Transcripts For CSPAN2 C-SPAN Cities Tour Visits San Antonio Texas 20240713

Every weekend. The cspans city tour is exploring the american story as we take book tv and American History tv on the road. This weekend we travel to san antonio, texas. Coming up in the next hour we will feature the citys local authors including John Phillips santos on culture and hometown. In about 15 minutes we will visit the special collections at the university of texas in san antonio. And later in about 40 minutes, the debates surrounding confederate statutes and memorialization. We begin our special feature with lewis fisher on his book saving san antonio. We are standing near the Geographical Center of san antonio, texas. We are in front of whats called the Spanish Governors Palace in a town that was actually set up here due to the conflicts between two european empires, france and spain in the 18th century. Spain had, of course, established itself well in latin america and south america and in mexico and northern mexico was especially important to spain because rich silver mines. France was over to the northeast in louisiana and it was up reached up to the northern border of new spain along the red river where it was causing some trouble with the indians and looking straight across the empty reaches of texas into the the silver mines down in texas and elsewhere. The spaniards knew they had to have some sort of defense and they came up on san antonio and so in 1618, the 302 years ago, san antonio was established here. The first challenge they faced was getting water. The first thing the priests did when they set up a Community Like san antonio was to build a church, but the second thing they did was to set up a water system and in in texas you have rivers but you dont really have a lot of green fertile areas too far away from it. So to address that, they drew from their experience in spain which has come from arabia which came from roman empire, system of irrigation ditches and they were not just irrigation ditches but furnished Drinking Water and water for the cattle and everybody else. Everybody used the same water. Nobody knew anything about germs and they wondered why they had epidemics. They would figure that out. So san antonio was selected in large part because it had two major sources of water upstream. We had the head waters of the San Antonio River and we had the head waters of San Pedro Creek. So from those places engineers very carefully because the land was flat, they were able to divide half dozen which came from those rivers and came through channels that followed the line of gravity downhill through what became san antonio and then back into the river so that the water continued to flow. San antonio used that system for more than 1020 years. It wasnt until the end of the 19th century that the system not in general use but still are two at the spanish mission, one Mission Espada and Mission San Juan which are used by area farmers to water their crops. You have on main plaza the cathedral san fernando which is the perish church but we have 5 missions in san antonio which are now a named a World Heritage site. We have First Mission the alamo which began san antonio, valero here in the city of san antonio and a few years later there was a Second Mission established which was Mission San Jose which has been restored rather elaborately and is is the largest was the largest and most Successful Mission in texas. 3 of the missions moved from north texas to san antonio and they are scattered along the San Antonio River south of downtown, largest of them is mission concepcion, the largest itself is largest unrestored church in Spanish Church in the United States and we also have two smaller ones. Mission san San Francisco do espada and san juan capecano. We call it san juan to not confuse with californias. Texas was desire was very desirable for its geography and location and a lot of borderlines are, the control went back and forth between various governmental entities. I would suspect that san antonioans got whiplashed in early 19th century. 6 different governments in san antonio, first in the up until 1820s san antonio was under the overall control of spain. Then in 1821 there was a revolution in which mexico took control. Then came the republic of texas, the revolution of 1836 which was related to the alamo and we had the republic of texas and then in 1845 texas was annex by the United States. In 1861 we had the confederacy in charge and 4 years later we were back to the United States. Probably the single factor that shapes san antonios character and its appearance and its very being is isolation on the texas frontier. We are inland, a couple of hundred miles from texas coast and the only way to reach san antonio was by texas coast and that took a couple of days when it wasnt raining and there wasnt mud. It was a very difficult city to get to until san antonio finally got a railroad in 1877 at which point san antonio began to to explode. The Tourism Business was one of the first that took off because san antonio had been a familiar topic of magazines and other publications periodicals of the United States. People reporters would love to come to san antonio and report and what it looked like and there was great awareness of this, this didnt totally please people like in houston where the railroad came from and after the railroad came one newspaper over