[inaudible conversations] >> hello, welcome to this afternoon session. i am matt holloway, director of collections at the tennessee state museum. it's a pleasure to welcome you to the 29th annual southern

festival of books. as you know, this -- all sessions in the entire program is free of charge. if you're interested in helping out in the future, you can make a donation to the tennessee humanities council either facebook or on site here or on their web page. after this session is over, our authors will be at the signing table, and we invite you if you haven'tha already acquired a coy of their book to do so and be there where they can sign the books. my remarks here are going to be very brief because we've got a lot to cover in one hour. i will, first, introduce kathy farnell who is, grew up in montgomery, alabama. actually, cloverdale, near montgomery. and her wonderful book is "duck and cover: a nuclear family," and it's about that area in the

1950s and 1960s which was an time.and 1960s which was an both of her parents were lawyers. she has a degree inre law. she practiced law until she says she got bored with it. so now she has a media project which is a nonprofit and does collaboration. in 1998 she did one with the smithsonian institution on remembering slavery. our next author, yvette johnson, has a very interesting book, centers on greenwood, mississippi, entitled "the song of silence." the subtitle tellings us a lot, "a story about family, race and what was revealed in a small ton inhe the mississippi delta -- small town in the mississippi delta." it centers on her grandfather,

booker wright, a man who knew how to survive and, in some sense, flourish in a caste system and in a system of ray is schism. racism. identified ased a racism. she was a producer in 2012 of an award-winning film, "booker's place: a m mississippi story." without further ado, we will invite kathy up here and then yvette. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. i'm kathy farnell, and my memoir is about the nine years i spent in cloverdale school starting in 1958. i don't know how well you can see this, but the cover dividing the two parts, we've got a photograph ofof the hydrogen bob blowing upho and a photograph of

school children hiegd under their desk from the hydrogen bomb. now, i would likeer to know, how much of your families had a fallout shelter? anybody? becauseer in 1958 fallout shelts were big business. in montgomery the normandale shopping center had a sidewalk sale of fallout shelters. it was like a boat she, only different. my mother and i were looking at these shelters, and some of them looked pretty interesting, but they were a quite expensive. so i asked my mother, are we going to get a fallout shelter, and she said, no, we're just going to die. it's cheaper. [laughter] i tell people that for me the 1950s were more like the adams family than leave it to beaver. "duck and cover" is about what happens when a social order is in the process of changing. during this time period, in addition to the cold war montgomery was at the center of the civil rights movement. from a child's point of view, this was a very confusing time.

i think everyone has seen the photos of the separate water fountains of the era in which you'd have a water fountain with a big sign, white, and another with a big sign, colored. we thought the water was coming from separate tanks. it just made sense in a way. and it wasn't just white kids who thought this. i've got a black bartend who said that when -- friend who said when he was a kid, the in thing to do was look both ways, come running up, drink out of the white fountain and announce, that's what i call water. [laughter] the impetus to write "duck and cover" came from the fact that i had just read one too many coming of age books set in the civil right era south which features heroic white or black children, and i didn't know anybody heroic. int, fact, most of the people i knew behaved pretty badly. the book uses a child's voice. this means the narrator is not

all-knowing. be -- i might add at this point that anybody can write a memoir. you do not have to be famous. i took a class in which the teacher assigned us to write about a memorable childhood incident, and the incident i wrote about became chapter one of "duck and cover." i was remembering something that happened when i was 6 years old. a kid came in for show and tell dragging a human skeleton. someoned asked the teacher who the deceased used to be, and the teacher said probably some convict. she may have intended this to reassure us, but it had the opposite effect. this is the same teacher that later, when we were supposed to be participating in fallout drills by hiding under our plywood desks, said we did not have to hide under a desk because it was better to die sitting up straight. [laughter] there used to be a cable

television channel called the biography channel, and their slogan was every life is a biography. exactly. if you write a memoir, you just write about what made your life different. on my anniversary, my husband gave me a card which had a photo of five little girls at the ballet barre, four industriously doing ballet, the fifth one is hanging upside down by her knees. the caption is, "there are two kinds of people in the world; you and everybody else." [laughter] so you don't have to be famous to write a memoir. and basically to sum it up, "duckl and cover" is about a period of social upheaval seen through the w eyes of a child wo really doesn't have a clue. thank you. [laughter] [applause]

