40 , and we had a tweet about that, a question for you. does that rule required eight state wins, requiring eight only wins, to put a person apply to the first ballot and not -- is it just the first ballot or beyond? adam: it is a majority of delegates, you don't have to necessarily win eight states. might actually get rewritten regardless of whether trump is the nominee or not. this is something they had put in place for years ago to kind of protect themselves against any sort of ron paul the way it is in place now, it would only be through the first ballot. after that, a lot of the rules change when a lot of these delegates become unbound. go to minnesota,

steve is on the republican line. go ahead. caller: thank you. sharingery much for your time with c-span viewers this 40's. house -- wharton prides itself on graduate disruptors, and they did a good job with donald. if hillary starts to stumble with her e-mail debacle, would there be time for donald to get on the ballot in all 50 states can see. third-party what happens if he wins a plurality of the votes if he does that? thank you very much. guest: that is a really important point. time is already running sure if someone wants to run as a third-party because a lot of the

ballot deadlines are coming up. if donald trump or anybody were to wait after a convention, it would be too late to get on the ballot. host: there is a piece from "the national journal," halla contested gop nomination, kids contested gop convention complicates the veepstakes. guest: it is a unique aspect of this. that is something that my colleague wrote at "the national journal" this week. af it is a convention -- contested convention, the vice president slot could the a very powerful chip. hey, i will pick someone more conservative or more moderate to shore up some

of my wi weaknesses. normally candidates like to have weeks or months to pick their candidate. they would all of a sudden have to pick somebody. it could be risky, depending on who they and up selecting. , democratsis ellen line. caller: i am a democrat. however, i'm calling in reference to donald trump. i am following him. i have followed him for years. donald trump is really dividing america. he is showing that he is too rich to fail. he is putting blacks and whites against each other, when we are in the same boat together. i'm trying to figure out what --

.e came in as a republican i feel like he could have locked in as a democrat. all he is doing is hijacking the republican party. i think the republican party needs to stand up and fight for what they stand for, and not be dictated to by donald trump. host: in terms of the mechanics of getting the nomination, you had an interesting point that if he ran as a democrat -- is it easier for him to run as a republican or democrat? just in terms of the process, getting delegates. guest: probably to run as a republican, this time around. i know republicans, who oppose donald trump, wish they had the .bility to get the delegates it probably is easier for him to run as a republican. host: let's hear from the independent line, donald.

-- donna. caller: thank you. my first question is in regards to rule 40, i would like to know 'se guest speaker opinion as to whether you think the gop will modify or change rule 40 to block trump. the way it sits right now -- correct me if i'm wrong -- i don't believe he needs to have the 1237 if he has the majority of the eight states, as well as the majority of delegates. please comment on that. my second question, quickly, if you could comment on the e-mail issue pertaining to hillary. diversion by the gop, or do you really believe there is some substance to a criminal indictment possibility? question,the first

.ule 40 would not really matter you need a majority of delegates and the majority of delegates and the eight states. it is a good chance that it is rewritten. it may not even play a role in july. host: she asked if the e-mail issue will be a diversion for hillary clinton. guest: i think it will continue to come up. it feeds into the argument that she is untrustworthy and hiding something. i think this is something that republicans will attack. maryland, chris is a republican there. the open primary system

has diluted the chance of electing conservative republicans. trump, he reminds me of aaron burr. i will take your comments. thank you. guest: this is an overloaded part of the primary process. thaten contest means republicans or democrats can vote. a lot of states have closed .ontests trump has done better in the open contest than the close contest. he relies on people who are new .o the process

if you look at the exit polls, he is doing just as well with republicans as he is with conservatives. . if you look at the exitif the ct helps someone like ted cruz. host: we will be covering donald trump in arizona. that is this afternoon at 2:00 eastern here on c-span. "the wall street journal" today question, can the wisdom of the crowds predict the next president? in particular, on the issue of a brokered convention, they asked -- submitted their guesses of people. struck.how they august the gop convention fails to produce a nominee on the

first vote. off, but then the interest peaking up again. i want to also show a tweet that says, i think the media is running the brokered convention idea, it is all i hear right now. obviously, some interest in the polls. is it just a media idea? are we all blowing hot air in terms of the brokered? guest: it would be much more exciting than your usual convention. it is worth pointing out -- donald trump still has a very good chance of wrapping this thing up before we get to the convention. it is tough to say what the odds are right now. in a sense, there are -- we probably won't even know when this will be settled or if it will be contested by june 7, the very last day of the primary. it is important to remember that

while there is a good shot, and probably as good of a shot we have had in recent memory, donald trump still could wrap this up. host: we go now to ron on the republican line. caller: i have a fundamental problem with the concept of superdelegates, and particularly, candidates winning an entire state if there is a close contest. how does the concept that the constitution was based upon -- i'm not a trump supporter, but it seems extremely unfair, the way they have done donald trump. if they were not going to accept him as a nominee, then why did they have him participate in the process at all? why didn't they just stopped him from being one of the delegates? that you have

superdelegates who have their own choices, and then you have people that go to the polls and vote and select the candidates that they want. superdelegates can turn right around and select to they want. isn't there a constitutional problem that, in terms of one man, one vote? guest: there isn't, actually. this is a party run process, and the way they have always done it . 10 outsider, i think it can be a little confusing, and may even seem unfair. iny can go against voters one state. i think trump voters will use that to bolster their case if we do have a contested convention. host: a question from twitter,

who is eligible in an open republican convention? could someone like romney step in? guest: theoretically yes. if we go through multiple rounds of voting and no candidate emerges, then the rules would allow for another candidate, maybe mitt romney. the possibility of that would be pretty slim. host: next up is from tennessee, independent line. caller: good morning. ina trump supporter, november, we will all right in his name. i used to be a democrat, and voted for romney. what did we end up getting?

an empty suit. thank you. republicans don't face a lot of really good options at this point. the party has already been split now. either you are for trump, or against him. whether he becomes the nominee or not, you will have a pretty large fraction of the party that is unhappy, with the option of a third party, or writing and something else. host: we mentioned this article earlier in the program, the headline in "the wall street journal," t obama's approval .ating rises oft you see as the role president obama in the c

campaign for hillary clinton? guest: of course, he wants his legacy to live on after he leaves office. helps that half of americans view him favorably. that probably speaks to him not occupying the spotlight that he was a few years ago. he can get people fired up over what he has accomplished over the past two terms. host: let's hear from the republican line, fort lauderdale, florida. caller: i just wanted to mention to trump supporters crying about if he has more delegates than anybody else. i'm sure none of them cried about president gore. the rules are the rules. donald trump cannot get a deality in this great

maker should be able to make a deal to form a coalition. if he cannot do that, he cannot be the standardbearer. this is an empty suit, a demagogue, and will not just destroyed the party, but the country. , new one more call here jersey. deborah is on the independent line. ,aller: i was just wondering you were talking about the delegates that are chosen that eventually go to the convention. have you ever read a book called "america's lost opportunity," the latest edition was from october 2015.

it was talking about the various shenanigans that went on at the 2012 election. you were characterizing the poll people as stealing delegates. that was not the case at all. the rules committee at the convention, actually changed the rules, changing the threshold of oftes needed for a plurality votes. this book is really factual. it was not a matter of romney thing worried about stealing -- it was the opposite. pool for orchestrated delegates. the changing of the rules was right before the convention started, and that is something that they put under the carpet. certainly they were very

theirzed to make sure the delegates were organized. there are lessons from that they can be taken. they need to make sure that the people remain loyal to them. host: you can read his reporting at national announcer: c-span's washington journal. , aing sunday morning reporter will join us to talk about the impact of the presidential election on the congressional elections and the agenda for the 114 congress. then, the president and ceo of the leadership conference on civil and human rights, along with the executive director of the freedom works foundation, joining us to discuss the nomination of chief judge

merrick garland to the vacancy on the supreme court, and the history of nominating and voting on the president's pick. also, the u.s. executive director of one campaign will be on to talk about the efforts of one organization to confront poverty, and how this can help terrorism. be sure to watch washington journal, beginning live at 7:00 a.m. eastern sunday morning. join the discussion. >> the supreme court is vested with this amount of power, and with that power comes great responsibility, and the idea that you have an individual sitting on the court unfettered for 30 or 35 years is not, it -- doesn't have the announcer: our guest will imposing term on its on

the justices. the supreme court decisions affect all americans. all americans are aware of the third branch of government, and to 15 years, the third branch of government has become so powerful, the idea that issues on voting and marriage and health care and ,mmigration and women's rights pregnancy discrimination, i could go on and on. 20, 30 yearsthat ago, congress and the executive branch would get together and figure out a compromise. that doesn't really happen anymore. it stops at the supreme court in a way that i feel is unprecedented in our history, and given that, the supreme court is making these impactful decisions on our lives. to hold them to modern expectations of transparency and accountability. in his weekly

address, president obama talks about his decision to nominate merrick garland to the supreme court of the united states. of northhom tillis carolina has the republican response. he explains how senate republicans plan to handle the supreme court vacancy. pres. obama: hi, everybody. one of the most consequential responsibilities our constitution grants a president is appointing a supreme court justice. the men and women who sit on the supreme court safeguard our rights. they ensure that ours is a system of laws, not of men. and they're given the essential task of applying the principles written into our founding documents to the most challenging questions of today. so this is a duty i take very seriously. it requires me to set aside short-term politics in order to maintain faith with our founders. and on wednesday, after weeks of consultations with republicans, democrats, and leaders across the country, i selected a nominee whose unmatched experience and integrity have earned him the respect and

admiration of both parties, chief judge merrick garland. judge garland grew up in my hometown of chicago, with parents who taught him to work hard and deal fairly. as a young lawyer, he left a lucrative private firm to work for half as much in public service. eventually, he oversaw the federal response to the oklahoma city bombing, working side-by-side with first responders, victims, and their families to bring justice for an unspeakable crime. and everywhere he went during that investigation, he carried with him in his briefcase the program from the memorial service with each of the victims' names inside. for the last 19 years, judge garland has served on what's known as "the second highest court in the land," the d.c. circuit court, including the last three years as chief judge. with him in his briefcase the on the bench, he's shown a dedication to protecting our basic rights, a conviction that powerful voices must not be allowed to drown out those of

everyday americans, an understanding that justice isn't simply abstract legal theory, it affects people's daily lives, and a spirit of decency, modesty, and even-handedness in his work. judge garland is admired for his courtesy, his devotion to family, and his civic-mindedness. for the past 18 years, he's served as a tutor for young students at a local d.c. elementary school. during my time as president, through three separate supreme court appointments, in conversations with republicans and democrats alike, one name came up more than any other, merrick garland. i understand that we're in the middle of an especially noisy and volatile political season, but at a time when our politics are so polarized, when norms and customs of our political rhetoric seem to be corroding, this is precisely the time we should treat the appointment of a supreme court justice with the seriousness it deserves, because our supreme court is supposed to be above politics, not an

extension of politics, and it should stay that way. so i ask republicans in the senate to give judge garland the respect he has earned. give him a hearing. give him an up-or-down vote. to deny it would be an abdication of the senate's constitutional duty. it would indicate a process for nominating and confirming judges that is beyond repair. it would make it increasingly impossible for any president, republican or democrat, to carry out their constitutional function. to go down that path would jeopardize our system of justice. it would hurt our democracy and betray the vision of our founding. i fulfilled my constitutional duty. now it's time for senators to do theirs. i hope that they take the time to reflect on the importance of this process to our country, i hope that they'll act fairly, and i hope they'll work in a bipartisan fashion to confirm merrick garland to the supreme court. that's how we can uphold our pledge to liberty and justice

for all, for our time and for generations to come. thanks, everybody. and have a good weekend. sen. tillis: hi, i'm thom tillis, senator from the great state of north carolina. i want to speak with you today about the vacancy on the u.s. supreme court. it's a topic that has generated a lot of attention, and frankly, a lot of misinformation, especially since president obama named a nominee earlier this week. there are a couple of things that make this vacancy unique. first, the seat became vacant in the middle of an election year, literally as americans are casting their ballots to help choose the next president of the united states. second, the seat will determine the balance of the court for generations to come, as we're replacing the incomparable antonin scalia. justice scalia was widely admired and respected for defending the original intent of the constitution and its

