Transcripts For CSPAN3 Mattie 20240703

Tonights speakers mattie kahn is an Award Winning writer and editor. Her work been published in the new york times. The washington post, the atlantic, harpers bazaar, vogue, vox and more. She was the culture director glamor, where she covered womens issues and, politics and a staff editor at elle. She is joined in conversation tonight by julia rubin, the editorial director for culture and features at vox. Mattie kahn is presenting her new book, young and restless the girls who sparked americas revolutions. Young and restless recounts one of the most foundational and underappreciated forces of American Revolution. Teenage girls from, the American Revolution itself to the Civil Rights Movement, to Nuclear Disarmament protests and the womens liberation movement. Black lives matter and school strikes. Climate. Mattie kahn uncovers how girls have leverage their unique strengths from fandom to intimate friendships to organize and lay serious political for movements that have often sidelined them. In the words of billie jean king, quote, young and restless honors ferocious power of teenage girls. In this bracing retelling of social movements, mattie kahn celebrates girls not as saviors, but as leaders and visionaries deserving of a recognition. We are so pleased to host this event here at harvard bookstore. Please join me in welcoming mattie kahn and julia rubin. Thank you so much. Just working. Were good. Okay cool. Im so excited to be here tonight. I am both fan and friend of mattys and was very lucky to be an early of this amazing book. And i cant wait to hear more about it. Its great for matty so going to ask what your elevator pitch is for this book since maybe not everyone has read it yet yet being the operative but that those are also really great by our hosts here. But you know i guess well kind of start with how did you conceive of this idea . Yeah. So first of all, thanks, julia, for doing this. I read the acknowledged first for basically every book i ever read. So i felt a lot of pressure when i was writing my own acknowledgments, wondering if there was a Single Person in the world like me who does that. But in the hopes that maybe theres one you can see that julia as extensively thanked in the acknowledgments. And i didnt even know when i wrote them that she would also agree to do this. So thats a true friend. I came to idea for this book kind of over time. I worked, as our host said at elle and at glamor. And so i came into contact with a lot of and young women and women and sort of like across the cultural and political spectrum. And i think that if youre in a lucky position i was to work in that environment it starts pretty normal. Its just all in a days work to meet. Know a young person is organizing thousands and thousands of people across the country, around the world, sort of normal. But with a little bit of perspective, i started to feel like there really was something extraordinary happening with this generation of young women, such that they were organizing a Global Climate strikes and on the frontlines of lives matter and doing sort of like digital activism in ways that i found really impressive. And what i thought i might do is write book about what was so special about this generation. Teenage girls and young women. And then i started researching and i received a quick in just how long this kind of work had been going on. And i felt really inadequate, like i needed to learn a lot more. So i spent a year and a half on the proposal. Im glad my agent isnt here tonight. She definitely wanted that to happen faster. And then, yeah. And then it became really a history book, a telling of all of these social movements that i feel really transformed america as through the lens of teenage girls. And the project started surprise even me and its scope and it got bigger and bigger and then it ended up with the book once a year and it really is just such feat of research because you have this incredible archival and then original reporting, which is obviously what you do in your day job well. What did that process like, especially uncovering these stories that hadnt really been told before . I think the time line is helpful. So i started writing the book during the the research phase. I did that mostly in. 19 2018, 2019, 2020. And then i started sitting and really outlining each chapter in detail in the spring of 2020, when there was nothing but time. So i had more concentrated hours to do than i ever would have wanted. And i think the way i approach work and my my journalism and writing in general is always to start as wide as. So i try to when i was thinking about what these chapters would be or things that i knew belonged in the book, sort of like one movement at a time. I tried to read most general and histories on those things that i could possibly find. So whatever the biggest doorstop far of a book thats like everything you wanted to know this thing. I like to start there. And then i always used to say, even before i sold this book that my hidden talent was reading a huge 800 page book and finding the one sentence where a woman is inside. Oh, this random person did this one thing. And being okay, i want to read the book about her. So the Books Research really followed that process. It was a process of reading and researching and talking as many people as i could about, various social movements in america. The random clause, a girl who happened to be there and then figuring out everything i possibly could about about that person going deeper and deeper, chasing lots of footnotes, emailing librarians were the only people in their buildings and therefore very happy to go on wild goose chase looking for a document because what else did they have to do in july. 20 and and kind of yeah. Following my curiosity i think thats the nice about about always sort of that feeling of being a little bit of an amateur in this work is is you ask a lot of questions and i think you find a lot of people are really happy to share. They know. I that and i, i learned so much. And i was telling you like the the amount that this for me after you know, going to school going to college, the amount that i learned, if you like, about American History just through this book is as fast. And im grateful that did that work for us. Was there a story that you found particular surprising or moving . You were doing this research. There were a lot of stories that surprised me. I think youve probably heard me talk before about mabel ping, molly, who was a chinese immigrant, heavily involved in womens suffrage, fighting for a right that she knew if she achieved the aims of that wouldnt be extended to her as a noncitizen. And i found story very moving and she led this massive march up fifth avenue in 1912. She was so charismatic as a teenager that a whole phrase was invented to describe how she turned audiences. People would write a newspaper is that you went to a talk by mabel king probably and you left margolyes by procession. And i love that idea of like this captivating young person. But i also think she was a good example. One of the other stories that really surprised me was and dickinson, who was an abolitionist orator during the civil war, actually the first woman in, her very early twenties ever, to address the house of representatives in congress. These were two girls, as they were. Would been identified at their time who. Both tried best to seize a platform that was extended to them sort of unlikely in, an unlikely way, because they were young and female, but also couldnt help but have to kind of brush up against constraints of a platform like that where. Youre really given an acronym stick a microphone, but youre not given a lot of power. And i think reading those stories, which were not stories i went into the book knowing that i would include but so much heart and of sometimes heartbreak in this of being so famous and so charming, but not being taken seriously. Those were stories that surprised me and also, i think, changed the direction of the rest of the book. As you know, having it. And i feel like i always say this when im talking about the book this is a story that these are stories that really celebrate teenage girls and why young women are capable of. But i wouldnt ever want someone to read this book and think its enough to just from young women. I think if stop there you run the risk that many adults who helped platform young women or young people in general but never really followed up after that you run that same risk which is you create a star instead of helping an activist, have a long career. The work that she wants to do. I love what youve said about, you know, we we have this tendency to say, you know, girls going to save us, girls are going to save the world. And if you just could speak a little to what you think adults should do. Yeah i think that that that idea has been around for us for each successive generation of young people since truly the founding of this country. And here we are many generations no saved world. So clearly something not cohering and not working think that one of the things that i sort of almost an answer in in opposition which is one of the things that i think really works and that has helped people remain activists and still feel connected to this work that could otherwise bring them out. Is intergenerational partnership. So not just saying the girls are going to save us or the kids are doing all, but really asking like, how can we be on the field with them sharing . This work be in partnership, in community, being conversation and i think you look towards some of the most famous activist elders like, people like dolores huerta, our gloria steinem. They are very committed to not just talking amongst themselves and not just applauding the next generation of people who are following them, but in really figuring out how they can provide what people need. I always like, and the stories in this book definitely attest to this. Young people bring energy to movements. They bring new ideas. They dont have a sense yet of whats impossible. And so they make a lot possible in the absence of that fear over what maybe cant happen or wont happen. And older people bring perspective. They bring the the knowledge that one defeat isnt an entire failure. You can keep going even if it feels like something is disintegrating that you might feel right now, like this isnt working, but history will look more kindly on it. I really think you need both of those things and so i just feel its such a mistake to say good them. Were were done now because you cant leave it to them. Im wildly impressed by the girls in this book. I have so much respect for them, but i wish they didnt have to do it alone. Yeah, i think that is totally wrong. And speaking of intergenerational relationships, what patterns did you see emerge across time when looked at activists . I think the earliest for the 1830s. Is it the little male girls . Earliest. And then we talk about you know the climate activists of today kind of yeah what patterns have emerged is the same what is different. Well, one thing and thats the same as i think young have to their advantage thinking their parents are hopelessly outdated that has driven so much culture so much politics so much social change and definitely thinking of the low girls who were working in textile mills in the 1830s who felt like, you know, they were the first girls ever to strike out on their own, mean in some ways what they did was unprecedented but that feeling of invincibility, young people can have that is really amazingly the same. I think that theres so much in the Civil Rights Movement of young people feeling like these problems, these inequities, theyre waking up to it in ways that their parents never did. And of course, they get older and they realize their parents saw, too. You know, it wasnt bernie, john and reagan whose story i love in the book says that only once you became much older did she see that their generation been some great leap forward. She said it had been a continuance that that everyone built on the work of the people who come before. But its a great, i think, advantage being young to think youre the