 Good morning ladies and gentlemen Thank you all for coming on this cold, but still no snow day in in Washington, DC I'm delighted to be here. I'm Paul Glastres editor-in-chief of the Washington Monthly magazine and I first want to thank New America for making a Their space here available and our partners on many things also the Kellogg Foundation for making the issue of the magazine in this event Possible we're going to be talking today with a very distinguished panel of writers and experts on One of the most fundamental issues in American history and American politics and one that Gets talked about much less than it should and that is race in America a few days ago President Barack Obama put his hand on the Lincoln and Martin Luther King Bibles and took the oath of office almost exactly a hundred and fifty years since the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect and In his inaugural speech he talked movingly about this country's historic and continuing March for greater freedom So given the tremendous importance of this moment. We at the Washington Monthly thought it appropriate to devote this issue of the magazine to the subjects of race history and the conditions of minorities in America today For a while, it's true that President Obama as measured by his November vote totals retains overwhelmingly the support of Americans of color up until this moment neither he nor the country has in fact talked much about race in fact President Obama mentioned race fewer times in his first two years in office than any Democratic president since 1961 and This this When he did in fact talk about race it often provoked a fierce backlash as as when he said last year that if he had a son He would look like Trayvon Martin the young man who was killed tragically in Florida tremendous backlash against that and he Went silent again most for the most part on issues of race So despite the civil rights symbolism of the inauguration there has been generally a politically Imposed cone of silence around this president and around the country making it all the more difficult for our nation to Acknowledge and confront discrimination in our society and if you think such things do not exist I invite you to remember the eight-hour lines at polling stations in Ohio and Florida This past November it also makes it hard for the country to have an honest conversation about the many realms of American life In which minorities suffer disproportionately even if overt discrimination isn't the driving force Nearly all Americans lost significant wealth in the Great Depression or the Great Recession But as a percentage of income blacks and Hispanics lost far more modern health Scourges like obesity and diabetes have hit all of America hard, but African Americans much harder Our China like rates of incarceration are slowly beginning to trouble the consciences of the opinion-making class But they have long been a devastating reality in the lives of black families Where every third father or son is has been or someday will be behind bars according to statistics So today we're gonna do something that doesn't much happen in Washington We're gonna talk frankly about questions of race Where is America now a century and a half after Lincoln signed that celebrated document the Emancipation Proclamation? Have we progressed as much as we like to think? What disparities in health wealth education and incarceration do people of color still face? What might President Obama accomplish in his second term to narrow these disparities and in an age of mass downward mobility Can policies that help minorities also profoundly help the majority as They said we have absolutely spectacular Panel today many of whom contributed to this latest issue of the Washington Monthly which for our c-span audience Urgid you take a look at you can read it at Washington monthly comm First up it's going to be Doug Blackman Doug is chair of the Miller Center forum at the University of Virginia Contributing correspondent for the Washington Post for many years. He was the Wall Street journals Atlanta bureau chief and the And then senior national correspondent his book Slavery by another name was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 and rightly so his piece in this current issue of the Washington Monthly Is a must read Elijah Anderson is the William K Landman junior professor of sociology at Yale University He's one of the leading urban ethnographers in the United States his publications include code of the street street wise and the ethnographic work Classic a place on the corner his most recent work is the cosmopolitan canopy race and civility in everyday life Dr. Anderson has served on the board of directors of the American Academy of Political Science and Social Science He's also served as a consultant to the White House the US Congress the National Academy of Science and the National Science Foundation Dr. Gail Christopher is vice president of pro program strategy the WK Kellogg Foundation and leads the American Healing Initiative Dr. Christopher was previously vice president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Office of Health Women and Families in Washington DC. She's been a guest scholar at the government studies department at the Brookings Institution and was executive director of The Institute for government innovation at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of government Finally, we're going to be joined by Taylor Branch who is stuck on that Amtrak train that has been delayed from Baltimore But he's on his way Taylor Branch is a great friend of the Washington Monthly a Pulitzer prize-winning author of the landmark narrative history of the civil rights movement America in the King Years And as well as numerous other books including the Clinton tapes His latest book the King Years historic moments in the civil rights movement Just came out. He's a contributing editor to the Washington Monthly and has been a staff writer for Harper's and Esquire So with those introductions out of the way, let me Begin the program by inviting a Doug Blackman up to the podium Doug Thank you Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here and a pleasure to to be on a panel with made up of such remarkable Contributors to these conversations in so many ways about rights in America. I stand in kind of two places as a writer and Scholar, I hope asked both in terms of In the current moment, I'm an active journalist and I Write about presidential politics and the things that are that immediately surround us in American life But then in my other life I write about things that happened a long long time ago and involve people who are all long gone But that I think do shape and color the the world that we live in now and so even though we're here to talk about race in America right now and I think some of the challenges that are Immediately before us. I will I will go back in time more In terms of this assessment that the magazine took on in this in this issue of the Emancipation Proclamation 150 years later in the sense of what what progress has been made in terms of African-Americans in our society Most of my historical work in my books everybody another name And the documentary film of the same name which broadcast last year on PBS and will re-air On February 22nd nationally, so I encourage you to watch it there are on our at PBS.org But slavery by another name is the story of how I was actually the failure of the Emancipation Proclamation And if you've seen the movie Lincoln Spielberg's recent Lincoln, there is a telling imagined moment in in the film where after the passage of the of the amendment of the 13th amendment That where Thaddeus Stevens goes back to his home and and is is lying beside his lover his African He's alleged African-American lover and they read aloud. She reads aloud the the words of the amendment to the 13th amendment and including the provision that says that obelish slavery accept as punishment for a crime and In those few words that exception that exists in the 13th amendment and which grows out of the Emancipation Proclamation It is through those few words in the in the 13th amendment that a century and a half and more of a continuation of forms of involuntary servitude Which were particularly and overwhelmingly directed at African-Americans Persevered in American society and so my work is primarily about how slavery continued how slavery was resurrected after the Civil War And how it sustained into the 20th century and impacted the lives of millions of African-Americans primarily in the in the rural deep South which was where Essentially all African-Americans remained until well into the 20th century And so the the reality of that history is that after a period of time after the Civil War during which the formerly enslaved African-Americans of the South experienced a period of authentic freedom Varying in in its complexion and and duration from one place to another But for 10 or 15 or 20 and in some places 25 years There was an authentic freedom and an authentic citizenship for African-Americans Lives of great hardship poverty Deprivation of all of many kinds of government services, but also in a time when few people received many government services But but real citizenship and participation in American life and political life and the ability at least to some degree To establish independent Existences away from the white people who had previously attempted to control their lives But all of that comes to an end in a much more dramatic way And that's what I write about in the magazine and in the book That that period of freedom comes to a terrible end and freedom is literally taken away and by that I don't mean that I'm not talking about being called a bad name or people being deprived of the vote Or even losing access to the courts or the protections of the police I mean real enslavement that a new system of involuntary servitude emerged Largely by this through this exception in the 13th amendment and then as white supremacists and others Reasserted control in the south they reconfigured the criminal justice system as the modern criminal justice system was being created It was built in such a way To use the criminal justice system to force huge numbers of African-Americans into hard labor Which turned into essentially the local courts and the state courts of the south selling Large numbers of African-American men to commercial interests and so a new kind of slavery emerged Which became incredibly important to the reconstruction of the south economically and the revitalization of The cotton economy which all of America relied on The industrialization of many parts of the south is that occurred and all of these things continued deep into the 20th century Right up to the dawn of World War two on a very very large scale And then in the end we don't know exactly how many African-Americans found themselves back in a in a world of being bought and sold but it clearly was There's far more evidence about this exists than many historians realize or really wanted to confront for a long time But hundreds of thousands of people were literally bought and sold and Thousands and thousands of African-American men and some African-American women died under horrifying circumstances This was a this was a system that relied on relied on brutality and starvation and intimidation In many respects a more brutal kind of involuntary servitude than what preceded it and it became a primary weapon of Terror and intimidation to to force African-Americans away from exercising their civil rights And intimidating them into compliance with the the other kinds of Exploitative labor that we know more about like sharecropping and tenant farming and the repercussions of all of that are still with us the the legacy of that economically and educationally Is very much something we can see in the persistent disparity between whites and blacks in terms of economic Achievement educational attainment and so understanding this history this grim history that fortunately has come to an end By enlarge the the the version of it that I described has come to an end, but nonetheless We have to understand The enormity of what was done in that period of time particularly in the early decades of the 20th century just how much injury that Occurred to African-Americans and the persistence of those of those economic damages to people There are many people alive today who were born into that world There are many people who were born on a on a farm in South Georgia or Alabama or North Mississippi where I come from who Perhaps they're unaware of exactly what was happening in their childhoods in the place where they lived but their lives were Deeply affected by this and their parents lives had been tremendously circumscribed and their grandparents lives had in many cases been been horrifically reshaped by these events and so these are these are things that on the one hand are distant But on the other hand are immediately with us and explain much about the world that we live in today and for us to confront those things and and and move toward what Whatever vision of America it is that that I think we all would say we ascribe to It's almost impossible to move toward that effectively if we don't fully grapple with this element of our history that that most of us Don't understand very well, so I should probably stop there Thank you. Good morning. I Was one of those people I was born in the Mississippi Delta in a house on a plantation back during the war and My father and mother and family moved to the north when I was just a baby Thank you for your work. I'm going to talk about the the piece I I wrote how how prejudice has changed, but really the tale of two black boys Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till Separated by two thousand separated by a thousand miles and two state borders and nearly six decades two young African-American boys met tragic fates That seemed remarkably similar today Both walked into a small market to buy some candy and both ended up dead The first boy is Emmett Till who was 14 years old in the summer of 1955 when he walked into a local grocery store in money, Mississippi to buy gum He was laid a rouse from bed beaten brutally and possibly shot by a group of white men who laid a dump his body into a nearby river They claimed he had stepped out of his place By flirting with a young light woman the wife of the store's owner The second boys Trayvon Martin who was 17 years old late last winter when he walked into a 7-eleven Negated community in Sanford, Florida to buy Skittles and some iced tea He was laid a shot to death at close range by a mixed-race man who claimed Martin had behaved suspiciously and seemed out of place The deaths of both boys galvanized the nation drew sympathy and disbelief across racial lines and through the popular media prompted a re-examination of race relations In the aftermath of Martin's death last February a handful of reporters and columnists and Many members of the general public made the obvious comparison Trayvon Martin it seemed was the Emmett Till of our times and While that comparison has some merit The boys deaths are similar both in some of their details and some of their And in their tragic outcome These killings must also be understood as the result of Very different strains of racial tension in America The racism that led to Till's death was embedded in the virulent ideology of white racial superiority Born out of slavery and the Jim Crow codes especially in the Deep South And that sort of racism hinges on the idea that blacks are an inherently inferior race a morally null group That deserves both the subjugation and poverty it gets The racial prejudice that led to Trayvon Martin's death is different While it too was born of America's painful legacy of slavery and segregation And informed by those old concepts of racial order That blacks have their place in society It in addition reflects the urban iconography of today's racial inequality Namely the black ghetto a uniquely urban American creation Strikingly this segregation the black community coexists with an ongoing racial incorporation process that Has produced the largest black middle class in history and that reflects the extraordinary social progress This country has made since the 1960s The civil rights movement paved the way for blacks and other people of color to access public and professional opportunities and Spaces that would be it would have been unimaginable in Till's time While the sort of racism that led to Till's death that still exists today in American society Americans in general have a much more nuanced more textured attitude toward the race Than anything we've ever seen before And usually that attitude does not manifest itself in overtly hateful exclusionary or violent acts Instead It manifests in pervasive mindsets and stereotypes But all black people start from the inner city ghetto and are therefore stigmatized by the association with this putative immorality danger crime and poverty Hence this in a public in public a black person's burden with a negative presumption That he must or she must disprove Before establishing mutually trusting relationships with others Most consequentially black skin and its association with the ghetto Translates into a deficit of credibility as black skin is conflated with lower class status This deficit impacts poor black people one way and middle class black people another While middle class black people may be able to successfully disabuse others of their negative presumptions Lower class blacks may not for instance all blacks Especially ghetto looking black young black men are at risk of enduring yet another stop and frisk From the police as well as suspicion from potential employers and shopkeepers and strangers on the street Members of the black middle class and other and black professionals can usually pass inspection and withstand such scrutiny Many poor blacks cannot and many blacks who have never stepped foot in the ghetto Must repeatedly prove themselves as non ghetto often operating in a provisional status In the workplace or say a fancy restaurant until they can convince others either by speaking white English Or by demonstrating intelligence poise or manners That they are to be trusted That they are they're not one of those blacks from the ghetto And if they deserve respect in other words black men other words a black middle-class black man who is for instance waiting in line at ATM at night Will in many cases be treated with a level of suspicion that a middle-class white man simply does not experience But this pervasive cultural association Black skin equals the ghetto does not come out of the blue After all as a result of historical political and economic factors black people Have been confined to the ghetto contained in the ghetto Today with persistent housing discrimination and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs America's ghettos face structural poverty In addition crime and homicide rates within those communities are high Young black men are typically the ones killing one another And ghetto culture made iconic by artists like Tupac Shakur 50 cent And notorious B.I.G Is inextricably intertwined with blackness As a result in america's collective imagination the ghetto is a dangerous scary part of the city It's where rap music comes from Where drugs are sold where hoodlums rule and where the wire might have been filmed Above all to many white americans the ghetto is where the black people live And thus as the misguided logic follows All black people live in the ghetto It's that pervasive if accidental fallacy That's at the root of the wider society's perceptions Of black people today While it may be true that everyone who lives in a certain ghetto is black It is painfully untrue that everyone who is black lives in the ghetto Regardless black people of all classes including those born and raised far from the inner cities And those who've never been in the ghetto are by virtual skin color alone Stigmatized by the place I call this idea the iconic ghetto The iconic ghetto And it has become a powerful source of stereotype Prejudice and discrimination in our society negatively defining the black person in public In some ways the iconic ghetto Reflects the old version of racism that led to Till's death Until today a black person's place Was in the field in the mage quarters in the back of the bus If a black man was found out of his place he could be punished jailed or lynched In martins day in our day A black person's place is in the ghetto If he is found out of his place like in a fancy hotel lobby on a golf course In a in a in a university maybe or even in an upscale community he can be treated with suspicion Avoid it pulled over frisk arrested or worse Trayvon martins death is an example of how this More current type of racial stereotyping works While the facts of the case are still under investigation from what is known It seems fair to say that George Zimmerman martins killer Saw a young black man wearing a hoodie and assumed he was from the ghetto And therefore out of place In the retreat of twin lakes Zimmerman's gated community Until recently twin lakes was a safe largely middle-class neighborhood But as a result of collapsing housing prices that has been witnessing An influx of renters and a rash of burglaries And some of the burglars have been committed by black men Zimmerman who is himself a mixed race of latino black and white dissent Did not have a history of racism So it said his family claimed that he had previously volunteered Handing out leaflets at black churches protesting the assault of a black homeless man The point is Zimmerman did not shoot and kill martin because he hates black people in general Hates the black race It seems that he put a gun in his pocket and followed martin after making the assumption that martin's black skin And choice of dress meant that he was from the ghetto And therefore up to no good He was taken as a threat And that's an important distinction Zimmerman acted brashly and was almost certainly motivated by assumptions about young black men But it's not clear that he acted brutally out of hatred of martin's race That does not make Zimmerman's actions excusable But it does make his actions Understandable in a way that tells murderers Murderers hide his brutality is not Murder is never understandable The complex racially charged drama that led to martin's death is indicative of both our history and our rapid and uneven racial progress as a society While there are no no longer clear demarcation separating blacks and whites and social strata There have been major racial changes that no that do just that It's no longer uncommon to see black people in positions of power And privilege and prestige in boardrooms universities hospitals and judges chambers We must also face the reality that poverty unemployment and incarceration still break down along racial lines And this situation fuels the iconic ghetto Including a prevalent assumption among many white americans Even among some progressive whites who are not by any measure traditionally racist That there are two types of blacks Those residing in the ghetto And those who appear to have played by the rules and become successful In situations in which black people encounter strangers Many often feel they have to prove as quickly as possible That they belong in the latter category In order to be accepted and treat it with respect And as a result of this pervasive dichotomy that there are ghetto and non-ghetto blacks Many middle-class blacks actively work to separate And distance themselves from the popular association of their race with the ghetto By deliberately dressing well or by spurning hip-hop rap and ghetto styles of dress Similarly some blacks when interacting with whites may cultivate an overt Sometimes unnatural Unnaturally formal way of speaking to distance themselves from those black people from the ghetto But it's also not that simple Strikingly many middle-class black young people most of whom have no personal connection with the ghetto Go out of their way In the other direction Claiming the ghetto by adopting symbols including styles of dress Patterns of speech or choice of music as a means of establishing Their authenticity as still black In a largely white middle class They want to demonstrate that they have not sold out Thus the iconic ghetto is paradoxically both Paradoxically both a stigma and a sign of authenticity for some American blacks Kind of double bind that beleaguers many middle-class black parents Despite the significant racial progress our society has made since Till's childhood From the civil rights movement To the to the re-election of president obama The pervasive association of black people with the ghetto And therefore with a social certain social station Betrays a persistent cultural lag after all it has only been Two generations since schools were legally desegregated Five decades since black people and white people started drinking from the same water fountains in the south If till were alive today, he'd remember when restaurants had white only entrances It was stories of lynching lynching's pepper at the new york times He'd also remember the freedom riders Martin Luther king jr. And the million man march He'd remember when his peers became generals and justices and Professors and when black man when a black man just 20 years his jr. Became president of the united states He would have been 73 Had he lived Thank you We've been joined by taylor branch. We're so delighted that amtrak got its Act together and delivered him here taylor. I'll just I'll just let you know that we've We've been speaking dug blackman spoke Eli anderson spoke and I'd like to you know, if you're already here and ready to go invite you to the podium and talk a little bit about About the the second the attempted second Emancipation proclamation ladies and gentlemen taylor branch Thank you. Thanks paul. First of all, I want to uh, I do not want to pay tribute to the mark commuter lines, but It's I do want to give thanks that I was not one of the stories where you're on for eight hours And no bathrooms and all that. I was only on for two or a little over two extra hours And i'm glad to be here More importantly, I want to pay tribute to the washington monthly my first job my first boss Over 40 years ago for this issue. I think it's extraordinary. I'm happy and pleased to be with these Fellow contributors to this issue. I think it's it's an amazing thing To concentrate a whole issue recognizing such a pregnant such a resonant Convergence of anniversaries Here if you're looking back at 1863 In many respects 1913 50 years after that you had the first southerner Woodrow wilson since the civil war elected president who not only introduced segregation into the federal government and into washington dc And maintained a general aura in memory as a as a liberal and an internationalist But he also In many respects gave a great impetus to the foundations of hollywood by praising the birth of the nation Come out of screening in the white house as history written in lightning Which is a profound misrememberment of the civil rights era now we're 50 years after that january 1963 exactly a hundred years after the emancipation proclamation is what I contributed as a memoir to this issue Growing out of the work that I did on on dr. King It's a very human story that began before the 100th anniversary of the emancipation's proclamation's effective date On his first visit to see the kennedys It was a roller coaster ride for dr. King because he came To have a meeting hoping to get the new frontier with all of this new energy And it's pledged during the campaign to end segregation and housing with the stroke of a pen And that sort of thing to finally change things he he came up for his first private meeting and Was dismayed to find out that the the agenda for the meetings with the staff was all about his His own staff and allegations traceable to jay grahoover and the fbi that he had too many subversives on his staff And that he needed to get rid of them before the kennedy administration could talk Could even begin to discuss any sort of alliance moving forward This is a very complex dance More about control than anywhere thing else because if you admit that you have somebody that you need to get rid of That is subversive Then you've almost ceded control over your agenda and your associates To the to the other party So it was a dance about control It was also a dance for the kennedy administration that quite rightly knew That it would sacrifice a lot of its political base in the south If it if it took any meaningful steps against the segregation that prevailed Not only in the south In customs across the country, but it was embedded in the constitutions of the southern states and down into the laws to the point As dr. Anderson mentioned that Emmett till saw Colored in white only signs not only in bus stations, but also on public libraries black people couldn't go into public libraries or even Play checkers together by city ordinance in the city of birmingham. It was very pervasive But it was the key to a democratic president staying in office. So they were quite nervous and when they had dr. King up The the agenda about politics was first we got to talk about getting you kosher We got to talk about making sure that you're not a subversive threat because it's Essentially it's scary enough for us to be in alliance with you and we're vulnerable if anybody attacks us and says You're you're in cahoots with wild-eyed radicals. It'll make it that much worse Now kind of to make king was still reeling with this because he had hopes of talking about a more positive agenda And they kind of made it up to him because they were very Skillful socially by saying would you like to come over to the white house and meet the president? And so he went over there not on the schedule not on the books But he went over there and was escorted up into the residence area of the white house to have lunch With the president and significantly with mrs. Kennedy jacqueline Kennedy The subtle signal there was You talked politics Over on the other side with the staff. This is social you're supposed to talk to the president about social things And they did not discuss politics in their first meeting there with the president of the united states This is october 1961 But they were walking in the lovely corridor up in the in the residence area Down to the lincoln bedroom After lunch and when they went through king managed to get politics in by saying i see the copy of the emancipation proclamation there We are coming up on the hundredth anniversary wouldn't it be a magnificent gesture Mr. President if you could issue a new emancipation proclamation in honor of that one Just as lincoln proclaimed slavery to be contrary And freed the slaves by executive order Couldn't you do something similar for segregation and say by executive order the slavery statutes The the segregation statutes violate The american premise the american foundation of government therefore i declare them void The president made a non-committal answer said that would be interesting and That he he would be willing to hear more about it Whereupon dr. King went into a long Six months of preparing a draft Proclamation executive order for president kennedy in his in his words To that effect now the reason he thought it would be easier for president kennedy than passing a law Just as lincoln found it easier to issue an executive order in the midst of a war as a war order Then it would have been to pass legislation to do the same thing We see now in the in the steven spielberg movie how difficult it was to get the thirteenth amendment Past even when there were no representatives in the house from the confederate states It was a cliffhanger so Dr. King thought it would be easier for president kennedy to do an executive order than to pass a law He also and this is the significant part for me that i'd like to To to get across to you It would also be easier for dr. King If if if president kennedy could end segregation by executive order Then the freedom riders who had just finished coming out of parchment penitentiary after a whole summer of freedom riders Rides in which people were beaten their buses burned and they went to jail in parchment penitentiary Simply for sitting on a bus next to someone of a different race Trying to protest these segregation laws But the laws were still there The movement people were coming out of prison and if president kennedy And those freedom riders had pressured dr. King to go with them And he refused to do it. He wasn't ready He and in fact he quite openly said These students are ahead of me now in their willingness To take risks and to make sacrifice for our movement If president kennedy issued an executive order ending segregation It would be king thought it would be easier for president kennedy It would also be easier for king because he wouldn't have to join those sit-in students on anything in escalation of the freedom rides And he was a preacher by training and he loved oratory. He recognized That the students were doing something necessary Because as a trained orator Who had tried and failed since the bus boy caught to preach america out of segregation He knew that there were some things about human nature that are so stubborn The words and oratory and reasoning are not enough And you've got to amplify it with sacrifice and witness And this was closing in on him And in a way if president kennedy had issued this order It was a dream that that The movement would be spared having to go through what it did go through Now he spent the whole First part of 1962 Preparing this document for president kennedy In a very very fancier leather embossed thing that he delivered to the white house in may of 1962 And never heard a word in response not one Um by the time the anniversary of the first issuing of the proclamation when lincoln said after antedom I'm going to do this he announced that he was going to do it on january 1st effective unless the southern states Ended their rebellion That deadline passed and he never got any answer from president kennedy Which dismayed not only king but a lot of his allies in congress because they were hearing that president kennedy was going to do something dramatic to honor lincoln Then king went into a fallback Mode and lobbied the the white house not to end segregation by executive order, but on the january 1st 100th anniversary simply to say that we Proclaimed that the united states would spend the year in 1963 Debating the meaning of the emancipation and its wider implications in a world of racial segregation He never got any answer to that either Um the white house kept inviting him to social events and they developed this amazing standoff Where dr. King refused social events at the white house that That baffled his fellow civil rights leaders who were desperate to get into the white house on any grounds just to be seen there He refused to go because Until the kennedy administration responded to his initiatives on the emancipation proclamation Uh all that came to no avail when the anniversary of january 1963 passed And the kennedy administration didn't even take the fallback um Offer and what we outline in in in the article In this month's issue is that instead the kennedy administration decided to honor the emancipation proclamation with a white house reception on lincoln's birthday In february a month later Because that would emphasize that the emancipation tradition was really a republican Responsibility and he invited a lot of republicans there Because it was with trepidation that democrats Approach this issue since they depended on the solid south of democrats I want to make two points beyond the significance of of the Of that little story Which shows the kennedy administration a little bit more in context and dr. King more in context too and human struggle and internal struggle over how to approach This issue only 50 years ago This is not not that long ago in the in the great uh sweep of time First of all This month 50 years ago because President kennedy did not respond to this overture for essentially an easy way out And also because it had taken 23 000 soldiers to get james marath into old miss only a couple of months earlier Dr. King finally gave up on the notion that there would be an easy way out for the country by political initiative And just as significantly an easy way out for him In the sense that the movement would succeed without him having to take more risk He said essentially we are losing our window in history if it takes all these soldiers to get one black student into old miss We have not segregation is as strong as ever Almost nine years since the brown decision If we don't take greater risk We we may lose our moment And it was in this month that he resolved to go into birmingham and mount a great challenge to segregation in its bastion city He go for broke if we can if we can do something there we can do something anywhere And he decided to do that with a resolve that was highly significant In that he didn't even tell his own father or his own board that he was going to do it because he knew that they would Talk him out of it and raise kane to stop him He he only started moving and preparing for birmingham with his most trusted people Who most of whom were the very ones that jay agrohoover was trying to get him to get rid of Um So that happened in 1963 in january exactly 50 years ago That dr. King decided to commit himself to birmingham in a world That was segregated not only by race as as you've heard here But also compared to today's world stratified by gender by condition of life By in every other way, uh, you might want to think Not only were there very very few female students at at My alma mater the university of north carolina by state law. They had to be nursing students I think it was about five percent of the student body. They were none at the university of eginia none, of course at Yale or princeton There were no let alone west point The world that we have today Was scarcely imaginable in january 1963 In that same month also 50 years ago this same month george wallis took office in alabama With an inaugural address famously pledging segregation today segregation tomorrow segregation forever Looking at a world That was segregated as I said in by race down into the state constitutions And that had defined partisan politics in the united states such that The