, was actually petite and i included that information in ida b. wellsd her encounter in the "ida b. the queen", when she was getting off of the train. it is important to note that she was not specifically a small person, she was only 5 feet tall. she was around 5 feet tall, especially when she was younger, she was quite petite and i know how much she waited plan guessing maybe 1120 pounds so she was a 20 woman which makes it even more significant as far as health she was. >> there already several biographies about your great-grandmother and it her autobiography so what is different about "ida b. the queen", you've already published two books about her and why does want and what makes this book different. >> i told little bit of information about my own journey because i have been talking about ida b. wells for me while and i do questions about what was it like it tomorrow up of the great granddaughter of ida b.ug wells pretty and peek into the experiences of growing up with a historic figure and an ancestor and i also wanted to tell people are helping p

ida b. the queen", the extraordinary life and legacy of ida b. wells. michelle is the great-granddaughter of ida b. wells and has written, edited or contributed to 16 books for both adults and children. as an advocate to highlight women and african-americans, michelle has worked on several public history projects to rename streets, monuments and historical markers in theunited states . she has received several awards including the 2019 multi generational what is the lord from the illinois human rights commission and the 2019 martin luther king jr. social justice award from dartmouth college. michelle, welcome . let me start off with a couple quotes from the book. michelle, first just thank you for being here and how are you through all this pandemic? >> thank you to the commonwealth club for having me, this is such an honor. >> are you faring through reall this? >> i am good. i'm in chicago and we had a nice snowstorm. this is the perfect time to have a conversation. you'resnowed in, what's better ? >> let me first congratulate you on the book and let's

ida b. the queen: the extraordinary life and legacy of ida be. wells." with the -- ida b. wells.e has written, edited or contributed to 16 books for both adultsit and children. as an advocate to highlight women and african-americans, michelle hasme worked on several public history projects to rename streets, monuments and historical markers in the united states with. she has received several awards including the 2019 multigenerational activist award fromal the illinois human rights commission and the 2019 martin luther king jr. social justice award from dartmouth college. michelle, welcome. leapt me start off -- let me start off with a couple of quotes from the book. so, y michelle -- first, just thank you for being here x how are you through all of this pandemic? [laughter] >> thank you so much for having me. this is such an honor. >> how are you faring through all ofof this? >> i'm good. i'm okay in chicago. we just had a nice big snowstorm -- [laughter]r] >> this is the first time to have a conversation -- a good time to have a conversation. you're snowed in, what better? if l

>> my great-grandmother ida b wells was living in memphis and teaching in tennessee which is about 14 miles away so she had to take the train. and in 1881 with the law to be segregating public transportation so she just ignore the law and then continued writing as before. and then eventually in 1883 they asked her to move from thehe ladies car to the colored car and she refused. and it was thrown off the train in a violent way. >>>> she was literally. >> three men. the train conductor into of the baggage men removed her physically. because she was fighting and one of the things that she wrote about in her journal that was heart wrenching was how she felt that as a women other people on the train here at those that were removed from the train so the sense that those that don't belong just because she is african-american adds insult to injury that's on the things that she mentions is how black women whoas were nursing white children were welcomed on the train. so she felt as a professional educated woman to be treated with that level of disrespect and then the w idea that it was separat

so ida b. wellswas the book that got me through a lot this year. >> brown: carlos, what about for you? >> yes, i have many unread books in my many yet to be read. yes, in my in my home. and one i picked up this year was "night draws near" by anthony shadid, the late, great foreign correspondent and war reporter. so many of the best known books of about american warfare tend to be about the americans tend to be about how americans go off to try to transform distant lands and are transformed themselves by the experience. so this book is different. shadid looks at how the iraq war was lived through the eyes of ordinary iraqi people, mainly in was just his the depth of his reporting, the empathy of his spirit. and he was able to show, for instance, how iraqis can both despise a domestic dictator and resent the foreign occupier. and those two ings are not inconsistent. >> brown: all right, i want to thank you both for sharing your books and love of reading jacqueline woodson, carlos lazada, thank you very

so when we're thinking about these political protests, i mean, ultimately in the 1913 parade, ida b. wells marches in that parade, mary church terrell is marching in the parade, she's able to get a contingent from howard university to march in that parade too. it was far more integrated than that cartoon suggests. but we should also remember that these black women who were marching in the parade were far more threatened as well. they were more susceptible to violence. they were more susceptible even to critique from their fellow marchers. mary church terrell also participated in the pickets in washington, dc that i mentioned at the very beginning. these are, as i said, the very first pickets at the white house. and they started putting these pickets together in january of 1917, which as you might know, is the same year, the same month the united states is entering world war i. so there's a lot of controversy over whether they should be doing this at the time. and i would argue that we need both these pickets and the publicity they attract, these photographs published across the united stat

of intersectionality which goes back to the 19th century black women such as mariah stewart and ida b wellshe never stopped saying it. imperial weiser from assist hetero picker -- white supremacist patriarchy. she wanted us to hear it over and over again so we could eradicate it. amy: as you talk about children loving themselves, particularly like children, she wrote that acclaimed children's book "skin again," which is beautifully illustrated by chris raschka. the book reads in part -- "the skin i'm in is just a covering. it cannot tell my story. if you want to know who i am, you have got to come inside and open your heart way wide." >> yes. her favorite children's book, she talks about it a lot you talked about the fact that publishers are sort of reluctant . a little black boy protagonist. she insisted the same as you described earlier, insisting to those publishers of that very first book that she was not angry, she was committed. anshe always insisted, lived the life she wanted to live, lived it on her own terms. and that was her book publishers, her employers, her family, her partners

martin luther king jr., ida b. wellsng distance race, passing the baton from one to the other, and it is our ultimate responsibility to engage in the enlightenment and education of those around us. >> you know, the thousands of people from all corners of america who marched after george floyd was killed, what can they do now? what is the role of the collective in restorative justice? >> well, that's a great point. i think what they have to do is to do what northam did. if the -- the eyes can't see what the brain doesn't know, then know some more stuff. read jonathan capehart, read nicole hannah jones, read bell hooks, read people who can inform you, james baldwin, the fire next time, i would recommend every american read that book to grapple with the powerful articulation of the politics of grief that have besieged black people, the traumas we have endured, but the overcoming power of love to remake american society. without black forgiveness, america wouldn't be what it is today. >> that's for damn sure. quickly, profes