Speaker 1: And now.
Speaker 2: My mic back. You're like that you can strike.
Speaker 3: Waters from headquarters behind him.
Speaker 2: And if you're just tuning in the civic cycler, I
Speaker 2: am your host. DRAM's this job.
Speaker 4: Some people refer to me as dj Q ward and green.
Speaker 4: That might expire soon, and I don't, I hope. I
Speaker 4: just just want to get that out there.
Speaker 2: I hope not. I saw your laptop official sons DJ
Speaker 2: like that. Once upon a time. We're gonna bring it back. Yeah,
Speaker 2: stick around. We got a lot more show head coming
Speaker 2: your way. Uh, we're going to talk about how America
Speaker 2: used black children. Mm Q has black children. I have
Speaker 2: black children. Our producer, Maggie, she has a black son.
Speaker 2: His name is Malcolm. He was named after Malcolm X.
Speaker 2: I happen to know that because she shared it with me.
Speaker 2: So we're going to talk about our babies, if you
Speaker 2: don't mind, and uh try to paint a picture for you.
Speaker 2: We're also going to talk about our way black history.
Speaker 2: Fact a guy named Whitworth Chiswell who rode with Paul
Speaker 2: Revere on that famous night. And I'm sure you've heard
Speaker 2: nothing about him, because I certainly didn't. So again, a
Speaker 2: lot to stick around for. But first let's discuss how
Speaker 2: to become a better ally. We we shall again. Producer
Speaker 2: Maggie Maggie be knowing she'd be known. She wanted us
Speaker 2: to talk about this one this week and we loved it.
Speaker 2: So here we go. This came from the aa wu's website.
Speaker 2: We're going to discuss how to be an ally for
Speaker 2: Black women in the workplace. So if you know any
Speaker 2: Black women, if you love any Black women, you love people,
Speaker 2: you know because we all got to get there together,
Speaker 2: you know. Don't don't get to the end of your
Speaker 2: life and find out that a black woman was God
Speaker 2: the whole time. Don't make that mistake, because you might
Speaker 2: not be too far off. Anyway, Here we go, how
Speaker 2: to be an ally for life women in the workplace.
Speaker 2: Imagine having to work seven extra months just to earn
Speaker 2: the same pay as a male coworker. If you're a
Speaker 2: black woman in the United States, that's a likely reality.
Speaker 2: According to the US Census, on average, black women were
Speaker 2: paid sixty three percent of what non Hispanic white men
Speaker 2: were paid in twenty nineteen. That means it takes the
Speaker 2: typical black women nineteen months to be paid what the
Speaker 2: average white man makes in twelve months. That's even worse
Speaker 2: than the national earnings ratio for all women eighty three percent,
Speaker 2: as reported in aawu's The Simple Truth about the Gender
Speaker 2: Pay Gap. So, what are some things we can do
Speaker 2: help black women feel seen and feel safe? Center black
Speaker 2: women concerns and we're talking about the workplace. Be transparent
Speaker 2: about pay and benefit structures, and offer authentic mentorship. That
Speaker 2: means reveal your salaries to black women. Let them know
Speaker 2: because they're likely getting paid less than you. Bite the
Speaker 2: bullets swallowed at EGO. Let them know. Give diversity, equity
Speaker 2: and phusion leaders to support and resources to create real change,
Speaker 2: and listen to and believe black women. And then finally
Speaker 2: ask these two questions. First, I think that every person
Speaker 2: should ask themselves how would I feel if I were
Speaker 2: the only one in the room. It's important to do
Speaker 2: a temperature check and ask the question to black women,
Speaker 2: how are things going? And prepare to hear the answer
Speaker 2: and thoughtfully follow up if there are areas that need
Speaker 2: to change, keep doing that work. Shout out to our
Speaker 2: producer Maggie for bringing that one up to us. That
Speaker 2: one sounded necessary. So that is how you will become
Speaker 2: a better ally this week Now let's talk about our babies. Q.
