some have taken issue. -- important is his oracle accuracy for the show's creators were are you doing something else? >> i don't think we're trying to do anything else. patty cannon was actually deceased by the time the show was but she is still in the show. we make those decisions because she was such an interesting character and we don't know about those characters. then there is stuff like the baseball mitt had not been invented. we had that in because it is a cute line. when it comes to the things it is few and far between. harriet tubman was known to carry a gun. i feel like it is not inaccurate at all. it is telling a story that is true to what was going on at that time very. >> i think sometimes if you get caught up in this minutia of the details, no it is not historically accurate. you did hit a lot of the big ideas very the strong roles of women being involved. the importance of rivers. i think you guys do all that. some of the specific details may get lost in translation. i think viewers will come away with it bigger understanding of what makes the underground railroad so compelling. at the end of the first season you introduced harriet tubman to the show. she can out of the shadows in an exciting fashion and the show's first episode. we can play that clip. ♪ >> make another move and i will shoot your head clean off. my arms are mighty tired and i aim to end this quickly. eight nobody got to die today,. it will be more trouble than it's worth trying to get a man who can't walk to get a award. i will give you five dollars for him. you a gun of the net. or two point -- two bullets. >> my daddy taught me how to carve up a tree real good. i imagine your skin would be a bit easier to handle. now you heard me say my arm is tired. what is it going to be? >> every crime includes an injury, every entry includes a violation of a right. >> you can stop the clip. thank you. [applause] i read that you knew from the very beginning when you created the series you would introduce harriet tubman as a character. why did you want to make her a part of the show? we always talk about this as being the superhero show. our line is basically you can't tell a story of the justice league without mentioning superman. we wanted to start very personal with people you didn't know, but the second season obviously we wanted to open up the world and understand the underground network. you can't understand the underground without touching harriet. how much did you know about tubman before playing her on the show? >> i thought that i knew all whole lot. i realized after doing the show and i continue to realize having done a beautiful exhaustive to that i'veesterday really probably walked in with her. 9% of education about and that 9% was pretty dense to me. it certainly was a massive education. just learning the intricacies of who she was. certainly i was trapped where most people are trapped, exulting this road figure, being some -- stuck in a place of worshiping this idle and hero to think of her as a human being and all the intricacies that made her who she was and the little girl she was and the wife she was and the doctor she was and the friend she was. all of those things were a revelation for me. what is the most important thing you try to get across in your per trail of tubman? her the to sort of give layers i think we missed when we look at those one the national figures. i tried to create the dimensions of her. i certainly walked into the project feeling incredibly inadequate and feeling that i had not lived enough life to really be able to access the depth of her faith that she was able to access to do the things that she did. i certainly am still scratching the surface on accessing the depth of her current show her bravery, her selflessness. i wanted to be able to articulate those things and make sure that everyone knew that this was truly a very ordinary woman. earth, who of the did this extraordinary thing. it was important for me to convey what was conveyed to me, which was there was a piece of harriet inside of me and there is a piece of harriet inside of us all. dedicate anon, you entire episode to her story. the episode was described as one of them greatest in television history, received rave reviews and was called remarkable. here is a clip from that episode. >> black folk, we know pain. known in a long time. i got more scars on my body than i can count. the next woman i was hired up to gave me a lot of them. to first day she told me dust and sweep the great room, just pushed the broom in my hand and left me to work. when she returned, she took a rawhide. she had me come at it again. no word about what i done wrong. i tried my best to collect every piece of dust. dusting my own blood. a ticket thatned room once more. and again. i never cried out once. i would not give miss susan the satisfaction. that is how i learned to love pain. i took it i got a hit ,s an opportunity for defiance to not give anyone the reaction they expected and then i thought freedom.ybe that was but i could not reconcile oppression coming from pain. there had been easier way to it than that. show's is for the creators. what made you decide to write this episode and write it in this way? >> it started, we were doing research and she had just read this amazing thing that frederick douglass and william sell asked harriet to speak, to fund raise, to fire up abolitionists. like everything she did, when she did it she did it better than anyone else. did voices and sang songs and people were so engaged. it became clear when we are trying to figure out what our departure episode was for the season