telling of the airplane and transition to mod fern airplane -- >> for the complete american history tv weekend schedule go to c-span.org. .. television for serious readers. this weekend on booktv on our weekly author interview program afterwords political science professor look that history and rise of isis plus roundtable discussion on donald trump's book the art of the deal and pro basketball player kareem abdul-jabbar weighs in on social and political issues. pulitzer prize winning author on the history of the genetic code,

report on the leadership of russian president boris yelton and vladimir putin and nashville authored local authors to take in the city at literary sites. that is just some of what you will see this weekend on booktv. for complete television schedule go to booktv.org. booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors, television for serious readers. we kick off the weekend with a panel on the history of race in chicago. it is from last week's printers row lit fest. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome to the chicago tribune printers row lit fest. i want to give a special thank you, the theme of this year's festival is what is your story? we encourage you to share the

stories you this weekend on twitter, instagram or facebook using hashtag p rl f 16. you can keep the spirit of lit fest going all year by downloading the printers row apps where you will find all the chicago tribune premium books contests, free and discounted e-books for subscribers and complete printers row lit fest schedule. download today to get a free e-book and $5 off lit fest merchandise. today's program will be broadcast live on c-span2's booktv. if there is time for a question and answer session with the author we ask that you use the microphone located your right so the home viewing audience can hear your questions. before we begin the program we ask that you silence your cell phone and turn off your camera flashes. welcome reporter from the chicago tribune and today's

interviewer, lolly bowean. [applause] >> thank you for joining us, so nice to see you today, we are joined by natalie moore, southside bureau chief, author of the south side. [applause] >> ethan michaeli will talk about his book "the defender: how the legendary black newspaper changed america," a rich and competent of history of the chicago iconic newspaper. thank you for being here for this conversation. let's get started by talking about your personal connections to the story you are telling. both of you are giving birth to stories you have personal connections to so what the disease topics? >> i am a chicago native. i went to school, moved back here two years ago and started working for wbz, the npr

affiliate station in chicago and covering the southside meant i was covering housing issues, affordable housing, public housing, economic development, and i realized i was really covering segregation. i was covering any quality. i found for my thesis, until we addressed the inequities, until we addressed these inequities we would never be a world-class city and as a homebuyer on the south side, growing up on the south side i felt like segregation was something that was just accepted in our region. we are segregated, next. we don't think about why it is and why it continues to be that way. like air and water, it is. i wanted to interrogate that and use my own personal story attending public schools, my

parents and grandparents housing choices and my own horrible housing choice that left me not living the so-called american dream. >> i work for the chicago defender from 1991 to 1996. i should say as -- i was a graduate of the university of chicago in 1991 and i didn't know anything about the defender. if i had heard of it it hadn't registered as something important. another friend of mine who was a white jewish guy from the university of chicago recommended me for the job. in the course of describing the defender to me he mentioned it was an african-american owned newspaper but that didn't

register to me as something significant because we were in my mind the post-racial era. some newspapers were going to have black owners and some would have white owners. it was only when i walked in the door and saw the historic artifacts, newspapers going back to the early part of the 20th century, the portrait of robert abbott, looking down on me in the lobby, his words inscribed in the floor, i started to get an understanding that i was in a special place. the defender was a wonderful place to work, very busy and exciting place to work and we heard great things while i worked there about the newspaper's history, the owner had fostered the great migration. another owner integrated the us armed forces but i didn't know whether all those things were true until i really started to write the book and to see that

as we had been told were absolutely correct and even more so. in other words the dream of writing a book was there from the time i worked there. >> when you walked into the office where it was majority black, you talk about how you didn't know even as a student living on the south side did that surprise your strike you as surprising that someone who was not african-american could be on the south side but not have access to that type of history? >> it doesn't surprise me especially at the university of chicago because it stops at midway when he arrived on campus, university trying to change that image now and i think a lot of students are not adhering to that kind of rhetoric and even have their own newspaper called southside weekly where they go on the south side. it doesn't surprise me. we are probably living in a

high-class bubble there. >> how does that reflect the research that you write about, more contemporary issues of segregation and how the city can be separated to that point where a person was not african-american could live in the city and not have exposure to a paper like the defender. >> the thing that is unique from other segregated cities as we are diverse so we are a third black, white, and latino. within that the good and bad is we are very neighborhood centric city, the city that works. we have 77 official neighborhoods but even within those there are more neighborhoods. that is positive in some ways and that goes for all races. if you were white on the south side, your political precinct,

you didn't have to leave your little radius. that fosters ties in community but also can be damaging because you don't get to see the rest of the city and how amazing it is that there is so much more to it and we are also large. we are a massive city geographically speaking. these things are assets but also deficits. >> the only thing i want to add is the university of chicago was a bubble in an academic sense as well. i studied english literature but i don't recall an african-american author being taught. i don't recall leon forrest who is affiliated with the university of chicago being taught in my english lit classes so there was a sense of a bubble, for me going to the defender mend that i did get to go to the rest of the city.

that was the thrill of it, i could finally explore and be a part of the city that i had been told was a big dangerous place, i feel deeply indebted to the defender for opening chicago not just in the physical sense of empowering me to go all over the city but in teaching history of the city, the rich vibrant history that has made chicago a pivot point for so much of american history. >> your books are different. i look at your book as a history, the historical context not just of the defender but a little bit of the black community of chicago but in our nation and your book is more contemporary but you hit on some similar notes. we know the defender being a power and a force that helps spur the great migration but that wasn't always the case.

>> the owner of the chicago defender, robert abbott, came to chicago in the turn of the 20th century. he was someone who knew there were not jobs available for african-americans in the north. he was trained at hampton university. he was a printer, an attorney, the only african-american graduate of his class and he could not find work as a printer or as an attorney because of barriers of discrimination in the city. he was not in favor of people coming to the north. when world war i started and the number of immigrants to the united states stopped and the demand for american products urged so that factories and slaughter houses in chicago and unions and the same entities lowered their barriers and wanted african-american workers, robert abbott did not support the great migration.

he only moved to an editorial position at a newspaper where it was encouraging when he saw the departure of african-american workers, skilled workers from the south was damaging the jim crow economy. the economy of the segregated south. that is when he thought migration could be a weapon against segregation and he began to wholeheartedly endorse it as a manly act of retribution. that is one of the ways it was described. >> one way african-americans could impact the politics of the south was by leaving the south and coming to cities like chicago and your family had a personal investment in coming to chicago. >> the 100th anniversary of the great migration. i'm a granddaughter of the great migration and even though it is contemporary and i spend time talking about the history of the great migration and using my

grandparents's story and the housing policies that greeted african-americans when they stepped off the train when they arrived in chicago, on my mom's side my grandparents came from georgia. my grandfather was in world war ii, his childhood sweetheart was in chicago making the choice very easy and her cousin who she was raised like a sister lived here. you have a family member who is here and others followed. on my father's side, we don't know why, we had family here before the great migration. my grandfather ran away from home in nashville, tennessee because he hated the south and the racial violence he saw. two of his brothers had to leave town. one was accused of raping a white woman, the other got into a fight with some white boys and taken to new york in the middle

of the night. he graduated from inglewood high school, i am done with the south and my grandmother was from springfield, illinois. they worked jobs, printers relit fast, worked for donnelly, a printmaker and my grandfather was a porter. there the story of black chicago, chicago is miles and miles of black middle class neighborhoods and despite -- even though we are both writing about chicago these are national stories and discriminatory policies greeted african-americans in the north and despite all of the policies like redlining, restrictive covenants, contract buying, the fact that african-americans still bought homes, still created vibrant neighborhoods is

astounding. >> absolutely agree. in your book were you aware -- go back to what you were talking about, your grandfather and how he hated the south but you also had a grandfather who was a porter. >> that is the same grandfather. >> telus about his history is a porter. >> he was a bartender at playboy mansion on his weekends off but here in chicago turn some extra money. all my grand parents are deceased. this was a way to get into the middle class and it was a very good job. my grandmother worked also because black women worked. one was a cook at doolittle elementary, mother/grandmother was a secretary for a federal

agency and the thing that was passed down to me is the reason we tip well in my family with my grandfather lived on tip so we like to tip good service at restaurants because of that so tips allow them to leave princeton park which was a rental development on the south side, to buy a home in the burnside's area of the south side of chicago. >> the defender had a relationship with porter and it is generally known they helped to distribute the defender but also did a lot more than that. >> the porters were incredible service workers. imagine the trains in the 19th and 20th century, no air-conditioning, dirty, unpleasant experiences and the porters in these contexts would create a pristine environment.

5-star hotel and restaurant combined in a tiny space. they were highly skilled and i think revolutionary in that way. how to transform these environments. at the same time they were of very much integral to the maintenance of the defender. on a 1-to-1 basis individual porters worked with robert abbott. this was a startup operation, the way a startup website is today. robert abbott's landlady's dining room at the newspaper was born and operated for the first few decades of its existence so in that circumstance porters would coming with newspapers they collected from trains they worked on and that was the early wire service for the defender. they would take articles from those newspapers and clipped them and rewrite them for the defender's audience.

porters would then go back out and help distribute the newspaper and this was sometimes described romantically in the sense of porters disturbing bundles to towns all over the south but the reality is even more powerful, the porters sold subscriptions. it was another way to make a few extra dollars but also the bond of trust that must have been there for a small business owner, farmer, someone in the south to exchange a hard-earned dollar for a newspaper subscription in a city far away. they must have really believed the newspaper was going to come and was important and robert abbott and other employees of the defender took that as a bond that was sacrosanct. they were going to make sure that no matter what those subscribers got those newspapers every week on time. >> in your book you write about your own parents taking in newspapers every day, the sun-times and the chicago

tribune and also described as a vendor. talk a little bit about their news habits and support of african-american businesses. >> the neighborhood i grew up in was chatham, traditionally a black middle class neighborhood. anytime there was a national story about a black neighborhood they would go there. it was a great place to grow up. there were a lot of strong african-american owned business owners who lived there. esther haircare company had a house there, ice cream, the soft machine headquarters and johnson haircare products were on the outskirts of chatham. we were taught to support black-owned businesses in the neighborhood. it wasn't that hard. going to college on the east coast thinking this black

neighborhood doesn't have anything, this isn't like chicago and it was very deliberate patronage. this is beyond barbecue joints and barbershops. there were other businesses that were there. i am a journalist, i like to read, like to write, got all the newspapers and part of the reason i went into journalism as i felt my communities were not covered. it is about crime and mayhem and this is a despicable place and i think the sun-times did better than the tribune but you had the defender the got stories and the defenders had ups and downs. it was a daily which is unusual but sometimes mistake slipped into the paper. i remember circling some of the mistakes in the paper. i was into writing and my dad

said you shouldn't be part of the problem, you should be part of the solution. why don't you be a journalist? i had this dream of coming back to chicago and saving the defender and being the publisher and i'm going to run the defender one day and now i am in radio. >> there is a concept or stereotype about businesses in the black community, you write about the assumption there are not businesses, there is and retailing your research proves that is not true. >> it is a little bit of both. research out there called retail redlining, you don't come to black neighborhoods and my book is about race, not about class. class comes into it but segregation affects you whether you are low income, working-class, middle income or

upper income. you could be black in a 6-figure household in a black neighborhood, you don't have a grocery store, people think they just want dollars, no they don't, there is ample research that shows there is an aversion to black dollars. that is one part of it. the other part, very informal economy of black-owned businesses, businesses that aren't on the books and there are established businesses. chatham had two black-owned banks at the time. independence bank and seaway bank which is still around. and in bronzeville originally, started by men hear from the great migration. from the bank to bakery to real estate agencies, there are

businesses there but there can be more. the challenge outside the big companies coming is the access to the capital that black businesses don't receive. >> what role did the defender play in helping black businesses grow and get attention? >> it was the largest lack owned business in chicago for a number of years and the way it brought migrants to chicago and focus their electoral power and financial power the newspaper really was the progenitor of a lot of other businesses in the city. johnson publications, john h johnson was a classmate of fred sinksack who lived in chatham for a few years.

they were classmates, fred sinksank gave john johnson's templates and other practical assistance, mailing lists and whatnot that would help him launch negro digest, so all these businesses have roots in the defender. johnson publications and the defender became rivals for some time later on. they have an intermingled and interesting history between them as well. >> there is a relationship between them to help each other. earlier, you talked about your grandfather freeing the south because he didn't like the racial violence and you talked about accusations of rape. one thing the defenders did write about was a be walker,

hoping you could talk a little bit about that. >> this is a case in 1911 in which a man named jb walker lived in a town, the town of washington, georgia. his wife was raped by the owner of the plantation and mister walker got a weapon, a shotgun and killed the plantation owner, knowing what was likely to happen to him he turned himself in to the local sheriff which i couldn't make this name up. his name is sherif wo bobo. sheriff bobo took mister walker into custody and decided in the middle of the night as often happens in the south that he was going to transfer mister walker to another jail. why he decided to do it in the middle of the night i will leave you to assume. as often happens a group, a mob of men came out, seized mister walker and took him off to be

lynched, to be killed. but the mob was so drunk that mister walker was able to escape. i mention all these details because all of the details were reported not just in the chicago defender but also in the atlanta constitution and atlanta journal, the one difference in their reporting was the initial incident in the white owned constitution and journal and news was not described as a rape but some sort of misunderstanding or some sort of other incident. this is such a pattern you find repeated many times over in the conflict over narrative between what was happening and what wasn't happening in the south, and the constitution and journal took great offense at the defender's coverage and said if the defender is correct then the honor of every southerner is impugned.

as a result they send two pinkerton detectives to chicago to arrest robert abbott, the publisher of the newspaper. mister rabbit was able to call on some prominent people in the community, ed wright, civil rights attorney, doctor george hall, the local representative of booker t. washington and physician at providence hospital. ed wright was a great attorney and took one look at it and said this is a warrant from georgia to arrest and editor in the state of illinois. he tore up the war and and ordered the pinkertons out explaining to them that chicago was a city with 40,000 african-americans, there were african-american police officers, african-american elected officials, and an african-american national guard unit, there was no way these pinkerton detectives would take the african-american editor of

the newspaper of that community anywhere in the pinkertons were so frightened by this encounter is that they put it right on the payroll for the next several decades until he passed away. i think it is a great incident to bring up because it does show the strength of the chicago community, that the chicago community was behind this newspaper in a way that i don't think you would find in another community. >> i think it also shows how the defender selected their news coverage. they did two things, illustrate the fear and concerns african-americans in the south had like natalie's grandfather who decided to flee and those concerns were very real and alive so they were able to not only give voice to it but put it in context for african-americans so thank you for sharing that story. natalie, in your book, you touch upon what even talked about, the power of the black community,

having a collective group of people who have political power, willpower here. you write about the joys of growing up on the south side. tell us about that. >> i wouldn't trade my upbringing. this isn't about integration is so great because we need white people. it is about proximity to power and resources. there is nothing bad with black institutions. maybe i am contradictory but i'm okay with my contradictions. i don't want creation but i want black stuff too. there is something about chicago, black chicago that is very tribal in a good way. i am friends with children, my friends's parents, my parents's

friends, a lot of connections in communities and we know people going back, our families go back decades, our childhood friendships go back decades and i think that we sometimes are so beat up upon right now in chicago that we don't see the beauty of our community and neighborhoods and i know people in other cities say wow, there is something special about black chicago, the city smells like barbecue, the people you all know, the connections, look at all these, it is amazing. i have heard that ever since college, all we hear is negativity about our city and i think it is important to remember these histories and legacies to see there is still

strength here now and we have seen that strength in the wake of the quan mcdonald's and reparations, no other city has given reparation to victims of police torture. there is a lot of work to be done but there is a lot to celebrate in our community. there is a joy that i see in black chicago that is not just the same negative narrative we heard for decades but amplified a bit more right now. >> i am one of those people always odd especially with those connections, you know people from kindergarten. if i saw someone from kindergarten i wouldn't recognize them at all because i am from a more fragmented community. there are connections that go on for generations in chicago but it leads to a certain political power that you write about that

leads to the election of the city's first african-american mayor. >> chicago was late compared to other northern cities that got black mayors partly because of our racial composition. a few weeks ago it would be different if harold washington hadn't died. that is a sentiment we hear often because of what he was trying to do, opening up the city. even playing the ethnicity game the way previous mayors played, ethnic doesn't mean person of color in chicago. ethnic means white, there is a certain identity there and so the business community came together with harold washington. a gardener, we will have enough voters registered and if you look at the number of voter turnout in 1983 and 1987, i don't want to misquote my own

book but it was in the 90th percentile and today we are at 33% voter turnout so between the business community, it was their turn to have political power in the city. bill dawson, the congressman who is the most powerful black elected official in the nation at the time, oscar dupree, barack obama came to chicago on purpose, not by accident that the first black mayor came from the south side of chicago, he was delivered in coming here because he knew the legacy and what would help them and when i wrote the book there had only been four elected senators, us senators. half of them were from chicago. >> before we open up her audience questions i want to talk about the audience of the defender. both historically and presently.

who have you found was a subscriber, how many times was an issue of the defender read? >> at its height the defender had sales of around 300,000 weekly. this -- the defender was weekly from its birth in 1905 until 1955 and then it became a daily newspaper until the mid-2000s when it was scaled back. it had sales of 300,000, but those have to be multiplied by a factor of 3 or 4, many more times to get a sense of the readership. if you consider the african-american population at that time was 9 million, you really are getting to a large proportion of adults in the

african-american community around the country so that is what the defender was, the first national communication vehicle for african-americans, the first social media for people during the migration to communicate back and forth. >> since your book has been published have you found more non-african-americans talk to you about their own prescriptions or read the defender? >> not too many. the defender was definitely known, the most avid and dedicated readers of the newspaper are white politicians because they absolutely depended on the african-american vote from the earliest years. at right, the attorney that i mentioned in 1911 later became the first african-american committeeman, they are the ones

who meet in the actual smoke-filled rooms to divide up the jobs and contracts and other political spoils so going back to that legacy you really have that political power and that is the political power white politicians deeply respect. i would be remiss if i didn't mention the parade the defender started which is a showcase and forum for politicians from around the country. you cannot win as a politician in the state of illinois without making an appearance in the milliken parade. >> that is what they say. in your book as a reporter and journalist a lot of times we highlight corruption and problems in the community but in this book you provide some solutions. pontificate on solutions. >> journalists typically don't give solutions.

here is the problem, you policymakers go fix it. i want to be a little prescriptive with the book, the last chapter i talk to artists and policymakers about what they think can be done to mitigate segregation. i was probably less optimistic going into the book and became more optimistic as the end, there are lots of things, no one silver bullet but lots of things can be done on the local level, regional level to promote fair housing, to promote better schools that are equitable and also integrated so the solutions are there. it is the political will. that should make you pessimistic because the political will isn't there. not that there aren't any ideas but i don't think segregation is even talked about, i don't think

it is talked about among our elected officials or institutions. of i talked to the school district and bring up segregation they say we want every child to have a great education. of course you do. what else do you say? no one wants to talk about segregation. chicago has the most amazing scholars on these issues. people have asked what would you do if you were mayor? i would try to create a nonpolitical blue ribbon panel are not political, with all these -- people in the neighborhood level but also the scholars at all these universities from chicago state to usc to northwestern to chicago who all research this very issue on housing, food access, they have the research, they know what can work but no one is asking them, no one is

listening. my one little hope is this conversation on segregation moves forward and adds a little bit nationally with ferguson and baltimore because all these places have the same thing in common, state sanctioned segregation. >> both of these books are so well researched and beautifully written it is clear you have a love for the topic you are writing about is i want to give you a last word but before i do that i want to see if there are any questions in the audience if you could take your questions to the microphone because we are quickly running out of time. >> thank you for being here. i have enjoyed being here. basically i want to say that i am from new york and it was different for me to come here from chicago because in new york

everyone is like an immigrant. even today with my coworkers, they are like you know something about black people or you sing lift every voice better than me. i look at them really odd because in new york we have this really eclectic style. my playlist includes opera and rap music so my question to you when you look into this audience, why do you think there is a majority of white people here compared to black people? especially since your book is about the south side? >> i will try to answer. just the audience -- i had other book events where there is a majority of black people in the audience so it is more reflective of the festival than

it is the topic. >> it can be about the segregation too because we are in the downtown majority white space and i'm sure when you do book signings on the south side the audience is much different. >> sometimes i feel like this area is neutral territory. most people come downtown for something even if it is to pay a parking -- parking ticket at city hall so this to me is less of a contested space as other parts of the city where people may not feel welcome or may not know, not trying to diss the let's just because i am here, but there are a lot of, we have a lot of other festivals and institutions that sponsor things in the city and they bring african-americans but may not be

an audience and i think some of these institutions, other festivals are trying to reach or work on their outreach to get out of there sweet spot of the demographic that might most be attracted to the event. >> what i want to add to that is i have noticed i have had a strong response from african-american readers to the book which i'm very appreciative of. i can see the geographical sales from amazon on the internet and it has been -- i have been really so thrilled to see small-town doll over the south where sales have been really good and i know those are african-american readers because i can tell from the geography, very much like a map of where the african-american population is in the country so i will add

that i do really hope that publishers understand the black readership in the country is large and enthusiastic about books and excited about books and outreach is going to be rewarded. if i can send a message to publishers out there that is what i would like them to understand, black readers are hungry for books that appeal to them and i'm encouraged by the results. >> i want white audiences too because segregation is often seen as a black problem. issues in black communities are seen as that is a black issue and this is also a white issue. i am happy to have different kinds of audiences and never look at having a majority white audience as something negative. i want them to hear the story

and to know it is their story too. this is not a black story. >> what was the defenders attitude towards blockbusting? with a sell ad space to realtors that engaged in blockbusting on the southwest side? >> blockbusting was a technique used by real estate brokers and agents to essentially drive down the prices of usually white homeowners who were using a neighborhood and reselling homes to african-americans that inflated prices with the result being a large profit margin for the brokers. early on in the 20th century these were african-american real estate folks who were doing the blockbusting and later you had other folks involved in that process. the defender was very much

opposed on the editorial side to unscrupulous real estate practices of every kind. they were upset early on in their history by the fact that african-americans had to pay higher rent for the same units and they would do investigative reporting which they used reporters who were white enough to pass to get the prices of apartments and get african-american reporters who weren't light enough to pass and they would compare them so they were very much upset by that dynamic and by other efforts they regarded as cheating african-american renters and homeowners. in terms of ad selling they never got a lot of ads from white real estate folks in the first place so i don't think -- there wasn't any need to bend them from advertising in the

paper. at first during initial years of the paper the folks that were involved in this process, it was controversial because they were making a good profit but on the other hand they were opening up the block for african-americans so they regarded what they were doing as a service and oscar the priest who would become the first african-american alderman in the city and later the first african-american congressman from the north, the only african-american congressman in the house of representatives for a long time started off as a blockbuster. that was his initial claim to fame. >> one of the things that struck me about reading the defender was the chapter where robert abbott brings his family to europe. and he is amazed how well he is treated and very encouraged by the fact that he can stay at

nice hotels and is accepted by the journalistic community. it is clear that recent events that europe is not as welcoming to mass movements of people who are not european and the migrations are seen a phobic arguments about the way this is viewed. the defender, the great migration was portrayed to chicago where we can learn from the narrative about the migration, other situations where people are integrated. >> robert abbott had an interesting experience in europe

because on the one hand he was very well accepted by the native population in most of the countries, france, germany, relatives in germany because his stepfather had been reared in germany and had interest there as well. robert abbott faced discrimination in the hotels where other americans state and other americans would be offended that an african-american was staying at the hotel and would be evicted and robert abbott had to fight, argue and contested eviction from the hotel. the only place he didn't have to make a fuss was in berlin. he was there for journalism convention and that was the only place i found where the hotel owners were so angry at the demands from the white american

tourist the day evict an african-american guest, you don't like it, you leave. that was the only place. in great britain robert abbott could not find a hotel room that would admit him. it wasn't due to the american tourist but british standards of racism so it was -- he had a very interesting experience. robert abbott, one of the few african-americans traveling at that time was also very wealthy, he was able to purchase access to places where other folks were not able to do that. in terms of lessons for how europe would deal with migration that is a very tough question because i can't say the united states or chicago felt migration in organizer compassionate way. i would hope things are done better now, that is my hope and

partial answer to your question. >> ethan or even is the proper way to pronounce it, a friend of mine is here, the hope that you would sign it. if you wouldn't mind taking a minute afterwards if your schedule permits. i am sure given her long commitment to the history of civil rights issues and involvement i'm sure your book will be on her list and interest in chicago in particular. my question relates to the reverse migration that is now occurring among blacks in chicago, they are leaving the city if one can believe the newspapers and apparently, the narrative that gets into the papers is the result of the violence in the city of chicago which i think is too simplistic but i would appreciate your perspective on how much of this

is occurring where blacks that are leaving, going -- one hears it is the south, do you have any special perspectives on the violence in chicago and why it appears to be so much worse in other cities with gang histories etc.. i know it is limited time so that it is finally if you can give us some references of the academics you mentioned. i know it is a big question. >> we probably need another session. >> anything you can address. >> northwestern sociologist. i would read her work and she wants to weigh in and she can, right there. that is one person to start with. chicago has historically been more violent than new york and la going back to the 1800s, 1900s, with prohibition, the

mob. people were asking the same questions then as they are now. we are giving each other looks when the question came up about black people leaving chicago because of violence. that is simplistic, the narrative that i don't know why, there is no research to back it up except anecdotes that are 20 years old and census data shows blacks leaving chicago, that is an old story, we are about to embark on new census data but black people i like other people, sometimes they want to move to the suburbs. we have seen black people have less, still in the region but they have gone to the suburbs. it is unfortunate this narrative about it is so violent and they are leaving and people make housing choices based on a variety of decisions. i am not saying no one left the city because of that but it is

hard to know where people go because there are limitations to the data on that. i will let lolly bowean -- >> you said so eloquently historically there have been a lot more murders that affected the african-american community that have not led to black flight so that is what i would use to challenge that thesis or that premise so just as natalie said, to endorse what she said there are a lot of factors in communities and every day people make choices on where they live. one of them i would make primary would be the economy and jobs. you have to look at job availability and unemployment and if you look at unemployment and took unemployment maps and place it on top of the areas we are seeing a lot of violence i think it would tell a story in and of itself. it is simplistic to blame the community or blame these acts of

violence for the migration that is occurring now. it is bigger and broader than that but i am not a scholar and there are people probably researching it who could articulate it a lot better than i can. >> the only thing i want to add to that is it is a tragedy that the african-american population is declining at the pace that it is. we are losing historical treasure, we are losing an electoral treasure and i think we are squandering a lot of opportunities. what i love about natalie's book if i can take a second to praise it is it really shows the southside as what it is, a vibrant, dynamic, exciting place and a great place to raise a family too. all those things are still true as they have been for decades

and it is too bad people don't know that or understand that or value it. >> i will add to that because we are losing a cultural treasure too because there is so much culturally that african-americans have added to the city and natalie paints an excellent portrait of the vibrancy and diversity of the black community that exists here and continues to exist here so if you don't have a copy of natalie's book i suggest you get one. if you have gotten one to get another and pass it on. same with ethan's book. put it on your list, read 50 pages a day, get another copy and pass it on to someone else. we have time for a last question. i am so sorry. the authors -- will you stick around? do we have time to get one last word from the authors? >> no. i think you gave a perfect last word. by the books.

[applause] [applause] >> thanks for attending the program. natalie moore's book and ethan michaeli's book are available outfront. please visit us at printers row and fill out a postevent survey. [applause] >> you are watching the tv on c-span2, television for serious readers. coming up in prime time we start the evening at 7:00 eastern with a look at the history of the genetic code. that at 8:00 pm eastern kareem abdul-jabbar weighs in on social and political issues. at 8:30 eastern it is a roundtable discussion of donald trump's book the art of the deal. at 10:00 on booktv's afterwards

a history of isis and we finish up our prime time programming at 11:00 with gerald connolly who sits down with booktv to discuss the books that have influenced his life and career. that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> those steve forbes like me? they put me down at 4 $.5 billion net worth. i'm not complaining but it is much more than that. i couldn't understand why is it that forbes just raised me $400 million this year. i should be happy and i am happy. what difference does it make but i couldn't understand. why are the forms numbers so much lower than the value of what i built? >> what was that about, mister forbes? >> donald trump always thinks we underestimate his wealth and we go through this every year. the essence of it, putting aside

various properties, he thinks we should put several billion dollars value on the value of his name. in terms of how we value wealth, you monetize it and we will counted as value. we do this for everybody, not just donald trump, oprah and others. your name may have value but you monetize it to so it is worth something and we will counted. that is the big difference. >> you can watch this and other programs online@booktv.org. >> here is a look at samad's recently featured on booktv's afterwards, our weekly author interview program. senator barbara boxer of california looks back at her life and career in politics. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell discussed his political philosophy and his time in the senate. the vice president of policy and research tamra drought talks

about america's new working-class and its potential political power. in the coming weeks on afterwords hold will profile the women instrumental to the development of america's space program in the 1940s and 50s. pamela hague looks at the history of gun ownership in america. also coming up eric fair will discuss his time in iraq working for a private military contractor and this weekend, the history and rise of isis. >> isis was a direct result of the deepening sectarianism, the civil wars in the air of east, security vacuum that exists in iraq and syria and other states and the perception that somehow the arab spring could not really

change the existing order. the leader of isis who basically basically mosul is -- change would come not through the electoral process but the barrel of a gun. >> afterward there's on booktv every saturday at 10:00 pm and sunday at 9:00 pm eastern. ..

sometimes it'll be a book on a series of topics, native americans, we keep one about a month and sometimes maybe i'll have two or three books that i'm reading and, okay, take a picture, this month and next month or whatever. >> do you ever post reviews? >> no, don't do too much of that. if i put the book up there that means it was a pretty good book. >> what are you reading right now? >> i thought i would take a little break and this is one of those classic cases so you read the week. what is it, andy weir. i got intrigued. i use today read science fiction

when i was a kid, for whatever reason i didn't read that one and a guy name philip who is now dead. just finished up a biography, boy it's long. >> you read mostly nonfiction? >> heavy biography, history. i used to be a histonnian so that's what i enjoy. but we will have some things like, you know, every now and then if i read fiction it's quite often, it's not this case, this is like i'm going back to being 12. two science fiction books basically. i read quite a bit of historical fiction. i love kathleen mccollough. mostly heavy history, heavy biography.

where did you teach? >> at the university of okay -- oklahoma, lonon -- london program. then teaching a class. i taught with don fowler. before congress a national parties and campaigns in dc and in the university of central oklahoma. >> are there any historians that when they come out of the book or the entire series you've read. >> i love anything that steven ambrose wrote. he was really -- and a lot of range in his writing. obviously john mccallough is an

excellent historian. in an earlier period it was heavily focused on british history, and, you know, these were not all -- all, you know, histories but churchill was always worth reading. whether it's memoirs, he had a wonderful little book called great contemporaries written back in the 20's which later on ni.on did a follow-on book itself. i like to read about nixon, most fascinating politician in my lifetime. i thought the things that he wrote were really quite good. >> does reading help in work as a congressman? >> it does. frankly a lot of understanding. i mean, because most people when

they get to congress, they think history begins with them that there's something -- but you're really step into the flow of something and institution. if you read contemporary history, not only parallels but background quite frankly to what's going on, you want to understand congress. john berry wrote a book a few years ago, ambition and power, berry is a substantive writer. he did, what was it, gosh, the great book on 1927, rising tide or something. hi got hooked up with speaker wright and was just going to write about congress. the rise and fall of speaker wright and there's a lot of characters in there. in that case, there's a lot of

people that i know, newt gingrich. guys like west watkins. more consequential and particularly when older members are more senior members are telling stories, you know, you know something about the context of the story that really comes out of. i love rogers, my chairman has been since 1980 and when he starts telling me stories about the guys that when he got here had been there since the 50's, it's fabulous. >> besides john berry's books, are there any books that you would recommend about congress or that you read before you took your seat?

>> you know, one of the more interesting books is not about congress per say, it's a biography, but lynne cheney recent biography of madison is a good book. here is a guy that in many ways shaped the system, so to speak, both in terms of constitution and serving in the body and it's very first term. so i think he's always worth being -- reading about. i like these changes, nixon is good. the johnson series. >> robert carl. >> those are spectacular. because nobody knew this institution, the senate, the presidency, obviously just the bread of american politics like he did. nixon in a different kind of way and i had the opportunity to meet him on several different occasions.

i would also say the biography of gerald ford obviously because he really -- even though he was a president very much creature of the house. maybe joe cannon. i can't remember. >> i think you're right with luke cannon. >> may be. i think it was a great, you know, time and chance and again lost in the politics of the era because this guy comes in the 40's, minority leader, awful lot of history. years ago i worked for a guy that not enough people remember, jack who was really the creator of the modern political campaign committee over at the nrcc he arrived in 1966 and lost the republican primary in '92.

very consequential legislator. you know, delivered speech for ronald reagan convention and his ability to tell stories and recount the institution, his observations, i used to call him moses. had he not last the '92 primary we would have had chance to be at the creation of the majority republican. probably did more. you pick up some of the members. >> when you read the older biographies about lyndon johnson or gerald ford, do you ever say to yourself, the house doesn't work light -- like that anymore.

>> i would like to think it's a little island that actually pretty much function it is way it was supposed to. that wasn't always true. it went through a rough time but rogers who very much is in the best sense of the world a creature of the house so to speak has really done a lot, i think, to restore that in the hopes that it can spread more broadly across congress, but there's no question we live in a very divided ideological time where the ability to arrive at consensus or make a deal or literally, i have a lot of good friends on the other side but there's not that many issues that includes like our

predecessors managed to do. >> do you ever read books on andrew jackson? >> my mother wouldn't care -- my great, great grandfather was forcibly removed from mississippi some of the last to come out. we were raised with -- i use today tell people when i was five year's old i wasn't sure who andrew jackson was but i knew he was a very bad man who had done evil things, my grandfather literally wouldn't carry a 20-dollar bill, so, yeah, i've read -- i remember when robert was this historian of the house and also written a wonderful book on congress, i should have mentioned him, but roy blunt who has a very -- he's a big reader, you should talk to roy sometime. roy sometime -- he invites me up when she's chief whip to have

lunch with dr. remini and he presents me with a copy of jackson's indian wars and presents cod any with a copy of henry clay biography because rodney, i think it was his great, great grandfather teoder. a wonderful lunch, i remember reading the book and he said, you probably won't agree with my thesis in this book but i want you to read it and think about it and come back. the argument is not that he meant to do it but in some ways the removal of the five great tribes of the southeast

cherokees, seminole saved them because it pushed them further out and kept them from being totally overrun. that's a unique explanation for violating treaty rights and what was effectively ethnic cleansing of the southeast part of the country. as i told him, i don't agree with you in some ways but i will say this, i remember having gone up -- we have a great chicksaw festival which is the site of the old chicksaw capital, i had a great grandfather who was chief of the nation and there are thousands of chicksaws. that might not have been the case, we might not have survived in quite the same way we did because we were a large tribe, 60,000-person tribe and you don't have anything anywhere near that size on the east coast and the areas where you

obviously had european and then mesh, you know, conflict and contact. >> what about books of native american history? >> gosh, i read a lot of them, charles book is where you ought to start. it's not so much native american but it was 1491 which is what's the state of the indigenous population in north and south america and what had happened and how devastating that contact was and everything, disease alone was much, much greater in terms of number of people and the indians whether north or south america always had contact in the sense with whites long before they saw them because the disease traveled ahead and decimated a lot of the populations. so that's a good one.

i love empire to summer moon. comanche is in my district. award winner, one of the best biographies, a guy name gibson wrote wonderful now dated history, my own tribe the chicksaws, you know, again, there's a lot of them. biography of f of my great aunt, lived almost a hundred, first entertainment in the white house in march of '33. entertained the king and queen of england in '39. performed all over the world. so i have to get a plug in for her. but there's, again, lots of great books. angie debo. a lot of people will be familiar with the biography.

the book called and still is waters flow and it's about what happened to the five tribes when oklahoma was opened up to white settlement and the dawes commission and our family owns our land still but pretty def -- devastating and had every treaty land and land lotted up to individual ownership. it's a really tragic tale and so it's not as if every bad happened to indians happened 200 years ago, this is early 20th century in oklahoma. so still a very -- it's a difficult issue -- it's difficult for americans sometime to get their hands around because honestly it doesn't reflect very well on the either

the american government or frankly the treatment of native americans by the nonnative population. it's a hard, hard history. >> do you ever bring authors in to speak to the republican conference or do you ever recommend books? >> i recommend books all of the time. as a matter of fact every christmas i have a dinner for my republican appropriators and my classmates. we threw in republican classmates. but but i gave them -- i think the most popular one was probably unbroken which everybody loves that book. >> laura. >> yeah. >> hillenbrand.

>> yeah, one year i gave him bob woodrow's book. it's all in the budget crisis, budget act of 2011 so you guys need to read this because all the characters are still the same. >> did you talk about interaction? >> yeah, parts of it that i knew -- >> he's one of the great reporters, he was kind enough to reassign all of them. we bought 50 or 60 and the person that was putting on the dinner took in my copy to be signed as he was doing all the others and he opened it up and when i read, i where and so it's underlining and he starts going through there and looks at her does bs mean what i think it

means? [laughter] >> she told me the story and read the comments on -- >> you put bs? >> i can't remember -- it may have been aimed at the characters as oppose to the account. i don't want to be critical. i have wonderful relationship with john boehner but it's up and down relationship, well i should say up down and up. so we're in a good place now. but -- and i have a decent relationship and wonder nfl my hometown and the more tornadoes in 2013, we couldn't have asked a more compassionate response, if you look around this office i always joke i'm probably the only republican that has five pictures of barack obama in his

office because we've done everything -- he's good on indian things and most indian legislation is written -- tends to be bipartisan and we worked well with the white house from the settlement, largest class-action settlement for mismanagement of indian trust land, violence against women act, had very important tribal provision to expand tribal sovereignty, tribal law and order act, indian reservations are under -- underresourced in terms of police and all tricky jurisdictional questions to try and work with those, but having said that, i like both of these guys, i mean, some -- i think some of the presidents observations about john boehner really based on misunderstanding of who john boehner was and you can see in that book there's actually a part where he talks

-- i understand the guys like boehner is country club republican. now i will grant you that boehner looks like a country club republican and he plays a lot of golf at country clubs but he's anything but a country club republican. here is a guy that grew up in a family of 12, he's the only one ha got to college, his dad ran a bar, you know, he took longer to get through college because he was doing the business. he's really -- he's a much different guy and his story in some ways to the rise of the speakership is every bit as remarkable given his circumstances and where he started in life as the president is, which is a great american story, you know. so i think sometimes it would have helped if that book had written before and each could have written the book. i think we would have had a much different ending to the story. frankly, they maintained a reasonably good relationship

despite the difficulties. back to the main point, we give points every year to these things and it's always interesting to see what your colleagues, you don't have a lot of time to read but unbroken was popular and empire of the summer, i loved that one. i did one recently and i'm blanking on the author's name, devotions, a fabulous, fabulous book about two american pie lots, one of them the first african american carrier pilot and his wing mate who is annapoli ivy league family still alive and the african american shot down over korea these joint missions where they were frankly helping cover the retreat from the river, but how close they were in the -- and the white

pilots were covering this guy, he can't get out of the plane, he's trapped in and eventually dies in the plane, his name was jesse brown but the white pilot crash lands his plane to try and get his friend out of the plane and i tell you, it's everything from the letter that the african american pie lot -- pilot writes before he is killed. he had wonderfully clear pen manship. stuff like that is pretty clear. >> adam macos. >> yes, thank you for that. we still have jim crowe and here is two guys and the crew around

them on the aircraft carrier where they all became friends and, you know, it's a very moving, very patriotic story, it's like unbroken and ought to be a movie and i hope some day it is. >> do you read a book a week? >> you know, obviously it depends on how long the books are. [laughter] >> so, yeah, on average probably one a week, something like that. certainly two or three a month, so -- >> on the airplane back and forth. >> absolutely. yeah. i do very -- i do two things on the airplane if i'm fortunate enough to get upgraded. i keep a journal. several days behind, that's a good stretch to catch up but usually reading. >> is that journal for a future book? >> i don't know. a good friend of mine who has since deceased, if you ever go to people that listen to

teaching company which has these wonderful lectures, he's got like five different series in there and he was a classical historian, so i mean, there's famous greeks and romans but at the university of oklahoma founded by the blankanship family. but rufus and i -- he's a guy that i use today sit down two or three times a year and just like to know what he thought and seek advice. maybe even before i got here but i had been elected, we went to have lunch, hey, i want some advice, what do you think i should be doing up there and he thought for a minute and he said write. first of all, tom, not many

people do anymore and so it needs to be done and frankly do it in hand and not on the computer because the electronic technology can get corrupted in ways so do that. he said you may not be very important when you're in congress but you'll seem important when you're gone because there won't be many of these things around and historians will look at. i kept journals when i looked for frank as secretary of state and pretty cool through oklahoma city bombing and have that literally that day or the next day that he was doing in the crisis and what we were seeing unfolding. i've always kind of dabbled with it for certain periods of time, but when i got here i've been pretty good at it. so there are no breaks. it's been pretty continuous. >> is it a real discipline to write every day? >> no, it's kind of fun. i usually do it two or three times a week.

