. . his book is democracy and black.

>> i'm mark, president and i'm proud to be here with professor eddie. i am honored, as we say back home this is really great. we have some time to talk and you have written a new book and we sorely want to talk about, we also want to talk about how fascinating it is to viewers and certainly too many how you got from mississippi, a a great community down in the gulf coast, all the way to princeton university. maybe we ought to start with you talking about yourself. >> guest: i'm a country boy who made it big, that's what i like to say. my dad was the second african-american postman hired at the post office. that was a big job.

we were living in moss point at the time and he moved us from one side of time to the other side. where the third african-american family that moved into the nice neighborhood on the hill. we went to a better school, much more disciplined. it didn't have as many distractions. we went to an integrated school because it was predominantly black. people worked in the shipyard, lisa called it the pokey plants. we had to -- but i had some wonderful teachers. my sister graduated valedictorian of the high school. i wanted to leave home because i have it contentious relationship with my dad.

he was tough. tough love. but but everything i had was because of him. she said i needed to come to more hot. so i went to summer science program. i lied on the application and said i wanted to be a dr.. but to show you how beautiful these are. i went into the office of the dean of admissions at that time, dean thurman. i sat down and i said dean i'm going to convince you not to send me home. and for 30-40 minutes i told him why he should admit me. i walked out of the office with a scholarship. my mother put me on a bus with a suitcase or from that moment on morehouse. >> host: when did you know that you wanted to be a scholar?

when did the idea of teaching and being a scholar really grasp you and grab you? did you get there after law one? is it something you focus on all the while. >> guest: my mother tell me i was bored to push a pencil because i was lazy and didn't like manual labor. she said you not to get a job at the shipyard and embarrass me go get a job somewhere else. i realized i wanted to be a professor. i had a professor a professor by the name of doctor aaron parker. he was a theologian trained out of emory, he took an interest in me. i would say something and he would put his head on the table. >> host: the beauty of the relationship with a faculty member who became a mentor and i'm sure friend.

>> guest: all a close friend. the thing that was beautiful about it was that i did not have to navigate or negotiate how i got there, whether not a should be there. i walked into the boys hall, i wanted to thurman hall, every it was just confirmed to i was. even though though i was coming from a working-class family. my mother clean toilets for a living. had a first baby when she was in eighth grade. but my dad stuck in there and stuck with her and they made a life with their family. it was at morehouse that something was put in me. even as i was struggling with morehouse and they try to kick me out three or four times. it was something about this race man, something about about the dedication to justice, something about martin luther king statue from over and king chapel,

giving us a charge that changed my life. i will will always say that wherever i am i am supposed to be, morehouse educated me, princeton trained me. i'm a morehouse a morehouse man wherever i go. it was transforming. >> host: you would say to those young men who are looking for a top college experience to go to morehouse. >> guest: become a morehouse man. look at the other schools look at hbc you play such a crucial role when i say this in the book. the challenge and you know this given your work, is that many of the institutions that were so central to our forcing, they

were crucial for salvation to imagine herself many of those institutions are struggling to keep their doors open. >> host: let's talk a little about this. the truth is that our institution and those who may look at these institutions from the outside has some remark ability about how in fact in the days of reconstruction and during the days of segregation that led to civil rights and beyond, you had 100 plus institutions of higher education that were historically black. that to that you had dozens and dozens of voluntary association

whether they be religious organization, civic organizations or professional organizations which gave african-american were excluded. and that was an opportunity to organize themselves for the betterment of the community. so someone say that in the age of post- civil rights, these institutions have outlived their relevance and usefulness. >> guest: that's wrong and the reason i would say that is the presumption is that integration has happened in significant way. but you know and i know the places that i teach and navigate that integration is it really a reality and many of the sectors. more importantly, an admission i

talk about something called the value. the value is something that i think is i think is fundamental. we have the achievement gap, that wealth gap, the empathy gap but underneath it all is that white people matter more than others. >> host: who believes that? >> guest: i don't think it's about individual i think it's about the way in which the country has been built. what i meet by let's come back to the example of me moving from one side of town to the other. when we moved from the east side to the west side i remember when my dad was moving all the stuff in the house, i was eight years old. the police drove by my dad got the key and he said i own it and i was playing with my tonka truck outside. and i hear my neighbors stop playing with that. i grab my truck and i run

