Tonight, activists and scholars discuss the obama legacy on civil rights. 2016a dubois looked at the election and racial conflicts in the u. S. Heres more. I think we have been handed a next ray. We can see all of the an. Ray we can see all the cancers in the body right now. That is a shocking, destabilizing part. Levele not achieved the of hope and change, the shift in public discourse, the sense of unity as a country that president obama articulated so beautifully in 2008. But i think that we may be missing something really important about that. I obviously personally believe that others have done an amazing job in pointing this out the primary obstacles to hope and change, as we now see, our white fragility and white supremacy. That is on the table and it is out for everyone to see. We can see the trump supporters. We can see the Tea Party Movement in 2010. Race, see the issues with violence, and policing. We cant do surgery without that xray. Took thet probably country too long, maybe even the president too long, to be able to identify these things when folks in this room knew that already, right . Just some of the remarks from an event thing at president obamas civil rights legacy. You can watch the entire program tonight on cspan two. Journal,s washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Aming up tuesday morning, reuters washington columnist will discuss the picks for the Trump Administration and what it will mean for future economic policy. And then Philadelphia Daily News editor, michael days will join us on his new book. Be sure to watch washington journal, live on tuesday morning, 7 a. M. Eastern. Be sure to join the discussion. Our featuredome of programs, thursday, thanksgiving day, on cspan. Just after 11 a. M. Eastern, nebraska senator ben sass on the foundinges, fathers, and america. Its not compelled by the government. By a speechat noon from tom harkin on the rise of obesity. In everything, from monster burgers with 1420 calories and 107 grams of fat, to 20 ounce pepsis, feeding an epidemic of child obesity. Then, the founder of wikipedia talks about the beginning of the online encyclopedia and the challenge to the access. Once there is 1000 entries, i know there is a Small Community with five to 10 really active users, another 20 to 30 who know a little bit and they think of themselves as a community. And an inside look at the years long effort to repair and restore the capitol dome. Reflects onna kagan her life and career. Thesis, whichnior was a great thing to have done. It taught me an incredible amount. It also taught me what it was like to be a serious historian, sit in archives all day, and i realized it wasnt for me. Followed by justice thomas, at 9 00. Genius is not putting the two dollars in aor two a 20ce, it is putting idea in a two dollar sentence with no loss of meaning. President obama will percent the medal of freedom to 21 recipients, including michael jordan, bruce springsteen, sicily tyson, and bill and melinda gates. Watch on cspan, cspan. Org, or listen on the free cspan radio app. For the next hour and 15 minutes, a book tv exclusive. We visit tucson, arizona, to learn more about its unique history and literary life. For five years now we have traveled to u. S. Cities, bringing the book seen to our viewers. You can watch more of our visits on cspan. Org citiestour. We begin with leo baron and his book, patton the battle of the bulge. Important inely world war ii. It was his last gasp on the western front. His last chance in trying to change the course of the war. Russians were knocking on the door to germany. The americans and the brits were coming up from italy and the south. The french were coming in from the west, through france, belgium, the low countries. Hiller was looking at the strategic situation and realized that he had to somehow change the equation. Being the gambler that he was, he decided to go and launch this huge counteroffensive, thinking that the allies wouldnt expect it. To a certain extent, he was right. That is why he did it. He launched a huge counteroffensive. He was able to achieve an operational level of surprise. His goal was to get to the city of antwerp. The allies got most of their soprano supplies through, but his plan was that if he could capture the fort, it would upset theallied timetable from west for months, maybe even a year. During that time what he was hoping for was that while the western allies work reorganizing themselves, he could swing his attention towards the russians coming in from the east. That is why the battle of the bulge was so important. It was his last chance to change the course of the war. Leading up to the battle of the bulge, we have to go all the way back to june 6. At that point you only had two major fronts. The russians coming in from eastern europe. The americans in the brits coming in from italy. As you know, there was a lot of ground that the russians had to take to get to basically the heart of germany. From thed commanders west, eisenhower, churchill, roosevelt, said that the easiest way to get to germany was through northwest france. , its the shortest distance. Month or, for about a so. The germans are able to keep the ies kind of logic there lodged up there, in northwest europe. But at the beginning of august the allied forces breakthrough. Operation cobra. Back to the race german border, with allies and way, pushingg the the germans all of the way back. In septemberbilize of 1944. The allies had outrun their supply lines. They were running out of gas. The fort of antwerp was so important. They had to open it. Patton was already pretty famous by that point. , heg back in his history , butnally went to the vmi then west point. He was one of the first tank commanders in the first world war. He moved up in the rank structure. By the time that world war ii already madee had a name for himself. That theys thought were going to land in a place called [indiscernible] and he was the fake commander of the army group. It was part of the deception. They were not landing at calle, but the germans bought it, hook, line, and sinker. The commander of the third being third army came into being on august 1, 1934. After the allies broke through in normandy, he basically just raced across france. So, he completely cap the germans off balance. Racing across france. If it wasnt for the fact that he ran out of gas, he would have ran all of the way to berlin. He caught the germans completely offbalance. Plansou read the german for the defensive in 1944, patton was very much on their mind. Plan, butthis great what was patton going to do . The guy that was in charge of the seventh army, general brandenberger, it was his job to contain patton. He was like you are not giving me enough stuff to contain this guy. Of the allied generals that we fear the most and you are not given me much to stop this guy. He was already in their minds, living in their heads. So, when the offense of kicked , he was to the south of the german offensive. It wasnt actually in his area of operations, initially. Because the germans did penetrate the allied lines, the plan was that they were going to have patton drive his army from the south to the north to basically cut the balls and half at the base of the bulge. I asked him you are facing east with all of these men. You have got all of these men with several divisions, talking well over 100,000 men. All right . We need you to turn them 90 degrees and had to the north. Which would have been difficult for most generals. It was even more difficult because it was on the fly and there wasnt a lot of prior planning and, by the way, the weather was terrible. Bad roads, heavy snow. Patent of course told Eisenhower Patton patch on , of course, told eisenhower that he could do it. One of them said no be silly, george, theres no way that i can do this. But he was like im going to do this, im going to head north and focus on the town. At this point the 101st Airborne Division were afraid they were going to be surrounded. They all recognized that passed ne was the key. In terms of making their way onto antwerp, they needed to have it. To be ont was terrible roads. Any place were you had a town that have a lot of roads, that seemed very important. To give it a historical comparison, it was a lot like gettysburg. So, his focus became you are going to turn your army around and we want you to basically get there, all right . And relieve the 101st that we are going to send in there to defend the city. He literally turned his army 90 degrees, headed north, and true to his word he kicked off his counterattack within 48 hours. He gets there, he breaks through on december 26, 1944. Kind of scene as like a turning point in the battle of the bulge. That pretty much starts to cut into the german forces. There is a lot of hard fighting for another three or four weeks. , he says er that ok, ive done this. We have reestablished and gotten back to the german border and in march, he bounces the rhine in march of 1945. Thats the term that he used. In the march of 1945, the allies had reached the rhine river. A significant obstacle. Huge river, very wide, fast current. Kind of scene for the germans as their last line of defense in the west. They knew that they were going to fight hard for it. There were all of these preparations to basically get across the rhine river. They have the operation to the north, the 21st army group. There was a lot of preparation. Sudden the germans for you to blow up one of the bridges, kind of simplifying it. The ninth Armored Division gets across the bridge. There is actually a movie about it. Patton sees whats going on. He gets across relatively easily. Now of course once they are across, its a race across germany. It from way of doing april and into may of 1945. It is really only a question of time at that point. If you look at the history of the u. S. Army, it is obviously a long and illustrious history. Casualties,nth of hands down, was basically december through january of 1944 , 1945. Northwest europe alone, 144,000 casualties. , killed in action, missing in action, wounded. Yes, there was all kinds of fighting going on. You are talking literally about an 80 mile front worth of combat. Its not like where you go, to a civil war battlefield, where you can pretty much walk the battlefield on foot one day. Would take several days, if you were walking, and several hours if you were driving. Generally seen as going from december 16 to midjanuary. So, you are not talking about one or two days. Third. Second, even though there was a lot of stuff that happened after. Pearl harbor, one day. It doesnt lend itself to a very small, compact book. Typically when you see books on the battle of the bulge, and even though im not doing and advertisement for free, these are great books. 600 pages, its not like you are just going to im going to read the battle of the bulge. Whereas, like i said, civil war battles, one day, two days. Ofm that perspective it kind timid eights potential readers. Its just a huge battle. Its a massive scope that is hard to take in in one book. I think thats maybe why it is not as written about as other battles. Veterans,talk to the i have found that in some cases when i talk to them, they say they had it worse in the desert and they are like are you kidding me . You were fighting the german army or the chinese army. Having that perspective gave me a bit of an in. I get some of it. Just great, talking to these veterans. Just had these incredible stories. Some of the most humble men. I cant say enough about them. This is hyperbole, but what they did was amazing. I have no problem calling them the greatest generation. I had started in 1974. I had written several books of poetry at that point. Name from thehe letter. He was a notorious mass murderer. On death row. My interest was p e, of course. For all the wrong reasons my interest was piqued, of course. For all the wrong reasons. I wanted to meet a monster. He invites me out to death row, to prison in florence, 70 miles from here. I had certainly never been in the death row part of prison. It was eerie. It was a Long Division down the center of this long room and it had wire above it. ,nd then there was a counter and something you could slip the paper through. There were guards i couldnt figure out why there were some in some places and not summon others, but i figured it out. When they brought him in, he was so notorious a mass murderer of guard came and he stood right beside him. I was there, the guard stood beside him. He became very angry on a subsequent visit, saying that the guard had stepped on his foot was very angry about it. So, we worked in the visitation area of death row, which was rather difficult. Through slide his work the great to me and i would market up and slide it back to him. That is where we work. He wanted then for me and another inmate, they wanted me