Why is it that the rich tapestry of African American history is often compressed into a single month? Join me, Dom L'Amour, alongside J Boogie, as we tackle this poignant question and journey through the annals of a past that continues to weave into the very essence of American democracy. Our candid conversation traverses the timeline of African American struggles and triumphs, from the cruel shackles of slavery to the inspiring heights of the Civil Rights movement, and the persistent systemic hurdles faced by the Black community.
Have you ever considered how the histories of Native Americans and African Americans intersect and diverge? This episode illuminates the overlooked narratives, including the grandeur of ancient Native civilizations and how their stories starkly contrast with those of African Americans. We ruminate on the celebration of Black achievements, as showcased in the "Summer of Soul" documentary, and we advocate for the integration of Black history into the American narrative, not as a mere chapter, but as a continuous thread that deserves year-round recognition.
Reflection and personal connection give texture to our histories. I share intimate memories of growing up with a profound sense of Black identity, and the role my family played in connecting me to historical figures like Ralph David Abernathy, fostering an educational journey beyond the confines of a classroom. As we unpack the local history of a lynching in Coweta County, we're reminded of the powerful legacy of our ancestors and the necessity of historical awareness in the ongoing struggle against racial injustice. This episode is an homage to those who came before us and a call to honor their influence in shaping our present and future. Join us for a deep exploration of our shared past and the indelible imprint of African American history on our world.
Why is it that the rich tapestry of African American history is often compressed into a single month? Join me, Dom L'Amour, alongside J Boogie, as we tackle this poignant question and journey through the annals of a past that continues to weave into the very essence of American democracy. Our candid conversation traverses the timeline of African American struggles and triumphs, from the cruel shackles of slavery to the inspiring heights of the Civil Rights movement, and the persistent systemic hurdles faced by the Black community.
Have you ever considered how the histories of Native Americans and African Americans intersect and diverge? This episode illuminates the overlooked narratives, including the grandeur of ancient Native civilizations and how their stories starkly contrast with those of African Americans. We ruminate on the celebration of Black achievements, as showcased in the "Summer of Soul" documentary, and we advocate for the integration of Black history into the American narrative, not as a mere chapter, but as a continuous thread that deserves year-round recognition.
Reflection and personal connection give texture to our histories. I share intimate memories of growing up with a profound sense of Black identity, and the role my family played in connecting me to historical figures like Ralph David Abernathy, fostering an educational journey beyond the confines of a classroom. As we unpack the local history of a lynching in Coweta County, we're reminded of the powerful legacy of our ancestors and the necessity of historical awareness in the ongoing struggle against racial injustice. This episode is an homage to those who came before us and a call to honor their influence in shaping our present and future. Join us for a deep exploration of our shared past and the indelible imprint of African American history on our world.
If you could go to the African American History Museum and kind of reckon with those visuals of what it meant to be an enslaved people and to persevere past it, despite all of the ostracization that happened during Reconstruction, during the Civil Rights Era. And then it gets turned. You get credit in the mix and you can't have access to credit, but then Black families are doing a little too well, so sprinkle this little drug. It's like lifting up the rug and it's like, oh, there's some dirt under there. All right, march 1st, let's put that rug down. I'm glad that it exists, but I wish it was every month. I wish we took that sort of observation of our history in our every day.
Speaker 2:
Ladies and gentlemen, and anyone else who is here, my name is Dom Lamour and you are listening to the Black man Talking Emotions podcast. On today's episode we speak to John Butts, aka Jay Boogie, about Black History Month, the true significance of slavery in the United States to the whole social development of America, laying the ultimate relation of slaves to democracy. What were to be the limits of democratic control in the United States If all labor, black as well as white, became free, were given schools in the right to vote? What control could or should be set to the power and action of these laborers? Was the rule of the mass of Americans to be unlimited and the right to rule extended to all men, regardless of race and color? Or, if not, what power or dictatorship and control and how would property and privilege be protected? This was the great and primary question which was in the minds of the men who wrote the Constitution of the United States and continued in the minds of thinkers down through the slavery controversy. It still remains with the world as the problem of democracy expands and touches all races and nations.
Speaker 2:
W E B Du Bois, a hero and activist, one of the most important minds of the early 1900s. I highly recommend his book Souls of Black Folks. He was one of the founding members of the NAACP. He has so many different accomplishments. He's worth your time today. Folks, If you're looking to broaden your horizons on African American heroes, check out W E B Du Bois.
Speaker 2:
For me, I think it's one of the most important things that we can do in this country to preserve our history. I think about the Native Americans, where there's certain tribes where their entire history was in one person. The oldest person in the tribe had everything. There's so much history that's more than likely lost because of smallpox, because of all the yellow fever, all this stuff that came. Imagine you have the oldest person in the group 60, 70, 80, whatever. They tellin' all the stories. They haven't trained anybody else to take the stories and then the settlers came in and then smallpox took them out and that's the end of their story.
Speaker 2:
For African Americans we're very fortunate that we have people writing stuff, we have people putting things down, we have people actually pushing out our history. You can read the words of slaves to this day. You can read the words of people who were free back in those days. You can read the words of newspapers that were doing stories on lynching, doing stories on the Black Panthers doing stories on Book of T-Bow Washington versus WEB Du Bois. You can read Marcus Garvey's newspapers. You can read all of this stuff. We have so much access to so much history but, with that being said, you go to school and you're learning about the Greeks, You're learning about the Romans, You're learning about the English Minarchy, You're learning about the wars All of this stuff from Europe and not getting anything about the Native Americans that were in Mesa Verde in the 1400s. You're not getting anything about the Aztecs, other than a little bit.
Speaker 1:
You're getting some of the Mayans. They existed. You're getting the Mayans and the Incas they existed. You're getting a little bit of it.
Speaker 2:
But you're not getting the fact that people in your community, the mounds that are in your communities, were built by civilizations that were huge. In Mesa Verde they had this canyon where they said at one point a million people lived in that canyon and I was like that's crazy. I never knew that. You're like a million people.
Speaker 1:
Well, that's amazing. Gotta hit this jack in the box. You know what I'm saying. We're about to here.
Speaker 2:
You know what I'm saying. I gotta go to the Four Corners so I can put my hands in all four states. Baby, that's what I need to do. Navajo Nation shout out. So, with that being said, I pose the question to you what does Black History Month mean to you?
Speaker 1:
I get a little apprehensive at the idea of having a singular month. I feel like it should be more synonymous with America. It's like, okay, well, this is this component of American history, we're just gonna put it over here during February, the shortest month, and then, once it's over, we don't gotta think about all that black shit no more. It's back to bed, bath and beyond. That's a challenging aspect for me, but to be able to elevate those stories and elevate the history is always gonna be invaluable.
Speaker 1:
I wish it was Black History Month every single month because, speaking of what our ideals were previously, then maybe some of those ideals would be carried forward with more expedited nature. If you started digging into those newspapers, if you could go to the African American History Museum and reckon with those visuals of what it meant to be an enslaved people and to persevere past it, despite all of the ostracization that happened during Reconstruction, during the Civil Rights era. And then it gets turned. You get credit in the mix and you can't have access to credit, but then black families are doing a little too well. So sprinkle this little drug. It's like lifting up the rug and it's like, oh, there's some dirt under there. All right, march 1st, let's put that rug down. I'm glad that it exists, but I wish it was every month. I wish we took that sort of observation of our history in our everyday.
Speaker 2:
I wish we honestly got different perspectives of historical moments. One of my favorite documentaries was that festival documentary that Questlove produced on Summer of Soul.
Speaker 2:
I still need to see that you haven't seen it yet. Well, they were talking about the moon landing, which is something that I'd never thought about. I never thought about the fact that no black people were involved in that, other than the ladies who helped with NASA, of course, but they weren't able to be shot up there. They weren't the ones in the Corvettes, they weren't the people that were poster boys of it. You didn't see anything black around that. It was white American heroes on the moon. This is our accomplishment, exactly.
Speaker 2:
And during this festival in Harlem, one of the big events that was going on was the moon landing. I said it was interviewing these African Americans, like so what do you think about the moon landing? They was like we don't give a damn about what's going on there, they ain't taking care of us down here. Like it was like so mind blowing, because in my head I bet you I've joked about that before Like oh, and you know, you see Cedric the Entertainer talking about they ain't taking no black man to space, kind of stuff, and it's funny, and we joke about that where it's like, oh, they ain't going to take us up there. But then I actually watched someone speak.
Speaker 1:
Is that his joke? Or was that Cat Williams? You're kidding me.
Speaker 2:
It could have been either or right. But I sit down and I think about that and I watched this interview and I see this African American being like I don't care. And then everyone they ask is like we don't care about that, they're not looking out for us, they don't care about us up here, and I'm also watching this documentary about this event that happened that year, that that happened, that Woodstock happened, all this stuff happened black event that happened in Harlem, and since no one was murdered, since there was no huge scandal, since there was no drama, it was just Aretha Franklin and James Brown and all these incredible performers coming out and showing their respective incredible performances and it was history. It was incredible history. There's no big deal. We don't need to talk about that, you know. Let's talk about all this other stuff that's going on. Let's highlight all that stuff that's going on.
Speaker 2:
It just blows my mind to see that there was another side to the equation that I never even was taught about. I never was taught about the minorities thinking oh, it's ridiculous that they're spending all this money to go to the moon to beat Russia. Why are we in a race to the moon? Why won't we spend that money in the hood. I'm on 157th and I ain't worried about that.
