>> exactly, yes. >> did you watch booknotes? >> most definitely. i was a regular booknotes viewer, and when brian lamb announced on air the program was coming to them and, i made a mental note that next day i needed to look into the matter of whether we could obtain the collection and the associated archived from the c-span organization. soon thereafter we made contact with brian lamb and we visited him. we presented three separate proposals from 2,005 until 2010 and in the end we convinced

brian that george mason university would be a good home for the collection. but more importantly, he was impressed with what we were planning to do with the collection. this collection is going to be integrated with the teaching and learning activities of the university. we will be working with several academic departments to make sure that this material is integrated into the appropriate courses at the undergraduate and graduate level so that our students will have access to primary materials such as they start to explore the various subject areas that they are engaged in. >> for more information on the booknotes collection, visit the

george mason university library website at library.gmu.du. of next on booktv, henry louis gates jr. presents a history of african-americans in the united states from the 16th century to the present day. this is about 40 minutes. midevening. is it on? it is. good. i couldn't tell. welcome to the atlanta history center. we are delighted you are here this evening. please join us on december 15th a couple of nights from now and the 20 of as we celebrate the season with two evenings of the new program we call holiday spirit. this is a new interactive and a merciful with a program which i think that you will be delighted

with to purchase tickets or for more information as they say, please visit our web site at atlantahistory.com. tonight's lecture is and akins lecture in the series which are made possible by the generous support and funding from the trust of lucey. henry louis gates jr. will speak for about 40 minutes this evening and then sign books in the lobby. tonight's program is being recorded by c-span so everyone is going to be on their best behavior i know. you will all turn off your cellphone commodore beeper, who has beeper's any more? [laughter] seriously. turn off your cellphone and please refrain from testing and e-mail lang in respect to the speaker. henry louis gates jr. is the director of the w.e.b. du bois institute of african and african-american research at the

university professor herbert. he's the author of several award winning works including a memoir of colored people else was the future of the race co-authored with cornell west and 13 ways of looking at a black man. please come and join me in getting a warm atlanta welcome to henry louis gates jr.. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you very much for that kind introduction and brief. [laughter] i appreciate that. it's nice to be back in atlanta. i always have a good time in our land of. it feels like my home away from home. good evening everyone. come on - all the way down from boston. [laughter] good evening. that's what i'm talking about. that's why i come here.

and biscuits the fact i can get biscuits in atlanta for breakfast and i can't do that in boston that is a strong appeal for me. it's been a big day. i've been filming my new pbs series called finding your roots which will start airing in late march and i've always admired sanja. he's a good guy. [applause] we traced his family back from his mother's side and his father's side and went along with. i can't give you the tools but was one of the most moving experiences i have had during all of my genealogy and genetics series so i just am sort of psyched about that. some wanted to tell you state-owned late march and you will check out his family history but tonight i want to tell you about my new book called life upon these shores, and its subtitled looking at african-american history 1513 to

2008 and it consists of 789 illustrations and about 237 entries. it's dedicated in memory of my father. my father died last christmas eve, henry louis gates jr. -- i'm sorry, henry louis gates senior. i'm the jr and i'm still here. [laughter] and daddy loved history coming and he and by -- but he also loved sports and i have my older brother and it's just the two of us and he and my brother were sports junkies and i wasn't. i loved books and it took a long time for my father and me to bond coming and we started to bond when i was a teenager and we started to bonn over current events. we would watch the news together. i tell my students there was a time when the evening news was only 15 minutes long, remember that, and but we would watch the news together when i was a

teenager and we would talk about it and analyze it, so i realized it was a way into my father's consciousness and into his heart. i'm sure he loved me deeply, you understand, but i didn't care about sports in the way that my brother did but all of a sudden i had something that i could share with my dad, and i remember watching in 1959i was 9-years-old i watched mike wallace interview malcolm x for a special called the hate that hate produced and my dad and my watch that together and then of course when i was 13 we watched a great march on washington to gather in august of 1963 and then 1966 we stayed up late into the night to get the results back from massachusetts to see if a black man, a republican senator was going to be the first black man elected to the senate since reconstruction and

