Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Casual Friday.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry. I'm Tracy P. Wilson. So Tracy, I
Speaker 1: always feel spoiled when I get to talk to people
Speaker 1: from the History Center because I of that whole staff.
Speaker 1: UM and Sheffield and Michael were both super fun to
Speaker 1: talk to. You. It was interesting because Sheffield, you know,
Speaker 1: really was so frank with me about you know, the
Speaker 1: hardest parts of this whole thing, which for the History
Speaker 1: Center are are financial. You know, this whole thing happened
Speaker 1: when places like the History Center and other museums like
Speaker 1: right in the window where they're normally booking a wedding
Speaker 1: every weekend or a special event every weekend, and none
Speaker 1: of those things can happen. And you know, he mentioned
Speaker 1: also that they're having to move around their fundraising gala
Speaker 1: and hope only it will still happen. And that's one
Speaker 1: of those things that Um I hadn't given a whole
Speaker 1: lot of thought. There are so many things that we
Speaker 1: have all been juggling in our brains when we were
Speaker 1: just dealing with coronavirus and now with all of the
Speaker 1: protests and upheaval and fights for equality that are going
Speaker 1: on as a consequence of George Floyd's murder and Brianna's murder.
Speaker 1: Um that it's hard to keep in mind all of
Speaker 1: the facets of these things, and so it just made
Speaker 1: me think about my role and what I can do
Speaker 1: to make sure like that I am prioritizing, you know,
Speaker 1: donations to museums that I would normally be donating to anyway,
Speaker 1: but like, this is not a year where I can go, oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot that envelope and didn't get it done or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when it is places like I really love the
Speaker 1: History Center because their mission is so much about being
Speaker 1: for everyone to connect to the community and history and
Speaker 1: in our our city and what it has been through
Speaker 1: and what it goes through, and what all of this
Speaker 1: means to each of us, both as a group and individually.
Speaker 1: So if you similarly have a museum or a history
Speaker 1: center or some other facility in your town that you
Speaker 1: really love and you have the means obviously, Um, I
Speaker 1: know this has been a financially hard time for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, but if you can, you know, think
Speaker 1: about those places too when you're when you're allocating your
Speaker 1: funds that you would normally give to charity in any
Speaker 1: given year. But I liked making sure that all of
Speaker 1: the animals are taken care of History Center, because I
Speaker 1: really was. He mentioned it before I even brought it
Speaker 1: up to him, but I was, like the goats and
Speaker 1: the sheep um and I'm glad they had a very
Speaker 1: very carefully developed system to make sure all of those
Speaker 1: animals were cared for while humans did not come in
Speaker 1: contact with one another, which is pretty cool. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then Michael's insights about just how what we see is
Speaker 1: mundane will become very very important pieces of this story
Speaker 1: in the future. Once again, it gives you that moment
Speaker 1: to reflect on our own lives and what we value,
Speaker 1: what we think of as valuable, and what we don't
Speaker 1: think of as valuable, because, as he mentioned, artifacts from
Speaker 1: and that pandemic are hard to come by because people
Speaker 1: thought of them as disposable. They weren't thinking about them
Speaker 1: as historically significant. So it's it's an important thing. I
Speaker 1: think that they're making people think about the fact, like, no,
Speaker 1: like those weird hand sanitizer bottles, those are historically significant
Speaker 1: because it was a defining element of this time of
Speaker 1: our lives. It makes me look at everything I touch
Speaker 1: in a new way. Now, is this diet coke bottle
Speaker 1: historically significant? Is this sneaker historically significant? Uh? Yeah, um
Speaker 1: It we alluded to this a little bit, um, and
Speaker 1: we have alluded to it a little in other episodes,
Speaker 1: But like, it feels kind of weird to still be
Speaker 1: talking about the pandemic when, um, like the news cycle
Speaker 1: has moved on and people's attention has moved on two
Speaker 1: the social justice and rout and racism and protests and
Speaker 1: all of that, And I am starting to see, um,
Speaker 1: maybe not to the same extent as has been the
Speaker 1: case with the pandemic, but starting to see efforts to
Speaker 1: do things like collect the protests signs um and collect
Speaker 1: the flyers that people are distributing, and like that, collecting
Speaker 1: objects that are related to the protests of being going on,
Speaker 1: because it's clear that this also is a historical moment
Speaker 1: happening at the same time as the pandemic that's still ongoing,
Speaker 1: even though it really feels like a lot of people
Speaker 1: have mentally moved on from it. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of places where numbers are going back up,
Speaker 1: so everyone continue to stay safe. You. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: brought that up, because it's one of the things I
Speaker 1: want to Um. I mean, I'm confident the History Center
Speaker 1: is doing something similar with that. They posted a little
Speaker 1: a short blog about it and and their thoughts and
Speaker 1: kind of the official statement about what's going on, but
Speaker 1: it didn't detail whether or not they're doing how they're
Speaker 1: handling collecting artifacts. But I'm sure they are because there
Speaker 1: they are so aware of of big events in our
Speaker 1: our evolving history that they are usually pretty on top
Speaker 1: of making sure that they collect such things. So I'm
Speaker 1: curious what they are amassing in their collections, and we'll
Speaker 1: find out eventually, I imagine. So this week we talked
Speaker 1: about James Baldwin. Indeed we did. I don't often get
Speaker 1: to the end of writing an episode and feel like
Speaker 1: I still don't know if I did this person justice.
Speaker 1: But I feel that way about James Baldwin. Um. I
Speaker 1: think that's valid. I mean, he was a lot of
Speaker 1: person and a prolific writer, and it's hard to encapsulate that. Yeah. Yeah, Um.
