is .. discipline mary frances berry coming in your book you write that most black americans have always been more american than white americans. sb two it is sort of like being more catholic than the pope. believing more in the values and principles that are laid out in the declaration of independence and in the preamble to the constitution . and

and believing in it, fundamentally, and using those principles as a way to try to ask for further progress on equality for them. so that's what i mean. >> host: what is the proof? >> guest: the proof is that every time there is some kind of protest movement organized civil disobedience, other kinds of movements on the part of african-americans, our people, who are in coalition with them, always what they ask for are the principles that are pristine american values of long standing. when wick martin luther king asked for justice he spoke in the tones of the language of the declaration and independences and constitution. didn't speak in the tones of some alien philosophy that existed in some other country. >> host: in that book "long memory," you kind of recount some of the black resistance movements over the years. when did it first start in the

states? >> guest: well, there had been resistance movements since the beginning of the republic, and the colonial period we have documented movements of people trying to escape slavery and trying to resist their oppression. not as many as one might hope there was a lot of discipline. lots of movements in the period in the ante bellum history. and i wrote a book in which i have a couple of chapters on the seminole war as a black resistance movement because blacks and seminoles were fighting to maintain they're autonomy and self-determination. so every period in our history in one way or another, there have been different modes modesf resistance, there's been some kind of reisresistance.

two people wrote an article years ago which i used in my stuff, borrowers, called day-to-day resistance to slavery, and they meant the little things a person do day-by-day on the plantation or whether it was breaking tools or saying that the animals wouldn't plow or whatever it was, so way to resist. so many different ways to resist. >> host: if you had to make a general statement about what was life like for southern blacks during reconstruction, what would it be? >> guest: during reconstruction, which didn't last very long, after the civil war, there was great excitement because venally black men got the right to vote, and we know that there was great excitement about that. including women who couldn't vote, but who urged the men on, and would tell them how embarrassed they would be if they didn't, even though it was risky.

so there was greet greatexcitement. these were dashed because reconstruction didn't last that long, but it was a great change. people left wherever they were, wandering all over the place, looking for their families, to put them back together, kid weather had been sold away, all kind problems. they were trying to reconstruct families and homes, so it was a time of excitement. >> host: why did reconstruction not last that long. >> guest: because once the war was over, the union soldiers wanted to go home. that is one thing. and no one was in a position in the north to permanently occupy the south, and the south was not about to give in to the change that had taken place without resistance, and there was a lot of violence. it's when these groups, like the knights of white camille yaas

that today we talk about terrorist groups in our own country. that existed. the main thing there is was resistance from the south and there was the desire to end the war and -- pretty soon the blacks were left on their own. >> host: when did the states rights movement begin? >> guest: states rights started way before the civil war. there were some -- from the beginning of the republic, when we got the two-party system, which was never envisioned in anything i could fine by the framers -- we then get people arguing about the meaning of the constitution. and some people taking the stance that the tenth amendment has more prime si than the rest of it, and other people feeling we should have a strong national government. and this discussion animated the debate over slavery in the south, and it animated the

debate over the tariffs and imports coming into the country, and who benefited and who didn't, and some of the great statesmen of the period, like john calhoun and others, were in fact states rightists. so happened before the civil war. some people think states rights is something that happened way after and we talk about it now, but it is of long standing, and in fact there were debates about it at the constitution convention, the antifederalists were strong believers in the states rights. >> host: where did the term jim crow come from. >> guest: there was a -- according to people who researched this, -- and they would dance and the dance was called, dancing jim crow, and

was a kind of black face, the way blacks were supposedly behaving. >> host: when did that movement, that era, begin and how? >> guest: which movement? >> host: jim crow era. >> guest: after reconstruction, in the ending of reconstruction, we gradually get laws passed that segregate on the basis of race, although the formal legal structure took place gradually and was in place by the end of the 19th century, as we go into the next century. in fact, it was in place in reality in many places before that time, and all that was, was a different way to control black people who had-before were controlled by slavery, and now to control them by segregation, which would also mean that they were serious.

>> host: back tower you book low pong memories of black experience in america." many blacks felt better about the discrimination of slavery in the south than the bewildering twists and turns in the color line in the north. it wasn't that race relations were better there than the north. on the contrary the blacks performed the south because below the mason dixon line they knew what to expect from whites, while in the north discrimination appeared in the most unexpected places, and a black was never sure of how to act. >> guest: right. so that in the era of jim crow, if you were in the north you might assume that everywhere, everything, would be desegregated, and no one would ever say anything that was racist or do anything that was exclusionary, and then when you -- but it might happen. it might happen. and there were in fact places where interracial marriage was illegal. there was some segregation that you would encounter, whereas in

the north you knew that there was legal segregation, and that you would be segregated, wherever you went. you didn't have to worry about it. whether that would happen. that was the way things were. >> host: let's go your book "black resistance." white oppression and black resistance have been a part of the american scene since the colonial period. the response over government in its efforts to suppress racial disor has reflected the tension between the lofty ideals expressed in the documents on which constitutional government is based, and the tendency of the white majority to desire summary disposition of those they regard as marginal or powerless. the predilection of the white majority to suppress effort biz african-americans to acquire real freedom and equality in the u.s. as a group, even when white oppression means resorting to illegal violence and brutality, has added to that tension.

>> guest: right. that's the truism about the long sweep of american history. i began writing that book, by the way, when i was in law school at michigan, and i began writing it the night martin luther king was assassinated. and i was very angry and very upset, and i had been asked by one of my professors, when did the president start using executive power to suppress resistance movements? and i hadn't thought about the question in quite that way before. and so i started researching that book, which eventually got published, but i think that statement is a truism about the country, and it also reinforces something you said earlier, or asked me earlier, about blacks

embracing american values, and then fighting, and i told you about resistance movements usually call out, reach out to those values and say, this is a goal and this is what we want. so that description is the way the system worked. and within the description is the dichotomy between the values and the reality, and what blacks were always seeking is to achieve that reality. and it's in fact what we're still seeking as matter of fact. >> host: that book was originally written in 1971. published -- >> guest: published in '71,. >> host: and updated in 1994. still hold true today? >> guest: in 1994, bring the book up to 1994, and i caulk in the book about the changes that took place over the years and the closer approximation we came

to achieving those goals. while there's still a lot left to be done, and i talk about the various resistance moments and things that happened and how they were suppressed and not in the period leading up to the new edition. >> host: ferguson. how does that fit into your book? black resistance. >> guest: if i were writing "black resistance" again, i would have to take into account what i know based on the hearings i did at the civil rights commission, based on my own police community real estates, based on my own experience with these matters, i would have to write that while we have made great progress, which is a truism, since the time that the book was begun and since the beginning of the republic, that we still haven't quite got it right, and some people still haven't quite gotten the message, and that in fact is a lot more needs to be

done. >> host: when did you serve as chair of the civil rights commission? >> guest: i was appointed, nominated in 1980 and confirmed by the senate, jimmy carter appointed me. i had run federal education programs in the department of health, education and welfare, before that, and when i left the department, he appointed me to the commission, and i stayed on the commission, then when bill clinton was president, he made me chair. >> host: when did the civil right commission begin? >> guest: 1957. dwight eisenhower, as president, had it proposed to him by his attorney general in a meeting. one of the things that motivated it was the nascent protests among blacks, also the report that had been done during the truman administration, called the to secure these rights. the beginning of desegregation

in the armed forces. the continued complaint about race relations and racism in the united states, dullless, who -- dulles, who was secretary of state, told the president it was making it hard for the united states to stand up and compete in the world where all these new nations were becoming independent and the underdeveloped world as we called it, in asia, and in africa, and that more and more attention was paid without competition with the soviet union for the minds and heards of men, as they used to say. i guess women, too. and that people were always pointing out about the race problems in the united states, and every time anything happened, this made it really, really difficult. all of that was one reason why his attorney general said to him, you know, maybe what we should do is set up a commission. governments set up -- united states government sets up commissions from time to time.

your listeners know this -- whenever there's a problem that seems insoluble, we get a commission. and they make an investigation. and usually they make it and then they go away, and that's the last anybody ever heard of it, and the books -- they're on the shelves somewhere, and that's the end of that until the next time. but he -- eisenhower, in setting this thing up, he said -- his attorney general said, if you're going to do this, they're going to need subpoena power so they can get witnesses to come in who don't want to come, and people who are scared to come. will be forced to come. and so congress has to pass it because the to subpoena something you need the authority of statutory law. so iso they sent it to the hill and was part of the civil rights act in 1957, the first civil rights act since reconstruction. and it was set up, and supposed

to be one year -- as eisenhower put it, he pounded the table and said, going to put the facts on top of the table. i don't know if he actually did that but that's what the store is he did. and in any case they went out and started doing hearings, and they were to be independent, and to give an independent view to the public and to the president, as to what was going on in race relations and how do they solve these problems, and that's when the commission started. >> host: when did you leave the commission. >> guest: i left the commission in 2004. i resigned when -- right after george bush -- i guess it was george w. bush was the president then, and i resigned that year as chair and from the commission after years and years of serving on it. >> host: why? >> guest: i resigned from it because i knew we would not -- we had not had a majority that was in favor of doing something positive on civil rights, in my

opinion, for years, and i had struggled and done everything possible to try to get something done, and i knew that the bush would continue after he was re-elected with the same policies he had before, and that he would get appointments. and so i thought i had served my time, so to speak. >> host: is the commission different than some other agencies where whoever is in power in the white house gets the majority, 3-2 majority, because you served as chair while george w. bush was president. >> guest: right, the commission when it was set up by eisenhower -- i explain that in this book, called "injustice for all" that i wrote about the history of the commission. it was one -- when it was renewed after the first year and kept on being renewed forever and is still around -- it was by law an independent agency, independent from the president, from anybody.

and it was to have a balanced membership, and at first the people were nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate. and it was to be bipartisan. and the idea was that no one would influence what they did. and when they had reports of -- they would release them, without fear of favor. that was the idea. >> host: in that book, "in justice for all" the u.s. commission on civil rights and the struggle for freedom in america" you write that the civil rights commission under run control betrayed the mission for which the agency was founded. it did not address immigration issues the treatment of victims of the flooding and the aftermath of hurricane katrina 0, the need to find ways to achieve diversity in education and jobs. >> guest: right. didn't do any of that. and that has been true for --

well, since i left, more or less. it's not even so much that they might have different opinions. it's okay to have different opinions. but it's just that when major episodes and events would occur, we would investigate, the commission always before would go out and investigate the causes of things because the law required -- said you were supposed to do that elm that's why the taxpayers were paying you. but they seem to be oblivious, or they had some reason i don't know about, for not investigating any of these things. >> host: one of the thinks you write about in "justice for all" is the 2000 presidential election. what was your role? i was chair then, the commission got all these maintains from people by phone, staff did, about problems they were having with voting on election day, and they wanted the commission to do something, because the law

says -- the excision had been very visible for a long time, and the law required us to do something. it said that when people complained their voting right are being interfered with, the commission shall investigate, doesn't say may, if it feels like it or think about it. and so the staff collected all of this information from people, and a couple of them went down to florida, which is where all this was coming from to see what was going on and talked are talk to various people, and when the commission met we all agreed, republicans and democrats, we had to investigate. and -- but we waited until after the election was over. we weren't trying to interfere with the election, but we did want to find out what at the problems were so that we could see it didn't happen again to anybody, and so we did hearings in florida, which were televised on c-span and everywhere else.

in fact they were televised to almost everywhere in the world that had television in florida, and subpoenaed people, jeb bush, the governor, and katherine harris, the secretary of state, and who was also on the bush campaign committee and so on, as well as all people who had complained about what had happened to them. and eventually -- we found things like people who were told they were felons when they'd never been arrested. even one of them was the county clerk in charge of elections in one of the counties. they had told her she was a felon and was listed on the list of felons they had. and then discovered through the testimony that the company that did the felon purge of the list to come up with the right list, had told katherine harris, secretary of state and her staff, that the list would be erroneous because of the way it

was done. but they let them go ahead and do it anyway. our report finally focused on something that none of the media really had talked much about. the media was consumed with hanging chads and the people -- how the count went in different counties and so on. what we talked about mainly was what we called the no count. people who were eligible to vote, and who went to try to vote and wouldn't let them vote. which means their votes didn't even get included in it, and there were people who were quite upset. i mean, there were elderly people who were told that their polling place was upstairs in a building, and when they came from the senior citizen center in the bus to go, there was no elevator so the idea was, how are they going to climb all the way up there to vote? or the people who were disabled, i remember this testimony from one guy in a wheelchair, and he

couldn't get to his polling place because they moved it, and there was a big ditch in front of the polling place, and when he went up and started yelling that the wanted to go in the polling place, they told him he had to get somebody to carry him across the ditch to get into the polling place. so these things were -- oh, and the one where people found their polling place was inside a gated community. and when they drove there to go inside to vote, it was after work, and there was nobody on the gate. and they didn't live there, so they couldn't get in the gate. so they're all sitting out there blowing their horns, and the people inside, who are volunteer precinct workers-didn't know how to open the gate because nobody told them. by the time the state troopers came and all this stuff happened it was too late to vote. so there were all these examples of people who felt their right to vote had been taken away because they never did get to vote. and we made some recommendations

to congress, and to the public, which ended up in something called a help america vote act, which was passed by the congress. it didn't take all of our recommendations. but it took a lot of them in terms of having provisional ballot, so if you think a person is a felon or -- california already had provisional ballots, you could let them vote and then check it out later rather than turning people away en masse. we still have a problem of voter suppression and voter fraud and all kinds of voting problems, but that was one of the reports i think did some good. >> host: mary frances berry, one 0 the issues we are discussing today is voter i.d. law. what do you think. >> guest: i think that voter i.d. laws conceptually make sense.

we all know we have to have i.d. to get on a plane, have to have i.d. for anything dish can't even go to my doctor's office unless i have an i.d. to go in the building, which i find curious. in any case, the problem is, when it is used in situations where people don't have access or can't get the proper i.d., and are turned away, all it does is serve -- a device to keep them from voting. i have decided, because one of the books i'm going to start writing, when i finish this show and finish a lot of other things and another book i have coming out, is on voter suppression, the voter fraud, have and decided from my preliminary research, that people who don't want to increase the number of voters engage in voter suppression. and that means that you pick your choice which party you think that is. i'm not going to be partisan. i'm an independent.

but that both parties probably have officials who do also fraud every now and then of a minor nature. but i'll see as i do the research. >> host: this is book tv's in depth program. our monthly program with one author. his or her body of work. this month is a dr. mary frances berry. former chair of the civil rights commission, professor of social thought, former chair of the organization of american historians. here are her ten current books binning with, black resistance, white law, history of constitutional racism in america. military necessity and civil rights policy. black citizenship, and the constitution, 1861 to 1868. stability, security, and continuity. about justice harold burton. long memory, the black experience in america, came out in 1982. why e.r.a. failed, politics,

wimp's rights and the amending process of the constitution, is another of her books. the politics of parenthood. child care, women's right and the myth of the good mother, came out in 1993. the pig farmer's daughter and other tales of american justice mitchell face is black is true, kelly house and the struggle for ex-slave reparations, from 2005, and justice for all, the u.s. commission on civil rights and the struggle for flee dome in america, came out in 2009, and the most recent book, power in words, city thursday behind barack barack obama's speech from the state house the white house. want to participate in our conversation the number ares on the screen.

jo are. >> host: where were you born and raised. >> guest: nash have i, tess tuesday. >> host: why? why was i born in nashville, tennessee? must be where my parents were. >> host: what was your childhood like? >> guest: we were poor. one of my high school teachers told me once i shouldn't tell people i grew up poor or that it was in an orphanage or any of those unpleasant things because rather than thinking more offer me, they would think less of me because they would think i came from a rather crude background and that was not part of the up wardly mobile middle class. i never took her advice, so yes, i was poor.

my mother raised us, my father left, and she raised me and my brother, later on had another brother, under very difficult circumstances, and i always thought that if the circumstances hadn't been so difficult, and we had more to eat, would be very tall, which i always wanted to be. instead of being short. >> host: when did you leave nashville? >> guest: i left nashville to go to college. i went to howard university in the university of michigan, graduate school and law school. >> host: when did you become chair of the american organization of historians. >> guest: i was elected in 1990 bit -- by my peers as president. >> host: when did you decide you were interested in this? when i was in a student at howard and i had some wonderful teachers, people like rayford

logan and morice tate who taught me at howard. i ahead been interested before because my favorite high school teacher was a history teacher some was one of my best friends for mr. whole life. but first thought i would be a scientist, and i was majoring in chemistry and biology. and i'm glad i did all those courses because it gives me an understanding both of science and of the humanities. but then when i had these teach officers history, i became very interested in it again and decided i would do grad walt work in it. >> host: you open your book, my faces black is true, kelly house, struggle for slave enracings, you open the book talking about an experience at age 12. >> guest: that's the one i think about the working at this house, taking care of the white family's little kid, and while i was there, i also ironed clothes

while i was taking care of the kid. and i one day decided to play some music. no one told me to. there was nobody there. so i got these records i saw, and i started playing them. and i liked them. and there was one in particular that really, really, really liked, and one day the lady of the house came home and i told her i was excited and i told her, i played this. look. this is wonderful music. and fantastic. i love this, and she looked at me with an icy stare and said, who told you, you could play that music? that's not for you. why are you playing that music? don't play that music. i was very upset because i didn't know what i'd done wrong. and so when i got home, i didn't tell my mother because i knew she would be very angry with me,

but i did tell my favorite aunt, and she said to me, gal, you stay out of those white folks' things. she was worried if i got into trouble like that i wouldn't be able to get a job, all kinds of things would happen to me. and i say in the book that -- that experience forever clouded my enjoyment of beethoven, and actually number 9 i liked very much that time, but i liked all of the symphonies. so every time i hear beethoven symphonies and that one in particular, think about what happened in that particular situation. but i also say in the book, which is true, that from then on i did what my aunt told me. i stayed out of white folks' things, and if i didn't i just didn't tell them. >> host: was that woman upset because you touched her things

or because you were listening to music that wasn't appropriate for you? >> guest: well, at 12 -- i wasn't entirely clear to me why she was so upset. and i as i thought about it later i decided that, one, she didn't understand why i would be listening to this classical music and telling her how great it was. that was somehow offense simple. one, i'm touching her things and the didn't tell me to. and, two, i'm listening to classical music -- i didn't know it was classical music -- and i'm telling her how great it is, and how could i, given who i and where i came from -- who i was and where i came from, like that and tell her i liked it. i it was like incomprehensible to her and so out of place. in a sense what they used to call being uppitiy, being something you're not. i think that probably was the

case. >> host: let's take some calls. we'll begin with bruce in boston. you're on with mary frances berry. >> caller: hello, dr. berry. a big fan of yours, ma'am. i've watched you on c-span since then 1980s. >> guest: wow. >> caller: my question i can you talk below the harmful impact of illegal immigration on he black community, and why are blacks in the democratic party, especially the congressional black caucus, more active and successful in getting policies for illegal immigrants and blacks, and also could you talk about how the breakdown of the black family and the way black people are being raised right is causing -- leading to these comments, negative interactions with police? >> guest: first of all, i don't think i've written anything about illegal immigrants and black workers. i do believe that immigration,

people who come here as immigrants, by and large, wherever they come from, should be let into the country and absorbed into the body politic, because it's part of, again, that dichotomy between american values on the one hand and what really happens in the united states on the other. i also do think there are economist0s who believe there's a negative impact on jobs for workers in this country -- imagine black workers but workers generally, especially in jobs that are unskilled by having a more immigrants come into the country, but hat has happened in every period in our history, and there have always been over time adjustments, and on balance it's worked out. i'm aware of these tensions. as far as black families are concerned, i don't believe that what happened to michael brown

happened either because he didn't have a father -- because he does -- or what happened happen to trayvon martin happened because he didn't have a father, because he did. they both had fathers. and i don't believe that it had anything to do with the black family structure, because if it did, young black men who come from intact families, or who have no family structure problems that we know about, wouldn't be killed in these altercations. i did several investigations when i was at the commission, starting with the shooting in new york, and the apartment building where he lived. there wasn't any family structure problem in the case of dialo, or sean bell in new york so far as i know, and people over the years -- there may be white people, black people, people of any color who do have

family structure problems, and they may end up in -- having something happen to them it i don't think that has any relationship to what is happening here with the police. >> host: when it comes to ferguson we have not heard from the civil rights commission, have we? >> guest: we haven't heard from the civil rights commission. it's another example of what i was saying -- i say in this book. i actually think that civil rights commission should be abolished, and that there should be a law passed which creates a new civil and human rights commission, human rights of all people, that has independence and starts oagain with a mandate to do something, because i think that what happened in the very fights that went on when i was at the commission, and the desire to use it for political purposes, is it has made it ineffective, and so needs to be changed. if the civil rights commission has no interest in or has

nothing to say about what happened in ferguson, or with trayvon or with any of these episodes, as well as what is happening with the immigrants and the refugees coming across the border, all these issues, i don't really understand why we need one. >> host: bruce in boston also mentioned black families, and this is your book "the politics of parenthood: child care, women's rights and the myth of good mother." here's a quiet from that book: poor divorced women, most african-american women, and large numbers of women from other racial minority groups, have always had to balance jobs and children. the passage of a child cair bill with even minimal services came about because of white middle class women and not because of poor women's needs. >> guest: that is exactly right. it's one of the frustrating things throughout the history of african-american women on this

continent. from the days of slavery. large numbers of black women have worked. women of other racial minority groups have worked. or they did it alongside their husband in stores or wherever they were, family members, people worked. immigrants work. but when the debate takes place about child care and balancing work and jobs and the rest of it, one thing that happens is that white middle-class women, when they express their concern, there seems to be more of a response. this is just the start. it has to do with the racial aspect of what goes on in american society. there's another thing that happens. poor black women who work and take care of families, like our mother took care of this -- are demean ned comments in american society because the idea it if

you were played to someone it would solve all your problems and all your children's problems. well, if they married someone and the person didn't have a job, which if it's a black male, in today's society with the unemployment rate where it is and has been for black men for quite a long time, you had by more likely taking care of them than having them take care of the family. i think -- i get to choose always for the single-headed household in which a woman is working, balancing jobs and children, and trying to take care of a family. >> host: leo is in bronx, go ahead, leo. >> caller: hi. thank you for taking my phone call. my question is, professor berry, could you describe your relationship with clarence thomas, when i believe he was on staff of the civil rights commission, and also, charges of sexual harassment which came up

during his hearings for associate justice. did you see this coming or were you surprised? >> guest: clarence thomas, i knew when he was at the department of education, and when he was chair of the eeoc. i was never -- we were never friends, but i knew him and i knew him well enough from observation and from conversations with other people, to understand that he saw him as on a career trajectory and that i remember we would sometimes be on tv together talking about issues, and he would make a point of either not saying anything at all, like the does on the supreme court bench, where he almost never says anything, or didn't say anything that could possibly be

controversial. i did not see coming the anita hill charges against him, although based on what she said, and the evidence that came out at that time, i wasn't surprised. >> host: from our facebook page, this is william woodford: ms. berry is extreme left. sample quote, the legal system supports our capitalist economic system because capitalism requires inequality, the only real question is who will be the repositories of the inequality. is that a quote from you? >> guest: i don't no whether it is or not but it's true. if you take economics 101, as a course in college, one of the things they teach you is that capitalism by definition requires inequality. that's the whole definition of

the free enterer enter -- enterprise capital system, and the only we is who will be up, who will we down and who will be be middle. it's not a pejorative and not an assess. how it should be, but it's just true. and if you don't understand that, then you'll spend your whole life trying to figure out why theirs inequal. in society. that's all. >> host: rome is calling from philadelphia. hi, you're on booktv with mary frances berry. >> caller: hi, peter, thank you so much and thank you to spoons 2, booktv, for seeing the value of dr. mary frances berry, and thank you for allow ming to interview in 2011 on community radio about your very important book, your history that -- you talked about of the civil rights commission and justice for all.

just wanted to get your opinion on two things. first, obama's use of executive power, since he has come -- especially regarding the civil rights commission. none. and number two, your opinion of his administration siding with royal dutch shell in the bell versus royal dutch shell decision. wonder if you about that and 0 your opinion. >> host: what i that case? >> caller: bell vs. royal dutch shell was a case where a plaintiff, who were related to ken in 1996, murdered by the nigerian military, and basically in his memoir he talks about the role of shell in basically keeping up, propping up the same military government ruling of nigeria that exists today, that basically strengthens boca

haram. it's something talked about in the -- called "there was a country" just wondering if dr. berry had an opinion how the obama administration sided with shell completely to totally dismiss the case over the plaintiffs in nigeria who are fighting for rights to prevent shell from exploiting oil they've been doing for decades, since the '60s in nigeria. >> host: thank you. >> guest: i for got his first question. >> host: it was about executive power. the use of executive power. >> guest: let me answer the second one first. from what i know about the situation in nigeria -- and i if hey followed some of the events taking place there -- i'm not sure what obama did or what position he took on the case. the exploitation that goes on there is not unexpected.

mind, that's what happens with oil companies in all of these different places in the world, and i know little about the other details so i won't comment. as far as obama's use of executive power, i don't know if you mean obama as executive and what do i think about all the things he is doing, or whether you mean his talking about using the executive orders, using the pen, his pen, to achieve certain goals. if the latter is what you mean i'm ambivalent about executive orders. on the one handwhen a president issues an executive order to do something i like, i think that's terrific. when a president issues an executive order to do something i don't like, i think it's awful. and in fact, i know that presidents have the authority to issue executive orders. but i think on matters of great public consequence, they ought

to be very careful how far they go and how quickly they go and when they do it. so it depends on whose ox is gored. >> host: your book "power in words" the stories behind barack obama's speeches from the state house to at the white house. how did you approach the writing of the book, as a historian or political scientist. >> guest: well, josh, one of my students asperson, -- at penn ad who worked in the clinton white house as speech write, and we wrote the book together, and josh knew the intricacies of speech-riting and knew john fav row, probe's' speech writer, very well, and so we lad a lot of inside stories on how -- what they thought they were doing with the speech when they wrote it, which was the whole purpose of the book. you can get the speeches off the internet but what you can't get is the back story on how and why

certain things were put in and how they were done and what they meant and to get the impression from it. so, what i did is, josh brought to the project his knowledge of the back stories, and i brought to the project my knowledge of the history of presidents and speech-writing, and such things a the way woodrow wilson in fact was a scholar and had been president of princeton and so on, how he taught himself consciously to speak to the public so that he could speak their language and how various presidents did it, and assessing obama and what he did in light at that history. >> host: in this book, you write: to craft the big speech the writers sat together for hours at headquarters, often deep into the evening, drinking red bull and writing the text together, one line after another, calling out ideas and language as they sat in front of

their own laptops, typing out the remarks as they went along. many on obama's most famous speeches, such as the night of the iowa caucus the 2008 address to the democratic convention, were great efforts with great lines crafted by all the speech writers and by the candidate himself. there were exceptions to the process, certainly, but this was the usual way candidate obama worked with the speech writers and they worked with each other. >> guest: yes. isn't that fascinating? that's a wonderful way to work. some presidents have speech writers go off, listen to the president or sit in a meeting, listen to the candidate, and then go off and write something. then they come back and pass it around or share it with the candidate, and then they figure out whether this is the thing to say, and then the candidate tells them something and they finish it. it's much like some supreme court justices write opinions, and others let the clerks write

them. how important we want and do it. so this is an interactive process that obama engaged in and is very much involved himself with the people who are doing it, which is quite unique in a lot of ways. >> host: in this book, power in words," you comment on the speeches speeches and then put the full text of the speech in as well. one speech you called his maybe best in your view -- and maybe i'm putting word inside your mouth -- called to reneil, key note address, june 28, 2006, national city church in washington, dc. >> guest: hmm. you have to tell me which one it is. >> host: it is the one where he talks about -- it was at a church and he talks about religion and reconciliation and issues such as this, and one where he talks about the fact he changed his web site on

abortion. he changed the language on his web site on abortion because it was in a sense vitriolic. does that ring a bell. >> guest: yes. which church. >> host: national city church. >> guest: oh,ey. the purpose of that was to engage with people who had religious -- insofar as i can tell -- religious motivation but at the same time not to offend those who were not concerned about it and to deal with the issues in that way and talk about the need for people to come together. that was the whole purpose of the speech, yes, and i think he did it beautifully. >> host: speech making different when you're president then when you're campaigning? >> guest: absolutely. we quote in there what -- marrow cuomo used to talk about how you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. some people have been shocked since obama became president

because his speeches don't seem to them to be as inspiring as they were. when he was on the campaign trail. but when you're president, you have so many things you have to take into account, and when you're a candidate, what you're doing really is making promises, and reassuring and inspiring people. that's what you're doing. and people who listen to a candidate, whether it's obama or anybody else, w.h.o. believe what he is saying is exactly what he is going to dive he is elected, they're crazy. that's just not true. never been true. and when he is telling you is his overall vision that he wants to convey to you about where he stands, and he will convey to you what he feels at that time. first of all, he doesn't know what he has on his plate. it is true, for every president, when they come into -- i

remember seeing it with jimmy carter. i was in his administration. when you come in you don't have any idea what's on your plate. and when you get there, it's like, wow. if i had known. and then the constraints on what you do and every word and every action. you get that even low-level officials who are in politics who come in as political appointees -- i got it when i ran education -- you think you're going to change the world, and you come in and find out what's on your desk is not what you thought was there. so, obama was conveying his feelings and what he thought would connect with the public, when he was talking on the campaign trail and he was're good at that. and a vision for people. but once he got to be president, every word that he says has to be tested for how does that fit in with what policies or where

we think we're going or who will be offended, and when he has spoken at times without thinking about that, he has gotten into trouble. if you will remember the incident where he had the beer summit in the white house and his comments before that, about what had happened. people said, why did he say that? it's wright in the middle of some other thing he is working on and has gotten off message and it hasn't been test outside by everyone it hadn't been. he was speaking viscerally. but when you're out campaigning and you have the talent he has, you're trying to -- you want people to feel like they should vote for you. and that there's a future and that it's going to be brighter, and that's what he did. >> are. >> host: are there too many constraints when you get into governing. >> guest: the constraints are there because you have a responsibility, and your

responsibility is to not screw it up. and to go -- make some progress, however incremental, on whatever is there before you, and you're always in danger of screwing it up. and so you have to be too careful. you have to tread carefully all the time. and the constraints are there because we don't want you to go into wild flights of imagination and go off and do all sorts of things and never think about the consequences, because there are always consequences. >> oo -- dennis from bam alabama. go ahead. >> good morning inch the light of the militarization of the police departments do you think it's possible and necessary for s.w.a.t. teams to be declared totally unconstitutional and illegal and a worth while thing to pursue? thank you. >> guest: no, i don't think swat teams should be declared

unconstitutional. it depends on what they're used for. i think that s.w.a.t. teams, when there is a problem that requires a s.w.a.t. team, ought to be used. but when there is an issue or problem which does not require militarized police, then all they do isuria tate people, upset people, create more problems. it's not what you do but it's how you do it. >> host: chris, baltimore, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon, professor berry, how are you. >> guest: i'm fine, thank you. >> caller: ex-len. there has been a lot of talk about revising history within the public school system i think i hear article from "the new york times" magazine concerning how bill gates wants to have'd

are ideas.implementing certain educational initiatives in reference to revising history and making exclusive with signs and other disciplines. the second quick question, what is the role of the historian in the 21st center. i love you, we all love you, thank you. >> guest: i'm sure you all love me but i'm sure you do and i'm appreciative of it. since -- as i said i was a science major and a philosophy major, i as you're aware of the role the disciplines play, but i think the purpose of a historian is different from that of a scientist and i think that one of the things historians have to do is bring in contending views and get people to think and argue about them, about the pass, and then come up with the

best they can do with what the pest tells us about our lives and the people who live them, and perhaps a little bit about what we can do. so i they're two different things. i'm not opposed to his idea, bill gates, of big history. he has a lot of money and if he wants to implement it somewhere, he can get it implemented. the role of the historian in the 21st century is the same of the historian in every other century, and that is to inform us about the past, to find out as much about it as we can. you know, history doesn't repeat itself, even though -- exactly -- but there are certain human characteristics that exist for all time. things like greed and envy and jealousy and love and all of those characteristics,, so we cn get some clear idea about what

might happen to us and what we might do from studying the past. >> host: you write in your book, the pig farmer's daughter, and other tales of american justice the stories of the powerful are the only ones that count, and the counting further enhances the power of the tellers and the economic and political arena. >> guest: absolutely. victors always get to determine what the narrative is. and the powerful are the ones that -- the very definition of being powerful is that you get to exercise some control. and so the stories -- there are lots of stories about what has happened in the past. there will be stories about what is happening now. but i think the stories of those who have more power will be the buns that will be dominant in the future as they've been in the past. ... happening now.

but the stories that have more power will be the ones that are dominated the future as they've been in the past. >> host: who is the pink farmer's daughter? >> guest: the farmer's daughter is not me. i gave a copy of this book to somebody. i think it was hillary clinton one day in the administration and i think somebody in there and to me we didn't know you were a pig farmer's daughter. no, not me. the pig farmer daughter was how race, class and gender have influence decisions made from an 18th century to the time i wrote the book in the 20th century. what the pig farmer daughter shows was the black guy was accused of raping her on h

>> >> he went before the jury the local people and they convicted him but he had an appeal. he had an appeal because somebody paid to hire lawyers for his appeal. and on appeal the state supreme court justices agreed to overturn the verdict and when they render a deal period they said this man was defended in testimony by our brother's lawyer plantation owner and he said he is a good boy and helps people and does not create any trouble.

and he worked for me then somebody said that girl is nothing but a pig farmer's daughter. that was that. that shows how class overturned race and gender. there. though this doesn't mean when she didn't happen. some people jump to the conclusion maybe there weren't any lynchings, was lynchings, was in a new racism the point. the point is there are exceptions but a lot of it has to do with who you know in who you are related to. i tell a story of the pig farmer's daughter about my uncle linking. i say he was this camp because my uncle linking a wonderful

man, i loved him and when we were kids he would come to the house and you pick you up and were you in the air catch you. if you would give you candy and all kinds of stuff. but he would get drunk every now and then according to my mother that he would underpin jail, and would be looking for him and she was caught on to the jail because she figured he was there macias who's in here. you stronger mr. so-and-so who he worked for, the white man he worked for his worked for us are recalled will let them out in the morning when he wakes up. well, they didn't let going to have because they loved this man on the link in. they loved his boss. that gives you another example about how the pig farmer daughter does too. are you open that up to page mr. monday. >> guest: thursday are at alongside the house of one of my

aunts and my cousins and all the kids, all of us who play out there in the summertime. it looks huge to me when i was four. it not that huge. older cousins would take care of as the movie out there playing. one day we were there this motorcycle came up and the motorcycle rammed through a common making all this noise and we were scared and we all ran like little chickens. i was crying. the guy said to somebody and they said, you mr. bundy then he raced off on his motorcycle. i asked my cousin what this was than what was going on. and he said that if a police man. that is what that is. a police man. so is my first site a police man

was a guy who runs a free bunch of kids who are playing on a motorcycle and yells at them and scares them and then ask them what day it is. when someone says monday, call me mr. bundy. he went away and i found out after a corrupt back i was well known in the neighborhood were going around scaring people. you'd be sitting on the stoop say what dave says whatever you said, you didn't say mr. bundy, so you were in trouble. so that made me a little fearful and how this negative reaction to police just viscerally. not anything consciously thought out because police to me what mr. friendly with the ice cream, but two q. and when you went away, but a guy who did all that. >> host: has that start with you?

it was more subdued, but it's still in my head. >> host: when you see something like ferguson with the militarization of the police. >> guest: well, i just hope it is not mr. bundy. >> host: john is coming out from upper marlboro. you are on with mary frances berry. >> caller: i have two quick questions. one of them as i'd done some research and found that there were 16 countries in the world to support homosexuality. i noticed there is a trend in the black community promoting young males, black males to assume the role of the females. within that context. and so i am wondering, would you have any views on not in one impact you think it may have on the black community for the family structure in the bl

>>guest: i have no idea. i have never heard of such us saying and i have no reason to believe it exist. >>host: alexandria louisiana. are you with us? go-ahead. >> caller: can you hear me? i am in a southern states states, louisiana. i wonder what your observation of the south toward coaching in the south now quoted as evil to to now? and had she seen certain parts of the united states where voting oppression is more prevalent than in other areas? >>host: what is your take? >>guest: being in louisiana we have devolved

somewhat however when you get into the role areas with our history of political leaders and corruption in the louisiana we still have problems. it is just upgraded. i do believe there is still some forms of oppression but it has a different face. >>guest: i think there probably is voter suppression but there is something else going on which is exploiting for people in areas where they are abused using the absentee ballots and paying for people of minimal amount of money to vote a certain

way some can take the money to vote however they want. some of that goes on in these areas and studies show that but i don't doubt there is a fearful this about who to vote for is an area where people feel isolated and don't feel they have any power. >>host: at the turn of the 20th and 80th century for for t. washington and to view e.b. day bodies -- to be we to block? >> usually when people talk about the turn-of-the-century they usually talk about booker t. washington i was on the board of the tuskegee it is

a wonderful institution it was the contribution that he made there was nobody as the public intellectual but not only did w.e.b. right to great thoughts but connected with the masses in the country and articulated the concerns of the masses but also a revelation movement that i wrote about my face is black and it is overlooked entirely. people think reparation is something african-american angeles started to talk about but that movement at a time when brennan did not lead a movement

she had an eighth grade education who led this movement but they wanted reparations but not in the sense people talk about them today. there was a wonderful article written about the people who she thought the people that had been slaves like her and had worked hard deserved to have something they were old and had no resources with no social security but there should have then recommends even in small amounts so she organized all over the country and there were records of the movement and

people filed petitions and got people to sign their name. there is a record of one particular chapter of the 90 year-old woman she is still working nobody to take care of her so they tried to get reparations it was the largest social movement recorded after slavery the federal government said they had 300,000 dues paid members favored not that high but they hired lawyers to get a bill passed. they failed but w.e.b. and a booker t. washington are talked about and the suffragettes but these grass-roots people who sought to there ought to be

a recompense for those who were slaves. >>host: i cq told our producer that my face is black is your favorite? >>guest: i'd like that along with another but i like it because hatch chile fell in love with kelly when i was righty the book how extraordinary that somebody with that low level of education and noblemen the late 19th century a black woman who was washing people's clothes and has kids, five children, her husband died and went on the road after the oldest got old enough to help take care of the others did how she did that then put in jail

because she was misleading blacks to tell the that was possible to get reparations are pensions as they called it. she should have known there would never get them some she was a gauge in fraud. it was wrong for her to organize but i told of friend of mine he said i do that all the time. i always take monday to go lobby to try to get something. [laughter] i found her to be a fascinating personality. she was for her whole life the wonderful now why the era failed set book is about constitutional amendments

and why they pass and why they fail and the women's suffrage amendment that the equal rights amendment failed primarily the people organized did not take into account the opponents only needed 13 states to stop them they concentrated on 13 states while they tried to get all the others and they wanted the bill passed in congress but there were a lot of reasons did the debate and arguments against women's equality that influenced the outcome of that ought to be captive mind because today people talk about the amendment with the citizens united and getting a bill passed in

congress you need to organize at the grass roots to let them think about it in their terms to get enough people with grass roots to pass and it takes a long time to educate people but to i'd like my face is black but i like all my books. [laughter] >>host: in your book you talk about 400 constitutional amendments be introduced. way before the '60s or '70s. >> it started way back with the 14th amendment that after that all the way through. there should be the equal rights amendment some are more equal with gender equality then it was any of

their time some people think it would just be symbolic but it is interpreted to apply to issues arisen today like trance gender equality and other issues sexual orientations, mary g. quality and the rest there is a more than symbolic role it could play if not of in those terms. >>host: do you support fiscal reparation? >> what does that mean? money? yes. those who have descended from the folks from the petitions who had the courage to sign up when

conditions were terrible they should be given some type of recommends that these people were engaged. >>host: north hollywood california. >> caller: good morning. i made the big time i am on booktv. i met you on my first day of work in manhattan. i still remember that day i still see your face by the time you left you told me he'd be great. i love those words and i appreciate your existence and what you have to say that my question is what

steve feel and how can we address the modern day jim-crow behavior and attitudes towards african-americans in regards to mortgage disparity employment shot out out, poverty, education will hold the line is still happening in this century and it behooves me as to how which is still going on can you address that? thank you so much. >>guest: thank you for calling and your comments. i was thinking what i went to iran to talk about the 50th anniversary of the movement in commemoration that the employer rate for blacks is the same as this year at the time of the

civil-rights movement that one of the most disturbing things in july the unemployment rate for black women has gone up and black women have always been the backbone but the men if they were not working that was disturbing there was a steady about empathy you cannot appeal to empathy to get people to do things with social justice. also an emphasis increasingly this has been us attention and going back to the colonial period the protection of the individual and aspirations.

