Find offensive. [applause] thanks. Go ahead. You start. Figure out what to do. So much of this book is based on the interview, interviewing people. I am going to be up front. I am really intimidated by this guy. I thought i was intimidated by you. I want to give a little bit of background. I never really met john. I heard of jon else. He is this ghost. My first job was with chinese american filmmaker, legendary filmmaker and i came on the tail end of a series called bean sprouts. The crew a crewmember they would talk about jon else as the white guy that passed the asian litmus test and so i never met him but heard of him. I was working with wayne weighing in monaco and john was her, wayne congratulated him, winning the macarthur fellowship. I had no idea what it was at the time. Wayne said it is called a genius grant. And then i was actually in started working on a film that was actually because what we did is we gave don a camera to just film his everyday life for a full year of his senior year in high school. The style and everything were making the producers quite nervous. I like the final cut, but people werent sure how it was going to fly. I cant remember who it was but johns name came up as somebody to look at the film and give his feedback or stamp of approval. We sent it to jon else and got a call from you. It was very short. It was great. The second one was i am never going to ride on a city bus anymore and look at a kid the same way and the third one was the rap music at the end sucks, take it out. We kept the cut as it was but took out the rap music. Anyway, the next deal, brought me on to uc berkeley, john followed in marlon riggss steps and he brought me to do some consulting, got a firsthand look at the Henry Hampton backside methodology. I had been there for quite of a wild. We were sitting around talking and he said i am going to write a book and i dont know about you all, but that is the last thing that crosses my mind that im going to write a book and here it is. So i want to introduce john, he is going to read a couple passages. It is amazing to be here. This is the party i always wanted to have. Half the people who worked on it are here, the Mother Church of books, what a great way to bring this book into the world. You may have seen part of eyes on the prize but i will read the first few pages for what the series was about and the extraordinary man, Henry Hampton, the creator of eyes on the prize who i worked with for ten years and learned how to be a better teacher, a better human being and better everything. This is four pages, see if i can make it through this. Through the winter of 196465, selma, alabama in a state of siege broken by sudden explosions of violence and on march 7, 40 some days. And africanamerican, Henry Hampton, set out on broad street together with his friend reverend james reed and 1000 other marchers led by Martin Luther king. The goal was to deliver a Voting Rights prediction in montgomery. A quarter mile ahead, hundreds of heavily armed Alabama State troopers placed by sheriff jim clarks famously brutal party. Hampton was on Church Business and by his unitarian employers in boston, strikingly handsome and athletic, a leg brace worn since childhood with polio. Henry had a hard time keeping up with the group, and what will happen if he fell easy prey to white folks in the heard. Henry realize, black citizens of selma, as if by magic for the protective circle around him moving toward the troopers on the other side of the bridge at his pace, called it my own personal honor guard. 48 hours before, black men like Henry Hampton would never have a voice in alabama, savagely beaten, bullwhip, gast, hundreds of peaceful men, women and children cheer from the sidelines. Outraged clergy across the nation entered a call from doctor king, leapt into action and henry, the lay director of information joined hundreds of northern ministers. The new march was on. Headed for another confrontation, crossing the bridge they saw the helmeted troops across the highway during the march to come forward. Still on the bridge, beat sean lewis unconscious, suddenly stopped. And with half a dozen ministers, did not present a clear target to a sniper. Henry hampton did not know the weight of the destiny. And hours before they stop at the county line and fight another day is desperately needed the federal courts and president johnson, leaders were loath to violate a federal judge injunction against marching on montgomery. With a sinking feeling, henry saw a turn around and leave the bewildered marchers who laid their lives on the line through the state capital selma is what had begun as a mass expression of courage and moral witness before the same force as it smashed the blood he sunday march. Also avoid pissing off the president. Henry didnt know what to think that he suspected the moral muck of National Politics the principal clarity and and pragmatic politics. And they live to fight another day. And in that jumbled and strategical moment. And someday someone will make a great story. In 1986, Henry Hampton met the curbside in boston. And production on eyes on the prize, and puddle jumpers over georgia. And in a miserable freezing rain. And we parsed and to pick up the largest bottle i had ever seen. Unpaid lab bills at the roof of the office, half the staff in angry revolt over late paychecks to step up with the money to compete the civil Rights Television series. And and little of the filmmaking he loved. And in the last few months his post polio syndrome had begun again. In happier times in mississippi and alabama, had been a lark. And eyes on the pies, talking about