Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth 20160502 : comparemela.com

>> c-span, created by america's cable television companies and brought you as a public service by your cable or satellite provider. >> in depth is in next on book tv. our our guest is the author of several books including his most recent, showdown on thurgood marshall. >> author will haygood, this is a quote from you, i write about black men who heroically manifest themselves into mainstream america.lentless purt i think my reading writing has been a relentless pursuit to explain all of america. what is that mean? >> well, i think that it is just been exciting to find these figures like adam junior, sammy davis junior, super weight ray robinson thurgood marshall, who were not born into mainstream society, who by their enormous talent and gifts they put themselves into the fabric of this country, by entertainment,s politics, sports, and in thurgood marshall's case, the law and in the case of the white house, butler, extra nor layered patriotic service to his country so these figures when i look back at the people written about they spend these amazing tales about society, culture, race and i don't always know if they knew it when they were doing it but heroism as well. you have the new york. congressman who passed legislation, anti-poverty legislation in the case of new york congressman powell, adam clayton powell junior you have sammy davis junior who integrated nightclubs in the 1940s all across this country. he was was one of the wave of entertainers who did that. louis armstrong, lena horne, and the person that i chose to write about as i mentioned sammy davis junior.b sugar ray robinson who foughthe the mob in new york who controlled the fight game he wanted to be and give fighters some independence himself especially and he became a six-time world champion while he was carving those rights for fighters in thurgood marshall subject of my latest book showdown, of course many epic cases that he thought before the united states supreme court's, his biggest victory in 1954 school desegregation case, brown b board of education. when you look at all of these i think you look at the story of 20th century america and how it matured, how is forced to mature >> host: i the certain figures. >> i want to show some video of someone you mentioned and have you explain what we're saying. >> i want to retire. at 34 years, you had been heree so long any serve so many people all over the world. you supervise and service so i think it went right to you. so the first one they had after i retired she invited me and my wife to a state dinner and i was so used, but my wife is not used to a lot of that. i was waiting on the table i told them be careful and make sure that he keep her eye honor and don't let her drink. >> who was that? >> that was eugene allen. white house butler, great man who i wrote a story about him in 2008 that appeared on the cover of the washington post, really one of the most unique figures in my life as a writer who have met i met him and his wife in 2008 before the election. it was amazing how i met him. i was the national writer with the national post and i was on the campaign trail within senator obama. i was in north carolina, theres is a rally after the rally i walked outside and there were three young ladies and they were crying. i told them who i was, will haygood haygood washington post and if there's anything i could do and they were crying because their fathers had kicked them out of their home because they supported an african-american candidate on stage.ite. now the young ladies were college students and they were white. it was a powerful moment because i said wow, even though hillary clinton was still in the race in 2008 at that time obama had started this epic movement and some of it was manifested in the tears of those three young girls were crying. in the middle of the night in my hotel room i said he's gonna win. he is going to climb that big, hard mountain and he is going to take this country across that hard mountain where race in your imagination intersects. i ran back to the newsroom into my editor, i said this guy, the senator from illinois he is going to win. he is is going to break history. my editor steve thought that i was too tired that i was exhausted, and i said no steve please listen to me, he's going to win. because he's going to win i'm going to go wherever i have to go in the country and find an african-american who worked in the service job before the 1960 before the rights bill was passed, this person was african-american, who i kind of figured was out there someplace who worked in the white houseo m before legal integration, it would mean so much to him or her to see an african-american who i predicted would take the white b house. looking back it does almost sounds like a bit of a fable. because steve had to have faith in me that i would find such a person. i was looking for somebody who did the laundry at the white house was a person who worked in the rose garden at the white house, or the person who shined shoes, or me, or a butler. i do not know why, i didn't know butler's in life and i just wrote out. so i started making phone calls and it's funny, the first people i called of course was the white house and of course they said they do not divulge any personal information about who has served who has not worked here. there? i sent will my goodness did abe lincoln overlook their work there? and it just 20000 phone calls turned into 30 and then phone calls out of the blue from tampa florida as it were and says that there is a gentleman by the name of eugene allen who she knew worked at the white house for two presidents and she said thar she heard that i was looking in georgetown and this is sometimes how these things work for journalists. you have to go knock on doors, let people people know that you're looking for somebody and sometimes things will come to you. so she told me that there is aoo gentleman by the name of eugene allen and that she thought he worked for two presidents and i should try to find him. it's a very common name so 40 calls, on the 57th call a man was on the other end of the phone and i said mr. allen i'm will haygood i'm a journalist working on the story. we are now five days from 2008 election. the african-american senator and three girls got the party'sepict nomination and there's one epic step to take so i told him that i wanted to come over and talk to him about his life because i had heard that he worked for tw. presidents and he said, you got that wrong, i work for a precedence. harry truman, to harry truman, to ronald reagan. that is eight. of course, i went over and spent this amazing time with him and his wife and wrote that story about this man who worked in the white house and saw history move in front of his eyes. >> this was a little in reverse because you wrote the article and then the movie came out, then your book came out. correct. correct? >> yes. >> how did that work? >> that's a great question. the story was written and then a movie producer produce spiderman movie and she reach me by phone to say that the story made her cry and that she wanted to buy the right to make the movie. so when someone from hollywood calls for the simple fact that who knows if something will ever get made.o washingt so she was insistent that she came to washington d.c. to visit me with pam williams her assistant at the time. now pam williams has her own company. who had but she was telling me about the movie directors who are interested in the story about this man who had worked at the white house and saw a lot of change in the country. then i hear nothing. everybody in hollywood whitehead and talking to win silent.s the tom williams and then johnson who is cofounder, they band together and they bring in lee daniels.si the director. they start raising money and all of a sudden pam williams calls me and says we found that actor who is going to play the butler. i'm at home sitting on my sofa, eating a a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, minding my own business. so i say who? and he said forest whitaker. i say come on, really. really, forest whitaker and she calls me a day later says guess what, we found the butler's wife. and i said was that going to be? and she says, are you sitting down. and i said knob setting up but should i sit sit down and she said sit down. oprah winfrey. and i said come on pam, i know you're pulling my leg now, opral winfrey has acted in like 17 years. and she's going to play the butler's wife? and she said said yes, opera loves the story that much. so the other cast members started falling into place, i went down to new orleans where we are filming, this is going to get back to your question aboute the book and i'm standing on a movie set one day and all of these actors are walking around in between the scene and there is jane fonda, there is clearance howard, there's cuba gooding junior, there's leash i just reber all of these great actors and i just said to nobody really, i just said it's like i'm using almost. i said my goodness, somebody should should write a book about this spectacular moment. of all this talent on this movie set making this movie about a butler and his wife. clearance howard was walking by and he heard me and he said, you're the writer, you ought to write the book. and that really is how the butler book was born. that idea, terrence howard and the actor put the idea inside me. then when i got back home washington d.c. to get in touch with a book editor and she wanted to do it. i started writing the book. >> so it went from article, movie, book, how true to what you learn from eugene allen was the movie? >> well, i learned a lot about the moviemaking business being on the set and being an associate producer of the movie, that that was fine. there is a great street green writer who wrote a beautiful script and lee daniels had told me in a meeting he said what i want to do with your story is open it up. i want to cover the whole arc of the civil rights movement. it really had never been done on the big screen in this country. hollywood had sort of been very reticent to tell epic stories of this nature. so lee daniels, the director wanted to do that. he had his family, the story the story was going to be anchored to his family. in all of these historic ups and downs of the civil rights movement, there were some changes from the actual story to movie but the theme of the whole movie i feel i stay true to the story. there was one big difference, charles, the son of the butler did go to vietnam but he survived, in the movie he died. in real life there is only one side and, in the movie there >> host:. >> did eugene allen show with you personal stories about each of the present he worked with? >> yes, he was a bit, how can i put it? a bit shy in certain cases, but yes, he did. he of course saw his life being played out through the different bills and legislation that was being passed, and meant something to him when eisenhower passed the civil rights law. it meant something to him when president kennedy went on tv and talked about the historic clashes in ole ms., it meant something to him when doctor king visited the white house, it meant something to him when news floated to the white house that it had been a bit clash over school integration measure. so all of these presidents did something at one time that stood out to him.ut he said something that was very touching about president kennedy, he was overseas and i think in switzerland is whatevef maybe 1962 and he had about six hours off that day and he wanted to go into a little town and get a gift for his wife. the store clerk had a 100-dollar bill. or a large bill in their currency. so the store clerk told him that she did not have change and thal she wanted to go across the