February 25, 2023 • 25 mins
The first and second halves of today’s show are a recap of our recent visit to Washington D.C. to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In short, it was incredible! Also, discussed is our visit to Norfolk State University, and a spotlight of Benjamin Banneker on our Way Black History Fact!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Ramsay's Jock.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
He is Rams' joh I am q Woard. You are
listening to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Yes, indeed, be sure to stick around because we are
going to be talking about some fun stuff today. Relatively speaking,
we had a very interesting trip that we went on
recently where we were able to experience some things that
(00:33):
we knew about, of course, but experience him up close
and in person. And then we got a chance to
experience some things we didn't know about at all. And
what I'm referring to is we had a chance to
visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture
in Washington, d C. And so for today's episode, we
(00:54):
will be outlining our trip there and kind of explain
to you everything that we saw there, well not everything,
but what we saw and really what we took away
from that. There was a lot of people there having
a similar experience, a shared experience, and so we thought,
(01:14):
i think pretty early on into the trip, like, Okay,
we're going to have to do an episode dedicating episode
to just this very thing. So today is that day.
And also we have something that we want to share
with you in our way black history fact about a
gentleman named Benjamin Banneker who was one of the folks
(01:36):
that helped design Washington, d c our nation's capital. Wow
and actually a very prominent player in kind of the
way the nation's capital is laid out. And there's a
lot of really really cool stuff about him that we're
going to get to. And of course he was black,
so we're excited to share that with you as well,
(01:57):
and plenty of other things. But first and foremost today
we're going to talk about EBNY Excellence. As always, First,
how does that sound to UQ?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Shall we we shall?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So today's ebny Excellence is sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly
Media and we are going to shout out a group
of folks. It's a little different for us. This group
of folks all come together at a location, So we're
going to shout out the location Norfolk State University.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
One time from Norfolk State.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
University, Norfolk State University, and an example of ebony excellence
is if we've ever seen it. For those that don't know,
Norfolk State University is an HBCU or historically Black college
and university. We had a chance to check them out
in Virginia and shout out to Wowie FMWOWI out there
(02:53):
in VA as well. But we had a chance to
go to Norfolk State and hang out with Braxton and
Cadija and Kathy and and Maynard and Latif and pro
Shot and I don't know her name, but everybody kept
calling her light skin and uh, Dominique Garcia, all these
(03:15):
all these wonderful, amazing people, UH building an environment and
a framework for the next generation of Black leaders and
allies and indeed intelligent people. Because on the campus, although
it's an HBCU, not all the students were black, not
(03:36):
all the teachers are black. It was a you know,
historically black college and university, but a place where Black
people are centered in Black stories are are centered and taught,
and the facilities are amazing. The campus is amazing, and
the people are amazing. And I love the work that
they're doing. Q loves the work that they're doing. And
we wanted to make sure that we shouted all those
(03:58):
folks out. So shot out again to all the folks
at Norfolk State. So this museum, the National Museum of
African American History and Culture, I wouldn't be mad at
you if you haven't heard of it because many people
(04:21):
aren't into museums. And you know, all of our listeners,
we don't have a station in d C yet. It's
coming very soon. But if you're hearing my voice, is
a good chance you don't live anywhere near DC. And
so if you're listening in Norfolk here actually pretty close.
(04:42):
Oh well, I guess if you're in Norfolk. Yeah again,
shout out to Wowee. But you know, many folks still
don't make it too. You know, a museum like this,
and you know, one of the things that we saw
while we were in d C was a building and
this is going to be funny to cue, but all
building and kind of engraved into the side of this
(05:03):
extremely prominent, well fortified building massive read the mortified building.
Yeah yeah, but it read, you know, the National Archives
of the United States of America. And I remember thinking,
what a statement, what a thing to say, what a building.
You know, just think of all the history the National
(05:24):
Archives are in this in this one building. Well, the
National Museum of African American History and Culture kind of
serves a similar purpose for black people in this country.
And again, we're very fortunate enough to be invited out
(05:47):
and The reason we want you to know about our
journey is because it was very moving. So, as I
mentioned when we first got there, let me paint a
picture for you. So the building is kind of modeled
after sort of a crown, right, it looks almost like
a crown or that. This is kind of what the
(06:09):
design was supposed to be. I want to say it's
maybe five stories. But the way the tour works, the
way you're supposed to experience the museum as you start
in the basement, right.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
And they're very intentional with that too. Sure, sure, so
go ahead with that. So it kind of takes you
down into the vowels of the museum. It's a figurative,
figurative and literal experience. As you're going down into this place,
this big, massive building starts to feel a lot smaller.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And the reason for that is so they're very intentional
about this. They will rope off the basement section or
a long story well that goes down, the rope it
off until enough people have kind of congregated waiting to
go in, and then they'll remove the rope so everyone
can go in. Now, while you're waiting, there's like a
(07:13):
stairwell that kind of takes you down a bit further,
and I remember.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
There's an elevator you can take too, but we took
the stairs.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
The stairs right, and we're waiting with everybody, and there's
a wall and the wall is kind of backlit, and
I want you to go. I want you to see
this for yourself. But on the wall there's pictures of
prominent events in black history in this country. But there
is a photograph eye level of Immitt Till and he's
(07:43):
looking right at you and his you know, he never
got to grow up. For those that know the story,
we've discussed the story here on the show. If you
don't know the story, please look up the story of Mattel.
But you know, if you don't know, he never got
to grow up. So he's a forever fourteen year old.
And you see his face in its eye level, and
I remember the feeling of wanting to reach out and
(08:05):
touch his face, and you start to feel the weight
of the experience that you're about to have. It starts
to get smaller, as Q mentioned, So we're going down,
we have our moment with him until like, oh man,
(08:26):
this is going to be intense. There's lots of photos there,
but that was the one that we kind of focused
in on. We get down. Now there's a group of
us waiting to go in, right, So finally when there's
enough of us, they open the rope and we all
pour into the bowels of the museum. And in the
bowels of the museum, it starts with black history in
(08:52):
Africa and the slave trade. Right. So the closeness of
all the bodies huddled together walking into this tiny space,
you start to kind of get a sense of what
it might have been like to be in a slave ship.
(09:13):
It's very dark down there. It's not uncomfortable, but it helps.
It's intimate, right, and it helps kind of And we're gonna.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Keep using this word intentional because it is the best
word to describe the way that the museum is set up.
You're in a very very close proximity with essentially strangers,
and very very soon into this journey, you find yourself
having conversations, you have to, you find yourself sharing spaces
(09:42):
and this kind of feeling of stranger and I think
in normal times in a space like that, people would
be uncomfortable, but in a different way because this was uncomfortable,
but it wasn't uncomfortable in an unfamiliar way again and
did not feel like we were now, oh my god,
trapped in this room with strangers. It's like everyone in
the room collectively took an inventory of what we were
(10:04):
learning and what we were seeing, and then we just
kind of start really emotionally depending on each other.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Like that's that's the right way to say it. So
you're in with this what maybe thirty forty people something
like that.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
You know a little more because I'm picturing this several
groups of people that were around us, the conversations that
we had with this young lady and these two young ladies,
and this family and this couple. Maybe fifty people.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Okay, so fifty folks, right, and you walk in and
again you don't know anyone, but you see people start
walking through. Our intention when you and I got there
was to spend ten minutes just kind of taking it in.
We had to go see the whole museum, so maybe
(10:50):
thirty minutes something like that to see just you know,
the each level. Spend thirty minutes, and we're on our way,
and it's not that kind of party. Absolutely no, it
doesn't work that way. If you're a human being with
a beating heart. And you find yourself in the bottom
of this museum, you will be changed. You see people.
I saw people black as I am. I saw people
(11:13):
Asian people, White people having human moments, crying, people trying
to educate their children, people you know what I mean,
they're with their kids.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Was that was probably the most inspiring part because again,
not black people, people for whom a certain faction of
our country, what have you believe, were not emotionally or
mentally equipped to see or learn about this stuff. So
parents of those children going out of their way to
make sure, Okay, if they're not going to teach you.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I'm gonna teach you.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I'm going to teach you.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And then there's a place to learn it. And it's
and I'm going to tell you about it, of course,
but I want to make sure you understand. It's heavy,
but it's beautiful. We're going to talk about some heavy stuff, right.
But the reason why this isn't a normal show where
(12:09):
we're talking about heavy stuff and that's just it. This
is heavy, but it's beautiful because the way they've designed
the museum. I guess again everything is intentional. So let
me continue. So you're down here, you're kind of maneuvering about,
and there's exhibits on the walls. Right. This is called
the Journey toward Freedom and it's the fifteenth through the
(12:29):
twenty first centuries. This is the exhibit in the bottom
of the museum. One of the things that you notice
right away is there's literally riding on the wall of
all of the slave ship manifests that they have records of,
(12:56):
and it's that was something that was very difficult for
me to see. It's it's I think that for me,
I have a I have a it. How do I
say this? When you think back to a person that
died before you were alive, It's it's something. It's almost
(13:18):
like a number is it's it's not a real thing.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
There was an interesting moment when I noticed you noticing
those where I didn't understand why. So I'm watching Ramses.
I'm in a separate part of the same room, and
I look over and I noticed that Ramses is trouble,
and I can't really wrap my head around specifically why.
Except in this room, there are so many things that
(13:42):
can grasp you emotionally, So him looking at words etched
into the wall, I didn't know what about that specifically
made him emote in that way, but I just knew
that there was something. And then when I went over
to join him and understood what he was showing me,
it took about ten minutes to just palls and mentally
(14:04):
reconcile with what we were reading. Sure, sure, so paint
a picture of Okay, okay, what thank you? We're reading?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So watch this. You go into this room and it's
a museum. So there's exhibits, there's you know, documents, there's books,
there's papers, there's slave chains, all this sort of stuff,
and almost as an afterthought, it's not the main exhibit.
There's nothing that calls attention to it. It's just kind
of sitting there in the shadows. If you make your
(14:34):
way to it. Are these manifests of the ships, and
they're in tiny, little lettering, and there's so many. They're
all over the walls. They're not written in big letters
that draw your eye in. You have to look for
them again. And the manifests say the ship name, the
(14:55):
country of origin of the ship, the date that the
ship sets sail, how many enslaved boarded, how many survived.
That's actually the category enslaved boarded, slash survived and that
(15:18):
number slaves boarded, slash survived. That the second number is
always lower.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
The second number is lower and one.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Of the ships. Yeah, And so we talk about slavery,
We talk about Jim Crow, we talk about black Codes,
we talk about you know, the history in this country.
We talk about uh Rosewood, we talk about you know,
Black Wall Street, we talk about all the stuff, right,
(15:55):
But the Middle Passage is what happened to human beings
before they even made it to the s And I
know that we haven't spent time discussing this because.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
And that's not unique to us. There's not a lot
of time spent on the Middle Passage period.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
The history kind of starts with slaves arriving here, and
there's an understanding that they came from Africa, but the
journey from there to hear it doesn't get much narrative,
it doesn't get much color, it doesn't get much context.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So watch this. To me, seeing this, it let me
know exactly what it means to have our ancestors be
commodified because they assumed not all of the enslaved would
(16:49):
finish the journey. And these little manifest numbers are flanked
by exhibits that showed how slave were rounded up, and
it shows how slaves were packed into the ships. And
you know, a little bit further along there's a more
(17:13):
prominent quote. I think you have to like get into
the second or third room pane of glass behind which
all the exhibits and the things that you're supposed to
look at are sitting, and this pane of glass says, here,
go ahead read it.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Negroes are a perishable commodity. When you have an opportunity,
dispose of them for gold.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And this guy's name is.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I think it's Humphrey Morse.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, I was gonna not say it, but anyway, and
Q took that picture. He was actually showing me on
the phone. I know you can't see us in the
studio right now, but.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
That quote is from seventeen thirty.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Actually I have a photoed myself. But anyway, so immediately
you get you or at least for me, I got
the sense of whoa, whoa. You know this is not
Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn, where you know these folks
(18:18):
are friends, you know they're they're just happen to own us.
