Clinton ties to blacks focus of diarist’s book
Posted on Friday, September 8, 2006
The personal diarist for the Clinton presidency released a book about her former boss Thursday at his presidential center in downtown Little Rock.
Bill Clinton was on hand to help Janis F. Kearney launch Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton, From Hope to Harlem.
And he wasn't shy about his reaction to the book.
"I found it utterly fascinating,"he said to laughs from a crowd composed of many people interviewed for the book.
The book focuses on Clinton's connection with the black community - in Arkansas, nationally and in other nations, such as his recent work with AIDS orphans in Africa.
Conversations is filled with interviews about Clinton with famous figures, such as baseball great Hank Aaron, as well as more personal chats with others, such as Clinton's first baby sitter, Autrilla Watkins.
"I loved getting a personal taste of the people who I have admired and have been fascinated by for many years,"Clinton said. "I genuinely did enjoy reading a lot of the things from people who were critical of some of the things I did."
Kearney, a native of Gould, graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1977, and in 1981 became owner and publisher of the Arkansas State Press, a black newspaper founded by Daisy Bates, an adviser to the Little Rock Nine, the first black students at Little Rock's Central High School in 1957.
In 1992, Kearney became the director of minority media outreach for the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign, and then became the president's personal diarist, chronicling his presidency from 1995 until he left office in 2000.
Kearney, the first diarist hired by a sitting president, recorded Clinton's day-to-day activities while in office.
Kearney wrote Conversations and her first book, Cotton Field of Dreams, while she was a fellow at Harvard University's W. E. B. Du Bois Institute in Chicago. The book was published by Writing our World Press, a small publishing house founded by Kearney in 2004.
Kearney will be signing copies of her book at the Clinton Museum store today from 10 a.m. to noon.
At Thursday's event, Kearney read excerpts from Conversations, including a passage from an interview with former Cleveland Mayor Michael White.
"Bill Clinton is one of the only presidents who's actually in tune with common Americans, including the poor, the lower middle class, the farmers and the factory workers,"she quoted White as saying.
The book also includes interviews with U. S. Rep. John Lewis; former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial; former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell; William Julius Wilson, director of Harvard's Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program; and Kearney's husband, former director of White House personnel Bob Nash.
Clinton sat behind Kearney on Thursday, laughing and nodding as she shared some of the stories in the book.
Later, he tried to explain his philosophy about race relations.
"The course of any history is uneven,"he said. "And all of our lives are lived with unintended consequences as well as intended ones. The main thing for a great country... is to have the right dream and basically try stumbling in the right direction."
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
