congratulations. it is an amazing book, a beautiful story and beautifully told. tell me why -- i think i know -- but why you wanted to write this history which is really the history of african-american education, at large, across the country in this first public black high school. >> yeah. i was very concerned that the history of dunbar high school was going to be lost because so many of the graduates who could tell about the old dunbar, this elite public high school where the teachers were some of the first to get ph.ds and masters's degrees and thereby taught the next two generations who became the greatest generation of african-americans. i was worried these people would get lost because they're in their 80s and 90s. i with went around the country looking for them, having them tell me their stories to bear witness to this school. i knew i was on to something when i was working leer as an anchor i wrote a letter to senator edward brook within wondered would he ever write me back. i got off the air one day, a voicemail at msnbc said i would