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southern social political and economic ideologies prevailed in the american west. following the civil war. enjoy but to be on "c-span2". >> hello everyone and welcome and thank you for joining us. around the world. we have people from st. louis and harlem and albuquerque and the bronx. we are so pleased to have you here. my name is maia marshall. obook watch, it's origins lessos of our own. and published by crown books. before i introduce the doctors, and the organizers of this teaching them with books. our bookselling partner.

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thank you so much for providing the life captioning. what we will do is have a conversation for about 40 minutes. and then questions and reminders of events. and now, just list your questions in the chat. it is my pleasure to introduce the doctors. [inaudible]. the most well-known books, democracy and box, race and the american soul read in the shade of blue, and the politics of black america. professor of religion it will correct me in a second. african-american studies. at princeton university.

doctor west, is a professor of the practice at harvard divinity school. best known for his classic race matters. democracy matters. in his memoir, living and living out loud. he is the host of the new podcast. will be discussing the beautifully written book begin again which was just released yesterday. this book is absolutely beautiful. hopefully the moment where we need that. i'm going to read just a little bit about where this book came from. then we will start. it begins in crucial and encouraging space. in the dream was slaughtered that love and labor seem to have come to nothing but scattered.

we knew where we have been, what we had tried to do. to attract been murdered around us. not everything is low. responsibility cannot be lost. it can be only advocated. and when we receive the certification again again. welcome doctor reed. >> thank you. >> i am so delighted to be here. thank you maia. stacey: so excited to have you. so happy to jumping with this question. why now. >> first off, just let me think everybody for making this possible. all of the folks in haymarket press. anna specifically thanked doctor west who has been so important in my life and has made me

possible. so this is making my heart smile just to be with you in this moment. it's exciting. [inaudible]. often, why now pretty well in some ways we saw barbara emerge in the context of 2014 is amazing before. as black lives matter was beginning to give voice to his own desire. they were reaching for a voice. reaching for this clear black man is spoke in kind in truth, who carried with him the kind of wage and love. like he cleared the effort omit politics who offered a different kind of understanding of what it meant to preach for a different way of being in the world. but i wanted to turn to baldwin

because i was trying to grapple with my own despair and delusions meant in this moment. talk to the extraordinary moment of 2008 in the election of barack obama. then we saw for eight years with that meant. and then we witness police, murdering our brothers and sisters and we saw these young folks in the streets, risking life and limb. and what we see in response, voter id laws and voter suppression in the country we ended up with donald trump. so this was a moment of betrayal of profound betrayal. in the country and did it again. so what i wanted to do was to return to jimmy who had been so much in this moment. to figure out how he dealt with his moments of betrayal.

and how he turned his back then. how did he pick up. and what resources were available to us now. because in my mind, it was one of the most insightful could be critics of the record for free so makes his army, it made sense for me to reach for him in this moment. >> thank you sir. and what this book is which is part biography part history and part historical grounding in this moment. and the disappointment that follows. an important again to help in this constant rebuilding. i wonder if each of you could take a moment to speak to the practice of hope and witness now. and our responsibility to care for the witness. resting critically nasty things

happening to witnesses. and one who witnessed the murder of george floyd. how do we practice hope. and the responsibility of witnessing. how do we take care of our witnesses. >> i love would you say doc. >> first i want to thank the sister there for her work there at haymarket market there and running the menu script section and poetry section in general. in his brother right here. lord have mercy. just look at him in his eyes. remembering 30 years ago, i was fairly convinced that my dear brother, i said you see that brother talking. i say he is going to be one of the great exit laws of our

tradition. did you you talking about the greatest tradition in the modern world. unflinchingly catastrophe still dish it out a low voice. what beauty that is. the goodness. love is a truth. and myself as a christian, love of god. in those 30 years have been such a magnificent journey for me. so the slippery joyous occasion and that of days and became the decline of the american empire. and then my brother eddie. he seemed to path, i want you to see what it looks like. see what you have in this text. the way in which you attempt to regenerate and revitalize the greatness of a tradition. the black intellectuals. brandy intellectuals concerned about black's doings and

sufferings. so we begin with on talking about at the end of his life. no talks about where hope comes from. i hope somebody will find when they dig in the wreckage in the rubble and the ruins, something that could be of use to them. ... ...

eddie glaude represents the voices of the cloud of witnesses, a custodian of a rich inheritance and a caretaker of a great tradition of people to keep dishing out these levels of truth. this is why he engages with somebody like altman at the highest levels of greatness. greatness not in terms of -- i want the book to be number one but the greatness not measured by just remember that it's measured by what went into it, the courage to think critically and the courage to love and the courage to generate hope and to practice hope is to be connected to the best of one's tradition to understand what's going into the making in the molding with

that love all the way into magnificent mississippi. that's what senate and what senate intimate that tradition available to the whole world the whole world being at that level, you have been able to somehow keep it on, keep on pushing so that's what you actually get in "begin again" and let's be honest about it it's a tear soaked, bloodsoaked and yet soulful tradition. that's what you get in this text. >> first of all i hope my mom is listening. that's what i want to read i pray that she heard that because you are going to bring me to tears but there is a line. there are so many lines that

will blow you away but there's a moment in istanbul where he's being interviewed and he uses begin again and i'll buy the sitting there and it's 1970 i think. the interviewer asks him about hope. baldwin retreats and this is on page 145. >> i remember that. i remember exactly what he said. >> what did he say? >> hope must be enlisted every day, every day. is that right? >> that's right. >> that's our tradition brother. that's our tradition. it's the verb, it's motion, its movement it's indeed, to

practice and you have to be improvisational about it. you have to be jazz like about it. you have to be blues like about it. you have to reinvent that every day. i have to reinvent a resources so we'll come back the next day. and come back the next day and it's going to come back the next day. and baldwin of course he has the best position in the world. so i was thinking about that line as an answer to mine. in the face of the assassination of dr. king where they murdered an apostle of love and collapsed and could barely pick up the pieces and tried to commit suicide and 69. his relationships collapsing around him and thinks he's this child because his daddy told him

he was so ugly he believed that nobody could love that ugly little boy. he finds himself in a stumble trying to figure out how to. >> to this moment and there he gives utterance to this line, this formulation that the doctors laid out. >> that's a necessary practice that we are in fact are the hope. it is our commitment to showing up. that is the hope and that is the model in the practice. it's just so awesome. >> all the courage and willingness to be crashed and misunderstood and misconstrued and pushed to the fringes and still have that kind of bounce

back. you see what i mean? the what we have and brother eddie's book here in the middle of a blues like situation in the u.s. empire he's saying well you know we lose people in this ain't new for us. we have been here before. not particularly so at the moment but in similar kinds of moments and asked a human thing. it's not just a black thing. the black folk are human beings predisposed and don't have to prove nothing to nobody and he has to learn how to love and fight and hope and laugh with their families are mamas and their daddies and their synagogues in their churches and their universe.

he didn't have in mind the genius from mississippi. to be distinguished university professor. he is not surprised. he's her fellow colleague and he's not surprised and i'm not surprised. we have teachers who see us as we continue to grow and mature. we are not surprised at the fact that he is like all bone is connected to the best of his tradition. that's the thing about it. you probably want to say a word about when he tells the students. you tell that story brother. >> it's a gorgeous moment. he was so central to sncc they produce that radical coal hardin group of corbin cox ends stuckey

carmichael who would become -- they all come out of that group so they invite him to come to campus any supposed to be on stage with allison who could make it in the rain who was too sick. he lays bare but then they retreat after the panel discussion. malcolm was not audience too. he says i hear the little brothers going to stake and i want to hear him because i know he speaks the truth. they get the liquor and they are talking until the late midnight hour until the sun begins to come up and baldwin has the last word in jimmy says if you promise her elder brother that you will not believe what the world says about you i will promise you that i will never

betray you. and to ray tells michael farewell in his autobiography and farewell quotes it in jimmy never betrayed it no matter what they said about it. >> i was sitting next to stuckey carmichael and to ray at the funeral december of 1987 at st. johns cathedral with the genus name baraka and another genus names toni morrison who gave their heart soul and mind and cried like a baby. he isn't the crying kind of brother. he knew given all of us as human beings baldwin never was a fake

never a phony and never frauded never a coward. given all of his ups and downs. and the suicide attempts, right? he's wrestling with this. it's true for all of us. we are wrestling with it but he's wrestling with despair but he never betrays everyday black people really everyday people you see and that's a beautiful thing. it's majestic. if you are able to tease that out and this is why this is the most important text ever written on old when and his genius and his relevance. it's a positive check on baldwin and the blues in his connection to the music but in terms of the relevance of this is particular historical moment linick we.

