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tv   Tonight From Washington  CSPAN  February 23, 2012 8:00pm-11:00pm EST

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available. >> host: is there a shortage of unlicensed spectrum? >> guest: the spectrum is the lowest quality spectrum. it has really got a limited range. there is a lot of interference in some of the spectrum they are trying to free up in licensing is frequency that can travel over greater distances. >> host: gautham nagesh you are walking around here at the consumer electronics show. what is the message that a lot of these manufactures and developers are trying to get into policy? >> guest: the number one message is that things are going well and technology especially when you look at the broader economy. is hard to find the optimism. i think spectrum is really the demand here because for the first three days of the conference very few people would leave their cell phone and while that is an issue of the crowds here in vegas it's also an
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indication of the state of our wireless network in the country so spectrum crunch for wireless network appears to be very real and people want something done about it. ..
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our communicators series from the consumer electronics show in las vegas continues next week. to watch this and past communicators online, go to c-span.org/communicators.
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next on book tv henry louis gates jr. presents a history of african-americans in the united states to the present day. this is about 40 minutes >> good evening. is upon? it is. i couldn't tell. welcome to the atlanta history center. i'm president and ceo of the 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 if as we celebrate the season with two evenings of a new program we call holiday spirit. this is a new interactive holiday program, which i think he will be delighted with to
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purchase tickets or for more information as they say, please visit our web site at atlantahistory.com. tonight's lecture is a akin lecture in a series made possible by the support and funding from the trust of the lucey akin. henry louis gates jr. will speak for about 30 minutes this evening and then selling books in the lobby. tonight's program is being recorded by c-span so everyone is quick to be on their best behavior i know. you will all turn off your cell phone, your beeper. who has a deeper and more? [laughter] seriously. turn off your cellphone and please refrain from tax dean and e-mail lang with respect to the speaker. henry louis gates jr. is the director of the w.e.b. aa is of african and african-american
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research lecture university professor at harvard university. he is the author of several award winning works in putting the memoir of colored people, as well as the future of the race co-authored with cornell west. and 13 ways of looking at a black man. please come join me in to the war plan to welcome to henry louis gates jr.. [applause] >> this thank you very much for the kind introduction. i appreciate that. good to be back in orlando. i love atlanta. i always have a good time and atlanta. it feels like my home away from home. midevening everyone. come on life will all the way down from boston. good evening. good evening. that's what i'm talking about.
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i can't do that in boston that is a strong appeal for me. it's been a big day. i saw sanja today. i'm doing in a pbs series finding your roots that appears in late march, and i've always admired him. isn't he a good guy? [applause] she's such a warm guy. with one of the most moving experiences that i have had doing all of my genealogy and genetic series so i'm psyched about that and want 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 of on these shores," and subtitled looking at
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african-american history 1500-2008. and it consists of 789 illustrations and about 237 entries. it's dedicated in memory of my father. my father died last christmas. henry louis gates jr., and sorry, henry louis gates, senior. i am the jr and i am still here. [laughter] daddy loved history. and he and i -- but he also loved sports and had one older brother and it was 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 bond over current events. we would watch the news together and there was a time the evening news was only 15 minutes long. remember that? and we would watch the news
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together when i was a teenager and we would talk about it and so i realized it was a way into my father's consciousness and into his heart. i am sure he loved me deeply, but i didn't care about sports in the way that my brother did. but all of a sudden i had something 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 heat produced and we watched that together and then of course - 13 we watched the 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 republican senator was going to be the first black man elected to the senate reconstruction, and of
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course he was. and then the next year we stayed up late to see if a black man could be the first afro-american as we were probably saying the then to be elected the mayor of a major city and was cleveland, and of course he was. and my father loved adam clayton powell. he loved adam clayton powell when he was elected to congress in 1954. he loved him when he took on the dixiecrats. he loved him when he became a rogue in the 1960's and finally was expelled. but these were my formative shading experiences with my father coming and i decided that i was trying to get this book done before my father died. he wasn't sick when i undertook the book but i wanted the book to be a tribute a kind of secret history of current events that we have shared together but also
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of the 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 the film as best it could. so i wanted it to be heavily illustrated and having over 700 beautiful mostly colored illustrations i thought that would be a way of bringing these events to life. do you remember a book called the black book? it cannot in 1974 with toni morrison, before toni morrison was the great writer or known to be the great writer that she is she was also a great editor of random house and was the editor for this book called the black book that consisted of documents and memorabilia, slave auction documents and postcards, all sorts of things. and i was a graduate student at the university of cambridge when that book came out and i thought
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there was a magic book. in a few years ago did a documentary called looking to link in and my coke producers, peter and philip had a huge collection the inherited from the generations of the lincoln memorabilia. and they did a book called looking for lincoln, and each page and the text is written to the visual image, so my book was inspired by the black book, and by this book looking for lyndon. so i started with the illustration 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 some come for me some of my most favorite entries in the book and in 1513, not 1619, i don't know about you, but most african-american history courses
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in my day started in 1619 when the first 20 as they were called ngrs schoenbohm the river that they came from angola. do you know that we know because of the work of the scholar here at emory we could now count the sleeves because it was the capitol and we know between 1501 and 1866, 12.5 million africans were shipped from africa to the new world, 12.5 million. 15% by in the middle class. succumbing 11 million get off the boats in the 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 down just like cliff notes. remember cliff notes? [laughter] 388,000 came directly from
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africa to what's now the united states and another 50,000 we estimate touched on briefly in the caribbean 450 bills in your absolutely right to get the gold star. but think about what that means. all those other africans went to the caribbean. i don't know about you but when i was going up i thought was about us but they descend to those 450,000 africans who came here between 1619 and mostly 1820. by 1820, 99% of transistors were here and it's quite remarkable. but all those other aspects. we 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
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in 1513, and they didn't come here only as slaves but i will get to that in a minute. i was fascinated by the contact between europe and africa before african-americans out there and so why start with images. remember a book that is driven by pictures and driven by images i started with an image of african monarchs, african kings and queens who actually receive emissaries from europe command there is 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 to get sleeves come and there's another image of the king garcia ii battle between
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1631 and 1661, and both of them met regularly with portuguese and dutch diplomats in the major slave traders especially in the 16 forties. but you know how we were raised to think that africans were so united if 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 official record that that isn't true either. the earliest european are serious arrived in africa and the 16th century, and that similarly the african emissaries were received in europe at about the same time. one was a man named antonio manuel who was other name was navunda. he was the 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.
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1608 the congo was sending ambassadors to europe. did you know that? no, i didn't know that either. miguel de castro, another image in the book became a representative of the king of comco to the portuguese colony of brazil and to the netherlands in 1641 and the images were preserved in europe and oil paintings and that is on page 11 of the book, since you are following. [laughter] i'm not going to ask you more questions because you are already ahead. [laughter] but the africans who came to what is now the united states and the new world also became a slave but not all can as slaves. 30 africans accompanied balboa in 1513. several africans traveled with part landau cortes in 1519. among them a black man who was a free black man and he was the first person he claimed in a letter to the king of spain the
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first to plant a crop in the new world. that is how we knew he was above it because anybody that made a claim that all patients had to be a bright man. [laughter] my man i got beat. [laughter] they accompanied him through texas and mexico and 1528. in peru in 1531 had the unfortunate conquest of the inca and 200 black men accompanied eldorado for the modern-day ecuador in 1534, and i want to tell you a little bit about this. juan converted to christianity before arriving in the new world. he explored florida. remember in school fountain of youth, did you know a black man, free black man with a conquistador was in florida, and then he went with cortez when he defeated the aztecs in 1524 we have a record of him living as a
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citizen in mexico city. there was a black mant and st on who explored florida in 1528. he was shipped in the present-day galva austin texas for five years he escaped and we know we have a map in the book as you know he was wanted for a total of 15,000 miles from florida. these places were not nearly all the names i am getting through what is now texas and new spain which became mexico. he was hailed as a medicine man and the son of a son and he returned to the exploration in 1537 coming and he was captured and executed by the people in what is now new mexico in the year 1539 because they saw him as a harbinger of unwanted visitors come unwanted visitors who would change their way of life forever. my brother, dr. paul gates was
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fascinated by the figures and for years he was trying to figure out why these people had this and we figured that was because this ball was a replica or a remnant of esters on which of course was stevan in spanish. by 57 more than 23,000 people of african descent live in what is now mexico and there were the two centers, some of you know why did a pbs series that recently aired called black and latin america, and i shot one was on black people in mexico and peru, and the black culture in mexico south of poco loco on the pacific coast and there was a slave who ran away from his master to about 1570 and other slaves ran away and joined his community, the community of marines, and the spanish fought
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them between 1570 to 1609 and finally they gave up and signed the treaty with them and they gave him the right to create an independent all black settlement which is still there. the town has been independent since 69. we didn't learn this in our history books. a black city mexico run by black people? no way. who discovered manhattan? there was a black man named juan rodriguez who was the first non-native american to be a permanent resident to survive in a book is now manhattan. we call them jrod. [laughter] he was deposited on manhattan by a sea captain named mosel and late 1612, early 1613 coming in all that is known about him comes from lawsuits between and
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the two other traders who dealt with what rodriguez and they assumed they were upset because a free black man was trading independently their and wasn't as his agent and there is a part where there is a tribute to him as the official founder of manhattan. there's another black man in maryland who owned property and voted in maryland during the 17th century to get he was a catholic of portuguese and african descent. he settled in st. mary's and he was a free man in the colonies. he owned land and he voted and he was treated as an equal member of the maryland society. these are the exceptions. we know so much about the slave community, but not about these exceptional black people who function in this society between the cracks between free people
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and enslaved people. but people also fought back against the slave trade. the revolution between 1791 and 1804 sparked a great unrest in the united states in august 1800 the virginia slave named gabriel page 85 of the book planned to kidnap the governor james monroe. by october it was exposed and he and other slaves had been executed and eight others transported out of the state. 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 come 1799, a south carolina sleeve was known to history won the lottery. how many of you even knew there
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was a lottery? we have his ticket number. his ticket number was 1884, and he won $1,500, which was a heck of a lot of money in 1799. he determined that he would use his money to buy his freedom and support his bid to end slavery. now in fact many of the slaves in the region have come with other owners when the hattie's gate the haitian revolution, and he and his co-conspirators solve them as a hero and a plan to burn the city and escape. he and 34 others were betrayed by other slaves, and the others. but on the other hand there is a man named mamout.
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we think he died in 1823 come and he was representative of a small but rising black population. he was probably born in gambia and was probably a muslim. he was sent as a slave before the american revolution. in 1783, his owner to come to washington dc. he gained his freedom and 7096 when his owner died. now he earned a very comfortable living by bricklaying and basket making and it counted george washington as one of its stockholders. by 1800 he earned enough money to buy his own home in georgetown. he took a swim into his 80s just like john quincy adams and tried to profess his muslim faith and he earned the respect of his neighbors in 1819 the great artist charles wilson painted
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his portrait after coming to washington to paint president monroe was a life and heard his story 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 for a talk about nothing but women, i mean men. what about when and? will, on page 76. here is a story of julia. this was a black woman who emerged and royalty 1836 election. i know you all remember the details of the 1836 election. president martin van buren vice president 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. now, we know that thomas jefferson never spoke about his
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relationship pacelli hemingses. but this man openly lived with his sleeve wife named julia, lived openly. the liaison caused the politician who wanted nothing to do with him but support the johnson van buer and vice president in the north and the south because of his marriage which of course was illegal and not official or sanctioned by the church or by the state. they used boulder images to criticize their own candidate. now apparently, we don't know, but the warm and loving relationship. they lived together, get two daughters together. the daughters were named imogene and adeline, and johnson educated them as if they were white, and eventually he married them off to white men in washington, d.c..
