Speaker 1: Hi Brian, Hi Katie, and hello listeners, wonderful listeners. The
Speaker 1: time has come. The first episode of my new documentary
Speaker 1: series on nat Gio America, Inside Out, is out in
Speaker 1: the world. For those of you who are interested, you
Speaker 1: can watch it on National Geographic at ten pm for
Speaker 1: the next several Wednesdays, or on the NATCHIO channel website,
Speaker 1: which is channel dot National Geographic dot com. Full episodes
Speaker 1: will also be available on who the day after they air,
Speaker 1: or you can find them on YouTube and Facebook until
Speaker 1: mid May. So get them while they're hot, people. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about this series. I hope people will watch,
Speaker 1: and more importantly, that there will be a springboard for
Speaker 1: important conversations we just don't seem to be having in
Speaker 1: this country, Katie. As we mentioned last week, the first
Speaker 1: episode of the series is about how we approach the
Speaker 1: history and the future of race in this country, a
Speaker 1: pretty fraught topic. It includes the debate over the hundreds
Speaker 1: of Confederate monuments around the country. The episode really uses
Speaker 1: Confederate statues as a conversation starter because they stand for
Speaker 1: so much and they're more than what they appear. If
Speaker 1: you understand when they were put up and what they
Speaker 1: symbolize to many people. It really broadens your understanding of
Speaker 1: the issue of race and of history. And there are
Speaker 1: more than six hundred and fifty of them throughout the country,
Speaker 1: particularly in the South. You and I have talked about
Speaker 1: this issue before in our podcast with New Orleans Mayor
Speaker 1: Mitch Landrew. He was on the pod last June and
Speaker 1: episode thirty three, and I highly recommend that show. He
Speaker 1: was also in this episode of my Natio series. He
Speaker 1: told me he got death threats after the New Orleans
Speaker 1: City Council voted to remove four of those Confederate statues
Speaker 1: in the city. And there's a pretty chilling thing he
Speaker 1: told me in the documentary, Brian, Yeah, one scene in
Speaker 1: the doc really jumped out at me. May Landrew said
Speaker 1: that three of the statues were taken down at night
Speaker 1: on the advice of security personnel, who basically said it's
Speaker 1: harder to get shot by a sniper at night. It's
Speaker 1: a very explosive issue, and as I said, it's about
Speaker 1: much more than statues. It's about who we are, what
Speaker 1: we stand for, what we believe in the history we've acknowledged.
Speaker 1: So in this episode, I wanted to understand over one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years after the Civil War? Why is
Speaker 1: there so much intense emotion over these monuments? Which brings us,
Speaker 1: of course, to today's guest, Brian Stevenson. Katie. I know
Speaker 1: you're a very big fan, so huge fan. He's featured
Speaker 1: in your nat GEO doc and for very good reason.
Speaker 1: He spent his career fighting injustice in our legal system.
Speaker 1: He's a lawyer who successfully argued cases in front of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, and he's also head of the Equal
Speaker 1: Justice Initiative down in Montgomery, Alabama, which is an organization
Speaker 1: he founded as a young man. He's so written a
Speaker 1: wonderful book called Just Mercy, which I highly recommend. And
Speaker 1: we wanted to include Brian in the documentary and then
Speaker 1: talk to him more today on the podcast because he
Speaker 1: is really, among other things, making it his mission to
Speaker 1: make sure there are things about our past that are
Speaker 1: not swept under the rug, that are painful, things that
Speaker 1: we all need to acknowledge before we're able to move forward.
Speaker 1: I am thrilled that he is able to join us.
Speaker 1: I've interviewed many people over the years, but he's been
Speaker 1: a career highlight for me and I admire him deeply.
Speaker 1: So we talked with Brian about America's history of slavery
Speaker 1: and racial violence, about his own experiences with school segregation
Speaker 1: as a child, and about the new museum and memorial
Speaker 1: that he's helping to open later this month, and about
Speaker 1: the purpose he really hopes that they serve in bringing
Speaker 1: us together as a country. Absolutely, So we started by
Speaker 1: asking him to tell us about the Equal Justice Initiative,
Speaker 1: the organization he started building in We're a private, nonprofit
Speaker 1: law office. It grew out of a desperate need in
Speaker 1: Alabama to provide legal services to people on death row.
Speaker 1: Alabama doesn't have a public defender system, and there were
Speaker 1: nearly a hundred condemned prisoners literally dying for legal assistance
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties, and so we started this project
Speaker 1: to meet that need, and it's grown and expanded over
Speaker 1: the last thirty years. We began working on other cases
Speaker 1: involving wrongful convictions and unfair sentences. We started challenging the
Speaker 1: problems of the poor in our legal system. I really
Speaker 1: do believe we have a criminal justice system that treats
Speaker 1: you better if you're rich and guilty then if you're
Speaker 1: poor and innocent. We've grown, we we've done work on children.
Speaker 1: We were working on behalf of the mentally ill. It's
Speaker 1: been focused on criminal justice reform, and then about ten
Speaker 1: years ago we began taking on these bigger projects of
Speaker 1: race and poverty more broadly. And you've argued before the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court on a number of occasions and really changed
Speaker 1: our interpretation of the Constitution to protect particularly young people
Speaker 1: who are charged with crimes and either sentence to the
Speaker 1: death penalty or to life without parole. Yeah, I take
Speaker 1: really seriously the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Speaker 1: It's a part of our constitution that isn't as developed
Speaker 1: as I think it should be. And so yes, we
Speaker 1: have been challenging what we perceived to be excessive punishment,
Speaker 1: unfair sentencing uh in many of our states. And one
Speaker 1: of those issues that took me to the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: a couple of times is what we're doing to children.
Speaker 1: The United States had three thousand children sentenced to die
Speaker 1: in prison, some as young as thirteen years of age.
Speaker 1: A life without parole sentence is a sentence that basically says,
Speaker 1: you're never going to be safe, You're never going to
Speaker 1: be uh, someone we can release. You're beyond hope you're
Speaker 1: you're beyond ride emption, and I just think that's just
Speaker 1: not true for any child. It may be that that
Speaker 1: child doesn't get to the point where we can release them,
Speaker 1: but to condemn them before they've evolved, before they've grown,
Speaker 1: was for me fundamentally at odds with what we know
Speaker 1: about children. It's the reason why we don't let them vote,
Speaker 1: we don't let them smoke, we don't let them drink.
Speaker 1: We know that there's a point that they haven't reached
Speaker 1: yet to make those choices, but we weren't honoring that
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system, and so we took that
Speaker 1: case of the court, and the Court has now banned
Speaker 1: mandatory life without role sentences for children. We're trying to
Speaker 1: still protect children in other ways. On any given day,
Speaker 1: there are some ten thousand children housed in adult jails
Speaker 1: in prisons, and those kids are at great risk of
Speaker 1: sexual violence and abuse. And so we still have a
Speaker 1: lot of work to do, but we have been pushing
Speaker 1: hard to help particularly vulnerable communities in our criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: In many ways you talk about mass incarceration, Brian is
Speaker 1: sort of part of this long tail of history and
Speaker 1: one of the byproducts of slavery and how it is
Speaker 1: morphed into things like mass incarceration and the death penalty.
