Thank you. Guest great to be here. Host remind us about medgar evers. Guest medgar evers was the first field secretary for the naacp in mississippi. â– wâ– ijordan was doing the same jn georgia. He was doing the same job in mississippi investigating the deaths and lynchings of black eople to vote. Host you said you feel that medgar evers has been given a short shift in americas history. Why do you think that happened . Guest if you think about the job he was doing, he was doing the kind of activism that dr. Dd that john lewis was doing in georgiamississippi which was tht dangerous place to be black in america. The highest number of lynchings, the most violent version of the clan. And the statewide agency called the sont into action after brow. They were under tremendous pressure even from the naacp which did not agree with activism in the streets. They wanted to fight in the courts. The amount of violence that you would face in that state was unprecedented for any civil rights activist. He should get a greater mention. James baldwin said the great civil rights leaders were medgar , martin and malcolm. Tell me what prompted you to write this book. Guest these leaders could not have done the work they were doing without the support and help their wives were 1950s housewives. They were the literal secretary. Mrs. Evers was the literal secretary. She was the person he was bouncing speeches off of. She also had to maintain the household while he is doing the dangerous work he is doing. He is a partner and supporter in his civil rights work and when he died, that is when malcolm and dr. King died, she is the one who had to write his legacy into the history books and that was the job she had to take on. Host before his murder, she was getting those Death Threats. Guest absolutely. This was dangerous work not just for these men but for these families. The Death Threats where we were going to kill your wife, your kids. The phone she did not know it was someone in distress or someone planning to murder her family. Host talk about his service and what happened when he came back. Guest he followed his big brother. He was very close to his older brother charles. Charles enlisted. He was on the beaches of normandy on d day. The red ball express which was a segregated transportation core. Was a world war ii hero. He came home in his uniform and was told to go to the back of the bus. He said no, i just fought for my country. He was dragged off the bus. He says he was a different man after that. He immediately stood for his right to v7jote. He and his broto register to vote in the state of mississippi in a county where there were zero registered voters among africanamericans because of the way that mississippi kept black people away from the ballots. Host we will take your calls. The lines will be regional. The Eastern Central time zone, it is 202 7488000. Mountain or specific time zone, 202 7488001. You can text us at 202 7488003. We are on social media, facebook and x. Host 1963 right in front of his house. Can you tell us what happened and the aftermath . Guest medgar evers secretary was constantly writing to the Kennedy White house for help for th clan and the citizens council. Kennedy responds and promises that he will do a civil rights bill. Medgar had been among those unmanned demanding. Brown v board was not being acknowledged in those states. Within hours, medgar evers is coming home from a meeting and is assassinated. His children see him and witnessed him bleeding to death right in front of him. His neigor came out and fired a shot in the air to scare away the killer. It i tthe family and the country but ultimately he is assassinated because of his insistence on fighting for basic human rights basic civil rights and dignity for black people. Host you have a chapter in your book called the rules of a civil rights widow. Guest it is actually my favorite chapter in the book because it was my opportunity to talk about what Myrlie Everswilliams was facing. She is a 30yearold woman and mother of three who has to figure out how do i respond she is the First National civil rights widow. There have been lots of black women who faced widowhood because their husbands fought for civil rights or registered to vote. She is the first woman who walked out of the door and a National News crew will staring at her and she had to decideo iw will i be viewed by america, what do i say . How is my makeup, how is my hair . S the angry black woman if i am as angry as i feel in my heart. If i show that, will i be dismissed as this angry woman . She had to contort herself in a way that would give dignity to her husbands memory, that would give dignity to herself and rfat she dealt with was absolute rage. She had to repress data and present herself in a way see is the first widow to have to do that she is the first widow to have to do that before Coretta Scott king. Host you met her. Tell us about that. Guest i interviewed her about half a dozen times before this book. D this really lengthy interview at her sons house in california where i got to be with her in person. I was just withb her a couple of days ago at her alma mater. She is a state treasure. She is a National Treasure and an icon. She is their give the inaugural minute addiction. The first to give an inaugural benediction. President barack obama in 2016. She ran for office and congress when shirley chosen was also running for president when Shirley Chisholm was also running for president. Deserved greater flowers. She deserved to get her flowers while we still have her. â– valso, her husband. Her legacy deserves to be on the same level as welcome x and dr. King. We have a clip of her speaking from the Lincoln Memorial on the steps. This is the 50th anniversary of the march on washington back in 2013. [video clip] we created a framework but there is still much work left to be done. Many of our civil rights leaders including my husband and dr. Martin luther king were still of an age where they took the lead. With that question in mind, i challenge you to get back to community building. It is your problem. It is our problem. It is our neighborhood. These are our children. You are the parents. But in that same breath, the victory will be colleivit is wi, knowing what we have done and can do, mountaintop and we will overcome. But it will take each and every one of us inâ– tâ– unity, in uniso, letting those who say that they manage this country of america ow that it is the people, it is the voice and the actions of the people that say we must overcome and will eventually say , we have overcome because of the involvement of each and every one. That is our challenge today. [end video clip] host â– < that was in 2013. What do you think she would say today . Guest i had a chance to sâ– peak with her one week ago. Where she is in this moment is that it is a shame that we have to fight the basic fight from our history, that we still have to say black lives matter and defend the idea that black lives matter in the 21st century. Medgar evers was 47 when he died. That we are still fighting for. She believes that is a shame. She has a lot of fight in her and she will not stop until that more Perfect Union is won. Host lets talk to the callers. Renee in florida. Good morning. Guest caller good morning. It is such a pleasure. I first saw an interview with you and myrlie before the book and i was really impressed with her. I have not read it yet. It is on my list. I really appreciate the book and i appreciate you and her. I had my sound turned off but i saw a picture of myrlie and president clinton. What was her involvement with him . Guest thank you so much for that. About is probably the interview in 2018 which was the first time i interviewed her in person in california which is what inspired me to do the book. It was her talking about medgar evers and how much she was in love with him and the way that she talked about him almost in the present tense. I remember saying to her that he has been dead for almost 50 years. That stayed with me for years. When it came time to think about what i wanted to write about, i wanted to write about the love story because that is really what she gave me. When it comes to president clinton, Myrlie Everswilliams became the board chair of the naacp. She convened with president s including president clinton and she fought forhis like more active education, improving education and she was a sounding board fori president s, not just president obama but president clinton. It is the era in which she was board chair of the naacp. Host washington, michael. Hello. Caller hello. The conversation is very good. What she went through, terrible stuff. The man that was giving the speech on the program early, his wife she brings up, why cant black america have rights like White America can . The people will only follow the government. It continues. We still have many miles to go. I can remove or playing football in high school i can remember playing football in high school. I graduated and went to work at the steel mill. When i came home, i went back to under as house i went back to andres house. I asked if he had a job. He said no. I had a job and he did not have a job. Guest i think the issue is we still face discrimination in this country. I was at a talk last night and i talked about American History being like a spiral. Every time we take two steps forward, we take one step back. It is an unfortunate cycle of history. I grew up in a black neighborhood in denver, colorado in a beautiful suburb. White people didot i am not that old. My sister was one of the classes of people who tried to be integrated into the white schools in denver, colorado. They were met with spitballs and catcalls and not wanted. They ended up building a went. We were the first class there. It was a beautiful neighborhood. We had a Gorgeous School that looked like a shopping mall. It was beautiful. I remember one of my teachers driving me home. It was an 80 black neighborhood. The rest were a small number of White Americans who were the people who did not fly out of that area because they could not afford to. I think a lot of people perceive black neighborhoods as a rundown and impoverished. That is not where i grew up. I grew up in an overwhelmingly black suburb. I live in one now. I think theWhite Americans havel black americans are impoverished, that all black americans are suffering and struggling and that is not true. To the extent that you do have suffering and economic struggle in the black community, some of it is manufactured. He justao described going back o his community and a black person that he played football with, they both played football, theye had a job and that young men did not. That is because of discrimination. While a lot of people are uncomfortable talking about the fact that we do have Racial Discrimination in hiring, we do. It is a fact of life. Rather than address that, we have sought conservation we have side conversations. Dei is diversity and inclusion. There is nothing wrong with that. No other country has managed to do it. If we do it it will be an incredible accomplishment for america. This country is young. We can still do it. We have to startigemise of a multidimensional democracy if we want one. Guest i caller i thought y was hilarious the other night. I wanted to add to the conversation by saying perception doesâ– i matter. fegroes andwhy are we still use synonym black . There are no lblack people. Really take hold of the narrative. I dont know if people looked up the color black in the dictionary. Why would you want to call your children that . It means darkness, void. That is part of discrimination. We are not black people. We are brown. Guest the term black came about because people wanted to empower themselves. Negro is a madeup term that was made up by black supremacists for people who came from multiple ethnic groups. Africa is the most diverse continent. When africans were taken to america, you are mixing tribes with no genetic relationship other than all being negro. The idea of whiteness and blackness existed in america. It did not exist before the 16th century. Black people in europe were different ethnicities. The idea of whiteness did not exist until this country was founded. When europeans