This is like, no, you are literally property, you own,
you exist to you know, we're we're trying to make
money off of you, or avoid work, or whatever the
case is, whatever their intentions where motivations work for the
slave trade, and it's it's it makes your stomach turn.
(18:42):
You know, we weren't. None of us were comfortable down there.
But again a bright moment, it was seeing other human
beings have human experiences that were not black. You know,
I could be down there all day and feel the
weight of that and feel awful for people that live
harsh life and died very short and we're thrown overboard
(19:03):
into the water, fed to the sharks because they couldn't
survive that journey, or because they were whipped or made
an example of or whatever to keep the rebellions from happening.
But the manifest where it'd say like one hundred and
seventy nine slaves boarded the ship and eighty three survived
the journey, you start to realize the amount of life
(19:24):
lost at that point. There are some other things. These
things were chronicled. There's a person that I read about
in the maybe fourth grade, fifth grade. This is an
argument for critical race theory, because I'm sure that his
book would be attacked and challenged in terms of its value,
(19:51):
its educational value. But a man named Olu Dah Equiano
was a black man. Actually, I'll read from the exhibit.
He was born a free African in the Benein region
of Western Africa, son of a community leader at Quiana,
was kidnapped from his homeland and sold into slavery. He
secured his freedom and went on to write a compelling
(20:13):
personal account of his life. His story of sorrow, brutality
and resilience offered a deeper understanding of the human cost
of the slave trade and helped to mobilize opinion against it.
And they have a book of his from I'm not
sure when this book was printed, but it's like a
very old book and the exhibit and it was called
(20:35):
The Interesting Narrative, and that actually was the book that
I had to read. I think it was like the
fourth grade. So you know, we're walking through the museum.
The next part is the human cost. The average life
span of enslaved Africans who worked on colonial sugar and
rice plantations was seven years. Extreme physical demands relied on
(20:59):
equally extreme instruments of torture to ensure control over enslaved
people's and protect plantation profits. Enslaved Africans were denied human
dignity and the benefits of the economies and societies they
built for others. So yes, so we're walking through, you know,
and there's you know, things like this on the wall, things,
(21:21):
you know, documents, books, instruments, weapons, chains, all the sort
of stress shackles exactly. And then you know, we're maybe
like halfway through and I see another one of those
manifest numbers. This is a ship that came from France.
(21:43):
The voyage began on twelve ten, seventeen thirty. It started
with one hundred and seventy enslaved who boarded the ship,
the ship and then one who survived. So one hundred
and sixty nine people lost their life life on or
after December tenth, seventeen thirty. And those were black people
(22:09):
because they had been commodified, so that one hit different.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
And can you imagine being the one.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
The trauma that you're taking with you, you know, who knows.
But one of the things that also started to emerge
as we're traveling through the vowels of this museum, because
it's in chronological order, so we're going from you know,
the fifteen hundreds, seventeen hundreds eighteen hundred. You know, on
(22:45):
through the American history throughout the museum, but we get
to a point where it's time to it's around the
time of the American Revolution, and the American Revolution, of course,
is when America fought for independence from Britain, and Christmas
(23:12):
Attics was the first person to die on that. Then
there's a they dedicate a lot to telling his story
as well. But there's another quote that stood out in
this museum. It says, it always appeared a most iniquitous
scheme to me fight ourselves for what we are daily
robbing and plundering from those who have it a right
(23:33):
to freedom as we have so quote from Abigail Adams,
a white woman who thought it was strange that Americans
were fighting for their freedom while enslaving Africans. And then
that kind of sort of like kind of spit you
(23:54):
off into the next part of the museum. So now
we're past the the part of the Middle Passage and
there's a huge exhibit it's called the Paradox of Liberty Right,
and there are statues of the Founding Fathers and on
(24:17):
the wall. The wall goes up maybe three four stories,
and it's the Declaration of Independence. And it's like metal
letters etched into the wall.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
And before we actually get to the statues above the platform,
and the platform itself has an inscription. That inscription reads
the paradox of the American Revolution, the fight for liberty
and an error of widespread slavery embedded in the foundation
of the United States. The tension between slavery and freedom,
who belongs and who is excluded, resonates through the nation's
(24:53):
history and spurs the American people to wrestle constantly with
building a more perfect union. This paradox was embedded in
national institutions that are still vital today.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Stay tune, will be back with more
Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Ramsay's Jock.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
He is Rams' joh I am q Woard. You are
listening to Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Yes, indeed, be sure to stick around because we are
going to be talking about some fun stuff today. Relatively speaking,
we had a very interesting trip that we went on
recently where we were able to experience some things that
(00:33):
we knew about, of course, but experience him up close
and in person. And then we got a chance to
experience some things we didn't know about at all. And
what I'm referring to is we had a chance to
visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture
in Washington, d C. And so for today's episode, we
(00:54):
will be outlining our trip there and kind of explain
to you everything that we saw there, well not everything,
but what we saw and really what we took away
from that. There was a lot of people there having
a similar experience, a shared experience, and so we thought,
(01:14):
i think pretty early on into the trip, like, Okay,
we're going to have to do an episode dedicating episode
to just this very thing. So today is that day.
