The Political Movement of the 1960s through the College Graduating Class of 1964. Its followed by the twotime pulitzer prizewinning winners examination of the birth of flight in the right brothers. A look at the best non fiction selling books continues with president carters recounting of his life and career in a full life. Erik larson is next. Next on booktv from los angeles social welfare professor reports on the efforts of a group of men in the neighborhood to improve their personal lives and community. Welcome everybody. Im very honored to be at this wonderful bookstore and im thrilled that they are featuring the book here and im going to make some very brief remarks because i think the people that should share their stories are the fathers that are the focus of this book and i became part of this Extraordinary Group five years ago but actually predated my presence. This was an Informal Group that was organized by a group of men including Andre Christian who is going to be speaking a little leader on. Johnny daly several other men in the community thought that it would be a good idea to try to involve some of the fathers and the community in trying to promote peace and they used to meet and picnic tables behind the Community Center and they would have barbecues and they would cut hair and they would talk to the man about being fathers, how to be better part of the fathers in the person of their families. Now this group grew into a formal structure with funding from the Childrens Institute and it was the work of a brilliant black psychologist named doctor hershel showing her to be the for too long we have been talking about the problems between black and brown families and we needed to take a look at the strengths and the families of color and he believed the major strength was in their fathers that this was a source of strength for families and for the communities coming and finally aside from andre and Childrens Institute the Housing Authority and the of the city of los angeles got into the act and said we are redeveloping jordan downs and we want to get people in the Community Involved and so all of the voices came together in the perfect storm to create project fatherhood and all they needed was a social worker to help them with any issues with their children that arose. So i was called in as a social worker but i certainly dont feel i stayed a social worker. I feel like a sister or a mother whatever they need im ready and happy to fulfill that role. And just as believed there was tremendous strength in the community. The book talks about it and there are in credible stories. There is sadness, there is pain these men experienced death and one of their members having to go back to prison but there was also great joy and the birth of a baby that is here now baby boy james we might hear a hello from later on. There were graduations of children, there were achievements and there was a great joy. So i think what im going to do is introduce one of the fathers who is also going to sort of introduced himself and some of the Group Members and bigger each going to make a few remarks about what the group has done for them. We will take some well take some questions and then even have a little bit of singing near the end of the program. How much talent and how much thoughtfulness and what a great abilities this group demonstrates. Heres the last thing i want to say before i let you listen to the fathers voices as these are the most important voices for you to hear. They told me something i think ive always known but now the evidence is in. There is a lot of talk about what is needed and who can fulfill the need of want and theres a lot of talk about with marginalized communities need and people talk a lot without understanding a single thing. And i would say the biggest lesson for project fatherhood is what has one needs to know what his leadership and has people within its community whove grown up in its community who understand its community, they are the leaders we should be supporting. It doesnt mean outside experts. It needs people to lift up its leaders and its strengths and this is true of a lot of the marginalized communities they are marginalized by the people within them that the people from the outside. This has got to stop and we have got to look at these leaders. Some of them are the men here today. Some of them are in the community today. We have to look at them and strengthen them and provide them with resources and we have to lift them up because they will bring about the change the community needs. Without further ado, i am going to call a man we all know and its kas foreword one of the first fathers well be hearing from. So if you will give him the microphone here he will say a few words and introduce someone else thats talking. [applause] im allowed to be here to support you today and i have an associate and friend of mine that would like to come up. He is also a friend of mine and is here to support the lead today. And he is also an involved father so i do want to him to say a few words and then we will give the microphone back to kad. Good afternoon everyone. I am truly blessed to be here. To my good friend and newfound friend congratulations on your book i am so proud of this project. The book has inspired me to become. I have an 11yearold and he is the epiphany and star. Among the other ones i have to say that through all the works for project has come its brought a lot of money as a father and a 50yearold young man within 11yearold son i can see this project has been such an inspiration and has a lot of intellect to give some opportunity that i didnt have thats coming up. There was the racial bias in all of it. So to make sure its going to be one of the greatest books that we will have a chance to read and i suggest everyone gets this book. Again i just want to thank my good friend for housing me over here. Thank you. God bless you. [applause] wafer that with that record of the money with project fatherhood what its done for me is allowed me to become a better person not just a better father but he better person. And as a role model and a leader in the community, what i do is to help the residents of jordan basically to speak for those that do not speak for themselves, so my job is to make sure that the police do what they are supposed to do and not just what they want to do and to make sure they have a fair estate that is what the project fatherhood has done for me. And without further ado i will give the microphone back to her. [applause] and thats something i want to share. Initially for project fatherhood was about the fathers and their children but what is quite striking is the fathers felt strongly about building their relationships with their children but they also felt responsible for the children in the community. There were many whose fathers were not around. They are the victims of the new jim crow. Many of them are incarcerated. Many of them are incarcerated for long periods of time for the mandatory minimums that were placed that had unfairly targeted and effective communities of color. And Michelle Alexander is a great deal more eloquent about this than i am about the new jim crow. But one of the side effects are the children that are fatherless and what happened in this group is that the men like ronald and some of the others he will be meeting today, they stepped up and im going to call you back up and maybe you can briefly just explain for a moment the youth impact sessions. What we would we do if the session is once a month, we have all of the youngsters that we can gather within the community so we get all the males, we have been come in and listen to them so basically we like to find out what is going on in their life at household and educational standards and how they are being treated. So we like to listen to what their future entails so what it is they would like to do and see come to the project. So, we listen to them and those that are like bad actors so to speak so we put them in a little situation where everybody gets a turn to do two to 11 for the bad things that they have done. So, we make them feel real bad while giving them good support at the same time. So that individual doesnt mess up anymore. So basically, we stay on them all the while. I dont just want to be a father to your kid or my kid, that everybodys good. We bring them in, we listen to them and have a good time and we take them on the trips and stuff like that. But thats what we do in project fatherhood for the youth once every month and i will give them a microphone back. Lets take a moment. Who has questions . Like im under strict orders. Forgive me. [laughter] how are you targeted . As the person that would come in and work with the men in the community . That is a great question or like i like to say what is a skinny middleaged woman doing in the community . And it is an honest question. I say this with all humility i belonged with not just the individual sends, i grew up in the westmont area in first of all my grandparents immigrated from greece. They settled in South Los Angeles. My grandparents are all buried at the inglewood cemetery. Every child was born at that hospital and until the hospital and until adolescence i grew up in the westmont area, and even to this day my daughter who is here, shes sitting in the front row right here she has been taken on the tour comes a part of it is quite literally was born here and i do remember the book opens with the theme where im 9yearsold and we are watching the riots on the blackandwhite tv and my uncle who is a history teacher at this time was explaining to me that these were not riots but they were out economic dislocation and it wasnt about Police Brutality even though there was plenty of that. It was about racism and the Police Brutality but a symptom of that racism. Now, that is not the end of my story when i was working on my masters in social welfare at ucla, ucla in all their wisdom put me at a place called burbank Family Clinic in the valley where i was the darkest person there. I was very rebellious and said no and they only had black students in watts and white students in burbank and i said you are being racist. So i got in trouble at ucla and there is the tragedy of wanting something and getting it. They decided they would give me what i wanted and they said okay we are going to put you for a year at the Martin Luther king General Hospital and i think they thought they were punishing me and they thought they were going to shut me up. What happened is labeled as a very young student to Martin Luther king General Hospital in 1978 no 1980 and it changed my life. I lived in the community, i rented a house from a black family, not a house but a room i was a border in the house with a black family because i believed in living in the community that you served. My family went a little crazy when this happened as you might imagine. And i fell in love with its strength and family and the people who were there and later in my career i became engaged in the study the problem and i wanted to study it in the community. That way that i believe you dont show up in the community and say hello im here to study and im at a series of former gang members and one of them is a man that wasnt here today but that most people in the room knows big mike and he was one of my guides into the community. And they started to do communitybased research and i got to know them and i think i see this say this in the book and i will say it out loud. It was like falling back in love with an old boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever the case may be. And he was the place that matter to me in a profound way. So that is the sort of twisted path by which he asked me to be the social worker. I will be very candid with you. Cii has project fatherhood groups all over southern california. The jordan downs group is unique in several ways and one of the ways it is unique is that its the only group with a female coleader. In fact here he comes elementary but thats