[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktv on cspan2 live from jackson, mississippi, this is the mississippi book festival, and the next author panel will begin in about ten minutes. This panel on history and biography, former Governor Haley barbour will be par tis night the panel as well. If you want to see a full schedule of events go to ms msbookfestival. Com and if you want to see the coverage of booktv, go to booktv. Org on the righthand side of the page its the word, schedule, and you can scroll through that. More live coverage in just a few minutes. Sought to recapture Something Like the intense comradeship that sustained them during the crisis years so the launched the inklings, this two dabble in ink, who meat weekly to read and cuss their work and have a pint or two or three. Well, token helps lewis to find a are for his first Science Fiction novel in 1938. Most importantly it was tophickens conversation with lewis on the night of september 19, 1931, they talked about the nature of myth and christianity as the true myth. This conversation that lewis himself described as the immediate human cause of his conversion to christianity. Well, for his part, lewis becomes for tophicin his great advocate for pursuing his hobbitry. Tophicken said lewis gift was sheer encouragement over many years to cope on. He, lose, was for long my only audience, only from him did i get the idea that my stuff could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more i should never have brought the lord of the rings to a conclusion. Well, when lewis learns that lord of the ringses has been accepted of fox he writes a letter to tolkien and then he reveals the importance of the book to both their lives with these lines. Listen to lewis so much of your whole life so much of our joint life, so much of the war, so much that seemed to be slipping away into the past, is now in a sort made permanent. Do you catch what he is saying . In this trilogy, tolkien has captured something of the essence of their life together. Other heres a glimpse of what friendship can look like when it reached for high purpose and watered by the streams of sacrifice and loyalty and love. All of this, ladies and gentlemen, is part of the achievement but i think they accomplished Something Else. We cannot overstate how profoundly subversesive, sub versesive, and countercultural the works of tolkien and lewis were in their day and remain so in our own. The soldier, the first world war, lived through endless days of mud, stench, slaughter, and death. Nothing like it had ever occurred in the history 0 the world. It shook the very foundations of civilized lives. Listen to church chul. All the honor recoveries all the ages were brought together, not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them. T. S. Eliot, the post world war as a waste lapped or human weariness. I think were in rats alley, where the dead man lost their bones, he wrote. After returning home from the war, tolkien and lewis might easily have joined the ranks of the disbelieving. Instead, they faced the problem of war and suffering with realism. Realism but not resignation, for them, there is no shortcut to the land of peace. In primrose path to the blessed. First come tears and surfing in mordor, violence at stable hill and horror and death. Their stories insist we do live in a moral universe, war is a symptom of the ruin and the wreckage of human life, but it can inspire noble sacrifice, for humane purposes roar with sometimes be necessary, they concluded to preserve human freedom. Remember the words of the captain of gondor in lord of the rings. War must be, he says, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all. But i do not love the right into sword for its sharpness, interior arrow for his swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] in the Mississippi State capitol in jackson is home to the first ever mississippi book festival. More from this event in just a few minutes. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] sunday, september 6th, booktv is live with lynn cheney, the former second lady and senior fellow at the American Enterprise institute on in depth. Mrs. Cheny authored a wide variety of books including biographies, novels and books for children. He most recent book is an account of the life of the fourth president , james madison. Other tiedles include, blue skies no fences where she recalls her childhood in wyoming, and a book about american history. Her other books range from profiles of leaders of the house of representatives to the failure of moral relativism and a condensed history of the u. S. For children. Lynn cheney, live on booktv, sunday, september 6th on in depth. You can join us by sending questions or comments to lynn cheney at facebook. Com booktv, on twitter booktv, or call in live. Heres a look at some of the current bestselling nonfiction books. [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktvs live coverage of the mississippi book festival is that correcting now, panel on history and biography. This is in the State Capitol in jackson, booktv on cspan2. [inaudible conversations] welcome, everyone to the inaugural mississippi book festival. My name is Chris Goodwin with the Mississippi Department of archives and history, this is our history and biography Panel Sponsor bid the humanities council. We have been broadcasting live on cspans booktv. Please silence your cell phones. All the panelists books will be for sale downstairs at several tents, outside on mississippi street, and immediately following this panel, they will all be available in the adjacent tent to sign copies of those books. So we encourage you to take advantage of all of that. Our moderator for this panel is curtis wilkity. Curtis is a native mississippian and was a reporter in the 1960s before joining the staff of the