American christianity and southern culture at the duke divinity school, and an adjunct professor of american studies at unc chapel hill. You can tell tim is a very inclusive guy, hes got an appointment at duke and unc. We are going to talk best well tonight. He is the author of blood done sign my name which was nominated for the book award. He also serves on the executive board for the North Carolina naacp. Tim can tell you more about this book than i can. I just want to say, he does a marvelous job of putting amit hills murder and lynching into a context of American History. His earlier book is about a similar incident that happened 15 years later in oxford North Carolina about 25 miles from here and i learned just a few years ago about another similar incident that happened three blocks from here at the intersection of ninth street where during the war in 1944, a black soldier in uniform from philadelphia would not move to the back of the bus and when he got off the bus, the bus driver shot and killed him and as usua usual, and all white jury found the people that committed these crimes not guilty. There is quite a sad tradition here. One last thing i want to say, in working in publicity for this book, i went on Google Images looking for a picture of him and hell and they are two important pictures of him, one of this marvelous, handsome, full of life 14yearold, and then the projec picture of him and his open casket with which his mother insisted on showing how well, there are not words for what that image shows. There just arent. It just moves you to tears. Its astounding. Like to turn this over to tim and just say its been my great pleasure and honor to be a friend of tim and have him be a longterm customer of this bookstore and we are thrilled to have him back for this marvelous book. Tim tyson. [applause] happy birthday to the sit in movement. 57 years ago, i think. [applause] swept out of North Carolina and spread across nine states and 300 cities. It turned the Civil Rights Movement into a Mass Movement rooted in nonviolent direct action and driven by youth. It is one of the most important moments in the Civil Rights Movement, and im always proud of North Carolina got out front. I want to say a word about the young people who organize that. One is they had grown up in the south, who thought that was a good idea. I exaggerate by two people. Like Martin Luther king didnt think it was a good idea. But the young people went ahead, they had one thing in common, many of them called themselves the amit hill generation. They were 15, they were 14, they were 16 when they saw that picture that tom referred to and a great many of them, it marked that day as the day that pointed their footsteps toward joining this movement that would transform the nation. It is one of the most important things about, its the most important thing about this story is not the horrifying tragedy of it, as horrifying as it is and we can belittle that, we can ever forget that, they broke his femur which is the strongest bone in your body but they wouldve had to jump up and down on it to do that. They were in an equipment shed, im sure there were plenty to choose from, they clipped his ear off, they shattered his skull into many pieces, popped his eye out with some kind of metal instrument, every blow affronted White Supremacy. This countrys birthplace is not Constitution Hall in philadelphia. Its not a big house called monticello where Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration of independence, perhaps by the light of a lamp brought to him by a person whom he felt the deed of ownership, and yet who was the mother of his children. If you think the country is crazy, that is one place you could start looking. The country is really born in the bottom of the Atlantic Ocea ocean, literally in the abyss where the bones of millions of dead africans settle into the sand in the enormous death machine that built world capitalism, it started this country and undergirded its economic system, thats where the country begins with 6 million, 7 million, 8 million, were not sure. We know a lot, theres a lot of data and we know a lot more about this. It was big business. You needed insurance, they wrote it down, the cap record. Weve got computers. Now what the database you can study that we cant forget these are all, everyone, human beings. What the old spiritual called the many thousands gone, from our inception then what has divided us has been the changing same of race in america. Of the allimportant question that was at the heart of this countrys birth and that goes through like a buddy red thread to this very day, and that is what will be the role of the sons and daughters of africa, what will be their place in the democracy, in the universal vision of the worlds greatest democracy. I use the word ironically because it meant nothing whatsoever, those were empty words indeed before those young people took those seats in the drugstore, before the nonviolent armies of love had marched through the streets of the sout south, before the passage of the civil rights act, the Voting Rights act and the fair housing act, those were just words on paper something somebody fancie fancied. Saying so dont make it so, and indeed we are still wrestling with that. I am 57 years old. I didnt expect to be fighting for brown versus board of education and the dam Voting Rights act. [applause] i had another thing or two in mind, but i will spare you. We are in a crisis of democracy at this very moment that has its roots in the politics of race, in the discomfort and fear and resentment, in the rage of much of white america, about the changing role of the sons and daughters of africa embodied in the first africanamerican