tonya grooms discovered her great grandfather was a free man falsely arrested on a trumped up charge vagrancy and made a slave until he died. we begin with tonya talking about her great grandfather. >> it represents these people but for the detailed research, they would have disappeared completely. what we didn't realize is people were being re-enslaved on a large scale. they were working for companies as leased labors but their crimes as in the case of my late ancestor vagrancy which means you can't prove you have a job. you could be picked up at any time, forced into labor where the sheriff's department or the courts may receive payment for your work but you never do. and often times it was brutal and unfortunately in the case of green cottingham, he does not survive. >> susan, your great grandfather, john williams, murdered 11 black workers. he was essentially using them as slaves. i want to play a very powerful moment from you in the film. >> i just got so emotional to think about not just the fact that these men were murdered h but the cruelty with which it was carried out. that

. >> tell us about tonya grooms and susan. was your influence on them. >> tonya grooms is a descendant of the main character in the book and the film whose name was green cottonham. he was arrested in 1908. sold into slavery in a coal mine in alabama. he died there a few months later. susan is a white woman, the great granddaughter of a man named john williams who lived in georgia and in 1921 after there was a brief investigation into that he was holding large numbers of african american men as slaves to try to avoid prosecution he murdered all of the black men who were on his farm. there were at least 11 bodies found. so these two women who come from, whose ancestry goes back to the opposite sides of this terrible chapter of american history both came forward and have beautiful perspectives and ways of discussing what you have been asking about and that is what does this matter. >> documentary fascinating. thank you. >> thanks for having me. >>> up next those two women we just spoke about join me in the studio. you'll hear th

. >> tell us about a couple of descendants named tonya grooms and susan banore. d your influence on them? >> in the case of tonya she is a descendant of the main character in the book and the main character in the film that -- whose name was green tottenham. he was an african-american man who was arrested on a specious charge in 1908. he was sold into slavery in a coal mine and died there under terrible circumstances. susan is a white woman and she's the great granddaughter of a man named john williams who lived in georgia and who in 1921 after there was a brief investigation into that he was holding large numbers of african-american men as slaves to try to avoid prosecution, he murdered all of the black men who were on his farm and there were at least 11 bodies found. and so these two women who come from -- whose ancestry goes back to the opposite sides of this terrible chapter of american history both came forward and they both have these beautiful perspectives and wonderful ways of discussing exactly what you've been asking about and that is what does this matt