about going for lay public opinion. this is an organizing challenge of marginalizing the nra or like having companies or not like, you know, this thing about credit card companies not doing business with gun companies. there's a whole bunch of different things we do that all fall into that problem of persuasion. but at the end of the day, hovering over all of this, we i'd be remiss not to mention money in politics like we can't we have get money out of politics you know and that would do more than anything to make these mechanisms of persuasion. but i don't i never want to like it's not just nra like a lot of people in this state have a deep conviction about the belief in the second gun. right. you can't skirt around that. the only alternative is to persuade people and organize and change consensus and in the case of the moment we're in right now, may very well reduce to voting. it does. are we done? we are done. sorry. we have a time constraint.

please give our guest a big thank you all so much. thank you very much. being so my first interest section is dr. peniel joseph. dr. is the barbara jordan chair of ethics and political value, the founding director for the center of the study, race and democracy. the associate justice i'm sorry, the associate of justice, equity, diversity and at the lbj school of public affairs, as well as a of history at the university of texas. in his time, peniel is frequent national commentator on issues of race democracy and civil rights. he is the author of award

winning books on african-american history to. i'll give you the names of one is the sword, the shield, the revolutionary, three lives of malcolm x and martin luther king jr. and then what is considered the defense active biography on stokely carmichael. the book is titled stokely a life, but in his most recent and it's called the third reconstruction in america's struggle with racial justice in the 20th century. it really does dissect the modern movement, and it really starts with barack obama. the rise of the black lives matter movement, the presidency of donald trump, the rise of the maga movement as well. the turmoil that we face throughout the covid i'm sorry, the covid crisis. and it also puts into context

the assault the capitol in january six. so all of those events bringing them into with a historic lens as well. so in summary dr. peniel joseph is an american scholar and an important voice on race issues today. so welcome, peniel. thank you. bringing a very different perspective. the civil rights movement is tom ricks. he a noted military reporter from assignments from the globe. he is a number one new york times bestselling author specializing in military and national security. he is a two time pulitzer prize winner for national reporting. he is an author of several

nonfiction. and i'll mention one that actually fast invaded me. it was called first principles is quite american. america's founders learned from the and the romans and how it shaped our country. he brings a very sharp perspective on american history military conflict and tactics. and in his latest book book, waging a good war a military history of the rights movement, in 1954, through 1968, he provides a military perspective on america's greatest moral revolution. the rights movement and what he is. he diagrams how the power of nonviolence resistance is married, military strategy. and then he draws through lines of its legacy to today.

so i want to also welcome tom to discussion with this different of perspective on it. thank you. so we're going to do this a little bit different and before i hop to that i really did want to spend a little bit of time talking about the depth of and scholarship that have on the panel today because it really is an interest kind of analysis of where we are and what we can learn from history. but we're going to do things a little different. they're to talk about each other's book for just a moment and give some perspective on from an author's mind on what they pulled out and their perspectives. so tom, i'll start with you. thank you can you all hear me in the cheap seats?

no. can you all hear me? the cheap seats now a little bit better. okay, i'll lean into it. thank you for that kind and insightful introduction. i only wish that peniel joseph were an associate justice of the supreme court. it would be a better country. so i'd like to put his name nomination. this book, the third reconstruct auction, is for my money, the best book written the last 15 years of american history. you can buy out there if you want to understand, where this country has gone since about 2010. this is the book to read. need i say more? i don't think so. but i'll say a little bit more. this is a book that explains brilliantly the moment of reaction when we are in and

points towards possibly getting through it. what intrigued me about the book, we did talk about this before. he and i have had kind of had a road show lately. the book is intermittently very pessimistic and then optimistic. and there's something i'd like you to speak to because. it's just when you're about to give up, he says. but you know, when he says, i'm not sure where arc of justice is bending at the end, he ends up saying, i think it's toward justice. one of the things i just been thinking about with the book and i didn't mention this before either i would say yale in the 1970s, i majored in english and there was one author whose name was never james baldwin for my money. baldwin the most important author of that era, the middle of, the 20th century in america. it amazes me that he was never talk to me. it shows how wrong education be

