toni morrison talks about her book "remember: the journey to school integration." the book meant for younger readers depicts the illustration with photographs. this program is about 40 minutes. >> thank you. my instructionsre lean close to the microphone. so, if i happen to not do that at any point and you lose my voice, just raise your hand and i'll know that you don't hear me. i'm happy to come here. i spent a lot of years in washington and was here, as a matter of fact, when some of these events described in the book "remember" took place. i was here as an undergraduate and later as a teacher,

instructor at howard university. every nation, of course, has noble times, times that it wants to remember, times that they want its population to remember as a kind of ideal of itself. [ laughter ] that's a little better. these times, these noble times that most nations identify

usually wars, conquests. for land, conquests for resources. they may be wars for the deposing of a king or czar or dictator. they may be wars defending one's self against an oppressor or an invader. but they are generally honorable and bloody. the best ones are honorable. the worst ones are like honorable ones, only in the fact that they usually swim in blood.

but here, in this nation, 50 years ago there was a fairly bloodless revolution. i say fairly, because there was some blood. and there were instances of violence and there were instances of torture. and there were instances of imprisonment, and there was death. but, overall, it was a bloodless revolution. i like to think of it as a civil rights movement that was truly civil. because masses of people thought

carefully about what was at stake and what was right rather than what was expedient or habitual. they thought about what was elevating rather than mere ly power trying to itself. that movement, for it not to be understood as one of the most noble, most mature, most sweeping political change is inconceivable to me. however, it may court theg reca. and just in case it is in

serious danger of drifting into the barely mentioned in our textbooks and in our cultural history or in case it suffers an unkindly demise in itscausits p yet, incomplete -- before that, we should couldnntemplate and re that period as a powerful morae moral achievement. and none so significantly important as the brown versus board of education. there's certainly many celebrations and memorials and

books and essays and op-ed pieces all in place to mark and analyze the events of 1954. the culmination of years of work on the ground, in the streets and in the houses and in the churches and in the courts, the culmination being that supreme court decision. but as we pay tribute to those extraordinary times and the court's -- supreme court's decision that signaled a real turning point in social policy and law, it still is easy to forget one segment of the population whose future was the center of the cause. and i'm referring to the children. not just the ones who walked into the schools in the '50s,

but also the ones whowalk in the schools now, 50 years later. when i was approached to do a book for children about brown versus board of education, that's what i thought of, those two sets of children. but the question for me was how to relate those events to young people who may have anything from no information at all to some vague memory of some adult trying to describe the civil rights to them. and, of course, it may have been very much like telling about the civil war. they may feel that distant. so, the question was how to make those days alive for them in a manner that was direct, not

preachy, not pat ronnizing and not burdensome as text. while photographs were chosen that documented and dramatized the precursors to the decision, the decision and the little one's aftermath, but even the most powerful images could become merely another lesson or another collection, if they were presented with captions that were limited to the date, time, who, when and where. what really attracted me to the project was the possibility of entering imaginatively into the minds of the people in the photos, what they might be thinking or feeling, or could have thought or felt in language that represented the language of the people in the photographs that was also the readers.

i wanted to make the experience as intimate as possible. and my skills are honed in narrative, fiction and dialogue. so, i thought that i would bring those into play rather than sort of an essay-type rendering of what was going on. in doing so, in trying to invent what this person in a photograph might have been thinking to himself or saying to another person, it occurred to me that something truly unique had pp of any political movement so -- that so demanded and so required the deliberate of children, children

having to behave in a manner that was not merely to advance him or herself, but all children, then and in time to come. they were at the most vulnerable age when they were asked and able to become involved in something big and much, much bigger than themselves. they did it and it was hard. and just imagine, imagine yourself as i imagine myself, 8 years old, 12 years old, 15 years old. i'm entering the street, entering a building where i believe i am hated.

well, i know i am, because ming. grown-ups as well as children are calling me names. i am so not wanted, the nunns have to come along to protect me. and if they have guns, maybe they need them. maybe my life is in danger. maybe somebody out there in the crowd has a gun, too. they might use it. but even without those children went to school without national guard support, they entered school all alone. sometimes with a few others of their own race. the anxiety of entering any new

school, any neighborhood for a child is intense, but to enter under those circumstances is more than intense. trying not to be afraid, at least not showing it. not misbehaving, not even getting angry. not making any mistake. trying not to be heard. try i trying to learn under those circumstances. waiting, really waiting for the day to end. you can go home and be with your own. knowing all the while that what you're doing is for people you will never know. i wanted today's children to think about that and know that that spirit, that nobility, that

generosity was in them, too. to give up something, to be brave about something for the greater good, not just one's personal advantage. where else in their history books could they see that, imagine that kind of courage from people their own age? where else could they see adults of all races, all faiths, all classes and professions binding themselves to each other in such a righteous cause, especially a nonmilitary revolution. where else can you see that? it still is the most starting

thing to view. i'm still heartened by it, and i hope -- well, convinced that young readers of "remember" will be heartened, too. i want to read to you now just a few words, some of the passages from the introduction to the book where i was hoping to communicate that to young peopl

people. >> i had two cataract operations, you'll be happy to know. the world is blindingly new. i had no idea what i had lost. this book is about you. even though the main event in the story took place many years ago, what happened before it and after it is now part of all our minds,e aumind's first step tow understanding. this book is designed to take in american life when there was as much hate as there was love, as much anger as there was hope, as many heroes as cowards. a time when people were

overwhelmed with emotion and children discovered new kinds of friendships, and a new kind of fear. as with any journey, there is often a narrow path to walk before you can see the wide road ahead. and sometimes there is a closed gate between the path and the road. to enliven the trip, i imagine the thoughts and feelings of some of the people in the photographs chosen to tell the story. there are children, teenagers, adults, ordinary people leading ordinary lives, all swept up in the events that would mark all our lives. the first people to step on to the long path were children and their parents. the laws of the state called

temporal laws required laws in places, especially public schools. these laws were based on the idea of separate but equal. that meant black peopleareas, c public facilities, such as drinking fountains and waiting rooms in train stations, be seated on public transportation, movie theaters and attend schools, but not with white people. sitting apart on a bus and not being served through the front window of a take-out restaurant was humiliating. but nothing was more painful than being refused a decent education. no matter how much they argued or how long they complained, black families had to send their children to all black schools, no matter how far away. many buildings were dilapidated,

even dangerous. textbooks were few, worn, out of date. there were no supplies, after-school lunches, sports equipment. underpaid teachers were overburdened, try iing to make due. then one day some parents from delaware, kansas, south carolina, virginia and washington, d.c. stepped on to the path. these african-american parents formed a group represented byrh school boards thato travel to schools miles away from white ones closer to their homes. their of the parents, part of the group. the closed gates were opened by the supreme court after many lawyers and thousands of people

pushed against them. on may 17th, 1954, the supreme court justices announced this decision in the gabrown versus board of education which said separate schools were not through many states, towns, neighborhood, principals, teachers, parents and students. battles were fought to honor, ignore or overturn the decision. many battles were won. some quietly, some not. the demand to integrate public schools grew in a nationwide civil rights movement all races.

marches, protests, counter marches, counter protests erupted almost everywhere. it wasn when people of all races and all walktogether, where children had to be brpare pastors, priests and their alters to walk the streets were stranger, when soldiers to keep the peace or protect a young girl. days full of loud, angry, determined crowds and days deep in loneliness, peaceful marches were met with applause places. violence in others. people were hurt and people divide church for a little girl

sunday school. none of that happened to you. so, why offer don't have? remembering can be painful, even frightening. but it can also swell your heart and open your whenever i see sheets drying on a flood of memories comes back to me.en i traveled in the rural south with a group of students, we rece generosity from strangers, african-americans who took us in, when there were nola to eat. they were strangers who gave up their ownesse them in

brilliant white linen, smelling of pine. they fed us from their gardens and were so insistent on not being paid. we had to hide money in the pillow slips so they would find it long after we were gone. these were country people or city people, denied adequate education, relegated to a tiny balcony area in a movie theater. ba backs of buses, separate water fountains, menial jobs or not. like me, they were ordinary people. yet although their lives were driven by laws that said, no, not here. no, not there. no, not you, racial segregation had not marked their souls. the joy i felt in 1954 when the supreme court decided the brown

versus board of education was connected to those generous strangers and even now, when y dried streets summon up my memory of what that decision did and what it meant for all our futures. th br an justice of that decision. so, remember, because you are part of it. the path was not entered. the gate was not opened. the road was not taken. only for those brave enough to walk it. it was for as well.way, this is story. [ applause ]

>> i have agreed to entertain some questions or comments. they help me by having -- some of you wrote thewn on file cards. and i've looked at them and chosen some that i thought i could answer. and disregarded those i couldn't. but i did notice that about a third of the questions were really about the same subject, and i think i can read a few of them together. do you agree with some that even

though it's been 50 years since brown versus brown -- versus board of education, segregation has not disappeared, but has re-emerged, as resegregation? a lot of public schools that were all white 50 years ago were slowly evolved into all black and what should be done against that? i had a notion in the '50s that the work to be done, vis-a-vis public schools and integration was noteg to an integrated school -- i mean a segregated

school. i lived in a little town that was distinguished by its pove y poverty. and the people all sorts of people. immigrants, east european immigrants, mexicans, black people, all sorts. and we didn't have the money oue interest. because this is in, as they call it, the depths of the depression. so, we had something else on our collective minds. therre et cetera, different social groups, but there was one high school, ford junior high school. and the streets were full of people from all sorts of places in the world. i never lived on any was all of anything.

so, i came to university here in washington when i graduated, deliberately to be among black intellectuals. so, i say that because i looked at this business a little bit differently back in the '50s. what i thought was there should be enormous struggle for resources, money to go into those schools that were -- supplies, support, so on for tax money. i thought no child should have to walk or drive ten miles away to go to a black school when they lived -- when one was closer. but i didn't think of it as either/or. i thought of it as both. you should have both things.

i knew that black schools, undergraduate schools, graduate schools have been splendid. had attended one that, in those days, was as good a school as you could find anywhere.re handg the cases for those degrees had gone to those schools. that's where they came from. the education at that school had been as high or higher to any school i've been to since. what happened in those schools, of course, is a different story. it's a consequence of so-called integration. nevertheless, i say that to say that i am still not certain vis-a-vis this question that now what used to be all white may be predominantly black, something that needs to be -- i don't know, whatever other ethic

group. i'm not sure that we're seeing racial segregation so much as class and money segregation. when it became possible for african-americans to go to any school in certain numbers, in any way, or to move into other neighborhoods, they made those choices in many instances and left behind those who had no economic choices. so, there's the benefit and then there's the consequence, the laws. the best teachers of some of the best black schools were drained away to other schools, white schools for better money, better pay, better pen fits, what have you. there was no -- in other words,