of entrepreneurial creativity. and so i am studying information theory and these books by james glick and george dyson are good reparations for my book next year, knowledge and power. >> for more information on this and other summer reading list, visit booktv.org. >> tanner colby presents his thoughts on the social economic and political factors which according to the author obstructed immigration in america. mr. kohl mazen conversation with jeff moore and material fellow at the contemporary african diaspora. this is just under an hour. ..

>> i was going to read about all the black and white people living together in 2000 a great i thought about my resume. but there was too much back story to do and how they got

there. starting from the beginning, which is where i went to high school. it is sort of the most defiantly white suburb. we had the confederate flag as our officials will buy. i have the confederate flag on my high school diploma. which my wife will not limit on the wall. for many reasons. i went back and i -- that was when the first places i women i was researching the book. the first thing i did when i went backwards, was to get on the bus. because the busing program was still in place there. i went to the principal and said would you let me ride the bus. i met this rather an incredible

woman who not only drove the bus but was one of the for students to write it back in the 1970s. her story was a pretty amazing one. she was very generous and sweet and took me along for this ride. so there is a story of that ride from the first part of the book from the birmingham suburb. it is way too early. the sun is barely up, it's cold out, and alisha thomas is warming up the engine of her bus. she cranks the heat for her two boys that sat a few rows back. still bundled up, they are pulling out their schoolbooks to getting some studying done before homeroom. i reach up and hand leash at the warm cup of coffee or it she says thank you for the sweet, sunny alabama smile. we idle a few minutes while she doublechecks and engages and then she puts the busing dear

and we are off. alisha thomas drives the bus. not the regular bus, not the short bus. she drives the other bus. the bus that brings the black kids. every weekday morning for nearly four decades, her boss or a bus like it has followed the same well-worn route and 10 routes up columbiana road, down the far side of shades mountains and into the oxmoor valley below. they're coming it picks up federally mandated students. she could navigate this past blythewood. in the early 1970s long before she drove the bus, she wrote it as a student. he used to get soquel, she says with a shiver, remembering her mornings with a sigh. you have campfires at your bus stop? >> oh, yeah, she says, we were so country.

where she grew up it was little more than a rambling backroad on the outskirts of nowhere. not a town at all, really. if you ranch-style brick houses for those who could afford them. most of them were shacks with dirt floors and others with no running water. there wasn't a lot to see in the 7000 acres of the oxmoor valley. it was a scrapyard. a garbage dump of u.s. steel corporation's which once held a monopoly at on the birmingham trade. at 5:00 a.m. she walked through fields of chickens and cows to reach the bus stop. in her days, it was a rickety mountainous terrain. their bus driver? a white guy touching the wheel, half scared to death by all the rowdy black children proud of and behind him. i can remember riding down this big hills, she recalled. the brakes going out and the bus packing instead. no air conditioning.

there is this old white guy driving a black kids. he couldn't handle all those kids. what was the guy's name, i ask red the question brings her up short. you know, she says, in all those years of driving, i don't think he ever spoke to us wants to tell us his name. we just call him shaky because he was always so nervous. shaky, slow down, you're going to kill us. the hills are just south of birmingham from the largest city in birmingham and at one time the largest industrial center. together with the neighboring towns of nonbook and hoover, it forms the nucleus over the mountains for birmingham's suburban sprawl. you go over from the mountains to get there from downtown. having lived there, i can say that it is no less or more racist than the other suburbs. when the school system was formed the 1970s, born in the exodus, its mascot was the

confederate rebel. the kernel resembles a cross between yosemite sam and angry mark twain. the official school dinner is the confederate battle flag. flown from pickup trucks and waving high in the bleachers, stars and bars was always on proud display. if you stumbled onto a football game by accident, you might think you were at a rally at a concession stand. it's true. [laughter] that is the image that they wanted and it stuck. to this day, racial incidents player on the 5:00 o'clock news. there are many who still refuse to set foot in the race is suburb. this is in just and this is suburb. it is a symbol. it was nothing more than the parting shot of the white rights movement. alisha thomas first arrived here

