Its the word, schedule, and you can scroll through that. More live coverage in just a few minutes. Sought to recapture Something Like the intense comradeship that sustained them during the crisis years so the launched the inklings, this two dabble in ink, who meat weekly to read and cuss their work and have a pint or two or three. Well, token helps lewis to find a are for his first Science Fiction novel in 1938. Most importantly it was tophickens conversation with lewis on the night of september 19, 1931, they talked about the nature of myth and christianity as the true myth. This conversation that lewis himself described as the immediate human cause of his conversion to christianity. Well, for his part, lewis becomes for tophicin his great advocate for pursuing his hobbitry. Tophicken said lewis gift was sheer encouragement over many years to cope on. He, lose, was for long my only audience, only from him did i get the idea that my stuff could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more i should never have brought the lord of the rings to a conclusion. Well, when lewis learns that lord of the ringses has been accepted of fox he writes a letter to tolkien and then he reveals the importance of the book to both their lives with these lines. Listen to lewis so much of your whole life so much of our joint life, so much of the war, so much that seemed to be slipping away into the past, is now in a sort made permanent. Do you catch what he is saying . In this trilogy, tolkien has captured something of the essence of their life together. Other heres a glimpse of what friendship can look like when it reached for high purpose and watered by the streams of sacrifice and loyalty and love. All of this, ladies and gentlemen, is part of the achievement but i think they accomplished Something Else. We cannot overstate how profoundly subversesive, sub versesive, and countercultural the works of tolkien and lewis were in their day and remain so in our own. The soldier, the first world war, lived through endless days of mud, stench, slaughter, and death. Nothing like it had ever occurred in the history 0 the world. It shook the very foundations of civilized lives. Listen to church chul. All the honor recoveries all the ages were brought together, not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them. T. S. Eliot, the post world war as a waste lapped or human weariness. I think were in rats alley, where the dead man lost their bones, he wrote. After returning home from the war, tolkien and lewis might easily have joined the ranks of the disbelieving. Instead, they faced the problem of war and suffering with realism. Realism but not resignation, for them, there is no shortcut to the land of peace. In primrose path to the blessed. First come tears and surfing in mordor, violence at stable hill and horror and death. Their stories insist we do live in a moral universe, war is a symptom of the ruin and the wreckage of human life, but it can inspire noble sacrifice, for humane purposes roar with sometimes be necessary, they concluded to preserve human freedom. Remember the words of the captain of gondor in lord of the rings. War must be, he says, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all. But i do not love the right into sword for its sharpness, interior arrow for his swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] in the Mississippi State capitol in jackson is home to the first ever mississippi book festival. More from this event in just a few minutes. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] sunday, september 6th, booktv is live with lynn cheney, the former second lady and senior fellow at the American Enterprise institute on in depth. Mrs. Cheny authored a wide variety of books including biographies, novels and books for children. He most recent book is an account of the life of the fourth president , james madison. Other tiedles include, blue skies no fences where she recalls her childhood in wyoming, and a book about american history. Her other books range from profiles of leaders of the house of representatives to the failure of moral relativism and a condensed history of the u. S. For children. Lynn cheney, live on booktv, sunday, september 6th on in depth. You can join us by sending questions or comments to lynn cheney at facebook. Com booktv, on twitter booktv, or call in live. Heres a look at some of the current bestselling nonfiction books. [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktvs live coverage of the mississippi book festival is that correcting now, panel on history and biography. This is in the State Capitol in jackson, booktv on cspan2. [inaudible conversations] welcome, everyone to the inaugural mississippi book festival. My name is Chris Goodwin with the Mississippi Department of archives and history, this is our history and biography Panel Sponsor bid the humanities council. We have been broadcasting live on cspans booktv. Please silence your cell phones. All the panelists books will be for sale downstairs at several tents, outside on mississippi street, and immediately following this panel, they will all be available in the adjacent tent to sign copies of those books. So we encourage you to take advantage of all of that. Our moderator for this panel is curtis wilkity. Curtis is a native mississippian and was a reporter in the 1960s before joining the staff of the boston globe where he was a correspondent for 26 years. He now teaches yourism at ole miss and is the author of four books, including, assassins, second