if you had gone to the antiwar rally in washington you would have seen people wearing disparaging t-shirts about george bush and they really felt it was the same. >> there's an argument to be made for that. that's a sign of how corrosive our politics and our public discourse has become. the question is where does it go from here? do we correct it? does it get better for 2020 or 2024 or are we going to see even more crude language, crude behavior? is there going to be a line that is a bridge too far? where do we go? >> host: now we are live from boston for the texas book festival founded in 1995 by former first lady laura bush. several authors for you this weekend including harvard or

faster danielle allen national book award finalist kevin young software engineer ellen ullman and many others. first up is to look at some of the lesser-known stories from world war ii. this is like coverage of the texas book festival on booktv. >> good morning ladies and gentlemen. good morning. my name is jim horne fisher and it's my pleasure to welcome you to the opening session of the 2017 texas book festival. [applause] thank you for coming out in support of our authors and second of his wonderful annual event now in its 22nd year. [applause]he and third of all the books that

we discussed and enjoyed throughout this beautiful texas capitol complex hereom in downtn austin i would ask you to silence your cell phones t. live tv, thank you c-span. after a session both offers -- authors are relocating to the book signing tent down the street to autograph their books. books are for sale at that beautiful independent bookstore. you are supporting not only the author off the festival and a great local store but you are also helping the texas book festival a nonprofit entity pursue its mission of supporting low-income schools in texas with author visits the book donations via the reading rock stars program and to fund grants for libraries throughout the state. additionally the festival is running a benefit, a book drive benefit this weekend to raise money to help rebuild texas

libraries that were damaged by hurricane harvey. the program works like this. we go to the cash register checkout to purchase your books simply tell the cashier you'd like to donate an additional $15 to buy a book for your reading rock star student. the tbf -- foundation will match your donation to build a library for hurricane harvey. three books end up going to help people. all of this should make it quite clear exact how your purchase can make a difference of thank it vans and assisted the book signing will take place down the street after our session. now to our panel. have two very talented narrative historians who produce fascinating books that shed light interesting and somewhat unlikely theme hidden histories of world war ii. we have to my left meredith

handley a writer and historian living in washington d.c. that she found a way to the's capital after attending the university of wyoming and is a student at laramie she studied english and history and attended american university where she got her ph.d. t. meredith says one of the great things about being and historian of world war ii is having a reason to visit london, paris and casablanca. >> it's true. she isis currently a writer in e humanities o the national quarterly review for the endowment of the humanities. she is here to discuss her first book "destination casa blanca" textile espionage in the battle for north africa and world war ii published by public affairs. foreign-policy magazine called it compelling -- of the casablanca cast of characters. history of buffs will love the grand geopolitical scheming but there's enough action and adventure to make the book a

perfect beach reading. which is 90 degrees today, a balmy november. liza mundy is the best song of the three books are richer sex, michelle, a biography and now sub for the antle story of the american women codebreakers of world warri ii. she has worked as a reporter at the "washington post" and is written for the atlantic "politico" and other publications. she is a frequent commentator on national television radio and on line news outlets. "code girls" has been widely and well reviewed nationally. the boston -- rodin and monday stories one of women and men bound together by the wish to serve the country working side-by-side as equals temporary but real. and that picture is more than a marvel of it reminded the side-by-side as equals is who we are at our best and how we do

our best so congratulations to you both for the success of your books and welcome to austin. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you for this amazing welcome to texas. my first time here so thanknkso. "destination casablanca" is i'm going to be honest and say it was inspired by the movie. like many of you here i saw the movie over a number of years and every time i would watch it i would thinknk wow i wonder what actually was going on it casa blanca during the wars. what was the problem for the refugees and so the historian in me decided to dig in and take a look around and the resulting book is "destination casablanca" casablanca." the story turns out to be much more interesting and i think compelling than the movie

although it has a lot of the same elements. because casablancaa was a port refugees found their way to the city during the war and it became one of the possible avenues to leave europe and the nazis. the fact that it also became specifically important to the french war efforts the war effort and the allied war effort effort. the book looks at what happens to the city when the refugeeswh come what happens to the city when -- arrivedn in what happens to the city when the americans come. the americans come in force. in 1939 there were only 100 americans and all of morocco. in november of 1942 which began the 71st anniversary is this coming week. 33,000 americans would arrive in french morocco and the next week

another 30,000 would arrive as well. morocco becomes swamped with americans. the story is about people, when people ask me what the story is about i often say it's about people who make choices. they makees choices to invade germany they make choices on whether or not to collaborate. they make choices about whether or not they want to join the war effort or sit on the sidelines. >> thank you. >> while meredith was doing her great research and places like morocco i was in a lot of assisted living facilities here in the united states. [laughter] meeting a fair -- eating a fair amount of cottage cheese and interviewing women in their about thisg women in their incredible secret effort to recruit them to come to

washington and become a group of more than 10,000 women who are breaking the codes of the german naval codes the u-boat the japanese naval codes the japanese army. they were reading signals all over the world including some that were coming out of north africa so it was a massive effort to recruit college-educated women secretly. women at the seven sisters schools s were tap secretly. they were called then to private interviews with math professors and astronomy professors. they were asked to questions do you like foster and are you engaged to be married? of a number of them lied to the second question and said that they were not because whatever they were being invited to do was more interesting than waiting around while their fiancé was fighting in that war. the women came to washington.

those women joined the navy and alternately would be joined by enlisted women as well who would not have the benefit of a college education who came from california oklahoma all over the country and if they had the aptitude they were routed into these during codebreaking and washington. they hit upon a strategy of the handsome young army officers throughout the south and the midwest recruiting schoolteachers because again they wantedd women and as a womn in the 1940s if you had a grade level arts degree the only job he could expect with the two school. again marriage was the theme. they were trying to lure the women to washington with the expectation of making a marriage to meet a young officer like the one that was recruiting them. a lot of these women were ready

together hasty engagement so those women pack up there's suitcases and came to washington. the reason this story has been untold for so long as the women were told they would a shot if they talk while they ran washington. they all had security clearances and to talk about their work would be treason so they were told to tell people that they sharpened pencils that they emptied wastebaskets that they were secretaries and that's what they continued doing after the war. in some t ways they were the idl intelligence officer because people believen' whatever they were doing couldn't possibly be important. [laughter][l >> phenomenal stories and yet here we are 70 years a on and ts reads fresh and both of your cases. you talk about the journey that's captured in the story starting in the tiny research the book doing interviews.

a sort of lonely work and you end uppp having the journey that historians follow. talk about the research process and what gave you the spark to go underground and search for the story's? >> the initial spark for me was i was in the movie. i was inspired by the fact that when i was in archives working on other projects i would see mentions of refugees from kosovo and the internment camps in morocco and that stayed with me. when you're a historian and you're working on a project you can't go over that shiny thing. you do have to stay on task but one i was looking for a new book i kept remembering those telegrams said those reports. i decided actually to dig and then see what was really going on in casa blanca. i also tried to go to france to

do research and archives there because morocco at the time was controlled by the french and it was the french are of the morocco and when france left in 1950s when morocco gained its independence and to most of the records from the wartime era with them to france. there are also some in paris. i also did research at the holocaust museum in washington d.c. which turned out to be an amazing resource for me because of all the records that i had collected. i collected records of how len benatar who ran a refugee -- in casa blanca but she wanted to join the french resistance and she can't but when there's this massive humanitarian crisis in the summer of 1940 when 200 ships show up carrying refugees and they can't dock and it goes on for weeks.

these refugees are living in squalor and suffering health problems she decided to step in and tell. she started her own refugee agent and she would run the refugee agency throughout the entire war and become one of the major resources for arrived in casa blanca. so that was an incredible fine for me. >> you end up having to use certain research tools to compel the release of secret documents. can you talk about how you reach that point of than what you did? >> amazingly a lot of the intelligence related documents from world war ii are still classified and so i was working with the nsa on trying to get the story out. i was trying to find living women and wind up there was any documentary evidence of the work they had done. it turned out there was an enormous amount documented evidence that i started filing will freedom of information documentsat.

once the japanese surrendered you had all these bright people who were still employed by the codebreaking operation they started grinding t out great to have fully written histories and memos and administrative reports about the effort which they have also been generating the whole time but they were classified. intelligence agencies like the nsa are still flooded by foia request. in the end i wouldn't call it the nuclear option but i had to ratchet it up to a mandatory declassification review request and was able that way to procure more than 20 oral histories that have been taken of women over a number of years and a couple of the volumes and great histories of the codebreaking effort. unbelievably there are still a couple i understand that are still classified because the nsa

had to talk to other intelligence agencies all of which came out of this wartime intelligence with the oss so wartime intelligence gathering. there is the usual washington infighting over whether orth not we can declassify these records that are 75 years old. >> would the got transcripts where they blacked out her scissors snipped? >> yeah and even more random than that. sometimes the national archives they call it history city will see the redacted sections of the administrative records do exist. you can actually see what's in the redacted sections. then i was taking pictures on my phone and sending them to my contact at the nsa saying i have all these women seems in the footnotes and yet there's this redacted page. please get this sign and they did ultimately. they don't necessarily know.

>> maybe you don't want to tell them. >> they were buried cooperative and motivated. they really wanted to get this story out. male historians as well were so helpful but if you are at the nsa do you want another story about edward snowden or wartime? >> i think this is where life and i need to give a shout-out to the library that helps us with these products because without the care to the historical record we wouldn'trie able to do this kind of work and we wouldn't be able to write this kind of history. [applause] >> meredith lets talk about the movie casablanca is history about history as the case may be be. it's amazing the movie was released to literally weeks if not days after the campaign was actually one so was this movie

propaganda? >> no. warner bros. had been making a movie during 1942 armored in a can as they say and then on novemberr eighth, ninth and teh americans woke up to discover that its forces haded invaded north africa in one the primary targets was casa blanca which was taken by major general george patton. warner bros. f said hey we havea film about casablanca. maybe we should watch that out. the movie had its premier new york around thanksgiving and then it would go into larger release in the beginning of 1943 but what are the great stories about the movie on new year's eve roosevelt as part of his new year'sve eve party is watching

this movie. there were only a handful of people who doubtbt that less thn two weeks later he will be lying across the ocean to go to the casablanca in morocco. does happen to be a great piece of publicity for the movie as well so warner bros. really o locked out. it helped that the movie was actually good. that t helped too. >> the box office wasn't huge though was that? wasn't huge but it was h steady. your book is on one hand toward history and you're set peace operation torch is stunning. the book is not just military history. it's a culture portrait as well. can you talk about some of the cultural figures? the ones that jumped out at me were josephine baker and the novelist arthur kessler. talk about their roles in this

drama. >> cursor is the author of one of the most important books of the 20thor century on the soviet system. he finished that book and send it off to the publisher in i london 10 day -- 10 days before the nazis invaded france. kirzner was also a hungarian and had been active in the communist party. he had an anti-and her knew if the germans were in fact able to rule inri paris that he would be in major trouble. he escaped like so many of the refugees did and it ends up through a series of calculations joining the french foreign legion. he makes it tois marseilles and hooks up with british p.o.w.s who were also trying to escape in the go-to north africa. he has no papers at this point proving who he is and this is

arthur kirzner the well-known hungariannd journalist. he goes to the american consulate and tells the story and the consulate journal -- consulate general believes him and issues him an emergency certificate and he eventually makes it to britain. the french foreign legion turns out to be an important part of my luck and if youio want to her more surprising things about the book it's in north africa. then there is baker. baker is the woman who takes paris by storm in the 1920s and 30sin. she sings and she gets recognition and paris in ways that she could not get in the united states because she is african-american. she loved france because of the

opportunities that provided her. when france falls to the germans she joins up with the french resistance. a celebrity, that might be a problem. everybody loves baker. spanish officials french officials portuguese officials wherever they would go doors would open and they would tell her things. she eventually makes it to north africa in morocco and she uses morocco as a base to travel to spain and portugal where she would party and she would basically right information as she collected onto sheet music using invisible and can bring it back to morocco. it's quite amazing. she could have been sought as a spy but then she suffers a major health crisis and she goes to a clinic in morocco and is in

casablanca from 19 months and even then she is still fine. her hotel room, her hospital room becomes a place for everyone to meet and people come and they talk and so that's another way to gather intelligence. >> this is great cover for status. a cover for status being a celebrity. no one would ever suspect. lies i love how some of your heroines have their own cover for status. they are working secretly with the intelligence services and people say what do you do in the gaggle and say it i sit in the laps of thet, officers. a great cover for status. >> i love the stories of women. there was another woman who was an intelligence officer either for the americans or theri brith and she would hobnob with the nazis in say it could possibly

have this data the system. the men would say yes, yes we do do. never underestimate a man's ego. [laughter] >> so wasn't all sweetness and light. thesee women were subject to sexist standards of performance and everything else like that. is that why perhaps one of your reviewers said the book was somewhat infuriating to discover the injustices and how their success was ultimately temporary temporary? >> right. it was a variety and the army operation was civilian mostly. there was a schoolteacher who worked for theas army civilian operation and were many cases put in charge even if they were. young. the 23at all turned out to be pretty good at raking the radio

addresses that the japanese army was using to communicate she would be elevated to direct the unit and the first female deputy director of nsa was such a woman woman. genius was recognized and rewarded and that civilian operation no matter how old the no matter the gender of the person. that was i think a pretty egalitarian reasonablyn, egalitarian than berman to work into the women who were working for the navy codebreaking operation and they were in the compound and a spread for homeland security is now. they joined the navy so was so interesting to read the records and the navy was trying to cope with having women and the military after the waves were created. for example there was a role that women could bee pregnant ad so there were a couple of women who were really talented codebreakers and they got married and they got pregnant. they wouldd not be quite drummed out that they were thrown out in short order. it was very dramatic for l themo

be like one minute they were breaking the codes that the japanese army was using to communicate on different islands and the next a minute they were pregnant wearing the raincoat that they were issued that they weren't even supposed to be wearing anymore. that was really infuriating for them and what's interesting in the document a lot of the people in the codebreaking compound carried pistols. the burn bags had to be taken to the places where they would be burned and if they were in the compound you could see the weekly memoranda of the mail officers, the few men that were left in this compound saying so what are the rules? can the women be taught to shoot? we have the pistol range and we need them to be able to and they didn't really know. someone in the meeting would say i hear there's this other group of wave somewhere else and they are letting the women shoot. well we will too.

it was just sort of ad hoc they made up as it was required. >> in this generation of women many were born in 1920 as you point out in the book the year women secured franchise. do they see themselves looking back the greatest generation do they see at transformative or were they just doingye what they were supposed to do? >> i do think that this group of women as the "hidden figures" of the greatest generation and i'm so glad we are in a time where recognize it and are increasingly willing to recognize the significant contributions that women made to these american histories. this generation i have become attached to them because they were born in 1920 when women got the vote. women went to college at a time when only 4% of american women have for your college degree. they worked hard to get there and they received a mixed message and of course they live to the depression. a lot of them were the oldest

daughter in their household and they were very responsible for time when iry responsible for just came to believe that we forget the trauma that these families experience during the depression that they were so patrioticw,. they just ran to their recruiting station when the waveser and the wax were create. they wanted to join up in the way of their brothers and their boyfriends. i don't know if they found themselves transformative. they accepted the idea that they should gethede credit. they were told not to do -- wha they did afterward. except of that but by the time i was talking to them i think they did understand that what they did was of significance than they did want credit for what they had done that when the women said i just hope i live long enough and she did. [applause]

>> i understand we have 10 or 15 minutes left in our session. do we have a microphone and assemble -- center aisle for questions and answers? if anyone has questions raise your hand and a volunteer can bring the mic to you. i'm sorry you will come to the aisle. if you have questions god forwad and the author would love to engage you well in conversation. meredith let me ask you i'm interested in the way you focus on north africa as a stage iv drama but really in the background is the crisis of france. can you talk a little bit about whatco was going on? imagine a country overrun by storm troopers your situation is destroyed a puppet regime set up in the shadow government established across the mediterranean. what does that do for the citizens of france and what choices were they faced with is the country falls apart around them? even though, so part of the

armistice that brands is allowed to keep its colonies in north africa to keep algeria tunisia and french morocco and that meant people who were in french morocco were governed by the policies. it was policy against free speech speaking against our judicial system all the policies that they are known. exported to frenchch morocco. ..

and be sees it as a way to try to keep the nazis from coming ce morocco. other people decide to join the resistance and storm an underground network that is won run by and paid offices 0 strategic services in casa blanch could and other cities. so people make choices. it's like to you resist or collaborate? people hope the war is over before they have to make a decision and hope no one comes to french morocco. then the americans shown up and make the choice for them. >> these women started to brake the exceed the days of computer.

how would they go about breaking the codes? >> yes. how much time do you have? the code systems were all very different. my favorite part, when they're trying to ahead the video transmitter yo. oss are coding and decoding messages and some systems are used, and code groups. and then it would be a further enciphered with more numbers nuo the women on the great assembly line that the navy set up would be trying to determine what the additive was so they were essentially hacking into communication systems and doing cyber security and the opposite, which is hacking. they were doing the math that was necessary to get down to at the code groups and then they were trying to determine in the message where there might be a

decode group that met- -- meant noon position which is the japanships announced where they would be at noon the next day. what berter information than to know that. a number of the women were doing mag to get down to at the code group and then using language skills to determine where an important word might be. the u-boat codes were completely difference. being scrambled by a machine and they had to use statistical methods and there was a lot of guessing issue think the word might be weather and figure out how the -- there was a term. jiggling and math and there was -- then there war the early versions of computer menus when they were trying to determine how the machine setting had changed the w to whatever letter they were actually looking at.