Speaker 2: Talk about your babies for a second.
Speaker 4: Talking about my babies has become increasingly difficult in recent years.
Speaker 4: Ramses gave us a new term today. He didn't even
Speaker 4: realize it, but he simply called this.
Speaker 2: Guy our old president. I love it.
Speaker 4: He created a very, very dangerous atmosphere for my children.
Speaker 4: And I remember during the last administration a lot of
Speaker 4: people saying out loud, very proudly, and I think they
Speaker 4: felt like they were saying something that was right. I'd
Speaker 4: rather know who these people are. I like these racists,
Speaker 4: bigoted people being out loud and upfront about it, so
Speaker 4: at least I know. And I always cringed at that,
Speaker 4: because how you feel is not more important than how
Speaker 4: you treat me. I don't care how much you hate
Speaker 4: me or how much you love me. If the way
Speaker 4: you treat me as the opposite, so you hate my
Speaker 4: guts but you treat me like gold, then I don't
Speaker 4: care that you hate me. It does not bug me,
Speaker 4: It does not disturb me. In the same that don't
Speaker 4: tell me how much you love me while also making
Speaker 4: me feel like crap. Right, So how you actually treat
Speaker 4: me means far more than how you actually feel. I
Speaker 4: liked the America that made racist people feel ashamed, that
Speaker 4: made them feel less emboldened and like they had to
Speaker 4: pretend to not be that in public. That was a
Speaker 4: safer place for my children. We got into an atmosphere
Speaker 4: where the person supposedly responsible for leading our country based
Speaker 4: his entire political platform on racist divisiveness, almost his entire
Speaker 4: campaign on building a wall to keep a very very
Speaker 4: specific set of people out of our country.
Speaker 2: I want to add to that because I want to
Speaker 2: make sure we tell the full story. I know that
Speaker 2: that wall was a huge part of his campaign. He
Speaker 2: had people chanting it all over the country, right. And
Speaker 2: I know that if you're listening to this and you
Speaker 2: are a fan of our old president, that you might think, well,
Speaker 2: he was only trying to keep a certain type of
Speaker 2: people out from that country, Mexico. But I want you
Speaker 2: to consider that you might not be Mexican, have Mexican heritage.
Speaker 2: You know, we live in the Southwest, so there are Mexicans.
Speaker 2: This used to be Mexico, the land that we live on, right,
Speaker 2: So this is their home since the beginning. Yes, and
Speaker 2: we recognize that, and we also recognize how it must
Speaker 2: feel for someone who's campaigning to be the leader of
Speaker 2: the free world to frame your lineage, your ancestral home
Speaker 2: as the source of all the things that ail this
Speaker 2: country and the necessity of building a wall. You know
Speaker 2: how that feels. And then of course the emboldened people
Speaker 2: who go to those rallies in those campaigns, how they
Speaker 2: feel like, Yes, this is our country and you don't
Speaker 2: belong here. Go back to where you came from. And
Speaker 2: so we have always on this show and in our
Speaker 2: personal lives in the past. Right now and until they
Speaker 2: bury me, they could bury me a few times, I
Speaker 2: will stand in solidarity with my Mexican brothers and sisters,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. I get that this is
Speaker 2: aired all over the country and that there's other types
Speaker 2: of Latin Latin X people, but you know, I grew
Speaker 2: up with Mexican folks, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And I.
Speaker 2: Will never know firsthand what that feels like. But I'm
Speaker 2: asking you, our listener, you know, if you were a
Speaker 2: fan of our ex president, and just imagine what it
Speaker 2: felt like to hear that I'm sorry for cutting you off.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, no, you didn't, and it's much closer to home. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: because because my son and my daughter and my sons
Speaker 4: both and your sons are Mexican and black, being Mexican
Speaker 4: and black in this country for the last however many years.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, Now, the reason we're talking about this, the
Speaker 2: reason we need to talk about this, is because there
Speaker 2: were some videos that were released recently and we couldn't
Speaker 2: get to them until now. This is sort of the
Speaker 2: nature of this show. We're very grateful for our one
Speaker 2: hour per week, you know. Shout out to our new
Speaker 2: station in Indianapolis, Shout out to our new station and Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: We're grateful for the growth. We're grateful, you know. But
Speaker 2: we're only an hour long show, and so we don't
Speaker 2: get to talk about these things. But this was something
Speaker 2: that broke our hearts when we first saw it. The
Speaker 2: headline you can look it up. You know, this is radio,
Speaker 2: so we can't share the video, but the headline is
Speaker 2: Syracuse police officers detain eight year old boy for allegedly
Speaker 2: stealing a bag of Dorito's. Right now, that headline, by itself,
Speaker 2: officers detain an eight year old boy, you know, doesn't
Speaker 2: sound as bad as some of the other headlines that
Speaker 2: we read, but when you watch the video, and you
Speaker 2: see the way that they are handling the body of
Speaker 2: a child, a black child. It is deeply unsettling and hurtful.
Speaker 2: And also it makes you ponder exactly what we're pondering today,
Speaker 2: which is how does America view black children? You know,
Speaker 2: if you were to stop and imagine in your mind police.
Speaker 2: You know, we talk about police a lot on this show,
Speaker 2: but imagine police, right, and the police are going to
Speaker 2: go get the bad guy, right, and then they're going
Speaker 2: to arrest the bad guy. With the bad guy in handcuffs,
Speaker 2: put him in a car, take him down to the joint,
Speaker 2: lock them up in the slammer. Who's the bad guy?
Speaker 2: Is he an eight year old? Is he an eight
Speaker 2: year old white kid? So how can he has to
Speaker 2: how can he gets to be an eight year old
Speaker 2: black kid?
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 2: You know, the trauma allegedly, by the way, the trauma
Speaker 2: that this child And then of course, you know, now
Speaker 2: we live in a world where everything is filmed and
Speaker 2: shared or whatever. But the trauma for allegedly stealing a
Speaker 2: bag of Dorito's.
Speaker 4: Ironic that you point out that everything is filmed.
Speaker 2: Mhcuse that doesn't go away.
Speaker 4: Please help us, if you can hear our voices. You
Speaker 4: listen to the show, show us the video of the
Speaker 4: eight year old white kid being treated this way. I'd
Speaker 4: love to see it, not because I would actually enjoy it,
Speaker 4: but just the idea that this doesn't happen exclusively to
Speaker 4: our children. If the idea is, well, this kid did this,
Speaker 4: there has to be some accountability. It has to you know,
Speaker 4: the police do this across the board. Sure, it'd be
Speaker 4: interesting to know that that's the truth. It would still
Speaker 4: be gross and unacceptable for anyone's eight year old to
Speaker 4: be treated that way.
Speaker 2: Oh listen now again, you our listener, if you're just
Speaker 2: tuning into Civic Sipher, if you're just kind of getting
Speaker 2: familiar with us, we talked about this stuff. We've been
Speaker 2: doing this show for a year and a half. We've
Speaker 2: been talking about We've been talking about police officers arresting
Speaker 2: children at school. You know, remember the black girl in Hawaii.
Speaker 2: This is why we fought so hard to have a
Speaker 2: station in Hawaii carry the show. You know, there's instances
Speaker 2: of this happening all the time where we have to
Speaker 2: talk about our children and how they are treated. It's
Speaker 2: like black skin immediately gets you an extra ten years
Speaker 2: of life and you are and they appreach approach you accordingly. Right,
Speaker 2: you don't have the freedom to make mistakes if in
Speaker 2: fact you are making a mistakes, there is no room
Speaker 2: for nuance. You know, it's not lost upon me that
Speaker 2: this black child. You know, we talk about all kinds
Speaker 2: of systemic issues, We talk about how the wealth moves,
Speaker 2: We talk about this alive in the show, right, And
Speaker 2: I don't know what I don't know, but I will
Speaker 2: allow for there to be what I don't know. When
Speaker 2: I look at someone stealing food, it's like the worst
Speaker 2: thing to me. I remember one time I saw a
Speaker 2: post might have been on Tumblr. Yes, I'm still on Tumblr.
