 Hello, I'm Jeff Sachs. Welcome to book club and conversations with the leading thinkers and authors from around the world. And today I'm absolutely delighted to really thrilled to have together in conversation, Professor Patricia Sullivan, who is the William Arthur fairy, the second professor of history at the University of South Carolina. And one of America's leading historians and great experts in all of the challenges of race and civil rights and civil rights movement and modern America. Professor Sullivan has been writing about these topics and many, many important histories but today we are talking about her new book, which is justice rising Robert Kennedy's America in black and white. And I was so thrilled Pat to read your new book. Robert F. Kennedy was my first political hero. I was 14 when he ran for president. And he was my candidate and his assassination was one of the defining moments of my life as it was for so many Americans. And I have always cherished his leadership and memory and your book added immensely to my understanding of RFK and many of his unique characteristics noble characteristics I think that we're going to speak about. So welcome. Thank you for writing the book thank you for being together in the conversation. Why did you write this book at this time you've been of course writing about topics of race and civil rights in America throughout your career. Why RFK and and why now. Well that's a great question and I just want to thank you, Jeff, for inviting me and for all that you do and and you know you came to mind as I was finishing the book because he really your work reflects so much of what Robert Kennedy cared about and work for. And for me as a historian of civil rights and the African American experience since the Civil War in the United States, Robert Kennedy was was sort of a surprising topic from for me to focus on. As I mentioned I've written a number of books that explore race and politics and civil rights struggles across the century 20th century, and my last book was on the NAACP, our oldest civil rights organization, and I looked at from its 2009 up through the 1950s. And that was an amazing history of how African Americans and those believing in racial justice and democracy struggle continued to struggle even in the midst of segregation and all the barriers that they faced and made significant headway, the struggle that culminated with Brown in 1954 was a 20 year long, really grassroots effort, where lawyers work with these communities so it really opened up this dynamic history. And by the time I finished that book, I thought I wanted to take a fresh look at the 1960s in light of what I've learned. And as you know not just as a decade that one from civil rights to black power but a decade of dramatic racial struggle, which ended segregation and then opened up the great challenges this country faced from its long history of slavery and then Jim Crow. And so as I was reading around and thinking about it and having big ideas, you know, Robert Kennedy kept showing him up and I didn't know enough about him I knew the general, whatever, you know, a great guy, you know, but I didn't see him as central. Well, he moved to the center of my work, because he was someone in his time, which had the, I mean he, he responded not only to the discussions that the civil rights movement really brought to the center of America, America's attention after the sit ins, but the opportunities that created for our country to to really look at our history and and embark on what many have called a second reconstruction, you know, ending segregation and then really dealing with the deep problems of racial inequality that has that grew up across our history. And so that came my way in and for for some of us of my age. He's, you know, a vivid figure but for younger people who may not know much about Robert Kennedy. There were people know of him, but maybe really don't know the roles that he played and and in fact, why he kept showing up maybe you could lay out just a little bit of the of Robert Kennedy's life up into the point where you pick it up in in in this book. He's obviously the brother of John F Kennedy, President Kennedy came into office. January 20 1961 and appointed his kid brother as the attorney general. So maybe maybe you can tell us a bit about Robert at that stage a very young man indeed. Yeah, well, you know, my question when I saw how extraordinarily responsive and engaged she was with the issues of racial justice. Who is he how did he. How, how was he ready for this moment. And so, you know, I looked at his early life and I think there's some really interesting characteristics about Robert Kennedy. He's born in 1925. He, you know, came of age during the World War two era, which really very, you know, disruptive and all good kind of ways in this country. And but but as a young person, you know, his teachers, he had a questioning spirit. He was not a great student, but he always wanted to know why he had a, I think a kind of faith, religious faith that was truly humanitarian, I would say, you know, that so he had he had experiences and characteristics that I explored. And as he's growing up and coming into his adulthood. You know, again, these changes are happening in our country that great migration and the cities are changing. But anyhow, he, I guess, a few defining moments as he as he grows older. He, you know, went to college at Harvard and then his father sent him abroad as a to work for a newspaper just to get him exposure to, you know, life and what was happening in Europe after the war. And he was in the Middle East when Israel was founded and and he's reporting from the Middle East has like a 21 year old guy and talking to Palestinians and people, you know, fighting for a homeland and he really sees the complexity and listens to both sides and sees the challenges so he's someone who's open and curious