so there's already a movement in place whether it be through what adam clayton powell was doing. there's already a movement in place and that these artists find their place in that movement. it's the movement that embraces them, that they can acquire a certain sensibility and analysis. if you here harry belafonte talk to your struck by his level of analysis. and so i think instead of being so hyper critical of contemporary artists what they do and what they don't do, i also think that they aren't any moment where there's a kind of heightened political activity on the part of any of us, that is not a moment of that kind of local movement and i think if it were, it might produce a different context and that might produce a different set of responses from the artists

like you speak about the people of the voice paper which was founded by adam clayton powell or the newdance group. it just struck me that they even had these locations -- each had these locations, these bases which seems really important to the possibility of in this kind of work. and something that i think is lacking today in harlem. >> well, it's absolutely central. i mean, i don't think they would have been able to do what they did without those locations. so ann petri is writing. she writes a little for the amsterdam news, she sells ad space, but when adam clayton powell finds "the people's voice," he come comes on board there with a number of very interesting journalists. and it's the way she gets to know harlem. she's a reporter, and she has a reporter's eye, and she literally writes all of harlem. she writes from the high to the low about everything. it informs her fiction. it's a, you know, i mean i think now we think of certain spaces as being intellectual, and they're very narrow. we think of the academy or the classroom. all of these spaces had such incredible intellectual a

that he change his civil rights stance and that he publicly discuss mccarthy and so she and adam clayton powell and herbert leeman had a big conference in new york at the baptist church and come up with about a dozen recommendations that they want the president to endorse before, you know, to really say to the world, this is once and for all where i stand on civil rights. and president kennedy against the advice of his advisers goes and meets with her and she gives him the recommendations. and that's where he issues the famous declaration that i will ban discrimination in federally financed housing with one stroke of the pen. and so, she campaigns for him then for the last 16 days of the election and she goes to new york, atlanta, detroit, los angeles, san francisco. places where there are significant african-american populations and major labor unions because labor unions and then john kennedy had a very tempestous relationship because of bobby's relationship with the persecution of jimmy hoffa and so eleanor is designated to be the kennedy emissary to african-americans and labor. and so her c

like you speak about the people of the voice paper which was founded by adam clayton powell or the newce group. it just struck me that they even had these locations -- each had these locations, these bases which seems really important to the possibility of in this kind of work. and something that i think is lacking today in harlem. >> well, it's absolutely central. i mean, i don't think they would have been able to do what they did without those locations. so ann petri is writing. she writes a little for the amsterdam news, she sells ad space, but when adam clayton powell finds "the people's voice," he come comes on board there with a number of very interesting journalists. and it's the way she gets to know harlem. she's a reporter, and she has a reporter's eye, and she literally writes all of harlem. she writes from the high to the low about everything. it informs her fiction. it's a, you know, i mean i think now we think of certain spaces as being intellectual, and they're very narrow. we think of the academy or the classroom. all of these spaces had such incredible intellectual and

so there's already a movement in place whether it be through what adam clayton powell was doing.here's already a movement in place and that these artists find their place in that movement. it's the movement that embraces them, that they can acquire a certain sensibility and analysis. if you here harry belafonte talk to your struck by his level of analysis. and so i think instead of being so hyper critical of contemporary artists what they do and what they don't do, i also think that they aren't any moment where there's a kind of heightened political activity on the part of any of us, that is not a moment of that kind of local movement and i think if it were, it might produce a different context and that might produce a different set of responses from the artists themselves. >> i want to shift gears a little bit. in reading your book, can you talk about writing her life after having done the work with billie holliday and you know, your different approaches -- you're writing about music and i always find it the most challenging thing. i didn't write about music for harlem, but i'm

. >> there was the possibility of rumor being circulated by adam clayton powell that bayard and martinrd to take a back seat and back off from the organizing in 1960 in the march on conventions movement. >> reporter: after the 1960s, ruston continued to be a pro-labor and anti-apartheid activist, yet to colleagues he never seemed to get his due recognition. >> clearly somebody as charismatic and as brilliants a bayard ruston but was not able or establish or to become a leader in the same sense of all the civil rights leaders of that time, he was being held back by the fact that he was a homosexual. >> reporter: now, 26 years after his death, ruston will be awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the medal of freedom. >> nobody did it better than bayard ruston, so i became something of a disciple of him. >> when you were with ruston, you really believed you were in the presence of history and that you were going to change the way america worked. >> reporter: don lemon, cnn, new york. >>> by the way, ruston died in 1987 but he would have loved how wednesday's ceremony of the white h