Strange times. Were doing our best here to adapt while still serving you. Our web site is open for online orders, and this week we opened up for curbside puckup as well as a number of other pickup as well as a number of other shipping options. So were ready to get you the books you need in whatever way is best for you. Every other evening weaver sending out a quarantine newsletter call called shelf stable that you should really check out. Were offering a number of surprise bundle of books that are handpicked by our booksellers. Weve got bundles for kids that you can pick up for your own family or choose to donate one to local students along with their free lunches. We also have bundles for new graduates, mystery lovers, we have a stuffed animal bundle, or so were doing lots of fun stuff, and were putting on really cool Virtual Events like this one. Our next one is on saturday, june 6th, at 3 p. M. With our very owncoown for the paperback release of her graphic novel for kids. Its really great for the whole family and will include a little comics activity. So we hope youll bring a pen and some paper and come on and join our celebration. So now just a couple of housekeeping notes before we get started on tonights exciting event with Peniel Joseph and brandon kerry. This incident is recorded so you can watch it back. Not every computer loves streaming live video with, so if you are that issue, you can come back and watch the recorded one, or you can share the video with a friend who couldnt make it tonight. West virginia got this lovely little weve got this lovely little chat window open at the bottom of your screen where it says Say Something nice. You can make sit there and say huh or where youre watching from. We will be moderating that chat. Right next to that little chat box youll see the words ask a question, and you can type in there or in the chat any questions for peniel and brandon, and well have a little bit of time at the end of the event to answer those for you. If ive done this correctly, im not really a tech person, more of a book person, this is also streaming the facebook. So just know that if youre watching there, we isnt cant see your questions there, so if youve got one, just come on down and join us on crowd cast. Theres also this wonderful, great green button right in the middle of the screen, im kind of pointing at it, that saws buy the sword and the shield from Porter Square books, and that link will bring you right to our web site where you can purchase your copy or copies of tonights featured book, or you can come pick it up from us, is please do check that out. And finally, while theres absolutely no obligation, right by the chat box at the bottom of your screen, youll see the word donate, and well invest your offering into more virtual programming like this one. So thank you so much. Just so you know, were totally happy to have you here with absolutely no contribution aside from your presence here. Youre all part of the incredibly Supportive Community that is what is sustaining us right now, so thank you for that. And that is the boring part, i swear. Now we get to the good stuff. Im really delighted to turn to our event tonight with Peniel Joseph and Brandon Terry e for the sword and the shield the revolutionary lives of malcolm x and Martin Luther king jr. The great inn rim kennedy wrote its what happens when one of americas greatest historians shines the same light on two of americas greatest figures. Interviveing the worldshattering lives. Peniel joseph is the Barbara Jordan chair in ethics and political values at the lbj or school of Public Affairs and a professor of history at the university of texas at austin. Hes written several previous books on africanAmerican History including stokely a life, and he lives in austin, texas. Hes joined by the assistant professor of african and africanamerican studies and social studies at harvard university. Hes written for npr, huffington post, baltimore son, the nation, time and tv news and more. His broader academic interests include political thought, 19th and 20th century continental philosophy, the philosophy of race and racism, questions of poverty, crime and incarceration and political and social theory and the aesthetics and sociology of hiphop and black youth culture. Thank you so much for joining us virtually tonight, and im going to hand the screen over to you guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. All right. Well, it is an honor and a privilege, as always, to be here with my dear brother and somebody i consider to be an enormous inspiration intellectually and personally, dr. Peniel joseph. For those of you who dont know, Peniel Joseph is arguably the founder of this field of black power study. Hes done such pathbreaking work in the studies of black radicalism, and over time hes now become and i think this book really cements it one of the great historians of postwar United States. This is a powerful book that all of us will have to pass through not just to understand, you know, black political life, american life, international questions of politics in the late 20th century, but also our own moment. And i think one of the things that always excited me about you as as a thinker and a scholar is that your history always done with an eye toward the present in a selfconscious way. So im really grateful to be here, and i was hoping that maybe we could start with a broad question which is about the title. The sword and the shield. Up a striking metaphor such a striking metaphor. Why do you describe malcolm x, Martin Luther king, these iconic 20th century figures, in that way, the sword and the shield . Yeah. You know, thats a great question, brandon. One, thanks for doing this and your thoughts, your my brother as well. Your thought has been so inspirational as well. Questions of citizenship, great democracy, youre one of the big [laughter] about this entire field. So im definitely delighted that youre here