that he operate on bodies 22 state street hours here that's one dr. who happens to be here in the building we do not know exactly how many surgeons were here there is at least a dozen or more surgeons. you've got thousands of wounded people eventually are going to have volunteer nurses you will have contract doctors, regular doctors. when the army leaves when that military leaves many surgeons go to the army surgeons can't behave got to take some of the surgeons you. >> at the portion of this program which can be watched in its entirety any time at c-span.org/history. >> cspan2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's story and on sunday @booktv rings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for cspan2 comes from these television companies and more including comcast. >> are you thinking this is just

a community center? it is way more than that comcast is particle 1000 committee centers so students from low-income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. comcast want these television companies support cspan2 as a public service. ask if you missed any of today's programming you can watch it online at c-span.org/history. use the search bar at the top of the page to find your favorite history topic. >> we are so excited to be or to celebrate rachel. for the 272 the families who were enslaved and sold to build the american catholic church. in 1838 a group of america's most prominent catholic priest sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project. which is now georgetown

university. in this groundbreaking account professor follows one family to nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harming origin story of the catholic church in the united states. rachel is aoc journalist author and associate professor of journalism at new york university race and race relations are articles about george town university touched off with universities and their ties to a painful period in history. her work has been a recognized and supported by the national endowment for humanities the ford foundation, the leon levy center at the biographer's international organization among others. as a correspondence for the times reported from russia, cuba, guatemala and southern

africa. immigration and presidential politics and michelle obama and her role in the obama white house. she is the author of american tapestry the story of the black, white, multiracial ancestors of michelle obama co-author of unseen. unpublished black history from the "new york times" photo archives. she'll be joined in conversation today with michelle at march and the host of morning addition. previously she was the weekend host of all things considered and t host of considerate this saturday podcast she drew her deep reporting and interviewing experience to dig into the week's news. she has spent more than 25 years as a journalist has been honored by numerous organization. join me in welcoming politics and prose rachel's warrens host of morning edition sorry.

thank you. there are more of us do not get me in trouble.ac [laughter] welcome. and welcome home. but to have you back here in d.c. quite a journey. how many read the original "new york times" piece it's been a while. do you ever wonder when somebody writes a particular deeply reported article and then a book comes out if there is more to say? it's like is there really more to say. [laughter] there is. i wasas wondering when you understood there was so much more to say? was it after the first piece which was so impactful and so deeply reported and so shocking to some. i make you understand there is much more to say. >> it is so cool to be sitting

alongside you and seeing you after so many years. it might be useful to talk a little bit about how i even came to the story. it started in 2015. students were protesting at georgetown. they were concerned about two buildings that carried the names you have and be early presidents who orchestrated this sale. and the administration change the name. the administration have been considering changing the names even before that. but the protests caught the eye of a georgetown alum as ceo of a tech company in cambridge who said okay protest about the buildings, about the history, change the names. but the 272 what happened to

them? reach out to a faculty member at georgetownor as they mentioned georgetown had already been looking into this and trying to think about its own history of an slavery in how to wrestle with it. what happened to their descendents? he was told they all died. and he said they all died? nearly 300 people they all died? no descendents? that seems implausible to him. there were certainly other people in the working group at georgetown without there were descendents. this guy said to himself that makes absolutely no sense. richard was someone he is a white guy the ceo of a tech company. a republican guy who would not been involved in racial justice issues in any way before. but he loved georgetown i think

we kind of owe something to these people that is connected to these people. and so he hired a team of genealogists who started digging and find descendents then he reached out to a colleague of mine at the time was on the business reporter and said hey i've got an exclusive for the times in the 1830s that benefited georgetown she was kind of like okay. interesting. is that even a story? and so it is my great, great fortune she did not just delete the e-mail. you have too remember this is before the 1619 project this kind of reporting but it was not the w kind of reporting we typically do. but she remembered there was someone on the staff who might