there reported the people went to san antonio for a day to peak around and come back and tell everyone how clear the city looked and it did. It did. That was a big attraction then and still become attraction now. San antonio is probably 3 hours from the Mexican Border from way of laredo but the proximity to mexico has been very beneficial to san antonio longterm because of immigration. When the mexican revolution began in 1910 so much violence that the mexican citizens, many of them began crossing the rio grande and coming to texas, they were set up in refugee camps and tens of thousands came to san antonio. For many years they lived in poorest areas of town and as generations went on they became leading citizens in the community. We have henry b. Gonzalez, first hispanic congressman in the 1950s and that has really helped make san antonio the place that it is today. I think it would be important for people to realize as they learn about san antonio simply to understand what a a distinctive and diverse city san antonio is, how significant history and how much it has contributed to the history of the country. Our look at san antonio continues as we hear from author John Phillips santos about citys Latino History and culture. We are in the very first phase of the San Pedro Creek culture park and the reason its important is that the creek whether set up a new river was the site of the citys founding and first settlement, among other things the dividing line between the mexicano part of san antonios community and the anglo parts of the community. So it was a kind of borderline within the city but a border that connected us to deepest stories of the citys origins. [applause] well, my summary like many chicano families has deep and complex origins in this place. My families came here in my dads side 1020 years ago, during the mexican revolution when many families left the turmoil of mexico to seek refuge in what was in effect a mexican city even though it was in the United States. Many of our families recognized this as a place of ancestry and my moms family beginning in that period in the early 17th century found way to the border itself, what became the u. S. Mexico border in places like Guerrero Viejo or mier or roma, texas, ultimately laredo texas, cotula, texas, old mexican city, secret mexican city in the United States. So its part of the fascinating story of san antonio, the way that many people from all over the world found their routes here. As we say somos todos uno, we are one. During the mexican revolution there was a huge number of people who came here seeking refuge that the citys demographic makeup shifted again and by the middle of the 20th century this was a majority mexican city again as it has been ever since. I grew up in a sense in a place where i was thought of as a minority but we were a majorityminority city, and that way we attested to americas future. A majorityminority city in the majority what was becoming majorityminority republic. So a lot of that work i think as chicano writers, artists, filmmakers, attest to those transformations, trying to encompass as much as that history and cultural meaning that we can bring to our work. Ive always felt that the Latino Community, the mexicanamerican, the chicano community, the chiqanex community of san antonio was unique in the panorama, we are older than the american republic, this place is older than the american republic, so we attest to the complexity of our origins in the indigenous world, in time of new spain, and thats important for all kinds of reasons that, you know, have to do with history and culture, but the other big part of what it was to grow up here which is very different, for instance, from say mexicanos of la, was the proximity to mexico, the fact that mexico, the border lands literally are only an hour and a half away, there might be even closer destinations from the border than an hour and a half because the border slips through the landscape and all kinds of Mysterious Ways and i actually think about san antonio as being part of the borderlands, you know, so the proximity to to madre tierra in mexico, sense of origin in the case of my fathers family in the state of coahuila was organic part of being in san antonio. It imparted at least to our family being deeply rooted in this secret story of another way of being american. San antonio in 2020 is a place of unanticipated vibrant in terms of artistic culture. Theres incredible urgency about the way that literary and artistic culture has played a role in reimagining san antonio and reminding our communities of the complexity of our past, the incredible challenge and promise of our future. We still have a huge issue with illiteracy and economic disparity, but the artists, the writers, all kinds of different ways have been socially engaged with playing the role in reshaping the citys present and future. I invite americans to come to san antonio to experience another way of thinking about what it is to be american. Americans as mestizos, people who carry long history of becoming something new, how we live up to challenges that the history presents us in terms ofd africans. Thisthis is the place where amen republic we live story every day. Up next we take you to the university of texas at San Antonio Special collection. To hear about the southwest Voter Registration education project and the impact it had on the