>> next after words with guest host tomlinson. this week the first book, lynn sai-- tomlinson hill. he founded the impact of slavery continues. the houston chronicle columnist found that while they were former slave owners, a former nfl running back as a defendant of the former slaves. this program is about an hour. >> so, chris, tomlinson hill. what made you want to write that took? >> guest: i grew up learning about tomlinson hill. i had never been to tomlinson hill but my grandfather would always say we had a plantation on the river called the

tomlinson hill and when they were freed they loved it so much they took tomlinsonm as their last name. and going through the desegregation they were still segregated into their was a court order so race was very much an important topic in that time and so i was aware of that as a child and the idea that there were black tomlinsons that my family once had as slaves and it just boggles my imagination. and that became an important part of my identity growing up. and white southern culture, having a family that fought in

the civil war and that was part of that antebellum law was a big deal. it wasn't until one became a journalist and one became educated. no one was questioning it. it's what they know about the south from learning about as an adult, so i started to decide well i think it's time to examine this myth.

>> host: the house appraisal learned the truth -- >> guest: by the time i started on the buck. i knew i was going to find wasn't necessarily going to be pretty. but that is all i had to go on was just that one statement from my grandfather. and from on the old newspaper clippings and obituaries. so, what i didn't know were the

details. i didn't go to the extent they were involved. and in the clan of these ar thel things i would later discover. so come it was kind of expected. i didn't expect to find it to history my great grandfather gave him 1836 as a part of the progress in this administration where he bragged about his first lynching or he bragged about how in the 1870s to the whites prevented blacks from voting and helped usher in the rest of the reconstruction and the beginning of jim crow. that kind of pride in ethnic violence that was really surprising. i also didn't understand the

power of the ku klux klan in texas politics in the 1920s. my great grandfather was involved in a political movement, so i wasn't really surprised to find out that they were involved in these things but the details are what was shocking. >> host: we have known each other for a little bit now and i know you've got to be a racist person at all is how comfortable were you learning this about your ancestors? it has to make you uncomfortab uncomfortable. >> guest: it did. i didn't make my first trip until 2007 so this is a place

you grew up on and spent your childhood and i had never seen it by the time i was 47-years-old. so i am standing on the hill my family donated 17 acres to the confederate association and a construct of a union ground and it's still standing today and your family still holds three unions on the hill so there was a big sign that said welcome to tomlinson hill. seeing that for the first time as an adult it was a sense of pride like this is where my ancestors are from and i was excited about that a but at the same time i was torn because this is also where my ancestors

committed unimaginable crimes. this is where they beat people and tortured people. this is where they quite likely raped people. so that was hard to get my head around. and i think this gets to the challenge for southerners today is how can we be proud of our heritage, and at the same time recognized the crimes that our ancestors committed and that's one of the things i was trying to get with the buck through this examination is how do i reconcile these things? >> host: but why dig up the past? what made you want to do that? >> guest: well, i think there are two things, and i've heard this argument mostly from the

white families in the community that is around tom lyn tomlinson hill those people in the past had nothing to do with me. i don't act like them so why should i care about what they did? and to me, that is how families like mine benighted history of families like yours. it's how we deny the reality of what it means to be white and black in america. the only way that you can understand the true meaning of that is to understand the history. that's why i thought it would be compelling to the story of a white family and a black family with the same name who comes from the same place.

and they come here and contrast. this is big that your uncle charles really helped me with that describes going to a sharecroppers elementary school in the 1930s where it's one room, two teachers grades one through eight in one room. all outhouses. at the same time he was going to that school my father was in dallas texas going to a beautifully built elementary school where he was learning german and a violin lessons.

it's like you can't understand where our families are today until you understand that kind of history. so yeah, that's why i think it's important. >> host: in the book you have some pretty embarrassing stuff for both families. why did you feel that was important? >> guest: as a journalist i have revealed embarrassing things about probably thousands of people. i've described the worst moment of people's lives they would've just assumed to forget that i've pubeen in the newspaper and made them a part of history for anyone and everyone to hear unless they have the archives.

