you could listen to the record before you bought it. so he handed him an album and said tried this. the first tune was brown midnight with miles davis. 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 had never heard any instantly fell in love and was engaged 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 is no way something this beautiful and this amazing could come from someone who is inferior. and that is when he realized

he was being lied to. and that is when he dedicated himself to not be a racist. miles davis did that for him. >>host: good man. [laughter] how did that change the way you book did your family? >>guest: my grandfather died when i was very young. , did have the opportunity to confront him not that i would have the was a very angry man. and he did not have a lot of patience. and because of my father's views he was very supportive. one of the things he had done is he would emphasize

his mother's family that was swiss german and more progressive trying to instill their values rather than tomlinson values. i kind of went on the circle thinking with this noble aristocratic institution then i went dive into the research and then would realize they were pretty awful and had done a lot of bad things and most importantly in my research i discover that they knew better. when i first met your mom they all said it is okay. your ancestors are your ancestors they did not know better but then i realized

they did. every day in the newspaper. they would wait for them to know better. so i could not give them that excuse. then i began to realize that they are part of my history that put me in the position that i am today and for all those reasons i come to peace with it and i accept it. and i feel much more secure knowing the truth that i feel better knowing the truth rather them though my. >>host: how does your experience as a war correspondent help you in the book? >> i learned the importance

of being as thorough as possible making sure i have my facts straight in there was no need for hyperbole. this was a compelling story about real people doing real things. suez a journalistic kept those principles in mind. i would try to be unsparing also not to go over the top with the language. you read the book i a tried to maintain a neutral voice to let the facts speak for themselves. one thing i also tried to do that is different from being

a journalist and writing a book to let people speak for themselves because one of the things i am aware of is as a black man filtering disinformation, i needed to let's people's voices stand on their own including your voice and you are in the book i'll let you speak for yourself for a large portion of it to tell your story. and using that rigor of a foreign correspondent to approach it as an outsider to make sure i get the facts straight. but then it is about my family.

so i have to give your family as much voice as possible. >>host: so your experience and what you have seen in your life in what you found out about your ancestors? >>guest: i covered nine wars over a 14 year period in africa and middle east including iraq and afghanistan purport --. having witnessed war with domestic violence right now says with the traditional

idea of fighting. when i would read the though whole chapter about lynchings i could see it i can almost smell it and feel that with the detailed descriptions of what happened. so that way it was emotional because having lived through those things and a managing them more vividly one of the hero's in the book did my mind was a newspaperman named kennedy who was the publisher and editor of the paper when it started through the death of 1842. -- 1942 and he knew better

because he was the anti-lynching crusader. every time there was one he would write the most detailed account and half the time he would prove why the person was lynched really was innocent and every week he would write an editorial about why machine was an american and went against the constitution and our values. his fellow editors condemn than and wrote editorials about how awful he was and he stood up to say no. this is wrong. not only that but it is the wrong people. and he would convey the gruesome nature was not the obstruction. that gave me nightmares. but it also will got me excited about journalism

again because in the same way when the clouds -- when the kkk would rise again at its high point half of all white men were members of the clan. and to be up there to condemn the klan and the politics to let everyone know that they did have an opportunity to know better. that was one of the most exciting parts of the brave voice that the klan would begin two's think the way

and by 1932 that we went from that to the mayor by being a strong moral voice. that was one of the most fun parts of the research was reading kennedy. >>host: we have to take a quick break and we will be right back

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

great if grandfather owned yours and let's talk about it? and it has to be awkward so we never talked about this so tell me about what your experience was. >>host: when you first came around my mom approached me and said there is the guy writing a book and he wants to talk to you. i said who is the? his name is chris tomlinson. but he is white and i said okay. his family own to our family back in the slave-- .

wait. i will not talk to him. but after she explained that you were a good guy and then i had to get to know you. >> for someone in your position to be not a racist. >> and you grew up right

outside if you were born there but your family still owns land on the hill. on the plantation not far from where the slave quarters had been. so in that way your family had a much launder continuity living on the hill than mine did because my grandfather left in 1920. but you did not know the history that much? tell me what you knew about the hill before i came along. >>host: i did not know anything about the hill. i knew it was a slave plantation but really is used to say to ourselves there is a piece of land out

there. so that was good for us i never thought about slavery back then. or what happened on the hill. i never thought about it. by reading your book though though, i was kind of proud who my grandparents were and what they did as far as helping the black community along. but it was also kind of sad to learn this stuff also. >>guest: to be one of the most shocking things and maybe i was naive but when i

got to falls county and i started to do the research i started to realize the only history that was then book form in the library was written by white people for the white people about white people. . .

