>>. [inaudible] thank you all for

joining usthis evening . i'm director of programs exhibitions and community partnerships for the massachusetts historical society and it's nice to see a full room even though it's days before thanksgiving so thanks for coming out despite the approachingholiday fiesta . if anyone is here for the first time i'd like to extend a special welcome. we are an independent nonprofit that makes massachusetts and american history available through our library provides access to our collection of 14 million manuscript pages and we do this for programs for educators, academics and through our exhibitions. we also do this through public programs andoffer our remarkable diversity of programs so youcan if you enjoy our program i hope you will consider joining us .

tonight we will hear about william munro trotter , a lateafrican-american publisher at the turn of the last century . although he is not a household name in a larger-than-life presence with president wilson and collaborating with leaders such as wep devoid although i got the sense he didn't get along well with either of them. our speaker is kerri greenridge who spent years digging through archives to rediscover trotter and bring him back . his profit yet ultimately traffic tragic life offered a link between the vision of frederick douglass and black radicalism in the modern era. professor greenridge received her doctorate from boston university where her specialty includes african-american history and political history and explores the roots of african-american literature and black political consciousness during the progressive era and she is currently interim director of american studies and codirector of the

african-american trail project at the center for the study of race and democracy and is a good friend of and hs and was one of our speakers in our legacy of the 1619. help us work on planning that series was also the commentator on the seminar last week so she's a frequent visitor to join me in welcoming her. [applause] >> thank you very much, can everyone hear me? i decided to say a special thanks to the massachusetts historical society and i did most of my research here: through archives and taking advantage of their wonderful resources so ithank them , it's one of the many places that helped me in the earliest stages of this book and i want to start by giving a brief outline of why should

be be claimed a founding father of black radicalism and get into hisbiography and background and then i will open it up for questions . on august 21, 1902, william munro trotter led a group of ministers and community leaders to the massachusetts state house. the group was there to protest the arrest and upcoming exhibition of a field hand named monroe rogers. trotter and his group wanted crane to prevent rogersreturn to north carolina for arson . one year earlier in 1901 two black boys ages 14 and 17 were brutally lynched in greensboro while sitting in jail on vagrancy charges. it was no wonder rogers fred fled his home outside of charlotte or his mother's home in massachusetts after confronting his landlord over

unpaid wages. it was burned down after the confrontation and the black man there was no doubt would receive a fair. he fled to blackburn and was really arrested their one year after his arrival at north carolina's safety commissioner alerted massachusetts of rogers whereabouts . trying to mobilize grassroots protest that prompted the meeting with crane the group argued that failure by north carolina to enforce the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment as evidenced in the states unwillingness to investigate or prosecute the lynching of a teenage boy prevented rogers from receiving a fair trial . trotter used the guardian's public equalization of antebellum radical black abolitionism to incite a 20th-century quite against degradation, disenfranchisement and lynching . trotter refers to the case of george latimer in 1842 when radical black abolitionists led by charles lennox ramon

the five state efforts to export him for lynching. black led protests and petitions against latimer's exhibition marked a shift in abolitionist politics alongside latimer's eventual freedom. rallies in new bedford and boston turned moral persuasion into some of the first public black protests in american history and led many northerners to proclaim massachusetts the uncompromising protector of all the oppressed who may flee to her for soccer . these protests blocked much needed attention to latimer's fate and influenced massachusetts law. abolitionists purchased latimer's freedom while his case ground through the court and the reality of state compliance of federal law upheld in the case prompted creation ofthe new england freedom association and the passage of massachusetts personal liberty law .

now 60 years after the latimer case william munro trotter invokes black boston drab abolitionist past and demands they prevent his exhibition to north carolina. let massachusetts remember her history, the guardian proclaim and protect those who seek refuge from southern barbarism and in proclaiming the black roots of antebellum abolition as justification for 20th-century demands for monroe rogers protection, chart trotter chose the trend that recognizes the radical nature of antebellum black abolition. they place black demands at the center of antebellum conceptions of citizenship. while kelly carter jackson a historian outside of wellesley college calls for a re-examination of violence in 1850s black abolition and yet in 1902 the notion that black

abolition could be repurposed to serve 20th-century demands for civil rights was an affable to conservatism. indeed public black radical protesters was so distasteful in 1902 the boston globe accused trotter of stringing things when he connected massachusetts responsibility to rogers to the state of the liberty laws in the latimer case . the attorney general was dismissive of comparisons to the black radical past. he rolled massachusetts had no legal basis for detaining rogers and booker t. washington president of the trustee institute and the most powerful black man in the country confirmed white insistence that rogers return to north carolina for judgment . the school principal personally contacted north carolina's governor to advise him against giving in to the unreasonable demands of colored boston's tiny but vocal minority.