store fo street. he was healing person store, she, she wanted him to watch the store for him. he told me, he said 1962, in georgetown, store clerk most likely would not have asked me to watch their store while they went on the street. in that type of dignity bestowed upon him it almost brought tears to his eyes. of course he said if anybody would have come in and tried to harm her store in any way he would've fought him to the death. that is just a lovely littleknoi moment about history, his mindset, what, what he took from his travels around the world with these presidents. that really stands out. >> he seems to come according to your book have a somewhat special relationship with dwight eisenhower and with greg and. >> guest: yes he did. with eisenhower connection mr. allen son, charles was going to school in 1954 when the epic of brown versus board of education decision came down from the supreme court. deseg desegregating the american public school system. so you have a father who is a butler walking into the white house looking at this president knowing that socially the nation now is about to shift. of course that clash took three years of vacuum about in little rock arkansas at central high school in the fall of 1957 when the black children walked into the school and they were peltedc with rachel at the text, it was a horrific day for the schoolchildren. mr. allen had to see that and of course he had to wonder if something like this happened to my son, and what are you going to do mr. president. of course he he would not have dare asked president eisenhower that, but that had to be on his mind. will my child be hurt? this is a unanimous decision by the u.s. supreme court, the buck stops with you mr. president and i'm sure that mr. allen was looking in an extrasensory way for the white house, for his country to put the weight behind the supreme court decision.eiseh president eisenhower did. he sent the troops into little rock to protect the children. so to have been appearance, up close to the man who did that, it must've been a very magical moment for him when president eisenhower painted in oil portrait shortly after that and gave it to mr. allen as a gift. he also, when president eisenhower was out of the white house he would invite mr. allen to go golfing with him, not as a butler, but as an equal. man-to-man. would you like to play some golf, that must've been a beautiful thing to him. >> host: did he live to see president obama inaugurated? >> guest: yes. after the story came out mr. allen, the transition team of the president-elect, bless their hearts for this, they saww they saw the story and they sent a vip invitation to mr. allen into his son to go to the swearing in. little old me got an invite to, who knows why but anyway we all went on that very cold morning. mr. allen, his son charles and me it was very cold, and you could take the subway so far but then you had to walk. we were walking and mr. allenfr wasn't breathing very heavily, he was elderly, frail, i felt bad felt bad and i said mr. allen, i think that we should stop. we should turn around because we have about a hundred more yards to go. i can tell that you're in pain. he had arthritis very bad and i knew he was sad because his wife had died the day before the election and there is a lot of heavy pain inside of him, aside from his ailments. but he looked at me when he's when i said that and he said you will my right arm and he looked us son and he said you hold my drop bec. and he said just don't let me drop because i am not turning around. then it hit me why i had wanted to do such a story in the first place. a man who has seen what he had seen, who had been born and raised in the south now this moment. so we were taken and shown our vip seats in the living president who he had served under all walked out for their he was talking about them as if he they were his friend. there is president carter over there, he's looking okay. there's -- things like that. then he said to me, he said when the nation's first african-american president tookr the oath of office, mr. allen the butler who has started in the basement at the white house as a pantry man, he looked at me and he said, when i was in the white house you could not even dream that you could dream of a moment like this. use the word dream twice. it was very touching. livin he had saw so much in his life. now, he was living to see with his own eyes and african-american take the highest oath for the highest office in the great united states of america. >> host: from your book, the butler and looking back over my own writing it seems now that te eugene island allen was a capstone to all the fascinating figures i'd interviewed in years past who had a link to turmoil. >> guest: yes. i can just look at the life oftd thurgood marshall who was this great, legendary naacp attorney who dreams of the naacp legal to fight legal cases. mostly throughout the american south but also on the east and west coast on the midwest. on the day the president lyndon johnson nominated thurgooder marshall to the supreme court in 1967 there are three butlers in the white house, one of those bubblers was eugene allen. t the law had been used to stop mr. allen from doing things in the 50s when he worked in the white house he could go back to his native virginia and not be allowed to try out a suit, or hat and a men's clothing store because of the color of his skin. thurgood marshall was using the law to elevate the likes of mr. allen. so that day in 1967 there is history. there is the majesty of hope right there in the white house. mr. allen serving thurgood marshall. >> .. congressman, you were a warier and sammy davis junior was a warrior in the arena of entertainment, sugar ray robins robinson, and you know, a genuine patriot mr. allen who served and was unknown fiesole fame is that he worked under the american flag on pennsylvania avenue every dau come even when he couldn't, you know, exercise right as a totall citizen, never missed a day of work, loved the president. i asked him during my time spend with him if he was a democrat or republican and he said you can just put down that i am american. that's good enough. put that in your story. >> host: june 13, 1967. here's the video. historians will note this hour at the white house in the ceremony the great grandson of a slave is nominated by president johnson to be a supreme court justice in the solicitor general thurgood marshall acknowledgedol the best lawyer of the century and the president also calls the nominee the best qualified. >> i informed him that i shall send to the senate this afternoon the nomination of mr. thurgood marshall the position made vacant by the resignation by justice clerk of texas. >> stepping down of justice clark the first of the race so honored. >> why did h >> why did he take thurgood marshall? >> guest: i think president johnson had a great sense of justice for the country and he seized a moment in history i think he had done a lot of work to get the 1964 civil rights bill passed and then came to 1965 voting rights act and i think president johnson said if i can find a brilliant african-american jurist to integrate the united states supreme court that would be the final nail in the coffin of white supremacy. ever since george washington started dominating the supreme court justices. so, if for many people it was unthinkable that one of the nine was an african-american and a jihad 129 cases before the court. most never get one victory, so his place has already been made in history for the federal appeals court judge and the supposed origin of -- solicitor general. he said if i can make this happen it would be a dazzling moment in the nation's history anand it will be something thatt both right and he started before that moment. oddly enough there was no vacancy when johnson started thinking of it and he had to convince the associate justice tom clark to step down and it was very rude and how he did that and i explained in the book. i can tell you quickly if youn e would like. lyndon johnson was the master of the senate as he has been called by the great writer by robert caro. so he called tom clark, who johnson had known because they were friends in texas and they had known each other and lyndon johnson is thinking the thurgood marshall, supreme court, no vacancy. what can i do.urt, no va and he said i wanted to appoint your son the attorney general but i can't do it because you're on the supreme court and a lot of people would see a conflict of interest in my goodness he is your only son and i know the dynamics of the father and sony and how much and i know your wife and i know that it would be great for ramsey to have this great position but i just want you to know i can't do it. my hands are tied and it is a shame. tom clark says to president johnson my goodness is there anything i can do and he says i don't know but i was a this if you weren't on the court that would make my worry go away com, this conflict of interest thing goes out the window but i'm not telling you what to do. that's your only son. so tom clark went home to surprise his family and said everybody, i'm stepping down from the court and all of a sudden there was a vacancy andnb lyndon johnson didn't even tell other senators. he wanted it to be a surprise. unlike in today's environment. it didn't happen with thurgood marshall it really was a stealth appointment, very quiet and vera surreptitious. just moments before he'd walked out into the rose garden he called some senators and said i am appointing thurgood marshall right now and he would hang upse the phone. no time for rebuttal. hold on mr. president, no. he wasn't going to hear it so that's how it happened. >> host: from your book showdown, "no justice had come to the court with a background thurgood marshall possessed. he was an evangelist on behalf of the world."." >> guest: he was. he looked across the country starting a in th minute 30s, ane figured that in order to bring equality into the law i'm going to have to start filing lawsuits and assuming jurisdiction. i'm going to have to go intotojn texas and file a lawsuit for voter rights come and that'sil what he did in the famous case smith versus albright, whichin meant that now blacks could vote in all white democratic primary when before they couldn't. the thurgood marshall changed that. he went into st. louis andnd achieved a great big housing victory, which translated to kramer and that casement people could no longer sell their house or to say you can't sell this to somebody that is black or jewish. that was thurgood marshall . imprint. brown v. board of education. he integrated the university of texas law school, a lovely story. the thurgood marshall . mother wanted him to go to the university of maryland school of law and marshall from baltimore his mother just dreamed of that ibut my son is smart enough to become the first black to be admitted to the university of maryland school of law. marshall knew that they wouldn't accept him because he was black so they went to howard university law school and graduated number one in his class and a then marshall went and found a gentleman by the name of donald murray and said i want you to apply to the university of maryland school of law. and he said mr. marshall, why in the world would i do that? they are not going to accept a black applicant and thurgood marshall said i know. they will turn you down and i will sue them. and that's how i will get you in, just like that it happened. thurgood marshall's sue the school of law and they escorted him to class on the first day and dare anybody to mess with them. thurgood marshall wa is a pretty tall hefty guy. that's really talking the talk and walking the walk at the same time. >> host: the book is called a showdowshowdown for a reason. here's another quote from your book