.. graciously agreed to stay for questions and sign books and even talk of. no cards have been placed and every seat, at least the first 200, before we filled in the

rest of the room, collect questions in baskets just before the q&a starts. at this point i would like to welcome john d. bassett iii to st. john's. [applause] >> looking forward to hearing from you tonight. i would not like to put together well to many folks here from henry county, bassett, thank you all, you share the spotlight in this as well. i could tell you about all the amazing awards beth macy has won for her writing, hello lehman fellow. but the real mark of her life as a journalist shines in a simple question. how many of you remember a

specific beth macy story? how many of you remember young selena who made it to harvard with her whole community of gainsborough library patriots cheering her on. [applause] >> award winning stories about the somalis than to refugees that were coming to live in our community where children were going to bus stops where 12 languages were spoken? or her series about teen mothers or how families where navigating caregiving for their elderly loved ones or may be what comes to mind is one of her front burner suit columns that you printed out now covered in grease stains but printed with precious think that instructs you how to make the best smear from 2005. you will remember as obs back

here with us tonight. a lot of interviews by bassett. we were lucky because we knew that our story would be in good hands. beth macy lived in lerner since 1989 where she met her beloved husband, tom landon, now has two children, will and beth. worked for the corona times telling stories about us that have helped us to know each other better than we know ourselves. you know that journalists are supposed to be objective. fellow journalist mary bishop who is here tonight. [applause] >> with telling her it is okay to care about the people you are interviewing and okay to care about their story. it isn't a religious book but it

is rife with stories that resonate in this church setting, stories about doing the right thing regardless of the costs, stories of real human beings and their all too human frailties and when they did or didn't treat each other with grace and humility. this book is about who is related to whom and the industry, but most of all this book is about what it means to live in community so please join me in welcoming beth macy. [applause] >> i am already tearing up. not good for you. i will read three passages.

and from the end. it is good to introduce you. and i am going to start with chapter one which is the tip off. there is a prologue that precedes it and it is a watershed moment in 2002 when john and his son wyatt went to delhi to find who is making the chest of drawers that is threatening to bring the industry down. and go eyeball to eyeball with the guy who is making it is in the filing what at the time would become the world's largest anti drilling petition. so that becomes before this part and this is how i found the story. it is sort of laying out all the threads of the book. i was driven initially by the question of what happened to all those people who lost their jobs. half of the workforce was

displaced. almost 20,000 people. where did they go? what happened to them? the second question was was there another way it could have been done? a friend of mine who was visiting last week, who lives in washington d.c. said your book is so great, it is wonderful, you found these amazing stories all the way to china and back and the guy is still alive. you know how lucky you are? like living history. i am going to read. once in a reporter's career, a person blake john d. bassett iii comes along. he is rash, sawdust covered gold bullet from rural virginia, larger-than-life rule breaker who for more than a decade as the almost signal handedly against the outflow of furniture

jobs from america, quote, he is an asshole. i made sure it was okay to say that. more than one of us competitors said that. when i was writing about globalization using him as a main character over the course of researching this book and hearing many lectures and listening to him evade my question is like telling me the same stories over and over it there were times when i agreed. i first heard about him in virginia, have an hour from my home in roanoke when eating breakfast with my neighbor and good friend bill shepherd who owned virginia furniture market, a rocky mount retail establishments thriving at the same time the import boom hit. right now as i type i am sitting in a paisley recliner my husband and i still fight over because it is the comfy this siege in our 1926 american foursquare.

i remember joel showing it to me in his store rocking back and forth. despite what i might have heard about made in china furniture, high school wrestlers could pin one another on this chair and it would not fall apart. with a friendly neighbor discount i got $160. i invited jolt to breakfast to pick his brain. i was working on a roanoke times series on the impact of globalization on virginia company counts. articles inspired by free-lance photographer jerrod sorry who had been making the all-around track to mineville for more than a year. they were gritty and moving. church services and tattoo artists, a textile plant, converted for use in a food pantry, disabled minister named leonard y. lin away the times in his kitchen in the middle of the afternoon. the people in henry county were refreshingly open about what had happened to them. jerrod long wondered why the paper did not do more to

document the effects of globalization in this corner of the world. other media outlets had not done any better. according to a 2009 view research center survey the greatest economic crisis since the great depression was largely being covered from the top down primarily from the perspective of big business and the obama administration. the percentage of the economy stories that featured real ordinary people and displaced workers just 2%. if people in henry county wanted their stories to be heard we had to help. it would be up to writers and photographers like us to paint the long view picture of what happened when one after another first textile and then furniture factories close to set up shop in mexico, china and vietnam where workers were paid a fraction of what american laborers were earning the. some 20,000 people have lost their jobs. in the early 60s martinsville was va's power house known for

being home to more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the country. by 2009, one fifth of the town's labor force was unemployed and many millionaires had fled for exterior landscapes. henry county was now the capital of long-term unemployment with its highest rates in nine of the last 11 years. a week before, and the bassett furniture plant had burned to the ground. police arrested a 34-year-old henry county man who had been trying to salvage the factory's copper electrical casings to sell in the black market but instead sparked an electrical fire. his burns were visible in his police mug shot. after many similar stories some of the desperate moves to the crime rosters, a stranger approached one woman outside a cvs pharmacy and offered her $100 if she would sign for the purchase of the cold medicine which is the main ingredient in

