The myth is the central symbol around which what some people call american exceptionalism has been organized around the frontier that meant on the myth and the land the Frontier West came to symbolize a certain attribute to identity that think about the United States unlike other nations has the ability and the election read to use expansion that was built into well before the frontier in the late 19th century became the symbol of expansion the social experience to move one is foundational to us identity. No other nation has been so able to organize domestic politics through the actual reality of expansion and then increasingly the mythology to point to the frontier and respond to social problems with limitless and endless growth in these were the foundational premise of the United States and the founding fathers. And those only for the declaration of independence wasnt just add natural right that the condition of all natural rights. And what is his saxon ancestors to escape germany and consolidating to the british isles. And then to escape tyranny jefferson argued that made American Freedom possible other theorist and franklin understood the importance of expansion to avoid a lot of problems associated with republican theory at the time how to maintain virtue and how to avoid a concentration of political power and extremism while James Madison famously federalist number ten how you avoid factionalism and extremism and now what we would call class warfare he didnt call at that time that concentrated economic power and indebted populist and the small republic how the interest of those two groups could come into conflict but the way you avoid the extremism that might result from private property is to move west i am not whitewashing that experience in any way there is always an enormous amount of violence and ethnic cleansing along with that indigenous removal expanding slavery west across the continent but there is still a way in which those expansion and those in particular that becomes central to the book and to hold up the frontier is more than a place and is a continent for a boundary your political border and it becomes that existential creation the place in which in the 1893 said that civilization with a certain Political Freedom and equality associated with the United States was founded and forged in the point of the book and this is all a way to answer the question into layout that argument of the book the impetus when donald trump descended on the escalator to announce his presidency on june 15, 2016 and promised to build the great wall the main tension in the book the myth of the frontier symbolizing moving into the future a limitlessness with domestic politics through the promise of endless growth that all could rise up and sit at the table there is room enough for that idealism and optimism that has said to structure american exceptionalism and to supplant the frontier. With the frontiers symbolizes limitlessness. And thats not enough everybody. When the frontier symbolized moving into the future and with the militarism and the border watch Groups Associated to emerge in the 2000s and shape the public debate about immigration and we can talk about how they took over the Republican Party to the point they catapulted donald trump to the presidency. And the innovating past where the recent lost wars and battles could be fought with the accumulated historical grievances. And as the border wall it became clear the ball of that what people called reese realism. And then to dominate public debate understanding trump as completely foreign and alien to the American Experience it of unprecedented interruption and a long history of expansion of the promise of liberalism and then extremism in the past stayed on the margins that emerged out of nowhere. And that combination of a long history of the colonial vibrant violence. And with that brutalism and extremism involved in history founded on child slavery and the way we get out of that opposition is by thinking about expansion and what happened recently that has allowed movement such as trump is him to move from the margins to take public power and the argument of the book to the early cant limits and to no longer use the promise of endless growth for domestic politics with the moral and strategic catastrophe that the war entails. And in recovery. And with that social immobility and it is Climate Change and endless growth is no longer possible. So the argument is trump is a ms. What happens when the empire ends and the law has supplanted as the central symbol of American History. To set of the terms of the book amazing to represent not only the literal space but the strategy clearly and that immigration and expansion to the us is based on exclusion or removal. And that is what it has been founded on so we would love to go into detail through expansion and through brutal expansion, want to touch on Andrew Jackson and how did jackson change that crack. I think and to represent the coastal correlation and with John Quincy Adams and jackson represented the interest of the frontier to a large degree and a frontier lawyer and key to opening up and in many ways at first run founding president say imagine the United States moving west and fulfilling itself out and they took steps with the Louisiana Purchase that brought a quantity of acreage into the United States possession that was unfathomable. And John Quincy Adams the most humane president believed the country where reach the pacific. They couldnt figure out how to make it happen or the capacity to remove native americans they have some calls and responsibility of the all out assault of native American Communities event jefferson issued instructions into predatory debt. There is a way the desire for expansion didnt match the capacity. He represents the sweeping away of the qualms. John quincy adams loses the presidency to jackson and becomes a one term president that is increasingly radicalized by the jacksonians. He wasnt opposed to expansion and then opposed to launching a violent all out war. And then through texas and mexicanamerican war. And Andrew Jackson all those that came later. And then to rip the nation apart would harden the nation into two opposing camps which it did. Free versus slave. And that only thing the essential identity and the racial violence on the frontier. And then to go into it in detail it is remarkable. And that is unsparing in the condemnation and what that portends and that would lead to that annexation. That are you ready for all of these wars . And that it would hollow out the larger republican vision he imagined into law and commerce. Jackson is key to this and it is also key to solidify that jacksonian consensus of the small state. That other liberal states in the world didnt socialize and become more active with their understanding of political rights. The revolution of 1848 in europe lead to a social Democratic Politics and are recognizing one a reckoning. And then the drive to the pacific thats the way that the question is constantly deflecte deflected. And the jacksonian consensus is key to this and the idea that it is a minimal state. The only proper definition is freedom from restraint and from individual rights not eventually what become social rates. So the jacksonian consensus founded on indian removal, not once but across the continent and that notion lysed freedom and then you cannot separate that out. The entire western hemisphere came to be inhabited by people inhabited by a somewhere else most willingly one grade exception those that came in bondage but unwilling to settle for those conditions in which they were born john by the prospect of a new beginning the space to pursue they ambitions the way the world did not permit its a very powerful world hope has both the secular materials as well as spiritual ones all of these meanings had existed and still exist in abundance in america. Nothing about america better defines the character of ubiquity of hell. And that we can never settle for that. And that above all else and as quality which cannot be adequately accounted for in material terms. And to be a land of hope sometimes that is a land of disappointment. And this is unavoidable to have high ideals. So sometimes what they have done. We should not be surprised by this just as we should not be surprised to discover our heroes were deeply flawed human beings. All human beings are flawed as are all human enterprises. To believe otherwise is to be naive. And americans hope is far too persistent and compelling a force to be defeated by passing sentiment. And then the theme of the story america has a story. And we organize around stories of the social existence. And the chief way to find meaning in the intensification of the human need and impulse. And to have a fuller sense of the book and each dealing with an issue or event especially important but yet problematic and the single most sensitive subject in the presentation of American History and our nations past that is one of balance insisting the importance of slavery without exaggerating the enduring significance. And then to imagine it was uniquely american institution. And the United States did not create slavery or racism or racial prejudice. These evils are as old as history. The default position of human nature absent from strong countervailing moral force. And having a history touch by these evils and having participated in them is a country that has a larger history of which it can be proud to overcome such things. And then to deal with the problem decisively at the time of the countrys beginning. And then to become national ems in the economy despite the existence to the nations commitment to equality in selfrule as expressed in the declaration of independence. And with that how is it that we hear the liberty of drivers among negroes . And with that exemplary managed with thomas jefferson. I practice so contradictory for all they stood for. There is no easy answer to such questions. And that each of us is born into a world we did not make. And also at great cost and those moral sensibilities are not static and develop deep and over time and its very slow part of that history is the training of the imagination and then acting in their own times and then learning to see the heroes and the mixture admirable and on admirable qualities. People like us who may be constrained by circumstances beyond control. And then certainly a most unavoidable and that original compromise and with increasing the numbers of americans especially in one part of the union and that and date on this ubiquitous institution not merely as the unfortunate evil and the impediment to Human Progress the stain upon the nation and with that moral sensibility the transformation taking place but not yet completed the very years the United States was formed. It would be profoundly wrong to contend as some do founded on slavery. No. Other principles entirely of liberty in selfrule discovered and designed and refined and enshrined to the tempering efforts of turbulent centuries of european and british and American History. And then the eventual bloodshed. But that is not the product of the conception of the untroubled differently on delivery is few things are. And the publication of the New York Times and with that slavery and the project we are told well be producing and distributing materials for use to promote that idea. Absent the countervailing argument and the part of the education of American Students is teaching slavery as part of the enduring makeup of dna and that metaphor that they use. And is pernicious but i related wisdom of the statesmen may be less obvious precisely because only the leader is in a position to understand all the essential forces in play being a great leader requires courage and imagination and daring especially when the outcome seems doubtful and the public leans in a different direction or is simply afraid. It may mean courting the displeasure of the multitudes accepting unpopularity as a result the book contains many examples but lets take the case of lincoln we are so accustomed to think of lincoln and heroic terms we forget the depth and breadth of his unpopularity virtually for his entire time and office. A first rate second rate man. George mcclellan opponent in 1864 election openly sustained, meaning problem. Election year lincoln was convinced it was good reason he was doomed to lose that election with incalculable consequences for the effort and all he had done all sacrificed to that end. We need to remember this is generally how history happens. This is directed toward the young people but i think all of us can benefit from this. We need to remember this is generally how history happens. Its not like a hollywood movie in which the background music swells and clouds in the room applies and leapt to their feet as the timeless words and camera pans the room full of smiling faces. In real history, background music does not spell. Critics often louder than the applause. The leader or soldier has to wonder, is he acting in vain . Are the criticisms of others, in fact, true . What time judge him harshly . With his sacrifice count for nothing . Two great leaders have felt this burden more comprehensively than lincoln. I do this a lot with other states in times of stress the cap people to appreciate. Let me also suggest something from the land of hope relates the story of the end of the civil war april 1865 in a way that might hold lessons for our other countrymen today who seem to regard the american past with contempt. Heres how i describe the scene in the book is a somewhat longer passage april 9, after funeral resistance range to be in the courthouse, surrender his army. He could not surrender for the whole confederacy but the surrender of his army would trigger the surrender of all others so represented the end of the confederate cause. It was a scene dignified and restrained and sad, a terrible storm raged and finally exhausted itself, leaving behind strange and reverent home, purged of all passion. The two men have known one another in the mexican war and have not seen one in nearly 20 years. The right first wearing his advocate dress uniform, soon to be joined by mud spattered hope in his muddy boots. They showed one another courtesy grant the officers to keep their sidearms and men keep their horses and take them home for spring planting. None arrested or charged with treason. Four days later when please army of 28000 men marched and sprinted the arms of palace, general Joshua Chamberlain of maine, hero of gettysburg was present at the ceremony. He wrote the observation reflected on his soldierly respect for the men before him each passing by and stacking him arms. Only days before had been his mortal post. Before us proud humiliations to the embodiment of manhunt. Men who neither toiled in sufferings from the fact of death not disaster or hopelessness been from their resolve. Standing before us now in one in famished. Looking level into arms, pounding us together is no other bond. Such manhood to be welcomed back into a union so tested and assured . On our part, not a sound of trumpet more drum, not a cheer, not a word more respect for authority. No emotional man standing against the owner. Stillness and Breath Holding as if it were the passing of the dead. Thats chamberlains observations. In my account from there. Such deep sympathy and victory heavily tinged with sadness and grief and death, this war and remains to this day americas bloodiest conflict, generated at least 1 million and a half casualties combined, including 620,000 or some estimate for more than that, thats equivalent of 6 million men in todays american population. Just going to work never return home. One and 13 returned home with one or more missing claims. For decades to come in every village and town the land from one could see men bearing such scars in population, mainly reminder the price others have paid. Yet, temperaments words suggested there might be room in the days and years ahead spirit of conciliation. Spirit that lincoln called for in his second inaugural speech. Spirit of finding a wound, of caring for the many afflicted and moving ahead together. He was a center of hope from yet a home Worth Holding and nourishing. Worth pursuing. We all know it didnt turn out that way. Thanks, in large part john fuchs booth, the assassin of lincoln. The story i think is what nonetheless. If they could find it in the hearts to be that forgiving, that generous, respectful of men who had been only days before their mortal enemies, we have to be able to extend similar generosity towards men from what is now, for us, a far more distant past. We can be encouraged by lincoln himself said something similar at a Cabinet Meeting april 14, the very day of his assassination, so daunting. I hope lincoln said, i hope there will be no persecution, no bodywork after the work is over. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentment if we expect harmony and union. There has been too much of a desire on the part of some of our very good friends to be pastors, interfere with and dictate to those, treat people as fellow citizens. Theres too little respect for their rights. I do not sympathize these feelings. Perhaps clintons hopes were unrealistic, perhaps an outcome thats impossible. Perhaps it would have entailed too many concessions. We can never know for sure. Given the high regard in which lincoln is rightly held by most americans and most of the worlds greatest leaders, it would be a mistake not to Pay Attention to this example not only in understanding the past in which he lived but the present in which we live as well. We can never lost sight of the fact the work that consumed his presidency and finally his life would be a failure if it were not, in the end, a work of reunification and reconciliation. Not merely a war of conquest of engines. Look for your bar better in our own debates and internal conflicts if we can recall this is. You look to be we are showing you some of the recent awardwinning authors and books from our archives. Up next, was alex, he wants that straight Anthony Lucas price for an american summer which set gun violence in chicago. He spoke at the festival in chicago in 2019. I believe in the power of story. We tell stories to ask questionr questions but to ask them. The beauty of stories is really two people to places they wouldnt otherwise go. Its this motion of this capacity of imagining yourself as someone else. Thats what i tried to do in this book. This is a collection of 14 is over the course of this one summer i was looking for stories appending stories that i thought i knew, stories that surprised me. There are stories about people touched by the violence, in one manner or another are shaped by fighting hard to keep it from defining who they are. I would like to invite you to tell one of those stories. One of the things that struck me when i heard it was going to be a story about violence, i prepared myself to be reading this dark, difficult story and it is but is also a lot of stories that have an beauty in front of the stories that struck me was respect daniels. I would love to tell his story. One of the things to make much the same concern bring into this but is impossible to talk about death without celebrating life also in acknowledging all the love there. You certainly see it in lisas story. I feel fortunate to have met lisa and stored for her sons strike but we got daniels, i met her, she was living in england on the south side of chicago and she had two sons. The other one was an engineering student at the university of illinois and her younger son, she did everything she could to hold her pulse. They were very, very tight, very close. But it is hard. I have kids of my own and it is hard to hold onto your kids. When dan was 25, he went to buy a small amount of marijuana and went he went south of the city from a small time drug dealer, they got into a dispute in a gunfight erupted and darren was killed. The first thing notable about lisas story, the local newspaper down there ran a headline but the young man killed weapon and felony convictions. It isnt even until they mentioned darren by name. They talk about his time in prison, his convictions and the first thing lisa, she reclaimed his narrative. She was so much more than that singular moment. This was not an unusual expense for people in chicago where this notion around comes around, we hear this constantly for me read newspapers reports. Lisa went on facebook and wrote to the newspaper and she had her license plate which reads, he was my son. His name was darren. The other thing about lisas story is that equally remarkable that she assumed the person who killed her son, michael, straightforward case that he would be tried and convicted and sent away for many years. One time, the attorney comes to lisa and explains its more complicated than i thought, one of the witnesses had a criminal record. They were thinking about the deal they wanted to make sure it was okay with lisa. Lisa thought about it for a bit and said it was okay with her but she wanted to give an impact statement. They were agreeable to that and ordinarily, when people give impact statements about the impact the crime had on you and your family lisa moms department and you have to have a written confirmation was unprepared. She didnt have it written down so put her in office for an hour and she brought out. We are fortunate to have lisa with us here today. I will ask lisa to read part of what she said. [applause] this is lisa court. My son wasnt perfect. He made decisions in life and it cost him his life. At the end of the day, none of his choices matter because he was my son and i left him and i miss him terribly. The morning after he was killed, the newspaper headline man shot to death struck and felony convictions. From that day to this, i wake up every day with the mission and purpose that his legacy will not be defined like this. No one check. Not even the defendant. My humanity is bound up in drawers, we are only human together. I believe that statement to be true. I believe we all are connected by our humanity i cannot speak for my sons humanity without speaking for the same many of the man, by only one bad decision actually took his life. I have, and will continue to become darrens behalf but tod today, speak for you, michael. Lisa is asking the judge for leniency and begins a correspondence with michael in prison. This one time where i talked to michael and he said to me, i dont want to be seen as a coldblooded killer. Remember lisa said to me anybody who thinks that i will stand toe to toe with them and take them on. I want to ask you about that newspaper article. What do you wish the article would have said about your son parts you wish the world would have learned about you and i moment . He was a human being. There is nothing in the article that indicated he was a human being have people who left him and grieving for he lost his life that day. I wish the article identified him as a human being. You are doing work now is influenced by your expense. Want to ask you to take away your work, the board is where prisoners come before two lay out what theyre going to do when they leave prison and get permission to leave. How have your personal expenses shaped what you do on backboard . The thing about that is that shaped my perspective, before an individual is asking for their parole to have been resumed as individuals at that moment be an alleged violator. He is before me, he or she is before me at risk requesting that they get an opportunity to reset the clock and go back out for whatever reason. When i get to do in that space, it is because of this experience that i get to have this perspective, i see that person is a human being. I connect with that persons humanity and i get to hear their story the way i wish individuals would have heard darrens story. You get to not i get to choose not to do find that person sitting in front of me by the worst thing theyve ever done. Want to ask more about the Community Work you do, but first bring somebody else on stage. Another person alex profiled in his book today. [applause] this is not the first time youve done something with alex, he worked profiled in his poem and dropped her when you are working with chicago. After working on a different project, ready chicago. Talk about your work. Think the first and foremost thing about the program is really think he formed i asked expense. I wont get into details so i will let you read the we created a program heavily invested private sector focusing on violence by addressing those at the highest risk 18 and older men residing from inglewood, austin, one death. The idea is that through employment, youre able to engage them for about 18 months of programming, providing life skills and Technical Skills but the most important part, by the expenses of people working and ready, we call therapy in which they receive three days a week for an hour and a half at a time the process of getting the young man to think about actions and behaviors and how to navigate certain situations in your lives. Im grateful and the party had two weeks ago, 518 men starting the program jobs. We definitely have to find the people have addressed this. One of the things for me i was clear as i was working on this book with the people i spoke about, who have been touched by the violence in montana is this sense of momentous, is feeling they are experiencing had everything to do with a flaw in their character or inability to deal with trauma or stress and one of the beauties, bringing together some of them for the first time talking about only their expenses but also aftermath, all the turmoil inside. Theres a huge gap in clinicians in our community. A lot of the times they play a major role in this work. I think about my previous work at the ymca without hardly worth young people to address their . We learned early on some of our work on prevention from getting involved in, so many had symptoms for something to be said about that. My final work, im always thinking about creative ways of bridging those gaps. We know so much about veterans, very little at the same time. Injury, ptsd, the last 20, 30 years, you sat with our young men because in our own backyard, you have to go to uganda its in our backyard. About chicago program, individuals give you a quick snapshot, they have expensed a experienced a loved one killed by privates. They have children, henry set that cycle . The last part is back how to leverage what we know about this around, and bridging some of that with support by your own peers say their training something thinking about creative ways to address some of the symptoms begin to process, recognizing this symptoms. Many cases, individuals who come from this community dont even recognize the symptoms which is the abuse which is a huge challenge in our communities. An important thing we talk about, about things i noticed in your book is over and over, people underestimate effects of trauma. This is true on a personal problem, people around expensing but also institutionally we underestimate. Hardy think that is . Isaac so hard for us to see it . I think it is hard to see because we choose not to. You dont choose to see ourselves and others we choose to feel better about ourselves by sensationalizing mistakes or actions of other people. Comparing ourselves to other situations and minimizing our own thomas, unresolved issues and dysfunctions areas of thought by sensationalizing those and other people. Its easier to view it that way, not see it in other people. I think the language is so important. The thing about terms like gang bangers drugs and at risk people. It reduces people so we think we know the story when in fact we know very little. I do think this pushes them away. The communities of color, communities physically and spiritually in front of the rest of our city. The top ten most private, i could have written this book in norman, baltimore, detroit, so many other places working with this. Neighborhoods that are deeply distressed. We tend to push these people away and look at them and something flawed and who they are. You been listening to journalist alex, winner of the j Anthony Lucas book prize. We have two more awardwinning authors and books who want to show you. First, national editor, josh levine. Winner of the National Book, critics circle award for biography. His book, the queen is about linda carter, a criminal whose exploits launched the idea of the welfare queen in the u. S. He appeared on book tv last summer at printers well lit festival in chicago. A big challenge for me in telling this story is that in explaining how this stereotype became to be. I didnt want to somehow strengthen the stereotype by this is somebody who i can like, this is all true but wanted to be careful how i presented that is a singular story. Anything larger than herself. In the introduction, i tell this story of patricia, a woman who in 1975, this is one year after taylor had been nicknamed the welfare queen. Taylor moved in with this woman who she met at church, a friend of hers and the exchange they had was typically cuban and take a care of her friend because patricia was but she kept getting sicker and sicker. She eventually died june 1975. She was found and had overdosed. The time that taylor was a suspect in this step. Is being investigated as a homicide and ultimately, the prosecutor decided she didnt have enough evidence charge taylor with this killing. I should add that before her death, she signed over her estate. This is extremely suspicious. I think the prosecutor recognize that. So i interviewed patricia husband, she told me it was one 100 sure linda taylor killed his wife and he was extremely short hadnt been investigated or treated seriously because she was a black woman and she felt like her race meant, as a victim, she wasnt seen as important. This is the same time taylor is being treated as a crime of the center for this woman ends up dead in chicago and seen as not really a tragedy but more curiosity, the welfare queen may be killed someone. Seen as something should attach itself to her story. This happened before reagan mentions her name reagan doesnt talk about being suspected of homicide. Even reagans critics think reagan got it wrong, taylor sister of homicide. Forgotten and erased from history. So the critics wrong, what did they say she did. Theres not a lot of Fact Checking done during reagan campaign. Theres a story in the washington star in the New York Times. I got a lot of life. The tone of the story is, reagan says a lot of stuff the speeches, lets check to see if its true. As a whole succession of anecdotes checked so the taylor one, the thing that gets checked dollar amount. Reagan says she still 150,000 and the reporter says actually, shes being prosecuted for stealing 8000. Thats the thing that reagan thought wrong. She exaggerated the extent of her buffer price. Its true. I think the best estimate i was able to find was that the folks in the relevant agencies she still 40000 over a period of multiple heroes. It wasnt inaccurate to say reagan was exaggerating but it was incomplete. To say this is the only thing greg has gone wrong about linda taylor she has said she stole more than she actually stole. Did she talk about the kidnapping . None of this from a kidnapping. She was a serial kidnapper, i believe. Shes also serial kidnapping part of her bio, i have this packet of documents with fbi would say not linda taylor at the time but shes making another complaint about one of her other children got kidnapped and her daughter got taken by somebody who left a ransom note. She was constantly having kidnapping on the brain. 1967, she gets arrested for kidnapping by the chicago police. I tell that story in the book she was taking care of a young girl on behalf of an acquaintance and then she moved and didnt tell this woman where she had taken the child. It was her son, taylor son rescued the and brought her back to her mother but she was never charged for that. Theres another mapping i read about the book is in charge. This extremely famous kidnapping in chicago, in 1964 where a baby it taken a day old baby its taken from his mothers arms by a woman dressed as a nurse whos never seen again, the baby is never seen again. The tribune again what doctor times in the 70s reports the fbi has reopened the case because taylor is seen as leading suspect. Amanda taylor in the 60s attacks and she had taken the baby dressed as a nurse that day, theres other potential evidence connecting her to it but on top, she was never charged in that case either. And the baby . Never found. Fascinating. She was a victimizer and a victim. Was it a real thing for your . The complexity of the story is what drew me to it, the complexity terms of the reporting and Research Challenge was, i thought, the time a fun challenge. For fun sometimes and other times but also the moral complexity and fluid talking about reagan, Fact Checking and i think one reason why the complexity of the story didnt, at the time, it wasnt particularly ideologically congenial to anyone to tell the full story of her because reagan wants to broadcast that she is this extraordinary welfare because it shows the welfare system is broken, hes a person brave enough to identify brokenness and also fix it and reagans critics are more concerned with making reagan look bad been telling a fallen story