but anyhow, we're in fort smith, and nixon goes to the motel, and it's a rectangular thing. it's on the inside, but it's only one story. and so nixon's got this room here, and he says i do not want to be disturbed, i've got to nap. i've got a big speech tonight, i don't want anybody to disturb me. i said, you got it, and i went down and mosesed around my own room. i saw this huge fellow marching straight across the quadrangle of this motel straight toward nixon's door. and he was yelling, hey, dick! hey, dick! to mr. nixon, you know, who's sleeping. so i started running, and i didn't get there in time. and this guy is pounding on the door, and the door opens and richard nixon let him in. i thought, that's the end of pat buchanan. [laughter] and nixon says, pat, have you met wynn rockefeller? this was winthrop rockefeller, the brother of nelson and david rockefeller, but he was a great war hero.

he was the youngest of the brothers. he'd been involved in some scandal, bobo rockefeller in the '50s i'd been reading about, but a great fellow. and that was my first introduction to the rockefellers in that campaign. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. .. >> mary frances berry, in your

book, long memories, the black experience in america, you write most black americans always been more american than white americans. >> guest: sort of like being more catholic than the pope, be leaving more in the values and principles that are laid out in the declaration of independence and the preamble to the constitution and which are part of the american ethos. and believing fundamentally, using those principles as a way to ask for the progress on equality for them. that is what i mean. >> host: what is the proof? >> guest: every time there's a protest movement organized, civil disobedience, other kinds of movements on the part of african-americans, people who are in coalition with them, always what they ask for are the

principles that are pristine american values, a longstanding. when martin luther king asked for justice, he spoke in the tongues of the language of the declaration of independence and the constitution. he didn't speak in the tones of some alien philosophy that existed in some other country. >> host: in that book long memory you recount the black resistance movements over the years. when did it start? >> there have been resistance movement since the beginning of the republic. in 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 that there was a lot of discipline. lots of movements in the period coming in the antebellum period, in every period of history. i wrote a book called "black resistance/white law" in which i

have a couple chapters on the seminole war and the black resistance movement because blacks and seminoles were allowed in florida to maintain their autonomy and self-determination. in every period, history in one way or another there have been different modes of resistance, two people wrote an article years ago which i use in some of my stuff, day to they resistance to slavery. what they meant by that is the little things but person can do day-by-day on the plantation, breaking tools, whatever it was, there were many ways to resist. >> if you had to make a general statement about what was life like for southern blacks during

reconstruction what would be? >> during reconstruction which didn't last long after the civil war there was great excitement because he eventually black men got the right to vote and we know there was great excitement about that including women who couldn't vote but urged the men pawn and would tell them how embarrassed they would be if they didn't even though was a risky so there was great excitement about the prospects that would take place. these were of course-to 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. all kinds of problems they were trying to reconstruct family and home so it was a kind of excitement. >> host: why did reconstruction not last?

>> because once the war was over the union soldiers wanted to go home. 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 is when these groups like the knights of white committee and other kinds of groups that today we talk about terrorist groups in our own country, that existed but the main thing is there was resistance from the south and the desire to end war and pretty soon blacks were left on their own pretty much. >> host: when did the state's rights movement begin? >> guest: way before the civil war. from the beginning of the republic, when we got the two

party system which was never envisioned by the framers, we can get people arguing about the meaning of the constitution and some people taking a stance that the tenth amendment has more privacy 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 animated the debate over the tariff 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 rights advocates. what happened before the civil war, some people think states rights is something that happened after and we talk about it now but it was a long standing and there were debates about it at the constitutional convention. in a sense the anti federalists

were strong believers in the primacy of states' rights. >> host: where did the term jim crow come from? >> there was a minstrel groups according to people who researched this. my colleague with whom i wrote "long memory" wrote about some of this and they would dance and it was called dancing jim crow and it was the minstrel kind of black face, the way blacks were supposedly behaving. >> host: when did that movement, that era begin? jim crow? >> after reconstruction and the end of reconstruction. we gradually get laws passed that segregate the vases of race all flow of the former legal structure took place gradually and was in place by the end of

the nineteenth 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 before were controlled by slavery and now to controls them by segregation which would also mean they were inferior. >> host: back to your book for "long memory" many blacklegs felt better about the certainty of discrimination in the south and the bewildering twists and turns in the color line in the north. not that the south was a land of opportunity or release raise -- race relations were better, on the contrary blacks preferred the south because below the mason-dixon line they knew what to expect from whites. in the north discrimination appeared in the most unexpected places and a black was never sure how to act. >> right.

in the era of jim crow if you were in the north the medicines that everywhere everything would be desegregated and no one would ever say anything racist or do anything that was exclusion area and -- but it might happen. it might happen and there were in fact places where interracial marriage was illegal, there was some segregation you would encounter whereas in the north you knew there was legal segregation and you would be segregated, you didn't have to worry about it, whether that would happen. that was the way things worked. >> host: let's go to your book "black resistance/white law". >> guest: i mentioned about it earlier about the seminole war. >> host: white oppression and black resistance have been part of the american scene since the colonial period. the response of the government in its efforts to suppress racial disorder reflected the tension between the lofty ideals

expressed in the documents in 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 efforts by african-americans to acquire real freedom and equality in the united states as a group, even when white oppression means resorting to illegal violence and brutality, has added to that tension. >> host: dan is a truism about the long sweep of american history. i began writing that book when i was in law school in michigan and i began writing it the night martin luther king was assassinated. i was very angry and very upset. and have been asked by one of my professors, when did the

president faster using executive power to suppress resistance movements and i hadn't thought about the question in quite that way before. so i started researching that book which he eventually got published but i think that statement is a truism about the country and 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 called out, reach out to those values and say this is the goal and this is what we want so that description is the way the system worked. 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 is in fact what we are still seeking.

