unfortunately it's coming true but in this book but we try to do is we'll see examples and the data in a usable form. this is not in an academic form. we try to lay out the stories of many examples where people did the right things and when they did the wrong things. i want to stress again it's not about nice people or bad people or partisanship, this is politics, but it's not republican or democrat or left-wing or right-wing, it's not liberal, it's not conservative. it's basic math and economics. thank you. [applause] >> we can take some questions if you just -- [inaudible] >> on the middle east energy issue, i know you are a big fan

of efficiency in all, but is in the political stability in the mideast a threat to that -- [inaudible] isn't as something that can help deal with the inefficiencies of sort of the political instability? >> no, it's not. in fact if anything it works the other way. the trades are such they made these places more tolerable, more user-friendly. i have never thought not trading with a country makes the country like you more. let me use the example i used to use has china. we tried a lot with china. china is a huge investor in the united states. remember how hillary was talking about this risk. my view if they have a lot of investments in the u.s. it will make them think twice about bombing us. if we have a huge integrated stake in these countries through economics, my view is this will make them much less likely to do politically disruptive defense, and plus the whole history of

anbar goes and independence has been fraught with failure. the only thing that's clear every time you use protectionism is that you suffered enormously. protectionism hurts the protector as well as the country against which they are protecting and that is what happens and i think you will find in almost all of the literature and economics to support exactly what i'm describing. it is a failed toole, protectionism and not only is it infield toole it actually hurts the political process. it doesn't make north korea likes us better. it doesn't make cuba like us better and it doesn't make zimbabwe work better. >> if we engage in offshore drilling and instead of taking 50% of oil from countries that don't like us to taking 30% of oil from countries that don't like us what's wrong with that? >> nothing's wrong with that, that's just fine economics but we don't energy dependent we want to use it in the most efficient way that's all. if in fact the middle east -- if

we can produce a cheaper than they can, great, that's comparative advantage. i don't ever use the argument of energy independence my support nuclear power because it is using a false argument for the right policy. and, yeah, go ahead, steve. steve, this thing is falling. >> the related point on this is with respect to what is going on with this administration, with solar and wind and renewable energy, i find this to be one of the most massive now investments we are going to make as a nation. when you look at solar and wind it's interesting most americans have no idea where they get their electricity from you ask people and they just say stick something in his pocket and electricity comes out. 50% comes from coal and we are the saudi arabia of coal. we've got a helluva lot of it. we've got somewhere between 15 and 20% of our core electricity from nuclear power.

we get some of it hydro. anybody want to guess how much of our electricity in the united states today comes from wind and solar power? about 1.5%. so let's think this through. let's say -- by the way we've spent tens of billions of dollars already since 1980 on subsidizing solar power but let's say this is a fabulously successful investment beyond our wildest dreams that all of this research we are going to do leads to a massive explosion in solar and wind power. let's say we have quadrupled the amount of energy and electricity we get from solar and wind. now we are at 6% and the question is where in the world are we going to get the other 90% of energy from and the fact that we are not doing nuclear power and we are not drilling in this budget is economically suicidal. one of the things i've become convinced about is we are not serious in this country about economic competitiveness and it

is a sin. we are raising taxes in every of our country is lowering taxes. we are going to do this big global warming tax when everyone in this room knows china and these other countries aren't doing it. how are we going to have a manufacturing sector if we put an extra ten, 15% tax on manufacturers and the rest of the world doesn't? it is kind of -- i don't know about you, arthur, economic hari-kari to move on with these things and we've already got a sector on its back. now seems almost unpatriotic to be talking about this global warming tax. other questions? >> yes, steve, you and the officials advising president obama are looking at the same set of data roughly similar set of circumstances. what do you think is the core writing thing that causes them

to our right at a different set of economic proposals than you are? is it economic, is a philosophical? what is it that is causing them to look at similar things and come to a different set of conclusions? >> let me just say one thing. the question about why is it we look at the data, they look at the data and we come to a total polar opposite conclusions? the answer is i don't really know. every time i get talks about the book the first question is this stuff seems so obvious. the fact as you just said they lower taxes here and raise taxes here you're going to get more economic here than there. we don't think these are radical ideas. we think the evidence is pretty solid so i don't have a good explanation for how the other side comes up with the opposite conclusions. i do think that conservatives are paying a pretty high price

for letting the left to write the history books of what happens in this country. i mentioned in the new deal. most kids are taught the new deal was a success. i work at "the wall street journal" across the street. i bet if i asked -- these are some of the best smartest reporters in the country -- if i ask if they think the new deal helped end the depression the vast majority of them would say yes. so i think part of it is we don't have a good understanding of economic history which is what this would tries to do. >> i'm going to disagree a little bit, steve. i've been involved in political process is for a long time. i've been involved in washington, i was the first chief economist and omb in 1970 for two years and then i stayed on as consultants to the secretary of treasury and defense for the rest of the ford and chief of staff by the way and in fact some of you remember that is where i drove to the eckert schricker fourth don rumsfeld at the washington hotel right next door and then of course my rule with the real

president. let me tell you it is wake will being involved with the president. just days away cool and it is a job he would die for and i can tell you some of the coolest things i ever did that make you laugh like having my secretary call when i am at a dinner at the white house and having them say sir the white house is calling, we have room set up for you and i go in their thanks, glenn, it's my secateurs recalling. [laughter] everybody would be impressed and i would come back and they would say what is happening? and i would say i really not at liberty to talk about it but he will probably read about it. [laughter] i have more fun. giving up to camp david on helicopter one riding around in a golf cart is to die for. you have got a role to play in a political process. we did, they do, all of them do. if the president says x, you figure out an argument that makes x correct and that is a

political team does and we did it. you know, let me tell you that these people rebut arguments they know to be true in order to create a first of their political benefactors and they do and so did we. i would have lied through my teeth every day of the week and twice to hang out with reagan. reagan has never asked me to do that but it's a very different process when you get into a political process it becomes much more of an advocacy and scientific analysis. i just ask you to read the papers, her academic papers and you what she talks about with regard to the stimulus, just do it, go to her academic work and see what she says about the taxes and what she says when she does the paper with jared bernstein.

i understand on and on their falling austan goolsbee on the position of firing by donner. he was as nervous as i would have been defending that silly thing but you've got to win you understand politics is not academics come it's not independent research. it's where you go along the political line and that to the large extent is why there is so much debate. >> except there are -- i would say the huge percentage of academic honors who don't have relationship with obama are seeing -- [inaudible] >> if you think universities or independent agents they are not. universities are very political organizations even when i wasn't officially with the white house there were other groups of you that hang together and it is us versus them and it becomes a very political process for economists and that's what happens and whether it should or shouldn't it does and that is

how we get along. we do is we see each other as part of a different team and steve there are not many things you and peter could say honestly that i would not want to defend because you are my friends and we are on the same team and it goes that we with economists and the white house on the other side as well. >> i apologize for not yet having read your fine piece of work. >> as long as you paid for it. [laughter] i've never heard anyone say that it's a fine piece of work of the credit. that's the problem. [laughter] >> u.n. address how spending policy in pacts and intersect with what i call the payment price on which is the retirement of the baby boom generation, the economies to third consumer driven your taking roughly 60 million americans out of the

consumer engine what happens then? >> peter should do that one first. >> let me just say i am almost 70 and my dad retired when he was 65 and when he was 65 he was allowed older than the and i am now at 70. it's a different world, different ages, different time and the pig in the python as you say -- yep, pig in the python is i don't think such a serious event as you make it out to be. we have donner suggested government programs. we did under reagan a little bit. if you remember we've reduced benefits of social security by taxing social security benefits 50% of social security benefits that's just reducing the benefits that all we did. we also extended the age of retirement from 65 to 67 which is just reducing benefits to make it more. if you look at these programs, if we had social security kick in at 71-years-old there would

be no unfunded liabilities whatsoever. it would just recognize the increase in longevity that has occurred in the population, the change in a 70 year old versus a 65-years-old and the same thing we could do with medicare and medicaid. they are not doing yet and basically what happens the do it only when they are forced to by the events that occurred. but they are easy to solve these problems. >> [inaudible] >> i like harry very much pity i think he's a great guy. i think he's wrong but not in a nasty all of way. i knew his father very well in the white house. his father was one of the finest people i knew, but i don't think demographics are very serious with regard to the economy. i think what we did in the book as we didn't mention demographics once we did tax rates and all the other stuff. >> i will just add it isn't so much the demographics as the

problems i think you are addressing of the massive deficits, the social security problem and the others and how we are going to find them. arthur's point about raising the social security age from 65 to 70 is the obvious solution. do you know what the average male life expectancy was in this country in the year 1900? it was 48. things have changed a lot, and when social security was started in the thirties the average life expectancy i don't know the exact number but it was a hell of a lot lower than it is now -- >> below 65. >> yeah, so obviously now it is in the upper seventies, so clearly some of these things are gwen to be done. they are politically difficult to do but when we are faced with bankruptcy they will get done. >> one quick thing on this.

