WEBVTT - A Southern Ethos 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:05.840 Imagine for a moment that it's fifty million years ago. 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:11.080 The earth is incredibly hot, about twenty five degrees hotter 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:19.159 on average. There are gators in Canada. The Gulf of 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:24.280 Mexico is the stuff of present day nightmares. It swallows 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.840 the bottom halves of Mississippi and Alabama and the whole 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:32.320 state of Florida. The Mississippi River is not yet an 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:39.320 old man, but it's flowing. It's at the mouth of 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:44.080 this river that the trouble begins, because as the river flows, 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.880 a fine layer of blue black silt begins to settle 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:52.600 around the delta. And this isn't just any silt, it's 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:57.000 mineral heavy, the decay of everything the river has held 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.640 over the millennia. The river will get faster and change course. 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.199 This layer of silt will move with it, fanning out 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:11.840 along the shallow waters of this ancient sea. After another 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.000 twenty million years or so, it'll become a layer of 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:20.720 clay four hundred feet deep in some parts. And it's 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.240 right on top of the thickest part of the clay 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:29.200 that one day Mississippi will decide to build its capital city. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:34.520 This is, to put it mildly, a terrible decision because 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:42.840 this clay is a burnt orange monster. It's made of 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.760 a mineral called smectite, so absorbent it can swell to 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.680 two hundred times its size when wet and shrink just 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:59.520 that much when it's dry. Over the next two hundred years, 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:04.880 follow roads and send homes tumbling into creeks, cracked pipes 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:12.600 and concrete foundations and even bones. It's called Yazoo clay, 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:26.480 and it's where our story begins. I'm Larison Campbell, and 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:34.839 this is under Yazoo clay as it happens. I am 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:40.720 intimately familiar with this clay because Jackson, Mississippi, that poorly 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:46.520 placed capital city, is where I used to live. This shifting, 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.480 swelling soil has completely shaped the character of the place 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.800 and everyone who lives there. Residents are used to broken 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.840 water mains and boil water notices and seeing trees and 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.200 utility poles in their neighbor's yards. But there's an upside 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:07.200 to this chaos. In a place as fractured as Mississippi, 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.839 complaining about Yazoo clay is kind of the one thing 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.520 everyone can agree on. It's like traffic in Los Angeles 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.840 or the weather in New England. So when my producer 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.040 and I found ourselves at a fancy Jackson art opening 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:28.680 talking about dirt, I wasn't too surprised. It is the strangest, 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.840 most destructive soil I've ever dug in before. Still, I 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.520 never heard it talked about quite like this. 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.680 It has character, It is a mind of its own. 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.000 It seems this is Gabby and Stasia. They've got a 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.960 very different relationship with the clay because they spend all 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:50.000 day in it. These two are archaeological field texts. 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.200 Destructive like to the to stuff in the ground, or 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.520 like to tools. 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:59.920 All of the above. What Gabby and Stasia are digging for, well, 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.440 that's kind of the whole reason we're in Jackson. But first, 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:10.920 the art opening. It's foreign artist named Noah Saderstrom, who 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:15.480 is also a Mississippi native. Noah's tall and thin with 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.720 a bushy beard. He's thrown a blazer on over a 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:22.320 button up, but his most noticeable accessory is a pair 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:27.680 of wire framed glasses spectacles. Really, on this particular evening, 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.000 Noah's tough to pin down. From the moment he arrived 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.039 until he headed out. He was in the midst of 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:37.719 a crowd of wine sipping Jacksonians and florals and sport coats. 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.400 They were all there to ask what happened to doctor Smith, 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.800 because that's the title of Noah's show, The hell of It, 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.920 The hell of a thing incredible. I mean, you'd sent 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:50.720 me photos of. 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.880 What you were doing, but I didn't tell well. 