Transcripts For CSPAN2 True South 20170218

[applause] new start. [inaudible] so much of this book is actually based on the interview, interviewing people. And so i am going to be upfront. I am really intimidated by this guy. As the white guys that passed the asian litmus test. The next time i think i ran into him i was working with wayne at monaco and john was there and wayne congratulated him and winning the macarthur fellowship. And then i was actually i started working on the film. Because what we did was we gave donna camera to just film has everyday life for a whole year the style was making the producers quite nervous. I liked the final cut but people werent sure how it was going to fly and i cant remember who it was but johns name came up as something to look at the film and give his feedback or stamp of approval so we sent it to john i think i got a call from you. I was very short. I think the first was it was great. The second one was im never going to ride on a city bus anymore and look at a kid the same way. The rap music at the end sucks take it out. He kept the cut as it was. Anyway. The next sort of deal was he brought me on to uc berkeley they built the program at the graduate school of journalism. He brought me in to do some consultant. I finally got a look at the methodology ivbeen there for quite a while. We were just sitting around talking and he said im going to write a book i dont know about you all but that that is a lasting that crosses my mind is that im going to write a book. But here it is. In so, i want to introduce john and he is going to read a couple of passages. This is amazing to be here. This is the party i always wanted to have half of the people that worked on the project is here. What a great way to bring this book into the world. Just to set the stage i assume many of you may have seen part of it. I will read about four pages of the book to give you an introduction to what the syrians are all about. I worked with him for about ten years. I then tend to be a better teacher and a better human being. This is about four pages. Just settle back and let me see if i can make it through this. Selma alabama was in a state of siege. Finally on march 720 sunday. Two days later Henry Hampton sent out along the street together with his friend the reverend james reed in a thousand other marches. The walls of the State Capitol in montgomery. The quarter mile ahead weighted heavily. Famously brutal posse. He was on Church Business sent by his unitarian employers. Slowed by the heavy sealed leg brace since he wore. That hard time keeping up with the group. And began to worry begin to worry what may happen if he fell behind and felt easy prey to white thugs. Then he realized that a half a dozen black citizens had formed a protective circle around him moving towards the troopers on the other side at his base. Only 48 hours before the same lawman determined that they would never have a voice in alabama. Hundreds of peaceful men women and children and local whites cheer from the sidelines. And the information joined hundreds of other northern ministers in violation of the federal judges order. Questing the bridge. They saw the helmeted troops. It had beat john lewis. He suddenly stopped and knelt down while the others led the deputy the demonstrators they were standing around so they would not do a clear target. When they did not know is that they awaited their destiny was a king who brokered structure deal. They desperately needed to the federal courts. The leaders were there to violate the federal judges injunctions. With the sinking feeling. They would lay their lives on the line. They ended it with the retreat. All to avoid pissing up the president. They didnt know what to think. With the clarity of the Civil Rights Movement. Unfolding there. There was a horse a harsh lesson. They wouldnt live to fight another day. But as they trudged back. In the jumbled tactical strategical moment henry thought to himself someone would make a great story out of this. Twenty years later two decades later in the useful days how many times a day picked up. I logged 99 of flights. Mostly puddle jumpers. To film the aging foot soldiers of the movement. Tonight he looked haggard but he wanted to talk for the next couple of hours we drove around in a miserable freezing rain hit always been soft spoken. At this time we could barely hear it. We have a bite to eat at chef chandlers. Unpaid lab bills mounted the roof. Half the staff was an angry revolts. To complete the civil Rights Television series. I could see that the great story that someday someone would tell was grading them down. They would run out. At the mercy of the Corporate Executives who never intended him to tell the messy story of the Civil Rights Movement. All the energy went to the fundraising he hated. He have just turned 45. The latenight drives have been amok. His epiphany and my own days that same winter. In south africa. We pondered whether he could of been elected resident. And ask where did he get that zinger the ark arc of the moral universe. Around midnight we hauled him up the stairs to the black side office. Gandhi in the corner in the great rambling mess of a desk. He spread out a dozen of rejection letters from corporations and foundations sink into his chair. One of the just give us the money. With the ethics series. Nearly all in the can. Theyre hard at work. They are pouring in. We had run and a money. It was the end of the line. It should have an easy six years before his naive first attempt to produce the great story of civil rights had ended in humiliating failure. His second try was going down in flames. He knew and i knew if we laid off the staff on monday morning and turned off the heat lifestream would expire forever. The next day henry arrived at the Office Around noon and told me have gotten up and onto his bank and risking personal financial ruin for the sake of the story had mortgaged his house. He have just enough cash to pay the payroll. Until pbs and the Ford Foundation came in with the a Tipping Point grant he was seldom at a loss. That is our guy. So why write a book . The documentaries are too hard. I have never intended to write a book either during my time in the Civil Rights Movement in the south nor when i was working here and i kept very important notes. Henry died in 1948. About five years ago i began looking around i thought eyes on the price there should be an operating manual of how to do this and how to make these giant complex series that are about equity and equal justice in the expansion of a democracy and i assume someone was writing a book about that. But no one was. I started out. Fortunately there is an extraordinary hearing into the archive at the Washington University in st. Louis where i was able to look at the uncut from all of the interviews that we did probably 200 interviews i was able to look at all of the companys Companies Tax statements. I was able to find the diary of hoovers i was able to go back into my own files and find legal depositions from legal cases that i was involved in in mississippi and georgias a bit so bit by bit i piece it together. I just come off an extremely difficult train wreck of a documentary that ended in utter failure and i thought writing in the book has to be easier than making any film. How wrong i was. Its a very different process. It took four years not fulltime but four years of working at it. Its a different animal. Its a very different animal. You can pack an enormous amount of information into a book that can never get on screen into film. But you are up against it in direct experience. I try to write a chapter about freedom songs. The movement that we wouldve walked into cannon fire. It is just a bunch of words to songs. You can put those folks in that church up on the screen and turn the volume up and you are transported but writing a book is somewhat refreshingly solitary. I missed the collegial of making films together with the one of you in this room. In the physicality of making films is quite something you are in and out of vehicles at first light you are loading all of this and blasting onto the next location. Setting up lights, cameras and if youre lucky you finish up by 9 00 at night. He just barely make it back to the hotel. Then you turn around the next day you do it again. They are both incredibly satisfying. I have a question. Some of you guys have the book and you can read the text in the front. The Landmark Television series that re flame dash reframed the Civil Rights Movement. What is interesting about that in the concept is actually in reading it it sort of the structure of the book as ive kind of seen it. There are all interconnected. Henry, john, the Civil Rights Movement is all kind of interleaved it together. And eyes on the prize. So if i was going to attack Something Like that i might just do one i might just do civil rights how did you come up with that structure . It wouldve been a lot easier. This is not the original. The original title was messy history. And then i come up was true itself. This is the whole bunch of northerners making films about civil rights in the american south. It was mostly people from california and new york i want to raise the question could we get this right. Its also not the photo that i wanted on the cover. They said it was going to sell thats fine with me. My only problem with this photo was driven by men and women. It was odd to me. I started out to do the book without myself in it. Im not want to put myself in the foreground. It seemed disingenuous. I had dropped out of college in 1964 to the mississippi and decided not to go back to college. I was certainly an activist in a person when i drop dash micah joined the staff. And it seemed very odd to write the story without acknowledging my own involvement in both of those. I love doing complicated stories. Im just cursed with always wanted to tell through four stories at once. One of the things that made the book hard its really easy to do flashbacks. They also understand what Flash Forward is. It was difficult beyond belief for me. As you will see its all over the map. Echoes to the murder to the 1955 are filming in 1987. And then back here. In 1963. Its all over the map. Youll had to tell me whether it succeeded or not. Henry is such a largerthanlife figure so can you talk a little bit about what tree to him and a little bit of his back story. His back story is really crucial i think. Before i do that i could call out a whole lot of people in this room. I want to mention to people. They worked with us at the very beginning of this project. When they were getting directed by everything. They were just incredibly graceless in the early funders they are gods gift to us. The people at colossal pictures who suffered through making the logo and i think still have not been paid. I will give you a free copy of the book. Its interesting when he died a great loss for all of us i thought Henry Hampton if you took the smarts in the warmth and you combined that with a young steve jobs if you can imagine that creature. He was the smartest guy in the room. Also the fiercest visionary in the world. At the time i was working on that. I was also doing a lot of work with the young steve jobs back here in california. And harry was an awful lot more fun to be with. There was a driven similarity between the two. He was born segregated st. Louis missouri on the 1940s. And