Washington and i just got in about an hour ago. We were on the tarmac. And then thats when i realized one of the things i dont miss about in congress is sitting on the tarmac at Reagan National airport waiting to get here or sitting on the tarmac at laguardia to go there. Welcome to theodores books. Its wonderful to have you all. Many of you know that i did leave the United States house of representatives after six years and very rare form i left undefeated and unindicted, which is a triumph these days and when i left my my desire was to just get some kind antidote to six years of sound bites 16 years of trying to things in 60 seconds or less. Theres actually something that is technically called a one minute speech on the floor of the house, one minute speech. Explain your position on the Affordable Care act in one minute. I wanted to avoid fighting in the screaming, in the yelling, in the partizanship jabs. And what better place to do that than to open up a bookstore where you cannot really explore a curious city or a passion in anything less than 300 pages where you can actually feel book and rifle through it, thumb through and what place to open up a bookstore than the hometown of president theodore roosevelt, who lived here, who died here, who worked here, who here . Who wrote here . 7000 books on his shelves and sagamore hill on the night he died. And so theodore books is dedicated to being a place in the neighborhood. You can come and read and enjoy the fulfillment of all of your curiosities and were so glad that that we are here for those you who are interested, you love that you are here. But you can buy any book you want, almost any book you want on theodore books. So visit our website, theodore books dot com. Today we are honoring black History Month with Mark Whitaker and. Tracey edwards. Mark has written a brilliant book saying it out, saying it loud. I wanted to share with you before i turn it over to tracy, some of the critical praise it has received. The boston says that it offers fresh, interpretive patience of key moments of activism during 1966, based on interviews and memoirs published over the past four decades without sacrificing historical rigor. He writes with the eye of a journalist, an ear of a poet. Thats pretty good. Thats pretty good. Henry louis gates, jr said it is an enthralling and, riveting reminder of the tumult, inspiration and potent possibilities of the black movement. And as i said, i just flew up from washington, d. C. I grabbed this book because i wanted to read word for myself. And i also found absolutely riveting. I highly commended. It is just fascinating and insightful. And i learn things that i never knew a little bit of housekeeping. Tracey edwards. Mark and i will converse until about 435. Will then it up to you for audience questions and. And mark will sign it about until about 530 or six. So were going to at about 430 will. Well have a signing and our store manager, manager, becky will give you instructions on how to get the book signed. Also want to acknowledge hannah and dan who are with us, our amazing booksellers. Thank you, guys for being with us as well. So lets get to business Mark Whitaker, author of the critically acclaimed memoir my long trip home and smoke town the untold story of the other great black renaissance, former managing editor of cnn worldwide, previously the Washington Bureau chief, nbc news reporter, editor at newsweek, where he rose to become first africanamerican leader of a national. And my friend and colleague from so many years Tracey Edwards now tracys mom, many of you know thompson. Mark, i could tell the president of the United States know whenever i wanted to and it didnt bother me. I could never tell your mother. No as a member of the Huntington Town Council, i didnt have the courage to tell her that i couldnt do what she wanted to do. Tracy is a long regional director of the acp. She supports ten branches in nassau and suffolk, focused on education, Voting Rights and civic engagement, public safety, criminal justice, economic empowerment, health and environmental. In 2015, after 37 years at Verizon Communications as a corporate executive, she started her own consulting company, focused and focused on branding organizational, workforce and economic development. She was elected to the Huntington Town Council in 2012. She is the proud mom of, three and grandmother of three. And she and her husband reside in dix hills, new york. Please welcome Mark Whitaker and Tracey Edwards. Thank you. Thank you very much, steve. And it is one depaul to be back at theodore books. Before we get started, just want to acknowledge some of elected officials that i see, the audience. I see assemblyman chuck levine. Thank you very much for joining us. Huntington town tax receiver jillian gutman. Former town councilwoman jackie gordon, representing our suffolk District Attorney ray tierney kimberly garrido and representing town of huntington supervisor ed smith. Michelle conroy. Thank you all for coming today. So i am very excited and i just absolutely loved your. But what i want to do is ask the first question, you know, really a couple of the pages in the beginning about your parents sylvester and jean whittaker. Can you just share a memory of them and why you thought was important to dedicate the book to them . Well, first of all, thanks so much, steve and tracy and, becky and everybody at the bookstore for having me. Well, know my my didnt necessarily have a happy marriage. I wrote about that in my first book. They were interracial couple that met in the 1950s and their marriage didnt last that long. And after they divorced, i was six and my dad was on. We were in l. A. At the time and. My mother, my brother and i moved east with with my mom and he sort of dropped out of our lives for for a while. But then he resurfaced. He was a black academic. His specialty was political science. And in 1969, we he he contacted us to say that he had taken job as the first head of africanamerican at princeton university. So all of a sudden is back in our lives. I was 12 years old at the time, and we were living massachusetts. We go down to, visit him, and all of a sudden my dad, who i hadnt seen in five years, has afro. Hes wearing a dashiki. He teaches me the black power handshake. So, you know, and look, i was 12 years old. I had no idea that i would write a book someday about black power. But i think that, you know, probably on some level i always sort of had a fast nation about kind of how father had changed and why and what was behind all of