first person ever to do it because it to make it feel like really exciting. And i loved reading those. I mean, theres nothing i think one of the fun things about almost being a spectator to the process of writing the book is, is reading those diaries and journal entries and letters to kind of be able to eavesdrop on girls discovering themselves in their power is i could i could do it for a hundred more bucks. Like there there really is Nothing Better than seeing someone realize she has something to say. I think thats a real and whats different is the Technology Keeps changing like the way that girls are heard the kinds of that theyre able to seize the people who are there to listen, that audience keeps getting. And that comes with a lot of power and it comes with a lot of risk. So when and Elizabeth Dickinson was barnstorming through new england talking about abolition she was making a lot of people mad and people were reading about it in newspapers, but they werent responding to her on twitter. So the that i think young people now have with their detractors is very immediate. It can be very loud. I think thats always hard, but i think its gotten harder. You cannot imagine personally, id like to talk about what makes girlhood special. I worked at vogue. You have worked at many womens magazines and written for them, and i am always so surprised by young women and the stories that we get to tell about them. So id love to just sort hear about that, not even in relation to activism, but just, you know, how we conceive of. Girl dom and and when did that come to be . Yeah, when i first started working on the book, thought i would start. I thought i would open in the 1930s when the idea of a teenager became prevalent. And then i thought maybe i would in 1901, when a researcher coined the term adolescent. But then there were girls who earlier than that i wanted. So i decided, its my book, i can do what i want. But also i think, i think part of the reason that i felt that latitude, i think girls have conceived of themselves as Something Special and unique. For a long time, much longer than other people have been telling them. You are in a phase like that. Awareness of something happening there of, a new power coming into focus has been around definitely since the 1830, at least if not before. And if you read the diaries of the lonely girls, you hear a lot of what it means to be a teenage girl. I mean, i think when i was working on the book and i would tell people about it, sometimes people would say to me what, no, no, boys, youve ever done anything. And of course, boys have done amazing work and have been incredible activists have fought many wars, joined all kinds of movements, but i wanted to write about girls because i felt like, against all odds in terms of how girls have been socialized, not in terms of their innate qualities, they have developed characteristics i think make them so capable all and so savvy precisely because of the obstacles that they have truly always faced and some obviously more than others. I mean, a lot of a lot of real estate in the book is is spent on the different experiences that black girls for example have had compared to girls and that chicano girls who are organized in School Walkouts relative to immigrant girls. You know all different kind theyre all there are so many different kinds of experiences of girlhood. But what i think they do have in common is a sense of being and, a sense of wanting to flex your power wherever that may be available to you. And i think that combination it doesnt have to be true, but now societally, where were at it is true of girls. There are so many protests and movements in the book that start with two girls in the cafeteria or in the School Bleachers saying. You know whats kind of messed up . And that is experience of being a teenage girl i mean, youre talking about something totally trivial and maybe youre talking about literally segregation. And i think that quality so far. Well see. You guys can read the book and let me know. But so far, no one who has ever been a teenage girl came away from reading it and didnt feel like no matter how they spent their teenage years, like, oh my god, i that feeling extremely universal. And when it does come to activism, theres two points in the book that you that i really love. One is in the chapter about civil rights and how adults get embarrassed easily and how what makes teen girls especially effective is they dont have that sense of embarrassment. And then in the disarmament section, you talk about, you know, what can a girl do . What a woman can do . And id love to hear a bit about that divide and what does make girls effective protesters and activists. Yeah, well, joy, a Specialized Knowledge of me will in handy here because i think i dont do karaoke so but there was a time in my life where i had no problem singing loudly in public. Thats when i was a teenage girl i think that embarrassment which affects everybody not women and girls is is a powerful force for inaction. Feeling embarrassed to chant or to march or even to go to something where there might not be a lot of people like even tonight. I said to julia, i hope you overcome so thank you all for doing that. But you that that sense of like im doing it no matter what is is the unique property i think of teenage girls and and the flipside of that is also the investment in doing things your friends which is you know there isnt a teenage girl in the world who wants to do it totally alone. So i think that that the freedom that girls find in that is is different than growing up for sure. I also think and this does come up around disarmament and some other issues too is that i think we as a culture tolerate a lot of loud emotion from young people. We find very suspect women. So if a girl is standing at a podium sobbing or as in the case of the march for our lives demonstration in washington, literally throwing up, which happened on live tv, theres a lot of understandable on the part of adults who are watching that. And i think even admiration, that kind of display of feeling, i think anyone whos