>> that's fun. >> absolutely. >> you've made it clear that james baldwin was a man who was pushed into the basis of this one because he is a person who believed and your reality and maybe you could give us perspective. maybe can tell us where you are from and that's abundantly clear throughout the text. >> it's such a great point. i've wanted to come and i've i said this kind of, i knew what i decided to start reading and he would ask things of me. but i wasn't quite ready when i was younger. there's a sense in which baldwin always says this is a precondition. to know that lessons of the

world we have to deal with your own any of said deal with the material world is a precondition to say anything about the world because baldwin thinks the message of the world is a reflection of the lies that we tell ourselves. so i'm sitting here wanting to write about the moment and i'm grappling with the fact that i'm a vulnerable little boy still dealing with my daddy issues, still grappling with the fact and that's why began this way. i love my father. he made me possible. woke up every day and he used to sweat in the mississippi heat delivering mail. he could look at me and scare me to adapt. i would shudder and i've been grappling with what it means to

have that fear put inside of me so early and as i was writing the sentences came out about my dealing with my daddy and by the time i get to the end of the novel, the end of the book my father is with me as i visit his grave. i'm talking about us telling each other how we loved each other, how he called me to tell me what to say on television and how proud he is of me right? and when you read jimmy you read baldwin's notes to the native son his critique of his stepfather escaping but you read baldwin by the time he's about to die in december, the later writing about his father understanding what the world it

to him. it's not so much him but the context of his living. i think the writing of "begin again" is the kind of writing i've never done in public before they've been taking risks because jimmy demanded it of me and i should say this really quickly. it forced me to deal with the scaffolding of my own lie. >> and is asking that of our country as well those of us who are trying to pull a nation back from a fascist moment to be honest because narratives are important to please take a moment to speak to your definition of the lie as you talk about in the book and the notion of the value gap resulting and i would like to hear the two of you discuss that.

>> the best way to talk about it is the passage on pain nine -- page nine. 1964, he wrote it for robert a. good ones 100 years of emancipation and it breeds the people of settled the country had a fatal flaw. they could recognize a man when they saw one. the new he wasn't anything else but since they were christian and since they had already decided if they came here to establish a free country the only way to justify the role one is playing in one's life to say he was a man or if he was and that no crime at and committed this lie is the basis of our present troubles so what all one is saying here part of it is there have been lies told about by people's capacity about our character, batter passions all to justify this system of

exploitation this cruel barbaric study at the heart of the founding of the modern world at the heart of the founding of the country. not only do you have lies about like people you have lies about what americans have done to black people and then you have the lie that is the key point. the way and what the lie works that is malformed and i use that verb. it's malformed in any effort to expose the reality of what it has done. anything that comes to reveal the truth of what the nation has done, what it is done to the native people and what it has done in haiti and cuba in the philippines and what it's done in the hiroshima not the sake anything that reveals that america is not the shining city on the hill by the example of

democracy or anything that attempts to reveal that reality. >> absolutely. >> that's what i mean by the lie and that lie is the architecture within which the value gap is this fundamental belief that white people matter more than others. that's at the heart of our social arrangement in our political arrangement in her economic arrangement. the valuation valuation of black folks in the valuation of white folks that lead to the dispersion of the disadvantage that distorts the character of the folks who hold it so they can become the kinds of people that the conception of democracy requires. >> absolutely. really what you are saying is a tool we have fighting that additional fear that we are born with is a true reality and a sense of who we are and in fact

we are human without having to ask and we are deserving and that's the crucial truth we have to hold in our hearts. i'm going to read just a little passage from the book and ask you one more question. when it comes to our history it fits the story when america's innocence is threatened by reality. when measured against our actions historically told ourselves about america about being a divine nation a beacon of light is a lie. the idea of an honest assessment of what happened after the civil war is a lie are the stories we have to tell ourselves of the silver rights movement in this

country and dr. king's moral vision and black power, knitting in the election of barack obama are all too often lies so i wonder what if we disabused ourselves of the notion of innocence as it relates to the citizenry and the state? >> you know at one level we could leave behind the swaddling clothing. [laughter] >> the lie keeps us in never never land. a perpetual state of adolescence so your is be responsible for anything and it allows us to exist in the a kind of willful ignorance about what we have done and what we are doing member that moment in 63 when he talks about what is happening to black folk.

he said it's not just the line that echoes in the what's that movie with the late brother with ice cube where he said they don't know when they don't show. remember that? the boys n the hood. john singleton. they don't know it and they don't show it or the number that line? it's not that they don't know. they willfully don't want to acknowledge what they are doing to their fellows and baldwin says it's not enough that you can do that and they claim innocence? innocence is the crime. innocence is the crime. i think once we leave that behind we are stepping into maturity. part of the greatness of old when was that he also knows how

big white supremacy is in the souls of black people. the lie has been something that too many black people have consented to so if you really believe you run around scared and intimidated fearful of the time and laughing when it ain't funny and scratching when it don't itch you will wear a mask your whole life are the only thing that can break the back of fear is love. you listen to the emotion and you listen to coal train. jimmy on the base. that is the stuff that can break the back of fear because fear is something that all human teams

