Good Life Project - Keisha N. Blain | On the Path to Freedom

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

With the rigor of a world-class researcher and the intention of someone who cares deeply about the human condition and understanding how we all got to this moment in history, Dr. Keisha N. Blain is an award-winning historian of the 20th century United States with specializations in African American History, the modern African Diaspora, and Women’s and Gender Studies. She is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and the president of the African American Intellectual History Society. She is also the author of the multi-prize-winning book Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom, and co-editor of the Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence. Her #1 New York Times Best Seller Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, edited with Ibram X. Kendi, drew together an incredible collection of voices with a vision to reclaim the historical narrative. And her new book, Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America, is a powerful look not just at the role of civil and voting rights activist, Hamer and other Black women in social and political change, it’s also an invitation for us all to explore our individual roles in the path to equality and freedom, led by Hamer’s famed rallying cry, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”You can find Keisha at: Website | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the conversations we had with Austin Channing Brown.My new book Sparked.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hamer's message was always to tell it like it is. It's about shedding light on the problems because only then you can take the steps to bring about change that's necessary. And so I think in a similar way, reading her story will get us to acknowledge what remains unchanged and hopefully empower us and hopefully encourage us to be part of that site. So with the rigor of a world-class researcher and the intention of someone who cares deeply about the human condition and understanding how we all got to this moment in history, Dr. Keisha N. Blaine is an award-winning historian of the 20th century United States with specializations in African-American history, the modern African diaspora, and women's and gender studies. She's an associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and the president of the African-American Intellectual History Society. And she's also the author of the multi-prize winning book, Set the World on Fire, Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom, and the co-editor of the Charleston Syllabus, Readings on Fire, Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom, and the co-editor

of the Charleston Syllabus, Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence, which was shared after the horrific events in Charleston. Her number one New York Times bestseller, 400 Souls, A Community History of African America, 1619 to 2019, edited with Ibram X. Kendi, drew together this incredible collection of voices with a vision to reclaim the historical narrative and her new book, Until I Am Free, Fannie Lou Hamer's enduring message to America. It's a powerful look, not just at the role of civil and voting rights activist Hamer and other Black women in social and political change. It's also this invitation for us all to explore our own individual roles in the path to equality and freedom led by Hamer's famous rallying cry, nobody's free until everybody's free.

So excited to share this conversation with you. And a quick note before we dive in. So at the end of every episode, I don't know if you've ever heard this, but we actually recommend a similar episode. So if you love this episode, at the end, we're going to share another one that we're pretty sure you're going to love too. So be sure to listen for that. Okay. On to today's conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been been compromised the pilot's a hitman i knew you were gonna be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what's the difference between me and you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them y'all need a pilot flight risk you and i have i, a fun overlap. I think we both have the same alma mater. And when I went to it, it was called SUNY Binghamton. Oh, that's funny. Yes.

And now it's all fancy. It's called Binghamton University. Exactly, exactly. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, no, it was a great place. Really just an interesting place to go and to learn and enjoyed my time there. Although admittedly, spent more time learning how to build a business on the side than actually attending classes.

So- Oh, interesting. Yeah. Where are you located right now, by the way? Well, I'm in New Jersey. I'm at the Institute for Advanced Study for the year. I'm working on a new book. So-

Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Are you working on multiple book projects simultaneously? Because the rate at which you're actually creating books is kind of astonishing. I am. I am. So now I'm working on several, but primarily I have one that I need to turn in in about a year or so. So I'm trying to get that one done first, but I'm always working on several projects at once. Yeah. I'm curious actually about your process a little bit if you're open to exploring,

because I know when you wrote Set the World on Fire, which I guess came out in 2018, right? Yes. Which was a book about Black nationalist women, struggle for freedom, the movements, but it sounded like that process, even trying to actually find information to try and find detail, was something that was astonishingly difficult. It was. I think just reflecting on it brings me back to so many memories of feeling frustrated because I kept coming up against the wall at so many moments in the process of writing the book. It required a lot of piecing together, a lot of traveling,

a lot of oral interviews in order to draw connections. And it was tough, but I think it taught me a lot about not only writing, but it taught me about the importance of not simply looking for archives, but building archives. And so I've been collecting a lot of information over the past few years, which in fact have been useful for the projects I'm now writing. Yeah, I'm curious about was part of the reason that written documentation was so difficult to come by. And this has been a curiosity. Was part of the reason that written documentation was so difficult to come by, and this has been a curiosity, was part of that safety? Was part of it that people didn't actually want to document this because then people could literally go back and trace and find people? Exactly.

I think there are several factors. There's definitely the reality that some people didn't think their work was important enough to preserve. You know, some people didn't see themselves as valuable or rather they did not see themselves even as important thinkers and important activists who would want to preserve, you know, information. And so not surprisingly, I think in the process of writing Set the World on Fire, I would often encounter people who would say, oh, I have all of this information in my basement. Why do you care? Why would you want to see that? And once I made a case for why I thought it was important to share documents with me, people were generally willing, but they were often puzzled that I was asking in the first place and didn't quite understand why this researcher was interested in Black nationalists, why this researcher wanted to document this history and primarily to tell the stories of working poor, working class Black women. Many of the folks I spoke to, you know, they were astonished that I had an interest in a topic at all. So I think there's that aspect of it

on top of the reality that people were very secretive and they were trying to keep themselves out of the grip of the FBI, for example. So there was a lot of energy around hiding information, making sure that you transmitted information in a way that was careful so that someone else would not intercept and potentially disrupt your plans. So there are so many factors that I think made it difficult to tell the story. Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, I have to imagine that could be incredibly frustrating because you're trying to just get access. You're trying to actually get enough information to tell the fullest story possible. But I wonder if on the other hand, as much as it

made it more difficult for you, the fact that so much of the research, so much of what you described as actually literally building the archive, not just sourcing it, was so relational that it really changed the nature of the experience for you. It did. And in fact, there were individuals who I encountered in the process of doing the research who to this day never shared one document with me because they just didn't feel comfortable. And, you know, I didn't take it personally. I understood everything because I was doing the research. So I understood that I was asking people to share with me things that they perhaps don't want documented. And yet they were still willing to sit down and talk to me. They were willing to have coffee with me. They were willing to

just talk on the phone for hours. And those were valuable. Even when I didn't record those conversations, I listened. And that gave me a sense of, you know, the folks who I was writing about, because oftentimes I was talking to individuals who might have been veteran activists. So they knew many of the women who I documented in the book. Many of them could at least give me insights into some of the internal dynamics that I couldn't quite figure out. And so what's interesting is that even when people said to me, no, I won't share certain things with you, but I'll be happy to just talk to you about what's on my mind, that gave me insight, I think, into Black nationalist politics in a powerful way. And I continue to be in community with these individuals

because what I've learned is that you never quite know when someone will be willing to share information. So I've had instances where someone didn't want to share information with me, but after several years, one day just sent me an email and said, see the attached. And it was like a whole bunch of documents. And I thought, interesting, but it took them several years to trust me and they finally did it. So I try to stay in touch with people because you never know. Yeah. I mean, it's such an incredible process for you as somebody, you know, the one hand there's the researcher side

to you. There's the, let's see if we can tell the fullest, most accurate story possible. And then there's the writer. I would have to imagine there's also a sense of responsibility on the writing side that you might feel, especially when literally what you're putting on a page may well be the only memorialized expression of an individual's experience or story. That's got to be just, I wonder if you experienced that as a gift, a weight, a burden, an opportunity, or just all of the above? All of the above. I think about it daily, which is often why I'm so difficult. Well, often why I'm so hard on myself. That's part of, in the process of writing, I'm constantly questioning everything that I document. I think one of the ways that I get through this is always making sure other people are reading my work and giving me feedback.

So as soon as I draft something, I generally will have a group of folks who I trust. Often they are professional historians, too. And I would send them drafts of my work and ask questions about, you know, what they see as aspects that are compelling, not so compelling. You know, have I actually provided enough evidence to support the claims I'm making? So I tried to do those things often throughout the entire process of writing. Literally, I would write a chapter and send it to someone, start a new chapter. While they are reading, I'm writing a new chapter. As soon as they send feedback, I'm looking at their feedback, but also sending the chapter to someone else. So it's a constant process whereby I'm producing work that I think I certainly try to the best of my ability to

present the most accurate and authentic story that I possibly can. And the only way to do that is really to trust others to, I think, point out inconsistencies or challenge me at times in the process of writing. So it is difficult. I do feel a lot of pressure. In fact, I felt it with the Hamer book, really felt it because, you know, Hamer has a daughter who's still with us.

You know, she has a lot of family who remain very active in the movement and who are very much aware of what is being written about her. In fact, as soon as I wrote an op-ed about Hamer in the Time magazine, they reached out to me. You know, they were on top of everything. They were very clear about what I was doing. And so I knew that I needed to answer not only to a broader community, but I worried about what they might think about the book. And I only shared the book with them after it was complete for various reasons, which we can talk about. But as a professional historian, I did not want the narrative to be tainted. I certainly wanted to be accurate, but I didn't want to have someone necessarily tell me what I should include or not include. And so I was careful to only share it at the end.

