our doors. >> host: what is your responsibility as a professor to make that happen? >> guest: my job is to challenge them and that is something people are not always quite ready for when they get here. we are not simply here to hold their hand. we want a friendly environment for them. this is the kind of place we want them to feel it's open to consider new ideas but my job is to take them and give them some of those new ideas but challenge them to think in new ways they haven't before. >> host: can you predict who would be successful and who wouldn't? >> guest: at first, no because most of the students that we get are going to be successful so that's the good news but the first meeting, know it's impossible to determine who will be successful than others. >> host: what are the downfalls? >> guest: there are lots and lots of distractions here or at

any other universities that is currently the biggest downfall which isn't paying attention to what they need to do. so not going to class, not getting assignments done, that is the most important thing in terms of making sure they have the best opportunity to succeed. >> host: what is the most common question students ask? >> guest: what's going to be on the test and that isn't the right question to be asking. what they ought to be doing is in class on a regular basis engaging in the material. if it's part of this dialogue that we are having, they will know what is on the test and they will be part of that learning experience. >> host: has personal technology changed how you teach? >> guest: it's changed for the better and a little bit for the worst. we now have to compete with all these other sorts of calls on

students' attention. they come to class and they have their salles phone with them there are lots of others things they can do what they are not excited what's going on in class and we need to compete with that but at the same time we can use technologies to bring the outside world into the classroom. we have a giant video monitors now that we can make some of these things come alive and give them an opportunity to test what we are talking about in the classroom on these theoretical issues with what is really happening out there in the real world. >> host: is it important to give students letter grades? >> guest: for them or others? i don't know that there really is that important. i don't find it to be as useful as others might that students want them and they want them because that is what they are used to. they've been competing for that and that's what the lawyers want. frankly i think we could get a

lot more out of me writing evaluations about them in the way that talks about the strength and weaknesses, what they brought to the table, more like a letter of recommendation than a letter parade. >> host: do you find a difference between students to take out student loans or have their parents before it? >> guest: i find a difference in those that work and those that do not. the students working, this is their money. the students the takeout alone it's eventually going to be their money back to them it's somewhere in the future. those that are working are putting in the equity right now to get the education and i think that they are generally more serious student and demand more from all of us in the classroom. >> host: in our look how to succeed in college, you have a chapter, sub chapter the liberal ivory tower.

can a conservative student -- can a student who is conservative be successful, out of harvard, an american? >> guest: absolutely. let's go back and take that turn in the book to dispel the myth. these are not a bastion of liberalism that are unfriendly to conservatives. what we are s after if i'm doing my job right any student who comes in here is going to have his preexisting who views challenged whether they are liberal or conservative those kids are going to be challenged to think about what they really believe in, taken the information that we are leaving and leave with their own view in the world. if i am doing my job right that is what is happening to it and that ought to be both exciting and probably to some extent little frightening to students, no matter what their political selective is because ultimately we want them to be critical consumers of information and i don't know what they end up believing. >> host: but you do say that

college professors tend to be more liberal than society's injustice. >> host: that isn't so much being a college professor. some of that is about generally people but have more education, ph.d. tend to be more than others. there is also something about -- most of us have decided that money is probably not the most important thing for us because we would be out doing all sorts of other things. that said, whenever our perspectives are, whenever our ideologies are you will find conservative republicans in the institution as well as liberals. if we are doing our jobs right or students don't know our ideologies and also says in the book the best compliment i got from a student as the one that has no idea what my idea what she was until she can to babysit one night and saw my wife's bumper sticker on her car because what you for the good

professor does is take his or herself out of that conversation with a student. it's not about us. it's about them. and again, our job is to challenge them to be critical consumers of information. >> host: does college professor tenure -- >> host: i think that helps the faculty to be successful and if we are successful, they will be more successful. this bares the question what does a ten year debt. it's what we think is a important without someone looking over our shoulders to say that is an unpopular idea. if we are worried about on the popular ideas, then we wouldn't be today, understanding gravity. that is what the tenured gets us and it gets us faculty who are able to do a full inquiry, grow

the knowledge, the signs, and then students benefit from that now only because we are able to in part that and in those research projects. i think if i am a critical consumer of higher education if i really want my money's worth of a student, i am in favor of that. >> what do you teach in law school? >> criminal call and also in the college of riss school of public affairs. >> host: what are you teaching? >> guest: society. >> host: what sparked you to say this is why exceed in college. >> host: i'm beginning to see i was seeing the same problems over and over again. things like not understanding how to side material and inadvertently getting themselves into plagiarism. they would come in and see this great new world that is college and take advantage of everything in the classroom. and i regularly immelt my students of henson.

i began to see that i was sending the same females out year after year and i thought it's time to write the book therefore i can say i don't have to keep sending the e-mails. >> host: what is the best thing that parents can do to protect their kids? >> guest: one is the academic side and the best thing students can do to prepare for colleges reading and writing and i know that sounds old school but it's true today as it was when i went to college that's the best thing we can do but the other thing parents can do is get the students ready to live their lives on their own. so we hear so much about the helicopter parents today. the most important thing that kids can do is get their kids ready not to be there. this is as simple as okay, how do you do laundry but it's really much more to a point of well how are you going to get yourself up each day and go to class and do what is required of

you? how are you going to balance a social life and academic life. those are as a friend of mine said those are life skills and those are the things parents ought to have them right thing for. >> host: we have been talking with jon gould how to succeed in college without trying to get thank you for being here. >> guest: thanks. with the help of our local cable company. all weekend long watch tours of the city come here from a local authors and learn about some of the important historical, literary and cultural science in the area. next we bring the story of the set in in 1939 >> 19395 african-americans were arrested at the alexandria city library as they tried to obtain a library card. the attorney general samuel tucker was beyond the set in which resulted in the creation of a separate library for its

black residents. we traveled to the site of the original sin-in and for a place where the black library was built to meet today and african-american history uneasy come to tell the story of samuel tucker and the people that are arrested the day for the act to get a library card. estimate august 31st 5 african-american young men who were not allowed to use the library came in and each politely asked for a library card. they were denied, set down at separate tables and the staff just didn't know what to do with fat to get paid taxes, fall also walls but they are not able to take part in the things of the alexandria citizen was about to take part in. this is part of a program that the young local attorney had been working on for some time. >> he was a native of alexandria? wanting to be a lawyer for two

reasons, one, there was a lawyer you're in town, thomas watson, who rented space from his father, and he became fascinated with what the lawyer did. the letter he took a trip on with his brother to d.c. and they were coming back and ask to move from the seats once the streetcar brought in alexandria by a patient that was there and they refused to that i believe there was tucker's brother all those that refuse to move from his seat and when they got off the street cars the woman filed that and so i sat down a policeman to have the young, old and a rusted and luckily the charge was confirmed out because the boys were really scared the charges would not be thrown out, but the judge felt like they hadn't created in the disturbance and they were not trying to do anything that was illegal but it gave tucker in the sense that being a lawyer gave you the power to make

things right. >> before 1939 he had an african-american sergeant named willson who was the number one veteran. he worked with wilson to come in the library and apply for a card. wilson had been denied on technical grounds. >> the willson case didn't go very far. they were able to drag its feet, and so things were down. what samuel tucker did was to go to the neighborhood, find a large group of young men who were willing to volunteer to basically be arrested. the basel large number initially but 1939 there were five young men who were available and they got dressed up in their best clothes and what time is, everyone perfectly groomed. they came in and they asked for library cards and were denied. tucker had one of the brothers' outside this and as he heard the police for being called he came over with a photographer who

took the one shot that we have of the policemen and the young men coming out of the building. tucker instructed them to be very polite and quiet and was very sedate. he didn't want anybody being arrested for disturbing the peace. >> was interesting because tucker cited the city attorney at the time, the case went to court but they didn't really do anything wrong. they just wanted to read and tucker had another case, and one of the retired army sergeant wilson and that really started the idea. he wanted wilson to be able to get a library card and he tried and was turned down and even though he paid taxes in the city he wasn't allowed to get a library card. so there were two cases going on at the same time. the court case for willson and for the five young men during the senate in.

there is no reason to send the five young men to jail to make them serve any time for what they did or give them any sort of punishment since then said they asked for continuance after continuance during the court case and eventually the charges against the young men were dropped. for the wilson case the main issue was they were saying that when the library, the alexandria library was for the alexandria citizens, wilson's case was that he was a citizen as some of alexandria. wilson didn't make it clear when he went to a library and that he was a citizen, so therefore, that he had a perfect right not to issue a library card to him complete. eventually the case was held in that they were going to issue -- be issued. tucker went back and they issued him a card, but not for the alexandria library. but for the robertson library

that was built for african-american citizens in 1940 came out of the 1939 sin-in that occurred in august of 49 of what was then known as the alexandria free library and they admitted he was a member but tucker thought i was never acceptable. he wanted full access. >> there were feelings about that. they were happy that there was a library and the adults were happy their children would have a place with a supplement what they were learning in school and they also know which was a jim crow library and it was meant to appease it wasn't meant for them to have full access to the information that they needed. tucker, number one, never got it in the robert robertson library to get and in fact i believe there is a letter in the document section of the special collections at the library where

he writes saying that he does not consider this a solution building this library he wants with full access to the alexandria free library for all african-american patrons who are citizens of the alexandria, who pay taxes and have a right to use that facility. they saw him on the street in alexandria they saw a man with his briefcase and suit but he's very determined and he is always heading somewhere and he always wanted to make things right for of the people. he understood the injustice out there and he understood african-americans have so much harder time than the white community. to get a trial to get access to a free trial he was not successful all the time that he tried and fought against them and that is one of the most important things about him. >> michael pope come author shotgun justice when prosecutors go against crime and corruption and alexandria is next on book

tv. he sat down with us in alexandria, virginia, during our recent visit. >> host: >> we are standing in the conference room of the arlington county sheriff. the gun behind me is the famous gun that was used by a prosecutor in the early 20th century by the name of mackie in 1903 as the attorney for alexandria county. he conducted a series of raids where he shot down brothels and saloons and all kinds of dangerous places. he used this shotgun when he conducted them. >> from salt carolina, his father was a very prominent judge and author in south carolina. he moved appear to be a lawyer and then he got involved in the politics of here in the northern virginia area. what is significant about his time period is that he was part of a progressive wing of the democratic party at that time

which was split between a more conservative section and progressive session. there was no republican party to speak of in virginia. the only real politics had to do with which fraction of the democratic party was sort of in charge. so the conservative wing of the party was run by the political machine that was operated by the state senator by the name of thomas stables march 10, known as the martin machine. so he first became interested in politics in the 1800's or the early 1900's he got involved in this group of progressives that were trying to essentially take over the state government. one of his first major campaigns was the gubernatorial election of 1902. he went down to the convention to support the progressive candidate at that time whose name was andrew jackson montague , and he was successful so that launched mackie's career. when he first got elected in

1903, he wanted to go out after the scandaling houses and the saloon and a sunday bars. he wanted to shut them down the the at lot of resistance from the small-town sheriff because he was aligned with the political machine. so he had to move together his own policy of supporters and conduct his own raids without much help from the sheriff. so he sent out letters to all of his political supporters saying what he was about to do is to the grade he was about to conduct and get people interested to find out if they wanted to be a part of the party. he got a good response and some of the elected prosecutor took this shotgun house his totem to all of these places. so the shotgun is interesting because some say that with mackie it's been passed down through various hands. the property of the arlington historical society. but then at some point it was displayed here in the arlington county sheriff's