white merchants in bad baker would sell only horsey , not coke or pepsi to black customers. why, i don't know. i mean, i do understand the impression. one night penny, another white volunteer and i were alone in the dark freedom house from outside and injured smashed the window beside our bad. we crouched on the floor while through the curtain he ran his hand over our bed. ..

>> the movement in the peanut field of the past, opposing racism, sexism, and leadism. this those times, i understand that i would become a teacher, and at a planning meeting for

the 1936 march in washington and the united states in 1963 and perhaps now was inherently revolutionary. thank you. >> judy richardson, on staff from 1963 to 1966 in atlanta and greenwood, mississippi during the 1964 freedom summer in southeast georgia and alabama. her experiences continue to influence her work as a documentary film maker, he worked on eyes of the prize and several other films and was teacher workshop, social justice organization, and as a movement, writer, and lecturer.

>> now you think we are standing here. sitting here. we're looking really calm. let me just say we saw this book for the first time five days ago. we screamed. we looked like we were just normal and this is a normal thing. we've been working for 15 years. we are so happy. we are so happy, hello. we are so happy to be sharing this with so many of our brothers and sisters. i would like you all, i'm not going to ask you to stand up. we've been sitting here for a while. could you anybody that worked with sncc put your hands up. all right. [applause] >> the other thing to remember, we look older now. just remember that we were all

17, 18, 19 years old at the time. so one the things that we hope will happen with this book and the 52 women that talk about their stories is that young people, young men, young women of all stripes, shades, everything, they will see themselves in our stories. because we were not exceptional. they will see themselves and they will see that they can do it too. it's about stepping out on face. and you don't know whether you are going to succeed. but you got to do it. because if you do nothing, nothing changes. okay. now what i'm going to say is talk about very quickly. i grew up in terry town, new york. this is the home of washington irving, i went to washington irving junior high school, and we were the horseman. my mother was a homemaker, my father worked in the plant, which is where everybody that i knew father's worked. that was the chevrolet plant.

he helped organized the union, the united auto workers, and of treasurer of the local when at -- when at the point that i was seven years old, he died on the assembly line. fast forward, 1962, '63, i'm at college, good quaker college in pennsylvania. and i was on a full four-year scholarship. which was really important. they were trying to increase the african-american enrollment at that point. out of something like maybe almost 900 students, they were bringing in this magnum group of black students, four boys and four girls, eight of us. presumably it was boys and girls that we wouldn't have to intermingle too much with the outside. what i found there was on campus a students for democratic society chapter. now the student for the

democratic society was white northern students. they were very supportive of the work that was coming out of the student sit ins and what we were doing in sncc. this chapter was doing a lot of good work trying to equalize and increase salaries. of the all black cafeteria staff, including me, because i was a work study. so that was happening in cafeteria. they were doing some work in pennsylvania. but then they were also organizing bus loads of buses, that doesn't make any sense. bus loads of students to go to cambridge, maryland -- i'm sitting here in d.c., on the eastern shore of maryland. now i decide to get on one of these buses. i don't do it because i'm in any way committed. i do it because my mother is not there to stop me. what i find there's the amazing strong local leader, gloria richardson, no, yes, indeed, obviously, you know, no relation

to me. she's another one the contributors to our book. i also find this is a sncc project. student nonviolent coordinating committee. so the local organized had requested sncc assistance. and so i finished my freshman year, and then i decide that i'm going to take off the next semester, which would be the first semester of my sophomore year. i assume it's going to be just six months. that's a whole other question about how my mother takes it. who knows, it turns into three years. what i'm going to do is read a little bit from my chapter. and it's called sncc, my enduring circle of trust. i saw -- and a lot of sncc people will recognize this. i saw the national office of sncc in 1963 for the first time. it was a rundown office, a one

