Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Marcia Chatelain - Black Women Built The 1963 March on Washington… Then Were Written Out Of It

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Interview Only w/ Marcia Chatelain - Black Women Built The 1963 March on Washington… Then Were Written Out Of It · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 1: So the author of How Bright the Path Grows, Marcia Chatelain,
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  Speaker 1: joins me now. And this is an it's a fascinating
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  Speaker 1: book because and we've had some similar, which is sometimes
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  Speaker 1: it's about people. We have it that were a bigger
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  Speaker 1: part of an historical event that we haven't heard enough about.
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  Speaker 1: And before we get into the specifics here on sort
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  Speaker 1: of forgotten folks from the March on Washington, I want
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  Speaker 1: to word the question this way, Marsha. Is this a
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  Speaker 1: book about how women were written out of history, or
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  Speaker 1: is this a book about how we collectively manufacture history?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I love that question because I think that one
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  Speaker 2: leads to the other. And so when we look at
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  Speaker 2: the March on Washington, most people, both in the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: and abroad, can identify the I have a dream speech
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  Speaker 2: as the pivotal moment of the event. Most people can
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  Speaker 2: identify Martin Luther King Jr.
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  Speaker 1: And that's kind of where I think that's kind of
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  Speaker 1: remarkable that there is that specificity. about that memory, about
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  Speaker 1: what it is. So it's in some ways, right, when
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  Speaker 1: you think about how many other historical events could that
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  Speaker 1: many people tell you that much about, right?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and this makes me sad as a historian, but
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  Speaker 2: you're absolutely right. But I think what is fascinating about
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  Speaker 2: it is like how we got there. Because if you
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  Speaker 2: look at the coverage of the March on Washington, it
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  Speaker 2: was clear that Martin Luther King Jr. was the standout
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  Speaker 2: of the day. But when you look at the cover
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  Speaker 2: of Time and Life magazines after the event, Bayard Rustin, A.
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  Speaker 2: Philip Randolph, and Roy Wilkins were on the cover of magazines.
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  Speaker 2: So the determination that it was just King's moment comes
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  Speaker 2: a little bit later. And I have a theory that
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  Speaker 2: because King is assassinated fewer than five years after the
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  Speaker 2: March on Washington, the I Have a Dream speech becomes...
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  Speaker 2: An attempt to soften his image and impact during his
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  Speaker 2: lifetime and create a kind of warm idea of the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: civil rights movement, because there really isn't a reason why
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  Speaker 2: we couldn't remember his final oration the day before his
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  Speaker 2: assassination as the great king speech. But this is the
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  Speaker 2: one where he's really challenging capitalism and militarism and asking
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  Speaker 2: very difficult questions that really shook up not just the
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  Speaker 2: civil rights movement, but the world. So what we do
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  Speaker 2: is we remember I Have a Dream. And the thing
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  Speaker 2: about the I Have a Dream speech is we remember
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  Speaker 2: the vision of interracial harmony instead of the call for
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  Speaker 2: reparations or the critiques of police brutality or the failure
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: of the Kennedy administration to move fast enough. And so
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  Speaker 2: I love... to take these moments where everyone can get
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  Speaker 2: to the table together and say, yeah, I know the,
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  Speaker 2: I have a dream speech and say, okay, folks, like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, buckle in. We're going to really look at
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  Speaker 2: the depth of this moment. And we have to ponder
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  Speaker 2: why do we understand it as singularly King's moment? And
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  Speaker 2: how do we so readily forget the impact that women
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  Speaker 2: had on creating the movement, but particularly, you know, shepherding
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  Speaker 2: that moment?
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  Speaker 1: Well, it's funny you bring up that his death. So
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  Speaker 1: Let's play this out. If King doesn't die and King lives.
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  Speaker 1: Is he a more diminished figure in history?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, well, Chuck, you might be talking about a book
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  Speaker 2: I'm writing, so I won't give too much. But I
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  Speaker 2: think this fantasy of like if King were here today
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  Speaker 2: or if King lived, some of the political disruption that
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  Speaker 2: we have experienced as a nation wouldn't happen is really
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  Speaker 2: dangerous thinking. But I do think that if. King had
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  Speaker 2: survived into the next decade. Through my book, what I
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  Speaker 2: want readers to understand is, yes, there are women that
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  Speaker 2: we have forgotten, but they represent the complexity and the
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  Speaker 2: challenge of creating and sustaining a movement. And I think
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  Speaker 2: that this is something we need to be reminded of today.
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  Speaker 1: So I have had the joy and privilege of hosting
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  Speaker 1: quite a few authors who have come at the March
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  Speaker 1: on Washington with different sets of eyes. You're coming at
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  Speaker 1: it this way. There's been a, hey, you know, this
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just about race. This was about workers' rights. And
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  Speaker 1: I've had the conversation about authors that have wrote about this.
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  Speaker 1: This was actually a labor movement issue that also happened
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  Speaker 1: across racial lines. It is interesting to me now how
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  Speaker 1: we can take this one event, the March on Washington
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  Speaker 1: in 1963. And we have, I don't know, a scholarship
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  Speaker 1: on this at this point. I should as I'm thinking
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  Speaker 1: out loud with you here, I wish I would have
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  Speaker 1: quickly done like how many different books have been written
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  Speaker 1: in different points of view, but it is, let me
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  Speaker 1: ask it this way. Where did you turn to get
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  Speaker 1: a more complete understanding of everything that that went into
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  Speaker 1: and happened with the March on Washington, because I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to judge by your age. You were not alive then.
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  Speaker 1: I know I wasn't. And you don't have any gray hair.
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  Speaker 1: I got a lot. So and we're both too young
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  Speaker 1: to have been there.
