you're inoculated usually, not always but if you come down with a mild form, you're contagious and if you spread it to someone, they don't catch the mild form of a catch the deadly. ..

he found that the impact of slavery on american society continues. the houston chronicle columnist found while he is other descendent of a form are slave owner, l'damian toll lynnson is ancestor of form are slaves. >> so, chris, what made you want to write that book? >> well, i grew up knowing about tomlinson hill. i'd never been to tomlinson hill. but my grandfather would always say, you know, we had a slave plantation down on the river called tomlinson hill, and when the slaves were freed, they loved it so much they took tomlinson as their last name. and as a seven, eight-year-old kid in dallas, going through

desegregation, because in 1973, dallas schools were still segregated and there was a court-ordered forced busing, and so race was very much an important topic at that time in dallas, and i was aware of that as a child, and the idea that there were black tomlinsons that my family once held as slaves, just boggled my imagination. and that became a important part of my identity growing up, and in white, southern culture, having a family that fought in the civil war and that had held slaves and they were part of that antebellum plantation life, that was a big deal. and so i unknowingly bragged about it, not -- because that was something that you were

supposed to be proud of. it wasn't until later in life, once i became a journalist and i became educated and went to africa, began to realize that the myth that had shaped my life so much, that no one was examining it. no one was questioning it. and i witnessed lynchings and i witnessed things in africa that reminded me of what i knew about the south from learning about it as an adult. so i thought, i think it's time to examine this myth that my grandfather sold me on, and so that's when i sat out and decided to look for you. >> host: how surprising was it to learn the truth about your

ancestors? >> guest: i think by the time i started on the book, i knew that there was no truth to my grandfather's story. and i was educated enough to know that what i was going to find was not necessarily going to be pretty. but that is all i had to go on. it was just that one statement from my grandfather. and some old newspaper clippings of obituaries. so, what i didn't know were the details. didn't know to the extent they were involved. and in lynchings, in the klan, all the things would later

discover. so, it was kind of expected. i really kind of expected it. i didn't expect to find the oral history that my great-grandfather gave in 1936 as part of their works progress administration. where he bragged about his first lynching, where he bragged about how the whites in 1872 prevented the blacks from voting and helped usher the end of reconstruction and the beginning of jim crow. that kind of bald-faced pride in ethnic violence, that was really surprising. i also didn't understand the power of the klu klux klan in texas politics in the 1920s, or that my great-grandfather was involved in that political movement.

so, i wasn't really surprised to find out that they were involved in these things, but the details were what were shocking. >> host: right. so, we've been knowing each other for a little bit now, and i know you not to be a racist person at all. and so how comfortable were you learning all this.your ancestors? had to make you feel uncomfortable. >> i.e.d. it did. i didn't make my first trip to tomlinson hill until 2007 so this is a place you grew up on, a place you spent your childhood, and i'd never seen it. by the time i was 47 years old. and so i'm standing on the hill,

which my family donated 17 acres to the confederate veterans association, and they constructed a reunion ground, and it is still standing today, and now your family still holds reunions on the hill. there was a big sign that says, welcome to tomlinson hill. and seeing that for the first time as an adult, it was this sense of pride and a sense of -- this is where my ancestors are from, and i was excited by that. at the same time, though, i was kind of torn because this was also where my ancestors committed unimaginable crimes. this is where they beat people. this is where they tortured people, where they quite likely raped people. and so that was really hard to get my head around, and i think

this gets to the challenge for southerners today, all of us, is that how can we be proud of our heritage and at the same time recognize the crimes that our ancestors committed. and that's one of the things i was trying to get at with the book, and do this examination, how do i reconcile these two things. >> host: why dig up the past? what made you want to do this? >> guest: well, i think in -- i think two things. i've heard this argument mostly from the white families in false county, and the community that is around tomlinson hill, it was that that's the past, those people 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 deny the history of families like yours. it's how we deny the reality, and of what it means to be white and black in america. the only way you can understand the true meaning of that is to understand the history, and that is why i thought it would be compelling to tell the story of a white family and a black family with the same name, who come from the same place, and follow them from slavery through the civil war, reconstruction, jim crow, civil rights movement, up until today, and compare and contrast. and this is something that your uncle charles really helped me with, is that he described going

to a sharecroppers elementary school in the 1940s. where it's one room, two teachers for 30 kids, grades one through eight. all in one room. and no bathroom no running water, all outhouses. well, he was going -- at the same time he was going to that school, my father was in dallas, texas, going to a brand new, beautifully built, elementary school where he was learning german and violin lessons and was the best of the best. and it's like, you can't understand where our families are today until you understand that kind of history. and so, yeah, that's why i think it's important.

>> host: so, in the book, you reveal some pretty embarrassing stuff about both families. >> guest: yes. >> host: why did you feel that was important? >> guest: i think, as a journalist, i have revealed embarrassing things about probably thousands of people. i've described the worst moment of people's lives, that they would just sass soon -- as soon forget but i've put them in the newspaper and made them part of history for anyone and everyone to read for as long as we have the archives. so, for me to not take this hard journalistic look at our families, i think would have been dishonest. i think it was also important to

make the story real. no one has a perfect family. and so if our families were perfect in the book, then it wouldn't be real. it wouldn't be accurate. it wouldn't give the rear a chance to feel a connection to us. so, there are -- i mean, let's be honest, a lot of embarrassing things i discovered that aren't in the book. i tried to make sure that we -- again, we maintain that parallel. so at the same time, that your family was going through the tumultuousness of the '6 0s and '70s and the cultural changes, my family was going through the same thing, and so i think that was a way to show how these greater outside forces shaped our families just the same, even though our experiences are also

very different. >> host: very different. so, what about the book is allegorical to today to society? >> guest: i think there are a couple of things. one is that the younger generation, if you grew up with desegregated schools, you grew up post civil rights movement, and frankly, the ones coming of age with a black president, there is a gap. they -- they're not aware of these -- of what our families have been through. so i think it's an opportune time to revisit that. the other thing i learned as a correspondent -- as a foreign correspondent with the "associated press," was that working in south africa at the end of apartheid, working rue wanda after the genocide,

working in somalia today, that whenever you have this history of ethnic violence , that the only way you can move forward is to have a shared understanding of the past. and so that is -- talk about a truth and reconciliation commission in south africa, where we have to have a common truth before we can step forward toward reconciliation, and i don't think we've really had that in the united states, where there is an accepted truth, that both sides can agree upon, and taking that, building since reconciliation. do you feel -- i mean, do you feel like american history is --

or texas hoyt i history in particular, which we have to take growing up in -- we take more texas history than american history -- you think it's been balanced? >> host: not at all. no. racism is 0 not a balance in america. we might have elected our first black president, but we're still a long way from being where we need to be as a society. that brings me to my next question for you. growing up, in dallas, texas, going to the school you win to -- you went to, remember reading you used to sing the dixie song. how wereí3t2n j

you that his old curriculum with the war -- northern aggression, it wasn't about slavery, it was about states rights. we should be proud of the history of the house and how noble the cause was. you can teach those things when everyone in the classroom is white. and you can -- as i said in the book, we learned the words to "the battle hymn of the republic" but sang "dixie" more often. so there was this awkward time where suddenly you had this mixed classroom and suddenly you couldn't teach history the way you did before. so, the teachers were talking

about the evils of slavery, but no one was held responsible. it was like there were no slaveholders. there were no -- that somehow it just existed and then it didn't, and no one is responsible. and that is the kind of thing that frustrated me. even as a little kid, i'd be singing the class song, singing "dixie," thinking to myself, this -- the confederate flag is a symbol of slavery. this song is a sim local of slavery. but you're teaching that slavery is wrong. there's something wrong here. and this is where my -- i give my father so much credit, is that he is the one that broke the chain in my family.

