June 19, 2020 • 12 mins
Holly and Tracy discuss the nuances of what becomes historically significant in our troubled times, and then the continued relevance of James Baldwin's work.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Casual Friday.
I'm Holly Fry. I'm Tracy P. Wilson. So Tracy, I
always feel spoiled when I get to talk to people
from the History Center because I of that whole staff.
(00:23):
UM and Sheffield and Michael were both super fun to
talk to. You. It was interesting because Sheffield, you know,
really was so frank with me about you know, the
hardest parts of this whole thing, which for the History
Center are are financial. You know, this whole thing happened
when places like the History Center and other museums like
(00:46):
right in the window where they're normally booking a wedding
every weekend or a special event every weekend, and none
of those things can happen. And you know, he mentioned
also that they're having to move around their fundraising gala
and hope only it will still happen. And that's one
of those things that Um I hadn't given a whole
lot of thought. There are so many things that we
(01:07):
have all been juggling in our brains when we were
just dealing with coronavirus and now with all of the
protests and upheaval and fights for equality that are going
on as a consequence of George Floyd's murder and Brianna's murder.
Um that it's hard to keep in mind all of
(01:28):
the facets of these things, and so it just made
me think about my role and what I can do
to make sure like that I am prioritizing, you know,
donations to museums that I would normally be donating to anyway,
but like, this is not a year where I can go, oh,
I forgot that envelope and didn't get it done or whatever. Yeah,
(01:49):
especially when it is places like I really love the
History Center because their mission is so much about being
for everyone to connect to the community and history and
in our our city and what it has been through
and what it goes through, and what all of this
means to each of us, both as a group and individually.
So if you similarly have a museum or a history
(02:13):
center or some other facility in your town that you
really love and you have the means obviously, Um, I
know this has been a financially hard time for a
lot of people, but if you can, you know, think
about those places too when you're when you're allocating your
funds that you would normally give to charity in any
given year. But I liked making sure that all of
the animals are taken care of History Center, because I
(02:37):
really was. He mentioned it before I even brought it
up to him, but I was, like the goats and
the sheep um and I'm glad they had a very
very carefully developed system to make sure all of those
animals were cared for while humans did not come in
contact with one another, which is pretty cool. Uh. And
then Michael's insights about just how what we see is
(03:00):
mundane will become very very important pieces of this story
in the future. Once again, it gives you that moment
to reflect on our own lives and what we value,
what we think of as valuable, and what we don't
think of as valuable, because, as he mentioned, artifacts from
and that pandemic are hard to come by because people
thought of them as disposable. They weren't thinking about them
(03:23):
as historically significant. So it's it's an important thing. I
think that they're making people think about the fact, like, no,
like those weird hand sanitizer bottles, those are historically significant
because it was a defining element of this time of
our lives. It makes me look at everything I touch
in a new way. Now, is this diet coke bottle
(03:46):
historically significant? Is this sneaker historically significant? Uh? Yeah, um
It we alluded to this a little bit, um, and
we have alluded to it a little in other episodes,
But like, it feels kind of weird to still be
talking about the pandemic when, um, like the news cycle
has moved on and people's attention has moved on two
(04:09):
the social justice and rout and racism and protests and
all of that, And I am starting to see, um,
maybe not to the same extent as has been the
case with the pandemic, but starting to see efforts to
do things like collect the protests signs um and collect
(04:30):
the flyers that people are distributing, and like that, collecting
objects that are related to the protests of being going on,
because it's clear that this also is a historical moment
happening at the same time as the pandemic that's still ongoing,
even though it really feels like a lot of people
have mentally moved on from it. Yeah, I mean, you know,
(04:55):
there are plenty of places where numbers are going back up,
so everyone continue to stay safe. You. I'm glad you
brought that up, because it's one of the things I
want to Um. I mean, I'm confident the History Center
is doing something similar with that. They posted a little
a short blog about it and and their thoughts and
(05:17):
kind of the official statement about what's going on, but
it didn't detail whether or not they're doing how they're
handling collecting artifacts. But I'm sure they are because there
they are so aware of of big events in our
our evolving history that they are usually pretty on top
of making sure that they collect such things. So I'm
(05:38):
curious what they are amassing in their collections, and we'll
find out eventually, I imagine. So this week we talked
about James Baldwin. Indeed we did. I don't often get
to the end of writing an episode and feel like
I still don't know if I did this person justice.
But I feel that way about James Baldwin. Um. I
(05:59):
think that's valid. I mean, he was a lot of
person and a prolific writer, and it's hard to encapsulate that. Yeah. Yeah, Um.
As as I was working on this, I did a
thing that I do sometimes, which is like look at
the library waitlists for things, um because as when I
(06:19):
learned to check things out from libraries digitally, that was
incredibly revolutionary to my ability to get books more often.
And then especially with the pandemic where the physical library
locations um as of when we're recording this in Massachusetts
are still closed and it was like fire next time,
twenty two week waiting list. So I am glad there
(06:40):
are so many people that are um focused on checking
out and then hopefully also reading and engaging with and
uh and experiencing these works and thinking about them. Um.
I saw a tweet from a library somewhere that was like,
just remember, checking it out is just the first step, right, Yeah,
I mean it's in some ways it's cool to me,
(07:05):
and in other ways it's heartbreaking to me that the
stuff he was writing decades ago is still provocative and
thought provoking now, Like you would hope that we would
have moved further in terms of development as a society,
but have not, and we need his words again desperately. Well,
(07:25):
And it's like the conversation with with Robert F. Kennedy,
like that exact conversation is just playing out still again
and again and again among uh, you know, among particularly um,
black people, but also other like disabled people and UM
and indigenous people like trying to explain what they are
(07:45):
actually facing in their lives and how systemic it is
and how huge it is. UM, and then the people
on the receiving end who were coming from a more
privileged place that are not personally experiencing all those things
being like, but my ancestors were from Ireland, like, yeah,
it's just it's just not the same thing, and and
so yeah, it's it's reading about that being like the
(08:08):
very very similar conversation to conversations that are still happening
over and over and over everywhere today. Well, frustrating it is.
I will make the confession that we stopped a lot
because I cried throughout this whole episode. Well and I, UM,
often when I'm working on on episodes, I will have
(08:30):
a sense of what's going to feel really emotional to
one or both of us and UM, and this was
not one where I, for whatever reason predicted, uh, the
emotional response component. Yeah, I mean he's UM, he's he's
just one of those people for me. If if you
are not really familiar with James Baldwin and you just
want to kind of get a sense of it. Um.
(08:50):
There is a video of him on YouTube on The
Dick Cavett Show where Dick Cavitt brings out a guy
who I confess I don't know who he is, but
like a white philosopher um to kind of argue with
James Baldwin, and he just lays out in very clear,
specific but also accessible terminology like what it means to
(09:15):
be a black man in America and what he's talking about.
And I've seen that video float around periodically, especially over
the last a few weeks, as I mean a few
weeks as of win. This episode is coming out in
response to the to the widespread demonstrations that have been
taking place all around the United States. So yeah, that's like, uh,
(09:37):
if you need kind of an introduction to what James
Baldwin was was about, aside from what we just talked
about this week for thirty minutes, that is one place
to get a glimpse of it. There is also a
really amazing video that also floats around a bit um
that is James Baldwin's debate speech against William F. Buckley
(09:57):
and nineties. I didn't even put that in the episode.
Why didn't I? I I don't know um, And it's interesting.
I don't remember the circumstances. I know I saw that
for some reason when I was a kid, because there
was one line from it that I misquoted slightly for years. Um.
(10:19):
And then in there was a person that transcribed the
whole thing, and it also started circulating again and I
was able to get it right, and it was just
it's It's one of dozens of really you know, just poignant,
straightforward commentaries on what it is to grow up black
in America. But the thing that got me, and I
may or may not cried trying to say this quote, um,
(10:40):
is him talking about the realization that you can love
the United States and it doesn't love you back. Oh yeah, Um,
I won't even do the quote. Maybe I'll do the quote.
I will try to do the quote. He says, it
comes as a great shock around the age of five,
six or seven to discover that the flag two you
have pledged allegiance along with everybody else, has not pledged
(11:04):
allegiance to you. And like, to me, that was one
of those things that when I heard it as a kid,
it was like a slap in the face of like,
what do you mean? Like we all stand here and
do this. It's for all of us, and it was
not for all of us. And that's the first time
I really remember thinking about that issue. Yeah. Yeah. So
there's just a wealth of material by James Baldwin if
(11:26):
you are interested in learning more, and also a wealth
of material about James Baldwin, like there are multiple biographies
and articles and um the like I said in the
in the episode UM, the Tony Morrison's tribute to him
is gorgeous. I mean, other other things that were printed
from um eulogies and addresses at his funeral are are
(11:50):
really beautiful, but that one in particular struck me a lot. Um. So,
if you'd like to send us a note about anything,
where it history podcast that I heart radio dot com.
We're all over social media I miss in History, and
you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, the
I heart radio app, anywhere else to get your podcasts.
(12:12):
Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Casual Friday.
I'm Holly Fry. I'm Tracy P. Wilson. So Tracy, I
always feel spoiled when I get to talk to people
from the History Center because I of that whole staff.
(00:23):
UM and Sheffield and Michael were both super fun to
talk to. You. It was interesting because Sheffield, you know,
really was so frank with me about you know, the
hardest parts of this whole thing, which for the History
Center are are financial. You know, this whole thing happened
when places like the History Center and other museums like
(00:46):
right in the window where they're normally booking a wedding
every weekend or a special event every weekend, and none
of those things can happen. And you know, he mentioned
also that they're having to move around their fundraising gala
and hope only it will still happen. And that's one
of those things that Um I hadn't given a whole
lot of thought. There are so many things that we
(01:07):
have all been juggling in our brains when we were
just dealing with coronavirus and now with all of the
protests and upheaval and fights for equality that are going
on as a consequence of George Floyd's murder and Brianna's murder.
Um that it's hard to keep in mind all of
(01:28):
the facets of these things, and so it just made
me think about my role and what I can do
to make sure like that I am prioritizing, you know,
donations to museums that I would normally be donating to anyway,
but like, this is not a year where I can go, oh,
I forgot that envelope and didn't get it done or whatever. Yeah,
(01:49):
especially when it is places like I really love the
History Center because their mission is so much about being
for everyone to connect to the community and history and
in our our city and what it has been through
and what it goes through, and what all of this
means to each of us, both as a group and individually.
So if you similarly have a museum or a history
(02:13):
center or some other facility in your town that you
really love and you have the means obviously, Um, I
know this has been a financially hard time for a
lot of people, but if you can, you know, think
about those places too when you're when you're allocating your
funds that you would normally give to charity in any
given year. But I liked making sure that all of
the animals are taken care of History Center, because I
(02:37):
really was. He mentioned it before I even brought it
up to him, but I was, like the goats and
the sheep um and I'm glad they had a very
very carefully developed system to make sure all of those
animals were cared for while humans did not come in
contact with one another, which is pretty cool. Uh. And
then Michael's insights about just how what we see is
(03:00):
mundane will become very very important pieces of this story
in the future. Once again, it gives you that moment
to reflect on our own lives and what we value,
what we think of as valuable, and what we don't
think of as valuable, because, as he mentioned, artifacts from
and that pandemic are hard to come by because people
thought of them as disposable. They weren't thinking about them
(03:23):
as historically significant. So it's it's an important thing. I
think that they're making people think about the fact, like, no,
like those weird hand sanitizer bottles, those are historically significant
because it was a defining element of this time of
our lives. It makes me look at everything I touch
in a new way. Now, is this diet coke bottle
(03:46):
historically significant? Is this sneaker historically significant? Uh? Yeah, um
It we alluded to this a little bit, um, and
we have alluded to it a little in other episodes,
But like, it feels kind of weird to still be
talking about the pandemic when, um, like the news cycle
has moved on and people's attention has moved on two
(04:09):
the social justice and rout and racism and protests and
all of that, And I am starting to see, um,
maybe not to the same extent as has been the
case with the pandemic, but starting to see efforts to
do things like collect the protests signs um and collect
(04:30):
the flyers that people are distributing, and like that, collecting
objects that are related to the protests of being going on,
because it's clear that this also is a historical moment
happening at the same time as the pandemic that's still ongoing,
even though it really feels like a lot of people
have mentally moved on from it. Yeah, I mean, you know,
(04:55):
there are plenty of places where numbers are going back up,
so everyone continue to stay safe. You. I'm glad you
brought that up, because it's one of the things I
want to Um. I mean, I'm confident the History Center
is doing something similar with that. They posted a little
a short blog about it and and their thoughts and
(05:17):
kind of the official statement about what's going on, but
it didn't detail whether or not they're doing how they're
handling collecting artifacts. But I'm sure they are because there
they are so aware of of big events in our
our evolving history that they are usually pretty on top
of making sure that they collect such things. So I'm
(05:38):
curious what they are amassing in their collections, and we'll
find out eventually, I imagine. So this week we talked
about James Baldwin. Indeed we did. I don't often get
to the end of writing an episode and feel like
I still don't know if I did this person justice.
But I feel that way about James Baldwin. Um. I
(05:59):
think that's valid. I mean, he was a lot of
person and a prolific writer, and it's hard to encapsulate that. Yeah. Yeah, Um.
As as I was working on this, I did a
thing that I do sometimes, which is like look at
the library waitlists for things, um because as when I
(06:19):
learned to check things out from libraries digitally, that was
incredibly revolutionary to my ability to get books more often.
And then especially with the pandemic where the physical library
locations um as of when we're recording this in Massachusetts
are still closed and it was like fire next time,
twenty two week waiting list. So I am glad there
(06:40):
are so many people that are um focused on checking
out and then hopefully also reading and engaging with and
uh and experiencing these works and thinking about them. Um.
I saw a tweet from a library somewhere that was like,
just remember, checking it out is just the first step, right, Yeah,
I mean it's in some ways it's cool to me,
(07:05):
and in other ways it's heartbreaking to me that the
stuff he was writing decades ago is still provocative and
thought provoking now, Like you would hope that we would
have moved further in terms of development as a society,
but have not, and we need his words again desperately. Well,
(07:25):
And it's like the conversation with with Robert F. Kennedy,
like that exact conversation is just playing out still again
and again and again among uh, you know, among particularly um,
black people, but also other like disabled people and UM
and indigenous people like trying to explain what they are
(07:45):
actually facing in their lives and how systemic it is
and how huge it is. UM, and then the people
on the receiving end who were coming from a more
privileged place that are not personally experiencing all those things
being like, but my ancestors were from Ireland, like, yeah,
it's just it's just not the same thing, and and
so yeah, it's it's reading about that being like the
(08:08):
very very similar conversation to conversations that are still happening
over and over and over everywhere today. Well, frustrating it is.
I will make the confession that we stopped a lot
because I cried throughout this whole episode. Well and I, UM,
often when I'm working on on episodes, I will have
(08:30):
a sense of what's going to feel really emotional to
one or both of us and UM, and this was
not one where I, for whatever reason predicted, uh, the
emotional response component. Yeah, I mean he's UM, he's he's
just one of those people for me. If if you
are not really familiar with James Baldwin and you just
want to kind of get a sense of it. Um.
(08:50):
There is a video of him on YouTube on The
Dick Cavett Show where Dick Cavitt brings out a guy
who I confess I don't know who he is, but
like a white philosopher um to kind of argue with
James Baldwin, and he just lays out in very clear,
specific but also accessible terminology like what it means to
(09:15):
be a black man in America and what he's talking about.
And I've seen that video float around periodically, especially over
the last a few weeks, as I mean a few
weeks as of win. This episode is coming out in
response to the to the widespread demonstrations that have been
taking place all around the United States. So yeah, that's like, uh,
(09:37):
if you need kind of an introduction to what James
Baldwin was was about, aside from what we just talked
about this week for thirty minutes, that is one place
to get a glimpse of it. There is also a
really amazing video that also floats around a bit um
that is James Baldwin's debate speech against William F. Buckley
(09:57):
and nineties. I didn't even put that in the episode.
Why didn't I? I I don't know um, And it's interesting.
I don't remember the circumstances. I know I saw that
for some reason when I was a kid, because there
was one line from it that I misquoted slightly for years. Um.
(10:19):
And then in there was a person that transcribed the
whole thing, and it also started circulating again and I
was able to get it right, and it was just
it's It's one of dozens of really you know, just poignant,
straightforward commentaries on what it is to grow up black
in America. But the thing that got me, and I
may or may not cried trying to say this quote, um,
(10:40):
is him talking about the realization that you can love
the United States and it doesn't love you back. Oh yeah, Um,
I won't even do the quote. Maybe I'll do the quote.
I will try to do the quote. He says, it
comes as a great shock around the age of five,
six or seven to discover that the flag two you
have pledged allegiance along with everybody else, has not pledged
(11:04):
allegiance to you. And like, to me, that was one
of those things that when I heard it as a kid,
it was like a slap in the face of like,
what do you mean? Like we all stand here and
do this. It's for all of us, and it was
not for all of us. And that's the first time
I really remember thinking about that issue. Yeah. Yeah. So
there's just a wealth of material by James Baldwin if
(11:26):
you are interested in learning more, and also a wealth
of material about James Baldwin, like there are multiple biographies
and articles and um the like I said in the
in the episode UM, the Tony Morrison's tribute to him
is gorgeous. I mean, other other things that were printed
from um eulogies and addresses at his funeral are are
(11:50):
really beautiful, but that one in particular struck me a lot. Um. So,
if you'd like to send us a note about anything,
where it history podcast that I heart radio dot com.
We're all over social media I miss in History, and
you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, the
I heart radio app, anywhere else to get your podcasts.
(12:12):
Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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