Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth In Depth Highlights 20240713

That was a man who was employed by the tulsa tribune and he in turn employed me, didnt employ any young black newsboys. I was employed by mister ripitso, it always and always clear what that was. In the afternoon, he was throwing newspapers and i helped him, wrapped them and prepared for the delivery and then went around with him to deliver the newspapers and i didnt collect, he collected the money and he had all the contact with the newspaper. I had no contacts with the newspaper though they knew that i was in front, they employed no black people. Host your father was a lawyer . Guest my father was a lawyer, yes. I contacted people through him, but it was not a serious thing. Host where were you born . Guest in oklahoma south of tulsa, the name of the village was rentersville, oklahoma. My father and mother moved there in 191112 because he had experiences in shreveport, louisiana, these were not pleasant and he moved to an allblack town because of the way they treated him injuries report, louisiana where he was practicing and went to an allblack town, at least he wouldnt have the humiliation experienced in shreveport so they moved in 1912. Host what was that experience like . Guest not much better. It was the strife that was going on, separated the methodists from the baptists, and the results was the strike was not racial but religious, was not convenient or comfortable and after a while i was born there, they were not happy not only because of the hostility but it was such a Small Community that it was not practicable for a lawyer to pursue his profession there so my father moved to tulsa, oklahoma, to the end of school, my mother was teaching and rentersville and we were to move on to tulsa at the end of the school year and would be put back together so to speak. Host the tulsa riot happened in 1921. Guest we were about to move to tulsa. We were all packed, sitting on the back, to come and get it and on the train where he made arrangements to secure the house. We waited for him and he never came. Absent radio or television or telephone or any communication we didnt know what happened and finally my mother read in the newspaper that there was a race riot in tulsa and there were many casualties increasing anxiety and apprehension even more, where he was really living or dead. It was 10 days later, got a brief letter from him saying he was all right, he was unharmed, everything he acquired, the house he acquired was burned to the ground and he had been in detention for those days and couldnt get in touch, he didnt know when he would be there and it would be sometime to see us, for a train ride to rentersville and what was more important was that was an opportunity to make contact with aggrieved victims of a riot in the Insurance Companies on behalf of his new clients and that kept him busy, he was practicing law in a tent, anything to do was practice in a tent. What sparked that riot . A young black man accused of assaulting, sexually assaulting a young white girl on an elevator, and he had been a credit but the White Community thought justice had not been served and he should be taught a lesson that all the white people felt all the blacks should be taught a lesson. He had been in jail and accused of this crime, the white people said they would get him out of jail and commit the kind of harm to him that would teach all the black people a lesson so the black Community Felt he would be seized and lynched, they went to the courthouse armed, about to take him and give him protection and they were assured nothing would happen to him and they should go back to that part of town which they were willing to do but as they retreated from the courthouse, someone fired a gun but the rest was history. Host welcome to in depth, our host is john hope franklin, coauthor of 17 books, wellknown for his seminal book from slavery to freedom. His most recent is his autobiography near to america. Heres the cover of it. We will take your calls in a few minutes. You can see the numbers on your screen, 202 is the area code for all our numbers, 737000 one is a number for you to call. If you live in the mountain of pacific time zones, 7370002 and booktv cspan. Org is our email address, heres a picture of your mother, molly franklin. What did she do . She was a graduate of the university and she taught in elementary school, first in spring, oklahoma and tulsa, rentersville where i was born and shortly after i was born within three years she took charge of me and took me to school every day, and she told me to be quiet and i was quiet and she felt i would be scratching on the paper and she was teaching the children, she had the alphabet on the board, that was more interesting than anything i could do, when she was going through to see what children were doing she came back to see what i was doing, alphabets and letters and simple sentences and she was astounded to learn i am not certain, it was at that time i learned to read and write and from that point on. How rare was it to be africanamerican in 1950 and have two parents who were College Graduates . I dont know. It was fairly rare. Africanamerican colleges and universities that were founded during the reconstruction period throughout southern states, in the last part of the Nineteenth Century, still supported schools after plessy versus ferguson, the law that brought a end to whatever move was made in the direction of white and black being together, this changed things entirely and states began to establish schools, colleges for africanamericans in the last decade of the Nineteenth Century and so by that time you got some state schools, schools established by religious denominations and american missionary association, some were fairly good. Many of them were inferior. You didnt have large numbers and it was rather remarkable and you had an interesting point, it bears on what happened many decades later and more young black women were going to college than young black men. Men could send for themselves but one black girls could not fend for themselves in a world that was primarily a white world and they could become the victims, of white activity and exploitation or whatever and much more care was taken educating black women and this is a trend that would continue for many decades so there was never a time in the history of africanamericans when black men were exposed to education or Higher Education as young black women. Your grandparents were slaves . My grandparents were slaves. My grandfather and grandmother on my mothers side were slaves, tennessee, my grandmother and grandfather on my dads side were slaves in mississippi and they were transported to the india territory where my grandfather as a young man grew up and married my grandmother and then became a rancher, the indian territory in the state of oklahoma. I had been going there for many years, i was teaching in 1959 at the university of hawaii and i came back from brooklyn when i was living in brooklyn teaching there and came back. Then i built in brooklyn, it started then and a listener who the bartender called growing orchids, with