We still question the power of our democracy. Tonight is your answer. [cheers and applause] its the answer told by lines that stretch run schools and churches, in numbers this nation has never seen. People who waited three hours, four hours. Many for the first time in their lives. Because they believe that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference. Its spoken by young and old, rich and poor, democrat and republican, black, white, hispanic, asian, native american, gay, straight, disabled, disabled and not disabled. [applause] america to set a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individual or a collection of red states and blue states. We are and always will be the United States of america. [cheers and applause] this scene ager features a to month ago, november fourth, 2008 at Center Barack Obama declared his victory and makes history as americas first africanamerican president. An estimated 250,000 people gathering estimated 250,000 people gathering at chicagos grant park and an unusually mild night market will be the start of eight years in the white house. As the 44th president prepares to leave on january 20, historians are beginning to assess the obama legacy. For the next three hours on cspan2s tranfour, three leading authors adding their perspectives to his two terms in the white house. Were joined at the table with april ryan come her book the presidency in black and white my upclose view of three president s and race in america. Any cloud, the author of democracy in black how race still enslaves the american soul. And to David Maraniss, barack obama the story. Thank you for being with us your booktv. David maraniss, if you were to write the first paragraph today of the Obama Presidency, what we did include . Guest first of all, what a sensation to listen to that Election Night by then president obama for the first time, and think about the promise and whats happened since. I think the only things you can say for certain of what that paragraph would include, that he was the first black president , that he took office at a time when the country was in a deep recession and into wars, and lasted for eight years. Everything after that is up for grabs. I wouldve said until this election would have included his extending health care to millions of americans, but that like many other parts of his program are now uncertain because of whats happened in this last election. It depends on who write the history, and it depends on when that history is written. If we look at it from 50 years from now it might be quite different. It might be that he was the first of many africanamericans, women, who became president from then on. And so that takes on even more important than it does this point when were looking at it from a political perspective. Host lets take a step further based on your book barack obama which came out at the start of his presidency. You wrote the following appeared you said he came out of an uncommon family, brilliantly scattered and broken although the parts could never be fitted neatly together. How did he figured it out . How did he create a life that made it possible for his own political rise . Guest he spent years trying to figure it out. It was there. From when he left hawaii, coming from the first of place possible to rise to power, and started in college at occipital and in colombia and then getting to chicago, finally sort of finding home. During that entire period he was essentially introspective, trying to do with the contradictions that life through his way coming from a broken family, mixedrace background. So many things he had to try to resolve. And i think he spent those eight years from the time it they got, he left the Harvard Law School, pretty seriously introspectively trying to figure it out, which he did for better or for worse, unlike most of human beings i would call him a quoteunquote integrated personality and that gave him the selfconfidence, and not a need for people that is so, its common among politicians. The lack need for other human affirmation is not. The selfconfidence help to get into the presidency. The lack of the need for transactional politics at various times got him in trouble. But but i would give it, it wasn internal effort entirely for him figure out how to get to where he wanted to go. Host your book talks about his father. You travel to kenya and in 2010. What did you learn about him, his father and the relationship and how that may or may not have affected his own thinking and his own career . Guest well you know, the title of his memoir dreams from my father really sets it off in an asterisk direction because he did know his father at all passionate interesting direction. He was much more shaped by his mother. His father shaken only from a boyfriend figured that part of himself out. His father was brilliant. His father innocent supervision but had a very deep resonant voice as to barack obama. I would never underestimate that sort of genetic inheritance in terms of obama his appeal. His father was an alcoholic. His father was a man who at aspects of success but then failed in the in and died a a young, at a very early age, and i think that barack obama spent that. Im talking about and then later when he worked went to kenya to try to find out more about his father, dealing with what it meant who he was here to his father was part of that. Any traditional sense barack obama cannot be called an africanamerican. Hes african and american, so different. He never had, going up in hawaii he didnt have many black friends. It was a very multicultural place, but without many africanamericans except on the military base. So he really had to learn that from secondhand from studying about africanAmerican History, and then trying that search to find his father. Host april