84, and vonnegut also happen to die at the age of 84. >> what did kurt vonnegut died from? >> he collapsed. he 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 cigarettes would kill him. he would sue the makers of pall mall because the warming -- the warning label on the cigarette package said they would kill them and had not yet done so. but he actually happened to be smoking a pall mall while standing on these steps. so, next we have here two pieces of artwork created by morley safer of 60 minutes fame. morley is one of our honorary board members.

he was a close friend of kurt vonnegut. they actually both shared a close friend, sidney, who wrote the introduction for the last vonnegut book that came out. but these two pieces of art, the first on the occasion of kurt vonnegut's birthday was created in 2003 as a gift to vonnegut. and in the second was created when, when morley found out that vonnegut had died. and that was 2007. we are in the front of the kurt vonnegut library come in the gallery room. we have kurt vonnegut typewriter that was used in the 1970s. this was donated to us by his daughter, nanette. he wrote many of his more familiar books during the 1970s. we are happy to have this typewriter. he was not a fan of high

technology, and he did not use a computer. he preferred to use a typewriter through his dying days. he liked to work in his home on an office chair and a coffee table. he would slump over his typewriter. 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, and 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 many interesting characters.

and going out and meeting people, you know, was a way for him to cast new material for his work. vonnegut is timeless because these issues, you know, we still have the same issues. we are still suffering with war, disease and death. and famine and environmental issues. you know, he said your planet is trying to get rid of you. he's not we should take care of the planet. these issues, you know, have resurfaced and it does not look like we have found any viable solution 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 a look at our nation's history. and some of the authors have written about it. for more information go to

c-span.org/lcv. >> belva davis was the first african-american female news anchor on the west coast. she recounts her life and the many stories she's covered during an appearance at the hue-man bookstore in new york city. >> my thanks to you for being part of my dream, dream realized. i never could've imagined myself in this place at this time talking to people about a life that i have been privileged to live. everything that's happened to me i consider a gift. so, when you hear, which i will tell you in just a minute, how i started, where i started from, and then realize where i am today, you too will never say never in my wildest dreams. but i basically am a southern girl. i was a part of the great migration.

we got there a couple of minutes before that started. born in monroe louisiana and that is the northern part of louisiana. it doesn't even have the romance of being, you know, new orleans and all those customs. but i was born in 1932, you can do the math. in this town right after what they called the blood of the century on the ashikaga river. my mother was 15 years old when i was born. she worked as a longest your i was soon at families in the south, given the label of being a farmed out kid. the first farming out though was the best part of my young life. i was given to my mother's middle sister. i went to live with her. she was a childless woman who wanted a baby very badly. so i was very, very spoiled up to the time that i was about three and a half years old. after that, the world changed.

she had tuberculosis and died, for a child, so they but obviously there must have been signed but i did know about it. and i was fortunate enough to be sent to them when my mother mother and father lived, except also in the southern style, it was a very crowded facility. i'll call it that. because people came from the country when they got a job, went back when he didn't have one. they came from mississippi or whatever they were living. and we all sort of bump in together. remember, these were the depression years. what i was given was what a lot of small children were given back in those days, there were no bedrooms for all of us. so i had what was called a palette, which was my very own blankets that are put together and you sleep on them at night and you roll them up during the day. it made it very easy when i would be transferred from one relative to the other because i

had very few things to back up and luggage to take with me. i don't think i remember my first suitcase though until i was on the train to california. so that's how i started. by the time you're ready to migrate to california, i had lived in seven different homes by them. all of them homes of relatives, all of them people who are doing the best they could buy a little girl that was quiet, withdrawn, and constantly trying to find ways to please so that maybe somebody would keep me permanently. and that did not happen. we ran into, not traditional, but something that probably has happened to many southern blacks. my uncle, a great guy that he was, worked for a meatpacking company. he experienced an accident, a serious one. one of my aunts, one of the

households where my aunts worked, there was a young white lawyer, heard of my articles permanent injuries and filed a lawsuit on my uncle's behalf. we thought nothing of it except that it was a real buzz to why a black man would ever think you could file a lawsuit against a major company in the south and get away with it. but soon we found that through some miracle, a judge somewhere wrote in my uncle's favor. and we had about 10 minutes. i watched the adults rejoice, and then soon, that eating the young lawyer came to let my family know that the decision had been made by some in the community that he should be tarred and feathered. and that in a southern tradition it would be best if all the men left the south. and so the plan started that evening to come as quickly quickly as possible, the adult men out a powerhouse.

