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For 50 years they have supported programs like virginia festival of the book reaching nearly every american with opportunities to understand understand understand, celebrate and engage we need your help to urge congress to preserve these entities. Please take five minutes to call your representative after the program. A really does matter. The Virginia Foundation has informational their website so the is that housekeeping so todays authors have written about tragic events by State Government in times of tremendous political as asian in the face of suppression and a confluence of mistakes led to bloodshed totally unexpected as Many Americans now all ponder what behavioral norms and limits that might be disregarded for intense polarization. I will introduce the authors the author of 67 shots has coauthored 10 books clean the first biography of colin powell. As a former columnist and Senior Editor of washington and magazines living in rural virginia. The author of bloody sunday protest Voting Rights in the struggle for racial equality. Professor pratt teaches history at the university of virginia and the author of the color of their skin that is an outstanding blocker a book. Is as university of georgia. Thank you. [laughter] then i said virginia . Does this mean i dont get the letter apex sorry about that. So the first presentation. I stood at the university of virginia many years ago was anybody at kent state 1970 . There are release to people and the crowd. Downtown in the weekend prior. There were 21,000 students at kent state nobody knew that at the Regional University primarily training teachers in those days for the Public Schools in northeast ohio but there are 1,000 people were all this took place in 20,000 elsewhere obviously at that time going to class this. And i know the guy who covered it. So a little bit of a chronology of what and when but the address to the nation Richard Nixon announced contracting the number of u. S. Forces but to be expanded and it would be carried across the of border for the supply line. Any soldier serving of that time was the surprise wasnt already across the border into cambodia but it had expected pullback from colleges and universities across the country and have been tense state prided night friday night there is a bunch of cars downtown and at about 11 00 people started to build fires and garbage cans out in the street started to stop the cars and at 12 00 the gets worse probably of the car of 10 or 5920 people start throwing things through windows the mayor estimates 40,000 worth of damage but two that morning the mayor calls to inquire bringing the National Guard to can stave. Is already 20 minutes away they have lots of fire power over their. In the 5 00 on saturday this is regard shows up. With the army rotc building and then to see that go up in flames gets much worse later. So he tells the press conference that they will no longer treat the symptoms and then to eradicate the problems. Lament to say what reagan said two months earlier california so then more confrontations and tonight and this is Jeffrey Miller he will be dead in 22 minutes. Those are the kids on the hillside that is chanel number five of the protest movement and the commander marches marches and down to the call the sac is a horrible they were asked to do with the leadership they were given. And then that is the practice field so the students are out in front of them. So the guards starts back up the hill and then to a third step away the guard turns then began firing into the crowd and then they are diving for cover you will remember this total is more powerful because that is the moment she realizes she is looking at the dead person. He will be dead in seconds. As dave 14 yearold runaway who wandered into the space because she heard there was a dance club percussion is not political she is jat just caught up in this end why did this happen . So is uh class of 1970 so as a revolt for the campus in just the opposite happened doubly only but the agitators that he lost faith in hoover he did think the fbi give him the people that this of the debut of the whole thing. But there is sad inevitability all of those toxic waters of the 60s and that were slowed together at that one college of artiste ohio when we start to break the story apart uc that will see the horror of what happened the university, the governors office, the students everybody could turn away from this happening in nobody did and then you get to the fruits of this jeff miller 21 years old shot and then shot at it was horrendous. As a freshman was an honor student was in the Honors College she was targeted because she was tall and attractive love side under the arm basically aimed penetrated all of her viscera up. Soleil stop by to see what was happening as the freshman Football Player number to end the rotc class simply standing there between classs and was shot in the thorax. The guy picked him up and threw him backward their army battle rifles it is insane to control what crowd with the army battle rifle m1. This breaks part agate choked up because walking between classs a friend of hers was walking beside her he heard the shooting grabbed her pushed her down and said stay down the shooting stopped he said its okay to get up she was shot from 130 yards away at sniper rage. It breaks your heart. So this is the outcome of old thing. So what happened was strategy for the university to be said that with the wrong equipment and many word during talks about this. And aster do the impossible many