inside. i tell my daddy, a vietnam vet, he worked hard, his eyes darkened and he runs outside. now typically the story of american racism. black family achieves the american dream, because on the hill and the child gets mean spirited comments. by eight years old i knew we are moving from the black set a town to the white side. >> host: i had an experience not exactly like that. my i went to school, my sister and i in the mid- 60s, just as the schools were integrated. the school we went to was about three blocks past the dividing line. between the black neighborhood where we lived in the predominantly white neighborhood

one day when i believed i was in first or second grade a white kid invited several of us black kids to go play at the playground. it was about half a block away but it was the predominantly white playground. we began to plan after where there about 15 minutes a mother came up and ran us off. she ran us off by saying you know you should not be here. you do not belong here and if you cannot go home, you are going to be in trouble with your mother. the course at that age you interpreted as, i was doing something wrong, not understanding her knowing that she was basically saying, look black kids don't belong here on this playground.

even though it was post- civil rights act. years later, you get the realization going that you are being run out of a place where you had every right to be. those experiences are sometimes tough to get beyond. what what did that say to you? did you harbor a sense of if you will, anger or how did you reconcile that experience? >> guest: when we moved into the neighborhood and you find out maybe the boy you are playing with is not such a nice person in fact he might be a racist. the thing that came out that my dad who was a really strong personality, he wasn't happy and he always made it clear to us

that we were valued. that whatever these people said that nothing in his rage in response to it signaled to us that we should not abide it. i remember when we moved in and the neighbors in the backs shut the window out with a pellet gun. my dad responded with a 12 gauge shotgun and blew a limb off the tree and said don't you back here again. so that was the model. but when we think of racism with think about that moment of injury. what i'm thinking about is much broader. i already knew that something was different about me as a child by the environment that i grew up in before we moved. every time did it rain our neighborhood flooded. so we moved to the west side. our sidewalks were not paved,

our baseball field because i had grass. this cool were good. the houses were smaller. so by being called that word when we moved over it was just the icing on the cake. i had already learned when were talking about where the value gap is who believes that? it's it's built into the environment of our society. >> how does it manifests itself. so if you are absolutely right this is in fact, what and how does it benefits itself? the concept is institutional. if you challenge is hard for people to grasp because it can be in front of them and they don't see it but how does it manifests itself. >> guest: i'll give you an

example one is a story and one is a tragic reality. my son is at brown university majoring in urban studies. yet when he had to go to a rich neighborhood he goes and he's in this park and he's doing this and please screw drives by. and i tell the story in the book, this is a provenance. as a quick u-turn pulls up on the sidewalk jumps out, looks in the seat and hits him in the eye and the flashlight says who are you and why are you here? my son says i'm a student brown and i'm doing an assignment. police officers as well the park closes at 930. my son said yes but it's oh 730. the. the other officer comes along with his hand on his weapon and they said the park closes at 930. my son my son puts his hands up and says we don't want any trouble any walks out.

the other stories lit, michigan. we have a community that devastated by the industrialization and by the loss of manufacturing an automobile it industry. now they're dealing with the fact that their babies have been poisoned because a bad water, lead. what does what does that mean? somebody made an economic decision not to upgrade the pipes. to get water out of the river as opposed to going from detroit. made the decision because they knew these people who lived in that community were somehow less, somehow valued less. so from policing to who has access to opportunity, you know that social science status says that

for everyone opportunity african-americans get in the workplace, a white person will get four or five opportunities. we know in terms of social network. >> host: so when you talk about the value judgment talk about the book in the context and why you wrote the book. because i read the book, what is the take away that you want a reader of this book? >> guest: the first thing i want is that -- we have experienced the extraordinary joy and symbolic significance of the first african-american president. as you know more than anyone, the reality is that african-americans are checking out. you have these young folk who came of age with a black president are trying to figure out how they're going to break

away. here we have this economic devastation that is happened not only of the last eight years but over the last two or three decades. so i wanted to write a book to say that we need to fundamentally reimagine our politics. the stakes are so high and we are in territory that we have never seen before because we are coming off of eight years of the first african-american president. we are going to have to speak to black suffering in a way that is radically different. the the book is really about dealing with the paradox of people talking about the great recovery in relation to the great recession. and the fact that our babies are being shut down in the street. >> host: with the first black president, i want to take you back. january 2009, there is a self-congratulatory narrative being created that quote on quote the country, because of the election on a single day had

somehow transformed itself into this quote post nation america. >> guest: it manifested itself because there are those that said that organizations can now close their doors, discontinue their work, are no longer relevant because your community has one of its own in the white house. at that point and at that time, what was your sense, what was your reaction to that thought process and that narrative? >> guest: i remember this very well. i remember watching cnn and i remember hearing on election night, no more excuses. when i said oh my god. we are going to have to be

diligent, we're going to have to be alert, we we are going to be more politically mature. at that point i remember saying to my wife even though we are experiencing the joy of watching president obama in chicago, i said we are in for some dark times. because they are not going to only question and they have question any attempt to speak specifically to the suffering of black communities. what we witnessed over the last eight years and you have seen this through your work is how difficult it has been to give voice to the suffering that has taken place. >> host: at the time i immediately believed that the post- racial was a spin move

being perfected those false and overblown. historically the advent of the first african-american in any institution whether it is jackie robinson in baseball, the first african-american to in the class that my father was and that became the first black to do certain things. it never meant that there is this immediacy of change. in fact, i think all of these advances are followed by backlash and in on rational fear by some that somehow things will go to hell in a handbag.

so i thought it was not only false but i thought the objective for america should not be what i call post- racial, it should be a multicultural democracy so that everyone with the vision is wrong but somehow you can get past some aspect of history without a real clear sense of what you're absolutely trying to create. so in that sense, you have to concede a couple of things, when the president took over in 2009, no matter who that would have been in 2009, they were facing 700,000 jobs being lost per month, a banking debacle at a financial crisis which was more extreme than any in american history. the decline in almost a mise of

the american automobile industry, and in many respects black people were suffering. black people were not the only people suffering but all people were suffering. black black people may have been suffering more. in that context, with those facts, how would would you evaluate the president's performance? in terms of, and i would start by saying what did you expect? if you could have given emmett january 2009 memo, what memo, what would it have said? >> guest: in some ways i wish -- let me try to answer because there's a lot in there. let me tackle what did i expect. i did not expect much but i also

was hopeful. does that make sense? there's something about the i was speech, there is something about seeing him in hyde park that maybe we have an opening here. at the same time i understood the forces that were afoot. i knew we green screened him and what i mean we made him everything we wanted him to be. the antiwar folks made him the antiwar candidate. the progressives who wanted a progressive a progressive savior made him up aggressive. the african-americans who just wanted an african-american president, that's all we wanted. we didn't we didn't really look at what his policies were. when you see what he says, president obama is it center democrat. he is not a lefty, he is he is not one, from the greek, he's not on the left he is the center democrat in the

vein of the clinton. part of what i have been wanting if i were to write something in 2009. do what you have to do to stop the bleeding of the economy but let's change the frame so that everyday ordinary working people could have a chance. they can have a chance to dream dreams but also make those dreams a reality. what would that mean? that would mean in some ways we would have to change the economics that we have seen since reagan and in some way since carter. we'd have to change the economics for the democratic party that has so many ways conceded to. how do we get these wages from being flat? how do we get home ownership to be such where folks are subject to predatory lending?

