. . and i thought that was a credit to both of you and you did that with a great sincerity and honesty.

>> host: i love the interviews he does and the c-span is such a gift. >> guest: i'm very proud of one of my former students who was here at c-span and had been here a great time. i was at the american university in the mid-1980s was jim mcgovern who became a member of congress and he helped win the war in el salvador. i have to behave a little bit

there. you've got to get out you are spending too much time missing out on things. there's a wonderful women's shelter in dc. he was working for a congressman so he went down and that women from el salvador so they took the members of congress and i think that finally he persuaded congress to cut off the funding for el salvador. >> host: it's amazing to think that it was your recommendation.

a >> guest: now he's in congress because fidel castro. they had 8% of the vote. he goes and runs again who was to telegram the incumbent republican democrats gave him little to no money. he was down in the polls and meanwhile they have taken members of congress to cuba so the incumbent got dressed up like fidel castro, big boots, cigar, at the main intersection in massachusetts holding in an

honest sign both for jim mcduff later he won the election. i called him up and said how are you doing, you are way behind. i got the undecided catholic vote because a little while before i went to talk to fidel castro. >> host: that is a great example of blowback. i was thinking reading your book how it would be so marvelous to see a diagram that shows mccarthy in the center and all of the links that go out to people that are doing amazing things around the world. and certainly just from reading this book you've got this wonderful bird's eye view of how

many lives you have influence in your teaching. >> guest: they come into the classes and they've never taken a study before. they do offer elementary, high school with no peace class. they take math every year and science every year. well we put anybody through our schools with only one math course they get it every year whether they need or like it or not. i've been trying for years to get peace peace studies in the curriculum to get them talking about these things. >> host: you were down many years as a columnist for the "washington post" which they think of as a writer and kind of a peak. you have a paper of tremendous influence here in the nation's capital reaching millions of

people. why did you drop that? >> guest: i've interviewed desmond tutu mother teresa from calcutta, mohammed yunis from bangladesh was jim mcgovern and people like that and i always ask them how is the best way it will be the purpose of our lives if you see the light of purpose. you need to go where people are.

the idea was sound and taken to a local public high school and asked can i come in and teach the class if you want to try come on in. i've had about 12,000 over the years. we read the literature and peace in on the first day we didn't really get into it why haven't we heard about these people? >> host: it's not only the people that you've introduced into coming it's your ideas and first maybe we should say that this book is a collection of marvelous letters to you that you then respond to and i must

say that i learned so much and was inspired just by reading their letters and your responses and the beauty of this book there is a combination of you pulling quotes from people that you just mentioned but then there is your own wisdom and humor that comes out and then every letter there is a combination of that and you are just such a unique person. here you are looking at -- looking like you could be a republican. and i remember reading the columns in the "washington "washington post" and thinking how did he get away with writing such things and then i remember hearing you protest and you rolled up in your bicycle and said i am coleman mccarthy and i thought no he is the writer for the "washington post" and you said

yes. but i think that you embodied so many amazing values and concepts and challenges to students that come out so beautifully in this book and i think that you said if you don't teach them peace, someone will teach them violence. it may be for the listeners we should start out with you giving a basic sense of what is peace. >> guest: if it was easy we would all be good at it. in my high school classes they are discussion based.

whenever a professor says we have a lot of ground to cover today i tell them there's so much there. >> host: but it's not just the absence of war. could you maybe give your personal philosophy? >> guest: there are many ways to go about that. i ask for questions through in the class would like to reduce cruelty in the world and all of the hands go up. who would like to reduce world

hunger all hands go up, who would like to reduce global warming, all hands go up. who would like to have a healthy body. you will make some progress and if everybody did that we would have a very serene world. >> what are the marvelous exchanges in the book maybe you could tell us about that.

two weeks before thanksgiving. the rest of you. >> host: so you prodded into the classroom for the students. some friends of mine from the sanctuary in maryland was riding along and they grabbed to bring it down to the rescue center.

that's what you will he will be eating in four or five days and in what happened that day. >> host: because the students liked the turkey. >> guest: it brought the reality home. there is peace two types of violence. hot is what isis is doing cutting off heads and 9/11 the gun shootings in aurora and connecticut. we feel that and the media talks about it. but cold violence how many are killed, honey executions on death row, people killed by jones, out of sight, we don't feel it, it's not emotional. but whether it is hot or cold it's still happening.

