Areas of Influence for Educators
This guide is organized with different power dynamics in mind to help educators navigate the content and choose their areas of focus.
A subset of the Hard History project
Talking to Children About the History of Slavery in the United States: A Resource for Parents and Caregivers
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Parents and caregivers are children’s first teachers and play a powerful role in determining what children learn about history and in shaping children’s perspectives and our shared future. Discussing the history of slavery in age-appropriate ways can help children understand how that history influences life today.
Slavery is the institution that made racism a part of our nation’s foundation. The legacy of slavery is present in many current systems that disproportionately affect Black children and families, from mass incarceration and police violence against Black people to poverty and poor educational opportunities for people of color. If we are to build a future together, learning about the history of slavery and white supremacy is essential for healing and reconciliation as well as for justice and equity.
The following recommendations for how to talk with children about the history of slavery and race in the United States also provide age-appropriate information to emphasize in conversations. For older children and teens, topics and details can be expanded.
Explore Indigenous and African cultures before talking about slavery.
The histories of Indigenous and Black people neither begin nor end with European encounters and slavery. So instead of beginning conversations with slavery, first explore the diversity of African and Indigenous cultures.
Africa’s rich history is part of Black history. Emphasizing the fullness of life and cultural experiences in Africa can help children make connections with the people impacted by slavery.
Help children to understand that Indigenous people have a variety of cultures and have always governed their own nations in the lands that are now the United States. And Africa is a continent that has always been home to many people, nations and cultures. African and Indigenous people were leaders, doctors, teachers, skilled artisans, farmers and artists before they were enslaved.
Discuss commonalities to build understanding of diversity and identity.
Along with the exploration of African and Indigenous histories, talk about commonalities across cultures to help children build empathy and understanding outside their own communities. Discussing “cultural universals”—such as art forms, music, social organization, celebrations and basic needs—encourages children to recognize how people are bound together by similarities.
Having conversations about race and identity prior to discussing slavery is important so that children do not associate Black history and racial identity solely with slavery.
Help children to develop a strong sense of self and identity while recognizing and honoring diversity in the world. Encourage and support children to express pride, confidence and healthy self-esteem without denying the value and dignity of other people.
Use appropriate language and clarify meaning.
Language can shape our perspective of events and people. In talking about slavery, use “enslaved person” instead of “slave” to reinforce the humanity of people and highlight that enslavement is something done to the person. “Enslaver” is preferable to “slave owner” or “slave master” and emphasizes that an action and effort was made to enslave people.
Encourage children to think and talk about the meaning of freedom. Being free means being able to choose what your life looks like without interference from others.
Explain the meaning of equity: that the same freedoms are held by all people, regardless of their individual or group identities. And discuss how people often make rules to serve their own interests. This means that sometimes rules are unfair, but people can work to change them.
Center the experiences of enslaved people to provide a fuller picture of slavery.
While the history of slavery in the United States includes violence and incredible cruelty, it is also a history of survival, courage and resilience. Therefore, it is important to fully explore what that history means and center the people who were enslaved.
Focus on the strengths, humanity and agency of enslaved people by using stories from their perspectives and those of their descendants.
Help children understand that enslaved people hated being held captive and wanted to escape to freedom. People resisted slavery to try and obtain some freedom in the midst of their enslavement, and resistance took many forms, ranging from everyday actions like slowing down work to armed rebellion.
Although it was very difficult and largely impossible, some enslaved people did manage to escape. Laws made slavery legal and escaping illegal, so enslaved people were often hunted and returned to slavery. But many people who escaped slavery went on to fight for freedom for all enslaved people.
Encourage a fuller understanding of slavery by learning about the efforts of the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement.
Discuss slavery as foundational to the history of the United States.
The institution of slavery is foundational to the United States, not something that happened separately from the professed values of freedom and democracy. Enslaved people built the wealth of our nation.
As Professor David W. Blight explained, “Slavery is not an aberration in American history; it is at the heart of our history, a main event, a central foundational story. Slavery is also ancient; it … has always tended to evolve in circumstances of an abundance of land or resources, and a scarcity and, therefore, demand for labor.”
As ancient as the practice of slavery is, so too is the fight against it. People have always struggled against the wrongs of slavery, and for centuries and in all cultures, people have resisted. Therefore, not only is the history of slavery foundational to our nation but so, too, is the history of resistance to slavery. As Jalaya Liles Dunn, LFJ’s director, pointed out in our Fall 2022 magazine about the foundation of the United States, “From the time a limited form of democracy was introduced, abolitionists and activists across a 400-year span challenged the institution to expand—that struggle is foundational to our country.”
Help young children understand the meaning of slavery as when a person owns another person as property. The main purpose of enslaving people is to make money, and enslaved people rarely earn money for their work. When people are enslaved, their enslavers control their actions and can say where they move, what job they do, what food they will eat, what clothes they will wear, with whom they will live, whether they can learn to read and write, and much more.
Explain that Europeans enslaved millions of Indigenous people, and the rich cultures of Indigenous people persisted despite the colonial invasions. Many people are now working to support the resurgence of Indigenous languages and ways of seeing the world.
Millions of people were brought against their will from Africa and enslaved in the Americas. Enslaved Africans brought skills, food, music, clothing, language and religious practices with them‚ a cultural heritage that is still with us in our daily lives.
Slavery was allowed in many societies throughout human history and for hundreds of years was legal in what is now the United States. But people worked for generations and fought for the change that ended slavery.
Help children understand that enslavers exploited the highly skilled labor of enslaved people for their own profit. The forced labor of enslaved people built many important buildings and institutions. European colonization itself depended on the work of Indigenous people and, later, African people.
Discuss the honest history of slavery in age-appropriate ways.
As Jordan Lanfair, a Chicago teacher, said in this 2018 interview with Learning for Justice, “We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams, but we don’t know that unless we know what our ancestors went through.”
The history of slavery is not a discussion of “two views” or a matter of multiple perspectives. Children can understand injustice and that there is no justification for enslaving another person. Understanding about our country’s history and present means knowing the honest history of how our nation was built.
Help children to understand that enslaved people had families—loved ones who enslavers could take away from them at any time. And enslavers often separated families to make more money or as punishment. Once separated, families were rarely able to communicate or reunite. After the end of slavery, many formerly enslaved people searched long and hard, often in vain, to find their missing family members.
Explore how enslaved people tried to maintain their cultures while building new traditions that continue to be important. For example, music was very important in the lives of enslaved people, and the music they created informs popular music today. Drawing from Indigenous and African oral traditions, enslaved people passed on stories, history, culture and teachings. Cultural practices, including crafts and food, that developed among Indigenous and African people continue to this day.
Point out to children that many people worked individually and in groups to end slavery. Once they escaped, many people who had been enslaved worked to change the laws that allowed slavery. And children need to know that not every white person agreed with slavery. Some joined groups that tried to convince people in power to end slavery.
Explain that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. People in the United States didn’t agree about slavery. Some believed it was wrong and should be ended; some didn’t mind it but didn’t want more people to be enslaved in new places; and others wanted to spread slavery to new states. People in the last group decided to secede from‚ or leave‚ the United States so that they could continue enslaving people. The United States, or the Union, fought the Civil War to stop some states from leaving. As the Union Army won victories, many enslaved people freed themselves by escaping; many also helped the Union Army, including by fighting as soldiers. When the Union finally won the war, slavery was ended by an amendment to the Constitution.
Connect past and present, and talk about race, racism and white supremacy.
Discussing race—particularly encouraging children to understand it as a social construction rather than a biological fact—can be an opportunity for thoughtful conversations.
Talking about slavery is not possible without discussing race, racism and white supremacy. Our identities can affect our feelings about these topics, so it is important to take time to consider our own identities and relationships to this history.
As Professor Blight points out, “Of all the reasons or justifications used to enslave other human beings, race was late to the long story. Racial slavery came out of the epoch of the slave trade, which of course lasted four centuries in the Atlantic, and likely longer in the Indian Ocean.” It is important to explore why slavery became racial and that it “was made so by people in historical time.” White supremacist ideology provides one of the deep roots of slavery and ongoing racism.
We can point out to children how Indigenous and African cultures are present in our society along with examples of structural racism that can be traced back to slavery and white supremacy. Help children understand how slavery and race are connected. Slavery came to be associated with Blackness, and white people developed racist ideas to justify enslaving people of color.
Explain how differences, whether real or perceived, can make some people feel that it is OK to treat others badly, to exploit other people and to believe that some people are better than others. And the power of ownership of other human beings made people feel that their imagined superiority was real. Explore how perceptions of racial differences remain in the United States today. These perceptions continue to impact whether all people are truly free.
Even though slavery became illegal, labor exploitation and the oppression of Black and Indigenous people has never gone away.
We are continuously reminded of the values of democracy—including freedom, equity and justice—by generation after generation of Black people who struggled and continue to struggle to make those values a reality for this country. That movement defines our nation and renews our democracy, and it includes countless people through the centuries: those who held on to a memory of freedom, who sought escape, who revolted and resisted, who lived and loved, who wrote and advocated for the abolition of slavery, who fought for freedom, who protested for civil rights, and who continue to fight for justice and equity. The Black freedom struggle threads the real ideals of democracy throughout U.S. history.
Learning for Justice Resources
To learn more about key concepts for discussing slavery in the United States and how to teach this history to children, explore these resources from Learning for Justice:
Teaching Hard History: American Slavery [Podcast series]
Teaching Hard History: American Slavery Key Concept Videos
Teaching Hard History: American Slavery Framework
“‘All Our Terrible and Beautiful History’: Teach American History as a Human Story” by Professor David W. Blight
“‘We Are Our Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams’” by Monita K. Bell
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Advocating for Teaching Honest History: What Educators Can Do
[2023] This guide offers resources and tools for teaching honest history in the classroom and strategies for advocating for honest history education.
A Quick Reference Guide to Teaching Hard History
[2022] LFJ's framework for teaching about American slavery can be used to supplement current curriculum or to guide the creation of new curriculum that more honestly and courageously tells the story of American slavery.
Juneteenth Observances Promote ‘Absolute Equality’
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Numerous events and activities are packed into Juneteenth celebrations this year in Galveston, Texas. Over three weeks, residents have their pick of festivals, a gospel concert, galas, a business summit, freedom tours, reenactments, a parade and more.
June 19, 1865, marks the announcement to enslaved Black Texans that they were finally free—two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and two months after the Civil War ended. Last year, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act—codifying a holiday officially observed in Texas since 1980. This year’s observance holds deeper meaning in confronting the efforts to obstruct the teaching of honest history.
But questions about Juneteenth linger: How does this originally Texan commemoration affect us all, and how might it inform our next steps in creating a just society?
Substance or Substitute?
In Galveston, residents are happy that Juneteenth is getting national attention but don’t want the holiday to become a substitute for confronting the effects of slavery. The story of Juneteenth—enslavers continuing bondage after Black people were to be freed—exemplifies issues of power that continue today.
“Many folks are just really pleased to have it recognized as a national holiday, and that in and of itself is meaningful,” says Carol Bunch Davis, Ph.D., professor and assistant vice president for academic affairs at Texas A&M University at Galveston. “I tend to be a little bit more skeptical, I think, about those sorts of things, because I think almost instantaneously the conversation became, ‘OK, now you have this holiday, so what else do you want?’”
Black residents want, as Davis explains, equal opportunity and a true reckoning with their local history. “It’s great that we have a history of Black people in Galveston who have always celebrated [Juneteenth], but how does it reconfigure or inform the way that we think about the city’s identity broadly?”
Teaching the Honest History of Juneteenth
The national spotlight on Juneteenth is an occasion to explore Texas’ short yet brutal history of slavery.
Galveston Island was the site of a bustling illegal slave trade long after the abolition of the importation of enslaved people in 1808. The island, a Mexican territory, was a safe port for pirates, who’d ransack vessels carrying enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and raid other smugglers on the Gulf of Mexico. White settlers later gained independence from Mexico and formed the Republic of Texas in 1836, primarily to continue slavery, which was being abolished in Mexico. It’s important to point out that similar to the Civil War’s Lost Cause narrative, Texas’ Battle of the Alamo is also a whitewashed version of history that paints Texas settlers as heroic champions of freedom.
Fast-forward to 1865 and the end of the Civil War, when enslavers ignored Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, just as settlers had ignored Mexico’s attempt to end slavery in its territory. Finally, in late June, thousands of Black Union soldiers, and Army Gen. Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston and other Texas cities to force compliance with the law. This is American history.
Teaching history honestly in schools is under threat through numerous legislative efforts— including the 2021 law in Texas—that aim to obscure and limit how the history of slavery and the Black freedom struggle are taught. It’s rare to find a textbook chapter dedicated to Juneteenth and its historical significance. And by June 19, most schools have finished for the year, so commemoration doesn’t easily fit into academic calendars.
It’s possible, however, to uplift hard history beyond classroom walls. “We need to find creative ways of doing that,” says Sue Johnson, executive director at Galveston’s Nia Cultural Center. “And we need not be afraid of pushback from critics of the distorted view of critical race theory. We need to move despite all of that in new and innovative ways of getting those messages across but being intentional and consistent.”
The Nia Cultural Center employs storytelling through art, history lessons and programs for youth. The center’s Juneteenth Legacy Project Headquarters was established primarily to teach the complete African American story and advocate absolute equality and collaborative growth.
“We need to finance those kinds of programs, and we need to do them in every space we find available—churches, community centers, homes, homeschooling curriculums, where we have control over what we teach,” Johnson says.
Avoiding Myths and Whitewashed History
Juneteenth is symbolic of America’s struggle with progress—often opposed or delayed. We must remember—and teach—that the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 didn’t end slavery in the United States, as it applied only to Confederate states. Slavery was officially abolished in the U.S. on January 31, 1865, when Congress passed the 13th Amendment. However, people were still enslaved in Delaware as late as December 6, 1865, the day the 13th Amendment was ratified.
As mentioned in “Teaching Juneteenth,” Black Texans have long observed the holiday in solemn and festive ceremonies. This day provides a safe space for Black people to celebrate culture and embrace community building without the white gaze. Celebrations have also included concerted efforts to organize citizens politically and uplift hidden histories.
To many Black people’s dismay, the commercialization of Juneteenth, now that it’s a national holiday, has already taken hold. Observants insist we center the formerly enslaved and their descendants—not sales—in this American story.
They also caution against erasing Black people’s participation in their freedom. For example, Gen. Granger is centered as a heroic figure who rode into town to inform Black Texans of their freedom. Yet, several regiments of the U.S. Colored Troops who accompanied him are rarely included in this narrative.
Stories of Black people’s roles in their freedom are often buried or obscured, so it’s no surprise that many, even Galveston residents, didn’t know this bit of history.
“I didn’t know until, oh, I guess it’s been about 15 years ago that there were actually Black soldiers with [Granger],” says Tommie Boudreaux, author and retired Galveston educator. “And I’m born and raised here in Galveston, but I didn’t realize that. But those things, it takes a lot of research.”
It’s essential to credit Black people who campaigned to make Juneteenth a holiday—first, Black leaders in Galveston, and then former Texas educator Opal Lee. Lee elevated the history of Juneteenth for decades and then, at 89 years of age, walked to Washington, D.C., to advocate for a national commemoration. She was with Biden when he established the federal holiday.
Seeking Absolute Equality
A historical marker stands on the corner of 22nd and Strand streets in Galveston, where Granger read General Order No. 3. Last year, artists unveiled a 5,000-square-foot mural, which prominently features two crucial words from the order—“Absolute Equality.”
Juneteenth can serve as a reminder to fight for absolute equality, as it has yet to be realized.
People of color in Galveston, angered by recent redistricting in the county, which would strip the political power of Black and Latine voters, point to the need for action beyond commemoration.
“I don’t want us to be distracted and lose focus of … the redistricting issues impacting Galveston County right now,” Davis says. “Right now, this historically Black district for the county commissioners court is basically being overhauled, and it’s not going to be good in terms of representation.”
She adds, “There are some really glaring inequities in Galveston … no amount of celebrations, or mural unveilings …. are going to right those inequities. They can educate people about historically what has happened here, but those are not the things that will meaningfully address those issues.”
A natural disaster also exposed inequities. Davis recounts how Hurricane Ike affected Black residents in 2008, opening the path for displacement and gentrification. It’s similar to what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina swept through the city in 2005. Debates ensued on whether leaders should rid Galveston of public housing.
“Right now, public housing that was destroyed during the hurricane is just now being rebuilt,” Davis remarks. “That was in 2008, and this is 2022. The population of Black people in Galveston diminished greatly after that storm.”
“The city’s encountered a lot of gentrification, and thus our history [is disappearing],” Johnson concurs. She illustrates a stark image of what is lost in explaining how she would describe the scene on a tour: “In this empty lot, there used to be Booker T. Washington Elementary School.”
Erasure is evident in other spaces. Few historical markers tell the story of Black life in Galveston compared to the number of monuments, street names and buildings tied to the maintenance and expansion of slavery in Galveston.
Boudreaux, who serves as the Galveston Historical Foundation’s African American Heritage Committee chairperson, was raised in segregated Galveston. She notes the city appears more segregated today than when she was growing up. She’s troubled by the current social and political upheaval. Nonetheless, she’s hopeful that change is imminent as young activists of all races and backgrounds rally for social justice.
“I hope it doesn’t take another 40 years for some things to improve,” she says. “But yes, I see positive things going forward.”
It is very challenging for us to accept that this is an aspect of who the country is, and that white supremacy and anti-Blackness have shaped much of what we see in the current moment.
— Carol Bunch Davis, Ph.D.
Connecting 1865 to the Present
Acknowledging that enslavers delayed freedom for two and a half years reminds us that powerful systems dehumanize Black people—even while supposedly realizing their rights. (It’s worth noting that many enslaved Black Texans knew about their impending freedom years prior.) Recognizing this pattern helps us better address systemic racism today.
Davis perceives current debates around teaching history, voter suppression and local political struggles as a continuation of oppressive ideologies that have manifested in various ways throughout U.S. history. She argues the vestiges of slavery will continue to haunt us if we view current discourse in isolation.
“It is very challenging for us to accept that this is an aspect of who the country is, and that white supremacy and anti-Blackness have shaped much of what we see in the current moment,” Davis contends. “Until we wrap our heads around this [as] a foundational aspect of this country, it’s going to be difficult to make meaningful changes.”
Johnson identifies the erosion of civics education in schools and elsewhere as detrimental to us all. “I think people think we’ve overcome and the kinds of things that are happening now couldn’t happen,” she argues, citing the continued fight for voting rights.
Celebrating Juneteenth Outside of Texas
Texas isn’t the only place where Black people have commemorated emancipation. And it’s not the first. An emancipation celebration has occurred annually in Gallipolis, Ohio, since 1863. And New Year’s Eve Watch Night services at Black churches have continued the tradition since “Freedom’s Eve” on the night of Dec. 31, 1862.
Juneteenth offers a moment for those who envision a just society to elevate and support the ongoing freedom movement no matter where they live. It opens possibilities to do the real work of uncovering honest history—and to be honest with ourselves, especially in the wake of racial violence.
“I hope that we will use this as an opportunity to really be honest about the meaning of an event like that terrible tragedy in Buffalo,” Davis says, “what it means to be so far away from 1865, but also in some ways not very far away at all from it.”
Johnson says there is a need to heal from slavery and calls for solidarity among Black people to thwart “divide and conquer” tactics from those in power. “Staying vigilant, staying ready, preparing young people for the battles ahead to not only maintain our place as humans but this country as a democracy is so important,” she notes. “[We need] more time and effort to make people aware of how fragile it all is.”
About the Author
is the senior writer for Learning for Justice
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Why Hard History Matters: Addressing the Legacy of Jim Crow
Episode 16, Season 4
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries represents New York’s 8th congressional district. Our final episode this season takes us to the U.S. House of Representatives for a conversation between Rep. Jeffries and his brother, our host, Dr. Hasan Jeffries, to discuss the lingering effects of the Jim Crow era—including voter access, prison and policing reform, and other enduring injustices—and to discuss the continued relevance of teaching “hard history” as it relates to public policy today.
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Resources
- Learning For Justice: Article, Teaching the Past to Improve the Future
- Learning For Justice: Lesson, The True History of Voting Rights (grades 6-8, 9-12)
- Learning for Justice: Lesson, Why Local Elections Matter (grades 6-8, 9-12)
- Learning For Justice: Article, What Critical Race Theory Is and What it Means for Teachers
Transcript
Bethany Jay: The first Anti-Lynching legislation was passed by the US House of Representatives in 1918. But the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill was thwarted by a filibuster in the Senate. And during the next hundred years, over 200 subsequent legislative efforts failed. But on March 29, 2022, President Biden finally signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Just in time.
Bethany Jay: Right?
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: I mean, it only took 100 years to see this largely symbolic legislative victory. I’m glad a measure finally passed. But it would’ve been even better to see the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act become law.
Bethany Jay: Yes! It’s such a frustrating reminder of how many of the issues that we’ve been talking about from the Jim Crow era are still facing us today in one form or another. We see challenges to voter access, equitable representation, prison and policing reform, accurate historical education across the country. Wouldn’t it be great if we could learn more about how Congress is trying to address these lingering issues today?
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: I like the way you think. Let’s do it.
I’m Hasan Kwame Jeffries.
Bethany Jay: I’m Bethany Jay, and this is Teaching Hard History. We’re a production of Learning for Justice—the education arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: This season, we’re offering a detailed look at how to teach the history of Jim Crow, starting with Reconstruction.
Bethany Jay: In each episode we explore a different topic—walking you through historical concepts, raising questions for discussion, suggesting useful source material and offering practical classroom exercises.
As we bring our fourth season to a close, we thought it would be a good time to look at how we are dealing with the legacies of the Jim Crow era today. And we’re going to do that through the lens of public policy.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: I recently traveled to Washington, DC, to interview Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, representative of the eighth congressional district of New York (shout out to Brooklyn and Queens). He is the fifth highest-ranking Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, the former whip of the Congressional Black Caucus and, I’m proud to say, my brother.
Bethany Jay: You know, we began this season talking about Reconstruction, when we saw African Americans elected to federal, state and local government, before the backlash against that profound move towards equity and equality. So it feels appropriate to bring things full circle by talking with Congressman Jeffries to get his perspective on the topics we’ve been exploring, like voting rights, criminal justice reform, education and more. I can’t wait to share this with our listeners. Should we get right into it?
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Absolutely. Let’s get started.
It was really cool to be able to sit down and talk about the past and the present with my brother, the congressman from New York. But it's really, really cool to be able to sit down now with my co-host Bethany Jay and talk about the past, and the present and the interview. Bethany, what's up? What's going on?
Bethany Jay: It was much more cool to be at the Capitol talking with your brother. You don't need to pretend. I know.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Nothing beats hanging out with you. So, this is great. It's great to be back.
Bethany Jay: Yes. It's nice to be in the same, you know, space. And I'll have to say, I'm going to assign this particular podcast to my students because they are always so impressed that I know you, Hasan. They're very starstruck whenever they come to that realization. So…
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Well, I need to share that with my daughters, who are not impressed with me at all, one bit.
Bethany Jay: They never are. Yeah.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Never are. Well, look, we have some clips. We have this interview we want to listen to. So how about we just dive right in? I had a great time talking to my brother, and I learned a lot. And I want to share it with our podcast listeners. And I want to share it with you. Let's listen. And let's talk about it.
Bethany Jay: Sounds great.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: It is my distinct honor and pleasure to welcome to the podcast the congressman from the eighth congressional district in Brooklyn, New York, Hakeem Jeffries. Welcome to the podcast, man.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Good to be here.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Look, one of the questions that I get a lot is how did I wind up in the place that I am professionally. So, let me ask you, how did you choose this profession? Or did this profession choose you?
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Well, I think that all of us are a combination of the experiences that we've had, you know, growing up that helped to shape you. And for me—growing up in Brooklyn, coming of age, seventies, eighties into the nineties, tough times, 2000 plus, homicides, crack cocaine epidemic, but a very vibrant community, golden age of hip hop, growing up in the Black Church—all of these are important influences on my journey and the advocacy that I try to bring to bear. And going into the law, which helped to shape my thinking, my approach and the way I frame arguments and ideas.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: You stayed in New York. I left to go to Atlanta to go to school. You stayed, wound up going to law school in New York. How much of the…
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: I stayed in the frying pan.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Lord have mercy. How much? Just answer the questions. Focus, brother.
How much of looking at politics in the eighties and nineties—I mean, you're going from Ed Koch, mayor of New York; Dinkins, first Black mayor—how much of that shaped your approach to politics today?
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Well, kind of remember Ed Koch. Far more cognizant of Mayor Dinkins. And in fact, that's the first time I voted, at least that I can recall that I voted. I remember being on campus at Binghamton and Dad sending me an absentee ballot saying, make sure you cast this vote in this election. Marlin Jeffries, being on top of it, saying, 'I gotta make sure my son votes in this election where David Dinkins has the opportunity to become the first Black mayor.’ So that's probably where I was first focused on what the municipal landscape was. But you may remember when Jesse Jackson ran in '84.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: '84 and '88.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: I was probably 14 at the time. You were 11 and 12. I remember Grandma Lee giving us Action Jackson t-shirts. Now I'm not sure if we knew he was a presidential candidate, or a superhero or what was going on. But I remember some Action Jackson, tight t-shirts in 1984.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: You know, Bethany, I remember those T-shirts, and they were 1980 snug. They were snug. They were real tight. Too skinny to be wearing them.
Bethany Jay: With the shorts with a stripe up the side, I'm assuming. Right?
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Oh, Lord have mercy, man. It was terrible. It was terrible. But it reflected not just what we knew about politics. My brother's right. I'm not sure whether we knew he was running for president or was a superhero or action figure. But my grandmother knew the significance of Jesse Jackson running. And my father knew the significance of my brother casting his first vote in that municipal election for the first Black mayor of New York City.
And it speaks to one of the things that we heard repeatedly throughout this season. This intergenerational understanding of what politics means and the importance of politics in general, but of being able to cast a ballot, being able to participate in the political process. And we talked about disenfranchisement throughout the season. But the flip side of that is African Americans determined to cast a ballot in the political process.
Bethany Jay: I think you're so right. And the fact that activism, it never stops. Right? It's happening throughout this entire period. Whether we're paying attention to it on a national scale or not, it's happening. And what I love about this interview—and I'm so glad that we're ending this season with this interview—is because at the core of it, despite all of the challenges that exist, the way the congressman frames everything at the core of it is hope.
Bethany Jay: He expresses so much hope throughout this interview, and I think you see that even in this reflection on your childhoods—of thinking about Mayor Dinkins, and thinking about Jesse Jackson and the hope that those figures embodied.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And that that "activism" doesn't show up—and I put that "activism" in quotes because it needs to be broadly defined—of a grandparent getting their children involved by giving them T-shirts and a father sending a note to the son in college, 'Make sure you vote.' That doesn't really register often when we think about, sort of, political activism.
Bethany Jay: Right.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: You know, it doesn't hit the radar. It doesn't wind up in a documentary film. But that's how it happens on the ground, right?
Bethany Jay: Yeah.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: A parent and a grandparent say, 'Hey, you got to be involved. I need you to be aware of this.' And we see that from the post-emancipation period, through the civil rights era into the present.
Bethany Jay: You're so right. It's not just Jesse Jackson. It's also Grandma Lee.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It sure was Grandmama. She made a mean sweet potato pie, too. Hakeem continues. So let's dive back into the interview.
Bethany Jay: Sounds good.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: This whole season we've been talking about African American political participation, particularly around the vote, right. 15th Amendment extends the right to vote to African Americans, men. But we go through this whole era of disenfranchisement around turn of the century.
Then we get the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Many people think, 'Hey, what else do you negroes need?’ Right? ‘You got this thing down.' But there has always been a push to make it more difficult for African Americans to vote, certainly over the last 50 years. You see it in the Reagan Justice Department, under the current Supreme Court with Shelby v. Holder, the Roberts Court. They've been making it easier for voter suppression laws and mechanisms to pass. And then, of course, with the new wave of voter suppression measures that have been passed, Georgia leading the way at the beginning of last year.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Well, the right to vote has been, as you've outlined, under assault with increasing intensity over the last several years. And really that period of voter suppression that we're dealing with now was first ushered in with the Supreme Court decision in 2013—Shelby County v. Holder—which decimated key parts of the Voting Rights Act, section 4.
Now, the interesting thing about the Voting Rights Act is that when it was initially passed in 1965, great leadership from Dr. King, John Lewis, our civil rights heroes, foot soldiers, and of course on the Hill, President Johnson, democrats partnering with some moderate Republicans in the House and also in the Senate, where they broke the filibuster and were able to get it done.
Since that moment, voting rights for decades had largely been a settled question in the United States of America. Some embraced it enthusiastically, some reluctantly. But it was a settled question. And in fact, many of us often point out the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized into law four different times since its initial passage in 1965. And every single time it was reauthorized into law, it was signed by a Republican president—1970, Richard Nixon; 1975, Gerald Ford; 1982, Ronald Reagan, perhaps reluctantly, but he did it; in 2006, George W. Bush.
So the question then becomes, if multiple Republican presidents reauthorized the Voting Rights Act and when it passed in 2006, overwhelming vote in the House—I believe in the Senate it was 93 to 0, but 10 Republicans who are currently here serving in the Senate voting for it, if my recollection is correct—then what happened? Why, all of a sudden, has it become a controversial thing to make sure that everyone can vote?
Some may posit that the 2008 election—remind me who may have won that election?—the 2008 election shook some people up, changed some perspectives on voting rights being a settled question. Because after that, all of a sudden—first with the Tea Party revolution, and then the Supreme Court decision and ultimately the election of the 45th president of the United States of America—people had a different perspective on voting. And a lot of it can be traced, I think, perhaps to what happened in America in 2008.
Bethany Jay: The congressman reminds us that voting rights have been considered, sort of, settled law for quite a while and have just now become more controversial. And he notes that we can probably guess the reasons why that's the case. But during our season, we were talking about voting rights in the Jim Crow era, which certainly was not a settled issue at all, and the disenfranchisement of the Black population during Reconstruction and the continued disenfranchisement of the Black population until you get to that Voting Rights Act in many parts of the country.
And one of the really interesting conversations that we had this season about voting rights, I thought, was with Karen Cox, who spoke about the Confederate monuments. And I thought the way that she brought together those two issues, both of which are historic and contemporary, was really important. She had us thinking about the fact that Confederate monuments were often placed on the ground of courthouses as a signal that this is a government for and by white men and that that government was there to preserve white supremacy throughout the entire Jim Crow era.
And then the vast majority of those monuments are placed there after African Americans have already been disenfranchised across the South. And then you add to that fact that many lynchings take place on courthouse grounds. And Dr. Cox said, "You couldn't be more clear about white supremacy in your community than to put a lynched body on the monument itself."
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Mmm. Mmm.
Bethany Jay: And then again, she reminds us of the importance of the Voting Rights Act for this particular issue, even. Because once Black Southerners are able to register to vote, because the Voting Rights Act has been passed, they resent having to go to a courthouse where there's a Confederate monument to do so. And so some of the first locally elected Black representatives, post-Reconstruction, start working to change local monument laws and make it possible to remove some of these monuments. So we see how the issue of Confederate monuments is really in so many ways intertwined with voting rights, for better and for worse.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And I think that history that you just laid out speaks to the fact that as much as we would like to think of the American political tradition around voting rights being rooted in expanding the franchise, the reality is that voting rights moment—just as we get with the 15th Amendment, and then we get 100 years of disenfranchisement, and then we get the Voting Rights Act and a sustained period of expansion—not without people fighting back. But then you get, as Hakeem points out, that 2008 election of Barack Obama and that fierce turning against the expansion and protecting of voting rights.
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Suddenly Republicans no longer want to reauthorize and the Supreme Court turning against it. That speaks to the fact that, you know, maybe the tradition is really a tradition of disenfranchisement, that the disruption isn’t what we're seeing today. What we're seeing today is actually—in the context of American history, and thinking about that Reconstruction-Jim Crow moment and even certainly before—the tradition is disenfranchisement. And what we're actually fighting against is a return to what was normal.
Bethany Jay: Right.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Or a return to the status quo, which has been limiting the franchise, not expanding it. And it requires then us to think about, 'Well, what does it take, not only to expand, but to maintain the expansion.’ Because it just, on its own, that expansion won't exist. That's the activism that we saw. You had to fight to get the right. You had to fight to keep the right. And I think we're in one of those moments right now.
Bethany Jay: Certainly. And we saw that after the Georgia Special Senate election. I mean, it was almost immediate that Warnock and Ossoff are elected. And, I mean, within days I feel like…
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Literally.
Bethany Jay: Right?
…there were all of these new proposals in the Georgia state legislature to remove different access to voting rights.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: When we think about voting rights in this particular moment, and we put it in the context of American history and certainly the African American experience, this is not history repeating itself. This literally is history just continuing on. And that's a sad reality, I think that we have to acknowledge and recognize.
Bethany Jay: Yeah. And it's one that I believe the congressman goes on to talk about how they're trying to address it on the federal level.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Yeah. Let's listen to what he has to say about that.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: So as we look forward towards the fall, and congressional elections coming up and then in two more years another Presidential election, what can be done with regard to making the ballot and ballot access available to all people?
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: So we passed the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Act. We passed the Freedom to Vote Act, both of which are critical, both of which every single Democratic Senator substantively supports, including the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Arizona.
The disagreement right now is on process. 48 Democrats believe that, at least as it relates to the right to vote, the filibuster should not be an obstacle. I agree. Because the filibuster is not in the Constitution. The word doesn't appear. It's a custom. And it's a custom that has historically been used in defense of slavery and in defense of Jim Crow. And so the question is, why are we holding onto it?
It cannot be that this is what the Framers intended, because the Framers were very clear on the difference between a majority and a super majority. And I believe in four different instances, they said, 'Here is where a super majority will be required': to ratify a treaty, super majority; override a president's veto, two-thirds, super majority; to amend the United States Constitution, two-thirds of the House, two-thirds of the Senate, 75% of the states, supermajorities. And of course, as the country saw, not once but twice, when there's an impeachment in the House to convict the president and ultimately remove him, two-thirds. Four times, they said super majorities are required. They didn't say it was required to pass legislation in any other area or when you are trying to strengthen the ability of the American people to choose their representatives.
And so for the life of me, a lot of us cannot figure out why we're holding on to this custom that is not even anchored in founding principles of the country or the Constitution. So I think we have to continue to press the case legislatively, because I think we have the higher ground on substance. Particularly when you consider even in the 21st century, there are exceptions to the filibuster that the Republicans, in my humble opinion, have used and abused. There is the budget exception to the filibuster, called reconciliation, which the Republicans used in 2017, where 83% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1% in America. Mitch McConnell used the judiciary exception to the filibuster not once, but twice.
So, given the history, given the Constitution, given the Framers intent, given the modern-day application of two exceptions to the filibuster, I can't figure out why the Senate can't see its way through to moving the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. So we can't give up that fight.
I had the honor to serve with John Lewis. Many of us in the current Congress did. He never gave up when he almost lost his life on the Edmund Pettus bridge, against all odds. And so now, when we're in a much stronger position to advance enlightened legislation because of the service and sacrifice of people like John Lewis, and Fannie Lou Hamer, and Rosa Parks, and Shirley Chisholm, and Adam Powell, of course, Dr. King, and Roy Wilkins, A. Phillip Randolph, go through the list, we can't give up either.
And John Lewis would say, “Never give up, never give in.” “Stand up, speak up, show up.” Continue to get into some “good trouble” until you make progress for our society. And so that's what we have to do legislatively. And then on the ground, we just have to make sure that we are encouraging and familiarizing people with the different state laws well in advance of them having to show up. And have lawyers and others present to make sure that not a single citizen has their right to vote infringed upon.
Bethany Jay: Mmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: You know, Bethany, when he talks about the filibuster and the way it has been used and abused to suppress legislation in the Senate, you know, I can't help but think that it is people who won, intentionally, are using political mechanisms to stop legislation. We can think about certainly anti-lynching bills and how they have been stopped through the use of the filibuster. Civil rights bills, they have been used intentionally to stop, the use of the filibuster.
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: But for those more currently who say, 'No, no, no. This is tradition.' Right? 'This is the process.' What they are doing in the present certainly has echoes of the past. But even if they are well-intentioned, I think the history that he just lays out says that we should not put process over people. And that's in essence what we are doing now.
Bethany Jay: And it's very clear what is happening in the states. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is in every way addressing real problems and doing nothing except protecting people's access to the ballot. What is the argument against passing that bill?
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Mmm.
Bethany Jay: You can't make one. Right?
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: I mean there is none. I mean, it's a process one. I mean, you have those who oppose it. Right?
Bethany Jay: Right.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: I mean, so right now, the way the Congress is set up in the Senate, politically, you have full Republican opposition to it. And so now we're just talking about a handful of Democratic senators in the opposition who was saying, 'No, this is about process, it's about tradition.' And then you say, 'No, it's not.' Right?
Bethany Jay: Right.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: So then, you know, what are you really afraid of?
Bethany Jay: Exactly.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And what are you really doing? And that's a question I think that needs to be posed to them.
Bethany Jay: Yeah. And you don't want to make that argument to hide behind the filibuster, as it were.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Right. You’ll be hiding behind the process, because you don't want to deal with the principles about democracy. Right?
Bethany Jay: Right.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: The principle about democratic engagement, about protecting voting rights and about expanding voting rights in a democracy. You want to make it possible for as many people to participate. And those who don't, you know, you have to question their commitment to democracy.
