>> of their mission to help u.s. forces secure ramadi. and next up, killing the rising son. and wrapping up our look at the conservative book club current non-fiction best sellers, paintings of american soldiers; portraits of courage. many of these authors have or will appear on booktv. you can watch thel on our website booktv.org.

folks before we begin, i ask you to take the time to please turn off your cell phones. pankaj mishra is video taping this evening oh at the video when we -- c-span -- do our questions we ask you to come stand at the microphone to ask questions so he can ware otherwise we will not be able to hear you. i am a librarian here and i am very happy to present john mcwhorter. this is john's third visit. today he is speaking about his most recent book, "talking back,

talking black: truths about america's lingua franca" john mcwhorter is on associate professor of english and comparative literature at columbia university and teaches western history, american studies and music. best-selling author, ted speaker, and columnist for "time" magazine, con tributer to the washington post and publications. he is going to be speaking about his most recent book tonight "talking back, talking black." without further ado, john mcwhorter, please. [applause] >> thank you for coming tonight. what i want to talk to you about is the last book i published

called "talking back, talking black." i wanted to see if i could make the general public have a more positive view of the dialect that most black americans use in c c casual situation. the idea is black english is a stain or scourge. it has also bothered me. i never heard it twhat but the misperception continues. and we linguistics take your heads at this idea that the general public, including the educated general public, have that there is something wrong with the way the black people talk. i started to feel as if a lot of

why the public doesn't get it is linguistic fault and by that i include myself. i thought somebody needs to put something out there that maybe addresses this in a new way. what do i mean by black english? if you call the academic literature you will find it cause african-american vinacular english. i learned it as black english in the '80s and i am going to stick with black english. but what is meant by that? okay. it doesn't only mean the slang that is more commonly used by young black people mostly. we are not shaking our heads about slang. paem don't like dissertations -- people -- about slang and i would not waste a book on the

slang of black english. what we really mean is two other things. first of all, there is the difference and in linguistics we call it theology. any american has a sense on some level that there is a black way to sound and it is bothers me to say that i will talk about that in 15 minutes. you can usually tell a person is black american from over the phone even if no slang were being used. that has been proven again and again. americans both white and black are very good at that.

especially the sound system and then it is how you put words together. linguists call that grammar but that is not a good way to use in the real world. grammar is about a bunch of things people do wrong. >> more to the point, the grammar is absolutely central to what we mean by there is a different way of speaking. that is what i am talking about when i say black english and who speaks it? definitely not all black americans. there are black americans who do not speak it on any of these

three levels. we are continuing about continue and climbs. the vast majority control black english to some degree. it may be in only the sound. it might be the sound and grammar. but the vast majority, in other words this corresponds to the gut sense we have that there is a black way of speaking or a black sound. it is not the same thing as southern english. this goes on decade after decade after decade. and there are scholars who could come before me who had done magnificent detailed work on black english.

it is frustrating. i have wondered if it has to be that way. there are two things that that leaders have said about how black english should be perceiv perceived. one message we have is if you don't like black english than inherently you are not liking black people. so that means that if you dislike english you are racist. that has been said. that is a point many people make in classes and you can have conversations about it. some of you know i have a representation of being a contrary on racist issues. the people who think black english are bad grammar are the same people who would say the

same thing about poor, southern white grammar. nobody is saying those people are using perfect english and grammar and black people doing the same thing are getting along. there is a general sense in this country that most people walk around breaking the rules of their own language and g grammaticals. it is wrong to say billy and me went to the store rather than billy and i went to the store. it is similar and often the same constructions. i understand that black people

have been condemded from slavery and jim crow. you may disagree but that is not a bigot. racism alone doesn't help us here. is it the only part? can the racism be charged? i don't mean it is 85%. it is really not the only part. another aspect of it is the linguist say black english is okay because it is systematic. you look at the things that are different in black english and they follow rules as the same way of an own language follows rules so it a structured, legitimate formal speech.

