does have walls and we can figure them out, that's astonishing. but even more than that, that universe is not only rational, it's also beautiful. and the law is also beautiful. ..

[laughter] and it is an oh my.moment and it must have been to maxwell because not only is electricity and magnetism things that can travel like waves but the wave is that the speed of light. and when you craft that you are overwhelmed with and a motion of amazement and how beautiful it all fits together because it's not just symmetric. they are little bits of asymmetry that are necessary for the pieces to fit together that way. and it's not just that maxwell's equations are beautiful but you know what is the light that maxwell's equations describe. whoever said that the universe had to be so beautiful? that's the part that i will never get enough of.

thank you everybody. [applause] >> thank you so much for joining us. our next lecture is going to be on december 9 and it's about earth's orbit and earth orbit along with his sons around the galactic center. it's part of a -- we will be holding so we invite you december 9. now i'm sure that you have further questions. please hold those questions until we get through the lobby where guy consolmagno will be signing books. thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

up next on booktv, "after words" with guest host michael meyers executive director of the new york civil rights coalition. this week jason sokol and his latest book, "all eyes are upon us." and at the historian argues that while the northeast enjoys a reputation as a fast -- bastion for racial equality in reality blacks were relegated to living in ghettos and working menial jobs until northern leaders challenge citizens to practice what they were preaching. this program contains language that some may find offensive. >> host: jason it's difficult to decide where to begin with your book. we are going to make a teaser to the audience. we are going to get to the conflict in the clash between ed

brooke and joe biden but that's a teaser for the audience. let's begin where you began and that is southern history. this is in the history books but the precedent to brown v. board of education and the springfield locale. >> guest: well, the sense of history, i do have an argument they are about the way that northern history operates versus the way that southern history operates. woodward famously wrote about the burden of southern history where southerners have all around them the trappings of slavery and segregation and history with something to unlo unload, a burden to unload for his people who grow up in the north i think particularly white northerners don't think of there on pastor at their own heritage in that way. in fact they think of it as something to live up to.

northern history is something to aspire to so that's what i mean about the sense of history at the beginning and the first story that i start out with as you say it's about springfield massachusetts. that city, a small city in massachusetts, 150,000 in 1939 just as world war ii was starting, the leaders of that city and the school superintendent pioneered a plan that they said would abolish prejudice and abolish racism. from a school system in from the city at large so they adopted this curriculum in these principles with this high-minded goal of eradicating young people's minds racism. >> host: did they come to that on their own or was there something to push them to that? >> guest: they drew upon

curricula being developed by a bunch of professors at columbia college which went along with these broader movements towards teaching pluralism basically in the world war i to world war ii period. >> host: why do they care? >> guest: why did they care? part of why they care during world war ii was because the threat of racism from hitler's nazi germany seem so real and tangible on the one hand. this is the northern centers in massachusetts and new york so they saw overseas this threat of fascism and nazism and they also saw below the mason-dixon line the threat of what you might call southern segregation and northeasterners pictured themselves, and this is what my book is about, the northeast massachusetts new york connecticut, this area that featured itself as the rain -- land of racial progress in

tolerance and political liberalism. i think what you are getting out by the to brown v. board was the dull test. kenneth clarke famously did you know, you know kevin clark. kenneth clarke. >> host: your book is full of great names the names that have been forgotten. >> guest: kenneth clarke famous social psychologists african-american from harlem who pioneered this way of studying the effects of segregation upon schoolchildren and his most famous test was the dull test which he gained renown during the brown v. board case where he was the star witness for the naacp and for thurgood marshall. so what clark did was he went into segregated public schools

and he did a test on children where his two instruments were dolls, a white doll and a brown doll. >> host: public schools in the south and integrated schools in the north. >> guest: the interesting thing is that my book brings out is this precursor story in the north where clark began his test and springfield in 1939 and the idea was to pick springfield because it was supposed to be the model of the integrated school system. it was the home of the springfield plan which was the program i was describing. clark chose springfield as his northern testing ground to contrast with the segregated south. he would later talk about on the brown versus board witness stand that these tests in the north and the results of the tests were that he would ask black children about the dolls and he would say give me the doll that

