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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you missed in history class from dot com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcomed to the podcast. I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. And

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Speaker 1: so perhaps unless you are actually from Texas or otherwise

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Speaker 1: immersed in Texas history, the most famous part of the

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Speaker 1: Texas Revolution is definitely the Siege of the Alamo. It's

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Speaker 1: such a big part of the cultural consciousness in the

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Speaker 1: United States that we have two different episodes in the

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Speaker 1: archive about it. Once from way back in the beginning,

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Speaker 1: it walks through the lead up to the siege, of

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Speaker 1: the siege itself and how remember the ax the Alamo

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Speaker 1: became this rallying cry for Texas independence. The other episode

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Speaker 1: is on one of the famous figures associated with the Alamo,

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Speaker 1: and that was Jim Booie, and he had this long

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Speaker 1: history is everything from a knife fighter to a slave

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Speaker 1: trader before the siege actually happened. Today, we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about the opposite end of the Texas Revolution. So

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Speaker 1: the Alamo wasn't at the very end, it was kind

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Speaker 1: of the pivot before the very end. We're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about the thing that played out almost at the

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Speaker 1: very beginning today, and that is the Siege of Bexar

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Speaker 1: and if you are a Spanish speaker, you can probably

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Speaker 1: roll your R at the end of that beautifully. If

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Speaker 1: I try to do that, I sound like a child

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Speaker 1: practicing Spanish for the first time, so please pardon my

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Speaker 1: American pronunciation of Bexar. Bexar was in what's now San Antonio.

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Speaker 1: Spanish conqui Statores first arrived in that area in six

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Speaker 1: and it was at that time home to the Paaya people.

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Speaker 1: And unfortunately we don't know much about the Paya beyond

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Speaker 1: a few Spanish accounts which were written in the seventeenth

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Speaker 1: and eighteen centuries. These people were either killed or absorbed

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Speaker 1: into Spanish culture or other tribes in the area when

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Speaker 1: Spain started started establishing missions there in the seventeen hundreds.

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Speaker 1: Spain established a mission called San Antonio de Valero on

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Speaker 1: May one, seventeen eighteen, and this mission would later be

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Speaker 1: known as the Alamo. A few days later, just over

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Speaker 1: the river from the mission, they built a garrison known

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Speaker 1: as San Antonio de Bexar, and together these formed a

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Speaker 1: stopping point along a highly traveled route across Mexico, and

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Speaker 1: over time they grew into a town. Although the Spanish

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Speaker 1: population was huge in other parts of Mexico in what's

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Speaker 1: now Texas, it was really never all that large. Bexar

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Speaker 1: became the Spanish capital of Texas, but by the early

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, there were only eight hundred or so people

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Speaker 1: actually living there. So in eighteen o three, the United

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Speaker 1: States acquired the Louisiana territories from France, and so all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, Spain was sharing a huge, long border

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Speaker 1: with the United States where it hadn't before, and this

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Speaker 1: border ran right along territory where it just didn't have

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Speaker 1: a lot of people. So Spain wanted to fix this situation,

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Speaker 1: and it offered low priced land in what's now Texas

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Speaker 1: to entice about three hundred United States citizens to settle

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Speaker 1: in that area, provided that they would be loyal to Spain.

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Speaker 1: So the idea was that they would turn Texas into

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Speaker 1: this buffer between the United States and the rest of Mexico,

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Speaker 1: where Spain had a lot more people and resources. This

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Speaker 1: plan ran into a few problems. One, people did not

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Speaker 1: actually start moving to Mexico until about eighteen twenty two,

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Speaker 1: but Mexico had actually become independent from Spain the year

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Speaker 1: before that. And while Mexico did honor the land grants

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Speaker 1: that Spain had made most of the Anglos who moved

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Speaker 1: there found that living in a fledgling nation nation just

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Speaker 1: out of a war, was less than desirable. Mexico had

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Speaker 1: actually organized itself into a republic, and it had some

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Speaker 1: similarities to the government and the United States. But this