you know, i am sorry to say this to my own dissertation advisor and all the people who came before he and the ones along with me and the ones that came after. folks, i know some of you are watching, the argument doesn't convince the public. i am sorry. it doesn't. what i mean is something like this. the verb to be hear is very different in black english. you use the verb to be with some persons and members not others. and so, it is omitted as linguists put it in only in context. so we learning to speak black english for real and they have a lot of to learn.

it would surprise you how high the stack is of papers that have been written about the verb to be in black english. it is complicated. i get the feeling what most people outside of a few hundred pointy headed academic strengths is okay. it is systematic but why leaving the verb out? this is english and it is bad structured. it is not systematic. it is a bad system. the mafia is a system and nobody would want them running a town. here we are. in that place we are is where i started with this book. i thought is it a matter of saying you are a racist if you

don't like the dialogue. "talking back, talking black" gets across four quick points designed to get under or around the typical argument and i will quickly outline what they are. black english is full of things it does not do that maintreme standard english does. this verb to be is not there so you think something is left out. it is broken. what is less covered is that black english is more complex in many ways than mainstream standard english but we have a hard time hearing it because all we can hear is the quote unquote bad grammar, the slang gets in the way.

i will give you two quick ones. in all these things sound like what we classify as slang. they are beautiful. it sounds like they are overusing had. she came to the house and said i want limonade and i dropped it and bent over to clean it up. she said what are you doing and i said i am having a bad day. black english has something you can find in languages taught by

obsecured people from all over the world. there is a word you use when you are spinning through a narrative. it would be as in if enlish we didn't have the ed but we had another sufix we use. it is not my cousin doesn't know how to use ed. he wouldn't think about that any more than any of us can explain when you use uh and the if we really thought about it.

human beings speak language subconsciously. same with black english. if there is an awareness of it is a joke and people say what happened that? that pun point. nobody thinks of it as grammar. you done ate it? the natural thought is that person is saying anything badly. why not just you ate it? you move on thinking black people talk wrong. done is really interesting. and i don't mean it is subtle. that is a way of tricking you into something is complex.

it is a precise usage it took people a long time to figure out. people will say i done liked you for a while. it is not random. nobody walks around using some bit of stuff in a language randomly. that is not what black people are doing any more than anyone else. done marks counter expectations and i mean whenever you hear a black person using done where if you don't speak black english you would use the past. you done ate? is somebody that thought it was going to be there. i done had a crush on you since

you were 12. means you would not have known it. it is not how did you get here? i done took the subway unless the subway was just built. otherwise just took the subway. this is grammar. this is books this thick. black english has lots of those things. i am giving you two for the purposes of time. please don't think i could only think of one more. you listen to it as trash because of the slang and breaking main standard rules. but there are all these things in it that are more complex than what we think of as english. that is the first thing. i wish that had been made clearer to the public than it has been. it has to be stressed. people respect complexity. not the difference. but complexty.

second thing if we are on our to understanding black english is not wrong and not not wrong with because the people who speak it are lack. then we can address this issue of saying bl it is wrong to say somebody does or doesn't sound black. it can be really tricky to talk about sounding or not sounding black because given the way black english is perceived and given the way black people are often perceived it is hard not to hear that person had a black sound and it means something negative or slur. the idea must be there is something wrong with the black sound. then we think it must mean that person uses bad grammar quote unquote etc. actually what would be surprising is if there were no

black sounds because human speech starts in one place and then some people go in this direction and some go there. the people in direction ended up speaking french. the people who went in this direction ended up speaking spanish. that is how it works. same thing with dialect. so some people go over here then they will end up speaking a different kind of english that people over here. and this is every bit the point even when the people live like this because it is not always a matter of geo graphy. you talk like the people you are the most intimate with. so it will change and sounds are always changing in any language.