how do we check the fight initialization of the economy? what is it says about the state of the union is he understands what the economy needs. he understands the level of inequality that happened. on his watch, white wealth is 13 times out of black wealth. on his watch, child poverty has increased 38 percent. for the first time in us keeping that data there more black poor children that there are poor white children and their three times as many white children in the country than black children. on his watch hbcus a prime desolate. >> host: also on his watch the black on employment has gone to 14 down to eight percent. on his watch, 70,000,000 people a million people a significant portion be an african-american now have healthcare and health insurance. on his watch, and my, please my

happy, satisfied with the status of the economy and the conditions of black joblessness, not at all. but i do think it is important to recognize that on his watch the black unemployment rate has come down. >> guest: i agree with that. >> host: and if you take the affordable care act by itself that has done more than any other single gesture to reduce health disparity in the last 50 years. >> guest: so i grant you this. what's interesting when you talk about the unemployment, at the height of the great black depression which i call it in the book, it was a depression depression and it still is in so many ways. in some places it was at 15 or 16%, now we have to be wary of

the january numbers. macy's already said they're going to lay off folks. it's about 99.5% before this recent reporting period what's interesting is that the height of the great recession on employment for the nation was at 9.5% we had about 9.6% or something like that and people were screaming, this is the greatest economic calamity in generations. so were not at 16% but were still at a level of crisis. we don't don't want to take that away from the president, we don't want to take the affordable care actually. i do know there are certain moments and i would like to get your reaction to this, when there is a way in which president obama narrates the story of black freedom struggle which narrows it to a combination us his election are the moments when there is a sense in which the more radical

elements get read is a spin he responsible. i'm thinking of the speech of the 50th anniversary in the march on washington. are the way in which our story gets wrapped into a narrative of american progress in american exceptionalism. what has happened over the course of his presidency, over and not beyond the policies and we can go back and learn from that is a narrowing amount of tradition. i always think about the years and before that naacp. you think about that. then you mention this, this, black association is so rich. you have black communist, naacp thinking about international and vibrancy of black politics. the vibrancy. >> host: let's be honest though that was also a. where hundreds of people were being lynched. where african-americans had no

right to vote. the politics of protest organization, the the politics of voluntary associations were also necessitated by the reality of those times that you could not participate. you look at the traditional of woodrow wilson kicking a prominent black publisher out of his office in the white house. teddy roosevelt invited booker t. washington to have a meeting. he was criticized by the editorial. i can see whether it was the urban league, the naacp, any organization, we had a strand, we had a spectrum in our community from center to left

but it was all operating outside of what was then considered outside the political mainstream we couldn't participate, we couldn't vote, we can work for the government, can government, can hold office because we're at the tail end of the complete dismantling of the reconstruction. it was the 1920s when the last black delegate attended the republican national convention and in the 1880s and 90s their state delegations -- so i do concede that but i also think it misses a healthy debate about the role of the president. the role brock obama's the responsibility and the the role for the african-american community. i want to ask you, brock is the first black president but also president of a country where african-americans make up 12-13% of the population. also president elected by this multidimensional coalition.

he has african-americans, his latinos, he has whites. here he is, he cares the majority of the white vote in ten - 12 states. he carries the majority of the african-american vote nationwide. in the south where you are from aware from, mississippi, alabama, louisiana, he doesn't get more than 13 or 14% 13 or 14% of the white vote in any state. so here you come to power with the understanding that you have been, if you will the inheritor of this multi racial multidimensional coalition. then what would've been your advice about mr. president of the responsibility of the african-american community. >> guest: that's a hard one.

how do you change the frame? i think part of what i said i think i i wanted the president to be bolder. what i mean by that is change the frame. if we have to lift our votes which is something comes from fdr that managing southern races we have to lift our votes because we don't want to trigger white fears or a white backlash. as long as we do that we allow all of that stuff to stay in place. as long as we engage in the practical politics of navigating and moving about trying to avoid what is really at the heart of the problem and that is the value gap. what is really at the heart of the problem so if you govern in such a way, i have to speak in such a way that lets you know i'm not that man that will allow black vote. >> host: but the truth for president obama and i said there were very few, if any role

models, although i would say and i have said this to many reporters and others, the best example of the trajectory of what the president has faced can be seen in the reaction to the first african-american mayors. of los angeles, atlanta, detroit, new orleans, because new orleans, because it was the same thing. expectation, backlash, a very challenging navigation. lots of first at african-american mayors had a difficult election. their enemies came after them. they wanted to regain control of city hall. in all of these communities. so president obama in many respects really had no role models. really no one, this was the first african-american to hold

this extremely high office. so i think in fairness to the reality of the situation, the waters were so uncharted particularly in the early days and the president was dealing with a difficult crisis. i, on the record, for the record, i have, i have always been always and continued to be they are more specific economic policy. to design, attack i don't care what you call it. i don't care what his role is, the i do think in that vein, moving the administration economic advisers in that direction was far more difficult than i thought it should have been.

