counselors. they were the farmers. they grew the three sister crops of corn, beans and squash. they hold a lot of power in society. there is sided with the american colonists during the revolutionary war. after the war of 1812, unitas were forced to relocate like a lot of native nations they were forced west and oneida broke up into three communities. one in canada, one that stated new york and once i came to wisconsin. so when wisconsin, at the oneida reservation is just as they green bay, it is the right angular reservation tribal, nontradable parcels of land. it is interesting that about half the population lives below the poverty line as of about

1970. so they subsisted by drawing on each other. the book is more than a study of just how david started by one tribe. it is also a personal story about women and family relationships. it is about women in leadership, about building communities, about trying to save an indigenous colter on the brink of being lost and about making sacrifices for others. i would say that what they did was heroic and they say they were just trying to do it for the sake of taking care of the kids and the elders of the community. >> alma was the educator of the tribe. at that time i was assistant director of our new civic our new civic center and i worked under sunny team. when we got that building, who is a gym with a kitchen and ate office says and we needed to

have a needed to happen in common at that time there was no way to make an income to pay the bills for the infrastructure of that building. so, here played bingo in her younger days in michigan. when her and i would talk about how we were going to pay the bills, her and another friend, patty would go into the churches and play bingo. she came back with this idea that we would start to go in the gym and that would earn our money to take care of the light bill, for instance. the monies we generated then would help all of the programs that the tribes. i can remember we had one of our first big powwows at that time and it is very small and it evolves because we had more money to pay for advertising and i'll do things that go along with those kinds of things. we start developing jobs. we had a security department that started for bingo operation

because i had security people come in. we have a police department now and that is generated for the start of bingo. we have a retail business now generated from the bingo operation. like i said before, now we have a scholarship for younger people, so the money we make from that operation did turn the direction of this tribe. again and had a lot to do with the turnover in the economic impact of our people, of our tribe in our people because as i was told one time, when i was out, someone yelled at me. they fit in the coming you know your game has split the oneida tribe on the map. and i think that is what this whole thing did. they put us on the map here people are aware of our people and the talent that our people have in what we can contribute to the society. back in the day, they kind of thought that we were on the

welfare rolls or something and with the gaming operation, that changed everything. .. >> so that was one big issue that e had to take care of. but without our bingo money, that might not have happened. >> this book is about how two moms started a tribal bingo game as a fundraiser on the oneida

indian reservation and built it into a business that not only supports the tribe, but contributes to the economy around green bay. >> it's very, it feels really good to know that we were, had a part in the play of the success of our tribe. it feels really good. and it feels even better when we see our young people who are working for us, they're still working here. some of them are in management positions, supervising positions, some have gone on to college and come back and sit on the business committee. we have people now that are nurses and so on, and they used to work for us in our bingo operation. so it does make you feel really good to know that people are successful because of what we did. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to green bay, wisconsin, and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/localdon't. local content. >> booktv covered 14 author

events at this year's southern festival of books held in nashville, tennessee, and during the next four hours we'll bring you four of those events. we'll start with a discussion on legislating equality in sports and society with authors andrew maraniss and clay risen. this is about an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. i'd like to welcome everyone to this session of the southern festival of books. we have two authors this afternoon who one is native to nashville and one has been here long enough to be considered a

native. we have clay risen who is the author of "the deal of the century: the epic battle for the civil rights act." he is author of "the new york times" op-ed section, and before that he was assistant editor at the new republic and the founding manager/editor of the noted quarterly democracy, a journal of ideas. his recent freelance work has appeared in such journals as the atlantic, the smithsonian and "the washington post." his first book, "a nation on fire," was held as a compelling original history. he is also the author of "american whiskey: a guide to the nation's favorite spirit." and you can follow him on social media, on twitter and instagram. our second person will be andrew maraniss. he is the author of "strong

inside." this is his first book. he is a partner at fox public relations in nashville. andrew studied history at vanderbilt university and was the recipient of the fred russell sports writing scholarship. he worked then for five years in vanderbilt's athletic department as the associate director of media relations dealing primarily with the men's basketball team. he is the son of the pulitzer prize-winning journalist and best-selling author david maraniss and the trailblazing environmentalist linda maraniss. he was born in madison, wisconsin, grew up in washington, d.c. and austin, texas, and now lives in brentwood, tennessee. and you can follow him on social media, on twitter and facebook.

at this time we will start with clay, "the bill of the century: the epic battle for the civil rights act." the format for this afternoon will be that they will give short summations of their books dealing with the thesis. there will be a question-and-answer period, and then i will do an overview and a summation. >> okay. thanks, everybody, for -- yeah, there we go. thanks, everybody, for coming out. definitely see some familiar faces, some folks i have not yet met, and i'm really just honored to be back here in nashville talking about my book and to be on this panel with these wonderful folks. just a brief sort of overview of the book, because i think, you know, we'd all love to move into some q&a at some point soon, but when i sat down to work on the book, my real sort of interest was to take manager that a lot

of -- something that a lot of people knew bits and pieces about and to put it front and center. when we think about the civil rights act, what we know about it tends to come through biography, right? so we read the lyndon johnson biographies, martin luther king, john f. kennedy, bobby kennedy, and those all have important be sections on civil rights. but when you think about it, it's sort of the story about the blind men describing an elephant, you know? one touches the trunk and doesn't know about the tail and such. it's the same thing when you're doing biography. biography is a great format, but one thing that it does is it can't help but overemphasize the role of the subject in whatever they're talking about. even if the author tries to downplay it, the readers can say, well, you know, obviously lyndon johnson or john f. kennedy was absolutely central to the way the civil rights act passed, you know? it was his bill or his bill. and none of that's wrong. i think, as i said, there's some

wonderful biographies out there. but they just, by nature, don't tell the whole story. and that is the way the story is often told. so what i wanted to do was say, well, what if we make the civil rights act the core? what happens then? and i was motivated also by, you know, my understanding of the way the political process works and a basic awareness that, you know, there were a lot of other people involved in the making of the civil rights act. two different administrations put it together, and there was a whole back story before the civil rights act was even introduced. so what -- how does that all come together? and nevertheless, i didn't know really what i would find when i sat down to start working on it. what emerged for me was a very complex story. not one, you know, i didn't want to write what kind of often is derided as people's history, but i also wanted to look at, well, who are the people who are just not remembered anymore? who were the people who actually wrote the bill, physically sat down and the lawyers in the

justice department, who put it together, who helped craft it as it moved through the house and senate? who were the people who, you know, when they were sitting down and trying to plan in the civil rights, in the movement itself trying to plan how do we goad the government into acting? obviously, martin luther king is front and center in that story, but who else was there with him, and how did the events of the 1950s, the early '60s, how did those key into the decision to introduce this bill? and, you know, who were the people that convinced john f. kennedy -- who did not want to go into zimm rights, he was finish civil rights, he was very wary of touching civil rights -- who were the people or the events that convinced him, no, actually you should jump whole hog into this. like i said, what emerged was a constellation of figures. some more important than others and, of course, john f. kennedy and lyndon johnson and martinouter king played very important roles in the story. but so, too, did men like bill

mcculloch who is forgotten today, but he was the ranking republican member on the judiciary committee. he was from a small town in ohio, had been a lawyer in jacksonville but had been moved back to ohio, started his practice and just gotten involved in politics and is one of these great sort of small town american democracy stories. he ended up becoming one of the biggest figures in washington. and also a huge supporter of civil rights in the republican party. and in a part of the republican party, midwestern republicans, who were, you know, not progressive, let's say, in their views on government and their views on civil rights. but he, nevertheless, not only pushed his caucus, midwestern republicans, the republican party, but he -- to accept the bill, but also negotiated with the liberals, mostly liberal democrats, but also there were some liberal republicans.