boston globe where he was a correspondent for 26 years. He now teaches yourism at ole miss and is the author of four books, including, assassins, second centrics, politicians and other persons of interest. And considering the participants on the panel, we believe we found the best moderator possible. Thank you, chris, and thank you all for being here today. Delighted you got off to such a good start for the mississippi book festival. To put our best foot forward, put on a court and tie, and governor barbour wore socks in the summer. Anyway, before i make the introductions of the panel, i see former governor william winner in the audience. Were so glad to have you. [applause] and i saw former governor ronny muss grove earlier but i dont know whether he is in here, but he is on the grounds, too. So were glad so many people have turned out. Let me just briefly introduce each member of the panel. The one thing that struck me ive read all of the books, and how its, again, reminder how small and swim hat and interconnected we are in this state because there are characters in these books that appear in more than one book. One member of the panel appears in more than one of the books and its a reminder again of how we really kind of all together in this state. But beginning on my far right, we have k. C. Morrison, professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State university, and the author of aaron henry of mississippi, inside ang tater. Next to him we have dennis mitchell, who is head of the division of arts and science and a professor of history at Mississippi State university at meridian, and he is the author of a new history of mississippi. In the middle we have don thompson, who holds not only a bachelor bachelors degree but a masters degree and a ph. D in forestry from Mississippi State university. How did all these Mississippi State people get on our panel . Anyway, don lives on a farm, and he is author of a biography of the late senator john seven sinness, plowing a straight furrow, and Stuart Stevens, not sure how to describe stuart but political consultant nationally known, author of many books. Stuart was too cheap to provide me with a copy of his book but i have a readers copy. It is other lifetime of college football. On my right is my friend, former governor barbour, who is, as all of you know, firmer twoterm governor of mississippi, who is returned sort of to the private sector in washington and governor barbour is the author of americas great storm, leading through hurricane which were coming up on the tenth anniversary of that. Gentlemen, i would start off by asking each of you, and i recall state with k. C. If i can. We all have day jobs but we have all written now books. What inspired you to tackle this subject and do this book, if you could start off for us. Thank you. Curtis. Well, as a high school and College Student doing a good deal of movement in mississippi, i had watched aaron henry and felt compelled to write about the Civil Rights Movement. Little did i know when i started this project, as a political scientist, id have to turn myself into an historian to try and tell this story, and so it took me a great deal of time to do that. 15 years, namely. The things that were particular interest to me that i think made henrys life of interest was i had an abiding interest in indigenous africanamerican leadership during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s in mississippi, and of course, henry was the quintessential example of this. He was the longest surviving, the longest serving of the early group of leaders who started the movement. Bringing the naacp, which had been largely underground until the arrival of met gaffers and aaron henry, and these two men essentially start a new naacp. So i was interested in indigenous leadership, the extent to which local mississippians took advantage of their own social change operations. As a political scientist, had studied social movements and was interested in that, how individuals and groups in community got hold of a contention and built a mean of bringing social change in a community. Aaron henry was a particularly interested in something he called the accomplishment of regularity for africanamericans, and built a comprehensive kind of vision that had politics in it, economics, social psychological dimensions, and he was an entrepreneur, he had grownup a family of entrepreneurs. He was a pharmacist. And in the life of this man, he embodied all of the things that struck me as important dimensions of an indigenous mississippi leader. Thank you. Dennis mitchell. Well, i wrote the new history briefly for two reasons. One, i wanted to set the record straight. Its called the new history because it is so different from the history that has been published about mississippi heretofore that the press insisted on that as the title. That wasnt my choice. But it is a new, very different interpretation of mississippi history, which tries to include a lot of people who were left out in the past, and the story of the environment and it is a very different account of mississippis past. The second reason that i wrote it is that ive always felt, as a historian, that we, mississippians would never make the progress we need make until we understand our history. Were so many myths and misunderstandings about our past, that they have to be cleared up, and we have to accept different vision of the past before we can move forward. Thank you. Don thompson. I was stationed in Mississippi Community college and took some education courses and took them for graduate credit, and i went to the dean and told him i wanted to get an otherwise indicatingal specialist. He said you cant do that you have to get a degree in Something Else, so i went to Mississippi State get a degree in Something Else. I went to the different professors in forestry and they