August 26, 2025 • 61 mins
In this season two final episode, host Mike Rusch takes us back to the gravel road where the story of Northwest Arkansas began, a road overlooking unmarked graves, a place of silence and memory. From that ground, the season has traced centuries of history: Indigenous nations removed from their homelands, enslaved people forced to labor, families rebuilding after the Civil War, immigrants shaping new communities, and the global systems of capitalism, faith, and labor that continue to define the region today.
This episode weaves together the voices of archaeologists, historians, descendants, organizers, and elders who guided us through the hidden stories of this land. It is both reflection and reckoning: a recognition that systems of power and exclusion remain, but also that we hold the possibility of repair, renewal, and belonging. As the season closes, we are reminded that the story of Northwest Arkansas is not finished. It is still being written in the lives of those who call this place home.
About the underview:
The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.
Website: theunderview.com
Follow us on Instagram: @underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
mike. (00:56):
Well, it was a cold January day
when I was first here.
This out of the way gravelroad in Western Benton County.
It overlooks a hayfieldwhere an old story is buried.
This land wasfilled with silence.
The silence of thoseburied here, unknown
names and unmarked graves.
Yet even in their silence,I could still sense the
weight of the structuresthat placed them here.
(01:17):
It's August now, herein the Ozark Mountains
of Northwest Arkansas.
The early springrains are a memory.
And the summer sunstill rules the sky.
Even though the days havestarted to grow shorter.
School has begun, and with it,a familiar rhythm has returned,
and there's a familiar hopethat's not too far behind, and
that's the promise of October.
Even though it feels fartheraway than it really is, I still
(01:39):
feel the anxiety inside tohurry towards it because in this
settled place, October bringswith it a much needed grace.
A time when the land speaksback to acknowledge the
gratitude it holds forthose of us who have been
waiting so patiently for it.
To honor the promiseof October's coming.
We must find contentmentin the moment.
And while that heat ispredictably difficult,
(02:01):
the swimming holes alonglittle Sugar Creek have
brought some relief.
And for a gravel cycle assuch as myself, this is a
season of waiting, a seasonof advent of sorts in
October, a type of salvationand this kingdom of gravel.
My bike GPS, is that I'veridden a little over 3000
miles in the past eight monthssince we began this season.
And while we have come along way, it also tells me
(02:22):
I'm not where I should be.
I'm pretty far behind mypace in order to reach
my annual mileage goal.
I could blame the longerwinter or the spring
rains, and maybe I should.
However, this year has beendifferent and my focus has been
pulled in many other directions,not from the gravel roads
necessarily, but my focus hasdrifted as our national posture
has changed towards the world,our people, and our hopes.
(02:45):
It's taken its toll.
Even now, I look around mycity and I see these ancient
patterns returning in ourschools where there's battles
over education that aretangling with the return of
religious nationalism, in ourneighborhoods, isolated behind
gates and garage doors thathide questions about whether our
neighbors are in this countrylegally or not, and in our city
(03:06):
council meetings where inclusionitself has now become divisive.
I wish I could say that theseare new problems and we could
find new solutions, but we'renot experiencing new problems.
We're experiencing the sameanswers to the questions
that have haunted thisplace for centuries.
Who gets to belong?
Or stated more clearly whoshould be allowed to belong?
I've spent the past two yearsasking our community what it
(03:27):
means to belong here, and I'vefound that almost universally,
everyone carries the samefear and that fear is that
someone else is trying to takeaway their ability to belong.
You can hear it in the waypeople talk about their
neighborhoods or theirjobs, and you can see it in
who shows up in our publicspaces and who stays home.
But it's the same fearthat's been cycling through
this place for two and ahalf centuries or more.
(03:49):
Indigenous people, fearingremoval, enslaved people,
fearing violence, andcomplete erasure of the
humanity, immigrants fearingdeportation, and working
families fearing displacement.
The faces change, but thefear remains constant,
and this fear is doing thereal work of that division.
So if the world feelsdifferent now, that may
just reveal something aboutyour place in this story.
(04:12):
For many of us, thisisn't the world changing.
It's just the momentthat we see clearly
what's already been here.
However, throughout thisseason's conversations,
I've come to understandand see this more clearly.
The relationships that Ihold with this place that
are both physical and ofmemory, they're changing.
The relationships have grown andtheir roots have gone deeper,
and my view has become wider.
(04:33):
The story that was once hiddenbeneath the surface, it's risen.
It's been spoken through thevoices of those who have carried
it in silence for generations.
In January, thatstory felt faceless.
Yet here in August, afterlistening to our guests this
season, that story has foundits voice in this place, and
it speaks with a clarity thatI could have never anticipated.
(04:53):
It's allowed me to seethat those systems of
power did not disappear.
They have just adaptedand we see how they are
still adapting today.
And that clarity has beenthe embodiment of the belief
that we as a community cansimply do better than fear.
That we don't have to acceptit, and we have the ability
to reconnect and to remember,and to repair and to renew.
(05:14):
And we can rightfully reckonwith our own stories, and
by facing them, we canmove through them together.
And on the other side of thatreckoning, I see that we have
a power to dream, a differentdream for our community.
One that includes a placefor everyone to belong.
We have the power to changeour stories, to learn from
our past, and to recenterthose priorities, to return
to something true, somethinggood and something beautiful.
(05:37):
We began the second season ofthe underview, the story of
Northwest Arkansas, to trace thestories that have shaped this
region from the origin of ourplace, from the early conflicts
between indigenous nationsand European settlers, to the
creation of the state and theongoing struggles for belonging.
This was not just ajourney into the past.
It's been an exploration ofnorthwest Arkansas through
(05:59):
the voices of those thatare living here today.
Whose lives have beenprofoundly shaped by our shared
and often unknown history.
Our region didn't justemerge out of nowhere.
Over the centuries, thosewho have gone before
us, they have builtinstitutions and mythologies.
And today, as we see thisunprecedented economic growth
alongside growing socialdivides, we want to understand
(06:21):
if those forces from the pastare still shaping us Today.
Our goal was to understand thesestories and to work together
to create a communal theologyof place, meaning the things
that we believe about ourselvesin the place that we live.
This is our collectivework, and this has been
our collective journey.
we began the season with Dr.
Melissa Zabecki, our statearcheologist, who shared
with us the origin of ourplace and about the rich
(06:43):
culture that existed here.
melissa zabecki. (06:46):
History started here probably somewhere
between 10 and 14,000 years ago.
There used to be a beliefthat Native Americans did not
settle here, or they didn'thave a long term settlements
here, and we're finding outmore and more that's false.
People did live herefor long periods of time
and people settled here.
This place was filled withwhat people would think
(07:08):
of as high civilization.
Incredible trade networksfrom all over the country,
all over the continent.
mike. (07:15):
But it was also much more than that as Jazlyn
Sanderson shared that this storydemonstrates the resilience
of a people, many people.
jazlyn sanderson (07:22):
Not only is it a historical story of
the indigenous peoples thatwere here before us, but
it's a story of perseverance.
It's a story of how these peopleovercame the environment and
tragedy around them and howthey came out on the other side.
Today there are 574federally recognized Nations
(07:45):
within the United States.
There are over 600 inCanada, and there are
over 800 in Latin America.
mike. (07:51):
We began with the relationship between
place and people that formillennia, this was a thriving
place, not an empty one.
And then everything changed
melissa zabecki. (08:00):
and then they were living perfectly fine
until the Europeans came throughand messed everything up.
Eventually everybody got movedout to Indian Territory in
Oklahoma and lost so much oftheir culture because they were
forced to speak English and ofcourse moved into housing that
they weren't used to living intraditionally, so that happened
(08:21):
and then we have white settlers,right?, And unfortunately
they're enslaved folks that werebrought in and then so you think
about it, this happened three,four, 400 years ago that people
were starting to settle here.
400 years is not anythingto shake a stick at, right?
So if you have relatives thatwere here for 400 years you
(08:43):
feel like you have a claimto that land, so it's still,
it's hard to tell people butno, you still are immigrants.
There were people here beforeyou, you just kicked them out.
mike. (08:53):
During this process of European settlers arriving,
and as those two verydifferent cultures began
to interact, a new type ofrelationship would take root.
We've read about this in ourhistory books, in our schools,
but I wanted to hear thisfrom a new perspective, from
those who represent a peopleand a culture that were here
long before the arrival ofwhite European settlers.
(09:14):
To truly understand what thiscontact between indigenous
people and European settlersset in motion here, we needed
a language for the structuresthat were brought here
and imposed on the people.
Melissa Horner, a doctoralcandidate and a citizen of the
Manitoba Mattee Federation, anda first generation unenrolled
descendant of the TurtleMountain Band of Chippewa came
(09:34):
to share with us the ideologicalbasis for those systems
known as settler colonialism.
melissa horner. (09:40):
In thinking about settler colonialism as
a framework of society, itautomatically corrects this
narrative of settler colonialismbeing an event that happened
in the past, that was horrible,and that a few explorers who
came over on ships and hats did.
(10:01):
That's not what it is.
That did happen, of course,but that's not the totality
of settler colonialism.
Today, and in the past500 years, it's an ongoing
process that shapes just aboutevery domain in U.S. society
from education, to media,to law, health, medicine,
environment, what have you
mike. (10:23):
But this ongoing process doesn't operate in the shadows.
It wraps itself in ourmost cherished American
mythologies, westwardexpansion, manifest destiny,
and the idea of the frontier.
And these aren't just historicalevents, they've become the moral
and religious justificationfor an entirely different
system of relationships to takeroot between land and people.
(10:45):
A system that would formour American mythology
as our divine right.
melissa horne (10:50):
Manifest Destiny.
It's this idea that theUnited States was destined
by God to expand its dominionand spread democracy and
capitalism across the entireNorth American continent.
These are realities thatare trying to be fulfilled
through a combination oflegal, religious, political,
(11:13):
spiritual, cultural avenues.
mike. (11:16):
This divine mandate fundamentally transformed how
people viewed their relationshipto this place itself.
What had been a relationshipbecame property.
What had been reciprocitybecame extraction.
The change wasmore than economic.
It was spiritual, redefiningthe very nature of how
humans connect to theland and to each other.
melissa horner. (11:35):
And so if we think about it as settler
colonialism has put in placea lot of social behaviors,
a lot of cultural norms thatreally indicate to us that the
deep and wide and reciprocalrelationships between all
of these things don't reallyexist, then it creates a
(11:59):
really perfect sort of slot forother kinds of relationships
to exist, which are primarilyrooted in property and
ownership in the United States.
I think this is really importantto really understand some
of the foundational Basisof settler colonialism comes
(12:20):
down to really differingunderstandings of relationships
mike. (12:23):
and with this fundamental shift in how we understand
relationships, Melissa left uswith a sobering warning about
what this costs all of us.
melissa horner. (12:32):
Even though the settler colonial systems
and structures that arein place in this country
do privilege differentpeople differently and harm
different people differently.
It doesn't spare anybody.
there are costs to everyone,and one of the things is the
cost of not belonging to aspecific place, knowledge
(12:53):
system, language that we cantrack for centuries in terms of
white folks, white communitiesin the United States.
That's a loss.
And we see that over andover again through different
symptoms and manifestations ofdisconnection in this country.
mike. (13:09):
For most of us, this is the beginning of
our understanding of whatit means to belong to this
place and to each other.
We're a disconnected peoplethat often view land and people
as something to change andto control and to conquer.
This isn't an abstracttheory, it's the living memory
of those who lived on theother side of this system.
And to better understand this,we traveled to Oklahoma to
(13:30):
talk with tribal elders ofthe Quapaw nation, the first
people of Arkansas, and ofwhich Arkansas draws its name.
We had to rememberwho was here first.
The Quapaw whose storyhas always been bound
to this land, even whenothers tried to erase it.
I was able to sit with BettyGaedtke, a member of the Quapaw
Nation Cultural Committee.
She's working to reclaimher culture through rescuing
(13:52):
the ancient ways of pottery,while keeping in perspective
that the qua people's ownstory, it carries the pain
of removal and displacement.
betty gaedt (14:01):
We've lost so much.
The trail of tears was so hard,and when you have all these
traditions that you live yourlife by and they're handed down
from generation to generationand then all of a sudden
you don't have it anymore.
And it's because the Trailof Tears robbed us of 80 to
(14:24):
90 percent of our people.
That's a lot of traditionsthat went to the grave.
So that trail is just pavedwith dying traditions that
never made it to Oklahoma.
mike. (14:36):
Betty's words carry the weight of an unimaginable
loss, yet in the face ofsuch devastation, what
struck me the most was notbitterness, but resilience.
When I sat with Qpa ElderBarbara Kaiser Collier,
I witnessed somethingprofound about the power
of cultural survival.
barbara kyser-collier. (14:51):
I think about my ancestors
and what they must have gonethrough so that we can be
sitting here today, you and I.
they endured and they sacrificeda lot of things for us to
continue to be Quapaw today.
So I'm very proud of that.
Words can't express how gladI am that I'm, was brought up
(15:16):
like I was, and that I livedthe life I did as a Quapaw
mike. (15:21):
Barbara's perspective reveals something essential.
Even an attempt to erase apeople could not extinguish
what it meant to be a quapaw.
Her story along with Betty'srepresents an important
thread in a much largertapestry of displacement
that swept across our region.
John McClarty now retired,shared his decades of work.
Mapping the Trail of Tearswith Heritage Trail Partners to
(15:43):
make sure that these historicpathways that flow through
so many areas in NorthwestArkansas would be remembered
for the impact that they had.
john mclarty. (15:51):
There's so many misconceptions that the Trail
of Tears was this singular eventthat used one road and that
this March en mass of 16,000Cherokee, and it was actually
over time, even though it'sa limited time framework, but
there were 17 detachments inthe Trail of Tears that took
(16:13):
different roads, and it'sjust such a bigger story.
the bigger picture of thewhole idea of removal.
It's so much part ofthe American story
and it's a tragedy.
It's a dark story,but it has to be told.
These aren't just lineson a map for a trail.
from lines on a map to a storythat must be told as I learned
(16:36):
more about the Cherokee story.
But the tragedy they wentthrough really struck me.
That's when it became storiesthat needed to be told.
mike. (16:43):
These roads and routes through our state and our
region still hold stories thatwe are trying to understand.
But the rivers and waterwaysthrough this state also had a
huge impact along with the GreatRiver that fed so much of our
American mythology to understandhow those currents of expansion
and violence reached the Ozarks.
We needed to see how theyfirst took shape along
(17:04):
the Mississippi River.
Author Boyce Upholt,shared this with us.
boyce upholt. (17:08):
One of the lasting legacies of these early
years on the Mississippi riveris, there's this Jeffersonian
vision of expansive land,and we have done that, but
more so this wild, feralidea of American masculinity
emerged on the MississippiRiver, I tend to think and
that's what American men onthe frontier wanted to be.
(17:28):
They didn't want tobe gentlemen farmers.
They wanted to be theserough and tumble half
horse, half alligator men.
And I think today, like I lookat what's happening today in
our political culture and someof the schisms in our culture.
And I'm like, that'snever gone away.
mike. (17:40):
Those men on the frontier took on names and deeds.
One of them was HughAllen Anderson, who began
the early settlement ofthe Ozark, specifically
in northwest Arkansas.
Anderson was one ofthe very first white
settlers to this region.
His fifth generationdescendant, Steve Anderson,
is still in the area today.
steve anderson. (17:58):
Hugh Allen Anderson a prominent individual.
Served in the war of 1812.
Came to Northwest Arkansas,to the territory, as
they called it then.
1821 to 1823.
He first came here on horsebackwith a person that's never
been named, and um, foundthe little valley out by
what is now the airport.
(18:19):
Had a nice spring, and decidedto claim that under a land
grant from the War of 1812.
He uh, went back to Alabama.
Loaded all the thingsto start a homestead.
The uh, pigs, the cows,the sheep, unfortunately,
the slaves and came backhere in 1823 to 1826,
mike. (18:44):
Steve's family history reveals something crucial.
Hugh Anderson's homesteadwasn't just about farming.
It was about theestablishment of this new
system here in the Ozarks.
The pigs and the cowsand the sheep, they were
one kind of property.
The enslaved people wereanother, but both were
essential to the settlercolonial vision of prosperity
in this new territory.
(19:05):
The story of this family'shomestead only makes sense
inside these twin enginesof removal and slavery
that built Arkansas.
What looks like individualactions was actually
part of a much largercoordinated transformation
of the land and its people.
The process of indigenousremoval and the importation
of enslaved people waspart of the same movement
(19:25):
as Dr. Kelly Jones shares.
kelly houston jones. (19:28):
I am certainly convinced, and I'm
not the only one, that Theprocess of Indian removal and
establishment of chattel slaverybased on race in Arkansas and
beyond Arkansas are really twoparts of that same process.
It's all part of one big processwhere Native people are pushed
(19:51):
off of land so that people ofAfrican descent can be forced
onto it, so that land can changeinto a place where enslavers can
extract either, , and very oftenit's that cotton cultivation,
pushing westward, but it'stimber, it's certainly it's corn
cultivation, it's cattle, hogs.
mike. (20:14):
Dr. Jones makes this clear that it
wasn't a coincidence.
It was design.
Arkansas, as we know it wasbuilt on this foundation,
and when Arkansas achievedstatehood in 1836, this
system became permanentlyembedded into its identity.
kelly houston jones. (20:28):
Slavery has from a very early point
been an essential facet ofthe creation of Arkansas as a
political entity, Arkansas asa place, Arkansas as a concept.
What comes to Arkansas in1819 with that political
organization was chattelslavery based on race.
(20:51):
And so in 1819, when theterritory comes in without those
restrictions, they're able todo that and anchor that into
the society and the politics.
Just like all of thosethings that we study and
all of those things that wethink about when we try to
understand a place's history.
Slavery is in all of those.
mike. (21:12):
These threads weave through the early DNA of
our region, visible inits founding families and
their early settlements.
And you can trace them throughplaces like Historic Cane
Hill, where Director VanessaMcKuin grapples with what
it means to preserve andinterpret this complex legacy.
vanessa mckuin. (21:28):
I think what we are trying to do here is
more reflective of the complexhistory that is here and to
both celebrate the things thatmake, this place interesting
and special but also to grapplewith the things that make
our history difficult, andthat those themes that are
(21:49):
still with us and that we'restill grappling with today.
Not to glorify the peoplehere who were complex,
who were, those, the earlysettlers who were in a
lot of ways problematic.
But history is builton that, and Northwest
Arkansas is built on that.
mike. (22:07):
But this system built on removal and
enslavement, it containedits own contradictions.
The moral tensions it createdwould eventually tear the
region apart when thosethreads finally snapped.
The result was catastrophicconflict, a violent solution
to a violent problem that leftour region utterly devastated.
As historian DalePhillips shares with us.
dale phillips. (22:29):
At the end of the war in 1865,
this was a no man's land.
Benton and WashingtonCounty were basically
devoid of population.
Bentonville had beenburned to the ground.
Fayetteville hadbeen heavily damaged.
McDonald County in Missouriwas heavily damaged.
The courthouse burned.
Basically by 1865, SouthernSupporters had fled the area.
(22:50):
Northern supporters had tomove into fortified camps.
This was a no man's land.
It was guerrilla warfare.
So when the war ended and thisland was vacant, Confederate
and Union veterans beganto move back into this
area, live side by side.
They are buried together todayin our area, in our cemeteries.
You will find Union veteransand Confederate barons buried
(23:10):
next to each other who cameback and rebuilt this area
from basically nothing.
mike. (23:16):
As many of you know, this is something we are
still reckoning with today.
We see this in the lives ofthose early power holders and
the legacies that they createdand how they built back their
power and their wealth andit wasn't done on their own.
The need for labor andsystems of segregation
and power continued.
Standing in the ruins ofreconstruction, Arkansas had
(23:36):
choices to make, continuethe power structures of
the past or find a new wayforward a way for everyone.
Shiloh Museum historianRachel Whitaker shares this,
rachel whitaker. (23:46):
There's these moments, there's watershed
moments where we could havegone a different direction.
We could have not, spread intoArkansas, the Ozarks to start
with via Louisiana purchase.
Maybe we didn't wanna pay fourcents an acre to Napoleon.
But also maybe, we wouldn't havewanted to spread slavery or we
wouldn't wanna push the NativeAmericans out of these areas.
(24:06):
And so there are thesemoments where we could have
made a different choice.
And I think especiallynow that's important to
understand that history isnot always just this linear.
There's branches, there'sopportunities for different
choices and different ideas.
mike. (24:24):
but we didn't make different choices.
Instead, we doubled down onthe same patterns, embodied
in the same powerful families.
The Andersons, the Dinsmores,Governor James Barry,
Samuel West, and many more.
While the Civil War wasdevastating, it didn't break
the structures of power.
Instead, power simplyreorganized and found
new ways to make it work.
(24:44):
Take Samuel WestPeel, for example.
His influence on federalIndian policy may have been
one of the most significantroles in shaping indigenous
sovereignty through thedevelopment of policy around
the Allotment Act and theIndian Boarding School policy.
It's a hard part of our region'shistory, but this is the
reckoning that is required.
Peel museum historianChelsea Stewart understands
(25:06):
the larger context of thisreckoning with our past.
chelsea stewart. (25:09):
I think that wholeness looks like,
the first thing that comes tomy mind, which usually tends
to be the most honest thingwith me, is it's acceptance.
It's acceptance of thehistory we have here.
It's acceptance of what happenedin that history, good or bad.
I think in order for thecommunity to be whole and
(25:30):
healthy, that we need tokeep all of that in mind.
You can't really go forwardand not confront that I feel.
I feel like it is very importantthat we keep all of the history
in mind as we go forward.
mike. (25:47):
Chelsea's call for acceptance reveals
something really important.
Confronting this history isn'tabout dwelling in the past.
It's about understanding howthese patterns persist, and
they do persist adapting tonew circumstances while serving
the same essential functions.
As the region rebuilt and grew,the quest for exploitable labor
simply shifted to new targets.
(26:08):
Historian and directdescendant of the original
immigrants of Tonittown,Emily Pinalto-Beshears speaks
directly to these structuresthat eventually brought
Italian immigrants here.
emily pianalto-beshears. (26:18):
there was a huge prejudice against the
Italians because they were thenew other, the new immigration
populace that's coming inand taking jobs, and taking
land, and taking up space.
The Italians were just seenas a problem upon a problem.
They keep coming in.
We can't stop them.
By the, 1910, thereare immigration laws
(26:40):
specifically written to keepItalians out of America.
Those laws are still inplace, but they are not
targeting Italians anymore.
They're targeting the new other.
It's this revolving doorof, who's the new group
that's coming in en mass.
It's not just, oh, there'sa few people coming from
Italy and we're worried.
(27:00):
It's, there are thousandsof people coming every day
from Italy and we're worried,well, why are you worried?
mike. (27:07):
Emily's observation about the "revolving door"
reveals the machine at workalways needing a new other
to exploit and to exclude.
Larry Foley University,professor, filmmaker, and
creator of the film "Criesfrom the Cotton Field" around
the story of the foundingof Tontitown can see these
historical patterns as well.
larry foley. (27:26):
It amazes me sometimes to see the stories
that happened then and tosee how closely related they
are to some of the thingsthat are going on today.
And it saddens me and sometimesit angers me because as
a long time teacher, I'vetaught students from all
kinds of nationalities and allkinds of from socioeconomic
(27:50):
backgrounds, and my job is notto pass judgment on anybody.
There's some kinshipto what was going on in
the story that I tell.
I hope that we will getthrough this time in history
as we got through that angrymob that tried to burn down
the church in Tontitown.
And over time, I think thefolks around here realized
(28:12):
these are good people.
These are God-fearing people.
We don't need tobe afraid of them.
mike. (28:17):
Larry's insights raises this deeper question.
If we keep recycling the samepatterns using race, ethnicity,
and immigration status astools to create exploitable
labor, where does it stop?
and at the same time, a newidentity for the Ozarks began
to form an identity givento this place that served to
uphold our American story.
University professor andpresident of the Ozark Studies
(28:39):
Association, Dr. Jared Phillips,he shares this with us,
jared phillips. (28:43):
there's a lot of mythologies around
why the South is the waythat it is, why places like
the Mountain South, that'sAppalachia and the Ozarks,
why they are the way they are.
And in some of those mythologiesthere are things that are true.
There, there was a strong drivefor independence for people.
There was a desire for liberty.
There was a desire for thisJeffersonian ideal of a
(29:03):
democracy or a republic ofyeoman farmers, and that
land was going to be thedrive for independence.
Some of these impulses are thereand they're true, but they're
also balanced by things that arealso equally problematic, right?
So you look at, we look atthe legacy of enslavement.
We look at the legacy ofremoval at the legacy of
unintended consequences
mike. (29:21):
but Dr. Phillips goes on to further explain
that the mythology of theOzarks doesn't stop there.
jared phillips. (29:26):
And so on the one hand, we're holding
up this the idea, themythology, the American dream,
because it is a mythology.
There's nothing wrong with it.
