Director of the Margaret Walker. His books include a collection of essays entitled redefining liberal Arts Education in the 21st century and t paterson and the wise south dilemma evolving resistance, black advancement. I serve the board for the void. The book festival. Im sorry. Along with robbie. Robbie, take it away from the venue in the lobby. So glad to see such a wonderful audience and its my pleasure to introduce our esteemed panelists today. I will start with dr. Eddie glaude. Eddie glaude is the James Mcdonald distinguished University Professor and chair of the department of africanamerican studies at princeton university. Hes the former president of the American Academy of religion, the largest professional organization of scholars of religion in the world. Hes the author of several important books, including his most recent work that were here to talk about today. Begin again, James Baldwins america and its urgent for our own times. He is a columnist, Time Magazine and a regular msnbc contributor, as well as he makes frequent appearances on meet the press on sunday. He hails from multiple mississippi and is a grad grad. The mississippi homeless. He is a graduate of Morehouse College in atlanta, georgia. And we are glad. Welcome you home about globe amani perry, the hughes rogers professor of africanamerican, also at princeton university. She is a prolific author. I dont know how you find the time to write the books that you write and the time they come out works, including looking for lorraine, the radiant radical life of Lorraine Hansberry barry, the letter to my sons vexing thing on gender and liberation. May we forever stand a history the black National Anthem and for our purposes today, south to america, a journey below the mason dix line to understand soul of a nation. Dr. Is a native of birmingham, alabama, lives outside philadelphia with her three signs. I got some alabama here to write. Dr. Gray i do want to note i want to you back to the mississippi book festival for, the First Time Since 2018. I will tell you, i couldnt help but notice in your book that mentioned when you were here, you were a little happy. The book festival because of our claim to Margaret Walker being a mississippian she gives she she absolutely was born in birmingham she did live in jackson for nine years. James kirchick has written about human politics and culture from around the a columnist for tablet magazine, a writer at large for air mail and, a nonresident senior fellow at the atlantic council. He is the author of several books, the end of europe dictators, demagogues and the coming dark age and secret the history, the Hidden History of gay washington. Kirchick work has appeared in the new york times, the washington post, the wall street journal, the atlantic and new york review of books. He, a graduate of yale with the marines and history of political science. He lives in washington dc today and jamie, you know, youre up here with southerners on this panel, but we will be happy to welcome you in. But ill also say we have three yalies on this panel up here. So for for myself and dr. , i also say i notice you the late great Robert Thompson on your book. I took his art history class where we took classes and lessons and capoeira and you know studied the beautiful graffiti on new york city subway trains and Everything Else but in a music man mind blowing. But thats of course were here talk about them and talk about their books. Welcome, everyone, to reshaping Public Discourse. As i mentioned, i do want to thank friends at the mississippi humanities council, the center for the study of southern culture at the university of mississippi for sponsoring this panel. You were told by your Trustee Program that quote, panelists used the written word to explore the negative impact of the First Amendment right to free speech can have on specific groups and the positive potential for civil. By way of disclaimer, i will say i did not have anything to do with writing that description. I and im not entirely sure what was intended by of the organizers, the whole read ahead of shaping discourse much less kind of whats meant by the negative impact of free speech. I do know that the good folks who organized the book festival and this panel in particular were well and knew what to avoid trying to be a little bit too didactic here per the admonition of my good friend and first lady of the city of jackson, doctor everly lumumba. I talked to her about this panel. She she warned me against. So what i really want to do is talk about your work and, what youve written in this beautiful which differ dramatically in terms of style and subject, but think carry a through line that may help us in a roundabout way get to what the organizers of this panel hoped that we would might accomplish. Most of all, im just interested in the books and i hope as we go along, each of you will feel comfortable enough to jump in at any point. But dr. Perry, i thought i would start with you and youre really amazing. But there is a real lyricism to it that resonates with me. And honestly, in a similar way. The club with your book and dr. Clarke, you talk a lot about studying the craft of writing, right . When you wrote begin again, but both begin again in south america. Feel like to me that part of a really incredible literary tradition in the american south, especially in mississippi, with writers that you pay homage to amani like jason laymon, anne moody and jesmyn ward, Margaret Walker. And im note here too, that you seem to have a special fondness on this for our capital city of jackson, but the south is, of course, the focus your book. Theres a i think a beautiful and even kind of treacherous navigation here as you explore place and language, family and labor and food and gender and and you guide us this maze as you literally and metaphorically the south. And the idea of the south, which you contextualize central to the American Experience and central to a Global Experience really. You assert that there are south