negotiated with the administration, both kennedy and johnson, to make sure that this was a bill that everyone could support. as everybody knows, you know, the big problem was how do you get around the southern democrats. so you had to have an alliance with the republicans. but a lot of those republicans have been forgotten. and, you know, guys like mcculloch were the ones who were making sure that there was enough support for the bill among people who naturally were not, you know, were not naturally disposed to support it. another guy that i just think was a wonderful character and deserves a lot more attention in american history is a man named jay irwin miller who was the president of or chairman of cummins engine, and they're still one of biggest diesel manufacturers in the world. in the early '60s, he was not only the head of his company, but he was the first lay chair of the national council of churches. and he was a liberal republican

from a small town in indiana, and friends with john f. kennedy, but also friends with bill mcculloch and a bunch of republicans, and he helped organize not only business interests behind the bill, but also religious interests. and he galvanized an entire movement of religious activism across the midwest to get them to start lobbying their senators and their representatives. you know, there are people like clarence mitchell who was the head of the naacp's washington bureau and was kind of the head lobbyist for the civil rights movement. and, again, he's forgotten today. but at the time, he was known as the 101st or senator because here was a guy who was, you know, very much a lobbyist. he had an interest, he had a group, he had an agenda when he went in to meet with people, but he could sit down with a southern democrat, he could sit down with a midwestern republican who might have met ten black people in his life and to have just an open and honest

and friendly conversation and by the time he left they would be if not best friends, pretty, on pretty good terms. and he was able to negotiate between all the different interests outside of, outside capitol hill and outside the white house. and, you know, all these groups that wanted different things out of bill and communicate their interests to the people who are actually crafting the bill and getting it through. i mean, this was -- in the end, what emerges, i hope, from my book is a picture of how democracy works in the ideal. you know, it's not just about you elect some people, and they go to capitol hill and then they get together and they make a bill and, hopefully, it passes and it, hopefully, is what people want. that's the very bare bones of how it works. what you want to have happen is constant communication where, you know, the grass roots of whatever groups are end trusted on both sides of -- entrusted on both sides of an issue get

involved and bring their voices to capitol hill and say this is what we want out of this bill, this is what we want out of this congress. and i think far too often we have a distorted view of that. because it is distorted, especially these days where money is the, you know, is what matters, not the will of the people. you have a lobbying system that's totally out of whack with the way democracy works, but i think with the civil rights act you have for this one moment a point in time when it really all clicked, and it did so in support of, you know, a piece of legislation that could not have been more important to the country at the time and to the last 50 years of american history. so with that, i will hand it off to andrew and we can keep talking. >> thanks, clay. this is kind of a surreal moment for me, to be sitting on this side of the microphone living in nashville and coming to the book festival for years. i'm usually out there, so this is quite a big deal for me to be

here with clay and with linda and with c-span here. in some ways this represents the culmination of a 25-year journey. it was back in 1989 when i was a sophomore at vanderbilt that i first heard the name perry wallace. and i was struck by a scene that was in a student magazine article about perry. and he was, it was a story about his freshman year on the freshman basketball team. back then they didn't play on the varsity as freshman. he did have one african-american teammate that year, god freed dillard. they were sitting in the locker room halftime against mississippi state, two young, strong basketball players holding hands to gain the strength to go back on the court for the second half. the first half had been such a gross, grotesque display of racism, they both described it as their version of hell on earth. and just reading that article as

a relatively new person to nashville and to vanderbilt really hit me, and i was taking a black history class at the time and wrote a paper about perry. he was a professor at the university of baltimore at the time, and i called him up in baltimore, ended up writing two papers about him, several columns for the student newspaper. of all the things i did as a student, that's what i always remembered. and so eight years ago i began this process of writing the biography of perry wallace at night and on weekends outside my job. several of my coworkers are here, i appreciate you all coming. and so today my book is not even out yet. this is the first chance i've ever had to talk about it publicly. i'm really excited you all are here. i think they're going to be giving away 20 of the advanced reader copies. and when people ask me why did i write that story, i say what if there had never been a book

about jackie robinson? in my mind, what perry diss did is comparable. nobody knows perry wallace's story, and in some ways i think it was even more difficult when you consider the places he had to go in the deep south and the time he was doing it, in the late 1960s, a very tumultuous time. he had very little support from his teammates who weren't overtly difficult for him, but they didn't offer much support either. his coach was the same way. jackie robinson had branch ricky who understood what he was sending jackie out to do. perry didn't have anyone like that. so in one sense the book is a sports history. i love sports. my first two jobs out of school, i was the pr guy for the vanderbilt basketball team and the tampa bay rays' baseball team. getting a chance to write about the athletic side was a thrill

for me, but i didn't intend this to be something that just appeals to sports fans. book is much more than a sports book in my mind, and that's why it's so great to be paired with linda and clay today and elevate this to a civil rights discussion. i start the book with a quote from martin luther king's letter from a birmingham jail, and it's intended to be a signal to the reader that they are about to get into something that's as much about civil rights as sports. and if you think of -- when you read the book and you learn about perry's life, you'll see that it intersects with several key moments and figures in the civil rights movement. he was a kindergartener starting school in 1954, the year of brown v. board. he was profoundly influenced by the murder of emmitt till when he was a young kid. he was 12 years old leaving his mouth in north nashville and sneaking downtown to watch the sit-ins at the lunch counters

just a few blocks from here. he entered high school a week after martin luther king's i have a dream speech, and he told me he felt like for him and for members of his generation, the world seemed to be opening up at just the right time and his parents and teachers at pearl had prepared him to walk through doors that had never been opened before. meanwhile, at vanderbilt things are finally starting to change, and professor bell is here, he could probably talk about this better than i can. but back in 1960 at the sit-ins, leading them was reverend james lawson who was a divinity school student at sander built at the time. the reaction from the administration when they learned of his role at the sit-ins was to expel him from the university which was probably the low point in the history of vanderbilt. in reaction to that, they brought on a much more progressive chancellor, alexander herd, who understood that race was the central

question for the country, and he understood that the outsized role that athletics plays in american society that if they recruited an african-american athlete, it would send a signal that things were changing at vanderbilt. so he told the basketball coach, roy skinner, that not only could he recruit a black player at a time when there were none in the sec, that he wanted him to do it. the president of the university of kentucky had issued the same request to adolf rupp, and he did not do it. but just because vanderbilt wanted perry who was a outstanding student, valedictorian of his class at pearl and a phenomenal basketball player, didn't mean that perry wallace wanted to go to vanned orer built. his whole life he had wanted to get off the the south -- out of the south. he saw basketball as a way to do that, and he was recruited by schools in the big ten and the pac-10, ucla wanted him, michigan, iowa, wisconsin. but on his recruiting trips to

many of these schools where he was offered cash and cars and townhouses, he also saw that most of the student athletes, especially the african-american student athletes, were not encouraged to go to class. they were just being used for their athletic ability, and that's not who he was. what he wanted was a chance to play great college basketball and to get a great education. and so he reluctantly took a recruiting visit to vanderbilt and saw that the players actually were going to class, and there was an outstanding engineering department, and that's what interested him. and so it wasn't because he would be a pioneer and make history that he came to vanderbilt, it was in spite of it. and one day we actually drove around town, perry and i, and he showed me the houses he had grown up in, the parks that he played in as a kid, and we drove by this area of rocks and trees over by the luby library by metro center if you know where that is. and he said you see that rock

over there? that's where i sat and meditated on the decision whether or not to go to vanderbilt. that was an incredible moment for me, there was a sense of place that accompanied his mindset at the time. so let me read that quote that i promised you from martin luther king. he said: one day the south will recognize its real heroes, they will be the james merediths with the noble sense of purpose that allows them to face hostile mobs and the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of a pioneer. and when i found that, it was at the time when i was actually looking for a title for the book, and i thought reading martin luther king would give me inspiration. i include that quote as the first page of the book, and each element of that sentence so applies to perry wallace's life, i just wanted to give an anecdote breaking down that sentence and relating it to perry. the noble sense of purpose, anyone who's ever met perry wallace, that is the first thing you notice, what an incredible man of class and dignity that he

is. there was an advanced reviewer of the book who has been a journalist, and he said that three most impressive people he's ever interviewed in his life were desmond tutu, johnny cash and perry wallace. i thought that was great. it's true. i interviewed his sisters, and they said the first time they noticed this aspect of his character was when he was in kindergarten, and one day his sister jesse showed up to pick him up from school, and the teacher was gone, and all the students in the class were running around like crazy, total pandemonium, except for one kid, and it was her little brother, perry, who was still sitting at his desk with his head down doing his work. she said that was the first moment she realized that he always did the right thing, and she saw later looking back in life that he, you know, that element of his character prepared him to deal with the chaos that would be directed at him laettner life. later in life.