making maps. most people were scraping by in legal ways, babysitting, growing their own food, working part-time at wal-mart. the director of an area food pantry told me he could define what people used to do by their disfigurements. the women who had been bent of the sun machines making sweatshirt had humps on their backs. the man who called of lumber were missing fingers. the last last last resort to come stand in line and get a box of old food. but joel explained, a small town about 70 miles away, managed to buck the trend. he was from the family that once owned the largest furniture operation in the world, his name was john -- john d. bassett iii and he was from that bassett family, the name inscribed on so many american head boards and dresses. the name stamped on the bedroom suite bob heintz dorr number 3 of let's make a deal. the story of how he fought

against the tides of globalization were full of legal kenning, political intrigue and judging from but joel told me about the toll that asian competitors, some serious cowboy great. imitating the patriarch booming voice and cringe inducing hot spots, the expletives one not going to tell him how to make furniture but there is another even juicier story. john d. bassett iii was no longer living in bassett, va.. he was booted out by a domineering relative. three decades later the family turned corporate tycoon had local tongues wagging with talk of a living room fight scene. some say was a front porch. a rescue squad call and my favorite detail which he will deny, john d. bassett iii tipping the ambulance driver $100 not to tell anybody had his brother in law all the way like something out of dynasty.

but was any of its true? and what did the family -- [laughter] -- what did the family infighting have to do with john d. bassett iii giving the middle finger to easy money overseas? plenty it would turn out. i will skip to the end of that chapter so that when i will read it it will make more sense. moment i heard there was a company owner who had taken on big business and the people's republic of china i knew i had to find out who john d. bassett iii was. he not only kept his olfactory going but somehow managed to turn it into the largest that room factory in america. he went to meet the 7 patriarchs, then 74 at the bassett furniture company. imac got his insanely twisted family tree at the city library. and paul to get the real scoop

about his family feud. i had already introduced several henry county furniture workers who were laid off not long after managers showed up to take pictures of the virginia assembly line to copy them when they got back home. one woman described her mom hobbling home from work, her knees shot from decades of standing on concrete floors and wondering what were the little people doing at work today dq i already knew as i began to refer her tim j. b. 3, he was grooming salon to take over, but returned home after business school to save the family company. i had heard too he cut their salaries when the recession hit rather than lay off more mineworkers and personally stopped pulling a paycheck during the leanest years. one rainy afternoon in a furniture store owner describe for me how globalization had taken a 70% bite out of his business. the store that used to be frequented by people who worked in the horry county textile furniture plant. delano thompson's father worked

down the road from bassett and his mother down another road at fieldcrest, a sprawling textile plant started by chicago-based marshall field's and on the site of a weekly community food bank. in the ladies' room of the cafe, a diner frequented by retirees, a photograph proudly displaying what put this town on the map. stack of fieldcrest howls. bassett furniture was no longer made in bassett, he explained in his southern drawl as rain predicted the surface and bedroom suits and furniture. with his determination john d. bassett iii could have kept a factory going if he had kept the company. i should have made up a shorthand for that statement the first time i heard it. i interviewed scores of people since then his that essentially the same thing. delano knew about j.b. 3's covert mission to dally on and his own version of the evil

brother in law, the story of the man who elbowed him out of the ceo job, the company he had been reared to run but would any of the month of about those things? would he reveal what it felt like to be the family's last sheet with the dresser sized chip on his shoulder? would he tell me the real story how he fought the chinese? if you wouldn't, with the people who grew up under the thumb of the family ran the company county old enough to do that? you don't even realize what kind of spider web you have going, since the long-term corporate pilot a man who worked for years under john d. bassett iii's brother in law and nemesis quote nick war and peace will be the this seem like a $0.10 novel compared to your spiderweb but lucky for you the scorpion is already dead. john d. bassett iii comes from an imposing family of multimillionaire's his ancestors signed a magna carta and maintain the persistent but unspoken code that no matter what, what shall always keep the family's 3 secrets where they belong, in the closet.

what secrets would he tell me, the daughter of a former factory worker? i relate better to be like octavia winter, a 55-year-old displaced stanley furniture worker who gave me her elderly mother's phone-number as a contact because her own sun was about to be turned off. and mary read described trying to raise f-14-year-old daughter alone working the only job she could find that a receptionist with no benefits. when she told me that i recall receiving full financial aid for college because my mom, widowed by that time $80,000 a year test driving cars for a honda subcontractor. when mary recounted running into the former ceo at a party she was helping cater for martinsville's elite, which he said literally made me gas, quote, if toltecs were to open backup today and the only way i could get there would be to crawl on my belly like a snake,

i would do it. john d. bassett iii broke with chauffeurs, vacation homes and take schools. i was a long shot and underdog but fortunately for me was too with the was ready to admit it to a reporter or not. with any luck at all he would tell me explain this point this piece of american history from its hardwood floors to its executive board rooms, from handsaws and flaming tools to smart phones and sky, from the oak logs the sale from the port of norfolk, va. to asia and then returned months later in a swarm of dressers and beds. there comes less than that. then i go back to vaughan-bassett, va. in 1902, his grandfather starting the business and his birth in 1937. he was born during the epic flood that he didn't even hadn't even told me about but i was doing for research and called him up and said the you know you were born during the flood?