All nations have to have amythology to have cohesion.
But it is a mythology And likeall mythologies, it's got, it
can be dangerous, but it has tosay, it has to hold up on the
other hand, the mythology ofwhat it is better than, and what
(29:46):
it is better than is the dirty,ignorant hillbilly in tucked
up in the backwoods, who'safraid of progress and can't
get on in the modern world.
And so we have, but if youeradicate that entirely.
Then you no longer have anythingthat you've set yourself as
better than or as like improvingfrom right and so Folks that
(30:07):
work on the hillbilly mythologyand the hillbilly image in
American life Myself includedwe tend to see the hillbilly
is standing as a As the, as thefoil for the American dream.
And so it has to be maintainedeven if it's not real.
mike. (30:21):
While these mythologies played out in popular
culture, the work of exclusionwas still moving forward
through policy and law.
The same forces that createdthe hillbilly stereotype
were actively denyingbelonging to black arkansans
through segregation andsystematic exclusion.
So belonging in the Ozarkswas never guaranteed.
Dr. Michael Pierce speaksto the civil rights movement
(30:42):
here, where the fight for equalability to belong in Arkansas
became impossible to ignore.
Where the tone shifted, wherewe decided before that as
a state, we were not gonnafollow the path of inclusion.
dr. (30:55):
This is the point in which Arkansas goes from being the
leader of integration in theJim Crow South to the road
to Central High in 1957.
And so after the SouthernManifesto, the conversation
changes from this is adecision we don't really
(31:19):
like, but there's nothingwe can do about it.
We might as well make the bestof it to, how do we organize
to stop this from happening?
mike. (31:26):
These weren't just abstract policy debates.
They played out inreal neighborhoods, in
real families' lives.
And you can trace the impactdirectly through city records
about places like SoutheastFayetteville where residents
like Tommy Flowers Davishave watched the impact
of policies of removal andsegregation work to slowly
make communities disappear.
tommie flowers davis. (31:47):
and I also see how just bits
and pieces of our community,it's not there anymore.
So at some point in time wewon't have that story, we
won't have that history, wewon't have that acknowledgement
or any awareness of us beingthere and how we contributed
(32:07):
to the fabric of Fayetteville.
I know a lot of our structuresare no longer there.
Just, in talking about thefirst black elementary school
in Fayetteville, Arkansas,the fact that was not an
important enough structureto be historic or maintained.
I have a problem with it.
mike. (32:26):
What Mrs. Davis describes isn't accidental.
It's systematic to dig deeper.
Architect and urban planner, AliQuinlan helped us understand the
mechanism behind this erasure.
The city's zoning codesthemselves, which are not
unique to Fayetteville.
These are the same zoningcodes that are used
throughout other cities,our region and our state.
alli thurmond (32:45):
The thing that I wanna tell everybody.
There is this big, awfulthing that we inherited.
A huge chunk, majorityof our land is still held
under these codes that weredesigned explicitly to make
housing expensive and tosegregate neighborhoods.
They can use their resourcesto help change that.
Zoning reform is critical.
Single family zoning andRSF four zoning explicitly
(33:06):
came out of trying tosegregate neighborhoods.
Zoning reform is critical.
mike. (33:10):
so we see how the cycle perpetuates from our
mythologies and becomesreal through the policy in
the very landscape itself.
But today, the consequencesof that change is becoming
something different.
We return to Dr. Jared Phillipswith questions about how the
recent changes in our areais impacting this region.
jared phillips. (33:27):
Change is normal in history and the Ozarks
have been a place that hasexperienced change continually.
But what I would say about thechange that we've seen since
say the end of the civil Warhas been, it has been change
of form, but not principle.
And what I mean by that is thatthe currents that held Ozark
communities together may havelooked a little bit different,
(33:49):
but they were the same.
And so the small scale,pseudo agrarian kind of ideas
were there because of therealities of the landscape.
That's important to pointout because the change that
we're seeing today is breakingprinciples of the past.
And that's where people thatsit in my shoes, sit up and
(34:12):
be like, now wait a minute.
One thing or another onepiece of ground conserved
here or whatever, is notin and of itself a problem.
But if it's part of abroader trend that breaks
the social system, tearsthe social fabric, that has
sustained the place prettywell for the last 150 years.
(34:33):
From where I sit and thestatistics that I look at and
the stories that I see, that iswhat's happening, that's when
I get worried about the kindof change that we're seeing.
That doesn't mean thatI think change is bad.
I've been accused before ofbeing like, you want this
nostalgic vision of the Ozarks.
I don't, because what thefull story of the Ozarks
is a troubling story.
I don't want everythingfrom the past.
I only want things thatare useful from the past.
mike. (34:56):
So as the region transforms, the fundamental need
for labor continues to grow.
And once again, the old patternshave remained and has found a
new target in Latino immigrantsas Dr. Steven Rosales explains.
dr. steven (35:09):
This is the magnet.
It's always has been.
This is the melting pot.
This is where you can go,you, you get exploited
along the way to get here.
There's obviously somethingabout this country that has
served as a magnet for peoplefor all over the world, if
not for themselves, at leastfor the children, right?
To set up a foundation forposterity and I don't know
why you would be surprisedthat also hasn't included Latin
(35:30):
America, but who you are, whereyou come from, how you look
plays a role in how receptivepeople here are to you.
mike. (35:40):
Dr. Rosales observation forces us to zoom out
and ask bigger questions.
Where does Arkansas fitinto this global system
that creates these kindsof migration patterns?
For the companies that arehere in Northwest Arkansas,
what role do they have in it?
Historian Olivia Pascalhas focused her work to
understand this, and sheshares her questions about
this growing influence today.
olivia paschal. (36:01):
The questions that are really interesting are
where do the Ozarks sit in thissystem of globalized capitalism,
global labor, and supply chains?
What can we learn from otherplaces where similar dynamics
are at play and how are peopledoing things differently?
And I do think the questionof capitalism, good or bad, is
(36:21):
actually a really good startingpoint for looking at these
other questions because if youare not willing to question the
system, then maybe you aren'tseeing the other alternatives.
Northwest Arkansas alone isnot gonna make or break the
capitalist system, but we dohappen to have two major players
in it, in our own backyards.
mike. (36:40):
But to understand how these global systems impact
people in our community, wehave to listen to the people
inside of these systems.
Maybe the ones whose voiceswe hear from the least.
Organizer, Magaly Licollihas spent years documenting
the experiences of workersin Arkansas's poultry plants.
magaly licolli. (36:57):
I think for me, it was a change in my
life when I became responsiblefor listening the stories.
Knowing that the stories ofthe worker, it was a story
of hundreds of workers.
Then when I began talkingwith community leaders about
do you know what is happeninginside these poultry plants?
What is happening insideall these companies?
(37:19):
And people were like, "ohyes, we heard, we know, but
we don't wanna talk about it."Because it was the situation
that people were advocatingfor the immigrants.
But they didn't want torecognize that those immigrants
were also poultry workers andthey divided the identity like
(37:40):
I care for the immigrants, butI don't really wanna talk about
the jobs that those immigrantsare doing in Arkansas.
mike. (37:47):
We have to face the duality of this reality, and
we cannot let ignorance aboutwhere our prosperity comes from
be a part of the same pattern.
We want the benefits ofthe system, but not the
responsibility for its costs.
Meanwhile, the politicalnarrative around immigration
continues to grow andincreasingly hostile,
drowning out the voicesof the vulnerable.
(38:08):
Community rights organizer,Irvin Camacho shares this
irvin camacho. (38:11):
these are humans who are trying their
best do things the right way.
They're here because therewasn't any opportunities
in their country.
They're here because theyescaped some sort of like
persecution in their country,all these different scenarios.
And I think that sometimes thenationwide politics tries to
(38:33):
paint this violent picture ofwho they are as individuals,
but we know our parents, weknow our cousins, we know the
people that I went to highschool with, and we know how
hardworking they are and howmuch they want to contribute
to the society and howthey're not violent criminals.
mike. (38:49):
And we can't just look only at the corporate
and civic institutions.
We have to ask these samequestions of our religious
institutions, the institutionswhich should be spaces
of sanctuary and justice.
They have become entangledin these systems of
power and exclusion.
Over time this struggle hasresulted in faith and politics
almost becoming inseparable.
Dr. Jared Phillips showsus again how religion has
(39:11):
always shaped power inthe south, including right
here in our own home.
dr. jared m. phillips. (39:16):
And I think what what we see happen
is that the evangelical worldbecomes an evangelical world
that doesn't just think aboutsharing good news through
good actions or sharinggood news just share it
through, sharing good news.
But it becomes a world thatis, there is a fundamental set
of beliefs about not just whatwe think of in the Bible, in
(39:37):
the New Testament, in the OldTestament, whatever, but in
how we understand what cultureis and how we understand what
morality is and that thosethings equal evangelicalism.
mike. (39:46):
And so we see the through line very clearly.
For centuries power in theform of wealth, labor, and
even faith has been intertwinedin Northwest Arkansas.
And while that is not uniqueto northwest Arkansas,
it did happen here.
It is happening here.
The structures that firstarrived here two and a half
centuries ago are still activeand they're still working.
Their form has shifted andchanged, but their essential
(40:09):
functions remain the same.
And I know some of you at somepoint will say, when do we move
on from this history or thatthis history is not true or that
it focuses on the wrong things?
But Dr. Kelly Joneswould say otherwise.
kelly houston jones. (40:22):
Sometimes you'll hear people say well,
that was so many years ago.
It's over.
Slavery ended in1865, so it's done.
We don't need to talkabout it anymore.
But of course, just because thething called the Confederacy
failed doesn't mean thatthe values that inspired its
creation and sustained the fightfor as long as it did, doesn't
mean that those dissipate.
(40:44):
And in fact, that's a bigfailure of so much blood
spilled and property destroyedto not have really answered
the question, who we are,what do we stand for?
What is this going to be like,or at least not answered it in a
way that we should have, right?
mike. (41:01):
So, no, we don't move on, especially when the same systems
still animate us forward,especially when our federal
government has begun to changethe public history of slavery
and at the same time begunreinstating Confederate statues
and the names of Confederateleaders on our military bases.
I think when these questionscome up, it's important
to recognize something.
This isn't about forgetting.
(41:21):
These things did happen.
That's not up for debate.
We want to move forward andwe cannot avoid reckoning with
this history because we simplydon't know where to start.
Today, the reality is thatwe are faced with these
mythologies and ideologiesthat are confusing or are
rooted in the same institutionsthat were founded long ago.
These deeplyanti-relational systems.
(41:42):
So if our institutions aretangled in this form of power,
is there anything beneathall of it that we can use
to build a new foundation?
Beneath the church and party,beneath Capitalism and Policy
sits a bedrock question, whatdoes it mean to be fully human?
And can we understandwhat it means to be fully
human when belonging istypically measured by power?
(42:03):
Professor Todd Stockdale remindsus that even our most basic
assumptions about human value,they come from somewhere, that
they can change over time, andthat they can be changed again.
todd stockdale. (42:15):
The Idea for me is first and foremost
recognize that our views, ourvalues, our systems of labor
have come from somewhere.
It's just not the way theworld has always been.
It won't be the waythe world always is.
So can we imagine a differentfuture, a different way of
being, a way that privilegesthe human being, a way
(42:39):
that privileges the humanexperience, a way that is not
alienating and dehumanizing.
Imagining a different futureand what we prioritize,
and are we prioritizingthings that are going to
lead to human flourishing?
mike. (42:52):
So if our priorities need to change, there is
one thing that we need toaddress within the dominant
culture of this place.
Melissa Horner describesit as a vacancy.
melissa horner. (43:01):
I feel like this comes
up in my classes a lot.
My students will oftentimeswhen we're talking about settler
colonialism, I always invitethem to think about their
own histories and home placesand families, and inevitably
they often bring up that thestudents who are white and
(43:22):
come from families of settlerdescent oftentimes have a hard
time tracing which people,places, languages, cultures
they come from, or that they'reconnected to beyond immediate
generations of relatives,and I think this is a really
common settler colonial realitythat can create a pretty
profound sense of disconnectionfor a lot of people.
(43:44):
And one of my own wonderingsis wondering if it's one of the
reasons the 23andMe and AncestryDNA tests have become so popular
because people are reallytrying to understand and learn
and connect to something, someplace, some culture, some way
to feel rooted in relationships,whether that's relationship
(44:06):
to a place or a people ora language or knowledge.
And I think on top of that,a lot of white communities
also aren't very aware of themillennia long histories of the
places that they call home, andso it's a kind of vacancy that
lives on two levels, both intheir own families and selves at
(44:28):
times, as well as on a sort ofbroader historical social level.
mike. (44:35):
And here on this gravel road I feel the
weight of that vacancythat Melissa talks about.
A vacancy that is longing forsomething different, a way to
connect to our place in thestory of its origin, but with
a chance to choose differentlythis time, to make new choices
about power and labor andwealth and land, the patterns
of removal and extraction,they're still with us.
First, the Osage, the Quapaw,and the Caddo were removed.
(44:57):
Today.
It's the immigrant.
First, enslaved peoplewere used to extract labor.
Today, the vulnerable orexploitable are the laborers
in our poultry plants.
The region has been built onpower and political influence,
capitalism, and religion.
And yet here we are in thesesame struggles and I wonder,
has anything really changed?
We seem to be a placelesspeople disconnected from
(45:19):
the land, unrooted from eachother, unbound from ourselves,
and that disconnectioncosts us all something.
The vacancy is real and our pathtowards filling it, it requires
a broader understanding of whatit means to be fully human.
The vacancy can be filled,and in doing so, I believe
that this is the path towardswholeness that is missing.
Belonging isn't theoretical,it's physical, and it's found
(45:41):
in the work of sharing a tabletogether and then committing to
stay at that table as we worktowards understanding each other
and working for our common good.
And if for some reasonwe can't remain at that
table, then we commit toreturning to it to find our
common ground once more.
Melissa Horner reminded us thatwhile we try to work within
the systems of our countrytoday, that we are constantly
(46:04):
fighting against somethingthat is deeply anti relational
and that impacts all of us.
melissa horner. (46:09):
Settler colonialism impacts all of us.
It's structural.
It's cultural.
So very few of us inthe U.S. are able to
not participate in it.
This is part of just barrieraround white communities
in general, that there's abelief system that settler
colonialism doesn't apply tothem in their lives and that
(46:31):
they're exempt from it somehow.
It's not just the job ofNative peoples to recognize
settler colonialism.
Settler colonialism isnot a Native problem.
It is an everybody problem.
the sooner folks can geta toehold in understanding
(46:52):
the prevalence of settlercolonialism and how it does
impact everybody, the soonerwe can have a different starting
point for conversations.
mike. (47:02):
This impact on all of us and the need to
have a different startingpoint from fear is real.
So what is the way forward?
What must we learn andwhere can we start?
Historian Dale Phillips,reminds us about a time
in the 1850s right beforethe Civil War and that had
something to teach us that wecan learn from our history.
dale phillips. (47:19):
What we're going through today with
polarization, you see verymuch the same in the 1850s.
And once they began to becomethe focal point, the two
extreme ends of the spectrum,that is eventually what
would lead us into conflict.
And that is something we haveto work at today, even though
we are very polarized, weneed to find middle ground.
(47:42):
We need to not see each other asanything other than Americans.
We cannot let the polarizedextremes take hold like they
did in the 1850s, which ledto that bloody conflict.
mike. (47:54):
It's past time to move from the extremes and to be
rooted in our place together.
It is time to settle notby removing or extracting,
but by becoming whole inthe place that we live.
Not to use it as acommodity, but to embrace
it as a part of us.
In her book, "BraidingSweetgrass," author and
indigenous scientist,Robin Wall Kimmerer,
describes it like this.
(48:15):
She says,"the problem with thesepeople is that they don't have
both feet on the shore whenit's still on the boat. They
don't seem to know whetherthey're staying or not."
My ancestors were onceindigenous to a place,
just not this place.
I wouldn't know how to return.
So the question forme becomes practical.
How do I put both feet onthe shore and now become
(48:36):
faithful to this place?
I believe that leads to the workof reconnection, remembering,
repair, and renewal.
And I think our story of RockVan Winkle may serve as a guide.
So as we come to the end ofthis season, we return to the
story of the Anderson family whobrought a people here long ago.
In our remembering of thoselives, that the margins, we
can find wisdom and peace,that takes away the fear.
(48:58):
Those ideologiesweren't just abstract.
They lived in familiesand in legacies.
Jerry Moore, the sociologistand historian who had a huge
role in what our public memoryholds of Rock Van Winkle.
He reminds us that Rock'sstory, while one of enslavement,
labor, and erasure that weare trying to reclaim, is
also one that commits usto working for a community
(49:19):
despite the circumstances.
jerry moore. (49:21):
Most of us have seen society change politically,
religiously, economically,racially, but still in the
back of our minds we sometimeshave trouble to throw away
the past that I feel had beenoverplayed and we had to build
(49:43):
a future out of something.
It's like birth.
We come into this worldbeing fed by somebody else,
clothed by somebody else,bathed by somebody else,
kissed and hugged, and evenignored by somebody else.
That's how society is.
Someone else built somethingfor us, and it's how we
(50:04):
take what they build tomake our life better.
mike. (50:08):
And Barbara Carr, as the descendant of Aaron
Anderson Rock Van Winkle.
She remind us that this storyis not finished, that it
still walks amongst us today.
barbara carr. (50:17):
When I found out about Rock, I was
proud because I've dealtwith prejudice, not from
everybody, not from all people.
That white man didn'tsee a difference between
him and a black man.
He saw that black man as beinga businessman that made money.
(50:39):
Rock had a plan that this iswhat I'm going to do and I'm
gonna see how far it goes.
And if it goes as far asI think that it will, then
this is what we going to do.
And that's what he did.
And I was proud of him.
I'd like to known him'cause he stood up.
mike. (50:55):
So in this account of Rock Van Winkle's Life, Jerry
Moore wants us to remember this.
jerry moore. (51:00):
Rock had more power than politicians of today.
And I'm gonna put itthat frank about it.
They don't owe anything to Rock.
Rock gave them a better lifethan they probably would've had,
and we get wrapped up in themayors and the city directors.
That's politics.
What runs the society?
The families that makethe people and the economy
(51:21):
that feed or starve you.
And to me, the electedofficials come and go.
Only thing thatchanges is the name.
The power structure is the same.
mike. (51:32):
This story of Northwest Arkansas is the story of
how power takes root throughremoval, enslavement,
labor, exploitation,war, and migration.
But it's not the onlystory of one kind of power.
It's also the story of powerof those who endured, resisted,
and remembered and went onto create a better community.
The Quapaw power is still here.
(51:53):
The Andersons the vanWinkles, the peels and their
descendants, they're still here.
And at the Anderson Cemeterywhere I began the season
asking the question,"what happened here?"
What I have learned isthat that answer is not
only about history, it'sabout the relationships
with the living descendantswho still walk this land.
The blood in the ground is stillthere, but it's more than blood.
(52:14):
It is memory, and thatcalls us to responsibility.
Settler colonialism has changedthis land and its people, but
in the mythology of America, itcannot cover what we now know.
The mythology wasnever the whole story.
This season, I have triedto reassemble a fuller
story, one that embracesboth memory and repair.
Our region stories are notsomething to fear, there's
(52:37):
something to embrace becausethey teach us a new way to live
and new ways of relationships.
This season is just onethread of our story.
There are so many othersthat are waiting to be
uncovered, so many morethat are waiting to be told.
And by peeling away themythology, we have the right
to return to the belief thatall are created equal and we
(52:58):
have the opportunity to havethat vision fully realized.
So as I place my foot backon the pedal to take me home
from the Anderson Cemetery,I carry the weight of those
graves in the hayfield.
I cannot wash away what rests inthe ground and I will not try.
The blood is turned to memoryand that memory can reshape
our relationships withthis place and its people.
(53:21):
The land may still bemarked with scars, but
it is also asking us toremember, to reconnect,
to repair, and to renew.
A border has been crossedbetween what I knew before
and what I know now, and itis a border that I cannot
and will not cross back over.
Colonialism and capitalismare still here, and they are
still the structures of oursociety, but they do not have to
(53:43):
direct every part of our lives.
We can confront their harmand we can seek repair.
We can choose relationshipover erasure, and
responsibility over denial,and renewal over restoration.
This is a place wherebelonging can no longer
be built on exclusion, buton our shared stewardship
of this place's memory.
(54:03):
This renewal begins andexists in the ordinary
places of civic life.
In the city council meetingswhere we ask questions about
intent rather than assigningcategories to human beings.
How we learn the names of thecreeks that run through our
neighborhoods, or creating ahome using native plants over
invasive ones, and to fullyknow the indigenous history
of the land that we call home.
(54:25):
Becoming faithful to this placemeans understanding that land
possession and land relationshipare different things entirely.
That true belonging comesfrom remembering rather
than from ownership.
As we close and I reflecton this season, I see the
strength of the influencethat these systems and
structures in our Americanmythology have had on my life.
I see these structures for whatthey are now, and it brings a
(54:47):
form of freedom to understandcritically and to consider a new
way forward, a way that healsand repairs and renews what
is possible in our community.
Our work is far from over,but for now I can see how
things can be different.
Long before the seasonbegan, the poem that follows,
which I asked my dad toread, was a dream at best.
Something altruistic and withoutform, but today its ability
(55:10):
to become real has come near.
gregg rusch. (55:14):
The dream by Wendell Berry,
I dream and inescapable dreamin which I take away from
the country, the bridgesand roads, the fences, the
strung wires, ourselves, allwe have built and dug and
hollowed out, our flocks andherds our droves of machines.
(55:36):
I restore then thewide branching trees.
I see growing over the landand shading it the great trunks
and crowns of the first forest.
I'm aware of the rattling oftheir branches, the lichened
channels of their bark, thesaps of the ground flowing up
(55:57):
to their darkness, like theafterimage of a light that only
by not looking can be seen.
I glimpse the country as it was.
All its belongingsbelong wholly to it.
They flourish in dyingas in being born.
It is the life of its deaths.
(56:19):
I must end always by replacingour beginning there, ouselves
and our blades, the flowing inof history, putting back what
I took away, trying always withthe same pain of foreknowledge
to build all that we havebuilt but destroy nothing.
(56:40):
My hands weakening.
I feel on all sides blindnessgrowing in the land on its
peering bulbous stalks.
I see that my mindis not good enough.
I see that I am eager to ownthe earth and to own men.
I find my mouth and abitter taste of money,
(57:02):
a gaping syllable.
I can neitherswallow nor spit out.
I see all that I have ruinedin order to have all that
was owned for a lifetimeto be destroyed forever.
Where are the sleepsthat escape such dreams?
mike. (57:22):
Today here in the Ozarks of Northwest
Arkansas, these words,"to put back what I took away,
trying always with the samepain of foreknowledge, to
build all that we have built,but to destroy nothing."
This is ourcollective reckoning.
If this can become ourcollective belief, our communal
theology of place, then we havethe opportunity to make a new
(57:43):
future available to us all.
There are no limits on whatwe can dream for ourselves.
This path forward is open widefor, it allows everyone to
belong, for repair to take root,and for a community to form in
a way that wholeness can grow.
This is not restorationfor it goes beyond repair.
This is renewal.
And so I'm asking, can we movetogether on these shared roads?
(58:06):
Can we find a way towardsa renewed spirit, a renewed
community, and a renewed hope?
This is the underview,an exploration in the
shaping of our place.
(59:24):
Hey, if you're still here,thank you for taking a moment
just to reflect on thisseason and this episode.
I know it's a lot.
This has been a heavy seasonfor me, heavy because these
interviews took place face toface across the table where
I could see each guest'sface and their expressions,
sometimes their tears.
I could see them wrestle throughthe questions, try to hold back
emotions and sometimes ask fora moment before responding.
(59:47):
The conversations sharedin these episodes are
really only part of thestory of this season.
In fact, some of the mostmeaningful conversations that
I've had this season werewhen the microphones were
turned off toward, not around.
It was in those moments whenpeople would say things like,
"I know I didn't answerthat as directly as I should
have, but I just can't gothere." Or what "I'm really
afraid of is..." this, theseconversations often reveal the
(01:00:09):
real human cost of the systemsthat we've been discussing.
I want you to hearthat not as something
dishonest or inauthentic.
But as their recognition of theweight of these conversations
and their desire to seeka new way, a way of peace.
So what's nextafter this season?
I think that's a good question.
I am working on what seasonthree could look like as there
are so many conversations thatneed to be held that impact
(01:00:33):
our belonging in this place,and they carry certain themes.
Of course, the world and ournation are at a time of great
change, and I don't know wherethat change will take us.
So in the meantime we havesome community conversations
that we need to catch up on.
So we will be recording episodeswith community leaders around
current issues and topics.
Those won't be releasedevery week, so follow along
on social media or subscribeto our email list to know
(01:00:55):
just when they're available.
And if there are any questionsthat have resonated with you
deeply this season, pleasefeel free to reach out to me.
I'd love to hear whatyou're learning and what
you're still wrestling with.
You can find me attheunderview.com
or on social media.
I wanna say thank youfor following along.
You know the work ofcommunity formation, it
belongs to all of us.
So I would encourage you to findways around you to connect with
(01:01:16):
your neighbors, to love 'em,to serve 'em, to work for them.
And in that, I hope you'llfind the beauty of becoming
faithful to this place.
Again, thanks so much for beingan incredible part of what
our community is becoming.
Well, it was a cold January day
when I was first here.
This out of the way gravelroad in Western Benton County.
It overlooks a hayfieldwhere an old story is buried.
This land wasfilled with silence.
The silence of thoseburied here, unknown
names and unmarked graves.
Yet even in their silence,I could still sense the
weight of the structuresthat placed them here.
(01:17):
It's August now, herein the Ozark Mountains
of Northwest Arkansas.
The early springrains are a memory.
And the summer sunstill rules the sky.
Even though the days havestarted to grow shorter.
School has begun, and with it,a familiar rhythm has returned,
and there's a familiar hopethat's not too far behind, and
that's the promise of October.
Even though it feels fartheraway than it really is, I still
(01:39):
feel the anxiety inside tohurry towards it because in this
settled place, October bringswith it a much needed grace.
A time when the land speaksback to acknowledge the
gratitude it holds forthose of us who have been
waiting so patiently for it.
To honor the promiseof October's coming.
We must find contentmentin the moment.
And while that heat ispredictably difficult,
(02:01):
the swimming holes alonglittle Sugar Creek have
brought some relief.
And for a gravel cycle assuch as myself, this is a
season of waiting, a seasonof advent of sorts in
October, a type of salvationand this kingdom of gravel.
My bike GPS, is that I'veridden a little over 3000
miles in the past eight monthssince we began this season.
And while we have come along way, it also tells me
(02:22):
I'm not where I should be.
I'm pretty far behind mypace in order to reach
my annual mileage goal.
I could blame the longerwinter or the spring
rains, and maybe I should.
However, this year has beendifferent and my focus has been
pulled in many other directions,not from the gravel roads
necessarily, but my focus hasdrifted as our national posture
has changed towards the world,our people, and our hopes.
(02:45):
It's taken its toll.
Even now, I look around mycity and I see these ancient
patterns returning in ourschools where there's battles
over education that aretangling with the return of
religious nationalism, in ourneighborhoods, isolated behind
gates and garage doors thathide questions about whether our
neighbors are in this countrylegally or not, and in our city
(03:06):
council meetings where inclusionitself has now become divisive.
I wish I could say that theseare new problems and we could
find new solutions, but we'renot experiencing new problems.
We're experiencing the sameanswers to the questions
that have haunted thisplace for centuries.
Who gets to belong?
Or stated more clearly whoshould be allowed to belong?
I've spent the past two yearsasking our community what it
(03:27):
means to belong here, and I'vefound that almost universally,
everyone carries the samefear and that fear is that
someone else is trying to takeaway their ability to belong.
You can hear it in the waypeople talk about their
neighborhoods or theirjobs, and you can see it in
who shows up in our publicspaces and who stays home.
But it's the same fearthat's been cycling through
this place for two and ahalf centuries or more.
(03:49):
Indigenous people, fearingremoval, enslaved people,
fearing violence, andcomplete erasure of the
humanity, immigrants fearingdeportation, and working
families fearing displacement.
The faces change, but thefear remains constant,
and this fear is doing thereal work of that division.
So if the world feelsdifferent now, that may
just reveal something aboutyour place in this story.
(04:12):
For many of us, thisisn't the world changing.
It's just the momentthat we see clearly
what's already been here.
However, throughout thisseason's conversations,
I've come to understandand see this more clearly.
The relationships that Ihold with this place that
are both physical and ofmemory, they're changing.
The relationships have grown andtheir roots have gone deeper,
and my view has become wider.
(04:33):
The story that was once hiddenbeneath the surface, it's risen.
It's been spoken through thevoices of those who have carried
it in silence for generations.
In January, thatstory felt faceless.
Yet here in August, afterlistening to our guests this
season, that story has foundits voice in this place, and
it speaks with a clarity thatI could have never anticipated.
(04:53):
It's allowed me to seethat those systems of
power did not disappear.
They have just adaptedand we see how they are
still adapting today.
And that clarity has beenthe embodiment of the belief
that we as a community cansimply do better than fear.
That we don't have to acceptit, and we have the ability
to reconnect and to remember,and to repair and to renew.
(05:14):
And we can rightfully reckonwith our own stories, and
by facing them, we canmove through them together.
And on the other side of thatreckoning, I see that we have
a power to dream, a differentdream for our community.
One that includes a placefor everyone to belong.
We have the power to changeour stories, to learn from
our past, and to recenterthose priorities, to return
to something true, somethinggood and something beautiful.
(05:37):
We began the second season ofthe underview, the story of
Northwest Arkansas, to trace thestories that have shaped this
region from the origin of ourplace, from the early conflicts
between indigenous nationsand European settlers, to the
creation of the state and theongoing struggles for belonging.
This was not just ajourney into the past.
It's been an exploration ofnorthwest Arkansas through
(05:59):
the voices of those thatare living here today.
Whose lives have beenprofoundly shaped by our shared
and often unknown history.
Our region didn't justemerge out of nowhere.
Over the centuries, thosewho have gone before
us, they have builtinstitutions and mythologies.
And today, as we see thisunprecedented economic growth
alongside growing socialdivides, we want to understand
(06:21):
if those forces from the pastare still shaping us Today.
Our goal was to understand thesestories and to work together
to create a communal theologyof place, meaning the things
that we believe about ourselvesin the place that we live.
This is our collectivework, and this has been
our collective journey.
we began the season with Dr.
Melissa Zabecki, our statearcheologist, who shared
with us the origin of ourplace and about the rich
(06:43):
culture that existed here.
melissa zabecki. (06:46):
History started here probably somewhere
between 10 and 14,000 years ago.
There used to be a beliefthat Native Americans did not
settle here, or they didn'thave a long term settlements
here, and we're finding outmore and more that's false.
People did live herefor long periods of time
and people settled here.
This place was filled withwhat people would think
(07:08):
of as high civilization.
Incredible trade networksfrom all over the country,
all over the continent.
mike. (07:15):
But it was also much more than that as Jazlyn
Sanderson shared that this storydemonstrates the resilience
of a people, many people.
jazlyn sanderson (07:22):
Not only is it a historical story of
the indigenous peoples thatwere here before us, but
it's a story of perseverance.
It's a story of how these peopleovercame the environment and
tragedy around them and howthey came out on the other side.
Today there are 574federally recognized Nations
(07:45):
within the United States.
There are over 600 inCanada, and there are
over 800 in Latin America.
mike. (07:51):
We began with the relationship between
place and people that formillennia, this was a thriving
place, not an empty one.
And then everything changed
melissa zabecki. (08:00):
and then they were living perfectly fine
until the Europeans came throughand messed everything up.
Eventually everybody got movedout to Indian Territory in
Oklahoma and lost so much oftheir culture because they were
forced to speak English and ofcourse moved into housing that
they weren't used to living intraditionally, so that happened
(08:21):
and then we have white settlers,right?, And unfortunately
they're enslaved folks that werebrought in and then so you think
about it, this happened three,four, 400 years ago that people
were starting to settle here.
400 years is not anythingto shake a stick at, right?
So if you have relatives thatwere here for 400 years you
(08:43):
feel like you have a claimto that land, so it's still,
it's hard to tell people butno, you still are immigrants.
There were people here beforeyou, you just kicked them out.
mike. (08:53):
During this process of European settlers arriving,
and as those two verydifferent cultures began
to interact, a new type ofrelationship would take root.
We've read about this in ourhistory books, in our schools,
but I wanted to hear thisfrom a new perspective, from
those who represent a peopleand a culture that were here
long before the arrival ofwhite European settlers.
(09:14):
To truly understand what thiscontact between indigenous
people and European settlersset in motion here, we needed
a language for the structuresthat were brought here
and imposed on the people.
Melissa Horner, a doctoralcandidate and a citizen of the
Manitoba Mattee Federation, anda first generation unenrolled
descendant of the TurtleMountain Band of Chippewa came
(09:34):
to share with us the ideologicalbasis for those systems
known as settler colonialism.
melissa horner. (09:40):
In thinking about settler colonialism as
a framework of society, itautomatically corrects this
narrative of settler colonialismbeing an event that happened
in the past, that was horrible,and that a few explorers who
came over on ships and hats did.
(10:01):
That's not what it is.
That did happen, of course,but that's not the totality
of settler colonialism.
Today, and in the past500 years, it's an ongoing
process that shapes just aboutevery domain in U.S. society
from education, to media,to law, health, medicine,
environment, what have you
mike. (10:23):
But this ongoing process doesn't operate in the shadows.
It wraps itself in ourmost cherished American
mythologies, westwardexpansion, manifest destiny,
and the idea of the frontier.
And these aren't just historicalevents, they've become the moral
and religious justificationfor an entirely different
system of relationships to takeroot between land and people.
(10:45):
A system that would formour American mythology
as our divine right.
melissa horne (10:50):
Manifest Destiny.
It's this idea that theUnited States was destined
by God to expand its dominionand spread democracy and
capitalism across the entireNorth American continent.
These are realities thatare trying to be fulfilled
through a combination oflegal, religious, political,
(11:13):
spiritual, cultural avenues.
mike. (11:16):
This divine mandate fundamentally transformed how
people viewed their relationshipto this place itself.
What had been a relationshipbecame property.
What had been reciprocitybecame extraction.
The change wasmore than economic.
It was spiritual, redefiningthe very nature of how
humans connect to theland and to each other.
melissa horner. (11:35):
And so if we think about it as settler
colonialism has put in placea lot of social behaviors,
a lot of cultural norms thatreally indicate to us that the
deep and wide and reciprocalrelationships between all
of these things don't reallyexist, then it creates a
(11:59):
really perfect sort of slot forother kinds of relationships
to exist, which are primarilyrooted in property and
ownership in the United States.
I think this is really importantto really understand some
of the foundational Basisof settler colonialism comes
(12:20):
down to really differingunderstandings of relationships
mike. (12:23):
and with this fundamental shift in how we understand
relationships, Melissa left uswith a sobering warning about
what this costs all of us.
melissa horner. (12:32):
Even though the settler colonial systems
and structures that arein place in this country
do privilege differentpeople differently and harm
different people differently.
It doesn't spare anybody.
there are costs to everyone,and one of the things is the
cost of not belonging to aspecific place, knowledge
(12:53):
system, language that we cantrack for centuries in terms of
white folks, white communitiesin the United States.
That's a loss.
And we see that over andover again through different
symptoms and manifestations ofdisconnection in this country.
mike. (13:09):
For most of us, this is the beginning of
our understanding of whatit means to belong to this
place and to each other.
We're a disconnected peoplethat often view land and people
as something to change andto control and to conquer.
This isn't an abstracttheory, it's the living memory
of those who lived on theother side of this system.
And to better understand this,we traveled to Oklahoma to
(13:30):
talk with tribal elders ofthe Quapaw nation, the first
people of Arkansas, and ofwhich Arkansas draws its name.
We had to rememberwho was here first.
The Quapaw whose storyhas always been bound
to this land, even whenothers tried to erase it.
I was able to sit with BettyGaedtke, a member of the Quapaw
Nation Cultural Committee.
She's working to reclaimher culture through rescuing
(13:52):
the ancient ways of pottery,while keeping in perspective
that the qua people's ownstory, it carries the pain
of removal and displacement.
betty gaedt (14:01):
We've lost so much.
The trail of tears was so hard,and when you have all these
traditions that you live yourlife by and they're handed down
from generation to generationand then all of a sudden
you don't have it anymore.
And it's because the Trailof Tears robbed us of 80 to
(14:24):
90 percent of our people.
That's a lot of traditionsthat went to the grave.
So that trail is just pavedwith dying traditions that
never made it to Oklahoma.
mike. (14:36):
Betty's words carry the weight of an unimaginable
loss, yet in the face ofsuch devastation, what
struck me the most was notbitterness, but resilience.
When I sat with Qpa ElderBarbara Kaiser Collier,
I witnessed somethingprofound about the power
of cultural survival.
barbara kyser-collier. (14:51):
I think about my ancestors
and what they must have gonethrough so that we can be
sitting here today, you and I.
they endured and they sacrificeda lot of things for us to
continue to be Quapaw today.
So I'm very proud of that.
Words can't express how gladI am that I'm, was brought up
(15:16):
like I was, and that I livedthe life I did as a Quapaw
mike. (15:21):
Barbara's perspective reveals something essential.