Bethany Jay: Well, and this also goes back to the first clip that we played about your childhood with your brother and the awareness of the importance of municipal elections, talking about New York City, but local politics as well being so important because that's where the state legislatures are elected that create districts. And we all know that those voting districts can be manipulated in multiple ways by those state legislatures to make it either harder or easier for people to vote or to split blocs of different voting populations up for the benefit of one party or another. So it also starts, again—as you were talking about—with that small-scale activism, on the ground, in paying attention to who's representing you in your state legislatures.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And it speaks to the need of the federal government to step in when states go awry. We see this certainly during the Jim Crow era. Right?
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: I mean, these states are running amok. You talk about states rights, right. Their right to discriminate against people and make it harder for Black folk to participate in the political process then. And now, we have states not limited to the South. I mean, I'm here in Ohio. Ohio's doing the same thing. Indiana, these other northern states, midwestern states, western states are doing the same thing, making it harder for people to participate in the political process. So therefore, you need that federal intervention to level the playing field to make sure that safeguards are in place to protect the right to vote. And unfortunately, the Congress has been unable to pass that legislation.
Bethany Jay: I was just talking with my students yesterday about Reconstruction and the meaning of the 14th and 15th Amendments and saying, 'Look, this makes the federal government the protector of your individual rights.'
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Mmm.
Bethany Jay: And that's what needs to happen in this case. And it has happened before, but…
This is Teaching Hard History, and I'm Bethany Jay. We prepare detailed show notes for each episode of this podcast, so that you can use what you learn here in the classroom. You'll find relevant resources,as well as a full transcript, complete with links to materials mentioned by our guests. You can find them at LearningForJustice.org/podcasts. Let’s return now to Hasan’s conversation with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: There are other areas in which some federal intervention could be used when we think and reflect upon the Jim Crow era and also the present. And policing is one of those areas. The congressman had a few things to say about that.
One of the core characteristics of the Jim Crow era is the color line, forced segregation. One of the entities that maintains the color line during the Jim Crow era is the police. There is still a police problem, or at least a policing problem, in America today. Could you outline what you see today as some of the primary issues around policing and policing Black communities? And what do you think we can do about it?
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: I think we recognize that the overwhelming majority of police officers, certainly the ones that I interact with back at home in New York City, hardworking individuals who are in the community to protect and serve. And increasingly in places like New York City, the police look like the community. A majority of the New York city police department right now are Black, Latino, Asian or South Asian. But it cannot be denied that there are police officers who engage in police violence, police brutality, police use of excessive force. And far too often the community that disproportionately bears the burden of officers who cross the line are communities of color. And often African American young men.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: You mentioned the mosaic that is the NYPD. And you're absolutely right. I mean, the numbers bear that out. It is probably the most racially and ethnically diverse police force. But go back to the video of Eric Garner, that mosaic is right there. Right? There's just not white officers. And so it seems to me that this is a policing problem. I mean, it's a culture of policing.
When we look back, I don't know if there's ever been a time where American police have viewed communities of color as worthy of protection, and not from an adversarial position and standpoint. You know, you can have that beautiful mosaic. And if you send different folk out, but to do the same thing, you're going to wind up with the same result.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Well, I think the militarization of the police has been noted as problematic, and we saw it in Ferguson. And that, kind of, represents a siege mentality that I think is not helpful for the police-community interaction. That's a warrior mentality. That's not a guardian mentality. And I think part of the reform efforts involve de-militarization.
There's no reason to have Humvees and, you know, mounted automatic weapons and things of that nature when you're dealing with American citizens in American communities. Of course, to protect us from the threats of domestic terrorism, certainly international terrorism, is certain techniques and approaches that will be necessary in the extreme. That's part of the reform effort. How do you strike that right balance?
Bethany Jay: Mmm. I was thinking about your point that law enforcement has never really viewed communities of color as worthy of protection. And I'm reminded of Kidada Williams's episode on lynching and that great conversation that you had with her. She talks about a Charles White woodcut. And she describes the woodcut, it's from 1945, saying, "[It's] a mother holding a son, an infant baby boy, and outside the window is a tree in the distance with a small noose hanging from it. And so she has brought a child into the world, [and] she has hope for the future, but she also knows about the outside world and what fate could befall her son." And it came to mind because it was so familiar to so much of what we see Black parents write and say about raising Black boys, in particular, today—the desire to protect and dream for your child, even as you have to raise them to be aware of the fact that they could be viewed as threats by many people, including law enforcement, and that puts them in danger.
And Tamir Rice is the name that immediately comes to mind here—a 12-year-old little boy, seen as a threat and shot by law enforcement for playing with a toy gun in a park. And I know that Kidada Williams was talking about the extralegal violence of lynching. But I think the point about having to raise your children—both as children but also having to raise them to be aware of how others may view them—is there in both of those examples.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: You know, I asked my brother what did he think should be done and could be done to address those very issues that you just beautifully laid out. This is what he had to say.
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Could you say a little bit more about like some of the, the mechanisms that can and should be used to hold police accountable to hopefully shift the thinking, the way policing occurs. ‘Cause, you know, there's some other legislation, George Floyd Policing Act, that is languishing across the street as well.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Yeah, we advanced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, not once but twice, out of the House of Representatives. And it's designed to make sure that the principles of liberty and justice for all, equal protection under the law, apply equally, including in the context of interactions between the police and the community.
Making sure that you hold police officers who cross the line accountable is incredibly important. Part of how we've endeavored to try to address it is to look at the choke hold example, which resulted in the death of Eric Garner, and strangulation tactics that resulted in the death of George Floyd. And our legislation would criminalize that because it's unconscionable, unacceptable, unnecessary, unjust and un-American. And we think it has to be made unlawful.
And once you make an unlawful. Then you can hold people accountable for it to a greater degree. And it sends the signal that there's certain techniques that in 21st-century America are just not acceptable, as I think people of all races in the aftermath of both Garner and, to a greater extent, George Floyd's death came to that conclusion.
Even though many police departments—including the New York City's police department, I believe Chicago Police Department, certainly the LA Police Department—as a matter of policy, outlaw the choke hold, why do we still see it being used? Because it's not been prohibited as a matter of law at the federal level, though New York City and New York state did change the statutes to prohibit it or strictly limit its use.
So some progress has been made in the aftermath of some of these tragic events, but hasn't necessarily been comprehensive. And the legislation that we advanced out of the House was in part designed to say, 'We want to strengthen the relationship between the police and the community.' A strengthened relationship between the police and the community is good for public safety. It increases cooperation. And ultimately when you increase cooperation, you will drive down criminal activity and make communities for everyone safer.
So we want to change the mindset of policing from a warrior mentality to a guardian mentality. Because too many officers—not every officer, maybe not even the majority of officers but too many officers—may have a warrior mentality. And if you have that, you might view some elements of the community as enemy combatants, things go wrong. But if you have a guardian mentality, then you view the community as a partner. And it's a relationship to be cherished, to be guarded, to be nourished. And that in part was what the George Floyd Justice in Policing legislation was all about. Shift the mindset of the interaction and the nature of policing, so that it brings law enforcement and the community closer. And I'm still hopeful that that is an objective that we can accomplish.
In the aftermath of the George Floyd incident, one of the things that provided some hope and encouragement is that, you know, you did see at least a temporary coming together of elements within law enforcement and elements within the community to have a dialogue about 'How do we strengthen this relationship?' Because both are worthy of being supported. We have to support our communities, and we have to support those who are protecting and serving.
Bethany Jay: Kelley Carter Jackson's interview this season was one of my favorites. And as I was going back through the season, I was thinking about her discussion of abolition—and this relates to what the congressman was saying—but her point that abolition was not really accomplished by moral suasion. It was accomplished by activism that was sometimes violent. And she points out that the 19th century is really violent in general. But she makes the point, and this is a quote, "I think [that] part of the problem in America is that we don't know how to deal with Black protest, whether it's violent or nonviolent. We don't know how to reconcile it because we're unwilling to do the work of relinquishing the power that suppresses Black people."
And so two things come to mind for me here that relate to what the congressman was saying, that the hysteria about the protests that emerged in the wake of the George Floyd killing and how they were framed by large swaths of the media but also how the police and even military response to them was more immediate and forceful than the response to the January 6 insurrection.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Mmm. Mm hmm.
Bethany Jay: But just as Carter talks about in the 19th century, those protests and their upheaval were essential in forcing the hand of the federal government to do something. And of course, it hasn't made its way through the Senate as well. But to have to address this problem and the fact that we have representatives of color in the federal government, something that wasn't possible in the Antebellum era, you know, is also what's making that possible, with people like your brother at the forefront in the push for that legislation.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: I think Dr. Carter's interview was really exceptional because what she points out or makes clear is that as African Americans were struggling for not only access to the ballot, not only to participate in the political process but also for personal safety against the state and against racial terrorists, that all options were on the table.
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Too often, when we think back to the African American freedom struggle, where we're talking about the civil rights movement or earlier periods, we frame it solely as, sort of, one approach. It's nonviolence in the beginning. It's nonviolence in the end. And we don't see that as a part of a spectrum.
One of the great advantages of studying the Jim Crow era is that you see clearly the full spectrum, the full array of options, both in terms of strategies and tactics, that African Americans are going to deploy in their effort to secure those basic civil rights and human rights goals. And we see that really playing out over time, when you zero in on that question of personal safety, that question of dealing with police, whether they are rural sheriffs in the Deep South or they are modern militarized police forces in the urban north.
Bethany Jay: It's so true. And we only acknowledge, and you've made this point in the civil rights season as well, we really only acknowledge half of that story. We really only like to talk about the nonviolent moral suasion piece and leave out the protection at all costs piece and the fighting back piece. And we need to include both of those narratives.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Yeah. No, that's essential. That's essential. You know, Bethany, one of the things I asked my brother about, of course, was this question of policing. And obviously it's an issue—was an issue in the past, is an issue in the present. A contemporary issue that we're dealing with as a society is mass incarceration.
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Mass incarceration begins with mass arrests. The two are absolutely connected. Why do you have so many people in jail? Because you're arresting so many people. So, you know, I asked him about mass incarceration following our conversation about policing. And here's what he had to say.
The militarization of the police has been going on for a century. And there’s examples after World War One, after World War Two, certainly after Vietnam. But in 1980s, we see it really ramping up connected with the war on drugs, which then leads to a surge in the prison population or what we commonly refer to as mass incarceration.
So there's real harm that is continuing to be done to populations because of this surge in incarceration, from a-couple-hundred-thousand people in 1970s to over two-million people now. You were one of the sponsors of the FIRST STEP Act. And so you've been thinking about this and legislating about what can be done. Could you first share a little bit about what the FIRST STEP Act was? And then could you share, what is the second step? And what should that be?
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Well, this has been a bright spot in terms of the effort to reform our criminal justice system, in that, this effort of trying to deal with mass incarceration and the over-criminalization of the American people has become bi-partisan in nature. And in many cases overwhelmingly so. When I was in the state legislature, that wasn't necessarily the case. I get to Congress, and I was asked by one of then-lead Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, Bobby Scott, who was the ranking member on the Crime Subcommittee, to serve on this Task Force on Overcriminalization. Five Democrats, five Republicans.
I go to my first hearing or two. And Brian Stevenson talks, and he was a law professor of mine. It was great to see him, hear from him. But then someone from the Heritage Foundation testifies as well. And I found myself agreeing with every single thing that he was saying about the consequences of overcriminalization, and the impact on liberty and the damage that's done to communities throughout America, including disproportionately communities of color.
And I'm trying to figure out, 'Am I being hustled right now? What is happening?' And this resulted in the FIRST STEP Act, which was led on the Republican side by Doug Collins, a conservative Republican from rural Georgia. I had the honor of being the lead Democrat, progressive, from the People's Republic of Brooklyn, working together and ultimately being able to pull together a coalition of the left, the right, progressives and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, the NAACP and the Koch brothers, the ACLU and the Heritage Foundation, Al Sharpton, Grover Norquist, all points in between. Ultimately, with Jared Kushner taking the lead out of the administration and a bill being signed into law by president Trump that was focused on two things: front-end reform and back-end reform. Front-end reform, meaning changing the overly harsh and unjust sentencing laws that were put into place during the so-called war on drugs.
And so we lowered the mandatory minimum thresholds across the board. And we made the 18-to-1 crack cocaine-powder cocaine disparity retroactive, which in 2010—under leadership from Barack Obama and the Fair Sentencing Act—had been reduced from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1. But it wasn't made retroactive because Jeff Sessions, who was in the Senate at the time, blocked it from being retroactive.
When we went from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1, the Congress of the United States acknowledged, as a matter of public policy, that law was unjust. But because you didn't make it retroactive, you still had thousands of people incarcerated under what Congress had then said is an unjust law. FIRST STEP Act took that 18-to-1 and made it retroactive. Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general, fought us on it. But we were able to overcome that opposition. And more than 9,000 people were released, 90% of them Black men, which also tells you about the disproportionate impacts that the war on drugs had on certain communities.