his keep tiffany in selma and my own days in some of the same winter, the sublime power of freedom and small but mounting victories with the freedom struggle in south africa. Martin luther king could have been elected president and asked where king got the arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward justice. Around the night i followed him up the stairs to his black side office was books and folders stocked hired a picture of doctor king on one wall, gandhi in the corner, his great grambling mess of a desk at the convergence of force fields and spread out doesnt rejection letters from corporations and foundations, sank into his chair, why not give us money . And his 6 part civil rights theories and producers, researchers, editors, archive materials with a full head of steam, running out of money. It should have been easy. And the first attempt to produce the great story of civil rights with commercial television that ended in humiliating failure. And taking him with that. He knew and i knew if you laid off the staff on monday morning, turned up the heat, closed the doors, the screen would expire forever. Start the prediction letters, and and gone to his bank. And and critical two weeks, and the Tipping Point grant. [applause] that is our guy. Why write a book . Documentaries are too hard. I never intended to write a book in the Civil Rights Movement, nor when i was working with black side and kept very poor notes but henry died in 1998 and five years ago i began looking around and i thought eyes eyes on the prize, there should be an operating manual, how to do this, how to make these giant complex Television Documentary series about equity and equal justice. And someone writing a book about eyes on the prize, no one was. I started out. Fortunately, extraordinary Henry Hampton archive at Washington University in st. Louis, looking at the uncut russians, the interviews we did. Interviews for eyes on the prize, look at the company tax statements. And there were plenty of legal papers, i was able to go back in my own files and find legal depositions from legal cases i was involved in in is to be and georgia, pieced it together. I came off of an extremely difficult rain recommend documentary that ended in utter failure. I thought writing any book has to be easier than making any film. How wrong i was. It was a different process. It took four years, not fulltime between 4 years of working at it. It was a different animal, a very different animal. You can pack an enormous amount of information in a book that can never get on screen or a film but you are up against it when it comes to direct sensory experience. I tried to write a chapter about freedom songs. This organizing muzzle, we walked into cannon fire with enough freedom songs and on the page a bunch of words to songs but in a film you can put those folks in that church and sell alabama on the screen and you are transported. But writing a book is refreshingly solitary. You can do it anywhere, sit in the cafe in Silicon Valley and go to la and sit on the beach and write. But i have to say i missed the collegial collegiality of making films together. And also the physicality of making films is something. You are in and out of vehicles which first light, into peoples houses in alabama, blasting the next location, setting up cameras, you finish up by 9 00 at night, barely make it back to the hotel and if you are lucky a coffee shop is not close it if you are not lucky you have something in your room and turn around the next day and do the whole thing. I dont know what i will do next, trying to write another book, they are both incredibly satisfying. I have a question. You guys have the book, you can read the text in the Henry Hampton, true south Henry Hampton and eyes on the prize the Landmark Television series that reframed the Civil Rights Movement, then there is the title, true south Henry Hampton and eyes on the prize the Landmark Television series that reframed the Civil Rights Movement and then there is jon else. What is interesting about that concept is actually reading it is the structure of the book as i see it. It has got all interconnected. Henry, jon else, the Civil Rights Movement, in the true south, you interweave it together and eyes on the prize. If i was going to attack anything like that i might just do that. Just do civil rights or how did you come up with that structure . Should have published just the cover. Would have been a lot easier. This is not the original title was messy history and viking publisher says know what is going to buy a book called messy history. I Henry Hampton and eyes on the prize the Landmark Television series that reframed the Civil Rights Movement. I put a question mark after it, a bunch of northerners making films about civil rights in the american south. We had some southerners working with us but mostly people from california and new york. I wanted to raise the question. I managed to sneak in one sentence with a . True south Henry Hampton and eyes on the prize the Landmark Television series that reframed the Civil Rights Movement. That was not the photo i wanted on the cover. They said it is going to sell. Fine with me. My only problem with this photo it is it all mail and this movement to the south was driven equally by men and women. I started out the book without myself in it. I am not one to put myself in the foreground but it suddenly seemed disingenuous. I had dropped out of college in 1964 to go to mississippi to work on Voter Registration and not go back to college, stayed in the south, so i would and a partisan when i joined the staff to make eyes on the prize. It