On his family's conflicting attitudes about its slaveholding past
My grandfather took almost a perverse pride in being the grandson of slaveholders. It was something for him to brag about. In Texas, countless people will tell you that they're fourth generation, fifth generation, sixth generation Texans. There's this amazing sense of pride in your family being an early settler. During the civil rights era, my grandfather — who as a young man I suspect was a member of the Klan — liked to provoke people by saying, "My family owned slaves — and they loved it so much, they took our last name." He was very proud of that.
My father, on the other hand, was not. In fact, he considered it something shameful. And it was strange growing up as a child, hearing my grandfather take this one view and my father telling me, "You know, that's not really something you should be so proud of."
On how he was taught about slavery in school in Texas
We learned slavery was bad. Roots came on television while I was learning about slavery, but the teachers always used the passive voice to talk about it. Slavery was evil but no one was responsible. There was no agency. There was no confrontation of the fact that maybe our ancestors had held slaves.
It was: "Mistakes were made. Slavery was a thing and it's not anymore and that's good and slavery is bad. Let's move on and go sing [the Confederate anthem] Dixie and be proud of our heritage."
On how he was inspired by post-apartheid South Africa
It was inspiring to me to be in South Africa after the election [of Nelson Mandela] and to see that reckoning. Bishop Desmond Tutu established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and at the time, his argument was that before there can be reconciliation, you have to have a sharing of the truth and it has to be a common truth. One community can't have one idea of what happened and the other community ... a different idea. If you want them to reconcile, they have to agree about what happened. And that requires — for lack of a better word — confession and contrition. ...
I don't think that's something that's happened in the United States. And it certainly didn't happen in my life. And so writing this book was my opportunity to go through that process — if, for no one else, [than] for the African-American Tomlinsons and my side of the family, that we have that truth and reconciliation.