dr. horwood, now professor of the american -- a military historian, and he is in the era, and through his research, his travels around the world, his connections with collectors, rare book dealers, but also with scholars, the french government, he began to work with the long time director of fsu library, charles miller. ..

this is the description of de l la idiotidiots. these were rebound, published later in the nineteenth century. but what they document is napoleon's campaign in egypt and artist's rendering of the landscape of egypt, pyramids, architecture, architectural elements, elements of the hieroglyphs, egyptian pottery, maps, diagrams of the layouts of pyramids, different historical

sites around egypt. this is an era where there was no photography. this was a way to document and detailed the things napoleon and his army were capturing and a way to account for the riches of egypt that napoleon was hoping to bring back into france to the empire and also used as points of study for french architects and artists. this piece was another in a set from 1792 published during the french republic. about the history of louis the sixteenth. this is talking about the history of king louis and the start of the revolution. this kind of material gives us a perspective how the contemporaries, people who lived during the period of the revolution were writing their own history particularly in the

period of the republic for justifying the revolution and explain to the people what occurred. we have many examples of contemporary newspaper publications. this is a set from 1807. reported a study and report representations again of what the activities of the empire were and the things being reported. not only do they tell you about napoleon's activities or what was happening in the battlefield but the kinds of things in terms of the expansion of the empire, news that was occurring in the day and you have the imperial seal on top of this. i have another example of newspapers here. this is from 1800. we have a run of this newspaper

through 1812-1813. this is one of the primary newspapers during napoleon's time. one of the interesting things about this particular newspaper, how researchers are using this today, the document through the activities of the army what was occurring in the empire but you get a lot of colonial reports from the colony's, trade, what commodities were worth at various points in times of people using this newspaper to look at not just what was occurring in france but what was happening in the caribbean and haiti and other colonial spaces. what i am about to show you comes from the general clouseau papers. general palait was an officer in the bullion's army. he worked closely with napoleon

in the field and one of the duties of a field officer was to transcribe correspondence that was sent back and forth on the battlefield from napoleon to his generals and vice versa. this volume is a journal, a set of transcriptions from the european battlefield beginning in 1806 going through 18 levon. you can see a table of contents, documenting what each of the letters is about, who it was from, who it was to, the vocation, as you move further in, transcription of the letters. the history of the correspondence is the battlefield correspondents itself and a signature, and the

general to confirm the official correspondence. i can assure him my hands are quite clean. as a part of our practice through the revolution in handling paper materials. and certainly important to use for artifacts, and if you have this textile in your hand is easier to tear pages. and careful maneuvering of the pages. as a part of the collection at the napoleon and french revolution collection you have published materials, original manuscript materials and a number of artifacts, to relate to napoleon and to his military

campaign and biography. one of our most popular objects, many come to see us for the novelty of this is our copy of -- at the time it was customary to create a death mask after someone famous or powerful passed away even if they were in exile. a bit of a controversy over the napoleon death mask. error two masks created. those masks, the argument over which one is truly authentic continue today. this is a copy of a mask that was said to be done by the doctor and napoleon's bedside

and lost or stolen for period of time and recovered in the nineteenth century. we look at some representative pieces from later publications, drawings of egypt, contemporary publications from the time manuscript materials as well as artifacts. special questions and archives at florida state university library are open to everyone. you don't need any special permission to come interact with these materials or do research and we welcome students of all ages and all levels of experience. >> while visiting tallahassee, fla. with the local help of comcast will tv talked with christopher daniels about book "somali piracy and terrorism in the horn of africa". >> i felt this was a story that needed to be told. not many people had talked about somalia and in particular no one talked about the connection

between piracy and terrorism. piracy and terrorism are two totally separate act. piracy is people going out and hijacking ships and bringing them in. terrorism is more land-based and political base of al shabaab is a major factor, they assassinate politicians and prevent the government from being informed in somalia. the pirates are not necessarily involved in politics. they are more doing it for economic reasons. those that the big differences but where they come together is they stem from the same problem which is that somalia hasn't had a government for 20 or so years. what they really have is a power-sharing agreement. they don't really have a government elected by the people. it is basically a group of elders, influential people in somalia came together and selected and put up a committee of people together and that is the government and if you look at the reports, there are all sorts of corruption.

lot of people who were involved in government, terrorist organizations like private groups are not the legitimate government. it is just a way to watch everyone's hands to tone down the violence but the majority of the population deals with terrorism but the overwhelming majority of the population is affected by it. the thing about terrorism you never know who's who's so no one walks around with a t-shirt that says i'm a terrorist. the fact that you live in constant fear never knowing when the suicide bomb will come in, i remember when i went to somalia for a visit one of the guys i was talking to said he heard of the situation where someone was listening to music and someone from al shabaab threatened to stab him in the neck for listening to what he called western music. that fear and constant not knowing makes a society very unstable. all these terrorist organizations are internationally connected to al qaeda and several organizations so they not only make attacks

within somalia but plan attacks in the united states and europe and several other places. in addition many people from america have left america and travel to somalia and got involved in al shabaab. what makes everyone nervous is there's a possibility that at some point the people who are training in these training camps in somalia could come back and attack and american. that is the biggest concern and why it is a global threat. piracy is only viable in 3 regions that are close to the coast so not everyone can get involved. in addition, terrorism is mainly in the southern part of the country so it is pretty much -- not strictly regional sell in the northeastern part of the country, in that area you see the majority of the piracy acts going on because there is a big port there. in the southern part of the country's steel lot of al shabaab activity. terrorists have political goals so they want to be close to the

capital. pirates and economic goals so they want to be close to the ports. that is pretty much a geographical thing. pirates can be a lot of different people but generally speaking the young man who has very little options but not all of them are just poor people doing something to get by to say this is a way to get money like some people sell drugs and commit acts of crime. piracy is a viable way to make money because of the bill out and attack, maybe three thousand dollars will launch an attack but you may get some of these ransoms of $3 million so it is a high profit margin business of people go out and recruit a crew. they tried to mix people who are inexperienced and experienced people to get this so they have someone called a jumper. the person who is the first person to board the ship so that is the most experienced person, the person who has been there before and he makes the most money so they all go out and either go out one of two ways, they got in look, the ships which are like small fishing boats but within those small

fishing boats are little ski boat so they go out to the sea and when they see a big ship coming shoot out of the mother ship and quickly run up on the bigger should in their see boats and start firing on them and when they get close enough they will board the ship and hijacked it and have machine guns so basically most ships are not manned by people who are armed. a lot of insurance company get insurance company policies to have guns on ships because they don't want crewmembers killing each other. a lot of liability there. they got a lot of guns from within the country. you have to remember somalia has been in civil war for decades and guns have been pumped into that country consistently ever since the cold war, ever since the 70s, billions of dollars per year. you can get one's that have weapons. they fund them and invest in

them, to attack the ships. they are able to get a tax up to 800 nautical miles from the coast which is a long way so review can't be anywhere near the coast and the 100% safe. generally speaking most people stay 200 nautical miles away from a country because that is their exclusive economic zone but because of piracy there has to be a thousand or so nautical miles away from somalia to be saved. the problem is the way the area is shaped it is difficult to be that far away and still be efficient in terms of gas and fuel efficiency with your shipping vessels. two or three main stories. the biggest was a serious oil tanker, it had $100 million worth of oil. we need to stop these pirates because if they hijacked an oil tanker with 2 million barrels of oil on it, that could cause global oil prices to go through

the roof. so it is called the controversy because of the value of the products and because it was another muslim country they were hijacking a lot of muslims, you shouldn't be stealing from other muslims. this isn't right, then you have people involved in the global economy saying the piracy problem could be a major issue, we need to get this thing under control. the second thing was there was a big shipment of weapons coming into the south sudan and they hijacked that. a bunch of other high artillery weapons so people decided to take these weapons and sell them to oust obama. you have oil, weapons and a lot of money, that is really what

made people pay attention to some molly piracy. the situation that pushed things over the edge. first thing is first, you need a real legitimate government in somalia. you can't have these power-sharing agreements, people in government are only in it for themselves. they are there to enrich themselves and their clan, basically select a few people. there has to be more people centered government. there has to be a point where people in somalia are allowed to pick their own leaders, select their own leaders in an organic, holistic way and 20 have a more people centered government you need a lot better situation. you have to reduce too much violence. if you end violence in somalia or at least take it down to a reasonable level you can have some political development and also economic development as well. >> next from booktv after

