school was desegregated, the national guard was sent by president dwight eisenhower because governor orville felt it did not want to see central high school desegregated. he did not want a black children and what central high. but daisy bates was there every day advisor, counselor, teacher, comforter. she then announced in little rock for many years and she became kind of the point person to help these nine children get through the terror of walking to school everyday, confronting physical and emotional abuse on a daily basis. she became one of the heroines. she could have been excused for being hateful. just after she was born, her mother was someone and murdered

by three white race is and she was put into the care of a couple's appearance. as she grew up, she saw her step. taken an enormous amount of abuse themselves. she saw it with your own eyes. one time she went out with her stepfather inside, why do you ask that this abuse? why don't you hate these people who do this to you? she said quite simply and this is a comment you hear pretty much to almost anybody involved in the civil rights movement. ..

. >> when margin of 13 back to his speech were he said the most important for words not i have a dream all the love of passage but unearned suffering is redemptive. harold told me he felt a surge of electricity go through his body and as if he was touched by the most profound thing in his life and remembered to what they used to tell him about his

grandfather who was a landowner in alabama and one day sitting on his horse on his own property and shot dead off of the course by a white farmer who was jealous and angry that a black man could possibly own anything. when year-old's father told him this story, his grandfather was shot down in cold blood he told her all the same thing that he told her that he cannot hate hatred or fight hatred with hatred but only with love. and harold likewise took that to heart. but the highlight of the whole march on washington is the famous "i have a dream" speech. i agree it was the highlight but as i said before i like to emphasize four different

words, earned suffering is redemptive other than the words i have a dream. as this was soulful it would hold the movement together in 1963 summer this was splintering and facing unprecedented pressure from the outside. this was the summer of the fbi decided they would go after martin luther king with everything that they had. this was the summer when literally tens of thousands of blacks were thrown into jail, some in conditions as bad as a pruitt for the temerity to mark the standoff for their own basic human rights. this is the summer when the younger blacks were starting to get impatient with martin luther king and his emphasis on nonviolent resistance. they started to listen a

little more to people like malcolm x talking about any means necessary also robert williams who by the time had fled the country but now one of the leading apostles both the -- fighting violence with violence in the black community. a number of people were involved when the zero north carolina a big battle there and malcolm was finding a lot more followers who were arguing note to non-violence and no to integration which for the two pillars of the civil-rights movement. at the same time there was a movement on the left, at the same time the more radical edges of the civil-rights movement to repudiate the very core, there was also growing pressure from the right not only the fbi developing plans to go after

the movement but there were movements throughout the state legislatures to essentially passed constitutional amendments to take congress right away to legislate anything on in the civil-rights. these constitutional amendments that were slowing moving at the time would essentially create a new confederate states of america. there was a lot going on at the moment and what martin luther king wanted to do was to hold the movement together, the center to hold the core of the movement of course, was non-violence and integration. to do that he had to reach his followers who were so abused for so long, who had billy clubs, cattle prods, water cannons comment taken to jail, left there, a

start, terrorized and countless other ways, he had to appeal to them to stick with it. and what i consider to be the core of his speech and the message of the day, he said i know you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. some of you have come out of jail cells were having suffered physical abuse come economic abuse and every other indignity person can and do we're. but i want to tell you unearned suffering is redemptive. think about that. here is a rear leader who was talking truth to his people. not telling him it would be easy but saying it would be hard or there was no safe place to go but telling them to go back to mississippi, alabama, louisi ana, georgia. he was telling them to go back into the middle of the violence and the terror and

telling them that if you do that, and there will be redemption at the end of the day. you may not see it but there will be redemption. think about it. he was telling them, and a sense that progress cannot come from the people in power. you have to take it and they will fight back. if it would be easy there is no need for the movement in the first place. this is hard work. but four unearned suffering to be redemptive, that adds the third core element of the great movement. he contrasted to physical force and said it is always much more powerful because it taps into things that once it is there, and nobody can take it away. and he took seriously, the

bejeezus command to love thy neighbor as thyself and sometimes jokes. that does not mean i have to like them but i have to love them. and there was this extra third element to go along with putting bodies on the line and thinking with high intelligence as ever at us has been brought to bear, these three elements that made the civil-rights movement so successful and we're on display august 28, 1963. i want to close with some quick comments. talk about your wisdom, i would argue that every person is a hearing eight -- zero and thousands of others in the mall bad day. i only told a few of the stories this evening. one of the important things to remember is that has to come from ordinary people. not just from the

professional activist. am okay was a professional active list. phillip randolph was a professional activist. they did all kinds of great things for their people but it had to be the ordinary people who were sprawled out in front of them at the national mall. i heard a talk last night of a psychologist and he argues about ordinary everyday heroes and says an order for good to happen in the world, you have to prepare to be a hero. they have to teach themselves and have to be ready for whenever extreme situation confronts them. when it comes and almost is unpredictable, they are ready to jump in to do the right thing. if you are not ready, you probably will not be a hero. this contained upwards of 500,000 people, the official

estimate is 250, more independent say more like 400. the mall was filled with ordinary he rose and that is why the civil-rights movement succeeded. that is why the margin washington is so important because for the very first time ever all-america got to see the glory of the civil-rights movement. nine understand we have a little bit of time for questions. the way this works is because c-span is talking -- taping this you have to talk into the microphone that will be passed around. anybody who wants to ask a question i will be happy to entertain any. >> i was going to ask you

where did the title come from? >> "nobody turn me around" there are a lot of great and the miss comet ain't going to let nobody turn me around. i thought it capture the determination to move forward no matter what. that no matter what came down in the year 1963, there was no going back to segregation or terrorism as a way of life, and no going back except for basic equal rights for everybody and i thought that some capture the finance and the determination that hundreds of thousands of people displayed that summer throat the movement -- throughout the movement. >> i love your books. i think it is brilliant. i wonder what you as an

author went through in terms of a changing or nine changing image that you personally held, what you thought when you conceived of the project. what you thought as you reported it, wrote it, and what you think now? >> i have always been an a lot of martin luther king when he was shot, i was seven years old. i lived in philadelphia at the time. "the philadelphia inquirer" included a big color photograph of keying and i take it over my bed. i don't know what it was because i was too young to understand but i don't know what it was that was so captivated to the seven year-old white boy in suburban philadelphia but he has always been a great source of inspiration i also have always known at least that he was human and had his own frailties and laws

and did not always do the right thing and not always as courageous as he should have been. but, to be what is most great about martin luther king not that he had so many great qualities but he could overcome his own inherent limitations. he went to college at the age of 15. when he was a boy, his teachers, i read a bunch of introduce, they said there wasn't anything special about him intellectually. he could not write at all and almost never spoke. but you could tell back then that he had a determination to do something. he did not know what it was. his daddy wanted him to be a preacher but he wanted distance so he talked about a lawyer or a doctor. but not until after he finished college and went to

the seminary -- seminary outside of philadelphia, that his vision for himself as a leader and a civil-rights activist jelled and also not until then in fact, by his own account stop hating white people. it is hard not to hate people who have oppressed you and growing up in atlanta even in a comfortable circumstances the dignities were all around and what amazes me so much is intense striving to go to the next level cannot be satisfied with how much you know, or even with their own philosophical point* of view. and a lot of people don't month -- don't know around the montgomery bus boycott, it was a non-violent movement, but

came did not totally understand what non-violence was and had warned -- armed guards on his porch, and not until coming down from new york, either real thing kurt of nonviolence that he was called the american in the ghandi and then moved into his basement to live that he really understood the power of the tactics of nonviolent said was always learning. one more thing about king. i love this man. i talk to a man named lloyd whose father was a speaker for the congress of racial equality and the leader, james farmer was in jail in louisiana at the time. young floyd told me as the state legislature that his

image in march amid 13 is a gentle father figures taken by the hand by him the ice cream and play with him and tickle him and put him on the shoulder that is the side that people don't see. he was multifaceted and always interested in growing beyond whatever he was at the moment. >> two questions. reduce the aa negative heroism and why? >> that is two questions. [laughter] why? it is hard to say. this knuckle part once to say there is nobody like is

walking around but i don't know that. i don't know the quiet deeds of heroism going on i do know there's all kinds of people doing creative things and starting schools. in colleges like yale and all of the country people are just dying to work for teach for america to go into the inner city to teach $20,000 per year or whatever they get. there is the idealism that is there that needs to be tapped. for america enthusiasm resume padding, i suppose that is say time consuming way to pass the resume but i think there is a real desire to do something to make the world better but i think we live in an age where it is hard to do the right thing and hard to have the time to develop yourself to be ready for here was someone that chance comes. we live in a society a great distraction. we live in a society where

we are sold on pollute station believably materially well off we have no idea how well we really are. so we are dissatisfied if we don't have a new car or don't have the latest computer or flat screen tv. none of that really matters but they are distracting and take your mind off of how lucky you are on a day-to-day basis and how much great work there is to do. so above all else we live in the age of distraction and that undermines the powerful urge people have to do something good. and this man was at the march crop clap -- . [applause] >> my recollection coming out of the '50s the whole concept of protest was not

legitimate and regarded as subversive. do you think the 1963 march played the important role to change that to sell you could organize a demonstration without being subversive and you may end up in jail or we beaten up by the copps? >> you were. but but the conventional wisdom the march on washington did not make that much of a difference. it was a nice way to gather with this great speech the great man gave a lot of people remember fondly and warmly but did not make much difference. that was my point* of view to be honest. but what i come to realize

this this was the first time, think about that. this was the first time all of america got to see the civil-rights movement unfiltered. it was the first major it was covered live by national tv. roger mudd was the anchor. and to see who these people were to watch every clip it was probable. to see how deason that movement was and how uncomplaining it was and determined to put their own bodies on the line and how but when america saw this it

transformed people's present people yadda and others it took a little while it had other important impacts there was the scenes behind whether there is a woman speaker at the march 10 officials speakers were all men and a number of women who complained they were represented up on the roster and casey cayden and a bunch of other people. and they were told by philip randolph and above all else they were humanlike anybody anybody, you are represented. james farmer from the core represents you, john lewis from others represents you. also from the uaw represents you and so on.

but eventually there was a compromise where daisy bates was allowed to speak for the women and given a short speech to read and a group of eight women were asked to stand up to about and except applause. but i believe that played a major role in the emerging women's rights because there was a strong sharp powerful bolt notion. hold on a second. how is a different for blacks to be claiming their rights which they deserve more different from women to claim their rights? it became pretty clear pretty quick to the smartest people an activist politics it was not right. then there was another incident that had never been covered by anybody and only speculation on my part. it is not in the book. i believe the margin washington was a major

influence to create to the free speech movement which began the next year at the university of california berkeley. one of the main leaders was involved in the civil-rights movement or have not been able to find out if he was at the march price had amassed hundreds of people and nobody can tell me. i assume he was not. but there is a big battle behind the scenes over the john lewis speech and the catholic church threatened to pull all of the priests and nuns and followers out of the march because they consider the speech to me too incendiary. he talked about a second shermans peaceful march throat the south to shatter the system of segregation and that was too incendiary and too radical for the catholic bishop of washington. he threatened to pull out but eventually lewis did

change his speech. think it was better and more critical and sharper but there was a big free-speech issue and that was on the mind of every activist. they knew what was going on in. and i believe john lewis first speech was felt every bit as much as the second speech that he did get and he contributed greatly to the free speech movement and to the whole student movement and to the peace movement. but must have a major influence but for the whole world because this event was covered by satellite throughout the world so then

the communist party took it off the air. that had a major impact on people and the colonial systems in africa and a sure who were thinking about their own struggles purpose of bill taye was a major influence for the democracy movement in south vietnam that had an interesting role on a trajectory but this is the single moment in american history. anything else? >> you touched on it a bit but it how much to go into was set leaders and those the numbers supporting the leaders?

>> when you say clash you may -- you need? >> okay. what they can apply in this research was a memo that summarize where the planning was at the time. i got all the records from the organizing committee and went through page by page. finding a memo with a listing all of the speakers at the march every unemployed worker was crossed out. but thought that the speaker is represented the the group that were well-connected folks and a lot of people in the movement to wanted ordinary people to get a chance to get up there to say their piece.

but there was some tension and disappointed because it was a slick produced operation that that any time he made day compromise to surround him in the office and would call him a traitor and a sellout and then he said now children, he had a british way of talking that he used when he wanted to get people's attention. now children, and the only thing that matters is to have as many people on the mall as possible for everybody to see this is a grand movement and we're not going anywhere until we get basic rights. maybe that was a correct decision put to speak of the heart from the fields or the

factory that would be a site to behold and it was heartbreaking for me to see that go through the unemployed worker and there was. and these tensions existed it was the traditional civil-rights approach but they were all united because they wanted to make it happen and realize united states was in danger of blowing up. we think there's a lot of attention, and we mess and hatred but at least it was matched and exceeded and what enable them to get through it was with what

randolph and wilkins and louis and the other heroes on the mall were ready for anything. because of when danger approach them. >> walter, i am sorry beds mccarthyism has not died unfortunately but to what the fact the trade unions what role they played with the stories that were kept and the back. >> it is very interesting. the idea for the march 1st started to develop december 1962. what they were thinking of doing is having a centennial march for the emancipation of proclamation.

it took effect january 1, 1863 said they were thinking that we need to do something to mark zaslow fell luck randolph got together and they agreed they would get some march on washington going. philippe randolph organized one with than called off because roosevelt was president and cave to his demands for the executive order banning discrimination against blacks and the wartime industry. randolph wanted to do the march and the worst way and rest then planted the seed again. by the time he met randolph in december, he had already cents a share on a fund-raising mission and said i want you to go to the most left the labor organization to get money. here is why. they will not be transpire

reporting to president kennedy. he will want to control this thing. if we start off fund-raising by going to the afl-cio or comment meany was not pro civil rights but if we go to either of these, they will go back to jfk and met regularly at the white house. then we will lose control of this before we get it going. he told them to go out to the most left oriented labor union to start feeling out who might be interested in doing this kind of thing. as it turns out the mainstream guy was a critical part of that and a moderating first -- force before john lewis his speech and pressured a milky and

randolph and lewis to make sure they accommodative the catholics and not want to see the big faction leave. , he was a liberal by any definition. but was terribly concerned because of a handful of phrases in his speech. but organized labor in these days was lily white and deeply deeply racist. walter, although he was talking about the civil rights for many, many years when there is no membership and the uaw he had not come through on a promise to degrade the labor movement but a lot of labor was

conservative much of it was racist as well as anything else? wait for the microphone. >> you describe this is happening as a seven year-old white kid from suburban philadelphia estimate at the time of the march, i was a two year-old from the suburb of chattanooga good tennessee. >> that does not matter to my question which is what made you so interested in the subject? >> i really don't know by i was already interested in this when the incident happened but when i was young, born in hamilton county hospital in chattanooga tennessee in 1960 in a white person's word of the hospital.

when time my mom gave me a book that it included a brochure from the hospital that she saved. i remember looking at it and seeing the white lowered. what? i knew intellectually and factually that i was a child of segregation. but it did not really seen again until i saw that. the feeling i think i have had my whole life and it just swell decided the research for the book but they got for these people because they saved me from growing up in a society where it was not only okay but better than okay and it was the law to think of was better because i deserve better facilities because i have light skin. we have a lot of problems in this country i don't mean to

minimize the problems that remain but but to grow up in the officially racist apartheid society because of these people 10 to the gratitude over well as me at times as i do the research. the civil-rights movement is sometimes referred to as a black movement that there was no such thing in one sense. it was a way to redefine what it means to be a citizen of this country and how we look on our fellow citizens. where i grew up, tenn., of pennsylvania, new york, iowa i did not hear people use the n word or hear the argument whites were better than blacks.

i know people say that i did not hear that. i did not grow up knowing it to a white school i went to a school with a lot of blacks and hispanics. growing up in a post racist society even though it has us solve all of its problems to be is an incredible gift. i knew that all along and it is what pulled me toward this subject but it only grew in intensity as i worked on the research. >> could you get involved with the civil-rights movement in this country? >> there's a lot happening in this country. here is what i think about civil-rights. after the march on washington, this is how i would like to think about civil rights going forward.

it will take a couple minutes to get it out. right after the march on washington, being interviewed about what would happen to the movement now? he wrote a famous article called from protest to politics. in these remarks and in this article from commentary magazine, he argued as soon as basic rights were granted or the legislation passed 64/65 the movement itself was over. and now that everybody, if you will, were given basic official equality under the law , now politics was about bargaining for your piece of the piper rather than meeting to demand what it should have been all along as the basic rights of

humans, they shifted from making universal demands to bargaining for your share of medicis in. as soon as you move from universal to a bargaining style politics you lose the marvell electricity not to say that they don't matter like transferred job-training and bilingual education and housing and all kinds of other things. not that that doesn't matter but give-and-take kind of politics as opposed to the universal demand, and no compromise. that is what we have been since this period of roughly 65, 66, a 682 chase the end of the movement and have become a nation of bargainers' for benefits. but we need to make a move

back to the universal volume is. that we need to think about it to see everybody has access to certain basic things. one example then we close. education. know it is controversial but i believe the single most important thing is to have free school choice. no reason the black child or white tyler hispanic child should not have the same access to education from a world of privilege. when my family moved from iowa to york my father went four months ahead of time specifically to find the best school district that he could for me and my brothers

and sisters. he have school choice because we were relatively privileged middle-class. we had school choice. why should and other affluent well-to-do families have that choice and other people not have that choice? i believe if there was a full-fledged movement for real school choice where every single child or family and the country could select whatever school works best for them, we would see the on parallels for writing and of educational excellence. but is just one example where universal values need to move up front again and we need to get away from the back-and-forth bargaining because that has gotten us into a position referring clay nobody is satisfied and people are confused about

what the goal is. is the goal of few more benefits? or the bus system? out like to see us move not from protest to politics to protest if needed and makes sense but i would like to see moving toward universal basic access to basic needs. >> are you please what you have done with your education? [laughter] with civil-rights, you want to educate the world. >> >> what are they do with that education as far as civil rights go and what is happening in the world right now? i don't know what about politics but i have been through a lot. >> i will tell you that on every economic survey, the

people with education make far more money, not that that is the most important thing but they have far more choices and the types of careers they can have i made more mistakes than i care to admit in my life and career but but then i have to have done things right and a lot of the past to do with a good education through high school and public schools than a scholarship to college than to graduate school. basically what i gave me was choice. the more education you get the more doors that open. the less education, the more doors that close the. >> would you write it down in the civil-rights movement? >> i tried to do it as a teacher. one thing i am doing now, i

have developed a system of rating which i call a writing code that i believe can transform anyone's writing in a matter. with getting high school dropouts together so i can teach them what they did not get and high-school. that doesn't mean everybody could be a hemingway but it does mean that everybody can enjoy the basic skills and benefits and to many people cannot. one of the motivations for the writing code is to put new tools into ordinary people's hands. this that involve me protesting someplace? and no. but more tools into more people's hands. >> i do not use the word

protest. but it. >> in other words, caring about the issue can take many different forms a thank-you. [applause] thank you for coming out. >> we are here talking with when the boy from the independent institute about the upcoming books that are coming out. >> a number of exciting new books, two new books that are being we released call

beyond politics and we will be releasing in early april and with heavy promotion for that it is a classic book that all students should read your interested in learning about free market principles and the foundation of our democracy and how the principles apply to the current political atmosphere that is absolutely essential. the new holy wars with bob no sin did an event featuring the dichotomy between economic religion and environmental religion we also have habeas corpus coming out who is a new author and we're very excited about that we will be investigating new works early in the fall we have exciting projects on the

horizon. 12 look out for next year is the book we are to remain the dirty dozen for now but looking at the dirtiest dozen government failures over the past 100 years that should be very interesting to keep in mind. >>host: does the institute have its own press or do they publish through somebody else? >> the is a two does publish their own books and work with our own outside publisher. for some of the books par south published this is a to publish leviathan the edge we have also worked with other publishers including house saying america and we do both. >>host: thank you for your

time >> i would lead like to start off, this is not a reading this evening but simply a talk with you and day but i would like to start off if i made to read something from the book. just to set the mood. the scene was 1960's when bobby fischer was going to go to argentinargentin a to

play at the big international tournament. >> one week before he left for argentina bobby and the author of this book had dinner at a greenwich village the hangout of artist and abstract expressionist and one of bobby's favorite eating places. the night weaver their jackson pollock was having a conversation at the bar and andy warhol and dined at a nearby table. not that bobby notice. he just like the mood the restaurant sure to -- circuit was a shepherd's pie and the anonymity came from sitting among those who preferred at looking at the art celebrities rather than taking out of the chess prodigy. we ordered bottles of beer. but the waitress did not question although he had

just turned 17 and not legally old enough to drink in new york state. 18 was the limit at that time. he looked like he was 18. he knew the selection without looking at the menu. he tackled and enormous slab of prime rib which she consumed in a matter of minutes. if he were a heavyweight boxer enjoying his last meal before the big fight. he just received in the mail , during a lot of the conversation, all lowered to. while spending time with bobby and did not talk much and not embarrassed by long silences, i said how will you prepare for the tournament? i want to know how you did it. he seemed unusually chipper and became interested in my

interest. here he said i will show you. he slid out and sat next to me cramming me into the corner then retrieved from his pocket but chess said all little pieces lined up ready to go to war. i don't know if you have seen one of those but hardly larger than the index card progress he talked he looked at me back and forth and said first, out of scholarly treatise for the method of preparation, i will only really prepare for one. i am not worried about the others. he should be the progression of his one and only game, a draw two years earlier and took me through each movies have made and one moment

winning and then the other the next. but to the variety of choices bobby would run through was dazzling and overwhelming. the course of rapid douses he discuss their ramifications of variations our tactics why each would be advisable or not. like watching a movie with a voice-over narration with one great difference. he was manipulating the pieces and speaking so rapidly it was difficult to connect to the moves with his commentary i could not follow the temple of ideas behind the shadow assaults. you could not play there because i did not think of this. was he kidding? the slots on his pocket set were so worn and in march from thousands of games and little pieces almost fell in to the slots and winningly and all of the images were

worn off. then he went on to discuss our one point* said did you read on stains book? i said no. isn't it in russian? and he looked at me amazed i did not know the language. he looked at me and said learn it. it is a fantastic book. i am not playing for a drop. again almost without looking it is hard to prepare for because he can play any kind of game and then the also game after game focusing on the openings planned against the favorite variations. multiple outcomes but did not just confined himself to his efforts to playing with

the 1800 psat and experimenting with in the 1920's as well as others that were played just weeks before period och what he had claimed to suggest alternatives and select the best line to discriminate and decide was a history lesson and a chess tutorial. but mainly it was an amazing feat of memory. his eyes, the gays were fixed on the pocket said that he gently held open talking to himself totally unaware of my presence were in the restaurant. his intensity seemed even greater and in his fingers sped by a in a blur as if he was then a reverie and whispered very audibly

audibly, now, if he plays that, i can block his bishop. raising his voice so loud that some of the customers stared, he will play that. i began to weep quietly aware that in that time suspended moment, i was in the presence of genius. [applause] okay. we can talk and have question-and-answer and there is a microphone over here from c-span. they are filming this for a future broadcast. if you have a question, do not yellow out. make sure it is picked up on the tv.

i was attempt the two do a number of things and let me tell you if you do not know how to play chess at all you can read the book. this is a biography. of course, it is a great interest i would hope to chess players but you do not have to know the name -- know the game very well to enjoy it. i have written a number of other biographies up from aristotle onassis but as a biographer is a microscopic look at his life and i attempted to leave no fact behind. that is the way i approach all of my books.

i want to know every trivial fact. i may not use it but it gives me confidence i know my subject and i use it somewhere along the line. there was no library and visited or no archive fact more research unexamined on my part. hand as approaching this as a researcher and biographer, i was official witness and participant and bobby's career per car was the director of a plan of the first tournament he ever played as a child in asbury park at the old monterey hotel and bobby was 10 or 11 and his mother was with him. i noticed bobby at that time

and he was a magnet for people because he was so tiny and the angus person playing and everyboby gathered around to watch him. i noted who he would become but i noted how serious he was. he took his time and concentrated and was great. we also played an that some of the same tenants together, we never met light years away he was in another universe in terms of ability but we did play perhaps hundreds of speed games over the years. don't ask me to one. [laughter] but he was the incredible speed player and it was interesting the playground

basketball, a lot of trash talk. what? you play that against me? how dare you. you are a cockroach and i and the elephant and the 11 steps on a cockroach. [laughter] crunch. and absolutely the most incredible speed player in the world as it turns out. so i was there and also the arbiter of the u.s. championship where he won all of his games without loss is lowered draws that had never been done before. and has not been done cents or may never be done again. i was right there the entire time. i had an opportunity to study him and observe him and i talked about that in the book. i also defended bobby when g