[applause] it is good to be at the mississippi delta. May be so much change. To talk about this book so hiding from police on this particular street and had even more memories of city police here and this is what much of the book was about of those strong people of creed would that does not include i tell the story and i want doing here but the green family the legendary family and laura who ran the sheriff in town exceptionally strong people and part of the Southern Movement is the people that protect us. I will get back to that thought. I am often asked with this particular book when you read the book you will see this is much more than a book about guns. I have been a working reporter for most of my life. I primarily has been a Foreign Affairs reporter. To have established national geographic. With the Internet News Service concern i recommend you could, that all africa is the only way to keep up during the day this is what is happening in nigeria and one of the things i learned almost immediately into the field or the craft is that its news is more often distorted more than what is left out of any bias you can spot bias the you dont know what is left out but this is a problem but it is particularly a problem with the history of the Freedom Movement of what took place across the south. But it is mostly shaped by what hasnt been told. Is essentially my dissatisfaction with the history of the movement i will tell you one story. Was one virtus stories in your back pocket. In 2001 is the book about education to give it to people in mississippi include a a principal of the middle school. In then, make us appear to the delta. With the middle School Students but Franklin Middle School is across the street from the public library. So i decided to engage with school jake school kids if they knew anything about her and they did not know anything. And pointing at the library she was important. They need to know about her. Added be back in a few days to tell them some things about her and i was going to tell the story but i said i knew her in when i said that they were 30 years old and mr. Charles cobb you were alive back end . [laughter] and at one level and how do i know . Cabellas dave messina for old enough . Ive put beside me saying Something Like we and freddie douglas. [laughter] to sit around to try and decide what to do. But it did place in my mind a necessity of the history if anybody was going to meet that necessity but i bitterly shifted gears. To have very little Foreign Affairs. So when i think is important to note. In to fill in what has been absent. It came out of nowhere not connected to anything. With the bunch of kids that came down to free the downtrodden. And we were talking about the problem of history that the public understanding of history can be boiled down and martin stood up and then they say to the day. [laughter] and then they shouted out black power but to this kind of oversimplification is at the heart of this is conveying what movement that people did more people were doing so because they were thinking about how to challenge segregation. The Mississippi Movement was not led by bob ward charlie it was led from Hollis Watkins and i will not tip off all the names that i could but the Mississippi Movement in southerners led the Southern Movement and they were thinking about what kind of society they wanted to live hidden and what action to take to get the kind of society and that point is missed i read history books sometimes about my idea of the freedom school. They would say to a9 wrote the proposal. But nobody asked me. I could probably read it without a bookmark. Frederick douglass and his 1855 autobiography complained about abolitionist. Frederick douglas complaint the whites abolitionist thought it weakens the cause. They only wanted him to rewrite the wrongs although escaping from slavery kyle is now reading and thinking. However he did not have plantation manner of speech in massachusetts entice the very society once counseled douglas people will not ever believe you it is not best. The abolitionist then went on to states to give us a fax. We will take care of the philosophy. That is still with us with how the movement is with us. It is not about cowboys or gunfighters it is a movement story what people are thinking for our the actions they took to gain freedom and currents were important factor in that. So i ncpmf f to do this story partly because my somewhat cynical reporter cents kick did and i know ifc i put guns in the title naked civil rights. [laughter] you will save what is he writing about . And i do think guns helped make it. Having a small farm is your nextdoor neighbor a legendary figure in mississippi event with Martin Luther king 1964 after the usual courtesies the introduction hartmann who is never known to be shy about expressing his opinion said reverend thomas this nonviolent stuff is no good. It will get you killed in tragically he was absolutely right but the sentence was too long. So i contracted to what you see this nonviolent stuffll get you killed but i do feel compelled as you sit here to look at me to give him his props. [laughter] id in a lot of ways this is like the people like him who shaped the movement in the south. Pilot to elaborate a little bit on guns in the movement because the other question i get is a issa that hypocritical for this to have occurred or contradictory . And i tell people no. One way to think about the movement is to divide into two sections to seek desegregation in the other part that the other part grounded in Grassroots Community organizing in the rule south. So what occurred in 1960 is a very old tradition with the plantation not so what were they doing . Sometimes it was legal or sabotage sometimes assassination sometimes it was just