slave owned by george and martha washington whose escape initiated a manhunt order by the president. >> welcome to the ninth annual tucson festival of books. my name is connie sanchez. we want to think, indications for for sponsoring this venue. this presentation will last one hour, including questions and answers. please hold your questions to the very end of the presentation. immediately following the session the authors will be autographing books in the sales and dining area and you aball. bookstore tent on the ball. that is 141. books are available for purchase at this location. note that mr. kennedy will beat the minutes late to the signing area due to a live interview with the fan following this program. we hope that you are enjoying the festival and we would like you to become a friend of the festival today by texting friend, f ri e and d252012 book. and that's shown on the sign at the front of the room. or you can visit the friend of the festival booth, number 110 on the mall. your gift. a your gift makes a difference and keeping the festival programming free of charge and supporting critical literacy programs in the community. out of respect for the authors and your fellow audience members, please turn off your cell phones now. let me briefly introduce the authors to you. the first one is. five. his assistant professor at the university of florida. the book is called stamp on the beginning: the definitiveve history of racist ideas in america. this book won the purchaser'soo national award and a finalist for the national book critical current critic was nominated for the naacp work. onad mr. resendez is another presenter here at the panel. his book is the other sleepy:. it was a finalist for the national book award he's a full professor at the university of davis and he specializes in colonial history and the history of the borderlands.. and jonathan bryant is a full professor at georgia southern university.un his special legal history and slavery. his book as dark places of the earth: the voyage of a slave ship antelope. it was a finalist for the los angeles book prize in history and has won several other books, academic awards. you'll begin. >> hello everyone. it's truly an honor for me to be here, thank you to the people of tucson and the tucson festival. thank you of course to my co- panelists. of course, most of all, thankst you for all coming to listen to this panel on slavery in america.an i'm going to talking about my book, stamps from the beginning. i don't often have the opportunity to talk about stamps in the beginning typically as it relates to its chapters and sections on slavery. i'm truly excited to be on the panel. from the beginning, if the narrative history of racist ideas. it literally penalizes racist ideas from their origins from 15th century western europe toto the present. of course, people are more interested in the president in the history and the history and slavery. racist ideas developed as an effort to justify the enslavement of african people. early in my research, as i was chronicling my history, i realized our sort of conceptions of the origins of racist ideas, our conceptions that these ideas are ignorance and hate. in other words, ignorant and hateful people who produced racist ideas and it was people who had these racist ideas for the people who instituted racist policies like and slavery that that was actually not true. when we looked at the actual producers of racist ideas. specifically, it becomes quite easy to understand this when we think about it in context to slavery. people began the enslavement of african people began in enslavement for economic gain. sometimes political, sometimes cultural but primarily because they wanted to make money. right?al everyone understand that. then they wanted to continue to enslave people they wanted to continue to make money so how did they do that? how, why, what they need to continue the claimant of african people? they needed to produce racistat ideas that justified that stated that black people were fit for slavery. that they were better suited for slavery and freedom. that black people were so t inferior to white people that they would be better as slaves and free. one of the other thing that i found in researching this long history of racist ideas was that it was really racist policies and the need to justify them that led to the production of racist ideas. then we americans began consuming ideas that black people are fit for slavery, they are the descendents of ham was cursed by god for permanent enslavement or that the black skin or black bodies are very good for labor.labor and the black people are physically superior beings and are fit for picking cotton and not for reading books. all of these ideas were utilized to justify slavery, to normal life slavery so people wouldn't resist slavery. so that they would think slavery was natural and normal. therefore, those who benefited from it would continue to benefit from it. this book is broken up into five sections. each section has a major character. each of these characters serve as sort of windows to the larger racial debate in america. when you're talking about the history of recent ideas, you're talking about the history of a debate racist and antiracist ideas. you're really talking about major and powerful people whopl are course involved. these ideas do not come out of nowhere. didn't come out of the desert. they came out of people's minds, although some of us call those mines, like deserts. the third major character in this text is william lloyd garrison. william lloyd garrison for those of you aren't familiar with the history of the abolitionistve movement went on to become one of the most famous, if not theng most famous, white male abolitionist the