- [Announcer] Production and distribution of City Club forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat music) - Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, September 29th, and I'm Lillian Kuri, president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation.

(audience cheering and applauding) It is my privilege to introduce today's forum with Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards winner, lifetime achievement.

(audience cheering and applauding) It is also fitting that today is The Steve Minter Endowed Forum at The City Club.

(audience applauding) As you may know, Steve Minter served as president and executive director of the Cleveland Foundation for nearly two decades.

He became the first African-American president of any US community foundation.

We are delighted that today's forum with Charlayne is in his legacy.

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards remains the only prize that recognizes books that made significant contributions to the understanding of racism and human diversity.

Poet and philanthropist, Edith Anisfield Wolf, established the book prize in 1935 to reflect her family's commitment to social justice.

Winners of the prize have included such notable writers as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King Jr., Maxine Hong Kingston, and Isabel Allende, as well as Nobel winners, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, and Toni Morrison.

Just to name a few.

Since 1965, the Cleveland Foundation has proudly administered the prize.

Our esteemed guest today, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, first made history in 1961 when she and Hamilton Holmes desegregated the University of Georgia after mounting a successful legal challenge that granted their admission.

(audience cheering and applauding) As she graduated, William Shawn, editor of The New Yorker, offered Charlayne a position.

She later became the first black journalist to write for Talk Of The Town.

Today, Charlayne is a veteran journalist who has worked for the New York Times, PBS, NPR and CNN.

She received multiple awards, including an Emmy and a Peabody for her distinguished work, covering apartheid in South Africa for PBS.

In her latest book, "My People: Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives", Charlayne chronicles her lifelong commitment to reporting on Black people in their totality.

From the civil rights movement to the election of Barack Obama to backlash, joining us for the today's forum to moderate is Helen Maynard, an editor at Signal Cleveland.

Helen is a longtime journalist, having reported for News 5 in Cleveland and ABC News.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Helen Maynard.

Helen.

- Thank you.

(audience cheering and applauding) Thank you.

(audience applauding) Thank you.

- What it as a pleasure it is to be here with you today, Charlayne, and I have to bring up something that apparently came up last night.

I understand you're starting a new campaign that we all wanna know about, that you might be the next president of the United States.

(audience laughing) - Well, I mean, you know, you get to be 81 and there are other people who are 81 who are doing things in the country.

And I like that other person, sometimes trip when I'm walking up the steps and sometimes I forget a word or two, and sometimes I just, you know, enjoy myself no matter my age.

And so, I figured that watching someone else that age, maybe I could be POTUS too, why not?

(audience laughing) But then, I decided that it would be great to have a woman president, wouldn't it?

(audience cheering and applauding) And, I mean, there are some around, and I think I could do it, but I think there's someone else who could maybe do it almost as good as me.

- Ah.

(all laughing) - Anyway, nevermind, enough politics.

- Enough politics, we'll talk about your writing, and I mean, you're here for a lifetime achievement award, you know, that also recognizes writing that we're not always recognizing, about talking about culture, about talking about race.

What did you think when you first heard you're getting this award and what do you think about how we're elevating writing about race and culture now?

- What do I think about?

- About how we elevate or do not elevate writing about race and culture?

- Well, we're in a transition, I think.

Every day I look at a online piece from a young, well, not so young anymore, Richard Prince, who does this journalism.

- [Helen] Journalism.

And he continues to keep up with the changes that are taking place as more people of color and more women are put into positions that they have not occupied in the past.

At least not in any significant numbers.

So the times are changing.

There is resistance.

You may have seen some of that resistance.

And it's resistance, I don't understand, because I think that no matter what your political beliefs are, your political affiliations or your political objectives, you need good information.

My colleague Jim Lehrer, who is now, as you know, resting in peace with so many of our... You get to be 81, you got a lot of friends resting in peace.

But Jim used to say, give people good information and they'll do the right thing.

Now, you could debate what is the right thing, but that's what we journalists exist for, - Okay.

- to give people options.

Not to tell you how to think, but to give you good information, so that you can make your own decisions.

And that's how I started early on in life.

