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I'm Cally Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. Is Republican the new black. The election of President Obama brought black conservatives to the foreground. A force that had largely been under the radar until his ascent to the White House. Well blacks have been a card carrying Republican since the days of Frederick Douglass. Today's political scene places them on some interesting ideological turf. With Michael Steele at the helm of the RNC and Sarah Palin anchoring the newest political party on the block where are black conservatives fitting in. Is a weakened Michael Steele failing to uphold the values that appeal to many black Republicans. Does the right leaning Tea Party seem to be white leaning or is President Obama's race transcended right vs. left ideology. We've got a roundtable of black conservatives to take on these issues. From there it's on to the fate of the bound and printed page. Up next from black conservatives to the conservation of books. First the news from NPR News in Washington on CORBA Coleman President Obama says the world faces more danger from nuclear weapons. He has opened the Nuclear Security

Summit in Washington with this warning. The risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down. But the risk of nuclear attack has gone up. Nuclear materials that could be sold or stolen. And fashioned into a nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations. The summit comes a few days after Mr. Obama signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. And reports suggest China may be more open to developing new world sanctions against Iran which has rejected the United Nations demand to explain more about its nuclear program. China has been reluctant to increase sanctions. And today Mexico agreed to refine the fuel in its research reactor from highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium. First lady Michelle Obama has arrived in Haiti accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden's wife Jill. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports from Port au Prince. The pair will tour homeless encampments and they'll be briefed on relief and reconstruction efforts following the massive earthquake in January.

It's been a rough three months in Haiti since the 7.0 earthquake killed more than 200000 people. Hundreds of thousands of residents remain homeless and live in ragged encampments totally dependent on outside aid for food and water. Monday Haitian President Rene Preval defended his government's handling of the earthquake. He said wealthier countries than Haiti like Italy and China continue to struggle to care for victims in their respective nations. A survey of Haitians conducted on behalf of the aid group Oxfam showed that an overwhelming number of residents do not have faith that their government can handle reconstruction without significant international assistance. And as was the case even before the earthquake the majority of Haitians believe that job creation and education should be the top priority of their government. Carrie Kahn NPR News Port au Prince. Especially election is being held today in Florida to fill the seat of retiring Congressman Robert Wexler from Miami. NPR's Greg Allen reports. The 19th Congressional district is heavily Democratic. It includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach County.

After serving 13 years Congressman Wexler announced he was retiring to take a job as head of a Mideast think tank the Washington based Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation. The candidates include Democratic state Senator Ted Deutch who was endorsed by Wexler and Republican Ed Lynch. A contractor who's tried to make a vote on President Obama's health care overhaul also on the ticket is Jim McCormick a candidate with no party affiliation. The winner of the race will serve the remaining seven months of Websters term and immediately have to start campaigning for the November election. Greg Allen NPR News Miami. The stock market has turned positive the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up six points. Led by gains in General Electric. It's now at eleven thousand eleven. You're listening to NPR News. Astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery have installed a new storage tank on the International Space Station. It took three spacewalks to finish the hook up. The tank carries ammonia but there's been a glitch one of the tanks valves is stuck and it can't be pressurized properly. Now the engineers are

working on the problem. The discovery will remain docked at the international station until Saturday. The International Committee of the Red Cross reports eight staffers have been kidnapped in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lisa Slyne reports from Geneva. The staffers were abducted in a volatile southern province. The Red Cross reports the Swiss delegate and seven Congolese staff members were seized near the town of fees in South K-Ville province by my Majaw Katoomba rebels. The delegates had just completed a mission to assess the needs of displaced people in the area when they were kidnapped. A Red Cross official says the agency has been in touch with some of the delegates and their families have been briefed on the situation. The South Keeble area where the ICRC staff is being held has been the scene of violent clashes in recent months causing thousands of people to flee their homes. The Red Cross is the man in the group holding its staff release them as quickly as possible. For NPR News I'm Lisa Geneva.

Thailand's prime minister is staying in military barracks as thousands of anti-government protesters fill the streets of Bangkok. They want the prime minister to quit and he won't. The standoff has lasted for weeks and has taken a new turn. Yesterday Thailand's election commission ordered the prime minister's ruling Democratic Party to break up. The commission determined the party illegally concealed campaign donations and must be dissolved. I'm CORBA Coleman NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from Kauffman the foundation of entrepreneurship supporting the entrepreneurs movement. Learn more at. Build a stronger America. Dot com. Good afternoon. I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show with Sarah Palin descending on Boston tomorrow. Tea Partiers in tow and Chairman Steele floundering at getting heat from his peers. We're looking at where black Republicans fall in the political and ideological spectrum. Joining us today our Princella Smith

Robert Fortes and Lenny McAllister. Princella Smith is a Republican running for a state rep for Arkansas's first district. Lenny McAllister is a political commentator and author of Diary of a Mad Black proud young conservative. And Robert Fortes is a political strategist who worked on the Scott Brown campaign. Welcome to all of you. Thank you. Now some listeners we want to hear from you. Do you see your values represented in the Grand Ole in the Grand Old Party or the Tea Party or are you a black conservative looking for a leader. And I found your views represented by Michael Steele or Sarah Palin. Give us a call at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 that's 8 7 7 3 0 1. Eighty nine seventy Princella and let me I'm going to have to start off with Robert for its because the news of the day is that Scott Brown is not attending the Tea Party. Rally here tomorrow and I wanted to get your response to it as someone who worked for him.