listen to most americans now, it is getting to the point under 40. and you will notice they are more likely to say i caught a fish rather that i caught a fish. sushi is raw fish. that is a sound change and one example of what is happening in all human speech. black people have a sound. the sound has nothing to do with sin sinuses. this has been studied and it is woe full. you find it in journals that

have nothing to do with linguistics. it has been proven again and again a person will study one vowel at a time and never tell the world. great. about three years ago, i decided what happens if you use especially modern technology and analyzed a few black people's vowels and a few white people's vowels. wouldn't you find say sit in a different place? i put that in the month. i put two students on it. i was driving and listening to npr and is somebody was talking about tax policy and in the back of my mind i thought black. where wasn't sitting there t tabulating is this person a black person. i thought how do i know.

we are trained to think no, if i am white i am racist for proposing that. and black people think no, there is not a black way to talk because it sells like it is playing in the idea of racism on a certain level. all of us know southern whites don't sound like black people. wasn't listening to have southerner it was a black person. i checked and it is was. i thought what were the vowels and there are some. it is kind of hard to talk about in this format. but there are different vowels. there is always a different place where you produce sound. if you are an opera singer you are taught to place your voice in a different way. different voices and dialects have different tamber in that way. there are subtle factors of

camber that kip you off at this person is viola davis and not melissa mccarthy. it can be analyzed scientifically. time that got out there. an interesting thing, what about the kids? i asked my mother. 1973. i am sure people all it all over the place. imagine you are white and your kid says how come you can tell somebody is black even if you can't see them mommy? the impulse is to say that is not true. or the impulse is to say everybody talks in different ways you shouldn't stereotype. if your kid has an iq over 40 they will think i am just telling the truth. i think we need get comfortable saying black people have a slightly different sound because they spend more time with one another just like white people

sound similar because they spend more time. that is not racist and true. there is nothing wrong with the way viola davis sounds as oppose to the way melissa mccarthy sounds but she definitely sounds black. she does the voice of the disney queen cartoon series sophia the first. it is in my house because i have small children. i had my back turn and the queen said something and that bell went off and i thought the queen is black. is she? i turned around and went on to indb who does the queen? it was viola davis. i am hearing what any american can hear. i have a chapter about that in

the book. the third thing in the book is a trajection levelled that it isn't okay. they can't talk that way in a job interview. talking about the complexity of not mocking the language because you mock the speakers. people say yes, that is true. but they can't talk that way at a job interview. nobody needs to be told that. and i think that why you get that response is because of a sense that we often have that the way somebody speaks cas i l i'll -- casually. with black english, that is worse and people think it is a mistake.

that is an american misimpressions because our dialect diversity here is relatively then. english hasn't been here for 2000 years where it has been in england. so there kinds of english there that barely sound like english to us. america is 15 minutes old. we don't have that depth of that. some, gulla creole, and louisiana french. but they are-spoken on the march.

and louisiana french is mostly extinct. there are dialect differences but a certain vanilla aspect to the way english goes here. what we miss is living in two different dialects of the same thing is an ordinary human experience. in the -- nobody in sicily is worried that somebody who speaks this is going to use it in a job interview in standard italian. it is something a language fan takes in college and then there is susilllen and it would be

considered a separate romance language. if you see the god father of boardwalk empire. you will see translations and it is different enough to show characters speaking textbook college classroom italian would be ridiculous. when you see say the god father and speaking that language they are speaking something as different as italian than spanish. but they speak standard in schools and debates. in most arab speaking countries, pow know someone who speaks arabic they really mean i speak latin and french. they speak two thinks. they speak the standard language and what they learned on their mother's knee is so different,

that it is, although the speakers have it funny put that way. it is a different language. the language they learned at home is like french. and then they went to school and learned something like latin. a any arabic speaker you know unless they are from malta is like that. the idea egyptian arabic is a threat to standard arabic, no. there is an article in the new yorker that addresses that beautiful length and the idea people need to let gofe the egyptian because it threatens the scandal, no.

black speakers are two tones. this is people speaking all over the world. the idea you learn something on your mother's knee or father's nee and you go to school and that same way of speaking is what your teachers use and that came way of speaking is on the printed page and everybody around you speaks that way and you have learned this standard formal way of speaking and sounds normal at home. i would venture every second person in the world would never dream of that being the situation. that was more the case 200 years ago when literacy became widespread so vi vanacular

experience. you go to school and what is on the page is something rather different. it is not a different language but it is different. it is as if you say house but on the page is domicile. and nobody opposes it. you make your way and learn the school way. that is humanity and how it works. only a 100 of the world 7,000 languages are written in any real way. black people have a larger english than most white people. i wanted to call one of my first books "a larger english" and they didn't like that.

nobody is going to use black english at a job interview. something else that any black person entits is there is way you speak here and a way you speak there. the job issue interview falls away. then there is the fourth and final thing, menstraul. there is an unsavory sense that many people have that there is something about menstrual speech in which white people made fun of black people and came up with a cartoonized version of black speech. there is something about minstrel speech and black english such as to embrace and speak black english had something to do with this cartoon version of black speech

hoisted upon us starting in the 1840s by whites. a lot of that comes down to actually one word. am. so if one is inclined to looking through old scripts or watching horrible old movies or something like that or books that one read and you get used to see black people using am much more than anybody would. those are the best cigars i ever smoked. and they were making fun of black speech and that worries me and people talk about black english and people talking differently because that is that history.

it is normal corherent speech used by the sophisticated human brain it changes over time. all language does. anybody knows an episode of good time has slang that sounds quaint which i am just old enough to remember sounding fierce and urgent at the time. forget the slang, it is the sound system and grammar that changed too. it is hard for us to know because they are not with it. it was different in the sound system. if you listen to an ancient gospel recording, listen to a gospel recording from the '30s. and you listen to the black preacher talking, you listen

closely. he doesn't sound like a black approacher. listen to black singers in the 1890. and you will listen to dark skinned black people who found more west-indian slash irish than anything we sense as the black sound. if you listen to recordings of ex-slaves made in the '30s. and there is a great number made. they don't sound like jaime fox and morgan freedom. they sound like something that no longer exists. it is just the fouls were in different places back then. one of the joys of science is the counter intuitive.

just as today be is used in a way we are familiar with. people be going there all there time. the way you know it is home to harlem. he was trying to give a loving portrait of these parliament in their lives in all of the 1920s. nobody uses be in the way we are used to. you are waiting for it because it is a core of black english

today. you go through transcripts of the exslaves and it is there. someone says charcoal and honey and good for the baby. it is somebody talking about child care and says charcoal and honey and good for the baby. that is a transcript of someone speaking named heriot. it is so common you end up realizing that is the way people talk because those are the sorts of things thatted change over the years in any human speech. i talk about the actual distortions in the bock. it is reflective of the way the dialect sounded then as opposed to now. menstrual shows were repulsive.

it wasn't just this or that or the menstrual show. the menstrual show was all there was. they were going to be backed up and doing dances that were supposed to be black. it gives you a window into the history of black english. it is not just slang but a whole other system of speaking black english. those four things are what the book is about. harry reid in 2010 was discovered to say barack obama can speak negro dialect when he wants to. and everybody thought what does he mean?

the negro was unfortunate but harry reid is somebody who had the benefit of a long time and the truth is negro dialect is what it was called in the early scholarly sources. ebonics? what do you call it. many people said is he saying barack obama uses bad grammar. no, no. barack obama can speak to things. he can switch into the black english in the proper situation. calling it negro dialect is not grace full but he was referring to something that makes barack obama a larger speecher than say david letterman. he speaks negro dialect when he wants to. it was minstrel speech but he could have said black english. black english. yeah, to be honest i have known

both white and black people who have thought there was something wrong with the former president unfortunately switching between the two. i was lit into by a black correspondent who thought barack obama should not talk that way in public at all. he uses black english with big surprise black people. one more. asks/ask. people say what is with asks? the question is black people

mead needs to stop this. no, black people use asks because it is part of this other dialect known as black english. it is not because it is hard if you are descend from africa to make the illinois. asks is used because it was the form most often used by great britain and ireland who black people worked alongside to learn english. just like legions of white people across the board black people said asks. so today most people switch between aks and asks. black english is the home variety and comfortable and c casual. it is not a lapse. it is because black people have more english than other people.

