have a reading competition in 2019, whoever reads the most books wins, she's currently beating me but if she beats me she gets a puppy, that's her motivation for winning book competition, so i've got a lot of work to do to catch up with her to win the competition. .. ..

[inaudible conversations] >> thank you all for joining us this evening. director of programs, exhibitions and partnerships for the massachusetts historical society. nice to see a full room ann throw we are just before thanksgiving, thank you for coming out despite the approaching holiday fiesta. if anyone is visiting us for the first time i want to extend a special welcome to them. we're an independent nonprofit that makes massachusetts in american history available. we have access our amazing check of 14 million manuscript pages and programs for educators and academics and through our exhibitions. of course we also do this through public programs and offer a roarkable diversity of programs. i hope you'll consider joining. tonight we'll hear out willum

monroe trotter, a leading african-american activist, publisher in boston at the turn of the last century. today he is not a household name. he held a larger than life presence at his height, meeting with president will sin and collaborating with w.e.w. dubois but i again the sense he didn't get along with them. our speaker is kerri greenidge, who discovered trotter and brought him back to he about seen an seminal figure who offer a link between frederick douglas and black radicalism. professor greenidge received her doctorate from boston university and her specialty includes african-american history and american political history. he rear search explores the roles of african-american lit tour and the creation of radical black president:consciousness and is the interim director of american studies and codirects

the african-american trail project at the center for the study of race and democracy. she is also a very good friend to mhs. she was one of hour speakers in our legacies of 1619 series, helped us work on planning the series and also the commentator in a seminar last week, so she's a frequent visitor. so join me in welcoming her. [applause] >> thank you very minute. >> thank you very much. can everyone hear me? good. i just wanted -- before i get started say a special thanks to the mass historical society. did most of my research here, taking advantage of their wonderful resources so i thank them for help -- one of the maniest plays that help me. i'll start by giving a brief outline of why william monroe trotter should be reclaimed as a founding father, forefather of

black radical and american radical thought and then i'll get into his biography and his background. and then i'll open it up for questions. on august 2, 11902, william monroe trotter lead group of black lawyers, ministers and community leaders to the massachusetts state house. the group was there to protest the recent arrest and upcoming extradition of a north carolina field hand named monroe rogers. his group want he the governor to prevent rogers return to north carolina for arson. one year earlier in 1901, two black blows, 14 and 17, were brutally lynched in greensboro will sitting in jail on vague ran si charges. it's no wonder that rogers fled into his mother's house in massachusetts after confronting this landlord over unpaid wages.

the white man's barn mysteriously burned down days after the confront station and there was no guarantee the 22-year-old black man would receive a fair hearing. rogers fled to brockton and south rev final with family and kin and was arrested there one year after the north carolina safety commissioner alerted massachusetts of rogers, where. trotter mobilized grass roots appropriateses that prompted the meeting with governor crane and the group, argued that failure to -- the in the states unwill nothings prosecute the lynches prevented rogers from receiving a fair trial. trotter used the guardian's public reclaimation of antebellum radical black abolition to insight a black-led 20th century fight against segregation and lynching. trotter referred to the case of george lattimer in 1842 when

radical black abolitionists defied state efforts to extradite latimer to virginia enslavement. in that case, which occurred 30 years before trotter was born, black led protests and petitions against latimer are extradition marked a shift in abolitionist politics. rallies in new bedford and boston turned moral situation into some of the first public black protests in american history and let many northerners to proclaim massachusetts, quote, the uncompromising protectats of all the oppress who may flee to her for succor. these influenced massachusetts law. abolitionists purchased latimer's freedom while his case wound through the indicates and the reality of state compliance with federal law upheld in the previous case, promptedded creation of the new england freedom association and passage of massachusetts' personal

linter laws. -- personal liberty laws. 60 years later william monroe trotter demand that massachusetts prevent monroe rogers extradition to north carolina. quote, let massachusetts remember her history, the guardian proclaimed, and protect those who seek refuge from southern barbarism. in proclaiming the root as justification for 20th century demand for monroe rogers' protection, trotter shows the current historical graphical trend that recognizes the radical nature of antebellum black activism. martha jones places black demand at the center of antebellum conception of citizenship and kelly carter jackson called for a reexamination of the strategic violence in 1850s black abolition. and net, 1902 the notion that mill can't black abolition could