Well your Certainly Well first thanks for having me on the show it's a real pleasure to be here. I think you know I think sort of round answered this question already I think he has other commitments and business in the Senate that he needs to attend to. Smart move. I think so I think. I think there are probably folks who are who have a picture with him standing next to Sarah Palin in this state. And you know Massachusetts is although it's not extreme left to state folks outside of it believe it to be it is an independent state. And when Scott ran he said he was going to be the end of the pendant for years for Massachusetts and I think that's exactly what he's been so far and what he will continue to do. And I think he wants to make sure that when he runs for full term 10 years from now that he's demonstrated that. OK well now you know a lot of people are mad at him because they feel that the group of Tea Partiers However they identify themself identified you know came through for him and that put him in that seat.

Sure. Sure absolutely. I know there are a lot of folks including Tea Partiers who are manning our our phone banks and knocking on doors and working very hard for us. But if they're working hard for us then they were working hard for Scott's message and I think Scott's message was that he was going to put Massachusetts first. And I think by taking care of business in the Senate and taking care of the commitments that he has for the state he's doing exactly that and they should not be upset about that. So he stayed on message Robert. OK so let me end Princella I want to get both of you in on this conversation. I have two warring poles taken. One is entitled Tea Partiers are fairly mainstream in their demographics and this one says that Tea Party supporters skew right politically was done by Gallup. But demographically they are generally representative of the party public at large. And this was a USA Today Gallup poll which was conducted March 26 to 28 and with 28 percent of U.S. adults who call themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement which I thought was interesting Now here's the other one. This came out last week. And these are data points from the Center for

Survey Research at the University of Washington the Tea Party the incipient movement that claims to be committed to reining in what they perceive as big government appears to be motivated by more than partisanship and ideology. Approximately 45 percent of whites either strongly or somewhat approve of the movement. Of those only 35 percent believe blacks to be hardworking. Only 45 percent believe blacks are intelligent and only 41 percent think that blacks are trustworthy. Same thing about Latinos 54 percent of white tea party supporters believe Latinos to be hardworking. Only 44 percent think they're intelligent and even fewer 42 percent believe them to be trustworthy. Lenny you want to weigh in on both of those surveys and give me your response. Well it's interesting that both of those polls would come out now I would say that the numbers in regards to some of the races change that may be on the fringes of the Tea Party. Those polls are going to indicate that but we've talked about this plenty of times some of the inappropriate signs that are out there political satire and racist satire are completely two different things and there's

definitely been elements of both involved in the Tea Party the political satire people need to just understand that this is gone back as far back as president George Washington the racial aspect of this has been addressed by multiple black Republicans and black conservatives in the sense that we have said we're not going to tolerate it it needs to go from the Tea Party and we've heard everybody from John Boehner Michael Steele and others say the same exact thing. Now in regards to the demographics being similar to what we see in America I think that's not that much of a surprise I mean one of the things that people continuously overlook is the same group of quote unquote white races that are involved with these Tea Party movements throughout the country are of the same age of folks particularly here in the South that were helping to desegregate schools helping to desegregate lunch counters and the like. So there is this interesting dynamic where the same folks that helped bring about civil rights the same folks that are coming to tea parties with biracial grandchildren. Are now being called racist so when I go in I'm speaking as a key note speaker at tea parties throughout the country. When

I'm talking to these conservatives that are upset with both the Republican and Democratic parties and their supporting sound great young candidates such as Princella Smith they look at this and say Lenny why are we being criticized as being racist. And this is why they're wearing one of my pins wearing one of Princella pins or are talking about the candidacy of Ryan Frazier others that they can stand behind regardless of race but on principles that go back to their political philosophies. OK here's here's what makes it so difficult for a lot of people to to balance this is that here's a quote from Mark Williams blog now Mark Williams is the leader of the Tea Party large tea party group coming out of Nashville so that's the area of the South that both you and Princella are in the south and this guy has been on the phone all week here in preparation leading up to the Tea Party rally here and this is his quote Be Hussein Obama took power on the same kinds of hateful ideology and is engaging in nothing different than did mass murderers like Stalin and Pol Pot.

The only thing missing is the forced death marches and gulags. Oh but wait. Obama's death panels and union provided goon squads will take care of that. Princella I think you can understand where people are like Well come on. I mean if that's not satire right I mean look I I can address this. Party from various levels I can address it from the level of when they first started I can address it from the level of an activist and I can just see it from the from the level of being a candidate which I am right now. So let's just start at the top when the Tea Parties first started and I think this is where you know the media. All the message gets muddled when the Tea Party first started it was in 2008 and it was long before anyone knew that President Obama would be the nominee or that he or that he would be the next president. The astounding outrage came from the spring summer and fall bailout that had occurred under the Bush administration's watch and.

In the mix of the Tea Partiers you did have a lot of people who are right of center because the right of center platform is to be fiscally responsible. So you did have a lot of that but you had a lot of Democrats too who were just angry at the inefficiency and the irresponsibility of government. There were people who were not thinking about a red or a blue or a D or an R who were just serious that certain people got bailouts but they didn't. I saw a small business owner on a particular talk show and he said where's my bailout. If I can't make payroll at the end of the month I just can't make payroll. I have to come from something if I can't pay my bills I just can't pay my bills. That's it I have to shut my business down. Why is it that Wall Street and these you know huge fat cats get bailouts and we don't and so that frustration that initial frustration was a group of people that said we have had enough and it was not partisan. I got one of the first Tea Party invite on Facebook. I'll never forget it because there are maybe two people in the group. And I said

What is this. You know I wasn't really sure. I read about. It said OK maybe it'll catch on. Next thing I know as an activist when I was the national spokesperson for American Solutions were Newt Gingrich was the founder. I was being asked to headline that first round of Tea Party or tea parties as a speaker and we did it in Washington D.C. and there were several people with different backgrounds double races. I didn't see anything racist held up. I heard no epithet. There were several. We had Hispanics we had African-Americans we had whites we had women we had young we had all and there were people who were just frustrated with the inefficiency of government. OK then now as a candidate obviously the Tea Party movement has grown sufficiently and you have a lot of people who to to the media who want to play that. Up a certain way it's like these people are magazine and when the election is not truth the same spirit that brought in the Tea Party is the same spirit that holds it right now. Inefficiency of government overreaching legislation and and

spending that is about to push our deficit to the ceiling of fourteen point six trillion dollars. Now if you want to take a few isolated incidents which the media loves to do and trust me as a person who has done over you know over 250 national media hit TV you know TV radio print as somebody that's very familiar with that Maine a former communications director. I know that the media is very good at taking isolated incidences and making that appear to be the base of whatever it is. OK. And I just want to say this now I see all these pictures of Obama and people coming in with with racial Stajan and such but I've been to several Tea Parties where that wasn't the case. And I want to say this right now to anyone who is using the tea parties now as a way to vent your frustration that there's an African-American president. You have missed the point of the Tea Party because the overwhelming majority of them don't contain that type of material and they don't condone that type of behavior. I know

I've been bigoted many of them as I've been campaigning and I have their support in Arkansas. We are talking with black Republicans I want to make clear to my listeners I've asked them to to speak about the tea parties but they are Republicans. Princella Smith Lenny McAllister and Robert Forward's. I think what's hard for people who look at it from the outside and particularly other African-Americans they say look OK I'll see that a lot of these people have all of the frustrations that you said are angry and you know policies blah blah blah but they don't see Lenny to your point anough distancing publicly from whether you see it and all of the places or not but there are a lot of elements here that are frankly racist and they don't see the distancing and they wonder why how African-Americans can be a part of that without that distancing. Robert you want to weigh in on that. Sure. I think it's you know it's tough. When you talk about the distancing part because as you know folks who may want to get on TV or radio or do an interview condemning

any type of racial action the actions that they may see coming from wherever it may not get that opportunity to do so. And you know as when the media has a story that they want to run with they want to show a particular side. They may not be able to you know get their voice heard on the other side. So it's tough. All right well we're going to come back and have more of this conversation. I am talking about black Republicans with Princella Smith Lenny McAllister and Robert Ford and they are all black Republicans. We'll be back after this break. Stay with us. It's eighty nine point seven WGBH. With the. With the.

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I'm Kelly Crossley and we're looking at black Republicans in the context of today's political climate. We're joined by Princella Smith she's a Republican running for state rep for Arkansas first district. Lenny McAllister he's a political commentator and author of Diary of a Mad Black Sea proud young conservative. And Robert Fortes a political strategist who worked on the Scott Brown campaign. Now we were talking about the Tea Party before the break and I just want to ask this question of Lenny and Princella do you feel you have more prestige at these tea party events because you're black in your presence in some way contradicts the notion that the Tea Party is all white or all races or does that just not even on the table for you. Let me well let me let me start with this I think Princella is per stage comes from her or her background I think people see her she's a young congressional candidate she is a former communications director for a congressman and she's worked with Newt Gingrich who is

obviously a one of the 20 late 20th century conservative icon so she comes with her own cache to the table. Well you know actually I mean yourself. Well we're all trying to be Princella Smith one of these days when I grow up so. But with that said in my pursuit of trying to be as good as Princella. I think what ends up coming to the table with me is the inability to articulate a conservative message that transcends not just race but you've got to understand. You look back to 2008 convention up in Minnesota. Part of the criticism as well was age was that the Republican Party was going to age itself out of existence and relevancy when it came to American politics so when you start having these young conservatives coming to the podium shaking hands articulating the conservative message and in the process talking about respect the president even when you disagree with the president we have to love our all Americans even if we disagree with them passionately on the issues and that we are one big team and Ghana goes back to smaller

government bigger people you have to talk about the role of people taking a more influential stance with bridging these gaps while articulating the conservative message when you can do that successfully. Again race gets transcended and people are excited about hearing conservatives that can do that in a way that excites the base in a way that we haven't been excited like this in quite some time. Now let me you're known as the Hip Hop Republican for folks who don't know so you you are definitely taking on the whole age piece as all of you all are directly. What do you say. You know a lot of black folks let's face it most of them are Democrats or more and more are becoming independents. But how do you get them to understand what drew you to the Conservative Party. We have to talk about what are conditions within black America look like particularly over the last 50 to 75 years under Democratic control of our urban environments and asked the question seriously is there an opportunity to

take a different path to bring a different result. We cannot continue to condone or acquiesce to the destruction of black America the continued destruction of our families and the hopelessness that we see in Chicago Boston my hometown of Pittsburgh even here in Charlotte as far west as Los Angeles through the Democratic leadership's that we see in town councils city councils and even state legislatures. We have to start addressing that and saying that through hip hop Republicanism nouveau Republicanism there is a way to take conservative solutions apply them the urban problems and bring about a new sense of hope and prosperity for urban residents particularly black America in a way that reflects our history politically which was of course conservative leaning and affiliated with the Republican Party for most of our time to when we were able to vote in be involved politically. Now Princella there are about 30 to Republic black Republicans running for office and you're one of them of course. I mean you you left the stage of communicating and

really got decided to jump into the race. Some people were saying all of you all are inspired by Obama's run and win. Well that's you know it's I understand that there's the direct conclusion that people want to draw but it's fairly annoying to me. I've got to say because I know at least four or five personally of those people running and many of many of the African-American Republicans that are running is kind of goes back to a Lenny said have already built their own reputation. They've already kind of you know started their own track I mean for example you know Ana Linny is running for office before and right now he has a lot more national recognition but this started a while back. It's the same difference with everyone else. You know and on the ground in Mississippi Allen West in Florida you know me in Arkansas and there's a few that are scattered out. All of us had our own tracks in our own pathways made leading up to this time now. Am I proud of the fact that our country elected the first African-American president. Of

course I think that shows tremendous progress. We're one of the only countries in the world that can in less than a century you know flip the script so the speak get I mean Dr. King got shot in 1968 and in 2008 we elected the first African-American president. So that's very extremely fast progress for an entire country. So I I understand the sensationalism of saying OK now all black Republicans all of the sudden emboldened because there's a black president. But it's kind of silly because in most of us are running for different reasons and out of different timeframes and we just happen to be ready. And my particular situation for the first district of Arkansas I was asked several times to run for the seat because I was so active in politics so early at such a young age. And I would have the job back at them. I'm not old enough. You have to be 25 to run for Congress. I'm 26. So really I'm just now old enough to run for it and the

experiences that I've had been what I saw happen on Capitol Hill when I was working on Capitol Hill all of that coupled together kind of played into me wanting to take this leap right now and here's the thing to do. It's not about us. And I think that is us meaning meaning us meaning. I'm saying as even as candid it's not about us. It whether it's to us meaning black or young or female or white or whatever it is that you think you bring to the table that that's different depending on where you're running. It's not about that it's about I have noticed overwhelmingly that the questions I've been getting have more to do with integrity. And secondly it has to do with policy integrity is number one. Are you going to go to Washington D.C. and change. Are you really going to do what you're saying you're going to do. Are you really going to introduce that kind of legislation are you really going to vote this kind of way. And if. Who. It's whoever can convince the masses that they're sincere

whoever can convince the masses that they're going to go to Washington D.C. and work on their B have debts is going to win. And I want to warn any Republicans listening right now this is not a. All of a sudden everybody's running to the Republican Party we all love Republicans and so everybody's going to win and we're going to throw in a bunch of minorities and we're just going to come in and there's going to be this sweep. I'm sorry to burst anybody's bubble. That's not what's going on here. America is tired. We have an alarming number of growing people who have left whatever party it was and said I'm now an independent now. Yes you and I both know you either lean right or left. Most of the time. But they're so independent what because they've been disappointed by both parties. Exactly. Nobody's running like magic bullet that's what I mean let me bring Robert that's exactly the point I know. Yeah I mean yes Robert was Robert Ford You were a strategist for Scott Brown's campaign he was a valued independent even though Republican right.

So is that how you see yourself as a black Republican. I mean you know you are Republican but I am a Republican but I you know I have run for office before I ran for city council last year. And when I told people in that race is you know I'm a Republican and I'm very proud to be a Republican but look at me as Robert Ford. And what I want to do and the things that I care about. So in that faint Yes I tend to have that independent streak in me when I talk about doing what's right for my constituents doing what's right for my city and my state. How do you how do you deal with being a curiosity. You know as we've talked the majority of African-Americans are not Republicans. You know I just continue to be myself and when folks ask me you know well you know I mean the next part of that is are you a sellout Are you a traitor what I want you to know. So I think you know in Boston you know in Massachusetts you know at this point time in politics you know I don't you know thankfully I don't get that to my face

anyway a whole lot. But you know we have a little bit of history here in Massachusetts. You know my hero the person that I have tried to emulate in my political life was Brooke Burke who is a Republican and black black Republican and he got elected to statewide office for the first time in 1962 when he was elected to Attorney General and then went on to a great career in the United States Senate. So you know when folks hear me talk about things that I care about doing which is helping people of all races but especially African-Americans especially those who are under the gun economically the things that I want to do as far as education public education reform improving our system of closing the achievement gaps. Folks hear me talking about things like that and talking with a passion they say they see that I care and I think hopefully they take another look at the Republican Party and why it is I am a Republican.

OK. The most well-known black Republican right now is taking a little bit of heat recently. Last week in an interview with Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos Michael Steele chairman of the Republican National Committee weighed in on the intersection of race and politics. Do you feel that as an African-American you have a slimmer margin for error than another chairman would. The honest answer is yes. Why is that. It just is as Barack Obama has a slimmer margin we are a lot of folks do I mean it's a different role for you know for me to play and others to play. And that's just the reality of it I mean that but to take that as part of part of the nature of it. Lenny is that always going to be the case. And do you agree. It's not going to always be the case but when you're the first you have a very high standard to live up to. Then on top of that look at where we're standing in 2010 I mean Barack Obama is the first African-American president that's facing the Great Recession and is facing some very historic things around the world. He has a high standard for the U.S. to live up to. You have Michael Steele who is the

first RNC chair that is coming in against the first African-American president in U.S. history at a time of the great recession at a time where people are frustrated with politics in general. He has an awful lot of high standards to live up to to turn things around. Some people are mad because he hasn't lived up to that and they've think he's kind of screwed up recently with the whole voyeur incident and the big spending by the Republican National Committee. Yeah and there are some things there's been some missteps. I mean President Obama said some pretty significant missteps as well I mean we were supposed to be at 8 percent unemployment and we haven't seen 8 percent unemployment in quite some time. So both both of them have had some missteps but they have both also done some good things I mean Barack Obama inspired the Tea Party movement Barack Obama inspired young voters to get involved in politics and in a lot of ways stay involved at least with what's going on the day to day aspect of politics. Michael Steele has inspired diversity within the Republican Party. He has raised a lot of money he has led two thirds of the victories amounted to special elections there's about a

66 67 success clip underneath his leadership since January 2009. So they are breaking ground indeed. Will it always be like this. No but when you're the first and you're at a historic time you have a very high level of standards to live up to and that's regardless of what race you are in them by being the first African-American. You have some additional pressure if you will even if it's nothing more than historical pressure. There's a difference between societal pressure and racism versus historical pressure and making sure that your legacy provides opportunities for other people it's one of the things that again you know if people didn't lay the ground such as a Senator Brooke doesn't lay the ground for Princella Smith Princella Smith can't do her thing in Arkansas. But because he did his thing 40 years ago and 50 years ago she can do her thing today and now it's up to people such as Princella and other candidates to do their thing so that my children and grandchildren can follow their footsteps moving forward. Do you save more people more young black people being drawn to the Republican

Party. I mean you you all obviously are and you're young and you're vibrant and you're active in the party not just talking that you're doing you're active. You know what. But let me you brought up the point of looking at that picture at the Republican National Convention and everybody go on wow it's pretty white. Well yeah they'll be attracted to the Republican Party as long as I am not just at the Tea Party if I'm at the Urban League and the end. And young and black in America and walk in the streets and do in jail ministry and volunteering in our schools and helping out at the Boys and Girls Club. In addition to being a high profile Republican Yeah does that mean you go there. What do you say to them. I say to them what what Washington said Muchel met before we are Republican or Democrat we are black and I remind him of that quote and I say I'm here giving up my time with my family I'm here volunteering with kids and in doing jail ministry with young African-American males on a Saturday evening instead of spending time with my lovely wife and my family. I'm here volunteering at the Urban League. I'm here walking these dangerous streets and I'm

