Transcripts For CSPAN2 Shennette Garrett-Scott Banking On Freedom 20240711

Welcome back to our centennial speaker series. Thank you for joining us for todays event featuring doctor jeanette scott. If this is your first time joining us. My name is donna and i have the honor of serving as the dean of the school of business. 2020 marks a very special year for the school. Its our hundred anniversary and we are celebrating 100 years of purpose driven business education. Since our inception we believed in the power of partnerships to inform and lead change. I very much like to thank the center for Global Security analysis and our wonderful partners the museum of American Finance and the society of new york whose cosponsoring todays conversation. One of the goals of the centennial is to shine the light on the importance that history plays in shaping the future. In the latest book black women in u. S. Finance before the new deal, she explores a period of black financial innovation in its Transformative Impact on u. S. Capitalism. Todays session will take place in three parts. First, my colleague and friend president and ceo of the museum of American Finance will introduce doctor garrett scott. Then she will discuss her book banking on freedom. Following the discussion, we will facilitate audience questions and we ask you type your questions in the q and a section near the bottom of the screen. Im also excited to share that as a participant you will be entered into a raffle to win a copy of the book. Winners will be notified by the end of the week. And finally, before i turn over to do a formal introduction, i do want to remind everyone that both the school and museum rely on your Financial Support to continue our mission so i encourage you to take some time to think about a donation to both of our outstanding organizations. Now i would like to turn it over to david. Thank you, donna and its always great to be back with you and the friends we have. Our speaker today is a native that received her phd at the university of texas and is currently a professor at the university of mississippi. In her research she brings to the floor the issues of race, gender and capitalism. The Research Behind the book is incredible. There are 75 detailed footnotes. The book has received a much praised including awards from the organization of american historians, the association of black women historians, the Southern Historical association for the best book in southern economic history and was also on the shortlist for the highly prized it is a quot quote on qu, innovative and as well as quote on quote beautifully written and deeply researched. She can turn of phrase, and that starts right with the dedication that i like. The book is timely to understanding about the participation within the Free Enterprise capitalist system. To tell us about banking and the amazing story who says about herself but a Laundry Basket on her head. Welcome. Thank you for that wonderful introduction and to kristen for inviting me and everyone who made this possible. Im going to share my screen and we will get started. I also appreciate people taking the time out of their busy schedules to learn more about black womens contribution to the u. S. Finance. So, today i will talk for about 35 minutes and i will talk about the world of black finance in harlem before the 1929 stock market crash. I focus on one company that is the finance corporation. And i use it to explore how lack women use the Financial Institutions like the st. Lukes finance corporation institutions that they lead and control to challenge the constraints of jim crow and economic exploitation. They use Companies Like this to carve out possibilities for themselves in the u. S. Economy and society. They understood the ideas about wealth and value and risks were shaped by race and gender and your place in the economic ladder but they do not simply defined by these factors and processes. They took an active role in shaping the meaning of wealth and risk and opportunity. And while i certainly acknowledge the limitations they face because of their race and gender and class i also want to demonstrate how black women define their values in ways that often ran counter to the kind of messages they see about their worth as citizens and economic actors not just in black communities but also the larger u. S. Economy. So, we should have a good amount of time left for questions and answers. So the best way to understand the corporatio corporation is to women who were finally important, thats Charity Jones and Lulu Robinson jones. The next slide you are going to see two images. They are not charity and lulu and i only have about three pictures total, but the anonymous women in those images capture their spirit. So, i will start by imagining their early lives in new york to understand the kinds of challenges black women face and then i will describe the order on how the branch formed the corporation and then i will talk about the successes and the challenges that it faced especially the finance Corporation Board that was comprised almost totally of women. Charity hesitated a moment before she stepped onto the dusty streets. What am i doing, she thought to herself, suspended in the car door between her old life that lay behind her and this awful new place. The smell, the noise, the people. So many moving, pressing, now likfliesrising like horse manure street. This was 1885 in the heart and she paused for a while from mostly empty streets of the car beckoning. What would she return to, eight dead babies in two years all of them taken from her one who never took to her breast. Another managed to topple a few steps. There wasnt anything there back in virginia so charity drew in her breath and planted her feet on the unforgiving ground. She dared not look back at the tiny handprint the babys breath misting off of the streetcar