a larger greenhouse. Then i came to durham in 1980 and built my first substantial hobby greenhouse and that was my dream greenhouse, anything larger than 17 feet wide, 24 feet long, this is up here. These are all orchids. Many getting ready to bloom. I have orchids blooming all the time. Nonstop. It is really remarkable. It blooms all the time and i enjoy it so much. Words you acquire these orchids . Sometimes a permit from the department of agriculture some from brazil, in southeast asia, caribbean, all over. What you didnt see yesterday. I brought this from bombay in 1976. Host taking care of that for 30 years. As a matter of fact i propagate this not by any Scientific Method but this is how they start. What i brought from bombay, india in 1976. This is sean burke, getting ready to send out this little fellow will grow up to these and the mayor of baltimore when i was a, it is not blooming now, it is radio cavalier, john hope franklin. These orchids over here are named for my wife, mendenhall, they were developed by a place in South Carolina and they were very friendly, when they passed away, wanted to do something in her memory, they did that. Is important for historian to have a hobby like this . Guest very important. Orchid growing is challenging. You learn a lot, a person who did not have a scientific or botanical backgrounds, enthralled, always interested in growing things. This was continuation of that too. We are looking at highlights from the monthly call in program in depth. In september of 2000, joined by his wife and frequent coauthor rose freeman. It is hard to count books. You write columns, they are collected in a book. You write more columns and another that may overlap the other. Is that a new book . It is hard to count books. Free to choose, when you have. The paper book i have. It was a bestselling Nonfiction Book of the year in 1980. Is it still on the market . Still on the market and available. How many languages has it been translated into . I have forgotten, Something Like 20. That was published in 1962. It is over half 1 million copies, when it was first published, it was not reviewed. The tribune was a major paper, the only review was in the technical economic journals. It was in defense of capitalism in defense of free market and thats not a popular topic at that time. Heres a book that only been a couple years. My wife and my memoirs. On the the same age you are. Doesnt know exactly her age. And i dont know what it is. She used to refer to it as poland, came to the United States just before world war i as a child. It was burned up in the First World War when it was held in that town in east europe went up in flames. When i read it right it is not going to read the New York Times. When we were in new york and in new york, in general i have found it is too wordy for my purposes. Dont have time enough to read. If im going to read it i have to read it. Im not sympathetic with the general editorial position. In your lifetime what other authors had an impact on you . It was frederick hayek. We talked about that. We talked about that on book notes. Did you know him . Very well. I knew him, i first met him in 1946 and didnt know him until he died. Why was that book so important . When i say hayek influenced me . And helps organize thoughts. The way society is organized, what was special about a free society, what about prerequisites for free society . I was sympathetic to those ideas. Hayek was a deep thinker, if you read him you cant read him, without having basic ideas altered. And i live to the age of i think 90, that would have taken him to 1986. Who have you most disagreed with when it came to the subject matter . That is a hard question to ask. To pick a single name from that. The people who influenced me was not just are good books. And arthur burns, for the Federal Reserve system, he was my mentor for much of my life my teachers in chicago, did undergraduate work, they had a great influence. In your book, two lucky people, your autobiography, the whole discussion about the nobel prize in 1976, took a number of years to get it early. How did that what impact did that have on you . Not much of an impact. What impact did it have once you got it . It was not on me but on the publicity and the letters, and the requests you get. And it made me much more visible and available. For the last two hours, rose freeman, your husband had all the say. It usually does. I heard it all. Never liked to talk very much. Your pictures i had an equal role and most everything i have done by what i had in writing. And i refuse to be on the Television Program. I was careful to say i did a lot of the planning. Nothing was done in advance. Do you have any reason why you dont like the speaking part . I dont like to compete. He speaks well and has done it all his life so why should i convey that . I asked kim why it has done that. We never competed with one another. What about economics in your life . I was trained fine. When we got married to my idea of getting married at least at the beginning was different from what people feel about getting married. I did not intend to have a career that is equal to my husbands and that was one of the sources of success. Where did your family come from . From russia when we were in a, somewhere not in russia anymore, and he had no ties to that part of the world. In portland, oregon. How did your parents get there and what circumstances . My father came before we did. He came to the United States twice. Here and enough money to the rest of us. You went to read college. Why did you transfer . My brother was the was responsible for my complete education. He wanted me to go with him to chicago when he first went there. 2,000 a year, my father thought i was too young and wouldnt let me leave. By that time, my brother persuaded her that i was old enough and he was going to be there and went to chicago. Host remember the first time . Guest i do. It was at the university. You have heard this story so many times probably. Arranged the class alphabetically to identify people once we saw it a few times. We sat next to one another and i complete that story, the only girl in the class. Was that what you found in other classes in chicago . Mostly in economics. This was graduate school. In the 30s very few women went to graduate school. You told me before we went on the air that you completed your work for your doctor but why not . I worked on it, also had a job. I didnt get a great deal done. We moved from one place to another. One year in wisconsin. When youre in washington. One year in new york. I forgot what the sequence was and i decided, we decided we wanted to have a family. That took a long time. Lost the first one. That was one year of my life. Then went to washington and went to work again and quit with the hopes to produce a child. Went to berkeley, she decided then she was never going to leave california and she never has, she graduated from berkeley, got her degree there, and we were not there yet. Someone we had on book notes. The university of chicago. The university of santa clara. We will go to the phones very shortly and guests on the special in depth program, doctor