Sort of the frenzied pace, but it was beautiful. I learned so much in i was nurtd by all of the generations of people who came before me and helped me understand the world. Youve written a biography of the song. May we forever stand is the name of the book. James johnson and john rosa monde they are the author and composer. They were brothers born in jacksonville florida. Renaissance men and of course back in the day they were called race man. People who thought every achievement they had as being in the service of the race. He became the first secretary general of the naacp. Really extraordinary. One of the signature accomplishments was the accomplishment of the song. They were firstgeneration freemen. Born in the 1870s . Yes, they were of that generation that emerged from slavery with these hopes and dreams and aspirations that were so quickly dashed with the end of reconstruction. What was extraordinary is that the song caught on like wildfire. It was the most immediately embraced as an anthem of black america. The United States did not have a National Anthem at this moment. Even this really on, people were referring to it as an anthem. They left florida and moved to new york to work as songwriters in part because there had been a terrible fire. So they actually werent there as the song caught on. Schoolchildren passed it on, black club women. It began to be printed in the back of hymnals. So it was sort of an anthem of the communitys making. They did not describe it as an anthem. But black communities said this is our anthem. If we had continued playing that video, we would have seen then president clinton. Who knows all three verses. I think he may be the only president to know all three verses. From your book, may we forever stand, hiphop ordered its farewell to the black National Anthem. One of the things and i talked about this in my first book is that there is something that happens in the 70s and 80s which is a transformation both of some norms and black social and political life to deal with civic engagement. And also through industrialization. I quote reverend Joseph Lowery where he says black people were once the moral conscience of the nation. Hiphop is a refusal of that position. Particular a reveling in the outlaw. 28which is commonplace in american culture. 29but its a different kind of public presents for so that departure was significant. It keeps coming back. There were various moments where it seems like it would be the route completely. Even though the kind of institutions and communities in which it was sung on a weekly or daily basis dont exist in the same way can you draw a direct line from blanks to hues to Biggie Smalls . Absolutely. In so many ways, both of them took the beauty of vernacular language and they crafted it to tell stories that were pointed, that often had a political content. And resonated deeply. Hey are different kinds of political subjects. Resonated deeply or were pleasurable to engage with. But their relationship to black language both in the u. S. And hroughout the diaspora and their desire to understand that as their foundation for the foundation of art. Absolutely directly connected. Part of what i talk about in the book is of course the process by which it became the most popular form of music in the country and had an audience that expanded beyond its initial core audience. But there is something i talked about that is something prophetic about it. Because there was from the very beginning, and exposition and elucidation of what postindustrial life in the United States was like. And in all of its complexity. Its not just this, its not an encomium to the hood. Hiphop is not. Its the next formation of it. You use the term mc. What does that mean . Its the word for rapper and hiphop. It originally comes from master of ceremonies. Many spell it, emcee. Almost like a title. Its absolutely a title. Mcs are rappers. Hiphops way of describing that role. I was interested in what made an mc, good. Whether its a reduction of history or moment and communities but what did the art consist of . So then the mc became important because i was doing sort of a literary analysis. From your book, profits of the hood. The historic construction of blackness in opposition to whiteness in which blackness is demonized, has become part of the art forms consciousness. Right. I should say hiphop has changed a great deal since 2004. Although i think there are aspects of the book that still 41describe the form at present. In meaningful ways. But there is a very overt play with the imagery of as black people of folks. The sense that the very long of american stereotyping of black as both prone to criminality and excess and gangsters and and violence. And hiphop has engaged that satirically. Critically. Played into it. Has really sort of play with that social reality through rap. Lets hear from our viewers as we continue to talk about your books. Charlie is in roslyn heights, new york. You are on booktv. Hi everybody. Im a progressive liberal. Ive been fighting racism my whole life. Ive seen the world is very complex and politics is a complex situation. I dont support black nationalism because thats just as bad as White Nationalism. And its feeding fascism. Feeding trumps basis. Theres good and bad in all groups. Black people are just people. Theyre not inferior and are not superior. Black nationalism is just as long as White Nationalism and i i cant understand why ms. Perry is supporting black nationalism. Im not a black nationalist. I a. M. Far left. Nationalism takes on many different faces. There are certainly conservative brands of black nationalism. That politically, are actually quite aligned in many ways to political conservatism. If we take an organization like the nation of islam which is politically quite conservative but advocates black nationalism and theres the version of black nationalism you see in an organization like the black panther party. Which are about revolutionary socialism. Third world politics, anticolonialism. That saw themselves as identified and aligned with colonized people across the world historically. So i should say that the single term actually doesnt mean much without the larger context. But i will say this, i disagree with the caller that they are equivalent. Because certainly people trying to find a way of a sense of control and autonomy over communities that they live in. After a long history of colonialism and enslavement and domination is not the same as celebrating the history of of colonialism and enslavement and domination. But thats not designation i would subscribe to. You say you are far less. What does that mean . I believe im against economic exploitation. I believe everybody should have access to safe environments, clean water. Good schools. A living wage. Healthcare. I believe in this extraordinarily wealthy country that we should have children who are poor. We should have People Living on the streets. I dont think the consequences are just the consequences and we should be okay 17i dont think thats a i dont think thats a decent way to organize society and i dont think people are poor because they are deficient. They are poor because they are exploited or have a lack of opportunity. So thats what i believe. In as much as i write and think about race, its never separate from the larger questions of the distribution of suffering in our society. Its an example of how the society has been organized in a way to distribute suffering an opportunity. My objective is not for black people to become those who dominate. Hats not the idea for me. The idea is to become free of domination. To have a real robust, thorough democracy which is only possible if you have a decent quality of life for all people in a society. This is booktv on cspan2 showing highlights from our in depth series. She joined us in november of that year to talk about them. Ou suggest that Justice Brett kavanaugh should read your new book. Why is that . I think is probably one of the most balanced books at abortions rights and womens reproductive rights. I worked really hard to make it balanced. I think it would allow him to see other peoples points of view 43with compassion and empathy and perhaps protective role versus wade a little longer. You say all points are represented in this book. How so . The book is actually about a shooting at a reproductive rights facility in mississippi. Its one of the states has only one clinic left in america because over 2080 lives have chipped away at reproductive rights since 2012. In my book, a gunman comes in with a grudge and start shooting. He kills patients and hostages and patient employees and he takes the rest hostage. And one of the people he takes hostage is the 15yearold daughter of the Hostage Negotiator on the outside. The people in the clinic are a wide range of people who have all been brought there at this one moment. They all believe Different Things about reproductive rights. Ou will see individuals who are prochoice and prolife. All of their points of view are easily and accurately represented. How do you storyboard a complex how do you do aall types of connections and things going on. Theres another little twist to this book. Its told in reverse. He first thing you see is the standoff between the gunman and the Hostage Negotiator. Every chapter goes back an hour in time until at the end of the book, what you learn is what brought these Diverse People to the linic at that moment. Hat was much harder than i anticipated it to being. I wound up writing a 48 page outline. Because i had to write it chronologically in reverse. But i also have to follow the storylines of characters. Most of mine are about three pages long. Because i want to make sure i leave a paper trail. In this case, there was so much going on in it was so complex that i needed to map it out. The real magic was not in outlining, but in the editing. I took little postit flags and i marked the book by character. Then i edited in reverse 10 different times following each characters thread to make sure each story was coherent and then i edited entirely going forward. How much time did you spend in jackson, mississippi . I spent about a week working in particular with a man named willie parker. Hes an africanamerican Abortion Provider who is also a devout christian and says he performs abortions not in spite of his religion but because of it. He heard a sermon about the Good Samaritan and thought who will provide for these women if not me. Now he goes all over the United States. He invited me to come shadow ham. 2526 bestselling books. I always get cover input. They say what do you think of it. That was not the original cover for a spark of light. The original one looked like small great things. I didnt want people confusing the two. So our amazing art director came back with that and that really caught my eye. I love the. Speaking of small, great things. What does that cover represent . When i look at that cover, i think of those plateaus of color chips that artists use. If you look at the covers, there are spots where color is missing. Where there is something not quite right. About the color. Theres definitely an absence. Small great things is about racism in america and metaphorically to me, that was such a beautiful illustration of what i was trying to talk about. Okay. Again, are you kennedy . I think any white person is kennedy. Its based off of reallife incident that happened in front, michigan. An africanamerican nurse with 25 years of experience in the labor delivery ward. Elped deliver a baby and in the aftermath, the babys father said her and he didnt want anyone that looked like her to touch his kid. Pushed up his sleeve to to reveal a swastika tattoo. They put a note in the file said no africanamerican is a bunch of personnel banded together, they sued. Supposed to touch of this baby. I hope she got a great payout but it made me wonder what if i pushed that envelope a little. I wouldve as a result, she wound up being brought up on charges of murder. What if she was defended by a white public defender. What if i could tell her story in the voice her voice and the the voice of the white supremacist dad and the voice of the public defender. To me, small great things is for white people. Its meant to say open rise a little wider. Its easy for white people to point to a white supremacist and say thats a racist. Its a lot harder for them to point to themselves and say the same thing. Yet race is about prejudice plus power. If you are white in america, you hold all the power. Although its easier for us to see the headwinds of racism and to know if youre a person of color, your life might be harder. Its difficult for white people to recognize the tailwinds and the fact that there are unearned benefits that come to us because we are born like this. That is something that is on white people to learn and to fix. Youve written 26 books. Any one of them a bestseller . Not by any means. I was a slow growth girl. I didnt have that overnight oprah moment. I started off very humbly. My first book had 3500 copies printed. That was it. What happened was people who read my book told their friends, you should read this and they told friends and it grew very organically. It was definitely after my sisters keeper. The Second Glance that first got onto the bestseller list by itself. Without a push. How quickly was my sisters keeper optioned for the movie . It wasnt optioned quickly at all. It took a while. And it was not a fun experience. [laughter] why not . Is the movie accurate to the book . You havent seen the movie. Dont. When that book was optioned, i said the only thing that was important to me was that they keep the ending. Because it has a monstrous twist at the end. They hired nick castleberrys and asked if i would talk to him. Im not going to change the ending and if it does, i will tell you myself. I said, okay. I worked with him for a year and a happy he would call me and ask then questions about character. I saw a script that looked like the book. Then i got an email from a fan from a casting agency and said did you know they change the ending of the movie . I called nick at home and he wouldnt take my call i went to the movie set and he threw me off the set. I went to the head of headline cinema and said you will lose money on this because i have eager fans and they will not want to see this movie. He said, we know what we are doing. Nick made the notebook for us. Sure enough, they lost money on the film. My fans were very upset. Ltimately, the great irony is that money is what speaks in hollywood. I was able to say you will lose money and they did. Now ive had more Creative Control on future projects. Did you have any Creative Control once you optioned it. I dont think most fans realize this but, most writers do not. Usually what hollywood will do is you want Creative Control, we dont need that. Thank you very much. Well go to an author that will take the money and run. Its a little like putting a baby up for adoption. You try to make an educated choice and hope you doing the best you can. But youre not allowed to call every day and say, did you feed her breakfast. Small great things has been optioned. How much Creative Control do we have . What we know is that ambling entertainment which is Steven Spielbergs company and viola davis have been attached. I am delighted so far. When i read ruth jefferson, i see viola davis. Shes incredibly talented actress. Before we get into the other books, before we get to the first call, have your books gone more 30topical over the years. I try to look at the trajectory of my career i think it spans where my brain is at any given time. My first book was about mothers and daughters but i was closer in age to the daughters that i was to the mother. Then i had a baby. Right before my first book was published. My second book was about motherhood. And how incredibly difficult it is because it really shocked me how hard that was. Then i got into marriage and relationships and whether they are 5050. Ever hen i had all my kids and i have a wide span of years for children . Three. Ll of the terrible things that can happen to your kids from sexual abuse to illness to kidnapping and all these things. Then my kids grew up and they got to a point where they were selfsufficient. I think i began to take a step back and look at bigger issues. That makes me sit up at night and worry. The nature of good and evil. Things like racism in small great things. What it means to grieve and lose someone. Reproductive rights and spark of light. In my sisters keeper use preface it with as a mother of a child whos had over 10 surgeries. My sisters keeper actually grew out of different places. One of the things i learned, one of these throw away facts was was that the original Eugenics Society was in cold spring harbor, new york. When they folded, the group that took over was of the human genome project. That seems almost too close for comfort. I had happened to read eugenics, a story of what they call modern eugenics. Which was the nash family in colorado. They were the first family to create a donor sibling to help their daughter molly who at the time had a disease named. She was supposed to die by the age of two. She was hanging by a thread by the age of three. They wound up designing a sibling who could provide a transplant through umbilical blood and she went into remission. I knew that was all different topic. I started to think a lot about that. Molly and her brother when i met them were five and eight, little kids. What would happen to a donor sibling in the teenage years. When thats all about who a. M. I . Am i here because of my sister. Do i have any worth on my own . I wanted to explore that. At the same time, i have been a parent of a child who had multiple surgeries. My son had it is a benign tumor that grows behind your ear. The traditional way is to take down that your wall and leave the child deaths in that year. My husband and i took a different approach with jake. One that would require more surgeries overall. Turned out he had it in both years and they were less than nine kids in america who had that at the time. He had marginal hearing in his right ear and had profoundly less hearing in his left ear. I remember what it was like during those surgeries. 10 surgeries and three reconstructions. How hard it was to keep the family balance because one child clearly had to take precedence at that moment. We as