Is the sole survivor now run by thirdgeneration owner nancy. We want to thank all of you for your support. Without our loyal to me to book lovers authors like market and kiese laymon we would be a a ty and was appreciative of it. So tonight i am beyond thrilled to have Morgan Jerkins with us to celebrate the release of her new book wandering in strange lands. Morgan jerkins is the author of the New York Times bestseller this will benefit undoing which i recommend. In the june editor at sort. Shes a visiting professor at columbia university. Her short form work is been featured in the new yorker, New York Times, the atlantic, rolling stone, esquire and the guardian among many others. Shes based in harlem. Joining morgan in conversation is kiese laymon, born and raised in jackson, mississippi, his professor of english at grade of writing a university of mississippi and author of Long Division and a collection of essays how to slowly kill yourself and others in america. Hes also the author of the memoir heavy. Heavy shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie medal and the prize named one of the best books in 2018, New York Times, publishers weekly, npr, broadly, library journal, the Washington Post, southern living, entertainment weekly, the San Francisco chronicle, in the New York Times critics. So without further ado please join in welcoming Morgan Jerkins and kiese laymon to the stage. Hi, everyone. Hey, whats going on . How you . Good. How were you . So excited to talk you about this book. I wish that we could come i really wish we couldve done this down south. I know. I know. This is a full circle moment for me yesterday because two years ago, two years ago i was in conversation with you at the brooklyn public library. Im thankful now youre in conversation with my book. Youve helped me because i mississippi through and through and on the day new york state for like 16 used it every time going to the city it was always like the first time. I get shaken. I dont feel right, then barely people start showing the love. Lets talk about wandering in strange lands. It is such a departure stylewise from what you did before. Im like amazed, and can you talk to me about not just by county side, like how you pulled it off but i think a lot of times we dont talk enough about the gumption. Like what did you come the word we used under, what gave you the gumption or audacity to think about trying to pull this off . I love when black people say audacity. Its just wonderful. Let me say something. There were many times throughout this book that the writing of the book i saw i was going to make it. I sent right on this couch crying because i was like i dont think i can turn around. The records just a mcgivney any type of conclusion i can work with. I just thought they would cancel my book deal. I was like and you know what, its not going to work. Lets table it. Go back to the drawing board. When i first wrote this would be for the few definite with my career, i graduated at the Top University and i was trying to become an Editorial Assistant at a Publishing House or work somewhere in media. I was not getting a a job. I wasnt even making it sometimes to the first or second round. I was really delisted and so the summer of 2014 i just saw so many young people writing content online and being paid for. Okay, maybe thats my input. For most women of color they found their entry point through virtual essays and oftentimes personal essays are devalued as an art form, and so im not trying to shame people buttered with the first book to get shame back give shame packets of noise about us black and a black woman but also because people like roxane gay showed the world you could be a black woman writing about himself in the successful. So that paved the way for this. Ive always been a curious person and i knew come very close my family and to all these different omissions and gaps in the things we did and i was so curious about them and i wanted to investigate that. So even though like i dont show that, i have always been interested in history. I go down so we different rabbit holes and ive been doing that for years. Right. Do you know what i really love next we both are working people. I love how the book is wander in strange lands and how theyre so much wondering in it. It sounds like a wondering about your people and your father if your father and his people like lead you to this journey where you come down south if you leave your come youre trying to find a part of you. I wonder its a fair to say . Did you feel like youre going to look for part of you and are going to look for part of your father . Absolutely. Im going to keep it real. I was are insecure about where i fit in my fathers life. When i was born my mother and father were not together anymore. It wasnt as if said i didnt even know i had three other sisters account i was about seven or eight so i was like okay so now what do i fit in these family trees . When i wrote this book, particularly limit the louisiana section of the book which is where my father is originally from it was so healing for me. Writing this book brought me closer to my father because i went walking through the woods in the land and places he had even gone through himself. It was definitely a journey of not only trying to find out the expanses of africanamerican history, histories, but also find a bit of myself, to be recognized down there i people, and it was and it was very, very healing for me. One thing to want to say before we get going is if you have questions you want to ask morgan make sure he put them in the chat and will try to get to them along the way. Okay. Heres one. We dont get to talk much, probably to 20 or so want to ask the hearts of the what ask. Im ready. What was your biggest, people call preconceived notion about the south generally, it in your imagination before you came down here at geeky make a distinction between north carolina, kentucky, deep southcom louisiana, mississippi, florida, or was it all to you just like south of new york, its the south . From the it was like maryland on down was the south. The south with this big expanse of land that i knew very little about. Very scant knowledge. I had never been to the deep south in that way. I have been to florida and georgia but florida for leisure, not necessarily for this type of work, know what im saying . Yeah, the south to me is a rich cultural reasons even though even though my family comes from that part i really didnt have, i really didnt have much it was like a shadow of what i shouldve known by what was passed on to me. One of the things after reading the book, you know what i really want to ask you . I wanted to know why you came back, one you went back, and wy you went back up north . You think you know the black people who like it is a layperson who looks presumably black, he aint black. You know you want to come on down it with us. Like what made you come back up north . I will say because of my lease. Thats easy answer. I dont think im done with new york yet. I live in harlem editing, is one of the greatest neighborhoods ever, especially for black art still. I dont think, for example, like i had dreams of having a second home in st. Martin parish louisiana when my fathers lighted from. Im trying at this moment to make sure my father does not sell his mothers home in fayetteville, north carolina, its been in the family for 57 years. Im try to make sure sell it. There are things that are happening right now. I do want to create some type of nunnelee for myself and the children i hope to have it also for the artist, of the black people are curious just like i was. I wondered, you talk about, i have seen is in the book but it was easy to talk more about how coming down south, not just in bold and you and see yourself and your whole family in different ways, but like did it make you able to see more black southerners in harlem and the new york city . Oh, yeah. But i could feel it. You knew it was there. Like, for example, i love detroit. I love detroit. That the south though. Thats what is about to say. I love detroit because when you meet black people and they got you in a way that northern black people, i assume do anyway. Way. A little bit more scattered but i realize it was the great migration. Like i think about chicago in so many black chicagoans do if you ask more the family from the southcom guaranteed there from mississippi. They were part of a migratory pattern. For me its like i see this up everywhere. Even if we were not there we dont know, theres been this whether in the food we may come in the dialect or whatever. Still there and i feel like there was a quote that really stuck out to me that a fake by angela said about the southcom how is bringing people back like a sieben clipper this whole journey felt like a siren call. Yes. One of the things you did so massively in this book is you mystify and demystify water and land. You didnt like great writers to come you let the characters, the people characters you interact with help demystify what an olympic talk to the audience about what you found about water and land specifically. Im so excited. So much throughout the book was me unpacking a lot of my assumptions about black american identities and the reason i say identity is i didnt know there were identities under the black american experience. So i assumed that all black people who are afraid of water because thats what i grew up with. Death and water have been in ia 20 my family for generations. My mother almost suffered a near fatal drowning accident. I almost suffered the same. We were taught it was because of our hair, chlorine and kind to coyly, kinky hair. Men were not swimming either. My mother grew up in a Atlantic City and is a barrier island. Nobody knew how to swim. So from the i want to take it a step further and when what is that the first i made a mistake because i spoke to a woman and low country george and i said black people afraid of what a prick she said thats not true. Marquette a good wine set and exactly water is a bloodline. If that is the case . Get the water is a bloodline of these as that group of africanamerican with whom we owe so much, where did the separation occur . The separation occurred from many different ways. The separation occurred many west African People were great swimmers but when the Transatlantic Slave Trade happened a lot of them would not let their children go to the one because they were fake it would be taken away. The trend of syllabic slave trade, even that julie come you dont know how many enslaved africans are at the bottom of the ocean right now. Some historians say its a floating graveyard if you will. You think about the rice plantations how treacherous it was, crocodiles, never have, can kill you. Even more than that if we think about those who migrated to the northcom the segregated pools for example. For black people start migrating intros come white people had distinction, you are rich white or poor white. When the black people started coming in droves everybody had to be white to protect themselves from these interlopers. But even begin going down to the south, you go to one of the larger Barrier Islands in georgia, their water is poisoned. The water that the epistle of lead and maybe think of flint, michigan, and newark, new jersey, where other black cities didnt have this. The water can constitute freedom, the river jordan, ohio river separated