>> one reaction to that is there are a lot of things you get. you get free media content. you get to use google. i think that we are kind of giving up our data for a lot of of these great online services that are all free. .. >> suited to this problem, and i

think you were right when you said the question is protection against use of the information, not suppression of the information. i'll give you an example. a lot ofú> the conversation has been, well, um, you can protect yourself. you actually can't protect yourself because anybody can put up information that we would normally consider private, and we don't want to suppress that because we don't want to suppress freedom of speech. by way of example, one of my class mates from years before any of this has scanned letters and photos and so forth from high school and put it on the, put it on the web. now, should -- >> [inaudible] >> yes. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> actually, i've read them all because -- [laughter] >> i'm sure you're always very professional. >> likewise, even these kids, the photos they put up may be put up by one of their friends,

not by them. >> and i do think that facebook and these other services have made changes in the last year, very important changes in the right direction. and one of them, um, includes tagging where people cannot just tag you without your permission. but -- >> on the other hand, they've developed facial recognition software for automatic tagging -- [laughter] and so facebook said, hey, isn't this great? and they give us an example of why we don't have to tag everybody at a wedding. but at least if bride had to tag everybody, you know, maybe they wouldn't tag the picture of you, you know, having the sake bomb or kissing someone else's wife or puking on the dance floor. [laughter] and now it's automatic, and you can untag yourself. but it's not that great a thing. and the technology is -- i've been reading patents of where the technologies are going, and so i read the patent for the idea is, you know, i snap your

picture with my smartphone, it tells you what dating sites you're on, what you listen to -- >> pandora. >> yeah. so the whole, you know -- >> we've never been able to control what people say about us. what's different now is they can say it in place where they can have a huge audience, and that's really the difference. >> and opposed to the little town, the people their telling -- they're telling it to don't know things about you, you know, that you're really a responsible person and so forth so that the world audience is something different. >> i've been trying to hide the fact that i've had a bowl cut for years, but i can't do it now. you want to say something, jennifer? >> i was just going to say in the rural america one of my colleagues did a really smart story, and i wonder if there's someplace we could put some links after this talk so that you might be able to see some of the pieces and articles and issues and things -- >> i'm sure the national constitution center's celebrated

blog -- >> yeah. in small towns across america, there's a social network that not many people know about here in philadelphia or new york or boston or washington where it's nasty in many of these small towns because they don't have real identity, and people are saying all sorts of horrible -- >> or, actually, madison about whether you're married and you want to have an affair, one of my parents went to close his parents' house after his father died, and he went on ashley madison, i think it's called, for that area and found all these people that he ran into in the post office and so forth, you know, advertising to have affairs. so more may be happening with social networks in small towns than we realize. >> exactly. >> final question, we'll pass it over here. >> i would really love to end on a positive note. i resonate a lot with what kashmir has to say, and the positive benefits of social media are tremendous, but all

we're talking about is negative behavior that has a lot of psychological ramifications. but yet what about the positive behavior? i'm a social media administrator, and i'm also a proud fraud investigator, so i see both sides of it. and the connections i've made to build my professional life in addition to my personal life are just enormous. and i would love to really have a conversation about the positive benefits. >> so i think a great way to end on that note is extol. you each have 15 seconds, extol the virtue of the social web in whatever format you choose. haikus are welcome. >> i would just say, look, look at what happened in the last year, in 2011, and, you know, it started in tunisia, we saw what happened in egypt, in bahrain. it's not just social networks, it's social networks and cell phones. protesters in bahrain when --

the cell phone and the ability to take a photo of what was happening to them and their ability to transmit that around the world helped, like, save them at some very, very, very difficult, dark moments. and then what we saw with occupy wall street where people, the horse has left the barn. people are documenting their experiences. and, um, and social media is here to stay, and learning how to use it responsibly and in a smart way is everyone's responsibility. >> i'm just amazed at the way that we can connect now. um, when i was doing my christmas shopping, i was out walking in d.c. and spotted a whole bunch of women's stuff spilled out onto the sidewalk, and i assumed that maybe she'd had a fight with her boyfriend, and he had dumped her stuff outside, but i spotted a prescription, and because i'm naturally curious which is why i'm a journalist, i flipped it

