it's been known to happen. but i hope you can encourage and make them. there's so many big issues. i think the tendency on government. at one of obama's hopes is to make more and more people dependent on government. he's got 47% of the american people are getting out there that in expenses from the taxpayers. and that's terrible. i grew up during the great depression. we didn't have any handouts to recruit to be to be the greatest

generation. it's making people dependent on government. how many of you have seen that slideshow, the life of julia? due out to see it. it was put on by the obama people. it shows the whole life of julia. she starts at dependent on the government which is going to pre-k and then she goes through in the government is helping all the schools and colleges along the way and then she has a baby. no sign of a house than. the government is hoping, taking care of her and then she ends up on social security and medicare on the end. enter a whole life is made possible by the government. that is not the kind of country we want. look at europe. we don't want to be like europe and we don't want any of these u.n. treaties because we don't need any foreign export in geneva or belgium or anyplace

else to tell us what to do. we believe in freedom. the first, as i say, i think every president we've ever had, including the ones i don't like spoke publicly about their faith and belief in god and asking god's blessing and the blessing of america and one nation under god. and we don't want anybody taking that away from us. you know, there've been lawsuits against even the pledge of allegiance. they have not succeeded with those yet, but who knows if one of the greatest powers of the president is the power to appoint judges. if obama points another alayna kay hagan, that will control our country for the next 50 years. we can't afford that. so your up for this election?

[applause] >> nonbook tv, rachel swarns presents a genealogy of michelle obama. >> good evening. welcome to the schaumburg center. it's a real pleasure and delight to have you here and to have all of you here. it's a lovely summer evening and i think it's getting hot out there. so brace yourself for summer will now descend upon us. we have a real special treat in store for you. as you probably read and heard in the recent news about this new book, "american tapestry," we learn a lot about not only the first lady, but also this country and i think i am looking

forward to hearing a lot more about the process of writing this book and some of the things that rachel would like to share with as they relate animates them and that we don't already know. so to begin, i think what the audience probably doesn't know if you had a lot of support, kind of a community that contributed to this through the book and the genealogist cover certain institutions, fellowship maybe just get started, talk a little bit about the genealogy of the book up and how we arrived at the main story. >> you know, i wrote a story that over 2009 about the family with a colleague of mine and that became the genesis of this book. i am a journalist.

this is my first book, so this is a new experience for me. >> congratulations. [applause] and really when i set out to do this, i kind of had this notion of okay, i'm embarking on, you know, a deep dive into the first lady's family and into american history. and i know is going to take some time. i knew i didn't have that much time. and didn't do my past. i did get a lot of support, which is wonderful. i took in the end, two years to report, research and write the book. i mean, there's so many people who helped me. several universities -- catholic universities helped me. they gave me a research university in some office space. office space was critical. the wilson center in washington d.c.

i live in washington d.c. also provided me with faith and support. the fletcher fellowship kept me going when i was taking a little longer than i had hoped towards the end. and then really, i called upon experts in the field. i was doing something quite ambitious, taking her grandparents, the first lady's grandparents and taken in as far back as i could take them. i was looking at very different periods in american history. and i reached out to the best experts in the field in each of those periods. too kind to point me in the right direction. >> i wanted everyone to hear that because first of all, it speaks to how important institutions are in supporting and writing these books don't just come out of the imagination of talented writers, that institutions like the schomburg center as well as the

smithsonian. >> that's right. the recount was people that really make a difference. >> that's right. i did a lot of research there. >> now, rachel knows and i know that she did actually use the schomburg, but i do want to make a shameless plug. our senior researcher and writer who introduced us wrote a book in the title of which is fighting for america, black soldiers and thank you rose of world war ii. and i'd let you know, but also the idea that we ever present in in this story. you talked a little bit about the structure of the book. i'm curious. it's about that unfolds in reverse. the chronology begins with the arrival of all four sets of michelle obama scream.

and. and so it moves back in time. tell us why you organize the book in that way. was it a marketing decision in terms of what the reader might take as the most compelling aspect before moving back to slavery? y starting reverse chronology? >> you know, when i started thinking about the structure of the book, it occurred to me that actually part of what i do is we are looking forward to white ancestor hitting and her family tree. as well come story of so many family tree who emerge from slavery. i thought to myself, we actually know where the story and with michelle obama, the first african american, first lady in the white house. but the question is where it began. it's a little unorthodox. i didn't know when i started

doing how well it would work. i thought i would roll back. i also thought that because there was so much silence over the generations that kind of peeling back the layers and hearing the little bits and pieces people knew and what they didn't know, that that would give you a sense of just the reverberations that slavery had overtime and that he would be kind of drawn today's beginning. >> i think that's one of the most consistent teams in the book, the painfulness of days past. it strikes me that the way in which he told the story perhaps it is your own way as easy and the reader into that moment, that is unfolding like if it begins with the slave girl, a six-year-old slave girl.

i was thinking about the context and the timing of this word. so of course there is the first lady that will speak volumes to what exists, but i also wonder if the work of the thomas jefferson and sally hemming american controversy in 1997, the story about the founding father relationship with his wife's cousin or enslavement strays. i wonder if that were not without were, would this have been it more difficult story to tell? would it be harder for her select to the imagination to wrap our heads around the deeply significant act of the milan should humanity represented by the mixture of european, african native americans?

>> it was certainly helpful to me in the sense that there is a framework that people had in their heads about what the situation might be late. for michelle obama's family, it was quite different in a lot of ways. but i think in some ways the discussion has been ongoing and i think that was a vital part of that. >> c. describe this is a hard history. what do you mean by that? >> i think it is hard for people to talk about. i think it is the idea of a young girl, you know, maybe 14, 15, 16, being raised by her owner's family. these are things a lot of people don't want to talk about a lookout.

in the researcher was quite clear to me that this extended both to whites and blacks. and i think that sometimes people would rather look away. and some of my conversation with defendants white and black. we had contemporary times were in 20th century times for people who know this history. we all do. they're sitting side-by-side in having those conversations were not dirty easy. a slaveowner he said to me in the end, this person decided that they didn't want to be identified in the book. they said you know, mrs. obama has said that slaveowners come in the blood of slave owners of slaves ran through her dance and

she accepts that. this person said yes, but we were on the wrong side of history. she's not. it seems like a long time ago. and it is obviously more than 140 years ago, but it's not that long ago. >> and not to let it go in fact because you are able to work with two very distant cousins. one black woman, one white woman. they named jules barkley and john tribble who didn't know they were related, but as a result of their research and reaching out to them they assisted in the process. tell us about your relationship to them that their relationship to this book in this history. >> part of what was interesting to me was to have the kind of contemporary narrative running through the historical narrative. i thought that really what this book was about was the sweep of american history and i like the idea of modern-day people grappling with that.

these two women i basically was trying to find if i could identify the white ancestor and her family tree and we thought that it was probably someone in the slaveowners family, so i searched for as many descendents to i could and many don't deshields, and the conversations were very interesting. i went back and forth to see these women and other people in the family and they were older women who really wanted to know. and even though they knew what they would find out might not be easy. >> have certain numbers of the family rejected this story, or is this penny sort of universal embrace? deshields family being the finish represented by the former slaveowner.

>> there were mixed feelings about the research. some people really wanted nothing to do with it. some people were out then too it, intrigue to bed, but not wanting to be public. and then there were some people, this is history. who's the real range. and i played into that kind of conversation. i'm a journalist and we are active. we try and hold ourselves rather removed. i remember as i was thinking i was going to interview these defendants. are they going to look at me, a black woman, and remember? i guess that does make a difference? they say in it stood way it does. >> make a difference in what way?

>> i think in this person's view there were sides. there is a divide and even today she felt like she was on one side and i was the other. >> do you think that -- i spent a lot of time talking about the importance of african-american history in the history in general, both of which are in many ways representative of the disinvestment in the community, disinvestment in favor of commerce, science, in favor of technology. but it strikes me that way he just sat in the context of the book and the fact we still have this need for and told stories for secrets is indicative of a kind of historical literacy that exists in our country and that african-american history come the black history may be the

subject that is most unknown or he raised from our collective consciousness. do you think that histical literacy -- the letter c. contributes to our present and even to her future? do you see the larger story here as essential to your vision of the country we had to live in? >> i don't know that i thought about it in that way. but i definitely thought about was how reflect to her family was that the american story and i wanted very much to and view it with a history so that people could see that her family had front row seats to some of the most important moments in our heads or he. slavery, civil war, emancipation, the migration, jim