centrics, politicians and other persons of interest. And considering the participants on the panel, we believe we found the best moderator possible. Thank you, chris, and thank you all for being here today. Delighted you got off to such a good start for the mississippi book festival. To put our best foot forward, put on a court and tie, and governor barbour wore socks in the summer. Anyway, before i make the introductions of the panel, i see former governor william winner in the audience. Were so glad to have you. [applause] and i saw former governor ronny muss grove earlier but i dont know whether he is in here, but he is on the grounds, too. So were glad so many people have turned out. Let me just briefly introduce each member of the panel. The one thing that struck me ive read all of the books, and how its, again, reminder how small and swim hat and interconnected we are in this state because there are characters in these books that appear in more than one book. One member of the panel appears in more than one of the books and its a reminder again of how we really kind of all together in this state. But beginning on my far right, we have k. C. Morrison, professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State university, and the author of aaron henry of mississippi, inside ang tater. Next to him we have dennis mitchell, who is head of the divion of arts and science and a professor of history at Mississippi State university at meridian, and he is the author of a new history of mississippi. In the middle we have don thompson, who holds not only a bachelor bachelors degree but a masters degree and a ph. D in forestry from Mississippi State university. How did all these Mississippi State people get on our panel . Anyway, don lives on a farm, and he is author of a biography of the late senator john seven sinness, plowing a straight furrow, and Stuart Stevens, not sure how to describe stuart but political consultant nationally known, author of many books. Stuart was too cheap to provide me with a copy of his book but i have a readers copy. It is other lifetime of college football. On my right is my friend, former governor barbour, who is, as all of you know, firmer twoterm governor of mississippi, who is returned sort of to the private sector in washington and governor barbour is the author of americas great storm, leading through hurricane which were coming up on the tenth anniversary of that. Gentlemen, i would start off by asking each of you, and i recall state with k. C. If i can. We all have day jobs but we have all written now books. What inspired you to tackle this subject and do this book, if you could start off for us. Thank you. Curtis. Well, as a high school and College Student doing a good deal of movement in mississippi, i had watched aaron henry and felt compelled to write about the Civil Rights Movement. Little did i know when i started this project, as a political scientist, id have to turn myself into an historian to try and tell this story, and so it took me a great deal of time to do that. 15 years, namely. The things that were particular interest to me that i think made henrys life of interest was i had an abiding interest in indigenous africanamerican leadership during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s in mississippi, and of course, henry was the quintessential example of this. He was the longest surviving, the longest serving of the early group of leaders who started the movement. Bringing the naacp, which had been largely underground until the arrival of met gaffers and aaron henry, and these two men essentially start a new naacp. So i was interested in indigenous leadership, the extent to which local mississippians took advantage of their own social change operations. As a political scientist, had studied social movements and was interested in that, how individuals and groups in community got hold of a contention and built a mean of bringing social change in a community. Aaron henry was a particularly interested in something he called the accomplishment of regularity for africanamericans, and built a comprehensive kind of vision that had politics in it, economics, social psychological dimensions, and he was an entrepreneur, he had grownup a family of entrepreneurs. He was a pharmacist. And in the life of this man, he embodied all of the things that struck me as important dimensions of an indigenous mississippi leader. Thank you. Dennis mitchell. Well, i wrote the new history briefly for two reasons. One, i wanted to set the record straight. Its called the new history because it is so different from the history that has been published about mississippi heretofore that the press insisted on that as the title. That wasnt my choice. But it is a new, very different interpretation of mississippi history, which tries to include a lot of people who were left out in the past, and the story of the environment and it is a very different account of mississippis past. The second reason that i wrote it is that ive always felt, as a historian, that we, mississippians would never make the progress we need make until we understand our history. Were so many myths and misunderstandings about our past, that they have to be cleared up, and we have to accept different vision of the past before we can move forward. Thank you. Don thompson. I was stationed in Mississippi Community college and took some education courses and took them for graduate credit, and i went to the dean and told him i wanted to get an otherwise indicatingal specialist. He said you cant do that you have to get a degree in Something Else, so i went to Mississippi State get a degree in Something Else. I went to the different professors in forestry and they wanted fulltime grad about student, and i found one that says the problem is the parttime students like you wont write the dessir addition. Youll take the coreses and that makes us look bad because we dont have completers. He said i would like you to analyze the research program. I had about so it i went to the library, pulled down the code and read and it it was just two pages. I thought, how hard can this be . But it took about five years and about a 260something page dissertation to expand, but stanis files were open to the public at Mississippi State, and i start reading in there, looking for the forestry research. I got off track and got in the prestennis boxes, not vary men but a few and i kept seeing letters where people were begging him to run for higher office. Thought it ought to be the other way around. He ought to be asking for support. Instead people are wanting him to run. So i got to reading more and thought this guy is unique. I had a stereo type of a senator, and he really didnt fit that. He was has had high integrity, really respected well by all. I kind of wanted to write the book with the premise that some young person who might be interested in studying Public Service might use him as an example. Thank you. Stuart. Thanks. Well, in 2012, i worked on the romney campaign. We lost. And that kind of freed up some time. But i really found myself after that Campaign Thinking a lot about sort of what was important and the concept of loss, and my dad was 95 then, and a lot of the ways when i grew up, my dad and i sort of connected and bonded, was through college football, particularly ole miss football. So, he and i went to the all of the and my mom to 2013 ole miss games together. And that became really a framework of writing a book that was sort of a reflection on growing up in jackson, i grew up not far from here. And the south, and sort of a meditation on loss. That was really the motivation for it. Thank you. Governor . Curtis, after katrina, as things were written both in realtime by the press and in books about katrina, they tended to be about louisiana, and i always used to explain to people, that doesnt like to cover airplanes that land safely. And that made me have the idea that somebody ought to write a book about this, and after i was no longer governor, i tried to do that. And i did it for pretty obvious reasons. There were so many people who were heroes. There were so many people we owe enormous gratitude toward. 954,000 volunteers came to mississippi over the first five years and registered with a church or charity. These are not guessing. These are names of people who registered and worked in cleanup or in Disaster Assistance. 44 states. 44 of our sister states sent resources to mississippi. And 26,000 state employees or contractors from the other states came to mississippi. More than 10,000 national guard. I think about the volunteers, i think about our sister states. I think about the local First Responders, who were magnificent. I had no idea when i became governor but i learned, we prepare for major disasters yearround, and almost any state agency or department has got a disaster preparation. The problem is we prepared for camille. We thought that was the Gold Standard for a hurricane. 200milesanhour winds. But we got katrina. Despite those 5milesanhour winds it was so much worse, yet these First Responders adapted. They were flexible. They changed. As the first day after the storm when i flew over the coast in a helicopter, you would have told me only 238 people in mississippi would die . I would have thought that was the most optimistic polly anish, 1800 people died in louisiana. Our people were just magnificent, and our local officials, governor wenner endured this as i have. Mississippi is a constitutionally weak governor. But i always say doesnt mean the governor has to have a weak constitution, but the local officials decided, somebody had to be in charge, and the only logical person was the governor. And so they did one of the most unnatural acts in politics. They gave away their power. They said, were going to follow you. Were going to follow the state. Our congressional delegation, the federal government. Look, the fema takes a terrible rap, deservedly for some things, like their logistical system collapsed. Just never worked. But i tell you at the end of the day, the federal government did a whole lot more right than wrong. Some days i could have choked them, but they did more right than wrong. They were good partners, and that story never got told. And i would just say to you, curtis, if this book is half as good as the story, if half as good as the strong resilient people of mississippi and what they did for themselves, and for others, then i will be very proud i wrote the book. Thank you. Theyre all good books. [applause] let me look back down to k. C. Morrison to talk about aaron henry, who incidentally was a friend of mine and in fact a mentor to me as a young reporter in clarksdale during the Movement Days in the 60s. This is a guy who was basically the founder of the mississippi freedom democratic party. He was largely responsible for organizing freedom summer, so many things that he was involved in. How would you rate him on a scale of the National Civil rights leaders . Because sometimes i think he doesnt get as much recognition as he deserves. I think he is as important as the most important of our National Civil rights leaders, and one of the things that is lost in our discussions and thinking about henry is that he was deeply engaged in the National Democratic party, a major player in the party. He was an adviser to every president from the time of kennedy, until his death, and end n in describing the characteristic about him to be everywhere and get on with everybody and to make everybody who was around him better, john didmer called him the ecumenical leader in the movement, which is to say he had he found a way to work successfully with all of the civil rights organizations involved in mississippi, and there were many organizations, and there were competing interests about turf and all that. And when i was doing the research for this and interviewing scores of people, a singular response that i got from people who talked to me about henry was this sense they had that he was a man of integrity, he could be depend on to allow you space to do your own thing and making a contribution to the movement. So, he is large in that sense. He was man who knew everybody because of his tremendous networking capability. He was a gregarious, backslapping kind of mississippian who had a way of getting on with people so he was engaged at the National Level as much as the local, and in mississippi, because he goes on longer than anybody else, who begins in the Civil Rights Movement, that just more time for him to make accomplishment, and the steadiness with which he moved from day one to day last was a part of that accomplishment. During the 60s, of course, he was allied at first with medgar efforts and then following his murder here in 1963, medgar evers brother charles came to mississippi and become almost coequals within the naacp. You suggest in your book that later on in the 60s, aaron felt betrayed by charles evers. Could you elaborate . There were always tensions, of course. Aaron henry and medgar evers had been true partners. They came to know each other in the delta, henry, of course, was a man of the delta. Medgar evers first thought when he comes back, one of the world war ii veterans, a lot of them concentrated in the delta but he wasnt from the delta, but he moves there. And needs aaron henry, and they really do transform the naacp as an organization. It will be recalled that the organization had been underground and to the extent that it was public, in order to have any success at all, it soft pedaled a number of the issues. These two men, medgar and aaron henry, bring the naacp aboveboard and begin to make strong statements about what the challenge was. Medgar do is. This is a tremendous blow. Medgar dies. This is a tremendous blow for aaron henry. The man who almost rebuilt the organization is 0 no longer there. They depended on each other and so on, and his brother arrives, who had not been in the state, there were tensions in the beginning. Charlie evers was a man of strong opinion, and there were many differences in the beginning, but he became the field secretary for the naacp, and so they worked together until the movement moves from the social Movement Part to the political mobilization, and Charlie Evers had political ambitions of his own, and so they began to diverge, and it was for henry a bitter disappointment that the further they moved away. Thank you. Dennis mitchell, i mentioned i just heard you talk about how you felt certain commitment to kind of write a different version of mississippi history from that we have been exposed to, and i told you earlier, if you would indulge me, ill read a couple of lines from the Mississippi State history that i was taught when i was a young boy here in school in summit, mississippi. This was direct quotes from our history the life the negro lived as a slave was much bert than in africa. It was said his conditions would continue to improve more rapidly in slavery than as a free man. Be also learned in that old state history book that the klu klux Klu Klux Klans terrorism during reconstruction, quote, helped the south at a difficult time. Period. Close quote. So, glad to get a new history. But how much of a commitment did you feel to kind of its not revisionist history. Its real history this time youre dealing with. Well, it wasnt that i was doing this all on my own. You understand. I had the last single volume history of mississippi was written in 1979 this bicentennial history, and since 1975 historians have been very busy, and so i had a tremendous gold mine of research and scholarship to draw on. One of the hardest things to do as the historian from mississippi is to cover adequately the lives of the black population, who, i stress, in my book, were the majority of the population for 100 years. Most White Mississippians dont realize that at all. In fact, one of the people who read my manuscript for me had taught mississippi history at Belhaven College for many years before he moved to virginia, and i remember him coming in. He said, really . For 100 years . Black people were the majority . And that was the man who taught mississippi history for a long time. So, the i mean, what i did was to take the modern scholarship and try to turn it into a story that hopefully is readable. I really wanted a pageturner, not a dry history. So, that was difficult but i really feel like that i got it right. The reviewers have said i did. And it is a much richer history than the one mclemore and others have told. And its the history that people have struggled to give birth to, you know. The first School History to try to change things, those historians had to go to federal court and get the existing history declared a racist history. It didnt have a single picture of a black person in the history. But of course, they won the case, and the federal courts made the Government Agency add conflict and change was the title of it to the approved list, but then the only schools who used it were a few Catholic Schools back in the 60s because the local School Boards could still buy the history, so even though it existed, it wasnt used for very long time. So, the new history of mississippi, i hope, will make an impact on our state. I understand it has been adopted as the textbook for most of the College Level courses in the state. So, hopefully that will train the teachers who will go into the schools and teach a different version of the history. In your book, you write at one point, after the turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement, quote White Mississippians rejected modernism and turned to more conservative religious denominations, eventually embracing politically active ministers and lay leaders, espousing the union of politics and religion, close quote. To what extent do you think the prevalence of these religiously conservative denominations contribute to mississippi being a stronghold of conservatism . Well, of course, i think the play a great role. The example that i cited just after that passage youre talking about, was the International Womens year conference that was held at the community college, and the rightleaning ministers bussed people in to that meeting, and they took over that meeting and sent to that National Womens conference the wives of the klan leaders and that sort of thing. And i remember bill miner observing that takeover of that conference, and predicting that this was going to be the future. Mississippi is the most religious state in the nation, and religion has an enormous influence on our society, and you can see it in the ministers and who have tried to further integration and the ministers who opposed it, and their influence is incalculable in mississippi. Thank you. Don thompson, those of us who are old much to remember senator stennism, and im sure governor barbour remembers the senator he was a man of strong principle even if we might disagree with him and that is a character that emerges from your book, but at one point you talk about an incident when he was a prosecutor and you said, quote, he appeared to have abandoned his principles of justice. Could you talk a little bit about that . Id never heard this incident. I had a little trouble with that. He was a District Attorney and three black men were accused of killing a white man, and they had the opportunity and the reason issue guess i kind of think maybe stennis felt they were guilty because there wasnt evidence of anybody else. But the prisoners were beaten and the testimony was under duress. So, the but they were convicted anyway, even though the judge at that time gave the jury notice they were under duress when they mad the confessions. But it was appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court and they uphold the lower court, then appealed to the United States supreme court, and they reversed it. And stennis said that no Court Officials were involved in the but if you read the Court Testimony some of the deputies were. So i have two ways of thinking about it. He was the District Attorney and it was his job to prosecute it. Be hard for him to come in and say we need to do Something Else he actually wanted to retry the men again, but there had been a pretty good lapse of time, and the evidence had been destroyed, so they just settled kind of on time served and charged them with manslaughter. Senator stennis served for three decades with the senator james eastman. How did those two get along . I think they got along pretty well and they worked for mississippi. That was an agreement they had. I heard one statement where senator eastman said stennis he took care of stennis politics and senator stennis took care of his conscience. I cant pass up this opportunity to tell us a little bit about senator stennis last campaign when he was opposed by a number i have to be real careful what i say here because i think it was a wellfought campaign, it was above board. Hi only difference between senator stennis and governor barbour was age, and they bows include had about the same philosophy on everything, and i asked governor barbour one time while he was running for office, something about stennis, he said if he had been 61, he would have voted for him. So that tells you a little bit about him. Thank you. To call Stuart Stevens become bat going to ole miss Football Games is to use the old rhyme, calling moby dick a book about whales. Its a father and son book. I have the pleasure of knowing your dad. Tell us a little bit more about this bonding experience or rebonding experience you went through with your dad. Well, i think this is all intersecondded with what we have been discussing because i grew up in the 60s and the intersection two great social forces sweeping through the south then, this college football, if you call its social force, and the Civil Rights Movement, and the two are inextricably connected. I was at the ole miss game that you write about beautifully in dixie, the kentucky game before when the ole miss riots, the saturday before the sunday night riots, and my dad and i went to that. So, it was i think there was something about going to games together against that backdrop or immessed in that backdrop that was very powerful to me, though i was pretty young and oblivious to it all. I just wanted ole miss to win. And i think its fascinating that ole miss last National Championship season was 1962, which was the year of the ole miss riots. For me, i think this is true of a lot of fathers and sons. Finding ways you can sort of talk about everything without talking about anything is a wonderful space to carve out. We had that when i grew up, particularly ole miss football, going to games, and continued as i left mississippi, and it was very easy to go back to that and to fall into that. And that really was very special. That did the whole experience teach you about winning and losing . Oh. Its better to win. [laughter] in politics, i think pretty early, you learn that if you work in campaigns, maybe run ive never run but the pain of losing is far greater than the pleasure of winning, and you have to come to grips with that. And decide if you want to continue. Myself, i accepted that. Id never been anyone who worked in government or winning or losing a campaign didnt mean i one going to go on and do Something Else because i was going to work in another campaign. But i think that i never really thought much about campaigns that we won, and i the president ial campaign i worked in other president ial campaigned that we did win, and i found that was pretty easy to dismiss and go on to the next thing. Whereas losing was sort of forces you into a lot of thoughts of not just what you did wrong but what it meant and ultimately for me, it was a sense that i had let down a lot of people, particularly this man and his family, who i have come to feel deeply attached to. So sort of a sense of personal failure. And thats a difficult thing to work through. Thank you. Governor, right after katrina you came up with a great term a time for us to hitch up our birches, if i recall. There is a theme that runs throughout your book about mississippians of different mitt cal stripes, different economic backgrounds, different fights, different races, how we all kind of banded together at the efforts at recovery. You are an astute political leader. Why cant we do this at times when were not facing a disaster . Well, thats obviously a very good question, curtis. But it also goes to why i wrote the book. Mississippians demonstrated incredible courage and character in the face of the worst Natural Disaster in american history. The southern part of the state was obliterated. It looked as if an atomic weapon had gone off in the sound. Some places, the hand of god wiped away the coast for blocks, some places for miles. The storm surge went north of i10 in many places. We created a any verb. The verb was slabbed. My house got slabbed. Probably 25,000 houses on the coast where there was nothing left but a slab. Why did people respond like they did . Im not that smart. My mama used to tell my two older brothers when we were growing up that crisis and catastrophe brings out the best in most people, and, boy, did we see that over and over and over again. In mississippi. She also used to say, but crisis does not create character. It reveals character. I think americans really, people all over the world saw mississippians who did get knocked flat. So many of them lost everything they had. By the worst National Daughter in american history. The biggest insurance loss in american hoyt. The third deadliest storm in american history. And they got up and hitched up their birches and went to work, and went to work helping others as well as helping themselves. Thats a story if we can get that story if people understand of the story it will confirm something i believe sincerely, and that is mississippians response to katrina did more to improve the image of our state than anything thats happened any lifetime. I cant tell you how many times after the storm i would be off somewhere i remember speaking to the business council, like the ceos of 100 or 200 i dont to the a bunch of the big corporations, and after i spoke, a guy got up and he said, governor, you got to be proud of your people. Those are the kind of people wed like to have work for us. And that is what i tried to get across in the book, and i think its just literally, utterly true, and you got to be proud of what those people on the coast and south mississippi have done. It is your salute to the people of mississippi, and at the same time president bush, leader of your party, was severely criticized. Members of his administration, for their inaction quite often, and you yourself in the book recount several fairly negative dealings with them. At one point you said that your friends in the administration, people you had worked with, quote, they were not committing to support my state in its darkest hour of need. Close quote. Did you talk just a little bit about how you debt with the dealt with the administration. I want to come back that last issue. Thats actually a legislative issue. But i said earlier, fema did some things that totally failed. After the florida hurricanes there were two hurricanes in 2004 in florida. They came up with the idea that the federal government would be the repository of all the food, water, supplies, whatever, they would warehouse it all, they would rush it in. Let me tell you, they aint ups. Theyre not fed express, so i set up this system and it failed, the first people that put us on notice that it failed were the fema people imbedded in our unified chant on the coast. By tuesday night they were telling us, something aint right. This is not working like its supposed to. By wednesday night, harold cross, the head of the national guard, called the pentagon and said, either send us food and water or send us body bags. That night, two c5as, the Largest Military aircraft, delivered the first of 1. 7 million meals to the coast. So, while fema failed, the military went and took out of their supplies this is food for soldiers. This is not so they did fail they failed more than once. They have some stupid rules. But [laughter] they did a whole lot more right than wrong. Reference curtis makes is an important thing about the book. Marsha remembers this vesseledly. I had a meeting with the president and his senior staff, and we were about to lay out on november 1st, heres our plan for mississippi. And i was asking him to support it. Well, some point the president left the meeting, and i know what that means. I used to work for president reagan. I ant the president s job to say no. So, when youre left with the staff, it isnt for the delivering of good news. The guy on the ballot deliver thursday good news. So they hemmed and hawed but in fairness to them they were afraid they were going to set a bad precedent. Heres the worst National Disaster in american history, and an unprecedented storm we said require an unprecedented response. They were afraid that they were going to be put in a position where every disaster in the future, they were going to think theyre supposed to get the same thing. I later learned this is in the book they thought we could get it without them. That between cochran and lott and our relationship with the house and senate leadership, that we were going to get pretty well what we were asking for without their fingerprints on it. And i have to say, again, in fairness to them, president bush on everything he gave the maximum the law allowed. He pushed for everything. But they were afraid of the press, and so was the speaker of the house and the house leadership. They did not want to have a precedent where people who did not buy home owners insurance, saw their homes destroyed by wind, a storm, which is covered by home owners insurance, and then the federal government give them the money because they didnt have insurance, because they thought the press depth of that is, people will quit buying home owners insurance and stick the taxpayers for it and thats not a good precedent, and we actually, because of that, said, you have to have home owners insurance to in order to qualify for the support. But it is correct, they never told congress they wanted congress to vote for our plan. But i do believe it is because they thought we were going to win anyway, and that we could get it in the president s fingerprints wouldnt be on it and he wouldnt have to say i dont do for you, ohio, what i did last year for mississippi and louisiana. Thank you. Chris, do we have any time for q a from the audience . Okay. Good. Well take questions. If you have questions, if you could come to the microphone here. Were live on cspan, and speak before the microphone here in the middle of the room. You would know a newspaper report were get up to ask the first question. Retired newspaper reporter. Im just curious. When sandy hit the northeast there was a lot of back and forth that we got preferential treatment, whereas in fact i think that they may not have gotten equal treatment. I was just curious what your thoughts on that were. The federal response in sandy. Mississippi and louisiana together, we got about 24 billion of federal assistance, about 18 of which we were entitled to under current law. Louisiana got about 71 billion. And probably about 50 of that they were not entitled to under current law, but mostly they spent 21 bill rebuilding levees, something we didnt have to do. It was an unprecedent it response to our two states, and they were up precedented programs. They actually adopted after sandy the mississippi plan that Congress Passed in 2005. Four most of the needs of new jersey and new york. Very different deal up there, but it was such a intensely populated area that while the storm wasnt even a hurricane, it was a tropical storm, it did an incredible amount of damage. I mean, it just did a monster amount of damage. But they modeled what congress modeled what they gave new jersey and new york, on the katrina package that they had done for us in 2005 and thereafter. So, i dont know how they have administered it. Im not close enough it to. I kept up for a little while, but it would be good if congress would take the Disaster Assistance law called the stafford act, and actually overhaul it. I was wondering if maybe i write test the panel about our history, as we are now in the Public Relations and much more world wide awareness of mississippi and some of our challenges just like every other issue around the world. Whether they would support removing the federate battle flag as a way to move in our future like you alluded to in your question. A good question, we we will see if people are willing to answer it. [laughter] if we can start with casey. Will after the social Movement Days he became a politician and went to the state legislature and one of the pieces of legislation that he worked to get past was the changing of the state flag. Well in the book, i say the boat to keep the flag was an early 21st century century insult to the black population of mississippi. Certainly i would support changing the flag in the first referendum of that