And I'm grateful that I'm finally receiving feedback and hearing that folks do enjoy the book and actually said they love the book. So that means so much to me. Yeah, I mean, that's such a fascinating sort of position to be in. And when you share Hamer, just for our listeners, you're referencing Fannie Lou Hamer, who is kind of the ostensible subject of your new book, Until I'm Free. But really, I feel like her story, the moments, the stops along the way in her story also, they tell the story of what's happening in modern society in so many powerful ways also. And she was this very real, very powerful, very front and center woman. And I have to imagine, yeah, when you have her

immediate descendants who care about her legacy and the work that she's done, the foundation she's laid and your writing, that's got to just add this whole different layer to it. It is really interesting though, that you said you didn't want to show anything until your part of the process was done. And it sounds like because you were concerned that their feedback might influence the direction of it. And maybe like you had a vision of where you felt it needed to go. Exactly. And so the way that I approached it was having conversations. And so back to the oral histories, asking people questions, listening to what they have to say about their memories of Fannie Lou Hamer and being mindful of all of what they had to say as I was writing the manuscript,

but not allowing myself to give everything that I had written and then waiting for some sort of approval because it's a difficult process. And I understand that some people may approach differently, but I think as a professional historian, part of what I have to do is always be able to present to the reader accurate information based on the evidence that I'm able to uncover. So even when someone tells me something, it's useful, but I have to then go through the process of researching to make sure that what they're telling me is accurate. Sometimes you can't actually find additional evidence and you do have to just trust what the person has said to you and you can cite that conversation. But I'm wary about those moments. When someone tells me something happened in 1963 and there were 14 people there.

I try to find some record from 1963 that gives me a sense of misinformation happens, you know, that can be verified because I have the documents, I have Hamer's own words, letters, you know, written by her that I can verify that's her. So I'm able to say that this is what she thought about this particular concern. I don't want, I didn't want to be in a situation where I could have someone say to me, oh, don't include that. We don't want you to talk about him or feeling depressed, you know, because that can happen when you are involving, I think, relatives in the process. So I'm grateful that in the end it came together, but it was definitely, one might say, a risky approach. But I think it was an important approach given the craft in particular. As a historian,

I needed to be mindful of accuracy above all else. Yeah, that makes so much sense to me. And also, it sounds like it makes it so much more difficult to do, but at the same time, when you're done with it, there's a different feeling. It's interesting also in the context of the work that at least I'm aware of that you've been doing for the last five years or so, especially when you also look at 400 Souls, which you co-edited with Ibram X. Kendi, where you effectively... It was such an interesting book, right? Because it felt like from the outside in, this was in no small part sort of saying, okay, who's written the history up until this point? Who has been in control of the narrative, especially of African-Americans, of black people in America, right? Generally white men. So this

was a really fascinating, it felt like what you were really looking to do was say, let's take control of the narrative. Like let's tell the story of history, but also let's do it from a stunningly diverse point. The Black community is not a homogenous body, just like no community is. There are beautiful differences in gender, in sexual orientation, in culture, in profession, in faith, in everything. And it seemed like what you were doing was saying, let's bring everyone to the table and let's tell the story from all of these points of view from within this community. And this can become this living piece that shares the think about the writing of history. Truly, it transformed my life to take a class with a Black professor who had obtained a PhD in history. And he was at Binghamton.

He was lecturing on global Black social movements. And I remember sitting in that class thinking, first, being astonished that I had not heard much of this history that was being laid out to me. was moved by the passion with which he delivered the lectures and the ways that he was able to draw connections that I think helped me see my own self, helped me see my place in history. It was, I think, a moment that I began to realize that I too could play a role, you know, as a writer and as a researcher and not be ashamed to focus on telling the histories that center people who look like me. I think recognizing that I could be an important voice among so many others, but still be an important voice. I think that was a moment that helped me figure out my calling as a professional historian, as a writer, as a researcher. And it goes right back to this question of who's telling the story, because I'll say this. I recognize that when it comes to the writing of history, anyone can obtain, you know, professional training, anyone can pursue a PhD if they want to in the field of history, and can really learn the history,

you know, over several years, develop a level of expertise. But there's something about writing a history that is very much connected to your personal experience. And this, I think, rose to the surface as I was writing about Fannie Lou Hamer, but it's also true for the Black women who I wrote about in Set the World on Fire. One of the reasons I gravitate to these women is because they remind me of the women in my family. They remind me of my mother, my grandmother, the folks who worked really hard to make it possible for me to have an opportunity to pursue an education. But these were working class, you know, working poor folks who did not have much formal education and yet were intellectuals in their own right. They were able to draw upon their lived experiences to make sense of the world, to

really help me see all the possibilities, you know, as a Black woman, you know, living in the United States. And it's powerful, I think, for me to be able to tell these narratives. It's not to say that I don't have to work really hard to make sure that I'm understanding the totality of it all. I certainly have to learn about my subjects. And it's not to suggest that I simply know everything because of a connection in that sense. But I think one could really see, I you talk about Fannie McHaver, as an example, when you talk about her life in the 60s and 70s,

quite frankly, you could also be talking about Black life today. You could be talking about 2021. Certainly a lot has changed, but a lot remains the same. And I'm just grateful that I have an opportunity as a writer and researcher to tell these narratives that are very, very important to me. Damn.