as a 5-year-old kindergarten in 1971. friends of hers had come the year before. when she encountered wasn't a complete surprise. huddled around the campfire, the smell pungent smell of smoke would cling to your clothes. they would say what is that smell or those people stink as they walked down the hall. they had their classes in the corner of the cafeteria. still segregated. even after she was put into regular classes, white teachers did not treat her failing. they assumed she was slow. my third grade teacher was mimi. i had to tell her i could read and write. one day she for me to get out of her class and go to the learning lab. i sat there and read my book. i wanted her to know that i could read. we didn't even try out, she says, i didn't know they could tell us we cannot try out for

something. my parents had a car and they could have driven us back after school. but the coach told us know. so when alisha thomas in stevie hills. she looks back on it without regret. even when remembering the worst. i don't feel like i got as much out of the system as the other kids. but we didn't have anybody fighting for us. my feelings got hurt, but the little stuff i went there was nothing. i'm okay with that. i didn't have anything going on. and i'm how much of that for me and i hope i can do the same for my voice. the two young men doing their work behind us is the people that she is writing about today. she went to the university of alabama at birmingham, got married and i looked into midfield just west of downtown. she worked at a saxophone or at the galleria.

while she pondered what to do next, a job offer floated in red vestavia hills needed a new bus driver. for children about to start school and like all parents, she wanted her children to have a good future. she could not afford to live in vestavia hills. every employee of the vestavia hills system of schools enrolled his or her children for me. i knew that vestavia hills was the best, so i decided to drive the bus. so here we are. we have reached oxmoor. that's where you set the campfire, she said when we ran by. she calls out a few other landmarks here and there. but oxmoor is no longer the place it once was. in just the past few years, this one-time industrial scrapyard has been consumed by suburban sprawl. the old chats and cities are still there. still inhabited. but they are surrounded by a sea of mansions and golf courses and condominiums. one of the streets, three-story

monstrosities tower over tumbledown shacks across the street. when we reach the stop, she pulls over to let her words out. they have to switch to the middle school bus. and we pick up the high school kids. they climb in one by one with their ipods and a yammering about the baseball game. we head off to the school, doubled in size since i was here. there is a steady refrain of thank you, ms. alisha thomas, and study hard now, baby. she is involved in the strangely amazing phenomenon called bus driving. the 40 year saga of court immigration is coming to an end. on december 13, 2007, the district court of northern alabama granted the school system of vestavia unitary

status. meaning that no longer dual, no longer separate. as a slaveholding nation dedicated to the principle that all men are created equal, america has fundamentally irreconcilable ideas and has been struggling to reach unitary status ever since. the particular chat country and chapter that pertains to vestavia bookends in 1954. brown v. board of education and blacks and whites in public education. brown's indictment of segregated schools did nothing to eliminate it. for 15 years on white school districts kept blacks out by stonewalling him. forcing the government to divide of the solution. the solution they came up with was this. a school bus. in the same decade that americans put human beings on the moon, our minds could offer no hundred and 10 better picks for slavery and segregation. just a nervous old white guy named shaky down and around the mountains with everybody screaming for him to slow the

heck down. so the next section is more about new york. it is one of the biggest reasons i probably don't know any black people. [laughter] nine agencies -- i'm sorry, five agencies, i can count the number of black people that i work with in one hand, they can say. in any creative capacity. so the piece i'm going to read, talks a little bit about more or less the employment part instead of the artistic side of advertising. what happened was, i am sure we are all familiar with madman, there were some token immigration threat the 50s and 60s, and throughout the 50s and early 70s, affirmative

action forced hundreds of black people overnight into the industry. that was the time of rising conscious of black solidarity. if you can imagine, dozens of black militants, you could imagine how well that went over. what happened was they were all strong, young, talented men and women and they say we can do this on our own. which was a piece of the full black solidarity. at the time affirmative-action made black businesses more viable in the 1970s. george jefferson was a republican. the black-owned businesses --

sure. [inaudible] so they set up their own agencies across the street. which are very interesting impact on the nature and culture of advertising. a pressure on madison avenue is you need to show innovation, racially neutral advertising, black-and-white people getting along. it shows us a nation we can be. within that realm of black power, that kind of reduced itself. we need positive black advertising. the black agency asserted that is nurtured. we own that. this is sort of the consequences of what became of that and what happened to the industry.