if you look at the statistics what happened to social security this year it is in the obama budget. the first time and, like, 25 years social security actually wind negative. we spend more money on outlays. there's some adjustments made to the thing that technically it isn't running negative right now it is running a slight surplus but if you look at the amount of money paid out in benefits and then the amount of money that came in payroll taxes we were negative this year. that is scary because it is something like eight to ten years ahead of schedule. the system isn't supposed to turn negative until around 2017. the point i am making is i agree with you guys raising the retirement age is a kind of no-brainer but growth is everything. growth is absolutely everything to solving the medicare and social security long-term problems. if you put in a slightly higher economic growth rate we are talking about projections the

next 50 to 75 years because the effect of compounding as albert einstein said the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest instead of putting 2.5% compared to 3% growth rate those huge tree when, tens of trillions of dollars of deficits they actually become very much manageable so this gets to the point of the book we better get back to growth economic policies or these deficits will get bigger and bigger and bigger. dennis? >> i'm a big fan of the old u.s. auto industry. i drive a ford and my wife drives an excursion. i look at detroit and with the federal policies have been the last 30 years and i look at union demands and the corporate leadership and that sort of iron triangle which has crushed the industry starting on its way down from last year. is there ever going to be a u.s. auto industry again in detroit,

the old style? i know toyota is in tennessee and bmw is in the grindle spartanburg. is there a situation with tax policy regulatory policy and all the rest is ever going to allow that industry to flourish again? >> i will go quickly first, i sure hope so. i have always bought american cars i just wrote a column about chevy camaro. a beautiful red camaro convertible which is like my midlife crisis car but yes, look i want america -- i don't want the jobs to disappear and it's important i think that we have -- it's not a vital but i would be good to have an american auto manufacturing industry. to say one thing about what is coming on, dennis, we are that the press of this basically having a three groups from the auto industry. the united states government, the united auto workers and the sierra club and that is a prescription for disaster.

the problem is if washington is running the car companies it's going to be politically driven. we want grain cars, the pelosi car, this car, that car. i don't see that model turning to profitability but i don't know if either of you have -- >> while others are speculating on will add i think that there will be in although industry in detroit, dennis. it will be smaller. gm will go bankrupt and a packaged bankruptcy because it is now no longer the unions that are the problem. it's the bondholders, and the bond holders are going to suffer and they are going to suffer in bankruptcy. but there will be a new automobile industry in detroit that is more nimble, that is smaller, and we know it will no longer have many of the name brands of the past, oldsmobile is gone and as we heard i think

it was yesterday pontiac is gone, too. >> other questions, we have time for a couple more. >> just a few questions. one just on the way i have learned -- basically the idea that at a certain level increasing taxes would actually reduce revenue but obviously at some point i think probably conservatives make sometimes because that means the more you cut taxes the more it increases revenue which obviously there is one point in the curve where reduced taxes lead to reduced revenue. i guess my question is first where do you see us on that curve right now? would cutting taxes at this point bring in more revenue or are we at a point we have cut taxes a lot so that reducing

taxes would actually bring less revenue? and also because you both mentioned you had praised bill clinton. i guess the argument that the obama administration is making is that the top marginal rates went up under bill clinton and all he wants to do is bring the top marginal rates back -- [inaudible] >> good question. >> you're point is correct, the higher taxes or the more likely they will lose revenue, the lower the taxes the more likely increase in revenue -- tax rates will raise revenue and you know both sides of the curve. it depends what tax you're talking about and it depends how high they are, how broad the tax base is. let me give you one that is really focused on politics today. it's the highest tax rates and i will go on that one if i can and i want to take you back to john f. kennedy as we go through that

heavily in the book. when jack kennedy took office highest marginal tax rate in the office was 91%. and the lowest tax rate of the ansi row was 20%. okay? now when you look at this, kennedy cut the highest rate from 91% to 70% and he cut the lowest rate from 20% to 14%. you with me? he caught them all in the middle but those are the extremes. if you look up the percentage cut in the tax rate it went from 91 to 70 so that is 21 percentage point cut. to fight 21 by 91 and get 23% cut in the rate. he with me? by cutting the lowest rate from 20% 14% that is a six percentage point cut. 6% slash 20% is 30% cut in their great sweep up the highest rates by 23% and the lowest by 30%. the one thing you've got to understand in economics is

people don't work to pay taxes. people could give a what the taxes are paid they worry what they receive net after tax. it is that a rate that is the incentive so the tax rate isn't important is the after-tax return that is important. let me take you on the after-tax return for a person at the beginning of the kennedy administration. if that guy was in the top bracket for every dollar he made he paid 91 cents in taxes and was allowed to keep 9 cents. it was the 9 cents per dollar that was his or her incentive for earning income in the tax bracket. do following me? when kennedy cut that from 91 to 70% that person's incentive for doing the exact same activity instead of keeping 9 cents on the dollar he kept 30 cents on the dollar. that is 233% increase in incentives for 23% cut in tax rates. you following me? that is 10-1, benefit cost ratio. you follow me on that?

please. the lowest bracket the donner earned 1 dollar before kennedy's tax cut he paid 20 cents, then he was allowed to keep 80 cents. that is that guys incentive for working on that bracket. after the tax cut it went from 1 dollar, 14 cents in taxes he was allowed to keep 86-cent. there was an increase in his or her incentive on 80. 7.5% increase in incentives for 30% cut in tax rates. that is a benefit cost ratio of 1-4. that is why from an economist's standpoint it is in the type of kennedy is 40 times more powerful to cut tax rates on the highest bracket than the lowest bracket. now it is much more than that when you get down to the real numbers. if you look at the real numbers rich people know how to get around your taxes i am sorry. they know how to do it. they can change the timing of the production.

they've got 401k, all sorts of plans. they can change location. i move from california to tennessee, offshore corporation, business moving to uzbeckistan, who knows where. they can change the composition of their income. for example let me give you an example of this one, the richest guy in america, warren buffett. by the way i don't mean this as a slur against warren buffett. i think he's a very impressive man but if you look at warren buffett's dolph what is his wealth? a year ago he was worth $66 billion. >> [inaudible] >> he owns stock and what company? berkshire-hathoway. what is his basis and berkshire-hathoway? close to zero. take the market capital of berkshire-hathoway and that is his wealth, it is what we call on realized capital gains. do any of you know the tax rates on on realized capital gains?

[laughter] it's a zero. steve's fang on capitol unions and market it will help that one. it's zero and if he gives it to the bill and melinda gates foundation it will never see taxes, it will never see it. but when you look at this when he says i payless taxes and my secretary he's telling you the truth. it is a bad tax loop and i am not blaming him for high finding it tax free way, the last thing is rich people can change the volume of their income so when you look the tax codes loss 2530 years the top 1% i forget what the number is, steve, but the top 1% in 1980i think pete 17.5% of all the income tax in the united states. the top 1% today p42% of income tax in the united states. not only that is true but also the only group, the only group in the tax groups that have increased their taxes as a share

of gdp is the top 1% during our revolution. the rich have gone from i forget what is 1.5% of gdp in 1981 to 3.2% of gdp today. every other single tax category, every other one including the two to 5%, the rest of the top quintile, second quintile, fifth quintile, every other group had a reduction as a share of gdp as the tax rates were cut. rich people are where the laffer curve kicks and because these people can change the decisions and i don't when you see a guy hanging with a politician don't think it is some street person trying to explain what it's like being poor. it's a lobbyist trying to get favored out of the government. these people could buy more congressmen and senators and presidents in any of us can and you know how the system works. i've been there all lot. that is what they do so i just want you to be understood the

curve is a single device. i developed that so i could give my students a pedagogic device to understand the math they were trying to do when they were dealing with equations but politicians understand as well. >> let me ask you this question we have written this book "the end of prosperity." is this the end of prosperity? >> there's nothing called the end of prosperity. we say the end of prosperity but that is a marbles way of saying i am going to buy before the next board it. i am teasing. that was supposed to be funny. [laughter] i don't think it's funny because i am old, but it's not the end of prosperity. guys will be here for, it, 20 years but we will be back and we will be able to reverse them as quickly as they put it in. when we got down in chile we do nationalist intracompany and sold them off every weekend when we got in talking about what do

i do with the railroads and all the iran and its solemn. the u.s. government owns the auto industry, the health care industry, it owns the banking industry, insurance, it issues $1 trillion of debt in the capitol market and absorbs all the private savings that is crowded out of the private capital and takes the money and claims it's taxpayer money and buys all the industries and nationalizes them and that is but they've done. it's just as easy to sell them the other way and if you like the post office and if you like the department of motor vehicles you are going to love this administration running of all these nations. if you think that someone knows how to fire the chairman of the company, go for it. i don't but when i look at barney frank controlling the financial industry doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence. i don't know about you guys.

but this is an experiment. i've been to this barbecue so many times. each time it collapses right before your very eyes the question is how long does it take and i will tell you people deserve the government they have got and it is their problem, it is not mine and frankly i think the guy is a wonderful man as i tried to lead off but he is wrong on these issues and it's just the time issue that you see the consequences of these things. thanks very much. [applause]

