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 charl-year 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, hamilton's 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 didn't 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 don't want to kind of ask how it came about. >> rose: tm-year, the director. >> yeah. >> i don't want to ask how it came about because i'm 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 i've 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 a-year-older 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. it's been in my ear since i was born. >> rose: people wondered when hip-hop 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 hip-hop 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, there's 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 we're 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 you're 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, it's not just the work. it's also life, right. it's also the disappointments that i've had. it's also the fighting through depression, you know, the points when you're not working in the business and you can't 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 couldn't 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 it's been enlarged. >> yeah. because it's so powerful. >> rose: because you want to be in a room where it happens. >> i mean, you know, i've 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 howell's affection for me when a light comes on at a certain moment so that the audience can see whatever i'm feeling, right. you know, lyn, trusting me with his life's 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, i've 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 they'll find on articles, they'll 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 that's what makes it historian. you read ron chernow's book and that is the only opinion you have, if you haven't 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, that's another one of those things that this has intersected. it's come at the right point, that i'med 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. there's a certain amount of honesty that if i'm 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, who's 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 didn't 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: he's intertwined with hamilton. we see that in the play, they're 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 didn't 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 they're 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 didn't 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 didn't 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 it's nothing that he does. he's the nicest guy you will ever meet. >> rose: a powerful. >> yeah, coy barely, you know, he's 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. it's being given the heavyweight of cultural moment. >> you know that's true. all you have to do is read the reviews. and they talk about it. >> i think that it's-- you know, i'm a spiritual guy too. you know, this work is, you know, its emotional, it's physical, there is a spirit all component. and i just, cuz i've 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, we're 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 there's also-- there is the part that they had nothing to do with. there is something else-- . >> rose: what is that? >> it's what-- it's whatever happens, it's the space in between you and i. it's whatever happens between me saying it on stage and how it affects you, and what it does to you. that's the part that none of us have any control over. none. you couldn't pay jimmy fallon to go see our show and talk about our show the way he did the next night. you can't 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 i've taujed to after they've 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 it's pride, you know, there is a bit of it, also, i think it's 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 it's 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. that's 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 it's 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 can't 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 hip-hop, too. it is that on stage there, you know, and all of a sudden, even though hip-hop had arrived and arrived and arrived, but it was your music. and you feel that too. and you feel like hip-hop 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, that's what we are doing. we are stepping inside these people's shoes. and we're 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 what's 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. that's what lyn has done with aaron burr. lyn got inside this man's 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 can't 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 we're seeing, and it's all about the hardness and give-and-take 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. >> it's 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 don't 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 it's so dense, the stuff is so dense that it will-- i'm 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, it's a bit like an athlete, that you know, you know, that a big play is coming up. >> yeah. >> rose: you're 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. that's really not fun until it's 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 doesn't 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 that's going to happen. lyn gave me a great note it wasn't working in previews that great. you know t wasn't 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 he's like, don't. you know, if you-- i feel like maybe if you simplify that physical movement when we see that change, it's 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 won't 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 don't 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. he's the narrator. >> rose: do you get it? >> oh, yes! it's 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 they're not quite with you. they're not quite feeling it like last night's audience. and so i look forward to moments like when gold berry sings satisfied. i look forward to moments like right-hand 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 we're finished. that's funny-- i can't resist. >> it's so great. >> rose: you can't 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 don't 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 didn't know hip-hop, and there was a line in which i think lyn may have said this, that the life of hamilton imbided hip-hop. it was verbal, excessively verbal. it was orphan, and it was immigrants, hamilton was all that. hip-hop 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, you're 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 haven't found-- i haven't found a demographic yet that doesn't like this show. it's 80-year-old people. it's 8-year-old people. it's women, it's 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 yonker's 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. >> don't 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 wasn't a compliment. >> the city intentionally segregated it's housing for 40 years. >> the whole damn city government's white. >> the judge wants to take low-income housing and put it here in east yonkers. >> people -- >> i live here, and i'm nothing like what they describe. >> what are you going to do? >> it's 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. it's time you recognize your failure as a leader. >> are you going to live where people are angry at you? you know it's 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, it's not. but politics is. >> rose: you have done it again. i'm 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 it's what drives the piece. i mean i think if we don't get him right, and if we don't 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 doesn't-- this piece doesn't 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 it's also, i was not used to reading something, although it's not long form but it's 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 don't 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 wasn't 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 wasn't 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-- there's no track to the appeal. we're to the going to win in court. you're going to have to build this low-income 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 you're going from almost 0 to 60 even before he's 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. i'm 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 judge's 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 didn't care. the limits of pop you louse, in some very fundamental way, people's constitutional rights are not about populist sentiment. it's not what the majority wants, it's what is legal under the constitution. and this was about hypersegregation, the use of federal money to-- . >> rose: for an all white. >> for an all-white 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 that's what is sort of empty at the core of the american experience right now. is the idea that we're all-- you know, yes there is going to be poor, there is going to be rich. i'm not asking for chralsless society. we are who we are. and the market argues for what it argues. but if everybody doesn't feel like they share at least some sense of the same america, then we're 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 can't be completely preskriptedive right now. >> rose: it's 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 doesn't 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-- we're reaching a point of-- we're content with the idea of two separate americas traveling different paths. and right now i don't think anything gets figured until we gets the money out of politics. >> showing the other side. so you know, we're 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. they're 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 don't 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 it's 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 can't explain why. i couldn't stop thinking about why he did what he did. it is a six-ier period of this guy's life. and it's soapic in nature it goes from his dreams all coming true and in be instant it shifts. and it's 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 can't, you know, it is shakespeareian in its grandeur. >> show me a hero and i will show you a tragedy. >> that's the quote. f scotts fitzgerald. and in some respects is a more interesting to me because is's not a procedure, he comes in without regard for the raitions dynamic. and he grows. and you know, i'm really interested in ode people and how they land in politics. i'm 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. >> mayor's 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 didn't-- i didn't expect for you to answer. i called, i wanted to tell you that i-- i think it's 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 can't you say that you think it's wrong. at least let the people know that. >> because that's not what a leader is supposed to do. a leader is supposed to lead. and that's 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, that's it i think he feels that if there is a way to just communicate that, if people could understand that, then they will follow, they'll do that. in some ways, a leader in his mind, i don't think, even says his opinion about stion. it's 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 didn't expect, he didn't 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 it's 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, it's 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 it's 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 grown-up. i will be the grown-up and at some point i will be recognized as the grown-up. >> that's 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, that's:the way it is. >> absolutely but so what happened to him? >> you want-- i don't 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 i'm a washed up nobody. i have no youth. >> those houses are still there in east yonkers, they are still viable. they didn't turn into, you know, ghettos. they were integrated into the community. they're still used for public housing. >> rose: the deseg regration-- desegregation of them have a larger impact. >> they didn't 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 it's 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. it's not him, it's him filtered through lisa who wrote the book and david and bill and paul and then ryu through me. but it's still-- it's 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 don't 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 we're having right now about race in america, that got racheted up at ferguson and baltimore and things, is the right argument toing having. it's a good argument. i'm hoping, i'm hoping some progress comes out of it. that the argument keeps going. and genders can change. and i'm 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 weren't on the agenda five years ago. so yeah, and there-in lies some optimism for me. but i read the book and i think he's 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 didn't. 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 we're 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 that's 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 don't want to live with us. and why should we want to live with them. >> what are you-- are you serious? is. >> i don't 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 we're 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. >> i'm not arguing against anything, mike. i'm 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. it's great to be part of the argument. we get a lot of chances to entertain people. and there's 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 on-line at pbs.org and charlie rose.com captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> announcer: es and new ideas through programs like this, made available for everyone through contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> season 5 of "downton abbey" left us with so many unanswered questions. will lady mary finally find true love with her new suitor? >> maybe we'll meet again. are you ever in yorkshire? >> what will become of downton after branson and sybbie leave for america? >> always remember you have a home to come back to. >> will marigold take her rightful place at the downton table? >> i can't give her up. >> of course not. >> and what will become of anna and bates? there's still a dark cloud hanging over them. >> we'll worry about everything else later. but for now, let's just have a very happy christmas.