have to come to terms with. as maya pointed out people are fearful. the only way to grow into them maturity is your sense of his rear since a memory and the love that would empower you to the kind of anxiety that doesn't allow you to be the free person you ought to be. and brother eddie lays this out. love causes us to take off the mask and the fear that we cannot live without. the muhammad ali, these are free black people and baldwin was part of that cloud of witnesses and brother eddie puts more responsibility on themselves now because baldwin of coors was someone who was chewed up and out by the liberal establishment and that's why brother eddie

argues brothers give, we love skipton brother hilton we love hilton but they are wrong. he lost his literary power. there is said genius and baldwin after the death of malcolm and there's a genius and baldwin where the only thing he can fall back on is the love of his family a higher jackson ray charles and others because as they got closer to death those things that really really mattered that could sustain you that's what you were going four for backup. your friends and your partners and your intellectual ancestors. brother eddie lays this out.

>> baldwin never stop telling the truth even when he was fully disheartened. i'm reading a passage in that first couple of sections that could be. as saying baldwin gave up but what he did was he gave a hallmark for old age which is not something we introduce to our young activists or talk about is school. we talk about having that movement were you. here the melody in order to show the beauty and the lyrics. that's important. i want to turn to this idea that he points out in trauma memory and that photo.

he just had a different perspective and it comes with age and devastation. >> you know i try to say that the scholarship around jimmy is much more articulated and it's just amazing to see the work with james baldwin and mcbride and others so the traditional reading of early baldwin and late open folks don't buy into that anymore that silly biography by james campbell. it's been kind of displaced by others who have been working in jimmy's work. i'm going to hold onto this claim that there's a continuity of themes running through jimmy that he is grappling with ideas of different material conditions

that change how he is thinking about love identity history memory and how is thinking about the light. it's not that he goes bad or becomes a propaganda of black power or he seeks only continued relevance after his fallen out of celebrity. he is grappling with the conditions under which black folk have to live and the conditions under which love has to be expressed. as we think somebody has to really grapple with the things not seen. when he is writing about it he's trying to figure out whether we dealing with on these black babies are being killed how are we going to grapple with this? the book needed a good editing but it's a brilliant text that requires a different kind of reading. i think the trauma at the heart

of how we think about reading jimmy in his latter phase and how he grapples with the narrative, there's a lot i want to get to in the witness chapter and i remember writing this and trying to figure out. i got up after a road import myself a stiff drink because i knew something had just happened. and it goes something like this, narrating trauma on page 41 big narrating trauma this day tag that's how we remember that we call what we'd can and what we need to desperately keep herself together. historically painful president threatening to render the soul and if that happens nothing else matters. telling the story of trauma in fits and starts isn't history it is a way to medic memory works

recollections caught in the pitch of battle between remembering and forgetting. that's tony right there. faksa bungled on behalf of much-needed truths we try to keep our heads above water and tell ourselves the story that keeps her legs and arms moving below the surface. then i go on to page 43, 43 and 44. 43 and 41 we want everybody to know to read those powerful words, page 43 and then 44. and then on 45 that quote terror cannot be remembered or he did one create certain bits of personality or persona that leads to be at humiliation. terror the memory repudiates and

that's the cruel irony that the terror moves us about it we dig dig trenches to redirect the memories and to get them to flow away from us but like the waters of the mississippi river it's always returns flooding everything no matter how high we build the stilts. baldwin is trying to in the latter part of his career turned to tell the story of what happened and trying to offer a language that will allow us to pick up the pieces and move forward. you cannot understand what tony is doing with memory and not understand what baldwin is doing with memory and no name in the streets. structurally it's almost like they are echoing each other in these extraordinarily beautiful ways turning back on itself in anything triggering the return.

the mind is a strange thing. he's on the verge of madness. >> that's rich but back to my reading at the beginning of our dialogue or right before you talk about beginning to end to talk about what is not lost and what is not lost his responsibility. responding, the ability to respond, count ability. accounting of oneself, counting of one's community accounting of one society and the world and answer ability. we have to be able to answer one another and baldwin gets this inside music. musicians must take responsibility for the notes

they play right or wrong responsibility for the sound responsibility for the impact on our audience are you going to touch the souls of the folks who enabled them in such a way that they could be agents of love and hope and i think baldwin understood and brother eddie lays this out sobering to the subway that black folk see a black musician and they say that somebody who will sing in the right key and knows how to play. here comes another arrogant so-and-so looking down on everyday people thinking they are better and so forth. the black intellectuals have the same status as musicians. we are hungry for more poetry. we want gwendolyn, we go on a non. >> it's an argument that the