he was like yes. there were all kinds of really great just things i heard about that i knew were stories but he didn't necessarily realize were a great yarns when i realize the epic flood and it was a precursor to a dramatic exit from the town and even the story going on i heard about that from the guy in the furniture store. he was fighting for his company, didn't realize that was a story and i had to go back and interview him and his son over and over again, what was that like? what was the temperature light? what did it look like? there was a key moment i knew was going to build the book around and come back new the end. last week we were talking on the phone. is dead the president? yes. doug is one of the three, if you don't like doug, you there is no one in your family will like.

i really like a dud. so we were talking about something else anded goes that guy was really hard. yes, it is in my book. like a character out of a movie. yes, we hope it is. [applause] >> i had been over the story 30 times. and interviewed the translator from taiwan who lived in high point and that was a happy circumstance. she is a woman she will remember the details better. but i hadn't interviewed doug, when they got home, what you trying to tell me? he said no, the guy was really

cold and i said what do you mean? the way he sat there on a lounge chain-smoking. chain-smoking? smoking? range you didn't tell me? didn't tell me because i didn't ask? i said when we get off the phone i want you to go hit your dad. when i wrote my book proposal it came with a chapter, 27 chapters. the 27th chapter was going to be about this great moment in 2012 but i was able to witness firsthand. he had won his anti-dumping petition, in 2005 and again in 2010 and resulted in millions being pumped into american manufacturers many of whom did other things with the money but john put it into his factory which was what was intended for

and there was a great hero's story where he says to me at the end peering ever saw dust covered glasses if you never went cheaper the woman down the street you don't have to drag it back. he had never gone to china. now he was growing the business. that was going to be a great moment in the book and i knew that was going to be the end and i spent a lot of time in bassett and hung out in the historic center for weeks at a time and fell in love with these people and one thing i noticed, the first factories i saw called bassett superior minds and it was one of the most profitable factories in the industry. it may low end furniture really cheap, really profitable and made $1.2 million.

the community ambassador of superior lines, and the words to describe what the furniture went really quickly down the conveyor belt. so being abandoned the friend called and said it is on fire and so this -- displaced workers came to watch it burn as if going to a funeral. and talked about a funeral for everybody who knew and that was poignant and they started to tear it down and it took some months and the very last scene which i am about to read from, i will read to you. just know that when this happens this is how it will end. i found myself driving back crying and i knew what he had

done was an out liar in the industry and in business and in general what had happened to bassett was the story of what happened in so many southern town, not just southern but tennis shoes and everything. i knew it had to end with those people back there. i should read the old thing. won't read the whole thing. during one of my last trip to bassett went on a tour with bassett historical center library, whose family landed in town shortly after mr. j.d. the company founder, got his start. grandfather was the one who made all the lights in town blink when he flipped the switch on the boiler. more than anyone i interviewed for this book pat wanted me to get the story exactly right to honor the workers as well as the pioneers. it is history, she said, every time it bangs against an uncomfortable truth. if you give up is true, it is your job to tell it.

pat was 70 years old and ran the center of the volunteer even though she officially retired year before. volunteers bring in chocolate most days and 21 makes a 40 minute trip to shop we stop at the midtown market, a store known for its chicken salad, the key being fresh chicken, minimal mayo. chicken salad appears in the kitchen, gets it by volunteers for hungry researchers and reporters alike. anne-marie wrote the history of mary hunter, and mary hunter elementary school in the seventh grade. and the founder, the grandfather, j.d. bass and his wife, pocahontas, mary hunter was there a long time servant in the family home. she had interviewed greasy wade, her successor for the project. nearing 90 at the time gracie

was still serving christmas dinners, still gardening her patch of culver lane. select to place the walker grandchildren insisted she use insider wheel barrow, we'll the contraption over to her vegetable spot. that way if the kid's got a surprise visit she could grab it and pretend to have been using it all along. john d. bassett iii caught her doing that shortly before her death. during his infrequent trips usually for mirror board meetings in never failed to stop by gracie's house to hug her and never failed to leave without handing her quote nick a little piece of money as he called it. he told me when i go to the pearly gates and st. peter says to me to do you know? the first person i will tell him is crazy because i know she will put in a good word for me. a place like that that takes time to pin down, welker of geography and history, barbwire, crumbling brick behemoths and tiny hillside trailers that astonishingly some house still

stands. it takes patience to pinpoint the soul of any community and the benefit of someone like pat ross who month after month and layer after layer taught me to see the effects of globalization on her beloved home town. down to the street lights that eliminate the center at night. ever since bassett furniture stopped providing the town's communal lighting presidents have solicited donations to pay for it at a cost of $720 per poultry year. some businesses gave up and had their lights removed from the polls. when i finally got around to asking pad for a tour i had already seen a from a disparate set of passenger seats. i had been joking around town in a mercedes these a land in my subaru with junior thomas behind the wheel. he still prefers driving after all these years. he was another chauffeur. estimates of the roof of my car while 70-year-old barber pole a young clutched my ankle to keep

me from falling with my camera under the railroad tracks to recreate the goes down version of a downtown bassett postcard from the bustling 1930s. it was may of 2013 and had had something she wanted me to senior house. as she drove we passed per alma mater, john d. bassett hi, no records storage facility of final classmate who opened the former gym to senior citizen walker's two mornings a week and also runs food and clothing banks out of the school. we pastoral company homes rented out to visiting trout fisherman or nascar fans flocking to see the martinsville speedway race. the winner of martinsville as it is known still leads with a coveted regional symbol, a ridgway grandfather clock, the clocks are no longer made in horry county, they are made in china like everything else. half way to our destination pat drove to an african-american cemetery behind the black church next to a recycling center that was once mary hunter elementary.

