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My sister, Jess and myself saw Senator Cohen and his wife speak at Politics and Prose. From my sister’s site:

My head swam, groaning under the weight of all those thoughts. On Sunday, William and Janet Langhart Cohen addressed the crowd at Politics and Prose. They spoke about their new book Love in Black and White: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Romance. The title was heavy enough, but taken with their histories, the discussion seemed almost too much to bear, too much to wrap my head around.

The book opens, “My wife Janet and I entered this world under dramatically different circumstances. She is black and I am white. I was born in Bangor, Maine, and she in Indianapolis, Indiana. I, the oldest son of a Jewish father and a Protestant Irish mother, spent my early years living on the third floor of a tenement building located on a street that bordered on what was known as ‘The Devil’s Half Acre’ — the redlight district of a small city.”

As afternoon waned into night, the couple talked openly on the subjects of race, religion and romance, as the title suggested, as well as war and Walter Reed, freedom of speech and the power of words. Each question begged two or three more as the crowd grew more comfortable with the authors.

The former Secretary of Defense, William Cohen also served as Senator and, before that, Representative from Maine, for a combined total of 24 years in Congress. Prior to the memoir, he penned several books including four novels, some nonfiction and a couple of books of poetry.

His wife Janet, once known as the First Lady of the Pentagon, earned recognition as a journalist. During her twenty-five year career, she appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC and BET, and produced several programs, including On Capitol Hill with Janet Langhart. During their tenure in the Pentagon, she traveled the world over, visiting troops and bringing light to their quality of life, focusing on issues such as wages, housing, schools, health care, education and job opportunities. Her own writing includes a memoir, From Rage To Reason: My Life In Two Americas, and a one-act play included in Love in Black and White.

Discussion of the play arose during the introduction, the speaking, the questions and answers. It revolves around an imagined conversation between Anne Frank and Emmett Till, both young victims of hate, of racism.

William Cohen, the first to speak, talked a little about Fiddler on the Roof and a quote that stuck with him, with them. Each of the three daughters broke with the tradition and in regards to his youngest daughter the father states, “As the good book says ‘Each shall seek his own kind’. In other words a bird may love a fish but where would they build a home together?”

Cohen answered, “In America.” He called his wife a beautiful bird who loved himself, a fish quite often out of water. They talked for each other and of each other with love. They talked of rights, of Jim Crow and miscegenation, about the relatively recent legality of interracial marriages.

The Cohens spoke of the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King served as a mentor to a young Janet Floyd and continues to serve as an inspirational force in her life, as does her friend, Muhammed Ali, and her mother. Both talked of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s speeches in Selma, Alabama on the 42nd anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the march from Selma to Montgomery in which marchers were stopped by police with billy clubs, tear gas and firehoses.

Langhart Cohen alluded to the upcoming presidential election. She said she could not separate the color of her skin and her gender; she would vote as both a woman and an African-American. She would rely on issues and positions to determine her vote. She also addressed color consciousness in our nation: black and white, red and blue states, the color of fear (red, orange, yellow). She said that people need to stop being politically correct and to start being polite. People need to talk.

The couple did talk, at length, addressing the crowd and answering questions. The couple seemed genuinely interested in the people around them and when one questioner mentioned the state of his father’s care at Walter Reed, Langhart Cohen offered to give him the name and number of an advocate. They talked with each person in line, listening, asking questions of all, including my brother, myself, our friend Jess.

The speakers were charming and distinguished. Beautiful (especially Langhart Cohen, a former model, who seemed decades younger than her 65 years). Neither seemed interested in intimidating or overwhelming the crowd. They just had so much to offer that they made my head swim, groan under the weight of so many thoughts.