that. My mom, you know, first of all, you know im thankful to her because she really raised us, you know, after that, after the divorce, but also, you know, she went out of her way to keep my brother and me in contact with my dads. He came from pittsburgh. His parents were undertakers and, you know, they lived in basically all black, pretty segregated world of pittsburgh in those days. And my mother, we were living in massachusetts, but she would drive us, you know, every over the Christmas Holidays and sometimes during the summer just to spend time with my my grandmother and my aunts and my cousins. And, you know, it was really thanks to my mom, really as much as my dad, you know, that we kept in contact our black heritage. And, you know, my book. Im not going to hear youve plug my previous books, but i wrote a whole book about the legacy of black pittsburgh in the middle of the 20th century, motown and. That was all basically inspired by my childhood memories of going to pittsburgh to visit my black family with my my white mother. Wow. So i, you know, i think even though they didnt necessarily have the happiest of marriages, i definitely they were both with as i was writing this book. I find that pretty touching. You know, you rose to be the first africanamerican to occupy the top editorial position, the National News. I think, you know, we want to make sure that we thank you for that, especially in our black History Month. But what i want to ask you is when you think about what are some of the Lessons Learned and what would you share, if we have any aspire ing journalists that are out here today . Whats your message to them . Well, first of all, you know, you know, its a little bit of a troubled profession right now in terms of the Business Model and so forth but its a very noble profession. I think its very necessary and think that it is only enriched by having people of different backgrounds, different perspectives. That was not always the case. I mean, even in this book, you see the effects. Having a press corps that as recently as the 1960s was still predominantly when black power came along, didnt really understand it. Actually, they actually badly misinterpreted it at a times in a way that really of affected, you know, its effectiveness that eventually changed. It changed partly because of the black Power Movement that that white news organizations realized that they had to start hiring more more black reporters and eventually more black editors, which is what i became. And, you know, its very important that reporters be out there to bear witness to it, to to whats going on then and now. And so i would still very much encourage who loves to to write and to observe and to meet people and to search for the truth. Its still a great profession. Well, you know whats i find very telling in your prolog the road to black power when it comes to the media and telling the story the similarities between the death viola liuzzo in selma and how that became National News and the connection to heather hire the parallel who died in charlottesville. And it just seemed that it was a connection between what was going on in selma and whats going on today. So what are your thoughts about . How these events just keep coming . Its like groundhog day. Yeah, well you know, there are so many echoes from from throughout the sixties, but specifically 1966, you know, and you know, it took me a while. I started out wanting to write a book about, you know, the the broad arc of the story of black power. And i was a year into all my research and reporting, and i was still in 1966. Thats how much happened in that one year. Stokely carmichael takes over the Student Nonviolent Committee from john lewis and turns it into a more militant position direction in the of the meredith march in mississippi in june he first publicly chants black power and all of a sudden it becomes focus of all of this Media Attention. Later in the the black Panther Party is. The one we know of in in oakland, california. Dr. King tries to take the Civil Rights Movement from the south to chicago with, you know, somewhat disastrous results. There was just like so much that happened and so much of it has echoes terms of the role of of, you know, for example, confrontation ins with the police. There are so many points in that one year that start just with that. You know, and were still living with that. It was also the year that there were the first calls for black studies on a white campus at San Francisco state. It was then college. You know, when you think like the debates were having to this day about the role of black of black studies. So you know there just the echoes are fascinating and then there are lessons to be learned. We can we can about that. But you know, theres no question that you cant read this book without thinking like history itself. Absolutely. Mark, i like to dig on that. Dig into john lewis a little bit. You know, one of the i had so many extraordinary serving in congress, but what could be more extraordinary than calling john lewis colleague . You know, he actually came to long island, campaigned me and then came back years after i was elected and visited glen cove. And so i had these opportunities to talk with him. And i would say, john, tell me about the pettus bridge. Tell me about selma. And he spoke, of course, eloquently and quietly about his experiences. But i learned something in this book. I never knew that he was deposed as the chairman of snick. And you write, you take us behind the scenes. I mean, as if we were there in such a vivid way. Take us to that moment in may of 1966. The chapters a in kingston springs. What led to that tension . The removal of john lost an election as chair. And what were the ramifications of that you believe . So. So, john lewis, in 1963, just before the march, washington had become the chairman, the student nonviolent coordinating committee, which was, you know, an organization that, grew out of the lunch counter, sit in movements in the south, which he was very involved in. And first, he gives, you know, you know, an amazing speech at the march on washington. And then two years later, during the selma, hes almost beaten to death, trying to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge, which we all know about. And at that point, he really sort of became famous. I mean, here is this poor kid who grew up, you know, a sharecropper, alabama. And so he spends the next traveling on behalf of snick, giving speeches, raising and food at a time when the mood within snick there was a faction of of the movement that was becoming more and more militant feeling. They werent particularly, you know, entirely happy with the sort of old Martin Luther king roadmap for for for civil. They were impatient about president johnson, how fast he was moving in terms of some of the legislation that had been passed. But because john lewis had been on the road he wasnt really aware of all this. So every year the snick would have a retreat. A week long they would someplace. And everybody in the organization would convene and to talk about what they were going to do over the following, but also to elect officers. So in the last day of this retreat, they finally assemble to elect officers for the next year. Now, at this point, john lewis thinks hes going to get reelected pretty easily. And indeed, in the first vote, he is. But because there was this feeling some people were sort of dissatisfied with his leadership. A number of people abstained. So after this first vote, somebody said, look, you know, this the vote really, you know, wasnt proper because enough people didnt vote. We need to vote again. Now, at point. All hell breaks loose and and they some people had drifted off gone to bed. They wake everybody up, they come back to this big hall in the middle of this religious camp near nashville and have intense and increasingly heated debate about about john lewis and about king and about president johnson. It gets angrier and angrier through the night until crack of dawn, at which point they have a second vote. And this time, john lewis loses and is to Stokely Carmichael. Now we all remember john lewis for what he became once he was elected to congress, really sort of almost like as close as we have to a sort of a national saint. But this crushed john lewis. He did not see it coming. Snick had been in his identity up until that point and it really took him almost two decades to recover from that. You know, he was sort of in the wilderness for a long, long time before he know finally made his way. You know, to atlanta, to the city council, ran for congress and won the seat that he kept for all those years. And, you know, its you know, its you know, he left the organization snick a couple of months later. He kind of, you know, he wouldnt talk to the press about it. He wouldnt complain. He was, you know, but, you know, clearly he he was still pretty bitter about it. He really wrote a memoir a few decades later where you could see you could just feel in the memoir just how how devastated he was, was that. So but, you know, again, its kind of like a testimony, i think, to his resilience that he, you know, he managed to get through that and figured out what his path for go forward would be. If you could stay in that period. Because during that same meeting, there was the emergence of this powerful woman, ruby smith. Robinson. And she was the second in command, highest woman in the Civil Rights Movement. I find it fascinating that we did not and still dont enough about her. So can you talk . Well, you know, and look, know there are a lot of figures in in my book you probably will have heard of you might have heard of Stokely Carmichael and huey newton and bobby seale, who founded the black panthers, Eldridge Cleaver and julian bond. But there are also some some characters who i think most people would not have heard of. And first, among them was ruby, doris smith. Robinson. She she grew up in atlanta. She went to spelman college. Her older sister had had been a leader, an early leader in the lunch counter in movement. So she was kind of tagging along to various protests with her sister. She ends up going to jail with diane nash, another one of the lunch counters sit in pioneers. And all of a sudden she is part this Founding Group that comes out of that forms snick. And at this point shes you know barely out of her teens she goes to work in the Atlanta Office initially as the sort of assistant to a guy Jim James Jim foreman who was the executive secretary and really kind of the person who ran organization on a day to day basis. But pretty quickly, it was really ruby who was running the organization. You know, she was managing the budgets. She was very, very hires. She was determining would get the cars that wanted was the boss. She was the she was the boss. And everybody. And she was tough. She was as nails. All the men just lived in of her. You didnt want to cross ruby. Doris. So when at this retreat at kingston springs. Jim forman, who was kind of burned out at this point, had announced that he was going to step down. That was not a surprise. And everybody just you completely agreed that doris, you know, deserved to then the job. So she was elected. And as you say, she was 25 years old at the time. She was the number two she as the number two person at six . She was the highest ranking woman in the entire Civil Rights Movement at this point. And yet even in the press accounts of day, she was barely mentioned because of, you know, the sexism of the press and, you know, etc. , etc. And it really interesting because at she sort of backed the move towards a more sort of black power position that stokely represented. But once stokely sort of became a big celebrity and was getting all this press coverage, it kind of went to his head. In fact, within the organization they started calling him stokely star, michael. You know, and ruby was seeing the negative effects this was having within organization on fundraising, on morale and so forth. So by the fall, there had they had an executive retreat just for the leadership. And she decided she was going to call stokely on it. And she wrote a memo that she circulated before the meeting, and i, i, i got a hold of that memo and i quote it in, in which she talked about, said, look, you know, this all sounds good. This black power stuff, but here are the negative effects that some of this is having on the organized. She called him on it in the meeting, forced him to to answer to it. But you know the other reason shes not trans remembered is that in early 1967, she fell ill, eventually was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died within the year at the age of 26 with a two you know, two year old child. And, you know, we were talking about this, you had the same reaction spontaneously that i had in writing the book, which is shes one of these people. Once you know about it, you think might have been. Mm hmm. You know. She had lived. Could she saved snick from some of the you know mistakes that that that were made. You know, in subsequent years. What other what you know affect and role might she have had in the Larger Movement . What role would she have had in the Womens Movement . You know, because she was also youll learn the book. She was sort of a pioneer within snick of of demanding more equal treatment for women. She was she embraced the natural look, the afro, you know, of, you know, before a of her peers. So she was also kind of a symbol of black pride as well. So its really tragic. But but i am you know, look, if nothing else if you read this book and just become more aware of her it will be have been worth it to have written this book. So yeah. Mark, you take us through this year chronologically and each chapter deals with the specific incident on a specific day and a specific time that that really became pivotal. And so you open up with the death of sammy young on route 80. Right. Another figure who probably might a lot of people necessarily know about today. Exactly. I to i want to focus on one scene. It is in broad park in baptist town and. Stokely carmichael gets up on makeshift stage. And for the first time he enunciates black power. Id like you to talk about that why it was so important to the movement and to that transition from of a moderate strategy to a more militant strategy a declaration almost of perhaps for the old way doing things. So and again, an interesting thing, Stokely Carmichael, the credit for the black power slogan, but actually it was another snake organizer, willie ricks, who was actually the who was telling him, you got to go out and be talking about black power. Because previously in the you know, the old Civil Rights Movement, the chant was, freedom. Now, what do we want . Freedom now . So now theyre going to chant black power. So and this happened in the middle of the meredith march as i said earlier. So let me first talk about how it happened and then what how it was perceived. So, willie ricks had been kind of road testing in smaller gatherings, you know, during the meredith march. He keeps telling stokely, he says, you, im getting this great reaction to this new slogan. Youve got to use it. So in this one night after having spent the afternoon in jail, because he had been arrested for just for putting up tents for the marchers to to sleep for the night, stokely gets out of jail. He arrives at this this rally. There are 500 marchers and folks in greenwood, mississippi, in a in a sandlot field. Theres a truck he gets on the back of the truck and he says you know, weve been talking about freedom now for all these years. Now were got to talk about black power. We want black. And the crowd shouts back, black, black power. And this goes back and forth. We want black power. What do we want . Black power . And there was to show you how powerful this symbol, this slogan was. There was a a short Associated Press wire that was reported the next day with the headline, you know, black power in the headline. It was picked up by over 200 newspapers a around the country. And three days later, Stokely Carmichael is booked for his First National tv appearance by, face the nation. And in the subject weeks, black power is everywhere in the headlines. And Newsweek Magazine time. Everybodys talking about black power. The problem, nobody could agree about what it meant right. So the press actually, they immediately assumed the worst that it meant violence. It meant antiwhite. And, you know, to some it did stand ultimately questioning whether, you know, nonviolence always unconditional nonviolence, always the correct strategy. It is true that by the end of the year, snick expelled the last white volunteers. And thats an incredibly poignant that i tell towards the end. But actually what stokely First Talking about was something that he had spent the Previous Year doing deep in rural alabama, a place called lowndes county, where he had not only done what snick had been doing for five or six years, which is to register black folks to vote who hadnt been allowed to vote in in generations, but actually organize them to form their own new black political party. I mean, it was sort of a miracle, even though it was on a very small scale, he was even able to do that. Why . Because his position, which when you think about it, makes total sense was that in places at the time like alabama and mississippi what good did it do to organize to register black folks to vote when the only people they had to vote for were segregation . As democrats who control both of those states people like george wallace. Right. So his position is now that we have the to vote. Lets form our own political party. Lets nominate our own candidates. Maybe we can elect a black sheriff. You know who will keep us from being terrorized by the ku klux klan. So, you know, he got a little bit of out of head of himself in terms of how quickly he could extend that model elsewhere. But thats really what he was talking about, you know, and that was a totally reasonable idea. And when you think about what started to happen after, 1965 and the Voting Rights act within several years, you have black mayors then you have black congressmen. Eventually you have a black president. That was all the result of essentially that fundamental idea of black political. You know, i want to talk a little bit about that power and the showdown at the lorraine motel. Yes. You know, it seems as though there was a struggle for power, but it was also a debate in strategy. And what found fascinating is the big five. Right. So im im one of the big five. Right. But there seems to be there seemed to a a lot of internal but also external issues between snick the sl oclc, the naacp the urban league and core. Can you talk to us a little bit. Right. So that was the big that was the big five. When you talk about that was the name for the for the major civil rights organizations. And there were differences. The strategy and approach of those different organizations that were also personality clashes. So that, you know, on the one hand, you had sort of dr. King was kind in the middle. You have Stokely Carmichael, who was kind of like, you know, now run it now the chairman of snick and, you know, represent the militant young generation. You, roy wilkins, who was then the head of the naacp, a very kind of, you know, old fashion and, you know, dignified man who really didnt have a lot time for stokely. Both his personality, his politics, and it all comes to a head. So the meredith march a happened because James Meredith had become famous in 1962 for integrating the university of mississippi in the of 1966, he returns