Transcripts For CSPAN2 C-SPAN Cities Tour Visits San Antonio Texas 20240713

Effort i think. Its not just going to say we want women to run, there are going to have to be doctoral plane just changes in place. After words airs at 10 pm and sundays at 9 pm eastern and the specific on on cspan2. Cspan2. Then and about 15 minutes we will visit the special collections at the university of texas in san antonio. Later in about 40 minutes the debate surrounding confederate statues and memorialization. We begin our special feature with lewis fisher on his book saving san antonio. We are standing in come to the Geographical Center of san antonio, texas. When fun of whats called the Spanish Governors Palace in account that was actually set up here due to the complex between two european empires, france and spain, in the 18th century. Spain had of course established itself well in latin america and south america and in mexico, and northern mexico was a special important to spain because of very rich silver mines. France was over to the northeast in louisiana and it reached up to the northern border of new spain along the red river where it was causing some trouble with the indians, and looking straight across the empty reaches of texas into the silver mines down in texas. The spaniards knew they had a some sort of defense, and they came upon san antonio. And so in 1618, the 302 years ago, san antonio was established here. The first challenge they taste was getting the water. The first thing the priests did when they set up a Community Like san antonio was to build a church. The second thing they did was to set up a water system. In texas you have rivers but you dont really have a lot of green fertile areas too far away from them. So to address that, they drew from their experience in spain which had come from arabia which had come from the roman empire, a system of irrigation ditches. They were not just irrigation ditches but they also furnished Drinking Water and water for the cattle and anybody else. Everybody used the same water. Nobody knew anything about germs and then they wondered why that epidemics but they figured that out. So san antonio was selected in large part because it had two major sources of water upstream. We had the headwaters of the San Antonio River, and we had the headwaters of San Pedro Creek. So from those places, engineers very carefully, because this land was rather flat, they were able to devise a system of a halfdozen acequia is which came from those rivers and came through channels that follow the line of gravity downhill to what became san antonio and back into the rivers so that the water continue to flow. San antonio used that system for more than 100 years it wasnt until the end of the 19th century that the system filing was not in general use but there still are two at the Spanish Mission come one serving the mission which are still used by area farmers to water their crops. Religion has a very visible role in the community. In addition to what you dont see, you have our main plaza, the cathedral at san fernando which began in 1731 1731 as the parish church, but also we have five missions in san antonio which are now named a World Heritage site. We have our first mission, the alamo, which begin right here in the city of san antonio, then a few years later there was a Second Mission establish which was Mission San Jose which is been restored rather elaborately and is the largest, was the largest and most Successful Mission in texas. And three of the missions moved from north texas the san antonio, and they are scattered along the San Antonio River south of downtown. The largest of them is mission conceptually own which is a largest, the church itself is a largest unrestored church in the Spanish Church in the United States. We also have two smaller ones, Mission San Francisco and Mission San Juan capistrano which we call san juan to keep from confusing with california. That gives us five missions which is the largest grouping of Spanish Missions within the United States. Texas was very desirable for its geography and its location. As a lot of borderlands are, the control went back and forth between various governmental entities. I would suspect that san antonio ends got whiplash in the early 19th century. There are six different governments in san antonio. First up until the 1820s san antonio was under the overall control of spain. Then in 182121 there was a revolution which mexico took control. Then came the republic of texas, the revolution in 1836 which was related to the alamo and with republic of texas in 1845 texas was annexed by the United States in 1861 we had the confederacy in charge and then four years later we were back to the United States. But probably the single factor that shapes san antonio character and its very being was its isolation on the texas frontier. We are in london a couple hundred miles from the texas coast and the only way to reach san antonio was by oxcart from the texas coast and that took a couple of days when it wasnt raining and when there wasnt much. It was very difficult city to get to, until san antonio finally got a railroad in 1877, at which point san antonio began to explode. The Tourism Business was one of the first that took off because san antonio had been a familiar topic of magazines and other publications, periodicals of e United States. Reporters would love to come to san antonio to report on what look like, so theres great awareness of this. This didnt only please people like in houston where the railroad came from, and after the railroad came one newspaper over there reported that hordes of people went to san antonio for a day to peak around and come back until 81 how the city looked. It did. It did. That was a