>> "after words" airs on booktv every saturday at 10 p.m. and sunday at 9 p.m. eastern. you can watch all previous "after words" programs on our web site, booktv.org. >> booktv continues now with martin greenfield. he talks about his memoir which chronicles his experiences as a prisoner in auschwitz during world war ii to his current occupation as a tailor for several u.s. presidents and other celebrities. [inaudible conversations]

>> good morning everyone. >> good morning. >> we're going to go ahead and get started here. i want to welcome you all to young america's foundations headquarters in virginia. i am the director of alumni relations here at young america's foundation, and my first entree into the foundation was as an intern at the reagan ranch. so i'm happy to be here today for this event featuring martin greenfield. for those of you who are new to our policemans and for -- programs young america's foundation is the premiere outreach organization for the conservative movement. we introduce thousands of young people to the ideas of limited government individual freedom strong national defense and traditional values through our conferences, internships campus

lectures, young americans for freedom chapters, also through our center for entrepreneurship and free enterprise and the national journalism center. many of our interns are here with us today. in 1998 young america's foundation stepped forward to save the western white house so that we can pass on president reagan's ideas to future generations. president reagan committed himself to reaching young people through his ideas and this goal is central to our mission. for more information on our mission or our programs, you can visit www.yaf.org or call 1-800-usa-1776. to introduce mr. greenfield, i would like to introduce wynton hall. wynton was an attendee of our 1995 atlanta regional conference, and he is one of our most successful alumni.

wynton is the owner of wynnton hall and company a celebrity ghost writing agency responsible for numerous new york times best selling bookings. he has written 18 books six of which became new york times bestsellers. his clients include top hollywood producers and actors, cabinet secretaries billionaires nba stars, heisman trophy be winners fashion icons and military heroes. wynnton's published work has appeared in virtually every periodical in america including the new york time, "usa today," presidential studies quarterly politico and many others. he is the managing editor at breitbart news, is a frequent media guest on outlets like fox news and was a featured commentator for the bbc news presidential documentary, are the presidential hollywood." t in addition to serving as a young america's foundation

director wynnton has served on the prestigious national task force on the presidency and public opinion and is a former visiting fellow at the hoover institution at stanford university. i'd like to introduce you to wynnton hall. [applause] >> thank you very much for that gracious introduction, and thank you all for being here for this very special event. i want to thank the leadership of ron robin szob who has -- robinson who has made this possible and all the hard work that key by pat and many ohs have put into what i think is going to be a very memorable event for all of us. as we know, with every day that passes we have less access to those holocaust survivors who are the keepers of so much history. and it was one of the great, humbling privileges of my career as a ghost writer and collaborator to get to help share with the world mr. greenfield's story. and i want to share a little bit

about what that life means and what it was to get to be a part of this and to introduce him. you may have seen cnn and many, many many other places abc news have done specials on mr. greenfield. and what's really interesting is that they focus on not just the horrors he endured as a holocaust survivor, as a 15-year-old boy who found himself at auschwitz with all of his family members being murdered. and basically becoming an orphan. but they also focus on the hopeful, most beautiful side, and that is as most of you are aware martin greenfield, according to gq magazine and every other fashion icon magazine is america's greatest living suit maker for fine tailored, custom suits for celebrities. and just to give you kind of a little bit of a snapshot -- because he's too humble to say it himself -- basically anytime you've ever watched a movie you've seen a martin greenfield

suit. and certainly when you've look at politicians. these suits that leonardodicaprio and toby mcguire wore in great gatsby, this man right here. those are martin greenfield suits. al pacino's suits in scent of a woman, martin greenfield's suits. the suits in wall street and wolf of wall street with jonah hill wells leonardoty cap pri row, martin greenfield suits. i think you see where this is going. [laughter] basically, everything that's cool and awesome is martin greenfield touch. also jimmy fallon, his suits are made by martin greenfield and tailored by martin greenfield, and also four u.s. presidents you may have heard of, president eisenhower who actually liberated martin and became his hero, as he'll, i'm sure, talk about. he then later got to make suits when he became president eisenhower which he considered a great, a great victory and tribute.

he also made suits for president ford, president clinton and president obama. so whatever your feelings about president obama, i think we can all agree he looks very dab canner. [laughter] dapper. nevertheless, many other great political leaders as well. senator dole he made suits for senator dole and also secretary rumsfeld don rumsfeld and many others. but i want to beyond all his accolades and star power and mr. hollywood and entertainment here, i want to share with you a little bit about what it was for me to get to be a part of this. and it was the most humbling thing. as was graciously stated i've done many, many books. but getting to be a part of martin's story was one of the most challenging and humbling things i've ever experienced. to have to endure the emotions and the feelings that went into what he endured. just to quickly introduce his background, he grew up in the car faith january mountains in czechoslovakia in a little

village wonderland type of home, upper middle class family. his father was an engineer. and then history came crashing in, and his family was rounded up, they were taken and sent to auschwitz. the second day was the last time he ever saw his father and/or any of his other family members. and from that point forward as a 15-year-old boy, he had to survive a hell unlike any of us can even fathom, and he did that with grace and courage. and, quite frankly a beautiful soul in the midst of it. as he was going through that experience i'll read a short passage to introduce him he also would then be transferred to one of the largest death camps, as you know. and there he would search frantically to try to find his father. he did not know his father was still not with us but would do so in vain. and so he then realizes at liberation that he's an orphan in a world without any family and is all alone. and so he searches throughout

europe for many years trying to find any member of his family he can, and he finds no one. and so he then is, through u.s. services, connected that there are family members in america, distant relatives that he has, and he didn't know about. so he arrives in new york. you can imagine coming in on a ship at night, and it never -- not having a penny be, not knowing the language x. through a rainy new york night, he sees the statue of liberty for the first time. and doesn't really understand the history of it, but knows it must be something amazing because he's looking at what he say is the the most beautiful city. and he is hard core brooklyn. this is mr. brooklyn right here. and if you want to talk to him about why brooklyn's the best place in the world he will tell you until you're blue in the face. he gets off the boat and he's greeted by a distant aunt, and they take him to their home. and so they start a journey at 19 years of age without any knowledge of any again money or any knowledge of the

language, and he starts sweeping floors at a factory a fashion factory called 3g's clothing which was at the time premier men's custom suit maker in america. thirty years later he buys the factory. and so he worked his way up from sweeping floors to becoming an amazing entrepreneur and employing today made in america all made in america 125 people at martin greenfield clothiers in brooklyn and still in the same building that he started whenever he came to america. a lot of amazing things happened along that journey. the first time that he was introduced to a tour of new york was quite interesting. he had come from a world where people were suffering and starving literally walking skeletons. and his aunt was driving him around the town, and he saw a huge building and a massive line out front of this building. and he said, said winton, when i saw this i became crestfallen. i couldn't believe i thought that things were better in america, and so i told my aunt

i said this is the longest bread line i've ever seen. this is horrible. i thought this was a place of opportunity. and she said honey that's not a bread line. that's yankee stadium. [laughter] they're waiting for tickets. [laughter] so he became a full fan of baseball and american life, and you will find no bigger patriot. if you want to find someone who will tell you about the goodness and the virtue of the american spirit, he will be the first to tell you, and i look forward to hearing it. i want to read you two quick passages he's asked me to give you just a little bit of insight into. the first is the hell, and the second passage will be the heaven of his story. the first comes from his second chapter in "measure of a man" from auschwitz survivor to president's tailor, chapter two, inside auschwitz, wherein he takes us inside a place that most of us cannot even imagine. and here is a portion of that experience. many days inside auschwitz, i