Milton Friedman and his wife, rose freeman, on the cover of free to choose, your most successful. Moneywise. What do you remember about working on this . That was very easy. We had Television Program notes and the book was written from that. We started with one chapter and handed it to the other person to go over the chapter and went back and forth that way as we dont know who wrote which words which is true of all the books we have written. That was probably the shortest time, wanted to have it out. The Television Program was shown. We started in march of 1979. They were published in january when the tv program started. What does he do that you dont . There isnt. We both used the computer now. Before we take our first call. They move around as well as anybody else. We are bouncing around, there are many things i cant do today that i used to be able to do, dont have the energy i used to have. So doing that is no fun. We 16 cspan would you do anything different we . If you knew you were going to live this long would you have done anything differently . I think we would live more extravagantly. We were always saving up and my brother used to say saving our pennies for a rainy day that never came. I was saving. Cspan and living in a perpetual drizzle. You disagree with your husband on economic period anyway . Very rarely. On rare occasions. Cspan did you agree in the beginning . Thats right. We learned from the same teachers. We grew up in the same kind of home and there was no reason once you go one way or the other way. Caller hello, doctor friedman. Cspan which doctor friedman . Caller either of them. I have a question about someone knowledgeable about the situation for a long time. Seems to me with all this push for a minimum wage that that is going to automatically lead to galloping inflation. I havent heard anyone comment on this. What do you think . The question is whether the minimum wage will lead to galloping inflation. If you raise it. I dont think it will lead to galloping inflation but it will lead to a lot of unemployment. Cspan why . People who are hiring these people dont feel they can pay them more and therefore they would reduce their employees. Cspan there is a sense that they are going to pass an increase, republicans and democrats was why go along with this . Republicans are going along with everything these days. They will go along with it because it is superficially the problem with these things is on the surface things look very good and what is wrong with raising the minimum wage . It is nice for people to have a higher minimum wage. The indirect effects which are unseen more than counterbalance the good affect. If you raise the price whether it is sugar, automobiles, with the higher the price the less people will buy. How would that lead to inflation . There is an element of truth in what this gentleman is saying. If you raise the minimum wage too much, it would be great pressure to do about unemployment. What would that pressure lead to . Inflation as a way of reducing the real value of minimum wage. Ask about why they agree to a minimum wage increase over two years, part of the reason they will agree to it is it isnt really a raise. It is a raise in nominal terms but prices have been going up, havent had much inflation, 3 , 4 , 5 inflation the past few years, 6. 15, about the same level of real minimum wage was two years ago. In place of a live call in program we opened our archives to present highlights from our monthly Author Interview program in depth. Heres a look at the late studs terkel, the peel was a prizewinning author and journalist who appeared in april of 2000 want to discuss his work. How many have you interviewed over the years . Thousands. For 45 years, a Classical Music station, 45 years, 5 days a week, writers, actors, neighborhood activists, thousands, and the historical society. A distinguished fellow. Thousands of tapes, 9, 10,000, including citing regular broadcasts. Host you are quoted as saying i have given voice to the voices of those we never here. Guest a remarkable man who died recently, i did what he did when he was alive in london. Einstein is celebrating, so is josh argot bore. No meaning to the celebrity, and the ordinary people, i just like the word ordinary, they are capable of extraordinary things. The depression, world war ii, a matter of race and aging and so in a sense voice to the voiceless. My model was a contemporary of Charles Dickens whose name was henry mayhew, a prototype, slovenly, this guy captured the voices of people, well behaved children, the chambermaid, was astonished at what they found out. When alex haley wrote roots, and speaking to oral historians. Or god help us, the computer. What i am doing is ancient except i have a tape recorder. Only one other guy was enamored aside from me and that was richard nixon. I described next and as neocartesian. I hope our purpose is somewhat different. I try to give voice to romanticize to the voiceless. Where the right . Where do you write . Guest i write and i dont write. A typewriter is as far as i go. A tremendous advanced for me. Most of my letters are written longhand but mentioned computer to me. Where else can i freeze my martini glass. And i have i will ask steve for a question. This doesnt do any good. It is not quite as informed yet. We are flying without a net. How does somebody born lewis, and his name is lily, and it is got me in trouble once. The book working, there was a fireman in the book, wonderful, tommy patrick. They were talking in colorful idioms and so this, a letter i got from a librarian in georgia, the life of a librarian is not too exciting, when you wrote the book working, one of my people was a spy, wt of Jerry Falwell and looked for dirty words, this cooper, a request has come from a book. We dont carry pornographic literature. It is called working studs and that is when i wrote a bestseller and that got me in trouble. Host born in new york. Guest born in new york came at the age of 8, wonderful taylor and linda some money and then later on my father tried to run a hotel and the room in the house in the hotel in my university, the university of chicago, dont know why i did, i dreamed of and tendons scalia but one or 2. Host why didnt you like law school . Guest i wasnt cut out clarence darrow, the partnership drove me crazy. It is a series of accidents. A Civil Servant for a time in washington making 12. 60 a year, the second lowest, became an actor by accident, i became a gangster. Guiding light about a nurse, same script, getting killed, no tenure. Many jobs like radical college professors. As a result, one thing led to another. I play classical jazz, take off on operas, and a racetrack, carmen, not too wisely but too often. I plan an aria, and mix things up. One thing led to another. Finally i wound up on this radio station. You should do this more often. Interview people and eavesdropping, actually conversations and the magazine or the station, my publisher, the new press called me one day and got an idea for a book and that is where it began. Host what was stoods place . Guest how can i describe it . About a neighborhood restaurant run by me, myself, stood is my name and a wonderful actress named beverly younger played the waitress and there was a handyman. A good leader, singer, thought he would play this and without realizing all aspects of american life, they thought there was someone would say to me, humans what happens to the place. That was it. It ran for a short time and i got in trouble because my cockney days came along. Antijim crow, antipoll tax, price control, rent control. I signed all these petitions, you are valuable property. I like that phrase, just like falling off a log and i say but use signs all these petitions, folks come against cancer, must they come out for cancer in people laugh when i sell them that, not very funny and i didnt say you were duped and to this day, they dont know what i was talking about i was scared and my ego was at stake, my vanity did and i lost a job and got to the station as a result and i was a disc jockey and whether it was not somewhat true, she says i must be the host of her program on cbs radio and she insisted and i got a couple events in new york and i dont sign those things and she would say she knew about me and my big mouth, you got such a big mouth, you fired him, tell mister biggs to find another mayor in jackson, he disappeared, he vanished. Host how old are you . Guest the year the titanic saying, in a may 16th i will be 88. The titanic went down jimmy carter said who said life was fair . Host you were 45 when this book came out giant of jazz. Guest that was early, 1957. That is not part of a series of history. And john cole train. The duke of course. Then ten years, 1965 or so. Host lets go back to the jazz book. Jazz is the music of multitudes, so famous for so many years, these musicians have been playing and singing jazz, millions hearing it, it only happened here in the us. Guest jazz, remember, ken burns, many flaws and omissions. The origins are africanamerican as well, basically it was an expression, connected spirituals with work songs and code songs. It was improvisation using whatever means you can, enslaved our free, and aspect of jazz, i love blues, the greatest of all Country Blues singers, speak of muddy waters. And it was around my bed, ate my breakfast and my bread. Host what was the feeling . Guest not at the gate, these were all definitions. Host the vision to Treat America started in 1967. Guest that was the big one. That was Andre Schipper the only one i had. They were brought by a billionaire who thought they would sell and he was forced out. You know what . It was during the time of the civil rights movement, time of the cybernetics revolution. He published a book about a chinese village. Because of the revolution. In an american village, are you out of your mind . Some of these got some sort of claim from critics and the depression in the Great American depression so i did that book and that is how it began. Host our guests is studs terkel who will be joining us for the next 2 hours and 12 minutes. If you live in the eastern and central time zone, those in the mountain and pacific time zones 2027370002. You talk about this book hard times and in the book you write about an invisible scar during the depression. The invisible scar, invisible scar, survivors having certain quirks, wherever i go, always turn out light. Is a group i was interviewing that. He was a college kid but they speak Straight Talk and they get the lights on going downstairs to eat. And the lights going, tv set going. And first as a good bar, and they gather things, and and these are quirks, mostly security, the big scar is one of keeping quiet. And you were told you never had it so good. And not finding a job to be on relief. 1929 it began in 29, that october day in 1929, 1929 i was 17 years old, questions, we worship the free market. It is our new religion. Too much fake government, too much big government, those who were most condemned today. I was talking to a guy like alan greenspan. To truman and kennedy, i dont know what happened, guys jumped out windows, tickertape going on and waited for an announcement and new deal, you forgot all that and the purpose of all these books was to recall history from the bottom up. Dont know what happened 50 years ago with ties to world war ii with ties to everything so in a sense that was my reason to do this stuff. A look at highlights from the monthly Author Interview program in depth continues with weight journalist and author Christopher Hitchens. And we talked about his writing and habits. That is how old he is in wyoming. The gentlemens apartment building. This apartment which wraps around the top floor was originally built with this wonderful flooring that you can see, rolling around his own occupation and the great extension of this apartment was it was used by Clint Eastwood to film absolute power, one of his less good movies in the state house because the president ial motorcade, some were central, and they decided all these wars were covered with knockoff paintings with treasures at the national gallery, i was really hoping the producer would keep them and take them all away. My hood could be described, it sounds pricey but that was the other side, diplomatic buildings and residents, pretty costly and if you break to the right, madames organ for the Latin Quarter so diplomacy on one side, guatemalan music, ethiopian restaurants and on the other side, several bookstores, cafes. What you see behind me is a confluence of washington dc on the south artery that runs from the white house to maryland across massachusetts with radio access, california street, this is on the morgan district. I am told there is an apartment in this building by the National Security industry in the days of the Old Soviet Union and you see it behind me in the russian compound and what you see in the woods in the naval observatory, the grounds of which you see the british embassy, the extreme west end, a good reminder of our small size of the district of columbia and in the middle on his horse is general mcclellan, lincolns worst general, appeared to have no use for it and probably later as a proslavery democrat, he is pointing south, confederates would have been that way. A little reminder of our history. A typical riding day begins with i tend to work late at night and this has been successful. May not have gone to bed until 3 00 until noon. It would be like this, to inhale some coffee, forcing myself to have anticholesterol sources. Before lunch time i wouldnt get much done instead answering emails and fending off accumulators. What i usually do when reading by myself. Testing against other writers, that is what horrifies one has a writer. With all their books, so i know i have, every single word to the bbc. Most of that, james joyce, it seems almost blasphemous. Salman rushdie, ian mccarron, all of what they have written. The life of a job, and public speaking which we can also do. It is also what i am, who i am and theres nothing else i can do. I chose this, it shows me. Host this is one of your recent books, god is not great, how religion poisons everything but when you look for your body of work, religion or atheism permeates. My check on mother teresa, her misspent life, has a lot to do with our First Amendment and religious freedom. Another one, the rights of man. His other great work, most important of all, what William Blake called the things we reviewed on ourselves particularly natural. Was thomas dean and atheist . Night it was mister jefferson. He may have privately been an atheist but they profess deism which is the view there may have been the first chorus creator. Order and rhythm routine, before einstein. And advances the view, and didnt claim to know his mind. Host who was jean watts. Guest jean watts was my nature in scripture teacher until i was 12. The boarding school in devonshire and with education and the views of the nation. She would change scripture as literal truth more or less. And one day she oversteps a vaulting ambition to refuse her two roles and it was largely green and we have noticed. The excellent thing and proof of the glory of god, orange or red that really clash, the most restful, how very decent of god it was to put flowers in the grass. I said in my little corner, didnt know anything about chlorophyll. Or evelyn king about evolution or dna. And and that is the vegetation. And it was the only one to find is as we get older. The sunday morning conversation. Where you raised in the church . What about your parents . My father was a refugee, very strict baptist family, very to radical patriarchal father. I remembered my wealth. My mother was from a jewish family, what is now where they left it and didnt want to be affirmatively jewish and succeeded in doing so. Nothing was inflicted on that. Host when did you become that person . Guest 33 . And mister jeffersons birthday. Host why . Guest y that they . Host why did you become that . Guest i declined shortly after the attack in december of 2009, not very long after. I made up my mind to do so and the arguments of classes especially certain european forces, came to identify with them as adoption and as a gesture of solidarity that i take out of the papers that i have done. Do you miss them . In a way and they are doing much more of it. Going somewhere else, i never regretted leaving since i was quite young i had a strong impulse. You are well known as a smoker. A 5 hour flight a long time for you . Of funny thing, a stupid habit. I dont really need it. It doesnt bother me now. It doesnt bother me now, a glass of sherry on lunch time. Another one of your books, y orwell metals. Who was he . George orwell was in grossman born in 1983, what would have been the centennial. He made it the second half of the twentieth century, died in january of 1958, best known in 1984. What else was he, not with any money or capital, father had been in the opm business. And before deciding imperialism was disgraceful and from then on identified with the victims of the british system that came for a while with lowwage medium workers, when fascism came he went to spain and volunteered to fight with a leftist militia opposed to the communist party and got shot in the throat by the fascists and communists, out of these experiences, out of all the writers of the twentieth century, when the big three issues were fascism, communism and imperialism, orwell was the only one to analyze all three, with no more resources and integrity and intellectual honesty could bring, without a steady publisher or a proper outlet, suppressed or published. So p is my exemplary case of a single individual with a bit of nerve in a very short life. Host if he were alive today who would he be writing for . Guest you can to a certain point, people do, reputation for integrity and questions, having them on your side. It was not relevant to ask anymore because he would be more than 100. Host i want to show the other books Christopher Hitchens has written, the postal liberation of iraq, rather short book about iraq, a pamphlet. The trial of Henry Kissinger. Do people want to talk about Henry Kissinger . Guest absolutely they do and they should. He is still around. If it is true it might explain something, how badly things were going and paul brehmer, the first proconsul was a member, kissinger himself wrote in the washington post, a majority country, and rather important state. Host speaking of guest the malign influence. The cspan booktv bus traveled the country and book fairs and bookstores and often times we ask people if they have a question for our guest. One gentleman we spoke to had a question for you about iraq. This is from garden city, idaho outside boise. My question for mister hitchens is you were a strong supporter of the iraq war when it began and before hand. Could you tell me how you feel it if you regret at all the role you played in getting support from president bush and tony blair to do this war . I regret more not having argued earlier, particularly in 1991 my view was rather different, moving others and that. It would have an quest on the war which i think we should. And what went wrong and how statecraft failed us in 2003 in 1991, the socalled realists with trends another faction around the president himself. 12 years of sanctions and the degeneration of society and what we now see. Another topic in your books of the clintons, this is the same book that came out with two titles, no one left to lie to, the values of the worst family and hardback, no one left to lie to for triangulations of William Jefferson clinton. The pink one is a later expanded edition. There is an extra chapter, why she is back on the cover. And one which i havent been able to finish in time, wasnt sure i could ever finish about the very important and never discussed question of whether the woman who reported being raped by mister clinton, the only book you can read the discusses this question, i talked to three women who dont know chelsea and i would say when i was assured of that, so that is the difference. This is booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. We are showing you some authors who appeared on our regular call in program in depth. Toni morrison Toni Morrison was our guest in 2001, one of the few novelists to appear on the program. She discusses her book, reads from her Pulitzer Prize winning book 11 and describes what it was like to win the nobel prize in literature. A long, long time from my grandfather being born. He was 5 years old when the emancipation proclamation right . And he was framed because he kept hearing the adults say it is coming. He thought it was a monster so he crawled under the bed and they had to explain it to him. And became aware of the circumstances under which they lived, the difficulty my parents had as a young couple and a kind of miraculous thing in my generation. I knew i wanted to go to college. I was not my mother was not interested in my getting married. She didnt think it was necessarily the ultimate goal of a womans life or rather she thought it wouldnt come too soon. So they told me listen, we dont have enough for you to get a full College Education but we had enough for one year and i said that is all i wanted, just one year. That is the way i went off and convinced that i could reap survive financially for one year in 1949, 50. I was able to work and do the first. And that is how it was. How do you finance