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Speaker 1: new government was really shaky, and it went through this

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Speaker 1: series of changes in leadership and coups and differences of

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Speaker 1: opinion between the federalists who wanted the government to be

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Speaker 1: kind of decentralized, and the centralists, who were a lot

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Speaker 1: more conservative and kind of wanted all of Mexico to

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Speaker 1: be ruled by a solid central almost dictatorial government. So

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Speaker 1: most of the immigrants from the States. Of course, we're

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Speaker 1: on the federalist side, since that more resembled the ideals

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Speaker 1: of the United States. Plus, while Spain and then Mexico

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Speaker 1: had expected their newfound Anglo population to assimilate into the

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Speaker 1: local culture, what I actually happened was that the new

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Speaker 1: colonists continued to speak English and kept up their strong

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Speaker 1: ties to the United States, and soon about fifteen thousand

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Speaker 1: Anglo settlers and one thousand slaves that they brought with

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Speaker 1: them vastly outnumbered the Mexicans. That were living in Texas,

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Speaker 1: so the planned buffer zone instead became a threat. Mexico

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Speaker 1: tried a number of strategies to stem the tide of

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Speaker 1: Anglo immigrants. Since so many of the immigrants from the

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Speaker 1: United States were staunchly pros slavery, Mexico passed a number

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Speaker 1: of laws to try to limit or abolish slavery, hoping

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Speaker 1: to discourage further immigration. This didn't work, and it mostly

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Speaker 1: just made the Anglo colonists resentful of the Mexican government.

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Speaker 1: Then Mexico outlawed immigration from the United States entirely, but

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Speaker 1: by that point Texas, with its cheap land and promise

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Speaker 1: of a new life, held such an allure that people

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Speaker 1: just emigrated from the United States to Texas illegally anyway.

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Speaker 1: After a while, Mexico passed a law that provided for

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Speaker 1: a military occupation of Texas to try to keep things

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Speaker 1: under control, and it also set up a system of

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Speaker 1: customs houses to collect tax from these Anglo colonists. Naturally,

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Speaker 1: none of this set very well with the colonists who

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Speaker 1: were really hoping to take advantage of all that cheap

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Speaker 1: Texan land to create their own land of the free.

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Speaker 1: If you've been listening to our podcast for a while,

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Speaker 1: or just like to study colonial history. You know what

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Speaker 1: happens when a nation shows up in a colony and

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Speaker 1: starts in forcing customs laws. It wasn't long before the

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Speaker 1: Anglo colonists in Texas, known as the Texians, and their

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Speaker 1: Spanish speaking allies called Tehanos were on the road to

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Speaker 1: a revolution. We're going to get to the revolution after

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Speaker 1: a brief break for a word from a sponsor, so

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Speaker 1: to return to our story. Tensions between Texas and Mexico

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Speaker 1: really started building up during the early eighteen thirties, and

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Speaker 1: then in eighteen thirty five, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna,

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Speaker 1: who was then the Mexican President, repudiated the Mexican Constitution

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Speaker 1: and essentially became a dictator. He switched sides from being

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Speaker 1: a federalist to being a centralist in that process, and

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Speaker 1: recognizing that these Anglo colonists in Texas represented a threat,

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Speaker 1: he went after them with a vengeance. And for their part,

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Speaker 1: the Texians did not really see much appeal in Santa

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Speaker 1: Anna's rule, which was much less democratic than it had

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Speaker 1: been before he tossed out the Mexican Constitution. Santa Anna

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Speaker 1: started trying to disarmed Texians wherever possible, and on October two,

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five, that disarmament involved a small cannon in

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Speaker 1: the village of Gonzalez. The Texians there resisted and each

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Speaker 1: side brought in reinforcements until the Texians finally attacked. This

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Speaker 1: became the Battle of Gonzalez, and it was the first

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Speaker 1: battle of the Texas Revolution. At this point, Mexico had

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Speaker 1: control of the town of Bexar, which had both strategic

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Speaker 1: and symbolic importance. In addition to being the seat of