watched a woman run for office knows that its not so welcome an adult woman who is supposed to control herself comport herself a certain way, compromise not be dramatic, find consensus do all these things that in our be more effective but less than her power as a communicator. I think the purity of expression that we tolerate from young people makes them feel both more authentic and allows us to a level of empathy that set ourselves off from when. Were looking at people that we think maybe are clean power or being ambitious a way that we dont like and. I think thats a sad thing because theres not one person in this book who doesnt have to grow up to be a woman who will then not be given the latitude that she experiences as young person. But i also think it does give young women in particular is really powerful place in society that, you know, is opposing for them. You friendship. And i think that that is definitely something that is so so special girlhood also if you guys want to come their seats feel free come sit the body julia you know moderating but you know i it was such an important part of my i know it was such an important part of your girlhood and id love to know a bit about, you know, stories of friendship. You in this book and, you know, maybe a particular moment in activism theres a great moment that i that my editor was do we need to keep this in . And i was were keeping it. And its a really small moment. There are three College Students who going home from school, having a major demonstration on their all black campus, and theyre headed home in alabama and. Oh, sorry, excuse me. Theyre headed over georgia from albany and they are preparing to take the bus back together. And they know theyre going to be sort of identified as activists and maybe not face the most welcome reception from their bus driver. And the night before they head back home, they could spend their time doing any number of things. And instead they find three blouses and some red thread and they make themselves shirts. I felt like i could cry. Want to hug them . Like through history . Why . What can a teenage girl understand more than army yourself with that kind of protection . Who can possibly hurt a girl whos wearing shirts with her best friends . I would like to see try. I liked. I that idea of how these rituals of friendship strengthened protest movements and i like the idea of fighting against narrative of hierarchy in protests that i think is so ubiquitous in our telling of history and saying know what they actually derive strength from was not leading people so much as organizing with their friends. The shared example really is one of my faves. I got to say well, i really the attention that you pay to clothes and to the esthetic choices of these girls and i would love to know why you felt this was important to include i think that working in womens magazines will always leave you a bit with a chip on your shoulder that people think what you do is an important and part of the reason people sorry to say i mostly mean men describe it bad is because your political analysis is sharing real estate with you know what the latest trends are in clothes and always felt actually it was an advantage to come from a world that taught you that your clothes were powerful communicators and in a world where people arent maybe listening so much to what you have to say, theyre of the best billboards. You have to get your message, your message across. Always think, you know, if youve ever watched your president ial debate and noticed one of the candidates is wearing a purple tie to speak to unity between the parties, you have participated in sartorial. Congratulations. Welcome. Were all doing it. If if youve ever thought about what you should do a Job Interview to look like youre taking it seriously, but youre not to serious like you have done this work. So we all think about how we show up in world. I always quote the Vanessa Friedman column. Shes a fashion critic who used to work at the financial times. In her final column for the newspaper, she the world is not run by naked people. We all have to choose our clothes and were all were all saying something when we do that. I think girls who constantly assessing their relative standing in a group of people who know instantly whos cool and whos not, who can see, who feels in what theyre wearing, who doesnt wield that tool really affected me. And i think sometimes the sad thing is, if, you know that thats the first thing people are going to write about and its its, you know, its losing out on one of your best and most potent tools. Pretend that it doesnt matter, it doesnt exist. Of the examples that i think illustrates tension well in the book is that theres a protest in texas recently when a really harsh antiimmigration came up for debate and a bunch of girls around 15, 15 to 20 went to the statehouse to protest and they wore their names in your addresses. They got a ton of press and pr covered in nbc news. Definitely more attention than would ever have been paid to a bunch of girls in jeans and t shirts. And yet when buzzfeed reporter asked one of them, how did you decide, you know, to do this . And how does it feel to be here in this outfit . She said it was really like its not a comfortable outfit. Thats not what she wants to wear. Thats not why she wants to be here. But a girl knows if she wants to make a statement, her clothes are going to be part of that calculus. We always said everyone was clothed. Its important. Also everyone. And lifestyle journalism is important. I love that you brought that to the book so much so you know you mentioned all of these girls get older as we all do if we are. You know what did happen to so of these activists as they grew out girlhood do they stay activists did they feel that was repercussions from that being a part their you know, childhood. Im really happy the book doesnt end in the 1940s or it would be a very sad story because for most of the girls who come of age before the civil movement, there is no stain in activism. First of all, before the civil rights and before second wave