in response rogers attorneys much like the radicals of old filed a writ of habeas corpus arguing north carolina improperly indicted rogers after he fled. in addition to its invocation of the black radical past trotter used his ties to fellow black bostonians to organize residents to rogers extradition and hired them to serve as rogers returnees. during his years at harvard trotter cultivated bonds with some of the leading black intellectuals who came of age in institutions. he graduated from harvard college and harvard law school where he invested another of trotter's friends, w.e.b. dubois for the immigration price. morgan and trotter route rallied their students against protest for segregated barbershops in cambridge which led to massachusettsdivision of its civil rights legislation . the black man at the center of that case, william henry lewis was morgan's classmate

at harvard law school, a graduate of williams college and a gifted athlete who went on to coach football at harvard. lewis's inability to get a haircut and a white owned barbershop during commencement exercises prompted the first civil rights protest. as an attorney who was selected to the common council and the state legislature lewis answered trotter's call when the guardian editor called on boston's small but significant class of black attorneys to defend rogers in court . unfortunately for monroe rogers conservative racial accommodation triumphed over rack black radical demands for his protection. on august 30 the attorney general reviewed the risk, brought in police officers who were supposed to transport rogers from boston

and instead put him on a train to north carolina. there he stood trial for arson and attempted murder despite lacking an attorney and even though the white man whose barn he supposedly burned failed to testify. rogers was ordered to solitary confinement in the state penitentiary for a minimum of 15 years but died of septic pneumonia four years later in 1906 . and yet although rogers was not saved by trotter, the guardian are grassroots black protest his case signal a shift in black political consciousness that trotter and the guardian helpful meant into a movement of black political independence. rogers case occurred at the same moment many northern black communities questioned blind loyalty to the party of lincoln. although president theodore roosevelt earned white's accolades in white southern violent scorn for inviting booker t. washington to die at the white house the year before trotter pointed out the gop had done little for the colored people sent the

collapse of radical reconstruction 20 years before. rather than enforce the 14th and 15th amendment to the constitution which established equal protection under federal law and prevented denial of franchise on the base of color, and previous condition of servitude, roosevelt focused on rolling lily white republican support in the south . the result trotter argued was a republican party that bore little resemblance to the consent of the governed and radicalism of senators charles sumner and thaddeus stevens. the only way to prevent cases like rogers from happening again trotter concluded was for voters to recognize their power to swing elections from any party or candidate who betrayed black demands. as the guardian told readers soon after rogers kidnapping, the negro has a right to accept the national government in the hands of the republican party that republicans of that party to which the negro has been loyal, the negro has a right to expect this party will take positive steps to enforce the constitution and

restored to the negro his rights. so who was william munro trotter? why was he alone among contemporaries in protesting unapologetically, persistently and radically against racial conservatism and white apathy in the face of radical reconstruction's betrayal at the turn of the last century ? most importantly out of his life and times demand reconceptualization of black radical politics, black political independence and the possibilities of black community activism during the period 's koreans referred to as thelong nadir at the turn of the last century ? william munro trotter was born in 1872, the year that liberal republicans broke from their radical colleagues to oppose enforcement of the reconstruction amendments. he died 62 years later as democratic president franklin d roosevelt presided over and administration changed the relationship between federal policy and the american economy.