I started in Atlanta, Georgia, shortly after I had... And I thank you so much for using the word desegregate because we did not integrate, we desegregated.

They're still integrating.

(audience applauding) They haven't integrated yet.

As much as I love those dogs, go dogs, we still have work to do.

And I'm so happy that the people at the University of Georgia understand and appreciate that.

But when I first went there, although I did develop some friends, especially in the journalism school, I went to work for the student newspaper, The Red & Black, and none of the students wanted to work with me.

Now, either because they were concerned about how their friends might think of them or I don't know, I never asked.

But in the interim, the Atlanta student movement had begun, and that's when the young people, this was 1961, and the young people were demonstrating to end the separate but equal lie.

And the White newspapers weren't really significantly covering their activities.

And the black newspaper, the oldest black daily in the country, the Atlanta Daily World, was sponsored primarily by White advertisers, so they limited their coverage as well.

So a professor at Clark College, Carl Holman and Julian Bond, started the Atlanta Enquirer.

So, every Friday I would finish my class and shoot to Atlanta, 70 miles away, drop my bag at my mom's house and go to Carl Holman's basement where they had set up the newspaper.

So the students would go out, demonstrate, get arrested, because that was the idea they needed to challenge why it was that Georgia was not living up to the 1954 decision.

And how many of you in here know about the 1950?

No, don't raise your hand, I don't wanna bear.

I am so amazed, I was at a school in Florida the other day, and I mentioned...

Okay, no, no, we are gonna get to Florida later, maybe.

But I mentioned the 54 decision and none of these young students had ever heard of it, and I wasn't totally surprised.

So I explained what the 54 decision was to them, end of the session with the students, and the young Black teacher is walking me to my car.

Now, she must have been in her mid to late thirties, maybe early forties.

And she said, "That was really great, I really enjoyed it, but can I make a confession?"

I said, "Yes."

She said, "I didn't know what the 54 decision was."

Now I'm not gonna ask how many people in this room don't know what the 54 decision was, but just think about it.

One of the most significant pieces of legislation in this country is not being taught.

And one of the things that bothers me so much is, and I know why you laughed at Florida, because I'm about to say that the effort to remove our history or to change it in some way that fits a particular political perspective is outrageous.

We cannot allow that to happen.

We cannot allow that to happen.

(audience applauding) And yet, now, I haven't looked this up recently, maybe some of you historians in the room can help me with this.

But a few years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that something, like, 80% of the schools in this country do not teach Black history, or at least not in any significant way.

And it is just unbelievable because it's American history.

And so, you know, it's, that's one of the reasons I keep on keeping on at 81.

I may not be running for president, but I'm running for getting our history in our schools, and among our people.

(audience applauding) - So that wasn't a gap for you.

When you were growing up, history was everybody's history.

Well, you were in a segregated school.

- Yes, but...

Okay, you got me to tell this story.

- Uh-oh.

(audience laughing) We're gonna get comfortable.

- I was in a segregated school to be sure.

And we used to get the hand-me-down textbooks from the...

This was in Covington, Georgia.

We used to... 30 miles to something 40 miles from Atlanta.

We used to get the hand-me-down textbooks from the White schools, often with pages missing.

And so, every year, my school, the Black school, would have a fundraiser to make up for some of the deficits.

And whichever family raised the most money, their child would be crown king or queen.

Now, my father was serving in the military, and last night we had a wonderful gentleman in the audience who served in World War II, and I didn't get a chance to ask him if he knew my father, but that's where my father was in World War II, fighting for a country that didn't recognize him as a full citizen.

But nevertheless, my mother and grandmother go all around this little town, Covington, Georgia, they knew all of my uncle's girlfriends, (audience laughing) and of course they didn't know each other, (audience laughing) so they would go to them.

And this night comes and everybody's counting the nipples and quarters and dimes, and I'm nervous, and all of a sudden I hear, "And tonight, we have a new queen.

It's Charlayne Hunter."

Well, the reward was a Bulova watch.

Now, as I said, my father was in the military, so my family had a little money, so the Bulova watch didn't mean anything to me, but the diamond tiara, (audience laughing) I wore it every day.

So many days that my girl friends in class got so mad at me.

They threatened me and I didn't wanna get beat up 'cause they could do that.

So I took off the physical crown, but the notion- - [Audience Member] Come on.

- that I was a queen... - [Audience Member] Come on.

- You got, you know, you got me.

(audience cheering and applauding) The notion that I was the queen took up residence in my head.

- [Audience Member] That's right, that's right.

- So when I walked onto the campus of the University of Georgia and they were yelling the N word go home, I was looking around for who they were talking about because I knew I was a queen, right?

So that couldn't be me.

And so, from, again, 81 years old, you all, you ladies in here work to get 81, okay, 'cause it can be so much fun.

For my 81st birthday, you ready for this?

- [Audience Member] Yes.

- The queen decided- - [Audience Member] Yes.

(audience cheering and applauding) - Like LL Cool J says, (audience cheering) don't call it a new day, I've been here before.

(audience laughing) - So that strength and that regalness comes from the crown, but also there's something from your upbringing.

I mean, I remember looking at pictures in history books and newspapers, seeing you sitting in the back of the car with Hamilton Holmes and you looked so calm.

They had just smashed the window.

People were screaming, hollering, and you're like, okay, we're getting ready to go for a ride.

So, where does that come from?

- Well, it came from my upbringing, and that's why I see some young people in here.

I hope your parents are here as well, because they probably do the same thing that my parents did.

It was, I don't know, it was my grandmother.

My mother used to send me to Florida.

Well that was before the current Florida.

My grandfather was what in the AME Church is called a presiding elder, which is a teaching preacher.

And he used to go around the state of Florida teaching preachers.

My grandmother, however, was the saint.

And so my mom would send me down there every summer to get some of that old time religion.

Well, five and six years old, I didn't wanna be bothered with that, so I would climb the mango tree and hide from my grandmother, but eventually I'd have to come down out of the mango tree having eaten the raw mangoes in my mouth would going like this.

And my grandmother would teach me, make me learn a Bible verse every day.

So the night that the students rioted outside of my dormitory at UGA, and they finally, they took their time dispersing the crowd, believe me.

But eventually, they dispersed the crowd with tear gas and the students were told to change their sheets because of the tear gas.

I didn't hear any of that.

And then they came and got me and they had thrown bricks through my window.

And so I knew that the crowd was an angry, uncontrollable crowd.

But when the tear gas came, and they would, they theoretically, or at least ostensibly were disbanded, they came and got me to take me to pick up Hamilton.

The girls had to live on campus.

This was the days of the magnolias and they had to be treated like magnolias.

But the boys didn't have to live, so Hamilton lived with a Black family about five minutes from my dorm.

So when we got to his place, he didn't even know that there had been a riot.

But we get driven back to Atlanta by the state patrol, get to my home about two o'clock in the morning.

Then the next morning, the journalists are all over our yard to find out what had happened the night before at University of Georgia.

And so, one of the journalists said to me, well, "How scared were you?"

I said, "I wasn't scared."

And you know, you learn lessons as a young person, young people over there that stay with you, right?

So when they... And sometimes you don't even know what you've learned, it's just internalized and in your brain, and there it is.

And so when they said, "Well, why weren't you afraid?"

And I suddenly realized my grandmother had taught me, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

I wasn't even conscious, but that's how important teaching our young people really is.

You don't ever know where your lessons are going to appear in them, but it'll be there.

And as I said, I was five and six years old when my mother sent me to Florida to learn these things from my grandmother, but they stayed with me.

And that night, and on my way out, as I said, all the girls had, they put me in a room by myself on the first floor.

It had been the student government building union room, two rooms actually.

And the girls were accusing them of discriminating because I had a kitchenette.

(audience laughing) I wasn't allowed to go.

They didn't desegregate the cafeteria initially.

And I had a bathroom with a tub and a shower, whereas they had to go out in the hall and all shower together and stuff.

So they were accusing us of discriminating against them because they didn't have all these private things but, and so when I was walking out with the the guard, with the dean, the girls had come down after they had taken their sheets off of the bed.

And as I walked past them, they were in a semicircle, and I was heading to the door, one of them threw out a quarter and said, "Here, Charlayne, go upstairs and change my sheets."