looks like you. give me the doll that looks pretty. give me the doll that you want to be friends with or things along that line. without a doubt the vast majority of them would associate the white doll with the positive associations and feelings and they would associate, they would pick the brown doll when the question asked them something negative and clark argued, he concluded from that should black children at a very young age have already internalized these feelings of inferiority and what he called the badge of inferiority which the supreme court agreed with. >> host: were there differences between the southern black child in the so-called segregated schools in the northern children in terms of their sense of empty already based on that test? >> guest: the fascinating thing is there was a difference but not the difference we might

expect. the difference was the children and springfield in fact usually pick the white doll at a higher rate than the children in arkansas are in south carolina. that is the northern black children in the supposedly integrated schools seem to be associating the white doll even more readily with the positive characteristics. but clark argued that didn't mean that his conclusion was not necessarily that these northern children were thus more traumatized or more scarred by segregation. in fact clark said that you know he used all these quotes were the children work clearly in torment when they had to pick the white doll and they realized that they weren't white. >> host: black child in the north would say well this was me and the fact that i went i got a tan at the beach. >> guest: right.

what they were trying to explain away, explain away the fact of their race so clark said -- the southern marchella would accept the black doll and the sense that he accepted or she accepted the fact that she used the word. i met -- that was a southern black in the doll tests. >> guest: right so this was clark's argument that the southern black children accepted segregation with much less inner turmoil or outward torment and that the northern children were wrestling with their decisions of which doll to pick much more expressively and emotionally and so clark took that to mean that northern children had not accepted their condition in the segregated society to the same degree that southern children had. >> host: at the bottom line

being that northern black children in the southern black children were all damaged by segregation. >> guest: they all were and you know this is what later psychologists would argue when northern schools came under the court decisions and when the undead -- naacp came to litigate southern psychologists would say look the effect on black children in quote unquote you know integrated schools or schools that just had de facto segregation was the term for the segregation in the north. later psychologists would say it. >> host: what was the big deal about brown v. the board of education in 1954? >> guest: that the deal was that the supreme court ruled that segregation was in itself unconstitutional you know, that separate but equal in public

schools. >> host: but that was a big deal? >> guest: it was a big deal at the time in 1954 where you know southern leaders, political leaders and rose up in massive resistance. >> host: they believed in segregation. >> guest: of course. and a lot of northern leaders, that is white northern leaders when the brown v. board of decision came down in 1954 they believed that main debt -- mandate did not apply to them great for instance new york city schools certainly have a high incidence of racial segregation so did boston schools and so did most all the public schools in the big northern cities and white northerners thought the mandate for brown v. board only apply to those school systems where the system of segregation was on the books mandating separate but equal whereas in the north there was something not quite as explicit

but where the results change. >> host: but there was also something odd about brown v. education -- board of education in segregation in public schools declared unconstitutional. the supreme court did something. it did two things. number one the basis for this decision, not law per se but we cite social science. studies about the effects of segregation on black children and they used the famous footnote in kenneth v. cook as a study for the basis for their decision for declaring public schools that were segregated unconstitutional. it was a big deal because a lot of people, social scientists and lawyers said what is the core doing? >> guest: right. it wasn't grounded in the precedent of legal history is so much as it was grounded and the

findings. >> host: the second things the courts did or did not do is to wait a whole year and that's unusual for supreme court decision. usually when you find a constitutional violation the supreme court says you have to do it right away but they didn't do that. >> guest: no in fact they waited until 1955 in which the court released the ruling known as brown two and that ruling said the segregation in the south had to occur with all deliberate speed and white southerners interpreted that as meaning they could occur in whatever time i may wish. >> host: as you alluded and i know kenneth clarke or new kenneth clarke who is now deceased that but he was one of my two mentors in my life. kenneth clark had great hope for brown v. board of education but he also thought the court had aired in the sense that it

