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Speaker 1: Previously on The Widian House.

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Speaker 2: They put me into a studio in North Hollywood about

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Speaker 2: a year ago, and then I signed lease.

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Speaker 3: I thought everything was fine. I was there.

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Speaker 1: Literally two hours.

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Speaker 2: They said, congratulations, your disability finally came through after twenty years.

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Speaker 2: But you don't qualify to be in there anymore, and

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Speaker 2: we're taking you out. And so they took me out

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Speaker 2: there after two hours, put me back in the same

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Speaker 2: tiny house and that was about eighteen months ago.

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Speaker 1: I don't call them out publicly. You're complicit.

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Speaker 4: So if you are there about what you're saying, you

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Speaker 4: speak out. You have a platform, you have a bullypool fit.

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Speaker 4: It is unacceptable you keep through pretending that you don't

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Speaker 4: know what's going on or you are upset about it

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Speaker 4: as you're talking to them one on one. You're gonna

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Speaker 4: speak up. I'll speak out or move out of the

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Speaker 4: way and let someone else. You just speak it out

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Speaker 4: and do it.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Edian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson.

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Speaker 4: This episode demonstrates resistance and an analysis of injustice in

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Speaker 4: two divergent paths. But first at House News our first story.

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Speaker 4: There is a heat wave here in California. Vulnerable populations

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Speaker 4: affected include the young, elderly, those without air conditioning, and

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Speaker 4: the unhoused community. Please remember, dry granola or dry peanut

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Speaker 4: butter sandwiches replete with warm bottled water are not a

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Speaker 4: sound aid to the unhoused community. At this time, the

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Speaker 4: Los Angeles Times has reported that residents should use cooling

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Speaker 4: centers at public libraries that close at eight pm. There

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Speaker 4: are no other cooling centers after eight pm. Our next

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Speaker 4: story describes this quote accurately. Fanaticisms and ignorance is always

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Speaker 4: busy and therefore needs feeding.

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Speaker 1: Here's the story.

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Speaker 4: A twenty three year old house man is charged with

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Speaker 4: the murder of an unhoused man in Silmar, California. Vincent Wolf,

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Speaker 4: twenty three, house claims he shot Travis Harker, twenty nine,

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Speaker 4: in self defense. Local authorities, however, claimed the video shows

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Speaker 4: that Wolf opened fire without provocation. Detectives are also investigating

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Speaker 4: other killings that appear to be motivated by hatred of

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Speaker 4: the young house.

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Speaker 1: Wolf's anti hand house.

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Speaker 4: Views are also captured on Instagram. According to reports, Wolf

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Speaker 4: double park next to an RV outside his building, walked

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Speaker 4: up to Travis Harker and shot him once in a chest.

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Speaker 4: Harker grew up in foster care. He had four other

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Speaker 4: siblings in foster care. He spoke warmly of his foster family,

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Speaker 4: and when he turned eighteen, he went off looking for

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Speaker 4: his biological parents and siblings. Harker also struggled with living

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Speaker 4: in house, using different coping strategies. By the time of

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Speaker 4: his death, he had been living on the streets for years.

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Speaker 4: According to Wolfe, whose anti on house views has been

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Speaker 4: stating and known, Harker threatened him with a knife.

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Speaker 1: Surveillance video shows.

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Speaker 4: However, that heart did not have a knife when he

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Speaker 4: was killed, and that's a housebouse. When we come back,

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Speaker 4: we're going to take a quick detour into a first

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Speaker 4: hand account of an ice observer being snacked from her

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Speaker 4: vehicle and detained for over three hours.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm THEO Henderson.

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Speaker 4: This is Maria's story as an ice observer being snatched

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Speaker 4: from a vehicle and detained for over three hours. This

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Speaker 4: is THEO Henderson. If you can hear in the background,

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Speaker 4: rally is picking up steam. We have one of the

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Speaker 4: people that were impacted by ice and I'm gonna let

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Speaker 4: Maria tell her story.

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Speaker 1: So Maria tell us a little bit about what happened.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, of course, January thirtieth, there was a time and

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Speaker 5: moment where I was followed and seen and seen by

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Speaker 5: Ice federal agents.

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Speaker 6: They did call the police.

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Speaker 5: Department and lie about me following them, So they went

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Speaker 5: ahead and busted a U turn. They saw me, and

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Speaker 5: they followed me, you know, to the point where we

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Speaker 5: ended up coming to a red light I'd stopped. They

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Speaker 5: boxed me in and they broke my window. They didn't

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Speaker 5: ask me my name, they didn't ask me who I was.

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Speaker 5: They didn't tell me why they were stopping me. They

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Speaker 5: just pointed the gun at my window and started knocking

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Speaker 5: the window with it. Al Monte Police department got there,

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Speaker 5: escalated the situation since federal agents had already agreed to

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Speaker 5: meet me here at the police department, and they stepped

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Speaker 5: away after just asking me questions and saying they weren't

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Speaker 5: going to turn me over. So in Monte City says

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Speaker 5: that they did not help. But really it's because they

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Speaker 5: didn't help in any way, not me, that, not the community.

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Speaker 4: Nobody did they even a question why they cracked open

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Speaker 4: your window, because that's not a procedure, a normal procedure,

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Speaker 4: is it.

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Speaker 6: No, they didn't explain a single thing.

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Speaker 5: As a matter of fact, they didn't even ask me

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Speaker 5: my identity till I was twenty minutes in that vehicle.

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Speaker 4: It's also weird that the police didn't call them the

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Speaker 4: task on that easier, because it's amazing. If there was

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Speaker 4: something like that happened as a Seville and you suppose

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Speaker 4: you cracked open someone's window and attacked them, what you

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Speaker 4: would have had the same type of treatment by the

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Speaker 4: police if.

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Speaker 5: They had been absolutely you know, they got a pass.

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Speaker 5: They didn't ask the agents anything. They asked for a supervisor,

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Speaker 5: they had no supervisor to provide, so they got a

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Speaker 5: free pass.

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Speaker 6: And that's exactly what happens.

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Speaker 4: So is there a direct link what would happened with you?

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Speaker 4: Is why we're asking for an ordnance today.

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Speaker 5: With this absolutely because just because it happened to me,

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Speaker 5: I mean, it's not really about me. It's about the

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Speaker 5: fact that they do this every single day. They do

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Speaker 5: it in different states. Unfortunately, some people have lost their life.

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Speaker 5: Could have happened again, and so yeah, we do need

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Speaker 5: an ordinance and we need it now.

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Speaker 6: We needed it yesterday.

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Speaker 4: After they took you in custody, were you held detained

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Speaker 4: very long or were you released shortly?

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Speaker 6: I was released three hours.

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Speaker 5: They spent about two hours driving around on the freeways.

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Speaker 5: They decided they weren't going to take me anywhere to

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Speaker 5: a detention center, book me anywhere. They were just going

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Speaker 5: to drop me off in the parking lot of the

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Speaker 5: police station. And that's exactly what happened.

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Speaker 1: What were you thinking when this happened.

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Speaker 4: Were there any kind of way for people to get

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Speaker 4: in contact with There any witnesses to what happened to you?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, there was a whole lot of community that's happened

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Speaker 5: on live and then there was a lot of people

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Speaker 5: that were also there president when it happened in the moments.

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Speaker 4: I'm making that point because many times people could get

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Speaker 4: snatched up or attacked and there is no response or

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Speaker 4: no way to follow up.

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Speaker 5: Understood, And I know that it happens to a lot

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Speaker 5: of people. Sometimes they don't take it into consideration to

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Speaker 5: record themselves.

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Speaker 6: But for our safety, I think.

