they didn't know if they were going to be arriving in a riot, a race riot yesterday started carrying guns. when i go to location, they would run to their hotels with their revolvers, just to make it safely. he was so traumatized by this that one day he snuck off of work and went into a railroad bathroom and scratched out this sonnet, which he called, if we must die. in the last line of the sonnet read, though far outnumbered come the on the show is brave. for thousands blow one must bow. there before us lies the open grave cowardly pack pressed the

wall, dying but fighting back. now that palm doesn't mention race at all. andy was published in the socialist magazine in july of teaming team and as good as it was published, ever bought publication republished it in every pot person you. they knew it for a reason because they team the team was that lack of america's wealth of politically and fought back with politics than court and also in the street. and to me it's an amazing part of american history that has been forgotten. and this book is an effort to try to recover because i think i played a crucial role in the solar rights movement that came later. it really is a story on one level as a fight with the constitution of the united states of america. not everyone is taken to the streets with a rifle was fighting for the constitution. but they're fighting for

principles, the basic tenets of the constitution in terms of i have a right to fair trial. i have a rate to buy a home where they can afford to live. i have a right to be paid as much as a person working next to me. and there were organizations like the naacp that were fighting exactly for fulfillment of the constitution. and that battle began in the teaming team. i could easily top for five hours. i probably have to my wife about this a day. i have gone through a 12 step program to not do that. so i'm really going to try to rein it in tonight. and when this type briefly about the key points out that summer and then i'm going to talk about one riot. i chose to talk about washington d.c. in july of 1990. and then i'm going to take any questions you want. thank you again for coming.

we all know about race riots. if i met a black or white person the street and said tell me about a racetrack, they'll start talking about the 60s or they might talk about 1992 in los angeles. i asked them, what is a race riot quite and they would say, it's black kids breaking into a korean shoe store in los angeles for a black teenager is fighting with national guardsmen in detroit. the truth is the breadth of american history, overwhelmingly, race riot has meant white mobs attacking either black individuals are black communities. that is certainly the case. the apex of that was in 1990. and james will and johnson, who i am going to read about later because i think he is an amazing person who is in understood in a called it the red summer because it was so bloody. a traumatized him and help

formulate his politics come into view p. tabori. really help shape their politics. so from april to november of team 19, and this racial unrest rolled across the united states. and of course, we are living in the south, as tony pointed out, i grew up in chicago. i grew up with a lot of prejudice towards the south. that is where racial violence happens. but it's her shares to type like people. and certainly that did happen. there's no question of it. but i grew up in city history. i didn't know about the chicago riot of 1950, which devastated the city for a week. i did no one writes in washington d.c. or connecticut or san francisco or bisbee, arizona. these race riot swept across the country. in philly, i don't have a powerpoint because i would method. i would love to have just

brought a map of the united states and pointed to different places where there is racial violence. it was unprecedented and it was in the north and the west everywhere. and i want to talk about -- there was a lot of violence in the south and south and not talk about that. there's a lot of reasons for this. broadly what was happening as we had won the war in world war i. democracy had tried him. and so it should've been this great moment for the united states. president wilson, woodrow wilson was in paris. he was working on the versailles treaty. he was trying to craft the league of nations. he was getting flowery speeches about how democracy has triumphed and we were entering a new age of peace. back at home, it was absolute chaos. there is cast over the world. the soviet union had risen. there were jewish people being killed in the ukraine.

armenians were being killed in turkey. there is unrest in india. british colonial forces were shooting indian people. it was absolute time of chaos. europe was inflamed. in the united states there is runaway inflation, huge labor strikes, lots of talk by communists about overthrowing capitalism. and there was just anxiety everywhere. there is a political cartoon that ran at the time that shows the globe embedded, despite his fingernails when all these terribles are circling around his head. everyone was anxious. and race -- the racial conditions there are geeks to stint in the united states flared up as a result. and there were three things occurring in the united states at the time. they were all on the surface good for black people, but they lead to create racial conflict.

sorry. number one, black soldiers had fought in world war i and made fought extremely briefly. many of them had worked in subordinate unit, but many have fought on the front lines and won medals in all black soldiers in france had been treated extremely well by french people. it was just at the baltimore giving a talk and i met the "baltimore sun" reporter who told me he had interviewed one of the last living african-american world war i veterans. and the man described one of his greatest memories was describing being there escargot by french farmers in this great elaborate meals they would be sent to the soldiers. and this was in a black soldiers were being told of the time, you're fighting for democracy. we are here to win the war for democracy. when i got back, it was a much different message. there is a letter i quoted a

book coming document from the u.s. railroad administration will wear black soldiers had just come back from europe, are traveling in a car, and a railroad car. as car. as soon as it crosses the mason-dixon line, half the white men stand up and say hey, what is this? these guys have to go back in the segregated car. a fight ensues because some white men say hey, these guys are software country. the small incidents were happening all over and they would quickly become larger incident later. the second major thing that was happening seems counterintuitive come but sharecroppers, the quintessential cotton and better 1990. cotton, which they would always take their cotton to be weighed and would be ripped off almost invariably. even if they were getting ripped off, they still made a lot of

money relatively. and so they were able to buy cars. they were buying close. they were buying land and they could. this caused a lot of friction throughout the south. there were efforts in some parts of the south to organize into cooperatives. the black farm, black sharecroppers do not cause tremendous tensions. and thirdly, there were -- the migration was out of control. the great migration had a gun before world war i. but once world war i began, immigration europe stop. so the northern industry had to turn to the south and black workers willingly came up north because they would get paid relatively better in the escape jim crow. i'd say they face segregation in the north of it anywhere on the level of what they were facing down here.

one of the benefits for the northern industry was they were nonunion and the units were incredibly racist at the time it or not allowing black people to join often and that caused a lot of tension. and certainly the industry used that to break strikes. whenever they were trying to break the strike, they would bring in black workers knowing there'd be racial tensions. because lots of problems in the north as they were incredibly restrictive non-were black people could live. for example, in chicago, the black site -- there a strip club the black belt or black people could live. if they tried to move outside that area, their homes would be bombed and any attempts to break out of it would cause huge problems. their major riots that are today here. there were riots by other workers in chicago, for example, other workers in the stockyards of the factories.

irish people, germans, lithuanians joined in black people had moved in charleston and washington and connecticut. it was soldiers and sailors. and in the south in places like knoxville, tennessee and other places. it was mostly white mobs that include a run from a judge, sitting judge down to the local farmer. in austin, texas, the timeline theatre at the naacp visited in the summer and was beaten by a white mob that included a sitting judge and then the governor the next day absolutely defended and said these troublemakers shouldn't even show up in this town. so, briefly onto talk about two kinds of racism that were permeating american society at the time.

one is the one we all know, the long-standing view from the time people were brought over as slaves, you know, black people are lazy and simultaneously threatening. this confused view that is still around today, that is standard bigotry. there's also this new kind of racism that had evolved, which is based loosely on darwin, this idea that the world was divided to ethnic groups in these races are competing in that white people dominated the world. why civilization dominated the world and is colored races are threatening us. these books are not obscure pamphlet. they're incredibly popular books. one book was called the rising tide of color against white world supremacy. it's a very subtle title. [laughter] a man named alfred stoddard who

harbor university magna laude delivering speeches in lecture halls have been on the northeast coast. there's another man named madison great to have it the new york geological society and argued that a pygmy should be on exhibit, a human being. that was an interesting approach to the zoo. but these views were widely held and very, very popular. i'm going to read one section from alfred stoddard spoke. democratic ideals among homogeneous population of it let us in england or america is one thing, but it is quite another for the white man to share his life with our trust his ideals to brown, yellow, black or red men. this is suicide. simple in the first victim of this amazing folly will be the white man himself. in this panic among white people was prevalent. so who do not?

to me it was with the naacp really rose to challenge this year and really did amazing work. there's been lots written about marcus garvey who is raising at this time and later in the 20s there were but people who joined communist movements. but to me, this is a little bit of a distortion of history because certain at the time, a very young g8 group of her was working attorney general and he clawed right onto any political tv had to equate -- there had to be something golly, some radical way svengali, maybe a jewish bengali communists underneath manipulating it all. and he didn't really let go of that idea's for decades. actually until he died. but that idea was born in 1919. he and others propagated. the media played a role, too.