that we kind of lean into an hour of television and tell the story of her life through her words. i think it was also important for us with a character like harriet who you think you know because of that little paragraph in your book and you know it is only 9% of it that we did want to give some of her story, her real life and get more into it. it is 1858, so we had to figure out a way to tell that without just going through it and to find out she was speaking to people for me, it was that reaction of this is a person. person.k douglass was a all these people were interacting at the time in the movement. that was really exciting and interesting as well. >> being that harriet tubman is one of the greatest revolutionaries in american history, it was only fitting that underground, which has identified itself as a show that deals with this narrative in a way that is engaging and entertaining and enlightening and edgy that they would tell her story in a completely revolutionary way. the way in which they wrote out this particular episode was revolutionary for the medium. it was something that has never been done in television history. underground was only in its second season of the show. risk, doinge something that has never been done in the history of television wgn is young and its format of taking on longform television. everybody on board is doing a thing they had no idea how it would land. emblematic of harriet tubman leading people, not knowing what the outcome would be. that it -- i celebrate misha and joe for taking the risk and doing this thing in such a way to tell her story, they would do it in a way that she told her story, regardless of whether audiences are ready for it or not. thankfully, audiences are ready. >> what was the most challenging thing for you an actress in filming the episode? >> getting descriptor now or before it. [laughter] now. a little over an hour. certainly the anxiety of taking on all of the information and articulating all of the information. i wanted to spend as much time with it as possible. misha andn thinking joe would gift me with the these 45 pages of dialogue well in advance so i could live with this thing long enough and not be reaching for lines and struggle through it. show, and ine three months i was wondering when i would get that script. there are like that that the end. and played it kind of cool thought maybe i would get it two months in advance. two months came, still no script. surely.h in advance, this is the curriculum for when you get this script one month in advance. we will take this thing a page a day, just saturate yourself in it because we will get this script a month in advance. a month came and there was not even a word on the page. are 10 days before we are supposed to shoot the episode and misha decides to grace me with the first half of the script. i rush over to their office and i was like can we have a cold read? now just tossing out terms because i am so afraid to engage the script. i have actual anxiety and i don't want to sit and read it myself because i don't know how to approach it. it is making no sense to me, i'm just throwing words out. we finish it and joe was like that was not terrible. [laughter] they make a few little changes, and then i go home and start to get into it and create what i call the crisis curriculum. i start calling all my friends in the theater wondering how we do this. i said that he melts my college professor. how do i memorize 45 pages in a week? and he was like not possible. [laughter] and so i was like wow. reallyd to this thing thinking i was approaching the impossible. the anxiety began to naturally well up even more. misha delivered the second half to me seven days before we were supposed to shoot. here i am holding 45 pages of impossible. thanksgiving was canceled. l.a. home to a friend of mine who lives in new orleans, she flew home to be with me and we literally slept and eight that script from night today. and it was just about getting it out. we had talked about all of these safety nets. maybe a teleprompter for you. maybe we will have an earpiece where misha could spit the lines to you if you lose your place in the story. i memorize the idea that this safety net was in place for me. i find that there is no teleprompter, and we get to the first day of shooting which we have three days now to shoot 45 pages. that was a revelation. usually there is nine days to shoot an episode. words in a cut that by more than half. we get there, the first ai show up to the sound car and i tell the guy he is the most important person for me to speak to. he sticks the inner peace into .y year and misha comes over i'm hearing all of this feedback from the earpiece. so i turned the sound guy asking if he could turn it down little bit here and he says that is standard. you will hear the feedback until misha starts talking in your ear. so i am supposed to be delivering this thing with a buzz in my one year. and so instinctually my hand reaches to my ear on a poll of the air peace and i handed off to the sound guy and i do in that moment as i face this mountain of impossibility that the only thing i could really ,ount on was not my preparation because i didn't have the time to do it. it was not my craft because i did not have the time to infuse all of the things that i do as an actress. i did have time to journal in the voice, i didn't have time for that. it was the spirit of. tubman. in that moment, she consumed me and she occupied the space that we were in and we went up to do a first reversal -- rehearsal. i had not had a reversal. we go up to shoot and i remember asking just