grew up at about the most privileged life that a young black man could have his father was a director of the homer phillips hospital for colored. Henry had it all as a young man. The africanamerican version growing up. In a 1955. Two things happen. This young man who was a star athlete was actually going to a Catholic High School two things happened. First was the murder of emma tilt. Where a young man traveled from chicago down to money mississippi to visit his uncle he talked fresh as a set a couple nights later the store owner and his brother came into the sharecroppers home objected beat him severely and murdered him and shot him. And a fisherman found his body about week later. Now, emma tilt wouldve just vanish into this vast pool in mississippi of which there were hundreds and thousands by that time. But his mother insisted on having an open funeral casket in the present took notice. And also the Mainstream Press begin to notice and then there was a trial in mississippi with 100 reporters attending and it was the equivalent of michael brown. In the National Media attention was the equivalent of social media. Today. Henry was rattled beyond belief by the picture of the savage face. I never heard of emma tilt growing up. Henrys entire generation was the till generation. And i think they discovered the mission with the murder of emmett till and that was a lot of what he was. That same year he was struck by polio his father actually had the soft taxi in trial form in his office but didnt want to use it and henry woke up one morning and couldnt move his legs. Came out of the hospital about two months later as a quadriplegic and worked his way back to regain the use of his arms and one leg. Those two events when he was a 15yearold on the verge of a stunning adulthood. The first time he ever felt rejected. That a formed the rest of his life. He was a guy that inspired hundreds of young filmmakers. It is that he tried to make eyes on the prize. For commercial television he launched it as a giant 26 part series was a complete and utter failure it was was a train wreck partly because neither henry nor anyone else at the time you to make large linked historical it was years before any of these things that we now take for granite and he didnt know he was doing. He was wise enough to go to Public Television which should did not make the ratings demands that commercial television had. And he set off and we spent a couple of years doing it. It is a really messy history. In affirmative action. There is a parallel group that is to yours that is heading up to yell i grew up there. They have to imagine it was like the plains of texas. I went to a great public high school. I got accepted to gail university. He was striding across campus. Like he was already secretary of state. I felt so dumb and ill at ease at the same time this is a very early 1960s. Television was new. It was there. It was in our face. This is even before the vietnam war and the Civil Rights Movement was exploding. They were about to break over america. You turn on the television here these freedom writers. There are people getting shot for trying to register the vote in mississippi. The contradictions in america were so vivid and obvious to us after that. At a Great High School civics teacher. And everything he taught us was now flying apart. You couldnt not do anything. The trigger was that an extraordinary man named bob moses was organizing a project in mississippi. He was the very first civil rights worker. The toughest territory. And bob came up where they were not making any progress registering black voters. They are being arrested by the hundreds. Bob was arrested and beat up. Its all happening in the dark. The nation doesnt know about this. If washington simply no if the party simply knew what was going on down here things would change legislation would get past. Weve to bring the spotlight on to voting in rural mississippi. When they come into mississippi the National Press is going to fall out. They could actually take the case to the Democratic Convention so a whole lot of us went. I was recruited by the fire breathing chaplain at vail. Who is part of that. We forget that the Civil Rights Movement was a church led movement. Where those great thundering progressive voices. Those guys were ministers. Ministers of the gospel. They recruited a whole bunch of us in the fall of 1965. Barney frank was in the group. And then i went down for the sum of 64. Sure enough the National Press did Pay Attention to us. They go from the north. And james cheney. They spent the summer in meridia. Being down there the contradictions became even more apparent that one have seen them from afar. Up in connecticut. And at the end of the summer at the funeral of james cheney. And rather than an a national office. And then i got assigned to someone that winter. Can you talk a little bit about the whole they have a background. And how the two of you came together. Although we didnt meet them. They didnt discover that until years later. I was actually in 1985 i was working with this special effects even. And shooting cocacola commercials and doing a big science series i notice in our full bulletin you actually got printed newsletters that came in your mailbox there was a series to be made by the Civil Rights Movement. This really friendly guy answered the phone. If youre ever in boston come on by. I have to go to boston it was where the first big production meetings were about to begin. I walked to the back of a Screening Room and they attacked it. And that office was right down the hall. And there was john lewis getting beaten halfway to death. Watching that footage had to work on eyes is the price. I met Henry Hampton. We