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Female Firsts: Susie King Taylor · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Steff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told you flectu.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I heart radio, and it is time for another edition
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: of Female First, which means we are once again joined
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: by the superb the super Eeves.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Welcome.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, we've missed you.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: I know I took a little month off there.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well I wasn't good. I hope it was a
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: good month of.
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, definition of good. I mean, as we were just
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: talking about before we started recording, Annie, things are very
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: up and down. Sometimes things really felt like they're in disarray.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: But I mean I did go on a trip.
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: You know, I got some outdoors time, I got some
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: camping time in, and I got like some so low time.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: So like time to chill. So I guess that could
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: be considered good.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very good. Yes, it's kind of a retreat.
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: Well yeah, unless you know, thoughts scream at you, and
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: then that's not great. But that's a whole different conversation.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: Say every night thing, Samantha, that is the existential crisis
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: that happens when I'm laying there trying my best to
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: go to sleep.
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: And all the things come across her. Do you get
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: these odd questions when you're thinking things through and you're
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: literally trying to sleep, does it like right out in
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: your head?
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Is that just no? Do you mean like you can
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: visualize the words?
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: Yes, Like it's like a script in my head that
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: goes through wow instead of pictures. Sometimes Okay, I'm not one,
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: let's keep going.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: I've too much.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I think I don't get like words.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll get very specific phrases that I hear in
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: my mind, but I don't see words write it's going.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: To write in and be like, that's actually you should
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: see a doctor.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Well that's always us plus the benefit, I guess.
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: But anyway, that's not what we're talking about today.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: No, no, it's not.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: But something else that happened while you were going to
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: ease is that you started a new show show.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Yes I did.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: It's called on Theme, and I'm co host of it
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: with Katie Mitchell, who's a bookstore owner and a longtime
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: friend of mine.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, I cannot wait, so listeners definitely go check that out.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: But also Katie's gonna come on the show and we're
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: going to have a conversation about it.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So I'm excited to meet Katie. E meet.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I am too. I'm excited for that to happen.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, definitely keep an ear out for that. Listeners, Can
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: you tell us a little bit about what the show
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: is about.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's about black storytelling in all its forms.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: So that can mean books, that can mean movies, television, shows, plays, obituaries.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: You know, it can mean.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: All sorts of things, like anywhere in any way that
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: storytelling shows up in the ways that black people are
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: involved in it in music as well, which is a
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: huge way in which, like hip hop is such a
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: like popular form of music, and it's a huge way
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: that black storytelling shows up. And like literally our everyday
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: lives and dominates so many different spaces, but it goes
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: far and beyond like all those things that we talk
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: about on the show, and we just really wanted a
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: place that was a forum to have conversations about black storytelling,
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: considering how powerful it is, how impactful it is, how
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: much we all everyone in the world enjoys black storytelling
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: on a daily basis. So we've started and we've already
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: got several episodes up, so if everyone wants to go
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: listen to them. Wherever you're listening to Sminty, you can
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: also go listen to one theme.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Oh yes, so exciting.
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: I do have a question, because you and I share
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: a love for musicals, will you be talking about Brandy
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: and Whitney Houston's Cinderella please?
• 4:09
  Speaker 6: You know that?
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: Thank you for that, Samantha. Honestly, that has not come
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: up and topics of conversation, I know, but thank you
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: for that. We're gonna have to talk to Katie about
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: that because it is a quintessential piece of storytelling that
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: includes black actors in it, even though the original content
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: is not specifically a black but definitely the black community.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: I can't speak for the black community, and I'm not
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: gonna pretend like I can, but I think the black
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: community would vote for that as being a black property.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: I just say, like Brandy is iconic in every way,
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: but I feel like she just really she was already
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: big at before this point, but like really put herself
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: as a princess, like when we didn't see that in
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: Disney World. So I just I always think about it.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: I can't help it. It just comes to my mind.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great idea. Sorry, Sorry, don't be sorry
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: for giving free game. You just gave me an.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Idea in my head.
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: I'm like, there's this whole like name about men't think
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: about the Roman Empire every day. I think Brandy Cinderella
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: is my Roman Empire because I think about it at
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: least once a day.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: I don't know. This is just a thing that sild
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: to bring it into conversation.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. Oh my gosh.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: From now on, Samantha, I want every conversation with you
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: to somehow come back.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Don't threaten a good time.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I think that would be amazing. Give me the most
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: obscure thing too.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Listeners, definitely go check out on the go, subscribe, leave
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: those good reviews, and check it out because it is
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: that is very relevant to a lot of the topics
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: that you bring onto this show. Oh yeah, including the
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: person we're talking about today. Can you tell us who.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: We're discuss So today we're talking about Susie King Taylor,
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: and Annie was saying it's relevant because she did have
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: a memoir and a lot of the people that we
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: bring on here, fortunately not all of them, but a
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: lot of them were able to document their own stories
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: and other people were able to document their stories. And
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: that is the case in a very significant and impactful
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: way in Susie King Taylor's life. She was the first
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: black American army nurse. She was also the first black
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: educator known to teach in a school for formerly enslaved
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: Black Americans in Georgia. And she was the first and
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: only Black American woman to publish a memoir of her
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: wartime experiences during the Civil War. So she had a
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: lot of contributions in terms of her first She.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Did multiple first Yeah, So shall we get.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Into her history for sure? So she was born in
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: August of eighteen forty eight. Her name was Susan Baker,
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: and she was born in Liberty County, Georgia, which isn't
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: that far from Savannahs a little bit south of it.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: Her parents were Raymond and hagar Anne Baker, and she
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: was the first of their nine children, though a few
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: of them did die in infancy, which she talks about
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: in her memoir. Briefly, she was born enslaved and she
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: lived on a plantation for the first seven years of
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: her life, and they lived on the Valentine Gress Plantation
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: which is in Midway, Georgia, although her father was at
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: a different plantation for a time in Georgia. In eighteen
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: fifty five, This wasn't the most common occurrence, but it
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: did happen for Susie. Her enslavers let her go and
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: live with her grandmother, Dolly Reid in Savannah, And when
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: I was looking up her story, it said that Dolly
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Reid was quasi free, and I was like, that makes
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: what does that mean?
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: That makes no sense to me?
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: Can you tell me what that means? It seems like
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: her grandmother may have either been free or may have
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: been enslaved and hired out, but either way, her grandmother
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: had a modicum of flexibility in terms of Susie being
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: able to come live with her. Her grandmother did took
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: that a little further and helped educate Susie. So there,
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: of course were laws against educating black people at the time,
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: but Susie, with the help of her grandmother, was able
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: to go to two secret schools taught by free black
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: women and family friends, so she got an education there.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: They talk about all the sources talk about how the
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: kids would come in at different times, so they would
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: kind of come in one by one, so it when
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: it looked.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Like they were there to be educated.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: And also there was other domestic services, other things that
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: they could be taught besides things like reading and writing
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: that they would be coming in for. So it wasn't
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: completely off the wall to see these kids going in,
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: but they didn't have them all come in at the
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: same time, and the books they brought in they would
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: even bring in covered in some way. So there came
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: a point though, when Susie she learned what she could
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: with him, and there were a couple of other people
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: who were one was a neighbor and the other was
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: a landlord's son who she also talks about in her
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: memoir tutored her and helped her continue her education when
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: she had gotten what she could get from her school experiences.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: By eighteen sixty two, though, Susi had moved back in
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: with her mother in Liberty County, and at this point
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: the Civil War had begun. Savannah, Georgia, was a big
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: site of conflict in the Civil War, and Confederate troops
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: occupied Fort Pulaski, which is down there in Savannah, from
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: January of eighteen sixty one to April of eighteen sixty two.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: On April first of eighteen sixty two, Union forces attacked