the two people we need to know -- to incredible man that i was fortunate enough to interview because they both have some magic secret of longevity in their mid-80s and both still incredibly smart and capable and just really brilliant guys is roy eaton, the first black man ever on madison avenue to write advertising content advertising -- he worked there for a long time. he didn't like the black agencies. he thought that it was not for black people to advertise for their own businesses. and we have byron lewis. he owned the longest running most successful and lucrative lack attitudes in america. they figure in here. in the 1960s, civil rights groups have demanded that madison avenue abandoned its stereotypes and create integrative, racially neutral

advertising. in the era of black pride come up agencies reversed course. they spoke to blacks as blacks. the visual and verbal language that only black agencies can understand in the market. targeting for the black consumer is an anthropological considerations, more than a marketing consideration. asserted thomas burrell. have another agency developed principles he called soul marketing. complete with fully articulated instructions of how to use the term jive. they used mandates to secure black ownership of radio and television. on madison avenue, they asserted the right to control the ad knowledge in the way a way that blacks were portrayed on the airwaves. black brothers shirt tender

moments with her friends and immigrant. >> there was so little awareness of people, we had no other national media that could give the african-american consumer feeling of what we could accomplish. i felt that anything we did that could project a positive image would be a good thing. it helps get a lot of people hoped the bacon drippings. black advertising would still prove a difficult mix to work. not every product that we buy has a cultural component to it. in fact, a lot of them don't. and a few delco carberry is just that. there's only so much you can put on it. but if byron lewis wanted to get

the ac delco account, what is black about equipment everything had to be racialized. otherwise, why not go to a general market agency. the need to black enough black advertisements. the tobacco companies hired a gentleman to hire create print heads. he had a righteous afro and introduced bold new port, pull new bag of menthol smoking. newport's radio ads were broadcast live calling on young black man to be the oldest brothers in the country by lighting up some content in a ball. the marble man of black pride.

a textbook example example of advertising. soon, today 75% of black smokers smoke menthols as opposed to 23% of white smokers. that is something all of us just now. the same as we know that white people drive volkswagens and drink chardonnay while wearing dockers under james taylor concert. the things we bind the brands we use are just another way for us to protect our preconceptions onto each other. the black agencies made it embraced. only black agencies were qualified to market them. in making their stand of exports on black culture, and a black agency only further cemented the institutional bias that kept

them out of the industry in the first place. if only black people can sell to black people, surely only white people consult the white people. and why people are the ones who shared the market. what is the phrase, roy eaton says? the black agency brought into the separation of survival. but i resisted. i could see its inequity. the working attention and bowls, he watched them stake their claim across the street. marginalizing him when he stepped out the door. if black agencies one of black accounts with few exceptions, that was what they would get. in spite of the drawbacks, the black advertising niche became viable. the black agencies offered the comfortable atmosphere. these of money and the chance to do important work for the community. one the eeoc check on him to agency, they have fallen to new

low of 1.7%. both of those numbers included kirker positions. the old boys were free to go back to selling margarine and snorting cocaine and banging their secretary. the basic industry was not impacted at all. in the pages of ebony and black enterprise, they were lauded and celebrated. forced to be reckoned with. serious contenders for big-budget accounts. yet, they were. they began to amass annual billing in the hundreds of millions. they published the top 20 black agencies. after three decades of minority business incentives from all 20 agencies combined accounted for a 0.5% of the industry total revenue. all the power state in the fortune 500. if black arguments or power there, it had no will power at

all. the idea of a self-determined black economy was notable. writing up a bold new port and selling a product for the profits that went to the lower tobacco companies, which would later be named in the lawsuit as the beneficiary of assets acquired through the work of the slave african-americans. the idea that blacks can only advertise to blacks and whites to whites, chug along unexamined until december of 1983. on its way to becoming the best-selling album of all-time, michael jackson landed a $5 million dollar endorsement beer from pepsi. it was the biggest liberty endorsement deal in history and it would hold that record until it out for 15,000,002 years later. presumedcosby had the number one tv show in the country and eddie murphy was one of the biggest

arsenal world. run dmc brought hip-hop into the mainstream. it became painfully clear what rory even have known all along. culture doesn't have a color. art rooted in certain ethnic traditions. the division had nothing to do with talent, roy eaton said, or profitability. it was just based on assumption. the only reason they cannot sell to whites is because they were not given a chance for the only reason that whites could insult to blacks for because they were stone ignorant. after michael jackson, -- [laughter] it's true. >> after michael jackson, they started to reconsider their assumptions. on opposite sides of the street became a terrible idea.

in the now infamous commercial, mc hammer ruled into a small town and no one behind the counter could really believe that he was the mc hammer. he does his hammer dance and they give him some fried chicken. every black person in america looks at the tv and says, really? a black man dancing for chicken. america was becoming a multicultural marketplace. madison avenue didn't have the vocabulary to communicate with its own customers. regardless, there was no going back. no matter how the advertising industry was structured, they kept on mixing. why people started buying albums in their baggy jeans. ever true to its nature, corporate america followed. general market agency's kept making horrible mc hammer mistakes in the process. madison avenue most

professionals were following their fears and other fields. there weren't any black people advertising to tell them about all the wonderful opportunities. all through the 80s and early '90s, for appearances sake, most of the major agencies did nothing to mentor her groom to young people to be a part of the industry. few enough, but they really needed to be defined. as far as black creative directors out there who are really interesting in their work, one of them said in my personal opinion, there are seven of us. maybe a? that's a problem. [applause]

>> i would like to say that i would like to acknowledge the state senator who is here with us today. hello, state senator, how are you? [applause] my name is jessica moore, i am a fellow for african-american rights. we are considering mr. tanner colby for the new speedboat signing series. the fall exhibition opens up october 18, is entitled african american revolutions and beyond for the book signing will include three different books. the first will be our kind of people written by the great

author. the second will be occupied. it was written about the black experience that will happen in august. and then we will have pat thompson here for the signing of her book. we have a lot of interesting books all related to this conversation we are having today. the questions i'm going to ask you will follow the trajectory that you just covered with your reading. we are going to start with multiculturalism in the '90s and education. we are going to end with hot topics that are happening in advertising from having to do with post- black gentrification and the idea of assimilation and what that really means. and visit another word that is synonymous with immigration. i went to high school in the south. i went to high school in macon, georgia.

robbins, georgia, is 30 minutes south. the culture you are talking about i understand well. polarized football games -- one side white white and the other black. friday night is tonight that all the black kids go out and saturday night is when all the white kids go out and we never crossed. that was in early two thousands. it was still that way. you were born in 1975, correct? okay. 1975 happened. that's about 10 years after we had brown versus board of education. correct? desegregation took effect around the early 70s and the time you were born, he really started heating up around that time. >> basically was stonewalled until 1968 -- the supreme court will people get on with it already. >> right. get to it. by the time you were a teenager, that was the '90s and the era of multiculturalism. tlc, in living color, dancers from all over the place.

what is the integration that looks like for you, personally, as a teenager. did you even notice the? >> we didn't have multiculturalism in vestavia hills. that idea had not percolated yet. we had one black student in one of our clubs. i'm not kidding. so the multicultural era was a little bit more when i got to college. you know, vestavia -- it was still the 80s well into the early '90s. it was still very much like -- oh, there's the cosby show and there is housing projects downtown. that was sort of our thing. as shameful as it is to admit, until i and so i started digging into this, i always thought that the black kids on the bus came from downtown. because i was 12 years old and i thought the downtown is where the black people come from. [laughter] what did i know? the idea that the team from this rural -- very rural port town was completely new to me when i

started researching the book. >> so there is a jump. you begin at the beginning of your book. you start with the election of barack obama. you had the realization that there is no one intimately professionally integrated into my life fabric that i would consider african-american or black. what was the process like doing your research and coming to consciousness about this very binary quote that we call american life. >> it was a very slow process. i can tell you exactly what happened. the first phone call i made to my friend was standing right up there. he is one of the only black students enter high school. when i called her and said, thinking about doing these books she said you are crazy, let's go for it. and she has been incredibly helpful and her family, and they opened their doors and told me all of their stories.

