Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20131013

First place. She was a little afraid of them so she was terrified to see these strangers waiting to a qasr all times of the day and night. Mcnamara had sent an Oil President of the painting as a gift to her. I discovered this when i went through some unpublished correspondence and mcnamaras files which i publish for the first time in this book and other things also from that collection. She wrote i cannot have that painting here. It brings too many things to the surface. The only photograph of jack that i even keep in the house he has his back partly turned to the viewer. And then she told mcnamara its heartbreaking because just last night john kennedy junior walked up to the painting and kissed her goodnight and said goodnight daddy. She said he had been eating candy so i apologize if you plan you get the painting back there will be sugary imprints on the face where he kissed his father. So these are the stories to me, these human stories that are as much history as the story of oswald which i tell in great detail who was who he was and why think you did it and things we do and dont know about it that nothing was more important to me than to tell these human stories about what it was like to live in america then. With the president went through what Jackie Kennedy went through with the families went through what america went through. I think its the saddest story that i have ever written about. It is as or more sad than the story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Theres also inspiration inspiration at the end too. About a year after the assassination after jackie gave her televised tribute to the people, not really televised. It was just a two or three minute statement trade she was sitting in attorney general Robert Kennedys office in a club chair and there was a fire in the fireplace. She had received 800,000 letters and they will all be answered. They will be in the Kennedy Library one day. One thing i did discover and i put in the book is jackie scathing letter where she wants to take back all the president stuff from harvard and the library and send it to ireland or washington. There was a big risk between her and the Kennedy Library and she said i should take it all back. Jack and bobby would be laughing in heaven if i did this to the harvard corporation. But during her thanks to the American People she just stops and out of nowhere she just says all his bright bright light gone from the world. A year later in a magazine she talked about his legacy. She said i remember him as he told me when he was a little boy , sick so much of the time. He was ill. John kennedy almost died at several points in his life not just during world war ii when his ship had sunk. He was often import health. Jackie says i think of them as this little lloyd in bed sick rating reading about great heroes and its inspired him to be something. She said i hope other children will do what he wanted to do and read these books and these Great American stories. And then she said at the end my husband believed that any man could make a difference and that every man should try. And so certainly that is i think ultimately the message of John Kennedys life and what which is why i tell in obsessive detail what happened in dallas. I dont want to end with that terry the book goes on with his legacy. John kennedy was a great president who loved america who believed in american exceptionalism and american greatness. He loved the american story and he could communicate that in an enthusiastic way. Probably his greatest trade was he could inspire or motivate others to do things to serve their country. And so i certainly hope just as with my books about the lincoln assassination and john wilkesbooth by the time young adults and audiences get to these books you will realize that heroes are not john wilkesbooth racist murderer who killed one of the best american president s ever and one of the greatest americans of all time. The heroes are not the cypher man lee harvey oswald. The heroes of my books and these two books are certainly john Kennedy Jacqueline kennedy and the story they wrote from the brief time from january 20, 1961 until november 22, 1963. So with that i thank you and you can ask some questions if you like. [applause] there is a microphone in the back of the room. Please go to that microphone. Just tip it towards you. Can you hear me . Yes, i can hear you fine. The security surrounding kennedy of course gets a lot of attention with conspiracy theories. Was that unusual for the time or was it typical of dallas . A few days later obviously security is surrounding oswald was poor enough to let ruby near him. Im just wondering at what point did they start learning about security . It took a long time. No lessons were learned after the murder of Abraham Lincoln and public figures including president kennedy were not properly protected even into the 1960s. One time he was traveling in a motorcade and someone tossed a bouquet of flowers in his car. What if it was a hand grenade or a stick of dynamite . Recordings conspiracies those secret Service Agents and ive met a number of them, they loved him. Its inconceivable that any of them would have participated in any conspiracy to murder the president. Some theorists defamed them but its not true. Unfortunately security was not then what it is like today. Then the president had one limousine. Today the president has three two decoys and the one he is really an all identical. You would never find a president in an open car convertible or walking about in public. It was a different time. I can explain why it was that way because people have tried to kill harry truman in an armed attack at the warehouse when the white house was being renovated. Porter weekend nationalist terrorist opened fire in the 1950s and shot five congressman. The bullet holes are still in the furniture of the u. S. House of representatives. Franklin roosevelt was almost assassinated when he was president he was president elect with the mayor of chicago took bullets and roosevelt survive. We have had enough examples that security was not good but it was just a different time. Kennedy didnt have any were security than was typical for american leaders of the late 1950s or early 1960s. It was unfortunate because so many things if a few things had gone differently that day he would have survived that day. A couple of questions. One which ties in with a security issue. There were stories and i cant remember at what point in time but about the secret service having been out the night before in some of the clubs similar to the one that jack ruby brand getting drunk so they really werent prepared on the 22nd and maybe you could comment on that. I have heard those stories and they had been mentioned as early as 1963. What were the agents doing . Were they out carousing . All i know is this. No carousing prevented two agents from standing on the back of the president s limousine which would have blocked a oswalds main angle. The president didnt want them there so anything they might have done the night before did not interfere with having them stand on the back of the car. To tie in with that i was a little older than you were at the time and i remember vividly a couple of weeks before hearing about the Adlai Stevenson incident and i think the fears that they had for the president having the dallas dallas newspaper ad and so forth i think the mentality at that time was that there be an incident similar to the Adlai Stevenson incident. Yes. What you are referring to is when twoterm president ial candidate kennedys ambassador to the United States Adlai Stevenson went to dallas and he was harassed and heckled by a crowd. A woman allegedly hit him in the head with a protest sign. Kennedy was warned dallas is against you. Its a city of hate. The conservatives of the rightwing are after you. Chief justice oral warrant blamed conservatives in his intemperate remarks at the u. S. Capital at the memorial for president kennedy. Jackie kennedy didnt lame the city of hate. She didnt blame dallas. She didnt blame the conservatives. She didnt lame the right wing. In fact the night of the assassination when she was at bethesda Naval Hospital awaiting the autopsy and the embalming of the president she said to her mother, i cant believe it was just a silly little communist. He didnt even have the satisfaction of dying for civil