[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [applause]. Thank you so much. My name is arlo haskell, and i am the executive director of the key west literary seminar. [applause] before i get started, let me make just one quick housekeeping announcement. Were going to do the question and answer session a little bit differently today. There will be stationary mics in each aisle, and if you would like to ask a question, you should get up out of your seat and come to the mic and ask your question. When we get to that point. Okay. It is a pleasure to welcome you all to the San Carlos Institute and to the 35th annual key west literary seminar, revealing power the literature of politics. This sunday afternoon session is free and open to the public. This is our gift to the community. And it wouldnt be possible without the gifts that many others have made to us that support our operations throughout the year. Id particularly like to thank peggy whose support makes this free sunday Public Session possible. Thank you. [applause] and in addition to all of you who are here joining us in key west on this warm january afternoon, id like to welcome those of you who are watching at home on television on cspans booktv. We have a video crew here today. Theyve been here since this morning, and were grateful for the opportunity to bring what we do here in key west to the viewers of booktv. If you like what you see here this afternoon, i hope youll consider joining us for our 36th annual seminar next year. If you picked up a program book on your way in and you flip over to the back cover, youll see our topic next year is writers of the caribbean. We have an extraordinary lineup p already. We have jamaica kincaid, we have marlon james, we have a whole host of other wonderful writers. Its going to be a terrific program. I hope you will consider joining us. If you would like to learn more about next years ram or about what we do program or about what we do, go to kwls. Org. And speaking of our web site, i wanted to talk about kind of a new or kind of a revamped feature of our web site. Weve just relaunched a kind of totally new, redesigned site. And if you look around on there at our audio archives, you will find now more than 500 hours of audio recordings spanning the past 30 years of the key west literary seminar featuring, truly, some of the greatest writers of our time. Most of these are available to listen to right away on our web site. Others are available to request, and we will send them to you, and its really just a terrific resource. We have, you know, like i say, its 500 hours, but to name just a few, we have gore vidal, junot diaz, elmore leonard, marilyn robinson, a whole host of incredible writers. If you are a teacher, as i know many in the audience are, these recordings make terrific educational resources. We really urge teachers everywhere to use these in the classroom, and were always interested in hearing about your experiences using these recordings, hearing from your students about how this goes and how this helps to strengthen your curriculum. Okay. We have a Wonderful Program in store for you today including robert a. Caro, billy collins, gail collins, brenda wineapple. But first, it is a pleasure and an honor to welcome back to our stage someone who was first here with us, i think, in 2013, a writer of exceptional intellectual charity and grace clarity and grace with, steven l. Carter. [applause] well, thank you, arlo. And thank you. Its a real pleasure to be back in key west. Its a wonderful community, this is a wonderful event, and its always a great joy. My subject, as you i assume saw from the program, is the black woman who prosecuted lucky louis january know luciano. And since i am probably better known as a novelist, you probably assumed this is fiction. Actually, this is nonfiction. This is the subject of a book of mine that will be coming out this fall be, and i wanted to give you a little preliminary of what that is about. Im going to speak for just a few minutes, about probably 15 or 20 minutes, and then i want to take your questions and comments so well have a conversation about it. In order to tell you about the black woman who prosecuted lucky luciano, we have to first talk about who was lucky luciano. Theres an image of him, a kind of romantic image in the public mind sometimes from some of the movies and Television Shows and even some of the novels that mention him. Lucky luciano, though, was a brutal and savage mobster who rose to the top of the new york criminal underworld at a time when the ethnic gangs were fighting for superiority. The irish gangs had been almost exterminated, although some of them had also moved on to the police force at the time. [laughter] the german im sorry, the italian and jewish gangs were fighting for superiority in the rackets particularly in manhattan. And at this time, the biggest racketeer in new york was widely believed to be a man named doug schultz who was the last of the kingpins from the jewish gangs in new york. He was being challenged by the upstart italian immigrants and their gangs, and there was all this screaming in the newspapers that we cant let this go on, we have to prosecute these