February 16, 2024 • 30 mins
Episode 3 features the incredible story of Adolphus Stroud. In 1928, Adolphus Stroud qualified for the Olympic trials in the 5k race. However, as a Black man he was denied funding and transportation to get to the trials at Harvard Stadium. Undeterred, 19-year-old Adolphus walked over 2,000 miles from Colorado Springs to Cambridge, Massachusetts. His descendant Frank Shines joins Host Vanessa Tyler to share details about Adolphus' journey and the incredible accomplishments of the Stroud family despite the obstacles of racism.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on black Land. This is Black History Month. Here's
some history. The year nineteen twenty eight. Adolphus Stroud was
good and fast, good enough to be included in the
Olympic trials.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Unfortunately, despite that promise, they told them that sorry, for
whatever reason, so we can't allow you to ride on
a train, and we can't fund your travel.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's always something. But he had to get there and
determined he would travel with me to the nineteen hundreds
and the story of the Stroud family. I'm going to
let it descendant, Frank Shines peel back the layers of
this family. This black family wasn't as we typically think
in the South. They were in the West, Colorado Springs, Colorado,
(00:45):
and Frank's grandfather, Tandy Stroud, along with his grandfather's older
brother Adolphus Stroud, were athletic, academically, brilliant and black. Both
ran track. Adolphus was real fast, so fast, he was
a tender for the Olympics. Here his trial and his
trip on black Land.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
And now as a brown person, you just feel so
invisible where we're from. Brothers and sisters.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I love you to this joint fulmzay freedom.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Where we are I know someone heard something and where
we're going.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
We the people means all the people.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
The black information that work presents Blackland.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
With your host Vanessa.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Tyler, there is so much Black history not in history books,
and at a time when there are efforts to eliminate
what little of our history is told. I have a
story I'm certain you've never heard, but proves our courage
and resiliency. Here to tell it is Frank Shines who
has the Stroud family blood running through his veins.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Frank, welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Much appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
The story of the Stroud family is fascinating. Let's start
with Dulphus Stroud. Take us right back to nineteen twenty eight.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, sure will.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So the family moved in nineteen ten from Indian Territory
to Colorado Springs and that's where Dolphins grew up. And
in nineteen twenty eight is the time when he decided
that he was going to make a run for the Olympics,
and so he began to train. He was not allowed
to train or even work out on the high school
(02:30):
track or with a high school track team. So the coach,
a white coach, gave him a regiment and showed him
how to do some basic stretching and exercises and training,
and then told him to run up and down Pike's Peak,
which is the longest the largest summit there in the
Colorado Springs area, about fourteen thousand feet. So that's how
(02:51):
he began to train, and in June of nineteen twenty eight,
he won the Key Mountain Region Olympic tryouts for the
five k race that automatically qualified him for the Olympic
Trials to be held at Harvard Stadium and Cambridge. And unfortunately,
(03:17):
despite that promise, they told him that sorry, for whatever reasons,
we can't allow you to ride on a train and
we can't fund your travel.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Surprise, so you got at everything you needed, but there
was always the obstacles exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And of course his coach said, you know, you know, listen,
you've done your best, and his parents and the family,
you know, confided in him and said, you know, hey,
you know, let's just get ready for Colorado College. And
he said, no, let me spend the weekend. I'm going
to go up to the mountains as you often do.
Did and he went up to the Rocky Mountains and
(03:57):
thought about it over the weekend, came back down and
had made his decision that he was going to make
it one way or another, And so he set out
on foot a few days later on June twenty fifth,
at four a m with a forty pound backpack, a
golf club, and ten dollars in his pocket. Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So here he is a teenager in the twenties, a
black man, right going what two thousand miles from Colorado
to Harvard University where these Olympic trials.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Were exactly that's exactly it. And at that time his
brother had been writing things and been involved with anti
lynching because that was a big issue. So obviously the
family was very concerned about his safety for that reason.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
How it was going to ask you, how dangerous was
it for a black man to be traveling across the
country like that?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yes, extremely dangerous, And at that point there were only
about fifteen less than twenty percent of Americans even had cars,
so he was hoping he might get a few rides,
but of course that made things even more dangerous out
on the roads, and he encountered a lot of violent people.
He also encountered a number of people who were very
helpful and helped him along, and a lot of different ways.
(05:11):
He came across a lot of wild dogs at night,
and he had to run up trees and things of
that sort. So it wasn't it wasn't an easy going
that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Was it any kind of like underground help maybe from
black home to black home? I mean, where did he
where did he sleep? Where did he eat?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Mostly outside, many times in cemeteries along the way parks.
But yeah, he found every once in a while he
would find a black family. In fact, many times when
you know, the weather got particularly bad storms and so forth,
he would knock on doors and ask if they would
let him in or let him just sleep at the
(05:50):
back with the barn with the animals, and they would say, no,
go down the road. There's a black family somewhere down there,
another five miles, and so he would walk on and
you know, be difficult to find those black families at
that time. There also obviously wasn't much communication of any sort,
and so things that were happening by telegram. One thing
that did happen is once he arrived outside of Chicago,
(06:14):
he got news that someone on the road said, they
want you to stop by.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
The the.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Station, and he goes, what station is at the news
the news station, so it was the Chicago Daily News.
He stopped by there and they did a quick interview,
communicated information, and then put out on all the newspapers
this gentleman, Dolphus Stroud is making it for Olympics, and
and gave him a sign to put on his back
(06:42):
when he was walking. And that's when he started to
get getting rides. And that's when a lot more black
folks along the roads and so forth helped them, but
people of all colors and genders and races helped them
after that point.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Wow, so he finally makes it. What happens then?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yes, So twelve days later he arrived just six hours
before the start of the race and Darial six hours.
He writes in his notes, I spent those in the
three blocks two hours putting on you know, a black
man putting on a red, white, and blue. He took
a lot of pride, and that the reason he went
(07:18):
across is he said he was for three things, his family,
the Rocky Mountain region, and people of color around the world.
And so when we put on the uniform, he had
a lot of.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Pride in that. And then he said he was just
so tired.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
He wanted to stay awake, and that was the only
thing he could think about, so he walked along the
quarters of Harvard Stadium. He had been accepted to Harvard
in nineteen twenty five as when he graduated from high
school as the valedictorian number one. However, he couldn't afford
to go to the college. So when he was there
on the campus for the first time, he went through
(07:54):
the library he hoped about, you know, winning the Olympics,
making it to Olympics, winning the Olympics, and being able
to afford to.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Go to to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And then the last third of the time, the last
two hours he spent just trying to stay awake, warming
up and being ready for the race.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
The gun went off.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
What happened next?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Nineteen twenty five, black Man Adolphus Stroud walked two thousand miles.
He was good enough to make it to the Olympic trials,
but the color of his skin prevented him from getting
the funding like the others on the track team and traveling.
Resting on a train ride there, he walked. He was exhausted.
Could he pull it off?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
He said?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
He went to run and his legs wouldn't move. He
felt like he was running in mud and seamen, and
all of a sudden he noticed people starting to pass him. Eventually,
he made it through six laps before he finally collapsed
from malnutrition and.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Exhaustion.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Wow, but at least he made it, and at least
he ran the race. That's right, you mentioned Harvard. The
people back home in Colorado couldn't really deny his first
his athletic ability, and they couldn't deny his intelligence. Talk
about how intelligent Dolphus was.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yes, interestingly enough, And when I first began to understand
this story, I didn't know the story of my family,
be quite honest with you, which is really an unfortunate
things for many of US African Americans and even others.
But growing up, you know, at the time, Oakland, California
had one of the highest crime rates in the country.
So we were on welfare with my four younger sisters and
(09:34):
my mom. Unfortunately, she had part of the family from
my grandfather's side.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Had passed.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It had received some sort of ailment, and they eventually
thought it was originally schizophrenia or some forth. They'd also
found out it was Huntingston's disease. And because of that,
I never knew my family's story because my mom was
not always coherent and I couldn't understand half of what
she's saying, whether it was true or not, and so
forth as a kid. So consequently, I didn't know about
(10:08):
this until I was in Colorado Springs and I got
a phone call from my aunt Lulu there at the
Air Force Academy. And so that's when she had asked me.
She goes, so, how's it going to the Air Force Academy.
I've been trying to reach her for the last three days,
And I said, yeah, I was in survival training. She goes,
so how did it go? And I said, well, I
won atool of Cadets. I got the top oars and
she goes, what else are you doing here? So I said,
I'm on a gymnastics team, and so forth. She goes,
(10:29):
do you know where that comes from? And I had
no idea what she meant by that. She goes, do
you know about your grandfather of Tandy and the history
of dolphics here in Colorado Springs? And that's when I
began to understand just how prolific both of them were
as athletes, as scholar athletes, Tandy graduating number two, Dolphins
graduating number one, and so I said, Okay, there's something
(10:53):
going on here. It isn't just them, Katie. Their father
was raised was born and raised on a Texas plantation
up until age nineteen. Then they made it to Indian
Territory where he married a Creek Nation Indian lady by
the name of Lulu McGee, my great grandmother. But while
(11:13):
he was there he helped build Langston University. He attended
Langston University. He's study under the tutelage of an attorney,
and so we went to Colorado Springs. But the children
would tell us later was that they were happy to
go to school because the tests in school were so
much easier than their father Kd's. So that is really
(11:33):
where it came from. He believed in education. He tied
it to the children. He forced them to read books.
They had encyclopedias, they had a piano, they had trime bone,
they had a violin in the house. And so I
think it came from a lot of that. He had
two older siblings who I'm certain also passed on knowledge
to him as well. As he prepared to enter into
(11:55):
high school, but he was super. He was just super gifted.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, like I said, your family is fascinating. Just to
make sure for clarification, Dolphus had a brother, Tandy. That's
whore you're referring to. That was my great grandfather.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Okay, yeah, yeah, So so they were so Tandy was
Dolphice's younger brother, and they they competed. They really in
the classroom and on the field. In fact, a couple
of years after that race, Tandy was winning the Denver
Marathon and he collapsed less than a mile and a
half from the finish line, and and and Dolphics was
(12:33):
right behind him, of course, and and uh and Dolphins
went to help him. He goes, no, make sure a
shroud wins the race. I'll be okay uh.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
And they found him at the hospital several hours later.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
But Dolphins ended up winning that race against media, the
people he had competed against in the Olympics. So so yes,
the family story is as I as I got to
learn more about it, and I spent time with my
grandfather when he was eighty three. I had spent some
time back in California where he was living at the
time when I was in pilot training, And that's when
he began to tell me a lot more of the stories.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
What was it in them? You mentioned their parents, but
to make them fight and hold on to have a
place in this world, it couldn't have been easy. I
know it wasn't easy.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
In fact, what Nina told us, So Nina is we
call her the professor of the of the of the
family Nina because her her real name was number nine
is what they originally called her, because they couldn't keep
up with all these kids. So she was the ninth
of the eleven children. And so she was in California.
She was a dad junct professor at UC Berkeley, and
(13:38):
she was the first black teacher public teacher in Colorado
Springs School District. And so she kept a lot of
the history of the family that I later found out about.
And she said that to the parents that Lulu and
Katie would force the kids to be competitive and so,
and they wanted that for them because they knew how
difficult it was going to be for them when they
(14:00):
went outside of the family in a prominently white, almost
all white elementary school Bristol School and now well Colorado
Springs High School Palmer High School. Now so that's the
way they prepared them. They make sure they are very competitive.