you know, i don't have a certain time or whatever but my very, very systemic about keeping up because -- you know, going back and look at it on occasion, i found one boehner and i went through a good period and a challenging period. when i first got here, i had known him when he was a freshman in congress, i was executive director of nrcc, our campaign committee. he was one of the quote gang of seven. so he came out with the poster at the nrcc and so were six guys, they. >> rebels. all the leadership hated these guys and so i knew him very well and he had been helpful in my campaign and i was on his committee and we were doing well but i also very good friends with roy blunt. senator blunt but then our chief

and roy was -- had been exceptionally good to me. i mean, didn't know me but not only, you know, contribute today my campaign, it was a very competitive race in 2002, he laterally sent a bus load of volunteers all the way down to oklahoma because we had big events going on in both places, i had to cover a big parade in my hometown and we were close. what can i do to help. you can help with program and he said they had 5,000 doors for me in oklahoma. so we were there. i got here, he made me a whip, first to become a deputy whip in my second term so we are pretty close. they end up running against one another and i'm on team blunt, which put me in the dog house for about two or three years with speaker boehner but one night and this was before this

race had occurred i was sitting in the capitol hill club with some good friends of mine, john clien who is still here and bob from colorado who is also gone now and -- gone in the sense of not here, not alive. boehner had a table where he used to hang out in the group. we were all on the committee. bob may not have been so he sits down for a second, we are chatting away and he leaves, well, in my journal i wrote, john boehner came by today and we were sitting around chatting, you know, i think she'll run for leadership some day and if he does i will probably support him unless he runs against roy blunt in which case i'm screwed, that's exactly what happened. and i totally forgotten that thing. i'm reading this thing and i couldn't believe it.

i actually sent it to my friend john klein who was on the other side very close with speaker boehner, always throughout his career here but again like most things in life, speaker boehner actually has a wonderful phrase, the right things for the right reasons, the right thing will happen, so over the course, you know, our relationship changed pretty dramatically to the point that i was boehner defender, close boehner ally, we went through a couple of difficult years, but, you know, that happens in politics and it wasn't unfair, we just -- we were on different sides on a lot of things and it's not smart to be on the wrong side for first the leader and the speaker, by the time it was speaker, i think we had worked through our issues and worked very hard to find common ground and so throughout

his speakership i did have a terrific relationship with him. >> tom cole, how do you get your books, do you buy them, go to the library? >> i very seldom go to the libraries. i like to own the book. you know, do i go to bookstores and just browse like everybody else. i read reviews, you know. i just see something or hear something. there's no particularly systemic way or i decide i want to read something on fill in the blank, you know. you go to the internet and pop up something that's about this and there you go. i try -- if i'm going to have an opportunity to meet an author, the other night at the library

of congress we had the presidential series that they're doing and i didn't have a chance to meet him but i've been a big admire of thomas, he wrote a wonderful book battle of 1812, a friend got me an autograph and i wanted to make sure i read being nixon, one of the best and honestly sympathetic portraits of nixon. if you want to get the hear them, you want to have read it and one of the nice things in the business is you do have the opportunities more than a lot of other people do. >> so on that night that thomas was at the library of congress, how many members? >> quite a few. there are probably -- and very bipartisan, probably at least 50 i would say there. a lot of could you couple, but it got a big turnout and, again, it's just a terrific book.

i was actually sitting next to ken who had -- i think he was like chairman of california youth for nixon. he knew nixon very well and he was telling me about the congress -- congratulateory call ha he got. senior republican political guy but was a nixon speech writer in california. he said i was talking to ken earlier today and ken had been interviewed extensively. ken told me, he said you go listen and make sure he's fair. [laughter] >> and in the evening ken concluded, you know, he was really fair, he told me i'm going to call back and let them

know. >> have you read presidential biography on most presidents? >> quite a few. they're interesting. i don't have any -- my tastes are about like everybody else. nixon is a niche taste i will grant you. recently you do get some wonderful privileges, you know, when you serve. susan eisenhower i met several occasions and she was kind enough to invite me to my chief of staff and my dear friend to come out to gettysburg on a monday to get a personal tour of the eisenhower post presidential homestead and it was -- it was wonderful. it was one memory after another because she lived and went to high school in gettysburg and lived close and here is where i met jeff in the house and we were talking, i actually got

close to his plane in '59. my dad was a master sergeant. i will never forget us going out there to look at the plane that had brought nikita to the united states. he was the most senior master sergeant on the base so, you know, there was viewing area. he could get us pretty close and my brother and i, and so it was wonderful. but, yeah, she's just -- what a treat and sitting there and listening to stories about her grandfather and grandmother and what they were like and see the things in the home but have a personal touch put with it, this was this, this is where i used to sat with my grandmother and do this. >> i don't know if you picked up peter trip cruise ship trip.

>> i was 59 so i was like nine, ten year's old. i remember it very well and following it on television and all of those sorts of things. but she's got -- again, she has one story and churchill, montgomery coming there and walking the battlefield with her grandfather and fun stuff like here is the barn, here have the horses i used to run off and the secret service used to try to catch me and follow me and again she's a wonderful person but what a treat. >> the importance of william shakespeare to our culture, our politics in your view? >> pretty profound. i mean, next to the bible shakespeare probably has had more influence on the way we think and the way we talk on literature than any other person

certainly in the history of our language. so, you know, it's wonderful, it's great art and great plays but great history too. it's a reminder the character and history really matters. history is not just a matter of demographic forces, that's a big part of it, but, you know, individuals count, individuals matter, motivations are complex, so you know, i think i'm no shakespearean scholar but anybody tells you he has been the most influential writer and probably maybe around the world in some ways because he is studied in many languages, you have to make him an important guy. >> let's say you have to teach a class and give your students one book to read.

>> that's the most unfair question of all. honestly it would depend on what i was teaching. you know, if i was just giving them a great book on american history, i would probably pick steven ambrose's book, he used to say -- his favorite book to write and you think of all of three volume of nixon, two volume on eisenhower, d-day. this was a great historian but he wrote a book that's not as widely known as it should be in my view and if i remember, two american warriors. i found a copy of it when i was going to little big horn battlefield out in expedition

and i always wanted to see that place which is haunting and there's the book, so i bought the book actually at the park. a little place where you get books and stuff like that, and it's a fabulous, fabulous book about these two very different warriors with very different traditions and if you live on the plains like i do -- oklahoma is part of, the battle of wachita in western oklahoma. i was secretary of state, it was in private hands to get it into the national park system which it is now, thank goodness, but he described everything from weather to how this vast battlefield outshaped regionally the obviously shape that the

other great plain tribes were but it's a great book and you know when you're in it that here is a guy that's been pull intoed the character of custard and pull intoed the character of crazy horse and, you know, it's just -- and understands -- he was so good, but, you know, i could pick out a bunch of other books and tell you, but i picked this one to. this one and won't be necessarily a history book, but again mccollough wonderful first man of roam series that book on politics and the roman -- i mean, probably better than any history written at the time. it's a wonderful, wonderful histories but, boy, what a tremendous historical novel and he learned a lot from it. >> thank you, congressman tom

coal. >> they could have a longer conversation and delve into their subject. >> book tv weekends. they bring you author after author after author that's not like the -- >> i'm a c-span fan. >> you know, everybody told me being -- there's nothing better than being a grandparent, it's the best thing that could ever happen to a person, so i heard that, i heard that. no one talks about this emotion. it's a kind of loving like it's unlike any other. and i wanted to find what that is, it's a surge of hormones but

no one thinks that way. it changes us. >> i was going to mention the science in the book which is that you talk about, tell us about son-in-law of the research that you did, how you studied about the science of it. >> well, that was a big question, almost from the beginning, what was going on with me. and i discovered a book called the female brain, which i recommend by luane and she talks about the chemistry of women at every stage of their life. when they're children, teenagers when their mothers and grandmothers. i -- the grandmother part was very short so i did what i would do if it was a 60 minute story and i called her on the phone and interviewed her and she -- i said, you know, it's kind of crazy but i really feel like i have fallen in love in the

classic sense of falling in love and she said, you did because the pathway, in e -- neurons and boy-girl, you are feeling something similar. >> and two years later along came two. >> am i going to have the same feeling for number two and thought i wouldn't because it doesn't happen twice, well, of course, it did happen twice and i bonded with her too. >> i want to show a picture of you and there you are together. >> that's more recent. i find that the many changes that take place in us, that we cannot say no no to our

grandchildren no matter how strict we were to our parents and no matter how critical, grandparents love uncritically, we love unconditionally and we never say no. it's always yes f they want -- i hated going to the park with my daughter, i hated slides. i hated pushing the swings back and forth. [laughter] >> my grandchildren wanted to go to the park i'm there and it's great. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here is a look at some books that are being published this week. chronicals the history of america and poor whites from reconstruction to the new deal. wall street journal columnist kimberly argue that is the political left is trying to

limit conservative's treatment of speech in the intimidation game. marry weighs in on discrimination of people of faith and it's dangerous to believe. radio host dana lash says there's a political divide. huffington post reporter michelle, those elected to political office. in the war on cops, harold reports and james examines the economic crisis in greece and the future of the euro. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors in the near future on book tv.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good evening, welcome to the hudson library and historical society. , tonight we are honored to welcome howard to discuss his new book. we are the may fourth shooting in 1970 took place, only ten miles from here, we are very excited to have the program of national and local interest. mr. means is a biographer and former editor at the

washingtonian and some the other works include the avenger takes his place andrew jackson and the 45 day that is change it had nation johnny appleseed the man, the myth and the american story and he also wrote the first biography on colin powell. will you please join me in welcoming mr. means. [applause] >> also a 67 shot. i'm going to talk about that tonight. amanda herself is a very accomplished novelist and detective, mystery stories and should you're stuck with me instead. i talked to a number of people here who were at ken state in 1970. can you hear me back there.

>> i was there. >> everybody who was in kent state in 1970, stand up, let me see you. wow. >> this is scary. [laughter] >> this is really scary. feel free to correct as i go. no, wait till the end to correct because we will have a lot of corrections, i'm sure. i wanted to point out jerry lewis. will you stand up back there? [applause] >> jerry was a great help to me putting, getting contacts and writing the book and some of you perhaps taking the course here for over 55 on kent state on may 4, what i'm going to do -- i'm going to start with the slide slow to get us on the same page about the times, what the background noise to what happened on may 4 and so we can just -- the people that weren't at kent state can envision what the situation looked like. it all begins, some say begins

in april 30, 1970, the evening, richard nixon addresses the nation and announced there was going to be a drawdown of vietnam of 150,000 troops and on april 30th, he announces instead that the war is going to be expanded in come boddia. now, any of you who were in vietnam in 1910 would have been surprise that had the war was being expanded in cambodia, but it shocked the nation and nixon expected blowback on american campuses and he got it. not very dramatically at kent state. here is nixon addressing the nation and you might there shall right there is what hi particularly talked about and that's part of cambodia that sticks close than baltimore to washington. a very strange talk, actually. he got up, stiff limbs geography teacher and walked over and

pointed at the map and very strange looking. well, at kent state the next day , friday may 1, there are two demonstrations, one at midday, this is a group that called itself world historians opposed to exploitation. this is one of them. and they are -- shoot, excuse me. i'm getting way ahead of myself. don't get too excited yet. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] >> there's a second demonstration about two hours later by students, both looked fairly tame and decide to honor and decides to go to mason city, iowa which is the unpaid board chairman. that night, however, things fall apart. here is what it looked like in

the street at cent about 11:30 a.m. at night. let's set the stage. the first warm day of spring. >> campus day. >> campus day. also for those of you who were there they sold 32 beer. i don't know about you but i dranked a lot of 32 beer. it was bar owner's dream because you had to drink twice as much beer and you felt bloated and nasty by the time you got there. so there were a lot of factors involved but at around midnight a little before midnight there's some kids come out and they light a fire in the street. they start stocking some cars, talking about vietnam. they eventually raced down water street and throw some rocks and other things through windows of shop owners, the major leroy about this time declares bars have been to be closed. now you have all the kids coming

out of the bars, they had been drinking, a lot of them have been there to watch bands, a lot of them were also there to see this man perform. anybody recognizes this guy. that's will chamber and it was game four of the nba title series and mind you this is may 4 of the nba title series not the quarter finals. the nba will be held i don't know august sometime. will chamberlain, west, et cetera, et cetera. it was a great game. this game starts in the west coast at midnight, five minutes after it starts kids are sitting in the bar and they close the bar. ugliness. and the other problem that the city of cent had been prepped by the times and by the fbi to assume the worst of any demonstration, one of the

reasons they had been prepped was this man. anybody recognize him? jerry rubin. one of the things he said that talk was -- jerry rubin, youth interl party. and jerry rubin liked to provoke. he was street theater and he said, if any of you that were there, in order to start the revolution you have to first cel your parents. now, jerry lewis told me that he said to his students who he asked to come and look the next day, he was speaking metaphorically, no, he meant it, you to kill your parents. understandably this subset the residence of cent that a bunch of kids were to kill parents. you have all of that.