be repurposed to serve 20th 20th century demand for radical civil rights an anathema. public black radical protest was so distasteful in 1902 the boston globe accused trotter of straining things when he connected massachusetts responsibility to rogers and the personal liberty law. the attorney general was always dismissive of comparisons to the black radical past. he ruled that massachusetts had no legal basis for detaining rogers and booker t. washington, president of the alabama tuskegee institute and the most powerful black man in the country confirmed white insistence that rog sore return for, quote, judgment. the school operable personally contacted the north carolina for to advise him against, quote, giving in to, quote, the unreasonable demands of colder boston's tiny but voc cam minority. end quit. in response, rogers' attorneys, much like the radicalled owl are

filed a writ of habeas corpus, argue arguing that north carolina improperly indict rogers after helift the state. trotter used hissing high of fellow black pointans to organize mast resistance to rogers extradition and hired them to serve as rogers' attorneys. during his four years at harvard, trotter cultivated life-long bonds with leading black intellectuals who came of naming white institutions, morgan graduated from harvard college and hard law school and desfinned another another trotter's friends, w. b. dubois for the class prize. morgan and trotter rallied fellow black students against -- which led to massachusetts revision of its civil rights legislation. the black man at the center of that case, william henry louis,

was morgan's class matte at harvard law school. a graduate of women's college and a gifted -- williams college and a gifted scholar who went on to cope football at harvard, louis' inability to get a haircut during membersment examiner ices prompted the first civil rights protest. as an attorney who was elected cambridge common counsel and the state legislature, lewis answered trotters called when he was called on boston's black concerns and law students to defendant rogers in court. unfortunately for monroe rogers, conservative racial colleges try umed. -- accommodation try triumphed. police officers who were supposed to transport rogers from boston, put him on a train back 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 but tied of septic pneumonia in 1906. and yet although roger was not saved by trotter, the guardian, or grassroots black roasts, his case signaled a shift in local black political consciousness that trotter and the guardian hemmed foment interest a national movement of black political independence. rogers case occurred at the same moment that many loren black communities questioned blind loyalty to the, quote, party of lincoln, although president theodore roosevelt earned black accolades and white southern violence, trotter point it out the gm had done little for, quote, the colored people, sense the collapse of radical reconstruction over 20 years before. rather than ends for this 14th o

the constitution which established equal protection under law and prevented denial on the basis of, quote, race, color, and previous condition of servitude, roosevelt and mckinley and arthur focused on building lily white republican fourth in the south. he the result was a republican party that bore little resemblance to the consent of the ged and the radicalism of senators charles sumner and thaddeus stevens. the only way to prevent cases like rogers from happening again, trotter concluded, was for northern black voters to recognize the power to swing local elects away from the party or candidate who betrayed black demand. that's guardian told leaders are rogers kidnapping kidnapping ths a right to expect the national government in the hands of the republican party -- the republicans of the feature which the negro has been loyal at every cost this negro has a detroit to expect the party will take positive steps to enforce the constitution and restore the

negro his rights. so who was william monroe trotter? why was he alone among come ten e.r.a. in protesting unapologetically persistently and radically against racial conservatism and white apathy any face of radical recome strung's betrayal. most importantly, how do his life and times demand scholarly reconceptualization of black radical politics, black political independence and the possibilities of black community activism during the period that historians refer to as the long nader an the turn of the last century. william monroe trotter was born in 1872. the year that liberal republicans broke from their radical colleagues to oppose federal enforcement of the reconstruction amendment. he died exactly 62 years later as democratic president franklin delano roosevelt presided over an administration that fundamentally changed the

relationship between federal policy and the american economy. book ended as he was between the failed prom his or read cal reconstruction and the -- trotter's life represents the radicals northern black politics rooted in antebellum abolition. trotter's life reconceptualize is black radicalism as a tradition that thrived in existed in the urban predominantly white northeast as well as the, quote, unforgive by black rural south. like all race men and women of his generation, monroe trotter's politics werer in toured by his parent experience of enslavement and quasifreedom in the decades prior to the civil war. his father, james monroe presidenter was been enslaved in mississippi, escaped to ohio and climbed the ranks the massachusetts. his mother was born free in

charlottesville, virginia, the descendent of free and enslaved people of color with ties to thomas jefferson monticello. they were been after the maternal grandfather's farm in ross county, ohio, the site of convergence blend black enslavement and freedom along with former slaves call river jordan. the relationship between early 20th century black radicalism and monroe trotter's family and kinship tieds to antebellum radical abolitionis was a product of symbiosis, i the childhood and political independence in ohio and massachusetts shaped his adult demand that black communities agitate, agitate, agitate, as he said, for racial justice and civil rights. likewise, tolder's face at a black radical tradition could disorder the current colonial

order, shake family and kinship ties that facilitated the spread of a radical black politics rooted militant black abolition movement of the 1840s and 1850s. life over river jordan provide fer tile ground as black free tom dreams. in 1787 the northwest order indians forbade slavery over the mississippi river which attracted members of what are called the african-american's founding generation. these blacks self-sufficient farming settlements between the western appalachian mountains attracted former slaves slaves e poem from even virginia. as scholars have shown many of the black people were free or quasifree children of african-american descended women and white slave holding men push out of virginia after policies s and black laws altered the terms of black freedom. tucker isaacs, (180)209-1874, virginia trotter's father and

william monroe trotter's grandfather, was one of these children. born free to a jewish merchant named david eye sakes and isaac's common law life named nancy west, tucker isaacs owned substantial property. the isaacs had familiar lymph and inhappy time to the hemsings and fossettes of mond chell the, tucker riff iowa was the daughter of the head blacksmith and cook at monticello. while thomas jefferson's will free oversees fossett in 18267, his wife and six children remained enslaved. after tucker and elizabeth married they continued to live in shaq with nancy west and various hemings and fossett kin as tucker saved money to purchase his wife, her five siblings and family members.

virginia isaacs was their fourth child and younger daughter, born in charlottesville but brought up crossing when slave and free soil as tucker purchased his farm in 1848 she told her son marks reason trotter, about the muskets she and her sin legislation is hill beneath their feet. she also told monroe but here an, julia isaac, hemings, wife of sally hemings son who passed into wisconsin whiteness after living with tucker isaacs. the opinion is that the impact of this family and cultural memory, black musket and slave rescues, this consciousness meant the power of block militancy in the face of white vie lance was -- vie lance was not abstract and a family

muskets was proud my displayed over the fireplace and his cousins were ministers, store keepers and teachers in. thus when trotter adopt the language of radical black self-defense, when he urged, for instance, after world war two that black soldiers do accruer forefathers of old, arm yourself you children in the name of all humanity. when he said these things he was not speaking rest treacly, militant black self-defense sustained and nurtured multiple generations and could, quote, claim for the colored people all that the south and her betters here and abroads would deny. this is an image of the isaacs family farm in ohio. in 1994. it trot at the's family history and an association of the black radical paste provided foundation, then boston provided him with a the necessary city in

which to exercise that thought. when trotter was born in 1872, boston was considered the, quote, mecca of the negro. a city in which property old holding black men -- where the public schools were desegregated in 1855 and a highly liberal activist black community, or colder that they preferred to call themselves, led free black resistance to slavery. as the son of black that's champion benefited from the radicalism, monroe trotter on associated from anaway age the lord byron quote, those who would be free themselves must strike the blow. thus with a faith in black community resistance and in his blackness generally, trotter's racial politics rejected the booker t. washington nation aspirate as the fingers and white progressive insistence that the negro, problem, was con bind to the south and negroes

were beyond redemption. although trotter's militant racial politicians support bid tightly knit boston community, the reality of life in the -- forced trotter roz provocative challenge to conservative facial spokes men. he more than any other african-american born the years after the civil war, trotter disrupts our understanding of the significant role that familiar froms outside of the jim crow south played in black political and cultural history, at the turn of the last center. while ruin it scholars broadsenned historical history into civil rights struggle as more than a southern or mid-20th center movement, serious study of northern animals relationship and re sis stabs against the federal government's betrayal of radical reconstruction remains scarce. boston's -- all of these things that supposedly make boston

racially exceptional often hinges on historical paradigms that don't quite fit myths about boston's past. disfranchisement did not exist on the same scale in massachusetts as it did in other northern states. nor died the type of rabid antiblack violence that precipitated. black men like james monroe trotter served in local and federal government and they were frequently elected by majority white districts until redistricting during the early 20th century. white supremacy looked and felt different in boston but did not mean it did not exist. william monroe trotter's demand for federal enforce. of the reconstruction amendment and his intolerance for an emergent narrative that, quote, the colder people were to blame nor america's negro problem, illustrates the fact. boston might have been, quote, thing me could of the anything groat, trotterrard by the negro

was losing citizen arounds through force over which he had little control, still, trotter and his boston support he believed that black people had the power to seize control over. the racial destiny through the bullet box and public proficients. african-american under constant violent assault could not control southern white supremacists or the northern powell yeases but could fight, quote, with all thy might against all attempts to devalue black lives, trotter launch the earlier and most uncompromising fight against the blacking a question acquiescence. his -- trotter was revolutionary in his insistence that activism, not accommodation, was the only route to racial justice and that booker t. washington, the most famous african-american in the world at the time could and mls be challenged.

during the guardian's first decade of circulation william monroe trotter and colored boston as he preferred to call them bake synonymous with negro militancy that relied on the political mobile of the genteel poor. the majority of african descended anymore greater boston and northern cities who rejected the washington dubois die electricking at the developing in progressive america's able consciousnesses. these gentile poor aliened from thought so professed race men and race women who claimed to represent the interests of the negro in other words the def segregation brought by rebound constructions collapse. the guardian spoke to these people and the people in turn hemmed transform the guardian into a cultural and political institution through which the colored people themselves with trotter as the coach, defined racial justice and civil rights on their over often radical terms. monroe protester used the guardian as a grassroots organizing tool long before the

term reached social movement consciousness. this grassroots political organization created movement toward political independence that affected boston's political landscape and inspired what white political commentators could the new england example. black voters exercising their dissatisfaction with the national g.o.p., by voting for democrats on a populist and local level. additionally trotter insis sent that black radicals interrogate rent than accept the existing american party system provides a blueprint for activists who argue that our two party system is fundamentally ill equipped to address the economic and social needs of the people. as one of the first black editors to organize northern black political nonpartisanship as a sustainable and legislatively significant civil rights strategy, trotter fueled a political independence movement that borrowed heavily from the negro movement of his father's generation inch monroe's hands the movement

spread far wider and had a far greater impact than anything his father produced. as his personal life suffered from a loss of income brought on by the end of his real estate business and the high cost of running the guardian, monroe trotter emerged as a unique political voice across the black north. never elected to office, which he never wanted, trotter's movement pushed massachusetts racial politics further left than the country while continuing to mobilize black northerners who were outraged by the impotence of the processed spokesman. when they preclaim a new age of american blackness in which divisions of hawk, region, socialow economic status complicate, my book argues that the guardian's notion of colder people has been and ought to continue to be a source of political strength, not weakness. after all as monroe trotter inculcated his opportunity with

in negro consciousness base on black led civil rights protest and political independence he created an alliance with care being born radicals in greater boston and new york. this alliance led to the liberty league congress, the only sift rights organization to meet during world war i and the one chiefly responsible for introducing the antilynching bill to northern congressmen. for a from a leader in decline, trotter's presentation of quote the demands of the colder anymore paris and his support for reds and n boston and harlem a placed civil right in the legislative conscious of d.c. for the first time since reconstruction, the bill did not pass, but the liberty league and he demands for colder world democracy on an interscale playinged new negro radicalism at the center of the will son administration's debate over a new world order. the last a years of trotter's life provide a glimpse into the

transnational impreliminary his career. far from the conservative provincial outlier of white rage, colder boston as they called themselves was a hotbed of new negro internationalism, committed to the he conflicting streams nationalism, communist and socialism with been black politics and by the time he nice april 1934, trotter had done nor radicalize radical politics in boston and across the country than any other populist leader of the generation. the tragedy is not he failed but that the people whose rights he so passionately aligned with his own interests could so callous low forgets him. neither black boston no racial politics generally would be the same following his death. still the guardian boston laid the groundwork for a grassroots political consciousness that informed local strategy in the 20th century civil rights movement. trotter's life is the story of

america's shift from a general acceptance of black economic political and racial subject if trotter's vision remains unfulfilled today it is a sign that his life's work is not yet finished and there are lessons yet to be learned from himself imperfect yet sincere battle for racial justice. thank you. [applause] i will now open it up for questions. >> did he commit suicide or some people say was he pushed. >> all of the evidence i have found, including the death certificate, and letter from his sister, right after he died, indicate that he commit suicide and that's actually how i begin the book i. begin the back into it is laid to rest and not the focus of the book. i think that as back then as

today there's stigmas surrounding suicide and mental health issues but when he was discovered his sister wrote a letter to one of their colleagues in d.c. saying he finely done it, finally jumped. and then, when the press responded in a way that i do not think for any presearch the probably expected, she then started saying that he did not jump himself, that he slipped in the ice, it was suspicion, but when he died at the moment he died, on april 7, 1934, all of his friends including his sister, their immediately response was he had killed himself, and in 1934, it was a moment when he was told the guardian was bankrupt so he jumped on an early saturday morning, told the guardian is bankrupt, the monday before. he is also told that because the

guardian has collapsed, he has nowhere to live basically, by the end of the month. he at that point was being cheated for what was called at the time nervous exhaustion, and had a habit of pacing and by the last year of his life, sort of talking to himself and people were very concerned. all this to say that part of the i think the unwillingness of many people to say that he committed suicide is sort of this stigma that surrounds both -- all communes, surrounding suicide and mental health issues and all the evidence would point to the fact he committed suicide. [inaudible question] >> he is fourth from the right. >> fourth from the front row, a little -- >> the circle. >> the one who is circled, yes.

[inaudible question] >> that's his mother. and his wife is next to her, the lighter skinned woman in the hat. this picture from the hubert harrison papers in columbia university. hubert harrison was a radical carribean migrant in harlem. the he images and recent research on trotter the last year as if life comes from that collection and one thing i would dream of is paying an undergrad student to research the people because i have my suspicions. but except for those two who are circumstanced those are the only three we know who they are. >> what was the response of the william trotter to the macconsider theism. >> he was a -- garvey was inspired by trotter and i go through this in the paper. garvey wrote when trotter died, garvey wrote a letter that was

published in the negro world and kind of as a punching comment on garveyism in the crisis, that trotter was the most noble -- what call it -- the most noble of all the race, the race could have afforded to lose many other leaders. we cannot afford to lose william monroe trot sore garvey one thing he did to inspire the members in africaal diaspora to -- he took the ship that trotter took to paris and turned into it the black star line, a ship that trotter used and used that as selling opinion to black public. there's an image in 1919 of 0 an activist named davis holding a rally in king symptom, jake, to get people to support garvey and she holds up a copy of the

guardian and says you have to give money bus this is trotter's book and she then writes this i inspired people to give money. so, he had a relationship with garvey. he did not agree with garvey's back to africa movement or with garvey's black nationalist movement in the way that garvey express it. he also was very hurt by the fact that garvey, much like himself, i would argue, had contentious relationships with members of the black radical left and they had a falling out personally but garvey is one of the ones who 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 a lot of respect in that circle. >> yes. >> two questions. one was a factual question.

died you say booker t. washington wrote to the governor of north carolina supporting that they bring rogers down there? >> yes. >> he shouldn't give in. >> yes. >> okay. was going to ask you why. but that's a separate issue. the second question is, is a understand it, black population of boston was quite small so how did -- i just literally learned the other day in philadelphia was the largest around that time, 40,000 or something. how does black communities in other parts of the country view the sort of activity that was happening here in boston. was is considered leadership, too radical or how was it perceived. >> excellent question. one of the thats that trotter -- i argue in the book one of trotters gift was hi able to go into places, rally up many members of this elite group of black men who had graduated from harvard or brown or colleges in new england so he knew them automatic. he was during his time at

harvard he was known as the leader of this cohort that sounds w.e. beverages due best and more began and luis and many of the graduates of hard vair or am hirst or -- and one thing that made trotter feel betrayed is many members of the class, once they graduated. disavowed their earlier activism for the sake of their careers and so one of the thing i argue in the book is that the way he was able to get see communities he didn't live in is he would call out members of his former cohort who were leaders in communes. the leader of the aame church in pennsylvania in the early 20th a church in rural new york, who then became a trotter convert, who had gone to a seminary and disavowed his activityism and

then trotter can you recalls hmm out in the church. you were the person who protested in 1893. why aren't you protesting now and has a mea culpa and then starts subscribing to the guardian. one thing i argue is that shamelessness was part of this hiss strength and his downfall because who wants to be around a person that is 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 particularly the black press are hard to come by because they were not covered by what became in the "associated press" but we know the numbers we can substantiate is about at its height, thousand to 4,000 newspapers per week. very small number. one thing we know is that what was happening was that people were taking pieces of guardian and putting them in their newspapers -- black newspapers where they lived so oklahoma, basically had its own newspaper called the semitar. that was basically the guardian. took the guardian, repackaged

and sold i and part of trotter's bad business since he one charging, saying, good, it's going to oklahoma, his wife was saying, yes, but they're taking your words and they're getting the profit and you're not. so to answer your question, definitely one thing i point to in the book is this notion that black boston was seen as a radical place and the independent, the major progressive in magazine had a whole article on the boston negro in 1904 and argued everybody else seems to be aliving, what's wrong with boston, and a whole -- bicker a up inman has a whole article on boston and why is it that the community seems to dissatisfied, what is wrong, just approves when you give -- approves when you give black people the right they're still upset. one over to tragedies of trotter's life is that the great migration that had this huge effect on other cities,

philadelphia, new york city, chicago, boston didn't have the same effect on boston. it's not that black people from the great migration did knock come to boston, bus they did -- because they did but compare to new york and philadelphia the block boston community with 1930 is still relatively small. and so he doesn't catch that wave of how other cities look during this time, and boston doesn't have that wave, and as historians we have to re-evaluate how we look at what the great migration did so certain studies to in boston you get mights from the south but not as much as new york, and so then radicalism shifts to new york, even though it was still going on in boston. the governor case, something that the booker t. washington papers, chronicled very well in term -- and louis harlan, the editor -- shoutout to his

archival work, do incidents of washington talking to white governors and leaders in the the south and trotter point ought that he was having this relationship even though the public and washington is denying it. and trotter on the monroe rogers incident publishes the letter tom washington had with the governor of north carolina basically telling him, it's okay, he can go back to the south, we all know you're a friend of black people, all of this type of thing. so, trotter was very good at shaming his former colleagues who were like the black elite, not very good at maintaining good personal relationships with them, and going kind of into their territory as they would say and this is what dubois accused him of and riling up fireworks dubois' words and leading and that people in the community the black leaders have to respond.

>> thank you caulk but this relationship to the niagra movement and dubois? >> yes. dubois and trotter were at harvard see tame time. dubois was a graduate student. dubois had a crush on and was wooing geraldine who became trotter's wife. and they were used to dance the berlin, dance so they used to dance together and trot we're come and the pushed dubois aside and went to trotter. these thing that dubois writes, damn that trotter comes in and steals the person i wanted. so the 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're getting together to decide on this niagra movement, that is -- that conversation takes place in

trotter oses house in dorchester. and initially they're allied through the niagra movement. and trotter actually -- dubois refer to him as john the baptist of the. no he gets all the people come to boston and say we're going to found this new movement. the problem was that once the movement gets started, and they corral all of these talents members to be a member of it, trotter got mad because clement morgan, his former friend, the lawyer in monroe rogers case, dubois put him in charge of the niagra. no in boston, and trot are flipped out and sabotages the. no in boston am it's moment that i, really changes the way that he tries to have relationships with people, owe to the doesn't always succeed because after that moment the niagra movement

collapses and dubois argues, we could have been a good movement, trotter selfishly wanted to be in charge, wasn't in charge some so basically funds his own organization. but dubois had a strange relationship with trotter, i always point out the two men had known each other since they were in their early 20s, so if we just think how long the relationship was. they war not close after the niagra movement fell. they were particularly not close after torontoer went to paris and -- trotter went to paris and due boys was not in the radical due best movement yet and argue that black people need to support the government world war i, but after the -- trotters death dubois was the first one to stop production on the crisis, put the story he was working on to the side and put trotter on the cover and has this beautiful obituary to trotter, arguing that it was a sign that the activists of old