Even an attempt to erase apeople could not extinguish
what it meant to be a quapaw.
Her story along with Betty'srepresents an important
thread in a much largertapestry of displacement
that swept across our region.
John McClarty now retired,shared his decades of work.
Mapping the Trail of Tearswith Heritage Trail Partners to
(15:43):
make sure that these historicpathways that flow through
so many areas in NorthwestArkansas would be remembered
for the impact that they had.
john mclarty. (15:51):
There's so many misconceptions that the Trail
of Tears was this singular eventthat used one road and that
this March en mass of 16,000Cherokee, and it was actually
over time, even though it'sa limited time framework, but
there were 17 detachments inthe Trail of Tears that took
(16:13):
different roads, and it'sjust such a bigger story.
the bigger picture of thewhole idea of removal.
It's so much part ofthe American story
and it's a tragedy.
It's a dark story,but it has to be told.
These aren't just lineson a map for a trail.
from lines on a map to a storythat must be told as I learned
(16:36):
more about the Cherokee story.
But the tragedy they wentthrough really struck me.
That's when it became storiesthat needed to be told.
mike. (16:43):
These roads and routes through our state and our
region still hold stories thatwe are trying to understand.
But the rivers and waterwaysthrough this state also had a
huge impact along with the GreatRiver that fed so much of our
American mythology to understandhow those currents of expansion
and violence reached the Ozarks.
We needed to see how theyfirst took shape along
(17:04):
the Mississippi River.
Author Boyce Upholt,shared this with us.
boyce upholt. (17:08):
One of the lasting legacies of these early
years on the Mississippi riveris, there's this Jeffersonian
vision of expansive land,and we have done that, but
more so this wild, feralidea of American masculinity
emerged on the MississippiRiver, I tend to think and
that's what American men onthe frontier wanted to be.
(17:28):
They didn't want tobe gentlemen farmers.
They wanted to be theserough and tumble half
horse, half alligator men.
And I think today, like I lookat what's happening today in
our political culture and someof the schisms in our culture.
And I'm like, that'snever gone away.
mike. (17:40):
Those men on the frontier took on names and deeds.
One of them was HughAllen Anderson, who began
the early settlement ofthe Ozark, specifically
in northwest Arkansas.
Anderson was one ofthe very first white
settlers to this region.
His fifth generationdescendant, Steve Anderson,
is still in the area today.
steve anderson. (17:58):
Hugh Allen Anderson a prominent individual.
Served in the war of 1812.
Came to Northwest Arkansas,to the territory, as
they called it then.
1821 to 1823.
He first came here on horsebackwith a person that's never
been named, and um, foundthe little valley out by
what is now the airport.
(18:19):
Had a nice spring, and decidedto claim that under a land
grant from the War of 1812.
He uh, went back to Alabama.
Loaded all the thingsto start a homestead.
The uh, pigs, the cows,the sheep, unfortunately,
the slaves and came backhere in 1823 to 1826,
mike. (18:44):
Steve's family history reveals something crucial.
Hugh Anderson's homesteadwasn't just about farming.
It was about theestablishment of this new
system here in the Ozarks.
The pigs and the cowsand the sheep, they were
one kind of property.
The enslaved people wereanother, but both were
essential to the settlercolonial vision of prosperity
in this new territory.
(19:05):
The story of this family'shomestead only makes sense
inside these twin enginesof removal and slavery
that built Arkansas.
What looks like individualactions was actually
part of a much largercoordinated transformation
of the land and its people.
The process of indigenousremoval and the importation
of enslaved people waspart of the same movement
(19:25):
as Dr. Kelly Jones shares.
kelly houston jones. (19:28):
I am certainly convinced, and I'm
not the only one, that Theprocess of Indian removal and
establishment of chattel slaverybased on race in Arkansas and
beyond Arkansas are really twoparts of that same process.
It's all part of one big processwhere Native people are pushed
(19:51):
off of land so that people ofAfrican descent can be forced
onto it, so that land can changeinto a place where enslavers can
extract either, , and very oftenit's that cotton cultivation,
pushing westward, but it'stimber, it's certainly it's corn
cultivation, it's cattle, hogs.
mike. (20:14):
Dr. Jones makes this clear that it
wasn't a coincidence.
It was design.
Arkansas, as we know it wasbuilt on this foundation,
and when Arkansas achievedstatehood in 1836, this
system became permanentlyembedded into its identity.
kelly houston jones. (20:28):
Slavery has from a very early point
been an essential facet ofthe creation of Arkansas as a
political entity, Arkansas asa place, Arkansas as a concept.
What comes to Arkansas in1819 with that political
organization was chattelslavery based on race.
(20:51):
And so in 1819, when theterritory comes in without those
restrictions, they're able todo that and anchor that into
the society and the politics.
Just like all of thosethings that we study and
all of those things that wethink about when we try to
understand a place's history.
Slavery is in all of those.
mike. (21:12):
These threads weave through the early DNA of
our region, visible inits founding families and
their early settlements.
And you can trace them throughplaces like Historic Cane
Hill, where Director VanessaMcKuin grapples with what
it means to preserve andinterpret this complex legacy.
vanessa mckuin. (21:28):
I think what we are trying to do here is
more reflective of the complexhistory that is here and to
both celebrate the things thatmake, this place interesting
and special but also to grapplewith the things that make
our history difficult, andthat those themes that are
(21:49):
still with us and that we'restill grappling with today.
Not to glorify the peoplehere who were complex,
who were, those, the earlysettlers who were in a
lot of ways problematic.
But history is builton that, and Northwest
Arkansas is built on that.
mike. (22:07):
But this system built on removal and
enslavement, it containedits own contradictions.
The moral tensions it createdwould eventually tear the
region apart when thosethreads finally snapped.
The result was catastrophicconflict, a violent solution
to a violent problem that leftour region utterly devastated.
As historian DalePhillips shares with us.
dale phillips. (22:29):
At the end of the war in 1865,
this was a no man's land.
Benton and WashingtonCounty were basically
devoid of population.
Bentonville had beenburned to the ground.
Fayetteville hadbeen heavily damaged.
McDonald County in Missouriwas heavily damaged.
The courthouse burned.
Basically by 1865, SouthernSupporters had fled the area.
(22:50):
Northern supporters had tomove into fortified camps.
This was a no man's land.
It was guerrilla warfare.
So when the war ended and thisland was vacant, Confederate
and Union veterans beganto move back into this
area, live side by side.
They are buried together todayin our area, in our cemeteries.
You will find Union veteransand Confederate barons buried
(23:10):
next to each other who cameback and rebuilt this area
from basically nothing.
mike. (23:16):
As many of you know, this is something we are
still reckoning with today.
We see this in the lives ofthose early power holders and
the legacies that they createdand how they built back their
power and their wealth andit wasn't done on their own.
The need for labor andsystems of segregation
and power continued.
Standing in the ruins ofreconstruction, Arkansas had
(23:36):
choices to make, continuethe power structures of
the past or find a new wayforward a way for everyone.
Shiloh Museum historianRachel Whitaker shares this,
rachel whitaker. (23:46):
There's these moments, there's watershed
moments where we could havegone a different direction.
We could have not, spread intoArkansas, the Ozarks to start
with via Louisiana purchase.
Maybe we didn't wanna pay fourcents an acre to Napoleon.
But also maybe, we wouldn't havewanted to spread slavery or we
wouldn't wanna push the NativeAmericans out of these areas.
(24:06):
And so there are thesemoments where we could have
made a different choice.
And I think especiallynow that's important to
understand that history isnot always just this linear.
There's branches, there'sopportunities for different
choices and different ideas.
mike. (24:24):
but we didn't make different choices.
Instead, we doubled down onthe same patterns, embodied
in the same powerful families.
The Andersons, the Dinsmores,Governor James Barry,
Samuel West, and many more.
While the Civil War wasdevastating, it didn't break
the structures of power.
Instead, power simplyreorganized and found
new ways to make it work.
(24:44):
Take Samuel WestPeel, for example.
His influence on federalIndian policy may have been
one of the most significantroles in shaping indigenous
sovereignty through thedevelopment of policy around
the Allotment Act and theIndian Boarding School policy.
It's a hard part of our region'shistory, but this is the
reckoning that is required.
Peel museum historianChelsea Stewart understands
(25:06):
the larger context of thisreckoning with our past.
chelsea stewart. (25:09):
I think that wholeness looks like,
the first thing that comes tomy mind, which usually tends
to be the most honest thingwith me, is it's acceptance.
It's acceptance of thehistory we have here.
It's acceptance of what happenedin that history, good or bad.
I think in order for thecommunity to be whole and
(25:30):
healthy, that we need tokeep all of that in mind.
You can't really go forwardand not confront that I feel.
I feel like it is very importantthat we keep all of the history
in mind as we go forward.
mike. (25:47):
Chelsea's call for acceptance reveals
something really important.
Confronting this history isn'tabout dwelling in the past.
It's about understanding howthese patterns persist, and
they do persist adapting tonew circumstances while serving
the same essential functions.
As the region rebuilt and grew,the quest for exploitable labor
simply shifted to new targets.
(26:08):
Historian and directdescendant of the original
immigrants of Tonittown,Emily Pinalto-Beshears speaks
directly to these structuresthat eventually brought
Italian immigrants here.
emily pianalto-beshears. (26:18):
there was a huge prejudice against the
Italians because they were thenew other, the new immigration
populace that's coming inand taking jobs, and taking
land, and taking up space.
The Italians were just seenas a problem upon a problem.
They keep coming in.
We can't stop them.
By the, 1910, thereare immigration laws
(26:40):
specifically written to keepItalians out of America.
Those laws are still inplace, but they are not
targeting Italians anymore.
They're targeting the new other.
It's this revolving doorof, who's the new group
that's coming in en mass.
It's not just, oh, there'sa few people coming from
Italy and we're worried.
(27:00):
It's, there are thousandsof people coming every day
from Italy and we're worried,well, why are you worried?
mike. (27:07):
Emily's observation about the "revolving door"
reveals the machine at workalways needing a new other
to exploit and to exclude.
Larry Foley University,professor, filmmaker, and
creator of the film "Criesfrom the Cotton Field" around
the story of the foundingof Tontitown can see these
historical patterns as well.
larry foley. (27:26):
It amazes me sometimes to see the stories
that happened then and tosee how closely related they
are to some of the thingsthat are going on today.
And it saddens me and sometimesit angers me because as
a long time teacher, I'vetaught students from all
kinds of nationalities and allkinds of from socioeconomic
(27:50):
backgrounds, and my job is notto pass judgment on anybody.
There's some kinshipto what was going on in
the story that I tell.
I hope that we will getthrough this time in history
as we got through that angrymob that tried to burn down
the church in Tontitown.
And over time, I think thefolks around here realized
(28:12):
these are good people.
These are God-fearing people.
We don't need tobe afraid of them.
mike. (28:17):
Larry's insights raises this deeper question.
If we keep recycling the samepatterns using race, ethnicity,
and immigration status astools to create exploitable
labor, where does it stop?
and at the same time, a newidentity for the Ozarks began
to form an identity givento this place that served to
uphold our American story.
University professor andpresident of the Ozark Studies
(28:39):
Association, Dr. Jared Phillips,he shares this with us,
jared phillips. (28:43):
there's a lot of mythologies around
why the South is the waythat it is, why places like
the Mountain South, that'sAppalachia and the Ozarks,
why they are the way they are.
And in some of those mythologiesthere are things that are true.
There, there was a strong drivefor independence for people.
There was a desire for liberty.
There was a desire for thisJeffersonian ideal of a
(29:03):
democracy or a republic ofyeoman farmers, and that
land was going to be thedrive for independence.
Some of these impulses are thereand they're true, but they're
also balanced by things that arealso equally problematic, right?
So you look at, we look atthe legacy of enslavement.
We look at the legacy ofremoval at the legacy of
unintended consequences
mike. (29:21):
but Dr. Phillips goes on to further explain
that the mythology of theOzarks doesn't stop there.
jared phillips. (29:26):
And so on the one hand, we're holding
up this the idea, themythology, the American dream,
because it is a mythology.
There's nothing wrong with it.
All nations have to have amythology to have cohesion.
But it is a mythology And likeall mythologies, it's got, it
can be dangerous, but it has tosay, it has to hold up on the
other hand, the mythology ofwhat it is better than, and what
(29:46):
it is better than is the dirty,ignorant hillbilly in tucked
up in the backwoods, who'safraid of progress and can't
get on in the modern world.
And so we have, but if youeradicate that entirely.
