1 00:00:15,396 --> 00:00:21,916 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Imagine there's a place in our world where the 2 00:00:21,996 --> 00:00:29,036 Speaker 1: known things go a quarter of the mind. Unfortunately, it's 3 00:00:29,076 --> 00:00:31,516 Speaker 1: a mess in here half the time. I can't find 4 00:00:31,516 --> 00:00:36,036 Speaker 1: what I came for. Dewey decimals something this place could 5 00:00:36,036 --> 00:00:40,396 Speaker 1: do with some kind of an organizational scheme. Also, she's 6 00:00:40,476 --> 00:00:43,476 Speaker 1: it's so noisy in here. What would this crystal radio 7 00:00:43,556 --> 00:00:47,316 Speaker 1: set and the old record player running would break a 8 00:00:47,396 --> 00:00:52,036 Speaker 1: break about? I don't know why do you go this place? 9 00:00:52,436 --> 00:00:56,156 Speaker 1: This chamber of knowledge stores the facts that matter, and 10 00:00:56,316 --> 00:01:02,516 Speaker 1: matters of fact, the sounds that matter. The sign on 11 00:01:02,556 --> 00:01:07,996 Speaker 1: the door reads the last archive. Step through the door 12 00:01:08,476 --> 00:01:12,236 Speaker 1: and into an apartment in Harlem. For the writer, Ralph 13 00:01:12,236 --> 00:01:16,236 Speaker 1: Ellison is packing a suitcase while listening to the radio. 14 00:01:21,716 --> 00:01:28,636 Speaker 1: This is the mutual broadcasting system. Keep listening, Paul cliff 15 00:01:28,716 --> 00:01:32,636 Speaker 1: Edwards jukulele I. The White House as an aust that 16 00:01:32,756 --> 00:01:35,436 Speaker 1: we are still at war with Japan. Smoke and dust 17 00:01:35,516 --> 00:01:38,516 Speaker 1: clods still roll up from what once was one of 18 00:01:38,596 --> 00:01:44,596 Speaker 1: Japan's greatest cities. August tenth, nineteen forty five. The United 19 00:01:44,636 --> 00:01:48,756 Speaker 1: States has just dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 20 00:01:50,276 --> 00:01:54,436 Speaker 1: In New York, Ralph Ellison was packing his bags. He'd 21 00:01:54,476 --> 00:01:57,356 Speaker 1: been in the Merchant Marines during the war, but sick 22 00:01:57,396 --> 00:02:00,436 Speaker 1: in seven different ways, he was put on leave to 23 00:02:00,476 --> 00:02:03,476 Speaker 1: get some rest. He had other plans for the time off, though, 24 00:02:03,916 --> 00:02:07,356 Speaker 1: he meant to write a great American novel. I know 25 00:02:07,436 --> 00:02:09,796 Speaker 1: that Ellison left New York that day. I don't know 26 00:02:09,876 --> 00:02:11,516 Speaker 1: for sure that he listened to radio while he was 27 00:02:11,556 --> 00:02:14,836 Speaker 1: folding his shirts and bawling his socks. Historians talk a 28 00:02:14,836 --> 00:02:18,836 Speaker 1: lot about the historical imagination. You can't make things up, 29 00:02:19,156 --> 00:02:21,316 Speaker 1: but you do have to try to picture things. You 30 00:02:21,356 --> 00:02:22,876 Speaker 1: have to try to put yourself in the place of 31 00:02:22,876 --> 00:02:25,996 Speaker 1: your subject, in the mind of your subject, as best 32 00:02:25,996 --> 00:02:28,596 Speaker 1: you can. If I'm interested in a person and a 33 00:02:28,596 --> 00:02:31,556 Speaker 1: person's story, I want to know that person's whole story, 34 00:02:32,236 --> 00:02:35,436 Speaker 1: the evidence of anyone's story that was patchy. That's where 35 00:02:35,476 --> 00:02:39,036 Speaker 1: your imagination comes in. So I don't know that Ellison 36 00:02:39,156 --> 00:02:41,676 Speaker 1: was listening to the radio that August day, but I 37 00:02:41,756 --> 00:02:43,716 Speaker 1: like to think he was, and I have a pretty 38 00:02:43,716 --> 00:02:47,356 Speaker 1: good reason to think he was. Ellison listened. He was 39 00:02:47,436 --> 00:02:50,876 Speaker 1: super interested in sound. What you can know by hearing 40 00:02:51,396 --> 00:02:58,716 Speaker 1: by listening. Welcome to the Last Archive, the show about 41 00:02:58,716 --> 00:03:00,876 Speaker 1: how we know what we know? How we used to 42 00:03:00,916 --> 00:03:04,236 Speaker 1: know things and why sometimes lately it feels as though 43 00:03:04,276 --> 00:03:07,996 Speaker 1: we don't know anything at all. I'm Jill Lapour. This 44 00:03:08,076 --> 00:03:12,276 Speaker 1: season I've been asking who killed truth. One way truth 45 00:03:12,356 --> 00:03:15,196 Speaker 1: dies is when the kinds of things taken as evidence shrink. 46 00:03:15,956 --> 00:03:18,116 Speaker 1: A lot of people tend not to think about novels 47 00:03:18,196 --> 00:03:21,556 Speaker 1: or poetry or any kind of literature as evidence, but 48 00:03:21,676 --> 00:03:24,796 Speaker 1: I think they should. This episode is about a novel. 49 00:03:25,236 --> 00:03:27,596 Speaker 1: The novel Ellison was packing his bags to go off 50 00:03:27,596 --> 00:03:29,636 Speaker 1: and write, and it's about how he came to write 51 00:03:29,676 --> 00:03:36,236 Speaker 1: it and why. Ellison decided he needed some quiet to write, 52 00:03:36,236 --> 00:03:38,636 Speaker 1: and for that he needed to get out of the city. 53 00:03:39,516 --> 00:03:41,636 Speaker 1: He had some friends who owned a farm in Vermont, 54 00:03:42,196 --> 00:03:44,596 Speaker 1: so later that day he added north to the little 55 00:03:44,636 --> 00:03:48,476 Speaker 1: town of Waitsfield, where a friend of his, Emily Bates, 56 00:03:48,836 --> 00:03:51,836 Speaker 1: had a farm. Every summer she took her kids there. 57 00:03:52,716 --> 00:03:57,996 Speaker 1: She found a farm that had no electricity, no running water. 58 00:03:58,196 --> 00:04:03,956 Speaker 1: We lived very naturally. The rainwater. The rainwater would come 59 00:04:04,436 --> 00:04:07,636 Speaker 1: down and fill a barrel. We use that for washing dishes. 60 00:04:07,956 --> 00:04:11,996 Speaker 1: That's Emily's daughter, Diana Bates. She's a great grandmother now, 61 00:04:12,316 --> 00:04:15,316 Speaker 1: but back in nineteen forty five, she was seven years old. 62 00:04:16,436 --> 00:04:19,876 Speaker 1: It was a front room. That was probably the dining 63 00:04:19,956 --> 00:04:24,596 Speaker 1: room in this farmhouse, and there was that's where our 64 00:04:24,636 --> 00:04:27,236 Speaker 1: little tables were, But that became where he was going 65 00:04:27,276 --> 00:04:31,836 Speaker 1: to work. Ellison got to Vermont and settled into write. 66 00:04:32,436 --> 00:04:35,436 Speaker 1: A friend shipped him four pounds of Maxwell House coffee. 67 00:04:35,676 --> 00:04:39,836 Speaker 1: He was ready, But then he found out a bitter truth. 68 00:04:40,316 --> 00:04:43,836 Speaker 1: The country isn't as quiet as city people think. Dan's 69 00:04:43,916 --> 00:04:47,196 Speaker 1: little sister Grace, who reminded me about that. It would 70 00:04:47,236 --> 00:04:50,436 Speaker 1: have been noisier than because there was more bog life, 71 00:04:50,756 --> 00:04:53,036 Speaker 1: and so you have the humming and the buzzing and 72 00:04:53,116 --> 00:04:56,556 Speaker 1: the birds tweeting. And at that time there were no 73 00:04:56,756 --> 00:04:59,236 Speaker 1: cars on the road. It was a dirt road, and 74 00:04:59,356 --> 00:05:01,676 Speaker 1: the old man just once a day, and there's a 75 00:05:01,716 --> 00:05:04,596 Speaker 1: certain time in the heat of the afternoon when the 76 00:05:04,676 --> 00:05:10,236 Speaker 1: crow lets off. It's like to transport. It just transports 77 00:05:10,276 --> 00:05:14,396 Speaker 1: you into another place. And I'm so oh, I don't 78 00:05:14,396 --> 00:05:16,556 Speaker 1: want going to do that. I do at a home though, 79 00:05:16,556 --> 00:05:26,516 Speaker 1: because they're they've taken it. That's fine, awful, beautiful, perfect, 80 00:05:26,836 --> 00:05:30,476 Speaker 1: That's exactly it. Yeah, But the girls weren't really the problem. 81 00:05:30,716 --> 00:05:33,636 Speaker 1: The kids were the problem. Their mother told the girls 82 00:05:33,676 --> 00:05:37,956 Speaker 1: to hush, but they just couldn't Diana was irrepressible. She 83 00:05:38,036 --> 00:05:41,316 Speaker 1: still is. I have to say then, I wasn't very 84 00:05:41,316 --> 00:05:45,276 Speaker 1: happy about it because we had to be quiet. Oh yeah, 85 00:05:45,316 --> 00:05:49,476 Speaker 1: so I do remember trowing. I always think of oranges, 86 00:05:49,516 --> 00:05:51,756 Speaker 1: but I think it was probably something else at the 87 00:05:51,796 --> 00:05:55,196 Speaker 1: door where he was writing. I don't know why I 88 00:05:55,236 --> 00:05:57,756 Speaker 1: think it was oranges in my head now, but I'm 89 00:05:57,756 --> 00:06:00,196 Speaker 1: pretty sure it wasn't. Because she were in Vermont, and 90 00:06:00,236 --> 00:06:02,636 Speaker 1: this was the early time. You know that there wasn't 91 00:06:02,676 --> 00:06:05,676 Speaker 1: any orange trees around, So it might have been apples, 92 00:06:05,756 --> 00:06:08,316 Speaker 1: or it might have been stones, for all I know 93 00:06:08,676 --> 00:06:10,756 Speaker 1: it was. But I flung up at the door and 94 00:06:10,876 --> 00:06:20,316 Speaker 1: I ran. Ellison, exasperated, moved to the barn. He put 95 00:06:20,356 --> 00:06:23,596 Speaker 1: some distance between himself and that bates girls the width 96 00:06:23,676 --> 00:06:27,116 Speaker 1: of the road. In the quiet, he began to write. 97 00:06:28,196 --> 00:06:31,436 Speaker 1: His imagination began to soar, fly like a bird to 98 00:06:31,476 --> 00:06:36,516 Speaker 1: the clouds. And then right then, right there, he heard 99 00:06:36,556 --> 00:06:41,876 Speaker 1: another noise, a voice in his head, the voice of 100 00:06:41,916 --> 00:06:46,596 Speaker 1: a black man from the South. He did say things 101 00:06:47,316 --> 00:06:53,516 Speaker 1: is sometimes advantageous to be unseen. He tried to ignore it, 102 00:06:53,556 --> 00:06:57,356 Speaker 1: but he couldn't. He couldn't shake it, so he threw 103 00:06:57,356 --> 00:06:59,996 Speaker 1: away the book he'd been writing, and he started writing 104 00:06:59,996 --> 00:07:02,756 Speaker 1: a different one in the voice of this man, an 105 00:07:02,756 --> 00:07:06,996 Speaker 1: American man, a black man. Grace Bates read me its 106 00:07:07,036 --> 00:07:13,076 Speaker 1: opening lines. I am an invisible man. No, I am 107 00:07:13,156 --> 00:07:16,156 Speaker 1: not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Powe. 108 00:07:17,276 --> 00:07:22,356 Speaker 1: Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I 109 00:07:22,396 --> 00:07:26,236 Speaker 1: am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber 110 00:07:26,316 --> 00:07:30,076 Speaker 1: and liquids. And I might even be said to possess 111 00:07:30,116 --> 00:07:35,956 Speaker 1: a mind. I am invisible, understand simply because people refuse 112 00:07:36,076 --> 00:07:40,276 Speaker 1: to see me, like the bodiless heads you see sometimes 113 00:07:40,316 --> 00:07:43,916 Speaker 1: in circus side shows. It is as though I have 114 00:07:44,116 --> 00:07:49,116 Speaker 1: been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they 115 00:07:49,116 --> 00:07:54,116 Speaker 1: approach me, they see only my surroundings themselves, or figments 116 00:07:54,156 --> 00:08:01,476 Speaker 1: of their imagination. Indeed, everything and anything except me that 117 00:08:01,676 --> 00:08:06,596 Speaker 1: is so beautiful, That is so incredibly beautiful. The opening 118 00:08:06,636 --> 00:08:09,796 Speaker 1: lines of one of the most famous novel of the 119 00:08:09,836 --> 00:08:14,636 Speaker 1: twentieth century, Invisible Man, a story about what it means 120 00:08:14,676 --> 00:08:21,276 Speaker 1: to be unseen and unheard. Out of Ellison's imagination, came proof. 121 00:08:22,716 --> 00:08:25,916 Speaker 1: Ellison had a theory of history. He once explained it 122 00:08:25,956 --> 00:08:28,916 Speaker 1: to his good friend, the writer Robert Penn Warren, who 123 00:08:28,956 --> 00:08:31,836 Speaker 1: is working on an oral history project called who Speaks 124 00:08:31,836 --> 00:08:36,916 Speaker 1: for the Negro Ellison called Warren read what you want 125 00:08:36,916 --> 00:08:45,036 Speaker 1: to talk about? Oh? I don't know. Rather if it's 126 00:08:45,116 --> 00:08:51,596 Speaker 1: the bath. The irony of American history is such that 127 00:08:52,236 --> 00:08:57,116 Speaker 1: we're always trying to discover ourselves. People create themselves in 128 00:08:57,196 --> 00:09:02,516 Speaker 1: the spectorating himself. This is very hard for some people 129 00:09:02,556 --> 00:09:05,876 Speaker 1: to crash in writing a novel. Ellison set out to 130 00:09:05,956 --> 00:09:10,756 Speaker 1: discover American history, to create American history. It took him 131 00:09:10,796 --> 00:09:13,276 Speaker 1: seven years, all told, to finish the book he began 132 00:09:13,476 --> 00:09:16,436 Speaker 1: up in that barn in Vermont. Invisible Man is a 133 00:09:16,476 --> 00:09:19,836 Speaker 1: work of extraordinary literary imagination. But it's also a work 134 00:09:19,876 --> 00:09:23,716 Speaker 1: of historical imagination, and it's also a piece of history. 135 00:09:24,156 --> 00:09:29,876 Speaker 1: It rests on evidence, and it is evidence. Invisible Man 136 00:09:29,956 --> 00:09:31,876 Speaker 1: tells the story of a man who leaves the Jim 137 00:09:31,876 --> 00:09:34,796 Speaker 1: Crow south and heads north. It's often taken as an 138 00:09:34,836 --> 00:09:38,476 Speaker 1: allegory for the entire African American experience, for the entire 139 00:09:38,516 --> 00:09:42,476 Speaker 1: American experience, but it also comes out of Ellison's own life. 140 00:09:43,396 --> 00:09:48,316 Speaker 1: Ralph Waldo Ellison was born in Oklahoma in nineteen thirteen. Later, 141 00:09:48,436 --> 00:09:50,716 Speaker 1: when he got to be famous, he talked about his 142 00:09:50,756 --> 00:09:54,396 Speaker 1: early life a lot often to white interviewers like Red Warren, 143 00:09:54,756 --> 00:09:59,116 Speaker 1: and even to studs Turkle, the celebrated oral historian. Where 144 00:09:59,116 --> 00:10:02,556 Speaker 1: did your whatever it was that urge come from to 145 00:10:02,636 --> 00:10:09,636 Speaker 1: be the right? Well? I always love to read, and 146 00:10:09,756 --> 00:10:13,836 Speaker 1: my father was a great reader, although he died when 147 00:10:13,876 --> 00:10:19,436 Speaker 1: I was three. I, as a young kid, dreamed a lot, 148 00:10:21,156 --> 00:10:25,316 Speaker 1: loved to be told stories, and found a way of 149 00:10:25,436 --> 00:10:31,196 Speaker 1: extending my environment through reading. And my mother was always 150 00:10:31,196 --> 00:10:35,716 Speaker 1: bringing home books and magazines as she brought home Clasgow 151 00:10:35,756 --> 00:10:40,276 Speaker 1: phonograph recordings from places where she worked. Ellison only knew 152 00:10:40,276 --> 00:10:42,636 Speaker 1: his father through his words. A book of poems he 153 00:10:42,756 --> 00:10:46,396 Speaker 1: left behind the letters the family kept a voice from 154 00:10:46,436 --> 00:10:49,956 Speaker 1: beyond the grave. Ellison grew up working odd jobs to 155 00:10:50,036 --> 00:10:52,876 Speaker 1: make ends meet, making ice cream sodas at a pharmacy, 156 00:10:52,956 --> 00:10:56,236 Speaker 1: delivering newspapers. On the way to one of his jobs 157 00:10:56,356 --> 00:10:59,396 Speaker 1: at a dentist's he'd pass a ku Klux Klan office. 