And also we have something that we want to share
with you in our way black history fact about a
gentleman named Benjamin Banneker who was one of the folks
(01:36):
that helped design Washington, d c our nation's capital. Wow
and actually a very prominent player in kind of the
way the nation's capital is laid out. And there's a
lot of really really cool stuff about him that we're
going to get to. And of course he was black,
so we're excited to share that with you as well,
(01:57):
and plenty of other things. But first and foremost today
we're going to talk about EBNY Excellence. As always, First,
how does that sound to UQ?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Shall we we shall?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So today's ebny Excellence is sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly
Media and we are going to shout out a group
of folks. It's a little different for us. This group
of folks all come together at a location, So we're
going to shout out the location Norfolk State University.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
One time from Norfolk State.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
University, Norfolk State University, and an example of ebony excellence
is if we've ever seen it. For those that don't know,
Norfolk State University is an HBCU or historically Black college
and university. We had a chance to check them out
in Virginia and shout out to Wowie FMWOWI out there
(02:53):
in VA as well. But we had a chance to
go to Norfolk State and hang out with Braxton and
Cadija and Kathy and and Maynard and Latif and pro
Shot and I don't know her name, but everybody kept
calling her light skin and uh, Dominique Garcia, all these
(03:15):
all these wonderful, amazing people, UH building an environment and
a framework for the next generation of Black leaders and
allies and indeed intelligent people. Because on the campus, although
it's an HBCU, not all the students were black, not
(03:36):
all the teachers are black. It was a you know,
historically black college and university, but a place where Black
people are centered in Black stories are are centered and taught,
and the facilities are amazing. The campus is amazing, and
the people are amazing. And I love the work that
they're doing. Q loves the work that they're doing. And
we wanted to make sure that we shouted all those
(03:58):
folks out. So shot out again to all the folks
at Norfolk State. So this museum, the National Museum of
African American History and Culture, I wouldn't be mad at
you if you haven't heard of it because many people
(04:21):
aren't into museums. And you know, all of our listeners,
we don't have a station in d C yet. It's
coming very soon. But if you're hearing my voice, is
a good chance you don't live anywhere near DC. And
so if you're listening in Norfolk here actually pretty close.
(04:42):
Oh well, I guess if you're in Norfolk. Yeah again,
shout out to Wowee. But you know, many folks still
don't make it too. You know, a museum like this,
and you know, one of the things that we saw
while we were in d C was a building and
this is going to be funny to cue, but all
building and kind of engraved into the side of this
(05:03):
extremely prominent, well fortified building massive read the mortified building.
Yeah yeah, but it read, you know, the National Archives
of the United States of America. And I remember thinking,
what a statement, what a thing to say, what a building.
You know, just think of all the history the National
(05:24):
Archives are in this in this one building. Well, the
National Museum of African American History and Culture kind of
serves a similar purpose for black people in this country.