founding editor of a periodical known as the deliberate or.as he was also involved in founding of many of the principals, antislavery societies societies that challenged slavery in 1830, 1840, and 1850s. this section begins the speech that he gave on independence dae in 1829. he gave the speech for the american colonization society. in the 1820s, the most prominent and powerful racial reform organization became the american colonization society. a society that was geared towards sending free black people back to africa. thereby, encouraging the sort of gradual abolition of slavery and getting rid of those newly freed people and sending them back. it was quite interesting for black folks at the time who knew they had been hauled here against their will and ships. now the nation wanted to sendai them back to africa, on ships. this very prominent sort of organization was invited garrison to speak at their annual fundraising event in boston on independence day in 189. h in this speech garrison, this young editor, he was not a deliberate or yet but he says in his speech that i'm sick of our hypocritical camps about the rights of man. we should be demanding a gradual abolition of slavery, not promoting colonization. ten days later garrison went to a black church in boston and t went to a celebration of england's abolition in the slave trade. so black people in boston would annually celebrate england abolition of the slave trade. at this event, a white clergyman addressed the crowd and during the lecture he advocated that emancipation right now would was not wise or prudent. and that black people needed a a long period of time qualifying them for freedom. the black people were not ready for freedom. so, garrison when the speaker said this, heard this murmur go through the crowd. you know how the crowd gets angry without saying so. he heard this murmur, right? and it caused him to think about what he said in his speech, 1010 days earlier when he advocated for this graduated abolition of slavery. he thought about that as he walked home that night. he thought about immediate emancipation a wild vision. he described it as a wild vision in his speech. or was it wilder to stand on some sort of middle groundtw between what he called simple slavery and righteous freedom. he said, i have nothing left to stand on. by august of 1829, garrison had moved to baltimore and became the coeditor of the prominent abolitionist periodical called the genius of the universal abolition. then he wrote no valid excuse could be given for the continuation of the evil of slavery, a single hour. he would then become thehe principal advocate of what became known as the immediate emancipation. i say this to park briefly overh the next 30 years there became this three-way debate about slavery and race in america. with the pre-position. garrison took the position of immediate emancipation. others position of gradual emancipation. then a third group position of permanent slavery. these three positions were indicative of a larger racial debate over the course of american history.on notions of equality or racial equality. the larger debate that i'm chronicle throughout the history from the beginning is in a debate that continues today even with chattel slavery with these three positions. one was permanent inequality. this position stated that yes, there are are all these racial inequalities and equity in our society and they are caused by black inferiority. black inferiority is permanent. so, there there is no way we can have other anything other than racial inequality. that's been one position over the course of american history. the second position is been gradual quality. this position has stated that black people are inferior righti now and so, yes, even if we created equal opportunity we would not have racial equality because black people right now are inferior. we have the capacity to develop and civilize black people so that one day we will create quality.it this is the second position on race historically in america. the third position is what i call immediate equality. it is this position, the the antiracist position, that's just the racial groups are equal. even if we were to provide equal opportunities for black people than we would be able to create racial equality because there's nothing wrong or inferior about black people. that's what garrison spent the next 30 years promoting as it related to slavery. we need to end slavery right now because black people are ready for freedom. thank you. [applause] thank you. thank you for coming.hare my wok it really is a pleasure to share some of my work. thank you for carving out time of your precious saturday to discuss anything about books. i will start out with mr. kendi interesting discussion about slavery. i will say and extend that to the case of native americans. i began this work pretty much like an accident and i wanted to write a concise, very targeted history of the enslavement of native americans from the 16th century but i wanted to provide some of the larger, broader broader context of the story. i began collecting information about indian enslavement in subsequent centuries under spain and mexico and the united states. i gradually came to see a long running thread and i became stated that the best thing i could do was to try it allworkii together. all the pieces that scholars have been working on in different regions and try to see through the forest to get a better understanding of theseter phenomenons. so i started out with veryal specific questions. one question that really attracted me from the beginning was trying to come up with an estimate of the numbers of indian slaves.africans who numbers have a way to impress our mind very powerfully so whenever, for example, we talk about the 12.5 million 12.5 million africans were forcibly transported across them atlantic, that makes a very strong impression in our minds and it really is in a frame of mind that whenever were talking about slavery whether in virginia or brazil or the caribbean we are talking about a vast system that span continents and revolve around an entire ocean.e i wanted to the same thing for native americans and i gradually put together some estimates. this speaks begin to speak about the scope of this phenomenon. the estimates are provided and again, very tentative but necessary. we want to get a sense of 2.525 million 525 million native americans enslaved to the time of columbus in 1900 when the00 institution disappeared. there were additional similaritn interestingly similarities and contrasts 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 women and children. that really put a different spin on that particular story. i another very interesting difference and perhaps this is the most fundamental in terms of the story i'm trying to tell and the other slavery is the fact that indian slavery was early on permitted because it was another racial group, another racialized group that was suitable for enslavement. early on, the spanish crown decided that native americans were not inflatable so as early as 1542 the spanish crown prohibited under all circumstances the enslavement of indians. what happened was owners who had benefited from these resorted to euphemisms and all kinds of subterfuge is in order to get around this provision but retain mastery over their slaves. when i talk about the other slavery, i talk about not only the target of native americans but fundamentally, because it operates in different ways, sometimes it requires detective work in order to figure out what the real labor conditions are four things that are enslavement based on that, the legal system or some other circumstance. the institutions buried. that is what i started out doing. now, i have to start out byi hat emphasizing that slavery is not european invention native americans had enslaved each other well before the arrival of europeans. but with the arrival of europeans these practices expanded in unexpected ways and came to resemble the kinds of human trafficking that are recognizable to us today. the story that i tell is a moving story. it begins in the caribbean where i try to show that is much of theological aspects in theat employment of native americans is a significant for the entire decimation of the native population of the caribbean. in fact, there is as myself and other scholars there's a synergistic relationship between epidemics and enslavement. enslaving rates spread disease which decimate the population in the dwindling population requires more enslaving rates to replenish the dwindling population so that it's a vicious circle between these two phenomena. that's what happened in the caribbean and that's where i wa began.s that's probably the first and worst native enslavement ground in the world. it very quickly moved on to the mainland and i focus specifically on the silver mines of northern mexico. silver mines are incredible enterprises that require following the vein down, deepest man-made shafts in the world were made as a result of these i exploitation of the silver mine. you can imagine it's an incredibly labor intensive process that requires people to bring up the ore from the shaft, pulverize that or, mix it with a toxic reagent like mercury, and all of this happened at 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. that's the story that i explorea quickly, that population population was wiped out or disappeared or moved away as any rational people would do. very, these slave labor moved into what is the american southwest. this is the theater of these rating campaigns from the silver mines into the catchment area. area the book moves from the caribbean to northern andth central mexico and makes its way to 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. additionally enough, the institution became so entrenched that it was very difficult to stamp it out. spain tried to prohibit it, to no effect, the mexican government did the same thing and essentially it outlawed indian slavery and extended citizenship rights incredible as it may sound to all native americans living within mexico's territory but that didn't help. it continued into the american. and the widespread movement of americans from the east to theho west kindled or rekindled many of these slavery practices. the american west became the site where these practices cent. lasted through the 19th century. i briefly go into how the civil war and especially the introduction of the 13th amendment may have alleviated some of these problems because it essentially prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, opening the door for the liberation for many of these native americans but in fact, the supreme court interpreted these amendments in a narrow way that applied mainly to african americans and excluded native americans who were not american citizens until well into the 20th century.. so, the story goes into the end of the 19th century wherefore other economic reasons that maybe institution declined but were talking about this its vast system of enslavement that affected as many as 5 million people and that we pay much have forgotten about it. thank you very much. [applause] i usually teach in a darkened theater and can't see the faces that are in front of me. this is a wonderful thing to be able to see you. as a writer and you heard thisof term from both of the other speakers, as a writer i'mm convinced that the most powerful tool of the historian's narrative. narrative or storytelling, liess at the heart of what historians do. historical naturally followslo from a well told story. when i i first encountered the story of the shape's ship antelope. the story grew, ceiling steps, pirates, you'd think i was ten years old, hundreds of enslaved captives, rescue, three trips to the united states supreme court researching and john's marshalsm both statement on slavery and i came across thousands of pages of documents of district and circuit courts that were in the branch of the national archive in atlanta and then it was very evident that it was scattered through dozens of boxes that no one had really utilized theseenh before. suddenly, i was on the back of a tiger. how could any storyteller resist. by 1819 most european nations had outlawed the african slave trade. spain and particle had continued the trade. the antelope was a spanish slave chip based in cuba. in the summer of 1819, it left on another voyage to trade for slaves in africa. in march of 1820, the antelope was anchored at cabinda on the coast of west africa when she was captured by privateer feeling under the flag which is a revolutionary predecessor to paraguay. the antelope was then brought back to the americas. there were at least 331 captives on board the vessel and off the coast of brazil, the captor, the privateer was wrecked and the antelope continued on in a dramatic voyage throughout the atlantic world in many ways until meant in june 2018 to 20 the was captured by the united states revenue cutter off the coast of florida. ultimately, she was taken into savanna and by that time the hundred and 56 surviving, 256 surviving captives. remember we started with 331 were unloaded from the vessel. on average, they were 14 years of age, 42% were ten or younger. this is actually not unusual fol the slave trade. the despite their use, despite their illness, many captives were worth a fortune. and when and when there's money to be fought over, there are of course lawyers. [laughter] i was a lawyer and i had to leave that and do something else [so, the the legal battleti begins over these captives. the spanish investor who had owned the antelope hires attorneys and files a claim. others claim represent portuguese investors who had had their captives taken from their ships, filed a claim.: commander of the revenue cutter filed a claim for salvage. even the captain had taken over the antelope, a guy which is an appropriate name for someone who's just a pirate, john smith, john smith also filed a claim for the value of these captives then to everyone's dismay as they come before the district court in savannah, in essence, to divvy up the united states attorney for savannah a man name richard havisham enters the case and says under american law captives are not slaves but they are free and they should be returned to africa. what follows is an eight year legal battle. the captives during this time of the legal battle find themselves laboring as slaves, even though no court had adjudicated them to be slaves. the battle looks lost at some some.and ultimately, havisham manages to get in order to create of the captives. it's a remarkable story that, again, you'll have to buy the book. ultimately, francis scott key, you probably heard of him, who is one of the managers of the american colonization societyint seen these captives as a prime candidate 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 18 d5, william the attorney general of the united states and francis scott key enter the court to argue for the freedom of the campus. francis scott key is a remarkable argument and he probes sedation made me think of some elements of it. he argues that by the law of nature all men are free. he goes further and uses the analogy that says if we had a ship wreck on american sure and it was loaded with white people, we would not assume them to be slaves. so how then he asked the court to be assume that the men from africa and women that been cast upon our shores as if from are shipwreck are slaves. astonishing, there are six justices listening to the case and for her own place. francis scott key itself was a slave owner. very convoluted story. ultimately ends with john marshall having to weigh the natural rights of liberty versus the rights of property. you perhaps you can figure out how that came out. ultimately, through a sleight of hand by john marshall, af substantial proportion of these captives are returned to liberia 1700 miles away from their homeland in what was probably the congo and another 40 or so and up in the hands of the united states congressman on his plantation. making him wealthy enough to retire to florence and write bad epic poetry. i could go on and i pick it up better for us to have a chance for questions. so, thank you very much mac. >> thank you for youran introductions and we are now going to open it up to questions. you'll notice there are two microphones. one in each aisle. if you have questions please come down to the microphones so we can hear you. >> my question is 25. i read a volume of books and he discussed slavery and discussed made a comment that has haunted me and i wanted to see if you had could speak to this. he said, in doing the demographics of the slave owners of the primary slave. but the majority of them were clergy. i read that and i couldn't get it out of my head. i wanted to know if you can speak to it or if you've heard anything to confirm or deny it. thank you.. >> thank you for that question. i did not know that. if that is the case to a certain extent, it makes sense because for instance, we found that the most popular racist idea up until the civil war substantiating the enslavement of african people was the theological ideas suggesting wed that god had ordained the enslavement of african people. christian or