ended as he was between the promise of reconstruction and the limitations of new deal liberalism, william munro trotter's life represents the possibilities of black politics rooted in antebellum militant abolitionism. trotter's life reconceptualize his black radicalism as a vision that thrived in and existed in the urban predominately white northeast as well as the unforgivably black rural south. like all race men and women of his generation, monroe trotter's politics were nurtured by his parents experience of enslavement and claws i freedom in the decades prior to the civil war. his father was born in slaved in mississippi, escaped to a file and climbed the ranks of the 55th massachusetts regiment to become one of

five black men commissioned a lieutenant in the union army. his mother who you see here was born free in charlottesville virginia, the son of three enslaved people of color with ties to thomas jefferson's monticello. trotter and her younger sisters born in 1874 and elizabeth jaffe born in 1883 were born after their maternal grandfather's farm in ohio despite a convergence between black enslavement and freedom along with former slaves called liberty jordan. the relationship between early 20th century black radicalism and trotters kinship ties to antebellum radical abolitionists was an evolving process of political symbiosis. trotter's childhood among black activists and political independence in ohio and massachusetts shaped his demands that black communities agitate as he said for racial justice and civil rights. trotters faith that a black radical position could disorder the current colonial order faced family and

kinship ties that facilitate the thread of a black radical politics rooted in the abolition movement of the 1840s and 1850s. jordan provided for kyle brown for what robin dg kelly verse two as black freedom dream. in 1787 and ordinance forbade slavery north of the mississippi river which exacted many members of the founding generation. these black self-sufficient farming settlements between the western at appalachian mountains and cincinnati attracted former slaves and free people from eastern virginia . joe william trotter and others have shown many of these black people were free or quasi-children of african descended women and white slaveholding men pushed out of virginia after black loss alter the terms of black freedom in the republic . trotter isaac 1879 to 1874, virginia trotters father and william munro trotter's

grandfather was one of these children. born free to a jewish merchant named david isaacs and isaacs missed mixed-race wife , tucker isaacson and his sibling owned property in charlottesville there, father left to their mother. the isaacs also had family and kinship ties to the faucets of monticello. tucker isaac wright and elizabeth fawcett was the daughter of joe and edith hearns, the black cook at monticello. while thomas jefferson's will seeded joseph in 1827 his wife and their six children including tucker isaac's future wife in elizabeth and cottage grandmother renamed them slaves. after tucker and and elizabeth married in the 1830s they continue to live with nancy when in various can even as tucker saved money to purchase his wife, her five siblings and their

family members. virginia isaacs was their fourth child and youngest daughter born in charlottesville and brought up crossing between slave and free soil after tucker purchased his farm in springfield township in 1848. she often told her son about the muskets that she and her siblings hidden beneath their feet as they traveled in wagons at night to various fawcett hemming skin in charlottesville. she told monroe about her aunt, wife of sally henning's son who eventually passed intowisconsin whiteness after living with tucker isaacs . the point is that the impact of this family and cultural memory, a black musket and slave refuge within all-black worldbetween virginia enslavement and ohio freedom , this consciousness the power of black militancyin the face of white violence was not abstract . he spent every summer at his grandfather tucker isaacs farm where one of the isaacs family muskets was displayed over the fireplace and where

his father and isaacs cousins were ministers, storekeepers and teachers in cincinnati. thus when trotter adopted the language of radical black self-defense when he urged after world war ii that black soldiers do like their forefathers of old, arm yourselves and children in the name of all humanity, when he said these things he was not speaking rhetorically. black self-defense has nurtured multiple generations of black can and could he argued claim for the colored people here what they here and abroad would deny. this is an image of the isaacs family farm in ohio in 1994. if trotters family history and absorption of the black radical past provided him with the necessary foundation for radical political plot, boston provided him with the necessary city in which to exercise that thought.

when trotter was born in 1872 boston was considered the mecca of thenegro , a city in which property holding black men had been voting since the 1780s, where the public schools were desegregated in 1855 and where a literate politically savvy and activist black community or colored as they prefer to call themselves led free black resistance and as the son of a black elite that championed and benefited from this antebellum radicalism, trotter absorbed it when lord byron taught that legions of abolitionists adopted as their mantra. those that would be free must themselves strike the blow so with a fate in resistance and in his blackness trotters racial politics rejected the booker t. washington notion of separate as the fingers and white progressive insistence that the negro problem was confined to the south and that negroes themselves were eon redemption. although trotters militant

