Here are a few of the book festivals we will be covering this spring on cspans booktv. We will visit maryland for live coverage of the gaithersburg full book festival with congressman tom davis as well as former Senior Adviser to president Obama David Axelrod and we will close out me at book expo america new york city where the Publishing Industry showcases their upcoming books. On the first week in june we are live for the Chicago Tribune printers row lit fest including three and our live in Depth Program with pulitzer prize, on booktv. Welcome to topeka on booktv located in the northeast region of kansas, topeka is its capital city with a round 127,000 residents. Leading into the civil war this region was the site of many border clashes will screen pro and anti Slavery Forces earning it the nickname breeding the the leading kansas. It became known as the site of the landmark 1957 Supreme Court case brown vs. The board of education which declared racial segregation in Public Schools unconstitutional. I think this crash in and of itself just did not get the attention it deserved because it happened in, quoteunquote small town usa, toe topeka, kansas. We begin with kansas role in the civil war. When i moved to kansas in 1992, i was very familiar with the story of the civil war. I had grown up in southwestern virginia. The civil wars everywhere. My great grandfather was a veteran. Its everywhere. Its only tony present. Omnipresent. So i was certainly familiar with the civil war story. I grew up in the hometown of jeb stewart, the confederate cavalry commander. So growing up one of my favorite memories was santa fe trail where errol flynn plays jeb stewart. How good can it get . When i came to kansas, because im from the south and we just like dead people, i got to know the community of topeka through the cemetery. This is the oldest cemetery, the oldest chartered cemetery in the state, so i would come here to walk around. And i literally tripped over the grave of cyrus holiday. And when i did thats when the man and the myth all came together, and i realized that that character from the movie santa fe trail was real, that he was here, that jeb stewart was here that all those characters john brown were right here. It really was holy ground. So thats when my fascination with the role of kansas in the civil war began. Kansas did not earn the name bloody kansas by accident. When the kansas nebraska act was signed in 1854, the very act of signing it, of just signing that piece of paper was viewed by missourians as an act of war. From the very beginning every colony, all those original colonies had assumed that what was to the west of them was theirs. So virginia settled kentucky, settled missouri. And with that settlement went the mores and the culture and all the values, you know . The saying from north to south. It was assumed then that missouri would settle kansas, making it a slave state. So the missouri the kansas missouri act, or the kansas nebraska act was seen as a prosouthern act, it was viewed as a proslavery act. So when northerners decided that if popular sovereignty will decide the fate of kansas were going to send people to settle, that was viewed as an act of war by many missourians who had just assumed this would all be theirs. Its or not, it is so important to note that before there is a slavery issue in kansas, there is Economic Opportunity. Nobody would have cared, nobody would have come had there not been Economic Opportunity in kansas. And we look at the wide open space, of course we forget that there are actually American Indians living here at the time and making use of that space but to easterners this just looked like wide open, unused country. The railroads the railroads are everything in the 19th century. The very night that topeka is founded, december 5 1854, the missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton is standing in maryland making a speech about the rich land of kansas and how the railroad is going to cut through that and open it up for everybody. So that is foremost on everybodys mind. So black white everybody sees kansas as the land of opportunity. And it doesnt take long for the bloody struggles for that opportunity to begin. So as soon as northerners are staking their claims, missourians are coming over and tossing them off. Theyre destroying the claim markers. So probably missouri started it, but it escalates and both sides take it to incredibly heinous heights. There are raids back and forth across the kansas border almost immediately. The missourians come over to toss especially the new englanders off their claims. People are coming from north and south alike to before the Economic Opportunity. Many of them for a new start in the kansas territories. The potowatomie massacre, of course, is one of the most famous events of that time. In may of 1856 john brown his sons and a couple of other follow ors dragged five followers dragged five men from their cabins and they are shot and hacked to death with broad swords. That effectively cleared that area of southern settlers. Now, the men that he killed were not slave owners. Theres a lot, its a really complicated story but they were not slave owners. So that massacre had a lot of mixed views around the nation. What john brown had accomplished however was to set the tone for what the kansas missouri border would become. That would rise to new heights with william cointrell in 1863. He led a band of about 450 confederate guerrillas across the border to lawrence which was the second largest city. Leavenworth was the largest. And topeka was the capital. But lawrence was the de facto antislavery capital. That was the new england stronghold. And it was the home of jim lane and charles robinson. It was where so many of the orders calm from that wreaked came from that wreaked havoc in western missouri. So cointrell and his men come into lawrence. They hold that up to for four hours. It is they hold that town for four hours. It is effectively destroyed. 150200 men and boys are killed. They could have killed every man, woman and child in town they had that much control over it. But the town is effectively destroyed. Its literally there was a cloud of smoke that could be seen for 38 counties. It was as if an atomic bomb had gone off. That resulted in order number 11 which pretty much decimated western missouri and sent 2025,000 people off their land and made them homeless. So it was, it was horrific no matter what side you were on. It was a horrific time. When the civil war finally came to the rest of the nation, kansas had had, of course, a few years of a head start. There are a couple of very notable contributions kansas makes to the war effort. One is that per capita we send more soldiers to the war than any other state. Two is the first kansas colored. We actually raised the first black regiment to fight in the civil war. Their service is remarkable on so many counts. They fight before the emancipation proclamation is issued. They have the promise of nothing, nothing. They are not fighting with the promise of their freedom, they are not fighting with the promise of even being paid. Nothing. Theyre fighting with nothing except hope. Following the civil war, its very interesting to note there were survivors reunions for years of cointrells raid on lawrence. The perpetrators, the men who rode with cointrell also had reunions on the missouri side. And i think thats just one example of how the feelings didnt die when the war was over. And i have to say theres sill a lot theres still a lot of animosity between kansas and missouri. Now it plays out in the Sports Events rather than on the battlefield, thankfully. But that those animosities died hard. One of the things i think its really important to remember especially with order number 11 were the federals ordered they were trying to create a Demilitarized Zone. General thomas you wing was trying to create a Demilitarized Zone so that the guerrillas in western missouri wouldnt have a safe haven. And he effectively cleans out three and a half border counties of western missouri. Had he included kansas, had he cleaned out some of the eastern kansas counties, had he done things differently, the result might have been different. But who was going over to put people off their property . Those federal soldiers were mostly kansans. So missouri sees that as the federal government, but they also see that as kansas doing that to them. That dies hard. Harry truman is one of the most famous examples. His grandmother who wont let him in the house in his blue uniform because she still equated that with the yankees and who famously would not sleep in the lincoln room in the white house and who commented when they would sit down to dinner that some family in kansas was using their good china and their good silver. But thats a great example of how generations later those feelings had not died. I was researching in the library of congress in the newspaper room one day, came across a newspaper in 1856, the london times. The front page of the london times had the headline, war in kansas. The eyes of the world were literally on kansas. And that territorial period was so significant in shaping the war to come. And kansas role in the civil war cannot be overstunted and i think its over overestimated, and i think its overshadowed because you have these big battles in the east, gettysburg and fredericksburg and all these incredibly big battle that overshadow how kansas truly defined the issues, it defined what we would become. You know the entire civil war is about who inherits the mantle of the revolution. Who gets that north or south . Who are we to be . Kansas defines that. Its all hammered out here this kansas. And kansans are the ones who define it after the war when after the, after the homestead act is enacted youve got all these civil war soldiers moving to the to kansas. It becomes known as the soldier state. We are the soldier state long before we are the Sunflower State because of all these civil war veterans coming west. I dont think you can overstate the role of kansas. While in topeka we spoke with d. W. Carter about his book mayday over wichita, which details the worst military aviation disaster in kansas history. I was watching, and all of a sudden the house was shaking and i looked out the window, and our house was on fire. I raced downstairs to get my sisters and brothers out and i put them across the street. I came back to get clothes i couldnt get here fast enough because it looked like everything was getting in my way, and i couldnt realize what was going on. But i start running and screaming up and down the streets until i got here. But i couldnt see my house until i got in the house. The plane crash occurred on january 16, 1965, and it occurs early that morning at around 9 30 a. M. The plane went down at about 20th and pilot street in wichita. It crash landed in a situation typically referred to as the africanamerican community. 97 of the africanamericans were living in this section of witch a that, so it goes down at about 20th and pyatt street, and were talking about a 520foot fireball engulfs this block. Fires everywhere, destructions everywhere and ultimately, 30 lives are lost through this tragedy. I havent found anything in the historical record that says, you know, this is why this story did not get the attention it deserved. But what i did find as i researched it out is there was a lot going on in 1965 america. I address specifically three wars that were occurring in this period. We had the war in vietnam and a massive amount of our troops are headed into vietnam under leadership to be b. Johnson lyndon b. Johnson. We had the war on poverty, and of course, we had the war for equality. So all of that is consuming the headlines for not just 1965, but seemingly the entire decade. Thomas paine once wrote these are the times that try mens souls during the American Revolution well, i say that for the 1960s because these were turbulent times. Everything was happening racism was ubiquitous across the nation. So because of that i think this crash in and of itself just did not get the attention it deserved because it happens in, quoteunquote, small town usa wichita, kansas. I had never been to kansas before, i arrived in 2003. I knew of the wizard of oz and to the o. Toto. So you can imagine me