gangsters. Nobody but lowlevel hoods ever got arrested, what are we going to do about that. And the answer was, nothing. For years and years and years, new york politicians and new york d. A. S and new york police, large numbers of them corrupt, didnt do anything. Didnt do anything. Finally in 1935 under enormous pressure, a special prosecutor was appointed, and that was thomas dewey who became famous for prosecuting the mob. He entitled his book about it 20 against the underworld, and, indeed, the first thing he did when he took office was he began to hire lawyers. He wanted people of integrity, he wants people who could he wanted people who could be trusted. He hired 20 lawyers, very famously, 20 lawyers. Nineteen of them were white men, and the 20th was a black woman. The 20th was a black woman. And the black woman is the one i want to talk about a little bit today. So who was this black woman . Well, she was born eunice hunten in atlanta, georgia, in 1899. She had a younger brother. They were, both of them, the descendants of slaves. Three of their four grandparents had been enslaved. In fact, their fathers father a man named stanton hunten who had been enslaved in virginia escaped three times before finally being able to, and he was captured and brought back before finally being able to buy his freedom, he made his way to ontario, and it was there as some of you may know from the history that john brown, the abolitionist, planned his murderous raid on harpers ferry, virginia, that was one of the precipitating events of the civil war. There is a legend in the hunten family that this raid was planned at stanton hunten, thats the formerly enslaved grandfather of eunice, at stanton huntens kitchen table. That may or may not be true, but certainly he was involved in the planning and, indeed, when john brown was caught and hanged, that among the documents found on his person was a list of his supporters, and stanton huntens name was there on the list. So stanton hunten stayed in canada pretty much after that. Eunices parents were william hunten and addy can hunten. Addy hunten. Addy, who became a very well known naacp activist in the 1920s, in fact, she was she had an interesting job. Her job was to go into places where the klan, the revived klan of the 1920s had become so furiously active that the africanamerican people who lived there had been cowed and crushed, and her job was to go into these communities by herself and go to Public Meetings and try to rouse peoples spirits and plant naacp branches or revive the old ones. William hunten, eunices father, was the first black International Secretary hired by the ymca. And you have to picture the ymca not as a nonprofit that runs health clubs but, rather, as this enormous and actually quite wealthy International Organization with chapters all over the world. And william traveled the world on their behalf. So the parents were both these activists. And so its little surprise that eunice grew up quite ambitious. She attended Smith College where she received her masters and her bachelors in four years and was only the second student at smith ever to do that. She attended 230rd ham law school fordham law school. And important to the story, in 1944 the Republican Party that ran new york city at time, and as a footnote its important to remember this is a time when virtually the entirety of african america voted republican routinely. So she was republican as were her parents and so on. So in 1944 she ran for state assembly. Now, the only reason that matters she lost, by the way. The only reason she ran for state assembly is that in the days of machine politics, if you were the machine candidate and you lost, the machines job was to find you a job. Now, you have to understand, shes graduated law school at this time, shes a black woman practicing law in new york. Shes hung out her shingle on Seventh Avenue way up in harlem. She doesnt have a lot of clients. Theyre mostly misdemeanors. She did a few wills and so on. Shed done some trial work but not much. The following, early the following year riots erupted in harlem, and she became the secretary of the harlem Riot Commission which brought her a certain degree of public attention so that when tom dewey hired his 20 lawyers, he hired her from the Riot Commission that had brought her the public attention. All right, she goes to work for dewey. Now remember, deweys job was to take down organized crime in new york. Doug schultz, unfortunately, gets himself murdered as underworld figures tend to do. Lucky luciano becomes the most prominent crime boss, so now deweys job is to take down lucky luciano. The problem is how to do it. Luciano was much more clever than schultz, much better insulated. The reason that schultz was killed was because he was thinking of killing dewey which the other mobsters wouldnt abide because the net was tightening around him. Luciano was very well insulated at streetlevel operations. It was very unclear how they were going to be able to get to him. Every because they knew he ran the major rackets in the city. They knew he ran numbers, drugs, they knew he ran a protection racket, lots and lots of things, but they couldnt tie any of it to