racial politics were nurtured and supported by the tightly knit boston community in which he came of age the reality of life that had trotters challenge and the white progressives who supported their work. more than any other african-american born the years after the civil war trotter disrupts the understanding of the significant role african-americans outside of the jim crow south played in black political and cultural history the turn of the last century. while scholars have broadened historical inquiry into civil rights struggles as more than a southern or mid-20th-century movement serious buddy of northern african-american relationship to the federal government's betrayal of radical reconstruction remains scarce . boston's civil racial exceptionalism, the site of radical abolitionism and education along with rampant vagary bigotry, all of these things that supposedly made boston racially exceptional

often hinges on historical paradigms that don't quite fit deeply entrenched myths about boston's past. disfranchisement did not exist on the same scale in massachusetts as it did in other northern states. nor did the type of rabid anti-black violence that precipitated it. black men like james munro trotter served in local governments and were frequently elected by majority white district up until redistricting during the early 20th century. white supremacy looked different in boston and it did in other cities but this did not mean that it didn't exist. leyland wrote trotters demand for enforcement of the reconstruction amendments and his intolerance or a narrative that the colored people were somehow to blame america's negro problem illustrates this fact. boston might have been the quote mecca of the negro but the negro was rapidly losing his citizenship rights through powerful political

forces over which he had little control . still trotter and his boston supporters believed black people have the power to see control over their racial destiny to the ballot box and through public protest. african-americans under constant violent assault in the years following reconstruction's collapse could not control white supremacist for their politics but they could fight with all their might against any and all attempts to segregate, disfranchisement and thevalue black lives . trotter watched in his most fight espoused by booker t. washington and engage with conservatives of all bases although his criticisms were personal and unforgiving, trotter was revolutionary in his insistence that activism, not accommodation was the only route to racial justice and booker t.washington the most famous african-american in the world could and must be challenged . during the guardian's first decade of circulation william

munro trotter and colored bostonians became synonymous with negro militancy, a reputation that relied on the political mobilization of the genteel poor, a majority of african people in boston who rejected the washington dubois dialectic. these genteel poor alienated from the self-professed race men and race women who claimed to represent the interests of the negro understood the definition station wrought by reconstructions collapse, southern disfranchisement and violent segregation. the guardian spoke to these people and the people in turn transform the guardian into an institution through which the colored people themselves with trotter as their coach defying racial justice on their own often radical terms . wrote trotter used the guardian as a grassroots organizing tool long before the term reached social movement consciousness.

this political organization created a movement called political independence that affected boston's political landscape and eventually inspired what white political commentatorscalled the new england example . black voters exercising their dissatisfaction with the national gop by voting for democrats on a populist and local level. additionally trotters insistence that black radicals interrogate rather than accept as inevitable the existing american party system provides a blueprint or 21st-century activists who argue that our two party political system is fundamentally ill-equipped to address the economic and social needs of the people and as one of the first black editors to organize black clinical nonpartisanship as a sustainable and legislatively significant civil-rights strategy trotter fueled the political independence movement that borrowed heavily from the negro

movement of his father's generation. in monroe's hands the movement spread far wider and had a far greater impact than anything trotter produced. as his personal life suffered from a loss of it income brought on by the end of his real estate business, munro trotter emerged as unique political voice across the black north. although never elected to office which he never wanted trotters grassroots movement pushed past the left and rest of the country while continuing to mobilize black northerners who were increasingly outraged by the impotence of their professed brokenness. finally at a time when political pundits of all stripes proclaimed a new age of american blackness in which divisions of language, region, social economicstatus , assumptions about political cohesion, michael argues that the guardian's notion of colored people has been and ought to continue to be a source of political strength, not weakness. after all as munro trotter implicated his community with

new negro consciousness based on black civil rights protest and political independence he created an alliance with caribbean bornradicals across new york . this alliance led to the liberty league congress, the only organization to meet during world war i and the one chiefly responsible for introducing the anti-lynching bill to northern congress. far from a leader in decline william munro trotter and his presentation of the man demands of the colored people in paris and his support for reds in boston harlem placed civil rights within the legislative consciousness of dc for the first time since reconstruction although the dire build and not pass, trotters radical liberty league and its demands for colored world democracy on an international scale new negro radicalism at the center of the administrations debate over a new world order. the last 15 years of trotters life provide a glimpse into

the implications of the editors civil-rights career. far from the outlier of white rage and working last rebellion depicted in these events, colored boston as they call themselves was a hotbed of new negro internationalism committed to the inflictingstreams of nationalism ,communism and socialism . and yet by the time he died in april 1934, william munro trotter haddone more to radicalize black radical pot of politics in boston and any other populist leader of his generation . the tragedy then is not that he failed but that the people whose rights he so passionately aligned with his own interests could so callously forget him. neither black boston nor racial politics would be the same following william munro trotter's death but the guardian laid the grassroots for a black political

consciousness and informed strategies in the civil rights movement. trotters life is the story of america's shift from a general acceptance of black economic some subjugation to a radical demand for racial justice led and decided by black people themselves . if trotters vision remains unfulfilled it is a sign that his life's work is not finished and there are lessons to be learned on his battle for racial justice. [applause] and i will now open it up forquestions . yes. he had all the evidence i have found including the death certificate, including letters from his sister after he died indicate that he committed suicide and that's how i begin the book. i begin that book that way so that it's laid torest and not the focus of the book . i think that as back then as today there'sstigma

surrounding suicide and mental health . but when he was discovered, his sister initially wrote a letter to geraldine trotter who we saw in that picture, wrote a letter to one of their colleagues in dc and he's finally done it, he's finally jumped and then when the press responded in a way that i do not think from my research she probably expected she then started saying that he did not jump himself, that he slipped in ice, that it was suspicious but when he died at the moment he died on april 7, 1934, all his friends including hissister , immediately responded that he had killed himself and in 1934, it was a moment when he was told the guardian was bankrupt. he jumped on an early saturday morning and told the guardian the monday before he also was told that because the guardian has collapsed ,

he had nowhere to live basically and had to be out by the end of the month. he at that point was being treated for what was called nervous exhaustion and had a habit of pacing and by the last year of his lifetalking to himself and people were concerned . all this is to say that part of the i think the unwillingness of many people to say that he committed suicide is the stigma that surrounds both all communities surrounding suicide and mental health issues but all the evidence points to the fact that he committed suicide . >> he is fourth from the right. forth from the front row. he's the one in the circle, yes . >> that is actually his mother.

and his wife is next to her. the lighter symbol in the hat. this picture from hubert harrison papers in columbia, harrison was a radical caribbean migrant in boston. a lot of the more recent research on trotter in particularly the last years of his life comes from that collection and one of the things i would dream of is paying a graduate student to research these people's life because i have my suspicions but except for those three were circled, those are the onlythree who we know firmly who they are . >> what was the response of william trotter to garvey as him ? >> garvey was inspired by trotter and i go through this in the paper. garvey wrote when trotter died harvey wrote a letter that was published both in the negro world and kind of as a punching comment on

garvey as them in the crisis that trotter was the most noble, let me see if i can find the quote. the most noble of all the race, the race could have afforded to lose many other leaders . we cannot afford to lose william munro trotter garvey, one of the things he would do to inspire members across the african diaspora to donate money was that he took the ship that trotter took paris, that ship was turned into the black star so the ship that trotter used and use that as a selling point to the black public and there was an image in 1919 of an activist named henrietta vinton davis olinger rally in kingston jamaica to get people to support garvey and when people aren't giving money she holds a copy of the guardian and says you have to give money cause this is

trotters book and she writes this would inspire people to give money so he had a relationship with garvey area he did not agree with garvey's back to africa movement or with garvey's black nationalist movement in the way that garvey expressed it. he also was very hurt and the fact that garvey, much like himself i would argue had these contentious relationships with members of the black radical left. people like hubert harrison though they had a falling out personally but garvey was one of the ones continued to publish pieces of the guardian in the negro world after trotter died and before he died so they had this, he was somebody who had garnered alot of respect in that circle . >> two questions, one i'm not sure i heard correctly. you think booker t.

washington wrote to the governor of north carolina supporting rogers down there watching mark okay. [inaudible] the second question is as i understand it the black population of boston was quite small so i literally learned the other day that philadelphia was the largest, around 40,000 or so how did black communities in other parts of the country view that sort of activity that's happening here in boston to consider leadership anddid they consider it to radical ? >> excellent question. one of the things that trotter i argue in the book is one of his gets was his ability to go into places, rally of many members of this elite group of black men who had graduated from our hurt or brown or new england, so he knew them all.

he was known as the leader of this cohort that surrounded w.e.b. dubois and william lewis and many of those graduates of amherst or dartmouth, they might be the only black person on their campus but they would come out and hang out with trotter and one of the things that trotter shared was that many members of that class once they graduated disavowed their earlier activism for the sake of their careers so one of the things i argue in the book is the way he was able to get into these communities that he didn't live in is you would call out members of his former cohorts who were met leaders in these communities so the leader of the ame church in pennsylvania in the 20th century, the leader of the church in rural new york who then became a trotter convert who had gone to the theological seminary and disavowed his activism and trotter called him out in the church and said you were the

person who protested in 1893, why aren't you protesting now and he had a miracle and starts subscribing to the guardian so one of the things i argue is that shamelessness was part of his strength and his downfall. cause you can't be that intense all the time but he definitely, the guardian in the book we know in terms of circulation number and generally circulation numbers of newspapers which through the black press hard to come by because they were not covered by the associated press but the numbers we can substantiate is around at its height 3000 to 4000 newspapers per week that's a small number. one of the things we know is that what was happening was that people were taking pieces of the guardian and putting them in their newspapers, their black newspapers where they live so oklahoma basically had its own newspaper called the scimitar, all that was basically the guardian. it took the guardian,

repackaged it and sold it there and part of trotters add business sense was he wasn't charging people. his wife is saying they're taking your words and basically they're getting the profit and you're not so to answer your question, definitely one of the things i point to in the book is this notion by about 1903 black boston was seen as a radical place and a back to the independent, the major progressive messaging and a whole article on the boston negro in 1904 which argued that everybody else seems to be hating what's wrong with boston. aker who was a newspaperman as this whole article on boston and why is it this community seems so dissatisfied, whatis wrong ? this blues when you give black people writes they are still upset so boston had that reputation. one of the tragedies of trotters life is that the great migration that had this huge effect on other cities, philadelphia, new york city ,

chicago. boston had the same affect. it's not that black people from the great migration did not come to boston because they did but compared to new york and philadelphia the black boston community by 1930s is still relatively small . so he doesn't catch that wave of how other cities look during this time and boston doesn't have that wave of how it looks so one of the arguments in the book is as historians we have to reevaluate what the great migration did to certain cities so in boston to get migration from the south but it's not nearly as much as going to new york and so then that the focus shifts to new york even though it was still going on in boston. the mother the governor, this was something that booker t. washington papers, chronicled very well in terms of and lewis harland who is the editor, shout out to his archival work in finding all these incidents of washington

talking to white governors and leaders in the south and trotter pointing out that he was having this relationship even though the public in washington is denying it and trotter after the monroe rogers incident publishes a letter that washington had with governor aycock who is the governor of north carolina telling him he can go back to the south, we all know you are a friend of black people, all this type of thing so trotter was very good at shaming his former colleagues who were like a black elite, not very good at maintaining good personal relationships with them and going into their territory as they would say and riling up those communities and then leaving the community itself is really riled up and searching the guardian and the people in that community, the black leaders have to respond . >>.

[inaudible] >> dubois and trotter were in harvard at the same time. dubois was a graduate student . dubois had a crush on and was willing geraldine tindell who became trotter's wife and they used to dance the berlin, apparently they used the dance together and trotter would come in and push him aside and it was in sensing that the boy writes, here that trotter comes again andsteals that person so she marries trotter . they remained close in terms of friendship with one another so trotter when he came to boston often stayed in trotter's house in dorchester. and when they are getting together to decide on this niagara movement, that conversation takes place in

trotter's house in dorchester and initially their allied through this niagara movement that they both founded and trotter or dubois referred to him as john the baptist of the niagara movement. he gets all these people to come to boston and say we're going to found this new movement. the problem was his once the movement gets started and they around all of these talented members to be a member of it, trotter got mad becauseclemens morgan , his formerfriend , a lawyer , dubois puts him in charge of the niagara movement in boston and trotter rebels and basically then advertises the niagara movement in boston. it's one of the more shameful aspects of his life and it's one of the moments that i argue in the book changes the way that he tries to have relationships with people even though you don't always succeed is after that moment the niagara movement collapses and dubois argues

we could have been a good movement, trotter is the one who selfishly wanted to be in charge, wasn't in charge so scuttled his organization but dubois had a strange relationship with trotter and i point out the two men had known each other since they were in their early 20s so if we think about how long that relationship was, they were not close after the niagara movement fell and were particularly not close after trotter went to paris and dubois was not in the radical dubois moment yet and argued that black people need support of the government in world war i but after the trotter staff, dubois was the first one to basically stop production on the crisis . the story he was working on to put trotter on the cover and as this beautiful obituary for trotter, arguing that he was assigned that activism was being forgotten

by this generation. at what was saddest was that trotter was forsaken in his own city and then never mentions him again publicly it's this relationship that we had that is dubois might look at it as the brother you don't really like and other years you like and support we had that kind of contentious relationship. >>. [inaudible] >> this was all primary source material so the first place i started was the guardian newspaper. the guardian, the places where it is in the boston public library, the congregational library on beecher street and some of it

is on this archive called the african-american newspaper archive but those are the only constant places you can get them and their poorly preserved so you get a handprint on and you can't read but most from there i went into black newspapers and found they were taking the guardian by william munro trotter and then owing over to those papers and look at it through there.i then look a lot the personal papers of dubois, papers at columbia. i looked at the moreland springer library at howard university which has all these letters, the archive of african-american history, the good thing about trotter is he doesn't write anything about himself. he doesn't write a biography and he household these letters ascending to people over the years that are saved in these archives.

and most of the time and i think this was because trotter had gotten the attention he should get in the academy, he had to go into the melissa miscellaneous paper and if you go into papers are not going to find letters to trotter a lot of the time. most of the time you're not going to so it was peeling that corner of his associates and then looking at his associates papers. the other good source was here at the nhs where the lodge papers, lodge was an antagonist of trotter but also the one political ironically ally that trotter considered he had so there's all these letters between lodge and the black community in boston, the honey fits papers, john fitzgerald, that family was somebody who believed that he could not become or make his way to the political matter in boston unless he courted the black vote so there's a lot of on

honey fits and that this cheryl papers, honey saying i'm going to this rally in the north end but i have to make sure that this is covered in the guardian the cause if it's not black people are going to show up and i'm going to lose by 200 votes so a lot of the ward records for different awards in massachusetts, how people voted and where they voted and what was the population of the district inwhich they lived . it was all primary source stuff. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> on a recent episode of our author interview program, a university professor sarah gold rather talked to author paul talked about the challenges and costs ofhigher education . >> this was another period i had known about until working onthis book . where between 1910 and 1940, the united states draft

radically expanded the number of high schools and then percentage of students graduating from high school went from 10 percent to about 50 percent in 30 years and what was striking about that was that it was mostly just this, it makes sense. but in a way that seems odd now in retrospect as we have so much trouble doing this. communities looked at the signs from the economy and they weren't economists, they were just watching what the employers needed and were noticing that technology was changing and offices, on farms and factories and that in order to get the jobs that they needed, their young people needed more than a six or an eighth grade education so they had the very sensible reaction of let's get them this education and do it collectively. let's build free public high schools in every community and spend our tax money on sending everyone in the community to schools whether

there our kids or someone else's kid that collected notion, it just made sense i think and now we are at a similarnotion . this was 100 years ago that we thought 12th grade was probably what you needed to deal with the technology of 1920 and now we have technology that 100 years advanced and we are still debating about whether a 12th grade education is enough. it's obviously not enough and all of the signs from the economy and labor market are that it's not enough but now unlike our predecessors who are able to respond to that basic economic signs by saying let's educate our young people, we are fighting about it and turning it into questions of identity and snobbery and politics and partisanship. when clearly there's just a sign that we, our young people need our help, need more education, need more skills in order to survive in the current economy.

a century ago we heard those signs and responded inboth irrational and a collective fashion . now we are hearing it and responding in an irrational and selfish fashion. >> to watch the rest of this program and find other episodes of "after words", visit our website booktv.org and click on the "after words" tab on the top of the page. >> good evening everyone. hi. i'm patricia raven, president and ceo of the henry ford and i'm happy you're here tonight and welcome to this evening. we have a special guest with us , miss nancy strickler and we kicked off the william davidson foundation for entrepreneurship this year. this endeavo