Our Ancestors Were Messy - Oscar Micheaux: The Family Feud That Launched Black Hollywood

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

At the turn of the century, Oscar Micheaux - a dreamer from Smallville - makes his way to the big city searching for fame, fortune...and a change to his single status! What he finds is a wife he loves, a father-in-law he hates, and a path into Black history he could have never imagined. Starring Dr. Ray Christian.Support this independent production and access bonus content at https://ourancestorsweremessy.supercast.comStay in touch at [e-mail] the show on Instagram at @ourancestorsweremessyFollow the show on TikTok at @ourancestorsweremessyLearn more about the show at https://ourancestorsweremessy.comListen on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@OurAncestorsWereMessy  SOURCESThe Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer by Oscar MicheauxOscar Micheaux Homestead National Historical Park, Pullman National Historic Park, National Park ServiceSully County Black Homesteader Community, Homestead National Historical Park, National Park ServiceOscar Micheaux, NAACPOscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking"The life and times of Oscar Micheaux" by Mary Beth Roderick for the Southern IllinoisanCheck out The Chicago Defender digitized and stored at The Library of CongressRead the archives at The Chicago Defender Archives.

The Secret Adventures of Black People Presents. Our ancestors were messy. A real life is stranger than fiction. Today, a young man attempts to transform himself from Smallville Dreamer to daring frontiersman. Look, he's the wrong guy for this trip. Legal ain't a way to hell. But to succeed, he must survive on the battlefield of love. He hasn't seen her in three years, but he's like she's still fine.

I'm so happy. Her eyes are dreamlike. Mm-hmm. Today's episode stars Dr. Ray Christian, an award-winning oral historian, host of the podcast What's Ray Sayan, and residents of rural Appalachia. I tell stories, and then I go feed dogs, cats. And your host, Nicole Hill. Maybe I love her, maybe I won't. Hope for the Best. This is Our Ancestors Were Messy, a show about our ancestors and all their drama.

And that's Black History. Where are you from and where are you now? All right. I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, in a dilapidated part of town known as Churchill in 1960. And ultimately, I wound up in the rural mountains of western North Carolina because there was a college just outside the town called Appalachia State. The wife got a job there and then I got a job there. and we're kind of like settled down here and had kids here, and I've been here for 22 years. 22 years, wow. And what kind of a black are you?

Oh, my goodness. Well, depending on who you acts, you know, I guess I'm a southern Negro, a dirty southerner. Why dirty? Well, you can be from the south. You know, there's various degrees of being southern. True, true, very true. In terms of the amount of grit that you come from. And then there's some class differences as well.

So if I had to define myself, that part of me that I spent the most of as a black man, it would probably have been dirty. I'm from Virginia Beach, Virginia. And so even when you say like the degrees of it, because we sound so different, but we're from like an hour and a half. away. I mean, I grew up there in the 90s, but it's still like we're so close, but I'm sure our experiences were so different. Oh, I thought you were talking about our accents. Our accents, too. That's what I mean. Like, our accents are...

You think our accents are really different? Ray, you sound so country. Oh, okay. See, I guess you don't know when you don't know. Oh, God. City, black folks, and country black folks. What do you think that relationship is like? How's that understanding of one another? I think that that is very complicated. Where I grew up, there were a number of black people who were raised in the country and they were living in the city.

And usually what happens, you see yourself as being classwise different than the people who live in the country, but you still have country habits. We living in the city. We still would go downtown and Mama would buy live live, check is. to be killed, you know. We still were growing shit in the backyard, cutting wood, the way we had animals and things like that. And people would say, you country is hell. I'm thinking my cousins who come from the country sound country as hell.

I can remember visiting my relatives of Philadelphia, and they would talk about how we act, the way we spoke. And one thing they had this serious chip, like, if one damn white person say shit to me, Come on, whoop his ass. They were like always, like, we were all Uncle Tom's, you know, like we were tap dance that we would put up with this shit. But, and maybe looking back on it now in some degrees we might have. Without thinking about it.

Growing up in the South, it was really a sign of good discipline and good raising, if you use the terms, yes, sir, and yes, ma'am. No, ma'am, you know, no, sir. when I was in Philadelphia, when we would say, yes, ma'am, no, sir, they would laugh their asses off. In fact, my husband told her to stop saying that shit. You sound country like a bunch of slaves. Wow. And I became aware of it.

How important is it to you as a black person to be seen as a hard worker? Is that like a big part of your black identity? Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I think by default, it has to be part of your black identity. I think that was drilled into us from several perspectives. You could take it from a religious perspective. The idol mine is the devil's workshop. You can take that from a working class blue collar perspective.

You know, you've got to keep your nose to the grindstone. You got to be working your ass off all the time. And then you can take it from a cultural, historic perspective. perspective, is that the stereotype of black people not wanting to work hard, not willing to grind, you constantly find yourself trying to counter that stereotype. You may could get ahead being softer, but do you dare risk it? Ray, Ray, Ray, this is the story for you. All right. Give it to me.

I'll get into it. So we start in January 1865. All right. The Civil War, it's wrapping up, and it's looking like the North is about to win. And so it's time to start making plans for the future. Union General William Sherman and his war secretary, Edwin Stanton, they're in Savannah, Georgia. They arranged this meeting with a group of 30 black ministers.

So all the men sit down, and Sherman and Stanton ask them, like, what do black people want for reparations? And the group has chosen this formerly enslaved Baptist minister named George Fraser to be their spokesperson. So he answers on behalf of millions of black people and their descendants. Can you read his answer on page one? All right. And here's the quote.

The way we can best take care of ourselves is to have land and turn it and till it by our own labor. We want to be placed on land until we are able to buy it and make it our own. So what the preachers are proposing is this ratchezer. I read this one article that called it proto-socialist move that would completely upend the south. The federal government would confiscate private property owned by the Confederates, redistribute it to black people that they had enslaved, then black folks would take the profits from the land, grow them, pass them down from generation to generation.

Sherman and Stanton are like, we love it because it's going to destroy the Confederates. Right. Let's divide up the plantations into smaller settlements. How about 40 acres? the ministers are like, that's cool. So General Sherman issues a field order, saying that for the first time in the nation's history, black people have been asked what we want, and we said land.

So we're going to get 40 acres of Confederate land, and then some black folks got a mule, so then all black folks that thought they were going to get a mule. Right. So then the promise becomes 40 acres and a mule. Right. Are you familiar with Sherman's order? Yeah.

I hadn't heard it before, but is it because you're like academic, like you know everything? I think that's field order number 54, 57, one of those. Yeah, but it's pretty much for the reasoning that you gave to punish the Southerners, that top 10% that bankrolled the war, many of which didn't actually even fight. But they gave the moral cause, they gave the money. You know, so this would have broken their backs. A few months after Sherman's order, Lincoln is assassinated,

and then Andrew Johnson revokes the order. And emancipates the slaves with not even an apology. It's just like, you go figure it out. But when they thought they were going to get the land, there was all this excitement and this idea of like, we're going to govern ourselves, we're going to earn profits, we're going to be safe together and free. after the order is revoked, the dream doesn't die of owning land and of having this kind of freedom.

I myself have heard a lot about what people did in the cities, but there are still all these people who have dreams of starting farms and owning land. And there's some tension that starts to develop between the people who are going the farming route and the people who are going the education route. Right. And this feeling that maybe one is the right way and that the other is doing it the wrong way. Today's episode is about a man who decides to take the farming route to fulfill Sherman's promise in his own life. The only problem is he's a messy lover boy.

And it's because of this that what he will actually end up doing is creating the blueprint for independent black cinema, one that Spike Lee, Ava DuVernay, Ryan Cougler, and countless others still follow to this day. This is the story of the pioneer Oscar Michelle and how he became America's first first. major black filmmaker. Do you know Mr. Michelle? Vaguely. Okay, okay, good. I was like, you might already know this whole story.

This is great. This is good. I'm going to tell you all about him. My main source for the episode is actually his autobiography. The Conquest, the story of a Negro pioneer. Okay. Oscar was born in 1884. He grew up on a farm near Metropolis, Illinois,

which I did not know was a real place, but that is where Clark Kent and Superman are from. Of course. His parents had been enslaved. in Kentucky, and then they moved to Metropolis because other recently emancipated black people were moving there and starting farms. He is kid number five out of 11,

and his family calls him the lazy one because he hates working when it's too hot or too cold or too early or too late, and he hates farm chores, and he's bad at them. This is our guy. His parents can't read him right because they were enslaved, but his mother values education above all, that and owning land,

and her hero is Booker T. Washington. He'd started life enslaved just like her, and he'd managed to get educated, published this autobiography up from slavery. He'd even met the president. He had a philosophy focus on helping black people who were specifically helping black people who were illiterate and impoverished,

largely former slaves turned farmers, which was just focused on learning to read and write and cultivating industrial and farming skills. Get yourself and your family some economic security, Don't go screaming about injustice and all of that. Eventually your hard work and success will earn you your civil rights. Yeah.

And they have this idea about city Negroes, that they're just waiting for racism so they can get upset. But Booker T is like, start your farm, get your money, and you'll be okay. And they're like, yeah, you're practical. You're doing something. So this is where he is. So Metropolis opens a school for colored children and former slaves,

and Mama Michelle insists that the family attention. So Oscar goes there and he excels. He develops this lifelong love for literature, especially Jack London, who wrote Call of the Wild and White Fang. And he wants to live this adventurous, romantic life. But he looks around him and he's like, mom and dad, why don't we live better, like how white people live? I think it's possible. Let me tell you my plan. So he starts going into it. But then everyone would be like, Oscar, you need to be grateful for what you have because we this is what he says in the book, he's like, every time I would try to tell them my dreams, I would get a long, boring lecture about how when they were my age, they were slaves.

And I thought that was so funny because it's like a teenager is never going to understand or care about what your parents have been through. I get it absolutely because, hell, it wasn't that far ago. When I was a kid, so I'm 64 now. but when I was, I don't know, between 10 and 15 years old, you couldn't complain about a damn thing. Every old person was the grandchild or the child of a slave. My mother was a grandchild of a slave. My grandmother was the child of a slave.

There were hundreds of people like that in the neighborhood. All the old folks, their fears were like extreme on some topics. Any bitching or complaining you did would get shut the hell. down. When I was a kid, the white man, you're talking shit like that. The white man would string your black ass up. Yeah, okay.

Mm-hmm. You know, but that's why we need young people because we're too stupid to be scared. Well, that's where Oscar's at. He's like, I don't want to hear this. So when he turns, somewhere around 17, he decides I'm out of here. I'm leaving Metropolis.

I'm going to the big city, Chicago, Illinois. Yes. Based off of how I've described him, if you were to think of movie characters that you are familiar with, or like a character at a TV show you're familiar with, is he reminding you of anybody? It's a story I'm familiar with, leaving the country, feel of you going to the city looking like a damn buffoon. Okay, so if this was a movie, it would be you. You could play Oscar. What, maybe a lot, if I was light-skinned, you know. No, no, no, no. Look at here.

Here's a picture of him. I just put a link in the chat. Let me see. All right. All right. Can you describe him? All right. He's got a standard black nose.

I would say Afro-centric lips. His hair texture looks standard. Afro-curly. He's cute. He's cute. Yeah, he's all them. smooth face he's in a suit he's got a tie and and the thing is people put a lot of effort into their photographs at that time it's not like now it took effort it took time you had to be

thoughtful and it would be your thing and that's a that's a nice photograph and they cost money a lot of money um so that's already saying some if you have a photograph okay so then so in terms of Who would play him in a movie? That's Idra's album, pretty short. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I am aware of the effect I have on women. Okay, so we're picturing young baby face, Edris.

He's doing it. Yeah, yeah. All right. So, Oscar, he's boarded his train, headed for Chicago. On his way, he stops off at his big sister's place in Murphysboro, Illinois, to say, hello. She sees him and she's like, oh, my goodness. You've grown up because he's had, this is him post-growth spurts. So now he's six feet tall.

He's like, farm strong, he's chocolatey. She's like, look at you. And he's feeling really good. He's like, she noticed, okay, okay, I must look good. Yeah. So he tells his sister that he's on his way to Chicago and he's going to be staying with their big brother. And she's like, Oscar, you know how lazy you are. You're not going to make it in Chicago.

He's like, yes, I will. Stop saying that. She's like, whatever. Then she announces, I have a girl that I want you to meet. And Oscar immediately gets very nervous because he has been very awkward and had not had much luck with girls. But his sister probably knows he's such a romantic. He's always reading his books and secretly dreaming of a great love. He just doesn't know how he's going to make it happen.

She's like, I got you. She's coming. She's the prettiest color girl in town. Go sit down. I like to picture them in the like, you know, the front room with the plastic on the, you Yeah. Yeah. There and there.

And that's when the door opens. Enter Oscars' great love, Jesse. So Jesse is Oscar's age. She's shy. He thinks she's really cute. She barely makes eye contact with him. She speaks really softly, but he's still very intrigued. Her dad is the first black male carrier in town, so the family's doing okay.

They're fellow country people, so similar values. And she can read and write, which is very important. according to Oscar, to be sure that his bride can read and write. Yeah. His sister, of course, chaperones their meeting. They can't be alone. So it's like a little bit awkward, but he's feeling good that there's a spark. And so they talk for a bit.

And then he's like, Jesse, I'm an adventurer. I'm on my way to Chicago to make a name for myself. I'm going to find my fortune. And then I'll be able to court you properly. And in the meantime, can we exchange letters? Jesse's like, that's fine. His sister's like, he will not be in Chicago long. He is so lazy.

He's like, shut up. He leaves. So, Oscar, he gets to Chicago. He tells his brother and his friends that he's there to make a name for himself. His brother writes to their parents or calls their parents. He's like, Oscar's here. He's big and he's awkward and he's ignorant and he's not going to make it in the city.

And then his mom gets scared and she begs him to come back home to the farm. And Oscar's like, why did you tell mom that? Like, why won't anybody believe in me? And his brother is like, you are lazy, you are not going to make it. And he won't hang out with him or talk to him. him. Oscar finds that all the city

Negroes are, like, he thinks that they're prone to vice. He doesn't want to hang out with them. And so he just stays home and he reads his books all by himself. And he says, of those early days in Chicago, the blues had my undivided attention. So sad. But he's determined to prove that he is not lazy and that he will make it in the city. So Oscar goes to work. Okay, so first he tries to find a job in the stockyards, but there's way too much competition.

So he stops going there. Then he gets a job in the steel mills, but it was so hard, and his coworkers were very annoying. They never stopped talking, so he quits that. Then he gets a job shoveling coal, but their expectations, he's like, they're so unrealistic. They told him his quota, and he was like, in a day. And they were like, it gets easier after a while, and he's like,

I'll never know. And he quits. Then he says, the problem is the city. So he moves to a little country suburb of Chicago, and he starts a shoe shine stand in a black barbershop. But nobody cared about their shoes in the country, so business is too slow. Then he gets a farm job to supplement his income because he's like, I can do that. But on his first day, he gets outworked by a girl and then by two kids, so he quits that.

And then he's like, you know what? I'm meant for adventure and romance. I belong on the rails. See, here's about this amazing job, and he's like, this is the job for me. I want to be a Pullman Porter. Can you tell me a little bit about what that job would have been like? The Pullman porters were a group of black porters who worked for the train companies to provide service to predominantly white passengers, carrying their luggage, feeding them, serving as conductors, helping them get to the right places. Now, this job had been declared as demeaning in some degrees because white porters had long since drifted off.

But for blacks, it was prestigious because, in fact, any job where you were in close proximity to white people on a personal level was considered prestigious in the black community. So he gets the job and he gets to see major cities across the country, even Mexico. And he's like, the cities are okay. But he prefers big sky country. He likes places like Wisconsin, Wyoming, Idaho, Iowa, Oregon. He loves the Rockies and the plains. He likes looking out of the window and seeing herds of cattle and farms and land. And so that's what he starts dreaming of.

And he also love listening and chatting with wealthy white passengers. This proximity is very important to him. And that's how he learns about homesteading. So the U.S. at the time was trying to entice more citizens to go west and manifest their destiny since they'd made the Louisiana purchase 100 years before. And people were going, but it's really slow. so they enact the Homestead Act to speed things up, which basically says, everybody,

for the low, low price of $18 or $560 today, we're going to give you some of this land that we stole from Native Americans and let you live there. The amount of land is 160 acres, which is over 100 football fields worth of land for $560 today. You have to agree to cultivate the land because right now it's all forest, and they're like, you have to build a house,

and you need to start a farm, and ideally a town, if a bunch of you are near each other. And two, you have to live on the land for five years before it's officially yours. And if you don't make it the five, the government takes it back and you lose your investment. And then the next question of like, can black people homestead?

It's like, yeah, but only because the U.S. forgot to do the racism on the front end. So they're like, once you get out there, we'll do racism to you there. Right. So Oscar hears this, and he's like, I think that that would be an amazing goal. My family loves land.

Bookertie said we need farms. He decides that he's going to go to Gregory, South Dakota, which is where he has the best shot at getting the land, and become a homesteader. Would you become, do you think he would be a homesteader in 19, this is 1904? Would you do that? I mean, the same incentive that a lot of poor whites had. I don't have shit anyway.

Being poor living in the city just after the turn of the century was a damn nightmare. You're talking about tons of manure and piss on the street, garbage, people crammed into ghettos. So this dream, I'm going to go out there and all this land. Why the hell not? It's not like, I think him being able, just the idea that he could break loose and go, because you've got to know, you on your own, anything that happened to you, everything you need, you got to take it with you. So all the weak people probably died off trying to do that.

And he's got a lot to prove because his family said he was lazy and he did quit all those jobs. Oh, I forgot. So they have every, look, he's the wrong guy for this trip. The dude is soft. And knowing him like, and knowing what the conditions are, they go, ain't no way in the hell. You're going to get your weak ass and go way out there all rough as it is. you're going to die. I wouldn't have let my baby go neither.

Break your ass back here, man. Create some artwork. Yeah. So he goes out there in 1904. He's in South Dakota, this beautiful prairie homestead. He's got like a lake near him or a little stream. He loves his land. It rains.

It always rains. And Oscar is not having a good time. He's starting a farm, but it's so hard. And he keeps making mistakes, really expensive ones. