WEBVTT - Rediscovering THE Pauline Hopkins 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:07.840 On theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:14.000 You are as possible, and. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.960 The iron heel of oppression is everywhere. It has reached 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.959 every section of this country, and every black citizen has 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.160 a duty to perform. Cultured men and women of color 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.240 and convention assembled sit in silence while one side of 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:46.120 this burning question is discussed, the white side, and we 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.479 are solemnly impressed with the magnitude of our wickedness and 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.440 hopeless depravity by partisan white and colored speakers. It has 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.840 reached the past where the educated black will handle any 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:00.960 subject in his assemblies. But Politics South and its friends 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.560 have said, not a word of complaint, no talk of lynching, 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.200 not an offensive word, or it will go hard with you, 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:10.920 and the race leaders have bowed to that decree an 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:13.560 abject submission. What are we going to do about it? 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:15.960 Stick to principle? 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:18.080 Katie? 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:19.959 Do you have a guest as to when that quote 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:21.120 I just read was written? 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.039 Based on the subject matter, it could have been written 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.000 today based on how it's written, I can tell you 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.080 know what is not an Instagram. 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:32.600 Post fair very fair well. 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.240 It was self published in nineteen oh five, but definitely 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.399 the subtitle of the pamphlet that this quote comes from 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:43.040 is super long, but in short, it's titled A Primer 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.960 of Facts. This part and other parts of that study 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.600 feel like they could have been plucked from the present 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.720 and is by our Woman of the Hour, I'm Katie 0:01:54.960 --> 0:02:00.960 and I'm Eves today's episode Rediscovering the Pauline Hopkins. Katie, 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:05.280 I love stories about black writers whose legacies were buried 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:08.440 by time and then unearthed by dedicated scholars. 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.320 You know I do too. There's so much promise and 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.560 possibility in the fact that there have been and will 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.120 be more Black writers whose work will be given new life. 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:19.440 And we are better for it. 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.520 We're also fortunate because a lot of the time that 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.679 work is lost, and a lot of Pauline Hopkins's work 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:30.760 and words survive. But sadly, Pauline died tragically after being 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:33.880 injured in a fire. But she was seventy one when 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.600 she died, so she got to live a life that 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:41.160 was pretty full of artistic exploration. She acted, sang, and 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.400 she wrote plays, short stories and novels. She was also 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.880 an editor for the Colored American Magazine, which was, by 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:55.120 its own definition and illustrated monthly devoted to literature science, music, art, religion, facts, fiction, 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:56.520 and traditions of. 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.560 The Negro race. It's a lot earth everything. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.160 And she wrote biographical sketches of famous Black people in 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.200 the magazine, and she helped build its connections to Payan 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.799 African intellectuals and its interest in global issues. 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.760 And she published some short stories and serialized her novels 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:13.399 in the magazine. 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:17.240 Right, yeah, she did plenty of them. Her novels Hagard's Daughter, 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:21.320 a story of Southern cast prejudiced and Winona, a tale 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.440 of Negro life in the South and Southwest, and lastly 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.840 of One Blood or the Hidden Self were all serialized 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.720 in the magazine. And if you can't tell what type 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:32.840 of time she was on by the quote from earlier 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.960 or the titles of her novels, Pauline's fiction was about 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.840 the struggles that Black Americans had to go through because 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.040 of our race. They were about slavery and reconstruction and 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.720 division between the North and the South, and they were 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.920 about understanding the pain and horror of our past to 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.720 move forward as a race and as a country. 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.440 Pauline was clearly prolific and a woman of many gifts. 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:56.920 Would you say her work put her squarely in the 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:58.400 camp of literary pioneers. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:00.640 Yeah, I think so. She did her fair share of 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.840 trailblazing when she was in her twenties. In the eighteen seventies, 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.280 she became the first Black woman to write and star 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.520 in her own dramatic work, a musical play called Slave's 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.000 Escape or the Underground Railroad. The play was later retitled 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:17.440 Peculiar Sam. Her book Contending Forces, a romance illustrative of 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.560 Negro life North and South, was published in October of 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.599 nineteen hundred and it was the first twentieth century novel 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.520 by a Black American woman. Pauline constantly connected romance and 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.279 politics in her fiction. As Lois Brown says in her 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.120 two thousand and eight book Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, Black Daughter 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:37.560 of the Revolution, Pauline quote used sentimental romance to advance 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.040 her campaign for racial justice, and the Colored American has 