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The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Let's dive into her story a bit. And maybe we'll go back and forth a little bit because, and you do that so beautifully in the book, sort of saying, so born in 1917, the youngest of 20 kids starts working in the cotton fields at about six years old. And then I guess completely pulls back from her education around 12 years old, effectively because she needs to work full-time and help the family. When she's a kid, she also gets polio. And this leaves her with a disability.

So she grows up, and especially in the early days, in a family which is defined in no small part by struggle, by deep poverty, and by withdrawing from education really early in the process. And yet it also sounds like she has a really strong mom, you know, who instills in her this sense of Black pride of defending principles at any cost. What was it like for you to sort of dive into those early days of her life? It was both exciting and difficult. I think on the one hand, I struggled when I wrote that first chapter, when I reflected on the poverty, the hunger, the violence. It was so difficult to read Hamer's words as she reflected on the pain of growing up in Mississippi and the difficulties of sharecropping. I remember the first time I encountered the story that Hamer

shares about how she's tricked into sharecropping by the white landowner who says to her at the age of six, you know, why don't you come and pick some cotton? And if you do, I'll give you some candy from the store. And I remember feeling so angry about this because Hamer at the age of six had no idea what he was doing, but it just shows you the level of exploitation. And I think what I appreciated about digging into Hamer's early life are those moments where you see her parents in particular trying to instill pride in her when her mother hears her talking disparagingly about herself and saying that she wished she was white because she looked around and could see a world in which black people were constantly struggling and her mother's response to her that you never say that you know black is beautiful and her mother's response to her that you never say that, you know, black is beautiful.

And her mother's decision to make sure that she had, you know, a black doll, like all of these were moments that I, and to come right back to what we were talking about and the personal connection, as I wrote about it and I read about it, I thought about my own journey. I thought about those kinds of thoughts crossing through my mind at the age of six. Similarly, and having parents to correct me and to remind me that I am valuable, that I have something to offer to this world, that I should never be ashamed of the color of my skin. And so as difficult as it was to go through the process of writing about Hamer's early life and all the pain that she endured and the difficulties, I was encouraged to see how her mother, how her father shaped her ideas, how instrumental they were in creating this

individual who would become this dynamic activist in the civil rights movement. You can see all of those connections. You can see how her mother's boldness grows off on her, how her mother is able to instill in her pride, but also this notion that you have to stand up for yourself and you cannot let people just push you around. I think reflecting on them helped me see how critical these early years were to shaping her political ideas and really helping her become the remarkable activist, which she ultimately did become. Yeah. I mean, it's so, so powerful.

At that time, I believe you write this, that something like 75% of all families in the Mississippi Delta lived in poverty. So the notion of the possibility of leaving that behind, I can't imagine that was even something that was remotely realistic in the minds of so many people. And certainly for her, it wasn't the type of thing where she just decided at a young age, I'm walking away from it. It was a very long process, a gradual process. And yet it does sound like in the earliest days there was a seed planted that said there's something else.

Did you have that sense? Yes. I think there was a moment where Hamer reflects on her mother trying to come up with all of these strategies to make sure that they would have, that the family would have food on the table. She would talk about her mother just going from plantation to plantation. She would talk about her father holding several different jobs, you know, coming up with all of these ways to try to sustain themselves in the midst of a very, very difficult situation. And to me, what becomes quite clear to Hamer in these early years is that she has to begin strategizing on her own. She has to begin

thinking through not only how is she going to get out of the situation, but more to the point, what can she do? What can she contribute in order to change Mississippi, in order to change the nation. I think all of these seeds are planted as she's looking around and seeing how people under the most dire of circumstances come up with creative strategies to not only resist, because certainly resistance is happening, but to maintain and sustain themselves. How do you live to see another day? It's a question that one ponders living in a context where the slightest move, the slightest decision could result in unrelenting violence. I mean, Hamer saw and spoke about lynching. She spoke about Black people losing their lives

