>> so i hope this is just sort of the beginning. >> [inaudible] >> very good. >> [inaudible]

>> so this is for the second half of this book. so half of the book is basically takes place outside of montgomery, and that required a number of things. i did dozens of interviews, and a lot of those interviews were people in detroit. as you allude to, i think, there are amazing number of interviews with rosa parks. a lot of them are done in detroit and they're sitting there in john conyers office, and do they ask for what do you think about the war in vietnam, mrs. parks? now they do not. to they say, what do you think the congressman should be doing? know the do not. so in many parts this was harder to find. a couple things though.

the first is the black press and the digitization of the black press that happened in the past decade was an extraordinary research for my research because it meant i could look at like decades worth of many, many different black newspapers. it has one of the things, even the people didn't continue after a lot about her political opinions about things outside of montgomery, they did notice when she would go, so this come in some sense, was kind of the place that started in terms of trying to figure out how to tell the post montgomery booked. i talked to a lot of her friends and political colleagues in detroit and nationally to try to get, and to get sorted much more texture to this kind of what she's doing in the '60s and '70s and '80s. i can study some of the kind of, some of my favorite stories. one of my favorite stories.

people know the lawyer come he was in the rna. is now -- he was a lawyer for the -- do you member that case last year, sort of, there were two women who would basically service long prison sentences for these tiny, tiny drug charges? so the sort of older man, lawyer on their case, he tells me to really interesting stories. the first is, so, the republic of new africa is started in detroit and it is a group started on the current issue of reparation. and part of that group then breaks off and comes down to mississippi to set up the black nation. needless to say the fbi doesn't like this. and so they are surveilled and they are told kind of, rate of the rna farm and there's a

shooting, i mean a shootout between the police and the rna, and 11 members are arrested and they are paraded through jackson half naked. and one of the neighbors called back to detroit insist this is happening. one of the members of the are in a, so the lawyer been called conyers office to tell them what's happening and to try to get conyers office to intercede in a try to protect so these people don't just get killed. because there in a shootout, and officer or to have been shot. and its rosa parks tickets on the phone and basically calls and calls and calls the department of justice into she gets an assurance and that kind of like weird way it's like no, they are not being hurt but nobody will get hurt. they very much attribute her kind of quickness and her getting on the phone to the department of justice of saving their lives. and the lawyer is heading the

rna at the point says -- he is in prison for the next five years on conspiracy charges and she just repeatedly calls and she says hello, this is rosa parks calling, and just to show them that she was watching. so to me that speaks, both are from this and her disability -- her ability to kind of do things. she attended -- so he ran a bookstore in detroit and he talks about, like she would participate. they're all of his current discussion groups, african the groups that came out of the bookstore and she would attend many of their, you know, forums. he was saying to me, he was like i which is good things and i was like dang, that's rose again,

and she would just be everywhere, he would say. and he was undaunted and not worry what people were going to thank if she showed up to listen to some radical speaker, that she went where she wanted to go. then one of the people who work with her in conyers office said in these years she drove a huge car, apparently. ever huge white some sort of american power. mrs. parks was pretty small so she was just writing a big car around at night to all these events come and the kind of image and juxtaposition of sort of like, that she was just going in her big car, so, well, let me stop there. there's lots of the others. again, there are many stories in the book in part to these interviews and in part and i was able to do things like find something in, you know, a little mention of something but then that would often be enough to trigger people's memories, or vice versa. so for instance, how it found

out about the county stuff. i did an interview with dorothy, and chipset within down to the lounge and i look and one of the big mass meetings like a deer -- a year into the campaign that is listed that she kind of gives the opening. so then it makes sense when carmichael comes to detroit a number of months later, right there in the michigan chronicle which was the black newspaper, it's a she's sitting in the front row, he calls out to her. so it helped me peace of these little strands together. so a lot of what i did was just trying to sell these little threads into kind of a bigger tapestry. but again, i think, i hope i started it and i hope other people are going to go even farther than i could. >> [inaudible]

>> i mean, i think we think we know her. and, you know, we think, and because we think we know where, so for instance, there's this new, incredibly kind of vibrant scholarship over the past 15 years. all of these young scholars doing all this great work. but i think, at first i think sometimes with parks you just assume it's been done, and you assume that, i think i assume this, too, that somebody else had done it or that we sort of knew what she was and so we need to look at other stories, we need to unearth other activists.