[applause] thank you, and welcome to

the session i think this is a great way to look at black women in the academy and achievements and challenge is not just because of the -- because i edited "telling histories," but because i think it is really just a wonderful way of dealing with the subject as many of you know i am a professor of deborah gray white and i am from rutgers university and new brunswick new jersey and i edited this volume of autobiographies written by black women historians. this is a comfortable position and we would like to have maximum participation from the audience so we're all going to proceed this way. i am going to introduce the book by explaining what to "telling histories" is about, and also by

summarizing some of the points i made in the introduction. i will then introduce our panelists, dr. terborg-penn and darlene clark hine and i will give who is speaking and their contribution has been. all of our panelists are contributors to the volume telling histories. i have asked them each to speak about one aspect of their contribution to the volume. there are also some others who are in the audience, some other of the biographers, contributors to "telling histories," and once they're finished if they have something to add i would certainly give them a chance to speak to you as well and then we will take some questions from the audience.

in 1905, fannie williams a black woman graduate of the state normal school at the rockport new york and the first black member of the prestigious chicago women's club wrote the following: "i know of more of a school of girls holding positions of hide responsibility which were at first denied to them as beyond their reach. these positions so on held were never intended for them. to seek them was considered an and apartments, and to hope for them was an absurdity. nothing daunted these young women. conscious of their own deserving, they would not admit or act upon the presumption that they were not as good and capable as other girls who were

really not superior to them." she wrote this in 1905, and she wasn't talking about historians. [laughter] but about some professional black women in chicago who she knew. "telling histories" begins with this quote because the black women historians who tell their stories about how they came to be professional historians and how they survived in the academy are like these when in that williams speaks about, the academy, the ivory tower was and is not always a welcoming place for black women professors. as you know, students are accustomed to walking into university classrooms and seeing a white male, any man at the head of their class. they are much less accustomed to seeing a black woman and are apt to immediately judged her on

unqualified and biased. americans and professional historians for that matter are similarly accustomed to receiving their history from whites and men. it the hard lacy black women as authorities in this field. although biographer's explained what motivated them to persist in their quest to research, write and teach history even though the occupation of professional historians was never intended for them, and even though to seek such a position was considered, quote, an absurdity and in pertinence by students and colleagues alike. before we hear from these three historians to tell their stories, i think it's necessary to say a little bit about their mothers. the few black female

trailblazers who became historians early in the 20th century before black people in any number went to college much less pursued the phd. that way we will have a foundation on which to build our knowledge about black women in the academy and understand the significance of our contributors accomplishments. anna jay cooper was the first black woman to earn a ph.d. in history in 1925. the first white american woman to do so was key to earnest levy and 1893 and the first african-american male, w.e.b. du bois, to learn the history ph.d. earned it two years later in 1895. the introduction to "telling histories" tells a little bit of cooper's history because her experience says so much about how black women came to the historical profession and why

they came behind white and black men and white women. also cowpers life and quest for the ph.d. exemplifies so much of what black women in the historical profession and any provision for that matter and were today. cooper received her ph.d. in history at the tender age of 66. getting a degree was no small matter. a widow she had to work and go to school at the same time. although she had no children of her own she raised her nephew's five children, ages six months to 12. she raised them on her own. she took care of her brother's wife when he fell ill and she became his mouthpiece when he was not able to fight for his pension. sounds familiar, particularly for women having competing

familial and career duties. what cooper came to understand is that no one was going to give her the benefit of the doubt. no one was going to give her a break. she had no mentors, sound familiar? someone who would slow things out, show her the ropes, show her how to do this thing we call history. this became apparent when she found all of her familial responsibility is prevented her from fulfilling their residency requirements of columbia university. tenaciously she decided if she couldn't get the degree from columbia where she started out she would get it at the sorbonne in paris, new york, paris, a native new yorker i preferred new york. [laughter] believe me, every obstacle was put in her way by her employer, dunbar high school in

washington, d.c. and by her colleagues. after receiving a ph.d. cooper lamented the fact as we would say today she couldn't catch a break. quote, official recognition grudgingly accord it, she said sadly, and money and salary increases as she maintains were, quote, stubbornly withheld. by those who rather than give her congratulations sought to impugn her personality. coopers perseverance was amazing and it is one of the reasons that "telling histories" is written in tribute to her. before in the early part of the 20th century she had all the obstacles. as i mentioned she had no mentor, someone to show her how to get the degree, how to do research on how to get it

published. even had she had a mentor she would have had a hard time getting a job since you schools hired black women. white women had few opportunities as well but they stood a better chance of being hired at the two black women's colleges in the nation, spellman and benet than did black women. like a black man the few black women who were professional historians could not attend conferences when they were held in segregated cities and they could not do research in segregated archives. if they wrote papers they would not be able to get them published when one does perish if one does not publish because the white journals did not publish articles by blacks and the block journals did not until relatively late publish articles

by women. when it came to professional organizations the same was true. black women were virtually excluded from white organizations including by the way it the burkes because they were black and they were excluded from black professional organizations because they were women. to add insult to injury for most of the 20th century, it was history itself that oppressed black women. the conventional historical wisdom, history written by professional white male historians represented african american women as ignorant, immoral, even wantonly sexual. this history of course grew out of slavery and hair and sexual exploitation that made that slavery made possible. simply put, because the majority of historians took this stereotype as truth they would

not admit black women in to their profession. for a black woman to be admitted into the profession they would have to rewrite history. to do so, however, would be to violate one of the cardinal rules of the early profession which maintained one could not be a historian if one wrote about one's self. historians by definition were supposed to be objective. they were and many still believe they still are supposed to write history dispassionately. it was there for virtually impossible at least before the civil rights movement for black women to enter into the historical profession and in order to enter it, in order to enter the historical profession they have to escape their history but the only way to do that was to become a historian. the rights movement of the

1960's opened college doors to women and blacks and dustin profession opened up as well. this is where "telling histories" really begins with the women that went to college in the 60's and received a ph.d. in the 70's. despite the increased number of blacks and women in the university's it was still not a hospitable place to earn a ph.d. in part because of the storm surrounding the entry of black students in particular into the academy. with a civil rights movement black power movement and women's rights movements came from the demand for black studies and women's studies and those who lamented this deployment did not make the ivory tower a welcoming place particularly since so many who sought the ph.d. did so in these burgeoning fields of black and women's studies. as suggested body in 1969

atlantic monthly article black studies trouble ahead was the title of the article. for the black scholar academia was sent intellectual and political minefield. the title of another article, black studies and intellectual crisis were similarly for boating. in short, the ivory tower and history profession had been forced to change but neither was particularly welcoming. some old issues in gold with new ones creating a virtual storm around the 1970's black graduate student and black historian. the studies department legitimate was black studies itself a legitimate area of study kabul was the role of -- what was the role of the historian in black studies? how culpable or white historians in the stereotyping of african-americans and the discrimination and racism blacks

regularly face? could white historians to black history? could black historians do anything but black history? could black historians achieved legitimacy as historians writing black history or did we have to prove our mettle by first researching some other subjects? what white historians lose their jobs in order to make a place for black historians? could black historians be impartial? could we be as neutral as white historians? would university's wind up winning their standards by adopting black studies programs and what these programs become centers of mayhem disrupting the academy at every turn blacks we forget what it was like in the early 1970's and luckily for many of you in this room you don't know. you didn't have to live through that. for black historians, the age-old issue of object of pity

took center stage. for some there was still the presumption that african american historians could not be objective or write history dispassionately. indeed the rights movements made access to the university easier for black women historians by surviving there was just as difficult as ever. as both black and women's studies departments were established african-american female scholars were caught in the political and intellectual cross fires. what women's studies steal the resources and attention that rightfully belong to the black studies? since women were not really minorities and didn't have a similar history of oppression many black scholars protested the creation of women's studies department and expected black women's call first to join the protest. many demanded black women scholars choose one or the other.

others questioned the wisdom of further fragmenting history of read the big picture of the american nation would be lost and what she sisley -- not facetiously. what about white men? should they have their own departments? how much fragmentation could the field take and how marginal did want really want to be? for the black female scholar who chose to research african-american women it was possible to find oneself so far in the outer circle that the center wasn't even visible. but these 17 of the biographers, sas in telling histories have maneuvered the outer circle and made it to the center. in the process they changed history departments and some help to introduce a brand new

subject. the history of african-american women as well as new methodologies made necessary because the problems inherent in doing african-american women's histories. the earliest of the autobiography as an "telling histories" doctor nell painter last year's president of the historical association received her ph.d. from harvard in 1974. the latest group you will hear from today, crystal feimster, received her ph.d. in 2000 from princeton. the significance of having black women in the academy is more than underscored by the fact that professor nell painter, americas at princeton a historian who virtually mentored herself served as professor feimster's mentor and helped her successfully complete the degree

in 2000. this in itself is a story of triumph a house or all of the stories about how the 17 black women came to the historical profession. and on this note i would like to say one of the fears that the of reviewers of this book had is it would be filled with one complete after another. that it would be a litany of the sad stories about racism and sexism. make no mistake there is a lot of pecos here. we do see how difficult it was for individuals who suffered from racism and sexism to enter a domain where more than the tower is on every. we see how difficult it was to some out the gates directed by the gatekeepers profession but at the heart this book is a

composite picture of women who like the chicago when anthony williams spoke of, quote, were conscious of their own deserving and wouldn't admit they were not as good and capable of others who've more easily, were more easily admitted into the upper echelons of the ivory tower. together the 17 autobiographies tell how black women broke the glass ceiling of the academy. how they maneuvered through the pressures that beset them when african-americans were telling them to do one kind of history when and were insisting they do another kind of history and many wished they would do no history at all. it impugns the gatekeepers who did everything to keep them out of the academy but it also celebrates the whites and men who helped them sore. it explained some of the unique pressure felt by black women in

the academy as so-called to first. but in doing so and showing how they managed the academy and their careers, the 17 of the biographers give a how-to survival manual, not just for young historians but for those in any profession who entrenched power struggles. thank you. [applause] let me just add what i've said so many times about editing this book that at every moment it was truly a labor of love. i would like to introduce our first panelist a contributor to telling histories, and she is

dr. rosalyn terborg-penn, professor emeritus of history -- i say that because you know how hard it is for us to retire, you retire and then come back so i guess she is professor emeritus of history and former coordinator of the graduate program in history at morgan state university where she helped develop the university's history ph.d. program. she earned her ph.d. in african-american history from hoard university in 1978. widely published, terborg-penn has written over 40 articles, offered six books and is known for her award winning study african-american women in the struggle for the vote she was one in historical encyclopedia and co-editor of the 2005 volume the columbia guide to

african-american history since 1939. she is the co-founder of the association of black women historians and former chair of the american historical association's committee on women historians. [applause] >> good afternoon. this room is filled. i am very honored. thank you for coming to hear abs. as i look back on my childhood learning about black life and history was part of my family upbringing. my parents had bookcases where we could pick up books by w.e.b.

