Podcasts on the free cspan now mobile video app or whatever you get your podcast. And on a website cspan. Org podcasts. Now im so pleased to introduce tonight speakers. Mattie kahn is an awardwinning writer and editor. Her work andos publish in the w york times, the washington post, the atlanta, harpers bazaar, vote, locks and more. She was a culture director at clan which he covered womens issues and politics and the staff editor picks you join the conversation tonight by julie riven the editorial director for culture human features at fox. Mattie kahn is presented her new bookri young and restless the girls who sparked americas revolutions. A young and restless because when most foundational and underappreciated American Revolution come to school. From the American Revolution to the civil revolution and the lupines preparation of the black lives matter, patty conan covers how girls have leverage unique strength from phantom to intimate friendships organizeded and places political work. And the words of billie jean king, welcome young and restless honors a ferocious power of teenage girls. In this bracing retelling of social movements, mattie kahn celebrates girls not as saviors but its leaders and visionaries deserving of a recognition of your were so pleased to host this event here at Harvard Book Store tonight. Please join me in welcoming mattie kahn and julia reuven. [applause] thank you so much. Is this working . Were good . Okay cool. I am so excited to be a tonight. I am both a fan and friend of maddie and was very lucky to be a very early reader of this amazing book. And i cant wait to hear more about it straight for maddie. Click on ask what your elevator pitch is for this book since maybe that anyone has read it yet, yet being the operative word but that wasth also a realy great elevator pitch their host here. But i guess we will start with how did you conceive of this idea . Yeah. So first of all thanks, julia, for doing this. I read the acknowledgments first for basically every book i ever read. So i felt a lot of pressure when i was writing my own acknowledgments come wondering if theres a single other person in the world like me who does that. But in hopes of maybe there is one you can see that julie is extensively thanked in the acknowledgments. I didnt even know when i was them that she would also agreed to do this. Thats a true friend. I came up with the idea for this book kind of overtime. I worked as her host set at al and that glamour and so i came in to contact with a lot of incredible young women and women sort of like across the cultural and political spectrum. And i think if youre an elected position like i i was to work that environment it starts seeming pretty normal. Solid days work to meet a young person who is organizing thousands and thousands of people around the country, around the world, that sort of normal. But with a little bit of perspective i started to feel like they really was something extraordinary happening with this generation of young women, such that they were organizing Global Climate strikes and on the frontlines of black lives matter and doing sort of like digital activism in ways i found impressive. What i thought i might do is write a book about what was so special about this generation of teenage girls and young women. And then i started researching and i received a quick education and just how long this kind of work have been going on. N. Then i felt really inadequate, like i need her to look a lot more. So i spent a and half on the proposal. Im glad my agent isnt here tonight because she wanted to have that happen faster. And then yeah, it became really a history book of telling of all social movements got a really feel it transformed america as told through the lens of teenage girls. And the project started surprise me in its scope and got bigger and bigger and then it ended up with the book that you see here. It really is just such a feat of research because you have this incredible archival work and then original reporting, which is obviously what you do in your day job as well. What did the process look like, special uncovering these stories that had not really been told before . I think the time what is helpful. I started writing the book during the Research Phase i did that mostly in 2019, 2018, 2019, 2020 and then started sitting down and outlining each chapter in detail in the spring of 2020 when there was nothing but time. I had more concentrated hours to do research than ever would have wanted. And i think the way i approach my work and my journalism and my writing in general is always to start as wide as possible. So i tried, when i was thinking about what these chapters would be for the things i knew belonged in the book, sort of like one moment at a time, i try to read the most general and comprehensive is almost think ie could possibly find. So whatever the biggest doorstop of the book that everything you wanted to know about this thing, there and thatrt always say before i started this book by hidden talent was reading a huge 800 page book in finding the one sentence where a woman is mentioned as an aside. This random person did this one thing, okay, i h want to read a book about her. It will befall the process, a process of reading and researching and talking to as many people as i could about their just social movement in america, finding the random clause about a girl who happened to be there and then the tog everything i possibly could about that person and going deeper and deeper chasing lots of footnotes, emailing librarians were the onlyeo peope in their buildings and, therefore, were very happy to go on a wild goose chase looking for a document because what else did they have to do in july 2020 . And kind of yeah, following my curiosity. I think thats the nice thing about always sort of having that feeling of being af little bitf an amateur in this work is, is you ask a