Although you probably know a fair amount of the plot already. Your own allegiance is based in part on your experiences and inspired by them. I should say my book is, too. I read your bike your autobiography as the start of my research. Byhaps you like to start setting a bit of the Historical Context for the audience. The detention of japaneseamericans is not covered in our schools as well as it should be, it is not a subject that is as wellknown as it should be, because there is so much to learn from it. Perhaps you can start by telling us about the historical background before we go on to your own personal experiences. George i know the power of stereotypes. There is a long history of the stereotype depiction of asians and asianamericans in the media in the United States. The set the backdrop for bombing of pearl harbor to trigger this hysteria. We happened to look like the people that bombed pearl harbor. By of the stereotype images the media fed into that hysteria. There was also racial prejudice, because from the beginning, when immigrants started coming from asia, they were denied naturalized american citizenship. Immigrants from anywhere in the world that ultimately look forward to becoming naturalized americans, except immigrants from asia. There was that racial discriminatory background as well. Denial was used to deny land rights to asian immigrants. From from asia, denied the right to buy land, but there was no language that to that effect in the law. All that said was aliens ineligible to citizenship were denied Land Ownership in california. That was first passed in california, and then later by oregon and washington state. Subterfuge had to be used by asian immigrants. My grandfather was a wily guy. He developed land that was wasteland, into a productive farm in the Sacramento Delta area. He wanted to own it. He could not, because of that alien land law. So, he bought it in the name of his firstborn son, my uncle, because he was a native born american. And his worked for his young son on the land that he owned. When the war started, there were ambitious politicians who used that existing racial prejudice and combined with war hysteria. In california, we had an attorney general who knew the law and the constitution. He was also an ambitious politician and wanted to be elected governor of california. He saw that the single most popular political issue in california was to get rid of the was the get rid of the japs issue. This attorney general who knew the constitution became an outspoken advocate, a leader in the get rid of the japs movement. He made an amazing statement. He said there have been no sabotage orpying or activities by japaneseamericans and that is ominous. [laughter] because the japanese are inscrutable. You do not know what they are thinking, so we better lock them up before they do anything. , thehis attorney general absence of evidence was the evidence. That kind of Political Leadership fed into the existing prejudice and war hysteria that swept up the presidency as well. We were incarcerated. That attorney general won the election for governor, and he was reelected and reelected again. He became a very popular governor of california, then he was appointed to become the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ,ou may have guessed who he is his name is earl warren. The great liberal Supreme Court chief justice. All of that background led to the incarceration of innocent citizens, who happened to be of japanese ancestry. Host it is an interesting question how things like this happened, and you said there are several factors that come together. Racism, a background of there are some people out there you can identify as bad actors and opportunists, trying to get their own economic advantages. Then, i think you have to assign responsibility to the mass of the American People who are not willing to stand up and say this is wrong. Episodes like this happen when you have some small concentration of bad actors, but then widespread indifference. I hope that is maybe something we can learn from the past and a lesson we can take forward for the future. In this climate of fear, with some peoples booking some people stoking the fires of president of racial roosevelt president authorized western command to exclude some people as he deemed necessary from the west coast. Like the land law, this did not on its face say anything about japanese ancestry, but everybody knew that is what that what is about. Japaneseamericans to leave the west coast. Gore was no place they could and in some places, the owners said you cannot leave until you are ordered, and when you are ordered, you can only go to one of these camps. Could you tell us about your personal experience in that program . George i was incarcerated from age five to eight and a half. War. Uration of the the tension and anxiety on the part of my parents. I just celebrated my fifth birthday and a few weeks after mymy parents got younger brother a year younger and our baby sister, not a year earlynd we got up very one morning and we were told to wait in the living room. Bedroome packing in the and we were gazing out the front window, and we saw two soldiers with bayonets on their rifles marching up our driveway, and banging on the door. I remember how scary that bank was bang was. Our father answered it and we were ordered out of our home. My father gave us little packages to carry and my brother and i stood out on the driveway, waiting for my mother to come out. Which he finally emerged, she had our baby sister in one arm, and a huge double back in the in thend duffel bag other and tears were streaming down her face. The terror of that morning is still embedded in my memory. That was the beginning of it. To the race track with other families that were gathered. We were herded over to the stable area. We were each assigned a horse stall to live