while. there was a law where the slaves would be freed automatically after six months living in pennsylvania. he understood this and he didn t want his slaves to know the law or to talk about so he shuttled his slaves from the capitol, the temporary capitol in philadelphia back to his plantation in mount vernon as a subterfuge so they wouldn t fall within this six-month window and when slaves escaped there was a famous slave who was very close to washington and his wife. she did escape, valued her freedom much more than the president and the first lady and he sent someone out to catch her. she ended up living in new hampshire but he went to those great lengths and a lot of early presidents didn t understand the desire for freedom was so strong among the african-americans around them they felt it was an act of disloyalty for a slave to escape. we can t understand that today but that s the way the early presidents felt. host: these presidents who had been signers of declarati
direction. one more word i saw about william blank when reason sleeps, monsters awake. host: ishmael reed, we will leave it there. we could spend six hours going through your books at least. thank you for being with us this afternoon on booktv s in depth. very quickly here, ishmael reed nonfiction books. writin is fightin; airing dirty laundry, another day at the front, blu host: thank you for being with us here on booktv today. guest: thank you very much.up i enjoyed it. .. coming up next, book tv presents after words, an hour-long program where we invite just goes to interview authors. this week veteran white house reporter ken walsh explores the relationship between u.s. presidents and african-american white house workers. the former president of the white house correspondents association shows how race relations inside the president so often reflected those in american society. he talks with author and educator julianne malveaux. host: kenneth wollack, t
lobbyists on capitol hill all started on the internet. so, the next book is going to be about power to the people. .. also as the servers, the employee people. talk about what motivated you to do this. guest: a couple of things. as a white house press correspondent i covered you always look for different ways to see the president, so different ways to get behind the curtain and the public relations and so long to see what they would really like and i ve written four of the books and what i ve tried to do is find a prism to look at them through to find something different. host: your book about the presidential retreat is fascinating because it really is like you re looking at the presidency with something people are picking up. guest: thank you. in this case i thought there was this very important and fascinating issue of race that s been with us from the very beginning in the united states how the president s deal with that both in their policies and attitudes and feel
and african-american white house workers. the former president of the white house correspondents association shows how race relations inside the president s home often reflected those in american society. he talks with author and educator julianne malveaux. host: kenneth walsh, this book, family of freedom, is such a fascinating piece of work. i really enjoyed it and was, actually, envious of you. because you re talking about african-americans in the white house both as members of the cabinet, but also as the servers, the enslaved people. guest: right. host: talk a bit about what motivated you to do this. guest: right. well, there are a couple of things. i ve covered the white house since 1986 full time. you re always looking at different ways to see the president, different ways to sort of get behind the curtain and public relations and so on. i ve written four other books, and i ve tried to find some prism to look at them through host: and if i might say,