Transcripts For CSPAN2 Panel Discussion On Race In America 20151207

If youre as inspired as i am, by his presentation tonight. I highly recommend you participate. This concludes our program this evening. Thank you for being here. God bless our veterans, and god bless the United States of america. Thank you. [applause] every weekend on cspan2, lockheed offers programming focus on nonfiction authors and books. Keep watching for more here on cspan2. Now on the tv want to introduce you to brian murphy. His book is called 81 days below zero. Mr. Murphy, who was leon speak with amazing story. This is a kid from west philadelphia, was assigned to an airbase outside fairbanks from the years 1942, the winter of 1942, and what they were doing among other things was cold weather testing of aircraft. An idea was they were worried the next warfront may be greenland, norway, things like that. So he went up with five members on the plate in the be 24 bomber and theyre going to do something called prop testing which is closing down the props, trying to make it more aerodynamic. So basically shutting down an engine. The plane went into a spin. He bailed out, leon, bailed out. Another person did as well but he died, leaving the aircraft. Leon. Shoots down, lance by a frozen river. The point is burning up on a hill, and for the next 81 days, being considered by everyone, the military, his family, through huge log in acceptability, his resilience, he managed to walk out of the yukon wilderness after 81 days. Days. Where did you find this story . Well, for a long time i was a foreign correspondent. I worked for the Washington Post now. And at the time, this is 2007 i was covering iraq. And getting all sorts of Pentagon Press releases. And they found the remains of one of the pilots in 1997. And 10 years later they did the burial at Arlington National cemetery. At the bottom of this press release, which are normally would not have it anyway, but for some reason i read this press release and at the bottom they said this pilot who was buried was among the four people who died in the crash. And by the way, one guy survived and walked out of the wilderness after nearly three months. So it was a story that i didnt have the time to do them, but like so many of these things cometcome it stuck with me, kept thinking about it, thinking about it, and finally got around to do it. The book is called 81 days below zero. Brian murphy is the author. Next up a discussion on race in america from booktvs coverage of the 27th annual southern festival of books in nashville. [inaudible conversations] good morning. Everyone can hear me . Wonderful. Good morning and welcome to the 2015 southern festival of books. I am jim mckairnes, writer and a teacher from philadelphia by way of los angeles now based in nashville. Its a long story. All you need to know is either proud host for the this mornings discussion for a brief note of this is first. This incredible threeday celebration of the written word depends heavily on donations, not just to keep going every year but also to remain free of charge. You keep that in mind. Donations of whatever level can be easily made by mail or online through various social media platforms or even in person through actual live persontoperson communication. Any and all are greatly appreciated. Second, your office today will be heading to and signing books at the signee colonnade immediately following our session. Books are available for purchase at the book of sales area as well were a portion of proceeds to go to benefit the festival so keep that in mind as well. Third, our time is limited of course there is another session in here immediately following hours so we will need to conclude in here about five or 10 minutes before the hour to ensure timely transition. We will allow time for questions from the audience as well. Thank you. All that said, all that said [inaudible] okay. There will be a microphone provided as well for the asking of said questions and its right here in the middle. All that said i want to reduce youth to todays guests. Kristen green is an awardwinning journalist whose debut novel is is called something must be done about Prince Edward county, about life in a segregated virginia ann in her family in the wake of the Supreme Courts brown v. Board of education decision that struck down separate but equal legislation. Went down leaders chose to defy the ruling by closing Public Schools rather than to integrate them. In looking at times called a gripping edition writes about this massive resistance that was seen as a model of defiance, he defines it turns out that was partially led by her own grandfather. She has worked as a writer and reporter for more than 20 years and newspapers from boston to san diego. She and her family live in richmond about 75 miles from where she was raised. Jim grimsley is the author of how i shed my skin unlearning the racist lessons of a southern childhood about is going up years in the postbrown world south 1960s. Specifically, during North Carolina socalled freedom of Choice Initiative years when blacks and whites were given the choice at least in theory to send their children to whatever school they want. His book has been called a powerful meditation on race that examines what National Public radio called the uncomfortable truths of the time but at its heart his is the coming of age story about a young again with his own uncomfortable truths. A young man in hiding in the south no less where he reports that family is a field where craziness grows like weeds. An awardwinning author and playwright he teaches english and creative writing at emory university. Todays