i had been wanting to see mary hunter's great for months. pat waited in her car while walked around the roads and fallen down headstones and found plenty of barber's but no mary hunter loss. rosella johnson had not quite been three years old when she died in 1920, gone but not forgotten read her head stone which was line on the fines and 6. seeing the grave of moses more died in 1929 i thought of so many reconstruct your furniture workers must've taken in their churches and the promise of the afterlife. the rev.'s parents had grown up enslaved on henry county plantations. he was a -- by 1920 was a 56-year-old move lot of furniture worker who ministered on the side and live in a rented farmhouse with a wife and six kids. i got goose bumps when i realized probably already had seen his photo in the early old

town picture, the first bassett furniture factory. he was likely one of the lighter skinned black men in the back row wearing overalls and will at. is head still was encumbered and dignified with a holy bibles called in to the top. at the bottom it said earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. it was a glorious made day and we watched men and waiters fishing in the middle of the river and we found our destination across from a ridge overlooking the town. terry ferguson was about to get on his back home. he was a factory undertaker now hired after a the hazmat soon wears and demolition guys left bassett's superior ones. it was harry's job to put what was left of it underground. concrete and brick had been hauled by truck some 45,000 tons in also a landowner could use it for the ravine behind his house and the rough end of the superior's rough end would be to

extend the wealthy man -- if you told people in bassett ten years ago that i would be burying this plan they would have said you were a complete fool. grass seed would be so once kerri got to ground level as our happened at this superior sight. bassett furniture ceo ralph stillman said he wasn't sure what the company would do with all expenses created by the factory demolitions. the company was already allowing volunteers to hold weekly farmer's market in the old train depot and the grass at oldtown would post the bassett historic festival, heritage festival. if the land the kind superior was in proximity to the smith would tie into the growing system of greenway trails. maybe we can make a quaint little cool destination and use it to tell our little brand story, reminding me of one of the harvest foundation's economic development mantras, you can't move the river to china. two weeks later i found myself drifting, there had been a drenching rain the week before

and up river the dam was in power making mode. i floated on a side greek for 30 seconds before gentle paddle i envisioned turned into white water rafting instead. my guide was jim franklin, 73, a fellow fisherman who had won a particleboard plant for 34 years. renamed the abandoned factories that were still standing nestle swiftly pass them. he pointed out where he personally of the concrete and brick from bassett superior and goldtown pleasing chunks just so on the riverbank to stave off erosion. when the river wasn't rushing and demanding our full concentration he told me stories under a canopy of sycamores and scrub trees teeming with wildlife, they run the river banks with a trio of goslings, great blue heron trapped ahead, sleeping every few minutes before landing on a new surveillance perch. the air temperature was 64 degrees but the water as usual just 42 which is why people fish

in the smythe but rarely swim and why the trout find it ideal. my full immersion baptism in the smith came after we rounded the bend near the old scaly furniture factory to find a giant tree limb rocking the passage. through an of the narrow channel on the left i made a critical mistake of hesitating which put me in exactly the worst position parallel to the logs before the current slammed me against it. the underwater plunge was as bone chilling as was abrupt. after being trapped between the tree and the kayak i emerge cotton and clawed my way through the icy waters to jim's can do. we rode out the rest of the records together, in the boat and me with my arm over the ball. you are fine, now, you are fine. before long i wasn't fine. my feet were numb and in fear of tidal there be i scrambled for the steep bank which will lot of poison ivy. jim continued downstream helpless to stop the canoe in the rushing river. i will meet you of the road he

shouted disappearing around a curve, scratched and shivering i emerged from the one about 10 minutes later near stanley town strip mall behind a family dollar stores. my ray bans and ponytail holders were submerged in the river along with my dignity and when i appeared from the brush with matted hair, recant and money sandal's the women taking out the store trash was startled. i looked mad, like some form nestle head who stumbled out me the newspaper mug shot. i am not going to ask, she said. pat ross picks me up at the cbs nick or bring blankets and we tracked down jim who had a small proxy of old factory guys searching for me along the river. they lassoed the kayak before it floated too far downstream in geneva rescued by drench reporter at notebook from the river bank. these crawler inside still legible.

the people of bassett wanted their stories told. [applause] >> he never listened to me talk that long before. i know it is killing him. so this is john d. bassett iii, the factory man. i am going to read a fund's section. a lot of this book was not fun to right. it was learning about international trade laws, the tariff act of 1930. does anyone here know about the tariff act of 1930? went to indonesia to interview the replacement workers over there now, it was a lot of for a feature writer at the roanoke times that is what i consider myself, it was a lot of business that was tried to me and i tried

to write the book that i would want to read so i tried to bring the people in as much as possible, i tell readers at the beginning i am the daughter of a displaced factory worker, putting all my cards on the table land a lot of it was just hard. interviewing lawyers in trying to understand stuff that wasn't familiar to me and reading the economist every week, that was hard end i did read it every week but this part was really fun to right. after hundreds of phone calls, your probably going she is a exaggerating. he hasn't called for a hundred times. he has called the probably 700 times. he called three times just today. this was fun to write and when i wrote it, i nailed it. this is my introduction to john. this was in sumter and 90s. >> 80s. >> he has just broken out on his

