tavis: good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with one of washington's mostthe long ti attorney is a former president over the national urban league and the former executive director to have united negro college fund. his latest book is called "make it plain." we're glad you could join us. a conversation with vernon jordan coming up right now.

>> there are so many things that wal-mart is looking forward to doing, like helping people live better but mostly we're looking forward to building stronger communities and relationships because with your help, the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. tavis and nationwide insurance working to improve financial literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. ♪ 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: all right. please, an honor to welcome vernon jordan to this program. we were just chatting.

the influential political advisor and attorney has held so many high-profile posts and board positions during his career including president of the urban league. his latest book is a collection of great speeches he has made over the years called "make it plain." standing up and speaking out. what a rare honor to have you on the west coast. >> glad to be here. tavis: you don't come out west too often, do you? >> well, i do come. i just don't get in this neighborhood. tavis: well, i'm glad to have you in this neighborhood. by that i meant television. tavis: i know what you meant. glad to have you here. let me start. i've got you for the whole show, which is a beautiful thing. let me start if i might with some topics of the day that i will get your take on and then we'll jump into "making it plain." in no particular order, what is the future of capitalism?

there has been a lot of talk about that. >> i think it is here to stay. there is no process that is an easy process when it comes to providing people with an opportunity to have the little white house and the green shutters and the white pickett fence and tuition for the kids. that has always been a hard and difficult process. i think that we have proven in america that the process of democracy and the free enterprise system has benefited people and enabled people to rise from here to here and live a good life and i think that we have to continue to believe that but there will be enroute flat tires on the way. the motor will stop running and that's where we are. and because we are there, we have to have some patience and we have to have some understanding of where we are and we have to have leadership

and i believe that president obama is giving that. tavis: judge sonia sotomayor, she's now making the rounds on capitol hill meeting with senators getting ready for what some would call a fight to be confirmed. what others would call a walk in the park. president obama appears to have the votes. what is your read, not so much on whether she is going to be confirmed but how she has been treated thus far in the process? >> well, there is a saying when the law is against you you found table with facts. if the facts are against you you pound the table with law and if both are against you, you just pound the table and so that's where republicans find themselves now. they are just pounding the table and quite honestly, some of it is idiotic to suggest that a

person who graduated from princeton, one of their schools, suma cum laude, editor of the yale law review, has been on the circuit court for 17 years, that's an insult in my judgment. the notion that she is a racist is blindingly idiotic in my view. i think this, for the president and the country is a political home run and i think that ultimately she will be confirmed and she will get republican support. tavis: what do you make then of that -- getting back to your word, idiotic strategy. is washington so steeped in its own it yachtic ways? >> i don't think it is --

idiotic ways. >> i don't think it is washington in the traditional sense. rush limbaugh lives in florida and you would think that he had some elected or pointed position within the republican party. tavis: but it is partisan politics. >> some of it is partisan politics and i understand partisan politics. i do not understand racist comments. what is very having the nobody seems to remember now what justice wrote in the dred scott decision. he wrote a black man has no right that a white man is bound to respect. this is the chief justice of the united states sprem court. supreme court. people seem to have forgotten that.

that distinguished judges like bran dice and benjamin cardoza, distinguished in the law, did not always vote in spore of equality for people that were not white people. tavis: there is one thing i want to get to. we referenced president obama a couple of times in this conversation. how do you think he is doing overall? >> i give him an a for leadership. tavis: yeah. >> and it is still an unbelievable -- it's incredulous, still. i grew up -- i was born in 1935 in atlanta, georgia. and i remember the 1943 gubernatorial campaign.

talmadge had two platforms -- niggers and rogues. we have come in my life from there to this. it is unbelievable still. i'm still pinching myself from election night when the networks declared barack obama to be president of the united states. now, given the fact that that has happened, that does not mean that we can now declare that the war is over. that the victory is won. and we cannot now take off these war torn garments and stick our swords in the sand of time and say free at last, free at last. we have just elected him. what comes after an election is governance and leadership. not just at home but abroaoa where he is now trying to deal with the issues of the middle

east. but i think he is ready. he is able and i think he has given the kind of leadership that he promised us. tavis: you made a reference a moment ago to the praise the victory has been won. that comes straight out of the black church. the same thing i saw when i saw this book title. "make it plain." i like it. why did you choose it? >> i heard it all my life. i grew up in st. paul african church in atlanta. i can hear the the preacher reached a crescendo of preacher, make it plain. the most famous voice for this was king when martin would be in the pulpit giving a speech, he couldn't help himself. he would say make it plain, martin. most of my civil rights career

was making speeches and i tried to make speeches so that people could understand what i was saying. and that's why i sort of thought "make it plain" was an appropriate title for this book. tavis: let me ask you a question that i know may be inplacekicker but i know vernon jordan -- inpoli tinch c but i know vernon jordan can handle it. people out of respect for you or admiration for you find themselves in conversations about how vernon jordan brings these worlds and gaps. how does he make it plain when you are clearly a power broker. you're an inside player with the white folk who run the world and at the same time your back ground is so steeped in blackness and you don't avoid

speaking truths to power. how do you navigate those worlds? >> there is one guideline. integrity. that is the only thing that i own that is mine in the simple absolute. i'm the only person who knows when i have breached it and so what i'm dealing with a corporate board room or when i'm talking to leaders in the political system, if i keep that integrity in place for myself and it works out, -- tavis: tell me how your integrity came to rescue you. you may want to change that phrase. as i look back now on your friend, my friend, bill clint tooned drama that he went through in the white house and

going through grand jury testified and all the rumor and how much trouble vernon jordan was in and is this the end of the road under vernon jordan. is his political career over and you escaped that drama unscathed. >> no, it wasn't unscathed. i just went through it. i did the only thing i knew to do and that was to tell the truth. that's integrity. i did one other thing. i kept my mouth shut. tavis: that was my final question because everybody either then or just after then, after that moment, that is, was sitting for enter views and i kept looking and waiting. >> well, almost six months there was media at my front door outside my house every day. and i never said a word and i

think it is constructive when you guys turn on that little red light, i do not have to say anything. right? secondly. when you turn on that red light and ask me a question, it is sometimes helpful to say honestly, i do not know the answer to that. most politician, leaders think that they are required to give an answer to which they do not have at their disposal at that point but they won't say i do not know the answer. it has always been my approach, number one, not to feel obligated to that little red light, but then if, you ask me a question to which i do not know

the answer, identify a responsibility first to myself,, but i have a responsibility first to myself and then to the view viewers to say i do not know. tavis: i try to do that myself. when did -- when did -- how did oratory become so important to you and as a black man, would you define to me the difference between being told that you are articulate and that you are eloquent? >> see, i think the two are exchangeable. tavis: you do? i get opinions sometimes. people say he is so articulate. he is eloquent. not just articulate. as if negros shouldn't be able to talk. >> both are compliments. i don't really make a distinction. i got interested in this process, tavis, at st. paul

church, when i made my easter speech. that was required, if you went to sunday school. i looked forward to the easter speech and i was good at it. some kids cried. some kids got on that pulpit and just couldn't say anything. tavis: just froze? >> yeah. i liked it. i looked forward to it and then ion contests. in high school i won the statewide elks or or the cal contest. i won the margaret noble lee speaking contest against the advice of a senior who was sort of a mentor and against the advice of my political science advisor. they said you shouldn't do it. both. and did it and won it.

the next year. at franklin college in franklin, indiana. i won the indiana state oratorical contest. the first time swn who won id representing the state of indiana. i also went to church every sunday and listened attentively to the preacher. i could tell you as a youngster when the preacher thought about his sermon after he got to the pulpit and i learned to distinguish between substance and volume. and i would tell my daddy, that preacher didn't do much preparation. i knew it and then in my such i sang in the choir and we had a monthly -- one hour at 5:00 and

the leading citizens in our community, in the black community, would come and speak. benjamin maze. they would come and stand in the st. paul pulpit and talk about segregation and i can hear him now saying of segregation, i will be glad when you're dead, you rascal, you. and his office was right next door to the wmca where i spent an awful lot of -- ymca where i spent a lot of time. i grew up wanting to be like walidon to be a civil rights leader like waldon. that was the beauty of atlanta. living across the street from the atlanta university center. i can remember 11 years old, maybe walking home from the

theater. i always walked through the moore house college campus. benjamin mays was 20 yards ahead of me. as he walked straight with purpose, i tried to pattern myself as a kid, walking like benjamin mays and fortunately i had the opportunity to become his friend when i graduated law school. in college i read vital speeches as soon as it hit the library. promised myself that one day i would make vital speeches. so i've always been interested in it. and i like it. because tavis, to do it, you have to like it and some people said that's too much human being

us are. some said -- hubris. some said -- but i like it. tavis: you were headed to give a -- when exactly? >> i think the sfunal june 11. sometime -- funeral is june 11, sometime next week. at duke university. franklin was an extraordinary man. teacher. historian. activist. he has students all over this country doing things they would not be doing had not they come under his constitute ledge. he was also -- constitute tutelage. he was also a very good friend to me. the next book i'm going to write is going to be a book about mentoring. i have been a huge beneficiary of extraordinary mentoring.

taylor. young. holwell. hurley. i'm going write about that process. tavis: those kind of mentors if you don't turn out to be something, you need to be whipped. mays and taylor. thur mono. good lord, you had to turn out to be someone. quickly, how do you, sings you are such a great orator. how do you go about preparing, i you did the tribute to ron brown. i can almost quote verbatim. what was so beautiful about it. people went on and on and on and the night was late. you got up and did that thing in less than five minutes and you killed it. you brought the house down in

less than five minutes. you were so on-point. what is your process for preparing? >> you have think about it. you just have to think on the airplane tomorrow, that's what i'm going to do. i'm going to think about it. and rile read some of the stuff i've done. -- i'll read some of the stuff i've done and read all of the obits and at some point it will come to me and i will just write. tavis: speaking of writing, what about reading. i know vernon can read. >> i can read. tavis: would you mind reading something for me? >> sure. tavis: there is aassage i selected from a piece you did honoring the late thurgood marshall. >> when i was about 11 years old, my father took me to a mass meeting.

naacp. thurgood marshall was the speaker. we were walking out of the church and i said to my father, daddy, he looks at me. i said i'm going to be a lawyer like thurgood marshall. from that moment to the national cathedral is a huge journey. but i went to howard law school because thurgood marshall went there. bob carter went there. judge bill bryant went there. ychted to go to howard. i graduated -- i wanted to go to howard. i graduated howard on friday. monday morning i was with don holowell in the atlanta municipal courtrt getting kids t of jail for demonstrating downtown. six months after i finished

howard university law school, i was escorting charlayne through -- i was making $35 a week. i was wearing a summer suit in january but i wasn't cold. tavis: powerful story. >> this is from the eulogy of thurgood marshall at the national cathedral in 1993. picture if you will the inescapable power to have beacon light thur god marshall beamed into our crammed and restricted community. a community in which the law ordained that our parents be denied the right to vote. a community in which the law ordained segghation the courtroom and exclusion of our

parents from the jury box. it was thurgood's mission to turn these laws against themselves. to cleanse our tattered constitution and our beconspire ched legal system of the fillth of racism and a legal system newly alive to the requirements of justice. by demonstrating that the law could be an instrument of liberation, he recruited a new generation of lawyers who had been brought up to think of the law as an instrument of oppression. those of us who groove grew up turned heel of -- were insprired to set our sights on the law as a career to try to fall him on his journey of justice and equality. so while all americans are indebted to thurgood marshall's

accomplishments, we, who grew up in the sun slight of his deeds, -- sunlight of his deeds, owe a special debt of gratitude. tavis: vernon jordan, thank you. >> thank you. tavis: his new book is called "make it plain: speaking up and speaking out." vernon jordan, an honor to have you here sir. good to see you. i'll see you back here next time on pbs. as always, keep the faith. for more information on today's show visit tavis smiley on pbs.org. >> join me next time with washington correspondent katty

kay and actor paul giamati. >> there are so many things wal-mart is looking toward to doing like helping people live better. because of your help, the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. tavis and nationwide insurance, working to improve financial literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ ♪ >> and by contributions from your pbs saying from viewers like you. thank you. >> we are pbs.