rights. But you are right. For years people blamed dallas as the city of hate. The political divisiveness that somehow killed kennedy. If i could ask one final question because it ties in with the lincoln books as well. I remember one of the first things after the four days had passed was hearing as a schoolchild the similarities between the kennedy assassination and lincoln. It goes on and on and im just wondering if all those things were in fact true or what you discovered about that and also he thought about writing a book. Everybody in this room that is about this age has a very distinct memory as you set up what happened and maybe putting those stories together for a book on the letters to Jackie Kennedy . The summaries i will talk to you about the fleet. How many letters are in their names and where were they killed there were trivial connection so i didnt pursue them. Im doing two books. Im doing a Childrens Book on Martin Luther king and thinking of doing a Jackie Kennedy both. I am definitely doing a book on dr. King and i might do a book on Jackie Kennedy. Anyone else . Thank you very much. [applause]. He has written a book about growing up in West Virginia title crapalachia a biography of place. Coming of age book is set in contemporary appalachia and doesnt romanticize the place. It give slices of experience in the life of somebody coming up in the contemporary reality which includes includes a lot of family members and people he obviously has a lot of affection for and recalling a lot of humorous episodes and it is also about growing up in the daytoday realities in contemporary appalachia, local impoverishment, powerlessness in the local community, living in the wake of outsiderss exploitation of many parts of the southern mountains. Is a different emphasis and in places has been understood to be controversial by some people but i found a lot of it very Good Spirited and humorous and accepting of the details and the people he writes about in the book. Let me introduce and he will be reading for us some and we will have some questions and so forth but the author of crapalachia a biography of place, here is scott mcclanahan. [applause] i apologize for the voice. My daughter started Nursery School month ago and i have been sick ever since. Hopefully it will last. I want to read about 20 minutes and then open up to questions and get out of here so i will show you what i do. First, from childhood, came to our house, brushed the crumbs away, through the chickens of the porch, make the fire, make the bread, and all the other children suffer things that are done, they sit around a table and have the most fun listening to the which is sales the danny tells about and they will get you too if you dont watch out. Little boy never said his prayers, spend the night upstairs, his mom heard him holler and is that heard him ball and when he turned his covers down he was in there at all but said in a room cubbyhole and pressed and accepting jimmy fluid anywhere i guess but all they ever found was little pants and roundabout and getting too you dont watch out and once there was a liberal she made fun of everyone and of her blood and skin, the company in the old folks were there, she mocked him that shocked him and said she didnt care. When she went running high she went running high and the gold monsters standing by her side. And she knew what she was about and the goblin will get you too a few dont watch out. Little orphan annie says when the breezes blue with whip like sputters in windows who. Better mind your pants and your teachers song and the year, better cherish them and love you, draw the orphans to you, help the poor and anyone in cluster, alabama or they will get you too if you dont watch out. Da da da da. A man who eats meat wants to get his teeth into something. Man who does not eat meat wants to get his teeth into something too. Any of these thoughts interest you but for a moment then you are lost. Doc the does the job evelyn adams swerving a short, then the debate brings us back for circulation back to house, castle, bliss you, james joyce and samuel beckett, a year zero, maybe. When i was in fourth grade a little girl in my class got killed. A few weeks before the school dance i wanted to ask her to dance but was too shy. Showed up the School Monday morning and randy dugan told me about it. Did you hear about ginnie sugar, she got killed in a car crash yesterday. Tractortrailer hit her mom. Theyre both that. Into believing matters because he was always making up stuff like this can going on about how that lives in england even though this was something his mother told him because his dad left him for another woman and never came back but he kept going on about it. My mom saw the moon last night, she is dead. Ice it and it will not really knowing what was going on wondering whether it was true or not but it was true. A couple minutes later fourth grade teacher mrs. Morgan sat down on her desk and put her head hands. You are supposed to be working on spelling words like mother, everybody stopped and watched her. She sat for a second and started to cry. I listened to her cry and thought we are not going to have to do any work today. Another girl started crying too. Miss morgan walked over and asked if she needed to go to the better man she nodded her head yes. Mrs. Morgan touch amys shoulder and asked to go to the better with endeavour and told my friend mack, didnt even know his that well. I was jealous because i wished i could be freed too. She was able to compose herself and i know this is a horrible accident, there will be a funeral tomorrow and i hope we can all go, you need your parents if you wish to go. Bible also be calling each of your parents tonight. She said was too much for everyone to stay behind and be shown the movie, somebody raised their hand and said what movie . Mrs. Morgan said she didnt know, she thought maybe a superman movie. I was thinking maybe superman at the funeral. Next day at school it seemed everybody else at the funeral, got on the bus all dressed up in a nice shirt and tie, church dress and church shoes, watching from the windows, got on the school bus, only a couple of us didnt go that day, me and deborahs group, kevin manley, the kid with pants, he wanted to do too but since he lifted his pants teachers made up excuse that he couldnt go, was the leftist endeavour their class and superman iv in the vcr and there was a part of me saying this is great, two days we havent had to do any work. Go to a funeral and superman and after watching half an hour of superman 4 i realize something important, superman iv was horrible. You could see the wires Holding Christopher reeve in the air, and the special needs girl started crying. They will turn of the movie, quit crying, superman iv wasnt Getting Better and started smelling something. Sniffed my nose a couple times and then, you prove your pants, didnt you. Superman iv, he said no i did, yes you did, no i did, yes you did, i smell it. He raised his hand to do what he always did, speech impediment voice, i will tilt tell the teacher and you. The teacher came over, picking on me. And smelled the tuna and turned off of vcr and put kim to the bathroom, didnt watch the end of the movie. An hour later the school bus pulled back in front of lawful and they were all dressed up and nice dresses for some reason and still didnt look happy. Even tried to tell my best friend how superman iv was normal and i should be happy, it was horrible. I didnt say anything, just looked at me all discuss it for the rest of the day i sat on my desk thinking how superman iv was for less than the thinking of jenny sugar and asking her to the dance and thought about how ive practiced my moms old records the tennessee waltz alone in my room, thought about how i was too nehr this tool as current couple weeks earlier my mom took a picture of her and she didnt even smile, school carnival, she was embarrassed because she just started wearing braces. The next couple weeks was like the rest of the kids forgot about jenny sugar, like they would want to stay behind what superman, like never even happened, wasnt even a week later and they were asking again and, playing touch football, recess, strange the jenny was gone, what was the funeral like, people crying, they act like they did know what i was talking about and one day in across the word as k e l e t o n, skeleton. I stopped doing them, looked around, other kids were