was afraid i would die. and then afraid i wouldn't. we were vowppedded -- surrounded by death and darkness, madness and murder. and the vicious precision and regimented order of the place made the moral insanity all the more bizarre and cruel. each morning around 4:30 we were stirred from our sleep lined up and counted in a ritual known as roll call. my heart would start jumping in my chest. a nazi soldier would whirl his baton and scan the line with his eyes while another called out the list of prisoner numbers. any sign of illness or fatigue was cause for being pulled from the line and sent to the crematorium. day and night the ovens burned. the smoke spewed up from the soaring brick chimney and belched the vaporous remnants of corpses into the air. at night you could see the flames spitting against the blackened sky. still, no one in the camps

talked to me about the cream tore ya, whether that was because i was just a boy or because i no longer had a father by my side to speak piercing truths to me i do not know. but i could smell that something was horribly wrong. at home and in most civilizations, a clear moral order structured our daily lives; hard work, justice fairness integrity. these virtues produced predictable fruits, but not in the concentration camps. the germans killed for any reason or none at all. it was futile to try to discern their logic, because there was none. if a nazi was angry he might kill you. if a nazi was happy he might kill you. it made no difference. the dehumanizing randomness of the murders suffocated my sense of hope. just as hitler and his henchmen had wanted it to. what appeared random was, in fact not random at all. it was a systematic,

psychological lynching, a strangling of the human heart's need to believe in the rewards of goodness, a snapping of the moral hinge on which humanity swings. soon, and much to my shame i became anesthetized to death numb to depravity. some primal survival switch inside me had been temporarily flicked on that allowed me to submerge the emotions generated by this evil scorching my eyes. i witnessed dozens of shootings and helped carry scores of corporations. corpses. sometimes a dead body would be intact and appear to be sleeping. other times a bullet would rip through a prisoner, spilling out organs or shatter a skull exposing chunks of brain. but as the days passed no matter its condition a body soon became just a body. a sallow, bloodless ganging object that must be lugged, leed atop a -- heaved atop a pile or dropped in a hole. at 15 i had become an

undertaker. contrast that with the beauty and the humanity and the love for america and family that you find this his last closing passage of "measure of a man." wherein he recounts the things he endured and the triumphs he enjoyed, and there's no more joyful man than martin greenfield, who you're about to meet. this is how he closes. only one explanation for my improbable life makes any sense. god allowed america to make me possible. i might have died a dozen times over, burned in the offense at auschwitz or slain at some other camp as my family and six million others were. i might have fallen with the frozen on the death march. i might have been caught sneaking rations to the dying been beaten to death or been blown up when the bombs rained down.

i might have never found my relatives and known the joys that only family brings. i might have wandered through life with an empty heart never finding and marrying my dream girl. that's arlene. [laughter] i might never have experienced god's gift of children, wonderful sons whose hearts and talents help build and grow my only-in-america dream. but for some grace-filled reason, against all logic and probability, god let americans he led americans to fight for me to save me, to claim me as their own and to nurture me with opportunities and help build a home where i could love and raise my family in my beloved brooklyn. i'm left with nothing but gratitude and joy for my life. some things, it turns out are beyond measure. martin greenfield. [applause]

>> thank you very much. well, thank you very much. now i don't know where to start or where to finish. [laughter] because here i came to speak to you all as probably the best place for me to come. because of the way i feel about america. about the past you heard. the past i lived through because i was accidentally born a jew and i was accidentally born to the best family in the world. they build me up. at 10 years old and we were occupied, i was a man. i was a man because i had a

grandfather who was religious who taught me about god and i had a father who was brilliant and my family, the way they brought me up, because they knew something is going to happen to us. i remember my father talking to his father to my grandfather abraham. my grandfather said to my father, we're safe here we're safe here because, you know hitler -- [inaudible] and he's three steps from us. we'll never be safe because the -- [inaudible] shouldn't keel -- shouldn't deal with hitler and trust hitler. so i grew up hearing that. hearing that meant a lot to me, you know why? because use your own heads, all

of you. like i did. it's not follow somebody, somebody there. we are all born alike, knowing nothing. what depends we are born with at least a family. our job is simple. the parents have to bring you up. the teachers have to teach you. well, guess what you guys have to do? you have to think for yourself. not follow anybody, just learn. and never stop learning the rest of your life. i'm 86 years old. i was the youngest survivor. i am still learning from young people if somebody has an idea. i never stop listening to somebody or somebody else. this is the way i was brought up to do.

to listen and to learn. and the concentration camp, i don't want to talk about because i took my son to europe, he wanted to see where i was born. but i would never step a foot back to auschwitz. for one reason, because it was unbelievable for a five and a half-year-old kid to smell to learn and to be so close to everything there to be beaten up, to be questioned. you heard i don't want to say those things, that i survived, my march my death march. because i always pelt -- felt that somebody strange send me

away in a mirage. i never knew the guy but maybe god send him. i always believed for some reason that i never lost touch with god even when i didn't want find anybody -- i didn't find anybody alive. we are all going to die when we're born. it doesn't matter what religion or whatever you are, whatever you're born, that's what you're going to die. but then i make it short about coming to america. coming to america and my uncle discovered me, my friend who really without him the book wouldn't be written like this. i'm a very good maker of suits, but he's a hell of a writer. [laughter] i'll tell you something. together we were a great combination. because the book whoever reads

i get calls from china because of cnn. i get calls from all over the world. i will go to a high school i spoke to two weeks ago in connecticut. i got 58 letters from the kids that listened to me. one of the fathers wrote me a letter that his daughter was kissing my hand because she send me to get a suit from you because of what you were going through. and i spoke to them like i speak to you. but my feeling about this organization is i felt like this when i first came to america with a green card. when the guy said to me i get off the boat through an interpreter, five times you're an american, and i told him phi times i'm a czech. and he finally convinced me. so i thought i died and was in

heaven, because i heard in america they were talking to my family. from there they must have communicated. because you remember my grandfather was a very famous person from a famous be family with a religious family. because his nephew is the first jewish admiral -- [inaudible] in america. and i met him too because he had a picture there of him a soldier. i remember what it was. i left it there because they didn't let us take any pictures anyway the germans. but i met the admiral. so his -- and i met his father with the long beard in america. and so i am an american. and i -- [inaudible] because i like to play cards

and i lost a lot, but i i had the best hand three kings and two aces but somebody had three fives and the fourth five and now i'm broke. [laughter] so i borrowed $10. it took me a while to convince him that i'll pay him back, and i did pay him back. i found him in new york. and that's how i came to this country. when i came to this country the first week as god is my witness i worked, they showed me a job i should be a floor boy. and i did whatever they asked me. so mr. rosenberg was my boss. i said, can i talk with you? because he spoke my language. i didn't speak english. but he spoke be, he came from the same area. i said i need $35 but i can't work here. he said, why? because nothing made sense to

me the whole week. if it didn't make sense to me, i didn't do good for you. he said what do you mean -- no, because nothing was accomplished, because nothing made sense. we gotta do things different. if i worked this way in concentration camp. but that doesn't mean -- i started as a floor boy. six years later the union threw me out because i was now boss. i had a different job. you can't belong to the union because you're on the other side. that didn't make sense to me either. but i continued to work there, and we had you know how many

tailors? 565 tailors and they were mostly italian and a few jews. tough people. i became in charge of all of them. and it took me -- my boss saw the way i was doing things was always trying to learn. and to try to become better than my teachers. and i got ahead. and i became a supervisor, and i became a this, and i became this, and eventually my boss asked me to go sit in the park with him. i said why are we go in the park and we meet in the office? no. i'm going to ask you only the birds are here. because everybody knows everything. i said, so -- so he has -- [inaudible] and we live across the street from his apartment on the

central park. and he said to me today i want you to be in charge of my factory. i know you're young but you deserve the job. and i want to pay you a lot of money those days. i'm not going to tell you how much but i won't tell you that -- my sons were already in college, and my good wife here, we've been married 58 years -- i don't know how she puts up with me. so he offered me the job and he said the man that is your boss now, you have to fire him. i said my boss? he works more you not for me. you are the owner. the you want to fire him you fire him but you shouldn't fire him. you appointed him. the man worked here so many years, he wasn't qualified you shouldn't have given him the

job. but you've been doing the job for him. he says -- i said, no, he has to say. so he says to him, i'm going to have -- can't pay you all that money. pay him whatever you've been paying, and i'll take less. after a while, he retired anyway. and i took over. but i had, it's all of you here that i talk most of you, maybe somebody wasn't born in america are born in america. and i wrote the book the way my, he's my brother now told you why i wrote it for america, to thank america. because i was shocked that there were so many survivors who survive, and they didn't do it. but i had to do it.

