my mom used to say i know but i can't put my finger on it.

i knew, but i just couldn't name it and described it and the new jim crow put everything that i experienced through the criminal justice system, through my community in plain and distinct order. so as i stayed around and continued the work, my understanding and analysis grew and with that, my commitment and determination grew to change things. not only for myself, but for everybody who crossed my path. and that resulted in movement building and systems change, in leadership development and in building a strong community that sticks advice

together >> thank you for that. susan, let me ask this of both of you because you talk about your own sort of narrativearc or your learning curve . michelle, certainly before that as well and i'm very aware that we have a much larger consciousness about ending mass incarceration now. it wasn't this big when we started critical resistance in 1997 with angela davis and i wonder what it was that was disruptive in our own community and this is for both of you, that can allow 2.2 million people to go missing on our watch? is there any false sense of morality that disrupts our freedom, have the politics of respectability gotten in the way of where we need to be as a community and people, this is for both of you. >> i would say that the real genius of the system of mass incarceration is that it leaves those who are trapped

within it as well as their families to blame themselves almost entirely for their experience. when i grew up i used an experiment with drugs. i hung out withpeople who stole . we jumped into a car that wasn't ours and went joyriding. but i live in a solidly middle-class community where the police were not stopping and searching and frisking us. and i committed those crimes and misdemeanors and went off to college and went off to law school and live the rest of my life, never for a minute feeling guilty or tortured by the fact that i got high when i was in high school or college, never feeling a sense of deep unworthiness. barack obama did all those things, maybe not all those things but a lot of them and he went on to bepresident of the united states .

but in so many of our communities, the young people screw up and mess up and they get in trouble like young people do, like human beings do because we all make mistakes. we all stumble and fail. and those young people get branded and shamed and locked in literal cages and dehumanized and then when they are released, they are stripped of all their basic civil and human rights, making it virtually impossible for them to ever find work or get housing or meet their basic needs. and often blame themselves and their families will often blame themselves and, why can't you just get a job? what's wrong with you? why are you back out on the streets? why can't you get it together.

and the system of mass incarceration turned our communities against each other. and the reality is that people of all colors have used and sold drugs at nearly identical rates for decades. but it's only been black and brown folks who have been shamed and demonized and stigmatized and locked up and locked out.and when crime rates rose in the 1980s, violent crimerates rose , few people in government stood back and said what was going on? how can we help? because the reality was that work had disappeared. jobs had vanished due to global capitalism factories closed down and moved overseas. there was economic collapse in inner cities and we could have helped.

we could have responded with bailout packages andstimulus plans and investing in schools but instead, a literal war was declared on the poorest and most vulnerable and we wound up blaming and shaming ourselves . and i hope that we are moving beyond that. and that we understand that a lot of healing needs to be done. and a lot of organizing and movement building needs to be done and that's what the new way of life, the organization that susan has founded his silver firmly committed to healing, coming together in circles of honesty, providing support to one another and then getting to work building of movement to end the system of mass incarceration and restore basic civil and human rights to each and every one of us. that's a different answer, i have to thank you so much but let me add something to that as we pivoted a little bit and we begin to talk about a new way of life and organization is also near and dear to my heart and just

thinking, many of us don't realize because of the sheer numbers of men in prison that actually black women's numbers and women's numbers that have gone up actually doubled the rate of the numbers of men 132 percent in the last 25 years or so with black women far exceeding that and i wonder if you would talk a little bit about what we need to know about the experience of women who are incarcerated and in particular to women who are incarcerated. >> so in the book i talk about my life experience but it's not just my life experience, the experience of most incarcerated women. i think there's a message and i know through conversation that the women have suffered

so much prior to incarceration and my thought is, is this the way we treat trauma and childhood abuse is to cage and lock people up and punish them later on in their latter years? in california, for 50 years there was one prison and when the war on drugs that our community, california built the biggest women's prison in the world. and i see the women come back from those places. with this fear in their eyes and hope in their mouth's. thinking and talking about what they want to do and how they want to do but i see the fear and i feel the fear

rolling off of them as they want to create a new life and want to take on rebuilding their lives and get their children back and come back in the community. safe, so ... >> susan, i was thinking about the experience inside. i remember when i was going to visit my husband and prison, raining, the dead of winter, the packages or babies were wrapped like this and when i started visiting in 1991 there were bands that would come to my area pick me up. at the time that ended, there were buses, bus companies coming to do it and what i never felt was what i taught in a women's prison here and in desperate health there was never a line. there was nobody going to visit the women and i had to volunteer there.

i would get paid to teach in men's prisons and women's prisons because there was almost no services available. that's like 20 years or so the lives of the people that going to see, the few that do, as a mother or grandmother, a husband can get there to to visit, to try to keep the ties in the bonds. there was rhetoric coming out of the white house about welfare queens and crack mamas and so forth and i think that just penetrated the fabric of our communities and our societies, to say that this is the black woman and she shouldn't have done what she did and we're just going to throw her away but we are not throwing away people. we do not throw away women.

[applause] we hold potential power, love , groundedness. you know, the future of our community. and i just want to say we are back and we are coming strong. and we are going to repair and we are going to lead and we are going to stand side-by-side. and make our communities safe and whole again. we're going to put the band-aid on our kids needs and we're going to stand in the gap when those people are coming in saying no, you can't have this one. and you know, we're going to do this by the dozens, by the

hundreds, by the thousands, by the millions and we are taking that now as we speak. so i want to call out a few people in the audience. i see cynthia nixon back there, college and community partnership, she's educating all the women. and i see councilmembers over here, yes. so i want the councilmembers to stand, donna, i don't know how many of you are out here but i know email went out so these are the warrior women on the front lines so it's not like i'm going to do all this, we are going to do this and all of you too. you can't leave here tonight and not think about what are you going to do to take your community back, to make it safer, to make it whole and that's what i propose.

[applause] >> susan, are you saying that cynthia can endorse from california or expand? >> yes. and that's in just and i want to ask to be get sanders to stand because you all have to wrap your love and your prayers around miss toby to sam's because she's going to start a home for women, a safe house where women can come to and get that supports , leadership, guidance that they can come and join and be a part of this movement to. so you all remember op for sanders, a member here. her dad, he's a deacon here.

her pastor is right over there. and you all wrap your arms around her as she takes on this struggleand this fight because it's not easy . [applause] >> you know, to both of you, and to miss sam's and vivian nixon, i'm very aware that the often visible leadership of the movement to end mass incarceration is often men and yet, working has been doing what i do, i see women doing the every day hard lift of the work all the time, not always in front ofthe mic . sometimes you don't know their names. sometimes you don't even know that they're here.

i see it all the time. i have the privilege to work with as many folks so i wonder if you would talk about what women need to be supported in doing the work of ending mass incarceration and ensuring a community that is justin safe for all our families. so you want to take the first shot back? >> i'd like to acknowledge, my book, the new jim crow focus primarily on the experience of black men in our criminal justice system and i framed the book in that way primarily because the book was inspired by my experiences working as a civil rights lawyer representing racial profiling and mortality and the overwhelming majority of the people who were being stopped and frisked and thrown in the streets and were black and brown men. and yet publishing the book

and even while i was writing it, i was very much aware that there was an untold story about the experiences of women in our prison system but also the experience of women who are doing time on the outside. who are the ones who are kind of pulling together families while love ones are cycling in and out of prisons, who are the places where people return home to. they're the people who are driving and taking their kids on buses. sometimes hundreds of miles to a women's prison so they can see their mom or their dad who is locked up and their cousins and this experience of women in the era of mass incarceration deserves far more attention than it has received and it's one of the reasons i was so

thrilled when susan was willing to tell her story and to really shine a light on the experience, particularly of women in the era of mass incarceration and i know we won't have time here tonight to, for susan to tell her entire story but i hope everyone here will really take the time to read the book because her story of going from drug addiction after an la police officer drove over and killed her five-year-old son in the street , her story is succumbing to addiction because no other support was available . and cycling in and out of prison for 15 years, never being offered help or treatment. not getting access to work, not even having access to food stamps because she was a

drug offender. no food for you. cycling in and out of prison for 15 years until finally she got access to a private drug treatment program and after she got clean and got a job decided she was going to vote devote the rest of her life to making sure no other woman would have to go go through what she went through. that's who she is. [applause] that's susan's story and she began by going down to the present boss with nothing but a card, meaning people with nothing but a cardboard boxand saying come home with me.just sleep on my floor . you don't have to turn to the streets tonight. and that's how a new way of life began because she opened her own home to strangers. and welcomed them in. and then created five homes for women so i just hope that

your story doesn't get lost here. and that we read your story carefully. and learn what's possible when we come together with love to try to save one another. >> i'll just give just a moment, that was so spectacular and beautifully said, thank you for saying that about susan's work , [applause] they weren't all strangers, those were my home girls. >> and my home girls needed a little love to. what was so amazing to me is where i got that treatment and santa monica, we could walk three blocks to the beach and you know, i was so

fortunate to be there and get what i got there but i couldn't understand why we didn't have better in south la too. you know, why in this community for what i went to prison for over and over again, they got a court card. andcommunity service . and treatment placement. i remember throwing my soul out to the judge and saying your honor, a policeman killed my son. and i used the drugs. i said is there any help for me? and he told me 18 months in prison. you know, so when i saw and experienced something different, i felt that this

something different was not only good for me, it would be good in my community too. so for us the story and the journey began. and you know, i'm just really thankful and grateful that i'm able to give what i do because there are women just like me who have spent 30 and 40, 47 years is the longest time that someone spent inside a new way of life. and i am glad that's not me. so you know, my pay forward is just what i do. and i'm grateful to be able to do it. but as we go about our daily lives, this probably is the

thing that all of us can do that would make a huge difference to someone who just needs a hand up. so i just want to say, those were my home girls. that i brought home. >> just before i turned to the audience and see if there's any questions people want to ask and if there are i would ask you to line up now because we don't have a whole lot of time. tell us about your son, bring him into this space for us. bring your baby here. >> the day my son left, i went to pick him up from school and we walked home and i went in the house and he went out to play. i was cooking dinner and he brought in this pink chrysanthemum.

he said this is for you, mama and i took it and aunts were all over myhand . and he went back out to play. he was rambunctious and very adventurous. i can remember him bringing me an ice cream stick and saying this is for the fireplace. you know, and the car screeched and i hit him and the policeman never got out of the car. that would have been hit and run, manslaughter for me. the police department never said i'm sorry. they never sent a flower or even acknowledged the loss. so today, whenever one of our

black men are killed, i feel it all over again. and then when the verdict comes back and says he's not going to be charged, i feel it all over again. so that was my man and he's smiling down on us today and he's cheering us on and clearing the way. i feel that. so ... way say his name, thank you so much. kay kay. i don't think we will be able to get more questions and i just asked people to the extent, we're in a church too so there's that. to capsule as much as we can so we can get to as many questions as we can and get to the final question for our guest.

>> my name is thomas lopez , a member here at abyssinian and i'm a candidate for city council in west harlem and miss alexander, i'm reading your book where you talk about where black people have gone from exploitation slavery to marginalization to mass incarceration and through mass incarceration, my question is where do you see the future for the black male when in new york city 40 percent of black men have dropped out of high school for the last 30 years? where do you see us in an economy that's rooted in education, not government jobs and where service jobs can no longer support the family? >> thank you for your question and we're living in a time right now where there are going to be fewer and fewer jobs available for people who are what are

considered unskilled. people who either dropped out of high school or have a college degree. there is a time when you didn't even necessarily have to finish high school in order to get a good job that could support yourself and family, you could get a good factory job. you could get a good industrial job and support yourself and family. that's not true anymore because of global capitalism and deindustrialization, factories have closed down, moved overseas and left entire communities and neighborhoods devastated and there is no plan to save us. the war on drugs and the get tough movement was a response in many ways to communities that are no longer needed but are deemed disposable.

during slavery, we were needed whether you were male or female, you were needed in the field. during jim crow, there wasa role for us as well and if people fled , jim crow and they came to northern cities, they were able to work in factories to support themselves and now those jobs are gone. and there is no plan to invest heavily in our inner city schools or in the neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by mass incarceration and so i fear that even as our prison system may be downsized somewhat, that we will seize technological forms of surveillance and control in our communities. gps monitoring systems slapped on our kids at young ages thatnever come off .

in-home surveillance systems. ways of keeping communities that are seen as no longer necessary to the functioning of the american society under control and in check but this is not the way the story has to end. >> that's right, that's right and it's up to us and it can seem overwhelming and deeply depressing, particularly in a time like this where the president like the one we've got but our communities have faced greater obstacles. >> that's right. >> there was a time when it seemed like it would never end, when harriet tubman was planning her escape route reedit it seemed crazy to imagine that slavery would come to an end and it did and ordinary people who didn't have the right to vote organized and mobilized and brought the old jim crow to its knees . we can do this. we can reverse a new america,

a multiracial, multiethnic democracy where everyone has a right to work, a right to quality education. our right to healthcare. the basic civil and human rights people take for granted in other nations, we can birth and america right here that honors the voices and lives of each and every one of us but it won't happen if we do not commit ourselves thoroughly and with great passion and conviction precisely the way susan burton has demonstrated in her own life. so i view her as a model, an example of what is possible. [applause] >> thomas, memory serves you were a student activist at john jay college and we took over the building, we protested. we've got a good memory and i've grown up a little bit,

but 25 years then take over and we said then that everybody couldn't go to school, nobody was going to school and we saw then they were taking the exact amount of money out of public higher education and putting it into prison building and we refused to allow that to happen. i haven't turned my back on the work that we are going to win this battle. >> but i forgot vivian, first of all, congratulations susan on thebooks . but we did arrive at my office, that's a private joke. did you get your purse yet? >> i got the book and we read it in one sitting. and i'm deeply honored to have known you all these years and of course i'm always honored to know you michelle and asha. i'm going to give context for my question. from the johnson warren primed to the nixon jug drugs to the crime bill, we have seen our own communities be

bamboozled into believing that a war on our own people would benefit our communities . question one is how do we prevent that from happening again and two, how do we stop attorney general jeff sessions from taking us back 50 years into the dark ages. [applause] >> i was going to say i think one of the things that susan can is the critical importance of formerly incarcerated people and people who've been impacted as emerging as leaders in this moment in time because it is easy to demonize the criminals when you don't meet them. when you don't know them, when you don't hear from them and come to learn their stories and anyone who reads susan's story is going to understand why the war on

drugs is something that can never, ever be revised on the scale that it was and that we must end it once and for all in this nation but i hope susan will speak to the importance of formerly incarcerated people, especially women in this time at this critical stage in building a national movement, not only to end the war on drugs but to restore basic rights and repair the damage that has been done over the last few decades. >> you know what i can say, thank you for that vivian. vivian recently hosted a group of us in arizona, the incarcerated and convicted people's movement and we began there to strategize on how we are going to take the forefront of the fight to end mass incarceration for women, for men, for children and you

know, we have to be there. we have to be at the forefront. we are not going to be bamboozled. you know, sessions. i've heard him and my thought was you know, where is the hood? he's got to have one somewhere. that was straight up my thought, oh man, where's the hood. but we have to to band together and not let him take us back to draconian laws and practices. we've seen that mass incarceration has failed our states, our country and we the formerlyincarcerated people are in the front and in the lead of that fight . so it's important that we speak truly in our voice and

lead in our way and the ways in which we know will work and will change the society, the atmosphere, the crazy . >> i will just add one thing to what you said. this movement has got to be built neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community, city by city. jeff sessions can say from the justice department we want to bring back law and order and revive the drug war but it's in our communities we say no and we organize to ensure that drug use and abuse is treated as a public health problem, not as a crime. we ensure that we create sanctuary safe spaces for people who need help. there's a sanctuary movement that has emerged around

immigrants who need safe places. we need to create safe places within our own communities or people who need help with drug treatments, access to basic support services, building places like a new way of life and organizing to decriminalize and legalize drug use and addiction in ways that only harm our communities. it has to happen right where we are, wherever we live, city by city, town by town and there's enormous momentum at the state level in so many communities and i think that rather than adapting a mindset simply of trying to resist what donald trump and his cronies have in mind, we need to continue to build a truly transformational, revolutionary movement neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community to ensure that we end this

history and cycle of creating these systems of racial and social control. >> asha is so right and i want to mention here that one of the most shocking things i found out was that 75 to 85 percent of the people who use drugs, any drugs from harrowing to cigarettes do not become addicted. most people who do drugs never have a problem. they pay their taxes, visit kids and they put people in prison based on their color. there has been a legal system of using drugs and living your life and being fine, it's for white people. but it's not for us and i want to mention that's what most of drug use is. we often see the chaotic shows on 48 hours, but what they're not showing you is everything that we've taken out of our community.

incomes swept away, mothers and fathers and everything else swept away and there's a white power movement that was started by a formerly frustrated person by malcom x, could we have the next speaker? >> it is a privilege to be in your presence. i just want to say that and i have a question for both of you as well. after i read your book the new jim crow, i gasped and i was immobilized and i realized that it was the most important book that i have ever read in my life. so be beautiful work that you wrote for sister burton applies to you. you are harriet tubman as well and i have to tell you that. i thank you so much. [applause] the courage, the loss, the passion and intellect that you have, that you bring to such a sensitive issue thatis literally destroying our communities . you are blessing all of us

quite yes she is. >> my question is for both of you and that is where do you draw very strongly, where do you draw your strength and courage from? >> thank you. shine like the sun. and in that space and loss, the love was still there. so that love of my son goes out and that that void is filled. so i've had 300 kay kay's since i lost kay kay. 300 women have been reunited with their child. so it's the love for life, my community that drives and

sustains me. it can't be put out. and it has to flow. [applause] it just has to flow. so i recognize that career, the passion and the drive. it's unending. >> thank you susan. >> i think it's important to admit that this work can be really depressing and discouraging sometimes. i think we just, you know, have to acknowledge sometimes it's not easy to stay motivated and inspired. but in all honesty, it is people like susan that keep me going and it was my

experiences when i was representing people who were victims of police brutality and racial profiling and i saw what's happening in their communities and how everybody had to just find a way to make a way out of no way and go on. that really filled me with yeah, i became obsessed with wanting other people to see what i had finallycome to see and understand . i should also add that my dad dropped dead of a heart attack at an early age. he had been in and out of jobs, infected multiple times . there's a saying that every, whatever kills you doesn't make you stronger. sometimes it just kills you and in our communities there are so many folks who are losing because they haven't

yet found a way to make a way out of no way. what i've seen through folks like susan and many people all over this country is that when we cometogether, we can do the impossible . we can make away. and so i feel like i only to all those freedom fighters who came before us, to all the harriet's and the ideas and all of those who came before us not to give up. and to take time and rejuvenate then get back to work. because literally, the lives of those we love and future generations depend on us not giving up. so i wanted to add just to that that i do understand that i will not be here forever. and some point, i'm going to sort of slow down a bit.

so it's my responsibility as a leader to build a leadership and train and multiply. so you saw some of that when folks stood but back in la, there are women and men that we are going through trainings, going through demonstrations and the numbers are being multiplied that we will lead a broader and stronger. >> thank you for that speech and we've got roughly 10 minutes or so left and so i see a line of three, four or five people and if you can keep that to just five minutes, thank you. >> i am with the national council. >> great question. >> but i really want to say in graduations on the book.

i will read it but what can i do as a new york state policy advocate who will seek to bring in a new way of life to new york state? i'm here. [applause] >> at the new way of life we do housing but we also do policy advocacy, organizing. we have six attorneys on staff and it all started in that little house, that little bungalow in washington. she needs help. i needed help. people came. it wasn't just all me. community helped and supported me. >> thank you. >> i want to thank you very much for sharing and advocating for those women

and men and families who are incarcerated. i'm early childhood educator and 20 years ago i was director of headstart program in westchester brockman county and i don't know how, but desperate hills called me and asked me to come into the prison to work with the parents of the children, the inmates who had children. because as you know, that desperate hills was the first prison to allow their inmates keep their children until they were 18 months old. and i didn't know, i was like why me? i'm an earlychildhood educator but i didn't know what to say to them . but when i got through the gates and all of the locks and keys, i saw like my next door neighbor.

and it was so like, wow. this could happen to anyone. and i loved them, but they love me and i was in a school and they changed classes and my class was early childhood education. it was like, oh wow and one of my students was jean harrison. he was sitting right in front and let me forget. >> don't let me forget to ask a question. >> the question is do they have those, i'm not promoting myself but do they have those programs? because my question is what about the children? what about the children? they are feeling like my mother left me, whatever. other mommy and me programs, are there things going on to help the children and the families they together, not just visit but programs?

>> there's an annual boss called get on the bus, a bus ride mother's day and father's day for people in california. i think it's done by kathy charity and they're talking about taking it nationally. but i think it's our responsibility to begin to remove the shame and educate our young people about why their parents are away. what mass incarceration looks like. how jim crow evolved out of slavery and resurfaces today. but then there's the little children that are longing also. i just say we need to bring our people home and keep them home. [applause]

>> thank you so much. the biggest predictor of whether or not someone is going to be incarcerated is foster care. let me take away the parents and continue the cycle. >> it does begin with the kids. >> my name is neil thornton, a therapist at the bronx da office and i wanted to ask how do we ensure that in the same ways that people can keep african-american males, we focus on female trauma because we talked about in the new jim crow so eloquently, policing practices, intentional incarceration and what we haven't really delved into was the ways in which black females are victims, like having tv in your home. it makes you a target for the family to be separated and oftentimes that's the gateway between black female criminalization and

joblessness because it's a case that found it. your ability to work as a nurse, teacher, social worker. things that women are often interested in doing and being are no longer on the table so how do we make our community and other communities more aware of the ways in which black women are being criminalized. >> thank you so much. it sounds like a good study. >> somebody else got online so what i want to say is if we're going to do this, people have to say the question, 30 seconds and move on so we can get everybody's voice and. >> there needs to be a good study around the next, i don't know what it is but people don't believe it until it's in a good report but you really have to read the book. you really have to read the book because i'm there with you. >>, smith's book foster child

is also good. >> ,smith, yes. >> i'm a middle school teacher on the upper west side and i'm going to be a director this year so my question is written in regards to spaces that have zero senior staff but employ multiple people of color to teach kids of color, what do you want me to tell these white teachers? [laughter] >> i think you already know what to say. >> i think you missed that. is it my turn? my name is elda banks. i was at columbia university for five years and they

didn't know what to do about our families. i have an answer and that is we have to look at the devastation of our souls and understand we have a culture that can help us get past anything. the other thing i would like to ask is what is your consideration for prayer as a practical solution for earthly change? >> thank you so much. i prayed on the way over here and not only did i pray, the uber driver prayed for me too. >> forgive me. [inaudible] >> they put me live under oath and i want to make sure i ask that question. >> let me mention one thing,

there's data that says just a couple weeks ago that we need to do better as black teachers when we see somebody who looks like them.i'm going to ask the speakers to read that and before anybody, before our children that they have done the work to heal themselves so that they can standstrongly before our children . and to familiarize themselves so they are fully anchored before they stand before our children and there's any number of books that are out there that they can read before they take that step. lately there's been a wave of shows that are really popular focusing on prison, oranges the new black. how do you think that it's counterproductive or helpful for us in the movement and mass incarceration?

>> that's our final question. >> so we amongst the formerly incarcerated population had a lot of conversation and critique around orangesthe new black . where i landed on it is that it began a conversation in places that i could never get into. and it elevated the conversation around incarceration, mass incarceration and peoples experience. were they exact experiences? number but coupled with oranges the new black, and the new jim crow, it really began to elevate the conversation around mass incarceration and that's how i looked at it. i looked at it as a plus because it got in places i could never get into to talk

about mass incarceration. you want to respond? >> i guess i'll admit i have not watched all of orange is the new black so i'm not sure i can give a whole analysis but what i would say is that it's so important for our stories to be told and for them to be told well. and you know, it's not surprising that out of hollywood, we might not get the best representation but i appreciate queen sugar. i don't know if anybody's seen queen sugar. queen sugar is a good example of our stories being told very well and i just hope that there are people even here tonight or who are listening who have some dream or desire to go into filmmaking or screenwriting,

so you take that seriously. often when people think about what it means to build a movement, you think about just taking to the streets but it takes all of us. it takes the artists, it takes the activists, it takes healthcare workers. it takes people who will sit down and pray with you. it takeseducators and teachers . it takes all of us. and i hope that in the months and years to come, we will see a new generation of young people who are writing and filming and telling our stories in a way that truly honor us and i'm grateful that ava do men is out there making films in a way that is there. >> yes, yes. [applause] >> i want to thank the moderator and just for this final question to both of you, so there's a desire about what it is that we carry and black women's karma

and how hard this is working. and i wonder if each of you would share maybe one thing you do today to maintain wholeness , to keep yourself together . >> i don't know if i take time every day. yeah, i don't know that i take time every day but every year , i go to a place and i spend 10 days in total silence. i do that every year but i don't know that i take every day. i should, but i don't. and i think that the things i do on the regular tend to involve, i have a window that i love that looks out onto trees and i will sit under that window and meditate or

pray, i don't do it every day and i love to learn. and i'll go on long runs and it's a way of clearing my head i do think that your question is such an important one because we live in a state of constant reactivity. reacting to the bad news in the world, reacting to trauma or the noise of life and if we are going to be effective, we're going to have to learn how to stop reacting and get still and think about really who we are, where we came from and what we truly want to do now. and that requires us to get still. and prayerful or at least in a space of silence for some time and i think the practice of trying or aspiring to do that every day is a very

worthwhile goal. >> i pray almost every day. >>. [laughter] >> susan burton and michelle alexander, there we go. their books are on sale. they're in the bookstore. [applause] >> show some love for deli, they did a great job on the reading. [applause] now listen, the books are on sale downstairs. and in case you need more time, those will be on sale for the next several sundays but we want you to go down now while we have susan and

michelle here so that you might get an autographed copy . thank you all for coming. may god bless you and don't forget, we are here every sunday from nine and 11:30. thank you, good night. it's been a wonderful time. >>. [inaudible conversation] >> you are watching book tv on c-span2, television for

serious readers. here's our primetime lineup. at 6:30 p.m. eastern, henry olson, senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center contends republicans need to reconnect with president reagan's vision of the new deal in order to stay relevant. then eight, holder hook re-examines the revolutionary war and reports on the barbarous actions of both the british and colonial armies. on both tvs after words program at 9 pm, kimball university professor keith davis examines gender identity in an interview with sarah ellis, glad president and ceo. bennett 10, rice university history professor john bowles recalls the life of founding father thomas jefferson from his formative years in virginia to his work on the declaration of independence and his presidency and at 11, it's the robert caro prize for literary excellence in the writing of history. that will happen tonight on c-span2's book tv. >> director of the florida university of press in new york, what books do you have coming out this fall?

>> to parts which is our regional imprint and one is a worldly affair: new york and the united nations, their unlikely relationship. it's talking about how the un founded a space in new york amongst some controversy and then joni deland cemented its place in its current location . there's a couple cool sidebars like a service to the public, you can make a reservation 42 hours in advance and the original poem of the general secretary flushing in queens now to the inner-city. >> we have this neat thing in the hudson that looks at jersey city and an artist community. people think of soho and greensburg as these enclaves that were gentrified by artists and ballooned into these mega-metropolises but there's also these smaller urban enclaves and we're looking atthat . outside of the regional,

there's this book on global needs and it's a translation from the french so those are our three lead books. >> what would you consider the university presses most specialized area? >> we are known in the humanities particularly philosophy and geology because they are interdisciplinary titles but they intermingle though that our kind of we are most known for that and also reflects the mission of the university because we have a strong philosophy and theology department and in 2010, i started the empire state addition. the press is 110 years old but matt bauer is director of the florida university press in new york. >> good evening. my name is abraham foxman. i'm currently the director of the center of study for anti-semitism at the museum d