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  Speaker 2: Well, yes, I am too young to have been there. However,
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  Speaker 2: I emerged as a scholar at the moment where African-American
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  Speaker 2: history was being institutionalized in a way where serious scholarship
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  Speaker 2: could be done because there was support for it. I
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  Speaker 2: was part of that first cohort, maybe second cohort of
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  Speaker 2: graduate students whose professors were able to really make this
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  Speaker 2: field what it is today. And so I say that
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  Speaker 2: because the only way I get to this book is
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  Speaker 2: is that there has to be institutional infrastructure of archives,
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  Speaker 2: of access to digitized newspapers. The research was always there.
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  Speaker 2: It's just, how are we going to get to there?
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  Speaker 2: But to your point, I did a deep dive in
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  Speaker 2: to who's written about the March on Washington and what
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  Speaker 2: have they written about? Because I thought I would be
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  Speaker 2: a fool to say that I was the first person
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  Speaker 2: to write this. I kind of am because so much
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  Speaker 2: of our framework for the civil rights movement is has
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  Speaker 2: been those questions, its relationship with labor, the tensions of interracialism,
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  Speaker 2: the hopes and the failures of the Civil Rights Bill.
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  Speaker 2: We have that. But what we don't realize, I think,
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  Speaker 2: enough is that the March on Washington had 18 different segments.
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  Speaker 2: And among those segments, they represented a thread of what
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  Speaker 2: the movement was trying to advance. And each and every
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  Speaker 2: one of those threads involve the work of African-American women.
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  Speaker 2: You just you don't have a movement without them. And
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  Speaker 2: so in many ways, yes, you can write a million
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  Speaker 2: books about the March on Washington. And there are a
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  Speaker 2: lot of memoirs. There are a lot of analysis. I
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  Speaker 2: think the labor ones are really good. But it seems
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  Speaker 2: like each and every one kind of forgets the ways
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  Speaker 2: that Black women were so integral to local level movements
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  Speaker 2: that allowed a large movement to thrive.
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  Speaker 1: Is this as simple as just And it's a question
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  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you later in this interview,
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  Speaker 1: but I'll ask you now, which is what's the originalism,
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  Speaker 1: sexism or racism? Is this a reminder that sometimes sexism
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  Speaker 1: trumps racism? And that's why we ended up with an
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  Speaker 1: incomplete history of the March on Washington.
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  Speaker 2: I think what it is, is a way that sexism
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  Speaker 2: is often a tool, not just of oppression, but a
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  Speaker 2: political strategy that we have to be very careful about.
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  Speaker 2: I was talking to my students about this last week.
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  Speaker 2: A large part of the labor movement, the black labor movement,
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  Speaker 2: was trying to make an argument that black men should
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  Speaker 2: have great jobs so their wives could stay at home.
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  Speaker 2: And the students said, well, is that sexist? And I said,
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  Speaker 2: there is some sexism in that. but we have to
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  Speaker 2: understand that when black women were in these working class jobs,
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  Speaker 2: they were so vulnerable to financial and sexual exploitation and
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  Speaker 2: abuse that making the argument for women to stay home
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  Speaker 2: wasn't just about a kind of patriarchal authority. It was
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  Speaker 2: about safety. And that's the place where we really have
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  Speaker 2: to struggle with these dynamics. In similar ways, when this
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  Speaker 2: movement was a more radical movement in which you have
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  Speaker 2: people who are socialists and communists who are coming together
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  Speaker 2: in the 1940s for the first idea for the March
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  Speaker 2: on Washington, they are able to kind of grow in
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  Speaker 2: an environment that by the 1950s and 60s, there is
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  Speaker 2: a vision of a more kind of like middle-class patriarchal
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  Speaker 2: Christian household as emblematic of the March on Washington, as
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  Speaker 2: more grounded in the Black church. And so you see
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  Speaker 2: some of these women disappear from the frame. And so
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  Speaker 2: I think the cautionary tale is that no movement can truly,
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  Speaker 2: truly be transformative if they tolerate these types of exclusions
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  Speaker 2: in order to grow. And I'm sending that memo all
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  Speaker 2: to people in the Democratic Party and on the progressive left,
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  Speaker 2: because this is not how you win. And this is
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  Speaker 2: what history does. It teaches us to be careful about
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  Speaker 2: how we plan our futures.
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  Speaker 1: So if Martin Luther King is not involved in the
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  Speaker 1: March on Washington and that speech doesn't happen, what's the
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  Speaker 1: focal point? How does history remember it?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, It depends on who has the power to remember.
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  Speaker 2: I think conservatives love the I Have a Dream speech
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  Speaker 2: because they ignore all of the powerful political stuff and
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  Speaker 2: they think it's about a kind of benign interracialism. I
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  Speaker 2: think that even in the absence of I Have a Dream.
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  Speaker 1: Because looking at it through that prism, they see it
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  Speaker 1: as an assimilation speech, that it reinforced the conservative idea
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  Speaker 1: of assimilation being what we should be striving for, right?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, is that why you think there was, why
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  Speaker 1: conservatives wrapped their arms around the speech? Later, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: not right away.
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  Speaker 2: Very late.
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  Speaker 1: It was later.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. And we were well unborn after they started to
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  Speaker 2: embrace King as an as a benign figure. I think that,
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  Speaker 2: you know, first of all, the oratory is powerful. King
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  Speaker 2: is powerful. And the setting is powerful. The setting is powerful.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, I just interviewed somebody who did the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: who profiled Marian Anderson, who is 19.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: So we just had this about before, like two of
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  Speaker 1: the greatest. visual memories of the reflecting pool and of
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: marches both happened to feature two iconic African-Americans.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. And what's interesting is most people don't realize that
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  Speaker 2: Mahalia Jackson was also there, the great gospel singer, and
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: that John Lewis was there as a young man with
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. And that actually, in addition
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: to Marian Anderson, Camila Williams, one of the great Black
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: opera singers, filled in for her when she was late. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, we have Rosa Parks is there. So we
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: have this incredible collection of people. But, you know, to
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  Speaker 2: this question of like, how would we remember the March
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  Speaker 2: on Washington? The question is, what tool do we use?
