>> what is your precise question? put it to me briefly. >> host: the caller is gone. she was talking about whether or not -- i hate to rephrase this because i will be criticized for it but america's christianity, how do we back and file them with our political acts? >> g. k. chesterton once said christianity is yahoo! not found to be one thing. it has been found to be difficult and so not tried at all. there's some truth in that. an country, according to overwhelming practice of its inhabitants, but christians often profess beliefs and then don't put them in practice. a lot of americans do, and i think america has come as close as any other nation to trying to

create a christian way of life. but it's -- there's a lot wanting there. but this is something that ordinary people can do something about. often events areon their control -- are beyond their control and there's nothing they can do. this terrible earthquake in haiti, nothing much they can do about that. but whether a country is a christian country or not, and whether it expresses christian practices and shows a christian way of life is something that all the people can do something about. it's something that every individual american citizen can do something about. we can all all lead christian l, set a christian example, we can all talk and behave insofar as ross our private lives and public lives are concerned in a christian way.

so, here is something where christianity is not incompatable with good behavior by a great make. >> host: and finally, >> and finally, mr. johnson, mark in harrisburg, pennsylvania, wants to know after such an a lustrous career do you have any plans on writing an autobiography? >> yes, i'm bringing out shortly a book about all the famous people i have known in the last 60 years and whom i have met and learned from. i've got about 250 names in that, but i think i'm also going to write a little book about my experience as a young man. at school, at boarding school, at oxford university, in the army, and then in my first job, which was in paris. i thought of writing a book about my youth, describing the four great experiences. so if i live, that's what i will

do, and it will be published in a year or two. >> mr. johnson, he has written over 50 books, one of his first was in 1957, the suez war. his most recent, 2009, "churchill." he has been our guest on "in depth." thank you, mr. johnson. >> thank you for having me.

>> journalist gwen ifill in "the breakthrough: politics and race in the age of obama," ms. ifill profiles massachusetts governor deval patrick, newark mayor cory booker, congressman artur davis and president barack obama, and present your thoughts on the role that the civil rights movement played in their roads to office. gwen ifill discusses her book at miami book fair international. this is 50 minutes. >> what a pleasure to wish each of you a good afternoon. i am professor and on today i had the honor of her present the united faculty of miami-dade college. it is an organization of over 500 professors and different discipline areas, some of whom are actually published office. we invite you to stop by the

faculty published works move in section a of the street fair to view our work. we are also supporting efforts to bring the fair and we have provided green boxes for you dispose your name tags and landed on your way out. so on the final day of the booker we invite you to go ahead and put your nametags and green boxes as we celebrate the green fare if it. nbc faculty have long supported the fair as volunteers because we are greatly appreciative of all that the books have done along with our colleagues at the florida center for the literary arts. they have done much to do. they have done much to enrich the learning environment at the college. this year we are very proud to sponsor the best selling author of the book, "the breakthrough: politics and race in the age of obama," gwen ifill is the moderator and managing editor of washington week, and the correspondent for the news hour with jim lehrer. she has covered six presidential campaigns and to moderate the

vice presidential debate during the presidential elections in 2004, and 2008. gwen ifill says she's always known she wanted to be a journalist, and we are pleased that she was able to achieve her dream. because what she does as a public broadcaster allows us to access these important issues facing our community and the nation as a whole. her book, "the breakthrough," offers insight on the new path to power for future leaders. she is here to tell us more about that important work. may i present gwen ifill. [applause] >> hey. thank you. it's so great to see you all. it's sold out. i'm so impressed.

[laughter] >> listen, i am thrilled to be here. i have to tell you i love talking about this book, but i love even more hearing your questions. son going to chat for a while, just a little chitchat and then i'm going to ask you to come to the microphone. i bet there is one microphone here for your. i will take as many questions before the hook comes out because this is how i learn and how i figure people is my business. i know you're shocked to hear that, but it turns out i don't know that much at all. that's one of the reasons why i started out writing this book. i was approached by a publisher to write a book about barack obama and i said he will never be president. [laughter] >> what a waste of time. which is why i am not a pundit, you see. [laughter] >> so i said to them instead, there's a bigger story here. there's a story about a whole generation of obama. is not just the one, what he was elected president or not. and this was when he was

senator. there are other people internet i'd come across through my entire career who were not exactly like him but were doing things that their parents had really thought for them to do. they had walked through the doors, their parents had open for the. and i realize as i traced through the arc of my career that i had encountered them. i had encountered this many, many times. i want to start by telling you how i came to do this. in the larger sense of how i came to really tell the story. if i can find it that the very first page of how hard can this be? i learned how to cover race riots by telephone. they didn't pay me enough in my first newspaper job to venture onto the grounds of south boston high school when bricks were being thrown. instead i would telephone the headmaster each and every day and ask him to relate to me the number of broken chairs in the cafeteria after each fight. a white colleague would then be dispatched to the scene and would relate back to me what the

details were. i spent 30 years in journalism since then. older than i look. [laughter] >> chronicling stories just like that, places where truth and consequences collide, rub up against each other and shift his discourse. know that prepared me for 2008 and the astonishing rise of barack obama. it's true yet accomplish what no black man had before, but it went further than that. simply as an exercise as efficient politics obama rewrote the textbooks. has a competent was historic and one that transform how race and politics intersects in our society. all bombing is the leading-edge of that change in his is just a ripple in the pond it grows deeper every day. so i thought this won't be hard that i got a plan. i'm going to profile for people. i was expected to work for a living covering this election which meant i would squeeze this book and read everything else i was doing. so i thought i would do for

profiles of four people. i selected barack obama, but also deval patrick could just been elected the first african-american of massachusetts. i would find someone from congress, artur davis, who talk about audacity of hope is currently running for governor of alabama. [applause] >> in my lifetime, it should be said george wallace was governor of alabama. so i thought i'd just that old enough to think this was interesting. [laughter] >> and a fourth person i profiled with cory booker who is a young mayor of newark, new jersey. one of these things that they all have in common is they all tried to do this once before, at least, and been told no. they been told it wasn't their turn or they had run for office and been defeated, and i thought to myself, what does this mean, who are these people, who told them they could do this? barack obama had run for congress and been defeated before he was elected to the

senate. artur davis had run for congress and been defeated before he got that seat in congress. the same thing with cory booker when he first ran for mayor. the ball patrick had never run for dog catcher before so he was kind of an outlier. but the interesting thing more i talk to that in the more i talk to other people who knew the kind of work they did, they started pointing me to other people i hadn't thought of, had never met like the mayor of philadelphia. the mayor of iowa city, iowa, who knew? the mayor of columbus and buffalo and all kinds of places where in order to get elected as an african-american, you had to get a majority of whites voted for this means they were not people who are elected from carefully don't drawn districts which were then, these were people who are finding a way to persuade people with whom they didn't have as much in common to vote for them. so i thought to myself, they should be here but what is the theme? one of the things that came across was the generational one. it turns out a lot of these young people, some of them,

deval patrick is in his early '50s but he was the oldest of them. a lot of them came of age at a time when their parents were very engaged in the world about the. deval patrick's mother took him to hear martin luther king speak, was a youngster in chicago. barack obama grew up all over the doggone place. and eventually landed back in came to understand as he writes so eloquent in his elbow, his own racial heritage as he rides in "dreams from my father." when you begin, there is something they did that one of the things they did is they recognize their parents walked through a lot of doors that they got to glide through. they realize their parents had down at lunch counters and picketed, but by the time they came of age there were no more lunch counters that times have changed that the goals had changed that jesse jackson whose campaign i covered in 1988 was one of the people who knocked down the doors that people don't give him enough credit for what he accomplished in his second

run for president, he won 13 contest that year and he was the last candidate standing before michael dukakis won the nomination. there was something interesting about having covered him and then watch them on election night, watch barack obama win. which is an entirely different conversation. but i talk to both reverend jackson and you've president obama while i was working on this book, about their relationship. because are a couple of things said during the campaign that weren't always nice. but it turns out these things are more competition, it was so much more competent than that. let me read you a little bit about what president obama told about the conversation he had with jesse jackson. he said something that's very accurate, obama told me. he said barack, we have to break the door down which means sometimes you are not polite. you get bloodied up a bit, you get scores. you happen had to go through that and that's a good thing.

that's part of what we went through. i don't expect you to have the same battle scars that i did. so i met all these people who didn't have the same battle scars as their parents. i met a 28 year old who is now a state representative and south carolina whose father lead and was arrested during a massacre in south carolina. yet he is now in the state house and south carolina thinking about running for governor some day. and when he traveled the back roads of the state he doesn't see white or black houses. he sees housing and he sees that as his goal. how does he serve his people and not necessary to find himself strickland by race? there are also philosophical differences sprung up between the older generation and the current generation. one of them is that among them, is this idea of how one and just change. when you came of age in the '60s, marching was how you infected change. challenging, court challenges, that's a civil rights laws got

past. well, okay. so it comes back to jesse jackson because his son is now a member of congress. along the way i realized what we now had was a legacy which was building up. members of congress whose children were now taking their seats, or broadening out, jesse jackson senior never held elective office but jesse jackson junior does and he's up the world a little different. so i want to talk to him and he said to me. he believes there's a continuum of black politics. but while the father thinks back to the ark of the movement that started in the '50s, the sun is more focused on saving black folks from the sense of the fathers. there is a movement and the black community toward accountable leadership, he said to me. the paradigm for the unaccountable leaders has drastically shifted that i consider very respectfully, and this is for the record he said, my father to be a part of the unaccountable leadership that

even though i completely believe in and trust his mission and his motives for that which he does, but he continued, the press conference, television visibility of lack of follow-through, and everything is a civil rights issue is profound on accountable to the masses of people and to history. now i was a little taken back because he clearly came with something on his mind that he needed to share. [laughter] >> so i had to go reverend jackson. i've a question for you. and i asked him about what his son had to say. the elder jackson is kenya where of his sons apostasy. [laughter] >> he said, i encourage in our house biggest debate. and there is no punishment for different point of views. we have different roles. jackson senior is the agitator, jackson junior is the negotiator. i would love to spend thanksgiving at their table. [laughter] >> the other thing i found a lot of these candidates had in mind

was that they came of age at a time when people were asking a couple of interesting questions. like people would ask, so, is he black enough? and why people would generally say, he seems a little too black. now, for black people i kept thinking what are they talking about? are they talking about skin color, skin tone or the way he speaks? michael nutter, the mayor of philadelphia, wanted to know do they want me to wear my hat backwards, my jeans lower? what are they talking about? and i discover people said he is a little too black that means there was a discovered that came out of the jeremiah wright episode. so i kept digging trying to figure out what did it mean. took me to the night of the south carolina primary. you remember at this point barack obama had won in new hampshire, i mean in iowa and had lost nearly in new hampshire. and really in order to survive he was going to have to win in south carolina, which seemed like an interesting thing to try

and was running against hillary clinton. but he wanted on the night brought obama once after primary, his supporters could barely contain himself. bounce back from you surprised at the two weeks before in new hampshire, the double-digit victory thrilled the crowd gathered that night in the hours of the south when the candidate appeared on stage. they took up a chance, race doesn't matter, race doesn't matter. they shouted it and spread throughout the. standing at the foot of the stage and a ballroom just blocks with a capital was obama's african-american pollster, he was watching in astonishment. and he said to me after the election was over, here you are in south carolina, three blocks from where the confederate flag is still flying, in front of the state capital. and all the history that is held in the state and you have a group of young white people shouting race doesn't matter. now, does that mean there is no racism? no. but were they screaming and

shouting the world they wanted to exist? yes. that is powerful and profound. and very different. so as i began to get to the bottom up what it was that people meant when they talked about racial identity, i realized it was a lot simpler than we were making it out to be. we have a habit of talking about race always in terms of conflict or it turns out this wasn't about conflict. this was about are you on my site? when black folk look at black achievers who came out of nowhere, and they were being embraced by white people of all things, they said wait a second that are used to going to represent me? are you going to represent my interests? when white voters or any voters of any other color looked at another candidate who is not like him and said, they are only speaking to black issues, or they seem to be aligned with radical types in the community. are they speaking to me? which goes to very fundamental rule of politics, which is in order to get elected to have to convince the majority of the people you're asking to vote for

you that you will represent them. that you understand where they're coming from and what it is they need. this is probably a lesson i first learned covering jesse jackson campaign in 1988, when i went uncovered for a short time pat roberts can't be free to thank pat roberts, jesse jackson, never in the trench on the. both bridges but other than that not so much. [laughter] >> but i went into these audiences and i discovered that people who came to see them have more in common than they had different under the skin carpet they all want someone to speak to them, to speak for them. they felt their families were falling apart. they wanted someone to speak for middle-class values. black folk and white folk. they had a lot in common and that that maybe we'll have more comment about what we are asking for our leaders then we admit. so i learned a lot. i talk to people who kept telling me these things. among the things they told me which i thought was very interesting was that we come in our community, and in a

community, when i say community, i mean multiracial and. we are not good at handing over the torch to the next level of folks who are coming through. once you get the power it feels kind of good to you. when someone else comes knocking it says i would like a little bit of that, please. you kind of sick just a minute, i will get back to you. none of these breakthrough candidates were waiting for anybody to get back to them. they were saying i want to stay to this now. a great example of this was i talk to a guy who is now the youngest had ever of the naacp. 36 years old when he got elected. basically 100 year old organization, but he had always been involved in lots of different kinds of activism that he was a 20 year organizer for the afl-cio when he went to attended 1993 march on washington for jobs, justice and peace. it was an anniversary of the original march.

and he got there and discovered an interesting thing. there were two stages. the historical powerful lincoln stage where martin luther king delivered his i have a dream speech. and any other kid stage which was on the grounds of the washington monument. that is where young people were. everybody he said was talking about time to pass the torch. time to pass the torch. but this didn't sit well with me. so he listened to the words of the older speakers who were there. include civil rights activist julian bond. he got wind of the discontent and he was picking on the main stage. and he said to them, if you perceive that i have a torch that represents power and you want asking for it. you should snatch it. so now we have the spectacle of folks who have been snatching power and what happens once they get it? and that's when i began to write to update the book, to add an word after barack obama had been

in office for someone speak and i thought to myself, you know, there's so much happening. a good thing about writing about races, something is always happening. it never seems to him. that's good and that is bad because what keeps happening so often is conflict. as i travel the country talk about this people said to me why do you even have to talk about the fact that he is black. is just an american. and art we post-racial now? and i wrestled with this because i realize i extensively did not believe we are post-racial but over the reasons people would assume. not because there's always another conflict around the corner but because it's possible to consider a race as a positive. and the politics of difference is a good thing. when i wake up every morning and i discover i'm still black,. [laughter] >> i do not cry. i do not go, boo-hoo, what a shame, what a burden. because i kind of like it. and i like it i like it in a way that i would like for other

people to understand why, that is part of who i am, culturally and so many other ways. and i don't expect you to be that. but we ought to have a way of discussing it with each other. what i discovered as i travel around the country, people want to talk about, they want to say the things that usually don't leave your dining room table because you're a little unnerved by it that back i asked the ones, a meeting like this, in maryland, he said, you know, it seems to me that fellow barack obama is very well spoken, and so you. so if all of your people were well spoken -- [laughter] -- what your problems be over? and i said, well are all your people well spoken? [laughter] [applause] >> now, i try not to hurt peoples feelings when i say these things, but the truth is that we have to climb out of some of our preconceptions about who we are. if we can do that without trying to erase race, i think we could

be a more mature, more reasonable society. and without being so defensive. one of the things after watching barack obama handle this delicately, his first several months in office, i realize he wasn't talking about race that much. he wasn't asked about that much. he got ignored again annoyed when people brought in the. the unknowing to kind of understand this want to get a politician wants reminded how much he is like you, not how much he is unlikely. but i also noticed other signs the way he and michelle obama so in the white house. their first performance at the white house program was earth wind and fire. they earth wind and fire with the governors are thin and stevie wonder for a performance at the white house. did he move down the little bust of winston churchill in the oval office and replaced with martin luther king jr. without much comment. and i thought okay that's interesting. it's subtle. if you watch your for what they're doing their not getting up there and knocking doors

down, but they are sending messages. they are reaching out to schoolchildren in the district of columbia which happens to be the majority black. these are the images you see. so i asked him whether this was done on purpose. and his answer, his answer was this. absolutely. look, i don't just have paid bust of martin luther king. i have an original program on the march of washington. because i think it's important to remember the incredible battles that were fought to allow me to occupy that office. i don't think them a show has any qualms about letting people know where she's from, he said. the more we are delivering those messages, without beating people over the head, the more the culture as a whole, not just black folk but white folk as well, we'll be engaged in this shift in perceptions that is healthy for the country. keep in mind that term, without beating people over the head. and almost tells you all you need to know about barack obama

when it comes to dealing with really difficult subjects, especially socially difficult subject. it serving as his worldview about how he talks about race. he comes under some criticism sometimes from supporters of the black unity for seeming to school more than he ought to. he says he doesn't plan to stop. he comes under criticism -- he's president. he comes under a lot of criticism. that comes with a job and i don't feel bad about it. that's what happens when you asked to be president. but his will, the role of all of these others who are breaking through, the role of all these others who are taking advantage of things that didn't exist. i know it is true for me as well. for their parents when they came up. it's a responsibility, it is a challenge but a challenge for us as much as it is for them because we have to learn to look at our world differently. on that note, i would like to stop and take your questions because i am really anxious for them. thank you. [applause]

>> hi. >> so good to see you, sir. i'm always leery of the first person. [laughter] >> i'm nothing to be afraid of. know, it says where -- however, i met children at an elementary school, predominately black. there is not one black male teacher in that school. the principle is, but there is not one. there is not one volunteer male, blackmail in that school. and as i mature children in that school,. >> and your question is? >> my question is, where are the

young, the young men that you are talking about, coming to make sure that the generation, the next generation comes along and travels through on the gains of what people went through with the civil rights movement? >> thank you for your question. i have to admit i'm not a sociologist saad probably not equipped to give you the complete and you would like to hear because i don't know the answer. i would, however, hazard a guess there are people in this room who can point to lots of african-american men who are working very hard on behalf of their community. i'm only speaking, you are speaking for your own personal experience that i can only speak to my person expected i know a lot of folks who are taking interest in their communities. they are inspired by the success of african-americans like barack obama. but that doesn't mean it is universal and doesn't mean it is enough. that is my best answer i can

give you, sorry. . . my name is mary. glad to meet you. i think it should go without saying that you are one of the premier news journalist of our times at this moment in history. ã3ñplause] the people were saying that she would be biased when you're the moderator? >> i was really, ignored it. partly because i've been two

that review before. i moderated the 2004 debate and i knew that it was one of the hardest thing as a lever do and have to spend a lot of time focused and there are people whose full-time job it is leading to the debate to mess with the minds of the raft. so this happen before the edwards cheney debate but not spectacularly happen in this case. the big news for me, a couple of things happen, i was surrounded by great group of people who kept to be cut off from a lot of the stuff that was circulating in the air. i knew and the people around the news that i had not finished writing the book yet, in fact, it was not a book solely about barack obama so the characterization of the book was going to be was inaccurate and my publisher said it is it true you written a book about that, that's not what we discussed so i thought -- i know that when the book comes out of the indicated in the meantime people were singing things unfortunately i wasn't aware because i was so completely

focused on the debate. the other thing that happened which in retrospect was a blessing was the last night i was working on preparing my question is why my office on the top floor i came downstairs and slipped and broke my ankle. one i slip of a pair of biographies of the two candidates that ronstadt. [laughter] and i will not say which wine i slipped on a. but you can guess. if [laughter] i was so caught up in the idea that i didn't know i was going to be able to walk on stage and had to build an elevator him and put a box underneath for me to put my foot up, i had to have surgery and this didn't happen until after the debate and i couldn't take pain medication because they would say i was on drugs. [laughter] so i had a lot of things on my mind and frankly the best thing that happened that night was washington university in st. louis for the debate was held in a range you have to football players help me get on stage.

[laughter] their names were bought and tim. [laughter] so you know where i'm coming here. was the best part of the night and i chose to focus on those things and, yes, my ankle is completely better, but it allowed me to stay focused completely on what was in front of me and got a lot of the dust kicked up around it and sure enough of, the debate was over everyone stop talking about it and even to this day people who haven't read the book said he wrote a controversial book and i said really, did you read this book because it's not what they said. it's a lesson that i pass on to students i talk to riches it doesn't matter what they say and make sure you're doing your job. thank you. [applause] >> hello pierre and i have two questions, the first question is you have a very engaging personality and am wondering how do you manage two not to be so i

knew then. >> punch people are out of practice [laughter] >> even, it does not come through, your personality doesn't come through and you're very even all the time. >> you know what, it's the history of having done this for a while. in order for me to be on a news program especially -- i can't get in the way. if i am calling are laughing or pointing or saying what you're listening to me and i don't want you to care what i think. how i want to be a facilitator for you so that you will have the answers to your questions. that's the way i feel about my job of the newshour in washington week witches are i am a pass through the sometimes you that personality show and got opinions. because i learned that people will read have a lot into everything feminine would the sarah palin nomination at the republican convention, people the next day on youtube show the pictures and i was riding which proves that -- i don't know.

did my feet hurt? i don't know what it proves. but i'm saying that people will always over interpret what you mean and say so i really have learned how to just be straight down the middle and tried to give you as much information about getting in the way. >> q2 excellent. [laughter] [applause] thank you. >> in my other question is the president obama come if he had become one president -- >> and letting you get away with the second question. >> what changes have been seen in the way the old line of black leadership to business? >> i haven't seen al-awja yet and i don't know that the election of a single black president will completely change the way people do business overnight. i think everybody is trying to figure stuff out princeton's alan sharp could figure out that if you let people know he was endorsing barack obama it would hurt barack obama, he told me as much but as a result he gets the

white house so what. he gets invited with newt gingrich, he is like okay. now the people who have been critical are to being invited in some much so you have to figure a different way of work in the system perhaps and sometimes it is expected and not and sometimes it's important there are oppositions or disloyal opposition is on the outside holding your feet to the fire. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. [applause] >> i have another generational question. i realize the election we just had was tiny on the blimp of things, but dewitt a young people who all colors and races and ethnicities that were so much there for a barack, they were on their hands this time. what you see coming down for 2010 in terms of real engaging the change agents who got us really on right now? >> if i were a democrat running for office i would be nervous about what we saw in these

elections except they're not representative of a lot. 2010 midterm elections perhaps more so. i think that barack obama was not on the ballot in 2009 in the barack obama was such a personally engaging in character who and personality. a lot of people got up and went to vote for him and didn't translate into anything even when he campaigned on others' behalf. it was a member of congress running for election and i realized the president's presence didn't help me get reelected and i would be less likely to got to stick my neck out and vote for health care reform so to that degree there may be some direct impact on whether he has coattails. we don't know whether his appeal right now extends beyond him so we don't know that, that will be tested next year but also tested next year is what they've got a dozen in the next year, whether they've got a health care reform, the economy has bounced back, whether we're on our way

out with our continuing billing have been afghanistan. people's personal comfort leverets will come to bear and this will be 2010 will be something you can say is that statement on as president and how well he's doing. >> but beyond his presidency today what about the generational feeds? do you feel upward are still paying attention and care about any of the things thing attention? >> you have to go where they are. the envoy to go where you are. how often have people on college campuses to me i only watch johnston written and i say i like john storage, if you watch him and me, you are complete. but even more so more important to do think jon stewart watches. he gets his information from somewhere and he gets it as it happens from us as well as others, but that's a significant point which is we keep thinking

and imagining that our children and young people are going to come to look at politics and public service the way we did. they aren't and they're going to use technology in other ways of reaching out to as ways of expressing their interests and their engagement. there are still there, i just think people in the older generation have to remember to speak to them not just have them. >> thank you. [applause] >> 11 your mainstream media, do you think that -- >> yes probably sell para [laughter] >> looking at it in terms of the deal think that the commercial mainstream media was reluctant to talk about race, early on in the early months of the contest and you think if it weren't that it helped obama? >> , but we're going to talk about race la but always as a fight. we love when there is a fight,

when bill clinton said those things in south carolina we love talking about race then but we don't know and rascal and my business how to talk about any other way and maybe because it's not always relevant. one i find that some one of my favorite things is when a white friend will try to identify someone in the room by saying it's the guy in a blue blazer and a white jacket and white sneakers and i say you mean a black eye? [laughter] and they go well yes. there are some notion if you even in broke race there is something incorrect about it which is the part you need to get past so we need to decide when it's appropriate and relevant to talk about race and win is just not and were not very good data yet to. we're getting there. >> 15 in the media to at a nationally syndicated comic strip but i'm probably so much older and then you don't remember its. is called kisses, and to give you a few kisses here. there are little characters, you

can see their eyes because of that israel is a heart. and my question is and the missionaries to help me with something that is so dear to me in my life. my cry tune -- my cartoon of the first woman, the august rags to riches story ahead been a black it would have been covered on every base. i was the first one to have a syndicated cartoon strip like this and never called me the next disney and snooping. after several years of being published daily on sunday i was on a tour -- i went to japan and all over. [applause] but i went to taiwan undivided. i first three-dimensional -- >> and glen have to ask for the question. i understand the pitched have to ask the question. >> the question is, i want to help in chao labor. with their efforts on my caste system and i devoted all of my

life to doing this now appears that all of my products and, i don't even take a salary. everything is going to charity that helps and a child labor. [applause] and is a huge problem because american consumers and is one of the worst. >> okay, thank you so much for your speech. >> can i give you your kisses. >> you can give me your would ever by all means. thank you. [laughter] >> next question. >> what i just wanted to say, i'm honored and pleasure in sitting here will listening to my graduation and a in georgetown. unwed >> thank you. my question for you is i'll be honest i have had a chance to read your book can't but just hearing which says so far you look to the perspective of black males. i don't know if you take the time to look at may be how this has the effect of females of.

>> excellent question. [laughter] >> just wondering. >> is a good question, i don't know if i have when i was halfway through i thought of that to find some women so i went on a hunch and i started looking and asking experts. who are not the names of a few people but the truth and was there weren't as many african-american women as i thought i would buy so i had to get to the bottom of why there are a couple of questions. the mayor of atlanta franklin who was in her late fifties when she got elected mayor had worked for the previous two mayors has a right hand person and she had been terrific. i asked why didn't you run sooner and she said i was waiting to be asked. i talk to others to send i don't like asking some -- we're being was is about it basically. or alternatively we are prioritizing the things which is to do in our lives, most women are doing that every single day in their choosing to do with themselves to their family entering public service and other waste where they don't

choose electrophorus as the path. the truth is there are african-american women. the d.a. in san briscoe running for statewide attorney-general is an example but there are things that you give up if you choose these pious as she points out. very candidly she doesn't have kids and doesn't -- she is of merit and that explains why she cannot devote herself to this and that in order to break through you have to be singularly focused in a way that women often don't have the luxury to be so that's part of the reason why you don't see as many women doing this. and that when you do nancy pelosi or hillary clinton are people who have already raise their children, people who have done their lives in serial fashion instead of once. the truth is men don't have the same sorts of choices that they have to make. so that is what the story i came up with and along the way there are other bits and pieces that came up and there are folks out there but i did think about of a lot and try to figure out how to

get to the bottom and that is the best i could come up with. >> before a future book perhaps. >> absolutely, if i ever recover from this one. thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon. i would like to venture opinion since you're such a woman sees a journalist, your opinion about journalism today, the state of journalism and the media today. with. >> well, it's been better. [laughter] well let newspapers i remember thinking if i failed in newspapers and television i would go back to printing, not so much these days. newspapers close every day and every day i feel like i lose a little bit of me because that's what i want to get into this business, high wanted to be printing a reporter. i came into television because tim russert dared me to do a full time and promised to support me and he did it. he was a great mentor and friend of but as we look at the business now it bothers me and a couple different levels, the economic peace making the model

for journalism that i got into to do sustainable awesomely levels but there is also how we editorially execute what we do. they're so much information and so little news. we often as consumers confuse the tomb. part of what we have to do now, the responsibility is so much more on us that we have to figure a way to say i know this is why this information is but let me take another step. the burden is on the consumer to not stop at wikipedia when they log on for an answer to a question. [laughter] may be stuck there but not in there and that is something that used to be trusting and say we know brinkley will tell us everything we need to know and that's no longer the case so we have to change airlines about and the word in the media loves me because i can be anything, some people think it means oprah and i don't do it as quickly as it's kept. but everybody with a tie and reading from a teleprompter doesn't do what i do so you have

to be more discerning and the kinds of information and that you consume in which to do with cents. the last little bit is my concern is people that use use information as a way of confirming conclusions they already reached instead of information that helps them decide what they want to now. ally to think of on the i will give you the information and you can decide, not here's what you should believe and we will only tell you this bit of it. that concerns me. thank you. [applause] >> i only have a few more minutes so i'm going to answer these questions. >> by one of those people who gets the news from the newshour and a daily show as well. [laughter] but i was wondering what your opinion was on the white house's position they recently took about sidelining fox news. >> the white house, the three of you who don't know this, -- >> [laughter] >> there is a reason, the white house is critical of fox news

and what so far the white house officials say they are not a news organization. which i have to say i don't buy into that as they say, some of my best friends were crops. but you have to draw the line between the opinions and strenuous and sometimes there is a blind. now, i think, my theory based on just watching the way back to languages used in these kinds of debates is that one park's newest and me, the white house wasn't attacking fox news, they were attacking us to service an echo for the kinds of stories they might do. for instance of and ask me today don't you think acorn is a big deal and i said bigger than what, afghanistan, bigger than health care reform? sure, it is a story but it wasn't the biggest error committed becomes the big story when the mainstream media becomes a megaphone for what is in the end cable news which is not that many people watching but we spend a lot of time writing about it, echoing what

they do. for better and worse. so i think that that's really what that shot across the bout was about. it was more in debt those of us who ever tried to shame us into not writing or paying attention. that said i don't necessarily buy into the idea of any government telling us what news should be the number two should be asking the questions are how. [applause] am not really enamored with add but that's when i think they were up to. >> good afternoon. and welcome to miami. >> thank you. >> i have a challenge for you up as someone who is in the media. >> okay. >> you mentioned that jeremiah rights situation. in i usually start on friday evenings with washington way, followed by the mclaughlin group, and with bill whitmore as a journal. bill moyers has a rubber and right on. >> i saw that. >> he did the entire piece from

both sermons. and why is it that the media continues to focus on the sound bites which takes things out of context? >> i used to say that. when i watched that same bill moyers special and done i have been two trinity church on more than one occasion in its upper part refine conversation, middle-class people try to love the lord. i also understand that there were a couple of clips of it run in a loop that made sure my right look like a madman but should be said he did not help his cause because he continued, he did not stop there, he then went to the national press club in did more and then a meeting in detroit and came out mentioning the update in the book in the other inflammatory things that he's perfectly knows are inflammatory and by the time the president-elect, he wasn't even a nominee, by the time the president that gave his free-speech in philadelphia he too had given barack obama --

tier my right to three passes, he's an older man and out of step with the way we look at the world and finally he had to realize that you're my riding need him any good and if he tapped him on the shoulder now people still say the president does what he has to do and i do what i have to do. that's true but that doesn't mean the president will link arms with you anymore. politics and electioneering and public services so much about appearances and so much about -- when you're introducing yourself as someone who people feel the kind of alien and have a funny name, have a darker skin color, i've never heard of you, never knew you were until two years ago, anything can teens or define who you are whether it is fair or unfair. so that's why barack obama did this stephane richer had a quick call-up. >> but it's more so the sound bites over the full story. pbs has the luxury were they will expand beyond 115 seconds

of something that i've been the country is fixed saint. >> high complete -- is a beautiful thing to work for a pbs. i never have to cover that stop. it's wonderful. [applause] it is great, but i also understand that people find their impressions of by a combination of things and is not -- must be bona -- a lot of people don't have the luxury of saying i think i will just listen to the whole speech and decide for myself so it is when it is and if you're a politician you cope with a reality but not the way you wish it ought to be. i have one more question that i have to wind up. >> one was talking budget personality not coming through and i was thinking about can you tell people about the history rakers. >> thank you. the history makers, when of my favorite things. it is based in chicago which created in online archive will

of colin african-americans hinn over the years they've collected lots and lots of interviews with people who tell you they're interesting live story so there won't be lost in history. i started working with a history makers with the invited me to do their gala program where you get dressed up in an interview somebody famous so now i have to say just a few weeks ago i was interviewing smokey robinson, thank you very much [applause] last year i interviewed eartha kitt and months before she died and a figure for the quincy jones. it's an amazing project is something that i wish i dreamed of because it's really aside from the start that i get to meet him pretend they're my best friends it's also a way of doing an extension of what is i do which is on the way to tell our story well. thank you very much. [applause] thank you all very much. [applause] >> thank you very much. by the book, go outside and get autographs.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] >> gwen ifill is the managing editor ann moderator of washington week, a senior correspondent for the pbs newshour. issues formerly chief congressional correspondent for nbc news. and she moderated the 2004 and 2009 -- 2008 as presidential debates. the miami book for hosted the event. for more information visit miami book fair.com.

>> the deputy managing editor of time magazine recalls president ronald reagan's speech in west berlin on june 12th, 1987. were he pronounced to a crowd of 20,000 people mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. romesh ratnesar explores the genesis of the speech and the relationship between reagan and soviet leader mikhail gorbachev. the kansas city public library hosts the event. >> i do want to thank you. it's a real privilege to speak to you on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall and is particularly wonderful to be in kansas city which is such an appropriate setting because it was just a couple blocks from this building adds deborah arena as many

remember that ronald reagan gave a speech 33 years ago that in many ways i think help catapult him to the white house. as you recall reagan had just conceded defeat to gerald ford as the republican national convention and maybe even some people in the room today remember that ford then summoned reagan down from the skybox to address the delegates on the floor, reagan initially said he didn't want to come down and said it was summoned else's night but eventually the ovation brought him down to the floor. he spoke for six minutes entirely impromptu without notes. and what he said captivated the brown and much of the nation that night. he conjured and imagined future at one point and he talked about what it would be like to open a time capsule and 100 years and actually to discuss the speech i find is so remarkable in ibook, i mentioned it a little bit. reagan said we live in a world in which the great powers have poison aimed at each other,

nuclear-weapons that can destroy the supplies world we live and. he wondered if the people opening the time capsule with look back and say thank god for those people that headed off a loss of freedom to camp this 100 years three and kept the real for nuclear destruction. when he finished speaking one delegate some of reagan's performance to a reporter for time magazine with what i think to this is the single best description of reagan's talent for communication. the man said, ronald reagan could get a standing ovation in a grave error. [laughter] had not been for that speech in kansas city that night, which really health reconcile with a losing campaign, there might not have been a reagan campaign in 1980 and might not have been a reagan presidency and there might not have been a tear down this wall speech which is the subject of my book and my remarks here tonight. and what i want to do tonight is

briefly if i can talk about some of the factors that contributed to the fall of the berlin wall and the end of the cold war which i think stan today as i watermarks of u.s. foreign policy in the second half of the 20th-century. so i'm going to sketch out a little bit some background of his speech, the context in which it was given in the want to explain why reagan's speech was such a pivotal events and then i'd like to suggest ways in which the end of the cold war has relevance to the challenges that face today. and before i begin i do want to just make a couple of points, personal privilege, and from new york and as a new yorker i developed a big thick skin and last night i was in houston and told the audience at any point i heard bill wayne during my speech i would just assume that meant the yankees were winning. [laughter] unfortunately i don't have that excuse tonight, but i hope you'll bear with me. the second thing i wanted to say

is in this book and in my remarks i try to be as thorough as possible but i am quite certain as all offers are there are details i will have overlooked or mr. or simply gone wrong. in my job at times i work with a lot of different writers every day in over the years i found the best ones are those who never quite feel satisfied with their story. they believe they could have done more or read more or made one more phone call or turned up one more and discovered fact. i really admire that attitude and ethics, but as president reagan himself like to say, is a hard work never killed anybody but i figure why take the chance. ..