faze of his life but had he known the president would suffer alzheimer's he would have continued. >> you might ask to get hoveled the tape. you was surprised to see him, this small boy in the pictures is a very large man. >> it often happens. people do grow you. . >> you haven't seen him. he's bigger than that up. >> i'd like to thank the panel, secretary schultz, annalise, martin and dr. skinner for joining us tonight.

>> thank you very much. i'm at the age where my memory is not so good anymore. but i do believe that all nine of my books have been invited by barnes & noble to speak. i am very grateful for that. i hope everyone supports brick and mortar bookstores. they are very important places. okay? better? okay. this one? should i start again? all right. thank you for coming. yes, so thank you everyone for coming on this lovely night. thank you to my publisher,

viking books and my friends there here. my family and etc. okay, so today is the actual publish date of the book and i haven't spoken about yet. this is an experiment of of a best of what to say. i was thinking that one question that liberals often ask about the present moment is a franklin roosevelt could do what he did and could talk the way he talked, why can't barack obama do anything like him? talk anything like him? i thought it might be useful to think about the state of liberalism that franklin roosevelt embodied.

and then talk about the changes of what has happened since then. that will help explain what happened. i know barack obama come i wouldn't say he is a personal friend of mine, but i know him, and he is a facebook type of friend of mine. it is true that while barack obama is no franklin roosevelt, at times, he is facing in the democratic party and certainly with the republican party, that is certainly the explanation, i hope, that will be in this book if you read it. at any rate, to begin with, people always say that eric, whatever. it is a three-part answer. historically speaking. it is helpful in understanding the differences between the moment we face today and the previous depression. the previous depression of this that this country faces in the 20s and '30s. liberalism meant an embrace of

the enlightenment. it meant the freedom to worship as he wanted, to speak as he wanted, and to follow the logical consequences of your thoughts and actions, to embody them in little life that is consistent with your leave. that is a lesson of the enlightenment, and it was a very radical message when it came out in the 1600s. it happened to be the basics of the founding of this country. which was also a very radical notion when it happened. when it happened in 1770s and 1780. the reason it was radical is because in those days, people assume that power came from one or two places. he came from royal authority where it came from divine authority, from above. the idea that humans were capable -- men and women were capable of ordering their own lives and acting on that, it was

-- it was out there, and it was an incredibly brave thing to do -- to found a nation on the basis of those principles. that still is what liberalism means in a lot of places. it is what it means in england, really. in that respect, people -- you can't say about george bush or say rick santorum, i guess he can't even say development romney, but you can certainly say that margaret thatcher, and ron -- ronald reagan, until they got involved in politics from almost everyone was liberal. liberal in the classical sense. in the 1920s and 1930s, it became apparent that classical liberalism wasn't the only

thing. you had the right to a own your own life and decide what she wanted to do, but there were forces out there that we're going to stop you from doing it. there were combinations of big business and other powerful forces that made it impossible for people to live out their lives according to the philosophical precept, even though technically they have the right. basically you had the right to start. so, you know, beginning with the new deal, liberals led by franklin roosevelt, whose proud to call himself a militant liberal, they reformed liberalism to bring in the idea that in order for classical liberalism to make any sense, you needed a strong central government on the side of the individual, on the side of poor people and of working people. so that they could have -- so there could be some fairness in the struggle that they face with various economic forces that were preventing them from living

out the classical liberal ideal. you have the new government with all these programs. and there was no rhyme or reason to the programs. roosevelt was the opposite of the ideologue. he tried a lot of things. most of the things you tried didn't work out very well. unemployment stayed high throughout the new deal until the war began. it was around 15% for much of the new deal. much higher than we experience. it changed the way people thought about their government and the way they thought about each other. the people a sense of social scarberry. a sense of being in this together and citizen -- citizenship. that was successful, critically speaking. democrats run five presidential

elections in a row, and 12 congressional elections in a row. nobody has them now before or since. but in the 1960s, -- to be fair, the problem was the problem was based on ignoring a lot of things. the most obvious being the fact that black people in the south were not allowed to vote and not allowed to participate in most of the progress. this was quite explicit. roosevelt was one of the people who pushed us against the wishes of his wife eleanor. in the 1960s, the leaders of the civil rights movement have been risking their lives throughout the 50s. in the 1960s, it became something that liberals could no longer agree on. to their credit, they embraced civil rights. one of the things that surprised me in writing this book was how

slow liberals were to embrace liberalism. even liberal intellectualism at the time, they supported civil rights and they believed in it, but they didn't think the time is right. it wasn't a priority. they were not thinking about these questions. the civil rights agenda was really forced on them by the civil rights movement, led by martin luther king and many other people who are not in the book. you can read about them there. beginning with the civil rights movement, liberalism transformed itself again and became the manner in which citizens look to their government to give them a fair shake, not just in economic life, but in all forms of life. really every grievance that people had that derives from public life, was put on the

burden of government or politicians to try to address it was, as i say in the book, unavoidable for liberals to take on the burden of civil rights in the 1960s. there would have been no point in calling yourself a liberal if you turned your back on that. liberals made a lot of mistakes, many of which were for simple. the biggest mistake was they said to the white working class come up which was their primary constituency, you will pay the price for all of these oppressions that black people live with. and if you object to paying the price, you are a racist. people don't like being called racists. they are not likely to vote for politicians to call them racist. that was the first problem. it was a very big problem. problem number two is that all these other groups women, gays,

latinos, etc., they looked at the black people and said why not us. liberals didn't have an answer for that. of course. there is no discrimination that is good discrimination. the plan, initially, was based on the idea that the american economy was this significant machine that would grow and grow and it would be able to bring everybody into it with a minimum of fighting over who got what. history did not cooperate. at the very same time that all of these groups were making demands on their politicians and on liberals, the economy -- the global economy was taking away

old jobs from the united states that had made this growth possible. the middle class manufacturing jobs that were the basis of the american dream, places like detroit and california, these jobs are going overseas. what ended up happening liberals ended up fighting over one another, and failed to take account for the fact that the right had organized to take a bigger piece of the pie money had become more and more important. it was organizing lawyers, which potentially essentially resulted in the takeover of the supreme court. and the supreme court then ruled in ways that made money more and more powerful it was like a vicious cycle that we are living with the consequences of today.

while liberals were fighting with one another over smaller and smaller parts of the economic pie, and signals of respect, there were so many arguments over who had been disrespectful and did something or said something that had to be taken back -- people so outraged on all sides from the right was taken over the power that really mattered with regard to people's economic futures this book is not just about politics. it is about people. there is one section on bruce springsteen. at the same time, liberals were losing the economic pie, they were winning the cultural fight. we now have eight states that you can be married if you are

gay. i grew up in the 1970s. that was unimaginable back them, the progress would come to pass. women's rights are advancing enormously. there are far more women in college than men now. that speaks about culture. the hispanics, i don't know which is the correct word now -- i am getting a very dirty look over there. the very fact that we watch our language is another symbol of the cultural battles and strugglers struggles that liberals have one. if you watch tv, and deliver world in the world of sitcoms and entertainment. liberals have won a cultural battle and lost in economic

battle. now, there are a lot of reasons for this. a lot has changed since franklin roosevelt's time read the most important changes in the power of money liberals dropped the ball and came to keeping an eye on the economic interest of their side, so big business and wealthy individuals are more powerful than they have ever been in our countries history. the second thing is that the right has invested in its own media and their own knowledge. they call it knowledge. it's not really knowledge, it is propaganda. 97% of climate scientists agree that global warming is man-made, and get 100% of republican candidates agree that it is not. it is not to forms of knowledge. it is one form of knowledge in one form of ignorant. it is a form of ignorance that is forced by the machine on the right, the most obvious center

of it, the death star is fox news. but you can see it in many places. and it is like a virus. and if that's all the media. now, if you just take the position of 97% of the client scientists, you are saying something controversial. it is true across the board. there's a whole set of issues where truth is considered to be liberal. i forget if it was stephen probert or someone else when they said, liberals have a reality bites. and they do. the right has simultaneously become radicalized by ideology and become powerful because of the power of money. it has therefore been able to be