over, and her name was there. so i google led her, and her twitter account came up, and it said that six hours earlier her car had been broken into. and so i tweeted her and said, hey, i think i just found your stuff. and she said where is it, and i told her where it was, and her friend collected it. and my mind was blown by that. i did that all in about three minutes, and, you know, before twitter, before facebook, um, that just couldn't have happened. it's a small story, but i really think there are many benefits to our new publicness. >> i think, also, the difference it's maded with art and music. if you're a band, you can get a following and so forth. but also there's, you know, crowd sourcing going on. i start a novel, you add to it or a song and so forth. and even crowd sourcing science where they found that individuals were better at figuring out how to fold proteins than computers were, and you can get a ton of people working on a particular project, and we'll end with the wonderful note since you brought up egypt

that shortly after the revolution there a little baby girl was born in egypt, and her dad named her facebook. [laughter] as an important nod to what's going on. >> that's perfect. so thank you, than everyone for coming out -- thank everyone for coming out. [applause] >> for more information visit the author's web site, loriandrews.com. >> here's a short author interview from c-span's campaign 2012 bus as it travels the country. >> katherine he vel, legislating international organization. can you tell me how your book reshaped the understanding of domestic politics and global governance? >> we live in an era where we desperately need international economic cooperation, and at the same time we know that politically it's very difficult to achieve that result because there's so many nationalistic impulses in the world economy

right now. so the way my book attempts to approach this problem is by looking at the most or one of the most difficult political institutions we appear to have in our american democracy which is the congress and hook at how it -- look at how it relates to the international monetary fund and the world bank over the course of their histories. so i describe this as a problem relationship. and the problem is that on one hand you have the imf and the world bank, and they just want money from the congress. on the other hand, you have the congress with all of its complexity and all of its contradictions that we see so much in our daily news. and congress approaches the imf and the world bank, and it wants to see some policy results that maybe the imf and the world bank aren't so eager to accommodate. so the way i approach this particular problem is to look at the long course of american history from the end of the second world war all the way through the financial crisis. and i divide this period up into

five different phases or, um, problem resolutions to this contradiction. and i don't see a similar resolution to the problem, but i do see resolution to the problem. and i find an awful lot more support for multilateralism and for cooperation among states than an awful lot of other authors find when they look at the congress. and i think the key to understanding how this happens is to look at the international dimension and look at how our congress has accommodated international networks and pressures over the course of its history since the end of the second world war. >> who did you interview for your book, and what archival research did you use? >> well, i was very lucky because i was an american political science association congressional fellow in the 2008-2009 act dem ec year. and so i was able to work on the hill for a brief period of time on the house committee on financial services for the chairman of that committee. and i was able to see firsthand

how these relationships take place. then i came back here to cleveland, and i taught for a year in the political science department, and then i was fortunate again to win a fellowship and spend a year at the woodrow wilson international center for scholars in washington where i was able to interview people in the think tank and policy community and kind of give the book a broader context in the institutions of governance in the american democracy. and so along the course of the way i was able to access all kinds of archives in washington and delaware and up in new york at the rockefeller archive center and even in princeton, new jersey. so i was really able to go back in history and see whether or not the kinds of things that i found when i worked on the hill had been there earlier in history and, in fact, i found that they had, the same networks and the same patterns of relationships had existed. >> so based on your conversations would you say, um, those interviewed thought that the u.s. legislators should be more involved with the imf or less involved? what was the general consensus? >> well, remember, we're talking

about a very, very limited group of legislators who are involved. but they take a very active interest, and they take it over the long term. so you have some members of congress who have been in for 20, 30 years and have followed these issues. in many respects, longer than people who are in the executive branch. so remember that it's very limited. and also, a lot of this occurs behind the scenes. so a lot of what happens are things that people don't necessarily want to brag or boast about. because it is a contentious relationship on the surface, and there have been an awful lot of public battles and fights just like we see today with the budget problems that we have now. >> it's implied that the american legislator has a major role even if it's a limited group of lawmakers involved. what are the ramifications of u.s. military involvement with any of the member countries of the world bank and the imf? >> well, some other people have done research on that, and they have found that generally when

countries are our friends, they tend to get more favorable treatment from the imf and the world bank, and when they're not our friends, they tend to get less favorable treatment and, obviously, i think that would correspond with our military involvement in some of these countries. but in general our support for multilateralism has really been to try to filter out a few of those differences to the greatest extent possible and have kind of informed professionals making decisions about who distributes economic aid. >> so how much of the imf aid is comprised of u.s. dollars? >> well, the imf -- the united states is the largest shareholder to the imf and that's still certainly a consideration all the way up to the new president, christine lagarde, talks about the united states as being her primary constituent in terms of the contribution of the united states effectively gives it a veto over any major decision that the fund will take. so we certainly play the preeminent role. i call it the preeminent legislature, and i think that's why it's really important to

look at our congress. not just because our institutions are divided differently or that we don't have a parliamentary system of government, but it's very important to look at our congress because it does donate -- i don't want to say donate, but it provides so many of the resources that these organizations have. >> finally, what do you see is the future of the relationship between the united states and the global organizations? >> well, just like the rest of the future when it comes to banking and economic relations, the future is uncertain. because the problem i see ahead is that the old resolution to the problem depended on american constituencies that are not present any longer. so the old cold war coalition against communism has disintegrated, and the coalition that existed in the banking sector has disintegrated in the banking crisis where we have new forms of finance capital that don't operate the same way the old big-money center banks did. and the third component of this are development aid activists who have become critics of the

work that the imf and world bank do, so getting a group together in support is going to be a new problem that new politicians are going to have to face going forward. >> thank you. >> the c-span campaign 2012 bus visits communities across the country. to follow the bus' travels, visit www.c-span.org/bus. up next on booktv, henry louis gates jr. presents a history of african-americans in the united states from the 16th century to present day. this is about 40 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> good evening. >> good evening. >> is it on? it is. oh, good. i couldn't tell. welcome to the atlanta history center. i'm president and ceo of the history center. we're delighted you're here this evening. please, join us on december

15th, a couple nights from now, and the 20th as we celebrate the season with two evenings of a new program we call holiday spirit. this is a new interactive and immersive holiday program which i think you'll be tighted with. to purchase tickets or for more information, as they say, please, visit our web site at atlanta history.com. tonight's lecture is an aiken lecture, the series of aiken lectures which are made possible by the generous support and funding from the trust of lucy rucker aiken. henry louis gates jr. will speak for about 30 minutes this evening and then sign books in the lobby. tonight's program is being recorded by c-span, so everyone's going to be on their best behavior, i know. [laughter] you'll all turn off your cell phones, your beepers -- who has beepers anymore? [laughter] seriously. turn off your cell phones and, please, refrain from texting and

e-mailing in respect to our speaker. henry louis gates jr. is the director of the w.e.b. duboise institute of african and african-american research and alfonse fletcher university professor at harvard university. he's the author of several award-winning works including the memoir "colored people" as well as "the future of the race" co-authored with cornel west and 13 ways of looking at a black man. please, join me in giving a warm atlanta welcome to henry louis gates jr. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much for that kind introduction, and blessedly brief. [laughter] i appreciate that. so nice to be back in atlanta. i love atlanta. i always have a good time in atlanta. it feels like my home away from

home. so good evening, everyone. >> good evening. >> hey, come on. i flew all the way down from boston -- [laughter] good evening. >> good evening! >> that's what i'm talking about. [laughter] now, that's why i come here other than biscuits. the fact that i can get biscuits in atlanta for breakfast -- [laughter] and i can't do that in boston. it is a strong appeal for me. um, it's been a big day. i filmed, sanjay gupta, i've been filming my new series called "finding your roots" which will start airing in march. i've always admired sanjay gupta, isn't he a good guy? [applause] we traced his family in india back on his mother's side and his father's side and went a long way -- i can't give you the details, but it was one of the most moving experiences i've had doing all my genealogy and genetic series, so i've just been sort of psyched about that. so i wanted to tell you, so stay

tuned, late march. [laughter] tonight i want to tell you about my new book called "life upon these shores." and it's subtitled "looking at african-american history 1513-2008." 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 sr.. i'm the junior, and i'm still here. [laughter] and daddy was, he loved history. and he and i, um -- but he also loved sports. and i have one older brother, and there'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. and we started to bond when i was a teenager, and we started to bond over current events.