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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 in new york. marcellus, the man he was caught took the opportunity to flee to the abolitionist, and when johnson turned to the father daniel to be his personal servant, daniel took the opportunity to flee street to canada. in the 1858 senate election when stephen douglas accused abraham lincoln of favoring what was then called the amalgamation which was then called miscegenation lincoln asserted that the racial mixing took place most often where slavery existed, not freedom to read a very subtle argument, and then he went on to say as mr. douglas
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with your girlfriend richard m. johnson and the audience of course new what the reference was. let's think about the black military service. let's start with the civil war. much attention for our generation has been placed on the unit that was the center of the 1999 film which is about the 54th massachusetts regiment. but they were about 150 different black civil war with regiments and one battle they've really shown in the battle of the new market heights and it's the virginia battle not sufficiently known, 14 men would win the medal of honor for their heroism in this one engagement and the representative of the eight separate black regiments that fought on that date, september 29, 1864 pages 139 and 140 is the sacrifice of a man
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called milton holland. he was born in 1844 and 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 united states colored troops. remember it was only officially with of the emancipation proclamation that black men were allowed to serve in the military boneblack mended served unofficially as there were engagements in late 1862. but lincoln included this is a part of the emancipation proclamation january 1st 1863. and that led to the u.s. colored strips. well, holland, like several other black enlisted men took the command of his own company after all of the white officers had been killed or wounded, and after the war sheeran a law degree from howard university. he worked as an auditor in and 1892 he founded his own
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insurance company. what about the buffalo soldiers, which was of course the next manifestation after the end of the civil war? the black military involvement. well, despite the heroism of the black troops and the civil war, sycophant opposition remained against the idea of black people serving in the peacetime army. there are about 188,000 black men who served in the civil war. under pressure from the radicals in congress, president johnson on july 28, 1866 signed a military appropriations act that called for the establishment of the 1910 calgary and the regiments of the infantry that were consolidated into the 24th and 25th infantry regiments of 1869. most of the recruits were yondah but many of them were civil war veterans who joined first to skip the south and then to earn
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a regular wage unavailable to them otherwise and number three, for the adventure. and these units serve from the dakotas to the mexican border, and they sought to protect the native americans from the encroachment partly and to protect the native tribes on the reservations from the other hostile tribes, but on their greatest team by combat in the various indian war of the west in the 1860's to the 1916 incursion into mexico with general john jay pershing in pursuit 23 buffalo soldiers received the medal of honor in the 19th century including participation in the spanish-american war mechem here is a little-known fact. between 1899 and 1904 the buffalo soldiers during the summer months serve in the sequoia in the yosemite national park becoming the nation's first park rangers, and the broad
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brimmed hats off reintroduced the broad brimmed hats into the service which is now standard issue for all park rangers and african-americans in the military during world war ii and the tuskegee airmen this offered americans to combat racial segregation 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 spurred labeled the vv campaign, the victory of the fascism abroad and a victory against racism at home. the first general was benjamin davis senior who served in the army since 1888 and began in 1940 and during the war was a distinguished servant card.
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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 your smaller, a black best man on the ship called the west virginia in piedmont west virginia during program were on december 7th he had meant a 50 caliber machine gun and shot down four japanese planes. his terrorism went and reward until the pittsburgh courier lobby for his recognition because of his race the navy bought until roseau did it president roosevelt ordered that he received a medal for his heroism. on may 27, 1942, the admiral awarded him the navy cross. most of our understanding of the world war ii comes from hollywood. yet how many of us know that the marine corps first accepted
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black men in 1942 and with several major films available to us, which we have all seen on the june 6, 1944 invasion of normandy in france in the annual commemoration of that battle how many of us know that black soldiers landed on her bloody omaha beach? black soldiers were there. you never see them in the movies, do you? even the abrasive and often in tolerant george s. patton awarded a silver star medal to a black soldier for his heroism in leading 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 was one of the best friends eleanor roosevelt. a critically important to success, they disapproved resist assertions that blacks were not smart enough to fly an airplane from the master aviation.
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962 man trained in tuskegee alabama and 450 flew in combat in europe. they served in north africa and italy and airmen earned an enviable record of heroism and the 342nd earned a distinguished unit citation and an extraordinary heroism. the death of their numbers testified to their patriotism and to their enviable record and that formed the basis for harry truman to desegregate the military in 1948. and without the service of the tuskegee airmen, general colin powell it wouldn't 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 dad, but also for our children.
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for our children, our african-american children, and all american children because the blacks to become a black history is american history. there is no american history without black history and ironically there is no black history and there is no african-american history without american history. the inextricably intertwined and we do a disservice when we separate them. i want these stories to be 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. i would never go to jack and jill. for those of you don't know, that was [inaudible] [laughter] it was to learn to use a few were ever invited to the white house. [laughter] it was to learn how to be middle class. why can't jack and jill b. black history for us? why can't that be a fundamental
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part of what jack and jill thus? and i'm not saying jack and jill, for me it is just an example. take the soviet school. it's great to learn about the lord and the sacrifices of jesus and the murders and the saints but why can't we use the format of sunday school to teach these stories when they are young? when i was growing why was born in 1950 and the blackest thing you could be was a lawyer roy doctor for an athlete. there are twice as many black cardiologists as there are in the nba? how many children know that? statistics we know it's more complicated than what i'm about to say. but statistically it is easier to be a board certified carting off as to your black van to make it in the nba. my dad, when i was a professor at duke, our house was near a black neighborhood, and they had a basketball court that have
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lights so after midnight they would play and my dad would say look at that. if we study calculus like the study basketball, we would be running mit. [laughter] why can't we use these stories for such a huge percentage of our children to love of learning that our ancestors have and that led them to believe in the future? onetime cornell west and i were talking about the absurdity of our parents, the absurdity of our parents be leaving -- remembering was born in 1950, cornell, 1953. to nappy headed little boys could be anything 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 believed education under slavery when we had no hope. we have made a way out of nowhere. we used to steal a look learning from the white man.
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but how many of our children have lost their passion for learning? the blackest thing we could be was an educated man or an educated woman in done 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 in genealogy and genetics and you know my passion for genealogy and genetics. i want to reawaken in our inner city kids the love of science and history. how to do that? looks good to history class. imagine we have every child in that class to do 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. and then the next week they would interview their grandparents. it's important to write down every story, even the ones we
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might not be true. how many of you now i'm just speaking to the african-americans, how many of you all have assets to be after investors with high cheekbones and straight hair and know that you have need of american ancestors? [laughter] for those of you that can't see all of the black people in here just raised their hand. there's only a slight problem. milledge you have for any new american -- only 5% of the african-american people have of least 12.5% native american ancestry. 50% of the african-american people have at least 12.5% european white ancestors. those high cheekbones and that straight hair came from enforced sexuality or rape or complicated relationship like julia. sometimes a willing relationship between generally a white man and a black woman.
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35%. if i did the dna of all of the men in this room, all black men in the nba or in the united states, 45% of you, the dna that you inherit from your father, not from a black man at all but from a white man. 45%. that's extraordinary. well, what if we could get our children to do their family tree back to the 1870's census when our ancestors who was leaves first appeared in the federal census with two names and then look as we did with oprah winfrey to the same county in the 1860's census for someone named when free who owned a male slave in the schedule, ten years younger than constantine her great, great grandfather that we found in the 1870's and then teach them how to look to the estate records of this white man to see if in the tax record or
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the will to the sleeve named constantine. anyway, while we are doing the family tree, we go down the hall and if we walk into a science class in the inner city and say today's lesson is the double helix, she would say get out of town. we are going to swap your cheek and tell you what ethnic group or trot or ancestor came from in africa and while we wait for the results we are going to teach you how science works in man's history. who wouldn't be interested in that? who wouldn't be turned on by that knowledge? genealogy and genetics. why is it so compelling to people? as i say in the book what is your favorite subject, yourself. genealogy and genentech's come all about yourself. the historical anecdotes that i have connected in life upon
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these shores are all about our collective selves as african-americans. counterintuitive stories, all the stories, quirky and also the sad stories of sacrifice and suffering from our people's experience in the new world and slaves as three women and free men and ultimately as president of the united states. thank you very much. [applause]
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civil rights attorney condoleezza rice recounts her life and career next on booktv. the second cousin of the former secretary of state condoleezza rice writes about her upbringing and education as well as court cases that included actions against the los angeles police
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department and the city's bus and school system. this is a little more than anv22 hour. >> it is a great pleasure to be here and a privilege to address each night. thanks for coming out. i've been here in l.a. for a lot the last 20, 23 years, and iá :4 figured before i hit 60, better while i still have the memory i better pull some of them out.: i'm 55 nowá :(: : : : : á á : :@
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and ollie wanted her to focus on my client's, and i wanted her to understand that the reason i went down every day after court was because isn't i was winning in the courtroom, but my clients were losing their lives, and that while i was having great success as a lawyer i was doing nothing to change the ecosystem they were dying and so i wanted her to focus on that and she said connie, poverty is so boring quote i want to know how you got so different. poverty is so boring. i was livid, and i had to bite a hole in my little and count to ten so i didn't get arrested for
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assault and battery. i would talk a little bit about myself. i worried. and, i realized that this we have allowed, we progressive people who think like the quakers who think like martin luther king, jr., who think like the great progressives and humanists and think like ghandi who do not think like ayn rand, who do not think about selflessness and greed and self and richmond, the actually think about community and helping people who can't or won't take care of themselves. for the folks like us, we have allowed ourselves to be erased. we are not even in the discussion. they talk about the center. well, they left out -- it was like the bird without a right
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wing. and i said that's our fault. below these debates to go on and to be defined so that my clients are out of the picture. they are not even counted in the census anymore and they are not counted and unemployment statistics. so i wrote this book to explain to my friends and the: journalists that find the poverty ignoring people at the bottom of the economic scale and system where they died young and
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great-grandchildren will face it
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he said, for in afghanistan but he said i didn't know this was in our background. it. normal.
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but i'm very proud of my family. i'm very proud of my family. thought that he was poisoned and watch the news. so i grew up with 60 minutes and you grew up as a nomad, and they
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them. and so when you grow up and move [laughter] we really do.
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[laughter] they are the first. the efforts that it took for me amazing thing. here.