have a sense of this she remember the book i had done about michelle obama's ancestors tracing her enslavedhe ancestors back to the 1800 so she forwarded the e-mail to me. and i knew immediately i knew it was a story. might reporting about michelle obama ancestors had allowed me too explore how slavery shaped american families and i thought this to be the next step to look at how slavery shaped one of our elite institutions. what i did not know where who were the 272 and that is what it needed to find out, what it needed to find out. >> i was so moved by every aspect of that story. i did not understand the back story until i read the book. can we marinate in that for a minute this a white guy had not thought much about in slavery or slave but did not have any

connection to it. understands an institution he cares deeply about his deeply meshed and it. he digs into his pocket, does some work and reaches out to you and your colleague reaches out to you and there we have it. first of all that is reporting 101. this is what it told my interns answer the mail please. read your e-mail. when he asks a very fundamental question, who were they and what were their names? >> is a quote from a book this is not a disembodied group of people who are nameless and faceless. these are real people with real namesnd and real descendents foa forquick sows his quote. that is what he said he felt. let's just ask if there are any

among us today who are directly connected to the store it? will you show yourself? can you stand? can we welcome you and honor you? [applause] >> thank you for being here. thank you for being here. my family is still here. >> we are glad you are still here. thank you for being here. thankto you for allowing your story to rise. your article focus on georgetown and the book of focuses on the bigger story of the role of slavery in the building of the american catholic church. as briefly as you can't what was it? why is it so important? >> i started again by looking at this sale. it would be helpful to tell just a quick story that will make you understand how i got from the

sale to the larger picture. to do that i want to tell a story which i tell a lot too. as a journalist i am not a historian. i often think about being aware there's a lot of folks are going to say no thank you, turn the page, turn your head. and so how do you bring that story to people how do you get people here? and the way i feel is the best way to get people to hear is to tell a story that is compelling to introduce families that people might want to read about. my72 talk about 272 and how i gt toth georgetown and then the catholic church i like to bring people back to november 1838 to give you a sensese of what it ws like for these people. and in 1838 these folks were brought from southwark maryland

to alexandria, virginia. at if you had been there you would have seen them. scores of people being loaded onto a ship forcibly loaded. elderly people, parents, children, babies, witnesses describe people falling to their knees weeping, begging for mercy. and these were people being torn from all the people they loved in the world that they knew and being shipped down south. they were owned by the most powerful jesuit priests which you heard before which happened to be among the largest slaveholder in maryland. they were selling these when times got harder. as people did because they were at their most prized assets. they wanted to save the school. as i started digging and realizing while every black and catholic at no idea they were involved in the slave trade i

started looking at the priests. and looking at that history. what i learned it wasn't just georgetown. they built the early catholic church first in the british colony in early america. these priests who relied on slave labor and slave sales built the first archdiocese. the first cathedral, early confidence. priests who operated plantations and sold people built the first catholic seminary. the underpinnings of the church were built by priests who are deeply deeply involved in slavery. you're right in the book without the enslave the catholic church in the united states as we know it today would not exist. >> that is rights. >> one of the things that also struck me about the book is that

you describe how oppression led to oppression. help interweave the various forms of oppression have been. i found that very, very interesting and of course upsetting. could you talk a little bit about the catholic church and its attitude toward the indigenous people and have the attitude toward indigenous people and a transformation of its attitude toward indigenouspe people would lead to ex- acceptance of the enslavement of people of african descent which i found fascinating. >> one of the things that's fascinating about the catholic church we should be very clear it's not just the catholic church it is protestant churches two. slavery is foundational for a lot off things. the catholic priest there were white people who viewed black

people as brutes, and animals. catholic said okay, no they have souls and we went to nurture their souls but we are okay about enslaving them in selling their bodies and people say how is that possible? what did rome have to say? that's what michelle is getting at. it's a interesting. slavery is it ancient practice as we know. it is in the bible the judge of its pointed to it. they talk about the responsibilities of slaves and masters. when europeans went into africa and into the americas they enslaved indigenous people it initially. and there were protests by priests. he said we won't do that. but there's still an insatiable need for labor. africans fill that gap. and the church remained silent. and ifow you want to look at

oppression leading to oppression the priests who came to maryland came from england where they were persecuted. catholics were persecuted and maryland was a refuge for catholics. but in trying to embed themselves to be recognized as establishment society slavery was part they became part of that is important to know they were always voices who raise questions. they were priests all along the way you had concerns about it. >> and also one of the other things i thought was fascinating is how at times catholics were ifpersecuted i don't that's the right word but marginalized within the politics of maryland. because protestants would not work for them. once again they turned to

enslaved africans in order to save their properties and their livelihood. you shared you are also -- you identify as catholic. from birth i assume? a cradle catholic. yes. >> do you mind if i ask how this reporting, how to influence your faith a walker? didn't challenge her faith walk in any way? >> it is interesting. i was doing this work i am catholic i am a practicing catholic. and i am going through these records. some of these records -- i've been doing this research for a long time. getting used to seeing -- if you're writing about enslaved people you are writing about people who are viewed as

property. that is what you are looking for you're looking for tax records. you are looking for property records. you see estate records that list the coffee, tables, the table cloths. the pigs, the dishes and the list of the human beings. that is a sobering and then i'm going to mass. but ing think what has been interesting to me is the families themselves and the experience of the families themselves.fa i tell the story of one family in particular the mahoney family. and the matriarch of that family a woman by dave and joyce arrives in the 1600s just a few decades after the first priests arrived. she is a free person she is an indentured servants whose freedom is stolen she's forced into slavery by catholic gentry. but she holds onto the one thing

has which is her story. she tells anyone who will listen she should have been free and hurt liberty was stolen she tells her children that, her grandchildren that that story is passed on. people in her family and descendents resist. two of them kill an overseer and are executed. they go to court and sue the jesuits. some when their freedom that way some don't. harriet mahoney saves the church is a wealth in the war of 1812. garners a a pledge neither he nr his family will ever be sold and that is a pledge that's broken in 1838. so it times the priests required a black people to go to mass, to participate in the sacraments. there were penalties for not doing that.

there is an instance where it to families the priest decided to families who had infidelity were punished she sold their children. after the civil war what do families do? would you stay catholic after the priest had split up your family? interestingly a number of people state the number people left, thousands leftem because the church remained segregated after words. but members of this mahoney family not only did they stay they became lay leaders some became religious leaders and they worked to make the church true to its ideals of being eight universal church they set up black parishes. to became nuns and rent schools for black children.

some of their descendents are catholic to this day those sacramental records haven't really important to genealogists and to myself in terms of tracking these families. in these defendants who are among us now many have been in the forefront of pressing the church in georgetown to recognize this history. i looked at those folks and in a crazy way i find some inspiration there. i see folks who said to themselvesng this church does nt belong to the sinful men who are in it. they do not control god they do not control the holy spirit, none of that. it was their church they decided to make it that way. that inspires me so i am still going. xo want to remind you this is

something we can all participate in there's only one mike there i hate to make the sick fitness contest my recommendation we were going to turn to questions for you in just a minute or two. so if you have one, i thought you want to share if you would perhaps begin making your way to the microphone. you mentioned you are not a historian. but historians in general are basically in conversation with each other. and i would like to ask we called the first draft of history at all of that. i do not know with the appropriate term would be. [laughter] this was not really how you got started in journalism you get started inal journalism to chronicle what's around you right now. not what happened 300 or 400 years ago. i was just interested was any

part of yourself you had to transform to do this w work? there's a lot of learning about. i realize there is so much about american history even as a reasonably educated person that i just did not know. i've always been a records person i covered courts early in my career at local courts and federal courts. i've always been eight records person as a journalist so records have been kind of important to me and interesting to me. i had to learn a whole swath of records. i've also been someone who loved a good mystery in the hunt for me is really, really interesting. it's when i got started on the article that led me to the book about michelle obama i was searching for her great-great-grandfather who was

born into slavery and was biracial and i'd gone to a cemetery i was amazed i could go to the h archives and find where he is buried, the plots, the number, who is next to him i had everything i had altogether. it was in birmingham this old neglected african-american cemetery with the grass up to my knees and the tombstones toppled it many of you may know even the dead were segregated back in the day in the south. i spent an entire day there completely unsuccessful. i never found his tombstone. but there is something about that. just something about that, that grabbed me. there is something i would rather be doing than this. i came home to my husband i said i don't know what happened something happened to me out l there maybe i need to get another degree and he said maybe not that.

[laughter] not that. [laughter] [laughter] [inaudible] @. [laughter] when a publisher approached me after that story ran he said okay that is the thing. i don't know it was a weird thing that got me. i joke it's my midlife crisis about the 19th century. >> was go to your conversations. please join us. you know who we are so we would like to know who you are if that is okay for. >> my name is nathan. i am a recent graduate of montgomery college. i now live overseas and i'm hoping to teach american history inin schools overseas and that something i feel very passionately about.

i began reading the book and one thing that struck me in particular was reading about the story of solomon. and int particular about the emotional details of his homecoming. what i was wondering is -- what i was wondering is -- what i was wondering is if in the course of your research what did you think what did you believe to be among the most striking parallels and contrast between the stories? x thank you, good question. first for those he was 12 years slave is a free black map north he wasou kidnapped and sold back into slavery. to immunize themselves from time

to pay compensation for people who were wrongly re- enslaved, right? his story is very instructive. as iut mentioned one of the challenges when you're writing about enslavedav people is the material. it is like a really, really hard to find the material. people were by law and by practice borrowed from learning toou read and write the kind of things he would rely on letters, journals, that kind of thing are not there. you are looking for those records that i mentioned you're also looking for contemporaneous voices of the people at the time who can eliminate something for you. solomon was someone shipped to louisiana and approach very vividly about of lot of things what new orleans was like, what the plantation life was like.

that was very instructive. he also wrote about being reunited with his family. and unfortunately that was not something that happened to the two sisters who were split by thise sale. but his experience was very helpful and you get to hear his voice. and cute. >> hi. i am visiting from new york. great talk. i am wondering if you also be reading about the other scandal. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> i think you are talking about. [inaudible] >> and clutch it mentioned that i would not want the introduction ofat that leading o

different views for people to think that indigenous people were beautifully treated because we are not. it is the way the operative phrase was killed the indian to save the man. they were horrendous abuses people were subjected to physically, emotionally, spiritually all that is coming to lightht now. the trickck is i don't have an answer for you, i wish i did but i don't. i can certainly see and asking the same kinds of questions it certainly feels like there are parallels there. >> i could see the parallel being people have the power it t they had the authority to develop different grades of humanity. you are at this level of human you are this level of human and if you are this level of human this is what you get.

>> and tearing families apart. >> and destroying their culture and substituting your own. you determined it is superior. >> others who like to join us, our conversation. >> i just wanted to mention to the guy from politics and prose, michelle was also on "nightline" for decades. [laughter] >> i was 12. >> anywhere, i don't know where to begin here. tellings slaves -- they sold slaves to stay in business. and there are thousands and thousands of children. i have a really hard time with this. >> where you're going with this? >> i'm just saying -- even the

cardinals was a cardinal of the district of columbia until he was defrocked and now he is being -- he is been re- indicted for what he did. pland it is like to these people have no shame? it is okay to sell slaves. i don't know what is the religion about if this is what you do when you are a religious person? i don't know. i was wondering if any of this came in and if any of these slaves. many slaves were impregnated and things likeso that. this in any of this come into your storyline? maybe it's even the priest. it's never come up.

>> there's a lot of important work in journalism that has been done to expose that. and i would say that what i do is try to show how it slavery it fueled the growthpr of the chur. what the priest did, how they treated people. again the fact that it was not just the catholic church, the episcopal church, the protestant church, the baptist church, this was sadly it was, what was happening at the time. but it isn't ugly ugly history. there is no way around it. and the reason why it shocked me is because enslaved people have left largely out of the story the catholic church tells about

itself. and that is t true. it is also true and important to note as i mentioned before there were priests who raise questions and concerns about this. it is important because one thing you often hear when you are talking about slavery for studying slavery is people who say don't bring your morality to the table here. it wasu legal. it was the time. you1s cannot learning your 21st century judgments to it. but the truth is that within the catholic church at the time they were priests who were raising questions they wereot priests wo were protesting. they were priests, one of the priests i write about in the book is a guy who ran a plantation where this mahoney family was enslaved. when he learned the sale was coming he objected.

when he was overruled when the traders came he encourage members of the family to run. now, what is complicated about that i think oh gosh he's awesome. but some ran i mention the two sisters luis and it runs with herth mother, she hides in the woods. the ships aleve, take her sister and another sister and other family members away louisa and her mother returned to the plantation where they are welcome to backbite joseph into slaveryai where they remain. she is one of the last people in the records enslaved by the jesuits. so it was a complicated situation. just wastunately or not within the purview of the reporting i did.

>> did they ever apologize? >> yes. >> who also like to join the conversation? >> hello. >> hyper. >> my name is kyla matthews i am the great-granddaughter of mahoney. i am also advising at georgetown law right now. from what i have experienced josé the university is more responsive. they tend to be more reactive than proactive in their accountability efforts. on the specially motivated by a press and media. so i am wondering for the point of view of a journalist what is the most effective way to preserve this narrative and keep attention on this story with our collective attention span the way it is?

and. just in case some of you don't know. so in 2016, one of the things that georgetown did was offer or what is, in effect, legacy status or preface preference in admissions to descendants who were interested in going to georgetown and changed the names of the building is, as you know, created an institute which is now coming online and then. created a fund. students actually protested and said, hey, you know, georgetown, you need to do more for these descendants. and they had a referendum and said, you know, we will tax ourselves, in effect, we will institute a fee to raise money for for descendants because they felt that the university should do more. the university said, no, no, no we're not going to do that, but we're going to raise $400,000 a year for that benefit. descendants that was that

program just got underway this year underway this year and distributed. they both apologized and partnered with a group and promisedo to raise $100 million to benefit the racial reconciliation programs. that would be the largest effort made by the roman catholic church in america to address this history. it has had a slow start. they haven't raised as much money as they had hoped and as you might imagine they have mixed feelings about all these things and are asking can more be done. they have their own ideas of how this should look so the question

you ask is how to kind of keep them focused and what needs to happen. i am a journalist, so i'm not in the advocacy that's not what i do but i certainly can say from experience and just in the story pressure from students and raising attention to issues has certainly drawn media attention. we've done a lot of that. i would say people -- georgetown has been criticized on all sides by descendents and people who think they need towh do more. what is true is that they've

been right in the thick of what is a growing movement among institutions and municipalities around the country to acknowledgeut and grapple with this history we are talking about like the state of california so this is all happening here and i never thought i would see it. the question you're asking is how do we make them do more. i think part of that is what you have done when my first story ran, the project had a handful that are now known at least 6,000 descendents and when people found out this history, and you can imagine what it might be like to find out this kind of history, people

organized and i think that organization andas that pressure has had an impact. >> let me ask you this though because we've had two questions about the teaching of history and what role it should play in the current moment. your book arrives at a moment of backlash about even teaching history in institutions not just in colleges and people being fired or showing classic works. your initial article landed before some of the work that had become so polarizing. your book now lands in a moment where literally people

aree getting work thrown out because one person complained order one person doesn't like it and i'm interested in your take on that. >> we know history is a battleground and particularly involving race and history and the teaching. about race and slavery. for me even when i first wrote that article in 2016, this kind of work felt urgent and it feels even more urgent toug me now. >> there are colleagues that no longer allow their addresses to be known. i've done interviews where they will not let us know where they live because of threats to their children and family so i'm curious if it feels similarly fraught. you were clearly open and

