Bookwild - Beyond MLK: The Women Who Shaped the Civil Rights Movement: How Bright the Path Grows by Marcia Chatelain

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

In this episode, I chat with Marcia Chatelain about her new non-fiction book How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington.Listen to hear about:How Marcia Chatelain’s love of storytelling, journalism, and deep historical research shaped her path to becoming a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and narrative nonfiction writer. Why How Bright the Path Grows reframes the civil rights movement by centering the Black women whose organizing, artistry, advocacy, and sacrifices are often overshadowed by figures like Martin Luther King Jr. The complicated, deeply human lives behind historical icons like Rosa Parks, Josephine Baker, Marian Anderson, and Anna Arnold Hedgeman—and why understanding their struggles and contradictions matters.How misinformation about women at the March on Washington inspired Marcia to investigate who was actually there, who was recognized, and whose contributions have been left out of our collective memory. What researching these women revealed about sexism, class, celebrity, competing strategies within the movement, and the many different ways ordinary people can contribute to social change. All the Bookwild Links:Check Out the Bookwild SubstackSubscribe to Bookwild on YouTubeGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramCheck Out Author Social Media Packages Follow Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mbaErin Ashley @bellametaphor

In this episode, I talk with Marcia Chatlin about her nonfiction book that just came out, how bright the path grows the untold story of the women who made the march on Washington. It is a fantastic narrative nonfiction that I would consider as important as like Isabel Wilkerson's narrative nonfiction and highlights how often black women were huge parts of the civil rights movement, but we tend to still only talk about a couple of the men. So this fills in the gaps. It's so good. And I had a really fun conversation with Marsha about how in some ways narrative nonfiction to her is kind of like getting the good gossip, like finding the things that were happening and why she really loves approaching nonfiction that way. So let's hear from Marcia. I am so excited to read how bright the path, or to read to talk about how bright the path grows. but I do always like to get to know a little about you first before we totally dive into the book.

So I know you've written some other nonfiction, but what was your journey to writing? Did you always think you wanted to write? Like, how did that come together for you? So it's so weird. Like, I feel like this book is the first time I felt like a real writer. And everyone's like, that's kind of strange because you've written other books before. So my journey to like narrative non-fifference. fiction started with just being a kid who grew up without the internet. I always say that. You know, I'm, I'm like a very intense ex-annial. So like most of my growing up, it was like non-cable network TV and just reading like pamphlets and brochures. So like if you had to wait in

line with your mom at like a store, you're just reading a brochure. You're reading the DMV guide. you're reading like, you know, how to detect a gas leak in your basement. You're just reading all the time. So I always loved reading and I always love stories. And, you know, I went to college for journalism, for magazine journalism. Wow. When that was like a specific, a very specific thing. Yeah, I wanted to do it. You know, and it wasn't until like I was deep into college that I started to get a little bit more interested in like research. So I loved journalism for the pace of it and the writing, but the depth of like research for my history classes, my religious studies classes were really, really interesting. So I went and got a PhD and I always tell people, I got a PhD before like

the internet had advice and before social media like discourage you from pursuing your dreams. So I don't think I knew how competitive it was or how like really difficult it was to do. It was just something I wanted to do. And so I had a very traditional or I still have a very traditional academic career. I my first book was my dissertation my second book I wrote um you know out of passion but I wanted to become a full professor and so this is the first book I've written because I wanted to write a book not because I had to keep my job not because this is what I needed to graduate it was um it was just like a choice and I think that um you know for me I love a good story I love when people give me really well-delivered gossip. My mom was always really good at telling stories. And so I think that the like

trick of it all as a historian is to try to get everyone to like sit at a common table and then wow and dazzle them with what you're going to put on the table. And that's what I always try to do. Yeah. That I mean, that's how this one felt like it there's all kinds of nonfiction obviously and even all kinds of like ways of approaching historical nonfiction. But, this one I you basically you choose uh I think it was 13 the final number different women that you um focus on and I loved the structure the way you have it set up is like we kind of spend time with each woman kind of learning about maybe if her childhood most childhoods affect us we get a little bit of their childhood we get a little bit of like kind of them like breaking

into adulthood and then like maybe the thing or the cause or the issue or whatever was really important to them. And so then we get to find out how all of these separate women were a part of the march on Washington. I thought that was such a cool way to structure it, but it's also very narrative nonfiction. So like you're saying like you like, like hearing some good gossip, there are some moments here where you're like, oh, I didn't know that about her. I love it. I mean, because that's like where we actually live as people. So with this book launch, It's like every time I write a book, I learn something new. So I'm now on TikTok, which I always say is the least glamorous TikTok in the world is me on social media.

Because I always look like I've been through something. It's usually like I'm on my way to the gym. I'm walking in my neighborhood. Or, you know, like I've just dropped my kid off from school. But one of the things I talked about is like how gossip is so exciting because it's not just the information. It's just knowing information you're not supposed to know and the intimacy between the people sharing the gossip. right? And so, you know, when I think about famous people, I want to know the dimensions and complexities that they hold, not because I want to like tear down heroes, but I think it,

it allows us to see ourselves and to see their humanity and really actually appreciate the complexity of their choices because you see all of the other forces in their life. And I think that like, you know, like right now we're all in hell with the like culture wars around American history and like whose story is going to dominate. But like my job is not to create heroes. My job is to tell stories so that you can see within yourself, your capacity to do great change and your capacity to be so messy, but still important and still relevant. And I feel like that is the balance that I'm always trying to strike. Yes. Okay. I thought I would make it longer without bringing her up, but it's just too perfect.

