Its a great to give our audience the opportunity to get to know the bestselling author wes moore. You wrote the book with the awardwinning reporter the Baltimore Sun reporter final to the 2016 Pulitzer Prize with the death the freddie gray. This book is a beautiful way to understand what happened to freddie gray, baltimore with black and White America and the half broken truth and the incomplete stories that stop us from being one community. So thats a way to think about uprising and reckonings in america. Im just really pleased to have this conversation with you. Lets start by talking about the young man whose life was taken from us, freddie gray. But then leaving the funeral all the different parts Baltimore Society and knit the thread to paint a story to reflect what was going on and baltimore and by extension, the country but talk about freddie gray and why his death rocked the city and the nation. Freddie gray was a 25 yearold young man who committed the crime of making eye contact with police. Its important to start with that is context. In certain neighborhoods that are deemed to be high crime probable cause can be justified by simply making eye contact and running. But in freddie grays neighborhood that was probable cause for arrest. He is chased. He is caught. He is arrested. One hour later he is in a. A young man when they put handcuffs on him put them in the back of the police fan by the time he made it to the Maryland Medical Center to have treatment three broken vertebrae and a crash larynx stayed in a, for one week then finally he died. And this is something the reality when you think of baltimore even the two years prior to freddie we also knew the names of anthony anderson, chris brown, tyrone west, all similar circumstances and similar situations of africanamerican men, contact with police, dead. So with freddie, for many people in baltimore we know this story. There is a long line and along threat that there is Something Different about freddie in this moment that just captured not just the citys attention but the world. This 25 yearold young man who loses his life simply by having an interaction with police. And there were a couple of things that really struck me why there is Something Different about freddie. Of all the others he was the first that was caught on camera. There is important to that with the idea what did you do to justify it argument went out the window when there is footage. I know you mustve said something incorrect or at some point you escalated the situation when we are literally watching the officers put them in handcuffs putting him in the back of the van than one hour later he is in a coma. The other was the appreciation for this group call black lives matter. I think about how years ago when it was first started by three black women and its important to acknowledge that. When opal and alisha say that statement that seems like it is basic but it causes an uproar that black lives matter. The reason he became important in the case of freddie in a relatively short period of time it went from a to an active mobile organization tumor one move and disperse and activate quickly when this happened around the country just remember before that there was Michael Brown and they moved very quickly to go into baltimore to mobilize. This drove level of attention that other instances it did not drive. I remember attending freddies funeral and going to the funeral in the morning. That evening i was looking around the church and when i was there it was hundreds but it turned out to be thousands. Everybody showed up. It was the first funeral i ever attended i didnt know the person. And that struck me because it was i felt in many ways that was part of the problem and made me truly understand my own complicity and you look around the church. Or any of us prepared to do what it would take to make sure something that we are watching right now doesnt happen again. And i learned more about the life we asked him to live. That is where i knew and i decided at that point i want to tell this story through the eyes of individual people but to capture in my own mind the process we find ourselves in at this moment and why it matters and why it should on a deeper level even then what we saw. Tell us about those people you told the story through, those a different people. Its a lot because of baltimore is nothing else it is a city of characters. [laughter] i found myself youre talking to all these people from all these places and everybody has ideas. Everybody has their own hypothesis and conspiracy theories. The toughest part of the book was to identify who are the stories you want to tell out of the dozens of people who makes the cut . Initially it was adding on but i wanted those that are represented different perspectives. So that idea that no matter where you sit that will resonate what are the others and others that you vehemently disagree with. But thats your nature and what i wanted to explain going through to decide you cannot tell a story of policing and baltimore without Tawanda Jones a woman whose brother two years before freddie grade died in Police Custody named tyrone west. Every wednesday yesterday i literally participated it was the 360th every wednesday she holds a protest demanding accountability for her brother. She has not missed a wednesday virtual or rain or sleet or snow everyone says she fights for her brother she found herself in the middle of everything because we knew her story and asked to help that the rallies she was humbled to do at the same time where is this when my brother was killed . I knew i wanted to profile a man named mark who is a place major grew up in baltimore now the highestranking africanamerican officers in the police force and found himself leaving the area where everything jumped off. One of the fascinating things i found in conversation with him he said i know for a fact none of my colleagues woke up that morning with homicide on their minds but i also know for those kids in west baltimore i understand why they dont believe me. So he finds himself battling to justify both sides in a fascinating way which i love exploring the story of Anthony Williams who runs a spot called shake and bake and what i