environment toward being comfortable with this idea of emerging man and machine. >> ms. jacobsen is known for her writings on war, weapons, security and government secrets and will discuss her four recent books; area 351, operation paper clip, the pentagon's brain and her most recent, phenomena. join our live three-hour conversation with annie jacobsen with your calls, e-mails, tweets and facebook questions live sunday at noon eastern on booktv's "in depth" on c-span2. >> march 7, 2015, onboard air force one, we were flying down with president obama. then-president obama to selma, alabama, and i had asked him a question about, quote-unquote, postracial versus post-obama era. and he said i would not equate my election with seminal moments like the passage of the civil rights act of 1964, the voting

rights act of 1965. those were massive changes in legal status that represented fundamental breaks in america's tragic history and were the pillars, the 13th amendment, the 14th amendment and 15th amendment of civil rights acts of the '60s. those were, those represented the dismantling of former discriminationing in this country. there's nothing that's going to compare to that moving forward. our work is to build on that work, to fine tune where we see formal discrimination or state-sponsored discrimination still occurring. but increasingly our work has to do with dealing with the ongoing legacy of a divided society. closing the opportunity gaps, closing the achievement gaps, closing the wealth gaps that inevitably have been passed on from generation to generation because the gaps were so wide. and that involves no one piece of legislation, but it requires a host of different efforts. it means investigation in early childhood education, it means us making sure everybody has health

insurance, it means the kind of public/private work that we're doing through my brother's keeper. it means getting more african-americans in s.t.e.m. education, in math and science and engineering. and is so there's not going to be one silver bullet; but, rather, it's going to be a sustained effort on a variety of fronts that will take us to the next leg of this journey towards a more just society. wow. that was on our way to zell marx alabama, for the 50th -- selma, alabama, for the 50th anniversary of bloody sunday. and those words still ring true today. but again, who are we? so this book really goes into the heart of the matter. when you talk about race, and this is kind of piggybacking off what president obama said, then-president -- isn't it strange to say then-president -- it's just been ten days, or eleven, i can't even keep count now. [laughter] but the bottom line is we still have a society that is divided.

and i'm going to think about, and i'm going to go back the something my children's favorite singer, leslie odom jr., and this song called "seriously" where we are a united, divided states. so when it comes to matters of race, african-americans still have the highest numbers of negatives in almost every category. and issues of policing are very important. that's one of the pieces where i start in this book. traditionally in the african-american community, the american black community, there is an instinctive coming of age truth for our young black men called the talk. it's something black fathers or father figures give their sons or equivalents. it's meant to be a lifetime tool that might help these boys strategically navigate interactions with law enforcement with the ultimate goal of avoiding altercations. the talk can spell life or death for some black males. i know it sounds so 1950s and '60s, but now more than ever that's the reality in the modern

age more than 60 years later. the essence of the talk a dad telling his son in blunt terms that some bad policing results in death for our black men and boys, be it intentional or unintentional. it is more than a soulful truth, it's an unavoidable fact in our communities. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. [inaudible conversations] >> good evening, everyone. hello.