Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Nebraska: The World Needs More of Mildred Brown with Brittany Ratelle

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

In this episode, Sharon is joined by Brittany Ratelle to talk about the life and legacy of Mildred Brown. Though Mildred is not in most history books, she should be! Mildred was a savvy businesswoman and the owner of an Omaha newspaper in the 1930s. As a Black woman in the 1930s, this was impressive on its own. However, Mildred used her power of the press to positively reinforce good business practices in Omaha, and she highlighted the good works of the people in her community. Mildred received 150 community service awards and was appointed as a Goodwill ambassador by U.S President Lyndon B. Johnson. Join Sharon and Brittany as they talk about this uplifting story and explain why there needs to be a Mildred Brown t-shirt! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome to this episode. Gosh, I have got a great story, such an uplifting story for you today. And I'm chatting with my friend Brittany Rattel, who is an attorney for small businesses and creatives. And I absolutely enjoy chatting with her. We have such a fun, witty back and forth. She's just absolutely delightful to hang out with. And I really think you're going to love the story of Mildred Brown. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Yay. Brittany, thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much, Sharon, for having me. This is just such a treat. Tell everybody what you do because you are fantastic. So I'm an attorney. So

I mean, what an opener, right? An attorney and a government teacher get on a podcast. Yes. What could be more exciting? It's all the great jokes. Everyone knows. No, I am an attorney, but I call myself, I'm a, I'm a cool attorney. I kind of specialize in helping creatives, no, I am an attorney, but I call myself, I'm a, I'm a cool attorney. I kind of specialize in helping creatives, creators, online business owners, basically really cool humans on the internet. I'm doing awesome things, building awesome businesses. So that's what I do is I help them be more confident business owners can get legally legit. I love that. What made you decide this is the type of law I want to practice and not like big law, criminal prosecution, you know, all the other options. What about this particular, like, I want to work with small

business owners, particularly creatives who run digital businesses. Like that is a niche specialization. How did you land on that? It really became out of necessity. I was lucky to be in a community. I was living in Utah. I'd been practicing some other areas. You know, I learned a lot of things. I didn't, wasn't finding a lot of personal fulfillment in it. And I had people, friends of mine who were growing businesses, who were bloggers turned into content creators, turned into influencers, Etsy shop owners turned into a physical product and they needed help. And we're like, dude, I went to my dad's attorney and like, he didn't know anything about the Instagram. He, you know, talked down to me. I felt, you know,

I felt embarrassed, um, and didn't feel heard and seen and not understood in terms of the help I need for the next steps I want to do in my business. And so it really just grew out of necessity. And now I think I've got the greatest gig in the world because almost all my clients are women. Like I like guys too, but that just happens to be the nature of who I'm working with. And, uh, yeah, I get to see the behind the scenes of lots of amazing businesses. And you really do get to work with all the cool people, right? Like if you're doing criminal prosecutions, which is an important job, um, that's not the cool people. You get good stories. So I'll tell you that. I mean, like that's the person you want to be at the mixer, be like, so tell me it's those and ER doctors, they have the best

stories for sure. But, um, but it's true. And it's a, it's like a happy kind of law. Like no one is super excited about legal stuff, but you know what they're excited about? Like making money and helping more people and like moving the ball forward. And so legal helps support that. Yes. I get that. Like a lot of times lawyers are interacting with people on some of the worst days of their life or the worst times of their life, divorce, et cetera. This is a happy, like you're starting a business. Yay. Yeah. You hired your first person or you got your first big contract. You're like, Ooh, I should probably have someone look at this. Like it's happy new level, new devil. Yeah.

Yeah. I love it. Well, I think I have a story that you're going to like today. I wanted to share it with you. I was like, okay, I got to make sure that the story is rich enough, layered enough, deep enough, interesting enough so that it will hold Brittany, the lawyer's attention. I'm so excited to hear. So we're going to talk about Nebraska today, which is, you know, sexy in the dictionary there. I don't know if there's a giant landscape picture of Nebraska. Yeah, that's right. Everybody is like, whoa, I cannot wait to get to Nebraska. Omaha is where it is. Calm down.

Pump the brakes. That's right. But I do want to talk about somebody who I just, I really resonated with. And I think you're really going to love her. I think you're going to fall in love with this woman named Mildred Brown. And so I love her name already. Mildred. I mean, what a classic, you know, it reminds me, I have a great grandmother who was Melva and I'm like, I don't know if Melva is going to be seen a resurgence, but like, that's a great name.

Yes. And she was known for wearing very stylish hats. And she also always wore a large white carnation corsage. That was her signature piece. Yep. Yep. Like you have the bright lipstick. She has the white carnation corsage, like four or five carnations. Women don't wear corsages anymore, except at weddings. Like we need to bring this back. I'd maybe think it's an underlooked accessory market. Somebody get on it, you know, start. Take our business advice. Take it, get the teenagers to wear it on, you know, on the TikTok and then it'll just go from there. It's just so classy.

You know what I mean? It's so elegant, so classy, but this is neither here nor there. I just found that very adorable about her that she always took such careful time with her appearance. Regardless, let's get to what the story is really about, which is not her appearance. She was born at the turn of the century, like 1913 in Alabama. And her family was well-known. Her father was a minister. Her mother was a school teacher. And they really encouraged her as educated people themselves. They encouraged her to become educated, even though, again, not the most popular common things at the

time to pursue higher education. But she did go to college to become a teacher. And she finished college, became a teacher, met her husband. And she went to an HBCU, a Historically Black College and University. Are you familiar with those? You know what those are? I am familiar. I don't think I could, is it Howard? One of them? Like, yes. Okay. So yeah, like I've, I've seen them. I don't know if, if I, if I had to list as like a jeopardy question, probably wouldn't do so great, but I know that they exist and they've been around for a while. I didn't know it was that they'd been around that long. That's great. Yes. So starting in the late 1800s, Congress actually mandated that all of the former Confederate states give land grants to universities so that the universities

could start and educate African-American students. Because of course, at the time, segregation was still just fine. That was no problem. And so obviously it was hampering probably university level education across the board. Yeah. Yeah. There it is. There's the, but nevertheless, HBCUs, there's over 100 of them in the United States. Howard is one of them. They were incredibly important to the African-American community. It allowed them opportunities that they would not have had otherwise. And they were also allowed to the African-American community. It allowed them opportunities that they would not have had otherwise. And they were also allowed to have, or it created for them a sense of community that they probably would not have had attending a different type of university.

And so they still play a very important cultural role, especially in the South. Most HBCUs are very, very affordable. And you do not have to be a person of color to attend them. Anyone can attend them. But I was looking up some of the average tuition costs of many HBCUs, and most of them are in the $5,000 to $6,000, $7,000 a year range. Very affordable colleges. Very affordable based on where tuition is tracking nowadays. Yeah, that's awesome. That's wonderful. So a lot of HBCUs, you know, like you would recognize some of the names, like you recognize Howard, but some schools like Florida A&M, Kentucky State, Tennessee State, Virginia State, University of District of Columbia, those are all HBCUs. Martin Luther King went to one. Okay. Gotcha. See, I was thinking in my mind,

they all needed to be private, but I guess it makes sense that they, they also can be, they can partner. They can be state schools, but also have the HBCU history designation. That's right. In fact, many of them are public schools. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, lots of, you know, lots of civil rights leaders, Booker T. Washington, went to schools like this. So all that to say, Mildred Brown went to one of these schools and it really set sort of the foundation for who she became as an adult. She married her husband and they decided to move north. They moved to Chicago, they moved to Iowa, and they both worked in the newspaper industry. Her husband worked as a reporter or a writer for the newspaper.