>> the way in which intuition plays a role in how they -- at time us might by the way the code work asks they would play through and that's how they would break things. >> that's why it was so hard to develop aptitude tests. you had to have intuition and persistence and a willingness to guess. >> was there interaction or corroboration between the u.s. group and the leslie circle. >> there was some communication, and they were uneasy partners but we needed to do that, so it wasn't so much the women in the united states communicating. there the women were communicating with men at

belchly. one man's code name was virgin sturgeon. and she never head him. they had a relationship. >> an interesting movie. >> do either of you get to delve into more of these women later history? they were degree great things during the time period, so after the war, did they kind of live in relative obscurity, n did their live calm down? how did they manage the fact they did such a great thing and then nobody knew about it. >> tells us us. >> ann cara kristi, this 22-year-old whiz who helped break the japanese army dress codes, she rosen to become the first female director of the nsa inch the early formative time there was a significant number of women who were working during the cold war, working the east

german codes, soviet code, the cuban code system, which is considered to be a back water until the cuban missile cries and the code breaking for that was led bay woman. a number of them did retire into private life, and i think another reason this story became forgotten was by the 80s and 90s. we the vow of secrecy was lift the nsa didn't know where to reach them. they depend -- didn't have the same names and nobody told them it was okay to talk. women in the navy who went to graduate school on the g.i. people so were able to further their education, and become professors and join the work force, a pretty interesting mixed bag. >> so joe baker would be awarded a number of medals and recognition by the french government for her work and in fact some complaints at one point that josephine baker

thought she was at the french resistance. she would go on to continue her career and she would advocate for civil rights and as for helen benatar, she continued her human tear want -- humanitarian work after the war and helped more -- moore roccoan jews flee. >> what do you think -- what do some of these women think about the progress we have and haven't made in equality for women these days? >> did you get to talk to them about that, about current events? >> right. i have my own thoughts that we -- that we continue to debate over whether women belong in the tech sector and whether women are fit for working in silicon

valley, and because these histories have been so secret for so long we don't -- we have forgotten that women pioneered the field. one was involved in computer programming during the war and finally recognizing these women. the women themself is would imagine they -- a number of adult children i talk to said that they thought their mothers were very frustrated by being out of the work force after the war. a number of the fsa women, if hey had children they felt like they had to quit. in the '50s you really were pressured to be home with your baby and the child cair provided during the war for rossy the riveter was withdrawn. so adult children felt they were traumatize it by the war work and missed being in the work force, and one adult daughter said to me my mom cedessed

feminism in our house and i know she missed being in the work force. it's a complicated legacy. >> this question for meredith. how accurate is the movie, casa blanch could, compared to what you rote? >> there wasn't a rick's cafe. the closest thing to rick's and the collection of people who would shown up would have been the waiting room of the u.s. consulate. where you went to get advice on who was a reputable jeweler that can help you sell what you smuggled in your coat hem.

also where you would go to get a medical exam which is part of your visa. the bar -- rick's would have ben extraordinarily rare figure because i avoid there were only 100 americans in all of morocco, most wore business machine -- beenmen, like singer sewing machine, and then sam. i found records of one african-american in morocco, and he was the night porter for the u.s. consulate. >> were any japanese american women used as code? >> not that i know of.

there were some japanese men working as translators. for some message systems you needed to have somebody who could translate the message from japanese into english. and missionaries were used because they were among the few who knew japanese so there war bethany college in west virginia was generated a fair number of missionaries so a bunch of women would came from bethany who rosen high in the nsa. not that i know of japanese-american women. we didn't -- we avaldez ourselves availed ourselves of the groups but we didn't use japanese americans the way we should have. >> this is for liza. who were the men who were smart enough to recruit the women?

[laughter] >> that is a great question. in term of the army, man became william freedman, who was married to a female codebreaker named elizabeth freedman. a man who appreciated intelligent women, was not threatened by them. even before the war he had a tiny clandestine codebreaking operation for the u.s. army, an incredibly japanese code system called purple, machine that diplomats were using, communicating with tokyo about the intentions of hit loire -- hitler and one woman had been not billion able to fine work as a university math professor and freedman was willing to hire women. he understood, and the federal government in general was a reasonably good equal opportunity -- relatively good equal opportunity employer. but he hide this woman who had

not been able to fine a job as a university math professor, they'd been working the code system for two years. she saw the statistical relationship between the mess yap -- she had the key insaying that enabled them to break purple and get a stream of diplomatic communications out of europe in particular, including where the d-day landings would best be made. i'll say with the navy we don't know because there's an interesting document, right before pearl harbor, trying to figure out whether they're get the communication tell intense officers -- intelligence officers they need, and there's a document, new source, women's colleges. but there's no name on the record. that's lost to time. >> we have 30 seconds left. 15 seconds apiece. any thoughts on your next project? >> meredith, you can have all of that one. >> you don't want to answer that one? no, i'm looking --

>> directions, subjects, you know, generalities. >> scouting around, more intelligence, more world war ii, more drama, and more interesting men and women doing thing wes don't know about yet. >> the hidden history of world war ii. thank you for coming. [applause] >> we'll have the book signing now at the book signing tent. [inaudible conversations] you're watching booktv on c-span2. live coverage of the texas book

festival. that was authors discussing some of the hidden history of world war ii. in just a few minutes we'll be back with more live coverage from austin. next up, author michael hurt will talk about his book hi thursday night lights: the story of black high school football in texas."

>> a look at the best selling books according to book people book store in austin coins with walter ice -- is a sackson.

campaigned for justice, to pursue the killers, but because of prejudice the white authorities often neglected these crimes because the victims were native americans. what is more one thing that shocked me was how corrupt much of the justice system was, how lawless the country was in the 1920s, especially in this remnant of the frontier. many lawmen had very little training. it was often easy if you were powerful to buy off a lawman. molly and others turned to bright investigators. they had a much longer prominent role in society back then because they often had to fill this void, but the problem with private investigators were they often had criminal backgrounds, a.

were available so the highest better, the boundaries between a good man and a bad man were extremely pourous, and many of the private investigators who were working this case seemed to be concealing evidence rather than unearthing it. and while this was going on, it wasn't only molly's family that was being systematically targeted. other osages were dying, too. wait as champion steer roper who got a call one day and he left his house, and when he came back, he dropped dead, frothing the mouth. evidence later kits he, too had been poisoned. most likely with strychnine, and those familiar with agatha christie moneys, strychnine is awful and how slowly suffocate while you're conscious. one reason poisoning was so

common, sun a common way back then to kill the osage, is because even though scientist now how to detect poison the local lawmen wouldn't perform toxicologies so you could go to the local drug store or grocery store, pick up poison and give it to somebody or spike liquor, and it was an easy way to kill member and be undetected. by 1923, other people who also were trying to catch the:ers were also being killed. there was one man, lawyer, who started to gather evidence, and one day he received a call from osage who was dying of poisoning in oklahoma city. he told his wife be he -- he had ten children -- i have evidence in this hiding spot. if anything happens to me, make sure you get and it give it to the authorities hem then went to oklahoma city.

he let with the osage, gathered evidence. after the osage died, he called alcohol lords and said i have much evidence to catch the killer. i'm coming back to osage county getting on he next table. bunt when the train arrived he wasn't there he didn't get off. and they send out the blood hounds look for him. there were local boy scout troops in the area that took up the search. we as venally found, his body lying by the railroad tracks. somebody had thrown him from the train. when his wife went to the hiding spot, somebody had already gotten there and cleaned out all of the evidence as well as the money that he had left for her and the ten children, who were left debt -- destitutes, many children were raise biz osage family. another man, a an oil man, who was a friend of the osage and he went to washington, dc to hopefully get federal

authorities to investigate the okays, given the local corruption, and he got to a boarding house in the capitol, he checked in, he received a telegram from an associate in oklahoma that said, be careful. the oilman carried with him a bible and a pistol. that evening he left the boarding house, he was abducted, at some point somebody wrapped a burlap sack around his head, he was found the next morning in a culvert. he had been beaten to death and stand more than 20 times. the "washington post" at the time said in a headline, what the osage had long already knew. a conspiracy to kill rich indians. finally in 1923, after official death toll, more than 24 osage, the osage tribal council issued a resolution pleading and demanding for federal

authorities, untainted by corruption to intervene, and it was then that case was taken up by a rather obscure branch to the justice department, that would not seem very obscure on this day in particular. then known as the bureau of investigation and later renamed the fbi, and i think it's somewhat fitting to this day to uk talk about the bureau. it's probably on a lot of people's minds. and the bureau back then was really a rag tag operation. it had only a smattering of agents. they were not authorized to carry guns. if they wanted to arrest somebody, they had to get a'll lawman to make the arrest. and limited injures addiction over crimes but hat jurisdiction over american indian

reservations and and the osage murders became one of the first fbi homicide cases. in 1925, the new bossman, j.ed --ed gar hoover, summoned this man to washington, tom white. tom white is like mollie. he reflects and embodies the transformation of the country. he was born in a cabin in texas, on the frontier. he was from essentially tribe of law men. his father was a sheriff. he grew up, he saw people being hung, criminals being hung. he became a texas ranger, as did many our his brothers. he practiced law riding on a horse with a pearl handled gun, at a time when justice was often meted out with a smoking barrel of a gun. and by the 1920s, when -- 1925 when hoover suddenly summons him to washington, he has to wear a

suit, he has to learn to adapt techniques like fingerprinting, hand writhing analysis would become an bother part of his case. he has to file paperwork which he can't stand, and when he gets to bureau, he doesn't know why hoover summoned him. but hoover was replacing many of the old frontier lawmen with the new breed of agents. these college boys who type faster than they shot. and the old timers would mock them as boy scouts and they had very little criminal experience, and so hoover kennedy on the roles just a few frontier lawmen like white and they were known as the cowboys. this is a picture of hoover taken a few months before white saw him. so this is exactly what hoover looked like at his desk. he was only 29 years old at the time when he became director. he was not yet an autocratic or had all the power we ooh have

over the next several decades. he was flu to his job, and -- he was new to his job and still insecure about his power. the funny thing was he hate taller agents, and so taller agents hated to be summoned to headquarters because they were afraid if he saw they were tall he might fire them. and hoover also kept a dee dais behind his dynamic so he could stand on it and seem tall ir. white was 6'4". what is more, even though he had on his new suit he was supposed to wear, he was defiantly wearing a cowboy hat which violated all protocol. here he was looming over hoover, and hereafter began to tell him about the osage murder cases. and the bureau had actually been at that time working on the case for two years. and the results had been completely disastrous.

>> booktv records hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long. and here's a look at the events we'll be covering this week: we visit regnery. on tuesday, we head to the pilgrim haul museum in plymouth, massachusetts, where rebecca frazier will provide a history of the pilgrim journey. on wednesday, we're at the city university of new york, for robert wilde, will receive the editorial excellence award. and then on thursday, at the anne and jerry moss theater in los angeles, dillbert cartoonist will talk about how donald trump used the the art of persuasion o win the presidency.

and then we are back in washington and lawrence o'donnell recalls the 1968 presidential election, and sunday, edded aer in will share his thoughts on the constitution and today's social and political issues in before ton, oregon. many of these events are open to the public. loor for them to hair on booktv on c-span2. >> something that woodrow wilson said on memorial day, may 30th , 1919, the treaty had not yet been signed. everything had been discussed and agreed upon. just a fee details remain -- few details remaying to be settle. only memorial day, woodrow wilson and his wife drove out to an american cemetery outside paris, close enough to paris you can see the spoke of the eiffel tower off in the background. and there woodrow wilson walked

out before hundreds, thousands of graves, the white crosses, you have seen pictures of it time and again. woodrow wilson, who could barely contain himself, there were a lot of french mothers and families scattered around but this was an american cemetery and the french planted an american flag at every grave. and wilson got out there and did a very eloquent speech. the speech was finished. they thought. and then wilson said, -- this is hard for know read -- if i may speak a personal word, i beg you, he said to this audience, to realize the compulsion i myself feel that i am under by the constitution of our great country, i was the commander in chief of these men. i advised the congress to declare a state of war. i sent these lads over here to

die. shall i, can i, ever speak a word of counsel which is inconsistent with the assurance is gave them when they came over? it is inconceivable, there is something better if possible that a man can give than his life. that is his living spirit to a service that is not easy to resist counsels that are hard to resist, to stand against purposes that are difficult to stand against, and to say, here stand i, consecrated in spirit to the many who were once my comrades who are now gone, and who have left me under eternal bands of fidelity. i often wish every pratt had to read that paragraph of that speech before he ends any man or

woman abroad. so, we live in a world and especially a country, whose economy, whose entire foreign policy,, our identity, was forged by this war, by world war i. and i think taking a cue from woodrow wilson, it behooves us never to forget that. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> we're back live from austin. now michael hurd provides a history of african-american high school football in texas. [inaudible conversations]

>> good morning. are the speakers on? >> i've been asked you to turn off your cell phone and no flash photography. if you could do that quickly i'm bobby hawthorn, i grew up in northeast texas, during the time of segregation. went to a school that was segregatedded until i was in ninth grade so i have a little bit of context here. also worked for the university of -- from 1977 to 2006, and by that time, by the time i got schooled had been integrated but

still in the constitution that said participation is open to all students except for correctives and defectives. so, we're dealing with sometimes an organization that wasn't always politically correct. it is my pleasure to introduce michael hurd, a man who i have known for yours and whose friend ship -- friendship i treasure deeply. he has worked as a sports write are for houston post, the austin american statesman, "usa today" and yahoo sports. and he currently serves on the selection committee for the black college football hall of fame. he also makes one of the best cheesecakes i'm ever eaten. my job is to say as little as possible so michael can say as much as possible in the short

time we have. we will have time at the end for q & a and we hope that you will follow us over to the university of texas press tent where he will be signing books and i certainly urge you to all buy this book. it's thursday night light, the story of black high school football in texas. please walk, michael hurd. [applause] >> michael, give an idea when you began writing writing the bd what was your inspiration and what was the process you went through in writing it. >> well, bobby, i'm really glad to be here today and thank you all for coming out to this session. i write in the book that i feel like i had been writing this book since adolescence because i grew up with so many of the guys i write about in talk about in the book.

this was the high school football that it grew up with in houston, texas, back in the stone age in the '60s, at ebony worthing high school in houston. graduate from worthing in the spring of 1967, and the fall of 19 of the of 67 whereas the first -- the fall of 1967 is the first season that black schools and white schools competed against each other. so, statewide it was the first season for integration across the state. but to that point, these were the people that i knew about. these were the players, the coaches and the schools that i was familiar with. the first time i heard the term "friday night lights" i had no idea what that meant. that hat no relevance to me at all. in fact, write in the book that i had spoken with one of the players -- well several player is spoke with, and when i asked one of them about what thursday night lights meant, he said thursday night light citizen said that's phenomenon -- that's

for white folks and around the stayed blacks played on wednesday ask thursday nights and that this situation in houston, all the games were played at jefferson stadium on wednesdays and thursday nights so all over games were played during the week. so, my inspiration was to write about this time and to write about so many incredible athletes so many incredible coaches, that literally nobody knew about because the mainstream media didn't talk about these guys. they didn't know about these guys. and yet, as they good on in their careers they become incredible players in the nfl, the afl, and a lot of -- a lot of of these guys were big-time college players, and some of them were even groundbreakers in terms of breaking the color barrier at previously all-white schools i. wanted to write about the time, what it meant, what the pbil was all about.

but it's also -- also traces black history in texas. this book covers 50 years from 1920 to 1970. and i chronicle what that era was like, including what it was like for blacks to even get educations. that is a huge debate about that of course back in the 1800sed about whether or not blacks deserve to be edkated, whether the state wanted to spend money on educating black people. so, i think there was a lot. so we have sports book and also have a large dose of black history. >> i assume it was against uil rules then for a white school, say, longview high school to play the book school, longview womack. was that in the rules? either not allowed or they were not inclined to do so. >> i didn't have to look back because it was not going to

happen. when the uil started -- start ted university of texas in 1910, and their charter they specifically noted that their membership was open only to, quote, any public white school. so, they totally distanced themselves from whatever the extracurricular activities were for african-american schools. so, the bottom line is, you really can't overthink this. we're talking about an era of segregation and racism. there was no social co mingling, in terms of blacks and whites, and that extended to athletics and other areas. so there was not even a thought or possibility that black schools and white schools would compete until we get to the merger. >> ever any instance where you had a successful program in a black school that somehow

generated some interest or some support in the larger white community? where there was -- they were looking at these guys and they were football fans thinking, these guys are really good, and so there was white guys -- white fans going to black games in did that happen? >> no. >> zero for two. >> because of that, there's really weird setup where if you were black, you weren't allowed to attend a white game. so if you were -- as black fans, you wanted to go to a high school -- the friday night game hat a white school, you either had to stand outside the fence or if there was a really tall tree nearby, you could climb that tree and watch the game from that tree. so, there was also an acknowledgment in terms of

attendance, because white fans would good to the black high school games and some of the guy is spoke with talked about when they would travel, the fans who would travel with them were white fans. so, there was this measure of acknowledgment in the community, but that didn't extend to media. the media still didn't talk about these teams. they didn't talk about the players and coaches and that sort of thing. and the point of doing my research, there was very little to be found. there was a great coach at jack yates high school in houston, p.a.t. at theson, my favorite. and maybe i'm biased because i grew up watching pat beat us all the time but coach patterson won four state championships football and also won championships in basketball and baseball if found one story another coach paterson and it was feature story in the local

black newspaper in houston, but a coach like that, and all that he accomplished. and there was no acknowledgment what he did. the teams were never really fully embraced around the community. yes, the fans there would be white fans at the games but there was no relationship beyond that. >> talk a little bit about the role of the african-american press and how it covered and documented and promoted the black football. >> well, you know, i also write a lot about black college football history, and that was the book that bobby mentioned, the history of football at historically back colleges which dates back to 1892, and the think i found doing my research, and becoming a library geek and just sitting in libraries, from california to texas, and going

through microfilm and finding on microfilm back issues of the black newspapers like the chicago defender, and the pittsburgh courier, and the atlanta daily world and so forth. those were the papers that covered the black colleges, and the sense of the high school situation, the papers in houston, the forward times. the forward times, the neverrer in hour what grew up with, and the weekly newspapers. so every thursday i would sprint to the local grocery store and pick up a copy of both those of newspapers because they were writing about us, and they were writing positive stories about us. and they were writing stories about some of my classmates who were playing,'re tase pitting in athletic us. was a journalist even back then so not so much about me. but writing about these games and the coaches and so forth and so on.

so, those are the guys that gave all of those school, whatever publicity they were going to get. the san antonio register, i found a lot of stories on the san antonio register. one quick story. when i was doing my research on black college football, and i started finding these papers, when i was in high school, we didn't get black history. this is the '60s weapon didn't get black history studies, so we got that there were was slavery, emancipation, and here we are. >> smooth ride. >> that's right it. there was nothing before that and nothing after that. so, i would have -- during my research i would have all of these, why don't i know about this, moment. why don't i know about this or that event? so my intent when i found the newspapers online was just to go to sports section and see what they were writing about the

black college sports. could never do it. would get -- open the paper, the first reel, and the front page and i'm stuck. i got to read this story. oh, god, now i have to read this story, now this editorial. it just opened up this world for me, and this was in the early '80s and this is literally when i started making this turn from bag sports writer to a sports historian. them front a sports historian to a black historian. but the coverage that the high schools got near texas all came from the black media, and i knew -- i would read those papers religiously every week, and that is how they would get the word out. because the local dailies, the houston post, the chronicle, dallas morning news, didn't cover those gains a regular basis. some of the store -- most stores they wrote were a paragraph or two or maybe just a score from a playoff game. but in terms of daily coverage,

none of that ever really materialized. >> i think it's important to give them a little bit of history about the prairie view interschool has stick league, hours i began and parallel they would iuuil in a separate but unequal way. >> very separate, extremely unequal, but the league survived, and how it came to be was, as mention, the university of texas started the uily in 1910. that was -- about volleyball if i'm not mistaken. >> track in and field. >> exactly. so ten years later, 1919, the -- a group of black teached from the colored teachers state association got together and said we need to do what the uil is doing for white kids. we need to offer that for black kids. so the pdl started as the texas

interschool has stick league of scholars schools at prairie view, and pressurery view was the equivalent for the black community, prairie view was university of texas. literally the flagship university for black education in texas. i'm sorry i'm being mobbed here. in 1920 the teachers get together and pattern the pdil -- the tilcs -- not the pdil until the '60s. before that it was called various names, the negro league, the colder league, and polite company, of course. so, they come together and they start their league. and it's just kind of -- it was more about track and field. when they first started, it had nothing to do with football and basketball, ironically, even though there were a few teams

playing it was all about track and field and the guys met at a trang meet at prairie view. brotherry view was the center for black community in texas for all things educational, and we get the -- they put together this league and they patterned after the uil to govern competition for black students and academics, including typing and that's sort of think but also band competition, and of course, athletic us. now, the interesting thing is, during that time, as a football team, if you had a good season, if you won most of your games, and maybe you beat your rival, your chief rival, you could proclaim yourself the state champion. if you're in houston and you were jack yates and you bet wheatly, you could say, hey, we're the best in the state.

if you're in lubbock you can make the same claim. if you beat up on abilene and amarillo. so, finally in 1939, coach patterson at yates, put together -- devised a plan where for a playoff setup, a playoff competition so you really -- you don't get the first official pvil state football champion until the 1940 season, and that school was fort worth, coached by a guy named marion bates, really good player at prayer have i view. -- prairie view. they come together and start the league and start to crank out incredible players, and these marvelous teams. i can get to the demise if you want. >> that's what was going to ask you next. talk about about the ten years between brown versus board offed of indication and when he great

integration of schools happened in the late '60s, '67, '68, '69. what went on during that time? >> well, it was a -- well, as you know, a pretty exciting time. if you want to use the word exciting -- for the country general as we make the transition from segregation to integration. one thing that happened with brown v board in 1954 was some of the schools in texas picked up on that immediately and began to integrate. primarily in el paso. the el paso school district the very next year, 1955, decided to integrate. now, what that caused for the uil was a pretty big deal because of their clause, the clause in their constitution that said their membership was available only to any public white school. so now you have schools in el paso, corpus christi and

those towns integrated immediate slow the el paso school district went to uil and said we're going to have some black players. does that mean we can't participate in the uil? made the uil start to think about their they were seeing this integration coming but for the first time, they started to think about, oh, how do we deal with this. how are we going handle this and basically they said, very quietly, they told those schools, okay, it's okay, you can have black players. you can still compete in the uil. you can have black players but there some schools, wouldn't play teams with black players so you still had that going on.

but as integration gets closer and the issue gets bigger ex-the uil thought they had to make a change in the constitution, and the change is literally just edit. just an edit to their constitution where they remove the word "white" from any public white school to base i any school. they removed that stipulation, and so in 1967, the uil and the pvil merge. it is not a merger. it's a hostile takeover. because what happened is, at its peak, the pvil had 500 member schools. no out of them had football teamed but 500 member schools around the state. so, what happens, with integration and this so-called merger is, all but eight black

schools go away. just disappear. they demolish those schools, there nor instances that i'm aware of where you have white students attending black schools, primary will you you had black students being bussed to white schools. you had some incredible black coaches and some incredible black teachers, the best of the best, lost their jobs. incredible coaches lost their jobs, and were asked to join these white staffs as assistant coaches, and that didn't sit so well with a lot of the coaches so a lot of those guys retired or left the profession, some became administrators like dan has skins, incredible coach, became an administrator in texas -- texarcana.

there are five schools in houston, and dallas, and dallas washington. the only schools with any kind of pvil legacy left, and that shredded. went to my 50th class reunion recently, and it was very sad. i couldn't believe what was seeing because the worthing football team dish -- i counted they had 25 players on the team. 25. and it was the same with jack yates, the homecoming was against yates and it was the same thing. so, basically what happenedes those schools have note by declined. those programs have declined. and they're trying to close those schools as well. so, i'm pretty sure we'll see no legacy for the pvil schools no

legacy for the black high schools in texas, and the wonderful history they had, and that is another impetus for me to write the book. >> a number of stories about schools that, when they were ordered to integrate and they certainly couldn't good easily into this -- they basically took all the trophies, all the medal, all the ribbons and legacy and culture and rituals to the dump and dumped them, and sent the black kids to white and cool said, you start over. >> they did. i think this was in austin. know that a lot of those schools had tremendously devoted alumni, and wanted to preserve that history, and a lot of that history was thrown away. they pulled some things -- found some things in dumpsters. they found a lot of things in closets, you know, growing dust and cob webs and plaques,

trophies, uniforms. a lot of that stuff was just thrown away. and people came through and said we need to try to preserve some of this and they have done i think pretty good job of saving some of that but most of the history was absolutely thrown away. there's an organization call the prairie view interscholastic league coaches association, group of men, wonderful men, who have preserved a lot of that history, and they had it on display at a building on 11th 11th street but the display is now closed. one thing that really excited me to write this book was about ten years ago, i went to my first pbiv coaches association banquet. every summer they recognized a lot over the former coaches and players and a lot hoff these

guys have never -- had never been recognized. and for two minutes they could stan there and say, this who is i am, this is what i did. thank you. to get recognized 0 to give these guys -- no one ever asked these guys to tell their story nobody ever asked them what hey had done and you're talking about people like dick knight, kenny houston, bubba smith, the incredible smith family. six of those guys are -- six former pvil guys in the pro football hall of fame. these guys really came from nothing to that kind of status. but the pvilca gave those guys their moment of fame. and it's just so moving and

touching to be there and see those guys have their moment. and i think that's when i really said, i -- i had been putting this off but after attending a couple of those banquets, had to write the book. i've got to write this book. [applause] >> i do have to ask you this. i've talked to a lot of people, primarily white coaches and white administrators, who lived in that time, and they consistently tell me that integration dime texas more smoothly bass of football. that texans loved football more then fact they had segregation would you agree with that? >> in a way i would. i think i write about this in the book and i certain lid had -- certainly had this conversation more than once over the last decade or so.

the white coaches secretly salivated about having this black talent. all of this athleticism, all of the speed, you know, the power, the pvil was a wide-open league. the football was exciting. the athletes were incredible. my classmate, clifford branch, who played with the oakland raiders, three time super bowl wide receive ex. cliff was the first school boy in texas, 1966, the first school boy to run a 9.3 second 100-yard dash. that record last as long as is team them to set up the information event. the next event, kid named reggie rock winson from wichita falls, washington, 9.1 on the 100-yard dash. this is the caliber of athlete you had in the pvil.

all of that plead and those coaches just think about it. all of a sudden you can infuse all of this speed and athleticism, and you're playing a more exciting brand of football. so a lot of those coaches couldn't wait to have that talent, and whether or not -- whatever the rules were about segregation and uil l. those conditions were glad to see that happen. on the other hand, there was this kind of disrespect for our black coaches. a lot of the white coaches -- i think i quote this in the book, a quote about, we are going to give you guys time to catch up because we know you're behind in coaching and basically you guys don't know how to coach. you just put the football out there and let your guys play, and whatever wins, wins. so, they're thinking these guys can't coach. well, that first season, there was a meeting in houston, hisd

held an athletic meeting, and the point of the meeting was telling the black coaches that, can you guys kind of hold it back a little bit? because they were beating their competition like 60-0. they were winning very easily. so when that happened, integrate comes along, a lot of the coaches, a lot of the white coaches, glad to see that, and one thing that happened was they war good to these coaches meetings, black coaches couldn't go to the texas high school coaches association. they weren't allowed to go to those meetings. sometimes they could go but didn't have a voice. this white coaches, as they get to integration, would do to meet examination talk, and huddle and talk about, i got me one. meaning they had got an black super star. and they were really glad to get to that point. >> okay, bus i love to run

things-tell me quickly, without too much elaboration though, best teams? >> the two betts teams. actually probably the best team is more of a pvil alumnus, the 1985 jack yates team. ...

they won the state championship in washington and five of six seasons they won their district and competed for state championships so coach brown had many titles by ben. >> i think it's time for us to open the floor for questions so if anyone has questions please feel free to take the microphone. >> mr. hurd i'm delighted you mention my hometown of corpus christi because i was under the understanding that in 1960 my hometown won two state championships, kohl's, the hornets and my high school, miller high school became the first racially integratedd football team in texas to win the state championship by recruiting johnny rowland who went on to become the nfl rookie

of the year. he is still a legend in my high school. they have a big and shrine picture of him and we are so proud and the father of my best friend was the coach at miller and he went over to kohl's and he said if you go to miller i will guarantee you a state football championship in your senior year and rowland in five other players transferred over and they beat wichita falls 13-6 and that was the first racially integrated team. i'm so glad you mentioned all of that. >> thank you so much. >> a senior corpus christi had three state champions because the catholic school there won state championships that year. >> a very good presentation and

discussion. i have two questions tonight. one of them was what you consider to be the highlight of the 50 year period you cover, 1950s and 1960s and i asked the question for the impact of the post-world war ii period. there was maybe a little bit more money in the black amenity and the second question is whether any small schools that were more successful during the pdi l. because it's very easy to look at dallas and especially houston so a what was the highlight in the 1950s in the 1960s and were there any small schools that were successful? >> i guess you could say there were 2a and more at some point at the point immediately comes to mind lufkin dumbarton. livingston was probably the best high school football team in east texas in the 1950s.

i think livingstone won something like three-foot of champions, three or four and they have this playoff record over one span where they won 73 games and only lost two games competing for the playoffs so livingstone was a really dominant team but i would say that era that stands out to me because i tend to relate to black high schools and historically black colleges because they were theaters. they had this great relationship where you went to a black high school and then he went to a black college and the beauty of it was most of the guys who went to black colleges graduated, they graduated back then to get teachers to greece to go back to their hometowns and become teachers andto coaches and intes would send their best players to the black colleges, so i think the 1950s is just the golden

era in general. i don't think there would have been more resources or more money necessarily but just an influx of better players that came outet of that era. did i answer i that? >> i'm a fellow houstonian and i know there are some great rivalries in the state but has there ever been anything like back in the 50s third ward against fifth word, i think they played on thanksgiving or around then if i'm not mistaken. >> the biggest high school football event in the country was heated sweetly. they jrue as many as 40,000 fans. now we are talking about a stadium that only seated at the time about 30,000 fans. i don't think my powerpoint is working very well but fans

standing around the field. it was the event of the season for the black community of houston because wheatley and -- for the second and third black high schools to open up in highn school. washington was the first so you have this community where most of the people, they kind of know each other. they all went to those schools together so on thanksgiving day the game was the game. like i said across the country. there was the largest high school football event in united states throughout the 50s and the 60s so it's really sad to see that game go away ' in 1967 and when the league left the game left as well. >> are you or anyone else undertaking a comprehensive project to get an oral history of the players and the coaches?

>> yes, i am. in the course of researching this book would also for the work that i do it. view. we are really trying to keep to this history in terms of history. as i talked about a lot of what was left at the schools was just discarded and isn't there. i was really disappointed that so many of the guys that i had wanted to talk with and already passed on and like i said nobody ever tells the stories. there was no documentation for any of that so i'm working to try to keep as much of that as i can. >> mr. hurd thank you very much for your book. i can't wait to go and get it. just a comment. i grew up in lufkin texas in the

early 60s and just some things, from the white's point if you some of the lufkin dunbar gangs we would think with what a great halftime they have, while matt. did they make us look bad over here. like bobby said when we finally integrated back and i'm not sure 66 or 67 they said at least will have a great football team. >> that's a goodtb point because big aspect of black high schools as well as black college especially black college football was halftime. he would have a lot of people in the stands would be happened in the first half towards the halftime, the second quarter he started to see the stands starting to fill up because the bands were so exciting and the

showmanship was off the charts so halftime was a very big deal for our black high schools. >> hey how's it going? you mentioned ken houston and he's going to the high school football hall of fame. me and joe greene did last year. first of all your reaction to those guys going in there and secondly do you feel like there is material they are to nominate more people and more at the pdi l. players have the potential to go into the texas high school hall of fame? >> without a doubt. some of those guys have never been recognized at all and so i think the texas football high school hall of fame is picking up on some of that. they started with some of the coaches. coach patterson was the first pdi l. coach to go when and that's only been within the last 10 or 15 years if i'm not mistaken.