love about anthony he would only hire kids nobody else would higher. That is his focus he went after the kids with the records and the tattoos that everybody else would say this is not right for you. I love telling his story of his interpretation because his store shake and bake was right in the middle of everything that jumped off and to see the response to shake and bake and his response to the uprising i found fascinating people like john angelo the sun of the owner of Baltimore Orioles who made the final decision to play baseballs final game because they were in the state of emergency but he wanted the world to see thats what happens with the racial divide explodes and implodes within the city so all these different characters a basketball star turn protester actually on the cover of Time Magazine with a gas mask and his life arc and to be one of the top basketball players in the city to say let it all burn down. I wanted to explore it from all these different lenses to help people understand and see the level of complexity of that situation and seriousness and the fact for each and every one the rampant issues of race and poverty how it showed itself all throughout because we have yet to wrestle with our past and history and when we dont they expose themselves. I want to stay in 2015 the five days that you take for the title. You are proud baltimore road scholar and with the bestselling author and now one of the nations largest anti Poverty Organization the robber one robin Hood Organization what about the time you spent learning about freddie gray and these five days of the five years since then . What did you learn what changed your perspective . One of the things that really struck me about it was the natural unfairness of freddies life. And weve spent so much time as the largest society talking about what happened in his death which we should have. We spent a lot of time talking about the fact despite he was a young man with a crushed leg and broken vertebrae yet a single officer is convicted for his crime. Nobody has been held responsible for what happened. But what really hit me, and think about the work that we d do, the week that freddie was in a coma. The horror of it arguably that mightve been one of the most peaceful weeks of his life. Because at that point he was surrounded by doctors and nurses. By that point lawyers and activists, people who knew his name, surrounded by people who cared if he lived or died. And i cannot argue for a single weekend the 25 years prior that was his case. Where he had a city rooting for him. And i think about the four of those 25 years of his introduction into the world and the fact that every single turn the world was screaming at him what they felt about him. And how damning those 25 years were. There is a part i will read from quick that talks about one part of the book that hits you in a say the one part that hits me every single time its a simple timeline of his life. Its just understanding from the time he was introduced into the world, how the world viewed him and treated him. I will read this one part. 1989. Gloria gives birth to twins. Up when a girl. The twins are born two months premature. In her early twenties when she had the twins, gloria had never attended high school. She cannot read or write and struggled with heroin addiction tiny and underweight him and his twin sister spent their first month in the hospital for after five months she brought them back to the housing projects in west baltimore. 1992. Freddie and his family moved to 1459 west carriage street renting 300 a month and in 2009 it in 480 other homes will be named in a civil suit regarding the and then make levels of lead paint in those homes. By age to freddie and his twin sister had elevated levels of lead in their blood and had lasting brain damage. They lived there and tell the twins are six years old. 1995 he starts school at Elementary School in winchester. Because of the lead poisoning his behavior poses considerable challenges statistically among the least six variants they enroll him in special education which he will never leave. By fifth grade he was for grades behind in reading. Out of the classroom for his intellectual disability he spent time in recreation centers. 1998 spending more time out of the classroom long stretches out of school, starts to migrate to the corners to do drugs. At home the stepfather of these for drug we have because of heroin addiction. Without an income the Home Experience long experience without Running Water or electricity. His godmother takes him to church he volunteers to deliver meals to Senior Citizens and wash cars. 2008 Baltimore CityPublic Schools record his last attendance at school. He is 18 and in tenth grade. 2009 he is arrested and spent four years in prison for two counts of the drug possession. 2011 parole back on the streets. 2013 arrested again for drug possession and distribution. Shortly thereafter his halfbrother raymond, 31 years old is gunned down in downtown baltimore and that brings us to april 12, 2015 when he makes eye contact with police , placed under arrest. And by 926 there is a call for paramedics to support an unconscious mail at the police station. April 14 he goes double surgery for her trauma it is determined he has three broken vertebrae and an injured voicebox april 15 he remains in a, april 18 word spreads about what happened in protest began outside the Western District police station. At 7 00 oclock in the morning he is declared dead by shock trauma. That is his life 25 years. It haunts me because we spent so much time to think about justice for freddie and what that means and so through this process that i can take away justice for freddie is not just what happens to those six officers. It is to make sure that we actually provided an environment where his life meant something and where society treated his life like it meant something. Justice for freddie should have started in the womb. Exactly. With the mom getting treatment. Exactly. And financial support. Exactly. And not treating an addiction like to be criminalized which we repeatedly do. And we in particular not just maryland that Baltimore City has more overdoses than the entire state of maryland