Transcripts For CSPAN2 Daniel Brook The Accident Of Color 20240714

This audience really merits it. I thought maybe one day if i write this book and people notice it maybe one day the mayor of charleston will be holding it in front of an audience, a packed house. This is what happened one week after the book was released. Its truly beyond my wildest dreams. The book tells the story of reconstruction and im going to read some passages from it some of which you will see from the Police Department some that deal with the mayor and the current mayor here. The point is we are all heirs to something. We have no say. We are born where we are and we have no say in what we inherit and all we have control of his will he do with it. We can recount some of the triumphs and some of the greatest tragedies but i think moving on from the tragedy of 2015 you created this group. You decided intentionally to create the space word difficult issues in the community could be discussed. It would have been easy and very human to say the murder was not from charleston, you have to worry about it. Im sure people in virginia and North Carolina said thats a tragedy but that South Carolina. Im sure people in new england in the Pacific Northwest dont have these tragedies but thats a south. Shirking responsibilities the easiest thing to do. Making an intentional effort to learn from mistakes is a brave thing and im honored and humbled to be part of this. Reverend kelly generously offered a prayer on my behalf. The first reconciliation workshop that im leading and on cspan so here we go. Im going to explain or a series of images how i came to write the book. Im going to introduce some of the characters, and characters being a nonfiction writer real people who appear in the book and im going to try to explain the thesis of my book which is reconstruction achieves its greatest accomplishment in new orleans in charleston for a reason. These had blurry color lines coming out of the early years and blurry carl r. Lines going to the civil war blurry in the sense that there were many people who were openly mixed races but also misses that there were Many International immigrants. Both cities have large influxes of agents. New orleans famously had southern europeans from france and spain. The city had a very large Jewish Population and it had a continuing color on the city streets that made it very difficult to categorize people in a white quote unquote colors. Following my audiovisual presentation i think you understand we will go to the workshop. In the workshop i pull no punches. I decided to send you the questions that i myself am struggling with. The hardest question is not the easiest question when i sent them to reverend kelly i said you know maybe this is not the direction we should go in and they both said no, this is the direction we should go in. This group is ready for that. This group has been working on these issues for years and if any group can handle these questions it is this group. I just want to turn so i can see my own slides. As you can see one description of my book is a technical history of the first of our Rights Movement and its collapse into black and white. Now let me explain how i came to write the book. Im the son of a mixed marriage. My mother is from brooklyn and my fathers from birmingham. [laughter] i grew up with the new orleans accent. A move to new orleans in 2011. Somewhat randomly i have a lot of family in birmingham and atlanta. I have a small family that stan chin cheslie tangy inches leeward related to me in new orleans. I moved there once and i had a residency position at the university of nevada las vegas and i decided i was never going to live anywhere in winter again i moved to new orleans in 2011 decided need to educate itself about the history of the city. I had seen eyes on the prize growing up as a kid on pbs. Dissidents in nashville to the little rock segregation Tuscaloosa University of alabama i didnt spend much time in new orleans but i knew about school this segregation was a major fault line in the city at the time soil and to j store a Search Engine for social science and history in the put in new orleans in School Desegregation but i came up with over 199 of which were about the 1960s and one of which was about the 1870s. I was intrigued. I had no idea that new Orleans Schools were disfigured desegregated and thats the one i clicked and i came up with this paper published in the american Historical Review in 1962 by a man who is an associate professor at the university of cincinnati named louis r. Harlan. The article is called the segregation in new orleans Public Schools during reconstruction ended this publication specifically are publishers of the meghans transcolors it begins with the line it is a fact not generally known even to a story is new orleans Public Schools during reconstruction. Not underwent substantial segregation until after 1954. Intrigued i read on. I thought what else dont i know and i came across this article from the state publication. Needs no introduction is grew. The article is written by an africanamerican alumnus of the university of South Carolina during its Integration Period during reconstruction. Again my father is an alum of the university of alabama but i thought i knew the history of university desegregation in the United States. I did not. What else dont i know . I dont know the police force in charleston and new orleans were desegregated in this period. Didnt know that the streetcar systems in both cities were desegregated and i decided i should really read a book about the subject. Thats a pretty big gap in my knowledge and it turned out there was no book. If you want to read this book you are going to have to write protect this project on an didnt realize i had bitten off more than i could chew by when to university of new orleans. The district was disaggregated during reconstruction so i can read the record from us period and i came across this ledger book. This cell phone snapshot would like to read it to you. The new Orleans School district from the year 1862 to 1863 correspondence from 1865 to 1870 and then 1877 to 1878. The period i want to read about was from 1870 to 1877 exactly the period that was missing and literal in the book which is the root in single hand by secretaries at the time with the incoming and outgoing correspondence of the school board, their Meeting Minutes etc. It goes from page 399 in 1870 and you flip it to page 400 and its 1877. I thought oh god what have i gotten myself into . Similarly i went to Columbia University of South Carolina and i came across this. This