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Speaker 1: Mexican government in Texas, it was also the last big

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Speaker 1: stronghold of Mexican forces in the region, so taking Bexar

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Speaker 1: would be a huge win for the Texian forces. Some

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Speaker 1: names that will be familiar to anyone who's learned about

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Speaker 1: the Alamo or Texas history. What we're really instrumental in

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Speaker 1: the siege of Bexar as well. Stephen F. Austin had

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Speaker 1: been elected to command the volunteer Army, which was made

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Speaker 1: up of Texians and Tanno's. Austin had also established the

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Speaker 1: first Anglo Amera can colony in Texas, and he was

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Speaker 1: a hugely prominent figure in Texas at this point. But

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Speaker 1: it wasn't really a military man, and he led this

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Speaker 1: revolutionary army, which was also called the Army of the People,

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Speaker 1: via debates and voting. William Barrett Travis, who was commander

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Speaker 1: at the Alamo, was at Bexar as well, as was

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Speaker 1: Jim Booie, who had connections in the town and knew

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Speaker 1: that Martin Perfecto Dakos, who was in command inside Bexar,

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Speaker 1: had about six hundred men there before the Texians decided

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Speaker 1: to try to attack it. The Mexican forces fortified the

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Speaker 1: town of Bexar with barricades flanked with trenches, lots of

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Speaker 1: reinforcements on the doors. Many of the barricades also had

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Speaker 1: holes in them to accommodate muskets and cannons, and then

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Speaker 1: across the river, Mexico fortified the Alamo with cannons and

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Speaker 1: other armaments as well, and because it was so well fortified,

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Speaker 1: in October of eighteen thirty five, Austin and his Council

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Speaker 1: of officers decided to lay siege to Bexar rather than

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Speaker 1: outright attack it. Unfortunately, things started to go badly almost immediately.

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Speaker 1: Because this army was an all volunteer operation, people didn't

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Speaker 1: have a lot of incentive to stay if they didn't

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Speaker 1: like how things were going, and as soon as it

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Speaker 1: became clear that they were basically going to wait and

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Speaker 1: not fight, the volunteers who were a lot more interested

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Speaker 1: in fighting started to walk away. One whole company vanished

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. Many of the men

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Speaker 1: had also joined up in the spirit of fighting for

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Speaker 1: their ideals, but they really didn't have so much in

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Speaker 1: the way of practice of being soldiers. Discipline was somewhere

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Speaker 1: between lax and nonexistent, and the waiting time was spent

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Speaker 1: in all manner of games and tomfoolery. Drunkenness was actually

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Speaker 1: such a problem that Austin wrote to the General Council quote,

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Speaker 1: in the name of almighty Gods, sent no more ardent

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Speaker 1: spirits to the camp. If any is on the road,

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Speaker 1: turn it around, or have the head knocked out. When

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Speaker 1: the October weather started to turn wet and cold, disease

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Speaker 1: also became a problem, and this was made worse by

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Speaker 1: the fact that the camp was not far away from

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Speaker 1: a field that was regularly used to slaughter livestock. And

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Speaker 1: then in November Austin was ordered to go to the

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Speaker 1: United States to try to drum up more support for Texas.

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Speaker 1: He ordered an attack on Bexar in November twenty two,

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Speaker 1: just before he was to leave, but his men resisted

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Speaker 1: that idea, so he called off the attack and then

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Speaker 1: he left two days later. Taking his place was Edward Burlison,

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Speaker 1: who had fought during the War of eighteen twelve as

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Speaker 1: part of his father's company. He had a reputation for

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Speaker 1: really being fearless, but the army that he was taking

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Speaker 1: over was struggling at this point. Thanks to attriction, there

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Speaker 1: were only about seven hundred soldiers left. They were also

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Speaker 1: very low on money and supplies, and many of the

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Speaker 1: men who had stuck with it for all of these

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Speaker 1: weeks were quite frustrated. On November six, there was at

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Speaker 1: last a break in the tedium. Some Mexican forces were

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Speaker 1: on the move. Their intent was not clear, but there

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Speaker 1: was a rumor that it was hauling silver. Jim Booie

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Speaker 1: was sent out on recon in About a mile outside

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Speaker 1: the town, they found a mule train and they fired

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Speaker 1: upon it. When the Mexican dragoons fled that Boui's men

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Speaker 1: pursued almost to the edge of the town until they

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Speaker 1: were turned back by reinforcements. So when they got back

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Speaker 1: to what was left of the mule train, they did

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Speaker 1: not find any silver. What they found was cut grass.

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Speaker 1: The Mexican forces had been out gathering food for the

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Speaker 1: cavalry horses who were besieged in Bexar. This kerfuffle became

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Speaker 1: known as the Grass Fight, and it comes off as

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Speaker 1: kind of silly, but it was an indicator that things

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Speaker 1: were not going well inside the town either. Not long after,

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Speaker 1: Jim Booey was ordered to Goliad to help with the fortifications,

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Speaker 1: but he had been glad to go. He found Austin's

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Speaker 1: waffling and all that waiting to just be incredibly tiresome.

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Speaker 1: Travis left at about the same time. Burlison, kind of

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Speaker 1: following in Austin's footstep, ups ordered an attack on Bexar

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Speaker 1: to take place on December one, but once again a

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Speaker 1: lot of the men really balked at this idea, so

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Speaker 1: again the advance was called off. Perlson sort of saw

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Speaker 1: the writing on the wall at this point. It was

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Speaker 1: not going well. The men were resisting the command and

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Speaker 1: and the you know, actual step of attacking the town,

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Speaker 1: so he decided to abandon the siege completely and the

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Speaker 1: army started packing up to go, but his preparations to

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Speaker 1: leave were under way. A Mexican officer from Bexar wrote

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Speaker 1: out and surrendered. He told them that morale among the

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Speaker 1: Mexican troops was very bad. They had no food and

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Speaker 1: they were low on supplies, so at that point it

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Speaker 1: seemed like maybe the army should stay. While all of

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Speaker 1: this was going on with the Mexican officers surrender, Ben Milam,

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Speaker 1: who had been out doing recon heard about this plan

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Speaker 1: to abandon the siege. He had fought in the War

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Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve, and after moving to Texas from Kentucky,

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Speaker 1: he had been thrown into a number of Mexican prisons

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Speaker 1: for a range of offenses. When he heard about this

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Speaker 1: plan to just call the whole thing off, he was

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Speaker 1: not happy about it, so he stopped what he was

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Speaker 1: doing and rode back to Bexar. There he found Frank Johnson,

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Speaker 1: who was General Burlison's adjutant, and after telling him in

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Speaker 1: great detail all of the reasons why falling back to

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Speaker 1: winter Quarters was just absolutely the worst plan, the two

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Speaker 1: men went to Burlison and laid out a plan to

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Speaker 1: actually attack the town for real. Burlison, who had not

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Speaker 1: really wanted to cancel his attack on Bexar in the

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Speaker 1: first place, gave them the go ahead as long as

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Speaker 1: they could recruit enough men to carry it out from

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Speaker 1: all of these guys who were packing up to leave. Fortunately,

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Speaker 1: word it spread already that there was some kind of

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Speaker 1: dust up going on between Johnson Milman Burlison, and so

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Speaker 1: when they left Burlasson's tent, they actually found hundreds of

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Speaker 1: volunteers waiting for them. Milem asked who would join him

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Speaker 1: and going to San Antonio, And as the men in

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Speaker 1: front of him started yelling but they would, he stepped

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Speaker 1: across the path and said, well, if you're going with me,

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Speaker 1: get on this side of the roof Almost three hundred

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Speaker 1: men crossed the road to join him. The some of

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Speaker 1: the ones who didn't weren't really behind the idea of attacking,

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Speaker 1: but they agreed to stay behind in the camp as

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Speaker 1: a reserve. Burlison would stay with them and would also

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Speaker 1: send out cavalry to make sure that Mexican troops could

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Speaker 1: neither enter nor leave Bexar while the attack was going on.