>> host: are their personal things there personal things you have made lifelong commitments to one is you don't drink and you it you challenge your students about drinking as you write in the exchanges with the students it is such a devastating impact on our society can you talk about your interaction with the students on the drinking issue? >> guest: there was a touching letter from a student in my high school class she had a very open-minded and is going off to college and she writes to me and says -- she's a senior at wilson high school and says i've been pondering something quite a bit lately and i was wondering if i could share -- if you could share with me some of your

thoughts on the subject. i've always chosen to abstain from drinking and doing drugs because i've always known i don't need an toxic and that it and talk seconds of that sort to enjoy myself. so she goes on to you have any counsel about college. so this was august of 2009 you may have come across the ambiguity of wine from t.s. eliot in the world of fugitives the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away. that's you. i would encourage you to take your stand. there's more families ruined by that drug than any other. >> host: and you started because a friend of yours was

killed in a car accident having been drinking and that led you to make a lifelong commitment not to drink. >> guest: i said to do the research paper and research your own life and if you want to research something really close stop drinking this semester. >> host: i wonder if the students see you as to good.

>> guest: we need a few incentives like you around and they say you are a little loopy but you will wake up one of these decades. >> host: you don't even agree with the drinking in moderation. >> guest: delighted the kids and it's awful. i've never seen the commercial on television or beer commercial with anybody holding a book. but the book represents thinking it's a powerful piece of writing and she found out i really have no friends i just have drinking

buddies. >> host: she was in a sorority and realized her whole life was the pregame drinking and when she stopped, she realized who were her friends and she didn't want to have anything to do with this and realized their values. >> host: i wonder if we could talk about some of the other controversial things that you bring up and one thing i'm sure is very controversial is that you don't vote and maybe you could explain why you don't vote and do you actually tell them don't vote? >> guest: the constitution sanctions violence for the

commander-in-chief for the militia. so anybody who voted for no matter how good they are there sworn in to uphold the constitution and the sanctions and violence. we've been doing this all these years in the interventions and a military budget that left our economy. in fact i saw the classes as a visual from the american friends service committee and on the left is the military spending. we don't say no we are defending the democracy and over here on the right or the social programs and the state department for

education. if you had the budget over here so that's the reality. >> host: and no one like dennis kucinich tried to get her many years. >> guest: the congress deems it by not funding adequately. >> host: what about on the campuses and your involvement in opposing that? >> guest: they have rotc programs. adhere christ was a pacifist. how can that be? i'm waiting for the pope to see whether he ever comes out.

you are in dc surrounded by the military contractors and bases and get you say things like you want to serve your country don't join the military and you're constantly in this you are constantly in this book advising your students not to join the military. >> guest: the reason i do that you hear that phrase thank you for serving the country i don't think that is true. no one in america is serving their country they are serving those that run the country. there's very little evidence that those that run the country care about you and the race to be a would have a long waiting list and we wouldn't have a high rate among the veterans of vietnam and iraq and afghanistan

they don't care about you. or otherwise you wouldn't have declared them in the first place or ignores them. i'm sure that you remember there was only one member of congress who had a son that's all for the combat, only one in that war. >> host: when there was a draft and that was the son of a longtime labor democrat whose son was killed. but the other boys there is the draft deferments. there's a cartoon for the new yorker everyone that wants to college in the 60s there's a war going on.

>> that today with afghanistan, iraq libya people are still voted in because of their record and it must be very controversial to many of your students i'm sure many of them have been in the military were their parents have. how does that go over? >> guest: i do not blame the soldiers. they also the combat in afghanistan and iraq they said i promise i will not ask you. it was very tense. another boy wrote a wonderful paper.

it was so strong i had it published in the newspaper. he's doing fine now. they admired the soldierssaid they tend to be disciplined people. if only the peace movement was as strong. >> host: if they had the resources to go to college and in fact have students writing about it in the book that you say you don't blame those voters soldiers, doesn't that overlap and make people uncomfortable? >> guest: you can show them what the options are. the first letter is from a student in the naval academy.

she wrote a letter to me. it it's about the invasion of 1988. so she writes to me and says you have some crazy ideas about women in the war so she goes on and wrote back. so i go on and i quoted

einstein. our school books glorify the war and conceal its workers. they indoctrinate children with hatred. i would rather teach peace rather than war, love rather than hate pp did it. people should continue to fight for things worthwhile not imaginary lines, racial prejudices and private greed draped in the colors of patriotism. their arms should be weapons of the spirit, not shrapnel and tanks. einstein right thing against the war is largely ignored. i invited them to come to georgetown university. she had to go to the navy's talk to the admirals she had to

get security clearance. she came every week, got no class credit. she invited me to her graduation went to night school, became a public interest lawyer and has done work in bringing warlords in africa back to justice. she now works for one of the largest law firms. she is doing good deeds. she came to the class and a student named grace armstrong they said your visits to the class was the most fortunate

thing that happened to me all year and she goes on listening to your story encouraged me. i am so glad to have met you and i see you becoming a role model in my life. you never know. it's a roll of the dice. i always tell the students coming come in here and question the answers. and i quoted that from the great philosopher and she says violence like all actions changes the world.

>> host: one of the amazing things about your career is on colleges and law schools and prisons and one of the most compelling exchange is inherent in the discussion is about the violence started with it prisoner on death row? >> guest: i wrote columns about the case. he was taken off by douglas wilder but couldn't get a new charge because of the 21 day rule. show it to the court. he remains in prison but i funded a class at the prison and delivered the violence in the

prison. >> host: the officials didn't like it? >> guest: they called up and said you were running a prison not a school and they did close it. >> host: you relayed in the book how you take your students and however you manage them into the prison for the graduation ceremony. that that must have been something. >> guest: they came down and we get a diploma after the 14 week class and it was very touching. the first time they ever had anything that would recognize their education. >> host: and they give education to the students? >> guest: a lot of the kids going down there, nobody coming home was pro- death penalty.

they are human beings. they did agree just things that they are human beings. the death penalty is a scar on this country's sole. there's been 152 men released from death row having been exonerated and scully at robert pro- death penalty people and obama too is death penalty. he says in some cases it is so heinous we have to do this. >> host: he is pro- killing. if you can kill people by drones -- >> guest: that's the death penalty. i've been very lucky in my life. three sons all doing good deeds in the world.

one of my son takes care of lost boys from sudan and my other two are athletes, baseball coaches and teachers and my wife i not only love my wife that i adore. we met in washington and she was a nurse and we met and married about four weeks later. our families said you're rushing into this. >> host: how many years now? spigots and 96 years, 48 for my wife and 48 for me. do the full count, i wife says. >> host: does she worry about you writing around on your bicycle? >> guest: i've had two crashes. i broke my jaw on time and i was hospitalized and i broke my

ankle. i had a helmet on both times but she let me borrow her car occasionally come she's very generous with her car. >> host: but you still go everywhere on your bike. >> guest: and 77 now and i run marathons. i just did the boston race on sunday. so i'm holding on. but my wife puts up with a lot i think. she was an obstetrical nurse and they do a class now about obstetrical vitamins, how they treat women and i admire the midwives and the obstetricians must demand, hospitals are run by men and i think home births

are low-cost into the midwives can do it and they bring them into my class to talk about it. >> host: you didn't mention your wife very much in the book but i do remember one mention where you said you have a cost for writing letters of recommendations for your students but they have to make something for you and your wife. >> guest: you write a letter for me and my grad school okay you have to bake something for me. they spend so much time in the library is that they don't know much about the kitchens.

all of the money that is saved. a lot of the teaching you don't get paid for their >> guest: i don't get paid a lot of money but i do get paid with satisfaction and it's a great story. we are still debating the issues. i had a high school student around failing geometry and physics. they said you are not going to get out of this place. there is a high school on long

island they said you write for me every night and i will get extra credits for you. so i wrote a thousand words every night during my senior year. i loved writing. and he saw here is a boy that has passion for something. so thanks to him i was able to get out of high school and i wrote in college and then i landed up at the post. i've been lucky all my life. >> host: one of the things in the book is there are beautiful letters by the students and i wonder what young people these days focusing so much on social media, twitter and facebook where you are not writing more than a sentence or two are students good at writing?