is the book of the student debating society and for this integrated period it had been pictograph of the tombstone and the word may grow on every page partially obscuring the records of the debate. Luckily you cannot fully disappear and i met an event in america, at least not yet the events were very controversial at the time. They were covered widely in a wide variety of newspapers. Both charleston new orleans in colombia and other cities have a media rich environment word different communities have their own newspapers by language, race class, political outlook and i was able to read about each event from different perspectives in an effort to reconstruct the events from the newspaper account. The National Maybe media was upset with this. They got the story on what had taken place. Harper has the story of the desegregation of the new orleans Public Schools. The nation covered this in the africanamerican abolitionist press is covering it to the new national era covering this. The liberator the abolitionist era covered these events and we also have the Court Records which are very well preserved to both the appellate decisions where judges explain into what decision they are making and wide and more adjusting the Court Transcripts the answers the witnesses ask them particularly in a series of civil rights cases from 1870s coming out of new orleans the civil rights activist keeps on most playing a game but with a purpose. They ironically need of a segregationist about what exactly is raise . What is a white man in what is a man brags how do you know what race i am . How do i know what race i am . My grandparents were gone before i was born and the grandpa who told the family stories was really unreliable. My moms from cuba. People there are tan and brown. They are not white and black and they asked her what she was. She said im cuban, i dont know what am i . Over and over i kept coming back to new orleans in charleston is the focus of my story. Now a selection from the book. The four american independence charleston was more closely linked to caribbean is another angloamerican outpost. Between 1670 in 1730 immigrants from barbados not england and many of them were transplanted soap and the island future carolinians have an art notions of race number, and the rest of colonial america. Latin american system was still a racist one. The lighter one was the better. Green eyes trump brown eyes and live is easy with tan skin the brown skin but in the new world there was precious little. He paid with people from all continents living jumbled together for generations virtually everyone was mixed in the only question was whether the particular proportion of ones mixture were. In charleston with its caribbean outlook mixing with more openly to knowledge than elsewhere. When a 1736 editorial in the South Carolina gazette said a mixedrace relationship should not the flaunted quote certain young white men should frequent the open lots of the city. Took less than a week to published. Why needed trouble you . The blackwhite binary with was matched to american realities where lines droop warier with each generation but in charleston it was particularly an anathema. After the nation was founded the caribbean carolinas waited in 179015 years into american alignment with most receded congregation in charleston where mixedrace relatives that were shipped in the same ref announced it was prohibiting mixedrace people from being varied in the church gravure. In response to the churches decree that they were good enough to worship and even marry in a church but not good enough to be buried there mixedrace relatives in charleston leading white families organize themselves into separate sub congregation for Brown Fellowship Society. By october 1790 for the Brown Fellowship Society to raise enough money to purchase a plot of land uses a Burial Ground solving the immediate crisis that sparked its founding and it threw open the new cemetery to the entire community of charleston taking on broad responsibility over time. The society found a school a credit Union Organizer Life Insurance fund. For all the institutions they created the Brown Fellowship Society created a community itself that the site society made communal identity elevating it into a category at least with the city limits of charleston or by doing so the originators hoped to carve out a space for their community and the social and political minefield that was free and mixedrace in america with black and white order. This is an image of new orleans streetcar called the star car. Under the system of segregation in new orleans at the time of the civil war africanamerican passengers were only permitted to board cars. In charleston the system if anything was even worse. Africanamerican passengers after the civil war in charleston were expected to pay the fare in the streetcar and exit the car on the outside and not permitted to ride on the inside of any car. That was until one woman and sadly we have no photographs, took a stand. On april 17, 1867 the complaint materialized at the local Freedmens Bureaus office filed by mary p. Bowers and africanamerican who have been forced off of the streetcar. In an impeccably written statement powers recounted their rage preacher previously written the streetcar system without incident she explained. This time when she boarded the conductor objected. Being quote very and well and much fatigue from a long walk she nonetheless took his seat. Bowers found itself next to doctor one of most respectable positions with no actions to her present through the conductor refused to drive the car with her and it. As tensions rose the said she was to respectable the woman to create a disturbance in the streetcar. She for the fact that my being a respectable person is my position to being able to ride. Barrett decided to give now but she vowed she would see the conductor in court. As i am dictating the gentleman from their business in the children from their male time i will leave the car but for no other receipts she told them but if theres anyway i will make you pay for it. Little is known of barretts biography by from our session should read in a few many times before that incident and the descriptions of her in a white car is respectable it was likely she was free before the civil war intermixed ancestry but her categorization and arab binary system is unclear. Quote respectfully applying for redress strongly suggest shes illiterate and uneducated. Her count stands in stark contrast to most Freedmens Bureau complaints. In a time when Educational Opportunities for women were limited and patriarchal