mary frances berry. her most recent book. professor at the university of pennsylvania. former chairwoman and u.s. commission on civil rights. here is a history of the u.s. commission on civil rights. mary frances berry on book tv on c-span2. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. weeknights want to keep public policy events. every weekend though it is nonfiction authors and books on book tv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our website. you can join in the conversation on social media sites. tell us what you think about our programming this weekend. you can tweet us. @booktv. comment on our facebook call or send us an e-mail. book tv, nonfiction books every

mary frances berry, when did the u.s. civil rights commission began? >> guest: the civil rights missions started in 1957. president eisenhower had a lot of discussions with john foster dulles, secretary of state, but the way the united states is in or on the road because of the racism going on that people would hear about and read about. and the fact that there seem to be a lot of episodes that kept happening, whether it is one chain or some discrimination taking place in the country said the idea was that eisenhower said he was going to ask congress to save the civil rights commission, which would put the facts on top of the table. i'm told by one of the people at the meeting that he finds the table and said they're going to put the facts on top of the table. commissions as we know, sometimes sad because there's a tough problem that people don't want to do anything about it. they get a report and it goes away. this commission was supposed to fit the facts on the table and its future would depend on how aggressive it was some of the public thought abou