pumped the water out of the pond's, first date he spawned and cleaned it out and then they decided to cement that pond. the bottom and sides were cemented and they refilled it. once the pond was cleaned out it was never cemented. about 1951 or 1952 they start -- stopped using it to filter the water. they would pump their water underneath into the city to the water plant where they use the chlorination filtration process so they didn't have to settle the water out any longer. ..

i, you know, i would like to talk to more people about the memoir, you know, i always say inevitability -- each time i talk to someone about it. it's the hardest book i have written and never want to write another memoir again. i laugh after i say it. but seriously when i say it -- but even though it was i don't know it -- even though it was very difficult, i still believe in

-- i believe in the book, you know, like, i believe that it tells a story that is worth telling. and, you know, attempting to say something important. so, you know, even though it was very hard for me to, you know, i don't regret it. i just know that i will hopefully won't do it again. so i figured i would read a little bit from the prologue just to situate us, and then i'm going to skip -- thank you. i'm going skip to the last chapter and read some bits from the last chapter. i don't want to confuse you, but in the last chapter, there's some statistics and that this is, you know, this book there

are not many statistics show up. numbers really show up only two time. i'm interested in story telling. i don't want to make you it's this certain kind of book. when it's not. i want to forewarn you there's statistic what i read. it's not what the book is about. so i'll begin. when we left my father in new orleans to go home as we did every sunday i was sad. we were all sad, i think, even my mother trying to make their marriage work despise the distance. she would even, contemplating moving to new orleans, the city she hated. i missed my father. i didn't want to return to school in mississippi on monday morning to walk through the class doors to the classrooms,

the old desks, my classmates perched on back of them wearing collared shirts and khaki shorts. their legs spread and eyeliners blue. i didn't want to avert my eyes so they didn't see me studying them. the entitlement they wore like another piece of clothing. our drive home took us through new orleans east across the bio over the the lake through the billboards and strip mall in to mississippi. we took i-10 past the pine wall finished space center, space st. louis, past diamond head. once there we would have exited the long pitted highway, driven past due point, past the railroad tracks, past the small wooden houses set in small fields and small sandy yards. trees setting the porches. here horses stood stilt in

field. goats chewed fence posts. the towns where all of my family from are not new orleans. it squats the man-made beach of the gulf of mexico alongside long beach. the bay of st. louis at the back while it hugs the back of the bay of st. louis before spreading away. the streets are both towns are sleepy through much of the bareble summer and winter when temperatures hoover near freezing. in delittle during the summer there's sometimes crowds on sundays at the county park because younger people come tout play basketball and music from their cars. in the spring, the older people gather at the local baseball field where negro leagues throughout the south come play. on halloween, children still walk around on back of pickup truck through the neighborhood from house to house. on all saint's day families

gathered around loved ones graves bringing chair to sit in after they have cleaned headstones in plots arranged potted mums, and shared food. they tuck talked to the evening. burned fires, wave the bugs. it's not a murder capital. most of the black families in delittle have lived there as far back as they could remember including mine. and houses many of them themselves. the houses are small shotgun were built in waves. the old nest the '30s by our great grandpas. the negs in the '50s by our grandparents. the next in the '70s and 'owl by our parents. the houses had two to three bedrooms with gravel and dirt driveways and rehab it hutches. poor and workings class but proud. there's no public housing at all in delittle and the project housing that existed before hurricane katrina consisted of

several small, red brick due pluckses and a so subdivision with single-family home which housed some black people, some vietnamese. now seven years after katrina. they build two and three bedroom houses on 15 to 20-foot stilts where the public housing stood. they fill quickly with those displaced from the storm. young adults want to live in their hometown. the hurricane made it possible for several years since it raised most of the housing and decimated what was closest to the bayou. coming home to delittle as an adult has been harder for the reason. a concrete one. and then there are abstract reasons too. from 2002 2000 to 2004 five black young men died violently. the first was my brother, joshua, in october of 2000. the second was ronald in