Family Structure is the norm. Biracial women. Antebellum census form vastly overrepresented the jobs requiring literacy and special training. Including positions of School Principals nurses and midwives. The system in new orleans and duration of committed relationships and is less formalized analog in charleston resulted in three woman of color living as heads of household where heads of household were rare. After mary bauer said the complaint to the Freedmens Bureau the streetcars of charleston are desegregated. They would not be resegregated officially for another 45 years. By the time they are resegregated 1912 terror fuel men and old women in town they can even remember the streetcars had ever been segregated before. In new orleans at this very time literary of the same weeks in the spring of 1867 there are demands from africanamerican passengers to desegregate the streetcars. Its a large rally on congo square and if you know new orleans you know this is the historically africanamerican gathering space just outside of the French Quarter and facing protest the Streetcar Company president has to resolve the crisis. The leader of the st. Charles avenue streetcar the most famous of all the lines is this man retired confederate general beauregard. He has no on locally i believe that the man who ordered the first shot fired on fort sumter. He was born on a plantation on a slave plantation 15 miles from new orleans and after the war he moves back home to go into business. One of the first things that happens to him when he comes back to new orleans after the war he gets called the n word on the streets of new orleans. A man accuses him of being the n word ive always known. Ive always known you people and he did not respond. He walks home to his mother. The beauregard family is insistent that they are of pure european dissent mixed with french and italian and yet of the streetcar presidency is the one that is the most eager to meet hactivists in desegregate. He gives the quote that becomes the title of the book. He says when you are riding the streetcars of new orleans you are riding with gamblers and others and the accident of color. The fact as youll see he is one of my characters played a role of becoming an unlikely but very important civil rights activist in this period. In charleston that please force was integrated in 1868 with the opponent richard halloway shown here a member of one of the citys leading families. He joins the ranks them by 1870 over 40 of the Charleston Police were men of color. When script is correspondent visited charleston native 73 informed his readers that quote the prison please force the city is equally divided into blackandwhite and one may know black and white policeman terms of amity. Six years earlier white officers were simply riding the city streetcars. This man i think is a local renowned frances luis cardozo. He is a mixture, hes part africanamerican part sephardic jewish and part native american. I think his identity he almost sounds like a millennials. He is born around 1830 and his identity crosses these lines that we generally think of as mutually exclusive. You can be white or black preview can be christian or jewish. You can be the grandson of immigrants are an indigenous person. You can be the grandson of immigrants or people brought to the country in the belly of a plane ship. He is all of these things simultaneously and hes very adamant because his live is integrated education is the chair of the Education Committee at the 1868 so Carolina Constitutional Commission to make sure there is a plank plakon desegregation the constitution. When he gets himself elected for secretary of state and secretary of treasury moves to columbia with a click of activist largely from trust and he makes desegregating the university of South Carolina major goal of his one of the ways he does it as he recruits the faculty for the university and the great hiring crew is this man who richard t. Greene in the first nonwhite regelin of harvard. Greener is of mixed africanamerican heritage. The spanish family moved from spain to puerto rican from puerto rico to the mainland. The impetus behind hiring mr. Greener is that cardozo and the other to segregate or so the university know the eyes of the nation will be upon this universe than they need to prove integrated education can work and what better way than to have faculty members for such unimpeachable qualifications. That summertime got me in the mood. On october 7, 1873 the proud bearing of the charles tony and entered the University Library whose light a bust of rubber why he and the deceased former charleston mayor South Carolina governor and u. S. Senator and henrys white uncle shown to the right look down on the proceedings of the biracial message signing to the enrolled medical student in response to white medical student from columbia marched to the ledger and struck out his own name from the registration book defacing the volume in the process. Several other white students followed suit the mla crossing out their names and thereby dropping out of school. When scribners monthly correspondent arrived he noticed the enduring contrast between the campus and the events that were racking it. Nestled in a tree clad part gives the visitor the impression that he is visiting a academe rather than a per cure capitol. Remarkably the northern correspondent noticed us of rubber why he and in the library but failed to make the connection between the haines stature and the pains to note in quote the bust is john c. Calhoun and why he in look down in astonishment and leaving it at that. Many northerners assume when africanamerican share a last name of leading white southern families it was because they or their ancestors had and owned by those families as slaves not because they were biologically part of those families or both. White southerners disabused yankees at this notion and actively dissemble to the columbia daily phoenix greeted with a 14foot that said robert y. Hayne died the year before his mixedrace nephew was born so theres no telling how he would agree to me to create matriculation either publicly or privately but for haynes white cousin Paul Hamilton hanson met the once avoided the connected them to the complete strangers among the caucasian population outweighed his blood ties to henry. Not long after his biracial cousin had elected secretary of state in the radical republicans with of the teen 72 all railed in a letter. In the wake of henry haines enrollment medical professors tended their recognize resignation in protest. In response the board of trustees put out a statement this board except the resignation place upon record their conviction that the resignations of these gentlemen were caused by the admission of the state of the medical department of the arable haynes at person of your approachable character against professors can give no objection except in their opinion his race in recognizing this is the cause of the resignations this war cannot regret is hostile to the welfare of our state as well as the dictations of justice and claims of our common humanity would no longer be representative the university which is the Common Property of all of our persons without distinction. It went out of its way to the objection of quote in their opinion his race. After all henry gaines was described in the press as being quote as wide as any of his ancestors. In a state filled with people if such mixed i think some of you may recognize this picture. In 1876 when reconstruction collapses and the color line gets stricter and stricter in 1876 believing church of the Charleston Brown st. Marks attempted to join in South Carolina or the white leadership of the mainline church resisted. At the diocese they were a convention of representative saying marx made a thinlyveiled argument that his competition was ostracized not in spite of his blood relationships but because of them. Quote i attribute a great deal of favre present depression representative explained to the fact that we have been so closely allied with wealth in times past and with the social position which usually companies especially h. It well. Even with this careful circlet fusion understood all and somebody met when he spoke of congregation members close alliance with beijing wealth. The churchs application was rejected. The dais diocese would be for white parishioners only. As rights became more racebased Police Departments were turned back back and always forces. In 1890s most places that desegregated their forces during reconstruction had resegregating them sometimes with violence. In texas the clan bragged it hunted down and killed every africanamerican member of the reconstruction era of state police. In charleston resegregation move slowly but inexorably. A new chief fired james borden and the highest ranking africanamerican. By the early 20th century the number of afghan american officers to become the one hand when they retire they were replaced by whites. When resegregation was finally complete most moving had never known an never known in no way forced to for the city force was africanamerican even after the reestablishment of white supremacist rule in the state in 1878 Charleston Police had remained one third men of color. In new orleans the core was resegregating in similar fashion departments stopped hiring africanamerican officers and pressured others to resign a widget for the final reconstruction era to a chapter ball nearly 200 africanamericans were serving during the height of reconstruction by 1880 there were 60 in 1890, 25 and 1900, five. In 1909 the last two africanamerican officers died in the 19 tend federal census showed not a single africanamerican Police Officer in the entire south. The final rollback of integration took place where it had all begun on the streetcars. Only in 1912 to the state legislature contribute a bill requiring cities of 30,000 inhabitants or more a category that included only charleston segregate passengers yes a lot of this book come you dont know whether to laugh or cry or laugh until you cry. Theres a lot of absurdity in it but very painful. Segregation was the judges that youre the chosen city counsel to require separate white and sections in the same streetcar. The mayor at the time couple he came out in support of the streaker Company President quote unquote flexible plan which whites would be seated in the front and africanamericans in the rear of the visible grounds that a quote was not likely to cause any proms because it would give a fair amount of city rant to the measure was amended in accordance with the mayors request passed and signed. As in new orleans adjudicating race on the fly in charleston prove difficult. The Charleston Brown committee had ceased to identify on the grounds that didnt make their skin tones in a less ambiguous. Testani and began speaking of black maker is a white. As a memoir of one called at one time a lot those who look like white people could do with a onetwo in charleston but after the jim crow laws made everything strict they got to the place where they needed to identify themselves as a race. Even after formal protest a combination of intimidation and helplessness mixed race people relish the chance to highlight this absurdity pays the memoirs were counsel ways to get together in pairs of black and white young women and board a streetcar. Keep laughing and talking took your money and walked past the conductor anon salon. Dont notice looking at it dont even notice that is looking. We would go halfway down the streetcar when when nobody else is sitting in take seats. Now the conductor would start to fidget on the white passengers looked at the conduct or bearing down on the conductor because it was his streetcar. On his streetcar he was to uphold jim crow on behalf of all white people. The pressure on him got worse with each new woman and child without unlooked until he couldnt take it. You dont belong back there with the. The first time the conductor said anything we pretended not to know who it was however when he finally did Say Something to game was almost over. Last he would stop and tell us you girls at the way youre supposed to. They would both get together and walked to the very last seat in the back that was empty. The black people in the back chuckle but there wasnt much any buddy to dubai. We never said anything disrespectful and we obey the law to the letter. That didnt make it in as less binding. It became most important factor in every americans life. W. E. B. Dubois a french african and american descent would write we are also thoroughly mixed and yet the black man as a person who jim crow in georgia. The bitter joke was there was no scientific reality of race in the social reality of racism through with racebased rights now the lava lamp racism was real even if race was not. The epilogue of my book traces some of these families, mixedrace families into the jim crow era and you see a pattern of bisson meant. But to some it can work in different ways. In the cardozo family via next side which incidentally is openly jewish and latino but now in this white category rises higher and higher. By 1932 Benjamin Nathan cardozo is appointed to the United States Supreme Court in washington d. C. Meanwhile across town his cousins from the openly mixed side are running the cardozo sisters hairstylists operation in the red line neighborhood near howard university. Both sides of the cardozo family are excelling but they are excelling in different competitions. One for the mixedrace side the heist accomplishment is owning a successful Small Business and for the white side the highest is being appointed to the u. S. Supreme court. You also have a system that is between generations. Here you have richard c. Greener and you saw the first nonwhite graduate of harvard and the first nonwhite professor at the university of South Carolina. His daughter who takes the name bill Dacosta Greene passes herself off as a woman of portuguese descent and she moves to new york city and she becomes a librarian for jpmorgan. Its ever been to the jpmorgan library in manhattan its one of americas, probably americas first great collections of european illuminated manuscripts and its written by this woman bill Dacosta Greene to this photo here is from in omaha newspaper in the 20s that was doing a series on professional women of incredible accomplishing navinder seller at the time was over 300,000 which is not bad for a library and even today. But the price she pays is that she cannot acknowledge her own father and man and a daughter you would think would be incredibly proud to have as a father. Even worse a story i came across a new orleans where the famed plaintiff who took the case to the Supreme Court to attempt to have separate but equal rules unconstitutional is the great great grandson active in civil rights circles and is trying to tell the story of his illustrious ancestors. Homer plessy is categorized as someone of roughly southern european greatgrandparents and one african great grandparent of the African Newspaper described him as quote as white as the average white southerner and the 1920 census identifies him as a white man. As his descendents tell the story of the years in the 40s and 50s after the attack his descendents would have families and the children would come out different colors but sometimes the lightskinned children would move to the suburbs and mary whites and lead a white life to sony the africanamerican siblings and their families in the city. Maybe its the most painful way that this can work that i want to close with this man who i think is wellknown in this community, Reverend Richard harvey kaine, the refounder of the Mother Emanuel Church after the civil war. I dont know if everyone in the community is aware of his ancestry. Hes the sun of a father born in africa and the cherokee mother who presumably is half african and half native american. He is elected from the district to the United States congress. He offers this benediction on the floor of congress in 1874. I believe god designed us to live here together on this continent to develop this great idea that all men are the children of one father. We are here to work out the grand assignment in the homogeneity of the nation. Its a beautiful sentiment and given his own background its even more moving. At this point i think we will move directly into the workshop period. [applause] race work is work. It really is work and when we began looking, you can rest for while. Lets go to the next slide. When we began looking at this whole notion of the accident of color if awareness has been constructive in this country, cant we uncreated it or it it through your own intentional effort in her fierce to make certain that we are based on the quote that we heard from kaine just a minute ago, are all one Big Happy Family in god. Here we find a quote from James Baldwin. It is not a romantic matter, it is the unutterable truth, all men are brothers. Thats the bottom line. If you cant take it from there, you can take it at all. Now the chief and i always say we are brothers are it every time we introduce ourselves to others we really have become so close, we are not kidding, really. It was by accident. Was not on purpose. We were thrown together and as a result god did the rest. The same is true for us tonight. Sometimes we find ourselves will riding in a squad car was someone else you think its an accidental thing that there may be some intentional design for you to truly get to know that individual and the person could be in the backseat and give you a context whereby you were able to have empathy, compassion and it pushes you beyond the limit so that you might able to grow. This sunday at mt. Zion ame church which is the Daughter Church of mother emanuel, some eight years after kaine made this comment in congress and was the pastor of mother emanuel during reconstruction eight years later the pastor of that church led hundreds of members from emanuel, walked away from that wooden structure to found the first brick structure owned by blacks in charleston right next door in 1882. On sunday in that very same building with that history, we will have the reunion of the middle tens of charleston as a part of the festivities emanating from middleton plays. Im a middleton, you know and because im a middleton market cash is here and she is a middleton two. Because we are middleton and the Middleton Committee from the Middleton Place activities decided they were going to the church of the middleton and they chose mt. Zion because i was the pastor so they will be here sunday. All of the middletons white and black and then we are going to go back to Middleton Place. We can call the plantation anymore you know and then we are going to go back to middleton at 3 00 where we will polmann ate that reunion for the serious about it is that we are having as one grand big family. Lets go to the next slide and the next. Terror facilitators at every table. Facilitators pulled up your hand because we want people to know who you are. With they are there to help ensure that everyone in your area has an opportunity to speak but they will keep track of time but im going to give up a time down opportunity to have a discussion. They will explain and three besides what im explaining at the front of the room and they will record mentally but many of us because we are going to have a different format will report out from our table the things that we wish to say. Your own truth is no one can take that away from you and listen to the truth of others because they may be quite different. We are not at these tables to convert anybody. We are italian. We are not here to convert. I know we have callers on the we did not come to convert today. We just came to listen and to learn. He came to inform and not to