and concerned about humanity across barriers, you know, I think it's worth, worth pointing out just again for people listening that the father Joe Kennedy, of course, was by then a very rich and famous figure who had been ambassador to the UK in the 1930s a controversial figure, was part of FDR's New Deal. And of course it's the Kennedy children who go on to this greatness of role in American life but both John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy as you said very early on were given opportunities by their dad. Go see the world. John Kennedy in Europe at the end of the 1930s then of course fighting in World War two and Robert Kennedy suddenly as a reporter at the birth of the state of Israel and the Middle East tribulations after World War two. So they're exposed to a broad world at a young age which makes it possible for them to become leaders at a remarkably young age. Very important point and they're seeing these anti colonial movements and struggles and and really seeing what they're about in terms of the poverty and and so open and I think and that's very important point you raised Jeff that they had the opportunity thanks to their father and their background to to have these experiences but they absorbed so much through that experience. And I guess one last thing I'll say about Kennedy before coming to the point of the book when he moves on to the national stage with his brother is that there was an incident at the University of Virginia 1951 that really was curious to me. He was a law student at UVA. And again, segregation was the law in the south. I mean you couldn't have not public meetings had to be segregated. It was just, you know, for listeners, especially younger listeners you and I sort of remember we were young as it broke up but segregation was so deeply entrenched and enforced. It was an apartheid society. It was an apartheid society. And so when he was at Virginia because of his trip to the Middle East. He was ahead of a law group that invited speakers, and Ralph Bunch had won the Nobel Peace Prize great African American political scientist he was a civil rights activist in his own right and now represented for the US to the un. And he won the Nobel Peace Prize for the settling the first Arab is really war for his role in that. So Kennedy invited him to come to UVA. And, and Ralph, a bunch that he would come, but only if it was not segregated. And so Kennedy said, okay, and he started to arrange that and it wasn't so easy because it was the law. And his professor said, Well, we'll put the signs up but people, you know, we want to force that you know, no signs I mean he said not. It's a text to the President of the University of Virginia it's a beautiful letter talking about QNACP cases talking about the war, and why Ralph Bunch would be welcome to the University of Virginia in openly, and Darden agreed, and 1500 people came. And so I'm going to go over African American first really from all I can find the first integrated meeting on the campus of the University of Virginia that size in 51 and we talked about that later and this is you know he didn't say oh well I did that he mentioned it like as an aside. It's an extraordinary thing by the way and it's part of the nap. I think if I might say part of the natural grace of Robert Kennedy that for him. Well, we'll have desegregated meeting it just seemed so natural. That's right it was the right thing to do you know even and, and, and he and Ralph Bunch and Ethel became lifelong friends I mean they had a space he stayed with a flamboyant newlyweds, because there was no place for this great Nobel Prize winning diplomat to stay in Charlottesville, you know all hotels was segregated. And so that just showed that he was open and when the opportunities presented but again he went through the 50s and worked in government and on Senate committees and and segregation was the norm and, and you know that was that but then he moves into national life. In a big way with his brother's campaign and, and as you point out Jeff his brother appoints him to be attorney general. At a moment when the Justice Department will be at the center of this revolution that is really taking off in the south with the city movement. He was appointed at age 36. I think, of course, Kennedy was, what are you doing, they asked the president he said I'm trying to get my, my kid brother some experience in the law. I think we would be horrified today if such a thing happened, the backlash would be enormous but at the time it seemed. Okay, the president wants a close advisor. So he puts in his kid brother and it seemed. It was a little controversial but it seemed. Okay, is that right is that fair to say. Yeah, you're right it was controversial you know people said well, isn't the spear experience and is meant for it. And what john can be said. He said that he, he ran his brothers said campaign 1952 and did a brilliant job and he said, he, no one, he gets the best people he can get the job done is no one better than him. And he also said, he knew race was going to be the major issue they were facing they didn't know the dimensions of it it's just kind of coming to the fore. And he said, the president said, we're going to have to change the climate in this country. I need someone I can trust, and they need someone who's going to tell me the truth. And he was so correct about his brother. But you're right there was pushback but Alexander Bickel who was one of the, you know he did a column in the nation. He came around very quickly and said, these people are public servants of the highest order, I mean the team he built in the Justice Department these amazing lawyers he brought in john door was there with Burke Marshall and who really, you know, what is incredible is that the people that he brought in became leading figures for 50 years onward. They became the preeminent moral leaders in the country for decades onward that is extraordinary actually it's not how normally the Justice Department works we're not going to remember the bar Justice Department for decades to come except for its abuses, perhaps but with RFK. This point I just maybe you could elaborate on a little bit he, he and john surrounded themselves with excellent people is just as a normal part of their strategy of leadership. And that is so important. You know we think of the Kennedy's my kind of figures and they get sort of detached from from their environment and that, you know they wanted the best people in terms of intelligence commitment to public service. You look at, you know, there was nothing quite like the Justice Department before or since I mean it was, that's one example but throughout the administration. And they were confident they wanted smart people around them they wanted people to argue with them, right to present different points of view, and to work that through in dealing with really huge challenges in terms of foreign policy and domestic policy. And it really is one of the great legacies as you point out because these people go on and they're involved in public life beyond this moment but but it's really to me was one of the great eye-opener as I as I looked at Robert Kennedy in the context of President Kennedy's administration. So the early 1960s. It seems a long way off but it's for those of us again who live through it but it seems so current completely because we continue to debate and be divided by these issues for decades afterwards up until today we're still debating race voting rights, and we're still pulling the works. It's, it is our, our daily lives in America. Can you help us understand your book does a beautiful job of it, the tensions and the drama of that period, especially as it hit RFK, who was the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot and it's, it's hard to imagine that the, the tense. Well, the profound divisions of that moment. When you compare it to that there's really interesting parallels. One thing just so cyber, what we spoke about earlier they also saw how white the administration was and they really began bringing in African Americans into government at all levels, and and acting acting as they could but like today, they function within a political context of Congress dominated by Southern Democrats deeply committed to segregation. And, and so it was a slight democratic majority but with all with these Southern Democrats who were opposed to any change. And at the same time this movement, you know like say just demanding, you know just this, not going to stop I mean African Americans have been struggling for decades but the sit ins really open things up and people around the country young people responded to the sit ins. So you have the sit ins, you have the Southern Democrats and then you have these encounters and in the south. I mean it's things happening in the north. I mean the freedom rights is a great example I mean, as soon as Robert Kennedy came in. He and Marshall, they put the Justice Department behind enforcing school desegregation rulings I mean Brown was decided seven years earlier, and very few schools integrated voting rights using just to just to remind all of the the listeners of Brown versus Board of Education was the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that said separate but equal education segregated education was inherently unequal and therefore inherently unconstitutional, but it had not been enforced. And in fact it would take decades of the debate and ranker about what enforcement meant. So in the early 60s the question of board versus Brown of Education in other words desegregating American schools was very high on the agenda and schools at all levels from elementary school to universities which did not have black students in the south. Yeah I mean some did but again you have those big conflicts under the Kennedy's Mississippi, Alabama and they pushed that through they insisted they enforced it and began using the tools they had to enforce voting rights and really working with SNCC people in the field who are getting people to go and try to register. But when the freedom rights came in 1961. What both Kennedy saw. They mean people who had supported them john Patterson is governor of Alabama. They saw that as these young people black and white attempted to ride to the south. Based on a Supreme Court willing said you could not segregate an interstate travel and the violence that met them, while the governor and the sort of basically condone it wouldn't would not interfere. And putting these lives at risk and really forcing the federal government to deal with the state federal issues and try to protect these writers and enforce the law. And when they got through Alabama where there were buses were firebomb mobs met these writers at bus stations. Robert Kennedy sent in federal marshals and really helped avoid a disaster at this mass meeting church where King was but, but at the end of that, he turned to john Dorn he said those fellows are at war with this country. Right, the governor, the local elected officials. And I sort of think about that today when we see what's tolerated, you know with what happened on January six I mean this. What do you do when law breaks down when when law enforcement people aren't enforcing law. So this is all churning. At the same time, Robert Kennedy is attentive to poverty in cities. And in 1961 he walks up to East Harlem and meets with some gang members. He's concerned about criminal justice issues and young people caught up in the criminal justice system, and really starts to see the deeper problems beyond just eliminated segregation in the south. What has happened in cities where African Americans have been migrating for decades and segregated living in poverty, poor schools and the rest. So all of this is in there on their plate