And I just kept walking, yea though I walked through the valley, but I wanna say something else because I think that nowadays we generalize too much.

We talk about White people, we talk about Black people.

We don't make distinct... Well, I'm generalizing too, boo.

(audience laughing) But I hear that much, too much.

And I wanna say while I'm in my dormitory, 'cause at 81 I forget a few things every now and then.

That's my husband, what's your name?

(all laughing) He's taking notes to tell me what not to do next time I speak.

I'm sure that's what he is doing.

- That's one of them.

(all laughing) (audience applauding) (indistinct chatting) - Yeah, so I wanna flip it though, because I think we generalize much too much.

We talk about White people this, Black people that.

And from those early days, I just refuse to generalize because here were the girls in a semicircle saying, "Here, Charlayne, go upstairs and change my sheets."

A few days later, we readmitted, our lawyers went straight to court, got us back in, boom, like that.

Go back, I'm in my room, and there's a knock on the door.

Open the door, and there are three or four girls with bags of groceries.

Now they knew that I had a kitchenette.

And these girls said, "We've come to cook dinner for you if it's okay."

I said, "Okay, fine."

They come in and while one girl is cooking and the other one is setting the tables and making themselves comfortable in my rooms, they begin to tell me the story of the Jewish people and why it is that they was sympathetic to me and to what was going on.

Now I grew up, again, in Georgia.

I knew Black and I knew White, I didn't know about Jews, but that night I learned about the Holocaust and the similarities between the discrimination that Jewish people face and not that different from what so many of us were facing.

And even to this day, one of those girls, we are in communication.

In fact, I got, I owe her a call.

But I learned a lot that night about why we can't generalize when we are talking about people and their behaviors and their attitudes.

I went to Israel once with a group of women and organized by the Jewish women in Tel Aviv.

And no, it wasn't Tel Aviv, it was the other town.

- Jerusalem?

- Jerusalem.

And we'd gone all around town, all around, and the last day we were there, we were supposed to go to Golda Meir's grave, but nobody had ever said anything about the West Bank.

And I had interviewed one of the leaders over there in another circumstance, in another location, some months, maybe a couple years before that.

And I said to a couple of the women, "You know, I'd like to just go to the West Bank.

I'd like to find out what's going on over there."

So three of us didn't go to the Golda Meir's thing, we went to the West Bank and spoke to people over there about their issues and concerns about what was going on between them and the Israelis.

Came back and it was all over everywhere that we had been.

And that night I was supposed to summarize the entire meeting and I don't think they wanted me to do it, but they had already asked me and they were pissed off that I had gone to the West Bank, but they couldn't dismiss it, so I had to do it.

So I get up and I say... Oh, it took a long time for them to finally call on me.

It was like they were trying not to and I kept saying.

But it wasn't to show off, it was to say that, we have come this long distance so that we can understand more about the Jewish people.

And we've learned a lot.

But part of what is happening here involves the people across the river.

And we went there today and I talked, I summarized some of the things that we talked about.

And everybody in the room is like, ah, you know, she's talking about them.

But when it was finished, I said, you know, and I told them the story of what I just told you about the girls coming to my room.

I said, but in order to bring, it seems to me, peace in this entire region, we've got to have more communication like the kind I had today.

And so I hope that the next time I come, if I'm invited again, I would like us to include a trip to the West Bank, or maybe bring them over here.

And in the audience was the head of the military in Israel, and several other officials.

And there was a silence when I finished, pause, silence.

And then all of a sudden the generals got up and the other people got up and everybody started applauding.

I haven't been back.

(audience laughing) And so, I don't know.

And I know there's problems going on, as you've just seen, and one journalist was killed and I hope by accident.

But communication is the key.

- [Audience Member] Yes.

- And we have to figure out how we communicate with people we don't know, people whose history we don't know, but we've got to be able to figure out how to bridge the gaps.

And I'm so happy to see young people here, although I think most of them have left, but they probably had something to do.

- So, this is a great place to bring this in, so about peace and talking to each other.

You live in Florida, you hear the rhetoric constantly.

We're hearing this constant rhetoric.

There's so many sides and so much angst.

Do you see an opportunity?

I think you have something in your book you wanna read that talks about peace and bringing people together.

- Oh, yeah, there, I do have that.

Thank you for reminding me.

I do a occasional piece for the NewsHour now called Race Matters.

Looking at solutions to racism.

And I did one not too long ago with David Brooks.

And you know, David is an admitted conservative, but in the good sense of, you know, you could be a conservative and still be a good person, right?

(all laughing) Anyway, David is, and I wanted to share this because I just thought that he has a good answer.

He belongs to a group called the Weavers.

And I asked him, I said, he said, we're talking about the George Floyd murder.

And he said, "The reaction to the Floyd murder has been on the whole, a very good news story."

He said, "I look at the marches, and there was some violence in the beginning, but the violence has gone down now.

They were not a Black uprising, they were an American uprising."

So I said, "What's the solution to making the unity last?"

Now this is what is really important.

You can take notes if you like, or you can buy the book.

It's in the book.

Did I do that?

No, here's it.

I said, "What's the solution to making the unity last?"

And David said, "I think the first thing we have to do is learn from each other and talk to each other."

He said, "My rule is the more uncomfortable the conversation is, the more I learn from it.

And I'm so hoping the first thing we do is make use of this moment of useful discomfort to face realities in our country and to face each other.

And that's the shift in consciousness that needs to take, you know, personal information, and social transformation happen together, but then it has to be institutionalized with action."

And I just, I thought that was, now that's coming from a man who is a self-identified conservative, but if you've seen him on the NewsHour, you know, he and Jonathan occasionally agree.

And when they disagree, it's usually polite.

- This is a great opportunity for us to open the floor for questions, so everyone get their questions ready.

And please, we wanna give you a warm thank you.

This time went so fast.

Thank you so much for talking with me.

(audience applauding) - Thank you so much.

What a delight to have the two of you here on stage.

We are about to begin the audience Q and A. I'm Cynthia Connolly, director of programming here at The City Club of Cleveland, and we are joined by author Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award winner with the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.

Moderating the conversation is Helen Maynard, our editor of Signal Cleveland.

We welcome questions from everyone, City Club members, guests, students, and those joining via our livestream at cityclub.org or live radio broadcast at 89.7 WKSU at Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to text a question for our speaker, you can text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

And our City Club staff will do our best to work it into the program.

May we have the first question, please?

- Thank you so much.

And this was not prearranged.

(audience cheering and applauding) Would you... And thank you from those days at the University of Georgia down to now.

Would you comment on your experience and Ron's experience in South Africa on special assignment, but in two, in different lanes, and your interaction and friendship with President Mandela?

- Now, this is one of my heroes right here, so let's just.

(audience applauding) I don't miss a Sunday listening to his son, Otis III, and if he happens to be there, him.

So it's like, but that was a setup.

(all laughing) No, my husband, Ron and I lived in South Africa for 17 years.

Ron at the J.P. Morgan Bank, that was before it got into trouble at the end of the day.

And I for, first, NPR, and then CNN, and then I stopped to write a book about Africa because Africa was always covered in terms of the four Ds, death, disease, disaster and despair.

And there's more to the country than that.

But having the comment in relationship to the question I just was asked, there is a lot of despair in Africa generally, and especially in South Africa where they have no electricity eight hours a day, and where the poor communities are even poorer and being abused by people who are desperate.

And that doesn't excuse lawlessness.

And some of it is just taking advantage of the situation, but some of it is born out of desperation.

And so, it's a very difficult time including a lack of principled leadership and the people who are now challenging the leadership, which is, I said, I'm principled for the most part, or similarly unprincipled.

Don't quote me, please.

I don't plan to go back anytime soon so you can quote me.

No, it's a challenging time for the country because the country has major problems and yet the leadership is not living up to its responsibilities of ensuring that all of the citizens are taken care of.

So it's a place, there are organizations that we can, you can participate, you can help support with money, or publicity or whatever.

But, you know, it's... And then you asked about Mandela.

There've been some back, even today, some backlash against his leadership, but I think that when, I think that the sacrifices that Mandela and his people who went to prison for freedom for the country and against apartheid did a great job.