>> guest: write down all the words you can think of beginning with the letters a and b.. rarely do they get more than 20 words. you have to have a great language to get it out so people will pay you for it. >> host: speaking of the decorate language there was a letter in here that was very disturbing but beautifully written and it seemed like it was from a young man that came from upper-middle-class family and had as much attention span.

>> that's right. i lust for students over the years to suicide. you often worry about that. is somebody going for some tough times and i told them no matter how bad it is call up and say i need your help. we have the same decline and furious to overcome. you can do it, too. i always think about that. but there is one funny letter a

student wrote out her grades and and leslie and it begins she tells me i was in your class this past semester and slightly offended when i received a b+. i read every assignment help the videos come and join discussions and even gave up. i didn't expect a b+. so i wrote back and said it's not too bad.

>> host: but you don't like the grade. >> guest: i don't. i think that it is degrading. >> host: you call it fear-based learning. >> guest: socrates in the american education system no more the socrates i don't think so. i got in trouble one time at the catholic university. i promise you you can leave right now. what's the catch? there is no catch.

so the one boy put his hand down and he left the room and never came back. so they didn't invite me back. i never saw him again but he was in the class and he stayed and learned something and now runs a shelter for homeless people. take a look at the obituary page and at the time and the post with a 2.9 average go find

somebody that said i wish i need more days in college. >> host: its third appearance pressure and there is a great letter in here and there was a letter and is in this ask your daughter. >> guest: i am the teacher. just ask your daughter she will tell you okay. it doesn't make a difference. >> host: but it does make a difference in terms of the students these days getting out of school with so much debt. they are on a track that they have to get high-paying jobs and a lot of times getting that job depends on what college you went to.

>> guest: now they are putting science technology and math. >> host: what if they say i'm coming out of school with $100,000 in `what can i do? >> guest: the first thing you need is to marry up they will excuse much if you do public interest law and the sum of the college is also. there were the two wars that can't be won or explained and

the children in school are victimized by that. >> host: when the war started it seemed like every friday at the chevy chase library they would go out and hold signs. >> guest: we have been doing that since 1991. week about every friday and -- >> host: wasn't in the beginning was it in the beginning you got in trouble? >> guest: we had the signs that said home for peace then another one that said holland again for peace and another one called still again.

the noise got bad. >> host: i love the stories you tell of women coming over and you think she's going to yell but then she said you're not doing it loud enough. >> guest: they tried to close it down. you go and make your voice heard >> host: and the parents don't complain? >> host: but again this is a very military area. how could you not get complaints that you are coming in and encouraging students to protest? >> guest: i don't force them to come out but i showed him how to do it.

>> host: do some of them stay in the classroom? >> guest: they do and that's fine. >> host: can you do this because you're a volunteer teacher and if you were paid what you get in trouble? >> guest: i don't know. i've never asked that except for a few complaints from teachers -- the student newspaper has a deep end of the protest because some of the teachers didn't like it because it made noise. i said at the whole school should be out here doing this not just this class. but high schools can be very high anxiety places because the pressure of grades and get into a good college. so i give no homework or test exams and those are forms of academic violence come a few events they like to agree with

really quick. there has never been any debate on that one. so it is relaxing and we were discussing things and there's another teacher in the room always but they are very good about it. i love being at that school. i taught at a very difficult school where we have police in the halls carrying guns and i said to them on time you must feel pretty safe don't you with bulletproof vests and he said no because they are not life improve. adc public high school. and that is not unusual. >> host: the issue of violence in the community and in the home you talk about having some

students whose parents were killed. >> guest: i had a student who was leaving the classroom and she said it's been wonderful hearing the ideas on war and peace but i live in the war zone. i said where is that back and she said my living room at home. my parents have been verbally abusing each other physically. how do i stop that and i said maybe if we had your parents in school when they were younger and we taught them the basics of conflict resolution maybe we could lower the domestic violence rate. >> host: you brought up i think two times some of your idols who were not so great in their personal lives.

>> guest: his older son was so angry he couldn't get through to his father he joined the military didn't like that, then he said i will really show you some key stuck with oklahoma some and became a prostitute. he was often an absentee father. he made his wife their 13 children he was cruel to his wives and so you have to take care of your family first. >> host: then you talk about people that do terrible things in the world but are very nice people. >> guest: he idolized his wife. i got to know his daughter margaret truman. the bureau chief from the times

i got to go margaret through clifton daniel. harry truman idolized his harry truman idolized his wife, loved his family. he bombed 100,000 people was a great family man. >> host: i assume george bush was a nice father family man and a cheney. cheney. >> guest: yes indeed. >> host: how do you deal with that between their personal lives and what they do in the real world? >> guest: to try to tell my students to be professionally angry but personally gentle. one of my close allies at the post was a great reporter and a

key with a great reporter. he was the most gentle man and raised three loving children and had a very happy marriage. >> host: it is a beautiful combination of things. >> guest: i can't take another outrage.

i had my air the dedication. >> host: another thing i wanted to bring up is the advice that you get to the students that want to live and promote in a more peaceful world. i was a little confused because sometimes it seems that you are getting great congratulations to people that come out into the peace corps or become judges or art on a level playing field and then the most we can do is on the local level doing something with your very small community area so -- >> guest: that is what teaching is about is to help them understand what gifts they

have. some end up in congress like jim mcgovern as the director of the peace corps and the president of the william smith college. i remember mother teresa one time she said few of us will ever be called on to do great things but all of us can do small things in a great way so it's good to keep that in mind. also, we overemphasized to be successful there will be success but it's much more important to be faithful than successful. >> host: in many eyes i know my mother passed away her

greatest role model was donald trump. she thought the success and money and i also wondered what you're talking to students how much you bring up the issue of consumption. >> guest: live simply so others may simply live. you don't need alcohol or meat or eggs. >> host: the other aspects of living with nuclear families people with collectively. do you bring that up with your students? >> guest: i bring up a lot of guest speakers. i had over 400 in the years. i had former heroin addicts and all varieties so they see that

there is a lot you can do. in high school and college it is what am i going to do and many grow up in very privileged families and haven't had much to struggle about. but if you have a grounded philosophy and not violence i think that helps a lot. >> host: even living in a country that is so glorified militarily? >> guest: i encourage students to go overseas and don't go to london or paris those are the suburbs. go to el salvador or sierra leone and learn the results of american foreign policy and the victims of what the country has done to so many people and then you come back educated.

>> host: or you don't have to go overseas, in this country where would you encourage people to go? >> guest: my son runs a baseball camp and my other son runs a baseball camp on long island and they give scholarships to children from underprivileged families and my son has a program here in the inner city and gives a lot of scholarships. he played minor league baseball with the orioles and he has a program in the dominican republic. they've had more big league baseball players than any. so they fund that program in dc.

>> host: i want to thank you for this book people will read and be inspired by and a life that is just a wonderful inspiration to so many of us. >> guest: thank you. you are one of my sheroes. [laughter] >> that was "after words," booktv signature program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists, public policymakers and others familiar with their material. "after words" airs every every week and a booktv 10 p.m. on saturday, 12 and 9 p.m. on sunday and 12 a.m. on monday. you can also watch online. go to booktv.org and click on the series and topics list on the upper right side of the page

>> it became possible in a society where it wasn't based on their appearance but also dress, behavior and mannerisms. indeed they were the least reliable factors. racially ambiguous slaves drew on the highly sophisticated understanding of racial gender and social norms to enact and by doing so many successfully passed freedom. ellen passed as a white man crossing both racial and gender lines to escape to freedom while her husband played the role of her slave. it was necessary to pass because she knew that it was highly unconventional for a white woman to travel alone with female slave. but the convincing performance required far more than her

light-skinned. it was her knowledge of the draft didn't comport for the southern gentleman and the nuanced understanding of the social and gender norms that made this undertaking on the marvelous success. concerned that her face mike betray her or that her illiteracy would appear that her from registering her name at her hotel, ellen became a master of improvisation. she downed her right hand in a sling so that she could ask others to sign her name for her. she bandaged her face so that no one would know if she didn't have a beard. by faking illness, disability and even deafness, she politely excused herself from conversation and won the sympathy of other travelers. in fact she played the role of

the southern gentleman so well that white southern ladies reportedly swooned in her presence. [laughter] ..