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have been created in north children coming up today and found the century freeway and got off on jordan 108th street and i went and i just marched in to the
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market with and said connie, latino families are moving into this african-american housing project. you're talking about african-americans who never recovered from slavery. five generations in public housing. no one has ever worked. in jordan i estimated that the unemployment rate was 70%. what we are facing right now in our system and recession/depression, they would be throwing a party over the levels of unemployment that we are suffering now. 20% unemployment would be a gift in this community because there are no jobs. there are no jobs for the(z underclass. and in the surrounding area where you had a very vibrant working class that used to work at the firestone plant, 127,000 jobs left the area. there wasn't even a committee created. so the whole working class got we didn't even hold a city council meeting about the 120 putative the 5,000 jobs leave.b
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hollywood, we are all over it,.@ aren't we?.$.$..b(b,@.$. .$. so, what i went down to jordan. helm, it was to learn what thos kids faced..b.b. was.@ to learn firsthand, even.b though i was in my st. john's.b suit and pumps looking like an.$ idiot in the middle of.$ the.b. ghetto..$,$.. . . .@.b . .$. . . .$.$.b.b.$. .$.b.$. .
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this book is about my journey,.f th.e gangland and a pot plant. $ because they had to learn both.b and why would a civil rights,$.b lawyer go to jordan down when it's early to understand federab court and where i can always win. i had to go to the street reach the safety issue. and that is the first civil rights -- what is the first of all civil rights? it is the right to safety. if you can't be saved and if you don't have the first of all freedom, freedom from violence is not the right to free speech. on the slave owning aristocrat would think that the first right to free down is based on speech.
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because they are a man of latter. they were landowning white man brilliant. the letter constitution, but a lot of them owned slaves and they wouldn't think about the right to eat her the right to all right, the right to keep that safety, freedom from violence. all human rights. as a human rights lawyer i discovered that children die were from the wrong neighborhood. but they dodge bullets and they could go to school because they couldn't get there safely. i realize there again sounds and k-kilo songs in own backyard. the richest city and the richest country on the face of this planet and seven miles south of my outfit, there were children who could not walk to school
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because the games are having crossfire. they actually dodge bullets. and the point of this book is that even though the conditions there are better and even though we are now enjoying a 50 year lows and crime reduction, the violent visible times have been replaced by a more insidious threat in these games those because as the violence goes down, the power of the gangs actually goes out. that is what the military commanders are trying to tell us. that is my odyssey through gangland. not just learning by these macho man adopted culture that says to survive you have to have a gun, to be a man you have to kill. it is a cause of death. i had to understand it. enemy to you as a feminist, this journey has been very interesting. i am the black murphy brown. do not put me in front of a
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bunch of macho gangsters. i stuck with them because as i told my feminist friend who said connie, how can you hang around with men who had been this much? i said listen, people were not to discriminate us because they're women or anyone who says they can discriminate with me are in jail, dead or lost and money come you don't come after women like us. yes, we face discrimination. but they face annihilation. and my dad was that if i stuck with and learn how to type to them and they had to learn how to type to me and boy did i mess up and i had to have a translator. i remember this little creep highly toxic is me case me looking to me and didn't i may as well if i told him all in my law partner, i may as well
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i said. extraterrestrial. insane would stand up and say look, connie white, but she down. translation, we can't understand a thing she says and we don't know what she's talking about and she looks funny and sounds funny, but she is here to help us, so let's accept her. and they decided to call me lady lawyer, which in that world is a real honor with the. and i so appreciated them allowing me to learn enough about their world, enough about the ecosystem that i could take europe have helped them. the women of jordan downs said, after they cast me out, after the test meal royally, which i will not say because this is being taped for television. it's in the book, read it. they cost me fairly well, called me everything but a child of god. and as they should have. this one woman said, how dare you come down here. you have left us in the shooting
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gallery. i have to put my grandchildren to bed in a bathtub because the bullets come to the drywall. my older kids have to sleep on the floor. and you, you come down here and ask us to treat latinos with and dignity. and i said i'm still going to ask for that, but you're right. we've abandoned you and you should be angry with us. and at that point, this other woman stood up and she said please, just hope our men stop the killing. and that is what launched me on a journey through the gang truce is. the other part of my journey as lapd and i make this short and sweet and then we will open up for questions, which will then make it into more interesting area since i know what you are curious about. with lapd, it was kind of a shotgun marriage. i sued the sheriff and lapd with a whole gaggle of great lawyers. carol sobel, paul hoffman, all from the aclu had places conduct
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humaneness, carol watson. we had 40 lawyers and we just woke up every day and every time i was in the shower is thinking of a new way to sue lapd. every day i got up to figure out we were at war. and everything we could think of, we did and we ended up switching to representing cops because it became a recently found out if you represent cops you can actually infiltrate the police department and infiltration is a great part of what i learned. you can win in court, but until you get inside these agencies and help them change their thinking and you can't leave, lapd to escape that because i wouldn't go away. and if you see people long enough, it's kind of like a shotgun marriage. in that kind of sort of attached to you because you have all these consent decrees and they can't get rid of you because the court says you've got to do what she says or what this group of lawyer says. and so, it ends up being a
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shotgun marriage and lo and behold we looked at each other after 15 years and realized i wasn't there for many. i was there because it got a great police force, you cannot keep people safe. and believe me, having run with the gangs for 15 years, i know what they are capable of. i also know a brutal police are capable of me got to get the predominately out of both of those. i ended up walking with the police after bratton came he opened the door and i could coincide. once that is very bratton, chief bratton, the second transformative chief, parker was the first one, the chief bratton began the end of lapd's imperial culture unaccountable to anybody. unaccountable -- the city council held out the power. the politicians are terrified of lapd. has it changed completely? no. but the fact that my first book
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party was given by chief pack and they were lined to around outlays. i can even sue lapd because they don't have to. we are allies and we are going children and jordan downs and them. you. [applause] first of all, thank you so much. i hope somebody read the books you can ask questions. but what did you find curious? what did you want to know more about? yes, sir.
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>> -- can you live really close your mouth so we can all hear you. >> ms. rice, as they look at a bunch of cut in the state and how they have affected the course, what have you noticed about the slowdown of justice? >> to scroll down a justice? >> to scroll down at justice. >> you know, we are facing devastating cut. i don't know how school districts are going to make another billion dollars in cuts. all of the progress that we made with school class size is gone now. we are losing my prayer hands. we lost the nurses a long time ago and this is the only place these kids get health care. it is a terrible slowdown and it is all because the distribution of public wealth is skewed. we have the money. any city -- any state that
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spends a billion dollars on plastic surgery has money. you know, we spend more in tanning salons than we do libraries. what martin luther king called a revolution in value and we should not mistake the progress that we've made for anything permanent because as you have seen from these cuts and the budget, they now come down to the municipal level, we will lose almost every single game we made an education. we started down the road of wraparound care for the homeless. that will go by the wayside because funds are gone. so almost every single substantive area where we talk about putting a floor underneath country, almost every single
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politicians class action. these days because in the state courts and federal courts can't get any judges appointed because washington would appoint federal judges in the state courts are so impacted that they have lost their staff, cut back hours and were doing some major prosecutions that you can't get to civil cases. i hear from judges all the time. we have to ask ourselves, do we want a functioning democracy or not? do we want a democracy in that holds the california dream to the children behind us? we look at the children coming behind us and realize they don't look like a saloon not give them the train? we're going to shut the doors and we are just not going to invest. we will take our riches and go
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home. that is the debate we have nationally and in california. we need to tell jerry brown, don't give us a bait and switch initiative that is where you party me to do with the correction guards to continue to mass incarceration strategy. we're not going to allow the jail money, jail building money to go from the state to l.a. county so we can lock up more people. instead of getting 10,000 more sheriffs deputies and a jail that is run like the best deal right now, we need to not note a new jail. we need to build a rehabilitation center and higher 10,000 mental health counselors because what we do is lock up support and the drug addicts and the mental health patients because we don't take care of them. half the jail to see the need to be filled. now the folks out there doing drive-by shootings and murders and whatnot, i'll help the share swap them out. they need to be put away. i'm not talking about that criminals. and taking a 70% of people in a
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mass incarceration joe straightening out coffers by the lake and chief justice -- not chief justice, justice kennedy in a prison overcrowding cases among this is how he described our crime-fighting enterprise in california. he said california state prison system is chromogenic, chromogenic. i love that word because what it means is we are so stuck on with their punishment that we are actually creating more current. that is what it means. i want a criminal justice system that actually makes us safer, doesn't create more violent people and doesn't brutalized people because they are going to present. you know, we should not be brutalizing people. we should be making them safer. we should be making them safer for them to come back to the community. because they don't come back to communities like ours, we don't really care. so the bottom line to me is the
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cut are just the latest assault and this regressive movement. i don't call a conservative then because were not concerning anything. we are destroying what it took 100 years to build. if our voices don't get loud, really loud, i don't think this book is quite loud enough, but it's my first. if we don't get really bad, just say you want to know something? rugged individualism is great, but all those people who are billionaires and millionaires and i'd like to join their ranks. i've nothing against folks with a lot of wealth, but they would need that wealth in china. the witness made in brazil. they made it here because we collectively together is a culture and society built the infrastructure. we built the free enterprise latter and they bought the system, but we are going to fix that. we have a captured republic right now and the people who have captured it by selling
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mouse on an idea that we don't band together to create progress. slavery would never have ended without the quakers and abolitionists resisted slaves and tuskegee airmen and jackie robinson at thurgood marshall and fan a hammer and the suffrages. it took all of us together, every single one of progress they made has taken all of us together. no right individual. when they talk about the rugged individualist. a our scouts. it wasn't until the federal government decided to steal the land from the native american and i am about a third native american and a third african and a third anglo celtic. as a set in the book, and an afro and do celts. and so i could probably negotiate and native american treaty by myself and i could sign consignment of reparations check. okay, this is what i said.
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i could only have been created in the united states and frankly i'm delighted by it. i'm very sorry it had to happen out of misery and tragedy. it is what it is in a yam what i yam. the bottom line is there isn't anybody who made it because of some eyeing rant i am the individual. the biggest takers right now are my elite friends in the financial dirt. and so, we need to pipe up loud and strong. these cuts are unacceptable. we do not need to be building a bullet train when the kids in jordan downs are still dodging bullets. and we need to let jerry brown know we are not doing this. we have to set priorities. if you cannot put a floor and create a basic safety for all children to learn and thrive, no matter what station they are born into, that's the minimum. i am not talking about the safety in bel air. i am just talking about safe enough for kids to walk to school, not encounter again in
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the bathroom at school and be able to learn without posttraumatic stress and i am talking about sufficient safety for them to be able to get on the bus or walk home from school without getting shot. i do not think that is a lot to ask. and believe me, i've seen capitalism create more wealth for poor people than i have anything. i'm not talking about communism. i am talking about keeping the social compact that says every kid will get a fair shot. that is all i'm talking about. i'm talking about what martin luther king jr. is talking about. the cuts are devastating and we are not responding to them and the right way. we cannot just keep accepting them. right now that republicans are in charge right now and wait to let them know since they voted for them, you cannot take this out on poor people. you do not need to take home nursing care for the elderly sick and still keep the gas
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subsidy. okay? we are going to have to get radical. i know we are all over 50. i am. another five years of the 60s, god help me. i know, we are not spring chickens anymore, but we do have a voice still. and they're afraid of older people. politicians are afraid of older people. who estimate next for a question. >> games. i have a question about one of the last things he said in your remarks, which had to do with not having to sue the police. i am wondering if you were saying that the culture of reformist now and the lapd if untreated or is there a better tag takes to improve policing in the city. >> they're better tactics in the beginning of a cultural change. i can say the leadership has changed. if somebody from jordan downs
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for sitting here, they would say what is she talking about? i am not saying that the old guard sergeant in the back of the squad on the graveyard shift in southeast division who always dennis einstein came up the old way, i'm not saying he has changed. i am saying we have a transformative chief. we've had two in a row right now and she's back is a prince of lapd. dad was deputy chief and what i learned and exploring how to help them change fund brat and told me to investigate the rampart scandal, also in the book come would brat and give me that portfolio, he gave it to me to keep me busy and he wanted to keep me too busy to sue him and he was very smart. i went on an 18 month talking to her with the police and cat leaves the body, my intrepid right-hand was raised by nuns, thank god for nice because they thought girls could only be secretaries and so kathleen had to take typing for third grade through 12th grade and she tied that transcription speed.