ryan can let me turn to you and talk about the issue of race and what you wrote about in your book, how would you answer the first question. Beyond the issue of race, his legacy these past eight years . Guest on the issue of race, i think you cannot take race away from the first black president of the United States of america. We talk about a society before barack obama became president , a postracial society. In these days, the days before transition of power we are now going to see postobama. We dont have a postracial america. I believe that all became clear once this man became president of the United States. His ascendancy to the highest office in the land put a spotlight on all the ills in this nation when it comes to africanamericans for the better and for the worst. And i also believe that the visual of him being there, at first i didnt think that was a big deal bu but i do believe ita big deal because that visual just what africanamerican afrii thought about this more so at the Democratic Convention when we saw just before Hillary Clinton came out on the stage and we saw the picture of every president , every white male president , and then you stop number 44, barack obama. That visual was impacting and then you see the gems of Hillary Clinton breaking the glass ceiling. But to stop there, changes the dynamic in a lot of ways because the things people believe, the conjecture about africanamericans, you are now seeing in the forefront, sin seg on videotape. Its not miss conjecture anymore. They have the highest numbers of negatives in a most every categories. People talked about before but when you have a black man from a kenyan dad and a white mom from america, he still africanamerican without abstaining slaver. But when you have a black men which the highest level of the land and you still have the ills within the community that is still saying something. So i believe were not a postracial america. What we will see january 20, and post obama era. Host in your pocke book youk this question to president obama. What was your greatest disappointment on race during your administration . Im going to ask you that same question. What was his greatest disappointment from your standpoint . Guest i believe one of the big disappointments for some of the critics, he had to really undergo a change in who he was. The firstterm particularly. Barack obama he is i believe and the call and response. Sometimes, the president , the preacher in chief. He knows how to rally the crowd and he can get people to listen. But the problem is, this is when he was an organizer. When he came in, he had to be this person who was totally different from who he was in the chicago streets. The person who he had grown to be, when he married Michelle Obama and had those kids. He became barack obama who happened to be black but second term, you say totally different metrimythic recement whose coune in his skin and who he is. We see the true barack obama. Hes not ashamed to talk about e issues of race. I believe that he wanted to push the ball forward more so when he talked about what everyone. There was an undercurrent there that really was an effort to lift up the underserved. He didnt get a chance to do everything you wanted you on that piece. Issues of criminal justice, and im sure he is concerned about the matter and can control, a big issue. That is one of his big pieces he didnt have. Im sure his very concerned about the issue of policing and how it looks after he is out of the oval office because there is a concern now, now that we see the visuals, whether you be suppressed quirks with biggest be suppressed with a new administration . How to handle in the Justice Department . Those are concerned and also of course with issues of education come with issues of income inequality. You can only give us so much in eight years after hundreds of years of disparity. Host six months into the Obama Presidency he asked the president this. Lets watch. Ive got time for two more questions. April. Where is april . Right here. How are you doing . Back on the economy. Mr. President , people are criticizing this recovery plan, specifically there are reports in the Washington Post that say that the africanamerican Unemployment Rate will go to 20 by the end of this year. And then youve had your chairman of economic advisers say the target intervention may come next year if nothing changes. Why not target intervention now to stop the bloodletting for the lack of him Unemployment Rate . First of all, we know that when the africanamerican Unemployment Rate, the latino Unemployment Rate are consistently higher than the National Average, and so if the economy as a whole is doing poorly, then you know that the Africanamerican Community is going to be doing poorly and they will be hit even harder. And the best thing that i can do for the Africanamerican Community or the Latino Community or the asian community, is to get the economy as a whole moving. Hold on one second. Let me answer the question if i dont do that, then im not going to be able to help anyone. Host how did he do a just later . Guest thats left for historians. Typically its tenuous after a president leaves you are supposed to gauging the but his numbers have gone down, but not far enough. Mainstream america leasing Unemployment Rates between five and six percent, or even less. The Africanamerican Community is still well above that, double the National Average. But again going back to this piece, historically from the time africans were brought to this country there has been a problem economically for africanamericans. The descendents of those africans. In eight years do you believe that we can correct something thats been going on all the time . And im not saying that he gets a pass, but there needs to be something put in place to change