he estimates $50,000 worth of damagement it turns out to be 10,000 or 5,000 depending on what you take his revised estimate or the chamber of commerce estimates which was even lower. nonetheless in the hours in the morning he calls governor office and there's been trouble in the streets of cent. students were involved and he makes his first inquiry about bringing the national guard to cent. to the best of my knowledge, to the best of anybody's knowledge, the fbi presents on friday night if it existed at all was absolutely minimal. somebody you might remember was dean of student activities. i asked him about it and he said, i thought when i looked at the photographs i was going to see but nothing to do with the cent campus and when they are looking at them there are students but we just don't know who were involved.

i wouldn't argue if you said zero. so, at any rate it's knew in the ear of the governor's office that sds is coming to cent, saturday. anybody know who that is? sean connery. she was ms. france and for darn good reason as far as i'm concerned. [laughter] >> saturday they close it had bars and the kids can't leave the campus because it was strict to campus. university does a good job and they throw dances together and movies and they forget about one thing, though. they don't protect their rotc building. if one thing was predictable at saturday night was the rotc was going to assault. there's a big sign on the commons on friday when the demonstrations are going on, why

is the rotc building were standing? rotc buildings were attacked. symbol of military power on campuses. kent state leaves the building essentially unprotected. when the guards find the sky is lit up red and that's what it looks like. long story, it looked like it was caught on fire and burst into flames. this is the first time they comes on campus. that's what they see. thisthis is the rotc building looking east and this is the rotc building looking south. it sets the stage for monday. that's the commons behind the rotc building, that's where the students will run up on either side of but this is a prime piece of real estate and every academic department in cent --

that's why nobody descended the building. they let it burn it down and didn't help the kent fire department because this was prime real estate. somebody explained to me but the problem is if you let people burn town a -- down a building, they cake >> it was a terrible message to send to the students, so this is saturday -- i'm sorry, yeah, saturday. sunday. sunday may third. jim whoadz -- rhodes come to kent. one poll on friday was trailing by 70,000 votes, the primary is on tuesday, the next day, jim rhodes comes to town and this is a time to energize his law and order base and he's not going to

pass it up and he call it is people who have been doing the demonstrations worst than brown shirts, worst than knight riders and we are no longer going to treat the symptoms, we are going to eradicate the problem. incredibly provocative and irresponsible language, but jim rhodes could see he was rallies base and i will give this away, he loses by 5,000 votes on tuesday. 65,000 on a 70,000 vote margin before the shootings and the shootings themselves. i like this shot. the guy is to regular. [laughter] >> i love this one, you have the campus scene. you have behind her the guardsmen. this is a little more questionable but there are a lot

of that going on and then at night it all falls apart again. the students wanting to on the mass, lincoln street. thank you. they met there, they want to march on the town, the guard says no. there's a confrontation. it gets ugly and ugly and that's the situation right there and this is how sunday night ends except this. these were scenes of the equipment -- this is the kind of equipment the guard brought to kent. they have five of fully armored personnel and light medium weight helicopters, four of the heavy helicopters and they're carrying m-1's, and those of you who were there, again, remember that's the night of the helicopter, there's tear gas flying everywhere. and by monday morning when

people wake up, it's not a confrontation about kent state, about vietnam anymore. it's a confrontation about the guard having taken over the campus and that's really -- i talked to person after person and they all said the same thing. it's at that point that it all fell apart. it was us against the guard. the kids wake up monday and they have occupied campus and guards at the gate and half tracks in the parking lot, anybody confirm that who was sitting out there, i think that's what it is. and everybody knows there's going to be a confrontation at noon on the mall, i'm sorry on the commons. there's no secret, professors are talking about it in class, they scribbled on black boards. everybody knows what's going to happen and this is what the scene looks like at noon on the commons. this is the hall of it. that's a close-up.

that's -- that's jeffrey lewis. [laughter] >> sorry jerry. he has 24 minutes to live at this point. there could not be a worst weapon to do cloud control with. m-1, if you line 250 people up and three people up at 250 yards out, the round will pass through all three. ..

the president came back on sunday. there is a crisis communications center. a windowless room, a guy named ray by, 23-year-old graduate assistant detailed to president white's office, he was representing the administration's interests at the moment this happened. he couldn't see anything, talking to people with walkie-talkies, no idea who he is talking to and that is the communication between the senior administration and the campus, pretty inexcusable. the guard moves out, teargas.

it is dissipating because it is a 17 mile an hour wind. the stock of teargas was quantifiable. you knew there was a 17 mile an hour winds, you knew how much loss you would get if you fire in a 17 mile an hour wind but this is their principal means for crowd control other than the m1s and bayonets. i have a schematic here. for those who don't know this is where the rotc building burned, this is where the national guard starts out at noon, this is where the kids are in taylor hall, a natural -- the right-field line here, deep centerfield right here, the guard will come up, push the people over the hill, the bulk will go over company a, there is a group of students that goes

off here, who is in company c? there is a man in company c, they go over this way and at the top of the hill they run the people out here, they get to the top of the hill and what have the students done? their mandate is the riot act, there can be no crowd on campus. what is the crowd, somebody asked them. a liaison officer runs back and says we people. gary told me that story. somebody said two students are talking i come up and joined them in conversation that is an illegal crowd? and insane mandate. they take off, set up at the top of the hill, the mission commander and adjutant, hopes with all his heart when he got to tie the top of the hill that

it was dissipated. what are the chances of it dissipating? they run down here, come into the parking lot. the guard will chase them down, canterbury march as his troops into a cul-de-sac, on two sides, never march your troops into a cul-de-sac. they turn around and come back here and concrete structures is where they turn and fire. that is basic movement. this is the practice field, the fence behind them. this is the first time that day they kneel in front of the skirmish line. alan will be shot in the wrist in five minutes. they will repeat this gesture,

go down on one knee on the skirmish line. this is the situation, they don't fire, they go back, the students think they are retreating, start chasing after them. it is working together and they start firing. the field command, these close-ups, do any of you know howard? howard did wonderful work. this is another close-up, the moment robert canterbury turns further up the hill when he turns and sees the firing. firing at this point students are diving in parking lots,

dashing for protection and i don't want to horrify anybody but this is what happened. this is john cleary. let me go down. the most distant person shot was douglas mckenzie. douglas mckenzie is 250 yards away, walking away and is shot through the neck and the back. the bullet missed his spine by an inch, 250 yards away to give some sense of the power of an m1. john cleary was 37 yards away. he borrowed and in some attic, would like to advance things from 37, he survived but barely. spent three days in intensive

care. you will recognize these photos. alison krauss, very distinctive looking, very much -- long face and hair, so late 60s antiwar movement, bill schroeder, if you know the story of bill schroeder he won and army rotc scholarship, he went to colorado cottage and decided he didn't like his major, went to kent state to be a psychology major, was number 2 in class in the rotc class, was on the freshman basketball team when they had freshman teams, had a look at what was happening. one photograph, you see him holding his books like this, what is this all about?

curiosity. this is the one that breaks my heart every time i try to talk about it. a speech major, speech pathology major and by every indication didn't have a political bone in her body, she was walking from one class to another, what kids are supposed to do on college campuses and get more of her in a second. this is jeffrey miller. jeffrey miller was the most active, sort of a short guy, probably throwing rocks, probably shouted and cursed and other things. he was shot in the mouth which suggests intentionality. horrible story. this is the newspapers high school yearbook photos, sort of exaggerated the sense of innocence when you look at these

innocent faces, horrifying and this is not the famous photograph with her hands up like. this is one taken just before that when she realized what happened to the person -- that is jeff miller. for some reason to me that is more powerful soto. that moment of first realization before the shock that she is raising her arms. back to this one time. dag nab it, stop doing that. down here the wounded -- the guard goes back to the original place here, a group of students never left over here. now student start filtering back

telling them what happened and the anger, don't know how many of you on that side at that point, this is the most volatile time of the whole incident. the guard is facing the crowd and a guard has only one thing to do when facing a crowd, march forward. the students are not going to disperse. 20 of them roughly stripped to the waist, painted xs on their chests and for head. i talked to a lot of people they are ready to charge, so angry, damn the consequences and they didn't. this confrontation does not take place largely due to one man, when you read the records. how many of you had a course. you know glenn frank's story, former marine, looked like a marine if you have ever seen a

marine, geology professor, life are practically at kent and has a double which i realized as i was doing this. do you recognize drew carey? drew carey went to kent state, he was there in 1975, he flunked out. if anybody will ever make this movie drew carey should play the part. glenn frank froze himself between the two groups. with the beard and megaphone can you tell? i couldn't get confirmation. they had this confrontation. you can see there is film

footage of this but any of you who were there, he starts begging and crying, tears in his voice and falls to the ground, he is an ex-marine who looked behind these kids and sees they are encircled by national guardsmen so their position is absolutely ducks in a pond and the moment breaks and the event is ended. 80 guardsmen left down there, eight rounds to their m1s, horrible. would have been horrible. and then, sorry, white house, boat back to the white house, the chief of staff monday

afternoon, nixon wakes nixon up from a lap and tells him what happened, he says -- immediately glorified, his cambodia speech -- he immediately demands basically through haldeman j edgar hoover to find evidence of who was responsible for this and that becomes the story. 's bureau agnew people recognize. spirit agnew was theater too. one of nixon's first orders is to not let him talk, you can't shut's bureau agnew up. three days after the shootings he goes on the david frost show and says i think it was murder too. just horrified the white house but he went on to say it was murder too but it was excusable

murder, you can read more about that. the next night, friday night, you might remember this photograph, richard nixon gets a press conference, very successful, goes back to his bedroom, can't sleep, makes 87 calls in three hours, 30 of them to henry kissinger. at 3:30 he says ever been to the lincoln memorial? you have to understand the white house is ringed by dc transit buses. the 82nd airborne are sleeping in the executive office building basement, tens of thousands of demonstrators protesting the shootings. nixon decides it is time to show the lincoln memorial so they go

down, demonstrators sleeping down there. i love the expressions. you know they are saying what drug did i take? this goes on. after this he says i have never seen the secret service so petrified in my life. you can imagine there are only two secret service people there and that is one of the men doesn't look very happy. he says have you ever seen the house of representatives where the state of the union address are? he says no. they go from there to the house of representatives, he wakes up security there, puts manila up there where the state of the union address is and sits down to say something and richard nixon at his weirdest. this one thing even more horrible that happened about kent state that happened more recently and that is my last slide. don't know if you ever saw this

sweatshirt. urban outfitters put this what should on sale and they said when they were questions it is natural wear and tear, random coloration. among other things that is exactly where alison krauss was shot. it is appalling that they would do this and it is one of the things that inspired me to write this book. let me -- how can i -- if i could just -- >> the university changed its logo by 1970. i graduated in 67. 67 was when they were transitioning from that logo which is the seal of the state

of ohio. >> how to turn this thing off. anybody know how to turn this thing off? i apologize for that image. thanks. sorry. forgot to get one thing out for doing this. that is the backdrop to the book. it is a story i set out to tell. the question was how to tell it. i didn't know frankly. i knew i wanted to tell it. after i saw that sweatshirt i had to tell it and i discovered which i should have discovered earlier that the university had 130 oral histories they collected. the archival people at the kent state library deserve metals, every one of them. the public library and, thanks very much, they have done a

spectacular job collecting information. what i had to tell the story was basically 130 memories and i supplemented that with my own interviewing. let me give you a sense what that meant from a writing point of view. every time i came to a moment in the story i had somebody's memory. friday night, diane gallagher was working at a pizza joint at water street, just the spirit of the times when someone bursts into the door and after they start out there, the ride out there, the revolution has begun, the revolution has begun, she took her apron off and joined the revolution, there was a guy named denny benedict who was the one in the dormitory where they were showing thunder ball. he tells the story, resident

advisor stops the projector and says the rotc building is on fire, national guard is on campus, you can't leave. he goes out the front door, the laundry room window and towards the main gate. there is a track coming out with them ones. getting ready for the confrontation monday, 50 people in a dorm room, must've been a heck of a big dorm room. marijuana involved before them. henry mancowski in the parking lot when he was hit, and listed

in 190 pounds and carried him through the air. the crisis of communication center, make sense of chaos and communicate that in the restaurant, chuck ayres, pretty well-known. what is the comic strip? he is photographing, decides when the guard start marching back up the hill the kids have one, and stay there and return to his film, just starting to get his film out and the kid comes rushing in, a freshman,

goes and holds the dog and starts crying. william dairy, vietnam veteran and student told another story, he bled out, he saw jeff miller on the street lying there, sat down by a tree under a tree, there's a lot of crime in this story, diane peabody didn't get to the demonstration because she and her friends were late so they went to the dormitory, she sees people running towards the dormitory and she sees her boyfriend and runs downstairs to meet him and he breaks down in tears and falls on the ground,

because he thought she might have been hurt. stories like this all over the place. the guardsman, the guardsman in oral histories are underrepresented but the guardsman were deposed. the court action went on for 11 years, they were opposed time and time again and trying to make sense of what was going on in the air attacks. at first day go by the same party line. they hurting coming but as they get further out you get a deeper sense what is going on in their head and there was one guy in the fourth class named william pearl perkins. within 25 feet from that i was hitting every part of my body in such a manner that in roman days they put people to death.

is he trying to be poetic? he is trying to be literary but i read enough accounts like that that i think for a majority of the guardsman there was that since there was a riot going on in their head. there was nobody 25 feet from them. because the person is 30 yards from them but i think in their heads they thought -- a woman named rose was in the back yard with a bunch of mothers and babies, had an 11-month-old and a roofer working next-door on top of the roof listening to the radio and he shuts down marco my god, they shot the guardsman and for those who are here, the story went out that way, the communication, miscommunication was nationwide and traveled around the country. i find myself wondering what would have happened had social

media been today what it was then. they would have been flash crowds and horrible afterwords, but at least the story might have gotten out. too many people too harmed by fear who didn't know what had happened. a woman named barbara holland who was not there at all, she was one of the students who were nowhere near the commons when this happened, she was working on a narrow anatomy paper, she was a senior. the next five years she suffered posttraumatic stress syndrome. obviously a traumatic effect. i get emotional when i talk about this. people tell me it is an intense read and it probably is an intense read because i felt a lot of this very intensely as i was writing. i should have gone out and walk the dog between paragraphs or

something but i came to feel i was channeling the memories of people as i was doing this. then when i saw that grotesque urban outfitters added may be determined to get it right. finally the question that framed the book on how to start it, how to end it. i wrestled with that for a long time. i don't want to give a spoiler alert. i finally decided the only way i can do it to be true to what i thought was important to start the book in vietnam on may 4, 1970, to tell in abbreviated form the story of 24 people who died that day in vietnam. 17 people died today in vietnam in 1970. a midair collision between two helicopters, just about exactly the time the penn state shooting took place that killed another 7

people. i also realized you think of antiwar as binary but they are not binary. it wasn't there and here or them and us. they are connected in all sorts of ways and i realized that. there is a guy named timothy, one of the moving stories in the oral interviews, his brother had been killed 19 days into his tour of duty in vietnam. timothy french was senior education major student teaching, i forget exactly where, rushed to the hospital where his father was dying of prostate cancer at robinson memorial, he gets there and they are bringing in the wounded and

his mother found him there and his father died the exact moment they started bringing the first wounded in and it broke my heart. in the bursar's office, there was a story about how protesters had thrown a bottle through the window over her head, antiwar protesters, but very sympathetic to the cause. she had a nephew she raised, he was shot on his first tour of duty getting out of helicopter when it hit the ground in vietnam before he was killed. william dairy hughes who i mentioned earlier, another veteran, i tried to -- the afterword to the book to some extent through their eyes and i thought if i could, i wanted to read the final page and a half of the book, doesn't give anything away so don't let it deter you from buying the book or read it. i need to get my glasses on.

and i will take some questions and comments. all right. i had this marked but i messed that up. in an exact legal sense what happened might have been murder in the 2nd ° as wagner told david frost. more likely it was manslaughter voluntary or otherwise. whether a jury would have convicted guardsman at that time seems unlikely even without procedural roadblocks. they respect the laws and treat them with a heavy dose of common sense. the common sense would tell anyone that the guardsman were poorly trained in crowd control, miserably led over 24 minutes

that preceded the shooting and armed with the wrong tools to complete an impossible mission. that the guard was there at all is the result of an early morning call that never should have been made. students and outsiders behave poorly in some cases criminally the night of friday, may 1st. cambodia was the incentive. too much beer was a bigger reason. windows never should have been smashed. this was a charged moment in american history. the worst was to come. whatever the insult in other regards the reaction in the office of ohio governor jim rhodes in the we hours of saturday morning and when he heard of the call sign an opening he could run through over the u.s. senate. a deus ex machina for a man trailing badly in the polls but all that is background noise ultimately to the kent state shootings and the larger horror of vietnam. people died who should not have on both fronts. in southeast asia and the incident in northeast ohio which

empty space opened that had once been full. let me count the ways in which both experiences have lifetime scars. here is a final thought the best that could happen for those who brought it close to their hearts was to get beyond it. an interview in the 20th anniversary commemoration in 1990 janice talked about an earlier speaker who vowed she would never forget. it tore my heart out, i will never forget and i think there are important lessons with this but if there is no forgiveness there is no healing and nothing goes on forever. that is my talk. thank you very much for listening. [applause] >> now i need to listen to you.

>> do you choose not to mention -- >> i am sorry i couldn't -- they were at akron. a teamsters strike doing tough duty and i also mentioned about three hours sleep. how much sleep did you have the day before? [inaudible] >> shot a gun. >> is there any truth? >> there was a photographer on johnson hall who was taken at one point as a sniper. the sniper defense didn't materialize. there was a guy with a tape recorder sitting on his windowsill which if you listen to what a certain way can pick up four banks 70 seconds before the shooting. that could be terry norman who

is i don't know what you call him, the second man on the grassy knoll in this story. i don't think -- i think that is secondary. i think it precedes the shooting by so much that it doesn't comport with anything anybody says. i think the shooting was not caused by sniper fire. >> i had two children in elementary school at the old university school and i went to pick them up and was told i couldn't take them out because there were snipers on the roof and i took them anyway and we literally ran out like this to get in the car and go home. >> a couple cases in the oral interviews, one girl 10 or 11 years old tells it getting on her bus, elementary school bus,

big guy gets on with a baseball bat and says lie on the floor and they lie on the floor and he is standing with a baseball bat, terrifying story. there are a lot of rumors sweeping through kent that students coming through the sewers to attack clarkson's, the kmart of today if i understand correctly. there were all these -- >> i have quite a few different places, we were afraid of water being contaminated. i spent all night where there were a couple guards, a neighbor that came out and gave us coffee. i also started, i forget. we were all over. >> people forget there were over 1000 guardsman, 1350 and a lot of them never got on campus

because kent was under martial law too. thanks for reminding me of the story. very prominent rumor about the water supply. >> a couple comments, terry norman, we know, was an fbi informant and in terms of that, one of the things i was wondering about in your research, looking at house investigations at kent state in 1969 and would be willing to talk about many of these rumors you talk about are similar to tactics used -- i wonder what you think about the government's involvement, leading to an

atmosphere of distrust in the community prior to that. you talk a lot about protesters. >> the government in the time, they helped set the table for this. kids rampage friday night, story line was were not without some support. people had blown up research labs is a lot of bad stuff was going on. i think i said two things. what happened at kent state was inevitable and utterly preventable. inevitable because all the stuff you were talking about all comes together in this one spot in northeast ohio in this one moment in may 1970 but every step of the way, i talk about this in great length in the book, utterly preventable and everyone could have made a different set of decisions.

in terms of the storylines that keeps getting back to nixon, a nixon/hoover plot, h&r block eventually would say he thought this unhinged nixon successfully that it created to the debate led to the creation of diplomacy because hoover couldn't find the outside agitator, the weatherman, that he was sure had done this and according to his own approval almost in a way to take care of the work he was going to do. over here. anybody have a question? anybody else? >> john dean in his book said he thought kent state was the beginning of it. the other thing, friday night, i wasn't there. you can almost replicate that in most state universities, the

police and a bunch of college students at a time -- drove out of the bar, recipe for disaster, absolute stupidity. >> they saw this everywhere. there were four students released from county jail just a couple days earlier so now they are back on the loose. hold on. >> the other thing is the national guard symbolically to my mind admitted -- two days later testified in washington there was a sniper on the roof which was really insane. something shooting from you from the roof so you should people on

the ground. they backed away from that one pretty quick. >> it made no sense. one of the most heartbreaking documents in this whole thing after action reports by general canterbury, last question on it was problems encountered and lessons learned. i don't know. it did me and when i read it. hold on one second. >> struck by the fact 67 shots fired, four students killed, how many wounded? >> 9. >> that is only 13. with the crowd being as close as they were there were a lot more fatalities. >> a fair number shot in the air or shot on the ground. a funny story, a guy emailed me four days ago. he emailed me and said two week later, doing target practice and they came in and the guy in

charge said you guys have been that good at kent state, it is horrible. all the guardsmen who were students were horrified, didn't know what to say, you hear these things and when you look at them, the story, heartbreaking stories of people, generational divide, grimsley terrel teaches at kent state told me five days after a kid came back to his house everybody had been sent away, came back to his house and said what are you doing? i went home and my parents were waiting on the other side of the door and shouted through the mail slot we never want to see you again. a lot of stories like that. a generational divide, such a horrible divide. >> do you think this sets the

stage for a general sustain disdain for look and victimizing of the students that were protesting authority that has trickled down to our domestic forces today, there was an actual student shot by campus police because he got smart mouth? and change his parking space. you can look it up on the internet. a very recent occurrence. >> i did not. i missed that. >> did you hear about the one who was hazed by campus police, he attended a lecture, i believe it was -- marco gosh, who is vice president now? biden was talking on campus and

the student got up and started to ask him some hard questions as young people are supposed to do to keep us older generations aware of what is going on in the campus police started to approach him and told him to freeze and he refused. >> what i do think is the militarization of response, too much firepower brought for the job and the firepower itself, have to protect yourself and the firepower turns the demonstration from the vietnam war -- >> i can't answer, no expert. >> if you were to follow up,

this is a commercial for the visitor center open from 9:00 to 5:00 monday through friday, strongly recommended the telling of the may 4th story. there was parking particularly in the summer. >> graduated in 1977 so i was long gone by may 1970. i live in johnson hall in 1964 and 5. and they had stuff going on, a robot regarding in songfests.

and and we have 59, it was a parade that went all the way downtown. we have tony walsh, and these guys were here before the confrontation. and when johnson took over, it was escalated and by 66 we had 500,000, have 1 million men in vietnam. the events of vietnam and the period from 65 to 70 dramatically framed what led up to this event. it was a loss of innocence, we lost john kennedy in 63 and martin luther king in april 1968 and robert kennedy. my brother was called for a

glunt riot in 1968 when cleveland burned because of those events. you got to frame this in the context of a bigger -- >> which i try to do. i forgot one thing, the mayor of cleveland had a wonderful description by jim rhodes, he looked like a football player turned mortician. you have been a wonderful audience. i will sign your book, thank you, appreciate it. [applause] >> you are watching booktv with tom nonfiction books and authors every weekend, booktv, television for serious readers. coming up this weekend on booktv on our weekly author interview program afterwards local science professor looks at the history

and rides of isis. roundtable discussion on the art of the deal and former pro basketball player kareem abdul-jabbar weighs in on social and political issues. and on the history of the genetic code, report on the leadership of boris yeltsin and vladimir putin and we visit nashville to talk with local authors and taken the city's literary sites. those are just a few of the events coming up on booktv. for complete television schedule go to booktv.org. booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors, television for serious readers. >> good afternoon. we shall get the proceedings underway. when barack obama was elected

president of the united states he was riding a swell of hope however illusory the hope might have been across the country that our first black or half black president would usher in an era of post-racial harmony. 7 years later i think we all know how well that turned out. obama has healed the racial divide as successfully as his promised healing of the oceans. racial unrest has gone from attendance simmer to a raging boil. the left would like to pin the blame for this on what they claim is the right's racist refusal to accept a black man as president. in fact what has exacerbated race relations in the united states is the inherent racism and grievance mongering of identity politics spearheaded by obama himself. progressive racism, not the right, is the reason for today's

heightened racial conflicts. david horwitz need no introduction, let me focus on his new book, progressive racism which i reviewed for front page magazine. i give it two sums up. "progressive racism" is the sixth and most recent volume of david horowitz's collective conservative writings call the black book of the american left. this book collects 50 essays of david's thoughts on politics of race over the last 20 years. not to give away the end but the book concludes the racial bias the left demand, quote, tears at the fabric of the social order, compromises true equality and is the antithesis of the american dream. if i could quote a little more from it, in a free society composed of individuals who are unequal by nature the highest government good is neutrality in the treatment of its citizens before the law. one standard in justice for all.

this is the only quality not at odds with individual freedom, the only equality that can make a diverse community one. please welcome the founder of the freedom center, author of too many books to mention here including "progressive racism," one of the few intellectuals willing to talk honestly about race is still the left's most hated adversary, david horowitz. [applause] >> sorry for all those words but somebody has to do it. president obama has said racism is in the dna of america and transmitted through the generation. this malicious libel.

the most malicious libor ever by a president against his own country. slavery existed in africa for thousand years before a white person ever set foot there. slavery existed in all societies for 3000 years. just was what you did when you conquered your enemy. you enslaved the men and the women. from the beginning of time, no one ever said slavery was immoral. not aristotle, not moses, not jesus, until white christians in england led by wilberforce towards the end of the 18th century. in the british colonies at the time, a white slave owner named thomas jefferson wrote into america's birth certificate that liberty is a god-given right the government can't take away

anti-quality too. within just a little more than a generation and that the cost of 350,000 union lives, slavery was abolished in america. every black person alive in this country owes their freedom to america. that is the true dna of america. it is liberty, not racism. the libel that it is racism has a second malicious effect which is to persuade, unfortunately, large portions of the black community that that is the truth and to alienate them from this country and make them feel like outsiders when black people as american as any other group, they were on this continent from

1619, you can't speak of american culture without black culture. it doesn't exist and one could go on and on. this has a terrible effect on black people in this country and on the rest of us. it sometimes takes years to get a crucial fact like this right and it can be undone by the next generation of ignoramuses, people coming to this world without knowledge or experience and it takes a lifetime and sometimes like the president you don't learn even over a lifetime. we had a saying in the 60s, you can't trust anyone over 30. that was youthful arrogance that nobody should respect. the reality is you can't trust anyone under 30 because they don't know enough. they haven't had life experience. when i was a youngster about 11

or 12, a book came into my progressive household. my parents were card-carrying communists, and the book, we charge genocide. what it was, published by organization calling it civil rights congress, petition to the un to condemn the united states for genocide against black people. there was a photograph, can we have the photograph projected that will put the photograph up? elizabeth? the most famous photograph of a

lynching. two black men hanging from trees, and a white man facing the camera and pointing at them. anyone who has seen a picture of lynching has seen this photograph and hopefully will be able to get it up briefly. it was incredibly disturbing to me as an adolescent and it is still disturbing, disturbing enough, this hotel is a safe place. i could join a subsidiary of the university but it is a horrifying photograph. it took me 10 or 20 years before i read enough or read about

lynchings, to understand lynching was not devised for black people. there was a racial dimension to lynching and terrible evil one. actually lynching was just frontier justice, let's not waste time with due process. let's have the punishment before the trial, alice in wonderland. i also learned a third of all lynchings were white and that tells you a couple things. first of all that it wasn't devised and wasn't a practice against black people but also they were lynched because they had allegedly committed crimes that were worthy of hanging.