discussion is headlined changing course, reflections in the wake of desegregation. Those reflections are to be found in these two incredibly wellwritten books. Each of which can recalled and historical memoir. History part is hard enough. The personal stories are still harder. He starts us off today with a short reading from his book. Im going to read you just a couple of pages from the morning when the first three lack growth walked into my sixth grade classroom. This is 1966. One of them sat behind me in the desk just behind mine. At my back was violate straight in, the black girl sitting in the dust behind the. I had an ample to Say Something to her, to call her a name. Of my memories of the day, this moment comes to the most clearly. I had a feeling it would be funny to call violate a name and i was daring enough to do. Feeling of the ottoman it is far more different than any other details of the beginning of school. I am fairly certain that this happened either on the first day of school or soon after. I knew calling violate a name would make the boys in the back of the room laugh. That moment inside my head brings down through the year so good i was 11 filled with a vague sense of purpose ready to do my part, though for what i could not have said. The moment was clear, sunny. Mr. Bond leftist unattended for some reason. Maybe to smoke a cigarette in the teachers lounge. Our school room had 15foot ceilings that made the sound of our chatter ring and windows that nearly reached the top of the ceiling. The windows wouldve been open, maybe a breeze coming through to store the heat. I had the impulse to speak again and i turned to violate and a moment of silence fell over the classroom and to which i said the words i had been planning. You black, i said. Some of the white boys looked at me and grinned. Girls giggled nervously. Violate hardly even blink. You white cracker she said back to me, without hesitation, and cocked an eyebrow and clamped her job together. I sat dumbfounded. There been no likelihood in my fantasy that she could speak back. I flushed into my face. You didnt think i would say that, did you . Her voice was even louder than before and her eyes flashed with the kind of angry like. Everybody was listening. The laughter had stopped. Black is beautiful. I love my black skin. What you think about that . You are a black ditch mac i said again, blushing. Some of the white students continue to stick and i could tell they thought i was really brave but the moment did not make me feel the way i thought it would. And you are white, she said. Pretty soon after that mr. Bond returned to the moment came to an abrupt end. Violate said nothing further about what i called her at all the rest of the day i could feel her gaze boring into my back. She had reacted to my declaration in an unexpected way. When i called her the name she was supposed to be ashamed. She was supposed to back her head or cringe or admit that i was right. She had no business being in our white classroom. Classroom. If i follow my thought far enough this is what i wouldve found. But she took my insult as a matter of course and returned it. Her sharp eyes and fearlessness with the evidence of these. Toughest when coming person unlike any other milder beings around me. She was real. Her voice was big and reached inside me. That moment lingered in my head for the rest of the day to get it ended abruptly. Should not tell the teacher what i said. We were to children having an odd kind of fight. She had not paddled. Why had i called her that name . I use cuss words are rarely the of the kids usually giggled when i get. If i were superior to her, as i had always been told i was, why didnt she feel it, to . [applause] i will ask my first question of christian. It applies to each author. With the question predicate on a running theme in her book. Can you get into that as way of answering what motivates you to tell your story . Well, i have thought about my hometown story for many years before i started to really explore it. I grew up in virginia, and i attended an all White Academy that my grandfather and other white leaders have founded many years earlier. The board of supervisors voted to close the school rather than desegregated my parents both grew up and visited at attended the White Academy. I was never taught the real story behind the school closing. And so as i became a reporter and moved to th the west coast d they gave him a curious person, i started to wonder what the full story was of my hometown. I spent about 10 years reporting other peoples stories. And one day i started think about the most interesting story and my life was my hometown story that i couldnt even have described it to you. You know, what that history was. But as i delve into it as a starter think about writing a book and interviews for the book, all these messages kept coming at me that something i shouldnt do. That the story was best left pushed under the rug. Is like some described as a scabbing pig, never allowed to do. Though some people didnt want to talk about it themselves. But for me telling the story was about my future, about the family i was creating the when i was living in california i met my future husband was a racial american and of American Indian dissent and then you all wanted to marry him and have children at a new that the story of my hometown would be part of their story. And so for me understand what had happened in that town long before i was born was really important to moving forward and having my own family. Kristen, by the we will be read an excerpt from her own book is will toward the end of the session. Gym, but you take english as well but what got you into, what motivates you to tell the story . Because it seemed to me the older i got that we had never accomplished what we thought were going to accomplish by integration in the first place. Integration was supposed to fix racism, it was about to bring us all together. It was supposed to help wipe these ideas out of white people. And the older i got the more quickly came to me that that had never happened. That this is still, this is still the most enormous problem i can think of in the region where i live. Ive lived in the south all my life. But its a problem all over the country. And you can see it making resurgence over the last few years with black lives matter movement, with the constant shooting of black people who are pulled over for a traffic light violation. I notice that when my nieces and nephew started to go to school they learned the inward. They learned the same attitudes in essence the same attitudes that have been inculcated into me when i was going to school, when i was growing up in a small town, you know, North Carolina. So i thought well, i wanted to write a book in which i examined what it was like for me suddenly to encounter this whole side of my community that i hadnt known anything about in the sixth grade, and to figure out at that point that i was willing, in a way becoming a big it. And if i had not, if integration had not happen unsure of what are called on to become a fullfledged member of the oppressing, if you will. Because i had bridges built into me and i had to do with it and im still dealing with it. So thats my answer. And its a good one, thank you. As a result of his massive resistance, i was at 11 00 children received no formal education during this period. You mention in your book does a state researcher from michigan who wrote i think he wanted to School Closings would have irreversible effects on children. A newspaper editor at the time was curious about generational effects. You refer to a group of people as the lost generation. Can you talk about that, perhaps its impact as you know it speak with sure, id be glad to. So when the schools close and Prince Edward in 1959, white leaders were ready to open private academy for their children. This was the school that both my parents were sent to and the vast majority, almost all white children in the county did. Black children didnt have the same option. First of all nobody knew how long the school is supposed to be closed and when the schools were closed that summer, naacp attorney didnt believe that they would be closed. I think a lot of people were not ready to accept that this was a prominent thing. They thought it was something just meant to scare them. So the influence help people make decision of what to do with her children, but one thing was for sure. They did want to start a black academy, a black private school because that wouldve gone against what they were seeking, which was integration. So that wasnt an option. The local minister, reverend griffin who led this movement, he created Training Centers in the basement of a church is which provide informal instruction, black children in those early years at the school was closed. They were not taught by teachers. They were taught by volunteers. The teachers have moved out of town to get other jobs. It wasnt a full day of school. It was just the most basic instruction to keep kids engaged. There were some families, particularly those with resources or with family that lived elsewhere, but quickly decided to send their kids elsewhere. So some children were able to go across the county line. The College Educated High School Students at the time and agreed to take in some of the Prince Edward kids. They took in about 60. Other children to live with relatives in the north. Mostly in the north. Within a few years of the school being closed quakers got involved and to some kids to live with strangers and other states. And, of course, some families that have the means moved out of town but the vast majority of children had not received any education during that time period. A lot of kids if theyre old enough to went to work with her parents in the fields. Tobacco was the primary job of childrens extra hands were appreciated your answer many of the children were old enough to work never went back to school when the schools reopened. Other children i remember writing about one particular child who was six when the schools were closed, so by the time he started school he was 10 years old, couldnt read or write. He got seven years of education before they graduated him. So this has affected future generations been enormous ways. It has not only affected the people that were denied an education but it affected their descendents. I think it impacted the way that they feel about public education, how engaged they were in their children and grandchildrens education. And i also think that the county still doesnt adequately fund the Public Schools and Prince Edward county. They view the school says black schools which is how they referred to them when it took a Second Supreme Court ruling in 1964 to reopen those schools. They been historically underfunded and members of the black Committee Denied an education have not, you know, have not embraced the School District that shut them out. Can you tell us about the freedom of Choice Initiative you went to school under in North Carolina . Freedom of choice was a last ditch effort on the part of white schools. It was a phenomenon that happen all over the south. Schools had been resisting since the 1954 brown v. The board of education decision. White schools in the south and elsewhere