feminism, there just werent a lot of places for women to continue to be public figures in society at so i do think a bunch of the early stories in the book are part there are they were hard to research i often a fantastical different endings for the girls that are in the book and then thankfully the Civil Rights Movement and feminism come along and they expand the set of opportunities available to Girls Education and careers and. All kinds of changing understandings, working life that make it possible for some of those young women to continue to be activists. I never wanted to be prescriptive about what i any one of these girls should do. Theres someone in the book, as do rivera, who the first girl to apply successfully to stuyvesant high school, which at the time that she applied had been only four boys. She had to sue to have a place there. She actually never ended up going. Her parents found the whole trial and the whole experience to be so that they decided to move up and leave city. But many other girls were able to go to stuyvesant because of her. She became a doctor, Community Doctor and when i spoke to her, she i feel becoming a doctor is completely an extension of the work i did as a teenager. You know, you dont have to be an activist or a politician to still have an impact on your Community Think the amazing thing about some of the movements that these young women fought for is that it made it possible for them to choose from any number of options to be activists, which some of them became or to do to become Community Doctors and be involved in their in their lives that way. So yeah first half the book kind depressing on the on the girl to woman transition from the second half of the book. I think more uplifting and a of the progress that have made in terms of what what possible for an ambitious young woman do agree and think thats part of the reason i love that this is such a wide ranging history and that you really do get to see a couple hundred of progress both from the girls and from the world a little bit, which is quite nice, you know, did researching this book, talking to teen girls now, did any of that recast your own teen experience . I apologize. My mother and writing this book, youre very close. Yet i felt i owed her some a sari or two. I think when i was a teenage girl, i thought a lot of the thats documented in this book and that to today was done that is the of having been born into a family told me i could do whatever i wanted i was really respected in class and i never had trouble voicing my opinion and i felt like i could do whatever. And i felt like a lot of things that my mother would talk about were ancient history, emphasis on ancient. And then i got to the working world and i experienced all kinds of slights and, you know, i would i even find myself to say nothing terrible . Just, you know, making me question my self worth. And i realized that a lot of this stuff is not done. And, you know, you shouldnt have to experience it firsthand, to appreciate that. But i think it made me have a lot of compassion for the person who thought she would find a world and for all her with no obstacles. I, i, i wish i could protect that innocence. I think that talking to girls now, a lot of people ask me whether things are worse now. Its harder to be a teenage girl obviously there are striking rates of depression and anxiety. And i dont i dont want to underscore that at all. Those things are real. At the same time, i think that at any point in the book is a time im nostalgic for. And theres any point in history i wish we could go back to that. I feel there is better time to have been a young woman. Unfortunately, i just think were more of how entrenched some of these problems are. And that, of course, is going to people to feel anxious and sad. But i only hope that that makes us all feel we have a collective responsibility, do something about it, and not pretend that there was some golden age. We wish we could go back to and think. Thats also interesting because obviously this book focuses on progressive activists and you know, for every teen girl, there is a girl fighting against the rights that she is fighting for. So could you tell us a bit about the choice to focus on, you know, the girls that are sort of making progress in this one direction, knowing that there is, in fact, a whole other book that could be written. The other. Yeah, for every image thats captured in this one inch out of frame is definitely a girl on the other side of the issue, like holding an opposite protest sign. I will say my first answer to that question is selfish. You spend kind of in the end like five years writing a book and i want to spend five years with the girls fighting for social progress, not with the girls fighting against it, so that my own my own preference. I also think that i wanted to you know, i do think there is sort of like the negative space. This book is the other book, you know, it it is the story of girls who have marched for, you know, against abortion rights, have marched against school desegregation. Those those girls exist. And i mention them throughout. But what i wanted do was to show how progress in this country has been driven by teenage girls. I didnt just want to say, heres a teenage girl who was involved in every movement that you can think of. But i wanted to show teenage girls were actually on the vanguard of those movements were initiating those movements. And i think when you look at the flip, when you think about the teenage girls who have fought against progress, i dont think they were the first to those issues or those positions. They learned those they became really savvy communicators on those issues. I think, you know, the other side, for lack of a better term, also realized what eloquence spokespeople, teenage girls are. But i never felt not for instance, that teenage girls were, the the leaders of those movements. And i really wanted to show i felt young women, in fact, did movements for social progress. That is such a smart distinction think that is that is totally right and the idea of weaponizing the image