WEBVTT - Family Ties 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.480 You were listening to Winning on Reparations, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:12.880 I Heart Radio. What's going on? What's good People? It's 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:15.280 the one and only Dope Knife. I am one of 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:21.760 several million lingual Franco okay checking though, if you're like 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.400 one in a million, that means there's thousands of people 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.520 just like you in the world. So I'm one of 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:31.120 many lingual Francis. And then we didn't even getting into 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:36.360 like the multiverse. The reparation podcast that is true and 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.720 the entire multiverse. There's only one Winning A Reparations podcasts 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.920 Happy First Day of Black History. But yeah, we're recording 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.440 this on the first day of Black History Month. Um, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.199 how are you? How do you celebrate the month of 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:53.080 Black History? You know? I try to, um, stay a 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.640 little just get a little extra black for the month. 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:57.320 You know what I'm saying. It's like you gotta be black, 0:00:57.440 --> 0:00:59.880 you know, for the other eleven months, and it's like 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.880 just this one month you added like an extra coat 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.640 and walk around You're just super proud, you know what 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.800 I'm saying. Might what I always find such to be 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:10.840 such relief about Black History Month is that there's so 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.720 little Black history that it'll just squeeze into twenty eight days. 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.559 Just cover the whole thing, the whole entire Oh yeah, 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:22.480 it's like so little to cover. Yeah, I mean, we 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.480 don't need the long extended series. We can get it 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:30.240 all done in this one, the full cinematic universe. Speaking 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.399 you want to speak, speaking of wax stuff happening on 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.840 Black History Months, so the day before Black History Months 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.120 and even I think some of this ship was today, 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.240 but over a dozen or it just about a dozen 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:52.840 historically black colleges got bomb threats. Yeah, my my former 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:58.160 album about her, Howard University, Alcron State University, Coppin State, 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:03.520 Edward Waters University, Fort Valley State, the University of the 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:09.040 District of Columbia, Morgan State, Kentucky State, Xavier University, and more. Yeah, 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.840 like they got bomb threats, they had to cancel classes 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:18.919 or clothes altogether. Um, what do you think something like 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:23.880 that means? I mean, apparently, uh, throughout the past few months, 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:28.880 these colleges have been getting threats leading up, but um, 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.919 with it kind of happening seemingly, it's I mean, I 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:34.960 obviously it's not a coincidence. What what do you think 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:36.919 about that? Does that make you feel okay? I'm zooming 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:39.320 way out. I'm zooming way way out into thinking about 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:44.200 how do we transition white people into the coming multiracial 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.160 democracy that is that is inevitable. I mean maybe the 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.040 democracy part. I don't know. Do we live in a 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:53.839 democracy now unclear? But our multiracial society, it's coming. They're 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.600 going to be the minority. Um And this is going 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.840 to be an unpopular take, but let's get for getting 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:02.000 into the black history months. Let's think about at the 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.919 end of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. The only 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.360 black person to UM ever have a mass movement that 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.800 achieves things. By the way, is the nuts only one. 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:16.480 Don't let them, you know, Huey Newton fictional. Uh. I 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:18.400 don't want to like, I don't want to parse like 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.360 you know, hairs or anything like that. But do we 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.440 mean like me in terms of getting getting a movement. 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.200 I'm just playing. I'm just playing on the on the 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.000 whole like there's not a whole lot of black history 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.760 and things. All these other cats like yeah, didn't exist 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:33.919 in the textbooks, didn't exist in real life for all 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.760 I know, Uh, you know, that's just the fodder of 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:44.800 like HBO Max features. But anyway, um. So during the 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.520 end of his life, m Ok started to recognize that 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.800 they needed a multiracial working class movement of people all 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:54.520 fighting for economic freedom together in order to take on 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.760 the government. That's effectively why you got assassinated, right, And 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.080 so also to answer the question, so taking like a 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.080 couple of leaps forward of like I bomb threats against 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:08.120 universities because white people are feeling insecure about their increasingly 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.200 marginal status in our society. How do we get people 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:12.680 less freaked out? And we're talking about this on the 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.000 show before about like you know, working class or a 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.240 blue collar white people, like are they racist? I don't know, 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:21.200 I can't remember what we were talking about, but like 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.359 I think one way to diffuse these tensions is to 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:27.960 come up with like universalists, like you know, policies that 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.719 if you are, you know, a white like Wendy's worker 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:36.320 or a black um Wendy's worker, all y'all can agree with, Like, yeah, 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:38.760 we're down with free college. That's something I'm going in 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.840 because like there's this fear that like black people are 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.760 taking things away from everyone else. Well, affirmative action, Oh, 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.880 they're putting the interracials in the in the Okay, cubid 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.800 ads and like ship people, like, let's give everybody at 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:53.640 the bottom some ship so we can stop fighting amongst ourselves, 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.359 and maybe white people will stop giving bomb threats to 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.960 black schools. I don't know. I mean now I agree, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.560 I agree, I agree, although I don't know. I mean, 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.000 I feel also this is overly optimistic. I think some 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.640 were like fascist procalcitrants. There's really there's nothing you can do. 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.239 The radicalization is just not my field. So get about 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:15.880 that's what you do. But yeah, I don't know, I 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.240 feel I mean it definitely, you know, it's it rings 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:21.520 of all that stuff that we were talking about with 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:25.240 Christopher Goldsmith the other day, Like it just it rings 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:31.560 of some fucking social media hoax e type of you know, 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.080 like threats at the beginning complay history with me and 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.760 you know what I mean, it seems like super in 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:42.080 silly and ship like that. And I don't know, I 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.680 hope that, you know, worst case or best case scenario. 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:48.720 I guess at this point is like I hope that 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:54.520 it's just threats and it's I do too, I people stuff. Yeah, 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:56.919 I hope it's hope it's just threats. I am also 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.440 in this conversation reckoning with how dead and I have 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.720 become to like threats of all kinds. Like people talk 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.159 mad ship, they're gonna do ship, They're don't do ship 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:07.880 when it's like nah, man, sometimes like ship goes a 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.120 really bad and like you should take it really seriously. 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.000 But like my reaction is I'm just like so dead 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.200 inside from like being threatened a great deal. Yeah, I 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.160 don't know, Like I don't know. I just can't see 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.840 anything about it. I don't know what the statistics are 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.960 or anything like that, but I'm imagining that for the 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.159 most part, when people call in a threat or when 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.760 people like send a threatening letter or something like that, 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:35.520 that those ones on average don't result in anything. It's 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.160 it's kind of the ones that you have to worry 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.000 about just going out and doing the ship. It's more 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:41.680 of the worry. That's That's why I'm saying. This one 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:43.600 made me think that it was more like of a 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.080 you know, social media something to do to see the 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.000 headlines of Twitter and everybody retweeting the story, that sort 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.000 of ship. But you know, I'm some more positive notes. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.200 I started um because I've been you know, I've been 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.840 working on the same graphic novel for the last few 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:00.720 years I've been talking about out on the show. It's 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:02.880 still being colored by the way us almost. But I 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:07.279 started writing again and I was brainstorming some ideas for 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.560 a new comic and ship, and I came up with 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.960 an idea to do something that's kind of like Lord 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:18.040 of the Ring zy Conan, the barbarian ish sort of thing, 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.800 but set in like ancient Africa, you know, kind of 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.480 like a Middle Earth, but with the basis of it 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:32.880 being like pre colonial or even like BC Africa, you know. Um, 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.080 and what it went. So, so what is your okay? 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:37.360 What is your process of something like that? Worked in 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:39.880 the last one like three years, so like, yeah, when 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:41.880 does this ship drop? I'm trying to like I want 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:43.760 to read it. I want to read it now, where 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.560 is okay? So for the for the last one that 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.000 I was working on, So the process for that, I mean, 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.280 I'll write this, wrote the story like a little treatment 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.880 of what the story is. Then uh, storyboarded out all 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.280 the pages, then drew all the ship, and then after 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:03.600 drawing it, you know what I mean. It's like visualizing, 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.680 knowing what the story is, visualizing it and drawing it 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.600 and then afterwards going out and writing the dialogue and 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:11.680 filling in the bubbles based off of the ship that 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:13.640 I read your So it's like, I don't really draw 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.480 it with the dialogue per se mind ship, but for 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:18.240 something like this, the new one that I'm working on, 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.680 it's gonna move pretty fast because I'm not going into 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:28.520 it thinking about making after day. It's coming. It's coming 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.160 right now. I'm in the I'm in the light research 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.560 phase because I kind of thought at first I was 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.960 gonna do like a crime story about Liberia, and then 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:39.640 in the middle of doing the research for that, I 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.000 was like, oh man, I'm gonna put that on the 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:43.760 back burner and I want to do something a bit 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.079 more out of my element because I usually write crime 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:47.720 stories and stuff like that. So it's like, I want 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.080 to do something that's you know, been done, you know, 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:59.439 dragons and and I want the dragons African African witch doctors, dragons, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.040 you know what I mean, A shot kaZulu West figure 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.000 instead of I don't know what the nigga from Lord 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.800 of the Rings name is, but one of those yeah, no, no, 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:13.400 who's who was the not not not the Dwarf, Orlando Blue, 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:20.040 the other Vigo I don't know I can picture of that. 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:26.280 I don't know who this name was, y'all. Motherfucker's anyway, anyway, 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.560 what do I do? What do we doing today? So 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.200 today we're speaking with Walter English, a former love poet. 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:34.959 Are gonna get a more thorough introduction for him here 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.360 in a second, but it's really really love to talk 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:43.000 about his brister English project, um studying the genealogies of 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:46.080 of African descendants of slaves and connecting people with their history. 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.280 So you want to go ahead and get on into it. Um, yeah, 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.120 let's get into it. U. My man's is popping on 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.560 TikTok right now that this is this is our first 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.120 time talking with somebody just doing stuff on TikTok. I 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:58.840 think I think I kind of want to make it 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.760 a personal mission to like breaking all the skeptical the 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.000 few if there already left out there, the skeptical adults 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.920 who haven't really gotten on TikTok and utilize the different 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.240 spaces and communities that are on there. So I mean, 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:16.199 I think partially it comes into like, um, just digital literacy, 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.280 like because it's not something we're really taught in school 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:21.160 other than this is how you type, like this time 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.600 you make a power resident. Look, I got locked out 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.440 on my Facebook account for like four months. I got 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:29.160 back out on that ship, and I literally don't know 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:30.800 how to do a goddamn thing. I'm like, well, I 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.000 don't check my messages, like I don't understand. I get 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:36.120 on TikTok and like I had that new single come 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.040 out this week. They were like, go on TikTok and 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.080 make a viral TikTok dance from the music video. Until 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:42.679 I got on there, I go excided, like oh my god, 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.480 the old day. It's like, yeah, let's go, and like, 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:46.160 I don't know, I got like four likes. I'm like, 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.160 how does this work? Well? I supposed to do. You 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.440 gotta keep at it. You can't. You gotta keep at it. 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:53.160 Yeah yeah, I know. I just don't have it. I 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.640 just don't have that persistence all that time. So, well, 0:10:55.679 --> 0:11:01.360 you're busiest, Yeah yeah, Oh I got in speaking of 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.439 a good news. I out of another crazy announcement for listeners. 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.199 Slash you mac, I can tell you this yet. So okay. 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.800 So I had a show last Saturday, and one of 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:12.920 my professors in my department came, So I want to 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:14.160 talk about on the show whole lot. But you know, 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.120 I'm getting my PhD ship and so this been, I mean, 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.960 this person, this lady, she's very nice. Lady. Um came 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.360 up to me after the show. I was like, Yo, 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:26.000 that was your dissertation and I was like, what are 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:27.880 you talking about? She was like, you should just submit 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:30.880 that and graduate. I was like, excuse me what? And 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.120 then I emailed her this week and she was like, yeah, 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.160 people do like arts based dissertations all the time. There's 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.600 ever there's like been one other rap one, but like 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.959 just write it at thirty page intro paper about like 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:46.560 why this count says like hip hop education research and 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:51.280 then like graduate son be graduated with a doctorate in 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:57.760 Like April was good. I can't wait to be good 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.199 my life anyway. So let's get into all right, So 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.000 we'll be back with former love poet right after the joke. 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:14.080 All right, Yeah, So today I am very honored that 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:20.000 we are joined by Walter English, the former love poet, rapper, poet, activists, 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.920 and founder of the Bristo English Project, which seeks to 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:25.680 help descendence of enslaved people find their history at no 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:29.880 charge to them. Very popular on TikTok Um spreading you know, 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.920 messages anti racism, and so we are very very excited 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.280 to have you here today just for everybody out there 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.240 who doesn't know, because I've been you know, checking out 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.439 your TikTok page and seeing the different things that you 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:42.839 cover in the different things that you talk that you 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:45.760 talk about. Maria has been doing the same and through 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.959 that is how we've come across the Brister English Project. 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:51.280 So if you could, could you explain to our listeners 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:55.480 in your own words, exactly what is the Brister English Project? Um, 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.560 the Bristo English Project. Like to begin with, it's named 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.000 after my second grade grant of it. Uh, I saw him, 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.840 saw his name when he went by just Bristow on 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:08.079 a slave ship manifest that fourteen years old. Um, to 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.600 see that and and to see what he went through 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.839 and what he became, and just the history, the amount 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.120 of history that that comes that comes with this, that 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.240 comes with it's hard to explain always some people, is 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.199 really hard to explain it. So it's an amazing feeling. Um, 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.160 it's a different feeling. I want to give people that feeling. 