Latest / The City of Frankfort Podcast / Ep 26: Juneteenth Panel Discussion

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Ep 26: Juneteenth Panel Discussion · The City of Frankfort Podcast

0:23
So first of all, I just want to say hi to everyone.
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And you don't know how honored I am to serve as part of this panel and speak
0:35
with you all in this community.
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I think that as the significance of Juneteenth gets out more and more,
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just the fact that we've got so many people in Frankfurt that want to learn
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more about it and want to celebrate it, it really makes me proud.
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So that's the first thing I wanted to say before I got to my little script here.
0:54
So good evening, everyone. And thank you for joining us as we reflect on Juneteenth,
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a day that marks both a historical milestone and an ongoing journey towards freedom and equity.
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Juneteenth commemorates June 19th, 1865, when enslaved people in Galveston,
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Texas were finally informed of their freedom. Now, that's very important, Galveston, Texas.
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More than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, it reminds us that
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freedom in this country has not always been immediate, equal, or guaranteed.
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Today's conversation will explore the history behind Juneteenth,
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its meaning here and in Kentucky, and what it calls us to do moving forward.
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I am very honored to be joined by such an esteemed panel, and I'm going to allow
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them to introduce themselves.
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First, I should say I am Christy Poe, focused on race relations,
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daughter of the late Edward Poe, you may have heard of, who was the co-founder
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of Focus on Race Relations.
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And I have kind of, at the show, I could fill it shoes, of course.
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So I've just stepped in to try to make sure that those conversations continue.
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So again, I'm honored to be here and to be a part of this.
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I'm Joanna Hay, and I'm a filmmaker and a storyteller.
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I am Katima Smith-Willis. I am a city commissioner.
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I am also an activist and advocate of all things Black. So that's it.
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Terry James, do a lot of things. I'm the Deputy Campaign Director of the Sierra
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Club's Outdoors for All Campaign.
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So we focus on ecbalasis through the outdoors all around the country,
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and I work on federal campaign strategy.
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I live in Frankfurt, and I'm tourism commissioner here as well,
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Air Force veteran, and a filmmaker.
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I'm Dr. Eleanor Haskin-Wagner. I'm the Capital City Museum Director,
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and I'm also the Museum and Historic Site Supervisor for the City of Frankfurt.
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I'm John Walker. I'm the Curator of Collections here at Liberty Hall of Historic Sun. And, um, that's it.
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That's more than it. So we've got a great panel tonight. One of our guests that
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was unable to be here tonight, but we are very pleased to have him in some form
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or fashion, is our governor, Andy Beshear.
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So we're going to start with a brief message from him.
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Hopefully, um, we don't have a screen, so hopefully you can hear him and see
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our video here that we've got. Yeah.
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Hey everyone, it's Andy. Thank you all for coming together to recognize this
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important day in our history.
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On Juneteenth, we honor the collective courage of African Americans who paved
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the way for real, meaningful change.
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Today, we stand united in acknowledging our past and our nation's greatest injustice.
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To move forward as a country, we must look back on one of the ugliest chapters in our history.
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We must learn from it. We must work to repair the lasting damage to make progress for a better tomorrow.
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I get that I will never be able to feel the ever-present weight of racism,
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inequality, and injustice, but I'm committed to listening, trying to hear,
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and taking intentional steps forward.
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When we have a chance to correct a historical wrong, we should do it.
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That's why I made Juneteenth an executive branch holiday for the first time in Kentucky's history.
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It's why I removed the statue of Jefferson Davis from our state capitol.
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It's why I posthumously promoted Colonel Charles Young to the honorary rank
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of Brigadier General in Kentucky and requested the same at the federal level.
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It's why I restored voting rights for what is now nearly 200,000 people.
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It's why I signed an order based on the Crown Act, which prohibits discrimination
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against state workers because of hairstyles historically associated with race.
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It's why I vetoed anti-diversity legislation every time it's hit my desk,
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and it's why we've supported our great HBCUs.
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And it's why, just this week, I took executive action to posthumously pardon
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43 brave Kentuckians who are wrongfully imprisoned for helping enslaved people escape to freedom.
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These leaders are heroes, not criminals, and they and their families deserve
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the justice of having their names cleared.
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Juneteenth is a celebration of progress, but it also serves as a reminder of
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our responsibility as Americans and of the work that remains to be done.
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Here's where I stand. I believe that diversity is a strength and never a weakness,
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that the story of our country's long march for justice and freedom is bigger
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than any one president, and that this march is going to outlast any single administration.
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As governor, I pledge to stand with you and walk beside you as we continue this
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work for our children and our children's children.
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So thank you all for using your voices to speak out for what's right. And God bless.
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All right, guys. So the way we're going to do this today, we don't just want
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this to be a panel discussion.
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I've always hated that. I love to come to these things and listen to the panel.
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And then the audience doesn't really get a chance to ask questions or participate.
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So I want this to be very participatory. So there are some questions we're going
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to ask of you all and maybe some commentary that you might provide as well.
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But we are going to start with our panel. So everyone kind of gets the same question.
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Very unfitful. Let's try to keep it to two minutes so we don't keep everyone
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here all night. But my first question for the night, just to educate ourselves a little bit.
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For those who may be less familiar, how would each of you explain the significance
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of Juneteenth in American history for yourself personally?
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And I'd like you to keep in mind, you know, this is a safe place, honesty.
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So if you weren't necessarily familiar with Juneteenth, that's okay to say as well.