for all kinds of ridiculous reasons that people would find justifications simply to commit these heinous acts. And I think part of the strategy was, how do you survive? How do you live to see another day? But then how do you also ensure that you're part of a broader effort to change things so that tomorrow looks better than the day before? I think all of these seeds are planted in Hamer's early life, and it becomes clear much later. Damn. It occurs to me, we've used this phrase, shared cropping, a number of times also. And many folks may not actually understand what that is and what the underlying, what

happened that literally would just lock people into generations of poverty through that. Can you share a bit about what this system actually was and how it functioned to stop people from ever being able to get out of this dynamic? Well, it's important to know that sharecropping is the system of labor that ultimately replaced slavery in the United States. So with the end of the Civil War, the passage of the 13th Amendment, white landowners introduced this system. And the idea was that people, Black people, formerly enslaved Black people, would be able to, in many cases, continue working on the very same plantations, you know, on which they worked under the institution of slavery. But within the sharecropping system,

they would ultimately labor on the land. They would not own the land. Most cases, they would not even own the tools that they were using on the land. But by cultivating the land, they would ultimately receive a share of the crop. And this became a system that absolutely kept Black people in debt. It kept them in dependency. It actually ensured that they would not ever have an opportunity to own the land on which they were living

and ultimately cultivating these crops. And so Hamer grew up in it. She was born into a sharecropping family. That's all she knew. It is a system that closely mirrored slavery. When you look at how people were being expected to work from sunup to sundown and ultimately only receive a portion of what they ultimately worked to produce. So Hamer worked as a sharecropper and it was not until she joined

civil rights movement much later in her 40s that she was able to actually walk away. And as I explained in the book, it wasn't so much of a choice as she was forced to walk away because of her activism. Yeah. So in 44, she gets married, which I think puts her at about 26, 27 years old then, but then continues in sharecropping through the 40s and through the 50s. And then there's this moment that you describe in 62. She's 44 years old, and she attends this meeting at a church in Mississippi. And it seems like that becomes the inciting incident, literally, for the next season of her life.

It is. In August 1962, Hamer, who, as I talk about in the book, is, you know, a woman of faith. She always went to church. But this particular day, there was a mass meeting organized at the local church, organized by activists in the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee, also known as SNCC. And this is a very important organization. It's a grassroots student-led organization, an interracial civil rights organization. They came into Reelville, Mississippi to ultimately help local residents, particularly around voting rights. This is something that they did in the 1960s. And Hamer initially was not sure that she would attend this meeting.

She talks about hesitancy. She wasn't quite sure what to make of this group, but she was convinced by a friend to attend the meeting just to listen. And she showed up. And this marked the beginning of her political career. What's interesting is that Hamer talks about that moment as both a political awakening and a religious awakening. Because it's in that meeting that she could, in fact, play a role in overturning decades of laws and policies that have discriminated against Black people. And so she recognizes the power of the vote. She is committed to joining the movement in order to advance these rights, to protect these, to ensure that people have access to these rights. And the second thing is she sees it as a religious awakening because she makes the case that it's in the meeting she finds her calling. It's in the meeting that she sees that it is,

in fact, divinely ordained, that she joined the movement and play a part in this struggle. And so it's really, I think, an important moment for her where she decides that in there she volunteers to register to vote because they were looking for volunteers at the meeting. She quickly volunteers and decides that she will join the movement and never really looks back. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are.

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I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required,

charge time and actual results will vary. 44 years old and discovering for the first time that you have the right to vote. When you're discovering this in her story, how are you feeling? Frustrated, angry. It's definitely not surprising for me to reflect on all of the strategies that were employed to keep Black people out of the ballot box. So I was very much aware of, you know, things like literacy tests, which, of course, Hamer did have to take and struggle through those. All of these poll taxes, as an example, it was clear to me that being Black in Mississippi or being Black anywhere in the South, for that matter, meant having to encounter a number of roadblocks

in order to make it to the ballot box. But I think I had almost underestimated the way that many white supremacists at the time blocked people from the ballot box, not solely through those means that I pointed out, but simply through limiting access to information. And here's where I thought about what it must have meant for Hamer to be working in Louisville, Mississippi, as a sharecropper all of these years, and never have an opportunity to learn about the U.S. Constitution, not have an opportunity to learn about the 13th, the 14th, the 15th Amendment, to not learn about all of these developments that ultimately meant that she should have already had access to the right to vote, certainly.