Speaker 1: Can you explain that to our listeners? Sure. I think
Speaker 1: we have a history of racial inequality in this country
Speaker 1: that we've been largely silent about, and it makes us
Speaker 1: indifferent uh to racial bias and racial discrimination. Today, the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Justice predicts that one in three blackmail babies
Speaker 1: born in this country is expected to go to jail
Speaker 1: or prison. And that's not perceived as a crisis. It's
Speaker 1: not a political issue. Elected officials aren't talking about it.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason why we haven't responded to
Speaker 1: that as a tragedy in the way that I think
Speaker 1: we should is because we have been acculturated to just
Speaker 1: accept a certain amount of racial bias, a certain amount
Speaker 1: of racial disparity. And I think the legacy of our
Speaker 1: history of racial inequality has compromised us. I really do
Speaker 1: think we are breathing in a kind of small kind
Speaker 1: of pollution that has left us less healthy when it
Speaker 1: comes to confronting bias and discrimination. And I actually believe
Speaker 1: it begins with the genocide of Native Americans. We are
Speaker 1: a post genocide society when Native people came when Europeans
Speaker 1: came to this continent, we killed millions of Native people.
Speaker 1: It was a genocide, but we didn't call it that.
Speaker 1: We said these Native people are different. We said Native
Speaker 1: people were savages, and through that language we were comfortable
Speaker 1: with removing them from their lands and killing them by
Speaker 1: the millions. It was that same narrative that made us
Speaker 1: comfortable with enslaving Black Africans. And I don't think that
Speaker 1: the great evil of American slavery was involuntary servitude of
Speaker 1: forced labor. I think it was this narrative of racial
Speaker 1: racial difference, this ideology of white supremacy, and we never
Speaker 1: dealt with that. If you read the thirteenth Amendment, it
Speaker 1: talks about ending forced labor, involuntary servitude, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: say anything about ending this narrative of racial difference. And
Speaker 1: because of that, I've argued that slavery didn't end in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five. It just evolved, and that created this
Speaker 1: era of racial terrorism. And from the eighteen seventies until
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, thousands of black people were pulled out
Speaker 1: of their homes. They were drowned, they were beaten, they
Speaker 1: were hanged, they were burned, they were tortured, sometimes literally
Speaker 1: on the courthouse lawn in front of thousands who cheered,
Speaker 1: and that spectacle violence, that terrorism was something we didn't
Speaker 1: really confront And then we moved from that era uh
Speaker 1: into the civil rights era, and we celebrate the civil
Speaker 1: rights activism of Dr King and Rosa Parks, but we
Speaker 1: don't talk about the deep commitment to resisting integration to
Speaker 1: all of those elect officials who were preaching segregation, forever,
Speaker 1: segregation or war. Even though we want passage of the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, that narrative
Speaker 1: of racial difference persisted, and today we live at a
Speaker 1: time where that narrative is still alive. There is a
Speaker 1: presumption of dangerousness and guilt that gets assigned to black
Speaker 1: and brown people, which is why mass incarceration and the
Speaker 1: modern criminal justice system reflects this continuing legacy. It's the
Speaker 1: reason why black and brown people feel so menaced and
Speaker 1: targeted by the police, why there's anger and frustration when
Speaker 1: unarmed people of color are killed by the police. And
Speaker 1: I don't think we can understand these issues without understanding
Speaker 1: this historical legacy. I know you believe, Brian, as I
Speaker 1: do that we can't really make progress. We can't even
Speaker 1: begin to have conversations about some of these issues if
Speaker 1: we don't acknowledge that they happened. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: the ways you're doing that with the opening this month
Speaker 1: in April of the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial
Speaker 1: for Peace and Justice. So let's just talk about those
Speaker 1: two projects and and why they're so important. First, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the Lynching project. How did that start? Why
Speaker 1: did you want to you that? And what was that
Speaker 1: like putting it together? Well, first of all, thank you
Speaker 1: for that, um, that question, Katie, and and that reflection.
Speaker 1: I do agree that we have some work to do
Speaker 1: in this country to make our history more evident, to
Speaker 1: make it understood. And um, the work we started doing
Speaker 1: on lynching was in response to that. UM. I live
Speaker 1: in a region where thousands of black people were brutalized,
Speaker 1: were tortured, uh, and we haven't acknowledged that history. It
Speaker 1: was terrorism. And older people of color come up to
Speaker 1: me sometimes and they say, Mr Stevenson, I get angry
Speaker 1: when I hear somebody on TV talking about how we're
Speaker 1: dealing with domestic terrorism for the first time in our
Speaker 1: nation's history. After nine eleven. They said, we grew up
Speaker 1: with terror. We had to wear about being bombed and
Speaker 1: lynched and menaced every day of our lives, and that
Speaker 1: legacy isn't something we've confronted or discussed. The black people
Speaker 1: in Chicago and Cleveland and Detroit didn't go to those
Speaker 1: communities as immigrants looking for new economic opportunities. They went
Speaker 1: to those communities as refugees and exiles from terror in
Speaker 1: the American South. And so we wanted to first document
Speaker 1: this history. So we spent five years combing through archives
Speaker 1: gathering evidence about lynchings. We identified about eight hundred more
Speaker 1: lynchings than prior researchers had uncovered, and we put out
Speaker 1: a report. And then we wanted to make this research
Speaker 1: accessible to people in public spaces and visible exactly, and
Speaker 1: so we started putting up markers at lynching sites. And
Speaker 1: then we had this idea of involving more people, of
Speaker 1: inviting community groups and members to go to lynching sites,
Speaker 1: to collect soil at the lynching site, to put it
Speaker 1: in a jar with the name of a lynching victim
Speaker 1: and the date of the lynching, and then to make
Speaker 1: a reflection. And we've now collected hundreds of jars of
Speaker 1: soil from lynching sites, and black people and white people
Speaker 1: and young people in old people have played a role
Speaker 1: in creating a new visual of what this history represents.
Speaker 1: And you saw the exhibit in our office, a wall
Speaker 1: full of jars. Oh my gosh, it's so it's just
Speaker 1: extrat They're so unbelievably moving in their simplicity. And you
Speaker 1: can see the different soil from different regions of Alabama
Speaker 1: and other Southern states, which in many ways I know
Speaker 1: I wrote about this in National Geographic. Each jar tells
Speaker 1: a story, not only a story of a human being,
Speaker 1: but a story of the circumstances or where this happened.
Speaker 1: And some of these stories are so moving. There's one
Speaker 1: that I keep thinking about, Brian, that you told me
Speaker 1: about about a school teacher who who scolded some some boys.
Speaker 1: Can you explain that story for us? Sure? No, I
Speaker 1: think the stories are really important. Katie and Elizabeth Lawrence
Speaker 1: was a Birmingham school teacher working with black children because
Speaker 1: of course the schools were segregated it and she was
Speaker 1: walking home one night when a group of white kids
Speaker 1: began throwing stones at her, and she did what any
Speaker 1: responsible adult would do. She turned to the children and said,
Speaker 1: don't throw stones at people. And the children went home
Speaker 1: and told their parents that this black woman had scolded them.
Speaker 1: And the parents were offended at the idea that a
Speaker 1: black person would correct their children, and so they organized
Speaker 1: a mob. They went to the home of Elizabeth Lawrence
Speaker 1: and they lynched her. Uh Brian, didn't they burn her
Speaker 1: house down? To Yes, when her son tried to uh
Speaker 1: complain about it, they burned her house down. They ran
Speaker 1: him out of the state. He fled to Boston. And
Speaker 1: the pain of these kinds of events, which happened all
Speaker 1: the time, is all of the students of Elizabeth Lawrence,
Speaker 1: all of the neighbors, all of the black people who
Speaker 1: looked up to her and respected her and admired her
Speaker 1: and loved her for trying to educate their children, they
Speaker 1: were required to be silent about the violent that took
Speaker 1: her life, because if you complained about lynching, then you
Speaker 1: would be targeted. I think also people think that lynching
Speaker 1: automatically means someone is hung from a tree, because that
Speaker 1: symbol has been so emblazoned in our consciousness. But in
Speaker 1: this case, they just brutally beat her. Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1: Many lynchings involved beating someone to death. We have accounts
Speaker 1: of lynchings where people were burned at the stake, We
Speaker 1: have accounts where people were drowned. We have accounts of
Speaker 1: people who were shot, sometimes hundreds of times by a
Speaker 1: crowd of a thousand. Well, and crowd is a really
Speaker 1: interesting point, because these things didn't happen, you know, with
Speaker 1: a few guys gathered around in secret. Often these lynchings
Speaker 1: occurred in the town square with hundreds or even thousands
Speaker 1: of people watching. And how did good people allow this
Speaker 1: to go on for decade after decade after decade. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really important question, Brian. I think the thing
Speaker 1: that really pained me about this era is that this
Speaker 1: violence wasn't conducted by the clan and the cover of night,
Speaker 1: with people wearing hoods. People would actually pose in photographs
Speaker 1: next to the battered body that they had killed. They
Speaker 1: were proud to be participating in this kind of terror
Speaker 1: and violence. They would bring their children. We have photographs
Speaker 1: where you see little children being held up by their
Speaker 1: parents so they can see this person burning to death
Speaker 1: or hanging. And this culture of violence was celebrated. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that is I think one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: we are very intentional about characterizing this as terrorism. They
Speaker 1: weren't just killing individuals. They were sending a message to
Speaker 1: African Americans throughout the region that if you challenge the
Speaker 1: racial order, if you fight for your rights, we will
Speaker 1: brutalize you. They would sometimes leave these by these hanging
Speaker 1: for days, not allow the family to come and gather
Speaker 1: the body, because they wanted the entire black community to
Speaker 1: know what had happened. And the documentation of this violence,
Speaker 1: the photographs, the postcards that would be sent around, was
Speaker 1: a way of spreading the terror, spreading the message that
Speaker 1: if you resist our racial order, we will kill you.
Speaker 1: You couldn't get black people to drink out of the
Speaker 1: Colored fountain unless there was a threat of violence, and
Speaker 1: lynching became the threat that allowed Jim Crow to grow.
Speaker 1: And it was so so disgraceful, you know you. I
Speaker 1: featured one of those photos in this Hour. I did,
Speaker 1: And when I thought about it, how they were shared
Speaker 1: and passed around and celebrated, I thought of it almost
Speaker 1: as a disgusting, perverse precursor to a weird kind of
Speaker 1: social media that galvanized a group of people and kind
Speaker 1: of kept them as one in their hatred and brutality.
Speaker 1: That's right, and I think what it did was to
Speaker 1: create a culture where it is okay to victimize these
Speaker 1: black people. It is okay to see them brutalize, it's
Speaker 1: okay to torture them. They're not the same as us,
Speaker 1: They're not human like us. And everyone was complicit. You
Speaker 1: didn't have to be in the photograph, you didn't have
Speaker 1: to be in the mob to be responsible. Elected officials
Speaker 1: look the other way. The federal government looked the other way,
Speaker 1: which is why this was a national phenomena. We had
Speaker 1: the resources to go to world, to Germany and fight
Speaker 1: in World War One. We had the resources to go
Speaker 1: to Europe and fighting World War Two. We had the
Speaker 1: resources to keep people safe from this kind of violence,
Speaker 1: but we were unwilling to do it. And no one
Speaker 1: ever got prosecuted, you know, I mean, for for participating
Speaker 1: in these kinds of crimes, which is infuriating. But what
Speaker 1: I think is beautiful about this exhibit. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: so it's so painful, but there's a certain amount of
Speaker 1: beauty in validating and recognize seeing the people who never
Speaker 1: had a proper burial, whose lives were never celebrated who
Speaker 1: whose stories were never told. I think that's right. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been especially moved to name these unnamed victims of
Speaker 1: terror and violence, to give them a space somewhere where
Speaker 1: people can recognize the tragedy of their loss. And that's
Speaker 1: been the heart of the reflections that community members have
Speaker 1: shared when they do these, and I've been really moved
Speaker 1: by it. We you know, we had a woman go
Speaker 1: to a lynching site by herself. It was on a
Speaker 1: dirt road in the middle of a rural county, and
Speaker 1: she was very nervous about it, a middle aged black woman,
Speaker 1: and she kept telling us, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: should do this, and we said, well, it's up to you,
Speaker 1: and she said, I'm going to go. And we tell
Speaker 1: people you don't have to explain to anyone what you're doing.
Speaker 1: If you feel uncomfortable telling them that you're getting soiled
Speaker 1: because of a lynching, you can just make up something.
Speaker 1: And she said, she was on this road and a
Speaker 1: truck kept driving back and forth, and a white man
Speaker 1: in this pickup truck kept slowing down and staring at her,
Speaker 1: and she was getting very nervous and worried that this
Speaker 1: man was going to do something and find me. The
Speaker 1: truck stopped and this large white man got out of
Speaker 1: the truck and walked over to her, and he asked
Speaker 1: her what she was doing. And she had planned to say,
Speaker 1: I'm just getting some dirt from my garden, but there
Speaker 1: was something about the way he asked that just emboldened her.
Speaker 1: And she said, I'm digging soil because this is where
Speaker 1: a man was lynched. And she had the memo that
Speaker 1: we gave each of our our volunteers that described the lynching.
Speaker 1: And the man said, is that paper talk about that lynching?
Speaker 1: She said it does. He said, can I read it?
Speaker 1: And he picked up the paper and started reading it.
Speaker 1: She said she was trying to finish her collection because
Speaker 1: she was so nervous. And then she said, after the
Speaker 1: man read the paper, he put it down and he said,
Speaker 1: would you mind if I helped you dig? And this
Speaker 1: man got on the soil and began digging with his
Speaker 1: hand and helping her fill the jar. And at the
Speaker 1: end they took a picture together, and she said, I
Speaker 1: would have never expected anything like that to happen, but
Speaker 1: I feel empowered. I feel energized that we can do
Speaker 1: things to tell the truth about our past and find
Speaker 1: our way forward. We use soil because I think soil
Speaker 1: is a really powerful medium for confronting history. Buried in
Speaker 1: that soil is the sweat of all of those enslaved
Speaker 1: black people who populated this region. Buried in that soil
Speaker 1: is the blood of those who were lynched and murdered.
Speaker 1: Buried in that soil are the tears of those who
Speaker 1: were humiliated during Jim Crow and segregation. But also in
Speaker 1: that soil is the potential for life. We can plant things,
Speaker 1: we can grow things that are healthier, that are capable
Speaker 1: of nurturing a new day. We can't do that if
Speaker 1: we don't talk about our past. And that's why these
Speaker 1: projects for me have been really exciting. I'm committed to
Speaker 1: truth and reconciliation. I just believe that truth and reconciliation
Speaker 1: is sequential. So to first tell the truth before we
Speaker 1: can have reconciliation. This is why I say Brian Stevenson
Speaker 1: for Press is it in. I mean, honestly all the time.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back
Speaker 1: in a moment with Brian Stephenson. And now back with
Speaker 1: Brian Stevenson. I think a lot of people who haven't
Speaker 1: read your book or which is amazing recommended reading Just
Speaker 1: Mercy Everyone, or didn't watch your Ted talk, both of
Speaker 1: which I highly recommend. Um want to know a little
Speaker 1: bit more about your own personal story, and so I
Speaker 1: wondered if you could just share a little bit about
Speaker 1: growing up in Delaware. I know your great grandparents were
Speaker 1: actually slaves, how you experienced school desegregation personally, even though
Speaker 1: you're you're not such an old guy. Um, just can
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about what informed the
Speaker 1: work that you're doing now? Sure? Yeah. The line between
Speaker 1: me and my enslaved great grandfather is pretty short. My
Speaker 1: my great grandfather was born in slavery. My grandmother, who
Speaker 1: was born in the eighteen eighties, spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time with me, and she was in my ear constantly
Speaker 1: talking about the stories her father would tell her about
Speaker 1: being enslaved. He was actually an enslave person who learned
Speaker 1: to read when it could have cost him his life,
Speaker 1: and it was the secret that the enslaved community kept.
Speaker 1: And when emancipation came, she would talk with pride about
Speaker 1: how uh, formerly enslaved people would come to their home
Speaker 1: and my great grandfather would read the paper and it
Speaker 1: made her really value education. Uh. And so when I
Speaker 1: was a little boy in a community where the schools
Speaker 1: were still racially segregated, my mother, you know, went into
Speaker 1: debt to buy you know, the World book Encyclopedia. She
Speaker 1: wanted us, uh to learn about the world in which
Speaker 1: we lived. And I started my education in a colored school.
Speaker 1: And then lawyers came into our community and made them
Speaker 1: open up the public schools. And because of that intervention,
Speaker 1: I got to go to high school. My dad couldn't
Speaker 1: go to high school in that county. There were no
Speaker 1: high schools for black children when he was a teenager.
Speaker 1: So I was definitely mindful of what the struggle for
Speaker 1: for justice and the effort to create opportunities meant. And
Speaker 1: it's the reason why I ultimately ended up in Alabama
Speaker 1: providing legal services to people who were being condemned, who
Speaker 1: were being unfairly treated, who are being wrongly convicted. And
Speaker 1: for me, um, that legacy, which is painful in many ways,
Speaker 1: has another side, Uh. You know, there is a dignity
Speaker 1: and the people who endured slavery. There is a strength
Speaker 1: in the people who found a way to give love
Speaker 1: to their children despite the brutality and torture of lynching.
Speaker 1: There is a courage, uh in the folks who stood
Speaker 1: up against Jim Crow and marched and protested for the
Speaker 1: right to vote. And the strength of those people is
Speaker 1: something that I feel. You can't live in Montgomery, Alabama
Speaker 1: without being and energized by the legacy of people who
Speaker 1: have been here. I have difficult days and I go
Speaker 1: out and I look through my window and I think
Speaker 1: about the people doing what I'm trying to do sixty
Speaker 1: years ago, and they had to frequently say my head
Speaker 1: is bloodied but not bowed. I've never had to say that.
Speaker 1: But I feel fortunate to have have been raised by people
Speaker 1: who gave me an awareness of that history. But not
Speaker 1: only that gave me that strength, gave me that love,
Speaker 1: gave me that insight that sometimes you have to stand
Speaker 1: when other people say sit down. Sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: speak when other people say be quiet. And I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for for parents and grandparents and great grandparents who have
Speaker 1: taught me that, uh. And that's what I want to
Speaker 1: give to the people I spend time with. Brian, what
Speaker 1: do you say to people today who might tell you,
Speaker 1: you know, the United States had a very racist pass
Speaker 1: and these things are terrible. But you know, we're not
Speaker 1: racist today and we've moved beyond this, and so um,
Speaker 1: you know, why are we spending so much time kind
Speaker 1: of mired in these issues? I mean, I I that's
Speaker 1: a sentiment I actually hear sometimes what do you tell
Speaker 1: those people? Well, I think there's a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: that we have not overcome that. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: presumptions of dangerousness and guilty black and brown people bear,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter how educated they are, how smart
Speaker 1: they are, how hard working they are. And I just
Speaker 1: think we're not being honest if we failed to recognize that.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a practicing lawyer, went to Harvard Law School,
Speaker 1: argued all these cases before the Supreme Court. And I've
Speaker 1: been in courtrooms in the Midwest, not the South, sitting
Speaker 1: at defense council's table before hearing starts in my suit
Speaker 1: and tie. And if I'm there for the first time,
Speaker 1: I had to judge walking one time and say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: you get back out there in the hall way. You
Speaker 1: wait until your lawyer gets here. I don't want any
Speaker 1: defendants coming into my courtroom without their lawyer. And I
Speaker 1: had to stand up and apologize. I said I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: your honor, I am the lawyer. And the judge started laughing,
Speaker 1: and the prosecutors started laughing, and I made myself laugh
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to disadvantage my client. And then
Speaker 1: my client came and a young white kid I was representing,
Speaker 1: and I did this hearing, and uh, but afterward, I thought,
Speaker 1: do I think that judge is going to be fair
Speaker 1: to people? Do I think that Judge is burdened by
Speaker 1: this history? And I do, and that plays out all
Speaker 1: the time. But I think even more significantly, Brian, is
Speaker 1: that we haven't actually acknowledged this history of race. You know,
Speaker 1: I live in Alabama. In Alabama, Uh, Confederate Memorial Day
Speaker 1: is a state holiday in this state. Jefferson Davis's birthday
Speaker 1: is a state holiday. We don't have Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: Day in Alabama. We have Martin Luther King slash roberty
Speaker 1: Lea Day. The landscape is littered with the iconography of
Speaker 1: the Confederacy. When I moved to Montgomery, there were fifty
Speaker 1: nine markers and monuments to the Confederacy and not a
Speaker 1: word about slavery. Nothing. And what that says to me
Speaker 1: is that not only have we not actively addressed this history.
