Book Review: Tomlinson Hill

 
Tomlinson:  In Black and White
 
Stars: 4/5
 
Chris Tomlinson’s undertaking to uncover his family’s history of owning slaves is highly commendable.  From the arrival of the first Tomlinson in Falls County, Texas and purchasing the land that would become Tomlinson Hill to the last African-American with the Tomlinson name to reside there, the author chronicles his ancestry through some of black history’s major epochs:  slavery, Civil War, emancipation, reconstruction, segregation, desegregation.
 
Chris Tomlinson’s experience as an AP journalist covering international affairs provides for unfiltered writing when it comes to race relations. He writes fluidly and openly about his family’s racist past and his own encounters when dealing with race. In tracing the roots of the white Tomlinson family and the slaves they owned with the same namesake, the author was finally able to prove something that he always heard but was never really explained to him. His research revealed how his white ancestors were the slaveowners of the ancestors of famous now-retired NFL running back LaDanian Tomlinson.
 

 
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