the rest of your education . I had a temporary job in washington where i was an undergraduate and in my mother got a job and she took a job at night, women in the ladies room, collect tips and she made 15 a week, 5 a night and host did that in ohio . How did chloe crawford, your birthdate, become Toni Morrison . Guest some vanity. I love the name. Children couldnt pronounce it. Some adults refuse to pronounce it and they called me cl oh or other things and my family because my sister and i were so close in age, they called us something else. I didnt have separate syllables. I got away to howard, i used the name tony which is the short form of saint anthony. Most people knew me as Tony Crawford and subsequently my cousins name morrison. Host you married and became a mother. Were you writing at this point in your life . Guest i think i was. I didnt call myself a writer. I was interested in the work of some local people in washington, faculty members, they had a group of writers, i was invited to attend and i brought with me some sort of frail Little Things i worked on as a young person and one of them is a little story i had to write fresh, wouldnt let me come. And used it later. Host it was called . Guest bluish guy. Host i would like to show it to the audience. Would you explain how this book made it to print . Guest i wrote the story for the club. My baby, my oldest son, i remember him spitting up. Orange juice. I tell the story. I wrote around it. I had a good time, some tea light and that was it. Later on several years later when i was in another place, i began to work it up and around 12 or 14 publishers before somebody was interested enough to take it. Host who said yes . Guest alans infar who was at holt, rinehart and winston. Host to your the letter or the phone call that said yes guest it was a phone call. So many phone calls, i wish i could take this book but i dont think they will. I will try. That is what i remember. Then someone sitting at my desk in random house. A phone call said yes. Host the point of view of your artistry if one were to read this book, and your latest most recent novel paradise, what would you find different about your style, your approach . Guest for me the striking thing is that people who wrote the blue side, that quality that exists in paradise also, that is very important to me, to have a style immediately. Not to develop one. How to seduce a reader faster, how to challenge a reader, how to open up the world, how to manipulate but what i am pleased about that i didnt know until the second book but i surely do have a recognizable style. If i took one page out of it i think i would know it was me. Host you tell the story, a quick synopsis of beloved. Guest a story based on a historical figure of a black woman who killed her children were trapped her when she was a fugitive and did not want to respond to slavery. Beloved is about her life as imagined by me, significantly altered by the return of what she believes to be the daughter she killed. Host we pick it up when the fugitive slave act is about to be enforced with the picking up of a group of people by the sheriff and others. Guest the sheriff turned and said you better go on, your business is over. Mine is starting now. Schoolteacher beat his hat against his side and spit and the nephew and the catcher backed out with him. They didnt look at the woman in the pepper plant, but the flower in her hat, the faces that edged closer in spite of the rifle warning. Bigger eyes for now, opened in sawdust, staring between what held her face so her head wouldnt fall off, little baby i, to cry in the arms of the old and the arms of the old knicker whose eyes were slivers looking down at his feet but the worst one were those of the woman who looked like she didnt have any since the whites disappeared and as black as their skin. She looked blonde. They unhitched from the schoolteachers horse, to carry the fugitive woman back where she belonged. Then with the sun over their heads, leaving the sheriff behind. All testimony to the results of a little socalled freedom imposed on people who needed every pair of intelligence in the world to keep them from the cannibal life they preferred. You chose an interesting one. My efforts to think the way committed slaveholders think, the naturalness of their contempt, the effortlessness of their belief in their superiority to these people. Coming in the book at a moment after the reader has been in the lives, categorized, that way, but these characters are so familiar and intimately portrayed, this i was hoping, the section that i read. Not just the events of the slaughter but the way at this point they are looked at. You try to imagine all of those things and that works for me. Can you tell me how and when you learned of the nobel prize . Phone rang, friend of mine was on the phone. A woman who was instrumental to bringing me to princeton, simmons, she said on the phone and said you won, i said, won what, the nobel prize for literature and i thought instantly that she couldnt know anything that i didnt know about something as important as that. I said who told you that. I really did dismiss it and remote and never crossed my mind and it was not anything that i ever thought about. And my presence so i was totally unimpressed with what she had to say. I went to work and to my class. Well, i guess its true. It was out there. It wasnt really in my head and also i had not heard from the academy. They didnt say i had won. I asked them to send when they finally called at 12 00 or 1 00 oclock in the afternoon i send me a fax. I want to see it in writing. That had to be incredible to share with your mother. It was wonderful. Im so glad she was still alive. She didnt fully understand the level of the prize but she knew it was important so she got to enjoy it. She was too sick for that. How did you use the opportunity . To deliver speech and lecture that they want literary writers, scientific papers. I thought i would try very hard to give a speech that did in that what the subject was which was the value of the narrative that it is the major form in which we acquire knowledge. We set it up as a narrative. There are other forms symboland musical and way in which we absorb knowledge and remain intelligent and the stories we tell, the invention of them is learning process and intellectual process. I wanted to say how valuable literature was. I didnt want to just say that so i made up a story once upon a time and i used an old story that every culture has about the blind woman or man, was a bird, was the bird living or dead and the old person said, i dont know to the young Person Holding the bird but its in your hands and i wanted to use the situation of that encounter between the old, the wise, the blind, and the young and give the young agency to really talk back to old person and said what are you ticking us, have of them debate and argue and come to the same place. What was it like standing in front of the academy and all the people in the room accepting the price . Well, you know, i was the only woman. I told them they have to give me more time or give women more time if they will give prize out to women