>> host: that book was written in 1971. >> published in 1971. i started writing in 1968. >> host: updated -- bring the book to 1994. and i talk in the book about the changes that took place over the years and a closer approximation we came to achieving those goals while they are still a lot left to be done. i started talking about various resistance movements and things that happened and how they were suppressed, to the new edition. >> host: how does fergusons it into your book? >> if i were writing of black resistance addition 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 community relations and my own experience with these matters, i would have to write that why we have made great progress, which is again a truism, since the time the book was begun and since the beginning of the republic, but we still haven't quite got it right and some people still haven't quite gotten the message and that a lot needs to be done. >> host: when were you chair of the civil rights commission? >> guest: i was nominated 1980 and confirmed by the senate, jimmy carter. 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 and when bill clinton was president he made

the chair. >> guest: when did the civil rights commission began? >> guest: 1957, the eisenhower as president had proposed to him by his attorney general and a meeting, one of the things that motivated it was the nascent protests among blacks, also thought report that had been done during the truman administration, the securities rights. the beginning of desegregation in the armed forces the continued complaints about race relations and racism in the united states, the secretary of state told the president, was making it hard for the united states to stand up and compete in the world where these new nations were coming to independence and the underdeveloped world as we called it in asia and africana and more and more attention was paid, competition with the soviet union for the minds and hearts of men as they used to

say, i guess women too and people were always pointing out of 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 may be what we should do is set up but commission. government set up, the united states government sets up commissions from time to time. your listeners know this, we all 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 go away and that is the last anyone ever heard of it and the books are on the shelves somewhere or other and that is the end of that until next time but he, john eisenhower setting this thing up, his attorney general said you know what? if you're going to do this you will need subpoena power to get

witnesses to come in an come. and people were scared to come, will be forced to come so congress has to pass it because to subpoena somebody needs the authority of statutory law so they sent it up the land was part of the civil rights act of 57 which was the first civil rights act passed since reconstruction and it was set up supposed to be one year to go out and as an eisenhower put it i am told by people who will-that he pounded the table and said put the facts on top of the table. i don't know what he actually did. that is what the story is that he did. in any case they went out and started doing hearings and they were to be independent and give an independent view to the public and the president as to what was going on in race relations and how they go about solving these problems and that is where the commission said it. >> host: alisha

>> host: when did you leave the commission? >> guest: i resigned right after george bush -- i guess it was george w. bush was the president. i resigned that year as a chair and from the commission after years of serving on it. >> host: y? >> guest: i resigned from it because i knew 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 jewish bush would continue after he was reelected with the same policies he had before and that he would get appointments and 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 -- >> the commission went was set up by eisenhower was -- i explained in the book calls "and justice for all" and i wrote about the history of the commission. and it was when it was renewed after the first year and kept on being renewed for ever and is still around, it was by law an independent agency independent from the president, from anybody and it was to have balanced membership and at first the people were nominated and confirmed by the senate. it was to be bipartisan and the idea was that no one would influence what they did and when they had reports ready they would release them. with out fear of failure. that was the idea. >> host: that in that book the

struggle for freedom in america, you write the civil rights commission and the republican controlled the trade the mission for which the agency was founded. it did not address immigration issues, the treatment of victims of the flooding in the aftermath of hurricane katrina or the need to find ways to achieve diversity in education. >> didn't do any of that. that has been true for -- since i left more or less. it is not even so much that they might have different opinions. is okay to have different opinions. is just that when major episodes in the advancement occur, we would investigate, the commission would always go out and investigate the causes of things because the law required that you were supposed to do that. that was why the taxpayers were paying it but they seemed to be oblivious or had some reasons i don't know about for not

investigating any of these things. >> host: one of the things you wrote about was the 2000 presidential election. what was your role? >> guest: we got all of these complaints from people about problems they were having with voting on election day and they wanted the commission to do something because the law says -- the commission had been very visible for a long time and the law required as to do something. it said when people complain that their voting rights have been interfered with the commission shall investigate. dozens said it might if it feels like it or think about it. and so the staff collect 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 to various people and when the commission

met we all agreed, republicans and democrats, that we had to investigate and we waited until the reelection was no fur. we were not trying to interfere with the eruption but we did want to find out what the problems were so that we could see that it didn't happen again to anybody so we did hearings in florida which were televised on c-span and everywhere else. in fact they were televised almost everywhere in the world that had television, in florida, and subpoenaed people, jeb bush, the governor, katherine harris, secretary of state who was also on the bush campaign committee and so on as well as 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 had never been arrested.