i mean, i think it a little bit speaks to what i can try to talk little bit at the beginning, which is the kind of paradox of sort of the way she is honored but trapped but she is honored but in just a very small way. it's kind of this, she's kind of relegated to being a symbol. so symbols don't have to have like a whole history. and i think that's related to her being a woman. i mean, i think there's a gendered aspect of this, too. both in terms of how we imagine what her story is or was not and the kind of questions we ask. suggested to another funny story. as i'm on the trail, i call a historian, this is one of his specialties and i'm trying to get him -- he said she did something, we would know about the unlike i know she went to

lounge. i have the documents. and try to get this to a bigger story. i think there's this sort of cents that because she's so famous she did these other things we would now. what i think might be the opposite. but because she's so famous for this moment, it obscures the other things and the broader history of the prior coalition that she is working and. >> [inaudible] >> no, this is awesome. >> [inaudible] [inaudible]

>> [inaudible] >> [inaudible] >> right, right, right. i think what people did in terms of her passing on the ground,

and the kind of, right, those people standing in line, those people standing outside during her funeral. i think many people across the country did memorials for her. and in the book i'm trying to draw a distinction between what i think a national interest of her funeral versus kind of the way people -- i think we will see this on monday, right, with the centennial, right? i think there are many people who aren't going to be sort of making real meaning and talking about the substantive legacy, right? i think the other way to sending it is going to be used on monday is to sort of again, put the movement in the past, you know, in some sense it's a very kind of feel good about ourselves come look at where we are, we are honoring rosa parks. and i think that, that's what i think the kind of, the danger lies. and i think this is not just about parks.

that our uses of the civil rights movement in the way that's very narrow, and she was a disappointed. she fought really hard for the king holiday and then she sees the holiday turn into this is the dreamy thing that it now is. and the substance of the activist she knew, right, starts to get lost in the holiday. and i think, i imagine she might have that same critique in terms of sort of some of the ways she is honored, the substance of her at in terms of the labor stuff, i'll tell another story. during the boycott local 600 wants to bring rosa parks to detroit, to speak to the local. local 600 is a real kind of militant local and uaw. it had been purged of its communist and it was very much seem like walter as a troublemaking local. and so walter actually opposes

local 600 wanting to bring rosa parks to detroit, but they raised the money and the bringer anyway, kind of, his objections. seven years later, right, the march on washington and he seems like this sort of real civil rights stalwart but he wasn't always there. so they bring her and to bring it to detroit, and most of the hotels in detroit are not open to black people, so they put her up in the garfield hotel, and she makes a number of very important connections at that meeting that and she's going to draw on, both personally and also politically, when they get back your not move back, move there. such as a long-standing relationship with the black labor. and interestingly, it is, the

detroit naacp is a very big but in some sense in those years it was a very middle-class am not very activist branch. again, there's a little naacp chapter in river racer, and river rouge is kind of a bedroom community of detroit but it's also full of autoworkers. it's full of global 600 autoworkers in particular. and it is a little naacp group that actually gets the national naacp to help rosa parks. it is those sort of militants, and that little chapter, super interesting, they sort of cut a very different path. they a doing all sorts of boycotts of the banks because they're not hiring blacks, people. and then they actually after the assassination they pass the revolution calling on the national naacp to come out

against his assassination. the naacp doesn't go for that too much. so it's this little river rouge chapter that kind makes the national naacp, after this article runs in jet that i was talking about, it's this river racer chapter that gets the naacp to kind of help her, right? and to sort stepping. so she sort of, she has a long history with kind of labor, and in detroit, and labor i think really also was like a huge kind of protector and supporter of her, particularly in those years, which i think were very hard years for her family again, i'm talking about 59, 60, 61, those years.

>> [inaudible] >> great. i would love it. >> [inaudible] >> [inaudible]

>> [inaudible] >> [inaudible] >> he told me this funny story, so if some point in the midst of this she wants to have a wage reduction salary. she was feeling guilty i think that she was traveling so much and doing so much public appearances and worried that he's going to feel like she was, yeah, kind of taking advantage or not sort of living up to the responsibilities. so he told me he was like of course i want you doing those things and i'm not, i think to

him it was so horrifying that was rosa parks thing would you reduce my salary, doing all these public appearances. but, yeah. are there other -- >> [inaudible] >> [inaudible]

>> [inaudible] >> [inaudible]

