>> thank you very much. [applause] >> you are watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate, weeknights watch keep public policy events and every weekend the leaders nonfiction authors and books on booktv, you can see past programs and get our schedules on our web site and join the conversation on social media sites. >> david roll is talking about "the hopkins touch". who was harry hopkins? >> he was a central figure in the administration of franklin roosevelt, president franklin roosevelt. he went to the white house for 3-1/2 years. he was the president's closest friend, adviser, confidante if

anyone could see be a confidante to president roosevelt. he was married in the white house in summer of 1942. during the depression he put everybody back to work on infrastructure projects. during the war, he was franklin roosevelt's legs. roosevelt sent hopkins to england to russia, casablanca, he was involved in all wartime conflict. he was the president's post at pfizer. a very sick man, he was a social worker but preferred the company of a rich and the wellborn. hung out at a harem, he and his wife lived in the white house.

didn't like it particular lead. they moved out and took a house in georgetown in 1943 but harry went -- after the president died in april of 1942, carry on his last mission with president truman, after that, got the best present of his life after that. he lived in new york and died at the age of 55 living in new york. >> what made you choose him? >> the most telling adviser there ever was. full contact, terribly funny, sarcastic. i ran into him writing an

earlier book and he used his elbows in a bureaucratic fashion to elbow a particular guy out of the way. he was sinister. he was a very good insider. roosevelt loved him. he had total access, a unique kind of situation. >> what was his most -- if you can classify what was his most significant contribution to the war effort? >> his relationship with winston churchill. churchill did not want to invade western friends and go directly at the germans. as i show in the book, he played a critical role in england working with churchill to eventually persuade him. happened in pteron eventually to

finally say let's go into overload and that was a very important part of our history. >> thank you very much for your time. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here on line. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the form that. booktv streams live online 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. in honor of the labor department at 100th anniversary the department partner in library of congress to develop a list of books that shaped work in america. all the books have worked as a central theme. suggestions for which books to include came from the current labor secretary thomas perez and several of his predecessors

including elaine chao, robert wright and george shultz, suggestions came from authors, journalists and members of the public. to see which books made the list so far or to make a suggestion about which book should be included visit dol.gov/books. >> really honored and delighted to be here at the bush library, to have seen the bushes, happy to be among you the truth be told i am happy to be anywhere where one williams can't interrupt me. [laughter and applause] >> i will be sure to tell him how you feel. i want to begin by saying how much i appreciate, mr. president, what you did for the nation and a moment of natural danger. you were clear ride, a straight forward and courageous in

rallying the nation against a new barbarism and you were never afraid to use that word and that idea. managing to recognize islam as a great religion while at the same time see no contradiction in denouncing, rallying the nation to fight the perverted branch of islam which attacked us on 9/11. i wrote at the time and i believe to this day that history will treat you like harry truman, recognizing the depths of your achievement in creating the very infrastructure that will carry us through this war on barbarism. we have already seen this today, a backhanded tribute to you as those who so criticized you during those eight years, the very people who did criticize you in those eight years when they came to power, they adopted the very same tools that you

bequeaths to them, in a moment of national confusion and danger. just as truman did in his a providing the infrastructure, the tools and the institutions that carried us through the cold war in those days and will carry us through this war in this generation. if i could repeat what i said to you in private and like to say in public. i spoke to my wife earlier today and she asked me to convey to you her admiration and respect for what you did for our country, the steadiness of your voice, the depth of your devotion to country and your determination to see things through even when you were nearly alone. i know i am supposed to be selling books, but i had to say that first, especially -- [applause]

-- especially the white part. otherwise when i get home tomorrow night i will be sleeping on the couch. now about the book. it is called "things that matter," 30 years of passion, pastimes of politics. it is very good. you should buy it. you should buy lots of copies especially for your liberal friends if you have any left. i don't. in conclusion -- [laughter] -- i wanted to see if i get the kind of applause clinton got at the 88th convention when after 50 minutes he used those words and the place erupted not just in applause but in celebration. i digress. about the book. the book is several things.

the first thing, because it does span my career as a journalist all the way back to as jim said 1981, i started on the day ronald reagan was sworn into the presidency, it is a chronicle of the last three decades and those three decades are historically a kind of enormous fascination which it was my privilege to witness and comment on. the 80s, the reagan revolution and the last days of the cold war, the 90s, holiday from history, the 2000s, beginning of the age of holy terror and for the last half decade, this is the fifth anniversary of the winning of the presidency by barack obama. barack obama is the rise of a new, more ambitious and i might say radical kind of american liberalism. >> you can watch this and other

programs online at booktv.org. >> we are at the national festival talking with m.j. o'brien about his new book "we shall not be moved: the jackson woolworth's sit-in and the movement it inspired". please tell us how you got into this project. >> i got into this project when i saw this photograph at the martin luther king center in atlanta in 1992 and realized this was an iconic representation and i knew the woman at the center of that photograph. i had met her 20 years before in arlington, va. when i was a playground director. and in the context of all of those iconic civil rights at the king center. a story that needs to be told, so i decided at that moment, and

find out more about him. >> do you recognize her in the picture when you first saw it would did she talk to you about this experience? >> i recognized her because her children -- my mom is in a famous photograph. i didn't understand how significant that photo was until i saw it in context. >> what did you learn from her about the civil rights movement you hadn't known before? >> what was interesting is she was the southern white woman who risked it all to feed her family, her involvement in the civil rights movement. she taught me so much and her story taught me so much about courage and perseverance, the most difficult circumstances and threw her, i got interested in the entire story of the movement

and i am able to read her story, a much broader story including what is also part of it. >> what inspired you to get involved in the civil rights movement in 1963? >> i had been involved in 1960 but what brought me to the movement was going to sunday school, and red and yellow, black and white, bible verses and doing other things, doing to you and judge not that you might be judged. in high school we had a declaration of independence, all men are created equal. we had to memorize the whole thing and i felt we were a bunch of hypocrites. as a white southerner i felt when i had a chance to make the south the best that it could be i could seize the moment.

>> how old were you when participating in this it in? >> 18, college freshman. >> did you have to join a group, to join the sit ins or walk in? >> presbyterians told as the group of students from north carolina college who were doing sit ins, that we would come to the meeting. and they did and they invited us to join them. so a few of us did. >> how many did you participate in? >> oh yes. lots of things. in durham, the sit ins in

arlington across the river. i wasn't sitting in but buying tickets for the ride, i handed the ball. we did a head movement, we were in south carolina, and came to freedom ride, one thing led to the next, the sit in. >> where are you from regionally? jackson? >> i was born in washington d.c.. after the riots, my family is from georgia and i expect the pictures, and the integration of the college beat would not be 2 x 2, black students undergoing horrendous things in, it had to be a 2 way street and applied black politics and people whose

politics accepted me and the freedom rides where my ticket to mississippi for the summer. they are alive. >> did you incorporate the stories of other freedom riders in the book? >> yes, absolutely. .. >> i was able to identify them and talk to them as well. so it's kind of a comprehensive