did not say that segregated public schools not only harmed the intellectual and psychological development of black people but also harmed white children. the court never said anything about that. and then he kept saying that it's the right to anybody who asked him was you could not delay. any sign of delay from the courts to implement their decision would really embolden and encourage the opposition. >> guest: right and the reality particular in a rural south public schools did not segregated until 1969 or 70 with the decision of alexander v. holmes county. many schools in the north north remain beyond the reach of brown

up until the 1970s and we know what happened in boston at that point. >> host: did springfield feel that they were beyond the reach of brown or did they have a more enlightened disposition about bringing black and white children, and those days black and white children together in a unitary school system? they thought there were differences in the south and therefore there was no evidence to it. >> guest: the interesting thing is they felt they had a more enlightened position than they often did have a more enlightened position but dispositions did not add up to integration. they practiced segregation on the ground in the schools, in the neighborhoods just as the same time as the city leaders pioneered this plan to eradicate racism from white minds. what you found in the north, what i found in the north, one of the conundrums is that you could have all of these people

and i'm talking about white northerners, who prided themselves on a racial progressivism, prided themselves on being colorblind and at the same time were deeply committed in our policies to segregation in the schools and in the neighborhoods. you found this in springfield for instance. springfield had to fend off, the springfield leaders had to fend off a case from the naacp in 1964. the case was called barksdale versus springfield schools and the naacp under the leadership of robert carter and lewis steele filed a suit against the springfield schools and said your schools are segregated, just as segregated as many others and it doesn't matter that you have a plan to eradicate racism and it doesn't matter that you have forward-thinking people. your schools are still segregated and you've got to do something about it.

>> host: your book focuses on progressives and it talks about the differences in terms of attitudes of the liberals. there were growing tensions in the south. they believed segregation was a way of life and you quote very famous people. he talked about james baldwin and we haven't heard his names for many years but james baldwin and he and other liberals said the north is no different from the south except that in attitude and rhetoric. i know lots of liberals used to say the north is up south for them. your book talks about that and demonstrates it in many ways. >> guest: right. one of the things that i found

really fascinating when i decided to tackle the subject of race in the northeast and my first book was on white southerners so i started this project back in 2006, and i tried to study race in the northeast and i read anything that had me written on it before. i found that most books on race in the north either called the up south, that is the boston busing might have been mississippi and studies. they were the same because racism was exhibited. on the other hand you had a lot of folks that actually portray the north is a land of liberty, as a place without jim crow laws and without a long history of lynching and with a lesser history of secession. but i found that something in the middle was much more truthful. if you had to write a book about

the ambiguities of northern race relations you had to write a book that honored the northeast claims to progressivism and its realities of racial segregation at the same time. that war between those traditions, that conflict, that duality was at the heart of northern race relations. >> host: very well indicated that it also reminded me of malcolm x and malcolm x said there is no such thing as the south. the south is america. that reminded me of your "from james baldwin, reminded me of the falling earth quote. he said the sons of slave traders still deal and doubletalk where they swap the voting block for ghetto and gun. they have swapped the voting block for ghetto and done.

how did it happen that blacks didn't come to new york as they say? blacks came to harlem. they didn't go to chicago. how did that happen? >> guest: how did happen, exactly. these are great liberal cities. so this first happened during the first great migration of world war i but we had several million african-americans coming in the second great migration during world war ii and the years afterwards paid for instance they would come to a place like new york city. they would go to harlem where they already had relatives and they would find there weren't any places to live in harlem. harlem had been packed in a way so a lot of them trickled down to brooklyn. that is where they met with the blockbusting realtor who was not

quite like -- the blockbusting realtor was the north analogy to the southern billy club wielding sheriff. that is, the north didn't have the bull connor type who went out with fire hoses and attack dogs in the streets. with the north had was something harder to see and more insidious which was a system of real estate practices and housing covenants and stonewalling ban banks. the system of economics and sometimes politics that what corel african-americans in the same neighborhoods and keep them there. in fact you could also see the lines of bedford stuyvesant itself change over the years to envelop whatever african-americans had gone through so as the neighborhood expanded us black people expanded to the outskirts of that neighborhood, city leaders