wanted fulltime grad about student, and i found one that says the problem is the parttime students like you wont write the dessir addition. Youll take the coreses and that makes us look bad because we dont have completers. He said i would like you to analyze the research program. I had about so it i went to the library, pulled down the code and read and it it was just two pages. I thought, how hard can this be . But it took about five years and about a 260something page dissertation to expand, but stanis files were open to the public at Mississippi State, and i start reading in there, looking for the forestry research. I got off track and got in the prestennis boxes, not vary men but a few and i kept seeing letters where people were begging him to run for higher office. Thought it ought to be the other way around. He ought to be asking for support. Instead people are wanting him to run. So i got to reading more and thought this guy is unique. I had a stereo type of a senator, and he really didnt fit that. He was has had high integrity, really respected well by all. I kind of wanted to write the book with the premise that some young person who might be interested in studying Public Service might use him as an example. Thank you. Stuart. Thanks. Well, in 2012, i worked on the romney campaign. We lost. And that kind of freed up some time. But i really found myself after that Campaign Thinking a lot about sort of what was important and the concept of loss, and my dad was 95 then, and a lot of the ways when i grew up, my dad and i sort of connected and bonded, was through college football, particularly ole miss football. So, he and i went to the all of the and my mom to 2013 ole miss games together. And that became really a framework of writing a book that was sort of a reflection on growing up in jackson, i grew up not far from here. And the south, and sort of a meditation on loss. That was really the motivation for it. Thank you. Governor . Curtis, after katrina, as things were written both in realtime by the press and in books about katrina, they tended to be about louisiana, and i always used to explain to people, that doesnt like to cover airplanes that land safely. And that made me have the idea that somebody ought to write a book about this, and after i was no longer governor, i tried to do that. And i did it for pretty obvious reasons. There were so many people who were heroes. There were so many people we owe enormous gratitude toward. 954,000 volunteers came to mississippi over the first five years and registered with a church or charity. These are not guessing. These are names of people who registered and worked in cleanup or in Disaster Assistance. 44 states. 44 of our sister states sent resources to mississippi. And 26,000 state employees or contractors from the other states came to mississippi. More than 10,000 national guard. I think about the volunteers, i think about our sister states. I think about the local First Responders, who were magnificent. I had no idea when i became governor but i learned, we prepare for major disasters yearround, and almost any state agency or department has got a disaster preparation. The problem is we prepared for camille. We thought that was the Gold Standard for a hurricane. 200milesanhour winds. But we got katrina. Despite those 5milesanhour winds it was so much worse, yet these First Responders adapted. They were flexible. They changed. As the first day after the storm when i flew over the coast in a helicopter, you would have told me only 238 people in mississippi would die . I would have thought that was the most optimistic polly anish, 1800 people died in louisiana. Our people were just magnificent, and our local officials, governor wenner endured this as i have. Mississippi is a constitutionally weak governor. But i always say doesnt mean the governor has to have a weak constitution, but the local officials decided, somebody had to be in charge, and the only logical person was the governor. And so they did one of the most unnatural acts in politics. They gave away their power. They said, were going to follow you. Were going to follow the state. Our congressional delegation, the federal government. Look, the fema takes a terrible rap, deservedly for some things, like their logistical system collapsed. Just never worked. But i tell you at the end of the day, the federal government did a whole lot more right than wrong. Some days i could have choked them, but they did more right than wrong. They were good partners, and that story never got told. And i would just say to you, curtis, if this book is half as good as the story, if half as good as the strong resilient people of mississippi and what they did for themselves, and for others, then i will be very proud i wrote the book. Thank you. Theyre all good books. [applause] let me look back down to k. C. Morrison to talk about aaron henry, who incidentally was a friend of mine and in fact a mentor to me as a young reporter in clarksdale during the Movement Days in the 60s. This is a guy who was basically the founder of the mississippi freedom democratic party. He was largely responsible for organizing freedom summer, so many things that he was involved in. How would you rate him on a scale of the National Civil rights leaders . Because sometimes i think he doesnt get as much recognition as he deserves. I think he is as important as the most important of our National Civil rights leaders, and one of the things that is lost in our discussions and thinking about henry is that he was deeply engaged in the National Democratic party, a major player in the party. He was an adviser to every president from the time of kennedy, until his death, and end n in describing the characteristic about him to be everywhere and get on with everybody and to make everybody who was around him better, john didmer called him the ecumen