crow, the depression and that all the steps forward and steps that were reflective of who we are. so i think i thought about it like that. >> actually, i was wondering if you thought of it as a smaller project when he began. another words, not that she would not have to put in context the individuals that make up her family tree in some of whom we see scrolling behind us, that it affects in the writing of the book that it became a social history, that is a social history back life, both southern and northern. who was sweeping been end of the sentiment. i am just wondering, did that happen as a result of the actual research when you put pen to paper, fingertip to keyboard and you thought, this is much more than i thought it would be when

i set out to do this? >> i always had an idea that her family was reflect this. the ui right that when you are and that, it becomes something else. one of the things it is a practical matter as a writer, which became clear to me that when you're taking back this far, you don't have the voices -- you need to bring the story to life. some of this is our history. people would say what about letters and journals? well, if you have people who have some reading and writing and records don't exist and historical records don't capture his majesty like. i realize i have to get contemporaneous care errs from that. come out from this. the kind of bring it to life. i'm not sure that i thought about that, but kind of leading the stories of the people at the time into it.

>> you did a very good job. >> thank you. >> one of the reviews did make light of the fact that you are happy on the conditional tone. and i wondered if that was sent in your conscious of, this speculative prose. maybe this hatband, perhaps. it seems that. we don't know for sure. all of those turns to phrase that you as a writer for evidence of your responsibility that you can't say with certainty that such and such happened. did you struggle with this on the writing process? >> i did actually. there's a lot less than airways. i'm a journalist and actually when you're writing a book, is quite different from writing a newspaper article. and we want to at almost every

sentence kind of attribute and say very specifically i know this, but i don't know that. and also to, i think there was a desire that i had and i thought the reader would have to put yourself in this person's shoes and to feel and to imagine. and there is a power and not. i know that i can't know. there is a power in not knowing, too. actually feel like there's things we will never know, but i think it was thought they wanted to be very careful about what i could say but i couldn't say and also wanted to bring people to that place. >> the power of not knowing or not attempting to say with certainty i think it's reflective of what makes history

history and not a social science social science report. there's very few statistics. as demographics about the migration in chicago and other places, that's what makes it so exciting. but their sound indeterminacy. there are spaces we have to imagine what actually happened. so i want to applaud you for writing as an historian as opposed to soone who could only state they that were matched by a circus or inherent to evidence. >> sometimes actually you would find that what you thought were what people said would not exactly what came to be. and some of that as a journalist detained they said that it wasn't this way? one of my favorite instances of this was michelle obama's great grand mother, baby coupons and

how they grandfather and he was a remarkable man who ran away from slavery, joined the union army and had just a remarkable man and mrs. obama's great uncle told me, peg leg suitor. because he lost his leg in the war. i thought wow, i love that. so i went to the archives and i found his civil war. his military record and his civil war pension and there was the medical files. the man had two legs. [laughter] and i thought what do i do with that? and then i thought, but you know, this is the kind of man who made you think this is possible. he was the kind of man that was bigger than life. and of course he would've lost his leg in the war. >> speaking up for as a source

of evidence for the lives of the warp records, versus one beautifully written passage and i want to read the first of all because it reflects how beautiful the pose is in the book, but his son hopefully this book matches the advance copy that i have. yes it does. so i'm going to read this passage just to get you all excited about which are in store for when you pick up the book. but it also raises the question, just about how you discover things and certain records that may have surprised you. so here she writes, this is about phoebe and james. how did the marriage, don? sometimes it starts at the slow unraveling, with the frame of the countless tiny thread of finding two people together. or was narrowed like daggers

that nod at the heart. somehow over time for small entities that once in meche has been casual laughter, conversation seemed to vanish in the distance between lovers, whether across kitchen tables grows so achingly wise but it seems impossible to bridge. precisely what happened between genes and phoebe is hard to decipher, partly because the records for phoebe and her family that you are and partly because phoebe was proud and private has seemed to have clung to her old habit of keeping quiet about her chuckle. that is really beautiful. he discovered in one of your

marriages actually and i believe it was fraser leaves the family, goes off to war. what does the right? what does he say to the army? >> e., fraser came from south carolina the golden boy of his small-town goes off to chicago to the big-time implants in the depression and couldn't find work the whole time. struggled, with struggle, struggle. had two children and then fell apart. and he left his family, and listed in the paperwork reads from his enlistment papers, where it describes his miracles that is, separated, and no dependence in the no children. >> i wonder what she felt like in that moment as a researcher because that would have been

hard to share with the dependence. >> it was hard. >> that he ultimately went back home and read joyed his family as if he had never loved. his son told me he came back from the war any kind of had a little bit of fear, world word to viewers free to voice out. and then one day they came in and he was reading this news paper in the chair like he had never left and they never spoke of it. >> so you mentioned chicago. we've already talked about how all four sets of grandparents, fraser robyn the third, lavonne john and, cornell shields and rebecca johnson was raised by her aunt and uncle rather than her parents. but what is so exciting about chicago? i mean, here we are in heartland

and we've got an audience full of new workers. share with us by chicago -- >> a man who has no bias about chicago. >> way with such an important place in the story. >> chicago is why it was all happening. really it was one of those big cities where people were trying to go to. one of the most fascinating records sources i've found worthy fighters of migrans. one of the letters collected were people in the 1900s were looking for places. chicago defender, the black newspaper played a role in encouraging the migration of people wrote things like, looking for a place, this kind of work or that kind of work in one of the letters that struck me, which i think i quote their

was looking for a place where i can be a man -- or a black man can be treated like a man. people thought it in this place that wasn't fabricated. not like u.s. missile. beaker go to integrated schools. you could vote. you could make the real living wage. and there is a huge vibrant social religious life there. when michelle obama's ancestors got here, the south side and ours -- is this a high-growth and you're a sci-fi guy looks nothing like it did. her great-grandmother, phoebe milton johnson arrived in the tina wave from the south was predominately white. >> so there is a renaissance story. i want to read your description of it because given how important it is built into

history, cultural history as well as the political history, it's still sort of imagined in the world as it once was described to me for a mecca of america. he described chicago renaissance this way. you say pinheiro true passionless advertisers and syncopated rhythms that it become the soundtrack of the burgeoning southside. he was handy with the drums themselves and for a data lover, there is no better place to be in the 1920s than chicago, the epicenter of the nation's blues and jazz recording industry. >> was lovely of a writing in chicago was coming at them in areas where they are. links in his through chicago or louis armstrong and his first days playing fair. a lot of important people were going through chicago. >> just to affirm, they thought

it shahram brn was blamed on training for langston hughes and we spent many, many years here at the library during research, contributing work to her collection, so certainly had benefited from this life and his legacy. chicago also had a dark side and very safe slide i would like to, number 11 that will illustrate a little bit of that. part of this history, what makes this a hard story is that racial violence, the abuse, the forward and backward of the movement of african-americans from slavery to freedom. it turns out that the chicago wasn't so different than the south after all and someone asked active ways for those ancestors of michelle obama.

and i want to just sort of think out loud about some and that historians called southern exceptionalism. and that was the way in which we replace pat through the charred memories of jim crow, of slavery. and even today the 21st century started collective imagination of what racism really is, what it was really about, the harm that it really did despite everything that happened below the mason-dixon line, not in places like new york. now you new yorkers know better. but if you live in des moines, iowa, if you live elsewhere in the heartland, you may not think that the north had any part in this post-emancipation story. this is a slide from the chicago race by 1919 in here you see the police on the scene of a young black man has been literally stoned to death after a

13-year-old boy had been murdered at a beach because he swam across a color line. many people lost their lives. many african-americans ended up homeless, but this is a culminating moment. you describe the idea that, racially integrated hide part that is now the home of the first family of bombs going off to hear speefour appear what is going on in chicago? >> you know, it was fascinated when i bet is because nobody johnson, michelle obama's mother that can hide part here this is not far from water the obama said today. someone had recommended to me the chicago commission study of the race riot. and when i was going through their and i discovered these bombings, african-americans were moving into high part and there

was this active concerted campaign to move them out. i realize, my goodness. >> it wasn't part of their conversation. >> it was remarkable. >> i can't remember now exactly how many there were. >> before and after. i don't know -- >> the activity in height part. >> it was a really striking time. it was at first i knew. i knew about the rise, but i didn't know about that. in talking to mrs. obama's relatives, i learned that cbs had talked about it, dad when the riots were sweeping the city, she was by herself. her husband traveled. he was a minister and was often away. and she got a pot full of water

and lie and oiled it on the stove and said she was ready. and it was the first time. it was interesting to really be placed there and really there. >> that part of the book in some ways really does use one because by the time you get to the reconstruction violence you describe, you sort of already -- i will say that you're not, but anything is possible at that point. a new york times reviewer said that michelle's ancestors that they were, and i quote, i'll clean people who own no property, left no writing. theirs is mostly a bigger scale full of abandonment, early death, poverty, orphans and the literacy. yet it is also an occasionally story of home buying business, sounding as wedding. it is not entirely correct?

>> i wouldn't say that. it is history as i said, i think one of michelle obama's and that is best for me when looking back and how did they get via? their american dream was to trim a little bit at a time. and they did. they dream to make unmarried. one of the things that was wonderful to read about was this period of time after slavery ended the michelle obama's great, great, great grandmother in virginia wind up with scores of other people to have their marriage legalized. there were so many things that were of meaningful happening to people and i think it was hard,

but they seized what they could move forward. >> chance to press the appoint a little bit more, they are business owners, property owners. and there's a college president. >> that's absolutely right. >> illiterate, not property owning college president. >> part of it is through. obviously, all of what he describes is true. but i think there is a lot more. they are feeling worn down by the bleakness of it. i found it inspiring with people made their last in spite of everything. >> just to press this .1 step further, it struck me in reading it that by reducing the complexity and a passage like

that and a 750 word book review, it gives the question this is kind of the usual story, which is that it's all struggle and strife in that these passing moments of brightness is doom and gloom. as a person who writes about terrible things that have happened in the past, trust me, i'm well aware of how bad things. but i thought, what major stories are rich and enveloping was that by making it an intimate story, we were able to see the complexity. we didn't have to read the textbook version of this moment. we knew people by their names. we knew their children. we need their parents. for someone like howard johnson to mistakes much more representative of the complexity rather than what is conveyed in that point. and it just made me wonder if they may be that way in which we simplified story like this,

where we reduced taxes he is itself a product of the history and a lack of knowledge, that we aren't yet able to appreciate the complexity of the history. >> to me, complex is great. things are rarely black and white in life. >> no pun intended. >> there's lots of great, lots of things we know, lots of things we don't know. i think that's really part of the richness of life, even in our day-to-day life. and i really wanted to capture that and tell a story that was sweeping and historical, but was really humane. these people are very, very few men and how they live their lives. i wanted people to connect to that. >> one of the really incredible

carrot turns to make you go little bit to the third side. i'm just going to read his name out that because he's quite a carrot. i think i'll go forward one step. @. so a dose that eudora shields. adolfo theodora shields, his moment, the life that he is glad, first of all he lived to be 91. >> be a great chance of that family. >> he lives to be 91. i'm going to read your description of him because i think first of all a bit of a flavor of who he was and how he's received in the world, but also is a perfect illustration of a person who was born in 1859. is that correct? >> he is boring. he is the first generation of

the race and he goes on to do amazing things, precisely out of his opportunity, but there's a lot that isn't clear. i'm going to talk a little bit about the fact that we can't let back and see this as a story the way supremacy sent lee is always there. it's always defining and limiting some of that there are cracks. adults this is clearly able to exploit. he described him as something of a ladies man. he was strikingly handsome. maybe that is the best way. >> piercing brown eyes and aqua line knows. an irrepressible sense of confidence. most of the family and friends for sharecroppers, former

slaves, and the sandy red clay see how, they had rejoiced when slavery ended, but did with a thick spring grass here in the summer sun. he might have even remember the chatter about a man who at giving him fair skin and research eclipse, the captain of a careful distance, never claiming publicly. he had been born a slave to a teenage girl to a man he had never known. salinas to birmingham, alabama and what, 1880? that we think of birmingham, alabama today is the one hand, gleason, feeling u.s. steel and ultimately providing material for the mobile industry manufacturing industry in the 20th century history finance summit taking liberty with slavery by another name.

the pulitzer prize-winning book of 2009. so birmingham has this really awful distribution that begins right around the time it also shows that. if else to for the civil rights struggle in 1963. but what is he able to do in birmingham and away the challenges that we think about this. >> he did not want to be a farmer. he did not want to be a sharecropper. this is a place that early on was that segregated. we think about earning him as the most represented -- >> psychotic place. >> but when he first appears as a homeowner had white neighbors and it was a place where someone who wanted to make his mark outside the field to do that. >> soy-based property. >> he buys property. another property owner.