change the definition of the neighborhood. >> host: some people have a different view of the blockbuster and the violence in the north. for example there was a long period of time story of police brutality and misconduct which we will get to later on. don't forget we have to get to the kerner commission. the blockbuster use scare tactics. they scare the whites off the blocks. the blacks are coming, the blacks are coming. your property value will go down. they will go down and people who said they weren't racist. >> guest: that was an article of faith. they thought they real estate values will plummet if african-americans came onto their blog. one thing i try to do when i spelled -- tell the story of

bedford stuyvesant how bedford stuyvesant became basically this ghetto as holly murray called it, the interesting thing is that happen the same year when jackie robinson was playing on the brooklyn dodgers. you can see right in the heart of broken the two northern stories going on at the same time. brooklynites welcoming jackie robinson rooting for him on the one hand i'm on the other being frightened moving into bed sty or a lot of people moved out when they moved to bay ridge, a lot of bay ridge moving to statin island across the water. >> host: white flight. so those were the years when whites were discovering blacks. they were still talking about the black people. they didn't go to school with them and the ones they saw were

like jackie robinson and that changed a lot of people's minds. jackie robinson became the symbol that blacks could play baseball and blacks could think and not just athletes because jackie robinson was not just an athlete. he was a scholar and an academic. he went to colleges that were rigorous colleges. that's when a lot of whites with you call them conservatives or liberals change their attitudes are adopted new attitudes because of jackie robinson which was a breakthrough for race relations. when jackie robinson started out he didn't start out in brooklyn. >> guest: he started first in the leagues and then he went to brooklyn minor-league team which was in canada. montréal and he was beloved by many fans in montréal.

there's a famous line that jackie helped to win -- but he was mobbed by a white canadians in the first time a white white mob encircled a white mob encircle the black man and out of love instead of hate is how the story goes. >> host: is that the case when he went to massachusetts? >> guest: the first team that had the chance to sign jackie robinson where the boston red socks and they have that chance in 1945 right after world war ii and robinson of course served in world war ii. he had a tryout at fenway park. the way he got to tryout was a a city counselor in boston named butts said he was going to, well the long story is the boston baseball team in order to play games on sundays they needed basically to get a waiver from the city council because there

were laws against playing games on sundays. but schneck said he was going to refuse to vote for the waiver unless one of the boston teams gave african-american players at fair tryout. this brought jackie robinson along with a couple of other african-american ballplayers. at fenway park he was of course great in the tryout. he was a lightning on the base paths and never got a call back. so boston flopped on its face when it had the chance to integrate baseball and to sign jackie robinson. it would be two more years before brooklyn sees the chance. >> host: to close out the springfield project, we have to get to the springfield project because it a -- i recall from your book they tried to teach tolerance. there was an early experiment in

teaching tolerance and acceptance in terms of different races. >> guest: this was called the springfield plan is the name of went by and it was pioneered by the superintendent of schools a guy named john graham row two had come to the teachers college to try to implement his plan. the idea was to have a curricula that would teach about all races and ethnicities and nationalities in the early 1940s. a public school system talk about reconstruction at the time of inter-racial democracy and not about some nightmare in which blacks ruled the south. that was downright futuristic in terms of the early 1940s. any school system teaching reconstruction in that way. springfield did make some real advances that i think were important at the time. the problem was that didn't amount to integration in the

schools, integrations in the city. still you had african-americans coming to springfield during the great migration and ending up in springfield version of ghettos and getting filtered into menial labor jobs and things like that. i would want to downplay the efforts of the school system but at the same time you don't want to say they ended up achieving any sort of racial justice. >> host: what your book is a must-read because one of the things you point out in your book even though you felt that it was important eventually they got around to those who. [inaudible] and they even had a film about the springfield riots to teach other people in other systems how to do what springfield was doing. >> guest: warner brothers released the film in 1945 call that happen in springfield. i grew up in springfield mass. when i heard about this film it