newspaper industry. Her husband worked as a reporter or a writer for the newspaper. And she discovered after she left teaching, she discovered that she had a knack for selling newspaper advertising. She was an ad woman. Yeah. So yes, that's right. And she felt like everywhere I go, there are many obstacles in front of me. I have a lot of adversity, but dang it, everyone buys an ad for me. Like she felt really confident in her ability. At the end of the day, people got to sell those, those, you know, those oats and the cereal and the soap. And so, yeah, they'll come around. She was delightful. Like she was a lovely individual. And so you wanted to buy ads from her. You know what I mean? She made it. So you wanted to help her. So in 1937, she and her husband

received an invitation to work at a friend's newspaper in Omaha, Nebraska, and they worked there for a little while. And then she and her husband decided to start their own newspaper. One of the things that they really wanted to focus on when they started their own newspaper was that they could not see any positive reflections of their community being printed in regular news. Open a regular circulation newspaper in Omaha and see positive stories about the African-American community. All you saw were things like crimes, how upsetting it was that they were, you know, asking for rights and, you know, all of these things that they were working towards. You could not see any positive reflections. And so they set out from the very beginning to include positive stories about the African-American community in their

newspaper. Yeah. And kind of elevate, you know, those human interest stories and be intentional about it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And she actually got the idea for a newspaper from her pastor. Her pastor came to her and said, Mildred, God told me that you are supposed to start on newspaper and you are supposed to bring your community joy, happiness, and respect. And she said, she laughed until she cried. Like, no, like that was not like, okay. How about then? All right. God, God, I would love to see what God does with that. Then do you know how much work starting a paper is in the thirties? Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. No kidding for a black family to just be like, we're starting a newspaper here in we're, we're, we're media logos now. I'm sure it'll be really smooth sailing. Yeah. What could possibly go wrong? That's right. So she laughed until she cried. And then later on, you know, like she never stopped ruminating

on this idea. And I loved the idea that somebody can plant a seed for you that at the time you're like, no, I'm not doing that. That is a funny joke. That's a funny joke you just told, but that seed gets planted and that little seed grew. And she eventually came around to the idea and said, you know what? I am young. I have a car and people buy my ads everywhere I go. I think I could do it. So it went from laugh till you cry to like, maybe I could do that. I love the idea that you can see something in somebody else and tell them about it. Even if they never act on that. Just call it out.

Yeah. Just be like, you are so fantastic at this. I really think you should do that. And even if they never do it, great. feel like you are so fantastic at this. I really think you should do that. And even if they never do it great, but you don't know what kind of impact you will have on the future of the world, just by planting that little seed for somebody. So she and her husband started the Omaha star, and it was a weekly newspaper. It was not a daily newspaper. And it was really mostly a community newspaper. The first edition,

they printed 6,000 copies of, which I felt like that's pretty ambitious. Yeah. That's a decent run in terms of circulation. Yes. For a brand new newspaper geared towards a specific community, the North Omaha black community. That's ambitious. I like it. And they sold each newspaper for 10 cents. And she took a bunch of children from her neighborhood that had bicycles, specifically boys in the like 10 to 12 year old age range. And she hired all of them to be her newspaper carriers. I was going to say, tell me that we have a newsies image going here that this is happening. We're opening the gates in season the day. Okay. Yep. Yep. And she posed for a picture with all of these boys with their baskets full of newspapers on their bicycles. And they went out and delivered the papers. And I just love that image. She was

such a lovely woman. I love seeing her picture with all these young boys. And this was what she wrote in the very first edition of the Omaha star. She said, to the citizens of Omaha, it is with profound pleasure that the Omaha Star Publishing Corporation and organization of energetic, well-trained, journalistic minds give to you this day a paper of the people and for the people. And I was like, that's a good line. I loved it. She also thought to herself, what an interesting time in America that I can own and run a newspaper, but I cannot ride at the front of the street, sit in any restaurant I choose, but I can run an entire newspaper. That is, is, doesn't that seem weird? Doesn't that, you know, yeah. What's not, what's not a pool here. What doesn't jive here with this picture, you know, and what should we do about it? Yeah, precisely. And she said a lot of people, especially in the white business community called us troublemakers. They said, you guys are nothing but troublemakers, but I just kept selling ads like mad. That's what

Mildred said. There's no, there's no revenge sweeter than success, right? Right. Yeah. For all the naysayers and the, and the, you know, haters got to hate out there. Just watch me, watch me sell, sell my ads, get with my newsies out here and make it happen. I love it. I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends and together we have the podcast office ladies where we rewatched every single episode of the office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is Steve Carell in the studio. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our

friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. She also had a policy of she would not sell ads to any business that would not hire people of color. Like you want to be in my newspaper, you better act right. We have standards and you need to be giving opportunities to the entire community. You shouldn't just take our

money as customers, but refuse to hire us as employees. That's not okay. She and her husband divorced in the 1940s and she began running the newspaper by herself. And this is what the president of the National Newspaper Association said said about her Mildred does little things for little people that make them proud of what they have done for that moment. The little person is big in the eyes of the community and the community smiles upon them. And I was like, dang, that is good. That's just what a paper. I think a small community paper strives to be is that is like focus on the person on the community and you show up for the people that you care about and serve them. I mean, that's beautiful. I mean,

like, you know, journalists get that tattooed on your heart. She does little things for little people that make them proud of what they have done. And you know what, that is something that I feel like we could all work towards that. We don't have to run a newspaper to do that for other people. We don't have to have a large arsenal of 12 year old boys delivering our words to the homes of other people. We can every day in our own lives, strive to do little things for little people that make them proud of what they've done and proud of who they are. I love that. It's just those everyday opportunities to elevate, you know, in our interactions with others, what choice do we have? You know, the choice to smile, to give grace, to assume the best, to uplift, to encourage. Yeah. Lots

of little, little choices that add up to a better life for all of us. That's right. I also really love that. She focused on what we call in psychology, you know, that idea of positive feedback. One of the ways to create change is to positively reinforce what it is you want to see. So she would run stories about businesses who did not discriminate. She wrote a story saying the store Woolworths does not discriminate in its hiring policies. It hired people according to their ability. And that is how Woolworths is putting democracy in action. So she was giving these businesses this positive reinforcement in an effort to convince other businesses to do the same.

So in the 1950s, she joined this group called the De Porres Club, which was started by a Catholic priest. And it was made up of high school students and students at Creighton University. students and students at Creighton University. And it was a group that was aimed at ending discrimination and racism in the Omaha community. They organized things like boycotts, where if a business was refusing to hire people of color, that they would let the readers of the newspaper know, listen, we would like them to change this practice. So let's not reward them until they change the practice. She had a very unique viewpoint on civil rights in that, yes, she did some sit-ins, yes, there were protests, things along those lines, but she really focused on positive reinforcement and leveraging the economic power of her community to ask corporations to change their behavior.

So one historian talked about her saying the DePores Club was a group that focused on the economic standpoint of things like segregation and discrimination, where their goal was to get these businesses, not to get them to say, Hey, we have had a complete change of heart. Oh my gosh, the way we used to think was totally wrong. Um, I don't believe that anymore because you know, that that would just be performative and fake, right? You know, that, that, that that's going to come probably later down the line. But what you can do is strongly encourage them to hire everybody. And by encouraging them to hire everybody, you're also lifting up your own community, creating more economic opportunities for your

own better wages, better housing opportunities, you know, healthcare, it all tracks, you know, all the rising tide lifts all boats. Yeah, that's right. So she continued running the Omaha Star newspaper. Eventually, the DePores Club got kicked out of Creighton University. They were like, you guys are too much trouble. The leaders of Creighton felt like this is too much activism. It's too much activism for us. It makes us look bad. It's going to hurt us with the donors.

You guys cannot be a club on campus anymore. And so they had another office for a time, but ultimately she said, why don't you guys just come meet here at the newspaper? I'll give you space at the newspaper. By the way, she lived in an apartment in the newspaper building and the newspaper building, the Omaha star building is is now on the National Register of Historic Places because of the impact of Mildred and also the impact of the DePores Club, which met at her newspaper, and also the impact of the newspaper on her community. During her tenure of running this newspaper alone, she racked up over 150 community service awards, which I was like, dang, I have won zero community service awards. Way to, gosh, way to make us feel all like a bunch of underachievers, Mildred. I mean, she had to have like a spreadsheet, right? Like how do you, you know, or how do you keep track of all your awards? Like, I mean, I need a new room for all my medals for my honorary doctorates

and stuff like, yeah, that's right. Yes. I love that. I love it. 150 community service awards. And she became so well-known that both the president of the United States and the vice president of the United States, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey became friends with her. And Lyndon Johnson eventually awarded her a goodwill ambassadorship to East Germany as like, this is who we want as a representative of the United States in the 1960s, a time of incredible upheaval, a time of incredible tumult, assassinations of presidents and Martin Luther King, this woman. Trying to get to space, all the things. Yes, right. It's busy. It's a lot of all on the agenda. That's right. Yes. But this woman represents the best of America was Mildred Brown. And so she got to travel extensively as a Goodwill ambassador, went to East Germany as a Goodwill ambassador. I just love that she gained not just local Omaha

recognition, but national recognition for the impact she had on her community, the impact she had on civil rights. One example is the Omaha streetcar company, which was going to be chartered by the city, that their hiring practices made it so that they would not hire any people of color. And she just felt like, how can the city of Omaha, the government of Omaha be okay with this idea that not all citizens can even apply for the job. And it was directly through her work and the work of the DePores club that the city agreed to change their practices and required the streetcar company to hire all people. And she did the same things with Coca-Cola bottling and a variety of other big businesses at the time was able to use her influence that she had gained by building up all of this tremendous

amount of goodwill and community service. This idea that she was very beloved in her community. She was able to leverage that into creating actual lasting real change for her community and for the community at large, because of course the rest of the community is made better by having that diversity. It's not having people well-represented and having, you know, all of us having access to this opportunity and us being able to engage. I love that. Like you said, she, she had this personal capital she had built up by, by working so hard and being so well in her field. And there's lots of things that you can do when you get to that point with kind of your personal capital. And this is what she wanted to spend it on. This is what was meaningful to her. I love it. Yes. And so she eventually passed away in 1989. As I mentioned, she lived in an apartment in the Omaha star building.

She died in the Omaha star building. Like that building began, it was hers and you can still go online and see pictures of it. I love the sign that they have outside. It's one of those, you know, like a small street, almost like a main street USA type situation. And then the sign is one of those signs that hangs sideways off the building that, you know, like lights up. Yes. Yes. I love the sign

so much after she died, her niece continued to publish the newspaper. The newspaper still exists. You can go and it is the longest running newspaper owned by an African-American woman that was started in the 1930s, still exists today. It now, of course, has digital versions and some people still choose to get tangible copies delivered to their house. They've opened a copy center where members of the community can come get all their copies made and all of their, you know, stapling. And they've expanded the types of services they offer to the community. And she owned a couple of buildings

nearby as well. And in one of the vacant lots nearby, I just love this. They put a strolling garden that was dedicated to her with a, like a bronze bust statue of her with her hat and her corsage. And it's like the Mildred Brown strolling garden. I'm like, Oh, I hope someday I have a strolling garden. Right? Exactly. You get to go take a stroll and think about legacy and what it means, you know? Gosh, that's just lovely. I love it. And this is the part where I was like, when I was reading this, I'm like, can we get this on some t-shirts? This is the motto of the newspaper that I am just like, dang it. Why don't all organizations have this as their motto?