window. Eight babies calling her back home. Lulu hesitated a moment before she stepped onto the floor with hundreds of dancers and fingers like herself, but stage like homes of people pressed tightly together in the hard wooden theater seats they sounded like a sudden rush of wind. Now this was harlem, 1916. She paused for a moment between the noisy backstage goingson and the expected audience beyond the curtain. She looked at the pocket she could pour her voice into. So she drew in her breath and planted her feet on the floor and as she stepped into the spotlight, darkness swallowed up the size of the stage where she had stood only a moment ago. She dared not look at the emptiness. So, Charity Jones and Lulu Robinson jones was her daughterinlaw had very different experiences as Migrant Women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but they did share some things in common. They shared the only surviving child and like hundreds of thousands of black women, they also left the south to pursue better lives in the north, the chance to earn more money, the social etiquette and Sexual Violence of jim crow to find excitement in the big cities of the north. But these women also shared a devotion to the independence order of st. Lukes. This was a secret society that was founded in the 1850s. In 1899 they came under the leadership of the ambitious Maggie Walker and felt its headquarters in richmond saint luke would become one of the most successful and one of the very few largely black women controlled institutions in the country at its peak in the mid1920s, the order ran a bank and Insurance Company, operated a newspaper. It boasted 100,000 members and more than 20 states. It employed nearly 200 people. The overwhelming majority of them and it possessed assets that were the equivalent to about 31 million in modernday dollars. So, one important venture that brought the independent order was the st. Lukes finance corporation headquartered in harlem and organized in the late 19 teens by the new York District of the independent order of st. Lukes. The st. Lukes finance corporation reflects the opportunities open for the women in the 1920s. So there was a complex tapestry made up of thousands of Financial Institutions. These included formal banks and Insurance Companies as well as savings clubs, industrial loan associations, Credit Unions and even finance corporations. And this complex tapestry controlled millions of africanamerican dollars and expanded the boundaries of their dreams. But during the great hydration around world war i however, the increasingly urban and northern black population had the capacity of these Financial Institutions and the strategy the saint Luke Corporation chose to promote reflected some of these anxieties about black womens bodies in these new urban spaces and there were these conflicting tensions that saw black women as both the victims but also the sources of social disorder. Both in the need of financial protection but also new economic opportunities. So, what can women demand of these Financial Institutions like the order of st. Lukes . They decided better Career Options and housing choices. They rejected the orders to police their behaviors and the way they spend their time and so these would be called new negro women were attracted to the promises of investment as a vehicle for civic inclusion, for the political right the Financial Institution that women lead and controlled and experimented in these innovative ways to raise capital struggled with the experience so its 1916 and the struggling new York District of st. Lukes has elected a new president. The harlem st. Lukes had 3. 45 but was more than 400 in debt. It may have been the hand of the wheel and the group of women controlled the lever they incorporated the st. Lukes finance corporation and set their sights on investments in real estate. So, women made up six of the Seven Members of the corporations board and Lulu Robinson jones widowed by 1979, chaired the advisory committee. So, the revised harlem st. Lukes turned to Charity Jones to recruit new members and solidified her status known as the mother of st. Lukes in new york and so through her efforts, the membership sword in the midst of the great migration. Now, it wasnt the joneses womens charms alone that had the resurgent and the numbers. They were laser focused on addressing the needs to revive the order so the new women like i said before tested and expanded the boundaries of these organizations. This modern womanhood and we had scholars that talk about where they stresse stress their cultud political importance, but economic concerns placed high among their priorities. These women and their families desperately needed the jobs and housing. While jones understood this dilemma she likely confronted limited Employment Opportunities as well as the Housing Conditions of skyrocketing rent over policing and overcrowding and segregated sections of the city. So, Robinson Jones and the other women of the Advisory Board were able to borrow 3,000 into the Saint Luke Bank bu the cautious committee would likely either unwillingly invest more in the real estate themes or they would be unable to do so those demands we have to remember were compounded by the racial tariffs that made the cost of credit consideration higher for blacks than it was for whites, so Robinson Jones position is new and returning members as potential investors and she arranged these Fundraising Affairs that combined entertainment and enterprise they raised enough money to secure the mortgage on the building. In 1922, it remodeled its first acquisition that the former convent on 130th and transformed it into the saint luke call. It became the new district headquarters and the harlem st. Lukes spent the equivalent of more than a billion dollars in modern dollars and 1924 they further added to its holdings by purchasing