because five million of us are alive today not they're all alive, some of them die asked but they were saved by the americans. i knew the past, that roosevelt send back 300 jews to die who came here on a boat. but that was history to me. that i read about. but that doesn't matter what roosevelt did. that's all mattered to me, what the soldiers did in america. and what they have to do all the day because the only things that work is strength. strength. america is the strongest country in the world. you don't go around apologizing. you go around fighting for the right of america because everybody wants to come here. [applause] everybody.

they all want to come here because there is no place like it. you can't change it. and don't try. nobody should try to change it. and it only takes the young people. in my business the most important people are the young people. because you are the guys that dress. the older people like us, we need a wedding, we need a funeral for a suit. you need you need -- you are our future. because you dress to become and you are the future. we are older and you are our future, that's how i look at you. and that's what i expect of you, because you should all do not exactly what you had to do like me, you were born here. ..

they don't win lotteries. they work hard. you understand that? [applause] >> if you rich, you won lottery you didn't win lottery. if you rich, you own it, and if you own it, you just keep it. shouldn't give it away to taxes. [applause] >> and you have the opportunities. the opportunities here to become

somebody, become part of the government become part of -- become a doctor, to tailor, whatever you want. be people in america with the worst high school, they had always 15, 20 police cars around those high schools. just to keep it safe. i went to the principal you aren't teaching these kid right. i don't accuse you. we need to teach them straight. they're not college kids. guess what? brooklyn is now the hardest place where i live that we help create the industrial park and these people, when i was 80 years old with my family, they mad that tape about me, the poem that made the first brewery, the

people are carpenters, mechanics they all have businesses because of what i did, encourage them, to teached the trades. not everybody has to be a college guy. my education you want to know? i went no night school to learn english, to read and write. i learned myself. what i'm talking to you. [applause] >> but i never stopped learning. i never do -- i paint read, i know what "the new york times" says every day because i need -- i'm in the business of knowing what is going on. they always have good writers and stuff. i'm not going to talk about that.

whether i agree. but i cannot sleep -- i cherish my job. if you ask me, am i retired? i work six days a week. except summertime, i take off a few days. because just to work four days, because i'm the happiest in my job. you know why? because i think i do the best job what i do. my sons follow in my footsteps. and we want to continue, and i hope that if god gives me enough time and life, i will never retire because i love what i do and the most important thing

i tell you all, if you pick something that you like and you work hard, never give it up. you are going to become what you want to be. but there's always up to you not to blame teachers, not to blame anybody because you got to have the family to get you -- if you're a father and mother, you better listen to them. to bring you up. we know nothing. we're all the same. i help a lot of kids, neighborhood you couldn't walk out, you can't -- very dangerous, so i said young people when i went to first school i have a dear friend in colin powell, still my best

friend. three weeks ago in my factory and brought his son so could i dress him up. so i dressed him up after he changed his uniform 22 years ago, and he still wear mist suit. he says the 22-year-old son will works. the uniform only lasted 40 years. and then he calls me his brother as mentor. the relationship. unbelievable the kind of people that i know, and the kind of people i -- it's only about my trade, the way i do business with people, and i was brought up to help people, and i was brought up to share with people, and i was brought up to teach people. if somebody starts to work with me there are no tailors no more. the tailors that we have in our

shop if you come to visit the shop is just young people, and i make them. very few americans left. it is nothing what -- when i came in '47 we made everything in america, the best suits they close the silk factory because the water is polluted. they came in from italy and they said, looks -- [inaudible] -- in connecticut. he put in to die and he says, give me a glass of water and i'll drink it, see if i die. the first one die -- and the factory is there and they close the factory. they close the factories all over the world because of the water is bad. why don't you try to fix that?

instead of putting out of business. jobs jobs, jobs. everything was made in america and today in our factory the only thing is made in america is the suit. we have to buy everything from all over the world because nothing -- they put out every -- this is not the way the country was -- to phase businesses out. the country was created to create jobs, not to have the government give you money to live. they have no money. they do our money they pay other people. the jobs are created in america and we should continue to do that in my opinion because there are plenty people in america today without jobs, that

is just a shame for me because it wasn't like that when i came. and that's all i could tell you and i hope you like what i'm saying. and if you have any questions i'll be happy to answer them, thank you. [applause] >> if you have a question, please state your name and where you're from first. >> my name is katrina. i'm from washington state. and i'm an intern here at young america foundation. i was wondering what you think the greatest issue facing our nation is today. >> she wants know what is the greatest issue facing our nation today.

what's the biggest -- >> in america for me? >> yes. >> right now i feel very uncomfortable with the world what is going on, with the isis, with the this is, because we don't show enough strength to try and get out and create the europeans together, to fight to save the country because i am not so optimistic about the way it's happening today. >> blake adams with the american conservative. in your own words what does it

mean to be an american? >> what does it mean to be an american? >> what does mean? means to america i could make you another half hour speech here. to me, to me, when i came here, the first two months i wanted to go to washington. i couldn't speak. i met somebody, my father's friend had some kind of business his daughter came and i had to go to the congress there to see the building, and said -- he wanted to know about me and i would know about him and he start telling me about america and what i should read and what i should do, this, this and then he became vice president. still was in touch with me

because they taught me so many things about this country that i didn't know, about how the country was created by who by what and then because when i went for my citizenship they asked me three four questions and i answered them and asked the guy a few of my questions he couldn't answer me any. i said i'm paying you. why don't i take your job. that's how i feel about america. i feel about america that it's created unbelievable -- these people, and i read everything about them. they put together something that was nothing in existence no place in the world and now people want to change it. don't change it. it's got to -- the way they did it. that's why we're so free here. that's why everybody wants to come here. they should come here legally.

thank you. [applause] >> my, mr. greenfield, it was great hearing you talk today. my question for you is one that i also asked your lovely wife, arlene. do you think that another holocaust could ever happen? >> do you think another holocaust could happen? could the holocaust happen again? >> no. i don't think that the holocaust is going to happen again. first of all it is a country called israel. i believe if there is a country called israel, that the holocaust might have never happened. because it should never happen. i mean, i understand what happened in other countries

before the war when they were fighting with each other and there was a lot more killings because you aren't the same as me and whatever. the only way that holocaust will never happen is what i talk to you, the young guys, girls too. young people. okay. that will be a better sense. so not to follow leaders if. i if you don't have a leader that directs you in the right direction, if a its like stalin, all the ends don't work. you should use your head and never could there be a -- any kind of holocaust against blacks against whites. i don't see no color. i work with everybody. the first imi saw a black man in

my life is when i was liberated from the concentration camp. i never saw one in czechoslovakia. never heard a negro when they show the picture and now i see a truck driver, a soldier and guess what? as a young kid i see another one, no guard. i see another one no gun. then i ask the right person could communicate this. and at least the truck, he says, no they don't have no guns. they have no guns? so they germans could kill them and they can't kill the germans? is that right? so i found out that's wrong too. these are black man or whatever he should have a gun like the white one. what's different? to me it doesn't make any difference. and that's what i mean about your question is very good, but

people who don't follow leaders who are going in the wrong direction. thank you. [applause] >> my name is julia and i'm from california and an intern at young america foundation itch was wondering if you have any suggestions for bringing the outsourced jobs to america. >> how do we bring jobs back to america? >> put me in charge. i bring all the jobs back. [applause] >> i tell you this, give me the job, and i'm going to take off prom my place and show you how fast i create jobs. without a problem. there are people who want to start businesses, people want to do this, but look what we have. look what happening in insurance, am a union shop. i don't know if you know that. that we almost went broke because all of a sudden our

insurance went up triple and they're union people. i thought the government goes on the union side, but once you have unions, they're my people. i myself a big supporter because they work for me. they have to make a living. and i'm for it. it's not because of the money but now we can't afford to pay their insurance because we can't afford. you can't stay in business you have this and that and have to have a union. there's no way to get started because there are too many restrictions to start businesses. that's why i say put me in charge that i should be able to do it my way and see how it's going to be -- i make it faster.