latino population across the southwest. His name was william c. Velazquez but everybody knew him as willy. Willy was and is now a name synonymous with democracy in america. Through the organization he founded the southwest Voter Registration education project, he nearly doubled hispanic Voter Registration and dramatically increased the number of latino elected officials in this nation. His appeal to the Hispanic Community was simple, passionate and direct. Su voto es su voz. Your vote is your voice. Particularly in minority communities. The organization was started in 1974 by willie velasquez, william c velasquez. He, from san antonio, from a very abas a very young man he was heavily involved in the Chicano Movement. When he was in college he was one of the founders of mexicanamerican Youth Foundation which was involved in doing Voter Registration drives at local colleges. Also involved in high school walkout. Through the height of the Chicano Movement the beginning of it and the height of it, he was really interested in Voter Registration and getting the Latino Community to vote. To register to vote and to realize that they have a voice. By voting, they have a voice. The motto of separate is ab which means your boat is your voice abyou are vote is your voice. In 1964 willie was able to successfully apply for 503c and the organization became a national nonprofit. Here we have articles of incorporation he would sit down and start calling. You do know that tomorrow is your election day. Eventually the organization expanded to not only covering texas but also all of the southwest. Arizona new mexico california utah, colorado, nevada and they grew to have a fulltime staff they had board of directors and they had a lot going on. They still have a lot going on. There were three main departments, the field organizing department, the Legal Department and the Research Department. The field organizing department focused mainly on Voter Education and training. They hit the pavement not only in san antonio, not only in texas but they came up with a whole system for identifying coordinators in the various regions, different counties all over the southwest and they created very detailed training manuals for how to put together a Voter Registration drive. Everything you need to know. It would start with a field coordinator and here you can see they tell you what do you need to prepare for Voter Registration drive . Its saying, for example you really need to snow your ab you really need to know your state election laws. If you dont know the law, the voting law or the election code, then you dont look as informed as you should be. They are telling these field corn maters, you need to know your stuff and that the whole principal was this organizing campaign is unity you want to get the Community Together you want to organize the community and be united in this effort. So with all of this, the coordinators manual it tells you exactly what you need to do you need to get local politicians on board you need to talk to local churches you need to talk to everyone in the community and say, this is what we are trying to do. Once you have all of that together then they had a program where you could apply for a grant, essentially, you would have to fill out a form that said how you were going to do the drive, how many volunteers you been able to secure, what your budget is, the dates, everything had to be figured out ahead of time. They would send in their application, it would get approved and then they would get the training. So heres the Field Training manual and it tells you everything from sample canvassers, household contact sheets it has information on the media and how to deal with the media and what to say to the media procedures and administration voted dominic voter registries in project and every single thing you need to know to have a successful Voter Registration drive. In these Regional Planning committees the files we have there are just hundreds of them. Hundreds. By the 80s there were organizing on average 100 Voter Registration drives a year. For all of those Regional Planning committees as you can see here we have one from human county in arizona and we just have hundreds and hundreds of these from counties all over the southwest. Whats really cool about this one is that we actually have photographs they sent in photographs when they sent in their information about their registration drive. Whats great about these is that i often get asked for photographs and really considering how large the collection is we dont have that many photographs and ive asked lydia camarillo, the current president about that because shes been involved with the organization for a long time and she said, we were too busy to take photographs. We were too busy organizing and registering voters to take photographs. Its great to see what they were able doing here in somerton elizondo. Some of the Regional Committee reports from the committees have photographs like this but i think this has the most. Heres another example, this one is from Nueces County and ross town texas. Here you can see their reimbursement form for everything they did. Their office supplies, their kickoff rallies, volunteer cause, everything was accounted for. Here we have examples from the Research Department, the Research Department was very prolific, they did a lot of work to collect research, they conducted their own research and they published research for ports. The collection contains a lot of census data, a lot of Election Results data and they conducted exit polls, opinion polls, they were gathering as much data as they could to get these reports out. In 1985 because this was such a huge part of the organization they founded the research arm called absouthwest Border Research institute. We have hundreds and hundreds of reports. Here you can see they would do things like a political and demographic analysis of the 27th congressional district. Him for the hispanic political participation. They were pulling Mexican Americans to find out what are the issues that you face . What are your opinions . What are your voting habits . To really understand how they can reach more Mexican Americans. How they can produce training material and workshops to make Mexican Americans feel like they actually have a voice and that they too can participate in the democratic process. From that this is really influential in how willie got involved with Voter Registration. Sadly in 1988 willie passed away from Kidney Cancer and his funeral was more than a thousand people at his funeral. It was covered on local news, national news, the New York Times had an article about it. Even Michael Dukakis was at his funeral. A lot of National Politicians when they heard the news, they made statements about how important willie was getting minorities involved in the political process. In 1995, president clinton posthumously awarded willie the president ial metal of freedom. Here we have the invitation to mrs. Velasquez for the ceremony awarded him the president ial metal of freedom. The separate collection and separate as an organization is not only important to san antonio not only important to the southwest because they did work all across the southwest not just texas but its important nationally. What they been able to do in terms of increasing Mexican American Voter Registration also have an influence on how many politicians Mexican American politicians we have in office now, they have made a huge impact on getting out the vote to minority communities. It mirrors what san antonio is. On one side its history and culture and a nod to the past and on the other side its look forward to what san antonio has become the diversity and inclusivity. The city was created more than 300 years ago it became a melting pot the germans came in in the mid 1880s they built more breweries at the time. In the pearl brewery, was born of that. The reason they came up with pearl was a german brewer saw in his beer the bubbles going up but said he said it looks like pearls became pearl brewery. Within san antonio all the way to 2001 from the late 1800s to 2001 it got kind of disrepair a little bit and wasnt around anymore and thats been reborn a billionaire named kip saulsberry who wanted to invest in his city came in and revamped this entire place. It represents it represents a commitment to sustainability. When you look at some of the Different Things around here when they tore apart the old brewery and did all the Different Things they could do to build this place up they took a lot of the widgets and gizmos and everything they used to used to make the beer and made it into sculptures. Animated into landers and chandeliers and everything like that. Its a really cool way to look at how san antonio doesnt let anything go to waste. We are about repurchasing and reclaiming what has been history here in the city. Join us the first and third weekend each month as we take book tv and American History tv on the road. To watch videos from any of the cities we visit go to cspan. Org cities tour and follow us on twitter at cspan cities. The cspan cities tour, exploring the american story. Join us the third weekend of each month as we take booktv and American History tv on the road. To watch videos from any of the places we been go to cspan. Org cities tour and follow us on twitter at cspan cities. Up next, the mayor of san antonio provides insight into the citys history and rich heritage. Click san antonio is located in the heart of south texas the gateway to latin america couple hundred miles away from the Mexican Border when you think about san antonio you often think of the World Heritage missions, the elmo is a vital part. We sit on top of the worlds most prolific Single Source aquifer. Which is fueled this community for generations for hundreds of years and really the confluence of waves is why this region was settled in the first place. Today even though we are a virgin to be part of a great urban revitalization that also includes Ecosystem Restoration on the waterway. We just ratified a Climate Action Adaptation Plan that on my first day in office as mayor we chose to declare ourselves into the paris climate accords and ratified that plan a few months ago to help supplement strategies and made compliance with the accords. San antonio is one of the Fastest Growing cities in the country so our challenges and what we are working on is really how to accommodate that growth but also benefit the people who are already here. The latino story is a san antonio story we been able to strengthen ourselves through diversity in the increasingly polarized rhetoric on immigration is a detriment to our country and certainly challenges some of the foundations of our city. The current way that the administration is not handling border issues and immigration and instead for lack of a better term, detaining people, a lot of that pressure has been relieved by dropping detained migrants into our cities with very little notice. Im very proud of the fact that when that started happening here in san antonio we stood up a Migrant Resource Center that brought folks in brought community and to help provide food, provide clothing, provide medical assistance. Provide in many cases transport to where they were going for their asylum hearings. We very much treated them as human beings should be treated, cared for, even while all the crisis was happening, our whole community embrace that, thats the nature of our community. When i say we are welcoming and compassionate place our first question is, how can we help. Thats exactly what you saw with the abhappening lately. We been able to really focus on our ethanour ethos, our values, ensure we continue to be a welcoming city to immigrants, all cities internationally to refugees even while there is such detrimental rhetoric with regard to immigration. Where i see us going is that we continue to build on those roots, those values, but we also grow into ourselves as one of the strongest economies in america. We have all the tools at our disposal to continue to build the san antonio that we can enjoy with high quality of life but also strengthen the emerging industries we see and cybersecurity biosciences and bioengineering. Advanced manufacturing. Artificial intelligence. Technology. All of those emerging industries which we are now aligning two or Higher Education community in our k12 Education System which will create a workforce that is worked to last. But a child can be born here in a familyfriendly environment, find their pathway through the Education System and build a career here that they can accomplish their dreams. Im very excited about san antonio claiming its place on the mantle of one of americas top cities. One of the things everyones always talks about about san antonio over the years. We are legendary for our texmex. One of the great imports in this area was the Culinary Institute of america. His only three in the United States, we have ours in san antonio now and by bringing that in in the latin american influence of that the Culinary Institute really focuses on it has opened up so much in san antonio. Just the options and the diversity not just texmex. We call it tax next because of everything thats happened just in the last two years here in san antonio. Around the city the diversity of Culinary Options has expanded so much but our commitment has always been to that kind of diversity of cuisine we have in town and just a couple years ago unesco gave us a creative city of astronomy, abtucson and san antonio. Its a commitment to the heritage that we have as far as our culinary and how it is an authentic representation of our area and our people and enesco wanted that and designated the city in that regard and we were so proud to have that happen. Our tour of San Antonio Texas continues with a look at latino representation in congress. And latino influence in politics. I think in congress there is some difference or reliance upon the latino members of the Democratic Caucus by the party to sort of assist the party in identifying authentic and accurate positions to represent latino interests. It is such an important constituency for the Democratic Party. The configuration of the party in washington really impacts how much latino representatives can influence the rug legislative agenda and how much they can accomplish in terms of passing legislation. I think that the members of the hispanic caucus have substantial influence within the Democratic Party in terms of how the party thinks about issues that impact latinos, particularly on language, education, and immigration. They were instrumental in establishing what has become the democratic position on immigration. Its a comprehensive program. It focuses on enforcement of labor laws, employer sanctions for hiring undocumented immigrants to put the onus on Immigration Reform on employers rather than more vulnerable immigrant employees and so on. And of course a path to citizenship for undocumented individuals. This is sort of the fun of metal components we now think of as apprehensive Immigration Reform and the democratic position add it was latino representatives who was most influential in shaping that agenda. Under president bush we saw a lot of success in terms of latino representatives sponsoring bills, pushing initiatives really probably that was the latino representation at its most prominent. It sort of took a backseat in the 111 congress when barack obama was elected which was counterintuitive but what you saw is that the party in congress became much more deferential to the president s initiatives that meant constituencies within the majority parties had to take a backseat. The other thing that happened was that the democratic majority in the house grew which meant latino representatives were less essential to keeping democratic control in the house of representatives. The speaker could afford to lose a few more vote and therefore had a little bit freer hand in pursuing the initiatives that she alone thought work priorities for the party so you saw the hispanic caucuss influence weighing a bit and 111th congress. Even though it was still democratic control and we had a democratic president. Weve seen a relatively stable level of support for the Democratic Party among latino constituencies for a long time. Give or take two thirds of latino voters and that seems to be fairly stable. The Republican Party has moved decidedly away from the idea that it needs to begin expanding its appeal beyond its core support, which is white. Thats somewhat surprising because its very contrary to what we saw george w. Bush do as a candidate, somewhat different than what we saw john mccain do as a candidate. I think we saw some changes occurring during the Romney Campaign in 2012 but the Republican Party has decidedly focused away from building a more interethnic constituency. I think that is sort of a setback for latino representation and for our democracy frankly. More broadly because both parties need to be big tent parties and seek to represent everyone. I think there is a reciprocal relationship with the where the hispanic caucus actively seeks nonlatino representatives to bring in to the coalition to help broaden the appeal of their position. When they were pushing immigration were areform they didnt want to push this initiative as a hispanic caucus only initiative. The idea was to try to expand the appeal and the importance of these proposals so that even those who didnt have large hispanic constituencies would recognize maybe this was in their interest too. Within the Democratic Party you see that happening. I think also across party lines there are real efforts and some recognition that achieving real influence for latinos in congress is is gonna happen when the Republican Party recognizes it has a stake on winning hispanic vote too. Once this constituency to the point that both parties are competing for their vote to a greater extent than they are now, we will see greater influence for latino positions when it comes to making decisions about budget and on education issues and immigration. Some of the interviews i conducted with representatives were revealing. One representative when i asked the question what are you considered to be latino interest issues . She said, every issue is a hispanic issue. We have abim paraphrasing, but hispanic interest in education we have unique needs when it comes to healthcare. We have disproportionate reliance upon social security, we have disproportionate service on our armed forces. That makes every issue of interest to latinos. I think really if you are talking about the broader influence on a whole host of issues we are talking about providing perspectives on those issues that may be worked there before with respect to what are the unique needs of this large and rapidly growing constituency. An area of Public Policy that had it really considered the needs of that constituency before. We continue to see these challenges and i think both parties should take these problems seriously because if if anybody doesnt have her dissipate democracy we are falling far short of the aspirations laid out in our founding document. Cspan cities tour includes a look at san antonio with Catherine Clinton to hear about the book confederate statues and memorialization. The American Civil War has had a really grand impact around the world because people look to this nation nearly coming back together having a new birth of freedom and here we are in the 21st century having really quite serious debates. The headlines, the newspapers, a lot of commentary was focusing in on statuary confederate statutes. In peoples deep feeling about the legacy of the civil war, what the civil war meant today and i think students in the classroom and general readers want to know how people feel about these issues. I got interested with a colleague i work with for many years jim downs and we put together a series. We had a panel called history and headlines we got historians to talk about how we wanted to make sure that we were plugged into these larger issues. We put out a book a year on a topic thats a burning issue, certainly the confederate statues and memorialization when we put together a roundtable of scholars in 2017 published in 2019 wanted to really address something that would be contemporary and fresh. We discuss silent sam the statue on the university of North Carolina the protest against it wanted to pull it down. The board of overseers taking a position against removing it more protests to follow and then eventually the sale of it is a really interesting issue. Money being donated for the removal this i know happened paying for direction of the hall when it was determined by the university to move it really essentially later you pay the people who directed it, who named it, for that privilege. We now have the irony hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars being given for united daughters of the confederacy, sons of confederate veterans. The very partisan view that people believe is embodied by some of the statuary. Statuary we discussed was often divided into abthe statues directed to honor the dead. Some that were garage military to remind people of the cause for which they were directed and in our discussions we talked about how could we make people understand that many of the statues were not put up in the wake of the war but they were put up in the 20th century with the rising white nationalism. Some of them were very explicitly directed with signage that very clearly tried to promote a notion of white inferiority and connected to the confederate cause and connect back to the legacy of the American Civil War. I will say that i love participating in the roundtable for confederate statues and memorialization because having these dynamic scholars really going headtohead and toe to toe was really amazing to me. I was quite surprised that mel painter who is very caught up in electoral fever was so much in favor of local control that the public spaces should be controlled by the people in those spaces in those towns in those regions. We are now dealing with the fact that the State Government will pass a law saying that no statues can come down anywhere in the state. Thats not allowed. Which is a blanket kind of tyranny that must be objected to, must be challenged in the courts its not if not elsewhere. The issue is that local municipalities will get into debate. For example, in charlottesville, Gary Gallagher was explaining to us that one statue might be few hundred feet from another and one might be in a county and one might be in a city and yet they were both within the same jurisdiction and therefore there is this debate going on. The idea that each generation would come up with a formula, each generation would come up with an idea about what they wanted to put up in their community. I was very excited about the idea that several artists have proposed i participated in a forum at this speed museum in leuven kentucky. When they proposed a forum looking at the statue issue they had a very large confederate obelisk in front of the museum, which is on the campus of the university of louisville. It has since been removed but the question is, how can we put up something that not honors that absent statue but richmond is known by his monument avenue and many controversies have surrounded i remember well when the statue of arthur ashe went up and the controversy over was it a good thing, was it a bad thing, was it artistic was a political was it historical and i think the best discussion of that was done by the late absolutely great tony horwitz in his book confederates in the attic. When he looked at these questions of how it was debated locally. We have a new statute and equestrian statue with africanamerican mounted and with beautiful precision going up in that city. In our particular town of san antonio we have a statue that was established by the ubc in travis park in the center. It was it was on such a high obelisk i wasnt sure when i came here what was on top of it. The question of the disposition of the statue. When it was taken down, how it was taken down, where the statute is and continues to be a matter of debate here in this town. We also have other great topics to debate like theres a little building downtown called the alamo which a lot of my colleagues work on and we are interested in having new interpretations, richer interpretations of these historical legacies. Im here in texas learning more and more about it. Certainly they are White Supremacists who are now pleading victimhood theyre being eliminated. There is a wide variety of language and disguises for this but i think its important to say that we have an ethic of our society that it is attention we want to quality and we want freedom. Freedom to discriminate against others, freedom to put ourselves above others. Equality of opportunity and as long as the equality of opportunity and speech and employment and a free society is maintained, that i think is very powerful but when we have intimidation, terrorism, and America Today we are fighting a war on terror, we talk about that all the time the headlines, i wish more headlines would address the terrorism domestically because we are dealing with the fact that our society cannot maintain itself if we have people resorting to intimidation, silencing and violence. Twice a month cspan cities tours takes booktv and American History tv on the road to explore the literary life and history of a selected city. Working with our Cable Partners we visit various literary and Historic Sites as we interview local historians, authors, and civic leaders. You can watch any of our past interviews and tours online by going to booktv. Org and selecting cspan cities tour from the series dropped him at the top of the page. Or by visiting cspan. Org cities tour. You can also follow the cspan cities tour on twitter for behindthescenes images and video from our visits. The handle is cspan cities. See all the book tv and cspan products available. Tonight on book tv in prime time Jonathan Horn former speechwriter for president george w. Bush provides a history of George Washingtons final years. 720 abroad long discusses her journey from prison to her work to reform juvenile sentencing guidelines. David kilcullen former counter insurance urgency advisor to general David Pretorius looks at Hostile Forces have adapted to americas military tactics. New york times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer chronicles the first year of the largest class of women ever elected to congress. And the Audio Publishers Association presents the 2020 audio awards recognizing distinction and audiobooks and spoken word entertainment. That all begins tonight at 7 00 p. M. Eastern, find more information on booktv. Org or your program guide. As regular viewers of booktv know all of the major book festivals this spring have been canceled due to the