demanding the same thing. why didn't you, the government, do more for me? america was the only nation in the developed world where millions of people took to the streets to tell the state i can do just fine if you control freak status would shove your stimulus coming your jobless jobs bills and multi trillion dollar and stay the hell out of my life and out of my pockets to [applause] that is the america that has a sporting chance. even as america's spending government outspends not only america's ability to pay for it but by some measures the planas even as it follows britain into the trans generational dependency and the field

education system and unsustainable entitlements even as it makes less and less and mortgages its future to the chinese trinkets, though most americans including four to many friends on the right assumes simply because they are american the insulated from the consequences. i have this from my friends on fox news last week when i said you couldn't seriously argue that we didn't deserve the downgrade, couldn't seriously argue this nation is triple a with $15 trillion worth and my friends on fox news the most right-wing on the media say what you mean? of course we are aaa. better than aaa. we should have a quadruple category just for us the countries in the 18 countries in the aaa category. they lose the nation, they can't compare with us. we need to understand. we are not aaa. $15 trillion in debt to get the tripoli. ten times that in the unfunded liabilities you can't be aaa.

cecil rhodes actually it wasn't the great british imperialist was an unpleasant man but he left one memorable, i forgot where i was for a minute. [laughter] i've got to remember the atoka felch it's a big cheer in new hampshire and cecil gets cheers in south africa. i've got to remember. [laughter] i took the wrong desolation bill the deplorable british imperialist. there's still the assumption of the generations when he said to be born and englishmen was to win the first prize in the lottery of life and on the eve of the great war he got around to taunt the ruling class the too smart and self observed to see what was coming. do you think, he wrote, the laws of god will be suspended in favor of england because you were born in it? in our time to be born a citizen of the united states is to win

first prize in the lottery of life, and as britain did in too many americans assume it will always be so. do you think the law of god will be suspended in favor of america simply because you were born and it? think carefully about that question. when you live in the north country, when you live in a state where the weather spend six months of the year trying to throttle the life out of you one thing you understand is the fragility of the civilization. back in the spring i was working on an abandoned classics road behind my house with my two boys one morning when we noticed that a huge mother bear rolling up in the trees just off to the left and then just ahead of us we noticed one little curb, and behind us another little cub and we were in the middle. [laughter] my boys were excited. [laughter] but a little scared.

and that's the way i feel as we embark on this critical have decayed decade. i feel excited but a little scared and i wonder if our society still has the survival instinct of the mother bear protecting her cubs. don't wait for the messiah to descend from the heavens on a tuesday morning in november. we tried that in 2008. we entrust a multi trillion dollar enterprise to the guy that has never created a dime of wealth in his life and then we were surprised that for some reason it didn't work out. this time is up to you. ordinary citizens need to do this year and next year as they did in 2009 and 2010 and move the meter of the public discourse. in my book i quote milton friedman. milton friedman says don't elect the right people to do the right things. create the conditions whereby

the wrong people are forced to do the right thing. every time that deserves a cheer. [applause] there should be nothing controversial because every time you see obama go and give a speech and someone has taken the precaution of loading up some liam boilerplate on to the procter about how we need to get our siskel house in order and we need to control the deficit the only reason he is even pretending to care about it is because the meter of public discourse was moved in 2009 and 2010. he is the wrong person being forced to pretend he wants to do the right thing. let's keep changing the discourse until the people are actually forced to do the right thing. milton friedman is right about that. when i first moved to new hampshire i assumed that general stark had said it said live free

or die before some battle or another. it was to rally the boy is for the charge. the henry v routine. and then i discovered that the state's great revolutionary war hero had made his creed occurred decades after the cessation of hostilities in a letter regretting that he would be unable to attend a dinner and i found that even more impressive because in the extreme circumstances, many of us can rouse people to rediscover the primal impulses and the way the brave men on flight 93 did. they took off on what they thought was a regular commuter flight and when they realized it wasn't they went into the general start mode and cried out let's roll. but it's harder, it's harder to maintain that live free or die spirit when you are facing not an immediate crisis but just a slow and seizing a ratchet effect which is in stable societies and threatened by the revolutionary war within the

borders always the way the liberty falls, treated the way to the states come incrementally painlessly all but in perceptively. live free or die sounds like a battle cry to win this war will decrying billion honorable death but it is a statement of the obvious. the reality relies on the prosperous west you can live as free man and your society will surely die. live free or die. its new hampshire's choice and it's america's choice so make the right call because the state of the world depends upon it. thank you very much indeed. [applause]

>> professor adam green of the university of chicago commodore bookselling the race culture community and black chicago. why in 1940-1955 only? >> well, one of the things that people have really begun to do in terms of thinking of only about african-american history but african-american history and its establishment of a sense of change in relation to the situation, the circumstances of the black folks. many people have really tried to move the way we think about the history back from the classic

year's so-called of the civil-rights era to think about change, challenge, different senses of the community and of the potential of people coming back in many cases decades sometimes to devotees, the twenties, for a sample some years before i did my work, studies of the harlem renaissance were trying to imagine the ways in which the cultural initiative and cultural genius was something that had changed the fortunes of black people in new york and beyond. i felt that 1940 was interesting to look at one of course because the ways of which the federal government, the state is beginning to approach african-americans in their place within the pawlenty in a different way into the different ways to market society, a consumer society was beginning to pay more attention to how african-americans, not only where the agents or individuals who needed to be appealed to, but in a sense also a source of

profit, revenue, various kind of capacities from the commodities, cultural works and the like. and then i think finally african-americans themselves largely as a result of the renewal of the migration, the mass migration making cities larger enclaves, larger communities capable of greater leverage meant that after 1941 was beginning to see a different kind of assertion. a different kind of claim that african americans collectively were seeking to advance in relation to the institutions they have relationships with in the country so it is an interesting cut off point in terms of thinking about an earlier sense of existence that while dynamic, while open in terms of its possibilities, but not necessarily fully consummated and realized in terms of being able to leverage the capacity of people to assert

their will and their agenda. after 1940 began to see much more of that. >> what is the importance of chicago in black history? >> two things. as i said a moment ago, chicago is in many ways one of the three or four key centers in relation to the black migration. so the transformation that is not only coming from african-americans moving from the south to the north, that african-americans in the more existential since moving from the agrarian to the urban environment. it's something that one sees played out in chicago and in a particularly exemplary way. but second, chicago in many ways is really the center of what can be thought of as the black cultural media. and my book is really trying to think about the ways in which the emergence not only of the individual african-american artists, not only the individual episodes or instances of the black creativity but what could be called a media infrastructure almost a cultural industry that chicago really more so than los

angeles, more so than the new york city is the center of that sort of activity in the middle part of the century. so in that sense it's almost as if one can think about an amplifier fact that chicago is able to provide it to the black perspective, to black aspirations, to black identity. in that way what is going on in chicago whether it relates to music whether it relates to newspapers and magazines, whether it relates to trying to influence advertisement and the kind of integration of african-americans into the consumer market system. chicago really is the note to the point in the middle part of the 20th century. and that is what i base my argument on understanding chicago as pivotal in relation to what is happening in terms of african-americans collectively in this century. >> professor green, some examples of chicago music, chicago media. >> sure. chicago of course is the center of the genres in terms of music that many people see as

foundational to the turn towards modern popular music. while signified i think by rock-and-roll, rhythm and blues and essentially soul music. gospel for instance is a musical form does teaching foreman chicago and again being institutionalized by virtue of the emergence of the national administrative bodies, by virtue of the establishment of the producers and songwriters so thinking about how to move gospel to something that is going to appeal to broad audience and eddy crossover audience. white or black to white and also to some degree secular from sacred. blues, similarly is undergoing a transformation in terms of its modernization. record companies are emerging in chicago elsewhere to be sure the central companies, companies like chess records for instance are centered here in chicago. as well, radio and the capacity of the radio to establish

playlists, to create deejays who are going to be able to be known primarily as broadcasters of that style of music. people like al benson and sam evans. this means blues not only is going to be disseminated brawley was in chicago but by virtue of the word of mouth and in some cases relay is going to be something people recognize as a distinctive style living out to areas outside of chicago and even down the railroad line to the southern centers. and when one thinks for instance just about these two genres, gospel music on the one hand during the 1940's, blues music during the late 40's into the 50s. one can see the way that that synthesis of gospel and blues for instance by people to be into the bickel is eventually going to give rise to the rhythm-and-blues and soul. ..

of unquestioned success. and so, you would have, whether it was a major movie actor, a musician, an important entrepreneur, increasing the organizational and political leaders, civic celebrities they do. it would be thought out and not only thought about in terms of their work, but also their family life. what are their tastes in relation to clothing or food or

fine wine and spirits and such. for some people, this was a disregard of the realities of life for most african-americans because it is a decidedly pushrod opposed for pushrod view on how to think african-americans. editorialist conveying a sense that blacks could identify with aspirational narratives. what are stories of like people who aspire to a higher station and historically have been available? waterways that which their success can be understood as a potential road to success for other individuals reading a magazine? second, because anthony was a picture magazine as the estate tax magazine and indeed the great accomplishment during the 1940s and 50s was to assemble such an extraordinary group of photographers who each brought their route often modern style to how they were portraying the individuals being covered. that meant there was a visual appeal to the stories that were presented in a magazine and

indeed the visual appeal, or out for charisma if you will, to the ways in which individuals corresponded to others. and third, the fact that "ebony" was a magazine that thought to revolutionize the ways in which consumer marketers thought about african-american consumers, meant that in addition to the stories, in addition to photographs, you read all of these different examples of advertisements. chesterfield cigarettes, whiskey, eventually cadillac automobiles, all of which are using african-americans as possible staged consumers for those products. and we today think about african-americans as asserted within the language of advertising, to see that it's inconsequential or besides the point. but never before had there been a publication that has successfully been able to get national marketers to see african-americans as beaches of

conception. let me give one example of this. chesterfield cigarettes or secret whiskey, prior to the advent of "ebony" magazine, if you saw an african-american and a magazine that would present an african-american relation to the project. it was usually remain a classic secret whiskey to a white, who was supposed to be consuming and buying out w-whiskey. the message of course was african-americans for fate to be the conduit for these commodities to come to the market, but never the endpoint in the endpoint in terms of where the address an appeal needed to go to. there is a great deal of lobbying, and survey income a great deal of making a buck supermarket legible to national marketers. after "ebony," people like joe lewis, nat king cole, dorothy dandridge and a host of others who would be presented as the exemplar of the black customer

to whom that company now needed to appeal. in its own way, beyond month, beyond the capacity to go, this is a softer form of desegregation, but one that is no less significant given this is a country built as much on the capacity to generate consumer market as it is the capacity to enjoy rights and reform lies. >> host: professor greene counties that were the title "selling the race" comes from? >> guest: yes, yes. i do want to convey we have to understand the inherent contradiction behind this because we don't want to simply see this as a teleological story, about how everything became better for african-americans. he integrated as a warning to the world of the consumer market, meant for instant that much of the vitality, much of the idiosyncrasy, much of the eclecticism of african identity began to be sort of pushed down and softened out and recognized

and homogenized so that with someone like nat king cole, someone like joe lewis, someone like lena horne, what is presented with one authoritative version about how to be a successful african-american, rather than all of the successful, somewhat fascinating stories of how people had made their way in earlier decades. another important contradiction is of course that the history of african-americans, going back to the founding of the country is one in which the relationship to the market is not only is individuals who are prevented from enabled to can zoom, but as entities who are being consumed. after all, african-americans come to the country largely through slavery. much of what one sees during the 1940s in the american exposition, which he read about in my first chapter of the different initiatives to attempt to bring african-americans in greater alignment with the

market is a puzzling over how to make this turn seem critical in the face of a much longer history in which black folks were faced with the heritage of their enslavement within the united states. and i am to some degree today: while pius the spoken thinking about what kinds of lessons it brings up in the present day, the fact we still see many african-americans who are economically dispossessed, who are put in situations where they really do not have the capacity to exercise initiative to transform their lives. they might be incarcerated, maybe in places in which jobs are difficult to come by. they might be in places in which the wage scale or cost make it difficult to realize the kind of viable economic condition. these in a sense roominess that coming the market is not necessarily a holy empowering term for individuals. so at the same time that we celebrate and learn from the

stories such as "ebony" woodcutter, we have to think about the ways the stories distract us from other realities mr. is from the heritage of his thinking about before. >> host: professor green, you mention the american exposition. >> guest: it was a world's fair put on specifically by african-american, meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary now thinking about the ways in which the story slavery connects with the story of modern black life. meant to celebrate the 75th anniversary of emancipation in 1865. and not hence, the exposition was both an attempt to think about the ways in which progress could be marked, whether agriculture, industry, whether in the ways in which black enclaves in cities like memphis, los angeles, detroit and chicago were putting together their own sorts of exhibitions and kiosks

that conveyed a sense of how people had advanced. particularly important to the exposition with african-american artists, visual artists put together this tremendous, bigger than anything before an african-american art, exhibited from some 200 different artists than 200 different works. at the same time -- i read about this in the end of the chapter in the exposition in my book, one of the things the exposition could not address, because in a certain aspect which in the message, was what sense to make of the fact that the 75th anniversary of slavery was something that made clear that one have to reckon with that history of slavery in order to understand condition people found themselves then. so you would have some instance is the dioramas by the famous sociologist d. franklin frazier, that would convey the life of the black family during slavery

during the 19th century and the black family post-migration. he had individual psychology rhetoric, the associate curator -- actually the head curator of the schaumburg library new york city, who exhibited at his table can be among the slave narratives written by fugitive slaves and eventually abolitionist during the period prior to the end of slavery. what you didn't see was a real historical broccoli and west, engagement with what the heritage of slavery meant to african-americans today. this was going to come later in new york and also in chicago in the form of a plot power oriented approach to knowledge, in the form of emergent notes of black studies, in the form of revisionist approaches to slavery. in 1940, it was in a sense a kind of history that dare not speak its name.

one learns, some often does from history, see what it is that people don't say that reveal something about who they are as much about what it is they do say. >> host: adam green, who was on the cover of your book, "selling the race"? >> guest: a disc jockey. using the key fits you. this is a picture the way miller, the photography who supplied me graciously with most of my books and i would even mention speaking about this book without making him for being generous in terms of photographs paired wonderful photographer who worked as a freelancer. in any event can be sits in his office then receives a pitch from somebody who's representing an anonymous woman, actress or singer. likely singer. in the background rather pictures of women who have been contracted to appear at clouds are, to radio shows. the point of the photo in many ways is to encourage us to think about the fact that cultural

initiatives, cultural accomplishments, cultural product is something that emerges out of a process. it is not simply a statement that comes out of the artists mind and the artists mouth are often the artists he and. there needs to be a series of different mediating points. in some cases, disseminating mechanism for disseminating institution like a radio station. in some cases, the capacity to convene an organizer market,, such as the source of turns that took place in advertising. in this case, publicity agents, a middle person who finds a way by looking at the individual who has been presented as a potential candidate to go on to greater publicity, greater fame, greater acclaim. look at the person and say how is the person going to translate? what are the steps you need to be made in order to package the person starts an appeal in different way? something completely ubiquitous

in the world with an entity with publicists all over the place for any number of different people for musical artists, movie stars to politicians. at this point, this is novel in the case of african-american life. to think about the fact that in 1940s to 1950, one is looking not a turn in black life, where people are beginning to really and that there needs to be these different institutional mediators, in order to create the capacity to broadcast african-american identity and african-american appeal out to a wide audience, ultimately a national audience. that is something in many ways at the heart of the 1940s and 1950s. i begin with this story. eight of the what they martin luther king. the fact we understood martin luther king is an iconic figure of the last half of the 20th century and many people understand this to be the result of the ways in which ways, white

liberals, mainstream media embraced a six on three of the reform of the country. many years before king was actually brought up to the level of prominence, king was being presented as an iconic and exemplary african-american republican celebrity figure that "ebony" magazine. directly in the wake of the bus boycott. the promotional or seen, the ability to make people appear larger than life and the impact for good and sometimes still do to harm african-americans individually and collectively is something that comes out of the black community even more so. >> host: what courses do you teach at the university of chicago? >> guest: i teach a class in chicago, which draws in part off of this research as well as looking not a great deal of wonderful scholarship being done in that. the foreign writing about and after writing about.

that goes from approximately 189,322,007, to does me. i generally end with the election of barack obama's president. i also teach a class on great documents or greek text in american history during the 19th century. that's called american civilization and that has to do with the 19th century running all the way from tocqueville to tracer and barbara ehrenreich and sumner and others. i do graduate classes that relate to african-american history, often urban focus and urban context. this year and preparing to put together a class on approaching american culture from the standpoint of its industrial structures. so how to market began to the copyright act of 1909 to the reemergence of new platforms of disseminating of the 70s and 80s. how does it move