Speaker 1: Pushing. I'm so happy I get to finally proclaim that
Speaker 1: I'm a nerd. Right, I don't gotta fake like I
Speaker 1: like football anymore. For my friends and all that that was,
Speaker 1: I've had to live like this double life forever, like
Speaker 1: I was cooler than I was, so I would be
Speaker 1: sitting at the super Bowl while everybody's cheering, and I
Speaker 1: would be in my phone life researcher Who Charles Whacker is?
Speaker 1: Because all day long I've been trying to figure out
Speaker 1: why they call it Whacker Drive Right, I'm Khalil Jibrad
Speaker 1: Muhammad and I'm Ben Austin. We're two best friends, one black,
Speaker 1: one white. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And
Speaker 1: this is some of my best friends are. Some of
Speaker 1: my best friends are dot dot dot. In this show,
Speaker 1: we wrestle with the challenges and the absurdities of a
Speaker 1: deeply divided and unequal country. And this week, the nation's
Speaker 1: leading urban historian, on TikTok is joining us. Sherman Gilla
Speaker 1: Thomas joins our conversation. His tagline is everything Dope comes
Speaker 1: from Chicago. We talk about what it means to be
Speaker 1: a booster for our hometown, a complicated place with a
Speaker 1: whole lot of history. Only I am really excited this
Speaker 1: week about the conversation we're going to have with Sherman
Speaker 1: Della Thomas. Yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, you and I
Speaker 1: are constantly talking about this balance between like like stories
Speaker 1: of tragedy and challenge and also like how do we
Speaker 1: celebrate the good things that are happening? Yeah? Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is so central to everything we do and like even
Speaker 1: even probably how we live of like you know, delving
Speaker 1: into the really complicated histories of place. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: to live with having written a book Condemnation of Blackness,
Speaker 1: which people are like, oh, that sounds that sounds really positive.
Speaker 1: It's not the celebration of blackness, but in many ways,
Speaker 1: like you need both, right, Yeah, I mean so even
Speaker 1: if thinking about this of you know, what it means
Speaker 1: to celebrate a place, what it means to be a
Speaker 1: booster something is gained and also something is lost. But
Speaker 1: here we have this guy on the show, Sherman Dilla Thomas,
Speaker 1: who might be one of the most positive people about
Speaker 1: Chicago I've ever come across in my entire life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you met him. I don't even know
Speaker 1: how how did you meet this guy. Man. I started
Speaker 1: seeing his videos all over the place, you know, and
Speaker 1: here he is like wearing white Sox gear or Bulls gear.
Speaker 1: He's like holding his microphone to his mouth, and he
Speaker 1: is just like spitting knowledge about Chicago. Like the first
Speaker 1: black NFL quarterback Hall of Famer coming from Chicago. Did
Speaker 1: I get that right? Yeah? Fritz Pollard. Fritz Pollard, you know.
Speaker 1: And he actually reached out to me because he did
Speaker 1: an episode about Cabrini Green and I wrote this book
Speaker 1: High Riser was about Cabrini Green, and so we met
Speaker 1: that way. And you know, he did this whole episode
Speaker 1: about public housing in Chicago. Yeah. It's like I've seen
Speaker 1: these in learning so much from them, and then they
Speaker 1: blew up. They're all over the place. They're viral. I mean,
Speaker 1: he has reportedly over four million views counting just from
Speaker 1: last year. I mean, who knows how many more now.
Speaker 1: And he's also started a bus company to take people
Speaker 1: on actual tours of the city, Mahogany Tours. This is
Speaker 1: a really incredible use of history, right, I mean, so
Speaker 1: you're a historian, and this is history that is somehow
Speaker 1: being lived and experienced outside of books. Even it's traveling
Speaker 1: all over the place, and he's on the news here,
Speaker 1: he's on television. He becomes a kind of ambassador for Chicago. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to get to know this guy too,
Speaker 1: because as a historian, it's not often the case that
Speaker 1: one I learned things I didn't know about my own city,
Speaker 1: and two that you get to use history in a
Speaker 1: way that is empowering to people who live in a
Speaker 1: city to think about their connection to folks who've come
Speaker 1: before them and use that as a kind of inspiration
Speaker 1: to say, hey, you know, I should be proud walking
Speaker 1: there because other people have done amazing things who've come
Speaker 1: before me. Yeah. Yeah, And for me, I want to know, like,
Speaker 1: can you both extol a place and also tell about
Speaker 1: its really complicated, difficult parts at the same time. So
Speaker 1: let's hear from Dillah. Let's go talk to them, all right,
Speaker 1: Sherman Dillah Thomas, welcome to some of my best friends.
Speaker 1: Are Yes, thank you, thank you, brother Ben for having me.
Speaker 1: Brother Muhammad truly alan to be here. Oh man, man,
Speaker 1: I mean you we're Chicagoans, and we're Southsiders, and you
Speaker 1: are Chicago's favorite urban historian. That's right, the man, the
Speaker 1: myth legend. We are super excited about this, and this
Speaker 1: is the first time in the history if some of
Speaker 1: my best friends are we have both been referred to
Speaker 1: as brother. I mean, I'm used to brother Muhammad. I
Speaker 1: mean that, you know, that kind of goes with territory.
Speaker 1: But we didn't get a twofer until now. We're so
Speaker 1: excited to talk with you. You are the TikTok history
Speaker 1: lessons King. It's amazing what you're doing. Before we get
Speaker 1: to that, though, you go by the name Dillah, Right,
Speaker 1: what's that about? My mother was calling me serm dealer
Speaker 1: like d E A L e R. Got it. She
Speaker 1: used to say that. I reminded her the used car
Speaker 1: dealers on Western knew I could get right. I could
Speaker 1: get her to buy any any jump ever, and we
Speaker 1: all knew better. Western Avenue is a street in Chicago
Speaker 1: where as soon as you get fifteen hundred dollars as
Speaker 1: of kids, you go there to buy your used car
Speaker 1: and it's gonna break as soon as you get home.
Speaker 1: Everybody's car does, but we do it anyway. And so
Speaker 1: that was that like her thing for me, and the
Speaker 1: kid's heard scherm dealer and just start calling me Dilla, right,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's so that's where that comes from, Della.
Speaker 1: I love it. So I know Ben knows you a
Speaker 1: little better than I do. So when did you get started, Dila?
Speaker 1: And I know your your daughter was inspiration, but just
Speaker 1: for my purposes, tell me, tell me exactly when you
Speaker 1: got started. I got started right out of November of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Okay. We were all in the house, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then stuck in the house with pandemic. You know,
Speaker 1: we're all on lockdown. And my daughter wanted to do
Speaker 1: TikTok's and the family told her, no, what's up with that?
Speaker 1: That's me. She was eight, right, and they thought that
Speaker 1: eight was a little too young to be on an
Speaker 1: app by yourself. So I later like just downloaded on
Speaker 1: my phone and you know, and anybody looking TikTok a
Speaker 1: little heart out right and um and then but also
Speaker 1: I kind of figured i'd be a good way for
Speaker 1: me to just see what she's engaging in, right, you know,
Speaker 1: And so we did that. First she wanted to watch,
Speaker 1: then she wanted to dance, and because you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not the best dancer, we were doing like those little
Speaker 1: daddy daughter challenges. Of course I did one myself, the
Speaker 1: same thing, covid times a little little Daddy Daughter mix
Speaker 1: mixtape on TikTok. Yeah, you know, just bonding with the kids.
Speaker 1: And what happened was we did one of her friend
Speaker 1: did the same. One of her friend got like two
Speaker 1: thousand views and we got like sixty. You suck. This
Speaker 1: is all you. You can't oh man, Like oh not
Speaker 1: just that, but like she she took like a self
Speaker 1: esteem wall, like why why her over me? And just
Speaker 1: so many things. Right, So I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I know Chicago history, baby, let me let me feed
Speaker 1: you some lines. That has to be the corniest intervention
Speaker 1: I've ever heard in my life. Let me do history
Speaker 1: on your TikTok. That is gonna blow your spot up, baby.
Speaker 1: I think the first one I did was like maybe
Speaker 1: telling how Chicago created the time zones for the country. Okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta hear that. Let's play that clip. Do you
Speaker 1: ever wonder why California's two hours behind Chicago or New
Speaker 1: York to an hour ahead? Well, it's because right here
Speaker 1: in Chicago we set up the time zones for the country.
Speaker 1: And it got more views than the lad than what
Speaker 1: her and I did, and then so she said, do
Speaker 1: another one and let me stand next to you. Right,
Speaker 1: She just wanted to stand there, and then we did,
Speaker 1: and then that one get views and then you just
Speaker 1: started rolling. I just started rolling. You know, have you
Speaker 1: always been a history buff? Did you always study? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I was thinking, Ben, good question. I was
Speaker 1: thinking the exact same thing. I've always been in history buff.
Speaker 1: I didn't study history. My dad was a Chicago policeman
Speaker 1: for thirty two years and he got hired on October
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine. So that's the pedigree I come from.
Speaker 1: And you know, they talk history in squire cards. They
Speaker 1: talk history amongst each other, and then they took their
Speaker 1: kids to work with them, right, Yeah, Can I ask
Speaker 1: you one question? Though? They'll about about your dad and
Speaker 1: going and going up to work with them, because I
Speaker 1: never really thought about a kid going to work with
Speaker 1: their father who's a police officer. I used to go
Speaker 1: to work with my pops, who was a photojournalist for
Speaker 1: a newspaper. But I was just loading cameras. Were you
Speaker 1: putting like little bullets in the revolver to make sure
Speaker 1: Pops was all ready to go, locked and loaded? No,
Speaker 1: I'm not quite, you know, really just sit down, shut
Speaker 1: up and listen. Just a lot of that was just
Speaker 1: security detail, because I know part of what it's in
Speaker 1: your bio is pretty spectacular. Just that your father actually
Speaker 1: worked as security detail with Harold Washington, right, who was
Speaker 1: Chicago's first black mayor elected in nineteen eighty three. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he worked at security detail. He worked here mostly US detail.
Speaker 1: He worked about Russia's detail. You know that. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying that particular time frame, right as black politicians
Speaker 1: are making this you know, surge, they are picking their
Speaker 1: own to protect them. Chicago was unique that it had
Speaker 1: started off as an Afro American Patrolman's league. Now they
Speaker 1: called the African American Police League, but it was like
Speaker 1: a union inside of the union. It's the reason why
Speaker 1: they're black sergeists, is the reason why they're black firefighters. Right.
Speaker 1: They sued the city and got that famous injunction to
Speaker 1: change the entry exams for both fire and police department
Speaker 1: as as the sergeant exams. Right, you're giving us a
Speaker 1: TikTok history lesson about the Afroma. That's just like it's
Speaker 1: coming out of your pores. It started off as an
Speaker 1: Afro American Patrolman's League, and what it was. It was
Speaker 1: a star about Renaut Robinson, Howard Sappho, And what it
Speaker 1: was was, I'll give you an example, Right, a white
Speaker 1: cop could wear a cross to work because it's considered
Speaker 1: a religious symbol. And during the nineteen sixties, the black
Speaker 1: power movement was coming into effect, right, going into the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, Right, we're Afros, we were proud, and so
Speaker 1: black officers would want to wear an unc, which is
Speaker 1: also considered a religious signal, especially Egyptian religious comedic religions, right,
Speaker 1: but comic meaning Egyptian related, Right, I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: spelled on a n k H. It's a type of
Speaker 1: cross that we would wear like a necklace, right, meaning
Speaker 1: Egyptian related. Absolutely, And black officers would get suspended for
Speaker 1: wearing their aunts, but white officers would not get suspended
Speaker 1: for wearing their crosses, right uh. And so those are
Speaker 1: the things that activated the Afros founded as the Afro
Speaker 1: American Police League to fight back. Like I said, you
Speaker 1: could see your brother being harassed by white cops. You're
Speaker 1: a cop, your brother in blue, your brother, your blood brother,
Speaker 1: and so you can see your bin, you can see
Speaker 1: your brother getting harrass your black dude. You see your
Speaker 1: brother getting her ass back. Cops, you pull up, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm a cop. Show your badge. Right, that cop would
Speaker 1: get suspended all the time for interfering with police issues, right,
Speaker 1: the black cop who was interceding on behalf of somebody
Speaker 1: being harassed by a white cop all the time. So
Speaker 1: that's what started it. That's what that league was founded for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an amazing I mean even telling that story because
Speaker 1: you're celebrating this organization and the leaders and even the
Speaker 1: work that your father did working in it, and the
Speaker 1: very reason for its founding is that cops needed to
Speaker 1: fight racism and oppression and corruption within their own ranks.
Speaker 1: I wanted to just say, just as a matter of
Speaker 1: like political history, you mentioned Senator Carol Moseley Braun, who
Speaker 1: is the first black female senator in the history of
Speaker 1: the nation, and she's only the second black senator at
Speaker 1: any point after the reconstruction period. And here's a clip
Speaker 1: of Carol Moseley Braun from her nineteen ninety two run
Speaker 1: for senator. All over the state feeling about this candidacy
Speaker 1: is electric, and it's electric precisely because people know that
Speaker 1: we make that this is a watershed election and that
Speaker 1: it's time for a change. It's time for change in Illinois,
Speaker 1: it's time for change in this country. I say that
Speaker 1: to say that, like, that's a really big political moment
Speaker 1: for you to be like as a kid on the
Speaker 1: lap of your father who's directly connected to these people,
Speaker 1: that that, for my purposes, that makes you an eyewitness
Speaker 1: to history. I'll rock your your educational brain even more. Right.
Speaker 1: I think the reason why they let me stay in
Speaker 1: the room because when she was making I remember it
Speaker 1: like it was yesterday. We were at Sherman Park. This
Speaker 1: was like July doing that one of those votes for
Speaker 1: me campaign things, right, yeah, on the south side, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: And so she had like a campaign riley thing at
Speaker 1: Sherman Park and she was sitting in the front. My
Speaker 1: dad was driving another car. Cop was sitting next to me.
Speaker 1: And this was the Peewee Little League Championship. And I
Speaker 1: chose to go my dad and play in the Peewee
Speaker 1: Little League Championship. But I remember the conversation she said,
Speaker 1: you know, they were like, can you believe you're getting
Speaker 1: ready to be the first woman ever, first black woman ever?
Speaker 1: US Senator and then the same thing you said. They
Speaker 1: mentioned reconstruction, and then she said, well, that's the Chicago thing.
Speaker 1: The priest was first to go to Congress since reconstruction too, right,
Speaker 1: And I'm you know, ten to eleven or something like that,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't wait to use it the next time
Speaker 1: I was around my dad people. Yeah, so that's that's
Speaker 1: a really strong impression, both in terms of like seeing
Speaker 1: this person who you know, is larger than life in
Speaker 1: terms of her political achievements, and at the same time,
Speaker 1: like getting these history lessons from this same person. That's
Speaker 1: pretty incredible. I don't think right now, I'm probably like
Speaker 1: that is a Dopus hill, right. You just feel like
Speaker 1: I didn't have all those thoughts there. That was I
Speaker 1: promised I did not, even most recently, right, Like I
Speaker 1: just wanted to be around my podcast, you know. That
Speaker 1: was that was because he was a cop. He wasn't
Speaker 1: really home a lot, especially young ages. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't remember him at all six seven, eight years old.
Speaker 1: I remember one time he got shot and I celebrated
Speaker 1: because I was like, he for sure, that's the way
Speaker 1: to get them some quality time. Man, he would like
Speaker 1: to work the next day Yeah, he got shot in
Speaker 1: his hand and they wrapped sold it up whatever, and
Speaker 1: he went back the next I was so pissed off.
Speaker 1: It must not have been a shooting hand though. Right,
Speaker 1: that's hilarious. Okay, so we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll dig into more Chicago history
Speaker 1: stories from Della. All Right, we are back talking to
Speaker 1: Sherman Della Thomas, the Chicago booster and oral historian. So, Dillah,
Speaker 1: one of your tag lines is everything dope comes from Chicago.
Speaker 1: You're like one of Chicago's biggest boosters. You celebrate this city.
Speaker 1: And maybe, just like you know, tell us something dope
Speaker 1: that came from Chicago that would surprise us. Give us
Speaker 1: one of these little history lessons. The Fireman's pole, I
Speaker 1: think surprises most people. The Fireman's pole, like its use
Speaker 1: is sliding down. The pole comes from Chicago. It's about
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four, is eighteen seventy five and coming out
Speaker 1: of reconstruction in Chicago has created and all black fire
Speaker 1: engine is Engine twenty one the land by a white captain,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, twelve fourteen brothers that fight fires
Speaker 1: in its growing black neighborhoods right that Chicago is starting
Speaker 1: a half. We've ever been in the fire station, you'll
Speaker 1: notice that it has spiral stairs, and every fire station
Speaker 1: in the world has spiral stairs. And next to it
Speaker 1: is where the pole is. The reason why the stairs
Speaker 1: of spirals because we used to fight fires with horses.
Speaker 1: The horses used to walk up the stairs and eat
Speaker 1: all the hay, and then you be looking for the
Speaker 1: horse and he up that sleep, right, So they created
Speaker 1: the spiral stairs so the horse couldn't get up there.
Speaker 1: And the next two it was they had the pole
Speaker 1: for the hay loft, right, so the hay is kept
Speaker 1: up in the third floor because typically that's the highest place, right,
Speaker 1: Hey needs to be dry, so you keep it up
Speaker 1: high in the third floor and hay lofts right. And
Speaker 1: then it was held in place with a pole. And
Speaker 1: then because we lazy humans, right when the horse needed hey,
Speaker 1: you kicked the pole out the way and hey drops
Speaker 1: down now where you ain't got to go all the
Speaker 1: way up to the third floor. So it wasn't for
Speaker 1: firemen sliding down it, not at all. It was just
Speaker 1: a letter. But you know who we don't talk about
Speaker 1: enough in Chicago is the captain that like the sad
Speaker 1: of his name is Captain Coolly Duan. He was a
Speaker 1: hero of the Chicago fire in eighteen seventy one and
Speaker 1: when he's seen the black guys slid down that hay pole,
Speaker 1: he's the guy that was like, yeah, that's gans go
Speaker 1: ahead and send it, so y'all don't get splinters. And
Speaker 1: this is how we will respond from here on out. So, Dylan,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to you, and like, you know, Khalil and
Speaker 1: I or both, you know, we both write books, we
Speaker 1: both do tons of research. We both write about Chicago,
Speaker 1: Like how do you get all this information? Like how
Speaker 1: were you? What kind of research do you do? And
Speaker 1: also like damn man, like you got this all off
Speaker 1: the Dome's what's up? Like you remember all this? Jay
Speaker 1: Z ruined my life? So let's start there. I remember
Speaker 1: that that famous interview he did where he was like,
Speaker 1: I don't write, and it was like what And he
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I just say my rhymes and
Speaker 1: myself over and over and by the time I get
Speaker 1: back to the house, I don't need to write them
Speaker 1: down right, it becomes an exercise. I went to Eastern
Speaker 1: Illinois University major in English and African American studies and
Speaker 1: probably wrote three papers because I would always say, let
Speaker 1: me give it to you orally. Right. So when when
Speaker 1: people read say like your book High Rises, right, like,
Speaker 1: oh oh man, good look at it. Yeah, I jacked
Speaker 1: so much stuff out of that book, then better than that,
Speaker 1: I immediately want to read the stuff that you sourced
Speaker 1: from right right, you know, and though those are the
Speaker 1: cheats that I think people people forget about, right, we
Speaker 1: want to run in Wikipedia and other online sources. A
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff ain't online, and that in that
Speaker 1: in that way, right, you gotta like dogging. So you're
Speaker 1: just you're reading all the time and going to the
Speaker 1: library and picking up books. I mean you're like just
Speaker 1: he's reading footnotes. Man, that's more than just reading. That's footnotes. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so happy I get to finally proclaim that I'm
Speaker 1: a nerd. Right, I don't gotta think like I like
Speaker 1: football anymore. For my friends and all that that was,
Speaker 1: I've had to live like this double life forever. Like
Speaker 1: I was way cooler than I was. So I would
Speaker 1: be sitting at the super Bowl while everybody's cheering, and
Speaker 1: I would be on my phone, like researching who Charles
Speaker 1: Whacker is, because all day long I've been trying to
Speaker 1: figure out why they call it Whacker Drive. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like researching is my pastime, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I allow an idea to formulate, or I fixate
Speaker 1: on something and then you know, I'm researching on that thing,
Speaker 1: and then out of that you get so many you know,
Speaker 1: bread crumbs and those type of things. So that's just
Speaker 1: how I passed the time. I mentioned my book High Risers,
Speaker 1: which is about Cabrini Green, a public housing complex sens
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and I think I wrote it for a
Speaker 1: lot of the reasons you're talking about. What you do
Speaker 1: is that this was a place that was demonized because
Speaker 1: of its poverty and also violence. And you did a
Speaker 1: TikTok related to my book. Let's press the TikTok machine
Speaker 1: and listen to it. Pretty impossible to discuss the history
Speaker 1: of Cabrini Green in sixty seconds. I'm going to give
Speaker 1: it a try. And that the stories there were much
Speaker 1: more complex and many many lives that needed to be
Speaker 1: you know, and many stories that needed to be told
Speaker 1: that weren't being covered. But you did do a TikTok
Speaker 1: about Cabrini Green, and when you posted it and mentioned
Speaker 1: my book, you said I owed you a hot dog. Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 1: I gotta believe the one I got to receist because
Speaker 1: at least a dozen people. I didn't just post your book,
Speaker 1: I said, buy this book. Man, that is great. We
Speaker 1: got to hear that clip. Despite it, all the residents
Speaker 1: of Gabrini Green had a great sense of community by
Speaker 1: this book. I think the TikTok with the first posting
Speaker 1: got like maybe one hundred thirty thousand views. How much
Speaker 1: you're paying for a commercial for one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: thousand people. So I'll get you a hot dog if
Speaker 1: you could, If you could tell us what is the
Speaker 1: history of the Chicago style hot dog? You know, no
Speaker 1: one knows that it's such a wives tell sort of thing, right,
Speaker 1: the no catchup. The best that I can find is
Speaker 1: that there are already so many ingredients on it that
Speaker 1: you don't you don't need to catch up, right, I
Speaker 1: tell you the origin of like Italian beef. I love
Speaker 1: telling that story. Bring it, Come on with that story.
Speaker 1: So you know, two of the most iconic Chicago foods
Speaker 1: are the hot dog and then of course Italian beef
Speaker 1: because you know that deep dish pizza. I'm not really
Speaker 1: into that. Italian beef comes from how we used to
Speaker 1: Italian grannies give us Italian beefs. Right. The Italians were
Speaker 1: like the last arriving immigrants to Chicago at that moment,
Speaker 1: and when they used to walk into the butcher, that
Speaker 1: was discriminated again. So you know, if you're a Yankee Protestant, right,
Speaker 1: they would sell you the surloin of the t bone.
Speaker 1: But you were dark and complected Irish lady, I mean
Speaker 1: Italian lady, you had to buy the rump ros, right,
Speaker 1: that's what they would sell to you. So the cow,
Speaker 1: the chitlands of the cow, right, And that's not a
Speaker 1: very tender cut of meat. Yeah, that's not a great
Speaker 1: advertise in the first Italian beach, it's not at all right,
Speaker 1: but this is what but see, that's the beauty about Chicago.