persuade. Be honest and considerate. Some of these are very tough issues and make sure that you say your piece and make sure others have appropriate airtime. We remember the past and remember he talks about Middleton Place. We remember the past but we are looking ever so hopeful toward the future. And to stay on track, stay on topic and avoid that conversation. Lets go back right here. Those leaders for 15 minutes, maybe 12, how can we make vienna honorable truth that we are interrelated honorable and ultimately liberate when in some ways it makes the betrayals of the past all the more painful. What if you discovered that someone was your cousin at your table and bearskin was not the same color as yours . How can we then make the unutterable under a bowl so that we all become validated in our humanity and we become listed in our dignity as individuals who are children of god and certainly individuals who are not an accident that we have been created for a purpose. Lets talk about this for 12 minutes at the tables and we will immediately have an exchange with the author, right now. [inaudible conversations] all right all right, so now we are ready to hear from you. Let me have your attention. Let me have your attention. Great discussions. Based on what you have discussed at your table maybe you have a question. Maybe you have a point. Not standing on a soap oxford maybe you have a point that they would like to raise with the author. This time before we go to questions we are going to interaction with him based on your questions, based on your reaction. I think we are on cspan this evening. If you are speaking you need to use this mic into your preaching voice so who will ask first . First of all, hello . That is on. Will live the good mouse im not going to worry about that. I am a descendent of the james poured them who you spoke of earlier but ive also written about the reconstruction air and in fact they spoke about this here not too long ago. We are going to take talk later on but theres one thing and want to ask you about. You mentioned about the boycott of the cars and South Carolina in the early 1900s when they were starting to segregate that im aware that they try to do that in colombia around 190541902 or so and it fizzled out. I was curious about it because they are so little documentation on that. Did you find anything about that . The answer to your question bosa my research in South Carolina did end up focused on charleston. Theres a wonderful book called right to rise by a professor at North Carolina state about resegregation of the streetcar systems throughout the south which a lot of focus on richmond as i remember in some mention of columbia so thats where he would go to for that story. Anyone else . Salient points. You mentioned the Brown Fellowship Society. In reading about it there are always look down upon for the advancement of themselves and others. We were principally teaching. If they were using it to gain further advanced meant where they could look back who helped them advance themselves. I guess our table tried to express it. I thought it was gail mentioned a family that was ashamed of the fact that she was very light and she is 99. I had a picture of her family and i saw in the picture, you have lacked folks in your family they said let me tell you my thing. We were in love. It was not always that we had to be ashamed that we were loved. If nothing else comes out the love will cause it. [applause] can i speak to that . It think you raise some very interesting points about the Brown Fellowship Society and brown leadership. Into the 20th century brown identity curdled into a colorism that is very troubling. The concept of roundness can go two ways and there are liberating aspects of brownness. I think at its best run identity is about, its not that we are not lacked but we are lack and we are also white and they can get us out of that black white binary and did the reconstruction period this is when brown people began to fight for the rights of all americans and all africanamericans. This is a community that is often cozying up to their white relatives in hopes of hitting certain privileges and theres a crucial break in the reconstruction period that i detailed that i think its important for us to reckon with both the heroic and more tragic aspects of brown identity and history in the city. Thank you. My name is walter and i am a member of st. Marks church. For a lot of people im the very image of what you would expect if you do the same marks, light skin, gray hair and all of that. Im herb around Fellowship Society the senate and also a hollow a descendent. I dont know if im a descendent of Richard Holly the first black cop, that i dont know. Im also a Middleton Family descendent and not through slavery but a marriage between a confederate soldier in the 1880s to a formerly enslaved women. Anyway theres a lot going on here. One of the things thats interesting and we had Henry Louis Gates here back in april i believe it was but one of the things that he did know that i shared with him was South Carolina never passed the one drop rule. Everyone knows what the one drop rule is. One drop of black blood makes you black or or whatever the term was but South Carolina West Virginia passed into law and South Carolina did not. No less than ben tillmans brother says you cannot do that in South Carolina. Families are too mixed up in certain families ostensibly that her white with an app to be reclassified to which would have been the term. Thank you for sharing that. Theres an amazing moment that i came across that i recaptured in the book that i wish i had photocopied so i had it right here been the 1890s at one of the state Constitutional Convention is explicitly called to remove political africanamericans in the state that is a proposal to have a strict definition of what a person is. This point there are only six africanamericans at the entire convention and one of the white delegates stand up and he says, i defy any of you to pass this rule. If you pass this theres not a single caucasian on the floor of this convention. And they do ratchet down the percentage that is required to be an acre in South Carolina. Banned the shipping company and the gambler so theres always been a series of these very careful and difficult navigations like louisiana likewise has their own adventures along these routes. A very powerful and significant challenge you may remember is where we had a member in our book study but that revealed in a very holy moment that she said she had never disclosed to anyone that her grandfather or father or somebody was black so all of her life she was evading and escaping and hiding because she did not want to endure the stigma of even being considered black in charleston. So that is something to utter those liberating truth even with the own Family Dynamics we have individuals who are legally a black and literally black. When i be considered legally black wax i dont know. I am the 33rd pastor with those individuals who were much lighter and fairer skin than i. Like that Methodist Church and Central Baptist Church and a couple of other churches those looking at the membership we would have called them high yellow. Even i would not have been eligible to be pastor because i am too dark. If you look at the 33 and start to see the coloring , its not until the eighties when it became darker and i may be the darkest. [laughter] i am concerned about the family issue of how we tell the story whether it is uncle george portrait at the dinner table to be served in the confederate or as a member of another community most of us are old enough we did not have much experience with one of color certainly not in the accepted ways of academia. They did not make socially and dont do much in churches. So we have a hard time with that and to say things to one another could be hurtful but it is the story that we need to tell. But in the storytelling of what we thought we see, there was progress and acceptance and interaction that we didnt have but at the same time to show everything more that needs to be done. How do we separate that from this conversation . One thing thats important to remember is we have more important in common than we realize. And it reminds me of a famous book that has never been fully completely understood after the storm in new orleans and urban planner came in to try to decide how to rebuild the city and africanamerican man a native of california and he had been living and teaching architecture and urban living planning in australia after presenting the plans after Community Meetings he threw up his hands and said is just like dealing with the sunnis and that she is. And this was during the time of the iraq war when they were at each others throats in iraq. I think what he meant or the interpretation was not just the white and africanamerican communities were at each others throats but coming from australia and california, it seems like they have so much in common they have their same quirky ways it when you get them together they have nothing in common just as if we went to iraq we would have no idea between the two so how could you not tell he was a shia . So i think its important to get out of our bubbles and travel when we can to understand what we do have in common. They do say if a black man and a white men run into each other in the new york city subway they look at each other as strangers but in the airport they look at each other as americans. Moving into our second question we will dive into our conversation and James Baldwin also said it is up to you. As long as you thank you are white there is hope for you. I will be forced to think i am black. So what the first moves look like . How does my black identified americans that based on i do want to explain more fully of the discussion. What James Baldwin is saying two things but one is that we are mixed its not romantic. It is true. And that we do need to see through race but also he is saying the ball is in the whites Americans Court because of how the system was built and why and by whom, white identified americans have to be on this front and the question is what might these look like from white identified americans . And how they respond. We ask the black identified americans in here and the white identified americans so what do you want to do . Take 15 minutes. [inaudible conversations] so just a few tables or the strategies that white people can do or what you think black people can do in order to advance our case to unite, what can be done . Anybody first . I was talking with my group even when is a black american and growing up in South Carolina we were talking about the group that i was protected against racism because of my parents. Is this better . [laughter] we were talking about racism but some of you might disagree but that our parents protected us against racism so that i wasnt thrown into the streetcar my dad had a car so that i didnt know in talking to a lot. [laughter] a lot of my white contemporaries would say when they were coming up they didnt know anything about it us drinking from separate fountains because they were not affected by racism but it would take all day to talk about many of these things. That maybe i have been decentralized . Or thrown into so many areas even working with the School District and South Carolina that i worked with all facets the blacks, jews, so i worked with all of those groups and with the decentralization that i was able to accept and know the contributions for all the groups not just africanamericans and i could go on forever but i have to leave it to you, he was talking about rodney king and Everybody Knows about that behavior but january 7th they started in South Carolina that was founded and on saturday they will be dedicated. 17 miles with this community they will re dedicate the area so i did catch my interest because hes one of my heroes. Thank you. [applause] thank you for those comments. One thing that is important is all too often white people talk about the School Cafeteria or because of the history of the country often white people make spaces open rather than point a finger at those for self segregating but the other aspect of your comment that stuck in there was the history of South Carolina which is very rich and much richer than most know. And i think part of whats important to interrogate is to think about the variety that whiteness covers it is about creating a racial category with people a lot of different traditions. We have a family friend growing up his mother was finnish and dad was sicilian. Not physically but culturally they couldnt be any more distant and the joke was they said this relationship can work and she never did again. [laughter] thank you. With the activist in Carlton County fighting in 1972. There were no cash registers no county officers nothing for the black folk education was terrible but why is that . All the ministers during that time africanamerican women it was powerful and with slavery when we got those ministers to gather. We went back in 1985 after working for South Carolina department of social services as a case manager and so what happened no supervisors and the director was right. Whats all this about . Weve