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.560 I don't believe Black Americans should have to pay to 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.720 get their genealogy done and so with the Bristi English project, 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.280 people sign up on the list. UM. I'm in phase 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.440 two right now with the project. So I have volunteers 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.040 helping me. UM. I'm talking about people who have years 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.600 of experience and doing this UM for helping me for free. 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.360 Everything is runs off donation, so I make sure I 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.760 have stuff paid for people to UH to make sure 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.839 they're able to work UM as well as I got 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:54.680 runners will go to grave sites for me. He'll go 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.440 to historical sites to take pictures or whatever. It's just 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:02.559 one big project to to help UM American descending some 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.040 chatel slavery connect with the past. That it's just like 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.520 us tell people's more than just dreams a chance. So 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:09.800 where did this project come from? We spoke something about 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.880 you know, I think you said your your great great grandfather, UM, 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:15.920 and so clearly you know a little bit about your history. 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.679 But how what was your process for actually launching this 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.480 project and as well, like how how it works some 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.200 of the internal processes to help bring this history to folks. 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:30.920 So UM it started after I was doing I made 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:32.760 a three database. That's what I started with. I started 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:36.160 with a free database or resources to help people. UM. 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:38.600 People still wanted, you know, how do I do this? 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.320 They I have more questions, So I said, why not 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:43.000 I do it? I was supposed to start off small. 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.360 It was supposed to be you know, I launched all Christmas. 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.680 I was planning that him off prior. UM. I got 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.280 the historian who helped me find out all this information. 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.080 She jumped on the project with me. Um. And then 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.600 I got the funding on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, I 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:01.960 launched everything and um, and that's really that's that's really it. 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.000 And as far as the internal working go, what I 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:09.840 do is, uh, people fill out a form, uh, your name, 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.400 your grandparents name. Yeah, you know, if you know any 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.040 any kind of info to help us out. We go 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.720 right on ancestry. We start putting information. UM. We use 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:23.800 sources like genealogy bank, um, a newspaper, archives, newspaper, dot com, 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:29.440 anywhere information may be found lost friends, UM. When we 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.800 start your tree. UM. A lot of people like like 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:33.960 the focus going straight back, which is always good. You 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.320 want to know where your great great great great grandparents are. 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.720 But for us Black Americans, we run into a wall. 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.720 At one point we become property. Yeah. UM. And so 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:46.360 what I like to do is not only focused back 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.400 for focus on what I call the branches, so you 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:54.240 get to see your cousins, know everybody, um, and like 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.560 working on this project, I'm starting to see people that's related. 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.280 They know that's related, just like it's it's it's it's 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:04.080 a good it's a it's a good feeling. And then 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.400 I do like a few videoscause I always asked permission Havie, 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.800 like for me to talk about this on my TikTok Um. 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.600 I'm running across the mirror like amazing history, Um, not 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:15.840 in niche being able to share that with people, not 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.320 only the people who are who are directly affects, but 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.160 all of us to see finally find one of the 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.400 twelve hundred black lawyers in nineteen thirty just related to 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.720 somebody on TikTok Like it's stuff like, so, what are 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.400 some of the crazy stories you've uncovered and you know 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.760 from history or you know, impressive insights that have you 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:39.920 have drawn from doing some of that genealogical work. Uh, 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.800 personally just in my family alone. Uh, craziest thing that 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:49.720 I've seen, I think it's about um in nineteen forty 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:54.000 or nineteen thirty. Uh, my aunt, one of my grand aunts, 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.320 she had a husband, and when you're looking at everything 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:00.480 that like the records and where they live dad and 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:02.640 who they were with, it looked like he was cheating 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:06.240 on her. So she divorced them. So a woman divorcing 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.240 a man in nineteen thirty, you were you, you could 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.159 be deemed as crazy. Literally they would put you on 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.480 the sane asylum. And so he sent my eye to 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:18.080 an insane asylum, and she divorced them. Not only an 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:22.280 insane asylum. Yes, it's not only insane asylum, but um 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.400 Long View or lake View excuse like if you don't 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.640 believe this. In Cincinnati, Ohio was one of the most 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.840 infamous places. You It's like a shutter island type of 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.760 it is. It is awful and she had to spend 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.320 she she ended up spending um at least I think 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:41.600 at least seven years and then before she passed away. 