democratic party was the party of white supremacy and the party of segregation Throughout the southern states. There was not one single republican member of the house of representatives between texas and the atlantic ocean There were no republicans when I grew up in atlanta republicans as I say Often were as scarce as polar bears. There were there were only daddy kings black and tan The republicans who were after patronage jobs and a few eccentric judges who believed in the two-party system Everybody else was a democrat because the democrats had had ended lincoln and ended reconstruction and were the party of solidarity since then this movement transformed politics Transformed our world in ways That we suppress Because we have a terrible history in the united states of making any cross racial memory comfortable to ourselves at the expense of Accuracy hope or the promise of liberty. We did it. We did it in the civil war for a hundred years As nick lemon makes clear in his contribution for this issue And what i'm trying to argue is that we have done it for 50 years now In relation to the civil rights movement The liberations set free in the past 50 years in the world that we don't remind ourselves of not just in race Not just in gender not just in gays Word gay wasn't even invented 50 years ago. It was beyond the imagination of the most visionary liberal Um, it referred to a crime that dared not speak its name and now having Set loose all this liberation And what dares not speak its name is the word liberal to claim credit for the things that it set in motion And conservatives are debating gay gay a marriage versus civil unions And yet claiming a triumph for conservative politics in resentment against government that made all these things possible So what i'm trying to argue for you is that This little moment this little Minuet between kennedy And and martin luther king about the emancipation proclamation Should be a wake-up call for us to remember to remember that we don't remember things across racial lines better That we improve ourselves that race is the doorway to discovery, but it is profoundly uncomfortable Even today for most of the dominant culture to the point that millions of white people voted for barack obama But they voted for barack obama on their terms And one of their terms is that he not talk about race As this issue says he hasn't talked about he's talked about race less than any president in the last 50 years I think that's no accident because we are still Limited and turning away from our The upside of our own history. So what i'm hoping Is that this january 1963 begins a march Of 50 year anniversaries that goes forward from now 1963 and 2013 will be the 50th anniversary of the birmingham campaign the dogs and the fire hoses the death Of of medgar evers the introduction of the civil rights bill the march on washington the birmingham church bombing the kennedy assassination The the longest filibuster in history in 1964 the 64 civil rights act and selma most overlooked the immigration reform act of 1965 in the wake of selma which opened up naturalized citizenship to the whole world repealing a system that had restricted it Mostly to the nations of northern europe and linden johnson said When he signed it under the statue of liberty never again Will the twin barriers of prejudice and privilege shadow the gate to freedom Because it's going to be first come first serve and invisibly in the 50 years 48 years since We have communities from all over the world proving that we are not only A a a pioneer democracy in in concept and in evolution, but actually in practice a multi From all over the world And these are profoundly inspiring things and i hope that the next five years of anniversaries Will help us outgrow and get a more proper balance about the promise of politics What we can do we should be profoundly optimistic that we can tackle serious problems once again, but instead In my view we are still imprisoned by a reconstruction post civil war Blindness that shapes the whole landscape such that we're not even aware of it We're not aware that we are imprisoned In language that was largely invented by the same george wallis who failed to protect segregation forever But in his failure was a genius enough of a politician to invent phrases of resentment and fear Against the tides that were liberating america By denouncing pointy headed bureaucrats in washington Who were trying to tell people how to run their businesses and where they should go to school And that they were in cahoots with a biased media that had a rational agenda To concentrate all effective power on the central government in washington with its tax and spend liberals Every one of those phrases is vintage george wallis and every one of them is chillingly contemporary It is an attitude far more than a judgment that in prisons our politics Shuts us off not only from accurate history, but shuts us off from the promise of democracy So i'm hoping that this issue Of the monthly focusing on race And even and you are focusing on this issue people's resistance to it People's resistance to discuss race To insist simultaneously that race is solved And that it is unsolvable Propositions that have in common only that that they both mean we don't need to discuss it This issue discusses it The civil rights movement and our history shows us that when we do discuss it when we get beyond our comfort zones When we learn things That that's when good things happen. That's when the promise that's the doorway to the promise of freedom So until we're as comfortable discussing race as we are sports America is is still not there yet and i hope that we can Take advantage of this amazingly resonant time we're marching through these These 50 year anniversaries and advantage of the articles here To really bring our history back into balance bring our country back into balance and address the problems of the future With more with intelligence and with patriotism. Thank you. Good morning Good morning I am so happy that amtrack or the mark Got its act together It was certainly Wonderful to hear The comments that have made been made so far. Let me bring you greetings on behalf of the wk kelloch foundation As you know, i'm gaol christopher vice president for program strategy there And it is the board of directors of the wk kelloch foundation that has had the audacity and the courage To say that america must deal with the legacy Not of race But of racism And that is a very important distinction Racism is the belief The belief system That undergirds this history that we speak of It is a belief that is Dates back to the 1700s That somehow There is a human hierarchy of value It emerged at a time when all manner of knowledge was being organized and categorized From animals to trees to birds to plants And so why not human beings? And the great philosophers and scientists and anthropologists of the time Suggested that the pinnacle Of that hierarchy Was reflected in their own image of whiteness And that That hierarchy descended Through people of yellow pigmentation and red pigmentation and ultimately to the depths of what was called black And that put in place the justification For the types of inhumane and brutal and atrocious human behaviors And systems That indeed formed Our nation And so the work Of uprooting that belief system That's the work that we have yet to do At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, we decided that our mission Which is to ensure that all children thrive Particularly the most vulnerable children That our mission in a time of great demographic shift When in fact the majority of the children that are born in this nation are children of color That our mission to assure that they thrive could not be addressed Without dealing with The discomfort And the denial Of the legacy and the presence Of a belief system and absurdity That somehow we are not one human family That somehow our physical characteristics Which are but a manifestation of the brilliance of nature To enable us to adapt to the environments in which we evolved That somehow these physical characteristics Determine our innate worth and value as human beings And that's the essence of racism But that system was inculcated into every intellectual Commercial Judicial Religious Philosophical Medical System that we have So the imbalances that you see in this country today, they like to call them disparities I call them inequities are but reflections Of that deep seated belief Is it conscious? In most of us No In some of us yes I understand that the Klu Klux Klan Petitioned and I don't know if they actually executed it, but they were going to have a rally on the mall On the anniversary of the issuance of the emancipation proclamation So yes, some people really really consciously adhere to that belief But most of us have been swept up in it And we don't even know it Because it's very easy to be at the top of that professed hierarchy And never even have to think about it It's impossible to be at the bottom or the other gradations of that hierarchy And not think about it on a daily basis And not internalize The absurdity Of the devaluation of your humanity On a daily basis My lovely daughter Once said to me Mom, how did the story of african-americans get Inverted into a story of victimization only How is that story not a story of phenomenal triumph and victory? How is our story not captured and told Embodying the courage And the perseverance And the amazing qualities that are possessed by our people And I said to her You know because we don't tell the story And so there is a very important Thing that's happened here with this washington monthly And that is stories are being told That are never ever told That hundred years between the signing of the emancipation proclamation And the civil rights era It's like one big blur It's like those hundred years didn't happen And what happened to people During those hundred years It's seldom if ever considered I have jettisoned the word slave from my vocabulary And replaced it With enslaved human beings Because when you say slave you conjure up something some sort of Entity that was created and perpetuated And you strip away the humanity The human beings who who were entrapped in that experience I also don't use the word race very often. I have to say racism Because it's an ism. It's a belief system And that's what we have to get rid of because the concept of race biologically is a total fallacy And thank goodness for the insights of the human genome that have reminded us that we are all 99.9 percent the same So those ideas that there were some sort of mental differences and And if you get into the medical apartheid and you get into the medical experimentations to justify the differences It's it's unconscionable. You can't even read it But the fact is it was all a lie It was all stupidity and we've evolved beyond it and we all know that we are basically constituted as the same So what do we do now with four centuries of fallacy We believe at the Kellogg foundation that we have to heal And so our foundation our board put significant dollars although Now after five years. I realized that it's a drop in the ocean But they put about a hundred million dollars behind funding community-based groups Who had the courage to deal with this issue? But we understood very early on that a primary audience or focus for this work had to be the media Because the media has embraced the Wallace Language has embraced consciously and unconsciously much of the confusion and so because they shape our consciousness They project a lot of that confusion and we buy it on a daily basis And so we were very honored To be able to be a partner with the washington monthly and putting this issue together and we hope it's the first of many Efforts on the part of the media in general to have the courage to tell the stories That make us who we are as a country We struggled some of it is hard to even Think about that alone read about But it is who we are And one of the phrases we constantly get is is this just about black and white and that word just just makes me crazy But it isn't quote just about black and white. It's a systematic exclusion and a systematic Hierarchy if you will which puts white at the top and everybody else beneath We as a country cannot afford that any longer period We simply cannot thrive as a democracy without opening opportunity to everyone and somehow Just getting rid of the fallacy Of the belief in racial hierarchy as it manifests both consciously and unconsciously Quickly, let me tell you some of the critical lessons. We've learned in the last five years of funding this effort across the country and also in brazil We have learned That the unconscious bias Concept is the one that we have to put legs On we have to really figure out if a doctor and the evidence is clear There are hundreds of studies if a doctor will make different prescriptions for the same condition Unconsciously based on perceived racial difference How do you change that doctor's behavior? Because they are not willingly being biased But they have been programmed to believe certain stereotypical perceptions and it influences their decisions So the unconscious bias area and it applies in Criminal justice it applies in education. It applies in schools So we've learned that we've got to fund and get more work going not to identify the problem But to identify the solutions to it We know that just becoming aware of unconscious bias is a step toward debiasing It's a step toward checking if you will our behaviors We have learned that communities on the ground neighborhoods zip codes That there is tremendous goodwill out there and that people indeed want to do this work And so we have learned that putting the resources in place to support this work Can bring about change and outcomes This film slavery by another name it took resources to get it produced And there are many many others we have some people in the audience here today who whose films we have funded traces of the trade Which tells the story Katrina brown told the story of her family who were the largest slaveholders in the northeastern part of the united states So we've learned that resources are critical But ultimately we've learned that this is the work of changing minds Of undoing a belief and Howard Gardner from Harvard who gave us the concept of multiple intelligences reminds us Of what it takes to change minds And i will close with just reiterating what those things are and we we've tried to embody all of those in our funding strategy But he starts with reason And he says one way to change minds is through reason We know that doesn't always work, but But it's important And then he talks about the importance of research And we have funded many people who are doing very important research to help Make the case if you will Then he talks about Redescription And so because we engage multiple perspectives Native americans african americans asian americans latino hispatic white americans We get these multiple points of view and we are able to Redescribe if you will this continuum this history and it you see it from so many different points of view You can no longer deny that it exists And then Gardner talks about resistance You must be able to anticipate resistance And in the case of racial dynamics, you know resistance morphs and it takes many different forms And so you have to be really quick and be able to respond to the resistances He also talks about real world events can make a major impact in bringing about changes in minds and thinking We look at what happened with the tragic death of the students in connecticut the children And how suddenly gun control is at least a public topic We look at the election of an african-american first family and many minds were changed on some level On levels that people don't even understand so real world events are important in being able to change hearts and minds But you have to be organized to respond to those real world events And many times advocacy advocacy communities are not and then Gardner reminds us that rewards And resources can change minds And that's where philanthropy can be a partner That's where the private sector could be a partner That's where the public sector could invest in this work Because when the resources are there when the incentives are there attitudes and behaviors can shift But ultimately Gardner talks about resonance Most of what i've described in Gardner's list appeal to the rational to the cognitive aspect of our being But the resonance appeals to the emotional Because ultimately it is our feelings that dictate our behaviors There's a call for more empathy I like to say we need more empathetic action We have found and have learned that When people are brought together and they share their stories of the experience of racism in America It creates a resonance And that resonance Creates an emotional space For relating across differences And understanding our collective humanity So I would ask you not to think of this work As a threat as so many people do Not to embrace the idea Of undoing racism from a place of fear But rather to agree At multiple levels that this is indeed as our president once said so courageously That this is indeed the unfinished business of our times And we can in fact we must Rise to the challenge and become one America Mature developed Having evolved beyond beyond the absurdity Of a belief in racial hierarchy. Thank you Thank you very much Gail and and thank you for the entire panel. This has been fantastic. Let me Let me say one thing before we go into some discussion here Uh about this issue of the wash it in monthly and what the task we set for ourselves Um As this panel has brilliantly Articulated we have this This gap in our understanding of our own history A kind of Flaw as taylor told me recently in our historic memory And it in covering from time to time over many years these issues It occurred to me. I don't really we see Inequities and disparities among minorities and We have our sense that they're somehow Rooted in historic experience, but the causal connections are are Hard to understand so One of the stories we did in this in this issue We asked the the great Uh Economist and scholar tom segru Uh To answer the simple question. How is it that african america middle class african americans? Have a fraction of the household wealth That white americans at the same income level have explain that to us Um, so he wrote this magnificent piece Uh Looking at his own family Which uh, he grew up in detroit And at a young age his father and mother sold their house To an african-american family and and then tom's family moved to the suburbs And he traced both Families both of whom are middle class Uh, both of whom maintained homes beautifully and added to them one 50 years 40 years later Uh Has a modest amount of wealth on which they can retire the other Uh, despite adding to this house and buying another one and doing everything this other family that bought their house has very very little wealth And since the recession We know that although all americans took a hit in their wealth The hit as a percentage of income for african americans and hispanics was far greater So tom traces this and is it i mean the the question someone might ask is well Do african americans not save as white americans do no the answer is they save at about the same rates to get to the answer You have to look at history um In the 40s and the 50s and the early 60s as uh white americans were riding the escalator of upward mobility uh Thanks to a booming economy and federal Support for home ownership and college education Um african americans were still living in a segregated world in which they were Largely denied virtually all of these benefits Those those that only changed beginning in the late 60s after the passage of civil rights and other other uh Other laws and really into the early 70s before mortgages and so forth became available. So african americans began Putting their first foot on the escalator at the very earliest in the late 60s after 30 years of of of whites Moving from the lower middle class to the middle class and beyond uh Only then did african americans begin and it was about that time that the escalator began to get kind of creaky and Wages began to stagnate and union jobs and manufacturing began to disappear Um and african americans are buying homes in precisely the communities the inner cities that are being abandoned by everybody else So so what you see is not bad habits But past racism and bad timing that explains this profound difference in outcomes And you simply can't see the outcome. You can't explain the outcomes without reference to the history And really that's the theme in many ways of this issue of the washington monthly to To peel back the hidden truths of our history so that we can understand our present situation And the other thing that I I I think that this issue tries to do Is to look at as gale said solutions What are some solutions to these inequities? Uh in the case of wealth um Really the thing that has uh in recent years And that explains the the plummeting value of african-american and hispanic wealth compared to white wealth even though whites lost also is predatory lending this huge expansion of predatory lending in the form of payday loans and and uh Exploding mortgages subprime mortgages which hit african-american upper middle class people far higher than than whites um So the best thing we can do to make housing which is the essence of most people's wealth Safe again for minorities Is to crack down on predatory lending to allow for instance the the new Agency that comes out of the dodd frank law the cfpb to allow it to do its job And oh by the way if we allow The federal government to police these predatory damaging financial instruments We as a community the entire country benefits because we won't have a repeat of this horrible Recession that wiped everybody's wealth out and that wiped our jobs for our kids out So we're at a moment. I think when The things that we can do Uh that would profoundly benefit minorities in this country are also profoundly beneficial to majorities in this country And I that's that's a point that I hope people take away from this issue of the washington monthly Um, so let me begin the questioning first among ourselves and then we'll we'll uh open it to the Open it to the audience. I know you all are very eager to ask questions yourself. I want to begin By just asking uh doug blackman I want to hear just a little bit more specifically about the about the Phenomenon that you describe in your story of the monthly and in your Pulitzer prize-winning book tell us A story if you will so the audience understands About this 20th century enslavement Uh and what it was like and how what were the follow-on consequences? Why ultimately is this still Something that we should know about Sure, I'm happy to do that and and before I do I also want to make an observation about The remarks of the other panelists all of which I found very compelling But through which I also see a very interesting thread of this of this uh this notion of misunderstanding and labels that Labels not just in terms of racial labels but labels about our history and these over simplifications of history That we are all indoctrinated with oftentimes More out of the need to simplify our story and try to teach our story to in simple ways Perhaps then by conspiracy, but sometimes by conspiracy that we mislabel and misunderstand things but through all of this I think I was particularly struck by professor anderson's Discussion of the the evolution and migration of of these definitions of prejudice But but also uh with uh taylor branch and uh, you know, I can't tell you what a What a privilege and honor is to get to sit in the same room much less at the same table with uh with taylor branch as a historian but um, but the optimism that uh, that I think you bring uh to this conversation which I I urge My students and people I talked to about this the same sort of idea that it's very easy To be to feel very dispirited about uh about these things, but in reality I think it's an incredibly optimistic time and that even with all of the disparities that persists and the difficulties that remain The setbacks that have occurred We're in an amazingly optimistic and opportunistic moment in time And in fact the the progress on all of these fronts Has been extraordinary and and in terms of the I point out again and again back This refers back to what paul was just saying That uh my work and I think so much so many other things really tries to establish That we have to reset the clock on our understanding and expectations Particularly around the the achievements of african americans and that slavery didn't really meaningfully end for african americans The the the enormous threat of involuntary servitude did not recede from the The lives of african americans until a full century after when we think that it did and it's another Year's really uh Almost after that before the mechanisms of opportunity are really available to african americans That's really it is 1970 you can't make any argument that african americans had any kind of fair opportunity until 1970 And the achievements of african americans educationally and economically in the succeeding 40 years Even with all the bad things that have happened and even with the gap that persists The achievements mathematically Are greater than I think and I think it's just an empirical statement. They're greater than any ethnically identifiable group of people in human history And so there's just tremendous achievement and what has happened to all of american life in the same period of time Even with all the setbacks Has been At oftentimes the greatest economic expansion In human history for all the people of america and the and so the lesson of that is that when you finally fully liberate a Full and vital population of people within your within a society's population And all of their talents and ambitions and hard work and uh and uh an aspiration Then they thrive and achieve and the larger society thrives and achieves and I think in some respects There's been um one of the presidents, uh, and I try not to make uh explicitly political sorts of statements because I still try to write about politics Uh, but I think it's a fair observation to say that one of the failures of the president's uh message Of his of the articulation of what I think he means even whether I agree with it or not But that one of his own failures of articulation has been to capture this notion that That the tasks to be achieved now are less today about repairing the injustices of the past Uh and more about recognizing the greater good in the future for all americans and all humans really If these remaining obstacles can be attacked and that this legacy economically and educationally If the the issues can be overcome Then everyone benefits uh in in this society in really extraordinary amazing ways And that's what makes me tremendously optimistic But in terms of uh the things that I write about and specifically what's in the magazine I tell the story um of a of a woman named Carrie Kinsey Who in the summer of 1903, uh wrote a letter to President teddy roosevelt, uh just addressed to to teddy roosevelt at the white house In which she describes that her 14 year old brother named james robinson. I have a 15 year old son So this particular story has has been very evocative for me from the time that I first discovered it now years ago But Carrie Kinsey writes uh president roosevelt in the summer of 1903 That her 14 year old brother has been kidnapped and sold into slavery and the um and the Her story then is that it's clear from the story and we don't know a lot about Carrie Kinsey though I spent years trying to learn more about her But it's clear from her letter itself that uh that she knows exactly what has happened She knows where her where her brother is she misspells the name of the plantation But she knows exactly where who has her brother Who has been holding him for almost a year at the point that she writes this letter She's been to see almost certainly the sheriff probably the postmaster is probably the friendliest white official that she might have encountered In this this place in in deep south georgia right on the the florida state line She's probably been to the predominant landowner in her part of the county into the the country's store nearby But she has attempted to reach out To uh to the the powerful white people in her world And they and she has met all completely indifference But at the same time there has been news coverage that she has seen about uh teddy roosevelt First having given a speech at lincoln's tomb The the original lincoln's tomb at the dedication in which he had promised A square deal for the negro and that's the that's the initiation of these deals that we've all been hearing about I'm uh over over the past century And but he's promising a square deal for the negro and there's a Fascinating story we could go into about teddy roosevelt But there's been a stir of interest in that this promise among african americans and then in 1903 very very briefly There are a series of investigations by the federal government Called for by roosevelt himself Into these allegations That in a few places in the south there are still african americans being held as slaves And so there's been some some investigations in a few places in alabama and georgia and she's heard about one of these And she knows that her brother has been stolen away and sold into slavery And no one will do anything about it. And so she writes this plaintive letter To the president of the united states asking him to help And uh, the letter is in the the I think the full copy of the letter is in the magazine is also online Uh, and but what is so striking for me about that is if you stop for a moment and imagine that instant in time in july of 1903 Where your brother has been kidnapped. It was kidnapped a year ago. Uh, and is in slavery She's probably had visited him. I think the letter signals that so she has actually seen him in chains being worked with dozens of other men out on a farm On a 20 000 acre plantation in south georgia owned by the most powerful wife family in georgia at the time Uh, she knows this desperate state that he's in she has witnessed the depredations being perpetrated against him No one cares. You know, no one of power in her world cares and to reach a moment of Human desperation so great that the only thing you can think of to do still the only thing left to try Is to write a letter to the president of the united states and to imagine that that might actually Accomplish some good. Uh, just the depth of desperation that moment was so powerful to me when I first found that letter Uh, and of course, uh, what happened? Uh, nothing, uh, nothing happened. Uh, you know, the letter went to the white house it was stamped with a filing number, uh, and then was passed over to the department of justice and um In fact, there was an investigation one of these federal investigations had touched on the very farm That james robinson, uh, where he was being held Uh, and uh, but because she misspelled both the name of the farm and the name of the family No connection was made and perhaps there would have been or wouldn't have been but whatever the case this letter Uh, ends up being filed away the department of justice Know further actions that were taken on it and it remains in the national archives today Uh along with almost 30 000 pages of very similar accounts of other thousands and thousands of such allegations And they're another set of of hundreds or thousands of them in the files of the NAACP from the 19 tens and 20s and 30s And so there were these thousands and thousands of such cases Uh, all across the deep south, uh, and and in the end we we don't know what happened to james robinson The i i've never been able to find him in the historical record Um, hopefully he was released along with a bunch of other African-american men as a result of this investigation as this this white family Tried to cover up what they'd been doing But the the terrible irony of that whole thing was that all of those investigations in 1903 failed There were no, uh, there were a few convictions within president rooseville pardoned everyone who'd been convicted and in the end Uh, the end result of that summer of investigations the one The one, uh, a resolute moment in which the the federal government in that 100 year expanse of lost history It's the one moment when the federal government actually attempts to uh to step in and and enforce the emancipation proclamation the 13th amendment But all of the prosecutions fail juries refuse to do convictions federal prosecutors conclude that That their fundamental problem is and this is a hard fact to comprehend They realize that slavery is not in fact a crime. It was not a crime in 1903 It was unconstitutional But no federal statute had ever been passed to actually make the holding of slaves a crime And so they had no statute on which to to to bring these prosecutions Uh, and so again and again white slave holders in the 20th century would go into the court and admit to the facts And and then say but this is it's not a crime though, you know, I you know this and they would be charged with peonage Which is debt slavery. So there was a Debt slavery was a crime holding a person to pay back a debt Um, and so they would come in and and they would say well, he didn't owe me any money. I wasn't holding him to pay off a debt Uh, I just bought him He's a bad slave. Uh, and so I'm innocent. Uh, and so in the end the result of this was that the department of justice Concluded that there's no way to prosecute these cases. And so there's no reason to investigate them And so until the after the start of world war two Federal government has a policy of not investigating allegations of slavery and never prosecuting them And and they're very consistent in that until 1942 essentially And so the the legacy of that i'll stop is that Just as has been described here in terms of these these economic disparities that the setback that occurs to a family And to thousands or millions of families where my family, you know, which were dirt poor white people in the rural south as well Uh, my family makes this steady progression beginning even long before the 50s and 60s Uh, and has the capacity to uh to obtain small amounts of land and then a little more land Go to college and benefit from all of these efforts at uplift which are largely designed by the federal government The where roads get paved where electricity first goes who has running water my family didn't have running water until the 50s, but but the uh But all of these things are done in a way that that dramatically and disproportionately benefit white people and elevate white people out of This state of poverty and into the lower middle class in a way that uh that african americans are deliberately excluded from Uh, and so the this resetting of the clock of the march toward toward the middle class is something that we must understand To to challenge the the issues that remain in the present Um, I think it's a fabulous story and would invite anyone on the panel to to respond In that set in that case We do have plenty of time left over for some questions from the audience and uh at the back is the is the microphone and um, please raise your hand and i'd ask you to Wait till the microphone comes to you state your name and your affiliation If you have one so we'll start uh with this lady right here, please Is it on? Yeah, okay um, my name is katrina brown and gail uh referenced a documentary that I produced called traces of the trade about being Descended from the largest slave trading family in u.s history From rhod island And so speaking from that context of knowing that family history and the massive extent of northern complicity and slavery and racism um Mr. Branch, I want to take up your call and invitation to all of us to Build on these 50th anniversaries And i'm not a poker player, but what do they say? I want to see you and raise you is that what they say? um Because of these 150th anniversaries as well So the idea that we're at this intersection of these incredible 50th anniversaries Particularly starting this year with the 50th of the march on washington and I have a dream speech And that that coincides with the 150th of the emancipation proclamation and the fact that dr. King started his speech by saying Five score a year ago a great american signed the emancipation proclamation But 100 years later the negro still is not free He sets up that 100 years 50 years later. So here we are 50 years later And I think what can happen as a result of looking at the 150th of the civil war and civil rights at the same time Because we'll also soon be upon the 150th of gettysburg the gettysburg address And so on through 1865 Is it allows for a conversation that I think is missing which is not just about the black white unfinished business But the white north white south unfinished business and I can say in a confessional mode I've been primarily focused on confessing to black americans But we white northerners have assigned all blame and responsibility on the south When we were very very very very heavily complicit in slavery and racism clear through american history And once you start looking with that lens you see it everywhere in the history of the civil war I mean the fact that lincoln had such a hard time As someone was saying early on passing the 13th amendment when the southerners weren't in congress at that time that Points it out right there. So to have a national conversation where we're looking at how to Acknowledge that piece of it and what does that do for the politics of how white southerners and white southern conservatives in particular Looking both at the history of civil war and civil rights always feel like white northern liberals are self-righteously telling them what to do How does an acknowledgement of that shift the conversation? So I work for an organization called the tracing center and we're starting to pair up with religious denominations The united method is church and others to try to invite that type of national conversation over the next three to five years And would love to talk to anyone who would want to join in that work to bring that to the american public in the spirit of this panel Thank you um This lady right here Hey, how are y'all amanda jackson with american friend services committee? I have really somewhat two questions The first I'll direct towards you dr. Branch on your comment about race and this presidency and how America particularly white america will allow for the discussion of race with this president on their terms And i'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that Um simply because an example that came to my mind the first example was uh during the height of the professor gait situation When he was arrested trying to get into his own home and the president initially responded and said The cambridge police acted stupidly Then there were some up or about it, but he backtracked those comments Or really didn't talk about it at all and had a beer summit And I just wonder if the president himself didn't create boundaries and talking about race by that being His initial reaction. I think during the first year of his presidency Uh a situation I presented a very real opportunity to talk about race and he himself backed away from it And if that kind of led the the direction of how race could be talked about during his presidency And dr. Anderson you had made a comment about the ghettos and urban america And black on black crime That wasn't specifically what you said, but you essentially talked about how Crime in the ghettos is significantly higher and crime among african americans and I feel that When we talk about crime in this country particularly as it relates to minorities There's always a focus on african americans and crime Black on black crime the the phrase that has been that is very much so coined and very popular But crime in general occurs among inter-ethnic groups, right? So there's crime that occurs within ethnic groups, whether it's asians or whites or african americans that That's typically the the progression of crime But how do we shift from the the black on black crime when talking about crime in america As opposed to say americans committing crimes and and just kind of widen that scope a little bit and Shift away from black on black and recognize that it just isn't black on black crime or we're talking about Inter-ethnic crime Well, I'll respond to your question Directed to me It goes to the larger point I think almost everybody here mentioned that we have very very raw Instructive and in some sense is hopeful history But we all perceive it unconsciously through different lenses And that's what we have to what we have to work on The president I guarantee you there are hundreds of people who work over in the white house who dread Any moment that the president mentions race because they know it's going to be misinterpreted He said if he had a son That his son would look like trevon martin and all hell broke loops and people saying he was being too blacker, you know So what i'm saying is that we have different perceptions of how things filtered through race And the president has made a judgment that he's better served to try to lift all boats and discuss race And and just the fact that he is black is a racial signal in and of itself and anything more explicit is dangerous I don't really second guess. I'm just saying that sad I'm not second guessing whether he should change his behavior. I'm saying we should change Our behavior. It's it's a common thing if you listen to the I have a dream speech it ends It ends And when that day comes, you know, all americans black and white jews and gentiles Protestants and catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual free at last free at last That's the very end of it. And when you think about it, he's inviting Non-black america into the spirituals To to join that culture But the way the march on washington is interpreted Then and ever since the next day on the new york times and the cover of life magazine It's um pictures of black people behaving just like white people. So therefore they're not threatening So even though he's inviting that way it was perceived that gosh those people are really nice Byard russon used to tease me Whenever I interviewed him he said the press forgave me being a bastard homosexual Draft dodging ex-communist everything I was because I took the egg off their face They thought this was going to be a disaster and in fact it was nice And so they said in effect Every all his crimes are forgiven because he put porto potties all over the mall and made these scary negroes nice enough for tea Um, and and that's that's what that is. So We have to work To change the lens of history dr. King is a model for me because You hear in his voice before you even understand the words That he's got a realism in his voice. That's at war with his optimism about principles And it there's like a furnace in his voice and that's what's really captivating about And in order for us to get to that same place ourselves. We've got a step Outside of our comfort zones. That's what I try to get I mean one small practical Thing to me the king day is about that I'm always reminded of diane nas who told me once that her enduring metaphor for the movement was her wedding day Because her knees were shaking And she knew she was taking a big leap and self defining she said I felt that way in the movement every day Because I'm I'm reaching out to people. I'm risking things. I'm risking going to jail and putting myself in other Hands about things that are fundamental And that that's basically what the movement was about That's what everybody did and that's what we ought to do too That we ought to talk to people across these lines and that if if we can get comfortable being a little uncomfortable That's where the rewards lie as far as discovery Now having said that I also want to apologize because I'm trying to catch up with my schedule on the train And I'm going to have to leave in the in the next two or three minutes But I've really enjoyed this and it Again, I want to pay tribute to the monthly for having this article Issue thanks for including me and thanks to my fellow panelists Thank you Taylor. I just want to Hear me. Yes I just like to respond to your your question as well I think a large number of americans like to think that we're in post-racial america You know and I think in many ways that we've made a lot of progress over the years And I've written a book entitled the the cosmopolitan canopy which emphasizes the The spaces and cities where people all come together and get together. It's like this island of civility and this Sea of segregation that I write about in the cosmopolitan canopy um also write about the iconic ghetto and the The iconic ghetto Is this this this this notion of the ghetto that a lot of people Have in america. Yes, we made lots of progress tremendous progress over the years But the ghetto Has become this this powerful icon in american society and culture It's also a very important source of stereotype And prejudice and discrimination And um, this is very powerful the the a person with black skin color deals with These Contradictions and dilemmas of status the person may be doing very very well Class-wise but the phenotype Black skin color associates him in the minds of many people with the ghetto And the ghetto today is really um Dealing with Massive unemployment. I mean The poorest sections of the ghetto people are desperate People being shot and killed The wire comes to mind We're moving through this One of the most important I think changes since The industrial revolution We are moving from manufacturing to service and Higher technology in the context of an increasingly global economy You know, we're great numbers of people living in these Poor communities not just poor black communities, but poor whites as well Without the capital to really The human capital to make adjustments to these changes You know, and I think this really gets the black population very very very hard And so people who can't adjust to this Um situation oftentimes go to the underground economy The irregular economy And you have drug dealing and hustling and bartering and begging and what's left of afdc But great numbers of people Barter and exchange things just to make a living is to live And a lot of this is done without the benefit of civil law And so there's a lot of back and forth the tensions and The wider system has abdicated its responsibility to these communities in many ways And especially with respect to law enforcement The civil law in many of these communities has eroded And with the civil law is weak Street justice has filled the void Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth And most people in the community are decent people and trying to be decent But you've got a street element and many of the decent people are living under pressure in these communities In order to survive in the community you have to have street credibility You know street credibility Which is uh very difficult to obtain you obtain that by doing deeds by being tough by being responsible For your own safety and security What this means is that all these transactions that are going on within the community are going on without the benefit of civil law And people argue fight Have tensions issues whatever We're talking about a very very high rate of violence In the inner city poor community And crime You know and this is not something that's natural But there's something structural about is what i've suggested and and i've written about this and um this um I mean the ghetto uh that we see today the the black ghetto community Is is is is very very special and certainly not Comparable to many other uh circumstances where you have asians or other people ethnics that you talk about So anyway, I I think it's complicated But in in community after community after community and philadelphia in particular we've got one of the highest Killing rates in the country In chicago right now In certain ghetto communities. I mean the violence rate is so high And people are being killed left and right. This is not me making something up. This is Documentable is what i'm suggesting and that has to be attended to that's be dealt with Um, I could go on but I won't but just wanted to just Expand on uh, just respond to your your commentary. Can we get some uh questions from the back now? You got something great So sorry to see taylor branch leave, but just wanted to acknowledge that My name is mark Lloyd. I'm the director of the media policy initiative here at the new america foundation And I wanted to applaud the washington monthly for this issue. This is really an excellent piece of work But my comments and questions Given my title probably will not surprise you Du Bois recognize the importance of media and establishing the crisis Dr. King recognized the importance of media In urging, uh, dr. Parker to go and investigate televisions in the south The kerner commission recognized the importance of media and talking about media is really one of the reasons for the riots in the in the 60s Uh media sort of talked around in this report But I didn't see a report about our very segregated media here in the united states And I was wondering if you could comment about that and again speaking to dr. Anderson's uh Notion about structural problems We may have some structural problems related to media and how it relates to race and how race is related and uh the problems with reason And research and resonance in relationship to media as well. Thank you Gail you want to speak to that one? Well, I could don't I could only say there were A short amount of time and so many pages to fill in this particular issue But we certainly uh in in designing the uh the approach to this work at the foundation Have a strong emphasis on the media and we started out By funding an assessment of the media from the standpoint of the demographics and the racial imbalances Uh, and we have funded people like the Maynard Institute and others to work on changing that talk radio is probably the the worst In this area and when it's dominated not only by people from one uh racial Background but from one ideology almost and one political perspective Uh, you end up perpetuating the same myth So the structural dynamics within the media are critical and and we've done a lot of work with the various associations of the media We've we've held workshops Uh to inform them so they can see better reporters can understand when unconscious bias is at play So they can learn how to reframe stories to tell multiple perspectives And you may have noticed particularly with npr that there is a shift that there is more diverse Um, there are more diverse perspectives if you will than you saw five years ago So we're not where we need to be as a country, but you nailed the critical piece Particularly now with with technology. We've got to really focus in that area for structural change I'd like to quickly add one thing to that One I think uh, it underscores the importance in this sort of Absence of diversity