as a journalist for the new york times dance so a good part of 3ñ he was gone entire time i was pregnant with jordan. and before he left i gave him a

journal. a seven store shopping for a friend and i saw this journal and it was a guide journal with questions from and to their children and god forbid he doesn't come back, wouldn't it be nice if he jotted down just a few thoughts for the baby. we knew we were having a boy. he becam consumed with this journal. and he tookt. >> with them, filled up over 200 pages that he wrote in the hot desert in iraq after his mission here and he would go on on his missions during the day, come back and nine in his room and said his life would be on under the door and he would ride before he went to sleep. heanted this to be a guide for our son' life in case he did not come back. he told them in their everything from the power of prayer to how to pick a wife to what it means to be a black man in america to his love of the military. you name it, is in their beer he told about his relationship with

me and explain to him why he one of the sun. he told them how to deal with racial this commission. anything tt he could think of that he thought this baby would need to grow into being a man is in there and he really meant for to be a conversation with our son that last 70 years. and so he sent the book back to me a couple of months before he came home on leave to me jordan and only add to beat him once for two weeks, but when jorda was just born charles called me from my racket he was shaken up because he was in charge of 1 men. he was in charge and i asked him before what does that mean, what will you be doing? he said my responsibility will be everything from making sure they get their mail to recovering the bodies and literay that is what he did. he called one day and one of his young soldiers have been blown up in a tank. and charles had to go and recover his body piece by piece by piece out of this tank in the

middle of the night. it shook him off and so he called me and said and when to send the journal home to you, it is not done but if something happens to me you'll have this and jordan will numbing. so he sent it home to me and i started rding it while jordan was sleeping beside me give, jordan is here running around with my nephew summer so hopefully you'll have a chance to meet him later. he is three now. anyway, i read it and i fell in love with this man all over again. charles was ts really tall, i don't know if you can see the pictures there, muscular soldier. but he was gentle and incredibly shy man. and so he did not talk a whole lot so i got this jornal where he is talking about the beauty of rain storms and rainbows and what hehought about women, i cannot believe it. and so i thought to myself when a beautiful gift he has given to our son but, of course, at that point of thinking he still going

to come home so when jordan was six months' home he came home for two weeks and meet him. he went back. >> supposedly jt to collect his soldiers and come home for good, he would have been, and 30 this one mth. when he was blown up by a roadside bomb. well, the first weeks and months after he died allison thinking about writing a book. i went back to work and i thought, i just can't bury him and go back to work, i got to do something with this grief so the first thing i did was i decided to write in the new york times. i said to my boss i'm probably the only national journalists in the country who has lived with the grief of thi war firsthand having lost a loved one plus he left this amazing journal and out by people to know about him so i wrote about it on the front page of the new york times. the response from readers was

completely at really overwhelming. i have to tell you that was two years ago and i am still receiving phone calls and e-mail's from people who read that article. that prompted the book. it is called "a journal for jordan" and wha it is is a memoir. i decided to take the journal entries and expand on them and talent jordan the full story of his parents live together. i decided i am not pointing this is a very talented. he wasn't a perfect man, i am not perfect, our relationships only was not perfect but it was as good as i've ever seen and i want jordan to think his father was a saint whose example he could not live up to -- you sn't but he was honorable and decent and prayerful and strg, he was a strong prideful black man and an american hero. and this book has been so well received and that it has bn sold in australia, brazil, holland, several other

countries, poland, taiwan, and to me i'm so proud of that not because of what i did appear and i feel this isn the bombing, and the vehicle for telling the story, but that people all over the world would embrace the story about an arage black family and as a warrior who literally die for our country and the sort of sacrifices he made. you know, charles was a complex man. on the hand, as i said he was incredibly shy and didn't talk very much, but, on the other hand, he was also an artist. you will see over there a picture of an angel, that was one of the last things you true. so here w a guy who the plot a battlefield, lead his troops into war, but he to angels and he drew children and he wrote a beautiful journal. so like everybody else there are many dimensions to him and i nt our son to know that and understand it so that is why i wrote this more. also wanted dven though i waed to share wh the world i wanted to be personal for jordan

so i rode it literally to him, every chapter begins dear jordan. stars from the beginning of our relationship and goes all the way through to the decision to have him, his father leaving for the war and what happened after. interwoven i that are his father's words in his own and voice of the journal. i also wanted people to see the journal so and literally reproduced some of the pages so that you to see charles handwriting and hear his voice for his self. i le to share some of it with youut one of the things i want to tell you is that remarkably there a themes that comes through in the journal and i don't think they were intentional at all. i think he had no idea that he was coming back to certain things, but when i read it became immediately apparent. the first was the power of prer and fth in your life. he writes about that probably a dozen times or so in the journal.

in the second team that comeq through is his profound love for the military and how he was proud of what he was doing protecting the country and a third theme in this comes through the over and over is his respect for women and how you expect jordan to be a gentleman. he writes at least a dozen times about how to treat women and what two look for in a woman and i'm vy proud of that. i knew that about him, but to read it in his own words is really extraordinary and so even though he cld be here physally i feel like he is here with me helping a guy this little boy because when he needs to hear about dating or when he wants to know about discrimination in our when he has a question about madonna or maybe doubting his faith, i will be there to help them. i am a mother andn how to teach him to be a man and he will have his father's voice right there guiding him to lie. i think the journal will mean fferent things to him a different points in his life.

there are certain entries that are written for a boy answered entries thatre written for a man. for instance h tells them about sex in the journal which i hope he will have to read until he's 40. [lghter] butt is in there when he nds it. it is in the. the book that wrote is written for a man so i want him to grow up with the journal. to turn to it and feel like he is having a conversation with his dad wheneve h needs to put the book that i wrote will be for him when he is a young man. i would like to share some thgs with you from the book. one of the interests that i want to read is about charles' decision not to come home for jordan's birth. nothing abouthat is he had wanted this baby for a long long time. wead talked about having a child over the years and heas so excited, but you know, and he had promised me he was going to come home when he was born and we have probably the biggest fight of our relationship which i read about in the book over

the last minute decision not to come. what is so remarkable about that at the time, at the time i was upset, it is the kind of sacrifice soldiers mak in this country every single day. without a book ever been written about them. and he made a personal sacrifice to put his happiness decided to defend our country and it was hard for me and the reason he did it coming he left in december of 2005 to go t the war. jordan sas born in march of 2006 so just three months later. he said his young soldiers and they were young, many just out of high school, many of dhem saw him as a father. he had billed aut a jail some of them, talk to them about birth control, taught tm how to balance their checkbooks and some have gone to the prom the year before and he said, i just can't leave them, they are scared, they're just getting acclimated to the war and getting used to being an iraq.

he said something happens to these guys because i left them i am their leader and i can't do it. he said i know you need me but they need me more. i was serious and scared and i was about to have a baby in three weeks and i had no plan me and all a sudden i'm faced with what does this mean? and my docto had arranged to induce me awake early so that we could cornyn to schedule and he could come from iraq and suddenly he was in coming. well, we worked through that and i understood it. i am proud to share that story now because even though many have you understand the outrage of felt at the time i think you'll also see what kind of man of character he was. he wrote a journal entry about that and this is what he said: jordan, i could not be at your birth because of the war. remember i told you all about the themes, theme about uomen comes through in this as well. i could not be at your birth

because of the war but you were surrounded by strong women whe you were born. all of these women embodied the reasons you should never ever disrespect or later hand against a woman. these are your first teachers my little prince, protect them and embrace them and oyster them like a queen. women wit our duty are a dime a dozen but being with a woman with these qualities of loyalty, trust and caring for really are who have a lot more meaning. never listen to your friends, all your heart and look for the strength of a woman. powerful once -- powerl words. thk you. churched [applause] i am so proud of them appear in and the things he left for our son to read about life.

and there are things then he writes abo me that made me feel like you're still with me and that he is still flirting with me. i sometimes when i am missing him i read them and it just helps me to understand that the is more to life than just a physil presence, there are spirits and not even the war could keep him from leaving his spirits with this child, not en death could keep him from leaving his words and his wisdom and being able to talk to his son during he found a way to continue to take car of him even after he was gone. in you know, it's interesting to me that among the things he writes are just everyday things that he wanted jordan to know about himself. i want to share one with you that i think is kind of funny.

the because he wanted him to know him so closely that he wrote a lot of things on the journals that i didn't know about him. i didn't know he had his first kiss in the eighth grade with a girl named denise brew but then there were just little funny stories abo his childhood that are his way of letting his son know just he was a boy and a young man as a perso so he writes for example about fashion in his junior high school. my -- they were black patent leather and a gram a king would always say ts stack issues were no good for your back here and i guess i h to learn the hard way here and i was walking downtown and glanced at my reflection and a promise store window. i was walking huns like an old man and had to throw them away. i love the their own personal stories like that in here. in there is also practical and buys about how to deal with why appear here's what he rents to jordan about racial discrimination.

son, every situation dealing with discrimination is somewhat different. now there are two chaers in the book dealing with the war.

one is a chapter is planning what his life was in the war and what he was doing in his leadership. the second was the reconstruction of what he did it i had to interview the soldiers for thi chapters and i probably talked about 20 soldiers his bosses and commanders and it went through the pentagon and on documents to come with it and i knew the doctor when he was brought in. i really research this and one of the things the soldiers tony after he nine is that he would start -- hi, baby -- he would start his days in the gym at 5:00 a.m in iraq. 5:00 o'cck in the morning working out there and i have a gym on my second floor that i can't even dri myself to. imagine fortitude in the door on emission th say that he was this fear stuff warrior. i never knew that die. and they would say to me when i would tell them how gentle and sweet he was, how he would pack

a picnic in go to central park and have a pnic and romantic evenings and they say we never met tt guy. with so there were two sides to him and i found out talking to them after he died was he used lessols that were happeningn situions that are happening in the war as lessons to write about. life lessons to our son. imagine going out on this mission, sething happening on the mission and you turn that into a lesson then she read about it is phenomenal to me that he had the fortitude to do that in here is an example of that. the first of may we lost our first soldier, it was very sad. everyone cared aut him. we had to get together the night before the memorial so everyone could have a chance to speak about how he lived. the soldiers and somef the wild stories to tell about roddy. laughed and smiled thinking about t crazy things you do to make us laugh and that was

healing night, a chance to say tg a fallen soldier of laughter is a medicine for the soul. he also wrote two probably two dozen letters to me and i incorporated some of those and in one of them he did write about the news of losing broad daylight, the soldier, 21 year-old young man his life was pregnant with their first tell when he died and this is what he writes about that and then refers to the nickname he gave me after i became pregnant i know you heard the bad news. it w something we would never have to experience, it is but a rough two months and this is been the most painful thus far. i can't begin to tell you today is a tough day for my company. we had a memorial from my soldiers killed in action and dealing with a be proud of me. is hard talking on the phone, you can say everything you want to because of the restrictions. we've been in a lot of pain lately and everyone has been

supportive economic glad when this is over. i knew in my soldiers came t my room and knocked on my door that night that i would have to face the inevitable. when i'm ae to handle it was the question here and don't worry i did above and beyond the war was the toughest. we've given our fallen, and a sendoff. i have a great company. we will keep the memory of our friend with us as we continue with our missions. [applause] there is another entry in the journal or he writes about experience an award to teach short and a lesson. this was about soldiers and another company you were killed in this is what he said the 18th was a longtone night. we had a memorial for two soldiers from a company killed by an improvised explove device. and my soldiers went to the memorial another excuse was that they did want to go because it was depressing. i told a little selfish of them not to pay their respects to two

men who were selfless and given their lives for their country. these may not always be easier or pleasant for you, that is li but all is pay respect for the way people live and what they stood for. as the honorable thi to do. [applause] i started out say what i wanted to say again which is as proud as i am of this i wish to do not exist, i wish he was here and we were struggling with the things that all parents struggle to together and enjoyed our little boy, but so rarely do we hear the stories about the lives of the soldiers on the line, iraq and afghanistan and other places. you see on cnn or on the news to soldiers kled and iraq and rarely anything to people stop and think there is a name behind that person and a mother and a life and dreams pernod so i

t@ought if i have to open myself up and share a bed of my privacy and m private life to be able to put a name and a face to the war and happy to do that and that is one of the reasons i wrote to us. i wanted people to know that every one of those soldiers has streams and alive to get back to enhance sacrifices they're making on behalf of our country and as i said most of them never have a book written about them. but i hope that in some ways this helps a lot of them and i've hrd from a lot of soldiers and their filies who have been proud how about this. at attitudes to go to the pentagon and speetwo soldiers, had a chance to go to a convention of grieving military families in speetwo about 400 families who have lost soldiers and so many of them are happy that this book exists but the primary reason i did it was selfis because i needed an outlet for my grief and 123 something for my little boy over there and i do however thank you all for letting me share our

story with you. [applause] are we out of time? >> what a moving story. this truly is not just to get to jordan -- jordan but anyone who picked up this book and read it. we have about five minutes for questions again if anyone has something that would like to pose, there is a microphone to my left simply step up to the microphone and let's take it and it's of the remaing time have been posg questions you might have. anyone? >> thought i am from sarasota, florida. i don't have a question and i have a comment. i feel very proud of new so

thank you. we're doing this for the rest of us. [applause] >> thank you veryuch. >> i did see you on c-spa initially when you fir wrote thisnd enjoy that interview. thank you so much can i think he. i really appreciate that. [applause] the no, it haseen the toughest me of my life and i had t do this but it is really not about me. i do appreciate that but it is about tt little boy over there and about his dad and the other soldiers and i feel like on use me as a vehicle to tell the story so im proud to do it. [applause] >> anyone else coming to mind? >> my name is cheryl and i am a teacher in philadelphia. one of the things, it is not necessarily a comment but i

thank you for your courage, i thank you for your willingness because it takes courage to revisit pain but we also know that pain is healing so you can really experience the healing but what i also want to thank you for is telling this story about men. i do a lot of work with males in philadelphia particularly between the ages of 13 in 18 so it helps and i will be using excerpts from your book and my classroom, but it shows that human males which often don't have a chance to experience either because the things that meno or the things they get mad so i thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> i don't have a question but i

also am moved by your sharing experience and i cannot help but thank you and all so to stand with you. i am ecology professor and i am also a writer. i write various things but it has become my passion like you make her rich writing came from having -- losing a baby. i am sorry. >> i'm a teacher, thank you. and i am ao, to find the writing is a wonderful way of gaining control over your life. is there be. and i keep telling my students that and i am going to add to the testimony that i have that space and back. and actually wrote an essay, it

has sued coming out and dealing with clause is a pain. something along those lines but it was my way with of using mad to teach and share my insides. it is one of will to hear you. can you speak a little bit more to your organize saying principles? >> t want to say hi first? said thank you for reading our book. >> thank you for reading our book. [applause] >> when i decided to do was to do it chronologically and to tell the whole story from our chilood and the forces that

made this who we were into it that way. the remarkable thing is because the journal so comprehensive charles talke about nearly the same things so i felt like we're writg it together. out rack my part and put to the jourl and findomething relevant to what i was talking about at that pnt and put his words and so we're both having a conversation with him together and as i organize it. >> that is about all the time we have for questions and comments now like to thank you all for attending this really moving and living presentation. >> thank you for coming. [applause] >> we have about a 10 minute break before we listen to and get the chance to hear gregory walker and that will start at 1245 and seven that is permanence. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations of the trojan

war. welcome brother g.. [applause] >> hello their. i want to think everybody out

here for coming i know you have a l of things you could have been doing so i came here and i wanted thing c-span and everybody for coming here. i have been wting a long time to speak about this in such a forum and the subject matter that i'm speaking on has bee waiting a very long time also. nominee people here are familiar with the trojan war story? the trojan horse, helen of troy, achilles' getting shot in the heel. you know, all these things are mainstays of what we call the foundation of western literature. what people don't know and what i meant to reveal andave been working on for the past 20 yea is of the revelation about a third book of the tron war that very few people know about. everybody knows tha achilles was areat here -- hero in the story of the trojan war. very ping -- very few people know that the greatest hero and

not according to my opinion but the greatestear according to the ancient greeks was a hero named memnon whose name means immortal. in now, in my studies about memnon i kept on having to come upon one astonishing thing after another after another after another because memnon represents those who need to increase the call the blameless ethiopia. when i was doing my research of age and history of ancient cross dñ'j

a mul-cultural book that shows all the different people in the world bas on real history. hollywood has come kcking at my door sometimes and i finally settled on a deal and a working with wesley snipes to do a series based on my work. [applause] now the way this came about, a little about a first --'ve always been and knows the individual ever since i was small. nosing my way into things and try to find out what means one and who means to come even if it meant i got in trouble. and so before i graduated from college columbia college in chicago i was already a multiple award winning journalist for some investigative things i did. after that i went over to the associated pss and i stayed

there in that time in that fast paced newswire atmosphere and i was able to hone the things that i was able to use to read this book series it was a great place for two because of the associated press to have to make snap judgments about what is what and what is worth doing what. so those hipaa things were critical and crucial. w i spend my brains when i was doing this. allyson just writing and doing stuff in the ap, was doing things for other people and i used to be a really huge, book bug and and i castillo m. i started writing columns for the american library association. believe it or not for a while for so years as the ciscond ebert, books. i would do a review for the american library association and a graphic novel or a series of books, books that would make a lot of money. so a lot of people in the, but industry want to buy the dinner without coming to the shop.

so i use my influence for some years and detritus of a lady to nielsen of the big names and en some of the small names in the comic books publishing to finally pay attention to presenting african characters and some other characters of color in honorable and respectable ways. they assure@ me every year that they were going to get right on that baron but, ofourse, the did not. after some amount of years went by sen i am wasting my time, here i am and pumping up this thing. and they are not coming through for everybody else. this i what i'm going to do. and as billing and comic book review empire and people send any notes from all over the world and want me to speak about, these and how they can be

used in schools. i had a nonprofit or position based on this and i turned my back on all of that in seven i'm going to researc history to see whereeal african people have real heroes. so i turned my back on all of it to come on thehole career. i started doing research cross-cultural in ancient history and i kept on saying two things. i kept on seeing this named memnon and everywhere i turned. and also kept on saying things about people they call the ethiopians particularly the ancient greek people. so i started two really tell into it and try and find out who are these ethiopians that the ancient greeks keep talking about and who is this memn was supposed to be the king of the ethiopians. i started doing some astonishing research and started finding things out that were so astounding in my mind why his is

presented to the world before. what happened to this. where in the world was as great epic history and tradition that flash down. a maid in accessible to the whole world particularly when you're talking about something that is not on the fringes, you're talking us something that is basically a foundation of a white european western history which we are all supposed to be getting to the schools. according to what most people are seventh to appear in so i started to do research and became appent to me particularly when doing research into the ancient authors, the agent and then medieval of shares in the 20s century, people knew about memnon and became apparent that anyone is used to have a classical education with and why was that because memnon was a direct part

of the trojan war story. the story of the odyssey is a course of this yes. making his way home. the story of alien is about the war of the proper and is a showcase for achilles coming in and hunter and all these things. the handbook, the ethiopians is about what happened between those two thing there are books still being taught in libraries all over the world that are lying to people telling people bad myths to us because they wante to cover up the home representation of african people in this. the story of alien and with the death of actor. anybody saw the movie starring brad pitt about four yrs ago the great and mighty achilles and nobody can stop them and they can throw a spear and a fly. what they did not tell you is

that at that point they should have shown memnon. memnon came along at the end of the iliad and that is one actor is killed appear if anyone remembers the movie troy when achilles was dragging the body of hectare around walls that would be the original iliad, the rest of the the we generally know about achilles getting shot in the heel, the whole trojan war thing. that too place in a book coming a hit in boo called the ethiopias. which really means the black people. it meant a bird faced people among the greeks. and the leader of thethiopians was memnon. among -- one of the mind blowing things i found about the whole memnon sauna, i caught up in the early '90s working since 1989

and i caut up to the work of gregory, an eminent great scholar, and he wrote a book called the best of the achilles. another name for the greeks. in this book he talks about the greatest of the great among the greatest, hector, achils, odysseus, all the characters but then he gets to a chapter on the ethiopians and he talks about, he goes into elaborations and a lot of things i had seen up to that point and he is a greek scholar. i gambled on a scholarship for mo research. this i revealed some very amazing things because when was doi my research into the blameless ethiopians and i kept seeing references that the greeks kept saying calling them blameless ethiopians, the most vored of the gods. and i was puzzled by that and did all kinds of research for a

long time to try to figure out why they would call these black people blameless people. gregory revealed that history for me and it turns out that in ancient greek times everything was based on praise and blame. if you've got a lawyer, your lawyer would come to represent you and you'd find people to praise you. the highestovernment to give people is to call them blameless. a blameless people. this was written about by homer, and all kinds of grain and fantastic writers among the ancient greeks. as a matter of fact,, if you flipped into it and go really deep partilarly in to se of the oer versions of the iliad he will see in iliad chapter eleven where homer says a this

is very serious for me -- i have to take my hat off for this -- this was very mysterious to me. in iliad chapter 11 he said to troy, no hero came of nobler line or in nobler memnon it was mine. why would he say that? why would he say that about an african hero who was in the enemy of the drakes? i come from chicago. i was there and i was when this in the heyday of the michael jordan era. when the archrivals, the knicks, of the bulls would come to town and would be an restaurant and a street as are talking trash to each other as basketball players do. but then michael jordan would walk up. the trash talking with either stop or go down to a minimum and everybody went downtown two this brother. and what they were enemies were there to beat them at basketball like the knicks or not, when

michael jordan came in the transcendent with his greatness. he transcended all the pending s. he stood above all of that. in this is what memnon is. this is what memnon represents. ..

>> they call the pson who at that point in history was the greatest in the world. the king 0f troy. he was memnon's uncle. blood ties between african people and all kinds of people all over the world. the same way you have the situation inngla and in europe where you have the families that are intermarried with each other. they did their blood mixed up. he cald hi nephew, memnon, to comend help them. he was known as being

unstopble. unstoppable. now, they came on the heels of another hero, which is a heroine. before mnon came t he the trojans and amazon warrior queen came. a group of amazons came to help fight againsthe greeks on behalf of the trojans. the amazons were defeated, and then they called memnon. when the ethiopians arrived the trojans were overjoyed. they knew that no army in the world could beat memnon's army. they were overjoyed. and, i fact, several things haened. one thing that happened that showed the ability of memnon is the fact that an old man rushed to the field to fight. he was in full armor, andthe rest beformemnon and brought his swo. memnon saw that this was an old, of the lead man. not true back and said, i'm not going to fight you.

i did not come to the field of battle to demean myself by slapping down old man. please remove yourself from the field of battle. the old man left. memnon killed his son, but this was an example of that ability, the ability that this character represented and that ability of a blameless ethiopians. after this happened memnon killed a bunch of great characters from the greek tradition. and finally achilles came out. achilles came out to be the achilles agamemnon, the two most epic aracters, heroic characters in the trojan tradition came out. this is what drew him out. memnon's army chased the greeks all the way back to their home. gçvt-jgçpñ

from being killed whosale. well, they set out achillies and memnon. neither one could best the other. but if anyone remembers the movie clash ofhe titans, if anyone remembers the show

hercules, all of that, their is a tradition among the ancient greek gods. if something is happening they do not like, they will interfere. the greek god zeus interfere in the fight between memnon and achilles, and he cast a spell on memnon. and achilles killed memnon. then right aer that the normal stuff that we all know happens where achilles ran through and an arrow shot gtided by allo shot him in the heel, and he died. but they do not tell you, wha did leave out is the fact that memnon's me means immortal. it means immortal. you can't kill this brother. if you do, he can't stay dead. when the memnon was killed memnon's mother came. most of the gods and goddesses came to the throne of zeus. they said, what you did to memnon was unjust.

in fact, he was part got. we came to complain about what you did to this man. so you know what, you're right. i got in the way. i tell you what, since he is all that he said he is i will reve memnon, and he shall live again. and furthermore -- and this is something that was not done in any of the greek -- furtherre i will make him an immortal. he will become immortalized. they gave him the opportunity to live on mount olympus. memnon declined. he said i'm not going to live here. i am going to go back to my home. the story i just told you was first told around 750 b.c.

what was originally an old adition among the trojan war that the writer and poet homer left out. so a lot of people think. there are a lot of things about that. but the thing to remember is that according to the ancien greek the greatest of greek heroes was not achilles it was memnon. as a matter of fact if anybody knows this history or tradition about the odyss, when odysseus makes his journey, he sees all these dead people that he knows. he sees achilles. and achilles said, and i quote,

i would rather be pauper, a beggar on earth than be a ki here. revive this african hero named memnon to go on in the world. why is that? what happened? and so that sent me to another round of research. all right. their must be something about these people that they called e blameless ethiopians. this is not just one character who is standing by himself. this is a character representing a group of people. he rresents a group of people and a group of people with a ceain w of life, and this is what i've found out. in the iliad and odyssey they talk about the respect of the gods. they go across the great western notions to go and sit and dined

with the blameless ethiopians. everybody else in the world, including the aged greeks themsees had to get to the temple and make sacrifices to the gods in order to interact with the dutie but the ethiopians pit s across the table with them and eat and dine with them. this was a fantastic thing. this was something that was so astonishing to me, particularly when we think about the way black people have been portrayed in western civilization over the past hundred and 50 years. warren the direct opposite of what has always been portrayed. and not something that was made up, because something that a bunch of afrocentric or african centered people made up. these are ancient greek people and of the people themselves actually said about the ancient black people. i did a lot of research and that found up to these people were.

the aient greeks calledhem the ethiopians. they called themselves the kushite. the kushite wt around the world doing amazing things racing up civilizations, helping people, ing doing all sorts of fantastic, fantastic things. [applauding] >> right. >> well, the opportuni to answer questions for the next five. please step up to the mic and make sure everyone can hear your question. let's take advantage of this time. [applauding] >> please step to the mic.

>> yeah, i am happy to be here and to hear you. when you talk about the blameless ethiopians, i also found something. i took time to find out. we have been doing research from the homeland. the greek materials that you have also. egyptians knew about these people. someone asked me about the empire . so we have information. what you have got fro the homeland, the blameless ethiopians. and then we studied 10. it was submitted made by the

ancient people to represent these lords. of all the great wars and civilization. right. [applauding] >> i have been doing this for 20 years. in 1999 after his research. the first but did not come out until 1989. the first book came out in the ar 2000. over and over and over, new discoveries about the representation and the interaction had done nothing but back up my work over and over and over again. thank you, sister. >> hi, my name is steven

thompson. my question,emnon, would this be the same personality that the greeks were making a reference to, a kingdom pharroh named amenhotep. that name it seems like it was used. >> my brother is bnging up a very interesting poi. when alexander took over into egypt around 320, 330 b.c., what they did was name these two sections. they renamed those two statues that statues of memnon. they thought that from their perspective the greatest hero in the world was memno they saw these big, giant statues, and they renamed these

here is where the magical part of the traditions. an earthquake took place. the statues became cracked. from then on every time the sun rose the statue would let o a partular sound. there re different people that say the sound had different sounds. some say it was a heart. some say it was like singing. to the aged -- ancient greek people and to the romans what is actually meant was memnon was speaking to his mother who was the goddess of the sun. the goddess of the sun. so this kind of stuck with it. so here is one book written on the feet of that statute.

this is from an anonymous greek writer. and he says nymph of the sea, know that memnon still lives, still speaks to his mother. while the voice of achilles can no longer be heard, either increase or in try. so the legends about hamel went on, and other people wrote all throughout the medieval times times. a young group of hip-hoppers read my book. they wrote this. dark like the sha of my father

and my mother, rk like the shade of my sister and >> good afternoon. we can do little better than that. good afternoon! and welcome to this afternoon''s

panel. we be, you are, they is. black english, language and culture. we have two comfortable panelists, who are with us today, to talk about the status of black language and the importance of black language and -- in 2009. and we are goingoskhem t introduce themselves to you, and we'll start with dr. datsun. >> good afternoon, i'm howard datsun, director of the schaumburg center for research and black culture and i spoiz the reason i'm on the panel is that i did a book a-a few years ago entitled the emergence of african-american culture and, one of the chapter in the book deals th the question of the origins, if you will f what we call ourselves, call black english. and i'll be saying things about that and what its relevance is for this topic today. >> good afternoon, can you hear

me? okay. my name is carol lee, also known as safashia mataboui with the school of ecation and social policy at northwestern university and founder and chairman of the board of directors of the betty shabazz charter schools and the concept development center, a school founded in 1972. and is still in operation, and i'm also president of the american educational research association. >> thank you, panelists. some call this period, 2009, the post-racial period and you may agree or not agree with that but i'll ask the panelists from your discline what is the relevance of this panel discussion, talking about black english in 2009 and why is it important