A Word on Words; 3309; John Blake

once again welcome i guess to john blake the author of children of the movement welcomed john it's great to have you talk about the children lumen the children of civil rights leaders but not so it does allow for some people who were opposed to civil rights show up in this book and i'd like to begin by just asking about the selection i'm in and the names of the people listed on the book those names are enough of a magnet to get you into the book because they range from the obvious one of decaying and ralph abernathy and any young two stokely carmichael to ross barnett right to george wallace talk about that concept what was the process was sort of criteria to set yourself on who goes in who does not go in those trees because a look at the biggest names i could find

i don't remember dr king i don't remember that for whites only signs on a pony spiciness of rights movement from books into documentaries and there are certain names and just kept on popping up you see the same people in those documentaries and of his two books donald was printed as to george wallace's daughter carmichael so i just call the big as a lack of fire you know you say that you quote a young colonel a jacket there is this we felt called to save the world from razor them barbie and will we really really rich by live but to sell and we stopped recognize the burden we place on our children and any un and he feels that wright and his son beau or feels that must begin with any on and his son beau goes into me and that quote compellingly tell them all and that relationship is is interesting bowl

as roy ambition must be rich or right when i went into his house eichler had expected to see pages of monolithic a maybe nelson mandela freedom songs and things like that but what i saw were black enterprise magazine pages of the young bill gates warren buffett he wants to be rich she feels like in a sense that his father was useful why people get rich and he says was to use a bike people gain political power if we'll have economic power and his father says as obscene i can understand it and i asked for so what about immigration do you think it's important to begin to integrate calls a book i just would integrate the money yes exactly right the one of the great the money and i just about those really funny and i think has come easy for me to kind of you know just kind of like they don't mean he's been superficial simplistic but that is a debate within the black community was to use of having political power if you don't have economic power outages polls reflecting and you know it you called andy as saying you know we always enough money

it owed you keep it as a it's on it thinks that nobody thinks money as evil he just doesn't people would identify with the hunger for the most seemed to feel for yeah i had this thought that was interesting because usually tries to talk about that with bowling ball thinks he's not really living a contradiction to what his father for police that we still have the same goal to feed the hungry to do this you do get i just wouldn't do it a different way and i was one of the things i really like about writing the book because you saw these clashes of ideas between the parents' view of the world and the children of the world again and again you saw there you know you do you focus is in most situations on one child you know the parent um at several children and it's true it's true with

for example john bel air you write about those two dollars or his mother was wide right there is the bitterness there the us approach is not surprising you know you know for me there was surprisingly maybe it's because my before wrote the book i had this kind of an authentic r oh man sized version of the civil rights movement and i suspect a lot of people my generation did i think when you look at their history but she was good as impression i think i did that people just think of the freedom songs and marched little bit but the king gave a great speech in the walls of injustice came tumbling down and i like with taylor branch told me said it was a war it was like it was brutal these people are still struggling with the physical psychological scars from that period i think double is this kind of symptomatic of debt you know war you need is kind of really bold visionary leaders with some of the same qualities that made select over great bold leader medicine the same qualities made him an awful painter according to

his daughters well and i think that's a i think that's a case down the jews think about dealing with his children mother diane nash i thought about that home from a big fan of the ins on the store's intriguing end but they were there in atlanta those two doors and i met them and do them and i was there in atlanta in their mother and diane nash that their mothers so it was just easier for me to focus in on them because i knew their store and use them when you know you would've gotten i suspect i know diane quite well and analysts on casually but he has kept him devil's name an owl the bitterness you find you found with these two daughters in on i think is understandable when you begin to go jim that was one of the strange isn't it is as ever have my life because you know his and his daughter's tell me he does know my favorite food he

doesn't know when i graduated from high school he does know anything about me we grew up we struggle just to eat at times when i go to chicago meet bronson devil devil he pretty much tells me that he doesn't really all his daughters that type of isabella them that type of life been at the departing today army shed light because he gave them something greater than a meal or a good father being at home on time he gave them the right to vote but his daughters say that he talks in political theory all the time they can understand emotional feel isn't as a perennial common complaint i got from a lot of the children a book they said my parents could talk all day about acting dose of rights activism but they couldn't talk about how they love me of being there for me it's like to short circuit linking to talk about emotions you know liane there is one word that kept jumping off the page as i read the words of the children of the children and the words ambivalent there it just seems to me that there is a level of

ambulance almost all of them even those who are white even the door her ross barnett been racist of them is that they are evenly on the dollar or george wallace there is a level of them believe that i think maybe if the founders is with some lived american children you agree with that yeah and i think i kind of i liked it i think it gave the story a lot of richness and he made people unpredictable i'll for example you'd order of governor ross barnett the mississippi and i expected her to come from a whole lot of the same views dared her father had instead she's teaching on an all black inner city is going to accept young points to go from that place of that point we dont barnett atkins correct is ryan and ryan how did you get there a progression of his life has become a funny she had a life we're she said

that the one thing she heard from her father that wasn't that was their shield developed as curiosity about the world so she was a person who loved the travel loved explores a self defined people love to go overseas and go to different countries travelling you see things that makes people think and it made her think about you know the way i grew up in the way i was taught and maybe this isn't so right nation just ways people become aware it's almost like they set about malcolm x always questioning always re examine himself always willing to grow she's like that and i think because of that she gradually got to this place where she she received the political desegregation police of the father pushing didn't repudiate him because she like all the children of the segregation is not on them said that their parents were races they all said the same thing they're just politicians are going to do they did had to do to get elected at the time an annual has gone down another generation you quote ross atkins jr as remembering his

grandfather sang of north right way arm a key point the reason either don't live close they are to be calls the ability to add gonorrhea to the idea here a ballot that was that was strange to finish talking about talking to the children of people like george wallace and ross barnett as a black person i was prepared to see them just as like of cartoonish like villains just really one dimensional people the one thing that struck me is that in some of the ways some of these people had close relationships black people but these black people when servants capacity but they were buddies allen out racist and i think it will complicate best thing about segregation you had people who thought they were big white people thought they were better than white people but they had its close relationship like with say than any bud this kind of distant ultimately let me ask about peggy wallace rally george wallace's boat

pretty early on that essay you quote her son gets moved i guess watching documentary yes same one in pa pa starts at ten thousand requests that was it and her answer for it is totally unsatisfactory mind is even to her voice to kind of talk about erskine and grab a different as the palace she says i don't know and i just thought that was great and it was interesting because these people a journalist they create these kind of legacies that you just passed on from generation generation peggy walls had to defend be george wallace's daughter and now her old son has to do is try to decide whether his own grandfather was so evil or good in his mother really can't help well i just thought that was really powerful and one point at one point when you're talking to her she says there were times i wished i was peggy smith of joan corrects

somebody writes i wish i had not been and all the other many others lonelier than affection there or if there's not she's not willing to admit it she seems every impression i i i have just me dinner and person a talk with her she seems to really love it seems a good a delight a little bit more publishes side of government was never asked her how you feel we looked at those old documentaries you saw your father you know using that rhetoric and based in london it'd be like a demagogue she kind as marcia city which is to come out with people she cut all become a publisher side of session there was a great affection admiration there was another gentleman i talked to stephen slevin oh sure the sun until snowden and he really admires his father and this is a man who's a cinema segregation slater who tells me that he uses the n word but it's all right they also tells me that slavery was in that bed because slaves were treated well and they weren't mistreated and he you know it was just all these really races losing to tell me in person but he wasn't really aware

hard to believe we've come that far after all this time and you know it still in many ways for some people the sign for those of you just a new adult and john blake about his book children of the movement and the chair of the movement on both sides of the movements are on the saudi's variation and with other races segregation i thought them if there was one story that was painful more painful and sadder than any of the others it was jeanne michel why is an interesting story here in fact michael bond who it was the focus of the stores during the sun when i showed in the story after i finished he was kind of sat with me and he was somebody else open i could be friends with this i really live the whistle said to me elmo doesn't say to you is dead when julian bond with all the sting of this tremendous history or pretty much flamed out as a politician is bitter

election last john lewis and accusations of drug use are they that's a man with his wife which was terrible year the right problems with drones and on that for two years is usually soap operas yeah and it has shattered his son and when i call that julian bond passed only will tell me how this effect is somehow the gop said good do it because jason told me that this is like the pivotal moment of his life the reason he's in into politics the surprises that i didn't know much michael felt that way about the whistle said that he had no idea that that affected his old son that much but again these cities these parents was kind of common that would kind of aloof from the suffering of their kids as many said martin king doesn't same ambivalent is one exception for that rule but you can tell that of the four children

and dexterous or tending to the flame and was an entrepreneur record he doesn't agree the money tap that ideal on the attack then there's an early as the sixties ironies is that is a minister for maurice has succeeded to joe lowery as at sclc but you know there was an aspect of what usual about him that was quite touching he really doesn't have friends that haven't been a frontal a flawed right he hasn't been able to develop soul relationship cleaned marriage any some regrets it is an estimate the general impression i got from him was just say little boy rap in a big man's body ung wa as a widening of the war you any of that king children aren't you married and you just talk about how they can't really trust anyone i can't bring anyone call

close to them and got that impression that he was going to the motions of falling into his father's footsteps you told me stories about people asking for its autograph and said what he was an autograph i haven't done anything because my father a good impression he would rather be doin somethin else but he feels like he has to do it as a picture he has to carry the torch and oliver wonders what is no longer the us he'll say no i didn't know yet here because he couldn't well it appears that you talk to is just as is that the board wanted these old civil rights victories in that they were out of touch what others might say is that he didn't have the passion the fire you know when he's not they are so it's this publicly a he keeps on taking on this with these roles that you can't really does these kind of jobs they can't really sustain an isolated to where you quote him as saying when he was eleven years old he was so happy with the men of the family yes and his son toward mubarak maybe berton or a leadership

right that was imposed and what he tells me is that by nature he's not the type of leader that there was a point in the story we told me that you know people would always yell at her we know he's played basketball you're talking about a call that gig a competitive but he's not there but he does these things because that's what people expect and then there's bloggers and talk where she as a child just immerse around about them jewish to the extent that then she had all this in her when she played all the balls demonstrated yes it here i like that because i had never really knew of families being held there kind of existed like that because she told the stories we're going to these cattle or is these camps where she knew shade of our was before she knew santa claus was in the idea that she's found some movement to de that's capture their passion i was thinking to myself this is how must've been to interview a free run in early sixties they hear that passion and all these young people

and see her as she sees a great connection between the civil rights movement the so called anti globalization movement yet he didn't lose a different stumble connor and maybe attack these multinational corporations that will route and ignore you know democracy but i wanted to end the book on that with talk about these keys because i didn't want it so race moving in the past tense i would show has change and evolve again ambulance and truck a foreman year jon foreman with such a man such i think in june foreman and baumohl says there as two of the leaders of the moon who ray in terms of history have in common in their own money and a very close to the movement who they were and my what they were then and to read how the true reactor that fashion and yet in this fight

because you know shark a form and james for my son would tell me how again how his father he didn't take his history say he didn't really know how significant thing as his father was the only one where college was a perennial theme around italy's children had to find out about they're prepares to others malcolm xs daughter had acted on by her father's bullet in and so shoppers for his father didn't really talk about that it seems like fallout and in the wounds that things experience was so painful it just kind of kept it to themselves and it laughter chavez on in its information got out by writing her own book growing up next right now in that case it doesn't mean that that there is may be closer identification between that she she feels closer than vacation malcolm x and valeo to undo what he'd emily andras schiff was not our yes but she had to learn about him she had learned about the role it that side of

him because she'd a very middleclass jack and jill going private school so when she went away to college and all these people expected her to give these fiery speeches of talk about a father she didn't know about this but as she learnt about that they can fill in the blanks for him but the man that the fall of the man that loved her mother she knew about that session just in about the other's eyes ka like stokely carmichael sun bowl car when you move to discourage from west africa and people start talk about black power and your father was a steel black militant he didn't hate whitey hate white people and to stop the fight him because he grew up in west africa is not wholly different picture of his father you know and bob moses said those sort of surprise to find that judge or places and people say she was moses' daughter yes and it meant something totally different for them than it meant to her she knew it was important but you really didn't know how it was important and the same with was so please ms james you know the thing about it is that with

like my shingles is by moses' daughter she can talk to her father as she gets older she congressional hearing about this but we'll come unstuck me a bubble car who stokely carmichael son his daddy suggest when you begin to have questions and he wanted to talk this fall about this is father entered it uses some would say eggs stokely say into i really wanna go back and die in africa yet thought he was too sick to go back yet well as the i think he did he did the detail in a kickback there was a time when he thought he wasn't going to make it down and that's when people court orders beautiful story about how his father is actually write is on his deathbed he was still churning revolutionary slow the cia i got up wholly different picture that we call michael from talking to assign i mean this guy till the very last breath it was like literally was talking about revolution he could've made money could've done a lot of things would move to west africa and he he lived it like even his own relatives made fun of them in west africa they thought that he was silly where does she didn't

talk about thieves of couples because everybody was never going to be like us citizens the turin of violently you through these names read two different stories but fascinating story and i to this day i can't figure out what led by most of the abbey where she was an iou tell me things about i don't know strange wrong from that strange is not fair but but maybe it is mean mary won didn't know two children by one of the end of course for the two sons and all of the anthony a team says many are right i don't think they know what the michael why she did what she did once out to suddenly help the civil rights movement here is a married

woman with children and leaves and here's a speech by martin king and boy she heard the song in your own art well you know the door to one of things that hoover to do so is what she's on the edmund pettus bridge march for now she says all those people being beaten down by camels he started crying and she said i have to do something i'm in a suspect and talk and her in with other people that i was a part of her that like wall sconces it like to help people and she was an outsider so perhaps you identify with outsiders in the pub was really chilling how her daughter paine told me as soon as your mother left she had a premonition that she was a muslim he killed and she told me not to go but she insisted on going and you know who can explain why people do those dual things and take those risks again you know chose evers border medgar's nice work with me for a period of years then i got just a glimpse from from her attitude

but as i went through your book on the stories of these children of children it really really struck home how difficult life can be for one when people expect them to know things they only know by reading books but values or lost their life as many african american civil rights leaders did james reeb lost his life right as medgar and ann martin and others didn't really is virtually unknown known version out again is to beg you see his picture and you always wondered who was this guy and i was so lucky to get a hold of people actually with him when he was killed who knew him and he jumps off the pace seems to be this really dynamic powerful guy but i think with making what makes his story said besides the obvious one is death but is that

why these people that were widely known to have killed these people winfrey instill walker well for example the man was personally id he's been one of the killers of james read is a prosperous businessman a summit today and most of his customers' a black they traveled in as a boycott of his visit that i can get in a blood sport and his daughter liz with that knowledge that's the other thing about you know when you deal with with how the children feel about rebels white race raises news for other children you about that as a center of any ambivalence is they are but you also in was his case for example find that there was a shift in his life yes not think the family relies on that drew heavily to explain to him what your thought about that yeah that's the question he had as peggy wallace is a husband said us to question the dishes because of politics and efficient because of that was nearly as they as the mystery of the heart's need to you know look into someone's heart and into and to say you know

whether was true and not to be shifted because of that reason but i on the surprise addition to you would know better than you the gemini joint well of course a number of gun carried it i have absolutely no idea the change came i mean you did go to a church you do there are just it did change but but i'm as mystified as you are and that's part of what that story is all about i think the mystery of what they what the leaders were about an hour pitcher alone move that we've run out of time and alan thank you for being with me today thanking an oil thank all of you for watching and john's inaugural word on words keep reading