>> get the booktv schedule e-mailed to you. use our web site, booktv.org and press the other button or use your mobile phone. text the word book to 99702. standard message and data rates up 5. we're back with more live coverage from the 2,011 harlem book fair. up next from the stage of the langston hughes auditorium, the center for research on black culture a panel discussion on african-american economic history. >> good afternoon. it is indeed -- a pleasure to present these dynamic young ladies. these are two terrific sisters. they are hard workers for our community. i applaud you all for coming out in 100 degree weather to enjoy what we are about to enjoy. my name is troy johnson. i am founder of the african american literature book club. it is largest and most frequently visited web site by and about books written by and about people of african-american -- african decent. the web site was started in 1998 and is one of the oldest websites of its kind on line. i would like to introduce you to carol jenkins, author of black titans and making of a black american millionaire. a writer and producer and an emmy award winning former w. nbc-tv television anchor and correspondent and founding president of the women's media center. she is executive producer of the pbs documentary what i want my words to do to you which won the freedom of expression award at the sundance film festival in 2003. carol jenkins enjoys an award winning tenure in several new york city news department including 23 years that w. nbc tv where she coanchored the 6:30 p.m. newscast. she was most identified with reporting of national political stories including from the floor of the democratic and republican national convention that yielded president carter, reagan, bush and clinton. give a round of applause to carol jenkins. [applause] >> next up we have dr. julianne malveaux, author of surviving and thriving 365 black economic history. she is the fifteenth president of college for women leaders' unrecognized for progressive observation. she is an economist, author and commentator and described by dr. cornell west as the most iconoclastic public intellectual in the company. doctor malveaux's contributions to the public dialogue on race, culture, gender and economic impact our shaping public opinion in the twenty-first century america. a round of applause for doctor malveaux. [applause] >> i bring you the conversation, black wealth past and presence, the politics of black wealth. >> thank you for your great work. i love what you produced. hi am a friend on facebook. >> thank you for the opportunity to be with you. i love you all. thank you so much. >> i would say if ever we needed an economist today is the day we need an economist. i felt in the last few weeks we needed to go back to school to take courses in economics to try to understand what is happening. do we need to raise the debt ceiling? what is going on in washington? since you have a keen eye and understanding of what they're doing what is happening exactly at what is your prediction of the outcome? >> we have to raise the debt ceiling. we can't default internationally on our obligations. it is fascinating that the debt ceiling has been raised probably 70 times in the last 30 years. why does it sadly become an issue when the president is barack obama? the answer is because people have issues. they are angry. we are attempting to set perimeters around what is happening with the economy. here is what we know for sure. everyone in this audience. is there anyone here who has not experienced economic hardship or know someone who has? the unemployment rate is 9.2% overall. it is 16% for african-americans. real unemployment rate for us is 28%. one in three americans has been looking for work for a year. if anyone stands up here and says i have not had economic hardship, someone has to key in their life. this is a brother or sister who says can you help me pay my rent that is not going to turn out right. help me if i am hurting. this is what is going on. we know because you have a phenomenal -- >> she is holding up my book too. >> a phenomenal ancestor who basically made it happen. even in the middle of hardship we make it happen but we make it happen because we decide we are going to make it happen. so i think what we know is john boehner and president barack obama -- >> she said that deliberately. john boehner. >> whatever. i tried. my mama does this thing with holy water. i don't have any holy water. anyway whatever his name is, the man is attempting to circumvent the president. the bottom line is on 70 occasions this has been called housekeeping. now that president obama has to deal with that it is called something else. here is what we have to do. anyone in the sound of my voice, we have to stand up, stepped up, man and woman up to the side we will not allow people to marginalize the president. some of you who know me well, do not allow us to marginalize this president. we understand that in the middle of a recession we cannot talk about cutting social programs. [talking over each other] >> my young people come to me, $5,500 is all we are offering. 35. thirty-eight. round here somewhere, probably hiding. reggie bailey -- i have friends here in the house. stand up, reggie. i love you, a dorr you, philanthropist. these are people who lived up our young people. how could they do what they do when we can't do what we are supposed to do? how do you cut a poll grant? forgive me and allow me an indulgence. 75,000 americans got engineering degrees. 300,000 indians. six hundred thousand chinese people. they are doing what they are supposed to do. reggie bailey, were you mit? what are we supposed to do? what are we supposed to do? i am going to be quiet. >> let me follow up because it is the collective wisdom that it is president obama has offered what the new york times has called an overly generous package of cuts in social programs. what do we say about that? of course the republicans walked away once again. >> holy water. holy water. you know what? let's take our time and talk about the energy we have. i can fix these people. they are not fixable but here is what i want black people to understand. you know it from your ancestors story. no matter who we are or how we are we have triumphed even in the middle of nonsense. let's continue the energy of triumph. the reason i wrote surviving and thriving is because i wanted people to understand even when the game is not fair it is not going to be fair. please don't kill me. my best friend forever, a phenomenal woman who has raised up the young people at the southeastern learning center of washington d.c.. we got to say -- somebody put the camera on her. reggie, help us. here is the point. no matter what we're doing we can't do it -- the game is not fair. we win it when we play. this sister brought $6 million to the worst part of d.c. because she played the game. this brother helped her because he played the game. we have to play the game. we can't play we don't win. that is the story. >> i am going to get to that. we have a distinguished audience. by the time dr. malveaux is finished everyone will be standing including my oldest boy. >> oldest boys, stand up. we don't want to leave you out. let's give the oldest boy alone. >> he made his contribution. one more question. as an economist i need a prediction. what is your prediction about how we get out of the mess? what options--president clinton has settled president obama would have to do is to write the check and declare that he has the right to do it on his if it turns out that congress can't get itself together in any agreement. do you think that ultimately is what he might do? how do you think the country would react? >> i hope president obama will take the leadership he has earned. he is our elected president. he can raise the debt ceiling on his own. to dance around the mulberry bush with people who denigrated my favorite beverage -- [applause] -- it is not useful. he has to step up and i believe he will. even more importantly we have to have a different kind of education. what has happened here is you have people -- how can i put this nicely? hy won't. >> just getting -- >> people who are intellectually deficient decided to make a decision and say the same thing over and over again and that makes it true. here is what is true. we have in the united states of america fourteen million people who don't have work. we have another fourteen million people who don't have work unofficially. we have people who are struggling. people in southeast washington d.c. with children who can't do what they need to do because they're hurting. what do we do about that? here's what we do. we talk about the images and the possibilities we have. president obama could do more. i think he feels constrained but i tell people all the time he would not get fed in your mama's house if you don't bring your plate to the table. black america has to ask this president to do what we need him and to do. ask him. tell him. exhort him. i am so e enamored of this president. i am concerned about economic policy and we need to be able to communicate that. what can we do in a year? in a year we have to create jobs. that is what america is clamoring for. one third of the unemployed people in our nation have been unemployed for more than a year. how do you live your life unemployed for year? what do you do? these of the questions we must ask. my brothers and sisters here we must raise questions, ask questions, push, probe around the ways we think our economy should work. >> i agree with that way forward. the book is fascinating and thank you for including my uncle arthur in this. >> he is a phenomenal human being and we know that. alabama businessman who lived for a century and what my daughter and i did in the book was try to assess america in the century he lived, 1892-1996. incredible amount of things that took place for black americans. we said we were going to talk about the history of america and black america and everybody talked about slavery -- that is how we got here. i don't hear many people talking about the g i bill and the devastation that brought and the discrepancy you are seeing in black american wealth and white american wealth was the government engendered right after world war ii. housing, training, all of that which was given to veterans returning to this country, and black americans forced into what we now know as the skyscraper, apartment buildings. and the fact that they use government money to build those thousands of houses that only white veterans were able to buy. they have video of shiny a kitchen appliances. this was the beginning of the current discrepancy of wealth in our country. you have thoughts on -- >> there is introduction 22 page essay in which our talk about the wealth gap and many ways the wealth gap was imposed by public policy. erik nilsson wrote when affirmative action was white. in his book he talked about the very ways that white americans, especially post world war ii were able to get benefits that african-americans were not able to get. in mississippi 300 black men -- they were able to get benefits. back at the ranch almost every white man who served was able to get a loan for a home, loan for college, loans for other things. if you look at wealth, look at someone investing in you no one has invested in black america. let me say something i don't want you to get too upset about but it upsets me every day. we invested in ourselves. the most phenomenal lacked of economic courage was self emancipation. whenever i talk about this i actually get sick. i talk about patrick oliver around here, project manager on surviving and thriving. [applause] >> how is it that we by ourselves? how do you cut a deal? you have black folks who purchase themselves. the first fact of the boat -- thank you for the southeast center, phenomenal occasion. thank you for your support of that. i just love my people who have them. how do you purchase your self? what goes on in your mind is aiken by myself in the land of the free and the home of the brave or the slave. how do you by yourself? here is what happened in cincinnati. john parker taking two measures. louis farrakhan -- this was bad and crazy. he walked onto other people's plantation. harriet tubman was credited with freeing 300. john parker freed more than 900 people. what about the plantations? what he said was we will free ourselves. the thing i want us to think about was the audacity which is not a word -- i just made it up. the many ways our people have been phenomenal and the reason i raise it is for my young people, my younger sisters and brothers, if they could do that what could we do next? if they could do that, enslave people to free themselves by purchasing themselves, 25% of enslaved people were self emancipated in cincinnati. you bought yourself. i always think that this is a sixth thought, who ran away and who saved? if i could be a sociologist and go back in time, who bought themselves and who ran away i know i was a runaway slave. i wasn't paying nobody for nothing. but the woman who was -- a seamstress. there were many women. men's stories are more told the history belongs to shiva holds the pen. she not only paid for herself but supporter white family. she supported 17 people with her needle. let's talk about this. we found that -- working my daughter and 9 on this book about young people. he started out as the grandchild of slaves living in a cabin and managed to create ten major businesses in birmingham, alabama and became one of the first of modern times. they were quite accomplished very wealthy people before my uncle but managed to create a bank radio station, construction, all kinds of things and was influential in helping martin luther king desegregate the department stores. in 1963 when he came to birmingham i don't know if you remember the gaps in motels where he stayed that was an economic fight. it was to desegregate department stores because blacks could buy back about fraud on anything in these stores in birmingham and they couldn't use the restroom so it created an extremely difficult situation for blacks. that is what it was. so many of our flights were economic fight. he was able to do it with a couple things. he was phenomenally focused but also operating in segregated birmingham, alabama. after segregation was over there were problems. you talk about that and how you see the evolution of that. we have to think that is where the solution lies for people to create businesses like the ones you included in surviving and thriving. >> your ancestor was a phenomenal human being and we understand the courage but also what the courage--not another choice. so many people refused to accept what was there. i would make a black economic history parallel with this. i wrote 15 publishers to say can we get this book published? we are not interested in black economic history so my company did it. that is what i am seeing a lot of times. oliver deserves a lot of credit. just walk and talk. we can raise money and do things so we did it. that is the challenge. we have more choices in the twenty-first century that we had in the 20th and 19th. your antecedent -- there was no one lined up to do that. we have to be really clear about the many ways that we own ourselves and that we own our history and make decisions that our history is phenomenal, vital and special. when i look at so many people, especially some of the women. i look at maria stuart, the first woman who made her living as a speaker i resonate with her. what i look at t. j. walker and maggie clean the worker -- walker. she did not -- any malone. let's be clear, madame c.j. walker was phenomenal but she took someone else's model and wrapped it up a bit. but maggie lena walker from virginia was a second grade education who started penny savings bank. debate that existed until 2009. let's lift her up. when it comes to black history month we have our black people i love them all, frederick douglass and martin luther king, put your head down. she just did. the point is this. we have black people who people don't know who are so important. par la harris in new york. a phenomenal woman. this brother who is a philanthropist, a leader who is phenomenal. st. john, television and radio personality in the 1950s. we should resonate with her. she decided to be a broker. the first black woman to pass the new york stock exchange exam. come john now! give the sister some love. [applause] naomi sims. she was just a model. she was also a phenomenal -- mary ann dragons, black woman on wall street. i list these people because it is important. we don't want to just say we have static figures. we have dynamic human beings we might walk across at the starbucks. that for you, the work you have done around your antecedent is important. it is very important for us to be clear that economic history is the history must love and lift it up. >> i want to close that because i have a disconnect. a believe in celebrating with my uncle who was quite the exception. whenever i read statistics about the net wealth of black women in this country being $5 or $100 that they are the bottom of the barrel, how do we get the bulk of black women, single women who have virtually nothing and mostly because they don't own homes because household ownership is still the basis of most of the wealth we know. how do we deal with that? $5? $100? >> the data on that are daunting data, speak to the challenges we face. black women take care of everybody else before we take care of ourselves. his wife had $5 because she was related to pooky who said i will pay my phone bill and see you in a month. i don't believe in lending money. just give it to them. if you lend to them you will be mad at them. if you give it to them is okay. the other piece of that is please give them the rent money. otherwise they will move in with you. you really want that? all the kids come to your house? no. here is the deal. we take care of other people before we take care of us. when you look at the numbers we don't have the wealth and we have to deal with that. we have to learn how to take care of ourselves and it is a challenging thing to do. the data was daunting last year. the average single black woman with children had $125. 1 25 -- that is no money. not a very good one if you are in new york city. we have to deal with that. but what we have to do with that is about surviving and thriving. let me tell you the story of elizabeth keck and --keckley. she wrote her own autobiography after she was done by some virginia white folks. she described them as dissipated. you work with that. they were run out of virginia and taken to st. louis. she wrote i supported 17 people with my needle. she supported the people who owned her with her needle. she with the go to women in st. louis. >> the address it was hers. she purchased herself and went to washington and became the taylor for elizabeth todd lincoln who have 165 pairs of gloves. how do you have that many gloves and 365 days a year? you have a shopper problem. [talking over each other] >> the story about her is useful because i want my sisters to think about multiple in come story she had. when abraham lincoln died elizabeth keckley was hostess to mary lincoln. they were sisters but mary lincoln didn't buy any more gloves because she had no more money. so she fired our sister, the former slave who then wrote an autobiography and told stories no one wanted her to tell. she was clear about the fact she needed to make a living. sisters need to be clear about these issues. multiple income stream. how do you make a living? how do you put yourself out there? what do you do? surviving and thriving is about that. i want to say a little bit about this book from the perspective that nobody wanted to publish it. nobody w