i hope they will read the book and get involved pressing the elected officials to make the changes. >> host: "the swing vote" the untapped power of independents" linda killian thank you for your time. >> guest: thank you for having me. . .

is the name of the book and what sheryll cashin, who is the agitator? >> my dad, dr. john with cashin, jr. who may he rest in peace passed away this last year. >> what kind of an agitator was he? >> well, my dad found it an independent space party in alabama at the time than the regular party was dominated by a george wallace and the dixiecrats and despite being a

dentist in the time valedictorian, he, his education put hundreds of thousands of dollars in his own money in the 60's mind you into this early political party so that alabama could vote for lyndon johnson rather than george wallace and the hundreds of thousands of new regularly black voters would have people to vote for, couldn't just folk but also run for office, so that plus his life work and he was committed to recapturing the greatness of african-americans and political participation because his grandfather had been a free construction legislator and he grew up hearing about his

grandfather while he was coming of age in jim crow, and a radicalized him to be living under jim crow in alabama while hearing about the fact that black people used to have political power and be in office including his family. >> who was hershel cashin? >> my grandfather, he was the first black lawyer in the state of alabama and the architecture of reconstruction. i grew up listening to my father repeat this over and over and my eyes would roll. in the book i go off in search of my fallfish hashim will do the compassion and find out in the ellerbe anbar in 1978 not the first but the fourth colored lawyer in the state and he did

serve in reconstruction during reconstruction come to terms in the alabama legislature has a radical republican. my father made it clear as a radical republican. but he was in the architect because by the time he got elected we construction was already closing down but my great grandfather, the gentleman in the picture the next 40 years never stopped giving up on this idea that people of color have a rightful place in politics so he continued to be in the politics and attended for the national conventions and raised a family and my father grew up hearing about it and was determined to as a matter of family honor restore black people to their rightful place in politics that is what my father was all about. >> why did you write about your family? what made you take it this far?

>> i got tired of hearing my father say he was going to write a book. if you're not going to read this book, you know -- i was terrified that this would die with him so in my mid 40's, early forties i should say, i got tired of hearing him talk about it and i took out a tape recorder and started interviewing him. i wanted to know everything he knew and make sure it didn't get lost. i started interviewing what he knew about the family would also this political party in deutsch, a life of its own and i started researching how much was true and it became an obsession. estimate what did you find as far as how truthful? >> be careful what you wish for

when you go searching your family history you will find some things are true and some are not. part is we descended from a benevolent i rich man named john who was never a slave owner, a white man, a russian immigrant. the lure was this guy john and his brother james came over to the u.s. during the famine and one was a slave owner and one was not and we descended from the benevolent long slave owner. not true, we did descend from john cashin put inconveniently he was a slave owner and not only was he a slave owner, the father of my great-grandfather -- >> hershel's father -- >> his name was also john was one of the more prominent slave owners in augusta.

so here would have to contend with not only did i descend from slavery but to the well considerable boren of slavery and i could hide my family's history of the relative advantage, for generations of educated people, like great-grandfather had a classical education in philadelphia and i can tie that to slavery which was new in the revelation and i reconciled myself to that history by what my great-grandfather chose to do with that. he chose to go back to the south which he didn't have to when he chose to work for people of color and chose to identify with people of color when several of the siblings were pale enough to pass and they did pass so, he

was a bit of an agitator as well. that is one thing that i discovered. spry what was your childhood like in alabama? >> i had an incredible childhood almost from birth. my mother was, joan carpenter cashin took me to a sick and i was four months old, she gets herself arrested with me in her arms, and of that event was a turning point in the movement in huntsville alabama and within a few months they had negotiated in non-violent accommodation in huntsville. two years before the civil rights act, before the water hose in birmingham -- >> did it help that johnsonville was an educated city in northern

alabama, did that make a difference? >> what helped more than anything is that huntsville tied itself to the space industry and what he was already there come a lot of scientists had to send a doll alabama and the city wanted to disassociate themselves from the rest of the state and that helped them to negotiate this quietly. so from the beginning i have memories of my parents as civil rights activists and after the voting civil rights act passed then they turned to politics and a group looking stamps, the was the national democratic party to revive memories my father ran for governor against george wallace in 1970 and i have these

memories of my summer being taken all around the state, those counties that were the center of the plantation economy during the antebellum era not surprising 100 years later we are all wear the black votes were and it felt like during that election i had been carried to every church in the black belt and i watched my father gives this speech over and over again in the famous line goes that professed deprecate agitation or people who want the crops without pulling up the ground and that's where the wine comes from. frederick douglass is a title, frederick douglass was my father's hero. he was always quoting him. but when he was on the campaign trail in the black belt speaking

to these dirt-poor sharecroppers trying to give them a reason to register and go to the poll she would invoke douglas and say don't sit around waiting for other people to do right by u.s. frederick quote douglas said, go forth and demand your power at the ballot box. >> would you teacher at georgetown? >> i'm professor of law. i teach legal history courses called race in american law which covers most of the cases decided by the supreme court. leal so teach constitutional law and administrative and sometimes property, sometimes local government. >> when you approach public affairs or send this manuscript to a publisher who was the answer back from public affairs and why were the interest in the story? >> i already had a prior

relationship in the book about, the book titled the failure of immigration but about why we still struggle so i had a relationship with them and i sent a proposal and they were familiar with me because of the first book and promoting the first book and currently think they knew as hard as it is to get attention for a memoir if you are not famous i think they knew i was a fairly tenacious person and they also tell the story compelling thanks to public affairs. >> just a short conversation at georgetown professor sheryll cashin about her second book, the agitators' bader mrf for generations with one extraordinary african-american family. by the mechem book tv covered professor cashin earlier on this book and it's about an hour in

length. you can go to book tv door, the search function in the upper left-hand corner and tight and her name and you can watch the entire year our. thanks for being with us. now on your screen at the national press club author night is well known author author ann coulter she just did three hours in in that. i want to ask about demonic. for the first time ever you are wearing a white dress. [laughter] >> we wanted to shake things up a bit. i stuck with the black dress for a while. we take photographs. sometimes the dress i was wearing in the photo was green, but the design people come to

our people at the publishing house thought it looked better to have me in black because it looks like i'm a letter to read anything, they were the ones about in every color the dress i was wearing black and i was always in favor because for some reason me on the cover of my book and a black cocktail dress drove liberals matter and i enjoy doing that. >> so this is your most recent out for six or seven months now. >> [inaudible] >> are you working on another book what? >> no, no, this is a lot of work, this book. it took a lot of research. i sort of knew about the french revolution but like most americans they didn't know a lot about it and it was so much research and little talking to other humans. i think it's going to be about a year. if you need time to think about the textbook will be but also line