of this person, yeah, maybe shes not as much of a culture chief but shes also been accused of kidnapping and murder. The thing i think is important i was really important for me to get across this story, the fact that the welfare queen stereotype and mint of taylors name and story are indicative of the power of the distorted, the power of the story and the fact that all of the Vulnerable People who in many ways, poor people, poor black women, they dont have the platform Ronald Reagan had the Chicago Tribune had. So the kind of ease with her story was conflated with the story of these people witness it and lawabiding, it was striking to me. In horrifying in a lot of ways so i wanted to show her story and contrast with that. Its fascinating these assertions to become this and so persistent and lets end welfare as we know it. Her story extends for decades. Reagan talks about her when he loses can 76 runs again successfully in 1980, he continues to tell the story during that campaign and continues to tell the story, hes in office when he passes his first budget. He tells both linda taylor story he told her to the Congressional Black Caucus which is seen i find hard to imagine what it happened. He tells the story over and over and she succeeds in passing major cuts and families of independent children. The story helped me that case and when bill clinton was president in 1892, welfare across pretty much every demographic has been strongly unpopular i think because of the fact that its been humored consistently so much for decades folks getting benefits are undeserving they are cheaters so end welfare as we know it according to the campaign, by far and away the most popular thing he says on the trail is the like, i think it was lack of specificity is the key because it allows everyone to kind of create their own idea that means im not sure if clinton actually intended to do anything, once hes elected, they decide to focus on healthcare doesnt go super well but when republicans take over congress in 1994, gingrich and say lets and welfare as we know it, great idea. So hes austin and forced to do something, become a bipartisan push, a bill gets eventually signed but does and welfare. Signed by john kerry and joe biden. It turned welfare public aid from something that was essentially if you are poor from qualified right brake system. Its a limited pool of money start doesnt necessarily make you dont necessarily get it. That was National Book critics circle award for biography finance, josh levine discussing his book, the queen. And we wrap up our look at some of the awardwinning authors and folks from our archives National Book award winner, sarah blue. Her book, the yellow house tells the story of her family, i said shes going up in new orleans. Here she is, reading from purple drink of 2019 miami festival. What you reap from the beginning of the yellow house, section mass. From high up, 15000 feet above the aerial photographs taken from 4121 wilson avenue, the address i know best is a meniscal points, scab of green. Satellite images shot higher stuff from my former street dissolves into the toe of louisianas boot. From this. , our address now would appear to fit in the gulf of mexico. Distance went perspective but it can also change, misinterpret. From these great heights looking down from my brother, carl not be seen. Carl, who is also my brother, days and nights away at 4121 wilson avenue, at least five times a week after working his maintenance job at nasa when hes not fishing or near to the water where he loves to be. For thousand 15 days pass the water beyond all new cycle known to man. So, a skinny man in shorts. White sox hold up to his kneecaps. One old picture frame around his front tooth. Sometimes you can find carl along on our lot. Searching for feel as if, for a time, as if wonder or else seated at a colored dining table with carved legs, holding court. The table is on the spot for our living room used to be but where, instead of four, theres green grass trying to grow. Health gesturing with a long arm if he feels like it. Rapid with his legs crossed at the ankle, a long legged man after that. I can see him there now in my minds eye, silent and holding a beer. Babysitting ruins. Thats not his language or sentiment. Who would never betray the yellow house like that. Carl often finds company on wilson avenue where he keeps watch my friends will arrive in pop their trunks revealing coolers, containing spheres on price. Help yourself, baby, they will say. Someone has to pee, they do it in bins or they use the bright blue porta potty sitting at the back of the guard where the shed once was. Now this plastic vertical bathroom is the only structure on the lot. Written on the front right that is on flat background, city of new orleans. I have sacked 12 or 13 history telling books about new orleans. Beautiful crescent performance yesterday and today, new orleans is it was from new orleans, the place and the people, fabulous normals. New orleans, the guide to americas most interesting city, so on and so forth, i have some through each of these past the luminous sections about the French Quarter, the Garden District and st. Charles avenue, in search of the area of the city where i grew up. New orleans east. They are rare. No guided tours to this part of the city except for the cost to us that became an industry after katrina, carting visitors around, pointing out the great destruction of neighborhoods that were never known horse put in before the water except by their residence. Imagine thank the street are dead quiet and you live on those dead quiet street and theres nothing left of anything you want owned. Where survivors still present on the scene, working in the skyway. Dressed in blue disposable jumpsuits and rank facemask to avoid being fined by the black mold everywhere in their homes, climbing up the wall, slippery abstract figures underfoot. While this is going on in your wondering whether you will find remains of anything you ever loved, tourists passing by in an airconditioned bus, snapping images of your personal destruction. Theres something affirming can see in the acknowledgment of the tourist religious perspective but it still might feel like invasion in any way, i do not believe the tour buses ever made it to the street where i grew up. The city map once given to me i rent a car from the French Quarter has been shaded in part. Magnified in the box at the bottom of the page, whirling east. A blank space on someones mental map. This is perhaps a practical matter, whirling east is 50 times the size of the French Quarter. 70 of the cities landmass. Properly mapped, it might swallow the page whole. Map does not tell you is that to get the 7 miles from the French Quarter to the yellow house in which i grew up, you will take interstate ten heading east. When this portion of the interstate opens in 1968, hundred oaks, claiborne avenue, shopping district from my grandfather had been chopped garlic grapefruit evicted from the ground. 155 houses were demolished to make way. Driving the interstate, he will know you are on track when you seek signs saying final exit but do not get off. Stay on. After another 4 miles, he will arrive at the bridge we call the highrise for the dramatic arc it makes of the Industrial Canal that connects Mississippi River to lake train but exile mr. Informant from the rest of the city. Being at the top of the highrise, it feels like resting on the verge of discovery. Defense is cool and steep. Exit on the fourlane highway built on each of highridge, once by native american tribes but it now carries cars all the way to florida or texas short industrialized end of wilson avenue where i grew longer residential and mostly houses and my former elementary school, original name Jefferson Davis after confederate president before becoming ernest morreale after the first black mayor of new orleans. Its nameless now. A field of green grass founded by a chain link fence. Even as i write this, i am troubled by what it meant for us, me and my 11 siblings to have to cross the highway, which was then and is now, seeing of cars pulling over sometimes partway onto the sidewalks, creeping along side you even if you were only a child on an errand, these were mostly men in cars deals. Cars could drag you down without realizing it, as one fact my sister, karen, when she was eight years old drivers and speeding cars, selfdestructed on the highway. Often, my childhood friend what die in this way. Someone could grab you while you stood there on neutral ground, as we call mediums or see you standing there when you did not want to be seen, as i could not. Many years into womanhood and i avoided showing people the place where i lived. When i think of the highway, being cut off from the other side of the street, from the city center cut off, i think of all of this. By bringing you to hear to the yellow house, i have gone against my honey. You know this house, not all that from the book for the people, my mother was always saying. Before, it was like yellow house, the only house i knew, greenhouse, the house my 11 siblings knew. He yellow house was witness to our lives. When it fell down, something in me first. My mother is always saying, as you want to end my beginning proceeds me. Absences virus one power over them. They do not become a word. We say of them whatever we want. Still, they however, pointing fingers at our backs. No place to go but into deep ground. These are just a few of the recent awardwinning authors have appeared on tv. You can watch all of the programs weve seen here and many others online booktv. Org. Access our archives by using the search box at the top of the page and search author name and title. Heres a look at Publishing Industry news. Bill clinton and bestselling author, James Patterson teaming up to write a novel titled the president s daughter which is scheduled to be released next summer. This follows the 2018 release, president is missing from his old 3. 2 million copies. The New York Public Library 125 years old last week and to mark the occasion, librarians released vista. 25 Adult Children front facing inspire a lifelong love of reading. List of books available on their website and my pl. Org. Publishers weekly named Porter Square in cambridge massachusetts, bookstore of the year. The 15yearold store David Sandberg who product in 2013 and recently decided to sell half of it to several other employees. Also in the news from npd bookscan report book sales were up 8 . Adult nonfiction books were flat and remained dark 8 for the year. Many book festivals and conferences forced to cancel continue to offer attendees virtual experience, the box book festival will take place online june 6 and the American Library Association Annual conference crosscultural june 24 to the 26th. Two before continue to preview programs at publishing programs at any time booktv. Org. On our program afterwards, art history professor from john interview office how about his latest book and ask evangelicals are choosing political power over christian values. As a portion of the interview. What a lot
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