to mississippi with the idea that hes going to march by himself across the state to encourage blacks register to vote. On the second day of the march. A white supremacist jumps out from behind a bush on the highway and shoots him full of bird pellets, wounds him badly enough that he has to be hospitalized. And all the civil rights leaders from the other organizations decide that theyre going to come down and carry on the march in his name. So they all convene on memphis. The march had started and to discuss, you know, the terms of of their agreement on this. And they convene at the lorraine motel, which we all know you know later became world famous as the place where dr. King was assassinated in 1968. And again have this all really contentious all night meeting about know about what goal and the sort of tone of this meredith march is going to be and you know its a its great chapter just in itself its pretty dramatic. But essentially the difference was that the there was a third. We all remember the Voting Rights act, the two big pieces of legislation, civil rights in 1964 and 1965, there was a third one that most people have forgotten about that Lyndon Johnson was trying to push through in 1966. So what, what, what . Wilkins of the naacp was saying was our top priority should be supporting president johnson to this latest bill. And nothing be done during the march to president johnson. You have Stokely Carmichael, who essentially has kind of like had it with president johnson, think he still thinks he hasnt been done enough to enforce the existing legislation. Snick also had become the First Organization to come out against the war in vietnam. So theyre angry with lbj about that as well. And he says, well, know, look, i dont really care about, you know, of this. You know, you know, not embarrassing president johnson. I think that what we need to do is use this march to register black folks across mississippi to vote anyway. They just have this, you know, intense fight with dr. King, just kind of sitting there refereeing that goes on like in the room, gets more and more smoke filled and eventually roy wilkins and whitney young, you know, pack up their briefcases and storm out of the out of the meeting. So, you know, i think it was look, i mean, this is whats so fascinating. I think for me, you know, writing the history, but i hope also readers is you realize, you know, i mean the we we still have, you know, a little bit certainly we have a rosier picture of the earlier phase of the of the Civil Rights Movement. But were there was infighting that and it just got sort of more intense and it wasnt the only factor at play but you it was a factor and it was pretty it was pretty dramatic. And you know one of the debates is the role of white in the Civil Rights Movement that was one of the things that they really struggled with. Yeah, right. And i found that was fascinating. And again, it was its a much more complicated story than people remember. There are a lot of people around. And i talked a lot of, you know, white. People who are still around, who were members of snick or sympathizers who are still very wounded about the way in which by the end of 1966, going into 67, 68, they felt that they were no longer welcome in the Civil Rights Movement in snick or elsewhere. But the fact is, and that is actually what at a yet another of these retreats with an all night meeting at the end of the year, at a at a black resort, in catskill mountains, owned by a one legged tap dancer named peg leg. Bates we used to be on the ed sullivan, believe it or not. Anyway, they did have a vote at end of that retreat to expel last remaining white members of snick and another very emotional but actually that that didnt happen all at once it kind of built throughout the year initially it was being pushed just by a small radical faction within snick, but they eventually prevailed. And i kind of explain the year how that happened and who was it honestly found that for all kinds of reasons is one of the most poignant parts of the book partly, you know, its very sad. You see how hurt everybody was certainly the white snake volunteers but even some of the some of the some of the some of the black folks who who who remained but also to me, it was like if people ask me, well, what are the lessons this book, a big lesson is about alliances, you know, because snick and the Larger Movement was really hurt once no longer had not only the passion and the work and the support of black folks within the movement, but sympathy of white press, which has dissipated once the black white folks were, you know, no longer welcome. A lot of the protection had in washington against persecution by the fbi, which got more and more intense in the coming years. And you know, to this day i say this at the end, the book, i mean, you guys are in politics. You know, you cant look black power or the black organizing power that we were talking about earlier is a powerful thing in american politics, particularly in democratic politics. You guys know that very well. But you also know you know, you still need alliances. You know, black you know, black politicians cannot get elected almost anywhere in america without at least some white support, you know, and vice versa. There are a lot of there are a lot of you know, particularly you white democrats almost everywhere in america who cant get elected. And alliances are hard, you know, and you see, they were they were hard. You to negotiate and to maintain in 1966. Theyre hard today but but i think theyre invaluable. Were going to open it up to questions answers from the audience. But i would like, if i may we talked a little bit about this in that very elegant and beautiful stock room, one minute youre in the oval office, the next minute your stocking and the stock i you mentioned before that was black power that helped open the door to black members of congress, black black governors, a black president. But in the prolog you talk about a different sense of direction and. You talk about the fact that in 1966 newsweek did a poll that said that half of blacks said that change wasnt happening fast enough, while 70 of whites complained that it was coming too fast, two thirds of whites told harris pollsters that they now opposed any of black protest. Even nonwhite. And then you go on to talk about two years after the democratic may i just read this passage . And then have you reflect on it . Two years after the Democratic Party under Lyndon Johnson had captured dominant control of all three branches of the u. S. Government, a white, quote, backlash against black power and urban unrest produced huge gains for republican ends in the 1966 midterm elections, setting the stage for Richard Nixons comeback law and order president ial campaign of 1968. And in california the riots and the public response to those riots help elect Ronald Reagan as governor. Setting the stage for Ronald Reagan to become president of the United States in alabama, the appeal of an even more openly white supremacist brand of politics is demonstrated when george. Wallace the term limited segregation as governor encouraged his wife, lurleen, to in his place and the total political novice won in a landslide. And so the reaction to black power seems to create a does in fact backfire. American politics, some would say, well, you know, so the other thing that i realized once i decided to focus the book on 1966 was what what a turning point that year was just in american politics apart from what was going on within the Civil Rights Movement. And and it really hadnt been written about. I was surprised to. But it really is that moment where after this, you know, the seem in total control after 64 election you know johnson goldwater. Pundits writing off the republicans a generation all of a sudden everything starts to turn. In 1966 and its its you can it first building in the polling newsweek did that summer largely driven by differences of stark differences in opinion about racial issues. So this is really even before vietnam becomes the dominant issue in american politics and then what happens in november in the midterm elections the republicans pick up, you know all these seats in congress. They pick up all these, including, you know, Ronald Reagan, elected in california for the first time. And and nixon, who it really wasnt clear that until 19 he saw the results of the 66 election, that he saw a path back to run for president in in 1968. So everybody kind of remembers nixons and order campaign. Wallis running president in 1968. You know, the democratic convention, how you know how all sort of came happened. But actually the turning point it turns, you know, was 1966. So again what are the lessons for today . You know, and we see this you know, is at every moment when you there has been a sort of a decisive permian or semipermanent advance or breakthrough on on these issues of racial justice. The backlash is coming. The backlash is coming. All right. We saw that during reconstruction. Saw that. And what have we seen in the last few years in this country . And its interesting because i was writing this book in the summer of 2020 after George Floyds murder and, you know, moving black matter protests across the country, across the world, interracial, everybody, you know, its different this time and this moment of racial reckoning. And i kept thinking, well, you know, im not so sure because what what what studying 1966 tells me is theres going to be a backlash against that. And i think we see it now, you know, we see it and, you know, new Voter Suppression efforts that, the, you know, attempts to suppress black the teaching of black history book banning, so forth. So sadly, you know, you talked about groundhogs day. That is seems to be continue to be one of the features of our politics and our society when it comes to race. Its true. So we can only open it up to questions. Yes, sir. Would you wait a moment so that we can get the microphone . Thank you so. Please will recognize you . If you have a question, just wait for becky to bring the microphone, okay . Everybody knows were on tv right now. Its obvious, but no. Okay. Before i ask my question, i just want to mention i was going to see you last week with Eugene Robinson in the city. I bought a ticket and the book and my mother got ill and shes okay now. But so i see you here. So im im glad to be here. Were all familiar with dr. King and martin and malcolm x and the other famous leaders. Did your opinion change any of them during the writing the book . Yeah, thats a very thats a really, really good question. So heres how i would say a quick answer its a little bit simplistic, but i kind of thought of the black power leaders. They were really cool right. They looked cool. They were handsome. They were, you know, they had these, you know, cool outfits and forth and so on. But their ideas were a little crazy, right . I actually came to respect their ideas, you know, i realized that actually this original idea of black power, which was black political organizing, made a lot of sense that actually what the panthers the original idea of the panthers on the west coast, which was civilian patrols, keep an eye on police to make sure that they didnt abuse their power in dealing with white with black citizens. That made all kinds of sense. And it still makes today, you know, we see that, you know, in the headlines today. Now, they wanted to do it with guns carrying guns. And as soon as black folk, you know, people saw black, young black men in berets and leather jackets carrying, you know, their heads exploded, you know, but but so i became more respectful of their ideas. But a little more i wouldnt say critical, you know, i think their their leadership particularly compared with dr. King and even malcolm x, who was a huge figure in this book, even though he had been dead for a year because they were all they all looked up to him and all thought they were trying to sort of carry on his legacy. But you realize that they were kids they were young and they were not, i think, entirely prepared to just the level of leadership that they took on and were thrust into and also the Media Attention you know that they got you because you know its interesting know i talk about john lewis and how john lewis was part of this young generation in the in the sit movement that studied with famous jim lawson who who, you know, was this famous clergyman who kind of instructed them on nonviolent discipline. How do you go to these protests maintain nonviolence when youre, you know, having the you know being attacked . And i sort of think then and even now when i look at activists today, they Everybody Needs media training, you know, because once you are thrust on the national stage, you are going get a level of attention. Youre going to have the media reading all kinds of things into everything say. And you have to be prepared for that. And i think you will find if you read the book that Stokely Carmichael and some of the other leaders were not entirely prepared for that. You know, mark, becky goes to the next question. I want to go back to what you said about the perception, the ten points of the frat lambs from the black panthers. If you think about what perception is of the black panthers and if you read their platform and their program, it made a lot of sense. It definitely did. I mean, there were a couple of points in there that were a little, you know, fanciful, were never going to happen, you know, you know, they called for the release of all black prisoners in jail at the time, you know. So that wasnt going to happen. But, you know, they talked about before, you know, i mean i was stunned to hear that because when you think about you know thats still something people are talking about today but particularly this point number seven which was about, you know, dealing with the police. And again, so their and this is something that actually already existed in other places. There was, a civilian patrol in louisiana that had formed after the watts riots, where people would go around and they would kind of look for places, know, you know, situations the police were interacting with, with black folks in the community and just kind of like, you know not not confront anybody, but just stand at a remove across the street so that, you know, they could be seen just like were keeping an eye on you right now when you think why do we know about all of these horrific incidents of of Police Violence against unarmed black folks . Because of cell phones because of body cam that didnt exist then . So essentially they were saying we what we want to be human witnesses just, you know, and and thats really that was that was huey newton and bobby seals original idea. Now, once they decided that they were going to do it with guns you know, that led incidents of you know first of all it led to all of this perception of of the panthers as being this kind of violent revolution, free force that the movement was also a fact that i talked about by the end of the year. Eldridge cleaver was released from jail. And once teamed up with them, he had a different, more revolutionary vision that they did. And then, of course, once, you know, guns get involved, you have incidents and. There was a shootout in a car and a policeman killed. And huey newton was put on trial and bobby seale was later put on trial and then there was a gun battle that, you know, forced Eldridge Cleaver to flee the country. So as a result of the of the violence that became part of the panthers story, they were unable to really kind of keep it focused on that kind of low local Community Service where they had started. But that was the original idea. And you know, that still makes a lot sense. Its still very necessary today. I yes. Other. Yes, thank you. Right there, please. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. My question is an immigrant to the United States. It seems me how little has in fact changed in the Civil Rights Movement back from the sixties to what we see confronting the nation. What do you think the Civil Rights Movement needs to do to make real change now . Well, know, i look, i you know, ive talked about message a very Important Alliance is very important leadership continues to be something that people wrestle with. I interviewed alicia garza, who is one of the founders of the black lives Matter Movement in 2020. You know she had just come out with a book and in the book she says, you know, we are the power lies in the black lives Matter Movement. Dont really believe in traditional leadership. We dont we think everybody can be a leader or, you know, nobody. And, you know, kind of when you see some of the, you know, leaders who have not been that effective, you can kind of understand why a Younger Generation might feel that way. But actually, i think history teaches that you do need leadership. You need both you know you need grassroots, you need young people with energy. And often, you know, demanding that battles be fought, that that older folks might not be prepared to take on. But you also need, you know, smart, strategic, disciplined leadership from the top. And, you know, dr. Was a great example of that. Malcolm x had he lived where how he was evolving, i think potentially have been that you see it in countries in india with gandhi in south africa with mandela in the early Womens Movement, the Suffragette Movement and and at at the same time, i think also need a recognition. You know, people talk about, well, what is the correct metaphor for Race Relations in america when. You look at the history right. And so dr. King talked an arc of the moral universe that toward justice. And he said, you know, it may be long, but it bends toward justice. And you know, its nice to think that way, but sometimes its pretty you know, its hard to really feel that things are really always progressing. So then people talk about, well, its two steps forward, its one step back. The one i like. And, you know, my last was about black pittsburgh, where august wilson, the playwright, came from. And one of his plays set in the 1960s. He he called two trains running and in my mind the story of race in america is two trains running. Theres good train theres a train of progress and then theres a train of backlash and theyre both always running and theyre powerful. Theyre trains, you know, and one isnt necessarily always winning, but sometimes one seems to pull ahead, but then the other train is just catching up and then that seems to pull ahead and maybe, you know, the better train moves forward. But, you know, so thats kind of, you know, and i think part of realistic, if you want to really be in the fight either from inside, you know, as politicians from the outside, as activists, part of it is like a realization that thats what youre up against. You know, and not to be kind of into as tempting it is this feeling that know all of a sudden weve arrived at a place where these battles dont have to fought because history tells us the trains running we have time for another question or two any other question right here, becky. Two more questions and then we encourage becky will let you know how to acquire book and make sure that mark signs it. Thank you for coming. I was wondering, you talked about ruby, doris robinson, and i wonder if could expand a little bit on the role of women in 1966 in the movement not not only doris robinson, but are a lot of women in snick and in corn, in cfos in mississippi especially, but also in the panthers that were really important. And of course they a great deal of sexism but they were they were important. I wonder if you could just. Yeah, no, no, no question mean another major figure. So i you know look i mean i initially i thought i was going to be writing about angela davis. I was to be writing about kathleen cleaver, who i do about a little bit in the book. But in the end, i just decided i wanted to really focus on the people who were kind of like part of the story. In 1966, angela davis was in graduate school and in germany at time. But another woman who i talk about at great length was her name. She still alive . Dorothy Dottie Miller. Zellner, who was one of the first white volunteer years for snick to work in the Atlanta Office as. The number two to julian bond in the communication department. Matt and married a very brave white field organizer named bob zellner, who had been out, you know, registering black folks to vote just like, you know, the other organizers in the deep south had gone jail multiple times and they they were among first volunteers and they were the last two people to be expelled. And and so i tell story of what happened to white folks within movement, largely through through the two of them. But youre entirely correct. It happened 1966. But i tell the story of a couple of white women who had worked in the snick office, mary king and casey hayden. Casey hayden was she just passed. She was married to tom hayden, the sds at the time. They circular dated at yet another one of these retreats in 1964, in a place waveland, mississippi, they circulated a paper about the sexism within snick that and a lot of students of the womens actually view that document as a document and showing of how the Womens Movement in many ways came out of the Civil Rights Movement and the and the Antiwar Movement and just the final thing ill say about the panthers. So at your entirely that once all the original panther leaders ended up in jail, you know, in one case, bobby hutton by the seventies essentially, women were running the panthers, elaine brown, erika hutchins and hudgins. Right. And and, you know, a lot of the things that the panthers get credit for today the woman yeah that the free breakfast the right the free breakfast programs the school that they ran in and so forth, those were all run by women. So, you know, same thing with ruby doris like you know if you actually go and do the history it was women who were making these organizations work and not yeah even today you know history historians are only catching up but its hard and eventually some of them. Elaine brown wrote a memoir, some other people from hamer yeah. Fannie lou hamer, yeah, well, she was on tv in 1964 at the democratic convention. People would have known about her, but, you know, it is its one of the reasons why, honestly its worth going back and revisiting this history over and over again, because every you do, you discover people who credit, who havent gotten, you know, in the last iteration of history bit of trivia that i picked up your book, how many of you know how the black panthers got their name . I learned well, why dont you say it . Well, first of alabama. Yeah. So what happened was, you know, so i talked earlier about how Stokely Carmichael had been involved, this effort to create a black party. You know, in rural alabama at lowndes county. So when they decided and he partnered with a local activist who is someone who, you know, people havent of, and im glad that i was able to write about him in the book. But when they they in order to they discovered buried deep in of state law books, a kind of blueprint for you create a new an entirely new party right and there are all these different provisions but one of them was that a new every new party had to have its own symbol. And traditionally the symbol had been an animal. Why . There were a lot of people in, alabama, you know, who couldnt read black folks and white folks and so you needed a symbol that they could recognize on a ballot to vote. Right so this new party that they formed was officially called the lions county freedom created organization. The symbol that they chose was a black panther. And so later, just, you know, later that year, that much, you know, just a few months later when huey newton and bobby seale formed the black Panther Party for selfdefense in oakland, california, which is the one we all remember, they just basically appropriated that symbol, not the name, but the drawing. I mean, the whole thing, because you know Stokely Carmichael. And the reason that happened very briefly is that Stokely Carmichael been invited to give a speech at berkeley at the university of california, berkeley, by the sds in october of of 1966. And essentially as part of the marketing for this, they brought all these pamphlets that had been created for the black Panther Party in alabama out to the bay area. And they were kind of, you know, floating. And huey newton and bobby seale saw one of these pamphlets. They said that looks, really cool. Well just take that for our party. Right. And thats how thats how the panthers became the panthers. And it was it was a woman who didnt like well, so designed. Well, it was actually a it was a group of women was a group of women in the Atlanta Office. And Dottie Miller was one of them. But they were, you know, young black volunteers, you know, one of them picked the the other did the drawing. Somebody else in the you know, and i talk about how, you know, its because of, you know, the panthers, the west coast panthers and how macho they seem the panthers became this of like the panthers itself was seen as this kind of very kind of macho symbol. It was all created that entire was created by women, by a group of women. Final question, if not, becky, you come on up and how about a big hand Tracey Edwards and Mark Whitaker . Becky will give us instructions. Tracy, a wonderful, riveting, riveting, poetic and the best of journalism by Mark Whitaker. I recommend it very highly saying. It loud, becky, thank you, everyone, for coming. We are going to start the book signing in just a couple of minutes. If youd like to get your book signed, please line up along the bookcases here to my right, your left. If you have not had a chance to purchase book and would like to dan hannah will be upfront and you can put yours purchase your book right there. And then finally i just want to say on each of your seats was one of our instore fliers and shows you all the events we have up in the next 6 to 8 weeks here in the store and couple of events off site. So please take a look at that. We have a lot of great events coming up and. Thank you again for coming. Thank you all