slave territory from free territory. Think about baptism, take me to the water. Transformation. It can represent freedom and transformation, also have been because they buried their people face and water because they believe in aftermath people go back to africa. It represents all these things that can also represent death and disappearance. It runs the gamut. I wanted to make sure this was the check i was most worried about. I told myself you better nailed it. Because it brings up so many strong emotions under wanted to really show the complexity of what water constitutes for africanamericans who are descendents of enslaved people and how that stretches, stretches its own legacy stemming from institutional forces like segregation as i said to water contamination but also epigenetics and what the water can do to our lives. Absolutely. Growing up down here, i mean i can like a lot of us have grandparents and parents who died almost died in lakes and rivers, but the fear of like all those bodies that we know at the bottom of these lakes is one of the things that just terrified us growing up. When i got to the part of the book i was one of the things i loved about what you just did is like if yall want to experience what mortgages did come thats what the book is. Its walking with Morgan Jerkins as she researches and finds like the majesty majesty come what e abundant. Talk about the abundant in you, and us. Thank you thank you so much. I feel like the internet sometimes makes like these kinds of books like less likely because research will think like push and click in google. But you go to book about researching you. And me, no one in sync with you wrote a booklet researching and i would say. All this other book stucco thank you for doing the shit. I get to just to people who might not actually like read the book. Can we talk about the tension . Like, because it wasnt just im going down this is going to be a tense free exploration, narrating my journey. There were some tense moments in that journey. Can you talk about those a bit . So many. I mean, when you even start with the history of our ancestors . Talked talk about being alone in certain parts . I could take whatever you want me to take it. Lets talk about i i want to talk because i feel like you flip the isolation portion to can we talk about the tension and some of like the hair that is until the way she did not expect . For example, like when you talk about books that may not be made like this, its interesting because again im a millennial and i know how the internet can be a great place and a terrible place. I had said this before, like i know what its like to have my work taken out of context, made only for public humiliation, not for conversation. The one thing you want to say to start this off is like we see all the time im not my ancestors. All the time the concept is im stronger than ever. Its interesting for me because when i hear the phrase i am not my ancestors come what does it really mean . When we see that black people on a monolith, what does that mean for black people trying to provide in ways we may not deem acceptable or comfortable in the present day . So i tell people all the time im proud of the Public School system. Transatlantic slave trade, slavery, emancipation, the harlem renaissance, it was Civil Rights Movement and it was obama. Thats it. I was never taught that they were free people of color, free black people. I was never taught that there were black slaveowners. Now granted there were slave owners who enslaved in order to but the super teams in the plantation economy but we dont like to talk those things. We dont like to talk about that because then it complicates our notion of what whiteness of blackness as it was to attend to get there. But financial, social and capital. So for me that was hard because i was taught that black people sit on the front end of the spectrum in order to access the capital. So to come across that in my family essence of the other pee like people persuade plantation, they profited wildly off the figure that was very uncomfortable for me and thats why wanted to elaborate on on n the book to tell people you think this makes you mad, this makes me mad, too. You know . Bright right, right. I mean, when i read come to a lot of portion to book why did it feel mad but i felt like you were complicating history that even some of us know and live. Im from mississippi deep, deep, deep but it just felt like you were showing the different ways for different portals of entry into what i consider myself. I want to talk but some of the interpersonal. We talk about the northcom talk about the southcom we have to talk with interpersonal relationships. When i came up north, when a difficult i had was because i had recalled down here home training, like i say hey to everybody. Look at me, i will look back at you. You know, that shit is a what everybody does. Lets just say that in new york city. But can you talk a bit about how like the folk ways and the interpersonal folkways which ever were or similar to what yu imagined when you came down south . I will say this. I knew that black people looked out from in a way that im not sure what happened in the north. It was like once you learn this person for okay, i want you to meet this person. Get back to your hotel safely, know what im saying . I will say this, like the places i went to work very seriously heavy, even when its trackback from hilton head to the van at night and they usually didnt, usually try to make sure i was going to get there before something because it was one in the deep south. I felt like i was protected in a way to truly hard to describe if you dont believe in the divine and you dont believe in spirit but i felt it, every time i get in my car, every time i finish with another person. I even had some people sitting the conflict the reason why i spoke to you about this is because he either and senses told rs told something about you that what youre doing with genuine because some of the communities i think it into have always been taken advantage of. Other scholars have gone down the for stories and didnt give them Proper Technology so i was a very precarious position proper acknowledgment. Can you talk about how what you did necessitates ethics . I i would say love of black people. You come into communities that have been mined for resources and mine for personal resources, hey, not just communal resources. Can you talk about the rules you set for yourself . I think they are liberals but the ethics rules for yourself as some going into these places at a traditionally been mined. I told myself start doing preliminary research first. Go to the schaumburg which is part of the new public labor system insert researching these queries before even talk to them. Dont waste the time essence some rudimentary question. Have some info but also like you are black but you dont know these people and youre going down to the south. So its like we chat to them first before you travel. Reach out to the months before you travel and say how am i doing . This is who i can pick this is my publisher this is a book so you know this isnt a ruse. I talked to on the phone. I let them know anytime i recorded them i showed the recorder right in front of the cup put her right on the table so that they would know the recorder and to see when it turned on and see me when i shut it off. The thing is about with ethics is that you have to be very careful with black people especially the themes that are covered. Its committed to talk about. So anytime i have a conversation with them whether we at a restaurant come near the water come in summary so i always made sure i go through the backdoor of the conversation. I minute ask you headon, how many acres did you lose . What happened to this constant that was lynched . All the different things. Start by asking them their native state your name and asked whether from come as them about their parents. , what life is like you and need how it is changed and thats when the stories structure with the manifest on their own is if you go to like you mention the portals of entry. I was to my students there many ways to enter a story. I think about the architecture of memory. You may not need to go through the front door. Go to the back door any type of window that can open and juicy some type of material life that you not think otherwise. Thats what i do in terms of, like him take multiple steps before these people Start Talking to you, make sure they know you are. I also say that even though i am black i could be seen as part of establishing. Of the establishment. I live in new york. I work with a traditional publisher. I rate from i write to public education. I could be seen as an enemy. I want to know all what i and i also think what else is on the young woman. Like, im a woman. I i am a woman so i looked a woman, bossi and people tell me i dont have a bitch face. A very disarming smile. I think thats what a lot of people is because it wasnt coming with whole team and camera crew. I did at sometime have people with me while talkative talkin, liaison to new people in these communities but when youre fivn with collages will record in front of her and a small little purse, what can i do . You know what im saying . Yeah, i do know what you are saying. Do you feel like any people that you met, some of this is like leading questions because of ortega talk about, the people you met were actually still a bit not sure of how close to let you in. Oh, yeah. All the time. I mean, there were older black man, you know what im saying . I could want to know what is information can be used for . What i will say this. Not a Single Person i spoke to that is in my book wanted to have a student. And i thought that was incredible. So any of you buy my book which of you do i urge you to look within the acknowledgment section because anybody i spoke to come do not put my name as a pseudonym. I thought it would. Some of these people risk their lives to show me certain things. I pseudonym, how would their descendents find them . There you go. I was really thankful for that. One of the things i find one is working on my book, on interview people of all done sorts of abusive and violent shit but it is a day make sure we do describe me you like to know i use to wear gap. That made my day. I just want to let people here you, let people speak as much as possible. I tell you how i feel. I will explain the best i can about something. That was one of the hard part for me as i realize how detached i with some land when i couldnt name simple things. We would try past these acres and i couldnt tell you how many like species of trees. I didnt have the language fort. Oftentimes when never get that, i would look at pictures and i had to do additional work because it rejected people and say what is the name of this tree . What is the name of that sica described as best i could . Im interested in like, the book just came out, right . You literally have been able to sit and what it means for this book, and this version of Morgan Jerkins got in the world yet. Im interested in like with the anxiety over releasing this book in this moment versus the inside of creating a book precovid. Like, can you you talk a bit about that . I mean, for me im just glad i got the book done, man. For me, like a said so much to the my book was going to get canceled because the records were not coming. There was so many those in as you might imagine by dinner with black ancestors. I just did nothing it would come together. For me i did not expect for to come out during the black death. I did not expected come out after the george floyd purchase happen which is very in terms of timing, but for me i could think what you said so spot on, like that many people know this public side of me. They know intensely, personal right about bowling in person. Theyre not look at me like this is a researcher now come somebody who knows history. Well, i can see the short answer was like hey, im a gemini and as long as i have a career youre going to see different types of styles coming from a body of work. For as long as i can get another book deal you will see many different faces is what im going to say. But endeavor to make a dig at something, exacerbate something and i had the privilege to have a book that allowed me to do this research. It cost me close to 10 15,000 to do the research and i was able to do that because i had to deal that allowed me to do this work but for me its like ive always wanted to expand. I always wanted people to take another chance on me and after this, it will be my sophomore slump and i was so afraid that a debut on the New York Timesbestseller, i was 25 years old. What if i will not be able to activate like that again. And so far i feel like ive avoided the sophomore slump in terms of i really cried last weekabout it as im just thankful. For me i was like i could get some type of coverage ill be happy but this type of public ive had for this book i feel like is any writer with dream to have and this has exceeded my expectations i feel like we need to make sure people understand the political integrity of a black woman wondering because expectation, popular expectation is not that black women and black girls wander so you let people know from the jump i am wondering in strange lands. And what i think is interesting is your place result in the title also a daughter of the great preparation and it sounds like youre also saying in that book in here a little bit conceptually maybe that you also are the daughter of spirits. Spirituality andspirits seem to guide you a lot. I have a question, i go to the pentecostals,pentecostal people are emphatic, emotional. And like i said, like before, its palpable in itself. Its heavy in the sense that like you, its heavy that theres just so much better and i felt that intending with the low country or the drive to oklahoma. You could feel it that theres so much to parse through and for me, i knew i was being protected because there were certain times when i should have gotten hurt for the ways in which i went to territories that were not my own. Nothing but pocketbook, acell phone, a recorder and player. And in fact i had to do my research again im not going to lie, i probably would have carried a weapon, i probably would have carried a gun or taking a selfdefense class because i was just there. How did i do that . I knew i was protected, no one could tell me otherwise. I feel that so to reiterate get your questions in here, what to make sure you get a chance to speak to morgan too. Somebody here wrote daughter, so again, one of the things that i really was interested in talking about is when im in harlem i can feel the south, you know what imsaying . I dont know if i can feel my particular self , but these mississippi self but i can feel the egos of the south but i wonder if new york and your new york, means more self, more black americans southerners, more. I wonderif there could be even more. Theres always more. For me i used to live on little senegal so when i stepped out i used to hear nothing but friends, i think about sylvia and the soul food restaurants but there always needs to be more and i think its even more now because of the rapid gentrification thats happening. We always need more, not just in new york, new jersey where im from. New england. We always need more. This is like a cake, those who know me i love cake but i keeptalking about the levels itself. This is from jen a mayberry. What was your mothers reaction to your interest in pursuing your fathers roots . Was she apprehensive about what you might uncover that the two of you would be left to recognize together. My father was like go ahead, my mother has always been supportive about my family tree. Whats interesting and i dont think i promoted this but when i was born my dad called me the milkmans baby and i thought it was because i was only black light, but when for other people its like you dont know who your father is. Thats not true and then i started to read Toni Morrison and parker solomon, the main character and what does he do . He goes to find his roots and when i wasresearching my fathers side i learned about one of my earliest ancestors out therein the english version. He had two families. Just like my father only on the side it was only one side lived on the bayou and on the side of the bayou and the others lived on the right side and when i told my cousin about it he said he was definitely the milkman and when she saidthat i was like , i am the milkmans baby. I am a overflowing tree, complicated, naughty, beautiful altogether. And i am lucky to have parents that supported me through this journey. I reached out while i was traveling and it showed me that i have just as much standing in my mothers family as my fathers family. When you say the question of what did i have left to reconcile together, i wasnt looking for reconciliation. All i was looking for is revelation because sometimes you cant reconcile everything. I might not have 100 percent of the full truth. Im lucky to get half. Substance to pass on to my children. And i hope my book can be a document and a blessing to them so that was the best thing area and all i wantedto do was endeavor. This person says, its an anonymous person. I ordered the book the second i finished reading it, im 50 pages in. Did you share portions of the book based on interviews with the people you spoke to before it was published. I did, every single thing i wrote i sent to them and said you can look at it and i also asked them to you want your name published or would youlike a pseudonym. They all looked at it and you know, some of them even thanked me, thank you for letting me have the book and they didntwant to change anything. And it was painful, thank you fortelling my story like this. I was fortunate enough to excerpt in Time Magazine of a black woman who was a father of the lapd for the watts riots and i had an excerpt in the New York Times about both of these people that were like crying when i told him about this and i realized this is the work that i do. Its to bring people black voices and those type of responses have been valuable to me. Its so dull to me. Im old now. I want the other day and somebody was like when did that come out and i said that was just years ago but when i was like 30, you figure it years ago you were a baby almost. Its amazing is and it seems like it didnt takethat long. It felt long but i announced the book deal like a couple weeks before my first book came out but early january 2018 and he got published december 2020. Nicole says how can we make genealogy moreacceptable . Is a intensive and expensive endeavor especially for black people. There needs to be Funds Available for sure. It was 50,000 to do this type of work. I went to ancestry. Com and they have their press inscription that you can survive to archive. Com is another one as far as genealogy, books are the oldest people in your family. If they were born in a town other than the one thatyoure at , why did they move and thats why you can talk about their families but there are many different chapters in different states, afroamerican, theres some in virginia, pennsylvania. There is some from tennessee but yet there needs to be fundsavailable. People dont have any certified, just start to try and endeavor. The questions are coming and coming. I want to make sure we get everybody. Did you ever feel conflicted about putting peoples intimate stories in the book. Did you feel a sense of detachment almost as if you were in the role of anthropologist or did you feel the role of people you talk to and identified with them. This book is so personal i had to realize i have a personal stake in it. I did not put my family story, i didnt even interview them. , i wanted to create this authoritative observer and because of the work of Zora Neal Hurston you can journal and chronicle everything subjectively. I didnt feel complicit because these people, they taught saudis report them and i show them what i was writing and i learned that its okay to merge folklore and documented facts. A lot of our lives are fantastic and i dont mean that in a simple way. Theres so many ways in which we were meant to notsurvive and we still have. I did feel its consistent in my story and i found that anger showed how were all in dialogue with each other. This question says both in this will be my undoing you evoke shame and inherited and culturallyplaced on you, why is the work of dismantling shame necessary . Because i think about all the ways there were these meanings subscribed on to my body that i didnt put their. And i think about how when i write i give change back, not only to show other people like hey i was here, to say this is the way i was conditioned and this is how i can work my way out of it. When i mean free i dont just mean legally free. I mean the way to live autonomously. However i choose to do it. Unabashedly. And i think that you know, i write about things that carry a lot of shame so writing is a way for me to unpack it, its a way to scrutinize and for me to release. I have a question about shame because people ask me about shame a lot and i dont get back toanybody else about. Do you feel like things, because im with you about trying to get to the root of the shame and hopefully lifting that shipped off of us and if youre an artist untanglingit in the art. Do you feel like theres any sort of shame that is generated for you . Is there any shame that protects you from experiences that you might not be protected from . I have never gotten that before. I think my mom was in this chat and she would probably say yes and i want to say yes but i dont know, maybe its admonition. You know what im saying . A lot of times i will be part and you dont know peoplelike that. It will come inthe way of superstition. Like im not so much shameful, i think ofshame when i think valuing myself or trusting my intuition but i will say interms of admonition , absolutely. Absolutely. I want to make sure we get them all. Sarah wallace has questions, hes giving you big props for chapter on water. She said did you do some Supplemental Research on generational trauma for the book and the second question is sarah says i found out when i was seven i had other siblingstoo. Did this book help you process that part of your personal journey . Generational trauma, one of them is doctor rachel your kudo cited in the book, she writes about generational trauma when it comes to Holocaust Survivors and their children so thats something that she has been about, i also doctor dupree does a posttraumatic slay disorder which some ofthat, its two individuals that id suggest that you should research but also to study epigenetics. You want to know about how generational, shows up, thats a great thing to look at. Did help me process by learning about other siblings . Yes, definitely. I was a little insecure in my fathers family tree and it was important to learn about the fathers that preceded everybody. Thats when ifound out i belonged. Ken williams says how might one overcome family resistance and or disinterest to Genealogy Research . I wanted to research my family tree for years but my older relatives have historically stonewalled me. I would say this, like you have their names. If you have their names and you know where they wereborn or you might have aninkling of where they were born or an estimate of where they lived , or their birthdates , go to ancestry. Com. If youve got some of those details you can start filling the pieces aside from that and if you go to older relatives, ask their childrens children. Go to the next person down, ask their siblings. Anyway you can find that door i told you about, that back door and that open window , always worked around. Worked around family work around. I think the workaround is connected to this other question which is to use whereby a writing routine and a schedule or does the writing and editing come easy. It depends. For me, i tell writers all the time. You do not need towrite all day long. A lotof us dont have the ability to write all day long. But theres your stride. My stride is Early Morning. You can talk to me about anything from the hours of 6 30 a. M. Till noon. Thats usually when i write. And in the Early Morning. And i, because of the protest that was happening i think you know. Why was up until 2 00 in the morning and i would go tobed, wake up at seven and it was still popping off. I had to download an app called selfcontrol. If you downloaded , places you dont want to go to, twitter for me and you a lot of time, for three hours its not going to convert until those three hours or up so that help to me. Usually when i edit atnight i like to edit at night but when it comes to writing i write in the Early Morning to mid morning. Okay. Yeah, that morning. Somehow i feel like the screen between our conscious and subconscious, the holes in the screen seem bigger in the morning. Also because in the regular time people are still getting wet,things are popping off yet. Thats the perfect time for me to be like im going to do something before i start interacting with people on twitter. This is a pedagogical question. The next of memoir and historical writing is so powerful as a writer and high school teacher, im energized by people writing their own personal community history. I heard you mention you have students as well and i wonder if you have any advice to doing this work with you tell them to write stuff down and im not just talking about on the internet. Right that stuff down. If they were going to create a narrative, what would they say . What were some of the traditions they had . What are their parents names and say how about the title with you which you were born, give me some research, what was thattown like . I found my maternal grandmother in south jersey, when i did some research i found out that was a town created by freed slaves. Research the town in which youre from. When it comes to working with youth, one of the things i like to do is to listen and keep it pg but it may sound pc but is confident. People dont realize whatthey have to say matters. Its very easy to feel insignificant especially at an age when youre moving on everything so whats important is when youre telling students to dothe type of historical writing , it still let them know that their life is in a larger social fabric in american history. Their individual life and that is important and that someones going to be looking for them one day to make sense of the history that is passing right now and once you start to encourage them what they have to say matters and it is going to matter to someone, once you break that down thats when the flood happens in these memories happen and then you can go with the later part of how to structure it but as long as youre doing that first one, their emotions they will open up. In this book, it is literally a how to and a lot of us teachers talk about their revising me encounter some of the students want to talk about the sort of Place Research in writing and one thing im telling them is i want you to narrative eyes the encounter, talk about that encounter and this is what you do over and over again in narrative icing the encounter withstrangers, regions, with elements, with the books. Ive been thinking a lot about friendship in this moment. This is the last question, we have one more question. What others family minutes that unraveled and youlearned were not true . What were some of the old histories that i discovered had some veracity to them . Thats the opposite. There was no family myth that i uncovered that did not have some veracity and that was with regards to my mother side of the family saying that we had cherokee ties. And that was something that was very difficult to unpack. The relationship between black and indigenous natives in this country i discarded. Every black family says they got indian in them, you know what im saying . But then i asked to scholars including tia miles who was contributing to the 1619 project who also spent her life researching these ties and i asked her, i said all of our grandparents, our all of our grandparents this collective delusion when these same tribes originated from the south and they owned slaves . She was like theyare not. So, how do i make sense of that . Im not going to say it because i dont want to spoil it. A whole is a lot and thinking as a young person boats were not my friend. They seemed like stodgy old folks, white authors i had to read reading this book and rereading this book during the