a third property a combination apartment building, restaurant and Retail Stores on the west 139th street which wasnt too far. St. Lukes hall became an important center for business, Community Activities and entertainment, and for bias. So the pastor of the first Imanuel Church called out the hall as the bootlegging and in its saintly name as the pastor of Salem Episcopal Church and adoptive father of harlem renaissance Chelsea Collins calls the hall nothing less than one of the hellholes of god. So, it was very likely that she was in the restaurant and the stores and the office space is in st. Lukes hall and its apartment to help make ends meet and they ran the numbers that was a highly profitable game. It was both in the formal and extralegal economy in harlem. So, lets recount. They make them ambitious and lucrative real estate investments. So, that by 1929 and a little more than a decade, the new york st. Lukes went from being 400 in debt to having more than 5 million. And that is a very conservative modernday dollar having 5 million in properties so as they slid towards economic decline by the end of the decade the failure to sell the corporations stock left it undercapitalized and it was generally more than 10,000 in annual profits and that accounts for 850,000 in modernday dollars but they went from renting the spaces in the halls and they provided jobs for the workforce of two dozen employees but also fund its commitment to nearly 500 harlem families. So, let me stress for a moment these concerns face affordable quality housing, restaurant, retail spaces that offer fair prices and a variety of goods and services, good paying stable jobs respectable amusement and leisure activities. These were really important priorities for black women in particular and the communities in general. These were the central social economic and i would add political concerns that animated those women who were leading the st. Lukes corporation so they raised the equivalents of about 1. 2 million in modernday dollars from the bond offering the amount they were able to raise highlights the democratization of investing among the communities. Let me say that another way. It demonstrates the way that was popular and accessible and also reveals a commitment to the working and middleclass commitment to selfhelp and i highlight the participation in investment and get rich quick schemes. And i have to say 1. 2 million, 1,000dollar loans and these Swanky Affairs cannot explain at least on their own the dramatic rise in the origins but it might also reveal some financing but in the interest of time im not going to go into detail but i do delve into those creative schemes that the ladies of the finance corporations experimented with to raise these funds in such a short amount of time so the economic downturn coupled with past investigations into the similar organizations like Marcus Garvey and the universal Improvement Association really loved the creative financial scheme of all kinds of fraternal and other kinds of organizations which included of course the independent order of st. Lukes vulnerable to the states and that is exactly what happened. In 1928 the state attorney general began an investigation into the board. And after just two hearings, the Court Ordered that it was insolvent and ordered the district to sell its real estate holdings. So just as i imagined at the beginning of my talk how Charity Jones, and this is an actual figure, and Lulu Robinson jones might have felt moving to and through new york city and how they must have felt on their beloved Charity Jones must have felt particularly bereft at the losses because she lost her home and lived in one of the modeledl apartments in the st. Lukes hall. From her will i know that she died in 1929 and she still resided at 127 west 130th street. But it was no longer this glorious st. Lukes hall and that had to be bittersweet. Lulu jones told the census taker she wasnt working, she was unemployed. It isnt clear how active she stayed, but its likely she never again held such a powerful position in a multimillion dollar concern. So, i hope that as i close by illuminating this kind of story i think a fascinating story about the rise and fall of which this story is a part, i try to connect to these major developments to the u. S. History to talk about the reconstruction, the gilded age, the great migration world war i and the new negro era and i am trying to recover the importance and the active role that women played in the development of the modern American Finance capitalism. While i acknowledge the contribution black women made i cannot ignore the aspect of capitalism or the destructive ways the political economy severely limited the opportunities. So looking at the corporation as a kind of case study, we see the investment as a form of community that stand alongside other justice. So when black women and creditors and debt and consumers stock owners of stock and insurance policyholders, they try to transform racial capitalism through the Woman Centered kind of articulation of the black articulation. But i have to mention where i got the title. I hope you are familiar with the numbers game so popular in the communities from the late 19th century to the late 1970s. And a pretty basic version of this plan involved tracing this kind of threemember combination. So, if your number hit, you could turn a tiny investment of a Little Pocket change into a couple hundred dollars, so the industry kind of arises out of this popular numbers game and so people felt charmed, you had these objects, spiritualists that can help you predict your lucky number and you also had these things called dream books. This is how dream books work. To say you have a dream about a dog so you can look in the dream book and find a combination attached. It could be a yellow dog. Maybe you could look up yellow and find three numbers associated. And you would try to claim these numbers to win. One from the 20s and 30s offered this explanation under people who dream about color and it says, quote, this is excellent for all. It promises the riches and extraordinary good health to those in business, great success, prisoners, a speedy relief, to foreigners, to the brokenhearted courage. So, i brought up the title from the description about colored people because i imagined the women of the st. Lukes finance corporation were dreaming of the african community, the africanamerican community. And that they felt that it was an excellent dream for all, so thank you all so much for your attention and for the time. And thank you again for inviting me. And lastly, on a more sober notes, what would she say about whats going on in this country . She is such a focal point of the book and so fascinating. Switch alike told david as historians we try to have little objectivity with our subject. It is heart not to be so impressed with megan alito walker. She was born enslaved, right at the end of the war in richmond virginia. She grabbed now the silver suit boone in her walk with the wash basket on her head. She grew up poor. But her circumstances in her life really i think shaped her vision, her Economic Vision for black women in particular. She of course was intimately involved with in the pouring it order of st. Lukes but she became a president as a young woman in 1899. She really transformed that organization. It was on its last leg in 1899 when she took over. And she communicated this vision where she wanted to open up a store and a factory and a bank. In 1903 she succeeded in doing that. She open the saint luke petty savings bank in 1903 which is the first bank to be led by a black woman. It also to be financed by africanamerican women. She was also very active politically and socially all around the country. If you want to know more about her other than in my book there actually is a really great article that just came out a couple weeks ago the wall street journal that focuses on on rising women in the present day and in banking. And it harkens back to the story of Maggie Lena Walker. Of women and banking. And if you are ever in richmond at her house she has a beautiful home she owned in richmond. The National Park service runs her house. You can also go online and do a virtual tour. There are many images of objects in the house and of her and various businesses and kind of black life in richmond. And then just finally i think that Maggie Lena Walker had a lot to say about the events going on today. I think in the midst of covid she would have a lot to say about kind of revising what the kind of work she did with the Saint Luke Bank as well as independent order of st. Lukes Insurance Company. And so she always talks about a black womans way of banking. I think we can learn a lot about banking that is really a tune to the practical need of the community that it serves that it centers them. I think in the pandemic for example she would argue about using sounds and conservative criteria. But wasting some the structural institutional inequalities that inherent in things like credit scores. To look at other multiple kinds of sources to vet peoples credit worthiness, small investment especially in business what we would think of as micro finance today. Those are kind of things i think if she were here she would look around and i think she would be ready to kind of and really put her shoulders into kind of a transforming, shrinking the racial wealth gap. Which is what she tried to do a 1903 and thats deafly shes trying to doing 2020. Sue and thanks much for the great story has real meaning today its really incredible. We have a question from professor george robb. He is asking if you know any st. Lukes council in Northern City tried to organize similar financial experiments . Guest yes, i do. I know that in philadelphia and some of the largest were harlem, philadelphia, and d. C. , washington d. C. And i know that in washington d. C. They actually tried to something very similar. They tried to build a st. Lukes hall. An original was the model of creating a finance corporation that could raise the funds needed to invest in these real estate ventures. They tried to do that in d. C. Its an interesting story. Definitely in philadelphia and d. C. And then i would also just in rural areas as well. Particularly in the south. Im not as familiar with the north. Even on a small scale you had women raise thousands of dollars to build small brick or wood buildings that they call st. Lukes headquarters. Places in virginia in small towns throughout Virginia Network women are able to do this on a smaller scale. Art next question comes in professor chatterjee. Once in a while these banks and institutions disappear and how many if any are still around . Guest before the 1930s there were over 100 formed between 1888 was the first one in richmond which is kind of known as the creator of black capitalism. Even on the of the Great Depression, these banks part of the reason they disappeared has to do with many factors. Many of them can be attributed to structural racism. So banks were often limited in where they could operate they could of course focus largely on africanamerican who tend to make less money. They had difficulty accessing credit. They also have banking knowledge that other banks were able to get. I do want to say this. Even though these were crippling, very difficult trying circumstances under which you try to make a banking venture go African Americans and innovate in ways to try to overcome those barriers. There was the national they grope Bankers Association that was first formed in 1907. Revived again in the 1920s. They would send people who had some Banking Experience throughout the country to try and share what knowledge they had with these banks. Also they were targeted by the new banking regulations that would come up so on the one hand they seem very neutral. But they were really used often by the state to really wipe the black economic progress off the map. Then of course like other banks and other Financial Institutions they just simply could not whether, most of them could not whether the storm of the Great Depression. And so coming through and out of the Great Depression of about a dozen banks. Again there was a revival especially around world war i the number of black banks changes there is a movement afoot which encourages all people to invest to deposit 100 in order to build them up. There is that there is a website i probably could look it up maybe its bank black usa. Or usa. Org. With that you could search them by your area code are part of the country you are in. It includes both online and brickandmortar banks. We do have a handful of banks that are more than 100 years old there still existence today. Spectrally excellent wonderful. I have a comment and a question from caitlyn rose kennedy. She indicates she is a huge fan of your writing and lecturing skills. And the question is about the ideas of racial uplift and if they tied into the running of st. Lukes. For example did it ever bar certain groups considered to be unfit representatives of the race like poor unwed black wome women. It ever bar them from participating in finance capitalism . Switch our love and appreciate shes one of my former students. Politics played a role in black finance and a black capitalism. Not necessarily in restricting people who might have been considered un respectable for participating in these kind of uplift activities. In fact walker herself was a product of a rape we could argue that. She of course was surrounded by communities of women who had been subjected to racial Sexual Violence. Pens of being an unwed mother for example is not necessarily something that would task you out of the room realm of respectability. And she was also committed to seeing Financial Independence Economic Literacy and a path forward. Because these women had to take care of families. It was also important their rolls in the community in terms of philanthropy and work in churches and their activism. She tried to make a respectable activity for these women as a way to lift themselves out of their poverty. I do have to say the way she ran the bank and the Insurance Company there was a point where she was a little oldfashioned. And so the younger women who were able to take advantage, this Younger Generation of women who are able to take advantage of the opportunity. That first generation out of slavery women like Maggie Lena Walker in her circle of women able to provide this Younger Generation of women change under the restrictions. They did not want to have prayer devotional in the morning before work. They wanted to wear more colorful clothes, the latest fashions. They wanted to go to movies and listen to jazz music. And so there is kind of a respectability which i think generationally about what this older generation of africanamerican trying to provide the opportunities for these women and the Younger Generation of women takes advantage of those opportunities but want to do things their own way. And ask a question youd want to amplify from a couple questions ago you wrote on the state examiners and how horrible they were to these banks. I think it was the North Carolina case where the actually were bragging about how they could go about and shut these banks down. So its actually awful. A care next question Laura Rittenhouse think shoe as well. She wants to know to the extent of which white and black men or white and black women support are invested in st. Lukes . Guest it is hard to tell. But definitely Maggie Lena Walker was really skilled in building interracial coalition. There are some things she knew that she needed help with from the White Community of richmond to accomplish her vision and her goals. In terms of investment, there probably werent there probably were some whites who did have a small account at the bank or perhaps may have thoughts bought stock in the bank in order to show they were progressive and supportive of these kinds of efforts for black progress. But not just st. Lukes but many blank financial organizations in particular really tried to make a point that these were largely black controlled efforts, uplifting the community. It really made appeals to race pride. Some talked about and stressed they were able to accomplish the things they were able to accomplish without white assistance. Or use of their services. It is a complex question. On the one hand you have whites who probably as a show of support did participate minimally actual investment in these organizations. But africanamericans at the same time were really stressing that they didnt really need or require whites participation to really showcase these organizations of progress. I also want to say to, the Economic Growth is an area where you could get buyin from a swath so from radical to moderate, there are people who could beast staunchly segregationist who could support the idea of a separate black economy. And then you could have more liberal or moderate people who could also support a black pepper economy. So again the idea about whites participation and conception in a black economy on the one hand they can have some progressive ideas. But they could also have some really regressive ideas as well. We have a question from alicia ducked in. Shes really asking how do we build black wealth today . And what lessons can we learn from all of those women and harlem that could help us today . Guest how would we build wealth today i will pricing something is not very popular. I think reparation is an issue for serious consideration. I hope hr 40 will finally be debated and dealt with in congress. And that bill is to create