COJMC Diversity Series: Hank Klibanoff
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03/16/2016
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Hank Klibanoff grew up in Alabama witnessing the evolution of race relations there. Those experiences, along with his 35 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, not to mention his years as a newspaper delivery boy, were key influences as he co-wrote The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation. The book won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for history.
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- [00:00:04.808]I'm here with Hank Klibanoff, former managing editor
- [00:00:07.507]of the Atlanta Journal Constitution
- [00:00:09.909]and currently Director of the Georgia Civil Rights
- [00:00:12.348]Cold Cases Project, which investigates the truth
- [00:00:15.708]behind unsolved racial murders that took place
- [00:00:18.590]during the Civil Rights era.
- [00:00:20.227]He's also co-author of the Race Beat,
- [00:00:22.348]The press, the Civil Rights Struggle
- [00:00:24.508]and the Awakening of a Nation,
- [00:00:26.068]which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for history.
- [00:00:28.847]Thank you for joining me.
- [00:00:29.852]Happy to be here, thank you.
- [00:00:32.591]I think people are familiar with some of the more
- [00:00:33.932]notorious racial murders of the past,
- [00:00:37.472]but how many cases are there that are still uninvestigated?
- [00:00:40.472]Untold numbers, untold.
- [00:00:42.532]I mean, at one point the FBI tried to put together a list.
- [00:00:46.173]In the South, they had 110 cases.
- [00:00:49.098]I think we very quickly added another 10,
- [00:00:52.468]this group of journalists I work with across the South,
- [00:00:55.158]that they didn't know about
- [00:00:56.968]and now that I'm focused on Georgia only
- [00:00:59.408]working with Emory students,
- [00:01:01.048]they see documents that reveal others
- [00:01:05.380]we didn't know about.
- [00:01:07.510]So the NAACP will investigate a murder
- [00:01:10.070]and say this is not unlike the case in which
- [00:01:12.448]police chief so and so killed so and so,
- [00:01:15.658]and we think, well gosh,
- [00:01:16.698]that's one we didn't even know.
- [00:01:17.948]So it really is untold.
- [00:01:20.089]The only debate is whether it's scores and scores
- [00:01:23.328]or hundreds and hundreds.
- [00:01:26.667]I suppose especially some of your students will say,
- [00:01:28.587]well this is really ancient history for them.
- [00:01:31.035]Why is it important that we bring these cases to light?
- [00:01:33.894]Well there's so many reasons, I think.
- [00:01:36.545]One is that truth always is important.
- [00:01:40.805]You have scores and scores or hundreds and hundreds
- [00:01:44.555]of families out there, who to this day,
- [00:01:47.075]have no idea what happened to their grandfather,
- [00:01:50.065]to their daddy, to their uncle,
- [00:01:52.548]some family member who just disappeared one day,
- [00:01:56.198]and they don't know.
- [00:01:57.297]There's another reason too.
- [00:01:59.567]We're in turmoil in this country from state to state
- [00:02:02.418]with different laws about different things
- [00:02:05.758]we can do and can't do.
- [00:02:07.478]The one law that every state in the union agrees on
- [00:02:11.598]is that there is no statute of limitation on murder.
- [00:02:15.458]Is that no murderer in this country,
- [00:02:18.298]no matter what state he or she lives in
- [00:02:20.618]should be able to sleep at night
- [00:02:22.398]without worrying that the next day
- [00:02:24.357]they could be arrested for a murder they committed
- [00:02:26.538]whether it was five years ago, 10 years ago,
- [00:02:28.338]30, 50, 60 years ago.
- [00:02:30.578]We believe that.
- [00:02:32.788]In digging out these cases and finding if
- [00:02:36.233]there's someone out there who can still be prosecuted,
- [00:02:38.634]we're simply serving the purposes of law,
- [00:02:41.095]and law and order.
- [00:02:42.196]There's another reason, I mean,
- [00:02:43.236]I guess some people would say, you know,
- [00:02:44.666]some of these are old men,
- [00:02:46.285]they're kind of doddering, you know,
- [00:02:48.956]they haven't committed a crime in all these years.
- [00:02:51.156]They were just mean old clansmen for a period of time.
- [00:02:54.606]I guess I have to mimic the words
- [00:02:58.416]of a friend of mine, Doug Jones, from Birmingham,
- [00:03:01.575]who like me, a white Alabamian,
- [00:03:03.335]who prosecuted the church bombers,
- [00:03:06.096]the people who planted the bomb in the church
- [00:03:08.316]and killed the four little girls,
- [00:03:10.076]and he said, so are you telling me,
- [00:03:12.036]and this goes back to when Osama Bin Laden
- [00:03:13.856]was still alive, are you telling me,
- [00:03:16.096]those of you who say can't we let
- [00:03:17.536]bygones be bygones,
- [00:03:18.806]can't we put this in our past,
- [00:03:20.716]that 50 years from now, we find him in a cave somewhere,
- [00:03:24.456]he's still alive and we bring him out in handcuffs,
- [00:03:28.015]and shackles and everything,
- [00:03:29.616]are we gonna really say, oh gosh, that poor man.
- [00:03:32.516]You know, that was a long time ago.
- [00:03:34.796]He hasn't done anything since then.
- [00:03:36.576]Let's let bygones be bygones.
- [00:03:38.736]We wouldn't have done that.
- [00:03:39.895]Of course, he's dead as it turns out,
- [00:03:41.356]but there's something to be said
- [00:03:44.055]for bringing justice to a conclusion.
- [00:03:48.196]I should be quick to point out then,
- [00:03:50.036]the Georgia Project, we're dealing with most cases
- [00:03:52.455]in which perpetrators are dead.
- [00:03:54.596]This is an exploration of history
- [00:03:56.956]and I think that students need to know history
- [00:03:58.636]and know the context of why a man would be killed
- [00:04:02.135]for voting, why a man would be killed in 1958
- [00:04:04.876]for driving a new 1958 Chevrolet Impala,
- [00:04:08.116]why that was so offensive to white people
- [00:04:10.615]that they would kill him for that.
- [00:04:13.266]It's learning history.
- [00:04:14.655]What reactions do you hear from your students
- [00:04:17.166]when they dig into this?
- [00:04:18.375]They get so caught up in this case,
- [00:04:20.176]in these stories, in these cases in the class.
- [00:04:23.946]It's a hard class.
- [00:04:25.936]It's a lot of writing.
- [00:04:27.236]We do a lot of writing.
- [00:04:28.416]We really emphasize writing.
- [00:04:29.765]We're writing for the website, Cold Cases
- [00:04:31.895]dot Emory dot E-D-U.
- [00:04:34.016]And so their big paper is like a 12 page paper,
- [00:04:36.936]you know, it's not the most massive.
- [00:04:39.496]Then their final paper is actually a distillation of that
- [00:04:42.457]for the web.
- [00:04:46.097]My feeling is that this is the course
- [00:04:50.263]that the students put their other courses aside for.
- [00:04:53.482]That's my impression.
- [00:04:56.021]They bring a lot of energy.
- [00:04:57.932]In the recent case we taught this past semester
- [00:05:01.382]when the students really wanted to go down to the scene
- [00:05:04.744]of where a particular man had been murdered for voting
- [00:05:07.062]in 1948.
- [00:05:08.542]And I was saying, well there's nothing there.
- [00:05:10.282]The family moved away.
- [00:05:11.302]They've never found his grave site.
- [00:05:13.463]They said, well we're going.
- [00:05:15.072]And so I said, can I go with you,
- [00:05:17.143]I'll pay for the gas?
- [00:05:18.323](laughs)
- [00:05:19.543]And so we went down there together
- [00:05:21.043]and I just very quickly will tell you
- [00:05:22.683]that while we were down there, these students,
- [00:05:24.853]three students, found a grave site
- [00:05:27.698]that the family had not been able to locate
- [00:05:29.768]for 67 years.
- [00:05:32.168]Wow.
- [00:05:33.568]Pretty empowerful.
- [00:05:34.589]Pretty empowerful, absolutely.
- [00:05:37.238]You spent many years as a reporter and an editor.
- [00:05:39.816]Why should we care about having a diverse newsroom?
- [00:05:44.086]Because we are in a diverse society.
- [00:05:47.396]Why should we care about having diverse lives?
- [00:05:49.935]Because life is richer (laughs).
- [00:05:52.175]Because we are innately curious people.
- [00:05:56.616]We are, you know, part of the book,
- [00:06:01.395]the Race Beat, opens up with
- [00:06:04.786]the greatest most comprehensive examination
- [00:06:07.555]of race relations in America by Gunnar Myrdal
- [00:06:10.355]called An American Dilemma,
- [00:06:12.045]and his idea was that
- [00:06:14.355]Americans have an American creed
- [00:06:16.195]and in this creed they believe in fairness,
- [00:06:18.534]they believe in justice,
- [00:06:20.435]they believe in all the things that those
- [00:06:24.035]earliest documents and the founding of our country said,
- [00:06:27.175]which represent us as very wonderful people
- [00:06:30.402]embracing people, accepting a diversity in religion
- [00:06:34.302]and race and creed and all these things.
- [00:06:38.031]And he found, if left to our own devices as human beings,
- [00:06:41.960]we would be that way.
- [00:06:43.341]That we get mislead through whatever,
- [00:06:45.640]political leadership that might lead us astray,
- [00:06:48.321]demagoguery that might lead us astray,
- [00:06:50.801]but if left to our own devices.
- [00:06:52.340]So I sort of adopt that point of view,
- [00:06:54.741]that we as Americans want to embrace each other
- [00:06:57.810]and we need to sort of shut out the noise of those
- [00:07:01.041]who try to divide us in order to have that.
- [00:07:03.960]It just makes life richer.
- [00:07:05.080]It's the world we're in.
- [00:07:06.780]And we can go live in a cave if we want
- [00:07:08.580]and I would encourage those who don't want
- [00:07:11.119]a diverse society, to go live in a cave
- [00:07:13.540]because that way they can avoid the very fact of life
- [00:07:17.400]as it is today.
- [00:07:18.739]And newsrooms need to very much reflect that.
- [00:07:21.759]If you're creating a news product,
- [00:07:25.189]unless you specifically say this is news only
- [00:07:28.872]of the one mile radius of this township
- [00:07:34.394]swim club, if that's your community,
- [00:07:36.654]then that's who you're covering.
- [00:07:38.374]But as soon as you broaden it out and say
- [00:07:40.470]actually it's the whole community, it's larger than that
- [00:07:43.500]and you have to reflect the population of that region
- [00:07:47.269]that you're covering.
- [00:07:49.139]How would you, looking at the headlines today,
- [00:07:51.478]how would you grade the coverage
- [00:07:52.619]of there are so many racially charged headlines right now
- [00:07:55.818]with the Black Lives Matter Movement,
- [00:07:57.418]the shooting of young black men,
- [00:07:59.148]some of the rhetoric we're hearing
- [00:08:00.488]from political candidates, how are we doing
- [00:08:02.318]in covering these issues?
- [00:08:05.298]Well, it's easy to be critical.
- [00:08:08.630]And I so love the profession of journalism
- [00:08:12.327]that I do it reluctantly.
- [00:08:14.627]I sort of feel like I don't like to speak ill publicly
- [00:08:18.307]of the people who are still toiling at the work
- [00:08:23.028]that I used to do and loved so much.
- [00:08:26.248]If I were asked how could we take this on
- [00:08:28.908]in a better way, I would say it's not about
- [00:08:31.276]covering the street riots after Ferguson,
- [00:08:34.716]in the middle of Ferguson, you need to do that
- [00:08:37.056]and you have to do all that,
- [00:08:38.516]but really what was the story that we missed there?
- [00:08:41.976]We missed the story about the daily insults,
- [00:08:44.844]the daily degradations of life,
- [00:08:46.984]the daily humiliations of life
- [00:08:48.844]for African Americans in that community
- [00:08:51.007]because of the broken taillight problem.
- [00:08:53.826]Where they get stopped for a broken taillight
- [00:08:55.886]and they become just rats on a wheel.
- [00:09:00.756]Never really getting resolution
- [00:09:02.591]of the criminal justice system.
- [00:09:04.132]Constantly showing up to, you know,
- [00:09:06.692]for something having to do with a speeding ticket,
- [00:09:09.922]running a stop sign, something like that,
- [00:09:11.722]which has happened to my own children
- [00:09:13.772]and I have gone through this
- [00:09:15.292]and they just spend endless months and months
- [00:09:18.771]and months in a process without resolution.