more so specific brand of christianity because the enslavement person had a different type of faith but it justified and it also showed, very quickly, one of the earliest debates between racist ideas in america was the debate is whether or not enslaved people could become christian. i write about how you had slave- owners sometimes, many times were christians, sometimes foro ministers, for doing that for political reasons but they were making the case that enslaved people were too barbaric for christianity.or in reality, if they become christian then they'll sort of three passages about human equality and they'll try to run away. then you had another group which were mainly missionaries. people like the first major character in this text withti cotton mather, a boston theologian who made the case that black people could become christians.d, we need to separate the body and black bodies can be in saved from the soul and all souls are equal. he made the case that yes, these dark ugly souls are black but they have the capacity to become white if they become christian. [laughter] he actually did say that. [laughter] >> you had a question, to the it's a right thank you all for being here. it's a critical time. this is been so. i had to wait six to eight weeks for your buck at the public library.hi there were 22 people ahead of me on the list. >> i think it's because it's a little long. [laughter]that you >> that middle group that you described and its role in slavery and i'm not remembering the word but the gradual, okay if we fast forward to today and i know the topic is about slavery but if we look at contemporary slave ideas in our society, what does that middle of the road group look like? some of it's pretty defined on the for your but what practices, what policies, what behaviors and ideas to easy by way of your research and writing are evident , right now, in this time and place as we look at places like minneapolis and cleveland and tucson? >> of course. very quickly i would say that in the text i define, or i should s what i call segregationistperma ideas.permanent ineq advocates of permanent enslavement, those those are the people who advocated permanent inequality and then antiracist who advocated immediate emancipation and now would be advocating immediate equality in the middle group is a group i call assimilationist. they advocated 30 the enslavement area gradual emancipation who after that era advocated gradual equality. typically, these people today are people who imagine being assimilationist who imagine that black people have become inferior by nurture, by their environment, by their history oe oppression. that we have the capacity to symbolize and develop them. what they end up doing is saying that black people are inferior and black america. yes, black people are more criminally minded, more hypersexual, are achieving at a lower level than white students but it's because of their environment. they emphasize both trying to civilize black people but they also tried to challenge racial discrimination. these are the people that i would classify as assimilationist. they been fed these ideas haver never been proven and many havee been disproven.r >> let me open that question up a little bit to other writers. how do you see your research in terms of how it relates to contemporary times? if you could briefly expound on that, both of you. >> following what mr. kendi was sane, a lot of the quote unquote school reform stuff that we hear today is based on the idea that schools are failing minorities. we hear that again and again an, again.st the suggestion therefore is that if we only provide some sort of particular improved environment, if we only do something to help these children who grew up in a black family or lack of black families or other such things and it's always astonishing to me because it's extraordinarily evident as a historian that really what the problem is is racist. i know that's bold and straightforward but it comes down to me that that's the caser as far as this particular work,t dark places of the earth, the voyage of a dark 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 they hav justice. they have to make justice bo happen. 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 the adams is among the most known probably. that's where i would take that question is justice is something we have to make happen. it won't happen naturally. >> this is excellent because i can also speak. my book is about the enslavement of indians and i call it the other slavery. in some ways, this is the type of slavery that has outlived and has remained all the way to today. there are 35.8 million peoples experiencing modern day forms of enslavement. yet, slavery has been prohibited all over the world. really, the the way in which these people are enslaved through these subterfuge is that i was talking about through debt, criminal system -- i guess, the story that i'm telling in some way is the one that we have seen unfolding until today.s further corollary to my work is that it's just not enough to prohibit enslavement in order for that to happen. what we see is that people who benefit from that are very resourceful and they will move from one resource to another and target one group from another resort to a euphemism the other set of circumstances. there is one lesson from my book those about this other slavery is that those who are bent on eliminating that need to be extremely committed and extremely dynamic in pursuingse that because that's a very dynamic and disdain power issl remarkable. >> this is primarily for doctor kennedy but i like the others to address it. can we have full equality without reparation? >> how long do we have? [laughter] i knew that it was kind of hot here. [laughter]s up as relates i'm happy that this question comes up as it relates to slavery because this question is directly tied to slavery. my short answer to your question is no. now, one of the reasons i would say no is because one of thest s greatest causes of persisting equality in this country is the wealth gap. last i checked, white people people had 15 times more wealth than black people. question bece of course, the wealth gap exists between other racial groups as well.ch the question then becomes why we have such a massive wealth gap ? racist ideas with a black people don't want to save money, they don't want to work, all these ideas suggesting that there's something wrong and inferior about black people. none of which have ever proven to be true. there's a ton of evidence suggesting that the wealth gap is due to hundreds of years of sometime state sanctioned policies that more or less depress the ability for black people to build wealth. 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 currentlyach for different racial groups to acquire wealth in a similarat vantage. anybody should know that if you try to buy and own wealth from a house in a black neighborhood then you'll have a different experience if you did it in a white neighborhood. how do we, i would would ask, people who are against reparations. how would you equalize the situation without reparations?s. that's the question i'm asking people who are against reparations. if they can give me a reason that make sense, that will solve the problem, i would be all ears, as all people who are for reparations would be thank you for your question. very briefly, the the same question can be applied to native americans. the question is what about reparations? i think it would be extraordinarily difficult, especially for two reasons, one is first of all, it's extremely difficult to document exactly who they were. unlike african slavery, african slaves had to cross an ocean and you had these records listing everybody who was there and that's why we have such great sources to investigate the numbers.as in the case of native americans, we have vague references to slaving grades, locationallo investigations but there's a lot that we don't know. that would be problem numberer one. problem number two and moree fundamental is that native american slavery is something that everybody engaged in. including, native american groups themselves. a they were both enslaved and slavers. exactly how you parse that out in terms of reparations if reparations were be extremely difficult.t. >> i will make two comments as well. the first, if one would try to seek reparations to the court you have a very difficult task of being able to show that any plaintiffs currently have at anv damages. that would be an extraordinary act and they would have to haven historian after historian up there trying to do this. secondly, the only route reparations would be through congressional action and, good luck. [laughter] i have a question for mr. resendez. since were talking about courts briefly.ou one of the many passages that i found fascinating in your book was related to the pursuit of indian slaves who had been taken to spain of their freedom to the courts. if you could speak a little bit more to the role if they reached out to people. how did the indian slaves seek these opportunities in the firs place ? were there agents in spanish societies that were seeking them out to advocate for them? or their agents in their own states and the extent to which this was actually being practiced. the individual stories i found fascinating and i wanted to in the case of african slaves in the united states if we have comparable stories? this is a pretty unique case, i personally don't know about these types of cases in terms of african slavery in the us but that was the thing that struck me in your book. if you could speak to that and the others might have comments too. i appreciate it. >> one of the things that we may assume when we talk about the spanish crown and the situation of indian slaves. when the spanish crown and the king of spain essentially prohibited absolutely the taking of indian slaves, he meant that. he meant business. we may think he meant the spanish crown was inefficient,t, it's complicit, it's benefiting from this. he in the case of spain and only in the case of spain it really did so. after indian slavery became outlawed, the spanish legal system had ways to make inquiries about people who had native american slaves and if so, they urged those slaves to to their masters for their freedom. in order to do that the spanish legal system officers as you would call them at the disposal at the native americans to help them. i've seen incredible cases as you've seen in the archives, there are 400 pages long, 800 pages long, i know, i talk about indian slaves, nameless but when you get into this, you get into the nitty-gritty, juan and pedro and how they were living in the houses of the owners and what they were doing exactly, et cetera. all of that to say, it seems remarkable that the spanish legal system was so advanced. my final comment to that is that while it worked in spain in these legal system eventually stamped out slavery in the iberian peninsula in the 17th century, in the case of the new world that wasn't in possibility has the entire economy rested on the shoulders of indian labor. that's well-meaning victim only led to these convoluted covert, subterfuge is that i'm talking about. thank you. >> i would.anyone is interesting into two legal cases that are incredibly rich and give voices to people that would otherwise seem voices. as far as the united states is concerned there are numerous freedom suits where you will usually find them is in a federal district court archive or in some of the states lower-level court archive. of course, everybody here without thinking of it is a freedom suit is probably aware of one of the most known is the dred scott case. >> question here.le >> i have a couple of comments possibly contributions. 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 a lifetime as a visitor in the birmingham jail. if you want to read about gradualism and the fight against it read doctor king letters from the birmingham jail. the second.i would make regarding the question white clerics and what role christianity played it would be interesting to reinforce and remember that that term was a cleric. the question comes aroundproper property rights and one of the things that infuriated me when i found out about it was that then emancipation proclamation waited around for a long time, couple of years, and one of the principal reasons was the president couldn't figure out ao way to compensate the owners of the property that were going to be freed. i'd appreciate some comments on that. >> i'll defer to my panelists in terms of the property issue but i'm glad you brought up mlk words and his famous letter from the birmingham jail when he actually said and quoted in stamps from the beginning he said, he confessed that he had almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the negroes great stumbling block and strive to freedom was not that segregationist but the white moderates who constantly say i agree with you in a goal you seek but i cannot agree with your methods of direct action. paternalistic lee believe that he cannot set the timetable for another man's freedom. [applause] mr. resendez talked about the property rights about the new world spanish colonies in dealing with slavery but that's a significant issue, of course, in the united states, itself. one of the tragedies of the antelope decision was a decision that should be more widely known is that in giving property rights, untrained presidents over natural human rights, john marshall created the condition that would lead to the westward expansion of slavery and that conflict would lead us to the civil war. this is an essential thing that one must consider when looking at this history. it's a very tangled and difficult thing. the constitution does one damn thing, it it protects property.. if you define property as human beings, there you go. my name is aidan. i'd like to link us back to today. i noticed that there is a lot of racism that were seen that is rising today, no matter that if it's minority, black people, jewish people in this country and i'd like to ask if you have any solutions for these problems that were experiencing today? [laughter] [applause] eating, how old are you? >> the opportunities that we ans should stop thinking about how night to be racist. instead, think about how to be an antiracist. what it truly means to be an antiracist.al to understand the racial groups are equal. in understanding the racial groups are equal, what that means is there inequities in our society must not be because of inferior people because the racial groups are equal. then it causes us to look forreq the policies that are causingg those inequities. we a society become focused on eliminating those policies and thereby creating more equitable policies. if we are constantly've been manipulated, i know i have been manipulated and i'm sure everyone here has been manipulated into thinking those inequities are caused because of inferior people then we won't even see the policy as an actual problem and racism will continue. the racist ideas will continue to be produced so we will continue to not look for the policies so people who benefit from those policies will continue to do so. [applause] >> thank you so much for asking the most difficult question of the night.don' and i very honestly tell you that i do not have answers for you. one of the things historians can do is to provide the broader context. even though you talk about thet racism, there are if we take a step back, in some ways we are much better off.f. it's very easy to lose sight of that. in the story i'm telling i ended by saying today 45.8 millionodeo people are subjected to modern influences of race or slavery. that is a very big number. an actual percentage terms, it is much lower than what it was in the 19th century. that suggests to me that somewhere in the middle of the 19th century for the late 19th century, the percentage of people enslaved drop-down very significantly. so we may have the flow, but we have made some progress. this is a very low bar but a significant one. over the course of 200 years we have made progress in terms of issue of slavery. >> i can only offer you a typical operant academic.istori a process in which one does it all the time. we are always imagining ourselves and other people shoes. as we construct our narratives and tell her stories and talk about people we put ourselves in their shoes and try to put ourselves into this world in which they were living. if we could get more people putting themselves and other people shoes we would have the beginning of the process of moving toward the world that we were talking about. [applause]me for >> we have run out of time for questions. thing i do want to thank you forss attending the session and foral your support of the festival. do not forget to become a friend to ensure our festival remains a free event and supports important literacy programs in our community. audience members are asked to vacate the venue quickly so we can begin the next program on time. [applause]at the >> professor, your parents were activists. >> they were involved in black theology movement. the movement of the late 60s, early 70s, among black christians who are interested