folk who will only support black businesses. instead of saying here's a black family who decided they want to spend money that economically empowers their communities and it would elicit and because they spent time with our family and well meaning media took the time to see what this was about and because we fashioned this as an academic experiment i'm not living like that anymore. i don't only support black businesses anymore. but to get the data that we wanted, to take the stand that we wanted to take and to show all of these industries and markets where there's just no black representation, we had to do it that way. so number 1, we tell those naysayers, this was an entertainment. we had to do something real direct, real elongated so that we can show all of the economic disparities and we can show the

racial divisions in this economy. a lot of folks don't want to have that conversation. maybe you're one of those people who think the status quo is okay. but i don't think the status quo is okay and here's one creative and intelligent way for me to counter that. .. go out there and support walgreens. we did our pizza, our ice cream, my husband's shaving cream, our toothpaste from walgreens. my love walgreens for giving

those black entrepreneurs to put those products and this shows a chance. i'm going to make sure that i reward walgreens in the kurds and to do even more of that by supporting walgreens. walgreens is not black don't, by supporting those businesses that have manufacturing plants and distribution centers, hiring ten, 50, and 1,000 people, and helping my community. scenting with officemax. i am not just pushing go up there and support black businesses. i say go support businesses that are making direct investments in to the poorest communities in america. we have been here for 400 years. i would hope that most americans are waiting for that opportunity to be able to go cell mass retailer that was started, someone that helped build the country. that will be a great american story, to select a president. wouldn't it be wonderful to have those kind of achievements in our commerce, our economy?

d'agata office max. i tell people, that's something you can do. what americans come hispanic americans, employes and bearing in alabama. mostly black. 50 percent of the black people they're unemployed. south coast paper is doing something about it. a lot of the business owners need paper. mommy's to buy paper. by south coast paper. doing something good for america. that's what i say to those folks. >> host: we have a couple minutes left. i'm interested in what is next for you and then where things go from here. >> well, we really in the beginning wanted this to be inspiring a movement. not that i would ever insult to our great leader, rosa parks, by comparing my sacrifice there's, but we were trying to pay

tribute to her legacy. we did want this to be a story where one family took a stand in the community. so what we hope will come from the experiment is that we can actually create a campaign. we have been talking to a lot of folks. i do this all day every day. we have celebrities who are willing to be spokespeople for this. we have everyday folks like you make a little commitment. we spent $90,000 within our community that we would not have. we want folks like you to say, you know what time inspired by what you didn't want to help my community. i'm going to try to make sure i spend $10,000 but those businesses, black or not, that invest in and employee in my community and give those kids more role models. then those celebrities will get the incentive to do that. someone like tom joyner would say, okay. if you were to do that you get a free pass to the town charter crews.

someone like common. if you do that, if you get the $5,000 budget and would give the backstage passes to mike answered. you want to make it cool and hip to support our businesses again. once libris support. the universities to continue tracking where money goes. the big disparity is the empowerment experiment foundation. part of the foundation is to track where our money goes. a lot of the research out there right now talks about our buying power, what it is. we want to be the authority on where that buying power goes. because right now it's not an oakland. we want to show where that buying power can go. we want more of it to go to detroit, more of it to go to the south side of the lantern and the west side of chicago and to the track what that money can do if we were to spend a little bit more here and there, how many jobs you can create, we really want to keep track of the money

and show the impact that it can have america. the foundation is focused on that, and my job is to keep being a spokesperson for top-quality businesses and keep inspiring. through this door to look for and support businesses. >> host: a bright future ahead hopefully ten years from now we can say that we have 20 years restores, does the future of the experiment. thank you for the conversation. we will be tracking new. it is. >> guest: thank you so much. >> that was afterwards, book tv signature programs in which authors of the lettuce nonfiction books are interviewed by a journalist and a public policymakers all legislators, and others familiar with the material. airing every weekend on book tv at 10:00 p.m. on saturday, 12 and 9:00 p.m. on sunday, and

12:00 a.m. on monday. you can also watch online. gutted booktv.org and click on after words of the upper right side of the page. and now of your interviews from book tv recent visit to georgetown university here in the nation's capital. we talk with cheryl first about her book the agitators' daughter, a memoir of four generations of one extra gary african-american family. this is about 15 minutes. >> "the agitator's daughter" is the name of the book, and sheryll cashin is the author, also a professor of law here at georgetown university. professor, who is the edges it? >> my dad, dr. john cashman jr., may rest in peace. he just pass this past year. >> what kind of an agitator was a? >> well, my dad found it an

independent democratic party in alabama at a time when the regular democratic party was dominated by george wallace and the dixiecrats. despite being a dentist and a two-time but the tory and his abdication of agitation, he poured hundreds of thousand dollars of his own money in the 60's, 60's and early 70's into this political party so that the albanians could vote for lyndon johnson rather than george wallace and that in the hundreds of thousands of newly registered black voters would have people to vote for. could not just vote, but also run for office. and so that was his life's work. he was very much committed to a recapturing the greatness of african americans in terms of

political participation. very steep in the era of reconstruction because his grandfather had been a reconstruction legislator. he grew up hearing about his grandfather, gramm partial while he was coming of age and jim-crow. it radicalized and to be living under jim-crow in alabama well hearing about the fact that black people used to actually have political power and be in office, including his own family >> who was the? >> that was my great grandfather. he was in our family lore the first black lawyer in the state of alabama and the architect of reconstruction. i grew up listening to my father repeat this over and over, you know, as a teenager. miles of road. and in this book i go out and search of the source of my father's passions. i find out that the outlines of the lore are there, but he was

submitted to the elbow bar in 1878. >> the alabama bark. >> the alabama bark. not the first, but the fourth color lawyer in the state. he did serve in reconstruction during reconstruction, served two terms in the alabama legislature. a radical republican. a radical republican. by the time he got elected reconstruction was already closing down, but my great grandfather, the gentleman and the picture, for the next 40 years, he never stopped giving up on this idea the people of color had a rifle place in politics. he continued to be active in national republican politics, attended for national republican conventions and raised a family. my father grew up hearing about a and was determined so, as a matter of family honor the

restore black people to their rightful place in politics and alabama. that was of my father was all about. >> why did you write about your family? what made you take it this far? >> well, i got tired of hearing my father sang it is going to read a book. damage, you're not trying to read this. i was terrified. this incredible wall would die with them. and so in my mid 40's, early 40's a should say, i finally just got tired of hearing and talk about it. i took out a tape-recorded. i wanted to know everything he needed to get lost. this political party in everything he did. he took on a life of its own. i soda researching how much of

this was true. it just became an obsession. >> what did you find as far as up to full was? >> this was -- be careful what you wish for. go off in search of your family history. you'll find it's something mr. and summer not. whether the truth parts of our lord, we descended from a benevolent irishman named john cashen who was never a slave owner. a white man. an irish immigrant this guy john cashin and his brother came over to the u.s. during the potato famine and that one was a slave owner and one was not. we descended from the benevolent on slave owner. not true. we did get a sense of the sky, but inconveniently he was a slave owner. and not only was he a slave honor, but the father of my great-grandfather.

that does father, who was also named john was one of the more prominent survivors augusta. here i have to contend with not only did i descend from slavery but i descended from guelph, considerable wealth poured a sliver. i could time my family's history of relative advantages, for generations of educated people. my great-grandfather had a classical education in philadelphia. the institute for college it then became a lawyer. i could tie that to slavery, which was new and a revelation. i reconciled myself to that history by what my grandfather, great grandfather chose to do with that. he says to go back to the south, which she did not have to. people of color. he chose to identify with people

of color. several of the siblings were going to pass in the debt. he was a bit of an agitator as well. >> was a child like? >> i had an incredible childhood. took me with her in her arms to a seven in april of 1967, four months old to get herself arrested with me in her arms. and that event was a turning point in the movement in until alabama. within a few months of that event initiated a non-violent desegregation in done so.