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That's why we're all here tonight. So I don't want to always start with you,
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Joanna, but we'll start this time. And then, John, next time we'll start with
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you and come back. So I did not know about Juneteenth.
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Until as the outreach director for the Kentucky Arts Council,
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I was in Paducah visiting the Hotel Metropolitan, which is an amazing historic site.
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And they were talking about Juneteenth and an upcoming celebration.
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And I had to scan my brain to figure out what they were talking about. I had no idea.
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And then I was fascinated with the idea of the vagueness of the word Juneteenth.
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It's not an exact day.
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It's the way news moved slowly over time and space.
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Right. Very good. That's how I came to think about it. Who was Juneteenth?
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Juneteenth for me was...
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It came later in my life. I grew
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up by Jehovah's Witness, so I never celebrated holidays to begin with.
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So anything like holidays just weren't a part of my life. It wasn't a part of
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my everyday life growing up.
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So I would like to say around my early 20s when I started learning about just
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Black history and really kind of just diving into finding my identity,
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where I come from, who I am.
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And then 2019, 2020, I got enthralled into protesting and activism.
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And I learned a lot about Juneteenth, the holiday, and I learned a lot about
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the 4th of July. And then I just didn't understand why Juneteenth was not as,
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equitable as the 4th of July in its significance and its importance. So I went to D.C.
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With some really amazing friends, and we protested on Juneteenth against the
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4th of July. That's what we did.
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It caused a little bit of trouble, but we caused awareness to why Juneteenth
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is important as well, and why it's especially important to African-Americans or Black people.
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So that's kind of just when my education started. And it became very important
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to me in my early 20s. And then it continuously gets more important each year
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for me because I get to celebrate with really great people. So yeah.
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Um, for me, I think Juneteenth is like for, you know, different folks in the
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black diaspora. It has different meaning or different contexts,
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like for like a lot of, I lived up North.
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Um, so I was a military brat. So for like another Northern black folks,
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it wasn't like a big celebration, but it was more in like your Southern kind
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of in your deep South States, um, historically.
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And so like my first Juneteenth celebration was maybe like 2016.
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I was part of the, sorry, the Kentucky World Urban Exchange.
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And we were doing like a program in Louisville and we had a big Juneteenth celebration
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and it was really awesome.
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And I think for me, like why it's important is because before the July,
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you know, I think it's like a big lie.
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I didn't mean to rhyme, but, you know, this is our big thing.
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Independence and everyone's free and awesome, but it really wasn't.
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It really didn't happen until later. And so I think that's important for me.
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Thank you.
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So I unfortunately also was not well-educated on Juneteenth.
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It was not something that was in my awareness as I was growing up,
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which I look back on and question as to why it wasn't something that was discussed.
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I grew up in a pretty liberal space, in a space that was about equality and
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understanding, but it was not something that we...
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Escalated to a point of importance in our lives.
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And I've really grown to question that over the last decade to wonder,
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like, you know, why not? What about growing up in Kentucky, in the place that
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I grew up, privileged this ideology away from me?
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And so I've thought a lot about that in recent years. And I've been really grateful
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since moving to Frankfurt that it is a recognized city holiday.
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It is one that we get to take off.
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But then as the museum director, I'm trying to balance this.
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It is important to recognize these holidays and allow breaks and allow time
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for reflection and allow time for confrontation with difficult ideologies.
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But as a museum, that also means allowing space for people to have those difficult
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internal conversations.
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So for many years, for the first really four years that I was here,
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we opened the museum on Juneteenth, even though it was a holiday,
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and we would get a total of zero visitors.
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And so I've always and I still really the perspective I bring to Juneteenth
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now and this perspective I want to bring into this panel is not Ellie as an
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individual, but Ellie as the museum director who,
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grew up in these spaces, is now coming to this community who has been very forward
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thinking by making it a city holiday, by also introducing their own Crown Act,
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and really trying to push forward.
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A more equitable space for all. And the museum works really hard to also accomplish
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that, but it's not perfect.
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And when we try and have space for these difficult conversations in this setting,
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I've always seen it, always is a strong word, I've seen it often fall flat.
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And so I'm curious as to what we could be doing better, what we can continue to do.
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And looking to tomorrow, just to be totally clear with everybody,
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we did choose to close because we believe,
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now, after seeing the trends over the last few years, that allowing time for
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reflection and allowing folks to participate in other community events is a
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better use of our time and our space.
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But I also invite feedback and critique of that because we're still learning
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as well. And you can't deny I am white.
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I employ mostly white people. It's not something I can shy away from.
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And it's not something I should shy away from.
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But I want to change that narrative. So that's what I'm bringing in.
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And that's my relationship to the holiday tomorrow.
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Thank you. John? As a historian, when I remember reading, I was a Civil War buff as a kid.
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I was just one of those weird kids that have like every single Civil War thing ever.
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And I remember reading some random thing about this colonel who was,
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you know, went to Galveston a long time ago. And then I forgot about it.
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And then when the conversation came around Juneteenth, around 10 years ago, right?
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I remember going, did I read that somewhere? like when i was a kid and it never
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came up again and then my exactness as a history nerd was like but why does
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texas get to have the holiday right because i.
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Was like also that's not when everyone was emancipated in my head you know i
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was like i know my own state's history really well and um i was really almost
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frustrated at first and then i was like wait wait wait like you're white this
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isn't your conversation.
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But also, how do you use that as a catalyst of saying you can have a cultural
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celebration, but also teach what's not being taught, right? And use that as well as a window.