because not only do you have to write a speech thats worthy but something to wear. The men come in tux. Rent a tux. If youre like me it took for ever. So very representational. I felt american, i felt writerly, i felt like an ohioan. I took all of these responsibilities of representation on and i felt like the first black woman. I felt all of that which was really serious but at the same time it was kind of protection so i wouldnt have to shoulder it all as me. You know, i could redistribute myself out there a little bit and for me living in the moment, happens after the moment. Its only upon reflection, much later that i knew what i felt and what i felt was so happy thrilled, joyous, delight, there was no fault to modesty. I didnt sort of say oh, i really enjoyed it, it was the most Glorious Party with the most generous people in the world, so it was it was as good as it gets. And youre watching book tv on cspan2. In place of our regular live callin program, we are showing you highlights of previous authors who have appeared in indepth, we conclude with the late novelist and historian shelby foot when inviting us to his home in memphis tennessee in 2001. Our guests on indepth novelist and historian shelby foot. When did you move into this house and how much writing was done from here . All three volumes were written in memphis. We lived down in bluff overlooking the river for the first volume and moved when i wrote the second volume and memphis for the third volume. How long have you lived there . Since 66. How much what room are we standing in and how much of the house played in how you write and how you think . Ive never been able to write away from home. I dont write while im traveling or anything else. I have a great admiration for writers who could write at any time, anywhere. If i take off 2 days, takes me 4 days to get back to work and i have to be at my own desk. Where are we in your house . Well, this is a sitting room and work room here. The bedroom beyond. Most of us got to know you in 1990, 11 episodes, where were those interviews done . They were done on this couch here. Sitting right here in this room. What impact did that series have in your life . Tremendous impact. I had not realized the enormous power of television until that time not only to sell books but people think theyve been in their homes. They will call you by your first home and very nice to have you in the house last week and its kind of strange and somewhat startling. We will chat for 3 hours and audience will get involved but for someone who has never seen you before, how much in your life have you written . You mean how long have i been writing . How many, how many books . The civil war is a million and a half words and the rest of my writing is about that same amount so ive written over 2 million words. How many books total . Ive had 6 novels and 3 volumes in the civil war and recently some things ive been doing for Modern Library like steven crane, favorites of mine. We opened up that youre from greenville, mississippi. How long did you live in mississippi . Until i moved here. School in the army i was always in greenville for the first 40 years of my life. What impact did mississippi have on you . A great impact. One thing that happened. I know everybody thinks they had either the worst possible childhood or the best possible childhood. I was in a raised mississippi delta, greenville, population then about 15,000 which meant that every child in that town between ages of says 3 and 17 was in that school so you lived the rest of your schools with people you went to school with and i got to know every type of person that there could be and a town that size one of your best friends president of the bank and your best friend can be almost anything and takes you to know anything. You get to know all kinds of people and know them well. How far was mississippi . Mississippi is about 14 miles south of here. Memphis is the capital of mississippi, delta. I found something on the web that i want to share with you. Im not going to get the students name, might be tad embarrassing. A student i believe from Austin State University in tennessee. Have you heard about this . No. She read an introduction or biography about you, the last line of the opening, foote is a tremendous writer who served in the civil war and his writings come from personal experiences. [laughter] im glad she got that impression. Thats the impression i wanted to write. Thats the way things should be written as if you were living in that time. Its what causes an awful lot of misunderstanding trying to apply different set of standards to different nation really. All right, how many books do you think in this house . Books this way, books this way, books that way. Id be guessing, id say around 8,000 books. Whats on the shelf, one of your favorites . Well, i have a particular reason for having a favorite. They are all my favorites but up on next to top shelf there, thats the new york edition of henry james. It belonged to walker pricey, on a ride over there on the shelf on the top is shakespeare and agreed each one of us died first he would leave walker, walker would leave me the james or i would leave the shakespeare and he lost the contest and i won it, thats walkers. He told his wife to make sure i got it. He died in 1990. The shakespeare over there, did you read all of that . Many times i guess. Shakespeare. You cant read too much shakespeare . Why . Because the language of the skill, the language itself. Shakespeare. Shakespeare is outside any calculation and you put those off to themselves and talk about the other people. We will go in your next room in here, what is it . Im sorry . That room, what is it . Thats my work room. Ever has since i moved in. I had the desk built and the shelves built in. Since 1967 . 66. Lets go in here and see what we can find in here. Go ahead. When you were writing did you sleep in this room . Seldom. Sometimes when i was very anxious to get up in a hurry and i was working hard i would sleep here. Right behind in the bed life behind you . Ive never seen it that way before. I get the impression, so very strange to see it all together there. Whats the first one over here, the merchant of bristle . The first thing i published. The friend of mine at the newspaper in greenville, we ran a type machine and he did that for me. I bought the paper and people put it together and signed and number. There were i think 260 copies and i charged a dollar and a half a piece of them and the town was serious how i put a high price for junky little thing. Now tournament was your first novel. First novel. I started the first two years i decided id had enough college and it was time for me to come home because i knew the war was coming. This is 38 or 9. I joined the Mississippi National guard and waiting to be mobilized i wrote. They read it and wrote to me and said they like it very much but they didnt think it would sell and i would do best if i write my next novel and theyd be happy to see that but they thought this was would give me a bad name with book sellers so i put it away in a drawer and i came back from the war 25 years later and i got it out and revised it and published. The main message in the book . How he chose and a mans rise and fall without being able to answer that question. He was not interested in the answers of the questions. I feel the same way. How long do you think youve been in your its hard to say. I dont know how to put time, how do you mean, though . Do you feel alone . I think that each others alone, being alone is something that being alone is a good thing but breaking out of it is something else. We are alone in strange times. Youre most alone there and most alone during and middle of a racket of a noise. Very strange business when you start examining how man is alone. And just a few months ago you had battle with cancer, colon cancer, what was that like . You take medical things as they come and you leave it up to doctors to do about it and you do what the doctor says. Ive had all kind of medical things since ive turned 65. I had one of the first balloon bypass things. And you take it, thats the hand you drew at the time and you leave it up to the doctor and thank you god i had real good doctors or i wouldnt be here. I wouldnt be here if they hadnt developed medicine as far as they have in the last years. How does it feel to be that stage in. It amazes me. You still write . Yeah, of course. I will stop when they put me down but nearly all of my friends are dead. My closest friend walker price has been dead for 11 years. Hard to believe but thats the way it goes. You take it as it comes and some form. And youre married to gwen, how long have you been marry today her . 25 years in september. What does that seem like . I cant imagine being married to someone for 25 years. Amazing. The one thing i want you to talk about before interviews is whats over here on the shelf. Talking about time. I remembered some things past. My mother gave me volume for 17th birthday and every time ive earned the right to do it i quit everything and reread. Ive done it when i wrote. The ninth reading, 1993. So youve read this book, 3,000 pages . Yeah. 9 times . Why . Two reasons. One is pure enjoyment. First one of the most that ever lived and second he can teach you something. A writer can learn and we were talking about shakespeare earlier. What is it about the written word that youre attracted to people or separates television. I really think the written word is what defines us as superior creature to all the other creatures on earth. One of them is not only animal that knows he will die some day and knowing that he has the obligation of whatever time he has and making and learning about the world, learning about the past and present to look into the future by reading. Tell our audience just joining us shelby foote will be another 2 hours and 45. We will give you a chance to ask him about anything, including all of the writer hes done. What else are your favorite things in this room . Thats a very large question. We will talk about all of that over there when we get into your seat over there. We have the music over here. We have the music over here. Jane austin. You read it all . Oh, yeah. And over and over again. What i appreciate more about reading and reading. Im a writer, its my craft and when you reread a book especially by a real good writer you enjoy seeing how he goes about getting ways because you know where hes going when youre reading, you see him prepared for whats coming and the skill with which he does that is instruct i have to a writer. When you read, whats the second . I talk to people about the reading. I do not see a scene when i read. I read words and punctuation. A lot of people tell me that when they read its like they look at characters, like a movie. Do they so some extent but mostly on the way he uses words. I remember any somewhere about you that become at the university of North Carolina in chapel hill you got lost in 9 stories of stacks in the library . I didnt get lost information very much happy to be there. I would get in the cubicle and to me the university is a library and i spent more time in the library than i did anywhere, classroom, no matter, it was the library. I was fascinated. Not only was shakespeare there but all the books of shakespeare there. Im crazy about Classical Music in every sense and big fan of the blues. Robert johnson especially and smith and great many others. We talked one time many years ago that when you listen to music you dont read . No. I can listen to music while im going to sleep but its a distraction. I cant put up with it if im trying to read. I cant do both things at once. Before we sit down. I dont know if this is going to work. Lets go quickly through the process here. Follow me novel written what year . It came out in 1950. This came out in 49. 51, 52, 54 and 55, i think. One of the characters is from my home place. We go up to next level here and we have the 3 volume set of the civil war right. All nonfiction . Right. You read 250 books to get ready to write that . I had about 300 books that i actually wrote with right over my desk. I didnt go to libraries and i did not go to original material in the department. I wrote from the printed words, but the civil war is so widely written about that you dont need to go back to the original documents. They have been gone over. And these are just a few of the over 200 authors that have appeared on indepth. You can watch any of the programs featured over the past 2 hours in their entirety on our website, booktv. Org, just click on indepth tap and search for the author that youd like to see. According to New York Times, topping the list is glen and doyles memo untamed. The splendid and the vile, study of Winston Churchills leadership and growing up in the idaho mountains and her introduction to formal education at age 17. Her mexico or educated memoir educated has been on bestseller for 2 years. Former first lady michelles biography becoming. Wrapping up our look at Nonfiction Books according to New York Times the house of kennedy, bestselling authors James Patterson and journalist cynthias on lives of the kennedy. Some have appeared on book tv. You can watch them online at booktv. Org. The president s from Public Affairs available now in paperback and ebook. Presents biographies of every president organized by the rank ing, nations chief executives and leadership style. Visit our website cspan. Org the president s. Order your copy today wherever books or ebooks are sold. And here is a quick look at tonights prime time lineup, discusses using Artificial Intelligence to read nonverbal cues and law professors richard and edward fooley on how to reform the 2020 and future u. S. Elections. The jay Anthony Lucas book prize recognizing excellence. And her introduction to formal education at age 17. We highlight programs on archives on race in america features authors like kennedy. You can find more information on your Program Guide or at booktv. Org. Hi, welcome and thank you for everyone welcoming us from portugal, scotland, australia, south africa and all around the world. Im Naomi Murakawa and im moderating the conversation. I want to thank the operationer and sponsor haymarket books. Im proud that the inaugural publication for the series is