>> well, first, i'd like to thank you for coming, thank you for joining us, and i told a professor of mine a few years ago -- actually, it's been more than a few years, but i just said i just want everyone in the world to know my grandfather's story. so every time a new person gets to engage in this story, it really means the world to me. i say that sincerely, thank you for being here. my book is called "the song and the silence." and the reason it's called the song is because my grandfather, who was a waiter in a predominantly white restaurant in the segregated south during the '50s and '60s, used to sing the menu. they were supposed to recite the menu, but, you know, after -- he worked therere for 25 years, sot some point every night it probably got boring. so he turned it into this wonderful rhyming song. and this is a story that i learned about in my mid 30s. my grandfather was actually murdered the year before i was

born, so i didn't meet him. all i that i knew when i was growing up was that his name was booker and that he owned a café, is how it was pronounced, not café. but i assumed it was something like a starbucks or any other coffee shop, and it wasn't until, again, i was in my 30s when i learn that his café was actually a full-service restaurant that opened at breakfast and functioned as a juke joint at night. the reason i knew so little is because again, b yes, he died te year before i was born, but when i was 2, my family moved out of the south so my father could pay professional football for the chargers in san diego. and, of course, i'm completely unbiased, i grew up in one of the most beautiful cities this our country if not in the world. san diego's lovely. and i just knew very little about what life was like in mississippi, what life was like

in greenwood. it wasn't a part of what i understood. and my parents, like a lot of parents, would tell comical stories about waking up early in the morning to garden and, you know, having to walk to school in horrible weather, but i really just thought that's what all parents do because, you know, these things they're describing of hardship, these are exaggerations. and i really wasn't curious about life in the south. i had no interest in learning more, understanding what m my parents went through until i was parent myself. and i knew that i had issues with race, and by that i say, you know, as a child going to all-white schools, i'd often say that i grew up in the shadow of the civil rights movement. weig talk a lot more as a nation about race today than we did in the late '70s and throughout the '80s. when i was growing up, the idea was it's over. we passed the laws, it's over.

and if you have an experience that feels racialized, it's because you, black person, have a chip on your shoulder. it's because you, black person, are playing the race card. the problem no longer exists. so imagine a child or a young adult experiencing racism or, you know, having someone, you know, be unkind to you or even call you the n-word, and then when you finally have the courage to talk about it, being told thatr it's in your head, that you must have misread, that you're being too sensitive, that it's your perspective. so to me, talking about the pain and discomfort i felt about being black in america in and of itself was a sign of weakness or a sign that something was wrong with me. and so i just doesn't talk about it, and i didn't really think about not talking about it, if that makes sense. it was a choice i made without making a choice. so one day i was doing the dishes, and my adorable,

amazing, big, brown-eyed son came up to me and began pulling on my shirt, and he said, mommy, why are are you that color but i'm this color and daddy's a different color? so my husband is, he's mixed. he has a white mother and a blacko father. so my son is sort of a combination of the two of our colors. and so, you know, i didn't know what tod say to him, you know? and i tried to explain -- and, again, he was about 2. i tried to explain the story of colonization toet him, and he didn't really get it. [laughter] but, you know, i thought, okay, i dodged a bullet. i'm not going to have to actually deal with this. but over the next several weeks and months, he kept talking about it, and he kept asking me questions, and he seemed disturbed. and i just thought i don't want him to walk the path that i walked of trying to figure it out, not figuring it out and just choosing silence. so i thought i'm going to have to look back into african-american history and back into the history of my own

family so that i can have a story to give to him, one in which he can see himself as a victor and feel and believe that he comes from overcomers. but i didn't believe that myself. so i began looking back, and very early on i found something that no one in my family knew existed, and it was sort of funny. iou learned about my grandmother appearing in a news program in the mid 1960s. andd- until i actually got the film footage, which took four years, everyone in my family thought i had the wrong grandfather, that i was mistaken, until they got to see for themselves. but this is what i saw which has since changed my life and informed the work with i've done in the last ten years -- the work i've done in the last ten years. of course it wants to restart. i think i'm good. okay, heree we go.

we should have sound. i'm just going to go back to the beginning for you. >> the white men think he's a hard work, care-free negro. hehe has his own place in the negro district where he works by day. but at night he waits on white folks. he tells how an evening goes with white folks who say they know him so well. >> we don't have a read menu. everything we serve is a la carte. shrimp cocktail -- [inaudible] on the half shell,. [inaudible] porterhouse steak, ribeye steak.

[inaudible] now, as for my customers, they expect it of me. when i come here, booker, tell my people -- [inaudible] some call me booker, some call me john, some call me jim, some call me nigger. all that, but you have to smile. if you don't? what's wrong with you? why you not smiling? [inaudible] how you doing, waiter? what's your name? i keep that smile. always remember to smile. [inaudible] the more you smile. you wonder, what else can i do? sometimes you say i'm not going to tip that nigger, you say, thank you. what'd you say? come back, as soon as you can. don't talk to him like that.

[inaudible] why? i got three kids -- [inaudible] night after night, i lie down and i dream about -- i want them to do any job that they're qualified. i don't want this, i don't want that, but i just want my children to -- [inaudible] i'm on my way. what you have to go through, but remember, you have to keep that smile. > so that aired on nbc on the national news in 1966, and the night after it aired, he was pistol whipped by a white police officer, and he lost his job. i, you know, didn't really understand what the big deal was because whatt he said was i dont like being treated terribly. i didn't get it. i learned later that, you know, the narrative was that, well,

our blacks are happy, they are fine with all of this. is he really was, you know, defying what the rhetoric was at that time,ri the rhetoric that s interest integration -- against integration. but i really didn't understand why, you know? what was the big deal? why get pistol whipped? whyou lose your job of 25 years? so this memoir was basically about my efforts to understand his story and the making of a documentary that dr. pomeroy mentioned that came out in 2012. but it really is about underneath all of that, underneath the research and the discovery was me coming to an understanding of the legacy of trauma, the legacy of hate experienced by an entire people group but also the legacy of the perpetrators of that hate. because noo one, you know, has come through thatt season of lie who liveded in that time in that town, none of us have come through unscathed.

so thank you. [applause] >> if we have questions, and i hope that we do, there's a microphoneo, right over here to the side, if you could go to the microphone, please. well, i have some questions. month bombly -- montgomery was the center of the civil rights movement off and on. what do you recall from the famous bus boycott there? i know you were only 3 years old at the time, but it reverberated throughout the years. >> that's right. i was 3 years old when they had the montgomery bus boycott. the main thing i remember was a

man named olivia love worked for my family, and i remember my father, who had a very bad temper, got mad at libby because he was going to have to pick her up every morning. and as far as i know, most black people in montgomery who worked for white families, they would say i'm afraid to ride the bus. and my father i remember yelling at libby, you're scared of some old abernathy, ralph abernathy was in montgomery at the time, and i thought it was something like a werewolf or something like that. so that's the main thing i remember about the bus boycott. after the boycott was over, the bus stopped right in front of our house, so i'd ride the bus downtown with my grandmother usually, and the buses at that time had one seat in the very back of the bus that went all the way across the bus. and from my point of view, this was the best seat on the bus because you could stand up on it and get a 180-degree view out the back window.

but i would think at the time, i never get to sit here except when i'm traveling with libby. and i didn't understand why this was. i knew something was going on, but i didn't want really know what. i didn't really know what. >> thank you. be is that your -- your grandfather was murdered in 19 73, as i recall, and the circumstances of that there's different opinions on it. so he lost his job as a waiter after this aired in 1966? >> that's correct, yes. he was actually working the night that it aired, and they had a big tv in the restaurant. and they were watching it, and people began saying we don't want him waitingen on us, and people -- waiting on us, and people began calling in saying we don't want him to wait on us again. and, you know, some people were angry because of, like i mentioned before, just him, you know, pulling the blanket all of this false narrative that, you know, that the blacks in the south were happy with, you know, just the lack of opportunity and

the lack of equality that they were experiencing. however, there was more to it. you know, a lot of the whites in that town who frequented the restaurant that he worked at, a lot of them believed or allowed themselves to believe that they had true friendship with him, that because he didn't say i don't like being called the n-word, that he didn't mind. you know, it hadn't really occurred to them that because they lived in a town where whites could lynch or beat up or rape blacks without being prosecuted, without being jailed, that blacks really were not in a position to speak up for themselves. so many of them let themselves believe that he was okay with that treatment. and so, you know, in the film he imitates them, which i think felt like being mocked, you know? he said this is how they talk to me. he took on their voice and showed how awful it was. but, i mean, he was a favorite waiter. he really was the favorite waiter. and 25 years is a long time.

so, you know, people, again, really believed that they had true friendship with him, and some of it was was this sense of betrayal after that piece aired. >> and you indicated, and i can imagine why, that things really changed in greenwood in 1955 with emmitt till. i imagine most people, but that had to have a profound effect on your family that was there as it did throughout the nation. >> uh-huh. >> is everybody familiar with emmitt till, the emmitt till murder which was right there? >> yeah. >> so a couple of your chapters back to back, i think, are particularly fascinating. one, a magical town and the other a not so magical town. >> right. >> and it's a real startling compare and contrast between the quite wonderful world of white

greenwood and the not so wonderful world for african-americans in greenwood. it was a time and a place that -- in the recent past, and yet so riveting. now, you've spent a lot of time in greenwood. how would you compare greenwood today to what it was like in 1955 or even -- >> yeah. i mean, i've spent a lot of time in greenwood to do, i did not spend a lot of time in greenwood in 1955. >> right. >> it's hard for me to make a true comparison. i definitely think that, obviously, it's changed tremendously. and, yes, the emmitt till murder was just 8 miles outside of greenwood. and, you know, i think one of the things that's interesting and one of the reasons why i wanted to write this book and, yes, there's a chapter called a magical town which is the story of white greenwood and then a not so magical town which is the story of black greenwood during those same years. i said to many people that if i

was white living in, you know, the south during those years, i would want to live in greenwood. it was an amazing place. and if you wanted to raise children, it was so community-focused. the -- people would buy season tickets for the high school football game, and they would sell out the day they went for sale is. i mean, it was just a great community. and i think that as a nation and really as scholars we've done ourselves a disservice. because what we now have as the narrative of the civil rights movement is that any of the whites who lived there during that time were horrible people, they were all going to lynch mobs, they were monsters. and that's just not the truth, you know? and i think that we are robbing ourselves of the opportunity to learn what we can be doing today for other minority groups by painting all of the whites who were in the south in the '60s as monsters instead of saying, yes, of course some were, but

not everyone was. some people were just busy living their lives and not paying attention. and it's easy to do that. it's actually harder to pay attention especially if some of these issues don't touch you personally. so what i would say is that what i've found, and i tell my friends that today, some of my friends who aren't members of vulnerable groups during this season in our own history, i say people are going to ask you just like they asked the whites who live in greenwood back then, they ask them now, what were you doing back then. and stating what your opinion was, stating that you had sympathy for blacks often times does not really, it doesn't do much to engender, you know, for people to feel a sense of camaraderie with you. you know, it really does matter going to a march, making phone calls to help the people who are members of vulnerable populations today. but, you know, so it's -- greenwood is a place, it's a town that has had many, many stories written about it, lots

of films have been, have gone there, have been filmed there. "the help" was filmed there the summer before i made my documentary. and so the people of greenwood are sort of tired of having their story told in ways that they don't feel are honest. so one of the great joys for me was that, you know, many of the people of greenwood thought while this book was painful, they felt that it was fair. so -- >> you remind me of an obscure abolitionist during, just before and during the civil war, a virginian grew up in fredericksburg, daniel conway, and he was quite a radical abolitionist. and he grew up with slavery around him. but he had a hard time with the abolitionists of the north who did not understand that the southern isers were not -- southerners, white southerners were not monsters. and he said these are good people. they didn't understand that.

it was just a world built on stereotypes and had a good bit to do with the civil war. so stereotypes aren't a very good thing. >> i think you have a question over here. >> kathy, i have to ask, both your mother and -- we talked about this a little bit -- both your mother and your father, but your mother was an attorney in the 1950s. >> yes. >> that's -- how many attorney, female attorneys were there in the whole state of, in the whole state at that time? >> not many. and, in fact, at that time females could not serve on a jury in the state of alabama. so my mother was able to come into the courtroom because she was an attorney. she could not have sat on a jury. so if she hadn't been an attorney, the way she would have gotten into a courtroom would be as the victim at that point. so it was very unusual. and, in fact, we were talking about watching perry mason. i said when i was watching perry may soften as a kid -- mason as a kid, i didn't understand that

della street was the secretary, i thought she was a lawyer. dan did point out, well, she was always pouring coffee. i said, yeah, but she didn't type. [laughter] i think you have a question over there at the mic. a question. >> oh, i'm sorry. yes, sir. >> thank you. i've got two unrelated questions and, hopefully, i'll have time for each question, one for each author. first of all, you mentioned sort of a seemingly sheltered type arrangement in terms of your awareness of certain things, and i'm curious particularly since both your parents were attorneys what was your awareness of particularly some of the white figures in the civil rights movement who were really going against the grain and all of that? i'm thinking particularly about the durrs, for example, or judge frank johnson and what type of awareness did you have about

these particular figures when you were growing up. >> well, the durrs, of course, they're the ones who bailed rosa parks out of jail. she was a seamstress. and i had almost no recollection of anything to do with the durrs because that was the bus boycott, and i was 3 years old, you know? so i didn't know anything about that. i know the attitude of some white families in montgomery was, well, they went and got their cook out of jail. i do that every sunday. they didn't understand what the big deal was as far as that went. other figures, after i was grown then, of course, i found out more about the durrs and about other whites who had done -- like judge johnson who had done work for the civil rights movement. but at the time, no, it was just something that was sort of happening on a different plane, i guess you could say, and every once in a while you'd bump into it and realize something crazy was going on, but you really wouldn't know anything about it. >> and for ms. johnson, i'm curious to know after you, your family left greenwood in you

said you were 2 years old, did you return much as a child? and what was your perception of the place, if you did or maybe if you didn't, as you were coming of age in terms of how much you were aware about the heritage that you have later come to write about? >> we took a couple of trips back to greenwood when i was growing with up, but for the most part, i did not know anything about the town. and when we went -- i think i was 8 and once i was 11. and to me, it was just this hick town where there were no chain stores. it almost caused me some sort of anxiety because it was like being on some different planet. will we be able to get out. and getting there, turn up the tree stump. it was so far from the nearest airport. there just wasn't anything to do there. and it's funny because i didn't know anything about civil rights history.

and i went to a dinner that a girlfriend was hosting because she was finishing her ph.d., and so she had graduation, and she had this private dinner, and she said talk to that guy over there, talk to dr. heath miller. and i said i'm trying to do some research into my grandfather's life, and it's this town called greenwood, you've probably never heard of it. he looked at me like i was nuts, and he said, greenwood? and i said, yeah. he said go get the book, "i've got the light of freedom." and i did. that book, it's over 600 pages, it's maybe around 700, it is about the work that local people did to make the movement happen. so it's not the martin luther king jr. stories, it's about just the everyday folks, and it's almost completely centered on greenwood. and there's another book called "local people" that's very similar. and so what i learned is that greenwood in many ways was kind of like a ground zero for the civil rights movement because, of course, you had the emmitt

till murder which most civil rights experts will say really was the spark for the civil rights movement that rosa parks represented, a story you could tell to school children. you can't really tell the emmitt till story to school children. but rosa parks, that happened in december, and emmitt till was the august before. and emmitt till, you know, his murder was one of the first times when national news reporters were coming into the south and seeing what life was really like. and then for them to be found innocent, you know, and then a few months later to give an interview to a magazine saying, yes, we did it, you know, it was pretty horrific. and you realize that it's not hyperbole to say that black life in the south at that time was cheap life, that you could be murdered, you could be raped, you could be attacked, and no one would pay the price. and, you know, everyone sort of got to see that for themselves. >> well, he took my question for you. [laughter] but as i was listening to you, it made me think of another

question. was there a difference, i guess would be a good word, in -- a feeling between when you would visit mississippi as opposed to when you were in san diego? was there a different sense of belonging maybe? >> you know, i would say it definitely felt different. i did not feel like i belonged. in part because -- so in san diego, in california i was the only student of color in all of my classes until i went to middle school. but in greenwood, everyone was brown, and i had, you know, a cousin it seemed on every corner whereas in san diego i had no relatives, but i talk like this. so when i went to the south, you know, they would -- are we related? who are you? where are you from? because i just -- you know? and i didn't know any of the products that they liked to eat or to use. so it felt very different. but i also think that in a way it felt like family which because we didn't really have a

sense of family outside of our house in california, that did feel foreign. you know? just to have these people who care about you because of who you're related to, and they love you, and of course they'll pick you up, of course they'll take you here. that was very new to me as well. and lovely. >> and then for you i have a question about, about information. so in 2017 we have tons of information 24 hours a day, 365 days a year whereas in the '50s and '60s you really didn't have access to as much information as we do now. and so in thinking about that and in thinking about the cold war, the threat of nuclear war finish this is not something that i grew up with at all -- i can't imagine being a child in an elementary school and doing the duck and cover. we did tornado drills, and that

was about as scary as it got. as opposed to now children have access to all this information of so many things that could potentially kill them. >> right. >> or all these reasons that you could, you know, die in school. >> right. >> and so i kind of feel like that there's a little bit of a connection there where that maybe my generation has missed. and so when you did these, when you did these drills when you were in school and there was this urgency of protection, do you think that's similar to maybe some things that are happening now in schools? >> i think maybe students are more afraid now because, like you say, there's more information. back in 1958 the school passed out comic books to everybody in the first grade, and these were comic books about fallout. and it was what you were supposed to do, and these comic books showed nicely dressed children who were minding their own business when suddenly the air raid sirens went out.

so these kids respond by squirting the hose on the roof. i'm just kind of assuming that water would dilute the fallout. and then they go into the shelter to listen to the short-wave radio which is another thing my family didn't have. the comic book was pretty up front about what was going to happen to you if you didn't have a fallout shelter. and they would say is, remember, fallout can even come through glass. they went on to say, well, you could hide under the bed. but i gave up. about the time they said fallout can come through glass, my attitude was, okay, we've had it. so that was, you know, sort of i thought hiding under your desk is not going to do any good, and apparently that's what the teachers thought too. that's one thing when i was writing the book and i would run across these thingses, and i would think, well, you know, people did some really crazy stuff is. we were down at the beach and my brothers and i would be swimming, and there'd ban undertoe and sharks, and we just didn't care. it was before the movie "jaws" came out, and we realized they

were catching sharks off the pier where we were swimming, but it just didn't occur to us that this was not a good idea. and nobody was going to say, you can't swim in there, we're paying sharks in there. we wouldn't have paid attention if they had. i do think students today may be more frightened because they really are sort of being bombarded with the thought of this could happen to you, that could happen to you, the other thing could happen to you. and it's just hard for them to take in, you know, i think. so -- >> i piggyback on that? >> sure. >> so i have a 10-year-old and a 1-year-old, and i also have -- 13-year-old, and i also have lots ofen opinions. -- of opinions. i think there's a good opportunity to be sophisticated can consumers of news because a lot of adults are low information news consumers. people vote without, without facts, you know? they say i hate that obamacare, and then they say, oh, my goodness, do i have obamacare? you know? and so i think there's a great opportunity. i tell my kids that every time someone tells a story no matter

who is telling the story, they have a reason to tell the story. and it doesn't make the storyteller bad, but every time we tell a story we have to choose a vantage point. and so make sure that you're aware of what is their agenda, what do they want to get from the story. and we talk about the responsibility and the need for news organizations to pay the bills, to keep the lights on. that is one of the agendas. so are you more likely to watch this story about the cat that was saved by the fireman which my kids would watch but most people wouldn't, or the story about how any day now, you know, we're going to have microwaves watching everything that we do. and so, you know, it's -- with facebook, with all the social media, with the news, with kids that have cell phones, it's hard to keep them away from the information. but i try to help them understand that some of it is, unfortunately, entertainment. some of it's exaggerated. and if you want to know what to worry about, come talk to mom. and i also try to teach them how

to know a news source is a reliable news source. if you see a snippet of a video and it looks really bad, you go find the original video and watch before and watch after and make your own opinion. at the end of the day, it's not even necessarily -- i do that for people sometimes in politics who i already know that i dislike, but i will still want the real story so that my opinions and my convictions are based on as close as i can get to the truth and not based on the perspective of a pundit. >> i have a question, yvette. you now head up the booker wright project which creates and facilitates workshops on unconscious bias and privilege, and you address diversity without increasing division which is commendable. and in regard to that, we have

burning issues now. it's all over the news in regard to confederate monuments. do you have an opinion on that? >> of course i do. [laughter] what i will say, first and foremost, is i think that, i think that there are people in our nation who are beginning to feel very oppressed, people who at one point were considered member of dominant groups. and in many ways still are. and so it's complicated to talk about that, because many of them -- at least from what i can understand -- many of those individuals attach a sense of their heritage and a is sense of who they are -- a sense of who they are to those monuments. and the tearing down of those monuments might have been less painful in a different time, but we're living in a world of identity politics. and so the tearing down of those monuments for many people is attached to much bigger issues. so what i would say is i like

the idea of having conversations in which we talk about what's the larger issue here and how can we address the larger issue that is creating the resistance to tearing down the monuments. and then let's talk about what it feels like as a black mother to take your child to this park and to have to explain to them why it's there. so let's talk really calmly about what we both feel like we're losing. so i'm not really one to say, well, that perspective is silly, or those monuments were built during the civil rights movement, you know? i think all of those are details that really matter, and those details, you know, inform my opinion. but i also think that i'm interested in being able to make space for the other side because i think that when we force policy on people, we get often times horrible after shocks. >> and i'd like to the add something to that. >> sure. >> i think what's going on now, the polarization that we're

seeing today reminds me very much of what went on mostly in the late '60s, early '70s when i think the government was sort of in the business of trying to say who's patriotic and who's not patriotic. we had the civil rights demonstrations and then the anti-war demonstrations. and it's like if you take part in the anti-war demonstration, you're not patriotic. you had situations in which there were almost pitched battles between anti-war demonstrators and hard hats. for some reason construction workers would get out there and fight with the anti-war demonstrators. we had, you know, i think that everybody's seen the idea that some policemen would put tape over their badgeses and sort of weigh into the, you know, the anti-war demonstrators. and i think that we're almost seeing a resurgence of that in that you've got, like are, who's patriotic, who's not patriotic, you know? and it's having a bad effect on the country, i think. like you say, it masks larger issues. it's almost a distraction in a certain sense. >> yeah.

and, well, i think that, you know, i am of the opinion that there are, you know, sort of what i like to say to my kids that everyone who tells a story has an agenda. and i think that there are individuals who like to say that these things that we're seeing today nationwide, that they are about who's patriotic and who isn't. but that actually isn't really question. it's not really about patriotism. so for me, that is an effort to change the conversations, not actually address violence and ongoing lack of opportunity and really the legacy not just emotional and familial and, you know, social, but the legacy of the civil rights movement is also very financial. you know, i talk to friends sometimes about things that they're doing or investments they have, and i say where did you learn in this and they say, from my dad. where'd your dad learn it? well, from his dad.

and then i think, well, my grandparents could not get loans because of their race. so there are lots of ways that these things are uncomfortable to talk about. it's easier to frame the argument as patriotism. so i think that that's not the issue right now. but i also will say that just for clarity's sake, you know, i guess i think i want to say two things. one is that it can feel like a mess or it can feel like just a disruption when people choose to use their moment in the spotlight the make a statement about police violence, to make a statement about the equality for people who are trans, to make a statement about access to guns. but what i would ask is, you know, what's the more acceptable way to do that, you know? if you, if you're living a life where you are constantly being oppressed and you want people to notice, you can't really do that

in a way that fits nicely and quietly into everyone's schedules. and for them to notice and remember and realize. so some of these things are uncomfortable, some of these things stop traffic, some of these things affect our schedules, but that's kind of the point. it's a wake-up call. and if we don't want those inconveniences, then we should sort of on our own be looking for ways to the make the change in our communities, looking for ways to see, well, what are the groups in my community who are underserved? then that way your life isn't inconvenienced because you're always doing the work. and you asked about the booker wright project, and i love the work that we do there at the booker wright project. one of my favorite things to do is, you know, when i went to greenwood, mississippi, i had an expectation that i would meet these horrible white racists, you know, who would all be walking around with pitchforks and, you know, wearing tank tops and dirty clothes and not-brushed teeth9 and what not, but i met people who are some of my best friends and people who themselves have difficulty

reconciling the parents that they love, you know, the grandparents who they adored with the fact that they also, that those grand parents stood against progress, stood against equality for blacks. and so being able to sort of see that it's more complicated than -- and, obviously, everyone knows it's complicated, but being able to identify some of those complications has really informed my perspective on race relations. and so some of the lessons i learned while writing "the song and the silence" has transferred into this organization, and some of the work we're doing is with police officers. i work with cops on unconscious bias. and i have have officers walk in the room determined to prove to me that unconscious bias is made up by the liberal elites and that coastal whatever, you know? and they leave convinced that they have bias, and they have come up with things that they can do that day in their work to mitigate systemic bias. and i think that it's -- i just believe it's possible if we're

kind and respectful to one another but also honest and willing to listen to get through some of these things. >> kathy, in 1998 you produced a documentary remembering slavery. slavery's something a whole lot of people would like to forget, not remember. so given that background, how do you think it applies to some of these contemporary issues today, the legacy of slavery? >> remembering slavery was a two-part radio documentary series that i did with radio smithsonian, and it was based on voice-recorded interviews with former slaves that were made during the 1930s by the federal writers' project and the wpa and some of these were with people who were approaching 100 years old at that time. so that was a very interesting project to work on in that it expanded the topic, to me, because it realized when slavery

ended, there were more than four million people living under slavery. and, of course, only a fraction of those people survived to tell their stories. but it was something that i think was a very valuable project for me because it looked at the people as individuals. and they didn't spend what free time they had sitting around feeling oppressed. some of them were in very bad situations, but they wanted very badly to have lives, they wanted to have families, they wanted to have the things that some of us take for granted. and i think this is all by way of saying that i think if we can examine some of the history of how we got to where we are today, i think that would be a very valuable thing. i think right now, unfortunately, the atmosphere is such that i don't think that kind of examination is really being encouraged. i think, you know, it's -- as yvette said, everybody has an agenda, you know? right now people aren't really

interested sometimes in delving into what brought us to where we are today. >> thank you. do we have any other questions? yes, ma'am. >> i find this panel fascinating and enlightening. there was a time in our national narrative when we had people elected to high office, we had an african-american president nor not one -- for not one, but two terms. we had, prior to that, condoleezza rice, colin powell. it seemed that we'd gone beyond social integration into an acceptance of the contributions of the african-american community to the nation as a whole. with the election of the current administration, it looks like that's all going down the sewer. and what i wanted to ask about was seeing that video, it seems

that there's a narrative that says we should have happy darkies. they should be grateful for this wonderful opportunity. too bad about the slavery but, you know, we brought them to america, and they got christianity as a goal, prize. but it seems to me that with the current i think very peaceful protest of the taking of the knee in sporting events, suddenly we have unhappy darkies, and that's not acceptable. i would like to know what the panel thinks about the opportunities to address this. i do talk to some people who are within the formerly superior and now oppressed or self-oppressed demographic who are bitterly resent. that black folks have gotten uppity again. and it seems to me that the divisions are far greater, and i'd like to believe this is the chinese character for danger,

also represents opportunity. i'd like to believe that perhaps we have the opportunity to build a more feeling society. one thing that i was taking into perspective is when we look at the history of african-american slavery in this country, we look at andrew jackson and the whole socioeconomic makeup of the south really started when he was a veteran of the revolutionary war and then perceived that southern agriculture on ad broad scale would be -- on a broad scale would be much more economically profitable to a smaller number of people. and just as with the land clearances of scotland, suddenly the cherokees had to go. each though they were settled, printing presses in school, etc., their land holdings were too small to be profitable for a larger corporate entity and, thus, the ever-increasing numbers of slaves were required and brought to this country from africa. i recently read a book called "slaves in the family." are any of you on the panel familiar with it? >> i have heard of it, but it's

been a while. >> it's fascinating. it's written by mr. ball, and it's the story of the african-american and white ball family of charleston, south carolina. and the breeding program, for lack of a better term, that resulted in that family. it was fascinating to see that when he reached out to his black relatives, not only were the white relatives not happy about it, but often the black relatives weren't that happy to see him either. and then coming back to this whole idea of the happy darkie, the white descendants of that family used to put on minstrel shows as recently as the' 50s in black face about the happy singing times on the slave plantation. they forgot to mention the rape and the murder and the systematic oppression. it was just left off. i guess to sum up my question just opening it up to you guys again, where do we go from here? where do we go when african-american football players are forbidden by the president to respectfully kneel during the pledge of allegiance?

it's not like they're setting the flag on fire. where do we go when our african-american politicians are not given an appropriate voice and where the president feels he can belittle a woman for her hair? where do we go from there? because it seems to me the dialogue has gone right back to the pre-desegregated '50s or worse. but where do we stand, how do we bridge it other than reaching out within the community? i know that's a very large question, but i've observed this happen, and i'm at a loss. other than trying to build bridges in my own small way in my own community, i'm at a loss. i think the national conversation about race relations has degenerated to a point that i never thought i'd see in my lifetime. over to you guys. >> well, i mean, i love to hear that you are having those conversations in your community because what is a nation if not a collection of a opportunity of communities. and i think that first and fore to most people have to lead where they are, which i think is what we're seeing some of the

football players is, is trying to lead where they are. we can't all quit our jobs and start think tanks or nonprofit groups, you know? but we need to find ways we can make a difference in our daily lives. i have to say that i would push back on the notion that things were better before. i am hoping that this is sort of like the last, you know, sort of like if you've got a virus or a bacteria, it might make one final push before you finally get better. but i think there's a difference between having a conviction or a belief and then actually living it out. i think a lot of very decent people, very kind people really wanted equality for african-americans, but when they began to see that some of that equality would mean sharing in the pie, it felt uncomfortable. and things are, our nation's very different. you know, there was a time where if you were caucasian and you were male, you could put on a clean shirt, be sober, go to a job interview for factory job and probably get it.

and then have a job that you could have your entire life, put your kids through college, your wife would never have to work and own a home. and there were people who saw their parents live that life, and that was the plan that they had for themselves and whether it's because there are more women in the work force, more people of color, more immigrants, whether it's because we're still figure out issues with trade, that life for many people is gone. and i think it's easy for us to say, well, so what? you had power for so long. but it doesn't mean that it's not painful. if you are in a place of privilege and then you lose that privilege, that's going to be uncomfortable. and to just say, well, suck it up, you know -- [laughter] is not, you're not making it easy to have of the conversation. so my argument would be that, yes, we had condoleezza rice, republican. yes, we had colin paul, republican. and -- powell. republican, and i think we changed the rule book for barack obama. the first time i'd ever seen a government representative call a sitting president a liar, you

know, was when barack obama -- i think it was the state of the union address or he was giving some sort of a talk. we really did change the rule book. we went to a terrible place. i remember sarah a palin during the campaign saying that he was palling around with terrorists. you know? i mean, we really got the birth of, like, true fake news. but i also think we have to know who our enemies are, and i am a huge consumer of news. so if you're not a huge consumer of news, what i might say right now might sound like a conspiracy theory, but i promise in a year it's not. we really are finding this huge influence of the russian government. and so is i think it's important for us not -- we need to know how we got here so that we aren't angry with the wrong people. because, you know, my son who's 10 years old, when trump was campaigning and he was saying things about muslims, i did a whole lesson -- i home school with my kids about muslims, muslim-americans, their experience, and we began trying to show extra kindness to people when we saw them if they were wearing a hijab which sounds

silly, but it's a small thing you can do. after trump was elected, my little 10-year-old was crying s and a few months later he said, mommy, i really to hope that the russians helped win that election, because otherwise something's really wrong with our country. and i'm still kind of hoping that my 10-year-old is right, you know? and at first it sounded like this silly thing, but even in the last week or so we've heard this -- it's come out in the news that facebook, like, 10% of the accounts that the russians used, you know, were seen by millions of people. ask that's just the 10% that we know about. and so, and because of the work i do with unconscious bias, i understand that the unconscious mind does not have access to your values. so if you keep seeing a lie presented as truth over and over is and over and over and over again, you will begin to develop a gut feeling that just it feels like the truth to you. it feels like she's a liar, you

just feel like you can't trust her, and you don't know why. and that is, that is your unconscious mind doing its job, saying, look, there is a ton of evidence here that you should not be voting for so and so, or you should not be listening to so and so because of this evidence which -- and that's how stereotypes work. we know consciously that they're an exaggeration, but the unconscious mind does not have access to the ability to digest and consider. the unconscious mind collects data, and then it sends -- just the more data it has about a particular topic, that's how hard it's going to push you. so -- >> well, thank you. >> well, thank you. kathy, you've got 90 seconds -- [laughter] if you'd like to add to that. >> yes. again, this reminds me of, you know, not the first time in our country that we've had fake news. i can remember when i was a kid seeing billboards, and it would have a picture of dr. martin luther king, and he'd be sitting there doing something, and the

heading is martin luther king at communist training school, you know? we didn't havee the internet, bt we did have, you know, the interstate,do and you could drie down theretu and see a picture f just about anything. apparently, j. edgar hoover tried to the frame things -- frame people for different things. this is not the first time we've had a fake narrative done by russia or somebody else, it's just that the technology is in everybody's home today. >> yeah. it was much more regionalized. >>ea yeah. >> i've seen, yeah, the articles and newsletters about african-american coming to rape your children, and rape your daughters, you know, and african-american men paint to look like monkeys in the '30s and '40s, of course. sort of in the 24-hour news cycle there really has been in the past this sense of ethics in terms of journalism, and that really has changed. so, yes, regionally where people could, not get access to different information you would sometimes see that which in a

way we kind of are seeing with targeting individuals who are more likely to believe something that isn't't true. but, yeah, i would say, yes, but it's a little bit different now because -- i mean, even then you sort of i knew who was producing it,, and -- but it's, to see it, to see it happening the way that it's happening now across all of these social media platforms, on the 4-hour news -- 24-hour use, you know, across the nation not just sort of in small communities, it's, we need the keep our eyes open, and we need to be smart consumers of news, in my opinion. >> great advice. thank you. thank you all for attending. we're going to be, we're going to be heading over to the signingve booth. [applause] hope you're going to be there with multiple copies of these two books for your -- great christmas presents. we'll see you over there. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

>> you're watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable it's companies -- television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. "the communicators" visited several technology fairs this year. here's a look at two of them beginning with researchers at microsoft's washington, d.c. headquarters. >> guest: my name's ethan jackson, i'm a researcher at microsoft, and i work on project premonition which is trying to use mosquitoes as devices to predict the next epidemic. and the reason we tnk