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Juneteenth became, I grew up in
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Jessamine Kennedy, and we have a national cemetery in Jessamine Kennedy.
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We also have the largest recruiting station of Black soldiers in the know,
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Union Army for the Civil War.
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And anyone who knows Justin County today knows it's a very white county.
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So that led me, growing up there, to ask all these questions that no one seemed
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to know the answer to, which was, if there were all these Black families living
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in this one part of our county, where are they today? And what happened?
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And so that mixture with my history mixture, mixing with starting to work at this historic site.
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And looking at kind of United States race relations outside of Civil War dynamics,
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but as a from the beginning to now dynamic.
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Really has me evaluating these things on a holistic level.
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And Juneteenth is, to me, a reminder to actually sit down and think about it.
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And I stand on, like, the shoulders of giants. When I started this job, I had two big folders.
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They were put in front of me and they said these are the enslavement folders
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this is everything you need to know about liberty hall and enslavement,
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but then none of it was really being disseminated like none of it was being
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talked about to the public and i was like okay so maybe this is my role in this
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story is to help get this information out there um but also to do things like this,
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right to bring the community in and let other voices be heard within that research
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so I appreciate that. So a question for everyone.
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How many of you have just become familiar with Jun Ting within the last five
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to 10 years by show of hand?
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Most. Now, I include myself in that, which may or may not be surprising.
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I grew up in a very proactive home.
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I, you know, both my parents were very, very much interested in white history.
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I had not heard the word Juneteenth. I went to two HBCUs. I started full scholarship
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at Fisk University, stayed in Jubilee Hall, which Jubilee Day was Juneteenth.
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It was not, there was no explanation of that at all.
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And I hate that my father has passed and I can't have this conversation with
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him because I'm wondering is June 4th is what, how I started educating myself about Juneteenth.
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Because, you know, we decided it was important to bring that recognition here.
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That's what 4th does. We raise those conversations.
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And what I wonder is if that's when my dad started educating himself about Gen Z.
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I really do wonder that. And I wish I could ask my parents that question because I'm not sure.
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I'm not sure why we didn't have those conversations at home.
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So, you know, as I've learned more, of course, everything just makes me angry.
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And, of course, the history behind it just made me angry. But I love to learn
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as we're doing this. So I love that we're all kind of learning this together.
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So thank you all for being honest.
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Next question, and thank you all for building on all that information.
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My question, starting with John, would be, Why is it important to remember that
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Juneteenth represents delayed freedom, not immediate liberation for all?
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That's a great question. It's complicated. Yeah.
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But I think it's important because we are a country that is not homogenous or
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there's not a hegemonic sense of power.
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And we act as localities. We act as states. We act as a federal government.
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And then we act within the larger international context of things.
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And america before 1865 a good friend once told me um we were a nation of states,
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and after 1865 we were a nation state,
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and that we were these this kind of plethora of communities and we were just
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10 years before connected by things like the telegraph and railroads We moved a much slower pace.
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But even in the act of emancipation, we have to remember Juneteenth is not something
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that is just something that happens in that era as well, right?
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Emancipation happened from the beginning of the colonies. People were emancipated,
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and celebrated that and then all the way up.
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Even after the civil war with the sharecropping culture with Jim Crow you could
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even count the great migration as a form of emancipation of economic emancipation.
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And so it's remembering that there's not any one event that creates black freedom
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in America right it's it is the it is the long struggle of families communities
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and larger communities as you move on,
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I think it's just really important for us to recognize there's tons of nuance,
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and we have to listen to people's stories,
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uh very good yeah we do our best here for that but you know there's many families
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that came through the hall and every every family that came just through this
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house has a different story so we have to learn from that thank you yeah.
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I think this is a, to echo John, like this is a very nuanced and complex question
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that could really elicit many, probably hours of discussion and deep dive and
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thinking things through.
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But there are several things I want to build off of what John started,
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which is the first is as Americans, we really
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seem to grasp onto this idea of a mononarrative, meaning this idea that there
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is one story that can unite us all.
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And they were really pushing this as a government, because if these groups of
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folks who were spread out across wide expanses of land didn't have access to
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the technology that we have today, they had no real way of bonding themselves together.
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I mean, if we really think back at this time during the revolution and many
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years post, a lot of those early colonies, they had each their own form of currency,
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right? There was really nothing to bind them together.
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And so creating a cohesive narrative was the only way to bring this group of
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disparate folks together and having something that.
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People could be quote-unquote proud of, this idea of freedom for all,
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freedom for all men, right of all men to vote.
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Those were things that were very attractive, and they were narratives that really
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created this almost utopia-style nation that in practice did not exist and arguably still does not exist.
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I think any of us who really read the news or understand how things are going
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in today's landscape recognize that, yes, slavery was ended,
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but there's inequality that still expands way beyond that, and we are not truly equal.
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And arguably, a lot of folks who are of any background, whether they're Black,
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whether they're Native American, whether they come from other countries and
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immigrate into the United States,
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they are still experiencing the ramifications of the racism that the country was founded on.
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And I think for the founding fathers and the folks at the
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mid-19th century who were really looking for a way to bring together this very
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divided nation, creating these stories was a great way to bring folks together
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across perceived divides.
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So arguably, when we look at history now and we can look back and say like,
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wow, why were they doing these things.
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It's really the history is the story of the winners.
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It's the story of the victors. It's a story that they want to paint of themselves
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and the acts that they did in the moment to make themselves look good.
