[applause] >> thank you so much for that beautiful introduction, and thank you so much for every one ishu here you >> thank you so much for that toutiful introduction, and thank you so much for everyonem. of you understand that came to , hear me speak. it means so much to me. be her i'memotional armey to be here in washington d.c. i am a daughter of washington we d.c. i would not exist literally if it were not for washington d.c. washington d.c. was the other son for my parents. it was the other sun.un, and it is what drew my parents south, from the south, deep south to h hear and hope that life might be better for them. and so washington d.c. in manypn

respects was the inspiration. this was the book. copy. this is my copy of the book. ve very well worn. it has been all over the countrn and totr your. it is my version of it. this book took me 15 years to to write research and write. to it took me 15 years to get to the point reich's stand before you today and talk about it.peca that's why it's so special to me ig this book were a human beingh he would be in high school in dating, which is quite frightening. what it there you have it. that is what it took. nted the reason why i wanted to to immerse myself in something thaw a lo bt of us think we know but really truly don't is because q. begins a lot of questions, and i have these questions. and wha where did we come from and whatt

did it take for us to get here?m what was the world the of the people in this book left? what was the 6 million americane believing the only place they t will never know for a place they've never seen and hopes that life might be better. g what did it take for them to gee out? how did they choose the place that they enwant to make a way n themselves with a landed and why didn't they talk about it? b the goal for the book was to have all of us think about and ask ourselves what we would have done have we've had been in their place, what would we have done. the now, the subtitle of the book,ed the warmth of the other sons, e the subtitle is the epic story of america's great." migration.ar that it's it would appear it is about the great migration, but in bk actuality this book is really about the four bears of all rea. americans.roxies fo these people are in all of

backgrounds or everyman have come from who had to, thesepeopn people did just for us to be year today on this soil in this place at this time. t somebody had to make this great leap of faith in order for us to be here, someone in all of our backgrounds. if you think about it, many of o us know or are related to workoo contend -- descended from someone, a great-grandmother from ireland who crossed the atlantic and then met and married the great grandfatheranm from ireland, italy, ireland tof all parts of ireland, lithuania, latvia,a, russia, asia, other wd parts of the world and create whole new lineages.linages? what happened during the course of the great migration. people who never would havepeopt otherwise would have never met d

actually met and create whole new lineages in the north, l midwest, and the west.st this migration in some ways was one of the greatest underreported stories of the 20th-century, but it also was an unrecognized immigration withinw the borders of our ownit countr. it began during world war one, and it did not end until the 19i 1970's.ht african-americans that you might actualn the north and midwest and western actually descendants from this great migration, and that is because when it began0% 90%, 90 percent of all africanal americans live in the south. in the time that it was over half of all african-americans are living outside of the south. that is a massive relocation of an einntire people. this is a universal human storyg of warning and fortitude and courage which is what in somedet

ways made the country what it he. what these peseo ppeole did tiet different tone to it because there were defecting a caste system. coun it was a system that controls are removed there were seeking political asylum from all thet world that is almostoday which unimaginable to usis today, whio is why i wanted to be able toft understand what it was that thet left, understand the magnitude of what they had done. they have become the only people and our country's history to have to the leave the land of their birth and to go someplacee within the borders of their own countries just to be recognized as citizens to which they havehd been born.ttle bit i want to sell little bit about some examples of the absurdityig of the world that there werer living in.ne

for one thing it was against thp law for an african american for a bl ack person and a white eckers tog person to nearly play checkers together. someone must have seen a black pe and person and a white person playing checkers together inpl birmingham and maybe they were having a good time, maybe too good of a time. someone must have seen that and said to themselves, the entire a foundation of southern civilization is in peril, and wy cannot have this and actually la sat down and wrote this as aut e lot. throughout the south in courtk n rooms, it was a black bible and ae white bubble this word untii the truth on. bible a black bible and a wide bible to started tell the truth on. ms what that meant was that thescr sacred scriptures of many of the people in that recentview discoveries and built their entire spiritual world you on e what is not acceptable.

