to actually do what has worked for us in the past, the program of growth when we had regulated finance etc but also a lot of other countries do. and thinking of those three big challenges in london and losing what you think we are going to see from the obama administration going forward and what you think ought to be done. ..

what has been the most important innovation of the 20th century, in the last part of the 20th-century? it was the internet. who finance that? government. the private sector brought that to market. what i find so interesting about that, it is a kind of public private partnership "could not happen without the government playing a critical will. you look at all the basic research on which all of the advances of science, of technology that we use and cost of that basic research is supported by the government. there is a good. in a good reason why that is the

case but the fact is that he can't have the advances in technology if you don't have the advances in science in which they rest. >> host: the innovations in there for the growth in the employment. >> guest: all has to rest on a foundation of government and what i found so disturbing during the bush era was this constant bashing of the government. you know the government doesn't do anything perfectly, and any of us look at what happened to the bush administration have to agree that the government often takes things very bad but it is also the case of the private sector often doesn't get things perfectly. no government, no democratic government probably has ever wasted money outside of war on the scale of our private sector in this crisis and we should remember that. so come up private-sector has

failed, governments fail. we need to have systems of checks and balances and that is part of the democratic process. but one of the concerns is that the system of checks and balances may be getting under mind and that goes back to what teddy roosevelt said 100 years ago. if we allow some economic forces to get too large, they will shape not only the economy but also the politics. antitrust law that he advocated successfully was not so much motivated by economic distortions. that was an important aspect of that but it was by how these could affect the political process and i think as be look at what has been happening in the last year, and what happened in the years before the crisis, we have to be re-examining exactly that same question.

>> host: this book makes it very good contribution to it as it lays out the tasting gives good ideas of the role of government in what we need to do. thank you very much for your time in this discussion. >> guest: thank you. >> glen browder former congressman from alabama and artemesia stanberry assistant professor at north carolina central university present a history of bi-racial cooperation in the efforts to a ban civil-rights. butler derrick, former congressman from south carolina and eva clayton, former u.s. congressman from north carolina join the discussion. the national archives in washington d.c. hosts the hour and 20 minute talk. >> the civil rights movement in this country crested a full century after the bloody civil war and the subsequent constitutional amendments that

al lutt slavery made the former slaves united states citizens and gave them the right to vote. but by the 1960's average americans had not yet seen the promise of these of amendments realized. many accounts of the civil-rights movement of the 1950's and '60's have been written by distinguished journalist and historians as well as by its break participants. tonight with their dfid account, when of the focuses on how white political leaders and black civil-rights leaders work together quietly, away from media and the legislative spotlights to change the way southern politics was conducted. the program will feature a lively discussion of the stealth reconstruction during the last decades of the 20th century. copies of the book under discussion tonight are available in the lobby after the program. co-sponsors for this program are the jana association of former members of congress, the congressional black caucus the

nation, the national archives and african-american history society and the state and university maryland chapter of alpha kappa ceretti and welcome members of all of those organizations here tonight. i also want to welcome c-span, one of our favorite visitors to programs here at the national archives. to madre to nice panel program were pleased to welcome michael fauntroy the assistant professor of public policy of george mason university, professor fatweh has been an analyst an congressional research service on civil-rights. he is of regular contributor to "the huffington post" and has been published or quoted in a variety of print publications and served as a guest analyst on many radio public affairs shows. george mason school of public policy teaches american government, urban policy, civil-rights policy and the legislative process. healed the bachelor's degree from hampton university and a master's and doctorate from

howard university. he is the fourth generation washingtonian and lives in the city with his wife and children and now i turn the program over to professor fauntroy. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you all for coming out this evening. we promised to give you a very interesting discussion and we are going to touch on some things that i think and i think you'll will think will be quite interesting. as you know this is a very distinguished panel and if you don't know i would like to introduce the members quickly. on the far right former representative butler derrick from south carolina, former representative eva clayton from north carolina, former representative glen browder from alabama and the most distinguished of them all, my former schoolmate artemesia stanberry on the faculty at north carolina central university. please welcome them.

[applause] this evening we are here to talk about something called stealth reconstruction and how that helped to supplement what was being done in the civil-rights era,'s civil writes air trying to move the ball forward if you will so for the next hour or so we want to probe this concept and talking detail about the book had described the book. and that some point, toward the top of the hour we will open it up for questions. dare microphones on each end and if you want to ask a question at that time i would ask you to do so from the mic says they will be picked up by the national archives reporters and also by c-span and they want people to hear it otherwise. before i do that though i want to make one additional announcement. this coming saturday morning at 8:30 on c-span clay browner will

be discussing this book so you will get a little taste now nil little extra taste on saturday morning. also if i am not speaking out of school i would like to wish glen a happy birthday tomorrow. he shares a birthday with mlk and there's a bit of irony when we are talking about this topic at this time so happy birthday. so let's start with the beginning and i want to start first with glen and artemesia. what are still politics? >> michael, stealth politics is the a scituate to describe these quiet, practical-- it is, stealth politics refer specifically to what we practice in the quiet practical politics that we practiced in the south, especially white politicians working with black leaders. obviously it works the other way

too. black politicians historically have conducted quiet politics with white political leaders but in this case we have narrowed our definition to quiet practical politics of the self, bi-racial transactions during the 1970's, 80's and 90's. >> let me does his perspective on that. i know you agree with that for the most part but are there any other aspects of stealth politics we need to know about before we go forward? >> well, i think one of the key aspects of stealth politics is that these individuals are working towards a particular goal. in other words, the ball is given to them with regard to the judicial rulings, with regard to civil rights activists and then are ten to institutionalize those so i think it is important