tallahassee we take it for of the claude pepper library. >> the recreated house of the exhibit. located in sea claude pepper museum. was a united states senator and united states congressman from the state of florida. in his early days in the senate he was first of proponent of the wage and hour bill which established fair minimum wage for american workers. 2 was also a proponent of the lease act which allowed the united states to send arms and material to the allied nations than fighting the axis powers at the very beginning of the second world war. he was also instrumental in social security reform in nearly 30s. was branded a warmonger by isolationist politicians and was hung in effigy outside the halls of the capitol building in 1941 by the congress of american

mothers. they were convinced that along with other senators who were pushing for american involvement in the second world war were going to send their sons to war which unfortunately did happen, but claude viewed it as something necessary given the rapid expansion of the nazi regime and the japanese in the pacific. he was one of the more vocal proponents of american involvement in the war so that made avatar get but he was one who was always open to criticism and in fact kept the effigy in his office for the remainder of the time he was in the senate. and up until many years ago it was still with the collection but it has since disappeared over the last decade. the library is here and according to legend florida had dinner one evening with former president bernard swaggart, one

of our english professors who is now professor of emeritus, and initially his plans were to donate his papers to the franklin delano roosevelt library and museum only because he had such a close association with fdr when he was in the senate. professor stanley impressed upon him that he would have his own stand-alone museum and library were he to donate his papers here. he had a connection to the local area in his law office, still is located in perry, fla.. his wife mildred is buried in tallahassee and on his way up to his sessions in congress he would always stop off in tallahassee on the trip up to spend some time with her at her grave so he had many connections to tallahassee and that, coupled with the fact that he had his own stand-alone library sort of

appeals to his ego a little bit and he decided to donate his papers to florida state. apart from the museum which is the first thing visitors see when they walk in we have a reading room. i am going to the reading room, i have some materials from his senate and congressional days. we are currently in the claude pepper reading room. this is our space to view the collection as well as the other political collections at the library. right now i will start by showing you a few items from the collection created by senator pepper in conjunction with his workings with former u.s. presidents and the senate in-house. we are going to start with a box, this is his memoir series. we have some telegrams he sent to the united states senate

while he was on a foreign relations trip to germany. when he was over, he noticed with some alarm the rapidity, rapid growth that the nazi regime was going through. here are the telegrams, urging the united states to enter the war. this is from pepper to the united states senate. on both sides of the broad atlantic, our duty, one of plain common sense is obvious. we can help in the following ways -- we must give planes and more planes, guns and more guns and if necessary but harder still, our men. claude was very aware of the fact that our involvement in the second world war was a matter of not if but when. he was one of those that saw the writing on the wall very early

and advocated for the growth of the american military industrial complex in order to prepare for the conflict that was coming. next, i am going to pull one of the items that belonged to him when he was in the united states congress. this was his charm bracelet with two pepper shakers on it. and political cartoons throughout his career, he was depicted as a pepper shaker for obvious reasons. the name went well to that. the inscription reads claude pepper, assault of the earth, we need pepper for speights. that hit close to him at all times. we got a letter written to claude pepper 11 by franklin delano roosevelt thanking him for his unyielding support during his administration. this letter was sent to him by

fdr thanking him for his support of the roosevelt administration and policies that claude pepper had supported in the new deal. this was drafted at warm springs, ga. where fdr would go to seek treatment before his polio. the letter was dated april 9th, 1945, this was a less than a week before president roosevelt passed away and this was a very special piece because he was so close to roosevelt, was a very strong proponent of him. going to some correspondence between president roosevelt and senator pepper. and initially when he was a young senator he gained the attention of roosevelt, spoke as a freshman center which up until

that point was -- had not been made. typically senators wait until their sophomore year to speak on the floor of the senate but claude opted to speak as a freshly minted senator coming out in strong support of fdr's policies. this call attention to president roosevelt on his oratory skills and sort of cultivated a relationship that would potentially put clot in the position to be his mouthpiece to speak to the southeast. this is a teletype dated august 3rd, 1940. i want to send you this note to tell you my personal appreciation of all you have done. your support during these past few months has meant a lot to me. i am sure even without my telling you, i would say much about your speech to the convention but will only tell you that to us who are listening

on the radio it was like a refreshing breeze. thank you very much. i hope to see you soon, franklin roosevelt. we have an original print of a political cartoon, the caption reads a slight case of indigestion. too much pepper. as i mentioned before claude pepper was often depicted as a pepper shaker and here we have adolf hitler over a bowl of alphabet soup, this was done in response to claude pepper's support and advocacy of the allies in their struggle against the axis nations. we have also got from a little bit later on, this would have been from very early on, a print for memorial service for president john f. kennedy.

claude pepper was very devoted to president kennedy, believed he had forward thinking ideals that sort of claude pepper identified with as a young senator so he was very, very sad, the entire nation was, at the passing of president kennedy. our next item is a letter to claude pepper from president kennedy thanking him for his support. i will read this excerpt, i do want to take a few minutes to express my deep appreciation for your kind and thoughtful remarks with regard to my recent state of the union message. i am particularly appreciative of your strong support on behalf of medical care for the aged and the social security and federal aid education program. i am also grateful for your comments regarding latin america and approach to it. during many years in congress the people for and the nation had an outstanding valiant fighter. on behalf of public interest. i hope you will consider to

returning to public office. out of miami. in closing may i express my gratitude for your invaluable help during the campaign last fall. kind personal regards, john f. kennedy. claude pepper was very important to the american political scene for well over 40 years. very active in the senate and the house and was a proponent of the just nations that would help the common american man and woman. they are very important because it gives researchers, and those students who are not familiar with progressive politicians a glimpse into his life and allows everyone really to see the scope of his work, and appreciate what he did in his time in office. >> this weekend booktv is in

tallahassee with the help of comcast. up next we sit down with other david jackson to discuss book pretty washington's southern educational tours. >> visited mississippi at charles bank's coordinated through the state. and so i decided to look at the other tour washington had taken despite the fact the one of the leading historians on booker t. washington stated that to see one of washington's towards was to see them all. as i thought to explore different towards washington took throughout the south i decided it was distorted and needed to be told. washington had the occasion to visit florida in 1912 and when he visited florida he traveled to a number of cities in the state of florida. restarted in the western part of the state in pensacola, making the whistle stop from the back

of his railcar in quincy, fla. coming eastward and came to tallahassee and when he stopped in tallahassee he spoke at florida a&m college. the podium that he used to deliver his speech, educational tours can be a little bit misleading because they were not educational book learning but traveling around to educate himself and others about the progress of the black race and one of the things that is important to understand in the context of that time period, a very brutal time and experience for african-americans coming out of reconstruction but there were a number of efforts afoot to portray african-americans as being subhuman. an argument that the black race would not survive in the absence of slavery. people argued the black race was degenerating in the absence of

slavery. washington realized trying to counter that particular argument he could utilize these tours throughout the south to show that black people were progressing. what we find taking place was on a literary field of battle you have a number of officers who are writing books that are short biographical sketches of african-americans and their accomplishments since slavery. people were born into slavery but tremendous things they were doing at that time so you had works that were produced along that line. what washington has done when he travels throughout the south, placing black progress on display. some people were writing about it and had the capacity to show what african-americans i doing. he actually traveled with black lawyers, black doctors, black professors, black ministers,

black masonic leaders, black businessmen, those people were part of black america, traveled with booker t. washington. when he traveled to different states accompanied by the leading african-american doctors, lawyers and business people etc. throughout the state. by having those people a dress professionally, to articulate themselves in a certain way. people could tell their stories about how they were able to come up from slavery as well and to demonstrate black progress when the long way for booker t. washington in undermining arguments the black race was dying off. it occurred in 1906, an african from the congo to the united

states. he was brought to the united states to participate in the st. louis world's fair at that particular time. after that was over, the coordinator is started to decide at least what they were going to do, so made the decision to place him in the bronx zoo in new york with the a retains and some people made the argument that he was the missing link in between humans and apes and he came from a particular tribe where his teeth were shaved so people put bones in cages to make it seem like he was a cannibal and so forth that he had a family back home, he was taken from his family. this was in 1906. you have this type of scenario taking place where washington

and other african americans saw the need to counter the negative images. we see the proliferation of black memorabilia in the late 1800s because when african-americans could no longer be bought and slowed physically you see the emergence of this material cultures so you have the samples that are sold, the post cards that are sold throughout the south with exaggerated features of african-americans, african americans appearing on different food items in the united states in a very demeaning fashion. all of these things taking place in the country, washington and the people supported him because they realized placing black progress on display they were able to undermine those particular assertions with substance. when booker t. washington traveled around he wanted to make sure all the other venues consisted of not just african-americans but white

americans as well so usually leading white figures in the communities would participate on a programs either introduce washington, would welcome washington to a particular city and in some instances whites raised money to bring washington to their particular talent as he traveled throughout the south and this was important because this sent a message to whites in the north and in the south as well as african-americans that booker t. washington was the leading african-americans spokesman at that particular time but also provided a sense of hope to african-americans who were able to look at these panels, the platforms where different people were having the discussions and the programs were taking place to see that may be a better day is in fact coming. interestingly, all of the events, whites attended the events. they were not just on a program.

sometimes it is a 50/50 split between black and white in the audience, they were always segregated and it was important for the newspapers to convey information so people would not be alarmed or become distracted by people sitting together as opposed to the message booker t. washington was trying to communicate. one story, he traveled through north carolina, it just so happens the vice president of the united states, a man by the name of james sherman was in north carolina at the same time and he requested to meet with booker t. washington so there is actually an incident where there railcars back up to each other and back up to the rail car and shake hands with each other and there is this those efforts applause that takes place, but the laugh about the fact that sherman told washington he could see he was in the south converting centers as well so they both laughed about that and

sherman participated on one of the programs afterwards with booker t. washington. he was like a modern-day politicians on the campaign trail and one of the major issues for middle class african-americans in particular was jump coat travel. african-americans invented the fact that if they had money to pay for first-class accommodations in terms of travel they were forced into the smoking cars or given substandard accommodation. the way washington and other being men traveling with him were able to get around was a typically rented their own private sleeper cars. they were able to show by having some kind of economic access and wealth it was a way of circumventing the jim crow system. washington certainly was a child of the south and there were some people he recognize that did not

want him to visit their town. or their cities or states. one pointed example was when washington was scheduling his tour of mississippi and the governor of mississippi at the time was one of the most racist, ideologues in the country at that time. man named james kate barton in. he has all kinds of derogatory things to say about african-american people but washington became so concerned about the threats against his life that he actually hired a pinkerton detectives to go down and scout out the mississippi before he visited the state so this particular detective went ahead of washington and his party, washington received a letter from a young man by the name of j. mahoney and he begged booker t. washington not to visit mississippi because the people -- if you come here you are leaving in the body bag anyone not leave the way you

came. so washington received bomb threats, people sent letters saying if you come to jackson, mississippi we will blow up the rail car that you are on. so he had concerns about that as evidenced by the fact he hired his detective but when his detectives got out the area he didn't find any particular individuals who had animus to assassinate booker t. washington but the threat was always there. interestingly when washington spoke in jackson there were so many people there that the upper levels of the auditorium where he spoke, the balcony collapsed at the end of his speech. they wondered if the was a sanitize that had taken place but they determine the was no act of sabotage that occurred, it was fortuitous that it did. booker t. washington was the only african-american leader

that had the influence he manifested in his lifetime. washington had the support that it was not often portrayed that way. but the leading educated african-americans in the country at that particular time most of them supported booker t. washington. the upper echelon of black society, those were the educated african-american people who had gone to college at that particular time. the black professional class at that party to the time and in many instances people tend to associate them more with w. e. b. du bois because he graduated from harvard. reality is the people traveling with washington like an english professor at howard university was a phi beta kappa graduate of howard university. charles napier who graduated

from oberlin and howard university law school was the register of the u.s. treasury. john kenny created a hospital in tuskegee, alabama. he was a physician. charles banks is the leading banker in mississippi, there were 13 black banks in mississippi and charles banks was the leading banker and leading businessman in that particular state at that particular time. the individuals who typically would be associated with the talented 10 are supporters of booker t. washington. he established the std institute which became the best funded institution, african american institution of that day but also one of the best in the south so the student population at tuskegee was the same size as the student university at auburn university and alabama and

tuscaloosa. was one of the best funded black institutions and washington was bolstered by the fact he hired the largest number of black college graduates in the country. washington founded the national negro business lead which put him in touch with black business people throughout the country. he founded the black conference and had his hands on a lot of things at that time. he also had influence with presidents at that point so president theodore roosevelt, william howard taft, they would go to booker t. washington for his recommendation whether individuals black and white should receive appointments so there are instances where roosevelt was going to washington to make sure a white person was okay and palatable to him before they receive an appointment as a judge or postmaster or what have you.

he had tremendous political influence as well. he also had influence with journalists. we knows that even went so far as to finance some black newspapers so he could control the message that was sent out and based on some recent scholarship on washington we know he was very much in control of how his image was projected as well so looking at all those things and considering the fact he had a following, if you look at how people came out to listen to him speak and not only did they listen to him speak, they believed in his philosophy and tried to carry into practice the things booker t. washington encouraged them to do. there are instances when he came to florida and spoke in ocala, fla. that less than a year after that visit the business people in ocala, african-american

business people open up a black bank. certainly it was due to their inspiration from washington's visit and they applauded the business week as well and what we find is other leaders had influence but the ability to reach so many people and have so many people to actually believe in the message of a person is a little bit different. the major point here is that booker t. washington called upon different people who believed in his message to help promulgate his view that if he placed black progress on his plate it would go a long way toward undermining these arguments about the black race degenerating in the absence of slavery. >> from booktv's recent tallahassee, jon grandage takes

us through the constitutions of florida from as early as 1812. >> we are at the state library and archives of florida in tallahassee. we are here to talk about the early florida constitutions. the first document i have here, it is special we have this at the archives right now, is on a loan from the florida historical society in cocoa. this is known as the patriot constitution of 1812. there is a lot of history behind this particular document. in 1812 of group of georgia settlers known as the patriot army invaded northeastern florida, citizens were living in spanish florida. at that time florida was a colony of spain and throughout the spanish empire there were independence movements that have a originated in the late teens century and early nineteenth century. by the time this document was

created mexico had become independent, fremont boulevard and the folks in south america were operating to achieve independence as well and the motivation for this group of individuals was that they were going to come in to florida primarily from georgia, they were going to come in to florida and encourage these citizens of spanish florida to rise up against their government and proclaim independence. when they came across the st. mary's river which is the boundary between george and florida they entered the city of fernandina and the people there, the spanish government in control was of the opinion it would be much easier for them to just let these patriots occupied their city so they occupied fernandina without firing a shot at all. the patriots then were going to make a move on the city of st. augustine which was protected by a large stone fortress, when they approached the city of st. augustine the military commanders in that city let it be known to the patriots they

were not going to allow them to take control of st. augustine. there was some periodic fighting that took place. the most exciting fighting that took place in this. fighting was when the patriots moved on some seminole and free black towns that were located in the interior portion of the northern florida peninsula around what is today known as the pains prairie. at that time it was known as alachua. the patriots were defeated in there fighting against the seminoles. they moved back to fernandina, determining this project was a complete failure and they failed to achieve their objective of taking a portion of florida and what they wanted to do when they took over fernandina and their plan to take over st. augustine was as soon as they became in charge of that area and they would cede it to the united states. they would transfer that territory to the united states

and the republic of florida would become another territory. they created in the time in which they were in florida and in control of fernandina they created what is known as their constitution, the patriot constitution and the document is very similar to the united states constitution. was directly influenced by that document and is very similar in form and function, granted citizenship to white men over the age of 21, that was the only people who could vote and it was specific that most of the people who would make up this government which would be short-lived anyway had to have taken a role in the rebellion against the spanish. it was never really enforced at all and because the individual so-called patriots were not officially acting on the part of the united states government and since they never took control of spanish florida the constitution

really never had any significant impact whatsoever on the form of government in that time of spanish florida. the territorial government started to form, the drive toward statehood occurred 15 years after florida became a territory. the document that we have here is the 1838 constitution of florida. this is the first constitution that was drafted in anticipation of florida becoming a state. in 1838 a group of delegates met at st. joseph's. this is along the coast, a port city along the coast southwest of tallahassee. a small area but important in the time and it was kind of a rival port city to appalachicola which was a major port city on the florida panhandle. delegates came from west florida, east florida and different committees, major

controversy surrounding the constitutional convention was the issue of banking in florida. a lot of articles in the constitution that attempted to regulate banking in what would become the state of florida. there was big interest among floridians from keeping a lot of outside of the state-controlled banks from establishing in the territory, they were adamant about keeping land speculation to a minimum and in affect the territorial governments were handling the land dealings. the document itself, this is the first portion of it. the very top of that, it will extend across the entire table. it is unusual because this is the only known copy to exist of the 1838 constitution. is believed to be a secretary's