spiral as much as singular, despite your deep south bias, and that the Southern Region of the United States has both shaped the world and filled by it. Can you talk about this and the south . Well, thank you for such a lovely introduction introduction. Ill start. You know, heres an event that that is really its its not the heart speaks to what i was trying do. So every time some theres some sort political bad news, right. That appears to come out of the south and you go on social media, you see a litany of people saying, cant they just have states seceded . Cant we throw away south . Lets just forget about them. Right. And it is a repetition, this account of the south, that the south is a place that is backwards, that its other than its shameful. And i think that and and so, yeah, theres a part of me that is began the book as a refusal of that obviously but also to understand what people are doing in that moment. Right. Because the south is expected to character really to carry to tote the nations dirty water. Right. Because it was the site right is the site of the creation of the country as such. And so we tell National Mythology if you want to tell the romanticized National Mythology, then you cant tell the story of the beginning. And i went to school in massachusetts. Right . I Plymouth Rock was the beginning. Right. And thats not a not just not not 1619 but not rolling hills. And we with florida were going back even a hundred years earlier than 16, 19 or 16. Okay. Right. Were about european encounter this imagination that were going to come to this place and get, you know, find the fountain of youth work extraordinary. Well right. And were going to encounter abundance and do something with it. Right. And so and be to destroy communities and lives and to crime peoples lives down into near almost nothing in this of accumulation right. And so this desire, the imagination and to the greed right that thats thats an origin story. Right. And so and so part of so the book is an effort to correct a miscasting of the origin story and the desire to push the south out of the National Narrative because it actually requires you to tell the origin story. Right. Which also in which it emanate, which includes in violent encounters with the indigenous, of course includes slavery, although that was a national institution, etc. , etc. Right so for two way to tell that story accurately in, a way that is not just to make people think but also to allow it to resonate, not simply, okay, were going to go to the Historic Sites and, the events, and were going to tell a linear story. I wanted to i wanted readers to feel it with their feet right as i walked through right. And in encounters the resonance between human beings idiosyncrasies the desire for sugar sweet things to soften the blows right of life was. You know thats thats what motivates. So the structure is actually about rather patient intimacy and the way that every where you stand in the south there are layers and layers of stories underneath you. And more than that, history underneath. Yeah, right. And dont blow too many ways in your book explores this this narrative this need to kind of reconnect your lives. Our historic narrative. I read a quote you where i read an interview with you where you quoted baldwins the white mans guilt. And you said as he said it, is the history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities and our aspirations and. Its with great pain and terror that one begins to realize this in great pain and terror, one begins to assess the history is placed. One where one is in form, ones point of view. And you tell us in your own book that the american idea is indeed in trouble. It should be. Weve told ourselves a story, secures our virtue and protects from our biases. We have to look back, tell a different story without the crutch. Myths and legends about. How we have arrived at this moment of more reckoning in the countrys history. Whats the story we should be telling . How do we reimagine this history . First of all, thank you for that wonderful introduction, and its a delight be on this panel, you guys to be home. Even though jacksons is a far. I remember i was telling professor is my first time coming to jackson was Walking Around like this its so big for in some ways its an of what professor perry just said and that is that stories should involve kind of serious encounter with what weve done that is that has in fact shaped who we are. And so the story of the nation is one not just simply of, you know, articulating grand principles of of democracy, but its a story of violence, um, of cruelty. Its a story in which, um, a certain idea whiteness has threatened choke the life out of those very that have been so that are so precious. Its a part, you know, americas not unique. And as a nation in telling itself an idealized story thats what nations do thats what nationalism. But i think part of what baldwin saw at as i read him is that you the potential uniqueness of this place is that we offer an opportunity. Imagine the country, you know, in a way that isnt beholden to the myths of other nation state formations. Right. That we could actually be different. And so part of what tried to do is that we have to confront who we are. We have to do our first work. So far. We have to confront the choices weve made that have set us upon this particular path as opposed to another. And it makes sense that in those moments where were grappling with who we are, with grappling our history, moments where it seems as if we are on the cusp of being differently, that the question of the stories we tell ourselves about who we are suddenly come to the. So theres a reason i. See a connection, a relationship. The january six insurrection and the critique. Critical race theory. I see a connection between the rise of trumpism, right and the the wholesale resistance to attempts to take down confederate monuments. The south right. There is a sense in this moment that the stories tell ourselves must confront are innocence. And