Many young particularly male individuals who are not well educated who have generally been unemployed to criminal activities. So all all of these elements, economic growth, better access to education, Higher Quality education, related to crime which is related to violence, which is related to corruption. They are all intertwined and those need to be more fully addressed. Host heres the book, politics politics in mexico, democratic consolidation or decline. Claremont Mckenna College professor, Roderic Ai Camp is the author. Thank you for your time. Guest thank you very much. I enjoyed it. Heres a look at authors recently featured on book tvs afterwards. Our weekly Author Interview program. Georgetown university described the expanded role of u. S. Military around the world. Ann coulter made her case for supporting donald trump or president. Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Seymour Hersh reported on the killing of Osama Bin Laden along with the other covert operations that have taken place during the obama administration. In the coming weeks on afterwards, New York Times publisher Mark Thompson will discuss the way political speech has changed over time. Face the nation moderator, John Dickerson will remember important moments in american president ial campaigns. Also coming up, married Thompson Jones will talk about her investigation of thousands of leaks Estate Department cables. This weekend, former Turner Alberta gonzalez talks about his time in the Justice Department as a and as white House Counsel in the george w. Bush administration. We recognize this would be controversial. What would really be important in the mind of the president would be whether or not it was necessary and effective and wasnt lawful. When i spoke to the president about this, yes i, yes i did have a conversation. I told him in my judgment, all im going to tell you is that it is lawful and effective. And that it is in fact necessary. He was fine with that. Now he could have asked at any time for that information and of course we would have given it to him. But he felt comfortable at least on the outset simply annoyed that we were engaging in this kind of conduct. Afterwards airs on book to be every saturday at 10 00 p. M. And sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. You can watch all previous afterwards programs on our website. Booktv. Org. [inaudible] [inaudible] hello everyone. Welcome to politics and prose. Thank you for coming. I am literally, before i introduce our author i want to give you a few quick reminders area the first what is to turn off yourself on. The second is that as you probably know we record our events and as you can see, tonight we are filming. We have cspan here. So please when here. So please when it comes time for q a, there is a microphone set up right there by the pillar. Please line up at the microphone to ask your question. When we are done please stack your chairs against any bookshelf. It will make our lives much easier. Thank you. And. Thank you. And now more importantly, Laurence Leamer is the author of 12 New York Times bestselling books that range and subject matter from the kennedys to johnny carson, to cocaine trafficking in peru. He is a magazine writer for many years and he has written one play, rose about rose kennedy which is going off in chicago this year after being off broadway last year. We are here to talk about his most recent book, the lynching to talk about it port battles that brought down the klan in which he discusses the lives of three southern man, alabama governor, George Wallace, Robert Shelton and the legendary civil rights lawyer and the cofounder of the southern law poverty center. The lynching starts in the 1981 trial that sparked a hate crime and mobile alabama. It ends with another trial and one of the most important victories that was ever one against the clan. Brian stevenson, who is the author of just mercy and the founder of equal Justice Initiative has set a bit, with we ignore his detailed account at our peril, so we will not ignore it. Please welcome me lawrence. Last year after charles and president obama said that slavery is americas original sin. It is a pity it took so long for a president to say that. It was our first africanamerican president who did so. But it did not make it nonetheless true. As i have been bested in this book about mansion in alabama have gone back to the early history of slavery and followed it. One thing that i find important are crucial to it is the role of sexuality and slavery. In the hundreds of years, the 300 years of slavery, the slave masters would come down and essentially have their way with the women in the slave quarters. By the time of the civil war there is a large mixed bug population in the south. In millions and millions of people. With mixed blood. When i was doing the book i remember is in montgomery. And i met this kernel. He was black and he had a white wife. Wife. I thought that is quite unusual. He had a plantation and he invited me to his plantation i thought ill go out there. I went out his plantation i go on the living room, theres this family portrait. There is these two families there. A black family and a white family. They are in the living room and i said well who are the white folks. He said those are my family. Those are part of my family per my great grandmother was raped by the slave master and these are my family. Some. Some of my family members have passed as white and some have lived as black. So that that was a southern reality. After the Southern Civil war the clan began, the clan started lynching and the whole idea was the fear of the blackmail. In the birth of the nation probably the most social important american film, what was it about. It was about these clans im going out to protect the white women who. In the early part of the 20th century, ida wells, young black journalist was in memphis tennessee. There had been 66 lynchings there last two months of black men who were lynched for supposedly raping white women. She wrote a piece for the memphis paper saying, we all know that is not true. We know that is not what happened. And if we told the truth about white women and what they were doing, would not be good for the reputation of white women. The white establishment was so upset at that. The white newspaper that they had an article saying that this person who wrote that should be castrated. When they discovered it was a woman, they burned on the newspaper. So so lynching went on for 70 years. There is a lynching an average of once a week, of racial lynching in the south from the 1876 1955. Psychologically a brilliant device to hold black people down. Imagine if your black mother. How do you raise your kid . Do you raise your child to stand up old and tall or do you stand up bold and tall orgy reason to get off the ducks hat and lauras head. You want him to live you probably did the later. So lynchings went on, the last one was a 1955. And then a 1955. And then in march 1981 and mobile on the. People woke up that morning on there is a body of a black man hanging from a tree. I have to see how this thing is going to work here. This is the body that was hanging from the tree. It was a white neighborhood but black people came into the neighborhood and they saw this and they started crying. They got down on their hands and knees. They knew what had happened. They knew it had been a racial lynching. A racial lynching. The police did not say that. A state senator showed up, black senator. Senator. He took pictures of the lynching and he took a picture of cross a street of three men standing there. One was benny hayes, the top clan leader in the united klans of america in the Southern African state. His son, henry hayes and 17yearold tygart knowles. The three klansmen. They lived across the street. It was obviously that is where you go to look for these killers. But the mobile establishment did not want to lynching to take place in their procedure city. So three young white men were accused and arrested of this murder. They were totally innocent. The city of mobile was willing to convict these three men, they sentence them to life in prison, possibly execute them for a crime they did not commit. And so a couple months later the grand jury and mobile, and usually grand jury so just do whatever the prosecutor wants them to do. They said no, we cannot do this. That wouldve been it. Now a lot of people talk about states rights and we cannot have a federal government involved in this thing. Well, the Justice Department, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department came down in the presence of a young lawyer and an fbi agent there they worked this case. They got taggart know, the 17yearold to admit that he had done this. To this. To admit that there had been a black bank robber in birmingham, alabama and when he robbed a bank he came out he came out and shot killed the white police officer. To get him a fair trial they had it in mobile. At the clan meeting a few days before the lynching they said that if it was a largely black jury and if he was found in the centaur there is a hung jury they are going to come and find a black man and kill him. So that friday evening, these two Young Klansmen went out, and here had michael donnell, he is a 19yearold kid, he is a good young man, the youngest of seven children. His ear to water to go get a pack of cigarettes, has went out to get it they came out to a car and pointed a pistol at him, took them to the woods and got him out and he knew as a black man he knew was going black man he knew was going to happen. So he fought back. He about back with courage and he got up three times and fought back. Finally they got him down, they took the hanging rope out of the car, they put the boot on his head and pulled the rope tight against him and strangled him. And then they split his throat. They could have left them in the force but that wasnt good enough. It was a symbol, it was a symbol that the clan was still alive and strong. They brought him back to mobile and they hung that body in that tree. And so tiger for the feds and pled guilty and listens to life in prison. Henry hayes went on trial for his life and mobile. Morris, a man came down for that trial. He he sat there and he thought, these two men have done this but its not them, its these young people. What they were told by the leadership of the clans leadership was leadership was responsible ultimately. I have got to find a way to sue them and to bring down the clan. That was his idea. The middle part of my book is a story of the three crucial men in this. George wallace, the fourtime governor of alabama. Robert shelton, the united wizard of the united klans of america, and morris. Morris grew up, he was a son of a tenant farmer. He grew up as a segregationist just like everybody was a segregationist. He went to he went to the university of alabama as a law school. In 1980 he took off a semester and was a George WallacesStudent Campaign manager. Imagine a Student Campaign manager. And 61 as a young lawyer one as a young lawyer he took on the case of a klansmen who bludgeoned people during the freedom riots in montgomery. At the end of that, freedom writer came up to him and said, what are you doing, what can you possibly do this it so wrong. He realized realized it was wrong. Two years later at the time of the bombing the birmingham bombing that were done by members of the united klans of america, morris with a baptist folk ministry went up to his church that moment morning and he said there something bad has been done to our Southern Baptists and they said tell us brother, tell us brother. Morris said yes, these black girls in birmingham were killed in a bombing. With that everybody in the church word leave us alone, dont talk about this. He wanted them to help in some way, they would not do it. In the in the end he said let us pray. Let us pray that we can do something about this. About his head and shut his eyes , when he looked up there is not a Single Person left in that church. Not a single white person in that church was going to help these black children. That was the racial reality of the south end of alabama. Morris had made a great deal of money and the Book Publishing in 1971 he started the Southern Poverty Law Center with the idea of using the law to bring Racial Justice and social justice in alabama and throughout the south. He he brought five Young Lawyers to work with him. They did many great cases. In selma, the black part of town it was just dirt roads. So he had a lawsuit and there had to be paved roads there. He integrated the police and the state police through all of these things. He took on the clan. The southern private law center was a firebombed. Whites apprentice came out one evening and were going to kill him. And this was a struggle. The other lawyers that were working with him felt that this was just too much. They came down for the civil rights struggle, they did not come down here to live in an armed camp. So they all left. And morris continued with this lawsuit. It is a very difficult idea, never been done before to find the head of the organization responsible for what the individual member state. He he brought it to trial in 1987 in montgomery. He was seeking to 10,000,000 dollars judgment against the united klans of america, the biggest clan group in america. The trial he had to prove that there is a pattern of violence and he did that. He showed several times were Robert Shelton had said things to push people to do violent ask. He is very smart and what he said. He did not say exclusively he just said go out and do it has to be done. That is what he did in selma in 1965 when a bunch 65 when a bunch of klansmen went out and shot and killed a lady as she drove with the young black man. And so in that courtroom they all testified and finally tiger, one of of the two murders he testified first originally to. It was kind of bloodless we talked about it. No emotion. At the end of his trial when morris made his final comments tiger said i want to speak to. I would like to speak again. And a lot of lawyers would say no, we can do this. We dont know. We dont know what hes going to say. It might not help us. But morse had a good instinct about this. And he let him get up and talk. In tiger said, we are responsible, we did this terrible thing. I am so sorry we did this. It is an evil thing and we is an evil thing and we deserve to be punished and punished for this. Im so sorry. He looked down at mrs. Donald, Michael Donalds mother sitting there and he said, i am so sorry. And mrs. Donald looked at him and said, i forgive you. I forgive you. Forgive you. I forgive you for this. Theres not a dry eye in this courtroom, including the judge. The four hours in the verdict, 44 hours after the verdict the judge and the jury came down and they had a 7 million judgment against the united klans of america. The clan did not have any kind of that money but they did have 50000 building, they took over that building and that money was given to mrs. Donald who bought a house when she lived in the projects till then. It destroyed the clan. The united clan leader retired. That was the end of the largest Clan Organization in america. From then on, the Southern Poverty Law Center use that legal theory again and again against any number of these racist and White Supremacy groups until today, these big groups dont exist. None of these groups they reach a certain point in the Southern Poverty Law Center organization they are going after them and destroying them. That is one of the most positive things the Southern Poverty Law Center has done. As for George Wallace, i knew George Wallace. My First Experience as a journalist in 1967 as seven as i was a graduate student with the university of oregon, i spent for five days with George Wallace on his plane in california. George wallace, tour the end of his political career called one of his aides and the Governors Mansion in his last year as governor and he was in a very sad mood. He was in his wheelchair smoking his cigar and he said, i am so sorry. Im afraid im going to hell. And his aides say, youre not going to hell governor why do you even say that . You are a a born again christian. You are going to heaven. You dont have to worry about this. And George Wallace said, you know, i flew those planes over japan, over tokyo in world war ii, i spent those firebombs on those people, but i dont fear for that. I fear im going to hell because i have said things that kill people. I have said things that killed people. And so he did. And his words set off people like Robert Shelton, it set off these races, set off the clan. Inspired. And George Wallace worked actively with the clan during his entire political career. The clan was an important force throughout the south. It did the dirty work for the white establishment, that must never be forgotten. In the beginning of the 20th century there were 180 black people who could vote in alabama. The white political and economically establishment cannot stand that. So a new that. So a new constitution was put through saying that you had to have 300 or 40 acres of lands or you cannot vote. Im so the next year there were only 5000 africanamericans left on the ballot in alabama. After world war ii plex had thought the work and they had the money and the land that they could vote so that they went and put to a new bill and legislation through that said if you wanted to register to vote you had to pass this test on the constitution. Some of these counties, you could be a black harvard phd in constitutional law and you would not be about the past that. But it went on. It was people were marching and struggling to rub this country but it also was a legal struggle. That is what this book is about. It is about largely the federal government and the enormous role it had had in advancing us. Without the federal government we would not have a Successful Civil Rights Movement that we have had and the freedoms that we have. Now i know, there are any number of young black intellectuals these days who say that things have not gotten better. That we are back where we always were. I say, they are wrong. At the end of my book, there is a Civil Rights Museum across the street from the Southern Poverty Law Center. I was there, there was a group of black a Family Reunion from lords county which is the worst place to be a blackberry they moved to the north and theyre coming back. As i stood with them we saw that it was a new world. They were part of a new world. We must remember how far we have come. And morse that day talk to to these people and he said, you know in that Museum Michael donalds pitcher was there and there is Michael Donald, there is his mother, there is the clan going against morris, there is Robert Shelton the head of the ku klux klan of the united klans of america. Here he is a more recent years. Heres a cartoon in the fiery cross, the clan newspaper. Here is morris and mrs. Donald after the successful verdict. And heres Michael Donalds pitcher at that Civil Rights Museum where that date morris told the black people who moved north and came back for this reunion that these people, these heroes like Michael Donald and emmett till in so many others will not be forgotten. They must be remembered forever. That is true. Just the way people remember the holocaust, we must remember this, we must remember this struggle. It has been a long road. But we are a good long ways up that role. We are up that road because of any number of people. We are up that road because in 19031 for the first time the Transit System in mobile alabama was segregated for a year, for a year, the black people of mobile boycotted that. Im not talking about 19541955, im talking about 1903. Nobody remembers that. Theyre not even a part of our history. But they were there. They took us up that road. Martin luther king took us up that road. Malcolm x took us up that road. Mohammed ali took us up that role. But we still have a long ways to go. It is a black struggle but is not only a black struggle, it is my struggle and it is your struggle to. It is our struggle, wise in our struggle because you and i cannot be free. You and i cannot be free until everyone is free thank you. [applause]. Any questions . That was a great presentation. As a southerner and as a longtime reporter in the south i consider i consider this book a great contribution to the history of the period. Even though all of this has been written many times before what you have read and written about is fantastic. Id like to bring it into the present for a little bit if you dont mind. You were just the other day in fact about the connection and possible parallels between George T Wallace and mr. Trump, the republican candidate. I am wondering, there wondering, there has been a lot of talk in recent months about the parallels between hitler and trump. What about the parallels between wallace and trump . I think there are a lot of parallels. George. George wallace was a very smart man. He understood the white southern mentality. The poor white southern mentality better than anyone in his generation. Probably even better better than lyndon johnson. He understood it. He knew as young man that segregation was going to and. He knew absolutely it was going to end. But he knew that if he became an avid supporter of the most militant supporter of segregation in the south he could advance politically. He could become governor, senator, who knows what. So he cynically. So he cynically did this. He could became the clerk of with Nelson Mandela and and apartheid in south africa. He might have done that. He had the ability. But he chose a different route. Cynically because route. Cynically because it was a way to advance. I believe that when donald trump talks about shipping and send 11,000,000 on documented workers out of this country when his elected president , i think he knows that is not going to happen. He was looking with no kind of background as a political candidate and using media to advance himself. He knew these issues that were so enormous and so radical that they would get the attention. And he is smart, as understandably the White Working Class and lower middle class, hes smart in understanding them. As George Wallace was and understand the White Working Class in the south in his time. So i think he cynically took this issue. If he were elected president he went to that. I think the same thing is true with muslims. With not not allowing muslims in this country. Maybe a little bit more of a possibility, so i think theres that parallel. George wallace needed violence and he wanted violence or the potential of violence at his rallies. He wanted to have protesters there. He didnt want it to really break out but he wanted it to come close. And trump did that. Trump has backed off from that. The third part of it is, you know know what, both George Wallace and donald trump, its not just about races. George also i spent that week with George Wallace and 67, the newspapers in the north were talking about him just as a racist. I wrote racist. I wrote the first piece ever as the new republic saying hey, its more than that, these white people, these white we can class people are showing at his rallies. There afraid theyre being left by. And why is donald trump so popular . Because of the kind of white folks, not just just white folks, the workingclass folks and we dont even want to use the workingclass but with inequality in america we probably should use it. They were democrats right, overwhelmingly. And i felt betrayed. And so many of them moved to the Republican Party. The Republican Party betrayed them to. And then moved on to donald trump and i tell you what, i think donald trump will probably betray them too. First i like to complain. Yearbook made me get up at 5 00 a. M. This morning and keep reading. Im tired. Laughmac and secondly i would like to ask an emotional response to the research. Did anything surprising . I confess, i am an aging northern liberal we had this idea that the south was bad, but were pretty bad appear to. You can know for example in new york if you are a black black person and cannot get a room in a hotel room in the 60s, in new york if you are black in the 19th century you cannot get a skilled job as a skilled labor. You had to take the lowest of the jobs. Thats how it was. We know how bad racism was in america, but i have to tell you it was worst on there. It was worse and the evil of it and how it affects everybody. And that it just doesnt affect just the blacks, it destroys the whites they can romanticize it all you want. And to most socially important films in our history. Both of our presentations of the south. One is birth of a nation which is a film a film of the clan. If you join the clan you will see that right now. The other is gone with the wind. Another is people equally romanticize saga of that time were only waking up many brilliant young historians were on and how we are all products of that and how the north financial was the leading export until the time of the first world war. And how new york benefited from that. We all grew rich on that. We. We all grew rich over the slavery. [inaudible] ive known about morris for a long time but i had not realized that he was a product of the south of the son of a tenant farmer and had started out on the other side. I wonder if you could tell us more about what there was an him or his background that you think accounted for the change in trajectory in his life and values. First while many people think he is jewish. And i have friends that give a lot of money to the Southern Poverty Law Center and i said, who are jewish, and i said morris is not jewish, hes baptist. And they said no, hes jewish. You dont know what youre talking about. No, hes not jewish. His grandfather had a jewish businessman in montgomery that he admired. He named his three sons after these jewish businessman, he grew up, his father was a tenant farmer, he, he grew up with black friends and i met several of them. They did not come eat at the table at his house, thats for sure, but they were his friends and are still his friends. So he had an understanding and the feeling and his father had a little cotton gin. And his senior kanji and was a place where fewer black farmer and brought your cotton in there youll get the same price a white man would. That would not happen to allow the cotton gins in the stores there your wiping it in your going to pay the black mans price. So they treated black people as well in the context of those times was segregationist. Morris, it took him a time to come to terms with this. So it was a struggle for him. Some people dont like to hear of this. They want to idealize it. And everybody wants to be atticus finch. He is not atticus finch. Hes more like hes a fictional character. Hes probably destroyed more lawyers than anybody because of what they can be and do and they cant. But oscar was as complicated and contradictory as he was, ask Oskar Schindler was a real person and he saved thousands of men. And a guy who is married five times, guy at the very day in the case in 1987 he was sitting waiting for the verdict come down and everybody else is nervously figuring out what to do. He is making a a pass at a young reporter. That is sin. But he has done great things. And he continues to do great things. He deserves every award this nation can give us far as im concerned. Hello. I just happened into the session and im thrilled to have been here. Thank you. Is there a radical approach to dealing with todays big issue that would be equivalent what morris did in his legal approach to taking down the structure . The problem todays you dont have these a big groups. You have these individuals and so it happened with charleston last year, young man who just picks up the stuff from the internet. And as people get more more aware of them being watched by the fbi and Homeland Security they will be more more cautiously they do things. It is going to be extremely hard to deal with this. But we have to end, one thing the has come out of Trumps Campaign is the resurgence of racism. I dont say hes a racist. Hes not racist. I know the man. I know on. Ive had dinner with him on Easter Sunday as a matter fact at his golf course. He is not a racist. But he has brought this racist stuff forth. It is scary. It is still in the american soul. Let me tell soul. Let me tell you one other thing about racism is that racism always resides with antisemitism. If you read my book that Robert Sheldon the clan leader as he gets older he becomes more more antisemitic and spends less time worried about blacks because blacks are too stupid to rise up on their own, its only because it these jews are pushing him to do it. Thats his idea. And you see the Robert Sheldon who is going to work and start a terrorist gap for middle east terrorists in alabama. He was in dealings with these people. So this stuff is still there. We have to continually watch it. Thats. Thats what the Southern Poverty Law Center does. Thats what we all have to do. And its in our souls. Its in the american soul unfortunately and it must be driven back down where it belongs. I just have a couple of comments not questions. First, when i was growing up my folks would write checks out to this funny outfit, the southern poverty something, i dont know what it was. But i asked them asked them about it and this was years ago. And they told me what these folks were doing and it was an eyeopener for me. Now my my folks grew up as republicans, but when they got into their 80s, my dad was subscribing to mother jones. You say that times times have changed and i have changed a huge amount from people like that. Some people thought some people didnt. We experienced it as a little kid here but what was interesting to me when i heard about your book i began telling all my friends. And i would encourage people to look up this book and come to this event. I would ask them always, when do you think the last lynching actually occurred in america . I have yet to find anybody that places it more recently than the sixties. And you opened peoples eyes. This is still this is still going on. Even though people were working on it decades ago, it still here, its buried here, its in the tea party, its in the right wing comets and donald trump and it is still embedded in this society and we have a lot of homework to do. In 1965 as a peace corps peace corps volunteer in nepal. I was taken a truck up to a space camp and i got sick. I was walking toward kathmandu and i arrived and i stopped in this beautiful house. And there was mac odell. He gave me the medicine that possibly saved my life. Life. So thank you for coming here mac. [applause]. Some of us at that time in the sixties, i came out when kennedy formed the peace corps and i thought the job was in third world that we had a duty to go out and work in the third world to try to make the world a better place. My friends told me the work is really back here at home. I do not believe them until i got back from nepal in the 70s i looked around and i said yes, the work is right here. [applause]. Thank you. One aspect that has been on my mind is that for some people it is useful for a working class White American to its useful to play into this because then they can get them to vote for, like the southern strategy or economic policies that do not serve their interests. So i was wondering if perhaps it is necessary to appeal to the real interests of these workingclass. If you dont do something for their own problems and make them vulnerable, something to help them have more security, housing, jobs, et cetera, that they are always going to be vulnerable. But american politics is cyclical. Sooner or later a true populist politician is going to rise who is going to speak to these issues. He is sitting there waiting. It should have happen now. There should be a candidate out there now that speaks to that. Unfortunately this year there is not. Thank you for doing all of this research and read in this book. It is wonderful. I wonder if you could help us understand it using your insight, how do non racist trump is such a catalyst for so much bigotry of so many people. I dont think trump understands on one level what he is doing. I think he has no clear ideology. His ideology is to get attention. He just has such brilliant instincts with the media, thats what its about. He has transformed american politics. He has transformed the media and the Way Television covers things. He is a pure genius. We will be studying his campaign forever and theyre going to be little donald trump showing up all over the place using his techniques for all sorts of reasons. But i just know he is not a racist, i know people who know him and that is one thing and i have said, but that is what his language does. Its its definitely what his language in his words does. I was just searching for how it works, you know why it works in the way it does because it is profound that theres so many people. He would not be so powerful if there were not so many people following him. No, but what you what he does, he doesnt read, he doesnt study position papers he just washes himself on television and he watches these talking heads. He figures out what works. You try something one night it works, you expand at the next one. But the next one. But hes constantly evolving that way. There are so many people thanks take us in a racist direction. Is not consciously doing this. It just works, its works, its great. It makes people more excited. Makes him get more applause lets go for it. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] in the media we talk about this issue about how bad it is. In some ways could you repeat the question . She wants to know how much things have changed and how much they havent. Well, it is strange in the south because in some way the south is resegregation. In alabama the black politician made a big mistake, the whites came to them and said the klutz just redistricin