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Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and

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Speaker 1: Culture Latino US Latin Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa. We

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Speaker 1: bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered to you,

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Speaker 1: overlooked by the rest of the media, and while the

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Speaker 1: country is struggling to deal with these we listen to

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Speaker 1: the stories of Black and Latino Studios United Latino Front,

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Speaker 1: a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement.

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Speaker 1: I'm Maria ino Jossa nose Bayan. Hey Latino USA listener,

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Speaker 1: here's a show the Los Archives. I'm really cold. I'm

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Speaker 1: walking on the impressive grounds of Howard University in Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. This is a historic place, but today it's

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Speaker 1: raining and freezing, and now I've just entered a waiting

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Speaker 1: room at the university. I'm with that, you know, USA

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Speaker 1: producer Renaldo.

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Speaker 2: You know, just in this moment of history, Like, what

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Speaker 2: does it mean to you to be talking about democracy today?

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Speaker 1: The thing is is that we have to be talking

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Speaker 1: about democracy because the world's greatest democracy, so called, is

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Speaker 1: that threat. I'm getting ready to take the stage for

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Speaker 1: a panel where we're going to be talking about journalism,

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Speaker 1: blind spots in the mainstream media. This is all part

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Speaker 1: of the inaugural Democracy Summit, hosted by Howard University's Journalism program.

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Speaker 1: This conference, in this moment in history, well it's a

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Speaker 1: very big deal. The panel I'm on is just one

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Speaker 1: of several that take place that day. It was all

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Speaker 1: organized by the New York Times journalist Nicole Hannah Jones.

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Speaker 1: She founded and now runs the Journalism and Democracy Center

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Speaker 1: here at Howard University.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so I just want to walk you through a

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Speaker 3: few things before you go on.

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Speaker 1: Jesus, it took me a minute, but I finally was

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Speaker 1: able to get warm and dry backstage, and now I've

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Speaker 1: got to go on stage and see the audience, which

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Speaker 1: I can hear from the other side of the curtain.

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Speaker 1: Ass But before I go on, I happened to spot Nicole,

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Speaker 1: who's been running around the entire day. I mean, this

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Speaker 1: is her conference, after all, her center, of course, and

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Speaker 1: I see that she's taking a moment to check her phone.

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Speaker 1: She is wearing a beautiful green dress, she has her

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Speaker 1: signature red hair. I go up to her and congratulate

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Speaker 1: her on the center and on this conference. You tell

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Speaker 1: me how you're feeling, Nicole, Just kind of how like

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Speaker 1: this moment, you.

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Speaker 4: Know, relatively speaking for this moment at Howard, I feel amazing.

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Speaker 4: A year ago I had a vision of what I

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Speaker 4: wanted to create, and when I got to Howard that

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Speaker 4: I wanted to bring together rooms and journalists that look

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Speaker 4: like America to talk about democracy in America and what

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Speaker 4: we need to do here. So to have brought it

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Speaker 4: to Fruition, Yeah, it's been. It's been powerful today.

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Speaker 5: How does it feel to have a home?

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Speaker 4: Oh? God, And that's exactly what Howard feels like. You know,

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Speaker 4: when everything happened last year with the University of North Carolina,

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Speaker 4: it was destiny. You know, everything happened so that I

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Speaker 4: could come really needed to be and in every way,

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Speaker 4: Howard feels like home. So I'm just I'm grateful all

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Speaker 4: these other people get to experience a taste of what

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Speaker 4: it's like here. As you know, I feel content, I

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Speaker 4: feel in my purpose, and I am doing the work

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Speaker 4: that I'm supposed to do where I'm supposed.

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Speaker 6: To do it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just an emotional place.

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Speaker 5: It's an emotional day.

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Speaker 1: Yes, And the fact that you, Nicole, are you know

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Speaker 1: saying yes, democracy and journalism hand in hand, which to

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Speaker 1: our colleagues sometimes feels like such a threat.

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Speaker 4: That's right, you know, I mean, you know right. As

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Speaker 4: journalists of color, we could never pretend that our experiences

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Speaker 4: don't shave our journalism. We could never pretend that democracy

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Speaker 4: is a given because it's never been for any of us.

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Speaker 4: So to me, what we're trying to do is help

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Speaker 4: our professional understand. Yeah, I have to go back on

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Speaker 4: face okay.

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Speaker 1: From Fuduro Media and PRX. It's let you know us say,

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Speaker 1: I'm Maria r. Posa Today. A conversation with author, professor

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Speaker 1: and New York Times journalist Nicole Anna Jones. Nicole Hannah

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Speaker 1: Jones rose to instant recognition when she published The sixteen

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Speaker 1: nineteen Project in twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 2: The Times of sixteen nineteen Project is a cultural history

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Speaker 2: of how the legacy of slavery continues to shape and

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Speaker 2: define life in America.

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Speaker 1: It marks the four hundredth anniversary of the arrival of

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Speaker 1: the first enslaved Africans in the Colony of Virginia.

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Speaker 7: The project aims to reframe the country's history, understanding sixteen

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Speaker 7: nineteen is our true founding and placing the consequence.

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Speaker 1: Following the release of the sixteen nineteen Project, the far

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Speaker 1: right propaganda machine went on the attack against Nicole and

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Speaker 1: her work. This included former President Donald Trump, who called

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Speaker 1: the project quote unquote poison.

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Speaker 6: This project rewrites American history to teach our children that

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Speaker 6: we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.

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Speaker 1: The work won Nicole a Pulitzer Prize in twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: but the backlash continued since the project's release. State and

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Speaker 1: local governments have banned schools from teaching the sixteen nineteen

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Speaker 1: project and have often conflated Nichole's work with critical race theory. Today,

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Speaker 1: Nicole Hannah Jones joins me for a conversation about how

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Speaker 1: she's pushed ahead despite controversy and how she's come to

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Speaker 1: terms with always trying to fit in in predominantly white

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Speaker 1: spaces as a black journalist. Later, we take a trip

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Speaker 1: to Nichole's hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, to see how she's

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Speaker 1: giving back to the community with a special Passion project.

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Speaker 1: Nicole Hannah Jones, Welcome to Latino, USA. It's so great

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Speaker 1: to have you on the show.

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Speaker 4: Thank you. I'm glad to finally be.

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Speaker 1: Here, and I just want to say thank you for

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Speaker 1: everything that you're doing, in particular because you included me

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Speaker 1: in a pretty extraordinary moment, which was your Democracy Summit

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Speaker 1: in November of twenty twenty two, and there you actually

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Speaker 1: said that you were really happy to be at Howard

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Speaker 1: because you felt like finally you were at home. And

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Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you can just tell us a little

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Speaker 1: bit about that sense of Howard being your home for

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Speaker 1: this work.