the hostile mobs quote is probably the most obvious connection to a basketball player, and i think people underestimate the courage it took for perry just to go out on the court. he said before road trips, he approached them with the deepest sense of dread and that he would imagine what's the worst thing that could happen. and to him, it would be getting shot and killed either on the court or around town before the game. and yet he still had the courage to get on the propeller plans and fly down to auburn or oxford. the mississippi state example that i shared earlier is a prime example of the jeering and hostile mobs that he faced. his first game at the university of mississippi was another one, i have a chapter about that game where in the first half he's hit in the face, he believes intentionally, and is bloodied. and the referees not only don't call a foul, they don't even whistle a stop to the game. and so it's not until the next time the ball rolls out of

bounds that the team manager and trainer are able the come over -- to come over and assist perry and walk him off the court. and as they walk him off the court, the crowd rises and cheers that perry has been injured. he's left in the locker room at halftime after being treated as the rest of his vanderbilt teammates go back to court, and he said what would have been an ordinary walk back to the team bench to rejoin his teammates for him was a long, hellish trauma and knowing what he was going to have to face from the crowd as he made that solitary walk back to the bench. the agonizing loneliness aspect of the quote from king, perry faced isolation in so many different ways, and i think it was difficult for people at the time to understand because every time they saw him, he was surrounded by 15,000 people in a basketball gym, you know? what are you talking about, isolation? but, you know, perry says that by definition being the first,

being the trailblazer, being a pioneer is all about being alone. you're the first. and the isolation he faced came in many ways. before school even started at vanderbilt, he had grown up as a church of christ member. clive lee had been the star player at vanderbilt before perry. clive was white. he recommended perry go to church at the university church of christ across the street from the campus. perry said a new day is dawning, governor wallace wasn't at the schoolhouse door keeping me from going to vanderbilt, so i wouldn't have gone my whole life to this white church, but i'm going to try it now. the fourth week he shows up, and a church elder comes over and tells him that he's going to have to stop coming, he has to leave immediately and people have said if he continues to come to church, they're going to write the church out of their will. isolation came in the dormitory

where doors were slammed. people would say in the hall and in class, his best friend, walter murray, his first day of english class he walks in, and the professor said so they've let the n-words in after all, i see. fraternity parties that had black bands playing, they didn't allow black members. perry's teammates, as i mentioned, were not supportive, so perry faced this entire situation alone. but all along despite the hardships and despite the solitary nature of it, he remained hopeful. that he was going to accomplish change and that things in the country were going to change. he had pockets of support like professor bell who would invite him out to his house for dinner, reverend asbury, the chaplain, was great with perry and actually the chancellor always listened to what perry had to say. so that leads to the last part of the quote -- well, the first part of the quote and the last

thing i wanted to say is one day the south will recognize its real heroes. and the sense of delayed gratification was always part of perry's life from the very beginning. doing the right things about studying, practicing his trumpet for four hours a day, as a kid he listened to foreign language records in multiple languages, and he always believed that even though he was getting picked on from his friends for being too studious, that it would pay off someday. and it did. he got a double engineering degree from vanderbilt, went to columbia law school, went to the justice department to work as an attorney for many years, today he's a professor of law at american university, he's testified before the united nations, he's given lectures at universities in france in french on global warming. he's an incredible person. and, you know, it's a testament to his strength that he's survived and thrived. the first african-american player at auburn committed suicide, first african-american

player at kentucky is in prison, perry, you know, ascribes their turns in life to just how difficult it was to live as a pioneer in the sec. you know, but he has always talking about what's the right thing to do that's going to create progress in the future, and this created a pivotal moment for him as a senior at vanderbilt where he was about to play his last game, his story was about top wrapped up, and -- was about to be wrapped up, and he knew that he owed it to himself to live as a healthy person in the future and to those, he felt a moral obligation to those who were going to come behind him either at vanderbilt or the other schools in the sec to tell the truth. so he approached the tennessean. frank sutherland was just a young reporter then before he became editor, and perry went over to frank's house the day after his last game. and as frank's black cat climbed all over perry, he gave a

two-hour interview to frank where he laid out everything that had happened. and here's a kid who had been the star basketball player in high school, a valedictorian of his high school class, star player at vanderbilt, team captain. you might think you're setting yourself up for a bright future in your hometown. but perry knew that in telling the truth, he was writing his ticket out of town, is the way he said it, and that people weren't going to be ready to hear the truth at that moment. and he was right. the next day the story ran on the front page of the paper. mr. souther and john seeingen thoughter who i was fortunate enough to be able to interview both said they received numerous phone calls of people canceling their prescriptions to the paper, calling perry ungrateful for what vanderbilt had done for him. and so the last thing i wanted to say is that perry knew that in writing, in giving that interview that people wouldn't understand it at the time, but

he knew they would in the future. and so here we are 45 years later, and we're the people perry was waiting for. so i hope when you read this book, you'll understand everything that he went through and, you know, his mindset at the time, and i thank you for coming today. >> thank both of you. [applause] >> i think this is really an interesting intersection between the 1964 civil rights act and perry wallace, and i'll do a disclaimer now. i was a member of the 1966 graduating class of pearl high school, and perry and i were good friends. so i understood, many of us understood what he was going through. clay, i want to sort of focus on the '64 civil rights act. you called it the bill of century, the epic battle. what about all of the activity

prior to 1964? not too long ago i wrote an article on the stony road to the 1964 civil rights act from an african-american perspective. it's not something that started in '64. i went all the way back past just a little past reconstruction. and moved forward, basically, beginning with plessy v. ferguson in 1896. and many people think that the civil rights movement started in 1954. my take on that is that it's a continuous movement. it's not one that starts in 1964. and many think that african-americans did not actually play a role in trying to secure their freedom, equality and justice as citizens of america.

but when you look throughout history, you find that at various stages they have been very active in trying to secure civil rights. as a matter of fact, in the 1940s, actually, what they wanted was human rights. and the naacp even went to the united nations or was going to the united nations. but because of the ramifications of what would have happened had the united nations said, yes, there is a problem in america with its citizens, they did not pursue it to the nth degree, and they started along the road to civil rights. so i wanted you to, if you could, kind of talk about that long, stony road to civil rights prior to 1964. >> yeah. well, i mean, you're absolutely right. and it is a stony road. a lot of successes. one of the precedents i talk

about in the book is the fair employment practices commission which was the, which was a commission created that didn't have a lot of power, but it was created by franklin roosevelt by an executive order during world war ii that was supposed to police government contractors to make sure that anyone doing government work, you know, building ships, airplanes, whatever would, were practicing nondiscrimination. that was the direct result of a threatened march on washington, the first march on washington which a. philip randolph, the famous black union leader, had begun to organize in 1940 as a way to put pressure on the government. he said this is what we're, this is what we want, and if you don't, roosevelt, be you don't do something about it, we're going to have hundreds of thousands of people here in washington marching, and it's going to look pretty bad for you. so roosevelt said, well, okay, i'll give in, and i'll create this.

now, that was a huge advance. that was the first time since reconstruction that the federal government had recognized that it had a role to play in fighting discrimination. nevertheless, as i said, it was -- it didn't have a lot of power. it basically could write up reports, and it could hold hearings, but it was underfunded, and it, as soon as the war was over, it was shuttered. and civil rights groups made creating a fair employment practices committee or commission a core part of what they were calling for throughout the rest of the '40s and the '50s. and it eventually is what became or the idea of it is what became the equal employment opportunities commission which is title vii in the civil rights act. but there were all sorts of oh advances along the way -- other advances along the way, but they were all, you know, half a loaf at best. they were often pulled back. once they, you know, were debated in the senate.

there were a lot of promises made that were not kept, and these were things that were in direct response oftentimes to pressure from the civil rights community. there really was, you know, strong activism and a strong intersession between -- intersection between what the federal government was willing the to do and what it was hearing from the african-american community as well as its allies in the labor community and in certain religious groups. but, you know, that waxed and waned depending on the political, the political environment. and one of the things, i think one of the ironies or sort of strange turns is that john f. kennedy, once he came into office, was not at all excited, was actually really didn't want to touch civil rights at all. he had strong alliances with southern democrats. you know, we think of him today as great liberal, and, you know, of course on a lot of things, yeah, you know, he was liberal, i guess, but not nearly as liberal as a lot of other people

around him, a lot of other people in the democratic party. and, you know, particularly on civil rights he was, you know, sort of thought he had this sort of benign neglect attitude. he said, well, you know, the south will take care of itself. and, you know, he wrote that in profiles in courage. this attitude comes forward, it was something that a lot of northern liberals used as a way to get around having to confront the south. ad lady stephenson, i mean, it was almost a requirement for being a national politician was you had to say, look, yeah, i i understand that things are not great for black in the south, but we have these southern democrats in our party, and in order to get things moving forward, in order to get elected president, i kind of have to figure out a way to get around that. so kennedy wasn't alone in doing this. but when he came into office, you know, he basically said i'm going to set civil rights aside and hope that nothing happens, right? and that's where the movement became very important. you started with sit-ins in

north carolina, and that spread throughout the country. you had the freedom rides. these were all things that were, you know, at once local actions, they were aimed at getting local change, but always with an attitude that we're going to make this very hot if for the president. and martin luther king understood this better than anybody. and birmingham was very much about bringing that pressure and saying, you know, everybody looks at the now, everybody reads these national newspapers. there's a media out there that if we can get them to look at what's happening, if we can visualize the horror that african-americans face every day by going somewhere as supposedly, you know, relatively but supposedly progressive and, you know, cosmopolitan as birmingham where you have these moderate leaders, if we can elicit a violent response from the police there, then we'll have proven something, and that's exactly what they did. and, of course, we all know the famous photographs of dogs and fire hoses being sent on

children. well, that was absolutely vital to the change that took place in the white house and among a lot of members of congress. they saw those, and they said, well, we -- there's certainly a moral argument. this is also really embarrassing for us nationally and internationally. john f. kennedy was a cold warrior. he saw these as real, you know, really bad marks on the country in the global fight against communism. and he admitted it, other people around him said, look, you know, when those photos came out, we started moving. and it was, you know, within a matter of weeks that they had a draft of the bill together, and a few weeks after that the bill was in front of the house and in the senate. and so it's absolutely true that you can't look at this as simply a story of how a bill becomes a law. it certainly is that, but it's much more about how this long struggle by civil rights activists, you know, again,

starting with going back since end of the civil war, the struggles to get things done. reconstruction represented a lot of advances for african-americans that were then pulled back by redemption legislatures, by, you know, agreements between national politicians to roll back reconstruction by supreme court in rolling back the civil rights acts. that was in many ways the birth of the civil rights movement, because you had african-americans who said we now need to, we now need to enter the fight. we know that politicians are not going to do it for us. and i think that you have to look at the civil rights act as in some ways the cull culminatif that struggle. this is the same with voting rights, and i think a lot of things that have come since then. but the civil rights act is very much a landmark for a lot of reasons, but i think that's one

of them. >> i just want to comment on president kennedy and 1961 with the freedom rides. we always give the reverend dr. martin luther king a lot of credit, but i also think that students from historically black colleges and universities really deserve the bulk of the credit. and when you talk about '61 and the freedom rides, it was the students from nashville primarily and other students that were determined that those freedom rides would go on -- >> absolutely. >> -- regardless of what happened. and one of the statements that kennedy made because he was right in the midst of going to the soviet union to have a meeting with nikita khrushchev, and what he said was that i don't care, they can sit in, ride in, sleep in, do whatever kind of in they want to do except for may in 1961 pause that's when he was going. and you're absolutely right, he was very cognizant of the fact

that the soviet union would use it as a means of propaganda. when you're going over to preach democracy to a communist country and yet millions of u.s. citizens do not have democracy. so that was, you know, always been very interesting to me. >> uh-huh. >> i don't give kennedy a lot of credit in that sense for the civil rights act. of 964. of 1964. you have demonstrated that johnson is the one that pushes it, but it's all of the maneuverings that are going on behind the scenes in the congress that really, with the assistance of others and certainly the actions of african-americans, that helped to bring the bill to fruition. >> uh-huh. >> perry, as are most of us, were the recipients or the

beneficiaries of what happened after the 1964 civil rights act. in 1965 the pearl team had played father rye on, that was the first -- ryan, that was the first desegregated basketball game in nashville. now, those of us who went to pearl just knew that pearl would win that game. unfortunately, willie earl brown, who was the only black on the team and father ryan at the last second, made a miraculous shot, and it went in. during that period they thought that there was going to be a big riot because pearl lost. but i think what they did not realize, that those of us at pearl high school knew willie earl brown. i had gone to school the willie earl brown and his sisters and i were good friends, and so we saw

that still as the contribution coming from the african-american community, and there would be no need for a riot. he was one of us. and he won. we never forgave him for that, but nonetheless -- [laughter] he won, and we all remained good friends. but perry had played in that game. and certainly in 1966 the pearl high tigers went undefeated under coach ridley. perry was known as the king of dunking at pearl. he could just terrorize the opposite, opposition when he decided that he was going to dunk. but as we matriculated through pearl, we were all 2007 a sense of -- we were all given a sense of who you were.

and so i think in part a lot of that comes from his growing up in the community and, certainly, at pearl. everyone was expected to graduate. everyone was expected to go to somebody be's college or university. i believe our class was one of the largest classes that ever came out of pearl high school. and majority of many of us did go on to colleges and universities. i think most of perry's teammates went to first being university, the following year ted mcclain went to tennessee state. when i look back at that period in perry and remembering as we walked through the halls of pearl, perry did have a different air about him as did walter murray who was the salute

to have january of the class and who did go to vanderbilt with him. andrew, you mentioned the fact that he was isolated, and he was alone. but as i remember, when he felt those moments of isolation and being alone, he would also seek so lace in the african-american -- solace in the african-american community. he would go to the campus of fisk university, or he would go to the campus of tennessee state where many of his friends were. so, you know, you mentioned the fact that he experienced a lot of difficulty at the university of mississippi, but all of my ut fans, he experienced a lot of difficulty at the university of tennessee. you know, tennessee is not exempt from the racism that he did experience.

so when he looks back on his career and, you know, we all knew that perry would probably leave nashville is. i remember when the story came out, and i thought gee, perry, you really did tell truth. because a lot of us knew what he was facing. and i was glad, you know, potentially to see that he did tell the truth. because if you've ever been that pioneer, that only one, it's a difficult role -- row to hoe. and i could see where it would with cathartic. i'm a civil rights historian, and i talk to many people who participated in the movement in some way, shape, form or fashion whether you were talking about in sports, whether you were the first in a particular office, whatever your thirst might have been, and there is that degree of isolation, and there is also

the degree of how do you purpling yourself to have the hurt -- purge yourself of the hurt. because eventually it come up. i did an interview the other day with a civil rights activist, and that person happened to mention being drug out of wilson quick during the sit hips and how there was a laidty sitting there and said don't hurt the little n-word. and then there was -- [inaudible] that was on broadway that she used in sit in. and when she taliban to teach from a school not too far from there there, and that was an example of that hurt that still pep traits even years later. do you think that perry is completely over that type of

hurt? >> yeah. you raised a number of interesting points in that discussion. it's true, he faced isolation everywhere. don't mean to just pick on mississippi, i should pick on everybody in the sec. but he also faced isolation even within the african-american community in nashville. you're right that he would go back to his neighborhood and to his church, be with friends z, and that was often a source of comfort and strength to him. but there's one passage in the book where i talk about what he hassed his four days in hell, and it's the four days before and after that trip to oxford. one of the days in hell was the day before the trip where to gain strength to go down to visit mississippi is to see old friends and teachers thinking get some support. one of the first persons that sees him if is an employee that comes out and says, perry

wallace, they're just using you. there were those that didn't like the fact he had gone to this white school, vanderbilt. so often times where he needed to support most, he wasn't getting it where you might expect. certainly, that wasn't the overriding sentiment from the african-american community, but it was there, and it made things difficult for hip. he talked about his postvannedder built life as a period where he really needed to get away. he actually wasn't living on this ivy league campus that may have had some similarities to vanderbilt, he was live with an old friend in the bronx. he was completely away there environment that had been extremely helpful to him. a hippie i was at that time. -- i guess at that time, so just the environment that perry was in was just the balm that he

needed. he works for ron brown, the national urban league for a year and traveled the country, and he said that in meeting with kids in poor areas of the country and helping them with their problems, that it helped him sort of put his own problems in perspective and to move on with his life. i mean, it's a lifelong struggle that he's been dealing with, and i don't think that he'll ever be completely free of the emotions that come when he think think tt the times around vanderbilt. i interviewed him and we talked dozens of times for this book, but it's a testament that he is who he is despite all he's been through. >> yeah. you're absolutely right, there were some pockets. and when i wrote about perry, one of the things i say is that he struggled to stay in bounds with the african-american community and what he was facing at vanderbilt.

and it was very difficult for him at that time because those in the african-american community -- i don't think many of us were, you know, were that concerned that he went to vanderbilt because at the same time in our class we had students that were going to the university of tennessee for the first time. so i think there were those outside of the class because we understood after is 1964 zell rights act that it was incouple pent upon us to finish incumbent upon us to open those doors. yeah, you can have the act passed, but if nobody takes advantage of the opportunities provided by that act, it's just like not having it passed. so it wasn't the class as much as it was people outside of the class because at pearl during that time, as you mentioned, you know, in '63 president kennedy

was assassinated. that's the year we went in. we went in during the year of the march on washington. so, you know, we had been kind of understanding what was going on. we did not participate in the sit-ins necessarily, but we certainly knew that they were taking place, and we knew what it meant. if we did not participate, we knew people who did. so we were in many ways sort of being prepared to be those trailblazers as things open to up with the is the 6 -- with the 1964 civil rights act. you talked about perry, he's like jackie robinson. there's another book on coach mcclendon at tennessee state who was the first african-american to coach in the national basketball legal. so there are a lot of similarities in the sports arena

that intersect with civil rights. and it, you know, it's a fascinating story on perry. the bill of the century is fascinating, and it is really interesting and unique as to how these two books come out about same time, almost the same time, and they are telling a story that intertwines, civil rights and sports. you know, as i look today at today's generation, and i'm often reminded of a quote that coretta scott king made, and it's very true. she says, struggle is a never ending process. freedom is never really won, you earn it. and every general -- in every generation. and that is what we have not taught our people, our young people or the older ones, for that matter. you do not finally win a state of freedom. that is, freedom is not

protected forever. and i thought of that simply because we seem to be in a time presently where we need to fight for freedom once again. i'll open it up now for questions from the audience. >> [inaudible] >> go to the microphone over -- >> yes, sir. >> clay, you talk about a lot of different actors that were involved in formulating and passing the civil rights act of '64. was there one moment when it just looked like it was going to happen, when there was a unique configuration of personalities and it was clear that it was going to work? >> well, there were really two. i mean, one was, is the moment where the leader of the senate republicans was everett dirkson,