were being forgotten by the generation, trotter was forsaken. and then kind of never mentions him again publicly. but kind of like this relationship that hey had, that is kind of like the dubois might look at is a the brother or cousin you didn't won't and don't like and other years you like and support and they had that type of contentious relationship. >> say something but the research you did and -- [inaudible question] -- a lot of of research here and i noticed a lot of photos in the hyde park historical -- where were your -- >> this was all primary source material. so the first place started would the guardian newman. read every single issue that survived. the guardian -- the places where it is the boston public library,

congregational library on beacon street, and then some of it is on the archive called the african-american newspaper archive. those are the only three kind of constant places where you can get them and they're poorly preserved to you get pieces of paper ask then you get a handprint on them and can't read. then it went into black newspapers generally and found they were taking the guardian and we'll sale the guardian by william monroe trotter but we are calls this sematar and go into the papers and look at it there. i look at personal papers of dubois papers, hubert harrison papers at columbia, the moreland library at howard university which has all these letters, fabulous archive of prime minister history in d.c. trotter doesn't write a biography. but he has all thereof this letters the is sending to people that deenie is sending to people

over the years that are saved in these archives and most hoff the -- i think because trotter hadn't gotten the attention he should get in the academy you have go into the miscellaneous persons. you won't leaders to trotter. most of the time you won't. it was peeling back who are his associates and then looking at his associates' papers. the other good source was here at the mhs, the henry cabot lodge papers because lodge was an antagonist of trotter but also the one political ironically ally that trotter considered he had for all time. and so there's always these letters between lodge and the black community in boston, the honey fitz papers, that family, honey fitz was member who believed he could not become -- make his way through the political ladder in boston unless he courted the black

vote. and so there's a lot of sort of on the hon in fitz and the fitzgerald papers, honey fitz saying i'm going to a rally at the north enbut i have to make sure this is covered in the guardian because if it's not, then black people wont show up and i'll lose by 200 votes. so mading stuff, and the ward records from different wards in massachusetts how people voted and where they voted what what's population of the district in which they lived. so it was all primary source stuff. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> over the years, booktv covered several authors discussing presidential impeachment. here's a portion of one of them. >> first, the president said, well, there are no firsthand witnesses to this. it's all hearsay. then there were first hand wilts who defied the presidents orders

and came and testified, people who heard the phone call, like veinedman, -- -- there were no first-hand witnesses because he was gagging them all and took the brave riff eye people liar hill and vindman to defy that and that's fallen apart. then said, well, this is about fighting corruption. which is a weird argue. because trump actually right before it, kurt the budget for fighting corruption in ukraine and when asked was there any other pies in the entire world in which you cared but corruption, there are 194 countries. no where else in the entire world. just the one magical place the appeared to care but corruption was the praise in which his cleave political rivals son had an interest. then finally the new one, which is being someone in yesterday's house report, is that ukraine

was a really corrupt country and we couldn't give the aid to ukraine because it was so corrupt. okay. there or two problems with this. number one, the trump administration just before the aid cutoff had certified that ukraine was not corrupt and could receive the aid so that was an official determination by the administration as opposed to a determines by rudy giuliani, and number two, think but it, if the claim is ukraine is a corrupt country, why do you pick up the phone and call that corrupt country and ask them to launch an investigation into a united states citizen? that -- i mean, very fact it was corrupt was part of the attraction, not the thing that they were trying to avoid. that's why they were doing it. so, that one is falling. so now we have the other one is, the impeachment process is unfair. trump doesn't have due process

rights. so, that one is a little -- that one is a tough one for him to make. it's tough because the way in which the architecture of the constitution works the house of representatives is the impeachment phase is like the grand jury phase in a criminal investigation. so trump is klaining my lawyers don't get to participate, although now they have been invited to, but heath says i don't get protects and that's true on the criminal side. you get them in the trial. so absolutely you have a right to be present in the criminal trial, and to testify and to cross examine witnesses and tell your story, absolutely, just if you're indicted but that's on the senate side. so the process that's due, just occurs then. >> to access the c-span2 and booktv archives on impeachment visit our