They forced the older children to teach the younger children,
(14:21):
and they every day at the dinner table, Katie would say, Okay,
who had the smartest event in class today? And they
would all kind of vibe for Okay, I did this
or I learned this or whatever it was. So it
was a lot of internal rivalry.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You know, I think about, you know, black, a black
family in Colorado, it just seems very unique. But talk
about the roots from Africa. How did they even get
to Colorado.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, So this part of the story is it's actually
just so fascinating and and I confirmed it through my
own DNA analysis with twenty three in me as.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I was trying to really piece together everything.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
So my father's side of the family is from Nigeria,
the Shines, the Strouds are from Ghana. And in eighteen
forty two, an African girl was born believing Georgia to
the Stroud plantation there and they separated her from her
parents and ultimately she ended up on what was called
(15:30):
Pleasant Retreat. It's actually in the Library of Congress associated
with June tenth as a seminal event on June tenth.
That Stroud Plantation in Limestone County, Texas is where she
grew up and was born in eighteen forty two in Georgia,
and she apparently created a lot of incidents. She was
(15:52):
very strong willed, and at one point they beat her
quite extensively and she had scars on her back, and
their stories in the family about the head of the household,
the young lady who had done this. But the plantation owner, Mandred,
(16:15):
had an affair with the Tewaukane Indian Native American Indian
and nine months later, this child shows up on the
doorstep at the plantation, at the big house, and everybody's
wondering what's going on, and he had to confess about
the affair. He had to his wife, and so they
ostracized this kid, and so he lived with primarily live
(16:35):
with the slaves, with the Africans, and when he grew older,
and this was by now right around eighteen sixty five
time period, he wanted to marry that young lady, the
African slave. Kimball my great great grandmother. And so that's
kind of the story of how things happened. Because of
(16:57):
all the racism and all the violence there Mandred then
decided I'm going to move you guys. He'd called it
out of the country to Indian Territory, because the Indian
Territory was considered you know, a different country, right, So
he helped them move to Indian Territory. And that's where
dolphins then begin to thrive under the tutelage of the
(17:20):
professors and the teachers there at Langston University.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Wow, we are speaking with Frank Shines, a descendant of
the incredible Stroud family, a black family that fought hard
to overcome the obstacles of racism. In fact, Dolphus Stroud
in nineteen twenty eight made it to the Olympic trials,
but he had to get there, and of course they
wouldn't pay a black man's transportation across the country, so
(17:47):
he walked two thousand miles. I wanted to ask you
how did he get back to Colorado after participation.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
That's a great question. You know, almost no one ever
asked that question. They always thought what happened? They know
what happened? That was it?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Right?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I give them the cliffhanger. Oh, you're right there.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Six hours before this was the most fascinating thing he
talked about in his notes how he was hallucinating even
during at different points during the walk out during the march,
the journey out to out from Colorado to Cambridge, and
he said that, you know, before he finally fainted during
(18:24):
the sixth lap, he said that he just thought, maybe
I can make it, and then he fainted, and then
he said he woke up and he was talking to.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
This guy, Joey Ray. Now, Joey Ray was the seminal.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Long distance runner of the time, had won all of
these great world championships, and everyone knew about Joey Ray. Well,
he was talking to this gentleman. He wasn't sure who
it was. And this gentleman asked him, well, tell me
your story. How'd you get here? And you know, I
saw what happened back there. He had just assumed, apparently
that this gentleman had spoken with him right after the race.
(18:56):
It literally was two hours later, because Joey Ray found
out later his race was two hours later on the
same track. So so dolphins must have laid there just
completely out of it. And so when he later looked
at these envelope, there's an envelope that Joey Ray had
left him, and only then he did.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
He understand that this.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Was the great racer runner, Joey Ray. And there was
an envelope and it said, I understand. You know you
didn't have a plan for getting back. You only thought
about getting here. Called this gentleman or reach out to
the executive director of the Wye MCA in Boston, and
that's how he was able to spend the summer working
at restaurants. They gave him lodging. He made a boatload
(19:39):
of money, according to him, He bought a suit and
he was able to afford a first class train trip
back home. So that's how he ultimately returned back to Colorado.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Into a blaze of glory. And was Joey Ray black
or white?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
He was a white gentleman.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yes, you know. There is a photo that I saw
on your website of the family, all vintage. They're dressed
in the nines. They look wealthy, crowd determined. Do you
know which photo I'm referring.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
To as the iconic as iconic at nineteen twenty nine
photo that was actually requested from w the Boys for
the Crisis magazine, And so they sent out a photographer
because they heard about the family, but they also heard
that During that time, this Black family was flourishing because
Katie Strout had figured out a way to create a
(20:32):
trucking company to do to haul ash and also to
pick up garbage. So they created the first kind of
subscription for dumps and trash. They're in the color Rail
Springs area, and that's why the family was successful for
that short period of time before unfortunately, Katie.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Came down with Lackcolman.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
At that time, they didn't have any way to cure it,
so he became blind. But yeah, that was the story
behind that iconic.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Twenty nine Foltal beautiful photo. Your family is incredible. As
I've said, there are so many relatives that you have
and so many tangents and other stories. That's enough to
do a documentary, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yes, it is, And that's exactly what we're doing right now.
It's called Running to Harvard. And I've got a great crew,
Award winning crew cinematographer Kyle Hatchet. We got Mike pak
who's the historian photographer, a longtime friend of the family
and great friend of all of Colorado Springs and Denver.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
And then the.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Executive director, Ralph Michael Jerdonald, who's created many film festivals
and other events, and just a great filmmaker in his
own right.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Rag about yourself just a little bit more. You mentioned
something about flight school. What's your background?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yes, my background, as I mentioned earlier by Hooker Crook,
me and my older my two younger twin sisters. They
ended up dying prematurely, as did my father. My mother
for the reasons that we talked about earlier associated with
her health. But somehow my older sister and I we
made it out of the hood at that time because
(22:14):
the way things were in California, my mother automatically received
custody of us, so my father finally came back into
our lives. We moved up to Washington State when I
was thirteen years old, went to school there, and then
I just began to flourish academically as well as athletically.
Was on a gymnastics team, captain Honor Society. I was
(22:38):
a vocal jazz and cellist and got to travel around
competing in all of those different types of extracurricular activities.
And because of the Air Force Academy ultimately gave me
a presidential appointment to the Air Force Academy. I went there,
learned to fly, studied management and engineering and met the
(23:01):
Tuskegee Airmen and a number of other great people, whether
it was the Kissingers or some of the presidents and
vice presidents. It was just amazing experience the four years there,
and was the captain and MVP of the gymnastics team.
And so part of the reason Lulu was really curious
was because she was trying to help me understand the
(23:23):
connection between Dophis who had this aspiration for the nineteen
twenty eight Olympics, and here we are more than sixty
years later, and I was competing in training against Olympic
gymnasts there at the Air Force Academy and the Olympic
Training Center. So that was that's my background. I went
on to pilot training in Arizona and then went on
(23:45):
to work with the military doing management engineering, which is
kind of a combination of industrial engineering and management consulting,
and the military sent me to school, covered seventy five
percent of all my graduate studies, and since then on
to travel around the world working with IBM and Ernst
and Young lived in Brazil for over a year and
(24:06):
it's just been a really great experience and I can
only think the family and the support of a lot
of coaches and teachers, many of them black along the way,
who believed in me and then later began to understand,
you know, how to believe in myself. I understood more
about our family history and what.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
A history it is. And you were recently reunited with
a sister.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yes, oh boy, you've done your research. So yeah, this
is kind of emotional. I apologize. But when we were
separated from my mother, my mother had a young daughter, Margaret,
and had just become pregnant with a younger sibling.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
A son.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Her son would have been my younger brother, but we
never met them because we are separated. And so Margaret,
who we knew at age two, we searched everywhere, Me
and my sister searched after we graduated from high school
and college, and we just could not find out what
had happened to Margaret. And about three years ago she
(25:16):
was looking she found Stroud family. She saw another iconic
photo of Lulu Stroud of a little baby sitting in
a chair, and someone, one of her friends says that
kid looks just like you, and you're a little baby.
She goes, no, I don't think so, and she looked
around and she saw my name and saw shines and
she goes, I think this may be my family, And
(25:36):
so I got an email and I gave her a
phone call. We started talking and sure enough her name
had been changed to Lisa, but the little two year
old Margaret. Forty four years later, I got her on
a plane to show up for the opening of Race
the Opera, which we performed there in Colorado Springs at
(25:57):
the Pioneers Museum. She tended that to a sold out audience.
She was sitting right in the front and we opened
and provided the whole backdrop for you know, an African
slave who had this vision to write a song called
Anthem of Heaven and now it's being featured as part
(26:18):
of Race the Opera, and some of that music will
be included in the documentary. So yeah, that's how we
were reunited forty four years later.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Now your family also has the honor of having a
display at Colorado College. That must be great and certainly
another proun moment for the Stroud family.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yes it is.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And I got a phone call just before COVID in
December of twenty nineteen, and it was the president of
Colorado College. She knew of the work I had been
doing as a as a family historian and invited me
as well as a number of other people out, and
(27:03):
they didn't really explain what was going to happen, and
then we were met with the press and all the
honors around what was What they created was is called
the Stroud Scholars and we've since have brought in well,
I guess four different cohorts of children I shouldn't call
them children, young adults from high school all the way
(27:23):
up through college level through the program, and that first
first cohort is now in their sophomore year in colleges
around the country. And then they also dedicated the VIP floor,
the fourth floor of the Ropes and Arena, a new
arena that was created in Colorado Springs on the campus.
They dedicated that to Dophice in the family as well.
(27:47):
So it was a pretty powerful series of days and
events that took place.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
How can people learn more about your fascinating family? Just
so many layers, It's just amazing. And when will the
documentary be revealed?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
The documentary will be revealed later this year, and right
now we are on target for it happening just before
the Olympics in July knock on Wood. And the best
way to reach us is just go to Running to
Harvard dot com. Or if you want to look at
Stroud Family of Colorado, just search Stroud Family Colorado. You'll
(28:27):
see our website come up Stroudfamilycolorado dot com or running
to Harvard dot com.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
And finally, what's the message you want our people to
take away from your family's story?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah, I didn't see people like me in the textbooks.
I didn't see people like me in most of the
prestigious positions growing up in Oakland, California.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I believe you.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Know it was excited about the Apollo Mission. I had
no idea that Jack Stroud, my great uncle, was the
gentleman who wrote the formulas of safely return astronauts from
the Moon to Earth. So how many other hidden figures
are out there that we don't know of? My hope
is there are two questions I often get when I
talk about the family, go out in public speaking and
(29:15):
so forth. One is, Wow, what an incredible family. But
the other is, how did you do the background in
research to find your family? On the Shinne side of
the family, we can't find hardly anything. We've been lucky
on the stro outside of the family that we've had
some great people. So the message would be believe in
all of us. The stories that are out there are incredible,
(29:35):
and I wish everyone well and hope that perhaps in
a small way, we're in a presidential election year when
in an Olympic year, My hope is that perhaps this
untold Olympic story might just help to heal our nation
as well, because we certainly need to find a way
to work together better and reduce to polarization.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Thank you as we celebrate Blos History Month. This is
black history we need to know. Frank Shines, producer of
the documentary Running to Harvard, thank you for keeping this
legacy alive. Next time on Blackland with Vanessa Tyler, what
is it about true crime that has us hooked? We're
going in to solve that mystery. You have to hear this.
(30:20):
I talk with a sister who calls herself the longest
living Jane.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Doe, and it's taken me over twenty years of searching
for my true I Gettian to discover that I will
be missing for well over fifty years. They were on
the impression that I was psychologically unbalanced
Speaker 1 (30:41):
On The Next Blackland with Vanessa Tyler
Now on black Land. This is Black History Month. Here's
some history. The year nineteen twenty eight. Adolphus Stroud was
good and fast, good enough to be included in the
Olympic trials.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Unfortunately, despite that promise, they told them that sorry, for
whatever reason, so we can't allow you to ride on
a train, and we can't fund your travel.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's always something. But he had to get there and
determined he would travel with me to the nineteen hundreds
and the story of the Stroud family. I'm going to
let it descendant, Frank Shines peel back the layers of
this family. This black family wasn't as we typically think
in the South. They were in the West, Colorado Springs, Colorado,
(00:45):
and Frank's grandfather, Tandy Stroud, along with his grandfather's older
brother Adolphus Stroud, were athletic, academically, brilliant and black. Both
ran track. Adolphus was real fast, so fast, he was
a tender for the Olympics. Here his trial and his
trip on black Land.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
And now as a brown person, you just feel so
invisible where we're from. Brothers and sisters.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I love you to this joint fulmzay freedom.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Where we are I know someone heard something and where
we're going.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
We the people means all the people.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
The black information that work presents Blackland.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
With your host Vanessa.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Tyler, there is so much Black history not in history books,
and at a time when there are efforts to eliminate
what little of our history is told. I have a
story I'm certain you've never heard, but proves our courage
and resiliency. Here to tell it is Frank Shines who
has the Stroud family blood running through his veins.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Frank, welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Much appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
The story of the Stroud family is fascinating. Let's start
with Dulphus Stroud. Take us right back to nineteen twenty eight.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, sure will.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So the family moved in nineteen ten from Indian Territory
to Colorado Springs and that's where Dolphins grew up. And
in nineteen twenty eight is the time when he decided
that he was going to make a run for the Olympics,
and so he began to train. He was not allowed
to train or even work out on the high school
(02:30):
track or with a high school track team. So the coach,
a white coach, gave him a regiment and showed him
how to do some basic stretching and exercises and training,
and then told him to run up and down Pike's Peak,
which is the longest the largest summit there in the
Colorado Springs area, about fourteen thousand feet. So that's how
(02:51):
he began to train, and in June of nineteen twenty eight,
he won the Key Mountain Region Olympic tryouts for the
five k race that automatically qualified him for the Olympic
Trials to be held at Harvard Stadium and Cambridge. And unfortunately,
(03:17):
despite that promise, they told him that sorry, for whatever reasons,
we can't allow you to ride on a train and
we can't fund your travel.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Surprise, so you got at everything you needed, but there
was always the obstacles exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And of course his coach said, you know, you know, listen,
you've done your best, and his parents and the family,
you know, confided in him and said, you know, hey,
you know, let's just get ready for Colorado College. And
he said, no, let me spend the weekend. I'm going
to go up to the mountains as you often do.
Did and he went up to the Rocky Mountains and
(03:57):
thought about it over the weekend, came back down and
had made his decision that he was going to make
it one way or another, And so he set out
on foot a few days later on June twenty fifth,
at four a m with a forty pound backpack, a
golf club, and ten dollars in his pocket. Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So here he is a teenager in the twenties, a
black man, right going what two thousand miles from Colorado
to Harvard University where these Olympic trials.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Were exactly that's exactly it. And at that time his
brother had been writing things and been involved with anti
lynching because that was a big issue. So obviously the
family was very concerned about his safety for that reason.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
How it was going to ask you, how dangerous was
it for a black man to be traveling across the
country like that?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yes, extremely dangerous, And at that point there were only
about fifteen less than twenty percent of Americans even had cars,
so he was hoping he might get a few rides,
but of course that made things even more dangerous out
on the roads, and he encountered a lot of violent people.
He also encountered a number of people who were very
helpful and helped him along, and a lot of different ways.
(05:11):
He came across a lot of wild dogs at night,
and he had to run up trees and things of
that sort. So it wasn't it wasn't an easy going
that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Was it any kind of like underground help maybe from
black home to black home? I mean, where did he
where did he sleep? Where did he eat?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Mostly outside, many times in cemeteries along the way parks.
But yeah, he found every once in a while he
would find a black family. In fact, many times when
you know, the weather got particularly bad storms and so forth,
he would knock on doors and ask if they would
let him in or let him just sleep at the
(05:50):
back with the barn with the animals, and they would say, no,
go down the road. There's a black family somewhere down there,
another five miles, and so he would walk on and
you know, be difficult to find those black families at
that time. There also obviously wasn't much communication of any sort,
and so things that were happening by telegram. One thing
that did happen is once he arrived outside of Chicago,
(06:14):
he got news that someone on the road said, they
want you to stop by.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
The the.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Station, and he goes, what station is at the news
the news station, so it was the Chicago Daily News.
He stopped by there and they did a quick interview,
communicated information, and then put out on all the newspapers
this gentleman, Dolphus Stroud is making it for Olympics, and
and gave him a sign to put on his back
(06:42):
when he was walking. And that's when he started to
get getting rides. And that's when a lot more black
folks along the roads and so forth helped them, but
people of all colors and genders and races helped them
after that point.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Wow, so he finally makes it. What happens then?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yes, So twelve days later he arrived just six hours
before the start of the race and Darial six hours.
He writes in his notes, I spent those in the
three blocks two hours putting on you know, a black
man putting on a red, white, and blue. He took
a lot of pride, and that the reason he went
(07:18):
across is he said he was for three things, his family,
the Rocky Mountain region, and people of color around the world.
And so when we put on the uniform, he had
a lot of.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Pride in that. And then he said he was just
so tired.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
He wanted to stay awake, and that was the only
thing he could think about, so he walked along the
quarters of Harvard Stadium. He had been accepted to Harvard
in nineteen twenty five as when he graduated from high
school as the valedictorian number one. However, he couldn't afford
to go to the college. So when he was there
on the campus for the first time, he went through
(07:54):
the library he hoped about, you know, winning the Olympics,
making it to Olympics, winning the Olympics, and being able
to afford to.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Go to to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And then the last third of the time, the last
two hours he spent just trying to stay awake, warming
up and being ready for the race.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
The gun went off.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
What happened next?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Nineteen twenty five, black Man Adolphus Stroud walked two thousand miles.
He was good enough to make it to the Olympic trials,
but the color of his skin prevented him from getting
the funding like the others on the track team and traveling.
Resting on a train ride there, he walked. He was exhausted.
Could he pull it off?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
He said?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
He went to run and his legs wouldn't move. He
felt like he was running in mud and seamen, and
all of a sudden he noticed people starting to pass him. Eventually,
he made it through six laps before he finally collapsed
from malnutrition and.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Exhaustion.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Wow, but at least he made it, and at least
he ran the race. That's right, you mentioned Harvard. The
people back home in Colorado couldn't really deny his first
his athletic ability, and they couldn't deny his intelligence. Talk
about how intelligent Dolphus was.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yes, interestingly enough, And when I first began to understand
this story, I didn't know the story of my family,
be quite honest with you, which is really an unfortunate
things for many of US African Americans and even others.
But growing up, you know, at the time, Oakland, California
had one of the highest crime rates in the country.
So we were on welfare with my four younger sisters and
(09:34):
my mom. Unfortunately, she had part of the family from
my grandfather's side.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Had passed.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It had received some sort of ailment, and they eventually
thought it was originally schizophrenia or some forth. They'd also
found out it was Huntingston's disease. And because of that,
I never knew my family's story because my mom was
not always coherent and I couldn't understand half of what
she's saying, whether it was true or not, and so
forth as a kid. So consequently, I didn't know about
(10:08):
this until I was in Colorado Springs and I got
a phone call from my aunt Lulu there at the
Air Force Academy. And so that's when she had asked me.
She goes, so, how's it going to the Air Force Academy.
I've been trying to reach her for the last three days,
And I said, yeah, I was in survival training. She goes,
so how did it go? And I said, well, I
won atool of Cadets. I got the top oars and
she goes, what else are you doing here? So I said,
I'm on a gymnastics team, and so forth. She goes,
(10:29):
do you know where that comes from? And I had
no idea what she meant by that. She goes, do
you know about your grandfather of Tandy and the history
of dolphics here in Colorado Springs? And that's when I
began to understand just how prolific both of them were
as athletes, as scholar athletes, Tandy graduating number two, Dolphins
graduating number one, and so I said, Okay, there's something
(10:53):
going on here. It isn't just them, Katie. Their father
was raised was born and raised on a Texas plantation
up until age nineteen. Then they made it to Indian
Territory where he married a Creek Nation Indian lady by
the name of Lulu McGee, my great grandmother. But while
(11:13):
he was there he helped build Langston University. He attended
Langston University. He's study under the tutelage of an attorney,
and so we went to Colorado Springs. But the children
would tell us later was that they were happy to
go to school because the tests in school were so
much easier than their father Kd's. So that is really
(11:33):
where it came from. He believed in education. He tied
it to the children. He forced them to read books.
They had encyclopedias, they had a piano, they had trime bone,
they had a violin in the house. And so I
think it came from a lot of that. He had
two older siblings who I'm certain also passed on knowledge
to him as well. As he prepared to enter into
(11:55):
high school, but he was super. He was just super gifted.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, like I said, your family is fascinating. Just to
make sure for clarification, Dolphus had a brother, Tandy. That's
whore you're referring to. That was my great grandfather.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Okay, yeah, yeah, So so they were so Tandy was
Dolphice's younger brother, and they they competed. They really in
the classroom and on the field. In fact, a couple
of years after that race, Tandy was winning the Denver
Marathon and he collapsed less than a mile and a
half from the finish line, and and and Dolphics was
(12:33):
right behind him, of course, and and uh and Dolphins
went to help him. He goes, no, make sure a
shroud wins the race. I'll be okay uh.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
And they found him at the hospital several hours later.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
But Dolphins ended up winning that race against media, the
people he had competed against in the Olympics. So so yes,
the family story is as I as I got to
learn more about it, and I spent time with my
grandfather when he was eighty three. I had spent some
time back in California where he was living at the
time when I was in pilot training, And that's when
he began to tell me a lot more of the stories.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
What was it in them? You mentioned their parents, but
to make them fight and hold on to have a
place in this world, it couldn't have been easy. I
know it wasn't easy.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
In fact, what Nina told us, So Nina is we
call her the professor of the of the of the
family Nina because her her real name was number nine
is what they originally called her, because they couldn't keep
up with all these kids. So she was the ninth
of the eleven children. And so she was in California.
She was a dad junct professor at UC Berkeley, and
(13:38):
she was the first black teacher public teacher in Colorado
Springs School District. And so she kept a lot of
the history of the family that I later found out about.
And she said that to the parents that Lulu and
Katie would force the kids to be competitive and so,
and they wanted that for them because they knew how
difficult it was going to be for them when they
(14:00):
went outside of the family in a prominently white, almost
all white elementary school Bristol School and now well Colorado
Springs High School Palmer High School. Now so that's the
way they prepared them. They make sure they are very competitive.
They forced the older children to teach the younger children,
(14:21):
and they every day at the dinner table, Katie would say, Okay,
who had the smartest event in class today? And they
would all kind of vibe for Okay, I did this
or I learned this or whatever it was. So it
was a lot of internal rivalry.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You know, I think about, you know, black, a black
family in Colorado, it just seems very unique. But talk
about the roots from Africa. How did they even get
to Colorado.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, So this part of the story is it's actually
just so fascinating and and I confirmed it through my
own DNA analysis with twenty three in me as.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I was trying to really piece together everything.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
So my father's side of the family is from Nigeria,
the Shines, the Strouds are from Ghana. And in eighteen
forty two, an African girl was born believing Georgia to
the Stroud plantation there and they separated her from her
parents and ultimately she ended up on what was called
(15:30):
Pleasant Retreat. It's actually in the Library of Congress associated
with June tenth as a seminal event on June tenth.
That Stroud Plantation in Limestone County, Texas is where she
grew up and was born in eighteen forty two in Georgia,
and she apparently created a lot of incidents. She was
(15:52):
very strong willed, and at one point they beat her
quite extensively and she had scars on her back, and
their stories in the family about the head of the household,
the young lady who had done this. But the plantation owner, Mandred,
(16:15):
had an affair with the Tewaukane Indian Native American Indian
and nine months later, this child shows up on the
doorstep at the plantation, at the big house, and everybody's
wondering what's going on, and he had to confess about
the affair. He had to his wife, and so they
ostracized this kid, and so he lived with primarily live
(16:35):
with the slaves, with the Africans, and when he grew older,
and this was by now right around eighteen sixty five
time period, he wanted to marry that young lady, the
African slave. Kimball my great great grandmother. And so that's
kind of the story of how things happened. Because of
(16:57):
all the racism and all the violence there Mandred then
decided I'm going to move you guys. He'd called it
out of the country to Indian Territory, because the Indian
Territory was considered you know, a different country, right, So
he helped them move to Indian Territory. And that's where
dolphins then begin to thrive under the tutelage of the
(17:20):
professors and the teachers there at Langston University.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Wow, we are speaking with Frank Shines, a descendant of
the incredible Stroud family, a black family that fought hard
to overcome the obstacles of racism. In fact, Dolphus Stroud
in nineteen twenty eight made it to the Olympic trials,
but he had to get there, and of course they
wouldn't pay a black man's transportation across the country, so
(17:47):
he walked two thousand miles. I wanted to ask you
how did he get back to Colorado after participation.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
That's a great question. You know, almost no one ever
asked that question. They always thought what happened? They know
what happened? That was it?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Right?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I give them the cliffhanger. Oh, you're right there.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Six hours before this was the most fascinating thing he
talked about in his notes how he was hallucinating even
during at different points during the walk out during the march,
the journey out to out from Colorado to Cambridge, and
he said that, you know, before he finally fainted during
(18:24):
the sixth lap, he said that he just thought, maybe
I can make it, and then he fainted, and then
he said he woke up and he was talking to.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
This guy, Joey Ray. Now, Joey Ray was the seminal.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Long distance runner of the time, had won all of
these great world championships, and everyone knew about Joey Ray. Well,
he was talking to this gentleman. He wasn't sure who
it was. And this gentleman asked him, well, tell me
your story. How'd you get here? And you know, I
saw what happened back there. He had just assumed, apparently
that this gentleman had spoken with him right after the race.
(18:56):
It literally was two hours later, because Joey Ray found
out later his race was two hours later on the
same track. So so dolphins must have laid there just
completely out of it. And so when he later looked
at these envelope, there's an envelope that Joey Ray had
left him, and only then he did.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
He understand that this.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Was the great racer runner, Joey Ray. And there was
an envelope and it said, I understand. You know you
didn't have a plan for getting back. You only thought
about getting here. Called this gentleman or reach out to
the executive director of the Wye MCA in Boston, and
that's how he was able to spend the summer working
at restaurants. They gave him lodging. He made a boatload
(19:39):
of money, according to him, He bought a suit and
he was able to afford a first class train trip
back home. So that's how he ultimately returned back to Colorado.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Into a blaze of glory. And was Joey Ray black
or white?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
He was a white gentleman.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yes, you know. There is a photo that I saw
on your website of the family, all vintage. They're dressed
in the nines. They look wealthy, crowd determined. Do you
know which photo I'm referring.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
To as the iconic as iconic at nineteen twenty nine
photo that was actually requested from w the Boys for
the Crisis magazine, And so they sent out a photographer
because they heard about the family, but they also heard
that During that time, this Black family was flourishing because
Katie Strout had figured out a way to create a
(20:32):
trucking company to do to haul ash and also to
pick up garbage. So they created the first kind of
subscription for dumps and trash. They're in the color Rail
Springs area, and that's why the family was successful for
that short period of time before unfortunately, Katie.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Came down with Lackcolman.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
At that time, they didn't have any way to cure it,
so he became blind. But yeah, that was the story
behind that iconic.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Twenty nine Foltal beautiful photo. Your family is incredible. As
I've said, there are so many relatives that you have
and so many tangents and other stories. That's enough to
do a documentary, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yes, it is, And that's exactly what we're doing right now.
It's called Running to Harvard. And I've got a great crew,
Award winning crew cinematographer Kyle Hatchet. We got Mike pak
who's the historian photographer, a longtime friend of the family
and great friend of all of Colorado Springs and Denver.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
And then the.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Executive director, Ralph Michael Jerdonald, who's created many film festivals
and other events, and just a great filmmaker in his
own right.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Rag about yourself just a little bit more. You mentioned
something about flight school. What's your background?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yes, my background, as I mentioned earlier by Hooker Crook,
me and my older my two younger twin sisters. They
ended up dying prematurely, as did my father. My mother
for the reasons that we talked about earlier associated with
her health. But somehow my older sister and I we
made it out of the hood at that time because
(22:14):
the way things were in California, my mother automatically received
custody of us, so my father finally came back into
our lives. We moved up to Washington State when I
was thirteen years old, went to school there, and then
I just began to flourish academically as well as athletically.
Was on a gymnastics team, captain Honor Society. I was
(22:38):
a vocal jazz and cellist and got to travel around
competing in all of those different types of extracurricular activities.
And because of the Air Force Academy ultimately gave me
a presidential appointment to the Air Force Academy. I went there,
learned to fly, studied management and engineering and met the
(23:01):
Tuskegee Airmen and a number of other great people, whether
it was the Kissingers or some of the presidents and
vice presidents. It was just amazing experience the four years there,
and was the captain and MVP of the gymnastics team.
And so part of the reason Lulu was really curious
was because she was trying to help me understand the
(23:23):
connection between Dophis who had this aspiration for the nineteen
twenty eight Olympics, and here we are more than sixty
years later, and I was competing in training against Olympic
gymnasts there at the Air Force Academy and the Olympic
Training Center. So that was that's my background. I went
on to pilot training in Arizona and then went on
(23:45):
to work with the military doing management engineering, which is
kind of a combination of industrial engineering and management consulting,
and the military sent me to school, covered seventy five
percent of all my graduate studies, and since then on
to travel around the world working with IBM and Ernst
and Young lived in Brazil for over a year and
(24:06):
it's just been a really great experience and I can
only think the family and the support of a lot
of coaches and teachers, many of them black along the way,
who believed in me and then later began to understand,
you know, how to believe in myself. I understood more
about our family history and what.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
A history it is. And you were recently reunited with
a sister.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yes, oh boy, you've done your research. So yeah, this
is kind of emotional. I apologize. But when we were
separated from my mother, my mother had a young daughter, Margaret,
and had just become pregnant with a younger sibling.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
A son.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Her son would have been my younger brother, but we
never met them because we are separated. And so Margaret,
who we knew at age two, we searched everywhere, Me
and my sister searched after we graduated from high school
and college, and we just could not find out what
had happened to Margaret. And about three years ago she
(25:16):
was looking she found Stroud family. She saw another iconic
photo of Lulu Stroud of a little baby sitting in
a chair, and someone, one of her friends says that
kid looks just like you, and you're a little baby.
She goes, no, I don't think so, and she looked
around and she saw my name and saw shines and
she goes, I think this may be my family, And
(25:36):
so I got an email and I gave her a
phone call. We started talking and sure enough her name
had been changed to Lisa, but the little two year
old Margaret. Forty four years later, I got her on
a plane to show up for the opening of Race
the Opera, which we performed there in Colorado Springs at
(25:57):
the Pioneers Museum. She tended that to a sold out audience.
She was sitting right in the front and we opened
and provided the whole backdrop for you know, an African
slave who had this vision to write a song called
Anthem of Heaven and now it's being featured as part
(26:18):
of Race the Opera, and some of that music will
be included in the documentary. So yeah, that's how we
were reunited forty four years later.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Now your family also has the honor of having a
display at Colorado College. That must be great and certainly
another proun moment for the Stroud family.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yes it is.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And I got a phone call just before COVID in
December of twenty nineteen, and it was the president of
Colorado College. She knew of the work I had been
doing as a as a family historian and invited me
as well as a number of other people out, and
(27:03):
they didn't really explain what was going to happen, and
then we were met with the press and all the
honors around what was What they created was is called
the Stroud Scholars and we've since have brought in well,
I guess four different cohorts of children I shouldn't call
them children, young adults from high school all the way
(27:23):
up through college level through the program, and that first
first cohort is now in their sophomore year in colleges
around the country. And then they also dedicated the VIP floor,
the fourth floor of the Ropes and Arena, a new
arena that was created in Colorado Springs on the campus.
They dedicated that to Dophice in the family as well.
(27:47):
So it was a pretty powerful series of days and
events that took place.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
How can people learn more about your fascinating family? Just
so many layers, It's just amazing. And when will the
documentary be revealed?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
The documentary will be revealed later this year, and right
now we are on target for it happening just before
the Olympics in July knock on Wood. And the best
way to reach us is just go to Running to
Harvard dot com. Or if you want to look at
Stroud Family of Colorado, just search Stroud Family Colorado. You'll
(28:27):
see our website come up Stroudfamilycolorado dot com or running
to Harvard dot com.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
And finally, what's the message you want our people to
take away from your family's story?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah, I didn't see people like me in the textbooks.
I didn't see people like me in most of the
prestigious positions growing up in Oakland, California.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I believe you.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Know it was excited about the Apollo Mission. I had
no idea that Jack Stroud, my great uncle, was the
gentleman who wrote the formulas of safely return astronauts from
the Moon to Earth. So how many other hidden figures
are out there that we don't know of? My hope
is there are two questions I often get when I
talk about the family, go out in public speaking and
(29:15):
so forth. One is, Wow, what an incredible family. But
the other is, how did you do the background in
research to find your family? On the Shinne side of
the family, we can't find hardly anything. We've been lucky
on the stro outside of the family that we've had
some great people. So the message would be believe in
all of us. The stories that are out there are incredible,
(29:35):
and I wish everyone well and hope that perhaps in
a small way, we're in a presidential election year when
in an Olympic year, My hope is that perhaps this
untold Olympic story might just help to heal our nation
as well, because we certainly need to find a way
to work together better and reduce to polarization.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Thank you as we celebrate Blos History Month. This is
black history we need to know. Frank Shines, producer of
the documentary Running to Harvard, thank you for keeping this
legacy alive. Next time on Blackland with Vanessa Tyler, what
is it about true crime that has us hooked? We're
going in to solve that mystery. You have to hear this.
(30:20):
I talk with a sister who calls herself the longest
living Jane.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Doe, and it's taken me over twenty years of searching
for my true I Gettian to discover that I will
be missing for well over fifty years. They were on
the impression that I was psychologically unbalanced
Speaker 1 (30:41):
On The Next Blackland with Vanessa Tyler
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