there'd be a riot in the courthouse to be destroyed and the black man with a lunch. for example, in omaha, nebraska. the next day, the headlines would be talking about how the iww, the are infiltrating amongst blacks and stirring trouble. the equation -- there is a disconnect in terms of reality, in terms of what was actually happening. but the naacp was not a radical organization by any modern theaters. but they really became very, very active that year. and if there was a hero ohira said that the congress members the members of leadership of the naacp. prior to 1919, the naacp ad for the most part been sort of a well-meaning group of white do-gooders with one black person, wb to boiling aboard. they didn't do much. they stayed in manhattan. they would write pamphlets about how when she was bad.

1916, wb to bully convinces james weldon johnson to join the organization. he has an incredible person on many levels. i'll levels. i'll go off on a slight tangent. he cowrote the anthem for african-americans and he wrote poetry. he wrote novels. he spoke fluid spanish. he was a diplomat am a trained lawyer. and these raw things he did on the side while he was also an incredible journalist. w. e. b. deploys has convinced him to service field secretary of the naacp. he joins and it's a dynamo. when the team country and something had to sell the country. he does turn boston into over the south, according tens of thousands of members. he writes amazing essays, which everyone should read. his argument is basically the

constitution has certain protections for every american. but people get those as well. one of the key things he did, which is really vital and completely unexplored as he started walking up and down the halls of congress, which was at that time always. there was not one black person in office. he started out in a coalition coming meeting with republicans. a handful of republicans who would listen to him and hear his message about trying to create federal pressure on southern states to stop the machine and on all states to stop this violence exploding all over the country. there was one other guy in the group that i want to mention the naacp, a young man from atlanta, walter white. and he lived up to his name because he could pass for white. he had blue eyes, when you see pictures of him he looks white.

and he was an incredible salesman. and james wilton johnson said got to get this into the naacp. he was white and he could use that to go into areas where there have been riots or just been lynchings. he would gather information. he was incredibly good at it. sometimes a little cocky and sometimes -- he regularly risk his life to do so. one story i will tell you in 1919 he is in arkansas and is terrible and what can only be described as the slaughter of black sharecroppers they are. he goes into town investigate and is walking around talking to people on a black man passes in the street day and says, come into the alley with me. got to talk to you. he says they know who you are. you got to get out of here.

so wait hightails up to the rhetoric coming catches a train and he's leaving town. and the white order comes through to collect tickets and a ghost, why are you leaving town? at that term they use the time yellow for someone who was light skin. why are you leaving town? is going to be a great show. weight is like -- [laughter] that's how close he took a. all of them are risking their lives. i mean, josh lady, the white leader of the naacp really that the beaten out of them. was never physically or mentally the same afterward. he was beaten simply because he showed up. he showed up in town and was trying to stop the state from shutting down the naacp breaches in the town. so again, i could talk about lots and lots of riots. these men did amazing work.

they doubled the membership in the naacp. the crisis, the magazine of the naacp peaked at 100,000 circulation. there do doing amazing recruiting and lobbying. if you read the crisis from that period, you can see they would publish a page of all of their political agenda every month. it is exactly what martin luther king was arguing for. same thing could only read two quick quotes from james weldon johnson. he gave a speech in november november 1919 as rice were dissipating in boston. to me, these two quotes in one speech at one point something like mathematics and another point some think martin luther king. these are both delivered for either men were born. so i thought defense companies that i know we can settle this raise trouble by taking a

shotgun and going and shooting people, but i will say it will go a long way towards handling this thing if we shoot back when we are shot at. that is not the max. and later in that same speech, we've got to wake up the conscious of the american people. hold the mirror for the people machinations he is of, if any nation for the american spirit is not that he appointed and organization of white people but people can save america from violence. patience is a virtue, but not always. i want to see them fight incessantly for what he believes this is right. no one is more competent than the american for he knows he is right as god almighty on the site and he can't lose. that's martin luther king in my opinion. so, i'm going to talk about one right that have been coming just to show you the breadth of what was taking place. so, washington d.c. of the largest by population of any major city at that time and is a

