of booktv and they are wawing walking here. he is going to join us to do a call-in on civil rights. we are pleased to have another author long-term senator joining us, james clyburn. congressman, we wanted to take a fun what peniel joseph was talking about with stokely carmichael and do a call-in segment with their viewers on civil rights. i want to start by asking you how many times were you arrested during the civil rights heyday movement?

>> guest: i have never kept count of the number of times i was arrested. i write in the book about two of them. the first one and the last one. i remember very well the first one. i met my wife. we met in jail and that became a real blessing for me. the last time was in columbia south carolina in 1961. i remember that one so well because that arrests led to a landmark reach of peace case against south carolina. it began the law school, a law school case that most universities that use the casebook method used that case. i happen to have been one of those arrested that day and so i remember those.

in between a lot of times we got arrested and were never really charged. we were just taken to the police station, taken off the streets of lawrenceburg and then put back on once the crowd dispersed so i never really kept count on all of that. >> host: why were you and emily clyburn arrested in what year was back back? >> guest: it was march 15, 1960. it was six weeks after those students were arrested in greensboro north carolina and several weeks before we first met at shore university near raleigh north carolina that was just being talked about. i had been locked up around 10:00 in the morning. emily, my wife was among those students that they didn't have room for in the jails so they

herded them back to the campuses, south carolina state. they came back down to the jail later that evening around 6:30 to bring up food and she walked in the door and walks toward me with a hamburger in her hands and i reached for it. she pulled it back and gave me half of it and she ate the other half. i was so grateful for that half a hamburger i married her 18 month later. her father after we were married for 10 years at our tenth anniversary she fessed up and told me that was not a chance meeting, that she and her roommate one day were standing in the dormitory room watching me walk across the campus with a

young lady i was dating at the time. she told her roommate that we did not make a good couple, that she was going to be my wife and she set out with her plan that culminated on june 12, 1961. so this past june we celebrated her 53rd wedding anniversary. >> host: james clyburn has represented the district since 19933 and it's a little bit of charleston a bit of charles in a little bit of columbia and a lot of territory in between. he'll be joining us to talk about civil rights. we are going to but the numbers up on the screen if you elect to participate in a conversation with james clyburn and peniel joseph. 585-3891 if you live out west and if you can get to the phone lines try twitter at booktv is our twitter address and facebook.com/booktv if you'd

like to make a comment on facebook. we will try to get into those comments as well. congressman clyburn, at age 12 what made you become an activist and how did you become an activist at that age? >> guest: when i was growing up my dad and mom are both very active and around 1951, 52 is when things began to percolate most especially in clairton county in south carolina. my father was a minister and the man who was organizing all of the people in the county was minister j. a. deland. my dad used to at breakfast every morning he would be praying for the people of clairton county and the reverend so we started forming youth councils of the naacp throughout

the south and i went to the meetings as the emanuel methodist church. this was two months before my 13th birthday and i guess i went to the restroom or something but it turns out when the meeting was over i was the president of the sumpter youth council. and that just grew to the sedans in 1960 and formed sncc in -- and then i met martin luther king, jr. for the first time at morehouse college in atlanta and also the same time i met john lewis. and so i guess it came from my parents, my associates in college and went on through to today and here we are john lewis and i having spent almost 22

years in congress together. now he got elected before i did so he has almost a quarter century. >> host: and you are the assistant majority leader or democratic leader in the house of representatives. what do you remember about growing up in the jim crow era? >> guest: well, in my book, the most memorable situation occurred in 1955. in 1955 my high school band was invited to play, march in a christmas parade, the first time there were any black units. it was customary in those days for santa claus to be the last unit riding on a fire truck. after santa claus the horses from a local equestrian stable

would march. now they were the last thing because of those droppings they left along the way and the aroma that came from most droppings. when we got down there to march in the parade that day it turned out that we were placed in the parade behind the horses. it was very very difficult and very very memorable to try to play the clarinet while sidestepping those droppings and trying to breathe in and out of the way had to with the aroma of those stale oats. well, that to me was probably the most lasting memory from that year because, because of that i left that high school and went to mather academy where my mother had gone to school and that's where i graduated from

and i really believe that it was experienced at that united methodist school in camden south carolina where he first interacted with white teachers and white people that really changed me dramatically. in fact it was more transformational, it was the most transformational thing until i met martin luther king, jr. in that weekend in october 1960. sitting up with him until 4:30 in the morning was also transformational for me. those two experiences i think shaped me more than anything else. >> host: peniel joseph, professor joseph you saw him talking about his most recent book stokely, a life. press -- professor joseph what is your impression of these

lines of the civil rights movement the first-generation? >> guest: is very important. congressman clyburn and congressman lewis are part of a period of civil rights era. they are shaped by jim crow segregation. they also got to meet people and had personal relationships with people like stokely carmichael and others. they also think about protest movements and also shifted from political organizing to electoral politics than they did that successfully but even though they shifted they still retained a real understanding and connection with grassroots constituents. congressman clyburn and congressman lewis represent accountability, politics and accountability because they come out of a movement politics. they didn't go through a ivy league universities, they couldn't because they grew up in the age of segregation but once

they achieved political power by the 1880s come 1890s they really remember their background and civil rights. it's an extraordinary circumstance and there's no connective tissue between what you call old lions of the movement and their cases and political representatives and young people and people who are still committed to organizing. >> host: use the word old. i use the word lion. [laughter] penial joseph what was stokely carmichael's reputation among some of these boots on the ground and the leaders in the civil rights movement? >> guest: the representation was very good. before he became a black power advocacy was very well-known before he became the icon and made the front page of "the new york times." he was somebody we knew as the charismatic movement leader. john lewis and him are good friends. they jailed together in mississippi.

john lewis remembers in his biography come is now biography come his memoir that he instantly like stokely carmichael. i think among young people and among active as he was somebody you had a good reputation. he was also very stubborn. he was also very, he could be bullheaded. he was a guy who cracked wise jokes. martin luther king jr. loved him like a little brother but stokely was one of those young people who disagreed with him. stokely was not in awe of anybody so that was the kind of representation yet. >> host: congressman clyburn would you agree with that? >> guest: yes. we never became fast friends. i remember i was in south carolina. we went through raleigh north carolina for weekend. i guess it was easter weekend in 1960. later that year we went down to the morehouse college for the weekend but every time i went back to south carolina. part of that, i talk about it in

my book, because you take rosa parks. rosa parks became a phenomenal person in the movement but the court case that integrated or desegregated public accommodations in transit. there was a footnote in the rosa parks case that said we did not have to determine a rule on this issue. we have already made that determination in that case of sara fleming versus the south carolina electric and gas company in columbia south carolina. now i point that out because there was a lot going on in south carolina but we were not a media center and therefore you wouldn't hear a lot about it.

you write a lot about john lewis. he talks this morning about having been arrested. the first time he was ever physically attacked was in the rock hill south carolina and demand that went up there to rescue them was james t. mccain from sumpter south carolina who was my baseball coach. the one guy that my dad would let me go to these meetings with. my dad trusted him more than anybody else in the movement. john lewis will tell you to this day that jt mccain was the one of the most impressive people he had ever met. i got to know him not just as a movement guy that he was my baseball coach when i was 14 years old. so these kinds of things you will find in my book. you won't find them in most

other books because most people never saw south carolina and what was going on in south carolina. martin luther king jr. always referred to him as the mother of the movement. he was the one that went to thailand or to teach. she taught rosa parks but she was from charleston south carolina. >> host: james clyburn, peniel joseph will take your calls. alonzo in north wilkesboro north carolina please go ahead with your question or comments her. >> caller: yes, either one can answer but i'd like to know what is their opinion about the current gridlock as it relates to stokely carmichael and brown and those people who have probably foreseen is what i've

seen the intellectual ignorance our country is faced with now because the demographics are changing here in the united states. a lot of it seems to be what stokely and representative brown spoke against was those are at the top, strategically for their own reasons oppressed people. but now we find that even the white power structure which is becoming increasingly decreased because there is an awareness that is causing the kinds of gridlock we find in our government. their philosophy, which has not been challenged, is really based on a whole lot of thinking of dred scott and the supreme court decision. >> host: all right alonzo you have a lot on the table there.

let's start with peniel joseph them and congressman clyburn. >> guest: i think where we are at in race relations in the country is a crucial point. i think that 50 years ago when we think about stokely and h. rap brown they talk of institution as a man they talked about trying to transform the current conditions. there was a movement for black equality. i think what we just saw in ferguson and what we have seen with other incidences, this idea of black equality has lost some steam in american society. we have transcended black leaders. barack obama, we have congressman clyburn here and congressman lewis. we have black business leaders and cultural and sports books the one they think about social economic indicators there are 43 million black people in the united states and only 10% make 100,000 -- that we really have 90% of people who are african-american who are not doing so well.

when we look at mass incarceration and unemployment and under employment in all these different things. i think where we are at today for certain group of african-americans is extraordinary. we cannot deny the progress that this group has made. by the same token this group is only a small subsection of a larger group so that becomes the major contradiction. what that group needs to do along with poor folks is talk about black equality and racial and economic justice. we can't just say we have got barack obama and the civil rights movement is over. >> guest: i would agree with that entirely. let me move into the political arena. we just experienced some riveting depictions in ferguson missouri but let me tell you something. i have looked at this. i had my staff do a little bit of research and we found out that if you look at the 2012 elections in ferguson, missouri,

56% of african-americans and that community community voted and the president election in 2012. in april of this year, only 6% of them bothered to vote. in the local elections for may mayor, the guy was up for re-election unopposed and only 6% of them bother to vote. now, something has to be done it seems to me to get people to understand that your job is not over when you elect an african-american president or an african-american to congress. i don't have a vote on the school board and my community. i don't have a vote on the city council or the county commission in the counties that i live in. and therefore, i am not the one

that is affecting your children's lives in that schoolhouse everyday so you have got to take those local and state elections just as seriously as you do the presidential elections. president obama may have delivered the affordable care act, however the implementation of parts of that act by the supreme court must be done at the same level. it must be the state governors and legislators who will determine whether or not medicaid gets expanded, whether or not cedar -- senior citizens get taken care of. the implementation is that the state and local level so what we have got to do is a better job of getting people to understand these local elections or just as important to your children and your grandchildren as he sits in

the white house. that to me is where we have begun to fall short. back in the activism days, we were marching to the polls as if there was no tomorrow. today, we keep waiting on tomorrow. >> host: james is calling in from murfreesboro tennessee. you are on booktv with james clyburn and peniel joseph. >> caller: yes, i want to ask a question to professor joseph and make a comment that i want both of them to address. when i was a seminarian in rochester new york i heard a speaker from a black church and he made a radical statement that if america messes with -- he will bring this country down to the ground. he said i know some of you want to follow me that you aren't going to follow me in the urban league. what did he think of in the

naacp and the urban league and urging them to join and also to congressman clyburn, i would like to see them not only do a study but the experience of the study. go out and take the family and live on $7.25 an hour and then come back and tell us about it. thank you very much. >> host: congressman do you want to start this time and that we will get to peniel joseph. >> guest: let me tell you something i was not always a congressman. i know what it's like to sleep three and a bed. i remember when we got our first indoor toilet and running water. i have had those experiences. i have worked for $1.25 an hour. i used to relocate outhouses in order to make enough money to pay my college -- to pay for my college education. i didn't come along when we had pell grants and student loans so

none of that i experience. my wife used to work -- walked 2.5 miles to school every morning and 2.5 miles back home because they were not allowed school buses in her school district. nobody can tell me how tough it is to make a living. but i'm not going to be sorry for having gotten elected to congress. i did what was necessary. i'm living my dreams and aspirations and i'm spending every day trying to make sure that pell grants are there for your children and grandchildren, the student aid is there for them. whatever it maybe i'm working for john lewis and the other members of the progressive black caucus to make that available for you and everybody else. i just want you to know i was not always a member of congress. >> host: in terms of stokely,