when you are a white person and you delve into this kind of thing, you spend like your first year and a half in a state of moral outrage. one of the guys are profiled in the advertising chapter, he laughs at me -- but then you realize you can see the problems when it is. you eventually put that away in your life. this is evil, but it's fascinating. let's just, you know, understand it so that we can figure out how to take it apart and move past it. i think the reason that people stay away with engaging in this topic is because the first thing you encounter is the white guilt.

why people what they don't realize, it's awesome. because you are totally comfortable in dealing with it and you don't have to be one of those white people that like oh, yeah -- you know. this one guy in iraq this party and we were talking to a white girl. it wasn't offensive, it was just candid. it was a candid assessment. and he was like oh, my god, you can't do that in front of her and she was like yes you can say whatever you want. and he said really? and she said yes, it's cool. you can say anything. she said i guess you don't have anything to say. [laughter]

it's not about -- we can talk about learning about races the real reason to do it is that this is fascinating and interesting this make me a more interesting person and gives you a wider range of movement in society. white people and black people -- the way people in town on those words, they say oh, why did you

say it like that? as you talk about becoming comfortable with the information you talk about being able to speak eloquently and involve yourself with people who are considered part of the african-american community, i want to know how you came to the editorial position to use the terms black and white. sometimes white writers are writing about people within african background and they don't know if they can say black or african americans, or african americans and latinos as well. >> [inaudible] the other main consideration was really not so much what i mean,

i was riding through multiculturalism and african-american life, word we use one and the other and we pick one and run with it. because the fulcrum of the book comes in this era -- a preference with the desegregation area. i thought those are two very clear terms. in the '90s we started talking about african-americans, caucasian americans, and sort of a more euphemistic tone on it that made it more digestible.

people from the more modern times for purchase a african-american. and i said okay, i'm just going use black or white. >> another word about terminology. you use the word immigration and desegregation interchangeably at times in the book. sometimes the way people interpret desegregation and the way they use the word is to reference the fact that they have integration that never really happened, but desegregation -- separating everybody happen. everybody was separated and categorizing everybody. bringing them together again with immigration. it was an intentional thing that you used the word interchangeably? or whether difference between the two? >> if i used it interchangeably, it was inadvertent. i tried to be more specific about how i was using them. that wasn't really a conscious decision. the desegregation has to do with illegal aspect of taking the

laws down. you can't have white water fountain colored water fountains for it and immigration was one white people to their water and build a golf course around it so they wouldn't have to share. that's how i define a few terms. [laughter] >> referring to the water fountain and green grasp than the other water fountain -- [inaudible] i found that segregation did not come to an end because white people were trying to keep black people out. it ended because black people were willing to move in. you write about the difficulty of maintaining a common is that black, neighborhoods and churches. in between those conversations in the book, the question how did white communities -- you write a extensively about this

-- how did he do they manage to develop successful autonomous communities in black communities still struggle to do so? what did would your research show an answer to that? >> white people have all the money. basically that white people -- white people basically have affirmative-action come up that is what was said -- white people don't have affirmative-action. they have money and authority and that's very different affirmative action which says you can have this money. the fact that the white people were basically, you know, they moved to the suburbs and had absolute voting majority -- you can only have a house worth this much -- public transit to come this way.

when immigration was supposed to happen real estate fans come you have black politicians saying we need a black belt, and given away to the way blacks were treated when they move into white neighborhoods, very reasonable reaction to have the time, too. why people had all the money. you read it this fabulous issue of ebony magazine -- the first black governor on the board of reserve from all very eloquently

it's a wonderful, romantic theory that we could have a strong black society and we should have a strong black cultural base that we use as a forward leaning place. you look at the people that came out of it, spike lee and the artistic movement came out is very forward leaning into white america that didn't work because because of large financial resources. >> in the preview that was released today, written by rachel, his rachel out there? >> how are you?