very bustling city because the war had ended. lots of bureaucrats, lots of soldiers decommission. very crowded, very hot in washington. osha sat there sweating like a dog. it's a very hot city in the summer. and for weeks leading up to july of 1919, newspapers in that town come in light newspapers that published articles about crimes occurring. they were all trying to outcompete each other in terms of crime coverage. and they would report on alleged assault by black men against white women. but no one was ever taken into custody. so these are allegations. and they would say things and literally have headlines that would say black fruit or something like that. but root for tax white women. the naacp was so concerned about this that they went and met with the newspaper editors and had

you are really throwing gasoline on the fire here. if you know the facts, print the facts. but why are you doing this? and they had no effect. james will johnson met with them and had no effect. they kept writing articles and on july 18 of 1919 from the people were coming home from work in a white woman is walking on the street. no one knows exactly what happened, but she had an umbrella and it was jostled by two black men. nobody knows what happened, but there is an exchange, an altercation. they passed words of one of black man --a cop was brought over nothing nothing really happened. but the rumor that spread among the white soldiers and sailors and washing it was black guys just a white naval officer's wife. and the writing immediately began. they began pulling people out of

trolley cars, going into restaurants employ waiters have been eating a mayhem ensued. now, luckily, it was a federal district. so the president of the united states who's in the white house, all you have to do is pick up a phone call, pick up a phone and thousands of discipline troops would come in and stop the riot, right? no. because he didn't do that. woodrow wilson -- i could give a whole lecture about my views on woodrow wilson. i have sorted this paternalistic view of him. he was sorted this professoriat of befuddled guy. that was was maybe within. he was a big hit. he was aloof. he was utterly unconcerned with anything at that point in life except his own legacy, which he thought was the league of nations. so he ignored it. he had stomach trouble at the

time. he's laying in bed with gunshots going outside. people are being beaten outside of the white house. this is all over washington. he does nothing. in his district commissioner keeps pleading with him. you know, my police can handle this. they were overwhelmed. and so he aptly does nothing. finally, after four or five days of mayhem, he finally calls and the troops. the troops are there and within an hour shutdown. and this is an important point because throughout the summer and i think this speaks to the 60s as well, the reasons for writing a manifold and we can talk on and on about them. but stopping the riot is pretty easy. we can discipline sort impartial point guns at people write in and say go home.

and if you do that, people go home because a mob does not want to attack disciplined troops. and whenever that did occur at night 1919, for example in charleston, south carolina, they were over immediately. but it didn't happen like in chicago or washington or knoxville or omaha coveting the straight out of control very, very quickly. but in the black neighborhoods of washington during all this mayhem, black veterans who had just come back from world war i one above the rooftops and created barricades and quartered off their neighborhood near howard university in coverage area. they thought that. and that was after the riots finally did and, black people in america were ecstatic. they're writing letters to the crisis in other places saying

about time. this is great. this is fantastic. we thought that. we showed them. hl mencken, who was certainly bigoted in his own way wrote a letter to a white friend of his that black people were eager for the band to play. i'm not scared him. and jean tumor, who is a very young man at the time wrote an article. he wrote after the washington riot, the outstanding feature is not that the will fight, but he will fight against the american white. that had a real political residence with a lot of people and woke up a lot of people. you can't just have the old standard model attacking people anymore. there has to be a new accommodation, new understanding of black presence in american society and what is going to mean for our nation.

so, there is a riot in washington this mayhem. the capital of the democracy that just won the war. so this has newspapers all over the world. and in germany where they had just taught african-american soldiers and loss, and there with a black newspaper wrote an article, an editorial which translates as the black peril. does the title of the editorial. again, it was a great title. and they write this. the disorder is now reported about a beginning. if they can find a leader, perhaps they have one commode might experience all sorts of things perhaps some day, a black president. that was terrifying. i would never have been. [laughter] but it did, so -- so the "red

summer" trailed off and came to an end for a bunch of reasons. but one of the main reasons it is not awakening by white political leaders. but the idea that if it's really bad publicity, these riots were incredibly bad publicity and so they started chewing them in. this entry at immediately when it started to happen. but there were some political awakenings and people started, particularly in northern large city center to accommodate black political leaders and the idea of accommodating whereby people can live. and that started to change. again, 1919 was not the end of the civil rights movement by any stretch of the imagination. as i write in the book, it was much more vexing 10 concorde. it was the beginning of some pain. the landscape really was forever changed. you saw lynching at a high point

and from that point on they began to diminish or not point until today. and you saw a riot. there were a few more -- a major race riot in tulsa, the incident rosewood. in 1943 there is a major incident in detroit that was sort of a white and black riot. then you have some incidents between the civil rights movement. there was silence. i mean, that's obvious. but, it was nothing compared to 1919. and 1919 there was a black man named john hartfield who winched in public with a crowd as large as 10,000 people. it was a public festival in dallas though, pennsylvania. he was accused of assaulting a white woman. ..

>> so he's executed with 10,000 people in broad daylight in 1919. and a terrible crime was committed years later in mississippi, that was done overnight, all the guys swear to secrecy, a different landscape. jim crow was on the fence at that time. is my argument. and i think there is to -- to

metropolitan going to end with. herbert was a little jewish guy who enjoyed the naacp from new york. he risked his life. you go into places like vicksburg, mississippi, after a riot and interview people and write articles about it. and he wrote a book about the violence yet seen in 1990 during the red summer. and he wrote this. race relations constitute democracy most essential problem. a problem compounded of all other which free men are called upon to maintaining and forming social relation. shameful as was the year 1919, with bloodshed, lynch and race riding in the united states, the attention of all the nation that a national problem long unsolved demanded serious attention. in the last quote is from,

there's a british journalist was traveling the country at the time named stephen graham come and use writing sort of a travelogue history of the united states. at one point he goes to shady deal georgia. has anyone been to shady dale? yeah. i've been there. it's not paris. [laughter] don't confuse it with a major european capital. but he made a white woman there, an old white woman there, and he's talking to her about all this chaos. and the woman is shaking her head. i guess the case of accident -- accent. eroded frankly. the woman says with great disappointment, there's no managing the natives now, they got so big he since the war. and that can be summed up the

book. they are not going to go back to where you wanted them to be. they fought in the war. they moved up north. they had jobs they're paying much more money. sharecroppers are making more money. they are not going to go back to the jim crow restrictions. it's going to be, there is a war on, and the war is to eliminate jim crow. and that's a quote, to me sums up where things were headed. but anyway, thank you very much for coming. [applause] nay any questions? >> we're going to do questions for about 20 minutes or so. and as i said earlier, please wait into the microphone comes to you. and you can just watch it right there in front of you. in fact, why don't we start -- the microphone is over there. why don't we start with questions over there?

>> sorry about that contraption. [laughter] >> in your research, how much influence woodrow wilson's wife had on his attitudes as he came from trenton, new jersey, and helped re-segregated the hospital come the nursing staff, government workers and all that in washington at that time? >> i think there's been, i was in washington giving a talk and the woman who worked at the woodrow wilson house there try to sort of portray him as, that he had his wife who gave him racial attitudes that are not acceptable today. i think he was very comfortable being a racist on his own. if you been a bachelor he would've a total racist. he loved to tell darkie jokes. he watched, if windows, he watched birth of the nation. in the white house he screened it. people, it was a very popular the at the time so maybe you

could forgive him for that. no. people were complaining about the, protesting that film. one of the reasons he really liked the film is he is quoted in it. its history about the south, passages in which, phrases and the first ku klux klan and that they were doing the right thing. that's quoted toward the end of the movie which unfortunately i didn't watch. he was, you know, he made promises to leaders, black political their 21st ran, and when he got in office he re-created -- throughout 1919, people were pleading with them sending telegrams, people from the tuskegee institute, et cetera, you've got to say something, you've got to do something about this, you've got to speak out against this. and his answer was in their incredibly, this is really a state issue. talk to your governors and see

