What does A Hope in the Unseen say to you about progressivism? Why did you pick this book?

I was interested in the book because my kids were in the DC [District of Columbia] public schools – they actually graduated from the DC public schools. This is an incredible book: It’s about this amazing young kid, Cedric Jennings, who not only graduated from the DC public schools but then goes to Brown University, which is where I went to school. It’s just an extraordinary story. I think it’s good for any progressive to understand the class, social and race issues that he deals with in this book.

I also think it’s important to understand what it takes for a young person coming from a radically different background to integrate into even a progressive university. I’m a huge believer in public education and the need to fight for public education – I think it’s the core democratic institution we have in this country and I think in too many places we’ve abandoned it. The District of Columbia is a good example of where there are good committed folks, but so much still to do.

It’s been interesting, since I read this book, going back to Brown last year and to see the difference now with Ruth Simmons, the first African American woman president of an Ivy League institution. I can see the difference in the student body, how it looks, how it has changed. It was tremendous but, again, I just think this book gives you a really good sense of both why we need to do more about public education and what it really takes to help young people who have tremendous potential. It’s not enough just to get them into a good university and to give them those opportunities, but to think about all the different barriers that exist for them. This kid deals with all of them and goes on to have an incredible life and career.

It’s interesting because so much of the argument between conservatives and progressives is often about the role of the individual and the role of the community in shaping the individual. Did you see it taking a side in that argument?

Well, to me what was so striking about it is his whole experience. When his mom takes the bus up to see him on parents’ weekend, their outing is to the dollar store, whereas all his classmates – their parents are taking them out to the finest restaurants and they have the right clothes and all the trappings of what it means to be in an Ivy League institution. And I have to say, even for myself… I was from Texas – I had never been out of Texas – so I felt dislocated at Brown just for a whole host of reasons. I didn’t know the language the kids spoke, but you think of this young kid who’s so smart, has fought to get through school in the District of Columbia, and then to get to Brown and be so alienated from everything. It’s mainly about class – it’s about race but it’s mainly about class.

I think there’s a lesson in there for all, and I don’t think it comes out on one side or the other particularly. It’s an important story because it’s way more than just opening a door for a young person – there are often a lot of other obstacles in their way and I think this book does a great job of showing that. I think it also does a great job of showing how important it is to be supporting schools that can provide young people with the background they need to be successful at college and in their career.

Your next book is How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America. Why did you pick that book and what does it say to you?

I obviously wanted to pick a book that was about the work I do now, and I just think Cristina Page did a great job in this book. It’s a very accessible book and so I’d like to put it in for folks who think this may not be the topic that they know a whole lot about. But I think Cristina really lays out the case that the far right movement in this country, in its fight against abortion rights, is actually against everything that would reduce the need for abortion in America in the first place. She does a great job of chronicling the fight against birth control, the opposition to sex education, the whole campaign against the morning-after pill, and on and on. And in a very readable way she outlines this whole anti-science hysteria that unfortunately has now become almost part of urban legend – the allegations that are made on the far right about the perils and the dangers of basic birth control.

Of course, since she wrote this book, which isn’t even that old, we’ve seen the movement in this country go even further. We see most recently the whole effort of Congress to de-fund Planned Parenthood – it’s for family planning. This is really an effort to undermine access not only to legal abortion in America but even legal birth control. She does a good job as well in talking about the whole move by pharmacists to refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions or refuse to fill emergency contraception. So again I think of the cynicism of this movement claiming to be about abortion but being about something much, much more. I also love how she ends it, which is the question: Will the American people stand up for a few energised crusaders hell-bent on imposing their views on how we all ought to live? That is the fundamental question and I think the pro-choice movement or any of the movements for women’s health play a vital role in the progressive community.