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: Fort Pulaski, and oftentimes enslaved people would flee to their
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: freedom under times of heightened conflict in war, so the
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: Union Army at first would turn them to their enslavers,
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: but later they began considering them quote unquote contrabands of
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: war and they made the military laborers, so they were
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: kind of off of the hook for having to return them.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: To their enslavers.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: But in Susi's story, in April of eighteen sixty two,
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: she her uncle and many other enslaved black people escaping
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: slavery made it to a boat that was headed out
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: to Saint Catharine's Island, which is not far from where
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: they were in Georgia on the east coast, and then
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: Saint Simon's Island on the unionship the USS Potomska. So
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: Simon's Island at the time, it is, if people aren't
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: familiar with it, a barrier island that's off the east
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: coast of Georgia, and at that time it was Union occupied.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: So on the ship and on Saint Simon's Island, army
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: officers were like, ooh, an educated black person, but look
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: at that, we haven't seen much of that before. Essentially,
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: they realized how educated she was. They realized that she
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: could read, and she could write so, and they arranged
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: for her to teach on the island. So she was
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: still very young at the time. She was still only
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: around fourteen years old, but she began at that time
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: teaching children to write during the day and at night
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: she would teach adults to read and write. And this
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: is where someone of her first comes in. So she
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: became the first black person to teach at a freedman's
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: school in Georgia. She taught the hundreds of people who
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: were there who were previously enslaved.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: So later in.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: Eighteen sixty two, she moved to Beaufort, South Carolina, and
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: this is where the first South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: formed under General Rufus Saxton. They were the first black
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: regiment in the US Army, and then a couple of
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: years later though, they became the thirty third United States
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: Colored Troops, but by that point black folks could enlist
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: in segregated units. They didn't get paid for the first
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: eighteen months of their service though, but Susie ended up
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: marrying a guy named Edward King, who was an officer
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: in the thirty third and they eventually did go on
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: to have one son, but from eighteen sixty two to
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: eighteen sixty six, Susie worked with the thirty third. So
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: we've heard this term times before in other episodes of
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: Female First, and that is laundress. That's what Susie's official
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: title was, but that wasn't the extent of the work
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: that she did. She also worked as a nurse, as
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: a cook, as a teacher, and she cleaned and she
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: tested weapons and as I'm sure we are and so
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: many of the listeners are familiar with having one title
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: and doing so many other things beyond that title. So
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: she was definitely that, and she was a laundress and
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: did those other things. But because she was titled a laundress,
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: that did like actually affect the economics of her position.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: She said in her book quote, I was enrolled as
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: company laundress, but I did very little of it because
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: I was always busy doing other things through camp and
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: was employed all the time doing something for the officers
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: and comrades.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: That's the end of the quote.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: But she was around a lot of illnesses taking care
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: of people. But it said that she didn't get ill
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: with anything like malaria or cholera and typhoid, which were
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: present at the time. But going back to the idea
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: of her being a laundressed she didn't get pay or
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: a pension for her work. And her husband, who was
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: an officer, he didn't end up. He did get pay eventually,
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: but he didn't get a pension like other white people
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: who were in the same positions did. But besides the
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: work that she did in the regiment camps, she provided
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: aid at nearby hospitals as well, And it's unclear which
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: hospital she went to exactly, but it is likely that
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: she went to one for fugitives from slavery and for
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: wunded black soldiers. So there's lots of information about the
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: experience that she had in wartime in her memoir, which
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: we'll talk about later because she didn't publish it until
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: later in her life. But just if anybody is interested
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: in the goings on of like the battles that were happening,
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: the conflict that was happening, what her role in it was,
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: and some of the people that were around her in
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: the war that she was seeing, that.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Information is in her memoir.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: And indeed, like a lot of the information that we
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: know about Susie King Taylor in general comes from her memoir.
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: But after the war, Susie and Edward moved to Savannah.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: She wanted to keep.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: Teaching and open a school for newly free people, and
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: Edward wanted to work in his trade, which he was
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: a carpenter, but he wasn't able to get jobs because
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: of his race in the field, and instead he took
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: work unloading ships. But he ended up dying in an
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: accident in September of eighteen sixty six. And not long
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: after that is when the couple's son was born, and
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: so she did have family help helping raise the son,
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: because at that point, you know, her son's father was
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: no longer there to be help, and of course she
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: had her hands full as well doing the teaching work
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: that she was doing. And of course it was already
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: difficult in this post war period to make money for anybody,
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: but like for a black woman in the state of
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: Georgia at the time, it was difficult for her. She
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: did pursue her goals and her dreams of opening the school.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: She opened a few fee based schools in the area
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: over the next couple of years, but free public schools
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: for black children were opening and it was hard for
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: her to compete with them. It was also generally hard
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: to make money because of the war had devastated the economy,
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: so she lost students to those schools, She lost money
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: to those schools, and she turned to domestic work, which
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: is something that she knew she could rely on to
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: be able to support herself and her family. She took
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: work for a wealthy family. She went with them to
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Boston in the early eighteen seventies, where she would eventually
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: end up living until she died, although she did return
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: to the South occasionally, and she talks about that in
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: her memoir as well, her experiences dealing with segregation in
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: the South, the separate and equal circumstances Jim Crow and
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: from her specific perspective, she had done all of this
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: truly selfless work of participating in the war, like her
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: efforts of nursing, of helping people who were fighting, and
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: she saw these other things going on, and then on
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: one side, she was like, I did this for a reason.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: I was dedicated to it, like I believe in this
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: place and our ability to move forward. And also I'm
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: seeing all these other, this other, this racism and discrimination
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: that's happening. And that was something that she talked about
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: and wrestled with and to reconcile in her writing.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: But she eventually met and married.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: Russell Taylor, who was her second husband, and she starved
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: with the Women's Relief Corps, which was a Civil War
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: veterans organization, and even became president of her corps in
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: eighteen ninety three. So years later, in eighteen ninety eight,
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: she went to Louisiana to care for her son who
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: was ill, but he did end up dying that year.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: So through the course of her going back to Louisiana,
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: there are these instances of her facing discrimination, and she
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: talks about that in her memoir which she published in
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: nineteen oh two, and the name of that was Reminiscences
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: of my Life in Camp with the thirty third United
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: States Colored Troops late first South Carolina Volunteers.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: So I won't say that whole thing every time.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Very specific, though very clear.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: It is very clear. We love a good subheading. But
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: that made her first. She was the first and only
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: black American woman to publish account of her experiences in
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: the Civil War.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: And she says in the preface to that.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: Book that she didn't even think that she would write
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: the memoir, but that Colonel C. T. Troubridge, who commanded
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: that regiment, encouraged her to and that inspired her to
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: write down her experiences. Memoirs of wartime were pretty abundant
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: for the Civil War and generally in and during other
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: war times as well, but a lot of the time
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: those were men who were writing those accounts. But Susie
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: hoped that the book showed quote how much service and
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: good we can do to each other, and what sacrifices
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: we can make for our liberty and rights, and that
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: there were loyal women as well as men in those
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: days who did not fear shell or shot, who cared
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: for the sick and dying, women who camped and feared
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: as the boys did, and who are still caring for
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: the comrades in their declining years.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: And that's the end of that quote.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: So it was definitely a feat and an effort that
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: was important to her to write this memoir, and it
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: was clear that she was aware of her role as
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: a woman in the effort and also actually writing down
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: her experiences and trying to disseminate them to a wider audience.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: It's about her life when she was enslaved. It's about
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: her life as an emancipated woman, and it's about her
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: life as an educator and a nurse, in her life
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: as a black woman in the South.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: So it really is kind of a privilege to be
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: able to.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: Have her self professed account of that situation in so
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: many of those different ways that gives us insight into
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: not just her life, but the life of other people
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: who we may not know about, who contributed in the
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: ways that she did. Because if we just looked at
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: her stories and saw her title as laundress and considered
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: that it just ended there, then there's so much else
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: about her life that would be left out. And she
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: wrote about the discrimination that she faced in the South.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: And yeah, so the book is available online for everybody
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: to read, and there is commentary on it as well
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: in certain editions of the book, and a little bit
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: more context around it and what her contributions meant. But
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: there are a bunch of other quotes from the book
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: that I could pull out, but I'll let people go
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: and discover that on the own. But I will give
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: another one, and that's I wonder if our white fellow
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: men realized the true sense of meaning of brotherhood. For
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: two hundred years we had toiled for them. The War
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: of eighteen sixty one came and was ended, and we
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: thought our race was forever free from bondage, and that
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: the two races could live in unity with each other.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: But when we read almost every day of what is
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: being done to my race by some whites in the South,
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: I sometimes ask was the war in vain? Has it
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: brought freedom in the full sense of the word, or
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: has it not made our condition more hopeless? And that's
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: the end of the quote and the sentiments behind that,
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: the idea of questioning whether the work we're doing is
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: fulfilling and it's purposeful, and it's actually making any change,
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: the idea of what freedom actually is, the sense of
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: questioning the word freedom itself and everything that it entails.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: Thinking about conditions that she saw throughout the course of
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: her life, trying to think about whether they had improved
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: at all and in what ways those improvements had been made.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: You can see her working through those questions and from
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: a very personal perspective to where she was literally tending
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: to people who have been harmed, specifically working with black
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: people who were fighting for the United States, and doing
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: it in a way that was very altruistic a lot
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: of this was she was lending her time and her
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: body to this effort and not seeing pay for it.
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: And when she was seeing pay for the things she
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: was doing, it was so very little. So it's just
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: very insightful for her to see her wrestling with these
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: questions and how everything she saw affected her and the
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: fact that it was published and we are still able
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: to read it today, it's pretty important.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: So Susie died in nineteen twelve and.
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: She's in Boston and that's that's her story.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And you're you're totally right, it's so important.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad that she wrote this down and that
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: this exists, that we can still read it, because so
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: often these stories are lost or erased, purposely erased, and
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: it just it does diminish so much of what was
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: happening or what someone's life that it's not just laundress,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: and that impacts like what we learn in school or
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: what you can find on Wikipedia, for instance. Like just
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: having this information is so important. Having this account and
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: that it was her personal account is so important.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, And you know, to go back to one.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Theme, that's kind of what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: It's really, So there are a lot of accounts of
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: people who were previously enslaved and how they viewed things
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: and of people during wartime and in so many different ways.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: And it's just like every individual who's able to contribute
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: to that history is important because everybody had different experiences,
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: they lived in different places, they had their own different
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: viewpoints and opinions about things, and so every single account
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: that can add to that history, to.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: The archive of.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Information that we have around these topics is important because
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: it just gives us a wider view of everything that
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: was happening, gives us a little peek into their lives.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, and that's I had never heard this story before.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: We always love when you come on ERE so you
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: can bring these stories to us. I'm happy too, Yeah, And.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: It's so sad because for us in Atlanta who have
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: to study Georgia history and not knowing anything about this,
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: and how little and like ignorant I am in these stories.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: It makes me so sad that it took me forty
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: years to hear the story, which is why I appreciate
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: what you're doing and all the work that you put
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: into this, and especially knowing that this memoir is out
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: there like that is such an amazing perspective, a first
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: person perspective to see the heartbreaks and in the aftermaths
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: of civil war, because yeah, oftentimes that conversation is left
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: out of what happened after and how it was not
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: great and what needs to happen, And especially if you're
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: here in Georgia, and if you're from North Georgia as
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: I was in the education, it's not as glossed over
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: so ugly, like it's so horrific how it glossed over,
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: and seeing her perspective and seeing how she was still
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: hit with so much hurt, and seeing all of the
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: heartbreak and horrific actions that were happening to our people,
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: it's just I just I'm annoyed, Like I'm quite annoyed,
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: because I'm like, I can't believe I'm forty three and
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: now hearing this, this is a boo.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's not like a lot of that
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: work to cover up these stories wasn't intentional, right exactly,
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: you know. I mean from the very beginning of the
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: place that we saw in Susie's story how difficult it
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: was and how she had to undercover under wraps get
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: her education and right, Yeah.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: And that's part of that conversation is like how they
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: went through all this and that in itself is a
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: giant story and what we need to look at and
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: why that's so important and that we need to talk
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: about it today.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, well, thank you as always Eves for doing
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: this work, for all the things that you do under
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: the title. But we do love you having you, and
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: we are very excited to talk to you and Katie
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: in an upcoming episode.
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: Yay.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: But in the meantime, where can the good listeners find you?
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Y'all can find me.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: Y'all can go to my website Eves Jeffcoat dot com.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: So that's y v E S J E F F
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: C O A T like the coach youwhear dot com.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: You can also find me on Instagram at not Apologizing.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: You can find me on many, many, many other episodes
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: of Female First talking about the amazing things that women
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: in history did. And you can also find me at
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: on Theme show on Instagram right now, and you can
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: go listen to my new podcast on Theme.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, go do it, listeners, you won't regret it. Yes, yes,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: and listeners. If you want to contact us, you can.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: You can emails at Stephandia, mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: or on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: You can find us on TV Public, and we have
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: a book, Stuff you should read Books dot com.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: You can get it wherever you get your books.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, our executive
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: producer Maya, and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You, the
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio,
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: you can check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows