and as an older generation that grew up on the walt disney mini series about davy crockett who considered john wayne, the alamo to be a documentary, these were all reinforcing the idea of white supremacy. now we are saying that is all a lie. that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. when i wrote about legends about my family's slaveholding help my family supposedly treated slaves well, which we now know, you can't do that. so yes% the texas population. >> you talk a lot about reimagining our history, bringing it into a fuller account of what we know to be our history, not just in texas but in america and beyond. we talk about the foundational myth being upended about talking at the slavery aspect of things. so much of this is also the individual characters. davy crockett it's about travis it's about sam houston, it's about santa ana, a lot of forgotten characters is there one of these any of the people i named her anybody else you think is the misunderstood or the character we are most wrong about? and who is that and in what way? i would say for instance one of the things that struck me

someday someone is going to ask whether they should spend money to put davy crockett's fake bag in a four-story fraud but most people are interested in examining our foundational nets and i'm frankly a little encouraged by that. >> there's a debate for every generation. that was one of the through lines of the book is that every generation has debated what really happened. what did it mean and what's real and what's not . and the fact that we're still having that conversation over artifacts that could end up in a museum and could be paid for by taxpayer money, it just tells us how little we really know so i'm hoping that people will come for whatever reason and have a bit of a multi generational thrill ride. >> one of the questions is talking about the degree to which these myths affect our political atmosphere and you also to that. is there anything to add to that question that you want to talk about here. >> we don't realize governor abbott was going to be moving our book so heavily. but when we started this, twhen chris got this ball rolling two years ago nobody was talking about

davy crockett and lewis and clark, george washington, do you love all the american greats and icons who made us who we are? do you love our nation's culture? you love our nations constitution? do you love our nation's borders? then i need each and everyone of you to wake up every morning and ask yourself the question, "what will i do today to make america stronger and safer and more secure?" i need you to say, what can i do as a proud citizen to do my part to make sure the country survives and thrives for another generation? and i will leave you with this thought -- the most powerful force that we have -- we don't have all the money, folks. jeff bezos has all the money. we don't have the media, we know that. education, although we are taking it back. we don't have journalism. we don't have the legal profession. the deck is stacked against us pretty good. but there is one thing that we have, than it is the same thing that sent our american ancestors across the plains to settle the west, to win victory in every great american battle, the same thing that inspired the law men on the frontie

davy crockett was against the death that's a big hot issue goes back to the 1800s. debtors prison and that how it penalizes people. and even the idea of purchasing slaves as the whole issue it is that debate over how to convince slaveowners to give up their slaves. you compensate them for it. so that is what is interesting. he was clearly playing paying attention to what is being debated politically. he's not just on the fringes and many ways he's trying to put together real platforms that addresses what are the issues that are relevant to people at the time he is running. humane essay he's a political animal but he is a student of two find out what issues people cared about. >> guest: something in writing this book does not appear in the began but became apparent as i wrote it, joseph development the development i need to make my case and they could see the america. by 1844 have to pay political hardball party have to take on these big issues front and center. again it really has developed from the showed up at the white house and the man that runs in 1844. >> host

jim, travis, davy crockett, these were names that were known to us. i knew who they were and as a semi- god black person. and in real life he would get into knife b fights and then to become famouse because of that so we go to see the film and it was a very heroic portrayal of the alamo is you would have expected and there was nothing in there that surprised me and a character who was a slave and portrayed not in a way with that trope of loyal slaves but for the most part it was a her awake presentation to make this last glorious stand against the mexicans. nowen later on, when i was a teenager or maybe i was in college then i came to understand that the texans had reason to fight for their independence but one of them was to protect the slaveholders and to make it as our republic. how am i supposed to deal with this? i am african-american. s my ancestors were enslaved in texas. how do i keep this heroic understanding about the alamo when i realize one of the things they were fighting for was to keep my people in bondage? so as a little kid i enjoyed

these were name -- davy crockett. and my friend who was a boy, my best friend, you know, really was into those characters. i mean, i knew who they were, and i thought jim bowie was almost this myth ific sort of -- mythic sort of semi-godlike person that had these special powers. it was just a knife, in the real life he got into knife fights, and the bowie knife became famous because of that. so we went to see this film, and it is a very, very heroic portrayal of the alamo, as you would have expected. and i, you know, there was nothing in there that surprised me. there was things that made me uncomfortable. they had a character who was a slave and was or portrayed not in a way that -- in a way that made me uncomfortable, the sort of loyal slave, trope that was in the it. but for the most part, it was this he rowic representation of this battle where the texans made this last glorious stand against the mexicans. now, later on when i was a teenager and actually, yeah, teenage years or even by the -- probably maybe when i