Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio Happy Friday. I am Tracy be
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly fry So. One of our episodes
Speaker 1: this week was about the myth of the Lost Cause
Speaker 1: of the Confederacy, which I know is still a highly
Speaker 1: emotional topic for a lot of people. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: from numerous directions. Um. I don't mean to laugh because
Speaker 1: it's not a problem. It's just funny how it continues.
Speaker 1: Everything's a little absurd to me, uh in life. So
Speaker 1: anytime I laugh and it seems disrespectful, I'm just laughing
Speaker 1: at the human condition because it's all I can do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as I was working at it, I was thinking, do
Speaker 1: I have family members who fought for the Confederacy. I
Speaker 1: must have, because like I know that that my family
Speaker 1: has been in in North Carolina for at least a
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty years or something. Um. And so fortunately
Speaker 1: my brother had made a family tree, and I started
Speaker 1: poking through that just to sort of satisfy my own
Speaker 1: curiosity because it wasn't something it was something that I
Speaker 1: assumed but didn't actually know. Um. I feel like as
Speaker 1: a child, I had this latent hope that maybe some
Speaker 1: North Carolina ancestor had run off to the North and
Speaker 1: fought for the union, and I think some family member
Speaker 1: had been like, no, that didn't happen. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: started poking through it, and I was like, ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: here's multiple people. Here's somebody who died of disease in Richmond,
Speaker 1: and uh, like, I think it was a second great
Speaker 1: grandfather who did not personally serve, but who had two
Speaker 1: older brothers who were killed in action. There were multiple
Speaker 1: which was not surprising considering, you know, knowing for a
Speaker 1: fact that most of my family, or possibly all of them,
Speaker 1: were in North Carolina in the mid nineteenth century. I
Speaker 1: did not have any family in the South during its
Speaker 1: almost Um, yeah, I don't. I don't, like I said,
Speaker 1: Like I said at the end of the episode, I
Speaker 1: feel a little bit weird. This gets into like personal psychology,
Speaker 1: but I just don't have that like identity connection through
Speaker 1: time to the family tree. Sure, like it's I know
Speaker 1: some of those facts, but I've I've never been like
Speaker 1: and that is what created me. I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: just because I was always a rebellious little brat that
Speaker 1: tended to like dismiss an issue everything related two expectations
Speaker 1: of my family or if I just don't have that gene. Yeah, yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I tried to make clear
Speaker 1: in the episode, but I hope I made clear enough,
Speaker 1: is that, like, the South takes a lot of criticism
Speaker 1: for the preponderance of this narrative, but like as was
Speaker 1: a case and so many things and the history of
Speaker 1: the United States, the North was complicit in this too,
Speaker 1: So it's not something It's not like the the Southern
Speaker 1: you know, political and public figures made something up that
Speaker 1: you know, the northern political establishment fought back hard against.
Speaker 1: Right there, there really just was a sense of, oh,
Speaker 1: if we can just keep the peace with the South,
Speaker 1: everything will be better. Even though that meant just like
Speaker 1: disregarding all of the black Americans had you know, been
Speaker 1: through generational trauma and meaningfully harmed by all of this
Speaker 1: in so many ways, it becomes an interesting thing to me.
Speaker 1: I think you you framed it so beautifully in your
Speaker 1: outline is saying like it prioritized the union and the
Speaker 1: comfort and emotional well being of white people over the
Speaker 1: people they had actually harmed and what had started the war,
Speaker 1: And what becomes really interesting to me to think about.
Speaker 1: And this gets into a whole like political theory space
Speaker 1: that I'm not really equip to do. But it's like,
Speaker 1: if you are making concessions of that nature that devalue
Speaker 1: other human beings to preserve a thing, what are you
Speaker 1: actually preserving? Right? Is that a worthwhile union? At that point?
Speaker 1: I know that's a terrible sentiment and probably it will
Speaker 1: make a lot of people angry, But it's just from
Speaker 1: a theoretical point of view, one of those things where
Speaker 1: I'm like, where do you get to the point where
Speaker 1: you're like, yes, we can negotiate through this by ignoring
Speaker 1: all of the harm that took place and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like coddling around it. Yeah, it's a very
Speaker 1: strange thing to wrap my head around. Um. I also
Speaker 1: did want to, like, I did not reference the involvement
Speaker 1: of Indigenous people or the effects of the war on
Speaker 1: Indigenous people at all, because that feels like, in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, an entire separate episode. But I did
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge that, like, yes, that also was a
Speaker 1: whole fact or of it, of the Civil War that
Speaker 1: involved oh kinds of pieces that we did not talk
Speaker 1: about in this episode. Man, it's such a weird year,
Speaker 1: and I have no idea what's going to be happening
Speaker 1: when this episode. We moved this episode, this episode ahead
Speaker 1: of the line because, in a similar situation to what
Speaker 1: we talked about in the listener mail of this episode,
Speaker 1: we we have been working ahead because we're each going
Speaker 1: to be out at the end of the year, and
Speaker 1: so we got to write episodes to get so there's
Speaker 1: podcasts while we're gone, And so similarly, um, we have
Speaker 1: some weeks of podcasts that are already recorded. Um, And
Speaker 1: we moved this one up ahead of some things in
Speaker 1: the line, both just for some seasonal reasons, but then
Speaker 1: also the less time would elapse between recording it and
Speaker 1: having it come out. Yeah, I feel like the juggles
Speaker 1: we do of our calendar would probably be like a
Speaker 1: slightly dry but still rather witty sitcom, like, well but
Speaker 1: if we move this to here, wait wait wait wait wait,
Speaker 1: that won't work. Go back, go back, go back. Wait
Speaker 1: when when is Casey going to be out? Is? Can
Speaker 1: he edit that? We have a lot of back and
Speaker 1: forth online that is exactly that conversation in vary considerations. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've been a thing. Yeah, uh, I was so delighted
Speaker 1: that this week I finally got to talk with Curry
Speaker 1: Sautner for the show. She and I have been trying
Speaker 1: to figure out when we could get her on and
Speaker 1: when our schedules could work out so we could have
Speaker 1: a chat, and I was so excited that it finally happened.
Speaker 1: She's like one of the most energetic and compelling guests
Speaker 1: because she is excited about education and sharing the Constitution
Speaker 1: in a way that everyone feels included and recognizes that
Speaker 1: it accounts for them. And she knows so much because
Speaker 1: she works with constitutional scholars all of the time him
Speaker 1: and has access to these people, which she mentioned on
Speaker 1: the show. Uh to be like, hey, I know this
Speaker 1: interpretation is shifted. What was going on today versus blah
Speaker 1: blah blah um, And you know, I was. I was
Speaker 1: thankful that she She talked about how much they've kind
Speaker 1: of gotten hammered with questions and people being interested in
Speaker 1: recent years, as you know, debates about what the Constitution
Speaker 1: does and does not do or does and does not
Speaker 1: lay out have gotten more and more heated. It was
Speaker 1: a really really cool chat and she's just lovely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you ever been to the Constitution Center? No, but
Speaker 1: now it's like top of my list. When she was
Speaker 1: saying that people that go there that think it's going
Speaker 1: to be boring come out like rapidly excited and giggling,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have to go there. Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: I went there the last I think it was the
Speaker 1: last time that I went to Philadelphia. I went there,
Speaker 1: um because, as I mentioned at some point recently on
Speaker 1: the show, I'll basically do ride along with my spouse
Speaker 1: when he's going there for something else, and then I
Speaker 1: just go to museums and walk around and do whatever
Speaker 1: I want while I'm there. And I had made myself
Speaker 1: a sort of museum path for this particular day that
Speaker 1: started at the Constitution Center and then looped around to
Speaker 1: a couple of other places. And I had zero idea
Speaker 1: what to expect at all, And uh, what was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is a way more interactive experience than I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to have from something called the Constitution Center. Right.
Speaker 1: I Also, you know, it's such a surprising and cool,
Speaker 1: fortuitous happenstance that they were already working on so much
Speaker 1: online engagement and being able to do lessons and sessions
Speaker 1: online way before COVID. Ever, happened. So for them that
Speaker 1: was like an instant pivot, which um is just extraordinarily
Speaker 1: good luck. Right, because we've we've talked with other people
Speaker 1: at other museum is about how it was really a
Speaker 1: struggle to figure out how to do the same kind
Speaker 1: of of engagement and programming they would normally do, but
Speaker 1: do it in a virtual space, whereas for the Constitution Center,
Speaker 1: they've already been in that space. So they were just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now everybody can come to these which is very cool. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really do want to um study the Constitution. Whenever
Speaker 1: I talked to her, I really cannot stress enough if
Speaker 1: you have never looked at their interactive Constitution online, it's
Speaker 1: really really robust, like not only can you, you know,
Speaker 1: look at any part of the Constitution and who was
Speaker 1: influential in that part of the Constitution and it it
Speaker 1: really does just kind of blossom out in this like
Speaker 1: information tree of different places you can go related to it.
Speaker 1: It contextualizes all of it and that document in such
Speaker 1: a way that you really gained a deeper appreciation I did,
Speaker 1: anyway of how much it is, as Curry was saying,
Speaker 1: about us, it's about you, it is about me. Is
Speaker 1: if you are A, U s that A and it
Speaker 1: is about you, which was sort of a strange and
Speaker 1: marvelous thing. And I love that almost everything they do
Speaker 1: is is free to the public. Yeah, Constitutional scholarship getting
Speaker 1: very exciting. I'm working on something related and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I gotta go look at that interactive Constitution as soon
Speaker 1: as we're done here. Yes, I think you should. I
Speaker 1: think you would get a huge kick out of it
Speaker 1: because it really is one from an information architecture standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's just smartly designed, like it is really intuitive to use.
Speaker 1: You don't have to go down on the rabbit holes,
Speaker 1: but if you want to, no matter what your level,
Speaker 1: that's really like your you will have your needs met.
Speaker 1: And that was another thing that I loved that she
Speaker 1: talked about was that like she's having conversations in some
Speaker 1: of these lessons now where second graders are talking to
Speaker 1: people like in their eighties and they're having actual discussions
Speaker 1: about the Constitution in a way that is enlightening for
Speaker 1: both of them and any cases, which is just an
Speaker 1: incredibly cool thing. Um, I'm a fan, can you tell?
Speaker 1: So I hope everybody does check it out, because especially
Speaker 1: if you're at all interested in the Constitution, or maybe
Speaker 1: you feel like you don't have as good a grip
Speaker 1: on all of it as you should. Wherever you want
Speaker 1: to start, there's a level that will give you the
Speaker 1: amount of information you need. Thank you for hanging out
Speaker 1: with This is Friday. We hope everyone continues to stay
Speaker 1: safe and it's taking care of themselves. Uh. You can
Speaker 1: always subscribe to the show on the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: but Apple podcasts, and wherever it is you listen. We
Speaker 1: hope you have a great weekend. Stuff you missed in
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For
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