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.000 its own fascinating history. It was one of the first, 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.960 if not the first, magazine devoted to Black American arts, literature, 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.960 and culture in the United States, and Pauline was the 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.960 only woman on staff when it launched. And then Take 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.360 Hagar's Daughter, which was published serially from nineteen oh one 0:04:57.440 --> 0:04:59.520 to nineteen oh two. It made her the first known 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.000 Blackmai woman to publish a work of detective fiction. It 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.280 also made her the creator of the first known Black 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:10.839 American female detective. All of Pauline's fiction, nonfiction, and editorial 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.360 work with the magazine helped grow her status and recognition 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.760 in black literary and activist circles. Her work did get 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:29.599 some criticism, though more on that After the Break, some 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.960 people considered Pauline an agitator. They were critical of the 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:38.080 candidness with which she talked about taboo subjects like sexual violence, 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.640 of her frank condemnation of practices like lynching and imperialism, 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.080 her clarity in linking issues of race with issues of class, 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.680 and her refusal to mince words in her expression. There 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.520 were folks who were not a fan of how defiant 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.279 and outspoken she was in her mission to uplift the race, 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.479 and on the other side of the coin, some of 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:01.120 our faith eves flamed her. 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.040 We love to see some hate, don't we? 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:10.599 Poet Gwendolyn Brooks, Okay, she has some choice words about 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.520 Pauline and the afterward. To the nineteen seventy eight reprint 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:19.160 of Contending Forces, Brooks says this often doth the brainwashed 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.240 slave revere the modes and idolatries of the master, and 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:29.320 Pauline Hopkins consistently proves herself a continuing slave despite little 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.560 bursts of righteous heat throughout Contending Forces. 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:33.920 Oh my gosh, she ate her. 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:37.760 It really is to call someone. 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:39.120 A slave, continuing slave. 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:43.000 They weren't that far away from times of slavery either. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.599 Wait what what I'm trying to think? What year was that? 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:48.240 Did she write continu. 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.600 Oh no, this this, she didn't write. Contending Forces came 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:53.360 out in the early nineteen hundreds. 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:56.120 And then this was a reprint. Yes, this is an 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.479 afterward to their reprint. Because Pauline Hopkins herself when she 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.799 was alive, wasn't it wasn't that far away? She wrote 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:03.360 in afterwards of her. 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.680 Book, isn't that Yes, says that, yes, that's crazy, that 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:08.599 it's shady. 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.000 But it feels like it's a backwards compliment in a way, 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.600 because well, no, it's not a backwards compliment. I meant 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.520 that the other way around. It's a criticism first, and 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:20.240 then she tries to tackle on a little bit of 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.239 the compliment where at the end, where she says, despite 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:30.120 little bursts of righteous heat, girl, it's shady though, you 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:32.680 know it's shady. 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:35.320 No, somebody did that to me, I literally writes out 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:35.800 of my grave. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:37.320 Yeah, well, let. 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:39.280 It be known to all people who have plans of 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.760 flaming Katie in the future after her books come out. 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.320 No, because whoever is in charge of her estate was 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:45.960 like they approve that. 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.160 Yeah, to be fair, I don't know who's or has 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.480 been in charge of her estate, so I'm not sure 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.560 how tight they were about like making sure that everything 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:54.920 goes out is buttoned. 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:56.679 Up clearly, not at all? 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.600 Right, And sometimes Pauline did use a pen name so 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:03.840 she didn't have to catch all of that heat. Two 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.960 pseudonyms she used repeatedly were Sarah A. Allen, her mother's name, 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:12.240 and Jay Shirley Shadrag Shadrag Menkins was the name of 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.960 a man who escaped slavery, was captured under the Fugitive 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.720 Slave Law, and was later freed by black folks. His 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.000 story was a well known one in Boston, and Hopkins 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.720 once wrote about him in a profile of abolitionist Lewis Hayden. 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.640 In cases where she wrote about touchy subjects like interracial marriage, 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:34.720 Theodore Roosevelt's presidency, and the moral ills of white society. 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.400 She chose to use one of her pen names, but 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.600 it wasn't always about dodging the ire of benefactors and 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:45.199 people who had more conventional opinions. Sometimes using a pseudonym 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.320 meant that she could squeeze more of her work into one. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.320 Issue of The Colored American. Why are you laughing? 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:56.760 I love a innovative queen. She's practical, right, she was like, Yes, 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:02.160 Sarah A. Allen wrote this, Jare she's drag and probably Hopkins. 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.400 Yeah, all three different women. I know. I do love that. 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.040 I think that that wasn't an uncommon thing to do 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.679 at the time, you know, But I think it's funny because. 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:14.440 It allowed her to write more. 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:16.400 But it also makes me wonder, like, were there not 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:19.839 other people that could write for the magazine, that could 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:21.760 like have stuff that would be good as well to 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:22.480 be placed in it. 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.920 They're definitely worried, but it's probably much harder to get 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.280 to people in the early nineteen hundreds. I imagine even 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.760 the literacy rate was probably very low. 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:32.960 Yeah, that's fair. 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:35.160 So she did what she had to do. She put 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:36.400 the whole magazine on her back. 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.839 Indeed, and in general, pen names were common in the 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.880 early nineteen hundreds, so they were often used in the 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:47.040 Colored American even by people outside of Pauline, and in 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.720 other black publications as well. Authors would hide behind different 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:55.319 identities if they had recognizable names, were divulging personal information 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.199 in their writing, or if they wanted to fill out 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.440 the response to their writing before publishing their own name 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:01.880 on it. 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.240 That's fair too, you know. I feel like I wish 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:07.640 we had the leeway to do stuff like this. What 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:08.560 you mean you think so? 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.120 Yeah, I guess so, because you can really publish anywhere 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.679 and self published so easily these days. They'll find out 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:15.960 who it was, though, the people. 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.640 Will you know that book Autobiography of ex color Man. Yeah, 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.400 so James wald and Johnson wrote it, but he made 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.120 it like it was a true autobiography when it's really 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:29.760 a novel and was like, oh yeah, like I didn't 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:35.880 write that it was this man's story. But of course 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.240 people found him out. But I like people were just 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.079 like just silly, goofy mood. 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:42.240 Good. 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.080 Yeah, like this is performance art as well. 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:45.560 Yeah. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.800 The thing about Pauline's work, though, is that it was 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:54.240 sometimes fun and fantastical. There was romance, science fiction, mystery, 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.559 and supernatural elements. Of One Blood, for instance, has been 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.840 called an afro futurist novel. It's about a midst race 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:05.320 medical student who travels to a magically hidden city in 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:12.720 northeastern Africa. It's got ghosts, secret treasures, racial passing, murder, revenge, 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.560 and incest. Now, it wouldn't be seen as that risk 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.400 a by modern standards, but I mean on paper, it's 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.800 sounding like a fantasy drama that any of the major TV. 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:23.800 Networks would compete for. 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.359 Pauline left behind a lot of evidence of her ideology 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.640 and working life, and a lot less about her personal life. 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:32.560 And unfortunately, her. 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:36.000 Story follows the trajectory that a lot of nineteenth and 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:40.640 twentieth century Black intellectuals do. Researchers and historians have pieced 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.439 together the chronology of her life over the last several decades, 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.000 bringing it back to light after it fell into the 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:48.760 shadows of literary history. 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:51.760 This is why I love digging through the archives. There's 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.640 so much treasure in there, so many hidden stories that 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.040 we should be documenting, repeating and cherity. 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.640 And some of the good folks who did that were 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:04.079 folks like doctor Claudia Tate, doctor Mary Helen Washington, and 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:08.160 Fisk University, a librarian and scholar, and Alan Shockley. She 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.840 wrote the nineteen seventy two essay Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, a 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:17.559 biographical Excursion into Obscurity. Now there are a ton of essays, articles, 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:21.840 and other scholarship on Pauline's life. Pauline's book Contending Forces 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.440 was reprinted in nineteen seventy eight as part of the 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.720 Southern Illinois University Presses Lost American Fiction Series, and in 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.960 nineteen eighty eight her writing was included in an Oxford 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.920 University Press in Schoenberg Library series on nineteenth century Black 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.440 women Writers that was edited by Henry Lewis Gates Junior. 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.199 And then there is the Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins Society, which 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:47.400 celebrates her life, work and legacy through publications, conferences, and 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:48.680 programs that they put together. 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:49.600 And on top of. 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.360 All that, her novels of One Blood and Haygard's Daughter 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.760 were reissued in twenty twenty. Pauline worked on a couple 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:58.720 of issues of a new black publication called New Era 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:02.520 Magazine in nineteen six, but that magazine went busted pretty quickly, 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.079 and information about her life and work after that year 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.080 is available, but it's not as robust as it is 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.520 for prior years. You'd be excited to know, though Katie 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.439 as a lover of hating and all things contentious, that 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:17.760 there is a potential beef in her story. 