december of 2002. the third was c.j. in january of 2004. the fourth was in february of 2004. the last was roger, in june of 2004. that's a brutal list and the immediacy and the relentlessness and the list that silences people. it silenced me for a long time. to say this is difficult is understatement. telling the story is the hardest thing i have ever done. my -- and i cannot forget that. i cannot forget that when i'm walking the street of delittle streets that seem even bare since the hurricane streets that seem more empty since the deaths where instead of hearing my friend or brother plague music from their cars at the county park, the only sound i hear is a tortured parrot that one of my cousin owns. a parrot that screams so loudly it sounds in the neighborhood a scream like a wounded child from a cage so small. the tail brushes the bottom of the cage. sometimes when it screams

sounding raiblg and grief, i wonder at my neighborhood silence. i wonder where silence is sound of our sub sooned rage. our accumulated grief. i decide it's not right. that i must give voice to this story. because this is my story, just as it is the story of those lost young men and my family's story as it is my community's story. it is not straightforward. to tell it, i must tell the story of my town and the history of my community. and then i must revisit each of the five young black men who guyed. follow them back ward in time from roger's death to c.j.'s dote ronltd's death to my brother's death. at the same time, i must tell the story for the time. so between those chapters where my friends and brother live and speak and breathe again for a few paltry page, i must write about my family and how i grew up. my hope is learning something about our lives and the lives of

people in our community will mean when i goat heart -- meet in the middle with my brother's death. i'll understand a bit better why this happened. about how the history of racism and economic inequality and lacks public and public responsibility -- hopefully i'll unwhy my brother died while i live and why i've been saddled with the rotten story. i'm skipping forward a bit in prologue to the last chapter. we are here. in my search for words to tell the story, i found more statistics what it means to be black and poor in the south. 38% of mississippi's population is black.

it is one of circumstance states where african-americans institute at least a quarter of the population. in 2009, the poverty rate was greatest in the south and in the south greatest in mississippi where 23.19% of the population lives below the poverty level. in 2001, a report by the united states census bureau indicated that mississippi was the poorest state in the country. in part because there has been little money apportioned for development. the state has immediate household income of $34,473. according to the american human development project, mississippi ranked dead last in the united states on the human development index a comparative measure, life expectancy, literacy, education, and standard of living. about 35% of black ms. begans live below the poverty level compared with the 11% of whites. and about 1 one of every 12 black mississippi men in their 230u is an inmate in the

mississippi prison system. recently, researchers at colombia university scoofl public health found that poverty, lack of education, and poor social support contribute to as many deaths as heart attack, stroke, and lung cancer in the united states. these are the numbers that bear fruit in reality. by the numbers, by all of the official record, here at the con influence of history, racism, poverty, and economic power this is what our lives are worth. nothing. we inherit these things that breed despair, self-hate tried and tragedy multiple. for years i carried the weight with that despair with me. it was heaviest after joshua died when i lived and worked in new york city. sometimes i -- about how easy it would be to take a raiser across the left one and wondered could bleed out

from managing one cut. so i got a tattoo of my brother's signature on the inside of my left wrist so it seemed like my brother had signed me had died. had made his mark. i did it because i knew that i could never make that fatal cut across joshua's flame. and when i fought through the crowds in grand central station a place where i could eat and disappear to the wall behind me. when i walked past women after men felt all the people touching and crowding me while making me realize i had never so lonely and lop. even when i was surrounded by young men in suits, and sticky faced children. i fantasize about cutting the right wrist. so i got another tattoo in my brother's handwriting on the inside of my right wrist. love brother is how he signed one letter he wrote me while i was in college.

love brother is what the tattoo says. after i left new york, i found that thed a damage about time healing all wounds to be false. grief doesn't fade. grief scabs over like my scars and pulls to new painful configurations. it hurts in new ways. we are never free grief. we are never free from the feeling we have failed. we are never free from self--- we are never free from a feeling that something is wrong with us. not with the world that made the mess. but this grief for awful weight insists that my brother matters. what we carry of roger and c.j. and ronald said they matter. i had written only the nugget of my friend's lives, this story is only hint of what my brother's life was worth. more than the 19 years he lived. more than the 13 years he's been dead. it is worth more than i can say.

and there is my data lem ma. all i can do in the end is say:. the summer before joshua died, i never told him no when he asked me a ride. we argued and forgot we argued. each time joshua invited me to come along with him, i felt special that he'd ask. pleased that he wanted to spend time with me. after he died, i wondered if he knew. the last time we road the one i remember most clearly. he wore gene -- jane shorts. i followed him out the front door. it was night and the air was wet and warm. when he got in the car the seats tell damp. when he cranked the car it scratched to life and we rolled down the windows manually. the knobs were slick. immediately his radio sounded. he played sounds on the stereo from me that beat obscenely

because the speakers were so loud. years later i can only remember one of the songs. it was the last. "all i got is you." i got something i want to play for you, joshua said. he turned umm the music, blasted it. this is for all the families. this is for yours, i heard. the trunk rattled. thinking about the past whether he was young he said, the bats -- they were poor he said. arm dill will cent along ditches and froze in the headlight. his father left him at the age of six. the pines wave to the dark. the trees fell away like great waves. sometimes i look up at stars and in the eyes of the sky and ask myself whether i want to here. why? like he could not wait to get out of him. could not bear keeping it inside any longer.

it reminds me of us, josh said. we road away from the house, away from the cluster of houses of our black neighborhood out to the white outskirts of delittle toward the bio and over the bridges. the water shimmering. my brother played the song over and over again. all we had been and sat with us. we road down to the beach along scenic avenue where he would die once later. so he see the gulf stretching out. the sands white. i looked away from josh so he couldn't see the face. i cried thinking about of our mother, our father. i wiped my face and of ashamed. but josh didn't say anything. he drove us away from the beach and back up through the town through the bayou past saint stephen and up to the country

away from the houses, all the lights, so reroad along under the black sky, the stars so cold, so far away. here the dark course and a white horse sat on the side of the road we passed them they were dim and ghostly. hardly there. vines do you over trees and over the power lines, hung down to the street lamp so the leaves and the vines green like christmas lights. the wind pushed our chest with a firm hand to the seat of the car. we road like we could drive far and long enough to outrun our story. what the singer said to the families that went to the struggle. in the end, we could not. i write these words to find joshua. to assert that what has happened happened. in a vain attempt to find meaning. and in the end, i know little from small facts. i love joshua, he was here, he lived.

something vast and large took him. took all of my friends. roger, c.j., and ronltd. once they lived. we try to outpace the things that chase us, that said you're nothing. we tried to ignore it. but sometimes we caught ourselves repeating what history says mumbling along, brainwashed. i'm nothing. we drank too much, smoked too much, were abusive to ourselves to each other. we were bewildered. there's a great darkness bearing down do our lives and no one acknowledges it. thank you. [applause] so -- [laughter] i guess i'll answer some questions. if anyone has questions. [laughter]

>> what were you doing in new york? you said you were working. >> the question was i doing in new york? i -- after i graduated from stanford, i moved home, you know, to and i was trying to find a job. and i had an english, you know, i had a bash alreadies in english. also a master's degree in communications at the time. but i couldn't still find a job. i searched for around six months. while i was there searching and couldn't find a job, that's when my brother died. and so after he died, i actually moved to new york because i knew people who lived there. there were people that i went to school with that lived there. also, had friends who knew people that worked in the publishing industry at random house and they said that

neighbor could get me an interview. by that time -- ithad run a ridiculous amount of credit card debt and was, you know, doing work at the outlet mall. i moved to new york city. after five months of sedge forking a job there, i was able to get a job at random house working as a managing editorial assistant. i worked there for two years, and while i was there, that's when i realized that when i wanted to be doing was writing. and i, you know, that the time i sort of figured, you know, my brother said -- made me christian things. and it made me read the things i worried about beforehand didn't matter. i needed to attempt to do something with my life that would, you know, that would make it worth living for me and then

i asked myself that question. what could that for me? the answer was writing. while i was in new york, i begin to attempt to write more short stories because that's when i hasn't written a lot. and the short stories were really bad. but they were good enough to get me no to university of michigan. and so i went to the university of michigan. i received my msa. [inaudible] [laughter] what about the -- >> it took me seven years to pay off the credit cards. it took forever. it was rough. because then i was living on credit cards when i was in new york city which was five times worse than in mississippi, you know, on credit cards. it took a long time. >> you mentioned something about

delittle -- and with that, you know, you lived elsewhere was it hard to commune candidate where your a place was and how it was different from new orleans to he little? was it ongoing conversation? >> the question is, you know, was it adult for -- difficult for me to communicate to people about what delittle was like versus, you know, new orleans. [inaudible] exactly. most of the time when i say i'm from a small town called delittle. and, you know, when i say that people look at me like i'm crazy. maybe like one person out of 100 will say, oh, i've heard of that town. then it's next to long beach and gulf gulf port. by the time i get to biloxi hopefully they have some idea

where i'm you know what i'm talking about. but a lot of people that, you know, the default is new orleans; right when i say the i get anyone to realize, you know, where deshrill at. i say i'm about 50 miles away from new orleans. and the people will, you know, they'll know. i think that was problematic for me particularly, i guess after -- it came out, you know, because i think that's part of the reason they wrote it. the conversation that was happening that the time after katrina was, you know, basically about new orleans. and no one, i mean, not many were paying attention to the fact that the coast had been decimated. so i sort of, you know, i wanted to see that, you know, -- i wanted to tell the story. i wanted to see that, you know, represented in a book. so, you know, after the book was published, you know, i felt like

i hoped it was part of what the book was doing. telling people about the place and differentiating it from new orleans. i feel like this book, especially, you know, the first chapter after the prologue that it doesn't -- i'm hoping it does a pretty good job, you know, of doing that right again of making, you know, making delittle a real place. and making it so in the imagination of the reader. were you writing short stories in the msa program. did you find it challenging as an african-american woman to complete your program? and find the support you need? let see, i was writing short stories and working on a novel

set in, you know, on the gulf coast in mississippi was set in mississippi. you know, i felt like lelt see. professors at university of michigan were great. i felt it was easier for they are them because that's their job and they're good at what they do. it was easy for them to read my work and figure out you know what i was attempting to accomplish on the page and give me the kind of feedback that helped me get the story there and, you know, helped it accomplish whatever i was, you know, trying to accomplish. my workshop was hit or miss. there were a couple of people in the workshop that got right off the bat. they immediately understood what i was attempting to do and giving me constructive feedback to get it there. some of them, you know, i think the majority of my classmates did not i could tell --

the reason i knew that because of the kind of feedback i was getting in workshop were some of, i mean, it was, you know, their reading of my work was completely confusing and i felt like they were -- they had preconceived idea about what i think -- they thought i should be writing about. because i wasn't i think that maybe that complicated their reading of my work and; therefore, sort of, you know, garbled their response to it. so it was difficult but i was lucky because i -- i at least had, you know, i want to say maybe three good readers of the work. that was enough. i was lucky again because i was able to do -- i got the and -- that was a completely different experience. that, you know, looked fantastic. everyone that has taken the

program and they were just i felt like i didn't no bad reader. they were all great. i think maybe depends on where you are, you know. sometime you get lucky and sometimes, you know, you're not so lucky. it didn't change what i wrote. even though i was getting bad feedback. i was committed to writing about the things wroi about and the people i wrote about. it was fortunate -- important to me. hang in there, i think. [laughter] that's the advice. hang in there. you'll find the readers. sometimes it just takes awhile. in the back. >> i hate to quote you but i love the way you said that you decided saints not right you must give voice to the story. and sort that experience of