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Speaker 4: Yes, thank you, so one. Always always happy to speak

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Speaker 4: with you. And you know, I'm such an admirer of

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Speaker 4: your work and the space that you make for Latino

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Speaker 4: journalists but also just journalists of color and telling the

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Speaker 4: stories of people of color. So and I just also

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Speaker 4: really enjoy your workout videos on Instagram. I would say

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Speaker 4: it's inspiring. It does not inspire me to pursue the

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Speaker 4: same thing, but I do enjoy watching that such a badass.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, you know, I'm a person who in general

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Speaker 4: does not believe in regrets. I think they're pretty useless. Right,

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Speaker 4: whatever has happened in the past, you can't do much

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Speaker 4: about it, so why spend a lot of time focusing

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Speaker 4: on it. One of my very few regrets in life

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Speaker 4: is that I did not attend in historically black college,

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Speaker 4: and particularly that I didn't attend Howard, So I, like

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Speaker 4: many people like us, made my way through white institutions

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Speaker 4: starting in the second grade, when I was bussed to

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Speaker 4: white schools, to my undergraduate institution, to graduate school, to

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Speaker 4: every newspaper I've ever worked at. And we feel sometimes

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Speaker 4: that we have to do that to prove ourselves right,

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Speaker 4: to show that we can excel in these white spaces,

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Speaker 4: but it comes at such a personal and emotional cost.

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Speaker 4: So being at Howard, to be at a place literally

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Speaker 4: built around the belief in black excellence, built to provide

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Speaker 4: education and opportunity for people who had been enslaved and

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Speaker 4: their descendants, and to walk on a campus where I

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Speaker 4: don't have to prove basic worth, basic intellect, basic value,

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Speaker 4: and just teach my students in the tradition of my

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Speaker 4: community to do the journalism that I think are our

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Speaker 4: nation needs. So when I walk on campus, it's just

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Speaker 4: such a different feeling. And imagine you feel that with

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Speaker 4: the media company that you've built. Right, It's like I

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Speaker 4: walk on campus and I'm not reminded that I'm the

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Speaker 4: only one. I'm not having to search and find that

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Speaker 4: other black person so I could do the head nod

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Speaker 4: with that other person. I don't go into a classroom

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Speaker 4: and i'm you know, maybe two students who look like

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Speaker 4: me go into buildings that are named after slave owners, right,

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Speaker 4: I don't have to do any of those things, So

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Speaker 4: it does feel like home.

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you for a second about what

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Speaker 1: you just said, which is you and I both have

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Speaker 1: been working in predominantly white institutions, right, both of us

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Speaker 1: in college and at work, and going to the Ivy League,

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Speaker 1: for you working at the New York Times, for me

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Speaker 1: working at PBS and PRCNN. I mean, this did get

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Speaker 1: us validation obviously in the mainstream news media. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I just want to take a moment to talk about

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Speaker 1: this thing, right, How you and I both have spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of our careers actually having to get our

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Speaker 1: stories approved by white men and really having to think

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Speaker 1: about all the time that we spent trying to get

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Speaker 1: them to approve these brilliant ideas, right. And I guess

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Speaker 1: just looking back, Nicole, how does it make you feel

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Speaker 1: that we thought that we really had to prove ourselves

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Speaker 1: over and over again.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this.

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Speaker 4: I remember being in high school and when I was

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Speaker 4: trying to decide where I might go to college, really

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Speaker 4: understanding that I was going to have to get my

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Speaker 4: credential from an elite white institution to try to mitigate racism.

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Speaker 4: Like I'm like seventeen, eighteen years old, and I'm thinking,

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Speaker 4: you know, if I have Notre Dame on my resume,

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Speaker 4: people will assume a certain amount of intelligence. Right. There

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Speaker 4: will be some things I'll still have to prove myself,

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Speaker 4: but there will be things I won't have to work

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Speaker 4: so hard to prove. And that's what I made that

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Speaker 4: decision on. And then until this year, I hadn't been

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Speaker 4: back to Notre Dame since the year after I graduated

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Speaker 4: because it was a terrible experience for me. It was

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Speaker 4: a traumatizing experience for me. I don't have any of

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Speaker 4: the affection or affinity for my alma mater that so

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Speaker 4: many people have for theirs. But I felt I had

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Speaker 4: to make that choice. And I think we get that

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Speaker 4: message pretty early in working class communities of color that

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Speaker 4: when people in our community see a spark in us

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Speaker 4: or they believe, oh, this child has potential. It seems

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Speaker 4: like one of the first messages we get is Okay,

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Speaker 4: we have to we have to get this child out

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Speaker 4: of this community, right. I remember people saying, get your

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Speaker 4: education and get out of here. You have to get

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Speaker 4: your educations, you can get out of here, And that

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Speaker 4: sends a message that there's something wrong with our communities

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Speaker 4: and that if you want to be successful, you have

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Speaker 4: to leave your communities or spaces that look like your community.

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Speaker 4: And I certainly internalize that, and to some degree it

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Speaker 4: is kind of true, right, like you do have to

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Speaker 4: prove yourself in these white institutions. But then we don't

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Speaker 4: think enough about the sacrifices that are made in order

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Speaker 4: to do that. And I think both of us at

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Speaker 4: a certain point in our lives realized, actually, no, we don't.

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Speaker 4: We've proven everything we're ever going to prove, and so

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Speaker 4: I think both of us are trying to build spaces

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Speaker 4: where we can imbue young journalists of color and just

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Speaker 4: young people of color period with a different sensibility.

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Speaker 1: Nicole at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,

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Speaker 1: it is in fact your alma mater. That's also where

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Speaker 1: you ended up working as a journalism professor, and then

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Speaker 1: you applied to get the night chair. This is one

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Speaker 1: of the most prestigious journal chairs in the country. It

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Speaker 1: comes with tenure if you do get it. But then

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Speaker 1: there was some controversy. You went through this very public

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Speaker 1: tenure battle that came as a result of your work

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Speaker 1: on your sixteen nineteen project, and ultimately, you know, you

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Speaker 1: ended up scrapping all of that and moving to Howard University.

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Speaker 1: So can you tell me exactly how that happened?

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Speaker 4: Sure, so I applied. I went through the tenure review process,

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Speaker 4: full tenure review process. I was unanimously approved for tenure

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Speaker 4: at the university level amongst faculty. But the board of

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Speaker 4: trustees for the university is they are political appointees and

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Speaker 4: most of them had been appointed by Republican governors, and

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Speaker 4: they opposed the sixteen nineteen project, and a very wealthy

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Speaker 4: donor interfered in my tenure process, and ultimately that's why

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Speaker 4: I was not granted the job of ten Now, the

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Speaker 4: craziest part about it is because I had become such

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Speaker 4: a divisive figure and had been in the media so much,

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Speaker 4: I wasn't even going to challenge it. I just didn't

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Speaker 4: want to have this public fight. But the Conservatives who

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Speaker 4: stopped me from getting tenure were not satisfied with that.

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Speaker 4: I got a five year contract instead, and they didn't

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Speaker 4: think I should have that either, so they wrote a

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Speaker 4: story about how I shouldn't my tenure was taken and

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Speaker 4: I shouldn't have gotten hired at all, and then it

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Speaker 4: just blew up into a huge national scandal because it

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Speaker 4: was clear that I had been discriminated against both I

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Speaker 4: think racially and for my viewpoint. And so in the

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Speaker 4: middle of that, I decided, you know, I wasn't going

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Speaker 4: to go. So the fight was over them voting on

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Speaker 4: my tenure, which they ultimately did, and they ultimately approved

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Speaker 4: my tenure. But at that point I had decided I

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Speaker 4: was done begging white institutions to let me in to

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Speaker 4: treat us fairly. That I was going to go to

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Speaker 4: a store Workley Black College, and I was going to

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Speaker 4: use that moment to make a statement about the worth

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Speaker 4: of people of color that institutions act like. We should

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Speaker 4: feel lucky to be there, right, we should be blessed

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Speaker 4: that they let us in and don't acknowledge everything that

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Speaker 4: we bring. It was just one of those moments where

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Speaker 4: as a person of color, you excel because you have

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Speaker 4: to write we have to be twice as good. We

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Speaker 4: know that's that's what we do and you can do

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Speaker 4: everything that these folks tell you you have to do,

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Speaker 4: and then at the end they'll just change the rules

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Speaker 4: on you. So I just decided I wasn't playing their

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Speaker 4: game anymore. And I was proud to come to Howard.

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Speaker 4: I was proud to bring twenty plus million dollars with

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Speaker 4: me at Howard and to found this center there for

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Speaker 4: the benefit of historically black colleges in general, and I

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Speaker 4: hope democracy.

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Speaker 1: So again, Nicole, it's when we're together, it's fleeting, and

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Speaker 1: we don't often have the time to, you know, sit

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Speaker 1: down and actually, like I don't know, have a the

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Speaker 1: Gila or a cup of coffee and talk about these

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Speaker 1: things in that life or but from afar, we admire

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Speaker 1: each other, we support each other, we think about each other,

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Speaker 1: we applaud each other's work. But nothing that I have

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Speaker 1: done has compared to what the kind of backlash that

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Speaker 1: you have received because of your work. So states have

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Speaker 1: banned your work, people go after you right now. Twitter

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Speaker 1: is such a complicated place, but the social media kind

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Speaker 1: of attacks that aren't NonStop, and you are a black

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Speaker 1: woman who is also a mom, So how do you

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Speaker 1: manage this?

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Speaker 4: Thank you so much for asking that question, and I

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Speaker 4: know you know because of the racist attacks that you

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Speaker 4: often experience that the work does take a toll. I mean,

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Speaker 4: you know, we are badasses and a lot can roll

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Speaker 4: off the air back, but we're also human beings, and

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Speaker 4: you know you can only be called it N words

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Speaker 4: so many times and shrug it off like it does

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Speaker 4: bother you, and you get threats when people try to

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Speaker 4: discredit the work that you do. But if you would

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Speaker 4: ask me this a year ago or two years ago,

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Speaker 4: I was struggling. I won't lie. I didn't intend to

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Speaker 4: be in the public eye and the way that I

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Speaker 4: have been. I'm a print journalist for a reason. I

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Speaker 4: didn't expect to become a symbol either that people loved

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Speaker 4: or completely hated. And we were in the pandemic, so

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Speaker 4: I was just home alone, obsessing over every single thing

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Speaker 4: that was being written or said about me, which is

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Speaker 4: why I was on Twitter. Probably are you in wait,

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Speaker 4: wait more than I should have been. But right now

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Speaker 4: I really am in a state of the closest I

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Speaker 4: can say, is zen I understand that one you don't

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Speaker 4: attack something like this that you're not afraid of that

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Speaker 4: if this project, if this work wasn't having impact. They

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Speaker 4: wouldn't be trying to ban it, they wouldn't be trying

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Speaker 4: to destroy it. And so in some ways, that's the

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Speaker 4: greatest honor I can imagine. It's when all of these powerful,

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Speaker 4: mostly white men feel the need to try to attack

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Speaker 4: the work and to attack me. So I just I'm

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Speaker 4: not on social media and that much. And Lord knows

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Speaker 4: that that's actually very healthy. It's very healthy not to

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Speaker 4: be on social and even if I am, I'm rarely

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Speaker 4: engaging anymore. I'm focusing on the work that I'm doing.

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Speaker 4: I spend time with my friends and family and go

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Speaker 4: to the spot when I can, and really just trying

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Speaker 4: to focus on what is important. I come from a

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Speaker 4: blue collar town, from a family that had nothing, and

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Speaker 4: all you have is your respect, So respect becomes so important.

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Speaker 4: So when people would be like, oh, just let it

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Speaker 4: roll off your back, I don't actually know how to

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Speaker 4: do that, right because to me, not answering disrespect when

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Speaker 4: I know how hard we worked on this, when I

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Speaker 4: know that's so hard for me. Except what I've come

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Speaker 4: to now understand is these are people who if they

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Speaker 4: say something, no one pays attention to it until I respond.

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Speaker 4: And that I was allowing people to drag me into

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Speaker 4: arguments that benefited them and did nothing for me.

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Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino USA, I continue my conversation with

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Speaker 1: the Cole Hannah Jones and later Latino USA producer Ronaldo

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Speaker 1: Leanos Junior takes us to Waterloo, Iowa, where we visit

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Speaker 1: Nicole's passion project for sixteen nineteen Freedom School. Stay with us, Yes, hey,

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Speaker 1: we're back. And before the break, we were speaking with

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Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nicole Hannah Jones and we were

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Speaker 1: talking about feeling at home at Howard University after her

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Speaker 1: very public battle with the University of North Carolina at

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Speaker 1: Chapel Hill. Let's dive back into my conversation with Nicole

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Speaker 1: and later producer Renaldo Leanos Junior is going to take

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Speaker 1: us to Waterloo, Iowa, where Nicole grew up, and we

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Speaker 1: get to visit Nichole's sixteen nineteen Freedom School. Nicole, while

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Speaker 1: you were busy dealing with the tenure battle, you were

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Speaker 1: also a working journalist for The New York Times. You

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Speaker 1: were promoting your book. On top of all of that,

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Speaker 1: you also, you know, you managed to have time the

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Speaker 1: vision to open an after school program. It's the sixteen

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Speaker 1: nineteen Freedom School in Waterloo, Iowa. And the school has

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Speaker 1: been open for a year now. Can you tell tell

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Speaker 1: me what's the story behind that?

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Speaker 4: You know? So I come from this. I always say,

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Speaker 4: no name town in a flyover state, in a place

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Speaker 4: that most people don't even think about when you think

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Speaker 4: about black people. Nobody thinks about Iowa, but we are everywhere.

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Speaker 4: I really do believe in a common good. I really

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Speaker 4: do believe that our fates are intertwined. And I think

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Speaker 4: that comes from again coming from a people where when

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Speaker 4: you are black in this country, your individual status, your

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Speaker 4: individual accomplishments, none of that mattered. You still couldn't go

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Speaker 4: into the restaurant you wanted to go to. You still

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Speaker 4: couldn't get into universities in the South. Your collective identity

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Speaker 4: is what determined most opportunities in your life. So we've

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Speaker 4: had to be a collective people, and we've had to

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Speaker 4: realize that you can't just advocate for yourself because if

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Speaker 4: the rest of your community is held down, you will

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Speaker 4: be held down as well. So my best friend from

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Speaker 4: high school is a elementary school teacher in Waterloo, in

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Speaker 4: the poorest, most segregated elementary school, and I had adopted

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Speaker 4: her class, buying books for the kids coming and talking

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Speaker 4: to the kids. And during the pandemic, I was talking

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Speaker 4: to her about how few of her kids were logging

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Speaker 4: in right when the school shut down and we were

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Speaker 4: all in virtual school. Well, these kids, many of them,

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Speaker 4: they don't have computers at home, or they may have

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Speaker 4: one device, and all the kids are sharing the same device.

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Speaker 4: Mom is working two jobs, and there's no one there

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Speaker 4: to sit at the computer with them all day and

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Speaker 4: make sure they're doing the school work. And I was like,

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Speaker 4: these kids are already two to three grade levels behind

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Speaker 4: and reading before the pandemic, so the pandemic was going

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Speaker 4: to be devastating for them. And I'd been trying to

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Speaker 4: think of a way to give back to my hometown anyway,

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Speaker 4: because you know, there is a bit of guilt about

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Speaker 4: being so successful, but your community is not. Your community

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Speaker 4: is struggling. When I go home, nobody lives like me,

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Speaker 4: And so I decided. Then I was talking to my

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Speaker 4: best friend and she's the co director and lead teacher

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Speaker 4: of the Freedom School, and I said, we should just

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Speaker 4: start after school literacy program for these kids, and it

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Speaker 4: should be based around them learning their history because they

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Speaker 4: don't get black history in school, and so we provide

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Speaker 4: everything for free. We have a professionally designed curriculum, a

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Speaker 4: beautiful library, a beautiful facility with murals. I brought in

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Speaker 4: a mirror list. All of our teachers are certified teachers,

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Speaker 4: and they just get the love, the nurturing, and the

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Speaker 4: affirmation as well as the literacy instruction that they so

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Speaker 4: desperately need. Of all the things that I've done, I'm

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Speaker 4: the most proud of this. It's not built like a classroom.

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Speaker 4: There's sofas, there's big pillows, like they can come, grab

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Speaker 4: their book, lay on the sofa, go into our library

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Speaker 4: and just feel loved. And that the reason so many

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Speaker 4: of our kids don't like to read is because they can't. Right,

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Speaker 4: none of us want to sit all day trying to

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Speaker 4: work on something that we can't do. And once we

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Speaker 4: started giving them literacy instruction and they could actually read,

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Speaker 4: they love reading. Big shocker, Right, It's not shocking, it's

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Speaker 4: we know how to educate our kids, we just refuse

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Speaker 4: to do it. So yeah, it's truly the greatest thing

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Speaker 4: I've ever done.

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Speaker 1: And just like Nicole said earlier, she didn't do this alone.

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Speaker 1: Her best friend Sharita Stokes was by her side. Sharita

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Speaker 1: is the co director of the sixteen nineteen Freedom School.

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Speaker 8: Nicoles like, what do you think is the biggest need?

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Speaker 8: What can we do? I'm like reading, you know, reading

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Speaker 8: is the heat everything. So after a year and a half,

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Speaker 8: we finally came up with a solid idea.

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Speaker 1: The school is on the second floor of a large

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Speaker 1: red building and most of the teachers are retired black

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Speaker 1: where people who just want to give back. Fourth and

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Speaker 1: fifth graders come from schools all around the area. And

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Speaker 1: now producer Ernando le j is going to take us

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Speaker 1: to Waterloo, Iowa.

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Speaker 9: Hello, people, just line up here.

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Speaker 5: The other bus comes in about five ten minutes, so

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Speaker 5: you can.

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Speaker 3: Follow those guys upstairs and see their little routine.

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Speaker 10: Thank you.

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Speaker 8: My name is Sherita Stokes. I am the co director

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Speaker 8: and the curriculum coordinator at the sixteen nineteen Freedom School.

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Speaker 8: I was born and raised in Waterloo, Iowa, and my

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Speaker 8: parents lived here. My dad owned one of the first

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Speaker 8: black struction companies in Iowa.

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Speaker 5: My dad was.

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Speaker 8: Born in Mississippi, raised Mississippi. My grandmother actually picked cotton

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Speaker 8: in Mississippi. I actually have her cotton sack that she

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Speaker 8: used as a nine foot cotton sacks if you can

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Speaker 8: think about how big a cotton sack is. My grandfather,

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Speaker 8: my mother's father, always talked about growing up in Mississippi

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Speaker 8: picking cotton and the things that happened then. And I

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Speaker 8: don't remember learning a lot about black history. I remember

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Speaker 8: learning about Martin Luther King. I remember going to school

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Speaker 8: in the eighties. It was a big thing when they

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Speaker 8: first started celebrating Doctor King's Holiday, so it wasn't a

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Speaker 8: mandatory holiday.

437
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 5: So some people still went to school.

438
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 8: But I do remember, like my church encouraging people not

439
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 8: to go to school that day because it was starting

440
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 8: to be a national holiday. It wasn't until high school,

441
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 8: when I had mister Dows class that I actually got

442
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 8: immersed into real Black history, I guess if you could

443
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 8: call it that, where it was more than just the

444
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 8: top three names we actually study from Africa up until

445
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 8: recent and that kind of sparked the whole interest in

446
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 8: learning more about history.

447
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:20,919
Speaker 11: A gentleman, and Rady, This is Ray, and you like.

448
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 10: School.

449
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 11: This Misurian and.

450
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 10: Hi everyone.

451
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 4: Hi, my name is Elena.

452
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 9: I am ten years old. My name is Imbridge and

453
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 9: I'm ten.

454
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 5: My name is Lena and I'm ten, my name is Tiana.

455
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 7: I'm eleven.

456
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 2: What do you want me to know about the sixteen

457
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:45,919
Speaker 2: nineteen Freedom School?

458
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 5: That it helps kids for reading and you learn a

459
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 5: lot about black history.

460
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 2: House is different from regular school that you go to.

461
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 10: Because you're really in school, we don't learn about black history.

462
00:27:57,240 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 2: How does that make you feel the fact that you're

463
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,880
Speaker 2: not really learning about this stuff in regular school be sad.

464
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 9: And that that we don't get to learn about more

465
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:09,160
Speaker 9: black people than we do in normal school. I get

466
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 9: confused about, like, why don't we learn it?