did fired guns with a deep regret but of course, ultimately he the various tragedies. And so on the notable turnover to you. Good afternoon i will ask if anybody was in selma 1965 . We talked earlier. I will give you a chronology for the sake of those were not familiar. The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 by president johnson and passed by others but as many as you know, it had the prohibition that was for voting at the last minute so it was apparent that the Voting Rights legislation was needed because especially is the deep south of alabama and mississippi and georgia where the violence was worse so it took the courage of a few people to really make this happen and they wanted to dramatize what was taking place in so much. So the mother of the Selma Movement when i try to do end this book is bring to life of these individual people. Like Martin Luther king and john lewis they figure prominently in the narrative but there are so many other people who put their lives on the line on the daily and nightly e basis. Born in 1911 and 1932 she registered to vote a handful of African American people who could successfully navigate all of the difficulties to try to gather registered in selma if you were black but she had done so. She used for time to help educate other herb black people of the Voting Rights process to get registered as did her husband they were both dedicated civilrights activists. So much so when her husband died 1963, she used the occasion of his funeral to disseminate information about Voting Rights because at the time if you tried to register to vote in the deep south to be murdered the only thing to put your life in greater danger would be if you actively trying to educate and get other people registered. If you were a voter life was in danger but even greater danger if you were organizing a she and her husband were. She used his funeral to do this. So purses a story that comes to life so she actually invited to 22 common to begin a Voter Registration campaign. There was a man named bernard who is still alive he is on the faculty at Emory University in atlanta and his share this story with me and others that he wanted to be in charge of of field project as many young sncc team leaders were but by the time he was sent to raise money and he got back he was told all of the assignments were handed out. He said i dont want to be assistant i want my own project so there was a map of the deep south of the wall with of red x through the state of alabama. He asked why . And they said that is because we have sent people out as scouts in the consensus is the whites are to mean and the negros are too afraid so we think it is best not to pursue anything in alabama. But we had done initial leg work in a place called selma you can check it out if you want to use at all take it. So that is how the sncc base was set up and then asking Martin Luther king, jr. To bring his organization so because of the involvement both of these organizations organizations got to selma so she is the mother of the movement. Followed the events leading up to bloody sunday when several hundred parishioners went to the bridge to march over led by john lewis and mr. Williams. The march from selma to montgomery took place after the of murder in merry in alabama the youngest letter a in his church and was trying to protect his mother and grandfather from being brutalized by policemen on this particular night in which shot by a state trooper twice in the abdomen pointblank. He died eight days later so some of the friends in sncc were angry he was murdered for nothing so with the adb should march with his body all the way from selma to montgomery to dump his body at the foot of the capital so governor wallace can see what his brutality has created. But that was metaphorical as somebody said that is a good idea. Symbolically we will carry him so that is how the idea of the march was born. So when the marchers came facetoface with the state troopers that were ordered by governor wallace and jim clark of Dallas County you know, the rest of the story. Anybody here has not seen the footage . I will share something with you now that you have not seen the issue probably dont know about it because there is a concerted attempt to cover it up. Many people believe the beatings stopped on the bridge. They did not. The state troopers from alabama and Dallas County pursued the merc the marchers back across the bridge into selma baby to them arrested the night with rubber hoses, a barbwire, a couple of journalists on hand and that with the night time defense whites would bring cans of black spraypainted and then sprayed the lenses of the camera so they cannot be recorded so that is what happened but the beatings continued well into the early hours of the next morning. Some of the blacks and whites had sought refuge in nearby church so they ran into the church trying to get away from the policemen and the state troopers thinking they would have refuge and respect the sanctity but they did not and they pursued them fired tear gas inside the church through a 16 yearold boy out through the stainedglass window and the horror of that night i had a conversation with the woman who has not come up in Previous Research but a Living Institution to have the good fortune to talk with her many times over the years pet she was 11 years old on the bridge that day she was not beaten by her 14 yearold sister was. What she remembers the most was the horses and the people were blinded because of the teargas in burns your eyes and lungs and you can see any were disoriented so then they burn running right back into the people they were trying to get away from. There was one instance one woman trying to run away from the state trooper ran directly into the past seven oncoming course had her with such force her head hit the pavement and that is an image she can never forget berger she was 11 years old. And then to be murdered a couple of nights later into misidentified as priest and a receding dinner at of black restaurant that was one of the most notorious establishments the only White Restaurant comerica whites would not go into the were afraid to go into their Research Patrons coming out in this of the white men coming out and they said where are you white niggers going . And they hit the reverend and killed him he would die a few days later. And with the narrative is the hope that if you look at the shenanigans with various writers registration laws these are the battles but that we fought so a couple of voter districts that are found to be in violation and would not be threatened because of gerrymandering and when you had people like President Trump who wins the of popular vote that only gives more fuel to those of the voting restrictions sodium idea is to limit access to the balance of the issues that we thought we had successfully one we found we had not. So the struggle continues. I will ask the authors to questions with quick answers then we will open to questions from the audience. Both the your books describe the great disparities and in National Attitudes that very toward the race of the victim. And he just mentioned the killing of the unitarian minister that made a much Greater National attention and the killings of many similar blacks clergymen and activists. Talking about the difference between kent state and jackson state in the shootings that have been there so could you talk about those disparities and attitudes . As a followup comment on the Current Black Lives Matter Movement how that ties into the disparities of attitudes. One of the moments in this book there were virtually no black students at kent state who took part in the protest against the vietnam war not because they didnt have feelings but once the guard caught on campus they could see the danger where blacks and been subjected to Police Brutality the white kids were for rural places that had a naive view of the world so the moment on saturday night the cafeteria is open and a group of black students walked in and in herington he was in charge of the cafeteria here were all of the black panthers rushing in to set the table and said you see as here we are not out there we are here. They wanted to have a witness they were there for but the moment they said that the building catches on fire and it is filled with flames. It is a powerful moment. As for jackson state vs. Kent state everybody says this cannot happen again on may 4th but then selmas bloody sunday jackson state to students were killed Mississippi State policeman policeman, highway patrolman there is of riot because the rumor has swept the campus there was another murder. The students go into protest mode early in the morning of may 15 the police decide they have had enough space sprayed the front of the campus with 100 and 58 automatic grounds and killed two people in the process. Some of you may have occurred but jackson state is a one day even to but the commission does say long steady of both campuses on violence and it devotes between 70 and 75 and 25 to jacksons day and i say in the book sadly it is true that kent state and jackson was dog bite me and typists story for the highway patrolman to spray africanamericans with gunfire was horrible and reprehensible but it was too common of a story the press did not spend much time on it. One of the things that incurred the wrath of the civilrights activist during this period was a double standard the with the federal government for the general public would perceive the death of the white and black activists with the special status or sanctity applied to the white life that was not assigned to the black life. Anybody in philadelphia 1964 . With those workers went missing . The fbi sent down hundreds of agents literally looking for two white boys so they came looking and in the process they found several of the bodies of the blacks murdered that had been missing for years. But it elicited very interest little interest in the press there was no interest because they were black which prompted a lot of anger from sncc activists especially carmichael and it is move when any of us are killed but we see a government move only when white people are killed. So do have a similar dynamic whose death is the catalyst for the march itself there was no public outcry or the acknowledgement from the president Lyndon Johnson so when the unitarian minister james reed calls his but so to have his own private plane they get the state treatment and they get no response all from the government for the approval berger of Jimmie Lee Jackson similarly the only white woman that happen to be killed for the Civil Rights Movement because she is white there are daily conversations with j. Edgar hoover about how we need to wrap this up very quickly. But once hoover found out when she had a black male passenger with her a lot of people think she came to selma one time but she was an activist for years a number of the naacp, she came to selma and 65 because she said she was called to come so she would work with black families in the leading up to bloody sunday in the night the march was concluded she was faced with a daunting task to get