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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axfiles with

your host, David Axelrod.

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I sat down last week for a long-time conversation with my friend Bakari Sellers, colleague from

CNN, former state representative in South Carolina.

The subject was to be his new memoir, My Vanishing Country, in which he talked about his father's

seminal role in the civil rights movement and the work still to be done.

Little did either of us know that when we finally sat down for that conversation, that it

would be so timely, so in the moment, I'm so glad that we had this chance and I'm eager

to share it with you now.

Bakari Sellers, my old friend, it's good to see you.

You know, we set this up some time ago.

You were going to publish a memoir and we set up a podcast even though we've done one

before.

You could not have known when you wrote this book, even though you said you were in part

writing it for Sandra Blan and Eric Garner and those who have been victims of excessive

force by police and lost their lives in incidents that were racially motivated.

But you could not have known that in the very period when you were publishing this book

and releasing this book that we would go through this wrenching episode or episodes again

and in reading this book.

I think I understand a lot more than I did.

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