Speaker 2:
So, think about that. So that's one of the things I've always wished. I wish that I could get more. And now I'm educating myself and very fortunate that I'm able to read as much as I can and really push myself to learn more. But I wish in school I was given that opportunity that, ok, this is what was going on in America During this president. This happened, and in the Latino community, people were still coming up from here. In the Asian community, they were coming up from here, and in the Black community, this is what was going on. I would have liked that image of the country Instead of the bullshit. We knew Washington didn't chop down no territory. We knew that on his aid, that all that stuff was just myth, and they still was telling us, like you need to know this, why? Why do I need to?
Speaker 1:
know this version of it.
Speaker 2:
Why are we still calling Indians named Native Americans Indians? Well, we know we didn't go to India. Why are we still calling?
Speaker 1:
No, we knew that that was an error.
Speaker 2:
Yes, there was an error and you're teaching us hey, this was an error, but the American Indian is like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Why are you still saying that then? If it was an error, we clearly know that he was trying to go somewhere else. Why are they the West Indies Still? Well, we know that's the Caribbean. Why are you doing this still? Why are you still adding this extra salsa on the, something that has no business being sauced? I can go on and on, but you came from the South. Of course. You were in Atlanta when you were younger.
Speaker 1:
Mm-hmm, I was born in Chicago and okay, so did you do Atlanta when I was nine?
Speaker 2:
Okay, so you actually got elementary in in.
Speaker 1:
Chicago the first, like Month or two, in the fourth grade, and then moved to Atlanta.
Speaker 2:
How was your black history month experience between Chicago and Atlanta?
Speaker 1:
Oh, that's really murky. Okay, honestly, can't tell you. I feel like, since Atlanta is just in general a blacker city, it was probably more vibrant, just off of strength that I went to a Philip Randolph for like a handful of Months when I first moved to Atlanta. That's black history in the name, you know what I mean. Yeah, obviously you got so much rich Southern history, whereas in Chicago you mentioned it earlier that's kind of the migration, so it starts to get a little bit murky. I feel like in general, I'm more aware of the southern history than I am of the Chicago black history. If I'm a compare the two. Obviously I'm 34, just turned 34, and that was I was like nine sound like it didn't have that big Imprint on you.
Speaker 2:
Like you know, you might have got just the basics.
Speaker 1:
I feel like it had to be the basics, because when I started to work at Colonial Williamsburg, there was so much education that I had to do, as it related to being enslaved, member of the colonies at that time, where I was just learning atrocity after atrocity and things that were a part of our history that I'd never encountered before. It's like you knew certain things and you maybe had seen Amistad or some of these films or been to a couple museums, but I don't feel like I was educated properly on black history in school. Like I said, my parents are very much proponents of black history. I'm trying to think did we even take a field trip to like the King's Center? I know I went to the King's Center, but was that at school or was that, you know, an extra curricular that my parents took me to? You know what I mean? I don't. I honestly want to say it was the latter.
Speaker 2:
Hmm, when you say your parents, because this is the thing that I've kind of illustrated for me. I was very fortunate to grow up and my great grandparents were in my life, so I got a lot of wisdom from them. I got a lot of stories from them. And then my uncles years later, as I remember, they dedicated a Monument to Ralph David Abernathy in Oakland and my uncle, ronald, lives out in Oakland. He's retired police officer out there and he was the family representative which taught me that I'm related to Ralph David Abernathy. I didn't even think about that, of course.
Speaker 2:
I grew up in the family and my great-grandfather's name is William Abernathy and my grandmother's name was originally. Originally my name was supposed to be Abernathy. My grandma was Janet Abernathy, got married to this man named Elvis Thomas and he wrote his name in on my mother and my uncle Timmy's Birth certificates illegally. He wasn't their father, but he just wrote his name in. Wow, because my grandfather didn't write his name in. Gary was a winner. So they changed their last name to the Thomas. So I should have been Dominique Lamar Abernathy and I never put that together as a kid. I didn't learn much about Ralph David Abernathy in college or in elementary or in middle school and high school Barely heard about it. I knew that he marched with King, but that was it. And then my uncle Ronald was like oh, that's your family. Family has been the key component for my black history and then also my own studies. Absolutely. How do you feel your family really? Did they press it on you? Did they let you know how important it was? Like, what was the the move?
Speaker 1:
Both of my parents was the HBCUs. My dad is an omega, my mom is an aka, so I don't even know if I really thought about it as a kid.
Speaker 1:
but as I'm just aging, I just think about how pro black it was in the home and just how my family is to say that I'm black and I'm proud, just embracing our history, and it's unmatched, living it versus trying to read it in the textbook. You know what I mean? Yeah, because you could get all these fly by anecdotes just in a dinner, moving to the car, going to the grocery store, all of this rich kind of perspective. And you know my dad is from Mississippi, so he grew up in the Mississippi Delta. So every time I visit in my grandparents I'm passing like acres and acres of cotton fields, like it's getting real, just driving to my grandparents Not to always lead with the dark, but I think you have to know that darkness in order to look toward a brighter future, whatever sort of. I don't want it to be a platitude because I always want to carry optimism with me, but, yeah, you got to know that side and I also appreciate the summer of souls For uplifting the joy.
Speaker 1:
There's a lot of black joy in my house and everything from my childhood I think about as it related to getting the families together. It was always black joy and celebration, being in celebration of being black and from the south. The race divide and struggles still persist to this day in a way that is still difficult to navigate very, very enriching upbringing with my two parents. Even to this day they'll go on these kind of weekend trips together and they're like, oh, we're just going up to Tennessee and we we went to, you know, the rain motel on our two-day trip and they stay, they kind of going on that kind of journey themselves. So if that's who they are and that's what they're from, that's what I'm from and that's what I've known, then I'm obviously gonna stay on that path. You know what I mean. Yeah, my parents were much better black historians than the public system in America.
Speaker 2:
I was hurt in here first something that I've been Kind of quoting in my head to myself and I'm not sure if I heard this somewhere, if it's just me thinking of it. Hopefully someone will hear this me like no, that's, you heard this here, or maybe I did think of it, but kind of know the past, so that you won't be surprised by the future. I think that's so important for African-Americans because Right now I live in Cowetta County and I remember my first impression of Noonan the city that is, the biggest city in Cowetta was About noona yeah.
Speaker 2:
I went downtown because there was a record store down there. I want to get some new vinyl and I noticed this old kind of beautiful courthouse clock tower building in the middle of the square and all around it a confederate Monuments Monuments all around it. Some dirt went out here and that was my first impression of it, so of course it left a weird taste in my mouth. But then, of course, years go by, I'm living here, enjoying it, thinking oh, it's nicer, this and that. Let me do some more history.
Speaker 2:
And one of the worst lynchings ever happened in noonan in Cowetta County, and I did my research on that lynching and, like I said, you just got to know the past so you won't be surprised by the future. I'm not saying someone's gonna lynch me or gonna lynch someone I know, or the black people or should be scared. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying what they did to that man In the place that I live at now was horrible, and whenever someone tries to bring up the idea that America's not racist or America we are in a great place, so we've never done anything horrible, this and that you always got to remember your history, because if you allow these people to try to convince you that black people are complaining about nothing, or that our culture doesn't really do anything bad, or the slaves actually were happy and they weren't treated that bad or all of this bullshit, that you get from, and all that they learned while they were on the fields was enrichment for their future.
Speaker 2:
Oh man like that's the new narrative. If you hear that and you believe it, they're doing exactly what they want to do. They're convincing you that it isn't as bad as you think it is. But the lynching that happened in my town just for the people listening, who's going to hear this? I want to go ahead and give you an image to leave on. This is a horrible image. Here you go.
Speaker 2:
This man was beaten and they cut limbs off of him Fingers, genitals and they peeled his face off. And from the moment that they started to beat him to the moment that they lit him on fire, it was 30 minutes and the people were celebrating, excited, pumped about it. And it wasn't just grown men, it was children. Helping Journalists were there watching the people talking about how great it was on their faces, how excited they were, how happy they were. Then they cut his heart out, cut his liver out, and they sewed his fingers, sewed his heart, his liver and all these body parts that were burnt to a crisp as merchandise for people who didn't get to go to the lynching. Web Du Bois was going to talk to somebody at the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. He was going to talk to somebody and instead of like riding to the place. He decided to walk and the story goes he saw at this newsstand or this table or this merchandise stand, somebody was selling one of his knuckles from the lynching and he said he left, didn't go do the article left, atlanta, didn't talk about it, he was done. He was like that's all I need to see. These people thought, no matter what the dude did I'm not going to tell you who, look it up yourself Calweta County lynching but the idea that, no matter what he did, you think that that's okay. You really got to think about who you are as a person.
Speaker 2:
I want to thank you for listening to the Black man Talking Emotions podcast. The opening quote critic goes to WEB Du Bois and shout out to J Billkey for being on the pod. Follow John at J-O-N-B-U-T-T-S-I-S-H E-R-E on Instagram. Please Subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast and give us a good rating. Five stars, please and thank you. You can support the show by clicking the link at the bottom of the episode description. Also, tell me your plans for this coming year. We should collab. Follow me at D-O-M-L, underscore A-M-O-U-R on Instagram or at domlemorecom. I'm Dom Lemore. Much love.