Speaker 1: As as I was working on this, I did a
Speaker 1: thing that I do sometimes, which is like look at
Speaker 1: the library waitlists for things, um because as when I
Speaker 1: learned to check things out from libraries digitally, that was
Speaker 1: incredibly revolutionary to my ability to get books more often.
Speaker 1: And then especially with the pandemic where the physical library
Speaker 1: locations um as of when we're recording this in Massachusetts
Speaker 1: are still closed and it was like fire next time,
Speaker 1: twenty two week waiting list. So I am glad there
Speaker 1: are so many people that are um focused on checking
Speaker 1: out and then hopefully also reading and engaging with and
Speaker 1: uh and experiencing these works and thinking about them. Um.
Speaker 1: I saw a tweet from a library somewhere that was like,
Speaker 1: just remember, checking it out is just the first step, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's in some ways it's cool to me,
Speaker 1: and in other ways it's heartbreaking to me that the
Speaker 1: stuff he was writing decades ago is still provocative and
Speaker 1: thought provoking now, Like you would hope that we would
Speaker 1: have moved further in terms of development as a society,
Speaker 1: but have not, and we need his words again desperately. Well,
Speaker 1: And it's like the conversation with with Robert F. Kennedy,
Speaker 1: like that exact conversation is just playing out still again
Speaker 1: and again and again among uh, you know, among particularly um,
Speaker 1: black people, but also other like disabled people and UM
Speaker 1: and indigenous people like trying to explain what they are
Speaker 1: actually facing in their lives and how systemic it is
Speaker 1: and how huge it is. UM, and then the people
Speaker 1: on the receiving end who were coming from a more
Speaker 1: privileged place that are not personally experiencing all those things
Speaker 1: being like, but my ancestors were from Ireland, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just not the same thing, and and
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's it's reading about that being like the
Speaker 1: very very similar conversation to conversations that are still happening
Speaker 1: over and over and over everywhere today. Well, frustrating it is.
Speaker 1: I will make the confession that we stopped a lot
Speaker 1: because I cried throughout this whole episode. Well and I, UM,
Speaker 1: often when I'm working on on episodes, I will have
Speaker 1: a sense of what's going to feel really emotional to
Speaker 1: one or both of us and UM, and this was
Speaker 1: not one where I, for whatever reason predicted, uh, the
Speaker 1: emotional response component. Yeah, I mean he's UM, he's he's
Speaker 1: just one of those people for me. If if you
Speaker 1: are not really familiar with James Baldwin and you just
Speaker 1: want to kind of get a sense of it. Um.
Speaker 1: There is a video of him on YouTube on The
Speaker 1: Dick Cavett Show where Dick Cavitt brings out a guy
Speaker 1: who I confess I don't know who he is, but
Speaker 1: like a white philosopher um to kind of argue with
Speaker 1: James Baldwin, and he just lays out in very clear,
Speaker 1: specific but also accessible terminology like what it means to
Speaker 1: be a black man in America and what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: And I've seen that video float around periodically, especially over
Speaker 1: the last a few weeks, as I mean a few
Speaker 1: weeks as of win. This episode is coming out in
Speaker 1: response to the to the widespread demonstrations that have been
Speaker 1: taking place all around the United States. So yeah, that's like, uh,
Speaker 1: if you need kind of an introduction to what James
Speaker 1: Baldwin was was about, aside from what we just talked
Speaker 1: about this week for thirty minutes, that is one place
Speaker 1: to get a glimpse of it. There is also a
Speaker 1: really amazing video that also floats around a bit um
Speaker 1: that is James Baldwin's debate speech against William F. Buckley
Speaker 1: and nineties. I didn't even put that in the episode.
Speaker 1: Why didn't I? I I don't know um, And it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the circumstances. I know I saw that
Speaker 1: for some reason when I was a kid, because there
Speaker 1: was one line from it that I misquoted slightly for years. Um.
Speaker 1: And then in there was a person that transcribed the
Speaker 1: whole thing, and it also started circulating again and I
Speaker 1: was able to get it right, and it was just
Speaker 1: it's It's one of dozens of really you know, just poignant,
Speaker 1: straightforward commentaries on what it is to grow up black
Speaker 1: in America. But the thing that got me, and I
Speaker 1: may or may not cried trying to say this quote, um,
Speaker 1: is him talking about the realization that you can love
Speaker 1: the United States and it doesn't love you back. Oh yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I won't even do the quote. Maybe I'll do the quote.
Speaker 1: I will try to do the quote. He says, it
Speaker 1: comes as a great shock around the age of five,
Speaker 1: six or seven to discover that the flag two you
Speaker 1: have pledged allegiance along with everybody else, has not pledged
Speaker 1: allegiance to you. And like, to me, that was one
Speaker 1: of those things that when I heard it as a kid,
Speaker 1: it was like a slap in the face of like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? Like we all stand here and
Speaker 1: do this. It's for all of us, and it was
Speaker 1: not for all of us. And that's the first time
Speaker 1: I really remember thinking about that issue. Yeah. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: there's just a wealth of material by James Baldwin if
Speaker 1: you are interested in learning more, and also a wealth
Speaker 1: of material about James Baldwin, like there are multiple biographies
Speaker 1: and articles and um the like I said in the
Speaker 1: in the episode UM, the Tony Morrison's tribute to him
Speaker 1: is gorgeous. I mean, other other things that were printed
Speaker 1: from um eulogies and addresses at his funeral are are
Speaker 1: really beautiful, but that one in particular struck me a lot. Um. So,
Speaker 1: if you'd like to send us a note about anything,
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