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Speaker 1: Well, joining me now is a journalist and historian, Caleb Gaiale.

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Speaker 1: Caleb specializes, if you will, He's written for all sorts

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Speaker 1: of major news organizations, but in many ways he specializes

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Speaker 1: in what I would call hidden history, undiscovered history, or

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Speaker 1: underwritten I think discovers the wrong word there, underwritten history.

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Speaker 1: And as you know, we love that here at the Toodcast.

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Speaker 1: The most recent book he's got is called Black Moses

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Speaker 1: Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State.

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Speaker 1: Caleb is from Oklahoma, spends a lot of time talking

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Speaker 1: about essentially buried history, particularly among African Americans in the

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Speaker 1: state of Oklahoma. And this book is about how what

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Speaker 1: is now Oklahoma? What this what the character in this book,

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Speaker 1: Black Moses, wanted to create essentially a black state. And

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Speaker 1: so Caleb joins me now, Caleb, nice to meet you.

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Speaker 2: Nice to meet you as well. Shock.

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Speaker 1: Look, I think this is this is why you know,

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Speaker 1: I always call myself a history junkie, not a political junkie.

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Speaker 1: I refer to myself more as a political anthropologist these

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Speaker 1: days than a political analyst, because I do think it's

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Speaker 1: sort of when you do you look at it like

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Speaker 1: an anthropologist, you can sometimes understand different tribes, right, so

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Speaker 1: we're going to call it different political tribes, ideological tribes.

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Speaker 1: But this is a fascinating story, and I look, I'd

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Speaker 1: love to know more about it. But let me start

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Speaker 1: with what got you into essentially becoming a history writer,

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Speaker 1: a history biographer of sorts?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of journalists

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Speaker 2: probably should learn a lot from anthropologists about how to

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Speaker 2: do work right, how.

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Speaker 1: To be observers right, what of our is to observe,

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Speaker 1: and an anthropologist that's what they do best.

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Speaker 2: Certainly, certainly, Yes, I mean, I think that my interest

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Speaker 2: in history really comes from my annoyance as a child.

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Speaker 2: I was always known as the kid who just wasn't

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Speaker 2: satisfied knowing that this is the way things are. I

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Speaker 2: had to kind of know how we got there. And

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Speaker 2: I think in part because I'm the son and grandson

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Speaker 2: of black pastors, there's always this tinge and inflection in

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Speaker 2: their voice as they kind of reflect on where we

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Speaker 2: have come and so as such are my brain is

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Speaker 2: just kind of hardwired, maybe even my heart spiritually, I

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Speaker 2: guess it's hardwired to kind of examine how we got

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Speaker 2: from point to point B. I'm not satisfied living at

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Speaker 2: point B without understanding Point A, and then growing up

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Speaker 2: in Oklahoma, your history is kind of stripped down to

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Speaker 2: the most hay geographic parts, right, the most jingoistic parts,

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Speaker 2: and so we could talk more about it. But I

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Speaker 2: had always felt like I was missing part of the

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Speaker 2: plot and being told to be satisfied with point B

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Speaker 2: as opposed to understanding how we got there.

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Speaker 1: Well, look, I feel like just in the last fifteen years,

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Speaker 1: you know, I continue to hear about stories, particularly about

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Speaker 1: African American communities in the South, and You're sitting there going,

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Speaker 1: why didn't we know more about this? Why wasn't I?

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Speaker 1: You know, I grew up in Florida. There's a there's

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Speaker 1: a in the in Oklahoma. There's the infamous Tulsa massacre

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Speaker 1: in Florida. There's axe Handel Sunday, which took place in Jacksonville.

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Speaker 1: And here was something like at an entire year in

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Speaker 1: middle school dedicated to Florida history. We talked about some

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Speaker 1: of the Native American true we talked about some of

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Speaker 1: the history of Florida being part of the Confederacy and

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Speaker 1: things like that. They didn't tell us about Acxandel Sunday, Right,

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Speaker 1: and and in the and I'm growing up a white child.

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Speaker 1: Right here you're a black child realizing I'm not being

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Speaker 1: told the full history. And now you're doing something about it,

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Speaker 1: which you know this is you know, we all learn

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Speaker 1: a little bit more, which then helps us, uh explain

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Speaker 1: you know this, The story of America is not a

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Speaker 1: straight line us as we all know. So let's dive

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Speaker 1: into Black Moses. When did you discover this story? Tell

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Speaker 1: me tell me your discovery of this story and then

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Speaker 1: and then how you dug into it.

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Speaker 2: So I initially heard of Edward McCabe years and years

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Speaker 2: ago where I was once undergrad University Oklahoma, and before

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Speaker 2: I kind of jetted off to like not return to

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Speaker 2: Oklahoma ever again initially, as was the whole with every

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Speaker 2: kid growing up in Oklahoma. I remember going to Langston, Oklahoma,

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Speaker 2: which is the town that he founded, but it's also

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Speaker 2: home to Langston University, the for this west HBCU in

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Speaker 2: the country, and there aren't many hotels there even though

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Speaker 2: we were there for a sense of their party. We

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Speaker 2: went to Guphery, Oklahoma, which is right and next to it,

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Speaker 2: and there's this large sign in the middle of main

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Speaker 2: street that says Edward P. McCabe. And as I read

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Speaker 2: it and kind of this this pixotic vision of a

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Speaker 2: black state in the United States of America, I kind

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Speaker 2: of just assumed that man McCabe must have been a

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Speaker 2: very well meaning irishman because of his last name, and

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Speaker 2: kind of dismissed it. But I had grown up when

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Speaker 2: we moved to Oklahoma from New York, where I was born.

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Speaker 2: We moved there, I distinctly remember, again my dissatisfaction was

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Speaker 2: just living in the present Governorerson, and how we got here,

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Speaker 2: I really thinkly remember we went to this place called Walmart.

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Speaker 2: We had never been there before growing up in the Bronx,

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Speaker 2: and I just remember a family of black folks on

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Speaker 2: horseback who then pulled up to the Walmart on their horses,

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Speaker 2: tied it to the rail outside, did their shopping, got

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Speaker 2: back on their horses, and left. And it felt to

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Speaker 2: me that like, even though I wasn't hearing it in my.

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Speaker 1: Texas, sounds like a movie set, Like you're like right,

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Speaker 1: because you just don't see that, especially a kid coming

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Speaker 1: from from New York City right exactly.

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Speaker 2: And so to me it felt as if those those

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Speaker 2: moments in aggregate and there are many more of them

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Speaker 2: that I won't go into, felt as if they were

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Speaker 2: kind of haunting me, especially as I was becoming more

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Speaker 2: and more obsessed with history, that I had to figure

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Speaker 2: out a way. I knew that somehow they were in

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Speaker 2: some way connected. And then in doing my first book,

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Speaker 2: I realized that there were a bunch of black citizens

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Speaker 2: of these varied indigenous nations Cherokee Creek that were writing

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Speaker 2: these letters, these like letters about how amazing it was

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Speaker 2: to be black in Indian territory, and noticed that some

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Speaker 2: of the correspondents contained the same guy that I had

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Speaker 2: heard about nearly twenty years before, named Edward McCabe. And

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Speaker 2: suddenly it felt like, oh goodness, there's some connective tissue

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Speaker 2: between these varied experiences, like the facts that in Oklahoma,

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Speaker 2: if you want to go to a real rodeo, you

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Speaker 2: go to the black rodeo. If you want to see

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Speaker 2: what it's like to see people cow ranching, well you

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Speaker 2: go to places like Taft and other places where black

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Speaker 2: people have been honing these sorts of cultural totems for

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Speaker 2: so very long. And so that's when I was like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: there's a connection here. But then when I actually dug

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Speaker 2: into who this Edward McCabe guy was, and found out

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Speaker 2: that he was a polarizing, relatively narcissistic dreamer. Who doesn't

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Speaker 2: want a book about someone who was controversial. You want

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Speaker 2: a controversial figure who said a lot of things that

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Speaker 2: angered and pissed off a lot of people, but then

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Speaker 2: also still harbored this dream that felt quintessentially American, which

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Speaker 2: is to find a place to belong. Right, That's when

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Speaker 2: I became an obsessive for five years until you have

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Speaker 2: what you have.

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Speaker 3: In front of you, which is the book right before

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Speaker 3: we get to McKay trace the the origins of the

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Speaker 3: of black communities in Oklahoma and the relationship with various tribes.

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Speaker 1: You know, you throughout time you'd hear stories that they

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Speaker 1: were sort of almost like, well, the the white man's

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Speaker 1: the enemy of these Native American tribes, and so there

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Speaker 1: is in some ways shared you know, the enemy of

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Speaker 1: my enemy is my friend type of mindset. Is that

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Speaker 1: how you would describe the sort of the initial sort

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Speaker 1: of acceptance of black of blacks with the Native American

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Speaker 1: tribes of Oklahoma.

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Speaker 2: That that's a great question to answer it as discincly

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Speaker 2: as I can, angidbo this phenomenal historian who lived many

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Speaker 2: many moons ago wrote about discovered some of the initial

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Speaker 2: work of what was known as the Cousta tribe, which

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Speaker 2: was around your parts of the country in Florida, who

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Speaker 2: interacted with a bunch of Spanish explorers who also had

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Speaker 2: a lot of black slaves. Those black slaves escaped and

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Speaker 2: those Cusa adopted them into their nation. Those Custa eventually

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Speaker 2: then became federated within what we now considered the Creek Nation,

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Speaker 2: one of the largest indigest nations in the country. But

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Speaker 2: the reality is is that when we look at, for instance,

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Speaker 2: like Betrayal of Tears, a sizeable percentage sometimes people range

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Speaker 2: that anywhere between roughly ten to twelve percent up to

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Speaker 2: like twenty five percent of the people who were on

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Speaker 2: that trail of Indian removal to actually be people of

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Speaker 2: African descent, some of whom were adopted fully as citizens,

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Speaker 2: some of who have never been enslaves, some of whom

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Speaker 2: were slaves from these indigenous nations. But then also that

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Speaker 2: that also had something to do with that that wasn't

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Speaker 2: the only way black people became familiar with or migrated

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Speaker 2: to Oklahoma. Right A lot of times people were in

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Speaker 2: trance with the idea of going west, in part because

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Speaker 2: the situation post reconstruction in America had worsened so much

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Speaker 2: that a lot of black people escaped and often times

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Speaker 2: suddenly to Kansas. In part because Kansas was admitted as

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Speaker 2: a free state. You had the legacy of John Brown,

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Speaker 2: You had a significant Quaker movement that was actively organizing

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Speaker 2: for educating and employing black people. So there are myriad

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Speaker 2: ways in which black people became quite keen on settling

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Speaker 2: parts of the American West.

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Speaker 1: All right, So now bring me to mister McCabe. How

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Speaker 1: does he get to Oklahoma?

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Speaker 2: Sure? I mean, mister McCabe is very much unlike a

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Speaker 2: lot of the people that we just talked about, right,

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Speaker 2: never enslaved, highly educated, grew up while the Civil War

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Speaker 2: was raging, while Reconstruction was waxing and waning. He was

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Speaker 2: getting educated all over New England. He was working as

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Speaker 2: a clerk on Wall Street. He was working as a

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Speaker 2: clerk to people like Potter Palmer in Chicago, who, for

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Speaker 2: those of your Midwestern listeners will know who that is

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Speaker 2: because he was the hotel king of State Street. Launched

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Speaker 2: the careers of Marshall Fields, right, and those are the

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Speaker 2: people that mckabe was covorting with. But he realized in

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Speaker 2: all of those places that his ambition would be cat right,

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Speaker 2: his dreams would be limited, relegated to his station. And

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Speaker 2: so initially he goes to Kansas with his best friend

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Speaker 2: at Hall Junior. And when he gets to Kansas, he

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Speaker 2: doesn't go to the places that are hyper populated, to Peka,

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Speaker 2: so on and so forth. He goes really far west,

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Speaker 2: and having gone there on several occasions, I can tell

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Speaker 2: you it is really far west. It's in a place

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Speaker 2: called Nicodemus. And what quickly is initially a landing pad

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Speaker 2: becomes his launching pad for power. It quickly becomes state

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Speaker 2: auditor of Kansas, the very first black state elected official

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Speaker 2: in a state wide elected official in the Old West.

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Speaker 2: And from there we start to really see a guy

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Speaker 2: who's a political tactician.

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Speaker 1: Where are we on the calendar? Is this course?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Sorry, yeah, so no.

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Speaker 2: That makes a total sense. In the late eighteen seventies

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Speaker 2: early eighteen eighties.

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Speaker 1: Got it in which reconstruction is basically gone after the

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Speaker 1: seventy six deal, and there was definitely a lot of

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Speaker 1: tumults with exactly especially in the world of black elites

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Speaker 1: in the northern part of the country exactly.

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Speaker 2: And so what you see is is people pouring into

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Speaker 2: places like Kansas saying, you know, we've tried Lincoln, We've

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Speaker 2: tried and quite frankly, every man is his own Moses. Now,

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Speaker 2: every man is his own Moses. And into this void

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Speaker 2: steps people like McCabe, who isn't really offering necessarily these

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Speaker 2: like heroic, very intangible, esoteric visions of what Black America

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Speaker 2: can try for. He's much more of a hard nosed

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Speaker 2: political tactician, and he runs for office multiple times, wins

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Speaker 2: multiple times, and on his third opportunity, despite his sterling

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Speaker 2: record on account of racism, he fails. But people, a

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Speaker 2: lot of black people, but then also very powerful US

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Speaker 2: senators as we approached the mid eighteen eighties, started to

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Speaker 2: whisper in his ear that there might be an opportunity

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Speaker 2: for black people in Oklahoma, in the Oklahoma territory, and

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Speaker 2: they start pushing it. Kansas Republicans get behind him, quite

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Speaker 2: a few other Republicans around the country get behind him.

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Speaker 2: And that's when as Oklahoma's becoming opened again through some

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Speaker 2: really awful activities on behalf of the United's government, towards

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Speaker 2: indigenous nations. That's the precise opportunity that a lot of

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Speaker 2: folks start to whisper and then yell loudly in the

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Speaker 2: cave's ear that this is our chance. If you can

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Speaker 2: just get enough black people to get to this state,

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Speaker 2: you'll be an undeniable force where you too can become

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Speaker 2: the governor of the very first black state in the Union.

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Speaker 2: And that's the argument he makes even to President Benjamin Harrison. Well,

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Speaker 2: that's interesting ambition.

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Speaker 1: So what you know is, I guess Step one is

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Speaker 1: trying to get the word out to convince black Americans

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Speaker 1: to come to Oklahoma. How does he do it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, again, it's always good to have a main subject

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Speaker 2: or character who is really narcissistic and knows no bounds

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Speaker 2: to his own ambition. So he moves. There's one. He

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Speaker 2: starts up his own newspaper. He starts to leverage these immigrations.

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Speaker 1: Where is he in Oklahoma? Where is he specifically? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean at this point, he goes

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Speaker 2: to a place that's roughly about fifteen miles roughly outside of.

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma City, ok to.

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Speaker 2: A place called Guthrie. And from Guthrie he goes just

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Speaker 2: to touch north to Langston, Oklahoma, and then he at

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Speaker 2: that point it's not Lengthston, It's just a place, and

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Speaker 2: he names it Langston after people. He admires John Mercer

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Speaker 2: Langston and begins to name all the streets after the

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Speaker 2: first US Senator to become first black US Senator to

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Speaker 2: serve a full turn off for being elected, Lanche Bruce.

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Speaker 2: He starts to kind of sell his wares before anything

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Speaker 2: is built, says that there's going to be a university.

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Speaker 2: He says that the Waldorf family has given him twenty

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Speaker 2: five thousand dollars to start a university. He says, we're

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Speaker 2: going to be schools. There are no schools yet, but

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Speaker 2: he also fans out.

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Speaker 1: It's like the music Man a little bit, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to build it. You know, here we go.

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Speaker 2: Here in River City, right, and he and the thing is,

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Speaker 2: though he kind of doesn't just evince, but kind of

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Speaker 2: puts into practice the build and they will come right.

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Speaker 2: And they did right. And he founds more towns and

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Speaker 2: more settlements and other larger white towns that were more

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Speaker 2: menable to having black people there. And then he also

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Speaker 2: in fact gets appointed to become the treasurer and auditor

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Speaker 2: of this new territory as well. Right, so he's and

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Speaker 2: this is still a territory, it's not a state yet.

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Speaker 1: Correct.

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Speaker 2: In fact, there are two territories at the time, right,

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Speaker 2: Indian Territory to the east and the Oklahoma Territory to

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Speaker 2: the west. And he's making his pitch because he knew,

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Speaker 2: like others knew that the United States government it was

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Speaker 2: inevitable that they would combine the two into a large state.

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Speaker 2: And he thought you could just get enough black people

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Speaker 2: with two thousand agents that he dispatches throughout the American

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Speaker 2: South and North, that perhaps he can make the bid,

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Speaker 2: especially because people like Benjamin Harrison didn't give him the

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Speaker 2: ultimate green light that this would be his state.

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Speaker 1: So so then what happened? I guess, I know, hate

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Speaker 1: to just make it a simple question. So he's got

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Speaker 1: this ambition, he's got this dream. Let's start with Benjamin Harrison.

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Speaker 1: It's politically in his interests, it's in the interests of

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Speaker 1: the of the Republican Party of that time to make

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Speaker 1: this happen. So what's the hesitation?

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Speaker 2: So many hesitations. The reality isn't to your point for

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Speaker 2: the listeners. I mean, there had been long standing efforts

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Speaker 2: to try and figure out how to deal with this

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Speaker 2: quote unquote Negro problem. Right, And as you'll see in

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Speaker 2: the book for those of you who pick it up,

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Speaker 2: it's you'll go to Haiti, You'll go to Liberity, you

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Speaker 2: go to Columbia, you go to southern Texas and Mexico,

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Speaker 2: all in the effort to try and figure out a place.

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Speaker 2: So McKay theoretically should have been able to say, well,

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Speaker 2: let me do this. But the reality is is that

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Speaker 2: he was the wrong person to be asking let me

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Speaker 2: do this.

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Speaker 1: I would possibly wize, right, okay, what made him the

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Speaker 1: wrong person? Did he just not have? Well, you tell

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Speaker 1: me what made him the wrong person?

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Speaker 2: Sure? I mean one, I think he was black. That's

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Speaker 2: one strike against him, and not to be reductive, but

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Speaker 2: there had been many other attempts, and not successful ones,

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Speaker 2: but ones in which people were able to convince even

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Speaker 2: our most vaunted president, right Abraham Lincoln, to write a

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Speaker 2: pre massive check to send a bunch of black people

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Speaker 2: to hate. But that was under the leadership of a

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Speaker 2: white guy.

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Speaker 1: Two.

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Speaker 2: Not only was it because he was black, it was

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Speaker 2: also because he also wanted to dictate the terms under

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Speaker 2: which this would happen.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: Three, There were a lot of other competing interests. I

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Speaker 2: think this is what makes it resonance to today, is

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Speaker 2: that Oklahoma might be seen as this place where dreams

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Speaker 2: go to die, it's really where dreams go to collide.

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Speaker 2: There are a lot of poor white immigrants who were

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Speaker 2: being told the same thing that black people were being told,

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Speaker 2: the same thing that others were being told rich people

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Speaker 2: as well, that this could be the place for you

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Speaker 2: to belong. You might have belonged anywhere else, but here's

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Speaker 2: the place. And so there were massive efforts to also

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Speaker 2: paint in the Cave as a Negro supremacist, as a

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Speaker 2: scary boogeyman that might be as anti.

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Speaker 1: White, that it was more than just creating. Was there

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Speaker 1: evidence that he was, you know?

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Speaker 2: And to that end, Dright, he didn't help himself. Right again,

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Speaker 2: you want a guy who's really controversial. So he would

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Speaker 2: say things like I would like for this place to

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Speaker 2: be a place where white people are tolerated at a minimum.

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Speaker 2: He would say things like we will have Negro state officers,

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Speaker 2: Negro senators, Negro congressmen, Negro teachers, Negro lawyers, docts. He

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Speaker 2: would kind of list all of those places, all those people,

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Speaker 2: but he would do so yes in many cases at

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Speaker 2: the seeming exclusion.

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Speaker 1: Of white people.

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Speaker 2: And he thought that this quote unquote colonization scheme, the

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Speaker 2: Negro colonization scheme of Oklahoma, would be one that would

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Speaker 2: be enticing to white people who wanted to dispatch with

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Speaker 2: the black people that they had. But in actuality he

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Speaker 2: fed into some of the prior beliefs that he might

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Speaker 2: be anti white, when in actual you can't find too much.

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Speaker 1: There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like

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Speaker 1: there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury

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Speaker 1: law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered

350
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Speaker 1: twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients.

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Speaker 1: It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing,

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Speaker 1: just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible.

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Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars,

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Speaker 1: which was a staggering forty times the amount that the

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Speaker 1: insurance company originally offered. That original offer six hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So with more than one thousand lawyers across

359
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Speaker 1: the country, they know how to deliver for every day people.

360
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361
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Speaker 1: to get your back. Check out for the People dot com,

362
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363
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364
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Speaker 1: are not the same. So check out Morgan and Morgan.

365
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Speaker 1: Their fee is free unless they win. What was the

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Speaker 1: role of the Creek Nation and all of this where

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Speaker 1: they allies with what he was doing. I'm leading you

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Speaker 1: into this because you I'm guessing your book about the

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Speaker 1: Creek Nation and how many members of African descent were

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Speaker 1: in it. I'm guessing these two stories collide in some way.

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Speaker 2: In many ways, you know, it wasn't just a Creek

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Speaker 2: nation with the Cherokee Nation and others had varying perspectives, right.

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Speaker 2: I think it's really always important to remember that these

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Speaker 2: were these aren't just racial categories, but these are nations.

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Speaker 2: These are people with autonomous governing structures, borders, territories, and

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Speaker 2: in many cases, in the case of the Cherokee Nation,

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Speaker 2: there's a really crystal clear incident among many others in

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Speaker 2: the book, where there are you know, armed standoffs in

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Speaker 2: the eastern portion of the Oklahoma territory, in the western

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Speaker 2: part of Indian Territory, where black people had been invited

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Speaker 2: by seemingly black Cherokee citizens to be a part of

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Speaker 2: Oklahoma in the evolving in the evolving kind of creation

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Speaker 2: of what was going to become Oklahoma, and that did

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Speaker 2: not it was not seems a welcome sign. You also

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Speaker 2: had contemporaries of his like Alex Posey and others who

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Speaker 2: were launching really nakedly racist attacks, not just on people

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Speaker 2: like McKay, but even at that time their own principal chief,

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Speaker 2: who was a darker skinned black man, I mean my

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Speaker 2: complexion for those who might see this on video, my

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Speaker 2: complexion named Legis Parriman, who himself was a dark skinned

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Speaker 2: black citizen and chief of the Creek Nation. So there

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Speaker 2: were a lot of competing factors where again that zero

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Speaker 2: sum politics we see today was very much at work.

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Speaker 1: Then is this basically like all right, everybody wanted control.

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Speaker 1: Everybody knows this is going to become a state, and

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Speaker 1: everybody wanted an old fashioned just fight for control. Right,

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Speaker 1: Whether you could look at it through racial lens, you

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Speaker 1: could look at it through just a power lens. Is

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Speaker 1: this better to be looked at through a power lens?

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Speaker 2: Certainly? And then all of those things that intersect with it, right, race,

401
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Speaker 2: you know, tribal affiliation and citizenship, money, economic power, most certainly,

402
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Speaker 2: all of that is interacting with who's going to be

403
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Speaker 2: in charge, who's going to have more power. Because at

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Speaker 2: the same time, these indigenous nations are also crafting their

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Speaker 2: own constitution called the Sequoia Constitution, which they hope would

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Speaker 2: be the invention of their own state called the Sequoia.

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Speaker 2: So at the same time there are a lot of

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Speaker 2: these groups just vying for not just I think, but

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Speaker 2: like a place that would be theirs.

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Speaker 1: So he he runs into this, I guess what would

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Speaker 1: you call it? A challenge for supremacy of the of

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Speaker 1: the geographic region?

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Speaker 2: I mean?

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Speaker 1: And so when does he give up? What makes him

415
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Speaker 1: give up? What makes him walk away?

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Speaker 2: There are so many things that make him give up

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Speaker 2: and go away. But the very first law that Oklahoma passes, right,

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Speaker 2: you can look at like the first laws that Texas passes, Kansas, Arkansas,

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Speaker 2: all these surrounding states, and they deal with some of

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Speaker 2: the perfunctory kind of things that would make one fall

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Speaker 2: asleep hearing about the details of right, because they're so

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Speaker 2: foundational to how any given place would work. Oklahoma was

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Speaker 2: very very first law is a jin Crow law. Right.

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Speaker 2: That's why I kind of write that Oklahoma, like much

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Speaker 2: of the American West, just becomes the American South and

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Speaker 2: in the worst way, right, And it's the very very

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Speaker 2: first law. And I mean in so do that plus

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Speaker 2: the moving of the territory's capital to the ascendants of

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Speaker 2: a lot of these members of the Oklahoma elite that

430
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Speaker 2: end up also becoming members of the KKK and Oklahoma

431
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Speaker 2: up to state leadership makes it abundantly clear, especially as

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Speaker 2: black people like his peers A. C. Hamlin aren't losing

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Speaker 2: seats in office, that this isn't going to work for McCabe,

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Speaker 2: And so he actually pours a lot of his last

435
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 2: dollars trying to fight that law, this Jim Crow law.

436
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 1: So are we in now the early twentieth centric because

437
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 1: Oklahoma State, just double check, so when they become a

438
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 1: when they become a state, what is McCabe's role in that?

439
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean his role is increasingly diminishing, essentially

440
00:25:56,600 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 2: just becoming an assistant auditor, a guy who's reading the

441
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:05,160
Speaker 2: minutes during kind of territorial congressional hearings. I mean, he's

442
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:10,159
Speaker 2: becoming just another dude with very very little power and

443
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 2: access to power.

444
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: So he makes this last stand. He doesn't. He basically

445
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: loses and realizes, not only is this not going to

446
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: be a place for a black state, it may not

447
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: be a place for black people.

448
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 2: That's definitely what he comes to the conclusion of and says, as.

449
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: Much, where does he go?

450
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 2: So initially he tries to go with one of his

451
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 2: old buddies to Canada for this pollenization scheme of a

452
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 2: portion of Canada, which is an incredibly short lived endeavor

453
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 2: and is a drastic failure on his part, and we

454
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 2: end up finding McCabe much.

455
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: Later on.

456
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 2: In Chicago, back to where he had some opportunities, of course,

457
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 2: where there's a sizeable black population and also where we

458
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 2: see kind of the increase of black population in Chicago

459
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 2: do the Great migration. But it's not as if he's

460
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,159
Speaker 2: high on the horse. He is barely holding on.

461
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: What happened to his benefact It seemed like he had

462
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: sub benefactors from the North. What happened to them.

463
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 2: So a lot of them, a good chunk of them,

464
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 2: as one can imagine, some of them were quite quite

465
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 2: fictional in terms of their ties to him, right, We

466
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 2: see that, especially with like.

467
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: The Wall Dwarfs. So you end up finding out some

468
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: of that basically, some of this was just salesmanship.

469
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 2: Exactly, a lot of you know, boosterism as one would

470
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 2: call it. But for him also a lot of his

471
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 2: benefactors sometimes end up, especially as he gets later on

472
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 2: in life lampoony, right, they ended up saying, maybe he

473
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 2: should have got some insurance, maybe he should have had

474
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,359
Speaker 2: a career that would have benefited him. Beyond this, some

475
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 2: of the people who were in Oklahoma, black people in

476
00:27:55,280 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 2: Oklahoma who chided his efforts before kind of in Asian

477
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 2: the game of I told you so. Now, a lot

478
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 2: of those US senator relationships and congressional relationships that he

479
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 2: had had to kind of move on with the game

480
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 2: of politicking. And McCabe didn't have a constituency that represented power.

481
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 2: So to your point earlier, if this is really a

482
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:18,919
Speaker 2: question of power, McCabe had lost a lot of his

483
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 2: power and asked such, she lost a lot of his

484
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 2: relevance even to some of his benefactors.

485
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 1: Let's I'm obsessed with alternative histories, meaning you know where

486
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: you you know, if if a fork in the road

487
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 1: had been taken differently, you know, how would the butterfly

488
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 1: flapped its wings? Have you given all the research you've done,

489
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: everything you've learned about this, about this time period, what

490
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:49,719
Speaker 1: you you know about American history as it is? What

491
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: if he had succeeded? What if Benjamin Harrison had concluded,

492
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 1: you know, it's good politics for the Republican Party. We

493
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 1: we need to do this. We're gonna we're going to

494
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: Oklahoma's going to be essentially a black state. We won't

495
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: call it a black state, but we're going to make

496
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: sure it starts with black leadership and all of this.

497
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: And it comes to fruition, where do we go? What

498
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: does that look like? What kind of impact does that have?

499
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 2: Sure, so I think a few things. One, it would

500
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 2: have concentrated a certain degree of power in one place. Right,

501
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 2: Let's just take this.

502
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: Probacreated wealth wealth more wealth creation too, for sure.

503
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 2: Right, especially if you think about the fact that Oklahoma

504
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 2: was just moments right away from running rich with black

505
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 2: goals right right, In fact, if they get the.

506
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: State in the late nineteenth century, and then all of

507
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: a sudden, those first like, hey, what is this stuff

508
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: that's exactly making my hands all dirty?

509
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 2: Oh exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly right. But do I think

510
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 2: the United States government would have kept its hands off

511
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 2: and said, oh, go with God, congratulations. I don't think so.

512
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 2: And I would imagine, you know, there's always I always

513
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 2: think about this political sciences Andrew Gillespie who talks about

514
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 2: the ways in which black people sometimes if they're in

515
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 2: congressional districts where it's almost predominantly black, right, what sort

516
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 2: of power do they then have at a national level

517
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 2: versus the diffusion of black the black population in variety

518
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 2: of areas. Would it force some of these other areas

519
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 2: to contend with a more and more diverse constitution.

520
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: We're having this debate today with redistricting. I mean, right,

521
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 1: this goes back and forth all the time. And you know,

522
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: in many ways, black political leaders are put in this

523
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: in this trap, if you will, right, and it is

524
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: a trap. And what's good for electing more black representatives

525
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: may not be good overall for black constituents.

526
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly. And I that's what we would have probably

527
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 2: seen in the case of Oklahoma. The only factor that

528
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 2: we'd have to two factors that have to consider is

529
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 2: that again there were long standing, recently disempowered and disenfranchised

530
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 2: indigenous nations that had many claims to the land. And

531
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 2: on top of that, that land would in just a

532
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:24,719
Speaker 2: short amount of time become the site of making some

533
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 2: of the richest Americans at that moment in time as well.

534
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 2: So those two factors are things I always think about

535
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 2: when I pour over this research.

536
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: How much is this connected with the development of Tulsa

537
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: as Black Wall Street.

538
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is the question I get pretty frequently

539
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 2: on tour, and the best way that I can answer

540
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 2: it is that, you know, the work of McKay was

541
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 2: primarily to the west of that, right, But part of

542
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 2: it also is that, in dating back to eighteen ninety

543
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 2: by one of the first real censuses that really encompass

544
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 2: a lot more black people, right, the conductors of that

545
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 2: census then kind of look and gaze upon the Eastern

546
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 2: parvocal home and say, this is the best place in

547
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 2: the world for black people because a lot of these people,

548
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 2: creaking Cherokee citizens seminole had already created these much more

549
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 2: unique and inclusive ways of being a citizen and participating

550
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 2: in their practice and so as such, that's what we

551
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 2: see really emerges the igniting fuel for Tulsa's Black Wall Street.

552
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 2: That's where we kind of see a lot of it

553
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 2: come together. That's not to say though, that the work

554
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 2: of McCabe and so many other black.

555
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: People who people will meet in this.

556
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 2: Book to really try and make this part of the country,

557
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 2: both territories, Indian Territorial, Cloma Territory a hospitable place for

558
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 2: black people. So to some ext it's part of this

559
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 2: larger goal of creating a safe haven for black people

560
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 2: at that precise time when it seemed as if there

561
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 2: was nowhere that would be safe black people.

562
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: So the massacre in Tulsa sort of then upends that

563
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 1: idea that this is a safe haven.

564
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 2: That's that's a really nice way of putting it. Yes,

565
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 2: And on top of that, you know, it's one thing

566
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 2: for the massacre to happen, But what happens immediately following

567
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 2: it is that the mayor of Tulsa, TD Evans at

568
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 2: that time articulates kind of the real goal here. He says, well,

569
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,120
Speaker 2: just let the Negro be placed further north and East right,

570
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 2: which it goes back to kind of what we're seeing

571
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 2: in this book is that let's just find another place

572
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 2: where they're not our problem any longer.

573
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: This is, well, why did black people go to Oklahoma

574
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 1: because somebody else was trying to push them away? I mean,

575
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: this is this is the story of.

576
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 2: Black Americans, certainly, without question, without question, And so that's

577
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 2: what drew me to this story is that it was

578
00:33:55,560 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 2: a guy pushing against the current of history right, saying

579
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 2: that perhaps if I can, if I can get this

580
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 2: just right from a political tacticians perspective, maybe I can

581
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 2: win against the wave, the crushing wave of history.

582
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 1: The cross pollination, the interaction with the tribes is fascinating

583
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: to me because to this day, the Cherokee Nation in

584
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 1: particular has some political power in Oklahoma, and in some

585
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: ways I've been fascinated by this the structure of political

586
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: fights in Oklahoma now, which is it's no longer R

587
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: versus D. It is Republicans versus the tribes, and sometimes

588
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: the tribal money people are behind a Republican primary opponent.

589
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 1: Sometimes they decide to fund a Democrat who's a former Republican.

590
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: But it really feels like it I always say, you know,

591
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 1: politics supports a vacuum. It's not always filled by the

592
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 1: same name of the opposition that we have in other places,

593
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: you know, if it's an R or D, sometimes it's this.