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  Speaker 2: What utility do we see in referring to the civil
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: rights movement? I think the way that we remember is
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: about how we abuse history as a tool for our
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: own ends, whether it's through blind patriotism or justification for
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: failures in the present. I think that my job isn't
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: to write this book so that people will find heroes.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: I want them to get a fuller scope of what
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: it takes to have the integrity and the bravery to
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: fight for freedom while also being a human in the world.
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  Speaker 1: So talk about, you know, in your book, you talk
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  Speaker 1: about Hannah Hedgeman, and she is organizing the day, organizing
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  Speaker 1: the event, and makes the observation no women were scheduled
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  Speaker 1: to speak.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: How is that moment meant?
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: So Anna Hedgeman is an incredible story, again, that really
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: inverts all of our assumptions about civil rights. She's from
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: rural Minnesota. She doesn't travel to the South until her
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: late 20s. She goes to New York City, and she
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: is part of that kind of New Deal order of
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Black women who are really educated, who are trying to
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: help bridge the federal government and its obligations to African-Americans.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: So she is a tried and true activist and community member.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: She's sitting in this meeting, and they're... But she's an.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Activist that also it's interesting the way you paint her.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: She's an activist that also believes in the sort of
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: believes in the government structure that exists. And essentially, there's
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: always two types of activism. Do you work within the
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: system or do you work to break up the system?
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: And she wants to work within the system.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. She's an appointee of Mayor Wagner in New York,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: and she's very plugged into the Truman White House. And
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: so she's sitting down and they're about to send off
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: the program to the press. And she said, hey, guys,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: do you think it's interesting that we have 17 segments
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: on here and not a single woman appears outside of
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: the musical performers? And I think, you know, she is
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: an elder stateswoman at this point. I mean, she has
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: really been with the movement since the first idea of
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: a march in the 1940s. And I think that they
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: really couldn't fight her on it. But what they could
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: do is she'd.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Been 20 years younger. They would have ignored her, you think?
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  Speaker 2: I think it depends. I think that there are women
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: across many generations who are so impactful that they needed.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: And there were women who challenged the sexism, who kind
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: of turned their back on the idea of the march,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: like the legal theorist Pauli Murray. But she is an
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: elder stateswoman. She's known Roy Wilkins, who's the head of
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: the NAACP since they were teenagers, because he also grows
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: up in Minnesota.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, I think they defer to her,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: but they also don't think of this as as very significant.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a few minutes to say, you know,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: black women have done some stuff. OK, go sit down.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, the initial idea was the wives of the
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: civil civil rights leaders were going to get up and
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: take a bow. And she's like, come on, guys, we
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: got to do something. So it wasn't going to be
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: like the wives parade. And so they go about deliberating, like,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: who deserves this kind of honor? And this is where
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I think the magic of the story comes together, because
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I'm able to bring forward to readers like what these
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: different figures in the civil rights movement were doing in 1963,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: where they had been and the kind of sacrifices they
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: have made. And so there's a there are the people
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: that you would expect, like a Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: who's the advocate for the Little Rock Nine who integrate.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Little Rock Central High School in 1957. And then there
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: are women who are a little lesser known. And I
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: get to really spend time with their journeys into the movement. And,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of ambivalent feelings about the
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: March on Washington. It was not everyone's perfect day. And
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I think that's an important thing to bring forward, that
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: the way that we want to remember this moment is not.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: The Who was who didn't remember who thought the day
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: didn't go well?
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Well, one of the people honored on stage is Gloria Richardson,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: and she is the head of the Cambridge, Maryland Nonviolent
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Action Committee. And by August 1963, she has been through it.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Cambridge is on the eastern shore of Maryland. You know,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: African-Americans in Cambridge are living in some of the same
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: conditions they did at emancipation. There's been a lot of
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: crab processing plants and canneries that have closed. It's a
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: separate but equal society that isn't the Deep South, but
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: isn't the North entirely. She's had it with Robert Kennedy.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: They're going back and forth about civil rights issues in Maryland.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: She goes to the March on Washington event. And she
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: claims that she was invited to speak and then kind of,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: you know, shut up at the moment and and whisked away.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: And she has nothing found to say about the March
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: on Washington. And I think this is amazing. I think
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: this is good. This is the types of things I
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: want our kids to see, that there can be disunity
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: without disloyalty to the principle of freedom.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, this episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought
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  Speaker 1: of 2026. So what is it that angers her in
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: this moment?
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, like, she. has really been struggling in this
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: local level campaign that is questioning some of the mainstream
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: goals of civil rights organizations. You know, she's saying to herself,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: we don't care about integrating restaurants if we don't have
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: quality jobs. We don't really care about this kind of...
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: strategic vision with the Kennedy administration if we are unable
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: to have schools that are appropriate for our kids and
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: equal housing. And so she's kind of butting up against
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: the big figure. She's very critical of King. She's very
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: critical of the NAACP. And she's exhausted. And the memos
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: that she's getting about the march is like, wear a dress.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: She says, I'm engaged in serious economic boycott. I'm not
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: shopping at stores and you're telling me what to wear.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: And there was a lot of kind of disparaging her character.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: The media actually is portraying her in some interesting ways
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: because they're talking about how popular she's becoming. And after
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: her name is called at the March on Washington stage,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: she gets a roaring applause because it's.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Somewhat local, too.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: She probably there was more people in the vicinity was aware.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Being a Marylander.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Being part of what we now call the DMV. It
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: was not called the DMV back then. But but the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: fact is, particularly with black press, you know, there were
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: there was going to be a well-known that she was
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: going to the local leaders were going to be a
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: little more well-known.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Well, but the national press is also picking up on
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: her work because the National Guard has occupied Cambridge for
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: almost a year at this point. And so she's pretty
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: well known. And, you know, she's on the cover of
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Jet Magazine and Ebony's doing features on her. But nonetheless,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: like she's kind of had it. And I think that
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: this exasperation, not only with sexism, but a kind of
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: gradualism is. is going to foreshadow a greater embrace of
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: radicalism that we associate with the late 60s. And very early,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: her critiques are going to match the critiques of the
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, of Malcolm X, who she develops
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: a very strong friendship with. This is like this is
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: the movement that I think can be really compelling for
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: people today who want to put the civil rights movement
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: in a box and say, well, everyone, it was easy
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: to get through this. So.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: You know, this is a terrific way of challenging sort
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: of one of my beliefs. which is in a nation
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: this big, you have to pursue incrementalism because it's the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: only way to bring a majority of the people along
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: one step at a time. If you leap too far forward,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: sometimes you get a backlash that can actually set you back.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: It is easy for me, a white male to say that.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: It is easy for me to look at history through
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: this prism of, you know, I use social security as
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: an example of incrementalism, that if you actually tried to
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: do everything social security does now, Back in the 1930s,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: it never would have gotten off there. And you could
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: make an argument about civil rights, that you needed an
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: incrementalist approach in order to get to the position that
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: we got today. And if we didn't, Barack Obama, first,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: we don't get the first black president. And yet it's
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: easy for me to say incrementalism if you're living the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: experience that you just described. Right. that she was having, incrementalism. Like,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: you know, my rights are being denied right now. I
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: can't wait any longer. And that tension happens in a
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: lot of political movements, right? Because you know you're fighting
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: something that's going to take a while. And at the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: same time, you're not crazy about, oh, all right, it's
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: a tiny bit better for some people, but not me.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: And I think this is where political movements sometimes do
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: run into each other, right? And do start to have tensions.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Well, this is interesting that you describe it as incremental
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: because from the vantage point of someone in Little Rock
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: in 1957, nine black kids integrating a school of a
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: thousand is not incremental. It's radical. It's a problem. It's
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: going to destroy your way of life. So you get
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: in your car and you start screaming at a bunch
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: of teenage girls. and you threaten to kill their families,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: and you throw a brick through their window, or you
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: burn a cross on someone's front yard. I think from
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: our perspective, we think, okay, a desegregation bill, that is
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: small compared to the idea of reparations. But for someone
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: who has been entrenched in a white supremacist nation, sitting
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: next to a black person eating a burger is going
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: to kill you. This is how you act, right? Like
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: the dramatics of it and the histrionics of it. So
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: all of that is to say, though, to your point,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: you know, what's happening in this movement is that people
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: are connecting the dots between if we push our federal
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: government in these kind of gradual ways, they are never
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: going to imagine a more capacious society. Like if we
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: let Kennedy off the hook on voting and let him do,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: you know, lunch counters, where are we and where are
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: our children going to end up? And so, I mean,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: this is like every conversation I have about politics, right?
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Like how... Big of an ask. I think you asked
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: for the most incredible vision of the future with the
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: full understanding that other people won't. But I mean, my God,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: you know, one of the people that I feature in
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: the book is Diane Nash, who was, you know, breaking
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: open Nashville's segregated system when she's 18, 19 years old
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: at Fisk. And one of the things that she does is,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you know, when the Freedom Rides start and there's incredible
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: violence towards people like John Lewis and Julian Bond, and
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: all they're doing is trying to sit down with their
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: white compatriots on a bus or use a snack bar
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: in the South, all hell breaks loose. And Robert Kennedy
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: sends one of his assistants to call her to say, hey,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: call this off, cut this out. And she says, we're
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: going to either do a fast death or a slow death.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: We know that this system is killing us at various speeds,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: and we are going to choose a rapid death if
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: it means for freedom. All of this is to say
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: that I think that when, for me, when I try
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: to write these stories, I try to, to the extent
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: that I can, which is impossible to do it fully,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: is really immerse myself in like, well, what did you
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: actually see over the course of your lifetime? And what
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: did you imagine a big ask is? And so for
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Gloria Richardson, an integrated restaurant... is insignificant because that's not
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: going to get people out of poverty and out of
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the desolation that they're feeling because they will never be
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: a full citizen.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Um, I want to talk about Rosa Parks and, and here,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: because you bring up an, and it also, there's a, uh,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: an instance of Murley, uh, Edgar's, um, the mother, uh,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the mother of Edgar Evers, really Evers. And, uh, The
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: economic challenges both of them were individually facing at the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: time versus their fame and the fact that, you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Merle Evers doesn't go to the March on Washington.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Right. Because she attends an event where in exchange for
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: her attendance, her kids were going to get some scholarship money, which,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: you know, this was about, look, I've got this is
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: on the table here. I get them.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: And.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Talk about a part of the story nobody writes about,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: that certain people weren't there that maybe should have been,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: but there were economic challenges for these women who, yes,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: they were important symbols to the movement, but they were
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: also human beings trying to survive day to day.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I think the challenge of writing about someone like Rosa
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Parks is most people are familiar with why we know
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: who Rosa Parks is.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Over the past decade or so, incredible historians of women
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: in the civil rights movement have given us a bigger
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: picture of who she was politically, who she was socially.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: And so when I was tasked with, what is Rosa
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Parks doing in 1963? She is worried about paying the bills.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: The financial retribution for civil rights leaders across the board
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: is unfathomable. And I think that right now, since we're
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: living in an era of a great renewed interest in
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: political repression, we're seeing it again. But Rosa Parks loses
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: her job maybe a month into the bus boycott, maybe
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: a few weeks later. So her source of income is
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: taken away. Her husband's source of income is taken away.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: They are living on the generosity of others. After the
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: bus boycott ends, you know, King goes on to publish books.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: He's going to win the Nobel Prize in a few years.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: These guys now their lives were imperiled and they had struggles,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: but there is a financial pathway for them. Rosa Parks
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: can't find a job in Alabama. She moves to Detroit.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: She has a hard time finding a job. She becomes
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: an innkeeper on the campus of Hampton university. And just
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: earlier today, I was talking to a proud Hampton graduate.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I said, you know, Rosa Parks was at the Holly tree.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: And he said, wait, what? And, you know, people would
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: show up on campus saying, wait, isn't that Rosa Parks?
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Like what is going on here? And she writes in
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: her letters, like, She has an ulcer, but she can't
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: afford the cream for my ulcer. When she goes to Detroit,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: they're living in these borrowed spaces for $ 20 a month.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: The NAACP visits her, magazines visit her, and there's a refrain,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: don't forget Rosa Parks. these borrowed spaces for 20 bucks
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: a month. The NAACP visits her, magazines visit her, and
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: there's a refrain, don't forget Rosa Parks. It's such a
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: shame what's happening to Rosa Parks, but no one is
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: doing anything for her. Through her whole life, there was
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: financial precarity. It isn't until John Conyers is elected that
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: she gets to be like an LA in his office.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: And people show up and say, wait, aren't you Rosa Parks? Like,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: what are you doing here? And I think that what
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: people were sacrificing... wasn't just about the moment. It was
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: about generations. Because for every Rosa Parks that we do
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: know and celebrate and honor, there were Black folks in
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: South Carolina who were registering to vote. You go to
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: register to vote, the next day, the loan on your
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: truck is called up. Or your kids who are at
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: a historically Black college 100 miles away are kicked out
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: of school. Or you protest and your parents lose their jobs.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: You know, this is a fully immersive experience, a fully
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: immersive experience of risk. And they still take it and
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: they still understand it. And the thing that I will
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: say about all the women in this book, they're so different.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: They all take different kind of political approaches. No one
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: turns their back on the idea of black freedom or
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: black struggle. And that you can't say that about everyone
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: who's involved in civil rights. Some people take a very bitter,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: sharp turn against it, but they do not ever turn
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: their backs against it, no matter how much they've been
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: harmed by the various systems that that happen internally.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: So, look, you're trying to paint a fuller picture of
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the good, the bad, the complicated.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: That's that's clear. I mean, that's sort of my favorite
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: part of history is when it's when it's when it
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't follow the narrative, right? Like, you know, we have
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: a narrative in our head and this doesn't follow the narrative.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: And I'm listening to you here and it's like, what
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: you're building in this book and what you've built in
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: this book is supporting evidence that makes the case for
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: reparation stronger than I've ever heard.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: From Todd's mouth.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: No, it's sort of like one of those, right? We
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: talk about it as a repairing something that happened in
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: the 19th century. And what is less known and less understood,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: even though the minute you say it, well, of course
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: that was a problem, was frankly, you could make a
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: stronger case for reparations based on the treatment after emancipation, right?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Like the lack of being able, like you could make
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: a case there and you make the case on slavery, right?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Do you think this is why reparations has had a
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: harder time breaking through as a mainstream issue because we
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: know so little about the price that was paid by
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Rosa Parks? We know the price that was paid. The
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: price Martin Luther King paid, we all see. Yeah, we
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: we there's a federal holiday to in some ways to
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: acknowledge this, but not for Murley Evers, not for Rosa Parks,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: not for for so many others that and what you
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: just described, all these different. These are the stories, do
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: you think, that are necessary to be told and a
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: better understanding of this history? Perhaps white America has a
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: different different understanding and conversation about this.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: You know, I didn't think we would talk about this,
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: but I'm glad you brought it up.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: So I didn't know we were going to either. But
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: like I'm hearing this in your list, like, you know,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: this is how I would be making the case for reparations,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I guess, is where I would.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: You know, let me tell you. So I used to
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: work at Georgetown University and I was on the faculty
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: during those years. We were really going deep into this
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: question of universities and slavery. and what is owes and reparations.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: And coming from a Catholic faith background personally and working
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: at a Catholic institution, we used to use the language
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: of reconciliation, which I think can be very powerful spiritually.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: But I say this because, There is a deep desire
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: in this country to name and resolve any kind of
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: problem of racial conflict, even for people who I think
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: are really well-intentioned. And so I hear what you're saying,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: and I think that we can make an argument for
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: reparations based on a number of things that have happened
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: to African-Americans. But the thing that I think is really
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: interesting is is the extent to which educated, kind, faith-filled
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: people knew that chattel slavery involved the selling of one's child,
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: sexual exploitation, the disruption of family, violence for the sake
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: of violence. People know that. And they would still say, well,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know. That seemed like a long time ago.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: And you say, OK. Or they would say, it's a
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: bureaucratic issue. Who do we know is owed what? We
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: know the innovations of DNA and genealogy and more people
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: are able to trace their claims. We know about the
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: ledgers of people that were sold by churches, by universities,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: you know, by entire kind of industries. More knowledge has
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: not advanced than this clock. And I'll tell you one
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: of the things I think is hard for us to imagine.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: And this is the place that I find inspiration. Can
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: we imagine a world in which we have debts that
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: will never be repaid? That the struggle to reconcile this
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: country's past on race and white supremacy is a challenge
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: that should get us up every morning to move forward,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: not a quest to resolve or end it. And I
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: think this is the hardest part. Right. Because I think
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: there is a deep desire to say, OK, if reparations
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: are paid, well, I never have to hear about this.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm not going to curse on your your
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: lovely podcast. This stuff again. Right.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: You know, do I have do I have to withstand
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: my kids learning about this? Right. So it's not about
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: a movement towards the.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: You just made you've just made the case for what
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: a more perfect union means.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Well, there we go, right? Like, there we go. And
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: so I think that, you know, this requires like a
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: radical kind of rethinking of what does it mean to
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: be part of a nation? What does it mean to
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: be an American? But I think the moral leadership that
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: I write about in this book has not become the
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: leadership of the entire nation. And when it does, then
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: I think we can have different types of conversation. But
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: as long as we have incredible bodies of people, and
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: this isn't even my political rant about people on the right.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: This is a cultural, national, existential identity problem. As long
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: as we live in a culture that believes that acknowledgement
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: is means silence, means kind of finality, then we lose
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: the potential, the real transformative possibility of really delving deep
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: into the issue of reparations and repair and true reconciliation.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Well, let's keep going on this. What would a more
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: moral leadership class of America look like?
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think we see.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Glimmers of it i think you know i think about
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: people like um uh oh gosh i'm at this age
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: where i cannot remember things oh.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Trust me i know what you mean.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Uh producers help me out um Oh, God, the guy
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: who's leading Moral Mondays in North Carolina and the new.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, I know, Reverend Barber.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Reverend Barber. Okay, so we look at someone like William Barber.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: You know, I remember he gave a kind of off-the-record
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: talk at Georgetown when I worked there. And I thought
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: to myself, this must be what it was like for
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: the people I write about. To sit in the community
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: with other people and just listen to a person... express,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: not a promise like this is going to happen. And
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: this is how I'm not going to give you 5,000 bucks.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: If you do this, none of that bullshit. And it
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: is a person who is just sitting in the realness
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: of your humanity and suggesting that you have something to offer. Um,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: you know, when we look at like the moral Monday movement,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: the do poor people's campaign, I think I see it
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: in folks in the working families party. And they're saying
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: your struggle is real because And the mechanisms that this
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: society has given you to deal with your struggle, whether
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: it's your racism or your transphobia or your ranting on
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: the internet, that is an empty, empty thing. What we
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: are going to give you isn't an answer to all
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: your problems, but it's a way to feel more human.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've got a five-year-old kid, and the thing
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: that freaks me out the most is his cartoons. have
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: worlds without people. It's like cars are made without people
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: and then they change colors and there's fun stuff. And
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: I have to say, robots are okay, but people are
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: better than robots. I'm always saying that people are better
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: than robots, but I don't know if he has evidence
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: of that in the world we live in. Why would
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: he believe what mom says about people being better than robots?
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Because we are in a culture that our dehumanization, our
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: ability to dehumanize others is considered a strength. This is
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: the power. This is the future. And the more and
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: more we dwell on that, the worse and worse it's
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: going to get. And so I mean, I mean, who
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: am I? Right. I'm just someone who reads a bunch
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: of books and I've written a few. But I do
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: think that when people talk about what drew them into
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: the civil rights movement, movement from all backgrounds it was
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: the capacity for a movement to see their humanity and
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: respond to it in its deepest ways and i think
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: this is you know maybe it's a little churchy but
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: i don't know what else we have.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Let me shift the conversation here slightly because the other
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: part of your, you know, the first question I asked you,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: which is about this, is this about the forgotten women
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: or is this about how we remember history? And I
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: had a recent conversation with Ashley Judd. who was at
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: a conference here in DC that was essentially worrying about
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: how AI is going to portray humanity in this sort
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: of where is. And her concerns are on the, like
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: we've had 10,000 years of all this accumulated knowledge through
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: one point of view, one perspective, particularly on gender lines.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: And what is this sort of large, what are these
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: large language models do to frankly sanitize history? And that's
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: what you, you know, unless you're smart enough to ask
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: your prompt to get more, you know, to get more
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: specific or to delve into certain things. You're going to get,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: if you think we've had sanitized history over the last,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: you know, two generations, you ain't seen nothing yet.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Well, imagine when a student in an African-American history class
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: asks ChatGPT to talk about African-Americans, the kind of garbage
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: you get.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Well, that's, and so I think this is a challenge
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: that government hasn't even fully, you know, this gets it
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: to a large, you know, I guess let me ask
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: from your perspective, what would you like to see these
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: companies do? to make sure we don't have the worldview
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: that I fear we're going to have in the next
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: 50 years.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, do they care? Are they asking those questions?
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Well, no, they're not. That's my concern. There's not, I do.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I think individuals are in these companies.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: There are.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Okay. And there is, you know, when I rant and
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: rave about the lack of ethicists involved, I think, you know,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not, you know, I've got my own, um, complicated
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: relationship with religion, but I think people of faith need
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: to be involved here. You know, there's all sorts of
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: entities need to be involved as we decide to build
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: this super, this supposed baseline intelligence that we're all going
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: to have access to, which in one hand means that
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: there's no math problem anybody can't figure out the answer
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: to now. Okay, but that's a series of ones and zeros.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: What do we... Forget whether they wanna do it. This
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: is a case where I think government has to step
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: in here. It's about how are you building this? It's
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: not whether you should or shouldn't. How is it being built?
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: And is there going to be equal access to history,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: equal access to people's identity? And I think there's a
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: growing case to be made that the answer is no,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: especially if all they're doing is learning on what's been written, right?
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, take the March on Washington.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: What is an LLM going to tell me about it?