pandemic it felt like a rigorous loving friendship. Im not trying to reduce your book to a friend. Is not reduction at all if you go along with me for a second and you see this as a obligated creation of a friend who might walk with different people. Im telling you this book walked with me, help me stay awake. It helped me want to pushin my own work that way radical friendship does. How would you describe this book if it were a friend and what do you want this book friend to do for readers . I will say this. I wanted readers to feel like friends for me because i was alone in so many different areas i wanted to bring these and what it was doing to me on not only an intellectual level but up social level, when i think about this book, this book is my gift first and foremost to my family. My future childrenbut that they know that they never have to question their space and their claim to this american landscape. Theycan trace their ancestors 300 years , prior to even some parts of louisiana which is where my family was part of the unitedstates, they can trace their family back that far. Thats a blessing from me. I think for this book what i wanted to see is a document that it cant be the endall beall because my first book wasnt but what i want people to see is that the cycles that happen, when black people want to move, when black people want to observe their economy, to have our movement curtailed whether its state violence or land displacement, whether its cultural erasure, these things keep happening so for anybody that has an interest in africanamerican history in general, if anyone has a history of reparations, if anybody says why these things keep happening not understanding the centuriesold legacy of this and this book can be your friend so to speak so when you speak of the possibilities i see this as this book for me it means so much because its my baby but i also want people to feel the pulse when they go to the states. I went to see the blood and veins going through all of this and to understand that past and present are going to keep converging if we do not reckon with the magnitude of the devastation that has been brought to africanamericans, to africanamerican families since the beginning of this country but also thebeauty and the triumph that in spite of all these ways to separate us , the distance through laws and statutes, weare still here. Drop that mike, thats it. Thank you so much for coming out. I want to thank the strand for being an incredible lover of books and morgan, thank you for doing so shipped that i could never do and im inspired to do. You blessed us. I know with the legacy books foryour family but you blessed us so thank you so much. Im a fan of this man and i was thankful he had time. Thank you so much to the strand bookstore for having me. Thank you all for all the people that tuned in. I hope it was interesting and that you also have these, thank you so much. Thank you all, peace. Tonight on the communicators, president of the American Telemedicine Association doctor joseph to the dark thoughts about the growth of the telemedicine industry during the coronavirus pandemic. We have a term that we coined called the telemedicine flip and what that means is that this isnt an abstract notion. I am back now seeing patients in the office at 40 percent of our previous volume and when we get a little bit more cranked up we will be at 75 percent will go higher. In order for us to meet the demand for patients here we have to have telehealth embedded in our workflows now if we cant do that and all of us on a Public Health emergency goes away and there are no ways to fix some of these regulatory restrictions that we will bein trouble and our patients will be in even more trouble. Citied are tonight at the communicators on cspan2. Weeknights this month we feature book tv programs to preview whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight as part of our 20 20 year in review we focus on biographies. Tomorrow pain on her National Awardwinning biography the dead are arising in pulitzer prizewinning Washington Post reporter mary jordan and her book the art of her deal. Letter edward ball and life of the klansman. That startat 8 30 p. M. Eastern. Enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. Youre watching book tv on cspan2. Every weekend withthe latest nonfiction books and authors. Book tv on cspan2, created by americas Cable Television companies brought to you by thesetelevision companies to provide book tv to viewers as a public service. Now that the president has signed the Coronavirus Relief and government funding bill, Congress Still has work to do this week. They begin in the house with a vote on whether to override the veto of the 740 billion Defense Authorization bill. In his veto messagepresident trump said he objected to the bills failure to repeal section 230which protects social Media Companies and the removal of confederate names from military installations. The veto override is successful it goes to the senate. The house may also try again to increase the transport covid19 stimulus checks. House gals in 2 pm eastern on cspan, first votes are expected tuesday on cspan2. Hello and welcome to the atlantic History Centers offer talk series, im virginia prescott and your host for these talks. Tonight im talking with Claudio Saunt about his new book unworthy republic the dispossession of native americans and the road to indian territory. You can purchase the book directly from our capello books. Theres a link in the chat to the right of your screenand a link provided on the atlanta History Centers website. Please submit your questions via the q and a feature at the bottom of your screen and ill try to get to as many as timell