So one of the co-hosts, I have episodes with readers as well. And one of the co-hosts, her name is McKenzie Green, and her dad is Ernest Green, who's a little rock nine. So she's been a co-host on here multiple different times, or like for the last couple of years. But she, that's something that's really important

to her is talking about, like when we talk about civil rights heroes or heroines, it's so easy to just think of them as like superhuman and like oh this person who like really did this thing where like especially among civil rights activists a lot of them just wanted to be able to live their normal lives and like just be a normal person but the circumstances of what was happening around them and then however they felt about it and however they wanted to react to it maybe kind of canonizes them into this like really big figure so she talks about that a lot like some of these

A lot of these people were just wanting to be normal people. They might not have even wanted to do this fight because who wants to have to fight for your own dignity, essentially? And I feel like your book does such a great job of doing that with all of these people. And coincidentally, I got on, of course, on Instagram this morning before this. It is Ernest Green's birthday today. Is it really? Yes.

And I was like, I get to interview someone who wrote about him. So like, so many. Oh, my gosh. Well, I know Ernest Green also has a son, Adam Green, who's an incredible. incredible historian and so nice and like one of the nicest people in my field and such a scholar. And that's such an interesting story. I mean, you know, the Little Rock Nine became so emblematic of the struggle for equal opportunity. But the stories that I love about the Little Rock Nine are the real tensions and resentments that many of them carried. Can I tell you what's bananas? Yesterday I was

teaching my class on the Civil Rights Movement and I was teaching about the Little Rock Nine. And I was joking. I said, you know, 11% of Little Rock Nine, you know, never really expressed their resentment or irritation with what happened. And it was Ernest Green was always the kindest and most gracious about his experiences. I think that he was the oldest. He was the first one to graduate. He got to go to Michigan State. He has a whole story as well that I want someone who's listening to this to write his biography. But like he had a very kind of like grounded experience. But his compatriots, a lot of them didn't, right? And they had other complications. And so all of this is to say that, like, how much better do we honor and respect people when we understand like the incredible

weight they were carrying? And we talk about the details of that. And I think that this is a place where as a historian, you don't want anyone to ever be like a meme or a joke or a punchline. Right. But you also want like that humanity to come forward so that we, understand not just the sacrifice, but the consequences. You know, like the women in my book, each and every one of them was always living the consequences of their actions, good or bad, right? And for someone like Rosa Parks who spends the rest of her life in financial precarity because of her actions, it's so heartbreaking. And it makes us, I think, more vigilant about how we care for people who really put themselves out there. And then there are other people who do

kind of messy stuff and there's consequences to that too and that really helps us see that like everyone is battling something internal and when we bring it out to this external struggle for civil rights we get a lot of different experiences and when we talk about women in the civil rights movement we have to be specific which women how were they engaged and how can we honor them by telling the fullness of their story yes yeah the rosa parks uh chapter was just like you're saying like hearing the contrast of like she kind she not kind of her actions really do kick off the Montgomery bus boycotts and then there's this like young pastor Martin Luther King Jr who's like gaining popularity around that time and then he becomes a part of it and then he kind of just decides one day like it's done like we

did what we needed to do and then Rosa's just kind of like oh but then like her her struggling financially for the rest of her life while he's kind of like being funded by different things I felt like because you don't this is not a book that um literally dives into misogy noir but like you feel it so much in some of these stories where you're like yeah first of all kind of what you're saying my uh educational upbringing was very incomplete just because there's the nature of who like white people having written most of the history that I was learning in school. So then when I kind of wanted to like learn more on my own, it was like there were books about Malcolm X and there are books about MLK. And there aren't tons of books like talking about

the women that you are talking about especially too. So it was just becoming so clear to me on so many levels, how thankless the work that a lot of the black women did. But like, did we really think all these men were the ones like organizing and like keeping all of that together? So I think it's, it's so powerful. What, what was it specifically though? It got you to the point where you were like, I want to write about these women who like don't, who aren't talked about as much. So I, I have no idea like what got into me. I had a, this is like, oh, this is like, I'll get to it, but like I had a friend recently did high rocks, which has been in the news for other reasons.

But before that scandal, she did high rock. And I texted her after she like had posted about it. I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. She's like, don't encourage this behavior. It was like totally wild that I did this. I didn't train enough. And I said, but you did it. But I said to her, I said like unnecessary challenges, I will always endorse.

And that's like my entire personality. Yeah. So of course I'm going to get into it. And I think what. really kind of made me want to write this book is that after I read after I wrote franchise the golden arches in black America I felt like there was all this unfinished business kind of lingering at the corners of that book it's about like black people and McDonald's and civil rights but there was like all of this like stuff right yeah and so

you know after the success of that book you know my agent was like what else are you thinking about and I was like I was so ambitious I was also a new parent and I think like the like lack of sleep also just made me mildly delusional. And I was like, if I can like take care of a baby, what can I not do? So why don't I think about like writing three books? So this is the first of three books that, um, that I, I proposed that is looking at the history of civil rights without centering MLK. Like can we look at it from different angles? And so, um, you know, I wanted to write about the March on Washington where King is a small player. and I'm going to write some other books about like after the death of king what happens to the movement that his shadow like looms large but he doesn't get to be the whole story and so for this one I just every year around August there's always an article about how black women were shut out of the March on Washington how they didn't get to speak but the thing about that is then you get like a lot of misinformation about it that I was just obsessed with clarifying I'm a big real housewives fan

