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is the boring part i swear. now are getting to the good stuff. i'm really delighted to turn to our event tonight with camille lee joseph and brandon curry for the sword and the shield, the revolutionary lives of malcolm x and martin luther king jr. the sword and the shield is a landmark, it's what happens when one of america's greatest historians a macro african america shines the same lights on two of african-american historical figure figures. supreme talents of a biography in the movement of historians to interweave the world shattering lysing marked through. and a professor of history at the university of texas at austin. he has written several previous books on african-american history including simply a life and he lives in austin texas. he is joined tonight by brandon m the assistant percept professor of african and african-american studies at harvard university. he has written for npr, wgbh, huffington post, baltimore sun, the.the nation, time, news, and more. his broader academic interests include black and political thoughts and the 19th and 20th century flocks the thoughts of race and racism, questions of pot and personally doctor pen neil joseph for those of you who don't know he i he's arguably te founder of the field of black power studies and has done work in the studies of black black radicalism and over time he has now become, and i think that this book really cements this one of the great historians of the postwar united states. this is a powerful book all of us will have to pass through not just to understand political lives and international questions but also our own moment and i think one of the things that excited me is that your history is always done with an eye towards the president and i am grateful to be here and was hoping maybe we could start with a broad question about the title. why do you describe malcolm x, martin luther king in that way in the sword and the shield? >> that is a great question. i want to give you a shout out i'm delighted you are here to discuss this. the sword and the shield everybody -- publishers weekly and independent bookstore in 2020 we think about martin luther king jr. as a shield for both the black community and the nation. what i argue in the sword and the shield is that we have to reframe how we think about malcolm x we also understand the president much better malcolm is both in th the political sword d political shield nonviolent as a political sword and shield and i would argue the influence along the way of malcolm x in that thinking a new understanding of democracy and the radical tradition and in 2020 we are seeing the continuing impact of the racial disparities i found fascinating how deep they were invested in the political economy and using words like racial capitalism and how they thought about jim crow segregation it's frustrating such a powerful and resonant image and one of the things you do in the book which is striking that nobody has done it with this degree of elaboration or sophistication is to show how they influence each other in all of these striking intellectual ways you brought up a piece of writing i always try to focus on but i almost never see anyone mention the homestead act which is a crucial part of the building of white supremacy you partial out all of this land to white settlers and of course that gets brought up by the white run corporation and you basically are committing to acts of exploitation at the same time excluding african-americans from benefiting from the distribution of the plant and committing a kind of genocide act against the indigenous people and that isn't the martin luther king and sold on at the mall. >> gene is a man on fire and i think that we owe a lot of that to malcolm and he will be influenced by king as well. malcolm is different in this way and i talk about the prosecuting attorney who becomes the face of the argument that he is prosecuting white america the nationstate for the crimes against black people and says those crimes go back to jamestown. malcolm and his own talked about 400 years of the opera russian thathe oprah rationthat we hit s saying that it was 400 years there. when we think about this idea, malcolm recognized the humanity and didn't want to debate about humanity. king is doing something else and it's both antiracism, anti-colonialism and self-determination that they will have the right to solve their own problems, identify their own problems and what malcolm argues but the policy achievement. i'm not going to say african-american because that hybrid excludes people. you could be biracial, multiracial so that is what malcolm did for us. doctor king's notion of citizenship is going to be different. he's a defense attorney and when we think about doctor king, he's talking about citizenship that's a very robust. for him it means guaranteed living wage, decent housing, he talked about food justice, environmental justice. it also means racial integration, and i think that malcolm got that. it wasn't about he just wanted to hang out. he understood racial integration meant and integration of resources and a redistribution of resources so we think about things like george floyd those things wouldn't have been in the racially integrated society because you cannot pick and choose in the specific geography we have zip codes marked as ghetto and we can occupy those. let me focus in on this point because it's something that it is a part of the philosophical tradition that insists on dignity and the value of the standing and work of every individual even when they come wrapped up with a lot. to a lot of the radical political projects one of them is a transformation of how we would think about policing and so there is a striking scene inn your book where you talk about 1957 and the black consciousness we just lived through a week of horrifying and traumatizing acts of police brutality and interracial terrorism on what are supposed to be and malcolm would say that means you are not a citizen if people can treat you that way. he's going to be brutalized by the police and a member of the nation of islam and he really carries a bully pulpit. we have a dramatization and harlem hospital where they are backed by a crowd of over a thousand people demanding medical care and at one point demanding that medical care and telling the law enforcement he can't say what's going to happen in terms of the crowd. johnson didn't get the medical care and one member said that's too much power for one man to have so when we think about policing, malcolm x understood because he had been incarcerated. in massachusetts, charlestown, concorde and so the policing is a big part of the ministry and criminal justice reform so what he is trying to do is this idea of dignity of the folks in new york city being treated with dignity so somebody that is a part of the police community relations committee, he tries to push for police reform and to imagine the justice system is a big part of malcolm x's legacy in ways that we do not think about. >> one of the things that has come in the wake of the george floyd case in minneapolis this week. the country doesn't just deserve any longer the allegiance of african-american we can no longer pour ourselves into those projects and for me it's a brilliant, exciting component of that kind of rhetoric and particularly following doctor king saying in these moments we still want to love our enemy and that multi-phased ethic and politics we can redeem and build a new kind of democracy so i was hoping you might say a little bit about this reality of loving one's enemy in the transformation and why malcolm was so afraid of that and whether he was right or not. >> he is pushing back against one aspect because when we look at king that is what is great about writing the dual biography, looking at him in his fullness you are right he's talking about loving your enemy. but he's also talking about shared sacrifice and the identity and privilege has to go and we have to have a redistribution of wealth and justice and love in the country. that is a part of the message a lot of the time malcolm ignored until 1964 where they are looking at the radical dignity and citizenship. so i think doctor king definitely talked about loving one's enemies but the larger context was this idea of using nonviolent civil disobedience to coerce the united states into full citizenship and so i think that 564 they start to understand each other's language and as early as 63 with birmingham for malcolm at times it ignored the parts of the rhetoric that made john f. kennedy, president kennedy, lyndon johnson very uncomfortable those are the parts talking about the radical structural transformation and not necessarily just reform. king is going to amplify those when we think about the idea in the context of george floyd i think one thing that you see is they realize the criminal justice system even in the context is a gateway to the panoramic injustice so we need a radical transformation of not just criminal justice in the united states but the way in which the criminal justice system interfaces with all aspects of democratic institutions and that goes from public spaces where people are being surveilled in terms of housing and that goes to public schools that are type aligned to the corrections for juveniles and adults and so many other different aspects of our lives but i think martin and malcolm understood that but even though that debate i think over time they both come to realize they are on the same side of that because it is about a point of emphasis h he's saying the biggt catastrophe is holding people accountable so it is willing the good of the other person is about pushing them to make the transformation which involves as you put it powerfully coercion and really difficult political struggle so what you are saying before that i never heard it put quite this way you told a story about martin luther king wins the nobel prize and then he comes home and that is a big celebration in new york so now there's the crown prince of harlem celebrating doctor king and harlem and he gives this speech where he starts complementing king for one of the times he does that and he compliments him on celebration of the scandinavian society commitments. >> you've been talking a lot about king and the notion how does that fit into the conversations about the economy at this moment how do you see them converging how they think about the problem of the political economy? it converged and has to connect the black citizenship in the united states and the citizenship in africa the middle east and the larger third world so when he does the debate and wants to align with all people no matter what color they are that is the standing ovation. there is the impoverishment but also the civil rights workers in 1964 and how that murder despised the act so for doctor king i think the idea of the political economy and citizenship becomes very influenced by the social democracy and they start making arguments for the expansion of citizenships to guarantee the income levels beyond the new deal and that go beyond the great society. some people talk about the breaking point with lyndon johnson and lbj but one of the big impoverishment in the administration and how the idea of the political economy and capitalism he pushes back against that. the biggest policy for him isn't working in the campaigns we have to think about now the campaign is the first occupier. we think about occupy wall street it was an occupied nation's capital starting for mississippi and remember he's crying when he sees the children with no shoes and no blankets, he is in tears and crying saying the last few weeks of his life he just can't believe and abernathy and he's really moved by this and saying this has all got to end. we are being that way and other folks will be gender and sexuality and other pieces but he has his own version and so i think absolutely the political economies mattered now more than ever with the talk about medicare for all this is absolutely convergent with the notion of radical citizenship. they will achieve a level of prominent influence that he did while also arguing that something like this should take precedent and the idea that the imperatives for capital should determine how we make decisions to allocate and lots of fun things happen. >> the idea of citizenship is so expensive and connected to the black lives matter movement but also immigration in the state that he guarantees citizenship stop at the border and so when we think about folks in the middle east and africa or latin america, south america, haiti he's pushing for guaranteed citizenship starting with the domestic thinking really big immigrants should have a safety and security guarantee but especially when it's implicated in whether we think the political economy of satellite nations. that brings me to a feature of the malcolm x and martin luther king seen that has been criminally overlooked front and center in their internationali internationalism. it's how i see them converging if you could just bear with me. they both see their own moment as a hinge for the american empire. malcolm seems very concerned about the way in which they are intervening to disrupt and he is concerned about the way that might boomerang the remark about john f. kennedy and part are about this and people that act like it's just a racist quote about kennedy or something. it's a part of the whole view of the foreign policy to deal with the kind of dislocation the robotics revolution to deal with the transformation of the economy that we were undergoing we needed a massive investment in the welfare state and to do that would be a disaster. both of the views have been proven prophetic and you might think the international relations theory that studies american empire should be thought of as great thinkers of the global order and i'm just curious hear you say a little bit about that and how you want people to think about these figures after your book and in that space. >> they describe the global stage alongside winston churchill malcolm's understanding of the world affairs. they give him a worldview to study intently so he finds out about the conference and is on fire for the idea of the radical self-determination for the first time in 1959 spending several weeks there including the vice president of egypt and the university officials and islamic officials and he's going to make a connection with them before he goes overseas again and 64. he's a well-known figure through his contact. it really is factually true he upended castro and malcolm had met these different leaders and kept in contact with them. he's just interested in this idea of a third world internationalism and idea that it's going to have benefits domestically and globally and if we can help the african union the african union can help us. july to november 201st 1964 either way so he's going to be in tanzania and nigeria and cairo, saudi arabia. he is all over and what he does globally is try to make these. he's at the university, different african political chambers, he's in the middle east and wanting to be both in islamic leader and secular political leader. one thing we don't give him credit for, his motion isn't just going to the united nations and charging the un and the united states with violations of human rights for their treatment but also that it should be a civil rights movement in the huge intervention that again we are still dealing with this idea and malcolm takes it as a given and is and just trying to convince people but to gathe gaa coalition big enough to make the recognition something that infiltrates our public policy and political culture because that is the problem that we have here the policies are the political culture. when we think about king he goes in 1957 and sees they become prime minister wearing the same clothing he had been wearing when he was incarcerated. he spends a month in india and i argue in the book he denied the crucial turning point the criminalization as something to obliterate so that is his cause. we think of canaan and the international with the activism that is big but i think the governmental peace problem and going to oslo he was very impressed by the social democracy that he has witnessed firsthand. so i think the internationalism becomes not only in anti-imperialism but the only way truman can build a great society is if we stop the war with each other. it is a beautiful struggle is what he calls it. we talk about prophetic. malcolm's internationalism he's at oxford university and rebuilds in paris. he is also there a few years later. he's in birmingham and visiting all these different places to try to bring together and coalesce the idea not just of civil rights but human rights and the idea of black dignity and citizenship and king is doing the same thing but a different angle. they are both talking about human rights especially in the political thought. >> i want to make sure we have time for questions from the audience. i'm going to ask you one thing to respond to briefly you talk about obviously the most bitter thing in their lives is the suffering they had to endure to take on what they did. they were obviously popular and prominent but they were lonely. they had difficult marriages. they were surveilled by the government, betrayed by the allies and eventually both were murdered. i thought about the people witnessing it and what it means to witness a murder like that and the amount of fear that comes in even when you might have people outnumbered they power them enough and there's a level of fear about the consequences of acting that way and it's a fear in part through the iconography of the terrorism behind the assassination hasn't left us and i'm just curious as somebody that spend more time on these figures than anybody else alive how do you deal with the trauma of it and the message that was to be sent either as you go around sharing for the new generation it's not as tragic figures. the even though i agree with you they show what happened in that context and they are speaking truth to power. if they changed that what we understand when we dig deeper they are perceived as threats they don't lov live to see their 40th birthday. the political integrity and unapologetic love black people, so that is what i hold onto they both had a hard-won optimism that is a part of the legacy because they continue. sometimes they have dreams of people wanted malcolm to go overseas, stay in africa. king had dreams where he said i'm just going to go to a seminary school and just teach. my wife and my kids are in danger but they continue to press on very courageously and that is the biggest lesson is the personal sincerity and the political integrity they were unimpeachable politically and then unapologetic they walk the talk. they were not just behind the scenes in baltimore, mississippi, los angeles, and people don't like to take photo ops. young people that have missing teeth because they don't have healthcare then or now, this is who they and braced and that is the example. thank you so much for this. we have chris asking so many in the audience may not know bayard rustin but he's one of the figures between the two. the pacifist member had gone to prison with the conscientious objector in world war ii and a colleague in the people like so many, james farmer in 1956 as a reporter he flew martin luther king jr. on civil disobedience and now alongside when we think about the debating malcolm x throughout the early 60s and the future besides being the organizer of the march on washington and 63, he's one of the single most influential figures of the postwar period when we think about civil disobedience and ambition for a social democracy in the united states that would be interracial in multi generational another piece i love about the book you talk about the debate with all these different figures and how they come into it all worked up to end up like him so much they become his friend and they kind of can't help they spend a lot of time trying to bring him along in different ways malcolm is an intellectual am a lifelong student but also a charismatic person who has a sense of humor. he is one of the funniest people and has a sense of humor behind doors but we know because of how he was raised. malcolm has white folks and black folks and is coming from a different tradition so it's very interesting who malcolm x is beyond that image. >> i love the joke where the reporter comes to him and says you know, mr. malcolm x argue against integration and he says white people are against it. he says they shouldn't have to be escorted by the 103rd airborne for the military in little rock saying we are not citizens, 13, 14, 15th amendment should have decided this but now let's build up some parallel institutions because this is a decade in society that isn't allowing us in. another question you know, malcolm x tried to communicate several times on telegram. they invited him to things and wanted to meet up. why do you think he refused to respond? >> he had more to lose and i think that he understood the fact that when he needs caretta kings shortly before his death, he goes to selma and has just spoken at tuskegee i'm here to help him and i want those folks in the society to know unless they give king what he wants, there will be other forces they have to deal with. in that historical context he needs to be somebody that is perceived by the mainstream and somebody that can negotiate with kennedy and lyndon johnson so as a nobel prize winner and is and trying to lose that leverage by being the alternative to malcolm x. >> he does meet up with a lot of elijah mohammed. he is from all bets are off and part of the reason all bets are off is because the nation state becomes more of the presence following the high point of the voting rights act to talk about the depth and breadth of racism and there's no more meetings with lyndon johnson. all jackie kennedy, richard nixon, bobby kennedy, they all go to doctor king's funeral. by then, irretrievably the great society and the war on poverty we shall overcome speech, none of it is enough, none of it is enough not by a longshot an lone was right because we look at these high plains and the citizenship in the entire community collectively still has not been achieved. >> we have a few questions we want to try to lump together that are about the present what figures today, what movements are channeling in the moment where you've got to be concerned about the future and motion of racial equality and democracy itself. it is layered onto a time of vulnerability to the pandemic because of the material circumstances who was channeling these ideas and how can we, where is the right path to turn. very comfortable with doctor king you look at people like william j barber you think about the movement of black lives and black lives matter so it is very much an intersection of justice that shut down major parts of the united states after so many and this idea of race and class and gender sexuality and health capacity and identity. i would also say when people were marching for immigrant rights i would say they led the movement as well. in terms of where we go from here, great question. in this idea it's important as a tactic still in our time it hasn't been achieved and it doesn't mean that you are the downer at the party for telling the truth. your children can fly and sore we have to be truth tellers, we have to be bold truth tellers from the democratic dysfunction and then when we see the antigovernment militia there's many echoes of civil war and reconstruction happening right now in addition to the echoes in the massive resistance and the flag-waving the 1950s and 1960s all the way to the present. it is an example of these contemporary men and boys and girls along with our allies that are struggling to build that community we got it organized and i stated in the book that the power of nonviolence is absolutely great and tremendous and transformative and i think that's something that we have to admit. we look at the forces against equality and justice and sort of the public love and humanity it is and by saying another black man gets shot you feel you should arm yourself i don't think that is the way to go. it is what king did and understood you have to do as a statement if you're going to coalesce your own forces and powerbase to achieve that dignity and citizenship but you also have to be truthful about the dangers that we are being exposed to. the intricacies of the criminal justice system to what we think about in the environmental justice movement. it has the center of all of this because it is at the center of everything that you are talking about and terms of the front line and the meatpacking industry is race is at the center of everything. technology, the environment, everything from domestic violence, the criminal justice system, racism, we have to be honest and if we are, there's enough people out here that want to build and i go back to that when you lose the racial privilege it is going to be a loss. if you and the normative videos going to be a loss and if you and to the completely dominating policies that is going to be a loss. but imagine if the people of the law, very few, didn't have such exorbitant influence on the policies. so, everyone is going to have to lose some aspect of privilege or we can't hold back the beloved community. the example gives me that hope. >> that is a powerful note to end on and one that i think brings it home to each of us. that's part of the wreckage we are still working through in the wake of their assassination. what are we willing to lose now and how do we reckon with this particular you are giving us a bright path through the losses and they are manipulated by a policy that wasn't really ready to reckon with what they said and you are helping us get there so i want to thank you. i hope that you know the breadth and depth of this. not a lot of people can do this, so there is that little green button right below on the screen. please you will not be disappointed. the hardcopy audio version we want to support corner square book. curbside pickup is available and thank you so much thank you all of you for coming. it's been amazing. i think we all could continue to listen to you talk but the good news is there is a whole book on this very topic so i encourage you all, brendan and i were saying how this is a book that will stand the test of time and a bunch of you were saying in the comments how it speaks to this moment, and i think both of those things are true. a book that is both endearing and important right now it's really kind of remarkable and the sweet spot. thank you for being here and being a terrific moderator and thank you all for joining us this evening. i hope we can continue to come together as a community and listen and learn from each other. with that i will say thank you all again and good night. thanks for joining us. >> corner square books. 61 million americans have some form of disability. yet w

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