here volunteering for the kids because I love black people. I love Americans. And you can't put a political affiliation to that type of love. And I would much rather go through the taunts of being an Uncle Tom and every other type of house you know what that I'm going to be called in 2010 so that in 20 20 in 20 25 black people are more prosperous. That is when you worry about history writing your legacy not what people are writing about you today. Princella What do you say. I mean I want to go back to Michael Steele for a second I worked for Michael Steele I know him and I know it's hard he's a man of great integrity and I want to say in reference to the higher standards and everything I know about the RNC I know about the NRC the NRA. I mean at the end of the day people want to efficiency and that's what's at the top of the list is efficiency are we winning seats are we raising money. And I would like to cite that the RNC outraised the DNC this quarter and that of course didn't get in the headlines only what Michael Steele says gets headlines. So I just wanted to point that out and it just for everybody they have a comprehensive view of what's going on there.

Well in fact many people have signed a letter saying that they support him so. Right because I mean he really has not you know he has not been perfect but nobody is. And like I said what I say to that is that in the same way that people's failures are highlighted they should highlight his successes for us to win a seat in Massachusetts for us to win seats in Virginia and New Jersey with record turnouts should be there should be some credit attributed to the national parties who got involved. OK what do you say in reference. I'm sorry. What do you say when when you're as Lenny said he's out. I know and you know what I mean is that it's exactly what Lenny said I mean you're at in WCP meetings you're at Urban League meetings you're at community based organizations and events you're at churches and that and again I think how Linny and OB both have seemingly escaped this Uncle Tom is and I mean there are some people who would just call you that regardless if they're ignorant. But how we've escaped that is because we have accepted invitations to go to democratic forms and speak. We have accepted invitations to go to a predominantly minority base and

it's not just black and Hispanic it's Asian. We both get several requests to attend events where their issues are at play their issues are the things that we're talking about. And at the end of the day I always say this about my people about black people is show me you know show me. Then what are you doing. And it's J.C. Watts hit the nail on the head. He is the last African-American Republican that was elected. OK we currently have no sitting African-American Republicans in the entire Congress. J.C. Watts said I when he was a preacher he said I want to be a part of a church that looks like heaven. Same thing with the Republican Party. I want to be a part of a party that looks like America. If the Republican Party wants to show that they are about racial and losing this begets racial inclusiveness then we have a leg people that look like America. OK we got to leave it there but I'll be back with you all at some point in the future I'm sure. We've been talk taking stock of today's political climate with a focus on black Republicans Princella Smith

Lenny McAllister Robert Ford thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Coming up it's historian librarian Robert Darnton defending the good old fashioned book. We'll be back after this break. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Stoneham theater. Presenting the classic Lerner and Loewe masterpiece My Fair Lady. Playing now through May 2nd. Tickets and details at. 7 8 1. 2 7 9 20 200. And from the Boston University College of Fine Arts welcoming Carlisle Floyd and Phyllis curtain in residence for the opera Institute's production of Susannah April 15th through 18th. Tickets at Boston Theatre seen dot com and from Wells Fargo Advisors of Wellesley. Helping clients with investment retirement educational and estate planning strategies. Wells Fargo

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online at WGBH dot org. This is eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston NPR station for trusted voices and a local conversation with FRESH AIR and the Emily Rooney show. Eighty nine point seven WGBH. I'm gala Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. I guess Robert Darnton is in the building and will be here shortly. He is the Carl aged four time or university professor and director of the universe Harvard University Library. He's a man who cares deeply about the bound and printed page and he pays tribute to

them eloquently in his latest work. The case for books past present and future. And he's here now. Robert Darnton welcome. Thank you for having me. We're going to talk about your book and what it says in just a moment but I would be remiss if I didn't ask you to read off the top respond to the Boston Public Libraries decision to close four public libraries I mean you are at Harvard so you're in some ways the world's most well-known librarian So what do you think about it I sympathize You know I spend a lot of time at the Boston Public Library. Things are tough. What can a library do faced with this terrible pressure on the budget. The same things happened in New York where I'm a trustee of the New York Public Library. There have been really tough budget cuts. And for a while the president of the New York Public Library said we might have to close even up to 10. Branch

libraries so this is a general phenomenon and I see no answer to it frankly other than cutting back on services trying to rationalize the system putting your capital such as you have in libraries where there's a greatest usage. But think the irony of it all is more people are going to libraries now than ever and they're going for new reasons largely to read books of course to get DVDs but to deal with unemployment. Not everyone has a computer at home and not everyone has access to the Internet so they go to the public libraries and there they do have access and that's where jobs are found. So I think it's a it's really low mental bull that we've got cuts in libraries at the very moment when people need libraries the most. Now your book of course deals with the larger kind of textual cultural question about making the case for books. And I wonder as you see these closures what that says about

