good everybody. thank you so much for being with us. we are very honored to be with all of you tonight for this very special event, terry's books and more, the auburn avenue research library, african-american culture and welcome, charlayne hunter-gault in conversation with dr. beverly guy-sheftall for a celebration and discussion of my people. five decades of writing about black lives from the legendary emmy award winning journalist, a collection of groundbreaking reportage. excuse me, reportage from across five decades, which vividly chronicles the experience of black life america today. we welcome charlayne hunter-gault, who is an emmy award winning journalist. she began her career at the new yorker becoming the first black reporter for the talk of the

town section. then from there, she joined the new york times, where she established harlem bureau, the first of its kind. she eventually joined pbs news as its first substitute anchor and correspondent. she's the author of five books, several which are available now from curious out front. she lives in florida and on martha's vineyard and moderator today is dr.. known to folks all over atlanta. dr.. is a black feminist scholar, writer and editor who is the anna julia professor of women's studies and english at spelman college. right in atlanta, georgia. she's the founding director of the spelman college women's and resource center, the first at a historically black college or university. dr. guy shut has published a number of influential texts african-american women's studies, including the first anthology on black literature. sturdy black bridges, visions of

black women and. so we're very excited. have this conversation today. we will invite all to ask questions towards end. so you'll just queue up to one of these two microphones and we'll have time for just a few questions. so please sit back, enjoy and thank you both so much for your work and for your wisdom. thank you. let me say how, please, i am charlayne to be in conversation with you and to in your presence. before i get started, i want to acknowledge the presence. our new president at spelman college, dr. helene gayle. okay. so before we start, i want to remem our friend and comrade valerie boyd, a journalists to whom you dedicate my people. and this is what said in the dedication to the next generation of journalists who i hope will join me in fighting the good fight. and to the late valerie boyd,

the charlayne hunter-gault distinguished writer in residence, then at the grady college journalism and mass communication at the university of georgia and. a multitalented author and journalist and friend who helped me choose students committed to giving voice to the voiceless long live. so we wanted to call valerie boyd's name tonight. well. that's a great thing to do. that's really great. and thank you for doing this. and thank you all for your patience. i can't even begin to tell you the things that interrupted my getting here. but i'm here and i'm so glad that each and every one of you and could hear my brother and his wife. and i hope to see all of you and get your names before this is over. so thank you and all to you. all right. and have forward to your book. nikole hannah-jones, who also

made history recently ends by saying here lies the work of a woman who's at whose destiny would be both to chronicle history and to make it that she. charlayne, let's begin our conversation with your sharing what you would consider the most important impactful memory about aspects of your essay ordinary personal journey which began right here in georgia of course, even before historic desegregation of the university of georgia with. your conrad hamilton holmes. now you asked me a question that i'm supposed to remember that because now 80. okay and i was telling dr. gayl on the way over here there's so many things i don't even remember how i started this book, but i'm thinking about your life. yeah. no, i understand. i just wanted tell everybody that i might not remember

everything, but georgia, covington, georgia, where i spent the first six years. i was six years old. i think maybe a little bit older when we moved to new atlanta and those were the days of segregation and the majority, the rulers, shall we say, had attempted to not only legally make us second class, but they tried to impact that in our brain and they were unsuccessful doing having to do i think with our history going back to the time we stepped off the slave ships. you know, henry louis gates is chronicle that beautifully. they helped us appreciate who we

were as opposed to what the rulers were trying keep us as second class citizenship. and so i think what's important and one of the reasons i did book is i wanted to look at how we got over and we got over even in the midst of some of the most horrific things that happened to us in different places in the south, those us who survived got over because our history and our history was our armor. and so anything could be thrown at us. but had the armor of our

history. for example, am i going on too long? because i do get started. for example, my grandmother used to say that like you, with three newspapers in her lap, and i would wait until she had finish, even though i was patient at five and six years old, i waited and she would hand me the paper where i read the comics and i fell in love with the comic strip character. brenda's. and when i told my mother in sigrid gatewood, covington, georgia, that wanted to be like brenda starr, she didn't say, oh, no, that's that's what white people do. or, you know, that's not for you. instead, my mother said and guess it was that historical instinct, if that's all she said was if that's what want to do.

and that's so inspired me. and then i went to the black, all black elementary school, the washington street school, where they had to raise money to make up for the deficits they suffered as a result of failure of the white to treat us equally so the the parents and friends of the parents and my uncle's who my mother would go and find to get contributions they would raise money every year at event and the one who raised most money the family who raised the most money would be crowned king or queen he even dr. stephen and you not as late as we were well

a bit later anyway this party and one who got crowned king or queen get a bull of a watch and, a diamond tiara and this particular night i'm looking over because my parents and everybody, that community was so careful. and my mother and grandmother counting money out of their starts, linen, white handkerchiefs. and all of a sudden i heard. and this year, our new queen is charlayne hunter. they pronounce my right, which a lot of people don't. but anyway. i put that crown on. i didn't really give that much about the bull of the watch the crown. i loved. and i would wear it every day. and my friends got so sick of me. they to tease me. they used to threaten if you

don't take that thing off. and eventually i it off. but the notion that i was the queen took up residence in. my head so that when i walked on to the campus of the university of georgia in 1961, on the court order and all of the white students, many of them were yelling, you know what? starting with an end that rhymes with trigger finger, whatever. go home. i was looking around for that person. they were talking about because who was i? i was the queen. i was 19 years old and and that had gone into my total consciousness that i was the. and that is that education was part the armor that i have worn

all my life that came from that community that they were trying to them feel separate and and they failed. they failed and i never want to forget the people who made it possible. other people who like me. and yet had the history to just like today we're trying get the history and keep the history in our schools, no matter how much opposition there is to it. we have to keep on keeping on. all right. you have published four books prior to my people. i want to call these titles out. and i went back and reread two of them in my. i'll give you an eight. good. because i'm a good student in my

place. new news out of africa uncovering. that's the whole title for the mountaintop. that's the one i read last night. that was the one for children. yes. but very smart on my journey from the civil rights movement. this one, i was didn't know about. correct? right. discrimination, assault, sexual violence and murder against south africa's community. and now my people a memoir, of course, about your university of georgia days and is a mountaintop. before we focus on my assume that many of us in the audience don't know about the south one. i would love for you to share what motivated you to write corrective rape and describe what it was like living in south africa before you moved back to the state. i like that question because i

spent a lot of time in communities. as you know, you can't just cover the politicians and the preachers. and i used to go, now south africa had a constitution that was more progressive than ours, because in their constitution, which they created after nelson mandela out of prison and was then president of the country, the the. the constitution recognized the the importance of recognizing gay people and having them have all the rights of everybody else. and while they might be discriminated by people who didn't like gays. they were legally legal and they were legal.

and i got to know some them when. one was murdered by when all i was saints and there were blacks, south african men who hated lbgtq people. and so they would, in some cases, rape them and then let them go. and in some cases they would raped and killed them. and i think i got started on this when one of the women had been murdered. and i went to the township because there most black. were poor and they they lived in the townships and sometimes the all the time the townships were very didn't have the same things that communities had resources and stuff. so i went and i talked to a number of them, i found them. i knew where to find them because i knew where the murder

had taken place. and that's that's where i went and and one of them had been in a bar one night having fun and was on her way back to her house or wherever lived. she's probably a in that community. and these guys approached her raped and left her dead in a in a in a ditch. and i walked back through. all of that, and i found the policeman who covered that area and got them to talk about it. and i said, i've got write about this because. this is wrong. i mean, heroes, even it happened in america. it would be wrong, but it happened in a country that recognized gay people fully. and so i wrote the book, wrote it for the new yorker. and then i was asked to convert that into a book. and i did.

and i think it had some impact. but like all the discriminatory things happening still in this country, it's still happening. but there's a church that they went to, if you read the piece and they will recognize not as being gay, but as being of the church. and i read recently that still going to that church, though, some things have some good have risen come about as a result of some bad things. so that's why we can't ever give up when we're in times like these where have a lot of challenges. but as i said, i'm 80 years old and, so i have seen church challenges overcome and i've seen challenges that still need

resolution. you know, since since you mentioned that and since this is going to be on c-span, we should call the name of psyche of god, young, queer, black woman, teenager, who was also killed by a band of young black men in new. so it happens here, too. so one remembers a a gun in that connection. you began this email and collection of your writings with the new york times piece, april 1976. and charlayne has been writing over 50 years. i mean, it's really amazing on an after school about an after school. school for black youngsters in harlem. and we end with the new yorker piece entitled nelson mandela. the harlem made 2013 nearly four decades later. in between the topics and commentary to, numerous to

summarize. but i just want to mention a few months vignette the black panther party, donald trump affection on my sisters. one of my favorites, of course malcolm x, julian bond, dr. martin luther king jr. trayvon martin. your reach is broad and deep. in 1970. one of the most important years in black women's history, the publication of tony cape embarrassed black woman, alice walker's the third life of grange copeland, audre lorde collection of poetry cables, strange, the founding of essence magazine. i can go on and on. in any case, you published. and i hadn't read this one before. i couldn't remember this one. and november 17, 1970, an important piece. many blacks of women's

liberation movement in the united states. and i agree with everything you said. oh, thank you. in when you mentioned alexis, even mort, you mentioned several militant feminists, black women whose names are still not well known. frances beale mm hmm. a former snick activist who founded third world women's alliance. and early black feminists organization that emerged because of the male centric ness of the civil rights movement and the racism of white women's of the women's movement. you also mentioned eileen malcolm alley's name that she was latina black woman. one of the founders of now that we associate with so called second wave feminism. and of course dorothy height, president of the national council of -- women, the largest black women's organization representing, if you can imagine, 4 million black women

and 25 black women's groups. all of this is in that essay you also mentioned, eleanor holmes lloyd and the now legendary shirley chisholm, the first african-american, not obama, to seek the presidency. when you think about that period in our history the decade of the seventies, what are your thoughts now? are you kidding? i'm 80 years old. help us to remember. let me answer it this way. and don't give me an f for for it. but when you started talking about the importance of black women and before you read all those wonderful names, many whom i knew, like shirley chisholm and eleanor, who was one of my dear friends, is one of my dear friends. i was working again in south africa, which we talked about a few minutes ago, and it was after nelson mandela got out of

prison and every journalist in the world flew in there and so did i. and. but but one of the things about i think about being a good journalist, i could be presumptuous and call myself a fairly decent one, if not a good one. you, you, you develop relationships so that in 1985 i went to south africa when it was still under terrible apartheid. and then i went reported that. and then i went back when when mandela also known as madiba, got out of prison. as i said, every journalist, the world flew down there. they all got 10 minutes. but i made contact with those that i had in touch with over the years since 1985.

and i said. 10 minutes. how? when i earn a little more time than that they said, okay, we'll give you a half hour. i said, great, great. because nobody think ted koppel, who was on, i believe, abc, he got a half an hour. and so everybody there is happy to be interviewing nelson mandela. but they were all journalists. so everybody, a scoop. so just before we started, i said, you know, mr. mandela, this is his first contact with journalists since he's been out of print news into our 27 years wasn't. and so i said why don't we just pass laws and let him have a cup of tea. i said, okay, that's a good idea. they hadn't even thought of it. you know, their idea was to get mandela out there in front of these audiences. and so i said, let because i knew i had it at point. so he sits down finally and and

i say, oh, mr. mandela, such a pleasure to meet you. i said, because one thing i come out of the american civil rights revolution. and before i could get to my role or anybody else's that i knew in the movement, he said i said, i'm out of the i came out of the american rights revolution. and he said, oh and he brightened up. and i thought he was going to say, isn't that wonderful. and he said. do you know miss maya? now, everybody wants to know what prison life was like right? for 27 years. and said yes. i mean, i didn't really know. like i know you and dr. gail, but i knew her work. so i thought, okay yes, i knew

her know her. this well we read all of her books when we were in prison school. it wasn't about much, but i mean, here's a man who spent 27 years in prison fighting for the liberty his country. and one of the things he did he did all the things, too, because they made him work and do. and that's he got his eyes all full of dust from having to dig stuff. but he had and the things he chose among them was all. and i said, oh, goodness, i'm so glad i knew her. but, but you know what was question you did your memory is amazing. you see she's talking about you. your memory is better than mine. you and my people, before you get to the epilog with a really moving, loving piece on nelson

mandela. and i want to i want you to just say a little about the impact had on you. and i also am remembering that you were not able to go his inauguration because your son was graduating from emory over there. and you said to him and he said, of course you should go for your son, but it's clear that you that you had a connection to him other than just journalists. subject. right. well, my husband, who were who went to south africa to open jp morgan bank after after the separation had ended and he before but before he went to south africa, he was in touch with people that. i knew. and the end of had come but so many of young black people who were well educated hadn't had

the experience, those in economics in the financial world. and so what he did before we even move there was he communicated with madiba's people. mandela is called madiba by madiba by most of the people who know him well. and i kind of knew him well, but he brought over he he raised money to bring over a group of young black people in economics, in the economic, to help them not learn about economics because they were already educated in that, but to work in integrated settings. so that they could be more comfortable. they went back home and worked these settings that had been predominant well been all white. and so that set him up with and i think that eventually when we

decided to move there in a certain way we all we already had a relationship but madiba was so and that was his name that everybody him madiba was so shall i say. that he would finish a press conference and i always had something ask him that nobody else did. so i would walk up to him and i'd say. mr. mandela and he would answer me and he had hired a woman who for the apartheid regime because he you know, it's like when people try to bring people who have not been together like some of the people we know today who are having issues with our history he he wanted to bring people together. so hired this woman who had been in the apartheid administration and while she was wonderful to

him. i cannot take that away from her. she was not to me because he was too receptive to me whenever he saw me, for example he held a press conference once and he went on on and on and was reading from a piece of paper and when the press conference was over, i went up to him and i whispered in his knew that was going to -- her off. did i do that deliberately? i can't say i did it deliberately, but i knew what was going to happen. and so i in his ear, i said mr. mandela. i said you gave that presentation reading from a piece of paper. and i forget how old he was at that time, but maybe in his eighties. and i.

