Transcripts For CSPAN2 Open Phones 20140913

Of booktv and they are wawing walking here. He is goton u t i wanted thank you for joining us on civil rights. Another of there. Longtime congressman joining us. James cliburn, also participated in the conversation. James brooke. Generally seven, probably black. What he was talking about, its doubly carmichael and said that about the civilrights. I want to first of all asti we to start off with a callin question and how many times were you arrested during the civil rights hay day . Guest i didnt keep track. But i talked about the first one and the last one in the book. The first one is the day i met my wife. We met in jail. The last time was in columbia, South Carolina in 1961. I remember that one because that arrest led to a landmark breach of peace case called edwards against South Carolina. It began a Law School Case that most universities use the case book method use that case to teach from. I happen to be one of those arrested that day. I remember those two. In between a lot of times we got arrested and were never really charged. Just taken to the police station, taken off the streets and put back on with once the crowd disbursed. Host why were you and Emily Clyburn arrested and what year was it . Guest march of 1966 and it was six weeks after the students in greenboro, North Carolina were arrested and several weeks before we first met greensboro at Shaw University in raleigh to form a group that was being talked about. I was locked up around 10 a. M. And emily was among the students they didnt have room for in the jails so they herded them back to the the campus of South Carolina state and chaplain university. They came around 6 30 to bring us food. She talked in the door and walked toward me with this hamburger in her hands and i reached for it, she pulled it become, broke it in half, gave me half and she ate the other half. I was so grateful for that half hamburger and married her 18 months later. At our 10th anniversary she fessed up and told me it wasnt a chance meeting. She said she and her roommate, they were standing there in the dorm room watching me walk across the campus, and she told her roommate we didnt make a good couple and she was going to be my wife. She set at with her plan that happened on june 24th, 1961. So this past june we celebrated our 53 anniversary. Host James Clyburn represents the sixth district of South Carolina since 1993. It has a little columbia, charleston and and lot of other territoryies. 202585380 forestern central. 5853891 if you live out west. You can tweet us and facebook. Com booktv. We will try to get to those comments as well. Congressman, clyburn, age 12, what made you become an activist and what made it happen . Guest growing up my dad and mom were very active and around 195152 is when things starting percolating in South Carolina. My father was a minister and the man who was organized in all of the people was a minister delane. My dad at breakfast every morning we would be praying for the people and we started forming Youth Councils of the naacp throughout the south and i went to the meetings at the church back in just about two months before my 13 birthday. In some way, i guess i went to the rest room but when the meeting was over with i was the president of the sumpter youth council. And that just grew to the sitins in 1960 and the forming of snick in april at Shaw University that year and then i met Martin Luther king, jr. In october down at moore House College and met john lewis at the same time. It came from my parents and associates in college and went through to today and here we are, June John Lewis and i having spent 22 years in the congress together. Host you are the democratic leader in the house of representative, right . Guest yes. Host what do you were growing up in the jim crowe era . Guest in 1955 my High School Band was invited to march in the christmas parade. It was the first time there were black units. It was customary in those days for santa clause to be the last unit riding on a fire truck. After santa clause the horses from a local equestrian stable would march. They were the last things because of the droppings they left along the way and their aroma that flowed from those droppings. When he got down there to march in the parade it turned out we were placed in the parade behind the horses. It was very, very difficult and very memorable to try to play that clarinet while side stepping droppings and trying to breathe in and out the way you have to with the aroma of the stale oats. Well, that to me, was probably the most lasting memory from that year because because of that i left that high school. And went to madison academic where my mother had gone to school and that is where i graduated from and i believe it was the experience at that united methodisschool in camden, South Carolina where i first interacting with white teach teachers and people that containi changed me dramatically. It was the most transformational thing until i let Martin Luther king, jr. In october of 1960 and setting up with him until 4 30 in the morning was transformational. Those two experiences shaped me more than anything else. Host Peniel Joseph was just talking about his recent book, stokely a life. Here is the cover. What is improgression of the first generation of the Civil Rights Movement . Guest very important. Congressman clyburn and senator lewis were activist and shaped by jim crowe seg segregation and they shift from political organizer to electoral politics and they did it successfully and maintained an understanding with grassroots. Congressman clyburn and congressman lewis represent accountability. Once they achieved political power they remembered their backgrounds as Civil Rights Activist. It is an extrordinary situations. Host Peniel Joseph, what was Stokely Carmichaels reputation among those on the ground . Guest before becoming a black power activist he is well known. Before he is an icon and in the front page of the new york time s he was someone people knew has a snick activist. John lewis and him were friends. And he remembered he instantly liked Stokely Carmichael. Among young people and activist he had a good reputation. He was stubborn and cracked wise jokes. King loved him like a little brother. Stokely wasnt in awe of anyone. Host congressman clyburn would you agree with that . Guest yes. I was in South Carolina, i remember, we went to raleigh, North Carolina easter weekend in 1960. Part of that where talk about in my book because you take rosa par parks. Parks was a phenomenal part of the case and when you read the court case that desegregated transit there was a footnote in the rosa parks case that said we didnt have to determine the rule on this issue. We have already made that determination in the case of Sarah Flemming versus the South Carolina electric and gas company. There was a lot going on in South Carolina but we were not a media center and therefore you will not read and hear a lot about it. You write a lot about john lewis. He talked about having been arrested this morning. The first time he was every physically attacked was in rock hill, South Carolina. And the man that went up there to rescue them was James T Mccain from sumpter South Carolina when was my pointing League Baseball coach and t was james t. Mccain from sumpter South Carolina who was my baseball coach in the one guy that my dad would let me go to these meetings with. My dad trusted jt mccain more than anybody else. John lewis will tell you to this day that jt mccain was one of the most impressive people he ever met. I got to know him not just as a roommate but he was not baseball coach when i was 14 years old. So these are the kinds of things you will find in my book. You wont find it in most other books because most other people never saw South Carolina and what was going on in South Carolina. Martin luther king jr. Always referred as the mother of the movement. She was the one that went to Highlander School to teach. She taught rosa parks. She was from charleston, South Carolina. Host James Clyburn, Peniel Joseph lets take some calls. Alonzo in North Wilkesboro North Carolina please go ahead with your question or comment sir. Caller yes, either one can answer but id like to know what they are thinking about the current gridlock as it relates to Stokely Carmichael and hf brown who probably foresee what i term as intellectual ignorance that her country is faced with now because the demographics are changing here in the United States. A lot of what seems to be what stokely and brown spoke against were those that were at the top placed strategically for their own reasons, or press people. But now we find even the white power structure which is becoming increasingly decreased, we find that there is an awareness that is causing the kinds of gridlock we find in our government. The philosophy which has not been challenged is really based on a whole lot of defending of dred scott in the Supreme Court decision. Host all right alonzo we have a lot on the table there. Lets start with Peniel Joseph and then senator clyburn. Guest i think where we are at right now visavis Race Relations in the country is at a crucial point. The thing about stokely and h. Rap brown, they talked about trying to transform the Current Conditions of black people and there was a movement for black equality. I think what we just saw in ferguson and what we have seen with other incidences are at this idea that black equality has brought some steam to american society. We have transcended black leaders. Barack obama, we have congressman clyburn here, congressman lewis. We have black Business Leaders and cultural and sports books. When we think about socioeconomic indicators there are 43 million black people in the United States and only 10 make 100,000 per year so we have 90 of people who are africanamerican who are not doing so well. We think about mass incarceration, unemployment and under employment. All these different things. I think where we are at today for Certain Group of africanamericans is extraordinary. We cannot deny the progress that this group has made but at the same token this group is only a small subsection of a larger group. So that becomes the major contradiction and what that group needs to do, along with poor folks, is talk about black equality and racial and Economic Justice because we cant just say we have got barack obama and the Civil Rights Movement is over. Guest i agree with that entirely but let me move it into the political arena. We just experienced some riveting depictions in ferguson, missouri but let me tell you something. I have looked at this. I had my staff did a little bit of research and we found out that if you look at the 2012 elections in ferguson, missouri, 56 of africanamericans in that community loaded in the president ial election in 2012. In april of this year, only 6 of them bother to vote. In the local elections for a mayor, a guy who they say is insensitive, he was up for reelection, unopposed and only 6 of them bother to vote. Now something has to be done it seems to me to get people to understand today that your job is not over when you elect an africanamerican president or an africanamerican to congress. I dont have a boat on the school board in my community. I dont have a vote on the city council or the county commission and the counties that i live in and therefore i am not the one that is affecting your childrens lives in that schoolhouse everyday. So you have got to take those local and state elections just as seriously as he takes the president ial election. President obama may have delivered the Affordable Care act. However, the implementation of parts of that act up according to the Supreme Court must be done at the state level so it must be the state governors and legislators who will determine whether or not medicaid gets expanded, whether or not Senior Citizens get taken care of. Though the act is there, implementation is that the state and local level so what we have got to do is a better job of getting people to understand these local elections are just as important to your children and your grandchildren as the white house. That to me is where we have began to fall short. Back in that activism days we were marching to the polls is that there was no tomorrow. Today we keep waiting on tomorrow. Host georges calling in from murfreesboro tennessee. George you are on booktv with James Clyburn and Peniel Joseph. Caller yes, i want to ask a question to Professor Joseph and make a comment that i want both of them to address. When i was at the seminary in rochester new york i heard Stokely Carmichael. He said i know some of you all dont want to follow me that if you are not going to follow me join in their urban league. What did he think of, Stokely Carmichael think of the naacp and urging them to join and also to congressman clyburn congress is about to do a study and i would like to see them not only do a study that experience the study. Go out and get your family and live on 7. 25 an hour and come back and tell us about it. Thank you very much. Host congressman do you want to start this time and then we will get to Peniel Joseph. Guest let me tell you something, i was not always a congressman. I know what its like to sleep. Abed. I remember when we got our first indoor toilet and running water. I have had those experiences. I have worked for a dollar and a quarter an hour. I used to relocate outhouses in order to make enough money to pay for my college education. So none of that i experienced. My wife used to work walked two and a half miles to school every morning into and two and a half miles back home every afternoon because they were not allowed school buses in her school district. So nobody can tell me how tough it is to make these kinds of a living but im not going to be sorry for having gotten elected to congress. I did what was necessary to open up the door. Im living my dreams and aspirations and im spending every day trying to make sure that pell grants are there for your children and grandchildren and the student aid is there for them. Whatever the largest may be of this government im working for john lewis and the other members of the prophetic Congressional Black Caucus to make that available to you and everyone else and i just wanted to know i was not always a member of congress. Guest in terms of stokely i think he would have wanted people to join the urban league and the naacp because he believed in organizing. Whats going on in ferguson for instance if more people were just organize they would have more political power. Carmichael, kwame ture felt even if you didnt follow this way but tammy became a revolutionary Pan Africanism he needed to organize. Groups like the naacp are extraordinarily important. They are advocates for Racial Justice and advocates for Economic Justice and more importantly they are advocates for black equality. I think the biggest thing that we dont talk about in america in 2014 is this idea like black equality. Thats more than Racial Justice. Thats more than diversity and more than multiculturalism. Saying if black people receive a quality theres going to be a trickle up effect for everyone else whether and are people who are poor or people who are physically challenged but you have to talk about black equality because the country is founded on racial slavery. Even though its an uncomfortable subject and i dont think its our view of the president that the president has to talk about it. Its all of us who are active citizens who have to talk about this issue of black equality even if we are not black. Thats interesting thing. It actually matters for all of us even if we are not black because its going to have a healthy impact on our democracy. Host Peniel Joseph how do you think your life has been different than congressman clyburns . Guest very different. In terms of jim crow racial segregation even though it was a racially segregated United States of america that i grew up and it was different. I went to high school. That was integrated. My neighborhood was predominantly black but at the same time if you achieved and have Educational Opportunities you could leave that neighborhood. There was definitely i would say more opportunities and more access. At the same time i think one of the interesting things about the jim crow. Not that congressman clyburn lived through and congressman lewis we are facing a new jim crow and its not just with mass incarceration and Michelle Alexander has a great new book but its with racial segregation. One of the worst part about the United States is that blacks and whites are more likely to live, work, play, go to church and i separately. Thats a huge problem because the resources arent in the black community. When the resources arent there that means black people when it comes to access to health care, when it comes to public schools, when it comes to treatment before the criminal justice system. My life was shaped and shadowed by a different kind of jim crow. My encounters with the police were not the same that you might have had although i have been stalked before as a teenager. I was never taken in because i had conversations to tell people that hey im a student and i didnt do anything. I feel lucky in that sense but my life was contoured by a different kind of jim crow that was different from what the congressman face. Host Peniel Joseph was a guest earlier this year on our in Depth Program for three hours and if you would like to watch that go to booktv. Org and in the upper lefthand corner theres a search function. Type in his name and you can watch three hours of Peniel Joseph talking about all of his books including the Stokely Carmichael biography. James clyburns books blessed experiences recently booktv covered him and his wife more importantly and mali clyburn in aiken South Carolina and you can also watch that on line as well. The next call for these two gentlemen comes from steve right here in washington d. C. Hi c. Caller good afternoon. Stokely carmichael was an atheist. How did that happen or how did he become to be of that persuasion and how did that play out in the otherwise fairly christian Civil Rights Movement . Guest thats a great question. I think stokely, his people were methodist and he did grow up going to church but his own personal beliefs were probably atheist agnostic. It didnt affect him in a negative way of the reason was because stokely is a very savvy rag medical organizer. He had read that bible multiple times. He could quote from the bible. When he was in church he saying church songs in hymns so he used that christian ethic that was a part of the Civil Rights Movement for his organizing. Interestingly by the time he was a black power epic if he goes to multiple churches in washington d. C. And other places as well so he has a great relationship with the black church and understands that the black church is really the root in the seabed for black political activism in united United States. Both then and now i would argue. It didnt affect him negatively. He realized if you are going to say you want equal rights and Racial Justice whether people are believing it because of a philosophical reason or because god has led us to this movement he said he was fine. One of his best lines i will leave you with business. During freedom summer disorganizing in mississippi and these with a young white organizers, volunteers who have come into the deep south and he tells them look i know some of your marxist, some of your atheist. We are not going to have any of that among the people here. He says if these folks think this movement is being run by god he says hooray. Host was the Civil Rights Movement a Christian Movement . Guest it was a religious movement. It was not a Christian Movement. There were many jewish involved in the Civil Rights Movement as there were christians and there were others, other religions. I have studied all of the great religions. In fact the first a i ever got in college was in comparative religions. My father was a minister. I grew up in the fundamentalist church of god. My wife emily grew up in the united methodist. We believed in duncan and they believed in sprint lay. We all believed in something. All these things are symbolic of how to live and find that one in fourletter word, love. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Now all of their religions teach that. It is a big mistake the leaders, the face of the movement were all basically christians that Martin Luther king jr. Would never have been successful without the participation of the jewish. Remember philadelphia and mississippi those three kids that got killed there during freedom summer, goodman and chaney. Cheney was africanamerican and the other to smyrna and goodman were jewish. Host summer 1962 to 63. Guest 64. Its the 50th anniversary of freedom summer. As part of the activity going on today is about the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but also the 50th anniversary of freedom summer which led to the Civil Rights Act. Next year we will be celebrating whatever it was that led to the 65 Voting Rights act. Yes, bloody sunday. We are already planning that. We have had several conversations about things we can do next year to bring a focus on the Voting Rights act. One of those things we would hope would be to congress to get to agree on a formula that would satisfy the United States Supreme Court to reinstate the effectiveness of the 65 Voting Rights act. Host congressman to remember where you were when algae lbj signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . Guest oh yes. I was spending the summer planning to go back to teaching. I taught school, high school from 1962 until the spring of 1965. I was standing in front of my classroom lecturing when the pa system came on to announce that john f. Kennedy had just been assassinated back in 1963. So sure i remember where i was on those days. I remember all the activities that led up to that stuff. I lived through those things and i would say to anybody, the gentleman called before, i would refer him to the stimulus bill that we passed. He will find a thing in there called the clyburn amendment. And that a memoli called 102030 that i was pleased to put in that build the record 10 of all that money in that section of the lot had to go to communities with 20 or more of the population not meeting the proper level for the next 30 years. These are the kinds of things we work on every day to try to address the issues of under and unemployment and to try to reach people who are suffering today because the economy, the recovery has not gotten to them the way it should. We are trying to direct those resources and that is one of the ways we are doing it. Host capron and emma and claw washington you are on air. Please go ahead. Caller its eman cloth. Host thank you maam. Caller i want to thank both gentlemen for their service and their teaching. I am 70 years old, a white woman who remembers very well freedom summer, emmett till, goodman and chaney and schwerner. I remember all of that and i dont want to see it happen again. I have been so angry at what happened in ferguson. Trayvon martin, the two killings in new york by policeman. I just want to see it stop. This country is like suburban kings of france. It learns nothing and it forgets nothing. Please, you help . Get people organized. Help us learn how to organize. Host congressman clyburn. Guest well this morning during my presentation of the book i was asked a question manifesto a question and if that was the very last question that i answered this morning. What can we do today to effectuate the same kind of organized efforts that we had back in the 1960s . My answer was something similar to this. We have got to use the tools we have. I remember when we were planning our first march on downtown orangeburg. I remember at midnight rolling deviled mimeograph machine, printing stuff out that we gave to carriers who ran to the dormitories and back then you couldnt go into the girls dorms after 9 00 but we had young ladies coming to the windows. We were stuffing those mimeograph notices for them to put under their doors of students to say we are going to meet at 12 00 tomorrow and we are going to march and 2000 people showed up. Today we have twitter. We have got facebook. We have got all the social media stuff and i believe if we were to organize ourselves using social media rather than worry about all those other foolishness that we get off the internet, lets put some stuff on that internet that will say to the people of ferguson missouri, get to the polls by 7 00 this evening so you wont have to march at midnight. Thats the kind of stuff we have got to do today. Use the tools that we have. We have great tools to communicate but Everything Else we can text, what do we collect . Sex. Lets do some voting organizing. We have got the tools. Lets use them for a new Massive Movement that will make sure that we can have in november 2014 the kind of turnout at the polls that they had in 2012 in november. If we vote in president ial elections at the same level i mean in local elections at the same level that we vote in president ial elections, a lot of the stuff that you are fearful of right now will dissipate, go away. Guest we have to do what we can where we can. As a professor i run a center for democracy and we are organizing a National Dialogue on race day. We did one last year after the 50th march on Washington Embassy or ferguson is on our minds. Locally these ferguson problems are local problems. They are in new york and boston and washington d. C. The university is very important here. Our students dont know the story. Some of us teach africanAmerican History and we teach courses on social movements and social justice. One thing i find really remarkable is that many people have never taken a civil rights course. They have never taken a black history course before they enter a College Campus whether they are white or black. Our students need to know the story. Why does Martin Luther king matter in what is john lewis and representative clyburn matter but clyburn matter but why did ferguson have been . They need to have an understanding of everything from racial slavery to the movement for citizenship and Voting Rights in this country. We can do that by organizing on our campuses, teachins. We had teachins against the vietnam war in the 1960s. We can do teachins for racial and Economic Justice and black equality in the 21st century. So we can do a lot and i think the key of this is education but also dialogue. Black and whites in this country and latinos are not speaking to each other. We need to have a dialogue with each other thats not about accusation but thats rooted in reality. Where we have today and why are so many black people in jail . What about immigration . Why are so many black people poor . Why did ferguson happen and if we have that dialogue and we can collect that dialogue to a push for Public Policy at the local level in the regional and state level and at the national level. Guest im very pleased to hear that. In fact last wednesday evening when my wife and i had dinner with the president of the university of South Carolina and this was the kind of discussion we had. What we can do on that campus which is in my Congressional District to really take the mantle up and to make current these kinds of efforts. And what role can the university play in that . Dr. If stds is doing a tremendous job i think of trying to find a way to make the university of South Carolina relevant to this Going Forward because if you go back and look in the 1860s that was one of the few integrated universities that we had in the country. It has gone a different way in recent years but hes trying to bring it back to that and dr. Bobby donaldson. He reminds me so much of you. I dont know which one of you is the oldest. Maybe you remind me of him but hes leading this effort on the university campus. He just had a tremendous effort. I heard you earlier today talking about 1963. Bobby has done a tremendous piece on all that took place in 1963 and how it matter to South Carolina. When you get a chance you have to take a look at it. He has gone back and gotten all these tapes some of which were taken by the police who were really surveying rather than recording. He has dug up all that stuff and he is updating it to make it relevant. Host congressman clyburn in your book blessed experiences i think your daughter mignon when she went to the university of South Carolina there was that incident there regarding a black homecoming queen. Guest absolutely. I tell that story in the book. It starts with mignon getting ready to go to college. Her mother said to make mignon is about to leave home. You have insisted that she live on the campus. You need to have a talk with her before she goes. I kept putting it off. Finally the day came. I sat down with mignon and i said to her now mignon you are about to go on campus. You have got to understand that when you get on the campus a lot of things are going to happen to you that is pretty good because you are jim clyburns daughter but something is going to happen to you that aint so good because you are jim clyburns daughter. I said now dont you worry about any of that. It will wash out that something is going to happen to you because you are a woman and you are black. Those things were never even out. You are going to have to work hard to overcome those things. While she didnt say anything. Thanksgiving she called me and asked if i would come and pick her up because they were closing the dormitories for thanksgiving. I went by the dormitory and picked her up and on our way home and automobile passed us, this was 1980, and it had a Bumper Sticker on the back of it, George Rogers for heisman. That is who one, George Rogers for the university of california won the heisman that year. She said to me dad, did you see the Bumper Sticker on the car . I said yes. She said do you think that man but put your Bumper Sticker i does run for secretary of stat state i nascar . I said no, i dont think you would. Why do you ask . She said that little conversation we had as you are about to take me to school i could not understand what you meant until the recent homecoming game. I said what happened at home coming . She said at the homecoming game i noticed that when our black homecoming queen was introduced, she was booed and i noticed she said that they section of the stands that booed the loudest was the same section that cheered the loudest when George Rogers was introduced at the beginning of the game. I said okay and what did that say to you . She says well, i deducted from that it was okay for us to entertain them but not okay for us to represent them. I said you know what . You are going to do well. And she has done well. Host Mignon Clyburn is a member of the federal can medications commission today. Michael thanks for holding on. Michael we are going to lose michael. Sorry about that. You have got to turn down the volume under tv. Listen to your telephone. You will be able to hear everything. Stephanie is an aurora colorado. Hi stephanie. You are on booktv. Cocco hi thank you for taking my call. Congressman and mr. Joseph thank you so much for being here today and thank you for telling your story. I just want to echo what the lady said from washington is that what is the scope of the federal government and how they reach the 50 states . The states do have their own laws and jurisdictions and their constitutions and such but its all throughout the contiguous United States that there is Police Brutality and problems with minority groups and also mr. Joseph mentioned something very important as well that its white americans as well that should be alarmed at this. Its civil rights that are being, Constitutional Rights that have been breached here. Im wondering what the federal government, what is the scope and how far can they reach . What can they do or is it just left up to the states . My husband and i have five children. We have three boys into girls. Three boys are adults doing well have six figures and theyre fairly very intelligent but i was alarmed at what i saw and what i hear you know they have never been in trouble, done we well. I have one daughter in college, one graduating from High School Next Year but it really touched me deeply and im thinking what can we do . I live in colorado and i lived in a middleclass mixed neighborhood. My kids have grown up that way but my husband and i grew up in South Carolina and my parents grew up in arkansas. So were kids really havent seen a lot of this but these things come out now and we talk about it. But it just touched me terribly because this could happen to my kid. Host thank you maam. Peniel joseph . Guest i think its a great question. Federal government in a nutshell can do a lot and i will leave it to the congressman to get into specifics but in a broad