Speaker 1: Out of discrimination comes amazing shit. Right, Because she was
Speaker 1: discriminating in the butchers, what did she do? She's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna worry about it. I'm gonna put it
Speaker 1: in a slow cooker and when my husband leaves out
Speaker 1: for work, I'll turn it on and by the time
Speaker 1: he gets from work, I'll turn it off. And anything
Speaker 1: you cook for fucking eight hours is going to be
Speaker 1: the most tender thing, right, And what's the cheat? The
Speaker 1: cheat is the bread. And it don't take anything, especially
Speaker 1: if you're making homemade bread. Right, little flower, little doe,
Speaker 1: a little whatever, right, you make amazing bread. She took that.
Speaker 1: Then eight hour cut roast the rump right and thinly
Speaker 1: sliced it and fair. The kids say a little bit
Speaker 1: for his lunch, right, And then every day more and
Speaker 1: more people are like, throw they lunch away and start
Speaker 1: asking Broth for some of his sandwiches because they was
Speaker 1: really really juicy and tender because they cooked all day.
Speaker 1: And he started selling so many of his lunch sandwiches
Speaker 1: he quit his job. And you know, Al's beef right,
Speaker 1: Like damn man, if you got to be careful asking
Speaker 1: you a question, it is like it opens one door
Speaker 1: and then another and then another. You just like, go ahead, Khalil, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, So do you have any inspirations role models
Speaker 1: people who you have now begun to model yourself, now
Speaker 1: that you've become basically the most famous Chicago historian. I mean,
Speaker 1: at this point you own that title. Thank you. Send
Speaker 1: this clip to the city so that they can make
Speaker 1: me the official culture historian. I'm definitely chasing the legacy
Speaker 1: of Tamil Black. There we go. Yeah, wow, Tamil Black.
Speaker 1: Let me just say so. He died one year ago
Speaker 1: at age one hundred and two, and he was I'd
Speaker 1: say Chicago's greatest historian and lived Chicago history, you know,
Speaker 1: moving here from the South, being a civil rights leader,
Speaker 1: schooling Barack Obama. You know you are living his legacy.
Speaker 1: Tell us more about him. He moved to Chicago a
Speaker 1: couple of months after the race riot in nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: He was an infant. He's a gentleman that invited Doctor
Speaker 1: King speaked in Chicago for the first time, right because
Speaker 1: he was already a civil rights activist, right, Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: He's a World War two veteran. He was at DuSable
Speaker 1: with Red Fox, nattem Co, Dinah Washington, Harold Washable as
Speaker 1: a high school here on the South Side, Second Black
Speaker 1: High School, second high school constructive for African Americans in
Speaker 1: the city's history on the South Side. Man, I love
Speaker 1: all that I love. Tamio Black is amazing. I had
Speaker 1: the great honor of interviewing him a couple of times.
Speaker 1: You know, he is a Chicago booster, and you know,
Speaker 1: so are you. And I want to talk more about
Speaker 1: this idea of what it means to be so positive
Speaker 1: about the city. Was so positive about Chicago, because this
Speaker 1: is something this is something I actually think about all
Speaker 1: the time. Della and Khalil. You don't only think about it,
Speaker 1: You really obsess over this question because so much of
Speaker 1: your work is about pushing back against stereotypes. I'm talking
Speaker 1: to you Ben about like the crime and the violence
Speaker 1: and all of that. Yeah, and at the same time, right, so,
Speaker 1: I'm writing about criminal justice issues, I'm writing about poverty
Speaker 1: and segregation in Chicago. I'm writing about what the reality
Speaker 1: of Chicago. And it's also like we're getting all these
Speaker 1: messages about Chicago which are or extreme, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's like this hell hole or whether it's you know, Iraq,
Speaker 1: when that movie came out, you were so pissed. Those
Speaker 1: are just abstractions. It's like just just the worst stuff
Speaker 1: exists in isolation without anything else. But the bad stuff
Speaker 1: really is there too, like and so so the struggle
Speaker 1: is like to address these real issues because it's important
Speaker 1: to grapple with them, to wrestle with them, because otherwise
Speaker 1: we can't we can't change them. How do we do both?
Speaker 1: The example I use when I get asked this particular
Speaker 1: type of question, I really feel like I'm preaching to
Speaker 1: the choired, especially talking to you, brother, being is like,
Speaker 1: my daughter has asthma. We probably on our way to
Speaker 1: like go get a breathing treatment tomorrow, the way that
Speaker 1: her asthma is going to date, right, thank you, brother,
Speaker 1: So I understand wanting to deal with the symptoms that
Speaker 1: are in front of me right now, right when she
Speaker 1: gets the coffin she has a running nose. I want
Speaker 1: to give her a house. I wanted to blow a nose.
Speaker 1: I want to get to dehumidified in her room. Right.
Speaker 1: But you know, if that's all I ever do each
Speaker 1: time she gets sick, she's gonna keep getting sick every
Speaker 1: now and again. I got to go in the basement
Speaker 1: and check the filters, right, I gotta see what's blowing
Speaker 1: through this house that's making her sick. Beyond that, right,
Speaker 1: I might have to get a plumber in because her
Speaker 1: room is by the bathroom to check the wet wall
Speaker 1: and see, right, if there's mold behind the walls that
Speaker 1: we can't see. What's my long winded point When we
Speaker 1: talk about the people that got shot and the people
Speaker 1: that got killed, I'm I hate that they got killed.
Speaker 1: I hate that they got shot. I think that that
Speaker 1: needs attention. But like that's where the stat starts and stops, right,
Speaker 1: and we don't mention that the three people that got
Speaker 1: killed are involved in the STL versus Old Block war
Speaker 1: that started because Ram Emmanuel closed fifty schools and so
Speaker 1: three kids had to cross Kane Drive where formerly those
Speaker 1: kids never cross Kane Drive to go to school. Then
Speaker 1: one of them got you know what I mean, like
Speaker 1: spell that shit all the way out right, and then
Speaker 1: talk about how it always always always goes back to
Speaker 1: some kind of systemic bullshit. You know what. We usually
Speaker 1: call it structural racism, but I like just systemic bullshit better.
