I am sorry about that entrance. I wasnt doing it for theatrics but i do have a brandnew hip. [laughter] [applause] i love it. But the rest of the body hasnt caught up yet. [laughter] we go slow. Nobody is moderating us. We are just talking. We are talking about douglas and liberation . Absolutely. Let me start. To stop, i want other people to know about this. Im interested obviously in literacy. I am impressed with what i only recently discovered, which is this country is unique in the world in terms of the distribution distribution of libraries throughout the country. You cannot go in rural areas in europe or africa asia, rural areas and find libraries the way you can hear. Huge University Libraries that jump up out of nowhere in indiana or someplace. Pennsylvania, go for 100 miles and there it is. Enormous university with more books than cambridge. So its an extraordinary thing. The other thing is, something im interested in is on the one hand, the power of reading and of course, understanding the meaning of what we read and what i like to think of as visual visual literacy. With prince or baby without prince, what do people who are literally illiterate do . To negotiate around the world. People who they depend on. I dont mean just an educated people, i mean people, like myself say in beijing and i dont read the language or understand it, how do you negotiate . One of the visual signs you need to travel, the colors, shapes, sounds, smells and all other senses. If you have that plus the ability to read, have a third dimension of how to read your world. As well as how to read text. I want to begin because i wanted to describe explosive, the perception of reading, particularly certain kinds of models and not just a dangerous sense but explosive in a way that could be lethal. In my documentation for this, angela, is this thing that paul made me bring from my house. In my guest bathroom. [laughter] downstairs by the front door. [laughter] over the sink is a letter, asking me if id be willing to come and receive the nobel prize for literature and write the speech. On the opposite end over the toilet is this. [laughter] ive seen this many times in your bathroom. [laughter] what it is, there was light and editor, the title is the publication denial notification. [laughter] the title of the publications paradise by me. [laughter] the above publication has been reviewed and denied it with section 3. 9 of the cdc rules and regulations for the reasons checked below. There are five reasons why a book would be banned from the Texas Department of criminal justice. [laughter] the first reason is it contained contraband. The second is publication contains information regarding the manufacture of explosives, weapons or drugs. The fourth is a specific actual determination has been made that the publication is detrimental to rehabilitation because it would encourage devious criminal sexual behavior. The last one, publication contains material setting up an operation of criminal schemes of how to avoid detection of criminal schemes by Lawful Authority charged with the responsibility for detecting such illegal activity. I skipped the third one because thats the one that paradise is accused of. A publication contains material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve a breakdown. [laughter] not your average breakdown but of breakdown decisions through inmate destruction such as strife or riot. [laughter] is february 20, after my birthday, 1998. I was amused to get this also throws. It seemed like an extraordinary complement. [laughter] [applause] paradise could actually blow up riots in a prison so i thought in addition to my entry about expanding literacy to visual as well as prince, i want to make some connection between prisons. Their organization, prohibition. They understand to be lethal and dangerous. I want to begin on that scene by talking about the inaccessibility of libraries. In thinking about my own childhood when i saw this incredible building in alabama made out of indiana limestone. It was a Public Library but of course it was only for white people. The one Black Library existing was run down, very few books. I tell this story because i first entered the doors of this library in 1959. I can remember how it felt to actually walk into a real library because although i had used the library in birmingham, it was lacking in resources, was broken down. Finally he built a new one many years later so as we talk about the democratic impulse of libraries and accessibility of libraries is also important to talk about the places where have a hard time in your example of the texas correctional system is one. Just before the event, i had an opportunity to look at some of the items from the archival selections here and i saw a wonderful collection of the article published by prisoners, from i think 1939 to 1940 something. I was thinking about what was required to do this. I looked at it and said this is a mini graph. The prisoners who put this together and the books they had to read in order to put this publication together was astounding so i like to thank the librarians for allowing me to see these documents and i had a brief conversation with, what is his name . Head of the correctional whats his name . Nicholas. You were there, too. Nicholas coordinates relations between the Public Library and the women and the men detention facility there. I was telling him about my experience and the detentions here in new york. Im having all of these new york memories. I was in jail in new york, did you mention i was in jail . Some people dont know. One of the first places i went was the library. I didnt see very many interesting books there. [laughter] i had just finished my studies in philosophy and i went to the library. [laughter] so i have people send books to me while i was there and i wanted to share the books without other women, there was Something Like 1000 women. I was not allowed to do that. In the library, theres a big cardboard box, you could receive the books and read the books myself. It was okay for me to read them but dont share them. One of them was georges book, not allowed at all. Although one of the things i learned when i was in jail, how to secrete those kinds of things. So we had reading groups for books smuggled out of the library. It kind of reminded me of Frederick Douglass in his effort to get an education to learn how to read. His idea that education the was liberation. Absolutely. He uses an interesting phrase in describing her. Which was irresponsible power. In the responsibility of how you manage and his hunger was overwhelming. People who did not want blacks to be new that. If it was simple stories, it could have been quite different. It is extraordinary. The things people suffered to read, i remember trying to figure this out. How did the child learn to read being beaten up and killed and persecuted there. They had an idea about the soul of black people and protestants. The consequences were thrilling but they reshaped the definition of what is a human being . They would decide virginias, for example and teach people to read, slaves and children to read. Not that they wanted them to read but just so they could perhaps read some tracks. There is that kind of priest in addition to other kinds which would not be interpreted enslaved people. I also wanted to emphasize in that book, i wanted to separate race from slavery. It wasnt really the same thing. They call us white slaves in order to give them legitimate, they were slavery although they saw him that way. If they drop dead and have children, use the child to pay off the debt. They worked right alongside black slaves on the plantation. I always remarked on this one incident that book and what i learned was a group had native americans, Indigenous People all get together and the governor of virginia. The interesting thing is they established these law and the laws were interesting. It was things like no blacks allowed to have a weapon ever. Second, white could maim or kill any black for any reason. They are still enslaved but they are not weapons and they could be the black slaves without punishment. That little margin has worked its way through this country. All of these things in which racism as a cause or even a goal, but its not a goal. The manipulation and tools and its purposes what i just described what went on there. I was thinking as you were describing and you are talking about mercy. [laughter] i was thinking about Frederick Douglass, another passage in the narrative. He didnt know what it meant. He heard about the abolitionist but he had no idea what it meant and he said he realized it was connected to something that he ought to be interested in. And eventually, he describes this process of learning how to write and read by looking at the markings that were placed on the board to be used to build ships. One would Say Something and then he learned the letters, at best. Then he talks about the boys taught him how to read and write. At one time, he dared a white boy, who was around to prove he could write better than Frederick Douglass. In the process, he learned what the white boy was riding. But hearing his word and knowing, there was something about this word that was so important he had no idea what it meant. It was like abolition. [laughter] the most powerful abolitionist. There is a process of education. Would you say the people who dont know how to read and write dont have that curiosity but learning how to read and write opens up a whole new universe. Another dimension. Paradise i mean, really. [laughter] when you consider there are 2. 5 Million People behind bars, what they really do . What can they do that is significant . Reading and writing allows the possibility of inhabiting a different world. But the control of those, i dont know about all but its a profitmaking thing now. Living off the benefits of the brandnew prison guards, cooks, it goes with imprisonment. I read about one of the prisons in texas, get more money. They owe money they have to pay for their own room and board. In college. [laughter] if your family cant pay. You pay in time for whatever. The kinds of laws that are heavily weighed for minor offenses. I was interested in your book because im not sure i understand fully that separation, the implication is that is, there is a difference between vengeance and justice. Justice itself has some consequences. Capitalism if we want justice for some that activity by that person punishment, and restraint. We dont want rehabilitation. Theres something called the other, theres a stranger your neighbor or a criminal is some other thing is another. I was thinking along those lines when i was trying to figure out another area of great interest to me it has always been that ive never had the patience or maybe the intelligence or maybe the research followed through, which is what the impact of torture, and slavery, enslaved meant. And violence has on the perpetrator. Therapists dont seem to be interested in that. It seems to me that when you destroy somebody who has severe forms of justice, that the real object of the pain loses itself. Something about the slave owners, im thinking about enslaved women were pregnant, lying on the ground work any other response, it is very clear when he confronts that. Hes destroying something himself. Its not that the person is inferior, it is Strong Enough the fragile personality, not the strong one. The fragile personality that can do that. There is already selfloathing and in that area that i well, im just looking at these various forms, it is so easy, racism obviously is easy, it is easy to block off these socalled criminals they are away from us, even how to be tolerant because they are over there. If we are doing that to corral certain kinds of behaviors with a high or low to redeem ourselves, thats a different operation. Entirely different. Everett diaries interesting diaries slave owners they are not, the barrel up and down, it is interesting because they do they are not cool people. What they obviously are doing is working out some relationship so damaging to them really damaging. Its a form of selfdestruction. A powerful form of selfdestruction. It is a spectacle it is about selfloathing and fragility that you need. That is my direct report today. One thing i want to put in parentheses because i wanted to provide. It relates to something you said earlier about the profitability punishment to think about the privatization of libraries. They reported . [laughter] just as we have experienced over the last several decades, privatization of selfcare, we are witnessing the privatization of education, i will talk about waiting for superman this fall, the privatization of prisons there is now a Company Called libraries, Library Systems and Services Taking over libraries in some communities. California, for example, who pays that . They make money because they hire nonunion staff. They either dont allow the employees to continue to be members and they probably also background services. The only reason for the companys profitability. Maybe not yet but who knows what will happen in the future. Its very dangerous, the privatization of everything in the process. Thats what i wanted to put in parentheses. Another comment i wanted to make was the fact, ive been looking at the work of this woman, she was a quaker and helped publish a book in 1976 which was called, abolitionist. We will hear from them. Apparently, an amazing activist and she lives in harlem for many years and was responsible for introducing the survivors to malcolm. She was in the ballroom when malcolm was assassinating and leaning over malcolms body, the woman im talking about, her daughter told me the other day that her mother worked with the same group of survivors was introduced to malcolm x. Its interesting, all of these i want to say she came to the conclusion after doing all this work on prison abolition the only way the whole movement would be able to move in a progressive direction would be to demonstrate that it was possible to address some of the horrendous problems imprisonment presumes to address so she started to work with sex abuse abusers. She spent the rest of her life working with mostly men who had sexually abused children. Because she felt she had to answer the hardest question and she also felt we continue to be incapable of confronting those horrendous acts of violence that human beings inflict on each other, it would never be possible to get rid of the present because what we do now is say when someone commits such a horrible act, put them in prison or we dont have to think about them anymore and we dont have to think about the perpetrators and we also dont have to think about the problem and it continues to replicate itself. In a sense, addressing it in that way has guaranteed they would be this reproduction of the problem from one generation to the next. You were talking about the diaries of slaveholders, people committed horrendous acts who werent necessarily, somebody has a cell phone thats ringing. Okay, well wait. [laughter] you were saying they werent necessarily evil people, they committed evil acts. I think this is something we have a hard time recognizing today. Somebody calls it a case of mistaken identity. Suicide was a case of suicide ms. Identity. Oh, okay. I see. I see. You dont recognize yourself. [laughter] the same thing. When we put that aside, we dont have to have that problem anymore. Its not us. Im getting a little weary with that notion. It is home. It is a movement. This is his home. He owns this home. That is what it is. Certainly it is true with the africanamericans, many of the people in its their own home. The notion is not just geographical communities, it really is a kind of severance delivery. Maybe just because of another group that doesnt have the advantages you