just think she won the pulitzer prize with her first novel. what kind of pressure was on her to bring out another book? she had done very well. so she would be taking a risk and i hope reviewers would realize it was written 60 years ago when she was a woman in her 20s, and new york. >> and for the skepticism i raised, my theory is that you have to believe that this thing was miraculously found. it had been sitting there and somebody would be looking for this. if lee was happy as hell to have it published and it is clearly worth millions of dollars. what you might look for that sort of thing around the house. certainly i would. >> i will sure is the original manuscript because i've seen the cover page. it's typed, that kind of thing

right now you would have to go to some effort. >> with a backhand of habitable mild theory of, if you're there representing writer and you can make millions of dollars by just publishing an earlier work and i have read that it is my theory because it's from later in life but that the tone of the writing. which is lovely. >> she's a great storyteller. i spoke with someone who's on the college newspaper in alabama she said when i opened up "to kill a mockingbird" i can just hear now, it's her authentic voice. so if you can bring out that book and later in life a return to literary stardom, ernest much

money as the market will bear which is going to be quite a bit. that is good representation. >> think of what a shot in the arm it is for literary, for readers, it's the big book of the summer and will be on every beach in america. people will talk about it. it's an adult harry potter for once. >> did you have any sense, when you were writing the book how long did you spend reporting and during your like works. >> it took me four years to do the research. there is very little to go on. she disappeared in 1964. i have to say the good part of my biography is oral history in the sense that i got a firsthand from people who sat next to her in class or moved on the block for her. i had to go back and reconstruct the past from people who lived it. >> she gives some fun quotes every now and then.

that everybody presumes -- she would say i'm more boo bradley. there's a little bit abu there. but i think naylor, the girl who wants love, the girl who doesn't have a steady, i think she is an outsider just as much is boo. they're trying to participate, now was always a different cat. she and truman were different kids in that town. truman was to suffer the boys and i was too hard for the boys. so they were each other's friends. >> and boot bradley on pulling a name out of my hat is also a real character.

i went to the gas station now, there is the backyard where he would be -- she describes that the same way in the book. you mention you grew up in lexington, mississippi, very much like munro bill. as a person on the block in every neighborhood will not come out or tells you the off the lawn or something like that. and every town. it's only by extending ourselves that we learn to live with him and not oppose them. they have every right to be there too. like at a atticus says to the children, leave that man alone. >> benji is the idiot, he is a very real person which i believe his first grade teachers brother

when he was mentally incapacitated to some degree. he had a big sense to more or less keep them in the yard. so she called on tramples boot bradley from down the street and it is a southern small-town. >> her english teacher in high school. the book is not completely autobiographical. no fiction writer takes things as is, they compress, they cut, they create. but yes when you read to kill a mockingbird you're looking at, you're going through a photo album of her childhood. >> it seems like she did the same thing. you mention that he was not entirely atticus. >> for example he was called one stop -- i think you mention there's one incident and someone

wanted him to go dove hunting. he had a three-piece suit on. he was not one shot finch. but in terms of integrity and his understanding of children, he is atticus finch. he was out there in terms of his opposition to the claim that there is a local newspaper, they're having a marched on the street one day and he came off the porch and told them to get out of the street. no one gave them a parade permit. and when they gave him guff about it he said he would write an editorial about it. he was not typical of his age, he was a thoughtful man in a compassionate man. a leader in his local church. believe me the elements of atticus are there. >> they're all buried in the family plot. it's all there in town. just across from the church. it everything is close together.

there is a walking tour you could take you could do the walking in 15 minutes. >> so blue was very next to his father and they kept him in the house. he died very young of the tuberculosis it and has not been out in 20 years. he would come out at nine sit on the porch or sit in the back. it started out as grounding for an adolescent kind of hijinks. him and some fellas got in trouble. it turned into induced agoraphobia and a sense that if you do not go for a long time eventually you become convinced that everybody would be too shocked to see you anyway. >> and that's where we get him. and then the leak family plot

was off the main road. there is a spot, there altogether, i found that very comforting. there altogether and there is a spot that i presume is for now. >> she has lived in a very circumscribed world. she's a southern lady. she covers up magnolias of the first ross comes, she knows everybody's history. she knows everybody and is eccentric in that town. >> so on the book there is we're about to read the summers you thought that's what she turned and. >> yes. "to kill a mockingbird" -- go set a watchman is the first draft of "to kill a mockingbird". >> that is actually the book that she left her very safe home when she was 23. >> mid- 20. >> she was following truman and

wanted to go to new york. it was a heady time for southern off of authors. she was going off and she wanted to be a writer. and all the time in the coldwater flat shoes working on for so long is go set a watchmen which we are about three. >> exactly. a lot of southerners were going up to new york. a lot of arts and literary minded people were going to new york. is a fantastic place to eat. what a great time to be there, talk talk about being in a creative ferment. i don't know the book would have been published before the war or even 15 years later. there's a place in the book where she got so frustrated with writing it that she actually

threw out the window or threatened to. >> she told the high school class because periodically she would drop in and talk to kids about what i was like being a writer. shoes on the third draft of the book, she had been working for two and half years on it. by this time truman capote is famous. in terms of literary, and for eight or nine years she's been trying to tell a story from her childhood. she was sitting at a typewriter and she realizes she's sick of this book. there's nothing else she can say. i go through this. when the words look like swedish. they seem to resemble english but they don't make sense anymore. she's the page out of a typewriter, puts it it on top of the manuscript, locks over to the window raises the window and takes one of the most popular books of the 20th century and throws it in the alley.

she called her agent says i quit. she said for writing a novel is like building a house on a match sticks. she had lost the fire and ability to complete it. and he had been to this before with other young writers and said that is not just your book. for two years i've been helping you. my fingerprints are all over it. this is a collaborative project. it. it doesn't really belong to you, plunks to us. she went out and picked up the manuscript. >> they said the first question is why do you write this book? and he says to finish this book because by the time you get to the end of it you're so sick of it. all you want to be is done with it. when she finally turned a ditch said that's good. that all i hope for now is a merciful death of the reviewers. just a few lines same finished.

>> again this is a time they talk about difficult friendships capote was doing in cold blood and she was helping him in that book to be huge. so the frustration had to be intense. yes but the timing was perfect. she had just turned in "to kill a mockingbird" when he called and said i want to go into this town and find out how people are affected. how has it traumatized the town. >> .. great once are making up stories. usually there was a crime associated. here to adults with her helping him. she was coming off of her book white hot. >> two of the great books of the 20th century.

>> thank you for the conversation. >> thank you. it has been a pleasure. looking forward to the book. see if the real-life ties between her life

>> >> with programs like a bear corps or the peace corps

and. >> host: i am president of the national urban league and proud to be here with professor eddie glaude. >> guest: i am honored. >> host: we have some time to talk to you have written a book but it is always fascinating to the viewers

and to me on how you get from moss point mississippi and the gulf coast all the way to princeton university? talk about yourself. >> i am a country boy who made it big is what i like to say. my dad was the second african-american postman hired and that was a big job. we've moved to the a their side. we were the third african-american family moving into the nice neighborhood on the hill with the better school system. we didn't have as many distractions in a grade school because moss point is

residential. >> in having to deal with of periodic layoffs. in she wintus spellman. in she had a relationship with my dad but she had a tough love. inset i went to more house i went to a summer science program. of the shows you how beautiful i went to the office of the dean of admissions of that summer science program for 30-year

40 minutes and then i walked out with a scholarship. >> enter now moment john it has been more house. >> you know, you wanted to be a scholar? did that grasped you? after a long and winding road? >> my mother sat was born to push a pencil. that was first. can i get a job at the shipyard? she city will not embarrass me.

he was the theologian trend in the ticket interested me. in the beauty of the relationship of day faculty member in the was so beautiful i didn't have to navigate or negotiate. in just to a firm ally was with the working class. >> but my mother cleaned

toilets her first baby at eighth grade but they stuck in there and made a life. but at morehouse something was put in me and they tried to kick me out three or four times. with this dedication into justice. >> gant it changed my life. wherever i am i am supposed to be more house educated in princeton. >> so that transformed you. with that college experience.

become a more houseman. but said challenge and you know, this that many of the institution setter so central many are struggling to keep their doors open. so the truth is that our institutions to sense a remark ability with said

days of reconstruction is segregation with the 100 institutions of higher education that were historically black. in the you had dozens and dozens whether religious or fraternal organizations which gave african-americans who were excluded in opportunity to organize themselves for the betterment of the communities though some would say in the age of post civil-rights the institution has outlived the relevance.

and the presumption is that integration has happened the you know, by the of way of the work that you do that integration and isn't a reality. but more importantly i talk about the value gap that is fundamental with the achievement gap but underneath it all is something that is much more fundamental. >> who believes that? >> it isn't about individuals but the country

so moving from one side of town to the other. moving from the east side to the west side i remember when my dad was moving the police drove by the was playing with my told the truck then i hear my daddy -- a year then neighbors say stop playing with that nigger. his eyes darted in he runs outside. that is the story of american races. the black family achieves the dream in the child has to spend their entire life against that word.

butted eight years old i knew we were moving from the black side of town to the white side. and it was about three blocks between the black neighborhood in one day and i was in first second grade invited several of us but it was predominantly white.

to say you don't belong here is you should not be here if you don't go home he will be in trouble. but to basically say black kids don't belong on this playground. where we had every right to be. if you are a burden since of that the settlement.

and then to find out he may be racist. and my dad but the strong personality and always to make it clear to us that we were valued. the raging in response and then my dad respond with a 12 gauge shotgun to blow the lid off the tree.

but it is much broader. with that environment i regret to before we move. r sidewalks were not paved no backstop the houses were smaller. so you talk about where is that value? it however manifested itself.

so that's institutional issues are hard for people to grasp. fisa and is separate university said he go as a is a police cruiser drives by.

he hid some in the eye with a flashlight to say who are you in where you hear? he said i am a student there brown doing an assignment he said it is only 730 park closes at 930 per puts his he and up then they tap the girlfriend and their walkout. the other story is the flint michigan. a community devastated by industrialization. in dealing with the fact they are babies because of bad water or lead.

the upgrade to pipes. for these people that live in that community. with the social networks in the united states. talk about the context because i read the book. but what is the takeaway want "the reader" of the book? >> first we're at the present this.

-- at the present is with these new or coming-of-age with the black president or trying to figure that out. over the last two or three decades. so to write a book to fundamentally we imagine the politics. we are in territory we have never seen before. into. [inaudible] black suffering so it is

dealing with of paradox and the fact the babies are shot down. going back to january 2009. it was a self congratulatory because of the single election that has transformed itself. with the post racial america. ended manifested itself. like i am proud to lead the national urban league. that is no longer relevant.

but at that point and at that time what is your reaction? to said that i remember this. i was watching cnn to say no more excuses. and i said hall -- oh my god? we have to be more politically mature. even though we explore the joy of watching the president valerian for some dark times.

we will question in they have questioned specifically to the suffering of black communities. you see this through your work and how difficult it has been to give a voice to the suffering that has taken place. >> at the time i immediately believed with that spin move. the was false and overblown. historically the ascension of the first african-american in any institutional instants whether jackie robinson or baseball or the class that

my father was in, it never meant there was that immediacy of change. that all of these the dances with then irrational fear by some. into think that objective for america should not be opposed racial but a multicultural democracy. to think of would get some past and aspect of what you are trying to create.

you have to concede when the president to govern 2000 there in 2009 that was more extreme in any in american history. the decline in an almost a dash of the american automobile industry and in some respects black people were suffering but they weren't the only people so in that context with those facts how would you evaluate ?

and i would start by saying what did you expect? given that memo what would it have said? >> in some ways i will try to reassert. i didn't expect much. cry was also hopeful. there is something about seeing him at hyde park in dree made president obama everything we wanted. with the antiwar candidate

the progressives made him the progressive as african-americans made him that so we didn't care about the pickup -- the policies. but obama is a centrist democrat. plain and simple. he is not someone coming from the green party. and if i were to write something is do what you have to do to stop the bleeding but let's change the frame so they could have the chance to make those dreams reality.

what does that mean? since reagan or carter. with the democratic party had conceded to emphasize how do we get the wages from being flat land? with the subject to predatory lending. but with the "state of the union" with that level of equality. but on his watch child poverty has increased. for the first time there are

more poor black children then pour white children. >> also on his watch now talk about that dowdy% now 17 million people now have health care. said to be pleased and happy and satisfied. with the economy with the conditions because not at all. but it is important to recognize on his watch the black unemployment rate has come down. so take that affordable care act in his stead more than

any other single gesture. >> so at the height of the great black depression in so many ways 15% or 16% with the terms of unemployment. is said to adore the layoff of 4800. but what is interesting at the height of the recession of 9.6. people were screaming the greatest economic calamity. we're still at a level of a

crisis. we don't want to take the affordable care act away from the president. with there is the way that of the black freedom struggle of the of culmination of the moment there is a sense of the more radical element to be irresponsible speaking of the speech of the 50th anniversary of washington or the way the story is wrapped into a narrative. over the course of his presidency we can go back and forth think of the year

there believed was founded. so talk about the black association with the naacp with of vibrancy of black politics but be honest citizen period where hundreds of people were they had no right to to vote that politics of protest organizations of voluntary associations by the reality of those times they you could not participate you look at the woodrow wilson and kicking a prominent black publisher out of his office in the white house.

and he was roundly criticized to be sure it is set naacp to have a spectrum in the community but it was all operated from the political mainstream in america. he couldn't hold office because he was at the tail end. of the reconstruction period. to attend the national convention. there were state delegations.

and this is a healthy debate with that responsibility so i will ask you. as the first black president and president of a country where african americans are part of the population with a multi dimensional coalition. to carry a majority of tension or 12 states. in the south for your from mississippi and alabama and louisiana so here you come

to power understanding to be the inheritor of the multi dimensional coalition but then to say here's irresponsibility. >> that is hard. so have you changed the frame? i want the president to be bolder if we have to lift all votes minutes jean those races widow would to you trigger those fears that we allow that to stay in place

if we engage in those politics to avoid what is at the heart of the problem and to speak in such a way so that the trajectory so the first african-american mayors. and that is the same thing. for the expectation. and very challenging

navigation. like president obama had a different -- difficult reaction to read gain control of city hall. so president obama in many respects had no role models to hold this extremely high office. >> so in fairness bin reality that situation but it was so uncharted in the early days but clearly i am on the record for the record to be a proponent of

specific economic policies. it day do think and that they'd to those economic advisers in the direction. so this is the other question. what i thought was interesting is that john boehner and mitch mcconnell they are not mentioned. were you surprised by the

president's reaction in the republican coalition? >> absolutely. end i liken him to someone selling hope and change. bill clinton is the same. >> is the office of the president of place where that can happen.

in to respond. >> that bully pulpit can open the space and we see that now. so we have to confront the reality in the half to address those circumstances on the ground. so there previous ways and engaging him in black politics the way we engage the white house to bring

cajun that critical press knowing that all along the communities are suffering. with the grass-roots movement or the reverend to take the notion from dr. king. so to take bell local korean to approach of a challenge. >> we have a consciousness talking about black lives matter. that the black power movement of the victories

this substantive public policy with the voting rights act of 65 with the war on poverty of what we call a traditional. from john lewis and a philip randolph was essential to mobilizing. they never had a march. in the endgame was raising awareness to raise the consciousness to change public policy.

with those traditional forms of engagement to those industry. with this strategy for the streets to have new voices to represent black lives matter. the churches in in the naacp. with the broader coalition so in that case so now become the urban league center so what i pushed back is the notion