>> hello welcome to the atlanta history center and conversation to discuss the new book and vice president

for the history center and i'm honored to have this conversation you can purchase additional copies of text and then on the history center website and with the q&a feature and six or seven of them as time allows winning the pulitzer prize of the national humanities medal in "the new york times" bestseller and with the national book critic circle in the top nonfiction books as well as the best nonfiction of all time and more than other 200 colleges and universities across the united states to

have critical acclaim that will add to this book interviewing isabel is john meacham a pulitzer prize-winning biographer contributing writer for "the new york times" book book review and contributor to time magazine and andrew jackson an american and gospel he chose the chair of the american presidency and nashville he also be joining us with the truth is marching on which is the partnership and now thank

you for being here and i will turn it over to you. >> i appreciate it it takes tennessee to bring me to join just to be want to see you all making good choices going forward. was a wonderful moment in the early sixties when president kennedy made a state visit to france and kennedy were so much more popular that he just said i'm the gentle man who escorted jacqueline kennedy to paris i am the guy who was just here to run traffic isabel is one of the most important voices in america and it's an honor to be here so just to some batting practice so just to jump and why is the book not call the

race? >> because first of all thank you for being here is an honor to and when it came out in 2010 and it was an experience for me to be here in the matter book was about the migration from african-americans from the south to the north what was the history that many people might not have known so in doing so to figure out the

term i would be using it or use the term racism in the book because many people talk about in that way but use the term. the term that i use wherever they may have been over their background was is a caste system and the more that i spent time looking at what it was like and with the 19th century then i came away it was the most comprehensive term for a black person and white person and then the bible were segregated and that

those objects cannot be touched and if you look at the originating caste system in india you find that the idea to keep people separate and controlling of the boundaries to keep people separate for what life was like and that's what led to the book. >> so you have 1 million fascinating questions what we experience now is a critique of liberalism not in the red blue sense by john locke the rule of law and individual equality before the law and opportunity your canvas which

makes the book so fascinating present america so take us on a global survey in terms of geography but also for your time is this innate to the human experience? are hasn't been forced and the formation of tribes and nations that the struggle against cast it's hard to imagine anything more elemental. >> and to categorize to make sure it is safe and with the

catastrophic count on - - consequences. one of the things i was looking for this from south america but to do that and to dig deep to understand how the hierarchy works in our country i want to see the deeply recognizable caste system in the world and to understand how they came to be and how they are set up. like to say a little bit about the main focus of my research is that caste was a deprivation of those resources and all of these things that

accrue. and with that infrastructure and that is the originating one and with the british colony. so in a caste system there could be any number of metrics used. so in india for example with that inheritance and it could have been in the founding of the united states and where they come in contact. and then to categorize the people that they found.

that is what happened in this country. and with that categorization to one group over another and then with the initial impulse to delineate and categorize with religion and then move into what we now know as race it is a construct is fairly new going back for 500 years. race as we know it now color is a reality that race is a construct.

it is the idea that height could be a designated category to be equally dependent so these are creations so caste with the infrastructure that caste is the bone and races the skin and race is the signifier and that bipolar caste system in america. >> is the intrinsic to the human experience going further back than even in jamestown? and in this moment when there are societies where they were rather an inherently

egalitarian and the economic and demographic cultural forces that corrupted that. every country and culture it was so much of the things in one of the reasons but then one had seen his father after he came across when that occurred. and then all of the africans that were brought here and it is part of the justification.

and it is a very long-standing women going back to biblical times. >> what has been the most effective strategy for combating those caster distinctions one of the challenges of the caste system or the challenges we face as a country as we often have not really known or have that benefit with our country and it is a tremendous part to clarify.

>> i appreciate that but i have not done a good enough job. [laughter] i started the year the same thing over and over again. no matter the background people said to me over and over i had no idea there is probably somebody reading it right now saying i had no idea. that's because we have not had the chance to hear from all segments of our society there are many we have not heard from. and then nobody conference or experience there is so much

coming out now that then we can have a better chance understanding. but then with the building our country is an old house and all the people that inherited the old house remember the cracks in the foundation. and none of us today have anything to do with building of this old house that we live in. none of us are responsible for the walls and once they become aware and once we are able to see the infrastructure of the building becomes incumbent to take responsibility we are not

responsible for what happened before but then to try to say it's not the beauty of the new language to think about ourselves to liberate ourselves so the idea the to focus on structure to take out the emotions of the blame and allow us to make a see underneath and what we thought we might have known.

>> that is a brilliant metaphor. and i would argue a rhetorical device i heard as we go through this. of potential reckoning. we have the possibilities and also a remarkable capacity to move on quickly. one of my favorite moments was when a preacher came to town and tom sawyer said he was so good even huck and was saved until tuesday. [laughter] talk a little bit about what inspectors from other cultures particular the 20th century learn from the american south. >> where the places we try to unpack and understand the phenomenon as it is applied to

us and that i would study it so deeply and in charlottesville we saw before our eyes the merging of symbols and symbolism in the confederacy the people that are protesting the potential removal back in charlottesville and we saw before our eyes people who would carry the symbols that would cause us to help us think about memory of the slave and of the civil war and of our country and how is it we remember? these people, the protesters brought this together connecting to cultures across time and the ocean so that i became interested in germany and realized it was

significant to see a connection so that i try to understand how germany remember to do with its history or to reconcile and then the deeper that i would work i would discover things and one of them it turns out that a german geneticist talk to american eugenicists in the decades leading up to the third reich and then i discovered american eugenicists were writing books that will best sellers to the third reich the nazis needed no one on this earth to teach

them how to hate. they knew that into that all along. but what they did was set researchers to america to study how the americans had subjugated african-americans and the anti- defamation law and the majority of the space they studied segregation laws to see how to keep their america subjugated and then what they did is they went back and they debated these laws as they were crafting ultimately that was wrenching through the summer. >> and one of the official global lessons if you go

forwar forward, very few years when thurman went to india as the indian experience to inform the movement that was so important. can you talk about what we learned from india? >> we cannot be talking about anything related to atlanta but thank you for reminding people that doctor king was inspired the nonviolent quotations were taken from gandhi. and he was a dignitary following the civil rights movement and the people that were known as the untouchables.

so when he arrived in the community and have dinner with the prime minister and then was invited to visit up run by the untouchable people so upon arriving there the principal introduced him to the students and then to introduce a fellow untouchable in america. when he heard that it was something he had not thought of himself in any way. he had dinner with that prime minister and dignitaries so he was upset to hear the term but then he thought about the work

and the lives of the 20 million african-americans and black people that they are marching for him the civil rights movement but they were not allowed to use those public facilities that they were subjugated and separated in great danger seeking human and civil rights he thought about it and said yes. im the untouchable so he made that recognition and then spoke about it in a sermon in 1955 about his revelation so doctor king try to make that connection between the hierarchy and the caste system in the united states. >> right in your view is the most illuminating example of

addressing the problems, the injustices of the caste system? is india? >> i think because of the work germany has done after world war ii, that the 12 years of payments that unimaginable horror and in the intervening decades, they have worked very hard to reconcile there is no perfect answer to everything but they work very hard to make sure it's a central part and everybody is on the same page about what exactly happened. they have converted the third

reich like on - - location so that people would always remember and everyone would be on the same page about what happened there and they also had the stumbling stones which were a small place or small brass plates embedded in the cobblestone in the last known address of the holocaust and then they are everywhere and when you come across them in the cobblestone it forces you to bend in honor of them attribute to people who lost their lives.

so they are things that can be learned of how one remembers. and getting on the same page about what happened. >> where do you stand at this point on the capacity of the american experiment the constitutional experiment of self-government? there is a lot of metaphors in the book but i would say that when you think about that old house you don't want to have to think about you know going to the basement because whatever is there you have to deal with it if you go there or not and deal with the consequences it ignores the

consequences so i would say never give up because as we have seen so you don't want to live with the construct every day there were a protest in all 50 states with george floyd on the go and every state south dakota and idaho and alaska. it wasn't at that point about race but about humanity and as long as they recognize how much we all have in common that we have a chance to transcend the barriers in the boundaries and then we can

recognize our common humanity. >> i will go to questions that have been submitted. >> i have to say that i think one of the things that stayed with me is how across centuries that three distinct cultures could find similar impulses as they were creating those divisions and similar

approaches of policing the boundaries of that. what i mean by that is the importance of tyranny and protecting anything in a dominant cast - - caste the idea that the water was the essential feature and is critical to maintain this group. 's all of the cast system was one of many ways to maintain and for example in india so in all of these places in the united states those that were

not permitted to swim in the same pool there were rules and then there was a similar law in the united states and in chicago young boy was coming in lake michigan he accidentally went into the whitewater and was stoned to death as a result there are many cases that are inherent to the centrality of that element of maintaining between the groups and also how across time and space they come to the same recognition. >> fascinating. what do you think perpetuates behavior and idea that continues to lead to caste and

human ranking? >> we are not the creations of any more lives today and that wasn't something that happened overnight but an evolution of ideas and a law that the colonist refined or fine-tuned as they built a new nation so these are the kinds of things with that what the ancestors thought about so my view is we are in the space and we are not responsible for that but what we do with it. >> going back to where we were talking about is henry kissinger once said the middle

east there is some crises that must be managed and cannot be solved. one of the questions i would ask is can caste be solved? were only managed? >> i would hope it could be solved and the building inspector he could be brutal. and then it's better to be dealt with and it is comprehensive and what they are looking and that is what i see myself the building inspector isn't the one to make the repairs. and then it falls to all of us wherever we might be in the hierarchy and the greater

investment one has been the greater the responsibility to work toward a solution but so all of us can begin the work of coming together and to work together to heal from it. >> do you believe we have a national truth and reconciliation process before we can implement the report or that part of the reporting process? these folks agree with you they think it is their job

with their history. so do we need that quick. >> yes. absolutely. it is fascinating in berlin to be right in the middle of the city to be a very moving memorial and it takes up a huge section and a huge space of the city as it showed and it makes a point as a jewish american an architect and he chose not to have any descriptor or designation or explanation of anything.

to know what it represents enough or the necessity for that explanation. what has happened and i think the challenge that we face we all haven't had the privilege and then to be on the same page but that human and reconciliation commission that could help us get there. so one of the things that happened in the civil rights movement is that much of the legislation was passed but i don't know how we did as a country how we got to where we

are that for much of the history african-americans have been legally excluded from the most basic form and those that are called redlining. and with those african-americans to be excluded from getting mortgages that they can white counterparts could get. and african-americans were only mainstream and the possibility of homeownership in a systematic way for those people that were enslaved followed by almost 100 years of jim crow segregation i would like to see us recognize

how short the history is the how african-americans those that have been designated or how recent the idea and of those americans of today. >> you have written to remarkable books and started out as a journalist so tell us about your story what got you to this point where you are wisely seeing this? >> i was a daughter part of the great migration. my parents arrived jim crow and that they migrated to washington dc.

those that were children or grandchildren of the great migration and there was a personal family connection people were going back to where they were from people from north carolina. so i was surrounded by the experiences and the culture they brought with them. and i was surrounded by the ways of worshiping call a seven or once removed. [laughter] >> you are never removed. [laughter] >> so i grew up with that and

it just so happened to people in that space and that's what propelled me ultimately to write about the great migration. and those landing in new york that is when the life began with the place then the whole thing about even in the discussion and then the cornbread or in the greens and with that conversation to be surrounded by that. and then being able to tell the story and then to carry with them and then to

basically become embedded into what we call american culture in that respect. and that makes me want to understand the history because it was a journalist for "the new york times" and when i got the opportunity to write a book of the great migration and had there not been a great migration my mother was alone. my father was from virginia. and millions of african-americans that was a story how many americans the

people came from different parts of the world that they met someone and to create that american story. my father after the war and as masterful as they were it turns out they were not permitted and to get jobs after the war's most of them have to go and remake themselves in the my father

got a second degree for a civil engineer and literally to build the bridges. >> when did you know you wanted to be a writer? >> i haven't known a time but as a child i was always writing whatever it was. >> and we benefit enormously. last question and then we let you go. so how many years did you spend on research? >> it's hard to say because of

that to say a word be high school invading us. >> so this when you might say i have been using this and to go right with the flow of it and so flying and one from the other and with that hierarchy. and several years ago literally using the word caste. that was part of my own personal language but that is

the book that i needed to write and i'm hoping this will allow us to see what we could not see before and to see those areas that somehow we can transcend them. >> one of the best definitions of a writer is the duty of a writer is to try to teach people how to see. not to think but how to see and you have done an amazing job. i don't know if you know this but isabel may have written "the new york times" review because it is the kind of review that only authors could write.

but one of the most decorated writers of our time and this will continue. so thank you for letting me spend some time with you thank you so much by lots of copies and give them away and do all that. thank you so much join us septed for john meacham to talk about what you can see behind him. >> it is not as interesting as this. >> have a great night everyone