so, for me to not take a bit hard journalistic look at our families i think would have been dishonest. i think it was also important to make the story reel. no one has a perfect family. and so, if our families were perfect in the buck then it wouldn't be real. it wouldn't be accurate. it wouldn't give the reader a chance to feel connection. so there are -- let's be honest there were a lot of embarrassing things i discovered that were not in the book and i try to make sure that again, we maintain that parallel. so at the same time that your family is going through the 60s and 70s an and the tunnel

to this changes my family was going through the same thing. it's how they shaped the families just the same. >> host: what about the book is applicable today in the society? >> guest: i think a couple things. one, the younger generation that go up with decent brigade of the schools post civil rights movement and frankly the ones that are coming of age with a black president there is a gap. they are not aware of what our families have been through. so i think it is an opportune time to visit that.

the other thing i learned as a foreign correspondent with the associated press working in south africa at the end of apartheid and working rwanda after the genocide and working with somalia today that whenever you have this history of ethnic violence, of communal violence that the only way you can move forward is to have a shared understanding, and so that's when we talk about the truth and/or the reconciliation commission in south africa where we have to have a common truth before we can step forward towards the reconciliation. and i don't think that we really had that in the united states where there is an accepted truth

that both sides can agree upon and taking tha that's building p since the reconciliation. do you feel like american history is or texas history in particular which we all have to take growing up in texas we take more committed we take american history. do you think it's been balanced? >> we might have elected at the first president that we are still a long way from being where they need to be as a society. that brings me to my next question for you. growing up in dallas texas and going to the school you went to iran for you used to sing the

pixies on. how were you able to do that growing up and still turn out to be the man that you are today? >> guest: one of the things that teachers had to struggle with was that you had an old curriculum and white schools in black schools and you had this old curriculum where it was the northern regression, it wasn't about slavery, it was about states rights, we should be proud of the history i of the south and how noble the cause was. you can teach those things when everyone in the classroom is white. and as i said in the book we learned the words the battle hymn of the republic but we sang

a dixie more often so there is an awkward time when suddenly we had a mixed classroom and suddenly, you couldn't teach history the way you could before. so how -- if the teachers were talking about the evils of slavery but no one was held responsible it was like there were no slaveholders. somehow it just existed and been edited and no one is responsible and that is the kind of thing that frustrated me. even as a little kid. i would be singing just thinking to myself the confederate flag is a symbol of slavery but you are teaching children that slavery is wrong.

this is where i give my father so much credit is that he is the one that broke the chain in my family. his grandfather was a clan and he decided no i'm not going to be this way. when i came out from school singing dixie he would sit me down and say you know what, that song represents a lot of bad things and it will make block people feel bad cvs explaining it to a 9-year-old. he said just don't do that. >> host: said you had a pretty good story that you were telling

me about your dad i and how he changed, how his mind was changed by going to a rack or distort. >> guest: as i said he played violin in school. he played broadway songs from classical music and he knew enough about music that in the late 50s, mid-to-late 50s rock 'n roll kind of bored him. like maybe three chords. so he goes to the record store and says don't give me -- show me something. show me something that's interesting. i want to hear music. and back then, you've got to listen to the iraq ar the wrecke you bought it and took it home. so they handed him an album and said go try this so he puts it on and first t two days around

midnight with my miles davis playing it and in my father's words, he had found his home. and he stopped and listened to that music and it was the most amazing thing he ever heard. he instantly fell in love with it and was engaged with it and he sat there staring at the cover. and it was a black man. it was miles davis on the cover and he thought to himself there is no way something this beautiful and this amazing could come from someone who is inferior. and that's when he realized that he was being lied to. and so that's when he dedicated himself to not being racist. racist. miles davis did that for him.

>> host: how did that change the way that you looked? >> guest: my grandfather died when i was very young. so, i didn't have the opportunity to confront him. martha that i would have. he was a very angry man and he didn't have a lot of patience. and because of my father's view, he was very supportive. and one of the things that he had begun when i was growing up as he didn't emphasize the tomlinson family but his mother's family that was more swiss german and very progressive so he was trying to instill their values rather than the tomlinsons values. i kind of went on this circle and i start out thinking as they

child in my family with a noble aristocratic institution and then as i dove into the research, i began to realize that they were actually pretty awful and most importantly in my research, i discovered that they knew better. this is something when i first met your mom and charles and aunt thelma they said to me its okay your ancestors were your ancestors. they didn't know any better. when i did the research i realized yes actually they did know better. they were being told every day in the newspaper. there were ways for them to know better. and so i couldn't give them that excuse. then i began to realize -- i

began to accept that they were people and they were part of my history and about me in the position i'm in today. and for all of those reasons, i've come to peace with it. and i accept it. i actually feel much more secure knowing the truth. i feel better knowing the truth then be leaving in a lie. >> host: how did this shape your approach to doing the? >> guest: i learned as a journalist of the importance of being as thorough as possible and to make sure i got my facts straight which is very important with this book. and i didn't need to -- there is

no need for hyperbole. it's about people going through real things. i kept all of those principles in mind. and so, i try to be unsparing but i also try not to go over the top with the language. i try to maintain a very natural voice and let the facts speak for themselves. and one of the things i also try to do which is different from being a journalist because you don't have this opportunity and writing a book you gave me the opportunity to let people speak for themselves and one of the things i am aware of is as a white man filtering this information, i know i needed to

let people's voices stand on their own. you're in the book. in your interview i let you speak for yourself for large portions to tell your story. and so, there was a mix of using that of being a foreign correspondent and of trying to approach it as an outsider to try to make sure i get the facts straight. but then as a book i get personally involved because it is about my family. and i also because it's about my family, i need to give your family as much voice as possible. >> host: there's other things you've seen in your life and how did that come pair to what you thought about your ancestors?

you have seen some horrible stuff in your life. >> guest: i covered nine wars mostly in africa and the middle east to include iraq and afghanistan. i think having witnessed lynchings and the war and violence, domestic violence as well as fighting the traditional idea. when i read the story of the lynchings there is an entire chapter that is basically anything but the series of the lynchings that happened in the 1890s. i can almost see it and smell it and feel it in the state health

descriptions of what happened. and so, in that way it was very kind of emotional because that, having lived through those times i was able to imagine them which more vividly. one of the heroes of the book in my mind is a newspaper man named kennedy, and he was the publisher and editor of the democrat from when i started to about 1892 his death and 42. and he -- this is where the family knew better. he would go in and writes the most detailed accounts and half the time he would go out and prove why the person that was lynched was innocent and anytime

he wrote an editorial why it was un-american and against the constitution and the values and his fellow editors of small-town newspapers condemned him and they wrote editorials about how awful he was and they said it is wrong and not only is it wrong that you are getting the wrong people. and it was not an abstraction. so that's kind of gave nightmares doing that but it also got me excited about journalism again because in the same when they began to rise around 1910, 1914 eventually half ohave to followhalf of alln texas were members of the clan

in 1944. throughout this he was out of there condemning the clan and the politics just laying it out in the constitution as unlawful letting everyone know that it is wrong and they did have an opportunity to know better. that was one of the most exciting parts seeing how the brave voice could stand up and change things and it's interesting to note the clan began to sink away in 1928 and by 1932 they elected the mayor said he went from receiving death threats as the mayor of the town to being the strong

voice so that was one of the most fun parts of the research was reading kennedy. >> host: we have to take a quick break but we will be rig right. us back on the go? after words is available. visit the booktv.org and click podcast on the upper right side of the page, select which podcast he woul you would like o download and listen as you travel. >> host: let me ask you because one of the most awkward things for me when i set out to write this book was if i did not think you and you were out there and my goal was to come up and approach you and i met your mom first but it was a difficult moment for me because what am i going to say?

my name is chris tomlinson let's talk about why we have the same as name or yes my great great grandfather and your great great grandfather, let's talk about it. it's got to be awkward for you to have someone like me come into your life. we have never talked about this, so tell me about what your experience was. >> host: when you first came around my mom said there is a guy doing a book about family history and he wants to talk to you.

>> host: after she explants to me. you. r. a p. solid guy, and it's always good to meet someone in your position.

>> guest: you grew up and marlon, your family still owns land on the hill, on the plantation not far from where the quarters had been. and so in that way your family had a much larger continuity living on the hill than mine becaushill than minebecause my n 1920. but you didn't know the history that much, right? >> guest: >> host: i didn't know anything about the hill to be honest with you.

we used to always say to ourselves we have a piece of land out there. that was good for us. i never thought about it back then or any of that bad stuff that happened on the hill. i never thought about it. reading your book though, i was kind of proud of who my grandparents were and what they did as far as hoping the community get along there was also kind of sad to learn this

stuff. >> guest: maybe i was naïve but when i got to the county and i started doing the research i realized the only history that was in the book for him in the library even in one of the history works that was done in 1976 made it sound like the clan must be nine. i found a shocking as late as 1976 and that's about the time that you were born in a town. so, it was why do you think when your father was so proud of living on the hill and it meant

so much to him why do you think he didn't want to tell you the history? .-full-stop maybe being embarrassed a little bit. my father always had a great sense of pride where he came from. they went on on his homeland and probably made him uncomfortable. he didn't want to teach us about that. that was always the fun guy. he was always the one to get out and run with us when he could. they said you're not going to do

anything. it's never the one that brings bad news. he never was that type of person so there was a sense of pride to be able to speak highly. >> guest: i bought my book about the geographical occasion and it isn't much of the hill is it? it is a slight rise overlooking the river. up the river a long, and i

"-begin-double-quote for the first tomlinson to arrive and that is a woman named susan tomlinson jones who was a slave holder that bought the land and then suzanne convinced her brother to move from alabama and that was my great-grandfather. the book begins with your father who was the last tomlinson living on the hill when he died in a car accident in 2007. she sounds at a wonderful man and a very loving man. but he cared so much about that community as did your grandparents.

does it help? does admit a difference in your life? >> host: my dad never talked about it. i did get to meet my grandmother that i don't render her talking about him either. but being able to reach the buck and learn that he was a pillar in the community, he was a mas mason. it is a great sense of pride. you have to be proud of where

you are. my grandfather was this type of person and his dad was another great tomlinson. he was the last to come through. it continues and it didn't die off. >> host: i know obviously when i set off on the journey to write this book i kind of knew i grew up with that and i know their names and where they lived

anliveand where they were buried where they were born your side of the family was completely new to me and they require require t research and then to find that there was so little documented historian process. i have t had to go through the h records and the land ownership records and that's probably what i'm most excited about in this book is that it was a chance to talk to really get to the history of the families that have never been recorded and frankly how remarkable it was to

go back to the slave named george who took tomlinson as his name and then his son was milo who was your great-grandfather and was remarkable because he helped build the first church on tomlinson and then his son peter and grandson, your father, they were so key to building something that i never heard of before we started the book which is a freedom colony. this is how they develop their own independent community outside of jim crow he said we

arthat weare never going to grog here. you want to build your house and your church and they work so hard to be self-sufficient. your family always valued education so highly they educate children and that helped them to go to the communities that were so self-sufficient and unrecognized and so research in the freedom colony's begin in texas in the 1970s. so i thought that was a part of texas history that i was unfamiliar with and was one of the most exciting topics.

so i'm pleased to hear that you got something from it. >> postcoital would you like the readers to take away from tomlinson alexa >> guest: i think that it is a larger issue than just our families. i mean, our families are a metaphor for black and white america. and the details are only interesting to an outsider, someone that isn't a relative who has a metaphor for a larger issue. so when people -- one of the things that really shocks feel is when i say he was a cotton

picking the sharecropper it wasn't that long ago it's one generation removed. next you'll be the 150th anniversary of the emancipation of the slaves in texas. 150 years is not a long time. they are done in the distant

past. you will see how the carpetbaggers have come from the north. they had the rug pulled out from them in 1974 and abandoned the slaves to what would become the jim crow law. but my family was a part of that. then my family was part o in the texas legislature in 1882. starting a campaign if you will that your ancestors did and have access to education to capital,

to business and job opportunities and the continued up until the 60s. and your grandfather vincent worked for a tomlinson one of my cousins until his death in 1972. the two old men love each other but they were not equal. the first thing we have to do as americans have an honest conversation about what really happened in the last 150 years. >> host: do you think that americans can move past the power of one's skin?

i think the line of the inspiration for the eight-year-olds to write this book someday. they are hearing martin luther king i have a dream speech and he says i have a train that one day on the red hills of georgia the sons of slave holders can come together in brotherhood. yesterday you and i stood up the lincoln memorial.

could we have done that if i had not written this book and had been honest about my history it couldn't have happened so soon. there isn't a racist bone in your body. >> guest: and not endorse either. >> host: so it's easy for us to talk. we could sit down and have a beer or something. a year from now or two years from now i think because without

the help of the book. >> guest: if i came to uganda so i want to write a book about how great my ancestors were. if i tell you a story about how great my ancestors were -- >> guest: when i was interviewing people in false county, they always started out with the idea very happy and it's all very polite. i'm really ready to talk about the truth about what happened. i don't want a sanitized version, you know. but that has a big difference. when someone says i'm ready to

talk about the truth. or yes we have a common history but let's forget about all that. that's not important. that is important, isn't it? >> it is important. it's like if i tell you, like you said [inaudible] i would have laughed at you right in your face and probably walked away from that i know what kind of people are out there and for you to be able to

interview only -- i'm sure that there was a lot older than me. >> guest: there were people in their 80s. a new a lot more than i know. >> host: you say that we should end the conversation on race. and we as americans are talking about that generation. >> guest: i think it is a conversation about the history

of race in america, and i think -- i think we have that common ground. when you say to someone past doesn't matter, of course it does. in your case it matters that your father went to a substandard school and it matters that his father before him barely went to school where as my father a has a college education, my grandfather had an engineering degree and his father before him had an engineering degree, but where we are today has a lot to do with where we start and that's

something that most today are not willing to acknowledge so that is one of the purposes of the book and the conversations i want us to have is that the history. look at the total experience. let's take a look at the tally of the run-up to where we got to this point. are you hopeful about the race relations? >> guest: iem. they are one of the oldest parts developed and it is the bright

or flight mechanism in order to know who to have to fight or to run away from that has to be taught. that isn't programmed. you have to be taught to see the race as an issue. in ancient greece black ethiopians were considered much more sophisticated and much more civilized than those that live in person they russia. how do they dress and speak at how was their culture, how strong was the military? did they wear clothes so yes.

you look at people under 30 today that grew up in the segregated schools were integrated schools and testing shows they are the least racist generation ever because they were not taught to think that way. i'm one of the last generations to attend segregated schools through the number of time into the whites only water fountains to my memories of that era were very few and very distant.

i think that there will always be the marginal groups who will follow the racist ideology just like we have people that choose to become neo-nazis. and that is its own kind of mental health question and behavioral health questions. but i do believe that today the children being brought up to believe that my race is superior and the other races are inferior and therefore i should have political economic and social control over them because of the color of their skin. ..

>> ben shapiro lays out a crimal