Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20150323 : vimarsana.com

Hi. So when i think about empowered women, i also am curious about their relationship to their fathers growing up. So you talked a little wit a little bit about their childhood, so im curious to know what was the relationship with each woman with her father. Certainly for Elizabeth Gurley flynn, her father, tom none, was a very flynn, was a very important figure in her life. And she he was a very strong socialist, and actually the whole family converted to socialism in 1902. And in that way i think he really influenced Elizabeth Gurley flynn, and he supported her. I mean when she was just, you know, 15 or 16 he would kind of travel around with her around new york city where she would speak and to the places like philadelphia or new jersey. And so he was often kind of accompanying her on her early talks. And i think he was very proud of her. And one of the interesting things was really the pride that her family took if her work. And i know he was very proud of her, but one of the reasons i was able to write book was because they saved all of these clippings of her appearances. So just rare newspaper clippings that would be very difficult to get, you know, from just obscure little papers. And the family took it all and saved it, you know . Its all pasted into these books which is amazing. Shirley guess chism adored her family. He was from guyana. He was working class, he was a staunch unionist, he was a garveyite, and Shirley Chism always said that if her father had been able to go to college, could afford to go to college, could have gotten into college he would have been a great professor. And he supported her all her work. And before he died he became an admirer of the growing black militancy that was developing in brooklyn. I have to say i dont know much about angela davis relationship with her father. I certainly jotted that down [laughter] as an area of future inquiry for me. But she was definitely i think her mother had an Important Role in her life and her sister in particular. I think when you ask people about her and its not sort of angela davis, its like shes always appeared with her sister as two people who continued to, you know be public in terms of their support, whose friendship was very well known and things like that. But im definitely still sort of exploring her relationship to different family members. I mean i spoke to a little bit to katherine beechers relationship with her father and his influence. I mean, it was immeasurable. [laughter] you know, he really hes kind of an interesting figure too, actually because he [inaudible] even though he didnt approve of it in any way, shape or form. [laughter] so he was this kind of fire and brimstone preacher, but at the same time, his children wrote about him so lovingly and so supportive, and she also adored her father. And even, you know, he was very, very torn up about her failure to convert which was very important to a evangelical minister and that really was a point of contention between the two of them for a while, but he certainly approved of her, of her past in terms of reform. I think that was very interesting. I would have asked about their mothers, being a mother. [laughter] i would have that was an interesting question. I think were sort of beyond our time limit. But i would imagine that over a glass of wine you could corner any of these [laughter] historians and talk to them. And theyll sign books. And i do want to, for those of you who are teachers these are books that can be read by high school students, these are books that definitely your sons and your brother withs ought to brothers ought to read. Women already know about women, its the men that we need to have read these books. And theyre not expensive and theyre really very well written, so i want to put in a mug for looking at this in a plug for looking at this series as an educational property as well as just for the joy of reading about these women. Thank you all and ill add that we have two of the books the two that are published right here in our shop. So i want to thank everybody robin, barbara, laura cindy thank you so much, carol for a wonderful discussion. [applause] [inaudible conversations] booktv is on facebook. Like us to get publishing news, scheduling updates, behindthe behindthescenes pictures and videos, author information and to talk directly with authors during our live programs. Facebook. Com booktv. And now, after words on booktv. Pulitzer prizewinning historian eric foner examines the efforts of free blacks and white abolitionists to secure freedom for fugitive slaves during the 19th century. He speaks with edna green medford from mouther university. Howard university. Host we are joined today by professor eric foner professor of history at Columbia University. Professor foner is the author or editor of two dozen volumes many of them Award Winners including the fiery trial Abraham Lincoln and american slavery, which won the Pulitzer Bancroft and lincoln prizes in 2011. Professor foner, thank you for joining us today. Guest thanks very much for having me. Host gateway to freedom a Hidden History to the underground railroad. How did you arrive at this subject and this title . Guest well, the title, i guess, is meant to reflect its the book centers on new york city, although it deals with a lot of other places but the title is meant to suggest that new york was a kind of gateway. When fugitive slaves got to new york city, they were then very quickly sent to upstate new york eventually to canada and they could really achieve freedom. And so new york was kind of a pivotal turning point in their journey from slavely to freedom. Slavery to freedom. I got interested in the subject completely accidentally actually. A few years ago a student of mine who was working on a senior thesis at columbia about Sidney Howard gaye an abolitionist journalist, she was interested in his journalistic career but she said to me in the papers which we have at our columbia library, theres this document about fugitive slaves. Im not sure what its about, you might find it interesting. So i filed it away, and one day i was up there, and i had never heard of this document called the record of fugitives. Id never seen it cited anywhere. But basically for two years 18551856, gaye a journalist and also an activist in the underground railroad, recorded the experiences of over 200 men, women and children who came through new york city, fugitive slaves on their way to freedom. And being a journalist, he really interviewed them and took down their stories, who owned them, why they escaped how they escaped, who helped them, how they got to new york, where he sent them and even how much money he spent, like on train tickets for them. So this was a remarkable document. Id never seen anything like it, and i decided to try the track down the leads in the record of fugitives and see if i could paint a picture of the underground railroad as it came through new york city. So the book began with a document. You know usually as you know, edna, you start with a historical question, and then you try to find the sources that can answer it. Here its the opposite, i started with a document and worked outward from it trying to piece together a narrative of history. Host marvelous. What was the underground railroad . If you could briefly describe for us exactly what it was and is how it operated and how many people actually took advantage of the system. Guest right. Well, you know, everybody interested in American History probably has heard the term can the underground railroad. Its very widely known as a phrase. Its easy to say what it was not. It was not a highly organized regularized system with set routes and stations and station masters. It was much more loosely organized than that. The underground railroad, id say is was a group of local networks of abolitionist activists, some in the south mostly once you got north of the Mason Dixon Line either in rural areas like southern pennsylvania or cities like philadelphia, new york syracuse boston. And they were all they communicated with each other, and they were dedicated to helping fugitive slaves. Now, of course, the Initiative Comes from these slaves. The underground railroad was not in the south telling slaves to escape. So the first thing was for slaves actually running away in various modes, but then they would make contact with either agents of the underground railroad or people who werent agents but might know, well, okay, this is a fugitive slave. I know that theres a guy up the road here who may help him out. So its a Loose Network. It rises and falls over time. The Philadelphia Committee went out of existence for several years. So one shouldnt take the railroad metaphor literally, that it was a set system, you know . How many escaped, you know nobody knows because so much of this is in secret. You know i estimate but this is an educated guess maybe a thousand slaves a year got out of slavery to the north and canada in the 30 years before the civil war. So thatd be 30,000 people. Thats a substantial number. Now, there were four million slaves in 1860 sos this is not destroy so this is not destroying the institution of slavery. But 30,000 people gaining their freedom with the assistance of white and black are activists is something i think we can look back on with pride in our history. Host you speak of the underground railroad as a quasipublic institution. What do you mean by that . Guest well, in a way maybe as a reviewer pointed out recently the subtitle of my book the Hidden History, might be slightly misleading. I was trying to say, well, the new york part of this was unknown, so it was kind of hidden. But, yes. The people involved in the underground railroad were abolitionists and were involved in the Abolitionist Movement. So on the one hand, theyre engaged in secret and illegal really activities in sheltering and assisting escaped slaves. On the other hand, theyre going to public meetings, gaye is publishing a newspaper, theyre petitioning the legislatures of their states. In some places theyre actually holding bake sales you might almost call it, fairs, bazaars to raise money to help fugitive slaves. And when you get up to upstate new york like syracuse the underground railroad is completely open. The key activist there Jermaine Logan himself a refuge tuf advertised in the newspapers. He said, hey, anyone knows anything about a fugitive slave send them to me. He had fundraising parties at his house. The authorities up there were antislavery. They didnt bother lo to began. So depending on logan. Depending on where you were, it was more or less secret and more or less open. In new york it was pretty secret because new york was a place with close ties to the south, with a lot of Public Officials who were happy to help apprehend fugitive slaves. So it wasnt as public as, lets say, in syracuse or albany, places like that. Host lets talk about that for a minute. This prosouthern sentiments in new york. Slavery ends in new york in 1827 but theres strong sentiment in favor of the south for a long time after that. Why is that . What is it, what is this connection with new york and the Southern States . Guest yeah. This is something not emphasized in our im a new yorker, as you well know, and we dont emphasize this in our view of our own history. New yorkers, we pride ourselves on being a bastion of liberalism, of tolerance multicultural city. It wasnt like that in the first part of the 19th century. First of all, slavery was a vigorous presence in the colonial era, and it lasted all the way down to 1827 and even that there were slaves on the streets of new york. Southerners visiting the city were allowed to bring slaves with them until 1841. So thats 20 years before the civil war there were still slaves visible on the streets of new york. But the key thing is new york was economically tied to the slave south. New york merchants controlled the cotton trade, new york bankers financed the expansion of slavery in the south, new york shipbuilders built the ships, new york insurance companies. The bows review the most important southern monthly periodical before the civil war which was actually published in new york city t said new york city is as depends on slavery as much as charleston does. So the economy of the city was very chosely tied to that closely tied to that of the south, and that also led to ramifications. Business interests wanted to appease the south politicians were prosouthern in their attitudes on, you know, on the sectional conflict. The Abolitionist Movement in new york was quite small and weak compared to other places. On the other hand, new york also had a vigorous Free Black Community, people who were willing to take to the streets to protest the p apprehension of fugitive slaves. So in a sense, new york is a little epitome of the sectional conflict. New york is a house divided just like the nation itself. Host yeah, your point is well taken that there is a vibrant Free Black Community in new york and so theyre very much involved in supporting these fugitives who are arriving. They are forming vigilance committees with white new yorkers as well, of course. But free black people have a prominent role to play in the underground railroad and what happens to people who are fugitives when they arrive in new york. Why have we not guest oh absolutely. Host heard very much about that before . Guest yeah, that is absolutely right, and i do try to emphasize that in my book. These socalled vigilance committees philadelphia, new york boston, etc. Syracuse which were what they called themselves these groups trying to help fugitive slaves, were almost entirely black. Except for the one in boston for a while had more whites. The one in new york city, the first one was created by david ruggles, a black abolitionist. But there were white abolitionists involved. These were interracial organizations, and much of the money came from whites. Most free black people were rather poor in this period. They had limited economic opportunities. Money was raised among them but in new york when they needed money, they went to louis tapppan, a welltodo new yorker. They went to jared smith, a wealthy upstate abolitionist. So whites were contributing must be and taking money and taking part in the activities. But most of the activity is by free blacks, and many of them are totally anonymous or unknown to us. Black dock workers, for example. There were fugitives who came in hidden on ships. Dock workers would notify local ab lissist activists, okay, send them to the antislavery office. Blacks who worked at the Railroad Depots blacks who worked in hotels as cooks or you know Domestic Workers if a southerner came to the hotel in new york as they frequently did with a slave they would say, hey look, you know, you can become free if you want. So their activity was very very important. Why dont we hear more about it . You know, after the civil war the white abolition is wrote abolitionists wrote their own histories, they wrote their memoirs, they wrote about the underground railroad, and they tended to make this a kind of a White Enterprise in giving assistance to sort of helpless black people. And the heroes were the white abolitionists. Now, many of them were heroic. Im not trying to deny that in the slightest but the story was skewed in these reminisce senses in the late 19th century and its taken a long time for scholars to put the free black communities back at the center of assistance to fugitive slaves. Host uhhuh, indeed. You mentioned that by 1830 theres a presence of militant abolitionism and accompanying that is a greater increase in flight from slavery. Why is it happening . Why are both happening at this particular time in American History . Guest well, there had been antislavery sentiment as you know back to the revolutionary era in new york. There was a society created in 1785 or 1786 to push for abolition in new york, but those groups were very, i dont know, moderate compared to what came later. The new york society, they did very important things. They set up the African Free School to educate black children a major thing. But they were upper crust types. Many of them actually owned slaves even as they were campaigning for the ab his of slavery, and abolition of slavery, and they certainly did not violate the law. Tray tried to they tried to help, but they said we are not going to violate law to to help people get out of slavery. The new generation of abolitionists that comes about in the late 1820s 1830s arises partly to out of the evangelical movement of that time, the religious revivals which inspire some white people and blacks to kind of think they can rid society of the sin of slavery right away. It inspires it also they also have this militant Free Black Community coming into its own which is partly because of the opposition to the colonization movement. You know in 1817 the colonization societys established dedicated to getting rid of the whole black population from the United States and free blacks find that a tremendous threat to their status and they mobilize against it. So by the 1830s you have these two groups who come together, evangelical whites and militant blacks, to form a much more activist and radical Abolitionist Movement, and then they start assisting fugitive slaves in illegal ways. Its against the law to help a fugitive slave, but they say no, this is the law of god not law of man that we are abiding by here. And i think more slaves to start escaping because of knowledge that there are people willing to assist them. Slaves had escaped ever since there was slavery. Back in the colonial period slaves try to escape but there were no organizations to help them. And most of the slaves probably got recaptured back then. But now you have groups being formed who are publicly saying were going to help fugitive slaves, and news of that, i think, percolates back into the south and inspires more people to try toes cape. Host i think the main point you make is that running away has broader implications than just what that individual act would seem to suggest. For instance you write the actions of fugitives and their allies forced on to center stage explosive questions about the balance between federal and state authority. The extent to which the laws of slave states extended into the north and the relationship of the federal government to slavery. Finish so can you so can you talk a bit about this, especially how the issue of rendition became a source of debate from the very beginning of the nations founding. Guest absolutely. I mean its in the constitution, you know . This was debated at the constitutional convention, and the constitution has a fugitive slave clause. It doesnt mention the word slave or slavery, thats not in the original constitution, but it says persons held to labor escaping from excuse me escaping from one state to another must be returned. But like many parts of the constitution, a little vague there. It doesnt say who has to return them, the federal government the state, what procedures is there a trial, is there a judge, what happens . It doesnt say that in the constitution. A fugitive slave law was pats inside 1793 passed in 1793 a national one but that also was very weak, and it basically put the onus on the owner. All right, if the owner goes up to the north and grabs his fugitive, he can take them back. That wasnt that easy to do although there certainly were slave hunt ors in the south trying to grab fugitives this the north but there were people who resisted them. So in 1850 the federal government passes this new law, the fugitive slave act, which makes it a federal responsibility. The federal government will now send marshals into northern states to grab refuge thetivesment it sets up a whole new federal commissioner who will hear these cases and send them back. It even says the army can be used if theres a danger of a riot or something. This was a very strict law very draconian, strict punishments to people who helped fugitive slaves or even to people who refused to help the government in capturing them. And it led to a lot of opposition in the north on the basis, you know its ironic of states rights. This was the south demanding federal action to overturn local procedures, local laws in the north. Its the probably the most vigorous expansion of federal power over the states in the whole period before the civil war. So yes, this is part of the runup to the civil war the sectional controversy and the fugitive slave issue becomes part of that, but the point i wanted to make which is obvious in a way but we might forget it is that without slaves running away none of this would have happened, right . Host absolutely. Guest its the initiative of slave resistance in the first mace that triggers this sectional conflict over refuge tuf slaves. So even though people did not run away thinking, oh, im going to become an issue in a National Political debate, their actions did help to force the sectional conflict onto the agenda of national politics. Host and its worth noting as well that that fugitive slave act of 1850 was probably the most unamerican of laws, because it didnt give the person who was being accused of having been a fugitive any right to testify in court guest right. Host and it actually paid the commissioner more money to release the person to the wouldbe owner or the suggested owner than to actually release the perp. The person. So its very unamerican in that regard. Guest no, youre absolutely right. Yes, the fugitive could not testify on his own behalf. Basically, it was almost it was just a property operation. The owner would turn up with a deed or a description and say okay, heres proof that i own that this guy escaped, heres proof i own him, i purchased him, heres the deed, you know . And thats it. It was like finding a piece of furniture. It was a property operation, not something about a human being. So the property doesnt have the right the testify in to testify in that case. No trial by jury, no local authorities involved, and as you say, this was many people who were not abolitionists at all found this an outrageous violation of Civil Liberties in the United States. And, therefore, thats why it heightened sectional tension because far outside of the Abolitionist Movement, many northerners thought this was an unjust judicial procedure. Host and, of course, the war comes, and president lincoln makes it very clear that the south has nothing to fear in terms of him attacking their domestic institutions including slavery. And so in his first inaugural address hes very clear that hes going to enforce all of the laws, including the fugitive slave act. And so guest absolutely. Host he had been very clear though before he actually was sworn in that he would not compromise on the expansion of slavery into the territories. But in terms of the fugitive slave act, he was willing to actually insure that that act was enforced as long as people who were totally free were not caught up in it. And, of course, we could never be certain of that. Guest no, that is [inaudible] guest thats exactly right. Lincoln, as you well know was not an abolitionist. Lincoln never claimed to be an abolitionist. Before the war lincoln had said, as you say, he was strongly opposed to the western expansion of slavery, but he he never called for violation of the fugitive slave law. Lincoln was a lawyer, a man who believed in the rule of law. In a famous letter in 1855 to his friend, a slave owner in kentucky, he said i hate to see them hunted down, but i white my lip but i bite my lip and keep silent. Why did he keep silent . Because this was in the constitution, this was federal law. Unlike the abolitionists he said i dont believe in a higher law i dont believe you can abide by the moral law rather than the actual law on the books. And in the secession crisis he said i dont care what we do about fugitive slaves. Im willing to give them concessions on that. Not on the expansion of slavery although he said i would like the fugitive slave law to be amended so that a free person could not be caught up. Free people could easily be grabbed, brought before a commissioner, someone says oh, yeah, that guy used to be my slave, and hes sent back. He cant even testify on his own behalf. So they did enforce the fugitive slave law at the beginning of the war. Slaves from the very beginning run away to the union army in maryland lets say, and the army sends them back to their owners early on. But pretty quickly that begins to fall apart. By the end of 1861, the army is no longer in most cases sending fugitives back, and lincoln himself is saying if they get to our lines, theyre free. Im not going to turn them back into slavery. So this is a sign how the war itself very quickly begins to desablize the institution of slavery destabilize the institution of slavery. Host you introduce very courageous and sometimes quite colorful historical figures such as Sidney Howard gaye William Still who was a freeborn black man who was a key underground Railroad Agent for people who were coming into philadelphia and who himself actually kept a record of some of the people finish. Guest right. Host who arrived. Really interesting details of their lives. Then there were the jays, william jay and john jay ii, who were very much involved in working with fugitives, sometimes actually defending them or representing them legally. I was most intrigued however, by louie napoleon. Can you tell us a little bit about that particular figure and how instrumental he was to fugitives in new york . Guest right. Louie napoleon is certainly one of the most important figures and unknown. I mean, ive studied the 19th century, i had heard of william jay, john jay, i knew about William Still, i never heard of Louis Napoleon. When i started looking through this document, the record of fugitives, gaye will say napoleon took them to the station, who is this napoleon, who is it . Well, eventually it turns out Louis Napoleon black man born in new york in 180 to 0 which meant the law had been passed in 1799 for gradual emancipation so he was born he was not a slave exactly, but he had to serve an apprenticeship of 21 years to his owner until he became fully free, and he did that so in the 1820s he finally becomes free. And it but basically by the 1840s napoleon is working in the office of Sidney Howard gaye what they call the antislavery office where this newspaper is published. But his main job is to go and help fugitive slaves. He scours the docks. Hes out there looking for those hidden on boats. When William Still sends people by train from philadelphia to new york Louis Napoleon goes and meets them at the train depot and brings them to gayes office and then theyre sent to upstate new york and canada. The interesting thing and Louis Napoleon goes to court to get writs of habeas corpus for people who were, slaves who were brought to the state trying to get them free. Whats interesting about Louis Napoleon is he is illiterate. There are papers of his marked with an x. He signs his name with an x, and yet hes an activist, hes very courageous, and he even has he takes part in legal cases. So hes a remarkable guy, and i had known nothing about him until i discovered him in the gaye manuscript. You mentioned john jay ii. In one case napoleon v. Lemon, where hed gotten this writ of habeas corpus to free some slaves brought into the state by a virginian named lemon, the lawyer for the virginian says in the case is this Louis Napoleon who brought this case the emperor of france . [laughter] and john jay, who was representing the slaves, says, no no, hes a much better man. [laughter] so napoleon was a very upstanding and courageous man. Host yeah. And hes just one of many africanamericans who are so intimately involved in helping these fugitives. We know so much about Harriet Tubman who made several trips south to free relatives and people she didnt even know. We dont know about these other people. Guest right. Host we dont know about people until now i think, who are escaping either individually or in groups. Can you tell us a little bit guest right. Host about how their experiences showed the diversity of why people left, what they encountered along the way and what they actually received in terms of assistance once they arrived in new york. Im thinking of people like winnie Patsy Elizabeth bates guest right. Host peter matthews, william jordan, those folk whose names weve never heard before but have really interesting stories. Guest right. These are all names in the record of fugitives slaves who came through new york and gaye wrote down their experiences. And, of course, they had been lost to history up to this point unlike Harriet Tubman who is pretty well known, of course. You know, the thing that struck me the most in reading through this document is the incredible variety of ways in which people escaped, reasons for their escaping, how they escaped. Some escaped on foot which is sort of the traditional idea. They, you know, hid during the day and went through the woods at night. But actually most doesnt escape that way. Didnt escape that way. Many escaped on boats, there were ship captains in virginia who were willing to hide some fugitives on their boats heading north for a fee. The slaves had to pay them money to do that. Some of them escaped on train. Frederick douglass, of course, did that in 1838. If you could get the free papers of a free black person, you could just get on a train and go to the north, and that was a lot easier than doing it through the woods. Some of them stole or appropriated the horsedrawn carriages of their owners and fled from maryland to pennsylvania. Many of them escaped in groups. That was another thing that really surprised me groups of relatives. Sometimes women with small children even, inpants. Infants. Very difficult to do that, of course. And they were helped by all sorts of people. The masondixon line they were generally helped by black people, either slave or free, who would point them on their way or give them some food or hide them along the way. They didnt go from station to station the way we sometimes think. There werent these stations in the south really except for one or two. They were sent they just relied on the help of black people they encountered until they reached maybe wilmington, delaware, which is just below the masondixon line and where there was Thomas Garrett and a regularized kind of group in wilmington helping fugitives. Once they got over the border into pennsylvania they encountered many quaker farmers in southern pennsylvania who were willing to help them, and then they were sent to philadelphia where William Still, as you said ran what they called the vigilance committee. He would very quickly put them on a train up to new york and notify Sidney Howard gaye by telegram two are coming or Something Like that. And then gaye very quickly remember, you could not stay in philadelphia, you could not stay in new york, you were liable to be captured at any moment, so the point to was quickly to get them moving on to upstate new york which was a lot safer. But after 1850 really you had to get to canada because of the fugitive slave law. You were not safe anywhere in the United States. Its a commentary on our history that these were people we often think of people emigrating to the United States to seek freedom, but here were people who had to flee the United States for another country to enjoy liberty. Host indeed, indeed. Youre right and not just fugitives from slavery either, but free black people who were leaving the United States and going to canada because they dont can feel safe anymorement anymorement they dont feel safe anymore in the north. Guest yeah. Host certainly, they dont feel safe if theyre in the south, and they dont even feel safe if theyre in places like philadelphia and new york either. Guest well, youre right. Once to the the fugitive slave law is paused, first of all its retroactive. So you could have escaped 30 years before, raised a family lived a perfectly lawabiding life in new york and you were still now liable to be grabbed and sent back to slavery. Moreover, because of the way the law operated which we discussed it was hard to prove you werent the slave of the guy who claimed you were his slave, you know . So yes, in the 1850s the 1850s is the only decade, i believe, where the black pop laughs of new york city population of new york city actually declined. Several thousand black people free or fugitive, left for canada. Some of them went to england to avoid the danger posed by the fugitive slave laws. So it affected the whole black community, not just the fugitive slaves. Host you mention the fact that women are sometimes fleeing as well. Often with children in tow. And its a story that we dont hear very much about. It is very difficult for women to do that. But women in the north are very much involved in helping these fugitives when they arrive in these cities as well. Can you guest oh absolutely. Host tell me a little bit about what theyre doing. Guest black and white women as i said, in southern pennsylvania you had these quaker families including women, one of whom i wrote about very colorful interesting person, grace anna lewis. She wrote in a memoir part of the quaker rural family that helped fugitives how she and other women had a sewing circle where they just made clothing for fugitives because fugitives were wearing rags basically, when they escaped and they looked like slaves. She said we didnt want them to look like slaves, so we made this clothing for them. In new york and other cities women held these antislavery bazaars or fairs where they sold things, and sometimes the money would go to help fugitive slaves. Like bake sales, you might almost say, to help fugitives. A committee of black women in new york city in the 1850s was holding these fairs to raise money to help the fugitives. So it was an it was both interracial and male and female working to assist fugitive slaves in the northern states. Host im always struck by fact that abolitionists are antislavery, but many of them are also antiblack. How do do you explain this . Guest there were you you know racism, as you know, of course, was deeply embedded in northern as well as Southern Society in the 19th century. And this is something that i often find it difficult to explain or students let us say find it difficult to understand. How can you be antislavery and also racist at the same time . Well, first of all, there were plenty of reasons to oppose slavery that have nothing to do with race. Host right. Guest you can think its an economic drag on the country. You can think that, you know, it gives the south too much political power and they block laws that northerners want. You can think as many people did that you dont want slavery going into the western territories because you dont like black people. People who want to settle in kansas or places like that, they dont want blacks around, and they dont want slaves or free blacks around. So they oppose the expansion of slavery on that ground. Theres a whole range of reasons why people are critical of slavery, and even the same person can be contradictory. Louis tappan, who i mentioned, definitely an abolitionist, no question about it. He didnt, he would not hire black people to work in his business. He was a big, had a big mercantile firm. He would not have black clerks working there. And he said, you know the reason is white people are not going to come into a shop if they see black people working there, so im not hiring any blacks. But on the other hand, he hid blacks in his home in Brooklyn Heights here fugitive slaves and he gave a lot of money to the antislavery money. So even in his own life you can see these contradictions which only proves that people and history are complicated. Host uhhuh, absolutely. And despite this antiblack sentiment throughout the north you have some of these states passing personal liberty laws. What was the reaction of southerners to this . Guest personal liberty laws, which many northern states passed, tried to set up procedures either to just make it more fair so theyd say okay accused fugitive has to have a trial by jury or they actually tried to impede the rendition of fugitives by say, well no public official can help no sheriff can arrest a fugitive, public jails cannot be used to house a fugitive. Southerners were put off or alarmed by these because they seemed to be a direct violation of constitutional obligation of the north to return fugitive slaves. And so if theyre going to pass laws taking away that constitutional right that we have, how can we trust that they will not violate other Constitutional Rights that slave owners have . So these laws became another part of the sectional conflict. And you get this ironic situation where northern states are calling for nullification of the federal fugitive slave law whereas southerners calhoun we usually associate with the doctrine of nullification. Host absolutely. Absolutely. When the war is over and there are no more fugitives to assist, these agents of the underground railroad and members of the vigilance committees rechannel their efforts so to speak, and they try to insure equality for the newly emancipated. Given the role of africanamerican why, especially given the role of africanamericans, the role that africanamericans had played in the union, why was it so difficult for these people to convince white americans that africanamericans were entitled to more than just freedom that they were entitled to equality as well . Guest yeah. Well, you know lydia maria child, the great abolitionist and the first woman to edit t a political newspaper, she was the editor of the antislavery standard before Sidney Howard gaye took over that post, she said right at the end of the civil war something to the effect that she said the problem is that slavery was abolished because of a miserable military necessity, not a moral reawakening. Host uhhuh. Guest the Abolitionist Movement had called on people north and south to have this moral transformation, to understand and admit that slavery was a sin and a crime, and then once they acknowledged that, they would abolish slavery. But thats not how slavery got abolished. Slavery was abolished as a war measure, thats what the emancipation proclamation was. Many people supported the abolition of slavery because they felt it was of necessary to defeat the south. That, of course doesnt carry with it a commitment to equality. As you know, in the immediate aftermath of the civil war as the Southern States passed measures trying to almost put blacks back into slavery, the socalled black codes and things like that, many northerners were aroused by that and outraged even if they werent egalitarians. They said these guys are trying to undo the civil war we abolished slavery, folks, and these rebels wont accept that. And so for a time they supported measures to protect the basic rights of the former slaves. The Civil Rights Act of 1866, the 14th amendment eventually even giving blacks the right vote in the south which launches radical reconstruction. Those had pretty widespread support in the be north for complicated reasons, but then that wanes. By the 1870s racism is reasserting itself, and the commitment to black equality not just in the south, of course but in the north is withering, and that is the story eventually of the end of the reconstruction. Host and why does that happen . Happen by 1877 . I mean certainly racism was always there but why by this time does the north just throw up its hands and say, enough already, were not going to do anything else to help these people . Guest yeah. Well, as you know i wrote a 600page book about this and its hard to summarize it. [laughter] you know, i think racism as you know, has a history. Its not constant all the time. I think racism did wane a bit in the end of the civil war partly because the service of black soldiers 200,000 black soldiers had fought and some of them died to safe the nation and i save the nation, and i think that convinced many northerners they deserved basic citizenship rights. But by the 1870s, you know wars people want normalcy. They dont want a constant crisis. After a war theres a desire the return back to normal. By the 1870s also the country enters a severe economic depression which sort of shifts public sentiment in the north away from southern issues to you know, economic questions of unemployment and that sort of thing. So i think the commitment wanes. Its a complicated story. Racism has a lot to do with it, obviously. So does the rise of social darwinism as a among intellectuals and others, you know, the idea that really you cant do much to change the hierarchy of world. The people at the top are the fittest, the survival of the fittest. And so to take those at the bottom, blacks and try to uplift them is sort of against nature. Its like trying to save a species which is going to be doomed because of the, you know, the evolutionary conflict or Something Like that. So all these become grounds for just people saying well, we try ared, we did our best. We tried, we our best. Theres nothing more than we can do, its up to them its up to black people themselves to fork their way forge their way in society. So, you know the desire to intervene, to help them is pretty much gone by the end of the 1870s. Host uhhuh. And, yes, you are very familiar with the postemancipation era and reconstruction, so i feel comfortable asking you this question even though this is not really a focus of your book. Given all that could have been done in the post of e emancipation era and was not done or ended up failing even though there were efforts, what do you see as the greatest failure of the postemancipation era . What and i know that as historians were not supposed to be involved in what if, but its always fun to do that anyway. [laughter] so lets do that for a moment. Guest well host what is the greatest failure . Guest you know to me the greatest failure is a simple thing which is the commitment to enforcing the law. You know, you would finish the south and frums were going to have and africanamericans were going to have plenty of problems, there was no way you were going to have utopia. The south was devastated, the cotton economy, you know, the price of cotton was falling throughout this period. Africanamericans came out of slavery with nothing in terms of, you know money, physical possessions. There were those who think, well if they had distributed land, the famous 40 acres and a mule, then you would have given an Economic Foundation to the freedom these four Million People acquired. Obviously, its better to have land than not to have land in an agricultural society. White farmers were in dire straits who owned their own land in the late 19th century. As i say, to me the failure which could have been avoid i think its possible to imagine scenarios where this didnt happen, is simply the federal government saying look, we have passed these law, we have changed the constitution to create equality before law for all people regardless of race, and now we are going to enforce this. And they enforce it for a while, but then the commitment wanes and it took almost another hundred years as you know until what we call the second reconstruction of the 1960s when, again, the federal government finally stepped in. You had a Mass Movement forcing them to do i want, of course, but finally the federal government stepped in to enforce the law. The courts, the army, the national guard. And once that happens then things change, you know . Then people understand they have to abide by what the law is. People the white people in the south didnt understand that by the 1870s. Host and so no recontribution of land. Redistribution of the land. It wouldnt have made much guest it would have been fine. It would have been better i dont think it was the full solution, thats all. It would have, its much better to have land, but the plight of the small farmer was very desperate throughout the south and throughout the world in the last quarter of the 19th century. Host uhhuh. Guest many whites who owned land lost their land in the next 20 years. Thats why you have the populist movement in the 1890s. So land in and of itself was not enough. Host yeah. In my own research ive found, and my research is primarily in virginia, and thats very different from mississippi or alabama. Guest oh. Virginias a very different situation host absolutely. Guest im talking about the cotton south. Host yeah, yeah. So in other areas there was a possibility that people would have at least been economically independent. They may have been very poor but they wouldnt have had to rely on the very people who had enslaved them. Guest right. Well, as you know, in virginia a significant number of africanamericans did acquire land by 1900. Host indeed. Guest ing but they still lost the right to vote. Host and they lost the land too over time. Guest and eventually they lost the land. Right. Host exactly. In terms of your review of the Sidney Howard gaye record of the fugitives who were arriving in new york what most surprised you about that collection . Guest um, you know, what most surprised me was the incredible resourcefulness of these people. People who planned for years how they were going to escape. Or, on the other hand, people who just seized an opportunity that happened to come upon them you know that okay, theres a boat, ive heard this captains willing to take im going right now, you know . But its this variety. Its the and were talking mostly about people from the upper south. You couldnt get from alabama up to the north, you know . Thats too far. So most of these people are from maryland, District Of Columbia or virginia. Where slavery is a little different from the deep south although its still slavery obviously. And its just a varian oi the variety of experiences. No two escapes are the same no two personal experiences are the same. The one thing that is constant in here is the desire for freedom, you know . And when gaye asked people why you escaped some gave very specific reasons, you know, my master treated me so brutally, whipped, beaten etc. Up they said my wife often they said my wife was just sold or i was afraid i was going to be sold, i heard my master is losing money and has to sell his slaves. Many of them said i was just tired of being a slave, i wanted to be free, you know . So its this kaleidoscope or experiences of experiences and impressions that really struck me. Now, by the way, let me say the record of fugitives is now online. We have digitalized it as Columbia University with a transcription. Anyone who wants to pore through it and i recommend it to anyone interested in our history just go to the web site you can google gaye record of fugitives, and youll find the link to it. Its been put up there by the Columbia University library system, and you can just read through it. Its fascinating stuff. Host excellent. I mow that youre familiar with the William Still collection too, William Still who was in philadelphia and recorded information from fugitives arriving there as well. Guest right. Host how do the two records compare . Or do they at all . Guest yeah that its great that william and, by the way, William Stills stuff is also online at the pennsylvania historical society. Still kept these records, not all of them have survived i think, but very similar to gayes although still was not a journalist like gaye. In still you dont get the rich stories that gaye recorded because, as i say, hes a journalist, and hes writing as if hes, you know, writing newspaper articles here. But whats important is you can use the two together to link up these stories. So over half of the people who pass through new york city came from, were sent by William Still from philadelphia. So still talks about their experiences, gaye talks about their experiences, still gives more information about what how they got out of the south because hes closer to the south. Gaye gives more information about how they got to new york and where he sent them from new york. Soyou put and also you can use them to see if these stories are consistent. Were these slaves just making everything up . I dont know. But, no, the stories are consistent. What they told still and what they told gaye were quite consistent, and you can use that information to that can down well, who were their owners . When i first started looking well, is this true . Heres a guy who said i escaped from colonel hollingsworths plantation, and he owned 50 slaves. All right, lets go to the census and yeah, there he is in exactly the right county with his 50 slaves. So you begin to find these stories are actually quite reliable when you can check them against other kinds of sources from the time. With stills information and the information in gaye, you can go back to the Baltimore Sun and find fugitive slave ads where the owner will actually put in an ad in the newspaper so and so has escaped, reward, you know, ran away, reward 100 for the person who will get him. They always say a funny phrase if anyone can get him and bring back, 100. Thats a pretty good illustration of where they came from, who owned them host indeed. Doing. And they often had physical descriptions. You put all these together and you get a comprehensive picture. Host do we have any sense how successful these people were who did escape to the aside from douglass, of course. Guest you know, the problem is most of them just disappear from the historical record. Some of them pop up in the canadian census. In 1861 there was a census in canada, and a number of these fugitives are living there, they are recorded in ontario, you know opposite buffalo near toronto there were these black settlements of both free and slave blacks or refuge tiffs. So we know for some of them what they were doing, their job, where they were married, had chirp. But most of them disappear. We cannot track them down. Some of the most famous ones you can; henry box brown, you know who escaped by having him ship inside a crate to philadelphia, then up through new york eventually went to england. We know his life story, we know frederick douglass. Some of them Harriet Jacobs who pops up in these records tubman. But most of them we know very very little what happened to them after they managed to get to freedom. Host this is extraordinary, too, how willing people were to go to Great Lengths for freedom. Theyre walking great distances, men and women. Guest some of them did. Host yeah. Guest yeah. Host if i have to walk more than a i few blocks, im getting into my car to do it, but these people are walking sometimes 200 miles guest 200 miles yeah. Host so its its just extraordinary. These are extraordinary stories that you have in this volume. What would you like the reader to take from this . Guest um, well thank you, by the way, for saying that because i did you know, this book is a little different. Ive written a lot of books, as you said but this ones different because i did want to humanize it. Not that the others are all auto may tons, you know, but with these individual stories of unknown people which can be gleaned from the documents that we have put together here, and i just wanted people to get a sense of what it was like to escape and how you went and some of the dangers they felt and being chased by dogs and going through freezing weather and walking hundreds of miles or being betrayed by some. Some of them were actually arrested and escaped from jail and continued on their way. So, you know i think its just these stories of slaves, of people ordinary people we know very very little about other than how they escaped and why they escaped. But i also would like people to take away, you know admiration for the people working on the underground railroad are, you know . Weve gone through a fairly tense period of Race Relations in this country in the last few months because of some famous events that have taken place in ferguson and in Staten Island new york. And, you know, this is an example of black and white people working together. Of its an interracial movement of people working together for a just cause. And that is, i think, a part of our history we can look back on with great pridement pride. Host now, there is a series thats airing this week titled book of negroes, and, of course its about those africanamericans who evacuated new york with the brush at the end of the american with the british at the end of the american revolution. So theyre talking about an earlier fugitive population. Have you had the opportunity to see any of the episodes . Guest you know, i dont watch tv very much. [laughter] i shouldnt say this because were on tv. But i do want to see that. Ive heard about it, and i hope itll be repeated or maybe i can just stream it online because people have told me about it. Of course the book of negroes is new york city right . Host yes exactly. Guest during the revolution new york was occupied by british. The british offered freedom to any slave of a patriot not of a loyalist who with got to their line and several thousand slaves got to new york city in order to gain their freedom, and when the war was over, George Washington came up to new york to negotiate the british surrender and evacuation of new york, and he said well, wed like all those slaves back and general clinton the british command, said, well, no unfortunately, i cant give you these slaves back because we have it would be dishonorable. Is another sign of the contradiction in American History right from the birth of the republic. Host the book is titled gateway to freedom they freedom the Hidden History of the underground railroad. Professor, thank you so much for joining us today. Guest thank you for having me. That was after words booktv Signature Program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists, Public Policy makers and others familiar with their material. After words airs every weekend at 10 p. M. On saturday, 12 and 9 p. M. On sunday and 12 a. M. On monday. You can also watch online. Go to booktv. Org and click on the tv series and the topics list on the upper right side of the page. Next the journalist talking about the leadership of crisis in the middle east. [inaudible conversations] the middle east program we are very happy to have with us the author of, the coauthor of isis inside the army based in abu dhabi and we saw a couple of days and we are very fortunate to host the First Institution in washington and his book appeared on the New York Times best sellers list. Yesterday it was number nine. I didnt check it this morning. We decided hes going to speak for 20 minutes and then we will open the floor to your questions and we are very happy to have with us jane harmon, the president and ceo of the center very much interested in the talk many times on isis but today we will get the first time report on what is going on on the ground in the history of the movement. Thank you very much for the contradiction. I would like to start with the talk would be the three historical slapshot to understand isis and where it comes from. The first one is in the 1990s and the second one is the iraq war and the arab spring. The interesting trend this happened after the first gulf war. The first one is that Saddam Hussein integrated this campaign what he did is basically a introduced a variety of measures to encourage people to to go to the state and he allowed the baptists to study religion and so on. Then make that happen was very relevant to what is represented in the ideology. That is a fascist movement that relies on a lot to do with the ideology and it relies on this kind of militant nationalism that subjects everything and anyone to be overarching principle to achieve the unity of all. And it is a very Violent Group. By definition it is a Violent Group ideology. If you look at the history Saddam Hussein did horrible things. He used chemical weapons and you know quite well with the regime that the regime is giving today. And also the track record is all violence from day one until today. And now when Saddam Hussein ideology we get a very dangerous mix may be unintentionally because after the first gulf war there was a revolt in the south so we used a campaign to try to legitimize his regime. And what happened usually is a lot abandoned and take on because it is more integrated. So towards the end of the regime we started to have a problem with the islamists and a lot of them went to afghanistan and elsewhere and he had a lot of problems so now is that the first thing that happened in the 90s into the second and the second thing that happened is because of the sanctions we started this underground Financial Network to kind of circumvent the sanctions so he started to rely on this underground smuggling in different ways of making money and working with other countries beyond the borders. That campaign or that kind of network that was created is exactly the kind of network used today to circulate to circumvent to make sure that we can survive in the black market. So these are two important things that originate in the 1990s and after the iraq war the second snapshot after you know it caused the sunnis to feel that they had lost power so they are in iraq and they felt that they are no longer were no longer in control. They felt that they were conspiring even with iran to take over politics and there are no indications that. They lost control. So they would frustrate that they are losing power and its said to have a gnome meant dedicated to the domination in iraq. That meant we had a strange alliance. So between the local forces who might not be this that or the other. So its with a lot of people that interviewed them in the beginning and we are not fighting the cause. It is in a sense they are not sectarian in the district sense of the word. Now coming to the stage he is a jordanian and had a long history of fighting the activities beyond