have been resisting integration. Under freedom of choice, theoretically any member, a member of either School System could attempt the other. This was intended to encourage a token integration of the white schools. The assumption was no white students would you like to go to the black schools, but maybe a handful of black students would be like to go to white schools. And this would satisfy the courts, and integration and would stop at that point. So in North Carolina we had two years of this freedom of choice program. In my county 1966 and 1967. The school usually start in the fall of those years. It did indeed succeed in a very token level of integration. We had three black students in my class, and there were maybe a dozen in the ultimate to school i attended which wouldve been Something Like 200 students. But very quickly the courts ruled that this was not what the Supreme Court had in mind when it ruled that schools had to be integrated. They said getting students a choice in many regions of the country does not break down the barriers between the two School Systems, so you have to go ahead and fully integrate. So two years later, my particular county of this plan for integration and it was approved by the federal judge happened to live in the county. And at that point the middle schools and Elementary Schools were integrated, and one year later the high schools were consolidated. So within, over a fouryear period i went to four different schools, all Public Schools. And at the same number in jones county, North Carolina where i grew up. Assumes full integration came along in 1968, the first Segregation Academy opened, which was flabbergasting to me. They were farmers and white people who would spend a nickel on nothing, all of a sudden overnight could find the funds to open a school. You know, i cant tell you the extent, the extent of cheapskates in jones county is still phenomenal last night at the notion that they could within a threemonth summer period find housing, find teachers, find equipment for a brandnew school is still flabbergasting. There were dozens of these. So when full integration happened, about between half and twothirds of the way kids went to private schools. The rest of the state in Public Schools, making as a minority. I think the Public Schools in jones county were 70 black and 30 white for the rest of the time. Im curious where is kristens book spins a tale for which the personal is act the part of the story, she had discovered her grandfather was part of his massive resistance, did you ever consider not leaving your own not meeting your own smaller personal narrative into the story . That was the point of writing the book was to write my own evolution away from, my own evolution from a bigot to a recovering bigot, thats the way i usually express it. You dont get rid of racism once its built into you. You just learn not to listen to the voice in your head. You learn that this program is not what you want, its not about behavior that you want for yourself. Kristen, have you found theres a lingering resentment in virginia today . Well, i live in richmond, thats about an hour and 15 minute drive from farmville. Theres definite resentment about me telling the story in Prince Edward county where im from. Even among my own family members. People just didnt want this story told. They feel like they have apologized enough and its time to move on. You know, saying otherwise, people are not happy to do this, but somebody thinks otherwise industry has gotten attention. I would say company, then this other kind of resentment you are talking about is how do black children who were denied an education, how much resentment is there in the. That really varies. In Prince Edward county there was a walkout in 1961 by black students to protest the conditions of high school. And that walkout caught the attention of the naacp attorney i was talking earlier who decide to take this childrens case. That case became one of the five brown v. Board of education cases. And i think thats why calculators and decide to close the schools because they were embarrassed that, well, they were diverse they would be held up as an example of forced entry before other communities. I think they feared they would be held up as an example and they were embarrassed and they made the decision that no other community in the nation didnt reopen them until they were required to buy another Supreme Court decision. The our black children who have harbored resentment for a loop really long time until just recently decided to open up and share their stories and to try to move beyond the pain that they have felt for so long, or try to attempt to address the pain somehow. This school with a walkout happened is now a museum, and its a place where blacks can come in and share their story about what happened to them and also incorporates the white story. So more and more white people are coming in learning the full story about what happened, the story they were not taught as children. So its a place for people to forgive and be forgiven. There were a lot of people i couldnt access for the book who had never, would never go to that museum, would never go to the reunions of the black high school because its such a painful memory that i dont want to be part of that. I interviewed some people, siblings who never talked about whether each sent where they were sent when the schools will close. That pain from this decision is to really raw. Offer a question to both of you. So many of the passages in each of your books into written about todays divisive times as well. So much of the dialogue of both sides of integration issue sounds like rhetoric were hearing and reading on both of the gay marriage debate in june. Another social game changer. There are phrases like the ruling been decided, the ruling being naked and arrogant of nine men. And intrusion on our way of life. That was said back then. What are your thoughts on the similarities between the two . I think its clear evidence that this prejudice is still here. Its still deeply rooted, and im not talking about the south when i say that. Im talking about this country. One of the problems that we face in dealing with this problem is that the south provide such a convenient scapegoat for the rest of the country. People point the racist finger at us. We deserve it for the most part, but that doesnt mean the finger pointers dont need to look in the mirror, which is one of the things i try to talk about, the hardest in the book, that if you want, racism is a terribly difficult problem to deal with if you were trying to fix someone else. But if youre willing to see yourself for what you are when you look in the mirror, see these prejudices, these biases in yourself, then it becomes something much simpler and it becomes a matter of changing your own hard. I saw a lot of echoes between the recent gay marriage decision, the response and what happened in Prince Edward county, the declaration that we will not follow this decision. I mean, what happened in virginia, mass resistance, was that senator byrd let it push back to the brown decision to keep thought he could get, he thought if virginia counties pushed back then the rest of the south would push back, then the country would realize that integration was not going to be accepted. Would be hoping the case would be overthrown, i dont know exactly what he thought would happen, but i see Prince Edwards resistance and virginias resistance similar to whats happened with gay marriage. The one thing that i read that makes you feel a little bit better about this, is that these Supreme Court decisions are ahead of public opinion. I guess in some ways its natural that they would be pushed back. Can you talk about discovering your grandfathers involvement in the massive resistance of . Sure. I grew up knowing that my grandfather was involved in starting the White Academy. Pretty much all the white leaders in town were. It took such a small community. It took the efforts of many to be able to start a private school within the summer. Basically after the decision was made by county leaders not to fund the Public Schools. White leaders have been raising funds for years in preparation for this day, but they still have a lot of work to do to find classrooms in churches and social clubs, even an old telephone building had to create this private academy from nothing. So i knew that going up that he was involved with that, but it was when i was working on my book that i was reading a historical book written from that era that i came across my grandfathers name as being a member of the defenders of state sovereignty and individual liberties. [laughter] yeah, that was not what i wanted to find out about my grandfather. That group was started basically to prevent integration. And it was, Prince Edward chapter was founded within six months of the brown decision being handed down. Around the same time, the leader of the local newspaper had called for closing the schools as a means of, you know, a last resort to present a check prevent integration. And the defenders also push that agenda and they put up this idea for a private academy almost five years before the schools were required to desegregate by court order. My grandfather was a very shy, quiet man. And so i never could find evidence exactly what he thought. He wasnt quoted anywhere. All i had was his membership in this group, and his role as an officer in this group. And i adored my grandfather. He died while i was young. He and my grandmother for number three and four in my life. They made a child its a wonderful. They did cookouts for us. My grandfather took me fishing and to his farther ahead is over, made special meals for us. I loved it and so it was really hard for me to be able to kind of deal with, he was looking at these two sites of them. A side of him that was a loving, caring grandfather, and a person who made this decision that negatively impacted so many of those children in our community. Jim, you called yourself a racist by training. You right in the book it became clear at one point you have a choice to make between the way you were raised in the way you know things should be. Talk about when and why you came to that choice but i believe it was probably 1968 . This was a during the president ial election of 1968 when we were all debating over hubert humphrey, Richard Nixon and george wallace. This was the first year of full integration, so that what was left of the white students who i had gone to Elementary School with for seven years before that were in a classroom with all the black kids in town. Who i was getting to know. There was a point at which the white kids are cutting up about george wallace, the usual stuff, the south shall rise again, to which the black kids would respond slavery time is over, get over it. And at one point i was working on a Bulletin Board in the back of the room with a young lady named maryhill, she just looked at me and shook her head and said this but i said those are not my people. I was a moment of which i decided i have, i cant do this. You know, i cant pretend that one half of the room is good, normal human beings, and the rest of the room shouldnt be here, that i shouldnt have to be with these black kids. Because i was enjoying it. I enjoyed talking to these people who i had never known before. I came from, my family was a lowerclass workingclass family. We would know better than them. They certainly knew that. And nobody, one of the things i talk about in the book is in the south we spent altogether too much time deciding whos better than new. Thats the dirty side of saturns. We talk about southerners have a real connection but we also have a deeply rooted connection to knowing your place in sticking to it. And seeing that everyone else sticks to their place. And i think that was part of what was in at that point, once i was understanding that i was more like the black kids than the comparable bandy upperclass white kids and there was no reason for me to do anything but good about that. I remember that they very clearly as being the day when i decided. But you also said in the book that only the world inside your head mattered and you hit enter as much as you could. What was that hiding about . I was gay and i did want to let anybody know what youre i have this instinct that it was a life or death thing, that i should keep it as a closely held secret thats a good lie didnt tell anybody. I didnt come out at all. I didnt give any hints to anybody that i had a crush on a boy in class, although i did. I dont think the two things are equivalent. I dont think racism and homophobia are the same thing, but they are similar enough that i could also feel some solidarity with the black kids because i oppose with something that people wouldnt approve. But a lot of the black kids would not have approved of that either. Tristan, you talk about some in your book named ricky who grew up to do many good things with his life and chose to pay forward in many ways. He was i guess writing some past wrongs done to them. Do you think that the legacy of that generation . Are you in touch with any others who dedicated their adult life to sort of paying it forward . I mean, these kids, a lot of them, unlike the label of the lost generation. They dont feel lost. They feel like they were able to go on and create flies for themselves, in spite of what happened to them. In some cases because of what happened to them. Ricky was the one i was tellingg about those sixers old when the schools closed and only got seven years of education, but he really made something of himself and is now working as a volunteer in the School District that shut him out of School Mentoring middle school boys, mostly black young men who need extra attention to be able to complete school. There are many people i wrote about who are really involved with sharing the story of what happened in this community who sit on the board at the museum or who volunteer. And who are really engaged in making sure that the story of what happened in that town is told far and wide, and Something Like this could never happen again there. Jim, so much, racism is such a huge and broad term, its sometimes hard to know how to get at it. I find that in the book when you mentioned particular small examples, the small adds up to with a huge problem of what racism was. Kuchar talk about what i did know, maybe what other people did know about the brown bag lunches and integrated schools . Well, its one of, i have had to talk about that before. Actually shameful. When we went to the black Elementary School when the first year of school consolidation, the white kids wouldnt eat food that was prepared in the black cafeteria. Which made no sense whatsoever because half the town had blackhawks. But it was, i dont even know who decided it. I just remember my mother who had been a cafeteria worker at the white Elementary School started packing a lunch every day. That was the most awkward year of school that i can remember because we had been thrown together, black and white kids, without any kind of real preparation for it at all. And to the degree and we were lucky in jones county. It was not a lot of open hostility. There were not a fighter confrontations between students. We had a generally peaceful run of it in integration but there were moments like that when i understood that there was some undercurrent of stubbornness or separation. White people just, if i tried to eat what was prepared in a cafeteria, im sure that might have kicked off one of those instances. I dont know what wouldve happened. But i do know that all the white kids toed the line. We all sat out our little table. None of us had ever brought lunches to school before. I mean this was unheard of, but within a year thats what we did. One of the points i tried to make in the book is that, we want to think of racists as evil people come as a people who did the lynchings, as the people who committed the actual brutality. But as whit why people went to understand that people within our community that we would think of as good and respectable people, they were by far and away the largest holders of racism, the largest teachers of racism. I was not taught by brutal bigots. I was taught by people in church. What i learned about black people, i learned in the course of ordinary life as a child, run people over the salt of the earth and the way they talk, the way they treated each other, but of a displayed in their head that when it came to black people there was a different set of rules. And thats far more important to an understanding of racism than coping with the notion, even of the violence that was perpetrated against black people. Good people did this. I dont want to give anything away. Im not a spoiler of reading for those of you read the book but if you have a question for jim. How shall i say it . Did you ever get an explanation for the