[applause] my name is rudy, i'm from minnesota. living in washington, dc. why do you think there's such a human tendency to deny the existence of evil or to be silent in the face of it? with neville chamberlain or today with isis. >> whoa do people not believe there is real evil? why won't people believe there is evil in the world? >> why don't they want to believe there's evil? >> well, you see the one thing that i cannot tell people, i'm trying to talk to young people

because when i came to this country, the first job i had i met a lot of workers and for a dead man because roosevelt had died they were saying the jewish praying for him and they were already communists papers. so i don't know, first have to find out -- a jewish paper so i could read it. the paper at night. saw what they're reading and i came back, that's win we started fights. i said, you have a good job why you unhappy? and that is how i changed some

of the ideas but it was a very small way because they were ashamed of -- my kids came from a refugee. i don't know nothing but i -- what was written there in yiddish because i understood every word. so if any one of us communicate, sometimes you change somebody's mind, but it's very difficult because there are many people who go in a direction, they go -- there were only some people wrote a certain way, they change the road to a better way there arm i going to fall off. they can't sign it, the switch from one party to another.

so i have my own roads. you can discuss politics together because we don't have the same ideas. it's very difficult. but i agree with you tough job. >> brianne in noble from michigan. what were you most surprised about when you came to america? >> what about america surprised you the most? >> america -- you know, the first surprise was that i thought there was this people didn't have -- they were lined up in yankee stadium. that miss my surprise. but i was not -- i was introduced by my relatives and then one of the sons used to

work for revlon, and he took me on a trip around -- introduce me to so they wanted me to see the real america their way and i -- washington is -- not my favorite place basically but at this most -- the best i love washington the way it was built and the way it is put together. i used to go to philadelphia a lot, because i knew the history of there. franklin. but i saw this reading and reading about america and that's surprised me how it was created, and that's why we're so

strongly about it. you young people have a chance to keep it that way. not me, and not us. you. you keep it up. be involved. don't have other people to do it for you. you do it yourself. piece by piece by piece and guess what? you can change america to be like it was. thank you. [applause] >> we have time for one more question. >> thank you for coming to speak. i am alex montgomery, from north carolina. i was wondering what do you think was the key to your business model? the key point to running your business that helped it to

become really successful. >> what was the key for your business becoming a success? >> keep my business being my success? me. when you work at something whether it's political or is producing something you cannot always just continue to do the same thing. you got to think of how to do things better. so i divided different systems. systems how to measure people, and i was never a tailor, and the custom tailors who were the best tailors they do things you do six seven times and you have to charge 55,000 and five times try on.

i learn how to measure a little bit better quality and a better way to do it, and i started traveling to all the stores to measure people. i had to deliver a suit -- one tailor had to be almost 99% finish and i developed a system, and that is what we have around the world. some of the systems developed by the -- but has nothing to do -- but many n any business you cannot just take it for granted that there's going to be there forever. all the people that is in the bank whether it's in medicine, whether it's something it's always have to change for the better for the better, then we are successful.

otherwise i would never be successful. because today if you talk about -- i see some who wear the short jacket, i make the best one you. know why? because i make quality and they're tight and you cannot move in them, but if you buy mine you always going to buy mine because it's -- it looks like what you want, you could wear and it it fits you do dance, you can -- whatever you want. because it's made that way. and that is a success in my business and we have -- we always go with fashion fashion fashion, because the men's clothing business is not like the women's every season they change. takes four or five years. but with my suit is have some 25 years ago when i put one on, fits me yet.

they think it's a new suit. look we did boardwalk empire if you watched. those suits my grandfather wore. but i knew that they didn't have too many suits. but they made them, for this and that and that's all they wore, and when they asked what is your favorite part in the movie? the clothing. i said, why you say the clothing? when you dress me up, i never have a suit, and you dress me up i'm dressed right. so if i say the wrong thing the suit says everything. that's what i do. make sure that i continue to make them better. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book you reside like to see

featured on booktv? >> booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they're reading this summer. >> i'm really looking forward in a few weeks like a lot of people to reading a "go set a watchman," a harper lee book which has been bally high hooed she wrote could tail mockingbird my all-time favorite book and fav hit movie and the wrote nothing else. such a wonderful novel wasn't followed up by anything, and then recently this manuscript was found which she actually wrote before to kill a mockingbirds involving the same characters. so that's coming out in mid-july and since i love "to kill a mockingbird," i'm sure i won't live up to that but i'm

really looking forward to it. right now i'm re-reading a walker percy novel called the moviegoer, which is set up in new orleans where i grew up, so it's nostalgic for me bus it's set in the new orleans i grew up and i love -- walker percy is one of favorite novelist. my favorite is "the last gentleman." >> booktv wants to know what your reading this summer. tweet us your answer at booktv or you can post it on our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. >> on sunday, august 2nd book tv is live with me madea benjamin cofounder of the group, code pink, one live monthly call-in show. the author or editor of nine books, including her most

recent an investigation into the use of drones for military purposes drone warfare. other titles include the green offering the revolution, which cans cuba's use of organic agriculture, and stop the next war now on how to create political change through activism. her other books cover topics such as how to aid people living in the third world profiles of inspiring women and further examinations of cuba. medea benny -- benjamin, on "in depth." >> dr. khalil mohammad, where are we? >> we are at the schomburg center for research and black culture. >> host: why is it world famous. >> guest: it is arguably the most important repository for

studying global black history founded nine app 90 years ago this month. >> host: who is arturo alfonso schomburg. >> guest: the founding curator of the collection that carries his name today. that collection arrived here at the 135th street branch of the new york public library 190 years ago. he was a bibliophile found a job on wall street work neglect mail room, saved his pennies worth really hard and bag any rare or unique book he could fine that was by or about black people. he eventually becoming famous for this collection. people would borrow from the library, like legal langston hughes, and when the librarian

at the library here on 135th 135th street decided that she had a lot of black patrons coming to the library in a largely german immigrant community at the time, that i've got to find material for my patrons. and ultimately schomburg's collection of 5,000 items was prepared by the carnegie corporation, and arrived here 90 years ago and made up the core of what now today is a 10 million item collection at the schomburg center. >> host: how did it end it in harlem. >> guest: because this was the settlement zone, kind of ground zero for what came to be the negro mecca of the world. that is, harlem, u.s.a., for black folk. most people today think about harlem in relation to the apollo or abyssinian baptist

church, 125th street is the commercial corridor of harlem in the public imagination butted turns athlete first african-americans to really settle in this community settled on 135th street where we are today, between lennox avenue and feign -- seventh of musician better northern as malcolm x boulevard and adam clayton powell, jr. boulevard. that block is why the y the ymca ymca, the first color el ymca is across the street. why harlem hospital, which was not for black patients unless its founding, became he main center for training black physicians and nurses and receiving black patients. this is the institutional and residential home for black harlem in its beginning. >> host: what this schomburg center's relationship with harlem. >> guest: itself is the official repository of the community the

archives of the place for telling the stories of the historymakers and the change agents from langston hughes to james walds bin to miya angelou to sidney portier and people walk through the doors in search of inspiration fellowship and camaraderie, and walk out of the doors smarter more committed more passionate to tell the stories to do the work to help change the country. >> host: what's the schomburg center relationship with the ny public library? >> guest: number public library owns and operateses the schomburg center as part of four research divisions of the library system. the new york public library was the broker of the deal that helped to bring the collection here along with the carnegie corporation, and interestingly enough the national urban league. the library itself was committed to serving the patrons of this