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Speaker 5: It's mandatory that everybody starts recording because they're coming for everyone.

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Speaker 4: As you can hear, the horns are in support of

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Speaker 4: what's going on. I thank you, Maria for your time,

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Speaker 4: and I appreciate you as well, thank you Maria for

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Speaker 4: sharing your story. I met Maria in Elmonte had an

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Speaker 4: anti ice protest at city hall. There's more information from

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Speaker 4: San Gabriel Valley Progressive Action on how to get involved.

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Speaker 4: It's Deil Henderson from MEDI and Howes we have one

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Speaker 4: of the representatives from the Zan Gabriel Valley Progressive Action.

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Speaker 4: There's so much that's been going on. People want to

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Speaker 4: know what's going on and how to become involved in

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Speaker 4: some of the things that are out here, and here's

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Speaker 4: one of the representatives to explain how they get started. Yeah.

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Speaker 7: So right now, we know that a lot of community

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Speaker 7: members want Ice out of our communities. So that's the

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Speaker 7: main message tonight. We're here at Almani City Hall to

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Speaker 7: demand a sanctuary city policy to protect our immigrants. Recently,

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Speaker 7: there was an incident where we saw the local PD

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Speaker 7: collaborate with ICE and they stopped one of our community

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Speaker 7: patrollers and detained her for a long period of time.

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Speaker 7: Luckily she was freed. But we don't want any collaboration

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Speaker 7: of our local PD with ICE. We want to abolish ICE.

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Speaker 7: We don't want ice in our communities and we need

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Speaker 7: people to get involved. So we as SGV Progressive Action.

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Speaker 7: We are here to fight for collective liberation, and ice

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Speaker 7: is just one of the issues we're focusing on. We

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Speaker 7: actually started in twenty twenty with calls to defund the

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Speaker 7: police following the murder of George Floyd. That over the

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Speaker 7: years we've worked on several different community issues, including ceasefire

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Speaker 7: resolutions and support of the Free Palestine movement, and also

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Speaker 7: just mutual aid efforts, especially after the fires last year.

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Speaker 7: So there's a lot of opportunities to get involved with us.

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Speaker 6: We welcome folks to join our movement.

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Speaker 7: We are active on Instagram, SGIV Progressive Action and yeah,

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Speaker 7: stay in touch, stay engaged.

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Speaker 4: I want to question one of the opposing thoughts is

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Speaker 4: why is the federal agency and local agencies not working together?

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Speaker 1: What would be the response to that?

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Speaker 7: So right now, you know, this country has always been

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Speaker 7: a fascist country, and I think what we're seeing at

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Speaker 7: the federal administration, at the federal level is an applification

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Speaker 7: of that right.

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Speaker 6: And I think.

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Speaker 7: All these systems work in tandem with each other, but

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Speaker 7: we just go through different phases as a country. And

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Speaker 7: I think, you know, my personal analysis is that what

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Speaker 7: happens locally matters glow and vice versa. So everything that

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Speaker 7: we do locally matters and has a ripple effect at

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Speaker 7: the federal level. And I think we are in a

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Speaker 7: precious state of the State of California that is actively

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Speaker 7: fighting back against what this administration is amplifying. You know,

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Speaker 7: values of white supremacy, imperialism, those are the core roots

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Speaker 7: of these systems that we're trying to get rid of.

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Speaker 7: So we're doing whatever we can to make sure that

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Speaker 7: we're shaking the systems up locally and doing our part,

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Speaker 7: because you know, we can't do it all, but we

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Speaker 7: can do what we can, like here in the Sangrabol

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Speaker 7: Valley as Sangrabo Valley residents, to let our elected officials

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Speaker 7: know that we can't accept this. This isn't normal, we

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Speaker 7: can't normalize this, and we don't want ice.

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Speaker 6: In our communities.

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Speaker 4: I noticed that do you have certain things on the

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Speaker 4: table such as Know your Rights cards and the ordinance tonight?

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Speaker 1: What can you tell us about the ordinance?

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Speaker 7: So the ordinance isn't on the agenda, but it is

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Speaker 7: something we want the city council to pass, and that's

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Speaker 7: a sanctuary city ordinance, which would actually strengthen existing policies

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Speaker 7: that the state has for all cities, and so as

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Speaker 7: part of that ordinance, we want to make sure that

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Speaker 7: the city doesn't allow ICE to know our residence immigration status.

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Speaker 7: We don't want ICE on certain parts of the cities

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Speaker 7: of my city owned property. We really want to ensure

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Speaker 7: that there are maximum protections for immigrants and no collaboration

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Speaker 7: with ICE. So sanctuary city policy would help us do that.

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Speaker 7: And we know that in twenty seventeen the city passed

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Speaker 7: a resolution, but that isn't as strong as an ordinance.

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Speaker 7: So we want the city to commit to an ordinance,

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Speaker 7: which is binding law that protects residents and goes beyd'

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Speaker 7: on just statements, thoughts and prayers.

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Speaker 4: Thank you to everyone who dedicated their time to the cause.

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Speaker 4: When we come back our featured guests, Ralph Eubanks talks

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Speaker 4: about chronicling his life and his family's life on the

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Speaker 4: Mississippi Delta. This week, we're joined by Ralph Eubanks, Award

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Speaker 4: winning author who grew up in the Mississippi Delta. His

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Speaker 4: new book, When It's Darkness on the Delta uplifts the

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Speaker 4: local communities and grassroot movements working toward meaningful change in

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Speaker 4: the region.

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Speaker 1: Here's our conversation. Welcome, mister Ewbanks to our show.

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Speaker 4: We are actually in the midst of an excellent, charming

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Speaker 4: conversation about our family's mutual origins, and we want to

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Speaker 4: know a little bit more about you. So, mister Eubanks,

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Speaker 4: in your words, tell us a little bit about yourself.

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Speaker 3: Well, I am from Mississippi. I'm a native Mississippian. I

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Speaker 3: grew up in the piney Woods of Mississippi. My family

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Speaker 3: left the Mississippi Delta in nineteen fifty six in the

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Speaker 3: wake of them at till Murder. I'm a graduate of

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Speaker 3: the University of Mississippi or miss and I teach there now.

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Speaker 3: And I'm actually speaking to you from my office at

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Speaker 3: the University of Mississippi in Barnet Observatory, which is a

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Speaker 3: building that's constructed by enslaved labor. So I'm here on

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Speaker 3: the campus of the University of Mississippi right now, and

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Speaker 3: I'm a faculty fellow and writer in residence at the

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Speaker 3: Center for the Study of Southern Culture here at the

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Speaker 3: University of Mississippi.

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Speaker 4: Apparently education is very important with you. Was that one

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Speaker 4: of the inspirations for you to stay in Mississippi, to

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Speaker 4: return to offer the expertise of your educational experience or

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Speaker 4: what did.

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Speaker 3: I first came back to Mississippi while I was working

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Speaker 3: on my first book. Ever was a long time that

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Speaker 3: started in nineteen ninety nine, but I ended up back

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Speaker 3: in Mississippi in twenty sixteen to teach at Millsaps College.

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Speaker 3: I edited the Virginia Quarterly Review. Things kind of went

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Speaker 3: south with that job very quickly, and I nearly sixty

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Speaker 3: years old and trying to figure out what to do next,

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Speaker 3: and I end up at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.

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Speaker 3: And I actually wrote to a friend of mine when

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Speaker 3: I got back to Jackson and said, it's really strange

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Speaker 3: being back in Mississippi, a place that I worked my

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Speaker 3: entire life to escape. And he said, well, that's what

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Speaker 3: you're writing about from now on. And that is what

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Speaker 3: I have been writing about for the last ten years,

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Speaker 3: this strangeness of being back in this place that I

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Speaker 3: worked very hard to escape. I was Director of Publishing

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Speaker 3: the Library of Congress for nearly twenty years. I edited

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Speaker 3: the Virginia Quarterly Review. I worked in various publishing jobs

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Speaker 3: before the Library of Congress in Washington, d C. My

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Speaker 3: orbit was DC in the publishing world in New York,

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Speaker 3: and after a long time of doing that, I ended

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Speaker 3: up back in Mississippi. At the time, it did not

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Speaker 3: feel good. I felt what am I doing here? But

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Speaker 3: a decade later, I think I understand why I was

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Speaker 3: kind of thrown back here. I had unfinished business to

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Speaker 3: deal with here. So when I'm back here at Millsaps College,

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Speaker 3: I start traveling the roads of the Mississippi Delta, which

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Speaker 3: I did with my father as a boy. And a

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Speaker 3: year before I'm back here, I reported a story for

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Speaker 3: Wired magazine about the absence of broadband access in Mississippi

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Speaker 3: and in the Delta in particular. So I had this

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Speaker 3: interest in the Delta. I wanted to write about the Delta.

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Speaker 3: I wasn't quite sure of what I wanted to write about,

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Speaker 3: but I started exploring, started just kind of driving these

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Speaker 3: roads randomly and thinking about what it is that I saw.

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Speaker 3: And at the same time, I'm a person who's landed

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Speaker 3: in a lot of elite spaces in Mississippi, ones that

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Speaker 3: I would not have been welcomed into when I was

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Speaker 3: a much younger man, And I heard people say lots

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Speaker 3: of disparaging things about the Delta and things that were

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Speaker 3: inaccurate about it, such as if Mississippi didn't have the delta,

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Speaker 3: it would rank twenty fifth in the nation. And once

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Speaker 3: I fact checked those things, I realized people believe a

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Speaker 3: lot of myths about this place. And that's when I

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Speaker 3: began to try to find out what those myths were

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Speaker 3: and kind of dig deep into that. And it took

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Speaker 3: me a while to figure out my voice. I mean,

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Speaker 3: this is a book that has taken me ten years

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Speaker 3: to write. I even wrote another book in between my book,

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Speaker 3: a place like Mississippi. But if you also look at

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Speaker 3: that book, the longest chapter in a place like Mississippi

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Speaker 3: focuses on the Delta, because that was what was very

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Speaker 3: much on my mind as I was working on that book,

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Speaker 3: and writing that book really helped me, I think, find

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Speaker 3: the right voice to tell the story, which is a

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Speaker 3: blend of memoir, history, narrative, nonfiction, all of those things.

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Speaker 3: So it's it is personal, it gets into policy issues,

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Speaker 3: so it's not a very it's not a book that's

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Speaker 3: easy to compartmentalize in a particular genre, but it is

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Speaker 3: it's this hybrid book that I brought together.

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Speaker 4: So what I wanted to ask too, because originally you know,

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Speaker 4: my parents' reality, it's a lot probably different than mine

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Speaker 4: and my grandparents most certainly what they were sharecroppers and slaves,

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Speaker 4: and so their reality is a bit different. In the

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Speaker 4: southern areas, what myths that are pernicious or just simply

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Speaker 4: not true that the listener can listen in on. Because

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Speaker 4: when I remember, and one of the things is, I

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00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:08,760
Speaker 4: wasn't around when mid Hill was Lynch, but I lived

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Speaker 4: in Chicago, and I don't know if you know, Maimie

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Speaker 4: Teal lived in Chicago, and she used a funeral home

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Speaker 4: right across where I grew up in right around the

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Speaker 4: school I grew up in, and the funeral home was

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Speaker 4: it was very known in the black community. So she

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Speaker 4: used that funeral home, and I heard several different stories

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Speaker 4: about money, Mississippi, Mississippi in general, the whole reality of

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Speaker 4: life there, how you had to comport yourself differently than

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Speaker 4: you were in the Northern States. Also, more importantly, it

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Speaker 4: was also where I don't know if you remember it,

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Speaker 4: but I remember my fifth grade teacher, Missus Johnson, May

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Speaker 4: she rest in.

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Speaker 1: Peace, showed us old photos of the.

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Speaker 4: Funeral of Emmet Tell And it's made an indebliable impression

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Speaker 4: on my mind watching that and explaining that and showing

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Speaker 4: us because of how he was decomposing that he smelled

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Speaker 4: so odoriferous, that people were passing out from the older

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Speaker 4: before they got to the funeral home. So all of

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Speaker 4: those things left. I remember my younger brother was so

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Speaker 4: nausegated from it. He couldn't watch it. He couldn't he

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Speaker 4: couldn't see, he didn't want to see the pictures anymore

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Speaker 4: after seeing it. And you know, our school was trying

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Speaker 4: to educate us on those realities. So I say this

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Speaker 4: all of that to say, what what things that are

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Speaker 4: myths there? You know, has you know, the community evolved

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Speaker 4: if you will, or has it became stagnant, or has

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Speaker 4: it devolved in light of the new Trump regienus right

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Speaker 4: now as well?

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Speaker 3: So well, I mean it's I would say, probably the

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Speaker 3: biggest myth that I would say that that is there

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Speaker 3: is that the people of the Mississippi Delta are poor

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Speaker 3: because they want to be poor, that they have no

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00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:07,639
Speaker 3: means of really kind of getting out of poverty, so

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00:20:07,720 --> 00:20:11,720
Speaker 3: we have blamed the victim. That's probably the biggest myth

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Speaker 3: that we have about the Delta, And what I really

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00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:22,680
Speaker 3: learned from my research is how much people really try

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Speaker 3: to change the Delta. Yet the state of Mississippi really

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Speaker 3: did try to keep those changes from happening. Where my

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00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:37,320
Speaker 3: father ended up in Mileston, Mississippi, which was a resettlement

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Speaker 3: community that was started by the Works Progress Administration in

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Speaker 3: the nineteen.

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Speaker 1: Thirties Franklin Roosevelt's time.

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Speaker 3: And yes, Franklin Roosevelt. So it's a new Deal program,

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Speaker 3: and it moved black sharecroppers into being landowners and developed

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Speaker 3: this whole farm cooperative and the Resettlement administration wanted to

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Speaker 3: have several black resettlement communities in Mississippi, but Mississippi politicians

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00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 3: would only allow for one because they were afraid that

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Speaker 3: if people got that much economic power, the next thing

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00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:14,919
Speaker 3: they would want is they would want to vote, and

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Speaker 3: they were trying to keep that from happening. So Mississippi

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00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:20,760
Speaker 3: could have had I mean, that segment of land in

360
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Speaker 3: Milestone is the largest segment of black owned land in

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Speaker 3: the Mississippi Delta to this day. There could have been

362
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Speaker 3: several milestones around the Delta, but the state of Mississippi

363
00:21:31,359 --> 00:21:32,280
Speaker 3: kept those from happening.

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Speaker 4: Do you think the resistance plays another part into Because

365
00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:41,439
Speaker 4: I'm educating myself as well as when the breakdown on reconstruction,

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Speaker 4: when they were trying to dismantle all of the type

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Speaker 4: of gangs that newly freed African Americans were trying to

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00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:54,920
Speaker 4: we're basically making strides and basically very successful. They had

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Speaker 4: their own cabinet, they had their own politicians, they had

370
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:03,040
Speaker 4: their own community industry going because of that. And I think,

371
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:05,080
Speaker 4: you know, because if they're going to only do one

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Speaker 4: where you afraid that they were going to see the

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Speaker 4: reconstruction reconstructive part two.

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Speaker 3: You know, yes, I mean that's that's really it exactly.

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Speaker 3: I mean one of the things you have to realize too.

376
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Speaker 3: And in the Delta, for a while there were black

377
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 3: farmers in the Delta, but the cotton industry collapses, those

378
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:30,600
Speaker 3: people lose their land. They end up as sharecroppers working

379
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:35,640
Speaker 3: for large plantations. Sharecropping is this successor system to slaverywhere

380
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:39,080
Speaker 3: every year you have an accounting with the person who

381
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,320
Speaker 3: owns the land, and that person is the one who

382
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 3: came out ahead every year. It wasn't you, And then

383
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 3: you know you were you were indebted to this plantation,

384
00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:54,919
Speaker 3: which is why so many people who left the Delta

385
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,399
Speaker 3: moved to Chicago. There was actually a Greenville, Mississippi club

386
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Speaker 3: in the Pool neighborhood of Chicago for people who came

387
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:08,400
Speaker 3: from Greenville, Mississippi. So they left under cover of night

388
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 3: because they couldn't really just say Okay, I want out,

389
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 3: just kind of charge me later and I'll pay you back. No,

390
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:17,680
Speaker 3: they felt they owned you.

391
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Speaker 4: I also wanted to point out too, how the inner

392
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:22,960
Speaker 4: workings of the black community work was. My grandmother was

393
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Speaker 4: an evening start I don't know if you know, yes,

394
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:29,000
Speaker 4: and a Black Mason. They were very instrumental of getting

395
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:33,919
Speaker 4: targeted African American people out by using ingenious ways.

396
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:35,440
Speaker 1: She would tell me that they were.

397
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:40,440
Speaker 4: Particularly the undertakers would create false bottoms under the coffins,

398
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:42,880
Speaker 4: allow the Blacks that are trying to do the Great

399
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 4: migration and being forced to stay to use those false

400
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 4: bottom to send them up north to Chicago with places

401
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:52,040
Speaker 4: like that. So those are the little nuggets of how

402
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:55,439
Speaker 4: plays the part. Then the resurgence of the Ku Klux

403
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:58,640
Speaker 4: plan as well, and they're a terrorism campaign that played

404
00:23:58,680 --> 00:23:59,400
Speaker 4: a part as well.

405
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, all of those things really kind of played a

406
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 3: played a role in kind of shaping the Mississippi Delta.

407
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:10,640
Speaker 3: And then you know, of course you have this myth

408
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 3: about poverty in the Delta, but you also have this

409
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 3: you know, musical art form, the Blues, which is also

410
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:23,400
Speaker 3: shrouded in a great deal of mythology, and it is

411
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 3: you know even you know, the title of the book,

412
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:28,879
Speaker 3: when It's Darkness on the Delta, is a song that

413
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 3: creates a great deal of mythology. It says, you know,

414
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,640
Speaker 3: the people are lounging on the levee. Nobody ever lounged

415
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 3: at a levee in the Mississippi Delta. Uh, you know,

416
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:42,080
Speaker 3: no one's heart is heavy. All these things about you know,

417
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:45,439
Speaker 3: the Delta is this you know, miraculous, beautiful place. It

418
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 3: is a beautiful place, but you know, people had a

419
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 3: very hard life there. And you know when Starkness on

420
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 3: the Delta is also written by two nice Jewish boys

421
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:00,439
Speaker 3: from New York who'd never been to the Delta. They

422
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 3: talk about listening to the nightingales. There are no nightingales

423
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:09,199
Speaker 3: in the Delta. So that's one of the things. You know,

424
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 3: that mythology comes here. It's almost like you know, Robert

425
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:17,679
Speaker 3: Johnson's Crossroads, these stories about the Blues, and we focus

426
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 3: a lot on that mythology. Of the blues and not

427
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:25,479
Speaker 3: enough on the blues as protest, which is what it was.

428
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:29,880
Speaker 3: You know, there's these very coded ways that they're resisting

429
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 3: the forces that are keeping them economically deprived. And you know,

430
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 3: the devil in a blue song very often is not

431
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 3: Bielzebub himself. It's the white man who's got his chains

432
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 3: on this guy. You're keeping him sharecropping. That's who he is.

433
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 3: That's who the big boss man is. You're not bad,

434
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 3: You're just tall, that's all. And you know, it's a

435
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:57,679
Speaker 3: very subtle way that people are playing this are you

436
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 3: know Booker White's Parchman Farm lose and talking about this place,

437
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 3: Parchment Farm, that is a plantation and a prison. You know,

438
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 3: Parchman made the second and largest source of income for

439
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:17,640
Speaker 3: the state of Mississippi after income taxes. Through the nineteen

440
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 3: sixties and into the early nineteen seventies, they farmed cotton there.

441
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 4: Well, I was going to ask you, I don't know

442
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 4: if you've seen it, but I you know, to make

443
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,439
Speaker 4: this into a modern take. I loved the movie was

444
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 4: the movie Centers. They illustrated some of the things that

445
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:36,159
Speaker 4: was going on in the South. Have you seen the

446
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 4: movie Sitness before.

447
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:37,879
Speaker 1: I don't want to.

448
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 3: I've seen it about three times.

449
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: Okay, I did not want to rule the ending for you. Yeah,

450
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:45,479
Speaker 1: the butler didn't do it.

451
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 3: So I've seen it about three times, and it is

452
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 3: it is something that really kind of gets the Delta right.

453
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 3: It's kind of it deals with the music and some

454
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 3: of the myth around it, but it also kind of

455
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 3: breaks through a lot of that mythol And you know,

456
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 3: this this idea we're thinking about. You know, when someone

457
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 3: said to me, oh, there's this movie about the Delta

458
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 3: and vampires, I kind of kind of gave a raised eyebrow.

459
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 3: But then one of the things I began to to

460
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 3: to realize is this idea of vampires. That's the way

461
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 3: that you know, a lot of people thought about the

462
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 3: ways that whites dealt with black people in the Delta.

463
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 3: They were just kind of sucking their blood. It's one

464
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 3: of the things that that in Richard writes Uncle Tom's

465
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 3: Children that he alludes to this kind of idea of vampirism.

466
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,120
Speaker 3: So it's not something you know, at first I thought

467
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 3: that's that's not but then I realized, no, he's it's

468
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 3: it's almost it's it's really genius the way that he

469
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 3: he captures this and then begins to really drill down

470
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:57,359
Speaker 3: through that mythology. One of the things he does is

471
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,679
Speaker 3: has he's you know, he depicts Clarkstille, Mississippi, with the

472
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 3: Chinese here, the diversity of the place. That's it. I mean.

473
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 3: James Cobb, who wrote the book The Most Southern Place

474
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 3: on Earth, was a consultant to that film, and he's

475
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 3: the one who told him exactly how that section of

476
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 3: Clarkstill was set up. And that's the way you see it.

477
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 1: On the film.

478
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:18,400
Speaker 4: And one other thing too, is that and Richard Wright

479
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 4: does also go into some detail about his origins in Blackboy.

480
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 4: I remember, I'm talking about how his mother was very

481
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 4: ill and living in the southern and the intersperse of

482
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,719
Speaker 4: the religion in order to sustain them, as well as

483
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 4: the horrible poverty, him having to dig dirt and you know,

484
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 4: you know, eat blades of grass and things like that.

485
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 4: The starvation and the intense poverty, the dizziness he felt.

486
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 3: The hunger, the constant hunger.

487
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

488
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 4: And of course he wasn't able to offer an analysis

489
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 4: of what was going on mackerel, but he knew hunger.