went out for a drink that night. He offered me a job. I took it on the spot. The next day i started work on eyes on the prize. On the top floor of this leaky old town. Can you talk a little bit about that experience of how henry developed whats called the method and you are sort of thrown right into it this was sort of the second try. Not sort of it was his second try. We all knew this was the last chance to do it. And if we succeeded this would be the first and for the moment the definitive documentary. They had been the lawyers in the Civil Rights Movement. The black side method henry hansen was one of the reason he formed a company one of the reasons he set out to tell that story he was uncomfortable with whites alone telling the story and all of the previous work have been done by allwhite production crews for white executives in new york and los angeles. There were big debates. Judy was an africanamerican woman who i had known in the south. And judy was on the staff at black side. There were several of us who were activists on the staff. Should they be doing the history but judy argued that they should be an all black production team. If it was that by an entirely africanamerican team would be astonishing. Henry did not like all black anything. He argued that because the Civil Rights Movement involved right people and white people and black people he was desperate to reach a mainstream audience. What is a white lady in iowa going to think of this. He felt like the films have to be made by all americans. Each one hour episode is directed by two people a man in a woman a black person in the right white person. That became known as the method. He wanted people to hash it out. Weave secrets from one another when i say police i see one thing you see another. We have secrets from each other across these great gaps of gender and race and he wanted combat i wanted people to have to work this out. And it was brilliant. What it meant was there was no a single truth to any one of the stories what happened in Montgomery Alabama with all the men and women who organize the bus boycott there was many ways of looking at that story. It was incredibly inefficient it cost a fortune that big bottle of antacids. They confided in their sister which was the black side method. They tried to do that. They try to get all of that young documentary makers in the room. At times he was simply abrasive. There were times when there were a lot of screeching tires speeding away from the building and you can actually hear yelling coming out of the rooms. And he finally tired of it. By about the tenth series we were doing. With one person in charge. The company throughout its entire life. I had tried to carry that. The alumni i think they all try to do that the other thing i found interesting was that he actually had it before you guys even started school was in session. You guys were brought on a lot of you not even knowing what your role or specific job was. If you want to go with this guy. It was a force field that just was irreligious resistible. There was no way that you are going to escape that. He brought us all in. Thered been a series about vietnam history. And it was produced there. An amazing tragic epic about the vietnam war. That is fine with me. I think thats absolutely true. We can talk more about that later. So he hired a bunch of folks from the television program. On the vietnam series what they did in the early days of people trying to invent how to do giant historical things. It was supposed to look easy. The hour that you saw. One of the devices that was employed they came from the vietnam series was a thing called the school. If youre going to do a film about the Civil Rights Movement or the Great Depression as we did why would you not call in the expertise of folks who have been spending their entire lives studying this subject. Not to put them on camera. He wanted the story to be told entirely by the sharecroppers. If you werent there you can be in the movement. It is a good role. All the historians we were only 20 years out from the Civil Rights Movement. It takes the ups and downs. We were 20 years out from that. What the hell does this all mean. We brought all of the people that have been writing all the books. We sat around for ten days in rooms to figure out what really is the history. What is the force of nonviolence. What are the themes of this. Its exactly what this was. That too was incredibly expensive it just burned up a lot of time and money. For ten years to come. It is now, nobody can afford it. We tried to carry it on. If they can make a film about the decline of coral reefs. It would be crazy enough. To describe various ways for making eyes parallels are similar to the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement. Can you elaborate on that. It was a lot easier than winning at the right to vote. Its interesting to look at the two offices. In the mid 60s. And i worked at black side. The two offices were certainly similar. They were in catchy neighborhoods. The boss in one case Henry Hampton whether some crazy guy was going to throw a bomb. We did not sit near the windows in those offices. No one got shot henry ellis went to jail for problems early. And a lot of the same people were wandering the halls. They were a legend. At black side. Howard zinn was one of our advisors. The two greatest similarities between my recollection in the days in boston making eyes with a constant relentless struggle for money. My job was the northern campus coordinator. I was responsible. I was supposed be raising all this money. I ended up raising money for eyes on the prize also. In a weak moment. I was very proud actually. To help pay for eyes on the prize. The other similarity was the black side office and a good sense. Orlando bagwell and eyes shared an apartment upstairs and we very seldom left the building. We might go out for a walk around the neighborhood or a run in the evening but you get up in the morning and you walked out five flights of stairs. You work all day on this diet of activism and bloodshed in comp located legislation and messy history and you get out. Until supper time. That would go back down scarce and work again. On bad day you called the slave ship. The same was true it was driven by the same sort of thing. In the book there is also this tenacity and very driven and getting people for Voter Registration but than 25 years later trying to get people to go on camera and tell their story. Even a find those people. It was similar in its intent. If understand that when i was trying to register voters my mere presence on the front porch meant danger. They were and we stuck out there at the end of the gravel road. At the mercy of the deputy sheriff. And they would very often follow around behind us. And sometimes they would come along behind us. And years later trying to get veterans to talk to us it was a curious process because many of these people henry in the cooks in the janitors and everyone else. They wanted to put them on camera they have understandably they had concentrated on the notion of washington coming into save black folks in mississippi and he knew that it was driven from below and driven by tens of thousands of ordinary people. Even dr. King. It was an unknown pastor. No one ever heard of him. He was a local leader have joined 50,000 local people to make that boycott at the bus system succeed. The problem was nobody had ever written a book about those people. It was easy to find leaders with a huge research team. And you begin looking through. Is this mrs. Blackwell. In 1965. His blackwell by the way when we interviewed this is mrs. Blackwell. An organizer in 1964. And she had been arrested 12 times by the local sheriff they went back in 198520 years later to interview her about her experiences. The traffic is a problem. And she lived right in marcel. A little town of 5,000 people. Africanamerican woman you need shed been arrested for trying to register to vote. She told them to stop traffic on her block. So that she could be interviewed about why the previous sheriff had been arrested 12 times. That is a dangerous story to tell because it makes you feel that it all ended happily. The monster sleeps with one eye open. And the struggle certainly did not end in 1965. A lot of the gains made as we all know were in for the fight of our lives. But that is not what you ask. Let me just talk a little bit more about some of these interviews. Its important to know i wish Orlando Bagwell could be here. Hes one of the most inner brilliant interviewers. We were on short wages and rations. They would make it a point. They would talk for hours and walk around town and when we finally sat down we got the lights all set up. He would talks more. Orlando never allowed himself to be rushed. He does completely he does completely walked into the moment with whoever he was interviewing with. And what they described. They were shot to Death Outside the door. And it was only after hours of sitting with her in the living room while the crew was getting more and more nervous. And they finally put them in their eyes. We knew it was time to talk. And she sat down in the chair and she did this in one take. We should talk about white segregation just a little bit. They have a way to help them talk. Its no surprise that thats really hard getting them all to talk. To their everlasting credit the have of the White Citizens Council and mississippi granted us a very candid interview it was a little weird for me sitting there on an outside agitator. But he was very fourth rate. He didnt try to polish things over. The sheriff mel bailey who was there during the dogs and fire hoses. Now, black side was a multi cultural opposite. If were going to interview the have of the Citizens Council you want to walk in there with an all black crew. And Judy Richardson actually. And correctly our job was to make people comfortable saying what they wanted to say and not make them feel like they have to have up their speech. Sometimes we use an all white crew and sometimes and all black crew. We left the lack producer actually standing on the curb at the holiday inn. Georgette wallace we have an integrated crew. I dont know what he thought. It was a weird interview. I do want to leave it time for questions and so wow,. In putting together a film in your experience the whole bunch. Active leaders in the Civil Rights Movement were trained in the military and had organizational training. Can you comment on that. And nonviolence succeeded. What was late and understanding in understanding was that nonviolence was a tactical move. There was a lot of quakers involved. And youre absolutely right. An awful lot of these leaders had been veterans. They knew their way around guns. He knew his way around guns. When i arrived i actually slept in Andrew Goodmans bed in the house where Mickey Schreiner have lived. The lady of the home showed me where the pistol was under the bed. One of the great triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement is that people like andrew young in host of others. They were able to convince tens of thousands of black folks in the south. You have to talk people down. It was a great theologian, Howard Thurman had a huge influence on henry and he talked about revolutionary that it took to employ nonviolence. And the other thing people forget is the music. The one thing police, the two things police could not overcome was nonviolence and freedom songs. It drove him crazy. And they loaded all bunch of prisoners on a bus one day and drove to the state line and dumped them out and said it was because i couldnt stand the singing. [laughter] now you mention a fellow named Robert Williams. I was up to hear what is not in a documentary. What they have left out and there are a lot of things that get left out of this. Starting with the Civil Rights Movements. This started when the first slave ships arrived and is ongoing today. And in the decade that we covered, there were literally thousands of actions and thousands of small towns and cities around the south and in the north. And henry had to choose 12 iconic battles. Those are the ones that are in there. And the rest we had to throw out. You know you have events in Saint Augustine barnett in the spring of ageorge wallace standing in his door. The other thing not in there is armed selfdefense. There was an interesting fellow in north carolina, a guy named Margaret Williams that had deacons for defense. They were armed. They had rifles, steel helmets, sandbags, foxholes and the thought back with gunfire against the ku klux klan. Robert williams was arrested. He actually fled the country and went to cuba. He lives in cuban exile for probably 20 years. Now henry was in a tough position because he knew perfectly well that essential for armed resistance was there. He knew also as i did that very often our meetings in the south, were actually directly armed guards. Not visible but the White Community knew they were there. Now henry athis is the first series about civil rights and henry felt it was critical that all americans see this. And that it be very accessible. No easy fat white lady and i were to sit on television and learn something from this. And he made a tactical or strategic decision. He was nothing to talk about selfdefense. And he was not going to talk about armed selfdefense particularly. I do not go talks about Robert Williams in the first series. We did six shows which were eyes on the prize one which was about the Nonviolent Movement after 1965. Then we went on and did eyes to and 65 which talks a lot about armed rebellion. And about armed selfdefense. That is a long answer to a simple question. On that note, you said that eyes to was kind of master came talk about that . Yes eyes on the prize as a whole has 14 Television Programs and what our and henry first had to get the first one, the golden age for the public good movement. The one that we know it was rosa parks and doctor king i have a dream speech. And it took us up through 1965 which was the great hinge. Now, and the passage of the Voting Rights act. Now henry insisted at the end of the program, when did Lyndon Johnson publicize the act and everybodys holding hands, that film actually ends as a way of saying hold on, democracy is a complicated thing. So we then did this series from 1965 through the 1980s actually. Where there was you know the coalitions that had been together during the Civil Rights Movement. Blackandwhite coalitions, north and south coalitions, secular and religious coalitions and these united friends. I had been a member aredefine itself as an allblack organization. Spoke with carmichael, use the phrase black power and everyone went nuts. Black nationalism, malcolm x. We talked about malcolm x and eyes one and have an episode of malcom x in eyes two. The panthers black nationalism affirmative action, you know that was, it was much more complicated history. It was also much more difficult to find. It was hard enough getting people to love you know corporations races to put their corporate logo on the fire hoses in birmingham. When people getting beat up on the bridge. That was tough, there were very few corporate sponsors. There were a few, run the Software Development gets a big shout out because they were early, you know they stood up and they did on eyes two that was not a single corporate underwriter. It was all public money. And bill cosby interestingly enough gave a big amount of money and a big party in new york. In their townhouse and raised a whole bunch of money for us. I dont know if that answers your question. Luisa, how are you doing to. Why do you think, why was there Corporate Funding in eyes two . Was there a shift . Interesting you say that. In 2017 one a talk about eyes two or eyes one to. There seems to be a shift in the course of funding for eyes two. Request even eyes one was pretty public funding. 80 percent. On eyes two, i mean you know, if your General Motors do you want you know in 1989, did you want to have your corporate logo on malcolm x . Did you want to have your corporate logo on note in 1968 there were about 100 riots and cities. Rebellions. You know General Motors, General Electric is not going to put his logo on there. I dont know if that answers your question but you know it is interesting. That has changed and now particularly with the iraq of the golden age. The decade from 1955 through 65. The golden age of civil rights. Its like fuzzywuzzy stuff now. And people are more than happy, corporations are i mean it was wintermute rosa parks. It was this astonishing birdlike woman. Who, this is part of the answer to question. Henry was determined to overturn the myth you know the tired seamstress who suddenly one day decided to stand and sort of a lightbulb moment and disrupt segregation. I mean that woman had been a fierce activist for 20 years before that happened. Jaden kicked off the buses, she had been arrested, she worked and had been with Sharecroppers Union in rural alabama. She was the real deal. You know from years before that. And she was also part of a decadelong organizing effort in