blew my mind. i never knew my anonymous city named springfield is there any more a anonymous name would have had a movie made about it by warner bros. and a movie about its efforts to abolish racism from the schools. that was a big deal when it came out at the time. we have got to remember what the time of world war ii was like. this was when americans, many americans truly believed they were living the world of fashion -- ridding the world of fascism and racism. they took their country's claims to freedom and racial democracy seriously. a film like it happened in springfield and a program like the springfield plan which many other cities started to copy the springfield plan, those were serious efforts during wartime. when the war ended it seemed like it was a balloon and all the air from it was released. the war was a time when the

nation pressed together. well despite some obvious instances. there were race riots in harlem and there was one in detroit and it portrayed wartime as -- but in relative terms it was a time when the nation pressed together and take it seriously. >> host: one of the things that you make very plain is the northern blacks had an advantage over the southern blacks. they had the franchise, the right to vote. >> guest: that's right. >> host: that is where i think the book that paints the north similar to the south, i think those books are correct up to a point but in the north african-americans could vote and they did vote and in some instances they built their own urban political machines. in chicago and in brooklyn and

in new york city and harlem of course. in some instances they built. >> host: they used it to their advantage. >> guest: anyway. if you had have a city where you voted by district as you often did in the cities at place like harlem where you had a fast black majority could elect their own and send them to office and deputy mayor became a position held by african-americans. >> host: african-americans also voted for liberal whites. >> guest: they did. >> host: you make that very plain in your book. let's pause there and we will come back and we will get to the kerner convention report in ed brooke versus joe biden or should we say joe biden versus ed brooke, okay? >> guest: okay.

>> host: we have to skip over unfortunately a lot in your book and a lot of history including the racial riots that scared america and frighten everybody and go to the kerner convention report in which they were to african-americans and they were ed brooke and roy wilkins who was the executive director of the naacp, my other mentor. something about the kerner commission report that was appointed by lbj that suggested that there was something about the explanation. roy wilkins summaries along an

extensive report where he said white americans had to learn that racial justice cannot be defined as being kind to their black cooks. i thought that was devastating incitement of white racism in america but also said rory wilkins wasn't the portrayed by many blacks. they regarded rory wilkins as not black enough as an uncle tom. ambra who was criticized. he was appointed by black voters and white voters obviously. he was a senator for mostly white massachusetts and he was criticized for not being black enough. >> guest: ed brooke had a remarkable political career. he was the first african-american ever elected to the senate by popular vote and he was the first african-american to serve in the senate since reconstruction.

so ed brooke was first elected in 1956 in the senate by massachusetts which was 97% white at the time. brooke was a republican, liberal republican and also a protesta protestant. in a state that was overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly democratic and brooks pulled it off winning in 66 and he won again in 72 and he was the only african-american to be reelected to the senate until cory booker i guess. he had a remarkable political career. as you suggest to be relied upon the white voters and because he was a republican there are many african-americans of a moral radical who thought of brooke as too moderate and so when the

kerner commission was formed after the urban riots of 1967 a lot of people said hey weighed the only good african-americans on the commissioner wilkinson broke. the irony was the conclusion that the commission came to was as damning of white america, as damning of white institution has any radical himself or herself. the kerner commission said the responsibility for the urban riots lies at the foot of white america, white american leaders. it said america is moving towards two separate societies, white and black, separate and unequal. and so you know brooke burnished his credentials on civil rights that his career in the senate. at the same time he sort of had to perform this balance where he had to keep white voters voting for him while he worked in the

