Would interview it was always an man and always addressed by the male gender. That really caught our attention. For us since noma county, that just seemed off like something was really missing. During that time everybody, especially on the west coast we felt so helpless. What could we do about this National Tragedy that was happening so far across the country. Here we are offered the opportunity to give blood, donate money, but for so many people it didnt feel like it was enough. For mary and mia felt like we wanted to do something. We just attached to that idea of wanting to draw interest to an attention to, and include women and the National Conversation about 911. We knew American Hero. There is a lot of talk about the new American Hero after 9 11 and women were virtually left out of that conversation. We wanted to bring them back in. We became fired up about this idea and it was ridiculous for us to do this. We worked fulltime we didnt have a budget. We put our credit cards together, we added them all up the limits on our cars and that became our budget. We made a commitment a commitment to go to new york, a place where we had never been, knew no one, had no contacts, go find women. It was a crazy event from the beginning. What we found was when you feel passionate about something, you follow that passion to its national conclusion, all the doors its national conclusion, all the doors that need to open will open for you. We had many unusual and unique expenses on our journey to finding the women at ground zero. We are passionate about telling their story. Exactly, i think its important to mention the fact that we were not without fear with at that time. All of all of us were in fear after 911. All the airlines had planes grounded, while people were running out of the city, here we were in california making plans to go in. Making plans to go in toward the situation that was still so unstable. For myself, i will say i had a lot of fear about it. I was concerned about getting on a plane, neither one of us had written a book before, so i was concerned about if were doing the right thing, if we would be successful. One of the things i learned in this whole experience is that you can have your fear, you can take it with you. You dont have to let us stop you. We interviewed 30 women, 30 survivors of 911. Then the families and fans friends of three people who died that day. We were knocking on doors at first. We went to the Police Department, fire department, what ended up happening was we met a few women in the Police Department in new york is a very small world. At least in the rescue and recovery, everyone knew who was there on 911, everyone knew who did what. Before we knew it we had people knocking on our hotel door in a Police Uniform at two am and said Sergeant Carrie told me to come over and youre going to put me in a book or something. Theyre sending people to his right and left once we met just a few people. One of the stories i like to share is a story of a lady who is 23 years old on 9 11. She was a young emt with an Ambulance Company, private ambulance, private Ambulance Company in new york city. She displayed a tremendous amount of current age for such a young, small boned person who was in her ambulance with her partner at the time the towers were beginning to fall. She open the back door and brought as many people into the ambulance as she could. Imagine a big box ambulance packed with people, she is pouring water in their eyes, trying to get things out of their mouth to help them breathe, people are sharing oxygen. As soon as the desk cleared enough to get out they drove that ambulance out, drop those people off to safety and then turned around and went back in, time and time again. And she told us the story she was so full of emotion. She said, i did not i would make it out. All i could make about with my parents and how much they love me. I just prayed and say god please let my parents know how much i love them and that this is the work im called to do, and i i have to go in again as a people. Hers was a tremendous story of courage. I was inspired by it. I still learn from it. I love to tell the story of mercedes who is still working emt in new york city, she has a family now and survived of course along with so many people she helped rescue. One of the women who struck me the most deeply in the book, and continues to be somebody that i hold in high regard is now deputy chief of police in new york city, carrie coburn. At the time she was a lieutenant. She was one of the first to respond to the scene. She was about a block away, she open the trunk of her car, put on her tennis shoes ran in and began evacuating people. She could have easily gone to the safety of headquarters or somewhere else to direct operations. She went, like a good cop does, to the right to the middle of it. She was evacuating people from the buildings. When the first building came down, she had a kevlar helmet on, it is designed to take a bullet thats how strong it is. When the first building came down, she was hit so hard in the back of the head with a piece of cement, with such velocity that it cracked the kevlar helmet and happen lodged in the back of her head. Throughout the ordeal she fractured her ankle, she developed hairline fracture in all of her teeth, she, she lost partial hearing in one ear. Even after all this she continued to try to get people out and try to work with people. When the second building came down a shard of glass flew into the middle of her back, even in this condition she struggled to help others flee the building and flee the scene. She had to practically be dragged out of there, even when they brought her to the boat to take her to the hospital, she saw a reporter she knew who is a reporter who had legs badly mangled and she instructed them to take him first. She would wait. You dont say no to deputy chief so they took the reporter first. Then she went on the next boat. An amazing story of heroism and selflessness. For carrie and all of the women telling the story it was very wrenching. They initially told us their stories only several weeks after the attacks. They were still in the midst of rescue and recovery efforts. Many hadnt been home, they hadnt slept in their own bed, they were sleeping in precinct, firehouse, cars. They were pretty run out. It was a very Emotional Experience for people to tell us what they had experienced in what they had done that day. The woman across the board were not seeking any glory, even new york city officer before 9 11 was not a position you attain to because you want to glory or status, it was the kind of thing you do because thats all you can imagine doing. When the building is coming down and everybody is running out your the person running in. Every person we talked to said why are you going to talk to me, and im not a hero, i was just doing my job that day. Everyone in felt that way. They were almost embarrassed to put themselves to be featured in the book. What we we told them and what we wanted them to know, because of the way that men were held up as the new American Hero, the new york city firemen and policemen, there is no place for young girls, young women to aspire to jobs and Public Safety because there were no role models for them. Once we told them that, they were anxious to become part of the book. They wanted to give girls and young women an opportunity to see that not only boys and men are strong and brave, and courageous, and her rohit. The level of compassion among the women was shocking to me. When we have done talks further out from 911, the more we heard things like oh we are going to turn afghanistan into a parking lot. Were going to get those people. When we were right there at the heart of the disaster, we we didnt hear any of that. Im middle eastern but because i dont look classically middle eastern i was really steeling myself from the terrible things that people were going to be saying about middle eastern people. We never heard one word of that. Not one word of hatred, anger, i think that was extremely surprising to both of us. At the heart heart of the tragedy we found compassion and love. The thing i dearly hope people take away from this book is a deeper sense of their own humanity. There are so many false divisions that we live with every day, racial, sexual orientation, gender divisions, in the final analysis, we are all human beings. Some are brave, some are courageous, summer coward, some are good, but underneath that we are human beings. When you falsely separate, in this case based on gender and believe only men can be courageous or only men can be heroes, we lose something of our own humanity in that. I hope this helps people connect to a broader idea of who we are and what is possible for all of us. We continue our visit to Santa Rosa California with Charles Levine who shows us around the Jack London State Historic Park and the cottage where mr. London, author of call of the wild and white fang did most of his writing. Jack london was one of the most famous authors in the world. He was the highestpaid author in the world getting ten to . 12 per year for his writing. While he is an american who is one of the authors that was without the world including soviet union, and russia at the time. Japan which was translated into language after language. People found his writing compelling. He was deeply concerned about the human condition and much of what he wrote about, it may have seemed like stories of dogs in the yukon, they are often about the state of humanity and his concern for humankind. We are on jack london speedy ranch also known as the ranch of good intentions. This is where jack london lived until his death in 1969. The entrance to the cottage provides people of georgia of his life. Theres a video for him to see, so they can get a sense of jock london in london in the 1905 to the 1916. As they walk through the cottage theyll see mementos of when he was sailing with his wife. They will see the original study that he worked in and then this room that you are in now, this is a much larger study he created after the wolf house which was his dream house burned to the ground. That bring to the ground just a few weeks before he was to move in. Woodworkers were finishing the wood work with oil, they took the rake and throw him into the fireplace and unfortunately on a very hot august night, spontaneous combustion cause the fire and burned it to the ground. Once that happened, jack jack london, while he talked about rebuilding he understood that he probably wasnt going to live that much longer. He was aware aware he was not healthy. He decided to work on his farm and to work on the cottage that we are in today. He added this particular room which became a much larger study for him to be able to work with his wife and with his servant so he could get more accomplished in the short time he had left. Initially his moats famous book, the call of the wild. He also wrote one called white fang which was a sequel to call of the wild. Both of them were about his experiences in the north, and the yukon, searching for gold. He wrote stories for gold. He wrote stories about a number of different subjects. For a while he was a vagrant, he wrote a book called the road, about his life on the road. He wrote. He wrote a book about the poor in the east of london called people of the abyss. He wrote valley of the moon, moon, if you want to talk about his socialistic. He wrote a fascinating book about the revolution that would come after he died. It was written in the future. Many of his books are still quite readable. Call of the the wild was read most recently by schoolchildren. His writing spanned a wide variety of different types of writing, different different styles. He even wrote science fiction. Jack london probably would have been writing long hand of people came upon him in his office. Typing was done either by his wife or by his manservant. He was he was surrounded by books, he loved books. He also seen Technological Innovations like the dictaphone. It was used by jack london because it allowed him to dictate responses to letters he got without having to spend the time to write those long hand. He, his wife, his, his manservant could all work in here at the same time. Weather is working on books, correspondence, or farm matters. He was very productive here. Two thirds of his writing published after he moved here. Books like white fang was published in 1906, a year after he bought his ranch property. Valley of the moon was published after he was living here, little lady of the big house was published while whos living here. He claimed he would write 1000 words a day before breakfast. I think a lot of his time was spent because he was trying to build the beauty ranch, the ranch of good intentions so could be a model. That took a lot of his time. One of the elements he sought to perfect in order to help people was to create a more productive ranch. A more productive farm so people could be fed, people could have jobs, people could be more successful. A lot of what he was doing was experimental. He was trying things that he was expecting to be successful. He was expecting they would be written about and people could learn about what he did. For example, historically americans believe firmly manifest destiny. They believe that america had the godgiven right to on the entire country from coast to coast. If you are virginia planter and you were out your land, you could move west. In West Virginia you could start another plantation. You could move south and start another plantation. The problem was, when you got to california, if you move west you drown. You had to figure out ways to lead had to figure out ways to lead and to make the land sustainable over time. Jack london believed he could do that. He learned as much as he could by reading everything he could find written about agriculture in this area. He worked with the university of california to understand the most modern technique. He worked with pioneers of the area to develop crops that would work here that might not work in other places, and might just be innovative and unique and provide real benefits. This is something jack built in 1950. The scribes from San Francisco were making fun of the fact that he spent 3000 to build a pig or read. They call it the palace hotel for pigs. It was designed for over 200 pigs. One man could actually manage the entire operation, feeding, entire operation, feeding, watering, doing what needed to be done. This is one of the things he did, as an example of his entrepreneurship. After his death, the family try to keep the farm going. They found it was more more difficult over time. Eventually they converted it into a guest ranch. Before and during world war ii, this was a place people from San Francisco for the local area to, and enjoy a weekend weekend of horseback riding, or enjoying the scenery. Jack london today is operated by jack london park partners. We are not for Profit Organization that helped the state when the state of california was in financial trouble and was looking to close 25 of the parks. We volunteered to take this park over because we believe that we could make it an eight exciting and sustainable and diaper. We have. Today we have twice as many visitors as used to come to the park. About 100,000 people visit us every year. I think this is a great model for some facilities. We have historic buildings, museums, bad country so we can support horsemen, bicyclists, hikers, history buffs. The combination of that with local Community Involvement can make for an extraordinary success. Youre watching book to be on cspan two. This week and we are visiting santa rosa, california to talk with local authors. Through the citys literary sites along with our local cable partner, comcast. Im next week to work special collections of lynn prine memorabilia of Ernest Hemingways private letters. We are on the campus of sonoma state now in the jones room which is where our jack London Collection is housed. The warren jones reading room has a second jack London Collection, the jack london in context collection. Right next to us are all of our other special collections including hemingway letters and some other unique, rare, fragile material. The collection is all told, maybe about 5000 items. 500 or so items related to movies, hundreds and hundreds of First Edition books, close to 1000 items of serial publications like the cosmopolitan, ladies home journal. Our special collection is unique in a wide friday of ways. We are an undergraduate primarily institution. All of the material we have, we try to use them to support undergraduate research and learning. We have, for instance in the jack London Collection we have First Edition of many of jack londons novels. We have first additions in serial form of many of jack londons novel in serial publication before they were published in book form. In the jack London Collection here we have a wide variety of movie memorabilia as well. Really unique because they are the kinds of materials that movie studios would discard after they serve their marketing purposes. We have kept them here is a representation of how moviemaking and transferring novels to movies could be. What the experience of be like. I have brought out a variety of materials from the jack London Collection that i would like to share with you. Some unique, fun, intriguing items i think you might enjoy. I will start with this may 5, 1906 Magazine Issue for which jack london wrote an essay about the earthquake of 1906 and his experience of destruction and damage he saw. The earthquake shook down in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of walls and chimneys. What followed burned up hundreds of millions of dollars of property. Theres no estimated within hundreds of millions the actual damage brought. Not in history has a modern city been so completely destroyed. San francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories and a fringe of dwelling houses on the outskirts. Its industrial section is wiped out, its business section is wiped out, its social and residential section is wiped out. The factories and warehouses, the great stores and newspaper buildings, the hotels, the palaces are all gone. Remains only the fringe of dwelling houses on the outskirts of what was once San Francisco. Theres a related letter that jack london wrote to his friend i died, his friend and neighboring glenallen. He mentions the earthquake. Dear ida, just a line to ask how you and ed have fared in the earthquake you mark i hope that it has not cause much damage. Beyond the walls of my new stock barn and couple of chimneys, we escaped okay. Jack london. Written on may 1, 1906. Another of my favorite letters that i love sharing is a letter that jack london wrote to his wife september 28, 1903. It is quite a powerful, brief love letter. Oh sweet, i have already among ponder the fact that you have withheld nothing from me of your belief in me and your love for me. It has much met much to me, all to me that you have not said thus far you shall not know me the rest of myself i reserve for myself. I know i matched you you in the modern a semi surrender. Indeed we are blessed above mortals. A very lovely letter that he shared with his wife that i think the world can now see as a truly unique love story. White fang is very famous novel. This First Edition jack inscribed again to ida, his neighbor and friend, and memory ability and the ride from reno over the high seas. Affectionately yours jack london. Napa california, july 30, 1910. On the inside of the book is jack londons trademark book stamp. It has his name jack london and his will for signature, so to speak. In our collection we hope his original stamp, or his original book stamp in the its metal plate form from which he created bookplate for his book. It is intriguing to all researchers because it is so worn and so used. Many times jack london had his of bookplates reprinted. We also have in our collection the Ernest Hemingway letters. For unique letters written by Ernest Hemingway to a local journalist. She was a journalist who wrote for the Santa Rosa Press democrat, the daily newspaper and snow county. He was a work correspondent and road also for the San Francisco chronicle before moving to me i am a where he was a journalist for the miami herald. It was in miami that he met Ernest Hemingway and began a correspondence with him. The letter spanned the year 19571969. They cover range of topics. This letter was written october 23, 1956. Dear denny, thanks for your letter and criticism it was afforded to new york. Sent back to cuba and finally afforded here to spain. About the story, they are are a little rough and unpublishable but not bitter or some cynical i hope. No one can write all the time like the old man in the sea. War is difficult to write of being extreme efficiency, cowardice, bravery, and great unselfish love and devotion. Most people who can write have one small dose of combat and are through. Have good luck kid. Poppa. One of the things this letter shared so wonderfully is the power of hemingways writing and his feelings about war and society and our responsibility to each other as human beings. He takes very seriously his role as a writer and his role as a mentor to danny and it really shines through in this one very powerful letter. Im sure it had a very great impact on denny himself. Dear denny, it was good to get your letter. I should have written long but i lost the envelope with the address even at the best of times and clearly this was not the best of times for any writer, and again i think denny must have really felt the powerful impact of a friend from cuba writing him in florida to give him, to lend his support. Our aim is to make all of our special collections as accessible as possible. That said we are a State University and so although we dont have an open reading room we Welcome Research appointments of any kind. We welcome brief tours of any kind. We are always wanting people to be aware of what we do here especially in our special collections because they tend to be hidden from view ordinarily and be like to let people know that its unique and fragile but we dont intend to hide them from the world. We just have to protect them as well as offer them to people for research. We talked with Jonah Raskin Facebook american scream looks at the life of poet Allen Ginsburg and his poems. It promotes love and im a flower child. Would the mean flower child . Happiness, and i want to Allen Ginsberg. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed madness, starving, hysterical, dragging themselves through the streets at dawn looking for an angry fix. Angel headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry machinery at night whose poverty and hollow eyes set up smoking in the supernatural darkness floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz who bared their brains to heaven under the l. And so mohammad and angels staggering through tenement roofs illuminated to pass through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating arkansas and blake light tragedy among the scholars of war who were expelled from the academies for crazy and publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull , who unshaven rooms in underwear burning them in waste baskets and listening to the terror. When i wrote american scream i was trying to write the biography of a poem. I know people read about her priest of individuals and there are biographies of Allen Ginsberg but for me i thought it would be a good idea to think of a poem as a living entity born and evolved and how is a poem, never really died. It goes on and on. I think its a classic in american poetry in american literature. Host how was it divided into sections . The poem begins on the minds of my generation destroyed by hysterical so these are people who are, they are very much alive. They are on the edge. They are french people. They are not interested in material goods. They would just assume burn their money as put it in the bank. They want to go on joy rides. They dont embrace a certain ethic. They like girls. They like guys. They dont believe you have to wait for marriage to have sex. They are not tied down to the whole 9 to 5 workweek and i want to travel and they want to explore and womens liberation came along in the late 70s and women said you gave up everything and went on the road and we want to do the same thing. Girls want to have fun to sow the beat generation, that was the generation for which Allen Ginsburg belonged. They were people who for the most part were born in the 1920s and then the 1930s and the start of the 30s. They have people in that generation that have been called the silent generation. The beats came along and they were outspoken and they were howling and ranting and it gave the notion that they were silent they were people who had links to the second world war. They came in on the tail end of the depression. Allen ginsburg was the youngest of the crucial founding members of the beat generation. He was warned in 1926. Kerouac was a few years older and William Burrows was older still and he met them in new york when he came to go to college at columbia, and he was immediately attracted to them and wanted to spend time with them and the incubation period for the beats was in new york in the 1940s. But it wasnt really worn and tell San Francisco in the mid1950s. Ginsburg came to San Francisco and moved to berkeley and jack kerouac and there is a conjunction of people from new york. Kerouac and ginsburg and the similar kind of people from the Pacific Northwest lou welsh and gary snyder and phillip wayland. Allen ginsburg people have pointed out he was like a machinist in terms of poetry. He remade american poetry but he was also a genius in terms of publicity at pr. He had worked in marketing and advertising. He knew what it took to spread the word. He was fearless in terms of promotion. Kerouac and snyder were writing that there wasnt really it wasnt something that was called the beat generation until Allen Ginsburg came along and gave it that tagline and he review their books. He went to the New York Times and the new yorker and he got them to review their books and he also organized leading. They were more like public performances the word of the beats. They organized a poetry evening in San Francisco and not sober of 1965. It was an art gallery and they sent out postcards and kerouac went out and bought wine, red wine in the past wine around and the New York Times heard about this and they send out a reporter to write about the poetry in San Francisco so the New York Times wrote about how he published a book when it was still just the spoken word. I dont know of any other poem that the New York Times covered or had written about before in the form of a book. It was a new cultural phenomena. There had been poets who would read their poems. They could go to the library of congress and hear poetry. You could go to the museum of modern arts. Usually the poet had his or her face buried in a book and it was informal and Allen Ginsberg was putting his whole body into the work. In the audience was definitely involved in kerouac was in the audience. They were old friends and he was saying go man, go and this was inspiring and ginsburg. He was in a lot of ways carried away and the poems took on new meaning as he performed them. They helped inspire the rock and roll generation. The beatles, john lennon grew up with Allen Ginsberg in kerouac and dylan grew up with kerouac. There was that kind of continuity. When i mentioned different generations, the tradition and the legacy one on with rock n roll and was still in with folk music and dylan going electric. Dylan recognized ginsburgs genius and said after he was carrying on the work of walt whitman and some of dylans early songs are apocalyptic and surrealistic and his work. People who criticize the poems saying this is a book for adolescents and a book for young people. Its not a mature statement by a mature author and usually i say well all human beings go through an adolescent stage. We are all adolescents that sums page in our life. It has this wonderful energy thats directed to all of the youth of the world. I was 15 years old when the child to place my parents subscribed to the magazine. I looked at the pictures of jake ehrlich who was holding a copy of howl in his hand and waving it in the courtroom and read the story about it. I felt a natural affinity for ginsburg and for kerouac and i took the train. I was living on long island on the edge of suburbia in went to Sheridan Square bookstore and bought a copy. It was 75 cents. I could afford that. That made a difference. It was a little blackandwhite paper book paperback and it fit in my back pocket. I went to school on monday morning and waved the book around and said guys look what ive got. Ive got a copy of howl. This is the book they were trying to ban in San Francisco, and i became a beatnik. Now some people look down at the beatniks. I dont. Host why . Guest a lot of people look down on them. They were mostly people who were straight. They had regular jobs. They went to north beach in San Francisco on the weekend. They were there turtlenecks on the weekend and their dark glasses so they were kind of parttime in the sorter for balyan. They rebelled on saturday and friday nights and then they went back home and went to their 9 to 5 jobs so people were critical about that but there were other beatniks who were more rebels and radicals. He definitely influence my poetry. Ive been a poets and high school and some of my poems are very much influenced by reason. People say great you are resting on ginsburg is obvious and usually the poems that i write when im in new york about new york, new york places in new york streets. Howl is a poem very much about new york, about times square and the empire state welding and Greenwich Village and the coffeehouses but it took getting out of new york and going to San Francisco for ginsburg to be able to look back to have the distance. Shifted in dreams woke in a sudden and picked themselves out of basements hung over with horrors of third avenue iron dreams and stumbled onto unemployment offices. Walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbanks waiting for a door in the east river to open to roomful of steam heat and opium. Who created great suicidal dramas on the apts cliff banks of the hudson under the wartime blood fight of the men and their head shelby crowned in oblivion. Guest one of the things that i would say is new in the book is that i obtained the records of one Allen Ginsburg was in the new york state Psychiatric Institution in the late 1940s. I knew he had been there. I assumed there were medical records. I asked the Allen Ginsburg trust and Allen Ginsburg was dead at the time i started to write this book. He recently died and i said can you please acquire the records and could you get them . So i got the records from the hospital when Allen Ginsburg was a patient there. He had been involved with a group of thieves who had broken into peoples houses in stolen jewelry and furs and his apartment was the place to stash the stolen goods. He uncovered the ring and a number of things led them to ginsburg said he was arrested and coconspirator as part of this group. He was going to go to jail but his successors interceded and said to the District Attorney would it be okay to put him in a Mental Hospital the new york state Psychiatric Hospital instead of going to jail. So he created what i think of as a kind of myth of the prison. He would say in the United States you are a deviant if you dont fit in with the status quo. They say you are mad and they send it to a hospital, Mental Hospital. He knew that happened in russia and the soviet union were nonconformists and thats also happening in this country. They dont like what youre saying or what you are doing and they think youre a mad person and thats what happened with his mother. His mother naomi had spent time in Mental Hospitals. She was a communist, a member of the communist party. She was an artist who was definitely going against the current and i think she was a really good example of somebody who was a nonconformist who was declared mad and put into a hospital. And so ginsburg also wrote letters from the hospital to kerouac in which, the kind of fed this sort of myth of a madhouse as a place of oppression and his ability to survive in a madhouse and a sense of solidarity for all people who are mad or declared to be. You are insane you know. That was part of the rebellion. I did also made his psychiatrist in San Francisco. Or Philip Hicks Ginsburg also wanted the new pieces of information that its in my book. Ginsburg went to langley hospital where hicks was his doctor and he said i am a and he said no, so he helped ginsburg to do a number of things, to come out of the closet and to acknowledge the fact that he was a and also he had a Writers Block and his performance anxiety. Right after ginsburg finished his therapy with hicks he did the six gallery reading so he got beyond the fear of going onstage and for the rest of his life he was a tireless performer he would perform sometimes. At times a year traveling all around the country. I think to a large extent he is responsible for poetry slams that we have today and a young generation of people who get up there and they are not reading from a premier texts. They are writing great wordplay and he has helped to revive the spoken language and to use street language, the language of the street. To use obscenities. You have some fourletter words and howl. The d. A. In the police didnt like it but he helped to break that barrier. When serengeti testified in the trial he said its our society with its material and worshiped at things and commodities that are the obscenities. Host we are joined now by Jeanne Theoharis who was a professor or Quinn College and the author of the rebellious life of mrs. Rosa parks. Jeanne theoharis prior to december 1, 1955, was rosa parks rebellious . Guest absolutely and her rebellious spirit really starts as a young person, as a kid. For instance she grows up in a home with her grandparents and her mother. Her grandfather after world war ii there is this uptake of clan violence in alabama. Her grandfather would sit out at night with his shotgun and a 6yearold rosa parks would sit with him. Another time a white bully pushes her and she pushes back. She believes that she shouldnt have to be pushed. Her political life starts when she meets who describes as the first act of the she ever met and they would get married in 1932. She would join him organizing so thats 1932 so the next 20 years she will be active. She will join the naacp in 1943. For the next 10 years will help to lead the montgomery naacp into becoming a more activist chapter with nixon doing voter registration, working on legal cases, legal and whingeing cases but trying to get justice for black women who have been victims of sexual violence. In 1955 rosa parks is a seasoned rebel if you will. Host was december 1, 1955 the busted down, was that planned . Guest no, it was not planned but it was the process both in terms of her life a combination of many acts of rebellion. Certainly montgomerys black community is thinking about filing a suit. This is a year after brown versus board of education so was a different legal climate. They have been talking about the need to challenge bus segregation. This is also not the first shes not the first person arrested on a bus. In the decade after world war iii you see a trickle of people refusing to give up their seats, getting arrested. In 1944 a woman by the name of feel the white refuses to give seat and is arrested in police raid her daughter. There is a series of cases. 1974 with brown offers a new opportunity and as you may know in march of 1955 of 15yearold by the name of Claudette Colvin refuses to give seat on the bus. At first it seems like this would be the case against the judge throws out the segregation charge and her case in the community doesnt stand behind colvin and they see her as too young so when i say its not planned, rosa parks is not a freedom rider. She doesnt get on the bus to make a stand but its also not spontaneous. It doesnt just come out of nowhere. Rosa parks had also made stance on the bus before december 1, 1955. One of the things that called her was many bus drivers would make black people pay in the front and then get off the bus and report on the back. She refused to do that and she had been thrown off the bus by this Esther Brimmer would have her arrested another bus drivers who considered her uppity for not being willing to do that. This is not her first active bus boycott that shes coming home from work at 6 00 at night. She lets the bus pass by because its too crowded and goes to the drugstore and buy to do things board the bus and sits in the middle section. The middle section is a bit of a nomans land in that black people come its not the white section and over and over she makes clear shes not sitting in the white section. She is sitting in the middle section. The middle section, black people could sit there but is she would put it on the whim of the driver would be cast to give up their seats. The first stop after she gets on the bus fills up and one white man is left standing and the bus driver notices this. The bus drivers name is james blake and he tells the people in rosa parks wrote because for this one might white man to sit down all people in the roe will have to get up in the aspen to get up and no one moves. He asks more forcefully you better make it right on yourselves and the other three people reluctantly according to rosa parks give up and she as she puts it pushed as far she could be pushed. But she did not consent. She thinks about emmett till at this moment the young 14yearold, she thinks about her grandfather and she refuses. She let the man sitting next to her get out and she slides next to the window and refuses. The bus driver says im going to have you arrested and she says he may do that. So the bus driver calls the police and i think we can think about whats happening at that moment because she is sitting there and those of us who have been on the bus. People are grumbling and getting off the bus. The Police Officers give on the bus and i think many of us think about rosa parks being quiet and rosa parks is certainly a shy reserve person but rosa parks is not quite in this moment in when the Police Officers get on the bus and they asked her why she didnt move, she says back why do you push us around . So i do think rosa parks challenges both in her body but also with her voice the kind of system of inequality in this country and then she is arrested. Host as children we all learned that rosa parks sat on the bus and the white section. This is what you write in your book, the rebellious life of mrs. Rosa parks. At the turnofthecentury reconstruction history held up that black people as deferential and happy so too, so does the celebration of parks as quiet and not angry. Guest right. I think we learn about her. She has on the one hand shes an incredibly celebrated and honored and on the other hand we hear about one day when rosa parks had it lifetime of activism both in montgomery but parks has to leave montgomery in 1957 and she will spend the second half of her life as an activist in detroit fighting the racism of the jim crow north. And she will continue to do that. Rosa parks will call malcolm x or personal hero. She will be active against the war in vietnam. She will be active against South African apartheid. We are showing a picture one of my favorites in the book of an older rosa parks protesting outside of the afghan embassy. She will continue through the end of her life sing the struggle is not over. There is much injustice in this country and she will be resolved to keep fighting and yet i think the way rosa parks is taught is its taught as a problem we solved in the past when the actual rosa parks that theres much more work to be done. Host how did you do your research on the book and where were the papers . Guest i had to do a lot of digging. I went to all sorts of archives and did oral history interviews and in part because part of rosa parks papers were caught up in a dispute in her current state. And languished in new york for a decade until the summer Howard Buffett made an incredible donation about them and recently gave them to the library of congress and in february they opened. So they are remarkable. The library of congress is open to anyone who wants to visit. People should go and see them. You can actually read letters by rosa parks and her mother and her husband and you can see some of rosa parks political writings in here her voice talking about why she did what she did. So i very much recommend them. Host you are spending more time at the library of congress. Jeanne theoharis, the rebellious life of mrs. Rosa parks is the name of the book