his grandfather was klan, his father was klan, and he decided, no, i'm not going to be this way, and i'm definitely not going to raise my kids this way. so when i came home from school singing "dixie" he would sit me down and say, you know what? that song represents a lot of bad things, and it's -- singing it will make black people feel bad. and he was explaining it to a nine-year-old, to a young child's level. and that is how he explained it. just don't do that. >> host: so, you had a pretty good story that you told me about your dad, and how he changed -- how his mind was changed by going to a record store. >> guest: ya. he was -- he played violin in school. and so he played broadway songs,

some light classical music, and he knew enough about music that in the late '50s, mid-to late '50s, rock 'n' roll bored him. he is like, yeah, maybe three chords two or three times. so he goes into the record store and says, don't give me elvis, show me something that is interesting. i want to hear music. and the record shop owner -- this is back then, you got to listen to the record before you bought it and took it home. so the record store owner handed him an album, said go try this. he goes in, puts it on, and the first tune is "round midnight" with miles davis playing it. and in my father's words, he had found his home. and he sat there and listened to that music, and it was the most

amazing thing he ever heard. he instantly fell in love with it, was engaged with it, and he sat there staring at the cover, and it was a black man, miles davis, on the cover, and he thought to himself, there's no way something this beautiful and this amazing could come from someone who is inferior. >> host: right. >> guest: that's when he realized he was being lied to. and that is when he dedicated himself to not being a racist. >> host: miles davis did that. >> guest: miles davis. >> good man, miles, good man. how did the research you did change the way you look at your family? >> guest: well, i am -- my grandfather died when i was very young, so i didn't have the opportunity to confront him. not that i would have. he was a very angry and -- 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 he had opportunity when i was growing up, he didn't emphasize the tomlinson family. he emphasized his mother's family, which was swiss german and much more progressive and so he was trying to instill their values in me rather than the tomlinson values. kind of went on this circle. i start out thinking, you know, as a child and my family is this noble aristocratic institution, and then as i dove into the research, i began to realize they were actually pretty awful

and had done a lot of really bad things, and most importantly in my research, i discovered that they knew better. and this is something -- when i first met your mom, and charles -- uncle charles and aunt thelma, they all said to me, it's okay, it's okay, your ancestors were your ancestors. they didn't know any better. when i did the research i realized, yeah, they did know better. they were told every day in the newspaper. there were ways for them to know better. and so i couldn't give them that excuse. and then i began to realize they were -- i began to accept they were people, and they're part of my history and they're part of what put me in the position i am 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 than believing a lie. >> host: so, how did your experience as a foreign correspondent affect your approach to doing the book? >> guest: well, i learned as a journalist the importance of being as thorough as possible, and to making sure i got my facts straight, which was very important with this book. and i didn't need to -- there's no need to for hyperbole. no reason to amp this story up. this is a compelling story about real people going through real things. and so as a journalist, i kind

of kept all those principles in mind, and so i tried to be unsparing but i also try not to be -- go over the top with the language. you've read the book. what -- i tried to maintain this very neutral voice and let the facts speak for themselves. >> host: you did. you did that real well. >> guest: and one of the things i also tried to do, which is different from being a journalist -- we dent -- don't have this opportunity. writing the book gave me the opportunity to let people speak for themselves in large blocks because one of the things i am aware of is that as a white man filtering this information, i needed to let people's voices stand on their own. including -- your voice, you're in the book. your interview. i let you speak for yourself for large portions of it to tell your story.

>> host: right. >> guest: and so it was a mixture of using that rigor of being a foreign correspondent, of trying to approach it as up a outsider, to try to make sure i get the facts straight, but then at as a book, i get permanently 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: right. so, your experience with the ap and everything else and seeing the things you seen in your life, how did that compare to what you found out about your ancestors? you've seen some horrible stuff in your life. >> guest: yeah. i covered nine wars over a 14-year period, and most of them in africa and the middle east, include iraq, include

afghanistan. i think having witnessed lynchings, having witnessed war, having witnessed violence, domestic violence as well as -- you know, fighting the traditional idea of fighting -- when i would read the stories of the lynchings, there's an entire chapter basically nothing but, this whole series of lynnings happening in falls county in the 1890s. and i could feel it, i could almost smell it in the descriptions of what happened, and so in that way it was very kind of emotional because that -- having lived through those things i was able to

imagine them much more vividly. one of the heroes in the book in my mind, is a newspaper man named j.m. kennedy, and he was the publisher and editor of the marlin democrat from when it started about 1890 until his death in 1942. and he -- this is where the family knew better, right? he was an antilynching crusader. every time there's a lynchings in falls county he would go out and write the most detailed conditions of it and half the time he would good out and prove why the person who was lynched really was innocent. and every week he wrote an editorial about why lynching was unamerican and how it went against the constitution and went against our values, and his fellow editors of small-town

newspapers around marlin condemned him. they wrote editorials how awful he was, and he stood up and said, no, this is wrong. and not only is it wrong, you're getting the wrong people. and so that gruesome -- it wasn't an abstraction. so, yeah, that kind of gave me some nightmares doing that. but it also got me excited about journalism again because in the same way, when the klan began to rise again around 1910, 1914, in texas, to eventually represent -- the klan in texas at its high point, half of all white men in texas were members of the klan in 1924. he is out there condemning the klan, condemning the politics, laying it our why they're institutional and unlawful,

letting everyone know it is wrong. they did have an opportunity to know better. that was actually one of the most exciting parts, was seeing how a brave voice could stand up and change things, and it's interesting to note that the klan began to sink away in falls county in 1928, and by 1932, the marlin elected j.m. kennedy mayor. so he went from receiving death threats to being the mayor of the town by being the strong moral voice. so, yeah, it was -- that was one of the most fun parts of the research, was reading kennedy. >> host: got to take a quick break. be right back.

la var, let me ask you. one of the most awkward things when i set off to write this book was this -- i'd not met you. i knew you were out there. and my goal was to come up and approach you and i met your mom first, but it was a really difficult moment for me because it was like, what am i going to say? hi, my name is chris tomlinson. let's talk about why we have the same last name. or, yes, my great-great

>> host: when you first came around, new mom approached hef me. she was like, there's a guy doing a book about the family history, and he wants to talk to you. i was like, who? who is he? and his name is chris tomlinson. i said, okay, he's a white guy. i'm like, okay. she was like, yeah, his family owned your family back in the slave days. i was like, no, mom. no way. i'm not going to -- but after

she explained to me that she had met you and you were a good guy, and then i believe you had interviewed my sister, and she had given you the thumbs up, i was -- i went on and tried to get to know you, and i'm glad i did, man. you're a pretty solid guy. >> guest: well, thank you. >> host: and it's always good to meet someone in your position that is, let's say, not a racist, you know, because you run through a lot of type of those people, especially in the -- >> guest: in marlin, i mean, you grew up in marlin, right outside -- you know, you were

born in marlin, your family still owned land on the hill, on the plantation, not far from where the slave quarters had been, and so in that way your family had a much longer continuity living on the hill than mine did mitchell grandfather left in 1920. but you didn't know the history that much. right? tell me about -- >> host: ruth. >> guest: tell me about what you knew about the hill before i came along. >> host: man, i didn't know anything about the hill, to be honest with you. i knew that it was a slave plantation, but you know, where we used to always stay to ourselves, we got a piece of land out there, outside of marlin, named after us.

that was good for us. i never thought about slavery or what went on back then, and lynchings or any of that bad stuff that happened on the hill. i never thought about it. reading your book, though, it -- i was kind of proud of who my grandparents were, and what they did as far as helping the black community there get along. there was also kind of sad to learn this stuff, too. >> guest: well, i mean, to me, one of most shocking things -- and maybe i was naive, but when i started -- when i got to falls county and got to marlin and started doing the research, i realized the only history that

was in book form in the library, the falls county library, was written by white people, for white people, about white people. and even one of the histories done in 1976, made it sound like the klan was benign. that they really weren't that bad. which i found shocking as late as 1976. and that is about the time you were born in that 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? >> host: um, maybe being embarrassed, maybe a little bit.

our father always had a great sense of pride in his heritage, where he come from. so, to disclose to his children the atrocities that went on, on his homeland, probably made him uncomfortable and he didn't want to teach us about that. dad was always the strong guy. he was always the one to get out and run with us when he could. i remember, man -- just gave me a story -- i thought my dad was crippled. and one time i ran up to him and was playing -- i kept hitting him on the leg you ain't going to do nothing, and he got up out of the chair so fast. i never seen an old man move so fast, man. but that's just the type of guy he was. he was always the fun-loving person, never the one who brings

bad news. he never was that type of person. so it was a sense of pride for him. to be able to speak highly of the hill, and not about the things that went wrong out there. >> guest: i think it's -- the book -- i built my book around the hill, the physical -- geographical location, and to be clear it's not much of a hill, is it? >> host: not much. >> guest: it's a slight rise overlooking the river, near is town is waco, 20 miles away, upriver, and i begin the book with the first tomlinson to arrive, and that was a woman named susan tomlinson-jones, who was married to churchill jones, the big slaveholder who bought

the land and then susan convinced her brother, jim, to move from alabama, and that was my great-grandfather. the book ends with your father, who was the last tomlinson living on the hill, when he died in the car accident in 2007. >> host: uh-huh. >> guest: unfortunately i never got to meet him. he sounds like a wonderful man. and a very loving man. but he cared so much about that community, as did your grandparents, and your grandfather died before you were born. so, i guess was -- was my research about your family -- did it help make you feel -- does it make a difference in your life to know this stuff?

>> host: definitely, man. reading the book, i got to learn who my grandfather was. like you said, he died before i was born. years before i was born. so, my dad never talked about him. i did get to meet my grandmother for a few years, but i don't remember her talking about him, either. but being able to read your book and learn my grandfather was a pillar in the community, mason. he did this, he did that, that infused me with a since of great pride. you have to be proud of who you are, where you come from, and to be a black tomlinson and learning that my grandfather was this type of person and his dad was another great tomlinson, i mean, i was proud, and it

infuses to the last great tomlinson to come through, and we just have that sense of pride because it continues. it didn't die off when my grandfather died, the greatness didn't die with him. so, it was great learning that. >> guest: i know -- obviously when i set off on this -- on the journey to write this book, i kind of knew -- i knew that five generations of white tomlinsons. i'd grown up with that and i knew their names and when they lived and where they were buried and born. your side of the family was completely new to me, and they required the most research. and then to find that there was

so little documented historian processed -- there were a lot of books. i had to go to the primary sources. i had go toe go through the birth records and enance pacing records and land ownership records, and that is probably what i most excited about with this book, it was a chance to really get to the history of the black families that have never been recorded, and frankly, how remarkable it was. for -- so i traysed traced your family back too africa to a slave named george, who took tomlinson as his name in emancipation, and then his son was milo. he was your great-great grandfather. followed by peter, and then vincent.

milo was remarkable because he is the one helped build the first church, black church, in -- on tomlinson hill. called gravel hill church. and then his son, peter, and grandson, vincent, your grandfather, were so key to building something i'd never heard of before i started the book, which is a freedom colony, and this was how african-americans developed their own independent communities outside of jim crow. >> host: right. >> guest: so, they usually found some friendly land owners, lime took lynnsons and joneses who said we're never going to grow anything here, you want to build your house, build your church, and he worked so hard to be self-sufficient, and they grew their own crops in addition to the crops they grew as

sharecroppers. and they sent their children to school. your family's always valued education so highly. they were some of the first black families to educate their children. and that helped them build these communities that were so self-sufficient. and unrecognized until research in the freedom colonies began in texas in the 1970s. so, yeah, i thought that was a part of texas history i was unfamiliar with, and to me was one of the most exciting topics. so, i'm pleased to hear that you got michigan from it -- got something from it. >> host: it was great. what would you like readers to take away from tomlinson hill? your book?

>> guest: i think it's larger issue than just our families. i mean, our families are a metaphor for black and white america. and it's interesting -- the details of their lives are only interesting to an outsider, someone who is not a relative, right? who, as metaphors for a larger issue about race. and so when people -- one of the things that shocks people is when i say, you know, la vair's father was a cotton picking sharecropper. it was not that long ago. it's one generation removed. >> host: you're right. >> guest: so, first of all, 160

years -- 150 years, right? i mean, emancipation proclamation is 151 years old. we just celebrated juneteenth in texas. next year is the anniversary of the last slaves in america to be freed. so 150 years is not that long. it's not that long. so, first of all, okay, 150 years is not a long time. and second, next time you think that these issues are over and done with and they're in the distant past, when you see -- when you read my book you'll see how the carpet baggers who came from the north were really america's first civil rights activists, who fought so hard

only to have congress pull the rug out from underneath them in 1874 and abandon the former slaves to what would become the they were part of the campaign to make sure your ancestors did not have access to education to capital to business and job opportunities. and that continued until the '60s. and your grandfather, vincent, worked for a white tomlinson,

one of my cousins, until his death in 1972, and by all conditions the two old men loved each other, but they weren't equal. so, that's kind of what i want -- we need -- if we want reconciliation, if we want an end to our racial problems, the first thing we have to do as americans is have an honest conversation about what really happened over the last 150 years. >> host: do you think that's possible? do you think americans can move past the color of one's skin? it's been 150 years since the end of slavery, but it's hardly been, what, just over 50 years since the civil rights movement. >> guest: yes. >> host: do you think we can -- >> guest: i think we can. i think we can. i mean, the line -- the

inspiration for the eight-year-old chris to write this book some day was being in a classroom in lake highlands elementary school and hearing martin luther king's "i have a dream" speech for the first time,s' she says, have a dream, that one day on the red hills of georgia, sons of slaves and the sons of slaveholders can come together in brotherhood. >> host: we toasted that last night. >> guest: and yesterday you and i stood at the lincoln memorial. >> host: the exact spot. >> guest: the same spot he gave that speech. >> host: we did. >> guest: and to be frank -- i don't mean to put words in your mouth. maybe you'll disagree with me. could we have done that if i had not written this book and been honest about our history? >> host: we could have, but it

wouldn't have happened so soon. we -- i believe we would have maybe a year or so from now, because like i said, there isn't a racist bone in your body -- >> guest: and not in yours, either, for that matter. >> host: so it's easy to talk. we can go sit down and have a beer or something with each other and talk about just about anything and not get offended by what the other is saying. and so, yeah, man, we could have stood up there a year from now or two years from now. i think we could have without the book. >> guest: but does it make it different -- if i came to you and said i want to write a book about how great my ancestors were, you know so sit down and tell me your story about how

great my ancestors were. because when i was interviewing black people, african-americans in fall county, they started out with the, i'm very happy, yes, i knew your cousin, yes, and it's all very polite, and it really took awhile to convince them that, no, no, no, i really do want to know the truth. i'm really ready to talk about what really -- to talk about the truth, before the what happened. i don't want the sanitized version. >> host: right. >> guest: that has a big difference when someone says, i'm ready to talk about the truth, rather than say -- if i said to you, okay,ee, we have this common history, but let's forget about all that. that's not important. and it is important. >> host: it is. yeah. you're right, it's important.

with the help of the book, it's like -- if i tell you, like you said, if you were to tell me you wanted to do a book about how great your ancestors were, i would have laughed at you in your face, and probably walked away from -- but coming from marlin, and i know what kind of people are out there, and for you to walk up and be able to interview them and they -- because of what they went through back there, i'm sure there was a lot older than me. >> guest: i was talking to people in their 80s.

>> host: they knew. they knew. >> guest: yeah. >> host: they knew a lot more than i know. so, chris, you end the book saying, we should begin a conversation about race. and we as americans are talking about the generation, why did you say that. >> well, i think -- i think it's a conversation about the history of race in america. and i think -- i think we have that common ground. i think when you say to someone, the past doesn't matter, it

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. whereas my father has a college education, my grandfather had a engineering degree. his father before him had an engineering degree. where we are today has a lot to do with where we start. >> host: i agree. >> guest: and that is something that i think most white americans today are not willing to acknowledge. so, that is one of the purposes of the book, and that's the conversation i want us to have, is look at the history, look at the sum total of experience,

before you start judging about what policy is good and what policy is bad, let's take a look at the totality of the runup to where we got to this point. >> host: so, are you hopeful about race relations? >> guest: i am. i am. the epilogue in my book, i talk about the neuroscience of racism, of where it comes from, and it comes from a very deep, old -- the iming my doula, one of the least developed parts of the brain, and it's your fight or flight mechanism. and in order to know who to identifying and who to run away from, that has to be taught.

that's not pre-programmed. so, you have to be taught to see race as an issue. in ancient greece, black ethopians were considered much more sophisticated and much more civilized than slaves who live in present-day russia. why? because it was a question of how did they dress? how did they speak? how sophisticated was their culture? how strong was their military? did they wear clothes or wear skins? so, yeah, the word "slave" comes from slav, because the first slaves were slaves grabbed by the greeks. you look at people under 30 today, people who grew up in desegregated schools, or integrated schools, testing shows us they're the least

racist generation ever because they weren't taught to think that way. >> host: right. >> guest: i'm going to be turning 50 soon. so i'm in middle age, and i was one of the last generations to attend the segregated schools. to remember a time where there were whites only water fountains. my memories of that era are very few and very distant, but, you know, i'm past mid-life. so, we have a way to go, a was to go. i think there will always be these marginal groups who will choose to be -- follow racist ideology, just like people choose to become neonazis. and that -- and that is its own

kind of mental health question, really, or behavioral health question. but i do believe that today of children -- the days of children being brought up to believe that my race is superior, that the other race -- the other races are inferior, and that, therefore, i should have political, economic, and social control over them, over other people, just because of the color of their skin, that -- that's an idea that is dying out. and maybe i won't see it. but i think your daughters will. >> host: i bet they do, too. i bet they do, too. well, chris, think that does it for us, buddy. i appreciate you -- >> guest: thank you, lavar. >> host: no problem.

>> that was after words, booktv's signature program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed be journalists, public policymakers, legislators and others familiar with their material. "after words" airs every day. you can also watch online. go to booktv.org and click on "after words" on the upper right side of the page. >> here's a look at some books being published this week as the 40th anniversary of the impeachment proceed examination subsequent resignation of richard nixon approaches several books are being released to mark the anniversary. former white house council john dean utilizes his own transcripts and president nixn roz surreptitiously reported conversations and over 150,000 pages of documents held the nixon library and the national archives to report on what

president nixon knew and when he knew it in "the nixon defense." in "the nixon tapes "boy they look at the 3700 hours of roared conversations made be president nixon from 1971 to 1973. only five percent of which had been previously transcribed and published. ken hughes presents his findings on corruption in the nixon administration that exceeded what was exposed during the watergate scandal, in "chasing shadows." david horowitz provides a strategy he believe this republican party needs to use to win back the country in "take no prisoners." bruce recounsels feats of the soviet army in afghanistan and in "a spy among friends" ben mcincur, writer at large for the times of london, recounsels

the british spy who worked for the soviet union during the height of the cold war. look for these tights and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv.org. >> pepperdine university's angela hawken sat down with booktv to asks the pros and cons of marijuana legalization. this interview recorded at pepperdine university in malibu, california, is part of booktv's college series. ...