him. There were too many layers of insulation between the boss and what happened on the streetment well, how were they to do it . Well, i told you that he hired eunice in august of 1945, and after he hired eunice he began to parcel out among the 20 lawyers the work of investigating organized crime in new york. And be so these lawyers over here were put on corruption in the unions, and these were put on corruption in the trucking industry, and these over here were put on drugs, and these over here were put on strongarm, and these on bribery and so on and so on and so on. And eunice, the one woman in the office, she was put on prostitution. [laughter] and the reason she was put on prostitution is because nobody thought prostitution was important. There was a long history of when women were prosecutors the first come along in the 1880s routinely if you were a female and you were a prosecutor, you went to what were called the womens courts which meant you did, basically, abandonment cases, child abuse cases and prostitution cases. And the womens courts at that time this is actually very important work. But its not work that grabs headlines. And the womens courts were seen as places from which your career would never emerge. You were sent to womens courts, and you would spend your entire life there, entire career there, never do anything else. Well, she wasnt sent to womens courts, but it was the rough equivalent. She was to investigate prostitution. Dewey was very clear, prostitution was not important. He made this clear again and again and again. He told his staff, i am not here on a moral crusade. I am not going to go after the mob for prostitution. Were going to get them for something important. So shes sitting in her office, 19 white men are working on what dewey says is important, and heres the black woman in her office which, by the way, was at the furthest end of the furthest corridor on the 14th floor of the woolworth building, in new york at that time the third highest building in the world which is where the offices were. And shes down there in this little cubicle working on prostitution. Dewey goes on the radio and makes a speech to the people of new york, were here, were investigating crimes in your neighborhoods, if you have a complaint, come down to the office and tell us about it. And the citizens came in droves. And the citizens came in droves to the office. And it quickly became clear that although some of them, yeah, in the one might say theres a stickup artist in the building, and this one might say theres a drug dealer on the corner, the main complaint was prostitution. The police never come. I think theyre on the take. Something should be done about it. The receptionist would say go down to the end of the hall and knock on mrs. Carters door. Thats what they would say. So eunice handled all these people coming with their complaints. And letters would come to the office. Letters would come into the office with people complaining about prostitution, and the letters would all be dumped on her desk. And if it happened sometime when she was out of the office and one of the white men was therefore forced to listen to a complaint about prostitution in the neighborhood, he would write up a memo and drop it on her desk. At some point some of the civic reformers who had compiled this enormous multivolume report on prostitution in new york that no one had done anything about, these were sort of these old, genteel republican gentlemen with the reform committees in new york at the time, and they spent many years supported by the Rockefeller Foundation trying to locate where the houses of prostitution were. They had this great report, nobody ever cared about it. So one of these gentlemen wrote to dewey actually, didnt write to dewey. This such a classic story for this era, he was playing tennis with a guy who knew a guy at the new York Law Firm of cromwell who knew a guy in deweys office. And he said, you know, do you think you could get your friend who knows a guy who knows a guy in deweys office and tell him we have this big report and there was never anything done about . He said, sure. His guy approaches the cromwell guy who approached the dewey guy, and they said sure, and they got this huge report, and they dumped it on her desk. They said go through this report and see if theres anything in it. Well, whats interesting about all this is that eunice, rather than take all this and say im not going to do it, her view was that she was going to go over onto the attack. Let the other people in the office go and look at the strong arm, let the other people in the office go and look at the bribery, the trucks. If this is what she was going to do, shes going to do it. She begins by patiently going through complaint after complaint by complaint, by interviewing Police Officer after Police Officer whos worked these cases. She actually begins to build a picture of the structure of prostitution in new york. She develops the theory which at the time almost nobody believed that the many brothels in new york, and they were all over the place, were actually not independent contractors as widely believed, but all paid tribute to the same syndicate. This was her