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To explain and help us understand why they made the decisions that they made.
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So I really feel as though it's a pertinent question to ask ourselves,
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but we also have to acknowledge that even today, there are folks who are not
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truly free in this country, And there's still many, many miles to go.
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And history and the stories that I think John and I really work hard to tell
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in our community is only a part of that narrative.
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I'm a trained folklorist. John has worked in folklore as well.
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When you come from that background, it's a recognition that history is really
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only 5% of understanding what occurred, and that other 95% belongs in the everyday
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stories of the people around us.
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So I'm kind of on a soapbox. Like I said, I think this is a really nuanced question,
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but I really want to latch on to this,
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idea of the reason why this holiday isn't more well-known is because it doesn't
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facilitate that narrative that makes the winners and the victors look good.
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And I think that that's something we really need to acknowledge.
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Sorry, Jerry. No worries. Sorry.
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No, you saved me. So I've actually spent the past four days at Shepardstown,
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West Virginia, helping lead Yale's Public History Institute.
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And so my brain is like fried after four days with, you know,
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really awesome public and academic historians.
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So let me take another attack to this question.
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Um yeah so delayed freedom so i i want to go like to y'all know you're gonna.
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Go and place it on but they kind of touched on it it's like in that time we
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didn't have tiktok we didn't have facebook live we didn't have you know telephones
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you know tv bet we for we're free you know so,
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like so there was a lot of coercion if you think about it these these enslaved
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people didn't have the economic means.
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It wasn't just we're free and we're able to go off the plantation,
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start our lives, go into jobs. So they have to deal with that as well.
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But then the other thing about this, part of this question is not immediate liberation.
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So what happens after the Civil War?
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You know, after the federal troops leave the South, what happens? Yeah.
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Post, you know, so we have this post reconstruction period. So we have this
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utopian period, you know, of, you know, uh,
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black folks in Congress, black folks in leaderships and communities,
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you know, black businesses and corporations thriving, the first black banks
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are developed and all these things.
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But what happens white grievance politics, white supremacy, you know,
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as a, as a party platform, as I was driving to West Virginia the other day,
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I was listening to a documentary on American Experience about the Wilmington race riots.
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You know, so Wilmington, it was 56% black and, you know, there is black city
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council folk. They're, you know, largely in power and the white folks did not
25:02
like that. So guess what?
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And this, it correlates to what happened January 6th, you know,
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a few years ago, they took over.
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They, they business, the business owners ordered two Gatlin machine guns,
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posted them outside black, you know, uh, black, uh, areas where folks congregated,
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and they mowed people down,
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you know, and, and brutally took back that city. And we're very proud of that history.
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And so the city of Wilmington didn't like really reckon with that till,
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you know, you know, years later in the nineties.
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So think about that. Like, you know, everyone's like, oh, kumbaya,
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this is the, you know, slavery in it, but no, it didn't. We still are grappling
25:43
with the impacts of slavery still today. One thing.
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Did it still disrupt? You opened the door for me. I appreciate it.
25:53
What I mean, why is it important to remember that Juneteenth represents delayed
25:57
freedom? I think, kind of sure, my friend Jerry said, you know,
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Juneteenth, it's great. You know, a piece of paper that a white man,
26:04
they draft, and they're like, we're going to free, we're going to free slaves.
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I just feel like, you know, it's important to remember that that was just a
26:13
sign for, I feel like it was just a cookie crumb.
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It was not it was not a huge piece of history because you fast forward to the
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Jim Crow era. We were still begging and asking nicely for some form of freedom.
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We're still asking for some we're asking and why are we having to ask when our
26:30
counterparts don't have to do anything?
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So, you know, I think Juneteenth, I think it's great that it represents a time
26:37
that something was drafted for to free to free the enslaved.
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Slaves, but, you know, on the not immediate liberation for all, you know, I,
26:47
I think about, you know, when I think of enslavement, I think about chains and
26:50
shackles. And I think about the amount of people that are falsely incarcerated.
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I think about the people that are gunned down by police officers.
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I think about people who there's I think about a lot of things.
27:03
I think about black maternal health. You know, I think about women going to
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have babies and don't make it out because their pain level is not of their white
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counterparts and die giving birth.
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So I think about the things that are they physical shackles on people?
27:17
Not necessarily. But we are still.
27:21
We are still we are still enslaved to some form of degree right now in 2026.
27:26
So, you know, it's not immediate liberation because we're still having to fight.
27:29
You know, when I did a lot of protesting, you know,
27:34
what he was talking about, about Bloomington, you know, when I protested a little
27:36
bit just during the Black Lives Matter movement, you know, to see the other
27:41
side try to tell you that you are no, what you're saying is obsolete. It is, it's not true.
27:47
You're making these things up. You have rights. You have some form of freedom.
27:51
So to see the the counterside of of history right in front of me has been really
27:57
interesting because we I feel like we are not liberated.
28:00
We are asking for things that we shouldn't have to be asking for that we should
28:03
not have to ask for down to legislation and policy.
28:07
So I think we have a long way to go.
28:10
I appreciate June June 1865. But in terms of immediate liberation,
28:15
I think we have a long ways to go.
28:19
So I come to thinking about Juneteenth through arts and literature,
28:24
and also through all of these interviews I've done on a variety of civil rights.
28:32
Topics. And the delayed freedom that Juneteenth represents is the same delayed,
28:41
freedom and deferred policy of Brown versus Board of Education, for example.