so part of what i was trying to do at the beginning, again, is to grapple with through this an ongoing with baldwin, who was a resource queer man who dared to say what he said in the time that he said it was. What does it what will it require of us to finally grow the up and make it you know, and so i use this quick analogy, right. Quick. You know, you have that you have that uncle, the family that refuses to dress like hes hes age. You im a date myself. Come to the picnic gauchos. Even though garcia is related that i just dated myself. Those shorts that come right the waist right below the knee right. And you know, they refuse grow up and and part of what happens with perpetual perpetual adolescence is you actually become monstrous because you refuse to deal with the reality the hard reality of life. And so i think the country close to adolescence because it thinks thats the only way it can maintain its innocence. So begin again with my attempt to kind of get at the heart of that because i was dealing with the fact that my dad is daddy and my mothers mother had to go through this. And now my son will have to go through this. And white folks thinks its okay and folks think its all right. And i wanted to just speak directly to it, if that makes sense. It does and i would say this was like what i use the word white folk im talking at a certain level of generality to invoke James Baldwin. He makes a distinction. I happen to love a lot of people who happen to be white. And then theres white folks with their advertisements. No, you know that. And you talk about whiteness as a choice. Right. And the repercussions of whiteness a choice and what that means. I will say you mentioned Critical Race Theory that theres a friend and audience, mr. Bob gordon, who i told was going to get a shout out while i was here. I know that hes here. In fact, over there he works for an Organization Called the alluvial collective hard to give a talk about Critical Race Theory. And he said something that really moved me about our children and about this narrative. And he said, maybe its okay if our children are uncomfortable with the past because that might indicate they have a moral compass. And so doing their work is powerful, but mr. Kirchick, of all the works your book is most specifically rooted an argument about the First Amendment and the right to free speech. I read another article you wrote that entitled the First Amendment created gay america. And in some ways, i think might argue that some of the most leaning elements of the Lgbtq Movement has at times taken the right to free speech too far, and maybe even betrayed some of what brought about the greatest advancements in movements. Can you just kind of explore that where the First Amendment kind of runs through your book and that those for some of those sort. My book is about a people who were among the most despised groups in this country gay and lesbian people who in my book begins in the roosevelt administra nation are illegal. Homosexuality illegal in every state in the country. It is deemed a medical disorder by the medical establishment. Gay people gay men in particular would be institutionalized chemically castrated, lobotomized, subjected to all sorts of medical torture and homosexuality. Deemed immoral from the pulpits of all of our major religions. You couldnt even really utter the word homosexual duality. It was a sort of unspoken sin. It was so awful. And in fact, i write about the first outing in american politics, which happened in 1942, and the majority leader of the senate referred to crime. The senator was accused of being an offense, an offense to loathsome to mention in the presence of ladies and gentlemen thats how homosexuality was treated. And politically, because my book is about washington dc and federal power and the white house and the executive branch and congress and this was the worst secret that you could have in the city that ran on secrets were secrets were a form of currency and still are in many ways to be gay. The worst thing you could possibly be it was worse even being a communist, even at the height of the cold war and era america, the communists could repent. The communists could become ex communist. If in fact. Some of the most important leaders of the american conservative were ex communists. A homosexual was barred forever from participating in public life. And so my book tracks we got from that period in American History when gay people had to live in a closet, you could not even identify yourself as being a part of this to now where we are today, where a majority of americans support gay marriage, including a majority of republicans. That was the first time last year poll found with an openly gay man serving in the cabinet for the first time. Something i would have thought unimaginable not so long ago. And i think Free Expression so central to this story because none of this progress would have been possible without it demonstrating outside white house in 1965, the gay rights demonstration in america it happened four years before stonewall were all familiar with the stonewall uprising. Less, less. People know that there was a picket modeled on the africanamerican Civil Rights Movement marches, a peaceful picket outside the white house in 1965. None. This would have been possible in the very act of coming out is one of expression. It is. It is saying to your loved ones and your your friends and family and to the world that, you know, i have been living a lie and im not going to live this lie anymore. Im going to tell you the truth about myself. And so i find Free Expression. So so fundamental to the to gay experience and really for all groups, its hard to imagine any progress possible without a very. First amendment and free speech culture. Yeah, and a central story in your book is that of Bayard Rustin, one of the great intellectuals, organizers of the modern Civil Rights Movement who was chiefly responsible for the 1963 march on washington. You describing as having, quote a commanding presence