This newspaper is dedicated to the service of the people and that no good cause shall lack a champion and that evil shall not thrive on opposed. I was like, ah, I love it. Get that on freaking Pinterest. I mean, come on. That's right. Like where are all of my Etsy home decor signs that say, come on, get put down the live, laugh, love, give it up. We've got a new direction, a new direction, dedicated to the service of the people that no good cause shall lack a champion and that evil shall not thrive on a post. There's someone there. There's someone, you know, not today. That's right. Get behind me. Satan. Yeah. Seriously. that's Mildred, the fantastic hat lady. Yeah, that's right.

And the friend of the president who started just, you know, as a young woman in Alabama, who probably felt like she had limited options growing up here, she is a goodwill ambassador to communist East Germany. Right. I imagine, I imagine the Russians, you know, the Germans were really warm. I'm sure it was super peachy keen, no problems once she got over there. I mean, put on you that's that's so yeah. For her, her life arc to end up there as an ambassador and then to come back and end in that building and her legacy to go on and it's be a strolling garden. I love that. Isn't that so great. She absolutely deserves to be remembered and she deserves a bigger place in history than she has.

And so I just wanted to, I just wanted to bring her up. I just love Mildred. Love Mildred. Okay, guys. I mean, if we don't see Mildred rising up on the charts of baby names, like what are we even doing here? Come on. That's right. We have t-shirts that have the likenesses of various historic figures. You know, like my daughter has a Rosa Parks t-shirt and she has a Jane Goodall t-shirt and we need some Mildred Brown t-shirts with the hat and the Mildred merch. That's right. That's right. And it needs to say, it needs to say her quote, the service of the people that no good cause shall lack a champion and no evil shall thrive on a post. Well, good thing. I know some folks, I know some folks who make t-shirts. I know some folks who

make magazines. I will put in a good word. Let's please contact all of the people you represent as an attorney. I don't have the bandwidth to make this happen, but somebody needs to, I got a hot tip for you. Someone needs to be making this. Hey, that's right. This, this, this woman was awesome. And we, we need more of this. We need more of that kind of indomitable spirit. Yes. This is the energy we need moving into 2022. This is, this is what it is. This is the energy we need. Like let's carry this spirit moving forward. I love it. Yes. Well, tell everybody how to find you, Brittany, because if you are a small business owner, you are a creative entrepreneur,

you want to get into being an influencer, or you're thinking about starting a business, you need to be legally legit. You cannot just be over here taking all kinds of money under the table and getting into all kinds of trouble. We got to listen to MC Hammer. I mean, when it comes down to it, you know, when in doubt, that's where you should be getting your business advice, you know, be too legit to quit. I am, I'm Brittany Rattel on Instagram is where I like to hang out. Cause I'm kind of like Ariel. I want to be where the people are and my people are on Instagram. So that's where you can find me. And I've also got a podcast because I know my listeners are busy. You know, they can listen on the go about licensing or running an event, or how about, how do you do books? You know how do you do an

online course while they're on the go? Um, and then I also sell contract templates because not everyone needs one-on-one lawyer. Sometimes they just need a good solid template to get them started and get them on the right foot. So yes, yes, I love it. Those are all linked on my stuff. BrittanyRattel.com. This was fantastic. I always love to see you and I love, I love Mildred and I expect to see her name on some Etsy merch. Please make it happen. I will make it happen. I will send out, I will put it on.

Bat call. Use my channels, put out the bat signal for sure. Of like, look guys, Mildred, she's indoor plumbing. She's going to be huge. She's going to be, she's an unsung hero of the 20th century. So again, how wonderful of her, how great she worked on the cause that she believed in and also used her talents and gifts. And I mean, I like that because, you know, it's fun to hate media nowadays and journalism,

you know, it's a, it's a trendy thing, but there's a lot of good things to remember about what can be done with the power of the press in the right way. A hundred percent. And she felt like that absolutely running a newspaper helped further the cause of her community. It helped create civil rights because if you don't have a means to communicate with your community, what is going on behind closed doors that people have no idea about? The media is actually incredibly important. Well, thank you, thank you. And we will talk soon. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to the

Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.