- [00:09:21.692]Being bounced from one courtroom to--
- [00:09:23.491]Well the law, the police officer didn't show up today,
- [00:09:25.672]well this didn't show up,
- [00:09:27.011]well the prosecutor was, well this.
- [00:09:29.391]And after awhile that wears down
- [00:09:32.892]and frankly, you know, I'll be honest,
- [00:09:34.991]if I had to show up in court next week
- [00:09:37.632]on a particular date, even if I were teaching a class,
- [00:09:41.332]I would find some way that I probably would have
- [00:09:43.572]to go to court and I could do it
- [00:09:45.212]and my dean would understand,
- [00:09:47.192]my boss in a previous job would understand.
- [00:09:49.656]A lot of people don't work for people who would understand,
- [00:09:52.459]who can't be constantly taking off work.
- [00:09:54.976]It just becomes a cycle
- [00:09:59.780]of humiliation and worse than that,
- [00:10:02.750]I think the cycle that inspires anger and disrespect
- [00:10:05.940]for the criminal justice system.
- [00:10:08.040]So we haven't seen reporting on that except
- [00:10:10.860]after the fact on Ferguson and so my question is,
- [00:10:13.630]so who's looking at that in their own community now?
- [00:10:17.088]Just go spend a morning in municipal court.
- [00:10:19.308]Just send a reporter to municipal court.
- [00:10:21.623]Look at your population and look who's in the courtroom
- [00:10:24.403]and try to figure out why do we have this disparity?
- [00:10:28.823]That's the story we need to tell.
- [00:10:30.523]How can we do a better job of changing
- [00:10:33.443]or how do we change the way we're preparing
- [00:10:36.463]the next generation of reporters and editors
- [00:10:39.483]so that they are more aware of the diversity issues
- [00:10:43.163]in this country?
- [00:10:44.543]Or even like the University of Nebraska,
- [00:10:46.375]what can we do here?
- [00:10:48.035]Well you have to be intentional about it.
- [00:10:50.314]That's probably not saying something particularly brilliant,
- [00:10:52.935]but you have to be intentional about it and say,
- [00:10:54.335]yes, we have declared that this matters,
- [00:10:56.535]whether it's part of our strategic plan,
- [00:10:58.555]our strategic mission.
- [00:10:59.914]Whether it's part of our, even a short-term goal
- [00:11:03.114]that here's something we realize we're missing,
- [00:11:05.526]we need to add.
- [00:11:06.866]And I'm not speaking to the university here.
- [00:11:10.636]But I know that it comes about only if someone
- [00:11:12.819]is doing it intentionally and many cases
- [00:11:15.739]where I have seen it work,
- [00:11:17.419]it's where someone is absolutely or someone's
- [00:11:20.839]are absolutely designated with that responsibility
- [00:11:23.979]of increasing diversity.
- [00:11:25.989]And they do it without shame.
- [00:11:28.459]They do it without embarrassment,
- [00:11:29.598]without timidity.
- [00:11:31.159]They do it wisely, do it smartly.
- [00:11:33.199]They figure out how to do it and how to sell it.
- [00:11:36.709]How to sell it.
- [00:11:39.179]How do you show the benefits of diversity
- [00:11:41.854]and there's so many different ways.
- [00:11:44.053]And I think what happens is over time
- [00:11:46.254]we all become sort of in our own little area
- [00:11:49.033]and defensive and oh well, if I'm in history,
- [00:11:52.095]I want another Americanist, not a Europeanist.
- [00:11:54.594]Well I want this, well I want,
- [00:11:56.194]and we become focused on that
- [00:11:57.814]and not realizing that we also need someone in there saying
- [00:12:01.554]whoever it is, needs to be a person of color,
- [00:12:04.404]needs to be a woman, needs to be someone
- [00:12:06.554]from the LBGT community, whatever the goal is.
- [00:12:10.624]And has to make themselves sometimes a little bit annoying,
- [00:12:13.693]I think, to make that happen.
- [00:12:16.274]But knowing that they have the support of the people
- [00:12:20.292]at the top to do that.
- [00:12:22.339]Alright, Hank Klibanoff, thank you for sharing
- [00:12:24.012]your information with us and your thoughts.
- [00:12:25.713]Thank you so much.
- [00:12:26.872]It was a pleasure to be here.
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