vision. And so the office is still having trouble finding a way to get to luciano, so eventually she goes to dewey and says, this is my theory. This is whats going on. You can get luciano this way. This money is trickling up to him. Dewey is skeptical. Dewey is highly skeptical. But nevertheless, having nothing else to do, to go on, he says, fine, you can have one other assistant to work with you, and he eventually became a very distinguished federal judge in new york, as some of you may know. So eunice and murray spend another couple of months developing this case. Theyre allowed, finally, to ask for wiretaps. As a result of the wiretaps, they figured out the structure, the women when theyre arrested, they always get out the next day because there are these people called the bookers who book clients for them or call them and tell them where to go. The bookers bail them out, the crooked lawyers bail them out, they got it on wiretaps. They come up with an audacious plan which dewey approves. They, in 1936 on january 31st, they begin arresting all of the bookers, the people who bail the women out. And all of the gunmen who protect the bookers and who also hustle the various brothels that try not to pay tribute. They arrest all these people. Theyre all off the street. That night they raid well, theyre supposed to raid every brothel in manhattan. They have these long lists. Actually, they only end up raiding half of them. No one knows actually why. They arrest over a hundred women who are all brought to the woolworth building, and theyre crowded onto, now, two floors. Theyre all over the place, and each one, its eunices job as each one comes in, she does whats called tagging them. She writes up a report and so on and so on, and theyre stuck in an office somewhere or a hallway, wherever it may be. And you have to understand that in order to avoid any problem of, any problem of corruption, any problem with a news leak now, the raid was a big secret. Most of the assistants, deweys own lawyers other than eunice and murray, didnt know about the raids until they were happening, until they were told youre going to stay late tonight because everybody was there to do some of the intake on the people who were going to be arrested. The vice squad, no one in the Police Vice Squad was told about the raids. The raids were conducted by plainclothed detectives drawn from a variety of bureaus around new york. Not one of whom was paired with his regular partner. They separated them, they had them stand on street corners and at 9 00 im sorry, at 8 55 p. M. They were each handed an envelope which had the instructions of where they were going to raid and what they were supposed to do next. They had no idea until they got those envelopes what they were supposed to do, and the secret was actually kept really well. The constitution, that is the constitution to mean someone is forced into it someone took money. So the crime of prostitution, now you have to pick who is in charge of developing this. Eunice has done the work already but shes a black woman so he doesnt pick her. He picks one of his wife male assistant who is investigating the bakery industry, says to him we are going to go after prostitution. I know you know nothing about this but it is your job to put the case together, pick any system you want, put the case together, four more white men to but as it turns out they need her expertise so they use the model of how she creates of how it worked. Luciano is convicted in the end and in fairness on the day of the Conviction Press Conference he said he could not do it without two of his assistants. But e what you have to understand is the luciano trial was news all over the world. Is all newspapers and magazinestry cover date today. After the conviction eunice has become for one of the most famous black women in the United States of america. Pdf liberty magazine has a long series of the trial in the subject is her. Life magazine does the feature about her. For she is that this of this of fame icahn imagine her sitting there thinking of the world is my oyster i can do anything. What will i do next . She handles prosecutions who was the silent film keying and at the time was still one of the most powerful in the industry. It is l and except gain of plea but she twice prosecutes and us left who was wellknown said Danish Institute is where you went for counseling. And so theyve prosecuted her twice because after she served her time the first time she went back into the same business. I told issue as a republican but actually the best known black republican in the country but to be active in the party to serve as a delicate running for president that is the last time there was ever a dark horse candidate in then to get the nomination but then roosevelt lenses in the of landslide in denomination again and the date of the election do we is ahead in every poll but then loses any way. Then how come i have not heard of her . Rashid did do for this list that would not involve the history books but founding the u. N. , and for those judgeships were the possibility of running for congress that she was known to be thinking about seriously. The data never materialized. But the simplest one