how did you manage that without glasses? he said, oh, and that's he always started with oh. he said, a there's a doctor an orthopedic specialist who will do some kind of thing. i forget what you call it, but he would he said he they they scraped the eye or something and they do something so that you don't have to wear glasses anymore. i'm going to go look that up so i can next time tell it more accurately. but he said it was very simple and it's been years and i can so well and he gave me his and i'm looking at his assistant who hates me and she's getting so upset but anyway i took time to write down the name and that's i can see you because i went to mandela's doctor and got my eyes fixed and that was what how many years i was there. and i can still see without glasses, which at this age

should be wearing glasses. otherwise thanks to madiba. but it was that was an interesting experience and it and it was you know because of my relationship with him when people like president clinton and and people from britain and other would come i was always. in the group and one time it was his 80th birthday and they had a press but they said now you can't ask any questions. you can just record the event. and so all the journalists are lined up like that the cameras are there and madiba finishes, he's doing over there. and then he walks us to greet us, but to keep going. so he gets to me and i said, oh, mr. mandela, how does it feel to be 80? and i'm the person i told you is looking at me like he's a well

and i forget his exact answer might be in the book, but he said it. it feels good. and then i thought i got this going on. now all the journalists are so happy because they were being obedient to the person who had set up these rules. so they were me in their own way. i could tell. and i said so. it was also his i forget which and bursary it was with gloucester michel, whom he had married his divorce from winnie mandela. and and i said. and so how does it field to been married. the grace of michel for him? i don't know five or six years, whatever it was. and he looked at me, he said young young ladies like yourself, if not me, he may have said, young people yourself don't ask such questions. but he's but he said it sweetly,

you know, i mean. meanwhile, all my colleagues were thrilled because i got bite from mandela, which they wouldn't have gotten. and so was quite an extraordinary time. and that night there was a party and president clinton was there and lots of people and because of my husband's relationship at the. he had a little expense. he did. and so we had a reception at our house but you know as a journalist i think that you maintain your i don't say objectivity i don't like we're human our computers objective but we're not. well my computer is objective all the time because i emails to people and they don't get them. but anyway, it was, you know, objective is different from understanding adding and i don't

know what other word would use for it. we're not our computers, but we can be fair and balanced. i like that better than object objectivity. when i first went to south africa in 1985, just like now in different but, i thought it was important to talk just to the black people who were under the under apartheid, but to the white people who put them there and kept them there. so i made an appointment to see one of them and. it was a great experience because. i didn't go in angry or, you know, tell me this, why do you do this? and why don't you do this with black people? i just said, tell me a little about your life and what it's been like as you have.

he was a winemaker and your profession. i didn't say and you know oppressing black people? no, that wasn't wanted to know what was on his because he was in a although he was wealthy because the wine business but he was also a typical who who approved and supported and lived apartheid. i thought that was important to get out. why are they thinking like that and and where is going to lead this country which had not yet come out from apartheid. and then he invited us to come and meet some of the other white south african i makers so he had a little party. we went on part of it and. everybody started getting drunk. i wasn't drinking so including

my rest, his soul and they started telling what is the equivalent of the same thing. they were calling me when i was going into the universe and he starts with an n rhymes with figure trigger in south africa their captors that's the equivalent and so they started telling kaffir jokes and my producer who was from london was laughing and i knew he wasn't laughing it was just polite. he was laughing because he was enjoying it. and i said in the first instance, i've him to have a social so i can sort of get into what they're thinking about. but once that started i said, oh my god, look at the time i got to get back to my hotel. i wasn't going to condemn.

that wasn't why i was there, but i wasn't going to abide by it. i wasn't going to tolerate it and i said to my producer, who by this time is staggering because he's, you know, lit up. so we got to go and we left. i say all that to say that. it is very for us to understand people who don't agree with us, especially journalists who have to who should be out there covering them like i did a panel skip gates we do it. we did it virtually for two years, but we did it at the old whaling church in martha's in edgartown and we couldn't find a conservative to talk about this whole movement to get of black history. and yet i had read the miami herald a piece that a reporter

had written focusing on these people who are opposed to black history in schools. and so i said, well, why don't we bring her? turns out she's and that's not her position, but she's functioning as a journalist. so she came and she was very good, you know, telling us, because the questions that i asked were questions that she had answered or dealt with in her piece. she wasn't there to interviewed for herself. and it turned out very well. so you have to figure out ways, i think, to both to people report people and do whatever is necessary. like i remember jim lehrer, whom i with first at the newshour it was then the macneil lehrer report and robert macneil and, jim used to say, if you give people good information, they

will make the right decisions. and so think we need to understand where the people who are opposed to certain things and on our color we to understand where they're coming and hopefully have opportunity to talk to them and i think that in some face to face to person, you might make a little progress because not all of the people who are opposed to black are old like me and as i've looked across. they're young enough. i think, to have their minds changed, approached in the right way. and then they hopefully can make a difference but i don't know if

that will happen. it's just how you treat people regardless of what their positions are. if you are a journalist trying to get good information. i don't know if i answered your but did your answering all my questions beautifully. i have just a couple before we open it up, i want to thank you, shirley, for what you reminded me others about nelson mandela. i just want to mention one thing which i did not know at the last trial before he was found guilty of -- and sentenced to life imprisonment. can you imagine? spoke for 4 hours. they ask him if he wanted to say so. he spoke for 4 hours and only a little bit of it is recorded. think one paragraph which you have in here and have read that paragraph over and over again, which i'm not going to do now, but i just want to thank you for the way in.