most of them went by automobile. my uncle went on a freight train, and that's how we joined, preceded the great migration, but only so lightly. it was a while. it was also custom for the women left, and then an even longer while before the children left. at least my brother and i. so we were sent off to arkansas to live with my grandfather, and that's where we stayed until my father came for me. i felt all of my life that my brother was the savior begins he was the baby they got to stay home. so that was the way we came to california. i was a kid my brother, i'm so glad that daddy loves you because then i get to go with you. and so that was my thought of mike importance in that circle. so you can see why i would write a book that says "never in my wildest dreams." expectations were not high as to what i would become.

but i think all of those shifting around, moving from place to place, gaining knowledge from relative to relative as to what makes for a good person, learning the dedication to work, honesty, that's one thing my aunt pearline cannot stand. she just hated a liar she said. and i've had with her through much of my life. so we moved to california and i thought this was going to be it. this is going to be, you know, this is peaches and honey and all of the good things but as what happened by then there was a war and we were living in a basement apartment, like many others, sharing the facilities. there were 11 of us in this two bedroom basement apartment. but we made it. they made it. they all ended up getting their own homes, and eventually i went with my aunt and her husband to live in one of the brand-new

houses -- housing projects, and oh, were we glad to get it. for a quick minute i had my own bedroom. that was something. soon after, my uncle -- yeah, my uncle's brother and his six children arrived, and life so i was very accustomed to change. so it's nothing for me to get used to the pace of being a journalist whether his constant change in constant moving around. because you learn to adapt to whatever it is. and life for me continued along a path that could have been predicted. i did well in high school. i pass my sat scores very high. and i forgot one thing. i forgot about money. and i didn't have anyone in my family joined ever gone gone to college, so by the time i realized i needed $300 to go to

college, it was too late for scholarships and no one in my family had the money. so i went to work. soon after was married, soon after that i had two children, started a different life. until one day i grew up. and when i grew up it was because i read so much, that he knew so much from reading. i loved reading and i attempted writing. certainly it was the caliber that if you come in those days, you got a magazine and there was a little writing contest in the come you could send it off. i don't think anybody ever answered, but it was a great opportunity for me to pretend to be a writer. and life then took many twists. i started to try to help women in our community, and the black middle-class women were just realizing they had a place in the nonprofit world with various charities. so i start writing little cut lines for photographs that would go in the black newspapers to

talk about working the march of dimes or whatever it was. and started to work with a photographer named chuck willits. his darkroom man was the man i have been married to for 46 years. so that was, so what started out as trying to help others turned into a real winning proposition for me here and that work led to, my first page if you want to as a stringer. i got $5 the week. and that was because the paper's total was 25 cents of that was to cover getting me to sever cisco to cover events. and for that i got a job working for a black weekly newspaper. and that's where i learned a lot. my editor was a former ap reporter who had spent 18 years in the far east. he just had a problem with too many drinks him and finally

after 18 years, they sent him home. and no one would hire him but the owner of a black weekly newspaper. and i was his only staff member. so i learned to do everything, right headlines, pick up a copy, pick up the safeway ads, bring back the proof sheets, whatever it took to get that little newspaper published. but it was while there is that i had one of the greatest and most surprise, i think of it out as a funny thing in my life. bell rang. that's a we had at the front because we had a receptionist. so when the bell rang we knew somebody was there. and so deal, the guy i was working with, darrell lewis, went to the front. soon the bell rang again and he said can you help me out? and i said what's going on? he said malcolm x is here. i don't think he called a malcolm x. i'm not sure but he had a proper name. but he said he's here, and i

said yes. and the man with inside man, you know that brother malcolm don't talk to white people. and i said what? and he said, that's right. i did know what to do. so i said well, what do you want? and they went onto explain that they wanted to place some copy in our paper. and i said back to darrell, they want to place a copy in our paper. and darrell said to me, how much is it and are they willing to pay? and i said, he said how much is it and are you willing to pay next. [laughter] we told them and they said we are not paying anything. they are not paying anything. so finally darrell said i don't have enough space, and i'll have to edit it. and i repeated that, of course, for which i was told, they told, one of them said, we can't have you do that. no. we can't have you do that.

