Hello and welcome to GabFest reads for the month of February.

I'm Emily Bazelon, one of the hosts of Slate's Political GabFest,

and I am so glad to be here today with Rich Benjamin,

who is the author of the new book, Talk to Me,

Lessons from a Family Forged by History.

Rich, welcome.

Thank you, Emily, So glad to be here.

Thank you. So when we met, you told me that your grandfather was the president of Haiti, who was spirited out of the country in a coup with the help or the hurt of the Eisenhower

administration, and that you had a book coming out about him and the effects of his exile on your

family. I was sold right away, wanted to talk with you about this book, and now here it is.

So if you don't mind, let's start with your grandfather, Daniel Finiolet. For readers who may not be

familiar, who was he and how did he come to power? Daniel Finiolet. For readers who may not be familiar, who was he and how did he come to power?

Daniel Finiolet was a labor leader in Haiti who began leading 29 unions as of 1946,

and he fought so that factory workers and dog workers and people who worked in banana fields and sugar plants

could have better working conditions and better wages. And so ultimately, he parlayed his

popularity as a labor leader to become president in 1957. And he was overthrown in a coup that very year.

And how does that coup come about?

Tangled in this story is Haiti's relationship to the United States as a colonial power,

and the way it was sort of at the mercy of the United States, if that's a fair way to put it.

So what is happening that leads to this coup

and give us the context for that?

So most people don't realize, Emily,

...