tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. first, a conversation with the former detroit mayor kwame kilpatrick. he has a new book about his ordeal called "surrendered." kristin davis is here. her work is focused on women in africa. she recently traveled to tanzania and kenya for a firsthand look at women who have lost their land and livelihood's. we are glad you joined us. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all

know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where wal-mart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer, literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] >> of quick programming notes. tomorrow night, a candid, frank conversation with the noted harvard law professor randall

kennedy. he is out with the new text above recent age of obama -- new text about the recent eighth of obama. there is a part about me. we are here with kwame kilpatrick, the mayor of detroit, but in 2008 he was forced to resign and eventually went to prison. he is hoping to build a new life, which includes his new text. he joins us now from dallas. nice to have you on this program. >> thanks for having me. >> let me start by asking the obvious. that title. by surrendered, you mean to what and to whom the money >> to god

and letting go, trying to make things happen myself, trying to engineer my own fate and future without accepting what the will of god was in my own life. allowing god to act in my life. >> as part of that group, we know we have all sinned and fall short of the grace of god, get some of us get so far outside the will of god, how did kwame kilpatrick if so far outside of the gods will buy your own admission? >> there is no one thing. it did not just happen when i became mayor. i was teaching school. i was working a job at a court of appeals. i was coaching basketball.

the peso was on during that time did not stop until 2008 -- the pace i had at the time did not stop until i was in jail. i had all this ambition, all these things i wanted to do, and i say all the time that my gift sent me to a place my character could not keep me, and at the same time i was developing my interesting and intellect and specialized knowledge of politics, there was a lot of other things that distracted me from developing my spirituality, maturing as a husband and doing that in a way i can succinctly do both at the same time. there are a lot of different things, and i talked about one after the other in the book, and people will share of that testimony. >> i caught myself misquoting

the bible. now " is that we fall short of the glory of god. we never fall short of his grace. i want to be clear of that. how much of this has to do with getting too much too soon, and i am almost scared to ask that question, because i never want to demonize young folks who have been to achieve at a young age, but as any of this have to do with having too much, too soon? >> the short answer is no, but it is on an individual basis. i do not have of of a broad generalization that you are too young to have something. there is no age limit for cheating on your spouse or

betraying your family. lying under oath about a sexual relationship is not an age thing, so i do not agree with that. i believe that maturity does not have a number. i think there are some dynamic and mature 30-year-old, and there are some old fools in this world, and what we have to do is look at each individual situation. i am becoming the seat -- becoming the ceo of a corporation at 31 years old is the second hard as saying -- hardest thing besides being president of the united states. at the same time, it leaves a lot of negative statistics, including joblessness. it was a tough role to play and manage a family and children and also what you thought was a vision for the future, so all of

that happening at once was little too much for me. i think before he got the job, it was a lot easier, but he would tell you it was much tougher than he thought, so i do not know about the young thing only. i will tell you that i was in solitary confinement, where i believe this book was born. i was in a cell so small but i could cut all four walls. ime iwas the first ter realize true freedom. tavis: how does one find freedom and? >> one thing you have is a conversation with yourself. you have to face yourself head- on, and that is the hardest thing about being in a situation. you have to determine who you

are. are you this person who they say you are? are you the person who as a result of the things that you have done, in facing that, you come to a conclusion, because you start to figure out who you are. you develop a memory on the voices you heard. and you may hear moms, dads, and grandparents, and you start to understand a little more about who you are, not a job you have for the role you play, and in that comes of freedom. there is a freedom understanding your calling. when you go through horrific experience like this, the first thing you lose is your swagger. you can play like you are all right, but you are struck. you are guilt ridden with

condemnation through your soul, so to find that again, there is a sense of freedom. i understood the writer who said, goes to the king has set free are free nt. i was free from people as well. tavis: i will put this on the air now, because it is true. i came to detroit two or three times while you were incarcerated and did everything i could to try to see you. i called mutual friends. you and i have been friends for a long time. there is a picture of you and me and the book from years ago. i came to detroit and tried to see you. the powers that be did not make it easy for me to even try to visit you while you were incarcerated. as hard as i tried to get in, i

could not get in. i wondered whether or not kwame kilpatrick wanted to see people while incarcerated or whether he was too embarrassed to face people behind those bars. as >> there was a time when i was first sent to state prison when i did not want to see anybody. i did not want to face people, not just because of embarrassment, but because i felt it was a time i needed to be by myself. i have never been by myself in my life. i found a sense of comfort in the fact the was by myself, and i knew i had to make the most out of that opportunity. that was not the most of what was going on when you were visiting. there were a lot of people not allowed to see me. the michigan department of corrections shut that down. they figured out ways to get

people not to come. they told me i was not going to be treated special, so i was treated a specially bad, so i did not get the same treatment as everyone else. they were shunning people like reverend jackson and a lot of other people who attempted to come see me. they were turned away at the door. i did hear you tried to come see me, and i wish i would have had a chance to see you at that point, because when you were coming was six months after i had been there, and i had been through a time when i felt i needed to close myself in. i was tutoring people. i was in the yard every day, so i went through that solitary time and more into the rest of my life, because i started that inside. >> i could spend hours talking

to you about what is in this book and other comments i have. now the rest of your life -- how do you envision the rest of your life starting with this federal trial? how does kwame kilpatrick at still such a young age see himself navigating the rest of his life? >> i do have a big fight next year. i think it would be a lot different than the first one. a lot of people wanted to take advantage of guilt. i think i found my purpose inside the prison. i mention the fact i was a tutor, social studies, and reading, writing, and i saw the education has to be a place

where we work. michelle alexander talks about the crisis. i do not think people understand when 2.3 million people are behind bars. 700,000 or so are getting out every single year. if we do not have a serious structure inside the prison system, we are going to lose any notion of having a strong african-american community, so that is a place where i want to put my efforts to develop the company to really make some movement and a partner with a national organization as well as institutions in that area. i believe whether i am in an elected office, i am a servant, and i want to serve god's people, and this is a place where i have had a unique

experience. i have been an inmate and a lawyer, and i have a unique experience. >> the former mayor of the city of detroit is out of prison now. kwame kilpatrick, an honor to have you on this program. i am appreciate it. >> people can go to kwamekilpatrickbook.com to order a copy. i think you will love it. tavis: kristin davis is an emanated -- emmy-nominated actress. she is also a representative of oxfam. recently she travel to kenya to meet women whose lives have been torn apart.

am honored to have you on this program. is this your first term? >> probably my 10th term. tavis: i have asked this question many times. take me back to your first trip to africa. note i want to hear about a first term. >> i wanted to come my whole life, but i come from a family that is not a traveling family. i felt awful to go, so i was dizzy, and i finally had a window of time in 2001. i thought, i am going to go. none of my friends could go with me, so i ended up going alone. i did not understand that was on.

i had no idea. i had been too many places. i thought, why not? with a posh company that took me around, and i had this wonderful guy in named elvis. he could not figure me out either. where was my father and where was my husband? i felt i really passionately loved it. i responded to the people, the place, and the sounds, the animals. every time and we would drive, we went through tanzania on market place, and there were tons of people and goats, and i who wouldf them

envy seen to be in and aids wasting state. they were walking around. i said to elvis, these people who look really sick, and you think they have aids? he said, no. i thought, they might have aids. he said, no. i thought, i am not going to get very far, because when you are with the safari company, they think you do not want to know what is going on. i say, i am going to have to find a way to come here and get the truth about what is happening. the gap between -- not just money, but the gap in education, health care, just having a voice in your own lives. yet the same time you see these people who in our world have nothing, but they still have the

joy. tavis: what did you make of it? >> it reminds you that things do not matter, that even the basic human rights but we believe are fundamental to how you live common-law even without that you can have up your -- to how you live, even without that you can have a pure joy, and you can respect people in your world. i met people who were so kind, and they did not even know they do not have rights. they are being walked all over, yet the way they are going through life is very inspiring. when you get there they sing, and they sing a different song when you leave. it is pretty special. >> what happens inside of kristin davis said allows you to go from being a tourist to being an advocate? the majority of people that go

their experience the same thing. you experience what a shame this and that. something has to happen where you go from tourists to advocate. how did that happen? >> inside of me, that would have to happen because my parents were always very politically active. the seed was planted in may anyway. we were exposed to these amazing experiences. you have access to people you might not normally have access to. soon after the trip i was at a party that george clooney through for the oscars, and he chose to have his benefit at

oxfam. there was a beautiful children's choir from kenya, and i am at a party, and i meet this woman, and i say, i was just in tanzania and kenya, and it was so fascinating. i told them about the experience. she said, you should definitely come on a trip with us, because we can fill you in on what is going on. i said common and you should let me know when you need me. she said, we need you now. new name of place, and we need you to go. i said, i did not realize oxfam was working everywhere that has extreme poverty, which is in many places, so that is how it all began, and my first trip was in south africa and mozambique, and it was supposed to be treated we wanted to go -- it was supposed to be we wanted to go and experience it.

it was so fascinating that we ended up doing pieces about it. >> there is so much travail and so much trouble. if you could change one or two things in the parts of our ever where people are suffering, if you could impact one or two things, what would you like that tv -- that to be? >> part of my focus is on women's issues. the women are holding them together in a lot of ways. the men sometimes have to go to cities to find work, because things are so challenging, and i would give women a louder voice. they are there. they are raising the children.

they are giving the clothes off their back, yet sometimes they did not get to have a voice in their community. one thing oxfam does is try to encourage women to have a voice, and we have had many experiences where everyone will gather together to give us a report, and a man will stand up and give our report on the women's project, and once the women get a chance, they are so excited. now they are filled with the possibility that they can do this and takes an -- and succeed and make money. we were right on the border with zimbabwe, and the government now with mozambique's have stopped giving aid because they did not want it to go to the rebels, so there was this gorgeous area, and they are all living on less than $1 a month.

unbelievable poverty, but it is gorgeous. this group taught them about raising chickens, so they have the eggs. they can cook and see their children and sell them at markets. they can also raise their children, and if they have aids, they can raise their chickens. only 10 women have succeeded in convincing their husbands to do it, and when they sold their first batch of chickens, they came home with a $20 bill, and then everyone was excited. we ask them, what did you buy with your $20? she said, i've thought so. they did not even have soap. these are people taking care of people with aids. then i asked her what else, and

she said paper. you have to send them to school with their own supplies. tavis: let me close. now i could do this for hours. i love the subject matter. you started to make a point, and you said, i do not mean to offend anyone about empowering women. you should say that clearly and fully. no one is going to back off. it doesn't who remind me what you have to say about the fact that we understand is empowerment of women that will help change the world because of their role when men do play. -- a role that women do plame. >> there is this beautiful book about this. there are huge problems in the

world, and it can seem overwhelming, but it does seem that one issue which is how a woman feels about her life can affect the next generation, because she is raising her children, and that will change their perspective now and opened the world to them. if there is one thing we can do. >> kristin davis is now an ambassador for oxfam. maybe one day you will come back, and we will talk about hollywood stops. good to see you. >> nice to see you. tavis: things for tuning in. until nextharvard professor ranl kennedy for a discussion on obama and african americans.

>> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where wal-mart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer, help tavis improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley.