talks about growing up and becoming the first openly gay

u.s. ambassador. this is about 30 minutes. [applause] >> thank you, thank you very much, and it's really wonderful to be here in this spot for the first time from just down the street where people are demonstrating their enthusiasm for a decision that came down this morning, which i'm sure you all know about that for the record, this is a historic 9th circuit's review of a trial court judgment which held that proposition 8, a proposition that took away the right of california citizens of the same sex to marry. it was overruled as

unconstitutional, so it's monumental in many ways. it may be the first faith of its kind to reach the supreme court. this depends on a number of circumstances and all sorts of things on how quickly other cases move through the court because there's other cases in the court at this moment. they are not the same as this one, however, because this one reflects on california law, and it reflects on how in the term how the judge wrote the majority opinion. rights were stripped away from citizens. rights that had been granted were stripped away, and this, i think, is the central theme of app 80-page decision that i have not thoroughly digested yet. it is very exciting. it is very exciting.

it is a major step, and i think we can look forward to social change taking place regardless of what happens in the political arena over the next few years. the climate in washington is not really reflecting the climate of the country. by the process, they seem to forget it was that process that brought them there, and they spend their time and lots of money on the process of being re-elected. this year's going to be, by far, the worst in terms of money being spent to put people in public office. the estimate is that over $8 billion will go into the process

this year, 2012, and that, i think, is a low estimate because people cannot judge -- they don't have the information to judge how much money is being raised by the super packs which have been created since the supreme court decision two years ago referred to as the citizens united case. the political picture changed dramatically in how this affects the outcome of the elections that are up in the air. there's no doubt that in washington, where money talks, and if you don't like it, please vote accordingly, and i don't know how much more to say about it. i think that the gross domestic

product of haiti, for example, is something over $6 billion, and we're going to spend this money elected people into public office, and if you reflect on some intelligent arrangements that could be made to spend $8 billion, and it's amazing. it's amazing. well, that's not what "fit to serve" is about. the title of the book i'm addressing tonight, "fit to serve" was taken from my experience in becoming an ambassador representing the president of the united states in the country of lexemberg in 1999. the process was very long and strenuous, argueous, insulting,

and full of misleading statements, full of lies, full of antagonism, and what i had wanted, which was to put the senate on record. that didn't ever happen because the senate majority leader ultimately prevented the question of any no , no , ma'am -- nomination to coming to a floor vote. the senate did not confirm me. that was a big disappointment. when i think about what was accomplished through the process, it's a minor factor because ultimately a great deal was achieved. ultimately, regulations were achieved in the state department. ultimately, other openly gay individuals were appointed

without the process that went into my case. now i think that especially under the present administration, the numbers of openly lgtbs are serving, and it's something to be very proud. it's happened over a long period of time. i'm not the first person to have suffered under the this was demonstrated towards this constituency. it's interesting, but it really goes back in our history to the state department. after world war ii when a high ranking member of staff said let it be known publicly that they

just dismissed approximately 90 employees for being homosexual. this started a search that went on in the federal government for about 20 years until 1970. it was sort of a search and destroy mission. it was encouraged by the house on american activities committee. it was forwarded by senator joe mccarthy, and pursued by various departments and agencies in the government to the extent that thousands of people lost their jobs, and many of those people had ruined lives as a result, and other thousands we have no idea how many, just didn't apply for work to the federal government because they foresaw they might be put through the same process, and

they didn't want to have their lives and their careers destroys. this, i think, is all over a matter of failing to recognize that the elderly constituency, because we vote, and the constituency is represented everywhere in the population. the constituency is our children, our parents, our neighbors, our friends, our enemies for that matter, our employers, our consumers, our police, and fire people, gays, lesbians, transgender people are everywhere in our society. not in the numbers that would

allow for, you know, uprisings to cause the government to say, oh, my god, we did the wrong thing. you know? no, because, in part, the constituency has been hidden. i've told people when they've asked what this book is about or what's it conveys is one of the two main things i'd like to convey is that the most important thing that a gay person can do to make a statement in this society is to come out because if society doesn't know who we are, then they'll make up who we are, and they'll get it wrong. i guarantee you they'll get it

wrong. if they know people who are gay and they recognize it those people may be close to them, that will change. the other thing that i've tried to get across in "fit to serve" is that being gay in itself is not a choice to be made, and i know that many people in the university think it is, but herman cain said, they -- [inaudible] i'm left-handed. i did not choose to be left-handed. i can assure you. even at the age of 5, it was very uncomfortable to be left-handed. i didn't know at that time that there's a long history of antagonism towards left-handed people.