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.760 This is amazing. I couldn't picture it. You know what 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:01.839 he couldn't picture a panorama that's six feet tall and 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:06.359 one hundred and twenty two feet long. In football terms, 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.839 that's the forty yard line. The museum had constructed a 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.120 room within a room, a circular olive green arena to 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.360 hold the length of Noah's painting, and when you see 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.039 it up close, you understand why Noah needed all that space. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.159 The panorama tells a very complicated family story about a 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:33.000 very complicated man, Noah's great grandfather, doctor dil Smith. But 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:37.000 it wasn't an easy story to uncover, Noah says, the 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.599 man was intentionally erased from his family history. 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.960 Doctor Smith disappeared in nineteen twenty five. I spent the 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:49.400 last seven years researching in public and private archives to 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:50.560 figure out his. 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:55.120 Story, and then Noah painted that story an exquisite and 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.440 obsessive detail across the one hundred and eighty three canvases 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:05.279 that make up his panorama. But what is that story? Well, 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.159 doctor Smith was an eye doctor, married a father of four. 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:15.000 It's probably like seven tenths of this painting exists of 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.680 the details that were known until he entered state custody, 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.919 and then it goes dark, which is another forty years 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:24.559 of his life. 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.960 The story went dark because in nineteen twenty five, Noah's 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.720 great grandfather entered the Mississippi State Insane Asylum as it 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.760 was called. Then, any records of what happened next the 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.599 rest of doctor Smith's life were sealed, and this is 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.599 where Noah the artist intersects with Gabby and Stasia the 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.760 field techs. The site they're working on is the side 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.479 of the asylum where he was sent. Mississippi's first mental 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:53.680 health hospital opened its doors in eighteen fifty five. In 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:57.719 the course of its eighty years, the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.640 as it was officially called back then, treated over thirty 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.440 thousand people, nearly a quarter of them would be buried 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.640 on its grounds. It would also get rebranded a few times, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.040 first the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum, then the Mississippi State 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.440 Insane Asylum. I'll just be calling it the Old Asylum. 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.160 I met Noah about a year before the opening. I'd 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.160 heard there was a Mississippi artist working on a show 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.520 about his family connection to the Old State Asylum. I 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.720 think I emailed him the next day. Because as much 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:34.239 as Southerners love their family stories, there are certain ones 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.400 you're just not supposed to tell. But sometimes those are 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:42.120 the ones that can't help coming out, you. 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:42.760 Know how like. 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.840 If you're pulling on some sort of spool, it starts 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.080 to tumble, and then kind of tumble faster, and then 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:53.000 the yarn just kind of like falls off onto the 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:54.960 floor in big piles. It kind of feels like that. 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:09.040 By the way, that was a real live vocalist at 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.880 the art opening. It was a big night with wine 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:17.400 and cheese and those really delicious little doughnuts. And that's 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.840 because this tumbling spool of yarn, it's bigger than the 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:26.120 story of Noah's great grandfather. The asylum closed in nineteen 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.800 thirty five, and for the next seventy five years or so, 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.800 it felt like everything from state lawmakers to local society 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.720 did that. Damn Yazoo Clay was trying to erase the 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.480 story of Mississippi's old state asylum. But for the last 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.760 decade that hasn't been the case, and that change started 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:48.920 someplace you wouldn't expect, with construction of a parking garage 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:54.520 at the University of Mississippi Medical Center or UMMC. It's 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.679 become a bit of Jackson folklore. Even people at the 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.439 museum that night were talking about it. 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:08.960 They were doing some digging at UMMC and dug up grays. 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.079 You've heard about it in the paper or even was 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:11.760 talking about it. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:17.000 No, it was just phone calls coming in because their 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:22.520 husband was working there and they were excavating, clearing the 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.400 ground for future projects. 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:33.160 Fan skulls, skulls, human skulls right in the middle of 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.760 the biggest medical center in the state. 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:39.400 And this is the. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.280 University of Mississippi Medical Center. 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.640 Oh so, perhaps an old asylum. 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.400 Perhaps an old asylum tucked back in the It goes 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:50.280 way far back to the highway there. I think it's 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:53.000 back in the back corner. The University of Mississippi Medical 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.960 Center sits on a hill in the center of Jackson. 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:01.319 It's impossible to miss sprawling yellow complex right at the 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.560 intersection of two of the busiest streets in town. It's 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.480 maybe the most important place in the state. Those thirty 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:13.120 odd buildings hold Mississippi's only medical school, it's children's hospital, 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:17.839 and Oregon Transplant Center. It's also Mississippi's only safety net hospital, 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.679 which means it's not allowed to turn away patients who 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.480 can't pay, and in Mississippi, that's a lot of people. 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:33.720 Ummc's place in Mississippi is incredibly important. Many people have 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.680 no other options for healthcare except UMMC. 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.319 This is Leida Gibson. She works with the medical Center. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.960 And it's needed for people who maybe come to Jackson 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.760 for a day and have to get everything taken care 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:50.760 of because they live one hundred miles away. 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:55.920 It's hard to talk about anything in Mississippi without taking 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.319 a moment to acknowledge that it's a very poor, very 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.800 six state. Those of us from here joke that were 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.719 ranked last and every category you want to be first in, 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.079 and first in every category you want to be last. 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.600 During COVID, demand for beds at the University Medical Center 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.320 was so out of control they ended up turning two 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.720 parking garages into field hospitals, Which is all to say 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.880 there's a lot of pressure on this place. So back 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.800 in twenty twelve, the university began clearing a field on 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.000 campus to make space for a parking garage, but it 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.640 never got built because it turns out the ground was 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:36.640 already occupied. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:45.240 Certainly, whatever plans they had envisioned had to be overwhelmed 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.360 by the number of bodies that they found. 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.240 That's Jerry Mitchell. He was a reporter with the Jackson 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.080 Clarion Ledger when he broke the story back in twenty fourteen. 0:11:54.880 --> 0:12:00.480 I got a tip that they were going to build 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:06.480 like an underground parking garage at University Missipi Medical Center. 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:12.280 When they started to do that, they discovered they're like 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:16.840 a thousand bodies, and so as they would have it, 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:21.280 they had this big press conference. Everybody else came and I, 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:23.640 you know, I just pretended like I was there covering 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:24.920 this like everybody else. 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:27.920 The press conference was about the new visitor center the 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.800 parking garage would be a part of. They were very 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.720 much not talking about bodies. But Jerry didn't let that 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.920 get in his way. After the press conference, he took 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:39.840 the vice chancellor Jimmy Keaton aside. 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:45.280 I said, I hear you guys may not be able 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.720 to build that parking garage because you found a thousand bodies, 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.439 And doctor Keaton's like, uh, I think it may be 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:54.040 two thousands. 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:53.800 So. 0:12:55.760 --> 0:13:00.199 I want to pause here. We're talking thousands of bodies. 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.079 And by the way, two thousand also turned out to 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:08.200 be an underestimate. The university would bring an experts, archaeologists 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.719 and ground penetrating radar, and they'd eventually discover there were 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:17.640 as many as seven thousand people buried right in the 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:22.280 middle of town, and almost nobody knew about them. 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:24.640 All these other press people are walking around, they have 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.360 no idea what we're talking about. I think we're talking 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.040 about this thing there from the press conference were I 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.040 have no idea. You know, all these bodies being found 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:39.079 on the campus of the hospital, and of course they were. 