"mean" joe greene, kenny houston, a guy named emmett thomas who was in the pro football hall of fame charlie taylor from doll worth high school up north. there are a lot of those guys who deserve that kind of recognition and i'm glad to see these guys go in and i hope that that's just the beginning or at least a continuation of adding those guys. thank you. >> looking forward to reading your book but who was the greatest pdi l. player we have never heard of? >> i like a c guy named john peyton who played at livingston. he played at livingston. he was a running back and john peyton was in prairieview. i don't know if it still stands but for a lot of his time johnny peyton was an incredible running

back and probably most people have never heard of john peyton however coach paytonut went on o a claim as a basketball coach. he won the state championship basketball coach at pollard but a great football player in that league. >> hi i'm curious if the schools were segregated at first why was their football games on thursday not friday? is there a reason for the thursday football games? >> the primary reason was in most towns and the thing about this every town in texas had a black school in a white school. most of them had black schools. some of the blackac schools some of the students had to commute from other communities to go to the schools. in terms of football they shared the public schools stadium.

the initialta setup was white schools on friday and saturday nights in black schools on wednesday and thursday nights and some students even on tuesday nights so i guess you can say its logistics and it just kind of grew from that. who got to use the public school stadiums and plan. >> i believe we are out of town. please give t my -- [applause] >> thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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plus go you're watching the tv on c-span2 live coverage of the texas book festival. the next program in a few minutes is a conversation about fake news and forgeries with national book awards finalists kevin young and writing professor jared gates sexton. for more information about her life coverage from austin visit booktv.org. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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thing was pretty simple. remember the goal is to get north korea to freeze its weapons systems weapons and missile systems so one proposal to accept their offer to do that that. it sounds simple and it made a proposal china and north korea proposed to freeze the north korean missile and nuclear weapons systems and the u.s.

instantly rejected it and you can't blame that on trump. obama did the same thing a couple of years ago. the same offer was presented i think in 2015 the obama administration instantly rejected it. the reason is that calls for a quid pro quo. it says in return the united states should put an end to threatening military maneuvers on north korea's boarders which happened to include under trump nuclear-capable b-50s flying right near the border. maybe americans don't remember very well but north koreans have aa memory of not too long ago n when north korea was absolutely flattened literally buy american bombing that was literally in the target and i really urge

people to read the official american military histories the air quarterly review, the melee melee -- military history describing this. they describe it very vividly and accurately. they say there just weren't any targets left so what can we do? we decided to attack the bombay dams comes the huge dams and that's a major war crime. people were hanged for it in nuremberg. then comes an ecstatic gleeful description of the bombing of the dams in the huge flow of water which was wiping out valleys and destroying the rice crop on which asians depended for survival. lots of racist comment but all with exultation and glee. you really have to read it to appreciate it. the north koreans don't have to bother reading it, they lifted so when nuclear-capable b-52's

are flying on their border along with other threatening military maneuvers they are that kind of upset them. strange people. they continued to develop what they see as a potential deterrent that might protect the regime and the country in fact from destruction. this has nothing at all to do with what you think about the government. it is the worst government in the human history, okay but these are still the facts that exist so why is the united states unwilling to accept an agreement which would and the immediate threats of destruction against north korea and in return for he is the weapons and missile systems? well i leave that to you and remember that's bipartisan in this case. couldd negotiations go and the

usual argument is you can't trust them and so on and so forth that there is a history and we don't have time to run through the history. quite interesting. it begins in 1993 when clinton, under clinton the north koreans made a deal with israel to terminate north korean missile shipments to the middle east which is a serious threat to israel and the- world and in return israel would recognize north korea. the clinton administration wouldn't accept that. they pressured israel to withdraw from it and north korea responded by firing their first intermediate-range missiles. i won't go on with the rest periods of very interesting story but there was actual agreement in 2005 that north korea would completely dismantle

its nuclear weapons and missile systems, and them, finish, and dismantle them and return from a pact from the united states, and to threats, provision by the west, by the united states of a light water reactor which tempered its nuclear weapons but could produce for peaceful purpose -- peaceful purposes research medical. that was the agreement 2005. in last very long. the bush administration instantly underlined it. it dismantled the consortium that was supposed to provide the reactor and it immediately imposed pressure and u.s. pressure to block north korean

financial transactions including perfectly legitimate trade so the crazy north koreans started producing missiles and nuclear weapons again and that's been on the record all the way through. son. yeah may be the most horrie regime in human history but the fact of the matter is the regime does want to survive and even wants to carry out economic development. there is general agreement about this, which you cannot do in any significant way when it's pouring resources, various store store -- scarce resources into weapons and missile production. they have considerable incentive occluding survival to perhaps continue this process of reacting in a kind of tit-for-tat fashion to u.s. sanctions. when we lower tensions they do

and when we raise tensions they go on with these plans. how about that is a possibility? if you look at an article in the "washington post" recently by u.s. professor and south korea so occasionally the strange possibility of letting the north koreans do exactly what we want them tohe do. sometimes this is mentioned but it's pretty much assessed we can't do that sort of thing. there are similar questions aboutss iran. iran is again the adults in the room. the greatest threat to tears and on and on, and we could go through that. for example in yemen this claim that they are providing some aid to tribesmen in yemen maybe they

are but what is the united states doing in yemen that is providing a huge flood of arms to its saudi arabian allies who are destroying the country. they have createdll a huge humanitarian crisis. huge numbers of people killed, massive. starvation and they are threatening now to bomb a port which is the only source for surviving people. iran is the major source of terrorism and if you look around the world there are many questions like this. i don't want to go on too long but very strikingly and there is one lesson that you discover when you carefully look at the historical record. what i just described about north korea is pretty typical. over and over again there are possibilities for diplomacy and negotiation which might not

succeed. you can't be sure if you don't try but which look pretty promising which are abandoned dismissed the literally withouth comment in favor of increased force and violence. in fact that's also the background for the 1953 moment when the clock moved to two minutes to midnight and the u.s. faced the first serious threat to its security. in fact since probably the war of 1812 could have been avoided. there's pretty good evidence that it could have been avoided but it was literally not even considered an case after case like this. it's worth looking at the historical record from that perspective to ask whether that generalpe comment has some validity. i think if you do you will find that it has considerable merit.

>> looking at some of the questions they were going to ask me the one thing i would like to say is when we were promoting obvious america the trump campaign if you take america site onn immigration, i was out in l.a. at the nixon library canceled on me. i don't know if you know it's a fantastic library run by the government. they found that early one saturday morning in the middle of the summer called marge on her cell phone and instantly picked up. instantly, that was so wonderful. they really are wonderful and always available on their cell phone. i asked for regnery. i did want to go back to my first book of high crimes and misdemeanors from the clinton area -- era. that does english in character

of regnery has always been famouslys authors would take fantastic books and no new york publisher would publish them in regnery would publish him and they would come out bestsellers. one of which my favorite of that trend is leo damore's about senator kennedy. it's the truth about chappaquiddick. he was saying swimming out in the chappaquiddick river. years later it's all on the record no new york publisher with publish it. regnery publishes it 27 weeks on "the news york times" best-selling list. more recently there's was a picture of the book.

27 new york publishers turned it down and posted 44 weeks on "the news york times" bestsellers list. the way things are going now the trump era i don't know of any of you are still -- but it's every day somehow they think russia was behind it. .. >> you can watch this and other programs online apple tv.org. @book tv.org. now live from the

texas book festival in office-- austin is a conversation about fake news. all right good afternoon. good afternoon, and i would like to personally welcome you to parking lot texas book festival in austin, texas, the greatest book festival in the united states. [applause] look at that i'm brian sweeney so you can totally trust me when i say that. we are here with esteemed panel of two writers that had i very much admire for a panel called falsehood forgery and fake news. i often think that times person of the year this year may very well be fake news something that come into the currency of our language. fake newss is maybe the city of houston is not times person of

the year which is something that we could probably all advocate for but fake news is certainly become so engrain inside every aspect of our lives in terms of how we're consuming our media and understanding our political discourse o and large decision that we're making as a country going forward. i would like to introduce our panel today one is -- esteemed writer and poet kevin young -- [applause] kevin is the author the of several books and ten volume of poetry the latest we'll be discussing today is called bunk the rise of hoaxes, humbug plagiarist, phony, post peak and fake news how can you not want to read that? kevin also just started on wednesday as the new poetry editor of the new yorker. [applause]we very little going on. welcome to austin. [applause] and down at the far end is also another writer that i admire both a political writer and novelist named jared sexton his

book is called, the people are going to rise look the waters upon your shore. terrific work, jared. [applause] jared's work is appeared in knock times, new republic salon and he's country currently create i-writing professor at georgia southern university please welcome jared and kevin. [applause] so gentleman it is absolutely a pleasure to have you here and in reading your books it reminded me one why i enjoy books because of the deep story telling and smart analysis and it was nice reading them together in tandem because kiffin takes us back throughh years and years into te 19th centuryhe of american culte and dealing things like forgery and humbug and e fake news and then jared gives us a much more kind of of the minute approach based k on what he saw duringed 2016 election and how that has

carried forward into our everyday discourse. i will tell you jared is not shy on twitter if you have checked out his twitter account. i want to start with kevin, though, and say going back to the very beginning of your book he talks about a american character let me say fascinating inut name of pt barnum one of te things i feel like i know about and once you dive into the book you realize how much you didn't know and how important that person is and also tide to what you identify as penny papers or penny press and how much they reminded you of the modern day internet and is working so i wanted to start with you can you take us back to american history and look a little bit like today. >> absolutely thanks for having me and thank you t for coming o. you know very much i was interestedut in -- that start that barnum gives the hoax. his first big hoax is in 1835 when he exhibited woman named

joyce hef george washington maid would have made her 106 years oldage advertise as fact and you know had experts to clear her but what it provided people and penny press was a big part of that was access to, you know, the first president. one of our founding fathers so people literally was -- touch her try to argue whether she was real. not just 161 but whether had she waser actually flesh and blood d made of rubber or -- you know a lot of sort of things that are to us strange. but also i think, of barnum reach and his power. she was also , you know, sort of unstated but also stated at the time was a slave. and so there's this real -- question there that he's working with out and the penny papers is one of the places that he did so. around at the same time there was a moon hoax in the penny papers which pretended there was

someone who spotted people or more like beavers and various things on the moon. [laughter] and i think the penny papers are like the internet in the sense that they promise democratic world or act to it for other people and often also relied on advertise ms in ways we do. but people read the penny press papersis that is clear for this kind of excitement something a little different and i think internet functions much the same way and also spread the hoax pretty widely and fast. at the time other papers were 5 cents so five times as much and people pick their penny papers like we pick our news today so there's a lot of reels to it and i traceer the origin of the hoax to that moment and you know is there something american about the hoax is there something we need to know that is told there, and i think barnum offered us a kind of chance to be each an

expert to each be in a democratic process of choosing whether something was real or not. and that sort of still with us. but i think also changed quite a bit as i'm sure. we can talk about. >> right i think that's one of the thingses that we want to talk about is internet a tool but also the tremendous pitfall that it has when everybody is their own publisher. and there is no -- there's real value as a former journalist myself and there's real value in not having are filters and being able to have direct access n but we see the downside of what that is can you then jump us forward 150 years and your driving up to iowa to cover caucus one of the things that i was y struck by i told jared in the back room i know he's a bad writer because he took on political writing that was so famous for because he put off finishing a novel that he was working on so nothing look a writer by taking on another one but up to iowa and spent time

watching caucus parties from both parties andnt one of the thing use found there commonality between thempa was this really intense anger the electorate was angry i wound per you can set the tone for arrival up there and what you saw. >> sure, i was in the middle of writing a novel that had just ballooned o out of control. it was like frankenstein monster that had just gone beyond anything i could do. and t so in true writer fashioni procrastinated i decided to cover the 2016 election which i thought would 2 be incredibly boring. [laughter] i thought it was going to come down to hillary clinton and jeb bush and i thought well do this as a hobby. but then i started noticing -- the trump campaign, and i started imponing to rallies and the thing that really shocked me was i started to see that the trump movement at its heart was being fueled by people like my family. right, my family is a working class family from southern indiana.

and a lot of w things i was hearing of trump rallies a lot of -- beats of anger and authortarianism were things that my family would say so i started covering trump campaign because i didn't want that in american discourse i loved my family but i did not want them to be people at the lovers of power. and -- [laughter]le so i started noticing this anger they had which a lot of people now have started to use this phrase left behind or economic anxiety right so my family is in industrial stuff, factories mine workers, prison guards things like that. you know, they are are angry about the statete of their live. but they were also being manipulated by larger power. that basically appeal to the their absolute worst instincts so i started to see that like my family who would start is posting white supremacist memes and be racist stories and now that we've learned propaganda

right that came from russia and other places -- i started to realize that trump movement was being powered by that. you have a sense in terms of coming true that particular election where you see really good examples of reporting and discourse balance by really are terrible examples of report and discourse, i mean, how would you rate how would you rate quality of what we saw because i think part of the die signal pick has been this -- unbelievable us versus them dynamic right that part of the country is wanting to mislead you and not tell you the truth while other side says the rest of the country is trying to mislead youhe and not tell the truth. >> did you see anything that inspired you at the same time you saw things that really disappointed you? >> well, i've been on this book touraw for the book now and thig that people ask is what is the hope. and the hope is that -- when i talk to people i don't agree with politically, when we have a conversation human to human about when they i learn a little something about me and i learn a little something about them we can find common ground

and begin to build trust but i can tell you that people of the trump movement which is roughly 30% ofbe the country -- they are at this point and don't trust regular media an they do not trust vetted and trusted voices. they have been walled off and that's going to be one of the harder things to undo. >> b go ahead. >> i guess the thing that interest me is at least i came to believe in my book that this fake news whether in the penny press or whatever always started with race. itit was always linked with questions of race and hoax itself became a function of race, and so also race itself was kind of built on this -- notione that is false. so how do those things go up together, and how do they become intertwined and can we untangle them and my book tries understand origins of that and so the hope you're talking about i both -- yearn for and wonder about

because it is a century and a half back there's this -- connection already. >> absolutely right. whatever essential progresson tt we make or whatever break throughs that we have teg no logically there's always a downside to it. right that you're saying that because we have carried this sort of racial undercurrent throughout our american experience there's no way toes cape it going forward. >> i was just going to say i completely agree with kevin. particularly with my family, of course, this is an intimate thing i'm talking about, right? my family has a lot of racism but in denial and they'll say i'm not racist but -- and one of the biggest stringing of the trump campaign i think in the way that they harness the movement was they gave the excuse they saidd you see the world as it is, right and it sorts of gave them that excuse you're right at the heart of all of this is this -- really, really disgusting strain of racism that has been aloud a

cognitive distance to allow this fake news and propaganda to come in and at the heart of it. >> i think the hoax depends on race. which is one of the things they thought somewhat suspected but as i started going along researching and writing the book, i realize how pervasive it was, and then the term fake news becomes this ---- weird thing where it describes something that tail is true that there's --ib propaganda or -- you know, fake ads or fake news ads, but then it is also what is happening to me is also was an accusation you know, that as you said sort of challenges other truth and it becomes quickly fake news to just news that i don't like. which a lot of news but -- you get to call it fake because you don't like it. >> there's also this incredible power c to that fake news. right because one of the things that we're talking about particularly with the rise of trump is the fake news that the people like my family were getting it told them that they weren't racist right, and they

would have to actually the cognitive distance is hard to dephotobecause for you to understand the news as it is you first have to puns that you have anbl inherent racial privilege which changes spots entire nature of a person's life. like all of a sudden you start having to realize that the world is different and you thought it was. so it's so much easier to accept the fake news even while you know that it is fake like deep down you have to have the instinct to say i think that's why it has been po at the presenttent and powerful. a personal bookt' for you what s your familyso response been to t and one-on-one -- [laughter] i can only, i can only imagine the holidays. [laughter] what are those conversations like? is it created distance between you. or -- >> i'm the weirdo in my family. hi everybody. watching at home -- yeah. so they've always kind of looked at me as, you know, the --

the outsider i've always had these conversations with them, and even as i've start this side cover this thing i would get death threats from my reporting and then go home and my family would have a trump thing out front, and i wouldil go in and e like no people are threeping to kill me like no fake news. [laughter] so it has been very odd. but i do feel like because i've been able to talk to them and divorce instincts but they're weary of me and a weird cultural gap there. >> seem too that as my sense is that ultimately kurn seif that term is going to die out at some point right that it is tried to be used as a shield as you say to not just news that is truly fake as we saw during the 2016 election in a lot of different forms but also news that you just don't like right that you sorts of throw that up as the

shield. i wonder kevin with you we've tacked a lot about this whatting on the right. through thisut but, of course, t isn't the exclusive ownership of only one sietdz. when you look back through history are there other examples that jump out to you that feel that feels now sort of this critical or vital to the national discussion? >> i think what's fascinating is the way that hoax pop up in different times and so you know, i think very much barnum and others were capturing a moment of whether u.s. was trying to puns its history trying to connect to a path and sometimes you know having to invent it as great or however they wanted to think of it in a way it is a continuum right now people trying tow understand, and i don't true of that -- i think of it as political in the decent sense about power, it's about connections and who canit hoax first in a way sometimes.

but very much this connection between hoax and race is something i came tout understand as really an intimate thing. you know it isn't just about -- why we deceive but why we believe something so try to understand that kind of gap you're talking about. whyun do people believe that that -- that white girl from, you know, orange county is a south central gang member and sell her memoir which happenednd in like 2008. why did james frye sell trillions of copy was his book when it so, obviously, not real from if you step back. i think the hoax tells us something interesting because soon as it disappears or debunked i think harder and harder tods or something like pizza gate it reare veals we want to believe this -- kind of the worst things about each other. all right sir let us continue please. thank you.

okay. we'll continue i apologize for that destruction kevin go ahead. >> you know there's a lot of things that are hard to debunk, and once we do, though, it tells us something interesting about what we believe and i'm using term we because i think we all have and stake in it. you know, i'm not trying to o understand a sietdz or anything i'm trying to understand whys there's this constant belief. >> why, why, why fake news just came to our panel so i appreciate f you -- empowering -- perform family members -- also -- uncle billy come back. >> it's always god to catch up. >> i will always say it is fascinating we're talking about this idea of like pizza gate which is so absurd and laughable and left to a person to show up with assault rifle so that whole thing and again this goes back

to cog any taint distance and confirmation bias so in a time in the country where this divide in what people believe is so great that will we have people who sit here and talk about like -- liberals as if they're all criminals and seitannists and you know evil, evil people and that's confirms bias like at pits heart. if you're up here on you're talking about liberal ideas or you're talking about fake news then you're a pedophile or something like that. that is -- that's how deep this is now it can lead to those things like pizza gate and thank god no one died there. but we're looking at a -- ticking time bomb when it comes to that and who knows how or pa that goes. >> another example for me that was really powerful was rachel, the person who white person like the head of the naacp because she did her had hair a lot of people say quite well. respect people gave her -- [laughter] but she troubled me and then a

week later there was a charleston murders. and i tried to understand there's a part of the book that considers this the connection between the two. which wasn't just to me acts of crinology but they both misunderstood blackness in a certain way. asst a kind of tragic thing racl as i'm going to take that on as a figure of trauma but then also -- dylann roof praying sorry not meant to say his name aloud -- praying with people and then not being able toll kind of put together that they're praying with him and accepting him which i found very common in my church in -- kansas where i went to church and with linda brown a brown b. board piano teacher this was where the -- the heart of civil rights came and desegregation and they accepted him as other emanuel church and then he shot them all you know so that to me is a play

in the t hoax because -- the the hoax of race affected it them each. and ruth in different ways but it also brought them to this kind of essential trauma that is affiliated with blackness and that really troubled me. it should trouble us all because we're mispunsing each other but the hoax always is making use of those deep divisions in our culture. >> and i'm really glad that you brought up the charleston tragedy because i think america we're very bad at putting things in context right like a traj will happen and forget it be a couple of weeks later. the murders in charleston are so linkedded to what we're going through right now -- dylan r.o.v. who did it i again i hate to say his name but we have toens the person at the heart had of this thing he was radicalized by fake news when you read his manifesto and writings he left behind he had educated himself right this was a person who had gone online and found fake academic, fake

studies, fake websites he was so inundated with it he wrote i had toun do this. right, and it was all because he had been radicalized by this fake news. and we've lost track of that like when we talk about thing like charlottesville like these deaths that we've had -- we forget that the people of charleston were murdered because of this. and this doesn't stop in 2016, 2017. it goes back a long time and going to goo forward a long time until we put that into context as to how dangerous it tail is. >> it seems to me when you think of tragedies that we're all again directly affected by it. a lot of this i think are able to see will you it when i say that i want to make clear both on the left and right. but i think the real danger is which has been pointed the time and time again those people who exist on margin of our society and particularly vulnerable for whatever reasons ranging from mental illness to a level of hopelessness, the actions of one fern can be profoundly profoundly tragic for innocent

people around them. i think that's where that is where the danger is when we see these people sort of act out in that way beyond just what it has done to the deterioration of our discourse and ultimately the erosion of trust that we have and so many of our institutions that i t think we need. i think we desperately need a fully functioning government we desperately need a fully functioning first amendment and press. we need these things and i think that we -- thank you. [applause] ting that every time that it is chipped away even if it seems just like a little bit here and a little bit there every time that it has chipped away i worry that we're losing something that we're not going to recover i was a journalist for 20 years and here in austin. and loved my job and loved covering it but it did seem particularly with thean rise of the interkt that every story that we did it was heart disease hadder and hard hadder to break through a certain vail that my say you all worked so hard on certain stories or certain

issues nonpolitical and at that very moment they hijack it. i can remember reading something from the morning news literally about weather that deinvolved into m discussion of president obama. which is just -- absolutely he may not make it rain that was the rob. right --t but that is beside it and lose our ability to reason and jared i like what you've said when we seal ourselves off through twitter or social media where we're only with people who are like mindedd to ourselves what whatever that enmoose we lose sense of the person sit next to us who is a good and decent person even if they don't share our beliefs. >> i think both things are true. which is that i think journalism has been really important in say uncovering sexual assault recently and making people aware of things that they might have been aware of but now have these consequences so i hate to say that it's like we're in a tragic

moment of journalism but at the same time there's a kind of -- perhaps it goes even further back to thinking about what is october oivety is that a problem? i kind of talk about this in the book because -- it is affecting how we think about things and accuracy as our goal because that sometimes mean what is do you think about was it okay, you know? and it's sort of becomes a strange thing where there's a debate about, you know, the weather as you put it. or the change hadding of the weather. so i think that we have to kind of step back a little bit and not just think about well gee is journalism or internght because we built the internet we made it and we got the internet that we deserved. or at least, you know, someve of us -- deserved. but at the same time you know i think that the penny press when you look back had some of the same problems. but i think there was a kind of more interesting 19th century kind of self-awareness you know

you were, you knew you were a little bit entertained there was anan awareness when you were looking at barnum mermaid you go with a monkey to a fish tail and you were like okay and part of what you rebated to was how can i be so foolish not that i was fooled but i don't think that second part happens as much and i think instead of barnum promise that we're all experts anyone can be an expert that was part ofic the appeal. now there's expert no one can be expert in anything, in fact, to be ahi doctor or a scientist is- you know to be a fool. >> s right. >> i think that's the thing we have to think about less than the media or medium that comes to us at. >> yeah. that reminds me of on a plane a couple of weeks ago and the pilot got on and said that there was a dent in the tail that would not allow him to fly. and people on the plane starting

screaming at him to try to fly the plane. [laughter] but that is is -- that's a large part of what's happening here is -- [laughter] >> did you fly? >> no, i got off. [laughter] so question of this thing now, i think that we've actually been in denial of the difference between objectivity and subjectivity in this country i think we now have tool with the internet and our phones that we can now -- we can now create our own reality i think that impulse has always been there but i think that our media has also done us a disservice for longest time media pretended like octavety was their goal and we don't live where -- t objective journalism exist to tell the trot now is a partisan thing. right, we are now dealing with an exposensual crisis if we deal with what it is we're lying in

the name of objectivity and trump tweeted like an actual politician when, in fact, he should have treated as a disease. right -- [applause] [laughter] i will actually say going back to the book when i started going to these trump rallies i was watching on tv and to put a camera up and show him speak and thatto was it do you remember ts for a hour and a half, however, long you wanted to go no one was talking about what was going on at these rally the moment i stepped in i saw racial slurs, and all of this was building up underneath the surface but nobody wanted to talk about it because the news wanted to pretend to bers objective. and at the end of the day we're not we're living in a time where subjectivity is everythingew and any time that we pretend that it's not i think we're doing a disservice to reality. >> we're here with kevin young and jared yates we have 15

minutes left no our pabl and so if you have a question i would like you to begin to think about those we have some mics you can use your loud voice. i want to ask them one last question to wrap up but then go to that i want to remind you fail totdz say at the beginning signing and be author signing tent two tent down on congress immediately afterward i hope you mean buy their book and have them sign and meet them in person. up to kevin and jared and turn it over to the audience. you know often time when is we see in national elections is reaction to the election that came before it. even when you have incumbent in the office to some degree what we presume will happen in 2020 do you have a sense that the the tone, the dialogue, the conversation will change as a result of what we saw in 2016? or are we on course for more had of the name is >> no --

2018 and 2020 are bar brawls repulsive i hope bit time we're done with 2020 that electorate will be tired of all of this nonsense. that's my hope. [applause] people ask me or i ask myself is there something hopeful. there's a line that starts any book -- that's a a quote that, you know, one of the american peoplemented a tragedy with a happy ending so i was trace are the hoax as a tragedy but i was really looking for this happy ending thinking about, you know, is the hoax getting more frequent, and i came to think yes. and it's just get worse and i absolutely think so. and what's funny is that seems truer now than it seemed when i was writing it three years ago. so you know maybe sthig else can be truer. but in a few years but i also think there's a breaking point or tipping point where we start

to think again as critical receivers ofs whether it is news or even just -- autobiographical stories and i would love to fall back in art with with fiction and fiction as a place where you can explore yz but they arexp pretending to be real but that's where i think that the other damage it hurts people. the hoax -- it hurts, you know, our notion of truth but also hurts our notion of art and what art can do very well . >> i will also add i think one of the biggest dangers in this country is thinking that this will just get better because of a narrative right that this idea thatbe america will heal itself, this fake news subjective reality creeping in is not going to get fixed until we take education seriously in this country.

any notion that it will automatically correct itself is exactly what donald trump hope that american people believe because we have to be active and we have to like take this thing seriously or else it is here forever. : well said. we have a couple of people in line for question only thing i would ask is try to speak clear orallyt hopefully mics are working and try to keep questions as direct assk possib. yes, sir , please. >> yes i was wondering if you think that maybe it's time for journalism to change, because i think i think maybe it's journalism is falling short now when you have the press secretary of the -- of the executive branch come out and layer lie upon lie upon lie to cover and interference for her boss who later lie upon lie upon lie daily should not and you never hear anybody saying that's a lie you never hear anybody taking them on. you know --

[applause] i think there's a gap in the fact check cycle and people run and try to decipher it analyze and reject it but it takes x hours and that's the gap that people start working in there's a new i story that becomes very hard and that realization i think -- is the way that fake news sort of becomes a polite name for propaganda and i liked it better when it was just called prop propaganda but i also think jared would probably have a better -- >> i think there are two ways that news combats this, and i think it's time to take this seriously. number one, a we need to stop tiptoeing around theer fact that we're in a crisis. we need to stop having stories stop having stories and segments on the news where we talk about it and we want audience to fill in, you know, the blank. like it's not just -- that we have a president that people don't like it's that we have a president who is undermining democratic norms.

it's time that we start saying that. numberle two, i want to know who people are giving them money from i think onen the news every time someone comes on we should know who their donors and are because that is context that we're not getting i'm telling you that people even though inclined to believe it like my family that they see if you're giveing money they can make that leap and i think t those are things that we need to be doing. thanks had a lot. thank you for your question yes, sir please. a question for kevin you talked about role of those fenny papers and helping disseminate hopes back in the day what was the mainstream media of its time dealing and what was their take on the hoaxes and perhaps -- how does that compare to how mainstream media is covering thesepa sorts of things today? >> well two things one is i think the penny press quickly became mainstream you know and quicklyes became quite popular e

circulations rose dramatically from zero to 40,000 copies and lots of readers. but i also think that the mainstream media did a little bit what it does today which is responded to the story. and so they would often sort of recount okay the moon hoax is it a hoax. there were as interested in reproducing and reprecincting it because they wanted readers too. rather than sort of saying oh, here'sep why it is bunk. and i think that's what's interesting is this way in which the hoax becomes kind of containous. and you know, it's as much as people reprint it but also trying to gain readers but also -- you know, kind of say oh, gee i don't know. and not debunk it as quickly as we with might wish. >> damn i was hoping it was better in the good old days. yes, ma'am, please. >> has anyone suggested that the repeated use of the words state news, state news, state news

were donef deliberately in the event that the russian connectione was scoffed because then that would be discounted? >> i'm of the mind a lot of people ask me is donald trump -- or brilliant and i think a lot of this was done i where e took over control of the term fake news i think nobody understands the power of that term more than donald trump. and what he's done this entire time with his followers he just needs to give them a counterstory. that's it. and they'll take it and run with it. all they have to do to every scandal and problem is to give them another story and they'll go with it and fake news coopting this that story one of the most brilliant moves and i think it's inoculated. >> i think the news is divorce.

divorce in a way in the new book trace ares a bit. idea of u how o he emerge out of birtherrism quite specifically which we know now was a hoax where we may be new always. but that -- that was admittedly a hoax. but it has attraction the harder thing that is happening now is someone asked me, you know, is internts make these things worse and i don't know if it makes it worse. these things spread quite well before. but i think it's harder to get rids of them. you know the internght becomes a kind of semipermanent place where you can find what you want to find and that i think is the heart diseaser part there's still a risk among us. but we can't discount that connection of race in the hoax was what propelled national stage for trump and others all along. that notion in your book that americans want tragedy with a happy ending i think a lot of us and again ite think this cuts

across party lines a lot of us would think that to -- perpetrate that sort of hoax to say that president obama was not born in the united states that there would ultimately be a price to having been paid once proven that itit is, in fact, false and i think one of the things that was really troubling about this cycle is seem like there were few prices to be paid percent something like that. and that feels -- that feels newer to me than maybe what we have had previously. >> well it used to be in the past if you got caught in the lie you admitted that it was a lie no now dwump completely overloaded this system he won't admit it is a lie and everyone is like i don't know what to do now. that's that shamelessness and until you remember caught and you took your punishment. yes, ma'am, please. >> jared i was wound wherg you are on the campaign trail were you able to form an opinion about why these people are so hard core followers and

unshakable despite fact that this seems that his policies don't help their lives get better. [laughter] >> yeah, it's not about donald trump he's not about who he is. it's not about policies or principles which they are neither. he's an avatar it's look being a sports fan saying i'm a trump person says something about you personally. so now if you say i'm a trump person is means an entire world u view and opposition to liberal and progressivism and political correctness.an don't hi it matters what he does on a policy level. it doesn't matter what he says because now they're so tied into it again like a sports franchise right, if you like i don't know baltimore ravensd and you know - ing right you're in trouble. [laughter] right. but if you like the baltimore raven pains ray rice gets arrested for doing awful things that doesn't change how you feel about baltimore raven he's their

mascot and avatar i don't think they're going to abandon him. >> wow. peening our last question unfortunately is yes, ma'am, please. >>heor thanks i was wondering hs a consumer of news can we best ensure that we don't fall victim to some of this -- news that is not correct and then secondarily, how do you orp can you argue request somebody who is claiming fake news is there a way to -- rebuke that after you've found the facts? you can start and more is is more time spent with the news one reason we have proliferation is because we want everything cons traitd and given to us now every time i read an article and i want to consider it i spend like twoe to three pex tray like minutes like looking around making sure that other places have this.

if they can see you as a human and see your humanity and recognize it then they'll take to you and you find they'll make confession but if you start is with the disagreement it doesn't work but you have to show you're a person and go from there. . started with social media sometimes now and you get your news from twitter or wherever, so i think going beyond that going beyond the initial story i think is really helpful thinking critically, of course, and to what you said earlier, i mean, we all need civic lessons. i love those classes when i was a kid and why they there anymore and jim and art went south civic so we with lose this kind of outlet for understanding how even the government works. hoaxes in the fake about of that and how weoa can kind of get pat that. >> i would like to thank you all for being here and love to thank kevin young and jared yates i

hope you enjoy the rest of the festival ande remember to buy author book signing tent they'll be there immediately after this. thank you, again. an booktv coverage at the 22nd annual book festival live from the state capitol in austin will continue in a u few minutes. up next, an author discussion on climate change and ocean science.

booktv records hundreds throughout the country all year long and here's eivetses we're cover oing this week. on monday we're taking a tour of the book publisher in washington, d.c. to interview some of w the people responsible for bringing a book from acquisition to publication. on tows we head to the pilgrim hall museum in massachusetts where they'll have may flower voyage traveled to america in 1620. on wednesday we're at the city university of new york for robertiv editor in chief and

publishing director oversee fourth excellent award presented by the organization. and then own thursday at the ann and jerry moss theaters in los angeles cartoonist scott adams will discuss how donald trump used art of persuasion to win the presidency. on friday we're back in the nation's capitol at politics and pros bookstore to air msnbc host recall the 196 presidential election. and sunday8 emmy winning actor d will share his thought on the constitution and today's social and political issueil ors at the book in beaverton, oregon many of these are open to the public. look for them to air in near future on booktv on c-span2. >> what about trump supporters because question of questions by the way, that were submitted by many of you and i'll try to work in as many as i can without dropping -- all of the papers, and you know, obviously, you people turned on you. you needed support.

you were spit at. you would see families look like lovely family bus look closer dad is wearing a t-shirt that says hillary are sucks -- moread than monica does but not like monica. and you be taken aback but wait a second you have small children with them. there was that, and then there was the father which has two kids and his wife proudly wearing shirt that called hillary clinton a c-u-n-t a man that wore a shirt that said i wish hillary married o.j. i don't care your political belief is or think democrats have all of c the wrong ideas for this country or if they think republicans have the wrong ideas of this country. that was a shirt i hope essentially that hillary clinton was brutally stabbed to death in the 1990s that is so far beyond, what should be acceptabe for common decent city for behavior let alone politics. >> but do you think you got to know theic terms people --

and their -- this is boston. but i'm sure there are -- many in this room. and face wrote to ask you spoke about running into a trump sporter in the bathroom before a rally who helped you with your hair and act of kindness. >> you can't paint an entire group of supporters with a broad brush. i think it is a mistake to call i think i thought it was a huge mistake to call donald trump supporters deplorable . i don't think that's you shouldn't go after voters in this country and i don't thinkes it's a good idea to say that this voter are all a bunch of racist,f misogynists you know whatever name you want to ascribe to them. they are a -- very group of people from a number of different socioeconomic backgrounds. they some of them voted for president obama in the past. a lot of them were women. there are a variety of supporters. and at the same time they were

kind of people who -- often times would probably lives their live in a very are polite and, you know, rule abiding away not a non offensive way but something about walking into a trump rally that allowed people to shed all of those rules to shed those burdens at. i write in the book that trump had a halo of crudeness and in that halo of crudeness he allowedd everybody else to be kriewtd around him. he said whatever he wanted. he never backed down. and a lot of people found that refreshing if people who may be couldn't tell a joke any longer because it was a politically incorrect joke people who were worried that they have to watch what they said and watch what they did people who thought that their patriotism was being -- mistaken for racism. and they walked walked in thered they said ial can say and do whatever i'm thinking. >> we talked earlier about covering primaries and early on

i was in iowa and you could see the lineses at the trump rally there, and was calling back to say i'm meeting a lot of young men in particular who are trying to decide between bernie sanders and donald trump. >> certain bro culture to come out to the trump rallies. men who would wear tank tops and -- you know big make america great again hats that college -- culture that would show up and like enthusiasm of the event say i would to vote for this is kind of a broad brush i apologize but this is a demographic that i'm talking about, really like to either bernie sanders or like donald trump. and it was because they wanted anan ows oar they wanted someboy different somebody refreshing somebody who wasn't part of the establishment somebody who does name they hadn't been hearing their whole life like hillary clinton somebodyha who wasn't

afraid to t take on the system bernie sandersla had that quali. so did donald trump and they wanted a better opportunity. >> they wanted a disrupter too. definitely wanted a disrupter. i thought i observed this that -- constantly saw people who saw -- something might see as appalling like t-shirts you mention ed and they thought they were -- perfectly acceptable parallel reality of what they might have seen for instance, when george bush george b. bush invasion of iraq and so many against that if you had gone to the antiwar rally in washington you would have seen people wearing very disparaging t-shirts about george bush and they really felt it was the same.

>> yeah. and those arguments made for that. i think that's just a sign of how corrosive our politics and ourit public discourse has beco. it's -- it's the question is where does it bo from here? do we correct it. does it get better for 2020 for 2024? or are we going to see even more -- crude language crude behavior. is there going to be a line of that is too far a brnl too far? or where do we go? watch this and other programs online at a booktv.org. here's a look at some of the current best selling books according tobook p book people bookstore in austin, texas top oing list is kate dawson environmental disaster that hit london in december 1952. while at the same time a serial killers was on theec loose in te city. inle death in the air.

then chris offers advice on launching profitable business inside hustle followed by recount of the turning point of the vietnam war. 1968, next russian american jowrnist reports onts generation of russians who came of age during the piewtsen gel in the national book award nominated the future is history. and in fifth is alan jacob advice on how to think. our look at the best selling books according to book people bookstore in austin continues with best selling biographer walt per isakson leonardo da vinci and share experiences growing up in the political spotlight in sisters first. followed by mark mann son advice on leading a happier life. next roger hog deputy editor of the interpret shares his family history of ranching in texas bloods. and wrappingry up our look at te best selling nonfiction books according to beak people bookstore in austin texas.

is vacation land. a i memoir from humorist john. some of the these authors have or o will be appearing on beak tv. you can watch them on our website booktv.org. atlanta was a transportation hub for railroad are it is got really crowded in the middle. bit late 1880s they began to build beltline railroads to go outside of that center. and there were four different ones so that ryan idea to connect them was unusual because they never were connected but ownne od by four different railroads. and there were -- industry built up around them and then streetcars came in the late 1800s and this magnificent network of street carsag in atlanta. and in their infinite wisdom one

year after i was born in 1948 they destroyed pawflt streetcars in atlanta. why? abuse they were old fashioned. why? because starting around 1915 atlanta really began to switch to automobiles. and trucks -- there's a fir in the book of downtown atlanta in 1914. and it had a few streetcars, it had a lot off pedestrians just walking across the street and 5 points ofac atlanta. and there were some horses in buggies with a couple of cars and then there's a picture on the next page from 1924, 10 years later it was -- all cars with some street cars tacked in so people began to complain that streetcars were in the way of the cars and there was traffic jams and so they fended upha building the streets over the middle of town that's how downtown --

how underground atlanta came to be. in the process of cars and trucks taking over, these beltline railroads died. the industry's moved further out because it was cheaper land and they could be serviced by trucks. so by the 199 os when ryan was writing this master thesis it was mostly a carter i have a picture in the book that's just covered with vine and qeedz and there were homeless encampments along it, and so ryan wrote this thing, and said we should, you know, preem beginningng to come back into town we should turn this into this violates network take advantage of the infrastructure that we already have instead of trying to make up some grand new thing which atlanta tends to do. and he saw it as something that could change the city and it was

well written and actually online you can find his thesis also let me just say ryan wrote a book himself where he want to live that came out last year it is a very good book and our books are kind of complimentary because his is kind of a big picture book about what we should do as cities and -- et cetera. mine is a very you'll are find knity imrity book soft down on the streets and meeting the people there and -- a different approach. and mine is much more about atlanta. specifically -- so he wrote this brilliant thesis on the shelf and thought nothing would ever come of it like most master thesis, so he went to work for an architectural firm one year later at lurnl he and his colleagues talking about what they have written their master thesis on and he explains his and they said wow that's fantastic. bring that in let us look at it.

they read it, and they said you've got to do something with it so together they wrote a letter and they sent it to fever every georgia politician and planner and environmental people -- and they all wrote back and said that's a terrific idea. good luck with that. except one person kathy who was running for mayor right now along with eight other it is in the city of atlanta and kathy championeded it this idea and so did ryan and they sort of built a grass roots organization for a few i years in 2004 mayor shirly franklin took it on, and it developed into a bureaucracy which we have now. she found ray weeks who was a businessmann who had sort of semiretired had enough money to donate his time which he did for powrp yearsch for this project d i've gotten to know all of these people, and i've interviewed

like 400 people for this book. in the last -- six yearsrs and so i began to wk on it in 2011 . and so they try to figure out how could they fund it oh, and in the process ryan's original idea of run aring streetcars around morphed very quickly his friends said well why don't we put a trail by it where people can ride bikes on it and why don't we have people be able to walk along it -- and then jim who was at the time in charm of the trust for public land -- somebody said they wanted help turning the sort of -- south of this big old sears building on the avenue into a park. i and they said you can make this into a park and alleviate

flooding byin building retention pond there. and he thought that was a great idea but -- the beltline was all in the news at that point the ideas of it. and he said you know, look at the map it goes right up to piedmont park through the pack and if we built this park down here, and oh, look -- this is other park down here in this neighborhood. and he realized that it connected a bunch of parks why not make it a green wisconsin and a linear park that connected parks and so he hired alexander who was a world famous city planner. who i also got to know through this. to come down here and to try to figure out what kind of parks you could have and atlanta is severely underparked. we have a lot of trees in this city. beautiful trees -- but most of them are in peoples' backyards most are not in public places.

and in metro atlanta which is this huge sprawling mess of 6 million people or so now -- they're losing land at an alarming rate. and losing trees at an alarming rate. you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. here's a look the some books that are being publish this had week. best selling biographer robert explores the political life of president franklin d. roosevelt obama takens an inside look at the presidency of barack obama through the lens of former chief qhows photographer are teeth in playing with fire msnbc rekowngts the 1968 presidential election, and form offer democratic national committee chair donna brazil reflects on russian hacking of the dnc, and had the 2016 election in hats. also being published this week, in 8 seconds of courage captain flow goldburg recalls his military carry from childhood in

paris to reward first grant to receive honor since the vietnam war. in president mckinley mary looks at legacy of the 25th president. former cbs news anchor dan rather shares thoughts on patriotism in, what unites us. and in when the world seemed new, jeffrey examines president george h. bush at the start of the cold world and look for these in this comes week and watch for many authors in near future onbook tv on krshes span 2. c-span2. and you're watching booktv on c-span2, it's television for serious readers and this is live coverage of the texas book festival in austin. now up next you're going to hear

from the head of cambridge, with university polar ocean physics group and you're going to hear from ocean scientists julie and they're going to talk about the effects of climate change live coverage of the texas book festival. okay, hello everybody. welcome to the c changed session of the 2017 texas book festival the 22nd annual texas book festival. it's great to have you all here, i'm dr. spencer wells i'm a geneticist and anthropologist sometimes author. for many years i was the explore resident e for the national geographic society and directed the project. which was an effort to use

genetics to study how our species has populated the world and lived here in austin founter ceo of a term here in town. and co-owner of a nightclub -- [applause] [laughter] i would like to introduce our authors we have julie who is an austin based science writer and editor who is contributed to publication suchch as "new york times," nature, national geographic, and slate. she has a ph.d. in ocean science from university of southern california. and she as i said lives here in austin. she's the author of spineless which we'll be talking about today. [applause] then we have peter who is the professor of ocean physics and head of the polar ocean physics

group cambridge university in the u.k. he is visiting professorship at the national institute of po polar research and university of washington, and currently at the scripts institution of oceanography. and he's the author of a farewell to ice which will be discussing as well. [applause] quick reminders after this session authors are signing if books courtesy of book peopleti in austin institution and when you boy a book you support author and festival and local independent book stores texas book festival is nonprofit organization. it's mission is to support low income students and texas with author visits and book donations by its reading rock stars program. and also to fund grant for libraries throughout the state of texas so your book purchase really does make a difference. okay, i think we're going to

kick it off there. well, let's get into this. so julie spineless is about jellyfish. >> it is. >> had is an interesting top topic, in fact, yesterday was world jellyfish day. >> i was surprised to find out about that a as everyone. [laughter] >> jellyfish i everybody i think has experienced a jellyfish sting out in the wild, so to speak, swimming in u the ocean w most of us know about jellyfish how i was turned on to how pass it thatting jelly are when i visited the bay back had the 90s with that jellyfish exhibit with oblique light you can see what creatures were like and what they were doing. what was your journey to writing a book about jellyfish? >> i -- yeah i didn't start with thefi beauty of the jellyfish which is actually as i went around to talk to scientists why they study ised them they said it was the u beauty that pulled them in but for - me i was actually --

i was textbook writer here in austin, and i started mainstream writing and working on a story about ocean acidification, and they had that sort of classic graphic that national geographic has that says winners and losers in a future acidified sea and on winner side were things like algae microalgae, kelp and jellyfish and i thought -- do we really know that like have we done experiments to know that jellyfish can do well in a future ocean, so i dove into the scientific literature, and i found that -- we hadn't reallynd done the experiments to know that. but i also found that this like really interesting scientific argument going on which was what's happening to jellyfish in today's oceans.

and a lot of the things we're doing to the seas are making life better for jellyfish the things like worming, asis acidification and runoff of fertilize terse that causes dead zone scwb overfishing, illegal fishing, those --l all of the these things jellyfish seem to tolerate them very well so there was this big discussion in the scientific literature like are jellyfish taking over ecosystems? and then there was a pushback saying we just don't know and it turned out that we sort of systemically not studied jellyfish for 20th century because once we studied by pulling big nets using werchls and motors, our view of the ocean became bias to things that are durable that are hard enough to handle that kind of treatment before we look at them. so it was just to me it was this

incredible scientific question that really led me into the world of jellyfish. >> very cool. so jellyfish are really interesting they're animals. >> indeeds animal. >> complex behaviors. including sleeping -- >> yes oddly enough a new study that just came out a couple of weeks ago and yet they have no centralized nervous system they don't have a brain. so h how does that work tell usa little bit about the life history of jellyfish and some of the biology which is so fascinating. >> yeah, and i might take this moment to say there's a secret in my book that -- some people aren't really picking up on so much but the book is based on like the way i structured the book is based on life cycle of the jellyfish. so -- so the jellyfish starts off as a little you know a medusa males and females they have egg and sperm that form a larva and that is tiny like a tic tac with fur on it so the first section of my

book is the idea of the book. and then that thing settled and it becomes a polyp and polyp is like one with tengt tentacles that lived for many years likes it actually live upside down, and it can live for many, many years like that so in the second section of the book i -- sort off planted here in texas learning about jellyfish science,ci and then what happens is -- at some point given some environmental cue that polyp will go into a stack of plates and -- this is when i sort of realize i have to get out of texas and find out more about jellyfish around the world with and it pops up and becomes baby jellyfish then later become medusa mature jellyfish and whole thing starts over again so they have this complex life cycle two parts --

medusa is is definitely not the only part of a jellyfish everyone though it is what most people think of as a jellyfish i'm probably going on too long but question of how back to like the initial thingng how do they get around in the ocean if you look carefully at a medusa in aquarium you will see around the enof the bell this intensification every once in a while those are sensory organs in each one of there are couplized usually thing called a touch plate which is like -- something that can reach out into the water and smell chemicals, and sense currents. there's a -- balance sensor like in our inner ears -- there's a thing called a pacemaker which had controls how fast it pulses. so each one of these different repel from around parking lot enof the bell, the nerves run u through these and through the pacemakers and --

all of the information from directions that jellyfish is experiencing as it moves through the water. so although they're not like we are -- and they don't have a brain that, you know, at the top they have this very interesting integrated interconnected intelligence for ability to get around the world that has gwinn enough capability and evolutionary success that they've -- they're, you know, oldest animal still swimming in our sea. so yeah they're quite adepth at what they do.l >> very cool love natural history. [laughter] okay peter switch to you now. your book is about ice among other things. but ice is where you kind of start with the book and you talk about first going to the arctic and 1970 on the the research ship hudson. u how did that happen and why did you become interested in ice in the first place? in the arctic in particular? >> i was always interested in

the ocean and the first ocean graphic voyage i had opportunity to take part in when i was young and it was a canadian ship goirng going around north and south america of the hudson it was first and only time that the americas have been so navigated and it took a year to do it. and that meant we were started off going down the arctic and on the way back we clail u through the northwest passage so plenty of tile to study isoit was very interested in that. opposed to warm waters in between and those days very few people were working on isoa lot of unsolved problems that was a very interesting teeld. now ice has become much more important mainly because it is disappearing. so a large fraction of the world environmental scientists are now interested in ice.

>> so ice and shrinking ice sheets we hear about that a lot in the news, but this whole -- habit of observing ice patterns goes back to whalers of all people like william you mentioned in book in the 18th and 19th century, tell us laicts a little bit about that and why what i whalers were so important. >> before whaling phillips when they really wiped whales out because they could catch the fast swimming whales. it was important in the arctic, in fact, whaling in the arctic produced the oil that was used to light towns in new england it must be using whale oil to light a street. and that was all whales ugh caught in greenland and in the bay and whalers in doing that

may very equal orves about the ice howw much there was, for instance, there's a big -- protrusion of ice on the east coast to greenland that whalers for the first ones to notice and that recently disappeared which is -- epic climatic effect so valuable in telling us where ice limits were in the 1*9th century that helped to shows how much ice retreated over last few years relative to those day. >> excellent. julie three words for you jelly and passive margin. explain. [laughter] i can pass that test one of the coolest story i found when i was kind of following as i was -- writing the book i would start to plan our family vai says so that i could go to tack to jellyfish scientists, and

we were on cape cod i started talking to these two jellyfish scientists who is work on the biomechanics of jellyfish which is how they move and they have actually just been given a grant bit navy to try to build a robotic jell jelly and navy was thinking that they could bet like surveillance you know they use very little energy so they could kind of hang out in base and surveil and i don't know. but they never let me just say i don't think there aret new jelly on os out there or anything.he but anyway, in the course of making the robotic jell isly created this -- this silicone cell and they put some mussels in it and robotic parts, and what they did, you know, they turn it on and it squeezes. it squeezes and it, you know, it moves forward, and they turn it off and it opens and goes back to where i it started they were like what, it goes forward and

they open it and it goes back leak a yo-yo and they're like we've got something wrong and this one graduate striewnt was like they're supposed to be a little flap around edge of the bell. i didn't have time to blew it on. maybe we should glue that on so they said okay so they pull it out of the tank and dry it off and glue this silicone you know u you're are seeing this enof the jellly fish and they glue it on and put it back in the tank and turn on power and it goes -- just like out of the sight like the sail as a jellyfish so the discovery is that that path of massage with no mussel in it but moves as a consequence of the bell moving. is everything to pushing something forward through the quarter. it create ares these turbulent eddies that jellyfish can push against to move forward but it actually that wasn't even the whole story. they continue to work on the

product and able to create almost like a map of the pressure field around the jellyfish and what they discovered is like when we push we create like a lie pressure zone behind us and we push off that to go forward. we're terrestrial creatures we have no thick things arranged us but in the water it is more so bending of the jellyfish doesn't just push back against the water but it actually creates a suction in front of the jellyfish's bell a low pressure system like -- when we suck in air from our chest so that low pressure is actually a great contributes more to the movement of the jellyfish than the high pressure in the back. sort they started looking around the world, ocean, at lots of things that swim and notice that everything bends it's all flips and flops in the ocean. and that whole reason is because it creates this low pressure in

front of the animal that sucks it through the water. and as we've been building ships and submarines all things to explore, the oceans we've also just used our terrestrial proif like let's push back against the water but, in fact, question should be bend creating bendy vehicles to be underwater because it's much more efficient, in fact, jellyfish are the most efficient swimmer that they looked at even, you know, compared so salmon we think of as a powerful swimmer jellyfish use way, fifth as much energy to move the same distance as a salmon does. so yeah really cool -- it is very cool story. biomimicry paying attention to nature. tell us a little bit about day glow jellies. [laughter] >> so this is another great story from the jellyfish that is maybe not so quell known that is that -- both many jellyfish glow and

they live all over they don't just live in the surface or in coastlines. i but they live throughout the ocean and in the deep waters it is one of the major probably major way of communication is -- the animals make little screams and call to come meet me, you know check me out and go away. so is it part i'm getting eaten help me. all of those they make these calls that have these different minings.nt and jellyfish are experienced an good at that. and in the 70s they were trying to understand what makes it happen and this one scientist was working with on that question in jellyfish in sound. and yeah, i mean, interestingly he had actually was about a few miles away from nagasaki when it

was atomic bomb so an interesting life story. anyway he was able to purify that chemicals which are -- out of o this jellyfish from sound and then when he noticed it was that purify glow, that glow of that was blue. but the jellyfish in the ocean glow green. and so how is, what was going on there, and he went on to discover that there was a small protein called screen fluorescent protein which takes the blue light and shift it is to the green wavelength and it is a very self-contained unit. it doesn't need an endiseem to work or anything but it just needs plight so it is very sturdy and so -- some biochemist and jbtist picked upbi on this and they wee like we can take the dna and insert i it in front of genes interested in setting in animals

and it will light up almost like adding a sentence to an e-mail before you forward it. so -- i every time it is expressed it will be as well so it's all glowing all started with the green g protein from the jellyfh and then there have been other o foal a guy nailed martin chel see who figured with the protein o now it cools in every color of the rainbow really, and so this -- theseean scientists won nobel pe for their work. on day glow jellies. funding for science -- [laughter] but speaking of basic science feater p peter we're going to get into the discussion, obviously, o o about present day climate change human induced climate change but give us some context tell us about the cycles in these longer periods of

climatic shift that happens over millions of years. >> say something that's happening to sea ice nows in the last few -- decades. because when i fist started working arctic the ice that we could see was very much very, veryc heavy ice mostly that's u can see the picture which is really thick. liketa mountains of ice occupyig the whole of the arctic ocean between north america and the asia. and so the ceiling psychological feeling was that -- the world northern hemisphere join together at the top because the ice extends to the arctic to join canada to russia and we all won. that's inn recent years the ice has been retreating fastener the summer but also this the winter as well. so that instead of her

continuous cover across arctic you have now -- you have open seas in summer months which has changed everything. it changes nature of the ocean itselflf and has produced a lotf feedbackba effects and one that- first part of my book is actually concerned with this becausehi when you see this sea ice retreating and thinner ice and less over the year the temptation to say this is a curiosity and it, obviously, is global g warming has caused it. but it's just that curiosity like disappearance of last years from kilimanjaro. but, in fact, what we find oinging is that the los of ice fromce the arctic is having much bigger effects elsewhere in the climate system. so we can't just think of arctic sea ice retreat by itself. it's affecting the whole climate system so greater extent than

just the los o of ice. so the -- openen watering of the summer is giving us warmerrer air to spreads over the greenland ice sheet and that's making greenland melt faster give us increase in the rate of sea level rise globally so that's notable here in the gulf of mexico everywhere, in fact, in the world.. so you'll have at least rising in accelerated rate. and that's extra contribution is mainly from the melting of the green ice sheet that's due to the ice sea ice retreating in the arctic and another effect is that --ff we're getting possibility of -- of higher amounts released from arctic ocean surface because in saint harold under the shelve was of the arctic and actually

the throw beds sediments fall out from ice age that allows me below to get out and we're now seeing big coming u up into the atmosphere, and again causing an acceleration of global warming, and the i guess the final but not final but as to more serious lake effect which affect people here, are the fact that -- the as sea ice retreats getting wearl the arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world. so the temperature difference between the arctic and the lower latitude l is going down and that's reducing strength of the jet stream that's the -- rapid air wind mass that separates from tropical air and you experience it when you fly from u.s. to europe it helps you

on your way and that jet stream is slowed down because winds have decreased in strength because the temperature goes down, and the jet is stream now is producing big -- instead of being straight. it's in -- vertical low and each low brings polar air down into some low latitude region like the midwest, and warmer air it takes it up towards high per lat tiewt where it shouldn't be like -- northeast so finding regions in attitude where it is exceptionally hot or exceptionally cold and these extremes of weather being -- have been seen for past eight years coinciding with the retreat of sea ice, and they span the latitudes where we are getting most com production so they're having a disruptive effect on crops and causing global food crisis to rise which

is really serious preferred for third world countries so we're finding another effect on the global food production that's -- the life of people. and finally set which is really important for around here with the hurricanes is the fact that in up north screen them this place i mentioned which was first spotted whalers is a location where ice used to blow in the winter and cause the surface water to sink. the ice reject and into the ocean and that produce help to produce a slow circulation of water in the atlantic. not the same as gulf stroam but in the same direction. and that circulation in the line circulation hasne slowed down because that is not being produced anymore and the a resut is for less warm water from the gulf and caribbean being carried

to northwest europe, and that means because just as much heat going with into the world that means the hot water stay down here. and the surface water temperature down in the gull and caribbean is warming up faster because water is not being transported t as officially up o europe so europe is cooling down but it iss warming slowly. but the gulf is warmer faster, and this hot water is what intensifies hurricanes the warmer the water the surface the more intense the hurricane. so we'rere getting hurricane intensification because of this slowing down of this current which takes water away to northwest europe so there's a -- i guess point for those is that sea ice retreat doesn't just affect the arctic but aivetses whole planet and some parts of the planet are affected much worse than the arctic itself.

and one of the places affected sadly is -- is around here because of hurricanes get mother intense, and sea level rise affecting low, low altitude reames which is it a lot of the gulf coast quarter and w louisiana. >> great, so peter in your book you talk about this notion of tipping points. u do you feel that we have reached a tipping point respect to climate change? >> yes, i think we have. we a tipping point is where if you stop poking something with a stick it goes back to sleep. that's as if you don't have a tipping point and you poke a lion with a stick -- then you stop poking it goes back to sleep and everything is okay. if you have reached tipping point you p poke and it it comes to eat you so irreversible process it's a science --

and question is have we stressed the climate or planet so much with extra. but if we manage to find a way to take it away, then we'll go back to where we were before and i think w we still can. i think we haven't reached that tipping point that say -- mars or venus reached where they lohse all of their water and became completely lifeless. but we ---- we can go back. but we have to first of all stop producing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and then we have to more important, i think, is we have to find a way to take a lot of it out of o atmosphere we have a lot too much in the atmosphere now. what we've got , what we have put in already is u enough to give us an accept public global warming. it's not a question of reducing emissions we have to not only reduce emissions but we have to get rid of the stuff that is there already so we need a big research effort on methods to

take in carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere directly. and it's just technology. but it needs a lot of money to develop it. but once we develop it we've sold global warming so we can see what we need and feel totally gloomy about global warming because we can find a way to get that to the atmosphere if we spend enough on research to do it. >> in fact, you have done research about efforts that are going on in texas. on the coast in gee engineering projects? >> well i work up at u.t. part-time with a group that does carbon sequestration, and yes, it's a really, you know, the idea is that you take carbon dioxide from a power plant and you inject it back into the reservoirs where the original fossil fuels were extracted. and it's been done in west texas as part of a process called enhanced oil recovery for 50 years, i think. ... of expertise

about carbon sequestration, and, in fact, there's a project down on near houston called net carbon, which is -- one of the big problems with carbon sequestration is added cost to the electricity. but there's a innovative project happening there's innovation everywhere it is like peter's point you know we -- i do think we have are the capacity to solve these problems and this is one toilet mention because it is interesting there's a problem called net carbon down near houston where they >> >> to turn the turbines as opposed to regular fossil fuel plants extract to get carbon dioxide and those go off as her lit - - pollution and use the heat to boil water to make steam

so you have lost at every level so this is a much more e fisher way with the idea you can scale this it is creative ways to attack some of these problems affecting the ocean that what the ice is telling us as well as giving d.c. the effects of the jellyfish population?. >> yes. is uncertain if police is certainly lead jellyfish that has invaded the easter better treated originally was from the indian ocean which is quite warm it did the past it probably couldn't survive in the eastern mediterranean because it is cooler but that has warmed disproportional the and it is much warmer and they came through the suez canal or

the water that ships through the suez canal and have been deposited in now forming blooms that are miles big every summer. and these s jellyfish have really bad steamers. -- steamers you cannot go to the beach when they bloom but they washin to the power plants that use the water to cool the machinery it is like 1,000,006 stoppers so that shuts down operations you can rule it is containerships fall of jellyfish have to do is scoop out someone the that happened in australia one got put into the uss ronald reagan which is like a big aircraft carrier and incapacitated it.

they are responding to the changes in the ocean and in the six species could take a of the new habitats for being as we warm the ocean. >> therema is all of this evidence scientifically for climate change caused by human activity. but a lot of people are reluctant to except this is a and t issue just like at texas tech university said they believe it could affect a region or country but not them personally. in deerfield you are an advocate rather than a scientist. >> teeeight scientist is an advocate because the evidence is so powerful so

that it can't really be refuted like if you see facts were rigo the news that may be causing that. so there is always room for doubt in science or another explanationhi but there are some things that our refundable like gravity or that water flows downhill and to + 2 = four so there should be respectful of the facts and one fact is that carbon dioxide is formed in the b atmosphere is high-school physics if you have a ball floating in space that temperature of the earth is the balance of the radiation from the sun

which is t constant and the irradiation of the earth itself that it emits because of the r temperature. if you have an atmosphere covering the years than the lady in the front -- the radiation cannot get out because of carbon dioxide is absorbing basket is like a greenhouse and then the more carbon dioxide there is the more the carbon dioxide is held back but you cannot get anything out other there of the warming of the plan is to adjust to say it doesn't affect the climate is absolutely wrong. it is not just opinion but it is like saying that water flows uphill. you have to except some basics that all scientists accept but beyond

that the magnitude is where there is the disagreement of what will happen first? will we start starving because of lack of food or neither?. >> on that note. [laughter] we will open to the audience if you have questions i assure you have a lot of questions for our panel. >> we read about the gas reserves and there are those that work diligently to get the fuel out some bacon

burger added to the atmosphere so i don't know how to interpret the numbers that are involved so with these reserves they are actively pushing out i owe it depends on how fast of the carbon dioxide but if we know the rate is there a ballpark figure as the effect of spreading this out there will have sole lead we talk to our representatives to say this is not good?. >>. >> about two-thirds of the read the reserves of oil should stay the ground. we cannot a have a ration of

what we can bird and still keep which leaves two-thirds of the reserves cannot be consumed but psychologically it is unlikely they will all that really been cruel and oil to state in the ground so that authorities that kids have to be used force you to remove all because it is that irresistible urge to did former oriole and all the nationsde of the world have that despite the face they are reducing carbon emissions so we cannot get that type of restraint if we're going to drill then we have to find another way to

get rid of the carbon dioxide. >> i've left miami for years ago i lived there my whole life and one of the reasons was the sea level rise and since i have left the city has put millions into a pub on the miami beach to keep the high tide off of the street if it doesn't look like it has done much good. so i have heard so much how the irs is guilty of all the wind blowing space in the antarctic from the west is melting under the i.c.e. it seems like is happening so much quicker. that we could see that happening in our lifetime

which is amazing. should everyone move away from the coast now? [laughter] >> we should be careful with the goldwater because this the level rise previously thought was half a meter by the end of the century but that is one brief by feet but it keeps going because of the accelerated militants of greenery and a good now in antarctica is seems to be atct least 3 feet some predictions are 6 feet which means we could see changes in places like korea be very fast with in a lifetime and coastal real estate will stop being a high price.

[laughter] >> i have a question you could burn cancer. i just read an article today that the ability of the i.c.e. in the northwest passage has changed the of gulfstream into the animals that lived in the area of the fjord. is this reversible? laura what is growing there now is less theot atrocious in the birds and fish do not live as well? how reversible are these?. >> in terms of biology i begin is a very difficult question. what we have seen with the coral reef affected by

climate change already vacated be resilient. but by a pollution and the red sea and once they were put into place the restrictions of the of pollution that can go on around there. if the golan over a decade. so zero is in terms of the biology, there is a lot to be hopeful for and we will come back to what it was but it could be that ecosystem i

never go if he could be answered that question but we need to start paying attention. how about that? stick the first time i went we have to fashion that icebreaker in greece still got stuck. >> i have concern of solfeggio engineeringd aspect. but we see the kim but the engineers of the problem but ourur history of the unintended consequences is not good.

so that is the unintended consequences but in the sense with that for station. the trouble is it is indeed not fully and. there with that you engineering.sp so that spreads over the whole planet. likely be the indian monsoon. but that happens before a the effects are. in here you put seawater

through those tiny nozzles into the bottoms of the clouds. and then you were putting something in the atmosphere. and with that harmful consequences. so that is probably the least harmful for above the jury. >> we will wrap up. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

did. >> cry was holding and myself will render -- myself kore yen to i went to check the message that said this is not a great. it is the white house. come down to washington d.c. tamara to meet with the president of. i setup okay. i had reservations but i said i will go. so if they had the autistic

impose to say why a hot day trying to write with this narrative? i went to the white house there is me and other journalists and they have assigned seating. id you have to sit where they telll you if you cannot choose. my nameplate was here in obama of was there. [laughter] i knew what this was. sit to my face. [laughter] >> aggressive world but i was shook.

i sit next to him but ikea and release date when i was thinking.i imf church. asking some weeks and to release questions to the president and say i saw that. in then went off on me. but have felt likeau that. saw he went back in and i

hate those speeches and gave it again. i said i am not shocked. bathing abramoff paula deen did you will not do it. so now i said numerous see all of this. [laughter] so i get the final call. [laughter] it is a strange a number knu come tomorrow? and i said was since i will go down again but i am not shook thise] time. yes. yes. [laughter] i

did you all got on the trade i had the ball lit on my eight negative '09 listen to whittle away on the train. i get down there the traffic we are they to. i get out of the cabin without the umbrella. it is reading. they're calling me while i am in the cab. this a is the president show some respect. i did that the route is all white. and again, is assigned

seating. i am ready. i'm late but i have not shook. [laughter] he says it is nice of you to read as. so now like the high-level our people. i am not seeing myself like that. to meet with ford policy, and the environment to take all of these on in detail. so with that display of brilliance it is like get him.

[laughter] like this black dude. i have to do what i have to do. [laughter] so my time comes. i ask the hard question is nowri i am writing down statistics but the end is in mississippi two-thirds of an employment. can i respond? so can i respond? he says yes. please ignore the right people are in the river i cannot tell you my reaction is in the book but people are looking like an ally god. [laughter]

it is now a spectator sport. and then be leaving and think about this intake is to the highest offices of the a country this is the moment. and he said the road is littered with writers propose so just go google .... lot off people have tried this. nobody remembers. if anybody can do you can do

a. fifth the we did notui quite dodo it. [applause] for robert pex ploars political life of president franklin d. roosevelt. obama takes inside look at the presidency of barack obama through the lens of former chief white house photographer pete, and playing with fire msnb has the presidential election, and former democratic national committee chair donna brazil reflectings on russian hacking of the dnc and the 2016 election in hacks. also being published this week in 8 seconds of courage captain goldberg recalls military career from his childhood in pairs to being awarded congressional melds of honor in 2015 first immigrant to receive the honor since the vietnam war.

in president mckinley historian looks at legacy of the 25th president. former cbs news anchor dan shares his thoughts on patriotism in -- what unites us, and in when the world seemed us in, jeffrey pink l exams president george bush initiative at the start of the post cold war world look for titles in book sthoars coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on c-span 2. does anyone else have an experience they would want to share tyrone asks about . >> does anybody elseca have an experience to share? turning to drugs and alcohol talking about getting arrested for smoking a blunt. so may i say something later? after a but a pause in the discussion? that no

one to take up everybody's time in the group thinks were letting me speak. >> just talked. but i struggled with alcohol for so long i have been sober since getting locked up i hope i can stay clean when i get out. >> he seems more comfortable and continues talking. but would not do a good enough job.

[inaudible conversations] good afternoon welcome to the texas book festival and our panel of mass incarceration live from the university of texas at austin and we have to very

brilliant and important scholars activists today talking about to bring a new books to my immediate left is james forman professor of at yale in his book is called a locking up of our own.e [applause] and then we have danielle allen university professor at harvard university and her new book is called "cuz" [applause] before we begin the both of

these are what i he is the number one civil rights issuee of our time the proliferation of mass incarceration in the united states the way that this has disfigured and distorted america and democracy and multiple levels of race and class it gender and sexuality in mental-health and citizenship what it means to be an american. and that they utilize this academic knowledge with personal experience. especiallyie "cuz" by danielle allen so professor you rh a very well known philosopher and this is such an intimate portrayal of a cousin of yours who was caught up in in the criminal-justice system so what inspired you to write the book?.

>> personal and want to say how glad i n to be here in austin and things to all of you for dirty now with the panel i do agree this is a civil-rights issue of ourht time h so as to have you here listening with us means a lot. thanks for being here. so i want to read the final chapter of the book is the easiest way to areas that it is a paragraph long. so in my heart five brown skin kids and cousins will be forever at play in the june sunshine. i love to climb trees as much as my cousin michael.

but to jump out from the treeun peas and purple blooms press andently the fragile blossom be merged but meanwhile inside the house through the pitcher winter -- picture window the adults were distracted with talk. as of now trades your question i grew up with a huge is said the of cousins myli dad had 11 brothers and sisters and their three children of my father jim first daughter so maybe because said was the youngest of this huge family and be grouped together as

equals that is the point of that final conclude being passage bound by the love of family i am a professor of harvard and my cousin is dead. he went to prison at 15 on the first arrest for the attempted carjacking it is terrible thing to talk about the person that you live with the attempted carjacking but deal the person who got hurt was my goal in the imbalance he was shot in the neck he obviously confessed but in addition he confessed to robbing threees people previously and another person the week before it came out of the blue. we were caught completely by surprise. california past threend strikes you're t out 18 months earlier. so he went to trial and convicted and then go to

jail 25 years so he plea deal thin when it for 12 years and was out at 26. i helped of college courses i was the cousin on duty when he got out to help him withn reentry. so i wrote this story the way inequality works is abstract. with those five kids growing up together in that

difficult a as he ended up in south-central los angeles with those temptations and violent crime and that we have responsibility for. ted asked me to give the states of lectures i kept deferring the date i kept getting a bad abstract title after americans in the of 21st century and finally said they don't have to givee the lectures. but the only way i possibly pretend for what happened to those african-americans was to tell my cousins story so

that is why i wrote the book. [applause] >> this is a history and a case study of the criminal justice system in washington d.c. in the nation's capital. so how did your experience as a former public defender shape and inspire?. >> i went to join in thinking be audience for this incredibly important conversation and to moderate a wanted to write a book there are so many representations' in the media and they're almost all bad or underpaid and overworked, don't care, a sellout their clients and that is part of thehe reality

in we need to do a lot of things including fund those offices better to support them eager and energetic about the criminal system. with those lawyers that represented. five but i took the job because i view that as a civil-rights worker and that was created in the year 2000 but we already knew there were under supervision and

my own parents were the original civil rights movement.et my dad is black my mom is why interracial added time thosen marriages were illegal. and as part of that generation of your fight and struggle it made it possible somebody like me could have opportunities that were unheard of. but at the same time we have that inequality because the neighborhood that michael grew up in and also that one out of three number for cry wanted t to make sense of this

and how well it could be to figure out how it was with that enfranchised african-american in a community the police chief as majority african-american we were hoping to create that same unjust system how could that be in the majority black jurisdiction? [applause] >> please no more clapping until the end. [laughter]

but one of the most inspiring parts i read "cuz" in one sitting i would tell everybody to run out and get the book as it is that compelling. and it is a portion of the book the writings are reprinted word for word and you and your cousin talk about dante's inferno it makes me think about frizzes intellectuals. and all of these different things. i wanted to ask about intellectual development. as to be but it runs throughout "cuz" that

michael was somebody gifted intellectually. and tried to pursue that with your help and encouragement. >> again in order to do that a short passage from one of the essays. arrested from an early college program for gifted high school students to combine high school with the first community college. and always hungry for learning between his arrest in september and his sentencing he completed his ged so he went into prison talking about college-age that the same time they were stripping all educational opportunities except vocational so he did get a

carpenter's degree of cert an electrician but there was always a hunger for college. so this was the greatest day even from when he was admitted. in is so complicated and then he cannot sign up for any a course with all the books so i have to figure out which courses only have softcover book said that was to class this that was philosophy and literature. that was all kinds of books to have that section of the essay of the inferno which had two titles.

so i am forced to go lower in to help to achieve a full wakening forced into depression scarred by obscenities war after war broke with a full awakening of self. and to demonstrate i cannot help but to judge those around me. so to see the true for what it is and they should never leave the place it with that they will change the of world positively in to do what is right that they

cannot hold on to a. in the inferno the dead are trapped t forever that is my help called prison that i have a way out so the point of reading bad is to convey his holder that it is possible for people to grow and develop in prison it is a hard present -- passage because he recognizes there are other people like yourself to share that possibility with those that have met inside the of prison that is of a tricky passage but the important point there is talent everywhere in this country with a huge amount in prison

and a big question that so much talent is routed into prison talking about the present pipeline talking about this in the early '90s and it has taken so long that this has been happening so everybody in prison is all but -- always reaching for these a lot of people are into that point more than 2 million people in prison this year or last year or the year before and though world has never seen never like what the country has built. have to all that and

understand what we have done in figure how to undo that perot. [applause] >> you guys don't take direction very well. [laughter] >> so with that story about my goals as say and his intellectual journey and development. one of the things we have to be clear that a system the likes they have never seen that them with those that have then incarcerated and convicted ofee crimes coming back to ourr community so that talent now we have 700,000 people every year

leaving prison and millions of people leaving courthouses with felony convictions and misdemeanors historically has been the case even the advocates and activist with any main criminal system has not lifted up the voices of those who they themselves have been incarcerated. put themed if we in front of the microphone but the problem is it reinforces the stigma of. so we have to listen to theseli voices and elevate to reform the system so if that civil-rights movement all the black people were told home and white

people marched commonsense would that make? that is the criminal-justice reform movement. while the rest of us march and strategizing. >> that is a good segue. >> this subtitle is crime and publish -- punishment in black america. so you give a profound sense of stratification and that is something we don't talk about perot with two black americans. so we really see people like marion barry calling people floods are theho counselors

who are afraid to decriminalizing marijuana for fear they are a beginning those views from the '70s and with the state much to talk about that. in those variations. with a loss of opportunity at times michael's mother was a victim of domestic violence so sometimes think about racial progress we know there has been's tremendous racial progress the panel was reflective of that level so what segment of the community?. >> absolutely.

added is what we saw every day especially in a city of a significant african-american population. but he did in other places as well you see the class distinction. so there are family networks and a perfect example of that it is not the easy dividing line to say we have these poor blackhe people and middle-class over here. it is not so simple because a lot of people have a cousin or a nephew. but having said that, it is true looking at those numbers we see if you are a black man that is dropped out of high school you're 10 times more likely to go to prison than one who has

attended college. >> but those that made it into positions of power and authority are almost exclusively from the group that has made it economically and educationally. and those laws being passed that part of our community that has not succeeded in the same way. you see that in policing practices for in the 1990's or 2000's day of leisure this style ofas policing would they stop cars basically for any reason they try to get

them to consent to a search. but where did they do this? they concentrated most aggressivelyn in the poorest parts of town and in some of the more middle-class parts including the more african-american middle-class they said pullbacks of course, this is more you get to the complication class is not a protection that with skip gates were driving while glaxo it is a complicated story however matters and it doesn't at the same time. >> is interesting these are very hard issues to put them in a bottle -- a broader context. so dealing with mass incarceration to build a society that penalizes that

the extraordinary rate and effects latino americans but the group of those highest rates was white women and this is because as a country we havend extended criminalization to the degreeo that has not been seen historically but ultimatelyve it doesn't stop with a particular group race is not a protection. and simultaneously the reason i started my comments was we were climbing those trees in southern california the early '80s so what has happened in this country between then and now, the two things simultaneously. the remarkable growth of income inequality started in the early '80s purview have not found a chart that shows

the increase you should. so the point that i try to make is that that transformation of the countryco isn't abstract economics but taking five kids equal where they came from andir resources and gifts with the extended family family, equal in the amount of lovet and and to powless support and rip us apart. is the alliance and the feeling of fat. there isn't an american family that has not felt the destruction of the stratification of our society that crosses all race lines. we have to come to grips with what these changes mean for these experiences with onee another. so that is where i started

to use this vocabulary of what we produce for young people. for example, i love watching gymnastics in the olympics so last year aged missed for of india was great to do a vault but she picked the move with the highest degree ofof difficulty so all the coverage is will she make it or breaker back? everybody else was doing lower degree like our girl medalist so that is the situation if you come up in the herb is city center the difficulty facing you his profound you could make it but if you don't you will break your back but growing up in the suburb in an easier part of the country facing a lower degree of difficulty in the

first instance. that is the way to think of individual responsibility and the collective choices we haveve made to pattern our country with this amazingly disparate set of degrees of difficulty for young people in different places. >> that is a great point. so with that contemporary discussion will whole notion of the population crisis -- ntioid crisis than the state has a different response. so i will move forward and go off script but in terms of the of both the u.n. of the things that you show here, a james, is the impact of eric holder or marion

barry, politicians that our civil rights advocates with the impact they have producing mass incarceration so eric holder will be much different than he was as the attorney general. so talk about bats talking about the police chief in becoming an african american with the feelings that if that happened things would get better. >> maybe the best way to talk about that generation or the complications is by mentioning a story that i tell in the book that involves me representing a young man named brandon chargedio with possession of a gun and a small amount of

marijuana. he is facing sentencing in d.c. superior court. in asking him to be put on probation with of letter from the counselor and the as his first arrest for the prosecutor is asking him to be locked up. that is the name of the juvenile jail at the time so with every call officially the reality is it was a dungeon where kids left worse than when they went in and the judge had to make a decision. the african american judge and these young black man facing sentencing, that isn't unusual he would think are non-white people in d.c. in day you think a black defense lawyer in a black prosecutor and he looks at him and says he tells me you

have a tough life into service second chance but let me tell you about tough let me tell you about jim crow.. the judge was a child and proceeded to tell him what that was like an said here is the thing. people plot and march and died for your freedom. he did not die for you to be run in and the gunning and fed being in the community. not to embarrass your family and that was not his dream. so i hope he is right and you turn it around right now but actions have consequences in this courtroom and yours is uphill. but here is the thing to understand about the judge. i was so a greek in that moment. i still working through the anchor.,

[laughter] but he saw himself as protecting the same community to fight for he saw himself engaged in the fight. he thought he was acting out of the civil-rights movement but he took that same history that motivated me to become a public defender with that same civil rights history to fed data on its head to use that tond justify locking somebody up. he is not alone there is a lot of people like that and every time i tell a story somebody saysom i know that person. >> that is a great story and it is very moving in the book. what you talkat about in the

book is the concept of this date that developed in los angeles, the part of the book is intimate and there is a part with the social scientist comes out in the narrative you talk about how this developed alongside the visible side but it was invisible with michael and his family to be caught up in nassau what do you mean?. >> it isi important to understand how somebody commits they could misunderstand the moment that we live in presently. my buck has characters which are freely members than the other character is los angeles boeing to reservation from the '70s through the present per cartelists story see you have to break through family

secrets. so i had to break through family secrets with michael and understand was the angeles. what are those? the way we approach drugs. i would like to stop and ask, flew here knows how much americans spend on illegal narcotics every year? a secret. $100 billion. is an equal opportunity activity. everybody participates using and selling. $100 billion per year. the rand corporation study didte this from our though white house. so when you have a black market that big you are not paying attention to your not noticing the way it distorts your entire i society.

this is what happened to los angeles basically briefly the federal government was to crack down on narcotics so it does by targeting street level distributors who but where are they coming from they are coming from outside the country country, regional the the french connection and then nixon broke that up bin that over the market for the cartel is south and central america. if you have $100 billion per year business will you let it control of your distributors go? no. you will fight back against the state's that is fighting for control of your distributors with a leasing or mandatory minimums it is harder to get rid of the rehabilitation replaced with deterrence for the producers fight back through those

things building of its own system of sanctions and to keep control. those you are the next of foldable between the state with its judicial system our kids ages 10 through 14 to the distributors for the $100 billion business and they try ate touche at the business downpourat crow and to focus on the street level mr. ritter's which was completely destructive of opportunities for young people. that is the paris state we cannot see it because we lie to ourselves about what we'ree doing with drugs. i know i've gone too long in the last thing it is not just the $100 billion of drugs but it is $100 billion

worth of self dissection. every year. no wonder our country is suffering. you cannot have that much dishonesty in a society and private. that's it. [applause] >> very well said. with the time that we have left i have two questions. so when i read the epilogue i thought it was very moving but to make that argument we need to have that compassion for those that were convicted of violent crimes and have compassion for them why is this so important?

that even if you let go these nonviolent drug offenders?s? when having compassion?. >> somebody who has spent working on thesese issues for over 20 years now and just feeling nothing but isolation with a few colleagues at the public defender's office not getting a sense there wasn't a lot of societal commitments's but more and more people and those that as they take up the issue but one of the things that is very frustrating to me is

president obama and how many people say we will do this for nonviolent drug offenders but they are off limits. so what i want to say and make clear in the book as they tell the story that there is nobody we can close our southdown to or write-off based on a charge orth label because there is always a story. that is a violent crime but when you finish the book he is not a violent criminal. that is what commits a violent act.

and to that same end or goal is the young man i represented committed the armed robbery. he got the money and ran away arrested a few blocks later.it and not be able c to do anything about this case and the prosecutor wanted him to be locked up for a long time i went to talk to the man that he robbed because i knew that he only knew the 12 seconds of his life and that will lead at the bus stop. you would want him to be locked up to a fad is all that you knew. in ha owe it was his mother was addicted to drugs and

how was re he was raised on the street and sucked into the paris state the robbery was the initiation into a local paper's they humiliated him then said to get in go commit the robbery. and admitted into the program so i tell him the story in by the end and then a couple weeks later he decides, yes i can go along with this program the you have found. i will not ask for jail time. so now all years pastime and

washington d.c. walking by a construction site and i looked up and i'd curate a voice. it takes me a minute because it has been 10 years but it was brandon. we had a conversation the program was hard he was almost kicked out but he made it. now working construction full time and raising a son of his own. been in a way different than he was raised. and then toef define a person solely by that moment or action. is the when people say to me as they do to danielle that is printed you told us his

story. everybody has a story. >> this was a great way to close. in to hear this and it was inspiring. not just the stain and then but but those millions that are caught up in this mass incarceration. so i wanted to ask you haul are you feeling? are you optimistic the cuts it has caught fire with that

political and literary event how do you feel now?. >> i am so glad to see all of you here. that is what matters each of you here to talk to another handful of people to spread the word. we have built something so terrible we have to figure out how to space build that. and i have been inspired the fact you are all here and i hope my book has provided hope but when i get comes from you. [applause]