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:46.040 What no, that towards the end of it. Yeah, and 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:50.679 towards the end of her like like growing that asylum, UM, 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.359 it progrestily got worse because it couldn't hold as many people, 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.680 but they took in that many people, so people didn't 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.840 get fed, they lived over sewage. UM. It was just 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:00.920 it was just a bad environ. But then you also 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.120 when you when I'm looking, because I looked through the documents, 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:04.720 I'm not just saying, oh that name match with that. 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.200 I want to see through what happened and you and 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.159 everybody in her family or in that side of the 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.520 family died young. Who was involved with him, um so 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:18.600 her brother who worked with who worked for he died 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:20.840 in his twenties. It's sich the sister that he was 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:26.960 cheating with died in her twenties with her sister sister, 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.160 and then he married her co worker according to the city, 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:33.679 and then she died into the same time. Man, niggas 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.119 don't ever change. Still they still see like that to 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.840 a less of degree, whether you know, similar mindset to 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.080 oh yeah, still that's the yeah, that mindset is still going. 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.440 I mean that sounds like a plot for a movie. Man, 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:50.679 Like that's wild. The level of detail that you can 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.800 get into, not just like oh you're you know, like 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.520 your great great grandfather was a famous carpenter in like 0:18:57.600 --> 0:18:59.280 the city of what's it, but like down to the 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.480 level of this person with cheating with this person, Like 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.320 that's that's amazing. That's amazing what you can discover through 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:10.040 the through these databases. So how many of them have 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:14.679 you done so far? Um? Close to personally? Do you 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.320 find it? Find it gets easier with each one, or 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.199 like you get more of a like an efficiency and 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.199 you're being able to research and stuff with each one 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.000 that you do efficiency. Yes. Um, once the list jumped 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.800 from it literally jumped from seventy four. Will jumped from 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.200 fourteen people to seventy four overnight and in seventy twelve hundred. 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:34.399 So once it hit twelve hundred, I like, I need 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:36.320 some help, and so I brought it. I've been doing 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:38.560 a slow process. I brought it from volunteer, see how 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:40.760 they can work, how we can work together. So with 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.200 like the volunteers, but personally I did about twenty With 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:45.200 the volunteers. I've been trying off for the past month, 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:47.040 we probably got close to thirty. While I've been doing 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.359 the background stuff, in order stuff, they've still been working. 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.080 And uh yeah, I finally gets easier because I know 0:19:55.119 --> 0:20:01.840 what I'm looking for. And with black history, you gotta 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:03.640 look out for certain things when you're looking in through 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.639 our ancestry. Um, you gotta look out for different name spellings. Right, 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:12.280 keep in mind who lived with who? At what time, Um, 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.040 going from mixed to black to mixed to black on 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.159 different senses. But do you know that's still your that's 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.240 young people. So it's that part got easier, you know, 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:22.720 I've been doing it for so long now, like seeing 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:24.640 stuff like that, it's it's easy to know what I'm 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.480 looking for, what to look out for, and yeah, yeah, 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.840 have you encountered any limitations thus far? I'm sure, like 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:36.119 given the thoroughness of record keeping, particularly when you go 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.680 back to like slavery times, um, and then certain whiles 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.480 around like antigenation where people weren't you know, showing up 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:47.320 on birth certificates, etcetera, mislistening race. I've you know, been 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:50.080 setting my own like indigenous ancestry and they listened all 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.520 the natives as black. There was only white or black 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.280 on like the census form. So, um, do you run 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.480 into issues like that and trying to trace people's uneage? Yeah, 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.399 I mean, um, you come across that where like you 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.719 get things that's a maybe like I'm not I'm not 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:08.320 too sure about that, you know. So I like to 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.200 ask people. I like to ask people questions when we 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:13.240 get to something. Some of those points and and a 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:15.119 lot of people I find out don't talk to like 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.399 their grandparents about their past and their history and stuff 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:20.680 like that, because I told I asked one personal question. 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:22.200 I showed up on first like, hey, this is your 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:25.960 I believe this is your your your grandfather, I'm not 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.440 too sure, but this is a this is a mere certificate. 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:31.080 I believe this is your grandmother on there, but they 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:32.800 spelled the name with the king instead up and see 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:35.800 can you shoulder to it? And they she starts to 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:37.879