jordan and in the 1980s he went to afghanistan to join the mujahedin and what happened was immediately there was a strange encounter a in terms of what it means. The differences since then shaped shape and define the differences between al qaeda and isis. At the time they seized the mission and they set the example to join the movement so they trigger the word that we want to popularize to make a. Hes more focused and he thinks that. That movement and so on are always challenged so he sees it as the ex substantial threat that has essential thread that has always existed and that has to be dealt with. They encourage people more based on the consent. So it is a political side to focus on the heart and mind and has never until recently tried to impose itself on the people so they provide services and do all this kind of stuff to encourage people and even in the beginning they didnt want to announce because it would shape peoples attitudes and in the beginning they wanted to say that we are a cerium group. So we went to iraq after the war and the debate and division started to slowly shape the discourse. After things started to change and there was a huge opportunity and a lot of differences between al qaeda at the time and there was some tension between the two until they publicly acknowledged attacking civilians and focus on the government and on the americans. And then he had his way later on slowly which kind of triggered the iraqi civil war and things start to become more sectarian and now his vision combined with a dangerous mix you have a triangle of basically terror and a very dangerous ingredient coming together to form this group that we have today isis. Thats why it is very sectarian and rigid and everything because that. Now after they benefited from a lot of the factors. It was already a state but after, they found themselves with a love of power vacuums thomas in the state and they played all of their skills and intelligence and security to present itself and become a reality. Now it benefits from a trend that a lot of people would try to think that they portrayed it as violence but it has to do a lot to do with the trends in the region. So another is when people revolted against the government, they revolted against the political elite and the religious elite. And it is about rebellion against the religious elite so it is very clear goal in that sense. There is a word that usually people use to describe the attitudes of people which is a rejection of the intellectual monopoly and mandate. So when anyone tries to message to that kind of messaging that we talk about isis is immune to these things so when we talk about the moderate discourse isis is immune to that so you might prevent people from going before that and they would always say once someone starts to buy into the ideology it is too late to reverse it. The journalist with calling defective so they got the work permit and he was in turkey before he goes to saudi arabia. I was expecting to be critical of the isis. He was sitting there defending isis and said im tired. I cant take it. But he never said anything bad about isis. So until then when people join the isis and abandoned the group thats most like the journalists roughly speaking so yes thats one of the things they share with the out spring trends. Isis has benefits from a variety of things to talk about but i would prefer to hear more questions from you and then i can answer them. Thank you very much. On the first question on everybodys mind can isis be defeated . Its possible but i see it in the region for at least another 15 years. You can look at it in two ways. As a group that operates as an insurgency and the terror group would exist around the decade from now. As a group that exists and has oneway and beyond i think you continue to operate and override al qaeda to become a global inspiration and one of the fascinating things about the project today is people dont see that there is an emergent corps that has been established yet so they dont have ideologues that are very wellestablished. They dont have that kind of legacy as al qaeda does. They have the ideas and books and theories and so on. But it is emerging as a bat so because of that i dont see them disappearing anytime soon. As an insurgency i think if im optimistic probably five years. Thank you for that interesting the interesting presentation. Yesterday i had lunch with the ambassador that reminded me of the largest in the world 250 Million People in 80 of whom are muslim and it is a peaceful democracy. My question. It is the most impressive idea and coded somehow be considered and used in a more effective way as a counter to isis . And they thrive on weak states on countries in southeast asia. They have a legacy of Good Governance and whenever they find Good Governance, isis cannot gain ground because it is about a political project that is essential. But the two come together so you have a political background which is basically alienated by the Government Politics but also you have to have a religious background that the leaves in a very narrow worldview about who is a muslim or what a muslim should be. When you have these two backgrounds sometimes people say it is islamic but the fact of the matter is its both and lets see how these two backgrounds together emerge and thats when you mix the two and produced a number. So you have the number of joint and i think for example they havent announced the province for them when they did the same thing. The reason is because it is more condensed and visible and offers hope for people so that is how it is in terms of the tolerance and so on. As a way to the way to defeat isis is to have a strong government even with a majority Muslim Population and places like indonesia and others are much less susceptible to the messages because of that. They dont have a problem. It depends on how isis fairs in the future they continue to exist and kind of. The sympathizers would say in north africa and west africa and the horn of africa. They think that they are still interested with al qaeda. Its also in different parts of the world, so i think the process of the growth i dont think that it is being defeated as here in the headlines it is contained in some parts of iraq and syria where they had been on the offensive. I dont think that. You dont really know what is going on there and that is an indication when you have a blackout on the area that is an indication that it is so entrenched in the area. They do not pledge to isis and mark them as a threat and what them very closely. They reduce the time in the heartland to build up and make sure that its sustainable to ensure that isis is immune from the bottomup rebellions in the area. We see the situation so far. Let me ask you one more question. We have a lot of questions from the overflow. In your book you write that it isnt in the terrorist organization but in the mafia and the trafficking. How do they do that . Is it because they take over or is it about the finance is it goes back to the question of the underground network that the regime established back in the 1990s. Isis gets its money through a variety of ways. The two most important sources of income were oil and weapons stockpiles, so when they conquered the new facility they save a lot of weapons. You remember when they forced the american trained and american equipped Security Forces to drop their arms and just run away in this around in areas. They have a billions worth of weapons and thats helped them to go back to syria and conquer so it is a good example because they had been resistance since the beginning and the trade very hard to establish the base but it was never successful. Its actually interesting because the problem was one of the rare ones that they did not have a social basis. So we dont have a local allegiance. It was more individuals here and there trying to make the base for themselves. Now they struggle to gain ground and they were the only ones that could actually end trenched themselves and it was the most powerful across. But after the takeover they basically went back and swept the area and within weeks kind of dismantled and they no longer existed because of the weapons. So that sort of income has been cut since the airstrikes and they normally expand in other areas and get the money. And also because i think 80 at least of the Legal Resources have been disrupted in the areas but isis still has in that chapter a lot about finances and they have a very interesting system thats different from al qaeda that can sustain itself without the foreign donations and help from outsiders. They can survive on local money. So they have you know, one that provides services that they provide services as a way of social bribes and they become the services and charge people for the state so for example when much was controlled by the army will be used to do is if they were really good they would try to convince the population either go through to work or to share the control of the oil well and they wouldnt try to impose themselves as a local community. They would try to based on consent they would tell you a different story. They impose their own rules and act as a state so if someone gets money from the government to work as a municipality they force the person to go to work like eight hours a day for five weeks. So if someone owns a day care for example and isis asks the person why you closed the day care and using i dont have money. We will provide you with what you need and if you dont operate the day care we will take it and confiscate it from you. And what happens usually i will give you a share of the revenue and we will operate it. They would