historical historical way we think about the federal government and the new deal and the reason we are living the way we do now is because of the federal government and the new deal starting in the 1930s and 40s. Agricultural adjustment act National Labor Relations Board the 40hour workweek is because of the 40hour workweek. What the government did in the Civil Rights Act of the Voting Rights act that became part of a comprehensive really Great Society. Lyndon johnson, war on poverty. States have to implement in a fashion that they found judicious these big programs. The Affordable Care act is the largest expansion of government in the last 50 years. Whats interesting about the federal government, the federal government can do a whole lot. Its just that in our own time we live in an age where there is the most economic inequality in American History since the gilded age of the late 19th centuries, days of the rockefellers, the vanderbilts in these people, the titans, right . What the federal government can do when we think about ferguson whether its a Great Society or urban renewal program. Whats interesting is that what impact white americans as well and latinos. The reason why i say that as americans we should think about black equality because even the new deal and Great Society because of institutional racism black equality was not achieved even though there was this huge federal mandate. So in 2014 because we are aware of Racial Injustice we could actually have huge federal programs that achieve things of social justice for everyone. I think the federal government can do a whole lot not just for black equality but for poverty in the United States. Guest im going to agree with that but lets take it a step further. The new deal did a lot for a lot of people but it took trumans fair deal to implement so much of that. If you recall from the new deal, i know you know this much better than i do, roosevelt did a lot for agriculture, for what we might call the wpa, the ccc but when those things were taken down to the state levels, they were segregated. They had labels on them. Roosevelt did nothing about that. It took trumans fair deal to remove some of those labels. It was german and executive order integrated the Armed Services back in 1948. He was an executive order by Abraham Lincoln really have implemented the emancipation proclamation. People went to see lincoln but what they did early as the 13th amendment was important because lincoln just knew that if he didnt get the 13th amendment pass the moment he stepped out of office this executive order was going to be rescinded. These things are interrelated. We just cannot really separate them out. So when you look at the new deal and then you get to the fair deal, you get to the Great Society with lyndon johnson. A lot of people felt and ive heard them say some of my colleagues the war on poverty failed. The war on poverty did not fail. In fact the war on poverty, that speech was made in january 1964 and that following june and july the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964. The Voting Rights act of 1965 the fair housing law in 1968. It became state and local governments in 1972. All of that is a part of the Great Society. I would not be where i am today but for the Voting Rights act of 65. Many of us wouldnt be where we are but for the Civil Rights Act of 64. All of that was a part of the great societies war on poverty. He did not fail. It succeeded. I am a living testimony and so was john lewis of the fact that it did not fail. Host michigan please go ahead with your question or comment. Tim . I apologize. We just couldnt quite catch what tim was saying so we are going to move to burn in detroit michigan. Vern, we are listening. Caller hello, my name is vernon brown. Im in detroit and im a member of the association of africanamerican life and history and the association of black storytellers. I would like to know how would either one of you go about to get juneteenth as a National Holiday . Is a state holiday in 43 states and we really want people to be aware of what juneteenth is. It is a celebration for all people to celebrate freedom and i would like to know how you would go about it politically and all kinds of ways. Host congressman clyburn, juneteenth. I know what juneteenth is but i will need to leave it up to Professor Joseph. Juneteenth commemorates the date that 18 months after the emancipation proclamation that the former slaves down in texas got noticed that they were in fact free. Now the other states were already out enjoying that freedom. In South Carolina we were already electing black people to the state legislature into the congress congress. The majority of the legislature General Assembly in South Carolina in the spirit of time or africanamericans. Three out of the four congresspeople we had were africanamericans. So we had gotten word in South Carolina and many other states and we are going on to implement it. For some strange reason the word did not get to texas until the 19th of june the next year. So now the professor needs to make me understand why that should be necessary. Lets go before you answer Professor Joseph why did you necessarily subscribe to a National Holiday holiday for juneteenth . Guess im trying to find out what is national about the were getting to one state late. Guest june 171965 i think should be a National Holiday. The reason why is it the end of slavery nationally so its not about the fact that it gets to texas late. Its saying that if we celebrate it as a society every june 19 the end of chattel slavery and if the way in which africanamericans and whites contributed and fought and died for the end of slavery both in the civil war and politically. You mentioned congressman the film link and that the film i can doesnt have Frederick Douglass and ivan Frederick Douglass met with the president as these three times. He was this big a part of emancipation emancipation as president lincoln. I agree with werner should be a National Holiday. We live in a country that remembers to forget slavery, that remembers to forget lynching, and it remembers to forget all these horrible things that happened to parts of the population. Now if we remember on june 19 the end of slavery we could also remember all the americans who died and came together to end slavery including white americans. So juneteenth, very important again as a matter of small d democracy and citizenship where we became a new United States of america by the time all of our citizens realized that there was freedom. Guest thats something maybe we have to have a great discussion on. We were talking about our universities and thats something we ought to have a discussion on. I have talked to a lot of people who still dont understand exactly what the 13th amendment is about. Now i know lincoln was involved in the movement but i had nothing to do with the movement of the president of the United States at that time to get an amendment to the constitution getting rid of slavery. That is something totally different irrespective of who got them there. That is what the 13th amendment and the movie was all about. There are some other things in the movie. That vote in connecticut was absolutely wrong. They left that in the movie but that was absolutely wrong and the people of connecticut i think are still angry about that. Host James Clyburn is currently the assistant democratic leader in the house of representatives has been in Congress Since 1993. The book we are talking about today with him is blessed experiences genuinely southern, proudly black. Peniel joseph is a history professor at tufts university. Here is his most recent book, stokely come a life and hes also the author of dark days, bright nights from black power to barack obama and waiting till the midnight hour and narrative history of black power in america. And trey in Fresno California you have about 30 seconds. Go ahead. Caller thank you for every participant everyone participating. I want to get questions and the question of Stokely Carmichaels relationship to the founding of cspan and then i wanted to ask a question about organizing. When you talk about organizing with this new technology i agree being a young person knowing well about twitter and facebook. The question of what is Net Neutrality really and use it to organize and maybe talk about organization. These guys at the end of their lives when they talked about black power and true economic power. [inaudible] these preconstitutional and prespiritual. Host i apologize, lets hear from our guests. Guest cspan brian lamb the founder talks about how Stokely Carmichael was part of the inspiration for cspan. He saw carmichael. As a young man. He said that carmichael gave a brilliant speech and lecture and he was in person seeing it. Later on the nightly news he saw snippets of the same speech he had been at. He said he saw that the natives took the most incendiary parts of this very well digested nuance speech and thats what they broadcast, the most incendiary ballot to parts and he really vowed that he wanted to create a media platform where people could just speak from beginning to end in their entirety and he would let viewers decide what it is they just experience. And stokely, kwame ture was interviewed by brian lamb near the end of his life so there is a special relationship absolutely, yes. Host invective you want to see that interview just a few months before kwan made torre, Stokely Carmichael died, you can go to the cspan video library. Its all available at cspan. Org. Just type in kwame ture were stuck with carmichael and you will be able to watch that. Gentlemen we are running out of time. Mr. Clyburn we have reference to ferguson a couple of times here in this conversation. What is going to happen when Congress Comes back with regard to any hearings, legislative action especially perhaps a lot of the talk is about the militarization of the police forces. Do you foresee any legislative action on behalf of congress . Guest oh yes i do especially regarding the militarization of police forces. I think to have Police Officers decked out in camouflaged, sitting atop these m. Wraps many of which are made in my district and i know why they are made. They are there for ieds that were really maiming people. These werent made for city streets. These things were made for war and for you to dress as if you were going to war for you to talk to people as if you had war with them. This is the kind of thing that is absolutely incredible and i think congress is going to seek a response to that. The president really made it clear that he is looking at doing something about it. And i think he can by executive order since these things are being given to these Police Officers by the federal government. Host James Clyburn hears his book, blessed experiences and tufts professor Peniel Joseph. I almost called you Stokely Carmichael. Here is his most recent book, stokely stokely. Gentlemen as always we appreciate you being on cspan