spelling skeleton like there was nothing wrong with and. Went to the battered as two teachers talking about jennys debt and said i think the kids are holding out well, just so horrible what happened and the other teacher whispered like she didnt want anyone to hear she whispered word, decapitated. I kept thinking about it. I knew what this word lament. I thought of jenny sugar without a head, thought about jenny sugars skeleton and the lead and so much, couldnt even get in my moms car. Weavers of those of visit my grandmother in virginia but getting even more scared, worried about how was baptized and how i was going to seller i didnt want to go anywhere. Didnt want to get in the car and get killed by a tractortrailer and lose my head. This went on for weeks. We were supposed to leave and said in a car and told her i dont want to go. My mom was mad. We were supposed to be leaving. White in title this a couple weeks ago. Then it dawned on her that i was afraid something was going to happen to us. I said in a car and cried why did jenne have to get killed . My mom shrugged and said i dont know why. I ask where is jenny now . I dont know, i really dont. She was telling the truth. I was shaking out. I asked if anything that would happen to us. My mom thought for a second and said i wont led anything bad happen to you. I was feeling better and then she said it again as we pull away, dont worry about that. Theres nothing bad ever going to happen to us so pretend i am your mother, pretend i whispering these words to you, dont worry about it now. Theres nothing bad ever going to happen to us. Please believe me. I am a liar and then later that night i dreamed i was in a room in the future and cspan cameras were there and win let me move. I did it anyway. Was i dancing or anything . You love me. Pretend we all love one another. Pretend we will be like this together always. Pretend we will never die. From childhoods hour i have not been as others were, i have not seen as of this sock, i could not bring a feeling from the common spring, from the same source i have not taken. My sri could not awaken, my heart in joy for the soul and all that love have left alone. From my childhood from the dawn, this story life has been drawn. And the mystery, the strange mystery. From the top and the red cliffs and mountains and the sun and the ground in its crescent light of gold when all of heaven was blue. Only a demon in my view but in the dream i didnt stop the reading with that. Ended this. I cant abide those covers which conceal your fundamental charms. Those fabulous shoulders, the be which and between your legs, you, my audience, nothing but underwear, delicious theyll forbidding entry, cloth of a reverential cult, charming, repeatedly ripped away, first in morning, then at noon, and again at night. I needed to see a psychiatrist. That is what sarah said the night after we talked. I knew i needed to see a psychiatrist and needed her to hear a few things. Listened to me tell her i dont want to get on any medicines because people in the twelfth century heard voices they were called saints. Today they call you crazy. I dont have to talk to anyone who wears turquoise jewelry. I didnt want to talk to another thought about turquoise jewelry. Of the cage to associate with someone who wore a turquoise jewelry. However people went paula about organic power and the healing power of crystals. Can someone said it would be someone who didnt want to get me high or they did. Next morning when i went to work, to get my panic attack, a couple books are funny or wisdom or the true path to wisdom written by people from a book they never went to the bathroom before. This is of spiritual they looked. She gave me this book entitled the anxiety and phobias workable complete with worksheets. Who would take the time to complete work shes they felt they were getting ready to have a panic attack. Next that of the book to the corner, started feeling anxious, picked it back up and flipping through pages looking for shoulders, couldnt find anything with a chapter heading like that. And keith ahead through the door and through a newspaper and was reading a book in title the anxiety and phobias work book. My phone rang. I picked up, my coworker laughed. Had the name of someone for me to talk to, called of the number and set up an appointment, and over there everything is going to get better. When i got there it was different and vital difference sitting in the weight room or the office of the Child Welfare centers surrounded by balls the kind of policies young 2020 Television Investigations and where did he tell . Can you show me on our little ball here . I waited a few moments of the womans voice said come on in. I went in and fill the tightness in my shoulders, there is mood music in the background and waterfall going trickle and she was wearing you guessed it, turquoise jewelry. I sat down and told her my stories, about the street i grew up on playing football and what was wrong and asked me how i felt about killing someone about my diversion a vital peer, to the deep breath and told her i feel fine. Next time i went to see her she did something strange, had been do roleplaying exercise, the in the top of my shoulder and asked to visualize my pain as the ball, imagine it is a ball sitting on your shoulder. I did. Cheadle me she wanted me to take the ball in my hand and pretend i was holding the ball in my hands. Yes would you want to do with your pain . I held the ball and said melodramatically like on was on a tv show wants to shake it. I want to shape into a sword. Imagine that ridiculous i sounded. Imagine how ridiculous i sounded telling this to a complete stranger. I was a jackass. I told her how uncomfortable, came around large groups of people even people in the house and told me obviously your house has been penetrated, being penetrated all over again. After that when i was raising hell i would say i have to penetrate. Do you understand . My house is being penetrated, give me a break. Even when i was having a bad day, having heard tell me shut up, not saying anything, being quiet, talking in girlfriends voice, has your house been penetrated . I shake my head yes and looked all people. Ever i was done saying that, listening to a waterfall, went down her watch and tell she was bored but she didnt want to listen to sad stories and i didnt blame her and she wanted me to spend a day in isolation, a whole day and see how i felt and the day of isolation is exactly what she needs. I really think the day of isolation would work well for you. Next week even though i didnt want to lie to get old they off from work, and went to western junior for my day of isolation and everything would be fine. And try to do a couple things. Got in the car, use the bathroom at the gas station, and got there and full of the new river, parked the car and at the russian water. And i am 35. And tried to generate thoughts, sounds, shapes. Drink mountain dew and it will be better. I closed my eyes and thought about trying to recycle and always told me shot of. What kind of woman doesnt like love poems. Watching the river and raptors is here and looked at the watch and try to forget about it. It is not what we thought, looked down at the river some more and 9 47, and at the car and i decided it is short cds. And they went through all of them and only two cds and felt like two are three hours had passed. Was 10 15. I waited a long time. Only 10 20. It was 10 22. I shook my head, one of my doing . And the world is full of pain. That is the way it is. We bring the pain from the darkness and call it wisdom. And driving all the way up the mountain, my house there, my wife of two years and a couple friends i had. And chicken wings, dvd player and going to see folks and Football Game saturday watching nascar sunday and read when i cant sleep, and watching war on television, films and rivers rising, watching rivers rising and what is happening around world and the end of the world and my life and i was isolated. But heres a flourish. Cspan provided that. I lost a woman in a story last year. Sometimes you lose things. There are other things you find. Other things listening with a secret heart so i will recites a little bit this have been, recite a love poem and if you believe, you look like a believing budget will travel across the country to california, but first we need a song that she loves, she loves the halles. Here we go. Do you ready . Like