as well as a formidable ability to motivate large numbers of people, political action. You know that Young Martin Luther King even praised rustin as a brilliant, efficient and dedicated organizer and one of the best and most persuasive of nonviolence, which you say is precisely why thurmond felt it necessary to destroy him with a crass appeal homophobia. But you tell us that rustin concluded that by casting his secret of being, he divested it of the power to harm him. Tell us about the centrality of Bayard Rustin and your books and that point hes. Really one of the great moral figures think of 20th Century America and not remembered as much as he should. Although theres a feature film coming out in next year, which im much looking to, and he was the chief organizer of the march on washington. And just three weeks before the march, Strom Thurmond delivers a speech on the floor of the senate, outing him as a sexual deviant, which is the term that was used. He had gotten a Police Record of arrest in his arrest for homosexual acts in california, presumably this was given to thurmond by the fbi. And whats amazing about this is that it would have been very easy for the leaders of the march to sort of dispense of rustin. You know, we have this is the most important event in the history, the Civil Rights Movement. Now, you know, dont need this this scandal engulfing it. But they actually kept him on and. Not only that, he spoke at the march and and hes then on the cover life magazine with Philip Randolph after march. And this really becomes first the first public figure in america to an outing was Bayard Rustin, because he then went on to do many more great things and. He didnt let it destroy him. And so i think this is what my book tries to do. Its not a revisionist history. Its a parallel history. Its it starts in fdr and it goes all the way to and it goes through all these events and president s is and it says, heres what you thought you knew this event. And then theres this other sort of gay secret element that you didnt. And so, you know, so many books have been written about the march on washington. Well, heres this you know, heres this pretty incredible moment that we dont really know about or it hasnt really been considered in full context. And so, yes that was a interesting in moments in not only rights history, obviously, but also gay American History that i dont think has been appropriately considered. Sure. Thank you. Im just a little bit dr. Perry, one of the kind of the common themes of your book that come back to time and time again is challenging. Right. And mind the notion of american exceptionalism, arguing of when, quote, american exceptionalism is extolled. We must ignore all of American History that includes slavery, crimes against humanity and. I would point out here, too, that kind of the flip side of american exceptionalism is southern exceptionalism, where the rest of the country blames south for being the bad part and doesnt accept of the responsibility of own sense of White Supremacy and racism. You say we need a new National Narrative. Can you of explain your critique of american exceptional ism and for you what that new National Look like . I think it sounds a lot like. It too. I mean, it really is. And its a its an its a direct echo. Were writing partner. So thats not completely astonishing. But i will say im actually about sort of the national mythologies and im skeptical of them as i agree. Thats what nations i hope thats not what writers do, though. We tell mold both stories and the stories are functions right. And this is part of why i say in the book the book that this is not history, but it is a true story. Right. So because part of a story is to understand actually what happened in south, whether were talking about, you know, the international struggles around oil, whether were about cotton and the right and the way the u. S. Becomes an international power. There is the region is at the center right of the way in which the United States has moved the world and also the center of u. S. Politics. When we think about federalism. Right. This is about sort of where we think about the revolutionary war. Why is washington . Washington right is because then the northeastern states play the revolutionary war that right . They didnt have a large body, a large enough body of unfree and they didnt have the climate either. And so to understand and that, though, does not that we have to romanticize than we actually have to grapple with what whose stories do we tell in that . Right. Because we could just as we can tell, this story, i mean, one of the things they talk about is, is, you know, the fact we often its in phenomenal how often the Founding Fathers are kind of extricated from this south, even though theyre definitely southern, right. Thats sort of the way in which the political the early sort of political is so heavily planters and so we tell their story without the story that the other part of the story but whose stories right and i think theres an echo here right. Because you tell the stories from the underside you also get this remarkably beautiful history of resistance and freedom dreaming. Right. And imagining a different kind of right. And i think so for me, you know, this question. Is we to think about in to full, right . We have to be honest who we are going to have to be. We also have to acknowledge the complexity right and the glorious ness and just say really quickly, but just because it was just a resonated i mean, so when i wrote about the playwright Lorraine Hansberry there had not yet been a book length worth work that talked about her as a clearly identity fired lesbian woman and she wasnt out write but that when she wrote in her i am a one write something which baldwin didnt do right. He was no great as a but right and so and so to think about those how do we reread her story in light of telling and the new story . Theres a reason that all of these documents preserved. Theres a reason why theres a tidy file that was it was