do. One of the reasons, back to this about mercy, no one in the world is born with those attitudes and prejudices. No one. You can learn them early. It is not in your dna. Its not natural. It can become environmentally necessary for you live in a world in which there is none. The innocence of the human bei being, i wanted to compare with this romantic notion of an innocent american. Americans are always innocent, your notice that there are hundreds of books. I want to go back to before to see these are from europe, they were scared to death. There are two to three months, most of the ships down there with the animal. Then you come to this country were probably nothing but what were they running from usually religion or poverty. They did not come over here, italians in this country were not italians after a while. They were quite. It took a long time. Yes, it is the process. [laughter] but i wanted to get back to that notion, this country, particularly with the political slaves and poison to look at what it was like when ever country wanted a piece of this place. There speaking dutch or spanish. Did you know it was a swedish empire . They were all in here doing what they did, obviously in africa, claiming the name changes every five years, somebody would say no, its not new york, it is this that was the big thing. The people who were settling here who were really refugees, came here with other ideas. So what makes this outrageous a necessity for the level of enslavement and racism in this country was money and profit. This country entered the Industrial Revolution in like three decades. Other countries took a country. They had slave labor. Just feed them and corralled them. Then you look where they were making children in cuba, they were bringing slaves over. Why do they need so many . I dont know, 1000 slaves to cup sugar . 2000 they were there. Another. Thats right, they punish them. They get younger and younger. You are replenishing them. Putting coal in a furnace. So all of this is a kind of figure out just the consequences, which i did in the first book i wrote. Other things around it the teams to have a whole. These things have ferociously apologetic about it for the victim of it for the perpetrator. I wanted to get rid of that discourse. Find out what the origins are but its purpose is. Just a scapegoat purpose but a real function. Power and control. And money which is much the same. Thats what it is for. Its not something that oh yeah, this group of people are like this. We all know about. One of my best friends is, we all know one like that. As part of a stable. Not really but theres something in the diet, intellectual diet and the ignorance. Helping people and even their own work. I was serious when i said i dont understand why they ignore it or ignore the way they do. It is a powerful thing. Experience in the library somebody else was talking about difficulty joining in. She just could not. She said she finds it difficult to enter libraries today. I was so hungry for the experience of the library that i never experienced the difficulty. I wanted libraries all over the world for a very long time. My first decent job other than scrubbing floors at 12 was to be paged in the library which i got because my sister was secretary to the head librarian. She brought me in and they did it silently because i was very slow. [laughter] they just move me to another department. [laughter] before you move on, i have a response i want to share. I always love listening to you talk and i realize im also here to participate in the conversation. [laughter] cant just sit back usually do. [laughter] the summer i was in columbia, september columbia. I visited community of people outside of college who live in this mountainous area, peoples who ancestors were enslaved 400 years ago, back to columbia to engage in goldmining. They still live in the place where their ancestors settled for slavery so it was initially a fugitive slave settlement and the people who live there now live in the same land and do the same for their ancestors did 400 years ago. They still mine gold in a very different way, women are minors and the children are minors and women talk about mining in this incredibly passionate way. The guys mine, too. [laughter] they all do. Its interesting the women say ive been a miner since i was in my mothers womb. So now, even though they own the land, they were able to get the title but not with in the land. The metals. There are a number of big mining concerns trying to evict them so they can institute the new industrialized mining, stripmining and one of the Mining Companies, this kind of complicates a notion of what factors racism in this day and age in this relationship to power. One of the Mining Companies is called [inaudible] [laughter] its headquarters in south afri africa, the ceo of the Mining Company is a black south african. So yeah, there we go. Its also about the way in which racism has its own dynamic, its own momentum regardless of the people are or what the people think. Fears of black South Africans how long ago experienced freedom . There are now about to kick them off, people who live on the same land for 400 years. What kind of story is that . Everybody should write the new president of columbia. Thats one thing we can all do this evening. What is his name . He just got elected. Well find it. What is his name . The new president was elected a month or so ago. His name . Santos . Thats right. Santos. But you can google it. Write a letter of protest. What time is it . [laughter] do we want to take any questions from the audience . A few . Okay. Its a little after eight now. How long have we been talking . A little less than 55 minutes. Okay, well take a few questions. [inaudible question] i want to apologize for that phone, it was from death row in pennsylvania. [applause] if we are talking about prisons and inhuman aiders and how we are being deprived of so many of the minds that are in prison that should be helping meet the country, can we talk about all those in prison who should be amongst us, please . First, i would say that speaking of literacy and liberation, an amazing contribution to all three of those categories. This is something we have to save. [applause] its also about the relationship between learning and freedom. Its about the uses to which we put our literacy. Because of the fact that theres been this mobilization by Law Enforcement all over the country, its not been possible to build the kind of campaign we see in other parts of the world. That is to use all of your contacts to encourage people to think about this case. If you have kids in school as the teachers to talk to the children about the meaning of living in a Democratic Society and using Capital Punishment as a routine mode it to address a whole range of issues. The only industrialized democracy in the entire world that puts people to death in this way and me more than anyone has been the face of the campaign to expand democracy in this country and to abolish Capital Punishment. Thank you very much. [applause] good evening. The first thing i want to say is thats asked of on sixth avenue so the question is professor morrison i wonder if that can translate into the current with immigrants but specifically around suicides and bullying as well. What about the connection between gender expression and the hatred of the south can you comment on that . The homophobia is so obviously it is a distraction of the self that maybe they dont realize it so much that calling people names and beating them up paying them off offenses. It is so selfdestructive. The more vicious it is toward the homosexual person the more violence there is toward oneself and other types of scapegoats. And mexicans . Please. [laughter] or i read somewhere when the berlin wall came down, but the end of communism is also the end of raw capitalism if one goes so does the others see make you said you have been proven correct . Capitalism is at dad. [laughter] obviously but it is crumbling. That it is. [laughter] the most people dont know it. That capitalism that is true with the emotions and ways. So i am telling you and to scramble. How do we speed up the demise of capitalism . [laughter] thats what i want to know. [laughter] keep those republicans out of office. They are hanging onto the nail to capitalism not even in the civilized form so that is one way i may not live to see it i will be 80 next year. [laughter] but that is one thing. And the berlin wall. So when the berlin wall fell. [laughter] also the other walls went up. The one between israel and the west bank and then the wall in mexico at the border all of the other walls jumped up if not physical but other kind of imprisonment walls constantly switching first year of building walls that they couldnt get out now its so they cant get it now this shift looks longrange part and parcel of what i am certain is the disconnect. When these people say i want the government out of my Social Security it doesnt matter. But you talk about capitalism and communism i went to acknowledge ms. Mitchell sitting over there the first black woman to run for the Office United states of america for the communist party. [laughter] [applause] good evening. My first job was at page in the library on 95th street and im looking at my prospects of accomplishment. [laughter] one is about your ideas Digital Literacy i thought about movies in the context of how they are being adapted from books in the type of literacy we get from movies versus the book that i hope the director walks a fine line even though even with eat pray love it becomes more complicated with black women and black movies like the color purple waiting to exhale and now the colored girls i want to know your thoughts on an adaptation and with that Digital Literacy in the realm of cell in the second question is easier so how did you to meet . And how did you edit . [laughter] i know what she was doing. I had a job at random house. She was in acquisitions that they were very proud of. We got to know each other at that point. You published already at that time. You publish song of solomon. You would write three or four lines and we would be driving from your house to the city across the George Washington bridge. They would be traffic and you would pull out a notepad and write and then you would write a little bit here. [laughter] and then the book finally came out i said i cannot believe it. It was a magical. [applause] it was wonderful. But also i should say that i really appreciate what i learned about writing from tony when