to discuss this. You know, the sword and the shield, and ill start by giving everybody a shoutout, Porter Square books, my favorite bookstore in the world. I lived in cambridge, sommerville for almost ten years, so everybody has been so kind to me over the years, and its been great. Publishers weekly independent bookstore of the year in 2020, its a great bookstore the, so im really happy to be here. The title. The title is really a metaphor that looks at we usually think about malcolm x as the political sword, and we think about Martin Luther king jr. As the shield for both the black community and the nation. What i argue in the sword and the shield is that we have to reframe how we think about malcolm x and Martin Luther king jr. And when we reframe them, we understand the postwar period of civil rights, black power, anticolonialism, antiwar much, much better. But we also understand the present much better because i think the argument that malcolm is both a political sword and a political shield, and king who we still think of as this great bug, nonviolent teddy bear is a revolutionary. Right. He usedded nonviolence as a political sword and shield. And i would argue hesen influenced i ea a long the withdraw by mall alcohol x in d malcolm x in that thinking. I think we come up. With a really fascinating understanding, a new understanding of democracy in the black radical tradition and really the way we hiv now because, obviously, in 2020 were seeing the continuing impact of what were kindly calling racial disparities, but really were talking about white supremacy, antiblack racism is, right . And when you read the sword and the shield, what i found fascinating was how deep both malcolm and martin were invested in racial flavoring, the political economy of racial slavery. They didnt use words like racial capitalism, but they were talking about that. And how they thought about jim crow, segregation, poverty and this idea of citizenship. And youve written so is well on the idea of citizenship including an anthology with tom michellety. So the so its about reframing the argument that theyre really both sword and shield. Yeah. Especially its such a powerful and resonant image, and one of the things that you do in the book, which is really striking that nobodys done it with this degree of elaboration or sophistication, is to show how they mutually influence each other. In all of these, you know, really striking intellectual e ways when you talk about this point, you brought up a piece of keynes writing that i always try to focus on when i teach but i almost see no one mention when he talks about the homestead act, a crucial part that you parcel out all of this land to white settlers and, of course, that gets bought by whiterun corporations. And you basically are committing two acts of, you know, racial exploitation at the same time. Youre excluding africanamericans from benefiting from the distribution of this land and youre committing a kind of genocidal act against native indigenous peoples. And its like thats not the Martin Luther king thats ten sell silled on stenciled on the statue at the mall. No, not at all. King is a man on fire between 65 and ooh 68, and i think we owe a lot of that to malcolm. And malcolms going to be influenced by king as well. When we think about one of the things i talk about is malcolm x, his idea of radical black dignity, and Martin Luther king jr. , this radical idea of black citizenship and how they come to you need both. And when you think about the radical black dignity, malcolm is different from dr. King in this way, and i talk about malcolm x as black americas prosecuting attorney who becomes the [inaudible] but initially, what malcolm is doing is prosecuting white america, the nationstate the, for a series of crimes against black people, right . And hes saying that those crimes go back to 1619 and jamestown. So before the new york city times pulitzer prizewinning 1619 project, malcolm had his own 1619 project. Malcolm was talking about 400 years of racial oppression which we really hit in 2019, but he was saying it was 400 years there. So when we think about this idea of radical black dignity, malcolm recognized black humanity and didnt want to debate white people about black humanity, right . King doing something else. What malcolm means birdieing anity is really both antiracism, anticolonialism. But the big word for malcolm is selfdetermination. People are going to have the right to solve their own problems, to identify their own problems and sometimes people ask me whats malcolms big policy. Like, what did he do . King had the civil rights a act, the Voting Rights act. What did malcolm x do . My reply is he turned negroes into black people. Thats right. Thats what he did. Globally, he turned negroes into black people. Black and african people. If youre black, youre part of the dais por rah, you could be biracial, multiracial, you identify as black, youre in our community. Youre in. Thats what a malcolm did for us. So when you think about dr. King, dr. Kings notion of citizenship is going to be different. King is a defense attorney. Hes defending white people to black people and black people to white people. And when we think about dr. King, king talking about citizenship thats very robust. Not just Voting Rights, not just the end of racial segregation, but citizenship for him means guaranteed living wage, it means decent housing. He talked about food justice, Environmental Justice. Citizenship for king also means racial integration, and i think that malcolm got the aspect of kings racial integration just wrong. For king it wasnt about he wants to hang out with white folks. King understood that racial integration meant an integration of resources and a redistribution of resources and justice, right . So we think about things like george floyd, when we think about Ahmaud Arbery or sandra bland, those things wouldnt happen in a racially integrated society, right . Because you cant pick and choose in the very specific neighborhoods, the very specific geography who youre going to racially terrorize. We are zip codes that are demarcated as ghettos, and we can occupy those zip codes. So malcolm knew that, but king over time absolutely begins to understand it. The think its a really underappreciated part of the africanamerican philosophical tradition, political thought tradition, that to insist on dignity and insist on the value, the equal standing, equal moral worth of every individual, even when they come wrapped in skin with a lot of melanin, is the commitment to radical political projects, and one of them is a radical transformation of how we think but policing. And so theres a striking scene in your book where you talk about the johnson in 1957, in which the public scene and black consciousness and i was hoping you could talk about that moment and what malcolms legacy teaches us how to think put today when we just lived through a week of especially horrifying and traumatizing acts of Police Brutality and interracial terrorism among those who are fellow citizens and malcolm would say youre not a citizen if people can treat you that way absolutely. The johnson incident in harlem where he brutalized by the police, skull fractured, member of the nation of islam and malcolm really carries a bully pulpit and spreads this case around, very famously when we think but the spike lee malcolm x film with hey the dramatization two incidents, one is 123rd precinct at harlem hospital, where its malcolm and hundreds of members of the nation of islam are backed by a crowd of over a thousand people, demanding medical care for johnson and at one point, malcolm is die manning that medical care and his telling the Law Enforcement that unless he gets medical care, he cant say what is going to happen in terms of the crowd might eye result. Johnson gets the medical care and very famously one member of Law Enforcement says that is too much power for one man to have. So when you think but policing, malcolm x always understood but a he had been incarcerated for 77 months in massachusetts, in massachusetts. [loss of audio] and so policing is a big part of malcolm x really miss his ministry and criminal justice reform. What he is trying to do is this idea of dignity and not just muslims who are black but black folks in new york city being treated with dignity. So he becomes somebody who is part of the Police CommunityRelations Committee for a time. He tries to push for Police Reform to get a new police chief. King is going to try by 64 as well but interface this between africanamericans or black people and the criminal Justice System is a real, real big part of malcolm xs legacies in ways we dont think about. And one of of the things i thats come in the wake of the george floyd case in minneapolis this week, a lot of commentators who maybe out of a sense of despair or a sense of different kinds of political commitments, say in this country, this country just doesnt deserve any longer the the idea of reformist politics is in no sense justifiable. We can no longer pour our energy and our affect into those kind of projects, and for me, malcolm is such a brilliant, exciting, proponent of that kind of rhetoric, and particularly takes aim at people who following dr. King want to turn that around and say actually in niece these moments, nose despair can moments we still want to love our enemy. Through love, christian love, kind of multiphased, even secular love ethic in politics, we can redeem the american and build a new kind of democracy. So i was hoping you might say a little bit about that point of debate and dissension between them. The idea about love can ones enemies as half to transformation and while malcolm was so afraid of that whoa whether he was right or not. I think malcolm is pushing back on one aspect of the beloved community. When we look at king and thats the great thing but writeing the dual biography. King is talkinglight loving your enemy and also talking but shared sacrifice. Also saying that white identity, white privilege, has to go and we have to have a radical redistribution of wealth and justice and love in the country. I think that part of me message a lot of times malcolm ignore until 1964 where even the ballot or the bullet is looking at radical black dignity and citizenship. When you think but dr. King, dr. King talk but shared loving ones enemy but the larger context for dr. King was really this idea of using nonviolent civil disobedience to coerce the United States into citizenship, full citizenship for africanamericans, for black people, for all people. And so i think that by 64, they start to understand each others language and i see even as early as 63 with birmingham, what malcolm at times ignored that the parts of kings rhetoric that made john f. Kennedy, president kent, president Lyndon Johnson very uncomfortable. Parts that are radical structural transformation and not just reform. King is going amplify the parts much more after malcolms assassination but when we think but the context of george floyd, ahmad arbery, san bra bland, one thing you see from malcolm and martin they realize the criminal Justice System, even in the context of the 1950s and 1960s was a gateway to panoramic injustice. We need a radical transformation not just criminal justice in the out but the way in which the criminal Justice System interfaces with all aspects of democratic institutions, and that guess from public spaces where people are being surveilled in terms of housing, goes for Public Schools that are pipeline to corrections for juveniles and adults. That goes for so many different aspects of our lives. But i think malcolm and martin absolutely understood that. So even though that is a debate, i think over time they both come to realize that theyre on the same side of that. Its really about a point of emphasis, because dr. King is not talking about loving your enemy hes