and best-selling author stephen king has waited on the gun-control debate with and nonfiction essay titled guns, which has been published as an amazon / kindle single. you can find out more about his latest release on his website. stay up-to-date on breaking news about authors, books, and publishing by letting us on facebook at facebook.com/booktv or follow us on twitter @booktv. you can also visit our website, booktv.org, and click on news about books. you're watching c-span2, politics and public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. weeknights what's key public policy events in every weekend the lettuce nonfiction authors

and books on book tv. you can see past programs and their schedules that our website at, and you could join in the conversation on social media sites. and now, taylor branch, author of the multi it volume of america in the king year's presents his thoughts on key moments in the civil rights movement. this is about an hour 15 spirited. >> thank you, mr. hale. thank you, atlanta. atlanta history center. i have been heretofore. and glad to be back. i am glad to be back talking about something that has been a subject that has been due to me my whole life and is inescapable now . i'm getting older, is my life's work a lamb glad for it. this is another round. i beg to take more questions tonight than i normally do. i am going to try to sell some provocative things about why i

think this history is significant and about this project itself, which is a little odd, to spend 24 years writing a 2300 page trilogy and then come out a few years later with a 190 page book. a lot of people who have read some of the other was think that it is probably not true that i am -- that somebody else ready of them not capable of writing something this brief. a sure you, i did. there is blood on the floor in my office because it involved eliminating or setting aside 95 percent of what worked so hard to produce in the interest of finding the most salient parts in the original language of the moment i thought could reintroduce in a more compact form the major elements, leaving

large numbers of characters that are dear to me, and i don't -- of the night, and still curious myself as to what people who have read bill trilogy. i get no solid time for people who said they're regal trilogy every year. i'm grateful for that. that is -- still around after 20 something years. but this is the digital age and there are millions of americans who will not pick up even a very telling but that involves people personally if it is more than 800 pages long, which my books are. so when my publisher came to me with the challenge to try to have a compact version that would involve making the selections, number one, which was hard enough to look to

summarize what was left out and dropped even the story in this sensible would give people the full sweep of an extraordinary transformation, i accepted it for two reasons. number one, people over the years have complained that students, relate to storytelling particularly in trying to understand race relations, but most of what passes for discussion in race relations in the united states is argument, an argument is people just making themselves feel good while pretending to discover something. and taking some sort of morally unassailable point of view and defending it with new labels and new words. and we are trained, analytical world -- words demand detailed largely in race relations the way we learned is that things are personal. teachers said that students

related to the personal stories in my book, but they could not assign a hundred page book to a high-school student quite frankly two years ago i went to a foundation in new york which makes teaching aids available to teachers to teach american history. they sent me to idaho, of all places, to talk to high school history teachers about the challenge of teaching american history and particularly civil rights history. i don't know how many of you have gone to idaho, but i went reluctantly because there are basically no black people in idaho, and that did not know that anyone would be interested. i was thrilled on one end, but they were intensely interested and said something that is really obvious which is something that i always -- they already knew it.

this is about citizenship, stuff that is broadened. on sunday night in idaho. i'm doing the internet in a desperate hope that i can find something that has been of storytelling in it that i can presented to my kids in the three or four days we get to try to communicate the civil-rights movement. dates deliberately trying to make this history inaccessible. have i lost my microphone? i did not do anything. [laughter] the institute may not be popular here, but is a very good organization. [laughter] i don't think that it -- okay. so we have apologized. anyway, the 16 teachers in idaho

said that you don't realize that we are on the low end of the totem pole if you are a history teacher. schools in the united states are now evaluated by test scores for students in english and math, not history. if you're a good history teacher in your principal for good reason is suggesting that you might do well to teach english. because the school is not evaluated on a street. without a sense of american history it is impossible the teach citizenship which has also been wiped out of our curriculum so they say, our schools are not built to teach history if it is the essence of citizenship, we are not trading -- training services it. a free releases as are responsible for their own government we are in peril and our own republic. reread the low end of the budget scale. most of the budgetary priority

goes to the other subject. our textbooks are not very good to begin with. please do something because as much as we love the storytelling in our school, we cannot assign it to our kids, and most of our kids are reading materials now on ipad and that sort of thing any help. if there were material that were put in a form that we could use, we could bypass the whole text book business and we could engage our students and we could have a great leap forward. i met a lot of these teachers, and what really -- and it occurred to me that they have been telling me the same thing for years, storytelling is critical in ways that it has to be done in no way that is palatable to the students, and the last thing in the world we can do is bring it -- blame the students are not learning the history that does not come through their umbilical cord. if we don't teach it to them, then we cannot blame them for

not learning it. if i believe, as i do, and i am going to explain briefly why believed that a sense of american history is not easy to get, but vital to have, then it is worth every bit of effort that we can make to try to make it easy for the teachers who are our primary conduits for this debt of how our republic got here and how we will preserve and improve it. so, with teachers that made me accept this challenge from my publisher, the other was a growing sense of frustration, and that will give you a few cents as of this and then start -- and then take questions. frustration let -- that we are fundamentally out of balance in our historical understanding of the last 50 years.

