New book that could not have been more timely. Yuko wrote the book with erica greene who is an awardwinning reporter and was a finalist of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for breaking News Coverage of the death of ready gray and the events that followed. This book is just a beautiful way to understand what happened to freddie gray and baltimore, what happened in the lives of black america, how the lives that connect us in the untruth and the half spoken truth and the incomplete stories stop us from truly being one community and most important five days as a way to think about uprising in america and im just really pleased to be able to have this conversation with you. Thank you. Lets talk about the young man whose life was taken from us, freddie gray. The book begins, the entry point is your attending the funeral of freddie gray and leaving the funeral and seeing all the different part of Baltimore Society go back to their corners and you wanted to to paint a story that would really reflect th
Our society had trouble with in recent years. That makes us wonder how strong our institutions will prove to be, how we will rise to a challenge like this. You cant help but see it as a time of crisis but because it is the time of testing it is also time to think about what americas strengths are, what we are good at and how we can build on that to address the enormous problems we confront. Host how did we get here . Guest that is an awfully complicated question. Our country has always tried to strike a balance between the dignity and the quality of the individual on the one hand and some form of strength of community on the other. Every free Society Faces that. Our society has in the past century emphasized the individual, emphasize liberty, emphasize freedom and diversity and that has brought some enormous advantages and benefits but there is another side to that coin and the other side look Like Division and fragmentation and isolation, it can look like alienation and loneliness and
Panel and we are each going to say a few words about are quite different roles. Well nathan and i have the same rule. He is trying to steal the 20th century for me and doing a good job. Well have a different roles and back stories. We will talk about that a little bit. Then were going to open it up to questions. Just for starters, this is not what it looks like behind the scenes of back story. In fact, rarely are we in the same place at the same time. I had to Google Nathan to see what he looked like. I talked to him every week even though. Introducing myself. I am a professor at the university of virginia. I cohost back story and i direct the National Fellowship program at the jefferson scholars foundation. My cohost Nathan Connolly is known to most of you as an outstanding scholar. He is the herbert back stir adams chair Herbert Baxter adams at the john hops guns university. The remaking of jim crows south florida. He is also hard at work on a book that is really a deep transnational
She is a former senior fellow with the Ford Foundation and advisor to the world bank. She joins us tonight to discuss her life, work and new book, being human. She will be in conversation with our very good friend Pamela Edwards and abc news anchor of the morning addition. Duty and pam, the screen is yours. Andy, this new age of social distancing is great to see we can get it done. Duty, it was an honor to read your book. It is a running theme in the book, how often people tell you they should know they had no idea and im hopeful that people reading your book and joining in on the conversation tonight will be brought up to speed on what your fight has been about and all the changes you have made. In fact, thats where i want to start, to give people a perspective and i wanted you to compare and contrast what it was like when you are a young person pick you up in the book talk about your childhood in brooklyn. What it was like to be a person coming into the world then with a disability a
Just so you know you are not on the wrong flight. Im brian balogh and ive been a cohost for backstory for over ten years now. Im going to introduce the panel and then were each going to say a few words about our quite different roles well, nathan and i have the same role. Hes trying to steal the 20th century from me and doing a pretty good job of it, but we all have relatively different roles in backstory. Were going to talk about that a little bit. And then we are going to open it up to your questions. Just for starters, this is not what it looks like behind the scenes at backstory. In fact, were rarely in the same place at the same time. I had to Google Nathan to see what he looked like, for instance, even though i talk to him every week. So introducing myself, im a professor at the university of virginia, i cohost backstory and i direct the National Fellowship program at the jefferson scholars foundation. My cohost Nathan Connolly, of course, is known to most of you as an outstandin