next we hear from mary futrell. she talks about growing up attending and later working in segregated schools and her efforts at desegregation. this program is about two hours. >> mary futrell, thank you for agreeing to spend this time with us. >> it's my pleasure to be here. >> we want to begin with some examination of your background and education. who are the people in your background who helped to shape you as you were coming along as a youngster? >> as i reflect on my background i would think the first person would be my mother. she was not an educated woman but she believed very strongly in education. and insisted that my sister and myself, that we study hard that we do what we needed to do. she believed that we had the potential to do the schoolwork, so she insisted that we concentrate and focus very strongly on education. she was a no-nonsense county of parent. the report card had to be turned in, she wanted to see the homework. she would visit the school any time. even though we didn't have a car she'd chang

next we hear from mary futrell. she talks about growing up attending and later working in segregated schools and her efforts at desegregation. this program is about two hours. >> mary futrell, thank you for agreeing to spend this time with us. >> it's my pleasure to be here. >> we want to begin with some examination of your background and education. who are the people in yo

just past 10:00 p.m., former national education association president mary futrell. all of this on american history tv on kr, -- c-span 3. >> tonight former national security counterterrorism director daniel rosenthal, in charge of closing the guantanamo bay prison joins the discussion about the facility. the panel includes two attorneys who represented detainees held there. one of the lawyers, thomas wilner, talks about why the prison should be closed. >> guantanamo is terribly important this country and i'm worried about the people there and i want them treated well and i want them home. but more than that, i'm worried about what it means for the country, guantanamo was established to avoid the law. the whole purpose of guantanamo, the bush administration for it had law an impediment it had to avoid and said if we put foreigners in a place that's technically outside our sovereign territory, we can avoid review by the courts and we can deprive them of legal rights and unfortunately although we won the case saying they had no right to habeas corpus and we won the cas

he said, mary futrell, i can't believe you are advocating this, but he said i have confidence in you. and if you think this is what we should do and if you are willing to put this task force in and set aside the resources i will talk to the alabama delegation. and i knew he was upset when i saw him. when he told me that, i just gave him a hug because -- >> what you're describing is a consultative process where the people who are against are talked to and, even though they have different arguments, you manage to say, well, i'm going to meet this argument this way and meet this argument this way. >> right. >> how did you develop this style? does it go back to early leadership positions? high school? student government? >> well, i think it came about because, as i worked with people -- again, i may disagree with you, but i can disagree with you without being disagreeable. i need to respect you. i need to listen to you. and even though we may disagree on the issue, we maybe can agree on how to respond to the basic concepts contained there. the concept there was how do we make sure that th