Speaker 1: On theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 2: You are as possible, and.
Speaker 1: The iron heel of oppression is everywhere. It has reached
Speaker 1: every section of this country, and every black citizen has
Speaker 1: a duty to perform. Cultured men and women of color
Speaker 1: and convention assembled sit in silence while one side of
Speaker 1: this burning question is discussed, the white side, and we
Speaker 1: are solemnly impressed with the magnitude of our wickedness and
Speaker 1: hopeless depravity by partisan white and colored speakers. It has
Speaker 1: reached the past where the educated black will handle any
Speaker 1: subject in his assemblies. But Politics South and its friends
Speaker 1: have said, not a word of complaint, no talk of lynching,
Speaker 1: not an offensive word, or it will go hard with you,
Speaker 1: and the race leaders have bowed to that decree an
Speaker 1: abject submission. What are we going to do about it?
Speaker 1: Stick to principle?
Speaker 2: Katie?
Speaker 1: Do you have a guest as to when that quote
Speaker 1: I just read was written?
Speaker 3: Based on the subject matter, it could have been written
Speaker 3: today based on how it's written, I can tell you
Speaker 3: know what is not an Instagram.
Speaker 2: Post fair very fair well.
Speaker 1: It was self published in nineteen oh five, but definitely
Speaker 1: the subtitle of the pamphlet that this quote comes from
Speaker 1: is super long, but in short, it's titled A Primer
Speaker 1: of Facts. This part and other parts of that study
Speaker 1: feel like they could have been plucked from the present
Speaker 1: and is by our Woman of the Hour, I'm Katie
Speaker 1: and I'm Eves today's episode Rediscovering the Pauline Hopkins. Katie,
Speaker 1: I love stories about black writers whose legacies were buried
Speaker 1: by time and then unearthed by dedicated scholars.
Speaker 3: You know I do too. There's so much promise and
Speaker 3: possibility in the fact that there have been and will
Speaker 3: be more Black writers whose work will be given new life.
Speaker 2: And we are better for it.
Speaker 1: We're also fortunate because a lot of the time that
Speaker 1: work is lost, and a lot of Pauline Hopkins's work
Speaker 1: and words survive. But sadly, Pauline died tragically after being
Speaker 1: injured in a fire. But she was seventy one when
Speaker 1: she died, so she got to live a life that
Speaker 1: was pretty full of artistic exploration. She acted, sang, and
Speaker 1: she wrote plays, short stories and novels. She was also
Speaker 1: an editor for the Colored American Magazine, which was, by
Speaker 1: its own definition and illustrated monthly devoted to literature science, music, art, religion, facts, fiction,
Speaker 1: and traditions of.
Speaker 2: The Negro race. It's a lot earth everything.
Speaker 1: And she wrote biographical sketches of famous Black people in
Speaker 1: the magazine, and she helped build its connections to Payan
Speaker 1: African intellectuals and its interest in global issues.
Speaker 3: And she published some short stories and serialized her novels
Speaker 3: in the magazine.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, she did plenty of them. Her novels Hagard's Daughter,
Speaker 1: a story of Southern cast prejudiced and Winona, a tale
Speaker 1: of Negro life in the South and Southwest, and lastly
Speaker 1: of One Blood or the Hidden Self were all serialized
Speaker 1: in the magazine. And if you can't tell what type
Speaker 1: of time she was on by the quote from earlier
Speaker 1: or the titles of her novels, Pauline's fiction was about
Speaker 1: the struggles that Black Americans had to go through because
Speaker 1: of our race. They were about slavery and reconstruction and
Speaker 1: division between the North and the South, and they were
Speaker 1: about understanding the pain and horror of our past to
Speaker 1: move forward as a race and as a country.
Speaker 3: Pauline was clearly prolific and a woman of many gifts.
