my grandfather, i have the name fatima shaik. my grandfather came from india. one of the first indians to come to the united states in 1890, he came to new orleans, married a black creole woman, a black woman who was born in new orleans, she was the granddaughter i believe of an enslaved person, and enslaved person in louisiana who was purchased by her husband and then freed before she had children. that is different from the other side of my family, the great-grandmother of whom my great-grandmother had children by her owner, they were born enslaved and they were enslaved until they were at least 20 years old and i remember asking my grandfather, who is your family? he said who wants to know? he wasn't going to tell anything about his family. because of that history of slavery that he wasn't proud of but his father was a slave, they met in new orleans. >> guest: >> host: what you same years what you describe about the community, that the economy was serving which was in the 19th century, multiethnic and incredibly inclusive. i was very struck by the fact that

book is a treasure and i'm deeply excited about this conversation we're about to enjoy between fatima shaik and jennifer egan on "economy hall," the hidden history of a free black brotherhood. fatima, jennifer, please take it away. jennifer: hello, everyone, and thank you for being with us. i'm so excited to spread the word about this remarkable book that i've been talking with fatima about for years now and it's surpassed my every expectation in being a work of history that has an enormous sweep, coversep a lot of ground and has tremendous importance and is so readable and fun. i thought that -- it's a very complex work, and i thought maybe the best place to begin would be t really where you beg, fat marx in your introduction. tell us how this book came to be and it's a story that t begins with your father. fatima: sure. thank you, jennifer, and for everybody being here. my father found some journals in the trash in the back of the dump truck and brought them home and he put them in the closet. he found them in 1950s and they sat there for like about 50 years. so i was already a writer but

i am deeply excited about this conversation where about to enjoy between fatima shaik and jennifer egan on "economy hall: the hidden history of a free black brotherhood." fatima, jennifer, please take it away. away. >> hello, everybody. thank you for being with us. i am incredibly excited to have the chance to spread the word about this book that i've been talking about for some years now that has surpassed my expectations of being a work of history that's an enormous sweep covering a lot of ground and has a tremendous importance and yet is readable and fun. i thought it's a very complex work and i thought the best place to begin is where you begin in your introduction. tell us how this book came to be. it's a story that begins with your father. >> thank you to everybody for being here. i was already a writer by that time and i looked in the closet and saw all these journals and realized this was an important part of history. >> you can you describe what are the journals and what is the organization that produced them? the meeting of the economies and it's an organization that started i