is her brother. And would speak three different languages as a big and very active communist. And by the time it was closed it was over 700 pages. And while i cannot prove it it is certainly my thesis that her brother and faugh his activities think about what we talk about. The end of World War Two the beginning of the cold war faugh fat with various ambitions plan of which come to fruition in that is the greatest notoriety finally her brother goes to present himself for refusing to name names in spends contempt of court six months behind barsbehi and working with him on this book is part of the reason because they believe in that we dont have been to agree with. This is pretty much the end of her career. He comes out six months later unisys not there later and are strange for the rest of their lives. They died 10 days apart in 1970. He left the United States but the working in the field was closed but the work thatve she did is of enormous importance to be highlighted. The woman Whose Research and theory put into prison uh biggest gangster at the time in American History but what is of great importance to me is her last name primary name is carter and was my fathers mother and my grandmother. [applause]estion if you have a question please go to the microphone. Esta keep the question as small as possible. I and appreciate what you say but what about her being laugh . Was a mainly her brother being a communist . Of course, shes suffered enormous discrimination that was because of being black or a woman about her being put in the tiny office in the end but in fact, when she is hired in year times has the big picture of this black woman who has been hired but but that cannot be the entire explanation theree were black judges at the time and in fact, is new york city their word with those slots were automatic slots so a have to be the combination of being blackation certainly but i also do think the party was a little afraid of a candidate that this was the off year so that there was a candidate for word judgeship and then there was a big communist. So i believe that play a arminant role you are right because of race or gender because there are people at the time there is the type of discrimination in she must have suffered some of that and i talk about that in the book. As far as i know this iss the first book you have written about a family member. How is that just different about writing somebody you dont know what. That is true it is the first time i have written a biography. Faugh i published this is my grandmother i have memories of her she died while i was in highschool. And fired wind and travel to she was of little girl they with steady in switzerland or germany but i never felt close to her. On my mothers side those sitting on the porch they give candy and comicbook hist yet her house is to have the table manners corrected. But understand that weve neglected to mention the reason the family left was the right of 1906 that they have memories in the back of the house of the house as near a burning black business, two days, if they received on the, oregon. This is part of her memory, and the way she is shaped by that, but the and affection, i understand her better than i did before. I understand the forces the drove her and shaped her and that has been for me something that i told my wife has been a pleasure, writing biography, learning about her life and other members of the family. It isnt a joy. Although this book has taken longer than i hoped to finish, it is a joy learning so much about members of the family. Your story sounds like it would make a wonderful movie. I wonder if that is a possibility. I sure hope so. In all seriousness, i hope to tell the story well, is it a kind of story that will work on film . It probably is but im worried about what works on paper and i hope it works well enough that people in this room and elsewhere will read and enjoy it. Even writing a book like this, when i write fiction i always say i am writing to tell a good story, not to send a message which i want people to enjoy it. This book has very sharp aspect of race and gender and culture and our history etched into it, it is written as a story i hope people will enjoy reading. Did you, personal question, did your mother live long enough to see how you are honoring her mother . My fathers mother no. My father died seven years ago and he had no idea i would take of this project. Over the years a lot of people approached to write a book about my mother at a film about my grandmother and do a play about my grandmother and so on and so on and he always thought of making a good story but he never took that active a role in developing it so i feel in a sense even a familial obligation to tell a story so many people find interesting in the family in growing up i always heard snippets which i always heard bits and pieces of family lore, family legend, but i never put them together in one big story and it is also about my great uncle, doing that i do see it is a labor of love and attribute to my family. Thank you very much. [applause] you are watching booktv on cspan2 with coverage of the 2017 key west literary seminar. Now New York Times columnist gail collins, authorw