158 00:11:00,116 --> 00:11:01,916 Speaker 1: He had a vision of a life he wanted to lead. 159 00:11:04,036 --> 00:11:05,916 Speaker 1: Maybe it was because of all those records his mother 160 00:11:05,956 --> 00:11:08,556 Speaker 1: brought home from work, but he fell in love with music. 161 00:11:09,356 --> 00:11:13,156 Speaker 1: He took up the trumpet. He loved sound. He built 162 00:11:13,156 --> 00:11:16,756 Speaker 1: crystal set radios, made them out of doorbell wire, broken 163 00:11:16,796 --> 00:11:21,316 Speaker 1: old telephones, and ice cream cartons. He wanted to write symphonies, 164 00:11:21,716 --> 00:11:24,596 Speaker 1: a mishmash of classical and folk music, high and low, 165 00:11:25,156 --> 00:11:28,156 Speaker 1: the music of everyone. He didn't have the money to 166 00:11:28,196 --> 00:11:31,156 Speaker 1: go to college, but music got him there. On invitation 167 00:11:31,356 --> 00:11:34,116 Speaker 1: to Tuskegee to be the first trumpeter in their orchestra 168 00:11:35,356 --> 00:11:37,956 Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty three, he snagged a ride on a 169 00:11:37,996 --> 00:11:41,636 Speaker 1: freight train headed for Alabama, but he never finished college. 170 00:11:41,996 --> 00:11:46,196 Speaker 1: He ran out of money and left. This time he 171 00:11:46,316 --> 00:11:51,156 Speaker 1: headed north. Now about what point in your life had 172 00:11:51,196 --> 00:11:55,036 Speaker 1: you switched some music to writing. Well, actually I switched 173 00:11:56,076 --> 00:12:00,276 Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven. I left college and came to New 174 00:12:00,356 --> 00:12:04,196 Speaker 1: York in thirty six to earn money. I which to 175 00:12:04,236 --> 00:12:10,796 Speaker 1: go back, and as I as often happened, I found 176 00:12:10,836 --> 00:12:14,516 Speaker 1: my plans change. That's Ellison on the NBC radio program 177 00:12:14,676 --> 00:12:17,716 Speaker 1: Favorites of the Famous. In New York, he bounced around 178 00:12:17,716 --> 00:12:22,636 Speaker 1: odd jobs, the Harlem YMCA, a psychoanalysts office, factory work. 179 00:12:23,316 --> 00:12:25,556 Speaker 1: Sometimes we need didn't have a job, he'd sleep in 180 00:12:25,596 --> 00:12:28,796 Speaker 1: the park. It was the Great Depression, a hard time 181 00:12:28,836 --> 00:12:34,236 Speaker 1: for everyone. Nineteen thirty six, the year Ellison moved to 182 00:12:34,276 --> 00:12:37,276 Speaker 1: New York, was the year after, FDR founded a massive 183 00:12:37,276 --> 00:12:41,316 Speaker 1: new government agency known as the Works Progress Administration. It 184 00:12:41,476 --> 00:12:43,876 Speaker 1: put people who'd lost their jobs to work building roads 185 00:12:43,876 --> 00:12:48,676 Speaker 1: in parks and dams, and also writing literature. The WPA 186 00:12:48,756 --> 00:12:52,076 Speaker 1: included something called the Federal Writers Project and employed about 187 00:12:52,076 --> 00:12:54,836 Speaker 1: seven thousand out of work writers. They wrote plays, in 188 00:12:54,916 --> 00:12:59,676 Speaker 1: poems and symphonies. They collected stories oral histories from Americans 189 00:12:59,716 --> 00:13:03,076 Speaker 1: all over the country. Ellison started working for the Federal 190 00:13:03,076 --> 00:13:06,436 Speaker 1: Writers Project in nineteen thirty eight. His job was to 191 00:13:06,476 --> 00:13:10,716 Speaker 1: collect stories about black New Yorkers. The WPA paid around 192 00:13:10,716 --> 00:13:14,676 Speaker 1: twenty five bucks a week, saved his life. All of 193 00:13:14,796 --> 00:13:17,716 Speaker 1: the girls would have been hopefully taking courses in business 194 00:13:17,756 --> 00:13:22,276 Speaker 1: and so on, went right into into the wa and 195 00:13:22,396 --> 00:13:26,036 Speaker 1: they found a place in the society. So it was 196 00:13:26,556 --> 00:13:29,956 Speaker 1: a moment of optimism for us. But for instance, either 197 00:13:30,036 --> 00:13:33,516 Speaker 1: game right because I could get work with the WPA, 198 00:13:33,716 --> 00:13:38,836 Speaker 1: wor research and learned to practice of my crowd. The 199 00:13:39,036 --> 00:13:42,636 Speaker 1: WPA was the great patron of twentieth century American literature. 200 00:13:43,156 --> 00:13:47,876 Speaker 1: Saw below, Zoraneil Hurston, John Cheever, Richard Wright. All of 201 00:13:47,916 --> 00:13:50,956 Speaker 1: them worked for the WPA, which also often equipped them 202 00:13:50,956 --> 00:13:55,036 Speaker 1: with cameras and tape recorders. Big heavy machines to make 203 00:13:55,036 --> 00:13:59,476 Speaker 1: a record of American culture. The WPA was gathering a 204 00:13:59,556 --> 00:14:02,236 Speaker 1: whole new body of evidence about the nation's past and 205 00:14:02,236 --> 00:14:06,236 Speaker 1: its people, the evidence of history, the evidence of story. 206 00:14:07,156 --> 00:14:09,436 Speaker 1: It would really seem that we had finally on up 207 00:14:09,436 --> 00:14:11,996 Speaker 1: with the nation. But we can spend a day recording 208 00:14:11,996 --> 00:14:14,556 Speaker 1: such folklore as we have heard today. And this is 209 00:14:14,556 --> 00:14:19,436 Speaker 1: only a beginning, only a beginning. Voices that can be heard, 210 00:14:19,996 --> 00:14:24,036 Speaker 1: reels that can be unspooled. Here in the last archive. 211 00:14:28,396 --> 00:14:31,996 Speaker 1: In the nineteen thirties in Harlem, Ralph Ellison collected amazing 212 00:14:32,116 --> 00:14:35,796 Speaker 1: oral histories. No one's ever found tape of those interviews, though, 213 00:14:36,356 --> 00:14:38,956 Speaker 1: but a lot of recordings from the WPA's work do survive. 214 00:14:39,316 --> 00:14:44,636 Speaker 1: They're scratchy and garbly, but they're fascinating. I think this 215 00:14:44,716 --> 00:14:46,796 Speaker 1: one from Texas made with a machine that weighed one 216 00:14:46,836 --> 00:14:50,316 Speaker 1: hundred and thirty pounds. It's a little difficult to decipher. 217 00:14:50,916 --> 00:14:55,636 Speaker 1: So listen, hard, lady up the mat and that what 218 00:14:55,796 --> 00:15:00,836 Speaker 1: if you want to antymbastic flags? You know, bank I 219 00:15:01,356 --> 00:15:04,796 Speaker 1: remember that's a woman named Harriet Smith talking to a 220 00:15:04,836 --> 00:15:07,756 Speaker 1: man named John Henry Fok in her house in Texas. 