of the girl versus i what kind of happens in progressive movements where can also be dangerous but sort of valorized where do you think we are now when it comes to girls and activism . I think you something that was really striking to me, you know, as the story goes chronologically. We hear from the climate activist and there is a lot of discussion of how do you seek balance . How you be an activist and also have a life and also live in the world that you are trying to save . Yeah, i mean, there are definitely no easy answers and the nice thing about being a teenage girl is, like the ability to be that single minded is, is a talent that soon evaporates. I think there is a risk really of devoting your entire adolescence at the expense of you are a person is one of the people that i spoke for the book said she felt she had to do her whole teenage years all over again. She got to college and got a little distance. The Climate Movement, it was like she had never done the developmental that she felt her peers had done because she was operating these massive spreadsheets, mobilizing thousands of people around, the country. And then she was like, oh, wait, let me try to grow up a little bit. So think its i think its tremendously hard and. I think technology in that way makes it harder, is not a moment of the day. Now that you cant be working, which every adult in this room knows and theres not a moment of day that you cant be organizing if are a young person who truly feels the world is at risk, which these girls authentically do. I think the people whove been able to handle it the best and whove sort of charted their way through are the people who have found way to put a boundary, even if its mental, what the work is and what the self is. I mean, being a teenager is just a really porous time. I think its really easy to have that. Boundaries sort of get and thats again why i think its so valuable for young people to have mentors in this work who can say, you know, here is the place where you end and the movement begins and those things are not the same. But its hard. I think anyone whos tried to like turn off their working on vacation knows that its hard and that and that hardness just starts younger now because the incredible advantages technology and its incredible disadvantages so i think that thats just going to continue to be issue and i think that its really helpful. Now, you someone whos 25 and the Climate Movement qualifies an elder of the movement. So you can imagine they thought of me they were ready to like issue me. My a air p part. I was told regularly how old i was in writing this . There no one will tell you truth like. A teenage girl will tell you truth. So it was a humbling experience. But those those older 25 year olds, you know, they have things to teach the next generation of young activists and they have come of in that age of technology and media. And so i think things little by little start to improve that way. I think my last question before we open it up to the audience is about elders because one story that we havent spoken and that i was so struck was Claudette Colvin and rosa parks and i id love for you to just of share what you found there and kind of also why i feel like that story encapsulates both the intergenerational commitment to each other the hidden histories the way that we sort pit women against each other. Its got it all, folks. Yes. So i think Claudette Colvin, of all the girls, the book is the one whose story i think has been told a little bit better over the past decade. And if you dont know her name, she is billed as and i take issue with the spelling. But for the purposes of explaining who she is, ill use it. She, nine months before rosa parks refused give up her seat in december 1955 on a montgomery bus Claudette Colvin, who was a high school student, refused to give up her seat, was arrested and convicted actually of, the crime of refusing to give up her seat on this bus and it was a really traumatic experi for her, not because of what she did, which she felt really proud of, but because she sort of expected of the community to rally around her. And she was very surprised to see that that mostly didnt happen. But one person who did rally Claudette Colvin was rosa parks, who i think people dont necessarily realize was deeply committed youth activism and was in fact the lead of her local Naacp Youth Council chapter had nearly given up on activism completely, except for the fact she went to the Highlander Folk School and decided to recommit for the sake the next generation. She she quartet were so close that and i love this little anecdote i think it really demonstrates that they knew how the other took her coffee they had quite slept over at rosa parks house when she couldnt make it home after meeting and rosa parks encouraged her to keep telling the story. What happened on the bus to the point where in typical teenage fashion Claudette Colvin was like, stop making me tell the story. Everyone knows already about the bus. And then months later. Obviously we know what rosa parks did and that really was cast aside by movement for many reasons. She became pregnant as a teenager for a few months later and she didnt fit the part you know, every one of these movements is a visual medium, much as it is political, ideological exercise. And they not want her to be the face of movement. What i think is amazing about claudette and i think this sort of like said, encapsulates the story is that a lot of people now know her as first person to do what she did on a bus. Fewer people know her much more Important Role in history, which is that after she kind of dismissed by the movement, the movement came looking for her again because they needed plaintiffs in a case became known as browder v gal which is case that ultimately ruled segregation busses to be unconstitutional and ended the montgomery bus boycott that rosa parks started and they tried to find every of upstanding man possible and. None wanted to do the job so. In the end, it was for women to teenage girls, including claudette and you know, with a newborn son at home. And every reason impossible to say no. She testified in court and her testimony really won the day they saved her last. They found her to be again the most emotional, the most persuasive, the best emissary for the movement. And she did it. And after did it when there should have been parade in her honor. And every person calling her to thank her. No one told her what the results of the case were and no one called. I never wanted to tell a story that made it seem like everything is a happy ending for the girls who do this and waited a long time to get credit. And i think even the credit we give her now is partial. And the way we understand her relationship with the is inadequate. But i have a lot of admiration people who decided even it wasnt going to benefit them, that there was just something they just had to do and shes still alive and its incredible legacy. She changed the world and that story is so powerful and there are many other stories and young and restless which you should all certainly and pick up a copy and now were going to take some from the audience. So if you guys just maybe want to raise your hand and ill call on you and then well have the boom might come over. You dont have to be shy. Its okay yeah. Im curious to know a little bit more about the Research Process because i would imagine that as you said, like youre doing this sort of searching through footnotes and i know that womens stories have not been as well told. So sort of what did that look like as youre trying to piece together a comprehensive understanding of these women in their roles . Yeah, i always think how many stories arent in the book because nobody knows them and nobody wrote them down there is for me like one of the illuminating parts of that i was trying to figure out when i first first started the book this sort of apocryphal story of, sybil ludington, who was reputed to have rode further and faster than paul revere to warn her father about the british troops who coming. She were supposed to be 17. And i was like, amazing, perfect story for the book. Perfect harmony, the sick thing about writing a book is like every historical fact, you you either immediately embrace or discard based on whether it belongs in the book. So i was like, is great. This is a great place to start. And in trying to track her down, i, i could find anything and in fact the first thing i found was someone saying i dont think she really existed. Like she wasnt real. Or if she was, she didnt do quite what people said she did and had to go find her grandchildren great nieces had written their own memories of what they thought she had done. And what i found most was how she had been used in speeches by everyone anticommunist to second Wave Feminist to Nuclear Disarmament act. This her story had sort of taken on the shape it needed to take on subsequent generations of activists. And it was it turned into a better metaphor for the book than i could have ever hoped, because its like, heres a girl who lived who we know nothing about, but shes been really useful for people ever. So sometimes that happened. I think the great thing is that if youre writing a book about history, thats told, you will find dozens of academics who have their entire life to this, who are just waiting for you to email them, say, you know what, im really interested in your particular narrow band of research. They will talk to you for hours and they will send you everything they have. So thats great. And and other than that its just like living with the silences sort of in the record and knowing that you can fill in as much as you can and especially later talk to people who are still alive and them who was there. What did you see who was around you . What do you feel like nobody ever writes about . And to know that in the older history is just so much thats not available. And and to feel the frustration that i felt of being limited by covid because, you can ask a librarian who was so helpful and will many documents for you, but you can ask them about things you know are you cant ask them to scan every paper in the library see whether there is some 15 year old no ones ever heard of. So its a frustrating process, i would say. But i learned to live with it barely. Ill, right . Yes back there. Hi, im to read. Do you have a sense what percentage of these young, active came from progressive families that supported them and how many were rebelling against restrictive families . Thats a tricky question. I dont think i have a percentage breakdown. I would say the in the earlier phase of the book of in the pre 1940, 1950s phase, there was a lot of continuity. A lot of girls who were the children of quaker abolitionists, for example, that comes up a lot or girls who were the daughters of schoolteachers at a time where most mothers were not and so were exposed to reading and writing or conversations in their houses. Otherwise they might not have had access to later. It becomes much more of a rebellion so you know. There are exceptions to that, but i think generationally sense of rebellion that motivates a lot of people to join these movements also a lot more geographic distance becomes possible so people start leaving their homes to go to college to get Higher Education in some way, travel becomes more possible and so that literal rupture with where come from becomes almost and then drives i think a lot people to want to find meaning in joining more collective actions but yeah thank god for quaker abolitionist parents because a lot of good things came out of them. One thing i was really struck by reading your book, mattie, was just how many of the girls were treated poorly . Not, you know, not just the public, but by other people in the social change movements that they were a part of. And you talked just earlier about the story of Claudette Colvin and how she was kind of dropped the Civil Rights Movement. I was wondering if you had any takeaways from your research as to how older participants in social change movements can support these girls in their work, in ways that thats genuinely supportive without being patronizing, but