shouldn't publicize it but when i saw the names of their wasn't any division because u.s. persons is what they call it, so there wasn't any division. we are only going after the foreigners coming u.s. persons and foreigners. up next on booktv after words mac with guest host senior fellow and author of searching . the latest book down to the crossroads civil rights, black power and the march against fear. and it's the university of memphis professor tells the story of james meredith, the first african-american admitted to the university of mississippi

who was shot upon his return to the state promote voter registration. the ensuing civil rights battle as meredith recovered about the black power movement to the forefront. the program is about an hour. >> was a pleasure to be with you today to talk about your book. you know, i looked at the cover and i was immediately intrigued by it. some say you can't judge a book by its cover but let's look at this cover. tell me about what's on it. >> guest: thank you for having me. it was quite a struggle to pick perfect image for the cover. it's a picture from the last day of the march, june 26 as the leaders lead the march the final leg of the meredith march into jackson insisted be. and it was kind of a struggle to pick the right picture because on the one hand, you want to capture the human element and of

the many people that were part of this long three-week civil rights demonstration that started in memphis and ended at jackson and on the other hand you want to highlight some of the key figures in the march and that includes martin luther king, stokely carmichael and it includes the men that started the whole thing, james meredith, and was lucky enough to capture all of them as well as this week along with them. >> fantastic. let's backtrack a bit and tell us about the march that you are referring to. tell us about the title and how you chose it. >> host: is civil rights, black power and the march against fear. it's a civil rights march that begins in memphis in the beginning of june and ends three weeks later in jackson. you can need an argument that in many ways it transforms and approaches its crossroads. the call for black power is first and third, stokely carmichael unveils if you will

way through the march and immediately generates controversy and immediately generate a great swelling of enthusiasm, and in a lot of ways it's a good nights a direction of policies. now those changes might have happened over the course of time. but the march does is it dramatizes the shift because it brought together the civil rights leaders and regular people white and black from all across the country and put them into this laboratory of black politics as it moves through mississippi to create these dramatic moments that highlights the key divisions and some of the key tensions but also the key strengths that have long animated the civil rights movement. >> speaking of dramatizing the march, a lot of people in my generation especially black people, the parents will say you should be grateful for this. we march and then we called them the narrative because they are always complaining about the bunions they don't march in for

the things we enjoy now. but for the people that were not there firsthand, what was it like clicks >> if you're talking about the physical act talks about how the start of status symbol was then delete it tennis shoes. they walked for so many miles with holes in their tennis shoes and if you were talking about june and mississippi on a hot open highway marching between eight to 15 miles in a day. some did it for most of those three week weeks for if you just to talk about the physical aspect of it, it could be quite rigorous. mix that in with camping at night in dealin and dealing witr about possible attacks, the demonstrations held along the

way, the rallies from the voter registration and then the so i e violence of the income especially mississippi and canada and what you have is a whole host of dramatic moments. and in these dramatic moments a lot of folk tended to be familiar with the march on the edmund bridge, but this march in particular, how did it begin? >> it is unique in the sense that it begins in the mind into the action of one man and that is james meredith and if it is for integrating the university of mississippi in 1992, the so-called crisis when you're the first african-american to attend this bastion of white privilege and that led to severe resistance into pretty much prompted the federal crisis in the kennedy administration to ultimately call on the national guard after not doing so at first, two people died within the riot and spent a year before they graduated in the incredible

isolation and the incredible hardship under the cost of protection from the federal marshals, and much of that began in his mind. he was a very singular individual. he wasn't someone that associated off in the larger movement, that he was determined at the same time to try to determine as the institutions of the white supremacy. but after all ms., he kind of drifts off the screen for a while and struggles to find his place in the struggle and washington, d.c. and he has a fellowship in nigeria, three-year fellowship in one year and enrolled at columbia law school that he has an eye on the larger political career and he envisions this march of what begins as a single man's march from memphis to jackson and he sees it as having a number of goals created one is to encourage people to vote. of the voting rights act in the previous year that was starting to stimulate the beginning of the mass voter registration and mississippi but for the ordinary