and it was at that point that i turned to darrell and said, they don't want to do that. and we stood there silently for a moment, and then with a smile on his face, malcolm says, i will edit it myself. and that's how -- that's my malcolm x story. i was an interpreter for two men standing less than two feet apart of different colors who needed somebody to interpret in english what they were saying to each other. i don't think anybody else has had that experience of malcolm. i have been in his presence, and so on as part of my job at the press, but it was a wonderful moment, and had i not been the working for i probably would never have experienced it. but, that led to other jobs at the black newspaper, which then led to the idea in my mind that i want to go further. so i took a job, i got a job in

radio. these jobs did not come with salaries. they came with a dedication to learn. so i learned a bit about radio. finally, got a clerical job, put me in a position to deal with people who sold airtime. i was a manager. it was very clear to people that i wanted to be on the air. finally, the new salespeople got smart, new if you wanted his commercials to run at the proper time, he would find a show, and the belva davis show was born. and i had they showed that was for women, supposedly that i was the woman editor there, program director at the station. and i put this show on on saturdays were all sorts of famous people would come by, and i, once a month, would have a little luncheon where i would use the fried chicken from my sponsor, foster barnes chicken, clean pitches from domani, and

whatever else it took to make a peach cobbler, and invited women. and had a studio full of people and would have people like of course mel torme, nancy wilson, they would come on saturday to the ladies would enjoy lunch. boy, this was a fun life. until one day my news editor at the station and invited me to go with him because he needed help, and he was a one man band, to the republican national convention. it was being held at the cow palace in san francisco. and i volunteered to go. you couldn't get credentials because we are black. credentialing they were not credentialing people of color. they were very few delegates, but one of them we knew. and he was on the center committee and he got us two tickets for the gallery. we were there the first day, and we get by okay. second a former president eisenhower made a speech that came close to being racist.

from that speech of course as today, the hooligans took over. they berated the press. they use of language that i could not repeat in calling names of the press by name. in fact, one very famous correspondent was arrested and taken off the floor that night. soon, the attention turned to lewis and i. and we were there, and lewis was a man of steel nerves, i called them or at least he was a really great actor. so he said we will not be driven out. so we took our time packing our dear, because now we are surrounded, there's no security, we don't know what to do. then they started throwing things at us. we still worked at a normal pace, got our gear together, started our walk down that long ramp to get down to the main floor. and by that time things were getting a little hot because we

could hear bottles hitting the floor that were being thrown down the aisle. as we were going and one bottle got close to my head, people asked me how can you come after all these years, remember this? and i said how many times have you had a bottle thrown at your head? if you have, you remember that it happened. so my lips started to quiver because i thought i was really going to lose it, and louis whispered in my ear, if you cry i would break your leg. for some reason that made sense to me. that he would do this if we ever got out of there. but then the realtor came as we hit the door and the lonely cow palace in the dark of night as to whether we could make it to our car. we did. and in the car driving back we talked about it. and i realized that we been

harangued, but we were people with no power. none of the daily press would even be interested in our story, we thought. but i said those guys in their have been doing a great job down south. they have covered dr. king. they have started to move america. i want to be one of them. if i'm going to get harangued, i want to have some power to fight back. why would i make that decision? no college, no training, no education, never -- i didn't have anything to convince me that any white employer would want to hire me. but i started applying all around the place. and, finally, i was doing of all things a beauty pageant for black girls that i considered my civil rights work because it was my fight against miss america that unite our girls the right to participate. so we started our own pageant. i present the girls on television, and a writer from a

daily paper wrote that surely somewhere in television there must be a place for belva davis. and i acted as though that was carved in concrete, and just apply to everybody and everything, and to finally in 1966, i read a story about a loved ronald reagan and had said that if he was elected, she would quit her anchor job and got to work for him. that he was elected, i called her boss and i told him, i want to apply for her job. and he said what you mean you want to apply for job? i said she's going to be leaving. why do you think she's going to be leaving? i read in newspapers. it took a couple of weeks to realize that indeed she had planned to go before they wrapped it up. and the job was open. and about 70 women applied. and for whatever reason, the

westinghouse owned cbs station had hired the only black in our area, black man, named ben williams. and six months later they hired me, and so they had to black people in the state of california working on their channel, of all channels, and then and i took a responsibility there is here's a. because we knew that we had to do well. neither of us knew anything about television. but we both had faith that what we wanted to do was a good thing for our time and our place. and that was the beginning of a television career that has now spanned 43 years without a break, never a day without a job. and that's something i'm very proud of. [applause]

>> so, this charmed life that came from nowhere from a dream, has taken me on journeys that i couldn't have imagined. i've had the opportunity to come south, to go to georgia, have my chance to do my march, half my opportunity to be spat upon straightaway in my face a cute little blonde gal that i asked a question of. i've had the opportunity to go to the white house. i had the opportunity to talk to presidents. i've had the opportunity to twice go to cuba and interview fidel castro. i was called upon by the labor movement to go to south africa after nelson mandela's election to try to work with the blacks and whites to tell them what it was like to go in and integrate a broadcasting operation, because south african television as you well know was all white.

but we had separate meetings but each had their own fear. suppose my husband and i were privileged to meet people, to come in south africa for well over three weeks just trying to talk to both sides to get them to see what was possible if you're determined to do well. i think my most memorable trip outside of this country was to kenya and tanzania. and i was there at 1998 right after the bombing of the u.s. embassy there. and i landed there through fluke. i was sitting on the news desk copy about the bombing, and he would ever admit my copy, wrote about the fact that 12 americans had died. and i got off the set and start to read the story myself, and then i found out, 214 africans have died, and 5000 others had been injured and it was never mentioned.

so i had a little belva davis tantrum. i was known for those of a race issue. there was nothing to accept the way so that they didn't just, you know, not pay attention. so talked about it, and a few, a couple of weeks later i met a social event and and say how distressed i am and a young black woman physician with the national medical association, you know, that's the black medical association, said i, too, am in raged about this but i'm doing something about it. i have been soliciting. i have about $250,000 with medical supplies i'm going to to come along? and boy, did i want to come along. but i thought i have about a snowball's chance in haitis like this book, you're beginning to understand the title, but i'm a local reporter in san francisco wanted to go on a story that no american team is in kenya or in

nairobi at that time. there was reuters back and us when we got there, but i'm getting a little ahead. i petitioned my news director. i laid out the story, and i almost fell over, fainted when he said yes, you can go. and so with a team, my husband a photographer and two black physicians, we took off for kenya with these supplies. and i started to read this part to you, but i think i would just tell it to you because we went there over the objection of our government. we also knew that the cia was very much focused on why we wanted to do this. so we were uncomfortable and we felt that we are truly on our own from the beginning, but the kenyans embraced as wholeheartedly. i was so moved by the way they have handled the hysteria that followed those bombings bombings. the psychiatrist of nairobi got

together, and on the radio they counseled people. they had called and. people were injured, people who are frightened, people who needed to its. they talk to them because it was white as, why me and why not aid from the u.s.? and they spent two solid weeks almost nightly and daily counseling the citizens of that area. so when we arrived with some of the supplies they needed to help these people, which were not available, they were all embracing. when we went to the airport to pick them up though, we found they were missing. this was the administration of the president known for those things that presidents of that era are known for. so we asked about it and nobody could find. the second day we went back, and by now we are impatient because now we've seen these patients in hospitals and we know how much they need these materials that we bought. so standing there in the hangar where they're supposed to be, i

was finally for to a man that looked very important. i was told he was one of the sons. i went over to him and i explained to him, you know, we photographed this material when it is being loaded off trucks on air france planes flown here free of charge. i had a videotape of those planes taking off. i have a bill of laden from air france telling me that that plane landed here, and here's a list of what they say it contained. and if you don't find it, everybody in the world is going to know about this. now, how was i going to let anybody in the world no? but we stood and we stared at each other intensely. and, finally, with a smile, this young man, whoever he was said, we will just wait. i will be back. sure enough, about a half-hour later, he reappeared and said come with me. my husband thought we were

coming with me to the jail because he thought that's what they did with people who cross the government and the kenyans had told us that you would just disappear. so we went with them, and they're worth of supplies. and the doctor, strong brave woman just broke down in tears. and i did not join her, though i want to very much. because a steep eyed man will looking at me. -- a steely eyed man was still looking at me. but for me there are many moments in my career that i could say were treasured moments come and i'll talk about some of those, but that is the one that i am so grateful for my beginnings and what i learned about what you can do if you just keep pushing to the wall. my motto as reporter always had tomorrow is challenges is what

you worry about. you can't take that back and let it drag you down. you just have to keep moving forward. if not, you will be weighted and they will accomplish whatever those who don't want you to succeed, didn't want you to. that is really the model behind 43 years of success. and that is being able to lay down from time to time and move on, refresh yourself with whatever the new challenges. we face many in the bay area, as you know. we had the jonestown massacre, murder. we had our mayor and her supervisor killed by a fellow supervisor. we had the sla kidnappings. we had, my daughter issue, found out about this later, threats to our daughter's life because of patty hearst kidnapping.

we were confronted as to how much of that we should tell her at how much of that she should know about. we believed it enough that we move from her home in the suburbs to a place two blocks from my office. and i can't say that my daughter was a kind person during those days. she was very upset. she had left her friends behind for a reason she didn't understand. but those things happen. and like most black reporters from time to time, i had my turn with the authorities with the police department. and my son was a person who paid a price for the. it was on in fear, but he was finally arrested for making an illegal right hand turn because i was reporting on racial profiling. and i had two, three, four black police officers confirm the story and it was more the department to take.

so that is my journey. enough said. i hope that you will read the book. there are many more stories about many, many people and a long relationship from the beginning with the black panther party to the end. huey newton and i were born in the same town. our fathers knew one another, and so i had friends who helped them in the early days to become what they eventually became, internationally famous, but for some of the wrong reasons. i keep going further, but i will stop. and if you have questions, i'd be happy to take them. there's a mic for anybody who would like to speak. >> hello. gary ramsey. welcome. >> of course.

>> here's my question for you. following what you went through way back when, and up until now it seems what time that the industry was growing in representation. in the last 10 years has been almost a reversal of that. the digital media coming in, do you see, do you see a change in that or do you think that they will have to go back to the weight wears were black people have defined their own sort of nietzsche's to get information that represents the community? >> well, we are in a business where the industry to business of journalism has changed radically. we're still trying to figure out what the climate is for the future. we know the technology is the greatest killer of jobs in terms of reporters that is out there.

we have not, i worked very closely after the television union, american federation radio and television artists, and her years starting with the '80s i was the chair fighting for more employment. it's difficult when you're in a bar for the government no longer keeps statistics on who's working and who's not. we fought that battle, and of all things, wanted to a degree, within a republican administration, something that we have not been able to build on during the obama administration, we have not found the sec as good as we had hoped it would be. plus vat, the way jobs are described today, they're multitasking assignments. if you're working, still taking pictures and still doing video and your blogging and doing all kinds of things that reporters never had to do, if you're in television you are shooting and

editing and reporting come you're doing all sorts of things that my generation never had to do. we have the internet that offers all these blogging opportunities. so the people in charge can feel the world is open, go start your own. that's what they say if you have the skills and the ability. but we know that universal if we are to exist as a unit, as a country, we have to have reliable voices that we can trust their core how are you going to manage yourself? how are you going to manage the politics of your country if you have the right and left press and your left middle to try to figure out what's right and what is wrong. and as newspapers have closed down and gone, using the tools of trade today, they have found listings for people to gather information. they are just as happy to pass it around between each other because it makes the bottom line look better. so it's a challenging period. it's challenging its own ways, and way more challenging than it

was in my beginnings. because we at least have the government to turn to and would have equal employment opportunities committee to help us bring this group of people in. you know what's sad about that now? a lot of those people, they are younger than me, our senior reporters, at the top of the wage scale, the way business works is fire the people making the most money. they don't ask you about abilities, skills. they just look at the payroll cut. so these are new challenges now. and i certainly don't have the answer to because then i would be on the circuit selling that knowledge. but i want you to know it takes looking reality square in the eye to stop wishing for what was yesterday and figure out what tomorrow is. that's the only way you can win the battle. >> good evening. i have a quick question. do you think that the standards

in journalism compared to yesterday has changed in anyway today? for example, when i'm reading articles online, i think the quality of the written word is deplorable. and half the time the content that you're supposed recovering does not cover the full factor they just give you a list of jargon or i will call bs. so i want to know what your thoughts on maintaining the standards of yesterday, but it's today's new media so to speak. >> no the standards are not being met and we know that. unicode when you connect npr make a huge mistake by choosing the wrong information and trying to get it fast, to me, that's a sign that we had better slow. i think a lot of people are beginning to get fat, at least a little bit. we really take gossip as news. i love social media, not that i practice it but i think it's a

great thing for people who want to connect with one another and want to be social and want to have friendships that girl. i think you should do that. but you shouldn't call it journalism. i think that -- i don't say you have to maybe go as far as i did when i started. if i came up with a new bit of information, i have become to my desk and said yes, i have checked resources. i don't even know if people know to source is now. much of the stuff gets on the air by hearsay. so no, we are at a point where we are going to have to -- were getting into trouble times of the republicans and the budget and what is truth and what is not an religious float because we didn't have whatever it took to fight back. we let the foxes of the world takeover and lead the discussion. and eventually i know that there are a couple of people that i am familiar with your traveling around the country trying to

organize a different outlook, at least on the news, so that you get still the right and the left, know what we should be as a journalist, -- nowhere where we should be as a journalist but i have no answer to what we should do to make it happen. >> good evening. it's a pleasure for you to be here. >> thank you. >> i'd like to ask you a question. 1996 telecommunications act that was passed by congress, do you think that destroyed a lot of things because you have one station, well, like in new york all about the conversations in town. there's opportunity because telogen edition act destroyed a lot of things. >> there were those out there who have been working on this for very long time. they were just able to formalize it with that. and i walked into a station in skepticism, cbs station. there were nine logos on the door. nine operations in one building. and it's going to get tighter

with the purchase of nbc by comcast. nobody knows, seems to know how to stop this free trade because no one wants to be opposed to commerce. and job creation. there is no job creation that i've seen this come out of most of these big mergers. but yes, of course, the fcc is weak at best. the law is very much on this site. we're almost afraid to go to the supreme court with anything because we don't want it codified that some of these actions are legal. so we keep working around them and lobbying them and trying to do the best we can. i think as i said before, i don't mean to be a naysayer but i think we're in for perilous times in terms of really hanging on to what goes on the right, keep talking about the american dream and they don't seem to really understand that that means freedom.

>> ms. davis, i have to start off by thanking you for making it possible for young people like myself who want to get into journalism, particularly broadcast journalism, if that's what we choose to do to be able to have the opportunity to choose. so i want to thank you for that. >> thank you. >> i was surprised to use a earlier that it is difficult not to get into the industry than it was when he started it i would've thought it would have been the opposite. but it seems as though that for people my age now at this time who want to get into broadcast journalism so we have to start reinvent things as opposed to our white counterparts because it's the opportunities seem to be more available for them. what advice, and i know its osha, what advice would you have for people of color, young people want to get into the industry, particularly on tv to statistic which ourselves and become marketable in this industry? >> i think that's where this thing that my union really

dreaded, dredge the fact that i said the. i think it's learning the tools of today's trade, that you got to do. but you have to have in your back pocket all the basics of journalism. good writing, you know, to be curious, do have some fashion, to want to bring something to the table. because that's what will drive you to tolerate the tools of the trade. that if you don't start with that in your heart, you don't start with that kind of expansion, then it's going to be even more difficult because you will not get that inward glow that comes from having done something because you know it is right. but the tools of the business that had drunk so many people down. there are people who are in tv that don't want to edit, they don't want issue, they don't want to do whatever, they don't want to do. but there are very few places you could go and not be required to do it. and i know the union fights it all the time. we are still battling it, you know, the one man band. but it just seems to be like

rabbits going everywhere. so when i say it's tough, i meant because i had a community that fought to get me my job. they were they ready to pick it in picketing meant something. there was a commission whose job it was, it was a report that called for the hiring of black americans to cover the news more fairly. so i have those tools. you don't have those tools. you are just out there in the world of commerce trying to figure out how you can fit with what you want to do into the scheme or somebody will pay you to do it. now, what we need to do is what those other kids are talking about, except we don't have as many family members with connections that can help us grow, you know, the beginning tragedies. so we have to do what we've always said we needed to do, learn to work together more. and to find some of those people

who are sitting on top of the empire state building with great jobs and big money is skin is brown, to somehow get them to realize in the end, they too are black. and they really need to look for a product and protegé's and people who can tell a story. [applause] >> all right. >> i read your book. >> just this -- areas. ..

from the 10th to the 12th grade, i slept under the floor under the dining room table. the funny part i had a little job and i saved up enough money because my white girlfriends were having speeds 16 parties and i threw myself a sweet 16 coming-out party, centered around a table that became a bedroom at night. none of my friends ever knew i slept there. but it just shows you what you can do and how silly you can be when you're a dreamer. >> i just think it's so interesting because your childhood was so much harder than you're making it seem and to me it's remarkable that you come from bad to where you are

now. it's extraordinary. >> i just want to say, basically my motive in writing this book was to read it for young people who think they have barriers that they cannot cross today, that because they lived in the project, because they didn't have any money, they didn't get this degree or the other that they should lay back about the world float by. we all have an individual responsibility to use every gift god has given us to the best of our abilities. that's it. thank you. okay. >> i think one of the things that struck me in my short time -- about 20 years in the business is you mention the people of color who were at the top. while there are a great number of people who have made it a part of their muncher to reach

back, i would have disfigures unequaled number of those who have basically decided i've got mine. you go get yours. i mean, what is the psychology behind that. they don't come for my time. they are certainly older than me. is there any way -- is there anyway to turn that around and make more of them responsible for what it is they're supposed to do? >> i sometimes see my brothers and sisters who come from that environment, even though they were foreign students. that's what i wrote this book. i think they need to read and hear more from those of us who have had to come along route. many of them are the people chosen for the herbert scholarships in the free education and associations with other groups coming in now, wherever people go that are rich on these trips. for us it silicon valley. we have a number of very high ranking blacks in valley that you never see anything that even

associated with the black. i worked very hard to establish a museum in the bay area called the museum of the african diaspora. about five years ago it open. before that, our mayor, willie brown, decided we were going to put this museum as part of the sites our saint regis hotel and convention center. the mayor could make them give us the face, but he couldn't make them pay for it. so i somehow got chosen to be the person as i was winding down my career to raise almost $6 million of the museum in two years. i did because it represented all that i respect, the oneness of the human race. the earliest relics of human life come from the african continent and the theories by the leading scientists have both berkeley and stanford are indeed

this is the true story and this museum is dedicated to telling that story. and so, while i was doing that, to raise the money of horse i thought it the fat cats from google and so on would be my first one that i would get to and they would write the check. not one of them did. in fact, one man of color who bought the top floor of the saint regis hotel, $30 million was one who i thought would be a guy who after all we are in the basement of the building he is in. he eventually did give some money, but during those first years, i was so wide-eyed that really they had more millions than it would ever know what to do with. and i think we just have to look at that as educating these people, to along with everybody else.

>> i want to stay thank you to you, belva davis. i've known you for a very, very long time, since the day of your beauty pageant, which was an awesome experience. and i've watched you connect the dots between culture and commerce and politics in a way that belies the upbringing that i did not know about until i read this book. and before i knew it, there were tears coming down my face because i'd never seen you not as perfectly poised as you are right now. it would never, in my wildest dreams, what i think that you have ever to endure anything. i want to thank you for being such a role model and not stepping back from that, but rather for erasing it and look at the bar that you have raised

for everyone that you open the door for to come through after you. it is a high bar and it should be a cousin as much abuse done, there's still so much more to do. i'll want to stay thank you, belva davis. [applause] >> thank you. thankthank you very much. and i really am grateful to all of you who have come out tonight. i hope you'll read -- there is lots more to this story. in my professional life, which i skirted over because i know you know about those events. you know something about the circumstances of it, but what you don't know if the blackness of the story. and every one of these begins with something that happens that was unique to the fact that i was a black woman. and that is the other story that needs to be told, that we in integrate. but when we get into the newsroom, will see things that different. we're going to have to say.

we're going to have to sort of be disliked every now and then. but it's why those people who marched in alabama and mississippi took the beating they took for us and we oppose them. >> last question. >> i came into thinking earlier as someone who was in the area while you are at westinghouse. you were just an incredible role model the whole time i was there. i want to say, not only did your stucco to make it as a woman of color, you gave us, as they try to get into sales, you were an inspiration to those of us. and i was one of the few to get into media sales effort that

kpix, but we always looked at you and knew we could make it into sales. the thank you. >> i want to congratulate you because we own a station managers come out of department. so by the time i can see some black faces in sales, my hopes were high. maybe one of these days. >> rate, thank you so much for coming. i want to give a shout out to sharon wells who is the audience and just want to say, thank you so, so much. if you could do so much with so little, you know, what can we do with all of it? we hope that you not only get one for yourself and pass it on to a child. we have to make this less then. we have to make these legacies clearly understood it for going

to move forward. the thank you very much for being here. [applause] >> to find out more, visit the author's website, belva davis.com >> well, there is a new online enterprise just starting up and it is called the washington independent review of books. david stewart is the president of this organization. mr. stewart, what is your organization? >> it is a group of writers and editors and similarly minded people, mostly in the d.c. area who are very dismayed by the traveling of book review space inserted the standard media. a lot of work review sections have been folded. they've shot and it's just

harder to find information about what's going on in the world of books these days. the coverage of the publishing industry has shrunk. so we decided to try to do something ourselves. this is really sort of from the judy garland, rick mickey rooney movies where they put on the show. we decided we would crater on book review. 70 of us have been engaged in it and we just launched another great response. it's been a lot of fun and very gratifying. >> what kind of books will you be reviewing on this site? >> a wide range. we are going to really review nonfiction and fiction. we suspect for now we're not going to be looking at children's books and they will be looking at romance literature but beyond that, we are quite open and will be reviewing recently released books. we hope to get our review is up within the first 30 to 45 days

after publication. so you can come to us for current information about what are the new books out there. >> now, can people submit books to be reviewed as well? >> would rather not get books, but they can certainly bring them to her attention because we'll have to decide if we want to review them. you can get a lot of books that way that are hard to deal with. so we certainly invite people to e-mail us, bring their bookstore attention, send us their publicity packet that we know in plenty of time that it's coming and we can decide whether it's one we want to take a shot at reviewing. >> mr. stuart come you said a lot of very viewers and people involved in the washington independent review of books have backgrounds in writing and publishing. what is your background? is a snapshot of some of the people who will be participating. >> well, my background was i was a lawyer for many years and i am

now an author and have done a couple books on american history, when i'm writing the constitution in the summer of 1797. one of the impeachment trial and i have a new one coming out this fall uncaring burrs western conspiracy called american emperor. the other folks involved come from journalism. there are book writers as well. we've been so lucky in recruiting reviewers. we've got a book on the eichmann trial in israel we were able to get judge patricia wald who was on the war crimes tribunal for yugoslavia. we've been able to get the leading constitutional scholar erwin chemerinsky to look at a first amendment book for us. we have just had a terrific rate on sprint people, just an example, pauline who has a wonderful book out about the ratification of the constitution

is going to reviewing a book on the revolution by gordon wood. so we've really been able to get top-notch reviewers and it's an exciting thing. now everybody in this operation works for the same amount of money. nobody is paid and that includes our reviewers. this wonderful city people pitch in to create this conversation about the world of books, which is really what we're all about. >> and there has been a decline in traditional media preview of works, but online there is quite an active marketplace of reviewers. what do you bring to the table that is different? >> i think were going to bring the depth and quality of our reviewers. we also redoing features. we are going to have interviews and q&a's. with a couple of radio interview partners who will put enough podcasts. so will provide a full range of informatio