very liberal. if you look at the positions that people take in polls about issues, they are liberal. but they won't say they are liberal. only one -- it is different in europe -- but only one in five americans will accept the liberal label. in 2000 and 2008, clinton would not say that they are liberal, but what we have is a country of liberals come a country that believes the things that would talk about in the enlightenment, and believes that we have a strong central government to make them real so the kids can go to school and not be hungry and not breathe polluted air and have a chance to have the kind of life that everybody wants for their children. but we don't have that. we don't have anything like that. we are getting further and further away from it. it is a product and part of the

rise and strengthening of the right. it is also a part of it or the nerves on the part of liberals. liberals, we were initially terrified, first by joe mccarthy and the association with communists, then they were attacked by the left during the 60s, accused of being war criminals because of vietnam, and of being insufficiently sensitive to the demands of what became a radicalized civil rights movement,. by the time that ronald reagan and the new reich came along, most liberals were unable to defend themselves. they didn't know what to believe anymore. in my opinion, and this is an opinion, so i don't have evidence for this -- but in my opinion, americans don't really care what you believe that much. they care that you understand and you believe in something strongly, do you believe in something and you are he were not a wishy-washy person that can go either way the biggest

problem liberals have today in politics, like i said, they have won the culture war, it will be over in 10 or 15 years as the current generation is replaced, we will all be getting married in 20 years. the biggest problems that liberals have today is if you ask american people what percent and how likely is it that the government is going to do the right thing, only 17% are willing to give them credit of doing the right thing, and if you're going to have a government come you can't have liberalism. it is what citizens get together to do to get the kind of society that they believe. if you give up on that coming to

give up not only on liberalism, but you give up on yourselves as a public. you give up on the ability of a country to start some future. the right has been so successful, first at attacking the word liberal. not only is a mistake, they double down. as people grew more frustrated with the consequences of mistakes, there was no one to turn to her. if you question the bus and come you are a racist. if you questioned affirmative action, you were trying to protect your own. even if you believe in the goals of these things, there were lots of problems of implementation. liberals were deeply insensitive. that is number one. number two is that they lost faith in their ability to argue on behalf of their values.

places like berkeley and ann arbor and other places -- there are people who are not willing to stand up and say they are a liberal and this is what i'm fighting for it, if you don't like it, don't vote for me. when barack obama says, and i am sure you have all heard him say this coming when he is talking about raising taxes on the wealthy, he says this is class force and only one side is fighting it. the side that is fighting it is the side that is accusing the other side of fighting it, and somehow they have them believing it. they certainly have much of the media believing it. when frank and roosevelt said i welcome their hatred, he was speaking in different times of the different democratic party and a different base, and it is

not something that you can expect any politician to say today. we could expect that when 1% of the country has received 93% of the economic benefits from the recovery, so in the past three years since the recovery began, 93% of those benefits have gone to 1%. they have received 50% of the benefits that have gone to the entire economy since the late 1970s. there is something wrong. standing with the vast majority of people and their interests, it seems to me to be a relatively interesting thing to do. it is certainly impossible to put together a winning coalition if you're not going to oppose anyone. if you're just going to be the referee, who goes to a game to

see the referee? who cheers for the referee? so i think more than anything, i have said this at my last two books, which ends in the same sense. although, i save a little differently. but it is true. the most important thing that liberals have here today is fear itself. they have to fear telling the truth about what they believe. to me, what they believe is simply the beliefs and ideals upon which this country was founded. the circumstances have changed, but the leafs remain the same. i think if you read this book, it is not as long as it looks. they're 100 pages of footnotes. it is not as daunting as it may seem. what you will see is a lot of people who have made a lot of mistakes and it is sad to see them over and over make this mistake. but what you will see is a commitment to a particular set of ideals that haven't changed. but a very complicated set of circumstances as they make this