president mandela is in your book. i just want to thank you. and it made me want to go and read more about him. and i really wish we had that four hour speech, but the next person i'm going to do a book, i think that was that was what i was going to ask you. what's next? yeah, i well, you know, the book got before archbishop tutu transitioned. that's what they say in south africa. they never say somebody die ready. they always say someone transition because they believe in the afterlife. so much so. and mandela told me this. they go to the one someone has to anzisha and relatives friends whoever go to the grave site when they have a problem and they talk to them about their problem and think that whatever comes up in their head is it by coming from the ancestor and so

as a result i was almost through the book when archbishop desmond tutu. so i'm going to have to do book so that i can include him because he one of the giants of our time he had the same instincts and philosophy and whatever you want to call it about all people and how they are no people should hate all of this. you need to work against but in a different way than just hate. and so while every now and then i get a little teary eyed that not in the book like it's my next book when i'm 90. so this is, this is my last one and i'm wanted to assess because it's such a timely question you also share with us and it made sort of sad some of your

reflections on on your close friendships some of whom, of course, have passed i am thinking in particular of dr. adler, especially in light of the recent supreme court ruling on roe versus wade. so can talk a little bit about dr. abbott and your friendship him and well at the moment, i mean he passed all the time he and his wife and young people four children, one of whom lives here in atlanta, they were always friends and our family and i knew i went through in a just from a distance his physical and the that it took on his family. but i also think that. one of the reasons they survived it and can talk him today without tears in their eyes of

breaking down is that they appreciate what he contributed to roe versus wade because he perform an abortion on a young woman i think she was a teenager and was late stage i think it was late stage. yeah yeah and yet it was important for him to do because of all of the reasons i don't even if i ever knew. but i think i did. but went to prison like madiba did for his beliefs. which was that abortion should be legal if he were today, he'd be on this program of me because he would be criticized in the decisions. so far and arguing for it to be

repealed and hopefully the young people who he trained, whom i spoke, whom i spoke, who spoke at his memorial service. will pursue the path that he made for them and fight for what they believe is right. so that is also upon all of us as i can't get out there, say what he might have said or what some of the other activists might say. but what i can do is go to communities where that are impacted by this decision and see how it's affecting people

there. i mean, a ten year old child. first of all, i don't know how she pregnant she probably raped. but at ten and i can't imagine that she would have been in a by a logical position to get pregnant but she was and so there are humans that need to be told and need to be shared because don't well, i'm not going to go into it. but one of the things that we know and the statistics that i keep up with on a daily basis is that disproportionate impact of just about everything going on in this country on people of color. i read story today and i can't remember now what was but it was a story that went into detail

about it may have been medication or or something that you can if you've got insurance a lot of black people don't have insurance a lot of what poor white people don't have insurance and. so, you know, there are things that need to be paid attention to. today, though, we journalists can do without being protagonists or without being taken a position that's for the editorial writers. but that's one of the issues that i think and let me say this to i'm in courage thing because it's already out there. younger people too know our history and especially those who are involved in campaigns like

we see black lives matter and so on. one of the things i've been saying for some time now since black lives matter started and they've done a terrific job at their own peril, we need a coalition of the generations because i don't know everything. as you probably figured out today, you can see that i don't. but i know a few things. i go back to john lewis, i go back to julian bond there in the book. i go back to shirley chisholm and eleanor holmes norton, constance baker, motley who argued one of the lawyers who argued my case that ended up with hamilton holmes, me being integrated integrated in the university of georgia. well, at least desegregating it, let's put it that way, because i think there's a difference between integrating and

desegregating at any rate, we've we've been in a lot of places all our many black people have been in a lot of places that the black lives matter people and others who are in different arenas we've sort been there the issues might have been little bit different, although not a lot because it's still racial discrimination. but we not unsuccessful. john lewis was not unsuccessful julian bond was not unsuccessful. in fact one of the i don't know if this pieces in there, but i remember covering when i went to work for the new yorker and he had been in congress congressman and and you know civil rights movement and in political involvement and he gave a talk to a large crowd of people. and if you get the book, you can read about that.

but he said we have made an impact nationally the civil rights movement. we have to back home and work in our local communities. and i think that's so critical. that advice from julian atlanta, julian bond is so, so important because i talk to my friends some of my friends who are so concerned about politics upcoming and where we might be going. so i said, well, what are you doing about are you out in the street? are you in newtown, which is the predominantly black community in florida, sarasota, where i live part of the year. are you in the street? are you feet the street? are you talking to people about? what's important about my husband again?

am i sucking up to him right or not? but anyway, my husband in the campaign was hillary clinton was walking in one of those in the black and he knocked on one door. now, this is after eight years of president barack obama. he knocked on his brother's door and he said, hello, i'm coming. if, you know, make you're going to get out to vote. this young man said something, this effect, get out to vote, why should i vote? ain't nothing happened for me in the last eight years. and the eight years of barack obama. this guy, i don't know where was getting his information, but it was wrong. and my husband spent more time talking to him than he did in the rest his work that day. i even wrote a piece i don't

think it's in here either for the new the day before this last election and i talked to a group of brothers who had been in prison. i don't think that was in there i don't think that was in. yeah and they can't vote in in florida if four or five years after they'd been out of prison. and so i went to this park where they hang out and sell dope, do all the crazy stuff, and i approached them. one was wearing some purple boots and i said, now how am i going to get to these brothers who? main job out here is to sell dope. i said, oh, i got purple boots. i love purple. i'm a purple person, i'm a february person. and i love that's purple. that's me. and that opened the door. you know what? there were five or six of them, only one of them could vote. and when i asked him who he voted for. he said he said, well, it wasn't

it wasn't that other guy that i knew who he was talking about. but that's interesting that, was interesting to me. i quoted him. but what that told was that he voted for him without enthusiasm. i went down the street, talked to another brother who was painting some ladies house like this is all black community, right? so say to him, can i ask if you're going vote? he's not going to vote. i ain't been out of prison long enough, he said. but i think they got the ticket wrong. i said, what do you mean? he said, well, i think the woman ought to be on top. you know who that is and as the oc, i write that down. then i went around the corner to, a sidewalk cafe where they have the best fried shrimp. if you're not on a diet that they ever i've ever and i went

back in the backyard which she had used it used to be a place for parties and things like that but because of it he had stopped doing that. so i said, well, look, i want to talk to you about politics. i said, he said, well, i can't vote because. i haven't been. now he's got a very business. these are the kind of people who in jail and they come and they set up a businesses that are profitable and good. my brother was with me, he was used to being secret service and so he was anxious about me going to this part because he knew what was on in the part. but by that he didn't feel i was, you know, in danger. so he had ordered a bunch of shrimp and stuff like that. so he's sitting there listening this conversation and eating. and i said, well if you could vote, who would you vote for, guess who.

he said, he would vote for? and i said, why? i don't know. many black people supporting him. i guess everybody knows who i'm talking. he got to be president and he said well, they always on him the media always him about his taxes and look at all these other people who are not paying their taxes who are businessmen that got a lot of money and they're being you know accused in the same way he said no no i that's who i would vote for. i wrote the piece. turns out the new yorker published it. i think it's in there. the new yorker published it and as it turns out, the new the new yorker wrote me and said, i'm glad we published it because this that's how it turned out a

good percentage of black people voted for republican. so you know that just makes our job i wouldn't say more difficult but challenging because we have balance what do and we have to do what lehrer said if you give people good information they will make the right decisions. so i as a journalist can't go around hating people who don't think the way think politically. but i can report it and give it to the public and hope that was good they'll the right thing. thanks jim. so before we open up, i just want to say i have your career. we're just a few years apart.

and i have followed your career since integrated university, georgia. you know? i was only four years younger than you, so i have followed your career. i want to just that you are a an amazing african-american woman. and i want to tell you finally, before we open up, valerie boyd revered you and she was so happy to too to have that charlayne hunter gault name professorship. and so i just wanted to say that before we it up and charlayne has agreed to take a few questions. and i just have to say, i think about valerie every day. i need to wrapped in rainbow that you got to read book wrapped in rainbows one of the most one. and i heard like i told you live in sarasota i somewhere that she finished came there to write the book so i am trying to find where she lived. i don't know who to ask anymore.

i asked her brother and he didn't know. but he said he would try and find out because i want to go there and be inspired by her presence. and we should also say, of course, that valerie edited the journals of alice walker, al spellman, and that book is out to it's amazing. she finished it before she departed. it is an amazing book. so so we can take a few questions. charlayne. and if you don't mind, tell us who you are when you stand up. see some of them as promised, spelman students out there. oh, do you have your hand up? we see, too. well, so let's put it right. yeah. so you you get a say so. yeah. come on. and us what you are you just say sorry. i've been very i raise their hand. hi, my name is lauren kay clark, class of 2010 spelman college

compared, a women's studies major. so i studied under dr. beverly guy-sheftall women's research center was my home and i'm also a journalist. writer editor and researcher had been over in for over nine years back, back. but my question was, you know, when comes to journalism and the power of the media, from what i know, i mean, how i get a lot. can you hear now? yeah. okay. all right so when it comes to how even raise my voice when it comes to the media during apartheid it played a very big role in demonizing in particular our activists and you know the union between nelson and winnie mandela. so i wanted to know if you were able to interview journalists who were who worked in the media, the apartheid media and the papers they played out, you know, know when i was watching

the documentary of winnie mandela one of the things that it who was instrumental in nelson i mean there would have been no nelson there was no winnie, you know, who really kept his name alive when he was jailed and did a lot of the activism work while he was in jail. so i wanted to know if you managed to speak with personnel from the apartheid regime, worked in media and, getting their understanding about what they were told to write, how they were told to frame the narrative in order to you know keep certain people portrayed as the bad guys, as the bad people. thank you so thank you for that question. i think one of the people in this book i know is in my sister's and she was a judge. was she? she started working with local journalism and local journalists. and i guess soweto.

johannesburg and she took cozily cpa, which whose name i've probably. oh, yeah, i'm a cpa. that's right. and and she covered the awful things that were going on in the apartheid regime against black people and ultimately she got appointed to the court once apartheid ended and she had a big case that everybody was following it a sports man who had had murdered his wife and that part of her life wasn't as what shall we say as great as as the part where she demonstrated

to end a party party. so initially, it was it was a basic question i couldn't get everybody on of. it was, did you have any with journalists who were covering apartheid? apartheid, yes. is that is that a basically. yeah. yeah. but you're talking about the white journalists. yeah. okay. and repeat that. yeah. she she wants to know if you had any contact, if you interviewed, if you spoke about journalists during the apartheid regime who were actually supporting the apartheid regime. yeah, well well, there were many those who were also, you know, and most of the papers, you know, controlled by that. but there were also journalists

who did cover in all of its awful manifestations and worked towards getting of it. and i don't i don't think that there were many who own newspapers, but there were white journalists, just like in this. there were white journalists as as white people who our efforts gain agenda of freedom and achieve our equality. so it's just like today, people generalize about white people. white people died for us. and i don't think we should forget that. i mean there was values also a white woman who drove from her home somewhere in the midwest down. i think that's right down to.

the south and work to help the civil the people engaged in civil rights there and was murdered for it and andrew goodman and james chaney and so many white people, you know, there came a time when stokely said they all had to go, right. but they didn't all go. and so i think that, again, that's where our history is important. so that we can not only from our brothers, sisters who were in the rights movement and leading the civil rights like that. the key moment for the first time right here on auburn, i was at uga as he had come to help support students like julian bond and caroline long banks and wilma long and others who were demonstrating and being arrested every day. and i saw him and i rushed over

and i said, dr. king, dr. king, i'm sure he said before i even say my name. he said, i know who you are and you we're so proud you. and before i could follow up, because that's what journalists do. somebody else was calling him and he moved on. and so that's how i encountered for the first and last time, dr. king. but it was such an inspirational moment. he was an inspiration. i think i've written about the time that he was demonstrated in with the students here. yes, that's here. yeah. and was was arrested and and taken to reidsville prison and i subsequently learned from somebody who was closer to him than was that in car in the in the police car in the back was a dog. i forgot what kind of dog it was, but it was a big who

growled all the way to reidsville, lying next to him. i and growling at him. that dog had been trained to hate black people too, and it and this is interesting about our politics because all adore, i think probably without exception, but maybe exception. john f. kennedy who did some good things. but at that time. so 61 or so, 60,. 61. i see. is that the time it was i'm trying to remember the exact time but john kennedy didn't want to upset his southern base so he had robert kennedy call the judge in reidsville and tell him to let his people go to that people go let martin luther king

where but what john kennedy did was call coretta king to express his concern, sympathy for her, for her. so that that was how i met dr. king and it was, as i recall, the only time that it was a memorable time which i think wrote about. any any more you know, quite a few high. my name is aaron. i am a writer to a freelance so told you i was eight you write you right now i need to i should been paying attention and loose my name is aaron i'm a freelance i've written for the nation. i'm curious about your opinion on mainstream journalism today. i know you had hannah-jones.

she wrote the foreword for your book and even with all of her prominence, she's been somebody who wasn't able to get a tenured position at her previous university. and in my experience working in newsrooms it's a lot of all white, all white editorial boards and to the degree that like things like black lives matter gets covered, it's like very, you know, only if somebody is murdered, even 20, 20, when i was writing the editorial did at a national digital publication, editorial meetings would be about how stop the process and brainstorming about like maybe whether come and how this would hurt the democrats and this is our basically i do a lot of editorial stuff to write an opinion so it's just i'm writing for places the nation's center left or right or other places.

but i mean, it's been my kind of experience that i don't really have faith in mainstream institutions from like a kind of ground floor level. and seeing people like nicole have to sue being like at the top makes me somewhat jaded. but i'm curious about your opinion about like the quality of coverage that made stream publications from today. yeah. as, as i've heard on television, that's a very good question. that question i am very disappointed with a lot of mainstream media today. are we still on are we still. i don't take you still taping because i have to be very careful here. i think it's this starting to be

well. we're always black journalists in mainstream media, often not a lot. but when i went the new york times in 69, i guess it was there were already five, four or five black journalists. so it's anything new where the. oh, yeah, it's not anything new that black journalists work in mainstream media. and because of the protests that are going on and other things that are bringing to the for the inequality in this country that's that's also being covered. i mean can read about some of the terrible things that are going on in poor black communities and the disproportionate impact of covid on the economy, everything else on people of color, although poor white people as well.

but the thing that and that me although you look at the media these the sunday shows always have a black person usually the analysis programs yamiche alcindor or one of my babies and donna brazile people like that oh and jonathan capehart who's also one of my favorites is on newshour and i can name quite a few. but the thing that encourages two things encourage each man from the fact some of these people who make the decisions about who's going to get are hiring more black people in some very good prominent positions like yamiche is running washington week now and can name

others. but one of the great tragedies of the moment is local newspapers which are going out business. i guess because they don't have the money but that's what people need in community that are not large communities that are not to the new york times and maybe don't even watch television anymore because everybody's doing twitter and tweet which where a lot of them are getting wrong information the way. but again like i talked a few ago about how we need to get our in the street, people need to get their feet in the street to help voters. they need the information. and somebody in newtown, in florida is going to get that information from the new york times unless.

something awful happens or something a major happens, unusual happens. where would get the information to help them make good decisions from local newspapers? and they're out of business. so just like julian bond told people, they need to get feet in the street, go home and get their feet in the street, in their own communities. those of you who have a little change or know people who have a little change need to their feet in the street to help them support our journalism because we need that. i read i won't say which one and i do it on my computer so i can do in 5 minutes. most of the time i read the headline and when i work for new york times, you had to tell in the first paragraph what your story was about. and then in the second paragraph

you had to on that. or if somebody passed away, they passed away, and what did they have? you know, they usually said now it goes on and on, on and. you have to wait till you could get to the point. that's just only in some stories. and again, i'm a big fan of the new york times, so i'm not criticizing the times. you hear that? but i find it very unusual that at time when most younger people are getting their news from twitter and things that get put on, you know, line and just very brief, some newspapers put it this way, i'm not going to say which are expanding their stories. and even though i person who loves information and is committed to getting new information in get tired of

reading paragraph after paragraph, paragraph, i'm saying these young people who out there now who need good information. are they going to read a story that on 1500 words or 2000 words and not even get what it's about in the first two or three paragraphs. now that may be old school, but i've been fairly successful at school, let's put it that way. and so while i'm not working for anybody now that myself, i talk to people who are who do have this kind of responsibility when, i can and when it's informal. to can't, they do a little bit on reducing the size of some of

these articles especially if they want to reach young people, who now go and sit there, read a piece that takes them 20 minutes because the piece is so long, you know, so i'm hoping hoping that our profession will survive and it has over many years, just like our america now and other countries that have, like south africa having some of the same problems. but we've overcome in the past and i'm confident, based on my own history and the history goes back to to to what nikole hannah-jones wrote about and what henry louis gates writes about films going all way back to the first slaves that stepped on the. back in the 1600s.

they survived, many of them. they survived. and in some cases, time went on. they conquered. so the phrase a more perfect union isn't a perfect union. it's a more perfect. and so when we know our history, hopefully, and that's the reason we should know our history, we should be to keep keeping on and to know that the wind is at our backs from our history and that however imperfect we are in the world. if you look at the history here and in other places. there are going to be some hard

times. but there are people like gayle and dr. keith and, my brother who's here, franklin, his wife are who. will help us on the road to a more perfect union, confident and i get depressed at some of the things i see. i'm going to be watching the debate tomorrow night between the two candidates for senator and and hoping i and tell you how it i'm hoping but i'm going be watching because i want to stay informed and. that's one way regardless of my politics. that's one way that i as a journalist can function because i know from hearing out of their

mouths what people are thinking, rather the necessary airily reading it or listening it on television is. so important for us to get our own information from a variety of places and don't get tired while doing it. okay. i think that's a perfect way to end this conversation that i really don't want to end, but need to have it and and you're going to vote us out, folks, to come have book signed. if that if that's right with you. because i know some folks would love to have their book signed by you. so we will say thank you. thank you to all of you and you especially. thank you, charlie. and thank you. thank