Booktvs web site, booktv. Org. Host tavis smiley, you list jesus christ and paul robison, two of your influences. Guest yeah. Thats quite a pair, isnt it . [laughter] i was raised in a church as i mentioned earlier pentacostal church, and ive said for all of my life that i call them the three fs, the things that mean the most to me, faith family and friends in that order. I wrote a book called keeping the faith, i close my show on pbs by saying thanks for watching im tavis smiley, keep the faith. Im always trying to remind people that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Thats what faith and hope really are, the evidence of things hoped for the hope of things, but even when you dont have the evidence to see how things are going to work out its always possible. I make a distinction all the time, and heres why i say keep the faith all the time i make a distinction between optimism and hope. Optimism suggests theres a particular set of facts circumstances or conditions, optimism suggests theres something you can see feel or touch that gives you reason to believe things are going to get better, and thats not where i live most of the time. Hope, on the other hand, says even when you cant see the next step in the dark stair welshing you take that step well, you take that step believing that its going to be there. You can, in fact, build a whole life on hope. So hope and faith are terribly important to me. That comes from my abiding faith, and i thank my mother and father for introducing me to that. Every one of us who happens to be a believer, i didnt come here to prosthelytize, but every one of us has to have something to believe in. And for me personally there are just moments in my life when but i dont have all the answers, and i cant see my way through and dont know how its going to work out. And for me my abiding faith is terribly important. So paul robeson, who you mentioned a moment ago, we talked about that earlier with one of the callers, paul robeson was a truth teller and never shied away from speaking the truth. And they did everything they could to destroy paul robeson. I mean, literally. The story of paul robeson is one that just sends shivers down my spine every time i consider it. And ive been fortunate over the course of my life to be friends with two very important people very close to me. I have lunch with them fairly regularly because he lives in l. A. And the other i never go to new york he doesnt come to l. A. Without us getting together. And the two of them are good can friends, and both of them are from the islands, sydney poitier studyny poitier and Harry Belafonte. I only raise that not to drop these name but i only raise it because you cannot talk to Sidney Poitier for five minutes without him raising his teacher paul robeson. And you cannot talk to Harry Belafonte for, like, two and a half minutes without belafonte raising the name of paul robeson. So aside from the history books and all all the stuff ive read or seen about paul robeson i feel like for at least 25 years sitting at poitier and belafontes feet, ive come to here firsthand and know so much about this man paul robeson courtesy of poitier and belafonte. Host you mentioned earlier, mr. Smiley, that you attend a black church. Guest uhhuh. Host what does that mean, a black church, and do you care to tell which one . Guest yeah. I grew up in a Little Church in indiana called new Bethel Tabernacle a little small church. And i loved growing up in a little, small church. Couple hundred people, on a good sunday. But i loved growing up in a small church that was very familial. In l. A. For most of my life in l. A. Have gone to a much larger church, the city of refuge. My former minister passed away, and when the new minister came in we moved to a new facility kind of changed the name to city of refuge, but thats where i spent most of my youth. Ive only been to two churches, one in indiana one in california. I dont do a lot of moving around pretty stable guy. Theyre both pentacostal tradition. And again, as ive grown older, there are things even in my own teaching that i have issue with from time to time. I sometimes feel for catholics who, you know are always wrestling with Church Doctrine and this and that and the other. I dont have those kinds of consternations, but i you know i have had the experience of growing older and coming out of a very Strict Church environment like, you know if i were still true to the church i grew up in, i couldnt go to the movies or to a ball game. I think some of those things takes this sufficient a little this stuff a little too far, and i think these are manmade rules and not necessarily gods rules for our live. So my faith is still always has been and always will be the most important thing in my entire life. Host your book keeping the faith, you open by saying this is a book about black love. Guest yeah. I wrote that book specifically because we dont hear just you saying that phrase hit me. How often do we hear the phrase black love . Say that again on cspan. Black love. Black love. We hear about blackonblack crime, we hear about the blackonblack stats for the achievement gap. We hear about black this and black that. But how often do you hear black president. But even when you talk about the black president we dont ever get to a conversation about the black love thats exhibited this that family with michelle and sasha and measuring ali malia. I live again as i said earlier in los angeles. Whens the last time you saw a movie about black love . Theres a movie that was out this year beyond the lights same sister who did the movie love and basketball some years ago. Wonderful film about the power and the beauty of black love. And it couldnt really get off the ground. So theres something about the nation, about our psyche, about our expectation that doesnt allow us to revel in black love. And so i wanted to do a book about the power of black love. So this book keeping the faith is about the love that africanamericans specifically have been the beneficiaries of that got them through all kinds of difficult situations and got them out of rock in hard places and got them through all kinds of test and trials and tribulations. The whole book is about the power of love to pull you through any situation that you go through. Host lets go back to calls. David is in memphis. David, this is in depth on booktv, and youre talking with tavis smiley. Caller great. Mr. Smiley, i want you to know that you and brother cornel west are a great light on the hill and you must continue to use your platform to educate the world. I love you. Guest thank you. Caller for what you have done. Youre not afraid to tell the truth, and thats this is what were supposed to do. So my office is going to call you. I love you brother. Guest thank you, i appreciate it. Caller ive got the word with you. God bless you. Guest thank you, thank you. See, thats black love. [laughter] every mow and then you can get every now and then you can get some of that. Its nice to get a little love on cspan every night. Host is in harrisburg or, pennsylvania. Hi lance. Caller hello. Guest hey, lance. Caller hello . Guest hello. Caller hey, thank you guys for taking my call. Mr. Smiley, i just want to tell you i appreciate definitely appreciate the work that you do. Guest thank you. Caller dont always necessarily agree concern. Guest thats okay. Caller but definitely appreciate your approach and everything. Im a 48yearold africanamerican male. I own a barbershop, and my clientele is probably 40 white, 40 black and another 20 other. And lately here with the controversies going on with the police in the news and everything, weve been having some really great conversations. And i just wanted maybe some suggestions for you on how to approach and facilitate the conversation without looking like the angry black male and driving my clientele away and losing money. Guest yeah. First of all host lance, before mr. Smiley answers, do you get different points of view from your white clientele and your black clientele . Is it pretty consistent . Guest yes. Yeah, it is. People meet in here that wouldnt normally talk or meet because you have a half hour, 45 minutes to an hour that normally they wouldnt meet and engage one another on the street or wherever else. I have a platform that im able to do that and i want to be evenhanded and not too, you know, like i said seem to come off angry although im very passionate about it. Guest first of all, i celebrate the barbershop, i just want to say first of all. I love the barbershop. Im fortunate often times the barber will come to me, i love and make it a point as regularly as i can to go into the barbershop because there aint in place in america like the black barbershop, the conversations, the relationships. And im just struck by you saying your shop is 40 black 40 white. Thats a beautiful thing. Barbershops are where these kinds of conversations can be fruitful. So im just excited to know that youve got a shop thats that sort of integrated and you can have these kinds of crosscultural conversations. I think thats a beautiful thing. So much of whats wrong with our country is were so often engaged in monologue that we dont ever have enough dialogue. Too much monologue in america not enough dialogue so im glad you are a place that can facilitate that kind of dialogue. To your question specifically lance, about what i would suggest, and i say this with all humility, i think the ultimate question here, the ultimate issue that we have to get to on these issues that you raised is the issue of humanity. The humanity and the dignity that all life must be afforded. Thats the bottom line. So much of what we deal with in our daily lives even with these Police Shootings to me is not as much about black and white as it is about wrong and right and why we seem not to have the kind of respect for the humanity and the dignity of all of our fellow citizens. My point very sum my is whenever simply is whenever you are engaged in a conversation, and i offer this as humbly as i can, if you can get the conversation on the terrain of humanity, it changes everybodys points of view. If its about race or its about class, you know, or anything, any other extraneous factor then the conversation will go a thousand different directions, and theres nothing wrong with that. Its good to have different conversations, we can hear evens point of view. But if you can ever get the conversation to center on the dignity and the humanity of whomever is in question then the conversation puts everybody on front street when you when you circle around to that. So thats my advice hope that helps, and one day id like to come hang out at your barbershop. Host tavis smiley, he used the grade angry black man, is that something he should avoid . Guest ive been called that a few times including a couple times on this program today ive been called an angry black man by one of our callers. Thats par for the course. I used to get upset put it another way i used to get angry when i was referred to as an angry black man, and now it rolls off my back like water off a ducks back because when people call me angry, if by calling me an angry black man what they mean is that they sense and feel from me and receive from me a righteous indignation, theres isaac hayes once said i stand accused. Im guilty as charged. If you if you regard me as an angry black man but what youre talking about is a righteous indignation, i stand accused of that. There are things about which i am righteously indig in a minute, things about which i am angry and quite frankly, i dont think how might i put this peter, i dont think we ever come into the fullness of our own humanity if we cant revel in the humanity and the dig any dignity, as i said a moment ago, of every other fellow citizen. And theres no way that you can live in this country and be blind to the injustices the indignities, the contestation of too many fellow citizens humanity and just look the other way. There are too many people in this country whose humanity is being contested every single day. By any other by any other name, you know homophobia is the contestation of somebodys humanity. Ageism is the contestation of somebodys humanity. Sexism and patriarchy is the contestation of somebodys humanity, and i dont think you come into your own humanity in full or in toto if you cant real and celebrate the humanity of other people. So for me, there are a lot of things im righteously indignant about, and if you call me an angry man and think im mad about x y or z, then again, as i said, i stand accused. Host tim in los angeles hi, tim. Caller hey, how you doing . Thank you. The reason im calling is because recently you guys mentioned the education in america, and i just wanted to know if mr. Tavis smiley could comment on what could be done to improve the situation for our young black men and women growing up in america and going to school and this to whole thing. That was all. Guest yeah. Its a good question and there are so many answers to it, and i know there a constitutional amendment that would guarantee every child in this Country Access to an equal high quality education. So think of automatic constitutional amendments and all the all the constitutional amendments and all the guarantees we have to free speech to carry weapons and all the other rights we have as americans. Why is it that in this country every child no matter what state youre born in, no matter what color you are what county you live in, why is it that every child in this country is not guaranteed access to an equal, high quality education . That doesnt mean that youre trying to judge outcomes. But why doesnt every child in this country at least start at the same place . We got 50 states and 50 different way of educating children, but nobody is guaranteed access to an equal, high quality education. So the next question is how do you figure out what that is . The answer is, it doesnt matter to me. Whatever the best education is in this country that we can agree on, whatever the students in the schools that are regarded as the best, whatever they get lets give that to every country in this country. We can file the standard. What we think the is and whatever the best students have access to in this country what every child ought to have access to. And, again, i offer for your consideration what would happen and how education in this country might dramatic create change. Somebody once said, peter, if Benjamin Franklin came back, the only thing hed recognize is the Education System because it aint changed much in all these years. But i think its going to take something radical to change our Education System. So again i ask you to consider what would happen if we had a constitutional amendment that would guarantee every child in this Country Access to an equal, high quality education. Host in your book fail up, you write the story about Sarah Jane Olson and your history relationship with bet. What is that history . Guest that is a long and sordid story. Youve got good questions peter, that take hours to answer sometimes. So the short answer is after working with tom joyner on working every day, urban radio, i had the opportunity to go to bet to host a talk show that i hosted for five years on black entertainment television, and it was the combination of tom joyners morning show in the morning and bet at night that made me a household name in black america heard in every major market in the country. At his height nine ten million listeners every morning, and im the resident commentator on that program and more watching every night on bet. So you got radio and tv covered in black america eventually youre going to become a household name and thats how i got exposed to my own community and then came pbs and npr and all the other stuff later on. So thats where i started to get my work done. After five years or being on bet, i had an opportunity for an exclusive interview, as you mentioned, with Sarah Jane Olson who had been accused of trying to kill a cop in los angeles. This interview again, long story short, kind of fell into my lap. I wasnt looking for it, but everybody was chasing this interview. Dan rather Diane Sawyer Barbara Walters everybody was trying to get this woman to do the interview. Why . Because she was a white soccer mom who was living in the twin cities who got pulled over one day for a routine traffic stop and was discovered to be this woman who had been on the run for 30 some years, on the fbis most wanted list. Shes a soccer mom, married with kids now living in, again the twin states but for years twin cities, but for years nobody knew where she was. Routine traffic stop for a back light that was out. They run fingerprints and, lo and behold, its Sarah Jane Olson. And so anyway i got the interview that everybody was chasing, and bet had been sold at the time to viacom. Viacom also owned cbs then and now. So this interview was the kind of story that wasnt really going to resonate with my black audience on bet, so i was looking for another outlet since i had the interview, the exclusive, another outlet to broadcast the interview. So since viacom had bought bet and they also owned cbs i first go to cbs and say ive got this interview, and im happy to sell it to cbs but let me do it on 48 hours, whatever, 60 minutes, give me a place to do the interview, but ill do it on cbs because ive got the exclusive. Oh, you dont have it, dan rathers going to get that. I said, you dont understand, its on tape. Cbs says show me some of the tape. I showed them some of the tape. Three times cbs passed on the interview because rather and others i love dan rather its not about rather, but the network was trying to get the interview for their big guy, dan rather. They didnt want to give tavis smiley the interview. But iez already done it and taped it. Cbs passed three times, i went to abc, they bought it. It aired on abc. It killed on the ratings and next morning the people at viacom woke up and said why did we get beat so bad last night and they found out they had this big, exclusive interview with tavis smiley. And they said, well, doesnt he work for us . Hes on bet, our network. How did this happen . And they started trying to unravel the story and eventually i got fired for doing an interview on abc which cbs had turned down three times. But most importantly, my contract with bet allowed me to do independent productions. So i was never in violation of my contract. But somebody had to be the fall guy, and so i got fired. And missouri yahoo angelou maya angelou as i discuss in my journey with maya, theres a wonderful story of the book of the night when she calls me when the news breaks that i got fired by bet. This was in time magazine, the New Yo