And again, we're very fortunate enough to be invited out
(05:47):
and The reason we want you to know about our
journey is because it was very moving. So, as I
mentioned when we first got there, let me paint a
picture for you. So the building is kind of modeled
after sort of a crown, right, it looks almost like
a crown or that. This is kind of what the
(06:09):
design was supposed to be. I want to say it's
maybe five stories. But the way the tour works, the
way you're supposed to experience the museum as you start
in the basement, right.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
And they're very intentional with that too. Sure, sure, so
go ahead with that. So it kind of takes you
down into the vowels of the museum. It's a figurative,
figurative and literal experience. As you're going down into this place,
this big, massive building starts to feel a lot smaller.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And the reason for that is so they're very intentional
about this. They will rope off the basement section or
a long story well that goes down, the rope it
off until enough people have kind of congregated waiting to
go in, and then they'll remove the rope so everyone
can go in. Now, while you're waiting, there's like a
(07:13):
stairwell that kind of takes you down a bit further,
and I remember.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
There's an elevator you can take too, but we took
the stairs.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
The stairs right, and we're waiting with everybody, and there's
a wall and the wall is kind of backlit, and
I want you to go. I want you to see
this for yourself. But on the wall there's pictures of
prominent events in black history in this country. But there
is a photograph eye level of Immitt Till and he's
(07:43):
looking right at you and his you know, he never
got to grow up. For those that know the story,
we've discussed the story here on the show. If you
don't know the story, please look up the story of Mattel.
But you know, if you don't know, he never got
to grow up. So he's a forever fourteen year old.
And you see his face in its eye level, and
I remember the feeling of wanting to reach out and
(08:05):
touch his face, and you start to feel the weight
of the experience that you're about to have. It starts
to get smaller, as Q mentioned, So we're going down,
we have our moment with him until like, oh man,
(08:26):
this is going to be intense. There's lots of photos there,
but that was the one that we kind of focused
in on. We get down. Now there's a group of
us waiting to go in, right, So finally when there's
enough of us, they open the rope and we all
pour into the bowels of the museum. And in the
bowels of the museum, it starts with black history in
(08:52):
Africa and the slave trade. Right. So the closeness of
all the bodies huddled together walking into this tiny space,
you start to kind of get a sense of what
it might have been like to be in a slave ship.
(09:13):
It's very dark down there. It's not uncomfortable, but it helps.
It's intimate, right, and it helps kind of And we're gonna.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Keep using this word intentional because it is the best
word to describe the way that the museum is set up.
You're in a very very close proximity with essentially strangers,
and very very soon into this journey, you find yourself
having conversations, you have to, you find yourself sharing spaces
(09:42):
and this kind of feeling of stranger and I think
in normal times in a space like that, people would
be uncomfortable, but in a different way because this was uncomfortable,
but it wasn't uncomfortable in an unfamiliar way again and
did not feel like we were now, oh my god,
trapped in this room with strangers. It's like everyone in
the room collectively took an inventory of what we were
(10:04):
learning and what we were seeing, and then we just
kind of start really emotionally depending on each other.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Like that's that's the right way to say it. So
you're in with this what maybe thirty forty people something
like that.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
You know a little more because I'm picturing this several
groups of people that were around us, the conversations that
we had with this young lady and these two young ladies,
and this family and this couple. Maybe fifty people.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Okay, so fifty folks, right, and you walk in and
again you don't know anyone, but you see people start
walking through. Our intention when you and I got there
was to spend ten minutes just kind of taking it in.
We had to go see the whole museum, so maybe
(10:50):
thirty minutes something like that to see just you know,
the each level. Spend thirty minutes, and we're on our way,
and it's not that kind of party. Absolutely no, it
doesn't work that way. If you're a human being with
a beating heart. And you find yourself in the bottom
of this museum, you will be changed. You see people.
I saw people black as I am. I saw people
(11:13):
Asian people, White people having human moments, crying, people trying
to educate their children, people you know what I mean,
they're with their kids.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Was that was probably the most inspiring part because again,
not black people, people for whom a certain faction of
our country, what have you believe, were not emotionally or
mentally equipped to see or learn about this stuff. So
parents of those children going out of their way to
make sure, Okay, if they're not going to teach you.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I'm gonna teach you.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I'm going to teach you.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And then there's a place to learn it. And it's
and I'm going to tell you about it, of course,
but I want to make sure you understand. It's heavy,
but it's beautiful. We're going to talk about some heavy stuff, right.
But the reason why this isn't a normal show where
(12:09):
we're talking about heavy stuff and that's just it. This
is heavy, but it's beautiful because the way they've designed
the museum. I guess again everything is intentional. So let
me continue. So you're down here, you're kind of maneuvering about,
and there's exhibits on the walls. Right. This is called
the Journey toward Freedom and it's the fifteenth through the
(12:29):
twenty first centuries. This is the exhibit in the bottom
of the museum. One of the things that you notice
right away is there's literally riding on the wall of
all of the slave ship manifests that they have records of,
(12:56):
and it's that was something that was very difficult for
me to see. It's it's I think that for me,
I have a I have a it. How do I
say this? When you think back to a person that
died before you were alive, It's it's something. It's almost
(13:18):
like a number is it's it's not a real thing.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
There was an interesting moment when I noticed you noticing
those where I didn't understand why. So I'm watching Ramses.
I'm in a separate part of the same room, and
I look over and I noticed that Ramses is trouble,
and I can't really wrap my head around specifically why.
Except in this room, there are so many things that
(13:42):
can grasp you emotionally, So him looking at words etched
into the wall, I didn't know what about that specifically
made him emote in that way, but I just knew
that there was something. And then when I went over
to join him and understood what he was showing me,
it took about ten minutes to just palls and mentally
(14:04):
reconcile with what we were reading. Sure, sure, so paint
a picture of Okay, okay, what thank you? We're reading?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So watch this. You go into this room and it's
a museum. So there's exhibits, there's you know, documents, there's books,
there's papers, there's slave chains, all this sort of stuff,
and almost as an afterthought, it's not the main exhibit.
There's nothing that calls attention to it. It's just kind
of sitting there in the shadows. If you make your
(14:34):
way to it. Are these manifests of the ships, and
they're in tiny, little lettering, and there's so many. They're
all over the walls. They're not written in big letters
that draw your eye in. You have to look for
them again. And the manifests say the ship name, the
(14:55):
country of origin of the ship, the date that the
ship sets sail, how many enslaved boarded, how many survived.
That's actually the category enslaved boarded, slash survived and that
(15:18):
number slaves boarded, slash survived. That the second number is
always lower.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
The second number is lower and one.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Of the ships. Yeah, And so we talk about slavery,
We talk about Jim Crow, we talk about black Codes,
we talk about you know, the history in this country.
We talk about uh Rosewood, we talk about you know,
Black Wall Street, we talk about all the stuff, right,
(15:55):
But the Middle Passage is what happened to human beings
before they even made it to the s And I
know that we haven't spent time discussing this because.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
And that's not unique to us. There's not a lot
of time spent on the Middle Passage period.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
The history kind of starts with slaves arriving here, and
there's an understanding that they came from Africa, but the
journey from there to hear it doesn't get much narrative,
it doesn't get much color, it doesn't get much context.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So watch this. To me, seeing this, it let me
know exactly what it means to have our ancestors be
commodified because they assumed not all of the enslaved would
(16:49):
finish the journey. And these little manifest numbers are flanked
by exhibits that showed how slave were rounded up, and
it shows how slaves were packed into the ships. And
you know, a little bit further along there's a more
(17:13):
prominent quote. I think you have to like get into
the second or third room pane of glass behind which
all the exhibits and the things that you're supposed to
look at are sitting, and this pane of glass says, here,
go ahead read it.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Negroes are a perishable commodity. When you have an opportunity,
dispose of them for gold.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And this guy's name is.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I think it's Humphrey Morse.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, I was gonna not say it, but anyway, and
Q took that picture. He was actually showing me on
the phone. I know you can't see us in the
studio right now, but.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
That quote is from seventeen thirty.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Actually I have a photoed myself. But anyway, so immediately
you get you or at least for me, I got
the sense of whoa, whoa. You know this is not
Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn, where you know these folks
(18:18):
are friends, you know they're they're just happen to own us.
This is like, no, you are literally property, you own,
you exist to you know, we're we're trying to make
money off of you, or avoid work, or whatever the
case is, whatever their intentions where motivations work for the
slave trade, and it's it's it makes your stomach turn.
(18:42):
You know, we weren't. None of us were comfortable down there.
But again a bright moment, it was seeing other human
beings have human experiences that were not black. You know,
I could be down there all day and feel the
weight of that and feel awful for people that live
harsh life and died very short and we're thrown overboard
(19:03):
into the water, fed to the sharks because they couldn't
survive that journey, or because they were whipped or made
an example of or whatever to keep the rebellions from happening.
But the manifest where it'd say like one hundred and
seventy nine slaves boarded the ship and eighty three survived
the journey, you start to realize the amount of life
(19:24):
lost at that point. There are some other things. These
things were chronicled. There's a person that I read about
in the maybe fourth grade, fifth grade. This is an
argument for critical race theory, because I'm sure that his
book would be attacked and challenged in terms of its value,
(19:51):
its educational value. But a man named Olu Dah Equiano
was a black man. Actually, I'll read from the exhibit.
He was born a free African in the Benein region
of Western Africa, son of a community leader at Quiana,
was kidnapped from his homeland and sold into slavery. He
secured his freedom and went on to write a compelling
(20:13):
personal account of his life. His story of sorrow, brutality
and resilience offered a deeper understanding of the human cost
of the slave trade and helped to mobilize opinion against it.
And they have a book of his from I'm not
sure when this book was printed, but it's like a
very old book and the exhibit and it was called
(20:35):
The Interesting Narrative, and that actually was the book that
I had to read. I think it was like the
fourth grade. So you know, we're walking through the museum.
The next part is the human cost. The average life
span of enslaved Africans who worked on colonial sugar and
rice plantations was seven years. Extreme physical demands relied on
(20:59):
equally extreme instruments of torture to ensure control over enslaved
people's and protect plantation profits. Enslaved Africans were denied human
dignity and the benefits of the economies and societies they
built for others. So yes, so we're walking through, you know,
and there's you know, things like this on the wall, things,
(21:21):
you know, documents, books, instruments, weapons, chains, all the sort
of stress shackles exactly. And then you know, we're maybe
like halfway through and I see another one of those
manifest numbers. This is a ship that came from France.
(21:43):
The voyage began on twelve ten, seventeen thirty. It started
with one hundred and seventy enslaved who boarded the ship,
the ship and then one who survived. So one hundred
and sixty nine people lost their life life on or
after December tenth, seventeen thirty. And those were black people
(22:09):
because they had been commodified, so that one hit different.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
And can you imagine being the one.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
The trauma that you're taking with you, you know, who knows.
But one of the things that also started to emerge
as we're traveling through the vowels of this museum, because
it's in chronological order, so we're going from you know,
the fifteen hundreds, seventeen hundreds eighteen hundred. You know, on
(22:45):
through the American history throughout the museum, but we get
to a point where it's time to it's around the
time of the American Revolution, and the American Revolution, of course,
is when America fought for independence from Britain, and Christmas
(23:12):
Attics was the first person to die on that. Then
there's a they dedicate a lot to telling his story
as well. But there's another quote that stood out in
this museum. It says, it always appeared a most iniquitous
scheme to me fight ourselves for what we are daily
robbing and plundering from those who have it a right
(23:33):
to freedom as we have so quote from Abigail Adams,
a white woman who thought it was strange that Americans
were fighting for their freedom while enslaving Africans. And then
that kind of sort of like kind of spit you
(23:54):
off into the next part of the museum. So now
we're past the the part of the Middle Passage and
there's a huge exhibit it's called the Paradox of Liberty Right,
and there are statues of the Founding Fathers and on
(24:17):
the wall. The wall goes up maybe three four stories,
and it's the Declaration of Independence. And it's like metal
letters etched into the wall.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
And before we actually get to the statues above the platform,
and the platform itself has an inscription. That inscription reads
the paradox of the American Revolution, the fight for liberty
and an error of widespread slavery embedded in the foundation
of the United States. The tension between slavery and freedom,
who belongs and who is excluded, resonates through the nation's
(24:53):
history and spurs the American people to wrestle constantly with
building a more perfect union. This paradox was embedded in
national institutions that are still vital today.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Stay tune, will be back with more
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