Welcome to the ninth annual tucson festival of books. Please cold your questions to the very end of the presentation. Immediately following the session, the authors will be at graphing books in sales and signing area in the ua on the ball. Books are available for purchase at this location. Note, mr. Kendi will be 20 minutes late to the signing area due a live interview with cspan following the program. We hope youre enjoying the festival and invite you to become a friend of the festival today by texting friend to 520214 books or 5202142665. And thats shown on a sign the front of the room. Or you can visit the friend of the festival booth, number 110 on the mall. Your gift makes a difference in keeping the festival programming free of charge and supporting critical literacy programs in the commune. Out of respect for the authors and your fellow audience members please turn off your cell phones now. And so let me briefly introduce the authors to you. The first one is ibram kendi, an assistant professor the university of florida. The bookes called stamp from the beginning. This book won the National Book award. It was a finalist for the National Book critics circle award and nominated for naacp midgeway. Onaddress re resendez. And jonathan bryant, a full professor at Georgia Southern university. His specialty is United States constitutional and legal history and slavery. His book is dark places of the earth the voyage of a slave ship. A finalist for the los angeles book prize in history and has several other academic awards. So, well begin. Hello. Its an honor to be here. Thank you to the festival and my copanelists, and of course most of all, thank you for you all for coming to listen to this panel on slavery in america. Ill be talking about my book stamps from the beginning and i dont often have the opportunity to talk about stamps from the beginning relating to the chapters and sections on slavery so im excited to be on this panel, and so stamp from the beginning is a narrative history of racist useds and chronicles the history avry cyst ideas from their origins in 15th century western europe to the present. And of course, people are more interested in the present than then. The history, especially its history in slavery. And so racist ideas developed as an effort to justify the enslavement of African People, and so early in my research i was sort of chronicling this history. I realized that our sort of conceptions of the origins of racist ideas, our con conceptions the origins are ignorance and hateful. Ignoranty hateful people produced the racist useds and people with racist useds were the people who institutedded racist policies like slavery and that was actually not true when we looked the actual producers of racist ideas. Specifically it becomes quite easy to sort of understand this when we think about it in context to slavery. So people who began the enslavement of African People began that enslavement for economic gain, sometimes political, sometimes curl to culturally but because day wanted to make money and they wanted to continue tone slave African People and make money, and so how tide they how did they too that . What theyd dineed in or to continue this enslavement0. African people. They needed to produce racist ideas that justifies slavery. That stated that black people were fit for slavery. They were better suited for slavery than freedom. That black people were so infear youre to white people inferior to white people theyve would be better at slaves than free. One thing i found in researching this long history of racist ideas was that really it was racist policies and the need to justify them that led to the production of racist ideas. And then we, americans, began consuming ideas that black people are fit for slavery. Theyre the descendents of ham, who was cursed by god or for permanent enslavement or the black skip or the black skin or black bodies are good for labor and block people are physically superior beings and fit for picking cotton. So these were to normalize slavery so people wouldnt resist slavery and think that slave ray slavery was natural and normal and those benefiting from it would continue to benefit from it. So this book is sort of broken up into five sections. Each section has a major character. In each of these characters serve as sort of windows to the larger racial debate in america, because really, when you talk about the history of racist ideas, youre really talking about the history of a debate between racist and antiracist ideas and youre talk about major and powerful people who were involved. Like these ideas did not come out of nowhere. Didnt come out of the desert. They came out of peoples minds, although some of us would call those minds like desert if theyve could create racist ideas. So, the third major character in this text is William Lloyd garrison, and William Lloyd garrison, if youre not familiar with the history of Abolitionist Movement is the most famous white male abolitionist in history. A Founding Editor of a periodical known as the libattor and also was involved in the founding of many of the principal antislavery societies that challenged slavery in 1830s and 40s and 50s. So his section begins with a speech that he gave on Independence Day in 1829, and he gave this speech for the american colonization osite. In the 1820s, the most prominent and powerful racial Reform Organization game the american colonization society, see site geared towards sending free black people back to africa, and thereby sort of encouraging the sort of gradual abolition of slavery and then getting rid hoff those newly freed people and sending them back to africa. It was quite interesting for black folk who knew they had been called here hauled here against their and then sending them back on ships so