change and evolution. >> we have been talking with carrie adams here at bookexpo america. university of chicago press. some other new titles coming out in the fall of 2012. >> now on booktv, rachel swarns presents a genealogy of first lady michelle obama's family. it's about an hour and 10 minutes. [applause] >> good evening. welcome to the schomburg center. it's a real pleasure and delight to be here rachel 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. it will now dissent upon us. we have a real special treat in store for you. as you have probably read and heard in the recent news about this new book, "american

tapestry." we have learned a lot about not only the first lady but also this country. i am looking forward to hearing a lot more about the process of writing the book and some of the things that rachel would like to share with us that really animate something that we don't already know. so two began, i think what the audience probably doesn't know is that you had a lot of support, kind of a community of behind-the-scenes players that contributed to this, to the book and starting with a genealogist, certain institutions of fellowship so maybe just to get started, talk a little bit about the genealogy of the book itself and how we arrived at the story. >> you know i wrote a story in october of 2009 about the first lady's 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 from for me. >> congratulations. >> thank you. [applause] and really when i set out to do this, kind of had have this notion of okay, i am embarking on a deep dive into the first lady's family and into american history. i know is going to take some time. i knew i didn't have that much time. i did get a lot of support which was wonderful. i took in the end two years to report, research and write the book. there were so many people who helped me, several universities, catholic university helped me. they gave me a research assistant in some office baze.

i have young children so office baze was critical. the wilson center in washington d.c. -- i live in washington d.c. -- also provided we -- me with space and support. the flexor cessation kept me going when i took a little longer than i hoped toward 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 taking them as far back as i could take them so really 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 to kind of point me in the right direction. >> i wanted everyone to hear that because first of all it speaks to how important institutions aren't supporting research and writing, that these folks 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 smithsonian also helped me. there were countless people and it really made a big difference. the. >> and the chicago newberry library. >> i did a lot of research and they also help me. >> rachel knows that i know that she didn't actually use the schomburg center but i want to make a shameless plug for it. >> why not? [laughter] sierra senior researcher and writer who introduced us wrote a book the title of which is fighting for america, the unsung heroes of world war ii. and i'm letting you know but also letting the audience know that it's her bibliography so we are represented in the story. he talks a little bit about the structure of the book and i'm curious, it's a book that

unfolds in reverse. the chronology begins with the arrival of all four sets of michelle obama's grandparents, and so it moves back in time. tell us why you organize the book in now way? was it a marketing decision in terms of what the reader might take as the most compelling aspect of this narrative before moving back to slavery? by a star with 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 looking for the wide ancestor hidden in her family tree and as well the story of so many generations of people who emerged from slavery. i thought to myself, we actually know where the story ends with michelle obama the first

african-american first lady in the white house but the question is where it began. it was a little unorthodox. i didn't know when i started doing it how well it would work but i thought it would roll it back. i also thought that because there is so much silence over the generations that were peeling back the layers, hearing what bits and pieces people knew and what they didn't no, that would give you a sense of just the reverberations of slavery had over time. that he would be kind of drawn to this beginning. >> silence, think that is one of the most consistent teams in the book, the painfulness of this past. it strikes me the way in which you tell the story perhaps is your own way of easing the reader into that moment, this

moment, this terrible moment, this unfolding legacy that ends with a slave girl, 6-year-old slave girl. i was thinking about the context and the timing of this work. of course there is the first lady and that really speaks volumes as to why this book exists but i also wondered if the work of annette gordon-reed, but thomas that thomas jefferson and sally hemmings american controversy published in 1997, the story of one of the founding fathers relationship with his wife's cousin and enslaved mistress. i wonder if it were not for that work, would this have been a more difficult story to tell? would it be harder for our collective imaginations to wrap our heads around the deeply significant fact of the vote

launch of humanity represented by this mixture of european, african and native? >> i think it was certainly helpful to me in the sense that there is a framework that people have in their heads about what this kind of situation might he like. for michelle obama's family it was quite different and 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. >> so you have described this as a hard history. what do you mean by that? >> i think it's hard for people to talk about. i think the idea of a young girl, you know, maybe 14, 15, 16, being raped by her, in the end, someone in her owner's

family. these are things that a lot of people don't really want to talk about or look at and actually in the researcher was quite clear to me that this extended those two whites and blacks and i think that sometimes people would rather look away. and in some of my conversations with descendents, white and black, it was interesting because even if we in contemporary times -- we are in the 21st century. these are people who know this history. we all do but sitting side eyesight and having this conversation, it was not always easy. i remember one descendent of a slave owner who said to me, you know, and they and this person decided that they didn't want to be identified in the book and they said you know, mrs. obama has said that she knows that the

owners of slaves runs through her veins and she except that. this person's said yes, but we were on the right -- wrong side of history and she is 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 so long ago in fact because you are able to work with two cousins, to very distant cousins, one black woman, one white woman. their names were june barkley and john tribble who didn't know they were related that in reaching out to them, they assisted in the project. >> part of what was interesting to me was to have that kind of contemporary narrative running through the historical narrative. i thought that really what this book is about is the sweep of

american history through one family and i led the idea of modern-day people grappling with that. these two women, it basically was trying to find if i could identify the white and sister and her family tree and we thought it was probably someone in the slaveowners family. so i search for his many descendents of the slaveowners i could and as has many of the descendents of selfless shield who is her son. the conversations were very interesting and i'd went back and forth to see these women and other people in the family and they were older women who really wanted to know if, and even though they knew what they would find out i got the easy. >> have certain members of the shield family rejected the story or has been --

the shield family being the lineage represented by the former slaveowner? >> there were mixed feelings about the research. some people really wanted to have nothing to do with it and some people were open to -- intrigued a bit but not wanting to be public the public and then there were some people who were just, this is history so it was a real range. and there were times when actually who i was played into that kind of conversation i am a journalist and you know we are objective. we try and hold ourselves removed but i remember thinking as i go to interview some of these defendants, are they going to look at me a black woman and wonder? i asked one of them, does it make a difference and she said in a way it does.

>> in what way? >> in this persons you, there was a divide and even today she felt like she was on one side and i was on the other. >> i have spent a lot of time talking about the importance of african-american history and the importance of history in general, both of which are in many ways representative of the disinvestment in humanity and the to send that -- disinvestment of the art in favor of science and in favor of technology but it strikes me that what you just said and the context of the book and the fact that we still have this need for untold stories, for dark secrets, it's indicative of a kind of historical illiteracy

that exists in our country and african-american history, that after, history itself may need the subject that is most unknown or is based from our collective consciousness. do you think that illiteracy contributes to our presence and even to our future? do you see the larger story that you tell here as essential to your vision of the country not to live in? >> i don't know that i thought about it in that way. what i definitely thought about was how reflective her family was of the american story. and i wanted very much to imbue 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 history, slavery, civil war, emancipation and migration, jim crow, the depression and all their steps forward and steps back for a 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 you began? in other words, not that you would not have to put in context the individuals that make up her family tree and some of who we see scrolling behind us but it strikes me in the writing of this book that it became a social history, that was a social history of black life, both rural and urban, both southern and northern. it was weeping and it was intimate. i'm just wondering, did that scale 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. >> i think that i always had the idea that her family was reflected but you are right that when you are in it, it becomes something else. and one of the things actually as a practical matter is a writer which became clear to me is, when you are taking back this far, you don't have the voices that you need to bring the story to life. some of this is our history. what about letters and journals? well, if you have people who are barred from reading and writing, those records don't exist and historical roots don't capture as much as you would like. so i realized well, i have to get the contemporary is characters from that period,

from all of the the pier gets to kind of bring it to life. i'm not sure that i thought about that, kind of weaving those stories of the people of the time into it as do you have done a very good job. >> thank you. [laughter] >> you did make light of the fact that you are heavy on the conditional tone and i wondered if that was something you were conscious of this speculative prose? maybe this happened, perhaps, it seems that, we don't know for sure. all of those terms of phrase that for you as a writer is evidence of your responsibility, that you can't say with certainty that such and such happened. did you struggle with this at all? >> i did actually. there is a lot less than there was. [laughter] so i think you know, i am a journalist and actually when you are writing a book, it's quite

different from writing a newspaper article and you know, we want to act almost every sentence tribute and say i know this but i don't know that and also too i think there was a desire that i had and that i thought the reader would have to put yourself in this persons shoes and to feel and to imaginn that. i doubt that i can't now and there is a power in not knowing too. i actually feel that is fine, that there things we will never know but i think it was both wanting to be very careful about what i could say in what i couldn't say and also wanting to bring people to that place. >> you right. that power of not knowing or not

attempting to say with certainty i think is reflective of what makes history history and not a social science report. there are very few statistics. we have some demographics about the migration in chicago and other places but that is what makes the process of writing history so exciting, because there is some indeterminacy. there are basics that we have to imagine what actually happened and so i want to applaud you for writing as a historian as opposed to someone who could only say things that were matched by a sort of strict it turns to the evidence. >> and sometimes actually, you would find that what you thought were what people said was not exactly what came to be. some of that as a journalist he think oh no, they said that and

it wasn't this way. one of my favorite instances of this was michelle obama's great grandmother had a stepfather. he was a remarkable man who ran away from slavery and joined the union army, had just a remarkable man. mrs. obama's great uncle told me oh yeah peg leg souter because he lost his leg in the war. i thought, i love that. i went to the archives and i found his civil war military record and his civil war pension and there was his medical file. the man had two legs. [laughter] and i thought oh, what do i do with that? and then i thought, but you know, this was the kind of man who made you think that was possible. he was the kind of man who is bigger than life and of course he would have lost his leg in

the war. [laughter] >> speaking of war as a source of evidence or the war records, there is this one beautifully written passage in i want to read it first of all because it reflects how beautiful the prose is in the book but it's -- hopefully this book matches the advance can't be that i have. yes it does. [laughter] i'm going to read this passage to get you all excited about what you are you're in store for when you read the book but also it raises question just about how you discovered in certain wreck or does that surprise to so here she writes, and this is about cbn james. how did the marriage, and then? sometimes it starts with the sole unraveling, with the fraying of the countless tiny

threads that bind to people together or with wounds this tiniest pinpricks that fester instead of healing. their abiding words hurled like daggers and unbearable silences that not at the heart. somehow over time, the small intimacies that were enmeshed in husband and life, touch, laughter, conversation seemed to vanish and the distance between lovers weather across the kitchen table or amerigroup bed grow so achingly wide that it seems impossible to bridge. precisely what happened between james and phoebe. it's hard to decipher. for phoebe and her family that year the historical records are somewhat -- parley because phoebe who was proud and private appeared to have clung to her old habit of keeping quiet about her troubles.

that is really beautiful. you have discovered in one of the marriages actually where, and i believe it was fraser leaves the family, goes off to war and what does he write? what does he say to the army? >> right. heat, fraser came from south carolina. the golden boy of his small-town and goes off to chicago to the big time and lands in the depression. and couldn't find work of any kind, struggle, struggle, struggle. got married, had two children and things fell apart. and he left his family, enlisted and the paperwork reads from his enlistment, the papers where he describes his marital status, separated, no dependents and he had children.

>> i wondered what he felt you felt like in that moment as a researcher when you saw that? because that would have been hard to share with the dependent. >> it was hard, it was hard to share it with the dependence, yeah. >> yield smiley went back on. >> he did. he ultimately went back home and he rejoined his family as if he had never left. [laughter] his son told me, well he came back from the war in the kind of had years, integration a little bit. and then one day they came in and he was reading his newspaper in the chair just like you'd never left and they never spoke of it. [laughter] >> you mentioned chicago. we have already talked about how all four sets of grandparents, fraser robinson the third, pernell shields and rebecca

colman, two names because she was raised by your aunt and uncle for that than her parents so what was so excited about chicago packs here we are in harlem, an audience full of new yorkers. share with us why chicago was such an important place. [laughter] >> it man has been no bias about chicago. >> chicago has such an important place in the story. >> chicago bliss where he was happening and you know really it was one of those take cities where people were trying to go to. one of the most fascinating record sources i found where these letters of migrants that one of the journalists collected, people in the 1902 were looking for places. the "chicago defender," the black newspaper there played a big role in encouraging the migration. people wrote things like,

looking for a place, you know this kind of work for that kind of work and one of the letters that shocked me which i think i quote here was, looking for a place where i'd be a man or a black bank can be treated like a man. people thought that in this place, it wasn't segregated. not like it was in the south. you could go to integrated schools and he could devote. you could make a real living wage. and there was a huge vibrant social, religious life there. i was going to say though when michelle obama's ancestors got there, the south south side and she only said she is a south side girl and you are a south side guy, it looks nothing like it did. her great ran mother, phoebe melton johnson arrived in chicago sometime around 1908 when the south side was predominantly white. >> so there is a renaissance

story, a chicago renaissance and i want to read your description of it because given how important the harlem renaissance is both to the cultural history of african-americans as well as the political history, it is imagined in the world as it once was the mecca of america. you describe it this way. you say parnell, with a syncopated rhythms that have become the soundtrack of the burgeoning south side. he was handy with the drums and for a jazz player there was no better place to be in the 1920s than chicago, the epicenter of the nations blues and jazz industry. >> what was lovely actually bad writing about chicago in that time was how many luminaries were there. i could quote langston hughes wandering through chicago or louis armstrong and his first day of playing there. there were a lot of important

people going to chicago than. >> answers to a firm with my local audience -- [laughter] langston hughes, this auditorium that we are in was named for langston hughes and he certainly spent many many years here at the schomburg library doing research, contributing original pieces of pork to our collection so we certainly have been abetted from his life and his legacy. chicago also had a dark side and there is a slide that i can turn to. it should be number 11. that will illustrate a little bit of that. part of this history, what makes this a hard story is the racial violence, sexual abuse, the forward and backwards of african-americans from slavery to freedom. it turns out that in chicago

wasn't so different from the south after all and some unexpected ways for those ancestors of michelle obama, and i want to just sort of think out loud about something that historians called southern exceptionalism. that is the way in which we remember this pass through the charred memories of jim crow, slavery. and even today, the 21st century collective imagination of what racism really is, what it was really about, the harm that it really did and about everything that happens, not in places like new york or conan new york was no better, right? 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 demands -- post-emancipation story.

this is a slide in the chicago race riot if 1990 and here you see a policeman arriving on the scene of where young black man had been stoned to death after a 13-year-old what had been murdered at the beach because he swam across the color line. many people lost their lives. many african-americans ended up homeless, but this is a culminating moment. you describe in the idyllic racially integrated hide park that is now the home of the first family, that toms are going off two years before the -- what is going on in chicago? ..

>> when the violence was sweeping the city, issue was by herself.

her husband traveled as a minister. she got a pot of water and lye on the stove and was ready. [laughter] and it is interesting to be placed there to feel heard there. >> host: that does ease one with the reconstructions islands, you are not known but anything is possible. a "new york times" reviewer said "all plain people had no property with no ratings. of bitter tale of poverty, early death and orphans a and illiteracy. but get a story of church

and a wedding. " is that entirely correct? >> guest: i would not say that. i think one of michelle o obama's aunts said it best. i said how did they get by? the american dream was to dream a little at a time. they got married. something wonderful to read after slavery ended and michele's great great craig grandmother and grandfather lined up with scores of people to have their marriage legalized. all over the south.

things that were meaningful were happening. it was hard but they move forward to seven pressing the point*, there were business owners, property owners and a college president. [laughter] >> guest: absolutely. >> and have ill literate not to property owning? >> obviously all of what he described is not true. but there was a lot more. i was not worn down but to founded inspiring. >> host: to press the point* it struck me by

reducing the complexity with the passage like that to book a review it gives the impression this is the usual story. the passing moments and as a person who writes about those terrible things what made your story rich and developing, we could see complexity, learn of individuals. we knew people by their names, their children, their parents. however johnson sticks out more representative.

it made me wonder that way is a product of the history and our lack of knowledge we cannot appreciate the complexity of the sisters. >> things are rarely black and white no pun intended. a lot of gray and what we don't know. that is part of the richness of the day to day life. i really wanted to capture that. the story that was sweeping, historical and human. i wanted people to connect

to that. not simple or easy. >> host: one incredible character i will read his name out loud. go forward. dolphus theodore shields his moment he lived to be 91. >> they have great names. >> i will read your description. it gives the flavor of who he was but the perfect illustration born 1859.

>> 1861. [laughter] >> host: he is melvenia child and first generation of the race and does amazing things precisely out of his opportunity. there is a lot of that is not clear of the reconstructions period. we cannot look back as a story of white supremacy. there are? that dolphus can exploit. you say something of a ladies' man. strikingly handsome. [laughter] with piercing brown eyes the olive skin and irrepressible sense of confidence.

most were sharecroppers and former slaves and had rejoiced when slavery ended but it was light green grass seared by the summer sun. he may have remembered his grandfather who kept to medicare fall distance. dolphus was born a slave to the enslaved teen-age girl and the man who is a tendency he may never have known. >> he moved to birmingham alabama in 1880? >> looking at fueling the profits from the automobile industry.

and the pulitzer prize-winning book there was an awful history about the time dolphus shows up but what is he able to do that challenge says about this period? >> it was not segregated early on we think of it as iconic but dolphus had white neighbors. someone who wanted to make his mark. he buys property.