i didn't know at the age of 5 that the word in latin for left is -- dexterous, that's wonderful. if you're left-handed, that's sinister. and when i discovered that, it encouraged me a bit just as it encouraged me a bit that i was not the only person in the universe who was gay and had feelings they couldn't explain or talk about in a society that didn't allow that kind of conversation. please remember that i am in my 80th year, and during the first 30 of those years or not quite 30, homosexual acts between

consenting adults were criminal. people went to jail. people went to jail anyway if they were suspected of being gay, and lives were ruined just as they were by the gentlemen in the state department announcing that dismissal of their employees. when you look at the history, no wonder people didn't come out. you'd go in prison. terrible situation. illinois was the first state to change its criminal past, and that was in 1961, and in the next state to do it was in 1968 in connecticut. by 2003 when the texas law was cut down by the supreme court,

there were still six states that had those laws, so-called laws, and one of them still refuses to take it off the book, and that's alabama i believe, and so the advancement of gay people in our society has been arguous. i don't have the audacity to tell you it's long because others have a much longer history, and if i were speaking to a room full of native americans, i don't know how i'd be addressing this. even in a room where many of you are female, i'm reminded that

the amendment was written in 1920, and it still has not been ratified, so 1920 was the year that women were given the right to vote constitutionally, the equal amendment still hanging out there without radification, so we have a long way to go in our society in addressing all of these issues, and there are groups which make it very difficult for us to address them at all. someone asked me, well, what's going to happen when the constituency does have people right, and that caused me to think long and hard because i don't know the answer. i don't know once rights are

achieved what happens in society. i don't know at what point there will be a cultural reconciliation, cultural acceptance, and that, i think, is what accepts and something that's missing from so many of our live, and it cuts deep down inside us. i hope that "fit to serve" will be a reminder to those, and may there be many, that we live in an interdependent world, that we need each other, that we have been instructed whether we are jews, christians, whether our faith is islam, whether it is

other eastern religions, we have been instructed that at the very core of our being is love, and if we aren't going to share that love, to express it, and to experience it, then these conditions will persist. i don't know what i can say to "fit to serve" to people who probably know the book as well as i do. i'm just very appreciative that you're here tonight, and i hope that you'll have questions and comments so that the word will go out to the people who watch c-span, who are very graciously recording this tonight so i'm

ready to hear from you, if you will. [applause] thank you. [applause] let me also say that i fully appreciate the magnitude of celebrations occurring tonight around the country, one that is a few blocks from here down on santa monica boulevard where people are joyfully recognizes the appellate court's decision and how that affects their lives. thanks. please. >> curious what your take is

seeing so much throughout your life in terms of progress and just where we are now in terms of what your feelings are about how these rash of teen suicides and people coming out, seems like we're much more accepting today of people coming out, and yet there's a backlash, and especially with kids with bullying, and i'm from mississippi and they passed an anti-bullying law, but they had to take out sexual orientation in order to face it. how much progress are we making if we're at this level. just curious your thoughts on that. >> very interesting question. i know a lot of people from mississippi, but they're not living there now. [laughter] i think that things will

change. change in the media, people get to see examples of gay life as it really is, and so these changes may take place over time. they may take place in spite of resistance and social pressure in given communities and in the forms of religious expression that are institutionalized, but they will occur. i have every confidence they will occur. the problem that you mentioned about bullying and about acceptance at that level, i think, is especially troublesome partly because it's not being fully addressed, and partly because what kids say are what

they hear, you know? there isn't a 10-year-old around who comes up with the term "faggot" unless he or she has heard it from probably parents or other elder examples. we just have to make it very clear that this is not acceptable. schoolteachers need to be instructed. schoolteachers need some examples of how to deal with these matters. schoolteachers are also impacted by bullying from the parent, and in some cases in smaller communities, jobs may be on the line, so i think they do need encouragement and protection as well as their pupils.

it's a very serious problem partly because we do talk about sexuality today whereas we didn't 50 years ago. we didn't talk about sex at all 50 years ago. today, it's part of the conversation, and kids pick that up, and they know that the most hurtful thing they can say to another kid in school is "faggot" and they say it without even realizing what it means. that, i think, is an enormous challenge. we are not recognizing the problem. we need also to recognize different ways to address this.

>> i hope we can be friends.. i view role models as a very, very significant influence on society. you're one of the more significant role models in the gay and bisexual community. who else would you state is similar to that status and that importance to an understanding of gay lifestyle? >> i've never really assessed myself or others in those term, and i very much appreciate your effort, thank you, sir. i think there are many, and they are not visible because they are not in a position to be visible or because that's not what they are seeking to do. they are seeking to make some specific changes, or they are managing organizations that are making changes. there is, you know, the first person that comes to mind

individually is, and i'm terrible about names, the executive directer and has been for quite a few years of nclr. >> kendal. >> kendal, thank you. kate kendal is a comedian, one the follow-upiest people -- funniest people i know because she's very smart and very alert, and very clear on how she addresses these issues. kate kendal is a lawyer who has worked vigorously among others with this case that's celebrated today, and she's worked tirelessly.

she comes from utah. she comes from the issues and deals with them from a perspective that many of us simply don't have, and in my opinion, she is outstanding as a role model that many people don't know about her. >> she's relatively important. knowledge is power. the public knowing certain people such as you, high status, wealthy background, i'm sure, it gives them an image to look up to, you might say? to try to understand, empathize with you, understand, and we have to have people that the public can relate to, you understand, and you are one of those very important people, i'm telling you. >> well, i appreciate that. thank you. this is part of why people need to come out because there are such people in the government

today who could make a big difference by letting it be known that they are part of this constituency, and they still feel challenged. i would not tell anybody how or when they come out. it's an individual choice, and i would not expose anybody unless that person has actually done something deliberately to damage the constituency, and in that case, i would be eager 20 expose their hypocrisy, but people have to find their own time and place and way of doing it, and part of that is dictated by how you feel inside and what is really driving you. the two people i mentioned specifically are people who are very public and very assertive,

and if you mention their names in their fields, they would be very well-known. i do wish there were more. yes, sir, thank you. >> anyone else? >> i'll make a comment about the book. i could not put it down, and i was -- it was just, to me, the most exciting and interesting story. i can't wait to see it on the big screen. i hope somebody writes a movie about it. it has humor, warmth, politics, it has everything. it's very, very interesting. thank you for writing it. >> thank you. i really appreciate that too. what i do regret, i don't hold regrets, at least not lightly,

but i do regret is my co-author is not here tonight to hear what you just said because she's responsible for a lot of that. she is responsible, first and foremost, for getting me to tell things that i was very reluctant to expose to the public about my private life. i was raised in circumstances which made privacy very important. it was difficult for me to overcome the feelings of, you know, the desire not to let people in. it was very difficult for me. she said, look, this is your story, and if you're going to tell it, you got to tell it all. you got to let people into the things which you think are secrets and that you may be ashamed of or not want other people to know or may not want

to be judged by, and it's really hard, you know, and you grow up feeling judged when you grow up trying so hard to be the best little boy in the world, and you're so afraid that people will find out some secret about you that will lower their opinion of you i did grow up that way. i did hold those feelings. i did try to be conventional. i did everything i knew how to do to be conventional, to be straight, and be all the things i thought other people expected of me, and i didn't know what people expected of me, just what i thought they expected of me. i wonder how many of them go through life or at least part of life with those thoughts in their mind.

>> did you have journals or diaries you referred to or did you just start from scratch immediately? >> i didn't keep journals and diaries. i have calendars, and that's about the only thing that reminded me of what happened in a certain period of time. she helped me remember things and actually interviewing, i think, 24 people for the book. they interviewed people, many of whom i knew, that told her things that i couldn't remember. it was a challenge. it was difficult. i encourage people to keep journals and diaries. i was very bad about it.

>> i think you are so brave and amazinged, you know, because i know you for so long and you do this not only for you, but for the people that need to come out like you, and you give them courage, and that means so much. >> well, i know that you know what bravery is. >> yeah. >> i know because i've known you for so long, and i know what you went through. i know of the time that you spent hiding in an attic during world war ii with the bridges being blown up and all of the other horrors of war surrounding you, and i know you did dancing with a broken back at the age of 16. i know lots of things that tell

me that you understand courage, so when you say that, i believe it, and that touches me. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. thank you, all of you. [applause] >> host: "th agitator's daughter" is the name of the book, and sheryll is the author. who is thage -- agitator? >> guest: my dad. >> host: what kind of an agitator was he? >> guest: well, my dad founded

an independent democratic party in alabama at a time when the regular democratic party was dominated by george wallace and the dixie crowd, and despite being a dentist and two-time value kick tore yap, his add advocation was pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money, in the 60s mind you, early 70s, into the political party, so that alabama could vote for lyndon johnson rather than george wallace and the hundreds of thousands of newly registered black voters would have people to vote for, and so that was his life's work, and he was committed to recapturing the greatness of african-americans in terms of political participation. he was steeped in the era of

reconstruction because his grandfather was a reconstruction legislator, and he grew up hearing about his grandfather while he was coming of age in jim crow, and that radicalized him to be losing under jim you in alabama while hearing about people who used to have political power and be in office and supporting his own family. >> host: who was that? >> guest: that was my great grandfather. handsome man, wasn't he? in the family lore, he was the first black lawyer in alabama and architect of reconstruction. i grew up to my father repeating this over and over as a teenager when my eyes were gold, and in the book i go off and find out that the outlines of the lore there -- he was -- this is alabama bar in 1878 --