to understand it wasn't bi-racial politicians. bi-racial politics for the purpose of dissatisfying a few key people. it was for the purpose of institutionalizing some of the demands. >> okay. now, one of the things i'm struck by is the fact that there was a need for stealth politics, so i want to ask you, glen, to lay out some of the context in which these politics were necessary and why they were necessary. >> it was necessary because at that time, a lot of southern politicians wanted to do things differently. everybody in america knows about the heroic drama of the civil-rights movement of the 1950's and '60's, rosa parks, martin luther king, george wallace, that was a heroic clash between heroes and killens. a lot of this came along after them, or some of this came along

after them and the wanted to do things differently. we felt that we had to do things differently in order to deal with the problems of our region. but, we could not do these things openly. for a white southern politician and a black political leader do you know, agree on, to compromise, if we had gone out and held a news conference or there had been reporters there when we did that, it would have killed both of us because whites in the south were not ready generally to endorse that. and a black leader dasch beck the black leader supporters probably would not have appreciated compromising or cutting a deal with the white politicians, so the setting of the '70s, '80s and '90s unlike the heroic drama was a setting in which practical politics had

to take center stage. >> so what you are saying that is the only way things could end up? >> yes. you walkin read in the '60s, when it was so he did. some southern politicians went out and openly tried to be racial progressivist. they tried to openly bring together weitz and black constituents and they got crushed. i was a political scientist for ten years before i got into politics but it doesn't take a ph.d. to understand that if you tried that in the south in, even in the '70s, your career was going to be printed and you had to get elected in order to do some of these relatively progressive things that he wanted done. >> okay. now i want to bring in butler and eva and ask, is the lead of

the land that glandulous laid out in alabama similar and are you hearing some of the same things back in your own states? >> i grew up politically of north carolina. i am from the deep south so as a child in growing up you grow and you kind of know your place as to what these kinds of norms that be accepted then would not be tolerated but when i grew up in north carolina as a politician, i think-- i didn't find the same resistance as glenn did, but i am aware that in areas where we were in rural north carolina it was unthinkable of having even a voter registration card, which is a logical peace. you know i was influenced by king and rosa parks too, by

direct action particularly in north carolina where we had dissidents which motivated us but because i had myself little earlier been influenced by quakers who were logical and reasonable, i thought it registration project would be something that north carolina could tolerate. but actually there was such a debaca reaction to that. the different reaction i had was that you had to be more direct. they would not except the normal voter registration educational projects so the citizens became more of a tool for that, but i am aware there were whites then they knew that something needed to be done and they were a release to that peace. now, i had problems, i had problems with the word stealth. still i thought of in negative terms and as tedious, a little

cowered, you know a little unworthy of us but if you think of its positive use that required practical logical but even in quiet practical logical we found that that was difficult sell even when whites and blacks tried to reason together, there was resistance and that sometimes forced a more direct peace because you couldn't reason together. you had to almost clash in making things happen. so i think the book makes an excellent read and it certainly makes us reflex of those in society, people of good and the villains in the heroes will make something normal. how you take an acceptable idea and normalize it means beverage people have to begin to see how they fit into that culture. >> okay and butler?

>> well, i come from a rural and county in south carolina who has a reputation of being one of the most segregated in maybe the most violent counties in the south after the civil war and during reconstruction. it was probably the greatest racist in the country and strom thurmond was a racist if these in the beginning of his career. i think that the main problem was that the white people and understand what eva said, that they felt that something needed to be done but they were scared to death of their peers. they were scared of this. they were scared in the coffee shops in the mornings and what not, and i visited them for 20 years. to say something positive about the situation of going forward.

i experienced that, when i got into politics, i had some personal experiences. i was the first in my county and this seems stupid now come to go around into going to black homes and shake their hands and ask them for their votes. wifi aired the secretary in my office because she refused to put mr. witnesses on the front of an african-american name. and, i remember very much one afternoon i was sitting in my office and it was a rainy afternoon. this good friend of mine, a well educated african-americans came in and we were talking. he said do you know butler, you must understand how we feel. he said-- he was epileptic.

if i were to go out on the street and i were to fall down on the street,, if a cop would come over and hit me with his billy a couple of times, they would let me by darren finally they would throw me in jail and a day or two later they would bother to find out of there was anything really wrong with me. but if you walked out there and you fell on the street, they would call an ambulance just like that. i went into politics in the state legislature in the late '60s, and i came in and met with african-americans and got their support but i had to be very careful about it because there was still that you know, that's racist begin el there. and it is still there to a certain degree. and i had to step lightly.

i remember towards the end of my congressional career, a black woman told me something that i will never forget. it was customary-- coast marielle to have the politicians meet with the white folks and then meet with the black folks. and i was doing that and i was having in meeting with a lot of my black supporters. in this woman stood up and said, congressman, she said why don't we meet together with the white folks? anti-you know, it bowled me over. she was so right and then turne so much. i think as we move along, and they think that for-- i think that era from 1970, 1964 and after the voting rights act was probably the most important period in the history of the

self in bringing it to the races together. because as you just pointed out in your opening remarks, the all know about martin luther king and we don't want to take anything away from those activist but the real ditch digging in their real skills and balance i think you found in the period that glenn has written about. >> michael. >> if i could respond to something that eva said. we struggle with that because you can't have negative connotations. just the word itself indicates, connotes something possibly bad but we look in the dictionary and it is in airforce technology designed to develop a plane that can fly and noticed. and the best, i guess i will introduce a word that is common in the literature could the racialization. essentially that is what we did.

what separated stealth what the politicians i'm talking about from traditional politicians is that we were conscious of race. we were not colorblind but we built race into the debate in positive ways. one example. when i was secretary of state, there was a federal court order. they said we have had it with you alabama. you have not appointed but poll workers. you just have not made any progress and they threatened to hold the governor and the attorney general in contempt. i was the new secretary of state with good ties to the black community in the white community and we talked the judge into turning the case over to me. what i did, i was a good, clean elections politician. we never mentioned the federal government is for us and let's do this. we pitch did that we needed a

clean and open and honest and efficient elections and i pulled the prayer rate judges and county officials who had ignored previous orders together and we worked with the black organizations, political organizations to supply new black poll workers, and we sold it publicly as an effort to have better, cleaner and more efficient elections and the newspapers of the state just grabbed it and ran with it and we were so successful in getting those local officials to deal with these black poll workers that they had never dealt with before, that the judge ended up clearing alabama and releasing the governor and the attorney general from the possibility of criminal action. >> i want to pick up on something that you just hit on and also the butler minton none

that is the importance of the voting rights act. >> the importance of what? >> the voting rights act. it seems to me and i'm happy to be corrected on this that the overwhelming the influx of new black voters for some of the stealth politics you are talking about and that is want to toss this out to anyone who wants to deal with that. was that your recs-- recollection about the impact of the voting rights election in that regard or is there some other impetus for moving the south in that direction? >> i will answer it as a nonpracticing politician at the time. i have to answer this in this way because-- is an audience and he will say you have to bring in but we learned and that is with regards the voting rights act. u.s. the question of was this

the only way? as you know the 1960's were very turbulent. we have assassinations of robert kennedy, john f. kennedy, dr. king, malcolm x and many others but to also had many successes. you have the voting rights act of 65 in the civil rights act of 64 which was a phenomenal piece of legislation. there were many other-- but you also have the election of richard nixon in 1968 and these constant protests, how sistani would that be an even after the americans had a convention in gary indiana to figure out where do we go from here, so when you ask the impact of the voting rights since 1965 i think that definitely had an impact. we have note-- new voters who would say we would attempt to work with the new system if we have politicians to work with us and that is where we had fred grays, the richard harrington's

they joe reeves to set we have these politicians who are responding to new voters. let's see what we can do to push this idea ford and that is what i would like to act on. they would have to discuss, they were talking about politicians who have a significant number of black voters in their district. immature dewhite but significant number of black voters in the votes did make a difference. we have people who said they would have never paid, never paid the black road and there were black people who got the vote in started paving the road. >> let me just underscore that quickly by saying, some of these districts when you have significant numbers of black people in your district aware disenfranchised the could ignored but the voting rights act change that and made it far more difficult to do. >> you know, i am not sure of the voting rights act changed. there is a good argument to make, and i make no conclusion

on it, but south carolina is an example. we have one of the brightest congressman in the congress, jim clairborne who is an african-american. however, he has a district that was gerrymandered and made specifically for a minority candidate. to do that, they had to pull minority members out of other districts to do that. now, those in the other districts now don't have the pressure in some instances to listen to their black constituents that they had before. i am sure jim, and i certainly understand wanting to have your own people in these things but there is a strong argument there of whether things are better or not. i guess they are. >> i will respond to both ends of the question.

there was a significant number of afro-americans in the district that white politicians constantly ignored. when we moved to washington, warren county has always been a majority black community. there was not one single elected black official. they have always had more than 60% and been moved there after they have the civil rights act. i was foolish enough to run for congress in 1960. i have no matured. [laughter] but, i remember part of the reason for wanting to do that was to bring it voter registration up. i lost really. elise towns in who you know was again the congressperson and that was the second congressional district. so when iran my first time, which we have about come at the

time 15 to 18% registration and actually it was vernon jordan who sought leaders throughout the self to try to run and i was one that agreed to do it. they wanted my husband, who was a lawyer, to run and he said he could not afford to leave his practice, so iran. but, in losing we also lost the voter registration fees and people began to see some opportunities in doing that. fastforward dow, in 1990 they had their redistricting that you were speaking about, because the voters right act had failed in the trying to motivate wide elected officials to have their representation. so, they found a way to give those opportunities-minksy were the majority then. they found a way of getting

these clusters of minorities, giving them opportunities. maybe there was a better way. proportion of representation has been argued but nevertheless this frees judges-- redistricting gave african-americans of the opportunity to be more engaged in the electorate process rather than electing someone else who represented them so you had sought in 1992 the largest member of americans ever coming into the south and i came with jim and a few others, in north carolina. when i was elected i was the first since 1901. george white was the last several american it was thrown out into the first reconstruction peace and i returned in 1992, because i came little earlier because my first husband died. constituted the first opportunity for afro-americans to be in the electoral process.

it makes it more difficult i think politically for democrats and republicans to come of four democrats now hold onto seats. and particular white democrats who had been depending on that black folk to be as safe now as they used to be, and we as that from the americans had a challenge of assuring those white minority that we were represent them as fairly as we did ourselves. i know as an elected politician i made a conscious effort to make sure that i said to everyone that i am here to serve all of you and made a conscious effort of trying to bring them and give them the confidence that i was not there just to serve blacks but i was there to serve everyone. i did that openly. >> michael comintern is back from a contemporary debate about the voting rights act because it is pretty controversial now and

go back to your question, did the 1965 voting rights act figure into what we are talking about? did it change things? i think yes a change things for cloy change things drastically by the introduction of african-american voters, but it also emphasize the peculiar rights, the interesting nature of stealth politicians. it was possible and it did happen in the 1960's and 1970's that this huge influx of black voters cause segregation with politicians to wage a racist campaigns and get elected and just completely ignored this huge numbers. but it also created a setting for politicians such as butler and me to come in and decide to do things differently, to try to merge those new african-american