a Commission Question of reparation. Not just for slavery but for Racial Discrimination and in equity beyond slavery. I think that is one important step forward. In terms of kind of closing the wealth gap in dealing with wealth today. And then again about Maggie Lena Walker i think that really embracing some parts of her vision and activities of saint luke women is a way to try and yield wealth. To look at Community Concerns Community Needs and to meet those needs to what you would call say raising large sums of money. But by centering the need of the community that articulated by the community. This is not gentrification but listen to the voices of people and communities and different spaces in Different Industries and asking them what do you . What do you need . And crafting programs and tools to help them meet those needs. And at the same time really chipping away, not chipping away but to dismantle the kinds of barriers. So here i will mention for example about lending. Some people may say these communities there is a value in those communities. They are not the same, they are declining or their falling. But you know that is not an accident. In those Financial Institutions in particular were those organization those groups that hope to create that situation moved into admit their complicity in creating these kinds of pockets and places where the stark inequalities exist. And havent honest conversation about the complicity in that. And then talk about how can we do now dismantle some of the practices and the narratives that we have had about particular places. And ideas about wealth and risk and opportunity and kind of redirect the conversation. Earlier you mentioned the bank but if you talk a little bit more about that. About eight families 46th year sojourn for compensation. I dont think many people know about the freedmans bank. Could you give us little on tha that . Guest believe it or not my school is doing a test. Hopefully hear the siren in the back. Ill be sure to talk up a little louder. So the bank was created immediately after the civil war in 1865. At lasted for nearly a decade until 1874. It was a bank that was formed for the formerly enslaved. That was in the charter. It was one of the banks that was formed by the federal chartered by the federal government. The first bank of the United States. The second bank of the United States and the freemans bank. As a board of allWhite Trustees they did not trust africanamericans to know how to direct their financial futures. And there is kind of a change in the bank that allowed it to be an immense resource of billion dollars circulated in this bank in terms of modernday dollars in the decade, the near decade that it operated. And through that corruption the White Trustees and other people connected to the bank like the Koch Brothers of finance in new york, it led to the demise of the bank. Africanamericans lost millions of dollars of their deposit. That is the common story i want to say in my book i try to look at how africanamericans use the bank how they kind of subverted some of the plans and visions that limited Economic Vision of these White Trustees to bend the bank to meet their needs. I also really points out two things, two points i make about the freemans bank. That black women, black people never abandoned their own economic network. They forge through slavery and after they put the freemans bank within that network. And the failure of that bank is devastating symbol of progress and citizenship and opportunity and freedom for them to lose that bank it convinced them that they needed to control their own Financial Institutions. And sort the bittersweet or the upside if there is one the closing of the freemans bank as i think it really just started the black Banking Movement with the First Charter Bank in 1888. We have one final question its bite Nancy Wheeler and i love the question purge she thanked shoe thanks you for elevating early black women in finance. We all want to know other than handing out copies of your book on the corner, how else can we educate more people about these amazing women . There is the National Park service has a wonderful video that shows in the museum that you can access on youtube. You can learn more about it. I also think the pbs documentary the black experience in business is a starch. It is two hours long. I am in that documentary. I can tell you i can talk for three hours. There is so much on the cutting room floor that them helping the producers family, it could be like a series. But to give a quick primer into a history of African Americans business its available to stream it on pbs is important as well. Then of course theres so many other books. Ill be sure to send a link. Im a part of the Business History conference which is an International History organization. Theyve actually created this incredible list that highlights minority business. Until it includes a lot of work about africanamerican businesses that ive contributed there. Theyre all kinds of books and articles that you can find there as well put ill be sure to send that link. Thanks so much. On behalf of all this at the museum, thank you so much. We had a terrific one hour with you. So informative. We know we are going to hear a lot more from you and your career very exciting. Thank you. Guest thank you. Weeknights this month we are featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2. Right that we focus on neuroscience and healthcare beginning with David Eagleman and his book live wired katherine even in her book bottle of laws. Later lisa on scone he and the brain it all starts at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. And enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. You are watching book tv on cspan2. Every week and with latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2, created by americas cable television