Speaker 2: I love that place, and so it was Maggie shout
Speaker 2: out to our producer. She's on there a lot too.
Speaker 2: But I was on Tumblr and I came across something
Speaker 2: someone written and I loved it so much that I
Speaker 2: shared it on like my Facebook or something. And it says,
Speaker 2: if you see someone stealing food, no you didn't. And
Speaker 2: I personally don't have a problem with poor people taking
Speaker 2: advantage of a system that was designed to fail them,
Speaker 2: because they will never topple it by taking what poor
Speaker 2: people don't tend to overindulge. They tend to take what
Speaker 2: they need. I mean, there's some people that will overindulge
Speaker 2: in an instance, but overall, you know, folks want to
Speaker 2: make sure that they got a full belly, they're safe,
Speaker 2: you know, and they have some access to creating some
Speaker 2: sort of semblance of a happy life, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. I think that written to the documents of
Speaker 2: this downting documents of this country is the right to
Speaker 2: pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Right. So
Speaker 2: those are the inalienable rights afforded to all human beings
Speaker 2: endowed with consciousness. I wish that was how they meant it.
Speaker 2: And so now I know, I know you're listening to
Speaker 2: me like, oh my god, this guy is super duper
Speaker 2: bleeding heart liberal. Yes I am. I believe that human
Speaker 2: beings deserve to be treated like human beings and not
Speaker 2: like dogs and not like animals. I don't even believe
Speaker 2: dogs and animals should be treated bad. And I'm not
Speaker 2: a fan of dogs at all. You had a dog
Speaker 2: one time, and he used to want me to pet
Speaker 2: It was that dog man Major. I did not like. Major.
Speaker 2: Major was cool, but I didn't want him around me,
Speaker 2: look at my face. You do what I'm saying. Anyway,
Speaker 2: back to this video. What you see as a child, crying,
Speaker 2: child getting escorted to a police car, and then of
Speaker 2: course a neighborhood around him filming, and then of course
Speaker 2: allegedly stealing a bag of chips. If you are a
Speaker 2: normal person who lived a normal life, you may have
Speaker 2: had an instance in your life when you had to
Speaker 2: learn the hard way that stealing is wrong. Maybe you've
Speaker 2: taken something without paying for it, or maybe you just
Speaker 2: forgot to pay for it. You know, my son, my
Speaker 2: little boy, one time, he walked out of the CBS
Speaker 2: by our house with a I think it was a
Speaker 2: Monster truck toy. We got in the car, he strapped
Speaker 2: into the seat belt and I see him back there
Speaker 2: playing with the toy. I'm like, where'd you get that from?
Speaker 2: And I saw the package and he was three. No
Speaker 2: concept of money? No, you know, I'm not saying this
Speaker 2: eight year old didn't have a concept of money. But
Speaker 2: you know, it is possible to walk out of a
Speaker 2: store and not realize that you still hold something because
Speaker 2: it's happened. It's also possible to take it deliberately. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to pretend like that's not a possibility. But again,
Speaker 2: we're talking about food. We're not talking about someone that
Speaker 2: ran into a store with a gun stuck up everybody
Speaker 2: stole the money and then left, because then it's like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, the kid robbed the store with a gun.
Speaker 2: You know, it's dangerous. We got to make sure that
Speaker 2: you know he's a wild card. No, I'm stealing a
Speaker 2: bag of chips, okay. And again, if that was the
Speaker 2: only instance we were talking about, that'd be fine. But
Speaker 2: then there was another instance. This video footage was at
Speaker 2: night and it came from Maplewood, the Maplewood Police Department
Speaker 2: in Minnesota, and a similar scene, similar scenario, police then
Speaker 2: releasing another child, and people are like screaming in the video, Oh,
Speaker 2: he's a baby, He's a baby. Why are you having
Speaker 2: you know, in the car, handcuffed, all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: He's a baby. What are you doing? And you can
Speaker 2: hear the frustration escalate in the people's voices who are
Speaker 2: shouting at the police officers. You know, it starts from
Speaker 2: angry and then it gets to almost like the boiling
Speaker 2: point where you know, when people's voice changes from angry
Speaker 2: to like too angry, where they're not even making sense anymore,
Speaker 2: and it feels like they're about to cry. You can
Speaker 2: hear that in the video. And it's a lot to
Speaker 2: deal with because again my brain tells me, okay, so
Speaker 2: if we change one thing about the scenario, we just
Speaker 2: change the color of their skin. Does this play out
Speaker 2: the same way? And unless I'm wrong, unless there's videos
Speaker 2: out there to the contrary, you know, and a good
Speaker 2: amount because there's these stories we've been told from for
Speaker 2: many years, then it feels like this is something that
Speaker 2: happens almost exclusively to melanated individuals.
Speaker 4: Do you understand how many videos would be public information
Speaker 4: if the contrary happened. Think about how many people would
Speaker 4: stand to gain from proving that point. Yeah, most of
Speaker 4: the people in power in our society, they would love
Speaker 4: to video. Yeah, it's not just fact that we never
Speaker 4: see them. There's enough evidence for me to know that
Speaker 4: it at least almost never happens.
Speaker 2: And I think we're making the same point now. I
Speaker 2: am a fan of Wu Tang, Right. I grew up
Speaker 2: listening to Wu Tang clan and had all the individual
Speaker 2: solo albums. There goes ws the YouTube woo Right, And
Speaker 2: if you're listening to us on a hip hop station.
Speaker 2: Perhaps you are familiar with the Wu Tang claim as well,
Speaker 2: and if not, you need to get familiar. Wu Tang
Speaker 2: is for the kids. I can't remember whose album it
Speaker 2: was because I'm going all the way back to you know,
Speaker 2: ninth grade on this one. But there's a song with
Speaker 2: an intro to the song, right, and it's a skit
Speaker 2: from a movie. Again, I don't know the movie that
Speaker 2: it was sampled for the album, which is where I
Speaker 2: know it from, which.
Speaker 4: Was which happened all the time in Wu Tang album.
Speaker 2: That's what they did. They sampled from of course, you know,
Speaker 2: Kung fu movies, and then they sampled from you know
Speaker 2: movies that you know, sort of bl exploitation, just hood movies.
Speaker 2: You do know what I'm saying. So in this skit
Speaker 2: that precedes the song, there's a child who's imprisoned, right,
Speaker 2: And this imprisoned child starts talking to another child and
Speaker 2: he says, hey boy, how old are you? And the
Speaker 2: boy says thirteen? And then the first child says thirteen. Man,
Speaker 2: them cops must be running out of in words to arrest, right,
Speaker 2: So that album was in the shoot that would have
Speaker 2: been in the nineties when I was listening to that one,
Speaker 2: and it probably sampled something from the seventies, right. So
Speaker 2: the reason I'm telling that story is because I want you,
Speaker 2: our listener, to understand that long before there were cameras
Speaker 2: filming police interactions with black children, this was very much
Speaker 2: a part of black life. In fact, it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: surprising to learn that a twelve year old thirteen year
Speaker 2: old was arrested being tried as an adult. Brian Stevenson,
Speaker 2: Who's I'm a big fan of Brian Stevenson. He's the
Speaker 2: leader of the Equal Justice Initiative, someone who if you're
Speaker 2: a fan of this show, please look him up. That
Speaker 2: is a man doing tremendous work. Again, Brian Stevenson, the
Speaker 2: Equal Justice Initiative. What he does is he tries to
Speaker 2: get wrongful convictions over turned. He's a lawyer. There's a
Speaker 2: movie about him starring Jamie Fox and Michael B. Jordan
Speaker 2: Michael B. Jordan and I forget the name of the movie,
Speaker 2: but if you look up Jamie Fox Michael B. Jordan
Speaker 2: you'll find it. Actually Michael B.