voters with white voters. you know, one of the problems and political analysis is we tend to look at census data and voting records and judicial decrees and so forth, and we tend to see that as a mechanistic, causal factor in what happens is completely come of those things just cause different behaviors about politicians. what we are saying is that it is not so mechanistic, that stealth politicians represented a population of politicians who consciously decided to do it differently. and they had to figure out how to beat these segregationist's but also how not to suffer the same fate that liberal politicians who came along and pronounced themselves new bi-racial leaders into got

stumped. so, yes it did change things tremendously in the early '70s, but i think that emphasizes the interesting nature of stealth politicians. >> now, this tightrope you are talking about, talking essentially about walking a political tightrope and they are all kinds of type robes but the one you were talking about is interesting to me in that, was there some sort of godfather or godmother installed politics and alabama? who was the person-- how do the wall decide that for political survival if you want to boil it down to that level, you have to do something different and who is credited with that in your state? >> i will tell you, there was no stealth movement. we never held any conferences and said how or be going to bring the two races together? how are be going to cut deals?

the newspapers never wrote any stories about it. there was never any movement. there's just individualistic action but i can tell you and alabama my role model was harold of the. i watched howell heflin and he became my role model. he was well positioned philosophically, politically and personally and i watch the way he did things. he was a progressive senator, but he is also coming and he was popular among the whites if our state but he also nominated to black federal judges for alabama which is something that no other state had so i watched howell heflin and i watched several other politicians but he was my role model. [inaudible] >> i learned that it is possible to be relatively progressive,

even in george wallace's home state and it is possible to bring together black voters and black leaders and white voters and white leaders, if you, if they are convinced that you want to do some good things. it is possible to do so and if you are very careful and, we'll let you can the rationalize those kinds of situations, you have a chance not only of winning elections but doing some good things. >> i was just going to suggest in north carolina there were some thought the terms of, you use the word stealth. were moderates, quiet and progressive ones and they did not preach race equality as much

as-- terry sanford was certainly one fell to be progressive. luther hodges though was not thought to be as progressive but was more businesslike and broaden business opportunities. james hunt u- occasion to be the equalizer, so there are models of people who knew that there needed to be a change and found idid the economic reason or found others to bring their racist together. i don't think that they were openly saying racial inequality. sanford broad the human relations council to resolve conflicts around race and you well know the paradox we had the north carolina between very sanford and jesse hunt, i mean jesse helms. jesse helms. on one hand he is trying to

bring people together and on the other hand in the same state, jesse helms can win. eventually he chain said a little bit but not much but there was nothing stealth about jesse. what you heard is what he believed. but i think in the sense of progressive moving the races together, we have examples in those first efforts. >> i am not going to tell you that's every act of every politician had some sort of altruistic motives. of course. but i will tell you i believe there were men and women in the south in politics that had recognized that there race problem had been a millstone around the neck of the self forever. and they thought, i am talking about-- they thought enough of

their area in the south to take a chance to move up. now, you know politicians don't go around doing things that cause some boats that they can help but but there are a lot of people that took a lot of chances. i was doing a little research this afternoon and there was a congressman from orange buried south carolina. he came back from the second world war in 1946. came up here and they elected him to congress and he thought humphreys was just great and he voted for all of that step in the unelected him. you have to understand there were a lot of people that were up front that didn't make it. i think it will have a lot to do with that and an understanding-- you know, i am of the opinion that slavery did not end in this country until the end of the second world war, when you cut

air-conditioning and you did away with-- the farmers, what did they call it? sharecropping. and, that is when interest groups-- >> you never sharecrop? >> i sure didn't. [laughter] i will tell you what the, i picked cotton. [laughter] anyway, when the south started getting industries. when i was growing up, i think a lot of people didn't even work in the textile mills because those were the best jobs in town. that is where the cash was and i think when, as i said with air-conditioning, it is kind of funny but it is not funny. it is true. that is when the self started moving in started becoming progressive and i think that all fits into the same cup.

>> well, let's shift to little nell and talk about some of the theoretical parts. dimension there were people in alabama who were interested in trying to do things differently. give us an example that you came across in doing your research. >> examples of the types of policies that were in place? >> yes. >> glenn mention, there were a couple that i can mention the klan mentioned the appointment of african-american judgments-- judges. to african-american judges obviously carter appointed, and when you go back in look at judge clemons, judge myron thompson you see that they were appointed. you see that there was a controversial senate hearing and fred gray was actually appointed

as well, but that is in the book. you can see what happened. that is where you see the appointment, the confirmation hearing and you are confirmed that you don't see what our colleague, john lagrange referred to as the great medal. how did it come about? we are talking about two black judges being appointed in the late 1970's? two. how did that come about in the example of this, and that is agreed and so many others have talked about is that there were african-americans who went to el heflin and said listen, we need black judges on this bench. and a wade the approach these politicians required a very quiet manner. they laid out the rationale for why they needed it and heflin being one of more of the progressive politicians and i

must say this i did not realize, howell heflin became one of my heroes as a result of working on this book because i didn't realize all that he had accomplished and his staff did a great job of articulating this but this was an example in the great middle about how that came about that he would appoint these black judges and alabama hadn't had you know, a black judge previously, before and i think clemons just stepped down last january. so that is one example. redistricting. alabama is 25% african-americans and i think we are probably one of the few states in the cell for african-americans in the house of representatives reflect the number. >> i think they are the-- stayed in the country. >> you talk about this in the book come as a result of this

