In 1917, the United States entered its first war of choice. What i mean is a war that we didnt have to fight and that we were not sure we wanted to fight because there was a very concrete goal which was a war of independence from britain or a war to hold them together. We were going to take it away from mexico. But whatever the reasons were, it was concrete. The First World War was of the serial ideal. This weird idea that was hatched by president woodrow wilson. It was to make us safe for democracy, to make the world safe for democracy. Well, that sounds great. I mean, what a noble cause we are marching off to make the world safe for democracy. But what does it mean for soldiers who didnt have democracy at home . That is what this book is about. In 1917, the United States sent over a group of its own soldiers and sets them up to fail. They gave them an adequate training. Initially they didnt even give them uniforms. In fact they didnt even give their rifles to train with because they were too busy giving away to the private rifle clubs so they could improve their marksmanship made so then they could go fight a war. So this unit actually have to write to the American Government pretending to be private rifle clubs to get their guns. This unit was then sent to train in the deep south in a tiny little town called spartanburg which wasnt what he would call the haven of racial brotherhood. As a matter of fact they were sent to train two weeks after the worst, one of the worst rights in American History in houston where the soldiers actually rioted and a shot of the town and were then shot up themselves by the police and military authorities into the hold unit was disgraced. They were sent on accident when they wrote to the New York Times and said do not send them here. There is going to be trouble. So this unit was sent to spartanburg and they were given orders dont fight back. This is the whole unit of them and when we say fighting back basically theres a difference betweethere is a differencebetwu from the stands and actually getting beaten up on the street which is what happened to these guys and they were ordered to do not fight back because they will blame everything on you and its not going to be sent and we will be disgraced and they held back with superhuman discipline. And then they were sent to dig ditches and that was infuriating and they finally lobbied to be put into combat. During the First World War, the United States was kind of leads to the game and by this point they wanted to reinforcement. And he said no we are not just going to feed piecemeal. We will fight as an American Unit under the American Flag except for you guys come you can go. So they gave them to the french. So this unit, which had poor training, poor equipment had the right for their own rifles and was sent to the account where they were initially made to dig ditches and they were low enough to a foreign power they fought so valiantly they ended up coming home is one of the most decorated unit unit in the entie United States army. Thats what i think. [applause] that was one of the worst things that was done to them as they were not able to march in the parade. That is one of the good things being a soldier is before you go off to the war because you may not come back all of you get to feel special and barge down the main street. They come and people wave their flags and make you feel good. While in new york city all of the guard units were put together in what was called the Rainbow Division and they were sent to fight and they got to march off to the war together except for these guys and im not kidding because they were told black is not a color of the rainbow. While they got their parade when they came home. They marched up fifth avenue and over a million new yorkers of every skin color turned out to welcome them home. The First American of any skin color was Henry Johnson. The entire unit. They spent more time in combat than any other unit. They never lost a foot of ground to capture. At the end of the war when they were mastering one push on paris at one point there was nothing before that in the sector except these guys. They stopped them. And one little side note, the band introduced a previously unknown. That was the story of the harlem hell fighters and a story that ive been trying to sell for 16 years. That is their story. Here is mine. Im 11yearsold. Dont worry about the math. Im getting to that. Im 11yearsold and this man was in zimbabwe and he had learned about the Research Project so you know there was a unit that although the American Army didnt want him when you were growing up in the good part of la that kind of injustice is not normal so that was pretty shocking for me. Did that really happen . When i was 20yearsold i get my semester abroad in europe and had a great time. Just like you do over here. Except people talk differently and that is your semester abroad. [laughter] spinnaker i didnt do that. I went somewhere else. I went to the university of the islands in saint thomas and before you think i was just lying on the beach i was the reverse. I already vacationed there my whole life and i thought ive been coming here since i was two and i know absolutely nothing about these people. I know of resource and the happy smiles but nothing about the caribbean as a place. So i figured im going to use that time in the semester abroad to study history and Political Science and learn about him and i did. And i learned what it was like to be a minority for the first time. I got to go home afterwards, so it was like a racial relations. But it did make me feel for the first time what it feels like to wear a uniform i cant take off. Some people like me, some people didnt. When i was down there i had a professor and amazing man and he was a throwback to the 60s. It was a crime that people committed was to bury their past accomplishments which blew me away because i thought my god that is true because you can break that down as an individual when you are trying to raise a child and they say i cant do it, the first thing that you say is you can do it because you have already done other things. I am a parent and when my 9yearold says i cant and i say yes you can and he says youre right. Well if my son had no accomplishments or if i had buried them he had no confiden confidence. That works on the macro group as well. That is huge to bury that kind of history. So i realized that its a credible crime. I discovered some graves from 1917 to 1918 and i said were these the harlem hell fighters and he said to me who were they . He didnt know. That is how obscure it was. I dont know if you remember this come about the native Buffalo Soldiers and i thought it was tnt but i think spike lee corrected me it was hbo that had made the original. They came in within a year of each other and it was an eyeopener because there really is a moment, an opportunity for African American military movies. So, i decided to write a screenplay and there wasnt a lot back then. The first one from amazon was this big, and that was an original memoir so i read that and i got a recording of the original music from the band from james is the Founding Fathers some of the most amazing i have ever heard. And i got a documentary one of the last two hell fighters that were left alive so that was my Research Material and i read the script. Nobody wanted it. Nobody wanted it. When youre young and struggling you initially think its my fault im a bad writer. I had one meeting that changed everything. A friend of ours said i will get the script to him and he said if i could make this in a heartbeat, i would. But im not going to get up and you shouldnt either and then what he said to me was they are making the rounds right now but yours is closest to the truth. Let me say when you are dyslexic and you struggle in school and have to be tutored for hours a day and suddenly have them tell you youve done your homework i will not give up. So thats sort of kep that sorte lit. But finally after so many i realized im done with hollywood because it is based on economics. And finally i realized they are big and expensive. I was getting into comics at this point. I had written the hearts and minds so i was like okay and random house said what you want to do next and i think that they were hoping for the search for more money. [laughter] i said i want to do this and i think that they were alike jack, okay. Lets give that to him. Maybe he pulled right part two. So i think they gave me this as a sort of i dont know, just to keep me happy like they gave Martin Scorsese hoping he would make casino. Thats what they were kind of hoping with me giving the soldier story and then we would get part two, three and four. You dont have to include anything thats not important. When you write a comic book its visual. You have to see everything so when youre writing something historical you have to do your homework just to make sure you dont screw up the background the hairstyles the clothing and all that stuff just your breaking even for getting it right. I was like the research assistant. We had im not kidding for feet of Research Material up looks stacked up of which one solid foot was nothing but uniforms of world war i, weapons of world war i, all that kind of stuff just to make sure we got it right. So it was quite an endeavor and im very proud of it so that is the Harlem Hellfighters. Im tired of hearing myself talk one guy fell asleep. Dont wake him. No, not you sir. It was someone over here. How are you doing . Im going to open the floor to questions. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] i think how we are supposed to do this as we are going to be like an old 70s talk show where someone is going to raise their hand and these two sprightly young lasses will run to you with a microphone so questions anyone . Yes, sir. I hope you dont mind if i ask about. You can ask me about it. Its a successful movie but a lot of people that were really into the book were not happy with the movie. But it was so true to the book. That is what i was going to ask you. How did you feel about it and are you concerned if it does become a movie that the same thing will happen . Excellent question. Let me backtrack and say about world for c. I wrote a book called world war z the oral history of the zombie war and a movie came out with brad pitt making pancakes and it was the same title. [laughter] thats about it. Was i involved with the movie . Let me put it this way. I was more involved in getting president obama elected. [laughter] at least i phone banked for obama. I didnt phone bank for this movie. How do i feel about a . I dont feel much of anything because it was so different. When you are book writer you live in tear tear because youll watch your characters say things they wouldnt say and do things they wouldnt do a the story get in a belated and completely eviscerated. I watched the credits roll which by the way what a title and then i got to watch 28 days later on crack which had nothing to do with my book and it was fine. I didnt invent jerry layne. Hes making pancakes for his wife. Hi honey im giving my my wonderful job for you because i love you. There are zombies and i have to go around the world and i have to check them in with you everyday. I think i wife wrote that part. It was a big summer lackluster movie. Good for them. I didnt say hey that there which i didnt make up would never say that so it was so different that it allowed me to divorce myself. I worried that they were going to change my story with the Harlem Hellfightersits not th. Its my story and im telling it. World war z came from me. This was a true story so i have chosen to tellit and because it is a true story theres limits to how much they can do. Like with world war z they change my book and they had to deal with a lot of really angry book fans but they didnt have to deal with the families of the real people from the book which they would if they had to change stuff so there are limits. Ts. Plus do you guys know about the movie deal . Heres the irony of my career. All those years i told you about getting rejected, screenplay you dont want it okay fine. I will write it as a book and enough of hollywood. Hi its hollywood. Two weeks before the book came out i got a call from will smiths company. He wants to produce and he wants me to write the script. [applause] this is not to say the movie is going to get made. This is not going to say that the eventual movie is not going to star brad pitt. [laughter] and maybe a chinese guy because the Chinese Market is lucrative for hollywood so they may just stick a chinese guy in there just in case. Brad pitt and anyway i dont know what the end result is going to be. Who knows but what is nice is an at least i get the first shot and thats more than i could ever ask for. That is where we are right now. Anyone else . Yes, sir. I think you are to explain it but why in the hell did she get so deeply involved in this whole experience . I mean i dont even know any black folks who are into it like you are. I mean its amazing to me. You know im really honoring you. Thank you, thank you. Sir i think i got into it initially because my dad was in world war ii. Im 41 years old. Im a genxer as they say in most parents of people my age were baby boomers so they grow up with stories like oh manned the drugs we did in the tv we watched in the unprotected sex we had and wow and by the way i spend all of your inheritance. Thats that generation. I grew up with the world war ii parents so i grew up with my dad telling stories about combat in europe and about my mother having to ration and i remember she told me out mortified she was having to graduate in a short skirt ecos clothing was rationed so that america was interesting to me. I think history in general was very interesting to me because im on is trying to figure out the world because i never feel like i fit in so im eyes like how did we get here . I think it helps me to figure out oh here is where we came from and that helps me understand things. Sometimes its actually more of setting. I dont know if you guys know this but ted nugent called the president a subhuman. If you dont know history then you say ted nugent is an idiot. Yes he is but that goes a lot deeper because to call someone a mongrel is to touch on something worse than hatred of black people. Its hatred of race mixing and i didnt know that growing up until i read about it and i realize the worst thing you can commit in this country was to have a black man impregnate a white woman. That was it. That was the worst thing that could ever happen so in ted nugent is doing that hes not just being a stupid rock star. Hes calling upon a very ageold tradition of hatred. For me history is always important to know where you are and to know where you have come from. Something like ted nugent tells me we have made tremendous progress in this country but we sure have a ways to go. Yes, maam . This is a twopart question. Did you say a twopart question . Half of me can answer that. Why did you decide to write it as a comic look knowing that would limit its appeal and as it have anything to do with being dyslexic . I and wondering about that. I will tell you that for three reasons. First of all, i decided to do it as a comic look like i said i didnt want to do it as a movie because you need a budget. This is actually somebody told me when i was in my 20s i took a screenwriting course at ucla after i spent my Parents Money in graduate school. Here mom, more money that i took it because it was someone i admire. He created a show in the 1980s i loved. He was africanamerican it was a war show called tour of duty. He said to me and he wasnt talking about Harlem Hellfighters. He said look the bulk of actors in hollywood are young white males so if you make your character anything except a young white male you are limiting your casting possibilities. So it didnt take much for me to say my cast is black. So thats tough. If i do it as a comic book i dont have to worry about that. A comic look specifically i am very dyslexic and i know how hard it is to read. Reading was so hard. I grew up in privilege. I will admit right now but all the money in the world could not help me read better. So i had to develop tools to try to learn how to read and how to study like my mom. She took all my School Reading to the institute for the blind the Braille Institute and had them read on audio books book so i could listen to my schoolwork. Otherwise i probably wouldnt have made it. Comic books were important for me. I got to learn. Just getting into the discipline of reading because reading is a discipline like playing a sport. You have to do it every day. You have to get used to it otherwise he gets intimidating. For me, it looks were great about sitting down and reading. Another reason, third reason i did it was i never wanted the reader to forget what color these guys are because they think when you write a book some times you can lose yourself in it. I wanted it to be on every page because these guys never forgot what color they were. For a moment they forgot than they first got to france. They were treated as equals. This is not just what happened the book but have been a real life. The hellfighters did so well in combat that the American Army eventually had to write to the french government a special memorandum to say listen stop praising them. You dont want to fill them up with these ideas and have him come home and it literally says do not praise him extensively especially in the presence of white men. Do not shake hands with them. Do not visit with them on anything but pure military matters. It literally said dont spoil them. So i wanted people to never forget who are reading this, yeah these guys were black every step of the way so that is why it is a comic. She gets to more questions. Oh my god, run, quick. The purple heart exist then and did their own country give them commensurate honors . Thats an excellent question. What percentage die .