turnout at your 40th anniversary, 40th High School Reunion . The only logical, i was the only white kid to go to the banquet that might 40th High School Reunion. I was trying not to say that. There were three white kids who went to the Memorial Service the night before. The excuse that ive heard is that welcome they were charging too much money and they were not giving us enough for it. Thats a typical jones county response. Like i said, cheapest people in the state. I know some of it was reluctance to mixed racially because our 10th Year Anniversary for both held, were both segregated, which is not unusual in the south all over the place for School Reunions to be segregated. Even when they were integrated last. The story i heard of jones county is the black kids told the white kids if they ever had another segregated reunion there would be trouble and so they dropped that right away. In the end the socalled 103 and i went to i did not what i was going to get i thought it was a real reunion. It turned out not to be, was full of kids who have not gone to school with us. Theyve got onto private school socially sort of reunion of the white kids the same age, right in town. It was the dumbest thing i have ever been a part of. I would ask a question of kristen and i would ask you should read the passage from her book, after which will open up the floor to questions from the audience. Theres a microphone in the middle aisle. You write in your book that is opting to move back home to virginia, all these years later is, you want about what it means your daughters to be part of a new generation of diverse southerners that would rights and wrongs of past. Are you finding that coul to bee case, and does it involve explaining the past wrongs to them that makes you feel uncomfortable . They are a little bit young to know the full story but did you know part of it. They are six and seven now, first and second graders and already learned about Martin Luther king, rosa parks. They come up and tell me stories about what teachers have taught them, and what happened in my hometown, talking about that is a natural conversation to have and theyre really proud of me for writing this book. They dont know the extent of my grandfathers involvement of that part of the store yet but its not an uncomfortable conversation for me. I dont understand why the conversation about the past has to be uncomfortable, why so many people find it shameful to go there, to talk about their ancestors, the decisions that were made by their ancestors that were prejudiced. I feel like thats a history we need to acknowledge. So much of our history is whitewashed, and to be able to move beyond the place where we are now with race relations, weve all got to be must much more honest about the past. I think its a conversation that we need have and i want to be honest with them. Its too early to know how much a part of a changed south there will be. How much the south will change in the next two decades, but i enjoyed being back in the south. It feels like home. There are just things about it that i dont love that we need to work on. And i will read a little segment of my book. The book is called something must be done about Prince Edward county. So a few weeks before the last living found a private academy. Com i needed him and he is a very first thing i did for the book. And he was pretty sick was talking to him but still really aware. I asked taylor if you at the end of his life he still considered himself a segregationist. He found the question ridiculous. Of course, he said, always have been. Is black nurses in the next room as taylor told me hes accustomed to spend time about blacks or to describe in a black nurse had raised them from birth and have the regular play with black children. Growing up in prospect, although Railroad Community 10 miles west of farmville, he noticed there were twice as many black residents as they were whites. I do believe that black and white people were different, he told me. The morality in the black school, the black Public Schools, was so low that are white children wouldnt be able to understand, taylor said. He cited tired stereotypes about black men behave. Youll see High School Graduates in legal problems or else their living off some black woman, or several black women. They dont work but it might a nice automobiles and all that. Have offered 7000 jobs, i couldnt find one who would take one. I sat in his again spellbound rapidly taking notes as his oxygen machine hummed. This was just the kind of conversation the journalist can be found scintillating to i wonder how the black man he described would benefit if they are perhaps their parents had gotten an education. On a personal level, his words stung. I was sat at the end of his life his bullies seem not to have changed since he attended the Academy Nearly 50 years earlier. He had won his children to get a quality education. But it also want to maintain the purity of the white race, he told me. It doesnt sound good, he confessed. Its going to make a lot of folks mad, but its true. I asked why separate in black and white children in schools have been important in. Do you know how many white girls got pregnant by black guys, he respond. During the 16 years i live in farmville and the subsequent years i came home from college breaks, i had only one white friend who dated a black teenager. I couldnt think of anyone who had gotten pregnant, let alone pregnant with a mixedrace baby. And i didnt remember seeing mixedrace children in town. It didnt seem to be an issue. I shook my head. Taylor didnt buy it. You dont . He asked again, click of a. Ive never heard anybody talk about it, i told them. Youve never heard anyone talk about it . Now he sounded incredulous. White girls are not used to the pressure he told the. Into the pressure to have sex, as if white girls didnt get that from white boys. Black boys and pregnant white girls, he explained, and the girls parents end up raising half black, half white babies. Pinto babies that nobody wants. The children of socially ostracized marked by a cross to the very soul. Ive never heard the term pinto applied to a person before, but the minute he said i knew what he meant. Taylor knew my husband was not white. Taylors son and daughterinlaw had been guests at our wedding, witnesses to the house jason and i had exchanged under an enormous poultry on a farm at the edge of town. Nextday host a brunch for our wedding guests at their lakeside cottage. It dawned to me that he wasnt talking simply about the mixing of the black and white racist anymore. He was talking about my husband, and about the children jason and i wanted to have. Multiracial babies that taylor both paid and reviled. Disgusted, i wanted to get up and leave, purposeful interaction behind the. But as i sat across from him, frozen, maintaining my southern civility, i thought about having this conversation with my own grandfather what it might have revealed about his beliefs. I wondered if he had shared taters these mixedrace children. I realized that the blade i betrayed them both in some fundamental way by embracing what they tried to protect me from, what they most feared. My face flushed and anger as taylor talked. I wanted to dismiss them as the last of its kind, a close minded old man whose time had nearly come. But weeks before his death, he was giving voice to what i knew many whites in my hometown, perhaps even my own dying grandmother, stu believes, or than 50 years after the brown v. Board of education decision. Blacks and whites dont belong together. [applause] we have time for a few questions from the audience here at the microphone. We have a question. Im just wondering, one of the elements that seems always missing to me as a native southern is picture of religion, politics and their views on racism. That always seems to get a pass. Data seems to me that much of what we call evangelical christianity today is really tied into a Southern Baptist church, and its acceptance of racism and segregation but i was wondering if yall could comment . I dont really, i mean, theres a chapter in my book that is precisely about the religious language that helped teach me racism. I would usually say i agree with what you said. I agree, too. In my hometown, the churches were host for those White Academy. There was one white leader, one white preacher who spoke out against School Closings. He faced a backlash and ended up having to leave town. So the other creatures went along for the most part. So i agree. That was one thing that was said about my grandfather, hes a deacon in his church. You know, such a good man. And and belonging to a church didnt do anything to keep these leaders from considering, or from taking the education from half their Community Spirit we will take the second question and, unfortunately, well have to wrap up. Therell be a time to interact with the authors at the signing colonnade immediately after our session. Thank you both for your work. I have a followup question to the previous gentlemen. I was born in 1981. My father was born in 1945, so i grew up with some of the same racial inappropriate language that almost see into my generation. And one of the things that intrigues me about this conversation is, not only the clash between the races but the clash within christianity itself. For example, some of the racist values that you mentioned that were taught through christianity but however the contrast that with southern christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther king, the caucasian priest who was killed in selma i believe. Its intriguing to me to see not only the clash of racists of the clash of what i would call him kristen the name only, christ followers who teach love, and toleranctolerance and forgivenes giuntas one if you could speak to that within your research not in name only but true people who taught jesus is teachings of forgiveness and salvation are all people, like dr. Martin luther king. Thank you. I guess what i would do is throw up a caution that all christians think they are the true believers, in my experien experience. And the people, we are seeing that now indicating marriage issue, people who think that they are defending christianity from the encroachment of gayrights. They think they are true christians and they think of it as the kind of christian is a cowardly christian he will not stand up for god. So if i agree with you what im doing is really saying that i agree with your idea of what a christian is, personally i do but have to be mindful when i go back home to North Carolina go to church with my mother, im not sitting in a church full of people who are fairly to me at all. But they are just as convinced that they know what christ meant when he came here and spoke. So thats, the church has always been, whichever way it needs to be and get during the slavery era, slaves were marched into the church and they heard the same stories. Slaves open their masters, right . Do what your master tells you. The church is whatever people want to make of it, thats the problem with churches. Speed we believe that i will think the authors for their time today. [applause] kristen green and jim grimsley it will be at the signing colonnade intel 12 30. Thank you so much. [inaudible conversations]