we would watch the news together. i tell my students that there was a time when the evening news was only 15 minutes long. remember that? and, but we would watch news together when i was a teenager. and we would talk about it, analyze it. and so i realize it was a way into my father's consciousness and into his heart. i mean, i'm sure he loved me deeply, you understand, but i didn't care about sports in the way that my brother did can. but all of a sudden i had something that i could share with my dad. and i remember, um, watching in 1959 i was 9 years old, i watched mike wallace interview malcolm x for a special called "the hate that hate produced." and my dad and i watched that together, and then, of course, when i was 13 we watched the great march on washington together in august 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 ed brook, 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, carl stokes, would be the first afro-american as we were probably saying then to be elected mayor of a major city, and that was cleveland and, of course, he was. and then my father loved adam clayton powell. remember him? he loved adam 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, unfortunately, in the 1960s and finally was expelled. but these were my formative shaping experiences with my father. and i decided that i want -- i was trying to get this 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, kind of a secret history of current events that we had shared together, but also of amazing facts about the african-american experience which my father wouldn't know and which most of us wouldn't know. and i wanted it to have the magic of a film as best it could. so i wanted it to be heavily illustrated. and having over 700 beautiful, mostly color illustrations, i thought, would be a way of bringing these events to life. do you remember a book called "the black book"? now, it came out in 1974 when toni morrison, before toni morrison was known to be the great writer she is, she was also a great editor at random house, and she was the editor of

the black book which consisted of documents and memorabilia, slave auction documents, even racist sambo postcards, all sorts of things. and i was a graduate student at the university of cambridge when that book came out, and i thought that was a magic book. and a few years ago i did a document called "looking for lincoln." and my co-producers have a huge collection which they inherited from generations of their family of lincoln memorabilia. and they did a book called "looking for lincoln." and each page is a visual image, and the text is written to the visual image. so my book was inspired by the black book and by this book, "looking for lincoln." so i started with the illustrations and then wrote the text to illuminate the illustrations instead of the other way around. and i want to tell you a little bit about some, for me, some of

my most favorite entries in the book. and i start in 1513. not in 1619. i don't know about you, but, um, most african-american history courses in my day started in 1619 when the first 20negars as they were called showed up on the james river in jamestown. we now know thanks to the work of a scholar named john thornton came from angola. do you know we can now count the slaves? because it was capitalism. and we now know that between 1051 and 1866 -- 1501 and 1866 12.5 million africans were shipped from africa to the new world. 12.5 million. 15% died in the middle passage. so 11 million get off the boats in the new world. of that 11 million, how many do you think came to the united states? >> 500.

>> 338,000 came directly -- you were looking at my book. [laughter] you put the book down. cliff notes, do you remember cliff notes? [laughter] 388,000 came directly from africa to what's now the united states, and another 50,000, we estimate, touched down briefly in the caribbean, 450,000 -- you're absolutely right. you get the gold, you get the gold star. but think about what that means. all those other africans went to the caribbean and to south america. i don't know about you, but when i was growing up, i thought the slave trade was primarily about us. but the 40 million african-american people descend from those 450,000 africans who came here between 1619 and mostly by 1820. by 1820, 99% of our ancestors were here. it's quite remarkable. but all of those other africans, brazil got over five million

africans in the slave trade. well, here is the reason that i start in 151. 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 slaves, but i'll get to that in a minute. i was fascinated by the contact between europe and africa, um, before african-americans got here. and so i start with images. remember, a book that's driven by pictures, driven by images. i start with an image of african monarchs, african kings and queens who actually received emissaries from europe. and there's a queen from what is now angola, who became queen in 1624, and there's an image of her receiving a delegation, um,

of dutch traders who are coming to negotiate for her, with her for the slave trade, to get slaves. and there's another image of king garcia ii of the congo who ruled between 1641 and 1661. and both of them met regularly with portuguese and dutch diplomats and major slave traders especially in the 1640s. but you know how we were raised to think that africans were so beknighted 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 that's not true either. that the earliest european emissaries arrived in africa in the 16th century and that, similarly, african emissaries were received in europe, um, at about the same time. one was a man named antonio manuel whose other name was

navunda. he was the king of the congo's ambassador to the vatican. and we have an image in the book that was done of him when he arrived in the vatican in the year 1608. 1608. congo was sending ambassadors to europe. did you know that? no, i didn't know that either. [laughter] miguel decastro -- another beautiful image in the book -- became the representative of the king of congo to the portuguese colony of brazil and to the netherlands in 1641. and their images were preserved in europe in oil painting and in -- [inaudible] and that's on page 11 of the book since you're following -- [laughter] i'm not going to ask anymore questions because you're already ahead of me. [laughter] but the africans who came to what is now the united states and to the new world also came as slaves, but not all came as slaves. thirty africans accompanied balboa in 1513.

several africans traveled with he man doe cortez in 1519. among them, a black man named juan garrido who was a free black man, and he was the first person -- he claimed in a letter to the king of spain -- the first to plant a wheat crop in the new world. that's how i knew he was a brother, because anybody who made a claim that audacious had to be a black man. [laughter] my lord, i brought wheat. [laughter] black men accompanied deadvantage ca through texas and mexico in 1528. black men were with by czar row in peru in 1531 with the unfortunate conquest of the inca, and 200 black men accompanied el dorado in 1534, and i want to tell you a little bit about garrido. juan garrido converted to christianity before arriving in the new world. he explored florida with pons

deleone. remember in school the fountain of youth? did you know a free black man, a con keith doer was in florida? and then he went with cortez when cortez defeated the aztecs. in 1524 we have a record of him living as an honored citizen in mexico city. there was a black man nameddest ban. est ban explored florida in 1528. he was ship wrecked in present-day galveston, texas, he was enslaved by indians for five years. he escaped, and we know -- we have a map in the book as you know -- that he wandered for a total of 15,000 miles from florida, you know, these places weren't all the names that i'm giving through what is now texas and new spain which became mexico. he was hailed as a medicine man and a son of the sun. and he returned to exploration in 1537, and he was captured and executed by the zuni people in

what is now new mexico in the year 1539 because they saw him as a harbinger of unwanted visitor, unwanted visitor who would change their way of life forever. my brother, dr. paul gates, is fascinated by clown figures and dolls. and for years he was trying to figure out why the zuni people had a black-faced doll. and we figured out that it was because this doll was a relic or a remnant of esteban which, of course, is stephen in spanish. by 1507 more than 23,000 people of african descent lived in what's now mexico, and near vera cruz there were two centers -- some of you know i did a pbr series called "black in latin america." and i shot, um, one program was on black people in mexico and peru. and the centers of black culture in mexico are vera cruz on the gulf of mexico over, you know, south of acapulco on the pacific

coast. and there was a slave who ran away from his master in vera cruz in about 1570, and other slaves ran away and joined his community, a community of maroons. and the spanish fought them between 1570 and 1609. and finally the spaniards gave up, and they signed the treaty with them and gave him the right to create an independent, all-black settlement which has been independent since 1609. we did not learn this in our history books. a black city in mexico run by black people? [laughter] no way. who discovered manhattan? there was a black man named jan rodriguez who was the first non-native american to be a permanent resident to survive, um, in what is now manhattan. we call him j-rod. [laughter]

he was deposited on manhattan by a dutch sea captain named mosel in late 1612, early 1613. and all that is known about this man comes from a series of lawsuits between mosel and two other dutch traders who dealt with rodriguez. and they, they sued -- they were upset because a free man, a free black man was trading independently there and not as his agent. and there is a park, riverside park in new york, where there's a tribute to him as, um, the official founder of manhattan. there was another black man maryland, mathias d'souza, who owned property and voted in maryland during the 17th century. he was a catholic of portuguese and african descent. he settle led in st. mary's city, maryland, and he was a free man in the colony. he owned land, and he voted, and he was treated as an equal member of maryland society. these are the exceptions.

you know, we know so much about the slave community but not about these exceptional black people who functioned in the intricacies of the society, you know, between the cracks as it were, between free people and enslaved people. but black people also fought back against the slave trade. tucson, of course, in haiti, the revolution between 1791 and 1804 sparked great unrest in the united states. in august 1800 a virginia slave named gabriel featured on page 45 of the book planned a revolt in richmond 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. here i think people ask me all the time what's your favorite, your favorite story in the book, and i have a lot. but this one is particularly interesting to me.

on september -- in september 1799 a south carolina slave known as tellamok to his owner and known to history as denmark vazi, won the lottery. now, how many of you even knew there was a lottery? [laughter] 1799. we have his ticket number. [laughter] this brother's ticket number was 1-8-8-4, and he won $1,500 which was a heck of a lot of money in 1799. he determined that he would use this money to buy his freedom and support his bid to end slavery. now, in fact, many of the slaves in the charleston region had come with their owners when they had escaped the haitian revolution. and denmark and his co-conspirators saw tucson as a hero, and they planned to burn the city and escape. he and 34 others were betrayed by other slaves, and tucson and