kept of all her her pseudonym and pseudo novelists work that was lesbian themed. Right is preserved. So now we have we have we have more stories. Right. What are the question is what do we do with them to actually and as and now im going to im going to steal from him. Imagine country or our world you know your book is you mentioned kind of the telling of the importance of this grassroots narrative. And for you it feels like such a personal search and, just the power of the story of esther and easter and yeah i mean, its so wonderful. And you also have this incredible quote that just really moved me. You said the ethics of building a just society you begin at the place where you can touch person and the moral imagination out further. I love that you talk about kind of like your personal and and what that means to you. Yeah so this story ill just say really quickly about the ancestor as i found this ancestor in in the 1870 in the 1880s since and i was doing a sort of genealogical thing which is always sort of romance romanticized right story of who you are. And so i, you know, i had in my head one day im going to find out if i didnt its going to say birthplace of africa. Right. And it wasnt. But i said birth place, maryland. And i like, oh, maryland. Right. And of course, this was one of those moments where the conception of the self did not coincide with who i am as a scholar right. Because obviously once going back, she says she was born and in 1769 was your alabama was not settled right its not you know so of course and of course theres that internal trail of tears of of africans from the upper south to the to the to the deep south with with with cotton. And so so but i found this woman named easter. Right. And the sort of support she was born in 1769 in maryland. Im thinking she was born the nation as a nation, settled, colonized a nation. What does it mean to look to history . To look at history through the lens of someone who who was and says her parents were born who were born in the United States. Well, were born in maryland to a not yet the united. So shes a motto in you know genealogical stuff. And then i by people have been here a long in this land right and what does it mean to be someone who watches who is laboring in tobacco fields . Probably. And the nation constitute itself without consideration of as a member and to try to keep telling the history from that lens. Right. Because you can tell i also want to look at that history from undocumented workers in catfish farms here. Right. Right. Yeah. That glowed you quote colorful world and a society that reflect the that all human life, no matter the color of your skin, your zip code, your gender or who you love is sacred. I think in the end, your book is actually very hopeful and. An even in the title of your book, you explore how baldwin held on to hope for us throughout it all. As he tells us in his last novel. Jeff just above my head, not everything is lost, responsible. It cannot be lost. It can only be abdicated if one refuses abdication begins again. You talk about this in the context of the after times that say that were in now. I, i just want you maybe if you can reflect on that and why you think baldwin held on to this hopefulness and, why its important for you to kind of lift that and what you mean by the after times. And so i get the phrase after times from Walt Whitmans democratic vistas, and hes trying to make sense of whats happened in the context in the aftermath of the civil war, the greed the of the gilded age. Were in one now and really talking about where were in betwixt between where something is dying and something is trying to be born. And we dont know what choices were going to make. Right. And all the detritus that part of the environment in the midst of that liminal place. Baldwin man, you know, he didnt didnt say, i am a black gay man. I have to respond to this. So you look this way. He didnt write it down because baldwin was deeply suspicious of identities, fixed him, right . He has this decidedly literal commitment to private, public distinctions. It becomes this really in this regard. But in 1956, he publishes giovannis room and he couldnt publish it in the United States, he had to publish it in. And so he says. You cant hold that over me. I told you. Right. So hes out. I mean, when i interviewed angela davis about this, she said and, you know, she was like a little every time she talks about James Baldwin says, right. He was out there all by himself in so ways. But bayard was in the closet. Baldwin was not right. And it was clear, although he was. So im not sure know. So you see, she had a little bit it really in the distinction of actually not a particular ball that was talking about because she was not out, right . No, no i could write. I did. To understand the complexity. Right. And i just want to also say that Karine Jeanpierre stands alongside peter pete but is you have to respond to your via remark because one of i want to insist on that agreeing jeanpierre in terms of the administration is the first not in the cabinet, right . That one of my coworkers said he didnt know there was a closet to go into. So even for his time. Oh, yeah and it was ugly was Adam Clayton Powell junior at one point threatened. Yes. Who alleged that he and Martin Luther king lovers because there was some kind of rivalry going . Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Much more complex stories. Baldwin said in an interview in turkey in istanbul, you know, hes king has been murdered. Hes tried to commit suicide as a failed love affair. Really, to grapple with this book that supposed to be a kind of autobiography of me. But that was, as he described my language, cspan. It was this might he. And turned out to be no, no name in the street. A reporter from ebony came over and. It was a party jimi was holding forth, and he asked him about hope and baldwin gave him that truthful filled smile. He said, hope is invented every day. So when i invoke hope, its not optimism. Because if you have to invent hope every day, that means you to beat back despair every day. And its is that blues soaked hope. Its that moment in dubois souls of black folk, as hes grappling with the fact that his son has and he cant find solace, he cant find comfort, he said. This is a hope, not hopeless, but hopeful hope not hopeless. But im hopeful b. B. King would translate that. Nobody loves me but my mother. She could be jiving to. And so this hope that you feel at end of the book, is this an abiding despair, this unflinching faith in the capacity of human beings to be otherwise . And i think i didnt have that faith. I would drink too much whiskey, but be i, i would also i would have turned my back on the tradition out of which i have come. I come. So theres nothing about the condition of slavery that would leave, leave anybody to believe whos experiencing it . Especially in good. But did mississippi, if theres any other than being a slave theres possible except there could be a moment where someone. In their eyes exhibit profound. Or moment you in the cabin and you hear the innocent sound of laughter of children who might witness in in a moment unimaginable cruelty. But that flight of love, that sound of innocence opens up space for what thurman says to see beyond capacity of ones condition and to imagine in otherwise such that this is a afro in the room says that when slavery ends, what do these people do, many of them just start walking, trying to find people they love right . So hope emerge is right in the of the full encounter with the ugliness and cruelty of life. Not a denial it you got to look squarely in the face and there are now sure face in the capacity of human beings walk through that mess to the other side you know. And along those lines you tell us that we cannot shrink our rage. It is the fire that the killing. Yeah, thats my daddy. Oh, my daddy was the second africanamerican hired at the post office in pascagoula, mississippi. He knew he had precocious kids, so he moved us to to to to the hill, to the white side of town where they had paved sidewalks and their baseball fields were cut every day. One night we woke up the next morning in the back window, shot at was pellet gun. And my dad responded by shooting a 12 gauge and blowing the top of the tree off in the backyard. The people who shot you and he said shoot back. He again he couldnt stomach it. How could i put this . He didnt suffer. White folks easily because he had experience something in his childhood that was deeply wounding. Deeply wounding. And this wasnt something in the 19th century, something he alive to this day. Wow. Right. And so the rage. How can i put this really quickly if you not if youre not rageful somethings wrong with you right. And so part of what im trying to and this is why baldwin helped me so with my own anger, with my own father issues. This is why i love dave, dennis jr. And dave did a serious book. Yeah, because he helped me grapple with my old man, right . As he was grappling with towering figure who is my hero. Right. In so many ways. Right. So theres a sense in which, you know, baldwin taught me how to kick in balance love and rage, right . Malcolm as long as you south of the canadian border, you in the south, you write and so that that legacy in me so i, i, i cant understand how people lose of the miracle is the invocation of love. And so its the combination the two that i that im trying to hold in. Baldwin taught me how to do it because that was rageful black man youve mentioned to dave dennis, david and a senior the one of the most searing moments of modern Civil Rights Movement is dave senior at james james funeral write about him delivers eulogy and its you feel that youre about right there and hes which we didnt know before gift of the book that hes looking at bin right and seeing that baby in new york so rage is latent as long as you south of the canadian you in the south because this new york right is not just mississippi anyway. Thats right. I do want to let our audience know were going be able to open it up for some questions. So you do have questions. Come to the mike. Well happily field a couple of them here in just a few minutes. Jeremy, i do want to get your give you an opportunity to jump in here and tell us a bit more about the stories of the people that youre writing about how fits within this conversation, maybe. Sure. One of the men i write about with people, i write about was a man named frank kameny, who was a harvard trained ph. D. Astronomer. He was working for the Army Map Service in 57, which was the sort of predecessor to the Geospatial Intelligence agency. And this is a couple of months after the of sputnik, right . So were right at the of the space race. Hes from the federal government for being this is how sort obsessive and all encompassing this purge of gay people from the federal government was at the height of the space race. Theyre firing a harvard trained ph. D. Right. And he becomes the first person in such circumstances, gay person, to challenge his firing. Hes in sense sort of the rosa parks, i guess of the of the gay movement. And he tries to get his firing overturned he tries to appeal his case all the way to the supreme court. They dont listen to it. He tries to get the aclu to take his case, and even the aclu will not take case. And thats important to understand how lonely the american homosexual was at this period of time that, you know, the aclu would defend, because thats my earlier point. The aclu would defend communists for people who are accused of communism and left wing sympathies and whatnot, they would not take the case of the gay person fired by his government. He goes on, found the Machine Society which is the first real sustained Gay Rights Organization in the United States. He organizes the protest outside the white in 1965. Hes instrumental in getting the american psycho Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from, the list of mental disorders. Hes the first openly gay person to run for congress in