>> he found churches. >> in fact, you find him. between you and megan -- >> he sounds like three churches. so he really is an amazing carrot for and he becomes for year one of the most distant relatives has asserted the amazing story legacy, but you also find people you know who interview. so tell us a little bit about what she learned, how you are able to write about his life. >> one of the amazing things with being able to find people who actually knew mulvaney outcome a woman wanted to slavery in 1844. i found two people who knew her, which is even now remarkable. the reason why that is possible is that she was an extraordinarily long life. she died about 1938 and bcp poll

also lived an extraordinarily long life. unfortunately, both of them have died since i interviewed them. so imagine. i'm going to meet these people actually in touch with them. my goodness, what am i going to find? versus the researchers like in reporting the site. they were great except they were teenagers when she was in her 90s. and the things that i was dying to know or not the thing that we were good interested in that time, but they did give me wonderful with no of her life in this town in northern georgia, where she worked as a midwife. these people also knew his younger brother henry who had a bit of a -- >> there were separated by 20 years. >> had a complicated relationship themselves. >> he talked about the

community, about who the fathers of these clearly very late children at the start women were and how no one asked the question. >> i wondered in both his own personal narrative in your description of him and you're sort of the history of the way the skin color not heard, i wonder of there was a form of racial profiling and that. and here i don't mean in criminal justice, but in a way i wonder if they are time period, the late 19th century, the sense of identifying a person's racial heritage, the lineage across the color line is even more sophisticated than than it is today. is that some mean for you because you write about the way skin color monitor.

but i also wonder if her people of that generation where it all face was clearly for that generation of times someone who wanted to as sort of policing because we can look at right now and see the amazing color rainbow. something happened in the 20th century were color doesn't matter, the brando doesn't matter because it's sort of a binary by the time jim crow was full and transparent in the late 19th century there is this fluidity, but i like to say the racial radar was a bit more sensitive to the nuances, the color demonstrated for that features demonstrated. was that for you something were you looking back an opponent by you or perhaps even more sophisticated and we assign moral values to individuals

based on race clack >> you know, one of the questions i did ask myself was whether or not people did sort of assume what happened based on what edolphus looks like. part of the reason they didn't ask was because a few of the key net, and who had been a slave and looks like that into how the father present, you probably had an idea of what might've happened. and i think that in this day and age, we are in this. but so much immigration, increasing racial merriest, people are embracing of the racialism, check as many boxes as you like and we think of it as a very unique. but back then, in 1890 there were 1.1 million people who are classified as mixed race. of course they had about five

billing categories for people. >> you describe the case at harvard were consisted with 13% of the population and were identified in that time. it just made me wonder to what extent they knew better, that here we are at the end of the 21st century and was so have -- we still attach or categories of humanity based on a simple designation of a black person versus the way person. that still means a lot in this country and how we support a country that we live in, whether it's public or grants, education, whether as our criminal justice system functions. we passed a lot of judgment americanized life and very

powerful and often destructive waves, based on simple binary calculations. we have a whole criminal justice system right now that is all too comfortable with targeting young black man regardless of the rainbow colors they recognize. there is a fluidity here is that in some ways, for someone like edolphus is able to see that someone like edolphus shirted lineage, whether they want to embrace or not. i wanted to finish with two things. one, you describe very powerful language beyond that of jim crow. and it made me think about reconstruction as they. that perhaps we don't really talk enough about because it is this moment of tremendous achievement for that first

generation of formerly enslaved people. you describe the tens of thousands of one south carolina are disenfranchised by new set of laws you do just a decade before, two decades before your something like 1500 african-americans serving across the country in various levels of local, state and federal offices, lieutenant governors. it's really powerful. for lucky not tremendous opportunity and promise in the future and not a moment and so much changes so quickly. in asked me think about aroma when i wonder how fragile is progress. >> when i was at newberry, i was looking for michelle obama's ancestor records. one of the things i was curious

about was whether i could find out who was the was the first person in her family to go. it was a hopeless quest. but i was in the newberry library. it's a lovely library in chicago. i stumbled across it look that had voter registrations from the 18th 60s from north carolina. and at the do not look and no job verse. and i thought my father, he's from north carolina. they are wise. my great, great, great grandfather who in 1867, 40 years old, registered to vote. he was approved as a voter. i don't know if you voted or not. we certainly know what happened later. we know that that moment of people will seizing hold of

democracy and participation was going to add for having comments at that moment, that was something. >> well, i think not only is that moment something, but it reminds us -- your story reminds us in the way you tell the story reminds us that whenever we think the moment we are rained, whenever the first family represent in terms of moving past the racial divide of the 20th century and everyone doesn't agree. let's be clear, there's a huge difference, both of experience in terms of being black in america today and also exception. but whatever you think is one of the most powerful lessons you demonstrate is that he believed that there is progress, then you also protect it. the story tells you your

fragile, whether it's the challenges of racial violence in chicago for aspiring violent over the demise of political power and participation in the wake of the emergence of jim crow. it strikes me that in this moment we have to really be vigilant about whatever gains we have made. >> i think it inspired to me that people are, where they occurred they were striving. i said too much about striving. that was one of the things, but i think that people took the space that there was and i think that's meaningful. >> i want to finish. i said there was two points. that was the first. you mentioned your relatives voting. i wanted to mention and so we

have the slightest regard to maybe to maybe 12 or 13. so mary, phoebe's mother, and his board and some in like 1835. this by the way it is jill brady and john trumbull, the distant cousins who were instrumental in connecting family doubts and sources. the next five are michelle obama's parents. little michelle and leptin craycroft said on the right. the next slide. so this unknown character who does not appear in the book is a contemporary. so mary milton and this gentleman were born roughly a year apart. he is a mississippi farmer who was noted in the 18th 70s as

a 35-year-old who is part of a census tract, a woman named betty were. betty wore and robert taft and have a child named henry. could you go to the next slide? so on this record from 1870 and mrs. e., the last name is at the top in the last corner and you see the household as you come down line lines josie robert 34 and you come down to betty wore, she is 31, black. she is virginia. if you come all the way down i know this is not so easy to see. there is they had me. for names that. next slide. they are, henry shows up in the

1900 cents this. now he is 32 years old. if you follow down, has one, two, three lines down. 10 over 12 says is 10 months old. that is gathering. now go back to sides. robert gavin, my great, great, great grandfather was a white mississippi planter who also fought in the confederacy. go figure. so it seems than that this is emblematic, that this really is an american tapestry and that we really all share in the some ways this legacy and michelle obama story. i wanted you to have the last word about what more we have to make of it than what we might tell their children about this history in this connect admits

in spite of all of this ugliness in many uncomfortable ways. >> i think we should talk about it. it's hard to talk about, but the reverberations are many and i think i'm a communicator. i am a writer, so maybe i put too much emphasis and hoops and die of law, but i think talk about in understanding the history hopes. i hope that interest in michelle obama's family made it a little interest in history, too. >> well, we will apply here in just a moment. [applause] you have another opportunity,

but now it's your turn. anyone who has a question or comment, but please don't offer both. if you'd like to say something you can have your moment. the microphone is open. but if you have a question, please keep it brief. anyone? now, this is a first at the schomburg. surely someone has a question. >> i'm going to wait for someone to come behind me. i know there's more than one. the mac is truly an honor. congratulations. i haven't had a chance to say that to you, dr., your position to you. that's first. i want to make it, question.

this is really taking me to another level where i can, you know, and began to understand that i need to do to calm down about a lot of stuff that's happening today or yesterday. had a franklin shelter in the bronx and if i don't get back in time to lose my good and talk to the director that i needed a late pass. i want to know when you have stuff like this and i'm not going to boogie down club. i never really was a boogie down person, why homeless people are penalized when this is so relevant. this ties into the salvation army in 1965 for rent the shelter appeared you get the picture. ..

i don't know. >> i would say we live in a punitive society, and the incentive to change the society run through being able to embrace and wrestle with the origin of inequality. so if you think that people get what they deserved, if you think poverty is purely a function of individual choice and that

destructive behavior and bad decision then you have no appreciation for someone trying to understand the old world they live especially when it comes to a history that implicates the society and not about the individual. so i applaud you also for being here. i'm glad that you raised the issue in this space so that others might think about something that they might not ever know which is how difficult it is to participate in forms like this given the situation. again, thank you for bringing that to our attention. >> i want to thank you for writing such a wonderful book, and writing it in the way i haven't read it yet but from what you described in writing it in the way that you did because it focuses in on the struggle

about people going back to slavery and afterwards. the one thing that you mentioned toward the end of the discussion about losing their rights that we had, it seems that we are going through a period like that now with the very estates that have enacted a photo id laws. on the pretext that they are trying to protect from voter fraud, and do you see that we need to be as strong as our ancestors in the same underlining pretext motives and

be as strong as they were in the elders in pursuing and keeping the rights that we have gained from the 60's and on. [applause] >> there's been quite a discussion in the states about this. the justice department as you know has been vigorously looking into these pieces. i feel like looking back into history is useful as we often think about the civil rights movement in particular because its more recent, but backed to back those people that voted and held office in the 1860's and 70's those things matter, and we do need to be vigilant in their democracy always about our