our own conscience -- conscience determines what we are receptive to to a degree that is much greater than we realize and has blocked a real appreciation for the challenge, the privilege, the uplift, the potential, the intellectual content of this era has been pigeonholed in so many respects to make it less meaningful in our everyday lives across the lines that divide us than it should be. so i thought what really got me with the publishers was the idea of convincing the 2300 pages into less than 200 which gives me the opportunity to pick the things that i think are the most salient from the full sweep of the civil rights era, which i define as 1954-1968, the peak years.

just as a matter of coincidence, 54 is the year dr. king took his first church, so he started his career exactly at a short career. only 39 years old when he was killed. a short career exactly matches those 14 years. if i could find 18 moments that i thought communicated the full sweep that it would serve not only as an introduction to a new generation of young people in the digital age and possibly, help, to a heck of a lot of older people who don't really like 800 page books. some of the people who have complained to me about their aching collarbones and various things on their planes from my but that they probably did not finish the book either in a much more likely to get through wondered 90 page version. but in so doing i could concentrate what i think our the essential lessons in a way that would make people begin to come

out of this pervasive sense of and the share or stunted perception. what i really call it is failed memory, faulty memory, misremembering which is part of history and it is a dangerous part of history that is in this era. so i agreed to do it. in this novel, it is a novel task to take your own work, redo it, try to rework it so that some of the lessons come out and preserve the integrity of the stories that were originally done. it is so novel that they have got an e-book know, a young actor who is on smash reading the audio version. it is the only complete audio version i have ever had done. usually my books are so fat they only read 10 percent of them in the air bridge to addition. this is the full faint red by lesley odin jr., one of the

pilots in red tail. that tuskegee airmen, and he did a fabulous job. then the thing to me is that they are e-books, and they are new, and those are the things they're going to go on the notes and candles to my hope, for students , would know they have one called an enhanced the-book and i have not even seen this because i don't own a device that is able -- you have to have an ipad. i don't have an ipad or a note. i have only seen it on my son's ipad just briefly. but what and enhance the-book i, you read a chapter and it shows their is a demonstration occurring, there will be a dim -- a thing here saying if you click here you can see new footage of this demonstration you click there in on your computer you see it. a passage about the importance of music. it will say click here and here.

the albany freedom singers lead a freedom workshop saying this little light of mine in 1964. you can click, and you hear. when you do, you will for get and you will understand the peculiar power of that music or a passage saying martin luther king called up lyndon johnson nervous as hell that the whole alliance that they build was going to be undermined by the vietnam war. i described the conversation and then there's and hell happened. you can click command you can hear martin luther king talk to lyndon johnson on the telephone. this is an enhanced -- and enhanced the-book. i have no idea what the market is for it. the publisher hardly knows anything about it because there were kind of assembling it. there's a lot of panic in the book business these days. but i'm glad that they did it. this is novel. it would have probably taken them 100 years to get around to

something as novel as an enhanced e-book. they are doing it. i don't know how we will work. tomorrow in baltimore i am teaching a similar builds around this short book. i have taught it before at other schools, chapel hill, my alma mater last night meeting from baltimore. this time it is different in two respects, built around the shorter books and there will have a similar in front of me and online from all of the country and even outside the country around the world auditing this class and a chance for whether or not we can use the same technology that will create an enhanced e-book and use that technology to invite large numbers of students to take part and send in questions in question each other and get to know each other using the web. there are a lot of newfangled

items going around about how this is presented. i am struggling to catch up with myself. i instructed me how to it to beat and twitter and facebook and all these other things. a lot of things like the enhanced e-book i can't do because i don't have an ipad. i do believe in the possibility of the media. if you're trying to a tell a legitimate story you need to take every resource, every chance you can to make connections. that is the novelty side of what i am presenting here and i'm interested in what you guys think about this, even the notion of repeating some source or using some of the language. states things together. the let me talk a little bit about ms. marin -- misremembering an hour and balanced sense of history, the

urgency that i think it lies in this subject. while i want to do it, take this risk to try to make another connection with you. we have inauguration this week. barack obama. january 19, 2013. this very month is full of epic anniversaries regarding race in american history. a separate 150 years ago says the emancipation proclamation. by lincoln which is now popularized in the story of the 13th amendment, just to january's later in 1865. nominated for the academy award for giving a sense of that history. more pertinent, 150 years, 2013,

to get a sense of how tricky this history has been, i want you to think about the 50-year anniversary. fifty years ago this january, january 1963i was getting my driver's license. that was a big deal. martin luther king was not resolved to go into birmingham this month. he decided, and he did not tell his father, and he did not tell any of his board members because the new try to stop and. what he said was, after eight years since the decision the forces defending segregation had mobilized vociferously across a segregated states than the forces of freedom, and we are about to lose our window in history, and a final take more risk than i have the way the students have been taking risks because he was unique among civil rights leaders and saying that the students were ahead of him and willing to risk more.

a deeper understanding that they're willing to accept more risk that he was. there was a reluctant -- he was a reluctant witness. he knew because of his stability. if of there were certain things for which words alone were not powerful enough to change human beings. you have to amplify the sacrifice, amplifiers with witness the end these and students are pioneers in history and politics. in january 63 he set for the first time, i am going to risk my life and designed this with who this plan to go into birmingham that later had such a big impact on me. he designed is to work on it. january, february, march, started the demonstration in april, wrote the letter from birmingham jail. he paid attention to it. the letter now published anywhere in the united states.

it had no effect. he was about to withdraw from birmingham in a colossal failure and he was talked into one of the grandest risks in politics ever. they said the retreat until you invite high-school students, a junior high school students, an elementary school students to demonstrate. there were debates about whether he had lost to send the tow loose a campaign like this to create such tension. he was criticized by everybody from president kennedy on down. don't pay any attention. he took the supreme risk and allow children to march, and that's when bill connor unleash the dogs and said, this was a great tipping point psychological for the united states because until that point many people, including myself and a lot of our elders said the race issue is troublesome and

segregation is wrong, but as somebody else's job to do something about it. i might write a petition or in my case, wait until i get older and secure, maybe 30 and do something about it. a turnaround and here these 8 million people marching into fire hoses in birmingham and the bird the emotional distance of most people had. 1963. we're coming up for the next five years on a series of amazing anniversaries from 50 years ago which the history is very bleak. but i hope the march of these anniversaries will to is to somehow bring america's appreciation for the meaning of this history for future, not just passed the law more into alignment with this true of her on hester had. to help me understand why i mean

by this, think about one of the thing from exactly 50 years ago this month, the january 1963. george holmes took office and famously pronounce that he would defend segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. he was speaking for a caste system that was pervasive the only in the laws and the state constitutions of all the seven states that in many institutions and cultural institutions across the country on separation. this was separation strictly by race as with the sluggish and was about. black people could not, to live her house. goethe june trying to go library. in birmingham you could not play checkers with the person with a different race and public. in the freedom watch people went to prison for writing on the bus

seated next to somebody of a different race. segregation was pervasive beyond who we think. but when you stop and think and as far him hers. there were no women a year ago. there were no women at the university of north carolina by state law. the student body was 95 percent male. there were no female students the university of in the race. those professions were closed. the idea of women at west point was beyond the vision of the most visionary person. of course, aware gay had not even been invented. it was criminal behavior in all states, and it was known as the practice that dare not speak its name. beyond that, there were no seat belts and automobiles.

people said the would-be socialism. when you turn the television, many of the shows were sponsored by marlborough and the major cigarette companies a share people being healthy, of course, and sophisticated smoking. that's 1963. fifty years ago on a blank. no women in the clergy with nothing like that. george wallace pledges to defend segregation forever. of this and he fell. when he failed and the dam broke , it broke not just her blood on him but for the disabled, the elderly, women across the span. almost 2000 years of budget is of, and never in history of

female rabbi or fianna can't hurt. but was considered a ridiculous notion. within a few short years of the time of the civil rights movement of peoples are going over people's bones means when the first female rabbi was ordained. the first one was a veteran of the civil-rights movement, the demonstration struggling within herself about what racial separation meant and not in the south. one of sanctions, as dr. king said, the freedom movement set loose the widest liberation in human history far beyond strictly speaking of racial caste system that was deeply imbedded in the southern states.

and it did that, all are around here, this audience, and there was 16 years old, this audience, we've been worried about the ramifications of sitting here with these different people. the klan was in deference and the police were not after us, we would be worried that someone with c.s. year and reported to our father who might lose customers because word like it out. it was always about somebody else, never me. the grand circle of year, and every breath you take is lifted by the fact that the reality is no longer there. those of the things we take for granted. not only about our racial relations, but the fact that we are the sun belt now. the a professional sports teams

in the south of we could not have when we were segregated. my dear mayor said that as in as dr. king of the civil rights bill fast, the city and led to build a sports stadium on land it did not own this money to not have for a team it had not located. it cut the milwaukee brewers to come here and become the first professional sports team in the south. dr. king's of the one the term the rated themselves in segregation because of was the right, the core of the constitution, it would liberate the white south. psychologically, economically, and so many of their ways. the question that i want to pose to you is the same question that drove me to say, the second reason, let's do this, try to

make decillion to to get people to address the question, why is there such a tremendous disconnect between the broad liberation that has been loosed across the land and relatively low cost historically. people suffered, and many more recently. a lot of violence, and a lot of psychic damage. but for the amount of social change produced it was remarkably civilized. it blesses lots of lots of of the people, and yet in our public discourse today we still think of public interchange. have of largely cynical view. the dominant idea of politics in this 50 years has been the government is bad, and mist and directed to the purposes of the civil-rights movement. so if i am right the rear of that anaphase.

number one, george wallace listen and then he said segregation now, segregation tomorrow, so your mission for our film to protect her if pair race or in any other allied system of divided people, some areas are overlooked because, the looking for the other areas with the immigration act which overturned a smooch behalf of exclusions for legal and rare in school people eligible for national honors secession or stricken limited to the missions of northern europe. it was done on racial base.

all of asia and africa or extend as cnn's lyndon johnson of the voting rights three flintridge returners. about the law of the back. have to open up that were. the appeal of the national origins act which was a racial hierarchy the hazard it the% of legal immigration for citizens of three countries, england and ireland and germany. repeal that and a place in a first come first serve system for the whole world. went to the statue of liberty, it was it never again will the twin barriers a prestigious and privilege negate freedom and unconscious of and not quite 50 years, we have communities from all over the world. if you go to and naturalization

ceremony it is one of the most inspiring things university. caribbean communities to assyrian communities, people from all over the world. no one to four to become a citizen. we are not only the pioneer democracy in the world does follow through some of because this is a an idea and mayor fellow citizens of the laboratory, all of us are in this together in the shrinking world end of the long run helicon relate to create communities and in addition communities is a string. no one person and 100 citizens of rights movement understands if it is a third pillar of the civil-rights act of 64 and the voting rights act of 65 to build

the structure that in the long run will be a great, not on the strength to love with a great inspiration. diversity is essential, i have to learn have to belong and who. your unconscious to a lot of these thieves, the consequences send in motion by this movement of struggle for a year's. we have to take more risks. to the june. let's have chicken dinners of the nobel prize for 20 years. he says, no, next week he's back the valley caused, and that

witness, we are all blessed by input unconscious of it. the example of what to do here and have great athlete disconnections george wallace made the speech in 1963 and could not prevent anything. you have a daughter and he won your daughter to have the whole world of printer, your dollar and hopes stand on the hope shoulders of the civil-rights movement. all of this happened, george wallace was a genius in politics and inventing the phrases and a chillingly contemporary come even today. and it no longer was respectable to defend segregation he made it respectable the cusp of the

process and to play to the fears and resentments of the process as it was loose saying bureaucrats were in cahoots with the bias national media to hope liberals, center power in los. the opinion that is familiar to you in contemporary politics her his submit to you with those freezes or invented, one of the great geniuses in modern politics. of the top of the wall of sound on the part of genius, insisting in public that he had never

behalfs into common and has your been reflected poorly on anyone because of race which is part of the formula. willful unconsciousness to the power price in our society makes his blind slowly. unconscious. and rule from london and left. in we to tackle all of those rooms and the 60's and let loose this liberation that benefits everyone and cisneros social, scum of recover since of confidence and commitment stroh

is the essence of the movement perry did not surrender comforts of blood in the shake in the region to somebody across the line and take a chance. in search of something business model and inspiration to his covenant. george wallace's is a novice in. the council and essentially adopted is cynical and blind attitude toward the possibility of democracy. cynicism is an appetite among them a judge. democracy requires measured judgment and informed citizens or willing to take responsibility. cynicism creance consumers who complain and have very little expectations and a very loose sense of citizenship.

in that sense i think we're out of faith with what ought to be a great optimistic since. we have lot of serious problems. in the economy and has been stripped of its industrial base and facing international competition. the environmental problems. all these, where is our sense of confidence had weakened secco this together in the history of this and the bonds of it. across the lines of the-which is the essence of patriotism. that's what democracy is. in this instance, that is of more and live the king and the movement were doing, confronting systems that the nine people and natural strengths that benefit everyone and subjugate people and figuring airways of reproductive to set in motion these freedoms of strength and everyone and increase the economy and the ties that bind

and their comfort to sit here tonight. and we need to do it again. in order to do have a half to a better sense of history because our history is not just among our people fought -- sat on buses and a quake with distant era. it's a better future and what tools are going to use and what memories are going to use in risk we're willing to take to build things to what to build strength across lines that divide us. it's not new that we in this rumor history or race relations. i think the version the issue and doing it on the left and the right, and if your interest and live a different contributions of mention george wallace. i can also, the people in the civil rights movement and turned against a lot of the example. number one, not violence which

became unpopular only people in the civil rights movement. the most powerful idea that the first one that was abandoned. there are a lot of religions. the left turned against religion . it will pass the movement inspiration in the dr. king magnificent formula of equal votes, 1 foot in the scripture, 1 foot in the constitution. the next thing you know, returning against the spiritual base of democracy. we must remember the civil war with the century. that was grilling of manila. my textbooks of the civil war had nothing to do with slavery. to this the their textbooks in history have referred to the political movements that overthrew the lincoln government after the civil war and restored boys of permissiveness of and

pair of the way for server edition. the text which refer to the move and as the redeemer. the retainers faugh terrorism as much as the terrorism the play is a world where so attuned to when it is not. grace has the power of turning your whole sense of perception of side down. the odds of internal politics of saddam. one of the chapters, but to together by 1964. yet the democratic convention and republican convention. the republicans with a party of lincoln being sent francisco. the normally had over 20 percent of their seventh, not quite 20%

african-american. the black and tennant public. 1964, they have virtually all of them. the only had 13 doing it. the,. barry goldwater man with two lawyers and announce that he is going to vote against this of or insect 1964 and enough for settlements reasons. instantly the first seven republicans, the grimness of i didn't in knowing the republicans. there are yankees. as scarce as full of errors except for it centered chechens. we had solid stuff the aircraft, in the next day, not one single member of the house of representatives from the republican party from taxes or really from the mexico except for george bush over to the

identification, not one menace in you that this offering of the incrementally to dominate a brand new seven republican party to dominate the national republican party : alliance of the language that george wallace had invented. the same year lyndon johnson met in edmonton city been in chapter i had hear him with commend it's amazing. i've written it in detail. he had a nervous breakdown is is trying have to delegates from mississippi the feed of the regular way democrats who were publicly pledged to vote for dole khnum woman keep. there were plans to vote.

then misses said her and democrats the in, they're locked up behind him in care of esfahan well. move the film than johnson told him, if he even let those two symbolic seat some little cellphone will walk out of this convention because it will turn the party over to the numerous and that martin luther king decide it can be a democrat when one team. jensen had a break them in. i can't handle this. and trying to turn the democratic party slowly toward a part that will represent. he said, you and i cannot survive in a modern light. uni canada survive in a modern political life being a hoax for

breakfast team. we have to let them vote, shave. he thought he was going to quit. race with and the public acknowledgement turned the partisans structure of the united states of side down and once our wheat, it is still an like. and i and say him area of i her studying this movement of this time against because of.

fredericton elastomer and with cal to brockovich, magnificent people, we have changed and, more blessings. of black men in the white house, the exhibition's and public culture of barack above but in various avoid people is still largely been there to his bed. the defense has said his chief of is the choice and a luxury it deal with race and interests including barack obama can talk about race because if he does the people who voted for him or find some reason the city is emphasizing it too much. the array some been a it can pay enormous dividends in the future when. it's vital when we get our

history and law and of what happens so we can restore our confidence and the capacity for government to move for hidden them. and the science going to be easy hamel of the have five years of anniversaries and of great blessings for the whole world more or enough sharing in this democracy. if we understand, and it is a vital task demand begins with a recess in him. the great thing about the civil-rights movement is it assures that the promise of democracy comes representative when the staff of their respond, and sometimes there will inspire

you, but in the both of those things coming together. in order to do that you have to have a sense of history and a and helping him to assure one does to conventions and him and his well. that the stock one. as to assure a. they're plenty of questions because and trying to lay of something in a broad scale of but a novel experiment people pop pop faugh one -- is an unconscious trapped men. patterson's in the corners of of of of of people believe will

protect the freedom is shut down in there closet and n and that the ties that bind us together and then. and it's not true minister hadn't. could beecher and is important to be vigilant, but is also important andy : laura hart movement to search for softeners to happen after promise her history hidden with both have-some of us in the have a proven record of being unconscious to many of the things enormousness byron. i count myself privileged to los penman life working on it went. and going to stop there and take questions. [applause] net nine of oppressive serious

in the year and respect him and luminaria as of fall-as we head of 1 million, majority minority nation interior of a country with no a different people from different ethnic groups in. you have an african-american president and and the president and have given very good speech yesterday bavaria interested with the future manhattan had to unsung this area and seven brothers and sisters. the and regeneration in your tarrying premises a world have grown an opinion. what lessons each of these teachers to my c-span2 to transform that they can take of

russia's good american citizens. >> will, that's a very good question whether less disharmony different kinds of leaders didn't. nasa said the only openly confessed in latin won three of my 18 chapters are about ramoses' in latin. he in turn is a model who and dr. king and his latin panama standing in. i want to bother you not put a willing to go to the courthouse and then the. of different kinds of and latin

will on its face him people today need to in heaven with people their agent relief is in serious in 1967. the race issue so great and what a the most adults supported had opposed an one hadn't been here talk and, most of them. these kids really years. the effective begin have consent for written with. never know whom maria testing the of the first chapter and been for the us but, often

trying to figure. and begin with his first speech will all learn and some of these nurses minions committee because it and expect it to do anything hidden barry and the rest of the and you can hear his penchant it, don't wait around make a conviction to an audience doesn't the ft cahuenga some of

one behavior commute hidden arrows that made him a written with reverence of persons, and it is a movement in this sense of remove and starts a man. high heaven the lesson is him millions of and some very complex things that will enjoy a strong whom an internal conflict hidden one in history who wishes and of scans him one hidden hive

cinerama risk and hidden that he look for the course of history in but who flintridge him and turned him from a harness cold war politician what it was racism movement picked the some he go and plant the sharecroppers select has said hutton hands are, what area he and h'm. the transformation in, when a chief palin has been impressive. as her as soon. as the premise of the movement which could things haven't hidden in the some of them this

marine of alabama. when george wallace was making those percolations and 63-gun in mobile, alabama, a spring hill college had been desegregated hands since 1954 in new. the change in my home and from the class of 1954 when barry and non telling mansion, will lead to a bidder for the first time i had to pay a poll tax some hamas lost the race he of the years, and and repair of whom the think my change came billionaire course it was a catholic church as a school who.

innocent, if applied in a freshening going to school. was more involved in-: doran to hear him remember every african-american who was in my class, and they were not many, this vienna's best. there are handpicked koreans school does groom does online chains are and who. and mom rare picture of george rommel's from the front cover of the new yorker magazine with the stench of the he had my womb.

>> this. >> to appreciate your word. and said to here has to be condensed. of the interior stops. vincent harding wrote a book while back. of like to hear your thoughts. they're now a full page ads in on the paper, the corporations and such, wondering how much he has been sanitized and how much many german beer. the interesting in hearing what you think you would think of was of this plan and rare moment in the musicals her. >> every account figure in american history is sentenced to some degree. george washington, in lincoln. it's the monochrome when the danger is my mom and

unconsciousness and tyson and make him more comfortable with them. and have lots and lots of people there during home said i can prove the we shouldn't even be talking beer race images carried her and number. across the boundaries so that he could see character low willing to go into the southern baptist seminary where they voted not to hear his speech and talk to people who lewiston to try to have the message out and get to their character crosslines. if you make his efforts and your talk about character here understand the meaning of price. to somehow been amelie about

character or don't need to be talking and race is part of george wallace in a, politics of have-to do with race. but it dangers. he will convince sense of whether doing it. and then return to speak for him, consider him soon have a long way to go and many to consultant deepest i use. he also said, what is democracy but a system of bumps in heck of a of is a little piece of nonviolence the shows will settle things the pet rock announcement or agreement of america. people who cannot stand george bush number, and respect and

affection alone to go forward. people don't to help, and that's why so much in the room is still in plans. 210

>> the history of segregation was a catastrophe for black people, but the rest of the world was unconscious that was the price we paid for not remembering that history. if we don't regrow our sense of competence and faith in one another, we're going to have a number of problems of social di sin gracious, how to adopt economically in a globally interdependent world that could cause social dislocations in the united states, so i hope -- that's the great thing about it. look, that's one reason we have to be grateful to dr. king and not see him a heard for black folks, but fairness and dealing with the most troublesome problems we have by that method. if we do that, we have a chance to address these problems before

they become acute, before they become -- we have charitable, social dislocation, so, yes, i think these are very serious issues. i think the health of the democracy and the capacity of people, it's no joke that we sit around and say that we're totally dysfunctional, and what i'm hoping is some of that comes out of the culture, and if we're all in a sense of cynicism about politics and don't see that politics starts with you and me, and what we're going to do and who we're going to talk to tomorrow and how far we're going to reach to try to figure out how to address any one of those serious problems that threaten the country, that we can risk that sort of social dislocation, that could be catastrophic. i don't care whether you talk about the environment, the economy, education, health, our prison system, our justice system, and on and on.

we have a large number -- the energy -- non-governmental organizations, the public interest movement is wide and diverse that didn't exist very much 50 years ago. what it doesn't have is a cohesive sense that working on related problems that ought to create a sense of movement and some sort of sense that we're indebted to the history, if our history were more accurate so, you know, i think that history is about the future, and that the future is -- if the future is dangerous, then it will be less dangerous and more hopeful the better sense we have of our history, but, you know, i'm a his historian. you can expect me to say that. i'm trying to put it in a different way. yes, ma'am? >> i also want to thank you for the wonderful work you're doing. i have grandchildren i want to

share it with. my question is about another age group. as i look around this room i see a number of white males of a certain age who lived through much of the times that you're talking about at some level or another. i'm curious to know what is the response to your work from these men? >> from white male? >> white male primarily or whites of that generation. >> oh, i think the ones who read it and the ones who come talk to me, it's pretty darn good. [laughter] i don't know how big a sample that is of the larger population. [laughter] to some degree, i'm preaching to the choir, but i will say that some of my personally -- i mean, doing this work puts me largely in the black community for the

research so the time that i interact with white people the most about it is when the books are out, and i will say that -- i mean, not exclusively because this is a cross cultural history, and i don't, you know, i had to interview as many people in lyndon johnson's administration as i interviewed around martin luther king, but when the booings come out, and i try to talk to people, anybody who's read it, some of my most inspirational responses have. from older white men, more from -- i mean, women are better, quite frankly -- [laughter] , and -- [applause] when you get something from a white man, for that reason, all the more. it's really quite something. i mean, the movement was basically run by women as long as there was not a microphone,

and that's just a truism of history, and to some degree, it's still true. i don't know how that survives the digital age when men can do a lot of stuff with their computer, and they don't have to go out and set the table. yes, sir? >> you're about to hear something from a white man. >> yes? [laughter] >> ma'am, before you leave -- [laughter] before you leave, please, come down here. [laughter] i would like to answer your question because i was a young man in my 30s during the civil rights movement, and one of the most shameful things that i feel is that i kept my mouth shut. i think i'm not unique in this

group. there was an intellectual debate that went on discussing america and the issue of property rights versus civil rights. it was a heated debate within our -- among my friends, but i wanted you to know that i'm ashamed. [applause] >> thank you, sir, thank you. >> two questions rolled into one. thanks for your talk today. it's opened my mind in a number of ways as a teacher and a

historian. on the one hand, you talk about the unconsciousness -- i love that and the mismemory -- and it begs the idea of dubois when he talks about race as the major challenge of the 20th century, and so i'd like for you to kind of reflect on what your theme has been today and dubois and the whole idea of race in the 21st century, and then my second question has to do more with your book, the 18 chapters, how do you get to that? did you say, i'm going to do 18, or did you eventually just come out to be 18 because you refer to that, and i see it's in the book. >> to answer the second part first, no, i didn't have 18 in mind. i wanted to pick out and i wanted to pick out the ones that i thought were essential to community --

