started in 1910 and as the 14 and the clan in texas was half of all white men in texas were members of the clan in 1924. throughout this, james kennedy is out dollar condeming the clan and their politics and saying why they are unconstitutional and unlawful. letting them know why it is wrong and they had an opportunity to do better.

it is interesting to vote the clan began to sink away. and by 1932, city elected james kennedy mayor. he went from receiving death towns to being the mayor of the town by being a strong voice. that was one of the most fun parts of the research was reading kennedy. >> we have to take a break. >> on the next show, we have steven spalleding with a new report on voter procedure across the united states. "washington journal" begins live at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span.

watch us in hd or like us on february or follow us on twit. >> let me ask you, one of the most ocwould things when i set off to write the book was i had not met you and i knew you were out there and my goal was to come up and approach you. i met your mom first. it was a difficult moment and what am i going to say?

i am criss and let's talk about why we have the same last name. or yes, my great great gand grandfathers owned your grand father. it has to be awkward for someone like me coming into your life. tell me what your experience was. >> i have to admit, man, when you first came around, my mom approached me saying there was a guy doing a book about family history and we wants to talk to you. i was like who is he a white

guy. and he said his family-owned us back in the straight days. after she explained she met you and you were a good guy and you interviewed my sister and give you the thumbs up, i went on and tried to get to know you. i am glad i did. you are are solid guy. it is almost good to meet people in these positions. you are not a racist and you run

into a lot of those types of people especially -- >> well in my land, i mean, you know, you grew up in marlin right outside. you were born in marlin, your family still owned randolph may on the hill and the plantation not far from where the slave quarters had been. and in that way your family had a longer continuity than my familyism but you didn't know the history that much, right? tell me what you knew about the hill before i came along? >> i didn't know anything about the hill or the lynches i never

thought about it. reading your book, i was proud of who my grand porns were and what they did, as far as helping the black community there getting along. but it was also kind of sad to

meism one of the shocking things to me was i realized the only history in book form, in the falls county library was written by white people for white people about white people. even one done in 1976 made it seem like the clan was not that bad. i was shocked to see that in 1966. that is the time you were born in that town. why tuning when your pare was

living on the hill, so proud, and it meant so much ration why do you think he didn't want to tell you the history? >> maybe being embarrassed a little bit. my father always had a great sense of pride. it probably made him uncomfortable and he didn't want to teach us about that. dad was always the fun guy. he wanted to get out and that gives me the story where i thought my dad was crippled and i ran up to him, and i said you are not going to do nothing, and he got out of the chair so fast,

i never saw a man use move that fast. he was always the fun person. never the one with the bad news. so it was a sense of pride for him. to speak highly of the hill and motabout what went wrong out there -- not about -- >> i wrote my book about the hill, but it isn't really a hill. it is a slight rise overlooking the river and the biggest town is waco, 0 miles away along the

bra brazos and i begin with susan jones who was married to churchhill jones the big slave holder to brought the land and susan convinced her brayer, jim, to move from -- brother -- al pam sonia and that is my great grandfather. the book ends with the last one living on the hill who died in 2007 from the car wreck. unfortunately, i neverigate to meet him. he sounds like a wonderful and loving man. but he cared so much about the community as did your grandparents. and your grandparents died before they were born so i guess

does it make a difference in your life to know this stuff? >> he died years before i was born. my dad never talked about him. i did get to meet my grandmother but i don't remember talking about him either. but being able to read the book and my grandfather was a mason in the community.

i had no choice but to stand proud. it infuses on to the last great one to come through. and you know we have that sense of pride because it continues. it didn't die off when my grandfather died. >>ian obviously when i set off on the journey to write the book, i find of knew the five generations. i grew up with that. i knew their names, where they

lived, buried and born. your side of the family was new to me. then i find there is a historian and not a lot of books. i had to go through land ownership records and that is probably what i am most excited about with this book. it was a chance to really to get to the history of the black families that had never been recorded and always how remarkable it was. i traced your family to africa.

to a slave named georgia. who took the name as emancipation. this son was milow, followed by peter and then vincent. marlow helped build the first church. the gravel hill church was the name. and his son peter and his son vincent your grand father started a freedom colony and this is how african-american developed their own independent communities outside of jim crow.

so they found people saying we will never grow here, if you want to build your house and church and they worked hard to be self-sufficient and grew their own crops in addition to sharecroppers. that helped them build the units that were so self sufficient. this was a part of texas history i wasn't familiar withism it was one of the most exciting topics. so, no, that was different.