lot of questions and they think you find a lot of people are really k happy to she what they know. I love that, and i learned so much and i was telling you, like, the amount that this uncovered for me after going to school and going to college, the amount i learned i feel like about American History just through this book is fast. Im grateful that you did that work for us. Was there a story that you found particularly surprising or moving as you were doing this research . There were a lot of stories that surprised me. I think youve probably heard me talk before about a chinese immigrant heavily involved in the womens suffrage fighting for right that she knew even if she achieved the aims of that movement wouldnt be extended to her as a s noncitizen. And i found her story very moving. She let this massive march at fifth avenue in 1912. She was so charismatic as a teenager that whole phrase was invented to describe how she turned her audiences. People would write newspapers that you went to a talk by mabel king and gillette mabel lysed by the conversation. I love that idea of like this captivating young person. I also think she was a good example and one of the other stories that surprised me was dickinson they consent and abolitionist orator during the civil war, actually the first woman in her very early 20s ever to address the house of representatives in congress. These were two girls as they were, wouldve been a didnt fight the time, who both tried their best to seize a platform that was extended to them sort of unlikely and in and unlike the way because theyre young and female but also couldnt help but have to kind of brush up against the constraints of a platform like that where you really given anachronistically microphone which are not given a lot of power. Reading those stories which werc not stories of when into the book knowing that i would include but finding so much hard and sorted sometimes heartbreak in this idea of being so famous and so charming, but not being taken seriously. Those were stories that surprised me and also i can change the direction of the rest of the book. As you know having read it, i feel like i was in this one talking about the book, this is a story that, these are stories that really celebrate teenage girls and what young women are capable of but i wouldnt want anyone to read this book and think its enough to just hear from young women. I think if you stop there you run thehe risk that many adults who helped platform these young women or young f people in genel but never really follow up after that, givenen that same risk, which is you create a star instead of helping an activist had a long career in the work that she wants to do. I love what you said about we have this tendency to say girls are going to save us, girls are going to save the world. And if you could just speak a little to what you think adult should do. Yeah. I think that idea has been around for each successive generation of young people since truly the founding of this country, and he we are many generations later picks c inclue something was not comparing and networking. I think one of the things that i said almost can answer in a position which is one of the things that really works and that is helped young people remain activists and still feel connected to this work that could otherwise bring them out is intergenerational partnership. So notyi just saying the girls e going to save us or the kids are doing all right, but really asking like i could be on the field within share in this work, be in Partnership Company in committee, the in conversation . If you look toward some of the most famous activist elders like people like doors where its at for Gloria Steinem they are very committed to not just talking amongst themselves and not just applauding the next generation of people were following them but in really figure out they can provide what people need. I always feelok like and the sty isnt book, young people bring energy to this movement. They bring new ideas. Theywh dont have a sense of whats impossible and so they make a lot possible in absence of that fear over what may be can happen or wont happen. And older people bring perspective. They bring the knowledge that one defeat is an and a tire failure, that you can keep going even if it feels like something is disintegrating, that you might feel rightht now like this isnt working but history will look more kind on it. I really think you need both of those things and so i just feel its a mistake to say good for them, we are done now. Because you cant really leave it to them. I am wildly impressed by the girls in this book. I have so much respect for them, but i wish they didnt have to do it alone. Yeah. I think that is totally right. And speaking of intergenerational relationships, what patterns did you see emerge across time when you look at activists . Tivists of today kind of yeah what patterns have emerged is the same what is different. Well, one thing and thats the same as i think young have to their advantage thinking their parents are hopelessly outdated that has driven so much culture so much politics so much social change and definitely thinking of the low girls who were working in textile mills in the 1830s who felt like, you know, they were the first girls ever to strike out on their own, mean in some ways what they did was unprecedented but that f that feeling that young people can have, that is amazingly the same. Theres so much of young people feeling like his problems, and equities are in ways that parents never did. Of course it and john reagan only became much older she saw thesh old but its a great advantage of being young, it helped make you feel excited. One of the spectators, reading those journal entries and letters to eavesdrop on their power and i could do it for 100 workbooks. Theres really Nothing Better than realizing she has something to say. Whats differentec is technolog, the way girls are heard and the platforms they are able toze see and people are there to listen and the audience keeps getting bigger not close with a lot of power and risk show going to tracking the evolution, she is making people mad people responding on twitter but they were responding to her. It canan be very loud. Cannot imagine. Id like to talk about what makes it special. Ive written for them and i will always so surprised by the stories begin to tell about them not in relation to asking the when it came to be. I thought i would start open in the 1930s when the idea became prevalent and then i thought i would start in 1901 as an adolescent part of the reason something special, that awareness of something happening there, i knew power and if you read terrys, you hear a lot of what it means to be a keen girl. Id wanted to write because i ft against all odds not in terms of their innate qualities they have characteristics that make themle capable because of the obstacles and some obviously more than l others. A lot of the locus spent on the differences black girls have had from her to white girls and relative to immigrant girls. So many different experiences being underestimated and a sense of wanting to flex your power and what combination doesnt have to be true but right now it is true. There so many potus and women in the book that start with two girls in the cafeteria saying you know its kind of messed up as the experience of being a teen girl. Maybe your parking lot segregation and so far no one didnt feel all my god, i know that feeling. Extremely universal and two points in your book, one is how adults are embarrassed easily and what makes teen girls affected in the sense of embarrassment and what a girl can do versus a woman and what makes girls affected protesters. As you know, i dont do karaoke but there was a time in my life i have no problem and i think that embarrassment which affects everybody not just women and girls is a powerful force forrr action. Feeling embarrassed to chance or march or even tonight, that sense of him doing it no matter what is unique girls and doing things for friends which there isnt a teen and the girl who wants to do it totally alone to the freedom and that is different than growing up and this does comeam up that as a culture tolerate emotion from young people is the girl standing at the podium or someone literally throwing up which happened onn tv, there are adults watching the and even admiration for the display of feeling. An adult womanor whose supposedo put herself in a certain way, not be dramatic, to all these things that make you more effective. The purity of expression makes them feel authentic and allows others to assist them with the you shut ourselves up from being ambitious in a way we dont like. Theres not one person in this book doesnt have to grow up to be ae woman but it does give young women in particular a powerful place in society. You mentioned friendship and i think that is something so special about girlhood. There is such an important part of my girlhood and i know it was for you, i watched about a particular moment in that. Theres a great moment i left my editor is like you need to keep this in. Its a false moment, there are three College Students going home from school having played a majorei demonstration in their heading home in georgia from albany preparing and they know theyre going to be activist and the night before they head back home theyum could spend their te to eat anything but they make themselves matching shirts. I felt i cried because book in 19 understand more than arming herself with that kind of production of grow very matching shirts with her best friend like that idea of friendship strengthened and the idea of fighting against that narrative and protest saying is one of my favorites. I love the choices of these and why you felt this wasnt going. Working with that will always put a chip on your shoulder, what you do is important and part of the reason is sharing real estate with the latest trends and clothes and i thought it was an advantage to tell you that your clothes are a powerful communicator and show what you have to say and you notice the candidate is wearing a purple tie, you have participated, correct, welcome. If youve ever thought about what you would lead to a job interview, you have produced. I always quote vanessa treatment, the paper she said the world is not led by naked people. Well have tong choose and constantly assessing school and whos not and who is comfortable and what they are wearing and who isnt and sometimes you notice is losing out on your most important tool. One example is in texas recently a harsh antiimmigration girl came up, they went to the statehouse to protest and they got a tonr of press. More attention ever and yet when a reporter asked them how do you decide to do this and how does it feel to be here . Said it was uncomfortable. Thats not what she wants to wear for where she wants to be but a girl knows that she wants to make a statement, her close will make a big part. I love that in the book you mentioned all of these girls what did happen to these activists as they grew . Did they fear the worst group of christians . Im really happy the book doesnt end in the 1940s because the most girls there is no staying in activism. There werent a lot of places for women to be public figures in society at all so a bunch of early stories are hard to research. Thankfully the Civil Rights Movement to have opportunities available through education and careers and make it possible for some of the women to continue to be activists. I was never descriptive of what anyone of them should do she never ended up going many girls were able to see her. She became w a doctor and when i spoke to her she said i feel becoming a doctor is an extension of what iiv did. You dont have to be an archivist or politician to have an impact in