Speaker 3: Would you say her work put her squarely in the
Speaker 3: camp of literary pioneers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. She did her fair share of
Speaker 1: trailblazing when she was in her twenties. In the eighteen seventies,
Speaker 1: she became the first Black woman to write and star
Speaker 1: in her own dramatic work, a musical play called Slave's
Speaker 1: Escape or the Underground Railroad. The play was later retitled
Speaker 1: Peculiar Sam. Her book Contending Forces, a romance illustrative of
Speaker 1: Negro life North and South, was published in October of
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred and it was the first twentieth century novel
Speaker 1: by a Black American woman. Pauline constantly connected romance and
Speaker 1: politics in her fiction. As Lois Brown says in her
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight book Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, Black Daughter
Speaker 1: of the Revolution, Pauline quote used sentimental romance to advance
Speaker 1: her campaign for racial justice, and the Colored American has
Speaker 1: its own fascinating history. It was one of the first,
Speaker 1: if not the first, magazine devoted to Black American arts, literature,
Speaker 1: and culture in the United States, and Pauline was the
Speaker 1: only woman on staff when it launched. And then Take
Speaker 1: Hagar's Daughter, which was published serially from nineteen oh one
Speaker 1: to nineteen oh two. It made her the first known
Speaker 1: Blackmai woman to publish a work of detective fiction. It
Speaker 1: also made her the creator of the first known Black
Speaker 1: American female detective. All of Pauline's fiction, nonfiction, and editorial
Speaker 1: work with the magazine helped grow her status and recognition
Speaker 1: in black literary and activist circles. Her work did get
Speaker 1: some criticism, though more on that After the Break, some
Speaker 1: people considered Pauline an agitator. They were critical of the
Speaker 1: candidness with which she talked about taboo subjects like sexual violence,
Speaker 1: of her frank condemnation of practices like lynching and imperialism,
Speaker 1: her clarity in linking issues of race with issues of class,
Speaker 1: and her refusal to mince words in her expression. There
Speaker 1: were folks who were not a fan of how defiant
Speaker 1: and outspoken she was in her mission to uplift the race,
Speaker 1: and on the other side of the coin, some of
Speaker 1: our faith eves flamed her.
Speaker 2: We love to see some hate, don't we?
Speaker 1: Poet Gwendolyn Brooks, Okay, she has some choice words about
Speaker 1: Pauline and the afterward. To the nineteen seventy eight reprint
Speaker 1: of Contending Forces, Brooks says this often doth the brainwashed
Speaker 1: slave revere the modes and idolatries of the master, and
Speaker 1: Pauline Hopkins consistently proves herself a continuing slave despite little
Speaker 1: bursts of righteous heat throughout Contending Forces.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, she ate her.
Speaker 2: It really is to call someone.
Speaker 3: A slave, continuing slave.
Speaker 1: They weren't that far away from times of slavery either.
Speaker 3: Wait what what I'm trying to think? What year was that?
Speaker 3: Did she write continu.
Speaker 1: Oh no, this this, she didn't write. Contending Forces came
Speaker 1: out in the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 3: And then this was a reprint. Yes, this is an
Speaker 3: afterward to their reprint. Because Pauline Hopkins herself when she
Speaker 3: was alive, wasn't it wasn't that far away? She wrote
Speaker 3: in afterwards of her.
Speaker 2: Book, isn't that Yes, says that, yes, that's crazy, that
Speaker 2: it's shady.
Speaker 1: But it feels like it's a backwards compliment in a way,
Speaker 1: because well, no, it's not a backwards compliment. I meant
Speaker 1: that the other way around. It's a criticism first, and
Speaker 1: then she tries to tackle on a little bit of
Speaker 1: the compliment where at the end, where she says, despite
Speaker 1: little bursts of righteous heat, girl, it's shady though, you
Speaker 1: know it's shady.
Speaker 3: No, somebody did that to me, I literally writes out
Speaker 3: of my grave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let.
Speaker 1: It be known to all people who have plans of
Speaker 1: flaming Katie in the future after her books come out.
Speaker 3: No, because whoever is in charge of her estate was
Speaker 3: like they approve that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be fair, I don't know who's or has
Speaker 1: been in charge of her estate, so I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how tight they were about like making sure that everything
Speaker 1: goes out is buttoned.
Speaker 3: Up clearly, not at all?
Speaker 1: Right, And sometimes Pauline did use a pen name so
Speaker 1: she didn't have to catch all of that heat. Two
Speaker 1: pseudonyms she used repeatedly were Sarah A. Allen, her mother's name,
Speaker 1: and Jay Shirley Shadrag Shadrag Menkins was the name of
Speaker 1: a man who escaped slavery, was captured under the Fugitive
Speaker 1: Slave Law, and was later freed by black folks. His
Speaker 1: story was a well known one in Boston, and Hopkins
Speaker 1: once wrote about him in a profile of abolitionist Lewis Hayden.
Speaker 1: In cases where she wrote about touchy subjects like interracial marriage,
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt's presidency, and the moral ills of white society.
Speaker 1: She chose to use one of her pen names, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't always about dodging the ire of benefactors and
Speaker 1: people who had more conventional opinions. Sometimes using a pseudonym
Speaker 1: meant that she could squeeze more of her work into one.
Speaker 2: Issue of The Colored American. Why are you laughing?
Speaker 3: I love a innovative queen. She's practical, right, she was like, Yes,
Speaker 3: Sarah A. Allen wrote this, Jare she's drag and probably Hopkins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all three different women. I know. I do love that.
Speaker 1: I think that that wasn't an uncommon thing to do
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, But I think it's funny because.
Speaker 2: It allowed her to write more.
Speaker 1: But it also makes me wonder, like, were there not
Speaker 1: other people that could write for the magazine, that could
Speaker 1: like have stuff that would be good as well to
Speaker 1: be placed in it.
Speaker 3: They're definitely worried, but it's probably much harder to get
Speaker 3: to people in the early nineteen hundreds. I imagine even
Speaker 3: the literacy rate was probably very low.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 3: So she did what she had to do. She put
Speaker 3: the whole magazine on her back.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and in general, pen names were common in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds, so they were often used in the
Speaker 1: Colored American even by people outside of Pauline, and in
Speaker 1: other black publications as well. Authors would hide behind different
Speaker 1: identities if they had recognizable names, were divulging personal information
Speaker 1: in their writing, or if they wanted to fill out
Speaker 1: the response to their writing before publishing their own name
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 2: That's fair too, you know. I feel like I wish
Speaker 2: we had the leeway to do stuff like this. What
Speaker 2: you mean you think so?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess so, because you can really publish anywhere
Speaker 1: and self published so easily these days. They'll find out
Speaker 1: who it was, though, the people.
Speaker 3: Will you know that book Autobiography of ex color Man. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so James wald and Johnson wrote it, but he made
Speaker 3: it like it was a true autobiography when it's really
Speaker 3: a novel and was like, oh yeah, like I didn't
Speaker 3: write that it was this man's story. But of course
Speaker 3: people found him out. But I like people were just
Speaker 3: like just silly, goofy mood.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like this is performance art as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing about Pauline's work, though, is that it was
Speaker 1: sometimes fun and fantastical. There was romance, science fiction, mystery,
Speaker 1: and supernatural elements. Of One Blood, for instance, has been
Speaker 1: called an afro futurist novel. It's about a midst race
Speaker 1: medical student who travels to a magically hidden city in
Speaker 1: northeastern Africa. It's got ghosts, secret treasures, racial passing, murder, revenge,
Speaker 1: and incest. Now, it wouldn't be seen as that risk
Speaker 1: a by modern standards, but I mean on paper, it's
Speaker 1: sounding like a fantasy drama that any of the major TV.
Speaker 2: Networks would compete for.
Speaker 1: Pauline left behind a lot of evidence of her ideology
Speaker 1: and working life, and a lot less about her personal life.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately, her.
Speaker 1: Story follows the trajectory that a lot of nineteenth and
Speaker 1: twentieth century Black intellectuals do. Researchers and historians have pieced
Speaker 1: together the chronology of her life over the last several decades,
Speaker 1: bringing it back to light after it fell into the
Speaker 1: shadows of literary history.
Speaker 3: This is why I love digging through the archives. There's
Speaker 3: so much treasure in there, so many hidden stories that
Speaker 3: we should be documenting, repeating and cherity.
Speaker 1: And some of the good folks who did that were
Speaker 1: folks like doctor Claudia Tate, doctor Mary Helen Washington, and
Speaker 1: Fisk University, a librarian and scholar, and Alan Shockley. She
Speaker 1: wrote the nineteen seventy two essay Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, a
Speaker 1: biographical Excursion into Obscurity. Now there are a ton of essays, articles,
Speaker 1: and other scholarship on Pauline's life. Pauline's book Contending Forces
Speaker 1: was reprinted in nineteen seventy eight as part of the
Speaker 1: Southern Illinois University Presses Lost American Fiction Series, and in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight her writing was included in an Oxford
Speaker 1: University Press in Schoenberg Library series on nineteenth century Black
Speaker 1: women Writers that was edited by Henry Lewis Gates Junior.
Speaker 1: And then there is the Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins Society, which
Speaker 1: celebrates her life, work and legacy through publications, conferences, and
Speaker 1: programs that they put together.
Speaker 2: And on top of.
Speaker 1: All that, her novels of One Blood and Haygard's Daughter
Speaker 1: were reissued in twenty twenty. Pauline worked on a couple
Speaker 1: of issues of a new black publication called New Era
Speaker 1: Magazine in nineteen six, but that magazine went busted pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: and information about her life and work after that year
Speaker 1: is available, but it's not as robust as it is
Speaker 1: for prior years. You'd be excited to know, though Katie
Speaker 1: as a lover of hating and all things contentious, that
Speaker 1: there is a potential beef in her story.
Speaker 3: Ooh, let's get into it.
Speaker 2: I got you after the break.
Speaker 1: So, as you know, Katie, black folks had different ideas
Speaker 1: about what black people needed to do to progress in
Speaker 1: the US, and Pauline was about denouncing white folks for
Speaker 1: anti black violence and demanding rights, especially voting rights. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that pamphlet I quoted a primer of facts. Well,
Speaker 1: its last sentence is never give up the ballot. So yeah,
Speaker 1: she wasn't really about being conciliatory and conservative. Her writing
Speaker 1: in the Colored American magazine was often anti c coommodationist.
Speaker 1: It's what we may call today hot takes that could
Speaker 1: upset the whites because a significant chunk of their readership
Speaker 1: was white. But as the magazine went through financial struggles
Speaker 1: and leadership changes, Pauline was asked to tone it down.
Speaker 1: Pauline said this in a nineteen oh five letter to
Speaker 1: William Monroe Trotter, the editor of The Boston Guardian. He
Speaker 1: told me there must not be a word on lynching,
Speaker 1: no mention of our wrongs as a race, nothing that
Speaker 1: would be offensive to the South. The he she was
Speaker 1: referring to was John Freund, the magazine's white patron, who
Speaker 1: wanted to silence the progressive civil rights sentiments that Hopkins
Speaker 1: championed in the magazine.
Speaker 3: Sounds familiar. It's a lot like the patron in Zorn
Speaker 3: neil Herson's story some drama that we talked about in
Speaker 3: our previous episode, which twenty of y'all want beef. But
Speaker 3: with this guy, I'm struck because, like magazines are more
Speaker 3: non fiction based, and so he's literally trying to like
Speaker 3: take out a big part of history, like no talk
Speaker 3: on lynching. Yeah, well heart lichings are happening, so you
Speaker 3: just want that removed from the historical record.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's like this magazine is about art, religion, everything that's
Speaker 1: happening with black people, and that is included, whether or
Speaker 1: not you like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a big part of what's going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the people are not fooled by this. It
Speaker 1: also seems like a herculean task. The people who are
Speaker 1: reading this magazine were already used to the kind of
Speaker 1: work they were putting out, which means they already wrote
Speaker 1: a certain way.
Speaker 3: And they're aware of what's going on. Yeah, you get
Speaker 3: trick this right.
Speaker 1: They were tinting their fingers like like, hmmm, I have
Speaker 1: an idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's quite silly.
Speaker 2: Yes it was.
Speaker 1: So it's not exactly a beef because she doesn't call
Speaker 1: out Booker T. Washington by name or even confront him
Speaker 1: face to face or letter to letter, but in her
Speaker 1: work she indirectly and directly challenged his approach to racial progress,
Speaker 1: which called for self help and vocational education while denouncing agitation.
Speaker 1: With help from Booker T. Washington, Fred R. Moore purchased
Speaker 1: the Colored American magazine in nineteen oh four, and the
Speaker 1: content took a turn toward business.
Speaker 2: Rather than literature and culture.
Speaker 1: So basically it worked and the magazine became way less
Speaker 1: politically risky. Within months of Washington taking over, Pauline was
Speaker 1: forced out under circumstances that scholars have since speculated about.
Speaker 1: An announcement in the November nineteen oh four issue said
Speaker 1: that Pauline quit the magazine because of ill health and
Speaker 1: moved back home to Boston, but the announcement was definitely
Speaker 1: giving pr statement. Here's how they ended it. Miss Hopkins
Speaker 1: was a faithful and conscientious worker and did much toward
Speaker 1: the building up the magazine. We take this means of
Speaker 1: expressing our appreciation of her services and wished for her
Speaker 1: a speedy return to complete health. W. E. B. Du
Speaker 1: Bois had an essay called The Colored Magazine in America
Speaker 1: in the November nineteen twelve issue of The Crisis. In it,
Speaker 1: he said that folks at the magazine told her she
Speaker 1: wasn't conciliatory enough. Some scholars say it was a necessary
Speaker 1: dismissal as the magazine's content changed, But anyway it goes,
Speaker 1: Pauline definitely didn't put Washington on a pedestal, and she
Speaker 1: made that known. And I have to say that I'm
Speaker 1: cackling because, by all accounts, once the magazine got less radical,
Speaker 1: it also got dry and started tumbling downhill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can see that if you have this platform
Speaker 3: where you expouse these values, and just because one person
Speaker 3: becomes involved and they just want to put all their
Speaker 3: like conservative values, like make your own magazine. There's other
Speaker 3: conservative people who probably want to hear what you're saying,
Speaker 3: but not these people who are used to a different politic.
Speaker 3: So I feel like conservatives do that a lot. They
Speaker 3: co opt radical things like we have Black lives matter,
Speaker 3: then they want to have blue lives matter. You know,
Speaker 3: people who are for reproductive justice say like my body,
Speaker 3: my choice, and then people who are very anti reproductive
Speaker 3: justice but like don't want to take a COVID vaccine
Speaker 3: or like my body my chol like maybe get your
Speaker 3: own phrase. Black people will say say her name, and
Speaker 3: then white people want to say say her name like
Speaker 3: no original.
Speaker 2: Thought, no, not at all.
Speaker 3: It's like, hm, why is that? Why can't they think?
Speaker 3: But it's like, you have your views, so why don't
Speaker 3: you just talk about your views in your original way?
Speaker 3: But I think what it is is like conservatives and
Speaker 3: not really saying this about Booker T. Washington in particular,
Speaker 3: but I think conservatives are always like in opposition to
Speaker 3: your like freedom and autonomy and your liberation. So anything
Speaker 3: in the opposition of that they're they're down for, like
Speaker 3: we found your doory six my favorite topic they do.
Speaker 3: They don't really like the police, y'all killed the police.
Speaker 3: Letting the dad killed the police, then it would have
Speaker 3: been blue lives matter. But you mad about something, so
Speaker 3: you get the American flag and start stabbing the police
Speaker 3: with it. So it's like you don't really care, You're
Speaker 3: just you just don't like black people. You just don't
Speaker 3: like black people's freedom, you don't like black people being
Speaker 3: into literature and science and culture, and so you just
Speaker 3: want to take it. I feel like that's the through
Speaker 3: line with like a lot of the conservatives like co
Speaker 3: opting like radical or like war leftists talking points.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more about the snatching away of the thing
Speaker 1: than them having a point to prove on their own.
Speaker 1: I mean that's how it's always been. It's like we
Speaker 1: take your family, we take all your cultural touch points,
Speaker 1: we take your language.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like water it down and then are like
Speaker 3: confused why it's not hitting the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you should have foresaw this.
Speaker 1: Alas, and there are many more pieces to Pauline's puzzle
Speaker 1: that have yet to be found, but the rediscovery of
Speaker 1: her legacy is an ongoing labor of love, and there
Speaker 1: are still plenty of people on the job. And like
Speaker 1: I said earlier, the thing that I love about Pauline
Speaker 1: Hopkins is that so much of what she had to
Speaker 1: say rings true today. Take this other quote from a
Speaker 1: primer of facts. The propaganda of silence is in full force.
Speaker 1: Newspapers and magazines have been subsidized or destroyed. If the
Speaker 1: editors fearlessly advocated the cause of humanity, every leading intellect
Speaker 1: has been intimidated. While per contrary, a horde of Southern writers, speakers,
Speaker 1: and politicians are allowed to fill the air with their
Speaker 1: doleful clamor against a proscribed race without a protest. Agitation
Speaker 1: by the black is rigidly barred, but the Southern white
Speaker 1: is allowed the front of the stage in presenting his
Speaker 1: grievances to a sympathetic public. Now that could have been
Speaker 1: in today exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels so precient because she's talking about media too,
Speaker 3: and media has changed a lot from her time, But
Speaker 3: the same exact thing is still happening. Yes, the same censorship,
Speaker 3: trusted sources are still disappearing. Then there's just an attack
Speaker 3: in general on journalism. I mean, speaking of conservatives so
Speaker 3: frequently say journalism doesn't mean anything today because they don't
Speaker 3: like it. So I really appreciate that about Pauline's work.
Speaker 3: Like we've talked about before, it's unfortunate that we're still
Speaker 3: going through the same things and talking about the same things.
Speaker 2: But I like how much of a balance.
Speaker 1: It feels like it is in Pauline's work and her
Speaker 1: editorial work, and also in her novels and how they
Speaker 1: were still so fanciful and so imaginative and people were
Speaker 1: there was time traveling, there were different kinds of worlds,
Speaker 1: you know, and at the same time she was dealing
Speaker 1: with issues of race. And yeah, I think that people
Speaker 1: should check out some of her novels and her essays
Speaker 1: and her short stories too if they get a chance,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the Colored American Magazine is online
Speaker 1: for you to be able to read her work and
Speaker 1: just get an understanding of like how she thought.
Speaker 3: And they can read Sarah A. Allen's work as well.
Speaker 2: They can read Sarah A. Allen's work exactly.
Speaker 3: And now it is time for role credits, a segment
Speaker 3: where we give credit to a person, place, or thing
Speaker 3: that we encountered during the week eves. Who are what
Speaker 3: would you like to give credit to?
Speaker 1: I would like to give credit to the black chefs.
Speaker 1: I was having a conversation the other day with this
Speaker 1: owner of a restaurant and chef who had a bunch
Speaker 1: of free stuff outside of his restaurant.
Speaker 2: Because the business had clothes.
Speaker 1: Because it's so difficult for so many people to survive.
Speaker 1: Now what he had, girl, He had sorrel, He had
Speaker 1: gallons of sorrel.
Speaker 2: He had cakes out there.
Speaker 1: He had sweet potatoes, just raw swepotatoes, raw sweet potatoes. Girl,
Speaker 1: he has some stuff standing outside, and you know, we
Speaker 1: grabbed some stuff and talked to him for a little bit,
Speaker 1: but he was talking about downsizing.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: I've eaten at that restaurant before, and I just want
Speaker 1: to give credit to black chefs because whether they have
Speaker 1: restaurants or they're cooking at home. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: so many black people that have literally fed me my
Speaker 1: entire life, and people who were chefs who didn't have
Speaker 1: restaurants but were still like, had amazing recipes and amazing food.
Speaker 1: You know, there's just been a part of my life
Speaker 1: for forever. And for the people who do have restaurants,
Speaker 1: I know that it's a difficult business in general, and
Speaker 1: I'm appreciative of the labor of love and the love
Speaker 1: that they provide to everything through their hands and their craft.
Speaker 1: So that's why I want to give credit to Well.
Speaker 3: Hopefully he gets his downsize spot and can stay.
Speaker 2: Hopefully.
Speaker 3: You don't know what he want to do. I want
Speaker 3: to give credit to Miss Mati prim Jon. She is
Speaker 3: the owner of Marshall's and Music and bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi.
Speaker 3: And I was in Jackson over the weekend and I
Speaker 3: just pulled up on her. I didn't tell her I
Speaker 3: was coming. I first met her while I was researching
Speaker 3: my book, and it was like a cute little spot.
Speaker 3: People was in there, like buying books and stuff. Like
Speaker 3: it's on this street that's like it used to be
Speaker 3: like a bustling downtown in Jackson, but now it's like
Speaker 3: pretty much abandoned, with like a couple of businesses still open,
Speaker 3: but they've been in the same spot since nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 3: And yeah, So I pulled up on her, and you know,
Speaker 3: I told her who I was, and she was like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, and we were talking about the book and stuff,
Speaker 3: and then you know, we was headed out because we
Speaker 3: about to go back to Atlanta, and she said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to Montgomery later on. And I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: there's like a book there or something. She was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I'm celebrating the one year anniversary
Speaker 3: of the Montgomery Brawl. No, Katie, No, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: She's like, yeah, a group of us are going to
Speaker 3: commemorate the brawl. I was like, you play all day,
Speaker 3: but y'all have fun.
Speaker 2: They probably have matchave shirts. It was I hope they do.
Speaker 3: I hope they have a shirt with like a silhouette
Speaker 3: of that man with the holding chair. I sure do,
Speaker 3: and I would purchase one. It's a historical moment.
Speaker 2: We're gonna that's our next episode. Actually, stay tuned everyone,
Speaker 2: and we.
Speaker 3: Will see you next week. Bye.
Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
Speaker 1: It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us
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