Mouth. [laughter] guest absolutely. How interesting can that be . The truth is that the left is moving to the left than the right is moving to the right. The right is not moving to the center but a flexible space, i think. Its better than 50 likely that youre going to see a candidate who who basically frames himself as the candidate of aspiration, not anger. Host well, youve got high praise from the book from people, paul ryan, who states the conservative heart makes the stage why it should be on the center of fighting poverty efforts. One of the take aways from the book is it does give a prescription as to how to fight for something and how to be about that fight in a way that brings people into it, and i think after listening to you and and replaying in my head some of the sections in the book that really stood out, i understand why this is an important book and, i think, a lot of people, particularly conservatives will begin to appreciate the struggle isnt over and the fight isnt done and we have to put ourselves fully in the game. Guest to enjoy it. Happy warrior. Absolutely. Host its been a real joy and pleasure to sit down with you and be with you again and to share with everyone this boom, the conservative heart. Guest thank you, michael, youve been an inspiration to me. Host you got it. Pleasure. Book tv is on facebook, behind the scenes, videos and to talk directly with authors in live program. Facebook. Com booktv. Cornel west, civil rights leader this is a real delight to have you here on this show. I am grateful myself for being invited to have an occasion to interview about this new edited volume on dr. King. The radical king, Martin Luther king, jr. , edited and introduced by cornel west. This is a real treasure rf some of the most important speeches and letters and public documents of dr. King. What inspired you to do this project . Guest i just want to begin by saluting you. Great institutions in the american empire and you do it with such e leggance and such vision and sense activity and your scholarship actually for me is in terms of discourse on incarceration among poor people. Its crucial to be able to spend time with you, my brother, beautiful thing. He was able to generate levels of love and vision and unbelieve highquality services to the least of these. Hes a christian minister, first and foremost. You and i know that brother martin gets sanitized every [laughter] guest fbi is saying hes the most dangerous man in america and others put forward with such power, hes unamerican, hes a trader to the country and so forth. What does martin do, he says, you never knew me, you never knew me. Im called to babies in vietnam, babies in apalachia, south side of chicago, babies in ethiopia. Thats martin king. So many of the freedom and we can go on and on. Host talk with the classification of African Americans. Part of youre describing is amnesia that dr. King wasnt always well loved within the black community. 55 of African Americans did not support dr. King on vietnam and ending poverty. It was the ending poverty part that caught me off guard. Guest its true. Its very sad. 72 and 55 is in black people. You remember what Whitney Young said, setting back the black freedom movement, what you say may get you money in the corporation but may not get you in the kingdom of truth. Black leadership over where to go. See martin was saying, corporation is not going to dictate what my correspondence actually is. Host i know the difference between right and wrong. Guest big money and all the access, power is not going to determine what i say. See, martin was like like joe and could have been multi, multimillionary. He brings young brothers. What is he doing, being himself. We have a lot of people, for example, that say they love Martin Luther king, jr. And they talk about speaking truth to power but they dont want to speak truth to the present power. Dont lie to yourself in acting as if you so progressive when you really just cheerleader and a bootlegger. You have to be candid to these things. Host we will get to that for sure but i want to ask about the book. Guest sure, absolutely. Host in terms of the text itself, was the radical king hidden in plain sight in terms of the actual wisdom or did you have to pull up or pull out obscured passages and text from more wellknown speeches that he gave . Guest when my dear sister careta king, when i first met her in 1986i gave a speech in in the capitol. Host before the king holiday. Ten years into the annual fight. Guest thats exactly right. On my first date, martin said, i bet you never met a black [laughter] new school conservative music. He said, yes, because his hero was not just martha shivers who taught sociology, the great sociologist in indiana university. But also Norman Thomas. The essay in the book. Who was Norman Thomas . Class 1905, turned down a big church on east side of new york in order to pass harlem, lost Christian Faith and became a socialist and ran for socialist, socialist party for many times. But, of course, look at marshall washington. Vanilla brother in the history of john brown, miles, you can go on and on. Brothers and sisters committed to the freedom of everybody including black people and martin says, Norman Thomas is fundamental part of who i am. Hes not as much as benjamin may was, benjamin is legendary but hes a part of who i am. Host i found it fascinating, so in 1952, so dr. King and caretta are dating and not yet married and you cite a passage at the top of the book but my sources gave me a little bit more detail. [laughter] host the passage here indicates an exchange of ideas and romance between dr. King and coretta at the time. Whats interesting about Norman Thomas and socialism, they talk about having both read edward, 1887, eutopian fantasy, looking backwards. In this letter he writes to caretta. Im not a conventional baptist minister. I believe in the social gospel. Its not enough to save goals. My father was thorough capitalist but i dont want to own a lot and ignoring peoples need is wrong. It takes the necessity of the masses to give luxuries to the classes. I found it fascinating because thats 1952. Guest our brother laying it out right already. He has this legacy inside of him. But you know what i love about martin, though, in some of the ways sets him among from most black people and black leaders, malcolm is a part but his radical love and its a radical love and freedom and radical love which means from the very beginning he was letting claretta know i am a different kind of negro. Hes already elected city council. But at the same time when it comes to mainstream black, education or when it comes to mainstream leadership, they explicit but not the best way to win population. Shes right there with him too. Shes going to be pushing him on passivism and pushing him on critics of empire. Host it goes to the argument that you make and what you see to make an intervention. Shall we say a radical intervention. Annually in the run up to the king holiday, we get a lot of the river side speech. We get a lot of antiwar speech that dr. King made but it is it denies the truth of his own story which is not that he began dressed in the forces of history that took him into montgomery, he fell on the other end and is giving him could believe on how to fight the good fight and it was just about civil rights and a seat at the table and to be able to be firstclass citizens. In fact, he came with a kind of economic blueprint built in. By the time you get to the vietnam war, but the time he seen the limits of legislative action in Civil Rights Movement hes already been committed to fundamental revolutionary change. The kind of change that as you and so many others pointed out shifts this country from a thing to society. Guest youre absolutely right. I think when we talk to our dear brother hes one of the great Freedom Fighters still alifes who meets martin very young. Theres a part where you see the wonderful picture in the basement. Harlem at the center but bringing the legacy of the boys and martin king bringing legacy of benjamin on one hand but also intellectually hero negro. Its a family affair. [laughter] guest theres no martin without his family. The family helps make him and thats very important. I think specially for young people, and specially of the ferguson generation who i love so deeply, i think, courageous and visionary. Host yeah. Guest but also brother tory and William Barbara which was younger generation. A great kinglike figure. Deep aspiration for martin king, that part of a tradition. They recognized just like you and i we are who we are because somebody loved us and they cared for us and the question is how much loving and care we will do on the time we are here to mothers wonb. But was a very subtle analysis that puts poor people and working people at the center, so its not delmatic, any weapon he can use, might be from liberalism in terms of critic of centralized power in the Public Sector and conservatism in the crucial war of family, but family is still very important. Church. Host right. One of the things you emphasize is you call him a revolutionary christian. Its obviously that hes a minister to all of us, but in some ways Civil Rights Act i have activism can get lost. Talk a little bit about that. Guest the brother would never sell out. Youre only willing to sell your soul when you reach that the grounds of hope can no longer be sustained at spiritual level and life is about goodies available in time in space and im going to get as much as i can, so the king of god has become a brand. No. The black freedom struggle has become a commercial. No. The Love Community has become advertisement. We live in a highly advertised culture. It doesnt have to rule me. Martin comes along and says, lo and behold im a jazz man, im a blues man, im using any weapon i can to empower these poor and working people beginning on the chocolate side of town and its very important because a lot of people loved martin king because he loved White Brothers and sisters. Thats a beautiful thing. That showed spiritual ma surety but she didnt go to jail because he loved White Brothers, he went to jail because he loved black folks. When he gets out he could hardly walk and says this is a cros, we must bare for the freedom of people, thats spiritual. Host right. Guest you know this brother aint going to sell out. Host a deep connection that the life that jesus actually led. We can see at least of these but he actually meant it. Diagnosis of the world was that these people, my people are truly the least not just here in america but globally. Guest alah loving free, tony was a free woman and literary genius, theres a connection between having your spiritual roots rich and deep and being free, being in the world but not of the world. Host right. Guest for martin it had everything to do with that. Just like myself. [laughter] host lets come back to the connection between christianity and the blues tradition because that may not be obvious to every raider or every listener. What do you mean a christian blues man . I think you mean something more than just improvization. You name four catastrophes. Guest i think you have to begin with chronical individual catastrophe lyricically expressed. Nobody loves me than my momma. [laughter] host thats catastrophe. Guest every force in the world against you the one person you can depend on. Now, how does bd king sing that song. [laughter] guest how does he sing that song with style, smile, help with lucille, get guitar. We are a blues people. We thought the world something about love on something that we have been hated. You taught the world about justice even though we have been treated unjustly and unfairly up to this very moment. Its a tradition of the people who looks catastrophe in the face and critically exams it and candidly speaks about it and crajously lives and is willing to die. [laughter] guest they feel, people get ready. In the face of american terrorism n the face of being hated by so many people, he responds bike bb king but with a smile, with style, landmarks in the past that constitute when at his back to engage, truth telling, witness baring and for the working people, even though hes not against rich folks, but its difficult for rich folks not to fall what we have in the how did the the johnson brothers put it . Falling in love with the intoxicating. You know, the line host i dont remember. Guest you know the line im talking about. Intoxicated with the world, power, wealth and so forth. Host row used the term radical love. Thats definition of broader definition of crustian blues man. You say that the radical love that king taught and he lived his life by was a radical love that daily made the selfdie. Host thats right. Guest eagle had to be killed t attachment to the world that makes us feel good, in order for a sack if i sacrificial selfo emerge, was it the sheer capacity to be courageous in the mist of chaos . Guest thats a profound question because its hard to know exactly how anybody is able to mustard the level of courage that a martin king or dorothy does. He was someone who really did die every day. And theres no reverse without death, so hes reborn every day. Taking a show internaler is lik. Holy saturday god is dead but evidence from the blood of the cross that east is on the way. Most christians in america they dont want to killed jesus killed as a criminal. So many got to be in cuba. All the baring witness and the part empire comes down on them. Martin understood that not just more christian or any human being who wants to deal with a level of integrity as a longdistance brother, position and status and wealth. We have to kill some in yourself to sense that it was all about you rather than you being a product of a larger tradition, we love and care for you, giving you a sense of selfconfidence and selfrespect and our young people, specially the ferguson generation, they are so hungry and thirsty for this process, learning how to die, killing that fear, standing in the face of the police, police look like we are in baghdad rather than in ferguson. They stand there with courage, and, of course, the middle question is always is how do we channel that legitimate righteous indignation. Im part of that. Host 20 years ago writing amongst young people. Guest thats exactly right. Host do you find that this journey helps you to better understand young people from 20 years ago where you were writing race matters to today . Guest i think so. 13 edited books. This is more core of who i am. My blood brother cliff west who was the most kinglike person that i know. And thats true for so many of us. There are so many folks on the ground that are kinglike, part of the problem is when you look up on television, no not to many kinglike folks, not to many christlike. If you look at the ground, activists and learn how to die and live. Christians must die daily. Host yes. Guest kill that oag, ego, kill that envy, enough to be liberated to keep the beloved community in view. The kingdom in view and that believed community is fundamentally about ensuring that everybody live with dignity. Thats, for example, martin king will be the overwhelmed by 500 babies killed in 50 days and not one mumbling word to say by american politicians. The white house, congress, governors or whatever and martin will say, what, i dont care about the politician ifs they cowardly, these precious babies are just as precious in new york, connecticut, los angeles or whatever, and he keeps that moral and spiritual center. Thats the key. Thats really the key. Host i want to talk about martin since history. I found that certainly as a historian i was taken by some of the entry that of history and dr. King himself not only as a product of that historical consciousness and that deep commitment to learning, after all he did have a doctorate. Guest ph. D. [laughter] guest absolutely right. Host he saw the stakes of historical literacy, the need to know and to understand and to be able to use history in order to criticize the present and imagine the future is absolutely essential not just optional. Im going to share you remind you what you already know but share with our listeners, the great historian, Civil Rights Activists, eventual communist, moves to ghana and here king is giving tribute that i had not read and he describes in the tribute that debois work he identify it had keystone in the arch of oppression and that history books had to lie or admit the negroes capacity to govern. Here he is inspired by the debise which would have been part of educational learning, even though he was 10 years old when it was published. It talks about the consequences, to lose ones history is to lose ones selfunderstanding and with it the root of pride. Its not enough to be angry, he said, people must organize and unit, when People History had been distorted, American History had been distorted because negroes he continued a too big a part of this nation to be written without it. This is not only a fascinating tribute but challenge to the listeners of this tribute because we know right now that history is under attack all over the country, including, and im going to cite this as an example, in colorado back in september, white, black, latino students, asian students took to jefferson Colorado School board because the school board decided that they no longer wanted to allow students to be exposed to history that im going to quote here t history must promote citizenship, patriotism and the essential benefits of the free market system, show respect for authority and respect for individual rights. Think about the kind of history you say has been classified, think about the fact that texas literally whitewashed its textbooks. Think about an arizona, mexican decentent children cant learn mexican American History that used to be part of mexico because its considered antiamerican. So im fascinated by dr. King he wasnt making history. Guest no. He was studying. Host teaching it. Guest but you know im glad you mention it because for me its one of the great moments in the history of american culture. When you have the greatest organic intellectual in the history of america, thats martin king, reflecting on the greatest public intellectual, right here in new york and its not that widely known m. Now we have to keep in mind that many of martins friend told him not to go, why because they were communist. The last thing you want because people are saying, youre a communist is to go and reflect