communities together around shared history. the proposed cost of the bill is $60 million and allocation of funds overseen by the part of labor. the purchase of fellow publisher for $349 million. harpercollins is america's second book publisher and reported a 45% rise in profits in the first quarter of this year. in other news mpb books and reports print book sales were up 12% for the week ending may 1st. adult nonfiction sales had another strong week, up 8%, 26% for the year. former owner and publisher of diode press richard baron has died at the age of 98. mister baron published with norman mailer and according to the late novelist and former editor-in-chief, the perfect publisher. and backed us in every crazy thing we would do. publishing news and all the past programs anytime, booktv.org.

>> we are here to hear from doctor raymond arsenault, the southern history professor at the university of south florida in st. petersburg including freedom writers 1961 for racial justice, the best book of 2003 for the washington post, and doctor mia bay, to tell the truth freely, the wife of rw wells, white image in black minds, among her books, the jeanette p nichols professor of american history at the university of pennsylvania. please join me in welcoming mia bay and raymond arsenault, them up on screen.

>> welcome, so great to have you this evening. we want you to take the show away and enjoy the conversation, thanks for seeing you. >> thank you, jennifer, thanks to the mark twain housing museum. i actually read mia bay's new book and manuscript. it was extraordinary then but to see it in hardcover with a beautiful cover is even more exciting, an amazing piece of work, and happy to give it, such an amazing book, i quote myself, a stunning achievement, an understanding of the character and importance of segregated travel.

that is an understatement. this is an amazing book. i wish i had it when i was doing the freedom ride. we were re-creating the freedom ride somewhere in north carolina as college students, great to see this. the first question i have is you did the book on ida b wells and a book on white image of the black mind and many other topics but i am curious how you came to this "traveling black: a story of race and resistance," of all the topics you could have chosen for your next book, your magnum opus so far. what interested you in this? >> thank you for your help and

your support, a great question. in many ways the book came to me. part of it was ida b wells whose moment of political awakening kicks off ladies car on a train in tennessee, before jim crow segregation was law but didn't like to have black women in cars, she fought it and ultimately lost and that made me curious, i thought about segregation taking shape history, hadn't realized there were colored cars and i was curious what came next and i began to research it and around the same time we had hurricane katrina and all those black people stuck in the dome in new orleans and the other end of the story, some people can and some people can't. the other was on katrina.

>> my next question has to do something, from ray standard baker, how segregated transportation was perhaps the most reason ted form of jim crow among black southerners. you have a wonderful quotation on the dust jacket from w e b do boys -- dubois. not in the world is there more disgraceful denial of human brotherhood than the jim crow car of the southern united states. why does the stock out as something so gratuitous and difficult to tolerate. >> that is the central question i was exploring and trying to figure out, you come across

this again, the book found me. once i started looking for it, everyone is talking about it and everyone is preoccupied, and you can't escape it. during that time, enough of a bubble, staying things like segregation, they didn't have to go to theaters or restaurants, to provide the black establishment. they could not and they thought about doing this. they couldn't establish the railroad or airlines or bus lines, there was a way in which nothing could fully shield you from segregation in a way that made it a crockpot issue, one element to it.

sometimes imagine segregation as being about separation but it was ritualistic that facilities for blacks were manifestly inferior to those that whites got and that was particularly humiliating when it came to travel. a lot of the facilities were awful and it was also threatening because travel itself was a very uncertain difficult endeavor in which you are counting on services to supply you with food or places to go to the bathroom and some sort of vehicle that will get you from .8 point be on the plan -- the day you plan to travel and all of those were put in doubt by travel segregation. folks couldn't get anything to eat or go to the bathroom or couldn't actually get on a train or a bus.

the african-american travelers a lot and agonizing and often scary, it involves being a stranger around other people in a system where the whites would have these kind of difficulties would not be helpful or sympathetic. it was very difficult. >> part of what you are saying is that is where african-americans were most vulnerable. the uncertainty particularly for north americans, the growth system. that is fascinating. i would like to ask about the organization of the book. i was struck how straightforward it is you have those big chapters where you start with trains and move to cars and buses and planes. it works very well, very well

but i wonder how substantive the differences are. are these four different worlds or into the overlap, why and how they had a jim crow aspect to them and trained buses and cars. >> they do overlap in terms of the time, at various points between a lot of these options in the organization is something i played with. buses and cars at the same time, at the same time but they take shape in such different context.