washington, dc in 1971. And i really again, this goes back to the point of this conversation today. This is all through the First Amendment. Everything hes everything ive just listed is through arguments, persuasion, appealing to the better angels of our nature. And i one thing im worried about in this country now is i feel that on both sides we have decided that there are you know the swabs of the country that are persuasion, that theyre just who cannot be talked to. And i think thats a real for our democracy. And when weve when weve determined that there are people who are sort of beyond the scope of, persuasion of of dialog, then i then im concerned about the future health of our ability to work out our problems in. And as we wait for audience members, maybe come to the mike and ask a question. Dr. Perry id love for you to jump in. Yes. So what part of what resonated with me with about that example is at precisely the same times. So this man is fired in huntsville, alabama, at the redstone arsenal. Nazis are working. Right. So theyre not literally lots. Hes been brought germany right. Who are in space race in alabama. Well the veterans black veterans right are in jim crow border. Right. And this example of of this gay man is is is is export export. And i, you know, part of the service this i mean, i think these these just to to echo to tell these is doing some work in terms of honesty but also correct. I just add really quickly that the person who purchased that car that goodman, schwerner and chaney were in, he was Lorraine Hansberry because she had held a fundraiser fundraiser up in croton on the hudson, new york and absolutely right. And this is a and this is a person you see, you know, who even closest friends in the movement did know that she was the same gender loving person. Okay please you have a question for our panelists. Tell us who you are and individually your works are fantastic. The intersection of your thoughts in Panel Discussion is just amazing. What a gift. Doctor perry. I read with deep interest south to america and you captured something that could not have articulated which is there is a denial of the very thing gives us power and of course were doing that collectively it is part of our origin story but it also i think something that is within each of us individual and each of you in your that youre discussing touch on this like the pretense may be the necessary pretense. I dont know to to deny i mean the south is a scapegoat for things that the nation was was doing in fact, doing come into being right but but for the wealth that came from slavery, there may not be in america. So i wonder if each of you could speak to this core conflict, self delusion that is at the root of our very existence and power. But ill say this real quickly. One of the powerful insights of baldwin is that there is this insistence. Well, let me say put it differently. Baldwin he seems to suggest that the messiness of our interior lives is reflected in the ugliness of our exterior world, that if we were more honest with who we are, what was happening on the cover of night in the south, theres a reason why my hair so straight right that what was happening in the cover of night across my illness right where the relationship between sex race power so intimately connected. If we told the truth about who we about our desires about our faults, our failings then maybe we can build a better world, right . So its a demand for a certain kind of introspection on the personal level that is then parallel with what is required at the national level. So we have to become better kinds of people if were going to build a better world world. They just that to me, i. Was so and my question the Panel Comment and question is this it seems that you are advocating for truth telling and complete truth telling. My question is and that is how for the general public, how in this context of such vitriol, how do we create an environment of truth telling for the general public . Thank you. Well, actually, i feel i have to address the uncomfortable because im going to give an example of this. I know theres been a lot of controversy thats been attendant to the invitation that was given to alice walker to speak later today. And the reason is because shes made some very shockingly antisemitic remarks. And as a jewish person, i find them deeply offensive. She has said that are enslaving, shes endorsed the book that says the perpetrated holocaust upon themselves, that this should be taught in public schools, that this is the craziest thing, that the are a sort of alien reptilian race of people. As horrible as i find these remarks, i not believe that she should be canceled, that she should be censored, that she should be when shes speaking later today. I do not believe that she should be shouted the same that she has to these really terrible things. And at a moment, by the way, where we see, increasing antisemitism in this country, when represent over half all the victims of religiously motivated hate crimes in this country. The same right that she has to say things is the same right that i have to criticize them. And if i had the opportunity to speak to her, what i would tell her is a quote that i saw yesterday visiting the civil rights museum, which is an excellent museum, and it from julius rosenwald, who was the jewish owner of Sears Roebuck who funded didnt know this over 600 schools for black children in the early 20th century. And he said that really struck with me. He said the horror, the horrors that are due to race, prejudice come home to the more than to others of the white race on account of the centuries of persecution they have suffered and still suffer. So thats what i would tell her. I wouldnt want to shut her down, silence her. I would want to speak her and again, try to persuade people some people perhaps will never be persuadable. But we need to have these conversations. We have to talk to one another. So. I. I just wanted to Say Something because it sort of goes back to early point about