communicate the sweep of it, not all the particulars, and, please, somebody said -- you know, i'm sorry you had to distill or abbreviate or make it compact, but the other books are not going anywhere. [laughter] they are still there. i'm hoping that at least some small portion of the people introduced to the subject want to know more about it and go, not just to my books, but there's lots and lots of books, and ones that are cited. it's a whole universe, largely uncovered by hollywood, by the way, part of that because hollywood, and i know this from 25 bitter years trying to get these stories made into film. they want to show -- they are afraid of showing anything that will make viewers doubt that they are on the right side, and, therefore, they can't show the people in the movement themselves in conflict, and

that's what is real, and so they don't do it. these things are really hard, but i took -- i wound up with 18 simply because that was the stand, and as i said, i was i would say martin luther king, the first chapter's about him and the last chapter's about him being killed, but of the 16 in between, maybe half of them are mostly about king and others are about other people. the freedom ride -- the freedom ride is the only event with two chapters, and i think that it's that significant because the freedom ride -- a movement starts small, starts in somebody's small inspiration growing in scope and definition, but mostly in the identity and how people think of themselves. the freedom ride where young people literally expanding the

scope of a movement from something that was campus based and where everybody thought it was something they did while they were getting their degrees, and by the end, it was people said this is what i do, and i'm involved, and anybody in the united states who went on the freedom rides and came into jail, and i'm willing to go anywhere to work on it, and so in so many respects it expanded. i have two stories about the freedom ride, by and large, thee most overlooked central figure in that period. it came out that the stories turned out to be 18, and when i did it, i felt that i could boil down the gist of it to get people a sense of it, and the number of -- i really had more of a sense of pages. you cannot do this 800 -- you can't do it 400. see if you can do it, you know, under 300, and i am proud of

this. i did it under 2 # 00. [laughter] and -- [applause] i wanted to go the extra mile on the chance that what i'm hoping is to have people say, "wow, we are so out of phase, that ought to make us feel good about what we can do. why is it that we don't and politics are parol liesed and that -- paralyzed and we don't talk about race?" i forgot what you talked about in the beginning? the problem with the 21st century is that it didn't go away, just like my first three books didn't go away, but i don't think it's as central. when he spoke, remember, the world was still colonized. most of the world was colonized

at that time and literally owned by the european nations, and our claim to fame was we didn't want an empyre, but growing into a super power, and we have to pass, and in that sense, it really did make race through colonization, and race, because of segregation in the united states and the legacy of slavery, a global problem. we are still dealing -- there's a lot of truth in the wags who said that the world is still paying in terror and pain and dislocation today for any place in the world that a british or french diplomat drew a line on the map at the end of the 19th century whether it was creating iraq, syria, or all the nations that are africa. we are still paying a price for that. there's a lot of race involved in that, but there's also

globalization and there's religion and economics coming together to complicate it, but race, if you're talking about the divisions that cause people to start thinking like enemies, it's still very much with us. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] >> i want to thank taylor branch for being with us tonight. he'll be signing books in the library. i want to thank the livingston foundation for sponsoring the lecture, and if anyone in california is listening, please send him an ipad. he could really use one. [laughter] thank you very much. [applause] >> for more information, visit the author's website, tie --

taylorbranch.com. >> and this is a copy. i'm ricardo. i'm a cartoonist for the santa fe, and my cartoon is called "without reservations," and a collection of the work just recently was published on august

1st, under the same name, "without reservation." here's a cartoon page, and when i first started, my cartoons were down here when we first started, but because of the popularity, my cartoons jumped up here to the top upper left hand corner. i'm from new mexico. it's one of the 19pueblos here in new mexico, and all the pueblos are centered around rivers here in new mexico. my cartoons depict native humor, and when i first started this cartoon, they were native characters in native situations, and my audience was geared towards natives, but in the last four or five years, i've -- they've become more universal

where they spilled out into the mainstream or dominant culture. it's more universal now. my inspiration came from reading "mad" magazine growing up in the 70s. my friend, david, and i used to exchange economic books, spiderman, hulk, and some of the other marvel economic books, but our favorite one was "mad" magazine, and my favorite was don martin. that's where my inspare ration comes from. i started doodling my own characters, but because i grew up on the reservation and not in mainstream, i -- my cartoons were native looking, and that's why some of my characters have big noses, and some of the tribes up north, like the plains tribe, the natives up there,

they tend to have big nose, and people think that's why i draw big noses, but it's because don martin drew characters with large noses. i followed him in doing that. my inspiration -- i'm inspired by the people that i grew up with, my friends, my family, members of my tribe, and just basically watching people and some of the things they do. it's surprising if you pay attention to what people do and what people say. there's a lot of humor that you can find in that, and this one says, hey, guys, up here. they are talking to the globe furniture delivery people down, and they have to go up through all those systems of ladders to get the couch up there, and people from here, they like this because they know they had these buildings where you have to go way up, you know, to the top, and so this is one of my favorites.

i started doodling, keeping my cartoons basically to myself and showing my kids. i have three kids, and i would show them, get their feedback on it and showed some of my friends, and then one day, i was here in santa fe. i dropped my mother off. she sells jewelry here in santa fe, and she asked for me to wait for her for a couple hours. i had a couple hours, i was walking the streets, and i happened to walk by the news room here, and originally, i walked in looking for a journalism job because i was interested in writing, reporting, and when there was not one, i asked if they needed a cartoonist, and the editor that i was speaking to, she was -- her name was benadette, and she explained to me that they don't have a cartoonist here. they get them from the syndicate, a metal plate from a

syndicate, and they print it from the plate. i asked, well, would you like to look at my cartoons, and she -- i kept asking her that question, and about the fifth time, she lost her patience with me, and she said, look, i told you, that's not how we do it here. you have to go through a syndicate, and so i said, well, could you please just look at my cartoons, and so i happened to have like 11 or 12 drawings with me, and so when she looked at them, she started laughing, and she asked the sports writers and some of the other reporters to come in and pretty soon, that room was -- there was 15 people in that room laughing, and then she said, we have to have this. now they still have that metal plate come in, but where my cartoon appears, the top left hand corner, there's a space there, and they put my cartoon here in the news room, and so

that makes me feel good thinking they go through that many trouble to put my cartoon in there, but that first year, there was so many people writing, appalled, shockedded by the cartoons because of the nature of my cartoons which -- i draw a lot of stuff that have to do with native things, like, treaties and scalping and, you know, whatnot, and people are appal because they thought that i was putting down natives, naturally, they assumed it was a non-native drawing the cartoon, and they would write in all awful letters came in, but i was answering each one of those and explained i'm native, myself, and so they would write back and basically they would say, oh, i'm sorry, i guess it's okay

then. for some reason, it's okay if innative does it, which i thought was always odd, but -- but since then, there's been very few letters like that coming in, and it's been very widely accepted. there's another paper my cartoon appears in, the osage news, specifically for the osage tribe in oklahoma. other than that, my cartoon only appears in the santa fe new mexican. i tried to go through united syndicate. i sent them a letter, and along with my cartoons, and i got a pretty cordgill letter back a week later turning me down, saying, we're sorry, we can't accept the cartoons. the country's not ready for this. i sent an e-mail back to them,

and i said the country's been waiting 5 # 18 years for these cartoons. the response from my tribe was very surprising. at first, i thought -- i thought the worst, that it wouldn't be accepted, but laughed at. it's a cartoon, people have to laugh at cartoons burks -- cartoons, but i met laughed at and put down by members of the tribe, but it's been the opposite. they accepted it, and they walk up to me, and they actually give me ideas of cartoons to draw, and i walked through the village, and people walk up to me, hey, i have an idea for you, draw this. my tribe is known for its pottery making and jewelry making, and up until seven years ago, you wouldn't have thought a cartoonist came from a conservative tribe such as ours.

people think we are stoic, but native humor is a big part of our lives, and so this cartoon has put us back on the map. a lot of americans have got the perspective of bill waterson, jim davis, and other cartoonists who happen to be from the mainstream, and not a whole lot of people have seen or heard the views of innative such as myself, and i think in a way this cartoon is very important because it's -- we don't have a lot of voices. in fact, if you watch some of the old movies about natives, we have non-natives playing indians, and so we don't have a lot of voices, and so this

cartoon is one of the few voices we have. i hope my cartoon is able to be read with, figure, that it's funny, and at the same time, i just want people to know we are still here, and that we, although we have suffered a great deal, but i'm hoping that people realize that a lot of the wrongs that were done to natives are still -- it's still out there, and i just want to be able to put some of those issues back on the table and just to remind people that this land came at a price, and that it's not taken for granted, you know,

and but as a people, tame, as a people, we should move on, and i think humor is a way to do that. people who read my cartoons for the first time, i hope they take with them an appreciation of the native culture and the native way of life, even though they may not agree with some of the cartoons or my views, i hope they appreciate it because it is coming from a real person that has grown up on the reservation and has seen the dominant culture and lived with the dominant culture, and so some of the stuff that i learned from that, i put back in my cartoons, in this book, and so i hope they can appreciate that. i like it when i draw cartoons where the native world and the dominant culture, where they clash. in fact, the chief, he remits the tribe or the native people, and it can be any tribe, whereas

the general who happens to look like customer, but i don't give him the name custer because that limits me how i use him so sometimes he's referred to as custer, but his name is the general, and what a lot of people realize now after reading my cartoons for so many years that the general actually represents the dominant culture, and so when the chief and general are talking, it's the two cultures that are clashing, and just to give you an example, this one and this book where the general and the chief signed a treaty or signing it, and the chief has just knocked over a bottle of ink and says, whoops, i'm sorry, was this treaty important? i like it when the two cultures clash because then it's a way -- it's my way of how i see the

world when our cultures clash, and sometimes the chief or innative, sometimes we fall short in understanding what's happening in the dominant cull cheer, and, likewise, the dominant culture, they don't always understand where we are coming from, and so i -- i'm hoping my cartoons diminishes some of that, some of those doubts. every once in awhile, it's actually relating as well, and so if you could -- i often thought about this, and it's -- this cartoon book is kind of like my history book. if i wrote a history book, this is what the history book would look like, so a lot of the history books are written by people from the dominant culture, and so if innative were to write a history book, this would be it.

>> for more information on booktv's recent visit to santa fee new mexico and the many other cities visited by the local content vehicles, go to cspan.org/localcontent. here's a look at books being published this week.