in case. more anxiety. don't put that pressure. and everylls action single word of her story came out. and i knew at that moment that we work in a be ok in those next few days. [applause] i knew at that moment that i was just a vessel for her voice. this story, the way that she deposited it to misha and to joe and then used me as a vessel for her voice to story tell itself. [applause] >> not only in this episode but others, i feel the show is just a much about the present as it is the past. is that your intention? , iticularly in this episode is just so much rooted in right now, our moment in time. did you intend that? i feeling you're really speaking to us in the present in using the past. simone -- nina we talk a lot about it is not parallel but a connection to now. there is a lot of what is wrong in our country today was started at this time. to really see these stories, you can't help but see that. talk a lot this season about citizen versus shoulder and what does that aim. does that mean taking up arms? fighting back against injustice? i think harry is the perfect example of that. that last five minutes she talks directly to the camera about today just felt right. i could ask westerns all day. i am going to step back for a little bit and ask questions to the audience. i ask that you wait until i get to you because it is being filmed. does anybody have a question? i does wanted to say hi to everybody. i follow you all on twitter. my question is for aisha. playing both. tubman and your character on shots fired, they seemed really emotional. how do you do that and prepare as an actress for that? >> they are two very emotionally charged women. who arey they are women freedom fighters in their own right into different time period . i am the dreamys of the slaves. think pastor g&a is sort of the dream of harriet tubman. she is a manifestation of the sacrifices of harriet tubman. these two incredible women i think are facing injustices and taking up the mantle to lead. they carry a heavy burden. with that comes tremendous emotion. these are emotions that i invite. i don't necessarily try to push them away. i don't necessarily try to take part in self-care. lifeaware i am living a that is blessed because of the sacrifices of these women. where else do i put these emotions? warehouse what i put them but into the work? of to afford these emotions voice and a space with a can be used to push these narratives forward. i don't think it is by mistake even that these two voices are housed on the same night in the same vessel. i think that god is pretty deliberate about the way he moves and i'm grateful for that. eyesight or presentation at the black journalist convention before the underground open area i was one of those sitting in the audience reluctantly, i don't know about this thing. a show about slavery. i still have not seen it. everywhere i go i hear people praising the show. my question is, how have you dealt with the reluctance of have thele to even idea that you can have a television series about a subject so serious? >> i don't understand the reluctance. you see this time period depicted one way and those at the whipping post and those doing the whipping. i think that inspired us to take it to television and go week to week. was who wants to come back to slavery every week? and it is not about the occupation, it is the revolution. it is a story of people fighting back. the best and a guest, you are still -- it was exciting for us. excite you just try to yourself and hope others will be excited. it is great to see that. and it is great to see people in action on twitter. they're researching more, just reading books on harriet tubman. sometimes you will. sometimes there will be laughter . country,e live in a the slave narrative informs every narrative that has come after. i would argue that you are watching some form of the slave narrative. if you are watching empire as an escape, you are watching slave narrative. it is one that has informed our humanity. why not engage in it for the education and understand the content of where we are and how we are moving. of the be part conversation where you're not hearing it from everyone else. i'm glad you are watching and i would encourage you to tell others who are resistant to other forms to also engage this narrative. i am made doctoral fellow in baltimore. i'm also a huge fan of the show. i think of an historian who study slavery and many other periods in the africana experience. i am always interested in african spirituality. the remaining spiritual culture that i did the movement and how women figure into it. i really appreciated your per trails of harriet tubman. i guess my question to you and the writers is in what ways will we see or can we see the importance of love and intimacy in harriet's life? loving connections and nurturing in there. the emotional and psychological emancipation of people which i feel she was a critical part of. i think she was a warrior and a soldier and her bush tactics were on point. at the same point, to prepare people for freedom who are traumatized by slavery was also part and parcel with what made her so effective. the spiritual worldview of these people is why she trust they -- they trusted her. the one thing i wish we could see more of in harriet tubman is her loving connections with that community of strong people that she led. she did not lead week people. question. her is my there was a lot of questions and their. i sort of hermit you're saying and all of that. the interesting thing is that the one thing that kept standing out to me was a conversation that harriet has with