i wrote my autobiography. I was somebody who was used to writing philosophy. So i didnt think about writing in the same way so rather than writing it for me, tony would say what was it like . What was in there . What were the colors. So she made me understand writing in such a different way and i am forever grateful for that. We also had fun. Remember we went to the Virgin Islands . And i made you walk from one end . [laughter] know where that she could feel safe and right to. [laughter] so we went to the Virgin Islands. [laughter] for a long time it was like a month. Because we were going to stay at the holiday inn and it wasnt finished. It was incomplete. [laughter] remember we went to finland and sweden and helsinki. The photographers came out and these women formed a circle. A huge a circle and held hands with angela in the middle and i was sort of their. [laughter] to keep the photographers in a journalist or whoever away. It was amazing progression of had a camera. But this is a wonderful question how we met each other but the question visual literacy movies and adaptations and what do i think . I think most of them are pretty awful. [laughter] [applause] i dont know if it is fear how creative a met one africanamericans have been with music nobody told them how to do that i was just reading about the atom bomb and it was so chaotic everybody said oh my god. And then its changed to new language and it took off. It as though they are fearful of different creativity how to do something wild in different. They follow a certain pattern. So from the first scene everything. Now i understand the business requires different sorts of formula to get the money and get them out. I understand that such an expensive project. I was stunned. This has nothing to do with africanamerican films but no country for old men . My god. There was a movie with no score. None. They didnt tell me. [laughter] no sound. Just mexicans thats all you heard it was chilling. Its like they trusted me. It was fighting and it was different. But they didnt say this would be scarier happy you were pushed by the music and i thought isnt that interesting . So thats a little bit i know about the movies but i wish it were possible to do more inventive and creative more non formulaic hollywood things is possible in the movies i have never seen anything on broadway that literate and musically inventive and stage that way it was a leap for me. I thought it was fantastic so it is possible. I just want to say that im happy. Not wholly excited or satisfied by a lot of the films and musicals going on even though they are wellintentioned. For me well intentioned is not good enough. Thats like happiness. It isnt enough dont rest on happiness. Its okay. I hope youre all happy but we have to do more than that. First of all this is an incredible honor just to be in front of my to literary heroes am about to have my own breakdown. [laughter] but i have two questions as well the first being talk about writing a letter to columbia and context whats going on there when it seems other g and the cynicism has risen so high it almost chokes us what you think the role of rich in protest is . Does it still have an effect the written letter of protest . The other question is what do you think the role or the importance of the storyteller i is . I want you to answer both of those questions. [laughter] we live in a fast food nation. Americana once it now. And a lot. They deserted politically, everything if you dont have it right this minute like mcdonalds then you just drive by tell the machine what you want get your food and go. And it seems like this is constant so sitting down to write a letter and mailing it . Telling the other people to do the same thing and organize and actually get on the phone . That is too long. It may take a while. It may take a while thats my version. I totally agree with you because we have forgotten how to write letters. I was going to say for those of you who will have problems actually sitting down to do a letter and finding out how much it costs to mail a letter. [laughter] and all of that you can figure out how to email handle we figure how to answer that question in a slightly more complicated way and it has to do with the previous discussion of capitalism and the extent to which we assume that as individuals we are powerless switch is part of a consequence of neoliberals of individualistic ideology we only think of ourselves as individuals and not broader connections with communities not only in the us but in other parts of the world as well it seems to me this is a challenge for this. Even those that consider themselves progressives like the United States of america because we also imagine ourselves as somewhat different from the rest of the people in the world and american exceptionalism even those that pretend to be most radical. Exactly. So what would it take to create a connection with that communit community . Those who still have african names because they created a history and culture that goes back to resistance against slavery and they are still resisting as a matter of fact they receive the eviction order august 18 and they refused to leave. And writing, to answer your question is a written protest the process to help us feel that we are making community