senator from illinois, and had played a fairly cagey deck of hards, you know, hand of cards trying to, you know, negotiate, trying to hold off his support for the bill as it moved through the house and then to the senate. he controlled a large number of the votes from the senate republicans. not everyone would follow him, but he could pretty much deliver the votes. and it was only when he came over and, you know, through negotiations largely with the department of justice, not really with the senate democrats -- although hubert hum free was very much in the middle of that too -- once they sat down and hashed out their negotiations, it was, this is one of the literally back room deal cans. a lot of it took place in the back room of his office, and they would meet after hours over bourbon. and the doj negotiator said, you know, i almost ruined my liver

through those. [laughter] it was about a six week process. and finally, dirksen came around. and there's always speculation, you know, was he always going to come around, or was he just won over by the moment. but when dirksen came around and then started speaking publicly about his support for the bill and he would get up, he was very famous for giving very long-winded, or to havicly heavy speeches, stronger than all the armies, the bill is a dream whose time has come and really started wenning over people from his caucus, right, largely from the midwest. that was the moment where people said, okay, well, now i think it's actually going to happen. but really it was even on the eve of the vote on whether to end the filibuster, there was -- they had to get 67 votes, and everyone thought they were going to come down to the wire. hubert hump free was up all night on the phone saying, please, you've got to come over,

you have to do this. and they ended up winning by 71 votes but it was, even humphrey said the morning of the vote i think we're going to get maybe 68, 69. and there were people who were against bill, obviously, in the senate, but even there were some lobbyists who were against it. and they were probably deluded. but one of them said afterwards i thought we had it until halfway through vote when i started seeing people turn against us and vote for the filibuster. so, really, it was a cliffhanger in that sentence right up til the end. >> there any other questions? >> andrew, i saw a recent interview with james meredith a couple mights ago -- nights ago,

and when he remembers his time at mississippi, he talks about pretty clearly that he had kind of an idea what he had to do and the messages he had to send while he was there. in the greater context of the civil rights movement. for perry, i know you mentioned that education was one of the main motivating factors for him to go to vanderbilt. in your talks with him, has he given any sense of that greater context during his time there? i know, obviously, he made that brave decision at the end to do that interview that kind of puts it into perspective, but during those four years there starting as a freshman, did he willingly kind of take on idea of being a pioneer in the civil rights movement? >> he talked to me about the fact that he didn't embrace his role as a pioneer until after his freshman season. he considered transferring but decided it was too important to finish what he had started, and at that moment is when he embraced this role as a pioneer that he's carried with him the rest of his life. he also was willing to step out beyond the bounds of just being

an athlete at the university and get involved with starting the first black student association at vanderbilt, leading a group of black students to meet with the chancellor for the first time to talk about the way things were there for them on campus and give these administrators a real sense of what needed to happen to make this a welcoming place for them. so you hear about athletes who say they're not role models, and they should just be considered for what they do on the court. perry was never like that. he sees hymn as a much broader -- himself as a much broader person than just an athlete, and he acted that way too. >> any other questions? be -- if not, we certainly appreciate you coming out to this session of the southern festival of books. we have enjoyed being here, and we want to thank both of our authors, clay risen who is the author of "bill of the century: the epic battle for the civil

rights act" and andrew maraniss, "strong inside: perry wallace and the collision of sports and race in the south." thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] ..

this is event is just under an hour. [inaudible]. >> is this working? yeah, that works. i am bruce novy, former editor of the publisher of the national scene, which is local alternative "newsweekly." before then i was a political writer at the national banner. now i am resurrecting the old national banner which i am the editor and publisher. we have a few stories up at thenationalbanner.com. it is my distinct honor today to

introduce curtis wilkie. by way of introduction, let me say, one of the most influential books i ever read as a young lad growing up in southern louisiana was this book, which was "the boys on the bus." i never really known how timothy crouse or crews, pronounces his last name. much to my, this book at the time i couldn't decide whether i was bob woodward or hunter s. thompson, envisioning myself to be mutant love child of them, i set off and embarked on a career in journalism. i absolutely love this book. this was a form of new journalism at the time. as part of that new journalism, it took introspective look at the craft itself in a way that was part gonzo and part long form literary non-fiction. it was just a fabulous book.

it is so meaningful, this book in large measure inspired me to want to be a political reporter. so it's really a great honor to introduce curtis, in large measure while timothy crouse largely pillories the pack mentality of reporters who are on the bus in 1972 covering the presidential campaign, this man emerges as a journalistic hero. crouse rights, about sitting down next to a 30ish dark-haired reporter wearing a palm beach suit and drooping mustache who looked too hung over to object to my presence. after a long silence he spoke up in a twang southern accent and introduced himself as curtis wilkie. he was from mississippi and senior at old miss in 1964 when general walker led his famous charge on the administration building. he then goes on to mention his

career beginning as a reporter in clarkeville, mississippi, at the register. at the time he was working for a daily in wilmington, delaware, owned by a conservative republican paper. he says about wilkie, about his efforts to report uniquely on the campaign trail, and not report what the pack was reporting. nothing seemed to deter him. nothing drove him from the safety of the, back to the safety of the pack. wilkie continued to trust his own judgment and write about whatever he himself thought was important. in october when he was one of the few reporters to file a full account of the nixon rally where the president smiled at the sight of demonstrators being beaten up, the paper printed his articles without questioning them. so, long time covered eight presidential campaigns, i believe, the 26 years at

"the boston globe." his new book out is a anthology of many stories he wrote at the globe and elsewhere. would you please welcome curtis wilkie. [applause] thank you all for being here. [inaudible] always nice to be in nashville and i'm honored again to be invited back to the southern festival of books. this is a collection of my stories drawn over a period of more than 40 years. i am a southerner. i was a senior at old miss when james beary integrated the school. those of you who were at the earlier session. you heard some talk about my alma mater. i'm sure that we were much better than we were then. as a young reporter, my first

job was in clarke dale, mississippi, for a small daily, the clarkeville press register. as a result i was fortunate enough to cover the civil rights movement almost daily. i covered other things too i can assure. everything from civic clubs to obits, to raffle, whatever, but civil rights story was the big story in the mississippi delta and it was the biggest story in the country, so i was extremely fortunate to be there then and it really became a frame of reference for me for the rest of my life. clarkeville was the home of a wonderful man, aaron henry, state president of naacp and aaron not only became a great source for me but a great friend. he made sure, as a young

reporter, that i was able to meet all the people in the movement who were coming through the delta. i got to meet jackie robinson, which was a great thrill. and it was much fun to tell him as a little leaguer i had use ad jackie robinson bat. i still remember. it had a thick handle. everybody who came through, everybody from stokely carmichael to dr. king and it was an experience. it was fascinating. there were several stories about the movement in the book. -- at old miss now, and among the things i tell my students is, that quotes really help make stories. you can think you're a wonderful writer but if you don't have good anecdotes and quotes and good description and good stories to write about, you're going to be spinning your

wheels. and i'm going to start off basically with not something i wrote but quotes. the first one involved a visit that dr. king made to the delta in the spring of '68. turns out it was the last days of his life and he was there trying to rally support for the poor people's campaign. imagine here is a man with a nobel prize winner, major figure in the movement. i was only reporter covering him for a couple of days, traveling around the delta. dr. king was with jose williams and ralph abernathy. they drove around in a big sedan. i followed behind them in my little volkswagen beetle. one of the events was at a black church in marks, mississippi. and at that event, i was only other white guy there.

there was a photographer for the associated press, jack who won pulitzer year before, with a picture of james meredith and, when he was ambushed and shot on the highway in mississippi and spread-eagled, and jack won the pulitzer for that. we're there covering dr. king. and suddenly a white guy comes bursting into the church and, he is reaching in his back pocket. and there for a split second, i had a camera, and a notebook. and, i'm wondering, do i try to disarm this buy, or do i get my camera ready and take the next pulitzer prize-winning picture? happily he didn't pull a gun. he pulled a $100 bill and took it up to dr. king, interrupted the program. dr. king was amazed. he was looking at a $100 bill. he said, well, what's your name? determined the man's name was

money mobley. he said, god bless you, brother mobly. anybody who gives $100 to the movement can say a few words. that was a mistake. money mobley had a few drinks by this time and started in on the kennedys and also he was denying that anybody was hungry in the south or that, we had poverty. and, he became so obstreperous and hoe way williams and ralph be abernathy had to frog him out of the church. create ad quite a commotion. dr. king is out in the car and eating learn much and i'm talking to him. i said, dr. king, were you frightened back there? and here's what he told me. no, i'm not frightened. i move without fear because i know i'm right. i would be immobilized if i were

afraid. besides. besides declaring of violence is gradually decreasing in the south and two weeks later he was dead. the book, assassins, eccentrics, other persons of interest. one of my friends calls. who are the assassins, other than an obvious one, beckwith, who i wrote about and i added up there were probably five or six assassins either identifiable or anonymous in the middle east during i lived there. there were other people who were victims of assassination. i only met medgar evans once. that was the first year i worked in clarkedale. he was chilled within through or

four months becoming a reporter. dr. king, robert kennedy came through the delta and i got to cover that. we have more than our share of assassins on the south at that time. fast forward to 1994. i have conned the globe letting me live and work out of new orleans. i got tired of freezing to death in boston. so they did. one of the first stories i was able to cover, was the third trial of byron beckwith, the assassin of medgar evans. there had been two earlier trials in the '60s. it resulted in a hung jury but they were able to get new evidence and they trial 30 years later. i was able to get beckwith's phone number.

he was living by this time in signal mountain, tennessee. and, damned if i didn't get him on the phone. i could hear his wife in the background yelling at him, don't you talk to that man. well he talked to me. said some pretty amazing quotes, not all of them will i read. some of them are too ugly to, to be spoken publicly but i will give you a a couple that reveal the character of this assassin. he began talking after he had finished with the blacks about the babylonian talmuddists. i said, excuse me? he said, the talmuddists, boy, don't you know what i'm talking about? i said, i think i just figured it out. and he went out. babylonian talmuddists are a set of dogs. if you will read in the king james version of the dog, a dog

is a male whore and god says kill them. racial mixing is a capital crime, like murder is a capital crime. but the bible doesn't say thou shall not kill. it says thou shall do no murder. he was looking forward to his trial which was coming up in a couple weeks. he kind of concluded my interview by saying, i'm full of enthusiasm and adventure. i'm proud of my enemies. they're every color but white, every creed by christian. so i had the joy of, covering the trial. sat for most of the time with willie morris, my dear friend. and, the verdict came in on a saturday morning, and, this was my lead. a mississippi jury of eight blacks and four whites, reached

across a painful gulf of time and turmoil yesterday to convict, buy byron delay beckwith of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader medgar etch verse. when the verdict was announced on 10:35 on the second day of deliberation, there was a burst of cheers from a pocket of spectators surrounding the widow me mr. re evers. with words that beckwith was found guilty, past the courtroom, cheering echo through the halls of the heinz county courthouse where others were standing vigil. generally reporters try to be objective and unemotional. but this was, one time, that, i was glad i was there and glad to see that old buzzard. go off and he did die in prison. there was yet another case involving an old civil rights murder. it was the firebombing death of

the, forest county president of the nape, vernon damer, at his home near hattiesburg in 1966. and as they did with beg with, there was another renewed prosecution and, there seemed to be momentum toward bringing to trial a man named sam bowers who was the imperial wizard of the white knights of the clue clucks clan. he was -- ku klux klan. heorg straighted the murders in the county and called for the murder of vernon damer, another truly evil man. they were not sure whether they were growing to put together a good enough case and i was in new orleans and i got a call from a friend of mine, jerry

himmelstein, the head of the anti-defamation league in new orleans. he said, can you come see me? i got something i want to talk about. he told me there was a fellow in mississippi he had been involved with who was prepared to testify against bowers and this fellow was afraid that his potential testimony was being discounted by the prosecutors, he had heard important details and he wanted to go public with it. he was willing to talk with a reporter and jerry said, something you would be interested in? i said, my god, when can we go? we went the next day over to the mississippi gulf coast where i interviewed a fellow named bob stringer. it led to interviews i had with perms about the damer family and other is people.

this the way i began my story couple weeks before the actual trial. for three decades bob stringer has lived with the memory after conversation he overheard in the back booth of john's cafe. a harperresque hangout of the ku klux klan in laurel, mississippi. it was the winter of 1966, and sam bowers a jukebox operator, who moonlighted as imperial wizard of the white knights of the ku klux klan and voicing his frustration to klan elements in neighboring forest county had been unable to suppress the voting registration efforts of the local naacp leader, vernon damer, sr. stringer in the interview recalled the exchange the other day. quote, sam said, something's got to be done about that damar down

south and he slapped the count issue. henry d the eboxel we need to put a code four on him. in the parlance of the klan, code four called for death an within howers damer was dead. they brought sam bowers to trial. i covered his trifle and it was fun to sit with old friends. your own will campbell, the late will campbell came in and i was sitting with will near the end of this trial. this is the way that one wound up. this was in 1998. sam bowers, and imperial wizard of the white knights of the ku klux klan and repute he hadly the mastermind behind a campaign of terror across mississippi three decades ago, was convicted yesterday for a 1966 civil rights murder after three previous prosecutions had

failed. so, again, that was a great and dramatic moment there, just interestingly, those of you who might know, might have known will or knew of him, he was not only a great civil rights champion from south mississippi. but also tried to minister to the klan. he said they're all children of god. he knew sam bowers and when he came to the courthouse he not only had a very warm and emotional meeting with the members the damar family and he went over and hugged sam bowers. when the verdict was announced there was cheering in the courtroom again and i looked over at will and will had a tear, was basically ready to cry. i said, will, you may be the only person in this courtroom who is sorry to see sam bowers

convicted. he said, jesus never liked to see any man in chains. so, will is just an extraordinary guy and you all were lucky to have him up in these parts. he was a dear, dear, man. i think i've disposed of the assassins. i will move on to eccentrics. the last time i was here was the day jimmy carter won the nobel prize. i remember everybody seemed happy about it. i covered jimmy carter. i covered, covered him for a year when he was running for president. i was a young reporter. i was a token southerner at "the boston globe" and i had no senority. one day i began making assignments in late 1957 to cover different candidates, okay, kid, you get the peanut farmer from georgia. well, carter and i had a fairly

checkered relationship through that whole campaign. he thought i was a smart alec and he was probably right. i think he was resentful of me and two or three other southern reporters he felt, we were pressing him too hard for him to be comfortable for all the admirable things he had done. there were things he was not willing to do. i became really good friend with his younger brother, billy carter. i see enough people around my age out there, that you will remember billy. billy was a wonderful guy. he ran a service station and classic good ol' boy situation. and i would go hang out with billy and the boys and drink beer with him. i would go over there and drink beer with billy on sunday morning. back in those days you couldn't sell beer on sunday in georgia.

so billy gave it away to his friend. and miss legion, jimmy carter's mother, used to give me a hard time because i never went to sunday school like the other reporters that i would go to billy and we would sit around and drink beer. well, jimmy carter got elected. and we're all spending three months in southwest georgia while he is preparing his government and it was enlivened that winter by billy carter's candidacy for mayor of plains. wasn't much of a campaign but it was kind of fun. billy carter's first official act, if he is elected mayor of plains today, will be to cut down an artificial christmas tree erected on public land across the highway from his service station. in fact the brother of the president-elect saturday morning, a can of beer in hand,

me and the boys were thinking about getting together and chopping the god damn thing down then. he looked scorn fully at the tree a thin, towering, green plastic monstrosity shimmering in the late autumn sun. it was donated to the town and is a symbol of all of the things billy carters thinks are wrong with plains these days. sorry to say, billy did not get elected but that night, vigilantes, did lasso the tree and dragged it down the highway and, they never could find out who did it. billy conveniently had an alibi. sad footnote to that, billy did overdo it. sometimes i felt guilty i was one of the reporters who did stories kind of glorifying billy's outrage -- outrageous behavior. and he became more and more

outrageous. some two years later i had to go back to plains to do this story. for more than two years he was on stage, the merchant of foolishness in these theater of the absurd. he gave outrageous quotes to reporters for free publicity and peddled outlandish behavior to promoters for as much as $5,000 a performance. for a while excess was success for the president's brother, billy carter. but recently, his string began to play out and last tuesday night he was admitted to the alcoholic rehabilitation center at long beach naval hospital in california to begin a stern regimen that will last six to eight weeks. back home in plains his friends and members of his family hoped the treatment will restore billy carter for in recent weeks he has been beset by many problems. his health has deteriorated and he has become a public embarass

ment. billy did finally recover but he suffered from pancreatic cancer and eventually died. incidentally that illness claimed every member of jimmy carter's family but the president himself. claimed his brother and all his siblings. and, i covered all of the carter white house as a result of having covered his campaign and, i was there for the last day of his campaign in 1980. it wound up having more drama than we expected. if you recall, at that point, the hostages were being held in iran. we were thinking in any minute they were going to be freed. we set out that last day of the campaign, monday before the election. i think we went to philadelphia,

to los angeles, period of time land, seattle and flew back to georgia all in one day. and on our way back to georgia one of carter's aids, was on the press plane and he came back and talked to me. he was a pretty good friend and he said, when are you going to write? i said, i can't write anything again until after the election day. he said, well, i can tell you we're going to get clobbered. they thought, we all thought it was going to be close. and they had a poll that they had just gotten that showed that all of, everything they were hoping for had collapsed and only win about five or six states. so, i was privy to this information but i couldn't tell anyone about it. and i, that was pulled that morning when carter voted and i was going to be with the president and i knew that he

knew he was going to lose, but i couldn't say anything and, he didn't know that i knew. so it was an extraordinary situation but gave me certain insight into the story that i wrote. and this is the way i began. after a final punishing campaign journey of more than 6,000 mice -- miles, president jimmy carter made a melancholy return to his hometown yesterday. he struggled to keep from crying as he told his followers of the difficult and politically costly decisions that he felt were costing him his presidency. even though the polls had just opened he appeared exhausted and disheart inned by the grim word from his staff. based on their own polling data that the election appeared to be irretrievably lost. carter had learned the worst a few hours before on the long

overnight flight from seattle to georgia. news his aides kept from him until he could complete in a confident and fighting manner the last of seven stops on both sides of the continent that they had scheduled for him on the final day of his campaign. he had not known of it in seattle where he rallied a late-night throng in calf very news airport hangar and blew kisses to a young heckler said, well, carter blew his four years of time. he had not even lost his composure, another man that had a sign that read, carter's eternal grandmother was milatto, attempted to storm the stage and had to be dragged away. as the hour approached midnight on pacific coast, it was nearly three a.m. back home and 17 hours since he first set out. carter delivered one of his finest speeches of the campaign. but outside of the hangar his

long-time associate and press secretary jody powell stood despondent on the airport tarmac, washed by a gentle autumn rain. he heard of patrick cadell's poll findings over the sophisticated communications system over air force one. the information showed carter slipped further behind in target states. and as the president basked in the cheers of the crowd, powell turned to another carter aide, and said simply, it's gone. carter himself was told before his plane descended at dawn yesterday, to the southwest georgia landscape, slowedded in a heavy -- shrouded in a heavy ground fog, the leaf as dull and dying brown in pecan groves and little calves waiting for slaughter at the time they ared in a field outside of plains.

well, i also covered bill clinton. covered bill clinton for about a year. i remember first time i met bill clinton was in '78. he had just been elected governor and was at a big democratic convention in memphis and there were half a dozen of us standing around. somebody introduced me to a guy named clinton. it didn't register. he says, he just got elected governor of arkansas. i looked and, said, he looked like a boy scout, was so young. so i had known clinton a little bit from that time. and, in early, early in '92, when he became a formal candidate i was traveling with him in new hampshire and it occurred to me, as, later in the year, as he was about to get the democratic nomination in

new york, that i needed to reconstruct that month in new hampshire where he went through so many adverse situation, it would have sunk any other candidate. it started off with, what, betsy wright, one of his aids called the bimbo eruptions. there was a charge that he abused state money to finance five different liaisons with five different women. then you had the infamous jennifer flowers confessions and then, had the draft dodging letter that was leaked where he had written, to an rotc guy, thanking him for saving, saving me, bill clinton from the draft. gary hart got sunk four years before nothing like this. showed the guy's resilience that he was not willing to quit.

i reconstructed the 33 days that he spent in new hampshire for a magazine piece that appeared later. it was the, first time i ever did a story in third person narrative, writing it like it is a novel with not attribution. wrote it like i was god. that i had overheard anything. i had seen a lot because i traveled with him. but, it helped, bill and hillary both had talked to me at length. all of his aides talked to me. i was able to put together i think account of all this inside baseball that went on, very dramatic period. and,. this is the way i began the story. bill clinton's time was expiring in new hampshire.

worn down by illness, his voice frayed by fatigue, his jogger's body swollen from the consumption of junk food, he seemed to be a fighting a losing battle. a freezing rain cast a treacherous glaze on the highway. as he was driven to nashua, less than 60 hours before the polls opened. clinton was encouraged when he arrived at the event, saw an overflow crowd come to hear him on the saturday night before the primary. this was a good sign he told his wife. hillary clinton was not so sanguine. how do we know, she said, that they're not just coming to see the freak show? just a couple more. i lived in jerusalem for four years and covered the middle east. i was actually there off and on, over about a 10-year period. and, at one point, i went and

spent about a week in gaza, which has been very much in the news lately, when i was there, the situation in gaza was a bit different. it was still under israeli occupation. it was as it is today, just gracefully poor, poor, sad. at that time forgotten. and i felt i needed to do a magazine piece about gaza. this was a piece that appeared in "the boston globe" magazine in 1986. welcome. the characters in arabic and english and hebrew and crawl in falsely bright colors as sad as toys in a children's cancer ward across the arch over the gateway to the city. well to gaza. welcome to a 25-mile stretch of

almost unrelieved squalor where raw sewage runs openly in the alleys of the palestinian refugee camps and flows like a polluted tidal stream into the mediterranean. welcome to a teaming territory that has served for nearly 40 years as home for thousands of refugees who long ago lost hope. largely abandoned by their arab brothers and ignored bit western world they are ruled by israel's army of occupation and economically bled each day by measures imposed by the israeli government. welcome to another of the great shames of 20th century civilization. this latest dwelling place of the wretched of the earth as revolution neyry writer once described, another group ofdown trodden arabings living under

colonization in north africa. there is however, no revolution brewing here. none of palpable anger seething into palestinian west bank cities of hebron and nablas. the people of gaza have been beaten by circumstance into submission. well, i was wrong. i wrote that, that appeared in september of 1986. the first rocks of the first intifada, the palestinian revolution, were thrown in gaza in november of 1987. so i misread the insipient revolutionary spirit that existed in gaza. and of course, things have changed. israel gave it, gave up on it. they didn't want it. egypt, which had controlled gaza before the '67 war, they don't want it back. nobody wants gaza. it continues to be a very, very

sad hell hole but at least it is no longer forgotten. the last piece i was going to do, bruce you mentioned hunter thompson. you guys remember hunter thompson? thank you. a few people do. when i first started teaching at ole' miss, he was a consult figure on campuses and hunter killed himself eight or nine years ago and i still use some of hunter's writing to just to try to encourage my students not to emulate him but to, you know, to be kind of dare to be different in your writing. hunter was a friend of mine. we got to know each other in the '72 campaign covering george mcgovern. and i had known him ever since that time. i had gotten back from the

middle east in '88 and was in boston and i was in a cab and the cab driver said, whatever happened to that guy, hunter thompson? he knew i was a reporter. i have read somewhere he turned 50 the other day? i thought, my god, i can't imagine hunter thompson 50. of course i was 48 at the time but, hunter was kind of like "peter pan.." never supposed to get old. so i tried to locate hunter out and in aspen and i left several calls at a number for him. i left a call at the woody creek tavern where he spent much of his time. finally several days later i got a collect call from dr. thompson. so anyway, says come out. we'll have a great time and you'll get to see some friends. one of my former roommates at ole miss was run of his running mates out in aspen and, actually, i'm now married to that guy's first cousin.

so, kind of funny. mississippi is so weird you know. in mississippi, you don't dare tell a lot of stories with people's names because. invariably someone will be related to them. i was called upon a few years ago to do a speech at the mississippi economic council, a big meeting on election year. all the statewide candidates were there and i was telling old tales of these baruch politicians from the '60s, ross barnett and all these characters and there was one particular objectionable guy named jimmy swan, who was a klan candidate in 1967. he got 100,000 votes which is pretty sobering. so i told several swan stories. and, you know mississippi must not sacrifice itself on the ugly

alter of integration and et cetera, et cetera. i sat down feeling very happy. people laughed and clapped. and the mc looked over at me and says, that is very good, mr. willingky. we enjoyed that. i just need to tell you i'm jimmy swan's son. anyway, i digress. going to read you the lead for the piece i did on hunter. i had a great time with him. he kept me up all night for, two nights. hunter was like a bat. he, slept all day and get up about 6:00 and have breakfast and would drink and do all sorts of other things. i went out to his cabin and we talked and drink a moulson beer every now and then. i don't know how the guy did it. i wound up trying to do a

magazine piece in parody of hunter's style and that is impossible and tried and i had a lot of fun. if i did this for my students today, they wouldn't know what i'm talking about. maybe some of you will get this. this is piece that appeared in the "boston globe" man seen in 1988. -- magazine. reagan was still in power then. this is the way i began. so many of the icons of our generation are in ruins. victims of time and reagan's cultural revolution. just say no are the new catch words and the red queen and white rabbit have been replaced by king condom. john lennon is seven years dead and timothy leery might as well be. jerry ruben promotes capitalism. wayne allman and otis redding gone. mama cass all gone.