heavens home listening for a fair world. And pin that single dress she wears so the busys eyes can be lost and lace yourself to this harmonious chime. And golf with those shoes and safely tread bolland temple, license my roving hands and let them go, between and below. My new found reading lamp. How blessed i am in discovering you. My mind of precious stones, modules, fear to set your skin will be, to feel the whole story. Please tell me you remember more than books. Please tell me you remember kindness and july. In this anoth. In this anotheroy. In this another. In this another poem for secret heart. Excellent and sad. Make the matter straight and pillow around and no yellow sunshine interrupt the ground and then this. It is okay. It is all right. And come peer and 40 years from now. And i will tell you this, and will tell you you have been visited by ghosts. This room is a time machine. Lots of time. Beautiful young faces and the volume mines and beautiful young faces and beautiful young hearts. I will take questions and answers now. Hopefully not that long. I dont know how to answer. [applause] given them a halfhour if you dont have questions. Yes, sir . Thank you. The issue in the red. Having to request. Got microphone. Dont know if they can hear you or not. No pressure. We dont feel the half hour. I am sure they have some trent lott footage. Goahead. The second piece you read, where is it from . From hill william. I didnt really follow directions. It was supposed to be about crapalachia but neither of those pieces are from crapalachia but crapalachia is a good book. You should buy one. I will sign it for you. Thank you for the dance. Thank you. It comes out at the end, the beginning of november, november 5th is the new release, the new york tyrant books. If you are in new york at the end of the month i will be kgb on october 30th at 7 00 for the book release party. There is free booze too. Anyone have questions . I am interested in the fractured place from which you come in terms of where you live and how your peers and colleagues respond to your greetings and perspective about life . I teach at a local community college, a lot of students transferring from nursing. They have a book club there. They read the book in the book club. My parents always read my stuff but it has been about it. I have tried to keep it as providence as you can appearing live on television. At least attempted to do that. I dont think that really answers your question. I dont know what else the risk of spoiling the end of the book. I like how you went into detail about what was true and where you skimp with it. I wondered if that was pressure from publishers or if it was a way of saying it was emotionally true . More fiction than the book. I just told you it was truth, you believe the appendix would true, i change the appendix too. That was a horrible thing you say you do when you write nonfiction but nonfiction is just something you can put an extra dollar on the book because people dont buy novels any more. That is pretty much it. Robert caro is a great novelist, a great artist more so than a great scholar. He is organizing facts in a particular fashion. Anyone else . Do you think in terms of fiction versus nonfiction or do you just kind of write what you want to right . I get the question that i dont really struggled with, i dont worry about it. Like your clothes. Your clothes are fiction, arent they . They were made, you put the on, as they are part of you, arent they . I appeared with my clothes in front of you right now and this building is a fiction because you knock your head against the wall and see how it feels, is there, it is a real. That is how i always felt. I always try to be entertaining. I know that is a crazy thing in the world of writing. I just try to be entertaining. That is a high calling. I am not being flip about that. Other questions . Talk about crapalachia. A lot of times my mom doesnt like it. That is true in the back of the book. It is a lot like the area. Farmers know about fertilizer. You dont have anything in this World Without fertilizer. You dont have anything in this World Without the crack of existence and on the surface i dont want to talk about the air. I hate people who talk about the air. My appalachia is a house in a little town. These guys earlier, they are not even really towns in these places. Is a collection of homes you pass through on a road. It is a house with a kid and a father that is my appalachia. Not some idea or top removal argument or power to the people but power to the people. And the congressional funding comes up, there is someone going on to anarchy. They are no longer laughing. Anyone else . Thank you guys for coming. We are cut short peer. I apologize we have ramons like to set. Sometimes it is better to have 40 minutes of this then another hour of people telling where they were for the jfk its my pleasure to welcome mac griswold to nashville. Mac was a trained Cultural Landscape is and is authored Washington Gardens in mt. Vernon and the golden age of american gardens. She has written for the New York Times and the wall street journal. In 1984 she first visited Sylvester Manor on long island and began to learn about this history including the history of northern slavery. She researched the family papers at new york university. Then with the help of the guggenheim fellowship she traveled to barbados and ghana. Her own background also tells the story. While her mother has roots in the north for fathers family were slaveholders for six generations throughout the south. We look forward to hearing her story. [applause] you said it would be brief and that is for sure what you are. Thank you very much. Its a pleasure to be here and bring a story of northern slavery which very often gets forgotten to the south. I will start if i can operate this can everybody hear me but its a story about a house and how its a cradle of an amazing American History that dates back to early as colonial times. Here we have a scene of pastoral beauty with sheep grazing and a lovely old house and of course the dog guarding the sheep and telling them where to go. But wells is what else is there about this place . Juliet. Halfpence johnson the daughter of freed slaves of Sylvester Manor. She was the housekeeper. I found out a lot about her. Often through four generations of sylvester descendents. She was the housekeeper there and she was described by the local memory keeper of the island ebb in case who just died he remembers her. He remembered her when he was a kid. He said she was fierce and feared. She is buried in the slave graveyard at Sylvester Manor. She was buried there in 1907. Its the 50th anniversary year of the march on washington and just as the nation has seen voting restrictions passed in texas that make it close to impossible for the poor and people of color to cast their ballots this seems an time to talk about slavery in the north and to point out that the american system of slavery penetrated every region of our nation in the first two years not just the south. My book about the history of Sylvester Manor in new york has taken three continents as john explained across for centuries and is taken me more than 10 years of research to write this forgotten story which is still in plain sight. As of landscape historian i found the sobering journey finally brought me back to the manor into its lance shaped very early on by many hands often those of africans and africanamericans. Surprise. The house is still the same color today as in 1885. Behind the house i dont think im going to be able to do the pointer thing from here. Can you all see the water behind the house . Oh god. Okay. This is the only place north of the masondixon line that still has its original water landing and still has 243 acres of land, still has the ancient house and it still has the papers which i found in the house in the secret cache that you will see pictures of in a minute. The guy who inherited it because its owned by the same family that settled in 1651 and the guy who inherited it is luckily for the manor was a Founding Member of pixar studios so he was able because he didnt want to live there. He wants to live in hollywood. He has given the 243 acres of land to the nonprofit established here is an educational farm that is being used for educational programs. Young farmers live in the house. The land has been followed for 100 years and is being farmed organically and they are selling all the produce at a stand. In a sense evan osby has saved history by giving it a way and i see it in a sense of both reparations and im sure we will talk about that at some point, reparations and renewal. I came to this house by water in an inlet and got stuck in the mud and i guess you could say i have been there ever since. So where are we exactly . You could say that Shelter Island was somewhere between levittown long island the Big Development and the hamptons, that famous playground of the rich and famous. Can you make out long island up there . Where is that poynter . Long island is the place to which all those arrows are going. Lets just put it that way. Long island roughly speaking. So what brought me there . Why did i think i could do something about this . The foxworth that i saw on my first visit led me to explore the history. As a landscape historian im used to reading the most minute and then obvious clues about what landscapes mean and when i crawled under one of those bushes and realized that the stems conquer really the trunks of the boxwood were 10 inches across. I said these are really old. So on i went on this walk where he trespassed and left out. I walked around and i said anybody whom . Nobody was home. It was simply wonderful. I saw that path. It goes 200 years straight back into history. That is what the boxwood to look like a century before i came there but the gate post this is again one of those tiny clues that you would look at, whether it was something you smell or something you see your something you touch ruidoso not the same gate posts are the one one that are there now leading to the garden. So eventually since there are no mailboxes i found my way to the owners by asking if the local Grocery Store who owned that place back their behind the big ugly white cement case and it was the sylvesters. Nathaniel sylvesters signature signature he is one of the four english sugar and merchants, two of them expatriots. Not religious expatriots economic expatriates. It did not belong to a guild which would take half of their profits and govern what they could sell. So they bought this 8000acre island to supply their barbadian plantations conquered their own and others actually on barbados would solve meet and with staples such as bread and livestock to drive the mills and barrel staves that were cut from their red and white oak forests of Shelter Island. The west indies trade is what really drove what we have come to call the Atlantic World. Which included both the north atlantic and the south atlantic. And you can find something out about a person like Nathaniel Sylvester if you read what he wrote. He didnt write much so he was the youngest of the four partners. He became the resident proprietor. By 1680 at the time of his death there were 24 enslaved africans and africanamericans. They used to call people who were born on this side of the atlantic creoles, not meaning by color. Just meaning you were born here. So what did i think of this man . He was a harddriving man with a nose for business and for canning real estate purchases. We can tell from his will this phrase you see up here that he was used to absolute authority. And i guess that can inform us how he behaves towards people in bondage. He wanted to create a kingdom on this island and he wrote should any part of the land be sold by any of his children it shall be as if he had never been born. It tells you quite a lot about this man. So in the first two decades between 1651 and the 16 70s buildings were built and demolished and reconfigured and revamped. It was a frenzy of construction more or less like something in this old house. Some of the carpenters ironworkers and masons were enslaved africans coming north through the caribbean trade. By 1885 it looked like this and imposing house that only a merchant with a hand in the west indies trade and the slave labor force could afford. It was demolished in the 1730s and replaced by the nathaniels grandson with a house you have already seen a picture of. So eventually i met andy fisk who was the tenth generation of the family but the 14 proprietor because thank god these people were litigious. The best way to do do family researchers to discover that everybody had a court case against everybody else because you find out and im sure you have discovered that too, e. U. Find out fantastic things that nobody really wanted you to know but they have to because they were on the record. He was a descendent that i met and i knocked on the door. He said come in. This was after i had written to him about five times. And his wife. Andy and i stood in this beautiful room where there are only two coats of paint since the panels were set into the walls in 1740. It just sent chills up my spine. It sounds like charleston where everybody got so poor but this was long island. Thats the whole story and you have to read about it in my book. And he took me down this dark hall and he took past family portraits dim behind his peeling wallpaper lay the fireproof vault where the old trunks lay all around on the floor. Can you see those . Because i cant from here. I can see them beautifully on the screen but i just want to make sure you all can see them too. The ceiling was only 7 feet tall and the walls just pressed in around on us. 160watt lightbulb there and i thought nobody has looked at this stuff. Once outside and opened up the documents began to reveal their secrets. So it wasnt until later in that copy of the 1680 will that lists the names and families of the people that Nathaniel Silvester held in bondage that i was able to understand the scale of this place which was the largest slaveholding plantation in the north in 1680. 24 people by far exceeds the normal pattern of northern bondage. I guess i would like to point out reading from the top joke where all and hanna. I paid a lot of attention to the names. He could be either thats not his african name but he is probably one of the very sophisticated Atlantic World creoles who spoke five or six languages and neither came through brazil, portuguese are you came through a french colony , shock. As you slide down the list you see this kid. What is very unusual here is that she must have been named after the older in the next line. Can you all see this pretty well . And that is a rare privilege isnt it john, to be able to have not your honors name your children but to name your children yourself after an honored person, perhaps even your grandmother. The people on this list that i find most interesting are the two with african names tamara men and oyou. My bet is that oyou or oyou issue was sometimes called came from the kingdom of oyou in west africa and someone said to her when she was shipped it off from the west indies or when she arrived in the west indies after the middle passage, what is your name . She said i am oyou, her name. One of those children as you see a obium one of the four children learn to read, ran away, he came back and was caught three he tried to get his freedom. He came back and taught his son to read. So he became Jupiter Hammond became the First Published africanamerican poet in this nation. So the silvester plantation holds six families who were as much founding families in this nation as any other family that you can think of. So andy and i traveled on. That was my introduction, was the idea that there were slaves in this house but i didnt really have it until after this tour. In the landscape parlor where i signed the guestbook and turned to admire the mantle and that fantastic paper on the walls i also saw a fine door with two holes cut in the panel above. Walking towards the door i asked the question. Where does that door lead and andy said to the slave staircase. Well this was before the african Burial Ground excavations in discovery in new york city and so at that time i felt as though i were one of the few people in the north to know that slavery had existed in the north on long island and in this particular house. It was a powerful social structure that lasted for more than 200 years. It just wasnt just to clear the land and then a race. It was obliterated from memory because it didnt suit the norths version of the civil war. Although the fight for africanamerican freedom began in new england the story of Race Relations in this region was put aside and essentially it became the skeleton in the attic. This is the staircase on the left on the other side of that entrance. I feel like a certain politician with my bottle of water. Nobody goes up that staircase anymore. Its use of the china cupboard. Its steps are very steep and i couldnt help but notice when i went up the front staircase. Which has fourinch risers and you just float up like an angel. Thank you john. Oh my kind i like too. I couldnt help but make the comparison between the lives of africanamericans whose toil to climb up the steep steps like this and for white people who climbed up the steps with a fourinch risers with all the other things that they had to help them education money and intact families. So we got to the attic and that is where enslaved people lived and you will see more pictures of this later. Then andy took me outside and we were going to go on a tour of the grounds. Meantime i was absorbing the atacamas staircases and the acknowledged presence of slavery which to me was very interesting because andy understood that his family have had been slaveholders for hundreds of years. He felt no explicit shame. It was just part of his history like Everything Else that happened, the wars in the pestilence, the divorces, the legal battles, the loss of children. Part of it was the story of slavery. He kept it but just never talked much about his so on we went. I want to tell you sort of where we did go. Here is the inlet. This is where i got stuck in the mud. There is where i landed. Everybody has landed on this property. Black, white, native american. Its the ideal landing point. Heres the house. Here is the garden. Thats where the path runs across. That is the old foxwoods so we headed out from a house on this winding road. Lots of ponds. That is why the region was such a good place. Freshwater ponds, watered the livestock and would have themselves. We came to the monument after we had been through some of the woods. I think its this cough drop is whats doing it for me. Thank you. What a shock. Here is the quaker graveyard where the silvesters as the earliest quaker protectors of new england are commemorated. Henry dire at the quaker lawyer came here for shelter in 1659. George fox founder of the quakers came here in 1673. They were very prominent quakers mary dire came to Shelter Island to spend six months there, the last six months of her life. She preached to the indians and to the assembled africans and then she said im going to go back to boston. Burn a candle for the lord which is exactly what she did. She went to the landing on that inlet, got into a boat and crossed the bay and crossed Long Island Sound and the providence where her family was. She didnt want them to know what she was doing. Went to boston and was hanged on boston colony because she had dared to come back to boston. She was a martyr to her faith. When her body hung in the air from the gallows tree a little wind blew through her skirt. Somebody said scoffing lee she hangs like a flag. Somebody else said, a quaker probably said yes, she hangs like a flag for men to do justice by. Thats exactly what happened. The throttle hold of church and state union was broken soon after mary dires death. She was the only woman to be hanged for a very long time in boston. So there was a way to achieving freedom but not yet. Not yet for all the other people of color on Shelter Island. So what about this anomaly . It seems that conflict for the silvesters to owned and traded slaves and then quakers but the explanation is that in 1647 when foxx was struck by the inner light he and everyone else had no compunction about holding slaves or trading slaves and that lasted for a century until 1758 when the philadelphia was the first to abolish slavery among its members. Anybody who held slaves or traded in slaves in 1758 in the philadelphia meeting was banished from meeting. So it took 100 years for even the quakers who believed in the sanctity of an individual to overcome the strictures of slavery. So we were standing at the monument and it did cross my mind that both andy and his 19th century forebears for horsfords who put up this monument were actually more horrified by the physical treatment of quakers and other dissidents than by any cruelties of their family slaves. No records of punishment exist exist of slaves exists in the papers but all you have to do is to look at the ferocious Colonial Legislature models out of the west indies that was passed at the end of the 17th century. It tells us what was permitted and encouraged within the law to do to a person who is considered considered on we went andy and i leading the quakers to the ponds in the oaks of the forest there with an occasional glimpse of the house through the trees. By the time andys house was built in the 1730s long islanders owned more human chattel than any other group of colonists in the north. In outlying areas such as Shelter Island up to half the work horse was enslaved. Eventually we came to the Southwest Corner of the slave Burial Ground. The Burial Ground of the people of the manner. Since 1651. Leave because graveyards were segregated africans graveyards became free spaces repositories of african religious and cultural traditions. The slaves used fuel lights to renew traditional ceremony surrounding death and to remember the chain of ancestors that connected them to their homelands. For the slaves death freed their spirits to return to africa. This is presently under archaeological investigation by the university of massachusetts boston. I will show you a map later that shows you how much archaeology has been done there over eight years to reveal the presence of all the people who lived at the manner, black, white and native american alike. The other place that silvester manors africans in their dissent since descendents controlled was a garden. They both mentioned it garden. When the first of esters began to report africans probably through the west indies both masters and slaves would would e known such plots on barbados. While traces and records of many such gardens exist in the south besides this one even the mention in the north we know they existed but we dont find them anymore. There were fewer to start with its true. After final emancipation in a dork july for, 1827 and when freed africanamericans left or the cities the ground was used for other purposes in most cases but here at the manner at least up until 1859 when Samuel Gardner one of the descendents of this long line of proprietors noted planting i love these notes. This is an account book. Its very matteroffact. Its not colorful. Planted six rows of corn in the garden. So then the exciting story began of how to find that place. In my book. Only archaeology will reveal the story. So as i spent time in the family papers my Shelter Island world quickly expanded. The four partners were what i would call early laval caplis. They have good credit in the netherlands. The transactions were very sophisticated mechanisms for credit in amsterdam particularly. And their connections around the Atlantic World included salt european manufactured goods staples such as the livestock and the lead in the different grains that i mentioned earlier and sugar and molasses shipped to europe and new england. The lowest lying here shows you the trip in 1646 that nathaniel made to the west coast of africa. This shows a typical loading scene of africans from el nina. Its quite a wellknown illustration. One of the captains captive africans was an extraordinary recorder. He is leaning over the tunnel as if he or she was about to jump out and they preferred drowning to being shipped away from their family and their homeland. And this person was holding a hand to his or her cheek as if in sorrow. I find this such an extraordinary moving detail. The rest of the big image shows you the ships and shows you the castles but bardot took the chance to show you the human tragedy. I also saw these fishing canoes and it struck me that these, which are famed throughout the west coast of average as being the best sailing boats, the most beautifully crafted and by far the best Fishing Vessels in west africa until you come to modern times. Wouldnt the first africans on Shelter Island recognize such a canoe when the local priest came ashore to recognize a tree or indians were slave throughout the continent, two press minorities were national allies. How many Shelter Island africans tried to gain their freedom by paddling away from the island in indian canoes is not known. The record is solvent but i often wonder. I was lucky enough to have contacts close to the ivory coast border ranch near the river where the slaves crossed on their way to the coast. Local field superintendent of an American University prehistoric did close to the mountains behind him welcome to me. Rural life, am not going to pretend in any way resembles what african life was like in the seventeenth centuries when the others were forced to leave but for me as a landscape historian has a piece of country life, the smell of the earth and the clouds of red dust, the yens, dinner together in the shade something has happened here. There we go. And those are called gotten a gust, those low eggplants in the cool of the evening ended a shade of the 3. I wanted to give a sense of the personal, as like it was from minute to minute, resourceful, steady people from all parts of africa somehow managed to remake the same cultural atmosphere in america. In the north that meant rarely since slaves spend their lives by dan tonight together with their captors. They slept together in the same house in at attica that you saw in the loss of barns or storage buildings but this is a long detour away from my parents object, the house of sylvester manner but a vital part of the story that i tell, returning to the manner of a fall of the threads of slavery, emancipation, racism and prejudice as it was woven, and then forgotten through 360 years on this one site since their daughters first set foot on this island in 1653. Archaeology. Field archaeology requires squads of people and was of money and a historical archeologist who dug at jamestown and on cape cod at a Christian Indian site with absolutely no stranger to the colonial seventeenth century. He can with a preliminary team in summer of 1998 after i started my research. Field work continued for eight years. To everyones surprise over 8,000 acres spread in all directions all activities, all exchanges between people and cultures took place close to the lending where we discussed, here. Sell here is the house, there is the garden. Here in the midst in gory detail shows you how animals were killed and send to the west indies, and the shovel test pits that tell you all the other places we look for stuff but didnt find it. What we are looking at in the next slide will be right here. It was archaeologists love fresh heaps and waste better than absolutely anything in the world. After the excavated number of summer is the came up with a bright idea of excavating and the hundred pound block, and that is the middle, the garbage later in here. I expressed and express everything people have, that they toss or have lost so lots of very good things came at all of that. That is the field superintendent saying how the hell are we going to get this out of here . 800 pounds. Had brought a special box to carry this block intact up to the lab at the university of massachusetts boston. Steve digs, would under the voiceless conversation that had taken place on Shelter Island between europeans, indians and africans, struggles over power and the use of space revealed by artifacts in this a multi layered evidence rose in buildings. Nothing is ever lost is the archaeologist mantra but the house was the best source of information, shielded her secrets very slowly and almost miss this one. On the center at border at sylvester manner, montauk bullet, isaac farrow ventured at the age of 5, quote, of his own free will of stated indenture phrase lived here and scratched the lions of ships, many of them obsessively in the dormer. Here is isaacs sailboat and i said to myself when i saw it, i said sail away, a hightech, sail away, but he could not. Thank you all very much for coming to listen to me. I hope you ask me some questions, thank you. [applause] you can ask me questions. Is that all right . Thank you very much. We thoroughly enjoyed that presentation. Are there any questions and if so we ask that you go to the mic. What information exists of the families and their ancestors and their families that extended all those centuries that you have described . Is this working . Is this turned on . It is. Okay. Sylvesters, the white family, there is reams of information for the black families, there is nothing past 1907 when julia was placed in the graveyard because of what i said about the exodus of africans, africans were still coming in in the Nineteenth Century direct from africa but because of the exodus of africans and africanamericans from Shelter Island because nobody would seldom any land there is no cohesive history generation to generation. We know of one person who ended up in sag harbor who was related to julies father but not to her mother, a slave. I am hoping we are going to be able to follow that frail from 1867, shortly after the civil war ended and see where we can get. My focus was really on the founding of this place and how slavery developed. Thanks for your question. How are you doing . Thank you. I enjoyed your presentation, thank you for that. I am originally from the west indies, a very small island and i have been to barbados a few times. Interesting, given the history, keeping through history into the slave era of the worlds. There were probably certain things that were heavy on your chest or you would just excited about or rested with you and followed you throughout your research. What was the most jarring revelation you had in your exploration of the matter . What was something that stood out to you and more or less . To dig more into it and what led you to wanting to to write the book . To tell the story. Two things i would say. First of all it is absolutely incredible to me that nobody north of the masondixon line renos that northern slavery existed. People, even after the african Burial Ground exhibit shin and the two and submissions at New York Historical society that anatomized slavery in new york, people whenever i talk about it up north they always say slavery in the north . That was something that really kept me going. The other interesting thing comes out of the archeology, i had long wanted to see if there were any remains in that slave ceremony, they had recently excavated not with shovel and peck but geophysical testing. And at least 60 to 70 people are buried there and as many as 200. So the cemetery and the idea of the people buried there, the garden which drew me, could we find the garden, the african garden comment and this complete whitewashing of slavery in the north were the things that impelled me forward. And opening the barbados telephone book and finding hundreds of black sylvesters. People who probably took their names from the hundreds of enslaved people who werent there in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until 1838 in barbados just as johns people, the washingtons lived, they took their names in freedom from the name of the family who lived there, similarly with the sylvesters. If we do dna, good idea, on barbados, lets do that. Thank you. Any others . I think you have a question. Go up to the mic. Go up to the mic behind you. Do both. Give. I am having a hard time coming to terms with the quaker beliefs and slave holding. Need too. We understood in the south what was going on. I guess we did but in the north, the quakers, i grew up in the north. The quakers were a whole different belief system and to own slaves and to maybe propagate, i have a hard time with that. One of the biggest slave traders in barbados was a quaker. Because the quakers evolve it is very difficult to go back to that First Century of quaker belief, because to us it seems it is a kind of exceptionalism that the quakers believed that every man has a flame rising above his head or head that is the ford and theres one quaker who preached to the slave owners coming and if you in slave, if you will not in slave the indians then why will you a slight in slave the africans . They stayed stonefaced. Culture has a lot to do with it. The evolution of culture over a hundred years until seventeen 58 is a slow and interesting process. Does that answer your question . In their own minds, visiting them for six months. And every man should be 40. The quakers, two thirds what happened to them . Is cspan cadging what this lady is saying . It is important what you just said. How can it be that someone like mary dyer, who was served by had at and the hannah and the 13 li who were there not the gee have died to make a religion for the but did not see there was Something Else to be freed . And American History we are full of paradoxes like that that twist and turn and it is our job to understand and and not the knots as much as we can. To this day. You got to go up there. Those who were enslaved may have been struggling with economics and it was for many think the worth of the slave was determined that the auction, the slave for 30. That is how they were categorized but really, the true wealth i guess, the true worth of a slave was not necessarily the amount they were bought for but the return of their investment. It was the labor they produced. That all those always struck me as extraordinary that the 12. 