Montgomery Alabama. Henry was very keen to bring his work organizers. Some interviewed her and she was great. Very, you cannot imagine like this is the face that lost a thousand ships, you know . We interviewed her and i came back to palo alto and there was a city bus. On the side of the bus was this giant picture of rosa parks. And on the apple logo its think different. [laughter] it messed with my mind. And he didnt have any idea . Is this notion of disruption. You know so and had a great idea. And then you know like a month later there was a bus with cesar chavez and a bus with you know, the dalai lama. In it. You know, does Apple Computer and their advertising agency, do they really know these people are all about . Or did they just pay to license the image . You know, its interesting because no one ever put malcolm x on a think different bus. No one ever put jesus on a think different bus. [laughter] us because there is no logo on eyes two. I just come back from the womens march and it was interesting to see with the new leverage for change may be. And that march, had corporate sponsors. One of which was chase bank. I thought wow i mean, it was chase bank at sundance. And i thought wow, you know maybe theres something happening. Anyhow, it is too long of an answer. What else . We are generation out now. Henrys notion that these stories should reach every generation. If you are funded and if you were to remake the series now, how would it look and feel as you are looking at the civil rights history quake. You know i would ask you. I would have you guys make it. You know ive been there, ive done that. And it does not need to be remade the same way. And i do not know that i am though to figure out the new way to make it. I mean what henry would say is you know, these young folks that came through, you figure out how to do it. I mean look at the Academy Award nominations yesterday. You know four of those films are by africanamerican directors. Three of them or some variation of the africanamerican experience and broadly defined several rights struggle. One of them, oj, made in america is witnesses and archives. It is a very simple spare pallet. And there is an astonishing wonderful kind of anarchy loaded up with graphics and all kinds of music and it has interviews and shots and this wonderful kind of golden age of documentary way of addressing the same issues. And then i am not your negro on a film about james baldwin. Dont do something we never did, and uses james baldwins own words. It is the driving force in that film. So i welcome all of that and i know all of those new types of devices can be used to retell the stories. But if you look at music as a litmus test, for how these stories are told different. In eyes one, one of the producers recently told me as i preachers were telling the story because it was all church. All church songs and freedom songs. In eyes twos hiphop and rap and shows how the movement changed from being a churchbased movement to be a much more secular. Henry hated rapp. He just could not stand it, he hated hiphop. He never came around to it. So where my going to it has to be done differently. But each new generation. I dont know if that answers your question. In the civil rights leaders, both top leaders and the grassroots activists that your crew was interviewing, putting this together did you ever pick up a feeling from these leaders, grassroots and churches etc. That they thought they could break the back of jim crow starting the 50s. Was there ever a sense that they thought this could be done relatively quickly you know like apartheid in south africa. All of the experts never thought it would go that fast. That is an interesting question. I do not think that, i was not aware that any of the people in the movement that i knew in the south or that we interviewed were ever seriously troubled by doubt that this was achievable. I mean it is so right. You know we were talking about orlando fed well yesterday. And he said you can be confusing this was right or not. What is interesting, if we talk about apartheid we made eyes on the prize during the last days and every day we watched the news coming out of johannesburg and cape town and henry you know he was the first to point out to me that the citizens of south africa were not citizens of south africa, the black citizens. Black South Africans were not citizens of their own nation. And i cannot speak for the people i worked with in the south or other people with eyes on the prize but my guess is that was 16 people is, no matter how things were in alabama if you are a marcher or protester, you knew you were a citizen of the united states. Engineer eventually you can leapfrog over this crazy character. And you could finally get people in washington, the president , congress, the justice department, get them to notice. And i think that for me i know was a sustaining understanding. I dont know if that answers the question. That is my sense of things. And the music. Hi judy. [inaudible question]. [laughter] very amusing. Did you change your perspective . You know, in the review of the New York Times essay the book is 75 pages too long. And i know it which exact 75 pages he is talking about. At the, its just a few pages. [laughter] what i learned, management matters. You know . It is very unglamorous. Give institutions in this country and in our world, our community. Institutions that we really need, we really have to you know, they are incredibly important and they serve documentary making, i like to think this is america and those institutions have to live on. And black side did not live on. This was the same time as Barbara Koppel and there was hoop dreams, and all of the other ones turn out good work. Left side alone, the reason for the extra 75 pages was based on having talked with an awful lot of people and when i was there, i was sort of commuting in and out. I was shooting commercials and i could afford to maybe miss a paycheck now and then. And it was only when interviewed a lot of the people, did about 150 interviews with the book. I began to understand that depth of frankly anger. Because people got caught. People work at black side, they are interns and associate producers. You know him he was the big enchilada. And as of september we walk for him. We were also in the thrall of the Civil Rights Movement. You know just because if there ever was one. And we were hampton hostages we said. And that, because the Management Unit he was paying, we were paying for everything series with money from the next series. And when henry died there was no next series. So the whole thing collapsed. It was a roundabout way saying what i learned, i had a new appreciation for the need, for good management. It sounds incredibly unglamorous and it is not like, you know, fire hoses and arrested for Voter Registration. I think in some ways it is equally important. Yeah. Hi zach. What did you learn about the movement while working on a series that you did not know perhaps, or was not a clear focus . Wow, interesting. We spend our lives getting paid to learn about great stuff. That, well, what i learned was how complicated the movement was. When i was working in mississippi and georgia i was like a spec. I was the lowest level footsoldier. You know . And i saw only a tiny slice, particularly in mississippi. I saw one little bit of what was going on in one world county. In mississippi and it was not until i went to work for henry that i began to realize how messy it all was. I was aware in the south for instance of the rivalries between but the, just the complication of those organizations, the complication of all of them trying to figure out which lever to pull to get change to happen. And thats with the Civil Rights Movement was all about. You know you have a crazy flamboyantly violent guy in birmingham. Who could have made up a better name, bull connor. Organizers, debates were about how to be for vocal connor to behave in such a way that they will notice. And it is an important concept about that. Dominique and barb and amandaand will not do any good. Unless you can bargain a way that it appeals to a higher civil power. Whether it is a State Government or the federal government. And henry really opened my eyes to how incredibly complicated that was. We did interviews with people inside the johnson administration. We did, i interviewed nicholas the attorney general under johnson. And, i mean i had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. During the events at selma, where the movements nick particularly had targeted the sheriff. You know they just knew they had a lead aftercare. The lead bad guy. Throughout that whole year, two years of work, the justice department, they were drafting a constitutional amendment about Voting Rights. I was in selma, i had no idea what was going on. Didnt answer all of the questions . Maybe we can wrap up, jon else spent six hours this monday from 5 30 a. M. Doing radio interviews. Let me. Guest that. You know when you make a movie, you finish the film and you click play. [laughter] and it goes. When you are, i mean this is fun being here with you guys but when you write a book, it is after the books published web that the work starts. They do this thing called radio tour. If you write a book, i hope you all do i encourage you to do this. They ask you to do a radio tour and you say sure. The radio tour, your phone rings at 530 in the morning. As a producer in new york and they suckle you through radio stations across the country for the next five hours. And you have to be like another perky author. And every talk show host is going to ask you exactly the same questions that the publicist from the publishers and anyhow, it is necessary. You have to do your work. [laughter]. [inaudible question] that is a good question. I was afraid you were going to ask that. [laughter] i began writing this book the week that barack obama was elected, reelected by a huge margin. And the book went to the printer. On the day that donald trump was elected. And i thought that the book would be relevant because this there was this crazy drunken walk but it was a drunken walk in the right direction. Toward equity, equality, Voting Rights. And all of a sudden, the legacy of doctor king slams against the legacy of george wallace. And it is interesting, all of the talk show people wanted to know what the relevance to today is. There are plenty of people who say an awful lot about today. I mean my only thing i would add to it is that eyes on the prize is actually an operating manual for organizers. There are a lot of progressive and social movements that died because of all the storytellers died. Hansen felt that you know this was not about a bunch of laws back then, this is not about how you may change in the 1960s. This is about he may change anytime. I think it is a longer discussion, he a lot of the levers that we were able to identify in the 1960s are now broken. But you know, you better start, you better run for august, you better start organizing for the fight of our lives. Which we are going to win it. Weve been through dark times. Americans often come out of dark times as a stronger and better nation. How is that for a cheery note to. [laughter] [applause] thank you john. Wax. Thank you. John is happy to sign books at the front counter. We would like to get old you lined up and then going out along the stairs. Thank you again for being here