>> yeah, thank you. i mean, i often when i'm teaching, like that moment when she is at high later and she's like, you know, nothing's ever going to happen and people are going to stay unified. because i think that's a few people have today, right? my students often wish, they look back in those years and they say back in the day people were so much more unified, i wish i lived back in that day. you know, black people today are not unified. and your like these are the things that these people you're studying grappled with. it wasn't that, history doesn't present itself like a neon, like history is happening, like please step up. it's scary and it doesn't, and the kind of worried, right, that was her think about the weekend of the first day of the boycott, how worried people were, right? that the worries we have are the words that they had. and so i think also, i think

humanizing the history so that you can see how to make the kind of choice. i think by humanizing it, it also makes it, you can see how people make choices and how you were able to make choices. you know, as the story goes, e.d. nixon calls martin luther king that morning, six in the morning and king says, well, can you call me back? brand-new here, we have a one month old baby, it's six in the morning, right? and you call me back? he doesn't know -- unit that he's just martin luther king, right? and he obviously has, you know, he has a conviction, but it's six in the morning and he has a new baby, right? and then when nixon calls them back, he talks and he wants to do it. nixon jokes around and says good, because i been telling people to come to your church

anyway. but i think this kind of detail i think makes it easier to imagine how we would do ourselves. >> i was fascinated by her communal, remember the ladies or you will be in trouble. i'm paraphrasing obviously but she wants her husband to you can't roll without including what women want and what women have to contribute. i mean, this is 1700s she saying that. >> abigail adams this monday night on c-span's new history series, first lady's influence in image, called mrs. president by her detractors. she was outspoken on her views

it as one of the most prolific writers of any first lady, she provide a unique window into colonial america. and join in conversation live monday night at nine eastern on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> if you want to convert people he got to first of all persuade them that their sole is in dire danger. headed for the ultimate bonfire on the other side of existence. and for that you need to label them fall worse of the devil, diabolical human beings. looks among the deities, a very complex religion, very elaborate, very well structured. look among the deities and they found issue, a deity called

issue. now, who is issued? often referred to as issue, eminent. why do they call him that? issue is an unpredictable spirit. issue exists to teach humanity. there's always more than one side to an issue. more than one face to any reality. to teach you the where of appearances, the best laid plans of mice and men, et cetera, issue is the embodiment of the less embedded in such things. be dogmatic about any issue. like a good teacher or a good

king, symbolic for adults, popular wisdom. and his places are the crossroads, which is the place where people get confused, which would you take at the crossroads? iissue is so initiative he is nt allowed in the house. issue in the house is too temperamental. and before you do anything in your region, before you worship any other deities, you make sure you set aside emotion or issue. issue is really the messenger of the deities. can deliver the message straight, he is always truthful, but he may deliver it in a way without lying. that makes you misinterpret the message but that's because he

has a lesser part. so when the missionaries came and looked among the other deities, the god of lightning, the god of rivers, the god of purity, the god of war, the god of the moist almond, et cetera, et cetera, it's at issue. that's the answer. and so issue became to christians, the devil, satan. translation of the bible, which time fear of the devil, satan, is issue. but issue is anything but evil if that is the truth. on the contrary, you will find symbol of issue in the definition.

all the wisdom is bound up in the university power your so issue is anything but the devil. but today, it's very painful to find one's own countrymen and women referring to issue as the devil. by contrast, look at what happened to issue when he moved with his slaves to latin america. having arrived with the knowledge that issue was feared by the christian missionaries, the slaves adopted issue as their patron deity, just to scare the christians who wanted them to convert.

issue became the paramount symbol of resistance in latin america come in the americas. in fact, it went be on the. in certain parts of brazil, for instance, you find that issue has even been elevated to the supreme deity, simply because that was a symbol that was there, their protagonists for freedom. so you find the transposition of deities across the atlantic. became not only the symbol of resistance in the new world, but the supreme deity in certain parts. on the contrary if you go to the heartland in brazil and go to a shrine, the hierarchy is quite plain. but in certain other parts, issue became the supreme deity.

now, consider today, now this is the history of missionaries in africa, and this goes back a couple of centuries. now, imagine that today, to be a follower of that religion is virtually to yearn the death sentence in certain parts. christians also yearn the death sentence in certain parts of nigeria, and, of course, some christians in kind set up on others and reprisal. but the label of intolerance based on ignorance is reached such a peak that european papers, anytime today in nigeria, find out a church has