Yes. And so I remember an episode, and this is a deep cut. Sorry, folks, just stay with me. So when Luanne was first doing cabaret on the Real Housewives of New York, she goes to a club that is themed after Josephine Baker, which I believe is called Josephine's. And the man who ran it was a man who said that he was Josephine Baker's son, which I thought was interesting. And she did her cabaret, of course, like the Countess Will. But then when the Sorry. We're about to lose a plot, but I promise we'll get back to it. We're not. So when the Bravo did the Roney reboot, they had this African-American woman on it whose name is Ebony, I think Kay Williams is her name. So Ebony takes them to Harlem, which was like interesting choice. And they have a sit-down dinner. And she tells everyone that Josephine Baker was the only like black woman who spoke at the March on Washington. And I'm like, huh, I don't think that's. Right. And like stuff like that will get under my skin and then I cannot let it go. And so I was like always hearing these different things about the march on Washington, but no one was ever verifying. Everyone was just rewriting the same story. And so the women who were allegedly present or not present, who was honored, who wasn't, who got to speak. Like it started to kind of get on my nerves. And I was going to do a podcast. I was like, oh, why don't I just do like a few episodes of a history podcast? And then I started to get to know these women. was like, absolutely not. They need 10 volumes each. And then my editor was like, okay, why don't you chill out and write one book and decide who was going to be in it? And it's really hard because

there were two full chapters that had to be cut out. And there's even more women who were not on the stage at the march, but had attended. And so I'm launching a podcast next week about them called Walking the Path, more stories, right? Because everyone I encountered, I was like, okay, there must be 10 books about them. Because surely I'm not the only one who finds them interesting, but it starts to, like, when you look at who publishes and what gets published about civil rights, it mirrors the very dynamics that these women are fighting about, like, who's considered relevant and whose stories matter. And so I had like just an incredible time getting to know them. And really thinking about like, what does it mean for these women to all be in like the in proximity to this event and the oldest is I think born in like

1890 and the youngest is born in 1938 and how even though there's just like wide um age gap they haven't seen their country change significantly over that period of time and that's what really kind of stuck with me yeah yeah i listen to the um i can't remember what it's called now but the series the audible did with Barack and Malcolm Gladwell Oh, the reconstruction one? Yes, and that was

the saddest part with like, when they covered like Franklin Douglas, like how heartbroken he was that he like thought he had brought he thought he was a part of bringing so much change and then he started seeing it not changing and I'm like, it just like it had. to be devastating. So, um, kind of that same feeling here with what you're saying, like, that so many

of them were like, surely it's going to get better. And maybe it did a little bit, but you're right, like not, not in huge ways in their lifetimes. Um, and I, you cover so like, even like Rosa Parks is maybe we've kind of talked about her is like one where most of us do know who she is. Uh, but it does tend to just be this like one thing that she did like not giving up her seat and that chapter was so fascinating to me how you were discussing like so she just there's a line where you talk about like she basically just like kind of self-immolates for the cause and then no one's checking in on like hey but how are you and like can we help you but she just like kept going to events if people asked because it was important to her and I'm like it you even kind of talk about like

it would have been so easy for her to get disillusioned by that, and that doesn't seem to be what happened. Like, she did still want to be there for so many other black women who went through various different challenges. Um, you cover Josephine Baker, who I didn't know about her until more recently, but it's kind of one that we maybe know more about. But then there are other ones, uh, like, I loved Anna Hedgeman's story. Like her, like, not having kids and like marrying a husband who was okay with her, like,

having her own career and doing her own stuff. And so then there's some of these other ones that we didn't hear that much about. So how did you choose the ones to include? It sounds like you had to remove some. Like, what was it like kind of like, okay, these ones I think will tell the story the most. This, the first draft of this book was like, I mean, just a disaster. I wanted every detail. I wanted, you know, it was like 600 pages of like no foolishness.

And then, you know, I had to get some. editorial feedback and comments that like, okay, where is the story starting and where are we ending? And so, you know, for each of these women, I really got to know a lot about their backgrounds. And, you know, initially I had decided all of the women who were going to be honored at the march, plus all of the musical acts, plus Anna Hedgment, because she really is the beginning of it. It's because of her that there was any recognition of black women in the movement. And then as I was going, I was like, oh, but she should be included. there's some people who I feel like, if I ever get a second chance to do a revised version,

I would want to add a chapter about Dorothy Haidt, who I'd talk about in the book, but, you know, she was in the National Council of Negro Women, and she was really such an incredible force in getting everyone to sit down and agree to the march. And she's kind of lost in the story. And then the opera singer Camila Williams, who ends up kind of on the stage by accident. And I had more about her, but it was like, this book was going to be so long. And then the folk singer Odetta, who is pretty well known in the folks, folks scene. And I wanted to kind of like talk more about her. But I think the people in this book, the two things that I'm really proud of highlighting is one,

is they represent really the different ways that people were feeling about the movement in 1963. The tensions about, you know, what the strategy should be, should be. should be locally led, should it be nationally led? Is it an international movement? Where do celebrities fit in? How do we understand class politics? Like they cover all of those issues. And the other thing I will say, like to your point about Rosa Parks,

which I'm really glad you underline, no one really ever turned their back on civil rights. Some people were burned by their experience and some people were really mad at each other. But no one ever said that the struggle isn't real, that the problems of racism aren't like limiting people's opportunities, and livelihoods. And they never kind of did the backlash politics that we saw some people do in civil rights where they say that they're totally against any kind of agitation for equality. And so

I think that really speaks to their character, that they could be like really, really, really upset and really, really alienated, but that the principles that they fought for were always so foundational to who they were. Yes. That's something I think I even, I mean, until the last five years, is still would fall into the trap of thinking both that like most black people felt the same way about things even currently but also surely the civil rights was like a monolith surely they were all like and thankfully there are there are books you can read and you can add to like an incomplete education that I think a lot of us got um and it and so it was new It's been new for me in the last few years, basically, to be like, no, of course a group of people could all be marginalized and, like, dealing with racism, dealing with Jim Crow, dealing with all of it.

But of course, they're not all going to think there's one solution. And then I think this book does a good job, too. It was, like, helping really broaden my knowledge to have we kind of, or you hear in organizing spaces. or in activism spaces that like not everyone is made for the same part of activism and that can be used as a way for people to be lazy but in general what it's meaning is like of course it would take people in all kinds of different experiences and different classes and with different talents like singing can be just as important um so i feel like this was a good job of like helping like reintegrate that in my mind, in my understanding of people who resist stuff together,

of course they're all going to be different because they are kind of back to that superhero thing. They're all people that were just trying to live their lives. And like just like we all have different things that we're trying to do. Of course, there's a varied approach to how to approach civil rights, even though it's like, I think what you're saying like, when you're being oppressed, when you're being marginalized and it's happened for so long, that that's probably why they never completely give up on it, but of course there was like disagreements. And it's so healthy. Like fracture and like, you know, tension, it's so healthy for all of us.

And for these people who like really were focused, they understood the weight of that. They understood that too. Because they were women, they maybe couldn't speak out in the ways that they wanted to. And they understood fundamentally like how to kind of. move through different experiences in their life, sometimes with grace, sometimes with anger. And that like our job now is to appreciate all of that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

And like, yeah, there's just so many thoughts there. Like, even like Josephine Baker's story was so fascinating because I've learned some about her, but I didn't realize how many children she ended up adopting. but was still struggling to like pay for this commitment to these lives, even though she was super famous. And I thought it was interesting that you do get into the details. Like some of the women back home, she's living in France at that point, are a little bit like, really like that's how you're going to do that.

Rightfully so. But then she still ends up being another example of like she ends up in a place where she's kind of having to make ends me, even though she felt kind of like called to take on these, these kids as well. So I think those nuances are so good. And I think it helps the right reader. Also maybe connect to the humanity of it so that it's not just like, oh, this happened during the civil rights movement. And it was just people for the cause. Like, no, like they're all like, forging very different paths for themselves. Yeah, because they had to, you know, they had to eat.

They had to take care of families. And they also had to kind of live in integrity and like take a chance on themselves. And, you know, when you look at the entertainers in the group, you know, other than Josephine Baker, none of them have children. Which I think is like key, right? But like, you know, someone like Marian Anderson who has this incredible gift. of opera, you know, she kind of turns down her husband early on. You know, they don't get married to later because she's like, this is like the thing I have, right? Like it's not that I just have this talent. Many of us could have this talent. I have the little narrow passageway to this thing

that no black woman could even imagine. And, you know, she was, it was really hard writing about her because I don't have like a great music background. And I had to learn a little bit about opera and a little about classical music. And there were some great people who like sat down on Zoom with me. We were like, okay, this is how music works. Yeah. But what really struck me is that, you know, her whole kind of conceptualization was like, I am doing this.

How am I going to make this easier for someone else in really tangible ways? Not lip service, but with like money and time. And, you know, that, I mean, this book like took everything out of me to try to finish writing, but I remember the last few pages writing like the very end of it. And, you know, Marian Anderson's death, you know, I decided to kind of end that portion, spoiler alert, of talking about all the black opera divas who are getting Marian Anderson scholarships, who are meeting her, like, towards the end of her life. And like, that was the point. Like, opera is so narrow and it's so niche and it's like not for everyone, but like, this is

but she understood like the power of what meant for black women to be in this. And I just like, it became this kind of like surprise, um, source of enjoyment to really kind of immerse myself in all of this. Yeah. Yeah. There is, it's, it's, it was fascinating how many of the women, even like Daisy Bates, like didn't have children, especially at the, in the time that they were, um, so heavily involved in civil rights too. And I think it's it's cool how many of them you don't have to be nurturing and super maternal to be a woman to be fair. But it is fascinating how some of them were like, well, these are the people I'm fighting for. So it was like there was, I am not saying it to try to make them more palatable, but it was like they kind of found their children or their people that

they wanted to take care of and fight for. Yeah, I mean, it's both things, right? Like I, you know, Anna Hedgeman's like, I didn't have kids, but the world was my, you know, the world. I felt that. And she's like, but like she was grumpy. Like I interviewed, I interviewed, I interviewed, uh, Rochelle Horowitz, who's still alive, who was the transportation director of the March on Washington. And she lives here in D.C. and I've been to her apartment a bunch of times. And it's amazing hearing her stories. But she was like, you know, there was like these older women who were kind of untouchable. And here we were these young people, you know, and we understood that but like Anna Hedgeman was grumpy and she as she got older she's like you're going to like

hear what I have to say you know after seeing all the racism and sexism you know her decision was to be even like clearer about her position and she was able to kind of be so empathetic and nurturing when she was a teacher when she was a social worker you know like I think that that is what most people who I think are effective are like they have these moments where, you know, their heart just kind of like swells open. And then their moments are a little shady and they're a little curt. And that's part of it too. And it means nothing other than the fact that like if they're like that,

then we can possibly aspire to do similar things. Yes, yes. There was one line that really stood out to me. And I think it was Anna Hedgman where she, like the lineup of the March on Washington is like announced and not a. single woman. Not a single woman initially. And she's like, uh, like, hey, like, what about the women here? And you have a sentence that talks about either she said it or in general that like it felt like the men who were coming in. It was like they were there to headline a tour. Yeah, that's what

she said. She's like, they would just like breeze to the office and it's like, are you serious? Like, this is work right now. Yes. Yes. And I thought that was such a. found like almost, almost even a thesis statement for the necessity of this book, too, is like, are we totally shocked that men were treating it that way versus these women were like, this is so important. So was that kind of also like pretty inspiring behind, like, the concept of this book essentially? You know, I just, I'm always, there's this, um, viral like video that has been circulating of women listening to Charlie Rose give them really sexist questions. The Charlie Rose show that was really popular in PBS.