most of the lynching cases are not a bunch of white racists grabbing a black person and stringing them up from a tree, but were hanging for crimes for which they have been accused. in this particular case the two men hanging were named thomas ship and abram smith and there was a third, was not present. what happened, i learned this 50 years later listening, just happened to tune in to an npr program where they interview james cameron who was then an old man about what happened and

what happened was the three of them had been accused, arrested for murdering a young white factory worker and raping his girlfriend and the lynch mob had broken into the jail and took them out and strung the two up from the tree. that is the famous picture. thomas ship and abram smith and you can see the crowd is white but they had been accused of murder. according to james cameron, they actually had committed murder. according to the white woman who was allegedly raped, she hasn't been raped so it would have turned up in a trial but the

murder charge was right. this doesn't make lynching right. lynching is wrong and it is evil. we have due process in this country for a reason, to protect the innocent. another fact about this lynching, why didn't they hang james cameron who was also black and was arrested with them? the reason was james cameron said that he didn't participate. he didn't want to commit the murder, robbery, murder. he didn't participate, stayed in the car. he probably would have hung for being black. there was an obvious racial dimension to lynching. just that a white woman in the lynch mob stood up for him so they let him go. he was subsequently tried and

convicted of being an accessory before the fact and served 7 or 8 years and spent his life fighting for civil rights and in 1991 the state of indiana pardoned him and you can find this out on wikipedia if you look at this list, the indiana lynching. this is the most famous lynching, a picture on which that american communist wrote the song strange fruits. ..

to exterminate the people with what's going on with the jews today and the muslim world was

obviously not the case. the civil rights congress was a communist party front. therefore it was run from mus cow as we also have learned h was learned through soviet archives. in eastern europe that was a trial taking place which the kremlin was behind. the kremlin accused the top leaders of the czechoslovakia, the zionis, the buzz 11 of 13 leaders hung were jews.

it was about using black people against the united states to mutualize the bad publicity that kremlin was getting in campaign against the jews which spread as everybody knows to the soviet yuan. this progressive tradition never referred to themselves as communists, always as progressives. the progress tradition doesn't really care. that's basically what goes on. the big perks go to the leaders but the black masses as we would have called them when i i was a

leftist in inner cities they get crumbs. the democratic party controls every nay juror inner city in america. 100%. and has for 250 to 100 years. everything that's work with the inner cities in america every oppression, democrats and progressives are responsible for. the destroyed schools that year end and year out don't teach these kids to read and write, massive failure works, nongraduation, the democratic party will go to the death to defend the teacher unions which provide slush fund for the party. i don't have to go on about this. i will come back to this later maybe but using blacks as a battering, that's what the progressives do and that's why every election year the

democratic party will run on republican -- donald trump is a racist. black churches will burn if the republicans are elected and so on and so on. it's disgusting and racist. like i said, i learned late. it took a lifetime, i've done nothing but politics basically since i was ten year's old. i understand that people can't devote themselves and i'm sure the facts are obscured or invisible to most of the people,

actually you've been watching c-span which are people highly politically educated and informed to begin with. i went on in the 60's, i raised a lot of money as you know, probably, i have written about this extensively for the black panther party. the black panther party was seen as the vanguard of the black revolution. and i bought into that and they were seen as a vanguard because they would take up arms against the police stand up to the oppressed. prior to the 60's, the greatest social revolution in race relation in the history of

mankind was taken place, in 1940, 44% of black americans were in the middle class and professionals. in 1960's the figure was 49%. just a remarkable transformation and it was still only the beginning of the transformation that was taking place. but we on the left, we progressives saw blacks as oppressed people and revolution was the only thing that would transform their life and therefore the left, which likes to forget now despised martin luther king, we supported him in 1963 but then as things got more and more radical the left despised martin luther king, turned his back on him.

anyway, i saw the black panther party as blacks willing to stand em for themselves. it didn't occur to me that the black panther party had no significant following in the black community of oakland and areas where there were permanent that they were, in fact, feared by the local community. i had the progressive racism in me. i saw black people as symbols of everything that was wrong in america and that's why i -- that's why i raised the money for the black panther party and didn't pay attention to the signs. in 1974 -- i raised a lot of money to build a black panther school and in 19 -- to buy a church and turn it into a black panther school. the woman i recruited to keep

the books, the white woman betty, had three children and who worked for me, i was editing the largest magazine of the left . in 1974 her body had disappeared. all of my leftist friends defended the panthers. i knew if i said what i had said i would be denounced as a cia and a racist and i had a family with four children and took me some years. i fed this information to journalists and one brave leftist name kate coleman. the panthers were a street gang,

they murdered a dozen black people and got away with it. but this delusion, this progressive delusion, this melow drama of having racism in the dna, in 1999 or there scp -- thereabouts. i had spoken in hundred college campuses and it occurred to me, wow, you knowinger i was familiar with the curriculum, i was struck by the thought that, you know, it's politically correct to hate people. and this became -- i determined right then i'm going write a

book with a title it's politically correct to hate white people. i did write the book which came out i think in 2000 or maybe 1990. i don't remember the exact date. when i told my publisher, i wanted to write a book hating white people is a politically correct idea, my editor told me, we will never publish a book with that title. of course, it would have been titled hating blacky, it would have been a best seller. so i had to go a little texas publisher to get this book published. and was calling haiti whitey and other progressive causes. in 2001i became aware of a campaign on the american

campuses that was call awareness week. it was a campaign to get peroations for slavery. it would have been a reasonable campaign if one the reporations were paid by the confederacy and not by the united states government whose citizens lost 325,000 lives to end slavery and i spent, i don't know how much government spent but obviously was a lot of money and it would also have been reasonable if there had been any slaves alive or any children of slaves. or if white america would have been oppose to program that would actually hate white people.

so i conducted out ads or college papers called ten reasons why rapportations for slavery is racist and bad for blacks, and why is it bad for blacks? the same reason in the president's statement, racism is in the dna of america. african americans, africa is not a country, it's a continent. african americans are american and should be proud of it and there are some courageous blacks like sheriff clark of milwaukee who do so or jason riley at the

wall street but they are considered race traders by the progressives. progressive is big as liberal, liberals are bigots, they're intolerant, we all know that, they're not liberal about anything except hard drugs and sex and spending other people's money, that's what they're liberal about. they don't want two sides to a verge. that's why i have to take body guards when i appear on campuses and so does anne coulter and other speakers. i'm sure you're all familiar that's committed by totalitarian who run the universities and specifically the total tarrian students who call themselves progressist. they're reactionaries. this is a throwback of a hundred years, it's what it is.

it's no accident that they support the totalitarian threats from islam that we are now facing. where are we today? today we have a movement which is black lives matter which is a lynch mob itself, by lynch mom i don't mean stringing people up from trees but i mean, let's have the punishment before the trial so they help to burn the city of ferguson which is 60% black, punishing all the blacks who live there with a demand for the head of a white policeman because he was white. no evidence, no trial, we want his head. that's what it was about. that's a lynch mob that was supported by the president of the united states who is a

racist, if you don't this that barack obama is a racist, then you tell me how as chief adviser on race relations has been to the white house than anybody else is the racist al sharpton, convicted liar who ruined the lives of six people by spreading the lies. never paid the penalty owes the government 4 million in half taxes. who gets away with it because i call black skin privilege. if her white, al sharpton is a racial, incited his own mob, action network against a white obviously also a jew store owner

in harlem some years ago. the owner of freddie's mart and incited on the radio broadcast, followers to get the white out of our community, get the white out. one of the followers torched the store and killed seven people of color and al sharpton is the president's go-to person on race relations. this is what we have descended to and it really started with sharpton and jackson. two race hustlers, two rake hustlers targeting white people. if you're white, you're guilty before the facts. if you're black you're innocent, even if the facts eventually show that you were guilty.

it's the entire so-called liberal progressive culture which supports black lives matter. the democratic party, the democratic party officially endorses the black lives matter movement. these are the people who have ruined the life of darren wilson. the officer who was defending for his own life. how many people out in the television audience would do something like that. he wasn't picked on by darren wilson because he was black. he had been picked up because he

had committed a strong armed robbery. hands up, don't shoot. it was invented by accomplice in the robbery. freddie gray, career predators and who they prey on, they prey on for community. if you want to know where it comes from, it's from turning the system to communist, just like the community i grew up. america is a racist country, oh prezzive country and anybody who goes the war with america has our sympathy. i remember clearly in the first gulf war friends on the left

were supporting monster like hussein. the hatred of america is so deep seeded among progressives and the left that it's really hard for conservatives to fathom otherwise there would be many more conserves activist talking the way i'm talking now. i know it because i was there. white supremacy. america is a white supremacy nation. whoever hears that is either a lunatic and racist. antiamerican, racist nonetheless. this is a country who is at the end of eight years of a disastrous presidency by barack obama. we've had two black secretaries of state, a black chairman of

the joint chief of staff, three black heads of the national security council including the current susan rice who just made a racist statement that the nsc is too white who is a liar, who is the one what went onto benghazi knowing what happened, knowing it was a lie. we have thousands of black elected officials. we have major american cities running by blacks, black mayor, black police chief, black superintendents of schools, there are other cities just like that. baltimore. and who suffers by the way by this progressive racism, who suffer are black people in the inner cities, the assault on police, the war against police that black lives matter and these other racists declare.

has led to epidemic homicides and crime rates in cities like baltimore and ferguson. and who are the victims? black people. it's time for black people to wake up and start voting for republicans or you're going to be in this prison -- the blacks in the inner cities will be in prison, let's not forget the thriving black middle class in america and black upper class as well. it is so diabolic that people put faith of the democratic party as a champion when the democratic party is the worst

enemy, the worst, let's not forget the democratic party is the party of slavery and the party of segregation. it is also the party of the inner city, the party of a welfare system that is destroying inner city black communities because it has huge incentives to kick fathers or men out of the household so you have a single mother, then bribe the mother by giving a $200 a month or something like that if she has a baby, so you encourage large families no-wage earner and if the mother also gets a job, if she earns the money, she loses her welfare benefits. how evil is that? and the democrats are responsible for it, they're responsible because they're not screaming this to the rooftops every time they make a speech.

our national culture, the new york times, the networks, tv ads, the university encourage this kind of racism, racism and you can't always tell what's going on in this way. the winner of the national book award this year is may recollect's most pampered racist , son of a black panther. who didn't graduate from college but was there visiting professor at mit, nonetheless, was offered a column in "the new york times", received -- currently receiving a 650,000-dollar genius award from the macarthur foundation, celebrating, praise

ed by the atlantic, all liberal institutions and written a racist screed and got a book award for the racist screed called between the world and me which is in the form of a letter to his son. let me quote one passage from it, what malcolm x does to protect black beauty was never celebrated in movies in television, or in the textbooks i had scene as a child. every one of any import from jesus to george washington was white. colts was born in 1975. in order to get that holiday, which was created by ronald

reagan, george washington had to be pushed to the back of the bus so we have president's day now where washington and lincoln, the two formative figures in the creation of america are bunched together with no name for the holiday. the first bush in pictures, championing civil rights and equal dignity for blacks most notably home of the brave began appearing in 1949. best actor for lily's of the field, it was not about civil rights. it was about a wonderful black person. in 1964, in 1960 harper lee's novel about racial justice when it went onto sell over 60 million copies, in 1977,

television featured the epic series about black oppression which was the most widely view show of its time. it's ever so, reviewed by more than 30 million americans and won a score of em mys as is typical of the black lives matter racist leftist like him, he simply lies to sustain hatred to whites. best friend was black, the police said he was trying to run him over in his car. however, the police officer was black and excuses this by saying the delve made him do it.

how racist is that. this is a celebrated figure in the progressive culture. people are shaking their heads, yeah, this is what our country has come to. this is why donald trump is such a come -- compelling figure for so many americans because they are tired of this crap that's been throwing, they're tired of the lies -- lives that are lost because the racism is humored, just because it comes from black people. how is it that civil rights heros so called are now career predators and prey on black people? how screwed up is that? what is wrong with educated -- what is wrong with the progressive class? what's wrong is that our schools

have been turned over to racists and american, racists for 20 and 30 years, the whole curriculum in our universities are devoted to teaching that it's politically correct to hate white people. you have the university of missouri of empty charges that, there are four charges that there was racism at the school. not one of them examined, think again lynch mob. not one of them examined and mobs appeared demanding resignation to the head of the missouri university system which they achieved in getting over nothing, over empty charges. this was a school where the president of student body was black, the vice president was black and the leader of the lynch mob was a son of a

multimillionair railroad executive. black skin privilege, you could lie and people will believe you. it is time for america to return to its roots, which is individual rights, the individual circumstances, even of a lynching, you can see the bad dimensions of it, you can see the racial dimensions of it but there are other dimensions as well and those other dimensions should instill a certain sense of humility before you go screaming black lives matter. if black lives matter you wouldn't be crippling the police , stringent gun control laws, the only protection they have is guns.

hillary clinton has the secret service. you know white middle class of gated communities have security systems, if you're a mother on welfare, democratic are determined, hillary clinton determined to take that right away from all of us but in particular from the black citizens of the democrat control plantation in our major cities. we turn to individual rights, we turn to what -- what is so remarkable about this country. people say 400 years of slavery, there weren't 400 years of slavery, there were 400 years of slavery in you include the english colonies and america was

created in 1776 with the constitution in 1787 and within just a little over a generation, slavery was eliminated. america is the liberator of slaves, the liberator of black people and until that is is instilled in our young people and culture at large, we are in a heap of trouble. thank you. [applause] >> we are going take some questions. because we are recorded on c-span, everyone needs -- i would ask to line up at the microphone if you want to ask a question. >> david, you mentioned donald trump twice. some time ago an interview with david in which you were asked many inside the gop see him, that is donald trump as a sign

of a third world evolution and unit unfit to be the republican nominee, what is your opinion, your answer was somewhat -- you mentioned kennedy's assassination, lyndon johnson, european look at nose of americans -- >> no, no. >> okay, let me get to the final point. you said that one moral of christianity is savers are crucified, were you suggesting that donald trump is a savior? >> this is a comment about how people think. and trump excited conservative intellectuals, particularly group around national review because he hasn't read their books, that's what upsets them

and he probably won't read their books, and i was recalling where i learned because, of course, i was brought up as an intellectual, ideas were really important to me, i read a lot of books. when kennedy was assassinated i was in england and europeans have always looked at americans, the children went astray, we are the product of children of the europeans, so they always sneer at our culture and particularly texas, which is very american frontier, sort of state. and i remember when kennedy was assassinated and lbj became president, all my english friends, i was living in london, did they look down on it. lbj dogs and daughter and wives,

he had lbj cufflings, lbj ties. this was -- what is he? he's everything that's wrong with american, crude, rude, as a vulgar. what happened next was this, kennedy had all of these reform programs. he couldn't get them through congress. he didn't know how to do it. johnson came in and unfortunately for all of us put through the great society in a couple of years, so i learned then that there's intellectual smarts and then there's street smarts and political smarts, so to underestimate trump which is what every republican on that platform did and what national review and weekly standard are doing today is a huge mistake. that's all iment by that and

when i brought up -- i don't know why i brought up jesus but a rabbi that people resent being saved and they crucified them. i don't mean to compare donald trump to jesus. i also probably do too many interviews on -- >> what do you think of donald trump? >> well, i think that donald trump, first of all, i think he's an incredibly breath of fresh air in that he's not intimidated by what's called the political correctness which is actually a communist party line, that's what it is. they keep you in check with that . you can see that reaction among

these republicans conservatives like george will, brilliant intellects but they want trump out of the pictures. it's just too much for them. >> i think like all presidents he will disappoint us if he's elected. there are things he can't possibly do. he can't reform the whole corrupt washington culture. on the other hand, confidence as it is that i have in trump is this, this is a man who takes his reputation very seriously, trump towers, trump airlines, trump this, trump that, when he gets to the white house, should he get to the white house, he is going to want to furnish that reputation, not to destroy it. he has made promises, he's going

to build a water, you better believe he's going build a wall. is that important for america? you bet it is. no country can exist as he says and as i thought for many years before he said it, without borders, not only that, we can't keep ourselves safe if we're letting terrorists and criminals, there are 550,000 illegal convicted criminals in this country, 200,000 in jail and 350,000 roaming our streets and preying the americans and dem dem so i am for trump. [applause]

>> hands up don't shoot, conservatives should have stayed on it. my other concern other black african confrontation, which i think -- my question is can't and shouldn't conservative make teaching homes out of, for example, the following two, you mentioned gardner but we really had a situation where he wasn't resisting arrest, he was talking calmly and he is selling one cigarette and -- let me finish and let me have a liberal city with a liberal mayor passing wildly high taxes and our cops instead of going -- violating crime of becoming tax collectors for the establishment and we had a man who was shot in the back six times in i believe south carolina not resisting who certainly wrote that this guy was afraid of being put back in jail for not paying child

support. >> whoa, whoa. the first teaching moment moment of that that the officer that shot him in the back is on trial for murder. >> right. >> that's the real lesson of that. the other stuff is interesting but the real lesson is when cops commit crimes like that they get tried and should be tried for it. the gardner case, look, this is a career criminal. i know the get thing. you don't want to make an excuse for a guy who has been preying on black people for whatever it was, for 30 years, also he was resisting arrest, also -- >> very clear. he was speaking politely and took no physical effort. >> excuse me -- i'm not going to argue with you. i'm just going to tell you what my view of this is. they tell you -- you assume the position when they're arresting you, you put your hands, you

know, if a police officer says to me you're under arrest, my hands are in my back, i'm a law abiding citizen. the second thing is the officer in charge, the sergeant on the scene in charge of the arrest is an african american. >> the race here. >> i'm not going to argue with you. just enough. >> hi, you touched on the influence of unions on city government and i applaud that and now there's an organization called the industrial area foundation which was start-up in 1940 and there are a lot of branches of this in los angeles it's called 1la, they pretend to be motherhood and apple pie, however, on the website it says that they proposed to -- the head of the housing committee in la city hall that he proposed a

registration measure and, of course, that's being pushed through. now, i would like to ask you what you think of the influence of organizations such as which incidentally -- thank you very much. >> okay, i wrote -- i wrote a pamphlet, i don't know if it's here which 3 million people have read called barack obama's roots for revolution. it's an analysis of rules of revolution which is the original title. >> right. >> antiamerican. and a very dangerous influence and so that's my view of the -- >> i agree. i tried to say that. i'm wondering what you know or what you think of this organization called one la. >> i never heard of it. >> okay. >> i know that los angeles is

gone. all the cities are gone. there are 100% controlled by the democratic party. how could anything good be happening? >> and the unions. >> and the unions is one and the same. >> there is -- >> yeah, we have left probably posted discovered the networks.org. i haven't read every entry. >> would you consider the cold reluctance of the leaders of the black lives matter movement to reputiate to kill as hate group. >> it's a typical leftist hate group. they hate the police, they are defenders of criminals at home and enemies above. that's what progressives do. and, of course, i'm not -- you

know, there's people in television audience, obviously not every democrat, certainly not every democrat voter is aware of what they do because they're incredibly deceptive. when i was a young boy, and joseph stalin who had murdered 40 billion russians who didn't get on board for his socialist schemes, the one that bernie sanders seems to like, the slogan of the communist party was not a dictatorship, was not calling for -- their slogan was not to call for a soviet america, it was peace, jobs and democracy, people get fooled for leftest seductives that's why

social justice is a mirage. that's one of the big reasons why moral progress is a mirage because people lie and are very good liars. we have seen wonderful examples in the presidential primaries in both parties. just a normal, i guess, human thing to do to lie. politicians have a vested interest in lying because they have to put together coalitions of very diverse communities that are normally at each other's throats. every politician does it which doesn't mean there aren't people of integrity in politics but they're rare and rare. >> you've talked about genocides and you talked about -- just mentioned 40 million killed in russia, 60 million killed in china.

i hate it when somebody is killed unjustly even one, those kind of numbers i can't comprehend. now, back in the 20's the founder of planned parenthood said that some words to the effect that we should not let the africans work it out, our goal is to exterminate the african race. wouldn't it all prove that america is not racist if planned parenthood was abolished and abortion was made legal again? >> i think planned parenthood should not get a dime from the federal government. she hated black people. the left can overlook that, can it, it can overlook what the

communist did as well. i don't think there's anything that will prove that america is racist to people who in their very being and their identity hate america and that's to me what the black lives movement and the progressive left is about. >> i just wanted to add that roughly 1.2 million in america and the vast majority of black, so it is a movement against the black people, therefore it should be abolished. >> but if you propose something sensible like if you're -- if you're receiving welfare and can't afford ten children or four, you should -- as a price of welfare until you get a job and start earning a living have

a nor plant, prevents you from having children, if you recommend that then you're called racist by the progressive racists. the book i've written is like 30 years of my wars against the progressive racists and you can see that we've lost most of the battle. we have to start winning some. >> last question. >> last question. last but not least so we will see what happens. first of all, thank you for coming, i appreciate you being here. i was in san diego and i tried to get down there and see you but that didn't work out but i'm glad i'm here. >> i know the students sort of -- >> yes. but i applaud your stand and i'm a public school administrator, educator and i appreciate your stand, my question directs itself to the idea under ronald

reagan, secretary of education and one of his first speeches, i loved what he said, he said what we need to do in the department of education. again, he's the director of the department of education, we need to eradicate the department of education. i applauded that so fully, it didn't happen, that was his thought. well, i'm forced to be a member of california teacher association and i realize that american federation teachers are the largest contributing groups to the democratic party -- >> and socialist causes. >> right. so -- and i don't, i realize you don't have a magic pill for an answer, but you're right, education got us here and as lincoln said, we are doom today repeat that which we have. what do you have for a thought in the sense of how do we steer the aircraft? >> i wrote five books on the universities and how to reform that.

okay. and they just fell into a hole. republicans -- republicans control 30 states. i have spoken to chairman of education committees, i have spoken to republican leadership in various states, it's not a money issue for them and it's a mine field so they avoid it. i didn't get any real support out of the republican party. and until that happens, if conservatives continue wanting to seed our universities to the left it's going to go on and on like that. they have to get prepared to actually fight, and i have to tell you, i can count on the fingers on one hand republicans who fight. that has got to stop. now, i was -- i have a friend who is a democratic party pollster and strategist who will remain anonymous because it's in

his heart he's a conservative and he explain today me how -- explained to me how you get rid of the department of education. you increase its budget. what you do is increase budget and in the fine print you take away all its power and revert it, make it a pass through to the states. that's what you need to do. >> you're a light. thank you for being the light that you are, we just need to have more light. so thank you.

>> thank you. [applause] >> and i want to thank everybody and i want to thank c-span and bryan lamb that this is the only outlet that i have that's not in the conservative, i have been in the blacklist since i had a article with my friend an peter that we voted for ronald reagan. [inaudible conversations] >> well, you know, that's -- that's another funny thing because the name -- i use the name black because malcolm said you need to call blacks not negroes as they were called but blacks because negroes were uncle toms and it was jesse jackson that insisted that it didn't change to african american. i use black but that's what i

would -- cutting my political teeth, but actually if blacks were called negroes, we wouldn't have that problem that black is a negative color. so it's a self-inflicted wound not by black people but like people like malcolm x and malcolm x and the african american, i call people what they want to be called. [applause] >> here is a look at some of the nonfiction books, fox news has bill o'reilly, his first on the list followed by the published script of the surprise winning and tony winning broadway musical. in grits, psychologist, persistence rather than again use is a better predictor of

success. winning author examines the future of genetic manipulation in the gene. difficulties veterans have reentering society in tribe. and national book award winning awrtor -- author nathaniel, that's a look at some of the current nonfiction best sellers according to national weekly. many of the authors will be appearing on book tv, you can watch them on our website incident booktv.org. >> in 1789 jaisms madison -- james madison had a problem.

a convention to divide a new constitution. in 1786 he participated and secured enough support of key players like george washington to convene the constitutional convention in philadelphia. now the pressure was on the 36-year-old madison. before your journeying to philadelphia, a truly fundamental problem to solve. like many others he had concluded that the american regime governed by articles of confederation were inadequate and what virginia rights referred to the common benefit protection and security of the

people. but why was this happening? why had the republicanism of the founding generation failed themselves? for the previous 13 years the people of the united states have been governed by 13 separate entities, state governments under the articles of confederation were thought to be republican. the founders had thrown off rule by the few in favor of rule by the democratic many. if the many are screwed by the few, the democratic or republican alternative was premised on the belief that the people wouldn't screw themselves. this is cook county. this is the way we talk in cook county. [laughter] >> had unexpected proven to be false. state legislatures had been -- begun debtor release laws that undermine the rights of creditors and impair economic

prosperity which required a credit market that can safely rely on private contracts to elect from debtors, state directed trade barriers to protect their own businesses from competing firms in neighboring states. the result was a national economic downturn, a really great depression, so republican government as it was then conceived was clearly not working for the common benefit protection and security of the people by why not? now, to answer this question in april of 1787 largely for his own benefit madison composed an essay that's called the vices of the political system of the united states, but it was not an essay for publication, it was an essay for his own benefit. it was like a working paper for him to figure out what the game plan needed to be for the upcoming constitutional convention in philadelphia. and so we have this document, it's remarkable document because it shows how he was sorting

through this problem, what it was problem. in vices madison identified the source of the problem in what he called the injustice of the laws of the state. so first of all, the problem was that the laws the states were passing were unjust. the causes of this evil he contended could be traced to the representative bodies in the states and ultimately he said to the people themselves. this he wrote called into question, quote, the fundamental principle of republican government that the majority who rule in such governments are the safest guardians of public right. madison concluded that we must be far more realistic about popular majorities, all civilized associated are divided into different interests and fashions as they happen to be creditors or debtors, rich or poor, members of different

religious, sex, followers of political leaders, owners of different kinds of property, et cetera. in a democracy, the debtors outnumber the creditors and the poor outnumber the rich. the larger group can simply outvote the smaller one. the majority, however, composed, he continued, quoting him, ultimately give the law whenever an apparent interest or common passion units the majority, what is to restrain them from unjust violations of the rights and interest of the minority or of individuals? to i list trait this problem madison posed experiment, place three individuals in a situation where the interest of each depends on the voice of the other and give interest as oppose to the right, will the latter be secured. the prudence will shun the danger he said.

like wise, he asked will 2,000 in a like situation be less likely to encroach upon the right of the one thousand? now, madison concluded that what was needed was nothing less than a new republican form of government that would address the weakness of democratic state governments while preserving popular sovereignty. as madison put it, quote, to secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such and at the same time preserve spirit of popular government is then the great object of which -- to which our inquiries are directed.