dialogue changes. and that's -- so actually when i was called to speak with this panel, i thought we have to find a way to put another handle on this. we deliberately go to many of these places, including gettysburg. i have gone for the last 10 or eight years. we march in the parade. because these things become a sorority fight, fraternity fight, where two fight last night and then have business kind of thing. until we show up and remind people that this was about changing america, making america a better place. i am trying to expand that group now. i don't think they are going to go away either. we are just trying to change the dialogue, do what we can to change the dialogue and hope we can have re-enactors go to all of these states and all of these battles. there was a writer named

james -- i can't remember his last name now. >> loin. >> loin, who basically talks about all of these monuments. he says there are more monuments in the stateof there are to abraham lincoln. and he says some of them need to come down. actually, he says well meaning white people need to take them down. >> illinois? tennessee for sure. >> there are not going to be black people taking them all down. so that's your homework. so let me just make one last observation. we are busy right now working on the grand march down pennsylvania avenue in washington, d.c., that takes place may 23, 2015 now. the end of the civil war, the victory march that takes place down there. and you all remember that these african-american regiments were not invited. they were part of the victory. president lincoln himself says he could not have won the war without them, and yet they ordered these men to the south when the victory march started.

so we're going to correct that great wrong in history. and we're going to also correct another great wrong in history, and that is that virtually every state in the south had regiments that remained loyal to the union army. during the civil war. the state of tennessee had 36,000 soldiers who remained in union uniform. they didn't commit treason and try to rebel against their union. nobody ever says anything about them. what we hope is in this grand march march down pennsylvania avenue, they will march with us in the victory march down pennsylvania avenue. so help all us with elements from those states. this was a great period of american history. it made america is a good place for everybody to live. and congresswoman, let me just say, she'll appreciate this, i was in alabama back in march speaking to a large integrated group talking about how i thought the civil rights movement had been -- the civil war and civil rights movement

had helped to change america and make america a better place, including alabama. and this was a bit of a stretch. i said, you know, in alabama, the civil rights movement made alabama a better place. i said if you don't believe me, just imagine what would happen if the university of alabama had to get rid of all of its african-american football players. so you've got to speak to people where they are. i have seen some of these people at these re-enactments. so i know who they are. they also have season tickets to these football games. milli imagine what would happen if you got rid of all of the basketball players in and they had cam newton down there now. the heisman trophy winner down there. so you have to look at this a lot of different ways. one of the ways to look at it is a simple, somewhat humorous way, and that is that the civil war had to take place before you can get to the civil rights movement. and that was based on the 14th amendment, which was passed after the civil war. if you don't have the amendment, there's no martin luther king.

>> but the football players at alabama did not write alabama's immigration law. and that immigration law is potentially an egregious violation of that 14th amendment. as long as we keep that in mind. we can celebrate a black football team at alabama, but they don't write that immigration law. other people did. and i just want to say quickly, i agree with everything frank has said today except one thing. i don't think history is on a road of progress. we want to be. of course. who doesn't want to be living on a road of progress? who doesn't want to get up every day and live on a road of progress? who wants to live on a road to hell? nobody does. but one of the worst things we can do is come to actually believe it, because as history shows, reconstruction was a revolution that went backward. almost every revolution in the world history has had a counterrevolution and sent it backward. and we could be experiencing another one now.

history is not going any particular place. you have to make it. >> john franklin from the national museum of african-american history and culture. and very pleased that the center in tulsa, oklahoma, is one of the sponsors of this discussion. three points i wanted toe make. the first is, and it's a national implication of this discussion that we often ignore, which was brought to my attention in london last year when there was an article or a story about confederate heritage tourism to liverpool, which is the foreign capital of the confederacy. and when i was in liverpool later that same week, i was shown the capital of the confederacy in liverpool, and we must remember that the confederate ships, not just the slave ships were built in liverpool but the confederate navy was built there and ended up owing the union for those

funds. secondly, the native american community is also part of this discussion, though rarely mentioned. and i say it again in an oklahoma context, because my family on my father's side were enslaved by chickasaw people. and we get to oklahoma through the trail of tears, and the family name was bernie until my father's grandfather ran away to fight in the union forces and changed his name to franklin and freed himself. so that's another part of the discussion in addition to the hispanic names we mentioned earlier. >> right, right. >> and at the association for the study of african-american life and history's annual meeting this year, the final plenary was on african-american women and the civil war. and research is ongoing, and i think we should all look to the upcoming book by glimpse, looking at the massacre and exploitation of african-american

women during this conflict. this is something we rarely hear about, and we have yet to learn. thank you. >> that is great research being done on contraband camps and the whole emancipation process. and a lot of those scholars are beginning to show us that possibly one of every four fugitive slaves who escaped even within union lines died in the process. emancipation is a glorious, tremendous story. but it is not without its own authentic tragedy. >> ok. margaret? >> yes, i'm margaret smith. i teach in the peace and conflict resolution program at american university. i teach on conflicts like northern ireland, r wanda, cyprus, bosnia, sri lanka, expect. also civil wars where there has been a contested society where groups rely heavily on the collective memory in order to

maintain the cohesion of the group for all kinds of political reasons. of course, israel-palestine is another one. and when it comes to trying to address the question of memory in these places, one reality is that history is serving as a way of conducting the conflict by other means. and so until you get a political arrangement that creates a certain amount of stability, it's actually rather hard to shift the narrative or to find any willingness to shift the narrative. but in any case, what i'm trying to get at is the question of the relationship between the historying history history and the politics. can you change that before you change the politics? you can't make much progress in

changing the history, or can it work the other way around? you're talking today -- i think what we're here trying to say is that by doing things to shift the narrative, you can have an impact on shifting the politics. so i'm trying to raise the question that comes to the heart of why we're here today. can you do this? or is history only an expression of the political realities? >> i'll take the first shot at that, because i think -- if it gets any more complicated, i probably won't be able to do it. but let me just say this in the context of the african-american community. and i say this as -- i think i told you this, i have been at this all my life. i started as a college student at moorehouse college and have been involved in this whole effort of civil rights and human rights all of my life. and i'd just like to say two things. first of all, in the african-american community, in

said earlier about reconstruction, we -- african-americans because of the way we were brought to this country have both a memory of america as a place where we were enslaved but also a memory of the same memory that everybody else has of a great place where you can express yourself and do great things. but the tie to the geography or the geopolitical tie to america for african-americans is very different. and i'll just give you two aspects about this. if you look at the history of black people in the united states, there was never even large movement towards racial integration in the black community until the 1960s. we might have done all right with separate but equal, except it wasn't equal. it was white sprums'. -- supremacy. i went to the southern bell

telephone company to apply for a job climbing a temperature pole. i was a college student. a good student too, by the way. black people couldn't even get a job climbing telephone poles. so if i couldn't do that, what was the value of my education? why was trying to do all of this? and then eating at the lunch counter. you aren it wasn't about integrating the schools or trying to eat at the lunch counter. it was about getting job. you think about someone just coming out of slavery. they have a new life. newfound freedom and they have to build a new world for themselves, in the world of discrimination, violence, ku klux klan. so they start churches, schools, schools and churches. and one writer says schools break out like wild flowers and define a school as anyplace

where three people gather together and one of them can read and write. by the 1960s, we have 100 african-american colleges in the united states. we've got tulsa, we've got wilmington, and all of these communities become targets for white mobs. because white supremacy says african-americans, that no black person can do any better than the poorest white person. that's right. this goes on. now, so our reality in terms of the political and whatever is a little different. now, we're also operating in a community -- and the reason why i went to holing springs as a civil rights worker is because they were 70% black. if we can get register a few people to vote without getting them killed, we can elect a sheriff and a judge. by the time barack obama gets elected in 2008, there were 19 million african-americans registered to vote, 405 black mayors in the united states too. there were thousands of school board members.

and these people helped to provide some kind of defense against the terror, the tyranny, the violence, of people who not only operated under the code of law but also formed up mobs to come burn your house down at night. they can't do that if the sheriff is not supporting them. and if the prosecutor is not supporting them. if they are going go to jail, and they may end up in one of these jails. so for the african-american community, the reality is a little bit different. and i think the key to this not only was education, but also the fact that we have been able not only to register a number of people to vote, but also the point i made earlier about president obama. finding well meaning whites who are willing to work with us. and i think that -- david, i respectfully disagree with you. i think the fact that you have seen that coalition in action in this country, you saw it in action in the last election, you're going to see it in action again at this next election.

you'll see it in action again, and it's the arc that this country is headed in is the only way it can go. and it's the right way to go, because this world is more like america than america -- than some people want to realize, and that is that most of the people in this world are of color. people in india and africa and throw in a few chinese and japanese together, you know, you've got to get along. you've got to learn how to get along with us. and america is a place where we are learning how to get along. >> one last question. >> we didn't answer your question. we're not answering your question. >> i would like to respond to that question if i could. >> let the theologian have a crack at that one. >> what i'd like to say is that a healthy democratic culture is one in which people listen to each other's stories and bear those stories in mind when they go to the polling booth. and that's a richly democratic

culture, which as we welcome different people into it, we are welcoming them into our minds. i have much admiration for the reply of oliver tambow, who was the head of the national congress of south africa, when his generals came to him in the 1980s and said, we have the capacity with our dynamite to blow up the monument in pretoria. tambow said in reply to that, we must not do that because that monument is precious to the memories of africanas that put that monument up there, and one of these days we are going to have to live with those people and we should not damage their monuments to. me, that's good democracy. >> i think david and i -- i'm not sure what you're going to talk about this question, but i think it's important for people

to understand. all the conversations that we're having today, there's a virtuous cycle. and it goes back to what the congresswoman was saying, ok? the civil rights struggle grew out of brave almost all african-americans who kept alive the story of the possibility. and the association for african-american life and history, and carter g. woodson and all of that. but once that began, then there's a whole generation, i grew up in segregated schools but by the time i went to college i lived in another word, and african-american history is now a whole new terrain for white scholars to explore. and david was talking about we're still learning about the contraband camps even now. so for 50 years now, one discover after another. the movie "glory" is a byproduct in some ways and the exhibit at gettysburg is a result of academic scholarship which feeds back into all of that. so the national museum of

african-american history -- >> this is progress. >> this is progress. and the museum that frank leads. so i think sometimes that academics forget that what we're doing can actually matter. but when it's manifested back in the museums and films and television shows, but also in what our children are learning, it is not without consequence. and i -- you know, i wouldn't want us to forget that without the hard won knowledge that comes from many lonely scholars studying things like the convict system, we don't have the information that we need to move forward. so i think sometimes we rage at an impoetence that we don't actually have, you know? >> real quick, there are examples in the past when the academic history coming out of the best universities from the greatest historians served public policy in the service of white supremacy. the so-called dunning school

reconstructionist, the so-called fips school. if you grew up in the united states and learned anything about american slavery in 1925, you learned it out of u.b. phillips and his many students, most of them trained at yale. >> a school for savages, that i called it. >> yes. but we can't measure this, but the rev lugolutions in the scholarship about the civil war, about race, about women, about all sorts of elements of our past, that have occurred in the past half century, have clearly changed textbooks and schooling, have brought about an enormous new revolution in documentary film making, beginning with "eyes on the prize" and dozens and dozens of others which are now part of the mental landscape of america. so there is much to be celebrated on that. but the worst thing we can ever do is think as historians that we have much real impact, honestly. there is far, far, far more public memory out there than

there can are be the history we write. that means the history we write has to get into the museum exhibitions, has to get into the films, and even into presidential rhetoric because that's where public memory is actually formed. we have to affect the stories that grandmothers tell the children. >> but we can't get it there if it's not found in the first place. the national parks service gets 80 million visitors a year to the civil war parks, more than any of us can ever imagine. d.c. gets 20 million visitors, more than any other city in the country. up until a few years ago, the parks service was part of the problem until jesse jackson got involved. that's how you got that great new exhibit at gettysburg, which is is the pilot for the whole parks

system. and it does make a difference. i think history historians wrote these books. said it had nothing to do with the civil war. they came out of the great universities. they ignored all of this. they passed right over them without being truthful about it because as they say in the civil war of the south and the people of the south have a different view. you want to stop it, you have to write something that's sentimental to their point of view. that meant for black people you had to write it out of our -- you know, we became the butt of those things. but over the last several years that's one of the last exhibits that african-american civil war museum. we put together an exhibit that showed you the increase in income for the african-americans. it goes from 18 bld to $900 billion in the year 2008. last week the kneel son people said it was over $1.1 billion.

that's the aggregate income in the african-american community. we have a market just like everybody else. bigger than the income of can darks bigger than the income of turkey and many other states. it's made a lot of difference. we have to keep going. >> by the way, remember the poll ed mentioned about -- it was a cnn poll last spring on the anniversary of forth sumter. i think it said 47 or 48% of americans, i don't know what the poll question was, which matters, of course, believed that slavery probably was the principle, 52%, 53% don't. i had to decide. we all give these public talks. i had to decide whether that was good or bad news. i decided that was good news. if you did it 20 years ago, it would be even less. we haven't got a majority yet who believe slavery was the cause of the civil war despite all the books that have argued that. >> 17,001 books will make the

difference. >> i promise you the question, i hope it's brief. >> i think this process we're talking about here of healing and so on and reconciliation is desirable. it's -- it has a nice, warm, fond ring to it. on the other hand, it's desperately imperative where it seems to me the public interest -- well, let's not say interest but grasp of history is disintegrating. there are enumerable studies which suggest that americans' historical knowledge is shockingly low. it's apropos that the idea of erasing any kind of monument of any sort is a terrifying prospect. we at least need these anchors to work from or else i fear we'll forget everything. i'll leave it at that. >> the only monuments left may

be the apple store. >> i want in on that. >> this is one point i correct myself. it's linked to what catrina brown raised and also ed on the treasuryf yankee pride. i say this as a political psychologist. in addition to all of the very, very substantial economics politics, tragic loss, no real healing, no real mourning of southern losses. the battle over the statues. there is a long tradition of insult and disdain from new england particularly towards everything southern. and well before the war -- the civil war thomas jefferson was actually -- his university of

virginia charlottesville, be completed quickly before the sons of its commonwealth had their minds permanently contaminated in the snonorthern cemeteries. emerson was probably the most distinguished of the massachusetts purveyors of insult to the south. in a famous, not famous enough, 1837 journal. the young southern ner comes here spoiled a child. very good to be spoiled more but good for nothing else. he has conversed so much with rife falls, horses, dogs, he has become himself a rifle, a horse, and a dog. and in civil educated comes -- >> he had a way with words. >> he is dumb and unhappy, like an indian in church. so a double barrel ethnic

insult. whew. yankees aren't aware of this. southerners are somehow. they may not have that spaecifi. everyone has a story. including the most liberal integrationists of southern you might find. the tradition of insult was carried out in the 20th century, journalism of menkin. the reactive hurt to southern self hch regard is most poignantly in this quote. mississippi reluctantly goes to harvard and commits suicide by jumping off a bridge into the charles river. lewis j. simpson who writes about this says quentin, a professor of american literature at louisiana -- university of louisiana at louisiana state. quentin has in effect by going to harvard and committing suicide assumed the burden of the whole history of the destroyed world of southern slave holders carrying his burden to the lapsed world of

emerson. and as we know, faulkner believed that the past was in the present and i, myself, believe that the wounds to southern self-esteem inflicted relentlily by a north almost totally unaware of its history and of the political psychological senses must somehow be acknowledged. after a walk threw history to document the facts, which we've been trying to do today, symbolic representatives of new england tradition need to acknowledge its destructive behavior and accept moral responsibility for it. i think personally that only in this way can the contemporary south and its transplanted allies in the west unburden itself of its resentment against northern liberalism and join with white america throughout the country in finally facing its responsibility to black america. i also say native america. this is a road to national

recognition. we should address this before it gets to the congressional level. healing history requires healing everybody's hurts. listening, careful listening, respectful listening. not excusing human rights violations, vicious racism, behavior that is clearly immoral, but there's some wonderful people whose feelings were also hurt in the white south, and yankees are totally oblivious to it. i come from that yankee tradition. one of the things i hope will come out of this session today is a little bit more -- much more examination of the northern contribution to the hurt because for one thing, the resentment is very much alive in the american congress today. it's paralyzing the ability of our first black president to really govern this country because there's so much unfinished business psychologically in the

north-south relationship. >> can i just add? robert pen warren paid us back. he didn't like thorough. he once called thoreau a big old meat ball of a fake with a genius of prose style. he's got his back. >> i love it. thank you very much. >> maybe humor will save us. [ applause ] my friends, thu kn they knew america.

[ applause ] >> i need a new america with ever lasting the attacks the ancient idea that men console their differences by killing each other. [ applause ] >> as candidates campaign for president this year, we look back at 14 men who ran for the office and lost. go to our website, c span.org/the contenders to see a video of people who had a lasting impact on american politics. >> they continue to offer only one solution to the problems which confront us. they tell us again and again and again, we should spend our way out of trouble and spend our way into a better tomorrow. >> c span.org/the contrs