594
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: And in some of these single party states like Oklahoma

595
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:17,799
Speaker 1: that have a very wealthy tribal I guess, tribal derivative nations, right,

596
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: the nations are, they exist, but they don't necessarily have

597
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,320
Speaker 1: the same power that they once had. But they certainly

598
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 1: have wealth now, right, and that wealth we all know money,

599
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: money drives politics more than anything else. Certain I'm curious

600
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: of your observation of that. Am I describing that correctly?

601
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: Am I being a little a little too sort of

602
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:45,360
Speaker 1: I don't know, looking at it, making it too clean

603
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:46,760
Speaker 1: of the division?

604
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, And look, I think that what's very clear is

605
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 2: that they have there is you know, Oklahoma has become

606
00:35:55,280 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 2: one of the top gambling states right in the entire country,

607
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 2: and a lot of that is very much yes, and

608
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 2: should be controlled by those disistations which have been so so.

609
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 1: Kind of.

610
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:14,839
Speaker 2: Treated unfairly, as the kindest way that I can put it, right,

611
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:19,360
Speaker 2: they've been so horribly treated that a lot of times

612
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:23,879
Speaker 2: that money when reinvested into the community. Which it is.

613
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:26,400
Speaker 1: Look, let's call it what it is. It's sort of

614
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 1: the only reparation Native Americans.

615
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:33,720
Speaker 2: Got exactly right, exactly, and so it's it's a veritable

616
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 2: drop in the bucket. But to your point, the the

617
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 2: the tensions politically, I think you actually started to really

618
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 2: describe it pretty well, is that, you know, you have

619
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,320
Speaker 2: people like our like Oklahoma's governed. I don't live there anymore,

620
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 2: but Oklahoma's governor, Kevin Stitt, who is you know, has

621
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 2: found himself crosswise with various nations, in part because he

622
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 2: wants to increase what's called like the compact fee, which

623
00:36:57,719 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 2: is like the tax.

624
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: He much more money. That's right, exactly what. By the way,

625
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 1: every problem is usually about money, and every solution is usually.

626
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:11,400
Speaker 2: Certainly And even in the most recent Supreme Court case

627
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 2: where of all people are you know, Supreme Court Justice

628
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 2: Neil Gorsicic sides with.

629
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 1: Amazing right, like what in fact, who who does Oklahoma

630
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: belong to? Today? Do you know? Yeah?

631
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:27,839
Speaker 2: I mean, in terms of legal and criminal jurisdictional questions,

632
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 2: a lot of the eastern portal of Oklahoma is still

633
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 2: according to our Supreme Court, love them or hate them

634
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 2: belongs to the Muskoki Creek nation, right, and that that

635
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 2: reifying that kind of the fact those treaties are still

636
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 2: good law, it has not been abrogated, you know, really

637
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 2: pisses off. Yes, a lot of people like Kevin Stton

638
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:53,879
Speaker 2: others who want, as you mentioned earlier, to have not

639
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 2: just more money, but money by way of power, right,

640
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 2: and so as such, it's I mean, the the example localhomes,

641
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 2: I always tell people is a way another way of

642
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 2: understanding kind of our country because Oklahoma has always been

643
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 2: this near laboratory for many people, for white immigrants, white laborers,

644
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 2: indigenous people's, black people to try and figure out for themselves,

645
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,920
Speaker 2: without much support and lots of antagonism, a way to

646
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 2: exist together and belong in this country. It is.

647
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,799
Speaker 1: It's so what you just describe their I mean, you're right,

648
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 1: like you just invoked grapes of wrath, the dust boll.

649
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 1: I mean, it has been this. It is literally now

650
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: as you say, as we now see the map of

651
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 1: the United States, it turned into a crossroads state, didn't it.

652
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 2: Certainly, I mean not just not just figuratively, but literally

653
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 2: with root sixty sites, which is kind of one of

654
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 2: our pride and glory it is. But at the same time,

655
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,800
Speaker 2: I think we still try and kind of consolidate it

656
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 2: along with a lot of other places that have a

657
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 2: lot of deep meaning as just part of flyover country, right,

658
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 2: not meant to be sitt or studied.

659
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:15,919
Speaker 1: I'd love to dig in more what is your There's

660
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 1: a lot of what I what i'd call sort of

661
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 1: you know, history that wasn't written about. You know, I

662
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: just in my own, in my own travels, discovered the

663
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 1: story of Blanche Bruce as I was digging into more

664
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: about Garfield. I'm obsessed with Garfield in a whole number

665
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: of ways. I've got this Pollyannish view that if Garfield lives,

666
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 1: reconstruction might have come back, maybe that we might have,

667
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: you know, imagined if the essentially the Civil Rights Act

668
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty five is actually passed in eighteen eighty three,

669
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:50,719
Speaker 1: right and signed into law by President Garfield, where are we,

670
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: you know, as a country today, if essentially everything happens

671
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 1: eighty years sooner when it comes to civil rights and

672
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 1: so and this whole period in the story of Blanche

673
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 1: Bruce is fascinating. I discovered this, you know, found this

674
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: book that somebody wrote about the first black political dynasty. Yes,

675
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 1: so I throw that out there in that you know,

676
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a I'm a hungry history junkie. I think

677
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:16,839
Speaker 1: the people that choose to listen to my podcast sort

678
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: of share a little bit of that. What are some

679
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:21,840
Speaker 1: stories do you think more? You know, what are you

680
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 1: diving into? What's what's a couple of stories you're you

681
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 1: want to you're writing about now? I guess it's my

682
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: elaborate way of asking what's next or what are some

683
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: other underwritten histories that you think need some historical work?

684
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 1: And you know you're busy doing one thing, and if

685
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:39,320
Speaker 1: you know you can't clone yourself, and you wish you

686
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:41,720
Speaker 1: could dine in there? Yeah, for sure.

687
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean I think that the book you were

688
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 2: referencing is written by Lawrence Otis Graham about both Blanche

689
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 2: Bruce and his wife. But the sort of work that

690
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 2: I'm really quite captivated by always there's there's so much

691
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:59,880
Speaker 2: work to do, even just within that kind of corridor

692
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:03,839
Speaker 2: or the Midwest Southwest that is too long to list,

693
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 2: but what I'm working on a lot right now. I'm

694
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 2: meeting with my agent in about forty five minutes, so

695
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 2: let's see if he agrees, but spending a lot of

696
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 2: my time thinking more about the question of power and

697
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 2: belonging in wealth. And so there's never really been a

698
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 2: kind of canonical book that tells in a narrative form

699
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:31,359
Speaker 2: the story of the racial wealth gap. We oftentimes see

700
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,440
Speaker 2: snapshots in the case of say, The Warmth of other

701
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:37,799
Speaker 2: Son Is by Isabel Wilkerson, beautiful, gracious, I mean, just

702
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:42,880
Speaker 2: wonderful book covers roughly about, you know, fifty to sixty

703
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 2: years of time. Whereas for me, I think that the

704
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 2: story is a lot more complicated than that, much more

705
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 2: interesting than that. And I think I've found a family

706
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 2: that black and white, dating back to about the sixteen hundreds,

707
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 2: who actually can both illustrate but that and also show