given the electoral coalition but also given the track record of what kind of policies could assume economic downturn. i would say this is the other question. what i thought was interesting about your book when he talked about the president was that john boehner and mitch mcconnell are there there not mentioned, the question is were you surprised by the reaction to the president selection institutionally, within the congress and within what will call the republic coalition of america. >> guest: remember i said we're in for a dark time. i thought that was part of those start time. so i want to be very clear, i'm not laying the blame of the great black depression of the feet of barack obama. i likened him to a confidence

man, selling hope and change but it didn't change the framework. he's not alone, bill clinton did the same, jimmy carter is the same, reagan. >> host: is the office of the president, the institutional office of the president of place were radical frame changes can happen? johnson had an outside and that's just the movement that pushed him and pressed him that he responded. >> guest: i think it can open up space to that very kind of movement. forcing that now. at the end of the day we have to confront the reality that obama is on his way home. were going to have to imagine how we are going to address the

circumstances on the ground and what we know for sure is there communities and road. but we know for sure is at the very previous ways of engaging in black politics have changed fundamentally because of the last eight years. the the way in which we have held the state, the way in which we engage the white house, the the way in which we engage issues publicly because some of you have to walk that tight rope and how do we engage in that critical press without going farther to the right, knowing all along communities are suffering. so what was the opening? it was these grassroot movements all across the country whether it's black live matters responding to that epidemic of our babies being murdered or whether it was the four together movement in north carolina.

reverend barber taken the notion of doctor king singled back to every village so taking that oriented approach to politics and organizing a broad-based coalition to challenge. >> host: you talk about lack lives matter, occupy, i would think of the black power movement of the 1960s which was a conscious political economic and cultural -- however the victories of the 1960s, whether it was the civil rights act and the fair housing act or the war on poverty came as a result of the activities more of what i would call traditional but the rights movements not considered traditional at that time.

doctor king, whitney young, and others were really central to immobilizing because the brilliance that they had as they never had a march for the sake of raising awareness, and the endgame was raising awareness. they had had marches because they were trying to raise consciousness to change public policy. >> guest: let me push that a little bit. it wasn't traditional politics that got the chief fired. when you think about it wasn't traditional forms of -- that change predatory policing. those folks in the street. >> host: i'm not saying that the only form of politics. i think we need a strategy for the streets a strategy for the ballot boxes. if you went on the ground in ferguson you had new voices

represented by black lives matter but you also had the churches, the naacp, urban league and others who were part of a broader coalition. in our case, in response to ferguson, the the burnt out quiktrip is not going to become an urban center for youth engagement and youth involvement. what i sort of push back on this the notion that a new movement is in opposition to traditional or complementary to the work that is going on. question for all weather cycle by black lives is conscious movements, do they remain conscious movements or do they more premature into something more substantial. >> guest: i'm going to pair fries of its democracy is not

about marches in board rooms, added heart it's about changing the context in which power operates. trying to bring it out. so we have a formal black leadership in which you do your work, you go back there and those boardrooms in those dark rooms, a new have to make sure and lord knows what would happen if you are not there. but the idea of a robust form of politics where everyday, ordinary people and now outsourcing outsourcing network to leaders like you were whether it's reverend jackson or brother brooks, whether the need for us to imagine how robust politics that is not distorted by the reality of white supremacy which requires that you represent the voices of all of the smoke.

