Today we have the pleasure of posting and discussing the personal new book the campus color line. Will be out on september 29. Please consider grabbing the book if you dont have one and now were open a limited capacity weekends are busy is your best is to come by on monday or tuesday and with the easy access thank you for supporting our bookstore and our staff like to give a walkthrough to our platform. We will be taking questions from the audience. All the way to the right and then to keep track of all the questions and not to give a warm welcome home. And the Author College president s in the struggle for black freedom and you can find them on twitter also the phd with a black womens history and racial politics. And with history and African Studies at the university of texas austin and is the author of remaking black power transformed an era with that please help me to welcome and thank you both for being here tonight. Welcome everyone we are glad to have everybody here i will dig into our conversation its wonderful but meaty and so much to discuss i want to make sure we get a chance to head on the wonderful dynamics. So how did you get into writing this book . And its at aha moment that you could tell us the challenge. First off thank you for joining me happy to be in this conversation but what we continue to grapple with the idea comes from so many Different Directions so at the macro level the idea started in my hometown in alabama small town west alabama Greene County less than 400 this is where he grew up but in my home county we had one in Public High School so in the next town over we turn left on woodfield avenue a private smaller majority White Academy will be interested in my lifetime schools and the remnants of the black Freedom Movement and how every day we werent having protest it was just the norm if you will. And then they can hear us back and forth and educational leaders and the decisions they made in the past and how they shaped the president. So even as a teenager wasnt thinking anything about it. And more and my School SegregationSchool Desegregation i came to realize more and more were at the mercy of the state exclusively to be actively involved in shaping the policy practices and so forth so over time not to the idea started to marinate and that was a decade ago with the occupy wall Street Movement and then we see College Campuses and how they were responding with occupy wall street and then to that activism then you can go down the list how do they respond to these events and how they were historically it didnt come out of nowhere its one of those things to unfold and my only professionally but then the one thing so with that unexpected challenge talk about the 19 fifties and sixties it is in the archives of 50 and 60 years ago those decisions they are making so having multi decade restrictions is a book that if i wanted to write that ten years ago i would not be able to. A lot of records were just being released in 1910 or 1960 when it comes to College President s and chancellors so as to get my timing right ill be back in a couple years so that was an unexpected challenge but a unique tree just to wrap up was thinking about the vulnerability of the human aspect of these College President s were. The special assistant in the sixties and just after on the anniversary this week the 15th street baptistery bombing in birmingham alabama with those four girls were killed as well as two additional children later that day such a violent and horrific moment with an American History and to see the administrator writing a letter to another late at night i just cant sleep knowing what has happened with a white supremacist governor coming to princeton to give a speech this is a personal versus a professional conflict and getting a chance to see how human they are in these decisions are quite complicated. That remains a treat so i try to do the human aspect justice. I like that you say that because one of the things you and what is the conclusion maybe we see College President s as elected officials and that dichotomy it could be the face of something and that is a constant tugofwar i thought that was a little bit provocative for better or worse what your book is telling us about the case so why do you think that is a useful frame to understand them as people and the decisions that they make . It reveals a couple things and just reminds us of the numerous stakeholders the College President has to interact with. Its two different worlds and one that takes prominence and then you see a way that the state capital but with this relationship and the legislature is completely different than the importance of stakeholders the president s and chancellors it could be donors and right now we work every day in the news who pushes us a maryland major sports are affordable . And when you think of the College President as an official to navigate their position in a public city but all the issues that we deal with right now really stand back to policy and social practice campus relationships with Police Departments their own Police Departments as well as city police and student debt and the racial disparities, racial incidents and we can go down the list of all the issues. And we think of those work for our elected officials on the College Campus through the College President and chancellor you think of it as the same way to shape and mold policy. Thats important to remember because as universities we are not just reactive to the social issues and ultimately those decisions come across the desk. I really love that because as i was reading the book i see the president as a citadel of power but i am not sure that i always thought about it with a private university or not in the urban setting i thought that was a provocative way and on that physical campus and on the ecosystem. One of the things that has been great that you havent read it yet you get to learn about historically black colleges and universities and with public universities and private universities from those who acted as president so now i think of them as a secret society or club. So where did they find Common Ground . It regardless of the Institution Type and the region we found it took a certain type of person with that Academic Leadership the other is to say to be an associate dean but then provost or chancellor, all of these individuals are very much committed to leaving their leadership on moving the University Forward so for them what united them was the common challenge for the forties to the sixties to look over the middle decade they are all faced with the challenge its hard to argue something that isnt as pressing or complicated as that regardless as the institution. It is so fascinating we have a shared issue within those differences are how to address it or the importance of it so thats where you see knockdown drag out fights with compelling interactions and one example i give you is in the state of maryland the upper yourself midatlantic multi regional identities happening segregated like other Southern States so that is the uniqueness and one real fight is between curly bird who is the president and university of maryland and jenkins was the president of Morehouse State College and so this over segregation and who gets what funding and sure they admit the academic support go through the historically black college so we all agree are sure challenge is racism but we dont agree on what to do with it that is one of the unique things you look across the region even when you look at the relationship the president of Tuskegee Institute been in conversation with university of michigan just dont think about tuskegee and michigan and in partnership or in communication with each other. It is a more fascinating thing if you do a book like this and see correspondence on one and but then you go to another institution and say it is an internal conversation and then the back and forth how they say one thing they are hyping each other up that we are not doing this partnership but with the black freedom of movement institutions of Higher Education it with the cultural advancement but that is complete as the rest of us. Additive curiosity do you think they still have racism as the defining thing they have to deal with . Has that changed . I can imagine in these conversations that the racial incidents and then for violating so do you think that is the defining thing . I would say yes privately. Among themselves and i would love to hear but i would say yes privately there is a shared concern with a number of decisions happening right now but publicly not so much and those survey of the College President s to have a chance to and also ridiculously high number. Maybe 80 or 85 percent would say yes. So how do those two groups venture with a historical record and with any indication and yes behind closed doors president s are very concerned about race especially through the selection this fall. So along those lines if you see them as the elected officials you have to make deals and have good coalitions that College President being on board with this particular segment or the surrounding area how College President s have been such bad fellows to get deals done . Two in particular stand out to me look at the california system if you are not even familiar at all so that makes the system talk about thousands of students in a president who is head of the student and east campus has a chancellor. Imagine how complicated it was when they were building the system out in the fifties and sixties. That university of california that is so large and has its own set of regional within the state so if you are in Northern California thats one thing with the bay area so as ucla is chancellor from 60 through 68 he had some hesitancy to take the job at ucla because for the first time reporting to assist them president from a board of trustees hes hesitant about taking the position that murphy forms these unique relationships with very powerful Southern California influences may be the l. A. Times or lockheed it makes these unique relationships so now a significant portion of the border region also fans of ucla going along with everything Franklin Murphy said to say here is how we will vote on this issue. But then another example going back to princeton with a black pastor of a and the church which is significant actually gets on the same team to a trustee you have heard of Dulles Airport the same one talk about John D Rockefeller the third and in 1963 and then to address the racial issues on, on on campus and then as a pastor of the church to be with the national or international but that scholar of interest conversion is the perfect example everybody sees a from a global perspective the us reputation and has historians for years have discussed to say at least before the image to address racial inequities so with the strained relationships in the murders and with a college present if you study a historical record there isnt a little piece in those archives. It makes you wonder what kind of deal that they make so one of the things with the remaining pastors and heads a companies it seems to be a very male centered story and it leaves me wondering how did women factor into this . Absolutely. That is one of the most critical aspects of the book the history of the Freedom Movement we talk about the black Freedom Movement as your work for years to play so many significant roles i give a formal example from the informal standpoint with the historically black college the president of a public hbc you he has to play a game to engage with white leadership so talk about the black fraternity its clear that black women are so significant to the overall efforts to support as the president with this complicated terrain and then to become president in 1948 and often times we talk about similar demonstrations are unfolding led by on led by two black women and also the long time president and these two black women had a series of protest the movie theaters and drugstore lunch counters all this at the forties and fifties and then to arrive as this is happening in constant communication and then talks about giving her the Honorary Degree and all the things so often from the black women in the industry and organized and also his wife Elizabeth Jenkins and then to speak at a number of fraternity and sorority because as an academic and a scholar from Northwestern University and publishes a ridiculous amount even by todays standards how he did it on the forties and the thirties so to look at the title and noted that timeframe but in reality you can see the ways they see the shape and those who become the president and when the player becomes the first black woman president of a Fouryear College and led the twoyear institution it is so significant by far when it comes to the citizens and then to be active and then to be engaged to step back and solidarity with the student going from chapter to chapter and in the first instance and housing discrimination in america that is the octopus in the south and the tentacles in the north with a black woman activist from the university of chicago. When most people talk about it with that movement to kick off and whether or not you can succeed college life and keep it active and then to cannibalize the moment we all benefit from. Keep going