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.679 The bodies were a part of, as you know, as 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.480 was explained to me, a part of what was called 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.840 the asylum there, which was actually built before the Civil War, 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:58.440 and so it was the mental institution, basically the main 0:13:58.679 --> 0:13:59.840 one in Mississippi. 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.160 There are a lot of superstitions about cemeteries. It's bad 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:10.680 luck to walk on a grave or even just a 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.839 trip anywhere in a cemetery. If you whistle in a graveyard, 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:19.840 you'll summon the devil, and of course, never ever, under 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:26.200 any circumstances, take anything from a grave. So if you, 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.600 like me, are highly superstitious, you might just decide to 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:35.240 pack up and find a new spot. But remember, the 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:39.120 state's main medical center has no other spot. The campus 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.680 is in the heart of the city, so there's no 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.200 room to expand outward. They have to work with what 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:50.560 they've got, and what they've got is twelve wide open 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.560 acres with thousands of graves. 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:59.280 I don't believe anybody in the community, anybody certainly at 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.760 the medical center, are now really understood that there could 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:07.080 possibly be that many burials on campus. One of my 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.520 first questions when I came on was why can't we 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:12.480 just leave it? You know, why don't we just leave 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.440 it alone? And why don't we let these people rest? 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:21.760 The space pressures for using the last undeveloped land on 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.960 the campus were increasing, and the Medical Health Center was 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.600 doing long term planning twenty five and fifty year planning, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:31.760 so these this was part of the discussion. 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.680 That last voice was doctor Ralph Didlake. You'll hear more 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.560 from him in lighta later, but for now, here's the 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:43.240 rub the hospital is responsible for the cemetery and the 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.800 former patients buried in it, but it's also responsible for 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:51.080 its current and future patients. So is this yazoo clay 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:56.280 for building or for burial? There's also another layer, so 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.520 to speak. Graves are just part of what remains when 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.840 a person eyes. They also leave behind friends and family, 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.880 and the friends and family of those buried in the 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:11.280 cemetery they've been waiting a long long time to get 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.160 answers about what became of their loved ones. And it's 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.680 not just Noah. 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.120 I'm Anna Sadist from my connection to the first I'm 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:26.400 the mother of the artist and the granddaughter of the 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.520 person of interest here, doctor Smith. I don't remember what age. 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.720 I realized that I didn't know anything about my grandfather 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.960 because she would talk about her mother quite a bit, 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:42.120 and when I asked about my grandfather, she said he 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:46.440 lost his memory and went away, And so I thought, 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.480 maybe somebody will direct him back home sometime. 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.320 There's this old adage in the South, we don't lock 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.160 our crazy way, We put it on the front porch 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.080 and give it a cocktail. But it's not entirely true. 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.920 In just this one state, thirty thousand people were sent away, 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.200 and as many as seven thousand of them were buried 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:12.160 under this yazoo clay. Why did their stories get buried 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.639 with them? What's he down through the years in spite 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:15.960 of it? 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:22.399 I would just say silence, absence. This is just not 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:23.200 where we go. 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:30.679 My suspicion. There is the silence is the response to 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:31.159 the shame. 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:37.840 When I share these stories, there's there's just a lot 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:43.600 of silence, you know, because what can you say? It's 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:49.680 you know, it's a lot to take in. I am 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:56.240 Elizabeth West, my ancestor family member. His name was Hillman, 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:02.359 sisterm and actually I had had no knowledge of him 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:08.159 up until about, I don't know, five years ago. The 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:13.960 people who were omitted were the people who had the 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:19.680 direct line to a history that we have mixed feelings about. 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.639 You know, many people black and white don't want to 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:28.880 remember the country's period of slavery, even when they want 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:30.800 to remember it, they just don't want to remember the 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.399 slavery part. And for many of us, you know, we 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:40.480 are told to just look forward, there's no point in 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:46.119 looking back. But well, I don't think we've gotten to 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:49.000 the point where we sit down and really talk about 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:54.879 it because there's just no words. You just take it 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:59.560 in and you start seeing how these things in the 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:04.120 past us have this direct line to where you are 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:07.960 in this moment, and it's a lot. It's a lot 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:09.080 to think about. 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.760 In this country, genealogy is a billion dollar industry. We 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:24.679 are obsessed with understanding our family histories and stories. But 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.560 what if your relative story doesn't have an ending? What 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:30.960 if the last decades of the lives they lived were 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.080 just washed off the canvas. What do you get out 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:35.200 of a story with no end. 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:38.320 My name is Kimberly Jackson. 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:43.400 Tell us about your It's your great grandmother, right, so 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:44.440 you know about her. 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.359 So we were always told their name was Zenny. It 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:53.480 was just such a mystery, such a mystery as to 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.800 what happened to her, well just about everybody else, you know. 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.280 You know, there was a beginning to the store, and 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.280 there's an end to the and they had they have 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.760 the whole middle. That wasn't that with her, That was 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.080 not that with her. There was always obituaries and always, 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.199 of course, like I said, story is to be told, 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:17.040 but hers was always that sense of unknown and with that, 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:18.720 like I said, a little twinge of sadness but it 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:20.600 was a lot of love, but little twinge of sadness 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:23.359 and it just felt like, you know, it was just 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:24.600 a puzzle missing. 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:31.040 My name is Wayne Lee My Hairstyles. Grew up in 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.640 Kentucky live in Durham, North Carolina. See, I grew up 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:40.600 with a little bit of the stigma of they thought 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.600 your grandfather was crazy. They put him in an insane sylum, 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.280 you know, was he was? 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:48.560 He not? 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:51.520 Our mom said, he wasn't crazy, he was just starving. 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.960 Each of the descendants we spoke to was dogged in 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.560 their research, tireless in their efforts to find out answers 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.320 about their loved ones and about their own past, because 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.879 they had to be This is a story that was 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:13.200 buried again and again. Here's the thing. Coming across human 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.600 remains at the medical center wasn't a new problem. 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:22.200 They were extending a road and they went, oh, there's. 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:22.879 Some people there. 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:27.560 Some bones had been discovered several years before when an 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:32.720 old laundry building was being built, and at that point 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:38.200 the institution was reminded that there's a cemetery. So fast 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.119 forward to the twenty eleven time frame. A new road 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:48.360 construction project was started and almost immediately they ran into burials, 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.280 and at that time the original sixty six burials were 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:54.720 exhumed for the road project. 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:59.119 In nineteen ninety, when a building was being constructed in 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:04.439 that area, the construction workers came across some burials as well, 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:09.439 and at that time the leadership went to the city 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.119 and got all the sort of legal documents in place 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.800 so that they could exhume these remains and relocate them 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:17.440 to the UMMC cemetery. 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.359 Finding bodies there got to be such a common occurrence 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:26.040 that in the nineteen seventies the state legislature passed a 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:32.280 bill allowing them to basically do whatever needed to be done. 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:37.600 The nineteen seventies legislation is pretty broad, and then there 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:44.760 was a certain amendment of that that's worded to disinter rearrange, 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:49.720 So we could probably have shoehorned almost anything into that language, 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:51.919 but it would have been a terrible idea. 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:56.360 So the medical Center finds seven thousand graves, they've got 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:59.199 the legal standing and paperwork in place to do what 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.480 they need to do to solve their space issue. So 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:12.600 what isn't a terrible idea? That's after the break The 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:15.639 largest art museum in the state, the Mississippi Museum of 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:18.359 Art connects Mississippi to the world and the power of 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:22.120 art to the power of community. Located in downtown Jackson, 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.680 the museum's permanent collection is free to the public. National 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:29.600 and international exhibitions rotate throughout the year, allowing visitors to 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:33.320 experience works from around the world. The gardens at Expansive 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:35.639 Lawn at the Mississippi Museum of Art are home to 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:39.240 art installations and a variety of events for all ages. 0:23:39.960 --> 0:23:44.320 Plan your visit today at MS Museumart dot org. That's 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:46.440 MS Museum Art dot org. 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:53.960 I'm Lida Gibson. I am the coordinator of the Asylum 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:54.879 Hill Project. 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:59.400 I'm raftedlike. I am director of the Center for Bioethics 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:03.200 and Medical Humanities at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:05.840 I was a surgeon for twenty five years and then 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:07.760 went into administrative positions. 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:12.520 The Asylum Hill Project, that's the arm of the university 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:16.119 organized to reconcile the needs of the living with the 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:20.000 needs of the dead, and that reconciliation has to be 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:24.640 weighted towards the living. The medical center needs the land 0:24:24.680 --> 0:24:28.760 to expand to provide more vital services. So the question 0:24:28.880 --> 0:24:34.000 isn't if the cemetery will move, it's how So it was. 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:39.879 The vision of doctor Ralph Didlake to handle this challenge 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:44.560 of having a cemetery on the last remaining part of 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:47.960 the campus. It was his vision to kind of deal 0:24:48.000 --> 0:24:51.720 with this in a way that was ethical, that embraced 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:52.399 the community. 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:57.560 I was very interested in the problem. I found it 0:24:57.600 --> 0:25:02.240 to be a challenging nut to crack, both from an 0:25:02.240 --> 0:25:08.840 administrative efficiency standpoint and from a bioethics standpoint. So, yes, 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:11.440 did I seek it out. I'm not sure I overtly 0:25:11.480 --> 0:25:14.359 sought it out, but I didn't run away from it. 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:17.840 And at that time I was director of the Bioethics Center, 0:25:18.200 --> 0:25:24.879 and I kept hearing various plans brought forward, and I 0:25:24.880 --> 0:25:28.560 felt very strongly that whatever plan was selected, whatever was 0:25:28.600 --> 0:25:33.880 done with the land or the remains, had to be ethical. 0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:39.600 It had to be not just respectful and ethical, but 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:44.679 it needed to fit well into a Southern community. It 0:25:44.720 --> 0:25:49.119 had to have a Southern ethos about it. And I 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:55.159 remembered a line from William Faulkner's The Readers where he 0:25:55.720 --> 0:25:59.760 paraphrasing he said, Southerners don't fear death, but they take 0:25:59.800 --> 0:26:01.359 fear funerals very seriously. 0:26:03.240 --> 0:26:07.919 Southerners take funerals very seriously. The same goes for what 0:26:08.040 --> 0:26:12.600 comes after the burial, and cemeteries hold a very special 0:26:12.640 --> 0:26:16.879 place in the Southern imagination, but in the Southern reality 0:26:17.720 --> 0:26:24.639 quality specialized healthcare is sparse, difficult to access, and sorely needed. 0:26:25.720 --> 0:26:28.880 What importance is there in doing right by the dead 0:26:29.920 --> 0:26:34.080 when there's such dire need for the living scarce resources? 0:26:34.160 --> 0:26:36.639 Mean that this question of what to do with this 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:40.920 land and how and when is a zero sum game. 0:26:41.840 --> 0:26:44.919 Rush the excavation and you violate the Southern reverence for 0:26:44.960 --> 0:26:49.720 the grave. But take your time and how many patients 0:26:49.720 --> 0:26:54.000 will go to their graves sooner than they should? Zero 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:58.639 sum or not. As Faulkner says, there's no fear in death, 0:26:59.080 --> 0:27:02.640 that there is a fear of being forgotten. Maybe that's 0:27:02.640 --> 0:27:05.159 where all those superstitions come from. 0:27:06.040 --> 0:27:08.920 Oh yeah, because see my grandma was being on visiting cemeteries, 0:27:09.119 --> 0:27:13.159 so yeah, we would oh yeah, big, Oh it was. 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:15.280 It was a whole thing for the churches to get 0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:18.560 together and clean the cemetery, you know, mowed the lawn 0:27:18.600 --> 0:27:21.240 of the cemetery, changed out the flowers. That was the 0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:24.080 whole thing. That was a day set aside to do 0:27:24.160 --> 0:27:24.840 that kind of thing. 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.639