president of the United States. It goes far beyond him. He is a symbol of a change, he is not the change, and theres much changing to be done and people know that. Some people feel that with joy , some people feel that with vision, some people feel that with fear, some fear it with hatred. We have an imitation carnival barker who first brought himself to Public Notice by taking out a fullpage ad in the New York Times saying that the five Young African american men who were accused of raping a white woman in central park new york were guilty and they ought to be put to death. They went to prison after the dna evidence proved they had nothing to do that crime, after it led them, Law Enforcement to the person who had committed that crime, donald trump said they were still healthy. He was the centerpiece of the Birther Movement that said that our president , our president was illegitimate, not a citizen, not the president. Saying that africanamericans political power, africanamerican citizenship itself is inherently illegitimate and thats been at the heart of the political project of White Supremacy from the very beginning of things. Thats what toppled reconstruction and a river of blood, thats what overthrew the government of North Carolina, the democratically elected interrelational Fusion Movement, not perfect, far from it it was overthrown by force and by murder in the streets, by theft and by guarding the ballot boxes. There were counties in North Carolina which had a black majority and went 90 in favor of this new constitutional amendment to disenfranchise themselves. I suspect that not. They overthrew the government, they put in place the jim crow order of the segregated south and a racial cash system, echoes of what we are still living with to this day, but which began to shake and tremble in the 1950s and one of the largest tremors came from money mississippi where 14yearold boy was butchered like a hog because he had violated the racial added to of the jim crow south. This crisis of race that we are in, it calls us to answer the question will the descendents of the enslaved ever get equal justice in the United States of america . That is a very serious question. Mass incarceration, the militarization of the police, Police Murder on film, massive inequality Police Violence is only the most visible issue of all, but its connected to that whole landscape of inequality and injustice that still marks his country. Im very proud to say that there are a lot of people, ive seen several of them right here in North Carolina. In fact ive seen about 50000 of them once or twice and on february the 11th we will all see you then. We will all see them down on east south street in downtown raleigh and the raleigh meniscal auditorium, tens of thousands of us will march down to the old state capitol, i believe the governor has an office there. Oh yeah, its a new governor. They dont like it, they consume us to the Supreme Court where i dont think the chances are too good. No thanks to them. Weve got the resegregation of the Public Schools in this country, weve got the evisceration of the Voting Rights act, and as soon as the Voting Rights act was done to death, then came the legislature of North Carolina full of rightwing crackpots, oh, im sorry, that was. [inaudible] full of, i think im okay. [laughter] but who have some very good figures who figured out where all the black people in North Carolina live. Then they drew the lines for the district. I think there was a lady crossing the street in Rocky Mountain and they were trying to staf stack and pad africanamericans into a small number of districts so in a relational politics of no Fusion Movement could ever rise again to confront them in their all white, far right abuse of democracy and its exploitation of the people and indifference to human need, and violation of the moral values that most of us hold dear. I dont think any of their moms, i dont think any of their mamas got down beside their bed, said their prayers and then said you know phil, if you ever get a chance to push the poor people off their healthcare, i hope you will. Ill be so proud of you if you can destroy the Public Schools, that would be a fine thing fill. No, no, they know full well its wrong what they are doing. Theyve got some explanation, but it cant be made. Ask them. They cant explain it. They wont debate it. Anyway, there i go again. But why jump so far had and talk about whats going on right now in our home state and across the country, why talk about that when you could talk about a book about him hill. Well, for one thing, thats what this book is actually about. This book is about how in the face of horrifying tragedy, brutal injustice, heartbreaking violence a courageous mother who was also politically astute leveraged black power, accumulated in chicago over six or seven decades of long slow Patient Institution building that brought us the largest defender, the Johnson Publishing company and about ten other national publications, the brotherhood, black labor union, leveraged the united packing house workers of america, interracial union, fast becoming a Civil Rights Union due to black leadership. The steelworkers union, the naacp, a militant naacp led by a labor union official, all this power, but oh, im leaving out the main thing, the dawson machine in chicago which is the black political machine was the most powerful Political Organization on the planet eart earth. Illinois has a lot of electoral votes. You dont win illinois must with chicago. The black political machine in chicago, led by William Dawson was a mixed bag, like most politicians had dumped the previous mayor for racism and they installed a fellow named richard daley. Okay, the daley machine. Why folk thats why folks get the name name stuff, but were talking about the power of chicago that turns into a huge megaphone that pushes the movement that lets the world know, it turns it into an International News event into a National Movement, the unions, the churches, the naacp, these are institutions that have national fingers and they build a National Movement in protest against the lynching of emmett hill, the acquittal of his killers, or the ones who were on trial, they missed five or so, but a National Movement. Before this, the thing that we call the subaru was regional and local, it was people who have been long, slow, patient, organizing on a political level for a long time and had parol to their lives at the loss of many of their lives in the south, and it turned those local movements into a National Movement by providing infrastructure, institutional infrastructure for National Movement that elevated Martin Luther king jr. To world historical status and had changed the United States of america and not started in the abyss, recreated in it toolshed in mississippi. They call these things readings. Im in a redo not quite a page, and then i would rather talk with you than actual. Thats a lie, but i meant to say it. [laughter] no really, i would. The glorification of one race and the debate of others has always been a recipe for murder as james bolden wrote. It remains a recipe for toxic self hatred, poisonous and sometimes equally lethal. It shoots first and dodges questions later. White supremacy leaves almost half of all africanamerican children growing up in poverty in it the industrialized urban wasteland. It abandons the moral and practical truths embodied in the brown versus board of education decision and accepts School Resegregation even though it is poisonous to the poor. White supremacy is in some Law Enforcement officers and vigilantes seem unable to distinguish between genuine danger and centuries old insults. To see beyond the ghost, all of us must develop the moral vision and political will to crush whites from the sea. Both the Political Program [applause] both the Political Program and the concealed assumption. We have to come to grips with her own history, not only genocide, slavery, exploitation and systems of oppression but also the legacies of those who resisted and fought back and still fight back. We must find what doctor king called the strength to love. New social movements must confront headon the racial chasm in american life. Baldwin further instructs not everything that is based can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is based. Our strivings will unfold in a fallen world among people who have inherited a deeply tragic history. There will be no guarantee of success but we have guiding spirits who still walk among us. We have the courtroom of historical memory when reverend moses writes still stands and says there he is. We have the boundless moral landscape where mimi bradley, later living till bradley, and that mother, still shakes the earth. We have the still voices of the black life matter demanding justice now and reminding us to remember emmett till. To say his name we have the enduring double and acp and the inspirational monday coalition spreading out of North Carolina like the citizens once did and dozens of other similar crusades we can still we can still hear the marching millions in the streets of america, all of them belonging to the children of emmett till. So, we can talk now. [laughter] teacher is out of the room, we can do anything. [laughter] i always liked that. Anyone have a question or comment . Yes, maam. I just heard over the weekend that the woman who wrongly accused of it till has finally confessed that she lied and i think i heard that she wrote a book. Okay. Yes thats not all right. Help me with that. One of my students last nigh [inaudible] thanks for reminding me. So, our questioner heard that the woman who falsely accused emmett till bringing about his lynching who has written a book finally acknowledged that she lied about emmett till back in 1955. The question is is that true. So, in 2008 part of it is i got a phone call from a nice woman in raleigh who wanted to tell me she liked the blood and then wanted to sign my name and its on a conversation i wanted to have long and i was play because my mama told me to be sweet. I was nice but i was thinking her and getting a phone when she heard my voice and said well, you know my motherinlaw is coming next week and we would really like to she likes the book to and i gave it to her christmas and she liked it very much and we would like to get together and have a cup. So i pretended she had said that. [laughter] and continue to think her warmly and get up. Then she said you may have heard about my motherinlaw. Her name was Carolyn Bryant. Well i am a historian of the black Freedom Movement and im a historian of the 19th 20th century of the south like anybody of that description i knew that Carolyn Bryant hadnt said a moment word since 1955 and most of the time no one has been able to find her. She has been pursued by journalist and scholars all through that time and sometimes we had it known that she was alive or dead so i said i might find time in my schedule. [laughter] my intention was because i was working on another book and i had been working on it for a while i cant even remember what it is about. [laughter] my attention was to interview her, put the interview in the archive the Southern Historical collection where it ought to be and some historian in the future would bless my name. I had no intention of writing a book about emmett till. I had already written a book about a brutal racial murder that was rooted in that old ghosts of race and sexuality, the black beast rapist first pure white southern womanhood, the fairest power of the land and i do about that stuff and id also written a book set in 1950s and this was familiar territory and i knew the story pretty well or so i thought and i went to the library to do a Little Research just to prepare for the interview and what i found was amid all the novels and poems and ballads and songs and memoirs there was one book of history about the till case and it was thin and flimsy and very lightly researched and it was 25 years old. It surprised me a little bit. We teach this in all the American History textbooks you can find a paragraph on the emmett till case. Those stories fundamentally go back to two of the men who killed emmett till. After they were acquitted, after they could no longer be retried a reporter for look magazine, largest circulation magazine in the United States gave them several thousand dollars to tell their story but of course they had to tell it that they killed emmett till or they wouldnt get the money. Everyone knew they killed emmett till, anyway, and they were off scotfree so they pull that. And they told their story. Historians for a while figured that if these two guys admitted to killing a 14 yearold boy that Everything Else they said must be true to but Everything Else they said was a lie. Including and, the, and butts. Not a true sentence in it. They said they were covering up for their relatives and Family Friends and others. I was surprised that i was going to interview Carolyn Bryant dunham and i proceeded to do so and it was pretty interesting and she acknowledged that the part about the incident in the store that had precipitated his lynching that she acknowledged he said of the physical assault, the putting hands on, the menacing, the sexual, the physical part of that narrative she said that part is not true. So just like you would, i said then what did happen. She said honestly, i would like to tell you but i dont rememb remember, it was more than 50 years ago and she said a sentence that i thought was actually quite profound. She said you tell these stories over and over until they seem through but that part is not true. Nothing that boy did could ever justify what was done to him. Okay. That was the interview. I still wasnt planning to write a book on emmett till. I interviewed her twice, three hours each time. Got a lot of interesting stuff from inside the bryant milam family. Who are these people that killed emmett till . What were their lives like . How did they treat each other . What do they think about things . I wanted to know that stuff and learned a lot about that and carolyn said many things that were true and when she did that it is in the book i say it is not true. Or if i dont quite believe it but i dont know its not true i say it is true. She is just one source. It is not carolines book, it is not the Caroline Brian story. She has no connection to it whatsoever. Except that i interviewed her. Last night one of my students told me that in the afternoon dl huguely, is that right . Dl huguely and africanamerican comedian who had a National Radio show, i guess, ripped me up one side and down the other because for helping caroline make millions of dollars off of the murder of emmett till. You know, thats pretty interesting. They didnt even read the dust jacket. You know which mark they could have googled me a couple of times, even a minute and that wouldve worked out better and that wouldve made them suspect so, i bent a little bit upset about that today. So, anyway, that is more than you wanted to hear i didnt mean to upset you. [laughter] no, you didnt upset me. You just put it up there where i could get to it. [laughter] her book. Thank you. She has an unpublished autobiography and that is what i call it in the footnotes of the book. It is unpublished and unpublishable. It is very short, it is and its more like a Magazine Article length not book length and it is terrible. Its just like shed have to hire a ghostwriter to even publish it as a Magazine Article and its none of my business what she does with it. I put it over in the archives because its an archival material just like the interview and it needs to be for future scholars to get to it. So, thats all about that. I am sorry about the confusion because it started really because a lot of the media i didnt know people read vanity fair. I didnt know what it was. Anyway, they wrote a gossipy thing that focuses on caroline bryant. One thing i would like to mention, we often focus on the white conscience white culpability. Whoopi goldberg and sissy spacek wrote about the montgomery bus boy in the beautifully made movie but the bus and that movie was actually the one that rosa parks said. The very one. They towed it with a cable. Its historically accurate except its all about white people and will the white people come around . Will the white woman decide to betray her husband and do the right thing . That is the big tension and drama. What will the white people do . Right . I dont need to go on. Yes, maam. I want to thank you for documenting the story. You are looking at some who at 87 has lived much of what you are talking about and so far i dont see any digression. I grew up in montgomery, alabama. Rosa parks took the bus in front of my grandfather store when she went down to work for my brother in law in his tailoring shop and at the montgomery fare. I sat at the seat of my greatgrandmother was 14 years old when the civil war was fought and she was a part of a very Progressive Community who bought the plot of land where the Baptist Church now sat in the shadow of the Alabama State capital which was the capital of the confederacy. I knew the kings and the abernathys up close and personal and i could talk for hours. [laughter] i rather wish you would. Give that woman a microphone. [applause] there is one thing i would like to interject because it relates to the condition right now. You are right when you said that the production of White Supremacy as an inferiority of blacks causes hatred unfortunately. I am not one of those. I have spent years and years of studying our history all the way back to the classical civilizations of africa and can document it. I havent written a book because im so busy trying to survive but there is one thing that must be put into this equation. You need to know that some of the pathologies that you thank you see in my community should be laid at the feet of White Supremacy. It was under the presidency of Ronald Reagan that drove was taken into South Central los angeles to finance the nicaraguan contra war and [inaudible] since you refuse to educate our children and we have made immeasurable contributions to this country in spite of suppression in our intellect i get so emotional, it makes me forget. It was Ronald Reagan, give him credit for the drugs that are in my communities and the White Supremacy persistence. [inaudible] so, as i say, i could go on and on. If i had a following i wouldnt be alive because i would have been assassinated. [applause] a couple of things that you touch on and thank you so much for that. Eyewitness. I have to do it as long as im breathing. Amen. [applause] untraine the plot of land tht your ancestors fought and became deeded over to dexter memorial Baptist Church when after the murder of emmett till and the acquittal of the two men charged with killing him doctor Martin Luther king invited a man from mississippi to come speak. He was one of the grassroots activists who investigated the killing and who provided all the witnesses for the trial, the prosecution found no witnesses. All the witnesses were provided by grassroots activists in black journalist. Doctor tmr howard of mount by you mississippi great political leader was invited to speak at dexter memorial by doctor king and there was woman in the congregation who is usually in the congregation when the door was open named rosa parks. Doctor howard told about the emmett till case from firsthand experience. Ms. Parks was deeply moved and four days later she was ordered to go to the back of the bus and she said later, i thought about emmett till and i could not move. The National Movement that emerged from the emmett till lynching and the acquittals raised a lot of money. Adam clayton pyle, eleanor roosevelt, Martin Luther king, edie nixon, i could go on and on and they did things like have rallies in medicine square garden to raise money because the heroes of the south rally and what they did with the money was they sent it to what they called the fledgling bus boycott in montgomery. But the montgomery bus boy did and i havent nailed this quite down but ive been told they bought ten station wagons with the money. It was not a small sum. That was a very important piece of the montgomery bus boy and that was a part of the process of the Movement Getting and turning into a National Movement. I also want to confirm that actually it is a fact that the Reagan Administration to pay for the war in nicaragua did help smuggle in cocaine into los angeles. Hes not some kind of marginal, what you call them conspiracy theorists . This is a matter of documented fact. So, that is not to say that brought drugs into that community or anyone else who had been doing drugs for quite some time. And, white people and young black people use drugs in almost identically the same percentage but the arrest rate is what . Six times at what doctor bill says hes right about everything. Six times the arrest rate and then you look at the incarceration and the sentences that are given to black men and all of this echoes the same dynamics that killed emmett till and it is still walk among us. I have a question for you just about timing. As i read the article about your book and ive been looking at information on the family of emmetts family, you had this interview with ms. Bryant ten years ago and the book is coming out or the exposing of what she said is coming out now and why did it take so long for it to come out and the other question to that is is there not or is there a statue of limitations on perjury . It seems like this is something that should have come out sooner like in the last ten years many of his friends and family would have probably loved to have heard that kind of validation that emmett was innocent. Coming from her rather than we hearing it now. Some of those people are gone and im just curious, historic and point of view why hold on to it for so long . The first thing i would say and i hope i remember the second thing. [laughter] okay. The first thing is it took me and it was nine years ago i believe that i interviewed her and the book took me eight years and more to research and write. Part of that is that it was an international story. You cant imagine the amount of stuff there is to look at. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of publications that covered this and there were hundreds of reporters at the trial and there is a voluminous documentation to look through and that wasnt the worst of it. I enjoy that. It takes stamina and its hard work but id rather enjoy that. You are combing through the bits and pieces of what is left of the past and youre trying to build a world out of it. You have to see how the foreign thing called a past country works. Im trying to tell a story but i have to build it out of the truth as far as i am able to. That is a process that i like doing. That took a long time. When i started writing and this was after that really that it was hard and i was procrastinating like way more than usual which is pretty bad. I cannot understand it exactly and it hurt. Finally, it didnt take me that long but i cant understand it and i just didnt want to go down in the hole. It was a dark story and it was a brutal story and it was a racial murder of a child. Its a hard story. You know, when you write you have to reimagine it and everything that happens has to happen again in your mind and then you have to take that and put it into words. I did not want it to happen in my mind. I had to sit myself down and say oh son, you are not going down there alone. A lot of people are in this room and i told myself that are with me. I finally got where i was moving along pretty good but it took a long time. I think i worked on it for nine years but that was my first go so that is the piece taken so long. The other thing is honestly, right now in this media moment it seems like a big news story, important thing from the past and as a historian down in the digging i never thought she was telling the truth. Describe a boy that was obnoxious, a boy that made her mad, a boy that insulted her in her mind, clear lay boy that violated the racial etiquette, custom, in jim crow mississippi. It says nothing about anybody putting their hand on anybody. So i knew that. Also, think about it, all these years, like in eyes on the prize. Tells the story sort of the way that murderers tell the story. Thats the biggest the story that most people know about, eyes on the prize has been seen by millions of people. In that sorry. Im middle aged brain here. Well, yeah, eyes on the prize oh, the falseness of the story. Okay. I lost my place here. Oh, right. So, in any case [cell phone ringing] cell thats my one fan calling. Tell him im busy. So, oh, yeah, thats what wanted to mention. In all of those accounts, the white man with the gun says, we want the boy from chicago, the one that done the talking in mississippi. They say talking over and over again. You talking mighty big, talking, talking, talking, use the word to describe what he did. The nature of his offense was talking. Okay . Do you think men like that, if you put their hands on their wife, you think when they come for you at 2 00 in the morning with guns, theyre going to say, you were talking big. Theres not going do be an issue of talking. Its about you put your hand on their wife. Thats the thing they would said. I never believed that stuff. Couldnt understand why eyes on the prize thought the accounts were on tv so i didnt think of it as being big news in the same way that people that that the media has jumped all over it. I understand now that thats happening, why people are drawn to that. I do think its important for her to admit that. But i didnt as a historian, just wasnt something i was thinking about, and i was a little surprised that all the people who talked to me wanted to talk about, because to me, in this moment, today, the what the story of emmett till means, how it speaks to us. I hear it speak to us when i see hundreds of young activists out in front of the white house, chanting, michael brown, emmett till. How many black kidded will you kill . Thats what i think about this story. To me thats what matters about the story. People are his name, they say his name and his name is a emblem of american Racial Injustice and the racial caste system which still exist. The White Supremacy that kills people in a church in charleston, that kills people in downtown durham. Thats what i think about with this. Thats what wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about how this story speaks to the day, and all people wanted to know was about the white woman and her conscience and her culpability or lack thereof, which i cant see into her soul, i cant read her mind, i dont verify her truth. And she is not anywhere near not in top ten important sources in the book. Do understand strike meds especially with people who are personally affected, like the family. Maybe i should have done Something Different about that. It never occurred to me. Maybe that makes me insensitive or stupid. Yes, maam. In terms of the perjury aspect of the question issue was listening to a podcast the a day, and she made statement the familys attorney that the never presented her testimony before the jury. Okay. I can verify that. Thats what the podcast says. They didnt use her false statements, which were lies and horrible, but werent actually used in the case. So, the jump in the case, curtis swango, his real name he actually tried to conduct a fair trial, and he was judicious. The black reporters at the trial said so the white reports said so, and reading the transcript, we didnt have a transcript until recently. So i think im the second historian to write a sentence based on that transcript. We didnt know what she said at the trial. Judge swango, if i make you mad on saturday, and wednesday you come shoot me, its hard to cry selfdefense. Things dont happen that way. So, how could what happened in a country store, many days earlier, several days earlier, from this lynching, how do that be relevant to the charge, to the murder charge . The judge ruled it not relevant. He finally agreed to let her testify and sent the jury out of the room. Now, the defense probably figured theyd hear about it anyway, and the other thing is of course, the story she told is an old familiar story about the black boast rapist and the white southern lily. That was hanging over the trial all the time. So and the defense used her testimony, even though the jury hadnt heard it, they used it in their summation. They used the verb molest. It doesnt matter that the deceased molested miss bryant. Like that. That is not why so, her testimony is not what acquitted them. They would have been acquitted if she had stood on her head and yelled, they lynched him, they lynched him, they lynched him. There was no there was not going to be an acquittal in that courtroom. Thats not to dismiss the moral turpitude of what she did. Thats obviously evil. Nonetheless, thats not the purpose of the story. I told it. I notice you began with a description of what happened to his body, and im thinking, will we ever know the truth based on what you said. The only truth seems to be what actually happened to him. So as an historian, what did you look at what everybody said and all the information that you gathered and just kind of came to a conclusion, and to decide the way you described the trial, thought about trayvons troll bought i thought i had watched too much perry mason. Ill repeat the question. The question is, how did i as an historian come to tell the story in a particular way and say what happened if we dont know so much of what we dont know so much of what if we dont know very much about what really happened, what really happened between Carolyn Bryant and emmett till, theres some mystery the but only a oneminute mystery. His cousins were with him and they were not parted for long, and then she told the story to her lawyer. But the cause of what happened the cops had lied. They wouldnt have been free to tell the throughout, the cousins, given the atmosphere in mississippi. I think they told the truth. For example, this was also called the wolf whistle case there he whistled at her, and then maimy bradley, his mother, said he had a speech impediment and when he had trouble get his words out, she told him to whistle. Well, thats not true. In my opinion. What the brilliant the necessity of saying that, however, is profound because maimy bradley knew that the least hint of sexual innuendo by her son, even rudeness, would have made it justifiable homicide in the minds of many white people. So he did have a speech impredment. But by the time at the time he was killed it was not bad. He was a big talker. He was playful. Joked, sang, told stories, he was not somebody who stump stumbled in this speech but he had green up with a bad stutter, and so the pasted together pieces of truth to Say Something that was necessary to say, so that the crime against him would not be dismissed. And i think that was more than defensible. It was absolutely necessary. But you see, the truth is complicated who youre on historian, sometimes you dont know but you cant write what you dont know itself your speculating you have to let the reader know that. If i quote somebody, thats not the same thing as saying what they said is true. I quote plenty of liars. I write about politics. [laughter] so, thats one good stab at the question of truth. Im exterior say the teacher has not left the room. I have an afterschool Mentor Program for young black boys. My question is when i see emmett till and mike brown and Trayvon Martin in front of me, what do i say to them . What do i tell them so they can live in this america in order to survive, because theyre young, and they have their rights, but theyre being violated and being killed for them, and its difficult for me to say respect authority when youre not being respected. Soso im so im not reading about them one day, what do i tell them . The questiones, from our teacher, to my honor, some day well honor our teachers. [applause] in the not too distant future. So the teacher asked, what does she tell the young black men that she works with, her students, what does she tell them in the face of police killings, of unarmed black youth in the streets of america and the story of emmett till. What does she tell them, how does she teach them to cope with that . I would say i dont know. I dont know. Mary williams that it work with, had three black sons who had been working together for 12 years. So our sons grew up around one another, and one day when we were getting to know each other, really know each other, which takes a while and is mull by laird. She said, couldnt races my boys the wayor raising sam. She said, im raising black boys. I cant have them Walking Around the street acting like they own the place. I have to tell them to be careful. I have to teach them how to talk to a policeman. I have to teach them a lot of things you dont have to teach sam. Thats only one of many moments of education, but thats a predicament because you dont want my mama gave me read me a book called the little engine that could. Probably in here somewhere. I think i can, i think i can, i know i can. She didnt want me going through the world to think i couldnt. She wanted me to think i could. She wanted me to be free and strong. Thats a little everybody wants that. For their children. But its complicated by the perils that they confront, and i dont know. I think i think i would try to raise up warriors for justice because its not just danger to them. Its danger to the generations and generations of people of black boys before but black boys yet unborn. The danger to which we have to address. The dangers are many. And we have to address that and we need warriors for justice to do that, and theres risk in being a warrior for justice. You know. But theres risk in not being a warrior for justice. So you meet the nicest people. Its more fun. Bernice johnson said when you know who you and are you know what youre doing and you know youre in the right place, its up to somebody else to kill you. Right . She wasnt dismissing the danger. She had been in it. But you cant live in just in that way. I think thats no answer in a way, i admit. One more. Yes, sir. I would like to reframe your question and i dont think theres anything that you can tell your Young Africanamerican little boys of what to do or how to act because what you have been saying 2017, they said in 1917, or 1817. My question is maybe to the mothers of the white mothers here, what is it that you say to your sons that grow up to be the police officers, that grow up to be the politicians. I dont think thats enough burden held to a black mother raising a young black child, because theyre in a position of nonpower in these situations. So what do you say to young men greg up with the power and with the privilege . So, not a necessary question. Could be a rhetorical question for the mothers here what do you say to your son, your grandson. Your daughters, too. Your daughters. [applause] to me, you in the, you have raise them up with your moral values, always in front of them, much as you can. You got to raise them up in the movement. You have to make sure they meet people who are part of making the change, so they grow up thinking, thats normal. Thats expected. Of course youre going to help. Of course youre going to be there. Of course youre going to show up. It may not be all you do. You may be working at the hospital but youre going to show up. Thats normal. I think that what white parents need to teach their children. Thats the only Way Coalition politics is not an alternative to cools poll coalition politic and theres no substitute for political victory. Martin luther king knew it wasnt about just changing white peoples conscience. He wasnt that naive. The thought evil was rampant in the universe. He did not have a sunny view of humanity. He thought that, at Frederick Douglass did, power could cease nothing but a demand. You had to push power, you could take what you could get and you could keep what you could hold and that you he called nonviolence a strategium of power. And we have to understand he was not about begging and pleading. He was about confronting power, and he understood power realistically. You have to understand that he understood that the United States and she soviet union were grappling over control of the whole world and its resources and its politics, and that whole world was darkskinned and the problem that america had was the domestic racial politics and if you could put it out in the world media, that would it the federal government would have to change. They would have to intervene at some point. That is really what it was about bringing the violence inherent in the system out into the open so it could be seen by the whole world and that force the federal government to enforce the 13th, 14th, 15th amendment 14th in that case. So, you got to raise your children to understand that its not just about the Civil Rights Movement is not a church service. Its political action. Its nothing wrong with that. Its necessary. Its moral. Its immoral to do nothing in the face of evil. Thats what you got to teach your children. Whether youre white or black or any other hue, its important. Dr. King said that power without love is bankrupt, morally bankrupt, but love without power is vacant and sentimental. That justice was love harnessed up, and acting in the world. So you love is not something you feel and sing songs about. Its something you do. Making so that is something that you have to teach your children, and you can only do that by example, really. You cant lectures and sermons, i happen to know, are not effective. You have to teach them by example. Yes. [applause] i think theyll let me have one more but have to be succinct. Thank you for being here and all the Great Questions as well. As the mother of two young men in their 20s issue want to say one more thing to what we can do and what i do. Its lead by example. Not just teach your children. You be that change itch was born in 1962, in south africa. I see more segue degree situation and and racism and injustice in one lifetime i hopedded would never see again. Immigrated here in 1995. Right now i feel a sense of its almost bringing back a posttraumatic stress disorder feeling, and being involved set an example. Dont expect your children to do what we created. Thank you. I watched mame bradley talking were her son, and read something about her sort of dissonance from and it talked about it in almost a flat aaffect and the number you have when your are confronted with such horror and we should all watch the video and all look at the pictures that are difficult to look at and remind ourselves every day, we remember, lest wefest, and find ourself doing the same thing to others. Thank you. [applause] thank you yall for coming. I appreciate it. [applause] thank you. This is why we have a become store. [inaudible discussion] each year since 1950, the National Book award is given out by the National Book foundation, an organization sponsored by the Publishing Industry and literary institutions. Authors in four categories, poetry, young peoples literature, fiction, and nonfiction, are presented with awards. Past winners including david mccullough, joan didion and vidal. The within this years will be announced in new york city, and today on booktv youre hearing from all ten nonfiction finales, this year naomi klein, who wrote no is not enough offers her thoughts on shock politics and the 2016 national election. So, naomi, lovely to get a chance to interview you on a book i just found fantastic. I read it voraciously. I think in one long sitting, and found it absolutely fascinating and my first question to you is, how in the world were you able to write this so quickly . Because you references things that just happened in april, may, and the book just came out. Guest thank you so