google. unexamed courage a recall hawes the abuse of african-american sergeant isaac woodard affects the course of civil rights in america and in the heartbeat of wounded knee, a history of native americans from 1890 to today. look for these title and book stores this coming week, and watch for many of the authors in the near future on book of the on c-span2. >> book tv recently visited the national press club's annual book fair in washington, dc. and spoke with author wil hay goode but column burks holiday, during the civil era. >> what is tiring heland. >> guest: a book but columbus, ohio, east high school, 1968, it's school year starts that fall, everybody inside the high school is very hurt, full of pain because martin luther king king has been assassinated,

robert f. kent was assassinated. the school has its first black practice. a segue segregated school and they want to do something special and the school principal tells them, everybody is watching us, so we can't show anger, we can't walk out like some other high schools are doing, so first they won the state basketball championship, and then 65 days later all black school wins the state baseball championship, first time in the history of the state that the same school wins two championships in one year. the fact that they won it, against the backdrop of king king's acass nation, vietnam -- aassassination, and vietnam war prosts and other school walkouts gives an astonishing glorify angle. >> host: how much was due to the

principal? >> guest: jack gibbs, an amazing man, he was a walk-on football player at ohio state university, and he was feared, ferocious about pride, he cared but the students, they also at the end of that year sent more kids to college, more kid win to college from this all-black high school than any other previous year, and just became a national story of high achievement because of all the astonishing things that happened. eight of the 12 basketball players' mothers were maids. they worked as maids, eight out of the 12. two of the baseball players had fathers who were serving time in prison. and so for the post part these

were fatherless 16-year-olds to 17-year-old young black boys who did something amazing in that year that was full of pain. >> host: did the columbus dispatch report on this story? >> guest: yes. they did. but -- and it was the only time that the dispatch had as many black folks on the cover of the newspaper. i mean, they really had a sense that this was a big, big story, even though it wasn't a paper that covered the civil rights movement extensively but this was a story that they could not ignore, and they gave it play. it was a local black newspaper

who had a gentleman named high highlyram cantor who played baseball in the negro lead leigh and knew that the baseball team was special, and so he wanted people to pay attention, but nobody came to the baseball games, and the baseball players who i tracked down from that year, told me they would look in the stands stands and sometime r there would be one or two people in the stands. both teams had coaches who were white, bob hart for basketball, and paul pinell-baseball. bob hart landed in normandy in world war ii, was a progressive, had a wonderful, big heart, his last name is hart also. but he knew that this was are where he wanted to be. he went to ohio wesleyan

university and won't this senior thesis on the unfair treatment of the negro soldier in world war ii. that was in 1946. and then 23 years later, he is on the sidelines, leading this all-black high school to the state championship. >> host: why did you wait 50 years to write this? >> guest: i was born in columbus, but left to work on other newspapers, and it wasn't in my consciousness that the high school had won two state championships, and i was home about five years ago, after finishing my thurgood marshall book and i ran into garnett davis who was on the baseball team that year, and we were walking down the street and we were just talking about east

high, and similar year, 1968-1969, and that they won this wonderful basketball championship, and the said to me, he said, but, wil way, on the baseball team. we won the state championship that year, too. and i said, no way. and he said, no. we lost five games in the milled of the season. we had a five-game losing streak but we stormed back, made it into the state tournament, and won eight straight games, and i said, are you serious? he said, i'm absolutely serious. we won the state baseball championship so i ran to the library the next morning and looked it up, just to make absolutely sure, and there it was, columbus east high wins second state championship in two months period. and i said, to myself, i said,

now that's a book. that's exactly what i said to myself. and i set about finding all the athletes and finding teachers and students and just threading the storying to. it's two narratives. you think of these movies like blindside, friday night lights, and hoosiers, and remember the titans. those are about one sport and one school. this is about two sports and they actually made it to the top of the mountain. i think a subtext of this book is, what was going on in america. martin luther king jr. has a connection to this story because reverend hail was a leading minister in the east high school area, and he had brought

dr. king to columbus several times, and so when many of these athletes had been seven and eight, they had watched king in 1959, 1960, lead marches up and down east broad street right past the high school, and so for them to have to take that blow in the summer of '68, in the spring of '68 when martin luther king is assassinate. many of them had seen him in the flesh, and so it was a heartbreaking moment, for the nation, for the city, but on a personal level, for many, many, many people. they ate at a restaurant called the novelty food bar, in mrs. bitty operated that food bar and she was on stage when

martin luther king jr. when he gave his "i have a dream" speechin' 1963. so it's a lot of connections to the nation to dr. king, leading up to this amazing moment. >> host: was this your high school? >> guest: no. i went to east high for one year but then i finished at franklin heights, so i knew that it was a special place. it was segregated still, 14 years after the 1954 brown vice-presidents board of occasion and the book actually ends with a case at the u.s. supreme court where the parents in and the naacp sue the city of columbus for segregation and they win, and so these athletes become part of a major lawsuit at the end of the book.

>> host: how many of the athletes were you able to track done? >> guest: of the 12 basketball players, i tracked down ten of them. of the 15 baseball player is tracked down 12. so, it was amazing. bob hart, who was the basketball coach, had passed away, but his three daughters still lived in the area of columbus, and they turned over to me his world war ii letters, his archives, all of this notes, all of this scouting reports on the games. baseball, their coach, paul pinell who still lives in columbus and i was so fortune he was pack rat because he had all of the score books from every baseball game that year. so i really, really, really got

lucky with paul pinell, too. he was the head baseball coach and also the assistant basketball coach, and so in a way i had his insight from both of the sports and that was extremely helpful. two other players from the basketball team,eddy rat live and joseph lamarr were -- they were only five members of the team and almost half the team came from this one high school who i wroteout. two of the five were first-team college all-americans. >> the name of the bike is "tigerland: a city divided a nation torn apart a magical season of healing." what book of yours are you best

known for? >> guest: that would be the butler. that was turned into a motion picture. that starred, among others, oprah winfrey, forest whittaker, cuba gooding jr., david ol' well, jane fanned, and vanessa redgrave, a special movie came out in 2013. you can safely say it sort of took america by storm. an amazing heartfelt story of a gentleman who i tracked down who worked for eight american presidents, his name was eugene allen, and he had quite a life. he started in the white house harry trump and went all the way up to president reagan so he had quite an epic life.

>> thank you for your time. >> keep on eye out for more interviews from the national press club's book fair to air in the near future. ... [inaudible conversations] good evening everyone. i am winston cap the sheridan dean and i'm very happy to welcome all of you here to this wonderful