Despite having written a book called blink the power of thinking without thinking i think one of the beauties of Malcolm Gladwells works is that he makes you think. His work uncovers truths hidden in strange data and as a marketer and a philosophy major, things that are strange and uncovering hidden truths are really something dear to my heart and what another reason why i like malcolmgladwell. His Academic Research and critical analysis and fascinating style provides astonishing and useful insights about our world and our place in it. His bestselling books travel avenues of science, reason and anecdote and include the Tipping Point, outliers, blink and how many people have read a Malcolm Gladwell book . Thats a lot of you. That explains why Malcolm Gladwell is the number one bestselling author in amazon on the business section and i think he ranks 19th overall in history on amazon. Com. [applause] so his new book which he is here to talk about is called david and goliath underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants. Philadelphia i think is an appropriate venue. To be talking about underdogs for many reasons but then rocky of course, a bigger underdog than he. This book, in this book Malcolm Gladwell challenges conventional notions of obstacles and apparent setbacks. Demonstrating the beauty and progress often arrives from what looks like suffering and adversity. His singular gift is animating the experiences of his subjects says david to coming in the seattle times. Gladwell has an uncanny ability to simple by without being simplistic, clinging to vivid striking pros in the service of storytelling. Ladies and gentlemen please welcome join me in welcoming Malcolm Gladwell. [applause] thank you. Its a real pleasure to be here. I think this is my third time at this library. Im on the middle of my book tour and it occurred to me when i was coming here that the first stop on my book tour was the 92nd street y in new york is the jewish y and then i went to la and i did an evening the synagogue on wilshire, that new fancy when and then i went to San Francisco and i did the jcc. Then i went to washington and i did the synagogue six and then nine. I think you cansee where im going with this. This explains why i managed to come tonight because its shabbat. Its the one night of the week that im free to talk to nonjewish audiences. Very glad that worked out. So im not going to talk about my book tonight. Or at least im not going to tell you a story from my book as i figure most of you are going to buy the book. So i thought i would talk about a story that is related very directly in one of the big themes of the book. And one of the big themes is why do people, why do underdogs fight. Why do people who are outgoing and outmanned and overmatched continue to keep on fighting against much largerand stronger opponents . What fuels that kind of resistance. And so i thought when i do is tell a story about someone who i think reflects on this question in a very important way. Its a story about a woman named al smith who was one of the most important figures in the Suffragette Movement in the early part of the 20th century. And shes interesting is if you look at miss right there is very little in her life that would suggest or portend to a life of radicalism. Shes the most unlikely radicalimaginable. And if we understand how she came to take up the position of radicalism i think we will get some insight into this crucial question of why it is that People Choose to battle giants. So alice smith actually has three names. Albert belmont is the name that she dies with. Out of vanderbilt is the name that she became famous with. Now the smith is the name she was born with. It was the daughter of a my prosperous businessman. She grew up in alabama and then her family moved to new york city. And she was even from a young age a piece of work. She was domineering. Dictatorial. Bossy. Bad tempered. Egomaniacal. She was picks fights, she even from the youngest age he was this little kind of fireplug with a face that a friend of hers trying to be nice said it resembled a dennys but i think actually to be more accurate it would say she looked like a lot like a pitbull. You had some sense, hes one of these indomitable people who walks into a room and take it over. So there she is in new york and she has had a distance for herself and she decided the only way shes going to make her mark on the world is if she has access to some kind of money. And so he doesnt have any herself so she cant take away from new york society and settled on a man named willie vander who was a charming, handsome playboy who just happened to be the grandson of the richest menin the world. Though she married him. And she bears him a daughter named greta and two sons and then she sets about on a course to become the greatest conspicuous consumer in the history of conspicuous consumption and like all of us who visited the last 15 years realize what an extraordinary compliment that is area the first thing she does is 500 acres on long island and instructs the greatest architects of the time to build or something in shingles overlooking the bay. Then she buys a block at the corner of 52nd and fifth. And builds a french style chcteau which costs in 18 90 3 million which is a couple of hundred Million Dollars todays money. And to give you a sense of what this chcteau was like im going to read to you an account of it from one of the many books that have been written about all vanderbilt real estate portfolio. All of which are exercising what might be called real estate pornography. So heres the description of her house. Everything was everywhere. Walls of red african marble, walls hung with blue silk brocade, with red velvet embroidered with leaves, flowers and butterflies enriched with crystal and precious stone, mahogany and brass, colored glass and bamboo, wainscoting of road would, ebony and ivory, polished have any and set wood and grecian oriental elizabethan english renaissance french and victorian touches. In crowded rooms bursting with bronze, stainedglass, marble andmosaic. Then she decides she wants. And not just any yacht the biggest yacht of all time. 285 feet which she christens the alpha. Then she decides she wants a country cottage area she does one in Newport Rhode island and i wont bother to go into a description except to say that the construction of this cottage requires for the construction of a russell harbor in newport big enough to handle the 500,000 cubic feet of white italian marble she was importing just for the facade. So now she has a country house, a city house and a country cottage, they got and her attention turns to her daughter consuelo and consuelo is this shy girl. Painfully shy has been raised in the strictest of fashions by her mother. She is required to speak only french to her parents. On friday nights she must recite a poem in german memory in front of her mother. She has to wear a corset at all times with one of those steel rod in the back. She if she made the slightest misstep in public she would be immediately ridiculed and corrected by her mother. And as consuelo enters adolescence, alpha get the idea that what she really wants to do is to marry her daughter off to some english aristocrat. This is not an original idea at that time. In this era of American Life was the fashion for the wealthy daughters of american robber barons to be married off to penurious sons of english aristocrat. In fact they had a name for the process, it was called cash for class. But consuelo somewhat typically decides to, that she only wants the very best for her daughter. And her eyes falls on Charles Richard john churchill. Otherwise known as sonny who was the ninth of marlboro, the lineal ancestor of interest i and the first cousin of Winston Churchill and the air to what palace and then as now one of the largest homes in the world. The main buildings of which encompass seven acres and made alves chcteau on the corner of 57th and fifth look like some kind of ranchstyle bungalow. Albert does her homework and discovers the palace is falling down and sonny churchill hasnt gotten the funds to fix it up and she realizes there is my opportunity. Theres two problems with this idea. The first is that sonny is not in fact sonny area she is perfectly miserable as the english would say to give you some sense of what she would like her second wife believe he can use to sleep with a revolver by her pillow in case her husband shouldcome to her in the middle of the night. The second problem with this idea is that consuelo is madly in love with someone else area young man named Winthrop Rutherford otherwise known as three, the psion of the fabulous new york family, a handsome dashing man who played happily, a fabulous dancer and on consuelos 18th birthday she gets a single rose in the mail no note attached and she knows its from wintry. And not long after that she goes for a bicycle ride with wintry and her mother. , of course is coming along as a chaperone and as they approach a quarter in theroad , entry and consuelo look at each other and speed up ahead and as they turned the corner on out of sight of how the, which returns to consuelo and proposes to her area and she says absolutely. And alpha of course realizes something is up and tries to catch up as fast as her little legs and carried her she looks at her daughter and she looks at wintry and she realizes what just happened. So she whisks her daughter away the next day to parents. And wintry sends letter after letter. Love letter to his beloved and in each one is intercepted by alpha and then wintry on the boat and goes to paris to try and meet her. Alva bars the door to wintry area and then alva takes consuelo to the college in newport. And locks are of like rapunzel in the castle and when she comes to try to see her once again he cant get there and finally consuelo has had enough and she marches up the thick marble staircase to her mothers grand bedroom to plead with parents holding shields and blazoned with the letter a. And she turns to her mother and she says you cant do this to me. Im in love with this man. I have a right to marry the man i choose. The mother turns to her in a kind of cold rage. Absolutely not. Youre going to be a statue. Do you know what that means . Consuelo simmers and doesnt say a word and looks at her mother with a kind of defiance and at that point alva just turns into rage. Because no one ever defies her. Shes Alpha Vanderbilt and she starts to scream at her daughter and calls wintry every name under the sun and she realizes whats the point, theres no way she can defy her mother. He has to give up on this man she loves. So on november 6, 1895 new york sees the grandest wedding in its history. The daughter of one of the richest men in the country marries one of the grandest aristocrats in all of england at st. Thomass church on fifth avenue. And alpha hired 80 decorators just to work on the Church Sanctuary and she marches up the aisle with her two young sons and one other side of her wearing this extraordinary blue satin dress with a border of russian sable and outside there are every reporter in the country is there taking photographs and the crowds are thronging, held back by Police Officers and the streets are lined with these grand carriages and alva stands at the front of the church proudly awaiting her daughter and she waits and she waits. First five minutes, then 10 minutes then15 minutes. And she doesnt show up because shes at home we came weeping inconsolably into the arms of her father. Finally she pulled herself together and all of the maids and attendance clean her up and she gets in the carriage and she goes to church and the priest the minister pronounces them man and wife and out immediately whisks her daughter and her soninlaw into a room behind the sanctuary and the cleanup is done. Sonny gets 1 million upfront guaranty of 100,000 a year for life. And gets into a carriage with his bride. And a drive off down fifth avenue and sonny turns to consuelo and says i think you should know that i dont love you. And i will never love you. Your responsibility is to fix up the castle and bury me an error. And standing on the steps of the church, is alva. There she is in and tear comes to her eye as she watches the carriage received down fifth avenue. Its the greatest moment of her life. A little girl from mobile alabama is now the mother of a duchess. It is the fulfillment of all herdreams. Or so she thinks. Because they are about to get alittle complicated. Now i said earlier i think of alva as an unlikely radical and i think you can see why. Its not typically the case that wealthy people with lots of homes and fancy clothes turn into radicals. It would be like one of the kardashian sisters joining occupy movement. A little unlikely i think we would all agree. So how do we account for this . What happens to outlook to cause this transformation . I think the best answer is to take a step back and think about in general about the question of why it is that People Choose to rebel against Authority Area this theres a number of answers to area one of the leading theories or many years has been a simple one. That People Choose to break the law or rebel against authority or disobey when the costs of disobedience are lower than the benefits. We weigh in our minds but its worth it. And if it makes more sense. To fight back and it does to succumb, we fight back. This is whats called deterrence theory. And it seems like common sense. Theres a famous example of the deterrence theory is in 1970 the police in montrcal went on strike for 19 hours and in that 19 hour tranny montrcal descended into bedlam. Because the cost of disobedience were zero. People started robbing banks and there weregunbattles in the street. This is canada that were talking about. I didnt even know he will have guns in canada. The problem with this idea is that there are all kinds of cases deterrence theory is not explaining our behavior. So a simple one would be looked at people whether its the decision people make about whether to pay their taxes, example of lawabiding behavior. Anyone in the developed world has to go through. There are huge differences from one country to the next in honest people are on tax day. If you go to greece or italy, the cheating on tax day is rampant. The size of the underground economy in those countries is enormous. Whereas if you come to a country like this, theres very little cheating on taxes. This is probably americans, we are more honest on taxday and anyone else in the world. So the question is if the deterrence theory works that would suggest that these were cheating on your taxes must be greater here than in greece or italy. The cost of breaking the law must be greater in this country if we are so well behaved on tax day. Is that the case . No its not. The penalties for cheating on your taxes are lower here than anybodyelse. Basically we dont have penalties. The irs if you dont pay your taxes and you may find out will tell you to pay them a small penalty and the rates are a fraction of what they are in other countries. If you cheat onyour taxes, you probably wont get caught. I dont mean for any of you to take that to heart but the fact is that tax day behavior in this country does not ally with the deterrence theory. Doesnt make any sense. Heres another example. If deterrence theory works then countries or jurisdictions that dramatically increase their penalties for taking the law must, should see a decline in crime. So lets look at the best example and that california area 20 years ago california enacted the most dramatic increase in the severity of criminal penalties that we have seen almost anywhere in the western world over the last hundred years. Three strikes, the three strikes law was an unbelievable increase in severity. So what happens to deterrence theory is correct crime should have plunged in california. Did it . It did then it also plunged at the same time in every other state in the union even those that didnt change their laws at all and in when in subsequent years as weve looked closer what weve discovered is no one can figure out what happened in california. Some people say the crime went down a little bit, some people say Nothing Happened and other people say crime is higher today than it would have been if they had passed that lawin california. Once again , theres legitimacy theory doesnt seem to explain why people do or dont behave or obey the law. So in response to these problems, a bunch of people have come forward and said the real issue is not that, its not the costs and benefits of breaking the law. Its really how the law, how laws are enacted. And a group of scholars led by comp tyler and said what really matters is whether people perceive the laws that they govern them to the legitimate. And by legitimate we need three things. One is that people will obey the law when they feel like they are treated withrespect. When they feel that if they speak up they will be heard. Do they have a right to speak up and will someone listen when they do . People will perceive a lot to be rigid legitimate when they feel like its their. Is there one law for me and one law for you or are weall being treated the same. And they also will obey a law when they feel like its consistent. Its going to