Speaker 4: Jordan actually plays Brian Stevenson in that movie.
Speaker 2: If you could find out for me, Maggie, I'd appreciate it,
Speaker 2: but so yeah, Michael b Jordan, Jamie Fox, Brian Stevenson. Anyway,
Speaker 2: a big part of his life's work is dedicated to,
Speaker 2: you know, working with criminals with wrongful convictions, and so
Speaker 2: he has to confront these alarming statistics. You know, how
Speaker 2: often are children sentenced to die in prison in the
Speaker 2: United States? Think you the movies called Jess Mercy, See
Speaker 2: she'd be known anyway. So if you want some entertainment
Speaker 2: and a bonus Baba become a better ally, check out
Speaker 2: that movie Just Mercy Again starring Brian Stevenson and uh
Speaker 2: Samuel L. Jackson and Jamie Fox. But also look up
Speaker 2: Brian Stephen him Brian Stevenson himself the actual man because
Speaker 2: a lot of his work, he has a ted talk
Speaker 2: that I'm a big fan of as well. A lot
Speaker 2: of his work will really illuminate how the criminal justice system,
Speaker 2: from policing to imprisonment and you know judges and you
Speaker 2: know prosecutors and all the sort of stuff that goes
Speaker 2: along with it, how they interact with black youth and
Speaker 2: how it's exceptionally unfair and you're almost you're like fighting
Speaker 2: a losing battle from the beginning. In fact, to prevail
Speaker 2: if you if in fact you're innocent, to prevails extremely difficult, difficult.
Speaker 2: You would think your innocence would be enough, and it
Speaker 2: just isn't. You actually need people to help you despite
Speaker 2: you being innocent, and in a lot of the cases
Speaker 2: that you know, he works to overturn.
Speaker 1: I posted a picture of my son once back when
Speaker 1: we first started doing this show, and the comments on
Speaker 1: that picture made me well up with pride and joy
Speaker 1: and love.
Speaker 4: Because even you know, complete strangers telling me how beautiful
Speaker 4: my kid was. It's a sad truth that as I
Speaker 4: watch him grow, I have to wonder at what point
Speaker 4: they stop thinking he's beautiful and they start thinking he's scary.
Speaker 2: That's deep, that's real deep. But this is our reality
Speaker 2: and welcome to it all. Right now, we're going to
Speaker 2: move on to Our Way Black History Fact. This one
Speaker 2: is sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly magazine. Our Way Black
Speaker 2: History Facts Today comes from the New England Historical Society.
Speaker 2: We're going to discuss Wentworth Cheeswell, the black Man who
Speaker 2: rode with Paul Revere. Wow, I'll read in the middle
Speaker 2: of December seventeen seventy four, messengers on horseback carried news
Speaker 2: to the people of New Hampshire's seacoast. Two British warships
Speaker 2: were headed to Newcastle to reinforce Fort William and Mary.
Speaker 2: The messengers, or dispatch writers, helped organize the resistance. One
Speaker 2: messenger was Paul Revere and one was Wentworth Cheeswell. Revere
Speaker 2: made quite a few before war broke out, and so
Speaker 2: did dozens of dispatch riders before and during the American Revolution.
Speaker 2: As part of the secret Patriot network, the writer shared
Speaker 2: intelligence about the enemy and communications between the colonial provisional governments.
Speaker 2: Wentworth Cheeswell took a number of rides. Like Revere, he
Speaker 2: volunteered to serve in the military and fought at Saratoga.
Speaker 2: He was also considered New Hampshire's first archaeologist and the
Speaker 2: first African American elected to public office in the United States.