block side street off of hunter street, now martin luther king boulevard, near the atlanta university center. the office was located on the second store before the beauty shop. i think i'm coming in. rugs on the floor. please. i was 19 and gone to atlanta with reggie robertson, who is here, where i had been working full time since leaving college. from the downstairs door of the national office, i saw the large man at the top of the stairs. dressed in overalls and sweeping the stairs. reggie saw him too. and ran up the stairs and with broad smiles and much hollering, they hugged each other like long lost brothers. and i thought, whoa, this is truly an egalitarian office. i assumed the man to be the

janitor. it was only after reggie called his name, jim forman, sncc's larger than life executive secretary. there was such joy, warmth, and affection, i thought judy, you haven't just joined an organization, you joined a family. sncc is a band of brothers, and eventually sisters too, and a circle of trust. i assumed i'd be in the rest of my life. now i later found out that foreman often swept up, not so much to clean the office, which is good because he wasn't that good at it. rather he was sawing us, no job was too lowly for anyone in sncc to do, and every job was important in sustaining the organization. reggie introduced us, and foreman found out i had taken a semester off and that i could take shorthand which is like texting but with symbols. i know there's another

generation here. and i could type 90 words a minute. and i never made it back to college. let me say with that, i did not take any offense at that then, nor do i know. i had a bird's eye view in the organization that i would never have had otherwise. i was never never -- i was nutus much by the men and women. i was forced to do some stuff i thought i could do. nobody ever said you can't do that. you've never done it before. always there was a pushing to do more than you thought you could ever do. it opened up the world to me. it wasn't just like betty is talking about. i'm finding out atlanta colonial studies in africa and southeast asia, south america, nicaragua, guatemala. i saw the world and it changed

my world view. i thought i would be in for the rest of my life. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> now we want to open up for questions. and if you have a question for a specialist panelist, that's fine, or if you have a question just directed to any panelist. yes, and there's a microphone here. so please because we are recording this, we would appreciate it if you would use the microphone. >> i would like to congratulate you on -- >> grab the microphone please. >> i would like to congratulate you on an excellent book. a book that ties right in the rest of the literature of sncc. and we can get the rest of those books by simply getting in contact with sncc, the 50th anniversary. that reading list with this fits perfectly. on november the 6th, there's

going to be another movement, called citizen rile, at politics and prose. on october -- [laughter] >> on october the -- hey, look. this is america. i'm free. on october the 24th, there's going to be another great book released called "count them one by one." the justice department sending their their -- the fifth circuit court of appeals in hattysburg. >> tell us who you are? >> my name is lawrence. i grew up with these great women. >> okay. martha wants me to put in the plug for the panel at the university of southern mississippi. october 21st and 22nd.

geot is the moderator. [laughter] >> reverend grey, the son of victoria grey adams who lives in baltimore will be reading from his mother's piece. jeannie will also be there, who worked for sncc, and doris derby who worked in mississippi for nine years, and maryland lowen from new york. these are all women in the book. my job now? >> could second. >> microphone please. >> yes. i just wanted to mention that what's wonderful is that a lot of us have been organizing book events in our areas. and so if you go on to the university of illinois' site,

and you click on hands on the freedom prowl, you can see a calendar of all of those events and as much as possible we have tried to involve independent bookstores. just a plug, we have to support teaching for change bookstore. they are amazing. [applause] [applause] >> try not to buy it on amazon. buy it through teaching for change. they were -- some of us remember when we had the drum and spear bookstore. hello there, yes, we're part of them. right up the street. what did us in was denver tanos started undertelling us at cost. do not let that happen to teaching for change. >> we don't. >> we won't. all right. >> yeah, please. >> get really close to the microphone. sorry. so that everyone can hear you, thank you. >> on behalf of my wife i'm asking -- you can't hear me.