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now if you go into a room with a tape recorder, people won't talk. but if you just have a computer has to take notes and managed not to tell them, we had verbatim quote from over 700 cops. i mean, it is a compendium, a window into the policeman soul. it was like therapy sessions. they would say things like ms. rice, i am not sure we want to change. we may need to be brutal to hang onto identity. another cop said, we tell so many lies, we don't know that we are line anymore, searching to us is not lying. to assist survival. i would've never gotten -- they were begging for help. they said help us change this. we don't know how. we are afraid that if we extend a hand to the community that we've been brutalizing for 50 years that they will turn on us. and i've got to get home to my family. the society says keep these people contained and suppressed
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or keep the violence in this these neighborhoods are knitting about providing safety for them. i kept saying it was a containment suppression process that we handed down from slavery. he displays on the plantation. modern policing extension of slavery. chief bratton and i used to debate this. i say get a grip. you all came from slave plantations. that's where police had come from. there is not a poppies in the united states. i used to live in london. talk to me about community policing. we would arm wrestle over that. he finally changed his mind when i taken to a slave artifacts store and he saw the slave police badges. they look exactly like modern police badges only they have the plantation named by los angeles police department is and he bought several of them and stopped arguing with me. but the bottom line for us right now, now is the time because we
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are having -- we are having this cataclysmic historic debate, but we are doing it through some tv stations and a debate -- a debating season in republican primaries, it looks that a clown car, a main column car. i do not think it is the way to have the debate. our voices aren't there and i really think that we have got to get a little bit more organized and maybe i've got to get out there and start talking. i told condi would need to do a joint towards the untreated show how you need to debate these issues, but to be with the idea of keeping society intact. what we can do is build the civil war again if we want. but i do not think that is necessary and i think it would be really. >> i was wondering if you could talk about the realignment from the state to the county and if
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there's actually any opportunities they are to reduce recidivism or have some sanity. >> can realignment present opportunities? yes it can. well at? i don't know. it's been done so haphazard that it was so little planning. the realignment of emptying the state prison and closing of the juvenile state prisons and sending the kids back down to l.a. county where these kids came from and sending adult prisoners back down to l.a. county, that is the realignment is. and in a lot of ways, i agree with the idea of bringing government closer to the people because we will not raise taxes and distribute public wealth from the state very well, the state level very well. let's do it locally. we know what our problems are. we can raise and tax ourselves with limited time. like we did to build the schools. i couldn't tell the story. it got cut out in 800 pages i originally wrote it is now 300
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pages. that'll be another book of how we built the school on time, on budget with the navy engineers. it can be done. that was an opportunity. we change the culture of contracting. we can change the culture incarceration and make incarceration do what it's supposed to do. we spent $8 billion in state corrections, but we produce more violent criminals and have a two thirds recidivism rate. if you have a two thirds recidivism rate, that is enough. we have failed. so we are wasting $8 billion. if he spent $18 billion of my money, i want to see results in people who come out of prison ready to get back in society. some prisoners would be said of eight, about 5% that can't be cured, can't be helped and their congenitally violent and mayor circulars and have to stay in prison. but not a million people we have in prison. that is ridiculous. so the realignment allows us a number of things to remember one for female prisoners come at a prison so they can be near their
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kids. we know through policy and studies that female prisoners are nothing like male prisoners prisoners. need to have women, only .01 really need incarcerated. and as a feminist am not surprised. the men are a problem. the man you are going to have to figure out how to assess and, what they need. they used to sell out exit interviews and needs to tell you any drug treatment, job training. i'm illiterate and they would tell you at their needs are. they don't even take the exit interviews anymore. we need assessments of what the means of exiting prisoners are and if they are mental health needs, you cannot send its a friend asked out on the street and expect them not to have their dilutions result in harm to other people. that is not a reasonable expectation. we need to be creating not just the day reporting centers for women, but also local prisons designed for how females get
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rehabilitated. for the man, we have to build not a newscentral geo, but the policies in jail because they created a beat down culture and i love sheriff bob. he's a friend of mine, but he's not running his department the right way. bottom line is a set of reconstructing a central jail, we need to construct a rehabilitation center. instead of the another 10 dozen cops who are badly trained, we need 10,000 mental health experts and psychiatry so that we can get the mental health treatment. mental health treatments. these cards do not know what to do when they run into crazy. they don't know what to do. and we have a lot of really sick insane people in our prisons and they end up coming out even more insane. they are also crazy jannette, creating more and more insanity. so the realignment, if we were to tell the county supervisors to get a clue and that's
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difficult to do, even though most of them are my friends, if the county supervisors and the sheriff and the da could get together because they have for safety and accurate l.a. county, $24 billion of her money. on to say that again. the county of los angeles has $24 billion of our money. and we cannot seem to get a coherent, effect of programs for rehabilitation. so we are going to have to give design. we're going to have to arm the mental health people who are very weak in our political system and we have to demand, no you cannot build a jail. but you can build is a rehabilitation center and a mental health center for the criminally convict it. and -- and, we are going to set metrics. you cannot have a two thirds recidivism rate. and we are going to set up
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panels of experts. psychiatrists and doctors, criminologists and jeannie would've back in the saddle. i want jon peter sell you run a mess because there are brilliant people in california who know what needs to be done at the cannot get in the political system because the corrections union owns our politics. and that is the second thing. if we don't get the money out of politics and don't get politicians to understand it there to pics long-term problems come with got to get rid of term limits because the people used their problems, pat brown could have never gotten elected. pat brown could've never got elected. ronald reagan could not have gotten elected. he looks like a liberal. but whether they are republicans or republic rats, conservative or whatever, great libertarian, whatever party, nobody is solving long-term problems. this is a plea to get back, politics of solution.
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my journey is about how i took everyone i sued and made them an ally and we solved partially through private set her in civic sector allies, created an army of them. would gut the military, the cops and created an army of allies who are about the business of making life better for these kids, whether he was building the schools. with the 147 schools on time, on. or whether it was getting lapd to become a key partner to gain intervention guys who may learn the streets, from whom i learned the streets. i'm melting men -- believe me, we run the gang academy and tony blair does that come you may not like a lot of what he is done, padilla stuck with these issues when he made the city create the first gain intervention academy, which we run, my organization run and the bottom line is the
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best of those instruct his, ex-gangsters teaching, guys who didn't make it through seventh grade, but they teach in this academy because they know how to go from being a predator to a peacemaker and they can stop the bullets. guess where they are teaching now? they tease him los angeles him los angeles police department academy and in the l.a. sheriff's academy. that is what the book is about. it is not about smaller government or no government or drown it in the bathtub and it is not about just a thousand points of light. it is about those joining and linking together to solve big problems. a thousand points of later wonderful. we're all one of those points of light. but a thousand points of light have never replaced the sun. and this is what i've learned in this is what this book is about. it is about how you take the best out of entrepreneurial culture, the best in government. government is our alternative to war, ladies and gentlemen.
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it's not like we have an option not to have it. and if you attack it -- believe me, it sued so many politicians they can even belong to a political party. believe me, i astute governmental entities. that has been my business. i've probably done more work with republican mayors than i have a democratic mayor. i astute most of the democratic leaders. so it is not like i am not trying to hold government accountable. i'm not saying destroy. i'm setting up work right. get it out of this plutocracy with these with these pier they spend 40% of their time trying to pier they spend 40% of their time trying to make money. the supreme court -- i'm embarrassed to say i am a lawyer because i think the supreme court has done more damage to a constitutional fabric. i don't know what they were drinking when they do citizens united, but we have to reverse it so it may mean we have to do constitutional amendment.
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there's got to get the money out. you cannot buy a politician. i'm in the room in the room as the billionaires and they think i am the help. [laughter] they see a black girl and think okay, she must be innocuous. but i'm sitting there listening to dan and i was one of these conversations, you know come you don't have a politician. they talk about how they buy the politicians? i said, okay, i get it. one of them said all the good ones are bought. i mean, and privilege to listen these conversations. i am a fly on the wall. these are some very smart people who carry about constitutional democracy. the ladies and gentlemen, we need to get up off of our deaths. these kids look at us like we i would need to apologize for and your futures and rector
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drove into a dreaded stage and am sorry. we have been absolutely irresponsible and the kids looking at ads, they kids who are going to benefit from the dream act. among the twentysomething, ladies and gentlemen. this is a gringo room. this is a latino city. it is a latino region and we are tied to mexico. state, mexico, on her feet again, will not make it because the future of l.a. and this is the other point of this book, the future of this country and not divisible prosperous community. they are not with people like me. the future is tied to our underground. because invisible l.a. gets
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violence, everybody dying young. if the cartels can take over a very vulnerable populations, that is where they will go and what organized crime is now and with the kings are right now. and they will slowly take over more and more of our institutions, just like in italy. as a chapter here called the road to palermo. at least i think that chapter survived. i'm not sure. because so much. we can lose their constitutional and if we allow these children we don't go in there with smart, progressive policy and we just all up, go to war, when general didn't walk. it is clear hold, build and play, take the wells and build we couldn't do it in afghanistan. there's no way to do in afghanistan.
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but we did better do it here or we are going to lose our constitutional democracy. that is what her book is about. that is what i learned in that odyssey through gangland. that is what i learned in doing lawsuits. it is by learned from harry belafonte. it is what i've learned of the great leaders who came before me and i just took the baton from leg. i still got another half a leg to go, but my grandmother said, justice is a relay. and it is a long relay. and my grandmother -- my grandmother raised afloat, don't you ever get down. i don't care how backwards you think you are going. thing. we're never going back to the days that i had to sit in the dark atomic clock at night to 4:00 in the morning they had to hyderabad and i to get the rifle and sit there with the rifle in
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come. she said you are never going to have to do that and that's real progress and could only happen in this great country. yes, sir. take the mic. >> i'd like to thank c-span for being here for those who couldn't make it, it is beautiful that lady lawyer is here to stir up some action and the city of pasadena and all those folks incarcerated, i thank you for being involved in the struggle and keeping on. my big question right now is we may be a bit overwhelmed with what we heard here tonight. but what would be the best thing for us to do when we leave here tonight? other than buy your book? what is the best thing for us to do? >> please buy a book otherwise i'll be in skipper with a basket. this is my retirement plan. i certainly did make any money doing the litigation.
