i'm 15 years old attending thurgood marshall as a junior. have i been living in bay view all of my life, witnessing and experiencing many thing that's have taken place in my community. what i like about my community is we're able to relate to one another with similar views and do our best to stick together as a community. bay view is facing bad publicity because of the thing that's go on within it. i can personally say bay view needs a huge change. this community lacks support in different areas. teens walk around streets with low self-esteem and no hope so they decide to run to the streets with their friends. they barely have anyone to go to for help, guidance or encouragement. violence is also one of the main problems in bay view since jobs and programs aren't really available. they have nothing to do besides run to the streets and the things that i believe can be change dd and improve with the help from the community and government officials. also, i feel like we don't have no one to really believe in us. like there's no type of encourage

of course, a chief way in which thurgood marshall conceived equality. now, why would that have been? well, it was partly because he was interested in preserving the jobs of african-american school teachers. but also it was because he was worried that in desegregated schools african-american students would not have a nurturing school environment. so because of his skepticism of school desegregation, he didn't file a case to desegregate the schools in the atlanta until 1958 although he promised thurgood marshall that he would file a case right after brown was decided in 1954. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> next up, an interview with karen cox. her book, "treatmenting of dixie -- dreaming of dixie," takes a look at popular culture in the south. we visited charlotte, nothing, with the help of time warner cable to learn more about the area's literary culture. >> host: karen cox, in your book, "dreaming of dixie," how do you say the south is portrayed in pop culture? >> guest: well, my book kind of looked at that period in t

. >> reporter: laureen's son is in fifth grade at thurgood marshall elementary one of five schools slated to close at the end of the year. >> the list of criteria had nothing to do with the children. it was all about money. it is all about money. >> it has a good afterschool program. >> it does. >> it helps us with our writing, homework. >> reporter: marshall school is a badly needed beacon of hope in east oakland wer hhere her son' options are -- >> i don't think it's safe. you can have wrought iron gates with military standing guard, and i still don't think it's that safe. >> reporter: along with marshall, lakeview elementary is on the chopping block with lazear. maxwell and santa fe in north oakland bring the total to fifrn. t the district says it's declining enrollment. >> san jose has the same number of students. they have 50-odd schools. stockton has exactly the same number of students we do, 38,000, they have 30-odd schools. conversely we have 101. >> reporter: three weeks ago when kaiser elementary appeared on a preliminary list of schools to close, parents waged a campaign to kee

thurgood marshall award from the national black prosecutors association. featured on oprah winfrey. and in "newsweek" as one of america's 20 most powerful wo n women. she's also an author, smart on crime, a career pro prosecut s prosecutors. i met your attorney general only two minutes ago thus i don't know her that well. but one can tell a lot about a person by the staff who work for them. my experience with your staff has been terrific. they are deeply committed as u you, efficient, a delight to work with and they have a delicious sense of humor. they, like you, i believe, don't see this work as a job but a calling. i'm the lucky guy who gets to introduce your attorney general, welco welcome. [applause] >> thank you, jack. for your longstanding leadership on these issues and everything that we talk about when we talk about being smart on crime you are right this staff has been with me a long time in the d.a. office and that is the special assistant attorney general in carjack of what we do around criminal justice and the most fabulous director of the california department of justi

the same thing for thurgood marshall, the difference in the hallways, they're wider, high school is still more comfortable. this is made, this is my lane and i'm in here and i love that we recognize that and make these accommodations for older kids or different student bodies. i cannot, that's my experience, and i love, absolutely love that we care for the murals that are on our school buildings. they are beautiful characterizations of the neighborhoods that they are in. i'm so grateful that we are stewards of that artwork and take special care in maintaining it and preserving it for the generations of students and families that come to those schools. they're just beautiful. they're beautiful. whether it's a cloudy day or sunny day, it's gorgeous. i'm so glad you took the special care at cleveland. that definitely took, i'm sure, some negotiating and finessing and again that just shows the love and attention that we here as well as your department and deputy superintendent lee, i want to commend you as well for really overseeing the work and superintendent garr see yo -- garcia, you too,

with life under slavery is and jim crow or cared about the legacy of civil rights heros like thurgood marshall and rosa parks and john lewis and andy young and others that i mentioned earlier, they could tap into the imagination of an heroic generation. formed by the virtues of religion who pursued public justice by pursuing public virtue. an ailing american culture is responsible for this spectacle. a society that does not value forming young people in the ways of prudence and justice, courage, self-control and the like. why would we be surprised that convenience stores are being robbed by youthful mobs? in a society that does not value private property and fosters a spirit of envy and class warfare through wealth redistribution, why should we be surprised that young people don't value someone else's property? or to use a more technical term, stuff. [laughter] radical individualism and more relativism define the ethics of our era. in criminal flash mobs -- and criminal flash mobs expose our progressive failure. as we celebrate king's memorial, we must lament the fact that america's abandonmen

thurgood marshall argued very passionately and correctly that there is no such thing as separate andhing here, that there is a group of people who are being treated separately, who are, under the law, not given the same rights as everybody else. and until the gay community is allowed to be seen under the law as equal with everybody else, they are second-class citizens. that just is not american, and so we are bringing this as, like i say, the last big piece of the civil rights puzzle. >> let me ask you about don't ask, don't tell. you and i are speaking on a very historic day, officially repealed now, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. what do you think about that? >> well, it's kind of interesting when you think about it. you know, i was talking to your competitors the other day, and joe scarborough brought up a very interesting thing. the gay and lesbian community is basically fighting for some very conservative ideas, the right to get married and the light to serve -- right to serve in the military. so we've won one of those things, which absolutely should

and thurgood marshall said, no, that everyone is equal under the law.o take a lawsuit, an appeal, and turn it into a broadway play, you don't have people running out of there, yay, sounds like a great idea! talk about how this idea came from his head, how it's going to be translated on to the stage and, for you, what the biggest surprise is. >> well, first of all, it's not -- we're not going to open it on broadway and hope to run. this is one night only. this is basically a teaching tool. it's a fundraiser for the american foundation for equal rights. hopefully, this play will then go on to schools and colleges around the country to be able to show what went on in that courtroom. the biggest surprise was to find out that the opposition, our opposition, the proponents of prop 8, really had no case. they had -- they brought -- they had a number of witnesses. they were deposed. and then those witnesses didn't testify. the majority of them didn't because david boies picked them apart and those witnesses made our case for us. they had two witnesses remaining

he's a distinguished portrait artist whose subjects include justice thurgood marshall, president william jefferson clinton and first lady hillary rodham clinton. >> good afternoon to everyone. let me begin by expressing my pleasure, given the privilege and opportunity to participate in this celebration in honor of congressman rangel. he has been a continued source of inspiration for many of us for many years. commissioned portraits are our way of saying to those in our midst that we celebrate you and would like to keep your image around for years to come. [applause] it is the responsibility of the portrait painter to portray a true like this of his subjects. i have included in this portrait of congressman rangel some items that may speak to his loyalty to this country, to his community, and to himself. finally, i thank the ways and means committee and his supporters for giving me the opportunity to paint a portrait of this great american who has given so much to so many for so many years. again, thank you to his staff for their support and a special thanks thank you. [applause] >> now it

he is a distinguished portrait artist whose subjects include thurgood marshall, william jefferson clinton hillary rodham clinton. >> good afternoon to everyone. let me begin by expressing my pleasure given the privilege an opportunity to participate in this celebration and honor of congressman rangel. he has been a continuous source of inspiration for many of us. commissioned portraits are our way of saying those in our midst that we celebrate you and we would like to keep your image around for years to come. [applause] it is the responsibility of a portrait painter to create a true likeness of his subjects. i have included in this portrait some items that may speak to his loyalty to his country, to his community, and to himself. i think the way -- thank the ways and means committee for giving me this opportunity to paint his portrait of an american who has given so much to so many for so many years. thank you to his staff for their support and a special thank you for his vigilance. [applause] >> now it is time to hear from the man of the hour. chairman charlie rangel. [applause] >> charl