and and and they're using I mean what impressed me they're finding ways tools to use to try to begin to deal with these problems and work with communities in addressing these problems and showing the federal government as an ally in the midst of resistance in Congress and all other kinds of roadblocks so it's sort of changing the dynamic. And really pressing them to figure out what they could do to get legislation through and really begin to turn the country around as john Kennedy said, change the climate in this country country that had been built on racial impact to the civil war, and with all these consequences. One of the two of the things that impressed me about all of it one is how much learning they went through and how much learning was needed because I think the grim realities of life in slum settings in poverty and in the deep south. It's not really known outside of those venues, not to not not to the Kennedys and not to so many people. There was a constant education, first of all, and also famously just as it's said to John F Kennedy in West Virginia primary in 1960 how his eyes were opened to the extreme poverty in the United States. They were both being on the ground and they were both politicians that soared but also were on the ground in the most local encounters, and so I think that that's extremely important. The other thing that is so striking about all of the events is both john and Robert Kennedy take in with such good faith. People will follow the law. This is the court said so so of course governor you will do the following. They don't want to bring the National Guard out they don't want to have to do these things they trust in the rule of law, but the other side does not play by the rule of law. This is part of the remarkable tension all along because not only is there the constraint of a Democratic Party divided between the racist the segregationists and and and the liberals and so it's hard enough to get votes, but in a fraught environment, the Kennedys both of them were constantly appealing. Can we just please do this in a civilized way. What are you doing to oppose a court order. They have to bring bayonets out onto the streets. And it's such a fascinating difficult period because they're, they're always pressing for the good will to prevail, but the good will doesn't always prevail. Well they're pressing for the good will to prevail but they're also enforcing the law. Yes, and but I think you know because again this before I wrote this book. I want to do more, you know, when you send in force, right, and these people like George Wallace and he's a famous name but so many other people resisting the law, I mean elected officials and public officials. They're appealing to the fears of, you know, they're really appealing to the fears and resentments of many white people, and that raises the tension, you know once you send in. I mean how do you bring people along, I mean you've got to enforce the law and protect in the case of Mississippi, James Meredith, but they knew James Meredith was going to enter the University of Mississippi, the court had ruled, and the governor. You know, and there was a riot, you know, I mean there was a massive riot on the campus, thousands of people, two people were killed. The governor did enter. The army did come, and we store order but it really showed the lengths that people would go to and help political, you know politicians so opportunistic and using these moments to build resistance, right to encourage people to let people think they don't have to follow the federal law. And I think it's a great lesson for today, because in the end they appeal to people, and they trusted the humanity of people. And I think if you read John Kennedy civil rights speech, the way they talk to our country to our fellow citizens is very powerful. But at the same time, they did what had to be done to push things forward, and they really supported and became aligned with the civil rights movement the black freedom movement they really. You know, because that was the energy in our country, which was really pushing for the enforcement of law for voting rights to open the country up just racially but democratically. And so the candies became sort of aligned with that effort and that was where the energy was coming to really push the country forward. So I think that combination of that sort of leadership in Washington, and the work of people on the ground. The black NY was a remarkable dynamic and it's really what gets us to the Civil Rights Act 1964 I mean that that sort of work. You mentioned the civil rights speech I want to encourage everybody to go online and listen to the speech on June 11 1963. I've listened to it. I think, perhaps 100 times or more. It's one of the most scintillating important speeches in American history by President, John F Kennedy. I know it in part because I wrote a book about a speech that he gave the day before, which is a speech on international peace, which I regard as one of the greatest speeches ever given by an American president about global cooperation. That was on June 10 1963 the American University commencement address and the very next day. It's another grand slam home run for American baseball fans. It's just unbelievably powerful speech where he says that the issues that we confront are as old as the scriptures and as clear as the American Constitution. He puts race, I think, for the first time really am I right, Pat, for the first time by an American president on the moral plane on this high moral plane, language that is stunning, still to listen to after more than half a century so I encourage everybody to listen to it. And I also they were scrambling so much in those two days. The speech wasn't even finished as the cameras went on at 7pm just as we were starting our assume the same way. And then President Kennedy was getting notes, and he improvised the end