take it. we get this portrait of ellen, and also william, who is supportive of her as a couple who were in love. they wanted -- they wanted a normal life. they wanted the same kind of life that you and i have. but they were denied that because of the laws of the slavery. that generated just a desire, unquenchable thirst to leave and get out of the state of georgia and the south. 1848, they decided they were going to leave. they planned the trip for four days, and they took off at night, they left, and they went to savannah and from savannah they caught a ship. sailed to charleston, south carolina, and made symptom stops along the way, and finally ended up in philadelphia. but then once in philadelphia, the abolitionsist told them they wouldn't be safe in philadelphia as they would be in boston, massachusetts. because the law in philadelphia were different than massachusetts. they helped them get to boston where there was a free black society of about 200 or 300 free blacks that had been there for some time. and they helped them get themselves together. they helped with health issues as well. she had gotten sick they built them up, then they slipped them out of the country when they found out their owners -- after the passage of the slave act sent the patrol out to try to return them to slavery. it was very interesting because the president of the united states was contacted and appealed to by their previous owners to bring them back and he, in fact, agreed they should return to georgia. he, in fact, sent out a military patrol after them. so they knew they had to leave. so the vigilant society helped them escape. they went to maine and call -- caught a ship. they went to england. ellen was extremely light skinned. show could have passed for white. they used that as an advantage. she pretendedded she had rheumatism and something was wrong with the right arm. they made a sling for her right arm. they cut her hair. they brought her a pair of green glasses, shaded green, and took a big hank -- that hid part of her face and didn't show she didn't have a beard. she pretendedded to be deaf at times so she wouldn't speak and giveaway the fact she was a woman and not a man. this was important they news they were going have to register at hotel and establishments along the way intending to leave georgia and get to philadelphia with the friends society. the quakers they knew they would be safe. they would have to be the one register. he was pretending to be her attendant. her servant. her slave. by feigning this disguise she appeared as an indigent white man and got away with it. he got away with being called her slave. that was very important. they went to a hotel and here is where a northern anti-- they would check to a hotel and the pro privateer said you can't check in here. we won't allow black people in here but she can. your master. you know, can. william didn't fight it. she gets the room and i'll go somewhere else. she checked in. the room was upstairs. when she checked in. people that worked there and all of that. and she ordered dinner but for two instead of one. the hotel staff including the black people in the hotel had conversation wondering who was going show up to have dinner with her. it couldn't have been the black guy. the black guy was a slave. and then they were even more amazed when dinner time came and he walked up the stairs. instead of knocking on the door and allowing and asking, you know, for her to allow him to come in. he opened the door and walked in. and they were just dumbfounded as to, you know, what was going on. they were just convinced she was not only a white person, but she was with the black guy. by that time she discarded her male clothing and appeared as a woman she was. in the south she could not have done that without raising a critical eye. white women didn't travel with black male servants in the 1840 and '50s. she really had to put on a good act, you might say. then the narrative. you get a sense sometimes where they collaborated. but william -- you get a sense he's laughing at the slave system. escape and get out of the south and never go back. most slaves that escaped went to canada. canada never participated in the slave trade. the story spread like wiemed fire. it encouraged over slaves to know there was hope. you get a sense of adventure, of intrigue, and cunning, you know, et. cetera. this is why the story was so compelling. now a look at the life and political career of aaron burr with the help of cox communications. was probably the greatest of the known alleged con spore or its and lead what i think is in the running for the trial of the century of the 19th century where with a former vice president of the united on trial for treason against the united states. gail: who was aaron burr as a person? >> he has an interesting biography. his grandfather was johnathan edwards. the great leader of the great awakening his claim to fame was the bone chilling serving center -- studied for awhile before he decided it was not for him. he studied law under his famous brother-in-law who created the most famous law school in the united at the time in lynchfield, connecticut. burr stopped his study of law to serve in the continental army. he was involved in the initial invasion of quebec that didn't go well but became a minorrer hero for helping extra candidate the troop from that. it was a fairly famous officer in the army for the rest of the war and began to practice law in new york along with his friend and competitor alexander hamilton. they collaborated and found themselves on different sides. burr was capable and intelligent quickly rose through the political ranks in new york. became the united states senator and it was a short step to becoming a vice presidential candidate in 1876. why was he considered a dark and compelling figure. >> he's a mystery. he kept his views to himself. he was thought of being a great political intriguer. he was not hot-headed. he was very calm, a bit aloof. had a great deal of personal magnitude. one or two people considered the possibility that he's is a sociopath. he's very good at manipulating people and moving himself in to positions of political power. in the end, he apparently alienated everyone. he alienated the federalist political party, the republican political party, most of the leagd political factions in his state of new york. in the end guns down an -- friend and professional alexander hamilton. while he was the sitting vice president. and from there moved on to these adventure in the southwest and accused of treason against his own country. >> why did he get in to a dual with hamilton? >> got a dual with hamilton in the summer of 1804 during his final year as vice president, and i think the thing that instay gaited that was his failure to win election as governor of new york and believed that hamilton did intrigued against him to keep him out of power. he knew he was not going to be re-elected vice president. so he seized the pretends of hamilton having said something unpleasant and described as despicable. he's deliberately choose to challenge hamilton on that. hamilton refused to explain himself, and therefore burr challenged him to a duel. it's a mystery why burr did that. even more a mystery that he killed hamilton. he once referred to my friend hamilton, whom i shot. but there's a great deal about burr that really isn't explicable. many people have theories there's not evidence to support most. >> what is he like as a person? >> charming. absolutely charming. and very obviously very interested in what the person he's talking to had to say. burr was also very capable at reading people, i think, and capable of interacting with people. one thing that we always hear about or often hear about from people who know burr are his eyes. they are dark, they glitters, they are incredibly intent eyes. you see people making reference to how striking burr's gaze is. he has all the charm of sociopath. i think he's a sociopath but some believes he was a fie-functioning sociopath. >> can you give me an example. >> the falgt -- fact he shot his best friend in a duel and told large of number lies what he was doing in the west in order to attempt to raise money for whatever he was doing in the west. planning invade mexico? planning to the western part of the union from the rest of the united states? was he planning to march on washington and proclaim himself the new president or planning to settle lands in louisiana? he told every -- he told many different people veriuations all the stories. they couldn't all be true. and obviously those story were disierned to ma manipulate people. when he was charged with treason. what was the treason act he was committed? >> he was charged with treason not conspiracy to commit treason. he was kuwaited. problem you see told so many stories and groups on the frontier were involved in so many circht things. it was very hard for president jefferson and his prosecutors actually to find anything burr had done. the act that the prosecutors finally settled on took place on island which was on the ohio river in the current day state of west virginia. back then it would have been virginia. the ohio militia road out to the island. there were many men there preparing to get in boats and go downstream is part of burr's expedition. the militia attempted to arrest some of the ring leaders there, and the other settlers pulled guns on them. and that claim the prosecutors was the overt act of treason that is required by the constitution. burr himself was not there, and ultimately the prosecution could not prove that burr himself had procured that act and stain gaited it. and based on the ruling of circuit judge john marble chief justice of the supreme court but serving as trial judge at this time -- based on marshall's definition of treason. the fact that burr of not there and cannot not be shown to procure the act of tremendousson was enough to block any possible conviction of burr. >> was it important to you write the book? be it's important to know what goes on in this event. because it is such an important event in american history. the fact that the government was willing to charge burr with treason usually governments -- at least the united states government. i think any government doesn't really turn to treason prosecution unless it somehow feels itself unstable government. or gravely threatened. the united states government was a young government. the idea of different political parties was still a new one. the idea of getting your head around the fact that a political party could be opposed to your policies and not opposed to the government itself was a new idea. thomas jefferson, the president, who blamed burr for trying to steal the presidency from him and the disputed election of 1800 had a great deal of animosity to burr. he actually pronounced burr guilty before the trial took place. so you see politics in all of the nastiness. you see grand legal battles. you see personal battles over political power. you see policy battles. you see a great deal of insecurity among the leaders and the fact they're willing to charge burr at all. it's a slice of everything from love to agree yo strategy to criminal procedure to partisan politics. it tells us a lot about from many different directions. serve as a met for the history. when it was laid out in 1823, they laid it out in nice square blocks with alternating large wide boulevards, wider than washington, d.c., boulevard. is a ?ran has the square. they have the linear parks. but anyway if they were laying it out a farmer with the load of cotton headed toward the river to market it downstream. in a a lot of the ways it serve as the met for, i said. it cannot be told in the square blocks. there's so many things that happened here. it is really relates to our past, our present, and our future where the park is that is the old cotton avenue. the old dusty road where cottons was taken to the river. and this park is named after rosa parks. now i would like to take you on a view places of history note. this is cotton avenue. it's the old federal ode interesting history. this was the lower creek trading path, and running along the fall line between the plateau. when louisiana was purchased, president thomas jefferson asked benjamin hawken we need a good road to go to new orleans. it's kind of strange and difficult. they said there's at lower creek trading path. they didn't have money. they couldn't -- there was no law that said that the federal government could build roads. but they said, well, we're going do put the post office on it. it 20 years later with a series of treaties it was founded in 1823. one of the important churches here is the press pee -- they had two previous churches. it was built in 1856. they played the oregon there and his flute. ♪ a young con fed raid private in the war. he talks about the war from a completely different perspective. captured and put in a prison point lookout. and contracted turk low sis there. very difficult times. he wrote some of the most beautiful poetry and inspiring poetry that was ever written. he's a real southern poet, literary giant. he died at 39 years old. headed toward the coleman hill antebell lum house on the right. we're at the cow's bond house. it's a antebell umm home build by a railroad mag innocent. one of the first railroads built in georgia. or the first was between macon. built the house and later sold it to joseph bond. the owned hundred of slaves. wealth and con ton went hand in hand. about 20% of southerners had slaves. it was a very efficient and a lot of wealth was involved in the raising of cotton. and as you can see, this kind of house was built. now most houses weren't like this, of course. the ones that made a lot of money, it was pretty significant. what is also interesting about this house is sits on the top of the hill and you can see the rest of all of macon. when macon was captured or surrendered the war was over in 1865. april of 1865. joseph bond, who was the owner of this house actually was killed before the war. one of his overseers abused a slave. he was chastising the overseer and the overseer pulled out a pistol and killed the fellow that owned this house. joseph bond. after -- as the war came to an end and federal occupation of macon. this house was reck are a suggestioned by the general -- general james harrison wilson who was federal general that captured macon. he chose the house for residence. and bond was forced to move out. down at the river was rose hills cemetery. which is where we're heading. built in 1840 is named after the fellow that laid it out ?iewp editor here in macon. it was modeled after cemeteries in the northeast. in the early part of the 19th century. cemeteries were parks. they loved to spend time in rose hill. some of their how songs come from characters they found here at rose hill. right around the corner right here is martha. ♪ martha, one of the songs, you can see it right there. you can see little martha on the top of the tomb stone. it was one of the songs. they played songs a lot about the railroad. getting on the railroad and leaving. railroad runs next to rose hill here. they were also buried here. one of the interesting have a current to it is the story of the tracy family here in macon georgia. tracy, junior, replicate order the monument sign here talks about his life. he was killed. he was a general and buried here in rose hill. the tracy family was originally from new york. and he was a major in the army confederate army and fighting with general lee in virginia. at the battle he was killed. even though the army won the day. they had to retreat across the river and the union army had the field. well, the tracy family from baa bah save ya, new york heard about the battle. so francis tracy, the cousin, came down, found the body, dressed him like a federal office and transported his body back to batavia new york and buried him very quietly because of of course during the middle of the war there was a lot of hostility on both sides about the enemy. some say he's the only officer buried above the maison dickinson line. it's interesting that all of a sudden. it is a very important time of our history. we can learn a lot about by studying and about ourselves. this weekend in may macon, georgia. [inaudible] .. >> those five weeks of demonstratis this 1963 were based on seven years of work that shuttlesworth had done in birmingham battling segregation and, of course, the commissioner of public safety who's an eye to con of southern resistance to integration, bull connor. and so there was a great deal of drama leading up to in those latter years of the '50s and first couple of years of the '60s, and it was shuttlesworth who invited, in fact, insisted that king come to birmingham. and it took a while for king to decide to do that, but he finally did in '63 coming to the same opinion about birmingham that shuttlesworth did, that as, as segregation went in birmingham, so it would go in the nation. because birmingham was well known as the most segregated city in the south and the one most committed to maintaining segregation. >> you can never whip these birds if you don't keep you and them separate. i found that out. you've got to keep the whites and the blacks separate. >> in 1958 con or nor was doing a number of -- connor was doing a number of things. he was in charge of the police department and the fire department, and one of the things he was doing using the police department to give tickets to people who parked their cars at the mass meetings. in addition to that, he would send the fire department to interrupt the meetings on the pretense of there being fire hazards. and this happened several times during that year, and shuttlesworth became impatient with this. and after the fourth or fifth time the had happened -- time this had happened and the fire chief came in, they got into a confrontation, a verbal confrontation. shuttlesworth from the pulpit, and the fire chief standing in the middle of the church implore aring him to order -- imploring him to order the crowd to move to a -- to vacate the building and either end the meeting or take it to another venue. and shuttlesworth says, you know, if this is bull just trying to stampede the meeting, we're going to stay here forever. you'll have to drag us out. no, no, no, this is for real. this is a real fire hazard. so once again he gave in and gave the order for the people to vacate, but then he got in one last zinger, and he said, chief, you know there ain't no fire in here. the kind of fire we have in here you can't put out with hoses and axes. and when i read that story, i thought that's the title. >> you know, it's an amazing thing -- [inaudible] in the deep south. i expected to get killed. [inaudible] before anybody else. >> the montgomery boycott had just ended, and so shuttlesworth decided that if bus segregation was unconstitutional in montgomery, it must be unconstitutional 100 miles north in birmingham. so he went to the press, and he said now that the decision has been made in birmingham -- or, rather, in montgomery, it's time to make these changes this birmingham. and so we will give the transit company until the day after christmas to make the changes voluntarily. if that doesn't happen, i and x number of my followers will board the buses and sit in the front on a first come, first served basis beginning on the morning of december 26th. christmas night as he lay in his bed about 9:15 at night, a bomb was, had been placed under his, essentially, under the floor in the crawlspace of his home. immediately under, as it turned out, shuttlesworth's bed. and the headboard was, essentially, oh, six to eight feet away from the bomb which had 16 or so sticks of dynamite. it blew him up and out of bed. mattress somewhat shielded him, and he emerged with a slight bump on the head but no may sr. your injuries -- major injuries. in this occasion shuttlesworth with found his pants, went out. there were, there was some anger ask some weapons -- and some weapons being brandished. he gave a short nonviolence speech saying this is not the time or place for that, and we will, you know, the klan planted that bomb, and that bomb had my name on it, but god erased it off. and so he has saved we to lead the fight. and so the next day in spite of the bombing, in spite of the destruction of the front side of his house and also some damage to the church because the parsonage and the church were immediately adjacent to each other, he led the first integrated effort to ride the buses. twenty-two people, not including shuttlesworth himself, were arrested that day. his being saved from that experience convinced the working class followers of shuttlesworth, poor and working class -- not middle class black families, this was a poorer church -- but not just the church. by then he had founded an organization called the alabama christian movement for human rights. which was about six months old at the time of the bombing. i interviewed one of the women at the church. she was if her teens -- in her teens when the bombing took place and was gathered outside the home, and she told me if we had actually been will to observe -- been there to observe jesus walking on water, we would not have been any more reverent than we were when we saw shuttlesworth come out of that house alive. >> i always travel -- [inaudible] i'm not superman. i guess i'll have to use that word again. and i learned how to believe. >> up next from booktv's recent trip to macon, georgia, hear the narratives of southern white women during the civil war. >> when i was in graduate school a couple of things, one was southern literature, southern history. i have a miles per minor in woms studies or certificate in women's studies, so i was interested in the way in which noncombatants claimed authority to write about war, especially working with this feminist theory that was prevalent perhaps in the late '80s, early 1990s about women as pacifists. so i was really curious about southern women who supported a war effort and talked about war. so that's kind of, it was a meeting of those three things that brought me to the topic. one of my authors who, again, was a very popular southern writer from virginia said that what the south needs -- what southern literature needs is blood to nourish it but also irony, a bit of critical distance to be able to write about its most recent past. the ones who participated in the shared effort to create a version of the confederate war experience even in the postwar writings as we move into second and third generations write with support for the confederacy. most saw the war as just. there were a few women who told what i would claim as distinctly southern stories of the war who were pacifists. late 1890s turn of the century elle p glasgow wrote three books, and she did them in the reverse order. she wrote one on the populist movement of the 1890s first, and then she did one on the reconstruction era, and then she did one on the civil war. and so i look at all three of those novels. so she figured fairly prominently in my book. but that was her phrase, what southern literature needs is blood and irony. so that's where the phrase comes from. the most well known of the authors who wrote during the civil war itself is a woman named augusta jane evans who wrote a civil war novel that came out in the late, late in the war of 1864, and it looks at what is the proper role for a confederate woman, how can women in the con fed rahs is i support -- confederacy support the war effort and yet remain true to gender conventions? because that's the tough one to negotiate, what is the proper way to demonstrate female patriotism. women were not to go out in public and give speeches, they were not to act, they were not to write. those are all very public performances, so what kind of roles could women play during the role and yet show their support for the war effort? so that's one of those early writings. there are not very many novels that come out during the civil war era. there are a lot of diaries, journals that come out, and those tend to be published later. mary chestnut's the most famous. she kept a wartime diary. she revised it herself in the late 1880s with an eye toward publication. she passed away, it was not published in her lifetime, but her literary executors brought out an edition in 1905, another edition came out in 1941, i think, and then the edition that scholars are familiar with that was edited by c. dunn woodward came out in the early 1980s. these women saw themselves as participating, again, in a shared effort to create a confederate narrative of war. and the imperatives might change a bit over time, but they also saw themselves engaged in that particular project. in the 1880s a popular new york magazine, century magazine, ran a series "battles and leaders of the civil war." grant contributed to that series, a number of generals and soldiers contribute today that series -- contributed to that series. they solicited manuscripts from, from folks, and women wrote in, right? to describe what it was like on the home front. and i went to the new york public library and looked in the archives of century magazine, and these women would attach letters to their manuscripts and say i'm offering this to contribute to this series, and if you don't like it, please send it back because i think i can place it elsewhere. so they were very clear that these postwar writings, you know, were designed for publication, and if a publishing firm turned them down in one magazine, they intended to send it to another magazine, right? they felt very strongly that they had something important to say, and they were going to make sure that there was an outlet that would let them say it. margaret mitchell and mary johnston who was writing, i think her books came out in 1911, 1912, who has this unremarkably unromantic, unsentimental account of the civil war. it's very different from margaret mitchell's memory, or her narrative of the war. i would perhaps throw in the -- i always call her the poor woman. she wasn't poor, but poor in the sense that she had the misfortune of publishing a civil war novel shortly after margaret mitchell. margaret mitchell's novel came out. and she had, again, a different kind of idea about the war, and she was, she was angry. i mean, you know, her -- she wrote to a friend something to the effect of margaret mitchell, damn her. they say it took her ten years to write that book, why couldn't it have taken her 12, right? because her book comes out maybe six months, eight months after margaret mitchell's book, but all the trade had been sucked out by margaret mitchell. readers just weren't buying civil war novels after "gone with the wind." some critics wondered whether women wrote those battle scenes, is that possible? some questioned the -- wrote to publishers, right, did mary johnston really write these scenes. sometimes it was expressed from readers with the i was surprised that a woman could write battle this way. so not necessarily doubt that you actually wrote it, but surprise that you had written it. margaret mitchell armed herself with a long list of books that she purportedly used to research writing "gone with the wind" because i think she knew that she might come under attack even though battle is perhaps a tenth of that. there's very little war margaret mitchell's story. but she had a long list of some of these very diaries that i'm talking about, other novels that i talk about in this book, histories that she read in preparation so that she had a kind of authenticity to her book. for the women who participated in it, they took this work quite seriously and claimed a kind of authority to write about the war. and the second point is just how expansive and accommodating the market was for these women that they found -- and i'm not saying every woman who ever wrote anything ever got it published, but i found, i i think i was surprised to see how many novels got published at any given time by southern women or how many diaries or how many, i mean, how many versions of confederate girlhood can get published in any given year? apparently a lot, right? so i think those are two important takeaways from this study that there was an