senate. he worked hard for school to segregation which was dear to him. open housing was dear to him and of course his work on the kerner commission. >> host: was this the same brooke that came from the same state as the liberal ted kennedy? ted kennedy was white and catholic and irish. >> guest: kennedy was also part of political world see, the kennedy family and being a kennedy in massachusetts. >> host: what is royalty have to do with chappaquiddick? race has everything to do with the liberals in massachusetts. i saw your book and here we are going back to the 70s. wow, america was really inter-racial tinderbox. there was an uproar in the nation about busing, busing and

then you had ed brooke standing up because to a republican president at this time he had richard nixon who had run on a campaign, law and order and what they called the southern strategy. dean felt it wasn't time to change the supreme court. you have to put people on the court for school disaggregation. >> guest: the thing was that brooke supported nixon for president in 1968 as a republican. brooke supported him. he thought that nixon would be a little more progressive on integration than nixon ended up being but nixon showed the southern strategy for him which was his strategy where he played to write -- white racial fears, that was not just a temporary electoral strategy to get elected. it was also a way of governing

for nixon. he showed that with us for supreme court nominees where he nominated clement haynesworth who was infamous in the leaders of prince edward county virginia and the leaders of prince edward county. >> host: they close the schools rather than to integrate them. >> guest: they close the schools rather than to integrate them and they decided any judicial decision and after haynes was nomination was defeated nixon offered in great part due to ed brooke standing on the tenth floor and saying this person does not have a record to equal rights, a record that turned equal rights respectable and that is why we should vote him down. they did vote down haynesworth.

and then the second one. >> host: i say mediocre because it was upheld. >> guest: the second one was harold carswell. even his supporters called him mediocre. they said he should pass muster. so carswell had an even worse record on civil rights and desegregation than haynesworth had. >> host: g. harold carswell rulings were ruled by the appellate court 15 times. >> guest: i think 15 out of 15. i think a lot of senators couldn't believe that was nixon's second choice was

carswell because he was trying to call the senate's bluff. nixon was thing nixon was saying he will go down one of my nominees that you are not going to put down the second comedy. ed brooke looked through carswell's rulings and ed brooke was silent for a period of weeks about the carswell nomination which angered it ed brooks and angered many in the congressional black caucus that he eventually came around and he stood up on the senate floor and he said you know this guy is a segregationist and he showed all of carswell's declarations, personal declarations and his rulings on the bench and eventually carswell was voted down as well in no small part due to the work by ed brooke. >> host: [inaudible] >> guest: well, right. this was part of it. when he came into the senate there was a lot of question about what kind of african-american is ed brooke?

>> host: the interesting thing is that what your book reminds me of is the closer to proximity the civil rights movement and the race movement to expand general liberty and civil rights to other groups who did nixon appoint when hollingsworth and carswell went down? who did he appoint? >> guest: haynesworth and carswell were both voted down and nixon nominated harry bought been. >> host: from minnesota who was a conservative. >> guest: who was the conservatives of was supported unanimously by the senate and wrote the majority in roe v. wade. nixon did not see that coming. [laughter] >> host: this was also a problem for brooke after roe v. wade was decided in 73. brooke came out for a woman's

right to choose. in this heavily catholic state of massachusetts. then in 1974 as one school busing began in massachusetts. brooke had to deal with being a liberal on bob -- both of those issues and being an african-american in the senate. >> host: he had to be confirmed to the electorate. and let's go to the title of your book, "all eyes are upon us." i kept saying to myself what is this title about? i finally found the evidence to support your title. tell us about "all eyes are upon us" in terms of ed brooke and the massachusetts law that provided for racial equality in the schools. >> guest: right.