the character know of. a lot of characters were responsive because he was sort of searching for the same that informs his own belief. it is a think he has intrinsically which is also i think something harriet also had intrinsically. she could not read a single word. it was astounding to me because i consider myself a woman of faith. the way i built my faith is by reading the word. this is something that she did not have the luxury to do. yet her faith rivaled that of some of the most learned theologians in the universe. to the birth of faith and how that thing is fostered in a way that many of us can't access. i think that is also articulated in nola, who knows a thing but does not know why he knows a thing. she asks a certain number of questions to him sort of probing him to connect with things that he knows and to even look beyond that. episodeks about it in 206, talking about freedom as it relates to your faith, and true freedom being the ability to know a thing, but to look past every single thing that you know and still believe in something better. i think it speaks to that in terms of the loving relationship. just for relationship with rosalie and taking her under her wing and trying to guide her and let her know the guiding force initially was family but it then becomes a purpose they were than yourself, a purpose bigger than your own family and extends to where your entire community is family. i think all those little intricate details were woven into the season. harriet's relation with the sewing circle. and then strategizing to get them fulfilled in having a moment of fellowship together while cooking or having christmas dinner. i think all those details are woven in and you would check that you need from that. >> i am so inspired here, you are chosen by god to play this role. i'm going to try to say this without crying. , i'm thinking of your own weather for boston's book mosys and the way it carries harriet's relationship with god. will this series bring that forth as well. as she has her own monologues just as sojourner truth did as she prays for courage. the museum has a quote that she asked god to make her fearless -- i am paraphrasing. to sit here and here you talk about your own relationship of god and how you took you over. i just want to leap. to be sitting in the president of harriet tubman's great great grand niece, what -- how will the show poetry more of that? ofhink we need to see more that to fully understand who she was and why she was able to do what she did and that it is speaking to america for today. i think all of this is prophetic. the visitors center, the underground all happening at the same time. you have a platform to speak to the world about the misnomers and the truth of who she was and what a message. it trumps so many others. very few compared. that is my question. she was perhich ,rade in the children's book but will the show give more voice to that, more entree to that? >> to the spiritual aspect? >> her connection to god, because it drove her. i think her father inculcated into her first. he spent so much time talking to her and teaching her. in spite of all her suffering and beatings she endured as a child to her parents in by return with their faith. how else should could she have made it. how else would she have connected them. you may be familiar with freedom train that moves around in new york city. i'm a tedious and make sure take the children every year. the per trail of her relationship with god comes through so strongly. that is my question whether it will tell deeply into that area. i think it is a big territory to go into but it is part and parcel to who she was. >> i think we have for sure this season delved into it a lot and will continue to because it is a part of who she is. i think that going forward, you mentioned john brown. it is the duality of her spirituality, but also the general and how she was going forth and understanding that. i think that is a big part of knowarriet tubman we don't about and hear about is her time with john brown and how they interacted and then what she went off and did after that. then it is kind of that juxtaposition, making that transition to the general. the spirituality will obviously be there because it is who she was. >> good morning and thank you for this panel. i'm a professor at the university of albany and a big fan of the underground series. comment or question is around the portrayal of the women in the show. i am actually thinking about how this -- i'm just grateful for this series, because i remember being disappointed in the way enslaved women in movies like jango and chained and 12 years a slave work completely objectified. we don't get that. at least i do think we get that as much in underground. the characters are so fleshed out. how thinking mostly about there is a kind of feminist layer that i see working in the series. i really wanted to know more about that. of -- when i was watching, especially this season, i remember having the reaction when you have beyonce's freedom to introduce harriet tubman and rosalie at the most militant. i am also thinking of toni morrison's beloved, especially with rosalie on the run. wonder what the musical and literary narratives are that run into this series. ? are they influences i'm just curious about whether or not as show creators you were relying on some of those other texts. not just historical narratives, but contemporary narratives that black women have been writing to address this particular part of history. i know you probably can't talk about your future, but i am looking forward to another season. i deftly went to see the harpers ferry thing go down. cannot wait to see that, which by the way, i am hoping that you will get an emmy nomination for your role. fingers crossed. [applause] you -- i have a question in their? i think it'd. [laughter] >> i think we talk a lot about from the start, it was on the idea of rosalie going on his plain girlom this who didn't even want to leave and step off the plantation to at the end meeting harriet tubman and decided to go back. we don't talk about them specifically because they are people. we talk about all our characters. of course beyonce. you can't help but have that. i remember i came in and was like we're going to watch lemonade. the second of these sought on , it was going to cause all of our money, but let's do it. >> that and toni morrison and everything, is that thing of trying to do not just historical stuff but fictional stuff as well. things were some else has taken it and try to interpret it and you get something new from that. i'm sorry we only have time for one more question. >> high, i have a comment. i'm a great great grand niece of. tubman. when you started talking about aisha, about her faith and how she did what she did, what i want to say about that is from the very beginning of time, god has always been looking for someone to take up the banner and show his love. we are the only people on this earth that can embody that love. that is what she did. everything she did was about love. love is the message for her. when she went out, what she did was looked to god. every situation, every circumstance. she did not turn away no matter what the circumstance. say youo forth and you are falling in love with our and she has shown the love of god to all of us at an inspiration of how to connect to him. that is what the message is that he wants to get out that everyone in the world. [applause] i feel like we had a bit of church in the church today. good morning and thank you for the show. instances you can incorporate actual history and historical characters. we incorporate some incidences that impact of the nation that are not very well known, such as thatupreme court case reverberated across the nation and impacted slavery. we would love to do everything. it is that. we have to pick and choose. we try to pick and choose the little stuff. the truth is a lot of the big stuff we don't need to know about either. , we haveoing forth incorporated more historical characters and we would get more of that stuff. just trying to find a way like sewing circles. so yes, for sure. thank you. i hope everybody has enjoyed this is much as i have. three more seasons of underground. i'm just going to speak it into existence. [applause] and for those of you who didn't get a chance to ask your will bes, aisha hinds joining us in an afternoon session on harriet tubman and popular culture. thank you for joining us here today. >> thank you guys. [applause] >> so you have your time with us, thank you very much. and i'm just going to turn it over to diane miller. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you're watching american history tv, 48 hours on american history on c-span3. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. are c-span cities tour takes american history tv on the road to feature the history of cities across america. here's a recent program. are overlooking the commons at the university of oregon school of law. center,side of the which is dedicated to reviving and understanding and carrying forward the legacy and living tradition of our beloved senator wayne morse. wayne morse was a law professor, wholitician, an activist was born and raised in wisconsin and came to be a professor at the university school of law when he was in his late 20's. appointed dean, the youngest team in the country of a law school. and then he got involved in a lot of social and legal issues. he was a labor arbitrator. very famous up-and-down the courts of the west coast, settlements and agreements from the international longshore union and the pacific maritime .ssociation and was at one time the boss of the waterfront in san francisco because he was the only arbitrator who could get both sides to settle and to really own the agreement and move it forward. so he kept the port peaceful and for the entirety of world war ii, which was important because they were building ships there and needed that ports to be accessible. the roosevelt administration then appointed him permanent arbitrator and later put him on the war labor bold which catapulted him into national politics. he later wanted to continue that froman for senate and ran organ and was elected in 1944. he served six terms in the u.s. senate representing organ. and wayne morse was a republican when he started. at that time there were moderate republicans. exist for the most part in our politics because of the changes in the political parties. he did switch parties. i think the last straw for him was when nixon was chosen to be vice president. he said i can no longer be part of this party. he had had a series of disputes ithin his own party because his view, the republican party in the 1940's and early 50's just did not take care of the little person. did not have enough of a social justice orientation. he left the party, became an independent. famously got a chair and sat in the middle of the auto between the republicans of the democrats. it was an important shift because at that time the senate was fairly evenly divided. he ultimately did become a member of the democratic party. he said i have not changed, my party has changed and moved to the right and he could not go there.