own, left bassett furniture and he is running the struggling company, decided to strike out on his own in sumter, south carolina, like it will just be him. building a factory from scratch with three security guards and a personnel manager makes it the loneliest time in john d. bassett iii's career. at least he had upper level managers and the company's financial and legal departments on call. and sumter, everything, the banks were not letting me another dime and i invested millions so i could easily go broke if this thing didn't fly. this wasn't a hypothetical case at harvard business school. my feet were in the stirrups. martha and garrett the superintendent or head of the plant in sumpter predicted this would be a money-making venture in true enough within 60 days of producing his first piece the

company was profitable. martha predicted it as every other manager grew to intimately understand there is still no one in the industry works harder or longer hours. they know it with every appeal of his signature refrain, the telephone rings. recalls on christmas morning, make sure the driverless turned off so we don't ruin the stack of woods. recalls at 1:30 a.m.. the cabinet room giving us trouble all these months, just decided he has got to go. recalls on your vacation and if you and calling, i am working too. he calls on saturday when you are mowing the lawn and if he can't get to the phone in time he will accuse you of having screen your calls. at precisely 9:15 every new year's day he calls the previous year's topsails person and asks when have you sold for me yet this year? he calls occasionally to share a dirty joke, nothing too body,

just something somebody from the 50s web tell. the calls from the phone next to the toilet in one of the bathrooms of his home, calls from his car though he still isn't sure what buttons to press if you call him back on his cell. he calls from his bed at new york's hospital for special surgery, after foot surgery he thought of one more thing he wants to tell me, the story of apollo 13, with the astronauts and the men in houston worked day and night to fix the botched equipment so no one would die, or few refuse to let the failure in did not yield and they prevailed because they work hard and smart and so can you. he is practically in tears when he calls after learning more people at stanley furniture will lose their job. he prefaces the conversation with this is off the record, this is just as girls. he calls and calls and calls, never identifies himself, never has to with that deep baritone

to raw land that entitled sense of timing, who else would it be. recalls garrett sell-off in the early days of getting the sumpter plant running usually at 5:30 in the morning and 10:30 at night that there's wife grabbed the phone. are you trying to drag him out of his sex life? bassett laughed so hard that he actually gave their and a night or two off. his personal rules for the telephone are simple, comprehensive and not open for discussion, quote, i don't call gentiles on easter weekend or jews on yom kippur. whenever he feels the need to lecture or tell a dirty joke or describe an idea that just occurred to him he calls so ladies and gentlemen, john d. bassett iii. [applause]

[applause] >> she said she would be through in nine minutes. if you read the book and she wrote a beautiful book, this girl can write. [applause] >> last sunday, i was getting ready to play golf and we were on the practice tape and one of my good friends who was a member of the same club has a home in new york city and a vacation

home, in north carolina. and he said i am jealous. what do you mean you are jealous? i am jealous. i called kathy last night and she was in new york and it was 9:00. i said what are you doing? and she said i am in bed with john d. bassett iii. [laughter and applause] >> you are going to read the book, you find out what we did and how we did it. 9 won't touch on that unless you would like to ask me questions in the question and answer period. i will take my nine minutes. and give you a little insight why we did it and why i did it.

i grew up as john d. bassett iii from bassett, va. the home of the bassett furniture industries. i don't know of many people who can say that. it was somewhat of an unusual position to be as a young man. i had wonderful parents, wonderful parents and they believed in teaching you what your responsibilities were and i can hear my mother today saying yes, you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, but you are no better than anybody else and don't you ever forget that. she said you have a responsibility to the people of this community and we expect you to live up to it. it would also tell me the story

about a parable in the bible about the talents and i could hear my father saying son, you are not born to bury your talents. you were born to use your talents. those lessons stuck with me. in those days i was a baptist. i am now an episcopalian, by the way. [applause] >> the episcopalians have more fun. so why do we do what we did? in 1902 when my grandfather started bassett industries he started in the furniture business because there was

timber in henry county that had never been cut before. so we had the lumber. we had a wonderful labor supply is that they needed manufacturing jobs, sharecropper's or farmers or whenever, but we needed some place, they needed some place to find steady work and then the railroad, the northwestern railroad had just gone through what became bassett, virginia and that enabled them in 1902 to make a product and ship it through the whole united states. back in those days you had a wagon, a mule to pour the wagon, however you get this product except 30 or 40 miles and you would never build the furniture industry that way. the railroad gave them the access to the american academy

and they used it. they were hard-working, dedicated, we had wonderful people working for us. i have a telegram in my archive that i received through my father and it was three telegrams. actually back in those days they had marketing in grand rapids, michigan and he was up there trying to sell furniture and the company sent him a telegram and set your factory is on fire. and then an hour later he received a telegram and said the fire is out of control and after that he received a telegram and it said everything we have is burned to the ground. come home. it was a message from j.d. bassett sr. and that happened

three times. did verne to ground three times and rebuilt every time. you have to admireburned to gros and rebuilt every time. you have to admire that type of spirit. my grandfather had no idea what globalization was in when you had retailers in large cities like atlanta as they started retail because they were going to start a furniture factory in the middle of atlanta. that is where the customers were. so they did what was logical back in those days. my grandfather did what was logical. fast-forward to the 1980s work early 1990s with globalization. the company and association supported nafta and the world trade organization which we now refer to as a wto. we were told that it would

actually increase opportunities in united states, products would be shipped to the rising middle class in china and asia and other places. that did not come to pass. we were told they needed to be more modern and efficient factories, we agreed to do but they would level the playing field. everybody would be playing by the same set of rules. we set okay. the federal government. that is not what happened. globalization did lower the price to the american consumer. you have not benefited from globalization and i haven't benefited from globalization. the retailers, many of them benefited from globalization, the savings they had, some of those savings they didn't pass along to us, they put it in their profits and there was nothing wrong with that.

i am not saying i would do differently but the retailers were able to buy from sources overseas as well as local. it devastated manufacturing. how many factories closed? 63,000 factories closed. over 300,000 furniture workers lost their jobs. those are the statistics we were looking at. and you have to ask yourself, what am i going to do? what are we going to do with this company? how are we going to prosper or even survive with this going on? so it was interesting. what we all did initially is we went to china and the chinese said that as make this project

and we will send it to you ain't you consented to your dealers and you don't have to have all those people, you don't have to worry about government regulations, you don't have to worry about hospitalization and retirement and everything else that you deal with if you have a large labor force but it didn't take long to figure out, as soon as the various factories, furniture company sending engineers overs there to teach them to make furniture, people told me how long they made furniture but you can learn it pretty quick when teachers came from somewhere else and taught you how to do it. once we told them where the customers were and where to ship the products they knew where the customers were and it didn't take me long to figure out this isn't going to work. you are going down up half that

is a path to your demise. i pull out but today we make 100% of product in the united states. our products are made here. [applause] >> how are we going to survive? frankly, i felt we had an obligation to the people who work for us. our family over there the last hundred years had done very very well. they really have. it takes a lot of college tuition and wonderful homes and vacations etc.. we would never have done it without the people who worked in those factories and this was our time to look after them.

so when we learned about the anti-dumping petition, dumping is when you sell something in your country cheaper -- excuse me, you still in another country cheaper than you selling your country or you sell a product that is under your cost and you are selling it under your costs so you can drive those other people out of business and then you get all the business and it is recognized by the wto. all 159 countries in the wto recognize this as illegal trade and there are laws on the books from the 1930s in the united states that say dumping is still legal. some of the laws have been revised but it has been on the books since 1930. it is the law. we did know about the law. the federal government never told us. we had a lawyer $75,000 to

explain to us what our rights were. do you remember when they first came out with the new money starting with the $20 bill and that is where -- jackson is on the $20 bill, the picture of jackson is larger, they put some colors in and did nothing this because they want to make it harder to counterfeit. the united states government spent $33 million to advertise the new $20 bill. truth. i was testifying in congress and criticizing because i said you never tell american manufacturers what their rights are. i can assure you i have two sons, a daughter and a wife, there is nobody in my family that doesn't know how to spend

$20. so we led the anti-dumping petition and i was the chairman of it. i still am. going to retire pretty soon, from 2002-2014. hopefully this will be my last year but it was the largest anti-dumping petition ever brought against the country of china and i think it still is. it absolutely split our industry in two because a lot of companies -- we can't do anything about this but now they have a way to join us and we could ask a government to investigate are they going to join us? they started importing a lot

from overseas especially china, or were they not going to join us, then what are you going to tell your waders? the retailers became very upset. we were boycotted and we still are in some regards. some of them have come back but they refused to buy our products because we were beating the anti-dumping petition and it was as i said not long ago, going to the market and people will look at you, other dealers with total disdain and some of the come back to the factory and people wanted to hug you. i never had that kind of -- juxtaposed that kind of reaction. but we prevailed.

there were duties placed on chinese furniture but that is what we did. we took the money that we received and we bought more machinery. there is no machine in the world that makes what we make the we don't own. we will spend any amount of money to stay competitive and efficient. we have to. we don't want to hand out, we walk our way but we invest in equipment but here it is the real secret to what we did. we organize the people who work for us. and we said we are here for you. we are not going to abandon you. this is the way we are going to have to do it and when i start talking to the mice are the same way. i will give you the good news and the bad news. the one thing i will never do is

live to you. i am going to tell you the truth and we need your help. the attitude in that whole organization changed. americans are very efficient workers but they need leadership. somebody has got to get in there and say follow me. i knew we had crossed the rubicon when one day i was walking through the finishing room and the line stopped. and everybody in the finish room started walking toward me and i said oh oh. we have a problem. do we have a sexual harassment here? what have we got going on? but i noticed they did not have a frown on their face.

they were not belligerent. they were very respectful and they all crowded a around me and a lady named helen came up. she was the spokesman. i loved her and she said we have something to tell you. i said what is it? we see what you are going through and we see what you are trying to accomplish for s and we want you to know, tell us what you want us to do and we will give you everything you asked for. when you have that kind of spirit and the organization, it is amazing what you can accomplish. so i hugged all the women. [laughter] >> i shall call the men's hands. i said i have my first request and they say what is it? s at get your butt back on the

job. we got to get this line running. it was our people. that was our secret. it still is our secret and we communicate with our people, constantly tell him what to do. we communicate with our people and tell them what we expect of them. i will finish by telling you one of the stories i challenge you must remember i have a son in law and two sons. i am not against mbas. the story i tell is how are we going to get this job done? we need more football coaches and maybe a few less mbas? the analogy i get, because

people understand it, if you become the football coach of b p i or university of virginia or alabama or l s u or one of the big college teams, you are expected to win. ..

[laughter] in america we have to start thinking of ourselves as winners america has two parallel and take along its petition. i had a captain when i was a lieutenant for the wonderful saying. he said it is time to take names and kick ass. [laughter] it is time that we do that and that's what we intend to do. and if the fight goes on for us because if of retailers won't buy the product. we still have to make our way every day. we have wonderful retailers here and he's one of our best. [applause]

and they have a made in america gallery. a lot of retailers you don't know where it's made. so we are still fighting this battle. we are still fighting the battle and it's been a long time in doing this. but i think that we are beginning to get some traction. and that is the beautiful part about this book. because it tells you the story of what happened. there are wonderful things about globalization, but i do want a level playing field, and i want americans to turn around, roll up their sleeves and go to work. [applause]

[applause] >> thank you. at this point the ushers will walk around on the outside of the idle and collect questions. we will be there shortly. while they are walking around i will start off with a few questions. tell us how you know when you hear a good story. does the handstand upon the back? it's always really good. this story had it all because it has a great main character.

this was a great story because i was able to try to define what had happened to all those people and told the story i thought of that had been marginally missed by the national media about what had happened in the small towns all over the united states because it isn't like the martinsville bulletin. i think a lot of the story got next. it's the kind of book that allowed me to think big. >> how did you decide you could trust that with your story. [laughter]

>> women are persistent. sometimes you just finally gave give up and give in. [laughter] but i read a lot of things she ever did before. it shows my age and you're not supposed to do this today but i love the people that work for me so when she connected with that she connected with me. >> i'm trying to find one i can

tell. >> i talked only to his son because he does the media stuff and he said you're going to be in the factory so wear your jeans and rest down and my hair was long at the time so i show up in showed in my jeans and my hiking shoes and i can just see the look on his face. why does the newspaper saying that this hippie down here to interview me? [laughter] i know that is thinking that. he was good to give me like ten minutes that i had done my homework and i knew the whole story and i think that he was going to talk to somebody who was genuinely curious about what he had done. >> when the company closed a day ran a cartoon and it was a picture of a coffin and somebody

was kneeling in the last nail and it said this is the last nail in the coffin in virginia and i want is want to say wait a minute. [laughter] >> you have some subjects to tell you some hard things. how do you wrestle as a writer with having to say something hard but true quick >> i talk about the issues like i always come back to his affair and is it true into sometimes when you can't sleep at night that's a good thing you shouldn't be. you should not be wrestling with these issues. i don't want to hurt anybody's feelings and i know there are parts of the book heard some families and that is hard for

me. but i think not to put some things and would be hard in would be hard for others and so it is kind to waiting a visit here it of his affair and is it true? >> the race chapter number four. knowing that it would hurt some people years ago. >> if you could live a portion of your life over again looking at the full story what portion would it be and why? >> there's a lot of things i would do different. i really didn't apply myself in college. i found women and alcohol and a

good time. [laughter] is the thing that matured me more than anything else was the united states army. i spent three years in germany during the cold war and we were right on the east-west german border etc. and when i looked across the border that's where we were. it dawned on me that we saw several people that tried to get across the border into the could do nothing until they got across in several of and several of them were killed. and they were just. i was given all this and yes i

graduated about i'm over here. [applause] >> what did you learn from reading the? [laughter] >> i learned a lot of things about myself that i didn't know somebody asks me what do you think about what your ancestors did? what do you say? that was the time for television so we had to do something. [laughter]

>> what stories have you heard since the book was published that you wish you could have included? >> somebody started a discussion group on facebook that sony has been a great participant in. and i mean, the first question the moderator is a friend of mine. some of those in my neighborhood i don't even know them that well, she posted where are you from. welcome, everyone. and i thought that's kind of a -- who is going to say much about that? they started putting these recollections of things that had happened. this morning i woke up and there was a question about main business is that you miss. as you know there is just a handful of businesses (-left-paren this morning there are 120 businesses listed and not just the name of the business, but a story. and it's really cool to see people come together around this book.

and it is real memories. some of of it is anger at what happened and some of it is just an airing of grief, but it leaves the word community. that to me is the wonder of it that these people who no longer have this mutual place where they go to work every day sure some of them see each other at church and whatnot, but this place on facebook is become where people are martinsville for telling the stories about what happened to them and i think there's something chest really palpable and precious about that. >> what advice would you give to your younger self? >> don't ever give up. if there's one word in business i will not tolerate and i get

work but you don't do this but maybe once. i give you one shot and then i really get upset and if that's the word can't. the reason i despise the word is for two reasons. number one if you say you can't do something it means number one, you can quit trying. and number two you can quit thinking. can you help me with this problem? we are not getting it solved. let's work on it together and we do not always succeed the first time but you do not say i can't do it. you have to get a mindset we are going to do this. and again i come back to discuss it. we have to get out of this mindset.

we can do it if we really want to do that. >> a question from the audience you have a tremendous record. how did you all create that? [laughter] >> 700 phone calls. >> we have a lot of different emotions about this and we have had some hard days that we won't go into here. i've probably didn't matter at been matter at hand than anyone in my whole life but we are still friends and we are still talking and he said that at the beginning this isn't going to be like lyndon johnson talking to robert caro. we are always going to talk. and i thought wow that is a pretty cool thing to say. >> he is the biographer that wrote all of the lbj books. [laughter] >> this is a smart group. >> one of the things you did --

first of all it's very rare you get a ceo that doesn't have to go through to get to him. i can get him any time on the phone but i usually don't call him because he will call me. [laughter] but i can get to him anytime i want wanted to and then in this age you can skip can't get to the city manager anymore. have to go through these different levels and so it is really where you have that kind of access to somebody who doesn't answer every question i asked by a long shot he volunteers names and telephone numbers of people he knew would say bad things about him. [laughter] >> what is his motivation for that? they only asked to read one chapter.

and i come back and i was going to be going through north carolina and he said we want to know what you read your award winning chapter clacks i was in south carolina on my way back to virginia and i called my husband and i said it wants to read a new chapter. the first quote of chapter one. [laughter] he said i don't know the first quote. [laughter] i said i will read it to you with one condition you can't say anything until i'm done. and he was very good and they listened to it. he had a couple of corrections but they were pretty minor. so i appreciate that he valued freedom of the press. >> she's not the first one that

said that. but when she had a party she asked me to come to the party and so at the end they asked me to say a few remarks but the last thing i said was that there are people in this room that before the book was written that he knew i was in asshole and i said the only thing that has changed is now wendy read the book everyone is told that. [laughter] >> who would you like to play you in the movie? ' [laughter]

>> the person that could probably played me the best is dead. [laughter] that is george c. scott. >> i was going to say when tom hanks tweeted i called and i said do you know who he is clacks he said was the night maybe a dinosaur but even i know who tom hanks is. [laughter] >> another question from the audience. how are you preparing for the show? >> that is a very good question. >> he is quick. i'm watching him and it depends

on the questions he asks. it really does. if you read the book he can get somewhat risqué. if he goes out i can hold my own without. [laughter] >> i said you've got it all wrong. it should have said -- [laughter] >> my mom is in the front row. [laughter] >> said she calls the other night and there was an author who wrote the book california so when i told him he wants you to come on he didn't know who

colbert was. so he talked about it it and the other night he called and said she's on tv. turn it on. so i watched and then right afterwards, he called and he said what did you think? i thought she was fine. he said she was terrible. [laughter] i said i thought she was great. she was scared to death, he said. i can tell you one thing. [inaudible] [laughter] >> said, look out. this is your warning. it's going to be good. [laughter] >> if you take on the whole country of china do you think that stephen colbert can be worth that? [applause] >> this was right in the midst of people were totally upset and

exercising everything. we have the market so i went up to the space of one of the coalition members who did join the coalition and the lobby was full and i said can i see so and so and they said let me see if we can get him. and all at once the lobby became totally quiet. so we are looking around and looked look over and here are four of the largest chinese importers and exporters in the country. and they are all about 5-foot to. [laughter] that's him right over there. everybody in the lobby just stopped talking.

so i walked right over and stood next to them. i am 6 feet and they are five to two. i leaned down on the same level everybody is waiting and we said boo. [laughter] so out came the camera is. they wanted to get their pictures taken with me and say guess where i had my picture taken. [laughter] >> this is just very sweet. it is not a question but more of a declaration of gratitude. thank you for having the courage to stick to your ideals and

because the existence of others before your own and to recognize whom to thank him for whom we should be grateful. you are truly the american heroes. [applause] for the final question tonight, we will end where do you think america's furniture industry will be in five years clacks >> i do know better but i want you to answer. [laughter] >> what he would say is you don't have to come drag us back. and i know he's struggling to keep the factory going. he has a 111 million dollar --.

>> he would also say he could keep the factory going to 20 more years if he wanted to. but he's got to be efficient and he's got to have the right tools. he is not making money hand over fist. a lot of this is a labor of love and a sense of responsibility for the people who work with him and in terms of everybody else there are not really many companies to compare them to. there is one in the old port north carolina. i think that ashley has an assembly plant in winston.

>> most is made in the united states because they don't want the same thing. so that is a different path and that drives the chinese crazy. [laughter] >> we are used to it because we grew up with it. [laughter] if you ask me what is going to happen and we talk to the very high end, we are the only -- i will believe a story about the defeat of tying -- but my point of it is we are the only ones left. i counted 125 factories the other day that i know have

closed in virginia, north carolina and tennessee. we are the only ones left. we are it. so it is -- 45 years ago they said what are we going to? we are not going to make it. we fight the same battle. don't misunderstand. it's not over with. so you talk about the figures into the accountants and all of this to talk about in the business. and i could just see the glass committee ias glasses for. he doesn't know what he's talking about and it's not going to happen. and i always thought i would totally story. abraham lincoln was great on telling the story because people remember stories but they don't necessarily remember figures. so i am sitting here trying to think of something and i said all right. i want you to think about their

12 man on this island and there is one woman. i can guarantee someone is going to fall in love with the google before this is over with and we intend to be back for a. of [laughter] >> thank you for being here tonight and all of you for coming. a tremendous thank you for the staff and volunteers at st. john, especially the interim bookstore manager and a kindergarten teacher extraordinaire. [applause]

a special thanks to the audio king and the ladies in the kitchen who put on a beautiful spread that i hope you all will enjoy and to c-span. thank you for c-span for being here tonight. finally we generously agreed to stay and sign books he would be down the hall toward the stairs. he's driving home tonight he tells me two and a half hours let's not keep him to leave. >> thank you all and good night. [applause]

daniel davis and philip greenwald got the 1864 battle of cold harbor that took place during the civil war. this program is next on booktv. >> there is a sense of doom, cold harbor. in the battle for the first time with my dad making our way along the park road thrown around to federate entrenchments that there was a certain sense of foreboding. it still persists today 150 years later we see the images after the war for the