to set up workshop. He said there was a lot of interest. The first time that i walk in to the first workshop with my assistant, who is also a very famous writer now. There were 30 people in the room. I thought what am i going to do . Kyle tom was a fishing writer, so that was fortunate. Fiction writer, so that was fortunate. Poets, iwould keep the sent to the fiction numbers to tom. I had to get the numbers down somehow. The way that it worked was that , and often i would bring in examples of good writing. In that facility i could bring books. I cant in the federal. I would get them to read what i had written. They would write during the week, what they had written. During the workshop. Everybody would critique it. Just orate. They would say i like that line, and so on. I would critique it. Then they would take it back and work on it. They would bring it back and read it again and so on. , myng all of those years wife was a superb typist. When i got to the point when i thought it was publishable, i would bring it out and she would type up nice manuscripts. Then they would send it out for publication. I would provide them with the addresses in the magazines and stuff. A good many of them published. It was a lifechanging experience for them, to see their name on a piece of work in a magazine. In 1970. To prison thats where i met richard shelton, in a unit here in called south of tucson, santa rita. He was teaching a writing workshop there. Richard he was chosen teacher of the year. Hes a biologist. He taught biology. And he ran away with a 14yearold student. When asked why, he says stupidity. Which is probably about as accurate as you can get. I was writing at the time and interested in learning more about it. Always wanted to be a writer. Came into his workshop with some published work. I shared it with the group. Applauded, guys thought it was great. Richard shelton was shaking his head. Richard he tells these stories about how critical i was. In, it aurned palm would be turned in and i would say things like its a terrible waste of a poem would be turned in and i would say things like its a terrible waste of punctuation. Things like that. Richard he would push me. He would say that there is more than reaching about species profiles. He kept pushing me, i guess you would say. I started making these connections between what i was seeing, what was going on with me, and the other men on the yard. Men who would make pets of the ground squirrels. And make this connection between in a place where its actually pretty brutal. The prison yard is a microcosm of the world. But the writing workshops were a release from all of that. You understand that in the prison, inmates make distinctions about things like the nature of your crime, the color of your skin, mostly the color of your skin. Its just a crazy racism that goes on. In the workshops, that all fell away. We can examine each others writing. It doesnt matter what color you are or what your crime is. What was important was the writing. It was like a way to get off the prison yard. It was a way to get away from all of that craziness that went on outside the classroom. Richard i have been in some danger, but not really. I think its exaggerated. I tell the story with the guards, the guards at florence hats,opper hats cowboy cowboy kneehighs, cowboy boots. I had to cross through the yard, out one block long, with knowing men. The guards would be up about 35 and they all had tripod weapons. Many of them were old. Retired deputy sheriffs. I thought if a fight breaks out near me, they are going to start shooting and im just as likely to get shot as anybody area im wearing cowboy hats, cowboy boots, and levis. I would stand out, so that they would know i was not an inmate. Then i was coming in one night and they had a kiosk on top of the wall. It was a pair of it that they that look down parapet they could look down into. In the cowboy hat and i guess they couldnt see my face. It was dusk. There was a point at which i would stand by the iron gate that was always locked. I would stand in front of them and holler a guard or key. They would let them a basket from of above and had a big old key on it. I would put that in and open the gate. It was heavy and iron. I would go through and push it back to the whole and into the and into thee basket. That night i got there and i hollered for the guard but it didnt have a key in it. It had little packages of white outer. This is how the guards supplemented their very bad salaries. Dealing heroin. That scared me to death. When i saw that and saw what was, i thought im in real danger now. They are up there with guns and enough. Ust discovered there was nothing i could do, i didnt have a key. I thought that if i turned it around they would give me in the back. The best thing i could do was just nothing, play stupid which wasnt hard for me. So, i just stood there and pretty soon they realized their error. It came back down with the key in it. I have got to get in, anyway, but can i get out . Guyse way out a number of walked with me. They didnt know why, but they walked with me to the gate. I was acting like an absolute idiot, to impress the after i got out, i had to cross the parking lot. The lights were very bright there. I was scared. But i never told anybody at the time. I never told anybody until my book came out way five years later. 25 years later. And so they let me go. They figured i was so stupid i do not know what that was. And i really impressed them with my stupidity in every way i could. Yeah, i was scared then. There were other times. I was a little scared during the riot but not much, because they took good care of me, the inmates took good care of me. I guess they were expecting a riot. I was not it we were sitting around this long table in a room with no windows, and the door had those bars, and i heard something that sounded like a car backfiring. That is what i thought it was. They make their own guns because they had the license plate factory. They made license plates and could also make their own guns. They were called zip guns. They are not very accurate. They do not have very much range. But they were deadly. Suddenly i heard that noise, and all i could hear was the scraping of the chairs on the concrete floor as the guys stood up, and two of them went to the door and held that bar so nobody could get in. The others gathered around the inside around me. We heard noise, gunshots, firing ca