And particularly, again, we're talking about 1962, far beyond the 13th, the 14th, and the 15th, also the 19th Amendment. And so here we are in 1962, and Hamer is not the only person with this experience. And knowing that helped me make sense of the fact that only 5% of Black residents in Mississippi were registered to vote in the 1960s. We're talking about an estimated 450,000 Black people in a state and an estimated 5% registered to vote. It all clicked because it was not just a literacy test. It was not just a poll taxes. It was not just the violence, which of course, all of these

factors played a key role, but it was also the attempt to withhold information to ensure that people would not have access to information. And particularly through formal education, all of these strategies meant that it took someone 44 years, 44 years before they came to this information. And that's partly why I think it was so important for Hamer to join the movement. I think she was startled, but also she thought to herself, if I didn't know this, how many other people don't know this? And she wanted to go out into the community and let people know about their rights and empower them to, in fact, register to vote, to begin the process of bringing change to Mississippi and bringing change to the entire nation. So it was frustrating to encounter this information, but it helped me make sense

of the broader history. When you look at that, we're talking about 1962, 1963, that she literally goes, this just becomes her obsession. This is what she then becomes. This is what she devotes herself to, starting in no small part with voters' rights activism and then expanding out from there. As you just described, there was violence that would stop people from going to the polls. There was also violence when people spoke up. 63, she's the target of a lot of violence. She's brutally beaten, permanently disabled in certain ways. And when you read this story and you're thinking, this is 1963, and then you close your eyes for a heartbeat and you open them in 2020, 2021, and then you're thinking to yourself, how much further have we gotten in those particular domains? And you relate this really powerfully back and forth in the way that you write the book.

When you look at these issues that she was so important in pushing forward so many decades ago now, and so many of the methodology, the way she stepped into it, the language she used is still sadly and horrifyingly as relevant and as powerful as it was then today. Absolutely. In fact, I was initially not so sure that I would write the book this way. I think, generally speaking, when I write books, I'm always thinking about chronology, I'm thinking about historical context. I questioned whether it would disrupt too much of the narrative to shift back and forth from present to past and I remember

having a conversation with with Hamish's daughter and I talk about in the book how she throughout the course of her life adopted several young girls and and at some point I had a conversation with her daughter where I was asking her daughter to reflect on Mississippi and to reflect on Black lives in Mississippi today compared to a much earlier period. draw parallels as she saw them when she started speaking to me. I just recall struggling to pull back the tears because she was pointing out to me all of the parallels. So here I was writing about poverty and hunger in the 1960s, for example. She was talking about poverty and hunger today in Mississippi. She was talking about violence, racial violence. She was talking about the difficulties that Black people and other people of color are enjoying when it comes to, you know, seeking employment.

She was talking about economic injustice and and the more that i listened to her it confirmed in my mind that i needed to draw those connections explicitly in the book because it would help people see how much hamer's fight continues how much we have to be careful with the way that we tell these narratives, especially these sort of post-civil rights narratives, that there's a way in which we talk about the civil rights movement as fixing everything, as resolving all these problems. And I'm not suggesting that it wasn't an important moment in the history. It absolutely was. It was fundamental to the expansion of Black political rights.

Where would we be without the Voting Rights Act? But at the same time, in even mentioning the Voting Rights Act, I think anyone who's paying attention over the last few months, few years, would see that the Voting Rights Act is under attack. And that reminds us yet again, that we have not overcome the way that we think we have. Have we accomplished some things? Yes. But the irony is that we have gained many things. We have, you know, experienced many wins. And yet we're at a moment where we have to keep fighting to ensure that we don't lose what we've gained, because in a heartbeat, everything that we celebrate could be gone as we are seen clearly before our eyes. write the book, you know, in those last few months, I knew that the best way to send a message about how much this history is close, if you want to think of it that way, I needed to make that clear by drawing the connections to the present, talking about the moments that people

would be able to recognize easily, and then connecting it to the moments they did not recognize easily because they were Hamer's story. And I think doing that was an important step, certainly for me as a writer, but I would hope it was important for the reader. Yeah, and definitely as a reader, it was really powerful. There was nothing left to guess. There was not that even being mildly observant and looking at the world around you clearly just shows a lot of things, but it was really powerful to be able to reflect back and forth and at the same time, incredibly

powerful to see how this one woman came from a place and stepped into a place of just devotion and agency and power and conviction and set in motion so many things. And yes, there's still so much work to do. You look at that part and you say, okay, we're still so far from where we need to be. And yet at the same time, the model of what she was doing continues to be built upon and implemented in different ways. She, a year or so, or a couple of years into this in 64,

she stands in front of the DNC convention, televised in front of a nationalC convention, televised in front of a national audience. Lyndon Johnson is trying to block her by sort of simultaneously having a press conference, as you write. Not so subtle there. And the two issues she's talking about fundamentally are voter suppression and state-sanctioned violence. And we've talked about voter suppression. And that second issue, again, is as much a part of the conversation. And certainly, over the last couple of years, has been really front and center in the lives of so many people. And it's interesting. I have,

over the years, had just an incredible opportunity to sit down with many folks who have played different roles in civil rights movement for the last 60 years, some in their 70s and 80s, and ask them how they feel about this moment. Because they marched at a time where they thought there was hope in the air and change was going to happen. And there was for a hot minute. And then a little bit happened. But then kind of things went back to a little bit better than the way they used to happen. And there was for a hot minute. And then a little bit happened, but then kind of things went back to a little bit better than the way they used to be. And I've asked this question a number of times to a number of folks who've been so invested for so many seasons of their lives.