our society and libraries too. Well what does it say. It says we are in trouble I think that's a little simple I agree. Because the problems are awfully complex. In the case of a research library such as hard Harvard's which is the largest in the world we think we spend millions of dollars on scholarly periodicals. Now the price of subscriptions to scholarly periodicals has gone up for a quarter of a century. And the increase in the rate of inflation is mind boggling. Some periodicals cost Believe it or not. Thirty thousand dollars a year for a subscription. Many cost 20000 many. Ten. I mean these are very good periodicals but really is that the value that they deliver. I think not. And so we're trying to sort of speak take back what we're losing by gaining control of

things like scholarly periodicals and Harvard we passed something known as an open access resolution. The faculties of Harvard are now obliged to make their new scholarly articles available on a repository which my office runs free of charge to the rest of the world. So we're hoping that gradually we will have a world in which people have direct free access to knowledge and these monopolistic publishers aren't going to control things. I want to make a point to our listeners that the title of your book The Case for a book's past present and future might lead somebody to believe you only mean the print the words the books in print I mean and you know on paper what you actually mean. Digital books as well. I do because there's no denying that the future is digital what happens I think is that in concentrating on what we call the Information Society or the digital age we forget that most books appear in the

traditional way in print. In fact more books are produced each year in print than the previous year. I've got graphs that show even now even now. Do you know that next year and something like a million new titles will be produced worldwide. A million new titles. So we are all suffering from information overload. I mean we are drowning in books and a lot of them are mediocre of course but many of them are important. And I think it's a fundamental mistake to think Oh well don't worry about collecting printed books because the digital age is going to answer that problem. We've got to advance on two fronts the digital and the analog and it's not easy. What is your overall case for books past present and future I mean what's the single thing that you want people to take away from this is a set of essays that you've written making the case you know if I had to summarize it in one word it would be democratize.

And if you gave me two words I would say democratize digitise because it seems to me that the new technology really does open up the opportunity for us to get books to everyone. A library like Harvard's of course can be accused of being elitist closed to the rest of the world and so on. I feel that my general direction for the library is to open it up to digitize our books to make them available to readers everywhere to give those reader services so that they can find the information they need. And I think we need to make coalitions with other libraries with the New York Public Library the Library of Congress because no library can go it alone. So how can we democratize the world of knowledge. That is a fundamental problem at a time when certain well businesses are monopolizing access to knowledge. That's a real difficulty that I think we must confront because libraries our job is to get books to readers. The job

of. Well why not call it by name. Google Book Search. Yes it is to make money and there's nothing wrong with that it's a good it's a company. Well that leads me to that question because you're saying democratize digitize and you know Google is in the process of trying to digitize everything in sight and you're not really a big fan of Google digitizing everything. Well actually I'm all for their digitizing everything and I am in many ways a fan of Google I mean I've met the Google people I'm there right now so it's ok if you want to hedge your bets here. Well you know I'm cast I think as Google's enemy number one at least that's what people tell me but I admired their their ability to take risks to innovate their technological expertise their sheer. Audacity if you want to call it that. But what I do not admire is the way that they are monopolizing access to information. Now you could say that's their business plan. More power to them. And it indeed is delivering more money to

their shareholders. But I've been making it also more available to more people. Yes and that's the good part to it. But if you look at the so-called settlement between on the one hand Google and on the other hand the authors and publishers who sue them for breach of copyright. What you see is a plan that I think is going to actually shrink access to knowledge by creating a monopoly protected legally through this device called a class action suit. That means that no competitor to Google can seriously digitize and be protected from litigation. So if the settlement is upheld by the district court in New York I think Google has got a technical financial and legal superiority that is going to give it a very exclusive role. Even a monopolistic role in this world of information. And you make the point that you know them. They're about the business of digitizing

popular titles which makes sense for mass appeal but that leaves a lot of scholarly works out of it. And you know say what you will. Everybody's not reading a scholarly work but the scholarly work for you is the basis upon which other scholars build. And that's how we get to something that we all need and want. That's right I think I completely agree I think the world of scholarship should be available to everyone. Now it's not true however that Google just goes for popular books. They're a kind of bulldozer you know they just go through a library and take everything on the shelves and digitize it shelf by shelf. I've seen them at work it's really amazing. So the point is not to be selective but to be if you like. Colossal. OK. And that. Everything was a tank the colossal etc. that you mentioned that tank. Yeah which is a huge database that is so magnificent in its sheer size that it means that anyone interested in practically anything can get what they want through Google Book Search.

But they'll have to pay for it. And that's there's the rub really because Google will charge institutions like libraries a subscription price for access to these digitized books. But they got the books from us in the first place for free. Yeah. And then now it's impact charging for it. And now they want us to buy back access to these digitized books Well I think they should be made available to the whole country and in fact the whole world for free because this is a national good and it's something in a way that I think Google and research libraries. Oh to the nation. So I'm in favor of what I call the national digital library. And I hope that we'll find a way to create it. Now here's something else that you raise. You have raised I think it's really something for us to think about and that is that a book on paper can last a very long time. But as we digitize these books something of this data this. You know computerized data can go away again as erode and there we

are with nothing. Yeah this is kind of scary. It's frightening it's terrifying especially to someone responsible for a huge library system. It turns out that the as you know the digitized texts are made up of ones and zeros and they have a way of fraying or eroding as you put it. And so we must make sure that that doesn't happen. At Harvard we've got a gigantic repository of digitized texts which we look at through electric eyes they're spinning around on very elaborate computers all the time. We as we call it migrate them to other formats such as magnetic tapes. We fall all over ourselves trying to preserve them. But we have not answered the fundamental problem of how to preserve an electronic text. And the problem is even worse in many ways than what I've described because you have to locate that text in cyberspace. Now how can you do that. Well you need what we called Metta data that is

information that is so precise you can find it out there in a world that will be changing all the time. Well that makes it so if I think for our listeners if you can't liken it to you type in the wrong email address and yes one letter off you're going to morrow. Yes right right that's right. So you know this is a serious problem when you think that almost everything that is created today certainly in university is as we call it born digital. We have great scientists at Harvard. You know for Nobel Prize winners who are turning out really from Tir research and that research must be preserved for future generations. What do you do you don't have an answer now so what are we so we're digitizing blindly sort of right. Well I wouldn't call it blindly because as I said we have at 60 Oxford Street in Cambridge Massachusetts a magnificent set of highly developed technological

devices to keep that material alive. We renew it constantly. OK but doesn't take up space in the point was you supposed to reduce the space. Right. Well it takes up space actually the the storage is tiny. OK. But the machines are quite big and they're getting bigger but they're getting more effective. But it takes up money. And that's what hurts because we have to invest in digital preservation. But. We can't afford to do it. So again I think this is a problem that must be addressed at the national level and to a certain extent it is. But we need new leadership we need a new vision of how to transform this information society as we call it for the good of the entire public and we're just groping in the dark right now. OK. I'm talking with Robert Darnton. His book is the case for a book's past present and future. Now you've spoken very eloquently about democratizing and digitizing and the point of that. I happen to know you don't own an e-reader of any sort. But

it's a truth that seems to be the you know the way the masses are sort of engaging in democratize the digital world if you will with books and don't you think that inspires people to read more or what do you think. I think it can and I'm all for it. So I'm for reading in any form. It's true that I favor a sort of reading that is cover to cover reading that involves touching paper. Even the smell of paper but you can accuse me of being kind of traditionalist as sentimental as to romantic at the same time I'm devoted devoting much of my energy to the creation of a powerful digital library all kinds of research in developing digital infrastructure as we call it. But it's true. I don't happen to own one of these reading devices. I'm very happy with especially newspapers printed on paper. I was journals all of you know how. However none of my students reads a printed newspaper they all

consult their computers and I think it's a loss because they do the actual design of page 1 of The New York Times is a map of what happened yesterday and I want to see what's on the right hand column what's on the left hand column what kind of headlines they have. To me this is the most wonderful moment at the beginning of the day in which I look at yesterday seen typographic Lee in print. But I agree that's that view of things is now on the way out. Our future is definitely digital but you know the number of people reading on these electronic reading devices is still pretty small. I would say I've seen estimates vary from one to four percent of the really good sellers so it's I think that's going to change pretty quickly. You're right I think it's going to go up. And also even more encouraging the quality of these e-readers is getting better. Oh absolutely so I've seen some terrific e-readers and I may say you know they're all right.

I want you to bring us to a close and tell me what you feel about a book emotionally. Now you've made the case in other ways but emotionally what is a book book mean to you. Well there is what the French call a free song. You know a kind of moment of excitement when you first open the cover. It's like opening a jewel box what will be inside now. Often there are Jewel jewels at all but there is a kind of threshold of excitement as you first open the book and it depends on the book. I've read a lot of books printed 200 300 years ago. They have a special smell the feel of the paper is wonderful and it just carries me off into another world that the type of graffiti itself. Brings alive so that to me is the essence of the experience of reading. But maybe my personal experience is different from others. You know not for mine I'm Grae with you 100 percent. There's. Robert Darnton thank you so much for joining us Robert Darnton is the Carl H. Four time or university

professor and director of the Harvard University Library. His latest book The Case for books past present and future. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show by visiting our website WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley. Don't forget all this week on radio TV and online we're discussing casino gambling. Join the debate and see the broadcast schedule and WGBH dot org. This is this is the Calla Crossley Show where production of WGBH radio Bostons NPR station for news and culture.