The Daily Stoic - Paul Kix On The Civil Rights Movement And What It Means To Be Courageous

Episode Date: August 19, 2023

Ryan speaks with Paul Kix about his new book You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America, how Ryan helped him shape his writing career after being laid off by ESPN, the painful realities of the Jim Crow south and 1963 Birmingham, and more.Paul Kix is an author, journalist, and podcaster whose wide-ranging work examines sports, politics, social movements, and world history. He is a former senior editor at ESPN Magazine, and has written for numerous publications from the Boston Globe to the Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. His highly acclaimed writings include his book The Saboteur: True Adventures of the Gentleman Commando Who Took on the Nazis, and his articles The Entrepreneur Who Is Dying to Succeed, Prepare for Death, and The Accidental Get Away Driver. You can find his work and writing course at paulkix.com, and on Instagram @paulkix and Twitter @paulkix.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance and wisdom. And then here on the weekend we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal,

and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. I'm glad I was about to head out of the office, and then I got an email that said, I needed a recorded intro for today's episode and the timing was perfect because I picked up Paul Kicks' book.

You have to be prepared to die before you can begin to live, which is an amazing book. I'll rave about it in a second. And then a giant wasp somehow snuck into my office, probably because this is a very old, somewhat porous building, and sometimes they make their way through. And I used this book to save myself and all the daily stoke employees. So thank you, Paul.

I had Paul out to the bookstore about a year ago, which was cool. He was on vacation in Houston. He stopped by. That was fun. He told me about this new book, which was cool, he was on vacation in Houston, and he stopped by that was fun. And he told me about this new book that he was working on. And I actually met Paul Kicks when he was writing at ESPN, where he was an editor for many, many years. He edited a past guest, right Thompson, among many others. But Paul got introduced to Stoicism partly through my work.

And he wrote this really cool profile of me for ESPN, which I was quite honored to be featured in. I loved his last book, The Saboteur, which was about this resistance figure in World War II in France, this sort of fascinating war hero. We talked about that in my previous episode of Paul, which you can listen to, but this was my first chance to have Paul do an interview in person and

It was an awesome one. We went much longer than I thought because we really got into it Because this is a subject I've been reading more and more about you've heard some of my past guests Like Tom Ricks who I talked about in his book The Waging, A Good War, David Halberstam's The Children, Taylor Branches series on Martin Luther King. I've been reading quite a bit about Gandhi, all this for the Justice Book, which is a core one of the Stoic virtues, as you know. But this book, you have to be prepared to die before you can begin to live. Not only is there, I think, a Stoic insight there

just in terms of the momentum, or even more. But it's about 10 weeks in Birmingham that changed America, the depths of the Civil Rights Movement. And I mean, that not just like in the middle of it, but at a low point, it seemed like the movement had stalled out. It seemed like the bad guys were winning and Martin Luther King and his team head to Birmingham,

known as bombing ham at that time. One of the most violent, amazing city, but an incredibly violent, incredibly racist city where civil rights had more than just stalled out. It's in the grips of the tyrannical power of bull Connor and local officials and the activists side. This is where they're gonna make their stand. This is where they're gonna break through

and all sorts of innovations in the Civil Rights Movement come from this, all sorts of incredible heroism and sacrifice and suffering. And that's the subject of Paul's new book. Paul is more than just a biography, more than just a narrative history book, but it's very much rooted in Paul's own personal experience, which he talks about at the beginning of the interview. And it's just a wonderful book. I'm so glad he wrote it. And I'm so glad it saved me from this wasp a few seconds ago.

You must check it out. You have to be prepared to die before you can begin to live. Paul has written many, many places, including the New Yorker, the Atlantic, GQ, and ESPN, the magazine. And Paul also has a really cool writing course that I think you should check out the seriously creative five week course. You can check that out at PaulKix.com.

You can follow him on Instagram at PaulKix. Follow him on Twitter at PaulKix. You can follow him on Facebook at PaulKix author and go to PaulKix.com to check out his books. The saboteur has been optioned as a movie and his piece in GQ, the accidental Getaway driver, was turned into a picture, was turned into a movie and he knows what he's doing. He's a great writer, a great dude and I think you're really going to like this interview. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondries Podcast Business Wars. And in our new season, two of the world's leading hotel brands,

Hilton and Marriott, stare down family drama and financial disasters. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm like halfway through it. What do you think? It's so good. I've been having this weird experience where I've been reading books like I read this book on Pontius Pilate the other day by Anne

Roe. Oh, is it good? It's in the store. I'll give you one. It's incredible. But I had the experience of that book. I was like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, this weird experience where I've been reading books, I read this book on Pontius Pilate the other day by Ann Rowe. It's a good, it's a story, I'll give you one, it's incredible.

But I had the experience of that book and with the Emerson Mind Unfire Book that you recommended where I can only make it like three or four pages and I have to stop. Yeah, and it's not, it's not like, at first I was worried that it's like my social media ruined brain like the shallow thing, and which I was worried that it's like my social media ruined brain, like the shallow thing, which I do generally have, I think everyone does,

and then like, quick, but I think it's more like the density is so immense in these books, and the writing is so good that you have to stop and think about. You can't whip through it the way that is where one you know what they're talking about and two where like If you actually want to appreciate the love like this What they're talking about is good and then on this other level the way they're talking about it You have to appreciate just like from an artistic standpoint and you can't do that if you're reading quickly No, and I forget the name of the author, but he is so good at finding almost epigrammatic ways to channel somebody who is himself a very compact writer. And it's just like,

there are passages around this like, whoa, I'm so glad I'm reading that. I read that book, excuse me, I split my time now like, honestly, like almost 60, 40 between audiobooks, just because I can get through them faster. I'm in the audiobooks. And I envy you because there's so many good books. I'm like, shit, I'm reading this the wrong way. Yeah. So I take a shitload of notes, but it's still not necessarily

the same thing. I also just read this book, I read this book, Freak Kingdom. A kingdom of freaks. What is that? It's about, I've spied this book, I read this book, Freak Kingdom, a kingdom of freaks. It's about, I've spied this creative writing professor, but it's about the political activism slash writings of Hunter S. Thompson. And there were, it was one of those books I'm reading and I'm like the level, it's published by public affairs

so not like a huge press or anything. And I was like, the writing is too good in this book. Like, like, he was so good at it. I was like, I actually have to like slow down and appreciate this the way that it's been written. And that's, I think, not your problem, 90% of the time you're reading a book. But when you do get it, you have to like sort of soak it in. Yeah. But you would recommend that command cheese book. Oh, yeah. That you would recommend that Command Shee's book. Oh yeah, that's another one. That writing is fucking incredible.

Did you read that? No, I haven't read it yet, but I know that I knew of that guy. And I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm like, he was like from San Antonio, wasn't he? Yeah, he wrote this book, Lone Star, which is a history of Texas, which is incredible. And then he also wrote this book, Loan Star, which is a history of Texas, which is incredible. And then he also wrote this book about the Korean War, which he fought in called this kind of war.

That's also fucking incredible. The thing about, the thing about Fair and Back, and I talked to, do you know, S.E.Gwynn? Yeah, I love it. Well, see, so his book, the Empire of the Summer Moon, was the one I was like, oh, I love this book. So Empire of the Summer Moon is basically just a cut out condensed chunk of command cheese. Oh, so you're saying something like that in your newsletter? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's a Matt, what, what, how does it, but there's like no history of this of the command cheese, is there?

Well, that book is a huge history of the command cheese, which I think had never been written. But the story of Empire of the Summer Moon is like just one moment in Comanche history that he's spun out into its own book. But the thing about Farron Beckins, he's such a good writer, and he, but he makes this sort of sweeping, and then like he's wrong about a bunch. Just like once you, it sort of, he gets reconstruction totally wrong. And so, so it's made it hard. Once you kind of, once you see someone get something wrong or be very much a product of their time, it's hard to then, it's hard for me to then not wonder what else they're getting

wrong. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Lauren Isley, do you know that writer? You wanna talk about slow read? Okay. Lauren Isley, the immense journey. It's a history of nothing less than the entire Earth's evolution.

Oh. And the writing is so fucking good. Like I'm talking, like Tom Juno, it turned me on to that book. He's like, you've got to read this. This is some of the best writing you will ever read. He's the one that did the Mr. Rogers profile, right? Yeah. He's great. book, he's like, you've got to read this. This is some of the best writing you will ever read. He's the one that did the Mr. Rogers profile, right? Yeah, yeah.

He's great. Yeah, he's great. He's a huge influence on me. And in some respects, in this book too, because so I grew up reading Esquire and Juno all the time. And I came, he was very, very kind. I gave him this like complete fanboy of an email when I was in college. And he was kind enough to respond.

And then we started like an actual correspondence after that. And one of the one of the central questions I had for him was, how is it that you do these amazing magazine stories? And nobody said, he's like, every story I've ever written is actually another chapter in the biography that you can write of my life. Everything that I have ever done is in some way a reflection of my curiosity or my vulnerabilities in life. And sometimes my name will never be in it, but beneath it is

everything having to do with who I am. So like with this one, like in you and I talked about this. I don't even know if you remember this. 2020, I get laid off. Yeah. And I called you. And I was like, Hey, I just got laid off. And from ESPN, from ESPN. Yeah. And like I'd been there for like 17 years in some capacity, you know, growing up ESPN was like the only place I'd ever wanted to work. Yeah. And it was great for a while until it wasn't. But anyway, when that happened, you were like, well, good. Now you can finally write the book that you want to write. And it was, you were very gracious. So thank you for that. But also when I was thinking was, the book that I want to write is like, I want to chronicle in my own way, my curiosities, but more than that, in some sense,

my fear about going out on my own and what it means to be courageous in life. So in a lot of ways, like this title itself, I wasn't writing toward this title, but when my editor was like, this is a quote from the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, like she's like, what do you think of this as book? I'm like, it's perfect.

And it also fit perfectly with who I was trying to be at that point in time. Cause I think we all have to move beyond like who we are. And it's another way of saying kind of a reinvention of oneself. Or you have to be willing to risk what's the sports thing? Is it Bellachack?

No, no, no, it's Aaron's. No risk it, no biscuit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no risk it, no biscuit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no risk it, no biscuit. That's it, yeah, that's it, exactly. That's what the quote means. Instead of more deeper spiritual level.

Yeah, but so Fred would argue, she'll also would argue that there is a literal meaning to this. Like he really did have to be prepared to die before he had been in the lift. But then to your point, there's a spiritual meaning behind it too. And it's, and you don't even have to necessarily interpret it in a spiritual way. It can be a secular interpretation, but it's this idea of almost every single day, there is a resurrection story within yourself.

And you need to find a way to become the person. In Fred's case, he's like, you need to become the person that God wants you to be. If you don't have any sort of religious followers, like, you need to become the person that we were just talking about. Emerson, like Emersonerson says you need to move to your higher purpose, right? Whatever that is, to court it at all times. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, and there is kind of a resurrection story in that you basically die every night because you go to sleep and you're not conscious, and then you wake up, you, you, you, you, you rise from the dead every day. You're much better, like, you, who's the, you can, you can from the dead every day. You're much better.

Who's the hair, you can pronounce all these Romans names. Maybe. Who's the dude who says you never step in the same river twice? That's hair cleatest. Hair cleatest. Yeah. Same thing. Yes.

But Senuka, this is a cool idea that basically you say to yourself when you go to bed, like I've lived my whole life, like my life is done, then you go to bed, and then when you wake up, if you wake up, you go second chance. And I think there is something about that. I heard some really just person go, Jesus rose from the dead early. That's why we should wake up early, you know?

But there's something fresh about the morning and new, especially if you get up early, it's still dark before you've checked your phone or gotten sucked into things. And that sort of freshness, I think it's really important to preserve that as long as possible. I try to write early in the morning for that very reason. Right. In any nap, our kids are older now, so like I have to tend to them until they get off for school, but I do my absolute best to make sure that I'm not sucked into, I don't

schedule any meat. Now that I have my own schedule, no meeting ever comes before one PM. Yeah, sure. Because that's like the sacred time, right? So the kids will go off now between like 8.30, 8.45, and then from basically almost like nine to one, I just try to, you know, do as much as I can with that time. Yeah, there's like,

you're a morning guy too, right? Definitely. Yeah. I would like to wake up before my kids that I wake up so early, it's not really my call. And if I start things before they wake up, then it's sort of like, I kind of hope to get lucky. But I kind of feel like,

like I feel like spending time with your kids in the morning. That's not like, that's not using up the freshness energy. Oh, no. Do you know what I mean? Like, although like Tony Morrison's thing, which I love, she would, she said she had to get up and make contact with the

muses while the sun rose. She wanted to be writing as she watched the sunrise. And then she said she had to get her writing done before she heard the word mom, which I definitely relate to and understand. But I have found that hearing that word, it doesn't, it doesn't deplete me in the way that a conference called depletes me or Twitter depletes me or my inbox depletes me. So you know, the energy today of breakfast and then driving them to summer camp and then getting to the office or even running, I ran in between because I wasn't going to get

to do it later in the afternoon. Like that, none of that started the clock. You know, the clock started when I got to the office and then got the shit done. I don't even, today I only have like 30 minutes, but that 30 minutes was enough if you're fresh for it. And you have to do it, like we're on vacation, right? And I'm writing a couple of pieces that are one that,

it sounds terrible to say I'm working on my vacation, but at the same time, it's like, no, this isn't actually work. Like this is the thing that I feel almost called to do, so I have to do it every single day. Otherwise, I don't, Davis D'Ares once said that when the days that he doesn't write or the days that he feels absolutely miserable,

and I'm the same way. Yeah, there's a compulsion element to it, which is probably both not healthy and completely not healthy. Yeah, no, but I found the same way. Like, we were just on vacation and then we're going on like this other trip in a better week or so. And like, as long as all I'm doing is like an hour or two of writing during the day, that's, I don't count that as working

during the vacation because it's not, again, it's not depleting me, it's actually recharging me. It's that I've stripped out the other bullshit that is work, but not the work. As long as that's this, I'm not taking the vacation from the thing I like doing the most in the world. I'm taking the vacation from all the bullshit that comes along with being like that all like all the things you have to pay to get to do the thing. Oh yeah, completely. Did you speak in Immorescent?

Did you ever see that documentary about her? I think PBS did it. I think you can find it on Netflix or something. But a lot of it is about like some of the things it's just about her work habits. Yeah. And I mean, what is shocking to me is she has that full-time job at random house.

She's writing her first three or four books as she's raising these two kids on her own. A single mom in the 70s. Yeah. And there's friends of hers in the stock community who were talking about what she's doing. And she's like, okay, so now we're stuck. I think she's coming from Jersey to go into Manhattan and she's stuck on whatever bridge it is. She's like, okay, I got five minutes. Literally, she's like,

shut up for five minutes. She'll write something here down, right? Because to your point, the reason I'm bringing it up is because it's like, you're like, there's this element of it recharging you. Her friends were like, this is crazy, but she's like, no, no, no, this is actually the moments in which I'm saying, because I'm trying to get to this point where like, this is the life that I can lead full time. And she ultimately gets there. Yeah.

Right. But it's like, well, I love those two because people go, I don't have time to write. And it's like, fuck you, you don't have time to write. Like so many people who had it so much worse than you found time to write. Says the author of what like 15 bucks now? What is it?

You definitely have time for it. And like you also don't have to blow up your life to go to do it. You think you do, but you don't. And in fact, actually, if you don't blow up your life, if you have your day job or your side, or whatever the thing is, it'll actually give you more runway to get better at the thing. You know what I mean?

And I always say, I would want to look at your schedule first, and I would want definitive proof that the other thing that you're doing is actually taking you away from writing time. Because I think what would happen is you would quit your job and then you would still You know not make time to do the thing if you're not making time to do the thing now You're not gonna make time to do it when you have a limited time. No, you're fooling yourself So like the the first book to savotour I'm at ESPN. Yeah, my kids are the boys were like Maybe a year old maybe 18 months when I got that, when I got that deal.

Great book, by the way, one of my favorite roles. But I'm writing it. I get up at four between four and four thirty. I make this like early morning breakfast, coffee or tea, whatever. And then I'm writing by five. And my thing every day was I'm'm riding until 7 or 7 30. Because that's when I have to help with the kids before I need to then get ready myself

so then I can then go to ESPN. And then I was working at the time as a writer and editor, predominantly an editor at ESPN. Anyway, and then my days would be at night, I would come home, spend time with the kids, do a little bit of reading. Marilyn Robinson has this great thing where she's like, your days should be, or rather, I, I mirrored what she said. She's like, my days are very simple. I write in the morning,

I teach in the afternoon, and I read at night. And I'm like, Oh, that's kind of mirrors my, it was my schedule, right? Right? Teach at it, whatever. And then read late at night. People would say to me, how the hell did you do that? And it actually became easy because every day it's like, there is no fucking around. I am at five a.m. I am sitting down, I am writing. I am writing until seven or seven, 30. And that's as much time as I can have for that day. And it just became, it took actually to know

there was a starting point, and I would say this to anybody that's listening to wants to start to write more, I would say start writing yes, but actually know when you're going to end for the day, because that way you're like, oh, whatever I'm going to do, I'm going to get done in this amount of time, and then I'm going to stop. Like, I mean, wait, I think you know this,

or you can talk about it. You can talk about it. You can talk about it to stop halfway through. So whatever, yeah. I actually have found that to be the case. This book was actually much easier because it was, could start around eight thirty or nine a little bit more leisurely and I could be. I mean, I don't know. I would I like both books, but I think this is a little bit more thoughtful in some ways. And and I think in some sense, it's just a reflection of

the fact that like I had literally a little bit more time every day to spend with what I wanted to get done. Graham Green, I follow, I mean, we could just geek out on riders we'd love for like two hours, but like, he used to say 500 fresh words every day. And so I really like that too, because it's like, if you allow me to, I'll just farts around with the stuff that I edit, like editing the stuff that I wrote yesterday. And that'll eat up know, my two and a half hours. But if it's, if it's the 500 fresh words, and it's like, okay, now I have to get the words down.

So that was really a part of this one. As I've been doing this longer, I've actually lowered the threshold. So like my, like my thing was, you know, it was a certain amount of time, then it was a certain amount of pages, then it was a certain amount of pages, then it was a certain amount of words or whatever. Now I just go, I have to make a positive contribution

every day. Oh, and so it's very low. So literally today, I fucked with one sentence. Yeah. Because the schedule got eaten up by a bunch of stuff, I have to drive to Dallas. And my schedule today was artificially compressed, because it's something else I'm doing.

And so like, I'm not gonna let myself off the hook, be like, I don't have to do it today. But I just, so sometimes that positive contribution is I write a whole chapter. Sometimes that positive contribution is just editing. Sometimes it's, I wrote this thing on a note card and I'm just gonna figure out where that goes and then I'm gonna go on to the next thing.

So like, I think people underestimate the power of small but consistent contributions. So even 500 words a day, that doesn't sound like a lot, but if your manuscript has to be 75, 80, 100,000 words, it seems like a lot. Actually, 500 words a day is not that many days, right? It's about 10 months if you're like five, six days a week. Yeah, and there are gonna be days

when you write way more than 500 words. And so, you know, knowing that if I just make a positive contribution every day, after a certain amount of days, I will have a editable manuscript, not a publishable manuscript, but I will have at one point I had nothing and now I have this many pages. And I know that because I've been through the process of, okay, it started nothing now, it's this many pages and then it becomes this many pages and then it becomes this like I know the process of

refining and editing and like I just I just know how it takes the raw material thing and turns it into the publishable thing. So I've just I've gotten much more comfortable and much less hard on myself in the sense that I just I just know I need to show up every day and do something. And that generally gets me where I want to know. Yeah. King was talking about his line of work. You mean, you never see the entire staircase, we just take the next step. Yeah, that's beautiful. Sure. But it completely applies to like what you and I do for living too. Well, I was thinking about that as a writer because the idea is like you could die at any

moment, right? You could be canceled, your publisher could go out of business, the contract could be canceled, right? All these things that could happen that could prevent the outcome from happening, right? And so if the outcome is not in your control, does that mean the process is not worthwhile? Well, that would suck, you know what I mean? Am I only doing this because I need to get it done, get it out, get paid, get interviewed,

celebrated for, awarded for, well, that seems like a really shitty reason to do it. And so getting more to a place where I go, did I get it to the best place that it could be as of this moment that I am stopping? Right. And that's kind of the standard that I have. So it's like, hey, like if I died and then someone opened up my laptop and pulled out

the manuscript, would they be like, ooh, Ryan was really fucking wasting his time. He should have been further along, or would they go, this is the best manuscript that Ryan was capable of producing up until the moment he was unexpectedly cut down. Yeah. And that's kind of the standard that I judge day to day. And then that also allows me

when it is finally done and comes out, I've already been celebrating success so many times, every single day along the way, that the day of publication is just one further day. It's not the moment everything has been leading up to. And don't you find that if you are thinking about the result, be it publication day, the reviews and the times, the bestseller lists, whatever, that film options, like if and when any of those things happen, it's solid because you're thinking about how awesome it's

going to be. And it's not like, I'm reading a lot right now of a lot of like just wisdom literature and a lot of just I had just finished reading the book of a Gita. And if you read that, so just this recurrent idea through all of it about how it's like, basically, it looks like everything is a process. And as soon as you become results driven, you are no longer aligned with yourself or aligned with God. When we think of sport stories, we tend to think of tales of epic on the field glory. But the new podcast Sports Explains the World brings you some of the wildest and most surprising sports stories you've never heard, like the teenager who wrote a fake Wikipedia page

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about how I hope it's gonna do, how I want it to do, what that's not time that's focused. So just from a resource allocation perspective, not being focused on the moment the thing you're supposed to be doing, but thinking about the process, or the thing you're supposed to be doing, but thinking about the process or the outcome at the end of the process is taking away time energy resources from the process itself. And it happened for me even, so we're on vacation, right? My family's from Houston, my wife's family, excuse me.

So the drive here today, right? There was a part of me that was like, I wonder, I wonder if I should say this or that. Yeah, man. I hope it goes well. And suddenly I'm like, dude, like your your your kids are in the back like you're on vacation. You get to go through suburbs and the excerpts of Houston. I mean like whatever. It's like not great But it's also like this is this is the family time that you have and also the thing with I was like the thing with Ryan today Is going to be the thing with Ryan today's gonna kind of be whatever it's also like, this is the family time that you have. And also the thing with, I was like, the thing with Ryan today is going to be the thing with Ryan today. It's gonna kinda be whatever it's gonna be. Sure.

Right? Yeah. And so that, I don't know if it's just an age thing, I don't know if it's just the sort of books that I'm reading now, but I'm just like, I just enfoke so much more on just the day-to-day process of everything. Self-consciousness is the enemy of a lot of stuff, right? When you're like, what am I doing? You're stepping out. You're like, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? How's it

going to go? How do I want it to go? All that is taking you out of the thing that you're supposed to be in, which is either being in the car. Where then later, the thing you're supposed to be doing. Like, I'm doing a talk tomorrow. I was going to have to drive to Dallas and there's this kind of I'm doing a talk tomorrow as well, I have to drive to Dallas, and there's this tension between wanting to prepare and then being in your head about it and not just doing the thing. I've done literally hundreds and hundreds of times. Is it a talk you've given before a talk? I'm having to put together a new talk, which is kind of in the middle of doing across

the board. Also, I'm just trying to go, you have to get better at this talk you're doing. So just, if this one isn't gonna be as good as it ultimately is going to be, but you have to accept that this one is going to be whatever it is, so you can, the next one can be better, and the next one can be better. But just, just going like,

hey, I'm pretty good at this thing. I've trained a lot for this thing. Let me just do this thing, as opposed to being stressed up until and through the thing, and then afterwards going, oh, that wasn't so bad. You know, like, I know that's how I'm gonna feel after. So why can't I give myself the gift a little bit of that right now?

So our mutual friend, right, Thompson? Yes. So I worked with, right, Thompson? Yes. So, I worked with, right, edited right for like 10 years. What is his? He's fantastic. The editor before me, a guy named Jay Wright. Jay had this thing when he was working with Wright where he's like, it's not even about this story, man.

It's about the writer you'll be in five years. He's like, keep challenging yourself. It's not even about this story, man. It's about the writer you'll be in five years. He's like, keep challenging yourself. Bomb the story. Get marginally better at the next. Get better still. Like that was the trajectory that he set him on. And I was like, my God, that is brilliant.

Cause again, it's about writing, but also not. It's kind of like just no along the way that this is one step, one iteration of where you ultimately want to be. And what seems like an ending is sometimes only the beginning. Sure. Right? Yeah, yeah.

I sometimes think like all the work that I'm doing, this might seem paradoxical as we're just talking about only me in the moment, but I go like, the all this is leading up to a book that I haven't even conceived of yet. Like I think about Michael Lewis and The Big Short, which is one of the greatest nonfiction books of all time, but also a massive hit, sort of conscious, you know, consciousness changing book, you know, like, you don't write a book about a financial crisis

that gets read by millions of people and then turn into a huge movie if you don't do something where, but I think about basically all the books that Michael Lewis wrote and people, he's written a lot more books than people think he has because a lot of them didn't really work or didn't work of their time. Very much other time. Yeah, like you wrote a book about the tech bubble. Yeah, the new thing. Yes.

I love that book. And then we're going to another one called like next or something that like came out like on September 11th or something like, I think really interesting. But like everything that he went through in his life led up to the moment where he had a unique angle on the financial crisis. And then he wrote the definitive thing on that topic, right? And so you just don't know what to, like, I like what I'm doing now and I'm totally immersed and engaged in what I'm doing now.

And I also go, even if it doesn't work or it's not fully what I want it to be, what I'm telling myself is it's prepping you for some moment that you, you don't know. Maybe it's not even a book, right? Maybe it's some medium I can't conceive, or maybe it's just a chance to apply the things that I've written about in the books, but just this idea that you're preparing for something and that all this stuff is reps or practice

for something in the future. Yeah, it's, I've been lifting weights since I was 14. And one of the things that I do now when I think about weightlifting is I think about how you actually need to press the reps to the point where you are exhausted because that is the point at which those reps actually become efficient. And what does that mean? Or be efficient actually become efficient. And what does that mean?

Or we have to be efficient for your body. And what does that mean? Well, the next time you do it, now you can do perhaps a half rep more. Right. It's like the first 10-do matter. It's the 11-month-old. It's the 11-month-old.

And my boys and I, we run. Now, in Muhammad Ali was great about this. Like, he was like, you don't count the sit-ups until they hurt. He's like, you don't count the running until you're exhausted. And they're getting into it now. And we're like, we're going to go for an all-e-bron. That's what we call it. That's so great.

But I mean, I say that to you if only because it just to echo what you're saying about how in more and more facets of my life, I see that the key to me, just, I don't know, like living well, broadly speaking, is just applying a practice where you see everything as practice in some sense, everything as another rep. And like, even the weightlifting is actually a great example because you can lift weights for three months and you won't see shit, but if you lift weights for three years, then it's like, you have to delay that gratification

for such a long time. Well, that's something you definitely experience with books too, where it's like the first couple months, it doesn't feel like anything's happening and it hasn't come together yet. And then there's this moment where I always get really excited where I sort of call I'm on the downhill side of it, which is like, I got to the peak,

and now I'm just wrapping up everything. So the book came together, the style came together, the message came together, and now it's operating under its own power. And I think that's true for a lot of good habits. Good habits I have now now where it's easier to do the thing than not do the thing. I actually need like, did you have to shut it down? The discipline is to stop doing it to take a rest day or to not be stressed about it or so, you know, take one as a mess up or whatever.

And that's when you're on the, you, you've built the thing into a muscle memory now. Now it's operating under its own power. That's what you want. So I love the book. I thought we'd start to with not actually Birmingham. I, the, the, there's this moment in the beginning of the mock gumbery bus boycott that I find really interesting, which is, so Rose Park, you know, sits down or refuses stand up. And first of all, I think to me, that's a just seminal moment in the civil rights

movement because like, people just see her as this old lady that like just decided not to do a thing one day, right? As opposed to a lady who trained at a school for activists, right? And also was a secretary at, you know, the, the NCAP, right? What's the, the LACP? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, I don't know why I'm freaking out. But she's like, she's in the heart of the movement, trained for the movement, and then the moment comes, she does it.

And then, but it catches everyone by surprise. It's not, it wasn't like a conspiracy in the sense that everyone agreed that this was the stand they were taking. This is when they were taking it. And they, um, you know, they're all sort of like, the forces their hand, right? Because now she's arrested and she's going to be prosecuted for it. And they're sort of having to decide what they're going to do about it. And as my understanding of the scene is that sooner they all get together and they're like, well, maybe this isn't the moment.

And I think it was Shuttle's word, said something like, you all have been eating these women's fried chicken for too long to leave them hanging here, right? And so it's like this little lady forces their hand. And he says something like, what are you cowards? And Martin Luther King raises his hand and says, I am not a coward. And to me, that's the beginning

of the civil rights movement right there is, she calls everyone's bluff and then Martin Luther King, Jr. steps forward. He accepts that's the call to adventure in the hero's journey right there. Are you a coward and he says no. No. And yet he feels like one, right? Because like well after that point, he feels that he should not be leading in Montgomery. Just as almost a decade later, he feels like he should not be leading in Birmingham. He doesn't feel, and there are many times where he doesn't exactly exude leadership in Birmingham, but at the same time, what I love about him is this, it's

talking about like the call to action. It's like, even though I have so much trepidation around this, he would later write how the only reason he felt that he was selected was because literally he had read a ton of books and he had gone to like the seminary equivalent of, uh, a education school. Like he could speak really well, right? Like, oh, you're awesome in front of everybody else. That's why you should lead. He's like, I don't actually feel that I'm a leader. Sure. And there's so many times like people in history, it's the very people who don't think that they should lead or sometimes actually the people who should. Yeah, did you read that book, the captain's class by Sam?

No. What's his name? Oh, you see that Wall Street general guy? Yes, or was it the Wall Street general? Yeah, he wrote a piece, and I think he's working on a book about it where it's called the Eisenhower Paradox or something, which is that basically the best leaders

don't want to be leaders. Yeah. And that they are called to it in some way, and they wrestle with whether they should do it or not, and that it's the people who want it very badly, that tend to do very badly, but also are the ones you should kind of be suspicious of. And there is this kind of reluctance in Martin Luther King that is very interesting. It's only, yeah, because he basically gets called out. That he goes, fine. And nobody else does.

Like, that's the other thing. He basically realizes that if somebody else had said they would do it, he would have gladly allowed them to do it. But, you know, there's that hell-hell thing, like if not me, then who? Those are the moments that I think real leaders emerge when you have to go. Literally, no one else is going to do this.

I have to do. Okay, so you have my favorite moment from Montgomery. It gave me like, so many chills. And I was like, I got to find a way to work this in the book and then I did. So, because mine's like very much just about the 10 weeks. Yeah. And it's brilliant, right? So, somewhere in Montgomery, I want to say like two, three months in, they're starting to

gain some traction, right? They're starting to have a little bit of success. And it's some member of the clan and or the Montgomery establishment who calls in one night. And by that point, he had learned that he has to answer the phone otherwise, because if Coretta is answering it, she's going to freak out, right? And they had, I think, one kid then. And I think, who's the oldest, I think she was still a baby.

So he picks up. And the guy is like, and the Southern trying to go, listen, N word, we've had about enough of you. And it's like, if you don't leave town, you're going to, you're going to really not like it before next week. And there was something about this sort of maliciousness in the tone and the specificity before next week that just set him on edge. And so he's like, it's the middle of the night.

He wakes up and he goes downstairs and he makes us pot of coffee. He's like, I'm not going to sleep anymore. And he's like, in the way he described it in a later piece of writing, he said, I just was like, I started a pray. And he's like, God, I don't think I can lead in this moment. I don't think I can even lead. He's like, I wanna give up.

Like, I just want you to basically tell me how I can step away from all of this. And he said that he felt this sort of rush and the spirit uplift him. And he said that that voice was telling him, you know, this is not your, this is not the end. This is not the, this is not the time in which you should step down. And he said he felt so very buoyed by this, that he was like the circumstances around remained exactly the same, but suddenly my perspective had shifted. And it was that shift in perspective that allowed him to continue to lead in Montgomery. And by the way, that threat was not idle.

Two days later, his home in Montgomery was bombed, but he continued to lead after that. And he had this like, he felt so buoyed by that until Birmingham, where he had another sort of crisis of conscious and crisis of spirit and everything else. But reading that, I was just like, wow, because something that I always love is those moments in anyone's life where it's like, you can choose to see any situation however you see fit. And if you are a person of faith, you'll say, well, God was telling King in this moment,

here's how you can choose to see this differently. But I don't, again, I don't think it has to be necessarily religious, I think it could be a secular interpretation. I think the stoics would have written a lot about this, right? Every situation is completely ours to, it's our perspective that we want to impose upon it. Right.

I just love that. Yeah, and also I think, you know, we do the Civil Rights Movement. It's great to service when one, we act like its success was preordained. And then two, that everyone was on board with it, you know, except a few bad people. Like this is obviously one of the things that I thought was so interesting in the saboteur is you just assume that like there's really not a clear, a more clear moral situation than your country is invaded and occupied by the Nazis, right? And so everyone sees this as an illegitimate invasion, even Hitler's not fucking, like, Hitler's not, like,

Hitler's not saying, I should be able to do this. He's saying, I am able to do this, right? It's not cloaked in any sort of, it's not even a pretext, like Putin's invasion of Ukraine, right? Like it's just like a naked aggression and violence and then dominance, right? Like it's just like a naked aggression and violence and then dominance, right? And so you would go obviously, everyone resisted,

you know, that the French resistance was widely popular, you know, widely participated in, and it's like 5%. Oh, it's yeah. It's somewhere, the scholars would like to put it somewhere between 5% active, maybe, maybe up to 20% between active and inactive, meaning like some people might have just said, oh, let's turn this sign around or let somebody's doing something, I won't actively turn them in.

And so we think with the civil rights movement that, of course, everyone is on board in the north and, you know, and all the good people and stuff, but there was incredibly unpopular and it started effectively from nothing. And this was all willed into existence by not just courage, but also immense discipline and strategy. Did you read Tom Ricks' book, which one, Good War? Was that the one on the generals?

No, he wrote a book about the generals in Iraq and then he wrote this great book on the founding fathers called First Principles. But he wrote a history of the civil rights movement from the perspective of a military historian. Oh, I bet that's amazing. I have in the story I'll give it to you. But he wrote about it as if they were military strategists waging a campaign, which they, which they were,

like they were. Yeah, they used to be like, like a, like a, like a, like, D day and double D day for very intentionally. Yeah, yeah. And, and so, so thinking about, like, again, we think about it as just being morally correct and then also sort of upright and dignified, you know, walking in a protest, but that it was so much closer to a sort of both a military came in and then this sort of spiritual warfare against both the opponent and then against yourself, like in that king's story, like the real enemy there is the fear and the despair and the crisis of confidence that would make you quit. Like, that's what the genius of the civil rights movement was that, was the way in which it was waged

and then it was continually waged. And we sort of just study it as this thing that happened that needed to happen, but it's so profoundly more than that. It's so much more than that. And so like, by 1963, they had had nothing but abject failure. You can say, okay, the Montgomery bus boycott successfully. Yes, however, people Montgomery were riding in the back of the bus by 1963 as if it's 1943. It converted back.

Revered it back. Right. And that's because of the entrangements of the clan. That's because of just sort of the entrangements of the Alabama government, local or statewide. Everything that King had done from 55 to 63 was a failure. They were down the SCLC Southern Christian Leadership Conference to their last $500, right? Other civil rights groups, openly sneer at King. John Lewis is SNCC. They called him a phony.

They called him to loud. Because he hadn't put his body on the line. And put his body on the line. They thought that he was like just this middle-aged dude who was who had this pomposity and speech and the way he dressed and he was in no way related to the movement anymore and the people, the young people who were really at the focus of and the forefront of it. In addition to that, where they stage the campaign, Birmingham, easily the most violent, most racist place in all.

Bomminham. Bomminham, right? So like, when I go on on any tour thing or anything and I talk about this, like one of the things I always say is like, let us assume that we don't know actually what Birmingham was even if we've seen those grainy images of fire-host kids. Bomminham, 50 unsolved bombings in Birmingham.

And that's all of them against black owned businesses, black, where predominant black residents lived. The clan castrated a black man as a means to intimidate Fred Schull's worth and King before they came down, police raped black women in their patrol cars. CBS's Edward R. Murrow goes down to Birmingham prior to 63 and he goes, just producer as he leaves town.

I have not seen any place like this since Nazi Germany. Like, that's Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 And they choose it because they know that if they are able to go to the very site of domestic terror and anger every terrible white person there, well, then what they can really do is this idea that sort of arises throughout the whole of civil rights movement. Let us turn our bodies into vessels of suffering.

Because if we can do that, then we can basically get to the conscience of white America. And that's where the change actually happens. Yeah, I think it was Shuttle's Worthy said something like, the sheriff is not after you. You are after the sheriff. Yeah. And so when you think about it, again,

as this campaign to go at the enemy, both passively and this campaign to go at the enemy, both passively and actively, it changes how you see. I write about Gandhi in the book that I'm doing a lot now. And it is kind of remarkable just to back way up almost a hundred years, which is great. Like, when we think, like, I don't know when I thought Gandhi was born, but I wouldn't of guessed like the 1860s. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I really didn't know anything about what

Gandhi had done in South Africa, because even like the movie, the movie starts with him like leaving South Africa, right? But like, you know, he made all this stuff in South Africa. This is where he invented all this stuff. But just the idea of of it being this kind of organized campaign to undermine illegitimate authority and to attack it on every front cap possible and understand that when it's attacked on every front possible, it will be overwhelmed, it will

overreact, and it will reveal its own moral degradation was so profoundly brilliant, both when Gandhi came up with it and then when King sort of elevates it to its highest level, is I think just not understood enough. Like people go, oh, this thing happens, let's go March. Marching was not, Marching was only happening during the Civil Rights Movement, because Marching was not legal. They were not, they were legally not allowed to do that. And so by doing it, they were inviting a police reaction,

which would then show the police reaction to be illegitimate. Right? Like, the parades where they got the permits were not the notable parades of the civil rights moments. It was marking, marching despite a court injunction, despite barricades. It was knowing what was on the other side of the bridge waiting for them in Selma. Like, protesting was not the thing. The thing was the clash against illegitimate authority. And so, also understanding that today to Fushford, marching is accepted and allowed as a release valve to distract a movement from actually getting to attack.

It's like they're sacrificing pawns. They don't care about the fact that they're allowing you to do it. Yeah. Means it's probably not worth doing. Yeah. So a couple of things. Number one, to echo off what you're just saying I Think that 1963 is actually America's origin story and Birmingham Alabama is actually America's or history because it's not 1776 Right, it's not 1863 either the emancipation population is signed. Yes, but then for the next 100 years we have

Jim Crow lynching everything that is terrible about the South. And frankly, as it extends, it's still a country that is half free and half not free. And the slavery doesn't exist, but it is not a democracy in a good half of the United States. No, and even in the north where the quote, good liberals live and personified by the Kennedy brothers, right? By the early months of 1962, they want nothing to do with King. They want nothing to do with Birmingham. They have nothing to do with the civil rights brothers, right? By the early months of 1962, they want nothing to do with King. They want nothing to do with Birmingham. They have nothing to do with the civil rights movement,

right? All right. So for 100 years, nothing changes. And then Birmingham, Alabama happens, and then everything changes, right? It's like, so Kennedy sponsored civil rights, civil legislation says that the sign in Mr. Ramone but for Birmingham, we wouldn't be here today. It's like, so Kennedy sponsored civil rights, civil legislation says that the sign in Mr. Armoni but for Birmingham, we wouldn't be here today. That leaves a civil rights act of 64, voting rights act of 65, King's death, yes. I think it's the new life for his country as well.

It's Shirley Chelsen's ability to run for president 72. It's the rise of the black, middle, and upper class in the latter half of the 20th century. It's Obama's presidency, but you know what? two, it's the rise of the black middle and upper class in the latter half of the 20th century. It's Obama's presidency, but you know what? It's really like far more personal for somebody like me, because my wife, Sonia's black, our three kids identify as black. Sonia and our, excuse me, we're married in here in Texas, in former Jim Crow State like

Texas. Nothing like that happens. My life today does not happen. If Birmingham, Alabama did not happen 60 years ago this year, right? Right. Like, so like, that's why, like, that's why this thing is so personal to me.

