On hope were starting. My name is noel king. Im delighted to be here at the Annapolis Book festival. I am even more delighted that we are seeing each other in person as opposed to overseas. Everyone if your cell phone volume is turned on which you might turn it off. And ill let you know a little bit about the program. Were going to talk about 35 minutes and then were gonna open it up to audience questions. So i know that you are here to see these two gentlemen not to see me. So come with your questions. Well have about 15 minutes for you. We we should have plenty of time. The title of this panel is a reckoning how systematic how systemically excuse me racism has shaped our history policies and education and were really lucky today to be joined by two of the best writers in this country on history and race currently working adam harris is the author of the state must provide why americas colleges have always been unequal and how to set them, right . This book is a history of a Higher Education in this country, and its a very clear distillation of how much harder black americans have had to fight to get it. It brings to life some household names including Thurgood Marshall and James Meredith and also some names that may be should be a little more familiar adam for many years in brooklyn. I live next to Carter G Woodson elementary school. I did not know who he was. I found him in your book and i was thrilled if i said this is what its all about. We are also joined by clint smith his author of the bestselling book how the word is passed a reckoning with the history of slavery across America Clint is a poet in addition to being a writer and those of you have who have read the book know that is lyrical account of a kind of tour that clint took a place where black and white americans interacted sometimes to disastrously now one of clints unique gifts is a writer is that he can go to a place observe talk to anyone hear things that are both funny and also pauling and then reserve judgment and were gonna talk a little bit about how he manages to do that in this house. Thank you both so much for for being here. We really had a book come out in 2021. It was about a year after the murder of george floyd when this country was talking a great deal about having a reckoning over race and Racial Injustice. Here we are in 2022 and i think a lot of people myself included want to know did we really have a reckoning over race and Racial Injustice adam . Why dont we start with you . Did this country have a reckoning in any real sense . You know, it was it was interesting. Well, it was interesting thing so much everyone for being here, you know, one of the the Center Pieces of my book actually focuses on on historical black colleges and universities right the role that they have historically played in educating a population that the majority of america did not want to see educated for the lions share of the countrys history. And so the institutions are really kind of going through this renaissance of attention at this moment, right and through that reckoning you saw an increase in philanthropic donations going to the universities. You saw this sort of crush of money coming from the federal government. But you are also still seeing the sort of piecemeal motions towards making real effective change for the institutions and i think the reckoning only goes it hasnt yet manifested in terms of transformationally changing the situation for a lions share of people and i think that that is the point if there is a true reckoning that is the point that it needs to. So Mackenzie Bezos gives a billion dollars to historically black colleges and universities. It doesnt necessarily mean anything changes. Yeah, i think you know, none of the institutions, you know several of the institutions received donations that were the largest ever that they had received in their history. Sometimes that largest ever donation was five Million Dollars. Sometimes the largest ever donation was 10 Million Dollars and to put that in the context a place like the university of mississippi can make 500 Million Dollars in five years of private donations. And so to say that you know my alma mater, alabama a m received to 2. 2 Million Dollar donation last year. Its the largest ever single donation and the 150 year history of that institution. And so i think that thinking about the scope of this past two years and the grander scope of American History. It really is only sort of a blip and whether if it if it continues then i think thats when you start to see that trans. Formation clint, what do you think . Did anything in this country . I i think that whats happened is over the past 10 years right beginning with the sort of unofficial start of the black lives Matter Movement if we think about as being Trayvon Martins death over the past 10 years there is undoubtedly been a shift in public consciousness, but from millions of people not from anyone, but for many many people who now understand racism not just as an interpersonal phenomenon, but a systemic one a structural one a historical one a sociological one. I always joke that like in 2000 12 if you would ask somebody what redlining was they would have been like is that rihannas lipstick like is that part of the fenty line like red lining . What is that . And so what is true is that now . There are people who have a different lexicon a different language a different toolkit with which understand with which to understand the reason one Community Looks one way. And another Community Looks another way is not because of the people in those communities but is because of what has been done to those communities generation after generation after generation, so there has been a shift but weve all so experienced and i think we see this with the sort of Critical Race Theory boogeyman is an intense backlash as well. Right because whats happened is that part of what weve experienced. Is that because now millions of people are telling a different story about this country a more. Wants a more honest a more one that includes multiple perspectives one that takes a set of historical phenomenon and thats what a complicates our understanding of it. Right . So we dont just understand manifest destiny as this sort of inherent good that brought the us from one coast to another we understand it is something that also killed millions of Indigenous People that we dont understand. The homestead act is something that was like, oh, this is great because were giving a lot of immigrants who are just coming to this Country Access to land out west. Were all recognizing that black people didnt have access to that same that same land. Were also recognizing that on the way to clearing that land. You also had to kill Indigenous People and so thats an example of what it means to sort of complicate stories that have been sort of twodimensional caricatures of themselves before but if you once you begin the complicate these stories there are many millions of other people who sense of self is tied to the Previous Story of america, right their sense of identity is tied to the story of americas sort of singularly being the shining light on the hill the story of america is singularly being a place where anybody can make work hard enough and once that version of the american story is revealed to be untrue or a halftruth or only part of the story. I think a lot of people begin to experience that not only as a threat to the america they believed in but as a threat to who they understand themselves to be and so it not only becomes a sort of inconvenient need to reassess history. It becomes an existential crisis, right . Because who you understand yourself to be as inherently tied to a story of america that millions of people are telling you now isnt necessarily true and i think that part of what we see as a result of that which has happened at every at every moment of black progress throughout the history of this country. Is that now their state sanctioned efforts across state legislatures throughout the country to prevent teachers from teaching the very history that explains why the country looks the way that it does today. And so i think part of what were seeing is like people not only fearing a loss of of material like a material loss but also a loss of their identity and a threat to their sense of self so its i do think theres been a shift. We can recognize that there are limitations to it and we can recognize that its the sort of like three steps forward two steps back or three steps back depending on the situation in the moment, but i think you we can recognize that there has been a sort of shift in consciousness, even if that shifting consciousness is not necessarily always trend translated into the necessary material or legislative interventions. That would have a real Material Impact on black communities one of the things thats really clear about. Both of your books. Is that this country cannot escape its history. Its just not going to happen. America is always going to have to deal with the things we did 400 years ago 300 years ago 200 years ago adam. I was really struck that you chose to write a history of Higher Education because every reporter knows that education is the hardest beat because you have a very simple story you start with a very simple story and then you realize you need to go back generations to get the context for what youre reporting. Why did you choose education . Yeah, thats a really good question. So i that it really. I think that it really hinged upon this idea that i was trying to look at inequality more broadly right and in the same way that education is a really like straightforward like this is a something that is seemingly simple. But then you start to dig into it. Theyre all of these additional yet. Its everyone everyone can hear me. All right. Okay, perfect. So yeah, the there is a within this idea this broader lens of inequality. I my thought was i want to examine Higher Education with this idea of of inequality through this lens of inequality right coming from the founding coming from that first address that George Washington gave before congress in 1790 where he said theres nothing that better deserves your patronage speaking to to members of congress then Higher Education because that is where we build good citizens and understanding that at the founding. These are people thinking about this is a place where we develop citizens. This is where people learn National Character and yet they were thinking of shutting out an entire class of people as they were doing. That was really interesting to me and then working through as i reported on Higher Education at the chronicle, you know, you would across these these laws or these bills that pass to expand Higher Education you think about the gi bill and how that expanded access to higher ed. You think about the moral act and how that expand that expanded access to Higher Education and there were all of these these points right the morale like, its 17 million acres of land including 10 millions of acres of land that was expropriated from 250 indigenous tribes to give basically give to states so that they could build these illustrious institutions we have now Iowa State UniversityAuburn University penn State University. Cornell is a Memorial School and for 30 years these institutions did not the 30 years or longer, you know, most of these institutions did not enroll black students, Iowa State University for example the first school to accept that marill land grant didnt enroll its first black student until the federal government said that you either have to accept them to the predominantly White Institution or create an hpcu in 1890 and that ended up being George Washington carver. So if think about the the amount of time that they were able to build credit and currency for the systems that we understand today these institutions and yet you know, you still have flagships that are enrolling 5 black students in a state where you have worth 30 or 40 percent of the high school. Graduates are black. Im going to state like alabama Public High School graduates are black or a place like North Carolina where unc chapel hill and roll Something Like 8 black students in North Carolina state and rolls five percent right . Just kind of looking across the board. There were all of these individual instances and i think one of the things that best helps people understand that sort of injustice is the granularity of it, right the fact that when when ada louise simple fisher is suing to get into the university of Oklahoma School of law in the Supreme Court says you have to enroller instead the state of oklahoma rushes a law school and to existence in five days and says, heres your law school, you know, weve hired a parttime faculty. This is where you can go understanding the granularity of all of that. I think is i felt was important. So thats i think why why i really kind of wanted to examine this broader structure and she was just like in a room, right . It was like, you know, it was it was in the Capital Building. They had the one of the floors of the Capitol Building they turned into a makeshift a classroom and they hired three faculty members parttime for what would be fulltime work and ultimately, you know, she didnt intend hes like no, im not going there. But but you you sort of saw the ways that the state was really trying to hold on to this this semblance of separate but equal right . They George Mclaurin when he was accepted into the university they put him in the hallway and he was looking into the class when the Supreme Court said they couldnt do that anymore. They put a little bar in the classroom to segregate black and white students. And so just all of the granular and justices i think were were important and that helped illuminate this broader story and notably the years that this was happening were. So this this was 1947 through these cases were around 1945 through 1951 52 so pre brown v board and they really laid the foundation for brownview board of education. And notably there would be people in this room who were alive during that period of American History. I just think thats the thing that we can sometimes forget. Is it really is that close . Yes and clinton that is the thing that your book does not allow us to forget is how close so if atoms is very much a history yours is a bit like jack carowex on the road, but it has a point to it so much better book. Im sorry. I liked karaoke when i was a teenager, so you went to several places eight separate places and you observed you talk to people you came away with your thoughts. I wondered intently. How did you decide on the eight places . There are tens of thousands throughout this country that you could have gone. How did you choose these eight . So i think it helps to get a little bit of context for this sort of origin of the book. It was in 2017. I was watching several confederate statues come down in my hometown in new orleans statues of pgt beauregard, Jefferson Davis robert e lee and i was watching these statues come down and i was thinking about what it meant that i grew up in a majority black city in which there were more homages to enslavers than they were to enslave people and thinking about what are the implications of that . What does it mean that to get to school . I had to go down robert lee boulevard to get to the grocery store. I had to go down Jefferson Davis parkway that my middle school was named after a leader of the confederacy that my parents do live on the street named after someone who owned over 150 enslave people because the thing is we know that symbols and names and iconography arent just symbols. They are reflective of the stories that people tell and those stories shape the narratives that communities carry and those narrative check Public Policy and Public Policy shapes. The material conditions of peoples lives and thats not to say that taking down at 60 foot tall statue of robert e, lee or making juneteenth a federal holiday is going to suddenly erase the racial wealth gap, but it does they are things that help us understand the sort of ecosystem of ideas and stories and narratives that shape American History and help us more effectively understand the way that certain communities have been disproportionately harmed through their history. So i began in new orleans and i was thinking about my home town i thinking about having grew up growing up in a place. That was once the busiest slave market in the country and realizing that i didnt understand the history of this city in any way that was commensurate with the impact that it had on my city on my st