Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20240622

To 60. And you are going from the youngest mayor in america at the time of a big city to almost political pariah in his own town. And that to me is the lone liness that i felt watching you do those scenes. Lesley odom, jr. , david sigh son sigh upon and oscar isaac when we continue. Funding for charlyear rose is provided by americ rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. We going to rise up we going to rise up rise up time to take a shot rise up rise up take to tame a shot rise up take a shot take a shot take a shot not throwing away my stuff not throwing away my stuff. Rose less yee odom, jr. Is lessie odom, jr. Is here, an actor, a singer, currently part of the most popular talked about show on broadway hamilton. He stars as aaron burr, hamiltons friend and nemesis who famously kills him in a dual. The show premiered on broadway last week after a critically acclaimed run at the public theater. Ben brantly writes in the New York Times that the broadway production makes us feel the un unstoppable urgeant rhythm of a facial being born. I am pleased to have lessie odom, jr. At this table for the leslie odom, jr. At the table for the first time. So happy to be at this table. Thank you. Thank you very much. What brought you to hamilton . I was invited into hamilton. Sometimes you find that the best jobs you get in this career, in this business, you didnt audition for, you have in idea how you got there. So i just asked tomie last week, because i have this superstition, sometimes if i get a straight offer, i dont want to kind of ask how it came about. Rose tmyear, the director. Yeah. I dont want to ask how it came about because im afraid that they might realize, you know, why did we ask this guy in the room. So i got invited about two years ago to do a reading of the show. And i had seen if at vasser. I had seen them do about a half an hour of the show at music stands, maybe 45 minutes. And was blown away. So when i was invited to do the reading, i prepared like ive never prepared before. I mean i came in, i knew all my music. You know, because i knew what they were working on. Rose you know it had powerful potential. I mean yeah, i knew how it affected me. You know, and you know, lyn is only ayearolder than i am, so this is our music. I recognized the rhythms and the sin could passion and the the syncopation and the pulse of the piece, i recognized that. Its been in my ear since i was born. Rose people wondered when hiphop would come to broadway because rock had right, yeah. Way. And lyn was so influential with that too, in the heights, you know, happening and being such a watershed moment for hiphop musk and for also for latin american actors. I remember listening to in the heights, i listened to it before i saw it. And there was something about, i have chills thinking about it i told him and lak as one of my first rehearsals, there was something about, from the first moment of that album, i mean the need to communicate is something that has always moved me greatly. I remember i saw a joe when i was a teenager called def poetry jam. The way those people came out and just, they needed you to get it. You know, they put something, theres blood in blood in the pen. They put something down on paper. There is an urgency and a fire in their belly for you to get it. It came full circle when i was listening to a rehearsal of us and hamilton, listening back, just learning my part. I said we sound like that. We shall did i can hear that need in what were doing. Rose i read someone said this about you or you said this. That almost everything you had done had prepared you to play aaron burr. Yeah. Rose rent yeah. Rose all the movie roles. Yeah. I think about rent a lot on stage. I think about, you know, because if you live long enough youre lucky, sometimes your heroes can become your friends too, Daphne Ruben Vega was at opening night. She had become a dear friend, texting with her. I think about them a lot because they were at the centre of a tornado that is similar to ours. And they still managed to stay present, seemingly present, and vulnerable and available. You know, what i meant by everything has prepared me, its not just the work. Its also life, right. Its also the disappointments that ive had. Its also the fighting through depression, you know, the points when youre not working in the business and you cant figure out why. And all the things that you go through that fashion you into the person you need to be to stand in the center of a tornado like this and still do your job and still stay sane. And still, you know, stay available to your friends and your family. So it feels like the moment couldnt have happened at another moment. You know, this moment. Rose this was the right moment. This was supposed to happen for me. For you. Rose and when you sing in a room where it happened, it is a magical moment. And its been enlarged. Yeah. Because its so powerful. Rose because you want to be in a room where it happens. I mean, you know, ive done enough shows now to realize that at that point in the show, the way that number happens for me, it has the performance is only a part of that audience response. What i mean by that is how el binkley had to like that within a inch of his life, the sets, had to work with it, tomie and andy had to direct the people around me, that is really their love for you. That is really i can feel howells affection for me when a light comes on at a certain moment so that the audience can see whatever im feeling, right. You know, lyn, trusting me with his lifes work. Lyn trusting me with some of the greatest music that may have ever been written for the theater, you know, i can feel all of the love and support surrounding me to give me a moment like that i want to be in the room where it happened snot the room where it happens i want to be in the room where it happens the room where it happens i want to be in the room where it happens i i want to be in the room oh i want to be in the room where it happens the room where it happens i want to be in i have got to be, ive got to be in the room, that big old room close your nose and close your eyes. Rose i hear all that you, all of the need, all the desire, all the energy, all the preparation, to do justice to the text that you were given. How much of it was important to know aaron burr . Very. Rose because you not only play a character, you play the narrator. Yeah. Rose you are there at every moment hamilton has larger roles but burr is also the continuity. Yeah. One of my favorite gifts that people, that people give sometimes, fans will bring us books that theyll find on articles, theyll find on ebay. I will say their name steve and ronda hawthorne have given me more than anybody. They come by with these articles that they order and these books that they order. And those have helped me a lot because i would not call myself a historian by any means. Lyn at this point is. Lyn has read enough about all of the different people and the events surrounding it that he has been able to come up with his own opinion on the events, right. Because i think thats what makes it historian. You read ron chernows book and that is the only opinion you have, if you havent read anything else. I have read enough on burr now to come up with my own theories. Rose because there are different opinions of aaron burr. Yeah. Rose some good, some bad. And then i also, at the end of the day, the text and the show is my bible, right. I you have to play what lyn wrote and lyn has but you have to pour into what he has written what you know and what you have experienced and what you feel. And what i believe, you know, as far as what my job is as a performer, you know, thats another one of those things that this has intersected. Its come at the right point, that imed where to there is a certain amount of vulnerability that this show requires of me that i was not ready to embrace at any other moment in my life. Theres a certain amount of honesty that if im doing my job right, i bring to the stage every night. And that is, you know, that comes with time. Rose tell me who aaron burr was. I think quite simply, aaron burr was a soldier. He was a father, a husband, a lover, a friend, a murderer. A politician. You know, i think he was all of those things. I think like, like all of us, you know, i mean when people say, you know, whos the person you want to have dinner with, living or daed, besides charlie rose, i would say, you know, aaron burr, i want to ask i would like to be there. The room where it happens. You have him at the table just to ask, especially our show with him looking back. So our show is after all of that stuff has happened. What do you what have you learned. Rose because he had an interesting life after killing hamilton. It ruined his life. Rose i know t ruined his life, first of all, it ruined his political life. Yes. Rose but he had been vice president. Yup. And then he fled the east coast. Yup. He lost, was indicted for treason. Yup. His daughter, he only had one child, thodosia who he loved very much. She died, after the death of his only grand child. His grandson died. And he invited theodosia to come with him. She was in mourning. She invited her, get on a ship, come stay with me for a while and she died on the ship. So he died completely alone, you know. He did have friends, though. You know, cuz he didnt have much money. There were people that supported him because of what he had shown of himself, the man he had shown himself to be throughout his life to his friends. You know, he had friends in the war, you know, people saw acts of, you know, heroics that, you know, endeared them to him all the days of his life. Rose moments of herorism. Yeah, yeah. Rose hes intertwined with hamilton. We see that in the play, theyre connected. Yeah. Rose what was the relationship . They came up together. And they ran in the same circles together. They tried cases as lawyers together. They fought in the war together. And so i think of them as friends. I think of them as if you would have told them when they were 19 years old, if you would have shown them a picture, this is going to be you in your early 40s. You are going to do this to this guy, they never would have believed it. Rose well, how does that happen. How did it come to be that a friend killed a friend. It was after. Rose ambition . I think burr had lost his wife, you know, that was a great center piece in his life that was mooring in his life. Burr, i think his great downfall in politics was that all he kind of really cared about at the end of the day was his family. He didnt really care some of about the greater good the way hamilton did. It was a personal loyalty that he had to the people that he cared about. And hamilton thought bigger. Hamilton was thinking about other people at the sacrifice. Rose and thinking about the country in a big way. As a sacrifice of his family and personal life. Burr would never do that. Never going to sacrifice his family like that. So i think burr lost the thing that was most that centered him, which was his family. And hamilton lost the thing that centered him which was his political life. George was no longer in office. And hamilton. Rose george washington. Yeah. An hamilton had been made a fool of by the scandal. Rose of which he admitted to in a stunning moment. Yeah. Rose he writes about his own scandal. Yeah. He thought, i will he thought you know, he had this sex scandal. And he thought theyre going to talk about it. I am going to get there first. And so he blows up his life. He blows up his personal life and his political life. It didnt work out the way he thought it was going to work out. Rose did you know lyn before . I did casually. You know people in this business, through parties and stuff like that. It took me about, i will say, the public was reallyroom good. Rose when are you the blic, the two of you had you didnt get to know him every night. Hamilton and burr shared a dressing room. But it was really good because it took me awhile to even talk to the guy, you know, that intellect is so intimidating you know, and its nothing that he does. Hes the nicest guy you will ever meet. Rose a powerful. Yeah, coy barely, you know, hes in the show, starring opposite me and he wrote the show. And so it was a lot. Rose he wrote the book. Oh pie god. Rose he wrote the lyrics. How do you form words, you know, how do you form a sentence with that guy. But we got past it. Rose what we have here, this play hamilton this musical, people are talking about it as changing the american musical theater, as a a significant evolution in the american musical theater. I mean this is seen more than simply a successful musical. Its being given the heavyweight of cultural moment. You know thats true. All you have to do is read the reviews. And they talk about it. I think that its you know, im a spiritual guy too. You know, this work is, you know, its emotional, its physical, there is a spirit all component. And i just, cuz ive seen it from the inside, carlie, and i tell you, there is a great deal of it that those guys andy, lak, tomorrowie, lyn have tomie, lyn, have planned within an inch of its life. I mean those guys are meticulous and, you know, were so happy we opened because it forced them to put their pencils down. I mean they will keep perfecting it until somebody forces them. But theres also there is the part that they had nothing to do with. There is something else. Rose what is that . Its what its whatever happens, its the space in between you and i. Its whatever happens between me saying it on stage and how it affects you, and what it does to you. Thats the part that none of us have any control over. None. You couldnt pay jimmy fallon to go see our show and talk about our show the way he did the next night. You cant pay for that. That is something that we have no control of. Rose but everybody, almost i know does that. I have not everybody that i know who has seen it that ive taujed to after theyve seen it, struggles to find words to give expression to how they felt about it the presence in this play, this musical, this event. Yeah. All of that. Rose and its pride, you know, there is a bit of it, also, i think its pride that the actors assembled and their own diverse backgrounds, and men and women of color. Yeah. Rose and young. It gives some sense of what many people hope america will always be. I mean i think its some of the same aspiration people had in 2008 about the candidacy of barack obama. It said something good about the country, about a young black man with great intellect. Could be elected president. It made people feel good about the country, this country, it made them feel good with respect to their friends all around the world. Thats why i think the election in 2008 was so so moving for so many people. And it is also the also the way this play makes people feel about the country again. And it comes out of the words of alex ander hamilton. They were hung and hungry and scrappy like this nation we want to shape, right . Yeah. I think a lot of it, yeah, number one, i will say to your point about 2008, you know, that was really the first time that politics seemed to take an interest and really engaging my generation. I mean they really got us involved. We felt like we were necessary and we were vital to help make that change happen. And i think if we have anything in common with that, i hope its that. I hope that the audience comes and feels like their presence is vital and that we certainly feel that on stage. We certainly feel like every single one of us is there for a reason, for a unique special purpose. We all come from such diverse. I mean you cant forget slavery and all kinds of and we see them still happening, you know, powerful acts of conflict. We still see it. But at the same time there is about this play, and references, and references. But there are two things for me. One t is hiphop, too. It is that on stage there, you know, and all of a sudden, even though hiphop had arrived and arrived and arrived, but it was your music. And you feel that too. And you feel like hiphop adds to the expression of this play. Oh yeah. As do the youth and the color and the diversity of the actors who bring a unique kind of passion to a great historical event. Yeah. And i mean, you know, i kind of think of my major as empathy, you know, empathy is, that is what i majored in at carnegie melon. So this is the this is in its purest form, thats what we are doing. We are stepping inside these peoples shoes. And were learning about ourselves by talking about them. Right. And so that is, i think, one of the most powerful elixirs for healing in the land. I honestly think that. I think if we could find a way in ferguson, i think if we could find a way in these places to cuz the pain is real. It is deep, and it is historic. I mean this pain goes back, on both sides. But i think that in addition to in addition to policy, in addition to community watch, in addition to cell phones, right, cuz we have to be able to see the truth of whats happening, but what is going to really bring healing is empathy, i think. We have to be able to sit down and talk to each other and find out where you are coming from and find out where i am coming from. Thats what lyn has done with aaron burr. Lyn got inside this mans head and his heart and he found out what made him tick. What made him tick is a love for his wife and his baby girl. A love for theodosia. If you cant understand that, that is the simplist thing in the world. In that case, you can take a villain and turn him into a human beings which is what he was, right. Rose also in the same way that Brian Cranston on broadway with lyndon johnson, another time, passing its Voting Rights bill at that time. Yeah. Rose i mean here were seeing, and its all about the hardness and giveandtake of transactional politics. We see the same thing with the founding fathers. It is transactional politics. Yeah. Rose who voted in some ways to a greater good, as the Voting Rights bill was for the greater good. Its kind of the only way to get things done. I mean you know, if you are sitting down at a table and you are not thinking about the needs of this machine across from you, if you are sitting down at the table and only thinking about yourself, i dont know how successful you are going to be. Rose what was it that intrigued you about, beyond the tax, about aaron burr. Was it the love of family . I mean did, did lyn give you that . I mean was that sort of so there in the text and so there in conversation that you might have had with him about the burr that he wrote that you hung your part of your performance on that . That was my way . And i think a lot of that did come from our text. You know,me, my view on aaron burr was a lot like other people, you know, i just knew that he killed Alexander Hamilton and he was the vice president. Nobody teaches about his daughters or wife. Rose what happened to him after that. Nobody teaches that, really. So so yes, my way in initially was through the music. Through, you know, song like wait for t song like dear theodois arcment when i got in rumor has it was not written yet,. Rose was it fun to wrap your voice around that. Oh my god, yes, it is every night. And its so dense, the stuff is so dense that it will im contracted for a year. It will give me plenty to play with. Rose but are each, in this play, are there moments that you look forward to that even though you did it last fight and last night and last night, and you are going to do it tonight, do you still look forward to it . Do you look forward to getting up and ready, its a bit like an athlete, that you know, you know, that a big play is coming up. Yeah. Rose youre coming to bat with runners on base. I do have those moments. Rose an when are they . Rose i mean clearly wanting to be in the room is one of them. That spreadee good. Thats really not fun until its over. If i think about it, you know, i have to start all over. I have to laid el that soup out again from every single night. So he doesnt know that a musical number is coming. You know, the weight of that, the weight of that song works best is if i have no idea the changes thats going to happen. Lyn gave me a great note it wasnt working in previews that great. You know t wasnt working like i wanted it to work and we were trying to figure this out watch. Do we need to do. And lyn gave me a note that unlocked it. And he talked about the physical change that needs to happen once he makes the decision to run, once he makes the decision to go after something for the first time. Because i had been kind of bouncing around the whole number. And hes like, dont. You know, if you i feel like maybe if you simplify that physical movement when we see that change, its going to have a greater impact and it did. But to answer your question, at the top of the show, i have a place, i wont say where but i have a place where i watch the audience before we start. I watch them for a good two minutes. And i just get to know them because i dont want to come out. I need them, they are my other scene partier partner so, i need to know them. Are they hired. Rose are you playing to them during the performance . All the time, all the time. Hes the narrator. Rose do you get it . Oh, yes its that need to communicated. I mean and i get i feed on that response and i, you know, i need them with me, so i watch them. That is one of my favorite parts. And then we have these onramps, tommy calls them onramps in the show where sometimes you have an audience that is sitting a little back at the top of the show. Rose you can feel it. You can feel it. When theyre not quite with you. Theyre not quite feeling it like last nights audience. And so i look forward to moments like when gold berry sings satisfied. I look forward to moments like righthand man or the finale of act one, where there are these moments if they are sitting back, you can feel them start to lean forward, you know what i mean. Rose oh yeah. You can see that in them and you can see that even if are you doing something much simpler which is having a conversation before an audience, you can almost feel them breathing as the conversation becomes deeper and more engaged and more involved. And it almost your own rhythm of talking seems to be in touch with their rhythm of breathing. And you know even before you hit the sort of, what might be a funny line, and this is sort of just not scripted, they will laugh almost before. Yup. Rose because they know and they feel it even before they hear it. Sometimes that is. Rose so in their heart and head before you get to the line. Sometimes when it happens the applause will start even before were finished. Thats funny i cant resist. Its so great. Rose you cant resist. Yeah. So you think this will change you . It really has. And i can only imagine a year after this show. And you know, i hope that i get to leave and do other things and maybe come back as life, as i when i have a kid. I dont have any children. What that will mean. But yeah, you know, as people important to me, age, as i, our show deals with liefer and death so much in a really healing and honest way, as that happens is, you know, to have this thing, to have art to work through that stuff is a real gift, that lyn is not only giving to the world but to us from inside it. I mean it moves me just as much as it moves you. Rose i think what is really great about this and i think for people and us without didnt know hiphop, and there was a line in which i think lyn may have said this, that the life of hamilton imbided hiphop. It was verbal, excessively verbal. It was orphan, and it was immigrants, hamilton was all that. Hiphop is all that. He found that connective tissue. He found the thing. I mean any show that connects with charlie rose and barack obama and joe biden,. Rose jimmy fallon. Jimmy fallon in the same way that it connects with busta rhyme and common and Black Thought and you know, youre on to something. He found that connective tissue. He found the places where we are alive like. He is mind and found all of the places where you are like me muched things that you care about are the things that i care about. Rose the connection that binds us too. That is what people are responding to. I havent found i havent found a demographic yet that doesnt like this show. Its 80yearold people. Its 8yearold people. Its women, its men. Rose thank you. Thank you. Rose back in a moment, stay with us. The city of yonkers received National Attention in the legal battle for housing desegregation three decades ago. The landmark Suit United States versus city of yonkers took 27 years to resolve. Nick wasisco was the mayor at the fight. It pitted the judiciary, city leaders and yonkers residents against each other. The mayor is played by oscar isaac in a new hbo miniseries show mere a hero it is the leytest project for david simon, the creator of the wire and generation kill. Here is the trailer for show me a heror. Dont tell anybody but i always wanted to be the man. I used to talk about all the time growing up. Other kids used to call me the man. Really. It wasnt a compliment. The city intentionally segregated its housing for 40 years. The whole damn city governments white. The judge wants to take lowincome housing and put it here in east yonkers. People i live here, and im nothing like what they describe. What are you going to do . Its that guy from yonkers again asking if he can get any help from the state of new york. These people. You wanted to live somewhere better but everything has a cost. Its time you recognize your failure as a leader. Are you going to live where people are angry at you . You know its all Property Values and life and liberty. Underneath it all is fear. I play mood that fear too. Reasons. Quite a year for you, mr. Mayor. Justice is to the about popularity. No, its not. But politics is. Rose you have done it again. Im pleased to have david sigh upon and oscar isaac back at this table. Welcome. Thanks for having us. Rose so who is the mayor. For our purposes, it was nick wosisco, it was a tumultuous six years. And in his career. And its what drives the piece. I mean i think if we dont get him right, and if we dont get his arc correct, then we have an amorphous explanation of Public Housing policy over six hours that, you know, i would be terrified of what doesnt this piece doesnt work without it being nick wosisc owe story. So we had to get the right actor. Rose did you . I believe we did. You know as amazing as the writing was when i saw it, it is quite dense. And its also, i was not used to reading something, although its not long form but its longer form than definitely what i have been used to. Which is feature films. So even how to read it, i was a little bit i was new to it. And you know, i met with david and paul and paul said to me, really, really smart thing for a direct tore say to me. Paul hagis the director. He said, i dont know if you remember, i want to you do this oscar because i have no idea how you would do this. And i said okay that appeals to my sense of challenge. And then i saw a video of the actual nick wosisco. A and it wasnt until i saw that that i said i want to do this. It broke my heart. Rose really . Yeah. Just to see his the way he would move, the way he would talk, the register of his voice, it always sounded like he was appealing to somebody that wasnt listening. And that his voice was always about to crack. You know, and it felt like someone that someone was a bit lost but trying to hard to hold on to this. Rose tell me the story so we have a sense of what this is i love it is a qouotidian politician, a back bench politician who was put be. Rose young. Young, very young, first time councilman and put up to run for mayor, a sacrificial lamb. He is supposed to lose. To an incumbent who is pretty entrenched. And he wins and he wins on the basis of his opposition to giving up an appeal of this federal decision that was going to integrate yonkers, or do some modest work at integrating yonkers. And in the loss, or in the victory, is the seeds of a lot of trauma. Because he is not even inaugurated yet when the lawyers call and say the appeal is not theres no track to the appeal. Were to the going to win in court. Youre going to have to build this lowincome housing in these white areas of yonkers. And so he now has to carry that back to the voters who have elected him on the premise that he had the fight had legs and it has no legs. And he has to tell the truth. And he has to lead. And so youre going from almost 0 to 60 even before hes inaugurateed in terms of the town becoming angry. And not willing to accept what he has to tell them. And you are going from the youngest mayor in america at the time of a big city to almost political pariah in his own town. And that to me is, the loneliness that i felt watching you do those scenesing particularly at the height of it in fact, i remember you told me, there was that one vote where he stood alone, it was one one to six, everybody on the council was against him. And you said, that we had we had sqipd over that but you actually said that is put that one back in. Im glad we did. That was an incredible moment. Rose take a look at this video. Here it is. We elected to appeal the Affordable Housing portion of the judges order to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has refused repeal all of it, you coward. Mayor wosisco. Majority leader color. No. Minority leader longo. No. Council member fagan. No. Council member kima. No. Council member ardsman. Abstain. I have the mission failed. I mean they knew what was happening. They knew that it was unsustainable. The city was going to be thrown into bankruptcy. But they didnt care. The limits of pop you louse, in some very fundamental way, peoples Constitutional Rights are not about populist sentiment. Its not what the majority wants, its what is legal under the constitution. And this was about hypersegregation, the use of federal money to. Rose for an all white. For an allwhite world. And ultimately it was a decision that was not only from one judge, it was upheld by an Appeals Panel that had two reagan appointees on it. There was no room for maneuver. And yet all about him, there were politicians who were trying to maneuver and use the rhetoric. Rose and what convinced you that this was the story of all the possible stories, this was the one for you to tell . I any when i read the book, somebody i had worked with on the show, homicide had showed me the book and i read it. And i thought this is what ails, this is the rhetoric this is the intransigence, this is the lack of a political center, the notion that we share a society, that i think ails us. I think thats what is sort of empty at the core of the American Experience right now. Is the idea that were all you know, yes there is going to be poor, there is going to be rich. Im not asking for chralsless society. We are who we are. And the market argues for what it argues. But if everybody doesnt feel like they share at least some sense of the same america, then were all in some way responsible for the collective whole, this is going to be a course and broodish place. Rose how do we get there, is the question . Well, i mean, i cant be completely preskriptedive right now. Rose its not easy. I think right now the Yonkers City Council sill an approximation of our congress right now, which is to say you have got to get the money out of politics. Right now the only two things we seem to be running on is currency, fear and money. And you want to see stupid public policy. Rose fears about war. Or Property Values or the unspecified other that might move into my neighborhood. Or sharing any sense of the National Wealth with anybody who doesnt have enough, you know, right down to arguments over the minimum wage or health care. I look at this. I say my god, you know, this is were reaching a point of were content with the idea of two separate americas traveling different paths. And right now i dont think anything gets figured until we gets the money out of politics. Showing the other side. So you know, were watching a lot of white people talk about where the other is going to live. And the fact that the show, actually starts to show new other and how not so other it is. It follows four incredibly brave women who are prospective tenants that are trying to get a better life. Theyre trying to get out of the Public Housing there. And you see the impacts. And it is actually, it is unnerving to see people talking about these people in the abstracts. And then to go to their personal stories and see what it actually costs. There is a great pivot somewhere around four and five because in the beginning, the government of yonkers, all white, is arguing this, as you say, in the abstract. And the people that you are seeing, they dont really have if i agency in the story until they do. Until the houses get built. And then there is this pivot in the end, in the last two episodes where they start to exert on behalf of themselves. And i think its incredibly valuable twist in the story. Rose was this an easy decision for you . Yeah, it was very easy. Like i said, you fall in love with something. And sometimes you cant explain why. I couldnt stop thinking about why he did what he did. It is a sixier period of this guys life. And its soapic in nature it goes from his dreams all coming true and in be instant it shifts. And its someone without does not, has zero separation between the political and the personal. It is fused completely. And so to see when that starts to fall apart, how he responds to that and how he tries to make his way back in and just cant, you know, it is shakespeareian in its grandeur. Show me a hero and i will show you a tragedy. Thats the quote. F scotts fitzgerald. And in some respects is a more interesting to me because iss not a procedure, he comes in without regard for the raitions dynamic. And he grows. And you know, im really interested in ode people and how they land in politics. Im not interesting in the sord of grandiose here. And counterpoint to the nick wosisco story, there is a woman portrayed by kathryn keener, mary doormonday who started as a complete adversary to the housing. And she had to go on a journey as well. It is soft almost a reverse echo. Rose take a look at this. This is the mayor talking to her. Mayors office. My name is mary doormanned, i will like to talk to the mayor. This is the mayor. Hello . This is mayor wosisco. This is i didnt i didnt expect for you to answer. I called, i wanted to tell you that i i think its wrong of you to support the housing. Yeah, well, the law is the law. And the judge ordered it. And the court upheld it. And the law is the law. Well, why cant you say that you think its wrong. At least let the people know that. Because thats not what a leader is supposed to do. A leader is supposed to lead. And thats what i am trying to do. Rose so what makes nick. Well, i think often you are pushed into that place. And he believes that that is the orbiter of how you lead, the law. And we can appeal, but if you lose the appeal, thats it i think he feels that if there is a way to just communicate that, if people could understand that, then they will follow, theyll do that. In some ways, a leader in his mind, i dont think, even says his opinion about stion. Its just, this is where we need to go. And just how do i get everyone to go to the place that we need to go. But i think he was a bit naive as well. Because he didnt expect, he didnt expect even with doing that, even with doing the right thing, even with getting the housing built, that he would be chewed up and spit out. Rose what is interesting for me in hearing that, is i find that many people, without do something that takes courage and is a bit heroic, whatever level of heroism and courage, they do it simply because it seems like the right thing to do at the moment. Not because they want to be heroic. They just team seems like the right thing to do. Whether its risking your life to pull your buddy back out of harm away, whatever it is. Right, there was this moment when the lawyers call came in. Cohave gone either way. Cohave embraced the false populism of the crowd. Or cohave false well, i mean, it was it seemed to gratify the crowd to say you were going to fight to the death. But you know, if the death of the city is right around the corner, its not much of a fight. But there were certainly political leaders who were going to do that and benefit. He was only mayor for two years. A two year term. I will keep saying ra ra ra and get out there of. And ultimately he did the right thing at the moment that yonkers needed somebody to do the right thing. And finally, you know, he got the votes, managed to wrangle the votes to apparently push the housing plan through at great personal cost. I think its fair to say he probe rae believed. Oscar probably has a better sense of this than i do. He probably believed that there was a corner he would turn, that eventually it would come around and he would be seen o would got the benefits of being the grownup. I will be the grownup and at some point i will be recognized as the grownup. Thats right. And in fact he dreamed of being a u. S. Senator. Yeah. As i think every politician. Every mayor looks in the mirror and sees a president , every congress a future senator, thats the way it is. Absolutely but so what happened to him . You want i dont want to ruin your story here. I think we want to be a little bit his political career certainly ran into the shoals and never came out. And his personal he paid the ultimate cost. Rose everything everything, everything is right up he went from being the youngest mayor in america to im a washed up nobody. I have no youth. Those houses are still there in east yonkers, they are still viable. They didnt turn into, you know, ghettos. They were integrated into the community. Theyre still used for Public Housing. Rose the deseg regration desegregation of them have a larger impact. They didnt in a national sense. This is one of the first pace where scattered site housing rather than building massive. Rose became a wiser way because it he greeted better neighborhoods. Public housing grew and began the process in yonkers. Rose is that right . Yeah. Rose architects sort of understood urbanization. Oscar newman was one of the consultants on it. And his theories about scattered site and Defensible Space have become predominant. So this was, you know, there has been a Quiet Revolution in terms of Public Housing where its become a much more functional way of providing a life boat to the people who have the least, families that have the least. Mary who was narrowed to nick, she was vital too the entire thing. Rose she gave what. So much. I mean she just, she was an open book. I remember i had a meeting with her where i just spoke to her for a few hours. And in those few hours, we we cried together. We talked so much about everything. She showed me photographs. And she let me in on what was happening in the middle of all this. It was wild, something that very few people ever have to deal with at that level. Rose she was young. She was very young. One thing i tried to do was create a bit of a sacred space for me. And to make it more than just about yourself. And that is definitely a way of doing that. You are honoring the person that this is based on. Its not him, its him filtered through lisa who wrote the book and david and bill and paul and then ryu through me. But its still its accusing him of inspiration by honoring that but also by not white washing it either. Rose he was here at the table. Working with him on a project. Rose did the two of you, there is some, i mean it would be a great conversation to talk about baltimore with the two of you. My impression is that. You are a little bit more optimistic than he is. I think he earned his pesnism. Rose well said. He grew up in a different baltimore. When i walk down the street in baltimore in any neighborhood, i dont have the eyes on the back of my neck the way he does. From that police department. Rose and the way he tells it. He has earned his pessimism. And yeah, i think over the long haul, we are this argument that were having right now about race in america, that got racheted up at ferguson and baltimore and things, is the right argument toing having. Its a good argument. Im hoping, im hoping some progress comes out of it. That the argument keeps going. And genders can change. And im exhilarateed by the possibility. Already people are talking against its drug war, against mass insears raise, over placing. Rose including the president. Yeah, these things werent on the agenda five years ago. So yeah, and therein lies some optimism for me. But i read the book and i think hes entity willed to stand where he stands. Rose did you read the reparations article. Yeah, and by the way, that dovetails into show me hero. Because the premice premise behind this lawsuit, the successful lawsuit that happened in yonkers and has been undertaken as a template in other cities was look, this was the plan. You guys segregated your society with fha red lining, with where you spent your federal housing money or didnt. With consolidating your poor into very small pieces of your urban areas. This is what you wanted. This is the america that you wanted. And were not allowed to have, because of brown v board of education, separate but equal, was never on the table after brown. And yet you guys pursued this as municipal policy and federal policy. And that is the case that michael proved in yonkers. And thats why the housing had to be scattered throughout the entire city. And that logic of what he presented was in the dna of this story. Rose we continue this. Take a look at this. This is michael susman, roll tape. This is a victory for the n. A. A. C. P. An honest to god legal precedent. How many other cities just piled in the black neighborhood and used federal money to segregate. It is a difference of a movement. Ten years ago, back then i would have seen this case as the answer to a problem, most of which would have, but even at this game a long time, mike. Longer than you. And a lot of us are at the poirpt where they dont want to live with us. And why should we want to live with them. What are you are you serious . Is. I dont know. Maybe i have grown old in this fight. Maybe the fight has grown old to me. But watching how this has played out over the last seven years, i am much how much were going through for a few hundred scattered units of housing, the director of the n. A. A. C. P. Is arguing against integration, who would have thought it. Im not arguing against anything, mike. Im just tired. Rose do you think you can change america through i done know. It is not even in my job description, storytelling. Get the story right. Do what you can with the story. Try not to cheat the story. Whatever happens after that is a purview of other people. I felt that way as a reporter. I feel that way doing this. Its great to be part of the argument. We get a lot of chances to entertain people. And theres nothing wrong with being entertaining and. Rose thinking larger. That is a bigger part of our industry but every now and then you get to be part of an argument and that feels good. Rose thank you, david. Os car. Thanks. Rose thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org this is nightly Business Report with Tyler Mathisen and sue herera. Stocks stage a comeback. Is it all part of a bigger correction many have been calling for . Change in taste. If shoppers arent spending as much at macys, what are they buying . Cuba. The one thing standing in the way of google getting the island nation online. All that and more tonight on nightly Business Report for wednesday, august 12th. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us. It could have been worse, a lot worse. After the dow dropped close to 300 points this morning on concerns of chinas economic situation, the selling abruptly stopped. The buying kicked in and the major indexes staged a major reversal. By the closing bell,