now, those who may think that my saying that is partisan in some way. that i am making some sort of ivy league defense. i am saying this has something to dowith the crazy leftism in the category. i beg everyone to consider that is not by representation. i am arguing on the bases of what anybody who happens to have gotten a degree in linguistics could agree with. not of opinion. not of gut. but of fact. one of the facts is and this applies to everything. one of the facts is that aks and asks competed as far back as old

english. you are reading bay wolf in a language that might as well be german. chawser. chawser. of all people who preferred aks. that is where it comes from. that is the answer to the question what is with ax. it is a symptom of a larger english. it is about exactly what i just explained. i was trying to talk aboback ab talking black. thank you [applause]

>> since c-span is here, i can predict that in my box, as soon as this is put on the airrile get all these angry e-mail is shouldn't be a professor, need to learn this and i need to learn that. i have -- that's okay. you get used to it. and you know what? i'm going to keep being a professor. so if you want to send me one of those, i'm not leaving. >> thank you. >> hi. i want to say thank you. and i wanted to ask about

african grammatical retention, like in my grandmother's generation, people from the west indies and the south and africa, africans i have met now sound very much the same. so if you could talk about that and also, i'm really proud of our great oral tradition as african people. >> you know, it's one of those things. there are lot of people who have said that blackening lisch is african -- black english is african with english word. i wish that were true. that would be anymore. there are languages like that, west indies or less known such as creole, which is what i studied, those languages -- this is -- it's generally speaking they're african englishes with english words in black english

is influenced be african languages. not having r at the end of a cellular, so stow instead of store, and that's an african inheritance and the melody. part of what black black engliss the song, and no english sound that was not created by africans and their languages are tonal. theirs a continuum. the real african englishes are spoken in caribbean colonias, and nigerian pigeon is like that and then there's black english which is in between and it's part of the system. there's huge controversy over what the historical relationship what between gallon ula and black english, there are sides where they say that there's no relationship -- the canadians, i

live them to pieces and some people say gulla was spoken all of the united states where there was any blacks there and you want it to be that. that gulla was spokesmanning in delware and then gradually became black english. the evidence is not there for that, and the fight has again on for 35 years. i think the truth is in the middle and so there was some sort of relationship between creole, which is west indian and what became black english but an equal part of black english was irish and they're not the british people we know. but it's a hybrid history. so, some africa, you're going to get more of the africa in west indian englishes.

>> your talk has brought a lot of question to me and a lot of comments. but one of the questions i have for you is, ebonics the same as black english? >> same thing. >> okay. then i'll take just a -- ask another question. if -- when you talk about timber, is timbre is it when there was an opera that was sung by black people, named escapes me now, but not pouring porgie

and bess. but i think gertrude stein has -- >> right, she used that -- she used black voices. is that because of the timpre or something else? i'd like if you -- >> what an interesting -- nobody ever asked me about that. wow. >> i happen to know the answer because i just happened to read a book about the composition of that oprah, -- on program. i know she can't say that but i bet she said it i bet during rehearsals somebody said something like that. that's a tough piece. not done much because the music is bad.

it's hard to say but that wasn't why. the black people were used for pictorial reasons rather than for the tambre and today if somebody wanted to use black people they'd be afraid to say it because they'd be afraid it was racist to say there is one. she wouldn't have thought that way, though, butter i don't think she is on record as having said that. thank you. that's an interesting question. >> any other questions? you have a question? >> i can do two. this is my favorite part. >> professor, my question is more about the gulla. i wonder if the name itself is from another language? i'm of the opinion that gull y really means girla which is french for mouth of an animal. i wonder if there's some racism involve? i think the word gulla is, like

i say, girl, and that the black people who have known that adopted it saying, if i am an animal, i will speak and ergo i am better because i am an animal which speaks. so i'm wondering what is your thought on that? >> um, nobody knows for sure where the term "gulla" is from. for it to be from gurl is interesting and i don't know what the source of your reasoning is, whether -- >> i speak french. gurl means animal mouth. >> but when a french person saysow have a gurl you are called an animal. otherwise you have a -- i think

that obviously having grown up in french speaking countries, i hear a lot of gurl being thrown around and that is a shorthand way of saying mouth. i'm now asking what is your thought because i really believe that gulla has that french root, the louisiana aspect, and i'm wondering if that sort of ties into the ling west -- lingistics. and i -- that's a neat idea but i'm not sure there's a strong enough current of french, or french creole that i would be inclined to accept that over what is usually ventured which is gul laa comes from gola as

in angola because slaves came from angola but the problem with that explanation is that the african language that survives as songs that people don't remember what they mean anymore -- is from sierra leone and they're mostly from up there, the basket,making, as opposed to down south in angola. the question why would angola become the name of the language? and nobody knows. so, maybe. >> thank you for the talk. i think the other linguistic, i have a finding, a motive, because english is not my first language, native language.

i found that the accent is formed by your first native language when you were two year old. you don't talk, you listen all day long for two years, so you catch that accent and deposit that interest your system. it's very hard to change. it can be changed but for very few people. like chinese, when most people -- when we talk you dent even look at me and know it's chinese. it's the same thing. so, i came to america, i noticed black people talking different from white people, but i didn't think -- i thought it was because they carry their own language from africa where they were brought here as a slavery, like, 200 years ago, i think that's subtle difference, the most different accent from english for any part of -- for

any race. so, is that true? just want to get some confirmation. >> i'm sorry. no, not in this -- i can see how it would seem that way from your perspective. different people and a lot of people have roots in africa and sound different. that is definitely the way slaves who had grownup africa would have sounded, and so for example in the first root miniseries, i forget how they had lavar burton talking but we would have head a very thick accent. then you have the generation born in this country, and they're surrounded not only by their many whites who are native and especially on a plantation, whites robbed -- white its around you and then black people who had been born on the plan machine addition so you got something that was -- plantation so you got something what as

different from the way the white people spoke but it wasn't african. this is clear in a city like new york city. we know how african sounds when their speaking english as a second language, an african who learned english later. an accent that sounds very different to most of us because it's only been commonly heard in the united states for 40 years. and if you think about it, this person from nigeria done sound anything like the black person from chicago. >> i see that, too. black americans, in my eye, black american are true american because they have been here as long as the white people, right? so then it's so different. if i heard somebody from africa 20 years ago, ten years ago, i can tell the defense immediately. i don't know why. this is not black american. is not american. he is african american in my

idea and black american because they were been here, been here for generation already. but then i have another thing to answer you. when they keep talking english with everybody here, american here, i can get rid of my accent quickly, but if i switch back to -- if i talk on the phone with my chinese friends or social network, for a couple of months, my english is not as fluent as i can be. i think that is part of -- to become talk good english. i think -- it's always in your system but you can get rid of most of them but not all of the kind. >> no, you can't. it's hard and it's the same the other way. >> black and white american, for generations still have a slight

difference when they talk. just slightly. >> the analogy is correct in that when the commune is separate in that way, some influence from the faraway place, the original home, can persist but in black english the vast majority of the difference is due to the segregation that happened here. but definitely, as i said to the other person, there is a dusting of african influence. >> hi. i lived in atlanta -- i'm from here. lived in atlanta in the 1990s and people tell me i sound geechi. >> i don't know what that means. >> that's gulla. >> i wasn't hearing it just now, but -- >> i just wanted to make one more comment about -- i think a lot of black english is about