escape had in most cases organizing the ways and means to survive and live in a very strange world if you look at black history in the United States, you see a stream of organized efforts to take various forms to gain freedom and that some other movement erupted in places like we would mississippi they came over here to begin organizing or where the first bunch of sick people entered in to begin Voter Registration as part of the organizing tradition that began far earlier in the shape it takes very much depends upon the circumstances people find themselves living in but the Common Thread is the desire for freedom. And that is important to understand and what i portray in this book. They use guns who obviously weapons were used with the post civil war effort at the post the pale face brotherhood a. M. To a bunch of organizations seeking to dismember the fledgling attempts to create democracy in the south. But black veterans of world war i and world war ii have a very large presence in this book because i think after world war i and especially world war ii, they led the way in the fight for freedom. This is the guy who pulls sncc him into mississippi and eric henry the pharmacist who became the president of the naacp for federated organizations and it is what i argued in the book that change the climate of the south. There are horrible stories that i dont tell in this book i may tell and another about the slaughter of black veterans because a number of them were killed under White Supremacy the story that i tell in this book are the black veterans who survived and willing to take people like myself in it sncc who were 21 years old in the project director though old guy in the book who was 26. These veterans as i described in the book how they had the weapons ready. So largely made up of caribbean war veterans extremely important to understand the movement and i tell how they came to organize to protect the collar workers who were organizing in louisiana. With den culture is a part come ive lived it many homes in the mississippi delta 1962 and 1967 and i have never did not have a shotgun in the quarter to put a 45 on the night table and ask how to use it. Antisay at 1. I have for shotguns in my bedroom or shotguns in every corner of my bedroom. In the first crack is he will not write his momma again. This is Martin Luther king to have pistols in his home in the journalistic interview Martin Luther king to use intel into the armchair and they yell out to hold out there are some crystals and then they ask martin king and he said adjustors self. But just yourself. He applied for the concealed carry permit. He did not get it put an organization helping him complained and said as he understands nonviolence . But it was a lie if and and he was rising and claimed to be the guy that Martin Luther king from nonviolence as a way of life. But i would not enter into that discussion but just taking note of the fact because that is what he did when he was alive with us. So the easiest way to understand it is all you have to do is in sharp political terms is that they will react to terrorism violence directed the way anybody reacts to do the best they can to protect and increase would war Holmes County in mississippi grabbing a rifle or a shotgun is the effective way of protecting ones home and family and friends and community and up person in arkansas among others and i quote to an in the book you can play with them pray with them or pray at them but if you are dead you will not make the effective organizer and that is the real world. All i try to do is some portrait of black people in the real world of terrible violence of mississippi bin young people weather in greenwood or washington d. C. Dont realize how murderous the state was or how much the south was. People would kill you for trying to register your vote. The first of the leaders to take us down into southwest mississippi the strongest part of the kkk was gunned down in broad daylight at the tower cotton gin. Made by a member of the Mississippi State legislature who was never brought to trial the man who witnessed the murder and testify he was killed. Getting a lot of his truck one night this was a murderous place nobody was paying attention toc it many were world war ii veterans he said we will not accept this anymore and i discuss why the war has this effect but in part it is not a book about black guerrilla warfare. It is not of romance about guns the assembly a portrayal of the life here in the black south although this is not a memoir or an autobiography coming is a history. The other saying i should say that i try to do in this book again last to do with how history is presented i tried to connect the dots in American History that explain why White Supremacy emerged what is the contradictions of the country . They carry into the 20th century when we began working in the south. Bob moses when he speaks has the audience join him in the recitation to the United States constitution and as you know, the first three words are the preamble we the people and the point bob makes it too has people beside the preamble is we the people it does not say we the white people. It does not save us and others or the new englanders it says we the people. And to launch a discussion around those three words after the of recitation. Also in my discussion of selfevident theyre certain unalienable rights jefferson was being served by one of his african slaves in. When he wrote that. He had 200 on his plantation i think to the notes to virginia he said his first memory as a child was being carried on a pillow by an african slave. So we have this founding contradiction that connects then i happen to think white people were invented. [laughter] i think there is a whole connected history here to understand