708
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 2: their own influence on the construction of the racial wealth

709
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 2: gap dating back to the sixteen hundred. So that to

710
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 2: me is where I've spending a lot of my time

711
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 2: in their stories, in their archives, seeing them bite back

712
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 2: and have family dramas and whatnot, politicking almost within their

713
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 2: own families. And then I'm also kind of examining what

714
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 2: does black ambition look like for someone who was also

715
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:32,760
Speaker 2: known as Black Moses. That's Marcus Garvey and in part

716
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 2: because the efforts to thwart him were led by a

717
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 2: black man in partnership with Jagar Hoover, and how that

718
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 2: might have been the setup or co intel Pro decades

719
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 2: before co intel Pro went into practice. So I'm spending

720
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:52,360
Speaker 2: my time on both of those right now because I

721
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:55,240
Speaker 2: think they'd give us a key hole into the America

722
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 2: that we have right now dating back to actions and

723
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 2: decisions may aid in the case of the Earth Book

724
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 2: hundreds of years ago and the other one about one

725
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:05,279
Speaker 2: hundred years ago.

726
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: You know, the issue of the black wealth gap and

727
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 1: sort of you know, there was the show Gilded Age

728
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: was popular in my household, and we've you know, I

729
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: just think I find I find the show where it

730
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: actually there's a lot of way as I said, there's

731
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 1: a lot of ways in culturally into this story, no

732
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 1: matter you know of your own, no matter your ethnicity,

733
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 1: your religion, all this stuff. It's fascinating, and they do.

734
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 1: I really think this last season they've done a really

735
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 1: good job of sort of painting the complicated history of America.

736
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 1: Where would you identify that crossroads? Because what you know,

737
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 1: they got at and the Blanche Bruce book gets at

738
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,319
Speaker 1: this too, that there was this divide between sort of

739
00:43:50,360 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 1: the free lack elites of the North and the so called,

740
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: you know, newly free black Americans of the South wanting

741
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:02,880
Speaker 1: to pursue their own American dream without question.

742
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 2: And I think you see some of that even in

743
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 2: Black Moses, because McCabe was effectively he went to boarding

744
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 2: school in Newport.

745
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 1: Where did that give him more credibility or did that

746
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: actually turn off some blacks in Oklahoma?

747
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:19,960
Speaker 2: It's a good question credibility with whom? Right Did they

748
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,839
Speaker 2: give him a lot of credibility with his white peers? Sure, right,

749
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 2: of course.

750
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 1: Did it give him?

751
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:29,759
Speaker 2: Did it kind of give rise to people like this

752
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 2: black man named John Paul Jones and Norman Oklahoma who

753
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:37,320
Speaker 2: thought he was a saidity his words, carpetbagger his words. Yes,

754
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 2: I'm sure it did. But I think that what we

755
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 2: see is that that division is I mean, first of all,

756
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:48,839
Speaker 2: it's most fascinating kind of under discussed, under reported, underwritten

757
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 2: thing that I think exists. But that division that Larry

758
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 2: Graham and his book tries to dive into, and the

759
00:44:54,360 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 2: Gilded Age really kind of exploits, is manifest all over

760
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 2: kind of especially the late nineteenth century all the way

761
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 2: through till now, right in terms of whose people are you?

762
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 2: Where did you come from, what was your origin, what

763
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 2: was your who were your people? Effectively is a really

764
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 2: potent question that we see asked and answer even in

765
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 2: the gilds of it.

766
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:23,399
Speaker 1: Well, this gets at the core of what is America, right,

767
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 1: the whole point, you know, we like to believe that

768
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:31,800
Speaker 1: we broke away so that that wasn't a determinative factor

769
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:35,359
Speaker 1: for your future, that it didn't depend on your bloodlines.

770
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 1: Were you from the feudal side of the world in Europe,

771
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: or were you from a monarchy or whatever some frankly,

772
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: probably derivative of a of a of a Roman Empire

773
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: general who you know, uh, just had to you know,

774
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 1: controlled turf and then call themselves king, right of course,

775
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 1: but you know, so the whole point of America was

776
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: to like break this idea of an aristocracy of an elite.

777
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 1: And yet what has been the constant theme of frankly,

778
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 1: the development of America has been these fights between those

779
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: who say, hey, your lineage matters and those that say, no,

780
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: it's your freedom matters.

781
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 2: Certainly, right, and it's sad that those two things almost

782
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 2: stay in opposition to another, your freedom and your kind

783
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 2: of lineage when actuality it should be that both can

784
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 2: exist on the same plane, that in fact, this is

785
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,400
Speaker 2: my lineage, and yet I am free or and I

786
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 2: am part of this American experience. And sadly again, I

787
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 2: think because we've made as at the point I made

788
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:39,320
Speaker 2: my first book, is that identity has become so rigid

789
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 2: and oftentimes is much more of an emptying out factor

790
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 2: as opposed to kind of a rich tapestry that we're

791
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 2: constantly adding to. And I think as I'm making my

792
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 2: second book, we place a cap on what people ought

793
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 2: to be able to achieve that in many cases we

794
00:46:55,920 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 2: place kind of lineage and background in history and the

795
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 2: diversity of rich, beautiful complexity that's associated with it with

796
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 2: the complexities and hard won freedoms that we should be

797
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 2: all enjoying at the same time in all of the

798
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 2: different ways.

799
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 1: Every historian when they write their history is usually influenced

800
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:22,239
Speaker 1: by the current political climate. You can't help it, you know,

801
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 1: and I and it's you know, just because you know.

802
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 1: Interpretation is always done through your own experiences. How do

803
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:34,560
Speaker 1: you check yourself on that when you're writing? And how

804
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 1: much do you want it included in your analysis and interpretation,

805
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: and because you know the reader is reading it through

806
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 1: the lens of their own experiences and then trying to

807
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:46,279
Speaker 1: fit it in to what they think they already knew,

808
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,440
Speaker 1: which I think, you know, it makes it's to me

809
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:51,919
Speaker 1: what makes reading history. You know, I've in many ways

810
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: I want to know a lot more about the author,

811
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: because that will tell me just you know what the

812
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:01,400
Speaker 1: intellectual bias is going to be going into the into

813
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: the pro course.

814
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:04,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there are many ways that I fight it.

815
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 2: In tactile terms. I have a community of people who

816
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 2: read my stuff before it ever gets anywhere in near

817
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:14,400
Speaker 2: someone with yourself. But I think in in in a

818
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:17,399
Speaker 2: way that's maybe a little less tech tactile. I really

819
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:21,800
Speaker 2: spend a lot of my time reading what those folks

820
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 2: perhaps at that time, were reading.

821
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:28,799
Speaker 1: Right, That's an interesting thing, will tell me. You know,

822
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:30,839
Speaker 1: I'm going to now you got me off, We're gonna

823
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 1: and I want to keep you under an hour here,

824
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:35,400
Speaker 1: and we've been going about forty five minutes. But I

825
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:37,399
Speaker 1: find that to be the most one of the When

826
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 1: I talk about today's media climate, I say, you know,

827
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:43,240
Speaker 1: it's very partisan. It's actually a very familiar media climate

828
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:46,719
Speaker 1: to historians, because in the nineteenth century, whenever I've dug

829
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: in I told you about Garfield, I went deep and

830
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:53,240
Speaker 1: learning more about Garfield and you every news story had

831
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:56,319
Speaker 1: four points of view. And I'd say that because there,

832
00:48:56,640 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: especially if it was in Washington, d C. Because you

833
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 1: had black news paper archives and that was from the

834
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:05,720
Speaker 1: from the Black press. You'd have the Republican Party press,

835
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 1: you had Democratic Party Press, and you had even at

836
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 1: times Wig Press or some other. So there was always

837
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: an other than the event itself being familiar, there would

838
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 1: be different interpretations. How did you you know when your

839
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: source material? How did you handle that knowing that that

840
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:29,760
Speaker 1: there there was probably bias written into that source material?

841
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,120
Speaker 2: Certainly, I mean, I the best way to answer it

842
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:35,239
Speaker 2: is that if his folks will see in the very

843
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,319
Speaker 2: end of the book, uh, we took font size to

844
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:43,480
Speaker 2: probably beyond its its limit. Otherwise the sources pages would

845
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:45,240
Speaker 2: have been larger than the book itself.

846
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, which you do see in some history books. You're like, oh,

847
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 1: it's overwhelming, don't worry. Literally half of it is the bibliography,

848
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 1: right exactly.

849
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 2: I mean, I think my answer is to go even further. Right,

850
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:01,280
Speaker 2: So if we're looking at a at that time, Senator

851
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 2: Preston Plumb from Kansas, right, or or someone of that nature.

852
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 2: I'm not just gonna look at you have the Washington

853
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:11,800
Speaker 2: b and perhaps what the other kind of Republican Democrat

854
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera pages. I'm also going to go

855
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 2: their local pages. I'm gonna go to the neighboring towns

856
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,479
Speaker 2: that Senator Preston Plumb is from. I'm going to kind

857
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 2: of look at this massive kind of collection. So for

858
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:25,960
Speaker 2: each character in the cast of characters in my book,

859
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:30,279
Speaker 2: there's this there's almost this orbit of satellites, and those

860
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:34,799
Speaker 2: satellites contain just trows of information about how did so

861
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:38,040
Speaker 2: many different people see this person? Right? And there's there's

862
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 2: a person who is my he's my favorite person to

863
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 2: dislike in all of American history, which is Senator Daniel

864
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 2: Hoori's who features prominently in this book where he decides

865
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 2: to have this massive Senate hearing, which is all Kaka

866
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 2: Maimi and what most people will call BS and what

867
00:50:57,000 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 2: the New York Times called BS, and his local caper

868
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:01,319
Speaker 2: called BS and everyone else, so that part of sad

869
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:03,799
Speaker 2: so I really love to dislike him. Is because no

870
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 2: one had anything good to say about.

871
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:07,480
Speaker 1: Everybody here to dislike him everyone.

872
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so to some extent, I think, you know,

873
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:14,839
Speaker 2: nerd to nerd, you know, we I really enjoyed kind

874
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:19,320
Speaker 2: of developing as wide and as fast and as deep

875
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:22,399
Speaker 2: of an understanding of each person who I spent any

876
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:23,280
Speaker 2: time writing about.

877
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 1: Well, I think the hardest part of doing this work

878
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:28,359
Speaker 1: is not to get caught in rabbit holes. You must

879
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:30,839
Speaker 1: find stuff that are like, what a great story? Has

880
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,560
Speaker 1: nothing to do with on researching, but wow, what a

881
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 1: great story? Right?

882
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 2: Like certainly, certainly, And and my my office is full

883
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:41,400
Speaker 2: of the pages that my my editors said, these are

884
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 2: really interesting stories, but they'll never see the light of day.

885
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: So, uh, are you comfortable being in a story in

886
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 1: the rest of your life or do you miss day

887
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 1: to day news day to day? You know, would you

888
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 1: like to be covering uh, the present day more or

889
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:58,239
Speaker 1: which we're what's your ambition going forward? You know, what

890
00:51:58,239 --> 00:51:59,279
Speaker 1: do you want to What do you want to be

891
00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:00,360
Speaker 1: doing in the next ten years?

892
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 2: What do I want to be doing that thin years? Yeah,

893
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 2: So I think that my my answer to that is,

894
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:10,960
Speaker 2: you know, I find that without engaging in presentism which

895
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:14,359
Speaker 2: is like every historian's nightmare of a debate. I think

896
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 2: it's I think there's something useful about adding context to

897
00:52:18,520 --> 00:52:21,799
Speaker 2: the current moment, right. And I think that's why you

898
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:23,839
Speaker 2: can say, as you said earlier that oh you think

899
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 2: newspaper media is partisan, now you know it, take a

900
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 2: look at how it used to be, and what the

901
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:33,279
Speaker 2: implications were, and what the sacrifices were, what were the

902
00:52:33,320 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 2: costs of doing so. So to me, I see myself

903
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 2: as wanting to write these iconic American stories, and I

904
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:43,279
Speaker 2: feel as if McCabe is such a I mean, his

905
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 2: story is so quintessentially American, right, And so I think

906
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 2: over the coming decade, I'll be doing even more of that,

907
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 2: but added an even larger scale, biting, trying to bike,

908
00:52:56,200 --> 00:52:59,280
Speaker 2: if not swallow, larger and larger bites of the apple,

909
00:52:59,320 --> 00:53:00,000
Speaker 2: if you will.

910
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:02,319
Speaker 1: Well, I look forward to it, Caleb. I mean, I

911
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 1: just you know, I'm reminded all the time that we

912
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:09,320
Speaker 1: you know, we talk about you know, my daughter's marine

913
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:12,440
Speaker 1: is studying marine biology, and you know, the ocean is

914
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:15,480
Speaker 1: you know, we've only discovered you know, we've probably explored

915
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:17,759
Speaker 1: space more than we've explored the oceans, and we've only

916
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 1: discovered so little about our system. And I think about

917
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:23,120
Speaker 1: that in American history, I think we've only we only

918
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:25,400
Speaker 1: know about ten percent of the story of American history.

919
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:25,959
Speaker 2: I think, I.

920
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 1: Agree, I agree.

921
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 2: I think that the phrase is what is it dale

922
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 2: semens prayer, which is God, your ocean is so vasked,

923
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 2: but my boat is so small, and so to some

924
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 2: extent to extend your, your, your daughter's metaphor that much more,

925
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 2: I just feel as if I'm just getting started so now,

926
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:41,600
Speaker 2: and I.

927
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:43,839
Speaker 1: Feel this way all the time. This is so thanks

928
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 1: to your book, I now feel like I know eleven

929
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 1: percent of American history.

930
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:48,960
Speaker 2: Thank you.

931
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:51,080
Speaker 1: It's really good to meet you. Appreciate you spending some

932
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 1: time with us.

933
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 2: Shocking me so much.