Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Revolution Of Robert Kennedy And Kennedy And King 20170612

If theres time at the end of the q a with the authors, we ask is the microphone provided and please speak into it so that viewers at home can hear you. Before we begin todays program ph announced in sinister phone and turn off all flash cameras. Please welcome her interviewer, chained daily. [applause] thank you. High coming changes from the university of chicago. He can tell by my voice im not going to be talking so much today which is just as love because we have two fabulous authors to talk about their incredible books. Let me tell you about them and then they will talk to you. Our first author todays train to come reporter, writer and its producer at morning show. I want to say hes the producer, but apparently there are others as well. Re his writing is published across politico and the new republic in new york magazine. His book here, the revolution of Robert Kennedy from power to protest after jfk is his first book published by bloomsbury. Our second author to date is transcended, whos a journalist reported and edited for the wall street journal and the International Herald tribune and corrupting the Nonfiction Book editor for the washington post. Hes also the author of little demon in the city of light coming true story of murder and mesmerism published in 2014 and i can recommend as a fascinating story where you have a woman who was she a coldhearted minister did she kill under hypnotism. This book today will talk aboutn his kennedy and king the president , the pastor, and the battle over civil rights. It is published by ash at. I will start up asking questions to you, jack, which are book is about what you call the overload tiers of Robert Kennedy flied straight years after the assassination of john f. Kennedy in 1963 until 1966. Why did you pick those three years of the different chronological spans . Why all of that . I wanted to understand why Robert Kennedy was a hero where they stood on the ideological spec turn. That is because of how he represented change and can aidtd change and these are the years in which the change manifested itself. This is a time of upheaval for the country, but also a time ofy the appeal for Robert Kennedy assassination of john f. Kennedy. Not only his brother in his boss who would run away. It was his direction in life. His entire life had not had a goal that was not his brothers. He suddenly decided what it was he was going to do. Most books have taken the pathoi of Robert Kennedy is depressed. He runs for the senate can wear bells on me at him, and presidency. Picks up the story midway through the senate years. It was in much of our complicated path by looking at t random in the corresponding and oral histories and news clippings because Robert Kennedy was covered so extensively toth the point where bible so that the president of the unitedstor states. You would find five or six stories on a slow day. On a busy day of the 40 or 50 stories. There was this incredible case of the brother of the slain president trying to work things out with lbj for the First Six Months and beyond that robertbe kennedy finding his independence and becoming the person he was at the end of his life people look to pin he said he never had a goal that wasnt John Kennedys. Both of you mentioned in your books the relationship of both kennedys to Joseph Mccarthy. I am interested in hearing a little bit about Bobby Kennedyes working with Joseph Mccarthy. Y it is your story about john kennedy, not the refusal to use distance himself from mccarthy, but the way he managed not to distance himself to the way other senatee democrats did. That surprised me. They both seem to have either no coming sympathy for come a fondness for her unwillingness to jettison mccarthy more than i expect it. Well, john kennedy had an excuse to not say anything about Joseph Mccarthy during the time when mccarthy was causingin so much trouble in the United States because john was very sick and has been said many times in his life. This time he was having a back issue and was in hospital. He took the opportunity of hiding behind his operation to avoid having to speak out when the senate was going to condemn mccarthy. What was interesting about this particular moment in kennedys life is that as he did many times throughout his career and life, he thought about it again a second time later and realized that perhaps he didnt show the courage that he needed to show. H it was soon after this that he started thinking about writing a book called profiles in courage where he looked at a group oftow senators who sort of acted on their best intentions can even at the risk of their political careers to take a solid stand on an issue in this sort of in some ways was an early moment in johr kennedys career where he began to feel that he wanted to become something more than he had ever been in become really a leader in a way that he had never been. The Eleanor Roosevelt had some words i attend for that momentnt where he could recognize courage, but he couldnt practice it. Yeah, i think he was more courage, less profile, send tonight. When it comes to Robert Kennedy and Joseph Mccarthy as