the dynamics of what has been happening historically. Host professor glaude who teaches at Princeton University, democracy in black how race still enslaves the american soul. What are you hearing so far . Guest well i mean, we know that its going to take time to assess the significance and substance of Obama Presidency. We know whats following. We know the country is deeply divided. And i think part of what we have to do is to kind of take a cold detached and objective look at the substance, as far as we know, of his time in the white house. What we do know is that unemployment i think right now is about four point 6 speared the National Average among africanamericans. Its about eight point 1 . A doubling. Its an indictment of his approach. Because even if he gets the country going, even if you lift all boats, if you dont address eponymous structural realities that you need to, that divided everyone has proved you will still have doubledigit unemployment, the doubling at employment numbers. I think overall theres a sense in which from my Vantage Point we will have two assess the implications for the obamacare. Well have to think about a race to the top in terms of his policy about education. We will have to think about criminal justice, what does it mean for him to at least begin the process of dismantling this state, or ask the question if he actually has done that. We have to ask questions around immigration reform. What does it mean for president obama to been labeled that reporter in chief. Were going to ask questions when his foreignpolicy. He came in with two wars. We now have five front. Iraq, afghanistan, libya, syria, yemen. We will have to ask series questions about his drug policies which was a policy fascination. We have to ask serious questions even as we concede, right, the significance significance of his presidency. I would like to say this. I think perhaps we will be grappling with. I think thisll be interesting, but perhaps barack obama represents the end of platonism. That the rain of the democratic leadership committee, after defining the ideology of the Democratic Party. When we begin to unpack what we mean in a postal postobama era. Perhaps a meet this is aspirational, or whistle or whistle on my part, we will be marking the end of that particular generation what the Democratic Party is. Host let me call from your book which by the weights up for naacp award, so congratulations to that. You conclude by saying quote no more dancing, no one can be uncomfortable. Together we must uproot racial habits by doing democracy. I want to ask you what you mean by that. If we fail this time time, thisd experiment in democracy will be no more. Explain those words. Guest so part of what happened, we are always kind of navigating at least this is the political calculus. Theres an assumption that theres racial animus, evidence in the american politics pics of the extent to which we imagine politics to address persistent racial inequality, we are always thinking about activating, triggering that. So before we even imagine what actual racial equality will look like, we are worried about what is politically possible. Whether we triggered this, that, or the other. And the question or that concern limits what we can imagine is possible in terms of actually addressing racial into colder. Swing dance the dance. We want to talk about race but we cant talk about expo salute. We want to address black suffering but we cant talk but about explicitly because we are afraid were going to trigger white fears. If obama even just trips up and says the conflict is stupid in arresting harridan henry louis gates, the chair of the Hudson Institute at Opera Company trips up and says that, then all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. So we have to dance what if we say if obama says Trayvon Martin could have been me, so he is trading in the race card. And then even when obama held a town Hall Meetings with Police Officers after what happened in new orleans with alton sterling and what happened in minnesota with philando castile, he has to then become the interpreter in chief, the border in chief, the interpreter in chief. Just explained to White America that whats happened in black america is actually real. Most black americans know its real because we experience it so hes not talking to us at the moment. Theres this dance dance, this e so that we cant make white folks feel uncomfortable. To the extent thats true, we cant really, we will never really fundamentally address racial divide. Guest despite that, what youd call dance, the white resentment is offered anyway. Anytime you talk about anything, people are afraid and when they money they feel like if someone is trying to step over into their territory, they are going to have a problem and thats what were seeing. I want to go back to appoint you said. When you deconstruct the issues of black unemployment, and i believe barack obama really tried when went to aca. Ac is not just that giving up and healthcare. Its about wellness to work in a job. Also when you look at black unemployment, you have to look at education. Many people live in urban america where their taxes, their property taxes are less than the rich are part of their community. And that education is based on the property tax. Then you hav you of issues thati believe its Building Blocks and believe he is trying to attack this. But he can can you do that in eight years . Nono, you cannot after hundredsf years of a problem. Spirit we do know aca has 29 americans, 20,000,000 plus but but we know those were the working poor are having a difficult time, a hell of a time meeting premiums. Deductibles are high and window would have been a better benefit for the majority of the most vulnerable. Spirit by to ask that question, to print actually