could probably identify which one was urschel by emptying their wallets. so they stopped the car, get the wallet, take all of the money and give him ten bucks to get back to town and they take off. they take him out to a farm owned in west county texas just outside of dallas on by catherine kelley's father-in-law my guy known around town is bob. it's sort of a sad, broken down farm with a few animals where he lives with his wife and son and son's wife. so they stick urschel and -- they blindfold him, they use -- they keep him blindfolded for the entire ride. and for the next eight days he is basically blind and deaf and chained to a high chair actually or bed frame at various times of the day. but nevertheless, he is the kind of guy who does not part with his money very willingly. .. so, urschel, who grew up on a farm, in the midwest, realizes of course he is on a farm, begins counting the number of different animals, finds out how many there are, how many milking cows there are, all kinds of information on the farm itself. he walks the room he is held in at various times. he collects information from the people who are holding him about what other buildings are around, how big the farm is, what the postman's name is, who the local prostitute is, and while he's doing all this, over the course of eight days, he realizes at 9:30 the morning and 5:30 at night, plane is passing over head. so he puts all that in the data bank while he is leaving hi fingerprints anywhere he can in the meantime, his wife has collected the money nor ransom -- for thesome and paid it off. and so at the point they're about to release urschel, kathryn kelly, who is really at the tougher of the two characters, insists they have to kill him. and george, of course, is saying, no, we can't, we can't kill him. i we kill him, they'll come after him with the u.s. marines and he'll never get air and won't be able to kidnap anybody else because our threats will be empty. the plan was to kidnap five more people, rap so many them for $200,000, to the to an of about eight to ten million in contemporary dollars, and retire as millionaires in juarez, mexico. everybody has their dreams, right? so, that plan is eventually thwarted and they do release urschel, who returns to his home in oklahoma city, which by then, of course, i surrounded by hoarded of press from around the world, and motion picture cameras fro the news reels, photographers and various members of the bureau of investigation, j. edgar hoover's group, as well as some local police. urschel comes in and immediately debriefed by fbi agent known as gus jones, who listens to the data dump and having started out telling him that finding these kidnappers would be like finding a need until a haystack. after 90 minute he said we just got a really small haystack. so, consequently, urschel borrows a plane from an ol' pepperdine. they go up in the air. they fly the route that the airline that they have identified had flown. they look down, using urschel's sketch of what he thinks the farm looks like. the identify a farm that looks exactly like the drawing. they put together a raiding party. urschel insists he be in lead car, the raiding party with a sawed-off shot gun on his lap and in the middle of the night the burst in, and they arrest the shannons, and a fellow name hari -- harvey bailey who was saying at the farm, hiding out of his escape from state prison in kansas. harvey bailey is an incredible character in this book that i'm just so fortunate to stumble into the story. harvey bailey walling considered the most successful bank robber in american history. the inrented she modern form of bank-robbing which involves a lot of careful planning, determining what the best escape routes are, riding the escape routes, having multiple backup plans, figuring out when there's the most money in the bank to be robbed by studying the local economy and the county tax records. what the police activity is like. how far away the police station is, what kind of cars the police have, if they have any. and basically if harvey was planning your bank robbery, it was going to go well and nobody would know who did it. part of his m.o. was the fact he would never, ever admit to having robbed a bank or try to take credit for anything. as a result, he successfully robbed the denver mint, he robbed the lincoln national bank, of so much money that the bank failed the next day. the did so well in the ' '20s that by the late '20s he retired from the bank-robbing business and opened a series of gas stations stations and car wn chicago. but lost all his money in the market crash and had to go back to the business that he knew so well. so, he had worked with george kelly on a number of bank jobs, and in fact had lent george $1,000 when george was low on funds. so after the -- he heard about the kidnapping he went to the farm to collect the money that george owed him, and to nurse a wound he sustained when he was escaping from prison. he just happens to be sleeping in the backyard on a cot when gus jones and urschel arrive with their squadron of law enforcement. so, even though george and kathryn had already fled the scene, along with albert bates. they'd gone off to st. paul to launder their money. the fbi agents still score an important victory here by pulling in harvey bailee. who is not only a bank robber but an escaped prisoner. so, the raid is considered a huge success. and it arrives just in time for j. edgar hoover, who in 1933 was not yet director of the fbi. in fact he was barely holding on to his job. he had been -- the bureau of investigation, as it was called then, had been given the job of solving the lindbergh kidnapping, and they had bun a fairly miserable job and made almost no progress in the 18 months since it happened. when fdr took office, his first choice for attorney general was a guy named thomas walsh, senator from wyoming. walsh had a bad history with hoover. during the harding administration hoover and the bureau had been instructed to besmirch both walsh and his fellow senator, wheeler, from wyoming. these two were trying to launch an investigation of the harding administration, and uncover some of the scandals that later evolved are but j. edgar hoover's job was to -- well you know, he tapped his phone and read his mail and tried to entrap him in a hotel room with a woman to get incriminating evidence on him. none of which succeeded but did succeed in making a life-long enemy or mr. walsh, who was announced by fdr as his first choice for attorney general, and after that announcement, walsh vowed to get rid of that miserable son of a bitch, j. edgar hoover, as soon as he got to town. unfortunately walsh was 72 years old and before he got to up to, he won't to miami and married a cuban deb pew tenant, and -- debutant, and on the train ride from washington, when train stopped in north carolina, walsh's wife woke up but he did not. so subsequently, the next attorney general, a guy named homer cummings, who was one of fdr's brain trust, who was originally slated to be ambassador to the philippines, but cummings takes over the justice department, and hi is one of fdr's real go-getters and figures the way he can raise the profile of the justice department, which was held in fairly low repute at the time, referred to the department of easy virtue. he decided he is going to ship this place up and go and prosecute a war on crime. fdr was prosecuting a war on this, war on this, war on everything and really like the militaristic sound of that and wanted to use the fbi to break up basically this criminal alley and anything else he could do. so, j. edgar is nature lot of pressure at this time to bring in some big score, and it looks like the machine gun kelly case could be the one. there's charles, the other leading character to in the story. charles was a farm kid, grew up, enlisted in the army during the first world war, and when he got out, was bound and determined that the last thing he was going to do any more of was farming. just too hard work and didn't really pay off as well as he was hoping so he strikes out for oklahoma, and decides to try to make his fortune in the oil business. he has real head for numbers, and a great memory as you well know, and he hooks up with tom slick, the aptly named tom slick, who rapidly becomes the king of the wildcatters and they make fortunes together. unfortunately, right at the peak of their oil business, tom slick, at age 47, kind of your classic type are a behavior guy, has a massive heart attack and dies. charles then marries his widow, forming the urschel-slick oil company, which is even bigger than the tom slick company, and of course that generates a lot of headlines in the paper about how rich these folks are, and what their oil holdings entail. all of this was the interesting reading that got kathryn kelly thinking about kidnapping charles urschel. so,-undershell and slick, who -- urschel and slick, who had no great love of the press before the kidnapping because they were always talking about their business affairs and their oil finds, suddenly has even more reason to despise them. so, charles goes into an alliance with j. edgar hoover. there's the home where the kidnapping occurs. and hoover then prosecutes a nationwide search for kathryn and george. the fbi had just been given the sole responsibility for chasing kidnappers across state lines. and so they were really the only organization that could bring this to fruition, but the were two problems they still had. one was the fact they were not an armed police force. they were not trained in weapons. most of them were lawyers and accountants who would help local municipalities prosecutor criminal investigations. so hoover looked around his agencies across the country to try to find people who would be skilled enough to go up against machine gunners and shot-gun wielders, bank robberrers and murders and discovers he has fewer than 12 out of the force of 33 of -- 336. so he puts the investigation in order and it's run by gus jones, who worked in texas, kind of a legendary lawman, and this is a document produced by the bureau after the successful prosecution of the case, which they used to further demonstrate their need for expanded powers. you can see all of the cities where they suspected the kellies might be and where they tracked them. in fact they had been in most of those places other than the ones on the west coast. one of the things they did was try to closed to the borders bought they thought they would leave one way or another. not a bad assumption. this is another document produced by the fbi which just sort of mapped out the most prominent members of society who had been kidnapped. this is the famous melvin purvis, the special agent in charge of the chicago office, purvis is the agent who captured and killed john dill len jerry -- dylan jerry, bringing the -- but he let kelly slip through his fingers in chicago. the fbi discovered deli wassing would a place called the michigan tank as his address and a place where would would go and hang out and enjoy special protection from the police, and he assigned purvis to stake out the michigan tavern and try to snatch him. but literally purvis just forgot to do it. by the time he remembered, he sent two agent outside but they never went inside, and on that very day, kelly was inside arranging to get a new automobile to escape to memphis, tennessee in, this disnot make the director happy, and you may be aware that melvin purvis left the agency a few years after all of these great events were occurring. so, ultimately, they chase -- after about six to seven weeks on the road, they found kelly in memphis, tennessee, and successfully arrest him. there he is walking out of the courthouse in chains. guarded by machine gunners. the fbi now acquired quite an arsenal, and they deployed them prominently during the trial and afterwards. the interesting thing about memphis is that kelly started out in memphis, tennessee. he was a child of upper middle class parents, a cady at the local country club, a pretty smart kid. but he did not enjoy very good relationship with his father, whom he hated. and when he caught his father in a tryst with another woman, he basically blackmailed him and said, i won't tell mom about this -- this is when he is in high school -- if you give me the family car and increase my allowance by x amount of money, which kelly then used his new transportation and his money to hop across the border to arkansas, which was a wet state, tennessee was try, and he started his liquor-running business as a young entrepreneur in high school. and things basically went downhill from there. here is kathryn and george in federal court. look a little bloated from seven weeks on the road, when they were going through three or four gin bottles a day, and kelly has already been pistol-whipped by the fbi, right in the courtroom in view of all of the spectators. when he attempted to defend cath r.i.p. from what he thought was an advance by an fbi agent. you can maybe see the knot on his forehead there. from one of the wound he sustained. and this is alcatraz where he ended up. homer cummings and j. edgar hoover had a special contempt for the federal prison system, which they thought was too fluid, to easy to escape from. two corrupted, too coddling of prisoners, whatever. and so they wanted to create a prison that nobody could escape from, that only the worst of the worst would be sent to, and there would be no attempt at rehabilitation, that would be solely for confinement. be cut off from the outside world, wouldn't be allowed to talk to one another. the result was it was just a new special kind of hell for these 103 prisoners they deemed to be the worst in the nation, people like al capone, various midwestern murderers and thieves. so george kelly ends up in the introductory class going to alcatraz prison, where he lives out most of the rest of his life. kathryn kelly was sent to a women's prison, got out in the late '50s, harvey bailey ended up with george on alcatraz. he is later released into state prison, and charles by that point had sort of softened on the whole affair, and he went to fdr and hoover and said, look, harvey bailey had nothing to do with this kidnapping. we august to let him out. so he afros to probation for harvey and sets him up in joplin, missouri, with a job as a cabinetmaker and gets him a room at the ymca where he lived out the rest of his life without committing another crime. the urschels end up intact, fairly rattled. they spent the rest of their lives as -- running their oil business. set up a number of foundations, biochemical research foundation in texas, which is quite famous. but they didn't really feel all that comfortable in texas in the wild west anymore, spent a lot of time travel through europe, collecting art, and lived happily ever after, but part of what charles experienced made him detest publicity of any kind, and so he instructed the rest of his family, and anybody that would listen to him, that you should never get any publicity whatsoever, no matter what you have done no matter how proud you are of it. you should remain as concealed as possible. otherwise bad things will happen to you. and that attitude was not only passed on to his children, but to his grandchildren as well, and to the grandchildren of everybody involved in this case, even to the point where when i got around to finding them and trying to talk to them, they were very circumspect, and the only way i think that i got any kind of cooperation whatsoever from them was because of the same last name and the fact that at in point we were probably related, and charles' granddaughter lives in texas -- probably shouldn't tell you that -- was especially helpful ultimately, and we enjoyed some good chats and e-mails together, and she shared with me most of the things she collected about the case. the other interesting thing about this particular case and j. edgar hoover, was that while hoover was maybe not the best lawman, in the country at the time, he tide -- did understand public relations and publicity. and he was just beside himself with hollywood because hollywood at the time was glamorizing gangsters. in 1930 the number one movie in the -- 1933 -- was "scar face." starring james cagney about a character based on al -- al capone. almost said al pacino. so hoover knew if he was going to be successful with his agents as a law enforcement agency, the was going to have to create them as heroes. he didn't want the gangsters to be the heroes anymore. the wanted his agents to be the heroes and went to james cagney and complained and said, you ought to star in something that makes a hero out of the law enforcement officers. and basically at the time there was a big kind of public revulsion at these gangster movies that were growing increasingly violent, if you can believe that, and so the -- hollywood fearing that there would be some kind of censorship imposed by the government, creates their own kind of rating system, and one of the things that they outlaw is gangster movies. they try to get the entire industry not to produce them. but hoover manages to get one caveat put into the code, and that is that if you're going to make a gangster movie, you have to have an fbi agent in it. and if you're going have to an fbi nath your move, j. edgar hoover has to approve the script. so in 1935, g-men comes out with james cagney as a fbi agent who solves a kidnapping, and there are tree there are three or four movies roo after that willing the them sea narrow and the same fbi hero in it. nevertheless, this -- hoover did many more things, of course. he had his on publicist inhouse, guys writing magazine stories about famous cases. he was just a master at manipulating the message. unfortunately, george kelly didn't have such a publicity department on his behalf, and the stories that hoover put out about kelly took hold. base which -- basically, hooverd to make machine gun kelly -- that his achievement in casting him and prosecuting him would seem all the greater. and so he spread -- and part of it is still in the fbi lore, on the web site. you can read about it. one of the stories he spread was that when they finally coronerred machine gun kelly in memphis, he dropped his weapon and cowered in the corner and said, don't shoot, g-men, don't shoot. it didn't happen like that. if you want to know how it happens you can read the book. anyway, that then became the brand for the fbi, they're g-men, right? they are to this day. so, as the years pass, the legend of machine gun kelly continues to grow, and roger korman, the king of the b-moviemakers, decides to make a movie about him in 1958. he casts this unknown actor known as charles bronson in the lead, and makes machine gun kelly out to be a psycho pathic machine gunner and kidnapper and just basically also living under the thumb of his domineering wife. that's the image of machine gun kelly that persists to this day. there are still songs written about him, movies made about him. james taylor has a song about machine gun kelly, basically on that scenario. but the case really in addition to all of these other things that it spawned, it also proved the importance of branding and media manipulation. hoover's reputation, of course, soared in the first ten years he was in office, and then as you probably know, began to sour as the years went on. but nevertheless he did create the fbi as a basically sort of the first national police force, and one of most successful and modern at the time. and became the envy of the world. so, i think i have droned on long enough, and if you would like to ask a question, since we are on c-span, please come to the microphone and speak clearly into it. yes, sir. >> two things. one, how much ransom did urschel pay? ... the police will come after you. once you hurt someone that draws the law. so, george was trying to prosecute his business in that passion and he didn't like machine guns. he was kind of afraid of them. he liked to rob a bank with a concealed 38. he was one of these charming irishmen and would go into the bank incredibly well-dressed. both he and catherine. very concerned about their fashion statement. he would walk in and open his jacket and show the 38 and ask the ladies behind the counter to empty their drawers into the satchel and i will be out of here with no problem. but, catherine-- that was not good enough for catherine. she wanted to be married into the most famous criminal and all of america, so she started working on his reputation. she would buy a machine gun at pawnshop and then start spreading stories about him at speakeasies all over fort worth and dallas, and she was-- she would leave the spent shells behind and say we have been down to the farm working on his skills and he can shoot walnuts off a fence post or write his name on the side of the bar with his gun and you will hear a lot more about it. so, the police officers down there who always kind of had their eye on kelly and would hang around in these bars or speakeasies, they would start picking up on this stuff that they were hearing about him and when they first started chasing him and they discovered it was george kelly, the police in texas set up this profile and said he was a murderer and an expert machine gun nest, so that got on the wanted poster and then they got into the press and one thing led to another and suddenly we had this psychopathic machine gun kelly. but, in fact, to finish her question, he is not known to have killed anyone. he did admit to shooting one guard, wounding him in the shoulder during a bank robbery, but that is about all. he did purchase pay in a of the bank robberies where people did get shot and did get killed, but when they would form of these bank robbing gangs, they would pull different people for different skill sets and they really didn't recruit kelly in because of his viciousness or his skills with a weapon. they liked him more for his skills behind the wheel. he had been a gin runner and a bootlegger for almost 20 years and he knew all of the back roads. he loved to cars. he had a 1932, 18 cylinder cadillac that he had customized by our capone's mechanic so it could cruise at 100 miles an hour and you could never catch him once he was behind a wheel. yes, sir. >> this was before the second amendment. what were gun-control laws like at this time and could regular people get a machine gun? >> yes. i'm not the next verse on weaponry or the laws about them, but i do believe that there were almost no laws preventing individuals from purchasing any kind of gun they wanted. in fact, the crime bill that this case spawned included language that restricted automatic weapons like machine guns. specifically, to get the machine guns that were used in the massacre at union station and the crimes that were reputedly committed by george kelly. >> actually, i think it was the following year, 1934, firearms act of that outlawed submachine guns and sawed-off shotguns as a result of all the stuff that had been going on. one question in the comments. i understand that george kelly, when he was in alcatraz was one of the few actual penances in a penitentiary and he wrote letters to herschel and maybe some other people that he victimized that nothing could be worth this. i am so sorry. i will bear this guilt for the rest of my life. is that true? >> that is absolutely true. he was a very literate man and he wrote not only the letter you are referring to, which is considered to be one of the best descriptions of what like-- life is like behind bars that has ever been penned and that is in the book. if you would like to purchase a copy and read the whole thing for yourself, but yeah, he was a constant letter writer as are a lot of prisoners, but he was particularly well-versed, smart and he would refer to greek mythology in some of his letters and he wrote hundreds of letters to catherine that are just heartrending love letters that will almost need to tears if not laughter. so, yeah, it was true and when he was incarcerated at alcatraz, they had a prison psychologist to did an evaluation of all the prisoners and rated kelly as extremely intelligent. kelly enrolled in correspondence courses from university of southern california and had a little competition going with albert bates who was also an alcatraz as to who could do better. it was a voracious reader and would do anything he could to sort of deal with the isolation of prison life. >> i would like to-- make your pardon, but i think it was paul muni started scarface. james cagney had played a similar role also based on capone, 1931 in the public enemy. >> you are right. >> is a great talk. >> you know your film history. >> there are a lot of twist and turns and it seems like a lot of the topics dealt with people who howard hughes-- do you have a howard hughes angle? >> howard hughes didn't make it in. although, i should look for when. do you think there is one? >> was any involvement in making the movie scarface? >> that i don't know. >> he knew thomas leg and he was involved with a hollywood censorship. in texas, he had to know herschel. there must be something. >> herschel was an active democrat and he was looking for -- he had sent emissaries to washington to try to get fdr to bring, believe it or not this is how much this has changed, to bring regulation to the oil business to help protect the wild counters who would being driven out of business by the big oil company's back east who are driving the price so low that no one could make any money. anything else? well, thank you all very much for coming. [applause]. >> folks, a reminder, there is a book sale one level up at the archives of bookstore, so we will meet you up there in a couple of minutes. >> i will be happy to sign any copy with any kind of verbiage you would like. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> you're watching the tv on c-span 2 with topknot fiction books and authors every weekend. book tv, television for serious readers. >> the morning of june 26, 1996, justice ruth bader ginsburg, the second woman appointed to high court since its founding slipped through the red velvet curtain behind the bench and took her seat at the end. five the places along the majestic curb sets sandra day o'connor since 1981, the first woman on the supreme court. each woman justice sported an ornamental white color on her somber black robe, but otherwise there was no obviously between the two of them anymore and there was any link between any of the other justices. on that day, however, the public got a rare glimpse of the ties that bound. the two most powerful women in the land. speaking from the depths of the high-back chair i'm of the-- that powered over her tiny frame, justice ginsburg delivered the decision of the court in united states verse virginia. from that morning june, 1996, virginia state run virginia military institute, which had trained young man just before the civil war would have to take females into its ranks. the constitution of the united states, which required the equal protection of the law for all persons including women demanded it. few people listening to that ginsburg got to speak for the court that morning because her sister-in-law, justice o'connor, had decided that she should. after the justices voted aye conference to admit women to be, the most senior justice in the majority or the chief justice if he is in the majority gets to assign the opinion. to anyone who agrees with the majority. that's how it works. he assigned it to the senior woman, sandra day o'connor, but she would not take it. she knew who had labored at the supreme court lawyer at the supreme court's for the american civil liberties union from 1971 to 1980, to get the court to call women equal. this should be ruth, she said. on decision day, justices do not read their whole opinions, which can often run with the scores of pages. that morning ginsburg chose to include in her summary reading a reference to justice o'connor's 1982, decision and hogan versus mississippi. o'connor's opinion from 15 years before with the closely divided court in hogan ginsburg reminded her listeners had laid down the rule that states may not close enter the gates based on six no seasons concerning the rules and abilities of male and female. then ginsburg, the legendary under monster did justice lifted her eyes from her text and paused and meeting the glance of her sister-in-law from across the bench she thought of the legacy the two were building together. she nodded at sandra day o'connor. she then resumed reading. [applause]. >> it's not me. is a great story. in a queue can watch this and other programs online at the book tv.org. >> you are watching book tv on c-span 2, television for serious readers. next up due to the start of a new supreme court term monday, watch will haygood and the life and career of thurgood marshall. than a 7:45 p.m. from last weekend's a baltimore book festival, westmore shares some of the lessons he has learned throughout his life. followed by a panel from the same book festival on the future of baltimore. also, this weekend on afterwards at 10:00 p.m., martha kumar discusses the transfer of power between george w bush and barack obama. at 11:00 p.m. eastern baltzer prize winning critic on growing up among the black elite in america. that all happens tonight on c-span twos book tv. now here is a will hagood on supreme court justice thurgood marshall. >> with the supreme court beginning a new term monday, i thought you would like to see this program. will hagood examines the life and career of thurgood marshall, specifically the five day senate hearing that resulted in his confirmation as the first african-american to serve on the supreme court. now, on book tv. >> i want to acknowledge and thank c-span for being here tonight. [applause]. >> let's hear it for c-span. [applause]. >> lets me just say one quick thing about thurgood, how important he was to our country for african-americans, for those who wanted to go to law school-- african-americans who wanted to go to law school, i was a part of that generation who looked up to him, believed in him, who was inspired by him that i to someday could go to law school and i could someday become a lawyer. there is a whole generation of people just like me who have gone on to do that because of the bravery and the courage thurgood marshall. so, tonight we are here gathered here this evening and i have viewed this really has the intersection of history and the future. would let me know that? the intersection of history and the future? well, we are in lincoln theater in this theater this was the only place where black folks could come and get entertained in a theater because they couldn't go downtown. they would come right here. in this theater was nearly demolished, a wrecking ball and we saved it, renovated it and it is now one of the jewels of the city of columbus. history tonight. [applause]. >> the intersection of our future of arts and culture in the black community, the revalidation, the rejuvenation, the re- creation of this king lincoln district in the process. history in the future, the intersection, will hagood who was raised in columbus, went to east high school, called himself playing basketball, everything he learned in life, he learned it here in the city of columbus mac. [applause]. >> his values, his skill, his inspiration. in fact, his first writing job was for the column post. it was located right around the corner. in this very neighborhood. will hagood never forgot about our city, even though he has gone on to win awards, written multiple books, great books. one of his books turned into a movie, the butler. someone who cares deeply about his past, deeply about the city of columbus and he is now one of the-- if not the premier great american biographer in our country. someone we are proud of in the city of columbus. [applause]. >> will hagood someone needs to tell the stories of our people. or they will be loss, and he does it in an eloquent way, in a way that is exciting and moving and inspiring for the future. for our children. i say we could never plan ahead unless we understand from where we come and will hagood has been that person that has explained where we come from, so that we can march onto the future and he has many more stories to tell. history and our future intersecting here tonight at lincoln theater. thurgood marshall. thurgood marshall visited columbus many times. we did some research on him. it was somewhere between nine and 13, 14 times he visited columbus. it goes all the way back to 1938. when he first came columbus, first recorded, he may have come before them. but, in 1938, he came to columbus five years after he graduated from howard law school. he came to our city to advocate, to participate, to speak and many times thereafter often at the naacp annual meeting in the city of columbus. the hotel is right around corner on garfield. because back in those days, black folks could not stay at the hotel's downtown like they couldn't go to the theaters downtown. so, they came to this area of our community, the harlem of the midwest. i can envision thurgood marshall walking up and down the streets of mount vernon avenue, going to our churches, walking up and down the streets of long street, i can envision thurgood marshall being in this theater at some point in time. everyone came to this theater on long street during that period of time. so, this is an intersection between history and our future. when thurgood marshall, there-- thurgood marshall helped set the path for the future of our country in many ways. he helped set the path for all of us here tonight, to enjoy the fruits of democracy and the greatness of our constitution. he was a true american that did so many good things to lift up our nation. lincoln theater, hagood, marshall all the one time, in one place in the city of columbus. how fitting. [applause]. >> that the son of columbus, he is our son, picks his city in this theater where thurgood marshall probably spent time on the streets of long street and mount vernon avenue. tonight, you are going to hear about the lowdown with the showdown. [laughter] >> thank you. [applause]. >> the one thing i forgot to tell you is that i spent 16 years as president of the king arts complex and now i have spent six years of the chairman of this board and it's great to have the two institutions collaborate and this is first of many to come. it is my distinct honor and pleasure to give you a brief overview of the will hagood. although, he noted no introduction to this audience. he has authored seven nonfiction books, including a trilogy of biographies of iconic 20th century figures hailed as culturally important by the los angeles times, the king of the cats, the life and times of-- adam clayton powell junior, a "new york times" notable book of the year, the second book of great noteworthy in black and white. the life samet is junior, a multiple award winner and the next book was called sweet thunder, the life and times of sugar ray robinson, named as a best book of the year by forbes. his other books are two of the river, about a 2500-mile journey down the mississippi river, and the hagood's of columbus, a family memoir: the story the butler needs no induction. a story of eugene allen, a white house butler who served eight presidents, turned into a blockbuster movie. mr. hagood's career has been notable for 17 years he was a national and foreign correspondent for the boston globe. in 1990, he covered the civil war in somalia and was taken hostage by the rebels. he was eventually released with the aid of pakistani and troops. on another foreign correspondent he found himself standing outside south africa, the south african prison where freedom fighter nelson mandela was it released after 27 years of imprisonment. little-known fact, he was one of the few american journalists to report from behind the berlin wall. mr. hagood has been a john simon guggenheim fellow and a national endowment for the humanities fellow. these are two of the highest awards the stowed upon an author. mr. hagood has been called americans can he asked cultural historian. he has explored the social and it dynamics of this country as the writers have. the works of mr. hagood come to life as he says his work-- words are meant to engage in a conversation or going back to the old school way of life, simply lets wrap. he says that stands for revitalization of the apathetic public and i would agree. that is what he says motivates him, revitalizes him and gives him the insight to write these meaningful historical journeys. as mr. hagood said, his subjects must be inspiring and by that he means they are welcome at his dining room table for a sunday dinner. he wants to be able to talk with them and that's how he chooses his subjects. his book, king of the, adam clayton powell junior tells about this harlem congressman's rise to power and fame. it reveals what of the most effective legislative persons in the history of congress. adam clayton powell junior likes thurgood marshall formed a bond with lyndon johnson that moved major legislation through the house like no other. king of the cats is historically significant. adam clayton powell crossed paths with a thurgood marshall and they occasionally communicated. they had a common bond in their interests and they were lying. this is another one of those journeys that will hagood takes us to better grasp the significance of a historic figure who happens to be african-american. in black and white the life sammy davis junior we learn that sammy davis junior was a fierce dedicated passionate civil rights advocate. he coordinated and pulled together both black and white entertainers to assist martin luther king in the civil rights movement. we witnessed the struggle that sammy went through in his conversion of his religion. we get an insight seat to his interaction with the rat pack, frank sinatra and company. we are a witness to history when sammy places a kiss on richard nixon and his career is forever diminished. the book also tells us that in the nixon kindy race for president it was clear that this up on the history nixon was more deserving of the black vote than kennedy. we witnessed firsthand that no entertainer had the skills of sammy davis junior. there is a scene where he plays every instrument and orchestra and we although about his ability to sing and dance. sweet thunder: the life and times of sugar ray robinson. sugar ray robinson pound for pound may be the best prizefighter the world has ever seen. that would include mohamed ali. will will tell us that sugar ray was not just a fighter, he was a harlem renaissance man. he loved the arts, that included literature, dance, song and arts. sugar ray interacted with all of the great entertainments and artist during the harlem renaissance. this cat was hip and this was cool and will told us about it. we get to see sugar ray in the life that no other author could have brought to life. again, will it resurrected an icon. the story of eugene allen, the butler, who served eight presidents who turned into a very successful blockbuster movie. again, will brings to life someone who was invisible to america. will gives us the dignity, the grace, the discipline and hard work of an individual who believed in the american dream. he risa life an individual who is present, but invisible during critical times in our american history over age presidents. only will hagood had the insight to give us this perspective in the cultural competence to do so in such a magnificent way. showdown: thurgood marshall but the constitution to life. he said the find the rules. i will live by the rules and i will be in what your own game. he had been recently nominated for the prestigious 2016 andrew carnegie medal for excellence in nonfiction. [applause]. >>