467
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 4: I feel like we should learn it.

468
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 8: I guess growing up in Iowa, I kind of thought

469
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 8: it was normal to not have a lot of black teachers.

470
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 8: Even when my own adult children went to school. I

471
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 8: don't recall them having any African American teachers in elementary

472
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,399
Speaker 8: school at all at the school they went to. But

473
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,439
Speaker 8: one of the purposes of this program and having African

474
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 8: American teachers is knowing that we still have some schools

475
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 8: that have zero African American teachers, and some students never

476
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:47,959
Speaker 8: get that experience. And one of the things you can

477
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 8: look at up research shows that black kids learn best

478
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 8: from teachers that look like them because they're more comfortable,

479
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 8: they believe them more, just different things. But then did

480
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 8: not ever have that opportunity would just be a disservice

481
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 8: to any child. It definitely breaks stereotypes because if you've

482
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 8: never had a black teacher, you the only experiences you

483
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,239
Speaker 8: may have of black people or maybe on TV, and

484
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 8: it's probably not the Cosby Show type quality TV because

485
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 8: I don't think there's any shows like that anymore. So

486
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 8: it's not gonna be a wholesome So you're gonna automatically

487
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 8: think of violence or you're gonna think bad, and you're

488
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 8: gonna think that. But just having a black teacher present

489
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 8: kind of bends that stereotype where you could say, oh, okay,

490
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 8: well they're teachers, they're teaching me, they're nice, they're not

491
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 8: bad people, and it just kind of overall helps the community.

492
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 4: And my winter gear. I'm ready to.

493
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 9: Ben, I've been.

494
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 5: Can I ask you really quick? Can you kind of

495
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 5: describe what is happening right now?

496
00:29:58,000 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 11: This is part of our program where we want the

497
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 11: kids to read independently. We know that in order for

498
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 11: them to improve their reading, they have to practice reading,

499
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 11: so we have them practice. They're reading here for ten

500
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 11: minutes in hopes that they'll develop stronger fluency skills.

501
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 9: I bundle up quickly and my winter year, I'm ready

502
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 9: to dive in.

503
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 11: My name is Louise Wilder, and I am a sixteen

504
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 11: nineteen teacher and I'm the lead teacher here. A lot

505
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 11: of the books that the kids are reading, we have

506
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 11: fiction and nonfiction books, and the majority of the books

507
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 11: are by African American authors and illustrators. So when the

508
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 11: kids are looking through the books, those that have pictures,

509
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 11: we want them to have a reflection of themselves and

510
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 11: see children doing things that they normally would do, so

511
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 11: they'll feel more connected.

512
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 5: To the books.

513
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 11: So this program did an extensive search to look for

514
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 11: such books where the kids feel comfortable and feel relaxed

515
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 11: and enjoy the message that they're giving them through picture

516
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 11: as well as text.

517
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 9: Her father was Her father was a roofer, a roofer

518
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 9: and a carpenter, and her mother would later became an

519
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 9: elementary school teacher.

520
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 2: Can you walk me through how you first met Nicole?

521
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 8: We actually met in high school in ELP class Expanded

522
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 8: Learning Program. You know, it's like supposed to be the

523
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 8: class for the smart kids. I guess that's what it's

524
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 8: supposed to be, but we were the only two African

525
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 8: American girls in the class, and so as with most places,

526
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 8: we didn't know anybody else in the class. But we

527
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 8: bonded just as a were two black girls, and so

528
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 8: we just kind of started talking, we started hanging out.

529
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 8: We ended up in the same African American history class

530
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 8: with mister Dow, so that even sparked the bonding and

531
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 8: even more that year and that we were at West

532
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 8: High in the nineties, there were some little racial incidents

533
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 8: that went on, and then there was just some clubs

534
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 8: that black kids weren't allowed to be in, kind of

535
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 8: a unseid they're not allowed to be in. She also

536
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 8: wrote for the West High newspaper, but literally had to

537
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 8: write stories that West High assigned to her, not necessarily

538
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 8: stories that we want. And it was I can't remember

539
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 8: the incident. It was some incident that happened where it

540
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 8: was like the whole school was kind of in an uproar,

541
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 8: and so Nicole, myself and some other classmates created a

542
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 8: Cultural Enrichment Club, which was more so a club where

543
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 8: we could learn about our own.

544
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 5: History and other cultures.

545
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 8: We had a march to try to get African American

546
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 8: Studies required as a class because we felt like that

547
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 8: was important. And now this was in ninety two. Fast

548
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 8: forward to twenty twenty two, it's still not required. And

549
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 8: then out flash back to the sixties when East High

550
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 8: also had a protest of the same sort to get

551
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 8: African American studies. So here we are generations and generations

552
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 8: of trying to do the same thing and it still

553
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 8: hasn't happened yet. Like, even though Nicole and I were

554
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 8: both in the ELP, she was probably literally the smartest

555
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 8: person I've ever met, like just in a whole different

556
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 8: realm of smartness, I guess. And her writing has always

557
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 8: been immaculate, Like she was always a really good writer

558
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 8: and always been an advocate for her community.

559
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 5: Even when she.

560
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 8: Moved away prior to us starting the Freedom School, she

561
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 8: always would every time she came to town, she would

562
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 8: come visit my classroom and let the kids meet her

563
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 8: because she was a writer for the New York Times.

564
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 8: She talked to them about being a writer and just

565
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 8: literacy in general. And she would always purchase books for

566
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 8: my classroom for the students, let them pick their own

567
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 8: books sometimes and she'd buy them for them. But she

568
00:33:56,360 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 8: always wanted to do more because this is her home town,

569
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 8: this is where she's from. She comes from being bust

570
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 8: to the other side of town and having to integrate

571
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 8: schools and be the only black person there. Our families

572
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 8: always kind of talked about that her dad was from Mississippi,

573
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 8: and he talked about his family moving up here and

574
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 8: different things like that. So I think it was just

575
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 8: the our parents telling us the history of our families

576
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 8: and us learning that and feeling like, why doesn't everybody

577
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 8: know this? And then also thinking, oh, well, that's all

578
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 8: they did was pitcotton and be slaves, and then to

579
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 8: find out that you had people who actually made major

580
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 8: contributions to America. And then the wonder is, well, why

581
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 8: isn't this taught? How come nobody's telling us this? Why

582
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:47,320
Speaker 8: were we never taught this? Like why is it separated

583
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 8: when it's all a part of American history. The good,

584
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 8: the bath, ugly, it doesn't matter. And so bringing it

585
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 8: back to this program, we've noticed as we start teaching

586
00:34:57,480 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 8: these things to the kids, the kids really get it

587
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,760
Speaker 8: into it, They really get excited about it. They're really

588
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 8: interested in learning. But not only does it make them

589
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 8: want to research and learn their own history just makes

590
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 8: them more interested in reading in general, because now they've discovered, oh,

591
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 8: within these books, within these words, it's like all these

592
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 8: things that I never knew and I can learn and

593
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 8: I want to learn more.

594
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:21,360
Speaker 5: So it's kind of a win win situation.

595
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 11: Okay, everybody needs to find a seat and give missus

596
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 11: Fraser your attention.

597
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 3: So, friends, today we're gonna do something a little different.

598
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 3: We are going to watch a video, but we're going

599
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:40,479
Speaker 3: to do it twice. Okay, the first time you're gonna

600
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 3: watch it, I want you to pay attention to the

601
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:42,359
Speaker 3: facts that.

602
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 5: They are giving you.

603
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 3: The second time, you're going to have two sheets that

604
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 3: you're going to work on. The first one is EVN

605
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 3: diagram that we're going to compare the North to the South.

606
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 3: What's different on both sides. We've done been diagrams before.

607
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 3: What's the same in the middle. Then on the next one,

608
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 3: you're gonna look at the specific parts of their government

609
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:03,760
Speaker 3: that they talk about in this film, and you're gonna

610
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:04,320
Speaker 3: take notes.

611
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 4: Deal.

612
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:06,799
Speaker 5: All right, So here we go.

613
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 2: Following the attack on Fort Sumter, the North and the

614
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,760
Speaker 2: South both had already their armies were about The North.

615
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 3: And the South had my name is Corey Fraser and

616
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 3: I've been teaching for eighteen years. All right, So let's

617
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 3: look at their militaries.

618
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 5: How are they different.

619
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 9: The Union had more than the South, but the South

620
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:38,400
Speaker 9: had more, uh more knowledge.

621
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:39,879
Speaker 5: That's right, there you go.

622
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 3: So the North had more soldiers, but the South had

623
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 3: more knowledge. They also had more motivation, didn't they because

624
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 3: they had generations of soldiers. It's very important for our

625
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 3: kids to understand their history and where they come from,

626
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 3: because our black and brown students are made to feel

627
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 3: as if that their country are not important to this country,

628
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 3: and it's important for them to see that you guys

629
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:08,919
Speaker 3: are more than athletes, you're more than musicians, you're more

630
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 3: than just entertainment. For people, we made really big contributions

631
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 3: to the society, and without us, a lot of this

632
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,880
Speaker 3: would not be and so being always portrayed as slaves

633
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 3: or entertainment or something negative, they need to see themselves

634
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:29,400
Speaker 3: on a positive light and see what contributions their ancestors

635
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 3: made and what contributions they can still make. What experience

636
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 3: did he bring to the table, Yes, the army experience. Yes,

637
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 3: so he was in the military, so therefore he had

638
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 3: military experience. So isn't that one thing he had that

639
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln deny it?

640
00:37:58,200 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 9: What's your.

641
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:00,879
Speaker 8: God?

642
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 4: Hi, Colin, have you been coming here a couple of

643
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 4: weeks or yeah?

644
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:09,320
Speaker 2: Do you like coming here? And what is your favorite

645
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:11,920
Speaker 2: thing about coming to the sixteen eighteen Freedom School?

646
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:18,320
Speaker 12: My favorite thing is like you've had read homes about

647
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 12: different people's history. You call like you could make friends here?

648
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: Have you made friends here?

649
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 3: Yeah?

650
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 2: What is one thing that you've learned here that you've

651
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 2: really enjoyed?

652
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 10: Harrimt Tubman?

653
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:34,359
Speaker 4: Why did you like learning about her?

654
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 10: Cause she's like she helped people with slavery, and like

655
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 10: she made the underground railroad and she's say like seven

656
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 10: hundred people don't quote me three oh seven hundred or

657
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 10: three hundred.

658
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 8: I think I was being interviewed one day and I'm

659
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 8: going to ask me about the backlash who would get

660
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 8: because the program had a base of African American materials,

661
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 8: And my question to them was is the problem what

662
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,279
Speaker 8: is the problem? Is the problem teaching kids how to read?

663
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 8: Or is it teaching kids of color how to read?

664
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 8: But I would say overall ninety percent as in full

665
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 8: support of the program. Just want people to know that

666
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 8: sixteen nineteen Freedom School is here to stay.

667
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:47,839
Speaker 5: Are kind of.

668
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 8: Catchphrases liberation through literacy because we know that literacy will

669
00:39:52,520 --> 00:40:01,320
Speaker 8: open doors in any aspect, any realm of life.

670
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: When we come back, I'll pick up my conversation with

671
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: Nicole Hannah Jones to talk about growing up in Waterloo,

672
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: Iowa and how that's influenced her work. Stay with us, Yes, hey,

673
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: we're back. Before the break, we visited Nicole Hannah Jones

674
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: sixteen nineteen Freedom School in Waterloo, Iowa, and there we

675
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 1: heard from teachers and their fourth and fifth grade students.

676
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 1: Now let's get back to my conversation with Nicole Hannah Jones. So, Nicole,

677
00:40:56,040 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: the after school program is in Waterloo. I think it's

678
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: really interesting what you have said, which is you're recognizing

679
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,800
Speaker 1: your own privilege, right You less Waterloo, and you have

680
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: been incredibly successful, and I want to know about managing

681
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: the privilege that you have now, the success that you

682
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 1: have now, and when you put that and you think

683
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: about you as a little girl, can you take us

684
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:26,839
Speaker 1: back to being that little girl in Waterloo and how

685
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: you understood your place in the United States. For me again,

686
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: as a Mexican kid growing up on the South side

687
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,439
Speaker 1: of Chicago. It was like, well, I'm here, I'm having

688
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: a good time, but I'm pretty much invisible. What was

689
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: the overwhelming theme of your childhood growing up.

690
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 4: Yeah, so my hometown is about fifteen percent black, as

691
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 4: it was when I was growing up. So it's blacker

692
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 4: than the nation and very black for one of the

693
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 4: whitest states in the country. So I grew up in

694
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 4: a black community in Waterloo with my black family. My

695
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:00,439
Speaker 4: grandmother or had.

696
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:02,320
Speaker 1: Twelve kids, God bless her.

697
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm like, you had a sharecropper family, but you

698
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 4: weren't on the plantation anymore. You came up north. So

699
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 4: I grew up both like in the embrace of a

700
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 4: black community, but in a very white state. So I

701
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 4: think I always I was an avid reader. I was

702
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 4: extremely nerdy. Both of my parents read a lot. I

703
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:25,920
Speaker 4: read newspapers when I was young, all of those things.

704
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,319
Speaker 4: I described it as desperately trying to find myself in

705
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:35,359
Speaker 4: the American story. I just, you know, journalists, people who

706
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 4: become journalists are natural skeptics, I think, and so I knew.

707
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 4: I never saw us doing much in any of the

708
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 4: books we read or when we wanted to see black

709
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 4: people in the newspaper. We had to go to the

710
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:52,439
Speaker 4: crime lag because it's literally the only place where black

711
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 4: people were were represented, and I just felt that that

712
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 4: wasn't right, that that wasn't reflective of the truth. But

713
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 4: no one was giving me the truth. So that's really

714
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 4: what has driven me. I think my entire career is

715
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 4: knowing that the reality of what I was experiencing, what

716
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 4: I believed to be true, wasn't matching what I was

717
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 4: seeing in the media or what we were being taught

718
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,760
Speaker 4: in school, and wanting to get and reflect that greater truth.

719
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 4: So I think my hometown shaped me a lot. And

720
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 4: I'll say this also, I grew up in a biracial household,

721
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,279
Speaker 4: so my mom is white, my dad is black, and

722
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 4: I saw very clearly like being raised at that intersection

723
00:43:37,080 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 4: where my dad sat my sister's and I down when

724
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 4: we were very young and he was like, your mom

725
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,360
Speaker 4: might be white, but this America, you are black. You

726
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 4: will be treated like you're black. You will go in

727
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:51,439
Speaker 4: the world as black people. You are black. You can't

728
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,359
Speaker 4: be white, right our society Like that's not going to happen.

729
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 4: You're black. And so I saw that because I had

730
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 4: these intimate relationships with my white side of the family,

731
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 4: which was also a working class. Both sides of my

732
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 4: family were working class, but the working class side of

733
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 4: my white family had land, right, they owned their homes.

734
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 4: My grandmother didn't work outside of the home. My grandfather

735
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 4: was able to take care of her off of his

736
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 4: factory job and the benefits of that. And I didn't

737
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,280
Speaker 4: know anybody on my black side of family who had anything.

738
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 4: They didn't own their homes, they didn't have any property,

739
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,800
Speaker 4: worked multiple jobs and couldn't get ahead. So I knew,

740
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 4: even as a young person that it wasn't because white

741
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 4: people were working harder that they had more. Something in

742
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,879
Speaker 4: society was driving this because my family worked hard. They

743
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 4: worked in beef packing plans right my black side right.

744
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 7: They.

745
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 1: Super physically challenging works like labor.

746
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 4: I remember, you know, my uncle's coming home at the

747
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 4: end of the day not being able to make a

748
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 4: fist because they'd been cutting carcasses all day. And my

749
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 4: uncle Eddie, my favorite own He always had the best furniture.

750
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:05,360
Speaker 4: It was rent to own because that's all he could afford.

751
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 4: But he had great pride in this house that he

752
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 4: didn't even own. So it was all these things that

753
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 4: I'm observing as a kid and seeing intimately both sides

754
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 4: of this family who are both working class but live

755
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 4: very very different lives, even though they all work hard.

756
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 4: So I think all of that really drove my quest

757
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 4: to understand and my belief that it was clearly what

758
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 4: I was seeing was structural, that it wasn't about black pathology,

759
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 4: it wasn't about people making individual choices, it wasn't about ambition,

760
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 4: that there was something bigger at play, and I spent

761
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:39,799
Speaker 4: my life trying to excavate that.

762
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 1: So, Nicole, you and I are both very much influenced

763
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 1: by our upbringings, by our experiences, and we're super clear

764
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:52,359
Speaker 1: that our work reflects that. And sometimes because of that,

765
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: we're often seen as biased as activists really, and so

766
00:45:57,280 --> 00:45:59,319
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, what are your thoughts on

767
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 1: the fact that journalists, especially journalists of color, are labeled

768
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:04,439
Speaker 1: in this way.

769
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, So what I say is I actually believe journalism

770
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 4: is activism, not the same type of activism that is

771
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:17,440
Speaker 4: Black Lives Matter or pro immigration groups or you know,

772
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:20,840
Speaker 4: abortion rights groups, not that type of like activism. But

773
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:24,919
Speaker 4: we become journalists because we want to hold power accountable,

774
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:29,320
Speaker 4: because we believe that somebody has to speak on behalf

775
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 4: of the vulnerable. That's activism, you know, when the Washington

776
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 4: Post has it as its model, democracy dies in darkness.

777
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 4: That's not a neutral position. That's saying that we believe

778
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:48,919
Speaker 4: our roles journalists is to strengthen and maintain democracy. When

779
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 4: a journalist covers child protective services and does an investigation

780
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 4: and exposes failures of that system, they're not doing it

781
00:46:58,360 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 4: just because they're like, I just think it might be

782
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:02,240
Speaker 4: interesting for people to know this. They want that system

783
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 4: to work for the children it's supposed to serve. Right,

784
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:10,439
Speaker 4: So I don't shy away I say, I'm not an

785
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 4: I'm an activist in the way that journalism is activism.

786
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 4: I'm not an activist in the way that people typically

787
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 4: think of activism. But to me, I got into journalism

788
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 4: because I want our society to be better. I want

789
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:27,879
Speaker 4: to do my part to expose the way that our

790
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:32,240
Speaker 4: society is failing citizens and non citizens, anyone who lives here,

791
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 4: and to try through that exposure, you know, is I

792
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 4: to be well said, the way to right wrongs is

793
00:47:38,080 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 4: to shine the light of truth upon them. So I

794
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 4: don't shy away from that label. A lot of people

795
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:47,360
Speaker 4: say that either as an accusation, Right, you're an activist. Okay,

796
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 4: well so it's Washington Post then, because why are they

797
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 4: covering Donald Trump like they do? Because they believe that

798
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:56,360
Speaker 4: our president shouldn't do certain things. Right, that's not healthy

799
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:57,239
Speaker 4: for our democracy.

800
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:00,360
Speaker 1: There have been challenges in both of our community, and

801
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: I think that one of the greatest challenges right now

802
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: is the fact that the Black Lives Matter movement and

803
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 1: the pro immigrant rights movement are kind of seen separately

804
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 1: when in fact, the Black Lives Matter movement and the

805
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:18,359
Speaker 1: pro immigrant rights movement are really so interconnected. And it's

806
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: an issue in the Latino community where there is a

807
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: lot of anti blackness historically. Right, So I wanted to

808
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 1: ask you, what do you think could happen if these

809
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 1: two movements, the pro immigrant rights movement and the Black

810
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 1: Lives Matter movement, very actively and intentionally came together.

811
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 4: We have to be intersectional because we have to realize.

812
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 4: So one of the things that we hear all the

813
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 4: time is our country is going to have to get

814
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:55,239
Speaker 4: better because our demographics are shifting. Well, one that's why

815
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 4: we're seeing so many efforts to subvert multiracial democracy is

816
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:02,359
Speaker 4: because we're becoming too multiracial. But two, if we don't

817
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 4: harness that collective power, it won't matter that our demographics

818
00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 4: are shifting. Right, If we see our struggles as distinct,

819
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 4: we lose our collective power. Collectively, we actually have a

820
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 4: great deal of power. So I wish that we would

821
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 4: do more intersectional analysis, intersectional organizing, that we would realize

822
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 4: who our common enemies are and who benefits from our separation.

823
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:34,480
Speaker 4: Because we know who benefits and it is not us.

824
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 4: And I think that is why it's so important when

825
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 4: I see how you move in the world, I see

826
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 4: that solidarity with black people in diaspora. I see you

827
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 4: speaking out against racism in Latino communities, and I have

828
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 4: to do the same thing. Right, there was a period

829
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 4: where I'm not even going to say the name of

830
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 4: this group because they bring a lot of trolls, but

831
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 4: a nativist Black American group that is seeking reparations right

832
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 4: was vehemently and viscerally anti immigrants, and I spoke out

833
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 4: against that. That's when I became a target, right, because

834
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:16,840
Speaker 4: we cannot we as people who have lived at the

835
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 4: margins our entire existence in the United States, have to

836
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:24,840
Speaker 4: be embracing other people at the margins and understand the

837
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:29,040
Speaker 4: way that borders are false notions that so often the

838
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,760
Speaker 4: reason people want to come here is because of empire.

839
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 4: It's because of American policy that is made life in

840
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 4: their own country is untenable. And we want to just

841
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 4: ignore all of that. We're not competing for the same job,

842
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 4: We're all competing for the same scraps, right, So I

843
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 4: think we have to talk more about that. We have

844
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 4: to do more organizing, and that is the work of

845
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 4: the journalists, right. The work of the journalists is to

846
00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 4: provide that narrative and that understanding that is so often lacking.

847
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 1: Well, Nicole, I could stay in conversation with you, Yes,

848
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 1: with the coffee and that they can. We're gonna make

849
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:03,759
Speaker 1: that out. But I want to leave on a hopeful note, and.

850
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 4: So you know you got the wrong one for that.

851
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. There has to be I mean, you

852
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:13,759
Speaker 1: know that over the pandemic, I became a birdwatcher who

853
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:17,360
Speaker 1: would have thought right, But that is something that brings

854
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: me kind of joy. I mean, my puppies bring me joy.

855
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:23,919
Speaker 1: My kids that are you know, stable and in love

856
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 1: bring me joy. But can you just tell us one

857
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:29,600
Speaker 1: or two things that actually bring you joy and help

858
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:32,920
Speaker 1: you do this work. Because I do see you smiling,

859
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 1: You look beautiful today, your hair is gorgeous, You've got

860
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 1: a fabulous pink sweater on. So something a couple of

861
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: things that bring you joy and help you keep on

862
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:43,800
Speaker 1: doing this work.

863
00:51:44,600 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 4: Okay, I can definitely answer that, because I am a

864
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:52,360
Speaker 4: very joyous person. The work is very difficult. I'm often

865
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 4: writing about really painful things, but I really am incredibly blessed.

866
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 4: I get to read books, talk to interesting people, and

867
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:06,360
Speaker 4: tell our stories for a living. I can't imagine a

868
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 4: better job than that. You know, I have a beautiful, sassy,

869
00:52:10,120 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 4: twelve year old who is my entire life. I have

870
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 4: a great husband. I have a great collection of collection.

871
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 4: I shouldn't call my friends a collection. I have such

872
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:25,400
Speaker 4: a great you know, a group of friends. And really,

873
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 4: I go out into the world and I'm at this

874
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 4: point of my career where people tell me all the

875
00:52:32,120 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 4: time what the work means to them. And I never

876
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 4: thought I would be. You know, again, I'm a newspaper reporter.

877
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:42,320
Speaker 4: I didn't even think people would pay attention to my byline,

878
00:52:42,400 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 4: and certainly not that they would recognize me when I'm

879
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:49,319
Speaker 4: out in public, and it just affirms, you know, my

880
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:52,480
Speaker 4: father was born on a sharecropping farm in Mississippi, and

881
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:55,799
Speaker 4: I am able to do this work on behalf of

882
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,239
Speaker 4: our people, and it means something to the people I

883
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 4: do it for. So sometimes my students or other people

884
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 4: will say, you know, how do you how do you

885
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 4: keep going with all of the attacks and all of this,

886
00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:08,399
Speaker 4: and the work seems so hard, And I'm like, there's

887
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 4: not a single day where I don't wake up ready

888
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:12,799
Speaker 4: to do the work that I do, Happy to do

889
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 4: the work that I do, an honor to do the

890
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:16,799
Speaker 4: work that I do. It's not a burden. My life

891
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 4: is easy compared to so many other people. So yes,

892
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 4: joy is easy. Hope that's a little harder, but joy,

893
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 4: that's easy.

894
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Nicole Hannah Jones for speaking with me

895
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:30,800
Speaker 1: on letting you know usay. It's been such a pleasure,

896
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:33,840
Speaker 1: and you've made me rethink a couple of things. So

897
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:36,120
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to have this conversation in another.

898
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 4: Year and see absolutely where we're at.

899
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: But I really appreciate the time. This episode was produced

900
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 1: by day Now Junior with help from Raul Prees no Josa.

901
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:06,800
Speaker 1: It was edited by Daisy Contreras and mixed by Stephanie

902
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:12,000
Speaker 1: Lebau and Julia Caruso. The Latino USA team includes Victori Estrada,

903
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:16,720
Speaker 1: Andre Lopez Cruzado, Lori mar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent,

904
00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:20,879
Speaker 1: Nor Saudi and Nancy Truquillo. VANILLEI Ramirez is our co

905
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:25,279
Speaker 1: executive producer. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our theme

906
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:28,319
Speaker 1: music was composed by Senia Rubinos, I'm your host and

907
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:32,080
Speaker 1: executive producer Maria Jojosa. Join us again on our next episode.

908
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:33,879
Speaker 1: In the meantime, look for us on all of your

909
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:38,040
Speaker 1: social media. I'll see you there, ye coorda de donte rayas.

910
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:45,800
Speaker 7: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising

911
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 7: Simons Foundation, Unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities. More at hsfoundation

912
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 7: dot org, New York Women's Foundation, the New York Women's Foundation,

913
00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 7: funding women leaders build solutions in their communities and celebrating

914
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:08,800
Speaker 7: thirty years of radical generosity and W. K. Kellogg Foundation,

915
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:13,040
Speaker 7: a partner with communities where children come first.

916
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:17,760
Speaker 1: And let's meet the middle.

917
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 4: You're all the way up in Harlem, and you know

918
00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 4: that's like going out of town when you're in Brooklyn,

919
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:23,319
Speaker 4: but maybe we can meet in the middle somewhere. Well, see, the.

920
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:25,080
Speaker 1: Thing is is that I can't get to Brooklyn because

921
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 1: my passport hasn't been stamped.

922
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 4: My love, We'll meet somewhere in Manhattan, right, but in

923
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:34,440
Speaker 4: the middle, not not where you are. Yeah, well the

924
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:35,160
Speaker 4: middle has happen.