big attraction then and it is to become an attraction now. San antonio is probably three hours from the Mexican Border from the wave no rado but the proximity to mexico has been very beneficial to san antonio, longterm because immigration. When the mexican revolution began in 1910 there was so much violence that mexican citizens of many of them begin crossing the rio grande and coming up into texas. They were settled in refugee camps, and tens of thousands of them came to san antonio. For many years they lived in the poorest sensors uptown but then as the generations went on they became leading citizens in the community. We had Henry B Gonzalez was our first hispanic guardsman in the 1950s, and that has really helped make san antonio the type of place it is today. I think it would be important for people to realize as they learn about san antonio simply to understand what a distinctive and diverse city san antonio is, how significant its roots are in history and how much it has contributed to the history of the country. Our look at san antonio continues as we are from author John Phillip Santos about the citys latina history and culture. We are in the very first phase of the San Pedro Creek culture park, and the reason its important is that the creek, rather than the river was the site of the city sounding and for settlement. Among other think is the dividing line between the mexican part of san antonio committee and anglo parts of the community. So it was a kind of borderline within the city, but a border that connected us to the deepest stories of the citys origins. My family, like many chicano families, has deep and complex origins in this place. My families came here on, on my dad sides, when of years ago during the time of the mexican revolution when many families left the turmoil of mexico to seek refuge in what was in effect i mexican city, even though it was in the United States. Many of our families recognized this as a place of kindred ancestries. My moms family come beginning in that period in the early 17th century, ultimately found their way to the border board itselft became the u. S. Mexico border and places like ultimately laredo, texas, growing ever closer to this old mexican city, this secret mexican city in the United States. So its part of the fascinating story of san antonio, the way many peoples from all over the world found their routes here. As we say from all roads we are one. During the mexican revolution, there was such a huge number of people who came your seeking refuge that the city demographic makeup shifted again. By the middle of the 20th century this was a majority mexican city again, as it has been ever since. I grew up in a sense in the place where i was thought of as a minority, but we were a majorityminority city. That way we attested to americas future. A majorityminority city in what was becoming a majorityminority republic. A lot of that work as chicano writers, artists, filmmakers attest to those transformations, trying to encompass as much of that history and cultural meaning as we can bring to our work. Ive always felt that the Latino Community, a mexicanamerican, the chicano community, the chief connects community of the san antonio was unique in panorama of latin x communities for a couple of reasons. One is a deep antiquity, the fact that were were older thae American Republic. This place is over then the American Republic. We attest to the complexity of our origins in the indigenous world, in the time of new spain, and thats important for all kinds of reasons that have to do with our history and our culture, but the other big part of what it was too grew up here, which is very different, for instance, francais mexicanos of l. A. , was the proximity to mexico. The fact that mexico, the borderlands literally are only an hour and half away. There might even be closer destinations from the border than an hour and a half, because the border slinks through the landscape and all kinds of mysterious ways. And actually think about san antonio being part of the borderlands, you know, so the proximity to moderate tiara in mexico, that since of origin in any case of my fathers family, was always an organic part of being in san antonio, you know . So it imparted alleys to our family a sense of being deeply rooted in this secret story of another way of being american. San antonio in 2020 is a place of unanticipated vibrancy in terms of literary culture and artistic culture. So theres an incredible urgency and vibrancy about the way that literary and artistic culture has played a role in reimagining san antonio. And that is reminding our communities of the complexity of our past, the incredible challenge and promise of our future. We still have a huge issue with illiteracy. We have a huge issue with economic disparity. But the artists, the writers, and all kinds of different ways have been socially engaged with playing a role in reshaping the citys resident and future. I invite americans to come to san antonio to experience another way of thinking that what it is to be american. Americans as people who carry a long and fraught history of becoming something new, how we live up to the challenges that that history presents us in terms of the way weve treated indigenous people, the way we treated enslaved africans, the way we treated disenfranchised mexicanos. This is a place where in the American Republic we live that story every day, and whether you visit the alamo or the mission or one of our institutions of art or literary culture, you are going to be reminded of that. During our time in san antonio, cspan cities tour visited various sites. Up next we take you to the university of texas at San Antonio Special collections to hear about the southwest Voter Registration education project and the impact it had on the latino population across the southwest. His name was William Velasquez but i do when you have as really. Willie was and is now a name synonymous with democracy in america. For the organization he founded, the southwest Voter Registration education project, he nearly doubled hispanic Voter Registration at a medical increase the number of latino elected officials in this nation. His appeal to the Hispanic Community with simple, passionate, and direct. Your vote is your voice. Were going to be talking about the records of the southwest Voter Registration education project. They are the oldest and largest nonpartisan latino Voter Registration organization in the country. The collection contains the first 20 years of the organizations existence. They are still in existence today. Its a very deep and wide collection if youre interested in learning about Voter Registration, particularly in minority communities. The organization was started in 1974 by willie velasquez. Hes from san antonio, and from a very, as a very young man he was heavily involved in the chicano movement. When he was in college he was one of the founders of the Mexican American Youth Organization which was involved in doing Voter Registration drives at local colleges. Also involved in high school walkouts. This was in the late 60s, early 70s when there was the height of the chicano movement, the beginning of it and the height of it. So he was really interested in Voter Registration and getting the Latino Community to vote, to register to vote and to realize that they have the voice, and by voting to have a voice. The motto is your vote is your voice. In 1974, willie was able to successfully apply for 503c, and he became, or the organization became a national nonprofit. So here we have the articles of incorporation. So he would sit down and he would just start calling. Are you registered to vote . Did you know tomorrow is election day . Eventually the organization expanded to not only covering texas but also all of the southwest, so arizona, new mexico, california, utah, colorado, nevada. And they grew to have a fulltime staff. They had board of directors. And they had a lot going on. They still have a lot going on. They were three main departments, the field organizing department, the legal department, and the Research Department. The field organizing department focused mainly on Voter Education and training, and they hit the pavement not only in san antonio, not only in texas, but they came up with a whole system for identifying coordinators in the various regions, different counties all over the southwest. And they created very detailed training manuals for how to put together a Voter Registration drive. Everything you need to know. And it would start with a field coordinator. And here you can see, they tell you what you need to do to prepare for Voter Registration drive . So, for example, if you think you really need to know your state election laws. You need to be able to answer these questions. If you dont know the law, the voting law or the election code, then you just, you dont look as informed as you should be. So they are telling these field coordinators, you need to know your stuff, and that the whole principle of this organizing campaign is unity. You want to get the community gather, organize the community and be united in this effort. So once all of this, the coordinators manual, a tell you exactly what you need to do. You need to get local politicians on board. You need to talk to local churches. You need to talk to everyone in the community and say this is what were trying to do. Once you have all of that together, then they had a program where you could apply for a grant, essentially. You would have to fill out a form that said how you going to do the drive, how many volunteers you have been able to secure, what your budget is, the dates. Everything had to be figured out ahead of time. They would send in their application. It would get approved, and then they would get the training. So heres the Field Training manual, and it tells you everything from sample campuses, household contact sheets. It has information on the media and had to deal with immediate and what to say to the media. Procedures and administration of the Voter Registration project. So every single thing that you need to note up a successful Voter Registration drive, and these Regional Planning committees, the files that we have, there are hundreds of them. Hundreds. And by the 80s they were organizing on average 100 Voter Registration drives a year. And for all of those Regional Planning committees, as you can see here, we have one from hume count in arizona we just had hundreds and hundreds of these from counties all over the southwest yuma county. Which really cool about this one is actually have photographed. They sent in photographs when you sent in their information about their registration drive. Whats great about these is that i often get asked for photographs, and really considering how large the collection is we really, we dont have that many photographs. Ive asked the current president about that because shes been involved with the organization for a long time, she said we were too busy to take photographs. We were too busy organizing and registering voters to take photographs. So truly great to be able to see what they were doing here in arizona. Some of the Regional Committee reports from the various counties do a photographs like this, but i think this one has the most. Heres another example. This one is from Nueces County in texas, and here you can see their reimbursement form for everything that they did. So their office supplies, their kickoff rallies, the volunteer costs. Everything was accounted for. So here we have examples from the Research Department. The Research Department was very prolific. They get a lot of work to collect research. They conducted their own research, and then they published research reports. The collection contains a lot of census data, a lot of Election Results data, and they conducted exit polls, opinion polls. They were gathering as much data as they could to get these reports out. Now, in 1985, because this is such a huge part of the organization, they founded the research arm of all the southwest Border Research institute. And we have hundreds and hundreds of reports. Here you can see they would do things like a political analysis of the 27th congressional district. Or the hispanic political participation. They were pulling mexicanamericans to find out what other issues that you face, what are your opinions, what are your voting habits, to really understand how they can reach more mexicanamericans, how they can produce training material and workshops to make mexicanamericans feel like they actually have a voice, and that they, too, can participate in the democratic process. Here in san antonio some of the issues were just basic services, such as roads, sidewalks, education. And from that this was really influential in how willy got involved with Voter Registration. So sadly in 1988, willy passed away from kidney cancer, and his funeral was, there were more than 1000 people at his funeral. It was covered on local news, national news, the New York Times had an article about it. And even Michael Dukakis was at his funeral. And a lot of national politicians, when they heard the news, they made statements about how important willie was to the political process and getting minorities involved in the political process. In 1995, president clinton posthumously awarded willie the president ial medal of freedom. And here we have the invitation to mrs. Velasquez for the ceremony awarding him the president ial medal of freedom. The svrep collection and svrep as an organization is not only important to and at home, not only important to the southwest because they did work all across the southwest, not just texas, but its important nationally. What they been able to do in terms of increasing Mexican American Voter Registration, also having an influence on how many politicians execute american politicians we have an office now, they have made a huge impact on getting out the vote to minority communities. It mirrors what san antonio is. On one side its history and culture, and a nod to the pass and on the other set its a look forward to what san antonio has become come just diversity and inclusivity and all the Different Things that are happening. The city was created more than 300 years ago. They became a melting pot and the germans came in in the midor the 1880s and the build small brewers at the time come home brewers, small operations and the Pearl Brewery kind of was born of that. The reason they came up with pearl was a german brewer saw and is beer the bubbles going up and said those look like pearls. So it became Pearl Brewery. Pearl brewery was in san antonio all the way to 2001 from the late 1800s to 2001. And then i got kind of fell into disrepair of it and was a right anymore and now it has been reborn. A billionaire who want to invest in kansas city came in and just revamped this entire place. One of the great things about this it kind of represents a very interesting part of what sanitary has become and thats commitment to sustainability. When you look at some of the Different Things around here, just the items, the sculptures come all the different stuff, when they tore apart the old brewery and the did all the Different Things they were doing to build this place back up, they took a lot of those old widgets and gizmos and everything they used to use to make the beer, and to make them into sculptures and made them into lanterns and chandeliers and abetting like that. So, so which a really cool way to look at how san antonio doesnt let anything go to waste. Waste. We really are about reprocessing and reclaiming what has been history here in the city. Joint as the first and third weekend of each month as we take booktv and American History tv on the road to watch videos from any of the citys we the cicada cspan. Org citiestour and follow us on twitter at cspans city. The cspan cities tour, exploring the american story. We are exploring the american story to join as the third weekend of each month as we take booktv and American History tv on the road. To watch videos from any of the places we have been go to cspan. Org citiestour and follow us on twitter at cspans cities. The mayor of san antonio provides insight into the citys history and rich heritage. San antonio is located in the heart of south texas, the gateway to latin america a couple hundred miles away from the Mexican Border. When you think about san antonio you often think of the World Heritage missions of which the alamo is a vital partner would also sit on top of the worlds most prolific Single Source aquifer which has few to this community for generations, for hundreds of years, and really the confluence of waterways is why this region was settled in the first place. Today even though we are a burgeoning metropolitan area, sixthlargest, seventh largest in the country, you can see our riverwalk which is one of the top tourist destinations in the world be part of a great urban revitalization that also includes Ecosystem Restoration on a 25kilometer riverway. Something im very proud of is here we are on the footsteps of one of the largest fossil fuel reserves in the entire world and we just ratified a Climate Action Adaptation Plan that my first day in office as mayor we chose to declare ourselves into the Paris Climate Accord and we ratified that plant just a few months ago to help us implement strategies to meet compliance with the accords. San antonio is one of the facets growing cities in the country so our challenges and what were working on is really how to accommodate that growth but also benefit the people who are already here. As we grow, as we continue to build equity within communities of color who want to make sure we embrace that heritage, embrace history. San antonio is very much a bicultural community, so the latino story is a a senator jos story weve been able to strengthen ourselves to diversity, so the increasingly polarized rhetoric on immigration is a detriment to our country and certainly challenges some of the foundations of our city. The current way that administration is not handling the border issues and immigration, and instead, for lack of a better term, detaining people, a lot of the pressure has been relieved by dropping detained migrants into our cities with very little notice. Im very proud of the fact that when the start happening here in san antonio, we set up a Migrant Resource Center that brought folks in, brought community and to help provide food, provide clothing, provide medical assistance, provide in many cases transport to where they were going for their asylum hearing. We very much treated them as human beings should be treated, cared for, even while all the crisis was happening. Our whole community embraced of that. Thats the nature of our community. When i say we are a welcoming and compassionate place, our first question is, how can we help . Thats exactly what you saw with the west been happening lately. We have been able to refocus on our ethos, our values, and ensure we continue to be in walking city to immigrants, to all communities internationally, to refugees, even while theyre such that a mental rhetoric with regard to immigration. I see as going is that we continue to build on those routes, those values, we also go into ourselves as one of the strongest economy in america. We have all the tools at our disposal to continue to build a stand in town the week and a joy with quality of life, but also strengthen the emerging industries that we see in cybersecurity, biosciences and bioengineering, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, technology, all those emerging industries which we are now aligning to our Higher Education committee and our k12 Education System which will create a workforce thats built to last. You know, a child can be boarded and a familyfriendly environment, find their pathway through the Education System and build a career here, that they can accomplish their dreams. Im very excited about san antonio claiming its place on the mantle of one of americas top cities. One of the things id let us talk about san antonio over the years, world legend are for texmex. What are the great imports was the Culinary Institute of america. Theres only three in the United States. We are ours in san antonio now and by bringing that in here and the latin american influence of the Culinary Institute really focuses on, it is opened up so much in san antonio. Just the options and university not just texmex. We call it tax next because of all the things that im in the last few years in san antonio about the city, the diversity of Culinary Options has expanded so much but our commitment has always been to that kind of diversity of queasy we have in town. Just a couple of years ago unesco gave us a creative city of in the gut estates theres only two met, tucson and sanatorium for a to commit to the heritage as far as our culinary and how it is an authentic representation of our area and our people. Unesco honored that and designated this city and that regard and were so proud to have that happen. Our two of the san antonio, texas, continues with a look if you latino representation and congress, latino influence in politics. I think in congress there is some deference or reliance upon the latino members of the Democratic Caucus by the party to sort of assist the party and identifying authentic and accurate positions to represent latino interests, because its such an important constituency for the Democratic Party. That kind of configuration of the party in washington really impacts how much latino representatives can influence the legislative agenda and how much they can accomplish in terms of passing legislation. I think about the members of the hispanic caucus have substantial influence within the Democratic Party in terms of how the party thinks about issues that impact latinos, particularly on language, education, and immigration. They were instrumental in establishing what has become the democratic position on immigration. Its a comprehensive program. It focuses on Border Security but also focuses on enforcement of labor laws, employer sanctions for hiring undocumented immigrants to put the onus on Immigration Reform on employers rather than more vulnerable immigrant employees and so what. On. And, of course, a path to citizenship for undocumented individuals. This is sort of the fundamental components that we now think of as comprehensive Immigration Reform of the democratic position, and it was latino representatives who were most influential in shaping that agenda. In the 110th congress under president bush we saw a lot of success in terms of latino representatives sponsoring bills, pushing initiatives, really probably that was the latino representation at its most prominent. It sort of took a backseat and the 111th congress when barack obama was elected, which is sort of counterintuitive, but which is sought is a bad the party in congress became much more deferential to the president s initiatives and that meant that constituencies within the Majority Party sort of had to take a backseat. The other thing that happened was that the democratic majority in the house of guru, which meant that latino representatives were less essential to keeping democratic control of the process in the house of representatives. The speaker could afford to lose a few more votes and, therefore, had a little bit for your hand in pursuing the initiatives freer hand in pursuing initiatives that she alone thought were priority for the party and say so the hispanic caucuses influence wane a bit and 111th congress, even though it was still democratic control and we had a democratic president. We have seen all relatively stable level support for the Democratic Party and among latina constituency for a long time, give or take twothirds of latino voters tend to support democrats, and that seems to be fairly stable. Probably the biggest change we have seen and the last three years is that the Republican Party has moved decidedly away from the idea that it needs to begin expanding its appeal be on its core support, which is white. Thats somewhat surprising because its contrary to what we saw george w. Bush do as a candidate, somewhat different from what we saw john mccain do as a candidate. I think we saw some changes occurring during the Romney Campaign in 2012, but the Republican Party has sort of decidedly focused away from building a more interethnic constituency. And so i think that is sort of a setback for latino representation and for our democracy frankly more broadly because both parties need to be big tent parties and seek to represent everyone. I think theyre sort of reciprocal relationship where the hispanic caucus actively seeks nonlatino representatives to bring into their coalition to broaden the appeal of their positions. When they were pushing Immigration Reform, they certainly did not want to push this initiative as a hispanic caucus only initiative. The idea was to try to expand the appeal and the importance of these proposals so that even those who didnt have large hispanic constituencies would recognize that maybe this was in their interest, too. And so within the Democratic Party you see that happening. I think also across party lines that are real efforts and some recognition that achieving real influence for latinos in congress is going to happen when the Republican Party recognizes that it has a a stake in winnig hispanic votes, too. And so want to this constituency flexes enough influence to the point that both parties are competing for their votes to a greater extent than they are now, we will see greater influence for latino positions when it comes to making decisions about budgets and on education issues and on immigration. Some of the interviews i conducted with representatives were revealing. One representative when asked the question what do you consider to be like an interest issues, she said every issue is a hispanic issue. We have i mean, im paraphrasing here, but hispanic interest in education. We have unique needs when it comes to healthcare. We have disproportionate reliance upon social security. We have disproportionate service in our armed forces, right, and that makes every issue an issue of interest to latinos. I think really if you are talking about the broader influence on whole host of issues, were talking about providing perspectives on those issues that may be were not there before with respect to what are the unique needs of this large and rapidly growing constituency in the area of Public Policy that had not really considered the needs of that constituency before. We continue to see these challenges, and i think both parties should take these problems seriously. Because if everybody is not participating, doesnt have the opportunity to participate equally in our democracy, we are falling far short of the aspirations that are laid out in our founding documents. Cspans city tours concludes its look at san antonio with author Catherine Clinton to hear about her book confederate statues and memorialization. The American Civil War has had a really grand impact around the world because people look to this nation nearly coming apart, coming back together can have a new birth or freedom and you are in the 21st century having really quite spirited debate. The headlines, the newspapers, a lot of cometary was focusing in on statuary, confederate statue and peoples deep legacy of the civil war, what the civil war met today and i think students in the classroom and general readers want to know how people feel about these issues. So i get interested with a colleague i worked with for many years, jim downs, we put together a series. We had a panel called history in the headlights. We got a story we got the stories to talk about how we want to make sure that we were plugged into these larger issues. We put out a book a year on a topic that is a burning issue. Certainly the confederate statues and memorialization, when we put it together around table of scholars in 2017 published in 2019. We really, really want to address something that would be contemporary and fresh. We discussed silence and, the statue on the university of north carolina. The protests against him wonderful done. The board that oversees take a position against removing it. More hotels to follow and then eventually the sale of it is a really interesting issue. Money being donated for the removal, this i know happened at vanderbilt as well. You are to confederate memorial hall, they paid for the erection of the hall when it was determined by the university to remove it, a a century later, nearly a century later, you pay the people who directed it, who named it for that privilege. So we now have the ironing of hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars being given to united daughters of the confederacy, sons of confederate veterans, other societies which are promoting often a very partisan view, the very partisan view that people believe is embodied by some of the statuary. Of course statuary we discussed was often divided into those statues that were erected to honor the dead, and then some that were to remind people of the cause for which they were erected. We in our discussions talked about how we could make people understand that many of these statues were not put up in the wake of the war, but it would put up in the 20th century with a rising white nationalism, and some of them were very explicitly erected with signage that very clearly try to promote a National White superiority and connect that to the confederate cause, connect that to the legacy of the American Civil War. I will say that i love participating in the roundtable for confederate statues and memorialization because having these dynamic scholars really going head to head and toe was really amazing to me and i was quite surprised that nell painter who is very caught up in electoral fever was so much in favor of local control that the public spaces should be controlled by the people in those spaces, in those towns, in those regions we are now dealing a course with the fact that the State Government will pass a law saying that no statues can come down anywhere in the state. Thats not allowed, which is a blanket kind of tyranny that must be objected to come must be challenged in the courts. But the issue is local municipalities will get into debates. For example, in charlottesville Gary Gallagher was plain to us that one statue might be a few and feed from another and one might be an account and will it be in city and yet theyre both within the same restriction and, therefore, is this debate going on. But the idea that each generation would come up with a formula, each generation would come up with an idea about what they want to put up in their community. I was very excited about the idea that several artists have proposed putting up new statues. I participated in a forum at the speed museum in louisville, kentucky, when they proposed a forum looking at the statue issue that a very large confederate obelisk in front of the museum which is on the campus of the university of louisville. It has since been removed but the question is, how can we put up something that not only honors that absent statue but talks about what led to the statue being put up what they to it being put down, will lead to another statue going up. Richman is done by its monument avenue, many controversies have surrounded it. I remember well when the statue of arthur ashe went up and the controversy over was it a good thing, was it a bad thing, was it artistic, was it political, was it historical . And i think the best discussion of that was done by the late actually great tony horwitz in his book confederates in the attic, when you look at these questions of how was debated locally. We have a new statue, any question statue was an africanamerican mounted with a beautiful precision going up in that city. In our particular town of san antonio, we have statue that was established by the ubc and travis part in the center, and it was the local udc that wanted to get this common soldier put up and it was on such a high obelisk the way for scheme i wasnt sure what was up on top of it. But it was something that people felt honored the confederate past, honored of White Supremacy value. The question of the disposition of the statue, when it was taken down, how it was taken down, where the statue is, continues to be a matter of debate here in this town. But we also have other great topics to debate, like theres a little building downtown called the alamo which a lot of my colleagues work on, and we are interested in having new interpretations, richer interpretations of these historical legacies. Im here in texas when more and more about it. Certainly there are white supremacist who are now pleading victimhood that theyre being eliminated. Theres a wide variety of language and disguises for this, but i think its important to say that we havent ethic in our society that is attention, we want equality and we want freedom. Freedom to discriminate against others, freedom to put ourselves about others. The quality of the opportunity, as long as the equality of opportunity in speech and employment and a free society is maintained, that i think is very powerful. But when we have intimidation, terrorism, you know, in America Today we are fighting a war on terror. We talk about that all the time in the headlines. I wish more headlines would address the terrorism domestically, because we are dealing with the fact that our society cannot maintain itself if we have people resorting to intimidation, silencing and violence. Twice a month cspan city tour takes booktv and American History tv on the road to explore the literary life and history of the selected city. Working with our Cable Partners we visit various literary and Historic Sites as we interview local historians, authors and civic leaders. You can watch any of our past interviews and tours online by going to booktv. Org in selecting cspan cities tour on the series dropped out of the top of the page or by visiting cspan. Org citiestour. You can also follow the cspan cities tour on twitter for behindthescenes images and video our visits. The handle is cspancities. The cspan online store has booktv products. Go to cspan store. Org to check them out. See also booktv and and cspan products available. Host as regular views booktv no, all of the major book festivals this spring have