combined. Part of that is we still have yet to get to a point where we can treat addiction which is an illness. It is an illness. One of my dearest friends lost his battle about a year ago now. And he fought. He fought. And repeatedly in part of the reason we were able to get him treatment out of state with that was a better facility for him was because of the fact his addiction was criminalized before so he cannot leave the state. Why are we doing this . You are absolutely right. This is where his mother , gloria spends her entire life in poverty. And we have a situation where part of the reason is just that its there but that its predicted. It is sticky and the fact if a child and in particular a black child is born into poverty, their probability of dying out of poverty is so monumentally slim. And that is something that we as a society have to take an account for things we have yet to deal with we made a devils bargain over how much pain we are willing to tolerate with other people. You do such a profoundly beautiful job to take the two oh of a writer of the individual story and then zooming out to trace the public decisions of the powerful that shape that individuals life. That is the theme of your first book. What changed for those who are paying attention right now and know the other westmore, what is different about writing this book . Thats a great question. I think the other westmore i was much more reluctant to tell that story. In part because it was a deeply personal story. I knew wes four years and one of my dear friends a woman named Sherry Williams who is an author and also a book writer she said it would always ask about class on wes and i give her the update. And i first met him year two or three and then near five of the life sentence he is still they are now. She said i really thank you should write about this. I think there is a story here being told by these two guys. And my first reaction was no. I dont want to dig that deep into his life for my own. And she said have lunch with a dear friend of mine. But then really having that conversation to say i think there is a story here so then i went back and talked to wes about it. I said i have been approached about writing a story about our relationship. What do you think . Without hesitation he said you should do it. I said why . He said i wasted every opportunity ive ever had. If you can do something to help people understand the consequences of their decisions do something to help them the neighborhoods these decisions are made then you should do it. That was a fire in the focus behind it but it was a very reluctant process. For all the reasons i mentioned but for this it was different. It was different because i felt the idea of the context around everything taking place we cannot miss the context of what was being said and expressed during those five days and thats even why i knew i wanted to get journalistic and i approached erica so we could collaborate i always respect her work i had a conversation about one of the scenes which i thought was really powerful. One of the ones where kids were yelling at the police. And it was what they were yelling that was fascinating. They were yelling justice for freddie. Freddie wasnt even mentioned like this is from uncle buck. This is putting your hands on my mother. When the time you saw the city and the citys children standing up for the first time in much more than what was happening the what was happening to freddie. He symbolize something bigger and that was existing in our community. So as those days went by thats and i decided i was more hesitant to do the other westmore than this story. This is the story that this is about how we deal not just in equity police but the brutalization of black baltimore but that isnt just what the police have done. It is every aspect of our society which has a hand to play in the brutalization of black baltimore. Of discriminatory lending and those of the g. I. Bill that brutalization and to tell the story and the context of this narrative to capture all of the attention and then to demonstrate to bring the measures of inequity that existed. Now in this moment we are in late june 2020. Now were in a moment of profound grief where we have lost over 100,000 people disproportionately a black during this pandemic and tens of thousands of those lives could be lost because our government betrayed us. And that national sense of urgency from washington seems to disappear as soon as it was clear who was bearing the brunt of this disease. D start firing and kill you. What you have seen now is three, almost four weeks but just in the innercity baltimore put salt lake city, portland maine, tuscaloosa with a Median Income of under 20,000. Where i sit right now in new york its no longer is was the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic and some of the violent repression. This is the moment we are in so i do want to ask what you think we should learn. Those were fiery days in baltimore that in my lifetime we have only seen the president so often does now we are in a daily protest somewhere in the country. Now whether it is in online protest or storm its signaling what its going to do differently. I did a tremendou get a tremendf credit to you and your work because it is than what yo theny were pushing on in the society that acknowledgment matters and its something we continue to miss and i think about it in the context of 2020. And you were so right. This year has been a genuine crisis. First was catastrophic and frankly implications we dont even know where the landing of this thing is. They exposed the same truths. While Police Reform might be necessary for the communities while handcuffed facedown on the ground. We could just keep naming names. But the crisis exposed a singular truth and that is the role race plays in all of this. Its the most difficult issue of the country wrestlethe country t isnt true, it is the most difficult and its one we have yet to get serious about and what were some of the biggest Lessons Learned from those five days and what we are seeing now. Its clearly amazing realizing. People have said this book is very timely. My reaction to weve been dealing with this since inception. When we