prescribed separation of powers, and he served as a critical check on president obama's executive overreaches. while the constitution allows the president to nominate a supreme court justice, our founding fathers also made sure to give the senate advise and consent authority, to help protect the integrity of our system of checks and balances. the senate can confirm a nominee, we can reject a nominee, or we can simply choose to withhold consideration of the nomination altogether so the american people can weigh in on this important decision. this is about principle, not the person the president has nominated, and it's why the majority of the senate has chosen to use this unique situation as an opportunity to let the american people have a voice. the president and democratic leaders aren't exactly thrilled with giving the american people a voice. and contrary to their claims, the senate is doing its job and fulfilling its constitutional

obligation by deferring consent in order to let the people's voice be heard. both sides can respectfully agree to disagree, but it's now time to move on to address the many pressing challenges facing our nation. we know good things happen when both parties in washington cast aside their areas of disagreement and instead focus on identifying areas of common ground. we saw that last week when the him senate passed the comprehensive addiction and recovery act, bipartisan legislation that gives states and local communities vital tools they need to combat the painkiller and heroin epidemic. it's a great accomplishment, but there is still much more work to be done this year. we need to fund our military and make sure our brave men and women have the equipment and training they need to keep themselves and our nation safe. we need to ensure veterans are receiving the best health care possible and more healthcare choices. and we need to hold va bureaucrats accountable.

this year, i'll be leading an effort to reform the military's health insurance program, and work to ensure that military families with autistic children have access to the care and the therapy they need. senate republicans already have their sleeves rolled up, and we're ready to get this and much more done. the question now is what choice the president and democratic leaders will make. will they join us in doing our jobs on behalf of the american people? or will they instead seek to further divide our nation by turning the supreme court process into a blatantly partisan back-and-forth? are they going to resort to blocking and sabotaging important legislation and

good-faith efforts to help the american people, all in the name of seeking to score cheap political points in an election year? senate democrats should remember the message the american people sent, during the 2014 election, which resulted in a new senate republican majority and 12 new republican senators, including myself. american voters made it clear they were sick and tired of the bitter partisanship and inaction of the then-democrat-controlled senate, and they were frustrated with the president's overreliance on executive orders to bypass attempts at compromise and cooperation with congress. for the good of the nation, i hope the president and the democratic leadership do not repeat their mistakes of the past. i hope they'll accept, however reluctantly, the fact that the american people will have a voice in this supreme court decision, and start focusing on the issues that concern hard-working americans. i hope the president's final months in office will be spent working with both parties to do great things for our nation. that's what the american people want. that's what the american people deserve. thank you for your time, god bless you, and may god continue to bless the united states of america.

we will talk more about this a bring court in the nomination of judge merrick garland on newsmakers this weekend. -- the supreme court and the nomination of judge merrick garland on newsmakers this weekend. you can watch the interview tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, and again at 6:00, pending any political coverage. >> this weekend, the c-span cities tour hosted by our charter communications cable partners take it to montgomery, alabama, to tour the city's history and literate culture. on book tv, -- >> we show you a house that was the turning point for scott and zelda fitzgerald. when they moved here, the idea was to regroup. when it was with a landing pad. it was a regrouping, as i've , stage, and was not the

sort of place where you're going to find scott and zelda in domesticngaging activities, if you will. it was the sort of place where they were going to be planning their next move. >> on american history tv. campaign, wallace really does try to reach this racial moderate and really tries to campaign for the poor and working-class of alabama, campaigning for progressive improvements. he gets the support of the naacp and the initial campaign. unfortunately, he loses by a pretty significant margin to john patterson. he completely is devastated by this loss. all wallace wants to be as governor and he is really upset by this loss and he considers it a failing. him, what isle ask the take away from the 1958 try ton -- he says, i

talk about progressive improvements, i tried to talk about good roads and good schools, and nobody would listen. but when i started talking about segregation, everybody stopped and started listening to me. >> watch the c-span cities tour throughout the day on c-span two book tv, and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history tv. on c-span3. the c-span cities tour, working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. >> documentary film maker ken burns and another is a discussion on race in america. discussing black lives matter, and the 2016 provincial campaign.

this is one hour. >> welcome to the national press club. our guest today are documentarians ken burns and harvard professor henry louis gates junior. i would like to welcome c-span and public radio audiences and reminded that you can follow the action on twitter. now to sound introduce our guests. i would ask that each of you stand briefly as your name is announced. please hold your process until i fish introducing the entire table. from the right, michael fletcher, writer for espn and moderator. and anger for channel nine. jeff, vice president of the national press club and news editor. sharon percy rockefeller, president and c.e.o. of weta.

elizabeth, washington bureau chief of "the new york times." skipping over our speaker for a moment. chairman of the press club's board of governors. skipping over other speaker for a moment, lisa matthews, vice president at hagers sharp and member of the speaker's committee who organized this luncheon. patricia de stacy harrison, president and c.e.o. of the corporation for public broadcasting. amy henderson, the historian emeritus of the national portrait gal row. joe madison, host of "the urban view" on sirius-x.m. gil klein, american university and a former press club president. and finally, john hurley of hurley consulting, a press club member. [applause] >> thank you, all. race continues to be part of the american fabric and the two men joining us today have opened the door to compelling discussions of how it impacts much of

american life and culture. through their works, filmmaker ken barns and harvard professor, henry gates jr. shows how politician influenced our economic future and past. burns documentary have given us insight to facinating and troubling parts of the american story, be it jazz, the civil war or baseball. i'm particularly fond of burns' national parks documentaries and am proud to say he's a fellow national press club member. gates to the pbs series "finding your roots" which shows how diverse racial, religious backgrounds challenge our myths. he launched a series of conversations about race. hoping to provide a forum that would encourage participants from having an either/or response to responses. both have documentaries on pbs. burns' documentary on jackie

robinson is on april 11 and 12. and another will premiere in the fall. today, a break from our tradition, i've asked john fletcher to moderate his discussion given his expertise in the field of sports. and a digital site will explore the intersection of race, sports and culture. the new effort will generate stories and content for its own site as well as other espn platforms. it's scheduled to launch this spring. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the national press club, ken burns, henry louis gates and john fletcher. [applause] ken: good afternoon.

i first of all want to thank the national press club for inviting us back and for giving us the opportunity to change their normal format in this way and i'm very grateful to be back here. i have a lot of thank you that are necessary. first of all, the film that was referenced, that thomas referenced on jackie robinson was produce and directed by sarah and david as well as myself and written by sarah burns and david mcmahon and i wish they could be here to participate in the discussions of this project. i do not go anyway without my beloved network. as represented by its extraordinary president, now 10 years in office, paula kerger. [applause] ken: or my longtime production partners and longtime even for ken burns means 35 years, 40 years and that's weta. many people here from weta.

but the person, sharon percy rockefeller who is also a good friend. and we've enjoyed funding from two organizations. principally the corporation for public broadcasting and i'm glad that pat is here. and also we've enjoyed the support for 35 years from the national endowment for the humanities and its chairman, bro adams, is also here and i'd like to thank those who i have forgotten. the events in charleston of last june disturbed and disrupted skip's and my equilibrium tremendously. it's not that we're unfamiliar with that level of violence. it's just too much. and we reached out to then-mayor joe riley to talk about what we could do. we were pleased that the confederate flag were removed from the columbia, south carolina, state grounds. and it's true. [applause] i'm glad you're applauding. symbols are important and this

is a hateful symbol. not of even people's history but their resistance to progress. most of the presence of the confederate flag arrives in our consciousness after 1954 when brown vs. board of education. so it's not somebody's history we're taking away but in fact we're acknowledging this represents resistance to an american ideal of equality. but we felt that while it was important that a symbolic change could be made, it was equally important that we just not leave it alone. it was like oh, good, now we don't have to talk about race anymore. which is what always happens after that, and skip and i were looking for ways to figure out how to do that. and mayor riley asked us to come down and we began a conversation about race. we continued it in pasadena. we just came yesterday from austin where we were at south by southwest. we're heading to george washington university tonight and to the brooklyn academy of music on wednesday night. and i, you know, we sincerely

want to do something that is preoccupied all our of our lives' work but doesn't exclude people but includes people and to try to move the discussion a little bit further. and so my greatest thanks today is to my friend, dear, dear friend and partner in this crime, professor henry louis gates. [applause] henry: i have the same angels on my list of thanks. to whom i owe so much, but i have to start with, and of course it's sharon, it's paula,

and pat. and -- but i have to start with sharon rockefeller. i met sharon rockefeller in 1967 in the hills of west virginia because we both are west virginians. transplant west virginia. my family lived in the 30-mile radius of where i was born for 250 years. so you could say either my family had great stability or we were incredibly lazy. [laughter] but when sharon married jay rockefeller i was an undergraduate -- well, i was finishing high school and i went off to yale and i wrote my senior project, the scholar of the house project at yale, about jay rockefeller's 1972 gubernatorial campaign. you remember teddy white, theodore h. white, president? well, i was going to write theodore h. black. one small problem, jay lost. so i had to write the unmaking of a governor. but they were here in washington. sharon became involved in public television. and, you know, from the beginning we had a very close connection, unusual connection, and she would say, you should think about making documentaries. and i was premed like every smart little black kid i knew at yale.

like smart kids, what's his name, ben -- ben carson, yeah. i ran into him -- ran into him at labs every once in a while. and i found a way. and i started watching this guy ken burns who had this capacity to tell stories. i love great storytelling and i love great storytelling because my dad, god rest his soul, whom sharon knew, was a fabulous storyteller. and i thought, i could never be a storyteller like my father but maybe i could find my way in this new medium and maybe through some back door i could become a documentary filmmaker. and paula kerger was in new york, and executive there before she came here and i got to know her. and she was so encouraging. why couldn't you think about making documentary films? and why don't you find your home here in new york? and as soon as i did that, she

welcomed me so warmly she left and went to -- and went to washington. but when she did, she introduced me to not a force of nature but a force of culture. and a woman who was running the corporation for public broadcasting. and the three of them will be my guardian angels, my advisors, my protectors, giving me sage advice all along my career and through a miracle -- i don't know about you all. who each of you has a day job. i have a day job. professor at harvard. in english and african-american studies. i moonlight. i have a second job.

-- ken: well, i think the thing

that limits anything about race is we tend to do it dialectically. it's complicated. i think what we tried to do in our own work, in his scholarly work and skip's documentary films and the work we've done over the last four decades there is a kind of nuance, there's undertow, there's complications, it's something that something may be true but also the opposite might also be true at the same time. and it's very important to understand all of those sorts of nuances so that you can have a discussion that doesn't just add fuel to the flames of our already divided rhetoric. we are so dialectically preoccupied right now. everything is black or white, old or young, red or blue state, rich or poor, gay or straight. we wish to describe a more inclusive thing. we'll give an example and let skip respond too. when you're in charleston, south carolina, and having a conversation with 1,800 people in the center just a couple blocks away from mother emanuel, where the tragedy happened in june of last year, we were in a town which welcomed 48% of the africans who were stolen from their country, their continent, and brought to the united states. it's the ellis island of the african narrative but without a

welcoming statue of liberty. and what mayor riley, even though ex-mayor riley proposed to do and is in the process of doing -- and skip and i are helping -- doing a memorial. it's very ambitious. very important. but it's not trying to say that if you add this story you are taking away someone else's story. what you're doing is adding to the story and that's what we need to have. we know that we are, you know, in pursuit of happiness, that we are a nation in the process of becoming and that requires process and that requires inclusion. when thomas jefferson said, all men are created equal, he men all white men of property free of debt. that's not what we mean anymore. henry: some people mean that. ken: we find ourselves now in a particularly retrograde moment where this discussion is more critical than ever before and a discussion that stays out of sort of the superficially and conventional wisdom of what

passes for media in the conversation. i think skip and i are just hoping some way to see if we can join a discussion and warn people as a white manned and a black man that is the conversation we wish to have that brings everybody around. it doesn't try to make anybody wrong. henry: ken and i are i think in a pursuit of a more complex narrative about the american past which is another way of commenting on the american president, of course. any historian knows that. any journalist knows that. that you're writing now but it's an analogy for something that happened a long time ago. if you're writing something about what happened a long time ago it's an analogy of what's happening now. it's inevitable. an example for me and you know this and most of the african-americans in this room would know this, i have a contrarian nature when it comes

to writing about the black experience. i don't believe in being an ethnic cheerleader. i don't think that helps anybody in the black community. i want to -- i did two different kinds of documentaries. one set of my documentaries are about africans and african-americans. the other thing is about finding roots and we'll talk about that. i'll give you an example. there are 42 million african-americans today. since 1970, the percentage of african-americans whose income is over $100,000 has quadrupled. since 1970, the percentage of african-americans whose income is over $100,000 a year has quadrupled and the percentage over $75,000 since 1970 has doubled. we have the largest middle class and upper middle class in our history.

at the same time the percentage of black children living at or near the poverty line since 1970 was over 40% as of the 2010 census. the percentage of black children living at or beneath the poverty line is just over 38%. it's the worst of times in the black community. both of these realities are true at the same time. there are more african-americans than all the people in canada. and that always is a stunner. it is as martin delaney, as you know, martin delaney said the negro is a nation within a nation. in 1852. and we are a nation within a nation. so that any rhetoric that attempts to describe a nation within a nation of 42 million people, with one set of distributors is a dishonest. we have differences among us. we have major class interest and racial interests and habits and

traditions and they're not all the same. what brings us all together is racism what unifies the jewish community, anti-semitism. what brings us together is racism. when that goes away, then we're all fighting again, right? what i'm trying to do in my films is show the complexity of the black experience, to show on the one hand how there is no american history without african-american history. how we don't -- to me black history month, i love black history month. i celebrate it. ken and i were joking, it's the coldest, shortest and darkest month of the year. [laughter] the one that was left over was the one that we got, right? but my goal was like day job and evening job, is to make every month, every day in the school system black history month. you can only do it by creating a complex narrative.

a complex narrative about the human beings who were of color and who interacted with white people and native american people and later hispanic people to create this great patchwork that we call the american republic. and you can't do it by taking shortcuts. you can't do it by being an ethnic cheerleader. you can't do it by pretending all the black people who walk the stage of history were angels and, you know, had no bad things. and i think that makes for a more compelling case. and finding roots, the whole point of finding your roots is to show no matter what the law says, in any society and any point in american history or history, no matter what the law said whether you could or could not sleep with, when the lights came down -- michael: jackie robinson as the subject for your

latest documentary? ken: i covered jackie robinson in my series. some part of the narrative didn't obtain and yet at the same time you had a sense, too, that we were repeating some of the more familiar things about him. so his widow, rachel, who's now 93, had been pressing me to do a stand-alone on jackie and at some point care sarah burns and david mcmahon had the bandwidth to do after the film on the central park five. and we dove into it and over many, many years we began to realize that in some ways jackie has been burdened, has been smothered by the barnacles of sentimentality and nostalgic. he's been made in a two-dimensional figure, almost christ-like figure but it doesn't reflect the whole person. what we could do is liberate

him. what skip was talking about, a complex narrative. if you take away some of the troops that have become familiar to. reese put his arm around him. that didn't happen. branch ricky like god reached down by heaven and michelangelo touched his son and turned his cheek. branch ricky had important economic mote rations -- motivations which we made clear in our old film. he had deeply held religious and moral -- he was intent to bring several african-americans up. there was an active african-american press for decades that was pushing for this. there was a left-wing american press, a communist press. the daily worker was arguing. we don't like to talk about that. there was a left-leaning republican. i have not lost my mind. left-wing leaning republican from new york city who was pushing for this.

there were lots of want for this progress in the pent-up emotions -- after the pent-up emotions of the second world war. we wanted to do a multigenerational complex story of an african-american family. to talk about a love story. this is an amazing story. we validate that love story in some respects by having the president and first lady there who also goes through their own kind of version, there are different couples and different spaces in time but me do interact with the same dynamic and so they both can comment on eave other in very interesting ways and it was possible for us to scrape away some of those barnacles. we assume in revisionism that the pendulum swings the other way. oh, thomas jefferson, man of the millennium. owned slaves. worst of the millennium. in fact it's neither and it's both. you have to do that. in the case of jackie robinson, making him more complex made him much more interesting and permits us not to focus safely in that narrow year of 1947 when he came up but to do his birth in 1919 and jim crow, georgia,

and his death in 1972 as a 53-year-old man feeling that he didn't have it made, that he still didn't have it made. he was a black man in a white country. so what happens to him before baseball? how did he get there? what happens during baseball when he no longer has to turn the other cheek? what happens after baseball as a republican and african-american republican, all of these things disrupt the familiar convenient story that we want to have. michael: but this is a story that you would have heard. henry: remember, i was born in 1950. every two weeks i'd go to the barbershop, right, and listen to the men, as we call it. black barbershop, you go on saturday and stay all day. you have lunch. you hear the man talking trash

all day long. and they would say two things. jackie robinson was not the greatest black baseball history who was alive. and nor should he have been the first one. they liked jackie and most black people from dodger fans. not my dad who loved willie mays and loved the giants. they said he was being destroyed by the rage inside of him. and jackie robinson was to me killed by the pressures of being black and that -- and playing the pioneering role that he did. and more especially, as ken points out, by the fact that richard nixon refused -- he implored richard nixon to use his good offices when he was candidate richard nixon for presidency of the united states. get martin luther king out of jail. at the same time black democrats were imploring j.f.k. and j.f.k. did it and richard nixon didn't and jackie was very embarrassed for the black community that he didn't have the juice to persuade nixon to do that.

and he -- i don't think he ever recovered. that is just my barbershop version. i think that was a big difference. ken: skip is right. they brought up different names -- probably you would never know. sam jethro, roy, some of the folks that came later. but jackie happened almost accidentally by several forces. i disagree about that. rachel said he died of congestive heart failure and diabetes. he got up every day to help the lives of others and he was -- but in his eulogy, jesse jackson said he had carried this weight for everybody. and if you think about when he arrived, april 15, 1947, martin luther king was a junior at morehouse college. harris s. truman had not integrated the military. there was no organized sit-ins.

a parks was a decade away. he refused to give up his seat in the lunch counter until he was served. henry: he was court marshaled. ken: and he was a sit-in before sit-ins and a freedom rider before freedom rider. jackie represents the beginning of the modern civil rights era because he takes our national pastime, walks through that door and carries it single handedly. michael: with you talk about the myths? i thought i knew something about jackie robinson. i went to school in brooklyn. and the pee wee reese thing. ken: you know, i have to be honest. we perpetrated it -- we passed it long the way they passed it on. they are simpler, easier, they don't represent the complicated narrative -- and there is a

statue out of the great american park park. in 1947 when the dodgers went to cincinnati, the racist stuff that attended every place he played for brooklyn and sometimes even there was just horrific and that pee-wee reese supposedly went and put his arm around jackie robinson in a sort of symbol of solidarity between the white man and the black man. henry: iconic moment. ken: it's in children's books. there's that statue and rachel says in our film, we asked him not to do that because she had a better picture of them coming off the field. their hands touching momentarily. and we know from roger, the historian, that pee wee reese had never shaken the hand of a black man until he met jackie and was from kentucky and that's where it came about. and red barber promoted this. there is no mention in jackie

robinson's autobiography and no mention in the white press and black press which had done 20 related stories if that had happened. baseball etiquette suggests you don't do that. jackie is at first base. pee wee is at sharp. you don't walk across the diamond. i think white people seeing the nobility of this story wanted to have, no pun intended, some skin in the game. and they wanted to show that this were supporting this. and they put themselves forward in this way. i believe what happened is several years later when jackie was playing second base that they made a good play together, told each other a joke or something and ended with arms around each other. that migrated. stuff in history migrates all the time so this migrated back in time to become a symbol of child solidarity with this lone action of jackie robinson. you can understand why it is, but it's really important we don't perpetuate it. baseball, hall of fame is in cooperstown because we think doubleday which we don't have

any record he saw a game -- but the real story in hoboken is not good enough and so we perpetuate this myth and we're happy or reassure ourselves of this myth about the creation of baseball and. so, too, with jackie robinson. there are so many things which the sort of conventional wisdom, the superficial conventional wisdom obtains no matter what. we have to say, look, it's so much more interesting this way. henry: we as society needed that myth at that time. society produced myths that recognizes irreconcilable things. ken: if you go and look for it you don't find it in the mythology of jackie. you find another kind of mythology that maybe itself frozen but later on it sort of gravitates, as books get written and people's stories get handed down and red barber, the now-deceased broadcaster, told us this story that worked its way into our film. but we read it in a few other places. and it comes, as you know, it's hard to turn around a ship that's got some momentum and i think what the constant requirement of historians, both professional and amateur, is to try to figure