"all eyes are upon us" is that quote from the puritans. let me rephrase that. "all eyes are upon us" is that quote from the puritan leader john woodruff who said all eyes are upon you know we shall be a city on the hill and all eyes are upon us. >> host: the governor of massachusetts. >> guest: wrightsville later on during the civil rights struggle leaders of massachusetts would look to that lofty heritage and try to live up to that lofty heritage so massachusetts in 1965 pass a law called the racial imbalance act which was the first state law -- imbalance act. racial imbalance act which basically said of the school was segregated which they defined by physically a certain number of black children and white children thahat no school coulde racial imbalance. that is no school could have segregation so the school systems had to achieve

integration. that law was passed by the legislature in 1955 and the two cities in massachusetts that had a large number of african-american schoolchildren, those students were bused to springfield didn't lift a finger. they didn't lift a finger in terms of abiding in the law in terms of integrating and this is why we finally got the involvement. not because some judge decided to just order busing. it's because for nine years and more the city counselors and the school committee of the city of boston decided not to comply with the racial imbalance act and so this sort of pushed the judiciary a one where in 1974, well 1974 is when you have this

battle in the legislature where state legislators are trying to repeal the racial imbalance act and this is what you were getting at. the republican governor francis sergeant stood up and said he wasn't going to repeal it. he kept vetoing the repeals and he looked to that john winthrop heritage and he said all eyes are upon us. >> host: we have to be the beacon he said. >> guest: we are the model. we are what people look at. john f. kennedy used the same words. we are the actions of america so invoking that history in terms of massachusetts obligation, historic obligation to lead the nation and the civil rights movement. >> host: and then what happens? >> guest: indeed, and then what happens. that was the governor vetoing the racial imbalance act.

he finally ultimately cave. >> host: ultimately. >> guest: after many years he seceded to the racial imbalance act. judge garrity of boston, federal district court ruled that the boston school committee had indeed segregated the schools and had not only segregated schools by some accident of housing geography, but had done it through a series of intentional decisions over many years, transferring students from one school together, redrawing, redrawing district lines, intentionally keeping. >> host: in a lawsuit by the naacp. >> guest: lawsuits brought by the naacp is a garrity ruled that boston schools had to be integrated and they have to do it by sending white children on

buses threw rocks very which was the black ghetto. not any white students but white students from south boston and then students from roxbury to south boston. >> host: you have a class struggle under ray struggle. >> guest: there was a great explosion or racial violence at the city mostly which started out as white attacking african-americans. there were some retaliation but basically you have a city on fire for a couple of years. >> host: when i read the history of that i was quite young but then i read the history that they said most busing was done not for integration but getting people to school. when they put blacks on those

buses to go to the white schools and the white kids to the black schools that's when all hell broke loose. that is why we have to get to ed brooke and joe biden. [laughter] >> guest: so you had jill biden rolled the bus to the united states senate. you had to parallel busing struggles going on and one was the struggle going on in boston when judge garrity ruled that something had to occur in that way and then you also had on capitol hill for many years beginning in the early 1970s after the supreme court had ruled in a case of swan versus charlotte-mecklenburg, the supreme court ruled that school systems could use busing to integrate their schools. there was all sorts of anti-busing sentiment on the

floor of the house of representatives and in the u.s. senate and house members would enter one anti-busing bill after another saying it's illegal to bus a child passed their closest school. anyway they could get the anti-busing bill on the books they would do it. these bills often pass the hou house. for time period they were stalled in the senate where people like ed brooke could filibuster them are people like willow park or ted kennedy or other liberal senators could stop it. they did this throughout the early 1970s but then in 1970 for busing hit boston and white americans started to review the issue a little differently. they started to worry that their children would have to go to black schools and the anti-busing sentiment became the dominant one among white

americans. >> host: and how some people got the electorate. >> guest: that's right. certainly massachusetts and all over the midwest this was a hot-button issue. >> host: delaware. get to jill biden. >> guest: for many years at birth had been one of the last lines of the fence to get the anti-busing issue and usually he could derail the anti-busing legislation because it was often offered by southern segregationist. jesse helms for instance authored -- offered an anti-busing amendment and brooks said it's just another segregationist ploy. in 1975 however the freshman senator from delaware and joe biden was the freshman senator from delaware. he was 32 years old in 1975. he had big sideburns and he had