came here and decided to enslaved africans who spoke different languages from each other, they could not communicate with each let alone communicate with their socalled owners. They designated white and black as a way to delineate african slaves from indentured servants who were europeans. They wanted to enslaved specifically the africans. So they invented these terms white and black in order to distinguish themselves from the africans and distinguish themselves from the indigenous who they called savages. Is literally an invention of slaveowners in the united states. People reclaim to the term black in the 1960s, it was because they wanted to empower themselves. It was a term that felt more powerful than simply using the term negro which was invented by enslavers. I dont see any problem with black. It can mean power, beauty. It does not have to mean horror. It can in linguistics. But in terms of black culture, it ds not mean that. When people say black, they mean that as a powerful term, not a negative term. Host jin athens, ohio. Caller hello. This is my first time calling which is remarkable watching you over the years. I want to thank you for writing the book, very timely. Next, i want to say that i am a retired and very proud black and blind professor who retired in 2022. I say that because my first phd students that i advised for dissertation was a dissertation about myrlie evers and her time as a leader of the naacp. I would ask people to check that out. My question is in your conversations with her because about her leading the naacp coming full circle after her husband. Did youdiscuss any of that time when she was in leadership there . Guest thank you for that question and congratulations on your retirement. It is a beautiful thing to have leisure time. I did talk with her about that. That was an important part of her life because she had come full circle. When they were married to one had a lot of ambivalence about the naacp because she had asked for protection for her husband because of the Death Threats and they had refused, at one point telling medgar evers that they had Better Things to do with their money than to protect him. There was a lot of controversy from naacp leadership about the way that he was operating in mississippi. Ted to be with the young people in the streets. They wanted to protestthey wanted to do citizens, they wanted to desegregate libraries and lunch counters. She was with him. The leadership did not want that. They wanted to fight in the courts. There was controversy there. When myrlie evers was asked by joe madison was the person who really lobbied the ncaa the naacp was in an era o because she was an evers, they felt like she was a person she was ambivalent about it, she was reluctant to do it she did it out of a sense of because she felt a duty not just to the organization her husband had led, but also to her people and the people of the u. S. She turned that organization around financially. She was their greatest fundraiser and she set the organization on a course to fi and also to good moral health. I think she was glad she did. She ultimately did get an apology from the incident the naacp from the executive director at the time after her leadership had ended for not providing security. She ultimately did come full circle. Host we have a text from joseph in fayetteville. He says my family is from greenwood, mississippi. I remember my mother sang black people were forced to watch lynchings. That he says that medgar evers was a hero and a warrior. Guest he cap expressing his first lynching, a gentleman named mr. Tingle, drivethru was kidnapped, drove through the streets, and shot. His clothes were left hung up in this fairgrounds for a year. The clan dared any black person to removee they wanted black people to know he had allegedly assessed a like people to know this is your place and if you displease us, you can be killed. Black folks during that era, not only in mississippi but per capita more than any other state have the most lynchings. Gloria was number three or it was a reign of terror. You were afraid of how you spoke to a white person, man, woman, or child. Anything. Restrained to vote, joining the naacp, looking at a white person trongthem in a way that in likt get off of the sidewalk when a white person walked down the street. Host lets talk to constance in virginia. Caller i am a fan of miss. I am 71 so i have known and seen the uphill battle that our citizens have had with the quality. This is something even as a little child, i saw this as wrong. You need to include everyone and not call people black and white, why not just call ourselves people. That is what we are, we are all human beings and we all have the same needs. We need to have better understand with one another. I believe that some of the religions tell people apart instead of bringing them together. Especially when republicans use it like they are trying to do now. I dont like that at all. I want to see religion out of our government. I am not a religious person but i am very spiritual. I definitely believe in the cosmos. Host lets get a response. Guest i appree your comments. I would love for us to get to a world to where we dont even identify ourselves in terms of race. I read about this there is a great new book out by robert jones of the Public Institutions his area of scholarship and i hope you can look up his new book. He talks about the fact that in the 1500s, the Catholic Church issued a directive that said to those in the age of exploration, he blessed the Catholic Church blessed the explorers from europe going into the new world and said anyone;xâ– you ce upon in the new world, you are allowed to attempt to convert them. If they resist in any way, you are blessed by the church to kill or enslave them. This was the directive that blessed the notion of making slaves of africans. Africa have resources, it had gold that christians wanted to hurches. My husband and i were to spain and we toured these beautiful churches, that gold came from thvery african soil that the Catholic Church blessed the explorers to take him to go in and take not just legal t t