>> host: i think what you're speaking to is that people in the community and in the street needs to be more engaged and act, and one way shape or form. and that in trying to think about how the power of dynamic is change in this country you also need less spectators and more participants. so what i like to say. >> guest: is that we need to get rid of this custodial side of leadership. the model of leadership where she wants to cultivate the capacity. >> host: i've been an elected official, mayor of a big city, now i've led the national urban league and before that i was an anti- apartheid activists and an activist lawyer doing all kinds of things. i really believe that one of the

weaknesses is the idea that there's a singular model and that activism doesn't need elected officials and elected official donate activism. i took in some extent the pushback about this notion and sometimes the mainstream press promotes this. somehow there is a singular act leader. i have said obama cannot play that role. as a singular leader of the community. but he is the president of the united states and he is the singular leader of the nation. so what you think in terms of that going forward? do you think the generation of elected officials has fallen down? or doing their dive? dive? what more is needed from this generation. >> guest: we need to an agenda

to respond to those opportunities because most of our people lack. we need a corrective agenda. around three areas. education, jobs, and -- we have to lay the focus on those areas. we need to understand the privatization of schools, the closing of public schools across the country what is happening in your own city of new orleans, what's happened, what's happened in detroit, philadelphia and chicago. what does it mean for these to close. charter schools fail out of the first five years. our children are not being educated. what is does it mean for a community to be understood surveillance. as people call for more community policing. >> host: if you think about it,

president obama's main large accomplishment, the affordable care act, the dodd frank regulatory and the creation -- in the economic recovery is called stimulus but the recovery act, all of that took place in the first two years. when congress shifted all of a sudden there was a proverbial political golden wall. against that wall, very few things can happen. so to a great extent what you're suggesting and he suggested this to the president, we had a meeting with him, reverend sharpton in -- this is a meeting after that, the first meeting took place on a snow day the second meeting we push in, we pressed him, we wanted the job,

he walked down said i'm going to do a job bill. it went nowhere. it didn't get a lot of publicity, son. the president talked about it at a joint session joint session of congress. we got no movement so i think, i think if there is a second book or another chapter it be the opposition to really tell the story and what the intensity, the magnitude, the money that really went into the effort to create the tea party, to take back control of the congress. >> guest: i concede with the

fact that congress driven by the insanity of the tea party or the freedom caucus and all of that. i can see that up front. but what i'm arguing for, something more fundamental. we we need to put forward a radical vision of what democracy is in this country. i understand the practical politics at that point after the two years when he saw the berlin wall go up reaching across the aisle, go bold. go bold. but what if it's the case but what if that's not his politics. the berlin wall goes up and again the book is not about president obama in this sense, it's about disappointment, it's about the current frame because what i want to say there's an economic philosophy that governs his country. that has produced people and what we need, and collects of

princeton would say were no longer a democracy. 42% of the wealth, while% 1% will own 60% of the wealth. what we need is a revitalization of democratic politics. but it's been very difficult because of republican opposition and because of our failure, democrats and otherwise to put forward a radical democratic vision. that puts the least of these, the most memorable, so it's been a narrowing of legitimate political dissent in his country. what i'm calling for this book and i've said before, the revolution, we have to change how we view government and the way we change it is we change our demands of government. we we have to get rid of this pipe story that sets

dragon and before that big government is bad. we have to understand what that meant as a tried to starve the beast. move everything downstream. republicans taken care of state legislatures, we have to challenge this real government and understand that what we ask and what we demand the government changes the view. the second point is we have to change our view of black people. to change that view we need to change our view of white people. why people don't matter more than anybody else. i believe and i write this in my book, if white people are going to have to kill the idea of white people. >> host: what does that mean though. >> guest: we see this in the trump rallies and across the country. there are white communities that are feeling vulnerable because of the economic reality. there's an assumption that the

vulnerability is a result of big government taking things that they have earned and taking giving it to people who have not earned it. the only way we are going to change that is if folks are going to have to challenge this idea that there is a correlation between b and. >> host: it makes sense and today's politics that you have a right gravitating to trump, gravitating to the narrative you just described. it's about economic anxiety and the problem is government. on on the other side you have anxiety and the problem is big business. so you have people feeling anxious and all they're doing is