And I know that Americans don't like Thabo Mbeki because of the position that he took on HIV, but he was principled, he was not corrupt.

And he took an incorrect position on aids, but you can't accuse him of the things that the current leadership is guilty of.

And the people who are standing in line to succeed the current president are in no better shape.

Mandela left the legacy.

And I'll tell you a real quick story.

When I first sat down to interview him, you know, when he gets out of prison, everybody in the world wants to interview him.

And my producer called me in New York and said, "You heard the news, the clerk is freeing Mandela."

I said, "Have you made a reservation?"

She said, "I got a reservation."

About that time my editor called, Les Crystal, and he said, "You've heard the news?"

I said, "Yes, and Jackie's made our reservations to get, you had to go then to London and then down.

You couldn't go straight like you can now."

And so I said, "Okay."

He said, "Well, let me just talk to Jim," Jim Lehrer, "and I get back to you."

So he calls back and he said, "Jim said that," you know, PBS is always struggling for, you know.

He said, "Jim said, they can only afford to send you if you can guarantee an interview with Mandela."

(audience laughing) I said, "Of course I can guarantee an interview with Mandela."

Anyway, well, I had kept up with them over the years as time had gone, I'd been there in 85.

So we get there and I said to them, "Look, I wanna be the last one because there were journalists from all over the world there."

And I said, and everybody else was getting 10 minutes, I said, "Could I get half an hour?"

And they said, "Yeah, you can get half an hour."

So we get to the end, they've been interviewing Mandela all day and they say, okay, it's time for you.

And I said, "You know, this man has been in prison for 27 years and he's been sitting there all day not even taking a break."

Now this is a little bit treacherous I'm on, you know, I said, "But could he just stop and have a cup of tea before I do my interview?"

And they thought, "Oh, yeah, that's a good..." You know, none of them had experience with journalists, so this is all very new.

So he goes in, he has a cup of coffee or tea or whatever, then he comes back out and he sits down and I wanna establish myself as being different from the other journalists, right?

So I start to say, "Mr. Mandela, you know, I come out of the American Civil Rights Revolution."

And before I could get the rest of it out of my mouth, he says, "Oh, do you know Miss Maya Angelou?"

(audience laughing) Now, the truth of the matter is I didn't know her personally, but of course I knew her work.

So I said, "Oh, yes, sir."

Now everybody in there is looking for a scoop.

All these journalists from all over the world.

He asked me about Maya Angelou and I said yes.

And he says, "Well, we read," and he always spoke in the third person, "We read all of her books while we were in prison."

And I said, "Ooh, I just got a scoop."

Nobody else had anything about what he had been doing while he, you know, they were all asking him political questions, you know, but I had something nobody else had.

And then we began to have a good friendship.

And of course the woman who he hired to help bridge the gap between the apartheid people and the liberation people hated me because every time Mandela would see me, he would respond to me, but she wanted to be the one to make the decisions about who he talked to.

So every time he had a press conference, I would make a point of going up to him and whispering something in his ear.

(audience laughing) And one time I went up to him and I said, "Mandela," I said, I saw he was early nineties, I said, "You read that whole thing without even a, no glasses, what did you?"

He said, "Oh, I have a very good doctor.

His name is so and so."

And I said, 'Cause I'm, you know, getting to the point."

He said, "Well, this is who he is and you call him and you tell him I..." And meanwhile she's going nuts.

But anyway, I didn't even mention her name 'cause I can't even remember it, but we had a very good relationship.

And I think that despite the fact that there's some brush back now about him, that's just the way life is.

And I think that he will always have the position that he and Dr. King and all of those who have fought for equality and human rights deserve to have.

- [Helen] Okay, I think we have another question.

- And I'll be brief in your answer.

(audience laughing) - I'll try to be.

You have been my hero for 60 years.

I was a junior in high school in Atlanta, Georgia when your courage in the face of rioters brought down the entire legal framework of American apartheid in Atlanta.

Your courage kept my school open and integrated for my senior year where I happened to be editing the school newspaper.

In one of the first four desegregated schools in Georgia.

Thank you, and I'm so glad to finally see you in person.

- Well, thank you.