of the speech actually so the whole thing is unbelievable. And, you know, as they work for that he knew what he was going to say. He felt it, he knew it by then, after those years but you know it's it's a remarkable speech and with that speech he said, I will introduce major civil rights legislation. So segregation has no place in American life and you know that then that moves forward. Your book opens with a remarkable story of an encounter that Harry Belafonte arranges and James Baldwin arranges of Robert Kennedy, a few blocks from where I am right now. I was meeting Central Park South, where it actually turns into a pretty tense meeting, but I thought it was a perfect opener to explain the different points of view of America and the tensions, and this remarkable learning process could you paint the scene a bit because it is a remarkable story. The meeting, it is a remarkable story, it's sort of a pivot in the book and it's happens in late May 1963. And that is the high point Birmingham process a doctor King had orchestrated had exploded and people had seen the police dogs be turned on young protesters so the country, and there are protests throughout the country I mean things the lid had come off. And so, Robert Kennedy had an invitation to meet with James Baldwin he had read the fire next time he knew Baldwin's work, he really was impressed with how Baldwin captured the racial. More than problems you know this tensions and where we are we're like sort of the precipice throughout the country. So he meets with this group, and he's looking to them to help him. To understand what to do about the North, I mean they're moving on the South but so he's looking for advice, and a number of noted artists and public figures are there, and it's not a it's not a warm reception. Well it's not because, again, it reflects to me the moment. Yes. Kennedy comes in he knows a lot he knows things are really bad. And these folks come in and one of them is a freedom rider one of them is drum Smith who had been in the movement for three years and all of the violence and beatings. So he's like a soldier coming from the front lines, and he looks at Kennedy and what he sees Kennedy represents, you know, white America, the government and he just is angry that more hasn't been done. And Kennedy is trying to explain, you know what they're trying to do and they're, and the thing just goes off and it becomes an opportunity for people to unload on him as being representative of a politics that's too slow and, and it really is a painful I mean, kind of Clark said it was the most painful violent encounter. He'd ever been part of it went on for three hours, and halfway through Robert Kennedy stopped talking, and he just listened, and it was not pleasant. He captured the racial divide, and not him personally but what he represented and this opportunity to tell the second highest person in government, you tell him off, and what, what the problem was what they had, what especially with drums with So I mean, it was. And I think Baldwin said later it just represented this when white and black meet this kind of, you know they bring different experiences to the conversation. And it's very hard to get at a place where you totally understand each other. And it's all it's also the classic struggle. Kennedy saying we're doing our best politics is tired and the other and the, the African American leaders say sorry, that best is not accomplishing what we need. It's awful, and we can't wait. And it was of course, the ongoing great tension with Mark, Mark Luther King, also who is of course pushing, pushing, pushing. And the candidates are saying don't push so hard it's going to make it hard. And, and Martin Luther King said well we've been waiting hundreds of years, sorry. This is not the moment not to push. No, it really is a part of a much larger drama and sort of transition that's happening in the 60s. And, and I think what what I learned in writing this book is that both sides are correct and, but you know they had, they had a deal in the political reality of how do you get a bill through Congress you know the president can't just wave a wand. But I think this, you know, these encounters really show how tough it, it was and yeah they people should be impatient and demanding. Meanwhile, they're trying to do what they can do and I think the thing about King and we'll probably talk about this a little later but sometimes much more closely aligned he and Robert Kennedy around the issues of race and poverty as we move into the later night 1960s and even Baldwin looks back at Robert Kennedy after he dies and said he was someone in the 20th century with enough passion and energy and patients. He had a mind that could be reached. So I was going to say the next three years. The next five years, I should say, from the time of that speech to Robert Kennedy's death. It's, it's like a century of history in those five years I don't know if America's ever had such five tumultuous years between 1963 and 1968, perhaps never other than maybe the Civil War would be the only the only comparable period but in a limited time can you give us a sense of how history accelerated phenomenally both for the nation and for Robert Kennedy in in the period this of course is the core of the book. You know, it, but every day is like a lifetime live because of the drama and acceleration of change. Yeah, it's, well, you know the Civil Rights Act, which they put together and figure out the sort of getting they figure out how to get a strong civil rights bill through. But by then Robert Kennedy knew that needed a civil rights law that would end legal surrogation legally mandated surrogation, but that a law could not would never be sufficient to deal with the problems and the racial inequalities in this country. And he understood that and again he's in tune with what Baldwin's writing what he's seeing in cities, and in with the American public. And so, by the time John Kennedy goes to Texas. What will be the Civil Rights Act is written and ready, and the coalition that will get it through the Kennedy's really that's their act I mean Lyndon Johnson takes it to the finish line and signs it. And that's in place and to me that's very important in two and a half years, they had figured out and put together a strategy for getting a major civil rights bill through that we would have signed in July of 64. But after the bill was signed. I mean within two weeks of the signing of the Civil Rights Act Harlem explodes, right, a police shooting of a 15 year old high school students. Just sets things off and with this encounter between police and when you have sort of an uprising that lasts for several days. And there are several that summer which really are an expression of frustration and anger about the conditions in these encounters or these uprising are triggered by an incident with the police but it really is much deeper. And so as we get the Civil Rights Act we're moving into that territory. And then next year after the voting rights act. You have the major Watts uprising in August of 65 by this time Kennedy understands Robert Kennedy understands what this is about. And in the immediate and he's prepared again he's seeing it, you know, 63 he and John Kennedy both talk about 100 years. You know, of delay, linking us back to reconstruction and the amendments that secured citizenship and voting rights for African Americans. It's totally undone by segregation and what happens around the country. So this is all bursting forth and so the damn burst the 100 years of delay explodes in all of the economic, social, racial, political, everything, every possible cleavage in society in exactly that period. And that wasn't just a southern thing at all, you know, it was national and and and again right after these acts come almost some, you get these uprisings in in cities and after Watts. Many politicians started to call for law and order that was their response just immediately and Robert Kennedy said, how can you ask me grows the term use them. How can you ask African Americans to obey the law and the law is used against them. And he wasn't just talking about policing. He's talking about landlords that cheated people merchants that cheated people, you know, just not having access. He said the law doesn't mean the same to black people as it does to white people. And these conditions, we have to face them. And I think what's fascinating about this volatile period is that many people shared that, and they thought there was an opening to begin to deal with the deep consequences of racial segregation, particularly as it was played out in these cities before it had been serrated into ghetto conditions with terrible housing, no good access to education high unemployment and young people just seeing no way out. And what's to me interesting about that if you follow Robert Kennedy you see the people trying to address these issues Dr King being a major one who goes to Chicago, and seeing the interconnection between race and poverty and economic justice. And in 66 which is a really interesting year that I wrote about as you say Jeff there's something happening almost every day but, but the, you know hearings in the Senate field hearings out going around exposing these conditions. And the sense that they could turn things in a new direction. I mean there was really a feeling that that could happen, because you know the civil rights struggle which ignited young act activism throughout the country, unlike any period since the was a tremendous energy in our country to address these issues to work to end poverty to work to end racial discrimination. So even though by the end of the 60s things have really taken a really bad turn. There's great hope and people like Robert Kennedy devoting his effort and working with people as you say he was had a capacity to attract people find people who were shared these concerns and really build try to build a new kind of politics that was pushing against this rising white backlash. So I think that it's important. It's, it is remarkable. And I think we should highlight it, the fact that the race issues and the civil rights movement and ending desegregation and the jury discrimination was brought to see the economic linkages and the foreign policy linkages and the military linkages because one of one of the incredible developments for Robert, as with Mark Luther King was that the Vietnam War was drawn into this. The global scene. Robert Kennedy takes a remarkable trip to South Africa in 1966. But there's a war going on at the same time the US war in Vietnam, could you talk about how the agenda just kept becoming larger and larger it was incredible. No, it's all those points is so critical just briefly the war the Vietnam War I mean when Lyndon Johnson becomes president, the war becomes an American war we send ground troops I mean the war has been going on American involvement escalating across decades but after 64 it really becomes an American war and and so there's the war and was it protesting as war and then the war is taking the money that should be going to anti poverty programs. As Dr King said the bombs in Vietnam are exploding at home. Right. So you have a shrinking anti poverty program as as the cities are really demanding and needing this attention, and the Vietnam War is it's terrible I mean you know and Kennedy and King both see the immorality of that war. And so their resistance, their efforts to fight racism and poverty, also put them on the front lines of opposing America's war in Vietnam and challenging directly challenging it and aligning with the anti war movement which is growing during this period. So there's tremendous. It's so poignant by the way because Martin Luther King's advisors are telling him don't get into that, Martin, you