change dramatically tomorrow . So in these examples, think back to the puzzle of why americans pay their taxes. We pay our taxes not because there are huge penalties, we pay because we believe the american system is legitimate so we grumble about it all the time but the truth is if you stand up and complain about your taxes will you be heard . Of course youll be heard. Theres an entire party in the political system devoted to hearing people grumble about theirtaxes. Is the tax system fair . Its not perfect but its pretty fair. There isnt a whole different set of rules for a certain kind of people except if you are a hedge fund activist the amount of unfairness in our system is a fraction of the unfairness in other systems around the world and is our system consistent . Yes it is. We dont make arbitrary changes from one year to the next. We make changes in our tax code after a lot ofdiscussion. We know whatshappening. Compare that to greece. Greece fails on all three counts. You cant speak up in that system. People are cutting special deals and it changes from one year to the next and treats one class different from another class. If our system looked like greece is we wouldnt pay our taxes either. Its completely illegitimate and wide and three strikes have a discernible effect on the crime rate in california . Maybe if you lock everyone in sight which is what california did maybe people in those communities come to think of the system as illegitimate and lets not forget california in the 10 days after three strikes was casttheir prison population doubled. On a per capita basis and that was seven times as many people in resin as canada or western europe. Thats an astonishingnumber. Do you think that the people from those communities that saw essentially an entire cohort of black men picked up and shipped off to prison in the space of five years, do you think that they perceive the system as legitimate . Do you think they thought they could speak up and be heard . Do you think they thought there was a same set of rules governing White America as was governing their community . Do you think they saw the system as being consistent and trustworthy as opposed to arbitrary . Of course not. What happens in situations where people perceive the system as illegitimate . A rebel. A get angry. They steal under no compulsion to obey the law. Nothing serves as a bigger engine of defiance then the condition of that youre under some kind of disrespectful on for the arbitrary system. Which brings us back to alva. Because she lived in a society that did not treat her with any legitimacy. At hard to believe because here we have this insanely rich woman running around building these towers and it seems like she would have no complaint in the world but the truth is you live in a world that was incredibly narrow and oppressive. Women of her class and station were expected to stay at home and keep their mouth shut. They were allowed to vote rid of it couldnt have jobs. They couldnt go to college. They couldnt participate in any meaningful way and the public life of the society in which they were apart. They were told to stay at home, take care of the children and the servantsand put on dinner parties. The men meanwhile could do whatever they wanted. They could go to college, start businesses, run for public office. Under the laws of that time a man could divorce a woman simply by alleging infidelity. A woman to divorce a man she had to prove infidelity and physical cruelty. One set of rules for women, one for men. The men in that circle she was a part of it in dollars every when they wanted. They would get on the j. P. Morgans yacht and go out to see and filled it up with call girls and have mistresses andapartments , with whom they ultimately consorted. Meanwhile the women, they had to stay home and keep up respectable appearances. And willie vanderbilt, alvas husband was no exception. He was this spoiled playboy. He didnt work for a living, he inherited this gigantic fortune and he was handsome and charming and had one of theirafter another. Openly. In front of all the people in the social circle. Meanwhile, was required to keep her mouth shut and be the dutiful hostess. She looked from the outside like she was a woman in command of her world but she was desperately unhappy and she would later describe the years leading up to consuelos wedding as the worst of her life. She really had begun to argue. She had begun to feel trapped and dissatisfied and she meets a man Oliver Belmont with whom she falls in love but she cant have an affair with him. Theres no way a woman of her situation and standing could do what all the menwere doing. And she finally in an attempt to save her marriage turns to willie and she says can we take a Family Vacation so they go off as a family to paris but its a complete disaster because the minute they get to paris willie starts an affair not just with her best friend but also with this prostitute, hard plastic prostitute called nelly newsletter and runs around paris with these two women completely humiliating alva. And she feels she has no choice and so she kicks him out. She says thats it. And everyone in her life says youcant do that. The lawyer with whom he tries to file divorce papers against her husband says no, it wont do it for her. Dont be ridiculous. All herfriends are up in arms. The tabloids can you imagine, they descend on her. Here we have the one of the wealthiest couples and allamerica having this very public falling out. Cant imagine what a press circuit it is and she comes out of the church in newport where she has been attending her entire adult life and all these people who she considers her friends turn their back on her. They wont talk to her. Theypretend she doesnt exist. But she feels she has no choice. Later in her life when she writes her memoirs she writes this incredibly point passage about what it was like to be a woman in that era and she says was considered religious unified and correct or the wife to withdraw into the shadows while her husband paid the family respects to the sunshine. The woman was supposed to get her sunlight by proxy to her husband. Here we have this brilliant and vicious driven woman and todays world you would be an entrepreneur and she would have started her own company to be running something. Shed be running for public office. He would be taking on the world on a grand scale every one of those avenues is denied to her and whats the only thing he cando . What did she do, build houses. On the grandest most ambitious scale she can. Because she has no other outlets her extraordinary energiesand extraordinary creativity and intelligence. Shes frustrated. Society in which she lives will give her a chance to do anything meaningful. It also makes sense if her inexcusable behavior around her daughter and her daughters marriage. Her daughter may be in love with winthrop but when front it should be remembered was 33. At the time that consuelo was 18. He was this handsome man from a family that was described by one of the tabloids of that era as best known for wearing expensive clothing. Hes a dilettante. He plays golf and polo at the Newport Country Club all day long and when she looks at him she sees just another version of her own useless husband. Some guy, this kind of idol decadent lander is going to condemn her daughter to a lifetime of misery. By contrast what does the new of maribor offer . Old missouri sod is a little miserable sought in another country. In a place where she can be called a duchess and have real standing in society and stand up under the listen to when she wants to and have a place in the Public Affairs of the world and live in a society is free from the kind of dreadful strengths of new york high society. To us that sounds like a dreadfully cynical calculation because consuelo was generally, genuinely in love with wintry and we think love to be the basis for marriage hundred years ago in the society of which alva was a part love seemed like an impossible luxury. Consuelo was her great hope and she was not going to let her daughter squander her life in the same way she felt her own life had been slaughtered. So in that moment when consuelo and sonny are pulling away in the carriage this here comes out was i not hear of joy. Its, this is an incredibly tragic moment for her. This is a woman who has had to alienate her own blonde beloved daughter in order to save her. This is a woman is trapped in the most horrible and loveless and united of marriages. This is a woman who is a witness to society of which shes a part, turned against her. Because she dared to stand up to this jerk that she was married to riyadh shes a woman whos living alife of indescribable hell. But she doesnt turn back. Or back down and why not . Because she does not perceive the authority of those who shun her as legitimate. They havent given her standing. They havent allowed her to speak up about whats gone wrong. They havent even treated her fairly. The lawthat governs her is arbitrary. Its not trustworthy. Shes supposed to stay at home and be quiet while her husband runs around town with a french prostitute. At that moment when alva is in that position shes undergoing a moment all radicals undergo. Shes angry. One of the things that i try and figure out is, try to answer in my book is why it is that people in positions of power fail to understand thesignificance of anger. Why dont we understand just what a powerful emotion it is. For people who appear to be on the outside and appear to have no obvious resources. To hold in their hearts. I have a chapter in the book about the troubles in northern ireland. And i went and spent a good portion of one summer in belfast, not something i would recommend that anyone do i once that summer i went to a meeting that was held in a neighborhood called bella murphy, a neighborhood in belfast and it was to commemorate the anniversary whats called the gala murphy massacre when british troops opened fire on a group of catholic civilians killing several of them. And in england, no one think about the bella murphy massacre. It was 30 years ago. Theyve moved on. Not dwelling on it. Theyre worried about other things. A thing that is something that happened in the past if you stood in that auditorium as i did, just like this with as many people as best as they were talking about events that happened three decades ago, you would have thought that the shooting had happened yesterday. The emotions were that law. People were collapsing in hears and crying out in their grief and being polled screamingfrom the room. It made me realize that long after weve forgotten the consequences of our actions the people who have been oppressed and abused continue to nurse their rage and their anger in their own hearts. It made me think about what people think iraq and pakistan and afghanistan. Were going to move on from those conflicts and were going to about them and think its all done and dusted but thats a mistake. If the people who we were fighting against did not do not perceive our authority as legitimate, they will carry anger in their hearts for generations. And we will bear the consequences. And that was exactly the situation with alva. No one around her understood the consequences of her anger. No one understood what it meant to have a ticking time bomb in their midst. Who was Walking Around with a grievance. Because the consequences would be great. In the greatest of virus, the person who sets off a ticking time bomb that is alva is her daughter consuelo. In the years after her