on our facebook page or send us an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org. >> now on booktv, vladimir alexandrov recount it is life of frederick bruce thomas. thomas, the son of former saves, lived and worked throughout the united states before leaving for europe and eventually emigrating to russia where he became a successful owner of numerous restaurants and theaters, then turkey where he ran several nightclubs. this is a little over an hour. >> it's a pleasure to be at the the bookstore, and thank you all for coming. so the story of how this book came about began six years ago for me when i read a sentence that changed my life. i was reading the memoirs of a russian singer who was very popular at the end of the first world in russia. his name was alexander vertinsky, and then he was poppe

around in western europe. he described how in 1920 he escaped from the bolsheviks in south russia and landed in constantinople, and ten he wrote the following sentence which i'll translate for you from the russian. i began to perform, he said, in the outdoor entertainment guard b of our famous moscow negro -- [inaudible] thom, the own or of the famous maxim in moscow. now, this so surprised me that i closed the book and put it down. i'd studied this period in russian history and culture, i knew something about it, i'd never heard of any kind of a famous black person in russia at this time. in fact, to this day if you ask a reasonably educated russian person to name the most famous black person in russian imperial history prior to 1917, it's almost certain that they will say it's abram hannibal who is

famous because he's the great, great grandfather of russia's great writer, alexander pushkin, but he lived in the 18th century. in order, there were no other famous black people whether from africa directly, the caribbean or the united states who live inside russia prior to 1917. the famous trips by representatives of the harlem renaissance, people like claude mckay, langston hughes, paul robson later on, that was all in the soviet period. so i was intrigued. and like anybody who finds some curious few fact that they want to learn more about, i began by googling it. nothing came up. so i used the russian search engine. and be what came up was the same sentence that had started me off. but by then i was intrigued, and so i spent several months digging through yale university's libraries, and i came up with very little.

and what little acame up with was very contradictory. but by then i was hooked. i halls add a -- also had a wonderful gift awaiting for me k-6s a yearlong -- which was a yearlong sabbatical. so i wound up doing research during that year in various places in the united states, especially the national archives in and outside of washington d.c. i went to russia, i went to france, to england, to turkey and via proxy, i had people help me begin to look in places as far flung as buenos aires and rotterdam. had they found any sign of documents of interest to me, i would have been on the first flight out. and at the end of the year, i had pulled together a surprising amount of information which allowed me to write the book that i'm telling you about. so this man known in russia as -- [inaudible] was actually an american named

frederick bruce thomas. he was born in mississippi which is part of delta in 1872. the delta is a famous and notorious place in american history. it's been called the most southern place on earth was it 'em -- because it embodies all of the most striking feature, good and bad, of the old and post-civil war south. and, um, it's clear to me that my subject, frederick, got his wigs in life from his parents who were remarkable people. they had been slaves until emancipation, and then in 1869, four years after the civil war ended, they did something absolutely remarkable for a black family in that part of the south at that time. they managed to buy at auction a 200-acre plot of land including farmland for the price of $20. moreover, they had three years

to pay off the money in installments which meant that six and two-thirds dollars during the first year and some change was all that they had to spend. now, within a year of buying this piece of property, they were registered in the 1870 accept us as having property and crops that were worth $5,000 in 1870 during si. so, in other words, they had multiplied their initial investment hundreds of times over. and as a result, they became members of a tiny black elite in that part of the south. because out of some 250 farms that existed in that particular county in 1870, only six belonged to black families, and theirs was the second biggest one at 200 acres. over the next dozen-plus years, they increased their holdings to over 600 acres which made them into an even more elite land-holding black family.

another triumph that i think had a strong influence on their son, frederick, later -- and he was born on that farm in 1872 -- was that the thomas parents showed a great commitment to their local black community. a decade after they bought the land, they founded on it local african methodist episcopal church. this is very likely only the second black ame church in this county ever established after the mother church in rivertown on the mississippi. and i think the kind of commitment that this shows toward the local black community is a very telling trait that thomas, frederick thomas learned from his parents. now, another important be consequence of this is that, as you probably know, traditionally black southern churches were not merely places of worship. they were also social and political gathering places, and most importantly, they were

frequently the local schools for black chirp. and that's where -- black children. and that's where frederick got the rudiments of his education, most hikely from his stepmother who was also remarkable because she was literate as well as showing remarkable character down the road which i'll describe in a minute. the net result was that family was very prominent, and this was not a good thing to be after reconstruction ended in the south. and the white power structure reasserted its authority. what happened to the thomass is that in 1886, a local white planter -- a very rich man with thousands of acres in his possession -- resented the fact that this black family had become successful and concocted a plan to steal their farm from them. the parents were trusting, and they acquiesced at first. but then they showed remarkable

character, because they realized that he was actually trying to cheat them by an elaborate ruse, and they took him to court. and then even more remarkable is that they won the case in the local chancery court. now, this was not simply because the white judicial system in 1886 was prepared to defend truth and pewty automatically. -- beauty automatically. it was because their lawyer happened to be a political opponent of the white planter's lawyer, and their score was being settled that way. but the net result was that a completely unexpected verdict had been handed down, and so the planter who was trying to steal the land and lost on a local level appealed to the mississippi state supreme court where the case then dragged on for a good half dozen years and went through all kinds of complications. by now it's 1890 in my story. mississippi has become the

lynchingest state in the south, which means in the union. and so the thomas family decided to get out of harm's way even before the case was fully resolved. there are so they moved to memphis which is some 70 miles away, far enough away to be relatively safe, close enough to be able to keep track of the legal process. and that's where thomas, frederick thomas got some more formal education. he went to a school for black youth, excuse me, that had been founded by northerners and built on the rudiments that he had acquired in mississippi. but that's also where the second tragedy hit the family. and frederick's father, louis, was murdered in a very brutal fashion in a way that i could describe to you in more detail, but that would be a spoiler, and i want you to read the book, so

i think i'll leave those details out. and that marks the beginning of frederick's independent life which can be traced through four segments of his life later. and each of those segments is marked by a completely original move on his part. he broke the mold for black youth, for black americans with every step that he took. so in 1890 he decided to go north to seek employment inties. this was -- in cities. this was decades before the great migration began which really began only in earnest after the first world war when, first, hundreds of thousands and then millions of black americans sought opportunity and freedom, greater freedom at any rate in the north. he went first to chicago and then to brooklyn which at that time was a separate city and not part of new york. now, although the north was freer for young black people in

those days than the south was, there were still limits as to what they could do for a living. and frederick choz as his profession -- chose as his profession the sort of service industry, as one might call it. he became a wait exercise a valet. but with he didn't become a waiter anywhere, he became a waiter in what was at the time in the early 1890s the most technologically sophisticated hotel built in the united states. it was the auditorium. it stands on what is now south michigan avenue. it is now the home of roosevelt university. but you can go into the building, and parts of it have been preserved in the way that they had been built for the 1893 columbian exposition, the world's fair. so because of how technologically advanced and fancy this hotel was, it really a set the tone for what frederick did later on in life in the same way that, you know, the first job that you have in a

given profession, in a sense, prepares you for what follows along the same trajectory. so he began at a very high level. when he moved to new york, to the new york area, he began to work for a very prominent entrepreneur who tried his hand at reality development and especially at vaudeville, a man by the fame of percy williams. -- by the name of perry williams. it's interesting the to think that frederick might have gotten his first ideas about being a businessman while he worked for a man who was about to become the most famous entrepreneur in the field of vaudeville in the new york area. this is also when thomas, frederick thomas decided to do something else that was completely extraordinary for a young black american at the time. he had a passion that he had brought with him from mississippi which was singing. and he had a teacher in manhattan, a german emigrant,

who encouraged him to go to europe to continue to train because of the color line that existed in the north in new york and else for people who wanted to study in conservatories. and so in 1894, decades before black americans began to expatriate themselves by going to places like paris which, again, they did mostly after the first world war, frederick bought a ticket, got on a boat and went to london where he had hoped to be able to enroll in a music school. he failed to enroll. when i first discovered that, i thought it was because he hadden countered some kind -- encountered some kind of unforeseen color line there as well. but it turns out that england in the 1890s, like most of continental europe at the same time, was basically color blind with regard to people of african origin. i mean, the brits were race u.s.es, but not with regard to

people whose roots were ultimately in africa. they treated south asians poorly, they were anti-semites and so on. so the only white people in england or for that matter in france which is where frederick went next who had any kind of bad reactions to seeing black people in public or in restaurants were visiting american tourists. and i found letters to the editor written by americans who had been to fancy restaurants in london in 1894, 1895, for example, complaining that a mixed race couple was having a meal, and nobody thought there was anything wrong with this. at any rate, it's clear why frederick would have stayed on in europe even though he wasn't able to continue with the musical career. he had portable professions. he was a successful waiter in demanding places in the united states, he could continue to do the same in europe. he was a successful valet.

they needed valets in europe as well. so he spent the next six years traveling around europe as a kind of itinerant waiter and valet, zigzagging from north to south and east to west. frederick also had a remarkable knack for acquiring languages, and i found a very revealing memoir by a visiting american reporter who ran into frederick in monte carlo where frederick was working for what was then and what still is the fanciest hotel in town and was struck by how pure frederick's french was. it sounded completely pa reese. but when he switched to english, it was a distinctive kind of southern black english he spoke. why was frederick in monte carlo? he was on his way to italy because he wanted to learn italian, and he had already been in german where he picked up

quite a bit of that language. and uponty car low's also the place -- monte carlo's also the place where frederick's russian future somehow began to materialize before him. he subsequently said that a visiting russian nobleman hired him as a personal valet in monte carlo. what frederick said about the nobleman varied depending to whom he was talking. at times he even referred to the fact that this was a grand duke. and grand duke is a testimony that's used -- is a term that's used to designate the sons and grandsons of russian emperors, so it could have been a very highly-placed and well-heeled nobleman. in any event, frederick spent a relatively brief time working for man, and then he traveled to rush that. he went from st. petersburg, the capital, to moscow to odessa, a city a thousand miles south of st. petersburg on the shores of the black sea. and he chose to settle in moscow which is striking, because as

far as tourist guides from that period are concerned, tourist guides written for americans and british tourists, for example, they all said that if you want to get a sense of what russia's like, only moscow will show that to you because petersburg and odessa seemed like recognizably european cities in appearance and in character. and then frederick spent the next 18 years in moscow. it was the longest period of time he spent anywhere except for the family farm back in mississippi. and the shape of his life during this period can be characterized by two curves, if you will. there's the life curve that he followed, and then there's the curve of the life of the country where he was living. and his curve was a gradual and consistent as scent. thing -- ascent. things kept improving. he began as a waiter. then he became a head waiter in

a fancy restaurant. then he became the assistant to the owner of one of the fanciest restaurants in the entire russian empire, a place that's legendary for those people who care about these things called yar. in that position he was in charge of other head waiters, and he made so much money from the extraordinary tips that people in his position got, and moscowites were notorious for throwing money around. so a visiting grand duke would tip somebody with a gold cigarette case encrusted with diamonds. yar, incidentally, was also the place to which the notorious russian religious charlatan rasputin used to come when he came to moscow to carouse. at any rate, frederick made so much money that together with two russian partners they decided to pool what they had

earned and to open a place of their own. so they took over what had been, what was a failed entertainment garden near the center of the city. now, we don't have entertainment gardens like this anymore, but they were very popular throughout the world at the beginning of the 20th century. didnyland is a latter -- disneyland is a latter day version of it. but the thing i'm talking about is for adults, and it's place where you could go to see others, to be seen, the take in -- to take in a variety of different kinds of shows or performances, to have a meal, to have drinks, to try your hand at raffles and so on. so they took the place over. very quickly the theatrical press in moscow began to refer to these three guys as thomas and company so that frederick quickly emerged as the leading figure. and within a year of taking it over, each one had cleared a million dollars each in terms of

net profit more -- per person after expenses. so money began to pour into frederick's hands in a way that no one in mississippi could ever have dreamt of happening whether they were black or white. and following his parents' pattern of trying to increase his holdings, frederick opened another place on his own. the remnants of it still are present in moscow. the it's within sight of the kremlin, it's that chose to the center of the city. and that was also ap enormous success. -- an enormous success. when the first world war began, russia announced the form of prohibition. and that was as successful in russia as american prohibition would be a half dozen years later, because people like frederick thomas bribed officials or simply served illegal liquor under the table, and the money poured into his pockets even more abundantly

than it had before. now, he didn't neglect having a personal life. he married a young german woman early around 1901, i believe it was. when she died, he married another german woman. simultaneously with that wife he began an affair with a beautiful young singer and dancer who had performed in -- on one of his vaudeville stages. a mother who subsequently became his loyal wife and mother to two of his sons. the situation in the russian empire, a country that he had adopted and that had adopted him, kept deteriorating. there were terrorist acts, there were strikes constantly, there was the revolution of 1905 that result inside artillery fire against the workers in the center of moscow, and then, of course, the crunch came in 1917 with two revolutions. the first one in parr was fairly liberal -- march was fairly liberal, frederick rode it out. the second revolution was the

one that the bolsheviks put through, and frederick woke up after that on the wrong side of history. the bolsheviks didn't care that he had been an oppressed black man in the united states. the only ting that mattered to them was that he was a member of the wrong class. he was rich. and there was nothing that he could do to mitigate this class sin, sin in quotation marks. so his properties were seized, and he himself was limited to running a very simple kind of luncheonette for theatrical workers. and when he found out in 1918 that the secret police had him on a list for arrest -- which he understood meant he could be very readily shot simply for being a member of the wrong class -- he, with great difficulty, managed to escape from moscow to the south of russia from for various historical reasons was actually, at that time, in german hands. so he was on russian soil, but out of bolshevik control.

when the war ended in 1918, that territory in the south of russia was taken over by the french. and russians like frederick and others, because he considered himself to be russian by that point, were hoping that this french enclay would be the place -- enclave where a crusade could begin against the bolsheviks and overthrow them so he and others could return to cities like moscow and reclaim their property. it didn't happen. the french announced an evacuation early in 1919, and frederick again add had to flee for his life. if he'd stay inside odessa with his family when the bolsheviks took over that city, he was likely to be executed. and so then he managed to get to constantinople on a boat by using a really quite incredible ruse that, again, i could tell you about but won't because that'll be a spoiler for you.

but he managed through his cunning to get himself and most of his family to constantinople which is where that singer,. alisyn:er, that i began with, performed for him. frederick, by this point, had lost millions. he arrive inside constant nope l with something like $25 in cash. but he had something else. he had his drive. he was not about to give up or simply yield to the forces of history that had tried to destroy him yet again. and so he took out loans at rates of 100% for six months, and he started up a small version of his aquarium garden in constant nope l which is where this man sang for him. now, his expenses were enormous, but he was very talented at running these kinds of operations, and he managed over the next couple of years to pay off his creditors and to make

this place into a success. what helped him enormously was that constantinople starting with november of 1918 when armistice was announced up through 1923 was occupied by the allies who were planning for purely imperialist reasons to dismember the ottoman empire and to make constantinople into an international city. what this meant practically is that the city was filled with thousands of usually young men from italy, france, the united states and great britain. soldiers, sailors, officers, diplomats, businessmen. all playing the ground game of dismembering the ottoman empire. and what this population wanted more than anything was, basically, wine, women and song. and there was nobody in constantinople in those days who was better at providing all of that than frederick bruce thomas. i'm not suggesting that he was any kind of a panderer or anything like a pimp, it was

just that the kind of entertainment that-good at putting on stage involved attractive showgirls who do song and dance numbers. in any event, he managed to become very successful. but then historical forces again began to shift under his feet. his adopted country, the russian empire, had disappeared. he wanted nothing to do with the soviet union because he knew that his life would be in danger if he returned there. he applied for turkish citizenship. the new turkish regime that took over in 1923 was basically xenophobic. they weren't racists, but they didn't like foreigners because of the privileges that foreigners had had in the country before. so frederick was refused citizenship. so he was becoming or he became a stateless person. so he approached the more thans in -- the americans in constantinople to try to reclaim his american citizenship. and they refused him.

for reasons that were fundamentally racist. there was a technicality that was invoked, the diplomats for who he filled out forms in constantinople sent them to the state department in washington. and the functioners in washington said that we wouldn't find any paper records indicating that this man who claims to be an american ever lived in the united states. that was either startling, astounding ineptitude or an outright lie. because when i went to the state department around kentuckys, i found dozens of documents dating back to 1894 showing that frederick bruce thomas had applied for american passports repeatedly prior to his ever even going to russia. at any rate, they resented the fact that he had a white wife. they would not believe that the woman who came with him to constantinople, the former singer and dancer whom he had married by this point, was

really his wife. they resented the fact that he came trailing stories of great fortune and success in the russia, and they denied him recognition. so when the turkish republic was proclaimed in 923, he was a stateless person. he managed through countrying and gilens to shield himself by -- guile to have turk irk partners who were the nominal heads of his operation. by this point he had abandoned that outdoor entertainment garden and had opened a nightclub that he named after his place in moscow, maxim. and maxim was, for a number of years, the most famous nightclub in this part of the world. sort of vaguely the eastern mediterranean. this is also the time when american tourists rediscovered constantinople, and thousands of them would arrive during the high season, and they all wanted to do the same thing. they wanted to go see sophia, they wanted to see the blue

mosque, and they wanted to go have a really good drink because prohibition was in force in the united states, and maxim is where they all went. so he began to make a lot of money and became very successful again. but because of the influx of tourists, others began to try to capitalize in their presence. there was just as one example a man by european businessmen to transform javier sophia which is this church that dates back from the first millennium into the biggest jazz hall in the world. so there were companies that were offering to provide the largest jazz bands with the most powerful sax phones to be able to fill this vast space. others used empiral palaces that the ottomans had left behind as places where they tried to organize casinos. in short, frederick encountered some serious competition from

people with deep pockets. .. >> he languished for about six months before he again contracted pneumonia. by the summer of 1928, he became so seriously ill that he was

transferred into the care of catholic nuns in the city, and he died in their hospital on june 12, 1928. he was buried the following day in the french catholic cemetery in istanbul. i went to the cemetery and i found the records indicating the burial, but they don't indicate where he was buried in the cemetery because there was no money to put of any kind of a permanent marker. but all one knows is he is somewhere in this relatively small cemetery that still exist. so his end was really tragic, and i mean that in the boulder sense of the term. not just pathetic the tragic because this is a man who tried to buck the forces of history. and succeeded in the united states by escaping racism in russia, by finding a way out of the russian revolution and he tried to do in turkey as well but in the end the forces crushed him. he had five children, and maybe i can conclude by just telling

you a little bit about one of them. because i managed to meet one of frederick bruce thomas descendents. he now lives in paris. he is about my own age, and he is the son of frederick's oldest son who'd been born in moscow in 1905, and his name was michael. somehow i found the grandson, is a story in itself, i'll give you a little bit of a taste of it. i found the grandson through his ex-wife who is a famous french designer. if you bother googling her she will pop up all over the place. she has a very distinctive style. she has a boutique on one of the finest shopping streets in paris, and her wares are sold in several dozen places around the world. so through her i was able to communicate with her former

husband, and when i went to paris to meet him five years ago or so, he was very welcoming, a very pleasant man. he was surprised that somebody like me would surface in his life, but he very generously over the course of several hours told me the family oral history, which with his permission i recorded because i was new to all of this and i wanted to catch every word. then i did my research on my own, and i discovered that the vast majority of what the grandson thought was family history was sheer invention. i'll just give you a couple examples. i have incontrovertible evidence that the family's origins were in slavery as i describe. according to the oral history of the grandson, learned from his father, the man i referred to as frederick bruce thomas is actually the favorite son of a chief of native americans in new mexico. and rather than work his way up from the restaurant floor to fame and fortune which i think is a remarkable trajectory, the

grandson told the story of how his grandfather shipped out on a merchantman out of veracruz in mexico and became a smuggler in the south china sea. now, i described a frederick was taken to russia by nobleman, a servant. according to the grandson, frederick saved a life of a rich russian in a bar in shanghai, where else? who's been to reward this black merchant seaman, took him to moscow and set it up in grand style. so there are all kinds of other things along this line, along these lines that the grandson told me. when i came back a year later, having done my research i brought copies of documents, i brought a photograph of the grandson's father, that the grandson had never seen that i found in archives, and he allowed me to reproduce in my book a very handsome picture of his grandfather, the one where

he is in profile. but, of course, the grandson was very crestfallen when i told him what the truth was but and he said, i've been married twice in my life. the first woman was the designer, and my current life. and he said i won and of each woman by telling them, each one, the store you're just undermined. i think i'm he was partially joking, but it was a hard pill for him to slow. so when the book came out a month ago i sent him a copy, and he wrote back acknowledging and thanking me for it. by saying you have to wait until somebody translates it for him because he doesn't read english. so we can actually read it until someone does that for him. in any event, this is a brief overview of the story of frederick bruce thomas. i think i've tried to suggest you how much fun i've had doing this research. and i also find myself liking to repeat a russian saying on occasions like this, which is

you don't have to feed you. just let me talk. so thank you very much for your attention. it was a pleasure talking to you about this book. [applause] >> can we ask questions? >> sure. >> after, when frederick bought the land for $24 come you said not many blacks, people do that. why do you think they did not? >> first of all, what breed of black people dead after the civil war to make a living was mostly sharecropping, which meant that they were working a white man's land for a share of the crop that they could grow on. the contracts that exist for freedmen sharecroppers show that their wages were then. the records indicated they were frequently cheated.

it would've been difficult looking at the kind of money necessary to be able to did even, say, $20 on a plot of land. sharecropping remained a dominant occupation of black people in the south for decades after the civil war ended. and when reconstruction ended, the white power structure did everything it could to dissuade black people from reaching the kind of independence that land ownership give them. and they succeeded to the ku klux klan is another manifestation of this comes an attempt to prevent black people from achieving economic and political games. >> i'm surprised that the grandson of the older son, any other descendents would be disappointed to find the truth of the truth, a farmer fastening store than being a smuggler in -- >> except had been raised on the store as a child. he had fond memories of his father telling him, the grandson

and his sister, this kind of store at bedtime and over the dining room table. but, you know, it's also a telling story because the idea that a black man really had origins in native american tribes is something that comes up in african-american history fairly often. and henry louis gates, jr., the eminent scholar at harvard, has been doing a lot of work on african-american genealogy recently, as well as dna analyses. and he says that the data show that maybe 2% of african-american heritage is actually native american, in fact, where as in terms of family stories is much more prevalent. and explanation he offered make a lot of sense, that it is less painful for african-americans today to believe that his or her ancestors were free native

americans and enslaved africans. so there's a kind of revealing psychology through the family oral history that was perpetrated by this particular family in paris. >> i would be interested to know more about one, his profit of others any history on his profit united states to england, and the second thing would be curious to know more about the heavyweight champion, jack johnson and whether interaction was when he came to moscow. >> sure. i found in records in england the passenger list from various ships that went from american ports to portsmouth and other places in england. and i am pretty sure that he found the ship on which frederick bruce thomas cross the

atlantic. what surprised me was how many people of very different social and economic backgrounds crossed the atlantic, how readily they did it, how simple it was but you didn't have to have a passport. you just bought a ticket and went. you didn't need a passport in fact in most of western europe at the time. you could travel from england to france without one, that if you had when you might make things easier when you're trying to prove who you were. so there were no direct reminiscences by frederick regarding his own passage, but i found contemporary descriptions of what it was like. and it was a surprise to me was really very humane, and it was humane for practical ease. shipowners make money on passengers and they weren't about to mr. hickey. so the food was good and the accommodations, people were segregated by sex. for example, men would be in a cabin with what, 12-15 bunks. women would be another one but

the food was good, the people assuming. there were doctors on board. a newspaper reporter decided to take the boys to see what it was like, so that the major source for me. so i don't think it was an onerous crossing at all. and i was surprise, again, to see how many people who by profession were listed as laborers, shuttled back and forth across the atlantic seeking seasonal jobs in one country going to the next. it was very widespread. as far as jack johnson is concerned, frederick had a direct influence on his life. so jack johnson, the famous black heavyweight champion of the world, who defeated a series of racist white boxers who initially refused to fighting for purely racist issues, and he demolished them. but racism was very widespread in the north. he was actually based in chicago. he had a café in downtown

chicago, and he also liked girlfriends, and this cost into lucas in 1912, the white authorities in chicago tried to use -- against them which was designed to prevent the movement of women across state lines for reasons of prostitution. and they tried to hook this on him simply because he had one of a series of white girlfriends. and i was able to deduce from it records that i found in various places, in newspaper articles, that when frederick, when jack johnson was being held in chicago, the news of that fact spread through the united states to european newspapers. frederick bruce thomas reached out to them. within a day after that happened, and offered him tickets to come and put on exhibition fights in moscow, and

an advanced against very generous prize money that he expected jack johnson would actually win. and jack johnson did go to europe, although we didn't go straight to moscow. he spent more than a year if i remember correctly touring various european sites before he got to moscow in july of 1914. i found in theatrical journals published in moscow at the time, publicity photographs of jack johnson in his fighters stance around with writing announcing that this great american champion is going to be putting on exhibition bouts at the according the and there's one reproduced in my book. and jack johnson wrote memoirs which are not always completely reliable, but some aspects are, indeed describes how he and frederick became friends during the brief period that jack johnson was in moscow, what

prevented him from actually putting on these exhibition bouts was the beginning of the first world war. basically on august 1, 1914. and so jack johnson decided to get out of russia to western europe because he realized the front would run all the way from the baltic to the black sea. and so he describes how he abandoned a lot of his own luggage and basically left before he could put on the fights. but it's interesting to speculate what would have happened if jack johnson had stayed. because there was no color line in moscow. frederic encountered none. jack johnson was also a showman in addition to being a cherry-pick boxer. and if he had hit it off with frederick bruce thomas, they could've opened a place of their own. and they would have made history. because nobody would have objected to anything and jack johnson sliced up in fact extravagant fast cars and fast

women would have appealed to russians. but it wasn't meant to be. >> what kind of response have you gotten so far? >> it's been encouraging. some nice reviews. i've been giving talks to folks like you and people seem interested, so that's all good. it's only been out a month. >> do you have a target audience? >> well, my day job is i'm a professor of russian literature, and my previous books were all for academics and their academic books. this is a very different book for me. i wanted to write for a general audience but i wanted to write for people who i hope will be caught up by the story and be interested in the story of unique individual who reinvents himself repeatedly in exotic settings. so kind of a general audience interested in history and biography, african-american studies, things of that sort.

>> stomach. >> i do. -- [inaudible] >> what happened to him was to a considerable extent, a function of what was possible in that country at that time, so do try to set this setting, the stage for his life in moscow and in constantinople. the other thing i tried to do was to give the reader a sense of what these places sounded and smelled like even. because that was very interesting for me. and i wanted to give a little bit of that flavor to make it come alive. it wasn't just abstract historical events, but something more concrete. [inaudible] spent right. and you can tell me if it works or not. [laughter] >> i'm kind of fascinated by the quality of frederick it. because he was so indomitable.

he was so, wasn't very discouraged. to me that's very sort of inspiring. >> all, it is. >> a lot of today people don't have, that they kind of fallback into despair if something happens. >> absolutely, i agree. i thought before learn the full story that somebody would lost as much as he had in russia, and i've gone through the kind, would not be prepared to put everything on the line. he could have found some kind of simpler life, one with your risks. but that wasn't him. so this story is inspiring. [inaudible] >> in some way of course. because he managed to succeed in everything he put his hand to. when he was limited to being merely a way to invalid in the north he became the best we possibly could. i mean, this was a man who arrived in russia not going to lend which. he did know french, which was

ever useful language to know in russia as a was everywhere else in europe at that time because it was a secular which pre-much everywhere the way english is now. he learned russian. he didn't i'm perfectly. he spoke it glibly but with grammatical mistakes but certain well enough to be able to conduct affairs. and so he invented himself as a russian high-stakes tycoon. had the war not resulted and not happen, that the revolution that happened, he would have stayed and kept getting bigger and bigger. right on the eve of the first revolution he was inducted into an honorary russian merchants association and moscow that had its roots in the middle ages. and he also brought his oldest daughter along with them. so he was obviously grooming from to eventually take over or help with the family business. >> how old was he when he died? >> fifty-six. i'm 56. in those days it was considered

an old age. >> question, where would you look at frederick with regard to others in other african-americans in history, in terms of some of them who made incredible strides forward, entrepreneurial or other kinds of the world, where would you rank with regard to some of the great superstar success stories of african-americans after the civil war? >> if you include even people who are around today, and if you consider that he managed to achieve what he did not in the trendy but in an exotic distance -- distant country company, white america didn't pay much

attention to frederick thomas except in a negative way that indicate when tourists would make snide comments about having seen this black american running a fancy nightclub in constantinople. i think he could've been as big as any of them. for example, if the first world war had not begun he would have grown his businesses in russia. he tried to do even during the first world war. there's a famous property in st. petersburg that exists to this day. it's been a famous thingy for circus of kinds of performances since the early parts of the 19th century. he actually went to an auction to try to get the right to rent this place in the imperial capital. and he was one of the high-stakes bidders on this until he pulled out. and i conclude people but because he relies the entire affair was rigged and it was an inside deal going on. but he was also interested in

starting a stock company for investors in popular entertainment, to the sort that the practice. so we understood how he would have to go about growing his business to make it possible to make it bigger than what a couple of guys could run on their own. so we understood what he would have to do to keep getting bigger and bigger. and it was historical forces that thwarted him. the bolshevik revolution specifically. as i said, and bears repeating, given with a history of black people in the united states has been, there was no color line in russia. he could've gotten as big as his finances would have allowed him. >> and if you were to define him from his personality, his style, his totality, if you're to try to capture his essence, what would that be? >> well, he was, to our first

things i say about that in the book. i sort of scatter it about. he was no one school. he was willing to begin with something -- no one's fool. he was willing to skirt the edge of legality for it to cross over into something that was moderately illegal. it would've been naïve not to do when everybody else was doing it. the selling of liquor during prohibition is one example of the. another one is how he ran circles around a lawyer hired by the french music copyright agency to get people like thomas to pay royalties on french music they perform in his establishment. he made them run around for five years. at the same time frederick was very loyal to people who are members of his inner circle, and that's what i think example of

his parents found a church for the local black community had an influence on him. he at one point during the first world war decided to become a kind of passive manager of his property, and he gave over the active management to senior employees, including a guy who is a senior cook in one of his restaurants. and this made waves in the russian theatrical set at the time but i found an editorial saying, this is what fyodor fyodorovich thomas has done. it's an president. it's quite something he would do this kind of thing because of a reminiscence of how he would organize benefits for his waitresses in constantinople. one of the appealing things about constantinople in those years which was a very exciting and wide open city was the fact that russian émigre, noble women became very favorite waitresses in loss of restaurants and other kinds of establishments. and since they were racist

attitudes against frederick bruce thomas, their accusations made he had his way with these beautiful women. so an american woman -- an american reporter in chicago looked into this. a ranking american in constantinople in those days, admiral bristol rebuffing all of these accusations and saying that after entering the waitresses, the reporter concludes that frederick bruce thomas, and to understand the loaded term, is the widest employer in constantinople. so in other words, it would circle the wagons around people. russian émigre remember him very fondly. there were several hundred thousand of them that pass through constantinople in a period from 1918-1923. because the only place you could get a way to from the south of russia that was safe was constantinople. he was very generous. he employed as many as he could. if anyone of them showed up at his door asking for a handout,

they got a meal. so i found reminiscence of him from people who did nothing except that they knew if he went to him he would help you out to some extent. so on the one hand, you know, he was canny. on the other he was loyal. he was a very polished man. by the time he was running in casa noble hit become part of the show and sell. there were reminiscence of him as the constant hope. when you came to his nightclub he would greet you. he could do in turkish, russian, french, german, italian, maybe a smattering of other languages. he had a dazzling smile. he was beautifully turned out, and he was a sophisticated and cosmopolitan. so he was also a loyal parent, and a loyal spouse. those are some of the facts of

his personality. [inaudible] >> what happened was he married the first wife in very straightforward normal fashion. they had a happy life together from three children. she died of pneumonia. he then married for convenience, their nanny, because they need a nanny to help with the kids. and very soon after that marriage of convenience to begin an affair with this beautiful young singer and dancer. i have pictures of her in the book as well. she was german. and she eventually became his third wife when he divorced his second wife. and remained loyal until the 1940s when she died in istanbul. >> you and plug it in find much information in black history? >> no. the thing about frederick bruce thomas, he is almost entirely forgotten. in the 80 or so years since he died there have been very few