Then you no longer have anythingthat you've set yourself as
better than or as like improvingfrom right and so Folks that
(30:07):
work on the hillbilly mythologyand the hillbilly image in
American life Myself includedwe tend to see the hillbilly
is standing as a As the, as thefoil for the American dream.
And so it has to be maintainedeven if it's not real.
mike. (30:21):
While these mythologies played out in popular
culture, the work of exclusionwas still moving forward
through policy and law.
The same forces that createdthe hillbilly stereotype
were actively denyingbelonging to black arkansans
through segregation andsystematic exclusion.
So belonging in the Ozarkswas never guaranteed.
Dr. Michael Pierce speaksto the civil rights movement
(30:42):
here, where the fight for equalability to belong in Arkansas
became impossible to ignore.
Where the tone shifted, wherewe decided before that as
a state, we were not gonnafollow the path of inclusion.
dr. (30:55):
This is the point in which Arkansas goes from being the
leader of integration in theJim Crow South to the road
to Central High in 1957.
And so after the SouthernManifesto, the conversation
changes from this is adecision we don't really
(31:19):
like, but there's nothingwe can do about it.
We might as well make the bestof it to, how do we organize
to stop this from happening?
mike. (31:26):
These weren't just abstract policy debates.
They played out inreal neighborhoods, in
real families' lives.
And you can trace the impactdirectly through city records
about places like SoutheastFayetteville where residents
like Tommy Flowers Davishave watched the impact
of policies of removal andsegregation work to slowly
make communities disappear.
tommie flowers davis. (31:47):
and I also see how just bits
and pieces of our community,it's not there anymore.
So at some point in time wewon't have that story, we
won't have that history, wewon't have that acknowledgement
or any awareness of us beingthere and how we contributed
(32:07):
to the fabric of Fayetteville.
I know a lot of our structuresare no longer there.
Just, in talking about thefirst black elementary school
in Fayetteville, Arkansas,the fact that was not an
important enough structureto be historic or maintained.
I have a problem with it.
mike. (32:26):
What Mrs. Davis describes isn't accidental.
It's systematic to dig deeper.
Architect and urban planner, AliQuinlan helped us understand the
mechanism behind this erasure.
The city's zoning codesthemselves, which are not
unique to Fayetteville.
These are the same zoningcodes that are used
throughout other cities,our region and our state.
alli thurmond (32:45):
The thing that I wanna tell everybody.
There is this big, awfulthing that we inherited.
A huge chunk, majorityof our land is still held
under these codes that weredesigned explicitly to make
housing expensive and tosegregate neighborhoods.
They can use their resourcesto help change that.
Zoning reform is critical.
Single family zoning andRSF four zoning explicitly
(33:06):
came out of trying tosegregate neighborhoods.
Zoning reform is critical.
mike. (33:10):
so we see how the cycle perpetuates from our
mythologies and becomesreal through the policy in
the very landscape itself.
But today, the consequencesof that change is becoming
something different.
We return to Dr. Jared Phillipswith questions about how the
recent changes in our areais impacting this region.
jared phillips. (33:27):
Change is normal in history and the Ozarks
have been a place that hasexperienced change continually.
But what I would say about thechange that we've seen since
say the end of the civil Warhas been, it has been change
of form, but not principle.
And what I mean by that is thatthe currents that held Ozark
communities together may havelooked a little bit different,
(33:49):
but they were the same.
And so the small scale,pseudo agrarian kind of ideas
were there because of therealities of the landscape.
That's important to pointout because the change that
we're seeing today is breakingprinciples of the past.
And that's where people thatsit in my shoes, sit up and
(34:12):
be like, now wait a minute.
One thing or another onepiece of ground conserved
here or whatever, is notin and of itself a problem.
But if it's part of abroader trend that breaks
the social system, tearsthe social fabric, that has
sustained the place prettywell for the last 150 years.
(34:33):
From where I sit and thestatistics that I look at and
the stories that I see, that iswhat's happening, that's when
I get worried about the kindof change that we're seeing.
That doesn't mean thatI think change is bad.
I've been accused before ofbeing like, you want this
nostalgic vision of the Ozarks.
I don't, because what thefull story of the Ozarks
is a troubling story.
I don't want everythingfrom the past.
I only want things thatare useful from the past.
mike. (34:56):
So as the region transforms, the fundamental need
for labor continues to grow.
And once again, the old patternshave remained and has found a
new target in Latino immigrantsas Dr. Steven Rosales explains.
dr. steven (35:09):
This is the magnet.
It's always has been.
This is the melting pot.
This is where you can go,you, you get exploited
along the way to get here.
There's obviously somethingabout this country that has
served as a magnet for peoplefor all over the world, if
not for themselves, at leastfor the children, right?
To set up a foundation forposterity and I don't know
why you would be surprisedthat also hasn't included Latin
(35:30):
America, but who you are, whereyou come from, how you look
plays a role in how receptivepeople here are to you.
mike. (35:40):
Dr. Rosales observation forces us to zoom out
and ask bigger questions.
Where does Arkansas fitinto this global system
that creates these kindsof migration patterns?
For the companies that arehere in Northwest Arkansas,
what role do they have in it?
Historian Olivia Pascalhas focused her work to
understand this, and sheshares her questions about
this growing influence today.
olivia paschal. (36:01):
The questions that are really interesting are
where do the Ozarks sit in thissystem of globalized capitalism,
global labor, and supply chains?
What can we learn from otherplaces where similar dynamics
are at play and how are peopledoing things differently?
And I do think the questionof capitalism, good or bad, is
(36:21):
actually a really good startingpoint for looking at these
other questions because if youare not willing to question the
system, then maybe you aren'tseeing the other alternatives.
Northwest Arkansas alone isnot gonna make or break the
capitalist system, but we dohappen to have two major players
in it, in our own backyards.
mike. (36:40):
But to understand how these global systems impact
people in our community, wehave to listen to the people
inside of these systems.
Maybe the ones whose voiceswe hear from the least.
Organizer, Magaly Licollihas spent years documenting
the experiences of workersin Arkansas's poultry plants.
magaly licolli. (36:57):
I think for me, it was a change in my
life when I became responsiblefor listening the stories.
Knowing that the stories ofthe worker, it was a story
of hundreds of workers.
Then when I began talkingwith community leaders about
do you know what is happeninginside these poultry plants?
What is happening insideall these companies?
(37:19):
And people were like, "ohyes, we heard, we know, but
we don't wanna talk about it."Because it was the situation
that people were advocatingfor the immigrants.
But they didn't want torecognize that those immigrants
were also poultry workers andthey divided the identity like
(37:40):
I care for the immigrants, butI don't really wanna talk about
the jobs that those immigrantsare doing in Arkansas.
mike. (37:47):
We have to face the duality of this reality, and
we cannot let ignorance aboutwhere our prosperity comes from
be a part of the same pattern.
We want the benefits ofthe system, but not the
responsibility for its costs.
Meanwhile, the politicalnarrative around immigration
continues to grow andincreasingly hostile,
drowning out the voicesof the vulnerable.
(38:08):
Community rights organizer,Irvin Camacho shares this
irvin camacho. (38:11):
these are humans who are trying their
best do things the right way.
They're here because therewasn't any opportunities
in their country.
They're here because theyescaped some sort of like
persecution in their country,all these different scenarios.
And I think that sometimes thenationwide politics tries to
(38:33):
paint this violent picture ofwho they are as individuals,
but we know our parents, weknow our cousins, we know the
people that I went to highschool with, and we know how
hardworking they are and howmuch they want to contribute
to the society and howthey're not violent criminals.
mike. (38:49):
And we can't just look only at the corporate
and civic institutions.
We have to ask these samequestions of our religious
institutions, the institutionswhich should be spaces
of sanctuary and justice.
They have become entangledin these systems of
power and exclusion.
Over time this struggle hasresulted in faith and politics
almost becoming inseparable.
Dr. Jared Phillips showsus again how religion has
(39:11):
always shaped power inthe south, including right
here in our own home.
dr. jared m. phillips. (39:16):
And I think what what we see happen
is that the evangelical worldbecomes an evangelical world
that doesn't just think aboutsharing good news through
good actions or sharinggood news just share it
through, sharing good news.
But it becomes a world thatis, there is a fundamental set
of beliefs about not just whatwe think of in the Bible, in
(39:37):
the New Testament, in the OldTestament, whatever, but in
how we understand what cultureis and how we understand what
morality is and that thosethings equal evangelicalism.
mike. (39:46):
And so we see the through line very clearly.
For centuries power in theform of wealth, labor, and
even faith has been intertwinedin Northwest Arkansas.
And while that is not uniqueto northwest Arkansas,
it did happen here.
It is happening here.
The structures that firstarrived here two and a half
centuries ago are still activeand they're still working.
Their form has shifted andchanged, but their essential
(40:09):
functions remain the same.
And I know some of you at somepoint will say, when do we move
on from this history or thatthis history is not true or that
it focuses on the wrong things?
But Dr. Kelly Joneswould say otherwise.
kelly houston jones. (40:22):
Sometimes you'll hear people say well,
that was so many years ago.
It's over.
Slavery ended in1865, so it's done.
We don't need to talkabout it anymore.
But of course, just because thething called the Confederacy
failed doesn't mean thatthe values that inspired its
creation and sustained the fightfor as long as it did, doesn't
mean that those dissipate.
(40:44):
And in fact, that's a bigfailure of so much blood
spilled and property destroyedto not have really answered
the question, who we are,what do we stand for?
What is this going to be like,or at least not answered it in a
way that we should have, right?
mike. (41:01):
So, no, we don't move on, especially when the same systems
still animate us forward,especially when our federal
government has begun to changethe public history of slavery
and at the same time begunreinstating Confederate statues
and the names of Confederateleaders on our military bases.
I think when these questionscome up, it's important
to recognize something.
This isn't about forgetting.
(41:21):
These things did happen.
That's not up for debate.
We want to move forward andwe cannot avoid reckoning with
this history because we simplydon't know where to start.
Today, the reality is thatwe are faced with these
mythologies and ideologiesthat are confusing or are
rooted in the same institutionsthat were founded long ago.
These deeplyanti-relational systems.
(41:42):
So if our institutions aretangled in this form of power,
is there anything beneathall of it that we can use
to build a new foundation?
Beneath the church and party,beneath Capitalism and Policy
sits a bedrock question, whatdoes it mean to be fully human?
And can we understandwhat it means to be fully
human when belonging istypically measured by power?
(42:03):
Professor Todd Stockdale remindsus that even our most basic
assumptions about human value,they come from somewhere, that
they can change over time, andthat they can be changed again.
todd stockdale. (42:15):
The Idea for me is first and foremost
recognize that our views, ourvalues, our systems of labor
have come from somewhere.
It's just not the way theworld has always been.
It won't be the waythe world always is.
So can we imagine a differentfuture, a different way of
being, a way that privilegesthe human being, a way
(42:39):
that privileges the humanexperience, a way that is not
alienating and dehumanizing.
Imagining a different futureand what we prioritize,
and are we prioritizingthings that are going to
lead to human flourishing?
mike. (42:52):
So if our priorities need to change, there is
one thing that we need toaddress within the dominant
culture of this place.
Melissa Horner describesit as a vacancy.
melissa horner. (43:01):
I feel like this comes
up in my classes a lot.
My students will oftentimeswhen we're talking about settler
colonialism, I always invitethem to think about their
own histories and home placesand families, and inevitably
they often bring up that thestudents who are white and
(43:22):
come from families of settlerdescent oftentimes have a hard
time tracing which people,places, languages, cultures
they come from, or that they'reconnected to beyond immediate
generations of relatives,and I think this is a really
common settler colonial realitythat can create a pretty
profound sense of disconnectionfor a lot of people.
(43:44):
And one of my own wonderingsis wondering if it's one of the
reasons the 23andMe and AncestryDNA tests have become so popular
because people are reallytrying to understand and learn
and connect to something, someplace, some culture, some way
to feel rooted in relationships,whether that's relationship
(44:06):
to a place or a people ora language or knowledge.
And I think on top of that,a lot of white communities
also aren't very aware of themillennia long histories of the
places that they call home, andso it's a kind of vacancy that
lives on two levels, both intheir own families and selves at
(44:28):
times, as well as on a sort ofbroader historical social level.
mike. (44:35):
And here on this gravel road I feel the
weight of that vacancythat Melissa talks about.
A vacancy that is longing forsomething different, a way to
connect to our place in thestory of its origin, but with
a chance to choose differentlythis time, to make new choices
about power and labor andwealth and land, the patterns
of removal and extraction,they're still with us.
First, the Osage, the Quapaw,and the Caddo were removed.
(44:57):
Today.
It's the immigrant.
First, enslaved peoplewere used to extract labor.
Today, the vulnerable orexploitable are the laborers
in our poultry plants.
The region has been built onpower and political influence,
capitalism, and religion.
And yet here we are in thesesame struggles and I wonder,
has anything really changed?
We seem to be a placelesspeople disconnected from
(45:19):
the land, unrooted from eachother, unbound from ourselves,
and that disconnectioncosts us all something.
The vacancy is real and our pathtowards filling it, it requires
a broader understanding of whatit means to be fully human.
The vacancy can be filled,and in doing so, I believe
that this is the path towardswholeness that is missing.
Belonging isn't theoretical,it's physical, and it's found
(45:41):
in the work of sharing a tabletogether and then committing to
stay at that table as we worktowards understanding each other
and working for our common good.
And if for some reasonwe can't remain at that
table, then we commit toreturning to it to find our
common ground once more.
Melissa Horner reminded us thatwhile we try to work within
the systems of our countrytoday, that we are constantly
(46:04):
fighting against somethingthat is deeply anti relational
and that impacts all of us.
melissa horner. (46:09):
Settler colonialism impacts all of us.
It's structural.
It's cultural.
So very few of us inthe U.S. are able to
not participate in it.
This is part of just barrieraround white communities
in general, that there's abelief system that settler
colonialism doesn't apply tothem in their lives and that
(46:31):
they're exempt from it somehow.
It's not just the job ofNative peoples to recognize
settler colonialism.
Settler colonialism isnot a Native problem.
It is an everybody problem.
the sooner folks can geta toehold in understanding
(46:52):
the prevalence of settlercolonialism and how it does
impact everybody, the soonerwe can have a different starting
point for conversations.
mike. (47:02):
This impact on all of us and the need to
have a different startingpoint from fear is real.
So what is the way forward?
What must we learn andwhere can we start?
Historian Dale Phillips,reminds us about a time
in the 1850s right beforethe Civil War and that had
something to teach us that wecan learn from our history.
dale phillips. (47:19):
What we're going through today with
polarization, you see verymuch the same in the 1850s.
And once they began to becomethe focal point, the two
extreme ends of the spectrum,that is eventually what
would lead us into conflict.
And that is something we haveto work at today, even though
we are very polarized, weneed to find middle ground.
(47:42):
We need to not see each other asanything other than Americans.
We cannot let the polarizedextremes take hold like they
did in the 1850s, which ledto that bloody conflict.
mike. (47:54):
It's past time to move from the extremes and to be
rooted in our place together.
It is time to settle notby removing or extracting,
but by becoming whole inthe place that we live.
Not to use it as acommodity, but to embrace
it as a part of us.
In her book, "BraidingSweetgrass," author and
indigenous scientist,Robin Wall Kimmerer,
describes it like this.
(48:15):
She says,"the problem with thesepeople is that they don't have
both feet on the shore whenit's still on the boat. They
don't seem to know whetherthey're staying or not."
My ancestors were onceindigenous to a place,
just not this place.
I wouldn't know how to return.
So the question forme becomes practical.
How do I put both feet onthe shore and now become
(48:36):
faithful to this place?
I believe that leads to the workof reconnection, remembering,
repair, and renewal.
And I think our story of RockVan Winkle may serve as a guide.
So as we come to the end ofthis season, we return to the
story of the Anderson family whobrought a people here long ago.
In our remembering of thoselives, that the margins, we
can find wisdom and peace,that takes away the fear.
(48:58):
Those ideologiesweren't just abstract.
They lived in familiesand in legacies.
Jerry Moore, the sociologistand historian who had a huge
role in what our public memoryholds of Rock Van Winkle.
He reminds us that Rock'sstory, while one of enslavement,
labor, and erasure that weare trying to reclaim, is
also one that commits usto working for a community
(49:19):
despite the circumstances.
jerry moore. (49:21):
Most of us have seen society change politically,
religiously, economically,racially, but still in the
back of our minds we sometimeshave trouble to throw away
the past that I feel had beenoverplayed and we had to build
(49:43):
a future out of something.
It's like birth.
We come into this worldbeing fed by somebody else,
clothed by somebody else,bathed by somebody else,
kissed and hugged, and evenignored by somebody else.
That's how society is.
Someone else built somethingfor us, and it's how we
(50:04):
take what they build tomake our life better.
mike. (50:08):
And Barbara Carr, as the descendant of Aaron
Anderson Rock Van Winkle.
She remind us that this storyis not finished, that it
still walks amongst us today.
barbara carr. (50:17):
When I found out about Rock, I was
proud because I've dealtwith prejudice, not from
everybody, not from all people.
That white man didn'tsee a difference between
him and a black man.
He saw that black man as beinga businessman that made money.
(50:39):
Rock had a plan that this iswhat I'm going to do and I'm
gonna see how far it goes.
And if it goes as far asI think that it will, then
this is what we going to do.
And that's what he did.
And I was proud of him.
I'd like to known him'cause he stood up.
mike. (50:55):
So in this account of Rock Van Winkle's Life, Jerry
Moore wants us to remember this.
jerry moore. (51:00):
Rock had more power than politicians of today.
And I'm gonna put itthat frank about it.
They don't owe anything to Rock.
Rock gave them a better lifethan they probably would've had,
and we get wrapped up in themayors and the city directors.
That's politics.
What runs the society?
The families that makethe people and the economy
(51:21):
that feed or starve you.
And to me, the electedofficials come and go.
Only thing thatchanges is the name.
The power structure is the same.
mike. (51:32):
This story of Northwest Arkansas is the story of
how power takes root throughremoval, enslavement,
labor, exploitation,war, and migration.
But it's not the onlystory of one kind of power.
It's also the story of powerof those who endured, resisted,
and remembered and went onto create a better community.
The Quapaw power is still here.
(51:53):
The Andersons the vanWinkles, the peels and their
descendants, they're still here.
And at the Anderson Cemeterywhere I began the season
asking the question,"what happened here?"
What I have learned isthat that answer is not
only about history, it'sabout the relationships
with the living descendantswho still walk this land.
The blood in the ground is stillthere, but it's more than blood.
(52:14):
It is memory, and thatcalls us to responsibility.
Settler colonialism has changedthis land and its people, but
in the mythology of America, itcannot cover what we now know.
The mythology wasnever the whole story.
This season, I have triedto reassemble a fuller
story, one that embracesboth memory and repair.
Our region stories are notsomething to fear, there's
(52:37):
something to embrace becausethey teach us a new way to live
and new ways of relationships.
This season is just onethread of our story.
There are so many othersthat are waiting to be
uncovered, so many morethat are waiting to be told.
And by peeling away themythology, we have the right
to return to the belief thatall are created equal and we
(52:58):
have the opportunity to havethat vision fully realized.
So as I place my foot backon the pedal to take me home
from the Anderson Cemetery,I carry the weight of those
graves in the hayfield.
I cannot wash away what rests inthe ground and I will not try.
The blood is turned to memoryand that memory can reshape
our relationships withthis place and its people.
(53:21):
The land may still bemarked with scars, but
it is also asking us toremember, to reconnect,
to repair, and to renew.
A border has been crossedbetween what I knew before
and what I know now, and itis a border that I cannot
and will not cross back over.
Colonialism and capitalismare still here, and they are
still the structures of oursociety, but they do not have to
(53:43):
direct every part of our lives.
We can confront their harmand we can seek repair.
We can choose relationshipover erasure, and
responsibility over denial,and renewal over restoration.
This is a place wherebelonging can no longer
be built on exclusion, buton our shared stewardship
of this place's memory.
(54:03):
This renewal begins andexists in the ordinary
places of civic life.
In the city council meetingswhere we ask questions about
intent rather than assigningcategories to human beings.
How we learn the names of thecreeks that run through our
neighborhoods, or creating ahome using native plants over
invasive ones, and to fullyknow the indigenous history
of the land that we call home.
(54:25):
Becoming faithful to this placemeans understanding that land
possession and land relationshipare different things entirely.
That true belonging comesfrom remembering rather
than from ownership.
As we close and I reflecton this season, I see the
strength of the influencethat these systems and
structures in our Americanmythology have had on my life.
I see these structures for whatthey are now, and it brings a
(54:47):
form of freedom to understandcritically and to consider a new
way forward, a way that healsand repairs and renews what
is possible in our community.
Our work is far from over,but for now I can see how
things can be different.
Long before the seasonbegan, the poem that follows,
which I asked my dad toread, was a dream at best.
Something altruistic and withoutform, but today its ability
(55:10):
to become real has come near.
gregg rusch. (55:14):
The dream by Wendell Berry,
I dream and inescapable dreamin which I take away from
the country, the bridgesand roads, the fences, the
strung wires, ourselves, allwe have built and dug and
hollowed out, our flocks andherds our droves of machines.
(55:36):
I restore then thewide branching trees.
I see growing over the landand shading it the great trunks
and crowns of the first forest.
I'm aware of the rattling oftheir branches, the lichened
channels of their bark, thesaps of the ground flowing up
(55:57):
to their darkness, like theafterimage of a light that only
by not looking can be seen.
I glimpse the country as it was.
All its belongingsbelong wholly to it.
They flourish in dyingas in being born.
It is the life of its deaths.
(56:19):
I must end always by replacingour beginning there, ouselves
and our blades, the flowing inof history, putting back what
I took away, trying always withthe same pain of foreknowledge
to build all that we havebuilt but destroy nothing.
(56:40):
My hands weakening.
I feel on all sides blindnessgrowing in the land on its
peering bulbous stalks.
I see that my mindis not good enough.
I see that I am eager to ownthe earth and to own men.
I find my mouth and abitter taste of money,
(57:02):
a gaping syllable.
I can neitherswallow nor spit out.
I see all that I have ruinedin order to have all that
was owned for a lifetimeto be destroyed forever.
Where are the sleepsthat escape such dreams?
mike. (57:22):
Today here in the Ozarks of Northwest
Arkansas, these words,"to put back what I took away,
trying always with the samepain of foreknowledge, to
build all that we have built,but to destroy nothing."
This is ourcollective reckoning.
If this can become ourcollective belief, our communal
theology of place, then we havethe opportunity to make a new
(57:43):
future available to us all.
There are no limits on whatwe can dream for ourselves.
This path forward is open widefor, it allows everyone to
belong, for repair to take root,and for a community to form in
a way that wholeness can grow.
This is not restorationfor it goes beyond repair.
This is renewal.
And so I'm asking, can we movetogether on these shared roads?
(58:06):
Can we find a way towardsa renewed spirit, a renewed
community, and a renewed hope?
This is the underview,an exploration in the
shaping of our place.
(59:24):
Hey, if you're still here,thank you for taking a moment
just to reflect on thisseason and this episode.
I know it's a lot.
This has been a heavy seasonfor me, heavy because these
interviews took place face toface across the table where
I could see each guest'sface and their expressions,
sometimes their tears.
I could see them wrestle throughthe questions, try to hold back
emotions and sometimes ask fora moment before responding.
(59:47):
The conversations sharedin these episodes are
really only part of thestory of this season.
In fact, some of the mostmeaningful conversations that
I've had this season werewhen the microphones were
turned off toward, not around.
It was in those moments whenpeople would say things like,
"I know I didn't answerthat as directly as I should
have, but I just can't gothere." Or what "I'm really
afraid of is..." this, theseconversations often reveal the
(01:00:09):
real human cost of the systemsthat we've been discussing.
I want you to hearthat not as something
dishonest or inauthentic.
But as their recognition of theweight of these conversations
and their desire to seeka new way, a way of peace.
So what's nextafter this season?
I think that's a good question.
I am working on what seasonthree could look like as there
are so many conversations thatneed to be held that impact
(01:00:33):
our belonging in this place,and they carry certain themes.
Of course, the world and ournation are at a time of great
change, and I don't know wherethat change will take us.
So in the meantime we havesome community conversations
that we need to catch up on.
So we will be recording episodeswith community leaders around
current issues and topics.
Those won't be releasedevery week, so follow along
on social media or subscribeto our email list to know
(01:00:55):
just when they're available.
And if there are any questionsthat have resonated with you
deeply this season, pleasefeel free to reach out to me.
I'd love to hear whatyou're learning and what
you're still wrestling with.
You can find me attheunderview.com
or on social media.
I wanna say thank youfor following along.
You know the work ofcommunity formation, it
belongs to all of us.
So I would encourage you to findways around you to connect with
(01:01:16):
your neighbors, to love 'em,to serve 'em, to work for them.
And in that, I hope you'llfind the beauty of becoming
faithful to this place.
Again, thanks so much for beingan incredible part of what
our community is becoming.
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