newark activists discuss their first-hand account of those events, and the change if prompted for new jersey's largest city. this hour-long discussion was hosted by the smithsonian's african-american history museum. >> our first discussion entitled newark, a rebellion explored will be moderated by michael fletcher who is the senior writer for espn, the undefeated. after 21 years at the washington post covering the white house and race relations. mr. fletcher will be joined on the panel by panel list linda caldwell apps, who is the president and ceo of 1804 consultants, an organization dedicated to the success of cultural organizations. a noted attorney and musician and educator who currently directs the leadership institute

at rutgers university in newark. and mark, whose breath of work in higher education and the humanities in new york include serving as the director of the alexander price institute on at the city, culture and modern experience. the author of a recent book on new work and the rebellion of 1967. please join me in welcoming michael fletcher, junius williams, and linda caldwell apps to the stage. [applause] >> i should interject that at the end of the panel discussion there will be a few moments for questions and answers.

members of the panel will take those questions and we will conclude this panel and move on to our next presentation. thank you. >> good afternoon, everyone. what i hope to do here is just have a conversation and talk about what newark was like before 1967, and how it came to be that way. also, talk about what has transpired since. like political empowerment, what has resulted from those developments. i thought i would start with -- talk a little bit to us about the black population in newark. how did it get to be a magnet for the great black migration and what kinds of jobs were people coming to get, what

conditions that they find when they arrived there? >> first of all, new jersey is the northern most southern state. [laughter] >> you laugh because it is ironic, but as such, who was one of the first places that you would reach coming from the south. it was important on the underground railroad. it had a reputation as being the crossroads. more important, during the great migration, actually, a little before that, starting at 1890, the manufacturing industry work locations between philadelphia and new york. it had wonderful seaport. it attracted many to come to seek their fortune in new york.

north port at the time was probably the largest in the northeast. there were jobs. factories during world war i were humming and buzzing. the immigrant population that had worked in those factories were off to war. our men from the south came up to work in most factories. i will stop there because i could go on. [laughter] >> newark had always had an african-american population, both free and people who were in bondage. michael: as you get closer to 1967, talk about newark. >> newark is one of the famous

one of the famous north the that is famously black. talk to us about leading up to that. >> thank you for having us here on this. i look out and see a lot of faces from newark, d.c., and we had a conversation about this. he was quite a man. the question. let me just get directly to the answer to this. did we have representation? no. there were two city council persons at best time -- at this time. one was irvine, who was the

first black elected officials elect it in 1954 as a city councilman. first, that was quite something because, power concedes nothing without a demand. he had the stuff to back it up. that is the kind of election it was, as are all the elections. he and the other city councilman, who were in leg did -- elected as a councilman, they were of salt by the traditional power structure, which at that time was run by an italian mayor.

he was interested in becoming the first italian governor in the state of new jersey. all of the issues that were waiting down upon black people, poverty, break that down, you have schools, you had teachers that did not want to teach this particular group. you had a welfare workers that did not want to give the check to the people even though they were deserving of it. you have landlords who would charge high rent for shacks. in newark you had people who had to live in cold water flats. this is just like it was in the south. on top of that, you had the police who were controlling the

plantations. 90% of the police force was white. mostly irish and italian in a city that was 58% black. nobody cared what they did, least of all the mayor and those who are in power. there was another group of people who were coming in, part of the civil rights movement, it had not yet become black power, but it was going towards that. we were raising people's expectations. this is not normal, this is not what you are entitled to. people who were already there, people who came in later. you had that conflict between blacks who are inside the government, and black people who are outside the government. you had whites in power who were fronted i blacks, and you had blacks who were supported by whites.

michael: back in 1964, lyndon famously launched the great society. why did that not do more to improve conditions? >> i would say, first, it did do some amazing things in newark. it did not solve all of the problems, but i can get back to that. the reason why it did not do all that people had hopes, all that maybe it could have is that it was resisted from the get go. often times we hear the story that the war on poverty was called off because money for the vietnam war was being drained away from domestic social programs, but even before we sent the first ground troops to

vietnam in 1965, the newark city council had decided not to provide their portion of the funding for the local war on poverty. they recognized it for what it ended up being, sort of a fostering ground for political dissent for political alternative. and for a think a lot of black workers who had, since 1959, were aware that their city would be the first majority black city in the northeast. this saw the war on poverty and solve the social programs is a real opportunity. they were constructed to be independent of city hall. there was this knowledge that, and k, we are, if not already, on the verge of this city. the powers that we are disenfranchising them on multiple fields. here this program comes down

from the federal government and they see real opportunity. it is used for community organizing. >> if i can say something about the point you're trying to make. i remember weeding -- reading some quotes from the mayor and sheriff saying they were taken completely by surprise. this should not have been a surprise at all. there were signs 50 and 60 years before 1967 that the city was not planning correctly for its citizens. the zoning laws were out of whack. i remember reading a report that said, we have to plan for the large influx of people that we know are coming to the city. but they did not. the master plan of 1947 had all these grandiose ideas of what they could do and 20 years later

in 1967, they had still not done anything. when they talk about that house conditions, poor health conditions, drain on the educational system, these were all predictable. also predictable but they refuse to do anything about it. michael: i was reading in your memoir about the harrowing tale of you driving into the riot. i know we have kind of telegraph the answer here, but what caused the riot of 1967? >> let me start with the second one first. what caused the rebellion was all of the rebellion in that right.

ok, you gave me a whole lot to talk about, now. [laughter] >> we have time? what caused the rebellion was all of the above. it got to a point where people to said, we cannot take this anymore. anytime you have somebody's foot up your behind, and you moved to take their foot out, that is a rebellion, that is not a riot. a ride is kids who go down to fort lauderdale on spring break and did not get stopped by the police. a riot is when you have folks after a soccer game, football game in england or in germany, and the wrong team wins, that is a riot. that is uncontrolled, un-bible did just passion. people were looking for solutions. when all of the institutions

that are supposed to resolve these things -- when you bring it to the table nonviolently, people were organized. don't think user people all over the place doing nothing. a lot of organization was nonviolent. people were saying, what is going on. it was predictable and happening in front of their faces. number two, that cause the riot and that is why there was a rebellion, in your terms. in my terms, a riot in what you said. in my particular case, i was a third-year law student in newark. this is my third summer. i was in charge of a group of law student sisters for the legal services project, but i was also working with a group

called the newark community union project, which is part of the ses for the democratic society. i was also working with the student nonviolent coordinating committee. if y'all don't know those, look them up, young people especially. i was also in charge of this program. i was writing up court street m a car, and had a couple of guys with me and we were just looking around. we were out after curfew. yes, we were out beyond the point that we were supposed to be out. so, as i describe in my book, we had just turned into court street, going up the hill to what is martin luther king boulevard now. i heard the sirens, then i looked in the rearview mirror and i realized we were in deep,

deep trouble. the angle in front of me told me to get out the car, which we did. they searched the car and some no contraband, but there was something in there that told me they wanted to kill us. michael: were they pointing guns at you? >> yes. one had a shotgun and the others had pistols. the sergeant was telling them they are law students. there are law students let them go, he said it three times. the shotgun man had his eye straight on me at that point. the other man was making all kinds of omnidirectional orders for us, hoping we would run.

they finally listen to him, got back in the car and trove off into the night. if it had not been for that sergeant, i don't the guy would have been here today. michael: mark, in the wake of not only the newark rebellion, but rebellions of many cities in this country's and the terrible scene we saw in detroit that then, linda johnson reported a commission. the one thing we remember from that report is that famous quote, that our society is moving towards becoming to societies. one black and one white. in the book i know you sell my q did not like that phrase, and did not like the -- i think you might have quoted a performance. explain why. what did you sick of that comment and was it precedent? mark: i do call it a performance, but not at all in a dismissive way.

one of the way commissions like that work, aside from the content of the report, aside from the recommendations and their findings is that they attempt to show people, in the midst of a crisis, the way to work through that crisis. it is intellectually, honestly, weighing evidence. i think those commissions model that. they perform that for the nation. i think that is an important function. that line that comes in the summary of the report in the

very beginning. the summary was written by a couple of staff members, and the vice chair of that commission. if you have ever seen the report, you have this 6, 7, 800 page chock-full of charts, numbers and footnotes and recommendations. some of which seem to contradict each other. it is a huge massive report. they were worried it seemed to scientific. they wrote what becomes is incredibly famous line in american rhetoric as a way to give some urgency to the rest of their report. michael: was it an accurate prediction do you think? mark: the prediction questions. for sure. we know, we have scholars who have studied segregation rates nationwide in the decades after the 1960's. we know about the rise of residential segregation. especially concentrated in cities. i think, predominately, although i think people talk about some

of these positive things that come out of 1967, there is certainly a bifurcation of how people understand that. this is partly a language riot rebellion. it becomes a way americans can blame black people for the decline of cities. cities declined because black people write it, rather than appreciating much longer history of urban development in decline. as i said before, some people use these as a real organizing tool to revisit some of these issues, to study them very honestly and passionately. some people on the liberal side, some more radical people. i think there is a way in which 1967 leads to a bifurcation in understanding american cities, in understanding the course of american history for the rest of the 20th century. michael: market mentioned some

of the positives that resulted from the rebellion. one thing i look at when we were talking backstage about my memory of the newark riots. i was thinking -- i remember and see it into my consciousness -- i lived in new york city at the time. a couple of years after that, i remember feeling -- when ken gibson was elected mayor of newark, the first african-american mayor's in the northeast of the united states. even though i did not fully understand what was happening, it felt like a type of victory to me.

it felt good. it did not make a difference. >> it was a victory. and it did make a difference. you had someone in office who understood the majority population. who, certainly, when he first got into office was concerned about improving conditions in the city. all of those reports that have been stacking up collecting dust about what needed to be done. i am sure he read and launched on a campaign to improve things. the school board, in 1967 it began to change complexion. as did other government agencies and nongovernment agencies. was having a black merit enough?

-- black mayor enough? no. having a black figurehead without the proper support and enough to turn around the city? of course not. we were fullest to ever think that could happen, in my opinion. it helps, but it certainly did not resolve the issues that face the city in 1967, and some of those issues we are still working with now. it is a poor city. it takes a multilevel approach to resolve things. he put us on our way. michael: you agree with that? >> i agree with that, but let's go back before ken was elected. most of us do not want the

rebellion. there was analysis of the cause the breakdown. we have to say, what good came out of the rebellion. first was identity. before the newark rebellion, black people do not call themselves black. we were negroes. nobody use that term before this. afterwards, there was a whole change in the complexion, no pun intended, of the city. the other thing was strategic advantage. we look after the fire had died out, the smoke had cleared and phil hudson was my roommate and later became a chairman. we said, these people are scared of us. there was a ripple all across

the city as people came out and understood that. what did we do? i put my law students to work on looking at urban renewal. one of the things that was the most important urban renewal project at the time was the giant medical school. it was a medical school off -- golf course they wanted. 150 acres. that was one of the reasons it was humiliating us to begin with. "landmark cases" -- michael: just explain why that was. >> it would take 20,000 black people and puerto rican people, take away their houses. it was clear that was not the only -- there were 13 or 14 projects in that time. it was the second most renewed projects in the country next to north virginia. the purpose was not only to clear the land for developers to make money, but it was also to

get black when girardi. that was going to stop the people in power. we were able to make a long story short, we were able to, because of that and visible brother with the brick, we were able to negotiate a settlement, which cut the medical school acres in half. we got 60 acres of urban renewal land to build houses. that housing still exists today. we built more than 900 houses, this was community groups. we integrated the workforce, the construction workforce for the first time. people know about the philadelphia plan, but the newark land was the successful plan of that era in integrating the workforce.

people say we all have any black people, we can't find black people, we said, you have to train them. we told the state, you have to pay for the training of the people for the community and we set up something called the newark construction trades training program. the trend over 600 black and puerto rican men. women were not considered at that time for construction. many of them went on and became part of the union. not without subsequent struggle, but that was the beginning of it. we got the medical school to take over the health care in the city. closing down what we used to call the meme market and using that new high school, which they originally wanted for heart transplants and experimentations. the third thing, and i will stop, coalition building.

up to this point we were a vast array of unpredictable, but valeant organizations. after the rebellion, medical school site was the first time we all came together, all the way from the naacp. one of the things i was able to do was to get the students up at yale, who got the school of architecture to develop an alternate plan. which we showed in 17 acres what they wanted to do in 150 acres. that became the rallying cry for all of the organizations. there was nobody left. except

for tthe black people at city hall. mark: i just want to add quickly as we talk about the outcomes of the rebellion, and building on what has already been said. one of the most important things was the way that those five days, and the great tragedy and death and violence of those five days completely de-legitimated the existing power structure in new york. they showed what contempt they had for black residents of newark. they showed they cannot control the city, that they do not have the consent of residence. when the governor decided to pull the national guard and the state police out, it is because he was advised by some of the people that he is talking about. some of local community organizers and activists to do so. they argued the presence of these troops was inflaming the

situation. they were the ones keeping the violence going. there is a way in which the power structure delegitimated the community forces and they really got to show what they could do. >> i'm glad you pointed that out. it is striking to me how so many things change, like reading, i think the police chief comes out and it is the middle of the day, they are hiding behind cars, national guardsman i there and the fellow walks out into the middle of the street. he walked out and people panicked. when they get to the bottom of it, the shop was fired by a nest -- the shot was fired by a national guardsmen.

i fast-forward to what happened in baltimore, not that there was so much violence, but i covered that as a journalist. one of the narratives of the police chief and a black chief said there was emails coming around from the gang same it want to assassinate police officers. all of these things have a way of tightening what is a tense situation. it is interesting that you can look back 50 years and see the same dynamic. >> a few weeks ago, the week of the actual anniversary, there were a number of panel discussions, number of events. something that island -- i learned from lynda carter is that she talked about there were no guns in the community. that the weapon of choice was a

knife. there were no guns. so all of these reports about snipers and people are hiding weaponry all throughout the community were false. i think, certainly, the report came out and said, most of the ammunition that was found after the events came from troopers weaponry. this whole fear that there was this big warfare going on is false. >> we point out in our new website called "rise up north.com" is you get a lot of this information. there were 268 reports of sniper fire. zero snipers were ever found. no evidence of any snipers. no gun shells other than the

police gun shells. no footprints, no fingerprints, nothing was found. yet, 26 people were killed, one policeman, one fireman, the rest citizens all by the three police forces that were operating them. >> i hear gasps in the audience, but we should not be surprised. this reputation of violence in the african-american community is as old as the history of us in this country. mark: i will add quickly to give sense of proportion here, while there is no evidence that sniper actually existed, we know because the state department of defense reported after the rebellion that their troops had fired at least 10,000 rounds in newark and plainfield, which is

a nearby city that had violence. the state police reported that their troops fired at least 3000 rounds. the newark police department could not manage to keep records during these chaotic five days, so we do not know how many rounds were fired by the newark police department, but we know that the police officers went home, grabbed their personal weapons and brought them into the streets. we do know the newark police department borrowed several cartons of rifle shells from nearby union city in the midst of these five days. there is this incredible barrage of gunfire coming from the official world. yet, no evidence of gunfire in the other direction. michael: we talked a bit about some of the political legacy of the rebellion. i would like to hear a personal story or two. how did that event shape your lives and your activism, or your

trajectory? sort of in the immediate aftermath. did you change plans are gay clarity about what you wanted to do with your -- plans or change clarity about what you wanted to do with your lives? >> did i set you up? this is the first time i became recognized as a leader. recognized as a leader. after that point, i had been a follower. i had been a soldier in the army. i did what i was told to do. somebody told me to take a message across the room. i did that. once we fill in our designs and we designed the struggle to stop the medical school from taking everything they wanted, people said, maybe he has is something

on the ball and we have to recognize him. to change my life significantly because i have come on a leadership trajectory in the city of newark for the first time. it changed a whole lot of people's trajectory similarly. folks that know we had heard of come forward. some people they have heard of were on different roads. harry wheeler, i learned a lot from him because he was a schoolteacher, but he was the cochairman of our negotiating team that got the things done that i set got done. but harry knew how to deal with the media. so, every day, before we went into a negotiating session, kerry would call me at 7:00 in the morning. ok, what are we going to talk about today?

i am looking to the books and i know all of the facts and the figures in those things. i tell him, harry came to the meeting and said first, so he got in the front page. i got nothing. [laughter] >> so i had to learn that you just come out be a technician for a harry wheeler and i started learning how to talk. >> i was 15 at the time and living in the neighboring community. my mother, who had always done domestic work or factory work went through one of those johnston anti-poverty programs and received her ged. her first nondomestic non-sweatshop job was working for it and their accounting department.

it was a steady paycheck for the first time. she worked for a few days, then the rebellion hit. the city was under quarantine, which meant that she could not get to work. and they never did call her back. she was never called back to work. but it allowed her the opportunity through that same program to continue her education and she became a medical records technician. i cannot remember what it was. our life was forever changed. for me, it encourage that students from records north to take over the administration building and to make demands, and and allowed me to attend rutgers university because of the boldness of those students.

i am sure that there is a college who probably had my freshman year out of 1000 students, about for african-american students during my freshman year took in about 70. that i believe was a direct result of what happened in newark and the 300 some odd other cities that were burning up in those days. michael: i am curious to hear you describe how you view what has happened in newark politically and economically in this half century. you don't have to go through every year. just sort of an overview. many people would argue you had this middle class from newark that crippled the city.

some people would argue other things. i am curious about your take as a scholar. mark: it is important to recognize some of these phenomenons and incredibly profound forces that shaped american cities did not start in 1967. this was not just the past 50 years. these go back many years. at least of the 1930's in new ark. but even before that. underlying some of the talk we have already heard about some of the political successes, and what was going on in city hall, you also have to recognize the way in which, by and large, federal policy, state policy in new jersey turned its back on cities in significant ways after this. in ways i think we can map directly or track directly to

1967. one of the most famous examples is, the week after the newark rebellion -- and a few days before detroit you rubbed it, the house of representatives here in d.c. is considering a bill that overrides -- provides $40 million of money for eradication programs. they vote it down. not only did they vote it down, but southern democrats and republicans against the legislation are incredibly sarcastic and dismissive. the day before, they had passed an anti-riot legislation. they made it a federal crime to cross state lines to provoke riots, which was clearly aimed at their perception of black radicals. this idea that rebellions were

caused by nationwide conspiracies of black radicals. you see in the days immediately following the rebellion, you start to see the federal government in congress rejecting pieces of legislation that some people thought would get as a root cause of the rebellion in favor of in orientation for the rebellions. i think that plays out. fast-forward to 50 years. the death of the war on poverty, the war on crime or the industrial complex, and a much broader disinvestment in cities on the part of governments. this happened in trenton to in the months and years after in newark. >> a person who was called at that time, leroy jones, he was someone everybody knew around the country, and internationally

too. he got beaten up very badly and in the rebellion. five days after there was a black power conference that had been previously scheduled to come to newark. all the heads of the civil rights/black power organizations came to newark. baraka, leroy jones, his star began to rise. he was taken a look at his politics, as well as his artistry. shortly thereafter, he called the meeting of some of us who had been active in the community.

the organization was called the united brother. from the united brother's it morphed into unified newark, which was the main platform for the election of the first black mayor. would can have been elected without the rebellion? not that time, not in 1970, maybe in 1974. the rebellion speeded up the entire electoral political process and created new leadership locally, which had been there all the time. michael: we want to take a few questions from you. we have two microphone set up behind this first row of seats. if you could go there to ask questions, probably be best. it is just right behind there. if you could go to the microphone, it would be better.

>> good afternoon. can you all hear me? thank you so much for a wonderful panel and a wonderful discussion. i am dr. erica from time magazine. i wanted to bring up two points. one is, when you look at the sniper issue and compare what happened in 1967, and compare what happened during katrina, it was that same narrative of there was a sniper when there was no sniper. some of the repeated things that

go on when the media gets involved, and you have a lot of these false narratives that come about. i wanted to focus on a comment that mark made earlier. it is very interesting because, if you will remember, a couple of months, at least three months before that riot -- the rebellion, i'm sorry. before the breakout of the rebellion. before the rebellion, dr. king made a speech at stanford university. actually, the reports echoed dr. king when dr. king talked about the two americas. one that is white and well-off, and one that is black and underprivileged. so, when we look at that report,

it is really interesting how that language is so similar. i do not want to call it plagiarism, but i will say it is distressingly similar to what dr. king said. he also said that, this could happen in any one of our cities. we are under this powderkeg. that had happen in new york, and happen in detroit, a could at happen in any urban city usa. here we are 50 years later, i understand we want to look at the positives that came out of the newark rebellion, but at the same token, we find ourselves in the same predicament. having had a black president.

the question is, with all of the organizing, and everything that we have done, what is the next step? what i am seeing is, you know, us doing pretty much the same thing for the last 50 or so years. what is the methodology? how do we get from this place where we are in constant, constant, uh, not rebellion, in constant activism? >> i think she is right, we have to take another step forward. climate now.ifference between there were more organizations then that were trying to get power.

nowadays, i think we have more organizations as opposed to mobilization. mobilization is when you get on facebook and say come down to city hall. organization is when you go down to city hall once, twice, three times, and each time the crowd gets bigger. those types of organizations, unfortunately, kind of died by the wayside when we put all of our eggs into electing the first black mayor, or the first city council people. people said, well, we finally got our piece of the pie. but one of the things i point out is that, the power in the suites represented by city hall, must be accompanied by the power in the streets, which is the people. if we do not have both working together, it will not work.

what they did what we elected ken gibson, the economic power was taken out of the city and moved to the suburbs. and it is still there. and as smart and as well taken as our current mayor is, mayor baraka, who is here with us, he is at a handicap. the people have to help them take some of that power back. that is what we have to do. power in the streets. power in the suites. once the streets catches up to the suites, we will be much better. [applause] michael: what do you say to those who would argue and say that his analysis is a little pessimistic? that we had all kinds of progress. that we have a black middle class that is larger than it was

50 years ago, black elected officials at the time why is , that not enough? >> i am finding it hard to be anything but pessimistic, considering what is happening a few blocks away. [applause] michael: that is a whole 'nother panel. >> as i mentioned to you before, what distresses me most of all, is the attitude of the common people. in many ways, even though we have a colonialist sort of sensibility. we were not colonized like some of the countries where, but we have had that colonization as a kind of thinking. we have the paternal wealthy here who are supposed to spread the little pennies and take care of the rest of us. we, in many ways, poor people

have internalized -- i don't want this to sound the wrong way -- being taken care of. without understanding, people do not give you something for nothing. if you want power, you have to take it. you have to study, you have to read. you have to work hard and try to figure out how you can take your piece of power and spread that power among your peers. that is what i think -- part of what we are lacking. also, some of us were hired into nice jobs. i mentioned my mother's transition. for many years to think that things were better at everything will be ok.

hopefully we have had a wake-up call and we know that the struggle continues. there is still not equity, there is not equal opportunity. again, you have to take what you want. michael: anymore questions? >> good afternoon. my name is john johnson, st. peter's and arrested a. >> good to see you. >> in that clip that played before you all came out, hilda hidalgo made a comment about whites in new work in the 1960's as being oppressed. it was a willingness to create a coalition with all people in newark. for whatever reason the white most likely the north ward and parts of south

ward of newark that were not getting on board. i was wondering if you could speak to what were reasons why poor whites in newark had a hard time recognizing the lay of the land? why their interests were more aligned with african-americans, latinos that were increasingly moving to newark and how it might speak to our current political moment. michael: we have a couple of minutes. mark: i think it is very similar to -- we were talking before this event about the extent to which some of the politics today, in some white voting behavior driven by affect, or a sense of identity. and what you get by not materially or economically, but emotionally, or spiritually from identifying with a particular brand of politics or a politician. the answer to why some of these coalitions that did not happen in newark was simply race.

on poverty, they tried to set up area boards throughout the city. local neighborhood boards were rejected by the two predominately white neighborhoods at the time. later, in the 1970's, certain figures in plain that the war on poverty never included white people. the fact is, it was rejected because they were afraid of what that would mean for their neighborhood if it was identified as a poverty area. inhael: linda wanted to get one point. >> just quickly. is set did or what we do ourselves up -- fashioning our lives the way the capitalist model says fasting our life is. we will always have people on the very bottom if we continue on that load. what we have never done is try to sit down and figure out how we can construct a world, and how we can construct a society

that is more equally balanced that is more inclusive of , everyone. that has been our biggest mistake. some of us got better jobs, assumed a little bit of power, but we never tried to change the paradigm. michael: real quick, then we have to wrap it up. erase trump's class is more often than not -- bernie sanders thinks class can solve all of the problems. race in america has a separate and distinct life. until you realize that, the one who understands that is donald trump, because he plays the race card and he turn people against their own economic interests using the race card. white people have not learned, we have not learned, bernie sanders certainly did not learn

because he almost won. michael: i was hoping to end on a more upbeat note. [laughter] michael: i just want to thank the panel. [applause] americane watching history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation like us on facebook at c-span history. up this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, tonight at 10:00 eastern on real america, the 1947 u.s. war department film "don't be a sucker," about hate field speech. >> i'm just an american -- and

average american and some of the things i see in this country of ours makes my blood boil. i see people making all of the money. i see negroes holding jobs that belong to me and you. this to go on, what is going to become of us -- >> at 6:00 p.m. eastern on american artifacts, we will tour the henry ford museum in dearborn, michigan. the at 8:00 p.m. eastern on presidency, george nash talks about the relationship between the 31st president and calvin coolidge. >> just before the election, coolidge by money gave hoover an extra ordinarily effusive public endorsement in a prearranged telegram that evoked sensational newspaper headlines. hoover, he declared, had shown his fitness to be president.

he said he was trustworthy and safe. >> american history tv, a week and every weekend only on c-span3. q&a, the night on lives of winston churchill and george orwell. we talk to thomas rhett ricks about his book giorgio and orwell, the fight for freedom. >> they never met, but the hero -- churchill read it twice and loved it. orwell admired churchill across the political chasm and wrote that he was the only conservative he admired. next on the presidency, black america export stephen rabe

discusses the successes and disappointments of harry truman's policies in latin america. the truman little white house and the san carlo institute in key west florida, listed the event as part of the 15th annual symposium. >> harry truman's legacy toward latin america. stephen: -- >> hello, everyone. what we have decided to do is introduce ourselves. my name is steve rabe. my research specialty is u.s. relations with latin america. i have