example of one of the artists we have collected. >> watch american artifacts on sunday, 6 p.m. eastern. on c-span three. c-span, where history unfold --ly, in 1970 where i'm 1979, c-span was created by american television companies and today, we are you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white ande, the supreme court, public policy events in washington dc and around the country. --pan is bought to you brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> for the next hour and a 20 minutes, a book tv exclusive. our cities tour visits lynchburg, virginia to learn more about the unique history

and literary life. for seven years now, we have traveled to u.s. cities bringing the scene to our viewers. you can watch more of our view tour. c-span.org/cities while in lynchburg, we took a drive with the executive director sally schneider. >> thank you so much for showing us around lynchburg today. >> it is my pleasure. >> where are we headed? >> we are headed down main street. we moved it to lynchburg in 2000 ,nd there were two restaurants to antique stores, one hardware store, and a garden shop. today, we have 12 bakeries, --two >> you have seen the city grow then? >> it has grown exponentially. when you walk around downtown lynchburg, almost every building

has history in it somewhere. the shoemaker company is now waterstone. and noticed -- -- through lynchburg, i've noticed all of the system or buildings are in the middle and industrial buildings as well. it looks like they have all been repurposed instead of building new ones. is that a conscious effort with the city or serendipitous to happen? years,the past 18 or 20 it the focus of the city. it turned around. we had great city managers and our director of -- with our director of planning. counsel, educating

people, we can back these kinds of things. why would you tear down a building like that to build something new? you are destroying history and shops for the african-american community. ands coming back in seeing being revitalized with other people moving into the older buildings read and they are redoing of them and putting a new face on this area of lynchburg. >> return of pierce street, wise it's notable? the museum is on the street. something i didn't know is lynchburg has a tie to the harlem renaissance. hopes, one of the

writers, but there are a lot of other writers in their home. >> and that is why this was the -- there will probably be others, but this was the last renaissancethe historic district. on the left, you can see this house and they have put up a fence. that was a clay-court and he taught arthur ashe. >> we have these grand slam tennis champion stemming from this, and he was a force behind the tennis integration. >> and he had camp's. there are a lot of people here now that remember coming to his camp. we're having out river month avenue and this was the country. people used to get in boats and they would take the james up

into river month. there was a casino out here. there was a huge part. people would come and spend the day, or come out, to the country homes out here -- it is hard to believe you can do it in five anutes, they would take couple of hours and go back into the city. a lot of people settled out here. this was the first planned neighborhood in the united states. >> sally, where are we entering now? >> riverside park. the hall here is all we could preserve. this came in here on the train and the train did not go to 1863, so they had to take him off of the train, book marshalle and carry his body to lexington. before they did that, they had

argued for session through lynchburg. >> what are we seeing here? >> this house was built in 1791. >> there is lore surrounding this. >> there is. mrs. owens lived in this house and she was a school teacher, librarian -- librarian. she let the children come through her library. thomas jefferson came to visit, and they had tomatoes in their .ard people didn't know about tomatoes. well, he saw them and thought they looked interesting so he was going to eat one of them. she was upset, i'm going to kill thomas jefferson. but he ate it to prove to the children it was not poisonous. we have seen a lot of different neighborhoods in lynchburg, you talked about the city's history and where it is today. what would you late -- what

would you like to see for the city of which were? -- city of lynchburg? come and feelo everything that the people that live here feel. sense ofa real community, involvement, and a real sense of caring for each other. >> thank you so much, sally, for showing us around. and spencer was a poet, and american poet associated with the harlem renaissance. to 1925. how she became part of the renaissance is how harlem comes to lynchburg. unfortunately, there is a whole group of people associated with that group of -- that time. period.

this was -- and spencer's interest in writing began as a child. of poetry, she said she wrote at age 11. she said she would pretend like she was writing even though she did not know how to spell. she would pretend. she would do the same thing as reading even before she learned how to read. in catalogs and go out to the outhouse in west virginia and she would pretend like she was reading. eventually, she taught herself how to read. she taught yourself three languages. they meet as tutors for each other. they become sweethearts, and they become married in 1901.

around 1901 and 1903, they start construction on this house. i always say that and spencer never lived in harlem, but harlem came to and spencer. example, the edb the boy comes to the college. spencer as for ann well. she needs people. very often, the people she is associated with work from the south -- were from the south. most of them were from the south migrating to the north. they are traveling from the south to the north. then, they would have to stop somewhere. they could not stay in a hotel. as the spencer home was not on the directory, it was open to

people they were associated with. ran into hurston in new orleans and she is working on her projects and he is working on another project, and he took the trainer. she drove her car, and the says i'm going north, why don't we go together and drive home? >he says i need to stop in lynchburg. they stopped to get -- they stopped to meet ann spencer and they go to philadelphia. there wasn't so much during this. of time. it was a movement, a really new movement. that was, i think a fun time to ,ome relax, think, right

whatever was going on here. >> we are now in the living room at the museum. there are several things in the parlor of interest. we have a letter here from w e b the boy they did 1934. the interesting thing about this letter was that there is a story that my grandmother would tell -- she would say nobody whenever he came to visit, he said he would bring some smart women. she is usually a doctor or lawyer. when i came across the doctor's letters, it says, ps, if i come, i will bring an interesting at thefemale) to worship shrine from w e b the boy.

room -- and this is a. of the real heyday of the house. family not only a good growing but they are having more and more visitors coming through and is staying over, visiting, and so my grandmother's each air is here and my grandfather's chair is the red one off to the side. she wasn't able to sometimes get into her garden which she could see after river window. she was doing lighting here. one of the differences about this room, and even the whole exam, with the collection being 98% original, all of the furnishings are pretty much in the same place as they were when i came here to visit.

one of the differences, it is a little neater. as a writer, she had a lot of paper, a lot of books, and i remember she had a path she would walk to her chair, she had a tray, books, and her spots for her coffee. it was papers and books everywhere. when she was talking. she would be able to reach over and grab whatever it is that she wanted to show you. we are going to go upstairs to the second floor, this is the back staircase. this house has two staircases. this staircase was my grandmother's filing cabinet. from the top to the bottom, this side of the staircase workpapers -- were papers. you had this narrow stairway to

work your way up and down. here, we have what i call the dewboy bathroom. upon fun story about this dewboy is fromat d massachusetts. prominent and didn't believe about outdoor plumbing. the seminary women are ready to prepare his evening, and they fill up this copper tub and he comes and he is very kind and says, i'm sorry, but i don't think it can bathe out here in the field. they called to the spencer's and pop said send him over. it comes in washes up or base

here, in the bathroom. the bedroom. if you look to the wall here, it is nearest to ann spencer's bed. is done by dolly allen mason. . she married an allen after president gregory hayes died. the canvas came to his wall, because before it was here, and would wake up in the middle of the night and right on the wall. she would write poetry, anything that came to mind. things that she may want to plant in the garden, things to get from the grocery store, and were thought that the law was getting a little bit out of hand and he was trying to discourage his wife from writing on the walls.

somehow, she gets with dolly allen and they do this remarkable piece. the more that i look at this these through the years that i have been working here in the museum, i'm beginning to identify people that are pictured in this piece. if you look in the right-hand corner. like grace now and her husband. nell and her husband. the new have this one. on the back, the man there with the glass in his hand, with the glasses, that would be starling a brown and his wife daisy -- sterling a brown and his wife

daisy. we can imagine all of this and get different pieces out of this history -- this history. she felt like she needed to sustain herself over her income, like many other writers that were doing it as a profession. thatad a husband, edward, built a marvelous home for her, and she alwaysr, consider the money that is she made as a librarian as her mad money. she would spend that on anything that she wanted for herself. these are the original roses from the garden that was restored in 1983. to agarden and changed different type of garden. you can see the tree that does not have leaves on it now, that

it has wonderful shades in the summer. you bring the roses to the sun to create a rose garden here. all of these roses, she planted. inside the garden, you will see a sign on the cottage here that n crawlen crawl -- ede thatt is a made-up word means around, enclosure, or place. ann spencer'sre, writing studio. this is the writing studio. just like the house museum, this is all original to the way she had it set up in the same place.

she used this cottage as her place to have papers, and books and things that are just hers. coming to this cottage was a place for her to escape all of those things that are going on in her world, and for her to come and clear her head, sing to herself, to write, and sometimes take a break from writing and to go to the garden. sometimes ann would sleep on the scott. hot -- on this cot. and had a lot of photographs -- ann had a lot of photographs. we would get a thumbtack and we would push those into the wall.

we would add a new photograph for the year. this is my grandmother later in life. i certainly remember her there. there were three children, bethel, elroy, in front of the five place -- fireplace, and my father chauncey. grandchildren, and my dad decided to do some of the cutouts seek and see my sister kyle, joel, chauncey, and me. i didn't know my grandmother was a poet. i knew her as granny. we wrote to her, i grew up in california, so we came here to visit her in the summer. that was always a fun time,

because we got to see our cousins who were also visiting here in the neighborhood and other family members. .e would write to her and we would like -- write to her weekly and she would write back to us. backame letter would come corrected with red marker correcting our spelling. we would also talk with her on the phone every sunday. my dad would call her and catch up. would get around, we to speak to granny on the telephone. it wasn't until i was in the eighth grade that i realized that my grandmother was a poet, and really didn't quite understand what that meant. we were living in michigan at

the time, and my teacher approached me and said, i would like you to read one of your grandmother's poland that the eighth grade graduation. i said, my grandmother? ok. so i went home and asked my father, i said dad, is granny a poet? he says, yes. in 1975cer passed away at 95 years old, living here all of her adult life. many people never knew of her accomplishments. they knew her as a librarian, as a garden -- some people work call her -- would call her a recluse because she enjoyed her privacy. her legacy is more important to me, and it should be important nationally because it is not

known. and it is not just her, her legacy or part of history, this whole segment of african-american history is not in our history books. it is important for us to know, the whole story of our american history. >> the firing chain is armed, firing pression -- suppression system activated. 5, 3, 2, one. zero and liftoff. to go to the international space station. >> you are now in space and the things you dropped are now

floating. you're still strapped in, and when the engines cut off because you are accelerating and you stop, you feel like you are tumbling forward like a somersault. under the seat belt i pushed up to the back, floated to the windows and videotaped the tank falling back to the planet. in doing my task, this thing is falling, and we are trying to see if there are any marks on it, if anything had come off of it to see if anything had hit our vehicle, like the columbia accident. ok, i see the caribbean and the colors of the ocean or so dramatic and blue. new definitions of blue to describe what i'm looking at. we are going around the planet every 90 minute, every 45

minutes you can see the sunset and sunrise. i said wow, this is space. you look at the deepness, darkness, and blackness, and you look back at the planets, you see the sun, it is incredible. it changed me. it may be have a cognitive shift in the way that i think about humanity and how i think about the planet and saving it, and working with people who don't have the same food or same hairdresser but you want to come together and hug everybody and say we are one race, the human race. inas born and raised virginia. when i grew up, my dad always told me about how much he was a -- how much arthur ashe was player.ood sports

i started to play tennis because of it, i started to get better and arthur ashe trained five blocks down the street from where i grew up. i played in tennis, i was the , but seed at heritage football got in the way. i played basketball, tennis, and football. football was the thing that pay the bills. so, when they said, you can come for free in play here, i think my parents like to that a little bit more. receiver at the university of richmond. we got better. went to the playoffs. the professional scout started looking because i had really good stats and we were transforming the team into a winning team, or change. i got drafted to play with the detroit lions in the 11th round

of the 1986 college draft. i'm this kid and never imagined playing football in college. i was a wide receiver in high school. that is not something i aspire to be, an nfl football player. -- but you know, i am up for a challenge. drafted, when to training camp, pulled a hamstring the second week of training camp and that was -- i thought it would be the end of my football career but they picked me up for the next season, the cowboys. normally, it is normally an hour away from lynchburg. i'm thinking, how am i going to go to graduate school and play professorshipthe would take care of it.

the engineering courses. hardest time of my life. i went out with danny white, i'm stressing, he wants to throw and i said let's run a half speed. scene starting to go awry because danny is trying to keep his job. a half speed, tenured out, to run as fences you can and i injured my leg for the second time and that was the end of my football career. i went back to grad school, finished my masters, and went to work for nasa. university,s at the nasa was looking to record -- recruit more women and minorities to get numbers up. someone whoted by was the physicist of the college. booth andthe nasa

said i want to be paid. the government job will not pay that much money. she saw me and said, what is your name? she said i've been looking for you. conversation, she was shutting the booth down, she said, come help me take my pamphlets to my car. is it, who is this woman? we go to her car and she says i want you to think about it. interview, i an get a job offer from nasa by the time i got home. i said, they have really cool stuff, i can get my phd there, all these different things, a campus environment, my interview with joe amon was incredible, he was a physicist that said you create, here and think, away from civilization.

i said, really? [laughter] that was a good, positive interview. i felt i could do good things. my experience at nasa was pretty phenomenal. i remember the first time i realized that people did not appreciate the education that i had from uva being a technician. i was going to get stuff made by technician eu said, where did you go to school? said university of virginia, is a know you went to virginia state, right? i said no, charlottesville, uva. he said no, you went to the black school in petersburg, virginia state. as if i couldn't go to that school. this formen i sensed of racism a little bit.

someone not expecting you to have achieved a certain things. i befriended catherine johnson when i was there from "hidden figures." , nowas always positive matter what the situation, she there isk about how always a solution, you just to work hard and figure it out. she had this work ethic. she had retired when i got there 89.6, i got there in i joined a group of african-american engineers and i became the change in the -- i became the treasurer and people -- mary jackson was one of the members at the time. i did not know their stories at that time. it wasn't until the movie came thethat i understood truly

advances they made to death at the time. i knew they were great people, smart, hard-working, and that helped me have a trajectory of being excellent, working hard, and even though i didn't know they -- what they had done. i worked in a branch that takes light or heat to make assessments on aerospace vehicles, if they are damaged or not. if the wing of an airplane is damaged, had you in a noncontacting way determine the state of damage so you don't have to break it apart. i did work on the space shuttle to look for detection of leaks in hydrogen fluid. the tank i would videotape falling back to the earth. we actually speed up the process of certifying a vehicle.

whilethat for a little and a friend of mine says you would be a great astronaut. i said, really? me? he said, yeah, not is taking applications for astronauts. i threw the application away, and that same year, he applied and got in -- and the same year, my friend applied and got in. i said if he can get in, i would get in. for an astronaut, they want to make sure you can do a certain set of skills. one of the things we are doing is building the space station. you need people to do spacewalks, but they are really .lso -- space crawls to do that training you have to be in an environment which is a 5 million gallon pool, you look

like a cross between the michelin man and the pillsbury dough boy, and you go down to the pool and assemble things in the water. we have a space station emerged and a space shuttle emerged -- submerged and a space shuttle submerged. if you are the kind of person that needs to squeeze your nose to clear your ears, that is your lifeline. they forgot to put the tool and it lets me do that. my little pat was not in when we went down to the bottom. i said, i will try to keep going but i did not have a way to clear my ears. at about 25 feet, i said turn the volume up in the headset. i heard nothing but static. they took my helmets off, and the flight surgeon on called started walking toward me, and when i got my helmet off he

touched my right ear and there was blood streaming down the side of my face. i'd gone completely deaf from this accident. they rushed me to the hospital, emergency surgery, doctors did not know what happened, they told me i would never fly in space. if you backup for days before the accident, i was in lynchburg with my parents having their 31st wedding anniversary. i was sitting in the car in front of the holiday inn downtown and my cousin and a friend of hers by the name of jeanette, and i do not know her, she said i have something to show -- share with you. something is going to happen you, no one will know why it will happen, you'll be healed of it, and you'll have this as a testimony to the world. four days later, i'm completely

remember when i was in the hospital, another friend of , who is at theon wedding anniversary service remembered and wrote a note to me saying remember what jeanette said. sad, and theed, doctors told me i would not fly and that i was completely deaf. my hearing slowly came back in three weeks, my right ear is good but my left ear is pretty much gone. i'm trying to figure out what to do with my life as an astronaut, because they will not fly me. i ended up going to washington dc to work in education because they needed someone to be the astor not for the program. dog andto d.c. with my we are up there, and restart the

program off. then the columbia accident happens. i am there to console the parents, david brown, who was one of the specialists, his parents lived outside of d.c. about an hour and a half. the night of the accident, i go to their home to console them and i'm trying to say -- figure out what to say to them. his father said to me with tears in his eyes, my son is gone, there is nothing you can do to bring them back, but the biggest we don'till be if continue to fly in space to honor his legacy. and i can't fly. i'm having all of this emotion as my friend is gone, i'm not flying, i caps on or his legacy, what if i going to do?

i'm clearing my ears like we used to do before the accident. the timing on every takeoff and landing, he is watching me clear my ears and take my notes. loosen,ck from d.c. to a cup -- to houston, he called me in his office and says he believes in me, here's your waiver to fly. later, i gotve assigned to a flight. atlantis, go with throttle up. flight engineer renny resnick seated down. they're kicking up their work week with a monday commute to orbit. i was told that you could

bring your family and when you get assigned it to a mission. family in to your take a picture in your orange suit with your family around you. i was thinking, my family, their four-legged family but they are family. i drove my dogs into nasa in a van with my neighbor holding them back in the back. past thethe vehicle guard after i showed them my badge and i show -- i go to the photo lab. i get them in there, and we have about 100 no bones. i put the orange suit on and they run toward me. i told the photographer to start shooting. one is licking my ear, scout is looking like a that became iphoto. -- that became my photo. >> you can see the black asked

black mass fear. he is very active. he once kibbles and bits and things. is going to honor's or the legacy of my other two dogs who passed away about four years ago. they were road warriors, went on trips with me. -- he has already made a me to boston and he is ready for some more adventures. i think we can do more to help inspire more kids to see themselves as scientists and engineers. numbershink about the of scientists and engineers that are being -- that are coming up in china and india, we are fit

for the sixth on the list. think about economic development, the future of your society, it comes from innovation and creativity. , science,t stean technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics. we has a country need to make sure that everyone at the table is helping to create that technology or that trust, or we will falter. space,se of you chasing there is a small town to never aspired to be an astronaut, never aspired to do the things he has done, nfl, science, talkshow host, you know what i mean? who does that stuff? that with grid,

persistence, and determination, you can do anything. i decided to write the book in virginia because i had a lot of questions about them. to plantationo museums, i would visit the kitchen because it was usually the most interesting part of the landscape. also a professional chef for 10 years. i found myself drawn to these spaces where men and women had to cook. there were no answers to the questions i had about their lives and their contribution to cuisine. my book is focused mostly on plantation homes and the larger ones. not the ones where the cook or -- theight have been cook might have been a mini as well, but the one that was ran as a business and each person had their job. those plantations had the

planter of the house, the mistress, the wife, several children. the cook would have to cook for all of them and, it is virginia, so all of the culture is baked into the labor of these cooks. they would have to be cooking for a friend that visited, neighbors would come by to eat. there was no social world outside of these plantation homes for most of the women living in the homes during this. -- during this period. so all of their energy goes around manga children to that next buffy's personnel the road. -- down the every ditch on the table, at the right time, the chef had to do this with perfection and slay the cooks where the second most valuable person on a plantation. butlers were valued at a higher monetary value than enslaved cooks.

sometimes, the cook was the most value to person on the plantation. they definitely switched back and forth. butler's only had a little tiny bit of a head on that, and that had to deal with the butler's being men and the cooks being women. but, there were plenty of an slaved men cooking through these kitchens. there was a lot of pride that slavers took in their cooks. you can see this back and forth in the letters talking about how grand their dinner is going to be and how amazing the food was on a certain night. these are references of the mistresses talking about how cooks might not be good enough to cook so they have to reschedule a dinner. the cook's role was very significant. what other enslaved the person has the power to influence the scheduling of an event but on by white people? enslaved cooks had to work 24 hours a day, always on call, and

if you think about the culture of the south in particular, people travel weeks to get to someone's plantation home to visit family or friends. when any of any of these people would arrive, they would be expected to have food. that was the hospitality tradition of the south. the hospink about how -- where the hospitality comes from, it comes from making sure remember -- whomever comes to your front door as anything they needed. the cooks were responsible for feeding anyone who walked in the door whenever they walked in the door, and making meals for everyone in the house and any of their guests as well. enslaved cooks were trained in multiple ways. some of them already knew how to cook. they might have known it from there prior training, learning from their mothers,

grandmothers, learning from occasionally from cookbooks as well. some of them were literate because it makes sense to teacher how to read otherwise you will have to be there when the recipes go over again. some of them, were sent to to learn french cuisine from the best of the best. you have the cross-pollination of cooking style and cooking slavers that happened during this. . if you look at the ways in which we eat, it does little bit of everything. access toooks had mobility in ways others didn't. they were allowed to go to market sometimes. you might be allowed to go down to market to get food for the meal. if you're in williamsburg, you can go to market and get a feel -- the food from the store for a meal and come back. they could leave on occasion to

get ingredients, talk with other people, and mingle in other ways that you couldn't if you were a field slave. chef, washington's hercules, he was living in a city that had a vibrant black immunity. he was able to -- fiber to black community. descriptiononderful of him walking down main street in philadelphia. he has stockings on and a velvet coat with a watch chain. walking,cane and is has had his hat is cocked and people are bowing to him because they respected him so much. this is someone who was the enslaved cook for the president in a city was mixed with enslaved people and free people worried he was able to meet people, and i would argue, that those travels that he made and the things that happened between ,is trips to mount vernon

george washington found out there was an emancipation act in pennsylvania which means if you own enslaved people in pennsylvania, they would have to be freed within six months. every five months and change, he would send his staff, down to touch virginia soil and back up again to get around that law. you have someone like hercules and others who work in that house meeting people every time they are going back and forth. every time they walked down main street to get their butter from the market, they are meeting people that eventually help them become free. enslaved cooks, with all of the power that they had in the plantation complex, soft power, they were still enslaved and had the threat of being burned by the mistress.

there were horrible accounts of torture happening, some of the mistresses were mistreating the cuts because they burnt the biscuits or dinner wasn't put on the exact way it wasn't too. the threat of violence was always looming. the difference between that's role that of somebody working as a butler or in the field, is that they were able to push back or poison if they needed to. there was this threat constantly looming over the enslavers that betsy might kill us tonight so maybe we should pull back tonight. especiallys hysteria after the nocturnal rebellion. yet 1831, 55, plus slave owners killed. when that happens, shockwaves were sent across the south. people and the women in virginia that owned these people -- enslaved people were terrified that they would be poisoned and killed by their cooks.

another interesting thing about wasresearch that i found with the presidential homes. they would be doing a lot of entertaining of heads of states or people of other nations. you see a lot of things happening. you have a landscape that started to reflect the comfort of owning slaves. you see in places like mount vernon, monticello, and you see the phenomenon at month earlier -- mont pilliar. you see the architectural masks. architect -- thomas jefferson has the dumbwaiter built into his fireplace. you have dumbwaiters being put and place, of, someone that is not going to be able to communicate, it is a dumbwaiter. passagewaysd these allow the flexibility to hide

enslaved bodies are present enslaved bodies depending on who was coming to your plantation that today. it wasn't the thomas jefferson did not own enslaved people, but you would not show it off. -- the fact that they were free nations all of the world and that the u.s. was taking long to taking -- taking long to getting around to abolishment. there is a huge misunderstanding of enslaved cooks. the images of uncle ben, and jemima, are still on the grocery shelves. they are multi fold. on one hand, people going in with say on jemima syrup, it must be good. it is a black lady cooking my food. there is a comfort or appetite for black servitude.

there always will be. on the other side of the coin, we have this complete absence of enslaved cooks as true contributors to american cuisine. so, which is it? you can't have both. my work is trying to blend them together and make people realize they were real people that contributed immensely to this culture through hundreds of years of enslavement. >> operation paperclip was an intelligence scenario that evolved at the end of world war ii where the allies realized that the germans had made major breakthroughs in weapons technology. jet engines, submarines, and of course the rocket technology. there was an understanding that allied armies would not cross the third rank as it was collapsing.

you wanted to at least the tame the scientists, and more importantly, get the equipment and the rocketry in particular to study it and keep it out of the hands of potential enemies in the future like the soviet union. fear, thest based on fear we needed to understand how far they have gone and how much they have done with the weaponry. later, it is what can we do with the scientists and material. intelligence operatives can see the way to bring them back to the united states or deal with them in countries during the occupation. paperclip was an idea among thisligence can intelligence officials and the community that was aware of how germany had progressed in weapons technology during the war. there was an understanding that, with the atom bomb and the invention of the long-range rockets, we have entered into a

new era of warfare. it wasn't quite the cold war, where you were looking at the soviet union as an intense enemy, but, no matter who is out there, this technology has changed the way warfare can be conducted. you need to find an advantage against any potential enemy that which involves finding the best scientists and matching it with america's industrial might. if you could achieve a breakthrough by using technology that is already available in germany, this was deemed a military necessity. that seems to be the key word for the project. whatever falls under the national security," anything else is justified, including bringing over 1500 x not these to the united states. exnazis.500

it was called paperclip because they would put a paperclip on one corner of the dossier to signal to whoever was looking at it that this person was important. the most important thing was that this person was worthwhile, and it told them don't look too deep into the record if they are not see or at some other criminal element to them, because we need them. it is saying don't investigate them too much. that is the heart of why paperclip is controversial. so many will be brought over with those backgrounds. the government obviously made tremendous breakthroughs in atomic energy, but we were not nearly as advanced in error not mix -- advanced in a romantic as the germans," they invented -- as the germans. a long-range rocket which did little to help with the war.

that technology was identified as something, if mass-produced, could be the future of warfare. the germans had a reputation during the war of making things that were very intricate but not able to be mass produced that would affect the war. whereas the united states, britain, and the soviet union, focused on mass production of things needed for the war, airplane, ships, and in use numbers. that is what defeated nazi germany. something like paper clip, how --we take this technology technological revolution and match it with the industrial might of the united states? that is why these german scientists were attracted to american intelligence professionals that thought there was a possibility to skip years of research and development

simply by harnessing what is available in germany. the project began as a military intelligence operation because it was them that wanted to use the knowledge of the germans. when the idea of using integration as an incentive to bring the germans over and happily work for us, once immigration became a topic, the state department has to get involved. that is what the problems arise. it is those departments that will oppose many elements of paperclip. think about this, if you are the director of the fbi, at the time of j edgar hoover, and he spent most of the war fighting nazi them, andesting conducting successful operations against nazi espionage inside the united states. how would you react if we said we would bring 1600 -- 1500

exnazis and let them work on military bases. it was opposed initially. as did the it took president truman's executive order authorizing paperclip to allow the bureaucracy to support this effort. even within the state and justice department, there were voices opposed to paperclip. of thoseets into many who opposed this operation for moral reasons, but also because of the danger it posed to the united states to have these acts my combatants running around. paperclipeper clip -- had 700, 800 scientists and

their dependents. in operation until 1973, we were still bringing over german scientists and their dependents. they initially went to places ,ike new mexico, texas patterson air force base in ohio had a huge number of them, virginia, boston, long island. werewhere were there existing military bases or secret, quieter facilities involved in experimental technology, you would have a community of germans popping up. eventually, the rocket team would wind up creating a whole community of germans in alabama, where they would remain indefinitely.

it was an interesting phenomenon to have within 45 years after the war communities of germans living in military towns, influencing the culture of wherever they happen to be, which was the midwest, the south, primarily. did notpaper clip remain much of a secret given the numbers coming into the country. hard to miss german -speaking scientists on military bases. they realized by early 1946 they would have to tell the public. they had a very carefully crafted press release that did not go over well. a compared nazi scientists to albert einstein. and albert einstein was infuriated. he called them the carriers of the country.

and he was a proud american citizen in our country by 1946. the attempt to normalize this policy did not succeed. it had to be said, the military guest rightly that most americans would be uncomfortable with the idea, but soon forget it. yes, americans were against it, but how long would that resonate with the public? it did not seem to be very long. with project paperclip, the ones most americans seem to remember the most because of how they are -- howde and pop culture they are portrayed in pop culture. few whosead quite a background caught up with them. they would be a number of high who wereaperclippers

involved in war crimes during the war and are discovered and sent back to germany, mostly because of the embarrassment and public attention. you also had people who had lied about their capabilities and knowledge and were deemed not useful. it happened more than people tend to think. we are so used to focusing on the glorious rocket program and the people that worked for nasa. but in reality you and people that knew, if they could get a contract in the u.s. and get citizenship, that would be the best offer they could possibly have. they would fudge their records. not just to their nazi party membership, but how much was known. a number of people were simply let go. , oneore controversial ones that was a corporate lawyer, a braun, a hard-core

nazi.his wife was even more involved in the nazi party. they become an embarrassment in the united states. it became too much. they were simply asked to go back to germany. tended to be a lot of scientists and engineers and family members who were either not what they had advertised number of to be or scientists whose past had caught up with them and they were too embarrassed to keep in the united states because they have these extensive nazi party records or had been involved in war crimes that were verifiable. father ofolph, the the saturn rocket, was extremely controversial. sketchyave a very background. he was an ardent nazi. they could not even a race that

part of his record. he was personally responsible for ordering the hangings of inve laborers in the factory germany. and yet that was largely concealed or deemed not provable until the 1980's when the office of special investigation, part of the justice department, opened an investigation based on historical research that was done into his case. it has -- it had progressed to he point, by the mid-1980's, was given the option of either facing a possible trial, and being deported, or voluntarily returning to germany. he voluntarily left. but he also got to keep all of his federal benefits. paperclipe closest,

acquisition being prosecuted for their crimes. the project called paperclip was 1945 to 1947. but it would exist under additional names, another was called the national interest the idea that was maybe the department of commerce could get involved and bring in specialists and find them work in civilian corporations or academia. project -- aa program called project 63, based on the fear after the invasion of korea, they were be a full-scale war in europe. they wanted to get the remaining best and brightest out of germany, out of harms way, so they would not be blown up in an invasion. there was the red scare mentality effect of the program and the idea it should continue. west germany was not happy with this notion they could take

whoever they wanted. it did not go very far, because of diplomatic reasons. shown, this have program does not die until the 1970's. there is still a notion of scientistsure german over and have them working for us, as opposed to their own country. topic apaperclip is a lot of americans think they know about already, because german scientists were very involved in our research and development, they were involved in nasa. one of the things i focus in the book are those who oppose people click --paperclip. i want to show how contested a policy this was. birth of a new national security ideology

between 1945 and 1947 in particular, that revolved around military necessity and directing our national policy. this was a microcosm for the early years of the cold war, and how bureaucracy responds to a new environment. it is not very pretty a lot of times. the focus on personalities are given short shrift. the militaryof officers that helped the program get off the ground. what we don't know, the people who had a moral objection to it or practical objection to it, and how they reconciled themselves to this new national security environment. you and i initially spoke on the phone to book this interview, you said to me that since moving to lynchburg, the perspective you had in the book had changed. could you explain that?