poets are black intellectuals. >> absolutely. that is true. >> absolutely. >> that the gap between the intellectual and the academy and the musicians there still a gap there. >> it's moving with music. >> absolutely. part of my critique of altman because it's a revival with baldwin. we appreciate all plan. baldwin is unbelievable. i've been critical of rather colson and his voice is very important but that was generated by his relationship with brother james baldwin. but the voice is very important no matter what but my critique

is in brother eddie we talk about this with chuck and others that baldwin doesn't linger with his critique of the worst of the black -- his critique of white liberals is devastating and his critique of black liberals is underdeveloped. it's there but he doesn't release is dana. it's not a fraser indictment in 1955 and in a post obama era that we live in we have got to have a bold critique of the worst of the black bourgeoisie that turns its back to the black working class. the black bourgeoisie is beautiful but baldwin can be reluctant it seems to me. tell me what you think rather. spat this is why we need to

return. i think this is precisely the moment that you are looking for because baldwin faults what happens when the white supremacy sustains and black folk power what are we to make of this representation at the very class that you are talking about white folk aren't the object of consideration. he makes a wonderful distinction of white people and people happen to be white which i love trying to get us to think about the theology. the way in which power functions in the way in which capitalism functions and what happens when we get access and white supremacy is still obtained and because the book, remember breithaupt to michael falwell

for the book i said we have touched return the incident of what we seen and farewell says oh no. i was like that doesn't lead to the judgment of the tax. i think the general dismissal of that look cuts it off think come it's not in the price of the ticket and waits not in library of the american collection so it angles out there. i think that's exactly where we would look for that critique. what happens is you get so disarmed in -- so you have critical voices telling the truth about the connection to wall street and drones and empires and so forth. everybody is going to protect you but black unity is a beautiful thing.

he put a primacy on the poor the working class the widows not just the highly successful ones who were doing well. they are the measure of how black people are doing. you see what i mean? >> i want to ask before he moved to the part where the questions come because people did critique obama. >> i'm wildly proud of her and i want to ask one more question with the same framework that dr. west is provided to us before we go on to questions from the audience. can you speak to the possibility of racial democracy and capitalism?

do want to take that? >> have a whole lot to say but you can breakthrough on that one my brother. >> we have to -- i think there's a possibility for multiracial coalition to speak to the contradictions of capitalism at this moment but as long as capitalism is -- there's going to be the view that some people are disposed it seems to me. racial capitalism is what it is. but that doesn't preclude because as i understand the question it doesn't preclude the possibility of a racial coalition to strike the blow to what capitalism is because contradictions are in full view one of the interesting things about the current moment is the last 40 to 50 years of

reagan-ism america is revealed to be bankrupt. all the contradictions are in full view so part of what we are seeing in the streets they are young folk who come of age in the age of catastrophe or kim related grief and the like. you see protesting over police brutality and you see the solidarity and vulnerability that the pandemic has generated. but the idea or the judgment underneath all of it is the country is broke. that's why we see all of these disparate groups and coalitions out in the streets risking their lives. they are risking their lives so my short answer to the question is yes i believe in the possibility of multiracial coalitions in the face of capitalism. cornell? >> we have got to have prosperity and coalition based

on the willingness for people to fight. it's the treatment of indigenous people. america begins as an empire. it was then the empire it's up dedicated on black folks and a hatred of black people but you have to have multiracial coalition. there's no doubt about that. it has to be an apologetic about fighting white supremacy and and so forth. at the same time baldwin himself talked about the american socialists. yankee doodle he calls it. it began when he was young. and an empire. with baraka and glenn ford in

our leftist folks they keep the pressure on. america is an empire and that predatory capitalist and profoundly's white supremacy of the score and male supremacy of the corporate within that same experiment there are been freedom fighters and love warriors come out of the tradition. culturally and artistically it's been at the vanguard of it. >> i don't mean to set up that question as though it's an opposition. all of the coalitions must be evaluated critically and honestly. thank you. [laughter] before we make this transition

to audience questions are the thoughts you want to share? the. >> i always thought that jimmy was walking with me as i wrote the book. i didn't tell you the story dock that i was writing the book reverend barber, talk to reverend barber. he decided not to buy the book and give money to the poor people's campaign. reverend barber says we need this book. we need you to write it and a few weeks later i get this package in the mail and reverend barber sends me -- and then there were these moments.