eager audience that met its desire through this work that these women did. >> while visiting macon, georgia, with the help of local cable partner cox communications, booktv sticks with lauretta hannon about her memory, "the cracker queen." >> the cracker queen describes a person with a certain state of mind and quality of spirit. no heart what life throws at her or him -- because it can be anybody -- you are determined to move forward, to learn and to grow from all of the loss and sorrows and hardships in life. and not only do you move forward, you also maintain your wicked sense of humor, you know, and your sass and your determination that you will be warrior, not a victim. and you have a lot of fun too, you know? is you're not perfect. if you're a cracker queen, see, this is what's different from a lot of other models for women or men to be. if you're a cracker queen, because you're no angel, it can mean two things, both the life of the party and the reason the police have to be summoned. so it's sort of a unique take on sort of how to really respond to the bad things that happen to you and why those things don't have to damage you, they don't have to make you go in a bad direction, they can, in fact, be the very things that move you forward. and if the cracker queen is about anything, it's about -- it doesn't matter what has happened to to you, it's how you respond to what has happened to you. so you're not all that bad stuff that happened. you are the person who has emerged if response -- in response to how you set your mind about growing from it. cracker queen is the story of by life, the story of coming up on literally the wrong side of the tracks right down the road from where we sit right now among a pack a of heroines, hellions, renegades and bad seeds. [laughter] and so it's the story, you know, of a family that is disintegrating, it's falling apart, but we're really trying to keep our wits about us. i found that humor was the most supreme coping skill, and we always tried to find something funny in the darkest hours. and so that's why my book is sort of of a dual nature. on the one hand, it's gritty. it covers very difficult subject matter at times, you know, violence and shameful things and alcoholism and neglect and all kind of stuff. but i also leaven it with humor because that's how we were dealing with it at the time, you know? and so the cracker queen is a story really, also, about the power of love and forgiveness and gratitude and purpose and, again, that whole idea of moving forward new your pain really honestly so that -- through your pain really honestly so that you can come out of it stronger and better. you have an interesting dynamic in my parents. my father was 21 years older than my mother. he was this world war ii. -- in world war ii. he was in the first little handful of g.i.s and he was a jazz musician. he was a spiritual seeker. he was really different. he was rumored to be the first white boy in pittsburgh to wear a zoot suit. and so you have that going on. so you have an artistic, sort of intellectual father. and hen my mother -- then my mother grew up in a tar paper shack without running water, without electricity in family that was so broke down and poor and messed up that when i read tobacco road, you know, the famous novel, i thought, wow, these people are almost middle class. [laughter] so, you know, and she was pregnant 15. not with my father, but with another man. and she just had a real, really hard scrabble kind of early life. and when they met, here you have two people so different but with a lot of spiritual affinity and hurtses, i think, that they brought to the union even though there was deep, deep, transcendent love there. so it made for a strange, strange family. a lot of the book takes place right here near macon, and -- because i grew up, grew up here. and then we go, we go to london, we go to other parts of georgia where i went to school at the university of georgia in athens and where i hooked up right away into the art bohemian, you know, music scene there and founder -- found a wonderful mecca for my, you know, uniqueness, whatever you call it. so that was wonderful. so it's a little bit all over the map, but most of it is here in middle georgia. i needed to tell the story of my childhood so that the last part of the book would make sense, so that the realizer would know why i'm espousing these ways to live joyfully, you know? and how to to. because you have to know the road i've walked, you know? and also i hope it gives me credibility, you know? i'm not somebody with a silver spoon say ising, oh, be happy, you know? and then calling for the chauffer, you know? no. you know how jeff foxworthy became famous for his you might be a redneck if jokes. here are some telltale signs if you are seeing a cracker queen out there. you -- and here are some good ones. you might be seeing a cracker queen be you see a woman at the waffle house changing a diaper on the counter, okay? you might be a cracker queen yourself if you have ever worn a tube top to a funeral like my crazy aunt carrie did. and here's one for you, think back to a rural grandmother or great grandmother in your family. you might be a cracker queen if your mama believed that rassling was real but the moon landing was faked. see there? so those are some examples of, you know, if you've ever given your last dollar to that good looking tv preacher, you know? that's a sign there too, for sure. i think the first thing is keeping your sense of humor, you know? and having a playfulness about you. being able to look at the worst times of your life and looking for the things that you can learn from from them, those are certainly some things. and, you know, we have in the cracker queen world, we call it the cracker queen posse. there's a whole community that has dropdeveloped around this of wonderful folks, and the posse, we have a few beliefs. i'll give them a couple of hem. the cracker queen posse, and this is from the book, we have a few tenets we live by. number one, thou shalt be bad ass, okay? that's number one. [laughter] and really this has to do with, again, not being a victim, you know? taking ownership for whatever's going on if your life, not blaming other people, being transparent, being candid and honest, being connected and choosing to be happy, you know? choosing it and realizing and accepting you do have a choice. you really do. because, see, the way i grew up -- and especially on my mother's side of the family -- i had come from so many generations of extreme poverty, increst-type -- insist-type -- inchris-type things, every beatdown kind of thing you can go there through, right? so when you come along in a family like that, you don't realize you have any choices. you think, oh, the people who live on the other side of the tracks, that's more them. those options aren't even open to people like us. we didn't even have a car, you know? my mom -- we didn't, you know? and so it's almost like a farm of mental oppression, you know, that you're born with and that's reinforced. so you have to break out of that. so that's a big part of the cracker queen thing. and, you know, someone came to me the other day and said, my goodness, there is no shame in your game, girl, is there? i said, of course there isn't. because all the things that happened as i was growing up, i wasn't responsible for them, you know? that's not my shame to carry or to hold on to. so in the story mama and the chain gang, this was -- as i said -- when i was a preschooler, so before i started, you know, school, so i had my days hanging out with my mom, we would ride around in the cadillac that we had because my father won it in a poker game. in a poker game, yes. it gave us the respectability, but it was really won over a card game. and we would on occasion run into the men working on chain gang, the convicts, you know, on the side of the road. and when that would happen, hama and i -- mama and i would always have a plan. there wasn't much to do in the early 1970s but ride around. so that's what mama and i did. during my preschool games, we tooled around in the butter-colored cadillac which was stocked with vodka and orange juice. i sat on armrest in the front seat biting at the air rushing from the vents. this was before child seats and air bag, but i had the ultimate protection, the mama arm of steel. the slightest tap of brake, her arm would nail me against the seatment our greatest adventures involved chain gangs, crews of convicts working by the road. we never slipped anyone a shank in a homemade cake or provided a getaway car, but what we did do was just as thrilling. when we'd happen upon these crews, we'd rush to the nearest convenience store and buy cartons of cigarettes for them. we might have been broke, but mama was never cheap. she bought the best brands; marlboros, kents and winstons. my job was to break up the cartons so we could hurl the packs out the window. timing was crucial as the men had to snatch up the cigarettes before the boss man and his shotgun could intervene. not once did we ride by without doing something. our mission was too important and way too fun. the excitement never faded. we didn't know when or where we'd come upon a chain gang, so it was always a surprise and a call to action regardless of where we were going or what our plans might have been. mama would floor it once she was sure contact had been made. i'd leap over the front seat and press my face against the back window. i loved watching the prisoners smile and hoist the packs high above their heads as we fled in a cloud of red dust. sometimes one of the men cried, but i knew he wasn't sad. as a 4-year-old, i saw the radical happiness i had caused. for the first time, i became aware of my own power, and it felt good. i savored the view long into the distance. once they were out of sight, i'd stretch across the backseat and picture them in my head. the men in stripes. their wide grins and salty tears. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to macon, georgia, and the many other cities we have visited in our local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/localcontent. here's a look at the top ten best selling nonfiction books according to the los angeles times. >> these three authors recently appeared on booktv, and their programs can be viewed anytime online at booktv.org. in fourth, atlantic editor scott stossel chronicles his struggles with anxiety in "my age of anxiety." and fifth, charles krauthammer presents a collection of his political columns, "things that matter: three decades of passions, pastimes and politics." watch the pulitzer prize-winning, syndicated columnist's program from the george w. bush presidential library at our web site, booktv.org. sixth on the l.a. times' bestseller list is "stitches" followed by "a short guide to a long life." ari shavit in "promised land," it's eighth. in ninth place, "little failure." and wrapping up the list is gabriel sherman's profile of roger ailes in the loudest voice in the room. look for mr. sherman's appearance on booktv's author interview program "after words" airing in the near future on booktv on c-span2. and that's the top ten best selling nonfiction books list according to the los angeles times. ..

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