in did not want to teach us about that. that was always the fun guy. he was always the one to get out with us, if we could. how just give you this story. i thought my dad was crippled i ran up to him. and he got up out that chair so fast. i have never seen an old man move so fast. that is just the type of guy that he was. he was always the fun-loving person, never the one that

had bad moods, you know, he was never that type of person. so it was a sense of pride for him to be able to speak highly. as a matter of fact. >> host: well, i think -- the book -- i bought my book around the geographical location, and it to be clear it is not much of a hill, is it? it is a slight rise overlooking the river. 20 miles away up river along the brazos. and i begin the book with the first tomlinson to arrive, and that was a woman named susan tomlinson jones who was very to churchill

downs, the big slaveholder who bought the land. and then susan convinced her brother, jim, who moved from alabama, and that was my great grandfather. and so the last tomlinson living on the hill when he died in the car accident in 2007. and 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 pit. so i guess, was my research about your family, does it help? did it -- does it make a difference in your life to

know this stuff? >> guest: definitely, man. a reading the book i got to know who my grandfather was years before i was born. so my dad never talked about him coming in now. i did get to meet my grandmother, but i don't remember talking about him neither. but being able to read your book and learn that my grandfather was a pillar in the community, and mason, he did this, he did that, you know, that is infused me with a sense of great pride. you have to be proud of who you are and where you come from. and to be a black congressman and learning that, you know, my grandfather was this type of person, and his status and other great tomlinson, i have no choice but to stand

proud. the last great tomlinson to come through. you know, we just have a sense of pride because it continues, you know. it did not die off when my grandfather died. the greatest did not die with him. so it was great. >> host: well, i know obviously when i set off on the journey to write this book are kind of new the five generations of white tomlinson. i had grown up with that. i knew their names, were in a live color they were buried, with ever 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, you know, historian process, i have to get to the primary sources. back to go to the birth records and emancipation records and land ownership records. and that is probably what i am most excited about with this book is that, it was a chance to really get to the history of the black families that has never been recorded. and, frankly, how remarkable it was. i mean, for -- are traced your family back to africa to a slave named george. he took tomlinson has his name and emancipation. his son was milo, your great great-grandfather fought by

peter and then vincent. remarkable because he is the one who helped build the first church, by church on tomlinson hill, the gravel help church. and then his son peter and grandson vincent, your grandfather, was so key to building something i have never heard of before. a free economy. and this was howl african americans developed their own independent communities outside of jim crow. >> guest: right. >> host: they usually found fellow landowners light tomlinson and the judges who said, we will never grow anything here. build your house, build your church, and they worked so hard. and they grew their own crops in addition to the crops they grew as

sharecroppers and sent their children to school. i mean, your families have 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 are unrecognized until, you know, research began in taxes in the 1970's. so, yes, i thought about was a part off texas history that i was on from there with and to me was one of the most exciting topics. so, i am pleased to hear that you've got something from it. >> guest: it was great. where would you like readers to take away?

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

160 years or 150 years, right? and mean, emancipation proclamation his 151 years old. next year will be the 150th anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in texas, the last race in america to be freed. so 150 years is not that long, it is not that long. first of all, okay, 150 years is not a long time. >> host: right. >> guest: the second, next time you think, you know, that these issues are over and done with an hour and a distant past, you know, when you see -- when you read my book, you will see how the carpetbaggers who came from the north we're 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 jim crow laws, but my family was part of that. and then my family -- i have an ancestor in the texas legislature passing those jim crow laws. you know, and then -- so they were a part of that systematic campaign, if you will, to make sure that your ancestors did not have access to education, to capitol, to business and job opportunities, you know. and that continued up until the 60's. and your grandfather worked for all white tomlinson, 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. so, that is what i want. if we want reconciliation, if we want an end to our racial problems, the first thing that 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 is possible? do you think americans can move past the color of one's skin? i mean, it has been 150 years since the end of slavery. just over 50 years for the civil rights movement. so do you think that we can -- >> guest: i think we can