commune by finding this collection and for these past another years the new york public library has supported the operations of the center, as it does other research centers so-ed with it. >> host: to million pieces-octobers. what's in that ten million. >> guest: a lot of away and a lot of books. we have 4 then thousand volumes in towns of book and those books aren't purchases over 190 years including the original collection, we also have a very substantial manuscript collection which has about 800 unique collections and in those 800 collections again everyone from lawyer rain hans bury, from malcolm x to miya angelo to ralph bunch. those individual pieces of paper the correspondence, the

diaries, the unpublished manuscripts and hundred hundreds hover thousands of photographic images frock negatives to print to digital material. we have an av collection which represents original jazz albums, unpublished material, including moving images, going back to the 1960s and '70s when a lot of documentaries were made, and we have the outtakes of the foot usage and we have actually an art collection which rivals, frankly, the best art collection that exist in this country. we have argued this and no one has taken issue with it, we may have in terms of certainly a library museum, the best collection of 20th century african-american fine art. so the collection is vast in its range and significant in what it represents for telling both african-american history

and global black history. >> host: is it available to the public? >> guest: yes, yes. we are committed in the new york public library system to every single item that i've just described in general terms being available to any kind of researcher or individual self-described lay to expert, young adult to seasoned, experienced member of this community, can come in and ask to see original material and have that material delivered to them so that they might see touch, feel, read for themselves. >> host: are you funded soley by the new york public library? >> guest: no. so the library receives about 60% of its general support from the city of new york, and there is a substantial endowment that helps to fund the overall operations of the library. so roughly speaking we get about 50% of our money from the city of new york, vis-a-vis the

number public library and 40% funds from endowments and restricted funds and other grants that we are awarded in the course of our fundraising. >> host: what is your role here. >> guest: my role is to set the vision and direction of this institution, to manage the leadership of this institution to make sure that our patrons who number more than 300,000 in terms of bodies through our doors, every year, which i might add is three times the number of people who come here than before i arrived. my job is to make sure that this place runs smoothly, that we are responsive to community needs in terms of our programs, our exhibitions. so where there are funding shortfalls, i focus on addressing them, both short-term and long-term. i am a booster and an advocate for the importance of institutions like this, that are committed to history committed to literacy, committed to

education in the very general sense, particularly one that expands the public sphere that helps people to feel a part of our democracy to be engaged by it. and so i carry a lot of water in terms of representing the institution externally. >> host: how did you get here? >> guest: i arrived here by way of a traditional search process but i was a history professor at indiana university for six years prior to coming here. i taught u.s. history with a specialization in race relations and african-american history. and the particular circumstances of my arrival coincided with the departure of my predecessor howard doddson and a meche committee that was interested in perhaps doing a reboot generationally and so i was able to talk myself into a pretty good gig. >> host: well, you have been here five years now. what significant changes would

you like to see happen or have happened in those five years? >> guest: this is the start of my fifth year, and i would say that we have worked very hard to make the schomburg centerlevant to younger audiences as it was say in the '60s and '7s so and 'le 0s at a tame when the schomburg center was very much engage inside the lives of young cultural producer ands a artists and activists. so we focused a lot of on programs bringing in different talent that would speak to those younger audience, and by that i mean we're talking about people from 25 to 45 years old. as a result, of some clever social media marketing bringing new talent, we have seen again as i mentioned our numbers of people through our doors triple, to over 300,000, which is a big big deal. we have also increased our

educational footprint. so the schomburg center has a saturday program which is focused on college preparatory african-american studies so broadly speaking, we use the collection to work with middle and high school students to increase their critical reading and oral analytical stills, and then we expose them to ways of communicating and expressing themselves from dance and spoken word journalism, scholarships, so on and so forth. so i have focused a lot of taking that program and securing its finances as well as making it's model for other kinds of organizations around the country who are interested in doing more out of school time work where history is important. we have a lot of focus on stem, science, technology, engineering and math mat ticks sports, performance, but very little on history, and you know for a program such as booktv, history is a big part of the

nonfiction world and a big part of what we think is lacking in our overall popular culture. we want people to be more historically literate. >> host: you have been quoted in saying i want to be the google of historic literacy. what do you mean? into the want to be a resource in the way that bridges a millenial sensibility when it comes to technology, and the speed and access of information with substantive and rich engagement. so google is the portal to a universe of information and we want to be on the back side of that universe there to provide quality content and to be a source of inspiration for further learning. the last thing we want is for people to have an experience, or in real-time or virtually that turns them off to the kind of deep engagement with ideas and scholarship and literature that we're focused on. >> host: where did you grow up. >> guest: chicago.

south side chicago. >> host: where did you go school. >> guest: kenwood academy, public school, just about three-quarters of a mile from where the president and first lady call home today. >> host: and college? >> guest: college, i went to the university of pennsylvania. i studied economics and decided late in my tenure there i would be a public accounton and i made a mad grab for accounting classes so i could support the exam one day graduated with a degree in economics and started taking summer courses in accounting and started in philadelphia as a public accountant in for delight. >> host: how didout got from delight to history professor. >> guest: well college is a fascinating journey. the best of college is an opportunity to expose one to various endorsers human kind. all of the liberal art is was

exposed to in english and history and african-american classes turned out to about most interesting to me once i got out of college. so i decided that if i was going to have to be a smart as i needed to be as an accountant, reading gaap or the governing accounting principle for the profession so i could make sure that financial statements were accurate i would have to be that smart in account, i'd rather be that smart in history or that smart in african-american studies something that was much more important to me intellectually and something that was a budding passion. so what why after a couple of week is said i have to switch careers. i stayed in public accounting for 22 months, but then decided to go to graduate could use where did you go. >> guest: rutgers university and stewed with david lewis who i'm proud of having been his student. >> host: and ph.d from russgoers as well. >> guest: phn american history

from rutgers. >> host: is african-american history american history or are they separate. >> it's absolutely american history. there's no america without the black experience being central to understanding how this country essentially came to be the world's leading super power. you could tell a story of american history that starts with european settlement and the indigenous population in the early world and contests over land but you wouldn't get very far through the revolutionary pear or the founding of the nation or the concept of freedom or the debate over slavery or the economics of the nation without putting black people at the center of that story. >> host: this is a quote from you, and if you could explain it further: something broke between the parents who had been the per seers of the cultural knowledge from the '20's to to 30s in to 40s in to 50s to the parents my parent's

generation, decides they wanted their kid to go to wall street, wanted their kids to be physicians wanted their kids to be lawyers wanted their kids to assimilate into american institutions in ways that were not compatible with the old school approach. they did it with the best of intentions but too many traded on the opportunities of the 1980s. >> guest: yeah. so that's an interesting quote. that's me, huh? >> host: are you surprised by that quote? >> guest: not really. sounds about right. i think that the black experience has always been one about seeing the whole from the margins. and the moment after the 1960s moved the margins to the center act least conceptually, and in that shift from the margins to the center, particularly for a burgeoning black middle class and for people who felt like the

work of reconcile thing possibilities of the american dream with the reality that the legal infrastructure no longer was barrier to that, meant that a significant number of african-americans lost that sense of skepticism, about holding those principles in mind against the reality that people experienced. and so my generation, unluke my parents' generation, were not handed the kind of critical sensibility that had always been part of the journey the enslaved person sensibility the sharecropper sensibility the early self-rights activists understanding that they as lawyers, as privileged outside indicated black people, had an obligation to make sure that the country was living up to its possibilities. and so my generation x experience is one that we were literally thrown into the world as if it was nothing wrong with the world and there were problems with the world. this was a world that for me, by