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Speaker 1: And the attacking force gathered on the north side of

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Speaker 1: Bexar at about three in the morning on December five five.

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Speaker 1: Some of the three men never showed, perhaps having been

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Speaker 1: convinced that this was actually a bad idea. Regardless, the

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Speaker 1: attack began two hours later with a cannon fired at

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Speaker 1: the Alamo as a diversion, and as Mexican infantry rushed

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Speaker 1: toward the Alamo, Milum's men moved into Bexar. They separated

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Speaker 1: into two columns that went down two parallel streets. One

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Speaker 1: column was led by Mileum and the other by Johnson.

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Speaker 1: They also had local guides with them. These were Samuel Maverick,

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Speaker 1: iras To Smith, who was known as Deaf Smith because

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Speaker 1: he was hard of hearing, John W. Smith, and Henrik Arnold.

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Speaker 1: And that last person was a free bi racial man

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Speaker 1: who had come to Texas from Mississippi. The Texian force

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Speaker 1: broke down the doors of some buildings near the main plaza.

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Speaker 1: Some of these were homes and their residents fled. Others

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Speaker 1: were facilities housing Mexican troops, and they fought their way

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Speaker 1: through and then established a base of operations in bex Barer.

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Speaker 1: The fighting wound up going on in Bexar for days,

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Speaker 1: with soldiers going house to house trying to work their

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Speaker 1: way to the main plaza. When the streets were impassable

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Speaker 1: because of cannons or musket fire. They took to the roofs,

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Speaker 1: at least until Mexican snipers started shooting at them from

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Speaker 1: the bell tower. Mexican forces responded to the slow Texian

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Speaker 1: advance by digging new trenches and arranging their artillery to

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Speaker 1: try to catch the invaders in the crossfire, but in

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Speaker 1: the end it was mostly hand to hand combat with

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Speaker 1: booie nives and bayonets, plus shots from the occasional pistols.

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Speaker 1: For the most part, this fighting only took place during

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Speaker 1: the day, but at night the Mexican forces would use

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Speaker 1: this time to move around, build new barricades, reinforce their positions,

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Speaker 1: and generally try to slow down to Texian advance. A

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Speaker 1: couple of days in the Texians started to try to

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Speaker 1: figure out a plan to capture General cos who was

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Speaker 1: holed up in the Mexican command post in a house

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Speaker 1: south of the main plaza. While planning this assault, milem

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Speaker 1: who had stepped outside to try to get a better

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Speaker 1: look at their target, was actually shot in the head

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Speaker 1: by a sniper. Texian troops nearby returned fire at the

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Speaker 1: spot where the shot had come from, and after the

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Speaker 1: battle was over, the body of Felix de la Garza,

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Speaker 1: purportedly one of the Mexican army's best shots, was found

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Speaker 1: in the river nearby. Milum was really the one who

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Speaker 1: had turned the Texian armies tied from let's go home too,

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Speaker 1: Let's attack Bexar, and so his death was a huge loss.

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Speaker 1: To make matters worse, rumors started to circulate that there

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Speaker 1: was a huge contingent of Mexican reinforcements on the way.

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Speaker 1: The Texians were running out of gunpowder, and it was

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Speaker 1: also raining. Frank Johnson was selected to take Milem's place

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Speaker 1: commanding the operation, but morale was really starting to flag,

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Speaker 1: and reinforcements did arrive in the morning, four hundred of them,

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Speaker 1: along with Solda danas, who were soldier women who also

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Speaker 1: cooked clean and cared for soldiers and their children. Under

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Speaker 1: the command of Captain Jose Juan Sanchez, they marched across

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Speaker 1: a wooden foot bridge out of Bexar and into the Alamo.

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Speaker 1: Soon Cos left his command posts and joined them there.