(audience cheering and applauding) - Thank you so much for sharing that.

We have another question here.

- I, too, hail from an Atlanta Covington, Orlando family.

My father was accepted by UGA law school in the mid 1940s.

- [Charlayne] Ooh.

- And when it was discovered that he was Black, and I don't know how they couldn't figure it out because he was a Morehouse grad.

(all laughing) His admission was rescinded and he was given financial support to attend law school in the north, which I have since heard was a fairly common practice.

So he graduated from law school here in Cleveland.

I just had to take this opportunity to thank you for having the courage to walk through the open door that my father helped to crack open.

I, too, am one who had to walk through a cracked open door after the assassination of Dr. King in the Ivy League.

So I know what it must have been like for you, so thank you.

You're my hero.

- [Charlayne] Thank you.

- Thank you for sharing.

- Thank you.

(audience applauding) - Trying to get to as many questions as possible.

We have another question.

- You talked about earlier about trying to change Black history in schools.

We talked about, you know, change to make it politically.

How would you say we can bring dignity back to our young people?

- [Charlayne] How to bring?

- [Helen] Dignity.

- Dignity back to our young people?

All the things that you went through going through a segregated school system, I mean segregated college.

Now, how we as our younger people can appreciate about having dignity for themselves.

Of all the things that you went through, what would your advice would be?

- So I, yeah, I think if you summarize it, we aren't seeing ourselves.

Is it important to see ourselves and how do we see ourselves and how can we teach younger people better to relate to the world?

- Well that's why I think we have to fight these efforts to either eliminate or remove some of our history from the schools.

I mean, even Toni Morrison, didn't somebody just mention Toni Morrison in here a few minutes ago?

She's being blackballed in some schools in the south and probably anybody you can think of who's done wonderful contributions to our literature and to other aspects of our lives are being eradicated, eliminated from schools.

And I think that's what's important to keep those in there and to keep fighting because I keep saying that our history is our armor, that history going back to the first slave ships.

We've got a history that even though it, there are times in it that are depressing and sad, like slavery and all of that, we've also had people who fought against the systems that keep every, keep some of us down, and that history needs to be taught.

And if we are properly taught, then I think our society is gonna be a better place for all of us, but if you keep eliminating stories and authors and people who have interpreted our lives and our circumstances, it's not gonna happen.

So that's a fight that needs to be fought on a daily, hourly basis in radio and television and every single place you can think of because our children are being denied their heritage.

And that's Black kids and White kids and Asian kids and Indian kids.

It's all of our people.

We have to make sure that these efforts to eliminate our history rather than having efforts that polish our armor.

And that's why I'm hoping my book will help polish the armor.

Because these aren't about...

Many of the people in this book are not heroes.

They're just ordinary people living their lives.

And some are heroes.

But I think that that's one of the biggest challenges we have in this country today, to fight the system that's trying to eliminate our history.

- We have another question?

- Yes, hello, my name is Kyle Williams, I'm 15 and I go to MC2 STEM High School.

And I wanted to know about, what did you think about how people in the LGBTQ plus community are fighting for their rights currently against the government who doesn't want them such as Florida and places like Texas.

Yeah, Texas and Florida and Ohio, yeah.

But like, you know, no, I just wanted to know what you think about those people who are currently fighting for their rights and if you can kind of find any similarities between the Black history movement, or maybe just like how the kitchen story, how the Jewish people were able to explain to you their heritage and how they're also currently erasing LGBTQ history such as book banning and banning certain media.

And I just wanted to know your opinion on that.

- Thank you for the question.

It fits in... (audience applauding) Yeah, it's a part of this total thing that I've, there's no difference.

I mean, in my book there's a piece that I did about the LGBTQ people in South Africa.

Some of whom were being murdered, the women especially were being raped and murdered.

And I went around with a bunch of them as they were attempting to see if they couldn't create systems that were more protective of them.

And so, it's no different.

I mean, it's the same.

Discrimination is discrimination whether it's against LGBTQ people, or whether it's against Black people, or Asian people or whatever.

Discrimination is discrimination against people.

And even people who've been to prison, many of them get reformed in prison and they come out and they need to be supported.