and and trying to juggle, they are used by rich people and try to juggle them. they were not the same story, they split out those stories and researched by itself, no idea if i could do anything with it so it emerged organically from research but relates to the way african-americans thought about it. sometimes people talk about these things, many african-americans had opinions what was worse. for instance ralph ellison and other prominent lack people went out of their way to talk about why buses were the most awful of all forms of

segregated transportation. dubois when he talks about the jim crow car, what he would have chimed in on that. he prefers to drive, and get the drivers license very very early on. and then people generally say planes were the best but the problem with planes, there was a layover, or at the airport you got stranded, from being an option, they were not usually necessarily - sometimes they were segregated in the sky but was increasingly over time, the problem was anything on the ground you could be in big trouble so people could go from

thinking planes were great idea to experiences that made them question that and that is something i talk about in the book. >> you partially answered a moment ago, the vertical integration on planes, they take us agreed bus to the airport, but once they were in the air, whites and blacks stand next to each other or near each other, why people could be so hypersensitive about transportation on the ground or made this special dispensation for when they got in place. don't know if it had to do with the aeronautics administration or federal control of airports and planes. i wonder what you think of that. >> the biggest thing is throughout the segregation era

there was always likely to be a limited number of african americans on planes and through the 50s the airline had an unspoken secret policy, blacks together on planes in their own separate row. in the earlier period, they had single seats in the front of the plane, the usually solitary black person on a train or a plane would get. there was an entirely vertical integration, part of the job was to rearrange people and try to get black people by themselves but not seated next to white people. especially during world war ii soldiers traveling to gather would try to get the black soldier to sit somewhere else and cause conflict. >> did you detect a pattern

similar to the buses where blacks were asked to sit in the back of the plane? was that a custom or something and forced by the airlines? >> there was a reverse pattern early on why when planes were powered by propellers at the front of the plane, the front seat of the plane was the worst seat near the propeller, far flying and the first class section was in the back, and the airlines, the american airlines admitted that was their policy and they complain about it. it became more about trying to get all blacks in the same row which is something my mother experienced, my mother's first experience on a plane, expecting her to talk about the

grantor of flight or is being scary and instead, so amazed there was only one other black person on the plane and i was put beside him. >> what a coincidence. >> that is what she thought. of course today, if you fly in smaller planes, it is worse to be in the back, the fish tailing in the wind because of climate change is worse, generally people try to avoid the back of the plane but you are saying with propeller planes it was the opposite. like having the jim crow car on trains close to the coal car in the front. >> took a long time to figure it out. some people talk about that, the sparks could fly everywhere

incredibly loud. nobody would want to sit there. >> tell us for a few minutes about the ladies car. that was one of the great revelations in your book about the importance of the ladies car. a lot of people don't know what that is. >> that was fascinating to me, when i got interested in the topic. the ladies car was something railroads developed early on in the first era of railroads, those who ride on railroads, at that time railroads travel by train was considered dangerous and dirty, in the home, and that they don't want to be around. for a separate car for women

where you couldn't do this, a more domestic environment, they put it at the end of the train, it is right behind the engine, often head cinders and could set a woman's for is on fire. they are not supposed to be doing this, smoke of all kinds, this was supposed to make, more appealing to them. >> your book is not essentially a speak to this piece of legal history, the there's a lot there and when i first read it i was struck by how different it was from cancer in barnes -- katherine barnes. yours is the most comprehensive legal scholar and didn't talk about the cultural things you

focus on. in civil rights literature or legal history literature you make a big deal about plessy versus ferguson as a milestone and i wonder to what extent your research confirmed that. >> that is a question i wrestled with for a long time and cleanliness, it is more important to lawyers and the legal system for people on the ground, ida b wells whose career is an activist launched the ladies car, the civil rights bill in 1883 proving to be the end of the period

without jim crow, looking state-by-state, by 1896 when plessy is past, and the challenge to the louisiana colored car law, a challenge to practice better already pretty much common in some parts of the south. and other places, where segregation becomes cast-iron later in terms of how segregation unfolds in the south and experience on the ground, but not as important as it becomes retrospectively and become that way because it is so important to so many other types of segregation including the segregation of schools. >> i would love you to talk about the gendered aspects of

the subject. i was always struck by may be the most famous examples of african-americans standing up, irene morgan in virginia, rosa parks, obviously the women seem to be very well represented, and more common among women. >> a lot of times they were challenging, from the lady's car doing it at a time before segregation laws clearly specifying white or black and being the divisions, they go into court, and often they win and one of the things that

pushes courts toward plessy is ladies car, that black women aren't women, a race based system, and municipal transportation, more women wrote that in montgomery, and men, challenged trains and planes, and it gets to court. a somewhat better chance, and and that might be part of it. >> is there any softening of

the system. and the individuals, they face some of the hazards of segregated travel. >> one really arresting story, mary church terrel, an important black female leader being harassed by a conductor in a train in the late 1960s asking people whose little in word is this, i don't think people were spared in segregation, they were subject to the same rules and really traveled by themselves. they got their place.