references to him publish anywhere. all of them are very short, a paragraph or two, and much of what's in those reminiscences of him is wrong. for example, you mentioned jack johnson. jack johnson and his number refers to him as george thomas, which, of course, wasn't really his name. and you get other things wrong about them. there was a british diplomat who had a famous cover in 20th century history, robert bruce lockhart, who has a very revealing page about frederick in action. but he relies frederick was an american, these kinds of mistakes. so he's not remember in the united states much, not in russia, and not in turkey either. and it was my luck that sense that i read that got me so intrigued allowed me to actually find a lot of information about them. if you can find an interesting person, but do not find

information. >> i think the black community would be very interested in your book. >> they seem to be, yes, but it's hard to generalize but i've spoken about the book in the south but i did a tour through mississippi, and their was very welcoming interest in this story. i gave a talk yesterday at the university of wisconsin, somebody from the african-american studies department came. this is significant for people who study that period, that subject. >> just one last question. i think one of the very faceting aspects of your book is an interesting comparison and contrast, contrasting of the european order the russian aspect of racial equality and acceptance, when you contrast that to the united states pic and i think there's an

extraordinary storyline through what you have written and described. and a be interested to know of history as to why it was that russia could be a place where this magic could happen, and why was it allowed to happen? and kind of compare that to why it could not happen in the united states. >> that's a very interesting question. it intrigued me, too. russia, why was russia so tolerant towards people with dark skin in general? because russia, unlike countries in north and south america, never enslaved people of afghan descent. russia and served their own peasants. there was the institution of serfdom that was very much like slavery, but the victims were the peasantry in russia. and unlike a lot of european

countries, russia never engaged in colonizing africa. russia colonized her neighbor instead by expanding the country owes into asia and into europe. so that explains kind of the demographic situation in russia. moscow, which i said frederick chose to live in, was a very heterogeneous city in the period 1900-1914. that's one of the things that struck me when i read this verse guides for english-language tourists going to russia at the time but they stressed how the crowds in the streets were. not just in terms of peasants wearing their primitive guard ordered religious figures wearing their set of extravagant garb, but also people from central asia where international cautions. people from asia come to moscow for business. so although black people like frederick were extremely rare in moscow can i do think there any that will permit, so this is

what he was a great rarity. it was by no means the case that all eyes were around the all skin was white in moscow. so we didn't stand out. there were not enough contacts between western european countries and black people from africa in europe in the last years of the 19th century for contacts between these different groups that result in racist attitude on the part of whites. there were december not in of people of african descent in western europe at the time but as i said, they were racist. the briefs were notorious racist with regard to south asia and their anti-semite but did not have enough contact with people of african descent to have developed any kind of a take on them, which could also take the form of a negative attitude. now, and turkey the situation was different because the turks, the ottoman empire was a

multiethnic, multi-continent empire. it stretched from africa to europe to asia. black people rose to very high positions in the imperial ottoman court. and the ottoman turks parsed the world different from the way people did in the united states especially and in western europe. it was not according to skin color. it was according to religious affiliation. so that for muslim turks who saw frederick for the first time, the first question would be, is he a muslim or not? if he's not a muslim and he is married to white christian woman, it doesn't signify. it's not important. so that explains some of the differences in how race is perceived, or constructed come in these different settings. now, why did racism develop in the united states, a question that is very high above my pay scale in terms of my ability to try to answer it.

but we all know the sorry history of that event. >> what is your next project? >> i'm, like lots of other people, intrigue by the civil war and i'm intrigued our russian-american relations. and the are a couple of people that i'm thinking about who are very interesting characters and the bridge russia and the united states during the civil war. one of them was a union general by the name of john, whose real name was -- and who was a colonel in the russian imperial army. who went awol in 1856, came to the united states, was working as a railway engineer in chicago when the civil war broke out. and when lincoln made his call for volunteers, this man who had had a lot of military expense in russia volunteered and was given a regiment of illinois

volunteers to command. which he did very successfully. and his life was even touched by lincoln personally because this russian hated serfdom in russia. he could not abide slavery. and during the first period of the civil war as you probably know, there was a kind of kid glove attitude towards the south on the part of the union. so that fugitive slaves were supposed to be returned to their owners. he didn't like that. so he led his regiment loose on a southern town, a town in georgia him and he was court-martialed for this. so his wife went to see lincoln and washington. told lincoln was going on and lincoln intervened by promoting this colonel to brigadier general, thereby putting them out of reach of the other colonels they were judging him. so he is one character. another one is the original

cassius clay, who was a 19th century politician after the boxer was named, and to was a kentucky planter who was an ardent abolitionist in fact he was a daily -- yalie. he was a player in lincoln's party when lincoln was nominated to the presidency. and lincoln rewarded him by appointing him as ambassador to russia, and so he was ambassador to russia for think of a total of about six years. he took a break to fight in the civil war on the side of the union for a while, and he was a great fan of russians. the russians loved him and he did whatever he could to keep rush on the side of the union. because the civil war almost became a world war. britain and france sided with the south. britain sent new to the

candidate in case fighting broke out. the russians sent a fleet to new york. they sent another fleet of warships to san francisco. and they did this because they oppose anything that the brits and the french were doing because the brits and the french had beaten the russians in the crimean war. but anyway cassius clay was a very colorful figure. he took with him to rush when we can diplomat his famous movie night because politics was very competitive in those days and he wanted to have his favorite knife to defend himself if he needed. and as i said he was a hit with the russians because he is attitude as a southern planter resonated very comfortable to the russians he spent time with at the imperial court. so these are a couple of possibilities. [inaudible] is buried in chicago, like what kind of intrigues me is here we

are in winnetka, there's a part of me that wonders at some point get frederick who is very much an entrepreneur, open-minded person, he strikes me as the type of person who would look around. my gut tells me that he probably was in winnetka at some point during his chicago state, and more interesting, many of the very successful families from the chicago area, many of them from winnetka like forbes, et cetera but i wonder if there's any history about some of those families, those people visiting moscow, and basically connecting and i wonder if there's any record between the north shore here and frederick in russia's? >> he did meet in his according garden in moscow, visitors from chicago. and they were surprised to meet

somebody like him who was from chicago for a welcome i would live in chicago, and so i found a newspaper article published by these returned tourists to the united states describe how this elegant, rich black man treated them very courteously and ask them how are things back in chicago. so it's close to what you're suggesting. i tried as hard as i could to find more traces of his life and work in chicago. i know that he worked for a florist somewhere very close to where the art institute is now, who billed himself as a florist of the world there but i know he worked as a waiter at the hotel as i described. and actually it's very much worth visiting the i don't know if any of you have gone inside the building, but the dining room was on the top floor of the host of the that's not the

colleges, universities library. but pictures of the dining room from 1893 show the decor apart from the bookshelves, is the same. and there are other bits and pieces of the old decorations throughout the building. i wasn't able to find anything about him in voter registration records or in address books. so i don't know. it's not come it doesn't mean the information doesn't exist, but i was very zealous in my search. and so it's certainly not laying around someplace obvious, that information, but it's possible. >> thanks. thanks for your questions. [applause] >> you are watching the tv, nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2.

>> fred lucas is a white house correspondent and the author of a new book, the right frequency, the stores that rated john too shook up the political and media giant. what we talk about? >> of course you have today folks like rush limbaugh, glenn beck. but this book with aqueduct to the very beginning. people like walter winchell, people like, and it shows a trajectory of how talk radio began, what really the beginning of radio and i kind of view this as a history of the united states since 1920 through the lens of talk radio. specs of going all the way back what you are we talking about? >> we're talking about the '20s. hd is called the dean of commentary. the first i've talked about in your. we go to walter winchell was at one point he was a hard-core new deal supporter of hard-core fdr supported. he shifted in the 1950s, became a strong anti-communist,

big john mccarthy support the he had a radio show, syndicated newspaper column. he was a huge imposing meet you at the time. fast-forward, go through the 1960s, when the doctrine was a major force, the fcc was able to regulate the broadcast interest. there's two chapters, one is called challenge interest. when the johnson initiation years the doctrine to retarded some political enemy, one of the people i interview in here in addition a number of posts, i interviewed mark fowler, he was reagan's fcc chairman to help dismantle the fairness doctrine. once you have that regulation out of the way, it allowed people like rush limbaugh to get a foothold in and that led to a real explosion of conservative and partisan voices. on both sides, most on the conservative side. >> that was going to be my follow-up question in the guard from 1922 today, the predominant

voices, was there a pattern, take a left right left? >> interesting enough, one of the things i write about in this book is how during the new deal you had a major metropolitan daily link to the right. they were very anti-fdr. most of the radio and broadcasting voices, talk radio, were very pro-new deal, very pro-fdr. you kind of the opposite today. it became sort of, sort of a domain for the right in the late '80s with rush limbaugh. he got his national show in 1988. and then it grew from there. during the clinton administration that was one of the best things that happened for talk radio in the sense that it gives lots of material, and continued on to it actually grew as well during the bush years. there were a lot of folks about what's going to happen to talk great when they don't have bill

clinton to kick around anymore? well, they actually thrive during that period. you have glenn beck, sean hannity, michael savage became major national voices during that time period. >> what is the state of popular now in comparison to cable news outlets with we've seen a lot of people talk remove over the cable news outlets? >> in most cases they've kept the ratio. sean hannity, glenn beck, one interesting thing about sean hannity, he is one of the only guys to have maintained both a presence in tv and radio on a long-term basis. glenn beck, he was in cable news for a while, he has his own cable network now, internet wise, but didn't last long on fox news. rush limbaugh had a brief stint on tv, but in both cases those two guys were pretty much, their domain was radio and that's what

they would get the big ratings from. >> fred lucas, "the right frequency." thanks. >> thank you very much. >> there is no word the processed food hate more than a word, addiction. and i do try to use his family because they can rather convincingly argued that the our some differences between food cravings and narcotic ratings, certain technical thresholds are however when they talk about the other of the food, and in their language so revealing. they use words like craveable, snackable. our online book club meets tomorrow night and if you haven't read 'salt sugar fat," you can still watch a video of author michael moss at booktv.org. plus read what others have said on twitter at hashtag btvbookclub and on our facebook page. join the live moderated

discussion online tomorrow night at 9 p.m. eastern. >> next on booktv, laurie edwards reports on the over 133 million americans who live with a chronic illness, which constitutes about three quarters of all health care dollars. the author examines the obstacles that the chronically ill face, including the limits of medicine, skepticism about many illnesses, and criticism that many have diseases that could be prevented. this is about 45 minutes. >> hello, thank you all so much for being out here tonight. so much of the writing process takes place on my own, in my case when the rest of his sleeping but so it's nice at this point in the process to be able to be out and connect with readers and see people. especially at such a great many. it's nice to see a kind of come full c