With the cia and ops outside the u. S. At 7 45, comedian turned mayor of reykjavik, iceland, john gnarr, discusses efforts to stop the u. S. And nato for using reykjavik for military purposes. Then Daniel Halper discusses clinton, inc. And at 10 p. M. , beth macy reports on the Bassett Furniture companys decision to not move production offshore. And well wrap up at 11 30 ian with paul kengor and his recent book, 11 principles of a reagan conservative. Next on booktv, from the 2014 harlem book fair, Tracey Syphax discusses her memoir, from the block today boardroom. Its an hour. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon, everyone, and welcome once more to another panel by the harlem book fair. T i want to thank Max Rodriguez once again for putting on this event year after year. The Television Audience cannot see outside of this auditorium, but if they could, they would see the street is filled with people, books, theres enthusiasm, its just a wonderful day, and thank god thf sun is out. Thank god the sun is out. I am5cn elizabeth nunez, but bee i introduce myself, id like to introduce my copanelist, Tracey Syphax. Just want to do a quick introduction. My name is Tracey Syphax. Im a 20year entrepreneur. I wrote a book titled from the block to the boardroom that basically has chronicled my life story, and im just here to share with you all this morning. I am also just a recent, just as recent as two weeks ago, one of the white house champions of change for this year by president obama wow. [applause] and i spend a lot of my time, thank you, i spend a lot of my time speaking on mass incarceration and using proper reentry tools, and ill tell you a little bit about why i do that later on. While we may seem strange partners on this stage here [laughter] the thing that binds us is that we have both written memoirs. And for me, its my first memoir. Ive written eight novels. Some of you may know some of my titles, in between boundary boundaryies, etc. I really am an academic. I have been teaching in the City University for many, many years and am currently at hunter college. And this is my first memoir, not for everyday use. So the first question i want to ask tracey is a question that a lot of people ask me, actually, is how do you get the courage to put in print some really true and hard things about yourself . Because when youre writing, when im writing a novel, i can hide behind the fiction. When youre writing a memoir, youve got to put it all out there. Yes. And be thats a good question, elizabeth. A question that i get quite often. In my book i take people to my lowest point in life, and as a 20yearold 20year Business Owner, a lot of people have asked thatni question, why would you do that . And you own a business, i own a construction and real estate could i just ask you, what, why did you do that . Yes. Theres a reason why. Its because as i said even though im a 20year Business Owner and, as i said, i was honored by4 the white house a couple years ago, i also made history aspirinston chambers entrepreneur of the year. Princeton is princeton, trenton is trenton. First africanamerican in the 51year history to ever win that award. So the reason, and to answer your question, the reason why i wrote the book is because i wanted to encourage anybody else thats trapped out in that lifestyle to let them know they can not only come out of that, but they can prosper. I wanted to take people to my lowest point in life and then to bring them to where i am at today as a respectable Business Owner in the community, a community activist, to show them that theres a way up and a way out. Could you talk a little bit about that lowest point in your life . How old were you, and what were the pressures on you to go into that life . Yeah. You know, and i say this all the time, a lot of our kids, we grow up, we dont have an opportunity to choose our parents. We dont have an opportunity to choose the environment we grow up in. It is what it is. I grew up in a single parent household, mother on drugs. I was first introduced to drugs by my mother and her thenboyfriend. Wow. A lot of my family members would go to jail one year, come home. So i grew up thinking that going to jail and coming home was normal. Thats what we did. Only to find out later on in life that thats not what we do. So being able to take people to those lowest points, i started using drugs at the age of 13 wow. Very young. Started selling drugs at the age of 14. And i just grew up in that lifestyle until i was 31 years old. And i finally said enough is enough, and i made a vow in 1993 when i came home from prison, i made a vow to myself and my god that i was going to change my life around, and i was not going back to prison, and i was not going back to that lifestyle. My last conviction was from 1988, and ive been free ever since. Wow, wonderful. Like going on vacation, i guess. What made you after all those years say enough is enough . Well, that was easy for me. In 1988 when i got sentenced the last time, i went back in front of the same judge that i got sentenced in 1980 under. And he told me pointblank, he said, listen, ive seen you twice since ive been on the bench, 1980, and here it is 1988, and youre doing the same thing. He basically told me, threeng times a charm fore, you. Next time youre eligible for an 18year sentence, and i can double that up and headache it 36 years. Make it 36 years. So right there a lightbulbake moment [laughter] aha, i realized i could not comf back before him and expect to get out of prison. I sometimes, you know, i really should be talking about my memoir, too, but [laughter] im just fascinated by your story. Because, you know, i think people have children, and they dont realize my sister used to say to me, she said, you knoi what . When you go into labor, have aai good time. [laughter] because that is the least amoung of pain youre going to have. Its a lifetime thing, and people have children, and they dont realize what this precioug thing responsibility, yeah. Is in their hands. Ont re the pressure is in their hands, they could shape it one way or another. You are seeing the other way. I tried to do Something Different with my kids. As a father, me and my wife celebrate 30 years of marriage this august. We have been together for 30 years so we met in the eighth grade. I am telling you my story, everything i have gone through, my family has gone through, a whole chapter in my book where she talks about the experience see had to go through being with the person that has a drug problem, been in jail, trying to get something together says she has a whole chapter in my book, the name of the chapters from that perspective and talk about that. Why didnt she it did affect her quite often. We used to call it our seasonal breaking up where she said enough is enough. Why didnt she go into that life too . She has never been involved with drugs. I did a lot of things from her. Is ironic now that here we are celebrating our 30th anniversary, my wife is a corrections officer. My daughter is a corrections officer, my son is in prison. Talking about how we as parents have a responsibility to our children. My son and my daughter grew up in the same household, my son is in prison and as a man is my responsibility to raise my son right. My wife does all she can, but i say this all the time, a woman cannot raise a man, cannot raise a boy. Take a father to do that. My daughter, corrections officer at the age of 23, she is a 7 year correction officer and as a whole career in front of her and my son, starting to realize the rap he took was the wrong one and he is getting himself together and i had high hopes that he was going to do the right thing. Two she huge questions and you have questions too but one of them, i forgot the name of the woman but she had done the deal and said most of the women were in jail are there because they because of their connection to a boyfriend who pulled them into their life so my question is your wife was important. She pulled away. What was it that had her pulling away and not pulling into the life . You said you got pulled into the life because of your mother and her boyfriend and the Community Around you but there she was. What made her so strong . My wife believed in her children more. Loved me that loved her children, more than she loved me and she told me that. When we broke up the last time she set i have to leave. You are not doing right. I have a son and daughter and my responsibility is to raise my son and my daughter in an environment away from what you are doing and i understood that. Living the life i was living i understood that some my wife is i have been with her 38 years. She is a very grounded woman and very strong woman and i thank god being able to have someone like that in my life, to have that to fall back on because the same relationship i had with my wife for 30 years is the same relationship i had with her mother who is another strong africanamerican woman who is like my mother so these two strong africanamerican women that have been part of my life for 30 years basically set the standard how to conduct my life and brought me from a dark time in my life to who i am today. Why is it your son is in the households with a mother who is a strong woman stands up against this. Why is it the daughter goes one way, what happens to the sun . Before i get there i want to say there was something you said it struck me which was that your wife loved her children more than she loved you. That is pre courageous for a man to say, for a husband to say. That was the passage in beloved that got me, when she says that her husband, you know, he fell apart when he saw what was happening to her and she said i went on and the reason i went on is i had two children and the baby needing my milk and i couldnt just in other words, she was raising my children over my husband and i say that because would you believe i am going to mention my memoir . That is one of the hardest things for me in my memoirs. My mother loved her husband more than she loved her children. I felt always that my mother, my mothers choice she had to make one was always with her husband and i recall a scene in my memoir that my mother had six children ranging from ages 9 to 2 and my father got a scholarship in london and i remember i was 5 years old and i remember seeing my mother crying crying crying every single day. She was useless, she couldnt take care of us, she couldnt do anything. U. S. Couldnt hold it together waiting for letters from my father eventually my mother took that ship from trinidad to england. I am talking long ago. And stayed with him for quite a few months. It just was something that stayed with me for the rest of my life. My friends who didnt have that situation and even in my family, there were 11 of us but i could tell you something at as i got older, all my siblings left the home and my parents died in their 90s, they had a very long life and healthy long life. They were not sickly or anything like that. I began to appreciate that they loved each other more my father loved us too. If they had to make the choice it would have been each other. I resented it growing up which i talk about in my novel but in the end i got to feel they didnt need us. They have a good time. So let me get back to your son, what happened . My son made bad choices. I am talking about the influence, what influences someone to go one way or the other and we are saying parents have a great thought because you were saying that is what happened with you that your mother had a great part in your going that direction. As i said, my wife was very grounded in her beliefs and strong in her convictions and that is why i said it is hard for a woman to raise a boy into a man. It takes a real man to do that and for the better part of growing up i wasnt there. I was in prison. My wife raise my daughter and my son and my absence and my daughter like i said is has a career in corrections and my son is in corrections. I take ownership of that. That is my fault. I also know that my son the last time it was just bad choice. My son my son just went to jail five years ago so he went to jail when i was at the height he was working for my company. Things he did he didnt have to do. He made the choice, people telling him being influenced by that crowd and ending up getting shot and spending time in prison. I want to ask about those choices when it comes to blackmail and it just seems to me, what is it that makes them make those wrong choices . Is it a kind of hopelessness, a kind of like i dont see a future, seeing the future with you. That is a question. One of the things i talk about in the book i grew up in the 70s and 80s in trenton, new jersey. Dont know if anyone hears familiar with trenton, new jersey. There was a street in trenton, new jersey two miles long which in the 70s and 80s was 1112 african americanowned businesses and i grew up in that area so i grew up at a time where i got to see on a daily basis what an africanamerican entrepreneur looked like. I looked i worked for two of them for a couple of years so i grew up knowing what that looked like. A lot of our kids to they grow up and dont see that. They dont see themselves as entrepreneurs and i have been involved with a program for 17 years, Johns Hopkins university, the Business Program and what we do in that program is going to Public Schools and teach six fort seven how to run a business. Africanamerican and Business Owners were part of the program so once again our kids are not getting the opportunity to see themselves. I have been involved for 17 years. I have to be the example of what they can be and i wanted to say this real quick. In trenton, new jersey, i am the only second private citizen in the history of that town to have built a private residence in that town. And i did that for a reason. Number one, once again, kids growing up need to see that image. My office is located on Martin Luther king boulevard like any other Martin Luther king boulevard across the country. One of the most challenging areas in trenton. A nice office, we renovate it. Once again, it is because i can have an office anywhere. Once again, our kids in our Community Need to seek fissions. Not just drug dealers, not fancy cars, clothes, they need to see visions of central entrepreneurs look like them so they know they can aspire to exactly what i believed for many years because i have been a professor in the university and i believe when i stepped in front of that classroom i dont only teach a subject but when the students see me it i give them an idea of what they can be because at this point i had written nine novels and i can tell you that i spoke my first novel at 42, why did i wait so long to write my first novel at 42 . That was because i never saw anyone like me writing a novel. I never saw a black woman and i have to say john oliver kilns, the great africanamerican novelist, a hero, came to my college as a writer in residence and eyes that look at these papers and he said you are a writer, elizabeth. Without that role model, without one who looked like me saying it was possible, i wouldnt have had this career. People talk about diversity as if making different colors in a room but it is not about that. It is about giving young people, older people, if you dont see some things that is possible it is hard to do it so right now i actually i give workshops in my room to residents there. I do it free of charge. It takes a lot of work. I am paying back early. It leads me to the other question about leadership, black leadership. Could you talk a little bit about that and before you do that tell us about the business you run . I believe black leadership myself, i speak for myself, i have an obligation. I have an obligation as a present that grew up in a city neighborhood that has been able to accomplish something in life and be successful. I have an obligation, my obligation to reach back and do more. I wrote this book not and trust me 16, not like getting rich selling these books. I wrote these books to be able to be that with the lot of young folks need. On the daily basis are losing hope. How are they going to get the book . I am speaking as an academic. One of the big problems is they are not reading. I understood that when i wrote the book. I did it if you get a chance bill on youtube and go to the board rob the boardroom and the video will show up. Of very positive message describes this book and the reason i did that is because once again just like you are saying a lot of our kids are visual and audio. I need them to see themselves in this book so i did the video young man out of trenton, new jersey, up and coming rap star and i knew this guy had talent because i gave him my book and said i need a theme song for this book. He did that theme song in one take. If you listen to it it has 10,000 hits on youtube. It is phenomenal that this young mind could create with rap music that song in one take and i didnt have to say take this out and put this in and the video itself when you go to youtube he directed the video, we shot the video in 12 hours in one day, we start in the morning and end at 9 00 or 10 00 that night. The talent that our kids have is there, just needs to be cultivated and brought out. I am going to tell you and you may tell me i am totally wrong, you are unique in this sense, it seems to be that most people when they get theirs, take pairs out of dodge. That is why i am asking about leadership. I just feel i dont understand when someone helps you get somewhere that you finally get there and you dont feel you have a real responsibility to get directly to that person, the community as you are doing. That is not what we see all the time and that is part of the problem we have. I agree and you can talk about that to athletes and entertainers. Millions. I tell you that i am really offended. I turn off the tv when they show programs of People Living in houses where they cannot possibly for a whole month, what do you tell me . The values you are asking me to have. I just feel come john, what are you giving back . It is important. I am very grounded in my faith and my religion and what i believe in and i got that way. It didnt just happen through my addiction to drugs and i say this in the book. I got shot in 1988 and i have but 102yearold grandmother and chief is sharp now. She told me 20 some years ago, i cant tell you to get out of the streets but i will tell you something. God is going to find you in your darkest hour. Only then will you realize what you truly are glitch that happens to me in 1991. I was in raleigh state prison, spent 20 hours in latka for someth