Dreamville, Death Pits and Dr. Seuss

What do J Cole's Dreamville Festival, 20,000 forgotten Souls in Mississippi, and Dr. Seuss have in common? This episode takes a wild ride through vibes, violence, and Venus to uncover the hidden stories they didn't teach in school.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I welcome back. Know it alls to another episode.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either, the expanded version.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
I'm your host B dots.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
And of course, on every episode, I like to start
with three of the most useless facts you'll never need ever,
not a day in life.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Up.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
First, did you know a day on Venus is longer
than it's year. Yeah, see, Venus takes about two hundred
and forty three earth days to rotate once, but it
only takes two hundred and twenty five earth days to
orbit the Sun, which is a full year. Your second
useless fact, where was the first time you heard the
word nerd? Because it was first coined by doctor Seuss

(00:43):
in nineteen fifty. Doctor Seuss had a book called If
I Ran the Zoo, and that was the first time
we saw the word nerd. And for your third and
final useless fact, which existed?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
First?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Sharks or trees? If you guessed sharks, you're correct. Sharks
have been around for about four hundred million years, while
the first trees appeared around three hundred and fifty million
years ago. Planted them trees. Those are being in three
useless facts. A day on Venus is longer than It's year.

(01:18):
The word nerd was first coined by doctor Seuss, and
sharks existed before trees.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Take those useless facts to your group chats.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
I know what I got in my group chat pictures
from Dreamville Festival. It was the fifth and final one,
and let me tell you, it was amazing. I even
saw the president of the Black Effect podcast networked out there,
Dolly Bishop. I saw back to back days two different times,
and that is rare. It's one hundred thousand people out
there for you to run into somebody, you gotta know

(01:48):
it was God's will. You can't even find people out
there that you rode the Dreamville with, let alone people
that you didn't expect to see.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
I was out there with the people I was shopping
there with.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
One guy introduced myself, I'm beating, and his eyes got big.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
He said, you beat up for I didn't know. Maybe
you didn't either.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I said, Wow, hundreds of thousands of people out here,
and I found somebody.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
That listens to the podcast. Made me feel great.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
We were at one of the activations and they were
mixing all these liquors together and giving them all these names,
and one of the names they had for one of
the drinks was the Devil's punch And BRO say, no,
I know you can't drink the Devil's punch. Bro, that's
too close to the Devil's punch bowl. And I said,
the Devil's punch bowl. He said, Bro, you're not familiar
with the Devil's punch bowl. I said, I am not.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I
didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Right there on the spot we had an episode of
I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either. Your picture this
it's the end of the Civil War.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
You're free.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
You done made it through slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation just
dropped like it was Beyonce's surprise album. And you're trying
to figure out what freedom even looks like. So you
hear to the Chess, Mississippi, because where it on the
street is Union soldiers got a camp set up for
freed folks, safe space.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Right wrong.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Welcome to the Devil's Punch Bowls. Sounds like a spooky documentary,
don it, But it's real. The Devil's punch Bowl is
a deep natural pit, like a bowl carved into the
land by erosion. Right, it's surrounded by steep bluffs along
the Mississippi River. But after eighteen sixty three it wasn't

(03:29):
just a piece of land. It became a makeshift refugee
camp for formerly enslaved black folks. Tens of thousands fled
in the chess, hoping to finally live, for what they
found was closer to dying.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Slowly.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
The Union Army put up barbed wire fence around the
punch bowl and said, y'all stay in there. No proper shelter,
no food systems, disease everywhere, and worst of all, no freedom.
I mean, you were technically free, but you couldn't leave
the pit. Historians say up to twenty thousand formally enslaved men, women,
and children died in that bowl from starvation, smallpox, and

(04:09):
just neglect its reports of bodies being buried right where
they feel. Some say the stench of death filled the air,
and fruit trees that grew there afterwards were never eaten
because locals believe that the roots soaked up the blood
of the dead. Damn are you survived slavery only to
die in a government sanctioned holding sell That ain't freedom?

(04:32):
Found that's just a different plantation with new branding. And
here's the kicker. You ain't never learned about this in school.
They don't teach you about the Devil's Punch Bowl in
history class. No chapters, no field trips, no documentaries in
the curriculum. Why because this one don't fit that clean
Civil War narrative. Ain't in the movie with Lincoln freed
the slaves and then show twenty thousand of those same

(04:54):
folks dying in a fenced off pit while Union soldiers
stood by watching.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
That don't test well.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Like imagine a textbook chapter twelve emancipation, also mass neglect
and thousands of deaths in a hole behind the bluff. Nah,
they skipped that page and hit us with the MLK
coloring books.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Look, the Devil's Punch Bowl ain't just a tragic story.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
It's a lesson about how freedom for black folks has
always come with an asterisk, about how systemic failure.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Don't care what century.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
It is, about how erasure of black pain is just
as deadly as the pain itself. And it's a reminder
that just because you never heard about it don't mean
it ain't true. So the next time somebody tells you, oh,
come on, slavery's ended.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Everything's fine. You tell them to take a long walk
off of Short.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Bluff, right into the devil's punch bowl of forgotten history.
Because I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either,