kospi and this would be the secretary of the constitutional convention. a lot of interesting provisions in this document. it is similar in form and function to the united states constitution and the constitutions of georgia and south carolina. there were specific laws in here aimed at limiting the ability of state government to demand to pay slaves and they did what they could to limit the extent of free blacks from moving into the territory so it set up terms for the governor. the governor was elected every four years. the house of representatives was elected every year and the senate would have two year term so it would create a senate and house. seven years would pass before florida would become a state and that has to do with the fact that the time states were admitted into the union pairs, one slave state, one free state. when florida was admitted in 1845 iowa came into the union as a free state. the next document we have is

what is known as the florida ordinance of secession. much like the 1838 constitutions this is the only known copy of the ordnance that is in existence. this particular piece is antebellum type paper. there's quite a lot of damage to the original document. for many years this country in ma hall of the florida house of representatives. remarkable document so far as it is the only copy known to exist. some of it is peeling off. it was clear what the ordinance did in the context of florida. it is dated january 10th, 1861, so this is the document that severed the ties between what at that time was the state of florida in the united states government. when the civil war ended in 1865 the state of florida became with other southern states being

under federal control. immediately upon the possession of florida by the federal government they drafted what is known as the 1865 constitution. in its major contribution to florida's political history was to abolish the florida or secession so in essence this document said that the secession which had been illegal and so on under the perspective of the federal government was here by nullified and this constitution would be what they were trying to work out, what florida's government would look like once it re-entered the union. a lot of this document, the 1865 document very much resembles the 1838 document. there wasn't a lot that was going to change but the most important thing that was going to change, the slavery would be abolished in the state of florida. the next document is the 1868 constitution and this is significant because this is the

constitution that was enacted during reconstruction. it is the reconstruction document. when florida was admitted to the union this is the constitution of the federal government. had to abolish slavery. it had to accept the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments in order for florida to be readmitted into the union. this document in effect granted a lot of political rights to african-americans that prior to this time had been expressly denied by the words of the 1838 constitution and when florida became part of the union again there was a short lived time much like in the other southern states where african-americans were elected to positions of power in the state government. there were african-americans from florida who served in the united states house of representatives.

many african-americans served in the florida house and the florida senate. these would be the only african-americans to serve in those positions well into the 20th century following the implementation of jim crow laws and the history of segregation that would come later in the nineteenth century. the 1868 constitution from the perspective of many floridians would be looked upon as a terrible document. the vast majority of political power in the state after reconstruction ended was vested with the primarily white individuals who were involved in the slave holding and railroads and banking and some of the other large industries and so the 1868 constitution from the perspective of those individuals, something they wanted to reverse almost immediately but it did take some time. the federal government occupied florida until the 1870s and the individuals who were in power

who were floridians, not the people who had been federal agents in essence in florida they wanted to try to reverse this and strip back some of the rights that had been granted to african-americans in the wake of the civil war. this document in essence and did a lot of what the 1868 document did. for example established poll taxes, these were taxes placed on voting throughout the south and in other parts of the country as well so poor whites and african-americans were prevented from voting, in essence disenfranchised because they would have to be required to pay a small amount of money when they came to vote. there was another provision, a very specific one saying it was illegal for african-americans and whites to live together or to marry one another. by the time we get into the twenty-first century the most recent revision to the constitution, you are still working very much on a framework

that has been established during the territorial period. there are a little tweets here and there, how long representatives could serve, different things about districting, banking and infrastructure but much of the framework established in 1838 remained in place until the 20th century when we had this major revisions that really brought florida's constitution into a modern period and reflected the massive economic and demographic changes that took place in the state in the 20th century. >> up next co-authors david ikard and martell teasley talk about their book "nation of cowards: black activism in barack obama's post-racial america". the co-authors spoke with a booktv during our recent visit to tallahassee, florida with the help of our cable partner comcast. >> politicians have agendas and probably the primary agenda is to be reelected. what barack obama new and what he was able to massage very well was that race would be a factor

for whether or not people would vote for him. we saw during the first election when he had great speech -- >> what we needed were americans in successive generations who are willing to do their part to protest and struggle on the streets and in the courts through a civil war, civil disobedience, always at great risk, to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time. this was one of the tasks we set forward at the beginning of this presidential campaign. to continue the long march of those who came before us, the march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous america. >> what was great about that race speech was it pacified a lot of white folks who otherwise

you ago, a greek black man but in order to accomplish that, he had to fudge the truth. he had to equate white in anxiety about black folks taking over with the harsh reality, socio-economic reality of black people being oppressed and make the two things equivalent. my feeling that somehow you are pushing too fast and making me uncomfortable by the man that you get what i have is equated with generations of folks who were economically enslaved and disenfranchised. everybody felt i think he hears me. he may in fact here you but that actually skews the historical reality of what happened. >> what cowards: black activism in barack obama's post-racial america"? >> was initially based on eric holder's lecture after barack

obama's rise to the presidency. everyone was expecting the first black attorney general, the first black president, during black history month, that this was going to be a very celebratory speech but in fact he started the speech by saying america is a nation of cowards. >> one cannot truly understand america without understanding the historical experience of black people in this nation. simply put, to get to the heart of this country one must examine its racial soul. the nation probably thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, and things racial we have always been and i believe continue to be in too many ways essentials dna shin of cowards. race related issues continued to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion. >> you went on to say why we shouldn't get overly excited about the election of the first

black president when there were so many racial disparities and social inequities in our society and we thought that was the ideal title because it captured what we were trying to do with the book. caution people not to get overly excited about the symbolism of a black president versus the social economic reality that it actually meant on the ground. ..

>> this is the first president witn the past 40 years that has had no african-american agenda. and so even the republican presidents have all had african-american agendas. and so he sets a very bad precedent going forward if this is none know -- if there is none now, and what will become if there is another president? that's problematic. >> what do you think the expectation level was of the african-american community once obama was elected? >> we thought, people got caught up in the hoopla of the time. initially -- and we talk about that in the book, that people would say he'd have to get past a but tough times -- a few tough times and tap dance around things in terms of his republican constituency, but at

some time he would get into issues of black america. i think up until the latter part of his first term this office, there was still a lot of optimism and hope in terms of a black agenda, particularly the word on the street this black spaces -- in black spaces was wait until the second term. >> right, right. >> and then -- but we still hadn't drunk the kool-aid, so to speak. >> and why were people waiting for that, what was the rationale. because that's a what we were hearing. they said, well, barack obama can't do -- he can only do so much. white america is on him if he tries to pivot, to talk and address about specific black issues, then they're going to tag him as a raced president, and he's going to turn off that white constituency that voted for him. and so the real clincher in terms of pressuring him is waiting this the second term where he doesn't have to worry

about being reelected, and that's when he's going to really show, right, his blackness. and that's when he's really going to tow the line for black america. >> right. so that was the kind of word on the street in black america. we've felt none of that. because mainly, you know, the central question is -- and i think you asked that -- is what does it mean to be black? it's quite a difference between color and consciousness. there's some dark people with very strange minds. [laughter] just because you have a particular hue doesn't mean you have a particular agenda. and we weren't swallowing that right off top. we felt that, no, this person has come through the mainstream constituency, we saw his track record in chicago, we saw the type of folks that he had to deal with to get the election and the nomination as the democratic candidate for president. and it was the same kind of political contingency that had been this in the first -- been there in the first place. so for us it was not just black america, but america is in

general, this person who because of his hue was supposed to bring so much change. >> right. and you have to keep in mind, too, that our subjectivity as black men, right, writing about the first black president really complicated our receptivity in black spaces. and as we were writing the book as well, tavis smiley and cornell west became these kind of figureheads as the kind of anti-obama or obama haters. and so there was a lot of controversy around those particular figures; one, because of a well documented frustration that tavis smiley had at feeling like he was snubbed, barack obama snubbed him for his state of the union symposium that he does, and he said that instead of him coming, he sent michelle, he was willing to, like, have

michelle as a stand-in. and so he was, you know, as rumor has it, he was very sore about that. and so he came out very vocal about, like, you know, his discontent about that. and then cornell west, not getting, you know -- again, this is part of the rumor mill -- not getting tickets to the inauguration and getting a kind of vip seat there after he had did so much campaigning for barack obama. so both of them got framed in the public sphere as haters, and by extension of that, sellouts. so any kind of conversation that involved pushing the president of to have some kind of black agenda, some kind of political consciousness that recognize that he had overwhelming -- at one point it was close to 100% -- of the african-american support, and it really wasn't costing him anything. he wasn't doing anything with that support.

and the argument that we were making that was that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? if you don't push the president to do anything, he won't do anything. the roadblock was that the moment you began to make that argument, people made the association between cornell west and tavis smiley. like, oh, you're saying the same thing that tavis smiley is saying. and so that really shut down our ability a lot of times to have these, right, these conversations about how do we -- yes, we can support barack obama, right? and you can enjoy the symbolic capital of that, but our unemployment, right, this some places -- in some places are twice, even three times that of white america. what through white america is the financial crisis when unemployment reached 8% and everybody was going hysterical, the unemployment rate for black america had been that and more for many years prior to that. and it wasn't, there wasn't hysteria. and so there was a clear

disparity in the kind of economic and social strife that america was under. in other words, there were multiple americas, right? and so we wanted to kind of really address that issue and really think about what kind of voice do we need to have as a black community to push the president to actually act on this and to say, you know what? america's hurting, but black america, brown america has been hurting even worse and for a longer period of time. so it's not like i'm singling them out for special treatment, but i'm stating the fact as. >> talk to me more about some of the issues. >> well, one would be the wealth gap and employment. the wealth gap, and it's -- i don't know what he particularly can do about that, but he can put particular things in motion. we thought or with the black america we think that there would be jobs, there would be more projects within the black community, that by executive

order or by legislation bills could be signed that would bring jobs and that there would be more consideration for the needs of the black community when social policy was made. so take, for example, race to the top, the school reform policy that he has. african-americans would have thought that more money would have come into the innerty schools because -- iper in city schools because they were very dramatic and they're hurting. they're bleeding in terms of their preparation of black children for the future. and the types of policies that have been developed through race to the top or were consistent with -- were consistent with bush's no child l left behind with not only hurting black communities in terms of putting testing in front of students who were not prepared to take it, but race to the top really affords the same thing. one, by bringing in charter schools and market-based reform when african-americans do not

have the wherewithal to participate in market-based reform in terms of k-12 education. >> right, and then t.a.r.p. money. >> t.a.r.p. money. so t.a.r.p. money was the big one, and while we saw huge backlash about t.a.r.p. money -- >> and then the face of that abuse of that money was maxine waters -- >> right. >> so the taxpayers have lent their money to the big banks who are supposed to be big business persons, expertise in business management who were failing. they have gone back to ask for some assistance. they're being denied. and many in addition to that -- and in addition to that, mr. chairman, i want to talk a little bit later on when i question about the fact that these banks not only took huge amounts of money from the taxpayers under the banner of t.a.r.p., they then charged and made money on the banks -- on the money that we gave them in fees. >> who was really pressing to

make sure, i mean, she saw a disparity. and she was like, we're being left behind -- >> right. >> -- in being helped. and we're being disproportionately, right, left out of, right, the pool of money. and so then she became the kind of face of corruption when the reality is a lot of these very politicians who were, you know, grabbing for that money -- i remember the great moment during that presidential election where biden turned to paul ryan, and biden told him i remember when you requested that specific t.a.r.p. money and would desperately ask me for that t.a.r.p. money, and now you're coming on public television saying that that was a waste of taxpayer money. and so it's really interesting that maxine waters when they talked about abuse of that money, she became the face of that. so even when the reality was that black and brown folks were

being disproportionately left out of the pool. >> so, and, you know, back to your question about what were some of the thoughts in terms of what could be done for black constituency with the election or preelection of barack obama, one was more of his face within black communities, more endorsement of entrepreneurship. not necessarily asking for a handout, but just recognition that black folk would work hard. more appointments, possibly, to his cabinet. to his credit, there were a handful of appointments to prominent positions throughout the administration. but in many ways people felt that there were not enough. >> right, and you have to remember, i remember in his first term and midterm elections, a lot of republican governors picked up seats, and they said if the black population had turned out for those races as much as they turned out for the presidential election, the democrats would have won. and i remember specifically tom

joyner who's a major figure in the black community who's a morning radio show came on the show and basically said, well, identify tried to -- i've tried to get barack obama on my show. when he was running for president, he came on the show. he said, but since then we haven't heard from him, and if he wanted the black community to come out, he should have been on my show. shortly after that, he came on the show. when tom joyner called him out and he say, wait a minute, i can't just be here and expect black folks to come out and support, i actually have to to earn that, i actually have to rally that, he would respond to that. and another thing that we make that is kind of in direct line with that has to do with the gay vote, right? and when barr think frank -- barney frank, the gay coalition was going to march, and this was soon after barack obama had been elected. and barney frank, of course, the

first openly-gay congressman, he came out publicly and said that he disavowed the parr. and i remember -- the march. and i remember the quote, we quote this in the book. the only thing that they would be doing was pushing down grass, right? so he was basically like, look, give this guy some space, you know? he's going to follow through. and they marched anyway. now what do we have of? basically, we have of the de facto legalization of gay marriage, right? he was the first president to ever come on record to say that. he's had the first active nba player to the white house, we have the don't ask, don't tell policy within the military that was shot down. so it turns out that barney frank was or very wrong, right?

first openly-gay congressman was wrong about how to push the president. and, in fact, by marching, by being vocal, you can look and see the major dividend change. and not only that, but it has led to a momentous change in how, you know, even communities that had heretofore been very resistant to that, radically changed attitudes because people were willing to push the president. >> the point is that your -- you're going to give someone approximately 95% of your entire vote, you must demand something. and that's what african-americans have not done. and so they're very parochial at this. this is a very new ideal of having the first black president. >> right. >> so what does that really mean? well, you have to ask for something, and you have to hold their feet to the fire. so if we look at the keystone pipeline, our environmentalist brothers and sisters said to the president that if you don't consider stopping that pipeline,

there will probably be some challenges and some people who won't vote for you during your re-election campaign. lo and behold, the keystone pipeline was stopped. keystone pipeline was stopped. so that's in the same language they were speaking there. here again these are constituencies that say if you want our vote, we have some demands. and that's what we have not seen black america, nor have we seen black america's leaders demand that. you have seen some rumbling here and there. there's an article if the new york times or "the washington post" here and there, particular particularly on black politicians who were not satisfied. but the voice has not been enough in terms of the outreach needed for a constituency that has supported him wholeheartedly prior to his run for election and continues to support him. for one, it starts at the grassroots. >> local level. >> and so if we take the tavis smiley/cornell west and al sharpton debacle that happened,

what we have there are the most visible black leaders in the country who have name brand recognition who are called to rally, in the instance of trayvon martin and other problematic situations that happen to black america. they were arguing amongst themselves instead of back room arguments and then in the front coming out with a solidified agenda on what comes next, and so that -- >> let me jump in here, too, because you raise a really good question about trayvon martin. >> when trayvon martin was first shot, i said that this could have been my son. another way of saying that is that trayvon martin could have been me. 35 years ago. and and when you think about why in the african-american community at least there's a lot of pain around what happened here, i think it's important to

recognize that the african-american community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away. enter we have to keep in mind that ray von martin does not -- trayvon martin does not even become an issue if black twitter, if community organizations don't make it a campaign. of so we don't even know it as problematic as that verdict was, we don't even have -- this does not even become an international story if people from the grassroots, from the bottom and on twitter and facebook and flicker and instagram rallying in front of courthouses make that an issue, that was not initiated from on top. that came from the bottom, right? so we know that this kind of grass -- i mean, we can point to moments where this kind of

grassroots action matters. and if we think about, well, but trayvon martin, right, he still gets -- his death wasn't vindicated. yes and no, because because of the uproar of trayvon martin when this michael dup situation happened, people were like, wait a minute, are we going to allow this to happen again? the jurors understood what the stakes were, the judge understood, the prosecutor or understood that we cannot let this happen again, so it made people hyperaware, conversations were being had, discussions, debates, you know, people were prepared to rally. in other words, it doesn't have to take a celebrity or a politician to rally. in fact, it can come there the ground, and we can see -- from the ground, and we can see what this hyperawareness actually yields. >> sure. >> it pays dividends. >> yeah. and then the leaders pick up the post for the community and carry it from there. >> right. >> not as moneymaker, but in

terms of taking care of the needs of the community s. and then the political constituents get hooked into it also. that has not happened so much in terms of the needs of black america during the obama administration. >> well, you know, the beer summit, right? was an important moment as was the eric holder moment, because that was when you got to see what it would look like if the black president, right, the person who has been given so much love because he seems to be able to talk about race in a way that diffuses the situation for a lot of people, we got to see what would it be like. and what was telling about that particular moment and was lost on a lot of people and we raise this in the book was that when president

barack obama did the, made the comments first of all, the cambridge police department had actually reversed their position, set gates free, dropped the charges. and so when he came out and said the police acted stupidly in that context, the really -- it had, actually, it looked like on the ground that the issue had been resolved, that, in fact, the cambridge police department themselves had acknowledged that they acted in haste. right? what was also important about that moment was that the sound bite that got heard around the world and replayed and replayed was the police acted stupidly. which, quite frankly, the police acted stupidly. but what was striking was they completely missed the second and most important part of obama's response which was when i was a senator in illinois, we had similar issues of racial profiling and police brutality.

what we did to see what the issue was, we put cameras in police cars. and what we saw was when it came to a black or brown person, they were significantly -- there was a higher percentage of them being stopped and frisked and asked to open their trunk and these kind of things than it was when it had to do with a white motorist. and, in fact, when they did check the white motorist, they were -- the rate that they would have, like, paraphernalia or drugs was incredibly high. so what he was saying was i'm talking through the stats, and the stats show whether you look at the macro can -- macro or the micro issue, the racial profiling is a serious issue when it comes to policing black and brown spaces. that completely dropped out of the conversation. barack obama's approval ratings took a major hit -- >> yeah. >> it became the major news cycle, you know, sound bite. and instead of, like, coming out and, like, explaining that

context, he retreated. right? and we ended up with this kind of watered-down beer summit, kind of op-ed, you know, photo op moment that really set the stage for how the obama white house was going to deal with race at that moment. and also keep in mind because you had asked earlier about how we came up with the name "nation of cowards." when, for about several weeks after eric holder made that controversial statement, barack obama was silent. and then the noise kept getting bigger and bigger, and finally he was being interviewed by "the new york times", and he said, well basically, eric holder misspoke. or he spoke out of line. and that, in fact, what he should have said was we're not interested in a nation of coward, but what we should be talking about is how everybody

can work together, how our policies benefit everybody. we shouldn't be singling out one group or another. and, in fact, it was a very clear public hit that he was giving holder. and after that we saw a very dramatic change in the way that holder addressed race issues. he pulled back. so one got the sense that there was a conversation that was had. these kinds of issues are out of bounds. if you read the book, it should become very clear that we're not interested in being obama haters. we're really, you know, obama is just the, kind of the starting point for the conversation. >> that's right. >> we're really thinking about obama as -- or how do we think about black activism in the 21st century when the racial politics have shifted? and who is the person now, who's the face of power? and when that shifts, does that necessarily mean a seismic change has happened, or does

that mean that power has just shifted how it, you know, comports itself? and so really barack obama was kind of the entry point. but really it was these larger issues that we were trying to get at. >> if you going to -- you're going to give someone 96% of your vote as a group of people, then you must have them guarantee something for that, or you must push for something from that. you must stay organized, you must keep the pedal to the meltal in terms -- metal in terms of activism. the challenges that african-americans have will take a long time to fix. what we're doing is trying to add some conversation to that as our part in our time. and we would like to see african-americans learn a lesson from this. so that we're young and that this is the first african-american president. but that in the future we'll have other leaders who may reach this height. so the next time around that

we're not so naive, not so parochial, not so giddy in our approach that we vote for people who are going to do something about problems that don't just belong to african-americans, that predominantly, though, impact them within their communities. and in that way it will help all americans. also, we must remember that barack obama, one of the reasons that he was elected is because he has this way about him where he can take on racial issues and make america not feel so bad about them, but in a very cogent way explain what's going on as well as come to some solutions. and so that's why many african-americans were pro-barack obama, because we thought that he was a sounding board for many of the things that black america knows about in the first place and that he could articulate them in the highest places within this country. and that he really has failed to

do. >> yeah, yeah. >> and so what we want, one, is that our politicians to hold their feet to the fire and, two, for us to hold the fire under them. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to tallahassee, florida, and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/localcontent. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2. here's our prime time lineup for tonight. at 7:15 eastern, charles calamaris analyzed the banking systems of several countries going back several decades to find out what makes banking systems unstable. at 8:15, an author presentation and book party for hrc by jonathan allen and amy parnes, at 9:30, freedom fest, and at 10 p.m., qualify -- "after words," with george nash. and we wrap up tonight's prime

time programming at 11 eastern looking at ways the news media shapes the way we think about politics, tragedy, crime and celebrity. all that happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> sean strub talks about his life and his efforts to bring awareness to the aids epidemic during the 1980s. in 1990 mr. strub, who himself has lived with aids for over three decades, became the first openly-gay hiv-positive person to run for congress. this is about an hour. [applause] >> that was very lovely, thank you so much. and thank you, ken. i, you know, i tell people about this tour that i'm going on. we have 40 some events, they say, oh, my god. you're going to be so exhausted. but i love it.

i really enjoy getting out and talking to people and having the kind of, you know, conversations that have been arising at some of these events already. of so i'm going to read just for a few minutes, for five or six minutes, the prologue from the book. and then we can go into questions and answers. am i okay on the microphone? okay, let me see. >> you're tall. [laughter] >> oh, there we go. i wanted to do that to cleveland, but i never got forever. [laughter] never got very far. there are so many people in this room i could go around thanking. literally, steve and carol right here and rink, whose photography i've enjoyed for years and years, and angus and thomas and mark and tess. i can go over here and jen and lauren who is our managing editor at poz. the reason we never missed a deadline in terms of delivering the magazine.

despite our sometimes dysfunctional is lauren hoffman right here. my cousin who worked at poz. dropped out of college to come work for poz basically. [laughter] and all sorts of other people. so, and my pal naomi who's just an amazing pal. so i -- a lot of what i have said at some of these other events i don't think i need to say here, because i think people understand the epidemic, people in this room in a way that -- different from some of the other places i've spoken. so i think i'm just going to do the prologue, read that, and then we can get into a discussion. it requires glasses.

december, 1989, new york city. i am nervously sitting this a pew near the front of st. patrick's cathedral in new york where john cardinal o'connor is about to celebrate mass. it had been years -- has been years since i took communion, the holiest of sacrament as, but that is why i'm here. i remember the awe i felt as an alter boy in iowa city at st. mary's and later the anger when the church we be trayed me. it is bitterly cold, a near-record low. many parishioners wear heavy coats. slush-covered boots have left a wet trail down the long center aisle. 24rs a puddle under my pew. the mood in the church is tense. as the minutes pass, i think of the jesuits who taught me as a child that a good catholic acts upon the church's social teachings, even be that means confronting the church.

my hands are trembling with the cold, my apprehension and other feelings too deep to name. outside st. patrick's, 4500 angry men and women have assembled chanting and waving plaque cards that read: curve your dogma and condoms, not coffins. bull horns blare, act up, the aids coalition to unleash power, is protesting coo'connor's assault on safe sex and reproductive lights. there's a carnival-like atmosphere. speaking in tongues, performing their protests n. act up high camp and high seriousness are uniquely compatible. an artist, named ray navarro, is dressed as jesus christ, slopped in a white shroud carrying a large wooden cross over his near-skeletal shoulder. his weirdbearded face is gone, and he wears a crown of thorns

over his long, thinning hair. ray looks beatific. he will be dead in less than a year. keith herring is there too with a longhand-knitted scarf wrapped around his slender neck. he has two months left. inside the cathedral, o'connor's mass is interrupted again and again by act up protesters surreptitiously spread throughout the church, they stand up and yell out their statements. my friend michael climbs on a pew and shouts, o'connor, you're killing us. >> another friend, jamie leo, offers up a prayer in protest. two boyfriends in black leather motorcycle jackets handcuff themselves to one pew. right after o'connor begins his homily, 30 protestest blow whistle, throwing-ups of condoms -- throwing con dumbs up in the -- condoms up in the air. the cops have their moment, binding wrists with plastic handcuffs and carrying the

protesters away on stretchers as if they're taking them to a hospital rather than to paddy wagons. with this homily -- his homily in tatters, o'connor retreats to his throne-like chair, melodramaticically trying to convey spiritual pain. [laughter] photographs of the media-savvy cardinal looking besieged will elicit overwhelming sympathy. communion begins amid the general confusion. act up protesters line up. but when it is their turn, they make loud political pronouncements. safe sex is moral sex. i support a woman's right to choose. condoms save lives. soon, it is my turn to receive the body and blood of christ. a small, dark-skinned priest is serving my queue, his white, green and gold vestments are bright. he hesitates briefly, his eyes

fixed on the pink triangle and silence equals death logo visible on the t-shirt underneath my coat. then he intones with a strong spanish accent, the body of christ. this is the moment, my moment, to confront the church when instead of repeating "the body of christ," as expected, i am to make my political statement, but i have not prepared one. when i rehearsed this moment this my mind, i imagined i -- when i rehearsed this moment in my mind, i imagined i might break into tears or erupt in rage because no slogan, in fact, no words at all seemed adequate. may the lord bless the man i love who died a year ago this week, i hear myself say. my voice begins as a tremble but finishes strong. police standing a few feet away are ready to intervene, watching to see how the priest reacts. his hand jerks slightly, but he looks me in the eye and gives me

the wafer. with my heart pounding, i walk back to my pew. my mind is fixed on bodies but not the body of christ. i think of michaels' body and the agonizing brain infection that turned his last days into a kind of crucifixion. i think of the bodies of the protesters carried out on stretchers and the bodies of those chanting outside, many struggling to survive. i think of my own body, wondering how much longer it will last. parishioners are staring at me. their faces disgusted or sympathetic or just plain stunned. some have their heads bowed, hands pressed tightly in prayer like the devout at st. mary's, their faith unshakable and unwilling to brook any criticism of the church. they might be praying for us. after mass i pass through the cathedral's heavy doors into the bright sunlight, and it seems to

me into the arms of my true community. i am exalted, in a state that feels like grace, certain that if i am to die of aids, i will die as a fighter, not a victim. [applause] i'd like to read that part -- i like to read that part of the book partly because it was by far the most controversial action act up ever undertook. it was wildly controversial even within the organization with very intense debates all summer long. at times it looked like it might actually tear the group apart. and by 10:00 monday morning, gay men's health crisis, everybody had their press releases out condemning us, distancing

themselves from what we were doing. we were very much alone. but there are a couple of things i like to point out now with the perspective of almost quarter century. there'll be a 25th anniversary this december of that action. the first is there were 110 people arrested that day. roughly half inside the church and half were outside the church. and of those arrested inside the church, if you look at the roster of names, something becomes immediately evident, because those names are a preponderance of names that are clearly catholic. those of us who grew up within the tradition of that church even if we had left the church or the church had left us still felt some sense of a right to take our redress directly to the churchment i never -- church. i never had any qualms about it. i was one of the advocates from

the very beginning. the names on the list of the outside of the church are not quite so culturally catholic. when i think people understand that the disruption of the mass inside the church was overwhelmingly done by people who grew up in a church, my three sisters first names are all mary because of my father's devotion to the virgin. [laughter] and occasion for all sorts of jokes over the years for me. when i was 13, i went to a jesuit boarding school. i briefly thought i was going to be a priest. so i felt the church owed me the opportunity to express my anger and rage and disappointment in them. the second thing i like to point out is that that period, end of the 1980s, early 1990s, marked a point of sort of peak influence of the catholic church in american politics. it has been on the decline ever

since. not just because of that action, but i think that action was part of it though. it was really part of pointing out the hypocrisy of the church, the danger of the church's dogma particularly when they're interfering with the public school system and sex education. and in the way that, you know, in 1969 the stonewall riots in new york which was the first time the gay community in new york had ever really pushed back against the civil code that oppressed us and said we weren't going to take it anymore, 20 years later at st. patrick's that was the first time that we similarly pushed back against the religious code that oppressed us and said that we weren't going to take it anymore. so i think historically that over time people will see that action as more and more an important milestone. and the last thing i'll say about that action is just a little anecdote, because that is the action that ultimately got keith herring to finally stop

coming to act up meetings. keith and i were born within a few weeks of each other. we moved to new york the same month, and a lot of us in act up knew keith and had been trying to get him to come to the meetings because his career was just exploding at that time. he was as hot as he could be as the incredible up and coming young pop artist. keith, a number of us knew that keith also had hiv, and he was very concerned about keeping it secret because he was concerned about what would happen to his market and his collectors. he saw the speculation after andy warhol died and was really disgusted by it s and he didn't want to create that opportunity with him. so the meetings, act up meeting's on monday night. there was an older member of act up who's on my fund raising committee, southwestern swenson.

he was a great broadway dancer. he was in this little me and he sang "i've got your number." he used to claim that he performed the first strip tease by a male on a legitimate stage in the u.s. [laughter] and swen in his bathroom had a little framed thing from hetta hopper that said the single sexiest performance by a man on stage that he had seen in her experience. but he was older than most of us, he was probably about my age today, and every night after the act up meetings on monday, he would gather all the literature, the posters, the fliers, the personal testimonials, the brochures that were distributed at the meeting and take them to keith herring at his studio, and he sat with keith all night as keith painted. and he had been working on trying to get keith to come to the act up meetings. and a few months before the st. patrick's demonstration,

victor and richard designed a poster, a really wonderful post or, and it, you know, in an effort that was pretty well known for some great posters. this one was in red and black and white, and it was about this big with. it had two big images on it. the image on the left was of cardinal o'connor wearing his miter, you know, the pointed hat that he wears. sort of head to shoulders and the miter sort of shaped like this. the image on the right was roughly the same shape, and it was a flatten haded-out, used condom. [laughter] and across the top of the posters it said "know your scum bags." [laughter] and underneath the condom it said, this one prevents aids. [laughter] and so when swen took that poster and took it to keith that night, okay, i got that go. so that's when he started coming to the act up meetings. [laughter] the power of art to mobilize advocacy. so the book starts out with many me arriving -- with me arriving

in washington as a 17-year-old at the dawn of the bicentennial which was a very hopeful time in american politics. in washington it was right past the vietnam war, right past the watergate scandals. you know, there was a sense of relief. jimmy carter was running for president promising i will never lie to you. there was a whole freshman class in congress focused on reform and transparency. and it seemed like a very hopeful time where the country had narrowly averted a constitutional crisis and was going in a more progressive direction. it wasn't until years later that we realized that that was really kind of a last window closing on liberalism before the country went in a very different direction for a generation. but i came to washington to, well, my parents thought i was going there to go to school at georgetown, which was true, but i was really going there because i had a patronage job running an elevator in the u.s. capitol. and i ran the elevator all day

long, ferrying senators and members of congress and supreme court justices and visiting vips up and down my elevator. so i talk about that of sort of being thrust into this very kind of intimate, insider view of american politics, and at that time the elevator operators and the pages were kind of like mascots. we could crawl all over the capitol. you know, going up into the dome of the capitol one night and smoking a joint and seeing all of washington laid out -- you know, when the session was in session very, very late at night -- and the elevator operators had to stay late, and we would get annoyed, when are they getting done? we'd sneak into the senate engineers office and crank up the heat in the senate chamber to -- [laughter] very effective. but at the same time, i was also dealing with my sexual orientation and terrified, and, you know, if there's one thing that i think young people really don't understand was how terrifying the closet was back

then. i think the closet op an individual basis can be just as terrifying today, but the context back then was different. and the risk of coming out was, you know, everything i'd ever known in my life i basically had to put at risk to come out. so i described that process. and then as i started to become politicized and i had met all these, you know, people in washington, sort of powerful insiders and members of congress and my growing discontent between my consciousness and sense of connection to a community that i didn't really find this washington. i read about in the washington blade, and i started to find it in new york and the people around me. you know, i remember particularly in the fall of '78 when harvey milk was assassinated. and reading it, i remember picking up the washington star

in a newspaper box and being so appalled at how the first coverage focused only on mayer maas coney. it was presented in a kind of like only in san francisco kind of way. and that disturbed me. and even when i talked with the other young politicos that i'd gotten to know in washington, to them it felt like it had nothing to do with their lives. this was a local municipal official at the other end of the country that had nothing to do with the political milieu. and it was just a few months later that i moved to new york and talk about the epidemic in its earliest years, you know, we're in a period where there's a lot of reflection on the early days of the epidemic. we're starting to see a cultural around the epidemic, exhibits and books and films.

