Latest / Randy Unscripted / The Thanksgiving You Never Learned in School - NaPodPoMo 2025 #22

Transcript

The Thanksgiving You Never Learned in School - NaPodPoMo 2025 #22 · Randy Unscripted

• 0:02
  Randy Black: Randy Black.
• 0:04
  Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Black. He's a troublemaker. Welcome back to Randy Unscripted. I'm Randy Black, and today, we're continuing our
• 0:15
  episode series for napod promo. This is episode number 22 for that. That's the national podcast post month where the goal is for podcasters to publish an episode
• 0:26
  every day of the month of November.
• 0:29
  That's 30 episodes
• 0:31
  in thirty days.
• 0:33
  In the end,
• 0:35
  it's in sight.
• 0:37
  Today, though, we're gonna kick off a a special
• 0:40
  little miniseries as part of our miniseries,
• 0:43
  and we're gonna be talking about
• 0:46
  Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Day. And there's six episodes because we're six days away up to Thanksgiving,
• 0:51
  and we're going to
• 0:53
  take a look at Thanksgiving in some unique, and interesting ways. Now
• 0:59
  just so you know,
• 1:01
  before I was a podcaster and before I worked exclusively
• 1:05
  in the technology side of education,
• 1:08
  I was a social studies teacher.
• 1:10
  And Thanksgiving was one of those topics that
• 1:14
  always fascinated me because what we teach in school
• 1:17
  is only a small part of the whole story.
• 1:21
  A good story,
• 1:23
  but it's incomplete.
• 1:25
  So today, we're gonna look at what I'm gonna call the Thanksgiving you never learned in school.
• 1:31
  Not to rewrite the history, but to expand it,
• 1:35
  to show the whole tapestry
• 1:38
  that God had been weaving long before 1621
• 1:41
  and long before The United States
• 1:43
  even existed.
• 1:46
  So if you grew up in The United States,
• 1:49
  chances are
• 1:51
  your history textbooks,
• 1:53
  pointed straight to Plymouth, Massachusetts
• 1:55
  in 1621.
• 1:57
  Pilgrims,
• 1:58
  Wampanoag,
• 2:00
  harvest fest,
• 2:02
  maybe a couple, hand turkeys and a worksheet with a cornucopia.
• 2:07
  It it's the version that's familiar,
• 2:11
  and it's comfortable.
• 2:14
  But here's the truth.
• 2:17
  That 1621
• 2:18
  celebration
• 2:20
  was not the first Thanksgiving in America,
• 2:23
  not by a long shot.
• 2:25
  Let me give you a couple examples that rarely ever get mentioned.
• 2:30
  Let's start with the sixteen nineteen
• 2:33
  Berkeley hundred Thanksgiving.
• 2:35
  Two years before Plymouth,
• 2:38
  a group of English settlers arrived into Virginia,
• 2:42
  And in the charter that sent them there, they were required by law to hold a day of thanksgiving to God every year.
• 2:51
  No feast,
• 2:53
  no football,
• 2:55
  just gratitude.
• 2:59
  We can go even earlier than that down in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida
• 3:04
  in 1565.
• 3:05
  That's more than fifty years before the pilgrims.
• 3:09
  Spanish settlers held a Thanksgiving service and shared a meal with the native people there, the Timokwa.
• 3:17
  These were
• 3:19
  there were there were also similar celebrations
• 3:22
  to in it to this in
• 3:24
  present day Texas and New Mexico as well.
• 3:30
  And then
• 3:31
  there were indigenous traditions
• 3:33
  here
• 3:34
  on this continent.
• 3:37
  For generations before any Europeans arrived here,
• 3:41
  native nations across the continent
• 3:43
  held ceremonies of gratitude,
• 3:46
  harvest festivals,
• 3:47
  thank offerings,
• 3:49
  prayers tied to the land and its creator.
• 3:52
  And gratitude wasn't an event. It was a rhythm.
• 3:56
  So the story is much bigger than a single meal in a single colony.
• 4:01
  It's a pattern,
• 4:03
  people pausing
• 4:04
  to acknowledge
• 4:06
  the good gifts of God.
• 4:11
  One of the most important parts of
• 4:13
  understanding the full picture here is recognizing the the spiritual
• 4:18
  and the
• 4:19
  cultural practices
• 4:21
  of these indigenous communities.
• 4:23
  Many of these native nations held annual ceremonies
• 4:27
  centered around giving thanks for the cycle of life, the harvest,
• 4:31
  the hunt, the changing of the seasons.
• 4:35
  Their gratitude,
• 4:36
  it wasn't a holiday.
• 4:38
  It was a way of life.
• 4:40
  It was tied to creation,
• 4:42
  community,
• 4:43
  and the sacred trust of stewardship.
• 4:47
  When we talk about Thanksgiving with honesty and humility,
• 4:50
  it gives us a chance to honor those stories,
• 4:53
  not erase them,
• 4:55
  and it makes the holiday deeper,
• 4:58
  not more complicated.
• 5:01
  So
• 5:03
  if there were all these earlier Thanksgivings,
• 5:07
  why did Plymouth
• 5:09
  become the one we all learned?
• 5:11
  Well,
• 5:12
  this is where the historian in me gets excited. And, yes, I do have a degree in history as well.
• 5:18
  And it gets me excited because part of understanding history is understanding how stories gain influence.
• 5:25
  So let's run through a few reasons
• 5:27
  as to why this happened.
• 5:29
  Our first is that the pilgrim narrative fit the national identity that Americans
• 5:34
  wanted to build.
• 5:36
  Courage,
• 5:37
  faith,
• 5:38
  survival,
• 5:40
  it's all an inspiring story, and it resonated during the eighteen hundreds when the country was forming its national mythology.
• 5:49
  Our second reason might be that historical sources from Plymouth were easier to publish and to circulate.
• 5:57
  William Bradford's writings, Edward Windle's Winslow's account, these these became the foundation
• 6:04
  of what is the American Thanksgiving tale,
• 6:06
  and they were readily available.
• 6:10
  And our third reason is looking at textbooks and how they simplify
• 6:14
  everything.
• 6:15
  When you have limited pages
• 6:18
  and limited time,
• 6:20
  you pick the most teachable version.
• 6:22
  Over time, that simplest story became
• 6:25
  the only story.
• 6:28
  So Plymouth didn't become the center of thanksgiving because it was first,
• 6:33
  but because
• 6:34
  it was embraced.
• 6:38
  But here's here's the deeper truth of it all.
• 6:41
  Thanksgiving existed long before America,
• 6:45
  long before Europe,
• 6:47
  long before any culture we've mentioned today.
• 6:51
  It's woven into the human heart.
• 6:55
  Scripture shows us that God created us to be people who remember,
• 7:01
  people who give thanks,
• 7:03
  and people who see blessings
• 7:05
  even in ordinary moments.
• 7:08
  Psalms one thirty six tells us, oh, give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever.
• 7:17
  First Thessalonians
• 7:18
  five eighteen reminds us, in everything give thanks
• 7:22
  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
• 7:27
  Thanksgiving
• 7:28
  isn't about a date on a calendar.
• 7:31
  It's about posture,
• 7:34
  a posture of gratitude
• 7:36
  toward the one who provides.
• 7:40
  As we start this week long journey toward Thanksgiving,
• 7:44
  I want us to hold on to the bigger picture.
• 7:47
  Thanksgiving is not about one moment in history.
• 7:50
  It's a long, rich, and sometimes complicated story of people turning their hearts toward God.
• 7:57
  Tomorrow,
• 7:58
  we're gonna move from the early celebrations
• 8:01
  to one of the most surprising moments in Thanksgiving history,
• 8:04
  the year Abraham Lincoln declared it a national holiday
• 8:08
  right in the middle of the United States civil war.
• 8:13
  You don't wanna miss that one. So thank you for joining me today. Remember, this is part of our napod promo series, national podcast post month, with the goal to be 30 episodes in thirty days. I'll see you on the next episode
• 8:28
  right here on Randy Unscripted.