being consciously musical, like people really know and almost like there's a beat to it. >> yes. >> and that when you're angry, there's a certain beat. when you're joyous there's a certain beat. so there's a lot of connection to music. and also, like romantically, black men are great when they speak musically. >> no matter what i say in this setting, i'm wrong. that is definitely a part of the dialect and that is what you can call the diaspora aspect of it. with carribeans and actual africans. another way that the dialect is a broader, a richer, repertoire that many americans have had any way to possess. and, yet, to end this on a

positive note, can assure you that within two years there will be in news story in which black english is involved and you'll hear thing about drop the bs and bad grammar and degradation, et cetera. have this hope that just my little book will change opinions on this matter across the united states and beyond, and i hope you'll all join me in pushing that effort home. thank you. [applause] [inaudible discussion] >> booktv tapes hundreds of author programs throughout the country all area long. here's a look at events we'll be covering this week. tuesday, we're at politics polid

prose book store in washington, dc with a panel discussion on race in america featuring author and university of pennsylvania mary francis berry, and an economist and -- on wednesday we head to new york city to hear dr. elizabeth ford, about her work in the mental health field. thursday we're live from the publishing industry's null trade show, book expo america in new york city where former secretary of state and presidential candidate, hillary clinton, talked about her upcoming back. friday we continue our coverage from big expo america as authors talk about their soon to be published books, joining and actors ed asker in and allen alda, on sunday, live, our "in

depth" program is author and journalist matt tiabbi. 20 years ago i was doing research on my book about african-american women from the north. came across an advertisement for an enslaved person who has run from the president's house in philadelphia, may 1796. and i was sort of caught up looking through microfilm at old newspapers and this made me pause. said, wait. who is this person who ran away? she was named ony judge.

i said, wait a minute, dent know this person. that was troubling to me because this is my area of expertise. i'm supposed to know all of this stuff, and i had no idea who this ony judge was. and there was something that was very sort of compelling about this advertisement, never sort of escaped me, and i said, you know, i'm going to come back to this important story. i'm going to try and trace this woman. i need answers. so i finished the first book and here i am, many years later. it was a lengthy process in attempting to recover the work of the life of ona jump, this is recovery work and for those who do specifically early african-american history, doing this kind of work in archives where the evidence is slim,

factual evidence often doesn't exist because people of color, women in particular, often remained outside of the archives, and so what i will say is that there's absolutely no way i could have written this book had i not written my first book. that's my plug for graduate students and people who are really doing the work of academics. i needed a grounding in order to be able to write this book about a woman who is really just absolutely magnificent. when you read this book you'll be blown away by her life. many folks here in this room and at mt. vernon, this is no new story. we know about ona judge and you are among a small group of people who actually now -- i hope there are many mow who know her -- that's the expectation. want her name to become one of

those sort of household names, like a frederick douglass, a harriet tubman, because she runs away, decades before they do. right? so the title -- i'll give you a quick story about the title, "never caught." this is one of hi first choices for the title of the book. i presented it to some people at the publisher and they hated it. they said, gives away the story erica. i said, yeah, but so does o'12 years a slave." honestly, we understand, right? 12 years, it's going to end. with "never caught" this is a history of how a woman who was a fugitive never found freedom. she was never free. she simply was never caught. and i think it's a big distinction and one that i

wanted to make, especially is a was trying to kind of dismantle what we think about slave slavery in south and north at this moment where the nation is new, and i think that's one of the other thing is was really trying to do with this book, was to allow us to see what the early days of this new country looked like through the eyes of the enslaves. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org.

>> good evening. i'm not sure the microphone on. can you hear me? well, excuse me. >> can you hear okay? okay, great. good evening, i'm the dean of the martha rivers inning