>> i think it was a matter of location. when i wrote the book, i was on the outskirts of washington, d.c., and i find that because of the proximity to the center of power, that has an influence on your perspective, your view of things. i was politically active at the time. all those things made the book not only a memoir, an explanation for how someone could grow up in a family as i did, very conservative values, but liberal political and then becoming politically conservative. it also became a perspective of how i viewed issues. coming into our current situation in lynchburg at liberty university, number one, it is an academic perspective. number two, because it is a private christian institution,

another perspective came into play. a lot of the issues in the book, political solutions, i now look to more spiritual solutions. i sense the community i do with at libertyt just university, but lynchburg, have given me a different perspective. maybe even more empathy about issues and challenges people are facing, and what they need to do to overcome them. >> can we talk about initially in the book, what were some of the topics you were tackling, and why did you name the book the title that you gave it? is probably the one very provocative thing that makes the book stand out. i call it "sellout: musings from uncle tom's porch." part of it is because there tends to be a reaction on the part of people when, as a black man, you say you are conservative.

or a black woman, for that matter. some people react to it and those kinds of names come out. i used to joke that when you say you are a conservative, you inherit names your mother never gave you. i decided to own the name and use it as a way to start a conversation. particularly about the phrase uncle tom, which has come to mean one thing in modern discourse. if you actually read the novel, it means something totally different. author,.the beecher stowe -- harriet beecher stowe, intended for him to be christlike. that was the purpose of using that. to get a few eyeballs on the cover and maybe go further than that. issues were some of the you were talking about in the book?

what was your perspective on the well-being in d.c., and how did that change moving here? >> the book is largely a memoir, talking about how i arrived personally at the temperament, the position, the ideas i did. stories and things that will lead into each. i would like to talk about the areas which seemed to be trouble someone we talk about the black experience in america, education, the economic well-being of the black community, the family structure. what myhose things and view was and what i thought the solutions were, from a political perspective. what has changed mainly is, i acknowledge that because of my upbringing, a lot of the things i experienced are not the experiences of a lot of black people in these communities.

i was raised in a military ent family.-par they are still married, just celebrated their 58th anniversary. always that integrated communities, schools. a gated community. an airbase, you have to get through the gate to get through. i grew up with safety and security, a very protected environment. over time, as my focus has become less political and more spiritual, i thought to myself, what would my life have been like if i had been born in west baltimore or maryland to a single mother, or ferguson, missouri, or any of these flashpoints we have seen in the news? what if the only thing i saw every day was risk and threat? what if the only father figures i had were the teenagers down the street who were in a gang? what if my time in school was

spent just trying to survive, much less learn anything? i started to say, i can't discount experiences that are not my own. experiences are a very personal thing. even in the book i say, you may disagree, but these are my experiences. i think that applies both ways. from my perspective i started saying, while i still believe in the power of these solutions, and they still believe in moral agency, our ability to take charge and overcome the circumstances in which we find ourselves, i understand that is not as easy to do when you start off at a deficit. that allderstand too of the laws and political solutions in the world do not mean anything if there is not heart change, life change. i even mention that in the book.

i conclude with that idea. i feel i did not go far enough with it, some things i have done in writing since then i emphasized the idea of taking it theof the realm of political because particularly in today's era where politics has become so fractious and we are so polarized, i don't think it is a place where solutions can be found, particularly when talking about something as long-standing as the relationship between blacks and whites in america. we are approaching almost 500 years since the first slaves were brought to the shores of what is now the united states of america. that landedlaves from a spanish galyon in the carolinas in the 1500s. they escaped. but that was the first time they were on the american continent. we have been dealing with this

for a very long time. we have laws on the books ever since the emancipation proclamation. we have had laws, amendments to the constitution, guidelines, executive orders, you name it. yet, we are still struggling with this, all these years later. i really believe it is going to take a spiritual solution. is goingerspective, it to take a spiritual community, the christian community, leading by example. i believe the church can do it. but they have done a poor job of it to this point. that is where i put all of my emphasis now, less on the state house and white house, and more on the church house. politics has done one thing to harm discourse, creating this concept of the other. whenever there is other, the other becomes the enemy. it is easy to demean them, dehumanize them, set them apart. relating to the

fact there is an inherent godlikeness in all of us, not distinguishing between you, me and anyone else, when you put the image of god in us, it breaks down the ability of people -- to put people on the other side and demonize them. i will tell you an interesting story, one of the stories that lended itself to this change i had about things. there was an article about the gun laws in the state of illinois in the city of chicago, in the wake of the supreme court decision the ban on handguns in chicago was unconstitutional. we state and city decided, are going to make it as challenging as possible for anyone to get one. they instituted rules and restrictions. the outcomes of the rules and restrictions were that people who lived in the suburbs could more easily get concealed carry permits than people who lived in the south side of chicago, who

were looking for them to protect themselves from crime in their neighborhoods. thisam thinking to myself, is a second amendment issue, i am going to publish this article and my conservative friends will be up in arms about these people trying to protect themselves and cannot get access to what they need. was a lot of very disappointing commentary from conservative friends about black people with criminal records not being able to get concealed or if they did not spend their money on iphones and speakers, maybe they would have the money for the permits. i am not saying everyone commented that way, but enough where it was almost like it slapped me in the face. wow.d to myself, well --

have -- i never expected that. anyone to read into that but i think all conservatives are racist, i don't. but that response surprised me. if this had been a white, working-class community, i wonder if they would have responded the same way with those comments and stereotypes. that made me step back and start to think, maybe i need to reflect on where we are in america right now as a nation, where these attitudes are. clearly there are things that still have not changed. >> those colleagues who responded that way, did you ever bring up to them how you were taken aback by their response, and what did they say? -- theones that i've ones that responded -- not a

majority, but enough to concern me -- they shrugged their shoulders. if you show empathy toward the other, whoever they consider the other to be, you become one of them. i cannot tell you how many times i have put something out there and some that he will push back. acknowledge their point of view is correct, all of a sudden your credentials get taken away, you lose your card. i have learned to brush that off. social media is a bit of a wasteland when it comes to intellectual dialogue or any civilized dialogue. again, i talk about communication being there to inform, inspire, inflame. i try not to inflame, but i accept it. i never respond in kind, and they move on. anything tould say

the current congress going on d.c.,now in washington, what would your message be to them? >> examine your heart and question why you went there in the first place. if you're purpose was to serve -- your purpose was to serve, serve and become other-centered. otherwise,pose was consider why you had to be there. >> [indiscernible] forgottensidered the heel. there are six houses on this street. this is the house we lived in. this house has no -- now been changed a lot.

four rooms and no running water. we had a faucet on one side. i wanted to see what it looked like on the inside. the besthis wife said, of all possible worlds. i said the same thing when i lived here. we said the best years of our life were spent on west mckinley street. i was poor, grew up in poverty. i knew i was poor. there was no doubt about that. we had running water inside, but we did not have electricity. porchd stand on the front and look across the street to the patrick house. they had electricity because they had a porch light.

we don't have a porch light. my mother would tell me the she and myw when father got married they only had $10 to their name. i knew we were poor. poorest of the poor, but we were down there. some white people lived in some of these houses. some of these have been built since i moved away. mayberry lives here. this house, i don't remember. there was a kid about my brother's age. for me it was the same way, a

kid in the street was told not to play with me. it was segregated, for the most part. but it was integrated in some because [indiscernible] they lived on this side of feather street. this man was an evil man. for hisdent on us business. he was a white grocery store owner. he treated us with a lot of disrespect. time he gave me a can of beans, she said, ask for a bag. , you don't need a bag for your lunch. said takehe can down,

the bad, and go home. i told my mom what happened. she said, i told you to come back with a bad. but she talked to him next time i didn't have a problem. maybe a little more than a mile from here, everything was within walking distance. you have a lot more professionals living on pierce street. , a had doctors, teachers recognized poet. we do not have those types of people. we had a few teachers in the is more commone because you had people of note , who were more community-active. active in the community.

that neighborhood was known mostly for negative things like the black bottom, where a lot of illicit activity happened. they would take dandelions and sell them to the bootleggers. we would stay confined to our neighborhood. i did not know anybody on pierce street, so i did not go there. i did not know about anne spencer. i know about dr. johnson, because he had a business on 5th street. this is where some of the prominent whites live in the area. on can see in the distance, harrison and madison street, this is called garland hill.

i am going to go down here and circle around. >> how far we from mckinley street? >> not that far. in fact, if you walked down this street, let me go down here. thesen see these houses, days where the white folks live. you can see one of my editors, book publisher, you might say. this is the area where a lot of the prominent whites live. you could come to trick-or-treat. street was within two blocks of here.

whites lived over here. i am going to stop or a here -- stop right here. you can see the house over there. that is the mcdaniel house and i lived on the other side of it. so that is mckinley street. watching this,re what do you want them to know about? , its i said in the book does have a history. there is a lot of unwritten history because no one has documented it. i wanted to have some documentation of the history of the community. >> our visit to lynchburg,

virginia is a book tv exclusive. we showed it to you to introduce you to c-span cities tour. we have traveled the u.s. cities ringing the book seem to our viewers. you can watch more of our c-span.org/c itiestour. >> a look at how states are responding to the opioid discussionollowed by on economic sanctions and the recent announcement of talks between the u.s. and north korea. later, white house press secretary sarah sanders on north korea and other topics at today's briefing with reporters. on capitol hill this week, maryland governor gary hogan and oregon governor k brown testified on how their states were responding to the opioid epidemic. they talked about medication assisted treatment, drug monitoring programs, and other options for those suffering from addiction. the hearing byhe