one of them was the county clerk in charge of elections in one of the county's. they told her she was a felon and she was listed on the list of felons that they had and they were 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 about the list would be erroneous because of the way it was done but they let from go ahead and do it anyway. at report finally focused on something none of the media talk much about. the media was consumed with hanging chad's and if different counties and so on. we talked about mainly what we called the no count, people who were eligible to vote and who went to try to vote and they wouldn't let them vote which means their votes didn't even

get included in it and there were people who were quite upset. there were elderly people who were told their polling place was upstairs in the building and when they came from the senior citizen's center in the bus there was no elevator so how are they going to climb all the way up there to vote? or the people who were disabled, i remember testimony from one guy in a wheelchair and he couldn't get this polling place because they moved it but there was a big ditch in front of the polling place. when he went up and started yelling to go to the polling place they told him he had to get somebody to carry him across the ditch to get into the polling place. and c one where people found out their polling place was inside at gated community and when they drove there to go inside to vote it was after work and there was nobody at the gate and they

didn't live there so they could get in the gate said they are all blowing their horns and the people inside were volunteer precinct workers or part-time precinct workers didn't know how to open the gate because nobody had told some. by the time the state troopers came and all this stuff happened was too late to vote so 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 the help america of the 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 the provisional ballot so that if you think a person is a felon, a california already had provisional balance. you could let them vote and check out later rather than just turning people away on bass and a lot of other improvements that need to take place and money for the states to use to clean up

the voting system. haven't found all the problems. we still have the problem of the suppression and voter fraud and all kinds of voting problems but that was one of the reports that did some good. >> host: one of the discussions we're having today as voter i.d. law. what to you think? >> the id laws conceptual the make sense. we all know we have to have id to get on a plane, we have to have id for anything, i can't even go to my doctor's office unless i have a id to go in the building which i find curious but in any case the problem is, when it is used in situations where people don't have access or can't get the proper id and i turned away, all it does is serve as a device to keep them from voting and i have decided because one of the books i am

going to start writing when i finish this show and a lot of other things, another book that has come out is on voter suppression and voter fraud and i have decided from my research that people who don't want to increase the number of voters engage in voter suppression. that means take your choice which parties think that is. i won't be partisan. i am an independent but both parties probably have officials who do a little fraud now and then of a minor nature. >> host: this is booktv ads in depth program, this is one author, his or her body of work, this month it is dr. mary frances berry call former chair of the civil rights commission, professor of social thought at the university of pennsylvania, former chair of the organization of american historians. here are her ten current books

beginning with "black resistance/white law," military necessity and civil rights policy, black citizenship and the constitution 1861-1868, stability, security and continuity, about justice bergman, "long memory," came out in 1982, y. e. are a failed, women's rights and the amending process of the constitution is another of her books, "the politics of parenthood," childhood, politics and the myth of the good mother came out in 1993, the pig farmer's daughter and other tales of american justice, my face is black is true, the struggle for x slave reparations from 2005, "and justice for all" came out in 2009 and her most recent

published book, "power in words," the stories behind barack obama's speeches from the state house to the white house. if you'd like to practice the in our conversation the numbers are up on screen. area could 202585388 zero. if you live in the east in 7 times as 5853881. for those in the mountain and pacific time zones if you can't get through the phone lines and still want to participate we are taking comments via facebook, twitter and e-mail as well. our twitter handle @booktv, facebook.com/booktv and finally booktv@c-span.org. where were you born and raised? >> nashville, tennessee. >> host: y? >> guest: i guess that was where my parents were. >> host: will we use your childhood like? >> we were poor.

one of my high school teachers told me once i shouldn't tell people that i grew up for or if i was in an orphanage or any of those unpleasant things because rather even thinking more of me they would think less of me because they would think i came from a rather crude background and i was not part of the upwardly mobile middle-class. i never took her advice. yes, i was pour. my mother raised us, my father left and she raised me and my brother under very difficult circumstances and i always thought if the circumstances hadn't been so difficult than we had money i would be very tall which i always wanted to be instead of being short. >> host: wendy you leave nashville? >> i left nashville to go to college, went to the university in washington d.c. and also went to the university of michigan

graduate school and law school. >> host: wendy become share of the organization of american historians? >> guest: i was elected in 1995 by my peers. >> host: when did you decide you were interested in history? >> guest: when i was in college, i had some wonderful teachers, like elsie lewis and others who taught me and howard. i had been interested before because my favorite high school teacher was a history teacher and she was actually one of my best friends for my whole life but i first thought i would be a scientist so i was majoring in chemistry and biology and i am glad i did all those courses because it gives me an understanding both of science and humanity but when i had these teachers of history i became very interested again and decided i would do graduate work

in it. >> host: the struggle for x slave reparations, you open that book talking about an experience at age 12. >> guest: that is full one i think about working at this house taking care of the white families's little kids and while i was there, i also i earned clothes while taking care of the kid and one day i decided to play some music, no one told me to. i got these records that i saw and started playing them and i liked them and there was one in particular that i really really liked and one day the lady of the house came home and i told her i was excited, told her i'd played this, look, this is

wonderful music, i love this, i love that i love it and she looked at me with an icy stare and said who told you you could play that music? that is not for you. why are you playing that music, don't play that music and i was very upset because i did know what i had 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 and and she said to me you stay out of those white folks's things because she was worried that if i got into trouble like that i wouldn't be able to get a job and all kinds of things would happen to me. i say in double, as that experience forever cloud of my enjoyment of beethoven at 72 bandit was number 9 that i liked