almost a full head of hair. and he had a liberal voting record but he was from a border state, delaware and biden started to offer anti-busing amendments. but they anti-busing amendments were offered by young liberal from delaware rather than old conservative from the south those amendments started to get much more nationwide appeal. >> host: there was a unity of purpose there. the north in and the south wasn't so different anymore and a lot of senators jumped on the anti-busing -- i don't want to say train but jumped on the anti-busing bus. the white liberals abandoned the black liberals. the only african-american in the united states senate who was trying to enforce the constitution. >> guest: that's right so bret

tried to stop the biden amendment and he was unable to. he was basically voted down. brooke, at the chance to interview interview broke and i asked him about busing. he insisted that he was no great lover of busing. he was no great defender of school busing but he weighed the issue in his conclusion was that it was the best instrument available at the time. he was a defender of desegregation and he was going to go down fighting for integrated america. at that time places like the boston school committee had simply rejected every other kind of effort integrating schools. the only kind left at the moment were to try to put kids on buses and put them in different schools. so brooks said this has to be done to remedy a constitutional wrong for black children. >> host: it was the only thing

left. >> guest: the massachusetts racial imbalance act, once i got repealed that's not all that happened. massachusetts stripped the state board of education. they stripped the board of education of its power in terms of busing. you don't have the authority to bus. >> guest: that's right so the litigation was the only backup. congressman would put forth bills saying you can't keep statistics in terms of race and schoolchildren. >> if you don't have statistics of how many white children and black children in school integrate. >> host: be faithful to your book. the whole notion of liberal was a colorblind society. therefore you cannot even look at race. they came through with a

colorblind reputation to the civil writers you said you need to racial remedies. the only way you can remedy it was to use a race-based remedy so that was the context which your book brings out. >> guest: this ideology of colorblindness was one that voters clung to time and again through the years. this ideology of colorblindness allowed white northerners to vote for black politicians like ed brooke, like shirley chisholm and later on like david dinkins and duvall patrick and even like barack obama obama. white voters would say i'm colorblind when i go to the polls. i will just pick the plot -- best candidate and they probably chose african-american candidates. at the same time they said i'm also colorblind when it comes to redistricting students so i'm not going to look at the reason

that context leaping in an segregated school system or neighborhood. >> host: that is where i kind of lost you. i never saw ed brooke and david dinkins in the same way. david bank and the reason why he got elected in new york city was not the reason why ed brooke got elected in massachusetts. new york city was completely different situation in terms of racial tensions and racial progress. it was trying to calm those tensions and like others, i won't name names, but like others it was a situation where an individual was incompetent or unable to do the kinds of things he promised or wanted to do for all kinds of reasons. so you had david dinkins who was thrown out of office by the likes of rudy giuliani and you

had ed brooke who was thrown out of office who was doing the right thing and was acting competently according to your book. >> guest: right. brooke lost his next election in 1978 which was in his re-election occurred in 72 which is ripe for roe v. wade and ripe for the busing crisis. the next election cycle came along and 78 and brooke, well the problems with his tax returns and a financial scandal. he was getting divorced but he also had defended busing for many years and i think many voters in massachusetts no longer saw him as the colorblind candidate. this is how he had sold himself and attached himself and 66 to 72 as a colorblind candidate and after the fires of the busing crisis that kind of packaging. >> host: the way i read your book it was voters themselves

that were no longer colorblind. >> guest: he was in a conundrum and 78 because he didn't know whether to go with this colorblind thing again and then in 78 he started to use this appeal, i'm the only african-american left in the senate and try to tug on massachusetts liberals heartstrings. do you want to go down the only african-american elected to the senate? he actually did start to rethink the colorblind strategy and as you say the voter started to rethink whether they themselves were colorblind as well. >> host: i was so hopeful reading the first half of your book and by the time we got to the recent history, because she really did suggest in the early part of your book that they north was different from the south and malcolm x notwithstanding, notwithstandi

notwithstanding -- they traded the selling block for the ghetto notwithstanding all of that there was a sense of hope in your book that there were people that were liberal minded and people who would say of code they wanted to do the right thing. ..