Speaker 1: We have proactively tried to create a new narrator, a
Speaker 1: false narrative. We think things were glorious in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: We think the good old days were the forties and fifties.
Speaker 1: We think the best days with the turn of the century,
Speaker 1: precisely the time when black and brown bodies were being
Speaker 1: suspended and hanged from trees. And that disconnect doesn't allow
Speaker 1: us to actually confront the challenges of contemporary racial biased
Speaker 1: and we're not going to be free until we do that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the memorial landscape. I know we discussed
Speaker 1: this for my documentary, but you believe that these Confederate
Speaker 1: monuments and statues of people like Jefferson Davis and Robert E.
Speaker 1: Lee should in fact be removed. Um, tell me why
Speaker 1: you think that's an important step for reconciliation. Brian Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think the whole of their lives is something
Speaker 1: that we should honor. They were the architects and defenders
Speaker 1: of slavery at the time, they were viewed as insurgents
Speaker 1: traders to the American government, and we created a narrative
Speaker 1: about them, and by we, I mean white Southerners created
Speaker 1: not uh not African Americans called the Lost Cause narrative
Speaker 1: of course costs, and it was a way to basically
Speaker 1: reject racial equality. You know, we committed to emancipated people
Speaker 1: that they would be free, that there would be equality,
Speaker 1: that they would be protected. And the American and the
Speaker 1: American government in the white South in particular, said no,
Speaker 1: we're not going to have that. And they started talking
Speaker 1: about this effort to preserve slavery as a noble effort,
Speaker 1: a romantic, glorious effort. And it was that narrative that
Speaker 1: was created, and many of these markers and monuments were
Speaker 1: erected in the nineteen fifties when the United States Supreme
Speaker 1: Court was saying you have to racially integrate your schools.
Speaker 1: We've got Robert E. Lee High here in Montgomery. They
Speaker 1: didn't put the statue of Robert E. Lee in front
Speaker 1: of that high school until nineteen when elected officials were saying,
Speaker 1: we're never going to allow integration to come to our schools.
Speaker 1: I think that's a misconception that a lot of people have.
Speaker 1: They think those statutes have been there for you know,
Speaker 1: over a hundred years, or since the eighteen fifties or whatever.
Speaker 1: But that's one of the things I pointed out in
Speaker 1: the documentary that the two big spikes, according to the
Speaker 1: Southern Poverty Law Center, as you know, Brian, were right
Speaker 1: at the height of Jim Crow in the early nineteen hundred's,
Speaker 1: well after the end of the Civil War, and then
Speaker 1: the other big spike, as you mentioned, right after Brown v.
Speaker 1: Board of Education. And I just think we're not being
Speaker 1: honest about what these things represent. I mean, no one
Speaker 1: thinks it would be appropriate for the German government to
Speaker 1: start erecting statues of Adolf Hitler. In fact, it would
Speaker 1: be unconscionable. We don't think it would be appropriate for
Speaker 1: any nation to put up a statue honoring Osama bin Laden.
Speaker 1: We regard him as a terrorist who did destructive things,
Speaker 1: who did horrific things to undermine confidence and well being
Speaker 1: in this country and across the world. And I just
Speaker 1: think we need to have a consciousness about the agony,
Speaker 1: the horror, the brutality of slavery, and if we have
Speaker 1: that consciousness, we cannot celebrate anyone who actively tried to
Speaker 1: defend it, who actually created an event where thousands of
Speaker 1: people died in support of it. And I just think
Speaker 1: that's the disconnect and I I really do believe that
Speaker 1: there are ways of recognizing people who did heroic things,
Speaker 1: including many white Southerners. There were white Southerners who were abolitionists,
Speaker 1: who actually said in Alabama, we should not enslave other
Speaker 1: human beings. There were white Southerners who were trying to
Speaker 1: stop people from being lynched. There were white Southerners who
Speaker 1: said that segregation is wrong. And what frustrates me is
Speaker 1: that too few people know the names of any of
Speaker 1: those white Southerners. And I think we should name some
Speaker 1: streets after them. I think we should name some schools
Speaker 1: after them, and then we could all be proud of
Speaker 1: what they represent, because they represent a commitment to truth
Speaker 1: and fairness and equality and human rights. Sometimes though it's
Speaker 1: not so black and white. You know, there are Confederate
Speaker 1: generals and officers and their principal legacy maybe perpetuate the
Speaker 1: institution of slavery. And then there are other white historical figures,
Speaker 1: for example, like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who have
Speaker 1: a much a decidedly mixed record, and you know, who
Speaker 1: have done extraordinary things and are responsible for the phrase
Speaker 1: all men are created equal, and and yet they own
Speaker 1: slaves and I struggle with this myself. Admittedly, the idea
Speaker 1: of just wiping the entire slate clean because people cannot
Speaker 1: pass some kind of purity test seems to be it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to wrap my head around. Can you
Speaker 1: help me with that? Sure, I think that we have
Speaker 1: a history where lots of people did dishonorable things. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they couldn't also do something honorable. Look,
Speaker 1: I represent people who make mistakes all the time. I'm
Speaker 1: committed to the notion that each of us is more
Speaker 1: than the worst thing we've ever done one. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that if you've committed a capital murder that
Speaker 1: we should erect a statue to you because you are
Speaker 1: something more than that. And the legacy of Jefferson Davis,
Speaker 1: the legacy of Roberty, Jeff Stewart, you, all of those
Speaker 1: folks is very different than the legacy of Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 1: or George Washington. I don't think it's actually a close
Speaker 1: question in my mind, and so I think when people
Speaker 1: invoke those figures, I think it really undermines Look, there
Speaker 1: were people who were silent during the Nazi era but
Speaker 1: nonetheless did extraordinary things. Uh. Not everybody was as vocal
Speaker 1: as they should have been. It doesn't mean that if
Speaker 1: they are world renowned scientists who did something noble, that
Speaker 1: they can't be celebrated for that. And I just think
Speaker 1: in many ways it's a continuum. Uh, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense to get to that end of the continuum
Speaker 1: where people are talking about figures like Abraham Lincoln or
Speaker 1: George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, when we're selling adding these
Speaker 1: figures down here. Believe me, there are no Lincoln statutes
Speaker 1: in Alabama. There are no Washington statutes. We have a
Speaker 1: very particular purpose that we are trying to advance with
Speaker 1: the erection of some of these monuments and memorials, and
Speaker 1: I think that purpose is to advance this idea that
Speaker 1: there is no shame. We don't have to apologize for slavery.
Speaker 1: We didn't do anything wrong during the era of lynching.
Speaker 1: We we shouldn't feel any remorse about decades of segregation.
Speaker 1: And that mindset, to me, is what we're trying to challenge.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's the same condition or circumstance
Speaker 1: when you talk about some of these other figures, you know,
Speaker 1: I interviewed State Senator Gerald Allen who introduced the bill
Speaker 1: that became the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, which said any
Speaker 1: statue that was erected or a monument before nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: seven cannot, by law be removed. He introduced that legislation,
Speaker 1: by the way, right after Mitchelandrew removed those four monuments
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. But Senator Alan I have a quote
Speaker 1: from him. He didn't say this to me in the piece,
Speaker 1: but he said, there is a revisionist movement of foot
Speaker 1: to cover over many parts of American history. Our national
Speaker 1: and state history should be remembered as it happened. This
Speaker 1: politically correct movement to strike whole periods of the past
Speaker 1: from our collective memories divisive and unnecessary. What would your
Speaker 1: rebuttal be, Well, I'd say I totally agree, but for
Speaker 1: different reasons. Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody could credibly claim that we have told the truth
Speaker 1: about our history of slavery in the American South. To
Speaker 1: be so preoccupied with mid nineteenth century history and to
Speaker 1: never talk about slavery the landscape reveals a very disconnected consciousness.
Speaker 1: Nobody has talked about the history of of lynching. You know,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be a group of lawyers in eighteen that
Speaker 1: finally say, you know, we should do something about this
Speaker 1: era of lynching. We haven't confronted the legacy of segregation.
Speaker 1: The state constitution in Alabama still prohibits black and white
Speaker 1: kids from going to school together there, and we can't
Speaker 1: get it out of the state constitution because every time
Speaker 1: they have a statewide referendum to remove it, the majority
Speaker 1: of people in the state boat to keep it. That
Speaker 1: is so outrageous. It is outrageous, but it is a
Speaker 1: consequence of the kind of history that we have been
Speaker 1: teaching people. And that's why there is a profound need
Speaker 1: uh to talk more honestly about this legacy of slavery
Speaker 1: and lynching and segregation. We don't actually feel burdened by it,
Speaker 1: and I think that's part of the problem. It's time
Speaker 1: for us to take another quick break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone, as always who called, in, an emailed,
Speaker 1: and even texted us this week. Let's take a listen
Speaker 1: to a voicemail that really stood out to us. And
Speaker 1: by the way, this caller did not leave a name. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm calling about the Confederate statues. I'm a Southerner, by birth.
Speaker 1: I went to Robberty Lee High School. Um, I'm in
Speaker 1: my late sixties. I'm retired from DuPont. Just to give
Speaker 1: you a little background. When this whole thing came up
Speaker 1: about the Confederate statues, I have to say, and I
Speaker 1: have to admit that I've never even given it a thought.
Speaker 1: I've grown up around them, I've never I've visited towns
Speaker 1: that had them. I just looked at him as historical markers.
Speaker 1: I wasn't offended by them. I'm a white person. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I just had never really thought about it,
Speaker 1: and I've been thinking about it. Um with all the publicity,
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of um discussion in my hometown
Speaker 1: here of Jacksonville, Florida about it. Nothing specific has been
Speaker 1: done yet, but I suspect at some point something will
Speaker 1: and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we should take
Speaker 1: these statues down. But I have to say that I've
Speaker 1: it's I've had to come go through a process to
Speaker 1: come to this decision. Um. You know, as a Southerner.
Speaker 1: Over the course of my career, I worked with a
Speaker 1: lot of from all over the country, and from time
Speaker 1: to time I would hear people make remarks that were
Speaker 1: derogatory about Southerners, So you know, I have this little
Speaker 1: element of defensiveness and also pride in the South. But
Speaker 1: I think bottom line is it's probably time to take
Speaker 1: these statues out of places where they are exalted or
Speaker 1: looked at as some wonderful thing, and preserve them in
Speaker 1: some fashion and put them in a museum. Thank you, well,
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank that caller for such a thoughtful voicemail.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it, and I think she explained sort
Speaker 1: of the process you have to go through. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes I have felt defensive about things, and much of
Speaker 1: my family is from the South, and I think that
Speaker 1: you have to have a better understanding of the full
Speaker 1: picture of this Confederate iconography to come up with an opinion.
Speaker 1: It was a beautiful voicemail in my opinion, Brian, because
Speaker 1: I also think we have to feel liberated to admit
Speaker 1: that we had to struggle to get someplace and that
Speaker 1: it was a process. And so I just want to
Speaker 1: say thank you to that caller so much for sharing
Speaker 1: her experience and her thoughts. You know, Brian Stevenson uses
Speaker 1: the phrase truth and reconciliation to talk about where we
Speaker 1: need to go as a society, and I think that
Speaker 1: caller is a good example of the kind of thought
Speaker 1: process and introspection that needs to happen. I think people
Speaker 1: need a little bit more hand holding and education to
Speaker 1: get through the process of understanding why it's probably the
Speaker 1: right thing to take these things down, and a little
Speaker 1: more patients, right, And um, I know that's probably an
Speaker 1: athetical to people who have been fighting for social justice
Speaker 1: for centuries, and anathetical, unfortunately, to the media culture we
Speaker 1: live in, which tries to reduce this stuff, you know
Speaker 1: too very sort of plaistic, not only simplistic, but also
Speaker 1: ways that will elicit outrage, right and push us into
Speaker 1: our corners, as opposed to trying to bring us together,
Speaker 1: right because compromises boring, Brian, Right, let's face it anyway,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for that thoughtful voicemail. Of course,
Speaker 1: we'd like to keep hearing from you as we continue
Speaker 1: to explore these thorny issues from my national geographic documentary
Speaker 1: series called America Inside Out. Thank you Ellie Monahan for
Speaker 1: coming up with that title. I thought that was a
Speaker 1: good Yeah. Her check is in the mail, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: her checksman in the mail for twenty six years, but
Speaker 1: go ahead. So the next episode of the series is
Speaker 1: called The Muslim next Door and it airs on April eighteen,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty terrific as well. So here are some
Speaker 1: questions we'd love for you all to answer. For our
Speaker 1: Muslim American listeners, what are some of the joys and
Speaker 1: challenges you face with regard to your religious identity? For
Speaker 1: everyone else, we're curious to hear. Did you grow up
Speaker 1: with a Muslim community in your area, you spent time
Speaker 1: with Muslim families? Are you still wrapping your head around
Speaker 1: what being Muslim even means? Yes, all experience levels are
Speaker 1: welcome on this show, so call and leave us a
Speaker 1: message at nine two to four four six three seven,
Speaker 1: or right to us at comments at current podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I want to tell you about a podcast
Speaker 1: I think you really enjoy. It's called The James Altiture Show.
Speaker 1: But I have to say this is not your average
Speaker 1: business podcast. The host has an incredible story. He started
Speaker 1: and run more than twenty companies. He's currently an advisor
Speaker 1: and an investor to over thirty. But at one point,
Speaker 1: James lost everything. In a matter of months, his bank
Speaker 1: account drain from fifteen million dollars to a hundred and
Speaker 1: forty three dollars, and that's when he realized he had
Speaker 1: to make a change. He stopped living by someone else's
Speaker 1: definition of success and he started to choose himself. And
Speaker 1: now James interviews hundreds of people, self made billionaires, best
Speaker 1: sell authors, thought leaders, astronauts, athletes, rappers, and more. They
Speaker 1: all have incredible origin stories how they got past their fears,
Speaker 1: ditched their cubicles, and started a living with more everyday fulfillment.
Speaker 1: Check out The James Alter Show and subscribe now wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast. And now back to the show, Brian.
Speaker 1: We got this text message about Confederate statues from a
Speaker 1: listener of ours named Ashley, and I wanted to discuss
Speaker 1: it with you. Here's what she wrote. I'm from New
Speaker 1: Orleans and as you know, the mayor had four statues removed,
Speaker 1: some in the middle of the night. There is still
Speaker 1: a year later, no plan to replace what was removed,
Speaker 1: and just empty pediments left. Landrew wants to spend more
Speaker 1: money to study what should be done. Many people here
Speaker 1: wish they had been left up and new descriptions, new
Speaker 1: plaques made to re contextualize why they were there, their importance,
Speaker 1: and the issues and problems surrounding the statues, Ripping them
Speaker 1: down just made people angry and was unthoughtful when he
Speaker 1: claims he was being thoughtful about his actions. How would
Speaker 1: you respond to Ashley Bryan? Well, I think we have
Speaker 1: to ask people, and I would ask Ashley, why do
Speaker 1: you want that statue up? It's not because you want
Speaker 1: to remind people about the brutality of slavery. I don't
Speaker 1: genuinely hear that from people. The question is why what
Speaker 1: do you think we're giving away? And when people say
Speaker 1: we can't erase the past within what past do we
Speaker 1: think we are communicating by having these Confederate monuments memorials
Speaker 1: without saying a word about the degradation and brutality of slavery.
Speaker 1: And that's the problem that I have with this suggestion
Speaker 1: that we can just add a few words and make
Speaker 1: it okay. There's nothing debatable about the humanity of slavery.
Speaker 1: I don't think that should be something where we just
Speaker 1: give both sides of the issue. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: anything debatable about the outrage of racial violence and lynching.
Speaker 1: And when you try to give both sides, what you
Speaker 1: do is you end up legitimating. Uh slavery, you end
Speaker 1: up legitimating lynching. I don't think there's anything debatable about
Speaker 1: how unconscionable it is to say the black people, you
Speaker 1: can't go to school, you can't vote, just because you're black.
Speaker 1: It is a violation of basic human rights and dignity,
Speaker 1: and we allow that to be something that has quote
Speaker 1: both sides. There is no context for justifying slavery, there
Speaker 1: is no context for justifying lynching. So clearly, when it
Speaker 1: comes to some of these Civil War monuments, you are
Speaker 1: not of the mind that there should be a separate
Speaker 1: statue put up, say of African American Civil War soldiers
Speaker 1: who went and fought for the Union side, or an
Speaker 1: abolitionist statue that would counter the narrative expressed by the
Speaker 1: already existing one. I don't think that's enough. I don't
Speaker 1: think it actually advances the larger truth of what happened,
Speaker 1: and the truth of what happened is is that we
Speaker 1: allowed people to be brutalize is we allowed them to
Speaker 1: be tortured, we allowed them to be exploited, we allowed
Speaker 1: them to be victimized in a shameful way, and we've
Speaker 1: got to own up to that. We've got to recover
Speaker 1: from that, and we don't recover from that by muting
Speaker 1: that victimization, that horror, that in humanity. And I think
Speaker 1: sometimes people don't realize how important these statues are. First
Speaker 1: of all, they're usually on huge pedestals. The Roberty Lee
Speaker 1: statue in Emancipation Park. If you looked at the Lee
Speaker 1: Statue and Least Circle, it is on an enormous column
Speaker 1: looming large over the city. And what we put in
Speaker 1: our public spaces, I think those things say a lot
Speaker 1: of about us, who we are and what we're telling
Speaker 1: the world about our values. Yeah. You know what's interesting
Speaker 1: is we're we're about to issue report on segregation, and
Speaker 1: we've actually documented Confederate monuments and memorials, and we've documented
Speaker 1: what was said when these things were erected. And it's
Speaker 1: a really fascinating and I think necessary education that that
Speaker 1: people need to to embrace, because most of the time,
Speaker 1: when these monuments would be erected, you'd have elected officials
Speaker 1: saying things like we are erecting this monument as a
Speaker 1: commitment to white supremacy. That's not my word, that's their word.
Speaker 1: To symbolize our resistance to integration forever, to show that
Speaker 1: our claim and cause was true in preserving slavery, and
Speaker 1: you cannot disconnect the purpose, the intentionality, the context of
Speaker 1: these statutes. And that's why I just think we need
Speaker 1: to question what is it that we think we're giving
Speaker 1: up when these statutes come down, What is it that
Speaker 1: we think we're losing. And what a lot of people
Speaker 1: I believe think they're losing is uh this confidence that
Speaker 1: there has never been anything about which shame is appropriate.
Speaker 1: There has never been something about which you need to apologize,
Speaker 1: and that I understand is challenging to confront that. You know,
Speaker 1: we were wrong to tolerate this, we were wrong to
Speaker 1: permit this, but it is necessary if we're going to
Speaker 1: make progress. You cannot, you know. We I talked about
Speaker 1: this in the context of domestic violence because fifty years
Speaker 1: ago we did not have a very evolved consciousness about
Speaker 1: domestic violence. We allowed women to be abused and brutalized
Speaker 1: in their homes. If they called the police, the police
Speaker 1: would show up. They would never arrest the man. They
Speaker 1: would calm him down. They didn't want to make an
Speaker 1: arrest because that would be too much. And then our
Speaker 1: consciousness change. We actually began to appreciate how unacceptable it
Speaker 1: was to allow people to be victimized, and today we
Speaker 1: take a very different approach, and we should be a
Speaker 1: shame that for decades women were brutalized and had no
Speaker 1: recourse in law enforcement. And I just think until we
Speaker 1: have that consciousness, we don't turn a corner, we don't
Speaker 1: make progress, and we haven't made the progress that I
Speaker 1: think we can make on issues of race in this
Speaker 1: country if we'd start talking more honestly about this street
Speaker 1: and confront the legacy created by these statutes and memorials.