And I think he was embroiled in some accusations around the Me Too era. And, you know, all of these women just have this look on their face. And if you've ever been asked a ridiculous question or, you know, underestimated, you're just like, are we really doing this? And each of them has this, like, way. And that's what I think of of Anna. like she had navigated so many places by the time we get to 1963 you know she's she's growing up in the only black family in her town in rural minnesota she's working in the deep south she's at you know she's working on behalf of like black people during the great depression she's at the white house she's in the mayor's office like she has just done it all and i imagine her feeling like sitting at this table at this like major civil rights gathering meeting and being like you are kidding me with this guys and you know they couldn't refute it. They couldn't refute it. They couldn't fully honor her request,

but they could not deny it. Right. Yeah. And I always, it always gives me hope to when I read books about women in general in that like time period before we could even have credit cards or mortgages and all of that. It's always inspiring to hear that there were still women who we're like, no, and I'm going to point some of this out. Because I think, you know, on both sides, you hear it towards racism, but also like with sexism. There's like this concept of like, well, women used to be okay with this when we're talking about it. Let us not. I mean, go ahead. I'm just going to, I'm just going to get like, I'm going to say is I feel like then these books are so important for us to hear. Like, no, it was not just that all women were okay with it. You know, the culture.

shift towards this like benevolent and fantasy sexism stuff is like it's it gives me a stomach ache because I understand it like intellectually it's a response to like the rise of extremism and fascism white supremacists like norming and consumerism and like the messed up economy like I know what it's about but having grown up when I grew up like all I knew as a girl is that I wanted to be taken seriously and I wanted to be treated equally. And like that I felt like was such a pervasive part of how of of what the culture I was drawn to. Right. That's sexism existed in other places.

But I remember when I used to teach at the University of Oklahoma, I used to say, hey, do you find it weird that a woman is running for president on the Democratic Party ticket? this is during the lead up to 08 with Hillary Clinton. I said that that's happening and we have shows on TV. And this is like before TV got like really bad again. Like, you know, what was that game show with the deal or no deal? Like game shows that have models and like gowns and like we have reality TV where women are made to look really like unintelligent and like a woman is running for president in a more viable way than ever.

Like do you think these things are related? Sometimes it seems to be like, yeah, and sometimes I'm like, no. But that kind of like cultural fallout that I feel like we've been living for for like two decades now. Yes. No matter how much I know, it always shocks me because so much of kind of what I was drawn to as a young woman and today. But like in college was this idea that like people were critiquing sexism and feminism was the only viable path. Like that was the only kind of way you were going to survive anything. Right.

And I see the kind of normalization of unrealistic kind of expectations for both men and women and compulsory heterosexuality and like trad nonsense. And I'm like, are we really doing this? No. There's a book called Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert. And that it explains a lot of how like around the late 90s, beginning of 2000s culture really effectively started turning women against women. women even just in the way that we were then learning to talk about women culturally. But it's kind of that same feeling where we're like she doesn't end on a like and look, we're, we're going to be great.

Like her point is like this tends to even happen cyclically. Like things will get a little better. And then we like drag right back and it feels like we're in the drag right back right now. But yeah, I mean, it. We need books like yours. We need the books like her still getting out there. So like the women who are like, but we can make a difference, right? And also like I'm not, I don't have to just stay at home, right?

Like we still like need that messaging going out so much. Also everyone, you guys, the economy is so messed up. No one is staying home and doing anything. Like everyone is working. I mean, it's, I mean, all of these. I mean, again, as a historian, as a thinking person, I get what it is. but it like I find it arresting because when it's absorbed and normalized in culture as just the way things are, I have this whole thing and I'm not going to get into it. But we were talking about love is blind in my graduate seminar yesterday. And I said when love is blind is on, it like takes over my entire like fall or spring because I'm obsessed with this idea of the kind of generational gap between myself and some of the things that are like expressed in that show about like power dynamic.

and gender in the family and expectations and money. And I just feel like what are you talking about? And my good friend Ellen Marsh with, has a podcast on Love is Blind. And like I'm watching the show. I'm like listening to my friend. I'm texting. I'm so like fully emerged in it that I have to go touch grass.

But like these are the things that I think are really hard to like metabolize sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes, yes, pop culture is sometimes the, or pop culture, like reality TV is sometimes one of the best ways. Like if an anthropologist wanted to like 50 years from now know what it was like in the 2020s, the reality TV that's coming out would actually be very, very, very, very useful for that. Very useful.

Yeah. Even with an awareness that things are edited to be a certain way, even that's still going to tell you a lot about the time period. 900% Speaking of how reality TV can kind of be a documentation of what's going on I think this book also

really explores that idea of like who do we have like documented accounts of versus who do we remember collectively? So the people that we all just feel like we kind of know because we either MLK is an example there's a day for him every year or like the people

some people have been focused more focused on more and what's taught in like history history classes for kids but the like large remembrance as we know was not necessarily around a lot of the black women who were a part of this so what was it like kind of getting to be a part of like no let's let's remember them as a whole not just these little facts we have i just you know it's this was like this was probably the toughest project I've ever taken on, the toughest book I've ever done. And I thought it was going to be the easiest. I was like, how hard can it be? I just have to tell stories about interesting women. Like, you know, I know interesting women. I consider myself one. I'll just like write their stories.

But I don't think I was fully prepared for the like, emotion of it and the immersiveness in the process that I was going to take on. So like, I'm listening to all. of the top songs in 1963. I'm listening to all the jazz records of 1963. I'm listening to Mahalia Jackson's records. I'm talking to the family of Prince Malson Lee, whose husband was killed for voting rights in Mississippi. Like, I am trying to get deep down under a set of experiences.

That I think even with all of my knowledge, so much of it I thought was going to be like about the March on Washington. And I was listening to recordings. of it that are available online of like, I think it's like 16 hours of news coverage. And I would just listen, you know, one hour every day, listen to this coverage and people giving interviews. And I thought, okay, I've got what it takes. But when I started to get into the process of saying each of these women are equally

important, they each get a chapter, no matter how big or small their archive is, no matter what the reader will know or not know about them, everyone has a, everyone has a chapter. place here. And so how am I going to bring the reader with me into people who are more obscure or who have such, you know, larger than life records that I have to give you a sliver? And I think that kind of struggle with like where the story is going to land was really hard, but also understanding that everyone is equally important because each of their contributions does something for all of us. Yes. Yeah. And it, you just get to see so many different approaches to. being passionate about the same cause, which I think is so huge.

Also, like, I also thought Isola's inclusion was really fascinating. Someone needs to write a book about that. Yes, because, like, so she's a woman who is getting very disillusioned, obviously, and also dealing with some mental health struggles. But, of course, it was much harder for black women to, find jobs and kind of reintegrate after the bus boycott than it was for other people. So it was another case where like I understood her frustrations, but I also had never heard about the fact that someone stabbed Martin Luther King with a letter opener and a book signing.

Isn't that bananas? Yeah. Like, I think that we would have heard about that. You know what I mean? Well, this is the thing that I think is so interesting about King. You know, in the work of creating the King holiday and a positive legacy for King, a lot of his story had to be strategically edited out and then there was a desire to. So like, I think it's interesting that everyone knows the I have a dream speech.

Yeah. Instead of the last speech he gave, well, the last speech he gave was more politically radical than the I have a dream speech. But if you read the I have a dream speech, he's talking about reparations, he's talking about the failures of the government to live up to the promises of reconstruction. it's also a radical speech but like we've taken all of it out right of contacts and we've stripped it down to you know children playing together and this great dream it's beautiful rhetoric and it's not representative of kind of where kings intellectual and political thinking was but that's what it becomes and so like the safest the safest way and also i also i mean you i mean i cannot deny that the i have a dream speech was so powerful that day But, you know, he was recognized for it, but other people were also recognized for their efforts on the Martin Washington. I think the issue is he's assassinated fewer than five years later. And so the narrative of King, you know, coalesces there. But the story of his stabbing is interesting because he talks about it the night before he's murdered.

If everyone go on YouTube after you listen to this episode and you can hear the entire final oration. of Martin Luther King Jr. at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. And he talks about his stabbing. And he talks about how close he was to death. And he talks about letters that he got from like kids and people all over the country. And he gets a letter from a little white girl who says, you know, I heard that if you had sneezed, you know, you would have died because it was so close. And he, you know, and she goes, I'm glad that you didn't. and, you know, he kind of riffs on this, like, if this happened. But like, that could have been the way that we remember King, right? His last speech, he talks about, you know, I may not get there with you. I fear no man, you know, we'll all see the mountain top. It's so weighted and beautiful.

That could be the thing that kids learn about. Right. School. Right. But that would require a completely different school system and a different public memory and a different nation. But nonetheless, you know, Isola Curry's stabbing of Martin Luther King Jr. I think encapsulates so much of the kind of mental strain that African Americans were facing and in some in some ways continue to face about

like destitution and poverty and resentment and you know again King's life is saved by an interracial group of doctors at Harlem Hospital and he reemerges. And so like if people were kind of like, you know, falling into martyr territory with him. He's, you know, that's in many ways his first martyr moment. He's so close to death.

It's incredible. You know, and if you think about the way that like targeted violence towards a king and his family speak so much of the narrative. Yeah. You know, few are recognizing the ways that the women in this book, there's different forms of violence that they are also encountering. but it's perceived and it's taken so differently. And so I was always curious to the extent that readers would like find some new information

there. So I'm glad that it was illuminating. Yeah, I was listening to it while I was walking my dogs. And I was like, wait a second. Wait a second. Did she just say someone stabbed him? Yeah. It's like I wasn't even like thinking that's what it was necessarily building towards.

And I think she's like, it's like. So true. with MLK because of what some worse people have said. But understanding that he had a complicated legacy, like, would have been, maybe, could have been, like, better overall for our just, like, general understanding of it. And kind of what you're saying, like, the martyrdom. Once someone is martyred, sometimes we just, like, choose to forget about some other

things about them, or we just highlight different things. things. And so I thought the Isola story is also still like, like she is still an important woman in history for us to understand. Even if we're not like team, yes, it's a good thing. You stabbed him. She also felt like such an important like contribution to be aware of still. So I felt like she even fit the narrative even though she's not necessarily someone who marched on Washington. So I mean, there's so many women in this book who come into the frame and they, they are also, you know, like part of that story. And I think everyone adds complexity, right? Like everyone adds a dimension to this. And we all add a dimension, whether we're actively or passively

accepting inequality. Like we all have our hands in it. And, you know, I wanted to just bring as many people to these women as possible so that like my dream is like someone reads a book and they're on like, you know, they're Googling on, they're on Wikipedia all afternoon because there was something that, you know, was brought to them. They're like, oh my gosh, what is this? Or they're actually, I should say, I'm a professor. They're reading the footnotes carefully and finding all those sources to learn more. Well, sometimes they're Googling. Like I would be just to get like images of the person you're talking of. So it would like be in my head. But yes, look at, look at the footnotes too. The other thing I was talking about kind of at the beginning is like

nonfiction can have all kinds of structures. And this very much is, I mean, I was going to say feels like, but I think it genuinely is narrative nonfiction. And so we get to spend time with like each of the women essentially and you're really learning what mattered to them. You also have some like devastatingly beautiful prose. And I did not pull all of them.