have a number outside of the day care to make sure the line is straight and so on so thats part its part of the propaganda to act as a state. But the Traffic Police for example they would receive a bribe from any driver and there are no traffic rules. Everyone has to respect the road and the road rules but in the transportation when the free theory in army used to control the area if someone is traveling from an airport to eastern serious to the borders of iraq they would be stopped several times on the way and they would ask them for a bribe and they would act again as a state so there is a checkpoint and they would document what the person is carrying and they would write it down and have the driver drive to mosul and no one would stop him and then a lot of people start to like this kind of new government body in the areas at least for the rules and regulations and another important thing is that people can live with the brutality. But if you mess with isis if people say we compare the situation with the situation in the regime area and even if you support the regime you can be a random and that is the whole neighborhood. Theyve never done that so people see it and im talking about the perception on the ground. People see that when they enter with the bullet on the civilians when the Government Forces destroyed the village they can see the equations and how people think about isis. A fascinating presentation. They argued in the atlantic piece that it requires a National Limit to the expansion of the government. Its for the locals and theres been a lot of media reporting and its weakening. Getting ready to evaluate and assess the initial analysis and second, whether or not they are appearing and or a significant . Thanks. It is very important and we have to understand every member have to comply with the sort of ideology that it endorses. Its that kind of theory where the members be leaving the communications and the narrow definition of who a muslim is so you cant say as you put the others but they wouldnt accept that as evidence that you are not a disbeliever and they have different standards of labeling muslims, so the ideology is very important. No member kills without intercourse in the battlefield of the war they have to comply with this and it wouldnt be based on the islamic references so i think that the idea and the debates that we are hearing today that it has nothing to do with islam and i think there is a recognition if you follow the newspapers its flooded with articles written by the scholars they talk about the problem that we are facing. When they burn someone alive they do it because someone in the history of islam did it right clicks its going back to the early figures because they were closer to the revelation and therefore they have better understanding so they dont always rely they also rely on the stories and they dont always rely on the theory. So when we address the ideas of isis, again they are immune to the messaging because it is all clerical establishment is a legitimate and it was an early figure. They were the commanderinchief, so there was a battle between the muslim army and the persian army and they were strong and powerful and at some point the commander promised he would create a river out of their blood and so eventually he defeated the persian army like a day later and the people have tried to flee now the problem, the trick for him was. They needed to find a solution for this is what they did is basically a. Hes a companion of the prophet. At some point he kind of released a. Of a good debate all day long with isis that happened in history. Hes respected by the sunnis, for the cleric. That is the problem that we have a. Sometimes for the sectarian regions they are criticized and respected so they find themselves in a very awkward situation. Just wait for the microphone please. Its coming. Thank you. I was interested in hearing more about the actual leadership we know very little about them actually but its striking that youve had organizations in nigeria declaring their regions to the leader we know so little about. Im just wondering how do you assess the organization and what happens to isis if it disappears in the organization it is a group that can get rid of anyone and everyone. Theyve learned from the lessons in the council and so on. It can be eliminated again because they have that kind but by then it is dispensable because you have the council and even if the whole sure is you can replace them. They operate as an Autonomous Group comes of the top leaders are very loyal and they are Firm Believers in the group but in the lower ranks is in the top leadership there is always the link between the top leaders and the lower but that is to ensure the infiltration in the lower ranks so we never have access to the higher levels of the organization. Two questions. It is to fight its funding but that also whether it is gives a different reading that would be able to counter the core ideology. It could be from the period of chaos in the financial flaw up until late 2012. They do not exist and a lot of money they were not from the government and they were not meant to go to the jihadis. Because of the lack of knowledge of who is who sometimes it goes to someone you trust and that person gets it to someone you trust and then goes to a Loose Network that exists in this part of the world but on the government level they see it as a threat because there are two sections in the society like the ones with that belief in the idea but also the islamists and sympathizers see it as a way to break the region. It exists in the region so isis i think the problem isnt really the ideology but its about the credibility and legitimacy and most of the establishment to the authoritarian regimes. They are right for other reasons to go back to the air ab spring there is a collapse of the religious elite end of the time and a lot of people didnt like the fact that there are religious clerics that legitimize the government and the collapse to kind of look for the more reformed islam. But the group that seized this is isis. Please before the microphone. Can you explain from the communities to join isis . In the book, again, we found six different categories of why people join isis. These factors range from governments and there were certain families who joined from the beginning in this idea so they started Building Social status. The families have inconvenienced to kind of reversed the situation. But three other factors, one is the political project into the religious discourse. There are other ones like it and they drift towards this group because they believe in the ideology and the ideology of isis and all of its details and the other one is the most dangerous and important category. Young people drift away towards isis because they find it electrifying and they listen to the clerics on the ground telling them about with isis is and how you can be part of this project that will restore islam and people who dont have the training they drift away towards isis through this kind of rhetoric. So they join because they want to rebel but a dvd than the ideology so once they join its i spoke to a lot of parents who have had their children disappeared from homes and they say when they start to argue with their children all of a sudden they sound like adults and they are very educated. They fight and they know how to argue back. A lot of people have said i was almost convinced. So there are very different ways and i think that it is different. The westerners that go to the areas are usually attached from the reality that is happening and they go there because they become suitable about the pure islam and so on and thats where the social media comes in because it communicates the messaging without people being communicated by the facts on the ground. A lot of it is the desire to restore the era of glory. How much of it is a historical argument and his religion what it means to the end in order to restore to the glory of the age and my next question would be those that advocate fighting in the name of states so why is it a religion that has been interpreted in this way . The way that they have been treating the women has been barbaric and despicable and no matter how narrow the interpretation of islam. It is a complicated question. They argue through religious references to find everything it does and it has it can legitimize its act. The interesting thing usually that deliberately even if it finds the legitimation of the act they can refer to the code and find a lot of but what they do if they dig deeper is they dig deeper and they found a very obscure teachings in the history its considered the islamic figure as the source and those are gone mainstream. They are the three generations they cant just rely on the crime. You have to rely on the interpretation. In a way you can argue against one of the advantages. They make you argue in general. There are centuries worth of literature and as long as they are distracted by that they are good but that doesnt mean you dont deal with these problems and that theres not enough attention to these kind of problems like the historical precedence that the prophet recommended as a source of legislation and so on so they rely on these acts and i understand what youre saying. They dont make them a priori because then you dont have a lot of problems. They are in the hands of the kind that you dont have to be heading and you dont have burning people alive and all this kind of savagery. So its not really an invention by isis and they would conquer an area and you can only take the choices and consider the people in the buck. You can convert pay taxes. See