and reaching out beyond ourselves. And we have emotional connections with people who live in this village. I have a mantra in connection with what you said. When i was young they call the citizens we were american citizens first class or second class yes. But the word was citizens now that suggest a relationship with your neighbors or the town of the village after world war ii they stopped to use that word and we were consumers the American Consumer this and that and we bought things that is what we were supposed to do. Now . We are taxpayers. [laughter] [applause] now my many i dont want to give it. Those people who should not have it and you talk about capitalism they just change the language and we go for it. You pay taxes. So what . So now all of a sudden we lose who we are and we are redefined when the language changes we change the labels change but if we were still citizens, thats different we feel an obligation. Citizenship not narrowly defined. There are no losers i remember when it was romantic. [laughter] now they are homeless losers who by the way dont pay taxes. [laughter] [laughter] hi there. Actually there were some great blues players on the railroad playing some fantastic music. Ladies, it is an honor you brought ida b wells alive for me. I did. Yes you did. It was a program. Yes. Me and paula. She wrote the book it was a program. Yes. Me and paula. She wrote the book. You are right. Correct. Can i just Say Something . Many people dont acknowledge how important Toni Morrison was to the emergence of now will be called the black feminist literature. That is true. I say this to my students i dont know if ive ever said it to you, but i remember she was publishing and gail jones. So what we know as black women writing from the seventies and eighties would not have been possible had not Toni Morrison insisted as editor at random house to publish these works. [applause] and you also published paula first book. Yes and angelas first book. She didnt realize. [laughter] case it was hiatus i thought i was writing in between myself. [laughter] they didnt hire me to write books they hired me to edit the them. Im sorry i interrupted you. You are exactly where i wanted you. Speculative literature fiction, scifi, how does that relate to the third world women and the movement through literature . As a student of anthropology looking at what is real by look at fiction for ideas to be eliminating. Show me the reverse. Where are we writing back speculative soft scifi whats going on socially . There isnt much. You have someone coming here. Traded dangerously or create dangerously there is a book. Anyway she gave a speech and she was describing something that happened in haiti and i was overwhelmed. I hope and answers part of your question. She said during the really tough times in the eighties that they established a rule that a somebody dies if you kill them you cannot pick them up. Even if it was yours. And then a few days later in a garbage truck came along so if you went out to pick up a body everybody was afraid. Or somebody organized the theater and they came to participate and they did it every night. But the play was antigone. [applause] that was the most extraordinary thing. It was about the subject thinking of the visual the many many ways. But the same thing with porches. And then to think what its like in the world what other kinds of things jump out at you. Everything. To become the best human being that you can be. [applause] i just noticed the lights are on america is in the house. Good evening. I am honored to be standing in front of you. You are my idol with the resistance in new york city black and latino mothers who believe then Public Education who are so opposed to mail control with the privatization. And i want to give a shout out to the parents in chicago who just sat for a month to get a library for their children the field house is going to be torn down but they sat in be because they wanted a library but i was greatly influenced in the seventies and eighties for the internet to see you give speeches with the new york women foundation. And women in the community dont have access so if you can give the women of new york please give us some words of encouragement and inspiration for the proper quality education publicly. So let me say what you said in that minute that took you to explain who you were i am sure inspires so many of the people here and the work you are doing to resist privatization but the message i will give to you to take back is continuing you are doing and we all need to follow your leadership and all be involved with the juggernaut the privatization and especially with private education. Dont forget. Before we for on saw the shepherd image very from obama you have this iconic image and how does it feel when you see people does it feel like it is coopting your image for what you are trying to say . I will tell you a story. And abn to father on bother me its so easy to create the process on possibilities and then it goes on the internet. I asked the young woman who was a High School Student and then to go out in the seventies. But then the reason that campaign to free me exactly this is the 21st century. And she says i wear this tshirt because it makes me feel powerful. It makes me feel i can do anything i want to do. Not know she knew anything about me that made me realize they bring their own interpretation and that image not so much as me of an individual millions of people come together all over the world to demand freedom but the United National committee. And that is a positive interpretation. Who knows. In the only black woman who ever wore a natural. [laughter] i remember as a High School Student in new york. But then later of course so why do they keep picking on me . [laughter] but thank you for the question. Im representing my classmates and professors from concordia. So internally imprisoned by a society and do you think it is possible and then just to be imprisoned recently . Internal external the answer about internal freedom i am from ohio so make good. On lake erie. A workingclass town that had steel mills and shipyards. And real diverse because of citizens in some cases. And then those little cabbage things with meat in them. Im not trying to make it sound like it was thrilling so at any rate my experiences about race are very different from many other black people because i grew up in a mixed neighborhood they were calling each other names so some little boy called me a wicked name he said you ethiopian. [laughter] so what is an ethiopian . [laughter] it is a continent in africa and original human beings were born there. So i thought what is he talking about . So heres the thing. There were minor things like that. But and this is curious never felt it for the way it was meant because they were deficient in some way so that they were deficient said to have that racial moment when just before i got my job as a page i was working after school just doing housework two dollars a week one went to my mother the other when i could keep but she had complicated equipment like vacuum cleaners. I had never seen one and then she would curse me out every now and then. [laughter] my mother said quit. And said daddy she is so mean. He said go to work and get your money. And come home. You dont live there. So that was not my life and i have to be afraid of to neglect any person that had an advantage over me. And when i wrote the first book i really wanted to know why the girl felt so bad. Of course persuaded that he did. With the proof that she prayed for her blue eyes for two years. And i look at her to say how awful. [laughter] and then i thought second how beautiful she was at that moment. I didnt even know she was beautiful or not until i thought and thats an improvement. When you dont have the support. That is a real subject for a book. It was also about freedom. That in turn all thing traveling south white people, maybe but the ability to perceive how southern blacks their whole lives were all pressed not being able to go into the library. Anything like that or knowing what the safe places i what that might do how does wine in turn allies that or does one . If you do, how do you get rid of it . I always thought those people adults or children like calling me ethiopian that was so stupid. [laughter] i cannot feel that degradation. And that was the way and they were both from the south. Alabama and georgia. And to talk about Frederick Douglass and you have a certain historical meeting about abolishing slavery. So as i thought about this new edition of the narrative its important to point out it is incredible and as brilliant as Frederick Douglass wa was, imagination of freedom historically constricted so in a lot of ways it was about manhood in that fight proves his manhood and in the process it provides a path to freedom. So the question is what about women . What about little girls . How do they imagine freedom . So i want to say this but i didnt get to answer of the suicides of young gay people today. The deeply historical character of his own imaginings to be free. What does that mean to be free and Frederick Douglass time . What does it mean to expand the notion of freedom today cracks immigrants you are talking about the wall the palestinians how to bring the freedom of immigrants and transgender people gays and lesbians in bisexuals and what does that tell us the extent to which and that is quite restrictive. I ask missiles sometimes 100 years from now and to talk about the struggle i dont think well ever get there. That we can stop now. We one. So in the process to reflect on freedom we constantly challenge a framework that we develop an imaginary freedom. It was powerfully imaginative in a certain period. Its a major part of it for me. Mr. And the knowledge the acquisition of knowledge they get another little kindergarten they were in. And that little transition they may become wise. That. They knew and in those religious forms thats my faith and belief is so important and i am just suggesting there is something so powerful and attractive and liberating you can have it. From the texas correction bureau. With that necessity and what Frederick Douglass did with the intellect and in prison all of this works into the same thing of what they led us to believe it is knowledge that will set you free. [applause] thank you very much. All the programs could beyond the tv. Org looking at the summer archives with Toni Morrison to conclude with her last appearance on book tv in 2015 she the war on received a lifetime achievement