work in trying to reach this goal. and we have in many respects made this a much kinder, fairer and more equal country. but we have done it on the culture and social side, and we have let the economic side though. even if you consider yourself a cultural liberal rather than an economical liberal, the cultural and social side are based on economic goal. you can't have one without the other. i am here to propose a coalition of people who read my book and know how to behave. thank you very much for listening. [applause] [applause] that is pretty good. twenty-two minutes, i gave you the world. [laughter] >> [inaudible question]

we look at mitt romney and there is a good chance of him beating barack obama. >> well, i think that the fact that mitt romney, even though he has won the nomination, oh, i should repeat the question. was she -- the deal is that he beat a bunch of crazy people. at the same time, he hasn't managed to close the deal with really anyone. not the media or the basis of the party. that is because people don't really know what he believes in. or they don't think he has the courage to say what he believes. it could be that no president has won since franklin roosevelt, with unemployment as high as barack obama's going to be facing in 2012.

so it is possible that any person could win this election on the side of the republicans. that is why they picked a guy who is the least objectionable. i do think that the reputation that romney has bashed all the work he has to do to sell himself to his own site, speaks to my point. people don't know where he stands. that doesn't help. sir? >> [inaudible question] there is an easy explanation for that. the explanation for that is that they don't believe politicians when they say what they're going to do. if it doesn't matter what a politician says he's going to do, and you might as well vote

for the guy who plays the sports you like order we want to have a beer with. most of those people don't even drink. but still, if people don't leave with the system is honest, if they believe on issues which are personal, and have nothing to do with government -- remember we have this big fight between hillary and barack obama and all the other candidates about whether or not undocumented aliens should get driver's licenses. i have news for the entire media. the president of the united states doesn't decide if you get a drivers license and your state. it is a stupid argument. most of their arguments that we have a really stupid. in that respect. but people feel they are important because they don't feel that the system will actually deliver. in other countries where you have proportional

representation, i'm having lunch with a friend of mine recently was better magazine. and he's telling me about the candidate and that france. and he was telling me about what they were going to do if he was elected. i said if he is elected, will work in having? and he said what you mean? there is a necessary believe that they're going to be able to do it. people feel that they can give themselves a pass on paying attention to the issues. i also think that the way issues are delivered to people is very confused.

rick santorum is talking about holland, is that what he was talking about? everyone has to wear a wristband so they don't kill you on the street. 10% of people are involuntarily euthanized. he said this is where you're going. the media -- someone else's mouth, that sounds kind of hard to me. but they all say the man is the same. fox news, i've written this a number of times. it is not a news network. it is a political organization. the politicians actually work for fox news, it's not the other way around. there was an article in the new yorker a few years ago where it was talking about negotiations and republican senators were terrified that what they were

saying in negotiations would be leaked fox news and they would get into trouble. they were not allowed to conduct negotiations but they were conducting is elected senators in fox news didn't like it. when obama -- it wasn't obama, but when the obama administration cut loose this surely sherrod woman because the late great [inaudible name] was saying nasty things about her, they did it because they were afraid that? was going to go on that night. glenn beck, the man is insane. again, it goes back to the unwillingness to sanitize. it goes back -- anyway, moving

on. >> sir? >> [inaudible question] >> okay, okay. that's a joke that only people my age can get. and i didn't pay for it. well, you know, i write books about the media. the media needs to be held accountable. what people in public life really care about, myself included, is being embarrassed and humiliated. and if you can show them that

they risked humiliation by continuing to report nonsense, they will respond. if they just think you are a whiny pain in that, they will kiss you off. and partisan matter of being willing to be treated like a white person, which is difficult, and never work for media matters, but they published my weblog for two years. now, they make mistakes and also held accountable for their mistakes. the degree to which they are treated -- i mean, alan dershowitz, who is considered a liberal, he recently said that media management is going to be barack obama's jeremiah wright.

that is how bout they were. he said that. look it up. i have evidence on his feet. nobody spoke up to that point. i have to tell you. my parents are here. it is no fun to have to explain to your parents that you are not about personal time. [laughter] most people don't need to do so. bill o'reilly held my picture up under a one-sided. you know? it takes a willingness to accept abuse. you know, i understand a lot of people don't enjoy that as much as i do. i am not good at the numbers part. i work for myself. it is absolutely crucial. as i said, the funds that 70% stays where it is, then very little as possible. >> [inaudible question] the consolidation of the media,

you know, [inaudible] >> never gives discussed anymore. just me about the media conglomeration house that has made it difficult for people. that is just another issue that has made it difficult. that is true. i am a little nervous about this crowd. it is a crowd of people who know a lot of stuff. but i'm going to risk it. my family is exempt from this. they don't get the money. if you could tell me the person in the televisions act of 1996 while the debate was taking place -- in other words, the public that destroyed local radio everywhere and form the basis for murders that took

place, it was all based on this one act. cable industry and broadcast industry, for millions and millions of dollars. it was never once mentioned on cbs, nbc, or abc evening news. it was mentioned once on nightline on the which is not prime time. who mentioned it in primetime? >> [inaudible] >> lisa simpson. that act, which determined the media landscape that we live in today, it never mentioned -- it was never mentioned by the media. it shows how badly the media is covered, particularly media ownership. when this was passed, which was the only relatively successful

attempt to limit the amount of money that controls our politics, there were three components to that bill. two of them passed, one of them failed. the one that failed was the one that would've forced network television to sell their time to political candidates at their lowest rates. not for free, not giving it away like they do in other countries, that failed because the senators were afraid to take on the very media that would be communicating their campaign. in that sense, you can understand. if they have to campaign through the media, the last thing they want to do is make enemies of the people to them they have to campaign. it goes back to the problem of money in politics. but it is a member -- it is another conjunction of media and politics.

>> [inaudible question] to share my anger that obama was willing to put [inaudible] on the chopping block, and use that as a way of raising taxes on the wealthy? i mean, what kind of nonsense is that? >> the question is, do i share the gentlewoman singer but the fact that "the new york times" -- about how part of a -- about how far barack obama was willing to go. lastly, there was an article by eric alterman, saying how much we are just in liberalism.

i share your outrage. yes, i do. people always say, these politicians are cowards for not standing up for these unpopular causes. i would say that these politicians are politicians. that is their job. it is our job to make those unpopular causes popular. they would stand up for them. barack obama, i admit, i was as known as anyone by barack obama. i gave him -- he was a very smart man and capable man. i gave him more credit for taking popular sense than what i thought he deserved. the question is, when have liberals allowed us to get to the point where he could do that without having a political

repression. when we have someone there someone to serve in that regard? we should have tested them, and we should have tested our politicians. to do that in the future, we need to be unafraid and articulating our beliefs and principles, and just as important, the pragmatic means by which we intend to get from here to there. sir? >> [inaudible question] >> my comment is that my book begins with frank when roosevelt's death. seriously. you grew up reading the chicago tribune, you must hate it when

roosevelt. otherwise committee would stop reading the newspaper. >> [inaudible question] >> they are not coequal. they have different -- the idea of federal and judicial review, which is not in the constitution, is an idea that has grown over time. in wartime, both branches stay back and let the executive takeover. they are not coequal. there are three branches of government. they need to work cooperatively with one another. they don't always. that is too bad, but i would like to live long enough to have that be my biggest problem in government. [laughter] are redone?

cool. thank you so much for coming. hold your applause, last question. certainly, my only hope is to say, and i haven't said it in my book at all, or tonight, knowledge really is power. we have been here before. a lot of these mistakes were necessary mistakes. but a lot of them were not. my close personal friend warren buffett, as my daughter knows, i quote him a lot. the key to life is not only learning from your mistakes, it is learning from other people's mistakes. read this book and learn from previous liberal's mistakes. that is where the hope is. the cause of american liberalism is really no different than the

cause of america. it's not that hard to sell, once you understand -- once you are armed with the knowledge of what you are selling. i do believe that. thank you for asking that. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> for more information, visit the author's website. eric alterman.com. over the past four years, pulitzer prize-winning author david minnis, has been researching and writing his 10th book. he has been traveling the globe and speaking with the president's relatives in kenya, and discovering his ancestry on lake victoria. he also toured the homes in

kansas to find origins of his mother's family. barack obama, the story, comes out on june 19. book tv will give you an early look with exclusive pictures and video, including a trip to kenya come as we traveled with the author. join us on sunday, june 16, at seven eastern. your phone calls, e-mails and tweets for david minnis on book tv. next, from book tv's recent visit to wichita, kansas, we hear from robert weems. his book, "business in black and white", takes a look at what initiatives were supported by u.s. presidents to promote african-american business development. >> i started working on the project, the popular wisdom was that presidents and u.s. government really didn't have an interest in black entrepreneurship until the 1960s. part of that was motivated by

the war on poverty and business ownership as a means to alleviate african-american poverty. another one was the urban rebellion from the mid-to-late 1960s. there was believe it if you had more african-american owned enterprises and in black neighborhoods, that would decrease the likelihood of people destroying property in those neighborhoods. all that being said, and in then doing some preliminary reading, i came across a fleeting reference in the 1945 book in black business, to the division of negro affairs. the division, in fact, was in the coolidge administration. this grew out of the commerce department when herbert hoover, he headed the commerce

department. and they grew out of a meeting between a prominent african-american entrepreneur by the name of clyde barnett, who had a meeting with hoover, contending that it would be in the commerce department's best interest to develop a special program, a special programming aimed at african-american entrepreneurship. barnett's motivation for this was essentially during the 1920s. we had a historian referred to as a golden age of african-american business activity in the united states. barnett made the point that the commerce department could help stimulate this by forming a special agency to deal with agencies and promote african-american entrepreneurship. when we talk about the support

of this division of negro affairs, it was founded during a republican administration, under coolidge, they continue to hoover. when hoover lost in 1932, and his continued in the fdr administration. in fact, continued through truman. this division literally had bipartisan support. but again, when eisenhower came in, division was discontinued. and in fact, it really wasn't that she didn't have a clearly defined governmental agency aimed at african-american entrepreneurship. not until nixon established the minority business enterprise in 1959 -- 1969. during the 1960s, while there was not a separate specific government agency to assist african-american entrepreneurship, they were initiatives in the commerce

department to promote african-american entrepreneurship. as i alluded to earlier, either based upon the war on poverty or based upon an attempt to help quell urban black rebellion during the 1960s. there was a real push to increase the number of african-american banks and a push to increase the number of african-american franchises and franchise owners, there was a push and an increase in the number of african-american auto dealerships. when we especially look at african-american franchise ownership, which they, it is a mythical sentiment of african-american business ownership, we can literally go back to the nixon administration and certain initiatives that were promoted, that are directly tied to some of what we see today. based upon my research, beside nixon, who gets a lot of visibility and credit, i would

say that the carter administration, in terms of deeds as well as words, they probably were the most supportive administration in terms of promoting african american entrepreneurship. one of the things that the carter administration did, there was a public or act that was passed in 1977. there was a stipulation in that act that said that 10% of government projects, government and work related projects, had to go to minority contracts. this contributed to an explosion of opportunity for minority contractors. another area that the carter administration helped to promote african-american entrepreneurship was in the realm of media, and especially cable television during the late

1970s. there was little if any african-american ownership in the cable round. and literally, through initiatives associated with the carter administration, that held bob johnson to be in the position to start black entertainment television. when we look at the reagan administration, we know in some areas of the reagan administration, they indeed sought cutback programs that had historically assisted african-americans and other poor segments of american society. during the reagan administration, we see programs to assist bike business, they were maintained, and in some instances, actually enhanced. the evidence suggested one of the motivations for that was the influence of elizabeth dole, who was the head of the white house office of public liaison during a period.