the time is was a senior in college, was trying to understand why rodney king had just become the focus of major urban uprising, and represented kind of the tip of the iceberg for a criminal justice system that was ballooning on an unprecedented scale. none of us could know in 1991 and 1929 we would be talking about mass incarceration today but our parents my parents in particular in terms of generationally, did not prepare us for the work that needs to happen today and that is the critique i was making about trading on individual success without a sense of social responsibility. >> host: who are your parents? >> guest: my parents are both retired, professionalsment one was a school teacher and administrator of the chicago public school ford 35 years and my father recently retired was a photojournalist worked for

john john johnson publisher charlotte observer, newsday and the past 20 years the new york times as the staff photographer. >> host: are they retired in new york. >> guest: any mother always lived in chicago him parents divorced when i was young many years oak ago mitchell father lift in under for many years. >> host: whats your lineage? sunny? the famous part of my lineage the part i know as opposed to much distantly i'm the great grandson of elijah mew mohammad. the father of the nation of islam. my father was educated at the university of islam until he went to college mitchell mother never converted, but very much formative to my early years my first cousins, aunts aunts and uncles were very much part of their grandfather and father's legacy, and i was very much part of that as a child. >> host: and why was that

formative? >> guest: formative in the way that any child who is part of a family that means something to people you recognize early on that people see you differently. so i had conversations with adult bas off being the great-grandson of elijah muhammad that other children would not have had. out of the curiosity the way celebrity culture attaches to the die scene dents of famous -- descendents of famous people and i had some sensibilities that were cult avoid its as a result of being part of a family. i was not taught anything special with regard to the nation of islam than, say any member of the nation at the time. i was not being groomed to be a successor.

in fact my great uncle started a separate movement, a sunni islam, that while my father was still alive was very controversial but he in n some ways embodiesed the the family legacy one general removed. didn't trickle down to my generation including my first cousins. the analogy i like toize the preacher's kids are often times the ones raise most -- racing me most hell in the church as opposed to following the father's or mother's footsteps. >> host: what's malcolm x's role here at the schomburg. >> guest: he is a major part of our commitment to celebrating the contributions of african-americans who have articulated in courageous terms the black experience. he -- his collection is absolutely one of our most significant collections. it's been with us for ten years.

and annually we have programming to commemorate his birth and his assassination, and these are usually focused within muslim communities, both for foreign-born emand american, because those communes still look to the leg guess of malcolm x to understand the world. we had a terrific one this year that brought people who met malcolm x in lebanon and cairo in 1964, looking at his world perspective at the time. >> host: schomburg center sponsors the harlem book fair sponsors the harlem book fair every year. >> guest: that's right. we do this in collaboration with max rodriguez who is actually the founder of the harlem book fair but as a venue for more than 15 years now the schomburg center has been the home of the harlem book fair. we're very proud of it and we see thousands of people through our doors and have had wonderful programs aired on c-span of new authors and famous folks.

>> host: khalil mow ham -- mohammad in a lot of your writings you talk about education. i want to read another quote to you. and have you explain this: the only way to get a coherent message is that you train everybody based on a common set of readings and understand offering what the problem is, so then everyone buys into that kind of message. do you remember saying that? >> guest: i don't. i'm a little bit curious because it's probably in a specific context. if i'm talking about young people it's what we do in the junior scholars program. they'll read a common text, for example, and in years past they read the out toy biography of malcolm x theeyve read slave narratives. they read congressman john lewis' graphic novel called,

"march." and i think they read "mash 2" this you're because gist came out. depending on the context in which the q qute was articulated it's the same way in which column you use another as a core clickum in terms of great literature or history from which you build a base of knowledge to find your voice in response to the sort of cannon. >> host: you were build a core core curriculum what would be in it. >> guest: i wish i could be as fluent in designing curriculum in this context. i'm a history boost sorry think it is critical that people understand the past in the way that professional historians articulate it. so there are all sorts of historical narratives that circulate in our public or popular discourse so bill o'reilly publishes history booolk ump don't count those in the core curriculum but redmond morgan wrote a book called

american slavery american freedom, which wrestle evidence with the del lamp ma and the conundrum that slave ray was an -- was the great exception to the american project and morgan famously as harvard professor described this period precisely for what many historians would now agree was that slavery was essential to the project of both defining what slavery and freedom were and as well shaping the limits of democracy which are still a work in progress. so that would be one book, for example. james baldwin is terrific writer and someone for whom the schomburg center has a special connection to i would dully make sure his book was read at the schomburg center. declaration of independe wre, because no work of literature in the u.s. context and no work of history is not in conversation with those core ideals arcticif% lated by the founding fathers.

peter, you are stressing the limits of my curriculum development on camera, but wap don't we stop there jo that was pretty good for off the cuff. if somebody wanted to come in and read james baljamin's personal papers or miya angelou 's person papers, could tham. come in and request that? >> guest: yes this, campt we're the definitive home of miya angelou's collectioort james bald win we only heave correspondence between him and his brother. his collection remain thursday the possession of the estate, and one day we hope to gift it. but even the collection of corresponde wre between david bailed win and james baljamin is revealing and important to scholarship. >> host: you're also an authoombu >> guest: yes. >> hannt: what bangs. >> guest: my only published book is called o'the condemnation of blackness, race, crime and make

of modern -- ." >> host: you've been working on the second one for qtorte a while. >> guest: i have ahosinistrative and fundraising responsibility dozen that makes its df thficult to forge ahead. i have pcirlished an article from. it. the second book is called "disappearing acts: the end are white criminality in the age of jim control." >> host: are you surprised by the past year in race relations? >> guest: ye o' i. a. i'm surprised both in the way in which there have been calthe lus shootings of unarmed people, that seem to come one after the other. these are not new phenomena obviously, but we would thi i that in a nation that is saturated with media and commentary that we might see

behavioral changes so that what haecoened in staten island might have limited the possibility that walter scott was shot in his back in charleston, south carolina. or might have impacted the circumstances of freddie graeys death ride in baltimore just a few weeolk ago. so i'm surprised that the high profile nature of these moments seems not to have had a affect on changing police behavior around the country to the point where people are fhe trated and more focused on organizing and changing the system than i have seen in my lifetime as an aduzen. >> hannt: put it in some historical perspective. this going to -- atypical year?

>> guest: oh yeah. it's been aty ascas: i thi i the most significant measure of its atypicality is the involvement and investment of the department of justice in responding immediately to episodes of controversial police shootings. so what starts literally for this moment i say for the last 12-month period with ferguson investigation, dovetaihip into a philadelphia depar atyent of justice istestigation and the most recent call for -- i'm sorry -- reporting on a ntereveland doj reporting so consent decrees have fall on newark's police department. we have not seen this kind of det?h of justice engagemenpape the lcal policing matters since the civil rights movement. >> hannt: would this have haecoened do you thi i de

ãwould have been this involved if we hadn't had a black attorney general or a blaave president? >> guest: you have interviewed enough historians to know we shy away from the counterfactuas: who knows. i measib one could argue that it's probably more important there's a democrat in the white house than a repcirlicasib given the way the republican party has treated matters of criminal justice until qtorte recently, with the biparticesn effort led in georgia or by the koch brothers or rand paul, senator from keno.ave y. so i do thi i that eric holder matters more to the commitment and willingness of using doj resources to istestigate lountal policing matters than, say the presence of a black man in the white house or president obama in particulaombu >> hannt: notice the book on your desk sitting here in your office. >> guest: it has not been read yet so you can't aman me.

>> host: i'll ask you why it's on your desk and why it's on the to be read pile. >> the loneliness of the black run. >> guest: yes, written by leah rivera a new professor at the harvard kennedy schoos: a terrific and i have started reading it. it is representatoree of a new field of scholarshted mshted m, political history modern political history, that tries to unpack the origins of the new right, starting in the 1970s and some other great authors kevin cruz wrote about the period on atlanta. ma limhew lassiter @mote about it in "charlotte." this is recent modern u.s. history, and her work looolk at the experie wre of african-americans who were appointed by republicans starting with richard nixon or were repcirlican candidates or serued in office such as senator

edwardbrook, brook and asks some interestingy huestions about the republican part of the time period the pioneers, clifford alexander, whose daughter ely toabeth alehe snder terrificif% poet and just wrote a memoir, is at yale and participated and wrote a p andm nor president crazy inauguras: nterf thfod by alehe snder, a political appointee, looking through the lens of their aco.al politics and their ideologko thaur commi atyent to making real the promises of the civil rights movement for the africaernamerican communi, the, yes much more pro business, more friendly to transactional politics meaning we're gxpng to work with the politicians be they republicans or independents who are interested in hel asng black people a less bee holding to the demountratic party. but they had an approach to civil rights, post coreil right o' meaning after the mceemeniti that

makes today's democrats look like the liberal republicans that most of them were. f th that makes sense. >> hannt: khalil mohammad who are contemporary african-american @miters you ahosire. >> guest: helen ry calis terrific. farrah griffin who is comparative literature scholar @mote a book called harlem nocturne. black women's experience nets the interwar period. i just read a book about ethel momohis pioneering jouthis alist for the chicago defender, written by james mcgrath morris a terrific reariff i just read a couple of dissertations. so my reading is very broad.

>> host: you have been quoted as cesying you want to me e smart sexy again. >> guest: well yeah, well, i'm in the smart business. in any line of worsuc you want your market to eis iand and grow, and be relevant and important. i think that i'm gxpng to borrow lewis -- they huip that he wrote in harper's where he said that americans have an amazing pr's wensi, the for grand siin.lification, what he meant is that americans don't like the complexity of the past, and they tend to jettison the complexity of the past for simple ways of understanding things. to quote him directly he said that uses of american history for ehe sin.le how they engage the

past is usually to underwrite wars or bthe lw b and theble's on wall street. and in this insta wre he is calling for us to all be a lot smarter about the world that we have inherited and the world that we might want to live in, and that requires us to wrestle with complere ity to wrestle with the messiness of the past to be impatient with our learning, to be patient with our leathis ing, and in that sense i want to -- i in.lree with him and want to make that a sexy. i want to make people want to ooopreciate reading as i do, nonfiction history books which are not nearly the best sellers that d andsn't for great fiction @miting. esem actughlly reading -- it's funny. i'm thinking about another book esem reading toni morrison' o' bledw is i. she has another book out god bless -- and i i wanted to hear

an early toni morris ascesssin my head becpartise she has this amazing body of work, and we are talking a lot of about racial identi, the in this country. for all df thferentl- all sorts of ropes including pressures black migrationl,- immigration to this country the changing nao.re of who black people are in america whoer increasingly foreign born or children of the foreign bor> so aou hway, that's just another book that popped into my head. >> hannt: as a father of three children are you satisfied with what they're learning about u.s. history? in school? >> guest: no. my ke g ands to p and thelic school. my son whose curriculum i know best he is now a freshman in mericigh schoos: my wf the is ashmo on the school board of our community and so i get to see and hear the concethis s of a swath of parents in the

communitko they do a lot of reading and a lot of great literature. my son is reading fahrenderwaut 45 1 right nuo but they don't do as much with the complexity of history as i would like to see as atrain historian. listen for a long time, i was on the receiving end of what we do now classrooms. and so iornnew what freshmen or sophomoresl,- what kind of basic historical knowledge they had. whether or not they were reading the book is would have assigned in high school or grade school, never minds the fact they were not well versed in terms of what we call social studies in primary grey -- mime prayer grades. my son d ands not read enough qughli, the history, not enough quality nonfiction that isn't a scholastic dillel distillation of last week's news. thers is at more literature focus but opened in to be more nonfiction history tpartight and st-- aents sho?

id be reared to read it in school. >> host: what are some of your favorite exhibits here. >> guest: we de a wonderf? i shuo on read byon, one of the great american collagist a contemporary jacob lawre wre a who work is in museume,es around the world, including the met here the schomburg. that was a favorite show for a fine arts show here at the schomburg. we did a gordon parks show that looked at the photots oohy of one of america's greatest fine arts and documentary photographers who got inspired working in the new deal ahosinistration of rooseveliti and later worked for "time magazine." we have also done terrific shows the ldeming at early forme of photography soming back to the 1850s. antebellum african-americans here in new york and other parts of the country who took to

self-pore pore extra tour, cal kinging stereotopping and shuoing that they were people whose h anotanity sho? id be respected and captured in the best light. we did a great motuon shoeb collaborating we the motuon muse anot in detroit and brought original art facts including marvin gays is what is gxpng on somld records and diana ross' one of the supreme dresses that was all sequenced. so that's are just the high lots of shows we have done here elm wills have had a rare book collection focused on a new aciti isition of slavery materiaed in % tyrom the center for the study of transatlantic slavery. it represents the most signf thicant indi lodual gf tht the scho? idurg center has ever received. 400 rare book items related to the abolition of the slave trade in the late didth and early 19th century as welling a an

endowment gift to support felluoshntus and prots ms and co19erences here forever. so we have also put on display items from the collection. >> host: show us the current ere hiity nts. >> guest: sure. look forward to it. >> so, where are we headeriff >> guest: we are gxpng into the lattimer edison gallery name for one of the earliest liuparians here at the scho? idurg, and con ed that mericelped to support the renovations. >> host: what do we have hoaung here. >> greceist: this is a dorld anotentary that was completed in 1970. it was aired on television of the selma mshnement led by nao. lookngin' seq65. this particular footage represents a number of outtakes because we have the entire footin.le of the oritilnal event and the documentary was of course edited for television. so this represents some of the

collections that have tremendous research value at the schomburg center because younede seeing aspects of the mshnement that may not have been as meaningful in 1970 as they would be now. we wanted to look at the scale of people in church and zero in on parishioner o' but a if you're trying to figure out what was the average age of the marchers in the moms this people f bend ort king. we have footage that in the wide shots you get do see a lot more pe's wle participating. >> h and tht: hundred years from now is dr. king going to be a footnote or a major figurrat >> greceist: nao elookng will always be a major figure because he will always represent the best of the american tradition. which is that the indoree ual has the capacity to literally change the world. that is what the american naoeames built osl that core notion of individualism, and king embodies

that better than aou hboge except historrecdallism was used in the service of the greater good stop dr. king will all be with it. >> h and tht: whats do you want shuo to us here a mooring image and recorded sound. >> guest: we have five chee e o' and the mshning imagery and recod byed sounds collection shows an album collection, and what is great about this i o' think about the foree-ouldar-old who first of all has never seen an album before. so these are artf thacts in away that 20 years a som wouldn't have been such a big deal but in the digital world are a big deal. secondly the art is itself a form of historical process sir vacation, to see the way in which the cover art spee s to the vision of the musicians and the artists who created it. but we have everything from richard wrighst:s blae e boy baung re19e h."uporldk peter o' an actor who is most famous for the starring roll in to kill a ma bling birriff

>> h and tht: is this the entire book or abridge elfed version. >> guest: it's abridged. you can only get 90 minutes on an lp front and back. 19editionally, ruby dewho grew up in the schomburg center, this is an alb anot of her reading the work of famous blae e women including coretta scott king, angela davis, aid do b. welshm signed by r and they d and r and thee r and they dee learned act to go lie library in a theater repertory called the american negro theater. >> h and tht: contiso,ing the tour. >> guest: yep. >> host: this is all open to the public. >> greceist: all open to at the public. >> alex hailey. >> guest: telling the back stories to roots. the famous blae e intellectughl, w. e. b.duboys.

you're looking at that how fascinating, never heard due haibois'n axpce. you can p? il out your phone expats on itunes. we have the album the world has access to the con ten and that ere citing. >> h and tht: is that good thing. >> guest: that is a good thing. >> h and tht: why? other? a becpartise we want pcitple to have access to this store of cultural production, of knowledge of infofaatiosl so libraries are con haiits. we both preserve, so imagine if we didn't have it. i don't kno withwhere ihe nes got the master c's w but imatilne. >> gu00 years from now there's going to be some thing that can't be ditiltise ed becpartise they donthis ere ist aou hmore. so we're doing our fortunate make sure the material is preserve. >> h and tht: does it lend ifs to a hai? iding duohin surfacey type of history? >> guest: sure.

so the fact that we can all key-lard by sea% cthi-- the classic example, newspapers are wonderful sorrieses for historical resea% ch. dr. lod m% sh? ih.ugh could not write the book head writes without having access to historical newspapevic they're rich, they tilve you characterization of individuals. it's the stuff of making heroes and villains in even our historical narrative. but the bottom line is that the east with which we can key-word sea% ch information strips us of the time it te es to sea% ch for things the old fashioned which which i produces new hinds of infofaatiosl you aays find mnih more than what you're looking for when you don't key-word search. >> h and tht: who is langston heserhes. >> greceist: langston hughes is the greatest black poet of all time and one of the world's greatest poet o' here read of his -- his

word read by ozzie davis. langston hughes is also someone who, for 40 yeavicpressed this liupary and h19e an intimate relationship with the librarians at the time. so mnithiso that 25 yeavic after his passing in. >> gu967, he returned to this library relationship started in the 1920s and is now permanently interred, his,s are part of the main floor of the lobby that is named for langston heserhes here at the ere iho? idurg centeire >> h and tht: what's next? >> guest: here we are profiling a collection of children's and young a haies is literature that is part of the jean blackwell loudson research exhibition, this exhameriition responded to a co thiern that walter d. ming aers arctic lated in the "new york

times" back in 2013 where he 20e that osiry about three pe% cent of the annual publication of children and young adult literature feahe red black prota somnists. out of 32're works, d f i thiluded as the main focus black characters. show passed as everyone hnoot% recent

rer of rer of rer of rer of rer of in haistry. we have h.ot more work to. do this is trevor children of latino histories. there have been contisoed reporting on the fact that in a country that is becoming brianer, lit recall -- becoming upuoner, literal

rer of rer of that's a long timc or yeavic. so she really helped to build this place. she was the third chiby director. there was schomburg and then a man named lawrence red disk, published a biography of martin luther hing in. >> gu959. he. >> h and tht: what's the regard of that 1959 biography? >> guest: lewis says it's a good buyoantey-w of | since dave went on to write the first scholarly treatment of martin luther king published i@m% 1975 or. >> guprese6. >> h and tht: whal ss dave l worering lewis doing today? >> guest: working on a book on wilking a. >> h and tht: wendell wilelacan hc >> greceist: yes.

>> host: why. >> host: he sees in will can will will wilkey -- hd d a real commitment to a hind of -- that we lost in this country. >> host: what was it like bistng his gra haiate she dent for his ph.d candidate cincinnati was intense. david was -- is not only upilliant but ashmon aery demanding and his standary o are incredibly high. so i had to get caller i.d., and it was bran new to telephone sed ices bechavese i was piclookng up the phone and he was on the other end asking me for the latest drambu of a chapter of my dissertation, and i said i can't walk into this again it's nerve-rae eing so i could bogter prepared when i saw him on the phone. >> host: and he has been on booktv many times i thiluding our t waee hour "in depth" prtureram. go to booktv.org and and watch all three hours.

>> guest: we sto's wed here because this is what we call the cosmo gram, it is done by an artist named houston conwell and an homer, e to schombuy p for whom this center is named and his founding collection built the beginnings of this ihis ihe tion. and lanspton heserheran lanspton hujeaes' ashes are just underneath the mar marble floor here permanent

s. >> guest: to raising the visible of black visual artists. >> host: in cahoots. >> guest: good cahoots. there's really no understand of the schomburg library that isn't as expansive as possible. itself was always about more than just the books. and so this exhibition celebrates the breadth of the collection and bringing together a photography collection, manuscript collection and book items, rare book items and fine art collections. >> host: you have other nice sided building here at the corn

of 135th and lennox, right awful the number 2 line and number 3 line, but where due you store ten million items? >> guest: all over the police. this is 75,000 square feet complex. represents three building that have been brought together. all the books we have ever purchased, including schomburg's,ing are still here on site. the manuscript collections however, live both on site and off site. and that is true of the art and artifact collection as well as the moving imagery and recorded sound. >> host: you're not telling us where. >> guest: oh well, it's -- some is in a source facility in harlem some in a shared facility called recap, which is a collaboration of the new york public library columbia and princeton university. >> host: what are we look at here. >> guest: this is a show inspired by the hash tag "black

lives matter." we call it "black light matters" it's a curator's choice show and each curator was asked to focus on a part of their clerks that, one, had no not been seen in some time, if ever, and two would help to contribute to as an expansive a vision of black humanity as possible in a time where we felt a that the conversation might even be too reducktive. too much about survival. too much about the sheer need to focus on the criminal justice system. so we know the political work that is necessary there is absolutely essential but we also want to remind everyone who walks through or doors, for european tourists, white new yorkers and new jerseyans and block resident oses harlem honor the bronx that black people are bigger than the sum of their tragedies and losses. so this show wrestles with all

another that, both the good and the bad the complexity and the expressions of humanity. >> host: did you come up with the name or the team hoff -- theme of the show? >> guest: the show was in -- was inspired by in that sense the events particularly that focused on ferguson and staten island when the show was coming into existence. >> host: what do you want to show us? >> guest: i want to show you in looking at this case, you see some of the treasures of our manuscript collection, so here we have james baldwin who is writing a letter to miya angelou and he is complaining about having done a project with margaret mead called, "a rap on race" and is a little bit annoyed he doesn't think the project is going to be very good so he is sounding with his good friend, miya angelou; dear, dear-under sister, marvelous to hear from you.

i didn't know how much i needed to hear from a solid loving, funk,y 0 no shit friend, the opening line. james baldwin to miya angelou. 1970. >> guest: that's right. there's an image of miya angelou, and another person who connects -- i actually i learned from my grandmother who married my grandfather the son of elijah muhammad, that they rend from charles hansber where who owned an apartment building lorraine hans bury grew up. i didn't know that before any grandmother peninsulassed. one of the most famous playwrights in american ohio, lower rain hansberry. >> she was a lesbian. >> guest: that's right. and has very much been the focus of a kind of renewed interest in her work, partly because she is a lesbian and also because the issues of integration black

mobility of place in the stoits of ferguson is also a story of suburbannadation and the 21st century and here in racen -- raid raisin in the sun so -- >> host: what the significance of raisin in the sun the. >> guest: because it was timely and brilliantly executed and it positioned a black family as multitextured, enter generational and traditional. it brought you inside of a nuclear black family in the way that were pathologistes or caricatured in much of american literature certainly in popular culture, but also didn't shy away from the difficulties of that family in dealing with the challenges of stigma, of inequality and of race in

general. >> host: continuing the tour. >> guest: sure. so this is a kind of interesting story, really great story actually. so currently as i mentioned to you, part of the bread of the collection includes an amazing fine art collection, and represents really the canon o black visual artists year and a half ago a gentleman from the bronx reached out to the curator and said i want to give the schomburg a jacob lawrence. she said, we'll come check it out. this was purchased by that gentleman's father in 1941, with the original bill of sale for $125 still on the back of the panel. what makes this even more interesting is that this panel was done during the same year that jacob lawrence's famous great migration series was finished. that series is now on exhibition

at the moma in new york, where all the panels have come together and jacob lawrence himself -- here's the thing -- not only do we have perhaps an orphaned panel from that series, haven't proven it yet. going to work on trying to match the paint -- with momas collaboration and also the jacob lawrence actually used the library in the 1930s when he moved here as other young man from atlantic city. he studied reading the bookness the schomburg center collection which gave him the information he needed to tell the great migration story he tells the series. ...