know it's already complicated enough you have enough problems with poor people with racial discrimination now you're going to take on the Vietnam war. And he goes just a few blocks for where I am in the northern direction Riverside Church, and gives an incredible speech saying we cannot solve our problems of justice at home. If we are fighting an unjust war abroad, and Robert reaches the same conclusions. And so they tie together the politics in the most incredible way. If I might I wanted to also read, because in my work I spent a lot of time on issues of environment, of course, and sustainable development, and we bemoan the narrow economic focus. This is again where Robert Kennedy said the most beautiful thing ever said about the issue of how we need a broad vision and measurement of what we're after. If I could just say for listeners because it's another great speech that he gave in the 1968 presidential campaign, when he talked about the gross national product, which we use as our measurement after all for what's good but listen to Robert Kennedy's words everybody when he says yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages the intelligence for our public debate, or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage nor our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion, nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. Unbelievable. It's just gives me goosebumps. It gives me goosebumps reading it. So true. No, he really got to the heart of the matter and and use his platforms to, to reach people and explain it in that way. I mean that is a powerful way to think about, you know, and he also talked about life is short, even when it's long, you know, we're here and how do we want to live together. What kind of society do we want to really live in and and really important questions in this moment. Jeff you mentioned the trip to South Africa and I think, you know, Kennedy did have a global vision and as he as Mary and right Edelman said about him, he went, he saw, he listened, he grew. He was a Latin America as a senator, and really got at walked around I mean saw, you know, US policy and the poverty, and the trip to South Africa is, is a great film about it. But he was invited by students you know students involved in the anti apartheid movement. The government didn't want him to come, but they figured they better let him because he might be present someday. But he couldn't bring any US press with him. And he spent five days. Yeah, so they didn't know that interesting. They wouldn't let King come King was invited they said absolutely not no visa, but they let Robert Kennedy come in that five days. And he talked about our countries and he related what our country had gone through was going through in terms of racial inequality and South Africa and the power of resistance and protest, you know, I mean, those things were really dark when he went there 1966, and he was 6566. But, you know, and the students who brought him said that, I mean he just, he went everywhere he talked to everyone as market market, he said it straight he went straight to the people. This, this government officials wouldn't meet with him anyway but, and he gave some remarkable speeches but speeches that really spoke about, you know, acknowledging the challenges but the nature of the struggle and the importance of it and she said words like justice, dignity, democracy, things we had not heard for an eternity. So that, and by the end of his speech. I mean his trip, everybody was coming out to see him, you know, Africana is I mean he reached out and touch everyone and really surprised people. They thought it would be a political no it was he was going to see and embrace and and connect and talk about what matters for human beings and our connectedness and and about race and the barriers of race and the and the really destructiveness of that. So, he moved on a world stage yeah. Could you say a word about, for me, just unbelievably powerful and poignant remarks that he gave in Indianapolis the night that Martin Luther King was was killed because I can't recall another impromptu set of remarks, anywhere in any context is powerful as those words that night well but by that month, April of 68. He is in Indiana running for president running. And he heard, he was flying to Bloomington, I mean, Indianapolis from Muncie and they got word that Dr came and shot in Memphis. And when they landed in Indianapolis they found that he was, he was dead. And Robert Kennedy was just everybody was just shocking and john Lewis the great civil rights leader had set up a meeting for Robert Kennedy in the African American community in Indianapolis, serrated separate. And so he gets off the plane and the police chief said you can't go there it's not safe. And Robert Kennedy said, if you don't feel safe, going he said my family and I could go to that community and lay down on the street and go to sleep and be perfectly safe. If you feel safe, that's your problem. We're going. And he said to the hotel. And, and the amazing thing for your list I mean, you know back then no cell phones, people had not heard, most people had not heard that Dr King was killed. These people gathered waiting for him some people on the edges had heard, most people have not heard. And when he by the time he got that was dark but not at night. He got on the back of a flatbed truck, and he asked somebody have they heard and they said no. And he told them. And it's just this is film people can watch this you hear the gasp in the crowd. That shocking gasp because he they're cheering him and he's saying quiet quiet and they're cheering and he says quiet, and then he tells them and there's a this audible gasp, and then silence, and then silence. And then he talks about Dr King, and what Dr King represented, and what direction we were going to go in. You know what is sort of a moment of choice in it. Such a horrific time and he understood it's the first time he ever mentioned his brothers and only time in public. He mentioned his brother's assassination, because he said to the mostly African American crowd. It seems that a white man did this. And you may want to feel angry towards all white people, but I had lost someone close to me and he was killed by a white person. We can go into greater division, or we can try to come together. And it just, and again he really pulled on King's life and what King represented. And, and what we as a country, black and white had to really do to move forward, and it was, I mean, people at that speech, John Lewis writes about in his memoir I mean it just, it just pulled people in. And, and gave them a sense of hope in a really horrible moment of loss mean deep loss. And people you know there was not. There were no uprisings in Indianapolis in the wake of King's assassination but across the country cities just exploded. But it was. They could unite people. This is you could unite people and in a real way JFK and RFK both of them could inspire people to their greater, their greater, greater side and to the common good. No, exactly at that night, but that moment was the testing point. Yeah, actually that was one of the moments I had read about that made me think about Robert Kennedy in terms of this era. So when I wrote this book by the time I got to that I really iconic moment I understood, you know, who he was, and his ability, no notes, he just got up and spoke from his heart to the people, and really say a prayer for our country, and for the family of more Pat in our remaining minutes. I don't want to say so where are we today, because that will take us for hours to go. But can I ask you, you're a professor at University of South Carolina South Carolina has played a role in these struggles for centuries it was the center of the controversy. It is has had a history of sending some of the most racist to people to the US. What is the, what is the situation today from the vantage point of South Carolina looking outward to our divided country, are we going to pull through. How can we unite where can RFK's vision. Take us beyond the divisions. You know, I mean South Korea is a great example of stuff right now in Massachusetts, you're in Massachusetts. Yeah, no, no, no, but I teach in South Carolina, but you know, South Korea had amazing civil rights for over there and leadership that came out of the black community in South Carolina, but I where I take hope is what we saw in Georgia. We have to get to work ourselves. I mean, I don't know how terrible things are and they're pretty bad. But what are you going to do and that was Robert Kennedy, you know people remember his speeches but what's supposed to is what he did. He said people like me can go around giving nice speeches that's great, because but what are we going to do and then he did the Bedford Stuyvesant project to try to work with that community. So I think that's the lesson is that, you know the 60s are very challenging times, and people found a way to act. And even though we didn't change everything, it really left a legacy made critical openings and showed us it's a long haul, right. I mean, but I think what they did in Georgia and some of these organizing voters grassroots, building, building, moving and South Carolina is a small state so I really need to get busy because you know, there are a lot of good people in South Carolina and that's what the Kennedy's understood there are good people everywhere how do you get them motivated to take responsibility, take action. And that's our that's our greatest hope and I think that is the most powerful legacy of this history is in their time, what they faced, how they moved and interacted and did what they could. And we all are in, you know, everybody has to be part of this. I mean they understood that from Washington, you know, building support for the Civil Rights Act. So I think in South Carolina you've given me a challenge here, but to even work harder, because I think what we saw in Georgia can be duplicated if we get really work hard continuously on civic engagement, voting political participation. And also just education that people need to understand history as Baldwin said, if you don't understand what happened behind you, you have no idea what's going on around you. I think that's also Pat on behalf of everybody, let me thank you for helping us understand what happened behind us so that we can understand what's going on around us. This is a wonderful book, and you've given us, I think a very practical and powerful message from the book to get active to work for social justice to build on on the legacies of what Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy and Martin Luther King and the other Malcolm X and the other leaders of the 1960s contributed to creating a country that we want. This is a fantastic read so please everybody, justice rising Robert Kennedy's America in black and white path it's a privilege to have you with us I want to thank you on behalf of all of the listeners. And I'd like to let everybody know that our next conversation will continue in a way with the chronological history of the US because we're going to be speaking with the Rick Perlstein, who is writing a fantastic series of books that take us through the white backlash era if I might from the election of Richard Nixon through the 1970s and we're going to be talking about his book Reagan land America's right turn 1976 to 1980 so this is another swing of the pendulum that we're going to be talking about, but very important for us to understand our situation today so that is on 27th of July, please join and once again pat thank you so much for the privilege of spending an hour talking about your wonderful book. Thank you so much and thanks to all who tuned in and thanks very much Jeff. Great to be with you.