now those studies show we have greater emphasis on the individual forget about community. that is the problem. but to forget about a historical myopia to forget about the history of slavery or jim crow like you mentioned in the mortgage foreclosure crisis we could go on and on there still problems a lot of people have problems but with blacks it does not seem to go way. so what we have to do is

store historical memory somebody told me the other day when i was talking about slavery the city reid trafficking? ice said know i am talking about slavery and they said that is old school. now slavery is trafficking so when you start to use the words in ways that undermined the meaning of the words and the impact that they have. i dunno how to restore but we need a sense of empathy focusing on the community of how we get to where we are and how we perpetuate. >>host: we have a e-mail i teach your course in race relations to police officers i use a segment of eyes on

the prize that you discuss affirmative action. what your thoughts on the direction of the supreme court appears to be taking too limiting programs? >> that relates to the question i just had an answer i gave. when the case was decided at the time the university's promoted diversity we spent 10 years fighting and i was involved with the a lot of that. listen started out as a way to remedy the effects of

slavery and jim crow us recommends -- representative comments. so to be defined and attacked but we would move -- lose the case but that was a way to keep from losing and that opinion establish the principle and we talk about diversity but but what really bothered me about the case now i am even more worried with that historical myopia that i talked about, but by moving to a definition of diversity to get away from slavery or jim crow from the united

states and the perpetuation of those be undermined the rationale for affirmative action and so much now the courts with different trends and personnel that have taken place now say we don't need it then some people say diversity means everybody. we lost the rationale now we are in danger of losing it all together. >>host: please go ahead with your question. >> caller: how are you today? thank you for your work and effort with the civil rights leaders of america regarding apartheid but i often wonder

if area but i call it the illegal nation it seems like liberia a little country like louisiana are maryland but nobody could see the flag of what happened. could you comment? >> yes. think you for calling i am very aware of the history of liberia and very opposed to people who do go to a country to find freedom for themselves who end up mistreating the people who are indigenous has happened to many places. i am very aware of the

crisis in liberia and this country our country has a special responsibility to liberia to solve our 19th century problem by creating another problem for those who are there. >> of facebook he writes it is the democrats you wrote that to destroy the middle-class black leadership after the civil war yes their word bureaucrats that were destroyed even in the kkk was confronted by the democrats so they created the civil-rights movement and after words generated the welfare state as a new form of slavery to the very party that chained them into the ghettos. >> i am very familiar with this description used most

often as a way to tell blacks they ship support to parties rather than democrats we use these talking points over and over it is true they had different names in the period before the civil war that the republican party at one time stood for the freedom on this side of civil rights but did change their mind the party is no longer in existence that is unfortunate but i still believe someday we can have that ability to vote for two parties it is wrong to call acheson one basket and wrong to be taken for granted if the republicans are more

attentive to the needs of black people more would go for them. >>host: what is it a professor of social thought teaches? >>guest: i was professor of history and american social thought that is the name of the chair that i hold which by the way i knew the siegel's you don't often do the people that set up the chairs i had no idea but after i was recruited i had lunch with those that now have got past unfortunately and she wishes -- she was a great civil rights guy and he advised jfk to set up some of committee for civil rights and jerry dell lot of

good things and she said you need to come to penn state i want someone who is a scholar and activist and an example you may argue that we want you here by teach courses in history of american law to undergraduates law students or anybody also called the history of law with social change in which we talk about how a change is made what role do social movements play and we try to figure out the problems but i do that to be true that these are all work study and

we could learn a lot. >>host: staten island. >> caller: good afternoon. fate you for calling. i will try my best but i have written my question. of i should say ivan african-american man in my mid-60s but now to my question. i would ask the concentrate on current trends regarding my question. why african-americans are compelled to aggressively in public places use them edward -- the edward -- the

n word. >> i don't know why people use that i don't jim public discussion but it is unfortunate among others that i could name the fisa spec public officials still say much about it because they know a lot of people do it especially politicians don't want to offend anybody so that is why they continue >>host: you can get through social media to make a comment on our facebook page or send an e-mail.

booktv visited u.s. your office to learn about your writing style and what your favorite books and authors and influences are and here is our trip to the university of pennsylvania. >> do some writing and i talked to students and people in my seminar and we sit around the table and discuss and argue and debate why i writing what i m great team and to it is fun and stimulating but i either ask a question or i think of the question if i don't know the answer then i go research when i finish i draft, i don't make out usually

haven't had idea where i think i ever going but i do that because of a colleague of mine for years tried to write a second book but never did he was brilliant but he wanted every line to be perfect to for he went to the next one i said you're not writing fiction if you can get it down on paper you can go back to edit and it helps me to clarify my thinking when i write things out i have then edited and a million times the you have to get something down to think it through. he never did finish the second book because he tried to get perfection.

so i read it through then i put it away to think about it that i do it again nobody reads it until i have went tour three times then we talk about it. i want whenever i bright to inform people and educate them. they don't have to agree with me but i want to make them think so i want to be provocative if nothing else. ♪

>>host: mary frances berry were currently writing a book called sex workers you might. -- unite and the note you gave our producers is

beautifully written insight into why prostitution is still illegal in the u.s. said weiss sex trafficking is bought slavery. >>guest: that book is enormously informative it made me think about things i had not thought about for example, i talk to a faculty member who teaches international labor law because i had not realized that prostitution was legal in many parts of the world maybe i knew that in the back of my head but i never thought about a better adult consentual prostitution is not the same as kidnapping or trafficking which everybody should be opposed to but people actually

engage in prostitution because they believe that is the best way to make money. i knew there were call girls high-level call girls like eliot spitzer is problems but but she explains the history of whitman and then tried to organize and that sex work which was coined by activist in california and how they've made some gains but then had not yet fully succeeded and i was most interested we usually think of stonewall as the beginning of the of movement but also the same kind of

episode in california with the same kind of opposition to the police but with both cases is the people who were involved with the police were sex workers and some were transgendered but i had not thought about that at all. i also learned about transgendered people how the people that are most at risk for prosecution or a rest were to be mistreated are the black transgendered even

those that were out on the street it is beautifully written and tells about the issues you might not have thought about to make me even more out where to talk about the traffic gain task force is not slavery even though it says modern slavery is trafficking on the web site about how if you underbuy the definition of slavery and undermines the definition as relates to women but i like the book it is wonderfully written.

>>host: and other national conversation we're having is it they should be abolished? >> i have the student who did an internship that perot's legalization of marijuana we had a paper last term on this. i thought for years marijuana should be legalized we smoked it would have risen college they always said it was a gateway drug but i never did. but the guy at a college and got jobs than the boring stuff so i never was quite persuaded that many blacks who were in prison for those

offenses is now they make it legal i think said german problem is obviously like drugs like cocaine battle of think it deserves all the attention that it gets. >>host: you mentioned the t-shirt that you wear. >> will be paved with men never made history. >>host: where is that from ? >> from a professor of american history who said that. somebody sells made t-shirts i put that on. >>host: have you been a well-behaved womaned? >> i think by most people's definitions i have been

contentious and adamant and unwilling to new compromise i would never make a good politician. [laughter] because i don't believe if in that kind of compromise. they have to do it but i don't have that temperament. >> have you been approached? >> absolutely not. i know that i don't have the temperament or the patience. people who don't should not be in office. very often you see someone who talks about the patience of the job to talk to people you don't like but that goes with the territory.

>> caller: is an honor to talk with you but basically how did the lottery contest have the same standards they george to view bush would have then disqualified with

their greatest date in the country of does that:. >>guest: you read why wasn't something done about the election? >> yes. so those standards do not happen again. >> i am i sure it would not the voter act has a lot of provisions the one of the problems we have in the constitutional system is the power to control elections is in the hands of the state's and the constitution and gives power to states which can make certain rules about federal elections the state determines to is the left door and unless you

change the constitution you don't have a national right to vote some people try to get a federal right to vote you can have federal cases against race discrimination but the whole thing is basically in the hands of the state's. >>host: austria has mandatory voting? >>guest: i often thought there is something about making people do saying this to make that exercise of something if you don't want to then why should you? i suppose there is a lot of

countries with mandatory voting your show they have a color and i am ambivalent and have not made up my mind >>host: to recall your mother voting? twenty-one yes. the yellow dog democrat and the precinct captain now one time. she loved al gore's father and used to say he could never be as good as of the man as his daddy she said he had a a golden tone. he could speak but i of independent but she voted up until the end of her life she died the year after

obama was elected because she said she was going to stay intel that man got elected. [laughter] >>host: mercia bit of an activist? >>guest: put it this way. my mother when she was taking care of us one day off the bus years before rosa parks got into an altercation because she sat down in his seat and some white kids got a lot coming home from school and deliberately sat behind and the bus was empty they tried to make trouble then yelled at the bus driver that the n word is sitting in front of us w was not permitted

so they kept buggy my mother to get up the bus driver came back and told her she had to move and she said i was sitting here and they sat behind me deliberately. they did it on purpose a and he said i don't care so the white kids went to grab her and she flew into him and the bus was stopped and a police officer was getting on the bus and he was saying to the driver what happened? he said she is sitting in front of these children and my mother said it was deliberately my mother said she that she was going to jail they will be by

themselves but finally the police officer said you shouldn't told them not to sit behind her and that was the end of that. so there are exceptions to every rule. >> caller: i just want to say how much i appreciate this program i wish there was more people in the country to watch stuff like this but imus 63 year-old i take on a lot of attributes but i just want to comment the out of wedlock problem not only in the black community but in particular that black community my wife is native american the

genocide that went on we all took it away from them they seem to prosper with hard work and the casinos i wonder what is the comment? i feel frustrated with a lot of blacks saying the opportunities are not there. i know there isn't many bear right now i am not as a concerned citizen with that polarization overall it is appalling to me and i just want your comments. thank you. >>guest: first of all, with the native american issue i spent a lot of time in indian country. and we know most indians do not have casinos.

and to there are many port communities people suffer from the lack of health care. i have been on reservations in south dakota, arizona, a new mexico, there is the indian poverty problem head that joblessness and alcohol abuse i went to a town in nebraska right across the border from south dakota reservation. the town exist for the sole purpose to sell alcohol to the indians were they come across the even have said jail said up to throw them into.

so it is not that they make it and everybody has a casino perhaps they could give some to the others but with out of wedlock the number pregnancies in the black community have decreased. the only point i was making earlier nobody likes to see dysfunctional families and yes there are opportunities for jobs some of them is the wage level we now have those that are working and the other day a woman needs to make enough money to make a living.

all the data show for some groups of workers they are not as great as they should be. >>host: the next call comes from tennessee. >> caller: has a history graduate student i steadied several glasses during the roman empire time with caucasian and europeans and the germanic people were sold into slavery over thousands of years. is the topic that interests you? or a jury deal steady just that affects the united states african-americans? >>guest: thank you for the question i am very interested slavery.

my interest concerning african-americans is the relationship to is the responsibility of the united states for this lead to read that existed here and the definition and based off of what happened. >>host: you have the new book coming out. >> it is called we are who we say we are it will be published by oxford is a book about a family fetish tree says from the white and from there to do cuba and

then they dispersed after the civil war of god of them could pass for white. some could not. . . they are today. and i got interested in this because years ago when i was a graduate student, i a cheaper about a regiment of black soldiers during the civil war. and they had officers. they were from louisiana coming unit soldiers and they had colored officers at first. and they were all free people of color, which were quite numerous new orleans. and they were of mixed race. but in the middle of the war,

the generals decided to get rid of them because white officers from the north didn't want to associate with them, didn't want to salute them, whatever. so there was racism. the documents show they got rid of them. they got rid of all the colored officers. and i realize this one guy who had been treated among all the rest were still there and he was there until the end of the war. not only was he there, he ended up getting promoted and finally he led troops in battle throughout the war. at the end he was in a big title and he was a military hero and got cited for bravery and was provided a major on the battlefield in all this stuff. so i was puzzling when i look back on that sad how did this guy stay in the service? was it because he was fair skinned and they thought he was way? and then i found out the other officers, most of them were fair

skinned and you would've thought they were white. they were white. is that i'm going to trace this guy's family and figure this guy was, why he did what he did in the third in the legislature of louisiana during reconstruction. he went from being white in the service. they thought he was way. but they never asked him. when they set all the colored officers to overcome our going to get rid of you, he just didn't. they're not going to define me what i yam. against my principles. after that, one of his kernels thought he was colored. everybody else just assumed any went on. when the war was over, to be black was importuned during reconstruction because when black males could vote, they voted further blackmailed and so on. so he resumed his negro

identity. he used to go on and live with them. it was some i.q. is separated from his family. and then, when reconstruction was over, he served in the legislature. when reconstruction was over when jim crow started and he married a woman of mixed race, but she could pass them and they'd cave and they moved to california in the 1890s at jim crow. but other branches of the family, big family. father had two wives and so on. one of the brothers was one of the two classical composers in the 19th century louis colored. for one line of the family, people decided in the 90s, even though racism started and all that not to become color. i have pictures in the thing. you would think they were white people, too.

and so, it is following searching for home as they go through all the different changes and finally end up in california. one group didn't know anything about the others. some say toilets in mississippi. you pretend you were white if you move to a different neighborhood because nobody would ask you about anything. it is in a way typical new orleans story. but it's different from other new orleans stories. one of the things that occurred to me, the two branches of the family finally in 2003, one of the young people decided at the family reunion that she was going to find anybody who had that name and invite and then she did. some of the weight snares came. and they met each other on either picture in the book at the end of the white guy who is a great, great grandson.

they're how dear you look at clear lake. for one of the things i learned from this book that i thought about before coming years ago i asked karen mccain i said why didn't you and martin stay in boston? you know come you guys were in the north and the south is bad. she said we never thought of it. we were going home because we want to be part of what was at home. i had several other people who were leaders in the civil rights and the and so on the same kind of story asked people in my hometown of nashville who went away to school and they came back and i bet some people in new orleans who could have passed when they came back and part of the civil rights movement. one of the things that was clear to me after looking at all of these, we talk about the civil rights movement being made by people who came from the north of all kinds of things. the people who came from the north are very important,

especially to the whole student movements and ministers and so on. most of the people who went to jail in the south were southerners, home grown children, families and most of the leaders of the civil rights movement were homegrown southerners. they used to talk about outside agitators as one of the things southerners used to sail the time. think outside agitators have come here, we would have this problem. martin luther king, none of these people and the people in new orleans. the snares who stayed and he became, this is the family are right about, part of the movement went outside agitators either. the most interesting part of all of that to be, the last point i thought a is they help to change the south in ways that now people go back to the south.

in other words, if all those inside agitators had all last, things would be different. the great migration is important. but they didn't leave and miss out now is important because of what they did with those inside agitators. the family i talk about, some of those people are part of the whole movement. but i started out as a class provided lewis and one snare, that was his name, how did he stay in the service when all these other guys went now. i thought maybe he said something that was impressive. but as i can tell, he just remained silent. >> host: have you research your family? >> guest: my own family? i know some about my own family. i haven't researched it. i've got erased from my mother,

but i haven't researched it. >> host: you are southern black woman. you have ancestors who were slaves >> guest: i have ancestors who were slaves. they lived on the plantation in williamson county and my grandfather on my father's side was a creek indian descent. a lot of people think they have indian ancestry and it's usually cherokee grandmother phenomenon. so i always thought of my mother said their grandfather is indian, i figured he was cherokee. when i was looking up stuff come i did not much coming he was apparently a creek indian. in any case, we are all black, everybody was black except for my great grandmother on my

father's side was the descendent of a ways slaveholder in the black woman and was of mixed race. and my mother told me, whether it's true or not, she told me the name of the family, which is still in nashville, cheech these people belong. i always laughed and said one day i'm going to go over to their house because my mother told me whereabouts and i could they guess who's coming to dinner? i've never done it. >> host: have you ever thought about returning to nashville? >> guest: i go back to nashville all the time because my cousins and relatives and defendants on my mother's side are all they are. the berry's, a lot of them have died out. but echo.g-golf the time. >> host: if you go back and not at my door, make sure he sees being cameras with you.

naomi from oakland, california. hi, naomi. >> caller: hi, dr. berry. thank you for your contributions. i have a question about the films that have been made recently in hollywood, jane go and the go and do help nbc developments in them? i know a lot of americans in our community don't want to know about this. you see the relevance or do you think their exploitation? >> guest: i think their exploitation because exploitation by definition means profit-making and the whole point of making a film i'd been in the film business is to make some money. i'm not not surprising, but i have not seen jane go, although people tell me i should. i did see the health and i did see 12 years a slave. i thought both of those were quite useful inlet even larger audience luck in i'm getting some sense of what slavery was

like, although a lot of it was somewhat senile ties. >> host: some historical accuracy is? >> guest: yes, i had read the 12 years of slave books years ago. it's one of the classics that's been around. but i thought it was well done and i thought that help was well done in addition to being funny in a way. so it's good to let a larger audience see these things and it may help people to get some kind of understanding. >> host: martha, irvine, california. hi, martha appeared >> caller: hello peter and professor berry. i would like to refer to martin luther king jr. speech at morehouse college in 1948 where he stated the function of education is to teach intensively and critically. the most dangerous criminal may be gifted with a visa but no

morals. you must run the intelligence is not enough. intelligence plus character is the goal is to education. professor berry, do you agree with this statement? what is your take of education? thank you. >> guest: i would hope that intelligence, that education would build character. i am not sure that there is any conscious effort to do that on the part of people who are in charge of education today and i'm not sure because people's definition of character change and we don't like to be prescriptive when we are telling people what they should believe. intelligence i think we can agree about. knowledge and information. but i would hope that knowledge, information and understanding would make a person -- would improve their care at her. postcode next call for mary

frances berry. you're on c-span2. >> caller: marry, you are very impressive. i am amazed of your depth and intelligence. the black race has their future in their own hands in the fact that the boat. that is a story that you could tell. tell minorities that they are now in the majority. and if they vote, you know, they can change the whole country rather than take every little problem as it appears. just get out and vote. but i know you are a storyteller not a politician. i just thought i would be a good

story you could tell because that is what is needed to solve these problems is to get minorities to vote. >> guest: well, i think voting is very important. i put a chapter and long memory called plaques in the politics of redemption. and in that chapter, i talk about how until we got the right to vote we placed so much emphasis on it and that is important. but once we got it, we would find out certain things we could get from voting and other things we couldn't. the thing about voting is that anyone who votes, whatever color they aren't a democratic society can achieve object inspired. you can get patronage for people like you. that is jobs doing various things in the government. you may elect candidates who look like you.

you may have some influence on policy. but you can't change the economic system of voting. people in south africa are finding that out. it was a struggle against the apart night this very heroic and very important. many people in south africa who are poor, their ancestors are poor. they are poor and they will continue to be poor. so i think voting is very important, but it is not the end all and be all. you also need ocho movements. if you want social change come you have to put your body on the line. as i saw someone in a commencement speech, i think alessandro ryan the student she was talking to that talking to that but your account or facebook account is not a social movement because it is important for communication. but if your going to have social

movement come you have to put your body on the line. you have to do that and you have to figure out a way to do that and you have to organize to do that. so bodine is it portends. the social movements are important to ring in force to vote and to make social change. >> host: with supreme court such justice harold work on another book we haven't talked about. >> guest: i would've thought harold workman in this book and it's funny because some people came up to me afterward and said i didn't know there was a black supreme court justice before thurgood marshall. it shows you how we do things in america and how we knee-jerk reaction. he thought since i wrote about him he had to be black. no, he was very way. had been mayor of cleveland and senator from ohio. i wrote about harold orton has one night i was sitting at home

and i read a flyer from the library of congress and they said that his papers were just been opened at the library of congress. and i had written black resistance, which is about president and what they do and i had written about congress and what he do tonight that i need to write something about the supreme court. why not look into his papers and see if they're interesting. so i took itself to the library of congress and started reading his papers. i got very interested because he hadn't been written about and that dangerous. because most people who read about supreme court justices read about the same people over and over again. frankfurter, douglas, this one, not one. people have never heard of.

all i knew about him was when i was in moscow in labor law, we read his opinion and we like them because he always told you what the holding in the case was in the first line you didn't have to read all the way through the opinion to find out what he was doing. so i started reading and he seemed fascinating. he had taken note on everything that happened in all the various conferences while he was on supreme court and his own handwriting so you could read about what everybody else said what they did. and then i went and interviewed the law clerks and i became fond of justice burton although there were some things about him. his older kids had to make a point ends when he was mayor because he was busy. he was in the habit of wearing two hearings on a share, which i thought was fascinating and i

love the notes he wrote back and forth in some of the opinions he wrote on some of the race issues. he was head of this time. so it was my effort to write something about the supreme court and how they react with each other and he was down there when brown was decided and took copious notes. when justice rehnquist is up for confirmation in the senate, people wanted to read this and read the notes and go back and check because it had the comprehensive account of what happened at the time. >> host: appointed by truman? >> guest: yes. host who you ride in the book stability and continuity there is no conscious effort to be anti-or pro-civil libertarians, but there was another to take seriously the task of judging. >> guest: . he tried very hard as he put it to take seriously and it was

critical of other justices who he thought were not as serious. i won't name names as he was about these matters. but he was a little discontented player. he said but was delayed even on the court after being in the senate. he said it's like going to a monnot area from a circus. which is true. >> host: who is judge leon higginbotham and was dear friend? >> guest: yes, i will tell you at his first name was. he hated it. was one of the most important federal court judges and lawyers among african-americans of his time. she was as a young man was the honest appointee as a commissioner i think of as the

ftc he was gone. he also was a scholar. he laid to research and write history. he wrote a wonderful book on the history of slave law in the colonial period. and i met him when i was invited to a conference at the university of chicago that stan katz is a legal historian at princeton and from other people had organized when he was at chicago. leon came into the room while we were sitting there with his daughter and sat down and stand didn't know who he was and asked him what he wanted. leon was a tall guy with a big booming voice and stan had invited in. and he became a judge, district court judge and he wrote some marvelous opinions. i admired him for the history

that. i one time told him because he beat me all the time. he said i can't find my glasses. i said i have no idea. he said bush's plan a way. so we were to play tennis and ibm. the first time i ever beat him. so i came back to the house and i said i just don't know. i said they are over there. i had to take his glasses so i could beat him. he was a wonderful man. i persuaded him after he stepped down from the bench. if you come at a different time, he would have been on the supreme court. by the time a politician was president who could have appointed him, he was too old. so they can appoint him. that's the way things are done. after he stepped down, he became the council at a major law firm. i persuaded him to be on the

u.s. civil rights commission with me. i thought that if i could get leon to be on the commission as distinguished as he was and respected and crews are now so, who was the first latino justice of the california supreme court, that the republicans on their servers back then that they might become a little more willing to talk into try to get something positive done. didn't work. but they make great sacrifices and leon served with me on the commission until he passed. >> host: do you have in their republican friends? >> guest: yes, actually as a matter of fact quite a few. there has been republican numbers of congress who i liked. arthur flemming who is a staunch republican and sturgeon every administration since hoover and was chaired the commission, someone of whom i am very fond.

i like the corn who is a congress and from california and u.s. are earlier in the commission with me. and then there are people who are republicans who aren't in any office, they just happened to be republicans who i know and i am quite willing to talk with them, play tennis with them, do anything coming yes. >> host: mary frances berry comments you remember your first white friend? >> guest: my first white friend. that's an interesting question. no one has ever asked me that before. my first white friend would probably be one of the nurses who work with me at sibley hospital in washington when i ran the lab when i was in college at howard. i quite a few friends who are nurses. a guy named ed martin who was awake i do as a physicians

assistant. he had learned in the navy had to be a physician. all of us used to go drink all the time and talk to each other. they were my friends. >> host: stacy is calling from folks though, virginia. hi, stacy. >> caller: my question is you brought up historical mike tobey underpainting of terms like slavery from the african-american experience to the current human trafficking. what is your thought about first rate virginia schoolchildren being taken to the plantation by robert ely's family and their innocent eyes. witness to a historical plantation that held slaves that there is no slave quarters for the children to see, nor have they received an education on what the institution of slavery was in the united states. >> guest: i think that it's outrageous of accepting what you're telling me. but that's outrageous. obviously they take them to the plantation, they had to tell

them that they were slaves and now is the whole idea of the plantation. and so, it does not help. i don't think education solves all problems. but a little bit of education along those lines i think would be very helpful. so i think it's outrageous that sure. >> host: sonya is calling in from oregon. did i get that right? >> caller: hi, it is to all its hidden. hello, mary frances. thank you for letting me speak with you. i really appreciate this. i recently heard about a saint josephine the keypad. have you heard of her? >> guest: now, what did you hear? i want to now.

>> caller: it is so interesting. since you are talking about slavery, at the age of nine years old, she was kidnapped near dark for sudan. and then she was taking to venice, italy and that is where her story begins and ends and she was the catholic non. >> guest: yes, i know about her. yes, i do. one of my colleagues knows about her, yes. i've heard about it. since you mentioned it, we should mention that there's actual slavery and the classic sense of the word, meaning for life. you know, a misplayed for life and that their children become slaves. existing right now. that's an earlier time you're talking about. right now in sudan and another place is in africa, there is

actual slavery that is like the real slavery. but anyway, yes -- how did you hear about it? call co-well, i just have to do here the second part of her story on television. and i was fascinated. >> guest: i hope i can see that. call co-yes, so i'm glad you heard about her. i wish somebody -- people would know about it because she sounds very a beautiful person. >> host: sonya, what do you do with oregon? >> caller: just a grandmother. >> guest: just a grandmother. the western part or eastern part? >> host: i apologize. i've hung up on her. >> guest: i hear her. >> host: i apologize for that. in researching slaves, african-americans as the record-keeping as thorough, as

perhaps it is for official white america back in the day? >> guest: demand the records of who people are? >> host: great year in what the research process? >> guest: people are not really that good. and the senses, for example, depending what censors you look at, slaves are counted and how many slaves somebody had. numbers. but you don't have any names of people usually. in some of the louisiana records you do. in the family, they will be the names of the slaves. the reason why those petitions that callie house collected are so interesting is because they have the name of the person that tells you what plantation they were on, who owned them and what it was. that is very good information. to the records are as good as

they should eat. there are as many diaries because large numbers of people couldn't write things that you have for people who are more literate. so they are not as good as they should be. >> host: in my face is black is true, kelley haus and struggle are ex-slave reparations. you talk about 40 acres and a mule. where did that come from qwest >> guest: well, in the civil war, the union in the freedman's bureau act that was passed during civil war was called the bureau of freedman called the bureau freedman refugees refugees and abandoned lands. and in policy on the part of the army at first, the talk was that each blacks who was emancipated would be given 40 acres and a mule. and there were some people who are able to hold on to man up a cow for the confederates ran

away for a while in some areas of the country is to. but it was event taken away from them. some abolitionists bought some land to give to people, but that wasn't widespread. so black folks when they started meeting with politicians about what changes they wanted to see, a lot of them talked about the right to vote, which gets to be the dominant discussion about black history in this period. lots of them talked about wanting their 40 acres and a mule. they wanted land. and that doesn't get talked about quite as much. and that is because it challenges the whole economic data sets of what we have is a country and gets you into the question of is the vote enough and all of those unpleasant discussions. but black people went away from

that and it was handed down in the war that we are supposed to give 40 acres and a mule. i often say well, if you give me 40 acres of prime real estate in manhattan, that would be cool. i'm not sure i want the mule anymore. but the idea is reparations in a sense is based on that concept, too. but that is where the whole idea comes from. >> host: kelley, leadville, colorado. good afternoon to you. >> caller: to guess, hi, good afternoon. hi, how are you? >> guest: okay. >> caller: i wanted to thank you for all of your kurds and everything you are doing. i think i have a white woman having grown up in the south, i would have to say my hat is off to all african-americans really for their 40s. i just don't know how they do

it. i have grown it. so much of their real discrimination of now against the white man and just things like this. so much that my hat is truly off to you and all the african-americans for their struggle. i think that maybe we've lost our empathy. i know growing up i've had folks like black like me, saw the movie sounder. i think now the kids read almost nothing. when they do, they read anne frank. most of them are reading anne frank. i used. i was sitting in which language arts teacher. i don't know whether this is a good way to say -- someone a way, i thank you very much. >> guest: well, thank you for calling. and frank is good to read. the holocaust as it does of course. but it's also good for people to

know about their own history for which they are responsible in this country and has some understanding and therefore of what they might do about it. postcode delivered krauter posts on our facebook page for you, dr. berry. diversity is america is a good thing no doubt but it seems to verse that he is creating more division among each other and bringing us together. how does america survive when it has become a nation so fractured? are there still common values? >> guest: first of all, i think america will survive because it always has. god bless america, we will always survive. but i think that we have to get more expensive community, which is what i was talking about at the outset about these discussions, that there's always been that tension, but we've gone too far to the individualist side.

we need to move back with a little more balance. i don't forget that. maybe if we study our history and institutions we can get some sense of it. i don't know. but i think the country will survive. if you have somebody in the 19th century lots of immigration was coming in eastern and southern europe and other places, people might have said you could read some of the things written and people say the country is fractured and all these people coming from here in their for the irish and the annabella. or wherever you were. but the country absorbed them. the structure of our government and our institutions permit as and when we move on. so that's what i think will happen this time. postcode this facebook comment from a chante brown. if you had to recommend a quintessential academic discipline to a would-be activist, what would it be?

>> guest: either history of social movement or i would have something on organizing and how to organize. debut could go and sit with obama since he was -- no, i am teasing. in fact, i reduce in history because they say that i redo history. or i redo philosophy of words and logic because you need to analyze in order to know what to do. that's very important. in the main, i would just use common sense. i would hope. postcode besides listening to that white lady's records, when did you first agitate or become an act to this end step out of your role? >> guest: well, i never

intended to be an act to this. it's not like i sat down and said one day when people say what you want to be when you grow a, i didn't say well, that of being a firefighter i want to be an act of this. but when events occur, when something happens that a peer to be an injustice, i don't care what it is. i immediately react. i think somebody should do some team. you may not always win and you may not always get anywhere. but i believe in challenging authority, organizing faction, figured out how to do some name and the best time to do it is when nobody else is doing it. when everybody is doing it, it doesn't make you that much. but i just think that speaking

out against injustice, acting against injustice, been an example although as i said i haven't sat down and thought about each time what i should do. and i've had people say to me, why did you do whatever you did? i don't know why i did it. i just know that i thought something was wrong and i thought somebody had to do something about it. people say why did he think about the risks you are would have been to you or you could have gone a different route and you would've gotten a would've gotten a peer is supposed today are. i never thought of that event. i don't know what to tell people really. >> host: anytime during your public service did you have security quite >> guest: no, the only time i was afraid -- i didn't have security. i have security sometimes when i

travel places they would have local security, when i was in the government, two different places. but i was out making a speech one time and i came back to the hotel and someone tried to break in the room i was in. what happened is this person called on the phone over and over again. i didn't answer the phone. i answered a first amendment that stopped calling. i told them to stop the calls. the next thing i knew was a man trying to break down the door. as it turns out, they got him. the speech i'd given he didn't like something i said. he was angry about whatever was. he had also seen the end television that afternoon and i had said something that set them off and he didn't like what i was talking about. he had followed me to a hotel.

when i checked in, the group was with me. the guy behind the desk called my room number, which you are not supposed to do in hotels. and i wasn't paying any attention. he was standing there and he heard the guy give up the room number. so after that episode, for about six there was somebody who always see their wealth with me or they would be people when i got someplace, they would go and check the hotel room and they would sit outside because that was quite frightening actually. it's kind of scary. postcode and he is calling you from riverside, california. >> caller: hi, good morning. i think one of the greatest violence in history for me is one at the entrance between jesse owens and the so-called supreme rank and the whole world was watching.

and i would look up to him or matter what his race was there anything for doing that and just stating that someone else is better than the so-called supreme race. and i met with frederick case then and now currently pastor bill winston. to me, supreme creatures and all they talk and i am so sad that people who judge people by their skin because god made everybody and he sees when we get to judgment, he is going to see us by the spirit, not by the color of skin. people better wake up. god bless you in thank you. >> guest: thank you. thank you very much. >> host: this is from what had appeared in e-mail. as a graduate of an historically black college, i am a bit

concerned about their ability to compete with the majority institutions for faculty, students, infrastructure, et cetera, which ultimately impacts student outcomes. what value do you believe hbcus have as institutions of higher education today? >> guest: i think they have a lot of value and will continue to do so until we get this race problem solved. what has happened is that many of the predominantly white institutions, especially the most highly liked it once do not admit its efficient number, in my opinion, a slave descendent african-americans. that is americans who are descended, traced descended slaves. many of them admit large numbers of students from the african continent, which is fine.

from the caribbean and so on, which is fine. what they do that, this other group has served us well. hbcus play a role in educating black students. they probably do a file as the less selective predominantly white institutions to which many go. when i was in california recently, i noticed that large numbers of black students, slave descendent african students of middle class, their families send them to private colleges and universities and pay a lot of tuition for that because they can't get in the university of california system and they can't get in because the requirement there and the end of affirmative action is led to a situation

where test scores discuss score hegemony that they don't get in. there is a 4% were for high school graduates at any school in the state that can get in. but that doesn't do the job either. to these parents paid money for them to go there or send them to the historically black institutions that still exists. so the ambivalence the society has via the one hand saying we want to end hbcus and some of the safe because we don't need them because they are white colleges and universities are predominantly white one and these kids can go there and the teachers can go there when in fact they can create the problem. so what we have to do is figure out holistically how to solve that problem. until we do, and we have it, there is a need for the institution. also the institutions have a

history. was that i could be said we don't need to have colleges and universities, so let's go over to notre dame. people would say what? what about the football team. no, i'm kidding. they just wrote michigan last night. anyway, so i think is the need, a history, legacy and i don't see any reason why the schools should go out of existence. >> host: jaundice: and from the third. john, please go ahead. >> caller: hello, thanks for taking my call. hello? dr. berry? thank you very much. a few things here first of all, how do you like philadelphia in my city? i grew up there and i'd like to get your opinion on it. >> guest: i have to say i like it because you just told me. what else am i going to say? >> caller: i'm sorry.

the other thing is that if you pay any chance that a book on costa greene who deals with the kind of mixed race theme that you talked about earlier. her father was richard green, the attorney that worked with dr. to fully during the founding of the naacp. my question to you is when i see the reconstruction period, the area that most interests me is the freedman's bureau, simply because it they set up schools for african-americans coming out of slavery throughout the south and other portions of the country. as an educator, i wonder about this big gap in math now next and reading that african-americans have against the white students in america. but i feel the freedman schools have been left open for longer

period of time would have been able to educate more of our people. and yet diminish the sophia friel's literacy that existed for another 100 years. what is your opinion and perhaps you can tell the public a little bit about their purpose. thank you. >> guest: be solved in the schools and became either public schools or private schools. there were freedom schools in the 1960s, to in the south that the activist started. as far as -- and freedom schools, vp franklin who teaches at you see riverside and is an expert on black education writes about those in the role they could play today. i think as far as entrepreneurs concerned and maps for mobile the need to do is to expand the

ideas and robert moses altshuler project which works very well. robert moses was one of the great leaders during the civil rights. in fact, i think you should get a presidential medal of freedom. if anybody gets wanted lots of people have, he to be the first in line to do so. following that model would help to solve this particular problem. >> host: helen, palo alto, california. you would tv at the end too. mary frances berry is our guest. >> caller: what a treat to hear you speak so out of lee about a lot of the issues. my concern is primarily the role of the black churches in black communities taking away jobs and opportunity for their constituent service tax exemptions without regulation

and faith-based funding that goes into support their own jobs and maintain it and said that money go into communities for boys and girls clubs and other civic organizing. yet, i noticed through the black churches for reverend martin visser king, which is the site of organization for civil rights. but nevertheless, there is no american station to secularize the country or people so that we get out from under the power of the right thing political system that is behind a lot of the religious right. and so, i am trying to see everything. >> guest: i think you get your point. it's about faith-based programs in getting government money and funding it through the church

and what that has to do with institutions that are not related to the church and programs that exist there that are secular. did i get your point? >> host: helen howes -- >> guest: anyway, let me say the faith-based program, this is one of those issues like charter schools and vouchers and all of those things that start out as part of the tenants as part of the right political right and end up with the democrats embracing them and in my view with people thoughtlessly embracing them without taking about the consequences. and so, now you have and have had since bush is eighth in the white house and what it is about the balance between religion and our society and how far should

go. freedom of religion and free exercise. that is a tension that has been with us since the beginning of the republic. an effort to not defend those in the faith-based idea and their fears that the best way to solve social problems -- programs is to do it through research and on the church. you have tax money go into those programs. they're other people of course i believe it's ridiculous and the money should go to the programs. there are debates that have been lost. we have lost the faith based debate. we'll continue to have faith based programs. doesn't matter whether democrats or republicans are in office for quite some time as we continue to have charter schools and vouchers and all that. when you lose the political debate come you know you've lost them any time things will change again. but i do understand your issue. >> host: mary frances berry, with your historians had on,

what has changed in the last 50 years the civil rights movement? will likely be years? we have a black president, president color which many people would not predict it would've happened as quickly. we have lots of african-americans and other people of color whose movements have patterned themselves after the civil rights movement who are involved in all kinds of occupations and in our society and walks of life that we would not have imagined 50 years ago. we have a multiracial category of offenses that we wouldn't have imagined a few years ago. so we have more opportunity in our society and more people who

have taken advantage of but opportunities were available then we had 50 years ago. people who were black people of color can do things than all the rights. we have enormous chain in society since that time. things that haven't changed, he didn't answer asked me and things that haven't changed enough is that we haven't changed enough cover theme to it at the window of opportunity stays open for everyone and enough about mitigating the harsh edges of capitalism in a period of globalization. we haven't done that. we haven't figured out yet how to do that. we haven't figured out how to deal with this balance between liberty and authority. would love this place because we want them to protect us. on the other hand, we don't want them to abuse us.

it's we don't want some people abused and not other people. we have some ambulances and desires have the balance one and another. post over at tumor calls and for a time it ended. barbara in seattle. hi, barbara. >> caller: hi, there. earlier dr. berry is that it takes a social movement to effect real change in the country in our society. you touched on this, but we had a civil rights movement, a women's movement, a labor movement, a student movement, all of these movements. my question is what would happen if all of these moves that got together to champion the needs of the most oppressed in our society and do you think this has been a real revolutionary change? because it seems to me that is where martin luther king and malcolm max were headed. can you comment on this?

>> guest: well, you mean if we had a vast social movement in the society to make the kind of economic and social change that is necessary. i think that is unlikely because those movements were directed at goals that benefited particular groups that were left out at the time. it is hard to get groups to focus on the broader picture of an all-encompassing movement. if that happened, you would have revolutionized an. i think it would be hard to do. but if you can find one thing that all the groups would agree is where our energy should be directed, you might be able to do that and then we'd have a general strike as they've had in some countries until the change

took place. >> host: robert in smirnov, georgia. hi, robert. >> caller: hi, i am a 59-year-old white yellow dot democrat and that's briefly in philadelphia. i would like to know what do you say when you're face to the situations? my sister is not my mother because she has a racist friend, yet my sister has a great suspicion of because they think they are pedophiles. perhaps my best friend is black. he doesn't particularly care for homosexual because they rape young men. i don't feel that i neither or racist, yet when i see a black man walking with a white girl or they are together, there is something that goes off in me and i'm a little concerned about that. what do i say to my sister? what do i say to my friend? how can i change my own mind about these things.

when you think these things, have you change your own mind or anybody else's mind. thank you very much. >> guest: well, that is a very good question, actually. it is a complex one. you first realize that everybody has biases. i'm reminded that because a student in the first day of one of my classes said when another student said what you just said about this issue that you want to read about sounds like you have biases. the student responded i don't have any biases. and if i do, i can suppress them while i'm reading. and everybody else that now come you might as well face up to them. so face up to it. everyone has biases. even if you say you don't, you do. and what you do is you acknowledge them and you have other people say you have biases, acknowledge them, deal with them, try to think through

them. but if you don't acknowledge them and you pretend like what you think is somehow purer and is unbiased, then you'll never get to the bottom of it. >> host: what are your biases? >> guest: what are my biases? i don't like -- what is that i don't like? i hate watermelon. and people are always given me watermelon because they figure black people eat watermelon. i hate watermelon. i don't know why i hate it. i've hated it since i was a child. i am also biased in that i don't suffer people to engage me intellectually who haven't taught through whatever they are talking about. i mean, adults with whom i have conversations. not. they are not supposed to have. and i don't like people to make foolish remarks and then insist that they are not foolish.

just fess up. i mean, confessor must move on. so i biases like that. >> host: mary frances berry is the author of 10 books. she is a new one coming out in a couple of and working on another one. after that, here are the 10 that have been published. "black resistance/white law", america was her first, military necessity and civil rights policy black citizenship in the constitution came out second. stability security and continuity. mr. justice burton and decision-making in the supreme court 1945 to 1958. and long memory, the black experience in america when it came out in 1982. why era failed peer should mention that was her favorite. child care, women's rights in the myth of a good mother. other tales of american justice,

episodes of racism and sexism in the courts came out in 1999. the other when she mentioned is a favorite of hers that she's written, my face is black is true. callie house and the struggle for x slave reparations. and "and justice for all" came out in 2009. her most recent, "power in words," the story behind barack obama speeches. mary frances berry, thank you for spending this three hours with us on "in