taking in my surroundings and listening to the instructors who were there. They have something called the first term airmens center, and its basically an in briefing. You learn about the is history of the city, and i did. So im hearing about the city and all these things that have happened, and theres a short blurb about this is where the worst nonnatural disaster in missouri occurred, and i said, excuse me, i asked questions and i didnt get the answers that i wanted. And i went to the library and i didnt want get the answers i wanted then. I just could not believe that 30 lives were taken, there is no memorial, and this is and remains the worst nonnatural disaster in this states history, and theres not more on it. That started my initial intrigue. But with deployments to iraq and various other things in the air force, i didnt have time to dive into it more. Well as fate would have it, i became a police officer, and i was stationed right there in that community right by 20th and pyatt. So i got to know these people over the years. I really got to understand their hurts, their tragedies and certainly those misconceptions and myths that were there, and right down the street theres the archives at Wichita State university, and that essentially began the story for me to learn more about it. This is an amazing story from the standpoint of the men in and of themselves, the seven men on that plane, they were never suppose toed to be in butch that. So at the last wichita. At the last minute they get ordered to partake in this unique refueling mission. It was called ironically operation lucky number. So they arrived in wichita on a tuesday which was january 12th. And from that time theyre not able to take off due to weather. They had terrible weather in kansas at the time. And finally on that friday captain smart, hes the leader, the commander of the crew, he asked for approval to take off on that saturday which was january 16th. And it had never been done before, but they said, look we just want to get back home. They were stationed at Clinton Sherman air force base in oklahoma, and they said we just want to get back home. Go ahead, you have approval to do this mission. And what it was, it was a unique refueling mission. The kc135 was supposed to go up and hook up with a b52 bomber, the Long Range Bomber for the air force. And once they hooked up, they were just going to refuel the bomber and head back to Clinton Sherman air force base in oklahoma. The problem arises though on january 16th, that morning again, its about 11 degrees outside. The men arrive at the base well before 8 a. M. They prep the jet they get ready to go, and at 9 27 a. M. They depart. They leave the runway with 31,000 gallons of jet fuel. And about three minutes into the fight, the pilot calls mayday, mayday mayday and theyre never heard from again. And thats, essentially where this story begins. On that january 16th morning with seven men who essentially are fighting for their lives in this plane thats now over wichita and over a crowded neighborhood. These were well conditioned men as far as the air force. The commander had over ten years in the air force. So well seasoned pilots. And thats one of the things that helped with looking at some of the rumors that came about is actually, checking the Service Jacket for captain shuck and captain winseth and how good they were as seasoned pilotings. Sometimes skill doesnt matter. They only had a matter of seconds really, a matter of minutes at first but then seconds to respond and it was simply impossible. So when i first arrived in the neighborhood and started talking to people about this tragedy and asked them, you know, what happened the myth that came out immediately and this is only a few years ago was that it crashed to kill africanamericans. Now, you can understand how that can be stimulated over the years and how that can how that can come about. But it was simply untrue. Thats one of the rumors that came about because a lot of the africanamericans, wichita again, 97 were living in this crumpled section. So the rumor was that the plane crashed on purpose, and it crashed to kill africanamericans. And that was exacerbated by some of the people who came into the community right after the tragedy. There was a complaint that went about, and the complaint was that once the investigators were done, once the police withdrew from the community, there was no one there to really protect victims in the sense of people would come and there were souvenir hunters everywhere, and there were people who were just spreading rumors and saying that they knew the pilotings and they knew why it occurred and so that caused a lot of the victims to be upset. And so these rumors given to stir. Well, it crashed to kill africanamericanings. Well, it crashed because the pilots were inebriated. All these things that are terrible, terrible when you understand the event in the true facts that are there and terrible also, when you understand what the families were going through and to hear these types of things come about. But again thats what happens when theres no one there to clear up the misconceptions, to look at the actual record and to produce a substantive history on it. And thats something i didnt find while i was there and that prompted me to do something about it. So the air force, of course said that, you know our pilots didnt do anything wrong in that sense. They were performing a routine training operation which was a refueling operation and they were right in that sense. They didnt do anything wrong. The federal government had a difficult time responding to this event and i say that in the sense that there was a federal torts claim act that limited the amount of compensation that victims could receive. So there was a 5,000 cap. Thats not a lot. And when you talk about 23 victims on the ground, thats certainly not a lot in compensation that can be issued out. So the federal government had to deal with that. The air force immediately set up reparation payments or 1,000 relief payments in the community. They had a command post right there at about 21st and minnesota. And this was for anyone in the community who had be