persoperson in mississippi they realized going to the courthouse and registering to vote and casting the ballot could be accompanied by serious danger and all sorts of free puzzles. the other aspect was the walk against fear. sso he sold the goal of the votr registration in the battle in the culture and they also had a purse all ambition behind that as well and that is the focus is a chance to survive resuscitate the career and building political following and ultimately run for office in the politics. on the second day of the march he has come through her in and of mississippnativemississippi n covered in mississippi cannot just the day before and he gets a nice warm subject 150 people there who say they are going to register to vote and he tells the stories of the old african-american man who had been so intimidated by the powerful for so long without defining them in ascending up

from across the town square so he sees himself beginning to achieve his personal debt in a few miles south of hernando he continues to walk. others local police and none of them stop and firing three sho shots. all of a sudden this becomes a huge national story. as soon as he shot the image is plastered on the front page for every paper in america and international audiences and becomes a cry.

it causes all sorts of excitement and tension in the neighborhoods in the country jackson mississippi and tennessee. and both began now get transformed into an extravagan extravagance. every major civil rights organization does and is upon us to carry on mississippi. >> host: what was the difference? >> guest: the original was the solitary endeavor. he didn't invent the invite the participation. he said you can follow me if you want, that you have this patriarchal view and have to be independent. we are not going to raise it to do. you have to be independent and be willing to move small groups and that is the only way that this is going to work. but once martin luther king in

the naacp and all of the major civil rights organizations come, then it becomes almost like a chance to replicate the success. >> host: and meredith didn't die, correct? >> guest: when he was shot there was a misinterpretation in the reporter and then he died and this caused even more hysteria as you might imagine, that quickly merideth was wounded and he ended up incorporating so there were all of these organizations in both these people marching in the same, and it has this somewhat -- he accepts that blessing but at the same time meredith is exceptionally frustrating because the largest has become the march that he didn't want. he saw this as being centered around him as an individual and his ideas for how to combat the white supremacy and how it has

become a mess nonviolent starting with lots of federal attention and other media attention and tacked on the local communities which meredith had been concerned about. >> host: part of what i love about the book is the personalities in history and science we read about elsewhere. and he cites merideth, the two that come to mind for me are stokely carmichael and of course martin luther king. what was each participation in the march? esko i see james meredith as the three central characters. and for carmichael, he sees this as a unique opportunity. he is part of the new chairman of the nonviolent coordinating committee or sncc. it was founded by the young students sort of pushing the civil rights establishment in the directions and by the mid to

late 60s and they are questioning who they are as an organization and want to take the new direction ananew directe frustrated with what they see as a very slow pace in the federal reforms into the voting rights act that they do not see it being enforced. enforce the legislation that is on the books. rather than lyndon johnson as their ally it is reluctant. they don't care anymore about lobbying. they don't care about appealing to the national conference, they are much more concerned about developing the leaders of the grassroots organizing so they don't have defined themselves by the idea of the march. by the same they recognize an opportunity because they have done the most organizing on the black population particularly in the delta city urged the diversion into the mississippi delta and into some of the largest communities in the state

of mississippi where they have really made their name and they have a lot of connections. so they have the grassroots organizing at the same time that is the slogan of the power. that is what catapults them into the celebrity. by the end of march he has considered died the year before. he's a charismatic speaker and has a gift for talking to local people and connecting to summon a different audiences whether that is in our love are the mississippi delta. he is charismatic and powerful and it's almost like he makes it a point not even when he is pushed and pushed he is clever