28:48
What was that, 1954? But when were the schools actually desegregated?
28:52
61, 63, 66, 68. It's still ongoing. It's still ongoing.
28:58
But just because something has been signed into policy,
29:04
does not mean that it actually happens,
29:08
and particularly in regard to the African-American experience where,
29:13
the whites will try everything to defer that equality and that independence.
29:20
Yeah, and July 4th is Independence Day, but not for everybody.
29:27
So I think about the word Genteenth as a literary word of vagueness and an inexact
29:35
day and how, you know, word traveled.
29:38
But I stopped by,
29:43
Camp Nelson the other day, and I picked up Frank X. Walker's. Oh, really? Yeah.
29:49
I picked up Frank X. Walker's latest book. It is autographed.
29:56
And I just had a feeling I would find a poem that was relevant to today.
30:02
I think this might be a good minute to read it. Yes, absolutely.
30:04
But I like Tina to read it.
30:06
Go for it. I mean, it's a few stanzas.
30:10
We can read this. I think that we're good. Or we can read just part of it.
30:13
Let's ask, do you all have a problem? It's a few stanzas.
30:18
I think we're good. Okay. The Big Breakup.
30:23
It was more than a little salty to find out we'd been emancipated more than
30:26
a whole two years. That master crawled home from the war and decided to keep our freedom to himself.
30:31
I remember the urge to just sit down and do nothing for his spell just to see
30:35
what it felt like. Then they told us we can now get paid for our labor.
30:39
But when we find out how little money it was, a handful of us decided what we
30:42
wanted to do with our freedom was go find our beloveds that was sold off or had run away.
30:47
Most of all of us have missed some family we ain't seen since who knows when
30:51
and was willing to walk to Kingdom Come and back just to hold them again.
30:55
Working for just enough to keep you alive or laboring, to put sore eyes on loved
30:59
ones that made life worth living was an easy choice.
31:03
What freedom kind of mean was to finally own land, to build our own schools
31:07
and businesses, to travel unrestricted, to simply enjoy the right to hold the
31:11
hands, wipe the eyes, and kiss the cheeks of the people you love most in this world.
31:18
To be able to close your eyes and rest while you pray. For the strength to make
31:22
it through whatever God got next.
31:24
God bless every fallen soldier. So many fought for our freedom.
31:27
Wore the 23,000 Ketuckians.
31:30
This is our Jubilee. This is our Emancipation Day. This be our glorious Juneteenth.
31:35
Oh. Myself.
31:38
Let's be on that.
31:44
So, for me, I guess, explaining a little of the— I'm going to call it anger.
31:47
It's not anger. It's passion. Well, it's a little anger, too.
31:51
So when I think about it, it's because putting a label, putting a stamp on that
31:59
name, right, Juneteenth,
32:01
that is almost like a sense of finality for those who aren't willing to educate themselves and learn.
32:07
Because once we say this, it's easy for people to say, well, that's your day.
32:12
You know, you slaves were freed then. It's Juneteenth.
32:15
But even in Galveston, Texas, on June 19th, 1865, freed slaves were still running
32:21
from bullets, trying to get away.
32:24
Right? They were still afraid of being captured. They were still trying to get
32:29
their families to safety.
32:31
So what does it actually mean? Nothing, does it?
32:35
It's a sense that we celebrate because we're being told that that's the day.
32:42
But again, that stops people from actually learning more about why that freedom is still delayed.
32:51
I love that poem because she talks about being able to own land,
32:56
being able to travel unrestricted. But we still really can't do that freely when you think about it.
33:03
We can't. There are places that I don't feel comfortable traveling unrestricted.
33:09
There are places when I sold life insurance, you know, and I wanted to go into
33:13
the holler by myself and my white friends were like, do not do that.
33:17
Well, why? It's 2018. Well, of course I should feel comfortable doing that.
33:24
But the reality for me, and of course this is always just my opinion,
33:27
which I throw down at one stone as long as possible, is that we are still fighting.
33:34
And so when I hear and heard Juneteenth, I never want anyone to think that is the finale of it.
33:42
Yeah, we can celebrate, like Katima said, a piece of paper that was introduced,
33:47
but we are still having to fight. And I want everyone to understand that we
33:51
still need to fight together. Nothing finished. Nothing is done.
33:55
Focus on race relations. We are participating in this panel,
33:58
but we are moving our celebration to December.
34:02
We're calling it December 10th. And I will explain more of that as we as we conclude this.
34:07
But not only is it because that's when Kentucky slaves were notified.
34:12
Right. That's what how long and to reach here.
34:14
But it's also because I want this to continue. We don't end it on June 19th.
34:18
We don't celebrate just because it's that day. That's not what it ends.
34:21
That's not just a day to have barbecues and to have conversations and that sort
34:25
of thing. We're going to take this throughout the year just as we are going
34:28
to do Black American history.
34:31
So, that's my little five cents on that. Now, moving on,
34:38
And then we're going to get into, I want to take at least 15 minutes for some conversation. Right.
34:45
So one of the questions that I think is important,
34:52
how can educators and community leaders present this history in ways that are honest and impactful?
35:02
How can educators and community leaders present this history in ways that are honest and impactful?
35:09
And we'll start with you, John.
35:11
Yeah, that's a tough one because legislatures are making up new rules that don't
35:18
allow teachers to tell these stories.
35:23
So again I would come back for myself the way I think about these things through an art's lens a poem,
35:30
like reading a poem like this one in an educational contest hopefully teachers
35:37
can do that sort of thing film obviously we've got our stories from the Balcony Project as a way to.
35:44
Have sort of non-threatening stories told through lived experience that can
35:50
then be applied to other parts of history,
35:55
the forward and the backward nature of history.
35:59
So those are my thoughts on comedy education side of it, using arts,
36:02
literature, paintings, films as part of that storytelling. Yeah.
36:10
Thanks. I'm not an educator. I would like to think I'm a community leader,
36:16
but before I was an elected community leader, I would like to think I was a
36:20
street leader and I do think I do think we need the raw and the authentic,
36:27
perspective of leadership when it comes to conversations like this.
36:31
I do love that we have fantastic educators, historians, artists,
36:36
musicians that can tell the story from that lens. But I do believe in all levels
36:41
of the revolution and not in a threatening manner.
36:45
But I feel like, you know, for me to be able to communicate to the younger generation
36:51
in a way that levels with them and the lines, but then to keep passing the torch down.
36:56
Like that was one thing that just has not happened for, it had not happened
37:00
for me in a way that I would like to, like I would like to have received the
37:03
torch, but I am trying my hardest to be able to pass it in a way that Gen Z.
37:10
And beyond can pick it up and keep it going in a way that aligns and resonates
37:14
with the future generations.
37:15
Because sometimes I don't want to hear an educator talk to me about history.
37:19
Sometimes I don't want hearing a story and sometimes I really don't want to
37:22
go sit in a movie theater sometimes I want to see it for what it is and I want
37:26
to see it in a raw um in an uncut unfiltered way so that's really why I appreciate
37:30
Joanna bringing me on to Stories from the Balcony um,
37:34
it took a lot of seasoning me and Warren Brown I'm like you want me to ask this question how,
37:40
there was a there I received an answer one time that made me like.
37:45
Do my do my face and do my head good thing I was behind the other side of the
37:47
camera um because I was able to bring a a level of uncut raw,
37:53
interviewee to the to the project so and I do think whoever watches it some
37:57
of my friends came to watch it when it was at the grand theater,
38:00
and um to be able to receive the feedback from another generation such as mine
38:05
felt kind of good to just hear how they appreciated the the form the way that
38:09
we came with story stuff balcony so I just think it's all about how you um.
38:14
I think honesty is huge, but I think when it comes to being in an impact manner,
38:19
you got to be real and you got to be raw to do that.
38:21
So that's kind of the angle and the winds that I would come as a commobilator. Thanks.
38:27
Some of my thoughts. So like tomorrow, I'm going to go up to Northern Kentucky.
38:31
I'm going to lead 20 youth and a bunch of folks on a paddle trip down the Underground Railroad.
38:37
We're going to get in two big yellow clipper canoes that sit 10 people.
38:42
We're going to set off from wilder kentucky and we're going to paddle down the
38:45
licking um across the ohio and then go to the underground road with freedom
38:48
center and the goal of that is you know to make it you know living living history,
38:53
and so we're going to talk about that you know you know that um,
38:57
the excitement the horror of you know being on the underground road of escaping
39:03
um and we're combining it with paddle sports and so i'm on the board of adventure
39:08
crew like i said i work for the sierra club so adventure crew is an organization that I think it's
39:11
youth outside in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati.
39:14
And so they are doing up their summer paddle camp.
39:17
And so me and my friend Adrian last year scouted out this route,
39:20
you know, and then this year we're going to bring the kids on there.
39:23
So I think that's really cool to be able to do that. The other thing I want
39:26
to talk about is to do a shameless plug is we want more history.
39:32
So this is a national day of coordinated public history programming.
39:36
So the Sierra Cone, the American Historical Association.
39:42
National Council of Public History, Organization for American Historians,
39:46
Association for the Study of African-American Life and History.
39:50
There's a lot of organizations involved with this. But basically based off,
39:53
you know, because of all like the administration's attacks on historical race
39:58
share at our national parks and other public lands and historic sites,
40:01
we wanted to make this day.
40:02
The goal is this is to be it's it's subversive so it's not you know like it's
40:07
not a protest but is presenting history in its raw form and saying history is
40:12
everywhere history is in parts it's trails
40:14
it's in you know a restaurant um so we have again you know website you can go
40:19
on there we're trying to get over 200 events what y'all are talking to you about
40:23
it um and we have a toolkit on how people can do can can
40:27
do we want more history and then i'll close up i think with this i think literacy is so important,
40:32
we have a literacy problem in this in this country you know um a lot of people
40:37
don't read uh the average adult um reading level is fifth grade and i think,
40:43
and i'm not and i'm not sure the classes or anything but what i'm saying i think with,
40:48
people exploit that people exploit that and i want to maybe get political a
40:53
little bit but i I think we're seeing an administration that exploits that and
40:56
uses mass media tools, TikToks, memes,
41:02
to influence this electorate that is reading less. And so we need to be thinking about that.
41:11
How are we counteracting that? And so that's kind of these conversations that
41:15
I was having in Shepherdstown.
41:17
And I would like to have more with y'all in this community as well. Thank you.
41:24
Wow. I'm going to try and not talk too long, but Chris, you'll need to do like
41:29
a little like play me off if I go on too long, because I am coming at this from two angles.
41:34
The first is as an educator in a literal sense.
41:40
I am also a college instructor is in addition to the work that I do at the museum.
41:45
So I've had an opportunity to teach 18 to question mark,
41:51
you know, probably even some 17 year olds in a collegiate setting specifically
41:56
about folklore and folk studies, which if you're not familiar with that term,
42:00
it's essentially the art of communication or the communication of everyday life.
42:05
So it's looking at how people outside of mass media and mass culture communicate
42:09
with one another through arts, through stories, through exploration of what
42:14
they wear and how they dress and what they choose to wear every day,
42:18
like whether or not we all...
42:20
Understand or appreciate this, what you are wearing right now is not only a
42:24
combination of what you physically are able to purchase based on your monetary
42:28
income or what was gifted to you,
42:30
but you chose to wear it today for a very specific reason, either a memory or
42:35
an association you have with it. There's a reason you are wearing it right now.
42:39
So anyway, so I've taught collegiate courses on that, and I had the unfortunate
42:45
luck to be teaching in this context during the 2016 and 2020 elections specifically.
42:53
And I taught at a very liberal university that is in a very conservative area
42:58
that created a lot of conflict.
43:01
Like, I learned very quickly that because of what I was teaching,
43:04
I'd been put on a list for professors who were,
43:09
not kind to white people, and like there were threats of violence because we
43:13
were trying to discuss narratives from all sorts of different Americans.
43:18
And that created a lot of drama, which I'm happy to speak about outside of this panel.
43:22
But what I want to bring into this is one of the things that even though it
43:26
was a very complicated and difficult and scary time to be in academia,
43:33
what I had the privilege of also witnessing were students who came from either
43:40
less literate backgrounds or.
43:46
Be in an environment where they were forced to experience and understand other
43:51
cultures in ways that they had never been able to do before.
43:57
And the class created an environment that was a space for exploration,
44:01
for discussion, for honesty.
44:04
And I got to see a lot of these students who started the course with one perspective
44:10
through the act of interacting with their peers who are from different backgrounds,
44:15
have a change of heart, have a change of mind and leave the course more open
44:20
and willing to have harder conversations with their family or with their friends outside of that.
44:26
And granted, this may not work in every environment because there are many students
44:29
who dropped the class just to be transparent.
44:31
But those who chose to stay, we were able to work through and deconstruct some
44:36
of the ideology that ultimately would hold them back in life from having these
44:40
multicultural experiences or from communicating with Black folks.
44:44
Like, that was something that we would even see. Yeah.
44:47
I've also had the privilege of being in the Rural Urban Exchange and having
44:51
very similar experiences because the Kentucky Rural Urban Exchange brings folks
44:56
from all sorts of backgrounds, from different.
45:00
Classes, from different racial backgrounds into a space to have conversations
45:05
with one another that can be challenging and can be hard and can force you to
45:08
think about your own perspectives and what you're bringing into that conversation.
45:13
That can really push you to grow, which is, I think, ultimately what a lot of
45:17
us want to do in our lives. Whether or not we are able to articulate that,
45:21
I think we all want to grow.
45:22
So putting all that into one bucket, I want to briefly, I promise,
45:27
share a story from my time at the Capital City Museum that also,
45:31
I think, articulates this point of education and from coming from a place,
45:36
of love and kindness, but not one that's willing to pander at the same time.
45:41
Like, I think we all kind of know what I'm talking about, this idea of not necessarily
45:45
even tough love, but just creating a space for having difficult conversations
45:51
where people don't necessarily feel confronted. Sometimes they should feel confronted.
45:56
But I really privilege being able to create that space and being honest about
46:00
historical context. So let me share this very brief story with you. Yeah.
46:04
Several years ago, the Capital City Museum was in its first move of our collection
46:09
storage. We've since done two more. But in the process, we uncovered artifacts
46:14
that hadn't been appropriately cataloged, even though they'd been gifted to the museum.
46:19
And so we had an opportunity to re-familiarize ourselves with those artifacts
46:23
and the stories that they told.
46:25
And one of those artifacts, trigger warning for my friends here,
46:29
hopefully it won't cause any harm, but it'll probably cause negative memories.
46:35
If not harm, and I really do apologize, but it was a pepper fog machine gun.
46:40
So not a bullet machine gun, but it would spray pepper fog everywhere.
46:44
And it says on the side, like, pepper fog gun, and it's this huge thing. It's massive.
46:49
And I immediately became curious about it. So I asked our collection manager what it was.
46:54
And she shared with me that it's from the, it was a gift to the museum from
46:59
the Frankfurt Police Department.
47:01
It was purchased, but it was never used and it was purchased in the mid 20th century.
47:06
So I said, okay, and we proceeded to move it.
47:10
Fast forward a year, I really started thinking about what I've experienced in
47:15
Frankfurt as racial divides that still exists and the difficult relationship
47:21
that community members have with Kentucky State.
47:24
And I began to really question the period of integration, the period of urban
47:29
renewal, and thinking about some of the stories that were told through community
47:33
memories but maybe have been lost in recent ideologies.
47:36
And I started using the wonderful resource of newspapers.com to try and poke
47:43
around as to what was happening.
47:47
At the time that the Frankfurt Police Department would have purchased this and
47:51
quickly learned that the stories that they had been told about themselves and
47:56
their relationship to this weapon were untrue.
47:59
That it had been purchased explicitly because of the riots post Martin Luther
48:03
King Jr.'s death, and it was utilized against Kentucky State students.
48:08
And what was interesting is that it created a conversation within the museum
48:11
with folks who were lifelong Frankfurt residents who remember hearing that you
48:15
don't drive past East Main because your car will get damaged by flying rocks.
48:21
Except that in these newspaper articles from that same period,
48:25
there is a discussion about the
48:26
riots at K-State, starting with students throwing rocks at passing cars.
48:31
And so all of a sudden, for these folks who were lifelong residents who maybe
48:34
didn't understand a lot of the cultural context because they were younger at
48:38
the time, it all kind of was like a light bulb going off.
48:42
And so we made the decision to put that artifact on display in the museum during
48:46
Black History Month to generate a conversation about our community's historic
48:51
acts of violence against people of color.
48:53
Because I think that's a conversation we have to have if we're going to move forward as a community.
48:58
But I also believe in trying to give folks an opportunity to understand what's
49:03
happening and confront a history that they're a part of that they may not have chosen to,
49:10
This is all very nuanced, so know that, but they may not have chosen to be a part of.
49:14
And I invited the police chief and the deputy police chief to the museum to
49:20
see this artifact and to share this history with them before it was public.
49:23
Because we were still going to make it public, but they deserved to know.
49:27
And very quickly both of them were appalled both of them could not believe that
49:32
this had happened they had heard the same story that I had heard and there was
49:35
a desire and an interest to have a conversation to better understand the ways in which,
49:42
historically there have been violent acts committed in our community and I think that's.
49:48
Again, this is nuanced. It's not perfect, but that's a step in the right direction,
49:52
and that can only be had through utilizing
49:55
these stories that we may, again, have an understanding of a monolithic narrative,
50:00
but there are aspects and components that if we really dig into people's memories
50:05
of what happened, it's way more complicated, and it's difficult.
50:09
Um so anyway i'm done now thank you i just i i really think that's a very interesting
50:14
illustration about the power of education and historical artifacts thank you
50:19
we're with time i don't want to.
50:28
Can you give us like a minute and Sure, sure. No. I got a heart out here.
50:33
I totally agree. We can let her. We're not that hard out here.
50:36
No, no, no. I will just hard out my. Parental life.
50:40
I got to go get a baby. Got to get your baby. Go ahead, John.
50:45
I, I've always, you know, I grew up. I don't know why. I've always been kind
50:47
of rebel when it comes to education. I hated school because it trapped me in
50:52
a classroom, but I loved learning.
50:54
Um i grew up in harrodsburg for a little while and to have that hands-on education
50:59
at fort harrod which has its own kind of problematic history how it tells the
51:03
history of our state right,
51:05
uh it's very deep but there was also something about being a kid and being able
51:09
to smell the blacksmith shop and go through the the walls of the you know the
51:15
fake fort so it is it's very fascinating how that played out i've,
51:21
Was also that kid in Sunday school who always asked why. And my Sunday school
51:25
teachers hated it because I wanted to see the Bible verses.
51:30
They wanted to explain. When I was in college, a man came.
51:35
I still know him to this day. And he was part of a movement in Eastern Kentucky
51:39
called Mountain Justice.
51:40
And this was an environmental movement, a multi-coalition group that was fighting
51:46
mountain talk removal and strip mining.
51:48
And he just had a roadshow.
51:51
And all he did was just bring his mountaintop removal roadshow to college campuses.
51:55
And he wanted to teach us what was happening in the coal fields.
52:01
And I remember thinking, this
52:02
is wild because I feel like I should be learning about this right now.
52:07
And because it's not history until it's 20 years old, and because our news doesn't
52:12
always pick up on what's happening in other parts of the state, I felt very left out.
52:17
So I wanted to know more. So he was like, okay, well, if you want to organize
52:20
a student group from Murray, which is far western Kentucky, to come to Letcher
52:24
County, we can host you and we'll show you what's happening.
52:28
So we had this caravan of students who drove out to southeastern Kentucky to see the strip mines.
52:34
And for the next six years, like almost all of us were volunteering every summer.
52:39
And then we continued the row show. We would go to other colleges in our area,
52:44
Southern Illinois, Southeastern Missouri, that were not getting what was happening in the coal fields.
52:50
And then as my interest in history developed more, one of my deep passions is Irish history.
52:57
And in Ireland, there was this movement called the Hedge Schools.
53:01
It was a famous movement for the students who were of a certain class who maybe
53:06
didn't speak English, they still spoke Gaelic.
53:09
They would have these illegal school teachers who were teaching classes behind
53:13
the hedgerows. And then they would just disappear when the authorities showed up.
53:18
And I was like, man, that's so... Like, interesting. It's sad that it had to
53:21
happen, but it's like this act of rebellion in education.
53:25
And I think about that today as well. I'm very lucky that I work on a private site.
53:30
The legislators can pass all the laws they want, but until they completely dismantle
53:34
the First Amendment, like, they can't change the stories I can tell. Only my bosses can.
53:40
And we have an extremely amazing parent organization in that regard.
53:45
But uh I think about the stories we could tell in the guard and I think about
53:50
the stories that we need to take to younger people because I love the university setting I do,
53:55
but I would not have been as interested in the well-being of,
54:01
Kentucky as a state if I was not so enamored of its history and its culture
54:06
and if I didn't feel invested in it and so in that sense and now I'm over and
54:10
done that now, but in that sense, it's like,
54:13
I think we have to kind of become education rebels and whatever happens out
54:19
of the state house or whatever, we have to be very proactive about taking,
54:25
the destiny of young people's education at our own hands, especially if they're
54:29
going to be pushing back against it and are being as reactionary as they're being right now.
54:35
Thank you. I want to first give the panel a round of applause because.
54:40
Your answers, everything was absolutely fantastic.