okay. i got it. >> get to the microphone. >> okay. i can do that. my wife wants me to ask where is diane nash, what is she up to, we don't hear much about her? we've heard about -- okay. >> she was in the book and actually she was in a panel we just had a hands panel at the association for the study of african-american lights and history. and she was on that panel. she lives in chicago. she's continued to be an activist, and a proponent of nonviolent direct action. and what else do you want to know? >> okay. thanks. >> here's the first part of the question. it was where is diane nash? so that was the information. i just want to add for people

who don't necessarily know what that name means, diane nash was one of the leaders of the nashville sit in movement with successfully desegregated nashville. she was the first of the sit in activist to go and work full time for the movement. and she was the first female secretary for sncc, and later she also worked for sclc. >> thank you. first of all, good evening. for all of you ladies, who are former members of sncc, i'm not that much younger than y'all. but i can never thank you enough for all of your contributions. i know i wouldn't be here today as an organizer, activist, had not been for all of you and the ladies that could not be here today. thank you again. god bless you.

[applause] >> it was a great privilege and blessing, i went to the conference. i met you and shook your hands all. i was excited. again, thank you. my question to all of you, did any of you know or work with sister shirley sherrod, and charles sherrod back in the day? and also i found out a few weeks ago, there's a book "dark end of the street" it's about rosa parks and other women who were active in anti-rape work that i'd never heard of before. again, thank you. if you can talk about other things that y'all are doing. thank you, and god bless you. >> i worked with charles sherrod, i didn't know shirley. he was the project director. i was trying to think of a sherrod story. i can't come up with one quick. faith might have a sherrod

story. >> thank you. you can make your way to that microphone while the microphone here makes it's way. >> i worked with charles sherrod for the year that i was in northwest georgia. he was one the 12 or 13, whatever it was, who became the original band of sncc field secretaries. the two things that i'd like to mention about sherrod have to do with the role of women. and the first is when i arrived from greenwich village, a little bit full of myself from the harlem organizing, he said very seriously, faith, i want you to learn how to drive. i felt like i was 19. i felt like i had better things to do with my life as an organizer that learn to drive a car. and he said every soldier in my army must drive a car.

now that actually didn't come to pass. that was because of segregation. that's another story. he also insisted that -- and this i appreciate a little bit you are seeing some of the benefits tonight. he insisted that i learn to speak publicly in front of a crowd. because every soldier in the army, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera whether she's a women or not must learn to speak in public. but the culmination of that particular story is that probably the second or third month that i was in southwest georgia was the first anniversary of the albany, georgia movement which is the first time that hundreds of people had gone to jail in the fight against segregation. and there were so many people in jail in albany in november of 1961 that they had to ship

people to surrounding counties because there was no room in the jails. so we had this anniversary. dr. king was coming to town to speak, et cetera, et cetera. it was a big deal. charlie sherrod selected our co. worker, a woman to give the speech. and oh my goodness, it had never occurred to me that a woman could preach. she could preach. even more importantly in terms of who charlie sherrod is, he himself was a baptist minister. and eloquent, any of us who have heard him speak now that. there's no reason why he couldn't have just said that he would take the stage that night. but he gave it to her, to all of our benefit. should i tell the we shall over come story? >> we have time for only one more question. and that's what i know that many of you have purchased the book. if you haven't already purchased

it, it is available at the teaching for change book shop right here in busboys and poet. if you'd like to have your book signed by the women on the panel or one the women on the panel that you can then -- we will be leaving the room here, because there's another event here. but you can either remain here in busboys and poets and go across the street, some of us will be going across to street to eatenville. there's space to meet the authors, editor, and have your book signed there. eatenville is just directly across the street. so now for our final question, and then i'll also a quick wrapup from our panelist. so please. >> i'm leigh adams. i want to thank you for the work that you did and the work that you've completed after 16 years.

congratulations. i have always -- some of my greatest heros and some of the people that i have admired most in my life came out of sncc, and a lot of movements came out of sncc besides the movement to free americans in -- free african-americans in the south. most of these movements have seen success. womens movement, gay rights movement, peace movement, there's a movement that was born in sncc that has not seen the same success. and it's one that's very dear to my heart. i'd like to know if any of you have continued in the path of people like marian berry, johnnie wilson, eleanor holmes norton to try to free d.c., and if so, when it's going to come? [applause] [applause] >> oh, betty. betty. >> betty just like you. >> i just want to say that i worked in d.c. after i left the

south. i worked actually with marian in the sncc office in d.c. we were very active in the statehood issue and i've carried that, i've lived in baltimore now for 38 years. every time i think about d.c. and i heard a snippet, like vincent grey was elected and won the primary. people are saying this is great, because he was a supporter of d.c. statehood. i'm always interpreting that and telling people in any community that's an important struggle. so i'm really glad you raised it. >> i want to thank all of you for coming this evening. and this now brings our event to a close. but i just want to say is there anything that anyone from our panel would like to say? okay. judy? come on up here. okay. >> i just wanted to say there's one person of the six -- there are five editors on this panel.

one is missing. that's dottie zoner. i feel bad, she needs to be acknowledged. i just wanted to acknowledge one other person, because it was the first childrens book we published at drum & spear press. that's mrs. eloise. >> for more visit press.uillinois.edu. >> the problem with monopoly, and often the results, over the long term, entrenchment leads to paranoia and abuse. over the long term. you know, cbs and nbc when they

started had a lot to say for themselves by the 1970s, things had gone too far. and so what i guess i suggest in my book, the more modified version, it's more important to have the sort of structures that can support quality things. not at the cost of entrenching a monoop louse for so long. >> two questions for that. one is prescriptive, and one is descriptive. i'll do the descriptive one first. you do a wonder job in the book describing the press where a new communication medium comes along. all things are possible. there are the wonderful dreams of how fabulous it's going to be. the title comes from the now we long for the period when they were such dreams about cable

television. you may remember those days. and then inevitably, the bad guys take over and get their hands on the master switch. how can that not happen again if it happens every time? >> all right. what journalist need to understand, is the importance of creative destruction in the industry. we have to have a dynamic industry. we want to see companies die and be destroyed. journalist are afraid of death sort of. [laughter] >> that's so unfair. >> no, media people -- look at these brands. "new york times" has been going for -- that's unheard of in other industries that have any sort of turmoil or natural market process. to have brands that last for hundreds and hundreds of year with the dominant positions. journalist are -- exactly two -- what is needed in journalism is

a die schism, but in the long run it'll be good. >> you are switching from prescriptive to descriptive. let's switch back to descriptive. my journalist would say, tim, you are dreaming. any communication medium as powerful as the internet just cannot -- you know, the liberal reformer public interest advocates cannot ever build a big enough fence around it to keep the process that's always happened in the past from happening again. so just as a practical matter, how do you think we can prevent this process that you've convinced us is reciprocal from happening in this instance? >> right. this is the -- the answer is related to some of my other work on things like net neutrality.

there always needs to be channels, whether it's the internet or whatever where the new can challenge the old. where "new york times" gets a run for it's money, and nbc is facing against youtube. the problem is -- i'll go on the offensive. the problem with kind of worship in capitalism in your book is it's too insensitive to the fact that managerial capitalism tends to make market entry very difficult. to put it that way. >> the problem with your argument, tim, -- [laughter] >> -- is there there's no getting around the inevidentability of the cycle. if i read your book, i'd come across depressed. every case you tell the bold innovators with the great ideas that were stomped down on the

money mad or reactionary pluto plutocrats. that's not so. bell loses big time. they don't get to control the telephone, as well as the telegraph. that what you write about movingly. happened there. keeps at&t out of content. content, conduit are divided. if you had no had the studio system in hollywood, which you have the coming together of the people making the movies and the ownership of the theaters, the united states might never have established a dominant position in the world film business. and we did in the 1930s and '40s. the british had 80% of the world

market. the europeans couldn't get their act together. we did. that made possible the creativity that led to the self-sustained development of hollywood. >> if you didn't have the hollywood studio system, you wouldn't have had the most heinous example of private sensorship. >> that's a ridiculous claim. the most heinous example of sensorship -- >> private sensorship. let me explain this. >> let the story, and i'll tell you why you are wrong. >> thanks to the consolidation of the industry, they claimed the studios, or maybe it's six -- >> right. >> the catholic church was finally able to enforce the production code. and set up a system which you are familiar with, and many people in the audience are, where one man, joseph breen had to okay every single film before it was made. which is called a prior restraint.

it would be illegal if the government system. warner brothers in their mid '30s wanted to make a movie about the nazis were doing in germany. listen, this is bad. bad things will coming. joseph breen who described the job as shoving down ethics in the throats of the jews. i'm here to shove ethics down the throats of the jews vetoed the movie. it was never made. i know what it would have been. but this is a form of censorship that would be intolerable. one man decides what american film. >> one man. this is the problem with the book. the heroic individuals that arrive out of nowhere. mogul takes the medium. seven states were posed to enact codes of their own. those states would have created the patch work and who knows what the consequences might have been. they worked because it was

alternative to cent -- censorship at the state level. that persisted up until "new york times" was relevant. >> c-span's local content vehicles are traveling the country visiting cities and towns as we explore our nation's history, and some of the authors who have touched upon it in our work. this weekend we take you to downtown indianapolis, for a look at the new kurt vonnegut memorial library. >> kurt vonnegut was perhaps the greatest american writer. he was a world war ii veteran, he was a hoosier, satirist, political activist, he was a husband, he was a father, he was a friend. he was a friend to his fans, he would write back to his fans. he wrote more than 30 pieces of work, including plays, novels, short stories, some of his more

familiar books are "sodder house five," "breakfast of champions," "cats cradle." vonnegut brought in the midwestern roots and indiana and indianapolis specifically. if i may read a quote, many people ask me why should the vonnegut library be here in indianapolis. i have many different answers, then i found this great quote that says, all my jokes are indianapolis, all of my attitudes are indianapolis, my adenoids are indianapolis, if i ever severed myself from indianapolis i would be out of business. what people like about me is indianapolis. we took that as the green light to go ahead and english the vonnegut library here.

we have an art gallery, museum room, reading room, a gift shop, and i would like to share details about these rooms with you today. this is a vonnegut, kurt vonnegut timeline. if you would allow me, i would like to read the quote at the top of this beautiful painting which was created by the artist chris king, and by a vonnegut scholar named rodney allen, and both of these individuals lived in louisiana. the quote reads all moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. they can look at all of the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the rocky mountains, for instance. they can see how permanent all of the moments are. it's just an illusion that we have here on earth, once the moment is gone, it's gone forward. and something that's unique

about the timeline, we start on the right side and move to the left, rather than the left side and move to the right. one thing we wanted to mention about this quote, we hope that vonnegut would know that while he may think that -- may have thought that once the moment is gone, it's gone forward, we like to think the moment of kurt vonnegut will live on forever here at the vonnegut library. he went to cornell university, he was studying chemistry, he did not plan to go into architecture like his father. but he did think he would move into a science career and discovered at cornell that he was not very much interested in doing that. so he enlisted in the army during world war ii, and i'd like to point out a moment here on the timeline that's very important in the life of kurt

vonnegut, that's 1944, edith liver vonnegut is dying from an overdoze, probably intentional of alcohol and sleeping pills. vonnegut enters combat in europe. he's captured by germans in belgium in the battle the bulge, he's soon riding to dresden, a safe german city, unlikely to be bombed. dresden was the beautiful city that was not a military target. as vonnegut rode in on a train, he was able to view the beautiful city. then he was placed in a slaughter house where the rest of the prisoners of war were held. the slaughter house was slaughter house five. over here we have an exhibit that we called the dresden exhibit. it's really his world war ii experience that became so important in his writing and his world view later in his life.

i'll start with his -- a photo that taken right after he was released as a prisoner of war. along with fellow prisoners. we also have his purple heart that was donated by his son mark vonnegut to us. he received the purple heart for frostbite, and kurt was embarrassed to have received the purple heart for frostbite when so many of his friends had suffered from other types of physical problems and disease. we have a fine first edition of the book "slaughter house five." this is important because "slaughter house five" is probably the most well known book venn by kurt vonnegut of the 30 pieces of writing that he completed, this was probably the most famous -- excuse me --

famous. >> why? >> why was "slaughter house five" famous? let me give you a little bit of history of what happened to him in germany, and my impressions of why it affected people so much. vonnegut, as i read, he was taken to the slaughter house. while he was in dresden, the allies bombed dresden, and so his own countryman as well as allies bombed the city. it was a horrible bombing. it was literally a fire storm. and tens of thousands of people were killed. and these were noncombatants, these were women and children and old people. and vonnegut, one of his tasks as a prisoner was to go out and remove the bodies, you know, from these burning buildings. and he also was required to bury these bodies of women and

children. and that affected his life tremendously. he came back from his world war ii experience being completely against war. he was searching for peaceful resolution to conflict, and supported diplomacy, and other approaches to solving problems. i will also point out a photo that was taken after he came back from the war. he got married to jane cox-vonnegut. she was from indianapolis as well. this photo was taken on their honeymoon. he's in uniform. they had three children, mark, eddy, and nanette. many years later, his sister died just a day after her

husband had died in a freak train accident. alice had four children. three of them game to live with the vonnegut family. so they had quite a large household, seven children, and vonnegut at that time was writing books that at that time were less familiar, but he had published several books and articles for magazines as well as working a job as a car salesman for sozz. the experience of writing about dresden and what happened to him was difficult for vonnegut. it took him about 20 years to be able to publish the book, "slaughter house five." jane, his wife, had, you know, encouraged him to write it. she worked as his editor on the book, she asked questions and got clarity on issues, and

helped him to retrieve a lot of those memories that he had repressed because of the family situation with the edition of more children and the success that was coming with the publishing of "slaughter house five" his marriage with jane was rocky just just -- his daughtery had mentioned about a month ago that experience and the publishing of the book and all that brought to vonnegut contributed to their marriage dissolving. and at that time, vonnegut had met the photographer jill c cremins. eventually married her. she was his second wife, and was the only other person that he was married to during his lifetime. i'll move you over here to the

-- what we call the political activity exhibit. and vonnegut continued to talk about his interest in finding peaceful solutions to conflicts. i think that's another thing that made him very popular during the vietnam, and after. this photo which was given to us by the new york at the "new yor" which was taken. and there's vonnegut at new york university. i'm sure it was a large crowd. it was -- i have been told he was like a rock star coming into his different speeches and large auditoriums, always filling the auditoriums.

so here we are in the art gallery portion of our library. i'd like to take you over here and show you a vonnegut quote that's signed and was given to us by his artistic collaborator, joe. i don't know what it is about hoosiers, but wherever you go, there's always a hoosier doing something very important there. this quote was in the book, "cats cradle." it's a very funny exchange that the main character has with a fellow traveler on a plane. and that fellow travelers gives this quote. next we have possibility his most famous piece of artwork, the sphincter. vonnegut associated the asterisk

with this feature. we have used this asterisk in other pieces of the exhibit, including our timeline which you may have thought had stars in the sky. but they are actually vonnegut's asterisk in the sky. we also have life is no way to treat an animal. this is the tombstone for his famous character who appeared in many, many of his books. it is understood that he's based on vonnegut himself. interestingly, the character kilor trout died at the age of 84. vonnegut also happened to die at the age of 84. >> what did kurt vonnegut die from?

>> he collapsed and fell down the steps of his new york city home. and he went into a coma and never came out of that coma. he often joked that pall mall cigarettes would kill him. he would sue because the warning label said that pall malls would kill him. he had not done so. he happened to be smoking a pall mall while standing on the steps. next we have here two pieces of artwork created by morally safer of 60 minutes. this is one of our honorary broad members. he was a close friend. they both shared a close friend, sidney offit that wrote the introduction. these two pieces of art, the first on kurt vonnegut's birthday was created in 2003 as

a gift to vonnegut. then the second was created when he found out that vonnegut had died. and that was 2007. we are in the front of the kurt vonnegut library in the gallery room. we have kurt vonnegut's typewriter that was used in the 1970s. this was donated to us by his daughter nanny, he wrote many of his more popular books during the 1970s. we are happy to have this typewriter. he was not a fan of high technology. and he can not use a computer. he preferred to use the typewriter through his dying day. he liked to work in his home on

an office chair and a coffee table. he would slump over his typewriter. he -- vonnegut would go out into the world every day. he talks about how he had learned that you could buy postage stamps over the internet. he just thought that was horrible because then, you know, if he chose that route he would not have the everyday experience of going to the post office. and those everyday experiences and the people he encountered during his daily walks were the basis for some of his stories. he met a number of very interesting characters in new york city, and going out and meeting people, you know, was a way for him to capture new material for his works. vonnegut is timeless because these issues, you know, we still have the same issues. we're still suffering with war,

disease, you know, death, famine, environmental issues, you know, he said your planet's immune system is trying to get rid of you. he thought we would take care of the planet. these issues have resurfaced. it does not look like we have found any viable solutions to these problems. so, you know, i think his work is timeless. >> c-span's local content vehicles are traveling the country, visiting cities and towns as we look at our nation's history and some of the authors who have written about it. for more information, go to c-span.org/lcv.

>> former governor of virginia, george allen, former senator, george allen. "what can washington learn from sports"? >> a great deal. i learned a lot from playing sports myself. probably the overarching thing that washington can learn from the world of sport, in sports, where someone is from their race and ethnicity doesn't matter. what matter ises can you help the team win? everyone has the equal opportunity to compete and succeed. not guaranteed equal results, but equal opportunity which is what our country was built on. you would never see the way washington operates, redistributing from the winners to those who are not winners. if we are up to washington, they take one the steelers six super bowl trophies. these poor detroit lions, they've never made it, let's give them a trophy.

no, you have to earn it in sports. there's accountability and personal responsibility, there's measurement, you know who's winning and losing, and there's also in sports a competitiveness that you are always looking at how you can improve yourself and how to make your team better. and for team america, we need to be looking at what our economic policies, tax policies, energy, education policies, which are mostly state, not federal, but what can we do to make sure that everyone in america has that opportunity to compete and succeed. and i have a chapter in the book that you never punt on first downs. well, we've been punting as a country on first downs since the 1970s. most sports teams love to say we're number one, we're number one. america is number one when it comes to energy resources, thank to our plentiful coal as well as gas and oil resources. but the leaders in washington look at these resources as a

curse. any other country would consider them a blessing. and so we need to unlease our resources and the resources of our creative people rather than continue to get jerked around by hostile dictators and cartels. >> is the competition getting fiercer between team republican and team democratic? >> sure has been of that's decided by the people. the fans decide who has the best idea. the fans get to vote. depending on what the office is every two years or maybe six years. the fans were not happy. who in the heck has been cheering about anybody coming out of washington the last several years. other than strasburg, who has a picture with the nationals baseball team, there hasn't been much to cheer about. people love the high school, pro teams. people said they want to change, what's going on in washington by any measurement, where it's

debts or the lack of jobs, the policies in washington, where it's bailouts under president bush or the health care monstrosity, or stimulus spending that doesn't create jobs, counterproductive energy policy. none of that's working. the voters, people, fans, ticketholders, so to speech, the owners said we want to make a change. now those who have been elected, the number one thing they need to do, keep their promises. keep their promises they made to the people. that will start getting our country back in the right direction. >> do you miss being in the arena? >> i do from time to time. susan and i have been very active in the governor's race last year and helping out congressional candidates at the beach and robert on the south side, and in the northern virginia. and so we're involved.

and there's many people that have encouraged me to get back into it. we'll consider that. right now i'm trying using this book. i'm trying to find a fresh or unique way of sharing people's ideas that make good sense that they understand that will make sure that team america is in a better position to be ascending so that everybody has the opportunity. >> afterwards by congressman j.c. watts, and former by deacon jones. >> yeah. deacon, my brother and i call him my older brother. my sister named her second kid after deacon. the first one of roman gabriel. it's very nice of both of them. there's a lot of good stories in there. ronald reagan who is the one

that actually got me interested in politics. because as governor, he would come to the l.a. rams football practice. now here's a politician that knows what's important. then he asked me to be the chairman in 1976. that's what got me involved in politics. it's really because ronald reagan became governor the same year we moved out to california and my father coaching around. whether you are baseball, football, hockey, or nascar fan. >> what washington can learn from the world of sports. book tv with senator allen. if you go to booktv.org you can watch the full event in it's entirety. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click

search. you can also share anything that you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every week with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> we're here at national press club talking with spencer abraham about his book "lights out." can you tell us what some of the solutions are to our energy crisis that you detail in the book? >> i will. as energy secretary, i watched what seem to work and what i felt was not working. we have a real energy challenge facing america going forward. first we need to increase dramatically the role that nuclear energy plays here in the united states. right now it's 20% of our power. i think it should be 30% by 2030. we also need to increase the role of renewable energy here in the united states.

right now it's wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, the renewables are only about 2% of our energy. we really need them to be much, much higher. we need to support that effort. i'm a conservative. so i believe in conservation. one of the things we also need to do is to find ways to improve our energy efficiency, so that we don't demand as much growth in energy demand as right now as projected to be the case. >> and what do we do about the argument to keep costs down in terms of incorporating other energy sources? >> well, that's certainly a challenge. and i think though, that it's -- most of these are cost which we should be willing to bear. i think first of all, the private sector should and can and will play an active role in deploying these new forms of energy. but i think there's a role for the federal government to encourage them as well. i think in the last couple of years, we've seen some progress

along these likes. it's going to take a lot more, at least given right now what looks like the demands might only in the united states with the rest of the world. if we don't do it, we're going to see prices or energy skyrocket, we're going to see america at the mercy of producing countries who are exporting to us our energy. and that could put us in a politically difficult position, and, of course, if we don't address these issues we'll have growing environmental challenges as well. so what the book tries to show is a pathway forward to address all of those. fortunately, i think there is. it will take will and tough decisions. we've been a little bit unwilling to make those tough decisions the last few years. >> do you tackle how to change, i guess, public perspective and their perception of what we should do? and being more cooperative? >> well, it's a good point. one the real impediments to what we need to do in energy is what

they call the not in my background, nimby syndrome. it didn't matter what type of energy project or energy infrastructure deployment, there was tremendous resistance, because people didn't want it near them. they wanted lots of energy, cheap energy. but they didn't want anybody to make it or use it around them. you can't do that. i mean at the end of the day, we have to as a country we have to sort of be grown ups about this and say that, you know, yes, it would be terrific if we could have all of the energy facilities somewherest. -- somewhere else. we need them to be deployed on a broad basis. i do agree that in the book. i do profess to have a solution to convincing americans that they ought to do this. i think the more we explain to them the consequences of not allowing projects to go forward, they will see the benefit

ultimately to our country. >> and have you found that resistance falls more along party lines or is that something that's more kind of a myth? >> not in my backyard resistance is universal. it knows no party or regional or other kinds of boundaries. and it's, you know, it's grown, i think in recent years. and that's not surprising. because the country has gotten larger, the population's increased. that means we need more power, we also are the -- as a people. i mean in the history of mankind, almost every new major innovation tends to be depended on new supplies of energy. we all marveled at the high-tech revolution of the 1990s and since. but that revolution is largely driven by electricity, the electricity to manufacture the chips and the components of computers, the electricity needed to operate lap