a political leader in new york and charles buckley, he wouldnt jettison people who were loyal to his family. Weal he was awfully good to us in 1960 with something he always dreaded to hear because it meant he was about to do something they thought was more about politics than principle. Those Robert Kennedys at the end of jfk flight. The ruthless opportunist who would do anything. That was part of it that he didnt have this kind of guiding set of principles. When it comes to mccarthy, that was a person who had been good to their family, loyalty when he wasnt going to say mean things even if it scored political points. It was a political liability foa him. In some ways it showed politicat courage to stand by a person who he had been previously had feelings for her. For he also tried to break off for about a failing test file. He passed the buck of little bay. What makes these two books are nicely paired together as both his stories are aboutha kennedy brothers trained to become Something Better than theyve ever been. Theyre evolving. Looking at their lives in trying to decide what they can do to truly fulfill the families call for public service. Bobby was coming along in a in a certain way and throughout the story of my book, that is basically what john was trying to do the civil rights. She was trying to become a civil rights president starting from a very low base when he first cam into the presidency. He was not a civil rights advocate. But as we know, two and a half years later in june 1963, he went on television and announced civil rights legislation and spoke about civil rights in a way that had never been broken befo. Ent moral terms. The question from what i tried to do with how did john kennedy. Of 1961 become the john kennedyf in 1963. As they searched and try to figure that out, where did he get his empathy . Where did he get his moral guidance . How did he find his confidence . Martin luther king was always popping up in my research is a Martin Luther king really was one of the key figures if not the key figure in helping john kennedy along the path toto becoming basically our first civil rights president. Im sure jack can talk a little bit also about how Bobby Kennedy also is a very big figure in John Kennedys evolution as w well. Harry truman might have something to say about it to be first in the civil rights president s. You have a wonderful bid in the beginning but john kennedy going to Jackie Robinson. It is interesting the black vote before Martin Luther king seemed to be Jackie Robinson said in harry belafonte. Its an interesting part for Jackie Robinson in your mind is that Richard Nixon had a much better reputation for civil rights than john kennedy did as a democrat. The Democratic Party is the party of White Supremacy at this point and republicans were much stronger in nixon in particularp had met Martin Luther king already in africa. So you have john kennedy having to get its way into politics in 1860 and is having a hard time doing it. He didnt have the black vote going into the election and his Campaign Manager Bobby Kennedy and the others realized he had to do some thing to attract the black vote. The campaign believed that black leaders could funnel black voters to the kennedy camp. So the campaign tried very hard to court people like harry belafonte, Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther king. Some of the early meetings didnt go very well. The meeting with Jackie Robinson turned into a bit of a dispute for Jackie Robinson felt that kennedy was trying to buy him off. He was upset that kennedy wasnt looking him in the eye when he was speaking to him and already had committed to Richard Nixon and they had a relationship going back sometime. With Martin Luther king it was the same kind of thing that john kennedy could not satisfy Martin Luther king in the belief that kennedy knew enough about civil rights and was committed enough to it as a been a little too friendly with some southern racist governors and have been trying to hurt politically to build his southern base. So they had a long way to go in trying to build that black vote. Were going to come in . I was going to say Jackie Robinson is Bobby Kennedy is republican opponent in the 1964 senate race. He continued to be a critic of bobbys actions on civil rights as he went along in the senate as well. Is very interesting. A lot of people arent that familiar with Jackie Robinson had a lot of political views in the 1960s to jump into political battles. He talked quite a bit and i was surprised reading your book how strongly Bobby Kennedy wanted to be Lyndon Johnson Space President , which really made no sense to me at first. Cap, Robert Kennedys understanding of the political scene in december 1963. It wont matter about the kennedy name our legacy. He wouldve been shocked at the celebration of the centennial of jay at his earth just because he thought it would be Lyndon Johnsons party and things were changing. We need to do what we can tochsa stay in power, to continue to insist that we started. The most conventional path to power to Robert Kennedy in1963 w december 1963 was to become the Vice President because he would be the natural successor to the Democratic Party and have the chance to rekindle that. It is difficult to say when exactly the campaign began, but the first is of january 1964, an assistant attorney general is writing a memo about how bobby would go about getting on the ballot in certain states. In New Hampshire there is a writein primary at the time and you can write in for Vice President as well. Couple operatives began a campaign there. Buffy was in close contact to discover to call logs and messages to go forward a littler bit more than prepared itinerary for him and the things he should do if hes interested in b going and building good report for the Democratic Convention in 1964 and by following bobbys travels, i was actually able to show that he did it. He not only heard the Advice Company followed it. Even more Robert Kennedy pressuring lyndon to enter their names, having conversations, other things not previouslyot reported about. Ultimately, Robert Kennedy decided Lyndon Johnson doesnt understand loyalty. Wh he kind of comes to thatat conclusion when he hears Lyndon Johnson berated his staff to him. And he says this mans political enemy. How could he talk this way about the people that have been so loyal to him. He knew that johnson wasnt the right way for him to go. He kind of meandered its way into the senate and the johnsons coattails to the new York Senate Seat and he begins to discover some independent path after that and the nasa trades have taken to the book. The primaries are much less important. He was working with heart of the itinerary kobe but this power broker and things like that. Steve, did you want to you want to come in on that . In terms of what . You looked like you were going to talk about the vice presidency. K i was in your book. He talk about how Bobby Kennedy didnt have access to the president anymore. H but to get his ideas through the Lyndon Johnson were optimally with you. You get his ideas through in here if and not in a crate digger from you, ill consider that. Then he would get on the phone with Richard Russell and on thel issue of vietnam, bobby was saying early on, this is a political problem, not a military one. A dj would say okay, sounds good. Hang up the phone connected on the other line is its a military problem, not a political one. And if the stars on the shoulders to build this for me. They were definitely of course talking. A very tense situation. Steve, can you tell us what it like writing a dualaldu biography. Writing a biography is hard enough. It seems at least twice as hard. In this case, it probably was a little bit easier because my goal was to show the relationship between the two men. Cant write one biography without the other. In this case, it was a matter of time to show their development from early days. Although i start really with the beginning of their lives and how they were so different coming from very different backgrounds obviously. There were still some solemn laertes but they both suffered from discrimination if you can believe the kennedy suffered from discrimination when they arrived being Irish Catholics in boston. Wasnt the same kind of thing that king and his family suffered being black in theblacn south. There was sort of that he can of incense of some sort of feeling that kennedy may understand a little bit of what king had been through in his family. It was from that beginning point that i felt as they researched it more there was a sense in john kennedy that he has the potential to understand the black plague, that he was just very slow in accepting it ander constantly was concerned about the political situation and took his time, looked at civil rights more as a law and order issue or a policy issue and not really a moral issue until Martin Luther king was able to teach and educate him and really bring him along to his persistence to the point where he made his famous speech in june of 63. Way. They push back a little bit on that one because you put king so much at the center if youre looking at circumstances that put john kennedy backing him into a position of taking a strong stand its for theti actions of the Younger Generation who are doing this to defend the bus ride. Bobby kennedy says cant you people stop doing citizens, do something less explosive. They were trying to manage a political situation. I think it took him a long time to see that this is a moral situation, not a political situation. Robert kennedy in may 1963 has a meeting of park avenue at their fathers apartment with activists and some of whom are very angry. One organizer named sharon smith from new orleans that he wanted to just by being in a room at the kennedy and he goes on and talks about how he would not fight for his country and bobby is disgusted by that as well. How could you say such a thing. Instead of letting his ego overtake income may be the attorney general of having this kind of contentious conversation with people he feels im trying to help, he realizes theres an insulin this country and you see the word creep into his speeches. A continuous and saw the flick it upon people. He talks of a black soldier killed in vietnam be buried in Arlington National cemetery and the soldier family from georgia they dont know how theyll geto back up or how they will come to see the man buried in arlingtonn delay his eyes rather buried at arlington. Dont know where they can stop c for a drink of water. That is an insult and that isco wrong in this country. Therefore you see him talk about it at a much more moral sense. He says that if washington, and search our were black in the northern city, they would be leading these revolutions, too. You are already in 63. And jumping around. By this point were about to to loose john kennedy. Part of the trouble here with these two books talking to each other is john kennedy dies before the movement hits a high gear and 63. In november 63, 1 of the first things the book is how Robert Kennedy wants to resign as attorney general because he feels hes become politically toxic to both the segregationist in the south for feelies quote, unquote claiming a drinker midcourt burgers down his throat. The demonstrators feel he is so walking them. You can even run the campaign because people will think im still in sight, still important. Jfk says no, you can do that. It will look like we are running out on civil rights. U cant thats what he can get rid of am Family Member once were in theus white house as we are learning. And i think that just goes to show that they were still doinga political problems you probably thought he would cost them votes in the south but it wasnt just a Bobby Kennedy thing. It was the kennedy brothers thing. Just watched on that Family Member. Steve, theres been a lot oflo books about both of your care areas. Europe tells us some things about Martin Luther king that we havent been brought to the floor before. What do we learn about martin ii particular . Going back to what you were mentioning earlier about the younger people in the movement that were pushing the Movement Forward. There is a time when Martin Luther king was also receiving in the early 60s after he had his Great Success in the montgomery bus boycott. He succeeded in that particular movement that nonviolent resistance. He was a true believer in nonviolent resistance. That wasnt doing him so well in the early 60s as the younger people came up and we had the freedom ride and the citizens and we had protests in albany. She almost is overtaken by some folks in the movement. It is part of a theme park. Vote as much as in the end would come around to birmingham was influencing a kind of educating john kennedy to move forward, by the way he was reacting in such a slow double play was first in king to come around to being a little bit more aggressive in the way he did things. That is why i believe he got birmingham and some of the movements actions in birmingham for rather extreme. In earlier days, king wouldntli have gone along with such as having children as young as six and seven being part of the protest. E at first he was much opposed to this, but they had meetings and discussions and realize thingsed werent happening fast enough. Now is the time things had to happen. He was willing to take thats extra step. What i was trying to portray the book was how both men were really working on each other. Keep pushing kennedy along and in a strange way by his ambivalence, kennedy pushing king to be more aggressive. That is really interesting and you talk about irving had been particular setting up a chemical out there and get arrested. He didnt want to go out there. And get arrested at all. But you are right, hes put in that position by the students on one side and his inability to get the Kennedy Administration to lift any pressure on the other side. And he didnt do that lately. The thing about Martin Luther king when he was trying to decide whether he should defy an injunction against marching and whether he should go out with several mouse and get or should he hold but then continued to be the leader in the back room. He retreated to another round of tax to god, tap to himself and just asked himself what was the moral thing he had to do . In that particular case he came around to say what was the most important action at the time was to lead the Movement Forward said there would be some strong action by the administration and he was right. I think i asked the two of you earlier if you got the wrong kennedy. We were talking about the kennedys and civil rights. But he think about that . Well, jack and talk a lot about this, too. I think that the two brothers were very different as everyone knows. Bobby was a guy who is much more passionate than john was. He wore his emotions on his sleeve. He responded in a visceral ways to ames and john was much moreb reserved. But they both have this capacity for growth and change in evolution. Ol i think it was partly obvious passion and bobbys evolution is particularly after that meetinge where he was confronted by others about how slow hisslow h actions were that he started to evolve more dramatically and he helped push his brother along. I dont know. They were very different. What do you think . I think Robert Kennedy proposes more possibilities than jfk does than jfk died in 19633 before the 60s really started speeding up and getting out of control. I talked earlier with you about how he got to see him progress through the 1960s. His hair is a little bit longer. Jfk meanwhile is the