this. their pointing fingers and politics, the art of politics, the electoral gave is also to win an election. so what politicians need today, more so in the past and this is because the advent of technology , they have more access to public opinion polls, more more access to what people are feeling. so you see a politics today is shaping how people feel, or how politicians talk it's an opinion poll. when i called the madison avenue evil. i think you had a time when it was more intuitive. it was more principle driven, philosophical nyc today. what you see today is techno

politics and it operates on the right and it operates on the left. i told some folks that it even gets down to people run for office still turn out in the formula in the messaging voters don't show up to the pole. so they say these voters, and only want to count them. because they will not have an impact on the outcome of the election. what i'm saying is that you're making an slip point but there is a reality about having an electoral system. i'm not defending it but i'm describing it which sometimes makes it difficult for bold and imaginative to surface after tremendous crisis that compels that type of thinking.

>> guest: i believe this. i i would concede that. i believe this. we need to understand democracy. democracy, small the. we ate need to understand democracy a be a much more vibrant than just simply who we elect to office and how we hold them accountable. we see this in grassroots organization. ever since seattle, so whatever has been going on a politics we saw ground 12 and we saw with occupy, with occupies matter, on the ground organizing is taken place over this country which gives me hope. we have to imagine democracy in terms of two-year for your cycles. we have a crisis of imagination. the first stage is revolution of

value is the revolution of what we think it's tough. what is happening today and i say this in the book, this is the key to the book, was happening today is this, people want us to believe that our only options are those that are right in front of us. before you save this country, for going to transform democracy in a substantive way we are going to have to imagine america a new. that is going to take some work from the ground and we are going to have to do that now that the black man is going home. >> host: your scholar and an distinguish scholar and a great institution. as we begin to wind down, the role of academics, as a scholar you have an opportunity to talk to an audience of young people all the time. but the young people that you talk to represent an important segment but a narrow segment.

what is the role in the revolution of values of those in the academy versus those who or what i call on the practical side? >> guest: beauty of a liberal arts education is this, it creates the condition for us to engage in that arduous task of continuing to grow. of tough questioning. part of the ugliness about politics and folks are so certain about everything, they dug in their heels. but what are the things about what i do that are so wonderful is the very way in which it forces us, it forces us to engage in itself inventory.

to reach for broader horizons, to reach for more expansive conception of who we take ourselves to be. one of the beautiful things going back to how we started about morehouse is that i was able to be about four or five different people over the years i was there. i tried on somebody different hats because i was trying to create my life. we need to create dispositions, i think that's the beauty. when asked academics sign off on the powers that be, when academics become court prophet and become justifier's of this current status quo -- >> host: the application to be constructive or critical, that's the truth. truth. that sometimes that role has been adopted by the media. they've self-anointed themselves in many instances to play that role.

>> guest: big-money has taken over that though has in it. >> host: you only have a handful of television really news organizations in america today that have the power and the reach to gather. >> guest: social media has changed that. >> host: social media levels it. however social media also requires one to be a lot more sharp and exercising judgment. just because you see it or hear it on the internet doesn't give it nor is it being edited or facts checked. >> host: it has been a great hour, it's been too short, congratulations on the book.

i like a good bit of what you said. i might take some issue, that's what we need in terms of the dialogue. would you say you have to write a second book on the opposition to the president and really i would like you to write a book on the forecast of 50 years from now. >> guest: thank you so much. [inaudible] >> that was afterwards, book tv signature program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books or interview. watch past programs online on book tv.org. >> on sunday february seventh, book tv is live with author and journalist eric burns on in-depth.

our live monthly collins show. he has authored books focus on politics, american history of the press. his most recent book, the recent book, the gold lab looks at the relationship between teddy roosevelt and his youngest son, quentin. other titles include vision of the mine snatchers and all of the news on fit to print. we'll look at the high profile mistakes in american journalism. last year mr. burns appeared on book to be talking about his book, 1920. the year that made the decade for. >> the greatest misunderstanding about 1920s that it was the first year of the most carefree and wealthy decade we ever had in this country. what wasn't carefree because americans still lived under the shadow of the great war which is of course what world war i was called then. the conflict that wants so brutal and nonsensical that we cannot help but fear it would break out again. as the case of the exploding ho