We also invested in prison reform, which is making sure that we put into place programs and activities that allow currently incarcerated individuals to become productive citizens as they transition from incarceration back into society, in order to dramatically reduce recidivism. It helps their individual lives. It helps families. It helps communities. And it also saves taxpayer dollars when you bring down the rate of recidivism by investing in people becoming productive citizens.
Those are some of the highlights of the FIRST STEP Act. But it was very comprehensive in nature and has made a big difference, the most significant piece of criminal justice reform legislation to be passed by Congress in over 25 years. And it's a foundation to be able to do more.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Bethany, I'd love to get your thoughts on what the congressman had to say.
Bethany Jay: Well, the parallels between Congressman Jeffries' discussion of mandatory-minimums and the crack-to-cocaine, 100-to-1 and 18-to-1, disparity just reminded me of your conversation with Robert Chase about the criminalization of Blackness in post-emancipation era. It's just striking the similarities. And some of those laws that Robert Chase talked about, the Reconstruction era Black Codes are written with racial language into the law, but many were colorblind in the way that the, sort of, war on drug language is seemingly colorblind, but not colorblind at all in the way that they're enforced. And again, that makes me think of the war on drugs. It makes me think of 'stop and frisk.' It makes me think of 'broken windows' policing. Right? All of these different policies that, as you say, lead to a lot of arrests, which are then going to lead to a lot of prisoners.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And it speaks to. I mean, I'm so glad you brought that interview that we did with Dr. Chase, because that moment is so critical. That moment in the 1890, turn of the century, 1910s, 19 teens, when the criminalization of Blackness becomes embedded in the white American psyche. And it becomes a part of the way policing proceeds. It becomes a part of the functioning of the criminal justice system. And so we wonder sometimes why police react to African Americans who aren't doing anything, but assuming that they are a potential threat and are a danger. Why Black communities are so overly policed. Why those percentages, in terms of arrests, the weight of that falls so heavily on the shoulders of African Americans. It has everything to do with that moment during the Jim Crow era when race gets criminalized. And that has that long-lasting—we're talking over a century now—impact on the way African Americans are treated not only by police but by the criminal justice system.
Bethany Jay: And Brandon Jett talks in his piece about the, sort of, shift from extralegal violence, in the form of lynching, being the way in which to force control over Black people, without slavery. And the shift from that to more seemingly respectable legal processes that are used to effectively do the same thing.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And I think it's important to point out that the purpose of the criminalization, as you point out, serve different roles. Right?
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: So, you know, turn of the 20th century, the purpose of the criminalization is really about labor control. Right?
Bethany Jay: Right.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: It's about controlling Black labor. But by the time we get to the contemporary moment—certainly in 1980s, 1990s, early 2000—it's less about controlling Black labor—I mean, that was a Jim Crow era thing—and more about how do you profit off of Black bodies through warehousing them. Right? I mean, that's. The mass incarceration is like, 'What do you do with this surplus labor? And how do you capitalize on it?' Right? 'How do you turn Black into green?' And then that begins to feed itself. And then we move from, you know, 350,000 people who are incarcerated to two-and-a-half million between the 1970s and today.
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Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Hakeem had a little bit more to say on mass incarceration. Let's play that.
Bethany Jay: Sounds good.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: One of the bills that I'm currently working on, which has passed the House of Representatives and is over on the other side of the Capitol, as are so many pieces of legislation, is the Equal Act. And what the Equal Act will do is take that 18-to-1 sentencing disparity and drop it to 1-to-1, because there was never any logical reason to treat crack cocaine drug offenses differently than powder cocaine drug offenses.
There is no pharmacological difference between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. I've always wanted to use that word pharmacologic. I can't spell it. I'm not a professor like you. But I know what it means. There is no physical, chemical difference in how the body reacts to crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Even though that was part of the argument, that crack is more addictive, to justify a 100-to-1 disparity. The Equal Act will make it 1-to-1, and apply it retroactively and perhaps strike a final blow to the most significant relic of the war on drugs.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: You mentioned that there may not have been a logical reason for the disparities in sentencing, based upon crack cocaine or powder cocaine. But it clearly was a racist reason, when we look at media portrayals of what crack was doing, and where it was coming from and who was doing it.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: You know, crack cocaine was viewed as the drug of choice for low-income Americans and, certainly in the inner city, communities of color. Powder cocaine used by more affluent Americans in suburban communities, largely white. And that's why when we made the 18-to-1 change retroactive, as well as some changes to compassionate release and good time credit, but the overwhelming majority of people incarcerated and therefore released were Black men.
When the war on drugs was initially launched in 1971, there were less than 300,000 people incarcerated in America. Today 2.3 million, disproportionately Black and Latino, incarcerate more people in America per capita than any other country in the world, including China and Russia combined. That's a stain on our society. And we've got to work to work it out, and we are doing so. And I think that's meaningful progress for the scales of justice in this country.
We passed the Equal Act in this Congress. Post insurrection, America divided, criminal justice reform is still bi-partisan. I believe the final vote in the House was 361 to 65. 70% of Republicans voted for it, including Matt Gaetz, and Jim Jordan, and Louie Gohmert and people who are part of the Freedom Caucus, the far right portion of the House Republican Conference.
I mentioned to you initially, I was like, 'Am I being hustled? What is wrong here?' Because when we were fighting to get rid of the Rockefeller drug laws in New York state, it was the Republicans who were fighting us. But over time, certainly after the great recession, I think three things happened. Fiscal conservatives said, 'Spending $80 billion plus on mass incarceration, which doesn't yield any reciprocal public safety benefits commensurate to the cost of the taxpayer, is a failed government program. It's fiscally irresponsible.'
So fiscal conservatives, people like Grover Norquist, started to come on board. Christian conservatives, who theologically believe in the power of redemption and the notion that everyone should have a second chance at life because everyone makes mistakes, started leaning in to re-entry, and prison reform and successfully transitioning individuals who may have made a mistake—making sure that they pay their debt to society, but it should be a just debt not a scarlet letter that stains them for the rest of their lives. Christian conservatives on board. And then libertarians, who believe that if you can take away someone's liberty that's perhaps the worst form of government overreach. And so libertarians like Rand Paul strongly behind criminal justice reform, Mike Lee and others. And so it's an authentic coalition.
I may arrive at the notion of criminal justice reform through a progressive lens of racial, social and economic justice. Republicans may arrive at it through a lens of fiscal conservatism, Christian conservatism or libertarianism. But we arrive at the same place. And that's why I'm confident that we can continue to do great work in this space.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: He is confident, Bethany. Are you equally confident?
Bethany Jay: Well, I would like to have his confidence, I guess. You know, the thing that does seem hopeful in this moment, in the way that the congressman described it, is the fact that multiple constituencies of lawmakers are coming to this and interest groups are coming to this from different places but arriving at the same end game. And again, it makes me think of Robert Chase's discussion of convict leasing and how convict leasing not comes to an end, but experiences a significant decline when it becomes less profitable. You know, as the infrastructure of the South has been rebuilt with convict labor, once that's done and that labor is less profitable for those prisons, that we start to see less prisoners there. And that's combined with some moral movements against the act. And so maybe that's what we're seeing here, this coming together of different interests that may all serve a good purpose.
Bethany Jay: But maybe I'm too optimistic.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: I don't think you're too optimistic. You know, hope is necessary. Right? Hope leads to change. Hope is eternal. We've got to hang on to hope. But I hope the coalition that he was talking about holds. Because I'm not seeing it hold in the moment.
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: I'm seeing it fracture. I'm seeing those political conservatives falling prey to party politics. Where now, even if you for fiscally conservative reasons—I don't care how you get there as long as you get there—but if it's fiscal conservatism that leads you to support the necessary reforms to policing and incarceration, then so be it. But now we're beginning to see and certainly we've seen this over the last couple of years, that that's not even enough, that you have to hold tight to a strict party line.
Bethany Jay: Right.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And that means you oppose anything and everything that is supported by those on the other side of the aisle.
Bethany Jay: You know, what you're saying sort of makes me think of Willie Horton. That was the Dukakis-Bush election. It only takes one example to rally a base, you know what I mean, against something that they would be inclined not to support anyway. And so really thinking it only takes one-or-two examples that can be blown out of proportion to get a whole community against prison reform.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Ah, that's true. That's true. So speaking about political parties, you know, I asked Hakim about the historical relationship between African Americans and the Democratic Party. Of course, you will remember Bethany, you did that wonderful interview, in which you trace that important shift that occurs during the New Deal era.
Bethany Jay: Right.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: So this is what he had to say.
Bethany Jay: Great.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: There was a time in which African Americans were part of the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln. Then the depression hits. The president at the time, Hoover does a terrible job with this sort of laissez faire approach to solving the issues of the Depression. And then Roosevelt comes, takes a much stronger view, not completely without flaws.
But we see this transition away from the Republican Party into the Democratic Party for African Americans. And they've remained solidly within the camp of the Democratic Party for nearly a century now. You have a front row seat to seeing what's going on within the Republican Party. Why aren't there more African Americans, in this moment, in the Republican Party or supportive of the Republican Party?
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Well, as my Republican colleagues sometimes point out, it was the Democratic Party that was the party of the Confederacy, the party of slavery and, in many ways, the party that fought to preserve Jim Crow. I think from a historic perspective, from a political party perspective, there aren't clean hands on either side.
Now the modern-day Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln, and it's not even a party of Ronald Reagan. It's the party of Donald Trump. And it's been overrun by people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, Lauren Bobert, Madison Cawthorn. So many people have been radicalized by the presence of the former president in our public space during the time that he was in office. It's the party of people who are on the fringes of the far right. It's not even clear that they believe in democracy. They don't believe in truth. So, this is not the party of John McCain. It's not the party of Bob Dole. It's not the party of Mitt Romney. And it’s certainly not the party of Jackie Robinson.
We grew up in the Cornerstone Baptist Church, dedicated to God by Dr. Sandy Ray, who was a Republican legislator in Ohio; and a prominent Baptist preacher, one of the greatest of all time; and a champion for civil rights. In the Republican Party of Sandy Ray, there was room for someone who cared about civil rights, and equality, and liberty and justice for all. In the modern-day Republican Party, I'm not clear that there's a lot of space for the type of diversity that certainly existed decades ago. But there's a history there that hopefully may serve to one day cause a revival for a more inclusive Republican Party.
That's why it's not clear to me why some people want to run away from history, when there's history there that allows for a wide variety of narratives to be told about where we've been as Americans and where we can ultimately wind up.
Bethany Jay: There's a lot there.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: There is a lot there. And there's a lot of history there that too often doesn't get told and explained. And when it does get told, it's reframed in sort of a ridiculous way.
Bethany Jay: Right.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: It's like, 'Hey. Martin Luther King's father was a Republican. And you should be, too!' Without, you know. As an appeal to African Americans without any context for why he was or what that Republican Party looked like, the heirs of the Republican of Lincoln and what kind of Republicans they were embracing—the Rockefeller Republican in that particular moment in time.
Bethany Jay: I've never lost Facebook friends quicker than when I've pointed out that the Republican Party is not the party of Lincoln.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Mmm. Mm hmm.
Bethany Jay: That's a quick unfriend by the recipient. But, you know, one of the other things I was thinking about is, there's also this perennial question of, 'Is the Democratic Party taking Black voters for granted?' That they are always going to be Democratic voters, no matter how the party is working or not for them.
And that makes me think of that Great Depression episode that you started off this segment with. And you know, Jill Watts really talked about the Black Cabinet—that is influencing Eleanor Roosevelt really and working on some of the lower levels of administration of New Deal policies— that they're really pushing constantly for a more permanent and more sustained focus on the most vulnerable people, really making sure that government and of course, this is in the context of the Depression, but making sure that government continues to work for all Americans, no matter what your economic status is. And that's really Mary McLeod Bethune, who is really sort of active in making sure that those policies are pushed. And ultimately she's unsuccessful. A lot of those New Deal policies are not permanent. But it makes me think of conversations that we're having today, too, about how do we make this country work for everybody, no matter what your sort of economic status is? And those reforms seem to be the ones that aren't going through.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And that question of 'How do we make it work?' There is a role for elected officials in that. And they're not the only ones.
Bethany Jay: No.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: But there is certainly a role for elected officials in making this country work. The congressman had a few thoughts on that role, and why it may not be working as well as it both could and should.
Bethany Jay: Perfect.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: We're in the midst of a backlash. And whenever there's progress in America there's always been backlash. And there was progress with Emancipation and the Reconstruction Amendments—13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments—and we see a big backlash take place. The rise of Jim Crow, rise of the KKK, lynching epidemics, Black Codes, things of this nature.
And it takes another a hundred years to arrive at another moment of progress, when Dr. King, and Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, others stood up. And then people of every race, of goodwill, came together to make more progress. Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Great Society. Tremendous progress, but then that was also immediately followed by backlash. The rise of Richard Nixon, anti-government, anti-affirmative action, mass incarceration put into place in Nixon's first term in 1971. And that ushered in the caricaturing of inner-city communities, communities of color, designed to roll back the social safety net that had been put into place in a stronger way during the civil rights era, as part of the Great Society legislative initiatives.
And then a new hope arises with the election of Barack Obama. And we were told perhaps that we were entering into a post-racial era. But Tea Party, 'We want our country back.' Who took it away? Wait, the election of Barack Obama took your country away? And then the Supreme Court makes the decision in Shelby County v. Holder. They want to decimate the bipartisan 1965 Voting Rights Act, ushering in a new era of voter suppression. And of course, ultimately the election of Donald Trump, who for five years perpetrated the racist lie that Barack Obama was not born in the United States of America, as part of an effort to de-legitimize America's first Black president and rode that lie into the White House.
It was a backlash that he intentionally capitalized on as part of his electoral coalition. Not the entirety of it. There were other people who were concerned about change. They wanted to blow the whole thing up in Washington, DC. 'It's not working for us. Let's see what this guy can do.' You know, other folks working through issues of economic anxiety, because of changes like globalization, and poorly negotiated trade deals, the outsourcing of good paying American jobs, decline of unionization, rise of automation. These have jammed working class communities of every race.
And Donald Trump manipulated that anxiety. But part of his electoral coalition clearly included people affiliated with neo-Nazis, the Proud Boys and others who have become increasingly vocal. All of that to say, anyone who has studied the trajectory of history knows that whenever there's been progress made in this great country, it's usually followed by a backlash.
Bethany Jay: Mmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: The struggle to create change is never unidirectional. In other words, the progress isn't perpetual. There is always—sometimes framed, as my brother did here as—a backlash. But I think when we look at, Bethany, American history and specifically this post-emancipation, post-Reconstruction Jim Crow era, and we put that in the broader context of the nation as a whole, then the backlash looks more like a course correction than it does sort of an aberration to or an attempt to move America away from its core traditions. It seems like an effort by some to move America back to what it's been as opposed to what it could be.
Bethany Jay: So the question is, does the arc of history actually bend towards justice or not? And that probably depends on who is able to claim power and a voice. Does that make sense?
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: It does.
Bethany Jay: That if the same people are in power, then that arc of justice is going to stay like you're saying. It's going to course correct back. And I think that's why going back to where we started our conversation with voting rights with people like your brother who are in Congress, with HBCU's that continue to produce outstanding thinkers who become leaders in all different levels of our society, all of those Black institutions—which has been another thread of our conversation this season—the importance of them on every level, I think, becomes important in making sure that arc of history bends the right way.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And those institutions reflect the efforts of African Americans to exert the force necessary to bend the arc towards justice. Because without that force, without that effort, without that energy, without the institution building, without the sacrifice that we saw and as illustrated throughout the Jim Crow era, then that course correction, that status quo remains. Which also, Bethany, speaks to the current moment in which we are living and teaching as educators.
Bethany Jay: Yep.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And the response to talking about this difficult history, to talking about hard history. I asked Hakim about that.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Representative Barbara Lee has an important bill that she has been advancing, which is in part based on the South Africa model of truth and reconciliation. And I support that legislation. And the idea is that in order for us to arrive at a place where we can reach meaningful reconciliation, we have to have an understanding of the truth of our collective journey as Americans. And that of course includes African American history, which is American history.
And hopefully, this next generation of Americans, the ones being educated right now, can help us bring America closer to that true reconciliation. I believe that Gen Z will do that—the most diverse generation in American history. But to arrive at reconciliation, there has to be truth.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: What role do you see reparations, broadly defined perhaps as investment in community, playing in that reconciliation?
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Given our imperfections that are obvious throughout our history, the least that we should do is determine how we can repair and heal America, which includes the wounds that have been inflicted on the Black community and the legacy of it.
HR 40 is the legislative vehicle that would just establish a commission to study the issue. And everyone would have an opportunity to participate. The four legislative leaders—Democrats and Republicans alike, House and Senate—can make appointments. HR 40—named after the fact that African Americans were initially promised but never given 40 acres and a mule, the means of production connected to the economy at the time in order to become economically independent; that's why HR 40 is named HR 40—was initially championed by John Conyers. I supported it when he championed it. And it’s now being championed by Sheila Jackson Lee.
We did vote it out of the Judiciary Committee, which is the furthest that it has advanced. It had never previously received, I believe, either a hearing or certainly a markup in committee. And every single Democrat supported HR 40. And I still hope that it gets a fair hearing in the United States House of Representatives.
Bethany Jay: The fact that a piece of legislation that would establish a commission to then study an issue hasn't been able to get out of committee, I think, tells us a lot about the reluctance to actually face this history on any level. And we're seeing that that has been the case on the federal level. And we're seeing that now in your town, elementary school, K-12 district, as well.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Yeah. It's unfortunate because a lot of the energy, most of the energy in fact, that has been connected to dealing with the hard issues of the past, dealing with hard history and even conversations about reparations, whatever that may take, has generally been better at the local level. And it hasn't been really something that has been taken up at the federal level.
And what's so unfortunate about the moment in which we are living is that, you know, education, of course, is controlled locally. And that energy that has existed in small places in the past really has some truth and reconciliation. That is now being challenged in the classroom, in that, 'No, we're not going to have any reconciliation. We're not even going to have any truth.'
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And that's unfortunate because that's where we are as educators. And you, and I and everyone who has appeared on this podcast, we're all just simply trying to tell some truth so that we can bend that arc, do our part to help bend that arc towards justice.
Bethany Jay: And I will say, the response I get from my students when they're hearing these things for the first time, as 19, 20, 21-year-olds in college, is real frustration that they hadn't heard it before. They're not frustrated with me for telling them something that's hard. They're frustrated that they didn't know it before.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Yeah.
Bethany Jay: They hadn't heard it before. A majority of my students are not African American students. And so I recognize that they wouldn't have confronted these issues, that if I taught Black students that they would be more knowledgeable, at least about what it is to live with racism in this country.
But kids are ready to hear this. They want to know. You know, Steven Oliver back in the first season told us, ‘Look, our students aren't coming to us as blank slates. They're living in this world. Whether they are Black or white, they have knowledge that racism exists. What they don't have is any way to understand its context and to know where it comes from. That's what we have to give them in our classrooms.’
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: You know, one of the things that too many of our students aren't given, too many of our students don't know, is the tradition of Black congressional representation coming out of that Reconstruction era. So this is one of the hallmarks of the Jim Crow era, the beginning of it. One of the legacies being that lack of Black representation coming out of Reconstruction.
Bethany Jay: Mm hmm.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And so I asked my brother, as a sitting U.S. congressman, to reflect on that.
One of the most historic things about the Reconstruction era, in addition to the passage of the Reconstruction Acts and then Amendments, was the election of African Americans, African American men specifically at the time, to the halls of power. And there is that Reconstruction moment where you have Black elected officials, or surge in Black elected officials. And then they are systematically removed from office, as we move into the 1870s and 1880s. And then you get the disenfranchisement constitutions, and it's impossible for Black folk to vote. Black folk can't vote, they can't elect African Americans to public office.
Then we see the Voting Rights Act, the groundswell of organizing to put the ballot back in Black hands. And we have the Black power movement, which is very much focused on electing African Americans to public office. And so, 50 years later, here you are sitting in Congress. How do you see your role as a African American who is a Congressman? Because we don't play the colorblind stuff, right? Come on, man. We weren't raised like that. So, how does that impact how you walk through the world? But then also, how you legislate in this world?
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: First of all, you never thought that hip hop would take it this far.
It's an honor to have the opportunity to serve in the United States Congress. To be elected as chair of the House Democratic Caucus. Represent the people of the eighth congressional district, majority-minority district, very diverse. I have the privilege of representing more Russian-speaking, Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union than any other member of Congress in the country. I mean, Hakeem Jeffries. Who knew? Only in America.
It's wonderful to have this opportunity and to be part of the Congressional Black Caucus. That's a meeting that I never miss. And it's every Wednesday. It's at 12 o'clock. And we get together as CBC folks to talk about justice, and strengthening our community and strengthening America. You know, being a part of the Congressional Black Caucus was awe inspiring when I arrived. To come to Congress and see Maxine Waters, and Barbara Lee, and Charlie Rangle, and John Conyers, the great John Lewis—living legends who had done so much to advance the cause of racial, social and economic justice in the CBC. Jim Cliburn and so many others, Emanuel Cleaver. I mean, you can go through the list, Eddie Bernice Johnson.
And to be able to serve with these giants within the Congressional Black Caucus, some of whom were founders, and to also represent a district that was once represented when we were growing up in Brooklyn by Shirley Chisolm, is a legacy that I'm proud to be part of. Standing on the shoulders of giants, like Shirley Chisholm. Understanding that the Baton has been passed to the current members of the Congressional Black Caucus to continue to make sure that this concept of equal protection under the law applies to every community, including the Black community. That liberty and justice for all applies to every community, including the Black community, and brown communities and immigrant communities.
That's the promise of America. And we have to continue to work to make sure that America keeps that promise, builds upon the legacy of people like John Lewis and others who believe that continuing change is possible. Dr. King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” And I always reflect upon that. And I think about what Dr. King meant is that in this world there are good folks and there are rough folks. But what we need for justice to prevail, to perfect our society, to make sure that we truly can arrive at colorblind society, is that good folks need to continue to be in the arena.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Well, I look forward to continuing to watch you, as you do the work that you were sent here to do. And certainly that our parents, and our grandparents, and our uncles and our aunts, wanted us to do as well.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: And let me just shout out Asha, Aliana and Alayla. My three, beautiful, intelligent nieces.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Well they'll be happy for that. And I'm sure they'll text you their thanks, sir.
Congressman Hakeem Jefferies, thank you very much for making the time to join us on the podcast. If you didn't, I was going to tell Mom. So I'm glad I didn't have to go nuclear to get you on. Thanks a lot.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Great to be here.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Love you, man.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Love you, Bro.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Appreciate it.
Bethany Jay. I love you, too, Bethany Jay.
Bethany Jay: I love you, Hassan.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: This was an amazing season. We covered so much, such important history. And I enjoyed the interviews that I was able to conduct. And I really enjoyed sitting back and listening to you do the interviews that you did.
Bethany Jay: Likewise.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: This is great. That's it for us this year.
Bethany Jay: It is.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Another season in the books, Jim Crow. I certainly want to thank, on behalf of my co-host, I think it's safe to say, to thank all of the guests who appear,
Bethany Jay: Oh, my goodness.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: To thank everyone behind the scenes, whose voices you never hear— Shea and Miranda and so many others—for making this happen.
Bethany Jay: Yes. I began this season being terrified of what it was going to be, and I ended up having just an absolute great time and learning so much too. So I was really, really excited to be part of it. Thanks so much.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Absolutely. And to everyone who listens, be sure to share it with your friends and colleagues. And stay in touch. You can find us out there.
Bethany Jay: Yes.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: And we look forward to hearing from you. Take care of everybody.
Bethany Jay: Bye bye.
Teaching Hard History is a podcast from Learning for Justice—the education arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center—helping teachers and schools prepare students to be active participants in a diverse democracy. Learning for Justice provides free teaching materials about slavery, Reconstruction, the civil rights movement and more. You can find award-winning films and classroom-ready texts at LearningForJustice.org.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Most students leave high school without an understanding of the Jim Crow Era and its continuing relevance. This podcast is part of an effort to change that. In our fourth season, we put Jim Crow under the spotlight, examining its history and lasting impact.
Bethany Jay: Thanks to Congressman Hakeem Jeffries for sharing his insights with us. This podcast was produced by Mary Quintas and senior producer Shea Shackelford. Russell Gragg is our associate producer. “Music Reconstructed” is produced by Barrett Golding. And Cory Collins provides content guidance. Amelia Gragg is our intern. Kate Shuster is the series creator. And our managing producer is Miranda LaFond.
Bethany Jay: I’m Dr. Bethany Jay, Professor of History at Salem State University.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries : I’m Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Bethany Jay: And we’re your hosts for Teaching Hard History.
References
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- Congress.gov, H.R.5682 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): FIRST STEP Act
- U.S. House, Judiciary Committee
- Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson
- The Heritage Foundation, About Heritage
- Congress.gov, S.1789 - 111th Congress (2009-2010): Fair Sentencing Act of 2010
- Teaching Hard History podcast, Season 3: The Civil Rights Movement
- Teaching Hard History podcast, Criminalizing Blackness: Prisons, Police and Jim Crow
- Congress.gov, H.R.5 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Equality Act
- Teaching Hard History podcast, The New Deal, Jim Crow and the Black Cabinet
- BlackPast, Black and Tan Republicans
- National Constitution Center, The Reconstruction Amendments
- Teaching Hard History podcast, Building Black Institutions: Autonomy, Labor and HBCUs
- Congress.gov, H.R.40 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act
- Teaching Hard History podcast, Dealing With Things As They Are: Creating a Classroom Environment
- U.S. House, Congressional Black Caucus
- National Women's History Museum, Shirley Chisholm
Music Reconstructed: Lara Downes’ Classical Perspective on Jim Crow
Installment 4
From concertos to operas, Black composers captured the changes and challenges facing African Americans during Jim Crow. Renowned classical pianist Lara Downes is bringing new appreciation to the works of artists like Florence Price and Scott Joplin. In our final installment of Music Reconstructed, Downes discusses how we can hear the complicated history of this era with historian Charles L. Hughes.
Music
- Lara Downes “French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816: Sarabande” from 13 Ways of Looking At the Goldberg (Bach Reimagined) (2011)
- Lara Downes “Fantasie Nègre No. 4 in B minor” from Florence Price Piano Discoveries (2020)
- Lara Downes “Fantasie negre” from America Again (2016)
- Lara Downes “Sketches in Sepia” from Florence Price Piano Discoveries (2020)
- Lara Downes “The Entertainer” from REFLECTIONS: Scott Joplin Reconsidered (2022)
- Lara Downes “Treemonisha: Prelude (Arr. by Lara Downes)” from REFLECTIONS: Scott Joplin Reconsidered (2022)
- Lara Downes & Brooklyn Youth Chorus “Treemonisha: A Real Slow Drag (Arr. by Stephen Buck)” from REFLECTIONS: Scott Joplin Reconsidered (2022)
- Lara Downes “Piano Sonata No. 2, ‘Concord, Mass 1840-1860’: III. The Alcotts” (Charles Ives) from Lara Downes: American Ballads (2001)
- Lara Downes & Toshi Reagon “Steal Away (After Ives's Piano Sonata No. 2 ‘Concord’)” from Some of These Days (2020)
Transcript
Bethany Jay: Classical music may not be the first thing you think of when you think about Jim Crow. But in the early 20th century, Black composers captured the changes and challenges facing African Americans. From concertos to operas, their music offers us a frequently overlooked window into life during this period.
I’m Bethany Jay and this is “Music Reconstructed,” from Teaching Hard History. It takes research to re-think, re-mix and re-imagine music. The results can reveal insights into history for educators and students. In this special four-part series, music expert and historian Charles Hughes brings us conversations with contemporary musicians who are exploring the sounds, songs and stories of the Jim Crow era through their music.
In our final installment, Charles introduces us to the renowned classical pianist Laura Downes. As she reflects on her own musical journey, Downes shows us how we can hear the history of the Jim Crow era in the works of African American composers like Florence Price and Scott Joplin.
I’m so glad you could join us. Here's Charles.
[Lara Downes “Sketches in Sepia” (Price)]
Charles Hughes: When we think about the rich traditions of African American music. One thing that sometimes gets left out is the rich contribution of Black composers and performers to the world that we generally call classical music.
But despite this Black artists have made hugely significant contributions to these traditions. And many of these accomplishments occurred in the period of Reconstruction and Jim Crow. The worlds of concert and operatic music were transformed by Black folks in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
And no one is doing more important work to both care for that tradition and make it newly relevant than our guest today, the celebrated composer and pianist, Lara Downes. Downes is an award-winning recording artist, and she's been supported by organizations, including the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Classical Recording Foundation.
She foregrounds the building of community, including hosting a series called Amplify on NPR, where she discusses music as a vehicle for historical and contemporary change, and Rising Sun Music, a series of recordings that spotlight the work of Black composers throughout American history.
In our conversation, we talked about her album REFLECTIONS: Scott Joplin Reconsidered, which rethinks and remixes the legendary, but still underappreciated Ragtime innovator, Scott Joplin. And then we talked about the groundbreaking work of Black woman composer, Florence Price, an album that Downes recorded called Piano Discoveries, which spotlights work that Price composed in the early 20th century. And, as you'll hear about, Downes discovered through a very historically minded method.
[Lara Downes “French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816: Sarabande” (Bach)]
Lara Downes: I started playing the piano, the way that many musicians do, when I was very, very young. So by the time I was four years old, I was pretty much committed. It sounds crazy, but I was. I was practicing the piano every day by the time I was four years old. And I loved it.
So my early years at the instrument were lived in a world where I absolutely didn't belong, in some ways. Right? The music that I was playing came from the 18th and 19th centuries. It was written by white men. It was sort of my destiny that I was going to spend my life working with music that spoke to me so profoundly on one level but did not contain my story.
And then at a certain point, I just kind of had a suspicion that there was more to the story. And I started investigating. You know, ‘Were there no women who wrote American music? Were there are no people of color who wrote American music?’ And very quickly I found out there is an entire broad, deep tradition of music that very, very much reflects me. And that changed my life.
[Lara Downes “Fantasie Nègre No. 4 in B minor” (Price)]
Lara Downes: I remember so clearly going to a library and finding an anthology called A Century of Music by Black Women Composers. To me—I don't even know how to explain this well—it's really like, it was like finding a secret room, you know, that I didn't know, was there, in a house I thought I knew. And opening up the doors to that room, you know, for everyone to come in.
In that collection, there was a piece by Florence Price called “Fantasie Nègre,” which, I mean it means “Black Fantasy.”
[Lara Downes “Fantasie negre” (Price)]
Lara Downes: At first, she's kind of letting the pianist show off. There's like a lot of pyrotechnics and you're just kind of being big and romantic and like virtuoso at the keyboard. Then there's this moment when all of that segues into this very intimate spiritual called “Sinner, Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass.” All the fanciness and the flash just goes away. And now we're in church, and I think everybody leans in and listens.
There just a sound to that piece that I had not encountered before. It's kind of a mix of this 19th century, European romantic style, but the piece itself comes from Black spirituals. So it's like two languages coming together and creating a new language, and it just totally blew my mind.
Florence Price, she became a very important figure in the Black Renaissance in Chicago, in the 1930s. And she actually made history as the first Black woman ever to have her music performed by a major American symphony orchestra. That was in 1933.
And then towards the end of her life, I think the popularity of her music just sort of died. She died in the early fifties. And it wasn't until 2009 that most of her music was discovered in an abandoned house that she had used as a summer house during her life. And they found all these boxes of manuscripts that were mildewed, and torn, and crumpled up and, you know, full of rodents. I mean really trash. It was eventually taken down to the archives at the University of Arkansas and kept there.
And I was visiting with a friend who's a musicologist. And I said, “You know, I just keep thinking about those boxes in the library in Arkansas. There's gotta be more piano music in there.”
And he went down there and started looking through. And, sure enough, there's a whole album, and much more, that came out of what was found in those boxes.
[Lara Downes “Sketches in Sepia” (Price)]
Lara Downes: One of the pieces I really love by Florence Price is called “Sketches in Sepia.” And it sort of takes a journey through different styles of music and different moods. There is kind of this, like, Ragtime section, but then it also gets really lyrical and romantic. And I think it's very nostalgic. You know, as you can imagine from the title, it's sort of looking back at like faded old photographs.
Hearing this music—especially if I'm successful in presenting it—I think it gives us access to the experiences of people who lived, you know, a hundred some years ago. Music brings stories alive, and it brings people alive. And it lets us connect. And that's, I mean, that is history.
[Lara Downes “The Entertainer” (Joplin)]
Lara Downes: Well, so many of these composers I'm working with, Florence Price, all of the others, these are names that are not known to the general American public. Scott Joplin's different. A lot of people do know his name. A few tunes of his got super popular because they were in his movie in 1973 called The Sting. Everybody learned how to play “The Entertainer” as a kid. In the 1970s, there was a revival of music by Scott Joplin who wrote his music at the turn of the 20th century.
There was a kind of hope at that moment. Slavery has just been abolished. And so to grow up as a Black American in that first generation that's born into freedom, that's what made it possible for somebody like Joplin to have a vision that seems insane, right? He is trying to not only become so successful in the field of Ragtime, which is a brand new kind of American popular music. But he's also convinced that he's going to write the first great African American opera, which is an art form that is completely outside of any experience that Black people have been involved with, and Americans in general. It's a European high art form. And he's going to write this great opera, and change history and change the course of music. And I think that's only possible because hope is so powerful, so undiluted.
[Lara Downes “Treemonisha: Prelude” (Joplin)]
Lara Downes: So Treemonisha is an opera that tells a story about the power of education. The plot is about this young girl who leads her community to freedom. And these con men who are trying to fool people through sort of superstition and lack of knowledge. So it's about the power of knowledge and the power that that gives us to control our destiny.
The album begins with this little prelude from Treemonisha, And musically, you hear all of his roots. He grew up learning classical music as a little boy in Texas. And, you know, he kept studying classical music, even though he was making his living as a Ragtime artist.
I grew up, as I said, feeling, you know, very isolated as a little brown girl in this very white male European world of classical music. I hope that the work I'm doing changes that reality for the next generation of little Black and brown kids who fall in love with this music.
And for me, it was really important to have that presence on the album, that next generation presence. So I collaborated with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus on “A Real Slow Drag,” which is the final number from Joplin's opera Treemonisha.
[Lara Downes & Brooklyn Youth Chorus “Treemonisha: A Real Slow Drag” (Joplin)]
Lara Downes: I wanted to take it away from, like, a serious operatic place, maybe uproot it from its time. But just to present him as this super innovative, visionary American artist, who really changed our music. And then to put that sound at the end of the album, that is, you know, literally the sound of the future. It's a really beautiful way to broaden the definitions of what we're talking about when we're talking about classical music and make it so much more fun, and welcoming and like a healthy place to be.
Charles Hughes: One of the things that strikes me so much about Lara Downes, beyond her incredible expertise, is the way in which she also is demonstrating how music not only teaches us about history but offers us a kind of way to do history. In the music of Scott Joplin or in the music of Florence Price, Lara Downes hears this historical dialogue, right, the way in which the United States was changing and the way in which African Americans were seizing the opportunities of freedom, while also dealing with the continuing limitations of a Jim Crow world.
This is the final episode of Music Reconstructed. And we thought in this last time, we would leave you with a little something extra, because another of Lara Downes’s remarkable albums is called Some of These Days, from 2020, in which downs considers and engages the tradition of spirituals and freedom songs.
And on one track in particular, she works with an artist named Toshi Reagon, an incredibly powerful and innovative singer songwriter and performer. But Toshi Reagon also has an even more direct connection to this tradition.
Toshi Reagan's mother is Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, who began her career as an activist and artist with the SNCC Freedom Singers during the Civil Rights Movement and later went on to form the great Sweet Honey in the Rock. So here's Lara Downes now talking about her interpretation with Toshi Reagon of the spiritual “Steal Away.”
[Music: Toshi Reagon “Steal Away” (demo)]
Lara Downes: Toshi Reagan and I had wanted to do a collaboration as part of this album, Some of These Days. And then one day she just sent me this track that she had laid down a version of the spiritual “Steal Away.”
Then I took my mom to see the movie Harriet about Harriet Tubman. And there's this scene where she finally gets to Philadelphia. And, all of a sudden, there are Black people walking around the streets of the city and they're dressed in fine clothing. They are educated, and they're a part of a society that she could not have dreamed of a day before that.
So the movie's over. My mom always likes to sit through all the credits, and I'm like yanking her out of her seat saying. “We have to go home, because I have this idea.”
[Music: Lara Downes “Piano Sonata No. 2, ‘Concord, Mass 1840-1860’” (Charles Ives)]
Lara Downes: So we get home, and I go to my piano. And I started playing the “Concord Sonata” by Charles Ives, which is a really interesting piece of music because he wrote it at exactly the same time. But he's way up in Concord, Massachusetts, and he's an abolitionist. He's living in this community of abolitionists, and they're thinking about this kind of utopian version of America that focuses on freedom of mind, and freedom of speech and all these things.
[Music: Lara Downes & Toshi Reagon “Steal Away (After Ives's Piano Sonata No. 2 ‘Concord’)”]
Lara Downes: So I start playing these weird chords of Ives’ music with Toshi’s track. And it was like this magical amalgam of two different places—like two versions of America—coming together.
I think it's one of the best things I've ever done.
Bethany Jay: Thanks to Ms. Downes for sharing her insights and her art with us. And thanks too to our resident music correspondent, historian Charles L. Hughes. Dr. Hughes is the Director of the Lynne & Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes College and the author of Why Bushwick Bill Matters and Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South.
You can find a complete list of the songs you heard in the show notes—along with a full transcript and links to helpful classroom resources. Visit us at LearningForJustice.org/podcasts.
Teaching Hard History is a podcast from Learning for Justice—the education arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center—helping teachers and schools prepare students to be active participants in a diverse democracy.
“Music Reconstructed” is produced by Barrett Golding. Our senior producer is Shea Shackelford. Russell Gragg is our associate producer. Cory Collins provides content guidance. Kate Shuster is the series creator. And our managing producer is Miranda LaFond. I’m Dr. Bethay Jay, Professor of History at Salem State University and your host for Teaching Hard History.
References
- Smithsonian Magazine, How Black Composers Shaped the Sound of American Classical Music
- Lara Downes, About Lara
- NPR, Amplify With Lara Downes’
- Lara Downes, Rising Sun Music
- Lara Downes, REFLECTIONS: Scott Joplin Reconsidered
- The Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival, Joplin Biography
- BBC News, Florence Price: Forgotten work by pioneering composer rediscovered
- Florence Price, Biography
- Helen Walker-Hill (editor), Black Women Composers: A Century of Piano Music (1893-1990)
- Myrna Summers, Sinner Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass
- Music by Black Composers, Our Composers Collage
- WTTW Chicago, From Riots to Renaissance: The Black Renaissance
- University of Arkansas Libraries, Florence Price
- Library of Congress, Scott Joplin, 1868-1917
- The New York Times, Comfort Viewing: 3 Reasons I Love ‘The Sting’
- NPR: The Picture Show, Reconsidering Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer'
- Library of Congress, Treemonisha
- Library of Congress, History of Ragtime
- Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Education
- Toshi Reagon, About Toshi
- Bernice Johnson Reagon, About Dr. Reagon
- SNCC, Freedom Singers
- Sweet Honey in the Rock, About Sweet Honey
- Fisk Jubilee Singers, “Steal Away To Jesus” (c. 1920)
- Smithsonian Magazine, The True Story Behind the Harriet Tubman Movie
- National Park Service, Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park
Music Reconstructed: Adia Victoria and the Landscape of the Blues
Installment 3
When we consider the trauma of white supremacy during the Jim Crow era—what writer Ralph Ellison describes as “the brutal experience”—it’s important to understand the resilience and joy that sustained Black communities. We can experience that all through the “near-comic, near-tragic lyricism” of the blues. In part 3 of this series, acclaimed musician, songwriter and poet Adia Victoria talks with Charles L. Hughes about how the bittersweet nature of blues does “the very emotionally mature work of acknowledging” this complex history.
Music
- Adia Victoria "Me and the Devil" from Silences (2019)
- Adia Victoria "Stuck in the South" from Beyond the Bloodhounds (2016)
- Adia Victoria "South Gotta Change" (2020)
- Blind Willie McTell "You Was Born to Die" (1933)
- Adia Victoria "You Was Born to Die" from A Southern Gothic (2021)
- Adia Victoria "Magnolia Blues" from A Southern Gothic (2021)
Transcript
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: The Jim Crow era was a rough time for African Americans. In every area of life, they faced inequality and racial violence. Despite the hardship and terror, they persevered. They did not let hate stamp out their love, or pain eliminate their joy. And we can hear that bittersweet blend of hard history when we listen to the blues.
I'm Hasan Kwame Jeffries and this is "Music Reconstructed," from Teaching Hard History. When music is re-thought, re-mixed and re-imagined, that takes research. And the results can reveal insights into history for educators and students. During this special, four-part series, music expert and historian Charles Hughes brings us conversations with contemporary musicians who are exploring the sounds, songs and stories of the Jim Crow era through their music.
In this episode, Charles introduces us to musician, songwriter, poet and host of the Call & Response podcast, Adia Victoria. On her album, A Southern Gothic, Victoria blends history with the contemporary—the collective with the personal—as she shows us how the blues, as she puts it, is "doing the very emotionally mature work of acknowledging these troubling emotions that are as human as joy." Here's Charles.
[Music: Adia Victoria "Me and the Devil"]
Charles Hughes: Adia Victoria is one of the great contemporary blues musicians, someone who draws on the traditions of Robert Johnson, and Memphis Minnie, and Victoria Spivey and all the blues greats, very much in the tradition of the blues as a way to think about and understand experiences.
From the very beginning blues music was connected not only to the way that African Americans had to survive and had to figure out ways to live in a Jim Crow society, but it was also connected to the way in which their lives and experiences could be celebrated, could be re-imagined, could be remixed.
But she is also in the lineage of all the other Southern Black women who have used blues and a blues identity in order to try to push not only for greater change in their moment but a larger rethinking of American history.
She has released several acclaimed albums, her most recent being 2020's A Southern Gothic. And one of the things that she does throughout her work and she did throughout our conversation was she talked about how important it is to reckon with who you are and where you come from. And so it's very appropriate that we begin today with her song, which was digging deep into that history and that identity, as she tried to figure out what it meant for her to be, as she said at the time, "Stuck in the South."
[Music: Adia Victoria "Stuck in the South"]
Adia Victoria: "Stuck in the South" was a song that I wrote the evening of the murder of Trayvon Martin. It brought me back to when I was 16 in high school. And I learned about the lynching of Emmett Till.
I feel that that sense of security was taken from me. You knew that Southern black children had been enslaved, but it reminded me that the South would eat its children to preserve the adults' fear.
I grew up a Black, Southern girl in South Carolina. My family goes back in South Carolina 400 years. And so being Black and being female, you're put in a position where you're able to observe how power gets made, how power is transferred. But also more importantly, why? Why do the adults act this way? What do they need from me? Why is it being asked of me to carry on these traditions?
That unquenchable need to ask why and question authority is what landed me in the position that I am today, as an artist, as a social troll, as a social commentator is the question of why and seeing the ways that one word strikes fear in the heart of authority figures.
[Music: Adia Victoria "South Gotta Change"]
Adia Victoria: "South Gotta Change" was written in the summer of 2020, following the passing of John Lewis. I guess what people call the George Floyd moment, but, you know, for Black Americans, that's just another day in America.
And I found myself vacillating between that cynicism of ‘this is how it is' and the path that John Lewis traveled. It's a harder path.
It even seemed delusional that you'd go out there on the [Edmund] Pettus Bridge and expect anything other than what happened to happen. But, you know, the system can deal with cynicism. The system cannot deal with truth.
I view "Stuck in the South" and "South Gotta Change" as a growing up of my relationship with the South. There's a lot of learned helplessness in "Stuck in the South," defeatism almost in it of anger and a rage. But in "South Gotta Change," years later, I found a way to grow that rage into something and to take it off my shoulders and put it back on the people that it belongs to.
And again, speaking to the South as a family member, speaking to the white South, and it's kind of asking them, ‘What are you running from? What are these ghosts?' Like, ‘Whatever you're running from can't be worse than the soul death that you're experiencing because you're too afraid to just to challenge it.' I think that that's what John Lewis, he was asking young children to do when he asked him to engage in "good trouble."
[Music: Blind Willie McTell "You Was Born to Die"]
Adia Victoria: I realized too, that the blues for me had offered my first sense of Black Southern community. And when I finally met the music of the blues, I was in my early twenties in Atlanta. I was a high school dropout. I was a telemarketer. And I was lost. And so finding Skip James, and Victoria Spivey, and Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf, it saved me. It gave me a reason to preserve my own life.
And so "You Was Born to Die" is a song that I'd been listening to quite a bit. Whenever my anxiety would peak, I would go and sit under the Magnolia tree and remind myself that death is inevitable. It is as natural as birth. Life is a transitional experience.
So I wanted to feature Blind Willie McTell's "You Was Born to Die" as an homage to the blues that came before me, the blues that paved the path that I walked down now. And that's how that song was born. It was another instance of the blues saving my life.
[Music: Adia Victoria "You Was Born to Die"]
Adia Victoria: People see the blues as like suffer music or like tragedy porn. But I don't see it as that. I see it as doing the very emotionally mature work of acknowledging these troubling emotions that are as human as joy. And I think that's what the blues was for my ancestors. And it certainly was what the blues was for me.
And it gave me a way to contextualize my life and my experiences. The blues for me was life affirming. It was validating. It was the greatest heirloom that I ever received.
What all can you take from a human being? Basically sentence them to social death, as my ancestors were, and what remains there. And I thought about these folks who had been sentenced to slavery in perpetuity, not just their own selves, but their offspring, as far as they knew. And even in those circumstances, they were finding ways to express their humanity.
There was still the strive to express oneself. Even if you had been stripped down to just a pickaxe and the land that you have to work.
And I started thinking about the ways that the land, you know, informs the Southerner. The way that it's not just a backdrop. It's the land and nature as a scene of self encounter.
[Music: Adia Victoria "Magnolia Blues"]
Adia Victoria: And I had my magnolia tree that was blooming, you know, in my backyard. And that magnolia tree, I started going into sort of communion with it, and what the Magnolia tree has stood for, the myth-making and the imagery of the south, Moonlight magnolias.
And I asked the magnolia tree, ‘What is your truth beyond those lies? What memories do we share?'
So my song, "Magnolia Blues" was birthed out of those conversations. ‘What does this tree mean to me? What does this land mean to me?' And you know, when I think about educators, I think about my own education in the south as a little girl in Spartanburg was, the greatest education that I had was being out in the country in Campobello, around my grandmother's house, of just ‘How does this land speak to me? How does this land inform me and challenge me and shape me?' And, you know, I think that that's a great untapped resource that Southern educators, it would behoove them to lean into, as they're shaping and creating and challenging young minds.
I would encourage educators, take the kids outside, sit in a circle in silence and talk to the land. And don't try and be the teacher, the authority, the expert. Be the beginner. Let yourself be a beginner and a child with the land around you.
[Music: Adia Victoria "Me and the Devil"]
Charles Hughes: It is so striking to hear the connections between this idea of sitting with the land and listening to the land with a kind of teaching that I learned from a historian named William Cronin, who along with his graduate students developed this idea of reading the landscape. Of taking students out into nature or out into an urban environment, whatever kind of landscape you're around, and reading it as we would read a book or as we would read a historical document, to learn from it and to think about what it can tell us.
Living is not just about survival. It is also about determining one's own relationship to one's surroundings, one's community, one's existence, in a way that is equally as rich and complicated and important as any kind of more canonical, philosophical, or spiritual tradition.
The great writer Ralph Ellison talks about the blues as being an impulse to figure out a way to live within what he calls "the brutal experience." And he says that one must "finger the jagged grain" of that experience, in order to draw from it "a near-comic, near-tragic lyricism."
And what strikes me so deeply about Adia Victoria's work, beyond just how compelling it is, and how powerful her music is, and how loud it can be and how wonderfully connected it is to so many musical traditions, is that she reminds us through her own work and through what she calls on all of us to do, that's the only way really to learn. Whether it's learning from the music of the past, learning from the people of the past or sometimes just learning from the land and being where you are, so that you can figure out where you need to go. And I think she is such a powerful voice in this conversation. If anybody teaches hard history through their music, Adia Victoria surely does it.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries: Thanks to Adia Victoria for sharing her insights and her art with us. And thanks too to my good friend and our music correspondent, historian Charles L. Hughes. Dr. Hughes is the Director of the Lynne & Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes College and the author of Why Bushwick Bill Matters and Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South.
Teaching Hard History is a podcast from Learning for Justice—the education arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center—helping teachers and schools prepare students to be active participants in a diverse democracy.
"Music Reconstructed" is produced by Barrett Golding. Our senior producer is Shea Shackelford. Russell Gragg is our associate producer. Cory Collins provides content guidance. Kate Shuster is the series creator. And our managing producer is Miranda LaFond. I'm Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University and your host for Teaching Hard History.
References
- The New York Times, Robert Johnson, Bluesman Whose Life Was a Riddle
- Memphis Music Hall of Fame, Memphis Minnie
- Black Music Scholar, Victoria Spivey: Black Snake Blues
- The New York Times, John Lewis, Towering Figure of Civil Rights Era, Dies at 80
- The Washington Post, Renaming the Edmund Pettus Bridge for John Lewis, who nearly died there on Bloody Sunday
- Dawn Porter, John Lewis: Good Trouble (film)
- All About Blues Music, Skip James
- Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Howlin' Wolf
- New Georgia Encyclopedia, "Blind Willie" McTell
- Urban Dictionary, Moonlight and magnolia
- William Cronin, Reading Landscapes - Learning Historical Research
- Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright's Blues, by R. Ellison
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