in. For my parents, it was degrading, humiliating, and wishing to go from a twobedroom home to a narrow, smelly horse stall. Another memory i have is a fiveyear old kid, i thought it was fun to sleep where the horse sleeps. My real memories are quite quiteent and unrepresentative of the real experience that my parents had. My father told us we were going on a long vacation, and it was that for me. It was a fun experience to ride on the train for the first time. We were taken to the swamps of arkansas, but the first winter it snowed and i remember how magical that morning was, to wake up and see everything covered in white. I remember we had snow fights with my father. Then he showed us that a snowball to be rolled in may to a great day snowball and we built a snow fort. Those are the memories i cherish. I also have the memory of starting school in a black tar barrack. We had the school day every morning with the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I could see the barb wire fence of the Century Tower right outside my schoolhouse window as i recited with liberty and justice for all. Host that is very touching, how the closeness of your family and that intimate circle to transform what was a terrible injustice into an experience that was actually pleasant in some ways. I suppose many of the children did not really understand what was going on. Of course, your parents did. Do you know how that made them feel about the country . Your brother your mother was a birthright american citizen. Sacramento. Born in actually a farm area near sacramento that got absorbed into the city. For my parents, it was the most anguishing period of their lives. As a teenager, i became very curious about my childhood incarceration, which i experienced with the innocence of a child. I wanted to know more about it, because i read civics books, i was 15 by this time. I was also inspired by dr. Martin luther king, and his ideals. I was active in the civil rights movement. I could not really quite thatstand how and why incarceration happened. I had many long discussions with my father after dinner, and i must say he was a very unusual japaneseamerican of his generation, because so many japaneseamericans who experienced the internment as adults and felt the pain did not want to inflict that pain and their anguish on to their children, so they did not talk about it. Talked to many i younger japaneseamericans who saw our musical allegiance and came backstage and told me that they knew their mom and dad or grandma and grandpa were in camps, but that is all they knew because they did not share it and they learned about their and why theirry parents did not want to talk about it. Particularly, the loyalty questionnaire, they do nothing about it. To give you some background on the loyalty questionnaire, right after the bombing of pearl harbor, young japaneseamericans like all young americans, rushed to their Recruitment Centers to volunteer to serve in the military. This act of patriotism was answered with a slap in the face. They were denied military asvice, and categorized enemy aliens. American citizens were called enemy aliens and if some protested, that was revised to enemy not aliens. They could not put down enemy citizen. They took the word citizen away from us, and we became nonaliens. A year into the imprisonment, the government had a wartime manpower shortage and he were all these young people they could have had, that they denied military service. How to get them. They came down with the loyalty questionnaire to establish whether they would be loyal and serve in the military. Andmost outrageous question that loyalty questionnaire was, one sentence, twice question 28 which asked to conflicting ideas. Will use where your loyalty to the United States of america and forswear your loyalty to the emperor of japan . We are americans. We had no loyalty to the emperor. We had never even thought of loyalty to the emperor. For the government to assume that there is a racial loyalty to the emperor when we are americans, americanborn, american educated, it was outrageous. No, no, i do not have a loyalty to forswear, the no also apply to the first part of the same sentence, will you swear loyalty to the United States. If you answered yes, you do swear loyalty to the United States, and you were confessing that you had been loyal to the emperor and now were ready to forswear and set aside that loyalty to the emperor and repledge loyalty to the United States. It was an outrageous question. That became one of the two most controversial questions. My father was anguished by that, me, asshared that with well as a lot of other parts of the internment that we discussed after dinner. Me our explained to american democracy. He said is it it is a peoples democracy, and it can be as great as the people make as but it is as sellable human beings are salad bowl ible as human beings are. Andold me the story of war warren. Our democracy depends on people who cherish the highest he the stevenstown to for president headquarters and said we volunteer, but actually he volunteered me, but there i was working together with other passionate people, dedicated to man,ng this great stevenson who was the personification of the best of american democracy, elected. That is what got me to be politically active, as well as active in the social justice movement. The loyalty questionnaire is one of the pointed moments in allegiance, and it did have this paradoxical, contradictory nature. In almost the same way that the evidence of sabotage being claimed as evidence of intent to make some conservative concerted move is also paradoxical. Another sort of paradox in our title, allegiance. In part, it is about loyalty to the country, and yet the whole program and what you are describing is in it is an example of the country betraying its people. The japaneseamericans perpetrated by the u. S. Government and this great injustice was done to them. In fact, the Supreme Court was not willing to say it at the time, but people agree it was a constitutional violation. A hard question is, how to respond to that. Allegiance does a good job of dramatizing this choice. Within the japaneseamerican community, there were different responses. Some people wanted to do everything they could to prove their loyalty, by complying with the program, by volunteering for the armed forces, by answering the call for the draft. People who said what is truly patriotic is to resist this violation of the constitution and defend american ideals by challenging it. I was wondering if you could say a little bit about that choice and the way it comes up in allegiance. Those that bit the bitterand swallowed the and went to fight for this were put on another age, and all separated separated, all japanese unit that was put on Dangerous Missions and have the highest casualty rate of any unit, but they also fought with amazing heroism andliteral they did come back as heroes and the most decorated unit of the entire Second World War and that timed lasts until present in American Military history. They are heroes, and they fought with amazing, unbelievable courage and patriotism. , thoseder the resistors you described as standing on principles and resisting the draft within the prison camp, and their position was a very american position, they pay a high price as well. They did hard time in federal pension that centuries for standing for american principles, and i consider them just as heroic. We worked in a love story where the sister of the young man who rose to fight for this country falls in love with a resistor, and she works with the resistor, marries him and they built a family, but when the young man comes home, thats with the is a symbolicat split of the family to symbolize the fracture in the japaneseamerican community, which we discovered still exist today exists today. People that were on opposite sides, and because of that, paid a heavy price, particularly the resistors families. There were many tragedies in those families. Suicides were committed because of the vilification that they got from the veterans that jcl d, and from the jacl, an organization that plays a part in our drama, a Real Organization that plays that exists today. I joined about organization because they changed after the war, fighting for many rights and improvement of the condition of japaneseamericans. They vilified the family of the resistors, and there were some suicides committed by those that an mentee today. Exists heroes,re two kinds of but both heroes made incredible sacrifices, and that was the price of winning our democracy. I think it is one of the greatest tragedies that the two sides on this conflict had such areiculty seeing that they both forms of patriotism and ways of expressing loyalty to america and american ideals. Going back to the loyalty question there loyalty questionnaire, it was responsible for your Family Moving from one camp to another. About the lake . Answered no to defend the United States of america by bearing arms. My mother had three Young Children and to ask her to bear arms, leaving her children in a andon camp was outrageous it had to be responded to by everyone over the age of 17 at the camp. This had been asked of young men as well as 87yearold immigrant ladies. , with no real thought given to it. Preposterous, with no real thought given to it. Because of that, we were transferred to to the lake. It is much harder than the camp we were first incarcerated in in arkansas. I have wonderful memories of the camp there. , it snowed, verdant in the wintertime and it was sultry in the summertime sweltery in the summertime, but tulu lake was a contrast to that. It was a dry lake bed by the california border. Andand was hard, gritty, sharp sand. Apparently, there were snails in that lake there. It had been dry for a long time. Weedswere lots of humble tumbleweeds. Many people there, particularly young men, were radicalized by the goading by the loyalty questionnaire and the treatment that they received. Activists. Into they became they called themselves the volunteer corps. They were going to rise up when japan landed on american soil and be physically ready for them. Jogsdid calisthenics and and they jogged in the morning around the block. Headband and some sunted the military rising anded on their headbands they jogged around the block. That is the sound i woke up to tulu lake. Gs in they would end their jobs with banzai. Then they would scatter. The mps would try to identify who they were but they surreptitiously changed their place regularly so they could not be captured. They would stage Midnight Raids on some of the units in the barracks and young men would be dragged out and taken. Jail,ad the concrete which was constructed by the internees there at tulu lake. Not,often than the the the wrong people were dragged out. My father was a block manager so he had to explain to the Camp Administration that they got the wrong people and sometimes he was not successful so he would organize people to go discuss with the Camp Administration, the group of people to back them up. One of them was a demonstration and my father took me to that and i do have memories of going with my father to one of those gatherings near the Administration Building and the gates suddenly opened and i inembered jeeps came roaring and the mps were standing with their rifles aimed at us and we all scattered. My father grabbed my hand and we eric barrack. Lakeemories i have of tulu are not the kind of memories i have from arkansas. Pilgrimage or a we had gone back three times and we went through the stockade , the jail. We saw graffiti written on the walls there and we also saw brown stains here and there. Apparently, some men were brutalized and their heads were