Speaker 2: Boom Wentworth Chesswell was born on April eleventh, seventeen forty six,
Speaker 2: to a biracial father, Hopsteel Cheeswell and Catherine Kinniston, who
Speaker 2: was white. Hopstell was the son of a white woman
Speaker 2: and an enslaved black man, Richard Cheswell. Under the laws
Speaker 2: of the day, Hopstill's status followed the mother, making him free. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Hopstill's father bought his freedom and in seventeen seventeen purchase
Speaker 2: twenty acres of land in Newmarket, New Hampshire. Richard's land
Speaker 2: purchase is considered the first by an African American in
Speaker 2: New Hampshire. Hopstill, a house right and a carpenter, built
Speaker 2: the John Paul Jones House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, New Hampshire,
Speaker 2: as well as the Samuel Langdon House now in Stubridge,
Speaker 2: Sturbridge Village. Some of these places I've actually been to.
Speaker 2: He also built the Bell Tavern Hobstill Still. Hopstill earned
Speaker 2: enough money to send Wentworth to Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: Wentworth took advantage of his unusual education privilege and worked
Speaker 2: as a schoolmaster in Newmarket. By the time you reached
Speaker 2: twenty one, to owned more than thirty acres and a
Speaker 2: pew in the meeting house. At twenty one he married
Speaker 2: seventeen year old Mary Davis Durham of New Hampshire, and
Speaker 2: they had thirteen children. Their descendants identified as white, and
Speaker 2: the census listed Cheswell's white. Record of Records of comments
Speaker 2: by his contemporary suggest they viewed him as biracial. In
Speaker 2: seventeen sixty eight, twenty two year old Wentworth Cheeswell one
Speaker 2: elected one election as town consc. George Mason University determined
Speaker 2: that made him the first African American elected to public office.
Speaker 2: Chellswell beat out Vermont Alexander Twilight for the honor. For
Speaker 2: all but one year of his life, Chellswell held public office,
Speaker 2: including town Selectman, Assessor s Gravenier, Justice of the Peace
Speaker 2: and Auditor. I don't know every word, sorry, guys. His
Speaker 2: civic involvement included founding the New Market Societal Library with
Speaker 2: several other men and bequeathing his books to it. He
Speaker 2: also won elections as town messenger for the Committee of Safety,
Speaker 2: which meant he had to carry news too, and from
Speaker 2: the Patriot Committee of Correspondence in Exeter. For several years,
Speaker 2: New England columnists had risen up in sporadic violence to
Speaker 2: protest Parliament's taxation and restrictions. Boston had its Tea Party
Speaker 2: Providence its gasbe affair, and New Hampshire its Pine Tree Riot,
Speaker 2: to name a few. In the fall of seventeen seventy
Speaker 2: four of the Bridgeish government grew concerned about the rebellion
Speaker 2: then developing, and so it secretly banned the export of
Speaker 2: munitions to the American colonies. Redcoats those are the British.
Speaker 2: ROSA also sees gunpowder in Charleston, Massachusetts. In September, Boston's
Speaker 2: Patriot leadership knew that only a few dozen a few
Speaker 2: soldiers guarded Fort William and Mary. They believe British troops
Speaker 2: and ships would sail to New Hampshire and secure the fort,
Speaker 2: and they fought the gunpowder and weapons at the fort
Speaker 2: would sorry. They thought the gunpowder and weapons at the
Speaker 2: fort would serve a more useful purpose in Patriot hands.
Speaker 2: On December thirteen, seventy seventy four, Paul Revere rolled the
Speaker 2: sixty six miles to Portsmouth with the letter from Boston's
Speaker 2: Committee of Correspondence to its counterparts. The letter advised them
Speaker 2: to seize the weapons and gunpowder at the fort before
Speaker 2: the British warships arrived. This is sort of the Britisher coming,
Speaker 2: the Britisher coming that we all know from history. Portsmouth
Speaker 2: mustard volunteers for an assault the next day on the
Speaker 2: British soldiers who guarded the fort. The men of Newmarket
Speaker 2: strongly a strongly patriotic town, wanted to take part in
Speaker 2: the attack as well, but where and how Wentworth. Cheswell
Speaker 2: then rode to Exeter to find out from the Committee
Speaker 2: of Correspondence where the new Market volunteers should go. The
Speaker 2: next day, four hundred New Hampshire men marched on the
Speaker 2: fort and forced it to surrender. It took one hundred
Speaker 2: barrels of gunpower, light cannon and small arms. The ships
Speaker 2: never arrived, but the Patriots used the gunpowder and weapons
Speaker 2: in the Siege of Boston. That's some American history for you,
Speaker 2: right there, all right, almost done here. Some people claim
Speaker 2: Cheswell road north from Boston on April eighteen seventy seventy five,
Speaker 2: alerting the countryside of the British attack, even as Revere
Speaker 2: did the same riding west. Local historian rich Albertine, however,
Speaker 2: said there's no evidence Cheswell ever made that ride. Chesswell
Speaker 2: did enlist in Colonel John Langdon's company of Lighthorse volunteers
Speaker 2: and fought at the Battle of Saratoga. F finished his
Speaker 2: military service return to Newmarket, where he ran a store
Speaker 2: next to a schoolhouse. As a prosperous, well educated citizen,
Speaker 2: he continued his leadership of the town. When he realized
Speaker 2: that Newmarket's town records might disappear, he copied them all
Speaker 2: by hand in a journal. Newmarket Historical Society now holds them.
Speaker 2: The Massachusetts Historical Society holds another document written by Cheeswell,
Speaker 2: a letter sent to the Reverend Jeremy Bellcap or bell
Speaker 2: Knap Sorry. The letter contains descriptions of artifacts left by
Speaker 2: indigenous people that Cheswell recovered around new Market. Bell Knapp
Speaker 2: included the information in his History of New Hampshire, and
Speaker 2: Cheeswell earned the distinction as New Hampshire's first archaeologist. Three
Speaker 2: years later, went with Cheswell's name surfaced on the floor
Speaker 2: of the US Senate. Senator David Morrell of New Hampshire
Speaker 2: rose to speak about the Missouri Compromise, which forbade biracial
Speaker 2: people from obtaining citizenship in Missouri. Quote. In New Hampshire
Speaker 2: there was a man by the name of Cheeswell, who,
Speaker 2: with his family were respectable in point of abilities, property
Speaker 2: and character. Quote Morals said quote. He held some of
Speaker 2: the first offices in the town in which he resided,
Speaker 2: was appointed Justice of the Peace for the county, and
Speaker 2: was perfectly competent to perform with the ability of all
Speaker 2: the duties of various offices in the most prompt, accurate,
Speaker 2: and acceptable manner. But his family are forbidden to enter
Speaker 2: and live in Missouri. Quote. So now we have a
Speaker 2: little bit more way black history. The man that also
Speaker 2: helped Paul Revere save this country and warn everyone that
Speaker 2: the British were coming and fortify our forces to deal
Speaker 2: with that attack. It's a black man by the name
Speaker 2: of Winworth ch Haswell.
Speaker 4: It's incredible that throughout the history of our country, no
Speaker 4: matter how great your accomplishments, it was not only not
Speaker 4: something that happened, but illegal to treat black people as people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, well, we know that it's important to deal
Speaker 2: with that, and we have the time and the space
Speaker 2: and the microphones, and so we do. But that's it
Speaker 2: for us today. So we'd like to thank you all
Speaker 2: for tuning in to Civic Cipher. I am your host,
Speaker 2: Ramsy's Jah. I go by the name q Ward. Yes indeed,
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Speaker 3: Y'all, Like yo, we handle live these brothers a fabulous o.
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Speaker 2: Up, and the borders with press passing. We bring it
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Speaker 2: What's happenings? You got a question to ask if deduce
Speaker 2: it's just a TV show you're passing.
Speaker 3: And this from a white wartime journalist, headlines wait, God.
Speaker 2: Preece and rest Like this life what like this?
Speaker 4: Like we can't find the