think about what was different this time around, i think the bar has risen in how we define progress in an important way. There is a misconception that was the National Guard coming in. Thats not true because the reality is after the uprising in baltimore what was supposed to be the largest protest baltimore have ever seen, the thing to come wasnt the fact the National Guard came. What cold and everything down is when the state attorney came and announced charges against all six officers. We knew the trend. There is generally a payout and people go about the business. But when she announced charges against those officers, something changed because i think for a lot of people in baltimore, they actually felt we could see officers be held accountable. Now fast forward, two of them not found guilty, the others their charges were dropped. But that moment changed everything. Think of it reflects thats taking place right now when i say that bar is higher, you want convictions, for people to be held accountable. Its not just now we see a mug shot. Now we need to see this go to completion. The other thing that is different now is the conversations people are having now. It isnt just about can we make sure that Police Officers have bodied cameras. Its not just how we add on to the bill of rights or qualified immunity. The demands are dealing with structural racism. They talk about Something Like with pretty gray one thing we should be talking about this by due east of children that should have to deal with lead poisoning. Weve known that it is a toxin for a century we have just been selective about where to deal with it and so when i wonder whats different, how people define progress and a lot of that i paid a lot of respect as to what happened in baltimore. The fact what do we consider good enough. Was the first time it happened it was months after this happened they were placed under a Consent Decree because the patterns and crack this is a racial justic justice so there a long history of this to the point the doj acknowledged they have a problem but no one has even been charged for it. That was such a big deal but for the first time there were going to be charges filed around Police Interaction with citizen. But i also believe that as of now, that isnt good enough. It is bargainbasement. It comes down to this fundamental sense of unfairness that so Many Americans have that there is just so much brutal accountability for any mistakes or any perceived slight by people that dont have a lot of money or power. And there is just no accountability so the idea means you get to break the law to the degree that you could take someones life and the assumption is that thats going to be okay. There is bipartisan support for ending it now because we are just in the era people want more security from security, air, water and thats why we see such a massive shift. The polling has shown the last few ask the idea of the movement gets majority support and tremendous movement, 20point approval movement which is huge watershed. What your book is about, five days of demonstrations, property damage, i think we should talk about that. This question of what is the identity of the protester during the period of time in mid june we saw hundreds of thousands coming out to protest and a completely unrelated than of the folks in some places the damaged property or stole things from stores and set fire and the response not to protect our own safety because of the virus or anything but the First Amendment expressions to assemble and protest and speak. Then of course we have the Lafayette Square moment where the President Donald Trump came out and ordered deployed tear gas on Peaceful Protesters just for a photo op. So we are in this moment where urban unrest and the right to protest is absolutely at the forefront of the conversation. I think theres a lot we tell about the. Thats what did you learn about this sort of very nature of the protest when it turns to anger and the destruction of property . Ive thought about whei haven they deployed the 82nd airborne if the protests continue to get larger like thats my old unit and i remember thinking to myself the oath i took when i joined the military was to defend the constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic. That is the first oath i took when i joined the military. It goes back to the questioning and you just brilliantly stated. What were they doing sites expressing their First Amendment right, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech. If there were people im all for the cause of peace. I also know that where is your frustration supposed to go in the absence of justice. If we have people doing the violence and that kind of thing that is also in the job of the police force to take care of the safety of the citizens and the protesters at the idea of calling and military to be able to do this i found to be so backwards for a couple of different reasons. Its on this idea that one of the reasons im against this hyper militarization sometimes when you dressed for combat, combat happens so the idea of having Police Officers dressed as storm troopers or whoever else in the american street, the goal timothy peace and theres no way you can tell me it is when you are introducing tools of war ended restrictions against the forces being deployed and giving any form of police functioning. The third piece is if you look at the history of the country the president onl president onle National Guard to both times. Ten of them have to do with race. One was a postal worker strike in new york and the looting that took place in saint troy after the hurricane. Thats it. Every other time have to do with race. My question is we continue dealing with that and coming up with a solution theres action here or people acting up there, its called in the police and throw in the military. Its because we are not dealing with causes we keep having a military solution. I applaud the people that are out there for weeks now nonstop, green, wind, curfew, no curfew, still out there saying you will hear us this time. Its not just the most american thing we can do as a core principle of the first amendme amendment, freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, literally the first thing, the principal foundation. Watching people express that and then adding Excessive Military police force to deal with it shows a challenge and hypocrisy we have to be able to contend with as a society and called it out. Host you talk about how we try to address the effects and not get to the root causes. What would that change look like if we really address the causes . We have to be deliberate about a fundamental builder because we have to break down. We have been intentional about how this shows itself and so i think in every single place we have to be deliberate. Think about al of all the peoplt have lost their jobs due to covid19. 23 for People Living in poverty before. They were the working poor in some cases working multiple jobs and still people that poverty and we had deemed it to be completely intolerable and the fact we have a Health Care System largely based on an employer healthcare. When you have 11 years of job growth go away and allegedly and people that are now just praying they dont get sick and frankly for everyone else we pray they dont either because what that will mean in terms of the cost and system we created we have a Child Tax Credit system we have to be able to demand things you consider 54 of black children in the country do not qualify for the Child Tax Credit we have a system thats supposed to be providing a safety net that provides no safety net. When we talk about what it means to restructure our society, it means going to this understanding the individual will always be in the insufficient if we do not think about the other piece and place into the fact we have a federal state and local government who have policies in place right now putting and keeping people in poverty. Im so excited five days is now out with Penguin Random house. Its from the same as my publisher with my book coming out. Guest i cannot wait for this book. Guest thank you. So Many Americans of all backgrounds are trying to learn more right now and this is a Publishing House dedicated to multicultural stories and about who we are as human beings so thank you and check out onewor oneworld. You will learn so much more. Always such a joy to be with you. Cant wait for the book to get the world and remind us of where we purchased five years ago when we had five days of show us where we can go forward. Guest we cannot wait for your buck. Thank you for having me. Host thank you. Commonwealth club in california to discuss 19th century political power couple john and jessie fremont. Heres some of his talk. John Charles Fremont was an explorer, a man who in the 1840s and 50s in a series of expeditions started in st. Louis missouri which was the western city and went out as a u. S. Army officer and hired skilled civilians to go along with him and maps the oregon trail in other words again and again ultimately ended up by chance in california and was intrigued as people are when they come to california then returned a couple of years later to a mexican control territory with a party of 60 gunmen and began the process of taking over california from mexico and making it part of the united states. As an explorer he didnt discover that much that was new. He was traveling across a land traversed by native nations for centuries, that have been explored by spaniards and for travelers. He didnt find that much that was actually new, but he codified and made it accessible. He was coming back east and writing accounts of his adventures. His job wasnt to explore both to promote the west and entice settlers to move to the west with the process of taking over the territory ensuring that it would become a part of the united states. In the process of promoting the American West he also promoted himself. He would write these accounts that purchased the official u. S. Army reports but he would write an like a novel and describe the landscape of the Rocky Mountains in oregon trail into the great basin which he named a vast area ringed by mountains that encompasses most of nevada and utah and parts of several other states. He would describe california very beautifully and he became such an extraordinarily famous and admired individual through his writings and their achievements that in 1850 there was a magazine that named john fremont as one of the three most important world historical figures since jesus christ. [laughter] it was kind of an american centric list. The first of the three was Christopher Columbus discovered america as they would have said then, established european contact would be the better way to phrase it. Second was george washington, the founder of the country and third john c. Fremont whose greatest achievement that got him on the list was his reputation as the conqueror of california adding older daughter was the magazine described it to the union come to the united states. He had real talent, real courage and fortitude and accomplishments. As i write here the most important factor may have been the person who made it possible to take full advantage of the talent at times, jesse benton fremont, his wife born when women were about to make few choices for themselves he found the datasheet on the way to chart her own course. The daughter of a senator deeply involved in the west she provided her previously unknown husband to the highest levels of the government. It was no coincidence his career began to score a few months after they doubled. When he was 28 and she was 17. I thought as many others did that jessie was the better man of the two. She helped write his famous reports and some of his letters serving as secretary, editor, writing partner and occasional ghost writer. She amplified the talent working with news editors to publicize his journeys. She became his political advisor and attracted talented young man debate co young men to the circle and lashed out at enemies. She carried on conversations with senators twice her age, offered her opinion even when they didnt agree with her and was gradually recognized as a Political Force in her own right. Her timing was as perfect as her husband. She was pushing the boundaries of womens roles just as women were demanding a larger place in life. The. His newest book is called for god and