>> another property owner. [laughter] and you find him. >> host: yen to with dead distant relatives but those who you interviewed and also melvenia. tell us how you were able to write about her life. >> to find people who'd new melvenia. of woman born into slavery i found two people that knew her. remarkable. she live the extraordinarily

long life and tell the 1938. these people also live long lives. but both have died since i interview them. minnesota gen. to meet these people and they were teenagers when she was in her 90s. we're not the kinds of things we read interested in at that time but looking at to her life where she worked as a midwife. >> to have a complicated

relationship and talk about the questions in the community and how nobody asks those questions. with the olive skin narrative to describe the history of win skin color mattered was very form of racial profiling but to their time period to identify eight-- ratio heritage one is even more sophisticated than it is

today? you write about how list can commanders but how virtue of time have they a direct connection we can see the amazing rainbow of color. that it simply does not matter because this day by gary but in the late 19th century there is it the fluidity. that this sensitive did you think they were more sophisticated to aside moral

value? >> one of the questions i asked myself if people assume to what happened based on what dolphus looked like. looking like a slave with no father present you may have add an idea what could have happened. we're in a period of multiracial was some some -- multiracialism but there were people who were

mixed race. >> host: but looking at harvard but it was identified with that time period. it makes me wonder here we are at the 21st century with all whole category of humanity with the simple designation of a black person in. of how we support the country we live in with public programs, syndication , the criminal-justice system repass judgments very

powerful with a simple by gary calculation. that is all too comfortable targeting black men as long as we can see that is enough. what i read you can see better if they want to embrace it or not. with the onset of jim-crow it makes me think of reconstructions that we don't talk enough about.

with the first generation of formerly in slave to people. tens of thousands hour disenfranchised. you have 1500 african-americans at various levels 14 congressmen it is a powerful period and at that moment stuff changes so quickly. and to talk about progress 81 i was looking for michelle obama and sisters.

who was the first person to vote? i was in the library in chicago i a stumbled across the bow from north carolina. node jumpers. i thought my father is from north carolina. migrate great great grandfather, 1867, 40 years old, two years free registered to vote. approved. i don't know if he did or not. research and the know what happened later. that moment of people

seizing hold of democracy. but your story reminds us whenever we think with the terms of moving past the racial divide everyone does not agreed to be clear. with being black but one of the most powerful lessons is if you believe there is progress it this show us how

fragile the challenges of racial violence with the power and precious patient at in this moment we should be diligent. >> it inspired me and they are striving. but ped be diligent. >> it inspired me and they are striving. but people took the space and did the best. that is meaningful.

you mentioned your relative. mary, born 1835 looking at the distant cousins connecting the family dots these are michelle obama's parents. this character mary and this gentleman noted from the

1870's a 35 year-old that includes a woman they had a child named henry. the last name is that the top and then it and then 31, black, and then he shows

up in the 1900's. if you follow down to eugene he is over 10 months old. that is my great-grandfather. robert migrate great great grandfather was a white mississippi planter who fought in the confederacy. go figure? [laughter] it seems it is emblematic. and to have the last word

with the connectedness in many uncomfortable ways. >> we should talk about it. it is hard. the reverberations are many. i am a communicator. a rare tour. but talking about it helps. but interest in her family may bring interest to the history. >> we will applaud hurt in just a moment. go ahead. [laughter] [applause]

you will have another opportunity. if you add a question or comment. keep it brief. >> it is truly an honor. congratulations. congratulations on your position.

this is taking me what i need to do to calm down. if fido giveback in time i will lose my bet. i needed a late pass to the shelter. when you have stuff like this. why homeless people are penalized when this is so relevant. you get the picture. how do we help the homeless people get involved amount

to the shelter both of you. do not to punch them in then knows can we do something? so many people want to come butter being penalized. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for coming. [applause] i cannot speak to that issue. >> we live in a punitive society. the incentive to change runs through to embrace the origins of and equality. if you think that people get what they deserve or poverty

is a function of individual choice and self-destructive behavior then you have no appreciation for someone trying to understand the world that they live in. it is about society. i applaud you for being here. i am glad you raised the issue in this space. people may never know how difficult it is. in a form like this. thank you for bringing that to our attention. >> thank you for writing such a wonderful book. and if and the overlay that you described it focuses on

this stuff of our people from slavery and afterwards. . .