And so, it's very important to be educated to your community and your surroundings and the people and what they're going through, so that you can be supportive of them.

The people, people too, right?

- Yeah.

(audience applauding) - Hi, my name is Michelle.

I'm from the Cleveland School of the Arts.

I am a junior and a creative writing major.

I'm sure, you know, as you know, there have been several book bannings and book burnings and there's a wave of censorship coming over our country.

I wanted to know what advice you would give young writers such as myself in this trying time on the writing community.

- Good question.

(audience applauding) And I'm gonna give you my card so you can email me some of the things you've written.

(audience cheering and applauding) I think you just have to look at the history of good writers and people who've been successful in their work.

And you know, we are in a trying time right now as we just talked about the discrimination against so many of our name people.

But you just have to keep at it and find the people who can be supportive, people that you can talk to and who can help you.

I'm sure you have a teacher or more than one teacher who can help you along the way.

And that's very important to just keep at it if that's your passion.

It was my passion from the time I was five years old and read about the comic strip character, Brenda Starr.

And here's also something you need support, if you can get it from family and friends.

When I told my mother, I was about five or six years old, living in a segregated community in Covington, Georgia.

And I said to my mother, "I just read about Brenda Starr and I think I wanna grow up to be Brenda Starr."

My mother didn't say, "That's not what little Black girls like you could do."

My mother said, "Oh," my mother was very understated but very firm.

She said, "If that's what you wanna do."

And that was all the inspirations I needed.

And then I go to my Black school and I learned about Ida B.

Wells.

And so, I went from Brenda Starr traveling the world in search of people to Ida B.

Wells, and then Zora Neale Hurston.

And you know, they are models for you to learn from and to be inspired by.

And I'm going to give you, as I said, my card.

So if your teacher can't give you the solutions, I will send you some.

(audience cheering and applauding) - Today's forum is presented in partnership with the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and is part of The City Club's authors in conversation series presented in collaboration with Cuyahoga County Arts and Culture and Cuyahoga County Public Library.

Today's forum is also The Steve Minter Endowed Forum.

Mr. Minter spent his life in pursuit of justice.

He was the first African-American to lead the Cleveland Foundation, the Cuyahoga County Welfare Department, Massachusetts Public Welfare Commission, and what's now the American Public Human Service Association.

He was also the founding undersecretary of the US Department of Education.

We are grateful to those who endowed this forum.

And to the Minter family, we have Robin here with us today, for their longstanding support of The City Club.

(audience cheering and applauding) The City Club would also like to welcome students joining us from the Cleveland School of the Arts, Kenneth Clement Boys Leadership Academy, MC2 STEM High School, and The City Club Youth Forum Council.

We would also like to welcome guests at the tables hosted by Anisfield-Wolf, the Center for Community Solutions, Cuyahoga Community College, the Greater Cleveland Association of Black Journalists, Huntington, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, and The Literacy Cooperative.

Thank you all for being with us here today.

(audience applauding) Next week, The City Club has four forums for you, all of which you can check out at cityclub.org, but first on Wednesday, October 4th, The City club will be back at the Happy Dog in the Gordon Square Arts District.

This will be our 10th year of hosting Free Happy Dog Takes on series.

And that evening we'll be talking about the important role independent venues serve our communities as third spaces and the live entertainment ecosystem.

Ideastream's Amanda Rabinowitz will lead the conversation with Sean Watterson of Happy Dog and Cindy Barber with the Beachland Ballroom.

And just announced, The City Club's 2023 annual meeting and community open house will be hosted on Friday, October 27th.

We will have Craig Hassall, president, CEO at Playhouse Square in conversation with Dan Moulthrop here at The City Club about the intersection of free speech and the art of the spoken word.

Immediately following the forum, you are all invited to join us for a celebration, reception, and free community open house from 1:00 to 4:00 PM.

Help us welcome us into our new home right here in Playhouse Square.

You can learn more about this and other forms at cityclub.org.

Thank you members and friends of The City Club.

My name is Cynthia Connolly and this forum is now adjourned.

Have a good weekend.

- [Announcer] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of The City Club, go to cityclub.org.

Production and distribution of City Club forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.