Sure. And I feel that to what you were saying early about the sense that everything is preordained, we need to disabuse ourselves with that because that was not the case. Yes. And what the reason they succeeded in Birmingham, they very much had like Gandhi, like James Bevel

had like the Gandhi lending library in Nashville and everybody was reading Gandhi. The one of the point I wanted to make about Gandhi is, I don't know if you've come across this in your research. The ruling British in India, one of them, and I can get this quote if you need it, he said, what Gandhi is doing is worse than terrorism. And he said that because if we beat back Gandhi and all of his nonviolent protesters We beat back Gandhi and all of his non-violent protesters with the batons and everything at the ready. The British press here in India, the British diplomats who are seeing this happen. Everybody that we are basically, we are the world power, right?

How are you doing this, Great Britain? What sort of nation are you actually? That's the famous line in the Civil Rights Movement. He goes, how do you sleep at night? How do you face your choke? Like, and it's ripping the mask off of the oppressor is what Gandhi does and then they do in the Civil Rights Movement. And if they were to have, okay, so like, if they beat them back, they lose. if they beat them back, they lose. But if they seed to Gandhi, they lose nothing less than their authority in India and everywhere and everywhere. And the everywhere is the part where

he was just saying, the moment we go, we're king elevates it, right? He's like, oh, that's how I win in the South. Because he was trying to find a framework, right? He's like, how can I actually execute change, right? Oh, that's how we do it.

Because he was fascinated by the fact that like, India becomes independent without a civil war. What, yes, I mean, the tragedy of India is that the civil war happens after it. But what's so incredible about Gandhi is realizing that for all of human history, if you wanted to orchestrate change or be an oppressor, you had to physically destroy your enemy. Like how else had any movement, the American Revolution, being a good example, succeeded, right? With arms. You have to beat

them on the field of battle, or you have to wage some sort of guerrilla terrorist campaign until they give up and the Occupy are leaves. And the idea that there is this other means of doing so, and then in fact that may be the most effective way of doing so is one of the greatest contributions to human history ever, ever created. And I mean, you could, you could go back and maybe go Thomas Clarkson and the sort of abolitionist movement is a version of that that's changing something from the inside. But, but that's a singular issue. That's not a, that's not a transformative change in government. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, what, what King does is, I think, one of my favorite things is, I think in 1860, in 1963 he gives this talk, it's the one, one of

the ones in Washington, he goes, we're here to cash a check. And I love the idea also that what King does, what Gandhi does is they both understand and believe in the religion and the psychology and the myths and the principles of the oppressor, more than the oppressor does. And they use it against, there's that Audrey Lorde quote about how the master's tools will never be used

to disemble the master's house. I think it's actually fun, that's such a, that's so not true as to be almost the opposite of the truth. In fact, the great movements of the 19th, 20th, and 21st century are all precisely examples of that. They used the master's tools against, I mean, Martin Luther King is using the religion that was given to slaves against the descendants of the slaveholders

to redefine and essentially re-found America on its original principles. And the jujitsu of that is so fucking spectacular that it just sort of gives me goosebumps even to think about. Yeah, there's this great book. I think it's called, it's really rough title. I think it's called like the lynching tree and it's by this Harvard Divinity scholar who's black. And his argument is that true Christianity in America is actually represented by the people to whom it was given, African Americans. He goes,

the true message of leadership and how to be like Christ lives and has lived for the longest time in the black church. And how do we know that? Because of predominantly what happens on the streets. And he uses the civil rights movement. And largely like the stuff that's happened in 63, 64, where the first real brushes with success, as the Lynch pin for this whole argument across this book.

It's brilliant, brilliant book. Yeah, the idea, I mean, that's what Gandhi gets introduced to Christianity when he's studying law in England, and he hears the sermon on the mount, and the crazy thing is that he fucking believes it. You know what I mean? Like he's like, oh, that's how you should live. You're like, these aren't just beautiful words on a page. This is a message for living.

Ironically, it's a message, you know, propagated by people who, like, you know, 200,000 Britons, like, you know, 200,000 Britons who are, you know, ruling over 100 million Indians and not understanding, you know, that they are the living embodiment of the opposite of this message, but Gandhi, this sort of religious polyglot who loves anything that's good and noble and whatever. I mean, his biggest influence is probably Tolstoy and then Thoreau.

And just the idea of like what King did that's so brilliant is he's like, he actually took Thomas Jefferson at his word. Right. You know what I mean? He was like, that's what he meant. When he said, I'm here to cash a check. He meant he's here to cash Jefferson's check and Lincoln's check.

And it's like, you said this, I'm not, he wasn't trying to radically reimagine American society. He was trying to reorient it around what Americans purported to believe. Yeah. And the brilliance of the Jiu-Jitsu of those 10 weeks in Birmingham and then all the civil rights movement was basically a bunch of carefully orchestrated

publicity stunts that took at immense personal risk and logistical, you know, acumen to show to Americans that you don't really believe what you say you believe or you're not really acting on what you say you believe. Well, you're not really acting on what you say you believe. And when he ripped the mask off, it was so morally repugnant and unconscionable that enough of it eventually, brings about a series of changes

which are still struggling to hold up even now. Now you could argue we're in this sort of third reconstruction. We're trying to catch the checks that we wrote to Martin Luther King, but that's what he pulls off. Yeah. So the logistical and psychological warfare is probably the correct word because what the SCLC is doing Against bull Connor is just trying to in some ways

Insight him to act as they know that he really wants to right like he is one of the most vile human beings You will ever encounter and he's doing his absolute best to not be vile for the duration. The well-king is down here. And guys like Wyatt Walker and Sheldon's worth and James Bevel into a certain extent king, every day is another, come on, like draw yourself, draw you out, draw you out. And the idea is if we can just fill the jails, then we will leave Bull No Choice,

but to act the way that he really wants to. And that's what they ultimately do, right? But it's like, the reason that Birmingham, the reason that Birmingham is so violent is because it was the first time that the SCLC said, we are going to choose a location where we don't know if we will win, but we do know that we will suffer.

Yeah. Isn't it also the first time that they use children? Yeah. That's well. The way that yes, the way that the ultimate do. And like nobody, no adult in Birmingham wanted to protest alongside King. And some of this is just sort of provincial disputes. Like a lot of black Roman Amiens had heard of King for the last seven years. And like, we know what you're gonna do. You're gonna come in here, you're gonna grandstand, and then you're gonna leave. And we're gonna be, and if we protest alongside you,

we're not gonna have jobs, because all of our bosses go away. We're gonna call in our mortgages, fire us from our jobs. Because we all work for white people here. Right? And nobody wants us to protest. But the only, so James Bevel's like, well, the one group of people that we don't, that want to protest here

There's one constituency. It's children and tells us to King King is like We just mentioned the thing that Moro said right like Against people that are kind of not to fascist like that's who we're gonna put kids on the front line We're gonna set kids to be hit with firehoses and dogs and police batons Yeah, and he's like, yeah, we are. And there's like this, it's, again, like, the stuff that happens on Double D days, some of the really, really horrific stuff.

There were war correspondents, there was like, I've never seen anything like this in my entire life. Yeah, the, again, because the movement is so morally correct in retrospect. We don't credit or appreciate the pragmatism and the savvy and then the ruthlessness of it, right? Like that decision, callousness, like these are men of faith, right?

These are men of faith who are saying we are going to do something that other men of faith see as incredibly sinful. Yeah. It's the equivalent of the general going, I'm sending this regiment or division over here to be decimated, basically as a distraction or a faint or as an attrition, you know, a starting at some battle of attrition, but I know it will have this effect. Like that hard life and death decision is one that they end up having to make over and over again.

And again, not fully appreciated because we just go, they made some signs and they got together and then sometimes they got mean things where you yelled at them. But no, it was, it's the third revolution in American history. And it's just as much a war as, you know, Gettysburg or Vicksburg and any of the battles in the American world. Can we talk about the fire hoses actually first? Yeah.

Alright, so the fire hoses are meant to dislodge mortar from bricks. They are meant to strip bark from trees at a distance of up to 100 feet. It strikes some kids at about 30. It disintegrates clothes. It rips hair from hairlines. Effectively scalps kids. It cartwheels kids, end over, end over, end. It leaves them screaming and agony and pain.

It's like literally there's this raw footage that even PBS won't show of these firefighters training this hose on this girl. And she's sliding down and they just keep it on her. She slides down like the sidewalk is a slide, right? She's just screaming. Then the dogs are loose. There's an eight-year-old boy who is attacked at the throat and the dogs just ripping him. This way and that, right? They're doing all of that because they know that, well, this is the logical extension of turn our bodies into vessels of suffering, into metaphors of the black experience itself. Because they're doing it because of the footage that you just met.