how. Ordinarily, it wouldnt happen. So its and i do say this with a deep humility. And its my deep privilege to be to belonged to them in this community. This is the man whose face adorns the cover of the book along with his son because it was important we didnt just want a standard cover, we wanted someone from our group and there were many photographs taken at many and i would have probably had all of them on the cover in the book but my publisher made a decision about who they put on the cover and so congratulations mr. America you are on the cover. We have been talking a little bit about project fatherhood. I will take one more question then i will call you up here because really elementary friedman is integral to the book and the story and hes been a teacher to me but i want him to catch his breath first and i want to ask who else has a question. Quick question about the funding aspect. It sounds like the group was organic and was already in progress and then the funding was introduced. What was the funding for and what extent did it change the group . The money alternately came from the Childrens Institute and they have a federal grant, and they had a fouryear federal grant to fund all the different project fatherhood throughout southern california. So the money came from the federal government coming in than going to go on the record right now not just for lots but all of the project fatherhood programs it isnt nearly enough money. It is enough to pay a stipend to the leaders. Its enough so that we can provide gift cards to defaulters for activities with their children, but it is run on a shoestring. There is not enough money in the programs into these are not words. I live by this. I cannot believe that hes arrived and i didnt think that he would be there. So the minimal amount of money has come from the federal government. However, no pun intended i am putting my money where my mouth is because all proceeds from the sale of the book will go to project fatherhood and by the way, the grant runs out in october and if there is no assurance that this grant will be renewed so we are in a kind of crunch time more than anything. Any other questions before i introduce a couple folks that are critical that they take the microphone. Any other questions . What was the percentage of the fatherless children in prison or whatnot when the project first started and where does it today. How many children in downs have fathers with an . Ive been working with a couple of colleagues at ucla that have gone through both jordan downs, the development as well as the Imperial Court which are the two other developments and then its not just the Housing Development in the surrounding Community Coming into their estimates come and this is their research theyve done this over the past two years and from 2013 of the 2015, two thirds of the children have fathers that are either in jail in present or are absent because of drug addiction circuit is two thirds. It is jail and prison because nowadays we have this movement where we are relocating a lot of folks from prison back to the crowd and brutal county jail so i think its important to say that see that this is prison this is jail, then the other which is drug addiction through and by the way black and brown have the issue of absentee fathers. So what is the third . I used to work just across the street for three years, testified twice a day. I heard that its going to be torn down. Is that a rumor or is that a fact . That is a combination of the rumor and a fact. It is a fact jordan downs, by the way, a really important question. Jordan downs is slated to be redeveloped. That is at it is scheduled parts of it will be torn down and people will be relocated so it wont just be completely demolished. They are already relocating in the toxic soil. They determined that there is toxic soil from the factories that used to exist and you know what that looks like. Now here is the point that we have to push pause. Will there be money to be developed . There is lovely plans and blueprints. Big mike is going to talk a little bit later about job opportunities. But the big question we have to ask is there in fact granted the federal funding to rebuild jordan downs . This is a big question because its going to take a lot of money and on the other hand it desperately needs to be rebuilt. If its okay im going to introduce to people that have recently arrived, and i am going to first introduce the man who brought me onto the scene and spend some time with willie elementary friedman so if i may turn the microphone by the way they want everybody on the microphone because this is being felt otherwise i wouldnt be using them. So the man who is one of the reasons we are here together and i am so grateful, elder michael cummings. That afternoon, everybody. First, honor to god because if it wasnt for him the only way that i would be thank god for project fatherhood. When this started, they started as a sum young men coming man coming together behind the Jordan High School gym which was elementary myself, scorpio and Johnny Bailey and we used to come together every second saturday and put money together to the barbecue. People who come together to eat and at the time they came together to eat there was a time to get the message across about being a father and about peace in the community about trying to get some jobs. He filed this grant from the Childrens Institute which was a 50,000dollar grant that if the Pilot Program and a lot of people said it wouldnt work, not in the Housing Project so we applied for the grant and we got the grant and it was like five years later. The only standing room now so the Pilot Program went on so well and they came out where they extended the program the next three years of 100000 a year and then it went on from there to another year and thats where we are now when you talk about jobs and also the development of the jordan Housing Project its actually a 750 milliondollar deal. 750 milliondollar deal so they were like and we get