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now is keep your eye on how this devolution happens in california and make sure that the supervisors know. organizer neighborhoods to say that you want money to be used in a different way. you do not want to go do the corrections union. he wanted to go to building the rehabilitation centers and you wanted to go to rehabilitation services number one. number two, we have got to organize ourselves to demand that the defining of the schools get reversed. and that is going to mean getting to jerry brown. the governor thinks that his budget makes sense. he wants to go out with a legacy like his dad, pat brown presents to the bullet train in a big but like i said come you don't get stupa latrine when you are taking home nursing care way for the elderly. we are balancing this budget on the backs of the poorest of the poor. we are not cutting dmv services
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for the middle class. we are not increasing the car tax. just bring the car tax back to her was and he won't have to fire nurses for the elderly poor. say no, we need to get organized to be. there groups in sacramento do in lobbying that because they don't have money, are not going to. but i think we could get a municipal, even if you start in pasadena, you could get near bogart to get his voice louder. he is we let them know they are not going to get a new office, they are not going to be a next up is if you balance the budget on our poor kids. we are going to have to get more vocal. i'm not suggesting you get tense and pitch them and stay in tents. we are too old for that and i'm glad that occupy l.a. did what he did because he changed the discussion to something sane like the disparity in the wealth gap. yes, would've to take up our deficit, but she don't wonder
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whether straight the start water conservation. to justify first and then you can be water conservation. the priorities are skewed because there weapons of destruction. they are not for us to think this is the issue we should be paying attention to something else. they are waiting to get pneumonia by staying outside in tents for two months tells you how an effect if we can. as middle-class -- and i'm just making assumptions here, as middle-class voters, who have, you read your intelligent. some of the march -- some of us are still marching. we have got to get organized and we've got to let you know. the unions have not asked for the right staff. they haven't thought to rate sites. and they are cutting their own throats. they need to make themselves indispensable to the solutions.
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dog odors to a collections union. they operate more like a mafia. you cannot reach them, the police unions beginning to reach. the teachers unions have got to understand, you cannot keep excusing and effectiveness of how you teach in our poor schools. those days are over. and i have sued unions before. they will sue anyone who sends away. the kids getting what i need. i will sue my mother. and the mta case i sued naacp because i was working for the naacp and i sued our board members. do not get our way. and yes i know i sound like i've had named names and i don't understand fee-based status. it isn't overwhelming. we are okay. most of us are still okay. most of us are on her way to owning a home in my neighborhood, people thought there was a gang because there was on a water great.
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everything can't hide properly spelled and punctuated and the person had been cards over the eyes and my neighbors wanted to know if this is a gang graffiti. i said no, it is a girl graffiti and she's probably angry because she's then put on restriction because she did her homework at snl, we have games that are neighborhoods. we are safe. what if we don't stand up and fight for the safety of the kids in our own backyard, we have child soldiers in l.a. i made a 9-year-old assassin, a 9-year-old assassin because the monsters who corrupted had sent him out to do the killing and they knew he would get is that of a sentence. if they kill that child, just like they do in the congo and rwanda and bosnia.
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they made child soldiers. we have been in l.a. we had slavery and l.a. and if we don't begin to understand invisible l.a., we are not going to build to help the people trapped in the skin tones, trapped in human sex trafficking. i know i'm not making any less overwhelming, but i'm tired of doing this puts us a call inside a house. i need the public to understand that it's not overwhelming. we could fix this stuff. if we could fix lapd, now is the time to turn to the county because they've had $24 billion of our money and they're not doing what we need to do at this. the county is overwhelming. if lapd was not both income and the county is k2. but you can still climb k2. it takes a whole lot more. i think i am missing this year
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jan. i just don't get overwhelmed by the size of the problem and often because i don't know enough about why i cannot do it again at achieving it because they just don't look at it that way. so don't look at these problems is overwhelming. notice they turn the bill back for intellectual property. i don't know how to do the virus doesn't get online. add to that status and i'm old-school. i would handwrite stuff as i could. i will type on the computer, but i'm old-school. but i understand the power of technology. that is why we have hoped the city at the events and projects criticized google for events and projects. the maker of pc and cannot have theater. they have to go to the gang shootings. susan lee, who runs the urban peace stream from he has to run out to the county agency. we don't even have the power of a lawsuit anywhere because we are not suing. what to get politicians and bureaucrats to change what they
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do without a lawsuit. and there's a lot of other organizations, but you cannot be afraid of this. it does mean more than just writing letters, it means getting an agenda together. i am going to post an action agenda at things people can do and will be on the advanced project website. specific bills to argue for and things to ask for the county level because that is for the safety night and realignment and devolution from sacramento to l.a. county. l.a. county is getting most of the money. besides supervisors do not have enough knowledge to know what to do with it. we are going to have to help them. i want to plan. i want you back the plan for the rehabilitation center. so leave me your addresses. i actually have to start getting some grassroots. i am a lone wolf. i do not have congregations or constituencies. we don't have membership, but i
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can see this phase of bill badger solution will require a grassroots because lawyers are only great when they're supporting grassroots movements and part of why president obama and the democrats are effective is because there is no voice. no grassroots movement, no demand. and without a demand, power concedes. [applause] >> is the song? is there anything coming up on the ballot that might be helpful? >> thank you, steve english was my law partner and without him and without him molly munger, my other partner at night the bill to keep any trains running on time. guest comment in this fight over how to raise taxes, to me and
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take you in your politicians ask of the governor, have you made a deal with corrections said that the money isn't really going to good education. i'll think is going to get the money to education. i think that is the first gop strachan a strategy with sci you to make sure none of the money goes to education. i do not want a patent's wage. santa now and ask publicly, have you done a bait and switch? embarrassing because i plan to be at everything he's going to be at an atlanta now, have you done this deal? number two, molly munger, my great partners to an alternative initiative. it may make it to the ballot, but molly who is the warren buffett of l.a. county in terms of outlook about wild, she thinks that capitalism is not going to survive if we don't curb its worst instincts, if we
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don't occur the aggressive greed. we have thrown a party for the very rich for the past 30 years. we've deregulated company to use to to be a legal beagle and got rid of glass-steagall. we've just given them a free rein. you know what they did with? a broader politicians and sent everything overseas. the bottom line is most initiative is singing the wealthy have to pay their fair share and the only way we look at the resource is a taxation resources is not going to be enacted a value-added tax. you cannot do this through consumption. look at the numbers. we'll post our crafts you can see the case yourself. you have to do it through income taxes. that is why president lincoln established the income tax. it was because all of those tariffs and fees for regressive and they were providing enough for the comments ask for him to be able to raise the armies. he instituted the income tax
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because it is the only fair way to make the very rich and plantation owners pay their fair share for the commonwealth and the common good they make their money from. the income tax is the only way. some molly has done an initiative eminem makes to the ballot in supported and get out there and aggressively lobby for it. it is not the governors with the governors may be a bait and switch when i go to fix that before it gets on the ballot. that is the stephen molly and i are trying to do right now because i'll be damned if it's an education bill and money goes back to those cards. i understand many cars, but they are the mafia of unions. they will not listen to reason and they produce more crime. they need to understand, but will not allow that. the real initiative is saying there has to be an income tax on the rich as well as the upper-middle-class, including me. i will pay more. but it has to come from those ashmont and also has to be
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broadened. we are still doing language and getting signatures. there will be some ballots and initiatives on the ballot. we may have to do an initiative. i wish we could reform the process so we could actually get constitutional initiatives passed. that is also a process that has been bought. it's now in the hands of professional signature colette ayers on the initiatives are often you cannot tell what a. i'm a harvard educated warrior is your lawyer and i cannot tell with these initiative means, so i know the average voter cannot. but we are going to pose some very concrete things. it's a little early to say what because we don't talk about that site or with this season looks like, but it's not really to raise voices and say yes to martin luther king junior's vision and no two-time grand's everyone remembers that was sure
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a. there is a poisonous vision of this country. we all take and we all give and we give and we are in this together. and if we talk about all of the folks to need to be left at the bottom and left to die really, that is tie the game stank. that is how gangsters think. darwinian and brutal and don't give a about anybody and they will shoot you as soon as look at you and don't think of you is sharing their space or democracy. so are we becoming a gangster culture? are you telling me they gangsters i work with is actually a better democratic vision of the politicians we goodbye to raise our voices. there's a lot that can be done. thank you. [applause]
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>> c-span two selling operative takes you inside the world of nonfiction books every weekend on the tv, 48 hours of the best and not theirs, politics, current events, issues and trends. find out more on my notebook to beat out including featured programs. complete weekend schedules in the latest in the world of publishing. booktv every weekend on c-span 2 and online at booktv.org. >> in a few lummus, olympic medalist, john carlos and his partner, dave zirin on "the john carlos story."
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>> olympic medal winner, john carlos recounts his black power gesture during the 1968 games. from the northwest african american museum in seattle, this is an hour and a half. [applause] >> how is everybody? john took one look at the sermon segment, we have to move to seattle. this is great. well, today is a very special day for me and i want to tell you why if i could. this is the 25th very. this week, the greatest concert i ever went to in my entire life. i was just a shade under 12
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years old, growing up in new york city and i got tickets to go to madison square garden to see run dmc. [cheers and applause] and the opening act that night is a group you might have heard a. they hadn't even gotten out of hand. run dmc put them out there because they were on their label, a group called the beastie boys. and the beastie boys came out there. the beastie boys have skills, but nobody madison square garden wanted to the beastie boys. he started throwing things coming out than to get off the stage. people were there to see run dmc. why do i tell you this story? [laughter] i am well aware that you are here tonight to see run dmc. and i have a resident beastie boys. [laughter] but i will try to keep eye comments brief so john can get on the mic.
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it is so great to be at this museum, but as john i've been traveling around the country with this book, we haven't been just going to museums and bookstores. they made a point to go to every occupation side in this country. [applause] and when i go there, it is amazing. it's always amazing to see people born here is -- now, decades after the 1968 moment just so excited to see john so excited to hear what john has to say. if you think about it makes perfect sense why. that moment in 1968, the image from 1968 is such an image of defiance, such an electric moment to do which which are nice, but nice, but i do stand for what i believe and i'm going to be bold to matter what price i might have to pay. it is no wonder people are still attracted to it. and of course the issues they were fighting for at that time for racial and economic justice, obviously those are not issues that we have achieved at this
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point in american history. we are not done with those. and john speaks to that very directly that occupy wall street at the very first time to an occupied state, john stood up at the assembly inside, i am here for you. why? because i am you. i am here because 43 years later, the fight has not yet been won. we are not care for ourselves, but for her children to come. and i had a powerful resonance with every person there. and we are thrilled to be perfectly clear that that moment from 1968 still connects with people so strongly. but we wrote this book, "the john carlos story" because we want to let people know that it was more than just a moment. it was a movement. more than a moment. it was a movement called the olympic project for human rights. we want people to know in the 1960s, which these days seems
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to like to recognize that make donalds put dr. king on a commemorative cup was something much broader, much deeper and much by radical, so radical that even gallops into the world of sports to the point at which the top athletes in the world were also part of the struggle. look at basketball, who is the best vessel at that player. you could argue is bill russell, tried to struggle. lyubov singer, part of the struggle. this football player? jim brown, part of the struggle. mohammed ali. and of course a couple years later it exploded in women's sports, people like lee seung yup, it made sense for people as long as you have the platform you say something about the world and injustice. and this movement exploded in track and field in the form of
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the olympic project for human rights. it was a movement that they're making of the international said they better meet these demands where every single african american track star at checkout. and what a powerful thing that was to say. thus the data accounts look about black athletes. why should we run in mexico only to crawl home? before demands are not just beautiful to me, the privacy act, and another time. these are their demands. neither pointy 80s and and be like yeah the one of their demands to restore a hominid mollies. mohammed ali had his boxing title stripped for opposition to the war in vietnam. warriors fans of black athletes.
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decimates out the good and the geisha. these are apartheid countries and have no place on the olympic field. three, hire more african-american coaches. u.s. track and field team dominated by black athletes. you know a number of african-american coaches if you counted him on two fingers there be one too many. there is just one. and this is rated openly, consciously embrace a major step to end said avery brundage had to go with the committee. [applause] for those of you clapping, you realize not only how just that was, but how daring outlets. every brandies as head of the ioc, most powerful person in olympic sports and also just happened to be an open fascist. he was the person who delivered the olympics in 1936 to hitler's germany. ..
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it's about trying to get athletes to actually do something for social justice. far too many people said - training my whole life for this one moment, for that ten seconds, that 20 seconds on the track. i have to change that. i can't give it up and so the boycott fell through. at this point people like john carlos, thomas, they were faced with a choice. the choice was what, do we stay
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home any way in the absence of a broad movement or do we go there and actually represent our movement on dust and? and we know what they chose. so before the final race in the 200 meters, john carlos and tommy got together and they said okay but are we going to do on this stand? we are going to wear black gloves to show our commitment to fighting racism. we are not going to wear shoes on those medal stand to showcase we're bringing the issue of poverty and the african-american community, people who can't even afford shoes. we are going to wear beads around our neck to showcase the history of violence and lynching of african descent, and john carlos, you can see it in his picture in an incredible breach of protocol decided he would be up there with his jacket arms it and the chest covered by a black t-shirt and he said he was doing that as a tribute to his people back home, white and black working people who he said their appreciations were not
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appreciated in the u.s. society. they came up with a great idea they were going to do this. of course that's one thing they had to do first. what did they have to do? the have to win. i mean, it would be a pretty all of story if they came in ninth place. [laughter] and we are like we brought these beads and gloves for nothing. [laughter] far less inspiring of a story. and here is where john carlos engaged himself in what i think is one of the most dazzling speed of athletic pyrotechnics' ever and also one of the most transgress of a rebellious ever and people should go back and look at this race, and you will see what john carlos did. john carlos at this time was in my opinion the fastest person on earth running 100 yards in under nine seconds. to track and field people you can testify that's good. a world record. he could run in under 20 seconds so it's amazing.
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john carlos kicks off on this race, but his mind isn't thinking i've got to cross that line first of got to get the gold. his mind is thinking i have to figure out how to pace this. some people go on youtube you should watch it and you will see john carlos repeatedly breaking the cardinal rule of sprinting. the cardinal rule is you got to be like orpheus. you never looked back and john carlos, looking back, looking back, looking back like orpheus, and he went to hell for it and you could argue john carlos spend some time in hell, too, with no regrets. but he is constantly looking back going where it is tommy? at one point he says c'mon, tommie, stopped b.s.ing. the loss for the cameras. [laughter] he didn't say b.s.ing. and then tommie kicked in across the finish line first and john is looking over his left shoulder and didn't look over his right shoulder and there was
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peter crossing right when he did from australia and peter norman got the silver and john got the bronze. now is the time to became to do and get on the stand exit there's one other thing they had to concern themselves with the the idea that if they got up on that stand they might be shot dead on the spot. if that sounds unrealistic that sounds like hyperbole please remember back to what it was like in 1968 for a second. think about dr. martin luther king, robert kennedy, dropped with an assassin's bullet. days before the start of the olympic games, hundreds if not as many as 15, 1600 students and workers slaughtered in mexico city before the start of the olympic games. these were things done and tommy new very well. tommie terms de jongh before they get on the stand and he says what happens if someone takes a shot at them and john says you know we are trained to listen for the gun.
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[laughter] and you know we are fast. [laughter] so we will do the best we can. they get up there and they do all the choreography they planned. peter norman, the greatest sprinter in the history of australia chose to wear a patch that set olympic project for human-rights so history what report and what continues to stand with them every year for the rest of his life, much to his internal credit despite all kind of pressure to get him to recant on his actions on that day and they stood up there and raised their fists at the national anthem began, and as john said the these are his words in the book. he said it got so quiet in the stadium you could have heard a fraud piss on cotton. [laughter] >> and then the boos started in the ander started and they walked off the field in a famous shot of john and tommie throwing up their fist in the face of garbage her rolled off of them
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and they paid a terrible price for what they did that day, an absolutely terrible price. we talk about it at great length in the book. john suffered, his family suffered, his kids suffered. the fbi was telling him long after he was in the movement to let him know he stepped off his place. but he said you know what, that day in 1968, i call that might emancipation because that is the day that i truly became free. [applause] which gets us back to the first question which is the question of why he still holds so much power and electricity, so many decades after it happened. why when we go out to the occupied side we do meetings are their rooms filled with people born decades after 1968 and i really think it goes back to that sense of looking power in the eye and saying i will be
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free. i will not be broken. i will never forget the night of september 21st this past year, the night the state of georgia executed troy davis and we were out there in front of the supreme court in washington, d.c. and there was a young woman there who had been working to save troy and we thought we were going to do it and troy davis had become an incredible advocate for his own freedom. he became a freedom fighter from death row and this woman, her name was misty and she said sometimes i feel like the one thing this country just cannot abide is a free black man. i think the reason why the image is so powerful is that you look at the tommie smith and john carlos with his fist up in the air and you know that if nothing else of that moment she is free, and with that i give you the man himself, dr. john carlos. [applause]
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you understand why this guy who got to write the book. he is such a good orator and now you understand why my pockets always have holes in it as well. [laughter] listen, let me try to give you more overview as to who i am and how i can about and where i am headed something started to get written about john carlos come somebody in the business had stories that they could tell, personal stories about when he sold me the track meets and so forth and god has put me on the magical roller-coaster you might say, just like i read my own book and i say if i was an outside person would be difficult for me to believe one individual could have so many exciting things to place in his
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life. but as david has been finding out along the way, a lot of people have been checking in and making a statement saying did john carlos tell you about those? or did john carlos tell you about the strike or about 48 hours? all of these things in the book. but in any case i'm going to start off with this list. they said a black power intimidated so many people, white people in particular by using the phrase black power because when they use that word or that phrase it made many people think that black power meant destruction, blowing up the statue of liberty or ground zero, the stream america. it wasn't anything about destroying america. it was about rebuilding america and having america have a new paradigm in terms of how we can truly be with each and every one we were going to elementary school and junior high school
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about the land of the free and the home of the brave. we all want to be great americans. but as young athletes we find it some ways and broken we want to take our time to evaluate, and then to cover initiative to fix it. so, power, before it was the fist, it was an open hand. this open hand encompassed people of color. it didn't have to be people of color here in the united states. but when you deal with humanity and people of color around the world it encompasses all colors and then you sit back and you look at these individuals all of them are strong in the division as to how things can be better and one of them says i need to move this because if i move it i can make a sycophant change and he reaches down and realize is that he can't move even the pebble by himself. now to step up and say the same
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thing. i think i have a better form and i can move this pedal. he finds that he has no better luck than the other one. then they all get back together and collectively come to one point in life that we have a problem in society, and if we come together in force we become a very powerful force. together we can move not only the pedal but we can move a mountain. this is what we were trying to illustrate to the society but at that time we had a right wing press the didn't particularly like me or the way my hair looked or the way my skin looked or the way i talked or walked. but still this hair and skin and walk, god gave it to me. at the same time he gave it to me he gave me life as a human being. i looked at a lot of my friends coming as a young individual. i looked at how drugs were
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dropped upon them. i look at how families are broken up. i thought about slavery and how they broke up families and slavery and from the mother to the father to the south to the west and east. some of them, most of them to never be seen again and again what you did in america was on just. there has to be some sort of restitution and create welfare in the modern times social service. and as they begin to evaluate what is welfare and social service with whether to provide and bring to the family because when i look at welfare my friends would be on social service and welfare i remember the people would come in and the first thing they would do is look under the bed and we see a
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man slippers in here or look in the ashtray looking for a cigar looking to see if there is a suit or a man's shirt and then they will get the woman and say you look like you have a man in this house. so the game plan was all too divided and conquered these are things you pick up along the way everyone saw the same things all the difference is how many of us had an opportunity to search our minds and real lives if we are going to make a change in this life that we live we have to make a commitment to be a commitment to yourself. if anybody makes a commitment, you make a total commitment, not a partial commitment. as i stated again and again, no woman has ever been partially by pregnant or not pregnant. you are committed or not committed. now the things i saw as a young
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individual once the life has taken place as a young individual you get a fruit bowl and real lives every ethnic group was right there moving along fine. we didn't have games running through the streets or drugs running through the streets. we didn't have the motorists coming out at night. there were not carjackers. but what happened was a lot of domesticated workers. so looked like the white folks decided let's have this meeting and after the meeting was over the next morning the were off the wagon train and moving out of dodge but we didn't understand at that time we were leaving. that the same time, we did realize that some took place significantly because when it was here it was called king kong and those of my age know what it is, it was a man made liquor that made you think of something called pce.
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i can drink it, i can fly. and then overnight just like the white folks left overnight king kong left and hiram king into the neighborhood. and nobody in my neighborhood i knew that had a truck or a plane or both but it appeared and in the process i began looking at my friends and realized maybe i was fortunate because i had a mother and father that stayed strong and get my family values. my father was a shoemaker, had his own business. my mother, when she came in she would do her job and go in and clean up the abortion offices and the afterbirth. me and my brother used to go with and i looked at my mother and said if you are doing this maybe you can go to school and be a nurse or something.
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my mom took me up so we had this family union but in the process of running around i noticed most of my friends if not all of my friends did not have that family and at deutsch to those drugs that can overnight. the father was a junkie, the mother was a quote wino or both of them might have been in that state. we didn't have mcdonald's or carl's jr. eating out that these fast food places back then and we didn't have a fridge, we had an icebox. most of us didn't even have a block of ice, we had ice cube's because we would take at least to last the whole week. there was no food in the box. i began to look at my partner is going to school and realize teachers didn't have concern of what was happening in their house and just classified as
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trouble makers. they never took the time to be concerned about fact that kids were coming to school with no food in their bellies, no love in their household, no one standing to what education was all about, and nobody giving a damn. then i began to look at the same time about guys using drugs and running around, and i began to ask why are you shooting these drugs? did you see what happened to your father? look at your sister. why are you doing these drugs? somebody went to my father and said johnny is running around with those junkies and my father came up to me and said if i catch you running with these john keyes again by brought you into this world, and i will take you out. do you understand? so i had to find out why they were doing it but i had to make sure that my father never found out from was running because i was compelled to find out why
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would you shoot these drugs. i went up on the roof monday with junkies up their cooking of their goods and i went to them and said why do you guys do this? and one of the old junkie's looked at me and said johnny, you really want to know? he said because i remember you used to come up here and mess with us and you don't mess with us now. it looks like you have an interest to find out why we do this. let me explain to you why do this. he said i was young like you one time and i fell in love with the most beautiful woman in my life. we got married and we had kids. he said when i went to try to get me a job to support my family, they told me there was no job for me. they told me to look down in the street somewhere else. i went down. there was no job there. then i went to the other side of town and they told me man, there's no job because you are not qualified to do a job. you need to go to school. i thought he was right, so i turned and went to school but they told me i couldn't qualify to go to school. i couldn't go to this school, i can't get in that school, i can't get in the other school
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but some of them got through and made it. got through school and those that got through came through feeling i have accomplished something. i went to school and i have a degree. whether it was a degree like the work smith today. when you sit back in your seat and say you can for that job two or three years ago and we couldn't get to the job and here you are with the degree we still can't give you the job. well my lip fell. why not? because you are overqualified. we cannot pay you what you are worth. so he looks at me and he says you know what it's like to be damned if you do and damned if you don't? he said here is the kicker and kids come up to me and say my little girl says it's my birthday next week. are you going to buy me that dress that you promised me for my birthday because anybody once again that's my age or older you knew a little girl didn't wear jeans like they were today. they wore a dress every day and mother would be up half the night washing and ironing
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getting ready for the next day but every little girl wanted a pretty new dress. you going to get me that dress, daddy? yeah, baby girl, i'm going to get to that address. he goes down the hall and looks in his pocket and and nothing in his pocket but holes. you think he feels good? his self-esteem starts to dwindle. next day his son comes home from school and says i just talked to my pe teacher and he told me if i come to school the next day with no tennis shoes i'm going to fail my class. now it's on his kids' education. i need some sneakers, daddy. can you get them? yeah, sonya. i'm going to get them. he goes down the hall again, reaches in his other pocket and has bigger holes. and his self-esteem dwindles more. his wife says we've been married 15 years. our anniversary is friday. what are we going to do for our anniversary? now he has tears in his eyes. yeah, baby, we are going to have a good time friday, noting that
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he can't fill anyone's dream. and then it gets to the point that his self-esteem has gone so low until when he gets up in the morning to go brush his teeth or his hair he realizes that a guy in the mirror i do not like. how does a man not like himself? god didn't intend for him not to like himself but someone set the stage for him not to like himself. and someone said drugs. all you guys in here or may be back in college, most of you saw that movie billy holiday and remember the scene where the boss is going through the south and he saw the kkk their sheets and had a big cross burning? she was going crazy like what is this racism? and a kind of depressed her and put her down? well, they pushed her down the they didn't push what she saw in her mind, racism and bigotry. and then someone came to her and
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said. it will help you forget. that's the same thing that happened to all of those individuals that turned to drugs, because they want to forget who they were, because they were not what god intended for them to be. because someone had a fetish towards people of color. this is why john started taking note to the point i stood back and said hey, man, there is no firemen on the fire department. how did i know this? because i saw kids in my building whose house was not on fire but just had something on the stove, she went down to visit one of her friends and the smoke came. somebody told the fire alarm to get a went into the apartment come as soon as you walk in the kitchen to the right or the left before or five bedrooms in the back. they come through and chop up
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every piece of wood and furniture in that house, every piece of clothes and thrown out the window in the backyard of and on the main street on lenox avenue by remember going into my apartment. why did they do that? my father looked at me like what is wrong with you? they don't do this when there is a fire. no, come outside. but me show you something. my father took the time to come to replace it shall be the fire, daddy. i don't see anything burning. my father looked, looked at me, and he knew i've got to give my son some answers. he's right. he went to the fire chief. when he went to the fire chief i laid back. i didn't need to see the chief. i knew where the fire was right away. out of sight, out of mind. no one was in the fire department that represented me. no one had the compassion to say the police department, how many cops to be had in harlem, too
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and they sent me to make me who i am today. they say robin hood and they live in the ghetto. he was a black guy, wasn't an asian guy, it was a white guy with a suit on. but i study him and he made me understand that he had the vision and the line and the courage to say let me be fine in my mind about the fact. could i be concerned about god's law your man? he chose to go with god. i'm concerned about all the cats to reply will steal from the rich and give to the poor.
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it's the right thing to do. those individuals that didn't have food in the boxes are used to go over to the yankee stadium and the freight train. as i said my father didn't play that. so i had to be very careful but i had to be diligent to try to help those that didn't know how to help themselves. go for three or four days. all of your kids will be for three or four days on the fifth day. hungary is a bad thing and no one should go hungry just because of the color of their skin. as an individual i wanted to be a swimmer, not just a swimmer with the best swimmer in the world to represent, so i thought the best nation in the world. i know this guy talking about i want to swim the english channel why is he swimming the english
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channel? a check, a trophy, recognition why he's doing it? i'm the best swimmer. i'm going to be the best swimmer. i said how do they swim when sharks are in the water? what happens when they have to go to the restroom? i didn't notice because i'm diligent about what i put my mind to do. he said let me go find the answers. but in the meantime when it took him time to find it i heard someone else call across the radio about the olympic games. she said that is where the greatest nations in the world get their greatest athletes and bring them together for the competition. who is going to be more superior, they want to see who is more superior than the other. well, how many do they have?
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month. great, i'm going to be the first. my father let me go to or three years and he said to me i've got to talk to you. i said what's that? he said i hate to rain on your parade but you will never be representing america. and i said why, daddy? and he did like this, he put his hand out and i thought he had a bug on him or something. i said what's the matter? he said when you go to the area to the pool you and your boy is got inside the polls as soon as you jump in the water would have it? it didn't take but a second and you could see the picture in your mind all of the white parents jumped up ricky, body, get out of the water. hurry, get out of the water. and i was very confused at the time because it was like something was the winter rolph and mechem look like me and then i see all of the parents putting suntan lotion on them all over their face and plot the cutback.
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i didn't know what to believe now. so now in the process of going through all this god put me in touch with a guy but i heard on the radio, the first i heard on the radio, and i'm going to the church, senior baptist church and i got to realize there were two types of people come on the black side of town there were people that looked like me, black people that look like white folks. malae saw adam clayton powell he looked like me and my father eni he cannot to church that day and he said i'm not feeling well today. i'm going to let my son, adam jr, give the sermon today. it was a white man. that is and his son. he said yes, that's his son. no, daddy, that can't be. no, that's his son. and i said to him, i said he is a white man. no, he is black.
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there are some fair skinned white people. but the difference is, he said all of them are not changing over because they are ashamed of their race. he said the change over because they want a better standard of life. he said some of them get a little overzealous, but this is a true black man. so i started to realize we have this going on. and then i heard this guy on the radio talking light malcolm x. who was this guy malcolm x. he was so prolific in his statements and so strong in his character on the radio that i had to find out who was this guy because everybody else was going upstream he was coming downstream with no hesitation. who was this guy? he would come down to 106th street and he was going to be the teacher down there and the ruler. i didn't have time for the games any more of the chase the bottle. i'm going to try to find out
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what he's all about it and i remember going down 116th street and sitting in seats like these people in the front row and i want to be a close because i don't want to miss anything. what i heard on the radio was secondary to what i heard of life in terms of this individual because the way that he was talking with my mind he was white skin to be blowing that and i felt i can't be he was proud of who he was and proud to let black people know that they should be proud of who they are. he was teaching about having respect for yourself, having respect for your neighbors, fight for your dignity, for the dignity of your community. i love that. so i began to go to the meetings every saturday and i would make it a point to stay after the meeting so i could run with them and see can i do with you to your next location? he said if you can keep up.
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and i think that god had me go in because i had the job to keep up with him but i had the knowledge. i left down on the line the we got called him and then as we get closer i get a call on the telephone and was a bad situation of who was integrated one year before it got there. i'm coming up in new york like vinegar and alcohol together for some combustible thing. so i'm helping my mother paid the kitchen and the phone rings and she says someone is on the one that wants to talk to you. was the professor. and he says to me, john, they are having a meeting down at the americana hotel. do you think you could break away, someone asked to invite you to the meeting. no problem.
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let me check with my mom. mom, they are having a meeting to you think i can go? if they have a meeting of you need to be there. i will handle the rest of this. i walked into the lobby and my mother was a perfectionist she was the kind of woman she would buy plastic for the furniture and you have to wait for five years before you can sit on it. you know what that's about. so, anyway, i walk in the hotel and i'm looking and i am seeing all of these beautiful things and artwork and said i can get this for my mother, i'm just thinking about getting it all. but i looked at my might and then i went and said i'm looking for him can you tell me where to go? i go upstairs and i'm not on the door to a guy comes to the door and looks at me and invite me in, i'm going in, they offered me cookies and soda, sandwich, whatever i want, and i'm sitting down and by looking, some of
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these people look familiar. we have seen them on tv. but i'm still not putting the box together in terms of where i am. then after about 20 minutes, 25 minutes, the door opens and here comes a living legend and i'm thinking to myself my god dr. king walked out of the room. who would have ever thought the johnny carlos would be in the room with dr. king? it was like god's personal tennant. when he came in i realized right away only was he is of a lack of a store will see a minister, but if he wanted to be on saturday night live standing as a call comic he knew how to crack jokes. he showed me and was shaking a little bit. i'm in there with the big boys.
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so he went on and made his statement and said listened, want to come out and support this boycott to retire one to support the olympic boycott. i don't want to be in charge. i want to be second in command under harry edwards. and we went on and have a strategy but what we were going to do and how we were going to do it and then he said out of nowhere he received a letter in the mail and the letter said there was a bullet with his name on it and he wouldn't have to wait for long. when he said that that was in my brain. so at the end of the meeting he said you have any questions? i couldn't wait to throw my hand up. yes i have a couple of questions. first question, did you ever play basketball? did you box, could you run? he said i couldn't play pool. i said then why would you get involved in the olympic movement and he said to me listen, he said imagined a vote in the middle of the lake and the water
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is called. he said to take this off the vote and hold it over the side and drop it. what happens? vibration. a absolutely. it creates waves. he said the olympic boycott in the dhaka if you chose to step back from the olympic games the greatest thing is you are not telling anybody. you are not putting anybody down. as a man come as a woman, you are making the statement i'm choosing to step back. and she said to me also, imagine what would happen if they told you to stand back and not go to the war do you think america would be as great as it is today? that's heavy. put that in my little basket. [laughter] and he said to me john, you had another question. yes, dr. king, i have another question you set the have a letter with your name on it why would you hold back and when he said what he was about to say i
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used to wear shades and i put my shades down. i want to look in his eyes and i don't want to look through glass. why they look at his eyes? why do you think, sir? to tell me they are going to kill me and i don't have to wait. i looked to see if he was afraid to die. he was as solid as the rock and not only did he not have year but when you look in someone's eyes, you know when love is in their eyes. he loved society so much until he was ready to give his life and when you get a picture you see the same love and look at rosa parks you see paul robeson and john brown when you look at his eyes to see the same love who has made the ultimate commitment and a partial commitment and in 1968 if it was
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partially wouldn't be here in 2011. my days are done. the war we started years ago, long time before 68 it's still going on today. 1968. [applause] i will tell you about those applause in imminent. i have so much there. >> all right. the daytime schedule so we need to keep up with it. anyway, and 1968 when you sit back and think about, when you are idealistic as davis said, and we had a paradigm in terms of how can we make the society better, we looked at the individuals that stood up and all of the individuals died just like the one that stuck out to move. couldn't do it for himself. dr. king died.
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ghandi good diet, rosa parks, died, they were not there by themselves, their living by themselves. and then we said well let's get these young individuals together and try to make them understand this thing called the olympic movement is 15 minutes in the sun for any individual to go to the olympics to have 15 minutes. if i ask most of you who run the mall with the last olympics, and you couldn't tell me. if i asked you who is the 100-meter winner, you couldn't tell me. so you have 15 minutes. so we decided to get this feeling going let's get on this train and have some discussion. well i don't know about the boycott and i promised my church i was going to win. praying too hard, i of the mother is expecting me to when i can't give of my opportunity and we said all we want to try to do is have some dialogue so we can have some exchange and what you
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can do greater in that 15 minutes. okay, i'm willing to do that so we get on this hypothetical train and start rolling down the tracks. now all the people outside of the train are yelling at bald bless america. make sure you bring home the gold. they were all excited. now we come to the conclusion we are going to do this thing and attempt to make this olympic boycott possible to reach everybody understands we're going to make a better situation. we are going to make society better. everybody is that these crossroads and life just like you face your crossroads at one point or another in your life. now we've got where we said okay we are on the same page we are going to attempt to do something collectively that we've come together as a unit. and now let's stop the train, let's put out the train. black athletes and for one sympathetic to the cause, 1968
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because all it is down the train. mr. triet began and all those people those were yelling and waving oregon. because they are waiting for america talking of the boycott in olympic games i don't want to hear that you are supposed to be concerned about america. where is america to be concerned about me? that's the question. so now we sit back and look at them and say okay all the people out there waiting some replace them. what replaced them was firebombs. that 43 years, 43 years we dealt with the murder and mayhem and then you sit back and say here we are 43 years later and now life has changed and resurrected
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as heroes now. people want to step next to us i want to take a picture with you. i think we need that statue up i deserve to have a brick with my name on it. i said we the second. i love you a internally. i said i love you less than yesterday and more than tomorrow. okay. i'm wrapping it up. i said okay. but let me tell you this. as long as i live i could never let you take a picture with me. i could never let you put a break down because if i allow myself to do that, that's like when i was a kid in school looking for my history. i couldn't find out who frederick douglass was because they get nothing there to indicate. so somebody whitewashed my history and i told the pilot to get in the picture right now i would be a whitewash in history. no, i deserve it pla was there
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with you all the way. we ran track together. what do you mean? do me a favor. open up your shirt. show me the burns on your chest. show me the burns on your neck or pulled your pant leg and let me see the burned. i don't have burned to be absolutely. come up here. poult your pant leg and let them see the bird. open your shirt, let them see the burn. you want to see, let me show you mine. you know what the difference is? mr. smith made a total commitment. i need a total commitment. i didn't get partial commitment. you made a partial commitment when things get rough you decide to bail. now things are good, you wouldn't come back like the society owes you something. you didn't do anything deserve to be rewarded for anything but now you want to get in the picture. don't ever let yourself be in the crossroads of life and be afraid to make the right choice. now, what so many i'm 66 now and
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i can say for 65 years of my life i knew this theory and it is we have a tendency to be afraid to offend. you are afraid to offend. if it got my foot on your neck and you can't brief, you are afraid to come and tell me get your foot off my neck and so many of them do that at the olympic games and a net of business world and in the education field. those in the corporate office sit back and take the abuse, they take the jokes and they are afraid to step up and say what you are doing is wrong. so i want to say just god bless you and thank you for giving us this opportunity to share with you tonight. [applause]
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>> everywhere i go they always want to give me applause. i don't want applause. you understand? god told me to communicate to one person. he said you'd do better than the one that you only need one. why only one person? you know what he told me, john, you speak so good you could push so much love and sunshine in one individual's part that could radiate throughout the world. he said that's why they applaud. you know what my attitude is i say but i'm not here for the applause. i'm here to communicate but if you feel like you must come and go in your pocket -- [applause] if you ought to ask questions for either dr. john, myself, both of us, there are microphones right their people can live up.
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a couple of questions. it's back on you. >> john is going to run through the bathroom. he did say he was an earthling just now. while people are lining up couple pieces of interesting news first of all we got a notice today just about a month it's being reprinted. it's going to reach a second thing already the second piece of news today dr. john was on cnn this morning and the world's shortest segment ever. it lasted two questions before they cut him off because they started by saying john carlos, first of all we want to talk
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about the occupied movement that you have been going to. you were in blog to become involved in the black power movement, stop right there. it wasn't a black power solution, it was power to the people, human rights for everybody. don't call it black power. the was the first thing. okay. okay. what we want to ask also if we could back in before we talk about the occupied movement, you pay the price, you had your medal taken away. stop right there. they never took it away. that's propaganda they've been spreading for 43 years, now what is your question and they cut him off just like that. now, in the aftermath of that raise your hand if you have ever heard of did spin off, it's like the most red sports web site. big headline on did spin dhaka, the awkward interview with john carlos, six hours later the call from cnn. please come back on so we can do the interview properly.
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it is a beautiful thing if you get the chance to go on line and see it so i will show you a bit of an update about what was happening. and in the last thing just giving you an update and giving john some time there has been a lot of great articles about the book when he spoke out occupy wall street the next day it was in usa today, new york times daily news it was olympic protester help occupy a wall street which was pretty cool and the was amazing to have that happen and to be able to have this occupy movement have been while the book has been out and has been a beautiful thing. you are back. where is the black glove? >> i hate to say those are his gloves. [laughter] you made history coming to keep
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the glove. he didn't have that in his heart. [laughter] [applause] so now 43 years later someone else has the glove. you don't know where you are. so it isn't about the glove is about the theory of the glove. if i had the glove they would be saying put it on ebay right now. >> good. now questions. yes. >> i just want to say thank you because what you did allow me to go in 1971 and we were part of a social experiment that came from the efforts that you did with lee evans and people like that in the 68 where they had them from all over california and
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part of the program and the equal opportunity program and we were part of that program and ensure a lot of that came from you and the doctor and people like that. i want to let you know how proud i am of what you did and how you've opened the door for people like us and you set the stage for us and it indicated my life to giving that to the young people and i just want to say thank you. thank you very much. that's in my heart forever. >> what is your first name? >> carlos. [laughter]
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>> [inaudible] i want to ask this question i was 16-years-old by that time ghandi you know for what reason why they didn't allow you to meet with the leadership why was their reason? >> as great as that question because it is a very important question, first of all, and got locked us from coming because we were ready to come but for 30
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years we wanted the government to release confidential information and the gup confidential information act of the united states for 30 some odd years the professor fought them to fit and nail to release the report. the had a plan we were going to kill in mexico city and the plan must have us come down to mexico city and joined up and asking why we didn't come and kill us all and it would be done. what most of you don't know, they said they killed 50 students. why? bickel 150, bigger lie. still a lot. they are close to 2,000 individual students in mexico city and killed so many of the took them and threw them in the front until they couldn't put more than they took the rest of the mant took them to the ocean and dump them and they ran them
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out into the mountains and told them don't come down in the hills until the games are over. these are the atrocities people have to fight about and then using a wire the here 43 years later half of the population has never heard of this? is a game. that is why it wasn't our act like for instance george foreman is a dear friend of mine i can see like a brother and when he got the flag and raised it around in the ring pappy was the head coach and he came to me after the demonstration and he said i can't say that i agree with what you did or i disagree with what you did what i can say is you are going to have to have a way to feed your family. i have a plan to the plans to give george foreman the flag in
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that ring. so he invited myself or my wife, tommy and his wife, we were getting ready to go. my god. now they think god it blocked us from going not to say that he put us in harm's way or had any thought about harm's way but just the fact they did this demonstration and had george with the flood all they had was that one approaching us and agility in the boxing arena with attempt. i don't mean to be concerned about me but i'm always concerned about the women in my life. thank god he protected us and kept us away. no disrespect to those students, but i said think what you kept us away at that particular time because i had to be here now to talk about just what you talked
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about. thank you. [applause] >> let me ask you this, the meeting that you spoke on that dr. edwards was that because i can remember [inaudible] it was kind of an understanding there was going to be demonstrations if you in fact went there would be demonstrations there were different things talked about, and i think that with lee and then had the grace and people did different things, but why do
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you think that the glove was so huge? because i don't -- you know, i think it had something to do with the black panther party. >> i don't know, ma'am, i told him i'm not a catholic, and a black panther and any man's island of himself and i said today. now, relative to the glove, why do we use the glove? because tommie said he had the glove but the main concept of why would he bring the gloves, because for the first time in the history of the game that is the first time worldwide. it was going around the world for the first time as well. we wanted them to have no misunderstanding of who we were representing first because black people and then america. simple as that. it wasn't about the black panthers. wasn't about he left his gloves home. i didn't have the gloves. tommie had the gloves.
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relative to what you said in regards to lee come he is absolutely right. we had a vote on this hypothetical train coming and when they devoted that they wanted to go to the olympic games there was nothing. every man would do what he thought was necessary to do once they got to the olympics and it felt just the way it felt. relative to why we got together to do that demonstration, i don't really think based on our religious beliefs, based on that religion god gave me when i was a kid it was like he rolled up his sleeves and told you i don't want you doing this, i'm going to handle this one. he rolled up his sleeves and he reached down and he took tommie smith and put it on the table. reached down and threw it on the table. reached down another one, john, threw it on the table. said y'all are going to have to do this but you can if you like you sit back and think about a young white guy peter norman,
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they could have put 16 million guys out there and not one out of the 16 million more have the nerve to step up and do what he did. to sit back and think about peter norman relative to -- let me put it like this. when we got back from the games, thomas smith lived there, i lived there. america lived all over but they said let's go over here and kick tommie smith's bup and carlos until we get tired, too and they switch back and forth. but at that particular time it was parallel to south africa in the human race. the people of color over there in south africa. peter norman still on the victory stand at attention and he didn't respect no flag eight and no way shape or form but merely because he put the button on his chest for the
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human-rights i stand for humanity and coupled with the fact he stood before you with the two black individuals. when he went back to mr. leah, it was a trade-off. the work with him morning, noon and night. they broke up his marriages and all of our marriages up. they drove him to drink. they drove the nervous breakdown and eventually they drove to break his heart. when they had the 2,000 they never let him across the field in terms of acknowledgement and not only did they just disrespect him, he was the greatest and still was the greatest sprinter that nation has ever made were built but he never denounced us. he never walked away from us. he never turned his back on us and he stood fast all the way until his death.
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15 million individual whites would have come out there and i don't think any of them would deal with normandy but it just gives you indication as to the crossroads we had to deal with in terms we could no longer allow these things to happen. >> something i heard today, one of peter norman's last act of his life is to be in the picture of the statute san jose in the 24-foot high statues you will see the the middle ury is empty and when john saw that he was ready to back out altogether because he thought it was a disrespect of peter norman and to the people at san jose, they got in touch with peter and peter sent you know what, i'm fine not being the very cause that was a privilege for me to stand there with john and tommie and now media other people can stand there as well, right there at the statue and i'm only raising that not just because it is a beautiful story and so much about peter's character, but i heard today there is no such

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