which are gonna has to say. one quote and all my, he was delivering tons of speeches across the country at the time, try to get the versailles treaty past. i found one speech in montana, sort of a passing reference, are these rights terrible? that's it. so i don't know what his wife was like, but he was a racist. [inaudible] [laughter] >> she was from rome, i think. >> i happened to have come across your book a couple weeks ago at one of the borders closings. [laughter] >> i won't ask what the price was. continue. >> only 20% off. >> okay. >> i almost didn't buy it because kind of wondered to myself, what could be so

different about that year as opposed to other years. but something in the title struck me, the subtitle, and the awakening of black america. it kind of bothered me a little bit and i want to buy the book to read because i wanted to find out what this was. because my understanding of black history, particularly as it has to do with fighting for freedom and fighting for rights, black folks have never been to sleep. so it really kind of took me by surprise. again, i just know in my history black folks from the first time they set foot on this countenance have never been to see. so i wondered to what that referred. >> we wrestled with that, the editors wrestle with that. and i think that there's no doubt that as soon as black people got here they were,

number one, trying to be free. in relative standards immediately. and building free black population in the city in the country, and being attacked, and fighting back. so there were examples in cincinnati where they fought back. there were examples where they would fight back but they're always overpower because their numbers were to school. and so i don't mean by that title ii plot at all, 1919, you know, black people, wait a minute, this isn't fair. know, black people knew that it wasn't fair. 1919, in my opinion, and for my research, i believe that that was the year that they realized they had political power and that fighting back could be more than simply shooting -- like 1906, when black people are defending their neighborhoods, after that, but in 1919, really, almost 100,000 members of the

naacp. the convention, the naacp convention in cleveland of that year is by far the largest they had ever had. and it's overwhelming like people coming up from the south, recruiting people from the south. so that's what i meant by that. but i didn't mean to imply that black people didn't realize that the situation wasn't good. [inaudible] >> there've been other times in history, particularly during a civil war when black people -- >> white soldiers. >> using the system to kind of parlay that into legislature and of the kind of things. i mean, again in my mind, and i'm going to read the book and find out more about what you're talking about, but it just seemed awful lot to me. >> no, i mean black people have been obviously working forever to not be in an oppressive

state. but i think that that year, 1919 was the year that again, the political, the breath of the political activity was extorted. look at marcus garvey. that's the year his organization really takes off. black publications are sprouting up in kansas city, chicago defender. these publications are really becoming popular everywhere. it was extraordinarily passionate wasn't the only time black people were awake politically? no. but it was an extraordinary what awakening that i think directly led to the civil rights movement. >> thank you, and i appreciate this. i'm going to ask him what you think of some other contemporary

parallels today with 1919? you mentioned war. you mention economics there's the job situation. you didn't go into some of the social politics that we find, especially in the unions. the attack on the image of black men in the presidency. so what are the parallel issue? >> do you mean, i mean, i think one thing which would jump out at me would be how the debates over immigration, not about black people at all. i would say i think that's a big issue in terms of how -- certainly, like the racial violence in chicago that year, it was against black people, as immigrants. they were newcomers. and i think that to me as i was doing research, paralleled some of the things that have happened in this country regarding illegal immigration now today.

people from mexico and other places. there's a lot of tension over that. that seems to be fueling a lot of socioeconomic. that be the main thing. >> how effective do you think black soldiers at that time were, as far as the awakening was concerns because i think they played an incredibly active role. there are letters i have in the book from black soldiers who had returned to chicago, writing about how their experiences forever changed and. and i think that is, was true for many, many, many soldiers. you can go to france, the treated equally i white people and fight in a war for democracy and then come back to a situation you're in before. w.e.b. dubois goes over to write

articles about the treatment of black soldiers, being mistreated in france by mostly white southern officers, and is writing articles about that and he's in paris and is also attending congress but he goes out to dinner one night with white friends. he writes an essay about it, about the joy of this great experience but they went and ate and talked and had interesting conversation. he writes about how angry that made him because he knew he could never have that experience in the united states. they would always be color, color barriers immediately. and i think certainly soldiers felt the same thing. you will be treated one way and you come back and you're treated another way. >> could you be so kind -- >> i'm sorry. yes. >> 1919 as less than a year

after great influenza pandemic, so i'm wondering how that affected the climate? because he was equal to mike for everybody, the proximity is so obvious. >> yes. i mean, i should have thrown at him was talking about biting female. the question is what about the influence -- influenza pandemic. that was trading often at often at that time. it'd kill tens of millions, millions and millions of people across the planet. in atlanta, there's the cemetery, a place where they just threw the bodies by the hundreds. so, the answer is it added to this general center of oh, my god, the world is collapsing. all social order is falling apart. and this definitely added to the anarchy that was generally felt by, mostly by white people who felt that they didn't understand

the world anymore. it was changing in a way that they couldn't grasp. and hence the popular of these books like the passing of the great race, and by that he meant -- >> when you talk about the things like the lynchings and all the many anecdotes about that you can give, i'm always sitting here asking myself the question, and try to not make this sound to me but i'm always sitting here asking myself the question, you know, how could things like that happen and how good things like that have happened and gone on for so long? and, of course, growing up in a generation that i have, my context and the context of the country is different, but at the same time unseating of thinking that basic morality shouldn't be subject to a context. certain things are always going to be wrong and certain things

are always going to be right. i know i'm asking you in an actual question in some ways, but if you can do your best? >> no, no. it's on page -- no. [laughter] know, your question is open ended, but it actually was a major motivation for me writing the book. how does society break down to that level? as a younger man i spent time in africa, and in a situation where there's a lot of ethnic strife, and i wonder how could that, i don't want to go into long of a jack about it but how does that happen? i remember being a part of kenya near the ugandan border in a very remote village and i was walking in the market, and i had just come from united states. i've never been to africa before, and my father was taking me around, not my real father but my sort of stay father, was taking me around, and he saw a

man drop a coin and he goes, look at that black guy over there. drop a coin and they will pick it up. i looked over at him, what black eyed? everybody here is black. this is a sea of black people, in my mind. but very shortly after, a few weeks, i could quickly picked up all the prejudice. there's -- you know they are. i had them all in my head. when i came back to the united states, oh, you know, this is the same tragedies is that we have -- prejudices we have were transferred and africa. jewish people are dying people or black people. they had the same prejudices that apply. when you have society under right economic stress or turmoil, these tensions, people become very tribal. and i think the great strength of organizations like naacp in

that year was to not go the route of markets garbage who want to be tribal. okay, we're going to move to africa. okay, fine. that's our tribalism. they rejected it and they said no, here's the documents called you know states constitution. i get the same rights you do. and their ability to do that and fight for that in that chaotic situation was very, very impressive. and inspiring your i think that i was part of writing this book when i started to do the research, i thought go be an element of a, i do like i, growth in america, white man. but the more i get the research for this book the emotion i found myself eating more was pride at these americans, like i wish i'd known a lot more are in my life, who are doing this amazing work.

>> can you describe how you first became aware of this past wave of racial bias in the 1919? and your thought process when he realized i've got to write a book about this? >> i was on a fellowship, and i was up at a university for year and i wanted to research racial violence. so, because i every city i've ever worked in, detroit, chicago, atlanta, cincinnati, anywhere, if you learn the history of those communities to learn about a race riot. so i figured i would research that, and as you start to do that, 1919 jumps out. it was just out of control. i mean, there had been a few books written about particular riots, book is now four years old about the chicago riots. there's a book about, good books about the arkansas incident. all this other stuff nobody had

really written about, and i felt that it needed to be told. >> he's good. [laughter] >> there was one of the road a little bit about it, his name was sandberg, and the riots in chicago. that was -- but, just a couple quick comments. one, look at the context of that period of time, we're getting ready to put legislation on the books it's going to limit immigration. you have a president who literally hates not only blacks but dislikes as he says in one of his speeches, all hyphenated americans. and he was talking about italian americans, german-americans -- >> that doesn't include the loss spent but it's not hyphenated. >> that's the key. >> but at the same time, with hoover, hoover, he was brought

up, that happen in november but actually palmer went before congress in june of 1919 and asked for powers to begin to throw out all these? >> that's an important point. regarding hoover and regarding palmer. palmer was the attorney general at the time. one important point is he a science who for this special mission, and they draft a report that is released to congress in the fall of that year and has this huge long rant about the anarchists. we've got to get rid of these people. they need to be deported to look at this crazy stuff they are writing. that's basically the majority of the document. then there's this huge part at the end that is tacked on, so they start i bought black publication. look at all these radical black

publications, radical writing. and if you read those, read the quote that they listed, every stretch of the imagination they would be considered benign. things like shoot back if you're being shot at. that's radical. and that was really, it's sort of bizarre attack on, disjointed from the flow of this legal argument and it is just sort of there. that's sort of been my view of how the federal government was approaching a lack of political activism at the time. they didn't know what to make of it. must be something radical but there must be somehow involved with communist. and, in fact, you know, i have quotes in the book from radicals arguing, why are we making better inroads among black people? they are not embracing our message. and later they would try harder to do that, but they had, up

until 1919 they had utterly failed to do so. [inaudible] on the reverse side when you come to the south, and i've interviewed, they're all dead now, but many sleeper car porters that worked with a. philip randolph and a. philip randolph was from the same town. but in anything them, they talked about, this is way after 1919, in the '20s how, when black servicemen did come back into southwick served, they did not go to chicago, whatever, quite often they had a hard time because they had, one, then around white women. and as a feckless they'd use guns anyway rather than just hunting bassam. >> then before world war i it started, there actually have been, the idea of recruiting black soldiers was disputed by white congressmen in the south

had said wait a minute, you're going to train black people to shoot guns? let's not do that. [inaudible] >> right. but i have a letter in the book from a man, a black soldier comes back to arkansas, and he rides that he comes home and he is sneered at by white businessmen who didn't go fight, by the way. and he's so disgusted that he moved to st. louis and he said i felt safer in the trenches that i did in arkansas. that was a common -- >> time for about two more. >> i appreciate what you said about something different happened in 1919, that seemed to indicate that there was an awakening and things are generating. i'm wondering how you came to the conclusion that is black america waking up and finally realizing that they've been oppressed and they should be fighting back instead of white america realizing, it might offend the beginning of the

conscious that might've kept growing? >> i mean, i would like, i think that the reaction, the reaction, the most important part of the story, 1919, in my mind is blacks political reaction. so this violence starts to erupt and they have had violence in the past. but in 1919, they are literally organizing, they are shooting back. they are forming political organizations to pressure political leaders, locally and nationally, and they're taking steps that they hadn't been taking before. and i would argue that they take over an organization called the naacp, because before that it was all white people. you know? and by the end of that year johnson space the running it. w.e.b. dubois is running the

crisis and all the editorial product, and walter white is the crazy dynamo risking his life all over the country. so the organization becomes this black organization and it remains so. there were white people who were helping them come and there was a white awakening of sorts. but the real star was a black political awakening that we are political force in the country, we're a social force in this country and we are not going to be put back in the box is that you have defined for us. [inaudible] >> i wanted to ask, as an african-american, use of color, say what would you like in her age bracket to take away about your book? >> that's a great question. the question was, she brought her doctor today and she wants to know what would i like a young african-american woman,

17, to take away from this book. and i guess the question, i would answer that by saying political activity can work. and did work. and that there are these amazing people in america's past. i mean, i guess i would first say it doesn't really matter if your daughter is black. if your daughter is an american, she should learn about johnson. the guy is amazing. there's a statute to martin luther king that is about to be unveiled in washington, d.c. great, fantastic. they should be a statue to james walter johnson. these guys were amazing. everyone should know about them. my dr. schear. whether she likes it or not, but she's going to learn about it or. and so is my son. these people transformed an organization and transformed, i would argue later, it's not,

we're talking about specific people, a man who grew up in jacksonville, florida, and helped change the united states. so that would be my answer. thank you. [applause] >> to find out more visit the author's website, cameronmcwhirter.com. >> booktv has over 100,000 twitter followers. be a part of the excitement, follow the tv on twitter to get publishing news, scheduled updates, author information and talk directly with authors during our live programming. twitter.com/booktv. ..