this organization invited garrison to speak at their annual fundraising event in boston on Independence Day in 1829. In this speech, garrison, who is this young editor he hadnt started the liberator yet. He says in the peach im sick our hypocritical captain about the right of man if we should bin a gradual abolition of slavery, not promoting couplization, and then ten days later he went to a black church in boston and went to a celebration of englands abolition of the slave trade. So at this event a white clergyman addressed the crowd and during this lecture, he advocated that emancipation right now was not wise or prudent, and that black people needed a long period of time qualifying them for freedom. Basically black people were not ready for freedom. And so garrison, when this speaker said this, he heard this murmur go through the crowd you. Know how the crowd gets angry. And heard this murmur and caused him to think about about what he said in his speech ten days earlier when he advocated a gradual abolition of slavery, and the thought about that as he walked home that night. And he thought about words like immediate emancipation, a wild vision. He described it as this wild vision in this speech. Or was it wilder to stand on some sort of middle ground between what he was cawing sinful slavery calling sinful shavery and righteous freedom. He said i have nothing left to stan on. By august of 1829 he moved to baltimore and became the code editor of this prominent periodical call the jeepous of emaps make and then he wrote no valid excuse can be given for the tip yawps tip yawns continue yawnsans or continuans of slavery and i say this to sort of talk briefly about over the next 30 years, they became this three ways about slave ray slavery and raise in america with three positionsful garrison took the position of immediate emans situation. Others took the position of gradual emancipation and then took the position of permanent slavery. These three possessionsre indicative of a larger racial debate over the course of American History on notions of equality or racial equality, and that larger debate im referring to. That i chronicle throughout the history, a debate that even continues with the end of shat chatle slavery had the positioned. One was permanent inequality. And this position stated that, yes, there are always the racial inequalities and inequities in our society some they are caused by black inferiority, and black inferiority is permanent. So theres no way we can have anything other than racial inequities and inequalities in our society. Thats one position of the course of American History. A second position has been bad gradual equality and this position stated that black people are infear youre inferior right now and even if we credited equal opportunities we would not have racial equality because black people right now are inferior. But the have the cant to civilize and develop black people so that one day well be able to create equality. This is the second position on race historically in america and then the third position has been what i call immediate equality, and it is this position, the antiracist position, that suggests that the racial groups are equal, and that no even if we were to provide equal opportunities for black people, then we would be able to create racial equality because theres nothing wrong or inferior about black people. Thats really what garrison spend the next 30 years promoting as related to slavery. We need to end slavery eight now pause because black people are ready for freedom. Thank you. [applause] thank you for coming. Its a flour share my work ask thank you for carving out some time as part of your precious saturday to discuss and think about books. Ill start out with ibrams really interesting discussion about race and slavery, and say an extend that to the case of native americans. I began this work pretty much like an accident and i wanted to write a very concise, very targeted history of the enslavement of native americans in the 16th century, but i wanted to provide some of the larger the broader context of this story, and so i began collecting information about indian enslavement in subsequent centuries under spain and mexico and the United States, and i gradually came to see a very long running thread and i became persuaded the best thing i could too was to try to put it all together, put all the pieces that scholars have the been working on in different regions, and try to give a sense of the forest in order to get a better understanding of these phenomenon. So, i started out with very specific questions. One question that really attract mid from the very beginning is to try to come up with an estimate of the numbers of indian slaves. Numbers have a way to impress our mind powerfully, so when we talk about the 12. 5 million africans who were forcibly transported across the atlantic that makes a strong impression on our mines and puts news the frame of mind that whenever we talk about slavery, whether in virginia or brazil, or the caribbean, we are talking bat vast system that spanned continents and resolved around an entire ocean. I wanted to do the same thing for native americans and i gradually put together some estimates. So the which i think speaks begins to speak. Just the scope of this phenomenon. So the estimate i provided again, very tentative but very necessary if we want to get a sense of this is 2. 5 to 5 million native herons enslaved between the time of columbus and 1900 when the institution disappeared. There will additional very interesting similarities and contras to the case of african slavery. For example, like african slavery, which targeted mostly adult males in the case of native americans the majority were actually women and children. So that really puts a very different spin on that particular story. And another very interesting difference, and perhaps this is the most fundamental in terms of the story im trying to tell in the other slavery dishes the fact that indian slavery was early on permitted because it was another racial group, another racialized group that was suitable for enslavement but early on the spanish crown decided that native americans were not enslavable. So as early as 1542 the spanish crown prohibited under all circumstances the enslavement of indians. So what happened was that owners who had benefited from these labor for half a century by then, resorted to all kinds of euphemisms and all kinds kinds b at the fuming to maintain mastery of the slaves and it targeted native americans and even more fundamentally because it operates in different ways. It sometimes requires detective work in order to figure out what the real libber conditions or Labor Conditions are for enslavement, based on debt, based on the legal system, or some other circumstances. So thats what i start eddoing. I have to start outer by emphasizing that slavery was not a european invection. Native americans had enslaved each other well before the arrival of europeans. But these practices expanded and resembled the Human Trafficking that are recognize able to us today. The story that i tell is a moving story. It begins in the caribbean, where i tried to show that as much as biological speaks in the enslavement of native americans is a very significant factor for the entire desdecimation and a relationship between epidemics and enslavement. Slaving rates actually spread disease which decimates the population and the dwindling population requires more slaving rates in order to replenish that dwindling population so its a vicious circle. So thats what happened in the caribbean. Thats where i begin and that was the first and the worst native enslavementground in the world. But it quickly moved on to the mainland etch focused on the silver mines of northern mexico, silver mines are incredible enter pries enter interprizes following the shaft deep down and this is part of the exploitation of the silver mines. You can imagine this is an incredibly labor intensive process that requires people to bring up the ore from the shafts, pulverize that ore, mix it with some fairly toxic reagents like mercury, and all of this happened the time when the spanish empire had to rely primarily on its own labor resources, that is, the indigenous population that existed around the mines. So, that is the story that i explore, but very quickly that population was wiped out or disappeared or moved away, as any rational people would do. And so very quickly they moved into what is now the american southwest, so the regiony we are was the theater of operation of these raiding campaigns from the silver mines into this catchment area so this book makes its way into the american southwest where we have plenty of evidence of enslaving going on through the end of the spanish empire and into the mexican period. Interestingly enough, the institution became so entrenched that it was very difficult to stamp it out. So spain tried to prohibit it. To no effect. The Mexican Government did the same thing. It essentially outlawed indian slavery and extend citizenship rights. Incredible it may sound to all native americans living in american territory. That didnt help. So it continued into the american period and widespread mom from the americans of from east to west rekindled the enslaving practices. So the American West became the site where these practices lasted through the 19th 19th century. I briefly good into how the civil war and especially the introduction of the 13th 13th amendment may have alleviated some of the problems because it prohibited slavery and involuntary ser have i tude and this excluded native americans who were about to granted citizenship until went into the 20th century. The story goes interest the end of the 19 enemy center when for other economic reasons, the institution declined but by maybe were talking about the vast system of enslavement that affected as many as five Million People and that we have pretty much forgotten all about it. So thank you very much. [applause] i usually teach in a darkened theater and cant see the faces in front of me. This is a wonderful thing to be able to see you. As a writer you have heard this term from both of the other speakers as writer im convinced the most powerful tool of historian is narrative or storytelling, lies the heart of what historians do, and historical analysis, naturally follows from a welltold story. So when i first encountered the story of the slave ship antelope, i envisioned just a quick article. But then the story grew. Sailing ships, cannons, pirates. You would think i was ten years old. Hundreds of enslaved captives, rescue, three trips to the United States supreme court, resulting in John Marshalls most important statement on slavery. Then i came across thousands im not exaggerating thousands of pages of documents from district and circuit courts in the branch of the National Archive in atlanta, and it was very evident they were scattered in dozens of books that no one had really utilized these before. Suddenly i was on the back of a tiger and how could any storyteller resist . By 1819, most european nations and the United States had outlawed the african slave trade. Spain and portugal continued the trade. The antelope was a spanish slave ship based in cuba, and in the summer of 1819, it left on another voyage to trade for slaves in africa. In march of 1820, the antelope was anchored on the coast of West Central Africa when she was captured by privateer, sailing on the flag of a revolutionary predecessor to uruguay. It comes to a bad end. But thats you have to read the book to find that out. The antelope was brought back to americas. There were at least 331 captives on board the vessel. Off the coast of brazil the capper, the privateer, was wrecked and the antelope continued on in a dramatic voyage throughout the atlantic world, really, in many ways, until finally in june of 1820, the antelope was captured by United States revenue cutter off the coast of florida. Ultimately she was taken into savannah and by that time the 156 surviving im sorry 256 surviving captives we started with 331 were unloaded from the vessel. They were on average 14 years of age. 42 were ten or younger. But this is actually not unusual for the slave trade at that time. Despite their. Despite the illness of many of the captives, they were worth a fortune, and whenever theres lots of money to be fought over, there are of course also lawyers. I was a lawyer and i had to leave that and do something else. So, the legal battle began over these captives. The spanish investor who owned the antelope hires attorneys and files a claim. Others claiming to represent portuguese investo who had their captives tan from their ships, filed a claim. The commander of the. Referee commander of the revenue filed a claim for salvage. And the captain of the antelope who is really just a pirate, john smith. John smith files a claim for the value of these captives. And then to everyones dismay, as they come before the District Court in savannah, to inn essence divvy up, the United States attorney for savannah enters the case and says under american law these captives are not slaves and they are free and should be returned to africa. What follows is an eight, year legal battle, and the captives during the time of the legal battle find themselves laboring at slaves, own though no court has adjudicated them to be slaves. The battle was lost at some point, ultimately lab habersham gets an order to free eight captives. A remarkable story that again youll have to buy the book to learn about. But ultimately Francis Scott key probably heard of him one of the managers of the american colonization society, seeing these captives as prime candidates, as settlers for the new american colony being built on the coast of africa, manages to make sure that this case is brought before the supreme court. In 1825, william worth, the attorney general of the United States, and Francis Scott key, enter the court to argue for freedom of the captives, and Francis Scott key its a remarkable arrangement and ibrams presentation made me think of elements i wouldnt have mentioned hem argued argued by the law of nature all men are free and then use an analogy. She said we had a ship wreck on american shores and it was loaded with white people, we would not assume them to be slaves. So how, then, he asked the court, do we assume that these men from africa, and women, these men and women from africa, have been cast upon our shores as if from a ship wreck are slave . Astonishing, six of theres six justices listening to the case. Four are slaveowners. Francis scott key himself is a slave owner. Very, very convoluted story that ultimately ends with John Marshall having to weigh the natural rights of liberty versus the rights of property. You can perhaps figure how that came out. Ultimately, through a sleight of hand by John Marshall a substantial proportion of the captives are return to liberia. 1700 miles a. From their homeland in what was probably the congo, and another 40 or so end up in the hands of the United States congressman on his plantation, making him wealthy enough to retire to florence and write bad poetry. I could no on but its better for us to have a chance for questions. So, thank you very much. Thank you very much for you introductions and well now instant up to questions and youll notice there are two microphones. If you have questions, please come down to the microphones so we can hear you. Can you hear me . Okay. My question is, ibram, i read a volume of books by dish this will its allen nevins, an historian, and he discussed slavery extensively and made a comment that has haunted me. He said that doing the demographics of the slave owners of the primary slave period, that the majority of them were clergy, and i just read that and i couldnt get it out of my head, and i just wanted to know if you can speak to that or heard anything that can confirm or deny. Thank you for that question. I did not know that, and so if it is the case, then to a certain extent it makes sense because, for instance in the south, probably the most popular racist idea up until the civil war substantiating enslavement of people, were the idealogicals saying god ordained the enslavement of African People. The enslaved people had a different type of christianity, right . Was more or less justifying. Also shows ill sea very quickly, that one of the earliest debates between racist ideas in america was the debate as to whether enslaved people could become clip. Write about how you had slave owners who sometimes were many times were christians, sometimes were ministers, sometimes were just doing that of course for political reasons. But they were making the case that enslaved people are to barbaric for christianity when in reality, if they become christian, theyll sort of read passages about human equality and then try to run away. Right . But then you had another group which were mainly missionaries, which were people like the first major character in the text who is cotton mather, a boston theologian who was making the case that black people could become christian and that we need to separate the body and, yes, black bodies can be enslaved from the soul and also theyre equal and he made the case that, yes, these dark, ugly souls are black, but the have the capacity to become white if they become christian. Actually did that. You had a question . This is to to right. Yes. Thank you all for being here. Its a critical time and much soul food. I had to wait six to eight weeks for your book the public library. There were 22 people ahead of me on the list. I think its because its a little long. Im sorry. I have to look up the other books. That middle group that you described, and it role in slave ricker im not remember the word the anti there were the the gradual. Okay. If we fastforward to today the topic is slavery but if we look at contemporary slave idea inside our society, what does that middle of the road group look like . Some of it pretty clearly defined on the periphery, but what practices, what policies, what behaviors, what ideas do you see by way of your research and writing are evident right now in this time and place as we look at places like ferguson and minneapolis and cleveland and tucson. Sure. Of course, very quickly, would say that in the text i define i name three kinds of racial ideas. What i call sub progagessist and those are the advocates permanent enslavement. People who are advocating permanent inequality. And then antiracists, who are advocating immediate emancipation for now who were be advocate can meet equality, and then the middle group is a group i called assimilationists who were advocating temperature the enslavement area gradual emans make who after that era was advocating gradual equality. Typically these are people today would are people who major the assimilationists who fuel black people are inferior by their nurture and history of oppression but we have the capacity to civilize and develop them. And they say black people are inferior behaviorally. There are cultural pathologies in black america and black people are more criminally minded more hypersexual, achieving at lower level than white students but its because of their environment and so they emphasize both trying to civilize black people, but then hey also have tried to challenge racial discrimination. These are be people that i would classify assimilationists and they have been had these ideas theres something wrong with black people as a result of their culture or environment and these idead have never been proven and many have been disproven. Okay, let me just open that question up a little bit to the two other writers. How do you see your research in terms of how it relates to contemporary times. I actually following what ibram was saying, a lot of the quoteunquote School Reform stuff we hear today is on the idea that schools are failing minorities. We hear that again and again and again, and the suggestion, therefore, is that if we only provide some particular improvement environment, if we only do something to help which is children who true up in a black family or lack of black families or other such thing, and its always astonishing to me because it is extraordinarily evident as a historian that really what the problem is it racism. Its thats bald and straightforward but it just really comes down to me thats the case. As far as this particular work, places of the earth, the dark places of the earth, the voyage of the ship antelope, what i really hope it does is help people understand that justice is not something that happens by nature. Human beings have to choose justice. They have to make justice happen. And there are individuals in my book who are struggling to do just that. And there are individuals in my book who fail mightily. Some of them names you would recognize, john quincy adams, is among the most known probably. So, that is where i would take that question. Is justice is something we have to make happen. Its not going to happen naturally. Okay. Well, this is excellent because i can also speak about so my book is bat the enslavement of indians, and i call it the other slavery, but in some ways, this is the type of slavery that has outlived and has remained all the way to today. So today there are 45. 8 Million People experiencing modernday forms of enslavement, and yet slavery has been prohibited all over the world, including in mauritania. So, really, the way in which these people are enslaved are through these through debts and the criminal system. So the story im telling is the one that we have seen unfolding until today, and further corollary to my work is it is just not enough to prohibit enslavement in order for that happen pause what we see is people who benefit from that will are very resourceful and will move from one region to another, target one group to another, or resort to euphemism or some other set of circumstances, and so if there is one lesson from my book about these other slavery is that those who are bent on eliminating that need to be extremely committed and extremely dynamic in pursuing that because thats a very dynamic and power of the slavery is powerful. This is primarily for dr. Kin dibut also id like to others to address it. Can we have full equality without retch racing reparations . I knew it was kind of hot here and i you know, i think the im happy this question comes up as relates toslavery. Because this questiones directly tied to slavery. And the my short answer to your question is, no. Now, one of the reasons i would say no is because one of the greatest causes of persisting inequality in this country is the wealth gap, and so last i checked white people had 15 times more wealth than black people, and of course the wealth gaps are exist between other racial groups as well, and so then the question becomes, why do you have such a massive wealth gap . What racist ideas will say is black people dont want to save money, dont want to work. All of these ideas suggesting theres something wrong or inferior about black people, none of which have been proven to be true. Theres a ton of evidence suggesting the wealth gap is due to hundreds of years of sometimes state, sanctioned policies statesanctioned policies that more or less depressed the ability for black people to build wealth. Right . So then the question becomes, so then what do we as a nation do about this obvious evidence . How do we equalize the wealth gap . Were not even willing to create equal opportunities currently for different racial groups to acquire wealth in a similar vantage point. Anybody should know that if you try to buy and own and build wealth from a house in a black neighborhood youll have a very different experience if you try to night a white neighborhood. So then how do we i would ask people who are against reparations, how would you equalize the situation without reparations . And so thats the question im actually asking people who are against reparations. And if they can give me a reason that makes sense, that will actually solve the problem, i would be all ears as im sure many people who advocate reparations would be. Okay. Thank you for your question. Very briefly, the same question can apply to native americans. If you believe that 2. 5 to 5 million native americans were enslaved, the question is what about reparations . I think it would be extraordinarily difficult, especially for two reasons. Again, i will bier brief. One is be very brief. One is that first of all its extremely difficult to document exactly who they were, because unlike african slaves have to cross an ocean and you have Court Records listing everybody who was there thats why we have such great sources to investigate the numbers. In the case of native americans what we have are vague references to slaving rates, we have occasional investigations, but theres a lot that we dont know. So that would be problem number one. Identifying. Problem number two and perhaps more fundamental is that native american slavery is something that everyone engaged in, including native american groups themselves. So they were both enslaved and slavers. So, exactly how you parse that out in terms of republican reparations would be extremely difficult ill make two comments. If one were to try to seek reparation out there the courts you have a very difficult task of being able to show that any plaintiffs currently have damages. That would be an extraordinary act and theyd have historian after historian of there trying to do this. Secondly, then, the only root to reparations would be throughwodh congressional action, and good luck with that. Okay. Over here. I have a question for dr. One passage i found fascinating in your book was related to the per suit of indian slaves who had been taken to spain of their freedom through the court. Can you speak more to kind of the role that ever actually reached out to people, howl did the indian slaves seek the opportunities in the first place or were there agents within Spanish Society that were seeking them out to advocate for them or agent inside their own space and the extend to which this was actually being practiced. Fascinating, and i wonder in the case of african slaves in the United States if we have kind of some comparable stories. It seems like this is a pretty unique case i dont personally know about these cases and in terms of africaian slavery in the u. S. And that is one thing that struck me in your book. So if you could speak to that and maybe the others might have comments. Thank you for the question. One of the things that we may assume when we talk about spanish crown and the situation of indian slaves is that when the spanish crown, when the king of spain prohibited absolutely the taking of indian slaves, he meant that. He meant business and we may think, no, the spanish crown is in efficient and its complicit, benefiting from this, but at least in the case of spain and only the case of spain much less much so in the new world ed did. So after indian slavery became outlawed, then the spanish legal system had ways to make inquiries about people who had native american slaves, and if so, they urged those slaves to sue their masters for their freedom and in order to do that, the spanish legal system put officers, as you call them the disposal of the native americans to help move the cases. Ive seen some of these are incredible cases. Some in the archives 4hundred pages long, 800 pages long simple talk about indian slaves, et cetera, faceless, nameless, but when you get into this you really get into the nittygritty of juan and pedro and how they were living in the houses of the owners and what way they were doing exactly, et cetera. So, all of that to say it seems to me remarkable that the spanish legal system was so advanced in that way. My final comment of that is that while it worked in spain and these legal system eventually stamped out slavery in the iberian peninsula, in the 1st 17th century. In the case of the new world that as impossible because the economy rested on the shoulder offed indian labor, so that dictum led to convoluted and covert actions. If youre interested in the two legal cases theyre rich that give voices to people that otherwise may seem voiceless, and as far as the United States is concerned, there are numerous freedom suits, and where you will usually find them is in either a federal District Court archives or in some of the state, lower level courts archives and everybody here is probably aware of one of the best known and that is the dred scott case. Question here. I have a couple of comments, possibly contributions and a question. Comments are with respect to gradualism, i would argue that one of the most eloquent arguments against gradualism was written by a man within my lifetime, as a visitor in the birmingham jail. If you want to read about god allism and the fight against it read dr. Kings alerts from the birmingham jail. The second point is regarding the question about white clerics and what role christianity played. I think it would be interesting to remember that nat turner was a cleric. The question comes around Property Rights. One thing that infuriated me when i found out about it was that the emancipation proclamation waited around for a long time. A couple of years. And one of the principle reasons was the president couldnt figure out a way to compensate the owners of the property that were going to be freed. Id appreciate some comments on that. I think ill defer to my pageis but im glad you brought up ml ks words and his famous letters from to birmingham jail. What he said, he said that he cop fessed confess head had almost reached the regrettable conclude that the negros great stumbling block was not in the segregationitt but the white moderate who says i agree with you and goal you seek but i cannot agree with your method of direct action. Who paternalattistic whether believe me can set the timetable for another man residents freedom. Andres talked about the difficult the Property Rights gives the new world spanish colonies and dealing with slavery, but that is a significant issue of course in the United States itself. One over the tragedies of the antelope decision again, its a decision that should be more widely known is that in giving Property Rights precedent over natural human rights, John Marshall created the conditions that would lead to the westward expansion of slavery and that conflict would lead to us civil war. So, this is an essential thing that one must consider when looking at this history, and its a very tangled and difficult thing. If the constitution does one damn thing, it protects property, and if you define human beings as property, there you go. Okay. Question there. Hello. My name is aiden. Id like to link this back to today. I noticed there is alet of racism and were seem it is rising today with no matter if its minorities, black people, jewish people in this country. Id like to ask if you have any solutions for these problems were experiencing today. [applause] so, aiden, how old are you in. Im 13, you my god. So, thank you first and for most moore coming and having the courage to ask that question. Im going to look United States for you in ten years. Look out for you in ten years to see what youre doing. Would say that very briefly, to allow my copanelists time very briefly we as a society need those of us who are committed and who actually care about creating equal opportunities, that we should stop thinking about how not to be racist, and instead think about how to be an antiracist and what it truly means to ben antiracist to understand the racial groups are equal and in understanding that the racial groups ear squall, what that means is that the inequities in our society must not be because people are unequal but theyre equal so we have to look for the policies causing inequities and then we as a society become focus us on eliminating policies and there are create mortgage equitable policies but if we are constantly manipulated and ill know ive been manipulated and im sure everybody this room has been manipulated in oak the inequities are cause build inferior people we wont see the policies that are the problem and then racism will continue because the racist continue ideas will continue to be produced and we ill not look for the policies to he people who benefit from the policies can continue to do so. [applause] thank you. Thank you so much for asking the most difficult question of the night. I am very honestly tell you i dont have answers for you, but one of the things that historians can do is provide the broader context. And even though you talked about the racism and et cetera, there are some if we take a step back, there are some some ways we are much better off and its easy to lose sight of that in the story that im telling, i end it by saying that today, 45. 8 Million People are subjected to modern forms of slavery. That is a very big number. But in actual percentage terms is much lower than in the 9th 9th century, suggests to me in the middle of the 19th century or late 19th century the percentage of peep enslave people enslave evidence dropped significantly. But we have made some progress. Its a low bar but a significant one, that over the course of the last 200 years we have made some progress in terms of this issue of slavery. Aiden go ahead. Aiden, i can only offer you typical academic, right a process, and the process is one that historians do all the time. We are always imagining ourselves into other peoples shoes. As we construct our narrative, tell our stories, as we talk about people, we put ourselves in those other people residents shoe peoples shoes and try to put ourself in the world in the they were living. If we could get more people putting themselves into other people residents shoes i think would we would have the beginning of the process of moving toward the world they were talking about. [applause] we have run out of time for questions. Sorry. But die want to i do want to thank youor attend thing is session and your support of the festival. Become a friend to ensure our festival remains a free event, and supports important literacy programs in our community. All audience members are asked to vacate the venue quickly so we can begin our next program on time. [applause] [inaudible conversations]. Spinet we are live in the gallagher theater with several of their panels but outside after they finished speaking they go to this signing tent in the quad area of the university and they sign their Box Including historian in president ial biographer brinkleys who is down here at the festival book tv continues if you listened to
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