>> broadband is a force for empowerment. that's why chart has invested billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. >> good evening. i'm alan price, director of the john f. kennedy presidential library and museum. on behalf of all my library and foundation colleagues i am delighted to welcome all of you who are watching tonight program online. thank you for joining us this evening. i would like to knowledge of the generous support of her underwriters for the kennedy library forum, lead sponsors bank of america, the lowell institute and at&t. enter media sponsors, "boston globe" and w npr. kennedy library education of the program on civil rights and

social justice are supported in part by at&t. we look for to a robust question-and-answer period the seating so please follow the instructions on screen for submitting your question via e-mail or comments on our youtube page during the program. we're so grateful to have this timely opportunity for robert f kennedy's work and legacy with our distinguished guests this evening, and i'm to lead introduced tonight speakers. i'm pleased to extend a warm virtual welcome back to the library to patricia sullivan, the william arthur second professor of history at the university of south carolina. she is the author and editor of books including lift every voice, the naacp and the making of the civil rights movement, days of hope, race and democracy in a new deal era, and freedom rider, virginia foster care,, letters from the civil rights era. her new book is justice :

robert kennedy's america in black and white." also so please welcome back our moderator for this evening discussion, kenneth mack is the inaugural professor of law and affiliate professor of history at harvard university. his research and teaching a focus on american legal and constitutional history with a particular emphasis on race relations, politics and economic life. he is the author of representing the race, the creation of the civil rights lawyer, and coeditor of the new black, what has changed and what is not with race in america. welcome back to both of you. thank you for joining us this evening. >> well, thank you, alan. it is a pleasure to be here with my old friend patricia sullivan to talk about her amazing book

"justice rising: robert kennedy's america in black and white." so just for the viewers, professor sullivan and and e going to have a conversation for about, until about 7:00. as director price of just mentioned you can submit questions. there should be instructions on the screen, and about 7:00 or so we will transition over to q&a. but let's get started. pat, i would like to just start with the origins of this book. a book about bobby kennedy, race and civil rights. for most of your creative industry civil rights movement was written about grassroots activists or mostly overlooked, individuals like civil rights lawyer sam houston, so the

activist virginia, organizations like the naacp. so bobby kennedy, maybe a bit of an unusual topic but maybe it follows from what you've written before. what drew you to write a book about someone who is hardly been overlooked, bobby kennedy, and what did you hope to accomplish when you started this project? >> thanks, ken. it's great to be with you virtually and to be at the library. thanks for everybody organizing this event. that is a terrific question because it didn't start out to write a book about bobby kennedy. as you say, the furthest thing from them mine. but the book project grew out of -- [inaudible] covering generations who had been in the struggle for racial justice and civil rights since the reconstruction era. my last look on the naacp which spanned from 1910 up to about

1960 will open up the national framework of struggles solutions and civil rights. it was an amazing project to work on and showed just the dynamic across several generations of the struggle to realize the constitutional guarantees in the 14th and 15th amendments and the sorts of activities people come to mention charles hamilton houston, the lawyers, the communities, other ways which struggles full citizenship intersected with natural development, depression, the new deal, world war ii and a black migration during these decades is reshaping the racial landscape of the united states, and segregation is becoming more deeply entrenched in northern and western states. so by the time i got to the end of it was the decision, really

activist told rates in the south. you have ins in the 1960s. i i wanted to take a fresh lookt the 1960s because in working, it's a national issue. struggles around the country in which and look at the south and then we look at urban issues after 1964. i started reading, wrote a book proposal and robert kennedy would pop up in different situations, and had essentially alan geiger who i work with as a literary agent said you keep mentioning bobby kennedy can write a book about it. i didn't plan to write a book about him but i realize as a read more deeply and look at robert kennedy through the context of the racial struggles and transformations of the 1960s that he moved through the decade in a way that would allow me to explore, to really

describe what we think we know and look at the larger context of racial change during that decade. and at the same time i got to know about him in ways that really had no idea and i really think his aspect of his public life which was really central i think have been largely overlooked. i sort of came into it and it's been an amazing journey. i've learned quite a bit. >> it's interesting. the book -- [inaudible] or a snapshot of the '60s and to write he is viewed through opportunity. it is a regression of kennedy himself. kennedy is somebody who people think they know. he's this iconic figure. people of written about it.