221 00:15:08,196 --> 00:15:10,956 Speaker 1: Fock was a white man and collecting oral histories for 222 00:15:10,996 --> 00:15:16,636 Speaker 1: the government and Smith. She'd been born into slavery. It's 223 00:15:16,636 --> 00:15:18,956 Speaker 1: hard to understand this tape, but she's just told him 224 00:15:18,996 --> 00:15:21,836 Speaker 1: to ask her whatever he wants. Well, ain't her about 225 00:15:21,876 --> 00:15:24,876 Speaker 1: how old are you? Well, I don't know, miss, we 226 00:15:25,556 --> 00:15:29,516 Speaker 1: don't know my age. On the buy that the childs 227 00:15:29,556 --> 00:15:33,356 Speaker 1: I'm telling me my mom died, and she she didn't 228 00:15:33,396 --> 00:15:36,716 Speaker 1: know want much about idea, But the children traced back 229 00:15:36,836 --> 00:15:41,796 Speaker 1: from me that they explained up the math. Well, how 230 00:15:41,876 --> 00:15:45,036 Speaker 1: old you when you were? Well, I was about thirteen 231 00:15:45,156 --> 00:15:49,356 Speaker 1: years old. That's the breaks you can't remembered slavery days. 232 00:15:50,316 --> 00:15:52,916 Speaker 1: I remember all our white school, and all the name 233 00:15:52,996 --> 00:15:58,396 Speaker 1: of all the children called everyone, the children's names. The 234 00:15:58,476 --> 00:16:06,436 Speaker 1: baby's boy. Harriet Smith belonged to the baby boy. She'd 235 00:16:06,476 --> 00:16:12,196 Speaker 1: been thirteen. At the breakup the Civil War, the WPA 236 00:16:12,476 --> 00:16:16,476 Speaker 1: had been trying to capture a vanishing archive, the stories 237 00:16:16,516 --> 00:16:21,316 Speaker 1: of people like Harriet Smith. Four million Americans had been 238 00:16:21,396 --> 00:16:25,116 Speaker 1: held in slavery before emancipation, and by the nineteen thirties 239 00:16:25,596 --> 00:16:28,716 Speaker 1: the last of them were dying, and when they were gone, 240 00:16:29,276 --> 00:16:31,916 Speaker 1: the evidence of slavery from the memory of people who 241 00:16:32,116 --> 00:16:38,596 Speaker 1: endured it would disappear forever. The WPA set out to 242 00:16:38,676 --> 00:16:42,356 Speaker 1: capture those memories. At first, the state offices of the 243 00:16:42,476 --> 00:16:45,996 Speaker 1: Federal Writers Project oversaw the work. Then the Library of 244 00:16:46,036 --> 00:16:49,996 Speaker 1: Congress took over. Interviewers would send transcripts of their interviews, 245 00:16:50,436 --> 00:16:54,436 Speaker 1: more than two thousand of them, to Washington. These life histories, 246 00:16:54,796 --> 00:16:57,996 Speaker 1: taken down as far as possible, in the narrator's words, 247 00:16:58,356 --> 00:17:03,596 Speaker 1: constitute an invaluable body of unconscious evidence. Eventually, these interviews 248 00:17:03,636 --> 00:17:06,916 Speaker 1: were published in a collection whose value is hard to describe, 249 00:17:07,516 --> 00:17:09,916 Speaker 1: but the editor of the project once did a pretty 250 00:17:09,916 --> 00:17:12,596 Speaker 1: good job of it. For the first time and the 251 00:17:12,796 --> 00:17:16,516 Speaker 1: last time, a large number of surviving slaves, many of 252 00:17:16,596 --> 00:17:19,596 Speaker 1: whom have since died, have been permitted to tell their 253 00:17:19,676 --> 00:17:24,476 Speaker 1: own story in their own way. Interviewers who collected these 254 00:17:24,596 --> 00:17:27,636 Speaker 1: oral histories were supposed to send tape recordings to Washington. 255 00:17:28,196 --> 00:17:31,196 Speaker 1: Those reels as big as tricycle wheels. In ten cases. 256 00:17:32,036 --> 00:17:35,876 Speaker 1: Sometimes they recorded with phonographs. The historical record in some 257 00:17:36,076 --> 00:17:40,396 Speaker 1: cases was an actual record record how many, how many 258 00:17:40,436 --> 00:17:43,436 Speaker 1: of how many slaves did he had? Man? He had 259 00:17:43,556 --> 00:17:51,476 Speaker 1: my grandma and my mom. I'm always cool and them, 260 00:17:51,756 --> 00:17:54,956 Speaker 1: you know, and then they've worked in the seas and everything. 261 00:17:55,036 --> 00:17:58,796 Speaker 1: I remember when she used to float often, I've floud, 262 00:17:59,156 --> 00:18:03,476 Speaker 1: I've thought often, my fa I'm very awful car Rolls 263 00:18:03,796 --> 00:18:08,036 Speaker 1: dreammain is that right? As a historian, when I listened 264 00:18:08,036 --> 00:18:10,356 Speaker 1: to Harriet Smith telling on Henry Fok about her life, 265 00:18:10,876 --> 00:18:13,676 Speaker 1: I first thought is it's amazing that all this is 266 00:18:13,716 --> 00:18:16,716 Speaker 1: now in the Library of Congress, because in the historical 267 00:18:16,796 --> 00:18:20,636 Speaker 1: record words spoken by black people are rare. Probably that's 268 00:18:20,636 --> 00:18:23,836 Speaker 1: because in the era of slavery, enslaved people couldn't ordinarily 269 00:18:23,876 --> 00:18:26,996 Speaker 1: give testimony in court unless it was to testify against 270 00:18:27,036 --> 00:18:29,756 Speaker 1: other slaves in cases of conspiracy, when they could give 271 00:18:29,756 --> 00:18:33,276 Speaker 1: a special kind of testimony called negro evidence, but only 272 00:18:33,316 --> 00:18:38,316 Speaker 1: after swearing a terrifying oath. You are brought hither as 273 00:18:38,356 --> 00:18:41,876 Speaker 1: a witness, and by the direction of the law, I 274 00:18:42,036 --> 00:18:45,436 Speaker 1: am to tell you, before you give your evidence, that 275 00:18:45,636 --> 00:18:49,756 Speaker 1: you must tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 276 00:18:49,956 --> 00:18:53,196 Speaker 1: but the truth, and that if it be found hereafter 277 00:18:53,476 --> 00:18:57,436 Speaker 1: that you tell a lie and give false testimony in 278 00:18:57,516 --> 00:19:02,276 Speaker 1: this matter, you must, for so doing have both your 279 00:19:02,356 --> 00:19:06,796 Speaker 1: ears nailed to the pillory and cut off, and receive 280 00:19:07,476 --> 00:19:12,196 Speaker 1: thirty nine last is on your bare back, well laid 281 00:19:12,476 --> 00:19:19,236 Speaker 1: on at the common whipping post. The most notorious use 282 00:19:19,276 --> 00:19:21,756 Speaker 1: of negro evidence in early America was a set of 283 00:19:21,836 --> 00:19:24,836 Speaker 1: trials held in New York in seventeen forty one, when 284 00:19:24,956 --> 00:19:27,636 Speaker 1: hundreds of men black men were accused of conspiring to 285 00:19:27,716 --> 00:19:30,716 Speaker 1: burn down the city. I got really fascinated by this 286 00:19:30,796 --> 00:19:33,236 Speaker 1: story years ago. I wrote a very long book about it. 287 00:19:33,516 --> 00:19:36,876 Speaker 1: It's called New York Burning. Ralph Elson in the nineteen thirties, 288 00:19:36,876 --> 00:19:39,916 Speaker 1: when he was working for the WPA, he got fascinated 289 00:19:39,956 --> 00:19:42,716 Speaker 1: by this story too. He tracked it down. He found 290 00:19:42,756 --> 00:19:46,436 Speaker 1: out all about negro evidence during those trials. In seventeen 291 00:19:46,556 --> 00:19:49,276 Speaker 1: forty one, a New York judge complained that it was 292 00:19:49,356 --> 00:19:54,076 Speaker 1: impossible to take negro evidence seriously. Many of them have 293 00:19:54,196 --> 00:19:58,876 Speaker 1: a great deal of craft. Their unintelligible jargon stands them 294 00:19:58,916 --> 00:20:03,276 Speaker 1: in great state to conceal their meaning. The law of 295 00:20:03,356 --> 00:20:07,036 Speaker 1: negro evidence lasted a long time. Nearly a century later, 296 00:20:07,076 --> 00:20:09,596 Speaker 1: when Frederick Douglas was growing up in Maryland and some 297 00:20:09,756 --> 00:20:12,356 Speaker 1: white men beat him up, an assault witnessed by dozens 298 00:20:12,396 --> 00:20:15,596 Speaker 1: of slaves. Douglas's owner tried to get a magistrate to 299 00:20:15,676 --> 00:20:19,236 Speaker 1: press charges, but the magistrate said he couldn't do anything 300 00:20:19,396 --> 00:20:22,996 Speaker 1: unless there'd been a white witness. Douglas later wrote about 301 00:20:22,996 --> 00:20:26,716 Speaker 1: this in his autobiography. If I had been killed in 302 00:20:26,796 --> 00:20:30,676 Speaker 1: the presence of a thousand colored people, their testimony combined 303 00:20:31,116 --> 00:20:34,676 Speaker 1: would have been insufficient to have arrested one of the murderers. 304 00:20:35,396 --> 00:20:37,916 Speaker 1: And over a century after that, in nineteen forty one, 305 00:20:38,716 --> 00:20:41,756 Speaker 1: John Henry Fox asked Harriet Smith to serve as an 306 00:20:41,796 --> 00:20:46,636 Speaker 1: eyewitness to her own life and yours blade remains same time. 307 00:20:51,036 --> 00:20:53,116 Speaker 1: What would to preach a bridge about then? To say, 308 00:20:54,036 --> 00:20:58,236 Speaker 1: now that you go recordings like these, they seem at 309 00:20:58,316 --> 00:21:02,876 Speaker 1: first to upend centuries of evidentiary and justice. But then 310 00:21:03,556 --> 00:21:06,916 Speaker 1: listening to this rasping record, he started to have questions, 311 00:21:07,756 --> 00:21:11,876 Speaker 1: what really is going on here? Well, then the traits 312 00:21:11,916 --> 00:21:21,796 Speaker 1: that you might helped to treat you good bye, They 313 00:21:21,956 --> 00:21:26,476 Speaker 1: was good to us. Really it isn't just her and 314 00:21:26,596 --> 00:21:29,836 Speaker 1: a bunch of these recordings. People interviewed say basically the 315 00:21:29,956 --> 00:21:35,156 Speaker 1: same thing. Hey, slavery wasn't that bad, But that testimony 316 00:21:35,236 --> 00:21:38,596 Speaker 1: contradicts just about every other possible type of evidence that survives. 317 00:21:39,636 --> 00:21:42,796 Speaker 1: There are a few explanations for this discrepancy. Most of 318 00:21:42,836 --> 00:21:44,956 Speaker 1: the people interviewed for this project were in their eighties. 319 00:21:45,676 --> 00:21:48,916 Speaker 1: There were children before slavery ended. Maybe they'd been spared 320 00:21:48,916 --> 00:21:51,516 Speaker 1: the worst of its miseries. But there was something else 321 00:21:51,596 --> 00:21:54,516 Speaker 1: going on too. A couple of years back, the writer 322 00:21:54,636 --> 00:21:57,876 Speaker 1: Debbie Nathan went sleothing and figured out that John Henry 323 00:21:57,916 --> 00:22:01,436 Speaker 1: Fox and Harriet Smith were neighbors. Fox family lived only 324 00:22:01,476 --> 00:22:04,716 Speaker 1: four blocks from Smith's. She'd known him since he was 325 00:22:04,756 --> 00:22:08,036 Speaker 1: a baby. On the recordings, he calls her aunt Harriet, 326 00:22:08,636 --> 00:22:12,276 Speaker 1: she calls him mister Falk. He was in his twenties, 327 00:22:12,636 --> 00:22:17,436 Speaker 1: she was in her eighties. Falk, like Ellison, was interested 328 00:22:17,476 --> 00:22:21,516 Speaker 1: in sound. Later he became a successful radio broadcaster. He 329 00:22:21,676 --> 00:22:24,876 Speaker 1: was also a prominent liberal. He joined the NAACP and 330 00:22:24,996 --> 00:22:28,236 Speaker 1: fought for civil rights. He was a famous storyteller. He 331 00:22:28,316 --> 00:22:31,036 Speaker 1: used to tell a Christmas story that NPR broadcast every year. 332 00:22:31,476 --> 00:22:33,916 Speaker 1: He's not the bad guy here, but he's not an 333 00:22:33,996 --> 00:22:38,516 Speaker 1: innocent bystander either. Debby Nathan went through Fox files at 334 00:22:38,596 --> 00:22:41,916 Speaker 1: UT Austin's Briscoe Center. One day she noticed an MP 335 00:22:42,076 --> 00:22:45,676 Speaker 1: three mark Harriet Smith. Somehow John Fox had forgotten to 336 00:22:45,716 --> 00:22:50,756 Speaker 1: submit that one recording to the Library of Congress any 337 00:22:50,876 --> 00:23:08,796 Speaker 1: Us John Good High School, Slahama Cab Did you hear it? 338 00:23:09,356 --> 00:23:12,956 Speaker 1: He asked her. Some folks were awful good to their slaves. 339 00:23:13,916 --> 00:23:18,076 Speaker 1: Weren't they. Of course, that's what's known as a leading question. 340 00:23:19,116 --> 00:23:22,076 Speaker 1: This wasn't just a personal dynamic between Harriet Smith and 341 00:23:22,196 --> 00:23:26,916 Speaker 1: John Fog, though, between Aunt Harriet and mister Fogg, the 342 00:23:27,036 --> 00:23:30,996 Speaker 1: problems with these interviews were often a lot worse. Some 343 00:23:31,116 --> 00:23:34,556 Speaker 1: of the people asking the questions were actually descended from 344 00:23:34,596 --> 00:23:38,516 Speaker 1: the owners of the people they were interviewing. Use your 345 00:23:38,556 --> 00:23:46,316 Speaker 1: historical imagination sit on that porch. Harriet Smith wasn't going 346 00:23:46,356 --> 00:23:49,036 Speaker 1: to give John Henry Fock real answers to his questions 347 00:23:49,116 --> 00:23:52,516 Speaker 1: about slavery. He was a white man in Texas in 348 00:23:52,596 --> 00:23:57,436 Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, lynching Texas. She told him some things. 349 00:23:57,996 --> 00:24:01,876 Speaker 1: She didn't tell him everything. Mainly, she told him what 350 00:24:01,996 --> 00:24:14,076 Speaker 1: she thought he wanted to hear. But Ralph Ellison, back 351 00:24:14,116 --> 00:24:17,116 Speaker 1: in New York, he wasn't John Henry Fowk. He was 352 00:24:17,156 --> 00:24:20,636 Speaker 1: a black man interviewing black people, a lot of whom 353 00:24:20,716 --> 00:24:23,516 Speaker 1: had only lately come north from the Jim Crow South. 354 00:24:24,236 --> 00:24:26,956 Speaker 1: They were part of something called the Great Migration, when 355 00:24:27,076 --> 00:24:31,396 Speaker 1: millions of African Americans left the South. Ellison was part 356 00:24:31,436 --> 00:24:35,236 Speaker 1: of that migration too. Black people who left the South 357 00:24:35,516 --> 00:24:39,956 Speaker 1: went most off into cities, especially Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, 358 00:24:40,276 --> 00:24:46,756 Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Isabel Wilkerson appealed surprize winning reporter wrote about 359 00:24:46,756 --> 00:24:49,516 Speaker 1: the Great Migration in a book called The Warmth of 360 00:24:49,636 --> 00:24:52,636 Speaker 1: other Sons. Her book is beautiful and the way she 361 00:24:52,716 --> 00:24:56,916 Speaker 1: put it together is incredible. She became a one woman WPA. 362 00:24:57,956 --> 00:25:00,156 Speaker 1: She began working on the book in the nineteen nineties 363 00:25:00,596 --> 00:25:03,316 Speaker 1: when she realized that those people who'd made the Great Migration, 364 00:25:03,836 --> 00:25:06,396 Speaker 1: they weren't going to be around for much longer. So 365 00:25:06,596 --> 00:25:12,396 Speaker 1: she began interviewing them as many as she could, you know, 366 00:25:12,476 --> 00:25:14,916 Speaker 1: just the passage of time. And I was really running, 367 00:25:15,116 --> 00:25:17,996 Speaker 1: racing against the clock. You took to like a thousand 368 00:25:18,076 --> 00:25:20,356 Speaker 1: people or so when you were first doing you know, 369 00:25:20,476 --> 00:25:24,836 Speaker 1: just finding people, hundreds and hundreds of people I did. 370 00:25:25,196 --> 00:25:28,516 Speaker 1: I can never say that I'm going to take the 371 00:25:28,596 --> 00:25:32,956 Speaker 1: easy route towards something, and this was a case in point. 372 00:25:33,276 --> 00:25:39,156 Speaker 1: I went to Senior Citizens centers, I went to AARP meetings, 373 00:25:39,316 --> 00:25:44,836 Speaker 1: I went to pensioners reunions and meetings that they have, 374 00:25:45,156 --> 00:25:48,796 Speaker 1: the postal workers and the you know, the CTA bus drivers. 375 00:25:48,876 --> 00:25:51,116 Speaker 1: I mean all of this. How conscious were you of 376 00:25:51,596 --> 00:25:54,356 Speaker 1: the legacy of the you know, the Federal Writers Project 377 00:25:54,396 --> 00:25:57,676 Speaker 1: At the WPA work of tracking down people who lived 378 00:25:58,036 --> 00:26:01,916 Speaker 1: under slavery before they all passed on in the nineteen thirties. No. 379 00:26:02,076 --> 00:26:06,036 Speaker 1: I absolutely felt that I was in a position to 380 00:26:06,396 --> 00:26:11,596 Speaker 1: get testimony, you might say, from the surviving people of 381 00:26:11,676 --> 00:26:14,236 Speaker 1: an entire era that was passing away, with each one 382 00:26:14,276 --> 00:26:16,956 Speaker 1: of them going. It was like a mission I was on, 383 00:26:17,236 --> 00:26:22,396 Speaker 1: and I was determined and felt that this was the 384 00:26:22,556 --> 00:26:25,396 Speaker 1: last chance to get to hear from some of the people. 385 00:26:25,436 --> 00:26:28,556 Speaker 1: And those stories just hadn't been written down. They hadn't 386 00:26:28,556 --> 00:26:32,996 Speaker 1: been recorded at all. Really. No Wilkerson structured her book 387 00:26:33,036 --> 00:26:35,836 Speaker 1: like a novel, writing together the stories of three lives. 388 00:26:36,556 --> 00:26:39,996 Speaker 1: She'd started interviewing more than twelve hundred people, and then 389 00:26:40,076 --> 00:26:45,156 Speaker 1: she narrowed them down to three. One of these three 390 00:26:45,196 --> 00:26:48,356 Speaker 1: people was item A Brandon. She'd been born in Mississippi 391 00:26:48,436 --> 00:26:51,596 Speaker 1: in nineteen thirteen and grew up picking cotton and hating it. 392 00:26:52,436 --> 00:26:54,676 Speaker 1: When she was about six, two white boys grabbed her 393 00:26:54,716 --> 00:26:56,756 Speaker 1: and held her by her ankles over a well, just 394 00:26:56,876 --> 00:26:59,756 Speaker 1: to watch her squirm. She went to school only to 395 00:26:59,836 --> 00:27:03,156 Speaker 1: eighth grade, you couldn't go any higher. When she was thirteen, 396 00:27:03,236 --> 00:27:05,436 Speaker 1: two black boys she knew talk back to some white 397 00:27:05,516 --> 00:27:09,276 Speaker 1: lady and they were lynched and so. In nineteen thirty seven, 398 00:27:09,316 --> 00:27:11,036 Speaker 1: after some end with guns came to their house in 399 00:27:11,076 --> 00:27:12,796 Speaker 1: the middle of the night looking for someone who stole 400 00:27:12,876 --> 00:27:16,556 Speaker 1: some turkeys, Idemy and her husband, a man named Gladney, 401 00:27:17,036 --> 00:27:21,116 Speaker 1: packed up everything. They went first to Milwaukee. They ended 402 00:27:21,156 --> 00:27:25,116 Speaker 1: up in Chicago. Idem Brandon Gladney was eighty three when 403 00:27:25,116 --> 00:27:27,796 Speaker 1: she spoke with Isabel Wilkerson. There's a moment in the 404 00:27:27,836 --> 00:27:31,036 Speaker 1: book when she's sitting in a chair gazing out a window. 405 00:27:31,236 --> 00:27:36,356 Speaker 1: She says, a half ain't been told. Ralph Ellison he 406 00:27:36,516 --> 00:27:39,276 Speaker 1: was born the same year as Idemy, and I think 407 00:27:39,436 --> 00:27:42,036 Speaker 1: he must have felt that same way too. For all 408 00:27:42,076 --> 00:27:44,076 Speaker 1: the things we think we know, they are all these 409 00:27:44,156 --> 00:27:47,636 Speaker 1: people whose voices are silenced, whose half hasn't been told. 410 00:27:48,556 --> 00:28:00,236 Speaker 1: If that's true, how much do we know really? Ellison 411 00:28:00,276 --> 00:28:02,436 Speaker 1: looked for people to interview the same way Wilkerson did. 412 00:28:03,316 --> 00:28:05,636 Speaker 1: He went to street corners and bars and apartment buildings. 413 00:28:05,716 --> 00:28:09,716 Speaker 1: He knocked on doors One day and night thirty eight, 414 00:28:09,876 --> 00:28:13,116 Speaker 1: on the corner of one hundred and Lenox Avenue, he 415 00:28:13,236 --> 00:28:15,996 Speaker 1: met a man named Leo Gurley, who come to New 416 00:28:16,036 --> 00:28:21,876 Speaker 1: York from South Carolina. I hope to God to kill 417 00:28:21,996 --> 00:28:24,796 Speaker 1: me if this ain't the truth. All you got to 418 00:28:24,876 --> 00:28:28,156 Speaker 1: do is go down flooring South Carolada and ask most 419 00:28:28,196 --> 00:28:30,236 Speaker 1: anybody you meet, and they'd tell you it's the truth. 420 00:28:30,676 --> 00:28:32,836 Speaker 1: Currently told Ullus in a story about a man named 421 00:28:32,876 --> 00:28:37,196 Speaker 1: Sweet that he'd known back home. His name was Sweet 422 00:28:37,236 --> 00:28:40,076 Speaker 1: the Monkey. I don't forget his real name. I can't remember, 423 00:28:40,356 --> 00:28:42,636 Speaker 1: but that was what everybody called him. He wasn't no 424 00:28:42,716 --> 00:28:46,596 Speaker 1: big guy. He was just bad. My mother and grandmother 425 00:28:46,716 --> 00:28:49,356 Speaker 1: used to say he was wicked. He was bad, all right. 426 00:28:50,076 --> 00:28:52,876 Speaker 1: He was one sucker who didn't give a damn about 427 00:28:52,956 --> 00:28:57,236 Speaker 1: these crackers. Fact is they got sold. They stayed out. 428 00:28:57,316 --> 00:29:00,996 Speaker 1: His wife. I can't ever remember here telling them crackers 429 00:29:01,036 --> 00:29:03,916 Speaker 1: balling that guy. He used to give him trouble all 430 00:29:03,956 --> 00:29:06,036 Speaker 1: over the place, and all they could do about it 431 00:29:06,356 --> 00:29:10,116 Speaker 1: was to give the rest of us hell. Girly must 432 00:29:10,156 --> 00:29:13,396 Speaker 1: have told Ellison a lot of stories. This one particular 433 00:29:13,436 --> 00:29:16,276 Speaker 1: story about Sweet, though, is the one that Ellison wrote down, 434 00:29:16,756 --> 00:29:20,516 Speaker 1: the one that's in the Library of Congress. It was 435 00:29:20,556 --> 00:29:26,796 Speaker 1: this way Sweet could make himself invisible. You don't believe me, 436 00:29:27,236 --> 00:29:30,276 Speaker 1: Well here's how we've done it. Sweet the Monkey cut 437 00:29:30,476 --> 00:29:34,156 Speaker 1: open a black cat and took out his heart. The 438 00:29:34,276 --> 00:29:38,076 Speaker 1: White boats started trying to catch Sweet. Well, they didn't 439 00:29:38,116 --> 00:29:41,556 Speaker 1: have no look. Police will come up and say come on, Sweet, 440 00:29:41,756 --> 00:29:44,676 Speaker 1: and he say, y'all want me, And they put the 441 00:29:44,756 --> 00:29:48,196 Speaker 1: handcuffs on him and started leading them away. He'd go 442 00:29:48,356 --> 00:29:51,436 Speaker 1: with a little piece show like he was going. Then 443 00:29:51,596 --> 00:29:55,756 Speaker 1: all of a sudden he would turn himself invisible and disappear. 