33 others were hanged. but on the other hand, there is a man named mahmout, pages 56 and 57 -- [laughter] he was born, we think, in many 1736, he died in 1823, and he was representative of a small but rising black population. he was probably born in, um, senegal or gambia, and he was probably a muslim. and he was shipped to maryland as a slave just before the american revolution. in 1783 his owner took him to washington, d.c., he gained his freedom in 1796 when his owner died. now, he earned a very comfortable living by brick laying and basket making, and he invested in a bank that counted george washington as one of its stockholders. by 1800 he had 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 proudly professed his muslim faith, and he earned the respect of his white neighbors. in 1819 the great artist charles wilson peel painted his portrait after coming to washington to paint president monroe, and he heard that mahmout was alive, heard his story, heard that 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, about men. what about women? well, look on page 77. here's the story of julia chen. now, this was a black woman who emerged and roiled the 1836 election. now, i know you all remember the details of the 1836 election. [laughter] president martin van buren's

vice president richard mentor johnson was a war of 1812 war hero from kentucky and a former congressman, and he'd been an ally of thomas jefferson. now, we know that thomas jefferson never spoke about his relationship with sally hemings, but this man, richard mentor johnson, openly lived with his slave wife named julia chen. lived openly. thely yeason caused acute embarrassment to other southern politicians who wanted nothing to do with him, but support for johnson as van buren's vice president was stronger in the north than in the south because of his marriage which, of course, was illegal and not official, not sanctioned by the church or by the state. the democrats even used vulgar images of chen to criticize their own candidate. now, apparently, we don't know, but apparently they had a warm and loving relationship. the two lived openly together, they had two daughters together.

the daughters were named imojean and adeline, and eventually they were married to white men in washington d.c. unfortunately, julia died from cholera in 1833, and so what did richard mentor johnson do? he took up with one of julia chen's sisters. [laughter] julia's brother, marcellus, accompanied johnson during the campaign of 1836 in new york. marcellus, wise man that he was, took the opportunity to flee to the abolitionist louis tapen, and when he turned to daniel to be his personal servant, daniel took the opportunity to flee straight to canada. in the famed 1858 senate election when stephen douglas accused abraham lincoln of

favoring what was then called amalgamation, lincoln asserted that racial mixing took place most often where slavery existed, not freedom, a very subtle argument. and then he went on to say as mr. douglas with your good friend richard m. johnson. and the audience, of course, knew what the reference was. let's think about black military service. let's start with the civil war. now, much attention, of course, for our generation has been placed on the unit that was the center of the 1989 film "glory" which was about the 54th massachusetts regiment. but there were about 150 different black civil war regiments. and at one battle they really showed -- at the battle of new market heights. and it's a virginia battle not sufficiently known. fourteen men would win the medal of honor for their heroism in this one engagement, and

representative of eight separate black regiments that fought on that date, september 29, 1864, pages 139 and 140, is, um, is the sacrifice of a man called milton m. holland. milton m. holland was born in 1844, he 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 color troops. remember, it was only officially with the emancipation problem proclamation that black men were allowed to serve in the military, though black men did serve unofficially. there were some engagements in late 1862. but lincoln included this as part of the emancipation proclamation which becomes effective january 1 of 1863, and that led to the creation of the u.s. color troops. well, hold holland, like several other black enlisted men, took command of his own company after

all the white officers had been killed or wounded. and after the war he earned a law degree from howard university, he worked as an auditor in an 1892 -- and in 1892 he founded his own insurance company. what about the buffalo soldiers? um, which was, of course, the next manifestation after the end of the civil war of black military involvement and prowess. well, 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 188,000 black men who served in the civil war. now, under pressure from radicals in congress, president johnson on july 28, 1866, signed the military appropriations act that called for the establishment of the ninth and tenth cavalry and four regiments of infantry that were

consolidated into the 24th and 25th infantry regiments in 1869. now, most of the recruits were young, but many were civil war veterans who joined first to escape the south and, two, to earn a regular wage unavailable to them otherwise and, three, for the adventure. and these units served from the dakotas to the mexican border, and they sought to protect native americans from white encroachment partly and to protect native tribes settled on reservations from other hostile tribes. but they earned their greatest fame by combat in the various indian wars of the west from the 1860s to the 1916 incursion into mexico with general john jay pershing in pursuit of pan pancho villa. 23 buffalo soldiers received the medal of honor. and here's a little known fact.