Speaker 1: That is from the heroin out ben rest of the seasons,
Speaker 1: just systemic bullshit. We are back on. Some of my
Speaker 1: best friends are with Sherman Della Thomas. It seems to
Speaker 1: me what you're saying is that the structural bullshit has
Speaker 1: to be addressed also by how people see themselves in
Speaker 1: the history of the place they live in, that all
Speaker 1: these stories you're telling are a way of empowering young people,
Speaker 1: especially that you should have pride of place, that a
Speaker 1: lot of people did a lot of wonderful things here,
Speaker 1: and people have been fighting for justice here. You don't
Speaker 1: have to do this alone. You have this this inspiration,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to tell you these stories. And guess what,
Speaker 1: it's not just a couple of stories. And it's not
Speaker 1: just black history, mother man. It is fucking TikTok. Every
Speaker 1: day I get that right, every day? You know, they go,
Speaker 1: these kids to go to Irvin Mollison Elementary which is
Speaker 1: on forty fifth and King Drive on the south side
Speaker 1: of Chicago. Whenever I come across the kid to go
Speaker 1: to Mollison, I asked them who is Irvin Mollison? They
Speaker 1: can never tell me. But then I say, have you
Speaker 1: ever read A Raisin in the Sun? Right? And they say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: right with Lorraine Hansbury. Okay, Well, it was Earl Dickerson
Speaker 1: and Irvin Mollison that were his lawyers that took that
Speaker 1: case to the Supreme Court that opened up woodline right
Speaker 1: that it allowed for that eventually emman Till's mom and
Speaker 1: everybody else starts to move into into Woodline. It's because
Speaker 1: of Irvan Morlinson Earl B. Dickerson. Wow, there's so much
Speaker 1: history you've packed in there. I mean, this is why
Speaker 1: you're so amazing. You know, everyone, including my own kids,
Speaker 1: have read Lorraine Hansberry's classic work, A Raising in the Sun.
Speaker 1: And if people haven't read it, they might have seen
Speaker 1: the movie starring Sydney Potier. And to know that the
Speaker 1: people who were responsible for helping that black family, her
Speaker 1: black family move into Woodlawn and to help ultimately to
Speaker 1: bring down restrictive covenants, one of the main ways in
Speaker 1: which black people were segregated all across the country, including
Speaker 1: places like Chicago. That's a lot of important history you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Man, Why aren't the people that go you
Speaker 1: should as soon as you walk into Irvan Morleson, it
Speaker 1: should be a sign. You should have to read it
Speaker 1: every day to graduate kindergarten. Then you should have to
Speaker 1: recite it by heart to graduate out of eighth grade, right,
Speaker 1: and then then you know what I mean. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's and it's kind of crazy and insane that
Speaker 1: kids who go to Mollison Elementary don't know that history,
Speaker 1: don't know the story of that civil rights struggle, that's
Speaker 1: their history. And so your your tiktoks are both addressing
Speaker 1: things that we should feel pride and and but there
Speaker 1: they are addressing these systemic bullshit problems. Yeah, for sure, Right,
Speaker 1: if you're traveling anywhere in the world, you're gonna walk
Speaker 1: back somebody with cubs had or a sock's head or
Speaker 1: a bear's head, and then y'all gonna make this act
Speaker 1: contact with each other, right and give each other that
Speaker 1: head now. And they don't matter what ethnicity they are.
Speaker 1: If y'all out of town, y'all both from Chicago, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be an acknowledgement. Right, TikTok allows for that to happen.
Speaker 1: I don't see the head not back, right, but when
Speaker 1: they when they get the video and they see me,
Speaker 1: they're able to give that Chicago head nod. But it
Speaker 1: also sounds like you have a huge audience outside of Chicago.
Speaker 1: And if that's true, what do you think appeals to
Speaker 1: people who are not actually Chicagoans? I think think the truth, Right,
Speaker 1: there's a natural Chicago curiosity, La curiosity, New York curiosity,
Speaker 1: and hearing bullcrap sometimes sounds like bullcrap and so and
Speaker 1: when you mean bullcrap of like vilifying the city, of
Speaker 1: saying the city is a war zone, of saying that
Speaker 1: it's like did you if you go in there, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get shot? Like it's dangerous everywhere you go. Yep,
Speaker 1: absolutely well. Last year, right, I announced that we want
Speaker 1: best Big City for five years running about Kande nassas
Speaker 1: Reader's Choice. It's a national platform, righty, Chicago is ain't
Speaker 1: sitting around feeling out that survey. Right people coming to
Speaker 1: Chicago's filing out that survey. And it's true, We're an
Speaker 1: amazing city. I believe it was Northwestern that did a
Speaker 1: study that says it was like really really telling too,
Speaker 1: like ninety two percent of all people who get shot
Speaker 1: in Chicago had a ninety five percent probability of getting
Speaker 1: shot in Chicago based off of the lifestyle that they
Speaker 1: were living, right. And So what that makes me want
Speaker 1: to talk about is the other two point five million
Speaker 1: of us who are outside of that number, who day
Speaker 1: by day don't get shot, right, who the probability says
Speaker 1: we aren't going to get shot because of the amazing things,
Speaker 1: but just the culture and the sustainability of our City.
Speaker 1: Global warming is real, the same way that everybody's beating
Speaker 1: up on Chicago. Now in fifty years, we're going to
Speaker 1: be right back over crowded just because of Lake Michigan. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm still struggling with this idea of what
Speaker 1: it means to be a booster for a place. And
Speaker 1: I actually follow you because it gives me. It makes
Speaker 1: me feel good about my home. And I'm hearing things
Speaker 1: I want to hear, and I'm also walking the streets
Speaker 1: on the South Side and you know, a car suddenly
Speaker 1: zooms up and the first thought that is in my
Speaker 1: head is like, there's about to be a car jacking,
Speaker 1: because its actually been like two or three on the block,
Speaker 1: like not like imaginary stuff, real stuff. And when there's
Speaker 1: a shooting at the school two blocks for me where
Speaker 1: parents are pulling their kids out, and I've got neighbors
Speaker 1: who want to move, Like, it's not just that five
Speaker 1: percent that got shot. It's also like all the residual
Speaker 1: effects of all this stuff, which is real, as you know.
Speaker 1: And like what you're really talking about is fear. This fear,
Speaker 1: a sense of like how do you even rationally deal
Speaker 1: with danger? I mean, you were talking about your father
Speaker 1: being on the Chicago Police Department for thirty years and
Speaker 1: you obviously you saw a lot firsthand, and you feel
Speaker 1: great pride in what he did, like even personally, how
Speaker 1: do you tell his story and celebrate what he did
Speaker 1: and also tell the story of abusive policing that's also
Speaker 1: part of the story of Chicago. You just tell it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's gonna have a little bias in it
Speaker 1: because I'm a Chicago and right with my perspective is black,
Speaker 1: So maybe I'm slightly rooting for the black guy in
Speaker 1: the story a little more. I just I try to
Speaker 1: just have a very objective perspective about the stories that
Speaker 1: I'm telling, and I think because of the intersectionalities of
Speaker 1: my life, it makes it makes me uniquely able to
Speaker 1: do it right, you know. Can you give an example? Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: There was nothing better for me than to just watch.
Speaker 1: He taught me how to tie a tie at four,
Speaker 1: and so I would tie his ties when he put
Speaker 1: in his uniform on and I was standing there and
Speaker 1: wait to hand it to him, so he just pull
Speaker 1: it around his neck. And just seeing him put that
Speaker 1: badge on, right, seeing him put his gun in his
Speaker 1: host that it gave me, and he was a superhero
Speaker 1: to you. Your father was a superhero to you, and
Speaker 1: just not just he made police superheroes to me. Right,
Speaker 1: And then it could be hours later. I'm at the
Speaker 1: rink on eighty seven Street on the South Side with
Speaker 1: my friends and the cop and say hey, move and
Speaker 1: I don't move fast enough, and I got a na
Speaker 1: miller met at my head. Right, it didn't even get
Speaker 1: enough time to register your acts and me to walk away. Man,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. So a cop put a gun to your
Speaker 1: head for what And you're not saying a hypothetical, You're
Speaker 1: talking about something. This is one thousand percent what happened
Speaker 1: to me. This is a thousand percent what happened to me.
Speaker 1: I was chilling. I just got my license. This is
Speaker 1: not a hypothetical, right, like I did all the time,
Speaker 1: handed him his tie to go to work and you know,
Speaker 1: to have a great day dad, and still felt that
Speaker 1: pride that I had been filling my whole life. And
Speaker 1: so both of those are true at the same time
Speaker 1: at the same time. Man, And it's it's those It's
Speaker 1: so many stars. I come across them all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm only emphasizing how incredible this brother storytelling is I
Speaker 1: mean he is. He is telling stories that people ought
Speaker 1: to know. This isn't just a Chicago story. These are
Speaker 1: national stories. That's the other thing about messaging. And I
Speaker 1: think that's our problem as a city, right. You know
Speaker 1: the people who work in city hall, right, whoever does
Speaker 1: our advertising our messaging stinks. This is the worst. Right.
Speaker 1: So one last question, Della, one last question for you.
Speaker 1: You're celebrating all these amazing Chicago things. Everything dope comes
Speaker 1: from Chicago. So Khalil and I are from Chicago. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: we want to be celebrated, right, Like you know, when
Speaker 1: you do the TikTok about us, we're making history. A
Speaker 1: white guy and a black guy getting together. You know,
Speaker 1: he broke the color line of podcasts. You know, when
Speaker 1: you do the TikTok about us, what's the hook gonna be?
Speaker 1: Let's see who I'm gonna compare you guys too. I
Speaker 1: think I will make the comparisons. You'll be Julius rosenwall right.
Speaker 1: Sears the founder of Sears Roebuck Company. So he's the
Speaker 1: reason why you know what Sears and Roebuck Company is today.
Speaker 1: And he took over as president. They were at about
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand a year, and when he left to
Speaker 1: pursue philanthropy totally, they were like at two hundred million
Speaker 1: a year. And this is nineteen twenties money, all right,
Speaker 1: So not the founder. He just built the company into something,
Speaker 1: built the company out right. He's also he created two
Speaker 1: thousand high schools in the South. John Lewis graduated from
Speaker 1: a rosen Water school to name the google as soon
Speaker 1: as you hear this podcast right now, Julius Roads and
Speaker 1: Wall Ben that's a lot, man. So I'm like, damn, well,
Speaker 1: what's left so that that would be being And then
Speaker 1: I think you, brother Muhammed, you'd be Carter G. Woodson man.
Speaker 1: You know, such grad school, the University of Chicago holding
Speaker 1: shop at the Wall bash YMCA, which is on the
Speaker 1: South side, is the birthplace a Black History Month, all
Speaker 1: of the lectures. Right, He personally, you know, schooled so
Speaker 1: many people. He got Archibald Motley to continue to paint, right,
Speaker 1: that's right, one of the Renaissance painters. He was. He
Speaker 1: was in Chicago at such a pivotal time teaching organizational
Speaker 1: skills and eventually right they found the Chicago urinly they
Speaker 1: get the Chicago branch of the NAACP. But it's a
Speaker 1: lot to do with people who were as students of
Speaker 1: him while he was a student, right, you know, so
Speaker 1: that that that'd be YouTube, got it? Got it? I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. So Ben, Ben's the philanthropist. So Ben, I
Speaker 1: need some money, man, I need I need you to
Speaker 1: fund my next research project. You know, when this serious
Speaker 1: thing blows up, I got you. I just need this.
Speaker 1: I just need this serious thing to blow out. You
Speaker 1: are doing so much, not just for Chicago, but for
Speaker 1: lifting up the stories of our past that we need
Speaker 1: to know, the good, the bad, the ugly. You're reminding
Speaker 1: us that for some of us, we come from greatness,
Speaker 1: meaning that you know, people have sacrificed on our behalf
Speaker 1: to pave the way for others. And I just so
Speaker 1: appreciate how much you are doing in that city and
Speaker 1: for your community, and especially for those beutiful daughters of
Speaker 1: yours and listen, and you're also you're also showing a
Speaker 1: love for learning, which is infectious, and you know we're
Speaker 1: feeling it, and I think you know everyone else who
Speaker 1: is listening to you is as well. Thank you, all right,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. I was humble when I got
Speaker 1: the request. I really, I really am. I appreciate both
Speaker 1: of you guys in the work that you're doing, the
Speaker 1: legacy you both carries. Like I say, I still think
Speaker 1: being sort of ows being a hot dog, he said,
Speaker 1: at least ten books do I definitely do now now now,
Speaker 1: after this show one hundred percent or you're a hot dog.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys. Hey man, you're now one of our
Speaker 1: best friends, so I hope you'll you'll come back and
Speaker 1: join us at some point again. All right, man, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. Khalil talking Adela, it's like those Russian nesting dolls,
Speaker 1: you know, you open one and there's one bit of history,
Speaker 1: and then like you find out that story has eleven
Speaker 1: other stories inside of it. Yeah, well that's I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the beauty of studying a place, is
Speaker 1: that in real time, histories are complicated. Places are complicated,
Speaker 1: and the people who make our lives meaningful to us
Speaker 1: are also complicated. And I think that's what we want
Speaker 1: to impart even in this conversation that we have every week.
Speaker 1: God just like even thinking now that he has committed
Speaker 1: all of this to memory, you know that this is
Speaker 1: all sort of in his head and he's telling these
Speaker 1: different histories. It's like, it's so incredibly impressive and powerful.
Speaker 1: It's impressive and powerful, but it also speaks to a
Speaker 1: bigger moment in time. I mean, in an age of misinformation,
Speaker 1: he's still fact checking and doing research. He's still looking
Speaker 1: at books, he's still going to the library. And I know,
Speaker 1: for me, it's really important that people take facts seriously.
Speaker 1: And I think he's modeling for everybody, even in the
Speaker 1: age of misinformation and social media, how important it is
Speaker 1: to to be grounded in facts and evidence and to
Speaker 1: really see history as as a source of empowerment for everyone.
Speaker 1: That's a great point that even though this is essentially online,
Speaker 1: and that even if it's oral, that it is based
Speaker 1: in fact. And you're saying that like to I want
Speaker 1: to ask you this, like, does the way that Dylla
Speaker 1: sees the positive in a history and raises the positive
Speaker 1: above all else, does it change at all how you
Speaker 1: think you want to tell history. No, um, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Meaning that I don't see my histories as as negative.
Speaker 1: I see them as essential. And to Dylla's credit, I
Speaker 1: think some of the stories that he's telling on TikTok
Speaker 1: is also about the lives of people who have been
Speaker 1: killed in gang violence or random by standard violence. And
Speaker 1: I think giving those people a history of their own
Speaker 1: personal lives, a biography, a story of who they are,
Speaker 1: is not necessarily an uplifd story, but it is a
Speaker 1: story that is important to give more dimension to the
Speaker 1: context of people's lives. Yeah, I mean, I think for me,
Speaker 1: I'm like that as well, that I'm sort of get
Speaker 1: lost in the complexity of things. And you know, he
Speaker 1: talks about the structural bullshit, you know, to like tell
Speaker 1: those stories, but to also show that their effects are
Speaker 1: not the totality of experience. I almost come to the
Speaker 1: same point, but from the opposite side, you know, and
Speaker 1: meet him somewhere in the middle. I'm certainly like moved
Speaker 1: by him, Like I really, I really do listen to
Speaker 1: him because it makes me. It makes me feel better
Speaker 1: about my home. Yeah, and look, not for nothing, the
Speaker 1: fact that he's telling these stories, which many of which
Speaker 1: are uncovered and unheard of or buried in a book somewhere.
Speaker 1: This is not just the story of how the first
Speaker 1: skyscraper in Chicago was built. That's important. He's adding so
Speaker 1: much more context to a very complicated city. And we
Speaker 1: all shod be grateful for that, and I'm grateful that
Speaker 1: he is now going to include us in that history
Speaker 1: so well. Khalil love you, yeah, Man, I love you too,
Speaker 1: and I'm grateful for you, all right, I'm grateful for you.
Speaker 1: Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil,
Speaker 1: Gibron Mohammed and my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced
Speaker 1: by John Assanti and Lucy Sullivan. Our editor is Jasmine Morris,
Speaker 1: our engineer is Amanda k Juan, and our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Mia LaBelle. At Pushkin thanks to leitaal Mullad, Julia Barton,
Speaker 1: Heather Faine, Carl Migliori, John Schnars, Gretta Kone, and Jacob Weissberg.
Speaker 1: Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan the
Speaker 1: brilliant Avery R. Young, from his album Tubman. You definitely
Speaker 1: want to check out his music at his website Avery R.
Speaker 1: Young dot You can find Pushkin on all social platforms
Speaker 1: at Pushkin Pods, and you can sign up for our
Speaker 1: newsletter at pushkin dot Fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
Speaker 1: listen on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: like to listen. And if you like our show, please
Speaker 1: give us a five star rating and a review and listen.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't like it, give it a five
Speaker 1: star rating and a review, and please tell all of
Speaker 1: your best friends about it. Thank you, and listen. I
Speaker 1: also owe Dilla a hot dog, you know, for being
Speaker 1: on the show, and just because I want to. I
Speaker 1: want to tell him how much I appreciate him, and
Speaker 1: you know, in the same way that he shouted out
Speaker 1: my book, I want to give him a shout out
Speaker 1: that everyone should go and follow him, you know, on Instagram,
Speaker 1: on Twitter TikTok. His handle is six figure Underscore Villa
Speaker 1: at six Figga Underscore d I l LA it's music
Speaker 1: even to say six figure Dilla rubb with Harry Back