of course he was. and then the next year we stayed up late to see if a black man carvel would be the first afro-american as we were probably saying than to be elected mayor of a major city and of course he was and then my father left clayton powell, remember him, he left adam clayton powell. love m. clayton powell when he was elected to congress in 1944. he loved him when he took on the dixiecrats. he loved him when he became a rogue in the unfortunately in the 1960's and finally was expelled. but these were my formative shading experiences with my father and i decided i was trying to get the book done before my father died. i mean he wasn't sick when i undertook the book, but i wanted this book to be a tribute and a kind of a secret history of current events that we have

shared together, but also amazing facts about the african-american experience which my father wouldn't know and most of us wouldn't know, and i wanted it to have the matching of a film as best it could, so i wanted it to be heavily illustrated and having over 700 beautiful mostly colored illustrations i thought would be a way of bringing these events to life. do you remember a book called the black book? it came out in 1974 when toni morrison, before toni morrison was the great writer, known to be the great writer that she is but was also a great editor at random house and was the editor for this book which consisted of documents of the memorabilia, slave auction documents and even racist post cards, all sorts of things, and i was a graduate student at the university of cambridge when that book came out and i thought that that was

the magic book. in a few years ago i did a documentary called looking for a lincoln and co-producer had a huge collection inhibited from the generations of the family of lincoln memorabilia and they did a book called looking for lincoln, and each page is a visual image and text is written to the visual image. so my book was inspired by its black and white this book looking for a lincoln. so it started with the illustrations and then wrote the text to eliminate the illustration instead of the other way around, and i want to tell you a little bit about for me some of my most favorite entries in the book and i start in 1513 come notte 1619. i don't know about you, but most african-american history courses in my day started in 1619 when

the first 20 as they were called showed up on the james river in jamestown and we now know thanks to the work of a scholar of john for time that they can from angola. do you know that we know because of the work of a scholar here at emory, david? we can now count this jeeves. and we now know that between 1501 and 186,612.5 million africans were shipped from africa to the new world. 12.5 million. 15% died in the middle passage. some 11 million get off the boat to the new world. of that 11 million how many do you think came to the united states? 380,000 came directly. you were looking at my book. [laughter] you put the book. like footnotes. [laughter] 388,000 came directly from

africa to what is now the united states and another 50,000 we estimate touched them briefly in the caribbean, you're absolutely right. you get the gold star. [laughter] but think about what that means to read all those other africans went to the caribbean and to south america. i don't know about you but when i was growing up without the slave trade was primarily about us. but the 40 million african american people sent to the 450,000 africans who came here between 1619 and mostly by 182099% of our ancestors were here. it's quite remarkable. but all of those other africans, brazil got over 5 million africans in the slave trade. well here is the reason that i start in 1513 because the first africans who show up in what is now the united states showed up

in 1513 and they didn't come here only as sleeves but i will get to that in a minute. i was fascinated by the contact between europe and africa before african-americans got here so i started with images. remember a book is driven by pictures, driven by images. i started with images of them african marks, kings and queens who actually received a mysterious from europe and there's the queen from what is now angola who became the queen in 1624 and there is an image of her receiving a delegation of dutch traders coming to negotiate with her for the slave trade and there's another image of the congo rolled between 1641

to 1661 and both of them met regularly with the portuguese and dutch diplomats and major slave traders especially in the 16 forties. but you know how we were raised to think that africans were so benighted that they just sat there and waited for europeans to discover them and that the approach was always from europe to africa? we now know from the visual record that isn't true either. the earliest european emissaries arrived in africa in the 16th century and that similarly african and are serious or received in europe at about the same time. one was a man named antonio manuel. he was the king of the congo's ambassador to the vatican, and we have an image in the book that was fun of him when he arrived in the vatican in the year 1608. 1608 congo was sending

ambassadors to europe. did you know that? i didn't know that either. miguel de castro another beautiful image in the book became the representative of the king of combo to the portuguese colony of brazil and for the netherlands in 1641 and their images were preserved in europe and oil paintings and that's on page 11 of the book that since you are following i'm not going to ask you more questions because you are already ahead of me. [laughter] but the africans who came to what is now the united states and to the new world also campus leaves but not all. 30 africans accompanied balboa in 1513. several africans traveled with armando cortez and 1519. among them a black man named ha juan who was a slave rights man and was the first person he claimed in a letter to the king

of spain the first to plant a crop in the new world. if anybody made the claim it had to be a black man. [laughter] a black man accompanied through texas and mexico in 1528. black men in peru in 1531 with the unfortunate conquest of the income and 200 black men accompanied to the modern-day ecuador in 1534 and i wanted to tell you a little bit about this. one conversed it to be converted to christianity before arriving in the new world. he explored florida. remember in school the fountain of youth? did you know a free black man a conquistadores in florida went with cortez when he defeated the aztecs. in 1524 we had a record of him

living as an honored citizen in mexico city. there was a black man and as the bomb. test on export florida in 1528 and was shipped in present-day cultist in texas and was enslaved by indians for five years. he escapes and we know we have a map in the book as you know he wandered for a total of 15,000 miles from florida. you know, these places were not their buildings and giving through what is now texas and spain which became mexico. he was a medicine man and the son of the sun and he returned to the exploration and 1537 and was captured and executed by the people in what is now new mexico in the year 1549 because they saw him as a harbinger of unwanted visitors who would change their way of life forever. my brother dr. paul gates is

fascinated by clown figures and for those years he was trying to figure out why the people had a black faced doll and we figured out was because this doll was a relic or a remnant of the estimates on which of course in spanish. by 1507 more than 23,000 people of descent live in what is now mexico and there were two centers some of you know that i did a pbs series recently called black and latin america and i shot one pergamum black people in mexico and peru and the centers of black culture in mexico and oversaw the dhaka pogo on the pacific coast and there was a slave who ran away from his master in about 1570 and other slaves ran away and join his community a community of rim's and the spanish fought

them between 1570 and 1609 and finally the spanish gave up and signed a treaty with them and they gave him the right to create an independent all black settlement which is still there and it's been independent since 69. we did not learn this in our history books. a black city in mexico run by black people? [laughter] no way. [laughter] who discovered manhattan? there was a black man named rodriguez who was the first non-native american to be a permanent resident to survive in what is now manhattan. we call him jay rot. [laughter] he was deposited on manhattan by a captain in late 1612 come early 1613 and all that is known about this man comes from lawsuits between other dutch

traders who dealt with rodriquez and they were upset because a free black man was trading independently there and not as his agent and there's a park in new york where there is a tribute to him as the official founder of manhattan to be there was another black man the fis who owned property and voted in maryland during the 17th century. he was a catholic of portuguese and african descent and settled in st. mary's city maryland and he was a free man in the colony and owned land and voted and was treated as an equal member of the maryland society. these are the exceptions yet we know so much about the slave community but not about these exceptional black people who functioned in the society. between the cracks as it were between free people and enslaved

people. but these people also fought back against the slave trade. of course in the hagee revolution between 1791 and 1804 sparked a great unrest in the united states a virginia slave named gabriel feature on page 45 of the book plant to reflect enrichment to kidnap governor james monroe. by october the plot was exposed and he and 26 other slaves had been executed and eight others transported out of the state. hear people ask me all the time what is your favorite story in the book, and i have a lot. but this was particularly interesting to me. september, 1799, a south carolina slave known as telemak won the lottery. how many of you even knew there

was a lottery? [laughter] 1799. we have the ticket number. this ticket number was 1884, and he won $8,500 which was a heck of a lot of money in 1799. he determined he would use this money to buy his freedom and support his bid to end slavery. many of the slaves in the region had come with their owners when they had escapes the revolution. and the co-conspirators saw him as a hero and planned to burn the city and escapes. he and 34 others were free trade by other slaves and 33 others. but on the other hand, there is a man pages 56 to 57.

[laughter] he was born we think in 1736. he died in 23 and was a representative of the small but rising black population. he was probably born in gambia and he was probably a muslim and was shipped as a slave just before the american revolution. in 1783 his owner to come to washington dc. he gained his freedom in 1796 when his owner died. he earned a very comfortable living by bricklaying and basket making and he invested in a bank that counted george washington as one of its stockholders. by 1800 he earned enough money to buy his own home in georgetown. he took a daily swim into his 80s just like john quincy adams did. he probably professed his muslim faith and earned the respect of his white neighbors. in 1819, the great artist

charles wilson painted his portrait after coming to washington to preened debate could hand president monroe and we heard that he was alive, heard this story, her he was born in africa and also heard that he was 134-years-old, another sign to me clearly that he was a black man. [laughter] so far i've talked about nothing but women, i mean men. what about women? look on page 76. here's the story of julia. this was a black woman who we emerged and loyalty 1836 election. i know you'll remember the details of the 1836 election. president martin van buren richard mentor johnson was an -- the war of 1812 war hero from kentucky and a former congressman and he had been an ally of thomas jefferson. we know that thomas jefferson never spoke about his

relationship with sally hemingses. but this man openly lived with his sleeve wife -- slave wife. this embarrassed southern politicians who wanted nothing to do with him but support van buer and's vice president was strongly in the north and the south because of his marriage which of course was the legal and not official, not sanctioned by the church or by the state. democrats even used vulgar images of him to criticize their own candidate. and now apparently we don't know, but apparently they had a warm and loving relationship. they lived openly together, they had two daughters together. they were named imogene, and johnson educated them as if they were white and eventually he married them off to white men in washington, d.c.. now unfortunately, julia died

from cholera in 1833 and so what did richard johnson do? he took up with one of her sisters. [laughter] julia's brother accompanied johnson during the campaign of 1836 to new york. marcella, the wise man he was, took the opportunity to flee to the abolitionist and when johnson turned to his father daniel to be the personal servant, daniel took the opportunity to fully st to canada. in the 1858 election wind stephen douglas accused abraham lincoln of favoring what was then called the amalgamation which was then leader called a such a nation, lincoln asserted that the racial mixing to place most often where slavery existed. a very subtle argument. then he went on to say as

mr. douglas your good friend of richard m. johnson and the audience of course new with the reference was. now let's talk about black military service, let's start with the civil war. much attention of course for our generation has been placed on the unit that was the center of the 1989 film which was above the 54th massachusetts regiment. but there were about 150 different black civil war regiments, and one battle they really showed at the battle of new market heights and it's a virginia battle not sufficiently known. 14 men would win the medal of honor for their heroism in this one engagement and a representative of eight separate regimens that fought on that date, september 29, 1864 pages 139 and 140 is the sacrifice of

the man called milton holland. milton holland was born in 1844 and died in 1910. he initially participated in the war as a servant to a white officer and in the summer of 1863 he joined the fifth united states colored troops. remember he was the only official with the emancipation proclamation that black men were allowed to serve in the military the black men did served unofficially if there were some engagements in 1962. but lincoln included this as part of the emancipation proclamation which becomes effective january 1st 1863 and that led to the creation of the u.s. color troops and well, holland like several other black enlisted men took command of the hone company after all the white officers had been killed or wounded, and after the war he earned a law degree from the university and worked as an auditor in and 1892 he founded his own insurance company.

what about the buffalo soldiers which was of course the next manifestation after the end of the civil war black military involvement and polis. despite the heroism of the black troops in the civil war, significant opposition remained against the idea of black people serving in the peacetime army. there were about 180,000 black men who served in the civil war. under pressure from radicals in congress, president johnson on july 28, 1866 signed a military appropriations act that called for the establishment of the ninth and tenth calgary and the four regiments of the infantry that were consolidated into the 24th and the 25th infantry regiments in 1869. most of the recruits were young but many were civil war veterans who joined first to escape the south and to earn a regular wage

unavailable to them otherwise. number three, for the adventure. they served in the dakotas for the mexican border and sought to protect native americans from white encroachment partly and native tribes some of the reservations from other hostile tribes. the greatest fame by combat in the various indian war of the west from the 1860's to the 1916 incursion into mexico with general john jay pershing. 23 buffalo soldiers received the medal of honor in the 19th century including participation in the spanish-american war and here is a little-known fact. between 89 and 1904 the buffalo soldiers during the summer months serve in the sequoia and the yosemite national park becoming the nation's first park rangers and you know spooky and

their hats they introduced those broad brimmed hats into the service which is now standard issue for all park rangers. african-americans in the military during world war ii and the tuskegee airmen. the war offered african-americans and opportunity to combat ed schultz presidents in society once again proven their patriotism as the had done in every war in this country since the french and indian war in the mid 18th century. black service was tied to the pittsburgh labeled first the vv campaign, victory against fascism abroad and a victory against racism at home. our first black general was benjamin davis senior who served in the army since 1898 and received his start in 1940. during the war win a bronze star and distinguished service cross

his son benjamin davis jr. would become the commander of the 332nd fighter group one of the most experienced and successful of the squadron formed by the tuskegee airmen. you know the story of course mother and black man on a ship called the west virginia dear to my heart because i'm from piedmont west virginia during parole or work december 7th he and a 50 caliber machine gun and shot down four japanese. his hair was and went on leave ward if and they lobby for his recognition because of his race the navy fought until president roosevelt personally ordered that he receive a medal for his heroism. may 27, 1942 tall chester awarded him then he crossed. most of our popular understanding of world war ii comes from hollywood how many of us know that the marine corps'

first accepted black men in 1942 and there were several major films available to us which involved the june 6th 1944 invasion of normandy in france and the annual commemoration of that battle how many of us know that black soldiers landed on a bloody omaha beach? black soldiers were there. you never see them in the movies, do you? even the abrasive and often intolerant george s. patton awarded the silver star medal to a black soldier for his heroism in with reading a french village in 1944. the tuskegee airmen formed in part by the persistent lobbying fact have the great we would say black feminist to date mary mcleod bethune for one of the best friends of eleanor roosevelt. a critically important as the pilots they disapproved racist assertions that blacks were not smart enough to fly an airplane to master aviation.

962 men trained in tuskegee alabama and 450 flew in combat in europe. they served in north africa and italy and the air men armed an enviable record of perilous of in the three injured 32nd earned a distinguished unit citation for, "outstanding performance and extraordinary heroism. they testified to their patriotism and to their enviable record and that formed the basis for president harry truman to desegregate the military offical the in 1948 and without the service of the tuskegee airmen who general colin powell would not have been possible and without colin powell, barack obama would not have been possible. these are just some of the stories, ladies and gentlemen, that i love in this book that i wrote her first of all for my dad with and also for our

children and our african-american children and for all american children because the black history is american history. there's no american history without a black history and ironically there is no black history and there is no african-american history without american history. they are inextricably intertwined that we do a disservice when we separate them. i want the stories to be a fundamental part of the american history curriculum but i also want within our own black institutions, the institutions like jack and jill, you remember jack would say i would never go to jack and jill. for those of you that don't know that was to learn what to use it you were ever invited to the white house. it was learning how to be middle class. [laughter] why can't jack and jill b. black history class? why can that be a fundamental

part of what jack and jill -- i'm not saying jack and jill lit is just a convenient example pete take sunday school. to learn about the word and sacrifices of jesus and the murders and the saints but why can't we use the format of sunday school to teach these stories to our children when they are young. when i was growing by was born in the 1950's a lawyer or doctor, not an entertainer or an athlete twice as many set aside a cardiologist says there are black men in the nba? how many of our children know that? i know it's more complicated than that i'm about to say but statistically she it's easier to be a certified carting all just than to make it in the nba. [laughter] hoesch to the to a black neighborhood and had a basketball court that was what

with him who home and my dad would say he studied calculus haleh cui study basketball we would be running. [laughter] why can't we use these stories for such a huge percentage of our children the love of learning that our ancestors have and that led them to believe in the future? longtime collis and i were talking about the absurdity of our parents, the absurdity of our parents believing and remember i was born in 1950, cornell in 1953. to now be headed little boys could be anything that they wanted and even if they didn't believe that they made us believe it and we were born before brown v. board. our people believe in education under slavery when we had no hope. we will ray always know where. we used to steal a little learning from the white man that

how many of our children have lost this passing from learning? it was to be an educated man or an educated woman in the 1950's, and to many of our children don't believe that anymore. that's why i'm working with my colleagues at harvard to do a curriculum on genealogy and you will all my passion. i want to reawaken in our inner-city kids for the inner-city schools the love of science and history. how we do that? let's go to history class. imagine we had every child in that class to their family tree. they would go home and interview their mother, their father, come back to school and we would have electronic family trees on the computer and that would be the first round. then the next week they would interview their grandparents and write down all the stories. it's important to write down every story even the ones that

might not be true. [laughter] how many of you -- just speaking to african-americans how many of you all have an ancestor with high cheek bones and straight hair and know that you have made it american ancestors? [laughter] those of you who can't see all the black people in here just raised their hands. [laughter] only a slight problem none of you all have real native american. only 5% of the african-american people have at least 12.5% native american ancestry. but 58% of the african-american people have at least 12.5% european. those high cheekbones and straight black hair came from such wealthy or rape or complicated relationship to that sometimes a willing relationship between generally a white man and a black woman.

35%. if i did the dna of all of the black men in this room and all black men in the nba or the united states, 35% of you in your dna from your father not from a black man at all that from a white man. 35%. that's extraordinary. well. what if we could get our children to do their family tree back to slavery, back to the 1870 census when our ancestors who were slaves first appeared in the federal census with two names and then look as we did with oprah winfrey look in the same county in the 1860's census for someone named winfrey who owned a male slave in this league schedule ten years younger than constantine when free her great-grandfather whom we found in the 1870's census and then teach them how to look through the records of the slight man caught to see if he has a tax record or in the will

have a slave lee constantine. anyway, while we are doing the family tree we go down gulf to the science teacher. if we walk into a science class in the inner city and said today's lesson of is the double helix they would say get out. if you say we are going to solve your cheek and in six weeks tell you what ethnic group or tried your ancestors came from in africa and while we wait for the results we are going to teach you how the science of dna works and ancestry what child wouldn't be interested in that? we wouldn't be turned on by that knowledge, genealogy and genetics. why because it is compelling to people as i say in the book what is your favorite subject? yourself. [laughter] genealogy and genetics are all about yourself and for the

source of all about our collective souls. our collective selves as african-americans. counterintuitive stories, all the stories and also the sad stories of sacrifice and suffering from our people's experience in the new world as slaves at free women and free men and ultimately as president of the united states. thank you very much. [applause] this event was hosted by the atlanta history center. to find out more, visit atlantahistorysenator dhaka. >> staff writer with "the washington post" has written a new book called ten letters the stories americans still their presidents. what are the ten letters?

>> ten letters that come to president obama every day and really are a reflection of the mail that comes across the country and republicans and democrats, fourth graders, grandmothers, i mean, it is really space collection every night that comes to him that he then read and usually lights back one or two letters a day. >> how are the letters delivered to him? are they carefully edited or is it pretty -- can they be pretty frank with him as well? >> they can be frank with him that getting the letters to his desk requires an army. they'll use to be handled inside the white house before the anthrax scared then they moved off site to this sort of secret office building in downtown d.c. or 1500 volunteers and 100 full-time staffers work every day to sort of take these 20,000 letters and categorize them by topic of a positive, are limited, and they make sure that what the president gets reflects those numbers. so it's usually about five

positive, five - letters. there are plenty to start out on or others that are very popular. >> how did you get access to his mail and he receives about 20,000 letters a day. >> he does, 20,000 letters a day. i work for "the washington post" and i'd written a longer piece about the letters and the letters are -- the white house can be tough on access. the letters are one of the few things they like talking about because they believe it shows he connects with the country and listening and with the letters really reveals what is going on in the country and oftentimes it's heartbreaking brutal stuff that doesn't necessarily reflect him well but they were willing to show me everything because i want to show that they listen to everything. >> again, how many does he respond to? too usually one or two in light and some of these that he responds to really become almost transformed for him. there is a cleaning woman featured in the book from ohio who writes because she's just been diagnosed with leukemia and she doesn't have health insurance even comes to her home wn