if you are woman traveling with a white child, mary church terrel said borrowing the baby to travel -- >> bernard lafayette, the great nonviolent activist, tells an amazing story of a streetcar in tampa, the convention was have to go to the front door to pay your affair, and come into the streetcar through the back door, it was to take off, got her leg caught and nearly killed, 7 years old and often says his motivation for being in the movement his entire life was to make sure those things would never happen and

imprinted on him and others had similar stories. what about age? any softer treatment for elderly african-americans, any respect given, some allowances taken or was it just a kind of 1-size-fits-all -- >> it was 1-size-fits-all. i would come across incidents where old men were beat up, ministers being thrown off trains or beaten up. if anyone met the most hostility with young able-bodied men. the way the system works is nobody was exempt from it. >> talk about the green guide,

since the picture won the best picture a couple years ago, it was a fascinating part of the book and maybe you could say a little more about that. >> great to see people learn about the green book but i feel like what people know is only the tip of the iceberg in the sense the green book is not the first guide for african-americans about where to go, back to the 30s and informally even earlier. something would have developed among musicians and entertainers and pass around lists, here is where you can go, something people began to publish, they were not advised to abide the problem for black travel, you didn't necessarily

know where was the black hotel, where was the black neighborhood, where is the place that was included, where can you get your hair cut, these, this information was published by various people like harrison, published during the depression but went out of business partially because of the depression. the different ones targeted a somewhat different audience. there was one that appealed to businessmen. all of them didn't perform the function of telling people where to go. the green book was the largest most successful of them. the circulation had been published as much as 2 million copies by extending history, published by guy named victor green a male man who worked in new jersey, lived in harlem,

the idea occurred to him in part because he was a mailman because one of the things people did in a euro was ask the mailman where you could get something to eat, or where you could stay or where the black neighborhood was the so that he'll senate from other posts where those places were in other cities. >> your research for this book was so prodigious and i know what took you years and you were immersed in it. there must be some surprises, big surprises from what you thought this would look like, and i'm curious what were the surprises for you in terms of what you discovered? >> there were so many and almost every chapter had

something i really didn't understand until will into the research like a surprise when it came to trains and when i finally realized one of the problem with jim crow cars within train crashes they were the most dangerous place to be because over time railroads modernized and replaced old wooden cars they tended to continue to use the old wooden cars as jim crow car, between all steel engine and a steel passenger car. there was a period of time around the turn-of-the-century you see all these train crashes, most people who die or injured are black or riding in the jim crow car, the jim crow car -- this is kind of hiding in plain sight. black people complain about it and talk about it and worry about it and no one does

anything about it and it goes on for years and years but nobody had written about it. it was like why do they keep itemizing how many black people white people die in train crashes? why is it a big deal, then i'll truly realized a technological problem, something that was one of the most dangerous of jim crow travel, that was one of the big surprises for me. in terms of cars, but big surprise, segregated parking was one, never imagined i would find evidence on segregated parking but there was. there were places black people couldn't park or some details were blacks couldn't park on saturday because that was the day for white people to shop and there were brief experiments of racial runaway where it was stop at a stop

sign before white people. that did not work out. it was too crazy. >> another question that always intrigued me is the significance or importance of challenges segregated travel for the civil rights movement. there was a time everybody put segregation of schools front and center. that was one of many elements of segregated travel obviously with the freedom rides in the bus boycotts and all that sort of thing. seems to be a significant part of the turns of violent direct action is taken the struggle into the streets, did you find confirmation of that, did you expect that or did you find that, so important? >> i did. don't know that i expected it but following the evidence

where it led me and one of the things i found was the naacp which was very cash-strapped for most of its history and had to dial it back during the great depression in particular decided to make education a priority. they were under continuous pressure to do something about transportation and one of the things they would do is be like start -- do a civil suit, we will help you a little bit so they ended up being pulled into transportation more than they planned, and then the other thing, this is true education also, direct action became necessary because even when organizations like the naacp or individual litigants won in court, the transportation didn't desegregate, you get to

the point you have to have direct action and this is part of what ends up with the freedom rides very early on in 1947, and some individuals in terms of they will read in the newspaper and through irene morgan the things are desegregated and i will not obey these laws and then you get change. >> what do you think of the fact that segregated travel, oftentimes corporations are involved, you have bus companies like greyhound, airlines, you had sit ins as well, it is more front and center with travel, corporations, many of which have headquarters in the north. you may have 7 affiliates as

greyhound did in atlanta but is that something we should know about that you ran into? >> i ran into a lot. corporations plan interesting role. they go along with segregation. they initially railroad - would really prefer not to see jim crow's worries that they would have to actually supply separate but equal accommodations but once it became clear they didn't they went around with it and i would argue even began to see segregation as part of what they were selling because there was pressure from southern states on this even when they didn't necessarily have the law on the side of interstate travel, it was never clear that it was actually legal to

segregate black people but railroads -- the pressure began to trend the other direction and as you know from your work on the freedom rides eventually a lot of national companies from railroads to woolworths, maybe if we have to -- if we are going to be boycotted in the north or get a general bad reputation we will go along with desegregation but there is a kind of retail racism in the story where you see part of what these corporations are selling is segregation was one of the pictures in the book they are advertising segregated restrooms on the road. >> one last question and we can turn it over to the audience. they have many questions they would like to ask you.

in europe a log, tantalizing suggestions that this problem is not totally behind us that traveling black is still something most americans have to deal with. say something about that. >> by the time i got to the end of the book i wanted to end, but i just couldn't not acknowledge especially in the era of black lives matter and traffic stops i had to acknowledge the ways in which some of the great victories of the black freedom struggle and transportation refractories because in this sort of post segregation era where we -- buses and trains are no longer

segregated, you don't have great bus or train systems anymore. there used to be 1 million different railroads crisscrossing every town in the country, now we really have amtrak and limited number of lines through, it would become a car culture and a lot of what people fought for in terms of buses and trains, services that don't exist anymore or exist in limited and unsatisfying ways and a lot of public money goes to keeping up the highways and arguably black and brown people don't benefit from this culture the same degree, black people and hispanics are less likely to own cars, more likely to live in urban areas and of course there are many problems black drivers and counter, specifically traffic stops, dangerous experiences on the road. >> fascinating. i think we could turn it over to the audience now for some

additional questions. >> that was fascinating. thank you both so much. you could go on for hours but we have great questions from the audience. i'm going to start with something that is jumping to me. ted sears is traveling with kids is a challenge to everyone. were there any particular challenges young african-americans faced that 8 and 4-year-olds are wondering. >> things about where you get stuff to eat, how you go to the bathroom, people often on long train rides, what people send their kids to relatives they send the giant shoebox of

sandwiches, or kids would have to get through it for someone else, the option of going to the dining core, that could be challenging for kids. also for kids knowing the rules of segregation are challenging, you have to know which bathroom to use, and people do that at home but once they left home they didn't know the rules, child who lives in the north, they tell them about jim crow and the white and colored signs and the dangers they faced? >> if i could interject in the interest of transparency, i didn't put him up to that question. >> thank you for clarifying, appreciate your transparency. a good question. and transparency again, retail

-- how digit black travelers challenge segregation? tell our audience members about that yourself. >> so many ways. a lot of people challenged it in the court. a lot of people were challenging it in the court, this happened to me and what can i do about it. is a parks is hardly the first who didn't agree, to actually be thrown off various conveyances. this could be a dangerous form of challenging and they organized ways of challenging it, with interracial groups to

challenge travel segregation, you had sit ins and bus changes, in any conceivable way to challenge it. >> it never happened that white people would rally to the clause. and let the person sit where they want to sit, wasn't completely unheard of. and the second world war, and race relations, outside normal wear a, with black soldiers, couldn't travel alongside them.

and soldiers should be allowed accommodations this basis and by the second world war. go, and what his first segregated, and in various political shifts in the nineteenth century, and the colored car and white cars, if the, to the colored car, it is sometimes challenged that whites were allowed in the colored cars, they hadusually.

>> following up the train, how much responsibility were deciding who was acceptable or legal. >> enormous responsibility, in many states delegated to policemen and key people off the train. and racially ambiguous deciding whether they were white or black, or native american, whether they were white or black and and kicked ways women into the colored car. on that basis, they were

hesitated for keeping them out of the colored car for fear they might be in trouble. >> to their own devices, there was no training and what they would do is ask some random black person about that. and the answer is nothing to do with that. >> mason johnson, what is famous historically.

>> i would say definitely, and the tab at the airport, to be stuck somewhere during a layover, there wasn't a lot of violence and hostility. there was never that many. >> this question is from marilyn kendricks. of 5-year-old black girl in 1964. i flew to laguardia to washington national with my mother and seats were not together. neither of the white businessmen, next to my mother and got sick on takeoff and they were happy to switch.

>> i have not. there was something that made them reluctant, someone getting sick, they would no longer put black people to gather in the 15s. the change mary lawrence said your research discovered segregation laws that surpass the jim crow in connecticut, until the 1970s. >> this might have been covered in 1964 but maybe not. >> in biloxi mississippi, and

lots of wade ins protests in florida. it is a long fight. the last barriers to be briefed and wonderful research. >> the segregation in connecticut was customary, wasn't it? >> in st. petersburg is the ordinance enforced by police. to find a place where blacks can swim but the most disgusting place imaginable where the railroad tracks ended, the biggest issue for years. they had a swim in, and they won in court and closed the

pool for a year and a lot of those heroes are still around and took their lunch in 1956. >> thank you for getting to the ocean. a couple more. stick around for 2 more questions. >> sure. joe cohen says possible, even probable a gasoline station advertising the roadside that offered segregated restrooms was actually in a manner that might be perceived and was racist, was in fact encouraging black people to stop, the reality being they did not let a black man or woman use it, them on colored restroom, it was a racist but the fact applaud better than going behind the station. a veiled invitation like that.

>> it is possible but not in this case. the other thing, segregated restrooms appeared to be addressed to white women in particular, but you raise a good point, filling stations were blacks, there were some gas stations where blacks couldn't even get gas and others where they couldn't use restrooms but it was extremely common for segregated restrooms in gas stations were reserved for whites, not all gas stations had black restrooms. i think this is directed at white women, we have a nice restroom for you. >> it wasn't a marketing tool. >> a marketing tool for white

women. >> right. fascinating. one more question. a number of people want to hear from the this. what would you want black lives matter activists to take from the history of transportation segregation? >> really good question and a hard one. it was such a long struggle that required such persistence, black lives matter activists not to give up hope, so many failed boycotts and failed attempts to desegregate and people keep coming back to it. persistence would be the

biggest thing i would take and maybe -- takes all kind of activism. desegregation didn't come because of legal strategy, not direct action with combination of many different forms of resistance from legal strategy to direct action and boycott, and these things succeeded because of one kind of thing, that is another important lesson. >> reporter: >> that is a great answer, tough question to end on. before we go tonight i would be remiss if i didn't mention my maternal grandmother who is 4 foot 11, fans and resolve the last of the abolitionists, we lived in pensacola in 1956 and i was 8 years old. i would go with her downtown to

the bus, and she would always insist in sitting in the back, and did in the what was going on at the time. later i was proud of her for that but had no idea why we were being stared at. a wonderful memories that i have. >> direct line to the freedom rides. >> wonderful evening. i thank you both so much and i will bring briann greenfield back out. if you did not want to purchase and read "traveling black: a story of race and resistance" before this program, i can't imagine you don't want to do that now. support us and mia bay in

purchasing and i will bring briann greenfield back up and thank you together and i want to thank the audience again for patience and forbearance as we got started this evening because of the delay. >> glad to come back to say thank you. that was really a wonderful conversation. absolutely inspiring to read the book and learn more so thank you so much. >> briann greenfield and i are united and peter bruce and the entire staff of both institutions, invite you both. both of our museums and look forward, we will make that a date.

>> and >> do that too. >> thanks to our audience and we look forward to sharing additional programs we do in concert to gather. thanks so much. >> booktv on c-span2, with the latest nonfiction books and authors. funding for booktv comes from these television companies and more including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment. that is why charter has invested billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications along with these television companies supports booktv on c-span2 as a public service.

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c-span2. >> c-span's online store with a collection of c-span product and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. .. >> so this is george coming from you from abraham workshop in chicago. and i have our guest with this right here. this is doctor karen cox. karen cox, the author of toronto. and the ongoing fight for racial justice.