receptive and i guarantee it might not be the same in other places. >> i think as journalists we are all more mindful than we might have been a couple of years ago. certainly i should say members of my family have thought about it and worried a bit about it in terms of where this land and how people respond. but as i said, to me it feels can't shy away from the work but i'm also realistic and mindful and careful. >> my name is brett and wednesday i was driving to a thegrocery store and decided to turn on fresh air and you were on. i was feeling great. it was a wonderful day and i got

into the story and started getting angry and 45 minutes or left i was furious. [laughter] to piggyback on some of the comments, if and 45 minutes or less i got that angry, how do young do your research without gritting your teeth along the way, and with the university's widespread that benefited from slavery with of the affirmative-action decision coming down, how did the universities feel compelled since race is the focal point with the decision if it comes down against, does that handcuff the universities with this legacy issue that you've

exposed? will they be handcuffed now. >> you got two questions there. one is about how do you do this work and as i mentioned it's not easy work to do. there are times where i come across a document and i just have to stop and take a breath, close my eyes, take another breath yet i keep going because we need to know if i don't look

and if i look away then i think that this work needs to be done. so i keep reading. >> >> is it a difficult approach? >> so, here's the thing. it is heartbreaking and terrifying. sometimes as a journalist to be able to tell the story i need to kind of put myself there so i've had conversations with my son who's a teenager and i think about those sisters and the priest telling them you've got todr run. there were two children with elderly parents. what do you do?

do you run? what do you do? those things weigh on me but the important thing to know is this is a story of heartbreak for sure but also of resistance and struggle and family and faith. remember i came to this as a catholic woman that never heard a catholic priest and slave anybody. i never heard anything. i did not know about these people so i was very motivated andi inspired to tell a story i felt hadn't been told and people were left out of the story so that is what kept me going

i got my money from georgetown we were still trying to figure out who were the people we lost. these werese the names. we had dorothy and mason and we

are still fromo maryland. my grandmother had just passed. it was our way of life. when i found out, i cried, i became angry and i even thought about leaving the catholic church. this is what i want to know. i grew up about 10 miles. we never heard this story at all. i went to catholic school. i had priests and nuns and i came from a community that was very they honored their black history and we never heard this story. we never heard it from the priests, now that i think about it they wouldn't want youyo to

know. i was even wondering like with my grandmother because there's so much trauma and people were hiding that they just didn't talk about it because i'm from southern maryland, from all these areas. >> everybody keeps telling me. did you have a specific question? >> it was trauma that we did not know about? >> i think sometimes it was. there are some families where people told me they thought their elders deliberately didn't tell them. >> my grandfather used to tell me his great grandmother would say and i had no idea what that was until this happened.

>> thank you for sharing that. >> can we have you join us? >> i would like to know because you are a journalist and you say you kind of direct your information. whatte i wanted to know once you started this book and it was exposed, what kind ofth dialogue did you have because you had this exposure and everyone particularly knows this is a hidden story that isn't being told so you are telling the story and i wanted to know as far as your position even though you say you are a journalist what is your position to bring

it further for more accountability just click georgetown has an endowment and i understand giving out scholarships this doesn't compare to what has happened so i wonder because you had the direct line to have a dialogue with them. hand you had that and if you had, what was the outcome or what is being actually done because most were enslaved. >> again, i am a journalist so i don't get involved with directing policy or even advocating for things.

what i am very involved in and care about and the next stage of my work is trying to create a digital archive that would it's not just universities or the catholic church or other religious organizations. its banks, insurance companies, and archive where the records are available so that journalists, scholars, community members, families can see them and take the steps they want to take but it's not my role as a journalist. >> so what you are saying there was no direct interaction? >> no one is asking me, no one from the catholic church is

asking what should we do. it's just not the role that i play. so it's exposure for people that do want to take it further? >> there's k a similar project where people whose vast fortunes including members of the royal family were built on enslavement and it's interesting to see there is a journalist that after they left when she realized her family had been enslaved and she wanted to dig into it further but she couldn't do both. she now decided that is going to be her focus.

i want to publicly acknowledge and thank you. we talked back in may of 2016 after the article. i wanted to thank you because the article had a million questions which ith had at the time. the point that i wanted to make clear, i said something to you in that article that i felt like i won the lottery and for people that may look at that article and read that article, i want to share its emotional because my family was some of the family take into louisiana and i've had so much loss ingo my life that's

gone and would have loved to understand this history but now i have cousins. >> one of the things that have happened is that families have found each other that were spread apart. >> stso that is the return on te story breaking is we are reunited. this typically doesn't happen but it continues to happen every day and like julie said, our hearts beat as one. we can andmany as come together. to the lady before us that's how we deal withna the history on a national and world level.

>> i think this will be our final. i'm going to put you on the spot. i'd like you to give a conclusion, something to take home.. >> i just want to thank you and i am looking forward to your archive records. my family name also includes the name that we are from virginia and given the exchange and trafficking i know more records will be useful to me also because that research is hard to do and i wanted to push back on this concept that it was oppression that it came down centuries before that basically said and i wanted to know what you think of that.

>> if you can expand on that. you said earlier that they had to enslaved people. >> one of the things i was saying is it was interesting for me that i learned from the book how don't we see this in the world today you're angry and afraid and then you oppress somebody else because you are angry and afraid? >> once it came down it became a mode of operation. i just think pushing back on that. >> and just so i'm clear you're talking about when i said they

were seeing themselves as t persecuted and feeling like they wanted to join the society that was kind of pushing them away, that kind of thing? >> yeah. they did talk about that and of the truth is of course it was the economy and you're absolutely right, very explicit about what their intentions were and why they were doing this both in terms of rome and enslaving people it is part of conquest and about money. at the priest who was pushing the hardest for it had a vision ofcl building schools and was vy

clear that in order to do that he would need money and this was the way that they were going to donk it. thank you for spending this evening with us and spending this time with us. i understand that you are going tot sign a some books but i was wondering if i could ask you to leave us with a concluding thought. there's so much here. as you said it's a story of heartbreakak and love and resistance and reunion and families broken apart, families broughtt together. >> and you said that so nicely your self. >> just kind of give a

concluding thought when you close your laptop at night what is the thought of the project and what it's meant to you and what comes to mind? you will go on to another project at some point but what does this meant to you? >> it's important for these folks who are long gone to be seen and recognized and acknowledged and i think it's important for us to understand that this is w about history. of the work that i do i'm different from a historian in that i'm very engaged with the past but i'm engaged with the past because i'm interested in how wewh live with this history and what we do with it so i think what matters to me is again that we are mindful of it,

that we don't just come in, jous are accustomednd to this if they are handing you a financial record you are asking questions. ask questions about the history you've been taught, why is it that you don't know the things and recognizing these folks and having them seen is important. thank you. [applause] the adventure of the diesel engine that disappeared under circumstances in 1913. also touching on why he left america. >> he left the opportunity to start from scratch whereas in europe you had to build a roadway over the ancient pathways of rome. here in america you could build them wherever you want and he

loved the meritocracy of america. he loved that our society wasn't so class oriented coming from europe where that was a big thing here that wasn't such a big thing and he felt that humility spread throughout the whole society. so in 1912 the last couple of days he went over to orange new jersey and they had a great back and forth that captured. we don't have thomas edison's version of this, but they didn't totally get it wrong. he enjoyed his wine and observation that all of the inventions were power consuming whereas they had a couple of

back and forth's where a whole bunch got together and it came up with an engine. what about this crazy knowledge. he felt like it was a dubious virtue having come from the sort of revered german engineering schools so there was a back and forth and it's a fun seen in the book and shows this humor as well. >> today a