They're doing it because they know that this sort of footage, and like this image that is in the background of this book, is of a 15 year old named Walter Gads. This is the fan, yeah, this is it. This is it. This is it. Yeah, it's the it's the it's the it's the yeah, he's feasting on Walter, right? I think the fact that that is a German Shepherd, you know what I mean?

Like, is important. You know what I mean? Oh yeah, yeah. And like they had the most vicious German Shepherd was a black one they called the N-word, like the police department, right? So like, they're all trained to do this. But it's that image, the next day,

that runs across three columns of the New York Times. And it's that image, the next day that runs across three columns of the New York Times, and it's that image that John F. Kennedy says makes me sick. And it's that day for the very first time in John F. Kennedy's life that he begins to reassess, am I actually correct on this issue of simple rights? And that is exactly what King wanted. He wanted all these kids to suffer so that he could get to the conscience of Jack and Bobby sitting in the White House. Yeah, he said something like, we're gonna use the powers of persuasion, but we're also gonna use the power of coercion.

King says this, and it's both, right? The persuasion is coercing the political action because the image that they are shoving in the president's face and in the world's face and the North's face over and over and over again is so awful that it eventually compels some form of action that you know had been politically inconvenient for a hundred years. Yeah, yeah, and it's like okay, so you stand that timeline. If 19 this is why I really And it's like, okay, so you extend that timeline. If 19, this is why I really think it's the origin story. When I've actually been attacked a little bit on a book tour like, this isn't really the origin story. But yeah, but think about it. Because like, if 1963 doesn't

happen, do we get to where we are today, perhaps? But there were, I mean, as early as 1865 there was a civil rights bill because already black people were saying we are not fair any. We added three amendments to the Constitution for this very reason and then the Supreme Court decided to interpret them the exact opposite of the way they were meant to be read for a hundred fucking years. For a hundred years. So like what's to say it wouldn't have continued. There is nothing to say that, right? So when we're talking about the brutality and the callousness that's necessary, part of that calculation is literally like,

it's been 100 fucking years, right? Well, how long does, when does the regime in South Africa finally fall? Like it could have gone on well into the 70s and 80s. And you know, maybe it's inevitable, but it's not like a year later, it's happening. We could be, we could be just freshly deal. I mean, communism lasts until the 90s.

So like could have lasted a lot longer. Well, even the, and I can never pronounce this word, misadjination. Yes. There are those the black and white literally. Yeah, you can't, you can't't marry. When Sinai are getting married, we went to the courthouse and I we'd have to fact check this, but in my recollection is something like there were those laws on Texas's books into the 1980s. Just seeing it ignored. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. I mean, I feel like coming out of World War II, there's been a whole bunch of literature on like, what makes a concentration camp guard do what they do? Yeah. Why did Germans go along with it? Why did they, and because America doesn't see itself as capable of something like that, I don't think we have fully explored the psychology of the person holding that firehouse, the person

whose dog is on this leash, right? Or what makes Jerry fucking Jones head on down to the day that Little Rock High School is integrated and stand in cheer in the audience. Like that part, what is that psych... Like do you know what I mean? I feel like we just don't wanna think about the level of sheer malevolence and evil. Again, it wasn't like you drink at this drinking fountain, I drink at this drinking fountain.

It was all fucking murder you and your family or just anyone that looks like you. Yeah. If you even talk about going towards my dream fountain, do you know what I mean? Like the level of oppression and state sponsored violence that was carried out by individuals, some of whom are still alive, is I don't think fully reckoned with at all.

No, it's not. And like if Faulkner, in some sense, his whole career is built around that idea of like this willed ignorance, right, of what the South is actually about. But even now, you can and should. More people should write and understand that because you hit on something that I sow dislike when we think that we are above acting like anybody else. If the civil rights movement proves nothing else, it proves that we've already been as bad as everybody else. Well, first off, people need to understand, well, I just slavery proves,

it, slavery proves that point even better. But everyone's complicit in this room. But the Nazis study American Jim Crow laws as the precedent for their anti-Jewish laws. So it's not just like we could be bad. We were the original bad guys in this sense. And then even though lots of Southern people went to Nazi, or went to Germany and fought and died to get rid of one of the worst regimes in human history. They came back and fitted right back into how things had been done for a long time.

And you had the psychology of that evil. I don't, I don't, like, it occurred to me because I interviewed Ernest Green, who was one of the little rock night. And I realized my grandmother was from Arkansas. And I was asking my relatives, is my grandmother went to Little Rock High School before it was integrated. And I never talk about it. No, she died when I was very, very young prematurely.

But just the idea of like, like, I'm the idea that, yeah, it was a few bad apples or that it was like, we just don't want to think about the evil that was commonplace and widely accepted and evil is really the only word for it. evil is really the only word for it. Like, that was a person whose children are almost certainly still alive. And grandchildren are definitely still alive. And that energy is in the American story, and in the American DNA,

and the refusal to reckon with it, I think, is the root of a lot of the problems we have today. But just sitting down and going, where does that come from? What is that? And it doesn't just go away because you eliminated one of the outlets in which that was publicly and legally acceptable. Yeah. So in Birmingham, you've got first off present day, you can still see the literal, you go downtown, the literal lines of demarcation between black and white Birmingham. And I think in some ways, Birmingham is forced to wrestle with it because the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is a real sort of like leading institution. When I was, right after the book came out, I went down to Birmingham for the 60th anniversary celebration, and there were some of the kids who were now in their 70s, or maybe some of the child

protesters. And I had a chance to speak with some of them prior, and a lot of their oral histories had already been assembled, but I had a chance to talk with a lot of them. And I was asking a version of this question, which is, okay, do you feel that your life was worth it? I tried to phrase this as diplomatically as I could, but it was like, did you succeed? Is it better? And sometimes the answer was, no, it's not. Sometimes it's like, we have a certain level of equality now, absolutely. And I'm so very proud of that. But there were a couple of activists who were like, in some ways, it's just like it's the same old city

that it's always been. And she said to me, I think it's because, despite what we do here at the Civil Rights Institute, it's the message is not as widely spread as it should be. The history is not. And it's just as a follow-up to that, later that day, it was amazing. I got invited to be a part of this 60th anniversary celebration of 16th Street Baptist Church. And all these school kids are bust in to take part in it.

Not a single white kid in the entire church, right? All black students. And it was supposed to be open to all Birmingham public schools. Now I don't want to call out Birmingham, I mean actually I do want to call out Birmingham like that, right? Just to echo the broader point that we're talking about, right? There's still and not even in the South this idea that We don't need to worry about this. We don't need to discuss this. We don't need to wrestle with this in some way Well, this is probably one of the flaws of non-violent movements. So we fight a wager war against Nazi Germany.

The conditions are, you know, unconditional surrender. We're overwhelming. It's an overwhelming military alliance that eventually, you know, sort of conquers, comes in, Hitler kills himself, and then there's this period of denotification that is done at the point of a gun. Like not a Germany and Japan are occupied by the victorious allied forces, right? And so they're able to enact a whole series of changes. The problem with the nonviolent movement is they're able to morally bring about, morally seize the high ground, bring about, change the passage of laws, but they don't have the ability, this is the same problem that happens after the Civil War because Reconstruction ends, to compel at the point of a gun or with the power of the state, to compel the acceptance of said laws and holds the criminals, which had illegally seized and held power

for 100 years, hold them accountable. That's one of the remarkable, like the Christian nature of the civil rights movement, keep your eyes on the prize. John Lewis famously, you know, 50 years later, meets one of the people who beats him nearly to death and says, I forgive you blah, blah, blah. But there are no trials after the civil rights movement where the bull corners of the world are, you know, there's no nerve of trial after the civil rights movement. Nobody hangs for it. Nobody goes to jail for it. But everything they did, yes, there was something, everything they did was fundamentally illegal, right? Like I think, I think I've tried to make this point about the Confederate monument that's down the

street here. People go, oh, put it up a long time. No, they did not do it. A group of people who had illegally seized power did this, right? Like people who at the point of a gun prevented other people from voting, well, at the same point of a gun demanded those people pay taxes, right? And then would politically intimidate them for any form of democratic expression of any way, circumscribing their life to a small section of town with a small, you know, series of opportunities available to them. They put up a statue using the public funds and the public land and said, this is our statue, right?