du bois, ja rogers, donner merkel and others. i took this realty for granted until i was at queens college as an undergraduate in the 1960's where there was no black history. there is now but there was on then. fortunately, the 60's witnessed a radical student movement at queens college and as unlikely as it is now, those of us in the naacp were considered radicals. [laughter] one semester the so-called radical student associations because they were about three or four of us pulled -- i mean groups -- pulled our resources and invite malcolm x to give lectures on campus. their impact was unforgettable upon her mind growing black consciousness. i discovered black history as a

legitimate field of study not just a narrow discourse i heard from my father. as a developing intellectual, i began to probe and ask questions, but only one of my professors responded, solomon when nec who taught early 19th century united states history in a traditional way that did not include a role of blacks, and yet he did know, quote, a negro, and of quote historian, john hope franklin who had cheered the history department at brooklyn college and the 1950's. ..

i window into graduate school s tarin six electively two. i want to go to howard university in the district of columbia, but the apply to all of the universities in washington dc. disappointed, because i have not heard from howard in time to apply for mic guaranteed student loan, i enrolled at george

washington university, known as g the b. not knowing that because of my surname, flight graduation from queen's college, the commission's officers assumed that i was a white student. i won't go into that. might thesis adviser whose specialty was 19th century united states social history. dr. gray was the first professor to teach me that no historian is truly objective because we'll bring our prejudices to the table, so i was grateful for that. i also learned that he had a difficult time accepting me as a black student. although he had, had black historian elsie lewis as a close student, a fellow student with him at the department history at the university of chicago, he still had a difficult time

seeing black people as truly historians. elsie lewis with the chair of the history department at howard university at the time. grace still wanted me to be something other than ethnically black and refused to use the term black in my thesis, wouldn't let me. nonetheless he allowed me to take dr. lewis' history course at howard university. she became my first black professor. but louis thought it howard and i returned to gw. fortunately i had a taste of vets in the one course that i had had with louis. she encouraged me to work on my term papers so that i could submitted for publication. dr. lewis was the first person who even suggested that my work

was worthy of publication. earning my m.a. degree did not lend me a job in the profession. gray white would not write recommendations for me to teach at any college in the dc area. finally, i heard an opening at morgan state, which is a historically black college, hbcu, as we call that in baltimore. i applied and began my over 30 year college teaching career in the fall of 1969. the year 1978 was a transitional one to me. i had graduated from howard university with my ph.d. degree, with the concentration and afro-american history. my ph.d. was in u.s. history but the concentration was african-american. i was promoted to associate professor at morgan because by that time, sharon and i had a

publication. soon thereafter, i was invited to become a member of the american historical association's committee on women historians. that was the first time and i was chair years later, but this was my first association. and a had mandated that you have a woman of color, so i was the woman of color selected on the committee for that term. as the first member of the c w h from a historically black university i came to bear as an outsider. nonetheless, membership on the c. w. h. allowed me entry to the mainstream profession, including the program committee of the berkshire conference on women historians, where i replaced the outgoing member of color on the committee. shortly after, i was invited to integrate the editorial board of

the journal feminist studies. propelled the outside of black academic-- the black academic world, i soon realized that members of the mainstream profession sought my advice primarily about african-american history. when i insisted that my degree was in u.s. history, and that to know african-american, one had to study u.s. history, many of my new colleagues dismissed me politely. they ignored the fact that i could evaluate proposals, manuscripts, and other academic projects involving the united states history. furthermore, several of my white feminist colleagues in women's history challenged my argument, put forth in my dissertation that white women in the 19th century, women's movement, discriminated against black women seeking to join the movement. they argue that patriarchy

united all women and that sexism trumped racism. in their view, white women were powerless, while white men for the agents of discrimination. we debated this position for several years. by september 1984 i had revised my dissertation and it became african-american women in the struggle for the vote. i sent it to the university of michigan press, whose editors were seeking manuscript on women's history topics. in january of 1985, i received comments from to readers who liked my findings, made suggestions for revisions and recommended me to the press for publication. however, the editors were waiting for another reader to respond. the long awaited evaluation did not arrive until july of 1985.

my sabbatical leave was just about over by then. the press requested that i revised my work according to the suggestions of the third reader, who maintained that i should write a study different from the one i had authored. the new theme proposed was a comparative study of white and black women in the suffrage movement. which i declined to pursue. my frustration nearly stymied me, however one of my fellow editors at feminist studies explained that the press reflected the views of many white middle-class scholars, who, unable to see beyond their own experiences, needed books about women to be placed in the context of their own lives. sheahan courage me to give the press a bid of what they wanted to read, then proceed with my focus on african-american women.

this strategy was a wise one, but summer and did and i was back to teaching full time, doing committee work and raising my teenage daughter as a single parent. ten years later i was on sabbatical leave again. with a faculty to the smithsonian institution wary reproach my manuscript, listening to martha's advice. in 1995 i submitted bids to the indiana university press, where my colleague, darlene clark hine was senior editor. the reviewer is supported my work and the press offered me a contract. african-american women in the struggle for the votes, 1850 to 1920, was published in 1998 and

the following year it won the association of black women historians book prize. as african diaspras studies began to become recognized by scholars in mainstream institutions, those of us at the hbcu like howard university, spelman college, north carolina central university and morgan state university seemed to be pushed aside. this was disturbing because we had been in the trenches early in the struggle for field legitimization. this cycle seem to continue. more often than not, hbcu scholars overlooked for key speaking slots unless one of their colleagues at the mainstreamed table intervened, nominating them for a chance to present at a major conference. on a few occasions, this happened to me. further explaining what i see as the pervasive nature of ivory

tower doorkeepers the often overlooked or dismiss the worth of black women historians, especially those of us who teach at historically black universities and colleges. nonetheless, we have made a way when there was no way. thank you. [applause] >> our next panelists and speaker, dr. sharon harley is associate professor and chair of the african-american studies department at the university of maryland college park. she received her ph.d. in the united mac history in 1981 from howard university.

she is the editor of women's labor and the global economy, speaking in multiple voices 2007, and sisters circle, black women and work published in 2002. publications better outcomes of the ford foundation research seminars she directed and code directed. she is currently working on a monograph titled, tentatively titled, dignity and damnation, a historical study of the intersection of gender, labor and citizenship and the lives of african-americans in the united states. dr. harley. [applause] >> thanks deborah. i'm going to begin by asking you what i ask my students, which are the following five organizations do you think i was a member of in the late '60s? the naacp, clark, sncc, the

urban league or the black panther party? almost all of my students said the urban league. [laughter] i told them i am sure i look like an urban league sister, but the fact of the matter was, i was a member of the black panther party, so i am asking you to imagine how i looked in the late '60s. the angela at davis style afro, the black panther party button, and the huge lie would grab the one that had healy newton, with the double lacked-- rick of bullets in the shotgun. i usually had an all black outfit on, and that was my introduction to graduate school. the year i graduated, unfortunately i was the only african-american student to graduate in that class from st. mary's college in indiana and, and my parents had just,

just for horrified about what had happened to their daughter, who had gone to a catholic school in the midwest to play field hockey. [laughter] who also was in fact a catholic, and you graduated with this big afro. they had pleaded with me to take a button off. there was not much they could do about my hair at that point, but as a committed radical person at the moment, i kept a button on. i had a big afro and i could see my parents slinking down in their chairs. so, that was what i brought to graduate school. i went to graduate school first and antioch college in washington and that for me was seven. not the caplet heaven i envisioned when i went to st. mary's but they have been

for political activist. all of my professors and my fellow classmates were leftists. somewhere accused of being communist leanings. the res jacko dill, and others and we wrote about the political economy of everything. so, when i graduated from antioch, my sister set me down and said i was culturally deprived. i had never gone to historically black college and i should apply to howard university, the black mecca. so, i did. i applied to howard and it was not at the radical place that i was looking four, but it certainly was a place of self-empowerment. in fact there were many of us who were former activist who ended up that howard. i think is the movement waned we were looking for a new home so bernice johnson reagan was there, i was there, rosalyn

terborg-penn, janet house in harris, so we go to howard and the first person was rosalyn terborg-penn and rosalynn and i just traveled around campus, had lunch together and rosalyn, i don't think you know, was a role model for me because rosalyn had been there for a while and rosalyn, for those of you know rosalyn, rosalyn really extends itself. rosalynn new notch students from the african-americans from the u.s., rosalyn had a full collection of diasporas friends on the campus. she had friends from the caribbean, from africa so rosalyn included me in that circle. i hadn't quite given up my interest in radical activism and the like. so my first graduate seminar paper was on cooper. she was a radical in terms of her struggle for women's rights, her struggle against sexism

wherever she found it, and her affinity for working-class people. but, i wanted more. so i started writing more about black women's labor history, to find a place for my interest in kind of a radical social justice movement. and then i started writing about people like lowry richardson, who for me epitomized a person who was very radical but didn't really care what people thought about her, and so i wrote about her and i went to new york and i interviewed her. like many people, i thought she had passed away because she seemed to have not been on many people's radar, and i think it was something about that movement of-- that really made heard not want to have a public face, and they really know am trying to encourage her to write her own autobiography.