he wrote the first biography of jimmy and they are all of these amazing quotes in a biography and i've remember saying i wish i could find the archive of these quotations and my writing partner was what you call him? the end of course she sent me all these telephone numbers so i called the first number and lo and behold he's alive. i go to the apartment in new york and i meet her needs and denise gave me the transcripts and it wasn't like five or 10 pages. it was 100 pages of transcription of the interviews. baldwin's description of witness that isn't in the passage i

found. it was a moment when i wanted to visit his grave at the end and carol feinstein. they have a beautiful son together daniel baldwin. carol drives me to the graveyard in the grave and we think we are going to find him and we are walking all around and these brothers come of these young brothers they said they are getting high. they roll down the window and it was loud. i read about this at the end of the book. we said do you know where james baldwin grave is in the brother turned to radney says we don't nobody he might be aired by malcolm. malcolm is over there and carol said he's not near bolcom. so when we return i find jimmy

andy's right behind it waiting for it. that's the conclusion i draw he's been waiting to see what history will do for him. >> the third american founding that you talk about in the last pages of the text and reconstruction. it's a massive radical democratic awakening that keeps track of all of the various arms of domination and forces of evil in the american empire. brother of mrs. text of that is timely and will be timeless in terms of folks reading it many

years after the world has our bodies. i can tell you that. >> for return to questions this man has loved me to death and without his love and example none of this would be possible. he loves me in understanding this country boy from mississippi could say something in the world. he gave me the authority to believe in myself and understand that i have the capacity to walk into any room to be a free black man and understand what it means to walk in love so he poured all his love into me and i just want to give him all the glory. not all the glory. >> you give me so much joy in my godson one of the great honors of my life.

i'm hugging her virtually. they can't do it physically but your mom and dad in downtown mississippi. it's just such a blessing to be part of a great tradition knowing that you are holding up that bloodstained tear stained banner and the self-examination goes hand-in-hand with the fortitude and determination to keep on fighting and keep on swinging. t's tavern, jr. >> what a beautiful exchange. thank you so much for allowing me to be a witness to that. i'm so grateful you are be able to be at the best version of yourself. i feel bad giving a pitch now. all right before you begin

audience questions i want to remind everyone about the book "begin again" which you can buy from labyrinth and free shipping if you put in the baldwin code and 10% of the sales go to the poor people's campaign. please pick up this book. young people need to know about baldwin in the future we are going to fight together. also register for the upcoming events one with marion coppola tomorrow the second and another with dorothy roberts on the eighth and also -- on the 4th of july. >> it's a perfect time. >> what are the other forces of color and can the two of you

offer guidance quakes >> i would begin with kerry kindred. a black radical wind up against booker t. washington it went up against w.'s -- deadbeat eb dubois and worked with a young socialist and the fbi hunted them down and stayed in the basement in boston. 62 years old he committed suicide jump from the top of the building because he felt black folks turned their backs on him. his life was exemplary and professor kendricks allowed his voice to become much more visible and he's in the same tradition as baldwin and as

eddie glaude and the rest of them. >> is that good? do we can go to the next one. >> it's a good jumping off point. how do we deal with neoliberalism patterns of manipulating radical discourse practices and emotions? >> i think we have to, how can i put this? the is going to sound a bit too abstract but i think we have to figure out how to beat together differently under these contemporary moral condition so how do we resist the way which neoliberalism reduces us to being individuals in pursuit of our own self-interest and

competition and rivalry with other individuals in pursuit of their own self-interest and because we are individuals in pursuit of our own self-interest we are the basic values that defined that. it eviscerates any notion of the public good. this is why you have folks that can understand why they cannot wear a mask. they have no conception of what a robust understanding in relation with others in genuine community so part of what we had to do it seems to me is to figure out how to build relationships with one another that in some ways hold off to model, that we have being in the world and love that allows you to laugh full belly laughs and to be rageful. those folk who enable you to

reach for different way of being in the world. i'm not trying to sound like allison mecca touch but i'm talking about creating these who pockets but i am saying how do we forge relationships with one another becomes an active little gesture in this moment it seems to me. is that knicks fans. >> absolutely and the joy that you have in those relationships have to be deeper than the pleasure you get another corners of the world and other corners of the community. the joy is different. black people traditionally have been the soulful people because we are very joyful people can't be soulful ear life despite being -- that there is joy and pain. it's the tradition that has to

cut at the deeper spiritual and moral level and we have to be honest and relies all of us especially those in the black middle class are already commodified in one way or another. that has to be the object of our critical reflection. baldwin says i know i'm the great white hope for the liberal establishment that i want to talk about that. i'm not going to be that hope for them. it doesn't mean he's just kowtowing to black folks previous something inside of him that is a calling not just a career. he's got something inside of him that is a call and i can say that in the highly commodified culture. they are missing the point are you something just ain't right area and >> something something just ain't right. it's a raisin in the sun.

all we are talking about is money and what is jimmy saying about sweet lorraine? the difference between that in chicago. and what does this say about that? he says it's the difference between keeping the faith and making it. everybody in some sense has to make it because you have to have cash. you don't live by ride along. you have to keep faith. whatever faith that is that has to be faith bigger than your career bigger than your next pr move. you have to have something inside of you. he has something inside of him that he had before he set eyes on him. >> empathy. >> i'm going to give more house some credit here.

that's more house too. >> this moment is particularly unusual that we are asking for useful productive connection in a moment where we are not faced with active close physical intimacy because of the pandemic. how do we builds closeness in the digital era? we used platforms that are plus projects and forms of the kind of developed a relationship with community-based ties. >> that's a hard question. said that's a really profound question you're asking. stinnett that's a hard question my up to i mean you know i'm thinking about paul taylor's

wife, his partner. she lost her mom in to covid and she couldn't go home to say goodbye to him. couldn't send her home because she was worried about coronavirus and her children and you think about when marcellus and his daddy is complicated as is that relationship was. >> brother ellis. >> they couldn't do a second line for him in new orleans. can you imagine that? they couldn't send them home. so there is a way, there are ways in which this current pandemic has interrupted cuts and has given grief a different

sort of registry and an edge because grief now comes with regret and grief and regret is dangerous. mama i wish i could have said to you that i was sorry before you went away. i wish i could have resolved x, y and z. that has happened alongside the fact that we are sheltering in place and many of us are and we can't touch and we can engage but i think in the midst of this i'm trying to get to an answer to your question. in the midst of this we have to find ways of being together. i am in the reading room with doc. >> and we have a good time too. >> all of this stuff and you and i don't have time to even blink that we are sitting here reading and every two weeks we are

getting one zoom for two hours with their close partners mark everson and paul taylor and charles peterson and charles kenny and we get talking about the book. then there might be a little liquor flowing but the point is it's time to figure out how to maintain each other's soul, how to be not a crutch but a shoulder. in the midst of this so how are we going to be on the opposite end of this the way which we are trying to continue over laysha's with each other under these conditions and what it will look like when we get on the other side of this. my guess it will be even deeper if that makes sense.

>> i certainly hope so and i think that's a real possibility of project of making time for each other. >> coal train loves this resolution. absolving self. resolve ourselves. nothing will get in the way of our love for each other. and a child could have been born in virginia and got sold to houston texas. we never got about -- forgot about that and as soon as you get for you walk from virginia to texas and you are going to get there. nothing will get in the way of the love that we have for the people. and whatever it takes you have improvisation you have to be flexible through it and so forth but whatever it takes and i

think that's part of the great tradition very much so, very much so. sister maya you have teased out of those things. >> i like to be in conversations like these and i hope i came prepared. i'm grateful for you and the time you have given to us. i think it transitions into this question could either been a child for a long time but i was raised by black people who loved people and cared for our souls and our intellects and there's a question here about how we raise our black children. ariana, how do we negotiate our own radicalized, while trying to give enough sunscreen for her

children not to get earned in the white street? >> wow. there's a wonderful moment where jimmy rejects a certain description of the problem says i don't know what you mean by it but what we mean by the problem is we have to try to keep whatever this world is saying about her children from taking a risk in them and trying to keep whatever the world is saying about them from taking root in their >> and their soul. a thousand cuts daily. the interesting thing about it is that we have to be honest with ourselves. i have to be honest with myself that my own trauma in my own wounds showed up and how we tried to raise my baby. ..

in that love, as crazy as he may be. eddie: and broken nancy seems. he loves me to death. if they can come out of there and come about that love that they have. the black love is something else. then they could deal with the world. but with god keep the world, from taking root. in this spirit. that is ongoing battle. does the make sense. >> that is so powerful. it is so true. one of the great moments, they

say don't be afraid. [inaudible]. the negro is not afraid. they said i would rather be dead rather than be afraid. so i tell my son, my daughter, i say you are so precious and priceless that the world might not understand that. don't you ever be afraid to take a stand for something right. the best of who you are, the is what is in your mama and daddy grandparents.

[inaudible]. you get a loving side. this would you stand for. don't be afraid. don't you ever sell out. did you ever cave-in, don't you ever give up. and that's exactly what brother eddie said. the ivy league crowd. he ate afraid. see what, i mean. that is part the family, the community, the collegiality that he has. we have brothers and sisters who love us. who are his vanilla is a stereotypical norwegian. [applause]. keep the love flowing, it's real. with indigenous peoples of forth and so on.

>> really quickly pretty going back to the letters in my nephew. he said to be loved, hard. and for ever, against a loveless world. new limits too hard no no no no no. remember that . idaho black it looks today for you. it looked up like day two. when not stopped traveling yet. but if we had not loved each other, none of us would have survived. now you must survive because we love you. and for the sake of your children and your children's children. that is what we are talking about. >> exactly.

>> keep in mind this is not love - love a black people. the ones who will cuss you out until you off. you don't love them because you want them to love you back. every black person who falls in to provide love. they will be crucified by black people. everyone. >> that's right. >> from markets to mary lou to while they kept loving anyway because the love, is that kind of love. it was not quid pro quo, you help me i hope you. it's not that pretty you know what, i mean. that's what people were saying about. lord have mercy.

maya: thank you for that joyce answer to the question. i will get back to the spread also the part of the idea that jim was some, he had hated his father for reasons that people don't know about. people chose to load let go of that. and you point out in your book, well anyway. as a hatred because he needed to. but also because what we are afraid of when we let go of the crutches, we feel pain. so you give the children the ability to feel the pain. that's what we give to ourselves. and i think so that we can learn

to parent and those who choose to. thank you for that. and i think one more. one more quick question. this is from - what you think baldwin would have to organizers who are deeply been militarized police, proud right white supremacist crowd. [inaudible]. >> that is an interesting question. and i would not dare try to suggest that i would be able to anticipate baldwin's words in this moment. i would direct you to the wreckage. the search from within his

corpus because i think he has language for us to speak to the moment. he said they asked him this question esquire 1958 denise and i know what would you say to the folks who are out of the street. and he said well, i would not tell them not to get their guns. i would tell them not to fight and to defend themselves. and i would say to them, and my paraphrasing. if you going to kill that white men, going to blow his brains out and you're going to shoot him, which may come to be says. don't take them. because the hatred will corrode the soul. because of the heart of the project it seems to me is a moral thing.

about who we take ourselves to be. it we aspire to be. how do we not allow the ugliness of the world to deform and disfigure. the soul. as we engage in this path of self creation. under the captive conditions. what would he say. fight until your last breath. because that is what he said. but do it in the name of love, not in the name of hate. >> that is eloquent. and we can say even though we should never speak from there, when he went to the heart of the american, u.s. slavery, terrorism in trouble. called jim crow predict this what he was up against. i got off the plane in the bus and he walked into this

militarized zone. very vicious attacks and what have you. and i think he first asked that help were blacks able to keep their souls intact. if you have a there's a moral and spiritual question. it was a richness and a tremendous breath of something cultural and moral and spiritual that actually made them morally superior. them in the white topic is therefore born that way because it was the tradition under tremendous blood sweat and tears had produced them in that way. that was his mind. he is the heart . and in harlem, it is different than a person in world mississippi. we all knew that we were african

but we have different purposes. so blue his mind encountered such a great people spiritually and morally on this bold type of militarized can condition prevents a center we have given we move into the 21st, it's been a very difficult task. because we have strong moral decline in black america because of the cores of commercialization and because of the white supremacy so easily to get inside of us want to extricate it as. but as long as we try to d negra rise ourselves. in the name of love. where whiteness are white people are not the point of reference. [inaudible]. you feel trapped coming in a world of trouble. if you flip and trent love the white folk, your pathological.

it's true. that's what you do to d nager eyes yourself. that's what our churches to be doing. whether synagogues ought to be doing. we seem to me. it is love. but you never do the nager eyes in a way of the great to tradition. maya: on bring up the name of a great poet who wrote a book called the tradition. and in this there with love. in the last question here. just spoken to the notion of radical left and what looks like and how it should shape this

movement. thank you so much to come to speak with us and to this haymarket meeting and i have that will closely with the next one. >> thank you. >> inc. you thank you. thank you for brother eddie. lord have mercy. what a love warrior you are. we going to be faithful. we go down swinging. i go down before him. and i'm going to continue on. i love you to death my brother. >> we dices month of our featuring book tv programs under the preview of what is available every weekend on "c-span2". tonight starting at 8:00 p.m.

eastern, we begin with historian ajay, from the 1940th presidential election discussing his book dewey feet truman. then university of virginia history professor arguing that during the civil war, the north was motivated to liberate instead of conquer the south. and later boston college history professor heather richardson talking about how southern social political and economic ideologies prevailed of the american west following the civil war. enjoy book tv, on "c-span2". >> presidenpresident trump for g for hurricane laura. he told them that he plans to visit impacted area this weekend. [inaudible].