490
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 4: He knew racism, he knew poverty, and he kN you

491
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 4: suffering from watching his mother and his family. When you know,

492
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 4: she worked herself into having a medical emergency. I think

493
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 4: believe she had a stroke or something, if I remember correctly.

494
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 3: She yeah, she did have a stroke.

495
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, and she You know that the convalescent points of

496
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 4: trying to get better but living still under the threat

497
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 4: of poverty, extreme circumstance of lack of what's out and

498
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 4: also trying to raise the child, and the child is

499
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 4: being precocious, and you know, like most children, you know,

500
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 4: those those children don't want to wake up being starved

501
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 4: or being abused or you know that they just want

502
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 4: to experience the wonder in all the world in order

503
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 4: to figure out their place in it. But you know,

504
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 4: when you are faced with like he says, he's a

505
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 4: black boy living in those kind of ardus conditions, it

506
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 4: creates a different blueprint and you have to find the

507
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 4: channel as healthy as you can to find a way

508
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 4: to express it in order or you'll just go like

509
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 4: in James Balls go telling the MoU well, you just

510
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 4: go mad.

511
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that isn't exactly. And one of the things that

512
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 3: you know, I think you know thinking about Richard Wright,

513
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 3: you remind me of something that there's a scene in

514
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 3: Black Boy where he actually goes to the Delta with

515
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 3: the man that he is selling insurance with, and he realized,

516
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 3: you know, I'm going to these very poor places. I

517
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 3: am taking money from these these people. I mean it

518
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 3: was and it was giving things to his family, but

519
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 3: he knew that there was a real disconnect there. So

520
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 3: it's something that he witnessed himself. And I remember that

521
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 3: some of the woman said, oh, I want to hear

522
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 3: that pretty boy from Jackson talk. That shows you how

523
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 3: you know the Delta was this this place. You know,

524
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 3: Richard Wright is born in Natchez but ends up kind

525
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:49,240
Speaker 3: of going you know, in Jackson, Mississippi, in the Delta

526
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 3: in Elaine, Arkansas as well, so he's you know, Elaine,

527
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 3: He's in Elaine, Arkansas before the Elaine massacre. So it's

528
00:30:55,960 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 3: they are all of these historic events that really collide

529
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 3: in the Delta, and Richard Wright is kind of on

530
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 3: the periphery of them, but he also understands a lot

531
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 3: about this place. So, you know, Richard write, I have

532
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 3: to sing with someone whose idea of the blues and

533
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 3: the blues that's kind of interpreting the pain of the people.

534
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 3: These bluesmen as not just singers, but as poets and

535
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 3: sociologist that really had a great deal of influence in

536
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 3: the way that I talk about the blues in this book,

537
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 3: and the blues is a thread that runs throughout it.

538
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 3: Each chapter begins with the lyric from a blues song

539
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 3: that relates to the topic of the chapter. So it

540
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 3: just shows you that everything that I'm writing about here,

541
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 3: someone has talked about or sung about in a blues song.

542
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 3: Whether it is hunger, housing, gambling, whatever it is, there's

543
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 3: a blue song about it.

544
00:31:57,560 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 4: And one of those things I was going to say too,

545
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 4: is like, there's two points I want to make. The

546
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 4: first one was also when I was reading the book,

547
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 4: if I remember, and I'm aging here, so I remember

548
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 4: the time he was going around selling newspapers and the

549
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 4: people he was selling it to were in such a

550
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 4: fear they just bought it until one of the black,

551
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:22,239
Speaker 4: illiterate gentlemen just told them, you know, you're selling the

552
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 4: propaganda for the ku Klux plan to keep the community colt.

553
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:31,480
Speaker 4: And when you are mentioning about your book, honestly, you

554
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 4: remind me a little of the Richard Wright, but you

555
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 4: also strongly remind me of Zorronier Hurston.

556
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: I don't know if you followed any of her works.

557
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 4: And how her anthropological analysis and her getting information from

558
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 4: the communities and creating a viable series of archives and

559
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 4: knowledge about the South and the living conditions and the

560
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 4: resilience as well as the inspiration and to persevere Indians

561
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 4: kind of conditions. So you know, the book has those earmarks.

562
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 4: It has a nod to me, you know, yeah, I

563
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 4: mean the nod toward that.

564
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: Well.

565
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 3: I'm honored to be spoken of in the same sentence

566
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 3: as Zorilhurston because she's someone who's work in legacy. I

567
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 3: really like to uplift because I mean, I think reading

568
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 3: Hurston and Wright taught me about a lot about the

569
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 3: way to approach this book, about how I should talk

570
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 3: with people. What are the stories that I should try

571
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 3: to weave together here? So you know, I think, as

572
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 3: Hurston would, I bring in the music, I bring in

573
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 3: the culture, I bring in the voices. I do oral histories.

574
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 3: I do kind of a deep analysis of the history

575
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 3: of the place. I go into physical archives to find

576
00:33:55,560 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 3: documents to really illuminate the story. I also went through

577
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 3: the delta with my camera documenting what it was that

578
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 3: I saw, and then thinking about the landscape not just

579
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 3: as this piece of land, but as an archive. What

580
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 3: does this building say about what happened here in the

581
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 3: Delta at this time. Looking at a place like Drew, Mississippi,

582
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 3: and seeing all of the cotton gins around there, and

583
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 3: then finding out that Drew had more cotton gins in

584
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:34,799
Speaker 3: anywhere in America, and realizing, well, that says a lot

585
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:38,959
Speaker 3: about this place, and cotton truly shaped this town of Drew.

586
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 3: You can't see that now, but then you begin to

587
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:46,839
Speaker 3: understand what was there before and what really defined it.

588
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:50,359
Speaker 3: Or looking at a place like Manbaiu, Mississippi, and all

589
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 3: black town there that has fallen on hard times, but

590
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 3: then going into the archive to look at the other

591
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 3: people who visited there over time, including the poet June Jordan,

592
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 3: who spent a great deal of time there in nineteen

593
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 3: seventy And so how did other people look at this place?

594
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 3: How am I looking at it? And what are the differences,

595
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 3: what are the similarities, And thinking about how we not

596
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 3: only kind of look at the past, but how we

597
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 3: see how the past and the present intersect and That's

598
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 3: one of the things I'd say as a writer that

599
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 3: I am especially interested in not just kind of looking backward,

600
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 3: but thinking about how much of that past exists in

601
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 3: our present. And those are the things that I think

602
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 3: we have to constantly ask ourselves because we are in

603
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 3: an environment right now where there are people in power

604
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 3: who are saying that past doesn't matter. We have gone

605
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 3: beyond that. Don't think about, you know, the whole systems

606
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 3: that created the Mississippi Delta. Don't think about slavery, sharecropping, debt, pieonage,

607
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 3: convict leasing, don't think about any of those things. Look forward.

608
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 3: But you lose a lot when you become disconnected from

609
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:18,320
Speaker 3: your past. And for me, this book was a way

610
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 3: of reclaiming the doctor. I say that writing about Mississippi

611
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 3: for me has become a spiritual necessity. I am from Mississippi.

612
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:32,240
Speaker 3: I've lived in Washington, d C. For over forty years.

613
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 3: That's where my children grew up. That's my home. But

614
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 3: Mississippi is my spiritual home. And it's a very complicated place.

615
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:47,320
Speaker 3: And I feel very blessed to have gotten to spend

616
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:50,840
Speaker 3: as much time as I have trying to understand it.

617
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:52,760
Speaker 3: And you know, and I'm going to tell you, even

618
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 3: if I worked another twenty years, I'm not sure i'd

619
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 3: really fully understand. I think that's how deep we need

620
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 3: to go in places like this. I'm leaving things for

621
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 3: the next generation of writers to kind of confront here,

622
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 3: and they will. And I think that's one of the

623
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:17,840
Speaker 3: things about Mississippi. We have this great literary heritage, and

624
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 3: the reason we have that is because we have so

625
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 3: much to explain.

626
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 4: Will finish this conversation after the break and we're back,

627
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 4: and I'm glad that you're picking up the mantle with

628
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 4: the other writers before us to use it in context.

629
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:41,799
Speaker 4: Richard Wright, James Baldwin, so you're new Hurston County call.

630
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 4: All of them knew that they were on a precipice

631
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 4: of something. This was not necessarily a novel, but it

632
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:51,399
Speaker 4: was pioneer making and it was necessary because of all

633
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 4: of the anti black sentiment, the overt racism, and the

634
00:37:56,160 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 4: hostility of anything of black accomplishment or black intellect or

635
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 4: anything a black industry, and they felt it was important.

636
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:07,240
Speaker 4: It was imperative to get the stories of the elders

637
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 4: that at their time, and as well as get a

638
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 4: snapshop of the moment to leave in a way like

639
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 4: when one of my heroes is I to b Wells

640
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 4: Barnett and she went moved from Memphis to Chicago, and

641
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 4: it kind of inspired me in a way of trying

642
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 4: to format my podcast in the way of telling the

643
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 4: stories talking to people that were on the street with

644
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 4: me and talking about their experiences in a way it

645
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:36,320
Speaker 4: was archiving in which I noticed when I started talking

646
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 4: with them, the relaxation, the trust, the ability to tell

647
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 4: their story without it being you know, wagging the finger,

648
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 4: because that's what helps people do they find some reason

649
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 4: to blame you. These stories opens the idea of poverty

650
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 4: right and opened up a conversation with the investment of

651
00:38:57,200 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 4: our own oppression. I've used as the statement I always say,

652
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 4: sometimes other poor people will blame other poor people for

653
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:07,759
Speaker 4: a their lot or for their choices in life and

654
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 4: not understanding other forces at place.

655
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: So I digress.

656
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 4: But this is one of the things when I read

657
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 4: your biography and here with our conversation, it reminds me

658
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:23,359
Speaker 4: how storytelling and getting the information in the way that

659
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 4: we can pass it on to educate and inform and

660
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:31,920
Speaker 4: liberate people from these deleterious type of stereotypes that they have.

661
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, and I think we look at poor

662
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 3: people and as I said, we blame them for their circumstances,

663
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 3: and we see poverty as a moral failing rather than

664
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:53,400
Speaker 3: looking at the policies that create the poverty. We also

665
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 3: look at unhouse people as a moral feeling. They must

666
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 3: have done some thing wrong, otherwise why would they be

667
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 3: on the street. Actually, you know, Matthew Desmond, the sociologists,

668
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 3: poverty is a policy choice, and I think you know,

669
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 3: having unhouse people in the street, that's a policy choice

670
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:20,360
Speaker 3: we have made. We can make different and better policy choices,

671
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 3: but we choose not to. And I think the question

672
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 3: for me is why do we continue to do that?

673
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 3: And as you know, I've said about you know, when

674
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 3: Starkness and the Delta, this is a book that it's

675
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 3: not prescriptive and what it is that could be done

676
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:40,799
Speaker 3: to save the Delta. But what I'm trying to do

677
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 3: is ask the questions that we should be exploring in

678
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 3: greater depth in order to develop the policies that could

679
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 3: transform the Delta. Rather than you know, my thinking that

680
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 3: I've got this secret sauce that is going to transform Zella.

681
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 3: I do not have of that. I have spent the

682
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 3: last ten years studying the history of the place, talk

683
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 3: to doing interviews with people, spending time in archives, reading

684
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 3: my own archive as well, kind of looking at the

685
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 3: landscaping through photography. All of those things together is you know,

686
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:22,600
Speaker 3: it's what has created this this book. What I want

687
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 3: to happen is I want people to look at the

688
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 3: Delta in a very different way. And not only do

689
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 3: I want them to look at the Delta in a

690
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 3: different way, I want them to look at places like

691
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 3: the Delta a different way. This is not a book

692
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 3: that is just about the Mississippi Delta. It is and

693
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 3: it isn't, and it isn't. It is because it is

694
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 3: a book about America, and the roots of American income

695
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 3: and quality came about in the Mississippi Delta, and we

696
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 3: see them whether it's in Appalachia, the black Belt of Alabama,

697
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:59,280
Speaker 3: you know, some parts of South Texas. There are lots

698
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 3: of places that are deltas. You know that photographer LaToya

699
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 3: Ruby Fraser, who is from Braddock, Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania,

700
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 3: has documented how there's still knows that are just abandoned.

701
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 3: They're just like there are cotton gins in the delta,

702
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 3: and she says, I look good to other places in

703
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 3: the United States and I see Braddock. I go to

704
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:23,880
Speaker 3: other places in the United States and I see the delta.

705
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 3: I see the delta in you know, not only in

706
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 3: parts of the South, but I see it in you know,

707
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 3: the city I live in, Washington, d C. In parts

708
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 3: of Anacostia across the river. You know, that's separated so

709
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 3: much from the rest of Washington. That's it. That's a delta.

710
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: To me.

711
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 3: Delta's are not only rural spaces, but they can be

712
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:45,439
Speaker 3: urban spaces as well.

713
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 4: I was gonna say Chicago definitely had that because of

714
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 4: the places that many of them came from, the Great

715
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 4: Migration and how they settled.

716
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 3: Chicago is the up South, what we refer to as

717
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 3: the Up South.

718
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 1: Yeah.

719
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:01,320
Speaker 3: I go around Chicago, and my three children live in Chicago,

720
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 3: so I spend a lot of a lot of time there.

721
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 3: And I'm going around Chicago and I see Mississippi. I

722
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 3: feel Mississippi, I taste Mississippi, I hear Mississippi there. And

723
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 3: it's the reason that I see that connection between Chicago

724
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 3: and Mississippi is because so many people migrated there and

725
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 3: there's Also, you know, there's another myth about the Delta

726
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 3: is that the people who've remained in the Delta are

727
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 3: the ones who were not smart enough to get out.

728
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 3: That is not true at all. Why should someone have

729
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 3: to leave their home. They should be able to forge

730
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:42,919
Speaker 3: a life in the place that they grew up, where

731
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 3: they have family, where they have roots. And for a

732
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 3: lot of people who grew up in the Delta, there's

733
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 3: a pride in place because these are people who are

734
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:56,280
Speaker 3: descended from the people who cleared the land, who built

735
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 3: the levees, who pick the cotton. They have a right

736
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:04,800
Speaker 3: to be there because they shaped that landscape that people

737
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:08,560
Speaker 3: look at in all. You know, as it said that

738
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 3: delta is a created space. It was it thickened timber

739
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 3: until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. So this

740
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 3: is a space that's created largely on the backs of

741
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 3: black labor. And why should the people who created that

742
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,400
Speaker 3: landscape leave it? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

743
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:31,799
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't. I heard, and I don't know if

744
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 1: you've heard this.

745
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 4: There was a conversation or a move during earlier times

746
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 4: when Stacy Abrams was running for office of people being

747
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 4: talked into or to reconsider moving back to the South.

748
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:47,439
Speaker 4: It was a remigration back, and I don't know what's

749
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 4: your insights on that, but I do know that there

750
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:55,440
Speaker 4: are argument was one maybe dismantling the myth, and secondly

751
00:44:55,920 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 4: to repopulate the area with much more too hard the

752
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 4: communities now to be able to combat some of the

753
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 4: adultrums of the society that happened that was planned there

754
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 4: and made to make life more arduous.