referring to the judiciary chair james eastland who's a democrat from mississippi. people from mississippi loved him because he was doing exactly what they'd send him to the u.s. senate to do but maintain the prices can't keep the negro down. >> guest: yes. i went to mississippi to do research on the james eastlandnt family legacy, and i looked through his papers and found a lot of very harsh statements that he had made about blacks in world war ii. he called them cowards. he said this on the floor of the u.s. senate. he had an animus towards thurgood marshall because marshall really had upended the ways of the southern senators who were on the committee whoys are going to be judging him. senator judge mcclellan ofim. arkansas, senator strom thurmond of south carolina and a stanley irvin of north carolina and james eastland of mississippi. these were the men who had signed the southern manifesto, which was a manifesto to keep the democratic party and so eastland was a very perturbed and president johnson gave him no warning about the nomination because he now had to get a strategy very quickly to stop the nomination, so he wouldn't tell the white house with data hearings would be held. but the hearings finally where held command of some of the questions from eastland evoked some of the questions that blacks would be asked that were trying to vote. how many jelly beans are in a jar? how many soap bubbles are in a little bowl of water over their? strange, unnerving questions like that. and the white house knew that it had a battle on its hands especially because thurgood marshall was nominated at a time of great unrest in the country. there were riots in baltimore and there newmark and cincinnati and various towns and cities down south and so the southern senators were saying the thurgood marshall was on prime antimeand on the last day of the hearing, there was the epic ride in detroit that really send shivers through the white house because here was this black man they were trying to nominate to the supreme court and they were somehow tidying up the thurgood marshall to the unrest in detroit, and it was really intense moments for the white house but in trying and writing the book, one thing i wanted to do was to give a full-fledged picture of these southern senators. i didn't want to portray them as cardboard racist figures although they certainly held a portable views about race. senator sam ervin of north carolina traveled a lot and would go to vintage bookstores all around the country and he collected books. his wife would see them coming in and say sam, not again! hewitt have 20 more hardback books under his arm. he came to own 30,000 books and somebody had written a line, not somebody can actually it was me. i wrote this line in a book andi it says in one of the books that he collected, books about the law, about politics and history could sam find any justification for equality for the black man come and john mcclellan, the senator from arkansas. i went out to a small college in arkansas where the papers were and looked at them. on the last day of the visit i came across a letter from a lady named barbara ross, and i'm reading the letter and it stops me in my tracks. this was a letter sent to the senators office and she said and i quote from the letter she said the chances are that the nomination of thurgood marshall will be turned down. but i beg you, senator, to open up your heart and let the prejudice go and give thurgood marshall a fair vote. i wish to tell you that if he doesn't make it onto this up in court, there will be other suprem african-american nominees, and you won't be able to stop them all. i also would like to tell you, senator, that one of these days, the president of the united states will be in the a negro. and i couldn't move. i read that letter and i couldn't move. literally i just sat there and in the desk in the research library i remember it was a friday night and was gettings ready to close and i saw that letter and i knew that letter was going to play a part in my book and it is as if she predicted president obama because on the letter it said do not answer.. so the senator's office had no intention to even send this woman whoever she might be come even in the form of a letter she didn't deserve even from their way of thinking of the letter and so i couldn't shake it and i le was telling some people about it and i told my sister about thist letter to and she said my goodness you have t defined a member of her family when thehe book comes out to tell them about this letter that's in your book and i told my sister i said yeah, that is a good idea and. so, i thought he could about it and the letter had been addressed. 2103 delaware street arkansas. so i called the city clerk and said hello. my name is will and i just spent five years writing this book about thurgood marshall's battle to be confirmed onto the supreme court and in the book i found a letter from a one-time resident by the name of barbara ross. my book will be out very shortly i told her -- this was like six months ago -- and i said is there anyway i can find any relatives that this barbara ross might have and the city clerk said the name doesn't ringoss mh about, but with the ask around and i will get back to you and so in about five to six days, she called back and left a voice message on my landline phone an a sad you should call this number and of course when somebody says that a journalist you know, you really get more than a little excited. so i dialed the number and a voice answered that said hello and i said hi and i am well and i wrote a book called showdown of the thurgood marshall . 1967 confirmation hearing and i quote a letter by a lady named barbara ross, and somebody over at the city clerk's office told me to call this number because i'm trying to find any family members of mrs. ross so i can tell them that this letter is in the book. and she says my name is barbarak ross. and i'm sort of taken aback and i said really? were you named after her orid something and she sent i was 19-years-old, i was home from college this summer and i graced the pic on the radio that the senators are giving mr. marshall a hard time and i told my mother and my daddy that i wanted to write a letter to senator mcclellan and my dad said don't do that come if i take the family in trouble.get the that the next day when my dad went to work my mom walked over to me and said go write your letter and i wrote that letter and a it was mind-boggling to me to be talking to the writer of this letter, and as i said the address, because i was now holding the letter in my hand, the address was on the letter, 2123 delaware street and i wanted to test her. i said can you recall where you are living this summer in 1967he when those hearings were taking place and she said of course. i was living with mind tha my d3 delaware street and i said my goodness. i said first, let me apologize that you did not get a response from your senator. obviously your parents pay taxes and you deserve a response from even a form letter, and i know you didn't get it because this letter says do not answer. i said history has a way of sometimes working out rather beautifully. not only is there an african-american in the white house as you know, but your letter is going to be in my book and i will send you a copy of the letter in the book as soonn as it's published. i'm very happy to say that this is barbarmrs. barbara ross of to predicted president obama . election in the midst of the thurgood marshall battle now has a copy of showdown in her home. home. this too is she white or black? a copy of she's black. >> host: and her dad wase. scared she would get in trouble? >> guest: yes.uest: she's before we got off the phone, we talked for about 45 minutes and she said tony, what was it like working with oprah winfrey on a movie? [laughter] >> host: what was it like working with oprah winfrey on the movie? >> guest: i don't want to sound a jaded, but it was quite special. i mean, i'd never met her and i later found out when the story came out she was in chicago inia her office somebody handed her the story that i had written and she read it and she said goodness gracious, if there is ever a movie made about the story, i want to be a part of it. yes. she said that in 2008 and we didn't start filming until 2012. so something about the story touched her.ing about th and i remember the first time i met her, lee daniels, thelee director, we were at a bus station in new orleans filming this scene when the butler's son is getting ready to go off to college. the butler's son is played by david, a great actor who signed robinson from my pre- fender book. anyway, lee daniels escorted me across the way to meet a ms. oprah winfrey come and she was very busy.winf she was actually getting ready to film her first scene and he said oprah, i wanted to introduce you to go hager at. she looked at me and said hello, well, just like that, very quietly and that was it. then i walked back across the floor. the next day we are in this area where lunch is being served and i am in line getting my nails and i hear this voice that says wow! and i said goodness gracious but sounds like oprah winfrey. i hope she's not calling out oni me. why is she calling me? she says it again only this time louder, and i turned around andg she says come over here. i go over to her table then it's just me and her having one on this movie set and she wanted to know all about the butler, how i found the butler come out into the butler's wife come and she told me what this story meant to her, which i think is nice to mention a. hollywood movies about the civio rights movement of course they've been scanned very few and far between and some in theh history of hollywood there are slave movies and movies like modern movies. it's almost as if the 40s and 50s in black culture, 30s, 40s and 50s in black culture has been absent from the screen and there were a lot of people who laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement and they used to send money to the selma marchers in the late 50s when rosa parks was refusing to give up her seat on the bus. so these were the quiet warriors putting $5 in the mail sending it to doctor king's church of were some other church that had been burned in florida. the needs and the butler is toa this. they send the money down south. my own grandmother and mother were born in selma alabama and you know, that's a part of history that you can't reallyof ever escape if you are dreamingr for the next generation and oprah said that it was so important to honor those people, the needs and the butler's and factory workers who were african-american, who gave a dollar here and a dollar there to the civil rights movement because it would not have endured or survived without them. >> host: good afternoon and welcome to the tv c-span2. this is our monthly program. one author and his or her body of work in the basement of his author and journalist go hager. two on the river came ou came ot eacof theditch with the mississr he took. king of the cats to life and times of adam clayton powell came out in 1993. columbus ohio a love story 1997 and black-and-white the life of sammy davis junior 2003. sweet thunder the life and times otimesof sugar ray robinson in . the butler, which we've talked about extensively a witness to history 2013, and his most recent that came out last year, showdown thurgood marshall and the supreme court nomination that changed america. this is your chance to participate. we've been talking for about an hour and we would like to hear if you have questions and comments would like to share we've only gone through a couple bucks so far. we will get through a couple of the others as we go through the afternoon. afterno (202)748-8200 for those in east and central time zones from 748-8201 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. you can also contact us electronically, [email protected] and on social media@booktv is the twitter handle you can leave a comment just make sure to include@booktv and you can make a comment on the facebook page from facebook.com/booktv. you'll see them right at the top of page and you can make a comment in that section. we will begin taking those calls in just a few minutes. 1967 thurgood marshall is nominated. where were you, how old were you and do you remember?ou, how >> guest: i was in columbus ohio. was the summertime. i was 13-ars-old so i was probably on my skateboard skating up and down north fifth street that i have no knowledge of the thurgood marshall . nomination.ination i remember seeing flashes of unrest on the tv screen as i lived with my grandmother and my mother and as i said they both wanted selma alabama in the marches and the riots. they would be glued to the tv set. that's one of the things i wish i had heard about with thurgood marshall and junior high school but i haven't were sugar ray robinson in high school but i haven't, or what sammy davis junior had done as a riveting trailblazer in the arena of entertainment. and i think in a way, that's what i seek to do in my book ish to seal the gaps of history that i think should be. if i hadn't been showdown, i would have dreamed of walking into a bookstore and seeing showdown and i would have bought that book immediately.y. but since i never did, no one has ever written about the five days of the confirmation hearings and all the drama around the five days which were stretched out into 13 days like the hearings here and then no hearings for the next few days without any reason to. but those were monumental in the country. johnson saw a moment and made it happen and nominated thurgood marshall and he became this great jurist after the showdown battle and i think that he made lyndon johnson very proud. there was a moment, and i talk about it in the book when lyndon johnson was out of the white house, he had called up to thurgood marshall landis said what the hell are you pushing me through to get you onto the court? it was just hell. lyndon johnson now on his ranch in texas told thurgood marshall i'm going to write a book about the confirmation process and how hard it was coming and i'm going to write a book about it. thurgood marshall said mr. president, if there is anything i can do to help you, i will. johnson died and never got a chance to write that book. i told this story to my niece and she said you've written a book that the president wanted to write and so if i have been so be it. i'm happy about that. >> host: from your book the hate goods of columbus. he learned abouyou learned aboun mount vernon avenue about things that flew, life. i came to learn that it's the one avenue in our town that kept the town hall. it was a place of nightclubs and restaurants. all black-owned. mostly black-owned. that's where doctor martin luther king jr. would give a talk and where lyndon johnson visited mount vernon avenue and jimmy carter visited mount vernon avenue. a lot of politicians if they wanted to get black votes, they would have to appear on mount vernon avenue.mm and my mother went up to mount vernon avenue to some of the bars and nightclubs come and my sisters did, too. the whole family went to this strip in columbus ohio come and that book actually was conceived as a book about a street slowlya disappears over a period of time like many urban neighborhoods with nightclubs that have disappeared for various reasons. urban renewal over highway being built. the highway came and sort of took the guts out of mountntthei vernon avenue. but i conceived that book as it wasn't my idea that's tied off from that. i wouldn't have thought that my name, the last surname of my family needed to be in the title because the editor's decision to permit great editor nameemigratr davidson that edited the book but it was conceived to be about the rise and fall of mount vernon avenue and then it morphed into a family memoir. >> host: my mother drank, you write. she couldn't hold it at all that she performed the preferred bourbon.. she wanted to dance. guest yes, my mother tells ira, great woman, beautiful. the lost her not long ago in the family born in selma alabama and worked most of her life. she had a job as a waitress, and a she loves mount vernon avenue. she loved to have a good time and she loved the sense of family. that was very important to her. she lived with her parents and grandmother and grandfather for many years on the north side of the town and we moved to the east side of the town to a housing project and that was actually my others first independent living by herself. she lived there with her children and the bright lights of mount vernon avenue pulled her in on the weekend and that i think was the impetus looking back at my mother and her life, that was the impetus to do that book. >> host: did the bright lights grab you or any of the members of your family? >> guest: yes. everybody in the family i thinkt liked the allure of nightclubs. i became the first person in my family to go to college in 1972 i went off to college i went to miami university in ohio, which is where i actually teach now and so, i would be home in the summertime and would peek in on what was going on on mount vernon avenue. but that's nightlife, the dark and bright lights of nightlife frightened me. i just didn't want to be caught in the snare of the. so i found a way to understand it by writing about it and now it's a i don't know if this is charming or acute or what. but the mayor who just left office in columbus was named a small part of mount vernon avenue and so it's right in front of a where the theater used to be that my mother dreamed of having her picture so that's just a sweet little moment in a writer's life. >> host: longtime journalist with the "boston globe" and the "washington post." kirk in california your first up today. >> caller: hello? >> host: please go ahead.>> h >> caller: i want to make a comment on how the story about barbara is a beautiful story of a person that had a voice in politics it does make a difference. it's important for people think their voice doesn't count but this is the perfect example of how it does matter and it's just a beautiful story and i appreciated it very much.ly enj you hank you very much. i sometimes talk to college students and even the students that i teach and i let them know that one person can make a difference and you can be brave. that's the letter she never got a response but then many years later, the little boy that was on the state board in 1967 grows up to be a writer in arkansas and finds the letter and puts it in the book and then find, barbara herself and so people can make a difference and it's wonderful to see things like die that happen. >> host: did she review the book anreviewed thebook and lik? >> guest: yes and she wrote me a wonderful letter which i will cherish. she said mostly that she had wanted to know all the behind the scenes things that happen to that enabled thurgood marshall to make it onto the bench and she told me in her letter she said now i know, rps maybe i will write my own book someday. she became a school teacher for many years and taught history. >> host: portsmouth virginia at your own booktv.>> host: bob >> guest: >> caller: i would like to thank you for your book. i'm sitting here and i would like to make a comment and also pose a question to. i find that it's never been an attempt to give a level playing field the media seems to split things to always keep that in the physical construct which most of the time it's accompanied to everything we do. on.com and i would like to pose a question to you because i look for places where we can have a more intimate audience with people such as yourself where we can deliver information in the whole concept that is psychologically healthy to us. do you know of any then use a they might become an audience of?of? >> guest: i -- my life was mostly glued to the writingly te aspect of what you happen to be talking about. i look at the case of the new york congressman and when he died there were a lot of negative stories and one of the things i wanted to do as a writer is show his importance to clinton johnson for the war on poverty so that was sort of my way of flipping the narrative about mr. powell, and i think that book did that. i think now you seem as a full american figure. no one is perfect but his talent far outweighs any flaws that he had a so that's when i can post your question of finding the positive in these stories. >> host: i want to show some video of adam clayton powell. >> ima belonged to a group of people that some others may think are inferior but i belong to a group of people you're the same as my children and/or the same as anyone else and with that kind of faith in me, i know that i'm as good as anybody. remember that. [applause] if you will stand together ther] is no one in this world that can stop the united mass of people standing together, working together, boycotting together and voting together a. [applause] >> from your book adam clayton powell was hand-picked by no one and was hand-picked. >> guest: he was an original from the eastern seaboard he arrived in washington in 1945 when he was sworn in as a queue is battling many. the people i ended up circling back to for the thurgood marshall book, southern democrats, he was in the house and these were senators and so powell was on the outside because the chairman was a gentleman by the name of graham barton a but the wave of democrw that were elected elevated him to end he became the chairman oa the powerful position and he started passing a lot of social legislation in student loan bills and he was instrumental in that beautiful program i went through the federal government would find these gifted high school students and send you to a local college to take courses. it was a wonderful program that. still exists. he was responsible for passing a whole lot of poverty legislation in the country in 1964, 1965, 1966. >> host: his successor is still in congress. they took him in the primary seat, didn't they? >> guest: he of course was involved in scandals and taking the two women on a trip and using housing funds to do that by today's standards but nevertheless he was ousted by the fellow house members to so he sued the house and they went to the supreme court and a one. the house might have had a valid legislative move if they would have adhered to the will of the people first but they just threw him out of ignoring the will of the people that wanted him to be seated. >> host: tacoma washington please go ahead with your listening. >> caller:. >> host: i apologize for interrupting but if you can get off the speakerphone it' speakea little difficult to understand. >> caller: they talk briefly about you and your accomplishments. one of the things you mentioned is how they finance some light but it's another area where the did most of the financing and/or responsible for getting people out of jail, they did to march on washington as well as the advanced form of transportation and the most powerful black person in the 40s and 50s was the secretary of the union who was black and they had over 30,000 members have supported so it's a wonderful area and i love your books and you tell great stories and you are a great historian thank you very much. the only question is of the memoir of the family to talk about your mother is there anything else in your family because in many ways you are special and you really reflect that. >> host: think you by the way for that call. i like to think all of members of my family are very gifted and they taught me things about life and about unity and a very close family. i see family members all the time so i'm very fortunate to have a family that i have and love them all very deeply. one thing about the financing of the civil rights movement, when i was working on my sammy davis junior buck, he said one of the things you have to get in this book is the fact that sammy davis junior sent a lot of money to doctor king. they could come up overnight with $40,000 in cash to be a lot of kids and teenagers who've been arrested in georgia or mississippi or florida and so it was great to learn that part of the story and it became a very important chapter in my book so thank you for pointing that outk >> host: looking back now i can see that summer night marked the beginning of my sistersbackn declined.ht she climbed out of bed at home and walked straight ahead than in two years and years of darkness. it was my twin sister and she battled some demons in life. i lost a sister also a. things happen in families. there is the famous quote all families are alike in some ways and so there's a wonderful flipside. my sister recently graduated from columbus state college ande i delivered the commencement address so good for her. >> host: you also talk about the fact [inaudible] yes i have a very good speech>> impediment that i was a kid. i would say in the second, third and fourth grade. it was old-fashioned and they would put this big machine on my head. it was just crazy and nothing worked. life went on and things got better and better. i i had to come through that and it's a mystery how one can get through that. i think it is maybe steeped in this and i kept getting cut from the basketball team. i got cut from a the eighth grade basketball team. i got cut from the tenth grade basketball team and i got cut from the junior varsity team inm the ohio and i would go back to the coaches and ask every coach if i could have a second chance and have one more day of practice because they have enough confidence in myself that i would do better with that extra practice. i've always been very grateful if somebody would just believe in me and believe that i can perform on the basketball court so i ended up i'm proud to say being on the team and being on the junior varsity at miami university on the basketball team and even played and they got cut from the basketball team. >> host: i think our producer found a picture of you and your sister at columbus state university that we want to show. that was the speech, right? >> guest: yes i gave the commencement address. >> host: georges in college park maryland bar on. >> caller: it's great to speak with you. i have a question about empathy towards the society and the struggle that this kind of led me to want to divulge more where there's many that you see that a end up getting dumb things and my first is a perfect example op that. i had horrible home life, my mom is crazy, my father isn't working and i had to go through these modern problems in addition to going through the problem of being african-american with these expectations and no site of any meanbutthen he means for me toea accomplish them. if you had no hope in the country, simply because i figure with my parents situation and then on top of that the lack ofh empathy. your experience that allows people to be removed from situations that inhabit them to grow into who they want to be. how do you think that we can cut personally myself who's basically given up and how can i have a chance to redeem myself? >> host: are you at theege pa university? >> guest: computer science, i've been going in and out of school. >> host: your second-tier? >> guest: yes in and out of school i lived in a hotel with my parents because i didn't have the money to pay for a place. i've had horrible transportation costs and i can't -- i cry a lot and it's hard to go outsid outsd holofradiant with your self up d say i can actually do this when you try but then it gets takenen away because you missed it here or you might be doing this wrong or you followed a the wrong qu people. when i am among other people in college and they see me as the one that barely got here it really hurts to try your hardest and have that on the perception that everybody is against you. >> host: you said you messed up.wo what have you done to mess up? >> guest: being coldly or assignment of being fully done a.entor. there's not many people thatma want to have a black kid and i don't mean that as a race thing that i've tried my hardest. they've worked with professors at the school, tried trying ton and day out. >> guest: first of all, don't give up. this is going to move away from what you mentioned that as a foreign correspondent i was in south africa and i watched nelson mandela walked out of prison and a he was relentless and cited his pride in who he was. there are a lot of people in society who want to to help people like you. the people who always have faith in me i look back and they were always school teachers who listened to me. family members have always had faith in me, have always dreamed as big as i dream for myself daydreamed right alongside of me and then it comes to the point you have to reach down and find the best part to give to the world. i never once said or thought that i should make the basketball team. i knew no authors when i started writing the book that i have stories to tell and i figured i would find a way if i was going to fully commit myself to thee craft of writing i have to learn the craft and i have to study and i had to read and they had thaveto be very disciplined and focused and then don't be afraid to ask somebody to. i would always get cut but ask for a second chance because a lot of people see majesty and giving you a second chance so don't be afraid to keep asking. >> host: how did you separate yourself from the dysfunction of your family and the bright lights of mount vernon avenue? >> guest: i think the thing that rooted me in forging and carving a path for myself for the four years i spent in college. during college one year you have to have decent grades to come back the second year and you're getting closer to the day that you're going to finish and you don't want to mess up. you keep studying hard. there was a shadow of my grandfather who was a day disciplinarian, very focused doo this and don't do that, so i had him in the shadows and i never wanted to do anything that would upset my grandfather and i think also there were people that i knew that went to prison and i knew i didn't want to lose a day of my freedom i just didn't want to go to jail. i was too busy thinking up books and other things i wanted to do with this life and i just really stayed focus. friday night for others might have meant going out to mount vernon avenue or some nightclub or someplace but a lot of times more often than not friday night to be meant reading this magazine or that magazine or that book or doing things i thought would make me a better person. so studying and reading a i kind of knew if i were to stay focused something good and decent might come along. >> host: we have about an hour and 20 minutes left. our guest is the author and journalist. everything we have a guest wegu ask him or her about their influence and the books they are reading and here are some of the answers that he came up with. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> host: we are back live on in depth we are going to do the numbers on the screen in case you would like t to dial and participate in the conversation on booktv. (202)748-8200 in the east and central time zones. 748-8201 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones and we will also put up our twitter address if you want to send a tweet and/or facebook page and e-mail address as well so those are other ways you can contact us if the phone lines are busy. we've mentioned him several times in black-and-white. want to read a couple of quotes about your book on sammy davis junior. he loved white women and loved the sight of him on his black silk sheets. his american dream. you go on to write mixing needex his aura and sammy welcomedgh nixon's power to his insecurity. >> guest: sammy davis junior was one of the more mesmerizing figures i think in the history of american entertainment. he was a precious child and she was a child prodigy. there is always a price to pay when you live in that world sooy he wasn't seen as a handsome figure when he became a teenager in 1517 or 18 he was up inas canada and started getting a lot of attention from white women. up there there were not the racial restrictions that there were in the usa. it is a lifestyle that is dangerous in the usa and i think his life until a certain point in the 60s until he became friends with harry belafonte who both had a very socially conscious approach to theeconscu entertainment. once they pulled him and he was happy to be there. it was like he had found something that had been missing from his life and that was the culture of the people in a place in a certain kind of love that is known to all cultures and i think that he more than made up from the missing action earlier in the 40s and 50s. he came out in a beautiful way in the 60s. 6 he went to selma and was at the march on washington and he gave money to doctor king that he was doing the play golden boy and then he bought the house out and said all the proceeds to doctor king in the southern christian leadership conference said it was a beautiful thing to do and of course eastward of swerved again in the 60s and 70s when he supported richard nixon. it was given a talk and sammy runs out and jumps up and he had this overwhelming need to please everybody and that night he wanted to please the republicans in the arena. >> host: you are gone with author wil haywood. >> caller: i can't believe i'm on. a i waited for two hours. i am a history teacher and here's my question. considering that lyndon johnsonn was in the south obviously inso texas and had close senator friends whsome of herfriends whr his career from the self-appointed johnson do so much for civil rights at the end of his presidency? you think he was forced by the civil rights movement or was he sincerely interested in black rights or his legacy and history click supposedhistory. >> host: what do you think? >> guest: >> caller: being a history teacher i think it was all three but i think the legacy was important to him. he was a teacher at thehi beginning of his career and maybe he thought he could help kids. >> host: this is on his book showdown on thurgood marshall why was he willing to risk so much for thurgood marshall? a good part of the answer lay in texas where marshall had gonesho years earlier and altered the political landscape. >> guest: thank you for that important question. it's rooted in lyndon johnson's upbringing. he was born poor and he saw for mexicans in texas and especially when he was the youth director during the roosevelt administration and he traveled h around texas trying to find jobs for those that were living in these camps and they swept some of the family is away so there was an intimacy that he had a. also vera. also though a very important part of the question is americaa was becoming unglued. the country in 1964 and 1965 was losing its soul. w the society wasn't fair. public housing projects were growing. you have the criminal justice system which was unfair and so you had a real historical moment in the country and we were seeing it on tv with the dogs facing the student marchers and teaching the children in selma. for thurgood marshall comes to the floor because he had always been trying to tell the country you're not living up to the principles of the constitution. he was a strategist and he didn't want to lose the country under his watch. he was battling the vietnam and he have to win this moral cause and racial unity is a goal to have in your vision and as the leader of the free world it looked bad to the countries that we were mistreating the whole race of people and we hav had tx that and it took politicians like the republican everett dirksen of illinois, bobby kennedy, the best and brightest minds that we had at the time to fix this racial quagmire in the country so he really had no but option but to to sit down and figure out ways to fix the racial unrest and that meant passing a antidiscrimination legislation that had been ignored for years. some of it was his passion and upbringing but also a big part of it was that he had to have all of his positions treated equitably. >> host: what was the final vote of the party breakdown? >> guest: yes, there were 20 who did not put lyndon johnsonn going to vote and so they just vanish and went away. but the important thing is to the final vote of some display they were a handful away from coding and so they got thurgood marshall onto the court in a very, very close battle. >> host: how did those 20 senators disappear? with a busy that they? >> guest: here's an example. lyndon johnson would make a phone call to the senate and say how are you doing, how is the wife? that's good to know. i understand there's some people in your community that wants to name the bridge that's being built there, they want to name them after you and is a great thing to have someone named after you. we would love to make a visit across the bridge of that would have been. but i've got thurgood marshall, i've got to get him onto the court and i am set against making this happen. that's the funny thing aboutthey bridges they were built because of federal money. now i hate to see this money ast the last minute disappear and you have no bridge. your wife would be hurt, your family, all the people he would brag too about this bridge in your name and wit name will go . and i don't want that to happen and neither do you answer is no cause for it to happen so that was the lyndon johnson style. he would find a weak spot, he would find a sentimental spot just like he did with the associate justice tom clark. he wanted tom clark to step aside so he would have an opening for thurgood marshall. >> host: did he appoint ramsey clark as the attorney general? >> guest: yes. >> host: maryland you are on the tv with wil haywood. >> caller: i wasn't aware of mr. haywood. i started watching c-span a couple of years ago and i think mr. haywood and enjoyable interview every time that i hear him into the reason i'm calling us because he also wrote a book about sammy davis, junior, who is one of my entertainers. i read the autobiography of sammy davis wrote about himself which was rather long as i recall. i was a teenager when i read it and at any rate, when i look ath sammy davis, i particularly like listening to his recordings from the 50s and 60s. that's some of the songs and arrangements that i enjoy. also, when i compare the cne to frank's semi truck, for example, i didn't consider either one of those gentlemen extremely handsome, but i did think that sammy davis junior was a triple threat. he was a better actor, a better dancer and a better singer. so i do feel had he not been african-american in the era, he might have been the preeminent star and giving the preeminent power of frank sinatra enjoyed in hollywood. so i just wanted to hear some od the comments on the sammy davis junior. and thank you for writing and i look forward to buying more of your books.i look for >> host: wil haywood. >> guest: i think frank sumatra was well aware of sammy davis, junior, and the paramount theatre at the 1980s when some outright first saw him out on stage and he was a pulled over by his talent, and i think if we look back at the rat pack, nobody in the rat pack could do with skin neede -- cne data. frank is one of my all-time favorite singers and was a singular american worldwide sensation. sensation. sammy did not have an opportunity, especially when it came to movies that frank sinatra had. i wish he had of, had the same opportunities. there were many scripts sammy wanted to star in to be a part of movies. but, that hire at the letter the script went the people who ran the studio less when it sammy to play the lead role in. i think that hurts sammy. he was something quite beautiful late in sammy's life. he went on to her with frank sinatra and dean martin and sammy in the marquis around the country would just say, sammy, frank, dean: sold out. sammy was the one when they went back for the curtain call, he was the one who the loudest applause. it was really beautiful, very poignant and something that meant a lot. sammy's road had been harder than deana martens road and frank sinatra's road and i think that these gentlemen knew that during that sort of last two were that they made. host: bill hagood, when you see the rat pack onstage drinking, smoking, creating and making a bit of a mild racial joke about sammy davis junior, i mean, how important it was that? did that have significance? guest: well, yes because you look at the other entertainment shows of the times and very few of them had black and so, you know, it was rare to see blacks on tv in the early 1960s and so sammy swallowed those racial jokes. he swallowed them. i do believe that the friendships were genuine in that frank sinatra had a love of sammy davis junior. she knew sammy's mother. he knew sammy's grandmother. he had been to sammy's house a lot. like friends, they sometimes got on each other's nerves, but i do think there was a real affection they are and sammy also played into the racial jokes. he was younger than the rest of the guys and he had always been surrounded by older and more powerful men like his father and so i think sammy, i think you took that in and his way to get even was to perform his tail off on stage. broadway, nightclubs, tv specials, politics, tap dancing. he could play the drums. he was a great mimic. he did jazz. he did pop. before we came on the air he sang candy man quite well. so, sammy had multi- multi- multi- talent. host: we don't talk about what we do offset at c-span. remodel in texas. thank you for holding. caller: thank you very much. you are a fantastic author. about a year ago, a retired justice o'connor said that only vote she would change would be the one to lift the floor-- let the boat-- sort of voters have their recount. had thurgood marshall been on the supreme court he too would it let the florida voters get their recount and let the person that had 560,000 more votes when in that had been al gore. i read certain articles that say that marshall would be disappointed with the current african-american justice what is your opinion? guest: i think that thurgood marshall, i'm sure he would have opinions about the justices on the court right now. some opinions he would agree with and others he would not. the more conservative opinions as thurgood marshall would not agree with. he was about more freedom, more liberty, more justice. so, those opinions that have appeared to tilt in the opposite direction he would not like at all. host: he served in the burger court. was he in the rehnquist court? guest: yes. host: what's kind of relationships did he have with the other justices, particularly personal relationships with some of the conservative judges? guest: very warm, very cordial, but he was always aware that he came from a completely different background than any of the other justices. he was very aware that. he was very aware that's he was an african-american and the only african-american on the court. sometimes groups, small groups families, tour rest would come to the supreme court and there get on the elevator and thurgood marshall would be on the elevator, tall, black man not wearing his robe. family would turn to him and say, fifth floor, please and thurgood marshall would say with-- fifth floor, okay and he would hit the button and the later they would walk into the chambers into the court itself and they would see a black man who they thought was the elevator operator and if they would see him in his robes now. to be thurgood marshall and to not be bitter you had to have a great sense of humor. thurgood marshall would tell that story with a great sense of humor. host: neville in cleveland. go had, neville. caller: i would like to mention that there were four african-americans about whom the author wrote and that they had biographies written about them before hand. i wonder, did mr. hagood find anything that was missing from those biographies that made him take them on as subjects and if he did find something missing, can he tell us what his research brought to the table and it could he also tell us something about the creation of the titles for his different biographies of those for african-american males? host: thank you, neville. guest: my goodness. great question. let me start with the titles. "showdown", the "showdown" book i really grappled with that title for like three years. actually, the first working title was confirmation. it was wooden clunky and my editor did not like it and wanted to have something else for the title and i was in bed one night and i just said to myself, goodness i have to get something to show the reader that this was a real showdown and then i said to myself, that's it, "showdown", "showdown", that's it. sweet thunder, i was having trouble with that and fellow writer friend of mine said, well, why don't you go sugar ray robinson was there in harlem during the time of luke ellington. what you look at the duke ellington songbook and see if there is anything that sticks out and i looked at one of duke ellington's title and it said something to me with such sweet thunder and i told my editor that, that is the title and he said, well, let me think about and he came back to me a day later and said i think it will work, but let's take off the such, so "sweet thunder" was born. in lacking why, sammy davis junior lived in two world, one world black, one world whites and very simple, very direct title. i came up with that and my editor liked it. "king of the cats", adam clayton powell. that did not erupt from within me. my editor came up with that title. he thought adam clayton powell was a real cool cat and thus "king of the cats". the sea, the butler, witness of history. that sort of simple, right out there and "two of the river", the photographer at myself for the two people who took that loan 42 day trip on the mississippi river. family memoir, the davis of columbus, my editor kim up with that title to, so that is the story behind the titles. yes, other books have been written. what did i bring? i like to think something very different. you know, i always try to find a window, different window, a side door, attic, door, backdoor to go into when i am telling these sweeping biographical stories. i need a angle, a doorway, a different doorway both for thurgood marshall book no one had written extensively about these confirmation hearings, so that was the angle. with sugar ray robinson, no one had written extensively about the intersection of culture as it related to his life. he stepped away from boxing to become a dancer and so i focused a lot on his life outside of the ring. so, that was being alike took in that. sammy davis junior, no one had written extensively about sammy and his relationship with will mast and his father, sammy davis senior. about the first 200 pages of that book are really about this trio, this old-fashioned trio, not to name drop, but denzil washington had bought the rights to the sammy davis book and he wanted to make a movie and he told me that the reason he bought the rights to that book was that he had a lot of admiration for the family story, for the three people traveling around 1930s america, 1940s america, three black people, sammy junior and tammy senior and will. it never got made, but another director in hollywood now has the rights to that. so, fingers crossed something happens. so, i wanted to bring the black world and the white world also to that story. the hagood's of columbus, the interesting angle was telling that story about the rise and fall of that street and what else was at about? "two on the richter" that was just a travel journey and adam clayton powell book really wanted to build deeply into his college career in the battle that happened on the heel when he was tossed out of congress, so i have always tried to find an angle as well just to add my own narrative dance to the story. host: so, "the butler" movie "sweet thunder" is getting ready to be made? guest: david, the great actor from some and the butler who has several movies coming out this year has assigned to play sugar ray robinson. he will be great in that. host: does it start filming at any point? has a script been written? guest: the screenwriter has just started. he is writing as we sit here and talk, the screenwriter. so, that's a nice feeling. host: and has "king of the cats" been optioned? guest: it was an it no longer is under option, so that is open, but-- host: what about "showdown"? guest: showdown has been optioned by pam williams productions. the creative team behind "the butler" and they are working on that right now. the sammy davis junior book has also been optioned by hollywood by one of my favorite favorite directors, lee daniels. host: coretta from date ohio e-mails and: mr. hagood, what have you learned about the human condition from writing your books? guest: that people with creative muscle will often stop at nothing. that they don't look at the same barriers that we look at. i think about the people who i pick to write about, and they are often people who i am just amazed with. i know i don't have their gifts in no way shape or form, but if i study them long enough maybe i could satisfy myself that i know adam clayton powell, now. i know thurgood marshall, now. i know sammy davis junior, now. that's what i can bring two words it. that is my muscle. that's what i can give to the world. their gifts, i am in all of their gifts. these are the people who made america. if you look at america as a big spinning wheel like a smoke wheel, a distance over there and it spends over there and spent over there, well, you will see sammy davis in one of those wheels. you will see adam powell in one of those wheels. you will see thurgood marshall and one of those wheels and that is the turning of america. you will see in one of those wheels and what i had tried to do as a writer is catch up to the turning of those wheels. i have tried to reverse it. i try to write about it and to understand it and then i will let the wheel keeps spinning, you know. and think that maybe someone else is seen as spinning wheel or reading the book that they will understand why that wheel is spinning with sammy davis junior in the center of it. host: dorothy is calling in from harvest, alabama. that afternoon, dorothy. caller: good afternoon. thank you, c-span and think you will for the wonderful body of work that you are providing to a current generation and hopefully to a future generation. i was born in monroeville, alabama. i worked for 21 years at all levels of education from k-12 through the governing board system. my question is related to your work as a scholar at miami university of ohio. having lived and worked in ohio and our paths have a cross, it is good to see on c-span today. i founded as you know a nonprofit called the rosetta james foundation and last year i started a organization called the tennessee valley leadership diversity and one of the eight topics we discuss is diversity in education. my question is related to your past year at miami university and some of the most passionate conversations we are having of the eight topics in our leadership of local leaders has to do with the current state of racial depravity in america and the lack of history, not only in textbooks, but the lack of conversations at the collegiate level or any level of education and what impact do you plan to make or how do you see as impacting the current generation of college graduates and future generations of college graduates because it's works like yours that are educating people who are in their mid- to left-- late 50s, like me, about what really went on because we didn't get it in history and k-12 nor in college. host: i think we got the point, dorothy. thank you. will hagood. guest: thank you, dorothy. that was a great question, very important and significant question i am reminded of the texas-- the state of texas textbook controversy when they wanted to refer to slaves as quote workers. of course, that was voted down, but just the fact that something like that would be tabled is astonishing. i think that's that's university and colleges across the country, the more diversity, there's no doubt about it and i think that it is incumbent upon university presidents and department chairman to make that happen. i think that there are a lot of writers, scholars, artists who are not from the traditional background, but have done wonderful things and i think those artists should be brought into the academic community. i think it's more enjoyable for the students to see someone who is not from a traditional academic background. i have a ba degree, but i have seven books in-- and a lot of writing behind me, so i think if people who run the university just the same as the people who were in a corporation in this country, i think if they seek out-- outside of the box that we would all be better off for it there was a lot of chatter about a month ago in the "new york times" portrait of the 500 most powerful people in this country and everyone was talking about 97% of those photographs were white. we have to attack that to make america the best nation that it can be. we have a lot of gifted people from all races in this country. we should not fear anyone smarts or anybody's genius. we should embrace it. host: diane williams tweets in enjoying a live interview with will haygood. i plan to donate some copies of "showdown" to our local thurgood marshall middle school. hello, renée. guest: hello. my question is to will haygood and first of i just want to say i admire you very much and you wrote about some phenomenal strong black men that i grew up admiring. my question to you is this, i know you said your mom and your grandmother are inspirations in your life and you did write about black men, but there are some strong phenomenal black women that have donated so much to our history in the united states and i was just wondering, do you plan in the future, would you ever write about a strong black women like my angeles, shirley chisholm and as far as entertainment, leah horne or diane carol? i would just like to know if you have ever considered writing about some of these phenomenal strong black women. host: thank you, renée. guest: thank you, renée. i'm not trying to run from that question, but those are some phenomenal historical figures that you mention. but, every time i get into my mind that am i tried about this or that woman, i walk into a bookstore and someone has already beat me to the punch. i kid you not. if i was to tell you someone that sort of is circulating in my mind right now, you know, i have no doubt that someone would run out there-- it could be a 10th grader, but would rent out there and write the book about this lady figure before i would, but in all of my books there is a lot of women in these men's life and even in "sweet thunder" there's a whole chapter about women in sugar is time in the 1940s. i write extensively about lena horne and others and so, i hear your point. is a great point, that people keep beating me to the punch. i'm just going to have to look harder and find someone who is always completely in a way unknown at least from a book writing stance and i'm going to have to claim that person and hop to it, so thank you. good question. host: will haygood, is someone circling around in your mind your next book? guest: yes. unfortunately, it's not a biography per se. it's a story that i really don't want to talk too much about it, but it's a story that has something to do with sports in the 1960s. but, on that work on it right now, so i'm excited. host: jonathan morte tweets in: hopefully "the butler" will inspire more film makers to look 1930s to 1950s black life. we have not spoken much about sugar ray robinson. this is from sweet thunder. in chosen economic justice of the cry for social justice. civil rights organizations pleaded with him to join their cause in public. instead, he donated money and welcomed them into his nightclub. guest: sugar ray robinson was a difficult figure. he was a loner. didn't really have a lot of friends. he was suspicious of a lot of people. i think with a whole lot of strange characters did that to him. he did not go to the march on washington. but, where he could put his power and where he did was in his concern for children. he himself, a poor child used to beg for money in the streets and he loved it children. he went to a lot of hospitals. that was where he left his mark as far as giving back. he wasn't very public with his endorsements of certain politicians. he liked robert kennedy a lot, though. he wanted kennedy to be in the white house. host: about a half-hour left with our guest. will hagood on a book tv caller: hello, c-span 2. really like the program. my question to will is back to justice marshall after the confirmation and he was confirmed i was wondering about his transition into the supreme court. were any of those justices that had been there forever helpful to him? i know one at one time was a member of the ku klux klan and he became one of the most liberal justices. you have william zero douglas. did anyone mentor him and what was that like? his transition and apprenticeship as you will as a justices-- of the supreme court. guest: thank you. it was very smooth. hugo black who you mentioned actually he gave him the oath of office. i think hugo black had done a lot to atone for his one-time membership in the kkk. i think that those justices-- yes, thurgood marshall made history, but those justices would also be judged by how well they accepted thurgood marshall into the fold and marshall was a great storyteller. if he sensed awkwardness from any of the justices , he would go into his gift of storytelling. that always put everyone at ease. but, he was unabashedly for the little person, for the little man or the little woman, for the poor person or the disabled person and he let that be known. his dissent could be staying when he felt the court was not paying attention to those who had been done wrong in society. he was, he had a sharp pen and he would will that. so, thank you for your question. host: will haygood, what's inspired you to go from minnesota down to new orleans on the mississippi river? guest: i was at the boston globe and i was sort of new to the staff and sam gross velde, a photographer there who still there, great photographer who has won a couple pulitzer prizes and every other owner. it was 150th anniversary of mark twain birth and assam gross velde wedded to do something to honor that. he came up with the idea to take a trip down the length of the mississippi river and the editor at that time, the editor asked him, well, is there any writer in the newsroom who you would you like to go with and sam said yeah, there is this new guy here and i like the way he writes. see if we can get him. now, sam is a very canny guy. he would have thought something like this out, you know, huck and jim, have been white and jim being the slave, so there was that, you know, there was that historical reality going on even though i was a-- it was a fictional book. so, it sounded like a interesting fascinating idea. i was very happy to get this kind of rare assignments and we wanted literally to do it from minnesota down to the gulf of mexico. we went up to the-- and walked across, 3 feet where you could walk across the mississippi and then we traveled some by rodin then stand, it was either me or stand in one of us came up with the idea to have a raft built in the raft was waiting on us when we got to hannibal. we got on the rafts and we were on that for about nine days and then we got thrown off with a vicious thunderstorm. by that time we were ready to kill each other anyway. you are floating on a raft, you know, big swells are washing over as. where both flat, scary out there at night, thunder and lightning. you know, i'm not in any way a river rat and neither is stan and will most a lot of the raft one day and at the last minute we thought to tie ropes to each other and held each other from slipping off with the splashing rain. it was crazy and the fire department, someone saw us from land and you know, whatever those two nuts doing out there on that piece of floating would and they called the fire department and me and stand looked up and there were three fire trucks on the side of the river bank waiting on us. then we got off of that and then we got back in the car and then we were in some southern town along the river and we saw the mississippi queen steamboat anchored to bow that takes people up and down the mississippi river, so we read and talk our way onto that. you know, we are like two journalists, you know, trying to get down the river and can you give us a lift and we left of the car and everything and hopped on this steamboat and then we went further south and then we got to new orleans and got a little boat and we motored out to the gulf of mexico and that was the end of the mississippi river. that was the end of the story. we wrote it up in a magazine article called "42 days on the mississippi" and it came out. sam-- extended all the photographs and i wrote the story and i am sitting in the boston globe-- the story came out on a sunday and i'm singing in the boston globe newsroom monday afternoon and i get a call from the atlantic monthly press, which was mark twain's publishing and it's peter davison, the editor there and he said, will, just read your story. i'm in new york and i just read your story about this trip down the mississippi river and want to know if you have enough there for a book. i had lived so many years with a dream of getting an opportunity somehow, someway to write a book and that magical phone call in 1986, maybe 1987. may be-- anyway that was my first introduction to meeting a book editor and to sign to write about. that is how it happened and it was a great scary, frightening, beautiful, wonderful, unforgettable trip with my good friend stan. host: next call for will haygood comes from cindy in maryland. go ahead, cindy. caller: hello. thank you for c-span. i'm a middle-aged lay women who campaign for president obama both times because i wanted to change it i was horrified by the previous administration and the one court kind of stole my thunder and asked you if you had been surprised by anything in the human condition. i was going to ask you if you are surprised by the racism that reared its ugly head after president obama took office. i know i was. i had no idea, you know, what still existed in the country and amongst my friends and family sometimes i was surprised. the other thing i was going to say is i'm a baltimore in, native baltimore in and was saddened to see what happened a year ago with unrest following freddy grey's death and i listen to people calling in the newscasts asking over and over why the black people were destroying or seemingly destroying their own neighborhood and i realized it's because they really don't feel like it is their neighborhood. that area, that neighborhood in baltimore is right around the corner from tourist destinations in the shadow of the late mason building, but it's not a healthy community and a family or a neighborhood that they feel a part of. it's just really hard to know, a person like me it's hard to know how to help them boost things into a positive direction, so i was going to ask you number one were you surprised by the racism that has come out since the president has taken office and what a regular person can do to help to take things into a positive direction. thank you. guest: well, thank you very much for your thoughtful, very thoughtful question. thank you for being who you are. now, i am not surprised. anyone who has studied history as long as i have would not be surprised at what happened, but the unique part of that story is the many people who refuted the negativity, the racial harmony of the moments that it took to break down this epic wall in this country by having an african american family into the white house. not as maids or butlers, but as president and first lady of the united states and the maids and butlers who had worked there had done great work, but the country with a legacy of slavery how epic that moment was so, wasn't surprised, but was very delighted to see the goodness that we witnessed because that was something that said something to the rest of the world. it said something to a small kid in kenya. it said something to a small girl in sri lanka. it said something to a small black kid in the slums of the london. it said something to a small little girl in ireland, who is hoping for whatever reason. so, the largeness of that moment is, i think, unparallel, of course it is in this country. the symbolism was huge and i think will continue to be huge, but racism is a strain on this country that we have not figured out how to squash it. the answer simply lies in what we as individuals do, what you will keep on doing and the kind of stories i want to tell and, you know, books and literature and music to explain the story of american history. the whole arc of america despite setbacks, we have kept moving forward in that the amazing thing about this country we have kept moving forward. some days it seems hard to do so, but it is like the congressman from new york adam clayton powell who i have written about. he said, don't get weary i will look at you until you don't get weary. host: if people were interested in reading your writing about being held captive in small yet, or traveling with david duke, what would be the best way that to do that? guest: i wrote those two's stories that you mentioned that i was at the boston globe. i was covering ku klux klan's been, to do this run for the u.s. senate, so i went down to louisiana and i was at a rally with him. oddly enough, he had to get to another town across the state and his driver had not shown up, so i said mr. duke, i'm free. lets me drive you and he sort of looked at me like, you know, he was unsure, but he had to get to this place where he had to go and so there we were, me and david duke writing across the state of louisiana and it made for a great story. goodness gracious, the somalia story i sort of kiss you could get these stories online, boston globe archives. the somalia story i was a correspondence amalia. i was covering the civil war with a photographer and not that i wanted, of course, to be taken hostage. i did everything i could to make sure i was going into a place where no one was looking for me. heck, i wanted to get in there, write the story and get out and so one of the aid workers in kenya had said fly to bard era. that's a village that was already attacked about two months ago, so the rebels will not circle back so soon and attack it again, so you are safe. go in there, do your story and we have a transport plane. bring a sweet and corn there and in today's you can hop on the ride and come back to kenya. well, just that luck would have it on the first night i was there, rebels came out of nowhere and attacked the village. it was a scary situation , but we got out. we got out with a lot of strategic moves made and there was a ransom paid for us by foreign government. the us was not involved, but they let it be known that they cared about us to get us out of there, out of the situation. so, they found two south african pilots to bring a small plane into the desert to get us out and that's how we made it. small plane is not-- a small plane with the pakistani general, the general is not going to be out there in the middle of nowhere without his troops and so when we went up into the air we were rescued and we were all dehydrated, exhausted, frightened, but when we went up in the air for about 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes the plane started to land and i was worried like do not land. let's get out of here, but we landed and when we got off the plane, the generals troops, about 300, had surrounded the plane and told us you are safe now i know it sounds like something out of a movie, but it really happened. host: everyone listening to this was to assess question, what did you and david duke talk about? guest: we talked about politics and much like i tried to do with the senators in "showdown" in the thurgood marshall book i tried to get an understanding of his liking, you know. i would say, david, it's just me and you, man, in this car. how did you get to be who you are, this person who says these things and they sound outlandish, david. and they sound dangerous and they are dangerous. you know, he would say like, well, a lot of it came from how i was brought up and things happen to you in your childhood and those things become instilled in you and his thinking was that name every stereotype about blacks, blacks and welfare, driving big cadillacs, all of that. you know, he believed that. that was a part of his upbringing. those were things that people said to him and he believed it and he started making these speeches. he was very calm in talking to me. it was, you know, surreal. it was a little surreal, it was. host: did he come across as you talk about in "showdown" as a cardboard figure? guest: no. talking to me one-on-one, very thoughtful. i mean,, but thoughtful in the context of being an unabashed racist, i mean, you know very thoughtful, but like very calm and very in his mind articulate in what he was trying to express. he seemed to think that this is a interesting moment for him in his life to be in this car with this journalist from boston, you know, asking him these questions. these were almost things that i felt he would have loved to have said with former friends that he lost, you know. he would have loved to have said these things in a calm her voice and a quieter setting. i knew if we would have pulled over to a town and there was a crowd, all-white crowd, of course, waiting on him that he would've started thundering again all of his racist dogma. he would have started thundering at the top of his lungs and he would've got back in the car and would have continued to the conversation that we were having. i have no doubt about it. host: alexis and young harris, georgia, you're the last call today and we have about a minute left. caller: i think you. i thank you mr. hagood. i'm reading your book "showdown" right now and i'm enjoying it. as someone who grew up in a segregated south and remembers thurgood marshall's nomination hearing and strom thurmond especially, i just want to ask now we have an african-american president who is appointing a white jewish jurist and is getting the same flack, but in a different way from the senate. what do you think about that? guest: thank you for your question. i think that's is awful that the u.s. senate has decided not to schedule hearings for judge garland. i think they are shrieking the constitutional duty. i was in chicago last week. .. >> host: and that will bring our three hours to a close. wil haygood can be contacted at miami university in oxford, ohio. thanks for your time on booktv. >> guest: thank you very much. been an honor to be here.

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