bi-racial, quiet feeling where you have one african-american going to speaker clark in saying listen, this is the demographics. you know, we think we deserve this amount of the african-american legislation. i am sorry, african-american representatives. there is disagreement as to whether not that was progress. you talk about paul huppert and joe reed, paul hubbard would say it created a more republican district by joe read will say listen we got 25% of african-americans reflecting the population in the states of those are two examples of what went on behind the scenes and we were told don't get into a lot of the details. you will have to read the book but those are two examples that stick out because those are to example set for reference on the panel. >> that one case you mentioned about the two federal black

judges, that was a situation where howell heflin met with the black state leadership and behind closed doors. as a matter of fact howell heflin and member of this audience, i won't name to but it member of this audience were the only to people white in the room and they talked about it and they said judge havlan, we have supported you and we think that's one of the things this state needs is, or this country needs is more black federal elected officials. do you agree? by the way, he was running. let me assure you, stealth politics that i am talking about wasn't always noble. it was often raucous. we had a lot of knock down drag out behind closed doors. when we would talk in ratio language, not racist but quite

frank racial language. and howell heflin once he agreed that it was time to appoint black federal judges for alabama, he did not go out with the black leaders and hold a press conference and say we have struck a deal. i am going to get the black endorsement in nominate a black federal judges. but that is the way it happened. >> you know, i think we are looking at it-- that is the african-american community. it wasn't just the white folks who were making the moves in being-- and so forth. in my home county when i was in the state legislature, there were african-americans who i became very close to and they pushed me and pushed me and pushed me and they finally got me to get to the courthouse one

night. one side of it was black and one side of it would be white. then the african-americans exercise their grieves about what they were not getting. and i did it in that will tell you what, i was scared to death. i will be honest with you. i was scared to death. i did note that was the end of my political career or if i was going to get shot or what. but you know, we don't give people credit sometimes. there were no bad repercussions from it. as a matter of fact they think there were a lot of good repercussions from that. >> we are talking about success as. there is the other side of the coin. i want to give the impression that everything was a success. i'm going to ask you to talk about some of the failures. were there things that you tried to do that you never got done?

>> yes, yes there were. as a matter of fact, you have to look at this as in politics, you always looking at is the glass half full or half-empty? yes, there were times and if you look in the book you will see some of the calculations. in my mind, how we would have to face the issues and i'm sure butler had to face issues and even had to face issues. in the south you are always conscious of race. you are always conscious of the south's history and of the current legacy and you are always conscious of how is this going to play back home? frankly, at times i would, i never voted a racist those, but i will try to keep my record balance, and i will tell you how we defined balance. balances what is required of the

white southerner continuing in office with a d behind his name so yes sometimes when you didn't get to do everything you want it, but most of the times i think you were able to compromise and keep the-- kick the can a little further down the road. >> let me just say this. you know i think we need to approach it from this engel as well. this is what we are talking about politics now. with this really is is bringing peoples together, blacks and whites. i was in an audience of about two weeks ago. jim clyburn i guess everybody knows is the third ranking member of the house, it is an african-american and i was in the audience. he spotted me out there and i don't know if he was trying to be funny or what but he said butler and i have been friends for 40 years and--

[inaudible] [laughter] >> during that time there was an area where if blacks were to intimate with whites it was a sellout in terms of those areas but i do believe that the moderate come a long controversial issue brings things to more acceptability. rather it is about race or rather it is said about wore or whatever conflict, at some point, the difference between those who were at the very opposite ends there had to be a middle that's fine sways to accept these value systems, and the politician gets to accept that as a value system because their political life depends on

it. you know, they kind of learn and part of it also lists and it is interesting we were discussing this, this look back, reflectiveness of what happened at the time now when we were just electing the first black esident. and it is almost unseemly that we were making such accommodation. both blacks and whites made accommodations. we grew up in the south. you know, i am reflecting about my-- that thought to myself, hell i accept it without much question that i've lived right next door to a white family, played with them and yet we went to different schools and could not ride the bus together. and the accommodation that was instilled in me by a lot of things, the church i went to whatever, said there were a lot of institutional pressures to

accept inhumanity in this respect to yourself, so you have to find ways to break that and i think part of what this mil group did was to give courage to those who were less than heroic perhaps and certainly were not as bad as a villain but to find ways of having society to deal with what they knew they needed to deal with. >> you will recall, remember around 1995 all the church burnings in the south? you and i worked together. we got the white southern, white southerners together and the black southerners, and we went out and made-- i think artemesia you worked on that for me. we came to get there and we said this is outrageous. this cannot be tolerated. we got the attorney general to come in and tell us what he was doing. i think we were able to keep

that, not only to make sure that the justice department was going to stop that and find the people and prosecute them, but also we were able to keep it from becoming such a visit issue in the south. i think it was the visit of the visit was but her office and by the office, we worked together on trying to present that front of doing things, responding to crises a little differently. >> by the way we also shared-- >> she came to work when she came to washington to work for me and after i left you went to work with congresswoman clayton. >> in a minute we are going to go to q&a so if you want to start asking questions you can begin to make their way toward the microphone. etesse lintless a couple of quick questions before we turn it over, one of which is, so we

have this concept is still politics. we have a good understanding of what it is and why it was necessary. but, going forward, what lessons should we be trying to teach leaders and aspiring leaders about how to work in bi-racial coalitions? the i think that this is just sort of understood that we have a black president know and people will come together because that is just the way things are, it is a new world. but it is not always like that. i think the practical concerns could perhaps get in the way of that so i just want to know and perhaps anyone can jump in, what do we teach, what do we tell these new leaders? >> we have some recommendations at the end of our book. i will cite a couple and turn it over to our to misha. one of my recommendations, especially for southern

politicians, who want to be southern politicians, is to understand the history of race and racism in our region, that it is not simply history. it is a contemporary legacy. we are still leading with the legacy of slavery and segregation. and, to understand, once you understand that, realize that the race came as a college in the book, it is a continuity. we are trying to achieve progress but if you are a southern politician, the race card will be played at some time in your career and you have to be prepared to deal with that card constructively. and there are ways to deal with that, with the race card, with do you are a white politician or a black politician. at some point the race card will be played. you can't control it. you can control your component.