seemed odd to write the story without acknowledging my own involvement in both of those. I love doing complicated stories. I am cursed with wanting to tell three or four stories at once and one of the things that made the book hard, it is interesting, in film it is easy to do flashbacks and audiences understand what flashbacks are and audiences forward and the Technical Work of writing was difficult beyond belief. It jumps around in time, all over the map 1955 to a discussion about the murder of 1985. And the filming of tills cousin in 1987, back to the time i first learned about it in 1963, all over the map, was difficult to pull off. Henry is a largerthanlife figure. Can you talk about what drew you to him . And a little bit of his back story too. The back story is crucial. Speaking of drew. I could call out a lot of people. I want to mention two people, one person worked with us from the beginning of this project were getting rejected by everything and one person who worked at the end and the back is timely who was incredibly gracious and fun to the Early Development of eyes on the prize and the early funders were gods gift to us. On the other end is drew takahashi and others in San Francisco who suffered through making our series logo and still have not been paid. I will give you a free copy of the book. It is interesting. When Glenn Michael died, great boss for all of us i thought Henry Hampton, if you took the smarts and warmth and combine that with the young steve jobs, that was Henry Hampton. He was the smartest guy on the room, the warmest guy in the room and the fiercest visionary in the room. I was working on true south Henry Hampton and eyes on the prize the Landmark Television series that reframed the Civil Rights Movement and doing a lot of documentary work with steve jobs, completely schizophrenic, commuting back and forth to boston. Harry was a lot more fun to be with and a driven similarity between the two. He was born in segregated st. Louis, missouri, in the 1940s. The most privileged life a young black man in segregated st. Louis could have and his father the director of the homer phillips hospital for color, surgeon, and henry had it all as a young man, the africanamerican version of norman rockwell, this young man, catholic high school, if you integrated schools at the time in the st. Louis, first was the murder of emmett hill, and the young and, 14 years old traveled from chicago to mississippi, and storeowners wife, the store owner in the sharecroppers home, to beat him severely, shot him through and a fisherman found his body a week over. Would have vanished in this vast lost souls in mississippi of which there are hundreds of thousands by that time. And the black press in america, med began to notice. And hundred reporters attending. The equivalent of Michael Brown in ferguson and eric garner in new york and the National Media attention is the equivalent of social media today and henry was rattled beyond belief by the picture of emmetts savaged face, i never heard of emmett till in california. Henrys entire generation was the till generation, henry discovered its mission with the murder of emmett till and that accounted for what he was by the time i met him which there was the grade of a great polio epidemic in the United States and the salt vaccine in trial form in his office but didnt want to use it, couldnt move his eggs. Came out of the hospital two month later as a quadriplegic, worked his way with one leg and walked with a the traumatic events when he was a 15yearold with a stunning adulthood. The first time he ever felt the other, first time he felt rejected and that informs the rest of his life. He was a bench. He was a guy that inspired literally hundreds of particularly young filmmakers, it is no secret he tried to make eyes on the prize for commercial television, launched it as a giant, 26 part series for abc, a complete and utter failure, a train wreck partly because neither knew how to make large historical documentaries. This was years before ken burns, years before any of the series we take for granted. He didnt know what he was doing. When it was launched in 1985, he was wise enough to go to Public Television which did not make ratings demands, he hired a bunch of experienced people and spent a couple years after that the second part, busy history from 1965 to the 80s with black panthers and nationalism and affirmativeaction. And in sacramento, california. Heading off to yale. I grew up in providences. In sacrament of, california in the 19s like the plains of texas. I set off and got accepted to yale university, i was so out of my league at yale. John kerry was striding across campus like he was already secretary of state and i felt so dumb at yale and ill at ease and out of my lean. At the same time the early 1960s, two things were happening, television was new, Television News was in our face before the vietnam war and the Civil Rights Movement was exploding, waves of change were about to break over america and we were cloistered in this dorm room in the middle of winter, we turn on the television and these freedom riders getting beaten up and shot to register to vote in mississippi and contradictions in american democracy were so vivid and obvious to us with a civics teacher. Everything he taught us is flying apart, the wheels were flying off america. You couldnt not do anything but the trigger was an extraordinary man named bob moses was organizing a project in mississippi, the first civil rights worker to work in this in the heart of the iceberg, rural mississippi was the toughest territory for the Civil Rights Movement. Bob came up wi