your community. The amazing thing is it made it possible for them to have options so it is the story we have made. I think thats part of the reason ing loved history and you do get to see a couple hundred years of progress. Did researching the book recapture your own experience . I apologize to my mother, your close i felt i owed her. Constantine, a lot of the work, i was born into a family told me i could do whatever i wanted and never had trouble voicing my opinion felt i could do whatever and a lot of the things my mother would talk about were ancient history, emphasis on ancient. I got to the working world andce experienced all kinds of things and on myself think nothing terrible and you shouldnt have to experience it firsthand to appreciate that but it made me have compassion for the person in the world before her with no obstacles. I think talking to girls now, all people asked me. I dont think that anything in the book is i wish we could go back to the field there is a betterve term for a young womani just think we are more aware of how entrenched these problems are but i only hope is the collective responsibility to do something and not pretend theres something to go back to. Obviously progressive activists for every purpose paragraph theres a girl fighting against the race she is fighting for. Can you talk about the choice to focus on the girls making the book, on the other side and micro center is focus, and failures ready there is against abortion and mentioned i wanted to show progress who will in the position that, who became valued on those issues and are but i never felt teen girls were the leaders of those movements and i wanted show young women in progress. That is to in the image of verses what happened and it turned out to be dangerous. There you think we are now when it comes to girls and activism . Something striking to me is the story chronologically here im activist and christian of how you seek balance. How can you be an activist and also live in a world you are trying to save. There are definitely no easy answers. The ability through. The expense of your personhood some of the people i do for the book she felt she had to be more than development stages operating in that and then she was like a weight, i need to grow up a little bit so i think Technology Makes it harder, theres not a moment in the day you cant be working and organizing being a person who truly knows the world is risk which these girls authentically do. They havent been able to handle it will getting people with boundaryry between what work is and self. I think it is easy to have that boundary and that is so mentors, anyone tries to turn off working, its hard partners number now because of technology so will continue to be an issue and is hopeful, someone whos 25 and the movement, you can imagine what they thought of me. I was told regularly how old i was writing this theres no telling you the those older, 25 euros have things to teach the next generation of young activists and in the age of technology and social media. My last question before open up to audiences and elders, not spoken about rosa parks. For you to share a few stories the intergenerational, the way we had them against each other. The onepa told a little bett, for the purposes of explaining nine months before a High School Student was arrested and convicted of the crime of refusing to give up her seat on the bus and it was a traumatic experience for her not because of what she did but because she expected more of the community to rally around and she was surprised that that didnt happen. One person who did was rosa tparks without people didnt realize was committed to activism and had nearly given up completely except for the factt that she decided to recommit and it demonstrates for coffee, she couldnt make it home after the meeting and rosa parks encouraged her for what happened on the book bus and they could tell the story. Everybody was on the bus and months later we know what rosa parks did and it really was half the size of the movement for many reasons. She became pregnant as a teenager and a few months later everyone of these movements as much as it is political and ideological they did not t wanto be in the movement for what is amazing a lot of people know her as the first person to do what she did on the bus. We know how much more Important Role in history, after the movement that came looking for her again because they need a plaintiff and ultimately growing constitution and ended and rosa parks started and they tried to find every outstanding man possible and none want tojo do e job to teen girls with newborn son at home and every reason possible to say no. The most persuasive for the movement and she did it. Every person no one told her the case. Ca the girls who did this and waited a long time to get credit we give her now partial and the way we understand her relationship with the movement is an adequatein but i have admiration for people who decided even when it wouldnt benefit them there is something they had too do and its an incredible legacy. She changed the world. That story is so powerful and there are many other powerful stories which should all read and pick up a copy and now will take questions for our. Raise your hand and ill call on you as. I know womens stories have not been well told so what does it look like as you are trying to understand the role . I talked about how many stores are in the book, for me one thing was trying to figure out when starting thebo book writing further and faster one about what was coming, she was 17 and was an amazing, perfect story for the book and its like every fact, you embrace or discard but its like this is great, a great place to start. I could barely find anything and the first thing was someone saying i dont think she is assisted, i dont think she was real or if she was she didnt do what people said she would have to find your