smashed against the concrete to a bloody stain which turned brown over the decades. I thought the description of tulu lake in your autobiography was one of the most compelling parts of it. Inis an action you convey allegiance. Me asle of things struck so amazing about the lake. One was the way in which things just keep getting repeated over and over again. The jail within a jail. Also, the government keeps trying to figure out who the bad guys are, keeps on getting it wrong. Tuluugh, in this case, in lake, there actually was a projapanese element. The other thing it demonstrated to me was you can take a population that is intensely you can mistreat them and call them enemies and you will eventually make them into enemies. I think, is something we should definitely bear in mind in the present day. Weve got five more minutes to talk and i was thinking, it is an incredible story. It is a story that should have timeless appeal. But it is also a story that has special relevance now in light of some of the things that are going on. I was wondering if you could talk about how you think allegiance connects to current events. Allegiance is thely relevant to president ial Campaign Going on and the kind of rhetoric that is being heard, particularly on the republican side. There are responsible republicans who have been the extremeople of statements being made and trying to put that in context. Is particularly ,uilty of this broad brush sweeping characterization of a whole group of people with that same brush. Yes, the terrorists are muslims but all muslims are not terrorists. They are a small fraction. To make those wild statements, banning all muslims from coming into the United States, is on american because is unamerican. When you go to Arlington National cemetery, the headstones have the religious symbols of the faith of the people buried there. There are a number that have muslim symbols. Muslims have fought for this country and died for this country and it is really reckless for that kind of aatement to be made by candidate for the presidency of the United States. So, to point that out and to have some fun with it, we have reserved a seat for donald trump at the longacre theater. That reserved seat sign has the number of performances that he has missed from the time the indication invitation was extended. [applause] he has now missed 44 performances. But he has a lot to learn about American History. It is really a worrisome thing that so Many Americans dont know American History and are swept up by this mans rhetoric. Ours a commentary on education and that is why it is so vitally important that we know our history, and particularly the more shameful parts of American History. Because we learn more from those chapters where our democracy falters than the glorious chapters that we are exposed to all the time. People like donald trump need to know our history. Has also of roanoke expressed the same kind of comments and i extended an invitation to him and i talked to him over the telephone. He is a charming southern gentleman. [laughter] he hasnt responded to the has ation yet but he commission a Human Rights Commission that extended an invitation to me to come speak there. Example for as an the mayor of roanoke. I have accepted that invitation and we have set a date where i will visit roanoke. Bowers thatto mayor his time to see allegiance is limited. We are closing on the 14th of february. I am coming to roanoke. That is wonderful of you. I am very impressed. On that point, one of the astonishing things in this latest cycle of hysteria and xenophobia was that people were bringing up the detention of japaneseamericans not as something we should learn from and not repeat but as a historical precedent for some of these measures. Andought that was terrible showed a real lack of historical education. This is something that does seem to happen over again. Americans suffer some sort of attack, we overreact, we perpetrate injustice, later we say we will never do it again but we do. Do you thinks how we, as a people, can get better . I often quote your father and say a nation can be no better than its people. What can americans do to minimize the chance that we will do Something Like this again . Our Education System has to be more comprehensive. Particularly these important chapters of American History. Icom a personally, have taken it. N as our mission i have been on speaking tours to governmental agencies where we found a museum in los angeles called the Japanese American National museum where we institutionalize the story of the internment of japanese americans. As a generation that experiences as the generation that experienced it dies off and those that didnt experience it dont share it with their descendents, and it is not in the history books, then it will fade away. By building an institution, we institutionalize that story. And by dramatizing it and telling it in the broadway we haveagain, been working with the board of education in the state of arkansas where the camps were and where we were incarcerated, a we have invited teachers dozen teachers to come to the Japanese American National museum every summer for this program and get them to incorporate the chapter on internment into the educational curriculum in arkansas. Particularly because this is part of arkansas history. We need to, as individuals and organizations, try to prevent that from happening by ensuring that these stories will be remembered. In the same way that we remember the great heroes of the civil rights movement. And all of the events that happened being made into movies like selma last year with amazing performances by a british african, playing dr. Martin luther king, through the eye of the media. The death camps of europe have been dramatized in movies, novels, and television programs. Story, by telling this and all of the accesses that we have to make