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: You know, again, I'm not going to curse on your podcast,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: but the LLM can go do something to itself because
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: here's the thing. So, you know, I am not a Luddite.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: I have a computer and a cell phone. So I
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: will I will.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: We're speaking on Zoom right now.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: But let me be very clear about something. Even in
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: the absence of these technologies. these mechanisms for the erasure
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: and dehumanization of people have existed in different forms. Now
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: it has a technology to make it more efficient. And
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: so I say that to say that I agree with
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: you that we have to have regulated technologies and we
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: have to have we have to have a world where
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: there isn't so much financial interest in them that, you know,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: that disparaging them doesn't even seem honest because we're all
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: implicated in this new economy. And I want to live
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: in a world where we really question whether or not
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: the theft of intellectual property should be our baseline understanding
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: of moving forward because no one ever asked me if
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: I wanted this, right? Like, so you're talking about like
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: the questions that these folks need to ask themselves. Well,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: why didn't you ask me when you were developing it?
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: But you were too busy stealing the stuff that I
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: had already produced. And so this one is a really
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: hard one for me, you know, as an educator and
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: as a person in the world and also as someone
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: who's very aware of the histories of what these technologies
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: do to the most vulnerable, right? I would have no
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: problem with data centers if they didn't poison people's water, right?
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: And I would have liked to be asked, maybe there's
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: a way, like, this is how we have to build them.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: And I would have liked to be asked, you know,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: before someone collected all my data so they can like
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: send me ads all day. And I wish someone would
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: have asked if I want my kid to imagine a
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: world where there's only robots and no people. And so
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: I think that there was no kind of, there's no
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: kind of like foundation of consent or participation. And then
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: we start to believe then we don't matter. Like this
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: is the, I mean, the real, you know, I think
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: the word is hat trick or sleight of hand of
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: all of this with a con of this, maybe we
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: should say the con is that it, it makes us
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: believe that we were ever that we have any kind
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: of role in allowing for this. It happens. And then
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: we have to react rather than we live in a
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: society that actually consults people about the things that will
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: impact them. And so, I mean, listen, I don't, I
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: don't know what this thing is going to be, but
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: I do know this. On August 28th, 1963, at the
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: March on Washington, A. Philip Randolph in his opening speech says,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: we have to be concerned about the problem of automation, right?
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Like as a labor person, he's saying, we've got to
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: be careful about what does it mean when we no
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: longer have jobs because we've conceded everything to technology. Little
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: did he know. And I also know that every single
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: person who's on that stage understood the long history of
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: the dehumanization of African-Americans, right? and said the future can
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: be bright, but we have to be very aware of
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: what is also a continuous process of stripping and denying people.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: And the various people who do that in the media representations,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: in the federal government, in industry, in labor, like we
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: have to protect that. And I see technology as no different.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Well, it's just interesting. I mean, it's like with anything,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: the more I learn, the more I question what I've
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: been taught. Well, that's the goal.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: You sit here and But the problem is what happens
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: if suddenly we automate everything and I can't find original
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: sources or the original sources are so hard to, I mean,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: this is sort of like, it is not only are
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: we gonna sanitize, but we're doing so and we're gonna
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: do so in such an efficient way that finding these
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: original sources actually become more complicated, harder than ever. And
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: then what have we done and what have we created?
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: And then what if we destroy the sources or silence
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: the writers or deport the creators? I mean, at this point,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: I have graduate students who can't read cursive because that
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: is not part of standard curriculum anymore. OK, it sounds
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: like a silly problem. Well, then they can't read an
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: original document.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Well, have you ever been taught to use a slide rule?
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, we used to do cyber.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Right. But the point is we don't do it anymore. Right. Like,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: and that's the thing. Look, and I, and I, my
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: point being on that is like, look, you said you
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: have a five year old. I have two kids, one
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: out of college, one still in college. And one of
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the petrified moments that I know I would have if
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: my kids were younger today is I don't know what
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: tools they need to survive in the world. That's going,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: you know, put it this way. When my kids were
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: starting school, parents were being told, well, you better have
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: them learn to code. And now we just learned, oh, well,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: that's meaningless. We're now automating that. So then what do
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: we do, right? And then there's so many young people
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: today that don't know how to do certain basic things.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: things in an apartment because so much of that stuff,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't bother to teach people how to
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: use tools because tools are not a part of our
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: more and more people's everyday life. And yet, you know,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I'm finding that with my own kids. I'm like, oh,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I realize I didn't teach how to use these things
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: because we never really needed them. But when I was
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: a kid, we did. So I did learn how to
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: do these things. You know, this is.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I don't make predictions because I'm a historian.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: I should stay out of the business, but this is
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: what I will predict. By the time my kid is
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: going into college and or maybe heading out, elites will
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: have such a stronghold on the type of education we're
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: talking about because elite tech people, they don't want their
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: kids in front of a freaking iPad. They don't want
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: their kids on social media. They want their kids.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: What does that tell you?
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: They don't want their kids watching TV. They don't want
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: their kids interacting with the very thing that made them billionaires.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: So let's be very clear. Like what I see right
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: now is happening, you know, and I teach at Penn. So, um,
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: I am teaching a segment of the elite, is that
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: there is a class of people who have benefited from
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: the disruption, right, of norms and the selling of a
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: frictionless life who do not want their kids near it
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: because they understand the existential and intellectual emptiness of it.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: So my greatest hope is that my kid and his
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: friends read books about the civil rights movement and they
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: are at the vanguard of a Luddite movement where kids
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: are saying, mom, ew, a smartphone. Why don't you talk
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: to a person? And like, ugh, we hate computers. Like,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: let's use a typewriter. But my fear is that will
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: be the next vanguard of an elite that will be
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: disconnected or not concerned about how these methods of automation
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: and AI are affecting real everyday people. But I think
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: the disgusting irony of all of this are the people
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: who are ruling the world do not want their children
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: near any of this. While they disrupt education, while they
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: ruin colleges and universities, while they create a culture of
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: fear and a lack of intellectual depth, they don't want
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: it for their kids. They just want it for the
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: rest of us.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: This is why I think the tech companies, so they
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: don't really like why we're so angry at data centers.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: I'm convinced it's not about data centers. It's like you
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: shoved social media on us and we never had a
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: we never got a say in this. You shoved all
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: of a sudden classrooms had iPads in them because we
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: were all told this was going to be the way
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to learn. And now, like in my community, there's a
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: there's a revolt like, you know, tell the schools not
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: to hand your kids devices. That's don't you know, literally
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: the county gives everybody one.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: Because that's the future, right?
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, and here's the deal. Like, I also, I
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: want to get to know people. I mean, the strength
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: of the civil rights movement is that people had to
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: spend time in proximity. There's this great documentary on the
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: 1964 Freedom Summer. And I think it was Junita Blackwell
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: talks about when the summer volunteers came to Mississippi. And
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: she said, it was a bunch of white people. And
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, they would sit next
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: to you and you were eating a bowl of beans
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: and they became people to me because their whole lives
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: had been in servitude to these like disgusting racist white
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: people that they don't become people. Right. And she said,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: this is what launched civil rights for me. And so
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: if we want to present our children, a world where
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: people are insignificant or you can't tell them apart because
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: who cares? A robot is going to love you and
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: care for you. This is what happens.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Right. Well, I always talk about a two-dimensional versus three-dimensional.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just recently had a friend visit to
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: come see a concert for somebody that was touring and
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: they're from a smaller community. And he goes, my God,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: DC is awesome. this was great. This was so clean.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: This was safe. Everything I read online was this or that.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: And you're just like, you know, it's true of any,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: go to any foreign country for the first time. And
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: every person's experience is, oh, this is not what I expected.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: And you want to say to them, well, in this,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: think about how many other things that you stereotype before
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: you've experienced that you end up changing, right? It's, it's,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: you know, but at the end of the day, this
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: is human nature, right? I don't know what I, I,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: You tell me. I don't know, but it certainly feels
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: like it is. We may not know for sure, but
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: it feels as if, is this just human behavior that
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: does this? At the end of the day, our own
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: minds work like large language models, and whatever is in there,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: we're going to synthesize into a stereotype, whether it's a
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: stereotype of an inanimate object or a real person.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: And then we read a book about women in the
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: civil rights movement and we say, Oh wait, there's a
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: different way to operate in the world. And there's a
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: different way to think. And, you know, I mean, if
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: you could imagine Rosa Parks taking up yoga later in
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: life and changing into someone who was pro nonviolence after
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: really believing in armed self-defense and spending time, you know,
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: going to these radical training centers for activism in the 1950s,
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: because she was curious about ways that she can make
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: a difference. Like, If a person who in many ways
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: was supposed to be disconnected from a larger world immerses
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: herself in that world intellectually and spiritually and comes out, right,
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: with a kind of holdess despite all her harms, like
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: we have, we actually have a fighting chance. And, you know,
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: you talked about, I don't, did you raise your kids
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: in the DC area? Yes.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: So I'm raising a kid in D.C. I love living
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: in D.C. You can take your kid to the zoo.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: It doesn't cost any money. They have they freak out.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: You go back home. Wonderful. It is painful for me
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: to take my child who actually wants to go to
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: the Smithsonian to the Smithsonian, because when I walk into
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: this building, I'm so excited to show him history. And
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: I know the threat that everyone who works in that
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: building is under. And I have to explain to him
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: why I was sad about, you know, Lonnie Bunch retiring.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: And I have to take him to the African-American Museum
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: and hope it's there next year. Like this is where
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: we are, folks. And good luck to all of us.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: No, I can't believe I would be questioning what the
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Smithsonian was going to put out. I never thought. Never
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: thought I had to worry about that over the last
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: 20 years.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: And I think to myself, I hope my book is
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: still in circulation, that some robot hasn't eaten it up
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: so that my kid can read it.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Well, let me lay in this plane and go back
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: to the book, which is you've spent years reconstructing the
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: March on Washington, basically, like what really happened versus what
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: we remember in the narrative. So what's one thing that
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: you think people still get wrong about that day that
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: frustrates you the most?
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: They get the. So because we have the program still
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: with us and so much of the reporting comes from
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: the program, they say that women were there who are
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: not there. They say Murley Evers were there. She wasn't there.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: They say Prince Nelson Lee was there. She was not there.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: They say Diane Nash was there. She was not there.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: A lot of the women didn't show up. You know why?
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Because they didn't think it was a thing. It was
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: such a last minute effort. And not a small detail,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: but an important detail to understand that there were people
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: who were not there. And to know why and to
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: know the dimensions of their lives is also important because
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: the civil rights movement wasn't just the March on Washington.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: But boy, did it illustrate so much about it.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Marsha, I am so glad to have met you. I
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: am so glad to have read this book. And I'm
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: just trying to figure out more ways I could continue
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: this conversation with you throughout many, many years or months
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: on a variety of topics. This has been among the
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: more fascinating conversations I've had in a long time. And
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: I just love how your mind works.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: So what, what else, let me, let me, obviously people
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: can find this, this particular book, but tell folks about
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the other, other scholarship you've done.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: So, um, my books are how bright the path grows,
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: the untold story of the women who made the March
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: on Washington. Um, my book before that was franchised the
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: golden arches in black America. And my first book is
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: called South side girls growing up in the great migration.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Uh, Marsha, I am going to gobble up all three myself, um,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: because of, uh, how, uh, because of this conversation, to
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: be frank. Anyway, it's great to meet you.