rough i found out about this through e reading a newspaper article in f which it was referred to and no, because of the absurdity of the bill because it had actually disrupted the child. the they could not find a black to bibles for the witnesses to soro of tell the truth on. the the bailiffs and the sheriff said ted serve the whole court room and better -- search the whole core room in order to fin. the bible .ut this, since i have talked about this, were there different versions of the bible that they were? james was directing jim's version fort the white and an american the standard?ses? and it turned out it was the same one. they cannot touch the san sacree text. same above all of the country talkinr about this.ind

i find that one of my mostalleng challenging and beautifulnging challenging audiences happen to. be high-school students. alive i try to make it come alive fore them. well, it's i came upon in the book and thd one that has settled on that will make the difference to them , one that will embrace upon a question i will ask you. would like to see a show of lands of those of you who in th last week have been driving andr actually have another driver on the road.people yes. the true people who did not raise your hands, you know you must have done it. i as andk when i ask the question, people seem to be a littleis quizzical. is there a new rule that i don't know n about? abot? as far as i know it is perfectly legal, but if you wereou wereafa african-american during the era of jim crow which began in the d

late 19th century and did not end until the civil rights legislation of the 1960's, which meant it when offered more than three generations and into thef life span of many, many americans alive today, if he could were african-american you couldt not pass -- you could not pass away person, all white motorists on the road no matter how slow they were going. alo that alone would probably account for a couple million mil right there. when i tell this to theents, high-school students i was st sharing that with high-school students in a actually.rmur i heard this murmur in the back of tsohe room.

[laughst certainly cannot honk. i would have still give them. tail you couldn't encored soga did.s this is a beautiful thing, you realize that this is so far removed from the reality of young people today because of all that has happened in part of because of this great migration that they cannot fathom the world that propelled this greats movement of people. t now, a little bit about this caste system that there were this living in. was this system was created in many thepects to a short the economy of the south. on this of relied on not just the supply of cheap labor, but an bt oversupply of cheap labor in order to plant -- plan and shop for much and then harvest the tobacco, cotton, sugar cane, and

the rice that were the staples of southern economy. and and they needed to make sure that people were ready and available, an oversupply so that they po the labor costs will be as lowof as they possibly beat. many of the people were working not even being paid to workingto for the right to live on land that there were farming. re there were sharecroppers. a there were in a very difficult fix all long. this migration did not beginingt antil something happens that, would affect the entire world, and that was world war one. there have been people who wanted to leave for many, many decades, what they did not until l ti worlopportunity arose and world war one began, and it was world war one in which the north had h problem. the north needed labor, and that la because there were -- there was a loss of labor of people hd who had been european immigrants who have been working thebeenor

boundaries in the factories inte the steel mills of the north, td and they had a great need for fr labor, and they began to go to o the south to find the cheapest labor in the land, and that was african-americans in the south.o many of them were not working for pay, but for the right to live on the land there were farming. and so what that ended up doingg was it meant that that african-americans in all of thet major northern cities that weacy know, were actually arriving at no the expressed invitation of the north. that is how this b began. this self, however, did not take kindly to the poaching of cheapp labor. they did everything they could to keep the people from leavinge arrested people on railroad platforms is there p were preparing to go on the northbound platform. it would arrest them from theira train seats as they were alet's attempting to go. their and there were too many peoplere to a rrest, they would waive the train on through so that people have been waiting for months ann and ms and months for the chance

to get to freedom had to watch the trend live without them andh then figure out how they were going to getet out.o this migration, and decided to f tell the story, the want from the standpoint of threethrediviu individual people. the three represent the three 6 million, and those three are people are amazing extraordinarg individuals in their own right,w and these follow the three major projects greece of this migration. th this migration, like immigration is not a haphazard of drilling of lost souls. sos. it was an orderly redistribution of people along the most directv routes to what they perceive as freedom. that meant that when you're innl he north even now you couldpern almost tell where a person is from on the basis of the city that they happen to be in. d that that is because people followede three distinctive routes.es t

the route that brought people to washington from my parents herem the route that took people froma florida, georgia, the carolinas, virginia, washington d.c. which is the first of and on toth. philadelphia, new york and one m north. the second stream that took people from mississippi, aansas, alabama, arkansas, tennessee, to chicago, cleveland and the an entire midwest than then there ream was the third string that carry people from louisiana and texase in oalifornia and the entire west coast. in other words, every migration is in some ways a referendum one a place where people of left ana was a show of belief and faith that this new place will beand is ter. and the duty of any migration is that people follow certain streams. it is almost a predictablewhere in tome as to whether it will go. in the same way that if she were to go to minnesota you find that a becausehatlot of people from

scandinavia because that is mran where that migration stream of. them. now, this migration, as any tis migration, often occurs because not because of the individuals themselves. a lot of them have alreadyme uffered in some ways, whenevert it is that they had to face inhc the south over ever they omhappn to be coming from.us any migration which is all of us ultimately got to where we areae happens because someone across the headland to come across the pacific, across the rio grandeog the size that was something better for themselves or childr something for the children of the unseen grandchildren, the unseen great grandchildren, many of us.en eyat means that they have tothah make a great sacrifice in order to do that. many respects what this does does is is it meitans that these migrat migrations are in some ways leaderless revelers is that

occur one person added tole to another person added to another person be able to change history, and that is whatu happens when you have large masses of people leaving. one w now, one way that this change their country was it was the ve -- very first time in our history,e and american history that theamo lowest castery, people signaled that they have options and there were willing to take them.ns there have been efforts to resist the problems and thellens challenges and the restrictions some w and in some ways the violence ot the south for many decades, butw it was not until world war oneu. that the people began to act upon that. this was the first time in our history that the lowest caste people showed that they hadlingt options and were willing to takt them. th it also meant that you have a wd civil rights movement that woulb have happened ultimately, but this propels the civil rights movement to happen even more quickly than it would have y kl otherwise. that is because while there havr

aen resistance all along there have been perry little attention given to it in many parts outside of the self. many of those efforts at change in the south were crushed beforh they could even getes started. and so when these people left they began to exert pressure on the north to take notice. just by their being there, if you think about american history and how america gets involved ie conflicts in other parts of the world you realize that a lot of times america gets involved when there are zero large percentage of people, large enough to putum people from that part of the wor world whether northern ireland, parts of the middle earnst who n presence exert c pressure on the united states to intervene. wit the same happens with this grea. migration by having large can-am numbers of african-americans in, new york, washington d.c., e

chicago, boston, and all these other places in the north wheree there was great industry, thesuy media w tere based solely the the re cameras and the attention and any a the reporters began to go down and pay attention.s it is as if trees were falling,r but no one was there to your them. was finally there were. this migration also, thishis outpouring of millions ofpeoplee people, people who had been the lifeblood of the workers in thes south, this outpouring of people did other things. whether notice to the south whether it wanted to hear not, something was happening and that there were going to have to address ac it. wereany respects they came harsher of the people who were there. in other cases that began to cr loosen. ultimately it created a safety valve for those who decided to o state. those who decided to stay now have out is that they had nevere had before. suddenly everybody knew someone in the new world. case

as was the case for people live in the other parts of the worldd and relatives in america. ameri. there were also sending money back home to help support the effo effort to support their families and so all of these things thins combined helped to propel, to accelerate the move toward civil rights.ts. and finally to many of theyed people who stayed with often visit people in the north. the it would visit their relatives,e everybody had an uncle, ought tb mop person to have lived across the road from a, minister, someone that they knew who was n now in theis north.new they would come and visit, ando it would seek help free the people were in this new land, fr and it would go back and say to themselves, why can't we have this year? the land of our birth. one of the most important people who ever said that was martintat luther king who had the said opportunity to go to bostonho university, boston below froma scotgia and where he met his

wife, coretta scott. you would never have met their f had their -- had he not been a part of this movement, and he was one of those people lose all the freedom, limited even though e dy might have been in thos days, but freedoms nonetheless, and he went back clearly as that was an inspiration for and to g back and leave the final battlee for freedom. so this migration had manyion hd impacts north and south. sout but i think what i want -- whate i would love people to take awam from this book is beyond the fact that there are three amazing stories of people with great fortitude, courage, a great sense of humor, justho i amazing people who i have the go privilege of getting to know. qaeda may who was a cotton was picker who was terrible at terre picking cotton. you don't think about peoplethit being good or bad that it, butgo she happened to have been really yo bad that it.body's cut not everybody is cut out for[la] that.thinkbout and i a glso think about george

dellinger who -- qaeda may left mississippi for chicago. his toward starling who attempted in a small way to try to get a little better wages andle who treatment for people who wereus picking citrus feet in florida. as a result of his small andtryd quiet efforts to try to do thata ended up having to flee for his life from florida to get from ha harlem to safety because there had been a lynching in the work that was planned for him. m. finally, pershing foster who pers left monroe, louisiana, for fo california because he could not have the surgery in his own hometown. th that was a journey that every creative myself by renting a ase buick as he had. if he had seen the beauty would have wanted it.eated that i recreated the journey.leo wanted to be able to see what it was like to drive that far without being able to stop.

during that era african americans in the 1940's, 1950's 40s, style into the 1960's could not be assured of a place to rest t, get gas to recharge theeries, t batteries to be able to even need to get a meal.al. ar they had to take great care,c planning, and cautioned. and after a certain point the assumption was one could stop, but it turned out he had a very fficult difficult time. a a gentle to recreate that journey. rented a buick as he had, had mc parents with me, as generational d we guides, and we got to the dangerous frightening part of e the journey where you're going to the desert and its night in the had not slept for hours. it had gone on for many, many,rs many hours into the night into without being able to rest.thou my parents were with me, as ipaw was about to veer off the road.e at that point we are in the the mountains. we are seeing the signs that say

80 miles to the next cassation. i mean, is a forbidding area. pf these states are countries and to themselves. my parents said you need to stod the car. if you won't, let us out.ll youo we will tell you about it.verytt we will tell you about it, tello you everything you need. in we stopped the car.1953, it was no longer in 1953. things had changed so much weve along with ago, but things had changed so much that we had no p trouble finding a place., and we have a choice of places. that made me feel even more into the for what he had gone through had not had the had not option. this migration is so inspirational or should be ornai could be for all of us if we think about it because this was, a leaderless revolution. a

there was no one, as in any ere was no migration, who found the date oe the hour of any migration migran movement. these were individuals who made decisions that they thought were best for them and their childre. and unseen grandchildren. in some ways every news one'sowf faith in the power of the individual decision. the it is almost as if they realizer within their bounds that there were too many people, too many of them concentrated in one part of the country, one region ofgio the country, too many of this our very year,, our very, our work is revalued, our very lives are devalued. perhaps we will fare better elsewhere.and and so they set out on journeys that took them from portland maine to portland oregon. went l they win all over the unitedsta states within the borders of their own country as immigrants would even though they had noteh been truly immigrants. imts. and so when you think about this

you think about the fact that it took this great migration for, e this group of people, the lowest , caste people tell ultimately gain the independence that theya respecserve all along on many respectsts. if you think about it these people added to another added to another where able to do as individuals what the president of the united states could not to, iran lankan, did with the emancipation proclamation could not do. do. they do what both houses ofof congress could not do. they did with the powers that ct the north and south could not or would not do. they freed themselves.eed they freed themselves. ways - and that is in some ways --than. [applause] ulank you. ws, sho

that, in some ways, could be an inspiration for all of us who have benefited in ways that ourn hearts -- hard to even imagine what the people did.people did in some ways what they did helpp to open worlds of for peoplew that we now view as icons of the 20th century. ultimately changing 20th-centurd culture as we know it in literature.ents toni morrison who is parentsama migrated from alabama to ohio. have they made the decision to not do that she would have been raised in a world in which sheao was actually against the law for african-americans to go into a i library and take a library carde the kind of need to be able to get a library book allen then i you're going to become a nobel laureate.h people such as richard wright end marine hansberry, almost all

of their works were devoted. if you think what the content of deeir work, devoted to to un understanding this migration and grat the impact that it had on the country in on themselves to read it fed the whole world of art wt and culture that we know of u.ss 20th-century culture butcentur actually is the culture and art this gre out of the great migratioatn.all of t all of the word pro merrily, if thoscan recall all of those individuale s, the manifestatiot of the great migration. 20th-century african-americans,s and that is american culture, it's hard to separate from themt culture ioof the great migration because it is the children whodm have been freed from the jim w crowe who were now free too -- o explore and the their creativeut cells. as a result of the sacrifice ofs rheir parents.f thei when you think about jazz you think about miles davis his parents had migrated from arkansas to illinois where he