same. Robert kennedy had to wrestle with things jfk did not. That their foreign accent obviously much more as a change agent in who you would look to it that progression. The. The big elephant in the room is Lyndon Johnson who pushes through the major civil rights legislation and presides over the action and goes through further than either of them legislatively in the Great Society proposal. Where does he sit in this story we have but to kennedy brothers in november i the vendors lyndn he was sometimes thought of as assistant president. Lyndon johnson was telling one of his closest aides, john connolly, in 1963, go on, im past my prime, its over for me. You go do your life. He looks defeated x. Then he is reinvigorated by power. He does go on to do some great legislative feats. The kennedy orbit was resentful of this, bobby especially. He did not like that johnson was being praised for his legislative genius. Hes complaining about it even in 1966, and bobby says, well, it helps if you have shakespeare to write about you. [laughter]reut and i think when it comes to Lyndon Johnson, a very powerful person, a dynamic person, but also a man who did not know how to contain his appetites. And towards the end of my book, you see bobby having to fight against cuts to School Lunches that Lyndon Johnson had initiated all of a sudden in order to finance the war in vietnam. So Lyndon Johnson, yeah, you dont really get the kennedys without johnson, and that ballet plays out, i think. Of and especially with bobby and whos going to control the future of the Democratic Party. They couldnt come together, and thats, you know, how the story ends. I just think that the ground was tilled really for johnson. Because the movement was going in such a way that he had the momentum really to move forward with the legislation that had been suggested by john kennedy. But nonetheless, he still did, you know, magnificent things in trying in getting that through at the same time. I think the nation was moving in that direction. Right. So i guess one question with, you know, the nation move anything that direction and the narrative that we have here is the actual Civil Rights Movement is always off stage in these narratives driven by Bobby Kennedy and john kennedy and Martin Luther king and Lyndon Johnson in the wings. And from a narrative point of view, im just wondering how we can right biographies that are biographies that dont true. Its impossible a biography always puts an individual at the center of the story. Bi thats its nature. But how do you keep one eye on all of the other actors . Yeah. I really enjoyed how stephen, in his book, weaved in a lot of the people who arent jfk and king into the book. And theyre you have to understand that these people are affecting the political actors and, therefore, you the interpretation has to come through how they push this person. That person has to sort of be the constant in this case. Everything that, say, james farmer did affected well, excuse me, not everything that james farmer did affected what jfk was going to do, but when he did step into the story, that was big. So i dont know. I think you have to, you have to hook at the big picture look at the big picture, and sometimes you have to encompass it inside this person. Two, theyre vehicles for the story. John f. Kennedy, you can hear his voice. Robert kennedy, Martin Luther king, you can hear their voices. And for someone like me who was born two decades after it, that helps a lot. I do think there were a lot of players involved, certainly, in how the Civil Rights Movement played out. But when push came to shove in the end, it came could down to e white house. And the white house and john kennedy and afterwards Lyndon Johnson was guiding what was happening in the social world already. John kennedy believed in the great man theory of history where great men truly do guide civilization along. And i kind of began to subscribe to that myself after seeing what kennedy and king were doing at the time. Its hard not to believe that society could go in many different ways. This whole civil rights moment of the early 60 could have gone many different ways if john kennedy had not been there, if Dwight Eisenhower had still been there. Eisenhower, you know, was a, was someone who was not terribly interested, and thats why things didnt happen the way that they might have. But i think someone like kennedy and john kennedy and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther king really do set a larger sort of view on where Society Needs to go. And i think that holds throughout the spectrum of American History up to the current moment where leaders really do have impact on what happens to us daytoday. Sure, yeah. I guess i would say leaders have impact, social movements often have their own dynamics and, obviously, a much bigger cast of characters. Jack, did you want to jump in. No. I just wanted to, i guess, take some questions from the audience if we can, please. Is there a sign . We have our five minute sign. Aha, there it is. It says five minutes. Did you see that . Yeah, i did. I missed the sign. Im a tv producer. Please. Can we have some questions . Good, well done. Among the various players that youve described, one has gone unmentioned, and im wondering if thats intentional. A certain villain lying back in the weeds who did everything he could behind the scenes to undercut dr. Kings efforts,be that person being, of course, the head of the fbi, j. Edgar hoover. Is there anything you would like to add about him . A youre absolutely right. He wasnt he was there. Not so much in the wigs, wings, but trying to be center stage. He had his views about race and the future of the country, and he didnt like Martin Lutherra king, and he did everything he could to spoil kings relationship with the kennedys, making up information about king being a communist and everythine else and passing it along to Bobby Kennedy and knowing that Bobby Kennedy would pass it along to his brother. This sullied the relationship because while i think that the kennedys may not have believed it, they had to at least give it enough credence to keep king at arms length because if the information got out and it was seen that king was believed to w have any communist associations and they were too close to king, it could have an impact on them as well. So it was a very messy situation, and hoover was really a negative force in the whole situation. The political activity of j. Edgar hoover is represented in my book as well. I was able to uncover some conversations that president johnson had that were previously redacted about the advice he was giving him about the Democratic Party in 1964. It just goes to show that when you have a politically active Detective Agency in the fbi, how dangerous it can be for executive power. Yes. Im a little bit interested in joe kennedy, Joseph Kennedy oroe sr. Hes such a patriarchal figure, of course, to the whole kennedy clan. And, of course, both brothers,s, bobby and john, were so enamored of their father, and he was such a big influence in their political careers as they emerged. They became such great champions of civil rights and, of course, joe kennedy was a virulentt antisemite. Im not quite sure, perhaps you can enlighten me how he felt about the black experience, but did the kennedys really have to battle their father against this . Were they afraid of his influence . Please, shed some light on that for us, if you can. Before getting into, i guess, how Joseph Kennedy reacted to the civil rights pushes of the kennedy brothers, by the time we reach my book, Joseph Kennedy had had a stroke, was incapacitated, could no longer communicate. E. Though i will say how bobby dealt with disagreements with his father. In 1966 he gives a speech about social programs which is very much far to the left, and he say toss his speech writer if my father heard or this, hed talk again. [laughter] so i think they kind of they knew where their father stood, they would disagree with their father. When they did politically, thats kind of how they went about it, but ill defer to steven on the civil rights question. Well, i think joe kennedy sr. Had his stroke in late 61, so it was still early in the Kennedy Administration. Rlier and what that did really was it sort of eliminated him from the discussion since he was incapable of expressing himself. And from my understanding, that was when john became more reliant on bobby, which was only good in the long run because bobby, as we saw, was evolving more rapidly than john was towards an empathetic view on civil rights. So joe kennedy, i think, really was a nonentity at that time. One aspect of joes influence though at least in the way that i perceived it in my book was that part of John Kennedys evolution during this period was to become a more empathetic, compassionate person. And that was brought about partly by his fathers illness. His father, you know, was quite incapacitated. It was hard for them to see that. W they still engaged him and had him around and had him to dinner all the time, but this tugged, i think, on John Kennedys heart x he was the one who was always there kissing his father on the forehead. And in a way, i think it contributed to John Kennedys maturation and sense of becoming more of a man, more of a compassionate man who was not only able to see the compassion personally, but also see the compassion socially in a larger picture in civil rights. I have a question about your reaction to larry tyes book, because he called Bobby Kennedy a hotblooded liberal. I always thought he was kind of an amalgam of left and right, more Joe Scarborough than paul klugman. Okay. And i dont mean that in an unflattering way. The whole project was not a topdown giving money to people, it was more about selfreliance. Do you share that view of him,ht or do you have a different one . I think youre talking about the community developmentr corporations, yeah, how he was trying to the to bring private money into rebuilding the i, i cant really speak with expertise on the book. I mean, i come at this from my generation, and i think there have been several books written about Robert Kennedy from the baby boomer generations view. Before that, there was the view of his contemporaries who worked very closely with him who had, were spinning not spinning a story, but who were telling a story in a way that i think gave him a favorable light. Im not trying to do an unfavorable light either, i just tried to go through it and report it the way that i think a modern reporter would follow the story day by day. When it comes to Robert Kennedys position, im just going to talk about that and how Robert Kennedy came to his beliefs. He was a pragmatist, and whether if that requiredgm Government Intervention which he spoke very favorably of in december of 1963 he writes that government is where our problems get solved. So its favorable, its fashionable to look down on it, but this is what we do, choose to do together. But then again he also understood we needed to build political consensus. So when he desized his program for devised his program for eradicating and rebuilding the t slums in these three sets of speeches in 1966, the third speech was how do we bring along the people who feel left behind by the Great Society, and why should government help them. And were talking about the middleaged middle class. And he was, he said that in 1955 if you chose not to go to college, in 1965 you were you were 27 or 28 years old, and you have 30 years of working life ahead of you. And, therefore, we need to be able to do something for them. If they want to contribute to society, then we should be able to the government should be able to help them. So its a mixed bag. I dont really come down on whether or not Robert Kennedy was, you know, should be the hero of the liberals or should be considered a small government democrat. I think it really is Robert Kennedy dealt with situations as he saw them, and he wanted the best solution. So i cant really peek to whatol larry wrote speak to what larry wrote about on that one, but thank you for your question. Do we have any other questions . Well i just say one thing. Yeah, please. I just wanted to, maybe if were closing up, i wanted to leave with the notion that how relevant these men continue to be. And i think these books are because the civil rights, civil rights progress is a never ending thing. And you can see it in the stories that weve told, that as you make progress, there are steps back. As you make more progress, there are steps back. In the case of john kennedy, he made his speech in june of 1963, june 11th, and everybody wasf thinking Martin Luther king jumped out of his seat and sent a telegram to kennedy saying it was the most profound thing hed ever heard from a president , and this was real optimism and hope that we were moving forward and that civil rights was, was there was Real Progress on the horizon. However, as most of us know, medgar evers came home from his, work that evening and was shot to death in his driveway. O you spring forward to the march on washington in august of 63. That was a glorious moment. We had a great celebration for civil rights and progress in the race, in race issue in america. Its a very peaceful, broad thing. Martin luther king gave his great speech. But a month later we had four little girls killed in a bombing in birmingham. And you can even take it even further and say in when was it obama was elected. We had black president finally. That was a wonderful thing, and we thought this is really a major step forward in civil rights and in this country. And then today were facing, again, a great backlash on civil rights. Many of the efforts and progress in civil rights are being rolled back. We have many racist actions that have been taken lately. So i just wanted to say that its never a straight line. Its a very jagginged line. And jagged line. And i think thats what both the kennedy brothers understood, that you just have to keep fighting and keep understanding that the progress must always be be put forward as best we can but still always expect that its not going to be an easy task. Well, thats true. And also weve left one kennedy out, which is ted, who was also a great champion of these causes. And ill say theres another Young Kennedy now in congress, so maybe we can go forward in that direction again. But in the meantime, thank you all for coming. In thank you to our authors. Two fabulous books. Dont forget to buy them on the way out. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much for coming out to todays program. Join us outside for book signingses. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] and that concludes booktvs coverage of the 33rd annual printers row lit fest live from chicago. One of the things we like to do on booktv is preview some of the upcoming books. And and joining us now is the editor of live right, bob wylde. Mr. Wylde, first of all, what is live right . Live right is one of the oldest Publishing Companies in america which started in 917. We are 1917. We are celebrating our 100th anniversary. We published the first faulkner, first hemingway, has a long line of great writers, and were thrilled to perpetuate a lot of that great publishing. Host and youre part of the norton family. Was there a mr. Liveright . Guest there was, he lived a little too wildly and died at 49. Norton bought liveright in 1974. We relaunched it in 2012, and here we are celebrating our 100th anniversary. Host give us a snapshot of your history in the publishing world. Guest this is my 39th year in american publishing. I had to count. I was at