rights of citizens of all stripes. i think it matters. >> i would completely agree and i think that is some people might say we are in a period that might call for a feared reconstruction because of the backsliding that is unfolding as we speak. >> i want to thanks you for writing the book. i teach the narrative's the second one is my freedom and in that book you said that there was a law that no one could say the slave master had reached an african woman so do you know if that became custom on both sides that we just wouldn't discuss it? that's my first question. the second one is what is the premise of your book and is it considered all journalism history because we took the

sally hemingses jefferson story and made unlawful and found this great history and the category that you replace your book and feared, would you come to our program here at the school? [laughter] >> it is history. i am a journalist, it is history. it's not fiction. and your first question -- >> i wanted to go back to your historical question. i don't know. i had not heard that. i know that it was not considered a crime to read a black woman. that on no, but i've not heard about that. and the promise of the book really was to tell the story of the first lady's the family and her ancestry as far back as i could take it and so about ourselves.

>> we can talk after. [laughter] >> harriet cole and i am so happy to be here to learn about your book. i learned from don davis. i had the good fortune of working in a leadership role at any when the obama as decided to step into the race. and at the point at which michelle obama turned and she suddenly became the black woman shaking her neck. she was doing a story with ebony, and i interviewed her and we had a half hour and there is anything else she wouldn't tell me and she said yes. this happened in new york she said i want you to come to

chicago. walked on the street i grew up on the interview my mom and my friends because of what you had done. the power of michelle obama is more than her. she doesn't stand as strong as she does and what could be considered an awkward body powerful and pure and grounded. and it's so great that you've created this book to tell this incredible story. i'm wondering did she know all of this history before your honor thing of it? >> was new to her. a lot of it was new. she knew -- we have written an article in "the new york times" about the first time she had heard of them or her mother. she didn't know, and her family have long known or suspected

that was something they always thought. they didn't know the particulars like many. >> i'd just like to thank you again for the riding of the book. and a quick comment. the evidence i would suggest the evidence that i would refer to that are on the books against if you will would suggest to you this was something that was a very common occurrence that was happening when back then. otherwise there wouldn't not have the need for the law that you have on the books all over the place trying to be sustained. it's very common.

islamic this is not my area of expertise but there are people, legal scholars in particular who have looked at relationships that were real relationships as in the people living as posted in life and even white men trying to pass on property and possession to family and struggling to do that through the court. so i think there was certainly some of that. but the extent of which i can't speak to i don't know. islamic to add a little bit of context, actually one of the very first slave codes i believe was in the 1670 law in virginia to prevent cohabitation between men of african descent and women of european descent precisely

because the future of slavery was not what would become at that point it was tremendous there was a lot of unity based on the experience of the adventure servant and dearly enslaved africans that effectively produced a lot of interracial what would have been cohabitation or to some extent marriage of the time. >> it was so much a problem that early as the slavery evolves into the rigid system of control, already people of like mind have shared experience, found each other and it mattered little that one was of african ancestry. so that problem goes back to the very -- that expression of

humanity goes back to the very beginning. >> if there are not any other questions >> please raise your voice because c-span needs to hear your voice and they will not hear you if you are not at the microphone. >> [inaudible] >> i will repeat the question. do you know if michelle obama ever met the two women before? >> he's talking about the two people. there was a man. the question was has michelle obama -- did she ever meet the two people, did she meet them before they died? and she did not. i want to follow on a question was raised earlier. what has been the first lady's response to this book in the

press accounts clacks her position on the writing of the book which has been very public "the new york times" stood behind and jody kantor has been part of the moment of exploring michelle obama so it's not as if she doesn't know what the press accounts suggest that she has not fully embraced this investigation. and so i wonder now the book is out, the story is in, the state culture has she called you? [laughter] >> i can tell you that the first lady doesn't often call or e-mail. that i know for sure. she has a policy of not participating in books and that is a blanket policy which is sad for all of those that are

writing them. during the process, i met with members of her staff to kind of update them as i went along and before the book cannot give copies to your staff and she has also seen the book to read what she thinks, i don't know. islamic it strikes me given your investigative journalists you will find out. [laughter] [applause] what are you reading this summer? book tv wants to know? >> i reread the first of the trilogy of what she is going t