Childhood in ohio at the 17th annual National Book festival in washington, d. C. Good afternoon. Thank you for coming out. My name is travis cohen, am a bookseller and in charge of the bookll a club. Im going to do quick housekeeping and we can jump in. Please silence your cell phones, we are also going to be recording video and audio also when it comes time to the q a portion, we have a mic right here, and the aisle, we ask that you speak clearly into innkeeper question to a question. And then following everything, we have all the books on sale behind the cash registers sir. We ask that you keep your trees in place. Also, we host a lot of events this year or every year end if a you need any help keeping track of those, we have the calendars of the info desk and check our website. We have to do the overtime. We cant person to another. We have the pleasure of matthew algeo, he is an awardwinning journalist and all things considered, marketplace, he has wrote many books on the adventure and the president is a sick man amongt them, he is hee to discuss his new book, all this marvelous potential. The story tells the kennedys tour starting in midfebruary, lesson from us before his assassination. They have recast the midcentury story of appalachian life and to generate the world as it became, myself having lived near cumberland h for years has seen how it resonates with the population there. But even readers will familiar with economic withdrawal will find much discovered and everyone please join me in welcoming matthew algeo. [applause] thank you. Thank you travis. How is everybody feeling. Doing this with a handshake. It is great to be a politics and prose again. I said it before, this is like Madison Square garden, travis was mentioning some of my earlier books, i kind of like how this fits into theke previos books i have done. But a little background about myself is in order, it was good to let people know the person who wrote the book. The person who you will be giving your money to hopefully. I grew up in a town about 30 miles north of philadelphia, is an indian word means were nuts were cracked. I went to college at the university of pennsylvania in philadelphia and majored in folklore. I got that going for me. And after i graduated, i could not find any working for clor f, my parents were surprise, so iki started working in public radio. It was kind of the place where folklore people went at the time. I worked at a few stations in seattle, minnesota, st. Louis, i met my wife in st. Louis and 97, we were married in 98 and in 0 five she was hired by the state department and joined the foreign service. So since then, ive been able to write these books because my wife has a real job. And the string of nonbest selling books is giving me something to do while we are overseas, quick plugs for my earlier books, first book was last Team Standing. Thank you. A big fan, the 1943 merger of the steelers in the eagles became the steagalls because the nfl was so short of players, they had to merge two teams so the quarterback is blinded one i and the running back has ulcers and somehow they arent the last Team Standing. The publisher insisted calling the book last Team Standing but dont worry about that. It is a good book. The next one is Harry Trumans excellent adventure which retrace the road trip that they took in the summer of 53 after they left t the white house, ths is before expresident had pensions or secret service protection. So they got in their chrysler and drove from independence missouri to the east coast to visit their daughter Margaret Andrew back again and its a sweet book, harriet and her were staying in hotels and eating at diners in his speaks to an era, i dont think expresident now are basically midsize corporations under themselves. When truman left office, he was the last president to return to something resembling a normal life. It was a lot of fun to do the story. Real quickly, the president was a sick man about this secret operational cancerous tumor from his mouth. How are these not best sellers. Pedestrian is in, the history of competitive walking in the 1880s, the most popular spectator sport was a sixday walking race. Okay, okay. Widely acknowledged as the greatest biography ever written of lincolns dog. Lincoln plus dog, comeog on. What do i have to do. We will see about all this marvelous potential. And how well that fits into the scheme of things. Youre probably aware donald trump is president and people were surprise when he was elected and they looked at the numbers and theyoo were especially surprised over the overwhelming majority he picked up at a lot of counties inp appalachia and people started writing about this and i thought that was interesting i wonder how that happened, i knew about the kennedy trip just as a piece of political trivia that Robert Kennedy and 68 had gone on one of his famous poverty tours in Eastern Kentucky. At the time he was not officially a candidate but was considering running against Lyndon Johnson in the democratic primary. So it was an Effective Campaign stop, it had all the trappings of the Campaign Trip with the Photo Opportunities in the hearings in the speeches. And i just thought it was interesting that Robert Kennedy in 1968 as a liberal can go to Eastern Kentucky and campaign and then 50 years later you see donald trump winning the counties with 60 or 70 of the vote. I thought i should write a book about that but everybody else thought the same thing so this ended up being a little bit different and focuses on the trip itself, we dont get into the analysis of why things have changed. I think i look at more how things have changed, deleted up to the leader to decide. Whether they are for better or for worse, but they are for worse. I went down to kentucky, i began researching the book in 2017 and i grope in philadelphia or outside of philadelphia so i have a lot of biased attached to, tohi the story of appalachia and also the 1960s, my idea of 1960s ridgewood stock in the chicago convention, san francisco, you dont really think of kentucky when you think of the 60s, at least i did not where i came from. But the 60s happened in kentucky a lot, theres a lot of crazy things going on and in Eastern Kentucky. Thanks to do with environmentalism and poverty. And it really surprised me and i thought maybe that is a way to approach the story to look at what the 60s were like in Eastern Kentucky. Just by way of background before the rfk trip in 1960 it was an importantbr primary for john f. Kennedy to win and he was the Campaign Manager and this was the first time jack and bobby were exposed to american poverty up close and is stuck with both of them. There is a funny story from the 1960 campaign in West Virginia where an old coalminer came up to jack kennedy and said is it true youve never worked a day in your life and jack kennedy said there is some truth to that in the coalminer said, dont worry, you have not missed ad damn thing. [laughter] so kennedy really was enamored with the people in West Virginia and the people in appalachia and they always stayed with him. In july of 63 harry who was a writer wrote a a book and it was really an expose on the exportation of the people in Eastern Kentucky by the Coal Companies in the majorct corporations in the u. S. And a reporter for the New York Times wrote about poverty in Eastern Kentucky. I think jack kennedy has seen both of these and they made quite an impression and he made plans to go to Eastern Kentucky to see how the planes were themselves and that trip was scheduled for december of 1963. So that never took place. However, after his assassination, lbjsacr, got upd for the antipoverty campaigns, and the januarys state of the Union Address stated the war on poverty. In august of 64, seven months later the Economic Opportunity act was passed creating the office of Economic Opportunity or oto which is the agency that oversaw the war on Poverty Programs. There were so many programs, it takes a page in the book to list allus the programs but somewhere headstart, medicare was something that came out of the School Lunch Program. So rfk when he went to Eastern Kentucky in january 68 had a few reasons to go. I think it was still on the back of his mind that his brother had wanted to visit Eastern Kentucky in december of 63 and he never made it. He wanted to gauge the success on the world of poverty. And of Economic Opportunity was coming up, so he wanted to see what progress had been made on the warren property. It just was not an africanamerican or native american problem or a mexican problem, it was an american problem. It affected every community andb every community in the problem. Especially the white people and he thought it was important to show that to the country. The trip itself was two days, he held hearings in one room schoolhouse and then at a gymnasium in a town called neon, a high school gymnasium. As i was reading the book, i thought it was more interesting, Robert Kennedy, a lot of books have been written about Robert Kennedy, larry tie wrote an excellent biography and he gave me a blurb which is the most important thing. And i did not want to write a book about Robert Kennedy in her biography of him as much of explaining away he did on the trip and the people he met and the issues he faced and try to put them into a context in what was happening in the 60s. And what is happening today. Also to show what changes have the 60s and what changes happen. Just a few of the issues that he discussed, one was stripmining, at the time there was a system, i dont know why they called it the broad form deed but these were deeds that people have signed over to the mineral rights to the property, often 5e deeds gave companies the right to stripmining and strip William Nicole was on and the companies were not required to repair the land or required to do anything to fix the damage so people would see Coal Companies, it was very environmentally disastrous, iter stripped hillsides in the hollows would flood every spring. Not to mention explicated as industry land because they got no benefit from the coal that was taken out. I think Something Like a trillion dollars were of coal has been extracted from Eastern Kentucky and not much of that money made it back. Ot another issue that was pressing at the time was the concept of maximum feasible participation. The Economic Opportunity act provided the people most affected by theset programs, por people would be given maximum, feasible participation in deciding how the money would be spent and what the money would be spent on, where the money would be spent. So just as an example, there was a grassroots Citizen Committee that was organized that got a 40000 grant from the federal government to build new roads. This was a committee that had been formed by unemployed minors in the counties and it seemed like a really fantastic thing that they were able to getan ths money but who do you think did not like the fact that the federal government sent the money directly to grassroots citins committees, the state and county politicians were used to having the money go to them first and then they went inside and got to spend it. When the money started going to local politicians and for a lot of people who were opposed on poverty and the opportunity act, i think the Economic Opportunity act was something that was a fantastic idea but in a way planted a seed of its own demise and the act that it triggered such a backlash among the political interest, this was not only an kentucky but everywhere that this money went. Of course 1968 the president ial campaign was heating up at the time, Lyndon Johnson had not withdrawn from the campaign, that was march and bobby would announce his candidacy until march. So we are about six weeks before Robert Kennedy announces his candidacy. But like i said earlier, it had a camping trip and i have pictures in the book, Kennedy Kennedys aides did not expect the crowd and pressed to accompany the senator on this trip, you would see the long caravans of cars following him and he would stop somewhere and going to house and talk to somebody and he would be done and onto the next house before the caravan finished pulling up to the house, it was kind of funny how much attention they got. Although i was surprised to learn that the networks did not archive nightly newscast until august of 1968. When the Democratic Convention came. There would be a newscast if someone thought it was important to say for one reason or another but the Network Newscast from kennedys trip i was not able to find and they did not archive the newscast at the time, a whole host of issues, food stamp is a fascinating issue that i learned about in this book. Mainly because people had to pay forr food stamps which i had not appreciated but when the Food Stamp Program began, you paid for a certain denomination of stamps in addition to that you were given free stamps so you would pay 10 and get 15 worth of food stamps, the fee was determined by a number of factors, the size of your family, the income, that kind of thing but it could be a fairly big price, kennedy, one of the people we talk to on the trip at one of the healings was an unemployed minor who spent 72 a month for 94 in foo food stamp. He had to pay 72 to get 22 in food stamps. 72 another minor was a guy kristen quick bird johnson, a father of 15 whose monthly income was 60, he paid 26 a month for 112 a month leaving just 34 for all of their expenses, at the hearing he said the kennedy, have you ever seen 15 kids and three beds and Robert Kennedy said im heading in that direction. He had ten kids at the time. And after the trip, one thing that came out of this is that eventually the purchase requirementte was lifted althouh it did not take effect until the food stamp act of 1977 and that did not take effect until juneui ray 1979 when the purchase requirement was ended and participation in the Food Stamp Program one up 1. 5 million in one month. It made a big difference in a lot of peoples lives just by lifting the purchase requirement. It was interesting to find that food stamps are a Welfare Program for the hungry and also a Welfare Program for walmart because about 4 off walmarts sales come from food stamps. Its always interesting to see walmart, how they come down on legislation, that makes it harder for people to get food stamps because it cuts into their revenue. Of course after rfk, the assassination of juneau 68, Richard Nixon was elected president and he had to appoint someone to oversee the office of Economic Opportunity, to see the war on poverty, republicans for the most part heated the war on poverty and hated the programs so this put nixon in a tough spot, who would he find to do this job that nobody wants. He found a congressman from illinois a guy named donald, he took over the office of Economic Opportunity and one of his first hires was young ambitious congressional intern from wyoming, a guy named cheney. So in 1981 the office of Economic Opportunity was finally abolished altogether. So we can give them credit for ending one more and that was the war on poverty. But too soon . Just a couple of statistics, poverty was reduced in 1959 it was 22 , that is pretty crazy. Its like dont make me do the math, one and four, one and five, in 1973 it was 11 , cut in half in the space of 14 years, when you look at a act and a chart of where poverty was headed from 1959 1973 it is just straight down, but since 1973 when the effect of putting the world poverty took effect it is held steady at about 11 15 since then. In some ways the war on poverty wasnk success in other ways it s not. Id be happy to take any questions if anybody has them, you can step up to the microphone. Somebody has to have a question. Thank you for the talk i look forward to reading yourr book. My question is, i want to know if you can speak more about the decline of poverty. I work in Montgomery County where the Patient Population of pinsured adults, the criteria to get in is to be below 250 of the federal poverty level, of course that is the same across the United States even though the cost of living is not the same across the United States. When it went from 22 11 can you give us context of where the numbers came from. I talk about this in the book in excruciating but fascinating detail, how you determine poverty, this is a huge thing when kennedy came in in 61 and said what we do about poverty and he wanted to know the number and people said we do not know the number. In the department of agriculture was a woman who came up with a formula for determining what the poverty line was and basically the usda im giving you a longwinded answer but she took the figures for nutrition of family of four and she figured out out and came up with this number. That formula has basically been unchanged now for 60 years. And the problem is, at the time it was very cheap and food was expensive. Now you have the opposite, food is cheap and housing is expensive. If you made any changes to the poverty line would immediately put millions of people, technically into poverty, no politician wants to do that so they do not want to change that so you have the things with the criteria keeps going, 250 , why dont we move the poverty line and makes it more fluid by metropolitan regions and things like that. I think the problem that it is so politically difficult to come up with a comprehensive and uptodate formula for exact determining theres just not a political will to do that. Ibody wants to touch it. With the war in vietnam and the young men out in the appellations and the other poor areas of the country, how does he deal sometimes the military was only way o out. And yet, how did he convey the fact that this was an unjust war, that is to not participate in yet the military was often the only way out for these young and often these young men coming from the regions would be on the frontline, more likely to be killed or injured. When kennedy came out, it was the month of before with the swamp speech in chicago where he had unequivocally come out against expanding the war in vietnam. In support for the war in appalachia was strong however, i think there was a lot of people opposed to the ways being managed. And they saw their sons in Eastern Kentucky were dying at a higher rate than any other region in the country, West Virginia had the high specialty rate of any state in the vietnam war and the counties of Eastern Kentucky were considered their own state, it would have a higherav rate, appalachians m going to see appalachian boys, their men were considered especially good at walking point because they were familiar with mountain terrain and fantastic marksman and they were familiar with living in a rough environment, they could live rough for a long period ofs tim. I think it was 8 of the combat veteran and soldiers of vietnam were from appalachia,a, but 13 f the medal of honor recipients were from appalachia. Its a pretty big disparity. To answer yourur question, it ws ambivalence in appalachia at the time, young people unequivocally oppose the war, their parents were. More to support the work but certainly did not like seeing their children go off in fighting and die in such proportion. What is known about the Health Effects of the war on poverty. It must be something that must be studied but i dont know anything about it for sure. You mean in terms a health at any age. One fascinating thing and i have not even mention some of the people that i met on this who are searching the book, just amazing people but the war on Poverty Program is the creation of Community Health clinics. They were founded 50 years ago and Eastern Kentucky that are the primary Health Care Providers for communities there. I would say statistically i dont know off the top of my head but the incident of childhood diseases which are still prevalent into the early 60s, when he wrote his article in the october of 63 talked about the number of cases of child malnutrition that were documented there and that decrease, the School Lunch Program helped immensely. This was a meal that they had every day that had not had before, even though they had political problems trying to get those implemented. A lot of School Districts were basically what people ran and they did not like people coming in telling them what to do even if that meant offering free lunches, many of the schools that did not have the facilities to cook lunches. They did not have indoor plumbing. So there were a lot of hurdles to tackle but overall as far as public health, the effect was positive. Thinks. Thankk you. You mentioned the people that youu met, i wondered if you head any reflections of kennedys trip. This was the one that ive done that was most recent to happening, is not very well worded but it was only 50 years earlier or less than that, there was a lot of people that were still rather had not met kennedy. I mentioned a few gate everywhere, the names, everybody has the same name so it took a little work to track people down but a lot of people have memories of the trip itself and i think it was interesting to look at the impact it had on people to this day, they got very emotional talking about meeting Robert Kennedy and one of the people i talked to was a woman who had gone with her sister to see kennedy at the high school in neon and she had written on a piece of paper and excuse slip and had kennedy sign it so she could get excused from school which was a good thing because they do not want the children to attend. They do not think Bobby Kennedy was a positive influence on the children of the time. So yes it was a lot of fun finding people who remember the trip and firsthand memory. One was the university of kentucky law student and a friend of carl perkins who was a congressman from Eastern Kentucky. One of the reasons he went to Eastern Kentucky he was going to go to South Carolina but hollings was running for reelection at the time and he was like bobby, maybe not, South Carolina, reelection, and kennedy said okay and hollings supported the legislation. He went to kentucky because there was a senator up for reelection and the congressman was carl perkins and he held a job like the pope and he had until he died which is exactly what happened. And he was a sla law student who would come and help carl perkins in his office. He finagled a ride in the car with kennedy. So when the state trooper that drove kennedy, carl perkins and Steve Caywood at kentucky law student. Of course it had a huge effect on steves life and he basically has worked environmental on Poverty Issues sincesu then. I dont even know if i entered your question. You. Good answer. Probably of the enduring narrative of 1968 president ial campaign and the ability of Robert Kennedy to talk to and gain the support of africanamericans as workingclass, all your preparation and all your research and background, did you find traces of that, wit would u uphold that particular theory. Yes, absolutely. One of the quotes i have in the book, i will not go through but there was a quote from a reporter who asked the voter in indiana, do you support Bobby Kennedy and he said yeah, he said you dont like negroes around here very much do you and he said no we dont like negroes, he said kennedy wants to improve life for the negro, why do you support him and he said i dont know i just do. A lot of them supported him he was attorneyra general and he ce from the background of law and order and people saw him off being balanced in the interest of communities with law and order. But the other thing that was interesting, and 64, George Wallace ran as the democratic president ial candidate in the primary and indiana got Something Like 24 26 of the vote running the straight out. Four years later, kennedy ran in indiana and won the primary with 47 of the vote. Clearly some who voted for George Wallace it also voted for Bobby Kennedy and 68. By the way i go into George Wallace because i think kennedy and wallace were competing for the same voters in appalachia and George Wallace was a piece of work. [laughter] so at the time and 68 when he was campaigning he cant run for reelection, he elected governor of alabama and her lien when she had her third child and 61 or 62, the doctor saw some suspicious tissue but told george you need to get this checked out. Cancerous. Andy has cervical cancer, but george was running for reelection at the time did not want to deal withun that. So it was not until late 67 that she was finally formally diagnosed with cancer and died in march or april of 68 and of course wallace was runningng for president and his three kids went to relatives. Not a nice man. But it was fascinating George Wallace and Bobby Kennedy, there was definitely overlap in their constituencies. I would support that, i grew up in pennsylvania and i was 18 years old in 1968. I had friends and acquaintances and people who thought George Wallace or Bobby Kennedy without any hesitation. And then wanda voted for ronald reagan. How did that work out for them. Thank you. Thank you. No more questions. Very good. Thank you all for coming out. I get they the most important thing to take away from this is to remember to buy the book. [laughter] thank you. We will have a signing at this table. You can leave your church where they are. Thank you very much. Thanks again. [inaudible conversations] weeknights we are featuring book tv programs showcasing whats available every weekend on cspan2. Thursday books on technology and innovation would begin with john browns make, think imagine engineering the future of civilization followed by lorien pratt, how it connects data, o actions and outcomes for a better world. Then gary marcus on his book rebooting a. I. , building Artificial Intelligence that we can trust. Book tv, this week and every weekend on cspan2. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago but our Mission Continues to provide an unfiltered view of government, already this year we brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process in the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch all of the Public Affairs programming on television, online or listen on every radio app and be part of the National Conversation through cspan daily washing told program. Or through our social media feed, cspan created by private industry, as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Up next on the tv, cassie chambers tells the story of her grandmother, on and mother who grow up in poverty into kentuckys appellation mountains, after that jd describes his childhood in a town in ohio with the memoir hillbill
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