between 1809-1904, the buffalo soldiers served in the sequoia becoming the nation's first park rangers. and, you know, the smoky and the bear broad-brimmed hats? they introduced those broad-brimmed hats into the service which is now standard issue for all, all park rangers. african-americans in the military during world war ii and the us the tuskegee airmen. the war offered african-americans an opportunity to combat racial prejudice in jim crow society by once again proving their patriotism as they had done in every war in this country since the french and indian war in the mid 18th century. black service was tied to what the pittsburgh courier labeled, first labeled the double v campaign, victory against fascism abroad, and victory against racism at home.

our first black general was benjamin o. davis sr. who had served in the army since 1898 and who received his star in 1940. and during the war won a bronze star and a distinguished service cross. his son, benjamin o. davis jr., would become the commander of the 3 32nd fighter group, one of the most experienced and successful of the squadrons formed by the tuskegee airmen. you know the story of doris miller, a black mess man on the ship called the west virginia, dear to my heart because i'm from piedmont, west virginia, during pearl harbor on december 7th. he manned a 50-caliber machine gun and shot down four japanese planes. his heroism went unrewarded until the pittsburgh courier lobbied for his recognition. because of his race, the navy balked until president roosevelt personally ordered that he receive a medal for his heroism. on may 27, 1942, admiral nimitz

awarded him the navy cross, and most of our popular understanding of world war ii these days comes from hollywood. yet how many of us know that the marine corps first accepted black men in 1942? and with several major films available to us which we've all seen on the june 6, 1944, invasion of normandy in france and the annual commemorations of that battle, how many of us know that black soldiers landed on 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 a silver star medal to a black soldier for his heroism in liberating a french village in 1944. the tuskegee airmen, formed in part by the persistent lobbying of the great we would say black feminist today, mary mcleod

bethune, one of the best friends of eleanor roosevelt. critically important as pilots, they disproved the 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. the airmen earned enviable record of her heroism, and the 332nd earned a citation for, quote, outstanding performance and extraordinary heroism. the deaths of 66 of their number testified to their patriotism and to their enviable record, and that formed the basis for president harry s. truman to desegregate the military officially in 1948. and without the service of the tuskegee airmen, 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, first of all, for my daddy. and, but also for our children. for our children, our african-american children and for all american children. because the black story, black history is american history. there is no american history without black history, and ironically, there is no black history -- and there's no african-american history without american history. they are inextricably intertwined, and we do a disservice when we separate them. i want these stories to be a fundamental part of the american history curriculum. but i also want within our own black institutions, institutions like jack and jill. you remember jack and jill when you were growing up? you said, man, i would never go to jack and jill. jack and jill for those of you who don't know, that was learning how to be --

[inaudible] [laughter] that was to learn which fork to use if you were ever invited to the white house. it was to learn how to be middle class. why can't jack and jill be black history class? why can't that be a fundamental part of what jack and jill does? and i'm not singling out jack and jill, it's just a convenient example. take our sunday schools. it's great to learn about the lord and to learn about the sacrifices of jesus and the martyrs and the saints. but why can't we use the format of sunday school to teach these stories to our children when they're young? when i was growing up, ladies and gentlemen, i was born in 1950, the blackest thing you could be was a lawyer or a doctor, not an entertainer or athlete. do you know there are twice as many black board-certified black cardiologists as there in the nba? how many of our children know that? statistically, it's easier to

be, um, a board-certified cardiologist if you're black than to make it in the nba. [laughter] my daddy, when i was a professor at duke, our house was near a black neighborhood, and it had a basketball court that was, um, light, you know, it had lights so up til midnight the brothers would play. and my daddy would say look at that. if we studied calculus like we studied basketball, we'd be running mit. [laughter] why can't we use these stories to reignite for such a huge percentage of our children the love of learning that our ancestors had and that led them to believe in the future? one time cornel west and i were talking about the absurdity of their, of our parents, the absurdity of our parents believing -- and, remember, i was born in 1950, cornell's born in 1953 -- believing that their two nappy-headed little boys could be anything that they

wanted. they made us believe it. and we were born before brown v. board. our people believed in education under slavery when we had no hope. we made a way out of no way. we used to steal a little learning from the white man. but how many of our children have lost this passion for hearn learning? the blackest thing you could be was an educated man or an educated woman in the 1950s, and too many of our children don't believe that anymore. that's why i'm working with my colleagues at harvard to do a curriculum, um, on genealogy and genetics. and you all know my passion for genealogy and genetics. i want to reawaken in our inner city kids, inner city schools the love of science and of history. how to do that? well, let's go to history class. imagine we had every child in that class do their family tree. they would go home and interview their mother, their father, come

back to school, and can we'd have electronic family trees on their computer, and that would be the first step. and the next, next week they'd interview their grandparents, write down all the stories. and it's important to write down every story, even the ones we know might not be true -- [laughter] like the fact how many of you all, now, i'm just speaking to the african-americans. how many of you all have an ancestor with high cheekbones and straight black hair and know that you have native american ancestors? [laughter] well, for those of you who can't see, all the black people in here just raised their hand. [laughter] which is only a slight problem. none of y'all got any real native american. [laughter] 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 or white ancestry. those high cheekbones and that

straight black hair came from in forced sexuality or rape or even a complicated relationship like julia chen's, sometimes a willing relationship, between generally a white man and be a black woman. 35% -- if i did the dna of all the black men in this room or all the black men in the nba or all the black men in the united states, 35% of you descend, your y dna which you inherit from your father from a white man. 35%. that's extraordinary. well, what if we could get our children to do their family tree back to slavery, right? back to the 1870 census when our ancestors who were slaves first appeared in a federal census with two names. and then look as we did with oprah winfrey, look in the same county for someone named winfrey who owned a male slave in the slave schedule ten years younger

than constantine winfrey, her great, great grandfather who we found in the census. and then teach them how to look through the estate records of this white man named winfrey to see if he in a tax record or a will had a slave named constantine. well, anyway, while we are doing the family tree, we go down the hall to the science teacher. now, if we walked into a science class in the inner city and we said today's lesson is washington creek and the double helix, people would say get out of town. but we say see this q-tip? we're going to swab your cheek, and in six weeks we're going to tell you what ethnic group or tribe your ancestors came from in africa. and while we wait for the results, we're going to teach you how the science of dna and ancestry works. what child wouldn't be interest inside that, ladies and gentlemen? genealogy and genetics, why is it so compelling to people?

as i say in the book, what's your favorite subject? yourself. [laughter] genealogy and genetics, all about yourself. the historical anecdotes that i have collected in "life upon these shores" are all about our collective severals, our collective selves as african-americans. counterintuitive stories, odd stories, quirky stories and also the sad stories of sacrifice and suffering from our people's experience in the new world as slaves. as slaves, but as 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, and to find out more visit atlantahistorycenter.com. well, on your screen is the newest book by long-time

washington foreign correspondent georgie ann guyer, "predicting the unthinkable, anticipating the impossible." what is this book about? >> well, this book is a separation of -- [inaudible] since the fall of soviet commune i feel, and i have felt for many years that what we have to do, those of us in the foreign field, we have to anticipate, we have to predict them. i predicted that very easily. and that's what this book is trying to show. >> throughout your years as a foreign correspondent, where have your travels taken you? what are two or three of the most exciting situations you've been in? >> i've been all over the world. egypt, israel, all over latin america, vietnam -- not so

exciting -- cuba -- [inaudible] interviewed castro many times. and really almost everywhere. i can't think of places now. [laughter] >> so if people sit down to read "predicting the unthinkable," what are they going to find in there? what would you like them to take away from that book? >> -- [inaudible] all parts of the world and about the message of thinking of different people. so they can anticipate what is coming and predict it. we have great diplomats and military men and journalists who have predicted, but it never gets to the reasons of the white house and the state department. >> so if you were to travel today, where do you see a future problem or a future situation that we should be aware of thinking about now? >> well, certainly syria.

i think the rest of the middle east is going to come out of this quite well. but syria is such a violent place and such a nasty place that it will have to be an all-out revolution to overthrow -- [inaudible] they're not doing much of anything. going full speed ahead, but they depend upon us. and so almost everywhere you look including our own country has problems to look into. >> now, we're here at the national press club. it is authors' night here at the national press club, and we're talking with georgie ann geyer whose newest book is on your screen. regular viewers of news shows from cnn, msnbc, c-span, fox, all of them, have seen georgie

anne on the program commentating, but it sounds like you have a bit of a speech impediment now. what's happened to you? >> i do. four years ago i had tongue cancer which i didn't even know existed, and i never smoked, never drank too much, never smoked at all. and so they sort of let it go for a long time until it was stage four so now i've survived, but now i'm trying to go a little beyond surviving. >> has it impeded your travel mans? >> oh, yes. oh, yes. you know, i can talk to you, and you understand it, but in germany or france or egypt they won't understand it. so i'm rearranging my life. [inaudible] [laughter] >> "predicting the unthinkable, anticipating the impo