about this and about uplifting black people and not being seen as in any way appeasing as uncertain allies. that's part of what animates this idea of the black power. the other main character, he becomes in some way the center of the march. it isn't the march that it is. it is his name and his present that draws people. the local people and sometimes they just really want to see martin luther king. that is also withdraws more whae federal attention and the national media attention and sncc realizes stokely carmichael and physically drag him out the march doesn't mean anything for the attention that we want to generate. and he was being pushed in multiple directions and it reveals an someways powerful because he's constantly trying on one level to the content of

the youn young militants like sy carmichael but he is trying to craft it into his larger language of the nonviolent action the integration of america and the larger development. they try to merge the messages and he's trying to find this unity and it is just a burden. by the same token -- >> why did he call it a mistake? >> guest: he has some fairly extraordinary trials. its june 21 of 1966 that is exactly two years later in the anniversary on order of the three civil rights workers.

they lead the demonstration in philadelphia and its offspring of the march they see this as a unique political opportunity with the local black leadership in the county. but because the route of the march to get less protection from the state police and the person that ha supposed to be pg them on the march are the local police and that have been directly involved in the federal investigation for the murders given earlier so we are not talking about a sympathetic enforcement. so when they believed the demonstration to go up essentially they were attacked by a mob people throw things at them. as they are marching out people throw rocks at them and eggs. when archer has an epileptic

seizure near him for a while. it is a stressful situation and they could have descended into fireworks. they would say that's the most scared that he has ever been. he had to go to the city where the marchers had congregated by this night, and some of the speakers like ernest thomas as the self-defense organization controlling the march they were using very provocative and he was trying to pull it back and gave us a beautiful moving speech they couldn't get their

cocktails they saw that coming into mississippi and it was beautiful, but it was worn down at that point by trying to bring everyone into a sort of under his arms. >> host: but for the other dramatic tensions were seminal moments during the march besides the philadelphia episode? >> guest: the other major incidents occurred a few days later and it occurs in kansas a few days before the march. it's a few days after the philadelphia march. king and others with the state of mississippi isn't adequately protected but in the federal as it existed with the protection of the u.s. guard and the justice department personnel is

a socially. it's somewhat alienated he had seen the rights and the controversy over the moynihan report which was a government report which seemed to stigmatize families by the issues of poverty in the backlash against that which were painting them as an enemy. so johnson and increasingly kept his distance from the grass right civil rights issues. he basically refuses to have any federal prisons on the march. it gives carte blanche to use the violence against the marchers and protect them against that. they made a point in our march to try to stay on the community

because they said we have a right to use this land. in many places along the way they said they can't invade them anyway. at this point the march is close to the end and there's about a thousand people participating in the final in one of these last administrations. and when they come to the ball field at the school in the community which is where they decide the police have arrested into first the police led them there and then who holes up that the mississippi highway patrol the same is to be used now come out and launch teargas into the

crowd. they are not using it just to push people off. they moved their way in and they are hitting people with night sticks and dragging them into ditches and it is a chaotic scene. it's practically dark at that point and as it existed within the movement because it is dark and smoky, there are no iconic images of the teargas and because it doesn't get the support of the federal government even after that the federal government is important in they do not promise any more retribution to the state. it basically disappeared. it doesn't have the same when

they are teargas on the bridge one earlier. >> host: t determined the fate of black power that i want to talk about we know what you just described about the wife law-enforcement but culturally accept time, jerry lee lewis, johnny cash, elvis is spreading on the scene and what is going on in this ecology of white america at the time. they trigger another round of outrage against the violent richard duchenne and people write to congress just as they had done with soma. they sympathize with james

meredith and some of the documents came across into the feelings of the race and asking them for advice. the civil rights movement has been a major news story to the mac spent they continue that liberal trend. because of something like the riot into the controversy of the moynihan report we are starting to see the language of the backlash it was in 1966 that some are sort of increasingly alienated i think blacks are moving too fast into the achievement has achieved what it should be achieve which is the opposite. there are plenty of white

marchers who decide we want to join the march often times people with religious organizations in the catholic church or long-time activists. it's their only experience and they decided they were going to come into something they had to be a part. they talk about huge swaths of people you see everything in the political spectrum in the responses. the civil rights activists say we have been fighting for black power all along. we are starting to jerk away from the idea of the civil rights movement. the point here is the black

people need to achieve power. and then you have a growing look at the new right. we tie it into the broad fascination of the liberal programs and the political move two years later. it's the political movement affecting ronald reagan to the governorship of california right about the same time. >> host: and you have this mindset on the conservatives that allows a backlash into some extent when we talk about obamacare or illegal alien that have helped to elect the politicians at least nationally on the back of the law and order of the backlash. but tell us before we go to the break with inspired you to write

this book and what inspired you all those episodes of the post-world war history of the civil rights history with inspired you to write this book book?guest co. i don't with african-american history before the biography of bill russell the basketball player but it's a classic civil rights political history that especially working where i teach where they were broadening our understanding of the civil rights movement was beyond the story of one demonstration by the same token it was inaccessible mirrored his history that captured all of these ideas and i saw mississippi in some ways as a narrow story in jackson but it shoots off into many different

directions and it tells us so many things about what the movement was and i thought this a friend of mine called me about seven or eight years ago and he's just an interested reader and he said what book should i read into that was a hard question to answer because there were all sorts of biographies and textbooks but nothing that a lay person would want to write about so. >> host: to stay close in my mind always write the book that you would have liked to have read. that is an interest rate -- interesting inspiration. we will be back.

>> host: i wanted to ask you about the title crossroad as a symbolic place in history how does this march marked the historical crossroads? >> guest: i >> guest: it is in the sense that it is mostly still in the popular associated with nonviolence and racial integration in the popular mind. underneath that of course especially among the grassroots organizers it is more about the positions of power where they can lift themselves.

they can be intertwined of course that they are not effective at the same time. it unveils the slogan of black power coming in the black power launches this new generation of activists and gives them a name and a sense of movement. ideas that have been out there get crystallized in this area and you can argue it is both a civil rights movement and protecting some of its ideas. it grows out of the civil rights movement as i mentioned the activists who are always working to achieve political power and to unify to build strength in that way. and our frustrations in the movement and with the federal government and allies who don't necessarily see themselves on the same page. it also grows out of a

disenchantment, and the rejection versus the nonviolent strategy that they left but rather the right to self-defense if you want to be seen on equal footing in society you should have the right to defend yourself. and it is a rejection perhaps working within the established political parties. so carmichael having organized in alabama the end third party and all block party because the choices were he wasn't going to integrate into the republican party and the democratic party on the premise so why integrate into a party that is hostile to your interest, create strength. whether that is in harlem or the southside of chicago born in alabama or mississippi delta use that power as an independent

force. how is this march in mississippi and this will be a platform to amplify the movement that's been frustrated in the arch of black power emerged. even with the slogan of the power soon after, stokely carmichael goes back down to the headquarters why they should participate in the march and it gives a platform to advertise the direction of the black power. it uses the slogan even before the famous rally but he doesn't use it as a slogan and say what we want? and until midway through the march. sncc has organized for a long time going back to the 1960s

lots of local people there've been advanced organizers that said this is the best place for us use the slogan industry to capture what the black power is using in that way is a projection of the national news and it becomes the controversy into something that inspires what people. and it blew their mind. and it is a new direction in having a sort of symbolic home of the blues. and if you think you make forc forces. so you come to a fork in the road or a crossroads. whatever choice you make as enduring consequences because

you are going to travel down that road, so when the slogan of the power troubles down the ro road. >> guest: that's a complicated question because they do not have a single definition. it really depends about the power. they thought this as working against what they've been fighting for. but it has a lot of positive consequences if there is a whole generation who are really emphasized and talk about the terms of political organizers and you will start to see the officeholders and you will start to see the black sheriffs and all sorts of political power occurring in the south and in the north. that depends on the notion of the officials looking out for the black interest into people e

associated with black power and they also have to think of it is in the cultural terms. if it encompasses as it does the idea of taking pride in your heritage and in the culture and in your appearance and your identity. well, that might. the notion of black is beautiful. the notion of black history is an important aspect. so it shoots up in so many different directions, cultural, political, positive, negative, it is the unifying message and constructive slogan for achievement but it's also destructive in terms of the liberal. it's a complex slogan. >> host: absolutely. that's fascinating. and one of the things that is striking about the book is that it is physical quality.

how did you go about writing and researching this book lacks >> guest: it has a national structure and then it moves the story along the way and defend it and it's not like a biography where you know you where you're going to start the software you're going to end. so that structure i could start the beginning. i realized that with each chapter and a key instance along the march that was an opportunity to talk about another dimension of not only the march. so when they do the first voter registration rally that gives me the opportunity to talk about the political dynamic and the struggles they face to register to vote also within the box politics does that work in the naacp but for a little bit more established that want to ally and hold them to democratic

party if there's a group called the mississippi party but at the same time running the democratic primaries as well. so, it animates that discussion and when it hits the grenade they do a demonstration where they put up an american flag on top of the soldier and they see this and talk about the desecration of the mindset that gave me an opportunity to the provisions of the civil war 100 years later and how they are still animating these different identities and the different definitions of history are shaping the black-and-white at the places of citizenship in america. when they get to the d-delta of course they talk about black power. and when they get to jackson. it is a forgotten story that it's the largest at least 15,000 people per to speak in this and the story kind of gets lost because we tend to focus on open of these divisions but if you talk to people that participated in this march, this was an

extraordinary moment. so the march gave you the opportunity to talk about all of these different themes in the movement moving further and further south. getting back to that question i had the luxury in the media coverage for one thing this is a march that was covered in the national magazines and newspapers, you name it and also because the civil rights organizations keep the papers and records there were all sorts of records that could be founded in the personal papers but also the organizations. it's also a march tha the marchs under surveillance. the fbi, mississippi highway patrol and a group called the mississippi state sovereignty commission which was an organization founded earlier by the 1950s with the express papers of how to preserve the racial segregation in mississippi so it included the positive light to the rest of

the country but also included surveillance and there was an informant on the march part of the reporting back to the state of mississippi and i don't know who the informant is that he or she produced these detailed reports of what was going on in the meetings in the civil rights leaders in the margins about the controversies and that was a complex source because we have to read it through the eyes of the officials who exaggerate their differences and sometimes even make up stuff but it is an important source for understanding the different ways of which the march was being watched and the last major aspect where they were talking to the people that were biko marched and who were involved in the march in one way, shape or form. "that brought to the story this wasn't just a national story about political conflicts or radios buconflict ofideas but it

actual physical participation of the marchers and many people it was a coming-of-age of sorts and for others it was th a unique experience. some of it was a tragic and disappointing experience. bringing out those personal stories i think that gave that extra layer that for me makes it designate. i would say just about everybody that i talked to was more than happy. and i talked to people from all sorts of levels. so i talked about the civil rights veterans organization in mississippi and that was a great chance to get the african-american organizers still in the city that have a long view and march in support and to see it in the context of no longer experience the level from 1966 and continues to the present day so they see the march of th in the larger conted they talk about how it helps as a part of their mission and how black power is something they

have been working for before the margin after the march, so they gave you that and started to play the national story important ways. we talked to different people tm different perspectives and from those that agree with the maturity of the black organizers those that tend to be on the liberal side. people talk to this person or this person so i got a chance to talk to regular people from mississippi sometimes he decided to join the march and it was an informative experience. how they sell themselves into the possibilities that was the whole point of the movement. in some ways to shape them up and think about the possibility that exists for the future.

>> speaking of the future in the time continuum i'm curious what your opinion is on what are the major civil rights movement in this country today. >> it is of course the movement for the lgbt into the equality of the movement where it was over the past 20 years can't talk about a dramatic transformation. if you told me in 1995, you know, most of the american population would seek the marriage as an implicit right that's obvious and should have been. it's a movement that started again in the mid-90s might be considered a radical notion. it didn't follow the same tactics. we live in the popular culture

in the modern movement. but to think about the radical change and the notions into the possibilities. so that is the one that jumps out at me in comparing. >> host: issues around voting and structural inequality and as you mentioned that the lgbt movement, what has changed in the past and what lessons were cleaned from the past from the march in particular and from the civil rights movement broadly? >> guest: with the movement was successful at is some basic citizenship, the civil rights act and voting rights act to destroy the institutions of jim crow and guaranteed access to the vote. out on the march came was

talking about the march was important for the evolution in terms of thinking about these issues is the structural equality. was to organize the campaign in chicago in to talk about the big northern city where there wasn't legal segregation and you've got the issues with race and class. he had a first-hand connection to the flight of many in the poor state in america, right? and that sort of deep into the understanding and the chance to highlight and create a national conversation and that is one of the great tragedies they never pick up on that and the controversy over the black power that is the nature of the press at that point and the backlash to shift the conversation into the larger structure.

as it ties into the criminal justice system. we follow the main characters and i talk about mississippi. it is a slogan. used himself in at the beginning of the march the road to freedom is a long road. and the route was tied to the class. >> guest: to be perfectly honest i didn't care or don't care in the leading the booklet i love your expertise when you don't have to visit the sheet in any way, shape or form cliques

>> guest: interesting questio question. sometimes they ask where are you from? why i was doing what i was doing. this was people's curiosity. i answered the questions of what it means to be an american. but i love the stories.

african american history and a civil rights, i consider myself more than anything else and i think that it provides this narrative dimension that i just plain fascinating. and people ask you that cliques >> guest: sometimes. the african-american population in the majority of the students. why wouldn't you want to teach the history i try to explain that as everyone's history as americans and more broadly in the world because the culture shaped the world. so i come at it from the broader narrative.

so this is my perspective. >> and in terms of the perspective what would you recommend everyone reading as a truly provocative and memorable to teach us something if you want to read the more expensive it is a great three volume history by taylor branch. he focuses in particular on martin luther king, but it is a much broader story than that. and painting the broad sweep of human history in the civil rights movement from 1964.

they shaped the civil rights studies and one was named charles payne and they were called local and that was a story of civil rights in mississippi. and when you told that story he's not the main story there so she highlights the longer tradition dating back to the 30s and he talks about some of the main aspects of the grassroots organizing and how that changes as they try to work with the local people and the other book and that is by charles payne historian and theologist in the book of freedom and it's much more analyticaits much moreanalyticas to get at why the social change happened and why does organizing work and he tries to enter them off from the standpoint of how do you get people to register

clicks it starts with a process of making the connections on a family level and you see the important of both and highlight the importance of women and when i saw the story of the crossroads the media focuses on the mail readers and it's mostly men. who are the people organizing the meetings and who are the glue of the movement and the hope to highlight them. so what i wrote down from the crossroads and merge these two traits until the sort of story within the old framework in the sense that it's got martin luther king and it's a nonviolent march, i tried to incorporate that into the history, how the grassroots organizers shaped the movement and how the international context is important and also help black power is a much more

competitive slogan and much more positive than the previous historians contest it to give you another great example, tenniel joseph and th into the x waiting until the midnight hour. he gets us to the black power within any number of others in a new frame. he pushes us to think of it in the positive aspects and the way that it shapes the whole movement. >> guest: >> host: can you speak about the movement itself and of the role responding to the movement? >> guest: you look at the role of african-american woman and how do you get people involved in te movement who does the work for the church and who is

the backbone of the community. it's if one member of a family is involved in the movement other family members get involved. who is at the center of? it's the mother figure, right? so the win and become the key connectors. they are sort of the social connectors that become the political. you also asked and i tried to talk a little bit about that in the march. there were interesting stories of white women on the march who this was right about the time the women's movement is just in its form, and the white women who are on the margin has been activmarch and hasbeen active ae seen the movement is bringing to the floor what they see as the gender qualities as well. some are talking about how they are getting hit on all the time and it doesn't become a public

story because if you were to bring up the story in the context it tries not to escalate into a scam but under the surface they are holding meetings and talk about so on and so it launches this generation that is growing out of the civil rights movement. for black women it tends to be more complicated and they still see the primary in 1966. many of them will become feminist but in a later context and in a different time and under different circumstances. it is a sort of path that has emerged at the same time they are intertwined. >> host: i want to redirect the question i asked, so you are a historian. the issues are certainly not new to you, but beginning and

launching into this particular book what did you learn that you didn't expect to learn? after having finished this book lacks >> guest: a lot of things. i learned a lot of things. well, there are two great mysteries, just the mystery i was never able to uncover as a historian. one was the identity of this informant had. they are paying someone to report back to them at all the happenings of the civil rights meetings. i don't know who it is and it would have been interesting to note thaknow but it's impossibl. the other big mystery to me involved the motives and we haven't talked about him yet. he was in his early 40s, and when he shoots of james meredith, people assume he's another white supremacist and

they figure he is on the newspaper coverage and the editorials with another mantle of hate but once the report starts to investigate they are confused. not that he was by any means a racial liberal but he never said anything and had no known connection to any white supremacist organization whether the ku klux klan or what, his motives were a mystery. i tried to call him a number of times and se instead of intervi. he lives in the same house in a subdivision outside of memphis. and he's never revealed his motives as to why he's shot james meredith. it's an interesting political story this to me was one of the most interesting stories that shot off the march. when meredith was shot, a lot of people in other movement figured it was a conspiracy and the police were in on it because he

was able to walk out of the woods and shoot meredith three times and they arrested him later. it seemed more paralyzed. that probably wasn't the case. it wasn't in their interest for someone to shoot james meredith. they would be doing a bad job so i don't think that is very secure but the other interesting part is that the southerners think that there's a conspiracy as well. they figured that somebody in the civil rights movement paid this guy, he's not even from mississippi. he's an outsider to shoot james meredith. that's why they use the birdshot rather than the single bullet because they just want to loan him and then there would be a story that would turn into the national march into that sort of spirits he doesn't make sense either because this was a march by one man when i it started so neither conspiracy i think olds any ground, but these stories upon the shooting of james

meredith, the white southerners really seriously thought this was a conspiracy against them. segregationists used this as a weapon and that is a fascinating story. >> host: wrapping up, what is the final thing that you would like the viewers and the readers to take away from the book lacks >> guest: a way to tell a story about the civil rights movement by telling a very specific and dramatic story. it occurs after three weeks -right-brace even movement had its cross. it's a classic story and in many ways that historians know about the meredith march, but this book tries to expand and illuminate itself in different directions so it gives you a chance to talk about if you're going to read a book on the civil rights movement i hope you might consider this one. >> host: as i said i thought that it was colorful and detailed and well researched and they had a combination of the articles into the research and

it just made the main characters pop in their resignations with the issues we deal with today that we have already talked about. so thank you for your time. >> host: i appreciate it. >> that was "after words," booktv signature program in which authors of the latest books are interviewed by journalists, public makers, legislators and others familiar with the material. "after words" airs every weekend on booktv at 10 p.m. on saturday, 12 p.m. and 9 p.m. on sunday and 12 am on a day. yodate. you can also watch "after words" online. go to booktv.org and click on "after words" in the book tv series and the topics list on the upper right side of the page. here's a look now at the top

ten best-selling nonfiction books according to indiebound.

..

>> i can see it seriously being considered at the sec as approved. >> the impact of the of merger monday 8 p.m. eastern.