sometimes and how long it takes to catch to the reality of the situation without. over to you. should i ask or answer that you should let's talk about this, okay? yeah. yeah, absolutely. so waging a good war can. i can i put it up? yeah. you know, me and tom have talked about how the subtitle military history of the civil rights movement is going to really transform that and how the civil rights movement worked. right. in a way. i mean, i read this book and in galleys. it's a brilliant book and as somebody who's really studied the civil rights movement my whole career, i think what this book does in more depth than any other book is really at what i call the heroic period of the civil movement from 1954 to 68. and i also call it america's second reconstruction, but really at it in a panoramic way of why those movements in montgomery, alabama, those movements in selma, in the poor

people's campaign really how they unfolded with real strategic precision, certainly, there's a military angle this, but it's also looking at the intellect, your political, moral, cultural economic framework that both grassroots activists and elites operate in and actually at times utilize systems and institutions to oppress them subversively. right. and so what's so extraordinary about waging a good war is that on one level, the notion of war is metaphorical and literal. the literal aspect is the fact that so many black people and white people and latinos and other allies were actually in a conflict, a conflict most the time they were on the receiving end of state sanctioned violence, most of the time. but the notion of war is also

metaphorical because it was a for the country soul. and i think one of the things that this book does very well through protagonists like diane nash through protagonists like james bevel and, not just the usual suspects is really look at how when we think about heroic period of the civil rights movement in america reconstruction, we were engaged both a literal and figurative and and metaphorical war, america's soul. and i think this does it in a really extraordinary way because you give credit to the actors and the architects which were these black women and men. a lot of them continue to be unsung heroes including who were connecting with bob in mccomb, mississippi. you know folks who you know, there's there's so many different people, you know, amc more, people who we don't talk about and. these were the folks who are the heroes of our collective democratic story. right.

so i think it's really extraordinary and i love the fact that the whole notion of 54 to 68, what the book does in 13, 14 chapters is really give you a precise history snapshot out of these these but then interconnect them with what came after and. by the time you finish reading book, you really see the cumulative power power of this period in our history it's striking to me i did set out to write about women women kept on showing up in my book yeah diane fannie lou hamer, septima clark, dorothy cotton. and i realized halfway through it's because these are the people run the part that i'm focusing training preparation. the demonstration at the end is this the tip of an iceberg? these are people who made the iceberg? absolutely. i'm going to jump into some questions. thank you both for that.

in both your books, you talk about a moral compass is the foundation of the civil rights movement or the foundation of the first reconstruction movement? does the modern civil movement have a moral compass? yeah, no, i would say absolutely i think one of the things that i try to do in the third reconstruction is look at the way that through these three periods of reconstruct in black women, especially feminist women, black queer activist, black queer feminist activists have been architects of a reimagining of american democracy. the moral is, through this idea of dignity. right. i talk throughout this in my last book, the sword and shield, about dignity and citizenship for my money. the way in which you can conceptualize the black freedom struggle in america globally panoramic. it's through those two concepts dignity and citizenship. the morality of dignity is this

all of us are born with dignity. but citizens chip is something that's externally recognized right. we all have dignity. what black matter? what angela davis were audre lorde, what i to be wells is make an argument for moral imagination of the country to recognize the inherent intrinsic dignity in black human beings right. and so that's the moral compass. remember citizenship all of our passports are just external. recognize issues of the dignity that we are born with. but what these movements do is remind us that that dignity is ours. it's purchased at birth. right. i want to add to that what civil rights movement, the classical period me is, when you're confronting a system based violence and there's no question that the system the south in america was based violence for several hundred years.

but after slavery more than ever is based violence the way to confront was with moral authority, confrontational, nonviolent and this is where our books come together again and again. the civil rights movement sees how to achieve dignity and discipline. and i think those are the two word words that more than any other describe why the civil rights movement succeeded. i'm absolutely i'm to jump in then. so my follow up question specific to this topic, i broke them down into two areas. one is the role of the church, and then the other one is the role of politics, the courts. so, i mean, start with the role of the church. it was critical in the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties and fundamental to success. can you give some color around relevance and where it what role in the movement today? i would begin by saying that.

one of the puzzlement to me is the arrival of the southern black church in the mid-19th fifties. there have been a lot of frustration among activists that the southern black church didn't step for a variety of reasons. for some reason it did. and i think partly because you had a generation of world war two veterans, a million black veterans in the south. so for the first time, you had a real base of, people saying, no, i'm not going to with this and asking the church and pushing the church in a new general and ministers and other activists who were veterans, abernathy, medgar evers and the more empty basically fights the resistance leads resistance movement in mississippi for 20 years. he is an american hero. my bottom line i want you to take home all these people. should on postage stamps. okay. these are heroes much more than

say some civil war general. these are people made america and made it a better place place. just to finish the thought and military terms, the the southern church gave the movement a safe means of command and control of communication. so in montgomery, alabama, strange voice calls up the the the boycott headquarters and says, what's going on tomorrow? the the standard was call your church. so you had a secure communications system that the movement again uses if if you don't recognize that person something. these were friends neighbors and they were very good about handling provocateurs people who would want to come to a march and punch a cop and give the cops excuse to shoot people. you know, i would go back the first reconstruction,.

1865 to 1898 is the years and decades where america has a founding. and during years we have not only the passage of the reconstruction amendments. but we really have a reimagined polity that's led by black women and men. and what they do is create thousands of churches, schools, and they political movements that are martial in strength, that use military strategy, protect black communities, that are trying to go to the polls, not just 1868 and 1876, but even after the election of 1876, in places like north carolina, where there are of freedom that i call fugitive democracy. right. and so we think about what happened. the first reconstruction, the first reconstruction is the entire ballgame. right. america is much to 1865 than any other part of our past history. right. and the reason i argue that is that reconstruction is the period where we are supposed to

see black progress. we're to see black economic. we're supposed to see black progress. we see some that. right. but we see juxtapose against that a backlash. right. a physically violent backlash. 1866, the same that fisk university is founded in tennessee. the klan founded in pulaski, tennessee, right. less than a year after the ratification of the 13th amendment, which ends racial slavery. we see racial pogroms in memphis and new orleans in 1866. so the only way you're going to understand tulsa or rosewood. right. is by looking at hamberg, right? by looking at by looking at these massacres that occurred during reconstruction, the congressional hearings that we've had on january six, the first investigation into klan violence is announced on january 19th, 1871, and in may of 1871. we have public congressional hearings about klan where whites and blacks are test defying

about what's going on and why. one of the heroes in my book is thaddeus stevens. and thaddeus stevens, a white reconstructionist. i divide our whole american context between 1865 and now, between reconstructionists, supporters of multiracial democracy and redemption as advocates of a cause. the lost cause is bigger than white supremacy. white supremacy is of the lost cause. but the explanatory power of the lost cause is how you can have over 6000 people lynched, and you can have memorials to those who lynched them. so when you bring up something related to that, because let's go and talk about the courts and today and how the courts are much closer to the plessy versus ferguson days. right now than than anything else. so when we think about key court cases as well as the divisiveness of politics, the gutting of the voting rights act, you know, where are we now

and what do we need to do thinking towards the. i definitely your opinion. okay. so what i argue in the third reconstruction is that when we think about the first reconstruction, redemption win the narrative war and that's why we see the 70 years of just sort of jim, really over 100 years. but i say the jim crow really starts after the wilmington white of 1898 and in a big way where we know longer going to see black elected officials the second reconstruction reconceive and tom shows this brilliantly in his book. they win the narrative war and the narrative war is this war between redemption is and reconstruction is over. what is the american story to be? narratives are what create not just the past, but our future. right? and what we see between 1963 and 2013 is a racial consensus between john f june 11th, 1963, civil rights speech all the way

to shelby v holder, june 25th 2013. it's an imperfect racial justice consensus, but what it does accomplish is this during that 50 year period, more black people of color and, women of all backgrounds gain wealth, gain access, elected, they become elected officials, they become part and co architects of american democracy in a way our founders would have never dreamed. it's not just hillary clinton. it's michelle obama. it's delores. where to right. it's yuri kochiyama. that's what happens between 63 and 2013. and i'll end on this note at the exact moment where black voting supersedes white for the first time in american history, the 2012 election, 66% to 64% less than a year later. the supreme court says, hell no. and five four ends. the voting rights act. that's the country we live in.

and texas, they don't want us to tell this story to our children. and that's why it's morally reprehensible. and politically, in to not speak truth to power. thank you. quick question. a follow up. is it accurate to january six as a klan riot? you know, i would say it's a white supremacist riot because i don't want to let people off the hook like that. you know, the klan is this catchall group created in 1866, but supremacy includes i'll call good white folks, folks who believe in god. but they believe in a god that can burn of color. they're anti semitic. they're anti-catholic. right. they don't believe that women have fundamental dignity. right. and at the same, they call themselves upstairs leading patriotic citizens.

so it's not just the klan. it's also the white citizens, which you document here brilliantly. the white citizens councils included some of the leading white citizens in the south, except for the fact that they killed and murdered black people and whites who stood in solidarity with them. and we still celebrate that some of the folks who are part of the white citizens councils. right. so when we talk about this, it's not just the klan, it's the alt right. it's the white nationalists. and they're supported not just by gun toting so-called rednecks. they are supported by oligarchs. they are supported by priests and pastors. they are supported by fortune 500 plutocrats. we're all in this together. either all of count or nobody counts. and when we think about white supremacy and really bigger than that, the lost cause, we're really able to understand this because those who are advocates of the lost cause include people who think of themselves as good people as moral people, as upstanding people, as people whose parents loved the country

and great grandparents and great, great, great grandparents founded the country, except the they want to live in is a country that vowed to have perpetual slavery for black people forever and ever. that's what alexander stephens, the vice president of the confederacy, the cornerstone of our confed is slavery forever. that's what james calhoun says. james calhoun says that all states have the right to secede because slavery is the rough justice that god has bestowed this rich nation to make us all. wealthy, right? that's james calhoun. these are people we continue to celebrate and. we wonder why in 2022 we're still litigating a war. we fought from 1861 to 1865. i'm going to on but thank you so much for that. and i think it deserves a moment of acknowledgment. i'm going to move into some of the strategy particularly of the

civil rights in the 1950s and and the sixties. and i'm going to throw this question to you first, tom. what some of the genius of the strategies in the fifties and sixties civil rights movement and what of that do we need to carry on, neil, into the modern movement? great question. really, the focus of my book is, the brilliance, the civil rights movement in devising and implementing strategy. it's a hazy word to people except when your life is on the line and then it becomes real important. in nascar in 1960, diane nash lawson, james bevel, john and others sat down and asked the basic strategic question. and i think this is important because i think the civil rights movement did strategy better than the u.s. military does. does. we spent 20 years mucking around in afghanistan. we invaded iraq and never should

have because we didn't think strategically. the civil rights movement did. as a u.t. austin graduate put it, who in the movement? she said, when you're asking to put their lives on the line, you hear them out, and they heard them. the question they ask themselves are tragically was who are we and what are we trying to do? the answer the diane nash and others in nashville formulated in 1960, is they began to out the sit in movement. their answer was, we are people who will no longer tolerate segregation. now, she added, you white people may kill us for that, but on you. we changed. you began. but within a liberating act of self-definition, we will no longer live with this. you got a problem with that. that's your problem. and the kennedy administration calls up diane nash and says, you know, you people are going to get killed tomorrow on the bus. she says, we know that.

they said, no, we're serious. this isn't idle threat. they're going to try to kill you. she says, we know that they get on the bus. they have our volunteer guys get on the bus. they have to sign last will and testament. this was serious in a way that the kennedy administration early on did not understand. and again, again, they think strategically think they think about how to change the power structure. i love how they in selma, they're training people. and one of the lessons that bernard lafayette teaches is the sheriff is not coming after you. you're going after the sheriff. so john lewis on the steps of the the sheriff at him, did you hear what i just said? john lewis responds calmly. yes. did you hear what i said? the way of changing the power structure, way people think instantly turning things upside

down. there's long story about james bevel, the devil in a sheriff. i won't tell belle. read the book. you'll see how to change the power with one comment from a pulpit. martin well, that's great. that was great. that was great. you know, i'd say that what the the movement needs to learn, the contemporary can learn from both the first and second reconstruction, but especially the second is story telling. right. and i think in certain ways we have told that story, movement for black lives. the idea of all black lives mattering. but i also think that we need to, in a larger story of why american matters, how, how and why we should build the beloved community, what we mean by a beloved community, a community free of racial injustice, economic injustice. what do we mean by achieving our country the first time, in the words of james baldwin, i think

the storytelling really matters, because what we've done in our own time, we've allowed the forces of to seize the storytelling. we've allowed the lost cause redemption to tell us our own story back to us. and when they tell us that story, that story. reproductive injustice it justifies mass incarceration. it justifies islam phobia and anti-semitism. it justifies the dehumanization of. black and brown and asian-american indigenous folks. it justifies all kinds of oppression. if we tell a reconstruction is vision of multiracial democracy, we actually flip the script. the reason why i the united states of america is because of ida b wells and, fannie lou hamer and angela the tamika mallory alicia garza. so we have to tell a specific story about, our country that

cannot only talk about racial slavery. talk about the holocaust. talk dispossession of indigenous land and indigenous people. talk about the chinese exclusion act. talk about anti-semitism. talk about what we've done wrong. but talk about where we've gotten it right. and talk about movements and struggles for abolition, democracy and the abolition. democracy is not just end of racial slavery. it's movements for citizenship and dignity for all people. and how the folks who are in thomas ricks books, they put it all on the line for abolition. the folks who are in my book during those three reconstructions, they've put it all on the line for abolition, democracy and we have to think about ab abol issuing it. the reason why it makes sense to abolish punishment and abolish surveillance and murder and violence and war is that the only way we're going to create a beloved community where we all matter and we are frightened and

fearful and anxious is by telling ourselves a hopeful, optimistic, but one that acknowledges the times we've gotten it wrong and martin luther king jr said it best. april 1967 at the riverside church, he said that the united states of america he was going to criticize it not because he hated the country but because he loved the country. and he said the united states is the most. the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. but he said it's going to be bitter but beautiful struggle to transform this country. so had faith in this country even when the military industrial complex had no faith in the country itself. right. so the thing we need to remember in our own time is the storytelling. now motives are all narratives. the stories we tell about our friends, about our neighbor, about this country are all and we've been we've been telling or listening or imbibing the wrong story. human is the storytelling

animal. absolutely. one quick comment. the beloved community. this is a phrase i kept on. coming up in my research deep in our people, giving entire for our discussions of the beloved community. and i never quite got it. and then one day a light bulb went on. the beloved community is when you start treating people like human beings. and i keep asking god, --, why is that so hard? and absolutely. malcolm x talks about human dignity. dr. king talks about the beloved community. so much of this is connected to, humanizing who we are. that's where the dignity the dignity piece is so important. the human dignity piece. i have i have two more questions. and then we're going to open it up for questions from the audience in both your books. you really point out the theme youth. there's a persistent theme of youth in action.

so for those us who are of a certain age and might not be considered youth, what is our role now? and i must start with you, peniel. well, i think those of us who are i just turned 50, so i still of myself as part of the youth. i still think of myself as part of the youth. i think those of us who are are in a in our advance of youth. that's what i'll call it in our advanced stage of youth. we can provide one. we should listen. we should listen and serve as students to to our children, to our students. i think the black lives matter movement has been really integral for me, the work of people. michelle alexander, bryan stevenson, but the work of alicia read the purpose of our power really important book. mariame kaba read we do this til we we free ourselves so we can learn from, from, from younger

people, but we can provide experience and provide resource is in a context to be at times radically pragmatic and also at times radically hopeful. mariam kaba always says hope is a discipline. i think that's a brilliant term and what she means by that is that we gain our hope through actually the work. and i think what the young have done and i go back the blm movement talking about 2013 and the aftermath of trayvon martin's murder, just like george floyd, breonna taylor trayvon martin was murdered in 2012. and the acquittal of, his murderer and the way in which you had these black women who who who got together. alicia garza opal tometi. patrisse cullors and said, black lives matter. they were doing organize housing at the grassroots and in oakland, in los angeles and in new york. and they got together and it spurred this global this global network. and so what's so important about what we can do, what we see is,

one, don't play or hate, don't hate, don't hate and say oh, my gosh, what are they doing? john lewis wouldn't have done this. john lewis did that. and diane nash did that. and that's what the activists obama. there's one story in my book when those black lives matter meet up with barack obama in december 2014 in the oval office, he's telling them that america is like a big ocean liner, that he can't just turn in one split second. and they're telling they're being tear gassed in ferguson. right. that's what they're telling him in reply. right. the first black president. so what they teach us is that we have to demand freedom. now, that's what they've taught us. and we've got to have enough grace and we have to have enough patience to just say, okay, let me listen. right. and so i think our role more as advisors, even as we continue to be activists and organizers is we have to listen. i would say in the classics civil rights movement, the youth

played an incredible, important role, especially birmingham spring of 1963, which i consider the gettysburg of the civil rights movement. it's when james bevel says, you know, dr. king, your approach isn't working here. i'm going to put the kids in the streets. high school students and elementary students to the point at which birmingham detectives are interrogating an eight year old girl about communist influences. and she says, i know anything about communism, but they told me a lot about nonviolence. that's the elders play a very important role in this. what you see, again and again is elders in the background. i mentioned amc more. amc and medgar evers. were the two people you went to in mississippi in 61, 62, 63. if you were a young civil activist and you wanted to. literally people said would not be alive. dave dennis so recently i would

not be alive. it were not for medgar evers. he told us how to live, how to survive another septima clark fired from her job, a schoolteacher in south carolina for belonging to the naacp. she spends a week preparing rosa parks. how are you going to do this direct action? the first question she asked her is, what do you want to do? and the last question she asked a week, how are you going to do it? the elders have a very important role here. they've been there. they know a lot. so i have one last question. but if you have a question for the panelists, please come to the mic, because we only have just couple of minutes left. my last question is, sometimes in a long struggle or war, it's hard. see societal progress. where are we today and what gives you hope?

i'll start with you, peniel. okay. yeah, you know, i make the argument that we're in this third reconstruction, this period of reconstruction. with my hinge points being the election of obama the rise of blm, 1.0 maga and donald trump, and in 2020 blm 2.0 racial, political reckoning and really everything that's come i don't i don't end it with january sixth like some people have said. i think we're caught these juxtapositions between elements of racial progress and racial justice movements and real. right. and i think sometimes if you just focus on one and without the other, you get a distorted view of where we're at. so i think that right now we have both hope when we think about so many teachers thinking about truth, teaching and 1619 project and we have backlash with the crt hoax voter suppression legislation legislation to censor what we teach our children, including

right here in the great state of texas, right and and so we are in a in a pivotal moment, but we're also in a moment where there's more paying attention than ever. and by paying attention, i don't mean about midterm results and just elections i mean, people are open to, thinking differently and listening to a different story. so i do think that have it in our consciousness right now to be able to actually take the steps to build that beloved community by imbibing a different story listening to a different story, telling ourselves that instead of thinking about tulsa, oklahoma, in 1921 as something that happened to them, and how could we have done that to them will know that we've transformed our society when we say to ourselves how could we have done that to us? right. and so there are fugitive democracies and archipelagos of freedom. right? radical optimism and hope all around the country.

the juxtaposition, the fact that our our leaders are not necessarily that hope. yeah. very quickly, i'd say. yes. there has been progress. america became a genuine more than it had been by about 1968, as a result of the civil rights movement before freedom summer in mississippi. 7% of black adults in mississippi could vote after it. 59% were able to vote. why i mention that? because one of the people who got elected to office in the late 1960s was a young man named bennie thompson. he is now chairman. the january six committee. so a direct connection. many is helping save america democracy right now because of what people in freedom summer in 1964. thank you. thank you. come forward with the first question. please speak up close to the mic. all right.

so how do you think about the role of police in rights movements both in the fifties, sixties and the present? i ask the previous speaker in this tent, michael fanone seems to and also a lot of mainstream liberals seem to believe that we can we can defeat and white supremacy by giving money to police, which i'm a bit skeptical about. but i'd like to know what you guys think. well, no, i think i think there's a book by elizabeth hinton, and i about this in my book to call america on fire, which looks at law enforcement, urban rebellions during the heroic period of the civil rights movement. the police going back to reconstruction. we think about the convict lease systems in law enforcement have served as an oppressive arm of the lost cause and white supremacy. one of the things that we need to do when we think about policing in the 21st century, especially now new narratives of a crime wave. right? and when you say crime wave, you

don't even have to say black brown crime. people get it because people have been criminalized for over four centuries in this country. we have to think about public safety. what is going to make us safe? is going to be billions of dollars for new arms, weapons and more people who are police officers and can shoot and harm people. or is it going to be investments in that are suffering and can actually live the kind of lives we all hope for, if they had the kind of investments that we all enjoy. right. so i don't think that when we think about the 21st century and moving forward, that the way to fight what's going on in our country is by investing billions dollars more in law enforcement and punishment. thank you. one more question. sir, can you come up? hi. yeah, can you hear me? my name is jim nash and, by the way. i was in philadelphia

mississippi and andrew goodman, one of my closest friends in the world. and i have pictures from there. now i'm going to say something. i have been to selma. i have been to belfast. i got busted in belfast by my five for dealing with that. when the provisionals said there is corruption within the right, which is totally insane. but then again, there's corruption on the left. i've had to deal with them. i've had to deal with them in east harlem. i have had to deal with that. but all across and as far as there's a lot of private blm, i basically support the whole idea, but there's corruption on the top. there was graft on the top. so all we have to do is come together. i have friends from county, mississippi. i've got friends from philadelphia mississippi. and i have photos of the memorial. they have down on the highway in mississippi. and yes, i was in selma. the thing have to do is come together and not make anybody

not make anybody the enemy, the police have got a lot of crazy a lot of corrupt people there. marginal criminals, as far as i'm concerned. what happened in florida? what happened in florida was atrocious. happened in ferguson was the trojans. but we have got to come together and understand, work together, not create. it's partizanship that you are talking about. so we have to work together. and i am. i've been to east harlem. i've been there with the i.r.a. i have watched people, crazy people out there. as i said, i a former civil rights worker and i believe we could come together and i look at more atrocities happening in northern city. thank you. thank you. at this thank you so much for your comments. we've run out of time. thank again for joining us