but radicalism extended for me beyond the political realm and i want to look at radical african-american women wherever i found them, so i then started writing about black women in the underground economy. so, i wrote about sessom mhatre hugh was back here in washington dc. she was considered sort of like the woman al capone of the washington d.c. area. she was radical for me in the sense that she refused, and she said, to make, to allow men to have all the fun. why should women have fun? so she found a place for herself in the joints in washington dc. she became a very powerful figure and her radicalism extended beyond the economic realm. she had been a very much discriminated against wells u.s. at a high school. she was a darker skinned african-american women and many

of the very first and classmates of kurds at done barn had spoken very disparagingly about her, so is your business group, her numbers backing business, she then took on a new avenue of economic enterprise and that was, she ran a house of prostitution. she said in one of the interviews conducted by htc journalist that she often only heard the the white women or fairs the and african-american women, and she was radical and a sense that once she went to washington d.c. first dor to purchase a fur coats. she could see that people look at yours if you didn't have the money for the coat. so, people would bring, she said a coke that looked like it was made out of some kind of radsan,

so she would reject it and this went on and on until finally she said none of these cuts that my bill and she dropped all of this money on the floor. so, that was one continuation of my sense, my transition from radical activism in the streets to radical activism in the academy. my last and most recent article was about to leftist radical women. it was about louisa thompson and surely graham dubois. in a letter to a socialist, sewed of communist leanings, but in the end she turned out to be the most radical of these three women and the remembered that a form that i organize, and i was going to drop her because i thought maybe she was to

reform-minded. not radical enough, unlike the other two. she didn't have any communist or socialist leanings and they insisted i keep her. in the end i concluded that many killam burroughs was one of the most radical of these three women because the other two women could operate in the white baptist or radical activist but she had to face black men and black men in the church and stood her ground. so, i am going to say a few things about my transition. in my article, i say that, i and my peace with my most recent publications which seem appropriate. as it reveals my initial political and research interest in graduate school, when i was an active is studying radicals in the united states and beyond. my most recent article, radical labor politics, focuses on a

group of progressive late 19th and early 20th century race women who courageously fought against racial violence, especially lynching, capitalism, racism and sexism in their internal communities and the larger white society. to write about these and other women who come vetted social justice, wherever they encountered it, in nightclubs, business offices, churches, organizations, hotels, theaters and even leftist political rallies feels like coming full circle. the academy may have relocated my activism but it never obliterated my principles stand against all forms of injustice. my respect for the working class or might desire to obtain better understanding of the root causes of racial and gender pressure throughout the world. what they have not shared with you however it is the part of my article in the book where it

talks about the joys and pains of being tenured and being a scholar and an administrator. but one unlike the gatekeeper for me what is not my white colleagues, but in fact the african-american chair of the african-american studies department the year i came up for tenure. this name-- name was person, and the person's name was an essay but you can go back and look at it. [laughter] this nameless person did not think that a person from a historical black college should be ten year at the university of maryland. and, this african-american chair of the department actually had his own personal relationships with historical black colleges.

his dad had been president of the state university. and so, he'll think was quite surprised, as the right in my essay in the secretary, how could he make it without the secretary giving you information? it was the secretary told me, i am not sure what the chair is thinking about. you should look at the stiller letters people have written about you. so, he was in many ways shocked that i was tenure at the university of maryland and about the quality of the letters of the gatekeepers, in all forms and all colors. thank you. [applause] >> as you can say-- see when we entered the university we brought new research issues with us and also new research subjects so i want to thank you so much sharon for that. some of you may be wondering

about the nature of the book, telling histories. is top heavy for obvious reasons, with people who are tenured. [laughter] yes, so i was particularly pleased when our last contribute their agreed to share her story of becoming an historian with us because she wasn't tenured at the time. and she still is not, so she is still being very, very brave. dr. crystal feimster is an assistant professor in the history department at the university of north carolina at chapel hill where she teaches a range of courses and african-american history, women's history, southern history and oral history. sheeran trippi hd in 2000 from princeton university. she has published several

articles, one a new generation of women historians invoices of women historians, the personal, the political and professional as well as an article on nuriel sowden and notable american women. she is currently working on a manuscript-- [applause] congratulations. and it was, before it was titled women and the politics of rape and lynching in the american south, and it is forthcoming from harvard university press. crystal, thank you. [applause] >> you can imagine my surprise

when deborah asked me to contribute to the buck. i just kept thinking, why is she asking me to do this? i have nothing to say. i kept thinking, what will i write about? it took me awhile to figure it out. before me, i figured out that the most important thing for me to talk about and to think about was how i got to the place that i was when devra asked me to do that, and i won't say that it didn't come with you know, it was not crystal as they say, but i can point to more positive things the negative things. and it was those moments when bad things happen and i was sort of the outraged or shott that reminded me that i had come out of a long tradition of african-american women

historians and scholars who had supported me and created a community that made my work and my existence in the academy actually possible. i started my as saying, which was-- with one of the first real incidents that i had as a black woman, working on african-american women and working on trying to challenge a masculine narrative about lynching at old miss. even when i think back about it now, i am often surprised that i was so taken aback. when i got to old miss i was the only african-american participant on the program. it was a graduate student conference and maybe the second or third year that they-- they do this conference every year for a graduate students.

and i don't think they expected me to be black, because my last name was feimster, i was at princeton, so i think it was a surprise to a lot of the people that i was african-american, and it is funny, i was in one of my mad research jepsen i had organized it around this conference. i remember calling her, where am i? i have landed on another planet. [laughter] the fact was, and i got there and it was everything that you can imagine. old miss, the only black person, from princeton, i am working on gender and talking about black people and some of the people did not want to hear that. they didn't want to hear it from me. one of the things that i realized, it wasn't just because i was black and female. a lot of the animosity had to do

with the fact that i was at princeton. people were not happy with that. i want to into the details of how brutal the commentator was and all of those things and how people came up to me afterwards and tried to say, we are sorry, we are sorry. but i will say that after that, i went back to princeton and i think i even wrote an e-mail to nell from the road saying, oh my god, what have i got myself into? i was not prepared for the response and i wrote her a long letter of what happened. she e-mailed me back. she said, crystal, let me welcome you to the long-suffering, much to be used community of black women academics. now, why would this experience come to a surprise to me in 1997? i have to start the beginning.

in some ways my academic career has come full circle. i was an undergraduate at you see chapel hill in '94 and i am a assistant professor on the faculty there. when i arrived at chapel hill there were two african women on the faculty. nell painter had been to there, hermine bennett, so the department in a sense, i'm not going to say that it is burford now or was perfect then but had a history, having african-american faculty members, people teaching african-american history. i took one of my first survey classes, american history 1865 to the present with tara hunter, so right off the bat i came into history not thinking about the limits, but it was very clear to me what the possibilities were. i had tara hunter who was working at that time on

african-american women, organizing its workers in atlanta, so right up the bat everything seemed possible to me. i remember once walking across campus with nell before the mrs. if the conference and tony larsen had been on the cover of time something and nell was, i cannot believe this, i never would have imagined. i was looking at her like, really? [laughter] so we had this long conversation. i am the oprah generation. oprah is on tv. black women are everywhere as far as i could see, so i started off fig u.n. see. my sophomore year, darlene clark hine came. i had the opportunity to have lunch and dinner with her. she encourage me to consider african-american history, women's history. i was not convinced that the time but she was there saying to me, this is possible, you should

think about this. by my junior year, i was involved with women studies as well. i was a double major. barbara harris at the time was really motivated to convince me to become a historian and was the president and ambassador. she got the dean to give me money to go. a it was my first historical-- that year was off the hook. i don't know if people remember, but it was like eveyln higginbotham, debra gray white, nell painter. i just remember going in, this is the club of one to be a part of. there were graduate students who were there, and as far as i could see, there were black women and i wanted to be part of that, and then i went off this summer after my junior year to do an mlk, work it the mlk

project as a research assistant and i met leslie harris there. my partner in crime, ms. eric armstrong, who does african-american women's history at delaware. after that i thought okay, i am doing this, i am on board. i applied to graduate school. eric cut and i hooked up in their senior year to go to the black women academy conference that was at mit so you can see it was a snowball effect. i do remember the mit conference was the first moment that i sort of got a little bit of what i could expect but it was hard to take in because they did have a very different experience. i remember sitting there, every time some black women would come up to the mic, it is like, it is hard, it is hard being the only one. [laughter] they did this to me and they did

this and all my god. erica is like all like, what are we into? darica had been working with evelyn brooks-higginbotham is an undergraduate at the university of pennsylvania. i remember i was making a pact, we have to take care of each other. we are never going to be alone. we have got each other, right? and that has been the case. we have been a support for one another whether it is professional or personal. i was going to princeton. i was going to work with nell painter. i mean, my experience has been really different but at the same time, that mississippi experience really sort of pushed me to see that my experience was exceptional in this sense that i ended up in places where i was lucky enough that there wasn't just one, but that is not anymore. that conference was the first time i was just one, and it was

brutal. i came back, i was the graduate student rap, not the african-american person but i was at that time in many ways on sees twa and mev road about that experience. i got overwhelmed with letters from white women, black people saying, you know, i remember having an experience like this and this story just sort of poured out of me. then i got my first job and that was the first one at boston college. but, what ultimately sustained me through those moments of hardship was the community of people who have supported me from day one, whether it was a wreck that when we were undergraduates, when i was a princeton, one nell was the only one in the history department. debra gray white was down the

street. her graduate students came and nell had a cohort of graduate students. in b.c. and i realized what had taught me is you've got to build community. you've got to reach out to people of other schools and i did that and i continue to do that unfortunately i am in a department now where there are for african-american women. tara hunter unfortunately is long gone to princeton. myself, heather williams and german jackson are there, so i feel once again extremely lucky to be in a community coming in a field where people believe it is necessary to help each other and that we can't do this by ourselves, even if we are the only one, we have got to depend on each other and watch up for each other. on that no, thanks for watching out for me deborah. [applause]

>> let me shamelessly hold it up. [laughter] we will be signing books at the university of north carolina book exhibit after this session, and the book is organized so that we can show what changeover time does and of course as one of the principles of historical research, it is organized by receipts of the ph.d., so that our first person, nell painter, received a ph.d. in 1974 and crystal feimster in the year 2000, so you are able in many ways to see how the profession changed, and as i said earlier, how the very first generation could be there for you and what a difference it really did mean for many of us to go into the

academy. some of those old fogeys in the 1970's and to see the riches that have come as a result of that. i see a few other contributors and the audience. we do have time and i'm not going to put you on the spot but if anyone who is here would like to share something, either about their time in the historical profession where something about telling histories or something that you think this audience as well as our viewing audience. i don't know if you know but we are being filmed by c-span, the book so we will be disseminated of course all over the united states. [laughter] so, does anyone who is here, any of the other contributors have

anything to add? yes, one that what you step up to the mic? this is wanda hendricks who is also a contributor. [applause] >> i am going to shamelessly promote something. at the time that the book came out, when it was sent to us, after reading all the stories, we all showed up, many of us appeared at the organization of american historians conference in march in new york, and it was the perfect time because at that point, we had raised enough money for the creation of the award for the best book in african-american women and gender and darlene clark-hine has contributed to the book, and it is the first award named in honor of an african-american woman in the oah and waive institutionalizing black women's history, so that means that any

monographs that will come out by these younger scholars will receive recognition and in perpetuity so it can be taken away. so we have actually, in part because of debra's help, we were able to raise the money for that and also in part because of the association of black women historians and a number of the scholars who also, authors of the articles in the book, people were very much interested in making sure that this legacy of african-american women's history continue. so it was a really wonderful opportunity to have this book come out of the same time and have this all together and sort of people to announce that we have this award. by the way, darlene clark-hine was my mentor. i was the one he didn't say anybody's name in my article but if you know me, you consort a figure all of this out. [applause]

>> asthma this fishiest, it was largely due to the efforts of wanda hendricks that this award, the darlene clark-hine prize will be awarded by the organization of american historians, so thank you one the. [applause] we have another one of our contributors from texas southern. >> i would like to undergird what rosalyn said. ed hbcu, many scholars or historians are under recognized. i went all the way from coming through graduate school without having a female mentor, but as rosalyn said, you make a way out of no way. i was employed at texas southern university. we had very few resources and taught classes with 60 students

each but the success, my success as a historian has been networking with fellow black historians such as rosalyn, darlene and debrah. thank you. [applause] >> another contributor, professor jennifer morgan hill is now at the new york university. >> i just wanted to, i was really struck because i had a similar experience when debra asked me to write, reflecting on the way that my career as an academic is always been in conversation with black women and with mentors, often from a distance but that i was always part of this community. it strikes me both as the need for mentoring and the desire to find mentors across time and space as the constant, but the other thing i really wanted to

point to orth wrought there is that i feel like crystal and i are both of the generation of which were really the only one, except when we are. so that there's a way in which our work, when our work, we are in a place in which the topic is intersections of race and gender and of course we are not the only one. when we are at old mist, when we are at harvard on a conference of important transitions, when nobody's talking about slavery except for me, then you have that experience of people coming up after words killing, i can't believe that just happened to you. those moments i think are changing because the assumption that okay we have done that, we all know we need to be talking about race. we all know we need to be talking about gender so it sneaks up a new on ways that it is institutionally there are these enormous absences, and

that we need to be attentive to them. exactly, in different ways. exactly, so, and thank you debra. [applause] >> so, we have time to take questions from the audience, so would you please step up to the microphone and you might want to identify yourself. >> i don't have a question as much as i have a comment. my name is karmen harris and the mississippi professor of history at a place called the university of south carolina of. >> which used to be usc spartanburg. i am wanda hendricks cousin, even though she does not know it. [laughter] she got their undergraduate degree at the school called limestone college with-- my grandparents lived 2 miles and i took piano lessons from the time i was 12 or 15 emmit both ended up being students so darlene

clark-hine. i won't get into the pay those only to say that, i have just gotten ten year. [applause] at the moment that happened i also had a disappointing experience of having a chair use student comments which seemed to be mocking me because i was teaching civil war and reconstruction. the students in just me not qualified to teach what i teach. i don't want to focus on that. what i want to focus on is the comfort i feel in this room. crystal talked about the comfort. i was there and it was off the chain. i met a lot of people, dr. washington actually commented on my paper and i remember from what she said of that conference, i was doing something on african-americans in extension work and i called them ignorant. she used the word of gentle criticism and i have never

forgotten that. it really transformed how i thought about the history of african-americans of lower class. i have got to back up for a second and give propst amaya white jewish thesis adviser, who at clemson university encourage me as a black woman to take pride in myself. i am not going to say what a black male professors said in a class, ripping off of something that said black women were known to be promiscuous and when i corrected him in front of the class he knew all i was doing by the next class, knew i was an undergraduate accounting major and try to encourage me to go into accounting. so, he was great, and they went to the birch when i was at michigan state's thugging under darlene. i am reminded about to bottle of wine she took the enemy were parting really hard one night. this was just a wonderful place.

i look at people like ms. petri who i met in '95 and '96 at a conference in houston. my big child know who was my 2-year-old, i was still breastfeeding in my husband who is also a scholar in tow, sitting at some of the talks on feeding and talking about history. dr. markon, who was then i think africans of america, and i always tell people when you come on the screen, i know her, she parties could. [laughter] so, for me, it is just, it was exciting to be able to come to say that on one level but to also emphasize that black women historians have a long legacy. i talk about my pfizer because of darlene clark-hine. when i when on the job market i had 38 inner viers and five on

campus. tour three job offers for the first year i did not accept the job because i was pregnant and the second year i took a job and the next year i got a different job because the people at that job, because i thought they hired me to teach african-american history and then told me i didn't want to be a soprano who sang one note and ended up where i am now. that is something of felt would talks about the power pouches the bonus change. whenever i see darlene clark-hine in most places it is like five open the magic door and i really appreciate that. i used your work in my own where can i just wanted to say how much i appreciate all that you have done for all of us who are falling in the hopi can live up to the standards you have set. [applause] >> hi, hello. i am from illinois university and bhagat recently ten year did last year.

[applause] my question to the panel is, i would like you to come each one of few latika please talk about how do navigate the political minefields in the profession or within your own, with done your own administration sector institutions? if you can talk about what were some of these obstacles, not just in her literature but also, but also-- thank you. >> to be perfectly honest, i can't say that i had a strategy. [laughter] and because there really wasn't anybody, i didn't have a mentor. i am of the first generation that basically we mentor ourselves, but i sort of just did what i had to do and did what made sense at the time.

i did have very close friends and people, who helped me, and they were not usually the people who you would expect them to be, so that they didn't come from the dissertation committee per se. , a lot of them came from young scholars who were getting their ph.d. and my graduate student cohorts. i was doing african-american women's history, and they were doing what they were doing, but we did share some of the same kinds of experiences, like how to get, how do you get on a panel. i mean, there really are some basic things that one does have to do at a very early stage in one's career.

you have to get papers, the matter how painful that is and therefore you have to meet people. you have to go to conferences. i met rosalyn and i met sharon at the association for the study of african-american life and history at the oah and at the southern and let's remember that these are the times, not for the association, but for the organization of american historians and dha, the american historical association with there weren't a whole lot of black people and we would see each other at every single meeting and we will look for each other, and then we would party in somebody's room. and, it was like i would get some steam from this association to go back for a couple of months and then another meeting was being given, and that would meet with various people who were also in the same spot. we weren't the only ones there.

collican say is that it was really very hard and i, as they said they don't really have a strategy. i didn't have a strategy. i just did it. i just did what i had to do and people said, this isn't good enough, it is not what people want to read. then i went back and try to write something that they would read. i made a way out of no way. >> in my professional career, i did the following things. i always felt a scholarly community, so at the moment when i first went to african-american studies at college park, i was the only female faculty member and most of my colleagues or africanist's, so i needed more. fortunately i was in washington

so i built the committee at the library of congress, so one day i would see david levering lewis, lawrence levine, and whole matter of people, so that was my community. i would teach, i would go to the library of congress and be there six days a week to the point that my sister said that she was slightly embarrassed. because i went there so much. the second thing is even though i complained about howard not being the mecca radical, it surprised me that a number of radical people look-- went to howard like stuckey carmichael. it was decided self-empowerment. rosalyn and i have never were told, at least not openly that we could not publish a volume of book is graduate students. we were never told that. a couple of publishers told us that the needless to say we had a fellow graduate students to

contribute to that volume. the of the thing is that when i have got to be very challenging with the eye named chair of african-american studies, i applied for an administrative position, just to leave the african-american studies and lo and behold the became the dean of undergraduate studies at the university of maryland and then i realized how white the school was. and i would go back to my african-american studies office and i would not turn on the lights and sit there because i didn't realize how white the university was, because my whole life was either in the african-american studies department or and washington d.c. at the library of congress. then there was corridor learned up. she did allow for this first generation of african-american historians. she organized conferences, she included us, so i will always be

grateful to her for that. and then, building this community was really important to me. when i got the ford grant, what i did was to organize and the black women historians, black women mainly to vote about women's work, and then the next year i got-- that was when ford had money, or least they were giving it to me. this was such a powerful five years seminar, and we always produced a book because the conversation is one thing but scholarship is a different thing. and so the next year, when that one was finished i did one of the women of color, and invited the key luis and other people. the point that want to get that, one year we looked around the room and the average age, and we were being generous, in the '50s but some were in the '60s. so we invited powers to join the

group. i spend a day with the junior scholars and shared with them how we build community, how are love of respect for each other and paid for them to come a day early. i wasted my time. gwinnett jr scholars came, they didn't have any deferential respect for anything that we had done to build the foundation. [laughter] they were not going to be on all of these committees that we had been. they were going to do their scholarship and that was it. so, i think, my point is that the foundation we build, hopefully they won't have to do the same kinds of things, but what they did discover, they had to come back to us in the end, because we are the mentors who would help them get to where they were going, and they can do it alone. some of the same junior people did not come to the seminars,

who didn't do with the things that we expected them to do, had to come back and ask for a letter of recommendation and had to come back to us to say why didn't i get this or that or the other. [applause] >> my motto is make a way when there is no way. so come i didn't particularly have a strategy other when there is no way i have got to find a way. i was fortunate at morgan state university to know and work with benjamin. i have learned through my experience with elsie lewis that you find a senior person, who looks at you in a positive way, and you try to, and i did not know the word mentoring so much then. you just try to keep track of them and let them know you are

around. unfortunately elsie lewis developed alzheimer's and that was tragic for me because she used to write recommendations and do things for me, but after a while she couldn't. ..

i was amazed that he -- that's kind of a little -- litter a kind of i don't know what it is, but it was a very good idea. but we went to people like dorothy porter was another person sharon and i worked with all the time, and these folks were born in the early 20th century. so they were old enough to almost be over grandparents. i'm not going to see parents plan almost -- they were between let's say in grandparents and parents, and i think that's very important. so i understood how important it was to deal with my elders, and like what you're saying happened. a lot of young people today don't respect their elders, and i don't mean bad mouth them or whatever but they don't understand those who came before

you had to blaze the trail and you have to learn from them so you don't reinvent the wheel. >> i want to just say that i agree with everything that you all said but i also want to add that i think your metaphor is appropriate. that is a minefield. there is no strategy. i mean, you're going to get blown up sometimes. that's just the way it works. [laughter] there is no strategy, either your on the field or you're not and if you're in the academy and you're black and your female or your whatever, it's a minefield, and so the strategy is to survive, right? so that when you step on one of those lines, you know, you can get back up and that is the thing i had to learn. i kept thinking i need that secret, like what's the secret to avoid these faculty meetings where the stuff happens or these exchanges in the hallway. maybe i just lock myself in my

office. people say don't talk up the faculty meeting if you are a junior. people give you all these strategies but at the end of the day, shit happens. [laughter] so for me it goes back to what her share in and deborah had said that you have to have community and you have to have support, and i am open my essay with a quote after the mississippi conference and she said this testimony makes a difference. i still think and hope he will share with everyone you know as a warning and statement of solidarity with those who have encountered similar situations and concluded in their isolation that the difficulties were somehow their fault. your letter can break down this isolation that it displays and to people like us. so again, it's about, you know, not just respecting your elders but talking to them and hearing

that you're not alone and this stuff happens but it's not about you. it's about the nature of the institution and how we are going to change it and make it better for the people that come after us. [applause] >> hello. my name is lindsay and i teach at north carolina central university. i finished chapel hill from ipt. and by masters, too. but my experience has been somewhat different because i am in european history, not american history in that sense, and so many times it is getting more comfortable at different levels now but i have always been the only person in the room and even at chapel hill, first time i taught western civilization i was on the third floor, another graduate student of mine sitting back here who was going to bring my course outlines up to me. so i could be a little weight

decollate but i was down in the well. people were standing outside of the room. i said why are you out here, teacher isn't here yet. so she walked around and they were still standing outside the room. why are you out here? the teacher isn't in the room. he looked and, i was down on the well. there for the students were used a black people teaching black experience at chapel hill, but a black person was not supposed to be teaching western civilization at chapel hill. i could teach western civilization. i had been teaching western civilization. and so once they got acclimated, once i became their teacher they were all right. but also a part of that, someone had to allow me or give me the opportunity to stand up in the well of that room because i could do it and i could teach once again that even as you move

forward, we had perhaps the mainstream society more comfortable with black women teaching certain kinds of courses and doing certain kinds of things and wants to step out of that it becomes problematic and much of that still has to be done. i would even argue some of my publications they never knew where to put them. we don't know if we can do that, i mean are you talking about black people in britain? that's not really afro-american, that's not really british, is it? what are we going to do with this? [laughter] so now people are more comfortable with this in terms of the diaspora and a cetera. now i will say that because i finished the university and no one ever told me i could not pursue european history. no one said you cannot do that. no one even asked me why are you giving it? [laughter] it was the understanding was there and you can do this, you can accomplish it, and because i

was at howard university i had the support. when i went to chapel hill i was by myself, okay? i was on my own. but then i was older and i could move through and do certain things. but the questions still broadcast. i once said that john scott, who i was -- she took me in -- she even helped me formulate certain questions but i would say that mr. lewis at the whole university actually introduced me to how to approach. chapel hill never said i couldn't do it, they just said they didn't know how to help make. [laughter] even in terms of my reading list and comp all of that stuff was european british history. i had to go out and develop my own bibliography of reading list of everything else. they couldn't help me. they said it needs to be done but we don't know how to direct you to do that and if you ever look at my dissertation and wonder why it is so long they didn't know -- they just said

keep writing. just keep writing. [laughter] just keep writing. [laughter] my dissertation is two volumes and it wasn't until it was taken over that it was actually cut down to two volumes. one night i went to his house and he had a stack over here. going to leave this out, put this in and even then it cannot to 600 something pages because all they could tell me to do was keep writing. and that is no direction. but in that you still don't stop because it needs to be done, it needs to be done. on the other side these comments on black women and profession, the other point, working at hd sciu sometimes they think he might be insulated but they are not particularly in a downturn terms of downturns in the economy which we are looking at now. then the people have to come back for certification. because they are going to teach. they have homes and lives in

this area. when it first happened and i had been teaching here for awhile people had to come for me for certification because i taught a course and all that. they didn't take that when they were in public administration. and i realized i had these white males who were acting out. i said i'm being harassed. i have been harassed in the hbcu. [laughter] what is this about? i'm being harassed the had to do this, they had to do everything the rest of the people had to do in that class and they felt -- it is true, they had been on these jobs doing whatever else, they shouldn't have to do a map and blah, blah, blah. the reason i didn't have problems is i had been teaching for 20 years and people understood i knew how to do this. i wasn't a junior faculty member. i had a male faculty -- the chair was a male and understood

this but these people actually complained they had to do this work. and once again, we may have another downturn and people would look for these kind of secure jobs that wouldn't upset the families and all this other kind of stuff. and so i said this was a new twist and i was in -- what would have been considered a secure situation. but because it's this kind of open and kind of top research. people come back for certification you have other kinds of issues that you deal with and some of it is white male anchor and it's always that you per say, it is the situation, the lives are changing. your lives are changing. [applause] >> there's a line. >> i have just one thing to say about telling history and response and then i am going to

ask for as much as i know everyone has so much to say this could go on for awhile, you know, if you have a question to just make it as brief as possible. but just in explanting -- we have to people who have experienced either teaching or having gone to school at hbcu's and also someone who is younger and has also had the experience of having african-american mentors -- women mentors. there are 17 autobiography is called kind of different experiences. i am somebody who went to an all white school for all of my life for my undergraduate, for my master's degree, and then for my phd. the very first time that i saw or had an african american

professor was darlene clark negative and i didn't have her. i saw her and was like who is this? is this real? and this was in the very late 1970's. so i just wanted to interject that because we do have experience as all kind of experiences are outlined in "telling histories." >> roseanne from african-american and diaspora studies at vanderbilt. i will say two quick things and then my question. first thing is thank you for the book and this session. i really feel both happy and legitimate in this profession and i felt both those things this after them. the second thing i have to say in terms of scholars from hbcu i have both been taught and worked in traditionally white institutions by whole career and at that point everything professionally my career seemed to be going from a white college tried to find a way to encourage me and said you should think about rosalyn nell painter. and i said well then it might be possible. my question though comes back to something crystal said in terms

of how we change the institutions that are lined hills. a lot has been said about surviving and building networks, but one of the things i find most frustrating, and i think ph.d. recede wise i am sitting somewhere between crystal and jennifer is that so many of the obstacles that we are now finding are from people that purport to be either liberal or antiracist, antisuccess or either feminist, yet de -- you know, they have sort of reinvented a new form of the keating and i am not sure what institutional -- structure and behavior what should we be doing to address that which is a slightly different, you know, so many of you build foundations that let us get where we are but now they are sort of reinventing, sort of door keeping for our generation. >> as the long term quote on quote probably share for life of african-american studies, but i discovered at least at the

university of maryland that we would hire good faculty members with ph.d. s, very prestigious places, and other departments will do this, their liberal colleagues will put them on every conceivable ph.d. committee that has something to do with race. and so we had a faculty member who was a quarter line and an african-american studies and in government politics and he was on 15 different dissertation committees, and these seem colleagues would not support him for tenure, and i said to someone when he got an award for mentoring, he is not going to get tenure at the university of maryland. so whether we like it or not, it is those publications that are 90% and the teaching is probably up to about, you know, 8%, and the two per cent are the committees. so why don't allow any of my faculty members to be on

dissertation committees, to be honored more than one committee and the whole university. in fact, we have a list of other african-american faculty members they can call on who are tenure. we have a list, and so somebody has to look out for you because it's nice to be asked to be on these committees and do these things but will not get your tenure. so i just would say, you know, it's nice to be asked, but the answer is no. >> jennifer morgan would like -- >> it's a little bit of testifying because the other thing that happened -- my first job was rutgers university where deborah was the chair right before i came up for tenure, and senior faculty members who said exactly that to us, that deborah said you have got to say no, and when i was coming up for tenure she said i'm on your -- you know, it was the year after she

was out of the office and she shared by committee and the other debt those of us who've come up in this other generation have is to senior women faculty who have said exactly that, who say you have to just step back a little bit. i just wanted -- i just wanted to say that because i meant to say that earlier but i think it's one of the most important indicators of whether -- whether to were going to succeed or fail as a junior person, and then as soon as you are tenure you have to step up to the plate. you have to do it for the people behind you. and i think that is a sort of recent tenure think roseanne was saying, like we have to do that, right? we have to do what we can do to help change -- [inaudible] >> i wasn't even thinking about those kind of working people -- [inaudible]

i would say probably two-thirds -- [inaudible] >> and i would argue, you know, they might be different. there is the veneer versus the hard core reality what deborah and folks experience that's different from what we experience but i think the response is the same, right? because the sort of strategy, the ultimate sort of end goal of what this veneer is is the same, it is really about sort of keeping us out or making sure we don't get tenure or what not. so i think that again, this is where we can learn from those folks who've come before us about the strategy is how to survive because i think the end game this same, even some of the tactics are a bit different. >> unfortunately we have time

for just one more question. you are in line. >> i am at the center for america's at vanderbilt university but originally from germany, and i ended up here in the united states because i studied u.s. history in germany and african-americans study is really a big affair by you hardly ever get to see any african-americans, and my research is on student migration, faculty exchanges and i read a lot about white studying in european universities and tebeau eda de boies, there is several articles and that got me interested and i started collecting the names and experiences and stories. there were a few women even before w.e.b. du bois but we don't know anything because back then in the 19th century the discrimination in the german universities was account of

gender so there are hardly any accounts and so i collected more and got more stories and went out to angela davis, who studied in france and germany, and i am just wondering how does the story continue into the future? aníbal postscript to that, i contributed -- i helped organize a group to germany last june which was absolutely fascinating. this group of students, their first contact with europe and it was a learning experience for all of us. we met german students and my honest say -- i must say we were we even met some africa germans and i had the feeling while 100 years ago and even 50 years ago it was really an experience about finding a very different

racial climate as a person of color when you go to europe coming from the context and today it was for the students from the university, for our group it was also an experience of the afro germans have in some respects very different experience because they're such a small minority. so basically, i just wanted to throw the question out there what role does faculty and student exchange place specifically for african-american students and specifically also for women and if anyone has any stories to tell, any reasonings why there is this absence and it's so hard to find anything about it i'm just very curious to find more thank you. >> at jul, i would say a couple of things, and i think one, many of us are now getting to the point we could actually even consider doing research abroad, not just doing research abroad but actually say for example

teaching abroad because so many of us like gannett cooper with children and husbands and all this other stuff that we have to deal with in the academy. and there also are just so incredibly few of loss to go around so that -- but also, i would say that the field of the african diaspora is opening up and is changing even as we are doing african-american women's history, african diaspora and the black atlantic, these fields are now demanding that people not only in particular more african-americans not only african-americans do research abroad but teach abroad and become involved in the universities that want to know. i went to a conference on

atlantic history which is in itself also a new field and i presented a paper on the black atlantic at rutgers university. we did a two year project for historical analysis of the black atlantic so, dare i say we have gone from doing african-american history and african-american women's history to, you know, africans in the atlantic to the entire diaspora and that is that it is growing and growing the that i think that we will begin to see many more african-american profs taking positions abroad. >> let me say i think one of the strategies is to join in these international organizations. i have been a member of the association of caribbean

historians now since the late 80's. there's also a fairly new organization, which is the association for the study of the world wide african diaspora, aswwa. to travel abroad and meet students and faculty from other places and then they interact with you and even if you don't get a chance to visit their site, you e-mail and exchange. we did a book several years ago in the 80's called what is it, quote crow women and the african diaspora," -- "women in africa and the african diaspora," after they had a conference on the african diaspora. most of the people who came to the conference were u.s. based

people, whether they were african-american or not. but going abroad, the association of caribbean historians is going to guadalupe and may. aswwa is going to ghana. through these things to make the initial contact and then can find out about the exchanges that might be going. >> and there is the african-american research and i have been to france and madrid. i didn't go to berlin this year they met in berlin, but they do wonderful work promoting african-american research and actually last week i was at queen's university in belfast on rethinking reconstruction, myself and susan odom and from harvard. of course we were the only ones to talk about gender and i would like to reassure crystal in this

sense that people don't really know what you're talking about or may not fully appreciated, persist. i don't care. [laughter] so that -- i did a paper on gender, labor and kind of this expansive sense of citizenship that and the emancipation era, and it was interesting but, you know, a great conference. so i think things are happening. and tom host was a keynote speaker at this and he is at the academy of sciences in berlin. >> i would like to alt-a you -- think you. we have run out of time although i know we could go on. i would like to invite you to the university of north carolina booths where there will be a little reception and book signing. [applause]

the coming up next, book tv present "after words," an hourlong interview program where we invite a guest host interview author this week political commentator ann coulter argues how liberals purposely cast themselves as victims in "guilty: liberal victims and their assault on america." ms. coulter contends the left engage in political bully while maintaining that they are oppressed. ann coulter discusses her new book and presents her thoughts on the current political and social climate with michelle easton, president of the clare boothe luce policy institute.

>> host: im michelle easton, president of the clare boothe luce policy institute in virginia here to interview ann coulter on her new book, "guilty," for c-span's "after words." how are you doing, ann? >> guest: great to be here. >> host: great to be with you also. you have written five other best-selling books -- >> guest: six. >> host: six. why did you write "guilty"? >> guest: there was a little voice in my head saying when is the next book coming -- wait, no, that was like publisher. it was just something i've noticed for along time how liberals use the idea of victimhood to get ahead to shut down debate, a disadvantage, and it's sort of is overtaken the entire world where the real villains, the aggressors, the perpetrators are always claiming to be morally offended and i have been wounded, weep for me.

and it is pernicious. >> host: when the book first was coming out i remember nbc had booked you weeks ahead in advance and suddenly a case like you. what happened? >> guest: well, according to the always reliable george board line banned for life. that was lifted just long enough for me to go on to the today show for matt lauer to tell me i am not band and then it went back into effect. >> host: how can they justify that for someone with six "new york times" bestsellers "after words" seven. >> guest: seven "new york times" as of best sellers to get you look at the mainstream media and they seem to pick their own, like the elizabeth hassle back conservative or the hassle back of the times david brooks. they're conservatives are the ones we would be picking as the conservative spokesman. and i mean, with the left and fairness