444 00:29:56,836 --> 00:30:00,996 Speaker 1: The police wouldn't have nothing but the handcuffs. They couldn't 445 00:30:00,996 --> 00:30:03,916 Speaker 1: do a thing without Sweet the Monkey. Evidence like this 446 00:30:04,316 --> 00:30:07,116 Speaker 1: a folk tale that gets written down. That's rare as 447 00:30:07,196 --> 00:30:11,076 Speaker 1: Hen's teeth and what stuck with Ellison most in girl's 448 00:30:11,116 --> 00:30:17,436 Speaker 1: tall tail. Sweet could turn himself invisible. Once they found 449 00:30:17,476 --> 00:30:20,996 Speaker 1: a place he looted with footprints leading away from it, 450 00:30:21,436 --> 00:30:24,516 Speaker 1: and they decided to try and trap them. This was 451 00:30:24,556 --> 00:30:28,316 Speaker 1: about sun up, and they followed his footprints all that day. 452 00:30:29,196 --> 00:30:33,156 Speaker 1: They followed him till sundown. When he come partly visible, 453 00:30:33,796 --> 00:30:36,956 Speaker 1: it was red and the sun was shining on the trees, 454 00:30:37,396 --> 00:30:41,356 Speaker 1: and they waited till they saw his shadow. That was 455 00:30:41,476 --> 00:30:49,236 Speaker 1: the last or the Sweet the Monkey. I like to 456 00:30:49,276 --> 00:30:51,516 Speaker 1: think it was Sweet who came back to Ellison a 457 00:30:51,596 --> 00:30:54,116 Speaker 1: few years later up in Vermont, in that barn, the 458 00:30:54,236 --> 00:30:59,556 Speaker 1: sunshining voice rising let the voices that echo along the 459 00:30:59,716 --> 00:31:14,516 Speaker 1: narrow corridors of the mind. When Invisible Man was published 460 00:31:14,596 --> 00:31:18,436 Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty two, Ralph Ellison became a celebrity. Here 461 00:31:18,436 --> 00:31:21,316 Speaker 1: he is again on the show Favorites of the Famous, 462 00:31:22,716 --> 00:31:25,956 Speaker 1: And may I add my congratulations on the National Book Award. 463 00:31:26,116 --> 00:31:30,036 Speaker 1: Quite an honor from first novelism. Yes, it's quite an 464 00:31:30,116 --> 00:31:36,596 Speaker 1: honor and quite a frightening You know, you keep wondering, Well, now, 465 00:31:36,676 --> 00:31:41,156 Speaker 1: guess what went wrong? Everyone wanted a piece of Ellison. 466 00:31:41,876 --> 00:31:44,716 Speaker 1: Photographer Gordon Parks collaborated with Ellison on a series of 467 00:31:44,756 --> 00:31:47,996 Speaker 1: photographs for Life magazine, depicting the most important moments in 468 00:31:48,076 --> 00:31:52,516 Speaker 1: the book. The photos are haunting, surreal, black and white 469 00:31:52,756 --> 00:31:56,276 Speaker 1: and shot wide. In the most famous picture, a black 470 00:31:56,356 --> 00:31:59,356 Speaker 1: man emerges from a manhole. You can see the blur 471 00:31:59,516 --> 00:32:02,196 Speaker 1: of the street in the background. Only the top of 472 00:32:02,236 --> 00:32:05,876 Speaker 1: his head is in focus. So remember Diana and Grace 473 00:32:05,956 --> 00:32:08,556 Speaker 1: Bates who was little Girls through Oranges at Ellison while 474 00:32:08,596 --> 00:32:11,956 Speaker 1: he was writing, or maybe they were rocks. Anyway, they 475 00:32:12,036 --> 00:32:15,276 Speaker 1: knew that guy in these photographs. Yeah, that's our dad. 476 00:32:16,196 --> 00:32:19,916 Speaker 1: Daddy would have been friends with Allison and Gordon Parks. 477 00:32:19,956 --> 00:32:21,756 Speaker 1: They would have all known each other. So when they 478 00:32:21,836 --> 00:32:25,716 Speaker 1: were doing this photo shoot, I mean he was a 479 00:32:25,876 --> 00:32:32,916 Speaker 1: natural model for that, you know, his handsomeness. Yeah, I'm 480 00:32:32,956 --> 00:32:36,036 Speaker 1: just amazed that this image is becomes so iconic, you know, 481 00:32:36,116 --> 00:32:40,036 Speaker 1: it's all It hung outside the MoMA in New York 482 00:32:40,116 --> 00:32:44,996 Speaker 1: City for a season, a huge poster of our father. Yeah, 483 00:32:45,156 --> 00:32:49,876 Speaker 1: it brings me great delight to see that. Ellison, meanwhile, 484 00:32:50,076 --> 00:32:55,636 Speaker 1: was everywhere interviews in the Paris Review, lectures and visiting professorships, 485 00:32:55,756 --> 00:33:00,036 Speaker 1: cocktail parties, chit chat with the president. He became much 486 00:33:00,116 --> 00:33:02,956 Speaker 1: more than a literary celebrity. It was as if he 487 00:33:02,996 --> 00:33:06,156 Speaker 1: were the great seer of the black experience. It was 488 00:33:06,236 --> 00:33:08,396 Speaker 1: as if he were a radio playing the voice of 489 00:33:08,516 --> 00:33:11,196 Speaker 1: every black person in the country, as if he alone 490 00:33:11,756 --> 00:33:16,076 Speaker 1: were Negro evidence. If you listen for it, you can 491 00:33:16,156 --> 00:33:20,436 Speaker 1: hear it. His self consciousness about being asked to speak 492 00:33:20,676 --> 00:33:23,636 Speaker 1: for the negro Sir, Ellison, how do you feel about 493 00:33:23,676 --> 00:33:29,116 Speaker 1: being interviewed? Well, naturally, you feel quite mixed about it. 494 00:33:29,436 --> 00:33:31,916 Speaker 1: Later on, Elson was called to testify before the Senate 495 00:33:32,236 --> 00:33:35,516 Speaker 1: on the subject of social conditions in Harlem. But really 496 00:33:35,556 --> 00:33:37,436 Speaker 1: he was asked to explain what black people thought of 497 00:33:37,516 --> 00:33:40,156 Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act In the nineteen 498 00:33:40,236 --> 00:33:44,636 Speaker 1: sixty five Voting Rights Act. How did the Northern Negro 499 00:33:44,836 --> 00:33:49,236 Speaker 1: or the Negro at Harlem and regard these laws? Well, 500 00:33:51,036 --> 00:33:56,196 Speaker 1: I was paid for one myself. The senators kept pressing him, 501 00:33:56,516 --> 00:33:59,996 Speaker 1: asking him questions about Harlem, but also asking him in 502 00:34:00,036 --> 00:34:02,796 Speaker 1: a way, how can a black man talk like that? 503 00:34:03,636 --> 00:34:08,676 Speaker 1: Would you get your voice? You're so articulate? How did 504 00:34:08,716 --> 00:34:12,076 Speaker 1: you get to be you? Oh? What was life like 505 00:34:12,436 --> 00:34:16,396 Speaker 1: for you as a boy growing up in Oklahoma City? Well, 506 00:34:16,596 --> 00:34:23,116 Speaker 1: it was a life of the average poor family. Ellison 507 00:34:23,276 --> 00:34:25,396 Speaker 1: was most often in demand when things were worse for 508 00:34:25,516 --> 00:34:29,476 Speaker 1: black people. Robert Penn Warren allegedly said Ellison was every 509 00:34:29,516 --> 00:34:33,276 Speaker 1: white man's favorite black man, but he wasn't every black 510 00:34:33,356 --> 00:34:36,876 Speaker 1: man's favorite black man. Ellison's biographer once told the story 511 00:34:36,916 --> 00:34:38,236 Speaker 1: of a man who went to the library of a 512 00:34:38,276 --> 00:34:40,836 Speaker 1: black studies program and asked for a copy of Invisible Man, 513 00:34:41,356 --> 00:34:44,276 Speaker 1: only to be told they didn't have one because Ellison 514 00:34:44,356 --> 00:34:47,716 Speaker 1: wasn't a black writer. He kept trying to write another novel. 515 00:34:47,956 --> 00:34:50,876 Speaker 1: It was always close, just around the corner, but he 516 00:34:50,996 --> 00:34:53,796 Speaker 1: never finished it. He explained it a few ways. He 517 00:34:53,956 --> 00:34:56,356 Speaker 1: lost some of it in a fire or a history 518 00:34:56,436 --> 00:34:59,156 Speaker 1: moved too fast for him to comment on it, But 519 00:34:59,276 --> 00:35:02,956 Speaker 1: I think he was also daunted, daunted by having become evidence. 520 00:35:06,236 --> 00:35:09,476 Speaker 1: At one point during his congressional testimony, the senator asked 521 00:35:09,556 --> 00:35:14,156 Speaker 1: him about his upbringing. My mother had some sense of 522 00:35:15,116 --> 00:35:19,196 Speaker 1: the advisers of excellence, and she used to say that 523 00:35:19,356 --> 00:35:21,516 Speaker 1: she didn't care what I'd became, as long as I 524 00:35:22,716 --> 00:35:25,956 Speaker 1: tried to become one of the best. He'd been the best. 525 00:35:26,756 --> 00:35:29,156 Speaker 1: Maybe he came to the end of his imagination. What 526 00:35:29,276 --> 00:35:33,076 Speaker 1: could he possibly do next? People started talking about him 527 00:35:33,116 --> 00:35:35,556 Speaker 1: as if he were a failure. He kept trying to 528 00:35:35,596 --> 00:35:38,476 Speaker 1: write that novel. He'd read passages into a teape recorder 529 00:35:39,036 --> 00:35:41,636 Speaker 1: and then listen back to them. They cut out our tongues. 530 00:35:42,036 --> 00:35:45,396 Speaker 1: They left the speechness. They cut out our tongues. Lord, 531 00:35:45,436 --> 00:35:52,316 Speaker 1: they left us without words. Amen. He died in nineteen 532 00:35:52,436 --> 00:35:56,076 Speaker 1: ninety four, author of a slew of brilliant essays, one 533 00:35:56,276 --> 00:36:00,276 Speaker 1: published novel, and more than two thousand unpublished pages of 534 00:36:00,396 --> 00:36:03,596 Speaker 1: another one. So far as I know, he never went 535 00:36:03,636 --> 00:36:11,596 Speaker 1: back to that barn in Waitsfield, Vermont. I do know 536 00:36:11,796 --> 00:36:14,636 Speaker 1: that one of the obligations of being an American has 537 00:36:14,716 --> 00:36:18,076 Speaker 1: changed to me is that you get to know other Americans, 538 00:36:18,916 --> 00:36:23,796 Speaker 1: and one of the massassdiasm that we should not be afraid. 539 00:36:26,316 --> 00:36:29,156 Speaker 1: Ralph Ellison and the WPA opened a door, a door 540 00:36:29,276 --> 00:36:32,956 Speaker 1: to an entire archive. But somehow that door keeps slamming 541 00:36:33,036 --> 00:36:36,956 Speaker 1: shut and getting locked again, and still people keep trying 542 00:36:36,996 --> 00:36:48,436 Speaker 1: to pry it open and record the evidence. In twenty thirteen, 543 00:36:48,516 --> 00:36:51,676 Speaker 1: a century after Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma, George 544 00:36:51,756 --> 00:36:54,396 Speaker 1: Zimmerman was acquitted for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 545 00:36:54,796 --> 00:36:57,876 Speaker 1: and Black Lives Matter began. It's the next chapter and 546 00:36:57,956 --> 00:37:01,716 Speaker 1: the long history of Negro evidence. Black Lives Matter is 547 00:37:01,716 --> 00:37:06,196 Speaker 1: about justice, but it's also profoundly about evidence. The capturing 548 00:37:06,236 --> 00:37:09,836 Speaker 1: of video and sound recording showing what to whites had 549 00:37:09,836 --> 00:37:14,076 Speaker 1: been unseen, hearing what had been unheard, knowing what had 550 00:37:14,116 --> 00:37:21,676 Speaker 1: been unknown, bodycam, dashcam, iPhone, periscope, Facebook live record, play listen. 551 00:37:23,476 --> 00:37:26,196 Speaker 1: More voices means more disagreement, and that can make it 552 00:37:26,316 --> 00:37:30,876 Speaker 1: harder to know what's true. But that's okay, because hard 553 00:37:30,956 --> 00:37:34,196 Speaker 1: has to be okay. At the end of Invisible Man, 554 00:37:34,236 --> 00:37:37,636 Speaker 1: the Invisible Man is hiding out in a basement, siphoning electricity, 555 00:37:38,036 --> 00:37:40,996 Speaker 1: listening to Louis Armstrom records, talking about what he knows, 556 00:37:41,236 --> 00:37:45,076 Speaker 1: straight to the reader unseen but heard. I love the 557 00:37:45,116 --> 00:37:47,716 Speaker 1: book's last line, so we thought it was only right 558 00:37:47,996 --> 00:37:51,596 Speaker 1: to ask debait sisters to read it out loud. Who 559 00:37:51,756 --> 00:37:55,876 Speaker 1: knows but that on the lower frequencies I speak for you, 560 00:37:58,556 --> 00:38:02,756 Speaker 1: some truths still can't be spoken. Some frequencies haven't yet 561 00:38:02,836 --> 00:38:05,996 Speaker 1: been heard, but you can still set them down for 562 00:38:06,076 --> 00:38:12,956 Speaker 1: the record. You listen, you record, and you're right, because 563 00:38:12,956 --> 00:38:25,036 Speaker 1: the half still hasn't yet been told. The Last Archive 564 00:38:25,156 --> 00:38:27,876 Speaker 1: is produced by Sophie Crane, mccabbon and Bennette of Haafrey. 565 00:38:28,196 --> 00:38:31,156 Speaker 1: Our editor is Julia Barton, and our executive producer is 566 00:38:31,236 --> 00:38:35,116 Speaker 1: Mia Loebell. Jason Gambrell and Martinin Gonzalez are our engineers. 567 00:38:35,636 --> 00:38:39,156 Speaker 1: Fact checking by Amy Gaines. Original music by Matthias Boss 568 00:38:39,316 --> 00:38:42,436 Speaker 1: and John Evans of Stellwagen Sinfinett. Many of our sound 569 00:38:42,436 --> 00:38:45,676 Speaker 1: effects are from Harry Janette Junior and the Star Janette Foundation. 570 00:38:46,276 --> 00:38:49,516 Speaker 1: Our fool Proof players are Barlow, Adamson, Daniel Burger, Jones, 571 00:38:49,956 --> 00:38:53,396 Speaker 1: Jesse Henson, John Kuntz, Becca A. Lewis and Maurice Emmanuel Parent. 572 00:38:53,916 --> 00:38:56,356 Speaker 1: The Last Archive is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. 573 00:38:56,876 --> 00:38:59,796 Speaker 1: Special thanks to Ryan McKittrick in the American Repertory Theater, 574 00:39:00,156 --> 00:39:03,396 Speaker 1: Andy Lancett at the w NYC Archives, the American folk 575 00:39:03,436 --> 00:39:06,156 Speaker 1: Life Center at the Library of Congress, Alex Allenson at 576 00:39:06,196 --> 00:39:09,076 Speaker 1: the Bridge Sound and Stage, and Simon Leak at Pushka. 577 00:39:09,516 --> 00:39:13,196 Speaker 1: Thanks to Heather Fane, Maya Caney, Carly Migliore, Emily Rustick, 578 00:39:13,236 --> 00:39:17,836 Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, and Jacob Weisberg. Our research assistants are Michelle Gaw, 579 00:39:17,996 --> 00:39:22,476 Speaker 1: Olivia Oldham, Henriet O'Reilly alive, Ruskin Kutz, and Emily Spector 580 00:39:23,556 --> 00:39:24,356 Speaker 1: I'm gillipour