arthur schlesinger is amos book. other people of written about him and about his brother -- famous book. what were the prevailing views of the kennedy, race and civil rights when you started this project and what remained to be said about that? >> great question. the prevailing views were he doesn't seem as central. he is attorney general. people thought he didn't do enough or he did this wrong. he wasn't integrated into the context of african-american struggle in the broader civil rights activities. and then also the challenges in urban areas. it really becomes evident in the late '50s and early '60s with malcolm x and people like that. he really was on the margins, on the margins of the work being done on the civil rights movement. in a way he just, as i tell my

students, what you find in the past, is dependent on the question to ask. i was asking different kinds of questions. arthur schlesinger biography is classic, terrific. a number of other biographies. i learned a lot from. but again they look at his life in a different kind of context and now that the book is done i'm kind of surprised by what all of this sort of missed. i have been working 20 century american history but again as you say grassroots in looking at different dimensions. it really is a fresh take and surprisingly changes. >> this is a book about a jury.

it's about america's journey through the 1960s and it's about bobby kennedy's journey through the 1960s. i just wanted you to tell the reader a little bit about what that journey is like. where does bobby kennedy and american begin at the beginning of your story? where does the story end up? what did you learn from this journey? >> i'll try to keep this brief. when they started out, when i realized, and it really didn't know how the book would turn out but i realize that he was significant in ways that it not been explored yet. i knew certain aspects of what he did and how he was engaged as attorney general, as part of advisor, a senior at presidential candidate. it highlights the richness of

the story i was exploring. but i began, i realize he was a major force. he was aligned, the movement created a demand. it burst through with the sit ins in the 1960s. what i found out about robert kent and his brother the president is not only did he respond to the demand, which was urgent, but they responded to the opportunity that created that demand. so the question is what prepared robert kennedy to see and to act in a way that really broke away from traditional politics and public leadership? so i spent a good -- kennedy library was my home for so much of this, and resources are enormously rich. so i did some background

research on his life up to 1960. there are characteristics about him. he's compassionate. he had a questioning spirit. there are things about him that made him open, and he sort of told the truth. so by the time he -- there's one incident early on which was really interesting to me when he was a student at the university of virginia. he was the head of the legal forum and in 1951 in his third year law student he invited ralph bunch to come speak. he had just won the nobel peace prize. he was a no noted civil rights political scientist. he said he would come only if the meeting was second. the law in virginia at the time was public meetings had to be segregated. he thought that was a big just

because we just fought world war ii and he was aware of the court decisions in the naacp in higher education. so we pushed and he talked with students, faculty, ultimately the president of the university and the agreed to have non-segregated meeting. from all i could tell it was a frisbee at that time public on the campus. 1500 people came. that wasn't an epiphany. he didn't become a crusader after that picky what on and the first daughter was born. he was a young married couple and -- [inaudible] but by the time he got -- in the '50s are interesting. i write about that in my book what's happening in african-american struggle, brown, king, malcolm x, baldwin, so things are heating up the things are moving in a pail of the white people moving in a parallel. 1960 the campaign is a pivot

point because -- [inaudible] ignites mass protests across the south and also ignites youth activism. so breaking through the cold war, apathy, and 1960 when john kennedy ran by that time the black migration, the black vote in an oath was pivotal. so get the of trying to figure out how to get the black votes can hold onto the self can get elected, at the same time there seems to country in turmoil basically in in a positive wh the movement and all the energy coming from it. i'll try to speed up because we just got up to 1960. looking at when he comes into even that you're in 1960 there's evidence of him looking at conditions in urban areas. he wants to win.

by the time he becomes attorney general in 1961 he's ready. he's ready to see. he will see the complexity and the depth of the problem as he moves through the '60s but he's oriented towards race and discrimination as a major crisis facing the country domestically. and then as attorney general he responds, i mean, he builds an amazing justice department. brilliant lawyers, they quadruple the number of lawyers in the civil rights division. they are ready to respond to what's happening in the south. and again these incidents they see how tough it's going to be. it's like today, southern governors and local officials define the law, tolerating or competing to condoning mob violence.

by 1961 he set about alabama after the freedom rides, talking about the governor and other public officials, those fellows are at war with this country. so it's not an easy road. maybe i should stop there, but as it goes on he's also looking north. let me mention one thing because this sets me on my course throughout the book. in the spring of 1961 he set a meeting in new york and then he walks up to east harlem and has a private not publicized meeting -- three different games and he starting to look at the problems of juvenile delicacy. none of this is an identity for young people but the problems of young people living in poverty and with poor schools and all, and how to respond to that. he begins organizing some community programs to provide

support for recreation, job training, and the rest. so he said a double vision, the south and that movement is very much in the national spotlight, and what is, what urban areas are like with his deeply entrenched segregation over several decades. people also bring that out. so, long answer. >> this is great. as a matter fact i want to pick up on something you just said. you said fairly early on in 1961 kennedy is thinking about what we might call entrenched racial inequality, entrenched -- thinking about racial problems in the north. and, of course, this book, "justice rising," and peering at

this moment we are in where there's this large debate in the u.s. and across the world about things like how entrenched is racial inequality? what should we do about it? what are the perspectives of people of color in the african americans in the struggle against it? should black people be at the center of the struggle? should be interracial? so you are describing kennedy being at the center of, and analogous moment, but different moment but analogous moment in the 1960s. i want to start with the story, you almost start the book with this famous meeting between kennedy and a number of african-american figures, famously james baldwin, a bunch of other people in new york. so described that meeting for our listeners. what happened?

what does kennedy learn from it and why did you choose that has the opening scene to frame the book? >> that was one of the incidents, the meeting occurs in may of 1963, 1963, may 24. that month the birmingham crisis, birmingham had exploded and protests exploded across the country after peoplesoft police turning dogs and fire hoses on young protesters. things are at a fever pitch and the kennedy administration begins immediately working on legislation. nobody thought they could get through. it would be something. in the heat of this event a getting ready for a showdown with george wallace. it's really intense short period, several weeks. dick gregory had recommended -- the assistant attorney general

for civil rights that baldwin and robert kennedy meat. they had met at the white house. baldwin had -- [inaudible] he and bobby met. they talked and he said he should talk again but like what happens, it's about a year later and they met in washington but -- stateside service meeting the next day in new york. james long calls people and his recollection of this meeting, he felt that kennedy was someone -- he's unlike most politicians and public figures. baldwin that interacted with but he felt he needed to really know. how things were in the north. kennedy went to the meeting thinking that he would get some advice or insights into how to deal with the problems in the urban wars.

it wasn't you just pass a law. it was just entrenched segregation and all that came with that. so he goes to the meeting and he starts -- his intention is to let them know they kind of political challenges the kennedy administration faces, and they were real. sort of like today. when you have this congress. so people gather and sullivan had no agenda. yet people he you respect he thought should be there and they would just talk. one of the people who came to the meeting was strong smith, 23-year-old civil rights attorney for movies in the green in movement since the sit ins. yet been beaten and that just gone through horrible just what people met done there, this is 63 so is on the front lines and use in new york with a broken

jaw. he sitting in this meeting and kenneth clark starts to get statistics ethics are rolling around and he's like wait a minute. and he just says it makes me sick to be in this room having to even talk about -- the need just calls kennedy out for you have done enough. kennedy looked to the other's thinking, he's the person you should listen to. again he's the one who comes from the battle. this just goes and what it showed, there's this communication gap, right? there's this young person who really bore, he carried the world and did the whole thing. it went on for three hours and kennedy tried to answer. told all the things the federal government has done and feel to do. it was a litany and then

everybody, you know, got in. there is no real transom. i put it together from different recollections peopling of the meeting. the gist is it kennedy sits back silently and 1. lorraine hansberry said to him, she didn't think he got it. it was just a total gap. baldwin describes this when white and black come together. she said if you don't get it, we are in trouble. because you and your brother are the best for what america has to offer. quite a statement. kennedy sat there for three hours and then said okay, we're done, and the people, they leave, and there he is. everybody was shook up by the meeting. it was most dramatic, violent

verbal encounter. so that happened then, and people say that change kennedy. by 1963 he knew things were awful. he knew that the fbi wasn't doing -- he knew all of that, right? but it just startled him. it was emotionally a very tough thing but the one thing that came through was there's a point when -- no, i would never -- why would i go -- go to vote in mississippi. he was shocked by that but afterwards a a couple of dayse said if i was in his issues i think i would probably feel this way about the country. so here them. and i think to me it captures the moment. the country is at the verge of an explosion, and what to do.

how to fix it? as you say, ken, like what do you do? i think what you see they realize, everybody had to do it. they understood what the movement had done across the board. push these issues forward. they realized that a main point of the job was to talk to white people, right? to talk to the majority in the country. that it was a problem. after the beating somebody said, it was not long after the meeting, , still little shook up but they said we meet with black groups? again, yes, of course. they are not the problem. it's the white people. white people are denying black people rights. it's a dramatic meeting and open the book up because i think this is a snapshot of that moment.

but two days later they are facing george wallace and the challenges of integrating the university of alabama. what do you think in terms of how i approached that meeting and how it -- at the end of the book the surprise is baldwin in the canoe library of how we looked back at the moment. they were not happy but it was intense and he represented, he as the attorney general of the united states, represented a failure, government. in an abstract way. personally, people have relationships. harry belafonte was at that meeting. others who knew to be hell to get -- it wasn't personal as he bobby kennedy. it was the government and just tired of having to also baldwin was tired of having to thread

the needle on white political pressures to move. but, of course, those are realities that public figures have to deal with if you want to pass civil rights legislation in america. >> interesting. one of the things at least since i read the book as saying is that it doesn't resonate with today is that the bobby kennedy is being educated by black people. he and his brother are racial liberals. they are on that side of the political spectrum but there is an error in which white people in black people don't really need and don't really talk frankly. this is a pretty frightening exchange. maybe one that kennedy didn't expect to have. >> no, he did not for sure. the point you make is really important for listeners is what the country was like for in the

'50s and the toll tall segn took. notches on white people. they were ignorant, there's no interaction, no contact and it -- there's something to be mindful of, and your point about yes, that they saw a black movement as the engine for change. but it also fought and understood the impatience. when robert kennedy sees young people living under these horrible conditions, no education, no jobs, since i no way out, he understood that first of all in the inhumanity of that, and that it is explosive. people don't have a way out. how to deal with that. he and his own weight in washington, d.c., he began to

work in in a personal way ong to engage with these communities, and that culminates with the project in 1966. but it really i think shows that, okay, it's bad. how do you grab hold? how do you begin to address these issues? but your point is an essential one that the african-american, the black movement, the black struggle find had forced this into the center of national attention. people had to respond and what both jfk and bobby kennedy saw it, they learn from it and understood history, you know, they understood history, and continue to engage history as they tried to understand this moment. a crisis 100 years in the making looking back to reconstruction and the betrayal of reconstruction. they saw that and they realized the cumulative impact of time in

creating the situation. >> i'm interested. you said earlier that kennedy and one of which is that he and his brother didn't do enough. now, this is a book that is dedicated to realistically engaging with what they were able to do and what they were able to not do. but specifics with bobby kennedy i can think of several phases of his career. i may describe this inaccurate but feel free to correct me. as a public figure he helps run his brothers campaign. he becomes the attorney general of the united states at a a vy pivotal moment for the civil rights movement and the doj, department of justice, is doing a number of things which you document in the book. then he becomes the senator and begin his a public figure and is

able to push to the foreground public issues, and then he runs for president and along the way he's doing things like the bedford project which i'm sure you talk about a little bit as the discussion continues. back you sort of list the principal -- people say he didn't do enough. so what did he do? taking doj, senator, running for president. what are the main things we can say that kennedy accomplished for race and the civil rights? >> we have to move in historical context. essentially what he did, he created the opportunity. what did he do in the justice department, building that team with marshall, john doerr, they create a field operation of civil rights lawyers going into

the -- to litigate voting rights cases. thurgood marshall said that the quoted in the naacp. getting to know, working with people like bob moses and people with sncc and getting to see up close. he created that and i think so i think the justice department and get i don't think that i don't think it has fully explored to look at exactly what they did, what they're up against, how they moved. in 1962 the introduce of voting rights bill and then he added very little chance but he said we have to do something. great testament or bobby kennedy goes up against sam ervin back and forth back and forth arguing the constitution. this was an important addition if you said if you have sixth-grade education, no literacy test.

that would be a real major way southern registers used to limit african-americans, but he tried. mike mansfield said what you tell the people? you tell the people you'll never get civil rights with the democratic president. i'll pay pivot from that toe civil rights bill, that moment with baldwin, all hell is breaking loose everywhere. in response to birmingham were going to move now. they have seen this show and the like will be able to get pressure? what his brother introduced to begin to bring groups to the white house, log groups, religious groups, women's groups to get people engaged in supporting support and the right that bill. he said i don't think, it's unlikely we can get a strong

bill through but we have to try. but he also said that if people think a law is going to make this problem go away, they are out of their minds. he understood how people were. so just that alone but that is to have here's the president king is in the white house. bobby is attorney general n64 but by the spring of 63 their writing major civil rights legislation. they're mobilizing public support to figure out the strategy for getting it through bipartisan bringing publicans a law -- along. the time john can to go to dallas that bill is on its way and that basically is the bill that lyndon johnson signs in july. right there that's huge. that is not, i mean there are several good books on the civil rights act of 1964 that fully document is but if you put in the context -- and then other

things. d.c., that was his city, right? he saw again come same thing in the district of columbia and other cities, what's happening to young people, bad schools, new opportunities. the dunbar pool is close. it's been close for nine years. they had a prize-winning swim team. the d.c. commission can't get the money because the southern senators control the budget of d.c. kennedy push for home rule but he also raised the money to get that pool restored. he started, he organized a job program for high school kids to get jobs in the government and private sector over 1000 summer jobs one year. so is doing things on the micro level, too. prince edwards county, use committed to what -- most happening to those children, the schools were closed for five years, 1700 roughly african-americans were out of

school, no public school. that was a cause that both he and the president which is committed to. president kennedy said do whatever you can. at least -- whatever, just do something. they created the preschool as their litigating the case. litigating the case to force prince edwards county and they create free public to raise money and it opens ironically it opens in september of 1963, the day after the birmingham church is bombed. this is truly explosive time. it people have that opinion, i think people who say that haven't done the work of looking. instead of a fact check the judge thing, you know, and literally the history is complex and rich. and then i should have started with the senate. by the time he became a senator he understood a lot and he

focuses his attention on the urban, what was happening in cities. he was the one person after the explosion in august of 1965 and the push of law and order and more policing begin the cry cost the political spectrum, robert kennedy said how can you expect, he used the term negroes, to obey the law when the law is used against them? that's not policing. if landlords that she can. merchants, you know, so he is understanding and he is focused and he was pushed to address those conditions in urban areas to get the support, the government involvement, private and working directly with communities to begin to repair the damage of the decades of segregation, poverty, poor schools and the rest. so i think there is no quick answer to that. you really have to move through

the time and also understand what's going on, understand the political challenges, understand the many ways, not just one thing but the many different ways he and the people he worked with, , work with him, and president kennedy. i know i'm talking about robert kennedy in my book i spend a good bit of time on president kennedy. he understood what the issue was. the interview with thurgood marshall, met with him in april 1960 it again you have to find the openings. into one half years they achieved quite a bit. if you look at it in the context of the time and sort of what was done and what was attempted and have the influence, lobbying for the civil rights bill, the people and all the respite it was not grandstanding. it was doing the tough work.

>> i hear you saying that, i'm picking up on a previous discussion, that kennedy is being educated by being exposed to the problems of african-americans in the south and the north. he's doing things like trying to aggressively protect black voting rights in the south which of course is where we kind of thought that battle was won but we're back in the middle of it again, right? clearly these things that are kind of the next stage of the movement through his encounters with black people, educated them, , things like pushing for the civil rights bill when the democratic party is still the party of the solid south, the party of the southern segregationist, where it does look like we can get through. and later in his career trying to think about things like d.c., home rule, problems of urban jews. things are sort of cutting-edge,

and also being, you wouldn't want to exaggerate too much but there's been a critique of the late '60s liberals. elizabeth hinton, the historian has done this and you mentioned are in your book, that there was this consensus around crime and that was the main public policy to be directed at urban problems. and that is the roots of mass incarceration. you are saying not to sit kennedy was wholly apart from that but he had been on the other side. >> i would argue he was apart from that. he's realized you stop, you know, but no, he -- to him the most important thing were the conditions in these urban areas.

he understood why people were rebelling. he said that is not the solution. in fact, that aggravates the problem. more violence. so when i think of elizabeth's new book i feel like this book sort of indians worship except because the fact is that as you move through the late '60s, everything she describes happen. voices like kennedy and martin luther king are seeing the war on poverty shrink all the the programs that can help to redress will deal with, help people in these committees help themselves and fix the schools and create jobs and all that. i think it's a different cake. i think his analysis of the situation was correct. the analysis of the moynihan

ends and the people, and lyndon johnson who really saw this as a law and order issue, a crime issue, maybe people need help but get into anything. the war in vietnam kept going and all that. i i think had a different analys and it doesn't make -- which is important, and he's not the only one. there are many people who saw things that way but he is sort of unique as as a white publc political figure who, he supported the writers workshop. he became president, like a federal theater project to support the cultural developments. he's just one person but he is i think of force for pushing things in that direction -- >> will break away here to take you live to the senate, part of our commitment for more than 400 years to bring you coverage of congress. we will return to booktv following a short pro forma

session here on c-span2. the clerk: washington, d.c., september 7, 2021. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable tammy duckworth, a senator from the state of illinois, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 12