very much at that time but i like all the symphonies so every time i hear beethoven's symphonies and that one in particular i 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 she told me. i stayed out of white folks's things and if i didn't i just tell from. >> host: was that woman's that because you touched her things and because you listening to music that wasn't appropriate for you? >> guest: it wasn't clear to me why she was upset. later i decided she didn't understand why i would be listening to classical music and telling her how great it was. that was somehow offensive, touching her things and she didn't tell me to and 2, i am listening to classical music which i didn't know it was classical music, i just knew it was music and i am telling her

how great it is and how could i, given who i was and where i came from, like that and tell her is that i liked it? it was incomprehensible to her and sellout of place. what in the sense they used to call being ability. here you are acting like something that you are not, so i think that probably was the case. >> host: let's begin with bruce in boston. you are on with mary frances berry. >> caller: a big fan of yours. i watched you and c-span since the 1980s. my question is could you talk about the harmful impact of illegal immigration and the black community and because you have written about that before and while blacks in the democratic party, especially the congressional black caucus, more active and successful in getting

policies for illegal immigrants than blacks and could you talk about the breakdown of the black family and the way black youths are not being raised right, causing these negative interactions with police? >> guest: i don't think i have written anything about illegal immigrants and black workers. i do believe that immigration, people who come here as immigrants, wherever you come from should be let into the country and absorbed into the body politic because it is part of that dichotomy between american values on the one hand and what really happens in the united states on the other and i do think there are economists who think there's a negative impact on jobs. not just black workers but

workers generally especially in jobs that are unskilled by having more immigrants coming into the country but that has happened in every period in our history and there have always been over time adjustments and on balance it has worked out but i am 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 to trayvon martin happened because he didn't have a father because he did. they both had fathers and i don't believe it had anything to do with the black family structure because if it did, young black men from intact families or 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 in new york in the apartment building where he lived. there were no family structure problems in the case of amadou dial diallo. people over the years, white people, black people the people of any color have family structure problems and they may end up having something happen to them but i don't think it has any relationship to what is happening with the police. >> host: when it comes to fergus and we haven't heard from the civil rights commission, have we? >> we haven't heard from the civil rights commission. another example of what i was saying, what i say in this book. i think the civil rights commission should be abolished and there should be a law passed which creates a new civil and

human rights commission, cumin rights of all people that has independence on advance start over again with a mandate to do something because i think what happened and fight that went on when i was at the commission and the desire to use it for political purposes, has made it ineffective so it needs to be changed. of the civil rights commission has no interest in or nothing to say about what happened in ferguson offer for trayvon martin or any of these episodes as well as what is happening with the immigrants and refugees coming across the board, all these issues, i don't really understand why we need one. >> host: bruce in boston mentioned black families. this is your book, "the politics of parenthood," child care, women's rights and the myth of the good mother. here's a quote from that vote.

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 care bill with even minimal services came about because of white middle-class women and not because of poor women's needs. >> guest: that is one of the frustrating things without a -- throughout african-american women on this continent from the days of slavery. large numbers of black women have worked when there were other racial minority groups, what did they did it alongside their husbands or wherever is a work, family members, people worked, when the debate takes place about child care and balancing work and jobs and all the rest of it, and one thing that happens is white middle-class women when they

express their concerns there seems to be more of a response. and what goes on in american society. there is another thing that happens, for women who work can take care of families like my mother took care of us, demeaned in conversations in society. and you should be married to someone, if you were married to someone would solve all your problems and all your children's problems. if they married someone, and didn't have a job, if a black male in today's society, the unemployment rate where it is for quite a long time you would be more likely taking care of them than having them take care of the family. i guess tucci ears always for the single headed household which a woman is working,

balancing jobs and children and trying to take care of the family. >> host: leo is in the bronx. >> caller: thank you for taking my phone call. for professor mary frances berry could you describe your relationship with clarence thomas when he was on staff on the civil rights commission. and also charges of sexual harassment which came up during his hearings, dec this coming or were you surprised? >> guest: clarence thomas i knew when he was that the department of education and when he was chair of the eeoc. we were never friends but i knew him and i knew him well enough from observations and

conversations with other people to understand that he saw himself as on a career trajectory and fast on tv to get there, not saying anything at all like he does on the supreme court bench like he never says anything, or didn't say anything that could possibly be controversial. i did not see coming the anita hill charges, also based on what she said, the evidence that came out at the time i wasn't surprised. >> host: from our face book page, william wouldfor. miss 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 quote from you? >> guest: i don't know whether it is or not but it is true. if you take economics 101 as a course in college one of the things they will teach you is that capitalism by definition requires inequality. that is the old definition of the free enterprise economic system, capitalist system. the only question is who will be abandoned will be down and to in the middle. that is not a pejorative and is not an assessment one way or the other as to how it should be but it is just true. if you don't understand that you will spend your whole life trying to figure out why there is inequality in society. that is all. >> host: rome is calling from philadelphia. you are on booktv on c-span2

with mary frances berry. >> caller: thank you so much and thank you to c-span2 for seeing the value of dr. mary frances berry and i just want to say thank you so much for allowing me to interview you in february of 2011 on w q e d community radio about your important book, your history where you talked about the civil rights commission, "and justice for all". i want to get your opinion on two things. first obama's use of executive power, especially regarding civil rights commission number one. and the administration with royal dutch shell versus will dutch shell decision. >> host: what is that case? >> caller: it was a case where

plaintiffs who are related in 96 who were murdered by the nigerian military, in the memoir, talk about the role of shell, keeping up, propping up the same military government ruling of nigeria that exists today, that basically strengthens haram, talked about the new memoir he passed last year called there was a country. i wonder if mary frances berry had an opinion how the obama administration sided with shell completely to dismiss the plaintiffs in nigeria who were fighting for rights to prevent shell from exploiting oil they had been doing for decades since the 60s in nigeria. >> guest: i forgot his first

question. >> host: the use of executive power. >> guest: the second one first and i will go back to that one. from what i know about the situation in nigeria, and the deprivation that has taken place there, i am not sure what obama did is or what position he took on the case the exploitation that goes on was not unexpected, that happens with oil companies in all these different places in the world and i know little about the details of its so i won't comment. as far as obama's use of executive power i don't know if obama as executive and what do i think of all the things he is doing or whether he is talking about using the executive orders, using the tinge to achieve certain goals. if the latter is what you mean, i am ambivalent about executive

orders. on the one hand when the president to choose an executive order to do something i like i think that is terrific. when the president is is an executive order to do something i don't like i think it is awful. and in fact, i know presidents have the authority to issue executive orders, but on matters of great public consequence they ought to be careful how far they go or how quickly they go when they do it. it depends who is asking for it. >> host: your most recent book "power in words," the stories behind barack obama's speeches, how do you approach writing that book? as a political scientist. >> guest: one of my students who worked in the clinton white house as a speechwriter, and i wrote the book together and josh

knew the intricacies of speech writing and the -- president obama's speech writer. so we had a lot of inside stories, what they thought they were doing with a speech. and all the speeches off the internet but what you can't get is the back stories and how and why certain things 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 speechwriting and such things as the way woodrow wilson selected as a scholar and in 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 in assessing obama and what he did in light of that history. >> host: in this book you write to craft the big speeches riders sat together for hours at headquarters often deep into the evening drinking red land writing the text together one line after another, pulling out ideas and language as i sat in front of their own laptops typing out the remarks as they went along. many of obama's most famous speeches like the one he gave the night of the iowa caucus in his address to the democratic convention with great lines crafted by all but speechwriters and the candidate himself, there were a exceptions to the process but this was the usual way candidate obama worked with speech writers and they worked with each other. >> guest: isn't that fascinating? that is a wonderful way to work.

some presidents went and listen to the president and sit in a meeting, listen to the candidate and then they go off and write something and then they come back and pass it around or share it with candidate and figure out whether this is the thing to say and a candidate tells them something and they finish it. much like some supreme court justices right opinions and other is that the clerks do it. so this is an interactive process that obama engaged in and he is very much involved in it himself with the people who are doing it which is quite unique and a lot of ways. >> host: in this book "power in words" you, comment on the speeches and then put the full text of the speech as well but one of the speeches you call his best in your view, may be putting words in your mouth, let me know, called for renewal of

keynote address june 28, 2006, national city church in washington d.c.. >> guest: you have to tell me which one it is. >> host: it is the one where he talks about -- was at a church, talks about religion, reconciliation and issues such as this and one where he talks about the fact that he changed his website on abortion, changed his language on his web site on abortion because it was in a sense a victory. does that ring a bell. >> guest: which church was that? >> host: national city church. >> guest: yes. the purpose of that was to engage with people who had religious as far as i can tell, religious motivations but at the same time, not to offend those

who were not concerned about it and deal with the issues that way and the need for people to come together. that was the purpose and he did a beautiful speech. >> host: different as president and when you are campaigning? >> guest: absolutely. governor cuomo used to talk about government probes. what some people had 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 are president you have so many things you have to take into account and when you are a candidate what you're doing really is making a promises and reassuring and inspiring people, that is what you are doing and people who listen to a candidate whether it is obama or anyone else and who believe what he is saying is exactly what he is

going to do if he is elected, they are crazy. that is just not true. has never been true. over all vision he wants to convey to you about where he stands and he will convey to you what he feels at that time and first of all he doesn't know what he has on his plate. it is true for every president, is true of obama, i remember seeing it with jimmy carter. when you come in you don't have any idea what is on your plate and when you get there it is like wow! if i had known! and then the constraints on what you do, on every word and every action, you get that even low-level officials in politics to come in as political appointees. i got it when i ran education,

you come in and find out it is not what you thought was a there but obama was conveying his feelings on what he thought would connect with the public when he was talking on the campaign trail and he is 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 policy is or where do we think we are going or who will be offended by that and when he has spoken at times without thinking of that he has gotten into trouble. if you remembers the incident where he had the beer summit at the white house and his comments before that about what had happened, people said why did he say that? right in the middle of some other thing he is working on and he has gone off message and is saying this and it hasn't been tested for by everybody, he was

speaking viscerally. when you are campaigning and you have the talent that he adds, you want people to feel like they should vote for you. and that there's a future randy will be brighter and that is what he did. >> host: are there too many constraints when you get into government? >> guest: the constraints are there because you have a responsibility and your responsibility is to not screw it up. and to make some progress however incremental on whatever is there before you and you are always in danger of screwing it up so you can't 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 do all sorts of things and never think about the consequences because there are

always consequences. >> host: dennis calling from alabama. please go ahead. >> caller: in light of the militarization of the police departments do you think it is possible and necessary for swat teams to be declared totally unconstitutional and illegal and a worthwhile thing to pursue? thank you. >> guest: no. i don't think swat team should be declared unconstitutional. it depends what they are used for. i think swat teams when there is a problem that requires a swat team ought to be used but when there is an issue or a problem which does not require militarize police, all they do is irritate people, create more problems. is not what you do, but it is

how you do it. >> host: chris in baltimore, good afternoon. >> caller: how are you? quick question. there has been a lot of talk about revising history within the public school system. i am reading an article from new york times magazine concerning how bill gates wants to have ideas about implementing certain educational initiatives in reference to revising history and making it more inclusive with science and a couple of disciplines. that is the first question. how do you feel about that? the second question what is the role of the historian in the 21st century. thank you for your great work, i love you, we all love you. >> guest: i am not sure you all love me but i am sure you do and i appreciate it. since i as i said earlier on the show was a science major before

i was a history major engine between a philosophy major which is in but the sense science, i am very aware of the role disciplines play but i think the purpose of a historian is different from that of the scientist and one of the things historians have to do is to bring in contending views and get people to think and argue about them, about the past and come up with the best they can do with what the past tells us about our lives and the people who live them and perhaps a little bit about what we can do. there are two things. i am not opposed to his idea, bill gates, he has a lot of money and if you wants to implement it somewhere he can get it implemented. the role of the historian in the 21st century is the same as in any other century.

to informs us about the past, find out as much about it as we can. history doesn't repeat itself, even though -- exactly. there are certain human characteristics that exist for all time. things like greed and envy and jealousy and love and all those characteristics. we get some clear idea about what might happen to us and what we might do from studying the past. >> host: mary frances berry, 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. the accounting for enhances the power of the tellers and the economic and political arena. >> guest: absolutely. victor's always get to determine what the narrative is. the powerful are the ones, the

very definition of being powerful is that you get to exercise some control. so the stories, there are lots of stories about what has happened in the past and what is happening now but the stories of those with more power would be the ones in the future as they have been in the past. >> host: who is the pig farmer's daughter? >> guest: not be. i remember i gave a copy of this book to somebody, in the administration, somebody in the room said we didn't know you were a pig farmer's daughter, to me. it is not me, not a memoir. the pig farmer's daughter was a white woman. this book is about how race and

class and gender will influence decisions made in state supreme courts from the nineteenth century to the town in the 20th century, and what the pig farmer's daughter shows is this guy was accused of raping her, this black guy and, on the side of the road and you would think because it was in the 1880s or most people would think he was lynched for something but that isn't what happened. what happened was he was convicted by a local jury, no one lynched him. he was put in jail. this was in texas. he went before the jury of 12 white men good and true, local people and they convicted him but he had an appeal. he had an appeal because someone paged to ira lawyers for his appeal. there are few cases that were appealed. on appeal the state supreme

court justices agreed to overturn the verdict and when they wrote the opinion they said this man was defended by testimony by our brother lawyer, big plantation owner, he said he is a good boy and helps people and doesn't create any trouble for anybody and they loaded some other big person, said he works for me and so on. then somebody said this girl who says he raped her, nothing but a pig farmer's daughter. that was that. which shows how crass overturned race and gender in that particular case and that is an example i used to. this doesn't mean lynching didn't happen. some people say maybe there were no bingings, maybe there wasn't any racism. the point is there were

exceptions and these cases were exceptions and the lot of it has to do with who you know and who you are related to and our tell us story in the pig farmer's daughter about my uncle lincoln. i say he was a scam because my uncle's lincoln, wonderful man, i loved him. when we were kids, you would come to the house and q up and throw you in the air and catch you and give you candy and all kinds of stuff. he would get drunk every now and then and according to my mother, he would end up beam jail and my aunt would be looking for him and she would call the jail and they would tell her he is in there. the white man he works for already called. they didn't let him out because they loved this black man uncle

lincoln. they loved his boss. that gives you another example of how a powerful had sir roles to play and the pig farmer's daughter does too. >> host: you opened that book at age 4. mr monday. .. 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.

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>>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 which 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 regimenk >> colored officers at first had. 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 t >> host: heavy research? >> guest: i know some. i have stories from my mother. but i have not researched it. >> host: are there other black women? that were slaves? >> guest: i had ancestors that were slaves that lived on the plantation. my grandfather on my father's side was of indian descent. so a lot of black people think they had indian ancestry.

so i always thought with my mother said he was in the and i was always looking up charity. but he was the creek indian in they except my great grandmother on my father's side was a descendant of the white slaveholder and of black woman of mixed race. hint my mother told me the name of the family which is still in national highways laughed and said one day i will go to their house because she told me where was and said guess who's coming to dinner? but i have never done it. [laughter] >> host: have you ever thought about returning to

dash fill? >> guest: i go back all the time because those are the relatives but i go back all the time. >> host: if you go back knock on the door make sure the c-span camera is there. [laughter] >> caller: thank you for your contributions. i have a question about the films made in hollywood like the help reduce you the relevance? i know ever communicate -- african-americans don't want to see this sort you think it is exploitation? >> guest: it is exploitation because by definition that means profit making in the whole point is to make money. that is not surprising but i

have not seen "django" but i did see 17 and 12 years at a slave bills were useful to let a larger audience will can to have some sense of what slavery was like although it was somewhat sanitized. >> host: with a strong historical accuracy? >> guest: without a doubt. i read the "12 years a slave" box many years ago it is that classic but i that it was well done and i thought "the help" was well done in addition to being funny so it is good to let a larger audience see these and help people to have an understanding. >> caller: hello.

referring to martin luther's speech at what morehouse college that assumption of education is to think critically and intensively the most dangerous scrolls maybe gifted with reason but no morals remember intelligence is not enough plus character that is the goal of true education professor barry do you agree with this statement and what a short takeoff and education? >> guest:. >> i would hope education would build character item of there is a conscious effort to do that for those who are in charge of education today are because people's definition of character changes and we don't like to be

prescriptive when we tell people what they should believe. intelligence we can believe about but i hope knowledge information and understanding make a person to approve their character. >> host: the next call comes from san francisco. >> caller: hello? you are very impressive and i am amazed at your death and intelligence but to have their future in their own hands that is a story that you could tell.

to tell minorities there in the majority if they would vote they could change a whole country rather than take every little problem as it appears. just get out and vote but i know you are a storyteller and not a politician i thought there was a good story you could tell that is what we need to solve the problems to get minorities to vote. >> guest: voting is very important i remember blacks and the politics of redemption i talk about how until we got the right to vote we placed so much emphasis on it but once we got it there was something seeking get from voting and

other things we could not. the thing with voting is that anyone that votes and a democratic society can achieve certain democratic you could have patronage you may elect people that look like you with some influence on policy but you cannot change that economic system. people in south africa find that out. but many people who work for their ancestors were pour they will continue. i think voting is important we also need a social movement if you want social

change put your body on the line i saw a in the commencement speech at twitter account or of facebook account is not a social movement because it is community -- important for communication but you have to put your body of the line you have to figure out a way to do that. voting is important the social movements are important to reinforce that vote to make the change. >> host: who was a supreme court justice another one of your books. >> guest: it is funny because people came up after words to say i did not know there was the black supreme court justice before

thurgood marshall. they thought since i wrote about him he had to be black but he was very white he was the senator. i wrote about burton because i read a news fire from the library of congress that said his papers were just being opened in my head just written in black resistance and a military necessity i thought i need to write something about the supreme court so i looked into his papers and i checked myself up to the library of congress and i was very interested because he had not been written about and

that is dangerous most people who write about supreme court justices right the same over again douglas than warren because they know the names but to write about someone that they never heard of the doll i knew is and i was in law school we read his opinions and we liked them he always told you the holding of the case in the first line see you did not have to read all the way through the opinion to find out what he was doing. he seemed fascinating into connotes on everything that happened in his handwriting to see whatever betty else did then i interview the of law clerks and family members and i became fallen

the of justice burton and the kids had to make appointments to see him when he was mayor because he was so busy. i also love to his wife because she would wear to hearings on each year than i thought was fascinating. i love to the notes he would write back and forth and the opinions with the grace issues -- and raise issues and the supreme court and how they interacted he was there one brown was decided and he took copious notes when rehnquist was up for confirmation in the senate people wanted to read this and go back and check to see what happened at that time. >> host: appointed by truman. you write with continuity

there was no conscious effort of burton's part to be pro or in thais -- libertarian but effort seriously of his task. >> guest: he tried very hard to take seriously what he was supposed to do. he was critical of the other justices he thought about the matters but he was so little discontented he said it is like going to a monastery from us circus. which is true. >> the was hit again by some? >> guest: i will not tell you his first name. he hated it.

[laughter] of federal court judge and lawyers and as a young man and higgenbothem the abyss appointee as a commissioner of the ftc he was a us dollar he wrote a wonderful book goes slave law during the of colonial period and i was invited to a conference in chicago but others that organized but higgenbothem enter the room while we were there with his daughter and asked him what he wanted. [laughter]

he was tall with the big booming voice they invited him but did not know it was judge higgenbothem became a district court judge jack roach marvelous opinion cited fired him for the history that he wrote and the kinds of opinions that he wrote and he and i used to play tennis together. and he came to my house he said i cannot find my glasses i said i have no idea. we would not to play tennis and i'd be tim. then we came back and he said i just don't know. [laughter] and i beat him. he was a wonderful man i persuaded him to step down

from the bench if he cave at a different time he would have been on the supreme court but by the time a politician was president he was too old. after he stepped down he became a counselor at a major law firm i persuaded him to be on the civil rights commission with me. i thought if i could get higgenbothem to be of the commission and also the first latino justice of the california supreme court that the republicans would respect that they might become a little more willing to talk to get something positive done. but then they made great sacrifices and served with me on the commission. >> host: do you have any

republican friends? >> guest: quite a few and republican members of congress to i'd like am performing as a staunch republican been performing in every administration since hoover something that i was very fond i liked the congressman from california. then there are republicans that i know and i am willing to talk with them. >> host: day remember your first white friend? >> guest: my first with eight french? >> nobody has ever asked me that before. my first white friend? would probably be one of the

nurses that workers me at civil hospital in washington when i ran the lab i had quite a few friends that were nurses in gave his dishes assistant later he became a physician real used to go out to drink beer of the type. >> host: the next call is from virginia. >> caller: with historical light tokyo with the changing of terms like slavery to hurt -- even trafficking what about the that was owed to by robert e. lee that was a historical

could station that there are no slave quarters or has he received an education. >> that is outrageous if that is what you are telling me. obviously if they take the plantation they ought to tell them. that was the whole idea of a plantation. but little education of those lines could be helpful. >> host: the caller from oregon. >> caller: hello mary frances berry faq for letting me speak with you and i appreciate in depth.

either of lot but i recently heard about a saint joseph v.? have you heard about her? >> guest: no. tell me. >> it sounds so interesting she was enslaved and at the age of nine years old she was kidnapped then taken to venice in italy and that is where this story begins and ends she was a catholic nun teeeight one yes i do about her. i do one of my colleagues knows about her. >> guest: since you mentioned there we should mention that there is actual

slavery in the classic sense of the word where the children become slaves right now but that is an earlier time right now sued the and and other places in africa there is actual slavery like real slavery how did you hear about her? >> guest: i just . >> caller: i happen to see the second part of her story on television and i was fascinated. >> guest: i hope i can see that. >> caller: i am glad that you heard about her but i wish people would know about her because she sounds like a beautiful person. >> host: what do you do when your again? >> caller: just a

grandmother. >> guest: where do you live? >> host: i apologize. i hung up on her. researching for slaves the record keeping is as thorough as white america back in the day? >> guest: the records of who people are? people are not that good because depending what you look at slaves are counted by how many slaves people had. seven of the louisiana records that you do.

the reason why those petitions are so interesting is they have the name of the person so those records are not as good as they should be there are not as many diaries because people could not write. the things you had four people they're not as good as they should be. >> host: in your book the struggle for exclave reparations where did that come from with the 3 acres? >> guest: it was from the civil war union with the act that was passed during the war live friedman refugees

and abandon plans. in the talk was each was emancipated to be given 40 acres a&w will. then when people could hold on to the land and then eventually was taken away. some abolitionist bought the land to give to people so black folks when they started to move with the politicians a lot of them talk about the right to vote but lots of them talked about the 40 acres and a mule.

because that challenges though whole economic edifice. but black people went away from that. and often say if you give 40 acres of prime real estate in manhattan that would be cool. i don't want the annual. but based on that concept is where the idea comes from. >> host: colorado good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. how are you?

i want to thank you for your courage and everything you are doing. having grown up in the south i have to say that all african americans for their plays i don't know how they do it. so much now was against a the white mae and with all the african americans for their struggle. if think we have lost our empathy growing up i read books like black like me. but now kids read almost nothing. library and an aunt and frank.

so anyway thank you very much. >> guest: 84 calling. and frank is a good read of course, but it is also good for people to know about their own history that they are responsible in this country for what they might do about it. >> host: facebook post for you diversity in america is a good day no doubt but it seems it creates more division among each other than bringing us together how does america survive with the nation's so fractured? >> guest: america will survive because it always has. god bless america.

but i think we have to get a sense of community there has always ben attention that we have gone too far. i know how we get that. maybe we study history and institutions placing the country will survive. in the early 20th century you can read some of the things that are written that the company is fractured in it is so different or wherever you were the

structure of the government and they permit to us and then we move on. >> host: this facebook comment if you would have to recommend the quintessential academic discipline to the would be activists what would it be? >> guest: either the history of social movements or something organizing or how to organize but now i teased. [laughter] and to do philosophy you need to analyze to know what to do.

but i would use common sense. that would help. >> when did you first become an activist to step out? >> guest: it is not like i sat down to say what you want to be when you grow up? instead of a firefighter and activist. i did not say that. but when it even so her. and then i immediately react you may never always win or get anywhere but to

challenge authority the best time to do it is when nobody else does it. of ever betty else does it they don't beat you that much. but to speak out against injustice but tb example i have not thought about each time one i should do people say to me why did he do? i don't know why. if i thought something was wrong people should do something about it. like what happened to you? you could have got ahead of pierre but i never thought

of that. i don't know what to tell people. >> host: during your public service did you have to have security? >> guest: no. when i had security sometimes when i traveled places but i was making a speech one time and i came back to the hotel somebody tried to break into the river was in. -- into the room i was in. they called but i did not answer that i told them to stop the calls then the next thing i knew of me and was trying to break down the door. they got him.

he was at the speech i had given and did not like whenever i said. he did not like what i was talking about. and when i'm a check did they call out the room number. i was not paying attention and he was standing there and he heard. so after that episode for about six months somebody always went to with me it is kind of scary. >> host: we have a call

from california. >> caller:. >> one of the greatest moments is wed at the olympics to see owen's peaked line with whole world watching the matter his race for doing that. i was raised with my pastor to to me our supreme creatures lassos sad for people to judge people by their skin because god loves everybody when he sees judgment he will see espied the us by the judgment not

the color of our skin. thank you. >> this is an e-mail as a graduate of a historically black college i of a bit concerned about their ability to compete with majority institutions. that impacts the student outcome and what value do you think they have the institutions of higher education? >> they have a lot of value in and will do so until the race problem is solved. but what has happened many of the predominantly white institutions they do not

have a sufficient number, in my opinion, a slave descendants african-americans. many of them and it those from the african in the continent in this has been fined but while they do that's the others are not served as well. but to play a role to educate black students they probably do as well for those institutions in california recently with large numbers of black students the9t÷ african studentf

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