marriage to sonny, consuelo is transformed area that she bares them two sons who she would thereafter refer to as an air and despair. And then she leaves him. Of course she does and when she leaves him shes so respected by her peers in English Society and she hands herself with such grace and everyone knows what a complete jerk her husband is that London Society rallies around her and lifts her up and she turns into one of the leading moral voices of her generation. She becomes an advocate for genuine social justice and change in victorian england. And in 1908 she returns tonew york for the first time. This suddenly tall and beautiful charismatic woman and she gives the famous speech towards which all of the assembled Society Ladies of new york at the world of astoria and what she has discovered in her time in england which is england is a different place in america. England is a place where women couldnt stand up and speak out. England was a place where a woman like her could play a real role in Public Society and what consuelo does in her speech to all those assembled society of ladies is to chastise them and to say youre wasting your life. Youre a slave to your husband. You have all kinds of resources and an opportunity to make a difference and youre not taking it. You are a disgrace and sitting in the front row of the audience is alva and you can imagine how she feels. 15 years ago she had sent her daughter off in tears to take her away from the only man she had ever loved because she felt that was the only way to save her. Now her daughter is back in new york and what happened . Her daughter has been saved. And alva and consuelo have a talk after the speeches over and consuelo turns to her mother and says in spite of everything im glad i married an englishman. You can imagine its like a weight has been lifted off alva is back and all the guilt shes been carrying along for so long is absolved. Not long after that alva accept an invitation to hear a speech on the Suffragette Movement and women of course in america and around the world in those years couldnt vote. They had been denied thatmost basic of human rights. And that period in america only for american states were women given limited Voting Rights. Wyoming and idaho and colorado. But the movement for nationwide Voting Rights and installed. Was going nowhere. And alva listens to the speech and she realizes this is theonly way to bring legitimacy to women. Its only by winning the vote can we create a system in america that gives women voice. At treats them fairly and treats them without trustworthy and nonarbitrary matter. And she looks at the state of the Suffragette Movement and she realizes that its in disarray. Its got no drive. It got no strategy. It got no energy, theyve got no money. All of those things are things that ally has in spades. So what did she do mark does the same thing shes done her life. He barges and takes over. And the headquarters of the Suffragette Movement in the era was in warren ohio. And, heres this and rolls her eyes and says are you kidding me . Were in ohio and she moves it into abuilding she buys on fifth avenue. And she says my country cottage in Newport Rhode island. Thats going to be our convention headquarters. And they start to have the meetings of the national Suffragette Movement amidst the grandeur of alvas house while her fancy neighbors by the way look on outrage. And when a group of female immigrants garment workers go on strike in protest against the appalling conditions under which they work and start on march through downtown manhattan, whos at the front of the march. Al is and when they get arrested and are being held in by a judge in some prison in downtown new york, who stands in the courtroom all night long eyeballing the judges . Alva does and who stands up and says wait a minute, black women of america belong in this room. Until that point there had been a group of black suffragettes but they had been off on their own because like and what didnt mix but alva said there women just like us. They belong with us. And when the movement was perceived by some as moving too quickly and many projects stood up and said if we continue to be this aggressive going to start antagonizing men, she stands up and says wait, men dont worry about antagonizing men, when should we and then the First World War starts and lots of suffragettes say this is no time for us to be pushing for this kind of radical reform. We should take down the picketers outside the white house and alva stands up and says over my dead body. This is exactly the time we should be pushing for this kind of radical reform and she made sure that the tickets stayed up there until the end of the war. What happens during this period . You can imagine. She was roundly denounced and ostracized and pushed outof polite society. She was teen as this domineering dictatorial unit egomaniacal woman who had barged into an organization and let it on some radical but the other thing that happened is on august 18, 1920 the 19th amendment to the United States restitution was passed giving women for the first time in American History the right to vote area and the lesson of all this great victory is as pertinent today as it was hundred years ago. And that is that if you deny people legitimacy, they will one day by one means or another come back and if you area one last thing. Alva dies in the spring of 1933 on a stroke and her funeral is held at st. Thomass church on fifth avenue, the same churchwhere her daughter was married so many years ago. And everyone shows up. The limousines line the streets and reporters from every newspaper in the country, and the crowds wrong and are held back by police and the 20th and the most prominent feminists in the country serve as her pallbearers. And at service, the crowd sings three hymns. First is a famous him by. Beecher so. The second is the suffragette battle, the march of the women and the third is a him composed by alva herself which is the greatest of all tribute to this remarkable and extraordinary woman. And the hymn is all about when alva gets to heaven he will be damned if shes going to let a man stand in judgment of her. And begins, no waiting the gates of paradise. No tribunal of men to judge. The watchers of the tower proclaim. A daughter of theking. [applause] i think we have some time for questions. Ive forgotten how they work if i can repeat the questions. Where in the world you see the greatest legitimacy right now . Been so many places large and small. In any country where the way women are treated in many parts of the middle east. Look at the way in this country we continue to treat Illegal Immigrants or other groups or i could go on and on. Except i think that even within, we dont even have to look on a global level. We could go into Numerous Companies and you could see how underlings are treated by their superiors. I think this is a lesson for all of us. To be fair and impartial and consistent is the obligation of those in power. Just because you have all of the resources doesnt mean you can behave as you wish. You have its the old me shea. With power comes responsibility and we need to be reminded of that every day because everyday we forget. I realize im sounding like im on my warhorse. I sound so grim and forbidding area in this country and Company Quality is great. What is amazing to learn how close this country came to masses social investment revolution is too far but we came this close to having a real breakdown of social order. We have forgotten that now its very peerless positioned between rich and poor it is not sustainable we were saved last time by the depression in a very courageous man named fdr i hope we have a similar politician of courage who can write the ship close the gaps we have a chance to have a fresh start. You are well known for weaving together Many Disparate facts and theories. So what is your world like . I feel like im giving away trade secrets. [laughter] its like Colonel Sanders telling you about herbs and spices. [laughter] nothing happens a lot veil is drifting a lot of time has been spent wandering through libraries hoping to stumble on something amazing. Which is why im a selfprofessed library nerd. [applause] but what none of us all of us have interesting stories to tell the what we dont know is which of our stories are interesting. We have no perspective on it. One of the things you learn to do as a journalist is is probe and ask questions until you find whats interesting. My father waits until year and a half ago to tell me the following story that people did not know their most interesting stories are. Exhibit a. He tells me the following story. Its long that there with me. My father marries my mother 1958. My mother is jamaican my father is english to. A mildly radical act at that time they moved back to jamaica teaching at the University West indies and he needs to get access to a library book for his research. Mathematical taxes not in the library he campuses United States to find that it is in the library of georgia tech. He writes georgia tech can use your library and they say yes. That then he realized the permission was granted too hastily a georgia tech then is sent into a panic because now its 1959 and georgia tech is a segregated institution and they realize to their horror that they have granted permission to use their library to someone who teaches at the university of questions ds on west indies in kingston jamaica i thought what if he is black. [laughter] it starts a frantic attempt by the administration of georgia tech to discover if my father is black. You cant tell from his name it can go on the internet and image google him so they start to call around america and send letters. He is in jamaica. So my father has a voice yes this is professor smith. I have an odd question. Are you white . My father says yes and they said thank god. [laughter] at which point the full dimensions of this the hilarious and obscene story unfolds. So my father puts a giant photograph of my mother in his traveling case waits until he gets to georgia tech he is a visiting professor and taken out to dinner they are so relieved to see he is pale skin and midway through dinner he pulls out a picture of my mother and says gentlemen of a newlywed i want you to see a picture of my bride. [laughter] now thats an interesting story. I knew my but my my father 40 years before he told me that story. It never occurred to me to sit down and ask him questions you did marry my mother and 58 it mustve been interesting. And i think everyone has versions of that but we dont understand because they are our stories we dont understand how great they are. One of the simplest tasks of a journalist is just to keep asking questions until you get to those stories. I had the privilege of proposing to my future wife last week and wondering why in the context of your story we dont have the same champions today that we did 100 years ago. And how they got of van injustice will this be 80 or 100 years from now. It has taken is a very long time. That barrier has now fallen and to bring about some kind of change. Why are we only now maybe on the cusp of getting a female president . Why is the title the turning on the realization of gay marriage . And with that practical demonstration of that insight can be decades and then to shrink the gap. If you look at of those major countries in the world are one of the few. And that would have been us to the punch. You have already accomplished such an impressive body of work. I am curious if there is one particular work you are most proud of for one and you may have structured differently . Are you asking me if i have regrets . [laughter] if you want a few. I wont say them. [laughter] yes i regret virtually everything i have ever done. [laughter] so it doesnt stop with my writing. I havent read Tipping Point since i wrote it. And im not scared to in the same way Tipping Point was written in 1988. Think about what our lives were like and ask yourselves if we were suddenly transported back in time when you feel comfortable with our choices at that moment . [laughter] would you be happy with the way your hair looked in 1998 . Or the clothes you wore . Or the color the furniture in your living room there are things deeply embarrassing to me in retrospect that im quite sure that if i were to re read Tipping Point i would wince in pain. All human beings have things that they are not proud of. And that question invites you to say everyone in the world hated this. Have done things they have hated. I think a little limerick that you wrote for someones Birthday Party that fell flat that you actually thought they were sly and ingenious. And so i will just look back on my efforts and hang my head. Sure that is inevitable. If you talk about the legacy during your talk if you dont reconcile with those over the years in the International Community . Thats a good question. I tell a story in my book and im finally mentioning my book after one hour 50 minutes into my book talk perhaps i will mention i wrote a book. [laughter] i tell a story in david and goliath about a woman a woman whose ask you job it is to police the housing projects of new york. And ask that exact question. She gets a job and said police are not considered legitimate in the poorest neighborhoods of new york with good reason not because they have misbehaved but because its really hard if you live in a community where the cops are omnipresent you only see them interacting in a fraught to emotionally and physically fraught away with all the young men in the neighborhood, its hard for you to think of them as legitimate. And the percentage of black men born in the 1970s who did not graduate college a black High School Dropout men, 69 percent have spent some time behind bars. If you are from one of those neighborhoods there is no way you perceive the law as legitimate. I am now in charge of those neighborhoods. So she embarked on a policy and she basically had to go to the families and storage bring them turkeys on thanksgiving. I know you dont trust us but i am here. I know your kid is a delinquent. Cops are always coming around to harass you im here to say im on your side. Here is a turkey. She has gradually won over the trust of the families and the crime rate began to fall because people realized a lot to the underside. But that took years of hard work. She hired Police Officers who cared about kids. And then they say f you to be the person you could say now i like to talk to you. There still a grand way to do it but only in a person to person painstaking way. And look at the crime in that neighborhood is mindboggling. I thought so many of the stories in your book were some moving there was one part with Martin Luther king i had trouble with because it seems to me all of us respond to it we see on the radio or on tv. And what we have been taught to believe happened. I was so surprised. Down give away the surprise. It is a surprise ending. Spoiler alert. Cover your ears. Let me say i was very surprised at what you drew out of his experience and i found it very upsetting. It is supposed to be upsetting. I dont disagree with your reaction. I will give away the ending but i will say how do they went over overwhelming odds . Make a very uncomfortable at the time with widespread criticism along the way of mlk and continuing to make people uncomfortable today you and me. The trick is openly admitted to by why it walker mlk number two man he played a trick after it succeeded was frank about what he did. It is no secret he did many many interviews in the sixties he described precisely how they set about to pull the wool over the eyes of the press. So this guy named walker was a strategist a brilliant guy and the author and if you read the book now i can keep talking about it. But i am with you and i appreciate that response. And to do everything and challenge authority versus my catholic friends and you have and mentioned that religious factor yet and is that significant at all . And the last two chapters in particular and the civil rights chapter as the consequences in part it is all about extraordinary things that faith makes possible. I and on that note because i came to understand that the most significant weapon and the power you get from your belief in god. Nothing can beat that. A woman on the strength of her faith forgives the murder of her daughter. The last story of the book is about a village in the mountains of france who openly takes in jews during the Second World War and complete defiance of the nazis. There is no mystery why there are two sets of people who have no external material advantage. No formal power, no money, nothing. What they have is something in their heart that says ia and empowered to do the right thing. Thats enough. And is an uplifting and this. In a way previous books did not for that fact but then in the end is in the backyard of a woman, little bungalow and winnipeg manitoba foos woman one his daughter was murdered. One brutally by a sexual predator the day her tortured daughters body was found stood up in front of a press conference of 100 people with microphones in her face without even knowing who the murderer was said i am on the path to forgiving him. To hear her say that it floored me then and floors me still. You cannot have