had the luxury of being a will to spenblde hours to become thr master of his instrument and tof create a whole new form of musik . and you think a felonious months his parents left but carolinacar for harlem and had what would wd have happened had there not madt that decision when he was five s years old were you would get a e chance as his genius florist and when did you think of john co coltrane wholt also came from olina and ended up in in philadelphia where believe it oi not that is where he gotev hissa first altos sacks, is first of . those sacks. you think about so many people in sports from jesse owens to je jackie robinson to even current gic jo ante people such as magic johnson and on and on and on and ne bill russell, none of them, very few of them would even have thed opportunity to become the alleges that we know them to the

tove their parents not made the sacrifice to leave the place,plc the only place they had never place known for some place farfa awayr that their children could actually benefitil from. from t and so one of the things i want to leave you with before taking your question, two things.the e this short passes that is the epigraph to this book, is the th epigraph, the words of richard wright's use one of the mostwors famous people to obviously, onee of the greatest novelists of thf 20th-century hero native sons into was himself a person who sd participated in the great who migration.paicipated i these are his words and the words that give the book its bok title. and these are the words that hee was thinking as he was preparing to leave mississippi for theissi first time and venture forth to a place he had never seen called chicago. ..eep called chicago. here's a proxy for all of the

access to have we may have who lead this great leap of faith. he wrote: i was leafing the south to fling myself into the unknown. i was taking a part of the south to transplant in alien soil. to see if it could grow differently. if it could drink of new and cool rains, band in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom. it's a prayer, really, for sustenance and survival and protection on the road ahead which can be in some ways an inspiration for all of us wherever we happen to be, whatever the journey may be and wherever it may take us. and i want to leave you with this moment, this idea. ..

this is a young person's decision. people older not able to make ae decision. that moment of departure means there's a young person in all of our background is standing at te the railroad platform or how to talk about to board a boatr across an ocean were about to cross a border of some kind to get to the united states. and at that place, at that few platform who were important in raising that individual. there would have been a mother,

a father, a grandparent, and aunt, whomever it might have been who was responsible for their even being there, and that person could not make the crossings with this young person. that person did not know when they would see this child again, and that child did not know when they would see the person who'd raise them ever again. remember there was no skype. there was no e-mail. there were no cell phones. there were no guarantees, and the next time that they might hear of that mother or that father, that person who had raised them, might be a telegram -- that's what they were using in those days -- a telegram saying that your far has passed away or your mother is ill, you are to come back

quickly if you are to see her alive. that moment had to have happened just for all of us to be here, and i find great, a great sense of awe at the courage and the fortitude of what it took for them to make that sacrifice, and this book in some ways is a flee that we -- plea that we redefine what we call heros in this country and redefine what we call leaders. it was in our own dna the answers to so many questions that plague us because of what people went through before in order for us to get here today, and i truly believe that the message of all of this is that if these people could do what they did with absolutely nothing, then that means that we, their hair, there's nothing that we can't do, there's

nothing that we cannot do, and, in fact, there's things we must do to make their sacrifice worth it. thank you so much, and i'm happy to take your questions. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] let's see, what side? >> what did you find unique, noteworthy, mythical about the ultimate destinations that african-american people chose to migrate? what did you find out about your

family's motivation to come to washington, d.c.? >> i have to say i'm a journalist first, and therefore the stories are premarely about -- primarily about the larger audience so the reader can identify with the protagonists, see themselves in the people that i've written about, feel that they are in the car with dr. fosters who is about to drive off the road, see themselves on the train with ida may and their children and husband setting off for a place they've never seen, but one of the realities and the within i have a sense of awe and appreciation and gratitude for whatever immigrant and migrant has to go through is the places they go greatly.

they so greatly need the labor, but they don't necessarily want the people. how do you have both really? all the people streaming into the major industrial cities during the era of the great migration from world war i well into the 20th century into the 1970s, all of them had many, many challenges they had to go into places where their labor was needed, they were pitted one against another, immigrants against native born migrants from the south, and so their arrival in these cities was often great harrowing for them. they had come from a place where, believe it or not, every four days an african-american was lynched for some perceived breach of the system i described, and they arrived in

places where they did not have to so much worry about that on a daily basis, but they had to worry about whether they'd be able to get work, where they might be able to live. they were assigned to places that were overcrowded and where they were overcharged for the subdivided tenements where they were living, and life was very hard for them. the reason i find inspiration from immigrants because foreign immigrants' failure is not an option. they have to succeed because there's no back up back loam. the people at home are looking to see if they can make it and often are looking for help, or they are often bragging back home about someone they know who went up north, and they are looking for them to succeed. they had to make a go of it on their own, and my heart goes out to all they went through and all that any immigrant goes through, and this book, people are proxies for anyone who's gone

through that. this side. >> good afternoon, and thank you for the great book. weeks after i read it, i realized that there were no illustrations or pictures of the people, and i know you drew good word pictures of them, thank you for that, and their struggles, but why were there no pictures? >> no pictures because my editor and i simultaneously agreed that we wanted you to picture yourself and not be distracted by what they looked like. we wanted you to see yourself, more importantly your grandparents, great grandparents, your parents, and yourself. we wanted it a universal human story, and that's what we believe it was. thank you so much for that. [applause] hi, my family came from virginia. i'm from philadelphia, so that's part of the migration. >> it's classic.

>> new york is the next train stop, the two-state jump i'd always say. why do you think they didn't go on to canada? you mentioned the three -- within the borders, you said that a couple times, canada in theory was freer and whatever, why not canada? >> the question is why not canada as had occurred during the underground railroad, and one of the reasons is because they were american, and they were american citizens, and it's my belief that they believed that within want borders of their country they should be recognized as citizens to which they had been. they had descended from people who had been in the country for centuries, even do this day, african-americans descended from slaves, as a group, have lived fewer years as free people than in slavely, and it will take another 100 years before that

balance is made even. that's how long slavery existed in the country, and in some ways, i believe it was a staking of a claim of their citizenship in this country. yes? >> i'm going to ask you to thank isabel wilkerson, and in seven minutes, the conversation will continue with booktv. they will be taking live calls and answering more of your questions. i'm going to put you on hold for about seven minutes. please stay with us, and thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you. [applause]

>> what i found a cad and a kind of those researching this book was out of the car field placed in nomination in brief presidency full of the credible stories, but the people who surrounded him will also unbelievable. first of course charles pitot, garfield's would-be assassin. it is a deeply coming dangerously in and who was highly articulate. if you read any other account of the assassination is described as a disgruntled office speaker. but that doesn't cover the smallest part of it he was a uniquely american character of

this country at a time when there was a lot of play in the joints had no one to really understand what he was up to and hold him to account for it. he is a self-made man. he was smart and happy, a clever opportunist and probably would've been very successful if he hadn't been insane. is he had tried everything and failed everything. he tried lock, vandalism, even if freelove commune in 1800 failed even that bad. women in the commune nicknamed him charles get out. [laughter] but he survived on sheer audacity. he traveled all over the country by train and never got a ticket. he took great pride in moving from boarding house to boardinghouse, slipping out whether i was two.

even when he worked as a bill collector he would keep whatever he managed to collect. after the republican convention and immediately after the election he began to stalk the president. he went to the white house nearly every day. at one point he even walked into the president's office of the president was in it. he even attended a reception and introduced himself to garfield's wife. he shook her hand, gave her his card and slowly pronounced his name so she wouldn't forget it. it was like a hitchcock movie. it's incredibly creepy and absolutely terrifying. finally beutel had what he believed was a divine inspiration. god wanted him. it's nothing personal you would later say, simply click through.

i strange and fascinating and nearly as dangerous as pitot with senator roscoe khan claimed. conkling is a vain, vertically powerful politician who appointed himself the enemy. he wore canary yellow feet toes. he used cavender inc. peered he has as you can see a great spit curl in the middle of a square head and at the slightest touch. in fact, his vanity was so outside his his famously ridiculed by another congressman -underscore of congress. the conkling was no joke. he was dangerously powerful. and the senior senator for new york he controlled the near customhouse, which was the largest staroffice and the