5 Million People over 360 years of slavery in the new world were employed, they labored to produce luxury goods, the cheapest labor to produce luxury goods, whether it was tobacco or cotton or indigo or excellent rice. I dont think i let you get to your question. I am not sure about the question. About a comment. I think many fail to realize for the plantation, the wealth, the true wealth was not what was produced but what produce those assets, what produced those tangible things they had. What created the wealth. And the core of it was labor and the slave were trudy the assets of a strong resource, more valuable asset on the plantation. But it wasnt viewed that way. That story wasnt told. It was not looked at in that aspect but economics, i believe, stood above morals or religion or core beliefs. That is why it took so long in the north, the quakers are a different sort because of their internal questioning. It took them 100 years. It took other americans the force of law to make them, by 1837, 1827 in new york and all the different varying kinds of legislation throughout the north and the civil war in the south to finally abandon the practice of slavery. People compartmentalize. We all do it. One thing is here, one thing is there. We dont necessarily connect the dots and certainly that was true in new york where the gradual started in 1799. And it end until George Washingtons slave, he freed them that his death but couldnt free marthas slave is because they belong to to her. There were always these economic units that are completely separate as you say from other considerations. Jordans have slave. I want to thank you for writing that book. We dont know about slavery up north. We thank you for that. My question is this. On nantucket, africanamericans in nantucket. Can you tell me if there was any relationship for at least some similarities in the way they came to the americas, any similarities in the way nantucket the gulfstream ran from the west indies up the coast and skirted Shelter Island and skirted nantucket and so those boats were coming from the west indies and in the seventeenth century they were not specialized slave ships at all. They were cargo boats carrying cargo and in the cargo or two or three precious people and they would have been landed on Shelter Island, bewildered and would have been landed on nantucket bewildered. Think of the cold for these people. It is an extraordinary story this migration to the north that comes up the gulf stream and penetrates every part of the coastline along the way. You are right because a lot of them became longshoremen and just excellent and skilled people. Wonderfully skilled sailors as well. Thank you. I dont know about nantuckets slavery itself. You have a question. I wondered if you could talk about how this relates to your other books, did this book come from some thought you have another book . It did actually. When i wrote the book i have always been interested in material culture. I have always been interested in things, the stories they tell and smells and what they make you think of but this book came very specifically how of doing the Washington Book because every time george washington, a was writing about his gardens. Every time he said i did this, i rated the land, i planted the tree, and he said it a lot. He was not a vain man but it was something he said the she didnt mean i. He meant the 300 people who were working for him for free. Thanks for that question. Slavery was long gone. The question was was this something of a comment that i found in the account book, i planted 6 rows of corn in the negro garden. By that time slavery was long gone, and Samuel Gardner had taken over the site to use as his own planting ground, so it is not quite equivalent. And you are quite right, probably it wasnt Samuel Gardner planting that corn, it probably was somebody else. We dont know if it was a person of color or one of the irish indentured servants who were there by that time in 1859 but gardner probably didnt do it. [inaudible question] the comment which he is starting off on without going back to the mic, go back up to the mic. One more time. In reference to indentured servitude, those who had the privilege relative to african slaves because they didnt have that, they were just enslaved. Being the indentured you were almost like a slave but you had the option within a specific time period to be freed. I think one of the reasons african slaves werent indentured was because if they were freed fabian direct competition with their masters or their own ears. Was that the reason why it wasnt done that way on a broad more broadbased scale . I dont think it was anything so narrowly calculated as that. I think the practice was established that you could own a person with a black skin or you could alone for instance any captive taken in a just war, in the early days, you hung on to whatever you could own as long as you could. It was cheaper to renew your source of slaves than it was, and i go into this in the book, then it was you imported more people from africa, then it was to have an indentured servant whose term expired after you taught him how to do this, that and the other so economically it didnt work out. There are many interesting examples of that in my book. About narrowly weighing the options. Did you have any questions . Can you tell us how the sylvester family feels about your research . Great question. Lets say they were very eager to see what i found out and then they were very ambivalent because as we got closer and closer to the present day it turned out obviously silent prejudice still exists and some of the things they were finding out about their air testers they felt didnt reflect that well on the family. Didnt you find the same thing . It is a very floating feeling of anxiety. I feel it as a descendant of many generations of slave owners. I feel the lack of understanding of how my family could have done this and the shame to a certain extent. It is what and the fiske didnt feel bodyguard but memory. These people including myself, including yourself, we all have different thoughts at different times on this subject. The sylvesters unexceptional and the reporter of the things in t signoff there. Change i had the impression they were looking for a memorial to themselves, to the family. And they may not have been completely satisfied with the kind of memorial you presented to them. Somebody in the family said to me that is not the way i have heard our history and i thought that was probably the truest comment that any of the made. I did not answer that. Because read the book. See what you think. Read it again. See what you think then. It is really true that alice fiske was incredibly generous with her wise look and madcaps, she gave two thirds of 1 million to the university of massachusetts to do the archaeology and find out what happened. She died in 2006. I am not entirely sure that she would have been altogether pleased with the direction that things took as we assessed and refine our research and our findings. But she was very generous. She wanted to know about the past. Sometimes you dont want to know everything about the past. This is booktv on cspan2. Every weekend since 1998 booktv is shown over 40,000 hours of programming with the top nonfiction authors including dd myers. I thought thats the answer. If there were more women in politics, things would change. I called my editor. She basically said okay. All of us in the workingclass are subjected to punitive taxes, being ignored by the elite media, not getting any kind of special interest help in washington like the fat cats get. Were all in the same boat and thats the real problem. Problem. Where the only National Television network devoted to nonfiction books. Throughout the fall we are marking 15 years of booktv on