Speaker 1: President Trump opened his campaign by talking about Mexican rapists
Speaker 1: and criminals. He talked about the Central Park five being
Speaker 1: guilty even after it was proved that they were innocent.
Speaker 1: Racial animus, I would argue, has been a key feature,
Speaker 1: not a bug, of his political career. How much of
Speaker 1: a role do you think racial backlash played in his
Speaker 1: election because you know, sixty three million Americans voted for
Speaker 1: him and continues to play and how people are are
Speaker 1: addressing the very issues we've been discussing. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think we can discount that that connection. I mean, um,
Speaker 1: when somebody starts arguing that we should ban people because
Speaker 1: of their religious identity and get support for that. When
Speaker 1: someone characterizes all Mexicans as rapists and engages in that
Speaker 1: kind of racism or stereotyping and bigotry, that kind of
Speaker 1: consciousness would not be tolerable if if we had done
Speaker 1: the work that I think we need to do, I
Speaker 1: just don't think we would be allowed to support that
Speaker 1: kind of posturing, that kind of rhetoric, even the framework.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest about this, I'm just confused when
Speaker 1: I hear people saying make America great again, I don't
Speaker 1: know what decade they think I should want to relive.
Speaker 1: What is the decade in American history that I, as
Speaker 1: an African American man should want to relive, Certainly, not
Speaker 1: something uh in the in the nineteenth century, the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: When is the part of our history when things were
Speaker 1: so grand and glorious for people of color or for women.
Speaker 1: And it is this kind of false idea that we
Speaker 1: used to be glorious and wonderful and now we're not.
Speaker 1: And I just think that consciousness is something you can
Speaker 1: maintain only because you haven't talked honestly about the past.
Speaker 1: And so yes, I do think that we have been
Speaker 1: very unevolved and our thinking about this legacy, and people
Speaker 1: exploit that, people take advantage of that. Uh, when somebody says, oh,
Speaker 1: you don't have to apologize when you make a mistake,
Speaker 1: you don't have to feel shame, it's very tempting, it's
Speaker 1: very attractive. But I don't think it's ultimately liberating. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's ultimately a path to justice or a
Speaker 1: healthy community. And closing, Brian, what do you think is
Speaker 1: the way forward? How can we make progress? How can
Speaker 1: we inch towards justice? Well? I think, you know, I
Speaker 1: think we have to be open. I mean I I
Speaker 1: am really intentional about how we're trying to do this.
Speaker 1: We want everyone to come to our memorial. We want
Speaker 1: everyone to come to our museum. It's not just for
Speaker 1: African Americans, it's not just for people who understand all
Speaker 1: parts of this history. UM. We want to reach people
Speaker 1: where they are to the extent that we can. I'm
Speaker 1: not interested in talking about America's history because I want
Speaker 1: to punish America. And I think that sometimes is the
Speaker 1: perception that causes people to say, no, I'm interested in
Speaker 1: talking about America's history because I want to liberate us.
Speaker 1: I think there's something better waiting for us if we
Speaker 1: can actually take a step to confront this history. When
Speaker 1: you teach your child that he or she is better
Speaker 1: than someone else because of their color, you actually are
Speaker 1: limiting the life of that child. You're you're actually abusing
Speaker 1: that child with a lie. Because the truth is that
Speaker 1: the world is beautiful. People are beautiful. There are these possibilities,
Speaker 1: and if you limit yourself from engaging with people, understanding people,
Speaker 1: loving people because of their color, or their ethnicity or
Speaker 1: where they were born, you're not actually experiencing all that
Speaker 1: I think God wants us to experience. And so I
Speaker 1: think we have to confront this topic. We have to
Speaker 1: pursue this topic, uh, not with a threat, but with
Speaker 1: an invitation, with an expectation that we can get someplace better.
Speaker 1: I think where we are is better than where we
Speaker 1: have been when we didn't allow inter racial marriage, when
Speaker 1: we didn't allow integration and public spaces. I think we've
Speaker 1: developed some things, We've experienced, some things, we've had. Some
Speaker 1: wonderful things happened because we got past that fear. I
Speaker 1: just think there's more fear to overcome. There are more
Speaker 1: challenges that we must meet. There will be a time
Speaker 1: when we can claim to be great in ways we've
Speaker 1: never been great before. But we won't achieve that if
Speaker 1: we're unwilling to confront the legacy of our history of
Speaker 1: racial inequality. And I just think we are all invited
Speaker 1: to that task and some wonderful things are waiting for
Speaker 1: us if we have the courage to meet that challenge. Amen. Amen,
Speaker 1: Brother Stevenson. Now you can see why I just love
Speaker 1: talking to Brian because both Brian's but especially this Brian
Speaker 1: and Montgomery, because it is uh you You just I
Speaker 1: think are so compelling in your arguments and it's really
Speaker 1: hard to argue with the really important points you make
Speaker 1: and make so well. Brian, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: talking with us. I hope people listen to this podcast
Speaker 1: from beginning to end because there's so many important things
Speaker 1: they need to hear and they need to talk about,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping will help encourage and facilitate a conversation. Brian,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Thank you. Katie. A big thank you
Speaker 1: as always to our team behind the scenes, Gianna Palmer,
Speaker 1: Nora Richie, and Jared O'Connell over at Stitcher, Betamas, Alison Bresnik,
Speaker 1: and Emily Binge from Katie Kurk Media. Thank you, guys,
Speaker 1: and a special thanks this week to Kyle from Troy
Speaker 1: Public Radio and Steve and all of my friends at
Speaker 1: Hobo Audio. They're so nice here and they always have
Speaker 1: those little miniature Reese's cups, and thank you for that
Speaker 1: as well. Katie and I are the show's executive producers.
Speaker 1: Mark Phillips wrote, are very catchy theme music, and don't forget.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear your thoughts on being Muslim in America,
Speaker 1: which is the next topic I'm covering in my national
Speaker 1: geographic series. The episode is called The Muslim next Door
Speaker 1: and it airs on April eight, eighth, So leave us
Speaker 1: your messages at nine to nine to four four six
Speaker 1: three seven, or as always, you can drop us a
Speaker 1: line at comments at Current podcast dot com. Brian is
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Goldsmith b I'm under Katie Curic on
Speaker 1: just about every major social media platform there is. That's
Speaker 1: our show for today. As always, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.