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:19.600 Ooh, let's get into it. 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.040 I got you after the break. 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.880 So, as you know, Katie, black folks had different ideas 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:37.680 about what black people needed to do to progress in 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.320 the US, and Pauline was about denouncing white folks for 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.600 anti black violence and demanding rights, especially voting rights. Do 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.319 you remember that pamphlet I quoted a primer of facts. Well, 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.520 its last sentence is never give up the ballot. So yeah, 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.440 she wasn't really about being conciliatory and conservative. Her writing 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.720 in the Colored American magazine was often anti c coommodationist. 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.439 It's what we may call today hot takes that could 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.160 upset the whites because a significant chunk of their readership 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.240 was white. But as the magazine went through financial struggles 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.040 and leadership changes, Pauline was asked to tone it down. 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:17.920 Pauline said this in a nineteen oh five letter to 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:22.120 William Monroe Trotter, the editor of The Boston Guardian. He 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.240 told me there must not be a word on lynching, 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.280 no mention of our wrongs as a race, nothing that 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.160 would be offensive to the South. The he she was 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:34.040 referring to was John Freund, the magazine's white patron, who 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.560 wanted to silence the progressive civil rights sentiments that Hopkins 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:38.760 championed in the magazine. 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.000 Sounds familiar. It's a lot like the patron in Zorn 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.600 neil Herson's story some drama that we talked about in 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.520 our previous episode, which twenty of y'all want beef. But 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.800 with this guy, I'm struck because, like magazines are more 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.720 non fiction based, and so he's literally trying to like 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.240 take out a big part of history, like no talk 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:02.120 on lynching. Yeah, well heart lichings are happening, so you 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.640 just want that removed from the historical record. 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:05.200 Right. 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:10.080 It's like this magazine is about art, religion, everything that's 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.440 happening with black people, and that is included, whether or 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:13.200 not you like it. 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:15.320 Yeah, and that's a big part of what's going on. 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:17.680 Yeah, and the people are not fooled by this. It 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:19.960 also seems like a herculean task. The people who are 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.080 reading this magazine were already used to the kind of 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.000 work they were putting out, which means they already wrote 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:26.880 a certain way. 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.480 And they're aware of what's going on. Yeah, you get 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:30.360 trick this right. 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.680 They were tinting their fingers like like, hmmm, I have 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:35.280 an idea. 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:36.960 Yeah, it's quite silly. 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:37.840 Yes it was. 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.880 So it's not exactly a beef because she doesn't call 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.520 out Booker T. Washington by name or even confront him 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.520 face to face or letter to letter, but in her 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.600 work she indirectly and directly challenged his approach to racial progress, 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:57.760 which called for self help and vocational education while denouncing agitation. 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.880 With help from Booker T. Washington, Fred R. Moore purchased 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.960 the Colored American magazine in nineteen oh four, and the 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.440 content took a turn toward business. 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:08.960 Rather than literature and culture. 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.600 So basically it worked and the magazine became way less 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:17.080 politically risky. Within months of Washington taking over, Pauline was 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:21.400 forced out under circumstances that scholars have since speculated about. 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.080 An announcement in the November nineteen oh four issue said 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.360 that Pauline quit the magazine because of ill health and 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.880 moved back home to Boston, but the announcement was definitely 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.880 giving pr statement. Here's how they ended it. Miss Hopkins 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.240 was a faithful and conscientious worker and did much toward 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.440 the building up the magazine. We take this means of 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.880 expressing our appreciation of her services and wished for her 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.200 a speedy return to complete health. W. E. B. Du 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.080 Bois had an essay called The Colored Magazine in America 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.240 in the November nineteen twelve issue of The Crisis. In it, 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:57.720 he said that folks at the magazine told her she 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.960 wasn't conciliatory enough. Some scholars say it was a necessary 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.080 dismissal as the magazine's content changed, But anyway it goes, 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.320 Pauline definitely didn't put Washington on a pedestal, and she 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.160 made that known. And I have to say that I'm 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:17.360 cackling because, by all accounts, once the magazine got less radical, 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.760 it also got dry and started tumbling downhill. 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:25.480 Yeah, I can see that if you have this platform 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.479 where you expouse these values, and just because one person 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.680 becomes involved and they just want to put all their 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.879 like conservative values, like make your own magazine. There's other 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.240 conservative people who probably want to hear what you're saying, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.200 but not these people who are used to a different politic. 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:44.479 So I feel like conservatives do that a lot. They 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.520 co opt radical things like we have Black lives matter, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.960 then they want to have blue lives matter. You know, 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.600 people who are for reproductive justice say like my body, 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.000 my choice, and then people who are very anti reproductive 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.000 justice but like don't want to take a COVID vaccine 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.280 or like my body my chol like maybe get your 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.520 own phrase. Black people will say say her name, and 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:07.119 then white people want to say say her name like 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:08.600 no original. 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.000 Thought, no, not at all. 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.840 It's like, hm, why is that? Why can't they think? 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.920 But it's like, you have your views, so why don't 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.160 you just talk about your views in your original way? 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.199 But I think what it is is like conservatives and 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.080 not really saying this about Booker T. Washington in particular, 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.760 but I think conservatives are always like in opposition to 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:35.280 your like freedom and autonomy and your liberation. So anything 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.720 in the opposition of that they're they're down for, like 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.119 we found your doory six my favorite topic they do. 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.360 They don't really like the police, y'all killed the police. 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.280 Letting the dad killed the police, then it would have 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.639 been blue lives matter. But you mad about something, so 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.760 you get the American flag and start stabbing the police 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:55.280 with it. So it's like you don't really care, You're 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:57.160 just you just don't like black people. You just don't 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.960 like black people's freedom, you don't like black people being 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.399 into literature and science and culture, and so you just 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:04.000 want to take it. I feel like that's the through 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:05.960 line with like a lot of the conservatives like co 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.000 opting like radical or like war leftists talking points. 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.200 Yeah, it's more about the snatching away of the thing 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:14.560 than them having a point to prove on their own. 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.399 I mean that's how it's always been. It's like we 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:21.400 take your family, we take all your cultural touch points, 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:23.359 we take your language. 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:27.040 Yeah, and like water it down and then are like 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.320 confused why it's not hitting the same. 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.399 Yeah, Like you should have foresaw this. 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.359 Alas, and there are many more pieces to Pauline's puzzle 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.479 that have yet to be found, but the rediscovery of 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.800 her legacy is an ongoing labor of love, and there 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.520 are still plenty of people on the job. And like 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.160 I said earlier, the thing that I love about Pauline 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.480 Hopkins is that so much of what she had to 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.840 say rings true today. Take this other quote from a 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.840 primer of facts. The propaganda of silence is in full force. 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:02.119 Newspapers and magazines have been subsidized or destroyed. If the 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:06.840 editors fearlessly advocated the cause of humanity, every leading intellect 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:11.920 has been intimidated. While per contrary, a horde of Southern writers, speakers, 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.120 and politicians are allowed to fill the air with their 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:20.040 doleful clamor against a proscribed race without a protest. Agitation 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.639 by the black is rigidly barred, but the Southern white 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:26.600 is allowed the front of the stage in presenting his 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:30.080 grievances to a sympathetic public. Now that could have been 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:31.440 in today exactly. 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.800 Yeah, it feels so precient because she's talking about media too, 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.240 and media has changed a lot from her time, But 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.680 the same exact thing is still happening. Yes, the same censorship, 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:46.639 trusted sources are still disappearing. Then there's just an attack 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:50.679 in general on journalism. I mean, speaking of conservatives so 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.680 frequently say journalism doesn't mean anything today because they don't 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:59.640 like it. So I really appreciate that about Pauline's work. 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.120 Like we've talked about before, it's unfortunate that we're still 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:05.520 going through the same things and talking about the same things. 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:07.600 But I like how much of a balance. 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.760 It feels like it is in Pauline's work and her 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.600 editorial work, and also in her novels and how they 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:19.679 were still so fanciful and so imaginative and people were 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.120 there was time traveling, there were different kinds of worlds, 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:25.040 you know, and at the same time she was dealing 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:29.520 with issues of race. And yeah, I think that people 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:32.920 should check out some of her novels and her essays 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:35.520 and her short stories too if they get a chance, 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.600 because a lot of the Colored American Magazine is online 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:40.800 for you to be able to read her work and 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.800 just get an understanding of like how she thought. 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:46.640 And they can read Sarah A. Allen's work as well. 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:49.119