and all of which i welcome and some of which is really wonderful. but a lot of it -- and i find that a lot of people think that aids activism began with act up. and it wasn't so. randy schultz wrote "and the band played on" before act up even started. there was an incredible and vibrant aids advocacy movement prior to that that in some ways was more radical than act up, more radical in its ideals and what it was trying to do whereas act up was perhaps more theatrical and media-friendly. and so i try and convey in the book, you know, what it meant when dan turner and bobby campbell and michael callen and richard berkowitz t and phil -- [inaudible] and others met in denver in june of 1983 and hammered out this manifesto, the denver principles. that not only was incredibly important for people with aids

and how it sort of defined the self-help movement and creating a peer-to-peer service delivery system, but it also was the very first time in the history of humanity, the very first time in the history of humanity where people who shared a decide -- a disease, organized and asserted their right to a political voice in the decision making that would so profoundly affect their lives. and that is important. and it is now an ideal that has been replicated in other diseases and other parts of the world. what we created, you know, sometimes i hear people talk about the '80s and as awful as the death and dying was, there was also something quite beautiful about it. and what was beautiful about it was the way we were so cohesive as a community, and we were caring for each other. when someone tested positive after the test came out, their diagnosis was accepted as a

collective responsibility. you know, the gay community wrapped their arms around them and said we will get through this together. we created organizations that were very peer-to-peer. the boards of directors never had a meeting where they talked about "them" as the clients, because the clients were creating the organizations and were on the boards of directors of the organizations. and over time we have fallen away from that ideal that was so pioneering and so important. and by the way, the denver principles sort of codified this in a document. the ideals were not original. they were, essentially, that which is articulated in the women's health movement in the 1960s and 1970s. and a lot of those guys who wrote the denver principles were very consciously, their political world view was shaped by feminism. that was very conscious. you know, michael callen had read "our bodies, our selves." and they saw, they recognized how the personal, how health

care was political. so we created this whole movement. we created organizations to conduct research, to deliver services, to access treatments, to support each other. and yet over time we've kind of fallen away from that, and a lot of the service delivery organizations have moved more towards the traditional benefactor/victim model of service delivery. and so then when act up started and hi involvement with act up is very -- my involvement with act up is very important and i think was central to saving my life, but act up's act vim was a little different. it wasn't about self-help, it wasn't about creating this for ourselves, it was about exerting pressure externally. how do we get the fda, the nih, the drug companies, the government to do what they weren't doing, what they should have been doing? and that was a very different sort of activism.

and ultimately, it became much more focused on the treatment activism, because the treatments were starting to trickle out, you know? they were in the pipeline, and we were desperate to expedite them and waiting for the next one and trying to get it. and that was very important. but in the process the human rights-based approach to the epidemic was concerns about privacy and confidentiality, but also about patient autonomy and about stigma kind of got put to the side. and that is where aids activism began, was fighting that stigma. and so we're kind of in a catch-up phase right now where there is a renewed effort on addressing the stigma and where that has led us like the criminalization that cleeve referred to. so the books has lots of fun, juicy stuff of me, you know, peeing out a window with gore vidal and getting tennessee williams to sign a letter for the campaign funds, but i also

hope it will sort of equate a lot of people with those early years of the epidemic, because there were some awfully good ideas then that we could revisit and we need today. so happy to take any questionsment -- questions. [applause] yes. >> writing a book for quite a long time, or is it something that was in your thought process for a number of years before you actually put it on paper? >> i had been, and i'd been resistant to writing about the epidemic. i didn't want to write about the epidemic. when my health came back and i moved out to millford for your brothers and was living in the woods, my life was different. those of you who don't know, i at one time weighed more than 40 pounds less, i was covered in lesions. my cd4 count was one and my

viral load was 3.3 million, and you don't go lu that experience -- as i'm sure a number of people in this room have -- without it changing your life, your values and your perspective. and i actually, when i decided i wanted to write a book, i was looking at some other issues, and i did some research and spent several years sort of working on one other topic this particular. in particular. and then it nagged at me, and i was talking to someone for a story in "the new york times," a guy named mike winerip, and i was trying to convey to him what it was like in those years as somebody who doesn't know and it's frustrating. and i started talking about, oh, but he's dead. he's gone, he's gone. and then i kind of blurted out somebody has to be the memory, and literally as i was saying it, oh, my god, i'm one of those people. so i started to feel a sense of obligation. as time passes, there are fewer and fewer of us who were there

on the front lines and are around who are able to speak firsthand. you know? in a city like san francisco, there are more of those people, but i'll tell you, overall collectively around the country there aren't so many. and there are fewer and fewer. and, you know, if you look at the books and films and so on about the holocaust that came out, they didn't come out in the 1940s, they didn't come out in the 19 50z. there was actually very little. it wasn't until the early 1960s that that started to kick in and then geared up and sort of plateaued in the '80s, and it's the sort of remained at a steady level. is and i am always sort of, you know, have been very reluctant to make holocaust analogies for all sorts of reasons. but i can tell you i have an understanding of the never again cry that we've heard so much. like i never thought i would. because what people forget and how quickly they forget it, including within our own

community, is astonishing and terrifying to me. so i, you know, i encourage everybody to write your recollections, to make your films, to contribute to these exhibits. and in time a clearer and clearer picture will emerge of what that was like and, hopefully, people will learn from it. i have noticed one thing, cleeve and i were talking about this at dinner and just speaking specifically with gay men, with really young gay men this is like interesting, it's history. it's like the movie "milk," right? it's history. with gay men of my generation, they lived it. they want to read it, tear interested in it -- they're interested in it. but in between there's a big gap. a lot of gay men in their 30s and 40s have spent part of their lives distancing themselves from the epidemic. that's not me, that's not my life and creating lives that don't intersect with the epidemic in any way. and i'm not saying that in a

blame sort of way. i mean, it's understandable in all sorts of ways, but i think we need to recognize that, because that's also one of the obstacles to dealing with the prevention challenges we have today. yeah. >> i think it's great that, you know, "dallas buyers club" is out. and for those of us that are long-term survivors,st hard to sit -- it's hard to sit through, but it is an important history. and i'm glad that, you know, mainstream america is seeing it, and i'm really glad matthew mcconaughey's winning all the awards and jared leto getting recognized. you know, the flip side is hbo just spent all this money and publicity on this new show, "looking," and the first two episodes, okay, it's cute gay men filmed in san francisco having graphic sex. there's no mention of safe sex or hiv or condoms or anything. it's like i'm waiting for the -- just the so-called honest,

up-front conversations, it doesn't come up. the point of that generation, it's like something. >> well, and to a certain extent that's probably reflective of reality too, certainly for a large number of people out there which is part of the problem. you know, "dallas buyers club," i tell everybody to support it, tell everybody to go to it. we want it to be successful because if it's successful, we know hollywood, there will be more films. it is not reflective of the buyers club movement as we know overall. i do like to point out that i, a number of my friends are mentioned in that movie. it's the line where matthew mcconaughey is asked where he got the idea for it, oh, a bunch of faggots in new york did it. [laughter] yeah. >> any difference when it comes to maybe the questions in different locales? you've done your presentation. >> the -- well, for the book

i've just done half a dozen of them so far, but i do a fair amount of speaking on these topics anyway. and on campuses it just is astonishing. i mean, i can go to college campuses and have the best and the brightest, and what they don't know -- no one's ever told them -- is just astonishing. even in, you know, some really scary things. i was speaking at a school -- it actually, in fact, was a catholic school -- but there was one guy who was really like with the gay group and all enthusiastic. we were talking, and he said, well, he's negative. good for you, that's great. he said something else, and we were talking -- he thought because he tested negative he would always be negative. this was a college student. you know, most of us, you know, in our 50s probably got better sex education in junior high school and high school than most kids graduating from high school

today. because of the abstinence-only education, because of how school districts are so gun shy around things that are politically contentious, you know? young people of color are far more likely to get ab abstinence-only education which we now know leads to a greater rate of unwanted pregnancies and stds. you know, the -- but it's also not very effective. the fear that motivated so many of us, right, when your friends are dying all around you, that is not an effective tool for young people today. you know, the reality is the consequences of hiv infection are very different today for people who have access to health care than they were years ago. so you have to teal with the epidemic -- to deal with the epidemic today. the shame-paced and fear-based -- shame-based and fear-based message i think is contributing to the epidemic. i don't think it's helping it. the new york city department of health spent three-quarters of a

million dollars creating a video called "it's never just hiv." you can find it online. it shows these young guys all very beautiful looking like characters out of "lost," and the message of the film is you get hiv, it's not just hiv, it's hiv and it's brain fog and it's anal cancer. and, yes, it can be all of those things, you know? ..