there is a part of the book that highlights that immigration do not have an eight system way. because perhaps, black people, the black community did not want to happen. they did not want integration. my first question towards about his was not your intention to actually be highlighted as a thesis for your book and the second question is, do you think that perhaps the idea of integration is what communities integrating into white communities is a coded term for assimilation? >> the first part of it, what was the first part? >> um... what was your intention? thank you. >> what came out of the book is that it was perfectly understandable. if you read about how black people were treated when they --

when they first moved to madison avenue, your first reaction is going to be thank you but no thank you, we took care of rselves for 100 years and we will do it again. i was perfectly understandable emotionally as a reaction to hack. in many ways, integrating or assimilating in the 1980s was a form of cultural genocide. because assimilation was so horrible. you cannot be yourself. you could not have dreadlocks or express yourself in any way or have any cultural blackness of value in being a white person's world. which has changed somewhat these days. my point was not to blame black people for wanting to immigrate, but that was a perfectly understandable emotional and psychological way they were treated during iteration. the reality was that was a social economic cul-de-sac. which goes to your second question of is integration the

code for assimilation. there is yes and no. there are really are really sort of two forms of immigration. one by martin luther king was a largely immoral case. we so damaged this country and so alienated from each other. there is so much friction and hatred that the people in charge can exploit each other, which has been the whole story since day one. we need to try to respect each other and learn to know each other better. the other definition of immigration has more to do with gaining access to opportunity and power.

being a disenfranchised group and moving towards the center of power so that you can control how that power is exercised and you have access to those opportunities for your children and so forth. in that sense, we have all the money. we are here. in that sense of immigration, why people are already integrated. we are integrated because our grim parents stood up for us. they came over and it was easier for them because they were polish or italian location -- that assimilation was far easier for them. we are early integrated in some ways. we are going to say, in that second definition -- minorities and outside groups, to choose whether or not they want to assimilate. nobody has to. but to choose how close you want to bring yourself into that white community and what role you want to play there. and the onus on why people is not to be a racist moron when black people come.

there is really two different kinds of integration. one is the one of assimilation and the other has to do with what we call diversity and multiculturalism. >> in your book you talk about church and religion. there was a whole history played out. you describe the type of architectural luxuries in white churches. and the difference between what was accessible. you think that another reason why immigration is so difficult is because the black community feels they are losing those institutions and they feel as if

integration means speaking up for what you have and moving over. instead of the white community picking up and coming in with negotiation? >> why people are going to pick up and come this way because you can't integrate 65% into 12%. what happened in this town from the last chapter of the book, as i went and looked at churches. whether or not you have a religious institution, we all have something that we partake in. in the 1800s, under reconstruction, catholics went to church together in louisiana. it was okay, it wasn't great, but you released under the same roof. along came jim crow. out of new orleans. segregation started gaining deeper root in society. whites didn't want to go to church with black people either. the catholic hierarchy said for the sake of keeping the peace,

let's give black people and optional church if they want that. ten years later, optional means jim crow. you have all these little towns in louisiana, the counts are big enough for one church. sometimes they are across the street from each other. it's not that there's methodist with different liturgy, you go to one of the other continents the exact same thing. although there was one town that i wrote about in the book. a black man tried to do a white church in 1964 and they beat him and assaulted him in church and threw him out. the only way we can view one community is to be one church. in many ways, they started off like -- okay, we will have one black church and one white

church. they dissolved both parishes and the came up with a new name with a new definition and mission statement and all these things. new phone number and stationery. at the end of the day, only one building is big enough to hold everybody. the preset time is a smart guy. and he said this is in about the building. it is about how black people perceive as they will be treated as citizens in this new society we are attempting to form. they said okay, let's get rid of the jim crow do this, we will be

forming a new community. they said you can't take our church leaders fear we are fine with integration projects on about black people. they are not ready to treat us as equals, as were going to stay over here. the integration only really fully happened when the white community went out of its way in the 1990s and early 2000 to make very concrete gestures to say, you know, you are welcome here. they has to we spend money on the black church group or do we move in one building like we should be. the difference between new orleans and this town is that 40 years of people trying to come to an understanding. they were able to integrate the

church. now you have a gospel choir. it's not give up everything you own and play by our rules. it is that we share and respect each other. at the end of the day, white people on the roof of were all going to be under the same roof. >> my final question, multiple times throughout the publication you give examples of how the generation that was born in the late '80s or early '90s and more recent times, do you think that, in a way, the representation of the idea of blackness -- argue suggesting

that oppose blackness or opposed whiteness that is occurring in our society? >> i would say that it's getting better where it's getting better and worse where it's getting worse. i would think that you had some communities where you had schools -- and unfortunately, it's getting better on the side where people are -- where they don't feel economically threatened and they are more willing to accept diversity and don't take it as an economic threat. my old high school and went back to her. it was horrible in the 1970s when alisha thomas was there. it wasn't much better when we were there in the 1980s -- 1988. as far as what i can play. it really wasn't that much better in early 2000. the real changes come in the last five years. they have a principle there now who made an effort to change the culture of the school and you have more black families moving in who are willing to get past the idea of that racist suburban embrace a lot of the white people who live there.

you have a much more collaborative effort. in places like that it is getting better. in 1984 they have for black students at 9000, today they have nine. it hasn't really improved there. and then you have birmingham city, which is now 99% black. part of the reason i wrote the book landed is focusing on one high school, one advertising agency and neighborhood. and one church. i'm not really saying that we have gone better, but this is what happened in these schools. i have picked those four things, schools, neighborhoods, workplace and church, because of

the things we can identify with. not all of us went to a confederate flag-waving place. but you could take that experience and say, this is how was in my high school and you can relate to that. it's not so much universal thing. i think there are principles in the book that we have been talking about. but as far as like, what is doing better or where is it getting better -- i mean, it's just far too much to say. >> are you writing more. >> my wife wants me to talk about gender. going into the world, especially with all the challenged up. i enjoy a enjoyed it very wonderful life of living and working at home. walking the dog and cooking dinner. because my wife has a wonderful job where she is able to have health insurance and stuff. if those who run corporate

america keep giving women a horrible time, that messes with my situation. [laughter] that is no good. so i think that -- and that's actually true. these 50 and 60 euro guys who run things, they had their 1950s style marriages. they don't get the idea of coequal marriages being equal partners. something about guys my age trying to make work life balance and life better for women for our own sake. but again, it's true. we don't need to treat feminism like making men eat their vegetables. you know, it's like we need to better society. that make life better for me and i'm a more educated person because of that. that is what is in the works that i'm thinking about. >> thank you so much, tanner colby, we are very happy to here

you speak. [applause] i want to give a special welcome shout out to dan graves. there are many people that also deserve thanks as things as well. one last story i will tell is that in the advertising industry, some were suing the advertising industry. some are saying that there is racial discrimination and we will sue you and take you to court. >> i read that at the naacp was getting ready to sue the crap out of some white people. >> that struck me as something

that only a lawyer could think of, and it was one of the dog ever heard in my life. because if the problem is that black people and white people aren't in the same social networks in terms of getting access power, that's the problem,, why would you build a workaround to the problem instead of solving the problem? the problem is we're not in the same social groups. we don't know each other in the same social world. that's what we need to fix. everything else is just coming you know, been in. >> all right. >> everyone here, my friend who sent me to kansas city, thank you. >> thank you. [applause] the church in grand can tell i found out about because one of the priest in the 70s married my brother and his wife 10 years ago. everything in this book is all

we know. black people and white people. that is the moral of the story. >> everybody, this is tanner colby. [applause] >> for more information, visit the author's website. tanner colby.com. >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. i am reading three books this summer. as a traveler, i am going to reread a book that i did. it's a little book and it's called across the bridge. i just want to go back and read it and see.

.. it is a big, and it's almost too heavy to travel with. but i wanted to read it. another little book that came to just a few days ago by norm ornstein about the congress. that it's