bearing witness. and try to articulate the lives that don't get articulate voice because so few people that recollection posed to the life then have the ability to arctic trait from the inside from the way the world works down here. but i guess my question is have you figured out ways to expose those kids? that are living there now to this. i feel like it could literally save, like, save boys' lives. not just boys but i feel like how do we get this book in to the hands of people who need to hear that this is what their life looks like? how do we do that? >> i'm, you know, i'm working on it. i feel, i mean, i'm not as young as i was, you know, like in the event i'm writing about in the book. but i still know a lot of kids

in the neighborhood. i have give a couple of them copy of my book. if they ebbs press interest in reading it i'm like you're going to read it inspect and i badger them about whether or not they have readed. some of them have started it. some are actually like, you know, giving my few copies that i get giving it them to them and passing it along to, you know, their friends i'm hoping they're telling me they're reading it so i'm hoping they are reading it. i've been talking to my sister the past couple of day of speaking at the high school because the school was interested in having me come. especially by doing more events like that, you know, that are local i can reach the kind of kids they need to to reach and

they'll get a chance to see the story and see they're not first ones, you know, that have to go through this and living like this. you're right. hopefully it will do something, change something, make them realize they're not alone. and, you know, as a choice they think they have aren't the only choices they have. i think that's part of the reason that in addition to writing about the area and the people i whereabout. i think that's one of the reasons i'm so committed to make, you know, delittle the -- in mississippi -- because it's important to me by the fact, you know, -- i felt like just because live just living there i feel like it makes a difference. just so they can see that you

can do it. whatever your treatment may be -- it sounds corner -- corny. i feel it's true. whatever you dream it seems like something the world telling you you'll be able to do or you don't see anyone else doing; right. i want to show them it's possible and takes a lot of hard work and luck. if you have a combination of those two it can happen. i'm hoping living there; right and like i said doing more with those kind of events and talking to the kids i know that will make a difference. whether they sort of get it now. but you describe the kids in school with blue eye liner and wearing swiet element-like clothes.

did of them figure out what wild card they had and going school in delittle with someone who could go stanford and michigan and work in new york. it did anyone figure it out. and now that you've 0 come back as a national book award winner? [laughter] >> i think some of them have. i'm thinking of one person in particular. i feel there are a few -- a few of my schoolmates for them, you know, especially in the beginning like when i was applying and getting accepted to a lot of, you know, pretty press pretentious schools who who thought the only reason she's getting in because the affirmative action. there was nothing. i wasn't doing anything. it was just because of, you know, i was black and i was a girl and from the south; therefore that's why i'm getting to the places. so in the beginning there were

people who just, you know, didn't think at all they had, you know, i had any -- kind of -- i think that pretty much everyone now, you know, sort of, you know, they know what i've done. and i'm friends with some of them still. and i've gone the school a couple of times this past summer visiting. it's just an elementary school now. i've gone back and visited. it's a lovely place. just high school is, you know, i think it's hard for everyone and -- kids are so involved that i think some of that, you know, bullying and race-based prejudice, i think that's inevitable just because it's high school. any other questions?

[inaudible] >> you said your brother was 19. i lost my brother when he was 19 through violent crime. he would be 50 now. in my dreams he's 19 forever. i'm wondering the relationship of your art process to the grief and the loss. not so much the end product. but did the process of writing, the process of your art. did that provide some healing or facilitate -- i'm not sure how to ask the question. >> asking how my grief affected the process of writing. and if that process of writing about my grief and my loss, like you said, if it changed me in some way like it healed me in some way.

