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For 50 years they have supported programs like virginia festival of the book reaching nearly every american with opportunities to understand understand understand, celebrate and engage we need your help to urge congress to preserve these entities. Please take five minutes to call your representative after the program. A really does matter. The Virginia Foundation has informational their website so the is that housekeeping so todays authors have written about tragic events by State Government in times of tremendous political as asian in the face of suppression and a confluence of mistakes led to bloodshed totally unexpected as Many Americans now all ponder what behavioral norms and limits that might be disregarded for intense polarization. I will introduce the authors the author of 67 shots has coauthored 10 books clean the first biography of colin powell. As a former columnist and Senior Editor of washington and magazines living in rural virginia. The author of bloody sunday protest Voting Rights in the struggle for racial equality. Professor pratt teaches history at the university of virginia and the author of the color of their skin that is an outstanding blocker a book. Is as university of georgia. Thank you. [laughter] then i said virginia . Does this mean i dont get the letter apex sorry about that. So the first presentation. I stood at the university of virginia many years ago was anybody at kent state 1970 . There are release to people and the crowd. Downtown in the weekend prior. There were 21,000 students at kent state nobody knew that at the Regional University primarily training teachers in those days for the Public Schools in northeast ohio but there are 1,000 people were all this took place in 20,000 elsewhere obviously at that time going to class this. And i know the guy who covered it. So a little bit of a chronology of what and when but the address to the nation Richard Nixon announced contracting the number of u. S. Forces but to be expanded and it would be carried across the of border for the supply line. Any soldier serving of that time was the surprise wasnt already across the border into cambodia but it had expected pullback from colleges and universities across the country and have been tense state prided night friday night there is a bunch of cars downtown and at about 11 00 people started to build fires and garbage cans out in the street started to stop the cars and at 12 00 the gets worse probably of the car of 10 or 5920 people start throwing things through windows the mayor estimates 40,000 worth of damage but two that morning the mayor calls to inquire bringing the National Guard to can stave. Is already 20 minutes away they have lots of fire power over their. In the 5 00 on saturday this is regard shows up. With the army rotc building and then to see that go up in flames gets much worse later. So he tells the press conference that they will no longer treat the symptoms and then to eradicate the problems. Lament to say what reagan said two months earlier california so then more confrontations and tonight and this is Jeffrey Miller he will be dead in 22 minutes. Those are the kids on the hillside that is chanel number five of the protest movement and the commander marches marches and down to the call the sac is a horrible they were asked to do with the leadership they were given. And then that is the practice field so the students are out in front of them. So the guards starts back up the hill and then to a third step away the guard turns then began firing into the crowd and then they are diving for cover you will remember this total is more powerful because that is the moment she realizes she is looking at the dead person. He will be dead in seconds. As dave 14 yearold runaway who wandered into the space because she heard there was a dance club percussion is not political she is jat just caught up in this end why did this happen . So is uh class of 1970 so as a revolt for the campus in just the opposite happened doubly only but the agitators that he lost faith in hoover he did think the fbi give him the people that this of the debut of the whole thing. But there is sad inevitability all of those toxic waters of the 60s and that were slowed together at that one college of artiste ohio when we start to break the story apart uc that will see the horror of what happened the university, the governors office, the students everybody could turn away from this happening in nobody did and then you get to the fruits of this jeff miller 21 years old shot and then shot at it was horrendous. As a freshman was an honor student was in the Honors College she was targeted because she was tall and attractive love side under the arm basically aimed penetrated all of her viscera up. Soleil stop by to see what was happening as the freshman Football Player number to end the rotc class simply standing there between classs and was shot in the thorax. The guy picked him up and threw him backward their army battle rifles it is insane to control what crowd with the army battle rifle m1. This breaks part agate choked up because walking between classs a friend of hers was walking beside her he heard the shooting grabbed her pushed her down and said stay down the shooting stopped he said its okay to get up she was shot from 130 yards away at sniper rage. It breaks your heart. So this is the outcome of old thing. So what happened was strategy for the university to be said that with the wrong equipment and many word during talks about this. And aster do the impossible many did fired guns with a deep regret but of course, ultimately he the various tragedies. And so on the notable turnover to you. Good afternoon i will ask if anybody was in selma 1965 . We talked earlier. I will give you a chronology for the sake of those were not familiar. The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 by president johnson and passed by others but as many as you know, it had the prohibition that was for voting at the last minute so it was apparent that the Voting Rights legislation was needed because especially is the deep south of alabama and mississippi and georgia where the violence was worse so it took the courage of a few people to really make this happen and they wanted to dramatize what was taking place in so much. So the mother of the Selma Movement when i try to do end this book is bring to life of these individual people. Like Martin Luther king and john lewis they figure prominently in the narrative but there are so many other people who put their lives on the line on the daily and nightly e basis. Born in 1911 and 1932 she registered to vote a handful of African American people who could successfully navigate all of the difficulties to try to gather registered in selma if you were black but she had done so. She used for time to help educate other herb black people of the Voting Rights process to get registered as did her husband they were both dedicated civilrights activists. So much so when her husband died 1963, she used the occasion of his funeral to disseminate information about Voting Rights because at the time if you tried to register to vote in the deep south to be murdered the only thing to put your life in greater danger would be if you actively trying to educate and get other people registered. If you were a voter life was in danger but even greater danger if you were organizing a she and her husband were. She used his funeral to do this. So purses a story that comes to life so she actually invited to 22 common to begin a Voter Registration campaign. There was a man named bernard who is still alive he is on the faculty at Emory University in atlanta and his share this story with me and others that he wanted to be in charge of of field project as many young sncc team leaders were but by the time he was sent to raise money and he got back he was told all of the assignments were handed out. He said i dont want to be assistant i want my own project so there was a map of the deep south of the wall with of red x through the state of alabama. He asked why . And they said that is because we have sent people out as scouts in the consensus is the whites are to mean and the negros are too afraid so we think it is best not to pursue anything in alabama. But we had done initial leg work in a place called selma you can check it out if you want to use at all take it. So that is how the sncc base was set up and then asking Martin Luther king, jr. To bring his organization so because of the involvement both of these organizations organizations got to selma so she is the mother of the movement. Followed the events leading up to bloody sunday when several hundred parishioners went to the bridge to march over led by john lewis and mr. Williams. The march from selma to montgomery took place after the of murder in merry in alabama the youngest letter a in his church and was trying to protect his mother and grandfather from being brutalized by policemen on this particular night in which shot by a state trooper twice in the abdomen pointblank. He died eight days later so some of the friends in sncc were angry he was murdered for nothing so with the adb should march with his body all the way from selma to montgomery to dump his body at the foot of the capital so governor wallace can see what his brutality has created. But that was metaphorical as somebody said that is a good idea. Symbolically we will carry him so that is how the idea of the march was born. So when the marchers came facetoface with the state troopers that were ordered by governor wallace and jim clark of Dallas County you know, the rest of the story. Anybody here has not seen the footage . I will share something with you now that you have not seen the issue probably dont know about it because there is a concerted attempt to cover it up. Many people believe the beatings stopped on the bridge. They did not. The state troopers from alabama and Dallas County pursued the merc the marchers back across the bridge into selma baby to them arrested the night with rubber hoses, a barbwire, a couple of journalists on hand and that with the night time defense whites would bring cans of black spraypainted and then sprayed the lenses of the camera so they cannot be recorded so that is what happened but the beatings continued well into the early hours of the next morning. Some of the blacks and whites had sought refuge in nearby church so they ran into the church trying to get away from the policemen and the state troopers thinking they would have refuge and respect the sanctity but they did not and they pursued them fired tear gas inside the church through a 16 yearold boy out through the stainedglass window and the horror of that night i had a conversation with the woman who has not come up in Previous Research but a Living Institution to have the good fortune to talk with her many times over the years pet she was 11 years old on the bridge that day she was not beaten by her 14 yearold sister was. What she remembers the most was the horses and the people were blinded because of the teargas in burns your eyes and lungs and you can see any were disoriented so then they burn running right back into the people they were trying to get away from. There was one instance one woman trying to run away from the state trooper ran directly into the past seven oncoming course had her with such force her head hit the pavement and that is an image she can never forget berger she was 11 years old. And then to be murdered a couple of nights later into misidentified as priest and a receding dinner at of black restaurant that was one of the most notorious establishments the only White Restaurant comerica whites would not go into the were afraid to go into their Research Patrons coming out in this of the white men coming out and they said where are you white niggers going . And they hit the reverend and killed him he would die a few days later. And with the narrative is the hope that if you look at the shenanigans with various writers registration laws these are the battles but that we fought so a couple of voter districts that are found to be in violation and would not be threatened because of gerrymandering and when you had people like President Trump who wins the of popular vote that only gives more fuel to those of the voting restrictions sodium idea is to limit access to the balance of the issues that we thought we had successfully one we found we had not. So the struggle continues. I will ask the authors to questions with quick answers then we will open to questions from the audience. Both the your books describe the great disparities and in National Attitudes that very toward the race of the victim. And he just mentioned the killing of the unitarian minister that made a much Greater National attention and the killings of many similar blacks clergymen and activists. Talking about the difference between kent state and jackson state in the shootings that have been there so could you talk about those disparities and attitudes . As a followup comment on the Current Black Lives Matter Movement how that ties into the disparities of attitudes. One of the moments in this book there were virtually no black students at kent state who took part in the protest against the vietnam war not because they didnt have feelings but once the guard caught on campus they could see the danger where blacks and been subjected to Police Brutality the white kids were for rural places that had a naive view of the world so the moment on saturday night the cafeteria is open and a group of black students walked in and in herington he was in charge of the cafeteria here were all of the black panthers rushing in to set the table and said you see as here we are not out there we are here. They wanted to have a witness they were there for but the moment they said that the building catches on fire and it is filled with flames. It is a powerful moment. As for jackson state vs. Kent state everybody says this cannot happen again on may 4th but then selmas bloody sunday jackson state to students were killed Mississippi State policeman policeman, highway patrolman there is of riot because the rumor has swept the campus there was another murder. The students go into protest mode early in the morning of may 15 the police decide they have had enough space sprayed the front of the campus with 100 and 58 automatic grounds and killed two people in the process. Some of you may have occurred but jackson state is a one day even to but the commission does say long steady of both campuses on violence and it devotes between 70 and 75 and 25 to jacksons day and i say in the book sadly it is true that kent state and jackson was dog bite me and typists story for the highway patrolman to spray africanamericans with gunfire was horrible and reprehensible but it was too common of a story the press did not spend much time on it. One of the things that incurred the wrath of the civilrights activist during this period was a double standard the with the federal government for the general public would perceive the death of the white and black activists with the special status or sanctity applied to the white life that was not assigned to the black life. Anybody in philadelphia 1964 . With those workers went missing . The fbi sent down hundreds of agents literally looking for two white boys so they came looking and in the process they found several of the bodies of the blacks murdered that had been missing for years. But it elicited very interest little interest in the press there was no interest because they were black which prompted a lot of anger from sncc activists especially carmichael and it is move when any of us are killed but we see a government move only when white people are killed. So do have a similar dynamic whose death is the catalyst for the march itself there was no public outcry or the acknowledgement from the president Lyndon Johnson so when the unitarian minister james reed calls his but so to have his own private plane they get the state treatment and they get no response all from the government for the approval berger of Jimmie Lee Jackson similarly the only white woman that happen to be killed for the Civil Rights Movement because she is white there are daily conversations with j. Edgar hoover about how we need to wrap this up very quickly. But once hoover found out when she had a black male passenger with her a lot of people think she came to selma one time but she was an activist for years a number of the naacp, she came to selma and 65 because she said she was called to come so she would work with black families in the leading up to bloody sunday in the night the march was concluded she was faced with a daunting task to get out of town bitterly before sundown because they realized now they have to travel back to the place of origin in moving around at night is very dangerous though the reverend james is the activists that encouraged all of them to make sure the cars were in convoys and travel in buses to get themselves to safety she had a car with michigan tags volunteered to put her car in the convoy in james said dont need you to do that we have enough cars he will be easy target. But she insisted and she had a black male passenger and they were followed they stopped at a gas station to get gas in for followed by the local klansman. One of the people in the car was the fbi informant and he said he put the gun out the window and everybody started shooting nobody doesnt know who fired the fatal shot and she was killed instantly he escaped with his life because the clansman came back to inspect the body and have often tried to imagine myself in a situation if i could even we still but he played dead to survive. So the fbi was involved in the shooting so what that point hoover tried to smear the campaign to say she had needle tracks arms she was the junkie and said there was a male negro in the car slowed to be engaged in a Smear Campaign that tried to clean this up as quickly as they could better again you have told issue of the sanctity assigned to white life that was never assigned to the blacks. So the second part of the question, how rtc both the research you did for the book had you perceive black lives Matter Movement in the broader Historical Context . We have to interesting phenomenon occurring simultaneously in history with black lives matter and the Donald Trump Movement when they converted will be interesting. We should be around to see that hopefully to see how the drama plays out in the next few years but the issue is those who have tried to minimize the importance of the black lives a Matter Movement and trivialize it with all wives matter, of Blue Lives Matter we know all lives matter but the point is when the nation has a history of the inhumane and brutal treatment toward africanamericans and especially males in reno the luxury to have this captured on film adds another dimension this isnt necessarily a blackandwhite issue but black and blue of africanamericans or latinos or the communities that our heavy patrolled and Police Officers with tanks and weapons and is overkill. The reality is we have learned the evidence will save us because you can catch it on film the images of the africanamerican man that was clearly running but not even running hes hobbling if you see the video running from a white Police Officer who shoots him several times in the back. That is a brutal but there was no conviction because one person on the jury could not bring himself to vote so until there is reform in the criminaljustice system youll have these kinds of issues and it is anybodys guess where these things go. If you have garner in new york with the Illegal Police chokehold and he says icahn breed that is the indictment. So until the government is willing to address these issues there will continue to be protests. Whatever progress we have made in this country is the outcome of struggle it is not a function of a Natural Evolution it is the outcome of protest and struggle. There is a direct connection between cancer stay and baltimore and the lesson is more firepower does not make anybody safer. At kent state as succession of actions regard comes in and 1,347 guardsmen and 150 heavyduty trucks and tanks and personnel carriers they were armed with 15 helicopters you might remember those flying overhead. This guy was still the helicopters all night long. Scaring people and students said it didnt make anybody safer bet turned a protest against the vietnam war into a protest of the occupation of the guard so lets turn to arouse and now instead of having the third person bogyman that everybody could agree iraqi protesting each other but with the same thing guardsmen that is what was left in the armories as Everything Else have meant to vietnam this was left was the world war ii battle rifle so now you have this access pentagon equipment that they give to the Police Department to justify the budget request for more equipment so no baltimore or even ferguson that has equipment basically made to go doortodoor and afghanistan and it creates its own reality and that is a horrible lesson. Will open to the audience for very short general interest questions we will try to get to as many as we can. With for the microphone because this is broadcast. I was wondering when you first got interested writing about pence day and how long it took you to write the book greg. I was a Highschool Teacher wouldve happened teaching Highschool Seniors in one case one year younger i was the age of the guardsmen and i sat down i consider myself a poet in those days. I went home to write a perfect sonnet that i think is perfect and never wrote something so beautiful in my life in the years ago i sought was in a manuscript submitted somewhere and a haunted me that i thought i think ill write a book instead so i just 32 gather stuff there was a standard interpretation every is basically heard it that the university was caught but then you look at it but there was the stash of 130 oral histories. And then asking a question and it was that the cost of finding someone that was still alive so i felt compelled i had the leisure to do that. Over 10 years these were Million Dollars grants to allow educators and they could be killed if he gets his way unless you make your phone calls so we have a civil rights to our into goteborg begin to memphis and ive good meet people that over anders sister that talk to about the same night he was murdered he stopped and put a gun in his small but then he yanked out the gun. And get these stories from the people in selma. But Taylor Branch but but something very personal toying with the idea because theyre redoing a series and selma got a lot of publicity we want to appeal to the general public. And from of a juicy parts. And then to complete the project. I was at the Hampton Institute and as a result any reaction . And faq for sharing that and what we sometimes forget there were people in Civil Rights Activities and often students who have to decide if they would continue in school to commit themselves fulltime. And that they made james was the student at vanderbilt at the time. And trained folks so with a few expressed any interest at all in the civilrights work. And he talks about the courage of being the selma sharecropper with the amount of intimidation you would suffer to do Something Like registered to vote one of those horrors of kent state. To say they should have shot them all into here and then remember the kid that was active in the protest because the campus did shutdown after words like five weeks after. So the front door is locked the letter sligos open and he hears his parents voiced to say we never want to see you again. He goes to to rouse house he cries in the the bigger mendez breaks my heart is saying they should have shot them again berger you must have heard that the forget how ugly america was in how divided it was. So what about these outcomes of the lives lost . And those that were killed seven months later and the young white seminary student you was murdered trying to protect the young africanamerican girl and was shot pointblank and killed instantly so that outcome with the Voting Rights act of 1965 and john lewis that the injuries that many people had broken teeth john lewis suffered a school fracture he sustained the worst beating but as the consequence across alabama of with the unprecedented numbers the process of registering became very easy in day to good vantage of the new law. For those who were registered and they had sui revenged and then they can vote to have out of office. But there was also a flip side the number of africanamericans and those the counter the growth of that movement but clearly over the next decade of those positions that were local statewide and interestingly one of the biggest impediments to local office was oftentimes other blacks would not support them to say i will not vote for you because that is a bullet in your brain and that will lead to your dad. With overarching sense of fear. Trying to find up positive with the armed guardsmen with the University Campus so i guess that is of positive but in a way it turned what people hope did would do a cost of activism of was too high just to see as sharp dropoff of course, the vietnam war was winding down. There is the after action report and those last two questions with the Lessons Learned and to meet you dont learn much more from that suggest a couple of factors i grew up in a town neighboring to kent siblings went to university there a couple of things to remember for the drafted remember what year the draft ended but my brother graduated from kent state then he went to vietnam. Sought a personal there were those personal stories but there was a great divide and veterans received zero respect when they came back and another thing the National Guard was exhausted to be physically drained and they were on edge and we need to remember that. Your book is clear about the state of the guard. We riposted least three times in the first time exactly what the commander told them to say whether time easter to live inside the brain dead inside the gas mask. The draft lottery was 1969 if i had my glasses on n then be finally with the 24 servicemen and women who died in vietnam but this is one horrible first years and years. And originally with regard to come out on the campus that the liberty bell kicks off though fully event but after words a grand jury at the end of the day it is impossible to train the weapon to the individual. Was awarded to the nine students who were still alive. By the time the lawyer got out of there, 350,000, the rest were 35,000 or 40,000. Enough to put him in the ground and all that money was paid by the state of ohio. That is in the book detailing the levels of investigation with court cases and all the aftermath covered nicely. They were relatively quickly sent back to the army depot in pennsylvania. 12,000 of them were sent back, no identification whatsoever. Howard means raised the word activism. In both cases, in both your stories younop