i think he would have wanted people to join the urban league and the naacp. he believed in organizing. what's going on in ferguson for instance if more people were organized they would have more political power. carmichael to ray believed wherever you where you needed to organize. with respect to the naacp and urban league they are extraordinarily important. they are advocates for racial justice and their advocates for economic justice and more important to their advocates for black equality. i think the biggest thing that we don't talk about in america in 2014 is this idea of black equality. that's more than racial justice. it's more than multiculturalism. if black people receive a quality there is going to be a trip -- trickle up effect for everyone else whether and,

people who are poor where people are physically challenged but you've got to talk about black equality because the country is founded on racial slavery. even though it's an uncomfortable subject and i don't think it has occurred to the president of the present has to talk about it. if all of us who are active citizens have to talk about this issue of black equality even if we are not black. that's interesting thing, it matters for all of us black equality even if we are not black because it's going to have a healthy impact on our democracy. >> host: peniel joseph how do you think your life has been different than congressman clyburn? >> guest: it's been very different in terms of jim crow racial segregation. even though it was a racially segregated united states of america that i grow up and it was different. i went to high school that was integrated. my neighborhood was predominately black but at the same time if you achieved an added dictational opportunities

you could leave the neighborhood. definitely i would say there were more opportunities and more access. at the same time i think one of the interesting things about the jim crow. not that congressman clyburn lib dem and congressman lewis, we are facing a new jim crow and it's not just with mass incarceration and there's a great new book the new jim crow. i think one of the worst parts about the united states is that blacks and whites are more likely to live, work, play, go to church and i separately. that's a huge problem because the resources aren't in the black communities. when the resources aren't there it means that black people when it comes to access to health care and public schools, when it comes to treatment in the criminal justice center. my life was shaped in shattered by a different kind of jim crow. my encounters with the police were not the same that you might've had although i haven't

stopped before as a teenager. i was never taken in because i had conversations telling people that haight i'm a student and i didn't do anything. i've been lucky in that sense but i think my life was a different kind of jim crow that was different than what the congressman had. >> host: peniel joseph was our guests earlier on our "in depth" program three hours. if you want to watch it and go to booktv.org and the search function. type in his name and you can watch three hours of peniel joseph talking about all this books including stokely carmichael, biography. james clyburn's book blessed experiences recently booktv covered him and his wife more importantly in aiken south carolina. you can also watch that on line as well. the next call call for the stooge among comes from steve right here in washington d.c.. hi steve. >> caller: good afternoon. stokely carmichael was an

atheist. how did that happen or how did he come to be of that persuasion and how did that figure in the otherwise fairly christian civil rights movement? >> guest: that's a great question. i think stokely, his people were methodist and he did grow up going to church but his own personal beliefs were agnostic. it did not affect them in a negative way. the reason was because stokely was a very savvy pragmatic organizer. he had read the bible many times in the to quote from the bible. when he was in church he sang church songs in hymns. he used that christian ethic that was a part of the heroic spirit of the civil rights movement. interesting -- interestingly when he became a black power advocate a post to multiple churches in washington d.c. and other places as well so he has a great relationship with a black church and understands that the black church is really the root

and the seed for black political activism in the united states both then and now i would argue. it didn't affect him negatively. he realized if you are going to say he wanted equal rights and racial justice whether people are believing it because of a philosophical reason or because god has led us he said he was fine. one of his best lines i will leave you with us this list. he's organizing in mississippi and he's with young white organizer who were volunteers. he tells them what, know some of you are atheist. we are not going to have any of that among the people here. he said if these folks think this movement is being run by god he said hooray. >> host: do you think the civil rights movement as a christian movement? >> guest: it was a religious

movement. it was not a christian movement. there were many jewish involved in the civil rights movement as there were christians and there were others religions. i have studied all of the great religions. in fact the first a i got in college was in comparative religion. my father was a minister. i grew up in the fundamentalist church of god. my wife emily grew up in -- we believe in duncan and they believed in sprint way. we all believed in something. all these things are symbolic of how to live in one four-letter word, love. love thy neighbor as thyself. all religions teach that. it's a big mistake, both the

leaders the face of the movement were all basically christians but martin luther king, jr. would never have been successful without the participation of the jewish. remember in mississippi those kids that were killed there during freedom summer were chaney and goodman. cheney was african-american and the other two were jewish. >> host: of the summer of 1962, 63. >> guest: is the fourth anniversary of freedom summer. that's part of what the activity is going on today is about the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act of 1964 but it's also the 50th anniversary of freedom summer which led to the civil rights act. the next year we will be celebrating whatever it was that led to the 65 voting rights act.

bloody sunday so we are going to be, we are already planning that. we have had conversations about things we can do next year to bring the focus on the voting rights act. one of those would be to get congress to agree on a formula that would satisfy the united states supreme court to reinstate the effectiveness of the 65 voting rights act. >> host: congressman dear member where you were when the civil rights act was signed in 1964? >> guest: oh yes i was teaching school, high school from 1962 to the spring of 1965. i was standing in front of my classroom lecturing when the pa system came on to announce that john f. kennedy had just been assassinated in 1963.

so sure, i remember where i was that day. i remember all the activities that led up to that. i listen to those things and i would say to anybody -- the gentleman i talked to before i would prefer him to the stimulus bill that we passed. he will find the thing in there called the clyburn amendment. in that amendment was 10, 20, 30 that directed 10% of all the money in that section of the l law, 20% or more for the last 30 years. 10, 20, 30. these were the kinds of things we worked on everyday to address the issues of under and unemployment and to try to reach people who are suffering today because the economy, the

recovery has not gotten to them to the way it should. we are trying to direct those resources and that's one of the ways we are doing it. >> host: catherine and amnon clough washington you are on the air. please go ahead. >> caller: its it's eman cloth. >> host: thank you, maam. >> caller: i want to thank those gentlemen for their service and their teaching. i am 70 years old a white woman who remembers very well freedom summer, emmett till, goodman cheney and schwerner. i remember all that and i don't want to see it happen again. i have been so angry at what happened in ferguson, trayvon martin, the two killings in new york by policemen. i just want to see it stop. this country is like -- france.

it learns nothing and it forgets nothing. please, you help get people organized, help us learn how to organize again? >> congressman clyburn? >> guest: this morning during my presentation of the book i was asked the question in fact it was the very last question that i had been asked. what can we do today to effectuate the same kind of organized efforts that they had back in the 1960s? my answer was something similar to this. we have got to use the tools we have. i remember when we were planning our first march in downtown orangeburg. i remember at midnight ruling in that mimeograph machine printing stuff out that we gave to couriers who ran to the

dormitories and back then you couldn't go on to girls dorms after 9:00 but we had a young lady come to the windows and we were stuffing those mimeograph notices for them to put under the doors of students saying we are going to meet at 12:00 tomorrow and we are going to march. 2000 people showed up. today we have twitter and we have facebook, we have all the social media stuff and i believe if we were to organize ourselves using social media and we wouldn't have to worry about this other foolishness that we get off the internet. let's put some stuff on the internet that will speak to the pert -- people of ferguson missouri. get to the polls by 7:00 this evening so we won't have to march at midnight. that's the kind of thing we have to do today. use the tools that we have. we have great tools to communicate but everything else.

we can text, what do we call it, texting. let's do some organizing over the internet. we have got the tools, let's use them for a new massive movement that will make sure they can have a november 2014 the kind of turnout at the polls that we had in 2012. if we vote in presidential elections at the same level, i mean and local elections at the same level that we vote in presidential elections, a lot of the stuff that you are fearful of right now will dissipate, go away. >> host: >> guest: i think we have to do what we can where we can. as a professor i run the center for the race and the mockers he.

this year ferguson is on her mind. these ferguson problems are local problems. they are in new york and washington d.c.. the university is very important here. our students don't know the stories. some of us teach african-american history and we teach courses on social movements and social justice. one thing i find really are markell is that many people have never taken civil rights course. they have never taken a black history course before they enter college campus, whether they are white or black. they need to to know why does martin luther king matter and why did representative clyburn matter but why does ferguson happen? we need to have an understanding of everything from racial flavoring to citizenship and voting rights in this country and we can do that by organizing on our campuses, teaching. we had teach-ins against the vietnam war. we can do teach-ins for racial

and economic justice in the 21st century. we can do a lot and i think the key for this is education but also dialogue. black and white people in this country, we are not speaking to each other. we need to have a dialogue with each other that not about recrimination or accusation but that's rooted in reality where we have today? why are so many black people in jail? what about immigration? why are so many black people poor? why does ferguson happen? if we have that dialogue we can connect that dialogue to a push for public policy at the local level, at the regional and state level and finally at the national level. >> guest: i'm very very pleased to hear that. in fact last wednesday evening my wife and i had dinner with the president at the university of south carolina. this was the kind of discussion we had. what we can do in my

congressional district to really pick the mantle up and to make current these kinds of efforts and what world can the university play in that? they are doing a tremendous job i think of trying to find a way to make the university of south carolina relevant going forward. if you go back and look at history and 1860s that was one of the few integrated universities that we had in the country. it has gone a different way in recent years. dr. bobby donaldson reminds me so much of you. i don't know which one of you is the oldest. maybe you remind me of him but he is leading this effort on the university campus. he just did a tremendous effort.

i heard you earlier today talking about 1963. well bobby has done a tremendous piece on all that took place in 1963 and when you get a chance you have to take a look at that. he has gone back and gotten all these tapes some of which were taken by the police who were really surveying rather than recording. he dug up all that stuff and he is updating it as it develops. >> host: congressman clyburn in your book blessed experienc experience -- blessed experience as i think your daughter mignon when she went to the university of south carolina there was an incident there regarding a black homecoming queen. >> guest: absolutely. i tell that story in the book. it starts with mignon getting ready to go to college. her mother said to make mignon is about to leave home and she

is insisting to live on the campus. you need to have a talk with her before she goes. i kept putting it off. finally the day came. i sat down with mignon and i said many on you are about to go up on the campus. you've got to understand that when you get on that campus a lot of things are going to happen that are really good because you are jim clyburn's daughter but some things are going to happen to you that ain't so good because you are jim clyburn's daughter. i said don't you worry about all that. someday it's going to happen to you because you are a woman and you are black. those things will never even now. he will have to work hard to overcome those things. she didn't say anything. thanksgiving she called me and asked what i come and pick her up because they were closing the dormitories for thanksgiving. i went by the dormitory -- dormitory picked her up and on

my way home and automobile passed us, this was 1980 and it had a bumper sticker on the back of it george rogers for heisman. that was george rogers that one the heisman that year. she said dad did you see that bumper sticker on that car? i said yes. she said do you think that man would put your bumper sticker, i was running for secretary of state, on his car? i said no i don't think he would, why do you ask? she said that was the conversation we had as you are about to take me to school. i did not understand what you meant until the recent homecoming game. i said what happened at home coming? she said well at the homecoming game, i noticed that when our black homecoming queen that was

introduced, she was -- and she noticed the fans that booed the loudest were the same that cheered the loudest for george rogers at the beginning of the game. i said okay and what does that say to you? she said well, it is okay for us to entertain them but not okay for us to represent them. now do you know what? you are going to do well. and she had done well. >> host: mignon clyburn is a member of the federal communications system today. michael and philadelphia thanks for holding on. michael you have to -- we are going to leave michael. sorry about that, you have to turn down the volume on your tv.

listen to your telephone he will be able to everything. stephanie, stephanie is an aurora colorado. hi stephanie. >> caller: hi, thank you for taking my call. congressman and mr. joseph, thank you so much for being here today. thank you for telling your stories. i would like to echo what the lady said from washington, is that what is the scope of the federal government and how they reach 50 states? there is a separation. the states do have you know their own laws and jurisdictions and their constitutions and such but all throughout the contiguous united states there is police brutality and problems with minority groups and also mr. joseph mentioned something very important as well that it's our fellow white americans as

well that should be alarmed with this. it's people's civil rights that have been breached here. i'm wondering what the federal government, what is their scope and what can they do or is it just left up to the states? my husband and i have five children. we have two boys and two girls. three boys are adults doing we well, have six figures. they are very intelligent but i was just alarmed that what i saw and what i hear, you know we have been blessed. they have never been in trouble, done well. i have one daughter in college, one graduating from high school next year but it really touched me deeply and i'm thinking what can we do? i live in colorado and i've lived in a middle-class mixed

neighborhood. my kids have grown up that way so, but my husband and i, my husband grew up in south carolina and my parents grew up in arkansas. our kids really haven't seen a lot of this but these things come out now when we talk about it. it just touched me terribly because i'm thinking this could be happening to my kids. >> host: thank you, maam. peniel joseph. >> guest: it's a great question. i will leave it to the congressman to get the specifics but in a broad historical way when we think about the federal government the new deal, the only reason why we are living the way we do now is because of the federal government and the new deal in the 1930s and 40s, the agricultural adjustment act and the national labor relations board because of the federal government. in the 60s the federal government of the civil rights act and voting rights act. lyndon johnson, the war on poverty. states had to implement in a

fashion that they found judicious these big programs. the affordable care act the largest expansion of government in the last 50 years. what's interesting about the federal government, the federal government can do a whole lot. it's just that in our own time we live in an age where there's the most economic inequality in american history since the gilded age of the 19th century. the age of the rockefellers and the vanderbilt and those people. but the federal government to do when we think about ferguson would be a new, whether it's a great society or urban renewal program. what's interesting is that what impact white americans as well and as latinos. the reason why say that as americans we should think about black equality is because even the new deal and great society because of institutional racism black equality was not actually achieved even though there was a huge federal mandate. in 2014 because we are aware of

racial injustice we could actually have huge federal programs that achieve social justice for everyone. think the federal government can do a whole lot not just for black equality but for poverty in the united states. >> guest: i'm going to agree with that but let's take a step further. the new deal did a lot for a lot of people but it took truman's fair deal to implement so much of that. if you recall from the new deal and i know you know this much better than i do, it did a lot for agriculture, for what we call the wpa, the ccc but when those things were taken down to the state level, they were segregated. they had labels on them and roosevelt did nothing about that. it took truman's fair deal to remove some of those labels.

it was truman and executive order getting rid of the services back in 1948. it wasn't executive order by abraham lincoln really that implemented the emancipation proclamation. people went to see lincoln and what they didn't realize the 13th amendment was important because lincoln just knew if he didn't get the 13th amendment passed the moment he stepped out of office this executive order was going to be rescinded by the next executive. these things are interrelated and we just cannot really separate them out. so when you look at the new de deal, then you get to the fair deal, you get to the great society with lyndon johnson. a lot of people, i've heard them say some of my colleagues that the war on poverty fail. the war on poverty did not fail.

in fact the war on poverty in january 1964 and the following june and july civil rights act passed in 1964. the voting rights act in 1965. safe harbor law in 1968. all eight. all of that is a part of the great society. i would not be where i am today without the voting rights act of 65. many of us, we wouldn't be where we are except for the civil rights act of 64. all of that was a part of the great society's war on poverty. it did not fail. it succeeded. i'm living testimony and so is john lewis of the fact that it did not fail. >> host: caitlin kaitlyn and michigan please go ahead with your question or comment.

i apologize, we just couldn't quite catch what tim was saying so we are going to move to fern and detroit michigan. >> caller: hello, my name is vernon brown and i'm in detroit. i'm a member of the association of african-american life and history association of black storytellers. i would like to know how would either one of you go about to get juneteenth as a national holiday? it is a state holiday in 43 states and we really want people to be aware of what juneteenth is. it is a celebration for all people to celebrate freedom and i would like to know how you would go about a grassroots political.

>> host: congressman clyburn lester with you this time. juneteenth. >> guest: i will leave it up to be professor because i don't know i subscribe to the national holiday. juneteenth commemorates the date 18 months after the emancipation proclamation that the former slaves in texas got noticed that they were in fact free. now the other states were already out enjoying their freedom. in south carolina we were already electing black people to the state legislature, to the congress. the majority of the legislature in the general assembly in south carolina in this period of time were african-american. three out of the four congresspeople we had were african-americans. so we had gotten the word in

south carolina in many states and were going on to implement it. for some strange reason they were denied in texas until the 19th of june, the next year. so now but professor needs und under -- make me understand why that needs to be national holiday. >> host: before you answer peniel joseph why do you necessarily subscribe to national holiday? >> guest: because i'm trying to find out what is national about the word getting to one state late? gets good juneteenth 1865 i think should be a national holiday. the reason why is it the end of slavery nationally so it's not about the fact that it gets to texas late. it's about if we celebrated the end of chattel slavery and if we taught our citizens the way in which african-americans and whites contributed and fought and died for the end of slavery

both in the civil war and politically. you mentioned congressman the film link and that the film lincoln doesn't have frederick douglas annette and frederick douglass met with the fresno diocese three times. he is as big a part of emancipation proclamation as -- so i agree that vernon that should be a national holiday. the reason why it's a matter of democracy and citizenship. we live in a country that remembers to forget slavery that remembers to forget lynching, that remembers to forget all these horrible things that happened in the population. if we remembered on june 19 at the end of slavery we could also remember all the americans who died and came together to end slavery including white americans. so juneteenth is very important again as a matter of small t democracy and citizenship where we became making new united states of america by the time all of our citizens realized there was freedom. >> guest: that's something we

have to have a great discussion on. we were talking about how universities ought to be involved in this and that's something we ought to have a discussion on. i have talked to a lot of people who still don't understand exactly what the 13th amendment is about. i know lincoln was involved in the movement that i had nothing to do with the movement with a person of the united states at the time to get an amendment to the constitution getting rid of slavery. that is something totally different irrespective of who got him there. that is what the 13th amendment the movie was all about. that was absolutely wrong and i don't know why they left that in the movie but that was absolutely wrong and the people are still angry about that. >> host: james clyburn is currently the assistant democratic leader in the house of representatives and has been

in congress since 1993. the book we are talking about today with him is "blessed experiences." genuinely something, probably black. peniel joseph is a history professor at tufts university. here is his most recent book, stokely, a life. he's also the author of waiting till the midnight hour and narrative history of black power in america and fresno california have about 30 seconds. >> caller: thank you for everybody participating what they're doing. the question of stokely carmichael's relationship with the founding of c-span and then i wanted to ask a question about organizing when you talk about organizing with this new technology. dana imbursing knowing well about twitter knowing well about facebook.

the question of what is net neutrality and using that to organize. [inaudible] these guys at the end of their lives when you talk about black power and true economic power like pre-colonial africa these pre-constitutional religion and spiritual -. >> host: i apologize. let's hear from our guests. >> guest: brian lamb the founder talks about how stokely carmichael was part of the inspiration for c-span. he saw carmichael speak as a young man and he said carmichael gave a brilliant speech and lecture and he was in person seeing it in later on on the nightly news he saw the same speech he had been at. he said he thought the news was

the most incendiary part in all the well digested subtle nuances of the speech. the most incendiary fall of the park and he felt that he wanted to create a media platform where people could speak from beginning to and in their entirety and he would let viewers decide what it is they just experienced. kwame ture was interviewed by brian lamb so they always have a special relationship. >> host: in fact if you want to see that interview a few months before kwame ture stokely carmichael, died you can go to the c-span video library. it's all available at c-span.org. type in kwame ture or stokely carmichael and you will be able to watch that. gentlemen we are running out of time. mr. clyburn you made reference to ferguson a couple of times here in this conversation.

what's going to happen when congress comes back with regard to any hearings, legislative action especially perhaps a lot of the talk about the militarization of the police force. do you foresee any legislative action on behalf of congress? >> guest: oh yes i do especially regarding the militarization of police forces. to have police officers decked out in camouflage, sitting atop these mraps many of which are made in my district and i know why they are made. .. maiming people. they were made for the city

streets. these things were made for war and for you to dress as if you are going to war for you to talk to people as if you had war with them. this is the kind of thing that is absolutely incredible. i think that congress is going to seek a response to that. the president really made it clear that he is looking at doing something about it. and i think he can by executive can by executive order since these things are being given to these police officers the legislated by congress. >> a little bit from james clyburn. a little bit friend experiences. i almost called you stokely carmichael. gentleman is always, we appreciate you being with us.

>> here's a look at books being published this week.