Like, how do you feel about now? Because these same things that Hamer was talking about in the 60s, we're still grappling with in the biggest ways. So you continuing to draw these parallels, I feel is necessary in a lot of ways, you know, because there's still so much to be done. Absolutely. In fact, there was a moment where I was writing the book and I talk about how Hamer had this critique, not only of the American flag, but of the anthem. She had this critique of the national anthem. And I remember pausing and reflecting on her words and immediately thought about Colin Kaepernick and thought about all of these debates

that we've been having at a national level over the last couple of years. And it was the first time that it clicked for me. I did not realize that Hamer spoke about this until I was writing a book. And if you read her words, it's almost as if she uttered them just yesterday. It's almost as if we can hear her voice when we talk about why Simone Cohen-Kapanek decides to kneel. And particularly, he's doing it because he's bringing attention to the problem of state sanction violence, which Hamer is talking about in the 60s as well. And I think all of those connections become clear. And once again, we begin to think about history in a different way, because we'd like to tell history as though it is always a story of progress. It's always, well, this happened and then we prevailed and now things are better.

We love these narratives. And I understand this. You know, when I teach history classes, I never want students to walk away feeling hopeless. I want them to feel hopeful because in that hope, they will be encouraged to, you know, to continue the work. They will be encouraged to use their gifts and abilities in interesting ways to move us forward even more. But the reality is history is very much a story of ebbs and flows. It's very much, I think, a story about a tug of war. I think that's the best way to explain it. Whereby you do have these moments where you move forward and you can, in fact, celebrate those moments.

But almost like clockwork, as soon as you make that step forward, there will be a hundred different forces trying to push you back, you know, in order to respond to what you see as success, someone else sees as encroaching on them in some way. And that is clear today, as it is clear if we look at what happens after, you know, the Brown decision of 1954, for example, that ultimately integrated public schools. What follows? Significant backlash.

And not surprisingly, then within 10 years, within 20 years, we begin to see school districts yet again segregated in all kinds of ways. And so you are reminded that it is a constant struggle. So I think Hamer's story is one that is truly, it's important for us to know it. It's not going to necessarily make us all feel good, but that's not the point of it. In fact, Hamer's message was always to tell it like it is. She said, I would not hide things. I won't keep it under the rug just to make anyone feel comfortable. It's about shedding light on the problems because only then you can take the steps to bring about the change that's necessary. And so I think in a similar way, reading her story will get us

to acknowledge what remains unchanged and hopefully empower us and hopefully encourage us to be part of that fight. Yeah, the ideas and what she said in motion is really powerful. You know, it was just in my head also, as you were sort of like talking about the foundation that she's laid is also these two other concepts that are so present. The idea of movements and change and intersectionality, you know, that language wasn't being used in the sixties. And at least I don't think it was in the sixties and seventies. You know, and it certainly has become a big part of the conversation now. And at the same time, more broadly, this notion that this is something which is happening at a

global scale that, you know, like these things which is happening at a global scale, that these things that are happening nationally, all parts of society in this country need to be involved. And at scale, all parts of the world are experiencing variations of this and need to be involved. There's inequity, there's determinism, there's racism, there's social injustice, and that there's an importance around transnational alliances to really get this work done. Like her famous phrase, as you describe, and it sounds like this is something she uttered all the time, nobody's free until everybody's free. And the intersection between those ideas is so modern, so of the moment. It's incredible to know that in the 60s, she's grappling with these ideas. Absolutely. And as you mentioned, just

the global aspects of it. One of the things I so admire about Hamer is that she was always willing to learn, always willing to grow. And one can imagine that if you join a movement at the age of 44, and many of the activists with whom you're collaborating are much younger than you, we're talking about folks who are in their early 20s, and they are giving you all this information, they are giving you advice, and they're laying out before you what you need to do, it would not be difficult to imagine someone who might feel strange about it, who might think, well, you know, I'm much older than these folks, why do I have to listen to them? And that wasn't Hamer's approach. One of the most powerful things about her was that she could speak boldly.

She knew what she wanted. She knew what she wanted to convey. But she was always a person, also a person who had a sense of humility whereby she would listen. And when it came to this, you know, the matter of global concerns, Hamer, when she travels, I talk about in the book how she travels to Guinea on the African continent in 1964. So not that long after she gives this passionate speech at the DNC, she leaves the country for the first time. And it's a transformative experience for her. She's moved, you know, she's deeply moved by seeing people, seeing, you know, this newly independent Black nation. Really, I think seeing leaders in this newly independent Black nation strategize how they're going to move forward. And she's listening and she's observing and she's taking that all in. And what she figures out in that trip is exactly the point that the challenges that Black people are facing, the challenges that people of color are facing in the U.S. context cannot be divorced from the challenges that marginalized groups are facing globally. She begins to draw the

connections. She begins to talk about Mississippi and she draws parallels to the Congo. She begins to talk about the Vietnam War. She begins to condemn the war and U.S. involvement in it because she's seeing all of these ways that people are being exploited, that people are experiencing violence, that people are similarly experiencing oppression across the globe. And she wants to make sure that her voice isn't just one that speaks to the need for civil rights, but more broadly, human rights. Yeah, so powerful.

When you work on a body of work like this, years long, so deeply personal and requires so much of your, like you said, you're literally traveling over and over and over to sit with people and gather their stories. And you finally get to the point where you sit down and then you write this thing, you bring it all together. It forms this glorious synthesis of ideas. As you're doing this, I'm curious as a writer, as a historian, is there anything inside of you that also holds an intention?

Yes, there's a historian that wants to get it right. Yes, there's the human being who wants to honor all of these human beings and the descendants who are often still alive. Is there something else inside of you that says, there's an intention that I want for this or for the reader when I finally put this into the world. I'm curious. Yes, I think for every project, sometimes the intention varies. But for this book on Fanny Lou Hamer, one of the things that I thought about a lot in the process of writing was the uprisings. And I, like so many people, went through a roller coaster of emotions, feeling hopeful at times, also feeling frustrated and questioning what to do, questioning what might come next. And when I wrote the book,

especially as I was finishing the book, I thought to myself that I wanted this book to be the kind of book that certainly educators will be able to use in the classroom, but I also wanted it to be a tool for activists. I want it to be a tool for people who perhaps, you know, like Hamer, you know, are on the streets and they're part of this broader movement for change. And maybe they're asking themselves, what do we do? How do we respond? What are the next steps that we need to take? I wanted them to see through Hamer's story, but also to reflect on her words, to come up with solutions.

It's not to suggest that every single thing that Hamer did in the context of the 1960s will work and might work the same way in this moment. But I think there are lessons that we can learn. And I think particularly for a quick example of how Hamer used public testimony as a way to move audiences, as a way to compel people to change. And I think that's just one example of how we might in this particular moment use our voice, our voices collectively, to speak out against injustice when we see it. And to know that in speaking out, that the act itself is just as powerful and can in fact have the kind of impact that Hamer ended up having. And more to the point, you know, I think what is clear in the book is

Hamer walked away from the 1964 DNC feeling defeated. Hamer did not leave with a sense that she had accomplished anything. She showed up and she wanted representation for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She did not get that representation. She left feeling like she had failed her people, that she failed her community. The irony is that this moment that she saw as failure ends up being the one thing that catapulted her political career. It became the one thing

that made a difference in the lives of so many people, so much that it impacted the president of the United States and absolutely laid the groundwork for the passage of the Voting Rights Act a year later. I think all of these things are important for activists to know today, for educators to know, for students to know today, because when you're in the struggle, you don't quite know what's around the corner. You don't have a crystal ball. We don't know if change happens in a week, in a month, in 10 years. We don't know.

And the moment that feels like failure could, in fact, be the moment that sort of moves the needle, so to speak. And I think that's the message people need. And so that was the intention above all was to give people the tools, quite frankly, the tools to keep pushing for change. So powerful. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So in this container of the Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? If I think about the phrase to live a good life, immediately I think

about living the kind of life that uplifts and empowers others, the kind of life that leaves a legacy for someone else to be able to do their best work, for someone else to be able to thrive, to live a life in the service of others. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet you will also love the conversation that Thank you. Thank you. If you appreciate the work that we've been doing here on Good Life Project, go check out my new book, Sparked. It will reveal some incredibly eye-opening things about maybe one of your favorite subjects, you, and then show you how to tap these insights to reimagine and reinvent work as a source of meaning, purpose, and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also find it at your favorite bookseller now. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch series 10 is here it has the biggest display ever it's also the thinnest apple watch ever making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running swimming or sleeping and it's the fastest charging

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