Do you know what I mean? That's a criminal. Not only is that just preposterous, but that is a criminal act. All of it was a criminal act. And we don't, it's hard to go, yeah, a hundred years of American history in a good chunk of the United States and pockets all over was fundamentally illegitimate. Like people were, it's, people were,

it's not even like, hey, like a gay marriage thing where people who love each other aren't allowed to get married, those people could still like, hey, like a gay marriage thing where people who love each other aren't allowed to get married, those people could still vote, those people could still do whatever they want, do largely whatever they want. What's, I think I try to explain about the civil rights movement is that like this was an occupation, right? Ganks, this is, this is, this is similar to Al Capone, you know, like seizing the level of power. And then because it was based on forgiveness and nonviolence, as soon as they succeed,

all the energy dissipates. Yeah. And there's no accountability and there's no fundamental change on other than the laws have changed. And it's, then you see the generations pass, and the only thing that really matters is, in some respects, like, because a lot of those people still hold onto power,

a lot of the white elected officials, and then there's just, in some sense it ties back in with, in a weird way, with like, I saw a parallel here between the saboteur and this in so far as after the war, after World War II in France, there was this giant myth that everybody participates, right? And then like 40, 50 years later, there's basically this truth-finding reconciliation

like, it's bullshit, almost nobody did. And so suddenly, you have people who, because it's now accepted by the entire society, you have kids who are like, well, what did grandpa and grandma really do during the war? And they were trying to like distance themselves from it. And it's this huge, hugely painful point for France. And in the South, to a certain extent,

and I'll mention, you know, right again, like his family is very much involved with like the civil rights movement in its own way. But I know that there are other people and other families where it's just like, it goes back this idea of the world ignorance, right? It's like we don't want to talk about that. That's the thing that's true.

It's like it's still too painful. And so it's something that's not, or not even too painful anymore. It's like we just don't want to talk about that. That's the thing that's true. It's still too painful. And so it's something that's not, or not even too painful anymore. It's like we just don't discuss it because we know we shouldn't. Yes. Yeah, or we don't want to teach it because it'll make our kids feel bad.

Because it'll make our kids feel bad, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it was like we maybe literally the descendants of people who had a certain amount of power and whatever. City, you know, when amazing things about the Kennedy administration, when they finally got on board is,

they were thinking about, should we do an Arkansas, should we bring in like the army to help, you know, what is it that we're bringing in here? And they're like, if we do that in Birmingham, then the problem is, we're not just doing that in Birmingham,

we're doing that in basically every other city in state that has flouted the law for all of this time. And again, yeah, great point because it's not just a southern thing, right? And, and they're like, we can't, we can't enforce our rule of law, which basically everybody else sees as in the south or where else as illegitimate. So we have to, there has to be some other means. That's really a part where the Kenn a part where Bobby's Department of Justice was like, okay, now I think we have to actually

move toward King in what he wants to do because we don't have really any other choice on our side. Yeah, and then once it happens, that used up all the political capital. Like once they succeeded, that used all the political capital, all the sympathy, all, and then, and then everyone just went back to their lives. Yeah.

And we're only now reckoning, I think, with some of the way, the ways that that energy just gets redirected, right? Like, well, Jack Kennedy said, when he, just before the signing ceremony, he said to his commerce secretary, I'm going to sponsor this bill and I'm going to lose the support of liberals and Democrats in the South through a generation. He was wrong. No, this is Kennedy before he died in June of 63. He was wrong about that. He lost him for, I think John said the same thing. John, I just gave the Republicans in South. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like he's, they. It's like, they've still lost it, right?

We still deal with this 60 years later, which is like why, I mean, the parallels that you see, there's ways in which the history, the South, all the stuff that lives on today, and that's why I just wanted to write it, because it's like, it's still very much something that's a part of our lives. Yeah, no, and I think studying it

and appreciating what it actually took and what it actually was up against, that's the whole thing. And I think, you know, when people are like, oh, critical race theory, why are you doing my kids about this? What does it say about you and your kids that you think your kids,

like when I- Are they intellectually weak? When I read about Birmingham, I don't go, oh, bull Connor, that's my people. You know what I mean? Like I don't relate to bull Connor. I relate to John Lewis and Martin Luther King and Fred Schruff.

Like those are the people. And if I need to see myself, well there's plenty of like Jewish intellectuals that come to the set, like I can relate to the college students in freedom summer Like if I need to actually see myself in these campaigns, that's also possible But because I'm not actually a racist. I don't have trouble seeing myself in Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King I can see myself in the heroes of the story, right?

because that's the good, like Martin Luther King test about, there's the north of the soul and the south of the soul. Like, what do you relate to, right? And I think you have to learn the actual story, what actually happens. So one, you understand how change is actually brought about, which is it's a vicious fight that it's about finding power and weakness and bring your power against the opponent's weakness and dominating them, right? Rest in control like holy from the other. Yes, exactly. And then also understanding what you are up against because that energy is

is malevolent human dark matter that exists inside every person. And it was in your grandparents and your parents, and it's partly in you. And it is very possible. It is very American and also very human for bad actors, demographics, et cetera, to activate that energy in people and exploit it and use

it to make good people do bad things. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have this issue right now? I think you do, actually. You've had to confront the idea of the books that you shouldn't be promoting or whatever, right? What do you mean? Like, I banned books in some way, like, are you fighting?

I feel I've read something about you where you're fighting against that. We did a thing where we gave away a bunch of band books here. We did a drag reading here. I mean, we got like legitimate death threats from it and you go, oh, that's that fucking energy. It's the same thing, right? Like, that's X.

It's like, it exists in the 60, it's still there. And it will always be there. And it's not, by the way, a white thing, it's a person thing, right? Everybody has this malvalence in them in some way. Yes. In what way does it end up manifesting itself? I mean, yeah.

It's like, we did this reading here because we're friends with some families that have trans kids here. And there's a great pride organization here. And there was this stupid backlash in Texas about groomers and nonsense like this. And so we said, you come do a reading here at the store. We'll do it in pride month.

We did it. And it's like, some person came for this tour multiple times. And then you pull out this person's Instagram, they're holding the fuck in the salt rifle. and you're like, this, that energy, the same call that king gets, the same, you know, that lynching energy is there. And this is why I think it's really important that people who have platforms and stuff not not only speak out about these things, but understand that when you're, what you think is just political correctness or when you think like you are, I just, I try to think a lot about, I don't want to carry water for or encourage that kind

of energy. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, and the whole, the whole point is like, there are people who are vulnerable and exploited and don't have, you know, things. And then there are people who like it that way. And one of you says, people escaped us. And you got inside sort of what side are you on? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like so I grew up in rural Iowa, right? And I go to a reading in Des Moines. And this teacher comes up afterward and he says,

love your book, guess what? There's no way I can talk about this in class. Because if I do, I can be fired. Yeah. I said, how stupid and ridiculous is that? And my state, like, I used to take tremendous pride being from amid West that, I mean, like if you wanna talk about the history of Iowa,

we were integrated before the Civil War, right, they were teaching kids of whatever nationality, whatever race. The real labor movement before the new deal happens in Wisconsin. Iowa is the fourth state to legitimize gay marriage before the progressive movements in New York and California can do it, right? And there is always this strain of like what is morally right, that's what we'll do. And this energy, this sense of, and it's a milder form to ban a book,

but it's a representation of it all the same. Yeah, but to ban a book because you think it's gonna groom your kid to be gay. First off, you're inherently implying that there's a problem with your kid being gay. That being gay is a thing that happens to people as opposed to a thing that they are. And then it's also using the power of the state to deprive people of the ability to express themselves and to consume what and other people to consume what people have expressed. And that is, that, you know, it's like, what's that quote,

where they burn books, eventually, inevitably, they will burn people. That energy, it only builds. It's never satisfied, right? And it's dark, fucking, awful energy that, yeah, you see in the civil rights moment, the explosion of that energy into fucking horrible stuff, horrible stuff. Like people like things the way that they are, but it's not enough, you know what I mean? Like they, they, they, um, they'll do very bad things to keep things the way that they are. If change scares them or threatens what they have. And it takes really courageous, organized, determined, you know, even, you could say reckless people to challenge that.

And that's what your book's about. Yeah. This was awesome, man. Yeah, I loved it. Thank you for it. Yeah, great. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rateic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery

Plus in Apple Podcasts. early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.