755
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:13,319
Speaker 1: Do you have any insights on that?

756
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 5: Oh?

757
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean I've read Charles Blow's book on that,

758
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 3: where he really his manifesto saying that black people should

759
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 3: reclaim the South and reclaim the politics there, and I

760
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 3: think he's he's got a very valid point. These are

761
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 3: people who've migrated other places, but this is their homeland.

762
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 3: Why can't they return there and kind of reshape it.

763
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 3: It's it's a very powerful argument. But I think one

764
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 3: of the reasons maybe it doesn't resonate with a lot

765
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 3: of people is people who left the South really wanted

766
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:51,880
Speaker 3: to kind of leave it behind and kind of returning

767
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 3: there just as I felt kind of, you know, I'm

768
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 3: back in Mississippi. I must be a failure.

769
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 4: Could it be to the trauma to you know, thinking

770
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:04,360
Speaker 4: about it was not it was not exactly welcoming there.

771
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 3: Too, there was trauma and then you know, there there

772
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 3: are also people who you know, left and there was

773
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 3: a trauma associated with their their leaving, and the stories

774
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 3: did not get passed out.

775
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:17,360
Speaker 1: You know.

776
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 3: Someone said to me someone I met was from California.

777
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 3: You know, I really don't get the South. I said, so,

778
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 3: where are your people from? And it turns out that

779
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 3: her family came from Louisiana, So they're from they are

780
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 3: from the South. I said, Look, I said, somehow, you know,

781
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 3: all black people in this country somehow have some connection

782
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 3: to the South. This is our whole land. And I feel,

783
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 3: you know that I'm glad. I'm glad that I got

784
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 3: the chance to return here. I mean I have three siblings,

785
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 3: two of them who were born in the Delta. It

786
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 3: is very difficult for them to come back here. They

787
00:46:57,280 --> 00:46:59,800
Speaker 3: don't want to kind of deal with with things and

788
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 3: theyre was growing up in Mississippi during the Civil rights movement.

789
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,879
Speaker 3: There is some trauma. I mean, I'd say I don't

790
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 3: have the trauma of you know, someone like children of

791
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 3: Meta Evers, Arina Everett. You know, she can tell you

792
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,080
Speaker 3: every detail about the night that her father was murdered

793
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 3: in their driveway. I don't have that kind of trauma,

794
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:25,280
Speaker 3: but Mississippi can, really it can do a mind trick

795
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 3: on you. But I think the reason it does that

796
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 3: is that so many of us really turn our back

797
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 3: on it rather than confronting it. I really wanted to

798
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 3: kind of look at look at it very close up.

799
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 3: Things that scared me, and I will tell I tell

800
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:45,839
Speaker 3: people all the time. Writing this book scared me, and

801
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 3: it scared me for several reasons. First of all, my

802
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 3: family left the Delta. Now people who are from the

803
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 3: Delta are they going to feel about that? And then

804
00:47:57,160 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 3: also am I going to get this story right? I

805
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:05,839
Speaker 3: felt this intense responsibility as a storyteller to actually get

806
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:09,160
Speaker 3: this story right, which is why it took me so long,

807
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 3: and it's why it took a while for me to

808
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,120
Speaker 3: find the voice I needed in order to tell the story.

809
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 3: And I'm glad that I had the chance to do that.

810
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 3: I a friend of mine, the writer Paul Hendrickson, said

811
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 3: to me a long time ago when my first book,

812
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 3: Ever's Long Time came out. He says, never forget that

813
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 3: someone paid you to tell your story. And this time,

814
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:34,720
Speaker 3: I'm not only telling kind of my story. I'm telling

815
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 3: the story of other people, and that responsibility I took

816
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 3: very seriously as I was writing this book.

817
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 1: I don't mean to personally. Are your parents still with us?

818
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 3: No, my parents are not. My mother died in twenty seventeen.

819
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 3: My father died almost fifty years ago this coming March.

820
00:48:56,400 --> 00:49:00,520
Speaker 3: So my father was fifty two he died.

821
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

822
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 3: He was a very, very young man, and you know

823
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 3: this is so he is. He's a means for me

824
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 3: to kind of understand this place. You know, I am

825
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 3: eighteen going on nineteen when my father dies. There are

826
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 3: questions that I never got to ask him, As you know,

827
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 3: man to man, I never got to ask those questions.

828
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 3: So in a way, this is my way to explore

829
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:30,719
Speaker 3: these things that I never got to ask him. I

830
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:33,120
Speaker 3: asked him, was why did you go to the Delta

831
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty nine, sist I went there for opportunity.

832
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 3: My father was a World War two letter now quite

833
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 3: loquacious man, but there's certain things that he didn't talk

834
00:49:42,120 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 3: a lot about, and those were, you know, that moved

835
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 3: from Tuskegee to the Delta in nineteen forty nine. And

836
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 3: that's why going into the archive of Tuskegee and learning

837
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 3: of Robert Molten's connection, who was the president of Tuskegee

838
00:49:56,320 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 3: to the Resettlement Administration, that he was very influential in

839
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:04,080
Speaker 3: that he was influential in the extension movement, which my

840
00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 3: father began to work in soon after his arrival in

841
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:10,800
Speaker 3: the Delta. And then all goes back to the nineteen

842
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 3: twenty seven flood because of Moten's involvement when working with

843
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 3: Herbert Hoover and kind of public relations on the black

844
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 3: people were stranded on the levees and weren't allowed to

845
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 3: leave Greenville, Mississippi. Oh and Moten kind of, you know,

846
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:28,239
Speaker 3: does that for Hoover. Hoover tells him, I'm going to

847
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:32,399
Speaker 3: develop these communities where black people can begin to own

848
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 3: land these plantations that are failing. But Hoover gets involved

849
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 3: in the depression. Depression happens, and it's not until Roosevelt's

850
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 3: New Deal that it happened. So my father ending up

851
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 3: in the Delta in nineteen forty nine really is connected

852
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:50,799
Speaker 3: to the nineteen twenty seven flood. So those are things

853
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 3: that I'm not even sure if my father recognized, but

854
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 3: I have been able to discern from the archive. It's

855
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 3: really resonated with me that I'm getting to know things

856
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:06,480
Speaker 3: about him that I never got to ask. I also

857
00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 3: think that he you know, as I drove those roads

858
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 3: a lot, I felt that he was with me, and

859
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:15,880
Speaker 3: I think that he knew that I was searching for

860
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 3: something that he didn't tell me. I mean, I went

861
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:23,080
Speaker 3: there with him every spring, every May. As a grown man,

862
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 3: I realized, he's coming back here for a reason. You know,

863
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:28,839
Speaker 3: I'm just a kid, but I'm realist he's coming back

864
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 3: here because he's got unfinished business here, just like I

865
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:35,399
Speaker 3: end up back in Mississippi because I have unfinished business here.

866
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 3: So that's one of the things that we have in common.

867
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 3: And realizing that now it's very powerful for me. So

868
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 3: this this book for me is it is something that

869
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:52,399
Speaker 3: I really wanted to understand, a place that I love

870
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:57,400
Speaker 3: very much. But it's also personal in that the Delta

871
00:51:57,440 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 3: is a place that I went to as a child,

872
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:03,440
Speaker 3: and I never quite understood why I was there so much,

873
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:07,719
Speaker 3: And now I feel I have a much better understanding

874
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:11,839
Speaker 3: of that. And I'm grateful for the opportunity that I've

875
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:15,759
Speaker 3: had to do that, and not very many people get

876
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:20,719
Speaker 3: to have that type of retrospection on their life, and

877
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:24,239
Speaker 3: I feel very fortunate to have gotten to do that.

878
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:26,960
Speaker 4: You've created and I almost say, if this is your

879
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 4: magnum opus, but this is one of these most pivotal

880
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 4: type of text that you've composed on. What inspiration do

881
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 4: you wish to have for the new generation to pick up?

882
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:43,320
Speaker 4: What would you want them to carry further along?

883
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:47,399
Speaker 3: I think that for the next generation to understand the

884
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:53,880
Speaker 3: power of a physical archive, and that so often we

885
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 3: go on our computers and we think everything is online

886
00:52:57,280 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 3: and it is not. I taught a class this last

887
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:02,960
Speaker 3: four It was called the Civil Rights Movement Before, during,

888
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 3: and After, and there was a big project, an archival

889
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 3: project for that. And you know, I've got this generation

890
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:16,799
Speaker 3: of students who have this connection with artificial intelligence. Now

891
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:21,600
Speaker 3: a single student used AI to develop those papers. They

892
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 3: began to understand the power of what's in the archive.

893
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:29,440
Speaker 3: And that's something that really gave me a great deal

894
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:32,279
Speaker 3: of hope. You know, one of my students who did

895
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 3: really want to kind of do things online, you know,

896
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:41,520
Speaker 3: he developed kind of a short documentary film on the

897
00:53:41,640 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 3: Nashville sit in movement, he said to me at the end,

898
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:47,440
Speaker 3: if I had been able to go into an archive,

899
00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:51,360
Speaker 3: there are other things that I would have found, footage

900
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 3: that I would have found. And that's one of the

901
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 3: things that I actually got him to do, is, Okay,

902
00:53:57,120 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 3: here's some newspapers you can kind of, you know, you

903
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 3: could do your Ken Burns thing. Here, here's some photographs here.

904
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:06,560
Speaker 3: That's when you began to see, oh, this is exactly

905
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:09,920
Speaker 3: what he's he's talking about. You know that life online

906
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:12,760
Speaker 3: is not always the way to do it. And that's

907
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:15,680
Speaker 3: you know, I spent a great deal of time in

908
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:21,439
Speaker 3: dusty archives with boxes of physical paper, and as when

909
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 3: my students said this last semester said, I was holding

910
00:54:24,040 --> 00:54:26,759
Speaker 3: a piece of paper so old for this project, I

911
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:29,520
Speaker 3: was scared to touch it. And then he said, but

912
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 3: then I realized that was something that was really powerful

913
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:37,640
Speaker 3: and seeing this generation raised on the digital world have

914
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 3: that experience and have it be transformative for them. So

915
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:44,359
Speaker 3: I guess if there's something I'm passing on, it is

916
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 3: that the power of the physical archive. And I think

917
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 3: they're going to understand that. I think in ways that

918
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 3: you know that AI can't help them.

919
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 4: Do you a'stically answered my question about the AI. Where

920
00:54:57,520 --> 00:54:58,480
Speaker 4: can we find a book?

921
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 3: The book is a bailable in bookstores across the country,

922
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:06,920
Speaker 3: and I really, you know, I would prefer people buy

923
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 3: it from an independent bookstore like a bookshop dot Org. Okay,

924
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 3: I'm you know, speaking at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi.

925
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 3: That's where the book is kind of having its you know,

926
00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:19,880
Speaker 3: release event.

927
00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 5: Uh.

928
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 3: If you order from Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, I

929
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:27,799
Speaker 3: can sign the book for you. So if you ask

930
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:30,160
Speaker 3: for a signed copy, you can get an autograph copy

931
00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:31,880
Speaker 3: from from Square Books.

932
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:32,200
Speaker 1: Cool.

933
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:34,080
Speaker 4: I was going to say, can you tell us the

934
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:36,279
Speaker 4: title of the book again as well as you know,

935
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 4: like you said.

936
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:38,920
Speaker 3: The title of the book is when It's Darkness on

937
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 3: the Delta, How America's richest soil became its poorest land.

938
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:45,720
Speaker 3: And it is available from Beacon Press.

939
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 1: And it's by Ralph Ebanks.

940
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 3: By the way, it's by w Ralphubanks. So so he's

941
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 3: my first initial. First initial W is for Warren. That

942
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 3: is my father's name. Okay, so I'm so I'm actually

943
00:55:57,040 --> 00:55:59,400
Speaker 3: a junior. But yeah, w Ralph you Banks.

944
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:02,320
Speaker 4: And I love these type of interviews because it also

945
00:56:02,440 --> 00:56:05,400
Speaker 4: gives you know inside what the writer we're thinking, and

946
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 4: then when you go in there you have a more

947
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:10,520
Speaker 4: richer experience reading it and like, oh, okay, this is

948
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:13,360
Speaker 4: what you know, this is what he's saying means, and

949
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:15,719
Speaker 4: this is how to do this, and you can form

950
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:16,560
Speaker 4: new connections.

951
00:56:17,200 --> 00:56:19,720
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, absolutely.

952
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 4: Is there anything outide I've missed before we uh end

953
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:24,000
Speaker 4: our excellent conversation.

954
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:27,120
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I you know, as I may have

955
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:29,440
Speaker 3: said earlier, and this is something that I really tried

956
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:32,360
Speaker 3: to emphasize with this book. This is a book about

957
00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 3: the Mississippi Delta, but I think more important it is

958
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:40,560
Speaker 3: a book about America. You know, you know, I use

959
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 3: this idea of the veiled mirror, and I think once

960
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 3: you pull the veil off the mirror that keeps us

961
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:50,920
Speaker 3: from seeing poverty in places of deep disadvantage, and you

962
00:56:50,960 --> 00:56:53,480
Speaker 3: look deep in that mirror, you begin to see not

963
00:56:53,520 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 3: only the Delta there, but you begin to see America

964
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:57,600
Speaker 3: staring back at you. And that's one of the things

965
00:56:57,600 --> 00:56:59,200
Speaker 3: I want people to do with this book is to

966
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:03,960
Speaker 3: begin to see the connections between the Delta and the

967
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 3: rest of the country and not see it as this

968
00:57:07,120 --> 00:57:08,480
Speaker 3: other in the American South.

969
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:11,960
Speaker 4: Thank you summing that up very well and I thank

970
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 4: you for joining us, and I will have to ask

971
00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:16,040
Speaker 4: you when you have your next book come out.

972
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:17,040
Speaker 1: To join us again.

973
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:18,480
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.

974
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:24,080
Speaker 1: Thank you Ralph for your time and your work.

975
00:57:24,600 --> 00:57:27,160
Speaker 4: You can learn more about Rau's book when It's Darkness

976
00:57:27,240 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 4: on the Delta at the link in the description. I

977
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:33,720
Speaker 4: will leave you with the quote, wherever you find shackles

978
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 4: of injustice, there you will find people.

979
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:40,200
Speaker 1: Creating their own keys. Thank you again for listening.

980
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 4: If you have a story you'd like to share, please

981
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 4: reach out to me at Weedianhouse at gmail dot com

982
00:57:46,160 --> 00:57:50,760
Speaker 4: or at wedian House on Instagram. Until then, may we

983
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 4: again meet in a light of understand.

984
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 1: Weedian Howse is a production of iHeartRadio.

985
00:57:57,800 --> 00:58:00,920
Speaker 4: It is written, hosted, and created by me Theo Henderson,

986
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:07,320
Speaker 4: our producers Jamie Loftus, Haileye Fager, Katie Fischer, and Lyra Smith.

987
00:58:08,160 --> 00:58:12,440
Speaker 4: Our editor is Adam Want, our engineer is Joel Jerome,

988
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 4: and our local art is also by Katie Fischer.

989
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:18,440
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening.