July 4, 2024 • 38 mins
Ever wonder why news can feel so different depending on where you read it? In today’s episode, Katie and Yves compare how Black and white newspapers cover the same topics. From big events to everyday stories, we'll explore why the news isn't always so black and white.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Friends Media.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's the fourth of July, and you know what that means. Cookouts,
line dances, fireworks in the day off.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yes, God, and that's what I love about black folks.
We ain't celebrating America's independence, but we will take that
day off.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I mean. Frederick Douglas said it best. What to the
slave is the fourth of July. Here's an excerpt from
the speech.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
This fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice.
I must mourn to drag a man in fetters into
the grand illuminated tim of liberty and call upon him
to join you in joyous anthems were in human mockery
and sacrilegious irony. That's one of Douglas's most famous speeches,
probably because it still captures the feelings of millions of
(01:14):
black Americans today.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Right. This speech is from eighteen fifty two, and here
we are in twenty twenty four. You know, Douglas also
printed the speech in its entirety in his newspaper aptly
titled Frederick Douglas Newspaper on July ninth of the same year.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I bet the local white newspaper wanted no parts of
that funny.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
You should mention that I was curious and I did
find an article from the same year published by the
Boston Herald. Want to read a few.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Lines h before a century shall have elapsed from that declaration,
we shall not only be the greatest maritime nation upon
the face of the earth, but we shall exert a
moral power, before which bayonets will dwindle into insignificance and
scepters become babbles. With the expansion of our country, the
(02:02):
ideas of our people expand. Railroads are annihilating space, and
telegraphs are rivaling the lightning and speed. In the mental world,
there is more liberality of opinions, more candor and judgment,
and more tolerance toward the views of our fellow men
who The difference between that article and what Douglas wrote
(02:23):
is night and Day, Sleep and Woke, j Lo and Mariah, I'm.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Eves and I'm Katie. Today's episode black, White, and red
all over. So looking at those two examples about the
fourth of July got me thinking, how does coverage of
the same event or topic differ between black and white
newspapers Like that can be the only instance of wildly
(02:51):
different perspectives coming from these newspapers published in the same year,
same country, covering the same topic. I don't know. I'm
since in a little pattern, so I think to truly
understand why we might see a stark difference in the
coverage in black newspapers versus white newspapers. You got to
know a little sum about a fellow named Jim.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Crow him a time I wheel about a young Jim Room.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So following the end of reconstruction in the late nineteenth
century that Jim Crow era saw the encoding of racial
segregation across the many aspects of American life, including newspapers, newspapers, radio,
All forms of media that were around at that time.
Why owned and controlled newspapers, radio stations, and other media
outlets cadded primarily to a white audience, often ignoring or
(03:41):
misrepresenting the experiences and perspectives of Black Americans. This exclusion
for the mainstream media led to the emergence of a
vibrant black press. Newspapers like the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier,
and the Baltimore Afro Americans served as vital sources of
news and information for the black community, and these newspapers
provided perspective and covers that were often absent from white
(04:01):
owned media. They reported on issues and events that really
mattered to Black Americans, like the fight for civil rights
and the achievements of the black community.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
After the break, we'll see if there's something to this theory.
Stick around Exhibit one. Black Power bookstore and.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Researching pros to the people my book about Black Bookstores.
I looked at a lot of newspapers and discovered some
colorful characters. One of my favorites was the late Lewis
Henry Michell, owner of Harlem's National Memorial African Bookstore. Here's Michelle.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Black is beautiful, but black isn't power. Knowledge is power.
For you can be black as a crow, you can
be white as snow. And if you don't know and
ain't got no do, you can go And that's for show.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Ooh he seems fun.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, I really wish I would have known him. Michelle
is seen as one of the greatest, if not the greatest,
black booksellers in America. He sold books around the late
nineteen thirties, early nineteen forties to the mid nineteen seventies.
Him and his bookstore were known the world over.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So did black and white newspapers write about Michelle and
the National Memorial African Bookstore.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Definitely, Michelle stayed in the news more on the black
side things, of course, but white newspapers wrote about two.
Here's what the Daily Home News in New Brunswick, New
Jersey had to say about him in nineteen sixty six.
Ease you mind reading the headline for me?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Black Power bookstore is headquarters for Harlem Bitterness. That's a title. Okay,
The word bitter is a strong one.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Okay, right out the gate. You know what time they're on?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
You do so.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Basically, in this article, a white reporter goes to the
store to profile it and to talk to Michhew. He
describes the outside of the store, which has a sign
that says God damn white Man. He describes the inside
of the store, which is full of flags of New
African nations and shelves bursting with Negro literature. He calls
Michew a militant extremist with an almost neurotic contempt for whitey,
(06:08):
and he makes fun of his height, calling him nome size,
which I thought was a nice little touch.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
It's rude.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
He had a lot of quips about Michelle. He quotes
a lot of Michell's quips he was known for, like
the way he talks. He talked in like aphorisms and rhymes.
So he talks about how Michelle said, the good white
man he met was in the grave and talked about
Michelle and how the bookstore was focusing on black supremacy.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
He was a perfect kind of sound bite person. This
article was really funny to me because it has that
same kind of tone and tenor that so many white
articles about black spaces do, or white articles about black
things do, which is one of ogling, which is one
of exoticizing. It's just clearly such an outsider's view of
surprise and shock and awe of what the writer sees
(07:00):
when they go into the bookstore and how they feel
about his character. That feels very familiar to me, especially
from contemporary articles from newspapers, And that was really funny
to me.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, you can tell who he's speaking to when he's
writing this article. He's speaking to white people who already
have their like apprehensions about a black bookstore and what
might be going on there, and he's really stoking those flames.
And you know, like at the end of the day
newspapers are there to sell you ads and to make money.
The information I think is secondary truly, And I think
(07:32):
this was like a part of a black power series
where they were talking about different like black power things
going on. So people following along on this series, like
they hear about this little known size black supremacists who
said the only good white man he met was in
the grave. Like whatever fears or preconceived notions they have
are going to be on ten. Like this article does
(07:53):
not asswage those things at all. But I think that
is the purpose of it.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And then he starts with the word bitterness, So he's
automat studying the tone for how you should feel about
what Michelle is saying in the article.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, it's definitely at us versus them situation in this article.
So hold that in your mind while we look at
what black newspapers were saying about Michelle and the National
African Memorial Bookstore. Here's an article from nineteen sixty two
from New Insterdam News. It's titled Cooperation and Unity away out.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
That headline is miles in a way different than the
last one. Yeah, like the opposite side of the spectrum.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, And the coverage was different too. So Michell actually
wrote this article in the new Insterdam News, which I
do think is very telling, Like I don't think he
would be invited to write his own article in a
white newspaper. And they start off this article that he's written,
but they give him a bio. They talk about how
he's the owner and operator of the bookstore for the
(08:51):
last twenty five years, president of the African Nationals and
America Incorporated, Chairman of the Harlan Consumer's Committee, so really
establishing him as a a man in the community doing
good things and talking about like all his involvement, and
then it gets into what he has to say, which
for the last one, I feel like the tone was
like fear mongering, and the writer in the white newspaper
(09:13):
was definitely speaking to white audiences. But Michelle, I think
makes it very clear that he's speaking to black audience.
He's like, hey, you, this is what we need to do,
Like I'm a part of this, You're a part of
this us as black people in America, Like this is
what we need to do to ensure economic security, to
uplift each other. So it's definitely a different tone, like
he's he has his audience and he has his message
(09:34):
in his bias, but he's not even trying to advertise
his bookstore. He's just saying like, hey, black man, like,
let's listen up, Yeah, listen to black man, Like, let's
you know, get together and not be oppressed and you know,
cooperate and be in unity and community with each other.
So I thought that was really telling of the different
the newspapers. Yeah, And I think this also has a
(09:56):
much more personal tone. So I think that also has
to do with the fact that show is writing it himself,
but that format instead of and Alan is going to
remove some of the distance between the person who's talking
the person who's reading the newspaper. And I think he
does this thing in which he drills down from a
more global perspective, or he uses we in the beginning
much so he's involving people in the conversation. He's not
(10:20):
necessarily defining that we, but that we definitely includes and
is focused on black people. And then later on, as
you continue reading through the article, we can see him
going more into the eye how he was inspired in
some of the things that are more personal to him,
and he's talking about when it lay in his bed,
he has a vision, so we get to see more
(10:40):
of him who he is as a person, what his
motivations are, and how those things influence the work that
he was doing. Which rather than have this very surface
level perspective that the person had the writer had and
the other article, in this case, we say we can
see his humanity very clearly, and you can't really make
(11:02):
excuses or do these workarounds around trying to cater or
trying to influence how people will understand his quotes by
using words like bitterness.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
It's like, we see what his motivations are very clearly.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, And I will say it did seem like the
white reporter actually liked him, you know, it was surprised
that he's like, oh, this guy's kind of funny. Yeah,
you know, even though he didn't agree with his messaging,
which I mean, I don't agree with exactly everything he
says in this article that he wrote himself, but I
do like that he would always talk about and this
I just know this on background from researching him. He
(11:37):
used to work at his brother's church. His brother was
very well known. His name was Solomon Lightfoot Michelle, very
well known, like evangelical pastor and had like hit records
on the radio and stuff, but he loves the church,
saying that he didn't believe in God no more. But
he quote in the Bible like I don't know what.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Always seen that happen with more than one person.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
But I mean he talks about like how like poor
people being taken it. And in the vision that you
talked about earlier, he said so one night while lying
in bed, I had a vision when I turned to
the Bible to two Samuel twelve, chapter A king had
a herd of sheep, and there was a poor man
with one lamb. The greedy king took the only lamb
the poor man had and cursed the king. And I mean,
(12:18):
I don't really know Lewis Michau's financials like that. Like
I know that he was a very well known bookseller
and people from all over the world would come to
the history, So I don't think he was hurting for money.
So for someone who you know, probably isn't in position
of like the poorest person in Harlem to kind of
really advocate for the poor, he talks about how greedy
(12:40):
people are one hundred and twenty fifth Street, where that's
the main thoroughfare in Harlem, so I think he was
really in this article talking about community and wanting to
uplift the community, all parts of it, not just like
the talented tenth, but like really trying to uplift people
and kind of have like a more nationalist, cooperative community vibe.
And that is definitely not the vibe in the way newspaper.
(13:00):
It's kind of like, even you're speaking to white people,
you're not really saying like, hey, white people, let us
like do this for ourselves, but it's kind of like
us versus them.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
In the article written by the white person, there was
no attempt at understanding. It was just like these are
the things that I see from the outside. Like there's
that line where he says, not surprisingly, there are no
white books and there are only black books in here. Yeah,
it's not really an attempt to understand the whys behind
why this exists, or like what the writer's place or
(13:31):
the white audience's place would be in coming into a
store like this.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah. And I think that's the thing with black newspapers generally.
They're there as like a counter narrative and to kind
of like correct the record, like Okay, these white people
are saying these things about us. And it's not true.
So we're going to have our own media and we're
going to say what we know to be true about us.
And I feel like this comparison really shows that the
newspaper is like, this is black folks to black folks,
(13:57):
and we know what's up with us. And I think
Show shows that perfectly as a bookseller, as a writer,
as a community person, like he's in the streets for
the for the blacks.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
There's another thing about this article that stood out to me,
and that's how we talked about the other title, including
the word bitterness in it, and the title for this
article written by the show. It's peace. It is wonderful
is a phrase that's in there, and in one of
the pictures that accompanies the article, it says peaceful scene.
And I wonder if you have any insight our perspective
(14:33):
on this specific articles or black newspapers roles in specifically
adjusting perspectives of how people think about black people by
using intentional language by saying, see, look, this is peaceful.
This is not how other people are trying to portray us,
where they direct responses to the I'm sure proliferation of
articles like ones that said this is bitterness look at
(14:57):
you know, all of these things that black people are
doing that we should look.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Down upon generally, Yes, I do think so. I think
it is in response, like you know, if white people
call it right, we'll call it a uprising. You know,
if people are protesting, sometimes black newspapers or black people
will emphasize how peaceful the protests were are, like how
moral we are for doing this protest, like really trying
to change the narrative for this was particular instance, him
(15:22):
and Jackie Robinson.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Had beef, so it's not peaceful.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Him and Jackie Robinson had public beef. Jackie Robinson was
trying to like help some Jewish I believe, restaurant owner.
So he was boycotting the Jewish restaurant owner and talking
so much stuff about Jackie Robinson. There's pictures of this
in the Schomberg and it is so funny, like and
he is so short, and he's just really in these
streets like coming after Jackie. But then I think later
(15:46):
that same day, you know, Malcolm X was in town
and he was like, hey, brothers, like let's go to
the radio station and talk this out. And so they
like squashed the beef. So that's what they're talking about
right there. But I think it is like a separate
because he was just like always in the news, he
was always doing something, So I do think it's kind
of like a separate thing. I think the cooperation and unity,
but maybe he was referring to that because he was
(16:07):
mad that, like the white Jewish people were taking over
like the hood. Basically, he's like, why are you putting
a restaurant here when like the a black person should
have a restaurant here, And he is talking about like
economic stuff and the black buying power and all that.
So maybe it was connected. Maybe that's why he was
writing this.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
So after the break, prepare to get your freak on.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
Say what stay with us?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Before the break we looked at how differently a black
newspaper and a white newspaper per tra Lewis Michell and
his bookstore in Harlem. But now we're taking it back
down south exhibit too.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Freaknick, You've been to Fort Lauderdale, you've been to Panama City,
you've been to Cancun, you've been to Montano Bait.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
But when you take.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Away the sands, when you take away the water and
you put all those people on the black stop in.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
The Black Mecca.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You get the Black college spring Break. Welcome to Atlanta,
Hi not Ey something fo the station with hip hop
list Eaves.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
What do you know about freak meeat?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Well, I know. Freak Nick began in my city, the
city of Atlanta, and it had to do with college
students needing to enjoy spring break. It started in the
late nineteen eighties, I believe, and at first it started
out as a smaller occasion, but it still had things
like performances, and they were there to have fun, kind
of like kick back, enjoy themselves, party a little little bit.
(18:01):
And then it grew into something much bigger and there
were these big acts and a lot of debauchery happened
at the events, and a lot of arguments over that debauchery,
and it has lived in fame and infamy since then.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of debauchery, a lot of traffic,
a lot of ass shaking, we smoking, gambling, and as
we've seen in the last couple of years, a lot
of documentaries coming out, a lot of people wanting to,
you know, talk about Freaknik, rehash what it was in documentaries,
(18:36):
radio or podcasts, even books. So yeah, that was Freakniek
for you.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Are you proud that freaknik is in the spotlight as
an Atlanta thing? Like this export of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I don't know, since we were too young to like
be in Freakneek. I guess our parents weren't. But I
don't think my parents was doing Oh okay, I see them,
But you know what, I do think it is funny
when you see picture the people who brought their kids
to freak me, like, I'm not missing out on it.
It's like, why you got yall two year old here?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Right? Be so for real?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
But yeah, I mean I would say I'm neither proud norish.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
My sister was that age. Ish, she was a little
too young, but she was still around the age like
by the time we got there, because I grew up
in the early nineties in College Park and so you know,
my sister was in high school at the time, so
she was closer to that kind of situation. But that
was definitely a little bit that was before my time
as well. Yeah, but I knew the stories already from
(19:40):
a young age. It's part of our I canon here
growing up in Atlanta, right, like, the stories of it,
no matter how young you were when you were growing
up in Atlanta. If you were here in the nineties,
you knew about it.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Everybody got a story.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
So it seems like everyone also still has an opinion
about Freakingnick with the multiple documentaries that have been made
that you were just talking about, and then someone's always
trying to revive it.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So it's no surprise that when it was happening, the
newspapers were chalk full of criticisms and praises depending on
the source. The thought of tens of thousands of extra
Negroes descending upon an already black city did not make
the white owned newspapers and their majority white readers feel
all warm and fuzzy inside. In nineteen ninety six, the
Atlanta Journal Constitution published an article in their viewpoint section
(20:24):
which was called Metro Voices. In it, Mitch Scandalacus described
Freaknick as a quote major problem that's quote bad for
business and causes quote impossible traffic jams that prevent people
from shopping.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Oh my god, you can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Ntch wants to say that clear message Freaknick is not wanted,
but much of his frustration that pesky little issue of
race keeps coming up whenever he tries to talk about
black college students annual spring break celebration wreaking havoc on
the city. Mitch says in.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
His article, regrettably, any discussion of Freaknick is almost always
clouded by the issue that clouds far too many discussions
in Atlanta today. Race. But whether you are white or black,
ask yourself this question. If two hundred thousand white college
students came to Atlanta and behaved exactly the same way
as the freakingent crowds have behaved over the past few years,
(21:18):
would you want them to come back?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Clock y'all as.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
What you got to say to that?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Gotcha?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
All right?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Mitch? Okay? We have seen so many people try to
do this kind of anigland around a question, this kind
of fallacy and thinking before so Mitch was really clearly
focused on the economics of the situation that it was
bad for business. Yeah, cared a lot less about the
people who were involved in this in their enjoyment and
seemingly seemingly so. And also assume that nobody wanted it,
(21:52):
Like he was kind of speaking for everybody. We're just like,
why would we even be talking about this if nobody
wanted it here.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I think I'm going to go ahead and assume he
was white and probably like well off, maybe a business
owner himself. The way he was talking, so I think
he was saying like, no one of my ilk wants list,
which I think is fair. Probably like sure ninety nine
percent of white business owners who are doing well do
not want this to go on.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, really concerned about the traffic jams.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Too, Yeah, he was. And I think Mitch's article is
so much a testament to like the Atlanta way that
we've spoken to before on this podcast. Kind of just
like we're going to focus on having a good image
to the rest of the world. He brings up like
the Olympics are coming, and like, we don't want to
jeopardize anything with the Olympics, but we know what the
(22:40):
Olympics did to like black Atlanta, Like they're tearing down
people's houses and you know where they live, so that
when the world came to Atlanta, they would be impressed.
So I think Mitch's view point did represent a lot
of Atlanta's viewpoint of the situation.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, And to be fair, I also think that it
expanded beyond just the freaknik viewpoint. It was also the
spring break viewpoint that so many conservatives and evangelicals would
have had about things that weren't buttoned up enough for them,
Like spring break alone at the time was a lot
about debauchery, and it was about like having fun and drinking,
(23:17):
and it was about thing that they thought things that
people who were more conservative thought that teenagers and young
adults shouldn't be doing on spring break, and to have
that on such a grand scale as a freaknick would
be offensive to them.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I do think race played a big part of it,
because he said, like, oh, if like white people were
doing this, but like white people do do that type
of stuff, like they do go to Panama City, they
do go to Miami. Maybe they don't brand it a
certain name, but they do be at spring break, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yes, and no, I'm not saying that race wasn't involved.
I'm saying that that's an additional layer on top of
the fact that this person writings probably didn't care for
that kind of stuff around spring break period, like they
were already very stuffy conservative. This is the kind of
person who says, all these half naked people out in
public need to put some clothes on, you know, it's
(24:05):
not here for any of that. So, yes, race, I'm
not saying race is not involved, but it's absolutely involved.
It's just that this person probably was that kind of
person to not want any kind of situation like this. Yeah,
anything that would stop people from shopping right, no traffic fans.
So that was like an opinion column that citizens could
write into. But what did the paper itself say, like
(24:28):
the staff.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Writers True Metro Voices was an impendion column. I found
this article written by a staff writer and in it
you can definitely hear the racial tension present. Similar to
the opinion section, the staff writer says that a councilwoman
who was a fan of Freaknik implied at a council
meeting that the police were looking to kill some of
the partygoers, and said the same councilwoman compared Freaknik to
(24:52):
apartheid because of the city's decision to close some of
the highway exits. So she said, like these are apartheid tactics.
Other standout phrases from this article in the AJAC clogged
our streets and trashed our town and absolute carnage.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
How do you feel about that apartheid comment?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I mean, I do think with Freaknik, the reaction to
it was very racially motivated, like apartheid, and I do
think they were trying to control people's movement based on
their race and based on like, you're not supposed to
be a here, you're an outsider. So I mean, I
think with white people, a lot of their racist tactics
(25:30):
are just in them. You know, whether you're in Cape
Town or whether you're in Atlanta, that racist is going
to pop out and you're going to do the same bullshit.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
So it seems like at the end of this article
that's when the writer starts editorializing a little bit more
and inserting their own opinion, because at first is kind
of a blow by blow about what's going on with
the councilwoman Carolyn long Banks, and then towards the end,
that's when they start inserting their own opinion about how
they feel like council people should stand their grounds and
(25:59):
tell people that they need to be behaving correctly and
behaving respectably. Essentially the partygoers.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
H yeah, And I mean, I think even the quotes
that the writer decides to include I think are very telling.
And it was implied that the police were trying to
kill kids. The writer says that rhetorically the congresswoman descended,
so it's like kind of making her seem like kind
of undone, like, oh, is she crazy?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Y'all?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
She's saying the police trying to kill people, but like,
of course, like police did do that.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Sometimes the writer is definitely trying to portray the councilwoman
as radical.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, it's more extremely reckless, doesn't care about the city.
So it is mostly like quotes, but I think they
were picked very intentionally, and like the previous article talking
about Louis Mitchell's bookstore, like you know who the audience
for this is and who's going to be scandalized by
this coverage.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, So I know in your research, Katie, that you
came across a bunch of different articles and different newspapers,
and that the practice of journalism when it comes to
these really contentious issues that have to do with race
is very wide ranging and had a lot of nuance,
and that so many times just because a person said
something in the opinion section didn't necessarily mean those were
(27:18):
the reflective of the views of the newspaper in general.
And just because the newspaper was white didn't necessarily mean
they were always like anti black and everything that they wrote.
Just because the newspaper was black didn't necessarily mean that
their viewpoints were all the same, Like black people in
themselves have wide ranging opinions about different things. And I'm
(27:39):
sure like if in the case of Freakinick, there were
also black people who didn't want a bunch of people
descending upon the city. But I think it is of
course fair and valid and legitimate to see how all
of a newspaper's articles about a subject, taken in totality,
(27:59):
reflect how people felt about that and how they wanted
to express those views to their audiences. Because of course,
when you're creating a newspaper, when you're choosing what to
put in it, you know who your readers are. You
do that analysis. You want your newspaper to continue to
be that, you need to fund the newspaper. It has
to be funded. So there are going to be biases
(28:20):
that are included in the journalism that happens in the newspaper.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Absolutely, yeah, biases in any media. In this podcast, anything
you read like people are making it and people are biased.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Okay, now that we heard from the adac, let's see
what the bullack newspaper in Atlanta was saying that Atlanta
Daily Worlds, can you do us the honor of telling us?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
The title Gladly College Fest Freaking Nick ninety three promises
to have meaning?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
So basically this article by Della Pulam, a staff writer
at Atlanta Daily World, kind of it has a redemptive tale,
like we know that people didn't like freak me. We
know some stuff happened, and we're getting back to our roots.
It's gonna be smaller, but we're gonna have a scholarship
and people are gonna show off their talents, and you know,
(29:14):
these celebrities are going to be here like she named
drops baby Face and La Read and you know this
is about college students and we're getting back to that,
to college prep workshops for high schoolers and all this stuff.
So I think it had like a redemptive like, hey, hey,
not too much on us, like this is what we're
really about, or about education or about community being the
(29:36):
people together, which I think goes back to my point
about black newspapers trying to be a counter narrative, Like
I think this article is like real respectable.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Honestly, That's what I was gonna say because it seems
like they were admitting telling on ourselves, basically admitting to
that everything everybody has said before about this being a
terrible situation for Atlanta. Now we have to make up
for that.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I don't know if they were saying it was that terrible.
I don't know, so like from Humble Beginnings in nineteen
eighty four, like we're taking it back to that, you know,
like it got a little racous, but this is what
we're really about. This is what we're going to do,
come through. They're so advertising it, but they were definitely
(30:19):
a situating the positives. You know, they weren't talking about traffic,
they weren't talking about sexual assault. You know, they're name
dropping celebrities. It was kind of damage control.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's giving how when somebody when a black
child or a black person dies, and they have to say,
look at how good of a student they were after
the fact, or look at all these good things that
they did in society. They have to kind of justify
the good parts of the things that everybody else is
saying are negative about that person. That's kind of what
(30:49):
it reminds me of.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
And I found this to be kind of a pattern
in the Atlanta Daily World, especially about Freaknik. There were
other ones where they're saying, like Freaknek students vow they'll
quit the drinking. You know, people saying like, oh, there's
too much to going on, and they're like, oh, we're
not We're not doing that anymore. And it seemed like
ninety three was a year that they were trying to
turn it around, like there was a concerted effort to
(31:14):
like push out this narrative like Freakneak is cleaning, it's
up its image. We're not going to be doing all
that or do a scholarships. We're not gonna be drinking,
we're not gonna doing drugs. But like there wasn't really
much mention about like the sexual assault that was going on,
which like I think is more important than the traffic
because it's just gonna be traffic. It's Atlanta, there's gonna
be traffic, but not mentioning of like the more you know,
illegal things that were happening. Like the black newspapers didn't
(31:37):
want to really touch on that because I think it
would just confirm what white people said about these freakneakers
that they were called.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
They wanted to only touch on the harmless things that
it was really easy to justify after the fact, and
drinking was one of those things. But the article about
them saying I'm not drinking anymore was really funny to
me because I'm sure or they could throw a stone
and hit five other people who would be like that
was great, I'm drinking against tonight the party is still going, yeah,
(32:08):
and I'm ready for the next freaknik.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Three students said, we drink and drink and drink, but
that is it for a long time. So it's like,
I feel like a lot of people who drink are like, oh,
I'm never I was just.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
About to say that. I mean, I can tell you
how many times I've said that.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
It's like, girl, they hungover, just wait, drink. This is
a quote from that article about drinking. I will not
drink again, said ladies at film in college, who said
jokingly they had enough liquor in their system to last
a lifetime. So like, clearly they're just talking, but you know,
they make you make this a whole article trying to
like clean up the image of free peak, which like
I understand because you know, like people were very racist,
(32:49):
like saying like terrible things about these students, And I
just think like if one hundred thousand extra people are
in city, like somebody's going to go down, regardless of
the race, the age, Like someone's gonna do something illegal.
I think unless you're Muslim and taking the hajj, they're
not doing nothing illegal. I'm assumed they're not.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It's a pilgrimage of a different sort, but it is
not a modest one.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, So like if it's not that occurring, like somebody's
gonna someone's gonna be drinking too much, someone's gonna be littering,
someone's gonna be jying. But in the moment, people did
a little bit too much on freaknique, and black newspapers
were trying to combat that.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
So m hm. And we're selective in that combating. So
were there any white newspapers that talked about sexual assault?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, and it got national covers too, So like the
New York Times is talking about Freaknikue and things are
going on. I think like it was because it was
the early nineties, So I think the sexual assault like
talking about it like in Earnest was more like a retrospective.
But you know, it was just like kind of like
they're naked and cogging up the highways, like that was
(33:53):
the main thrust of the coverage. And I mean, yeah, like,
I think we've come a lot way in the understanding
sexual assault and knowing like you could literally be walking
down the street naked and like no one should touch you,
but I don't think people really. Yeah, so we've talked
(34:15):
about a bookstore and a college ring break party. But
of course these are not the only examples of disparate
coverage based on the source. And that's not just a
phenomenon of the past. It's happening right now. So I
think a big takeaway from seeing these examples is media literacy,
which entails considering the source and considering the intended audience.
(34:35):
Like we said, each newspaper, each podcast, each radio program,
they have their own biases. They're trying to get whatever
message they're trying to get out, and not saying that
is a bad thing, like that's just what it is,
but being able to know that and understand the biases
and be able to peep it and think for yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, we know that we're being influenced. Let's be mindful
of our awareness of that influence and then also try
to under stand that we can choose to take what
we want from it, and we don't just have to
mindlessly do that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And now it's time for role credits, the segment where
we give credit to a person, place, or thing that
we encountered during the week. Eves, who what would you
like to give credit to you?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I would like to give credit to short braids. These
aren't that short. I have braids in right now, but
I do like the length of them. I've been wearing
them for a couple of weeks now, and usually when
I do get braids or twists, when I get weave
there a little bit longer. But it's been pretty freeing
having such a like it's like a little bit underneath
my shoulders length. So braids all day, shorter braids all day.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I like you, Okay, I'd like to give credit to
surprise parties. I went to one recently and NEWS don't
know how to keep auspries.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Did you set up the party or did somebody else
set up the party?
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Someone else set it up. I was just there, but
I feel like people will be trying to make the
surprise about them, even though it's absolutely not about you. Like,
basically everyone was calling this the person that was being
surprised and being like, oh, what are you doing for
your birthday? Like, no, niggas are so annoying, like straight
up like you know me, I'm not the type to
like have really be hitting her up that much on
(36:17):
her birthday, So I didn't say anything.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Those are the type of people who be too loud
at the space table. They'd be talking too much. Go on,
continue this theory, because you know how there's like a
reverse psychology you can work when you're at when you're
playing space and you can be like, oh, I got
this heat in my hand, like I'm doing all of this,
I'm doing all of that, I'm whooped the wood. I
(36:40):
gotta set up whoop the looping there. Yeah, So I
feel like that's the same kind of person who rather
than a person who can be you know, they can
say things at the right time at the space table
and know when not to say things. You give up
too much, basically you lay your cards on the table. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I don't know. I think people just want to be like, oh,
I tricked you. But it's like maybe if one person
does that, but if seventy five people call and say
what are you doing here? They like it's a little hit.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah, what did the person say? Did the was the
person actually surprised? Now? Did they like the party?
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah, they had some time at the party, but they
weren't surprised. They're like something that's going on.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, And with that.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
We will see y'all next week.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Bye bye. On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and
Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves Jeffco
and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison.
Follow us on Instagram at on Theme Show. You can
also send us an email at hello at on Theme
(37:43):
dot Show. Head to on Theme dot Show to check
out the show notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Friends Media.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's the fourth of July, and you know what that means. Cookouts,
line dances, fireworks in the day off.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yes, God, and that's what I love about black folks.
We ain't celebrating America's independence, but we will take that
day off.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I mean. Frederick Douglas said it best. What to the
slave is the fourth of July. Here's an excerpt from
the speech.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
This fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice.
I must mourn to drag a man in fetters into
the grand illuminated tim of liberty and call upon him
to join you in joyous anthems were in human mockery
and sacrilegious irony. That's one of Douglas's most famous speeches,
probably because it still captures the feelings of millions of
(01:14):
black Americans today.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Right. This speech is from eighteen fifty two, and here
we are in twenty twenty four. You know, Douglas also
printed the speech in its entirety in his newspaper aptly
titled Frederick Douglas Newspaper on July ninth of the same year.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I bet the local white newspaper wanted no parts of
that funny.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
You should mention that I was curious and I did
find an article from the same year published by the
Boston Herald. Want to read a few.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Lines h before a century shall have elapsed from that declaration,
we shall not only be the greatest maritime nation upon
the face of the earth, but we shall exert a
moral power, before which bayonets will dwindle into insignificance and
scepters become babbles. With the expansion of our country, the
(02:02):
ideas of our people expand. Railroads are annihilating space, and
telegraphs are rivaling the lightning and speed. In the mental world,
there is more liberality of opinions, more candor and judgment,
and more tolerance toward the views of our fellow men
who The difference between that article and what Douglas wrote
(02:23):
is night and Day, Sleep and Woke, j Lo and Mariah, I'm.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Eves and I'm Katie. Today's episode black, White, and red
all over. So looking at those two examples about the
fourth of July got me thinking, how does coverage of
the same event or topic differ between black and white
newspapers Like that can be the only instance of wildly
(02:51):
different perspectives coming from these newspapers published in the same year,
same country, covering the same topic. I don't know. I'm
since in a little pattern, so I think to truly
understand why we might see a stark difference in the
coverage in black newspapers versus white newspapers. You got to
know a little sum about a fellow named Jim.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Crow him a time I wheel about a young Jim Room.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So following the end of reconstruction in the late nineteenth
century that Jim Crow era saw the encoding of racial
segregation across the many aspects of American life, including newspapers, newspapers, radio,
All forms of media that were around at that time.
Why owned and controlled newspapers, radio stations, and other media
outlets cadded primarily to a white audience, often ignoring or
(03:41):
misrepresenting the experiences and perspectives of Black Americans. This exclusion
for the mainstream media led to the emergence of a
vibrant black press. Newspapers like the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier,
and the Baltimore Afro Americans served as vital sources of
news and information for the black community, and these newspapers
provided perspective and covers that were often absent from white
(04:01):
owned media. They reported on issues and events that really
mattered to Black Americans, like the fight for civil rights
and the achievements of the black community.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
After the break, we'll see if there's something to this theory.
Stick around Exhibit one. Black Power bookstore and.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Researching pros to the people my book about Black Bookstores.
I looked at a lot of newspapers and discovered some
colorful characters. One of my favorites was the late Lewis
Henry Michell, owner of Harlem's National Memorial African Bookstore. Here's Michelle.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Black is beautiful, but black isn't power. Knowledge is power.
For you can be black as a crow, you can
be white as snow. And if you don't know and
ain't got no do, you can go And that's for show.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Ooh he seems fun.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, I really wish I would have known him. Michelle
is seen as one of the greatest, if not the greatest,
black booksellers in America. He sold books around the late
nineteen thirties, early nineteen forties to the mid nineteen seventies.
Him and his bookstore were known the world over.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So did black and white newspapers write about Michelle and
the National Memorial African Bookstore.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Definitely, Michelle stayed in the news more on the black
side things, of course, but white newspapers wrote about two.
Here's what the Daily Home News in New Brunswick, New
Jersey had to say about him in nineteen sixty six.
Ease you mind reading the headline for me?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Black Power bookstore is headquarters for Harlem Bitterness. That's a title. Okay,
The word bitter is a strong one.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Okay, right out the gate. You know what time they're on?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
You do so.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Basically, in this article, a white reporter goes to the
store to profile it and to talk to Michhew. He
describes the outside of the store, which has a sign
that says God damn white Man. He describes the inside
of the store, which is full of flags of New
African nations and shelves bursting with Negro literature. He calls
Michew a militant extremist with an almost neurotic contempt for whitey,
(06:08):
and he makes fun of his height, calling him nome size,
which I thought was a nice little touch.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
It's rude.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
He had a lot of quips about Michelle. He quotes
a lot of Michell's quips he was known for, like
the way he talks. He talked in like aphorisms and rhymes.
So he talks about how Michelle said, the good white
man he met was in the grave and talked about
Michelle and how the bookstore was focusing on black supremacy.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
He was a perfect kind of sound bite person. This
article was really funny to me because it has that
same kind of tone and tenor that so many white
articles about black spaces do, or white articles about black
things do, which is one of ogling, which is one
of exoticizing. It's just clearly such an outsider's view of
surprise and shock and awe of what the writer sees
(07:00):
when they go into the bookstore and how they feel
about his character. That feels very familiar to me, especially
from contemporary articles from newspapers, And that was really funny
to me.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, you can tell who he's speaking to when he's
writing this article. He's speaking to white people who already
have their like apprehensions about a black bookstore and what
might be going on there, and he's really stoking those flames.
And you know, like at the end of the day
newspapers are there to sell you ads and to make money.
The information I think is secondary truly, And I think
(07:32):
this was like a part of a black power series
where they were talking about different like black power things
going on. So people following along on this series, like
they hear about this little known size black supremacists who
said the only good white man he met was in
the grave. Like whatever fears or preconceived notions they have
are going to be on ten. Like this article does
(07:53):
not asswage those things at all. But I think that
is the purpose of it.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And then he starts with the word bitterness, So he's
automat studying the tone for how you should feel about
what Michelle is saying in the article.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, it's definitely at us versus them situation in this article.
So hold that in your mind while we look at
what black newspapers were saying about Michelle and the National
African Memorial Bookstore. Here's an article from nineteen sixty two
from New Insterdam News. It's titled Cooperation and Unity away out.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
That headline is miles in a way different than the
last one. Yeah, like the opposite side of the spectrum.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, And the coverage was different too. So Michell actually
wrote this article in the new Insterdam News, which I
do think is very telling, Like I don't think he
would be invited to write his own article in a
white newspaper. And they start off this article that he's written,
but they give him a bio. They talk about how
he's the owner and operator of the bookstore for the
(08:51):
last twenty five years, president of the African Nationals and
America Incorporated, Chairman of the Harlan Consumer's Committee, so really
establishing him as a a man in the community doing
good things and talking about like all his involvement, and
then it gets into what he has to say, which
for the last one, I feel like the tone was
like fear mongering, and the writer in the white newspaper
(09:13):
was definitely speaking to white audiences. But Michelle, I think
makes it very clear that he's speaking to black audience.
He's like, hey, you, this is what we need to do,
Like I'm a part of this, You're a part of
this us as black people in America, Like this is
what we need to do to ensure economic security, to
uplift each other. So it's definitely a different tone, like
he's he has his audience and he has his message
(09:34):
in his bias, but he's not even trying to advertise
his bookstore. He's just saying like, hey, black man, like,
let's listen up, Yeah, listen to black man, Like, let's
you know, get together and not be oppressed and you know,
cooperate and be in unity and community with each other.
So I thought that was really telling of the different
the newspapers. Yeah, And I think this also has a
(09:56):
much more personal tone. So I think that also has
to do with the fact that show is writing it himself,
but that format instead of and Alan is going to
remove some of the distance between the person who's talking
the person who's reading the newspaper. And I think he
does this thing in which he drills down from a
more global perspective, or he uses we in the beginning
much so he's involving people in the conversation. He's not
(10:20):
necessarily defining that we, but that we definitely includes and
is focused on black people. And then later on, as
you continue reading through the article, we can see him
going more into the eye how he was inspired in
some of the things that are more personal to him,
and he's talking about when it lay in his bed,
he has a vision, so we get to see more
(10:40):
of him who he is as a person, what his
motivations are, and how those things influence the work that
he was doing. Which rather than have this very surface
level perspective that the person had the writer had and
the other article, in this case, we say we can
see his humanity very clearly, and you can't really make
(11:02):
excuses or do these workarounds around trying to cater or
trying to influence how people will understand his quotes by
using words like bitterness.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
It's like, we see what his motivations are very clearly.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, And I will say it did seem like the
white reporter actually liked him, you know, it was surprised
that he's like, oh, this guy's kind of funny. Yeah,
you know, even though he didn't agree with his messaging,
which I mean, I don't agree with exactly everything he
says in this article that he wrote himself, but I
do like that he would always talk about and this
I just know this on background from researching him. He
(11:37):
used to work at his brother's church. His brother was
very well known. His name was Solomon Lightfoot Michelle, very
well known, like evangelical pastor and had like hit records
on the radio and stuff, but he loves the church,
saying that he didn't believe in God no more. But
he quote in the Bible like I don't know what.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Always seen that happen with more than one person.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
But I mean he talks about like how like poor
people being taken it. And in the vision that you
talked about earlier, he said so one night while lying
in bed, I had a vision when I turned to
the Bible to two Samuel twelve, chapter A king had
a herd of sheep, and there was a poor man
with one lamb. The greedy king took the only lamb
the poor man had and cursed the king. And I mean,
(12:18):
I don't really know Lewis Michau's financials like that. Like
I know that he was a very well known bookseller
and people from all over the world would come to
the history, So I don't think he was hurting for money.
So for someone who you know, probably isn't in position
of like the poorest person in Harlem to kind of
really advocate for the poor, he talks about how greedy
(12:40):
people are one hundred and twenty fifth Street, where that's
the main thoroughfare in Harlem, so I think he was
really in this article talking about community and wanting to
uplift the community, all parts of it, not just like
the talented tenth, but like really trying to uplift people
and kind of have like a more nationalist, cooperative community vibe.
And that is definitely not the vibe in the way newspaper.
(13:00):
It's kind of like, even you're speaking to white people,
you're not really saying like, hey, white people, let us
like do this for ourselves, but it's kind of like
us versus them.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
In the article written by the white person, there was
no attempt at understanding. It was just like these are
the things that I see from the outside. Like there's
that line where he says, not surprisingly, there are no
white books and there are only black books in here. Yeah,
it's not really an attempt to understand the whys behind
why this exists, or like what the writer's place or
(13:31):
the white audience's place would be in coming into a
store like this.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah. And I think that's the thing with black newspapers generally.
They're there as like a counter narrative and to kind
of like correct the record, like Okay, these white people
are saying these things about us. And it's not true.
So we're going to have our own media and we're
going to say what we know to be true about us.
And I feel like this comparison really shows that the
newspaper is like, this is black folks to black folks,
(13:57):
and we know what's up with us. And I think
Show shows that perfectly as a bookseller, as a writer,
as a community person, like he's in the streets for
the for the blacks.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
There's another thing about this article that stood out to me,
and that's how we talked about the other title, including
the word bitterness in it, and the title for this
article written by the show. It's peace. It is wonderful
is a phrase that's in there, and in one of
the pictures that accompanies the article, it says peaceful scene.
And I wonder if you have any insight our perspective
(14:33):
on this specific articles or black newspapers roles in specifically
adjusting perspectives of how people think about black people by
using intentional language by saying, see, look, this is peaceful.
This is not how other people are trying to portray us,
where they direct responses to the I'm sure proliferation of
articles like ones that said this is bitterness look at
(14:57):
you know, all of these things that black people are
doing that we should look.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Down upon generally, Yes, I do think so. I think
it is in response, like you know, if white people
call it right, we'll call it a uprising. You know,
if people are protesting, sometimes black newspapers or black people
will emphasize how peaceful the protests were are, like how
moral we are for doing this protest, like really trying
to change the narrative for this was particular instance, him
(15:22):
and Jackie Robinson.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Had beef, so it's not peaceful.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Him and Jackie Robinson had public beef. Jackie Robinson was
trying to like help some Jewish I believe, restaurant owner.
So he was boycotting the Jewish restaurant owner and talking
so much stuff about Jackie Robinson. There's pictures of this
in the Schomberg and it is so funny, like and
he is so short, and he's just really in these
streets like coming after Jackie. But then I think later
(15:46):
that same day, you know, Malcolm X was in town
and he was like, hey, brothers, like let's go to
the radio station and talk this out. And so they
like squashed the beef. So that's what they're talking about
right there. But I think it is like a separate
because he was just like always in the news, he
was always doing something, So I do think it's kind
of like a separate thing. I think the cooperation and unity,
but maybe he was referring to that because he was
(16:07):
mad that, like the white Jewish people were taking over
like the hood. Basically, he's like, why are you putting
a restaurant here when like the a black person should
have a restaurant here, And he is talking about like
economic stuff and the black buying power and all that.
So maybe it was connected. Maybe that's why he was
writing this.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
So after the break, prepare to get your freak on.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
Say what stay with us?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Before the break we looked at how differently a black
newspaper and a white newspaper per tra Lewis Michell and
his bookstore in Harlem. But now we're taking it back
down south exhibit too.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Freaknick, You've been to Fort Lauderdale, you've been to Panama City,
you've been to Cancun, you've been to Montano Bait.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
But when you take.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Away the sands, when you take away the water and
you put all those people on the black stop in.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
The Black Mecca.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You get the Black college spring Break. Welcome to Atlanta,
Hi not Ey something fo the station with hip hop
list Eaves.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
What do you know about freak meeat?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Well, I know. Freak Nick began in my city, the
city of Atlanta, and it had to do with college
students needing to enjoy spring break. It started in the
late nineteen eighties, I believe, and at first it started
out as a smaller occasion, but it still had things
like performances, and they were there to have fun, kind
of like kick back, enjoy themselves, party a little little bit.
(18:01):
And then it grew into something much bigger and there
were these big acts and a lot of debauchery happened
at the events, and a lot of arguments over that debauchery,
and it has lived in fame and infamy since then.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of debauchery, a lot of traffic,
a lot of ass shaking, we smoking, gambling, and as
we've seen in the last couple of years, a lot
of documentaries coming out, a lot of people wanting to,
you know, talk about Freaknik, rehash what it was in documentaries,
(18:36):
radio or podcasts, even books. So yeah, that was Freakniek
for you.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Are you proud that freaknik is in the spotlight as
an Atlanta thing? Like this export of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I don't know, since we were too young to like
be in Freakneek. I guess our parents weren't. But I
don't think my parents was doing Oh okay, I see them,
But you know what, I do think it is funny
when you see picture the people who brought their kids
to freak me, like, I'm not missing out on it.
It's like, why you got yall two year old here?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Right? Be so for real?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
But yeah, I mean I would say I'm neither proud norish.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
My sister was that age. Ish, she was a little
too young, but she was still around the age like
by the time we got there, because I grew up
in the early nineties in College Park and so you know,
my sister was in high school at the time, so
she was closer to that kind of situation. But that
was definitely a little bit that was before my time
as well. Yeah, but I knew the stories already from
(19:40):
a young age. It's part of our I canon here
growing up in Atlanta, right, like, the stories of it,
no matter how young you were when you were growing
up in Atlanta. If you were here in the nineties,
you knew about it.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Everybody got a story.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
So it seems like everyone also still has an opinion
about Freakingnick with the multiple documentaries that have been made
that you were just talking about, and then someone's always
trying to revive it.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So it's no surprise that when it was happening, the
newspapers were chalk full of criticisms and praises depending on
the source. The thought of tens of thousands of extra
Negroes descending upon an already black city did not make
the white owned newspapers and their majority white readers feel
all warm and fuzzy inside. In nineteen ninety six, the
Atlanta Journal Constitution published an article in their viewpoint section
(20:24):
which was called Metro Voices. In it, Mitch Scandalacus described
Freaknick as a quote major problem that's quote bad for
business and causes quote impossible traffic jams that prevent people
from shopping.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Oh my god, you can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Ntch wants to say that clear message Freaknick is not wanted,
but much of his frustration that pesky little issue of
race keeps coming up whenever he tries to talk about
black college students annual spring break celebration wreaking havoc on
the city. Mitch says in.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
His article, regrettably, any discussion of Freaknick is almost always
clouded by the issue that clouds far too many discussions
in Atlanta today. Race. But whether you are white or black,
ask yourself this question. If two hundred thousand white college
students came to Atlanta and behaved exactly the same way
as the freakingent crowds have behaved over the past few years,
(21:18):
would you want them to come back?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Clock y'all as.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
What you got to say to that?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Gotcha?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
All right?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Mitch? Okay? We have seen so many people try to
do this kind of anigland around a question, this kind
of fallacy and thinking before so Mitch was really clearly
focused on the economics of the situation that it was
bad for business. Yeah, cared a lot less about the
people who were involved in this in their enjoyment and
seemingly seemingly so. And also assume that nobody wanted it,
(21:52):
Like he was kind of speaking for everybody. We're just like,
why would we even be talking about this if nobody
wanted it here.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I think I'm going to go ahead and assume he
was white and probably like well off, maybe a business
owner himself. The way he was talking, so I think
he was saying like, no one of my ilk wants list,
which I think is fair. Probably like sure ninety nine
percent of white business owners who are doing well do
not want this to go on.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, really concerned about the traffic jams.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Too, Yeah, he was. And I think Mitch's article is
so much a testament to like the Atlanta way that
we've spoken to before on this podcast. Kind of just
like we're going to focus on having a good image
to the rest of the world. He brings up like
the Olympics are coming, and like, we don't want to
jeopardize anything with the Olympics, but we know what the
(22:40):
Olympics did to like black Atlanta, Like they're tearing down
people's houses and you know where they live, so that
when the world came to Atlanta, they would be impressed.
So I think Mitch's view point did represent a lot
of Atlanta's viewpoint of the situation.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, And to be fair, I also think that it
expanded beyond just the freaknik viewpoint. It was also the
spring break viewpoint that so many conservatives and evangelicals would
have had about things that weren't buttoned up enough for them,
Like spring break alone at the time was a lot
about debauchery, and it was about like having fun and drinking,
(23:17):
and it was about thing that they thought things that
people who were more conservative thought that teenagers and young
adults shouldn't be doing on spring break, and to have
that on such a grand scale as a freaknick would
be offensive to them.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I do think race played a big part of it,
because he said, like, oh, if like white people were
doing this, but like white people do do that type
of stuff, like they do go to Panama City, they
do go to Miami. Maybe they don't brand it a
certain name, but they do be at spring break, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yes, and no, I'm not saying that race wasn't involved.
I'm saying that that's an additional layer on top of
the fact that this person writings probably didn't care for
that kind of stuff around spring break period, like they
were already very stuffy conservative. This is the kind of
person who says, all these half naked people out in
public need to put some clothes on, you know, it's
(24:05):
not here for any of that. So, yes, race, I'm
not saying race is not involved, but it's absolutely involved.
It's just that this person probably was that kind of
person to not want any kind of situation like this. Yeah,
anything that would stop people from shopping right, no traffic fans.
So that was like an opinion column that citizens could
write into. But what did the paper itself say, like
(24:28):
the staff.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Writers True Metro Voices was an impendion column. I found
this article written by a staff writer and in it
you can definitely hear the racial tension present. Similar to
the opinion section, the staff writer says that a councilwoman
who was a fan of Freaknik implied at a council
meeting that the police were looking to kill some of
the partygoers, and said the same councilwoman compared Freaknik to
(24:52):
apartheid because of the city's decision to close some of
the highway exits. So she said, like these are apartheid tactics.
Other standout phrases from this article in the AJAC clogged
our streets and trashed our town and absolute carnage.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
How do you feel about that apartheid comment?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I mean, I do think with Freaknik, the reaction to
it was very racially motivated, like apartheid, and I do
think they were trying to control people's movement based on
their race and based on like, you're not supposed to
be a here, you're an outsider. So I mean, I
think with white people, a lot of their racist tactics
(25:30):
are just in them. You know, whether you're in Cape
Town or whether you're in Atlanta, that racist is going
to pop out and you're going to do the same bullshit.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
So it seems like at the end of this article
that's when the writer starts editorializing a little bit more
and inserting their own opinion, because at first is kind
of a blow by blow about what's going on with
the councilwoman Carolyn long Banks, and then towards the end,
that's when they start inserting their own opinion about how
they feel like council people should stand their grounds and
(25:59):
tell people that they need to be behaving correctly and
behaving respectably. Essentially the partygoers.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
H yeah, And I mean, I think even the quotes
that the writer decides to include I think are very telling.
And it was implied that the police were trying to
kill kids. The writer says that rhetorically the congresswoman descended,
so it's like kind of making her seem like kind
of undone, like, oh, is she crazy?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Y'all?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
She's saying the police trying to kill people, but like,
of course, like police did do that.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Sometimes the writer is definitely trying to portray the councilwoman
as radical.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, it's more extremely reckless, doesn't care about the city.
So it is mostly like quotes, but I think they
were picked very intentionally, and like the previous article talking
about Louis Mitchell's bookstore, like you know who the audience
for this is and who's going to be scandalized by
this coverage.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, So I know in your research, Katie, that you
came across a bunch of different articles and different newspapers,
and that the practice of journalism when it comes to
these really contentious issues that have to do with race
is very wide ranging and had a lot of nuance,
and that so many times just because a person said
something in the opinion section didn't necessarily mean those were
(27:18):
the reflective of the views of the newspaper in general.
And just because the newspaper was white didn't necessarily mean
they were always like anti black and everything that they wrote.
Just because the newspaper was black didn't necessarily mean that
their viewpoints were all the same, Like black people in
themselves have wide ranging opinions about different things. And I'm
(27:39):
sure like if in the case of Freakinick, there were
also black people who didn't want a bunch of people
descending upon the city. But I think it is of
course fair and valid and legitimate to see how all
of a newspaper's articles about a subject, taken in totality,
(27:59):
reflect how people felt about that and how they wanted
to express those views to their audiences. Because of course,
when you're creating a newspaper, when you're choosing what to
put in it, you know who your readers are. You
do that analysis. You want your newspaper to continue to
be that, you need to fund the newspaper. It has
to be funded. So there are going to be biases
(28:20):
that are included in the journalism that happens in the newspaper.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Absolutely, yeah, biases in any media. In this podcast, anything
you read like people are making it and people are biased.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Okay, now that we heard from the adac, let's see
what the bullack newspaper in Atlanta was saying that Atlanta
Daily Worlds, can you do us the honor of telling us?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
The title Gladly College Fest Freaking Nick ninety three promises
to have meaning?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
So basically this article by Della Pulam, a staff writer
at Atlanta Daily World, kind of it has a redemptive tale,
like we know that people didn't like freak me. We
know some stuff happened, and we're getting back to our roots.
It's gonna be smaller, but we're gonna have a scholarship
and people are gonna show off their talents, and you know,
(29:14):
these celebrities are going to be here like she named
drops baby Face and La Read and you know this
is about college students and we're getting back to that,
to college prep workshops for high schoolers and all this stuff.
So I think it had like a redemptive like, hey, hey,
not too much on us, like this is what we're
really about, or about education or about community being the
(29:36):
people together, which I think goes back to my point
about black newspapers trying to be a counter narrative, Like
I think this article is like real respectable.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Honestly, That's what I was gonna say because it seems
like they were admitting telling on ourselves, basically admitting to
that everything everybody has said before about this being a
terrible situation for Atlanta. Now we have to make up
for that.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I don't know if they were saying it was that terrible.
I don't know, so like from Humble Beginnings in nineteen
eighty four, like we're taking it back to that, you know,
like it got a little racous, but this is what
we're really about. This is what we're going to do,
come through. They're so advertising it, but they were definitely
(30:19):
a situating the positives. You know, they weren't talking about traffic,
they weren't talking about sexual assault. You know, they're name
dropping celebrities. It was kind of damage control.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, yeah, it's giving how when somebody when a black
child or a black person dies, and they have to say,
look at how good of a student they were after
the fact, or look at all these good things that
they did in society. They have to kind of justify
the good parts of the things that everybody else is
saying are negative about that person. That's kind of what
(30:49):
it reminds me of.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
And I found this to be kind of a pattern
in the Atlanta Daily World, especially about Freaknik. There were
other ones where they're saying, like Freaknek students vow they'll
quit the drinking. You know, people saying like, oh, there's
too much to going on, and they're like, oh, we're
not We're not doing that anymore. And it seemed like
ninety three was a year that they were trying to
turn it around, like there was a concerted effort to
(31:14):
like push out this narrative like Freakneak is cleaning, it's
up its image. We're not going to be doing all
that or do a scholarships. We're not gonna be drinking,
we're not gonna doing drugs. But like there wasn't really
much mention about like the sexual assault that was going on,
which like I think is more important than the traffic
because it's just gonna be traffic. It's Atlanta, there's gonna
be traffic, but not mentioning of like the more you know,
illegal things that were happening. Like the black newspapers didn't
(31:37):
want to really touch on that because I think it
would just confirm what white people said about these freakneakers
that they were called.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
They wanted to only touch on the harmless things that
it was really easy to justify after the fact, and
drinking was one of those things. But the article about
them saying I'm not drinking anymore was really funny to
me because I'm sure or they could throw a stone
and hit five other people who would be like that
was great, I'm drinking against tonight the party is still going, yeah,
(32:08):
and I'm ready for the next freaknik.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Three students said, we drink and drink and drink, but
that is it for a long time. So it's like,
I feel like a lot of people who drink are like, oh,
I'm never I was just.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
About to say that. I mean, I can tell you
how many times I've said that.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
It's like, girl, they hungover, just wait, drink. This is
a quote from that article about drinking. I will not
drink again, said ladies at film in college, who said
jokingly they had enough liquor in their system to last
a lifetime. So like, clearly they're just talking, but you know,
they make you make this a whole article trying to
like clean up the image of free peak, which like
I understand because you know, like people were very racist,
(32:49):
like saying like terrible things about these students, And I
just think like if one hundred thousand extra people are
in city, like somebody's going to go down, regardless of
the race, the age, Like someone's gonna do something illegal.
I think unless you're Muslim and taking the hajj, they're
not doing nothing illegal. I'm assumed they're not.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It's a pilgrimage of a different sort, but it is
not a modest one.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, So like if it's not that occurring, like somebody's
gonna someone's gonna be drinking too much, someone's gonna be littering,
someone's gonna be jying. But in the moment, people did
a little bit too much on freaknique, and black newspapers
were trying to combat that.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
So m hm. And we're selective in that combating. So
were there any white newspapers that talked about sexual assault?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, and it got national covers too, So like the
New York Times is talking about Freaknikue and things are
going on. I think like it was because it was
the early nineties, So I think the sexual assault like
talking about it like in Earnest was more like a retrospective.
But you know, it was just like kind of like
they're naked and cogging up the highways, like that was
(33:53):
the main thrust of the coverage. And I mean, yeah, like,
I think we've come a lot way in the understanding
sexual assault and knowing like you could literally be walking
down the street naked and like no one should touch you,
but I don't think people really. Yeah, so we've talked
(34:15):
about a bookstore and a college ring break party. But
of course these are not the only examples of disparate
coverage based on the source. And that's not just a
phenomenon of the past. It's happening right now. So I
think a big takeaway from seeing these examples is media literacy,
which entails considering the source and considering the intended audience.
(34:35):
Like we said, each newspaper, each podcast, each radio program,
they have their own biases. They're trying to get whatever
message they're trying to get out, and not saying that
is a bad thing, like that's just what it is,
but being able to know that and understand the biases
and be able to peep it and think for yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, we know that we're being influenced. Let's be mindful
of our awareness of that influence and then also try
to under stand that we can choose to take what
we want from it, and we don't just have to
mindlessly do that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And now it's time for role credits, the segment where
we give credit to a person, place, or thing that
we encountered during the week. Eves, who what would you
like to give credit to you?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I would like to give credit to short braids. These
aren't that short. I have braids in right now, but
I do like the length of them. I've been wearing
them for a couple of weeks now, and usually when
I do get braids or twists, when I get weave
there a little bit longer. But it's been pretty freeing
having such a like it's like a little bit underneath
my shoulders length. So braids all day, shorter braids all day.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I like you, Okay, I'd like to give credit to
surprise parties. I went to one recently and NEWS don't
know how to keep auspries.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Did you set up the party or did somebody else
set up the party?
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Someone else set it up. I was just there, but
I feel like people will be trying to make the
surprise about them, even though it's absolutely not about you. Like,
basically everyone was calling this the person that was being
surprised and being like, oh, what are you doing for
your birthday? Like, no, niggas are so annoying, like straight
up like you know me, I'm not the type to
like have really be hitting her up that much on
(36:17):
her birthday, So I didn't say anything.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Those are the type of people who be too loud
at the space table. They'd be talking too much. Go on,
continue this theory, because you know how there's like a
reverse psychology you can work when you're at when you're
playing space and you can be like, oh, I got
this heat in my hand, like I'm doing all of this,
I'm doing all of that, I'm whooped the wood. I
(36:40):
gotta set up whoop the looping there. Yeah, So I
feel like that's the same kind of person who rather
than a person who can be you know, they can
say things at the right time at the space table
and know when not to say things. You give up
too much, basically you lay your cards on the table. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I don't know. I think people just want to be like, oh,
I tricked you. But it's like maybe if one person
does that, but if seventy five people call and say
what are you doing here? They like it's a little hit.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah, what did the person say? Did the was the
person actually surprised? Now? Did they like the party?
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah, they had some time at the party, but they
weren't surprised. They're like something that's going on.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, And with that.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
We will see y'all next week.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Bye bye. On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and
Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves Jeffco
and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison.
Follow us on Instagram at on Theme Show. You can
also send us an email at hello at on Theme
(37:43):
dot Show. Head to on Theme dot Show to check
out the show notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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