you can control your supporters, you can control the media and you can't control rabble-rousers' and you better be prepared to deal with it. we had better learn how to make progress. we have not reached a post racial society. we have got to now move forward and we had better move forward quickly because it is though longer going to be a bi-racial, it is not a bi-racial future. it is a multiracial future and i will tell people who think it is too tough, if those of us up here, if we could deal with the racial problems of our region, a pekid deal with that and improve the situation, then surely people today can deal with racial problems because we had a very blatant, fly grant system.

>> also, one thing going forward is to find the value in the inclusiveness that we as a community all made whole, and the importance of teaching that or having that understood i think makes it beyond the race for the gender. it is our common good is dependent on us all having the opportunity and i'm not suggesting that this is economic security over freedom but i am saying part of it is a resource education opportunity and we can find that is a cool to improving our community as a whole and then each of us as individual races or cultures would find some value in sustaining the others to be as strong as we are. >> any thoughts, butler? >> you know, people tend to do

things, things that are in their best interest and i think one thing we need to teach people that it is in our best interest to cooperate. i don't have a plan or anything like that, but you know i think in a sense, that is what stealth politics is about. >> i share the sentiment that there is a commonality within all of us regardless of race and background, and i think it is important, when we are talking about the rationalize politics are stealth politics that, when you think about politics, it is about who gets what, how and why and we have a lot of issues and many african-american communities, and the mississippi. and i think sometimes we are trying to find commonality within the norms of the system

and we forget about the impact, the structural impact that racism has had on these types of conditions. so instead of talking about the need to provide health care as a means to help people without wells or without, who does not have a middle-class income, we tend to talk about it as this big government trying to take over so what i'm saying is i think we have to understand there is some commonality and when we talk about stealth politics we should not do it at the expense of ignoring systemic poverty that in many cases occurred because of the past racial problems. so i would just hope politicians both black and white don't talk about the middle class when they are trying to bring people together for the sake of leaving

the other stuff off the table, because it is an inconvenient and really messy. >> one quick question and i have to squeeze this in before we go to questions from the audience. i am fascinated by the picture on the cover of this book. [laughter] for those of you have not seen it, there's a picture on the cover of the book here, can you take 30 seconds and tell us the story about it? >> some of you in the audience may want to ask about our relationship because as you can imagine we have had our tensions. because she comes at it from a particular perspective and i come at it from a different perspective. this is a controversial thesis were pitching. ..

and we had some discussion on that but we decided to focus on a white politicians because we didn't feel like we had the background or the resource to cover both sides and my explanation and after a great discussion that's the way it was and black politicians were white

politicians working with leaders. we can at a time when we were -- we had the power and we were elected to do things differently. from today's standpoint, you might question that but back then that was -- shaking hands, was a drastic break from the past and we thought it was just a good depiction, and i know she's getting her teeth over here and she might want to add something. by the way we did have a debate because i wanted to put a confederate flag in the background just to show the perspective we came from. she said no, that's offensive. i don't what you intend the message to be that is offensive. >> i thought after all these years working on this i was quick to have to get off the

book. [laughter] that's honest i called my colleagues in the office and said maybe i'm being too sensitive about this know, fortunately quickly we talk about this and it was agreed and was changed. spikelets open it to you all. we want to start on this side and go back and forth until everyone gets a question. >> in many of your states the football coach or basketball coach is the most distinctive white personality on the planet down there. do you have any stories of bear bryant or frank mcguire or dean smith contributed to the efforts you undertook here? >> i do with bear bryant. if you look at the book index we have got -- we've list a book on religion, billy graham, we list

a book on thomas auslin, and we list a book on music because in religion, sports and music you've written a book about "stealth reconstruction" in the south using those views. but i understand. i never knew of bear bryant but supposedly bear bryant did more to foster desegregation in alabama and anybody else because he took the alabama football team to southern california one year and what was it, sam the bam cunningham debate kuran oliver alabama and bear bryant supposedly came home and said it's time to rethink the way we do things and supposedly that

was one of the turning points. >> said cunningham integrated the enso. >> yes, he did. >> let me say this, south carolina never has had a football team strong enough to be any sort of -- [laughter] but in any event -- this was in the question but i think it is -- i want to say this just to say it. i think that one of the main problems that politics in this country as we treat it like a football game and it is so, so important and we make such things up. you didn't ask that question. [laughter] >> dean smith was noted to give many african-american opportunities in that area, very famous athletes who give him

credit for mentoring. there's a gentleman who said he himself was quoted to run as senator but refused to do it. >> so in the last 20 years there is one form of increased polarization namely we don't seem to have the number of moderate democrats we used to have because they are literally dying and we don't have the progressive republicans that existed like gil carmichael for existence of mississippi in the 1950's, the eisenhower's republicans. as we have a racial politics, and i wonder is the stealth politics still going on? is it going on between black democrats and white republicans in a state like alabama where obama got exactly 10% of the white vote? >> i don't think it is stealth politics as we define it is going on because it is

impossible now, you can't do things skillfully. it happened, it came to berth in the 70's, florist in the 80's and by the 90's you couldn't do stealth politics anymore. the african-americans were not willing to be the junior partner and republicans would not like you've pull that off and the media were on top of everything so i think the stealth politics was appropriate for the 70's, 80's, and 90's but isn't possible anymore. to speak on the second question about the polarization, the decline of the moderate democrats and moderate republicans i think the redistricting has been handled to protect incumbents that we have fewer districts that will be a toss of district that will elect a democrat this time and

republican that time and encourage people to be moderate. i think the polarization in a lot of ways is viewed to protect incumbents. >> in answer to your question i want to say one thing. when i was a little kid my grandfather would take me with him and there was one house every time he passed that house he pointed his finger and said their lives a republican. [laughter] and i will say this negative if he were alive today and i were in the car with him he would say their lives a democrat. so the man says what's changed. there's a lot that has changed but there's a lot that has not changed. >> i want to take us back a little bit before the 1970's because there's some stories that set things up for the story

that you're telling. 1963i wrote a term paper at the university of chicago that argued racial segregation in the schools in this better in the south than in the north and i said it for two reasons; first of all for the demographic reasons and the way that african-americans were distributed in a lot of towns and split up in the northern big ghetto was and it was difficult. but the other reason was a certain aspect of southern culture that i think a lot of people don't get enough credit to, there was a cultural civility in the south including civility between black and white leaders and the way i have some sense of that is my father in 1945 moved to north carolina and joined citizens community that had both white and black people in it and they accomplished a

review and they passed a package of reform legislation on welfare which was of course very racially distributed at that time and made progress so that at least within the context of the south north carolina was in the lead for a while. well that kind of story has been told by in the mind of the south and by keith miller and some of his other writings but a lot of what was going on was very, very local. it was people who the people and they were not necessarily thinking about changing the big picture book they wanted to deal with getting the roads paved were getting a school that had a cafeteria and things that could be done and that was going on at the retail small level where you could accomplish that and i think what happened is the civil rights movement gave some of those people who already

established relationships a lot more sense to work with so what the black folks were getting wasn't just the leftovers or the crumbs off the table but they could start asking for something more. but importantly they had somebody to talk to and in the north a lot of times there was nobody to talk to. >> that's my opinion. i would be interested in what you have to say. >> he has referred to that despite the wrong breschel history and the south and the legacy, you grew up probably a couple doors to did you say from the white -- when i grew up to doors down black, and as bad as the relationship was i think most southerners, black and white know somebody and people of the other race on a personal basis and there's a certain bond

of trust. that is sometimes a worked bond of trust as one of the black leaders say in alabama better the devil that you know than the devil that you don't know. >> i want to tell you i think that is -- >> or the angel that you don't know. >> that is romanticizing the whole situation. i think it is a lot of b.s.. [laughter] [applause] sure, as long as the black person was a southern and as long as the white person was a dominating one of course it did. >> that is not argument against my position, i said to the same thing. but at least you know people of good faith can come together. [laughter] >> i stick by what i said. [laughter] [applause]

>> i would disagree with you either. >> the things we said in the south is not how close you live but you need a place and that meant blacks knew they couldn't move so far and the whites knew they had a nomination. where in the north they said they didn't want to get close to you because they didn't want the proximity of that. so i think both black and white had to move out of the susceptibility that i had to -- i should have been more irritated as a young person but i live next door when i couldn't sit on the same bus. and most of that story in my community of a block of there were about three white families. the two who were merchants who actually lived off, you know, the produce of buying things of

with the blacks did, and then the family that lived next to me, my mother reminded were probably two quote to move when we moved in. we became friends. but i remember distinctly my mother never allowing me to play in their yard. i'm not sure why. but they came and played in my yard. and also, they borrowed sugar and money. my mother would never borrow from them. there was just the parallel she didn't want to be obligated to them and she didn't want any misunderstanding with us going there. so there were accommodations. and we had to grow our of those accommodations. so it took both black and whites. the same for us gave us the strength to say we should resist that kind of thing. and i think the motivation that

king gave and others, we knew we should do that. the sit-ins in north carolina motivated other students to get in that turmoil came the realization both on black and whites to stand up for your rights and as used to look for your rights for you to now know that you should do something. so it is both of us i think needed to go further than we did as human beings. i can't get you to the right thing unless i respect myself. when i respect myself i demand that you respect me. so that is part of the evolution of what we have. >> we are running very short on time, and i'm sorry that we will only be able to take three additional questions. i apologize in advance to those of you that will not be able to ask a question but we would like -- very quickly. >> i want to express my appreciation for the wisdom of your mother. she understood the power relationship and refused to give up the power which she could

control. there's a concept in science called stochastic process is and what it means is you change one parameter of the system in such a slow fashion and so easy that the other values with the other parameter don't change. there is another concept in politics called in incremental change. i think that your concept of stealth politics is much more stochastic process the in incremental change. it is leading the power of relationships in place. one of the reasons why it is so acerbic -- it is more a historical. i haven't read the book but my expectation is this is a historical document and that if you are talking about race relations, anything that feeds thinking for current interactions because in my mind the power of relationships are the key relationships and african-americans have gotten or have and need to get the notion that nobody can have power over us that we don't give them and

that we have as much of a responsibility for the outcomes in our society as do white people and we need to step up to the plate and began to exercise the kind of spiritual and intellectual leadership that we have invested in our community that will enable us to add value to the conversation in this society. but as a theoretical and methodological observation i want to ask if you could abstract from this notion of stealth politics to the context of the nature, timing and dynamics of change and identify other situations or so-called stealth politics as applicable. afghanistan flexible, changes in the middle east. are we going to secularize that society? how does the united states get out in front of the conversation of terrorism? those kind issues i think it's important that we think in terms of the nature, the dynamics of change to enable us to make

progress in those areas. there's lots of areas where the dynamics in the nature of change matter. i don't think stuff politics is useful, pardon me, in the context of discussion race relations because we are still believed was a beyond that at this point in time. but i think that there is possible for all you -- value to its application of other areas. >> i would just say this is a historical document about changes from the 70's, 80's and 90's. we know a lot about the drama and clash of good versus evil. but we don't know how those changes unfolded over those years and that's why we've tried to pick so that we can fill the gap about some of the exchange's >> good evening. i'm an undergraduate student at st. augustine college in raleigh north carolina. good to see you, congressman

clafin. my question is inspired by something that congressman derrick said earlier. do you still feel that currently a lot of white politicians are still afraid or still are frightened that something will be said or done to their political career if they stood outside of the comfort zone and work with african-american leaders largest minority leaders in the community? >> yes i do but not nearly as much as they did 20, 30, 40 years ago, and i think that has been the bottom line as the great contribution of stealth politics has made and of course they've created the situation themselves because it takes a great talent to balance these things. the basic answer to your question is yes i think so, but not to mirror what it was. thank you.

>> good morning. i'm also an undergraduate at memphis the university of memphis. and i have a question and comment as well. miss eva clayton, you talked about inclusiveness. i guess we all know this would affect one affects the other indirectly so having these types of discussions open the and freely about race and politics in our society today's time is very important and to the lady's question earlier i appreciate the question. it's because we are past self politics or doing things quietly because young people of today, we are more open to talking about race and how it affects a were daily lives. so the question really is where it is our america, the capitalist ideolog fit into

the midst of coleworts working together? [laughter] >> thanks, fred. i do think when you began to look at the current economic status and find how we are surviving the question is is a question of race or resources that creates a poverty, and i think how we discussed that still has to be based on your larger principle that what affects us all, what affects one affect soc all. examples to the extent that capitalism and particularly the current economy has been influenced so much by the banking system, health care is that? how do we make accommodation for such an error and finance that

affects all of us economically? how do we make the combination refining health care as a way of the equalizing or education as a way of equalizing and if education is a basis of all as being productive in the capitalist society than it is the central that it's equal. if health is essential to live in this basic right in there. so part of this is finding value in the system that respects the individual of the race of the culture. >> you want to jump on that? >> congressman clayton and it's perfectly. but capitalism -- what i said is politics is who gets what, when, and how and i think our economy,

the fact we are in a difficult economic situation, you have people returning back to nativism and tea party movements. people that are -- the tea party if it appears to be a predominantly white man, you will see a lot of black faces in that movement and the policy that negatively because i support some of the ideas they articulate but my point is that when you are saying that we need to equalize education someone is going to say where is that coming from? i'm already paying one fourth -- well, one-third of my income on taxes. when you talk about the need to bring about equality people say where does that come from. where does the money, where does the resources come from and it is the same concept when we are talking about black and white, neighbors living next to one another. the african-american neighbor is fighting for something as basic as freedom and equality whereas the white neighbor may be fighting for a decent wage but i

think the economics exploit that and just one final thing i will say is that two of the things we learned recently with senator harry reid, and it goes back to what attorney general holder says that we are a nation of cowards when it comes to talking about race. when harry reid said with regard to president obama is how many people in america few african-americans as a candidate but you can't say that as a white politician and expect not to take hits. at the same time harry reid was able to go back to his african-american district and have this big forum and say you know, mako the and another reason is to kaput -- remember when obama was in san francisco he made the comment of the record that, you know, americans claim to their guns and what else -- and their religion and

that was played over the place and people were saying what is the real obama. so you couldn't go to one sitting and say one thing to one group. you can't do that now and then in another setting in another group and not be played 24 hours a day and that makes it difficult but i think capitalism exploits the comoletti because capitalism about profits it's too individualized and i think the fact we have a poor economy -- well, i don't want to support economy, president obama is working on this. i love the president. but the fact we are in an economic difficulty and two wars puts people in different corners again. >> we have come to the npv we are going to ask -- we've thank you all for coming. [applause]

we hope that he will take the time to meet the ahors and purchase a copy of the book and ask them to sign it. they are about to duck out now to prepare to do that. thank you for coming. [applause] >> glen browder is the former democratic representative from alabama's third congressional district from 1989 to 1987. racial politics inside the race game of southern history. artemesia stanberry is professor of north carolina university. for more information, visit newsouthbooks.com.

every year the national press club hosts and author evening. this evening we are with frank, former president of the national press club and a journalist for 40 years. to have a new book entitled never a slow day at interest of 20th century newspaper reporter. what has it been like to be a journalist in the 20th century? >> it's been the most fun you can have with your clothes on. [laughter] the title of the book is never a slow day and it is absolutely true. i never had a day when i watched the clock or wanted to be someplace else. sometimes it was dramatic. sometimes it was frightening. sometimes it was purely happy and occasionally i sat and read the paper with my feet on the desk but i always learn

something every day. >> you are a correspondent with the milwaukee journal and the sentinel; correct? and you covered -- rear here in d.c. during the 1960's. were there any stories you remember from that period? >> i covered civil rights back in the 1960's when i was in milwaukee, and that was the best story i ever covered and the reason for that was that the issue was so bright and you didn't have to compromise any journalistic principles. you basically have to tell the story and you felt like you are part of the movement. after i came to washington i covered a lot of other big stories including both the impeachment proceedings against both president nixon and clinton, covered those all the way through and went to war in desert shield and covered many of other big stories in washington over 30 years. >> we are at the national press club. i think a lot of viewers want to know what is the national press club? >> natl