got to do something about it. So i went to the meeting and told them what was going on. We had no black supervisors. No managers. So what do we want to do about it . So we did. We won we had the first black director on the job. I was employed for nine years. One year more after he actively retired. I did not make the ten. But that doesnt matter. I went home and i gave it up for myself. I talked to jim clyburn and i told him about it this was not for me this is for our people and we needed to show them that we could make a difference. I didnt want anything from the class action went to my attorney and said what do you need to do. I didnt and then we had black supervisors. And i am proud to say today that you can make a difference if you want to. I had just as many whites for me as blacks. They were very proud. So in spite of all that happens that god blessed me and gave me more thank you. [applause] the question of how blacks respond and then sitting at the end of the table she said i know. She was in the supermarket and there was a black mother there with her children and she said she simply to speak to the mother and talk about the children and struck up a marvelous conversation. And she said it made herself feel wonderful. I can also imagine how it would make a darker skinned person feel comfortable wonderful. I have come to the conclusion that and then a white person to take to start the conversation or a melon and white person more than the nonwhite person will respond. Although they may not start that conversation but they would have a beautiful relationship by reaching out and thats just a wonderful story. Give all of them a big hand. [applause] and now as daniel is giving his final remarks chief reynolds will come to close us out and then we will pray and then we are going. Thank you for hosting me. So to think about the attention of celebrating the victories without sugarcoating the work that needs to be done. I was picking through that tension as you described your work. You left it and thats why we should be active you answer the question that was on my mind. We want to acknowledge the successes of the past and the failures of the present and we want to keep on working for the world we all want to live in. Thank you so much. So the work of the group is to tear down that blasted ball that separates. And we should remember. [laughter] it is worth remembering that that law was intentionally constructed in the 17 nineties. But then somehow it gets back up but somehow we should intentionally take it down and keep it down as a sample that we are one. [applause] thank you reverend. So the issue that has been challenged tonight is we have to roll up our sleeves and get to work. We have a great community, a Great Partnership with a lot of collaboration. I will tell you i was talking on the phone in between some representatives. We had seven shootings in our Community Last week. Just in the city one was a homicide. The day before the homicide on monday there was a landscaper working on harris street 16 years old and a drive one desiccant was messing with his truck he came back and he was shot with a gun for no reason. That is our reality. That is our challenge. So we come here to have a conversation but then we have to leave here and go to work and we have important work to do. We have to treat people with dignity and respect and do good with who we hire and train what we talked about earlier. We just cannot drive around in our cars but engage and roll up our sleeves and and then not to complain but to every community i have been to so there is a lot of work and the Fire Department i love my brothers and sisters on the Fire Department Everybody Loves a fireman saves the cat out of the tree and save somebody and if i was in trouble i would want them by my side. Believe me they are phenomenal. But we need the police. We need each other because we are the community. This is our community. And we are privileged and honored to be in the midst of the struggles. It is a calling for us. The greatest definition of a leader is leave it better than how you found it. And right in the midst of all these challenges we have the opportunity to do that and an obligation and a responsibility im excited about being with you with my brothers and sisters and i encourage you and im excited and thank you to the doctor and his assistant who have been helping us with the church thank you for being here tonight. Congratulations on another great and productive conversations now we can put that to work and into action. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you very much. And thank you daniel you are trying to agitate. [laughter] thank you daniel. [laughter] so the proper confrontation that we talk about with that reconciliation without that proper confrontation and to know that begins within ourselves and i will say before we have the prayer that i believe it is problematic for people to talk about race. Because i think in many instances we need to be doing more listening than talking. But but then to the Police Department for their support of the fire community. I hope you all know that you are a marvel and a model in this country. We are grateful for you. But if at least if we can be in the position we read a book by Toni Morrison the origin of others and if we can put ourselves into that place that i really do believe that some of those openings you have heard me talk about this that just over the last month my young nephew is writing us short story for school and he wrote it from the perspective of a minister. He was writing as a young man he is 15 from a perspective of the 15 yearold but this in the story was the son of a minister i just think the collective psyche of people of this city that i believe will carry us forward and far. So please close this out god bless you. We are so proud of you even though we just met you. We look forward to your future. Just grab hands of those. Create in us a clean heart oh god and renew that spirit within each one of us. Allow your piece which surpasses all understanding to transform us so we can be your agents to make this world a better place. Let there be peace on earth. Let there be peace in South Carolina. Let there be peace in charleston. Let there be peace at the intersection of the streets and let it begin with each one of us amen. [inaudible conversations] thank you so much. Thank you for being such a wonderful host and thank you also to cspan tv for getting our event on book tv. We are thrilled. I think many of you already know that our author is a wonder. Not only a fearless activist with the disability rights