how blacks connect with children scott decision he was the slave from his master been sued for the freedom and lost it is fascinating with that rationale of the chief justice bitches he says we cannot have blacks being citizens of the United States they could interfere with the political process a and could get guns to make United States and unstable. And with that passive genet decision is the black man has no rights you should read the whole decision of the you get a real sense of light supremacist was like. To give them the right to vote so connects the dots of history may be a the west route expansion the conquest of the native americans or the civil war but many people resent you putting history on the table for black people it is widely wine so much . When you make a simple straightforward presence so this clarifies the history as a far as it is concerned it is not the whole story of American History or even though whole story of the southern Freedom Movement but it is offering some clarity on this. It is just a handy way to do this you catch everybodys attention these days. You save Martin Luther king had guns in his house. Or the sncc walkers were living with the farmers they were men and women. Since were in greenwood two sons in family s. A. Legendary feebly with some of movement the sheriff came out the police chief cater out to try a to persuade her to not be used for a civilrights rally. But the police chief did not want her. It was threatening in a manner but when she sat in that rocking chair on her front porch, there is no winchester within arms reach in and she picked it up and said this is my main and the hindu were trespassing on my land and you dont have permission to be admired man to see you should be lively and. He left. And that is how the rally was held. That is how the tough fears people and i could go on and on in every state of the old confederacy with the deacons did in the Martin LutherKing Movement and to be protected by world war ii and korean war veterans and what is interesting i am a reporter. I am not a scholar. I depend does the writer on scholarship for all i criticisms there has been emerging since the middle 80s a new scholarship that one approach is history from the bottom up instead of the top down tackles history around the grass roots efforts even out of ohio i could give a commercial. You know, leslie and her book on mississippi we will shoot back. The whole group and i could give you a printed out blocks west. Of course, mine is at the top. [laughter] but there is a scholarship be routine that is helpful to people like me but i agree reporter not a scholar. I will tell you raise story that is what this book that attempts to do i will tell you we story about guns and how they fit with sncc to officially declare themselves nonviolent and when you look at the story there are tensions between the possession and use of guns for selfdefense and nonviolent activism they would work in tandem with one another. One example from my own personal experience in mississippi and then i will take some questions. One of the countys i worked it is interesting because anyone who would emerge it is important to understand women played a powerful role in the movement it would emerge as the leader of the movement to become the mayor. And also become an interestingly enough and expert on china in you need to read the autobiography to see how she became an expert but anyway she was active in the Voter Registration effort by her husband was not her husband said charlie , i know you are nonviolent i am not going to that courthouse without my pistol and a somebody messes with me at the courthouse i will shoot them and i know that will cause you some trouble so i am not going. [laughter] so how does that work . But i know he saw himself s. A. A participant in the Nonviolent Movement and saw no contradiction in that of the Nonviolent Movement but still had the shotguns and rifles cleaned every night. So i will take some questions. Is characterized to fight against jim crow. Jimcrow in a way describes the forces and the think any of the equation would have been different had the move it ben more adequately characterized as the of revolution of the forces aligned against this movement . The short answer is i dont know. Of the question of phraseology is interesting more often than not we characterize affirmatively as the Freedom Movement more than the Civilrights Movement bear with me for a minute i want to read something from jefferies one of the historians i was talking about. But first i want to read to things. A young scholar at Ohio State University historian makes the argument the passage appears in his books that the move is better characterized as a Freedom Rights Movement rather than the Civilrights Movement but in terms of your question it is worthwhile to listen to what he has to say framing the Civilrights Movement as freedoms and colleges the centrality of slavery in emancipation to conceptualization of freedom to incorporate the long history of protest going back to the daybreak of freedom to extend beyond that arad to recognize the africanamericans civil and human rights objectives to capture is the universality of the coal sent more over it allows for regional differentiation moments of radicalization in periods of social movement. I think much of the civilrights establishment did not take this approach there is a much more limited approach with the desegregating public facilities in those all worthwhile causes but if leadership had embraced this idea, yes we would have a strunc your movement in the 21st century were effective politicians but i will leave that alone. Ended much the same way Vincent Harding whod passed away as a historian citing books for your book list since there is a rive