this story an organic part of our american experience, then we can do our bit to keep it from happening again and making america a better america. Donald trumps motto is make America Great again. But he is making america disgraced again. [applause] i know i speak for everyone when i say you are an inspiration in this regard. It has been an honor and a privilege to share the stage. We now have sometimes for questions and answers. There are people with wireless microphones on the sides so i will call on people who raise their hands but dont ask the question until you get a microphone. Thank you very much for the musical. I thought it was beautiful and a very important story to be told. It has been met with some criticism that it is not 100 historically accurate and that masoka, a real entity, kind of clouds the judgment of the people in the audience, thinking that everything in the musical did happen in the camps. What is your response to the criticism that allegiance has received . Allegiance is a work of theater art. We tell the truth by interpreting the truth. For example, most everybody gogh that go van paintings. He captures the emotional truth of that landscape that he is looking at. Swayingight and the grass in the breeze. Everything that we talk about in allegiance happens not in that camp or in that time but they happened. But it is part of the truth of it. Story. Fictional the family is a fictional family. Facts, we do use actual organizations, and individuals, because mike masoka played a critical part. He was a very active actor in the story, as was the Citizens League of which he was the secretary. You cant tell the story of the civil war without having an actual president of the United States. You can have a fictional story that Abraham Lincoln really made , so he is included in a fictional story. Here has written a fictional story but he uses actual people that existed, Justice Frank berger. Justice douglas. Iddle. Ey general b these are real people but he is telling a fictional story. Fictional story using actual institutions and actual facts. I know that criticism was made by a documentarian. His job is to tell the photographic truth. Goghs of the theater. We capture the essential truth of that experience. [applause] in the middle, can we pass the microphone . I want to thank you also. Japaneseamerican buddhist temple and one of the offerings in our library is a book called rice country. In the early chapters, they talk about j a. C. L. They referred to it as a collusion league more than anything else. I want to thank you for setting that straight and allowing me to the mitigation the j a. C. L. Played in protecting the population in the camps. Ofquestion is, i see a lot results of japanese americans trying to stay under the radar post war. The buddhist churches of america patterns aform methodist kind of form. Is, isuess my question there any way around that . I just dont even know. Around what . I see people who actually are , around your age, who grew up in camps, and they wont talk about it. For my own experience, in high school, my High School Social studies teacher, said two sentences. It happened. So what . There are people who do talk about it. My father certainly talked about it to me after dinner. There were those that even challenged professor roosevelt mr. Roosevelt can tell you korematsu case. They challenged the internment all the way up to the Supreme Court and failed in 1944. Prevailed, korematsu in finding fault in the original ruling. There were those who stood up. And the resistors did stand up. That is why we focused on the resistors in allegiance. Wrong and i amis going to stand for my rights as an american. They paid a high price for it. People did take a stand. They did speak out. I want to mention one extraordinary elected official of the time, the governor of colorado, governor ralph carr. The only elected officials to take a principled stand and speak out against the internment. As for that after that, his career was demolished. He ran for reelection and was slaughtered. There are people. There is dismissed that japanese americans to take a stand. They sheepishly went into the camps. Not true. People did take a stand. Others resisted. Others challenged it all the way to the Supreme Court. On the right there . Just a quick question. You are both impressive but i love george. [laughter] question . S your [laughter] did Burrell Warren ever apologize . He never apologized during his living years but he left a. Emoir in that, he said the greatest regret in my life was the role he played in the internment of japanese americans. In his memoirsit which were published after his passing. In the front. She needs to get a microphone. I was wondering. Building where you put through . Did you get enough food . Or whatever you needed . Were you in camp with . How many buildings were in the camp . So many families must be there. Place. G in one there were 10 camps altogether. In black built arrangedbarracks all in a row and divided into little units with paperthin partitions. No privacy. In a mess call. We all showered in a mass shower. Toiletrines were just pods in a row, no partitions. Particularly for women, it was extremely mortifying to use toilets. Tition less the internees themselves built those partitions and some camps japanese hot water baths so they made tubs out of the lumber they were able to secure. But it was very raw. Got time for one more question but there will be a reception afterwards, during which you should be able to ask questions. In the second row here. Wondering, how you feel about the fact that allegiance is closing earlier than expected . Do you have plans to bring back . We were expecting a much , but weun, of course accomplished so much with this production. This is the first time in American Theater history that the story of the internment of japanese americans is being told on the broadway stage. It is a landmark event. This is the first time in American Theater history that so many gifted performing artists, asianamerican performing stage, are on that using their own experiential background in the work that they are doing, playing full, rounded characters. That theof characters audience identifies with to the point where they are, literally, sobbing with us in the tragedy. Certainly, we hear the laughter. During curtain calls, it is not just applause and it is not spontaneous standing up. It is upright cheering that we hear. Average record of asians in the audience in the broadway theater is about 7 . That has always been something that i have been concerned about. When i see a David Henry Wong play and look around, i see only a light sprinkling of asian faces. Asians are not theatergoers. We dont support our artists. When you go see an africanamerican playwright who talks about africanamerican experience in pittsburgh and i look around, i see a dominant africanamerican presence. Allegiance that 7 has been magnified. We have an average of 37 asian americans, or asians in our theater. We have accomplished a great deal in the time we have been playing on broadway. We are very proud of what we have accomplished. Broadway is the opinion of American Theater but it is essentially a new york theater. We played in san diego prior to at the veryoadway distinguished and respected regional theater. There, we broke their 77 year record for both box office and attendance. We have a fantastic record to be very proud of. We want to continue that record and we are exploring a lot of future options for allegiance. Those who havent come, i urge you strongly, do come because you wont be able to see it on broadway after the 14th of february. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] and as i said, i am halfway through Kermit Roosevelt look. A good thriller and i still dont know who the murderer is. Dont be a spoiler for me. I want to get to the last chapter without that knowledge. His book. Thank you so much. As i said, there is now a reception. You could buy my book, or by georges cd. I hope you will join us. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] of congress are getting ready to celebrate the fourth of july across the country. Representative ted deutch. Weeted this app happy independence day. Senateoker is with the today with the towns mayor and senator booker. You can see the parade getting ready in this tweet. Texas senator in pete sessions, and his wife karen and some alex. Tomorrow, they will debate gun legislation. Formal debate on guncontrol bills could begin in the house as early as wednesday. We will have live coverage on cspan. The Senate Legislative business resumes wednesday with a vote on a judicial nomination set for midafternoon. This evening at 7 00 eastern on cspan, a look at first ladies influencing public policy. Speakers, including Michelle Obamas chief of staff plus chief of staff to laura bush and hillary clinton. Eastern, jimmy carter in conversation with at the war refugee Carter Library focusing on civil rights and individual freedom. Jimmy carter talked about americas diversity as a strength. Best characteristic of america that gives me hope is the fact that we have such a heterogeneous population. It is not a melting pot. I think it is more of a mosaic. Where each individual still has a shining bright different characteristic and you put them all together and you have a picture of courage. People who go to a foreign country to demonstrate a commitment to a higher ideal. You have an inherent characteristic in our country. So, theyyears or grouped commitment to improve ourselves. Because oftakes but our society, our mistakes become increasingly apparent. When they become adequately apparent to a majority of our people, they are selfcorrecting. Can see the entire conversation with former president jimmy carter and ugandan war refugee derek ka yango at 8 00 eastern. At 9 00 eastern, a discussion on the latest Technology Trends with former google ceo eric schmidt. The event moderated by Pbss Charlie Rose takes place at the Economic Club of new york. This month, watch cspans coverage of the 2016 republican and Democratic National conventions. Every saturday night at 8 00 eastern we will look at past conventions and the candidates who went on to win their partys nominations. This saturday, we will focus on Dwight Eisenhower at the 1956 Republican Convention in san francisco. The 1964 convention with lyndon johnson. Richard nixon in miami beach. The 1980 Democratic Convention with jimmy carter in new york city. George h. W. Bush at the 1992 Republican Convention in houston. Clinton in chicago for the 1996 Democratic Convention. And the 2004 Republican Convention in new york city with george w. Bush. Saturday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan. George w. Bush president ial Center Hosted an event in early june celebrating the Pulitzer Prize centennial. One of the discussions focused on president s and poverty and included a domestic policy lbjsor, the director of the library and a journalist from the washington post. It is one hour, 20 minutes. [applause] thank you and welcome back. We have a very exciting panel ahead of us but i want to say on behalf of the foundation and the president ial library, what a pleasure it is to be a partner in this Incredible Opportunity to celebrate the Pulitzer Prize centennial. Team,you to kevin and her it is an amazing event. Is very appropriate for me to introduce the next panel, which is the president s and poverty. The fight that never ends. Lb gs war on poverty was one of the cornerstones of his administration. Medicaid, headd start, job corps, and more. Unfortunately, it is a fight that never ends and it is my privilege to introduce our panelists and moderators. Won thesand low Pulitzer Prize for