And believing in it, fundamentally, and using those principles as a way to try to ask for further progress on equality for them. So thats what i mean. Host what is the proof . Guest the proof is that every time there is some kind of protest movement organized civil disobedience, other kinds of movements on the part of africanamericans, our people, who are in coalition with them, always what they ask for are the principles that are pristine American Values of long standing. When wick Martin Luther king asked for justice he spoke in the tones of the language of the declaration and independences and constitution. Didnt speak in the tones of some alien philosophy that existed in some other country. Host in that book long memory, you kind of recount some of the black Resistance Movements over the years. When did it first start in the states . Guest well, there had been Resistance Movements since the beginning of the republic, and the colonial period we have documented movements of people trying to escape slavery and trying to resist their oppression. Not as many as one might hope there was a lot of discipline. Lots of movements in the period in the ante bellum history. And i wrote a book in which i have a couple of chapters on the seminole war as a black Resistance Movement because blacks and seminoles were fighting to maintain theyre autonomy and selfdetermination. So every period in our history in one way or another, there have been different modes modesf resistance, theres been some kind of reisresistance. Two people wrote an article years ago which i used in my stuff, borrowers, called daytoday resistance to slavery, and they meant the Little Things a person do daybyday on the plantation or whether it was breaking tools or saying that the animals wouldnt plow or whatever it was, so way to resist. So many different ways to resist. Host if you had to make a general statement about what was life like for southern blacks during reconstruction, what would it be . Guest during reconstruction, which didnt last very long, after the civil war, there was great excitement because venally black men got the right to vote, and we know that there was great excitement about that. Including women who couldnt vote, but who urged the men on, and would tell them how embarrassed they would be if they didnt, even though it was risky. So there was greet greatexcitement. These were dashed because reconstruction didnt last that long, but it was a great change. People left wherever they were, wandering all over the place, looking for their families, to put them back together, kid weather had been sold away, all kind problems. They were trying to reconstruct families and homes, so it was a time of excitement. Host why did reconstruction not last that long. Guest because once the war was over, the Union Soldiers wanted to go home. That is one thing. And no one was in a position in the north to permanently occupy the south, and the south was not about to give in to the change that had taken place without resistance, and there was a lot of violence. Its when these groups, like the knights of white camille yaas that today we talk about terrorist groups in our own country. That existed. The main thing there is was resistance from the south and there was the desire to end the war and pretty soon the blacks were left on their own. Host when did the states Rights Movement begin . Guest states rights started way before the civil war. There were some from the beginning of the republic, when we got the twoparty system, which was never envisioned in anything i could fine by the framers we then get people arguing about the meaning of the constitution. And some people taking the stance that the tenth amendment has more prime si than the rest of it, and other people feeling we should have a Strong National government. And this discussion animated the debate over slavery in the south, and it animated the debate over the tariffs and imports coming into the country, and who benefited and who didnt, and some of the great statesmen of the period, like john calhoun and others, were in fact states rightists. So happened before the civil war. Some people think states rights is something that happened way after and we talk about it now, but it is of long standing, and in fact there were debates about it at the constitution convention, the antifederalists were strong believers in the states rights. Host where did the term jim crow come from. Guest there was a according to people who researched this, and they would dance and the dance was called, dancing jim crow, and was a kind of black face, the way blacks were supposedly behaving. Host when did that movement, that era, begin and how . Guest which movement . Host jim crow era. Guest after reconstruction, in the ending of reconstruction, we gradually get laws passed that segregate on the basis of race, although the formal legal structure took place gradually and was in place by the end of the 19th century, as we go into the next century. In fact, it was in place in reality in many places before that time, and all that was, was a different way to control black people who hadbefore were controlled by slavery, and now to control them by segregation, which would also mean that they were serious. Host back tower you book low pong memories of black experience in america. Many blacks felt better about the discrimination of slavery in the south than the bewildering twists and turns in the color line in the north. It wasnt that Race Relations were better there than the north. On the contrary the blacks performed the south because below the Mason Dixon Line they knew what to expect from whites, while in the north discrimination appeared in the most unexpected places, and a black was never sure of how to act. Guest right. So that in the era of jim crow, if you were in the north you might assume that everywhere, everything, would be desegregated, and no one would ever say anything that was racist or do anything that was exclusionary, and then when you but it might happen. It might happen. And there were in fact places where interracial marriage was illegal. There was some segregation that you would encounter, whereas in the north you knew that there was legal segregation, and that you would be segregated, wherever you went. You didnt have to worry about it. Whether that would happen. That was the way things were. Host lets go your book black resistance. White oppression and black resistance have been a part of the american scene since the colonial period. The response over government in its efforts to suppress racial disor has reflected the tension between the lofty ideals expressed in the documents on which Constitutional Government is based, and the tendency of the white majority to desire summary disposition of those they regard as marginal or powerless. The predilection of the white majority to suppress effort biz africanamericans to acquire real freedom and equality in the u. S. As a group, even when white oppression means resorting to illegal violence and brutality, has added to that tension. Guest right. Thats the truism about the long sweep of American History. I began writing that book, by the way, when i was in law school at michigan, and i began writing it the night Martin Luther king was assassinated. And i was very angry and very upset, and i had been asked by one of my professors, when did the president start using executive power to suppress Resistance Movements . And i hadnt thought about the question in quite that way before. And so i started researching that book, which eventually got published, but i think that statement is a truism about the country, and it also reinforces something you said earlier, or asked me earlier, about blacks embracing American Values, and then fighting, and i told you about Resistance Movements usually call out, reach out to those values and say, this is a goal and this is what we want. So that description is the way the system worked. And within the description is the dichotomy between the values and the reality, and what blacks were always seeking is to achieve that reality. And its in fact what were still seeking as matter of fact. Host that book was originally written in 1971. Published guest published in 71,. Host and updated in 1994. Still hold true today . Guest in 1994, bring the book up to 1994, and i caulk in the book about the changes that took place over the years and the closer approximation we came to achieving those goals. While theres still a lot left to be done, and i talk about the various resistance moments and things that happened and how they were suppressed and not in the period leading up to the new edition. Host ferguson. How does that fit into your book . Black resistance. Guest if i were writing black resistance again, i would have to take into account what i know based on the hearings i did at the Civil Rights Commission, based on my own Police Community real estates, based on my own experience with these matters, i would have to write that while we have made great progress, which is a truism, since the time that the book was begun and since the beginning of the republic, that we still havent quite got it right, and some people still havent quite gotten the message, and that in fact is a lot more needs to be done. Host when did you serve as chair of the Civil Rights Commission . Guest i was appointed, nominated in 1980 and confirmed by the senate, jimmy carter appointed me. I had run federal Education Programs in the department of health, education and welfare, before that, and when i left the department, he appointed me to the commission, and i stayed on the commission, then when bill clinton was president , he made me chair. Host when did the civil right commission begin . Guest 1957. Dwight eisenhower, as president , had it proposed to him by his attorney general in a meeting. One of the things that motivated it was the nascent protests among blacks, also the report that had been done during the truman administration, called the to secure these rights. The beginning of desegregation in the armed forces. The continued complaint about Race Relations and racism in the United States, dullless, who dulles, who was secretary of state, told the president it was making it hard for the United States to stand up and compete in the world where all these new nations were becoming independent and the underdeveloped world as we called it, in asia, and in africa, and that more and more attention was paid without competition with the soviet union for the minds and heards of men, as they used to say. I guess women, too. And that people were always pointing out about the race problems in the United States, and every time anything happened, this made it really, really difficult. All of that was one reason why his attorney general said to him, you know, maybe what we should do is set up a commission. Governments set up United States government sets up commissions from time to time. Your listeners know this whenever theres a problem that seems insoluble, we get a commission. And they make an investigation. And usually they make it and then they go away, and thats the last anybody ever heard of it, and the books theyre on the shelves somewhere, and thats the end of that until the next time. But he eisenhower, in setting this thing up, he said his attorney general said, if youre going to do this, theyre going to need subpoena power so they can get witnesses to come in who dont want to come, and people who are scared to come. Will be forced to come. And so congress has to pass it because the to subpoena something you need the authority of statutory law. So iso they sent it to the hill and was part of the Civil Rights Act in 1957, the first Civil Rights Act since reconstruction. And it was set up, and supposed to be one year as eisenhower put it, he pounded the table and said, going to put the facts on top of the table. I dont know if he actually did that but thats what the store is he did. And in any case they went out and started doing hearings, and they were to be independent, and to give an independent view to the public and to the president , as to what was going on in Race Relations and how do they solve these problems, and thats when the commission started. Host when did you leave the commission. Guest i left the commission in 2004. I resigned when right after george bush i guess it was george w. Bush was the president then, and i resigned that year as chair and from the commission after years and years of serving on it. Host why . Guest i resigned from it because i knew we would not we had not had a majority that was in favor of doing something positive on civil rights, in my opinion, for years, and i had struggled and done Everything Possible to try to get something done, and i knew that the bush would continue after he was reelected with the same policies he had before, and that he would get appointments. And so i thought i had served my time, so to speak. Host is the commission different than some other agencies where whoever is in power in the white house gets the majority, 32 majority, because you served as chair while george w. Bush was president. Guest right, the commission when it was set up by eisenhower i explain that in this book, called injustice for all that i wrote about the history of the commission. It was one when it was renewed after the first year and kept on being renewed forever and is still around it was by law an independent agency, independent from the president , from anybody. And it was to have a balanced membership, and at first the people were nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate. And it was to be bipartisan. And the idea was that no one would influence what they did. And when they had reports of they would release them, without fear of favor. That was the idea. Host in that book, in justice for all the u. S. Commission on civil rights and the struggle for freedom in america you write that the Civil Rights Commission under run control betrayed the mission for which the agency was founded. It did not address immigration issues the treatment of victims of the flooding and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina 0, the need to find ways to achieve diversity in education and jobs. Guest right. Didnt do any of that. And that has been true for well, since i left, more or less. Its not even so much that they might have different opinions. Its okay to have different opinions. But its just that when major episodes and events would occur, we would investigate, the commission always before would go out and investigate the causes of things because the law required said you were supposed to do that elm thats why the taxpayers were paying you. But they seem to be oblivious, or they had some reason i dont know about, for not investigating any of these things. Host one of the thinks you write about in justice for all is the 2000 president ial election. What was your role . I was chair then, the commission got all these maintains from people by phone, staff did, about problems they were having with voting on election day, and they wanted the commission to do something, because the law says the excision had been very visible for a long time, and the law required us to do something. It said that when people complained their voting right are being interfered with, the Commission Shall investigate, doesnt say may, if it feels like it or think about it. And so the staff collected all of this information from people, and a couple of them went down to florida, which is where all this was coming from to see what was going on and talked are talk to various people, and when the commission met we all agreed, republicans and democrats, we had to investigate. And but we waited until after the election was over. We werent trying to interfere with the election, but we did want to find out what at the problems were so that we could see it didnt happen again to anybody, and so we did hearings in florida, which were televised on cspan and everywhere else. In fact they were televised to almost everywhere in the world that had television in florida, and subpoenaed people, jeb bush, the governor, and katherine harris, the secretary of state, and who was also on the Bush Campaign committee and so on, as well as all people who had complained about what had happened to them. And eventually we found things like people who were told they were felons when theyd never been arrested. Even one of them was the county clerk in charge of elections in one of the counties. They had told her she was a felon and was listed on the list of felons they had. And then discovered through the testimony that the company that did the felon purge of the list to come up with the right list, had told katherine harris, secretary of state and her staff, that the list would be erroneous because of the way it was done. But they let them go ahead and do it anyway. Our report finally focused on something that none of the media really had talked much about. The media was consumed with hanging chads and the people how the count went in different counties and so on. What we talked about mainly was what we called the no count. People who were eligible to vote, and who went to try to vote and wouldnt let them vote. Which means their votes didnt even get included in it, and there were people who were quite upset. I mean, there were elderly people who were told that their polling place was upstairs in a building, and when they came from the Senior Citizen center in the bus to go, there was no elevator so the idea was, how are they going to climb all the way up there to vote . Or the people who were disabled, i remember this testimony from one guy in a wheelchair, and he couldnt get to his polling place because they moved it, and there