Every saturday American History tv documents americas stories and on nday tv brings you the latest innonfiction books and authors. Funding comes from these Television Companies and more including wow. The world has changed. Today a fast reliable Internet Connection is something no one can live without so wow is there for ourstomers value and choice now more than ever it all starts with great internet. While supports cspan2 as a public service. The moderator for reshaping Public Discourse is doctor robert luckett, professor of history at Jackson State University and director of the Margaret Walker center. His books include a collection of essays entitled redefining liberal Arts Education in the 21stcentury and Josie Patterson at the white south dilemma, evolving black advancement. I serve on the board, the book board festival along with robbie. Robbie, take it away. So glad to see such a wonderful audience and its my pleasure to introduce our esteemed panelists today. I will start with doctor eddie glaude. Eddie glaude is a James S Mcdonnell testing with University Professor and chair of the department of africanamerican studies at princeton university, s former president of the Largest Organization of scholars and religion in the world. Hes the author of several important books including his most recent work we are here to talk about today. James baldwins america and its urgent lessons for our own time. He is a columnist for New York Times magazine and a regular msnbc contributor as well as he makes frequent the suppress n on sundays. The hills from all corners of mississippi and is a graduate. Of the mississippi holders. He is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta Georgia and we are glad to welcome you home. Imani perry is hughes rogers professor of africanamerican studies at princeton university. A prolific author, i dont know you time to find time to write the books you write in the time theycome out. Works including looking for lorraine, bree a letter to my sons. May worry we forever stand, a history of the black National Anthem and south to america, a journey below the masondixon line to understand the soul of the nation. He is a native of birmingham alabama. Doctor parry, i want to welcome you back to mississippi book festival for the First Time Since 2018. I couldnt help but notice in your book you mentioned when you were here you were a little coffee with the book festival because our claim to Margaret Walker being a mississippian. She absolutely was born in that county, should it did go to jackson for 49 years. James kirchick has written about human rights, politics, a columnist for outlook magazine, writer at large for a allmale and nonresident senior fellow at the atlantic council, author of several books including the end of europe, the coming dark agency for cities, the Hidden History of washington. His work has appeared in the New York Times, washington post, wall street journal, atlantic and new york review of books. Hes a graduate of yale with degrees in Political Science and lives in washington dc today and jamie, youre up here with three southerners on this title but we would be happy to welcome you in but also we have three yalies on thispanel appear. For my yale folks and doctor parry also house a i noticed you referenced the late great Robert Harris thompson in your book. I took his class and we took lessons in cabrera and studied the beautiful graffiti on new york city subway trains and everything else. What an amazing man. But were here to talk about their books, welcome everyone to reshaping Public Discourse. As mentioned i want to thank our friends at the Humanity Council and center for the study of culture at the university of mississippi for sponsoring this panel. You were told by your Trustee Program at our panelists use the written word to explore the negative impact of the First Amendment right to free speech can have on specific groups and the potential for civic discourse. I will say i did not have anything to do with writing that description. And im not entirely sure what was intended by the organizers by the whole read ahead shaving discourse much less what some of the negative impact of free speech. I do know that the good folks who organize the book festival and this panel in particular were wellintentioned. I do want to avoid trying to be a little bit too didactic here for the admonition of my good friend, colleague and lady of the city of jackson when i talked to her about this panel she warned me against that so what i want to do is talk about your work and what youve written ttin these beautiful books which differ dramatically in terms of style and subject but i think carry on through line that may help us in a roundabout way do what the organizers of this panel we might accomplish because most of all im just interested in the books and i hope as we go along each of you will feel comfortable enough to jump me in at any point but doctor parry i thought i would start with you and your really amazing book. There is a real lyricism to it that resonates with me, honestly in a similar way doctor glaude, you talked about studying the craft of writing but again it feels like to me they are part of really an incredible literary tradition in the American South especially in mississippi with writers that you pay all laws to like and moody and Margaret Walker and on a note here to that you say you have a special fondness for our capital city of jackson but the south is of course the focus of your book. Theres i think a beautiful and even kind of treacherous navigation here as you explore place and language and family and labor and food and gender and sexuality and you guide us through this maze as you literally and metaphorically traverse the south and ideas of the south south which you contextualize as central to the American Experience in central to a Global Experience really you assert there are south plural , your deep south bias and that the Southern Region of the United States is both shakes the world and then go buy it. Can you talk about this in the south . Thank you for such a lovely introduction. Ill start, heres an event and its the heart this speaks to what i was trying to do. Theres some sort of political bad news, you go on social media you see a litany of people saying why cant they just stay, lets throw away this out, lets just forget that and it is a repetition of this account of the south that the south is a place that is backwards. That is the other. Its shameful. So the part of me that began the book is a refusal of that obviously. But to understand what people are doing in that moment, the south is expected to carry the nation s dirty water because it was the site. The site of the creation of the country as such. And so we tell a national anthology, if you want to tell nationalized mythology then you cant tell the story at the beginning. I went to school in massachusetts. I thought Plymouth Rock was the beginning. And thats not just 1619 but not roanoke and we start before going back 100 years earlier than 1619 and 1608, talking about european encounters. This imagination that were going to come to this place and each find a fountain of youth of extraordinary wealth and were going to recapture this abundance and do something with it, and be willing to destroy communities and lies and decrying people down into near nothing in the search and its relation. And to this desire, the imagination to the agreed that thats an origin story. So dpart of, the book is an effort to correct the missed casting of the origin story and address the desire to push the south out of the National Narrative precisely because it actually requires you to tell a portion of the story which is imminent which includes this indigenous and includes slavery although it was anational institution. So for me, the way to tell that story accurately in a way that is not just to make people think or allow it to resonate was not simply okay, were going to go to the Historic Sites and tell a linear story. I wanted readers to feel it when their feet as i walked through the landscapes and encountered the residence between human beings, the idiosyncrasies. The desire for sugar, sweet things to soften theblows of life. Thats what motivates us. So the structure is actually about revelation, intimacy and the way that every where you stand there are layers and layers of stories and more than that, history. s in many ways your book explores this narrative and this need to kind of recontextualize e the narrative. I read an interview where you quoted baldwins the white mans guilt and you said its to history that we all are frames of reference, identities and aspirationsand its with great pain one begins to realize this. Its in great terror one begins to assess and place where one of his and form ones point of view and you tell us in your own book the american idea is indeed itin trouble and it should be. We told ourselves a story that secures our virtue and protects us from our biases. We have to look back and tell a different story without the cross of missed in legend about how we arrived at this moment in our countrys history. Whats the story we should be telling and how do we reimagine this is . D first of all thank you for the wonderful introduction, its a pleasure to be on this panel even though jackson is far north. I remember telling professor perry i was Walking Around and its so big. In some ways its an echo of what professor perry said and thats that stories should involve a kind of serious encounter with what weve done that is has in fact shaped to we are. And so the story of the mpnation is one not just simply of you know, articulating the grand principles of democracy. But its the story of violence. Of cruelty. Its a story in which a certain idea of whiteness has threatened to choke the life out of those veryprinciples that have been so precious. And so america is not unique in other nations in telling itself an idealized story. Thats what nations do, thats what nationalism is but i think part of what baldwin saw at least as i read in this, the potential uniqueness of this place is we offer an opportunity to imagine the country in a way that isnt beholden to the myth of other nation states. That we could actually be it. Part of what ive tried to do is confront who we are, we have to do our first works over and confront the choices weve made that have set us on this particular path as opposed to another and it makes sense in those moments where we grappling with who hewe are and our history, moments where it seems as if we are on the cost of being differently, that the question of the stories we tell ourselves about who we are suddenly come to before. So theres a reason, i see a connection, a relationship between the january 6 insurrection and the critique of critical race theory. I see a connection between the rise of trumpism and the wholesale resistance to attempt to take down confederate monuments through the south. There is a sense in this moment that the stories we tell ourselves most confirm our innocence. And so part of what i tried to do is again to grapple with through this thongoing conversation with baldwin who was a resource, this queer black man who dared to say what he said at the timet he said it , what will it require of us to finally grow the hell up . You know, so i used this quick analogy. You have that uncle in the family that refuses to dress like his age. Im going to date myself, with gauchos on. I just dated myself. Those shorts that come right belowour ankles. They refuse to grow up and part of what happens with perpetual adolescence is that you actually become monstrous. Because you refuse to deal with the reality, the hard reality of life so i think the country clings to adolescence because it thinks thats the only wayit can maintain his innocence. Begin again with my attempt to kind of get at the heart of that because i was dealing with the fact that my daddys daddy and my mothers mother had to go through this. And now my son will have to go through this. And white folks think its all right. And i wanted to justspeak directly to it. And let me see this real quick when i use the word white folk im talking in generalities to invoke james ti baldwin. I happen to love a lot of people who happen to be white and then theres white folks. [applause] and you talk about whiteness as a choice, the repercussions of whiteness as a choice and what that means ill say you mentioned critical race theory. I think were going to get a shout out while im here. You work for an Organization Called the collective that talks about critical race theory. That we allow our children about this narrative and maybe its okay if our children are uncomfortable with the past because that might indicate they have a moralcompass. And that work is incredibly powerful. But of all the works your book is most specifically rooted in an argument of amendment, the right to free speech and i read another article you wrote entitled the First Amendment created gay america and in some ways i think you might argue of the most leftleaning elements of the Lgbtq Movement betrayed some of what brought about the great advancements in the movements. Can you explore the way the First Amendment can run for your book andidentify it for us a little bit. My book is about people who were among the most despised groups in this country. Again, people whin the Roosevelt Administration are illegal ifrom sexuality are and areillegal. Our deemed a medical disorder by the medical establishment. Gay people, gay men in particular are institutionalized, chemically castrated, lobotomized, suggested to all search of medical torture and homosexuality was deemed immoral from all our major religions. You couldnt even utter the word homosexuality with a sort of unspoken sin it was so awful and in fact i read about the first outing in american politics which happened in 1942 and the majority leader of the senate th referred to this crime, a senator was accused of being an offense to ascension. Thats how homosexuality was treated. And politically because my book is about washington dc and the federal power and the white house and the executive branch and congress and this was the worst secret that you could have. In the city that ran on secrets, secrets were a form of currency and still are in many ways. To be gay was the worst thing you could possibly be, it was worse than even beinga communist. Even at the height of the cold war in mccarthy era america a oucommunist could repent. I communist could become an x communist. In fact some of the most important leaders of the American Conservative Movement were asked communists. A homosexual was barred forever from participating in American Public life. So my book tracks how we got from that period in American History when gay people had to live in a closet. You could not even identify yourself to be a part of this group. You now where we are today where a majority of americans support gay marriage including a majority of republicans. That was the first time last year. At an openly gay gay man serving in thecabinet for the first time , something i would have thought unimaginable not solong ago. And i think Free Expression is so central to this story because none of this progress would have been possible without it. Demonstrating outside the white house, 1965 the first day rights demonstration in america happened for years before stonewall, where all familiar with the stonewall uprising but less people know there was a picket march modeled on the africanamerican Civil Rights Movement marches, a peaceful picket outside the white house in 1965. None of this would have been possible and very active coming out is one of expression, one of the saying to your loved ones and your friends and family to the world that i have been living a lie and im not going to live this life anymore , im going to tell you the truth about myself so i find expression so fundamental to the gay experience and really for all minority groups its hard to imagine any progress been possible without a very robust First Amendment and freespeech culture. A central story in your book is that of one of the great intellectuals and organizers of the modern Civil Rights Movement was chiefly responsible for the 1963 march on washington. You described him as having a commanding presence as well as an ability to motivate arts numbers of people to political action. You note a Young Martin Luther King praised him as a dedicated organizer and one of the best most persuasive interpreters of nonviolence which you say precisely is why Strom Thurmond felt it necessary to destroy him with homophobia but you tell us rustin concluded that i casting off his secret bottle being gay he divested it of the power to harm him. Tell us about the centrality of the mayor in your book. Hes one of the great moral figures of the 20th century. Not remember