this question. And to answer the question a question of how do we what do we do . And actually, this is why the book banning is so pernicious, because certainly reading is one of the principal things we do as part of the work of sort truth telling, but also the discovery that facilitates truth telling. And its reading. So we read material but we dont read it. Its just sort of passively taking it in. And you read, you read what you and then you sort of and then you engage in some evaluation. And so the fact that there are so many books that are being taken out of libraries. And we do have jurisprudence. Its at the Appellate Court level. So its not but it says that pulling books out of libraries is unconstitutional. All right. You can actually theres some that educators have over what, in the classroom, right. In complicated ways, in public. But heres the other thing. And i think this is really important, and i try not to go on long about this, but we have a general. Misunderstanding about what the First Amendment protects. The First Amendment is about government action. Right. And its about, you know, its freedom of speech, but its also religion and its freedom of assembly. We think that the First Amendment is supposed to protect on these corporate platforms. These are private institutions. They can they can expel anybody they want. Right. So one of the questions that were faced with when were talking about wanting have a wide public space for Public Discourse is actually the concept once of the loss of the public sphere and a history of the public sphere actually being a place that destroyed the capacity of large groups of people in particular, you know historically people were historically subject to all forms of to who did speak in the public sphere to be punished for it. Right. So we both are dealing with where is our public sphere, but a retaliatory as opposed to answering back which i absolutely agree people if someone says something they need to have make space to be answered back right but also we have to be honest about the violent retaliation the history that that that yeah. Im weve got two more people in line for questions. Im going to ask them offer their questions back back and well fill them at the same time as we close out this session actually. Thank you all. Thank you. Were so blessed have you here. I want to honor reverend frank figures, whos a local gentleman here in jackson, who tells every audience he speaks to, that we have a challenge to do what we can from where we are, with what we have. And in the spirit of that dr. Perry, theres a theres a point your book close to the end where you say when we allow curiosity and integrity to tip into urgency, would you speak to the meaning of that for individuals in the moment that we are in now and. Good morning and thank you all for appearing my name is kevin within the hospital and closer to the mic here. Yes, sir. Thank you for appearing. My name is kevin. Chris, within the last ten years or so, there have been sort of like a renaissance of historical black figures, may not have had the type of or may not have been embedded historically within black everyday culture. Um, namely, James Baldwin or others what do you see as reason for this rebirth or for his work . And where does it go from here on for. The second question, ill answer, um, i think well, there are couple of simultaneous movements happening. I mean, you have, you know. Baldwin studies in the academy has just simply flowered and flourished. Theres the James Baldwin review. There are scholars who have been kind of mining his work for generations and that has kind of bubbled up and then there are the movements black lives matter reaching for resources to kind of to to to to to offer ways of accounting for how they were mobilizing how they were queering movement struggle in some ways and so baldwin was everywhere in the context of black lives matter. And so i think theres a a combination of work, of work in the academy and in the streets. And then theres the fact were just catching up to it because he was he was spying much. He was grappling at the end. His life was what we are encountering now in so many ways. So i think this the convergence of those two things as a short answer. As the short answer, ill just quickly. So i remember when we had that season where we were watching black death over and over again, and you just turned on you turned on the computer. You turn on the television it actually and made it infuriate me and off. And now there are warnings. So when be warns they just play these sort of snuff films right white supremacist snuff films of black people being killed and people kept telling me what you know its raising awareness. Its raising awareness. And i began to you know, say, but what does an awareness is mean without an imperative . Its meaningless. You know, because i think we become. So. So i guess thats i mean again and the book with george floyd and the fact that hes hes when he said momma you could hear the houston in his voice and then think about and also as you know his being in the screwed up click would screw and and and the like with the you know to this this question of the sort of this kind of enlightenment dont we know that are all these problems in the nation, but we still have not answered the. Question well, what are we going to do about it . So that wanted the book to end the challenge. And i think that and that sort of, you know, having a a be in ones bonnet, a part of sort of living what, what we going to do about it should not just be an abstract question but its a question that we have to pose to ourselves and the people around us. I think literally day every day just a quick aside, if you read the very of of south america, you see where she begins periods and periods as ends with the american jeremiah with the Jeremiah Wright form. So the beginning actually foreshadows the form of the end of the end of the book. I just had say that just in less than
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