some of what i have seen suggested is that dole approached president reagan, saying that you are very anti-african-american, and by continuing to support african american entrepreneurship, that might help quell the notion that you are totally against the african-american community. also, too, it appears that reagan come on personal a personal level, believed in the free enterprise system. it was a problem in terms of promoting programs to support african american entrepreneurship. when we look at the reagan presidency, he had more than elizabeth dole, it he had other conservative advisors as well. this appeared to manifest itself in supreme court nominations that were made. ultimately, while the reagan

administration continued to support african-american entrepreneurship, his supreme court nominations ultimately undermine the program. a landmark case in this regard was the case that involved an initiative in the city of richmond, virginia, that allocated a certain proportion of public works projects to minority contractors. the supreme court with these new additions, in fact, declared that the city of richmond's policy was on its constitutional -- it was unconstitutional. six years later, with the addition of clarence thomas to the court, who was nominated during the first bush administration, the supreme court declared that the transportation department initiative, that also thought to allocate work to minorities, it

was declared unconstitutional as well. the reagan administration, they actually appeared to support african american entrepreneurship, but his supreme court nominations helped to dismantle some of these programs. last summer there was an initiative cosponsored by the obama white house. the business school had records. the center for urban development and black entrepreneurship, they cosponsored an urban entrepreneurial summit. among other things, some of what biggest piteous demonstrations have said, is that by promoting more positive economic activity in urban black enclaves, that

not only had a beneficial effect on those neighborhoods, but also on, you know, usable, state and national economy. again, there is this continuing thrust and movement and interest in promoting urban entrepreneurship, which urban has become a code word for black. [laughter] white, black, what have you, if you can expand in certain areas, that is not just going to have a positive impact on specific communities, but on the broader community from an economic perspective. over the past 30 years, and again, linked with a lot of the governmental programs that were put into place during the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, we have seen a significant diversification of

african-american enterprises and in a variety of sectors. historically, for a variety of reasons, we saw african-american enterprise consigned to personal care products, insurance companies that catered exclusively to african-americans. again, over the past 20 or 30 years, there has been significant diversification, which, again, has generated some very positive developments. the leading african-american enterprise, worldwide technologies, based outside of st. louis, missouri, had over $2 billion in 2011. they are, the i.t. era, and so forth. but notwithstanding success stories, there is a cause for concern in that while there has been a dramatic increase in the number of african-american

enterprises, over the past decade, the vast majority of these enterprises and the numbers, 94%, are single proprietorships. the average income of these single proprietorships are about $21,000. in today's world, $21,000 is just barely above the poverty level. while one level has been significant in the increase in the number of african-american enterprises, the vast majority remain marginal single proprietorships. when we talk about single partnerships, part of the american dream is to own a business for yourself. i think a lot of that, a lot of americans become single proprietors. based on the ongoing discrimination or limitation in the employment sector. again with the employment situation being what is it is

today, possibly going into business for yourself. it is an attractive alternative. but again, when we look at the numbers, it is just the reality. 95% of small businesses, regardless of the ethnic agenda and makeup of them, the proprietors cannot last five years, that is a whole another reality that we have to deal with. i am not sure that there is a real solution to that. unfortunately, most small businesses are destined to fail. in the short term, some african-americans have been able to expand to signal proprietorship that can actually employed individuals. the numbers are very clear that the more african-americans or

any entrepreneurs can move into the realm of actually employing people and expanding enterprise, the higher likelihood of success. >> for more information on book tv's recent visit to wichita, kansas, and the many other cities visited by her local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/local content. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share anything you see on booktv.org, easily bike untrimmed clicking share and selecting format. book tv streams online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> here is a quick look at some

of the upcoming book fairs and festivals around the country. on june 4 through the fifth, book expo america takes place in new york city. it will feature phone book previews. on the weekend of june 16 and 17. on june 19 and 20th, we will be live at the printer's fest, we will be covering 12 authors. for continually updated information, visit our website at booktv.org. the millbrook book festival will be on june 16 in millbrook, new york, featuring several other discussions, vendors and illustration workshops. in late july, belfast, maine, will hope the belfast book festival for three days. it will feature qa sessions with others, discussing climate change, the civil war, and means local history. for a complete list, visit booktv.org and click on the book fair fairs tab at the top of the

page. please let us know about the person festivals in your area, and we will be happy to add them to our list. e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. interested in american history? watch american history tv. visit c-span.org/history for more information. >> you are watching book tv. jonathan sarna recounts general ulysses s. grant order to expel the jewish population on december seemed1892. this is a little under an