kind of helping them to stay in the movement and not be sort of, you know, turned off by their experience. Yeah. I mean, i think that the the prevailing feeling of many of the elders in these various is like we got it from here, the feeling that girls are really good publicists movements and help attract a lot of attention. And then its like, you know, the adults going to get in the room and figure this out and kind of leave girls on the outside. So i think that the extent to, you know, young people can even stay in the literal converse fashion where decisions and strategies are being discussed that, theyre not. On the other side of that door is. A big possibility. I think now you see that in School Board Meetings where young people are testifying and these these interactions and sometimes confrontations that happen between adults and children in these kind of civic spaces and the more that young can have a presence there and then sit through the debate that comes after thats just a way of keeping people in it in a way that wasnt possible when somebody went into another room and shut the door in their face. So i think i think thats a piece it and you know, where where budgets very decisions are being made and young can say well this is what i value what would that look like monetarily you know having the conversation about what how how a want becomes an action item and keeping them just in the discussion goes a long way as i think a lot of what the girls express in the book is a frustration at just not being part of not sitting at the table and not being part of the of the discussion. And then i think the other thing is, if girls are only showing up for you behind microphones in public settings. Youre not really involving them in. The movement, if youre treating them mostly as a crowd gatherer or as soundbite generator, youre not really involving them in the work of social change. So i think involving young people as much as possible, the strategy of actual organizing. First of all, its a good idea because eventually they will grow up and these are good skills be passing on to the next generation. So lets just think critically about that. And i also think it helps feel it helps them feel less used. And thats a sad thing that many in the book feel at one point or another just used by the movements they are trying to contribute positively to any other question in. How many Different Girls that you describe different historical periods, also very different lived experiences. Can you tell us, is there a common characteristic about that individual or was it that particular event being in the moment . You know, as the father of two daughters, im very to hear about what your thoughts are about what made them become activists. Yeah, i think general dissatisfaction, a common a common feeling. So if youve ever somebody say that theyre not pleased with how things are going that tends to mint really great historically. I think a lot of times what is actually helpful is that at one point or another someone in a Young Persons life says truly, often, literally question of what are you going to do about it . You know, for barbara johns, who led a walkout in her over segregation, it was a music who said as she was expressing her annoyance over the poor conditions in her high school, she literally said to her, well, what are you going to do about it . Sometimes it is like that sort of lit match that helps girls realize that theres more their power than they think. But yeah, i would say frustration. A great predictor for social change and and and i think, i think we all know that leaders of all kinds are are sort of born with or develop over time a sense of conviction about, whats right and whats wrong. So. Foster that to the best of our ability looking and not saying well things just are way but saying you know, things are this way now and they can change and they have changed helps people realize progress is possible and i feel one of the things i didnt want to do was being honest about girls and about about these protest movements was to say that i dont think that thats true. I think the book is hard at times, but is a testament the fact that change has happened often and it really doable. We have time for one more question. Yeah, back there there. I have not read book, but it sounds like you did a lot of research. My question for you is have you consider looking into movement in other countries for example iran, pakistan or africa where people dont have opportune to express themselves, that they dont have any support. Whats your thoughts on it . I mean, it was hard to limit the just to the united states. Partially. I did it, because i felt like that felt like a book was capable of writing it really hard. But i felt like im up to the challenge on the global scale. I wish other people would write this book where they know more about the history a certain place. Certainly, you know, finishing this book and picking the cover and putting it together as iranian girls were protesting in the streets, risking their lives and inspiring people around the world told the global story, which is that this is not unique to america, that this happens. Young people and young women in particular are often voices change wherever they are. And are many more volumes of the book. I think to be written from those various perspectives, i, i am loathe to admit my limits. But had you in the writing of this book and felt like this is the story i can contribute it but nothing would make me happier than to see people realize that this is really a expression and it has been. And those are books i would love to read. So if someone wants to write them, i am the first their first reader. Thank you all so much and thank you so much. Matty young and restless is truly such a feat. It is amazing. I reading it. I know you all will to. Mattie is going to be signing books up here and there are plenty of copies to buy at the register. Thanks so much for having. Yeah, thank you. Were so glad could join us for what is going be just an excellent event. We were so excited to have carol roth with us