james brown's screams lost their pitch. lynryd skynyrd's freebird crashed into a swamp. the landscape is littered with burned out cases. children of the 1950s who spent themselves over the next two decades like roman candles. but there is a survivor unrepent end and unforgiving lurking in a log cabin high in the colorado rockies. hunter s thompson reached the landmark age of 50. and after a mid-life lull when it was feared he was finished the outlaw prince of gonzo journalism is writing again with the fury of a shark in a feeding frenzy. so those are all i have. every time i do something, i guess my wife's tells me you've gone on too long. so i tried to spare you some long, long, reading but, tried to hit some highlights, tell

some stories. we have a couple minutes. if anybody has a question, i will try to deal with something in the time remaining. >> curtis wilkie. those are fabulous stories. we would like, let's open it up for questions. one quick observation, that quote, where you have the sim mill lee like roam manned candles. you remember the passage from jack kerouac? >> yeah, burn, burn, burn. on the road was very influential to me. i was a student at ole' miss, and actually quit school for a semester and went on the road because of that damn book. the only, and, unfortunately i wrote two short stories that made their way into publication. they were both awful. and i burned any copy i ever encountered and knew i didn't have a future in fiction.

but, you know, kerouac and also the fact that i did flung feature writing, which is of course i now teach today, encouraged me to dropout for a semester and, it was very fortunate, because, i was back at ole miss. i should have already graduated. i was back there for all the excitement in fall of six at this two when james meredith was finally admitted with the help of 30,000 troops. truly extraordinary experience. but, sure, i remember burn, burn, burn. >> hey, we'll go to him for a second. i want to get out one quick question. the north for example home, the willie morrises went up east, we had a number of reporters come through this market. halberstam, the list goes on and on. who, southerners who ended up in quite successful on the east

coast mainstream media environments up there. what accounted for that? >> i think so many of us felt driven to get out of there in the '60s because it had been so bad, so intolerable. god knows what it was like for for blacks. i was there in the mississippi delta and covered it for nearly seven years. i had nye. >> ful of it. and. i never forget driving to washington. i leaving mississippi, i said, free at last, free at last, thank god almighty, free at last. now i'm back there and very happy because, it is so much better. willie beat me back. willie's book was also very influential to me. i read that living in clarksdale and i related to it and willie

became a dear friend. willie encouraged me to write a book called dixie. kind of a reverse north toward home. it is about leaving and going back to the south because i had seen the transformation, that it had bonn on in our region and, i found out i was comfortable with the south again. and i loved being back there. david halberstam, another dear, dear friend of mine, david started his career in mississippi. didn't last a year. came here to the tennessean. and the rest is history. but david had an affinity with mississippi until the day he died. he, spent a great deal of time in mississippi. he was our was our commence speaker in old mis. his daughter worked worked in mississippi delta for teach for america.

david's widow died this past summer. and after david's death, the contributions go to teach for america and mississippi delta. so, the good things going on there. and, willie and david, they were kind of in the vanguard of that. >> yes, sir? >> my question is, i've been a writer since -- same thing where i covered powerful people and institutions. inevitably if you say something or writes something that makes them look less than perfect they can try to suppress or stifle you. can you talk of an instance where you battled with that and where you overcome and print what you wanted to print and what you printed? >> i think it helps having a publisher willing to print what you write. fortunately i did for most of my career at "the boston globe." we have didn't have sacred cows.

we went after everybody. in a way it is challenging and it is fun. to go after powerful institutions and power people if you think there is something there that needs to be revealed. but it helps to have the support, you really have to have the support of your publisher or you will be the voice in the wilderness and you will not get published. so, you know, that is just, that is, that is probably the most important thing, but you know, i don't think one should ever be intimidated by these people. i mean, they're human beings too. they're fallible human beings, regardless what position they have. i think a little irreference helps. we're not paid to be ref very rings. we're not we're not paid to be public relations officers for the people we're covering. we're supposed to cover them.

and. whether you're covering a redneck southern cherry and president of harvard college you treat them the same. no deference to anybody. sure, sometimes you get cut off if you've got a beat, for example, that sports beat. sports people are particularly sensitive about adverse coverage. you can't say anything about a coach or a player. they will try to cut you off but, i shouldn't, shouldn't say, don't let that deter you. nothing like, good, honest, coverage of things whether it is sports or whether it is politics. >> i have one final question. and then we'll probably call it a day but, in my experience the

most sensitive people were restaurant owners. i've been sue as a publisher, i've been sued more by restaurant owners than anybody else. what is media today, print media? and could you do today what you did then? >> we're in kind of a discouraging situation economically. so we're not as strong as we once were. there is a struggling profession, if we are a profession, some people say we're not. we're a craft or maybe worse than that. there continues to be a lot of very good journalism going on today. unfortunately, there is not, as much of it for example. "the boston globe" can speak best about it. when i left there and retired in

2,000, i believe we had seven overseas bureaus. "the new york times" had bought the globe. they shut them down. the networks, they have very few overseas networks today. you will see a story maybe from berlin and and the guy covering it is in london. he is kind of their european correspondent. it is not just newspapers. it is everybody. and we're hurt by, by economics. we, they are still trying to come to grips with the internet. thank god i left before all that hit. i can barely do email. i don't do facebook and tweets and twitters. i don't understand what is going on in journalism today. but, there is still some damn good journalism going on. i read it.

i read six or seven papers a day. and i see good stories. they're good magazine stories. they're good television. good radio, for that matter. npr. so it is a struggle but, there are so many people who are still interested in doing it. and at ole miss, when i, we were much smaller school when i was there. but. when i was getting journalism major, probably no more than 20 of us, we have about a thousand majors. some of them are in marketing but, you snow more than half are people who are interested in journalism. i always said, that you know, it is the greatest kind of profession in the world. it beats working. you can't have more fun than to be a journalist. be a kid from mississippi and

get to ride around as a reporter on air force one or to be able to live and work in the middle east. to, to get to cover important see rents events. it is incredibly gratifying. i wouldn't trade it for anything. and as i said, at the outset, of all the stories, the civil rights movement is the one that is most valuable to me. that is when i covered for a little daily paper in the mississippi delta. it is a magnificent profession. i think it will. would always be there. kind of like the end of "grapes of wrath." we're the people. we're going to keep on coming. i think, i think we will. but we, it is a tough time right now. ladies and gentlemen, curtis wilkie. thank you all very much. >> thank you all.

[applause] >> that was great. [inaudible conversations]. >> that was curt wilkie, authors of assassins, eccentrics, politicians and other persons of interest. up next from thanville, pulitzer prize-winning historian, james mcmears son, who published a biography of jefferson davis entitled. embattled rebel. the booktv coverage of the southern festival of books continues. >> i'm glad all the flights was connected, whatever you needed to have happen.

i'm dan pomeroy. i'm chief curator, director of collections at the tennessee state museum. certainly my king r distinct honor to be up here and share the platform with this distinguished historian. needs no introduction. i'm sure you all know, as, all about him and his work. james mcpherson is, got his phd from johns hopkins university. he is currently professor of emeritus of history at princeton university. he is former president of the american historical association. he's recipient of the 2007 military library literature award. and he is a former jefferson lecturer of the national endowment for the humanities. he is very active in efforts to preserve civil war battlefields. i'm sure he is aware what is

going on right down the road here in franklin. he is the author of numerous works on civil war history, including battle cry of freedom which received the pulitzer prize. tried by war, lincoln as commander-in-chief, which received the lincoln prize. and for causing comrades, also received the lincoln prize. he is going to talk to us today about his newest work, embattled rebel, jefferson davis as commander-in-chief. i will turn it over to you. >> i apologize for, my apologies for keeping you waiting. perhaps i should require the gentleman who sabotaged the air traffic control mechanics at chicago about 10 days ago because everything is still late out of chicago and i've been in thickchicago the last go years as part of the book tour for this book. now, just about everybody who

knows something about the civil war is familiar with the problems that president abraham lincoln had with general george mcclellan who he once described as a general who would not fight. less familiar, except maybe here in the south, i'm not sure about, is the story of the similar tensions between confederate president jefferson davis and one of his principle generals, joseph johnston. johnston never ran for president against davis the way mcclellan did against lincoln but the hostility between johnston and davis became more intense, lasted longer and perhaps had more adverse impact on the confederate war effort than did the lincoln mcclellan conflict on the union war effort. davis from mississippi and johnston from virginia were fellow cadets at west point in the 1820s. they graduated one year apart.

they knew each other there but they were not close. rumor later circulated that they had had a fight over a girl at the academy but that story is almost certainly apocryphal. be that as it may when the war began and virginia seceded, johnston resigned from the united states army and davis appointed him as general commanding one of the two largest field armies in virginia. beauregard, commanded the other. those two armies combined to win first battle, what eventually became the first battle of manassas on july 21st, 1861. in the two months before that battle, many people in the south had expected jefferson davis to take personal command of the main confederate army. after all davis had graduated from west point. he had served as a regular army officer for seven years. he had commanded the mississippi volunteer regiment very well in the mexican war from which he

emerged as an authentic and wounded war hero. . .