>> host: the alabama bar? >> guest: the alabama bar, not the first colored lawyer in the state, and he did serve in reconstruction, during reconstruction, for two terms in the alabama legislature. >> host: as a radical republican? >> guest: my father always made sure it was known he was a radical republican. by the time he was elected, reconstruction was already closing down, by my great grandfather, the gentleman in the picture, the next 40 years never stopped giving up on this idea that people of color have a national republican politics attended for the republican national con vengeses and -- conventions and raise a family, and my father grew up hearing about him and was determined to, as a matter of family honor

before the rightful place in politics and in alabama. that's what my father was all both. >> host: why did you write about your family? what made you take it this far? >> guest: well, i got tired of hearing my father say he was going to write it book. i said if you're not going to write the book -- i was terrified that this lore would die with him, and so in my early 40s, i got tired of hearing about it so i just took a recorder and started interviewing him. i just wanted to know everything he knew and make sure it didn't get lost. i interviewed him on what he knew about the family, but also about this political party and everything he did, and it took on a life of its own, and i started researching, you know, how much of this lore was true,

and it became an obsession. >> host: what did you find as far as how truthful the lore was? >> guest: well, depends on what you wish for, you know? you search for family history, and you find some things are true and others are not. one huge piece of the lore was he descended from the benevolent irish from a man of john cashman. -- his brother james came to the u.s. during the potato famine and one was a slave owner and one was not, and we diaries sended from the non-slavery guy. not true. not only was he a slave owner, the father of my great grandfather, that side was also

namedded john, he was one of the more prominent slave owners in agusta. here i have to con tend with not just descending from slavery, but from wealth, considerable wealth, born of slavery and four generations of educated people. my great grandfather had a classical education in philadelphia for the colored youth and became a lawyer. at the time colored were in slavery. that was new. e reconciled myself to that by what my great grandfather did was that he chose to go back to the south, which he didn't have to, and he chose to work for the uplift and people of color, and he chose to identify with people of color, who, in fact, his

siblings were peal enough to pass -- pale enough to pass, and they did pass, and so he was a bit of an agitator as well. that was one thing that i discovered. >> host: what was your childhood like in huntsville, alabama? >> oh, i had an incredible childhood, almost from first. my mother helped me, in her arms, to a sit-in. i was four months old, gets herself arrested with me in her arms, and that event was a turning point in the sit-in movement in huntsville, alabama, and within a few months of that activity, they negotiated a non-violent desegregation of huntsville. two full years for the civil rights act before the water

hoses in birmingham -- >> host: did it help that huntsville was an educated city? that it was in northern alabama? did that make any differences? >> guest: what helped more than anything was that huntsville had tied its stake to the state's history, and there were a lot of people, engineers and scientists had descended an alabama, and the city wanted to just associate itself away from the rest of the state, and that helped them, you know, to negotiate quietly, so, yeah, from the beginning i have memories of my parents, civil rights activists, and after the voting civil right act passed and and then they turned to politics. i grew up in the national

democratic party, and i have memories, you know, my father ran for governor against george wallace in 1970s, and i just have memories of my summers being taken all around the state, those counties that were the center of the plantation economy during the antebellum era and it felt like particularly during that election of 1970, it felt like i was carried to every black church in the black belt, and i watched my father give some speech over and over and over again invoking the famous lines, those who profess agitation are like, you know, people who want to crosses coming out the ground. that's where the line from frederick douglass, the title, "agitator's daughter," he was my

father's hero. he was always quoting him. when he was on the campaign trail in the black belt, sharecroppers were trying to give him a reason to register to vote to go to the polls, and he would always invoke douglass and say, you know, don't sit around waiting for others to do right by you. power is nothing without demand. go forth and demand your power. >> host: what do you teach here at georgetown? >> guest: i'm a professor of law. i teach a critical history course that covers most of the race pace of society in the supreme court, and i teach constitutional law and administrative law and sometimes properties, sometimes local civil law. >> host: when you approach public affairs or submit this to

the publisher, what was the answer back from public affairs? why were they interested in this story? >> guest: well, fortunately, i already had a prior relationship. "public affairs" was the first book, which is a book about why we still struggle to be an innovative society. i had a relationship with them, and i sent proposals to them via my agent, and they were familiar with me because of the first book and promoting the first book, and i think they knew that as hard as it is to get attention for a memoir if you're not famous, i think they knew i was a fairly tenacious person, and they also found the story compelling, so, thank you, publishers. >> host: just a short conversation with the georgetown professor about "the agitator's