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Speaker 1: Even though Sanchez had brought lots of troops, he had

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Speaker 1: not brought any more food with them. The troops were

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Speaker 1: also nearly starving and had just been through basically a

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Speaker 1: forced a forced march, so they were exhausted. A lot

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Speaker 1: of the soldiers were also convicts, which was true of

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Speaker 1: a lot of the Mexican army, but some of these

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Speaker 1: convict recruits were so new that they were still shackled.

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Speaker 1: So it turned out that even though the Mexican army

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Speaker 1: now had a whole lot more men, it didn't actually help.

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Speaker 1: At this point, the Mexican Army, hungry, exhausted low on supplies,

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Speaker 1: had to act. Coast arranged an attack not on the

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Speaker 1: town of Bexar, but on the Texian camp outside the town.

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Speaker 1: He sent cavalry and infantry to approach as a pincher,

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Speaker 1: but the Texians opened fire and the attackers had to

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Speaker 1: retreat to the Alamo. Finally, with really no moves left

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Speaker 1: to make, General Coast sent Captain Sanchez to try to

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Speaker 1: negotiate terms over the great objections of all of the

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Speaker 1: other men. The siege officially ended on December ninth, and

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Speaker 1: the Texian force clearly came out on top. The Mexican

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Speaker 1: officers were paroled and the army had to leave within

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Speaker 1: six days. They also had to swear not to oppose

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Speaker 1: the Mexican Constitution of eighty four and that they would

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Speaker 1: not come back to Texas under arms. There had been

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Speaker 1: between thirty and thirty five casualties on the Texian side

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Speaker 1: and about one hundred and fifty casualties on the Mexican side.

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Speaker 1: Once the negotiations were over, the Mexican troops were allowed

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Speaker 1: to stay in the Alamo until they were ready to leave,

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Speaker 1: while the Texian troops kept to the town. Although once

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Speaker 1: the fighting was done, there was a lot of mingling

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Speaker 1: between the two camps, especially among the locals, some of

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Speaker 1: whom already knew each other from before the fighting started.

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Speaker 1: Once Coast Sanchez and the rest of the Mexican troops

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Speaker 1: moved out of the area on December fourteenth, they left

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Speaker 1: behind the Alamo with all of its fortifications, along with cannons, muskets,

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Speaker 1: powder and ammunition. We're it spread of the Texian victory

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Speaker 1: at Bexar, and for a while a lot of people

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Speaker 1: believed that the war was over and the Texas had one.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the people who had volunteered to be

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Speaker 1: in the army went back home, and on the following

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Speaker 1: March first, Texas declared its independence for Mexico at the

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Speaker 1: Convention of eighteen thirty six. At the Convention, delegates wrote

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Speaker 1: the Texas Declaration of Independence and they set up a

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Speaker 1: provisional government with Sam Houston as the commander in chief. However,

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Speaker 1: Santa Anna was not done with Mexico, and even as

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Speaker 1: the Convention of eighteen thirty six was underway, the Alamo

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Speaker 1: was under siege by Santa Anna's forces, which is of

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Speaker 1: course another story. What is the siege effects? Are it?

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Speaker 1: Kind of is the other book end to the Battle

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Speaker 1: of the Alamo and the Battle of Santa Center that

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Speaker 1: followed it. Do you have a little bit of listener

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Speaker 1: mail for us? Why? Yes, I do? Uh So, I

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Speaker 1: know it seems like we've read so many listener males

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Speaker 1: about our our segregation podcasts and also our special education podcasts.

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Speaker 1: And part of this is because there's a long stretch

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Speaker 1: of podcasts that that Holly prepared that are all a row,

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Speaker 1: and like all of the male is mail that that

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Speaker 1: the Holly can answer better than I can. So I

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Speaker 1: keep picking ones from uh from from those ones. And

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Speaker 1: we also got so much great email about all of

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Speaker 1: these at of email that's been just wonderful to read. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we'll probably never get the growl of it. I

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Speaker 1: will have ones that are flags to be read forever.

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Speaker 1: I think. So this is from Reagan and Reagan says,

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Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed your recent three part podcast on the

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Speaker 1: history of segregation and integration in the United States. While

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Speaker 1: I was already familiar with a great deal of the

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Speaker 1: subject matter presented, I enjoyed learning about the events in

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Speaker 1: greater detail. What really struck a chord with me is

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Speaker 1: your discussion of the continued efforts to integrate public schools

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Speaker 1: well into the late seventies. Until now, I had always

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Speaker 1: thought of integration as something that happened during my parents

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Speaker 1: early years, but after listening to part three, I realized

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Speaker 1: that I was a participant myself. I'm a black woman

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Speaker 1: and was educated in public schools for the entirety of

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Speaker 1: my primary education in three different states throughout the eighties

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Speaker 1: and early nineties. I attended elementary school in a suburb

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Speaker 1: of a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio that at that time

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Speaker 1: was composed of predominantly upper middle class, white, Protestant and

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Speaker 1: Jewish families. My family was one of the very fleet

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Speaker 1: few black families in the neighborhood. The year I started kindergarten,

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Speaker 1: my elementary school transitioned. With this change, the composition of

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Speaker 1: the student body changed from that reflective of the immediate

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Speaker 1: neighborhood to a group including a significant number of black

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Speaker 1: students from an adjacent neighborhood. I didn't realize that the

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Speaker 1: new students were introduced to better integrate the school, but

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Speaker 1: I did notice that I could mostly walk or bike

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Speaker 1: to my white or Jewish friends houses, but needed to

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Speaker 1: be driven to any black friends houses save one. After

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Speaker 1: elementary school, we moved to a far western suburb of Chicago,

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Speaker 1: where I attended middle school and began high school. The

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Speaker 1: neighborhood in which we lived was predominantly white, Protestant, and Catholic.

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Speaker 1: The the catchment area of the middle school was quite

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Speaker 1: large because the area was transitioning from farmland suburbs and

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Speaker 1: was not yet densely populated. However, there were many more

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Speaker 1: white students than black. Further to this, I rarely saw

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Speaker 1: any of the other black students outside lunch and gym class.

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00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,520
Speaker 1: The high school drew from an even larger area that

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Speaker 1: included a neighboring suburb that had a greater number of

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Speaker 1: minority households, which were created a relatively diverse student body. However, again,

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00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:22,160
Speaker 1: I only occasionally saw other black children in my classes.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I was the sole black student in several

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Speaker 1: classes in a school that had greater than two thousand students. Well,

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Speaker 1: I've are always recognized that nearly all of my classmates

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Speaker 1: have been white. I never really thought about why that was.

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Speaker 1: After all, I've been one of the only black kids

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Speaker 1: in the neighborhood my entire life, and I just assumed

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Speaker 1: that was why I was one of the only black

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Speaker 1: kids in my classes. Listening to your podcast enabled me

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Speaker 1: to be the situation with greater complexity. During my primary

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Speaker 1: school years, there was a strong trend toward tracking in

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Speaker 1: Ohio and Illinois. Students were divided into class groups based

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Speaker 1: on academic performance, and those groups rotated through all of

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Speaker 1: the academic classes independently at the each other. All throughout

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00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 1: elementary school, I was in the Gifted and Talented program.

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00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 1: My home room classes were reflective of the general student body. However,

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Speaker 1: I was in a group of children who were separated

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Speaker 1: for reading and math classes to work at a more

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Speaker 1: advanced level, and middle school the students were pulled into

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Speaker 1: three groups. I don't remember the nomenclature, but I was

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Speaker 1: tracked into the group of above average students and don't

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Speaker 1: recall seeing other black children in my classes. The middle

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00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: schools and more diverse neighborhoods of the adjacent suburb had

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Speaker 1: lower quality schools. When the students from both schools were

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Speaker 1: pulled together, it follows that many fewer of those children

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Speaker 1: were able to test into the high school advanced placement

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00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: classes in which I was enrolled. I completed high school

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00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: in New Jersey and a relatively wealthy county. The residents

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00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 1: of the three townships that pulled into two sister high

434
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: schools were upper middle class and wealthy families. I was

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00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: one of two black students in my graduating class, and

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00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:53,120
Speaker 1: there were less than six black students in the entire

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00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,880
Speaker 1: school during any of the three years in which I attended. Notably,

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00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: the parents of the other black girl and my graduating

439
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:01,680
Speaker 1: class lived in New work She lived with her aunt

440
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 1: and uncle, who could afford to live in my neighborhood

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00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: to become a legal resident and attend my school. When

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00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:08,679
Speaker 1: I think about how it was that I had the

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00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 1: privilege of living in these wealthier white neighborhoods and taking

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00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: advantage of their high quality public school systems. A parallel

445
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,680
Speaker 1: story emerges. Both of my parents grew up in Chicago

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00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: during the nineteen fifties, a time when the city was

447
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 1: strictly segregated. My mother's parents were laborers who each worked

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00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: two to three jobs simultaneously so they could afford to

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00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: send their three daughters to a private school. In both cases,

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00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: the parents were aware of the disadvantages inherent to being

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00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 1: a black family in a poor neighborhood and went to

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00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:39,919
Speaker 1: great links to ensure that their children could have the

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00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: best education possible. After high school, my mother earned her

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00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:46,399
Speaker 1: bachelor's degree and later went on to earn her master's degree.

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00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: I attended an Ivy League college, after which I went

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00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 1: to medical school and the currently a practicing anthesiologist. My

457
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:55,680
Speaker 1: younger brother earned a bachelor's degree from a well respected

458
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 1: university and has been quite successful in the computer slash

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00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 1: informatics industry. Not bad for the child and grandchild of

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00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 1: a black janitor slash taxi drive, taxi driver and machinist.

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00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: On an interesting end note, I married a blonde haired,

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00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: blue eyed English German Man and my brother's wife is Vietnamese.

463
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:15,679
Speaker 1: When can I help but a Steamer upbringing and public

464
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: school educations were significant contributions to this pattern. The positive

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00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:25,159
Speaker 1: and negative implications of this easily spur interesting discussions. Thanks

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00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:31,359
Speaker 1: for continuing to present such interesting and thought provoking podcasts. Uh.

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00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: Thank you so much Reagan for sending that. I know

468
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: it was very long, but I wanted to read the

469
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: whole thing, um because it is so reflective also of

470
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: my own uh education, which has come up a couple

471
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:48,360
Speaker 1: of times naturally in the process of doing these podcasts. UM,

472
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: I was growing up in the mostly rural South, and

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00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: we had a very similar pattern in who was in

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00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 1: the gifted classes and who was not. So hereing from

475
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: someone with another perspective on that same pattern, I thought

476
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 1: was really interesting. If you would like to write to us,

477
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 1: we were at History Podcast at how stuff Works dot com.

478
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,720
Speaker 1: We're also on Facebook at facebook dot com slash miss

479
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 1: in History and on Twitter at miss Industry. Are tumblers

480
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:18,880
Speaker 1: miss in History dot tumbler dot com, and are also

481
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 1: on Pinterest at pinchest dot com slash missed in History.

482
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: We have a spreadshirt store at miss in History dot

483
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:27,119
Speaker 1: spreadshirt dot com where you can buy t shirts and

484
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: sweatshirts and whatnot. If you come to our parent company's website,

485
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 1: which is how stuff Works dot com, you can put

486
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 1: the word Alamo into the search bar and you will

487
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 1: find why do We Remember the Alamo, which talks about

488
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,199
Speaker 1: events later than the podcast we talked about today. You

489
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: can also come to our website which was missed in

490
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 1: History dot com, and you can find show notes and

491
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: archive of every episode. Ever, we occasionally put some cool

492
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:51,920
Speaker 1: blog posts up there, so you can do all that

493
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: and a whole lot more at how stuffworks dot com

494
00:27:54,320 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: or missed in History dot com for more on and

495
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Because it has to have works

496
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: that a