you know, in the beginning the first sort of five years after my brother died from 2005. it knead so that, like, my grief so made it so it was hard for me to write. i couldn't. it was hard for me to get anything on the page. and then when i began writing all of my fiction in a way i felt like was writing toward my brother and all the the fiction. he was popping up in the different characters. he's like showing his face in the page. and i wasn't aware at the time. but i felt now looking back i feel like that's what was happening. i department begin working on this until around 2010. and i kept saying this. it was very difficult book to

write. part of the reason it was so difficult. one, i had to write about the event. reliving my brother's death and my friends' deaths; right. and then also, you know, growing up. that was difficult. reliving it was difficult until the writing. and i did that in the first draft that i wrote here. it was even more difficult with writing the next draft, the revision; right. because i realize in my editor help me realize i had basically just written a memoir where all i did was write the events. there was no connective tissue there. as a presence, you know, i wasn't apresent in the text. because i wasn't trying to

figure things out. i was making connections for the reader. i wasn't doing any of the emotional work i needed to go. because it was so painful. it took my editor to point it out to me. that i was holding the material at arm's length away from me and not doing the work i needed to do. when i went back to the subsequent draft and going down that work; right. began asking myself why thing happened and asking certain way and writing that in to the book that process, i feel like that broke me every day, you know. but in the end i think that it was helpful in some ways do that. because even though it doesn't erase it doesn't erase it. it doesn't erase the things that

happened, but. com emotional work i had to do through the writing, i think that -- it broke me and it did. it broke me in certain way but made when i healed i could heal in a healthier way than i had sort of i guess, healed at the time, you know, when the things were happening. in some ways it was helpful but, you know, nothing changes the fact. nothing changes the loss. nothing wipes away the loss, unfortunately. >> so growing up, what were -- what gave you the confidence and the power and who gave you that support let allow you to apply to the university of or michigan or the thing you have done and gave you the confidence. growing up, what was the thing that set you going on that?

, you know, that's an interesting question. i think it helped that i always loved to read. i grew up -- i loved to read ever since i learned how to read; right. and i was, you know, always reading. i was exposed to the larger outside world; right. and so i think that was important; right. because it broadened my horizons and of course, i loved to write. so i think that help food. i wasn't a confident kid. there was nothing about me that was confident or -- i was driven but i think that i was driven not by confidence by confidence but desperation. , you know, because where i came from. and, you know,ivitied to get to

the larger world and see what all of, you know, the rest of the world was about. but that is what, you know, drove me to do what i did. it also help two thing. it helped one, that my mother told me you're going college. she had gone to a little bit of community college. she hadn't finished. some of her brothers and sisters did and -- didn't graduate high school. from the beginning and my grandmother is like a seventh grade education. she went to school through seventh grade. my mom, when i was very little. irmt being four my mom telling me you're going go to college someday. this expectations was there. it helped i went to the school i did because the infrastructure in place at the school. they were accustom to dealing with kids like all the kids that graduated like in each class, each graduating class they went

to college. there wasn't a -- any kids of the graduating class not going college. that infrastructure, you know, was there. that was help of the too. -- helpful too. i don't know how successful i would have been in that process without that infrastructure in place. >> you were part of the -- [inaudible] can you share a little on the experience? >> i actually wrote the first draft of the book when i was the writing residence here at ole miss. so, i mean, you know, it's a great experience because you have the luxury of time and, you know, funding, right, to hopefully, right, write the first draft of the book, right, and, i mean, that's really rare. and, you know, i taught some

classes at the university, right, i taught a few undergrad, you know, fiction classes i think i taught one. then i taught a graduate fiction class. all the students were really great they were, you know, engaged with the work. they were curious. they, you know, they my undergrad they surprised me in class. and my grad students, especially surprised me, they were doing this, like, this off-the-wall experiment tal fiction that is opposite of my style. i had to kind of get. i loved working with them. it i felt like it sort of, you know, sort of shocked me in to thinking about fiction in different ways. i had a great time while i was here. i think it was, you know, it was a wonderful experience. it was really productive for me. i hope the students had --

i don't know it seems like it. they are awesome. i love them. i hope they had a good time too. why >> what do you think your brothers and friend would think about the book. did you think about it as you wrote it? >> you know, i did think about it. you know, i would hope nay think i did a good job, you know. i'm, you know, i was worried as i was writing it, you know, every page. i was worried every page. every page was -- i was -- how much the truth am i going include. and it was more problematic for me when i was writing the sections on my brother, right, because i know there are some things, you know, we didn't talk about the fact at one time sold crack. the first time he was on the street selling crack at 14.

and so and, you know, i talk about different conversations. i relate different conversations we had and we would talk about. and so, you know, i was worried about it. when i was writing it. worrying worried if i was making the right decision in sharing the information. i think, you know, in what i know about my brother i feel like, you know, that he would understood the reason i made the decision i made to have to share what i shared about him. because i think that he would see the larger sort of picture, right. that he would understand, you know, the connections that i'm trying to make in the book between, you know, history -- i think that he would believe in

me. if he were here and had a change to read it, that he would probably get a kick out of the fact i had written about him. i feel like some of my cousins where in the book and some of my friends. they always get a kick out of the fact that they names on the page. i think he would probably find funny. and exciting that he was written about. [inaudible] >> who are some of the writers that influenced you the most in the same kind of i have neck -- i have knack already? >>let so, john edgar widen. i think he wrote a book -- he wrote a memoir called "my brother's keeper."

yes. that was a very important book for me when i read it. there were two is the tight of the memoir she wrote. i loved it. brutal honesty. so that was important. i think when i was writing "men we reaped." [inaudible] i think the reason it was important to me specifically adds a memoir, because his structure is weird, you know, not the accepted structure. i think i needed to see that done in another memoir to realize they maybe could put off in the memoir. this is a memoir that was yiewflt for me when i was working on this one. i loved, i mean, it's not a

memoir i love james baldwin non-fiction essays. i love them. , you know, i read his essay about his -- [inaudible] i can't remember the title right now. of course. i love that essay -- [inaudible] the way that he, you know, -- at the university of michigan and i read it over and over again. the way he sort of elegantly, you know, talks about the person and these larger issues like race in america, you know, so beautifully and deftly. it's amazing to me every time i read it. i'm hoping that one day that i can, you know, be on his level. because he's fantastic. i was thinking about his work

too a lot when i was writing this. >> when i was reading your book and read about the time of the trayvon martin tile, george zimmerman trial. it struck me for a back story of what had happened. i don't know if you have anything you would like to say about that. >> you know, when i read that -- i couldn't follow the trial on television. i just couldn't do it. i don't think i had the patience. i couldn't watch it. i feel like -- [inaudible] i can't take suspense anymore. -- [inaudible] so i can read it beforehand and don't have to be surprised. i couldn't handle watching the trial on television. and so i was, you know, following the trial in some ways

on twitter. when i saw, you know, the first tweet, you know, that the details the verdict, you know, i was turned. and of course immediately i began thinking about my brother. and, you know, thinking about my brother and how thinking about the message that it conveyed, right, that, you know, we got the same message with, you know, what happened with my brother. the man that hit my brother. the message is that, you know, you're nothing. your life is worth nothing. and so, you know, when i was thinking about how do i respond to this, i thought, you know, the only way i can respond to it is by acknowledging the message, right, and putting it out there. this is a message inspect is

what is being communicated here. but then also after saying, okay this is a message i felt like okay, not have to assert, right, okay this is a message you're gave giving me in the verdict inspect is what i'm going say to you. what i'm going say to you is, you know, a human being his life was worth everything. i feel like just me speaking, you know, and just by, you know, making that assertion that does something. a way that allowed me to, you know, assert being unworthy of dignity and my brother being -- [inaudible] his life was worth something. so that was my initial response

to the trayvon martin case. i just, you know, i mean, i just wanted to say that. that was my reply on twitter. also a couple of different articles i read. after words i wanted to state that fact. i think that it's important, you know, for another message to be out there. beyond the nothing for people to hear, you know, to hear you're everything and, you know, you should speak up and assert that you're everything. because sometimes it's all we can do. it's worth something. thank you. [applause] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] you're watching booktv on

c-span2. 48 hours of non-fiction authors and books every weekend. in 2012 the eerie art museum began a frojt promote healthy lifestyle through are tic bike racks. these can be seen throughout downtown eerie. booktv's most recent stop on the city's tour. >> the college and we're in the john lily library on campus. and right now we're actually in the archives room. where we have a collection of documents, art facts, photographs related to the family. and cowments related to the paper company for which they were founders for many years was located here. they had come from germany. they were successful paper

makers. the name of their paper mill was called -- they named it hammer mill. the takeoff on the german. there were several reasons why eerie was chosen. first of all, paper production takes a lot of water. what better place for water than on the shore of lake eerie. they had access to a large amount of water. the other thing that appealed to them was the location between the midwest market of cleveland and chicago but still close to the eastern market of new york, philadelphia, and boston. they liked the location. the third thing they liked was access to forests in pennsylvania, the great lakes, and lower canada. the first paper production was in december of 1899.

by 19 50s records showed they had 520 employees. in the 19 20s they had over 1,000 employees. by world war ii they around 1500. the economic impact was significant. they did experience more difficult times in the 19 30s. he tried not to lay people off. he cut down the number of ships through the type of the ships that workers worked so people were working part-time rather than being laid off. so he really was someone who looked after the well being of his employees. the hammer mill paper company is noted for several innovations in regard to paper making. in the '30s they were first company to develop what was called zero graphic paper when we know as photocopy paper. they go oned a patent that had do with water marking of paper.

they used rubber part instead of metal that lead to greater e -- efficiency. this is the pa end officer model for the water marking device that hammer mill received in 1902. the importance was found a way by using rubber surfaces rather than metal to keep the paper from tearing and the water mark was applied in the paper making process. the reason the paper was tearing because they were using wood pulp instead of rag content. when they made the switch which was more economic call, it created a problem with the water marking process. so anyway this was their solution. they were the first to devise that method. finally with, they the first paper company to use all hard woods in the making of writing paper. before that only soft woods had been possible. in 1912, hammer mill people used 3 innovations in combination to

change the way they marketed their paper. up to that time, companies would come them, other paper companies and ask their water mark be put in the paper. so for instance, busy bee bond would be sold by some company. they would have to put in the busy bee water mark and run the paper. the robin hood company water mark would need to be put in the next round. they were switching things in and out. very inforget. they got a idea what if they sold hammer mill bond. the way they did this. they developed a system of pages where who were franchised. and through those agents people would purchase hammer mill bond. the reason the agent were eager to sell the paper was because at the same time hammer him promised they would do a national advertising campaign and continue it. this never been down before in the paper industry starting in may of 1912 they ran the first magazine ad for hammer

mill bond. they did it and advertised in time, business week, all the big magazine of the day carried the ad which made the agents happy which helped them solve a product. he looked back on as an innovator in terms of how he terrorize treated his company. his company motto was teach: don't poses. it reflected his vision of e creating a friendly environment. this was -- he backed it up with the use of paid vacation, sick leave, bonuses to hourly employees, all at the time when they were not common. it was more common for the relationship between the employer and the employee to be hostile. he worked very hard try eliminate that. another thing that worked in

that regard was the formation, the publication of the hammer mill bond in 1917. it was one of the first company magazines that ran for many, many years. and the employees were encouraged to read it. it had news about new employees, you know, comes and goings, promotions. it also focused on substantial articles related to paper making informative things that employees could use. new technical news about paper making. and it pushed this issue of safety. he and the managers were big on trying to maximize employee safety. so all of these things taken together show how he was a man who was truly committed to -- foster a good spirit between employer and employee. the company never left

eerie. what it did is eventually closed. in 1987, it was purchased by international paper company. things kind of went downhill after that, and by 2001, the plant closed at the time it employed about 750 people. so there were jobs lost. that was a difficult time. you can still buy hammer mill bond, it's under the ownership of international paper company. ..