>> what would you like the readers to take away from the book? >> it is a larger issue than our families. our families are metaphors. they are only interested to people who are not outsiders in regards to race. so when people, one of the things that shocks people is when i say laverify's father was

a cotton-picking sharecropper, it doesn't that long ago. it is one generation removed. so first of all, 160 years or 150 years with the emancipation procimation and we celebrated the anniversary of the last slaves to be free which is 150 years. -- proclamation -- so 150 years isn't a long time. and second, next time you think the issues are over and done with and in the distant past,

when you read by book you will see how the carpet baggers who came from the north were real america's first civil rights activist who fought so hard to band the jim crow laws. i had relatives passing the jim crow laws and they were part of the systematic campaign, if you will, to make sure your ancestors did not have access to

capital, business and job opportunities and that continued up until the '60s. and your grandfather vincent worked for one of my cousins until his death in 1972. and by all accounts, the two old men loved each other but they were not equal. the first thing we have to do as americans is have an honest conversation about what happened over the last 150 years. >> do you think that is possible? do you think americans can move past the color of skin? it has been 150 years since the

end of slavery but only 50 years since the civil rights movement. do you think -- >> i think we can. i mean the line and the inspiration for the 8-year-old chris to write this book some day was staying at a! -- classroom -- and hearing martin luther king's speech saying i have a dream the sons of slaves and sons of slave holders can come together in brotherhood. and yesterday you and i stood t same spot he gave the speech. you know? and too frank, maybe you will

disagree, but would we have done that if i had not written that book and been honest about our history? >> we could have but it would not have happen so soon. i believe he would have maybe a year or from no because there is not a racist bone in your body so it is easy to talk. we could go and sit down sand have a beer and talk about what the others are saying. we could have stood up there a year from now or two. i think we could have without the help of the book.

>> but does it make a difference? if i came to you and said i want to write a book about how great my ancestors were, you know? so, when i interviewed black people, it started off with i am happy,ian your cousin to convince them i want to know the truth. i am ready to talk about whaup and the truth and what happened. i don't know want the sanitized version. that has a big difference when someone says i am ready to talk about the truth rather than --

or if i come up and say we have a common history but let's forget about that because it isn't important. it is important. isn't it? >> it is. you are right. it is important -- like i said if you want to write a book about how great your ancesers were i would have laughed at you and probably walked away or something worse. but coming from martin, i know what kind of people are out there and for you to walk up and be able to interview them and

they go into the story and are dement because of what they went through because they were a lot older. >> i was talking to people in their 80s. they knew a lot more than i did. so chris, you were in the book, saying we should begin the conversation about race, and we as americans have been talking about that for generations. why did you say that? i think it is a confersation

about history in america. when you say to someone the past doesn't matter, of course it does, in your case it matters that your father went to a substandard school. and it matters this father before him barely went to school. my grand father had an engineering degree. where we are today has a lot to do with where we start. and that is something i think most white americans are not

willing to acknowledge. that is the purpose of the book and the conversation i want to have. look at the total experience. before you start judging about watt policy is good and what is bad, >> so are you hove full? >> i am. i talk about where racism comes from and it comes from one of the oldest and least developed

part of the brain. it is your flight or flight mechanisms and in order to know who to fight and run away from that has to be taught. that is not preprogrammed. the slavs in present day russia are more much vanced because it was about how did they address, speak, how sophis -- sophis indicated was their army. the word slave comes from slavs

because the first slaves were slavs grabbed by the greeks. you look at people under 30. people that grew up in desegregated schools or intergrated schools testing shows they are the least racist generation ever because they were not taught to think that way. right. i am going to be turning 50 soon. so i was one of it last generations for a member of times with whites-only water fountai fountains. my memories are few and don't but you know i am past midlife. so, we have a way to go. a ways to go. i think theres