hat it is an important point anarchy briefs were filed last fall and all kinds of people filed these priests including nbc, "los angeles times", "washington post" not because any of them them, they'll agree with him with acclimatized alarm is of that they understand this is a disaster for free speech in the united states if he wins. i am thrilled to find myself looking at this case the same way as the aclu and "the washington post". it is unusual because we think it is a free-speech case he thinks it is about taking a stand for science. but yet not one single scientist or one scientific academy filed the amicus brief on his behalf and that is the lesson of this.

[applause] for he claims he is taking a stand for science but it turns out of science is not prepared to take a stand for michael mann and that is great news for scientific integrity in the united states and the wider world. thank you very much. [applause] >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers.

>> now on booktv with help of our local cable partner documentation we take a literary tour of omaha, nebraska, where we spoke with matt holland author of "ahead

of their time: the story of the omaha de porres club" which advocated for social justice and racial integration in the early 1950s. >> the omaha de porres club was this phenomenal story of an unlikely group of people in an unlikely place at an improbable time in history have faced and challenged racial discrimination and segregation in omaha nebraska. and it took place in the late '40s and early '50s predating of the civil rights activities, if not by decades released by years, and it was a group that may be defied the stereotype of what you think about when you think about the civil rights group. it was men and women young and old, black and white. it was led by two white men. it was a very wonderful story that has all these amazing

connections in an unlikely place. to quote the birmingham of the north, a quote i found but john howard griffin who was the author of the black like me and john howard griffin used that quote to describe omaha in this description he gave within the '60s. and omaha have a reputation in the african-american community in omaha and into united states as a city in wendie king and if you were black you needed to keep your head down and you need to be a with you what i'm going to be served in restaurants and you weren't going to be weren't going to go to stay in hotels, and that there was like the were in many cities around the country, there was this informal industry of staying in homes and the black community competing at the restaurants in the black community even if you are an african-american that was part of a band this point in a white hotel or a play being put on in a mostly white theater at that quote, michael omaha shares

proudly but it is a quote i found repeated that it was known in the description of birmingham in the north was an apt description if you are an african-american in the country. the omaha de porres club start in 1957 by two gentlemen, one was a catholic priest, a jesuit at creighton university. his name was john markham near the founder of the de porres club was a gentleman named jenny holland which is a gentleman who is my father. he was a 20 year-old creighton student anti-and father mark who met and talked with a call at the time social justice. they decide to start a group to talk about. my dad said he'd remember thinking was going to join a prayer club, talk about what the more a theological implications were and the priest had different ideas. father was the core and the center of the group as they moved into boycott taking and

challenging and doing things that my dad said scared and spent less. when the de porres club weekend operations the idea come and affect the terms of the rights of wasn't the use of the term social justice because civil rights wasn't part of the lexicon. the idea of civil rights was so far removed from the idea of the greater committee of omaha for the states that their kind of operating in attacking. i was like to say there operating without a net. that were not the support groups, not the prior experiences of other groups to challenge racial discrimination and segregation. segregation. so they were, in some cases they were making up their strategies the techniques they used because there wasn't, i'm an educator and to do this presentation often from a school and high school students. and i say it's not you can shoot

someone an e-mail as a hypothetical for you last weekend? there wasn't any of that. they're sitting down and think we will try to challenge this business and we are going to hand out leaflets but were not going to do just because we're not sure if it's legal. in the minutes there are things like we will wait because we will check with a look to see if we can legally hand out flyers in front of a business. they were that far ahead of what became the norm later. the urban league were strong in north omaha. it was led by whitney young going to the bank a national leader of the urban league during the '60s. there was a strong branch of the naacp, and in came this omaha de porres club those operating outside of the bounds of the regular established rules of how you got things done in this city. it created attention in the black community, but, in fact one of the very first levels of tensions i was greeted by the oma the poorest club was because they were racially mixed.

they were black men and white women and black women and white men. that great a stir because people in north almost all that as a problem. they did need to any attention to the north omaha because the de porres club us in early on as an baking soda is of the terms was used and that tension of you got black men and white women meeting and they are single and that's a problem. so that was one of the first problem that they came up against in the black community but really once people understood what the de porres club was trying to do they garnered support over the years from the urban league, from the naacp. they ended up working close with both of those groups. from ministers as they saw the de porres club was about challenging and changing the institutional racism in omaha. once they understood that was what they were about. in fact, father markoe once gave

a speech to a group of maybe the de porres club at some other of the motivations and he stood up very quickly said the goal of the oma de porres club is to kick jim crow's ass out of omaha a setback and. that message came throughout. when people understood that, they tended to get on board or least not resist the efforts of the de porres club. the first boycott was a block down the street, it's not daycare but it was the laundry that was a a white owned business that refused to hire blacks to do anything other than wash the laundry. even though since it is located in the black community, almost all the characters were black, they would not anyone come in a box in the office when a black employees to drive the delivery vans. so the de porres club this is about 1950 after couple years of doing this week pleasant things, went to this this is a

said we think this is unfair. the businesses and why are you here? this hasn't been a problem. we have been doing this for years and nobody has ever complained. we are not changing our policies. the de porres club, to cause a big stir they decided to organize a boycott. the black community has a tendency, should they do this? isn't going to cause problems beyond what we wanted to? they start a boycott in the business went out of business. they sold another laundry and eventually that laundry hired a black clerk and then as it happened in a lot of these efforts the ripple effect, other laundries to avoid a challenge by the de porres club started tying african-american employees and one brilliant businessman opened a business on north 24th street at employed old african-americans including the manager and assistant manager. cowboy cut started in july 1950 and finally came to fruition in february 1951. over a period of months,

efforts, letters leaflets that that happen. so they had that successful boycott. they boycotted the coca-cola bottling company, and same thing. a city located in the black community, you don't have any black americans. and coco cola said so? whenever have. why should we? the de porres club start a boycott in coca-cola eventually after the de porres club got a petition and got 45 businesses to say they wouldn't carry coke anymore coca-cola finally hired a couple of african-americans to work in the plant. there was an ice cream plant about six blocks north and, in fact, when the de porres club approach is to approach them the response was we will go out of business before we hired black workers. the de porres club said really? that's interesting. they organized a boycott.

is what took about a year and after a huge loss in business the ice cream store hired african-american workers. the one that was ongoing i think the one that would've caused the most frustration and the most exhaustion especially for my dad was the omaha council plus street railroad company which was the company can a charter by the city to do the streetcar and bus service at the time. unlike in some places it was about blacks being able to write the it was about hiring blacks to drive the buses and streetcars. in 1948 members of the de porres club went to visit the leadership of the company to ask of him why aren't you hiring african-americans to work for your company to drive buses and streetcars? the leadership gave several patches but the one my dad remembered most vividly was the vice president was telling them well, you know if we have a black driver and the come to the

end of the line enters a white woman on the end of the line you know he will rape her. that was one of their justifications in 1948. my dad would've been 22 at the time and i can just see them walking into a meeting thinking my goodness did they just say that? they went back to father markoe and he said i know. so go back out and he just turned right around and push them right back at the door and said -- so negatively the company said they wouldn't hire black drivers. 49 50 51 and 52 53 54. final in 1954 the bus company hired for black drivers it has tested had threatened to take away their charter if they didn't change their hiring policy. so those are the main efforts but at the same time they were helping a black world war ii veteran who had been at tuskegee

ed had been shot down and held in a pow camp in a bot a house one block outside of the bounds of a segregated neighborhood and his house was stoned i neighbors and threw paint on a. the white neighbor to 2110 after whitney young came to the de porres club and said can you help this guy moving? the de porres club help in moving. they protested a blackface actors put on at a local high school. as they were doing those long-term boycott efforts against businesses, there were dozens and dozens of other things going on. all of that was met with incredible resistance as hard as the de porres club pushed against it, the resistance was just as forceful over that same period of time. one of the interesting things was as they did activities and these efforts they were operating in a cone of silence in the north, the black

community new because of the black newspapers here but if you were white in omaha this never happen. for all intents and purposes it was a non-event. all seven years because the greater mainstream media never carried it. but if you were not black and you didn't read the north oma.com you didn't read the omaha guide, you didn't know what happened. people asked me what was the committee's response? to kennedy's response was nonexistent because there was nothing to respond to. the main newspaper wouldn't carry it. in 1954 that was a television program that carried an episode to talk about the de porres club and that would've been the first time if you are white in omaha, you never would've heard of it. that sense of pushing and not getting any response did wear down. the de porres club and disband in the fall of 1954. the montgomery bus boycott to

place the next year. think if they had just stuck to an of the they may have been one of the national movements. part of national movement but it really came down to they just ran out of steam. they were tired. the support wasn't there. the membership had come in the leadership, my dad had been the president all seven years, he had married the club secretary in 1953 their first child was expected in october of 1954 which by coincidence or otherwise was when the club ended it because my dad didn't have to get a real job to support a family and he was no longer able to put in the hours that it took too big the de porres club and really that is the members i think you'd basically once he was no longer there to lead us there was nobody that stepped up to provide that ongoing leadership and the club went dormant basically for about five or six

years and then in the late '50s a former de porres club member resurrected the club for andfora wonder effort to get the oma public schools to hire black teachers, unsuccessfully. after that when your campaign the de porres club officially told that would've been the sum of 1960 but the reason that ended after that 70 push is they had just brought out of resources leadership that took to keep that effort sustained all those years. this wasn't a six-month operation or a cubic protested it went on. that group was active in 1947-1954 and the entire time they face resistance from religious and civic leaders and they never back down. they kept pushing and when the analogies someone came up a former member shared this. but she said i felt like we were those guys in butch cassidy and the sundance kid at the end when

butch and sundance are being followed and vicki condoleezza these guys and the people that are tracking them keep stink eye domestic you can use to use all these techniques to the standard finally butch and sundance look at each other and said who are these guys? i think that was the response many people had in omaha of the de porres club the who are these guys? what to do what and what are they equipped that was a great question because had you put to any other location, that would've been the same response. it would have been this is another one of those groups. that were not any other groups like that and that to me is one of those important parts is no such a pioneering effort in such an unlikely place. >> presidential candidates often release books to introduce themselves to voters and to vote their views on issues. here's a look at some books written by declared candidates for president.