and so much the media It underscores the importance of what the W. K. Kellogg foundation does and other such groups in terms of funding Instruments of media, but then still letting it operate very independently But you're bringing something because the the the business model of the media has collapsed and I've experienced that very directly myself and Haven't worked at both the walshy journal and the washington post Uh, and the uh, and so the business models are in peril and the the role of philanthropic organizations and And I should also know that the kallogg foundation Helped to underwrite my film so everybody under the name as well another part of that media And likely would not have happened with that without that kind of philanthropic Support, but uh, I also will throw out there. It stuns me How little this topic is discussed today of uh Because five years ago ten years ago. There was a tremendous conversation going on about the lack of diversity In us media and every major news organization in the country including all of the places that I worked Had very significant initiatives underway Very sincere ones as far as I ever uh in my experience to try to better diversify the the their staffs Wall Street Journal even though people associated with its very conservative editorial page In the news pages the news operation the wall street journal We're deeply committed to trying to the even more difficult task for various reasons of trying to diversify the staff there Uh, and the wall street journal was a place that the initial story that led to my book and led to the film That began with an article in the wall street journal. It was a place that was very open to uh Contrarian and unexpected examinations particularly of corporate conduct as it related to things like race Well, all of that has largely uh gone away and the And the and all the discussion about diversity in the media and the need to undertake initiatives Particularly with the economic collapse and the declining uh declining business models of these organizations It turns out that was completely a luxury of profitable times. It's all gone The diversity director folks in a lot of places are gone When I left the wall street journal a year ago And I don't this is not an intentional thing on any one's part But I don't believe there had been an an african american reporter or editor of any particular Stature in the organization. I don't think there had been a black person hired at the wall street journal in the previous four years Uh, and the and so this this place that already was struggling With a diversity issue. I think it has gotten dramatically worse and I what purely stuns me Is it I believe I have just made the first public observation of that fact that has ever been made And the and the and the associations and such have sort of stopped Stopped uh raising the hue and cry that once was raised Yeah, we'll see the point The point that Taylor branch made and his piece uh was uh one of the points was that We had this uh incorporation process that was a result to some extent of international pressures You know to make america whole or make america Look better and we had this incorporation process, but the pressure for that has waned, you know The only thing I'd like to add it's a conundrum that we face And I was particularly struck by it in response to the question about the black on black crime versus inter-ethnic crime We have learned that the more we reiterate the disparities The more it seems to feed the The need to hold on to the perceptions and stereotypes And so you you caught in trying to raise awareness of the issues But always being mindful of the impact of how you of your framing of those issues in terms of the impact It's going to have on your listeners and your audience So while we lift up the disparities in the media or the disparities in the Professions or the disparities in crime Because we haven't addressed the fundamental sort of backdrop of bias that predominates People take that and they find a place to put it in their head that says oh, yeah, they're inferior And that's why those things exist. Oh, yeah, they're there to be there to be feared And that's why there's crime in the ghetto and so we have to figure out How we both address the issues But also have the sophistication to to make sure we're not feeding the monster Of the bias that exists And I just wanted to say that because I could hear people listening to some of what's being said And I could just imagine the brains are going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we know, you know Those places to be afraid of So it's it's difficult as taylor branch said so well it's it's complex But we can do it better and and we can over we can overcome this legacy We've got time for just to I guess what just maybe one or two more very very brief questions Maybe up front here I'm neil pierce Washington Post writers group I've been writing for years about criminal justice problems in the united states Which have a terrific racial overlay To them There was a and I'm wondering where action might come There was a proposal by senator web before he left the senate for a commission on criminal justice Which would look into what's happening with the system would have deep racial implications in the way that it would be carried out Past the house interestingly last congress failed when some one republican senator got up and objected in the senate It could be done by presidential executive order perhaps not as well, but could be done I wonder if that is a way that we could begin to see some more debate on the real implications That are both in the criminal justice system and its racial implications and what a a presidential Willingness to move on this could represent I'm so delighted neil that you brought that up because it gives me a chance to brag about two stories in the current issue The washington monthly in which we address exactly that one by glenn larry the eminent scholar On how it is we got to a position where Huge numbers of of african-americans are cycling through our our system of prisons And and how even if each one of those cases were rightly Rightly tried and and that's a big assumption We would still they would still be morally indefensible and a piece by Um By mark climbon on how we can reduce those numbers by 60 80 percent through Clever and and proven methods of parole and probation reform Where people simply aren't are being Well, I won't I won't go to it I'll simply suggest that that you and and some of our readers read these two pieces at washingtonmonthly.com They're they're very very persuasive One more question then we got to go Um Yes, sure, please I'm bernard moine. I'm just a private citizen My question is kind of a follow-up on this gentleman's question. It's kind of directed to uh Professor blackman and in his book slavery by another name And it goes it's kind of the rates who relates to disparities and incarceration as everyone knows angela davis For years and michelle single terror in her book The new jim crow has written powerfully about the prism industrial complex and its and its impact on african americans. So You know one issue is is that uh These prisons are primarily built in rural communities. It's us creating jobs for those communities, but they are being You know, they're being fueled by Black and brown bodies So one community is being depleted another community is being enhanced and and obviously as uh michelle single terror Michelle singer michelle alexander. I'm sorry. I'm sorry writes about These these individuals are branded for life But but while they're incarcerated They're accounted for census purposes in those prisons in which they are which they are So can you speak to that and speak to solutions? There's this huge industry that this obviously is lobbying for community for prisons in these communities Well, and I know we've only got probably just a few seconds and that's a gigantic and incredibly important question with a really complex answers I think and I don't have all the answers to that and I know more about How badly things went in the past perhaps that in the present though I have written some more recently and have taken real interest in the issue of The the reliability of the criminal justice system and and its convictions And and I've become very convinced in addition to some of the just this basic observational problem Of mass incarceration, particularly of african-american men And that whatever exactly the explanation for that is It is a a blight and a cancer upon our society It's a clear something is terribly terribly wrong even if all the convictions were valid Even if all of these men had in fact done the things they were accused of which we know Is not the case and at least substantial numbers That you that something terrible is happening there and it's something we continue to Largely as a society to to want to close our eyes to But I have become very convinced and I think there's a lot of growing empirical evidence Of the unreliability of convictions That and that that all of us it will be the issue that 50 years from now When we look back on this time and we say to ourselves and and our children and grandchildren say How could they have ignored that? How could that not have been so obvious to them that all these people were going to prison who had not Not actually done the things they were accused of and all these people who were Who were punished in disproportionate and disparate ways? That that will be the the observation that is made on our time At the same time as we go into it and press Anderson might have a thought on this I also think that we have to be We got to be honest I think part of the message here today has been Break out of these These standard positions and standard the sort of conventional views from the left or the right or what what color you consider yourself to be And and and sort of wrestle with the difficult honesty of this one of those issues is that African-americans in really distressed neighborhoods, you know for a long time were incredibly supportive of really harsh measures to try to bring safety and security And that's been an element, too You know that the that americans wanted this really tough response when there were much higher crime levels across the country Now crime levels are falling and we're waking up and saying we're all the black men What's happened to all these guys and we're and we're distressed about it But we wanted it and it's you know, and it's and it's not as simple as that Some mysterious distant power made all this happen. We made it happen all of us made it this happened And and we now have an obligation to To get honest about that and to and to reckon with the consequences of of our need for security of the in a in another time Go ahead, please I have a book called coat of the street in which I go into the community and talk to real people and observe real people and one of the points of this book is that For many black people living in these communities There are two different systems of law one for white people and one for black people and uh, the wider system with respect to The police the agencies of social control Have abdicated their community Abdicated their responsibilities to the community and so people are on their own And this coat of the street prevails you see And the sense is that a crime in the black community will just not be investigated. You can call the police They may not come They may come late So you're really on your own you see and this this encourages this this this this this this Street justice mentality within the community if you follow what I'm saying, it's very important to consider Gail some final thoughts Just this is a wonderful day. It's a wonderful moment. It's a wonderful publication And we hope that it marks the beginning of a an ongoing willingness to address the issue that is A part of the definition of our country both its past its present And its future So I thank you all for for showing your interest and being here and I applaud the washington monthly And you as a wonderful editor for having pulled together something that is I believe Really unprecedented so thank you very much. Thank you gail. I want to thank I want to thank gail and and the folks Kellogg for for partnering with us on this and I feel like this has been You know, we stretched ourselves to think of some things that beyond what we ever had out of our comfort zone and It was extremely rewarding experience. I want to thank also new america foundation Read kramer who also contributed to the to the issue a great piece lots of great pieces We couldn't talk about I want to thank my my my partner and colleague d.n Strauss Tucker for making this whole thing possible And also everyone else at the washington monthly and new america foundation. Thank you all for coming. Appreciate it