But there was like you mentioned Rosa after all of that time still sutured to her debts. After talking about how she'd grown up working with textiles. And I was like, okay, that was absolutely beautiful. Oh, thank you. And you have multiple. I didn't have time to pull all of them. But there are multiple moments like that where you're using words that even like speak to the person's life to then also describe really like the global circumstances they were dealing with and the personal circumstances.

So what do you enjoy about writing narrative nonfiction? And then with some of these like really beautiful sentences. Is that just you writing or do you go back in and kind of make it prosier, basically is what I'm saying. So my process is I freak out that I have to write something and I take a deep breath. And I think every time I'm writing, I'm thinking about like driving in a highway. So I've lived in Missouri, Oklahoma, California. I'm from Chicago. I live in like the city now. and I do anything I can to not get into a car. I hate driving. And so I will walk and end up somewhere really sweaty.

And someone's like, what's the deal? I'm like, I walked here. I don't want to get in my car. But when I used to drive a lot, especially when I lived in Oklahoma, all I thought about was like, how am I going to get on this ramp and how am I going to get off? Not to stereotype of people on I-35 drive way too fast. And I was not a fast driver. So I would like always think about like on-ramp, off-rap, on-rap, off-ramp.

and I feel the same way about my writing. And so when I collected information about like these women and I decided like what beats in their life, what in their life am I going to highlight? I'm like, what's our on ramp and how we're going to get off this highway? And so for me, it's like, you know, a moment of uncertainty for them, a panic, the city that they were born in. Like, are we going to do a wide shot or a, you know, a really tight shot? and how are we going to move through this and then how we're going to get out. This book, I probably leaned on my editor more than any other book before because I really struggled with wanting to it so many detail.

But the kind of like the language of it, I think about giving a speech or telling a story to like a friend or telling gossip or lecturing to my students. I used to write on a couple podcasts and I always thought to myself like, if my voice voice is my only instrument to communicating all of these ideas. How am I going to use it in a way that people will like stay with me? And I think about that with language as well. And my editor, Zach Phillips, I will say, helped me refine the language so much. So my first attempt is like, getting the story in and out. And then I usually go back and I'm like, okay, let's make this like pleasant to encounter. Yeah. That's really, I love that explanation of it all. And it

just it sometimes you do just need to read a history book and maybe it's not um like fun maybe it is a little dry but it's like for me when it when it's written like this like i i was actually mackenzie green ernest daughter i was telling her i was like the publicist reached out i was like i think i can fit it in this month and i was like and now i'm so happy that i did because to me this is like up there with the, like, Isabel Wilkerson level of necessary narrative nonfiction that people need to read. So I'm so happy that we got connected because this is the way that I, I enjoy reading history the most. Like, it's, it just is approachable. And I think it ends up being like such a good reminder to us that like so many people had so many different things going on in their lives.

And all of us do. It should be like a good reminder. or even at present that we all do too. Well, that's always my hope because, like, you know, I have this incredibly fortunate life. I have a very fancy job and I get to do really, like, cool things. But at my heart, I'm like, you know, the girl who grew up in like two-bedroom apartment with my mom who, you know, was like finishing my homework in front of the TV, making my microwave meals. And, you know, like, I love the fact that this is what I guess. get to do. Like, this is amazing to me. And I, you know, for me, becoming a parent kind of

changed the game in this weird way is like, I was the most exhausted that I've ever been. I continue to be exhausted. But I'm so motivated to write because, you know, I think about legacy and I think about these incredible things that these women left behind. And I don't, I don't feel like I'm as brave or as, you know, like talented as as the women I write about. But I have this ability to like leave something that my son can get to know me. Like he knows me as like his mom who like makes grilled cheese and like tells him to go to bed and all this stuff and who can talk to him about like rocks and monster trucks. And then when there will be a time.

I'm no longer alive. And my son will be like, oh, my mom wrote books. And my mom told these types of stories. And this is what was important to her. And I think if I did not have that motivation, I don't know if I would continue to do unnecessarily challenging things. But I want it in a different way than I ever have before. Yeah.

I think your dedication was so beautiful to, you said something about and all the women who will mother him, mother him, maybe. Yeah. That was very sweet. I loved sometimes like from the gatego, the dedication has me almost crying because I just,

like big feelings, I cry a little bit. So this was one of those ones where like straight from the dedication. I was like, oh, this is so sweet. In your research, was there anything, whether it made it into the book or not, that, like, did you have a moment where you were super surprised by something? I think the most incredible part of this incredible journey is when, I'm going to cheat and say two. One is discovering Eva Jessie's story. Okay.

Like, what are we talking about? Like, what a queen? like she she's really well known among people who study musical theater who know gershwin and uh porgy and bass like drama musical theater people like they know her and you know people who know like the history of music and negro spirituals but broadly like she was making movies in the late 20s she's on broadway for like 20 years and people are like writing her letters like please eva jesse help me out like i need to get you know a meeting for this show. But her personal archive is amazing and she loved to gossip.