grandchildren and nieces have written their own memories of what they thought she had done and what i found was how she was using features that everyone from anticommunist, her story had taken on the shape it needed and turned in to a better book and i hopegi because someone we know nothing about that husband for people is. Ever since then the great thing is if you write a book about history, you will find thousands of academics who devoted their entire life to this waiting for you to email them and say im interested in your research, they will talk to you for hours so thats great and other than that, l its in the record knowg you can fill in and later talk to people alive and whos around you and know an older history theres so much not available in the i frustration of limited by covid but you can only ask about things you know are there. It is a frustrating process i would say. You ever have a percentage of what young activists came from progressive families and how many rebelled . I think i have a percentage, in was the earlier phase of the book the pre1940s, 50s phase, theres a lot of continuitye , or girls who were the daughters of schoolteachers when most mothers were not working oror exposed to conversations they might not have access to. Later becomes more rebellion there but rebellion motivates a lot of people to join the movement and geographic becomes possible so people leave their homes to College MarketHigher Education is that becomes an drives people to find meaning in collective action but a lot of came out of that. One thing i was struck by was how many of the girls were treated poorly not just by the public but other people in the movement they were part of talking about how she was dropped by the Civil Rights Movement. I was wondering if you had takeaways from your research how old is fence can support these girls in ways that are genuinely supportive without being patronizing but helping them stay in the movement but not turned off by their experience. The prevailing feeling of elders in these movements is got from here, the feeling that girls are publicists forra movement and it attracts a lot ofof movement they will get in e room and figure thisnd out and they leave girls on the outside so the extent to which young people cant even say in the little conversation where strategies areng being discussed are not on the other side of the door is a big possibility. Now you see that in School Board Meetings for young people are testifying and interactions and confrontations that b happen in these spaces the more people can have a presence there the debate that after a way of being people in it when they went into another room and shut the door in the face so that is a piece of it and budgetary decisions are being made and young people can say this is what i value, or that look like monetarily . Having a conversation about wanting to become an action item and keepinghe them in the discussion post a long way. A lot of what the shows is frustration of not being part of the discussion and the other thing is girls are only showing up behind microphones and public settings, youre not really involving them in theat movement if you treat them mostly as a proud gatherer or soundbite generator but not really involving them in the work of social change so involving young people is t much possible and te strategy of organizing a good idea because eventually they will grow up and pass on to the next generation think critically about that. Helps them feel less used and that is sad girls in the book at one time, they are trying to contribute and feel used. Any other question . Even if there are many girls, very different lived experiences, is there a common characteristic about that individual or that particular event in a moment the father of two daughters, im interested to get what may then become activists. I think general dissatisfaction is a common feeling. [laughter] if youve ever heard somebody say they are not pleased with how things are going, that tends to be great l activists historically. What is helpful is a one time or another one person in their life that often the question of what are you going to do about it . Or walkout school over segregation was a musicic teachr who dressed her annoyance high school, she literally said what are you going to do about it . Sometimes it is that lit match that helps there is more power than they think. I think we all know leaders of all kinds are sort of born with or develop over time a sense of conviction over whats right and whats wrong in fostering that to the rest of our ability not saying these are just this way but saying things are this way for now they can change and will change. One thing i do want to do was these protest movements to say i dont think thats true. I think the is part of times but testament to the fact that change happens so often and it really is doable. I think we have time for one more question. It sounds like have you considered looking into a moment in other countries where people dont have opportunity to have support . It was hard to limit the book to the united states. I felt like a book i was capable of writing, it was hard and up to the challenge and the global scale i wish other people write the book for they know more about the history of the place and finishing the book and putting it together and inspiring people around the world and there are many more values in the book. I loath to set my limits but how to in this book and this is the story i can contribute but nothing makes me happier than t see this is not a global expression and those are books i would love to read. If somebody wants to write them, i am their first peter. Thank you so much. Young and restless amazing. I loved reading it and i know you all do, too. Medical sign bookse appear in there plenty of copies, thanks so much for having us. Thank you. 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