rustin as a spiritual being. you mentioned his incarcerations, being beaten, colleagues betraying him, colleagues being assassinated. is there any point in his letters where he mentions his diet, does he stretch, is he a bible leader? what did he do throughout his life to maintain the spiritual center, the nonviolent stance? >> yeah, thanks for that question. shortly after he went to jail bayard wrote a letter to his grandmother julia and asked her to read a particular psalm at 1:00 in the afternoon on his birthday. and so he also said that he would doll the same thing -- do the same thing so that together, they could be together in spirit on his birthday. so at 1:00 on march 17,1944, bayard sits in jail, and julia rustin sits in her home in westchester, and together they read a psalm that reads something like this: dear lord, be with me, my enemies trample me. but this i know, that god is with me. what can a mere mortal do to me? throughthroughout his imprisonme reads the bible closely, and he writes about his r

rustin as a spiritual being. you mentioned his incarceration, colleague's betraying him and being assassinated. is there any point in the letter that he mentions his dying it? what did he do for about his life to maintain non-violence? >> thanks for that question. shortly after he went to jail if he wrote a letter to his grandmother and asked her to read it 1:00 in the afternoon on his birthday. so he also said that he would do the same thing. so together this could be -- they could be to get there in spirit on his birthday. so at 1:00 on march 17th, 1944 he sits in his home at westchester and together they read a psalm that reads something like this: deal lord, be with me, my enemies trampled me i know that god is with me. what can a mortal due to me? through of his imprisonment, he reads the bible was closely come and he writes about his reading scripture, christian scripture and his letters, and he prays while he is in prison as well. after one particular difficult event in the administrative segregation becau

coming up today on c-span2's booktv, professor michael long on let us in civil rights leader bayard rustin and a panel of librarians from around the country discuss their picks for this years best books from university publishers. faded from historian hugh howard recounts the war of 1812 from the viewpoint of presidential james madison and first lady dolly madison.

on the other side joining morgan coalition focused perspective, rustin and a famous essay he wrote in the 1960s from protest to politics. and he really wasn't trying to steer the protest movement into electoral politics as a part of black becoming a part of democratic party coalition. from southern voters coming in, black voters who are already pretty much electively active with any political party. and so, that vision of coalition politics including idea that issues, concerns should be in many ways universal perspective. and that blacks should join coalition with labor movements, sympathetic swipes, liberal organizations to provide policies that would be very important. not that he gave up on sort of anti-discrimination legislation, and the importance of that, but this has been the big clash. it's clash as we see in this first chapter, in many ways crystallized with shirley chisolm running in 1972. there's tensions between these independent black politics and the coalition because she announces her campaign in brooklyn at a church. i'm not the candidate of black folks but i'm not the

you go back and read the issues of the a magazine where bay yard rustin and howard cruise and the first black governor on the board of reserve they write about how separatism is going to stand. it's a wonderful romantic theory that, you know, we have a strong black society we should have a strong black cultural base we use as a forward leaning, you know, base of operations -- places [inaudible you look at the artistic movement it was forward leaning in america. it wasn't a retreat and control our own turf black community here. but far too many in birmingham and detroit those places are like this is yours. you take the suburbs and we'll play it look that. it didn't work because [inaudible] financial resources. >> in the preview of the book signs that was released today written by rachael, is rash l -- rachael out there? how are you? nice. thank you. i appreciate it. there's a comment that is in there and there's also in the bhok, of course, that highlighted the idea that integration did not happen in a consistent way because perhaps black people or the black community did not want it to

coming up today on c-span2's booktv, professor michael long on letters from civil rights leader bayard rustin. then a panel of librarians from around the country discuss their picks for this year's best books from university publishers. and later historian hugh howard recounts the war of 1812 from the viewpoint of president james madison and first lady dolly madison. >> john kennedy once met with harold mcmillan, the british prime minister. and you read the papers of the day, you know, they discussed arms control or whatever issues between the two parties, which they sure did, but only long afterwards did we get the notes on what they said exactly to each other in private. turned out that kennedy spent a lot of the time complaining about bad press coverage. the press was being tough on jackie and other things. and mcmillan who was a generation older said, jack, you know, why do you care? brush it off, it doesn't matter. you have other things to worry about. and kennedy quite heatedly said, well, that's easy for you to say. how would you like it if the press said your wife is a drunk, and mcmi