She was best friends with a woman named Edam Moten. And their letters are like ridiculous. I didn't get to put it all in the book. But they are like me and my friends texting. Like they are just talking so much about like who's looking good, who's looking weak, who's song. You know, she's complaining that like someone's singing too many notes to try to get attention. It's just like a perfect. multifaceted fun and very serious life. And I love people who provide that. But I think the most

significant and surprising thing was being able to learn about Prince Nelson Lee, the widow of Herbert Lee. For so many years, I've read about her as only Mrs. Herbert Lee or just sometimes her name is misspelled or just not known. And getting to talk to her daughter, getting to talk to her granddaughter and really appreciating the ways that they felt like their grandmother or their mother keeping their family together and remaining in Mississippi was their contribution. That they didn't have public profiles. They were not famous. Herbert Lee was recognized.

But I think the fact that his widow understood the importance of maintaining her family and their farm and their legacy in this kind of quiet way. really, I was just so happy that I could include that in the book. And I was just so happy to have met, you know, her family and to be able to like really attend to the things that they want people to know about her. Yeah. But it is. It's, um, we like talk about, well, not enough, but like the great migration obviously is huge. And like for a lot of people change their lives. And it was what their lives needed to be. But it is fascinating the people who are like, I also want to stay here.

Like, even in the sense that, like, I grew up here, and not me, I'm saying that from people who did. But even the standpoint of, like, a lot of what makes the South Great is black people's contributions. Like, so many of the things we even think of with the food is, like, contributions from even times when they were enslaved. So it's like, you guys essentially are such an important part. of that area and like why wouldn't some of them want to be able to stay and be like it should it should be safe here for me eventually like why should I have to leave because white people suck essentially um so that is it is it is cool like the people who who did and then I think it's I was thinking a lot about it while I was reading this but like the bean soup theory on like the internet

where like everyone thinks every piece of content needs to be geared toward them. or that any content is saying this is the one way to live. And I think another example, we're in another example of this book that is a reminder, too, that like just because one civil rights person was doing it this way didn't mean that this person was doing it wrong. And we all should be able to, like, contribute in different ways based off who we are, too. And that's what makes something viable, right? And that's what makes something significant.

And I love that one of the hardest things, writing about so many people is how does each chapter feel different and sound different and reflect kind of their preoccupations and i had to recognize the things that made them really distinct and you know there's no doubt that civil rights is important to them and right and i hope readers understand that yeah i i very much left with that feeling myself um and i just i just really really enjoyed it. I think the audio is really good for anyone who loves audio. I kind of got to do, I went back and forth. But audiobook listeners, you, you will love this as audio, too, is basically what I'm saying. And I just like, I love this. I love stories of like women who were being strong,

especially in the past, like I said. And then also I think this will give a lot of people, if you've kind of wondered when we talk about how black women specifically had multiple things against them. This is a really good way to kind of like get an understanding of what we mean when we say that. So yeah, I'm I'm a huge fan as of the time that it's airing. You can go buy it. So go buy it. Thank you so much. Yes. Yes. I do always ask at the end, though, if there are any books you've read recently that you've loved or if there are any books that you just like always read?

recommend fiction or nonfiction so I was on I'm on a fiction journey this year I doomscroll way too much and so in my job for like writing books I do a lot of assessments of other professors called tenure review yeah and I teach classes so I'm teaching I'm like reading maybe 50 or 60 nonfiction books a year wow and I'm doing blurbs books for my friends I'm reading like half a fiction book a year. It was so bad. And I felt like, this is not good for me. So my fiction journey has been amazing. I just, I read The Wilderness by Angela Flourneau, which I loved. I'm looking at some of the books. I had Percival. Everett's James, I read, The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett. There's a series of like Harlem hard-boiled murder mysteries that Carla Holloway, who was a distinguished professor of

English at Duke, she retired and she wrote these like, these murder mysteries, a death in Harlem and missing in Harlem. And they're so like that what I love, they're so historically accurate that I never get distracted by bad details. So, Shil Gonzalez's books. I've read, I read all three recently. Last night in Brooklyn was exquisite. And then I just finished, what I loved,

I read Kylie Reads such a fun age, but I adored come and get it because it's set at the University of Arkansas. I went to University of Missouri. And it was like the perfect big college story. And so, yeah, I've just been, I just started Edgewich, Dantacant's Day. So like making a commitment to reading more fiction probably also helped while I was writing this book. That's cool.

That makes sense because it does, it's kind of like the prose that I was bringing up, basically. Those are, those all, I've read some of those and I'll be adding some of them to my list. now for sure um i feel like we could probably talk all day uh but where could people follow you to stay up to date i mean i'm so excited to see what these next two are oh my gosh so i um on instagram i'm a doctor so d r m chatlin um i'm i think the same on tic-tok dr m chatlin and then um i'm i run a facebook but i'm not as active and i'm on threads and i love the socials so please If anyone has questions, I also like getting author questions on social.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I will put all those links in the show notes. Excellent. And I can link to the series you're doing on some of the other women since that will be that will be airing when this airs. That'll be perfect. So all the stuff we talked about, people can go find it.

You can go follow her, go ask her questions. I just, I've joked about like my, one of my new favorite parts of nonfiction is that it was like someone who got so hyper fixated on something. Oh my god. They were like, I'm going to write everything I can. So welcome to my world. Yes. But yeah, thanks for writing this and thanks for talking about it. Oh, this was so fun.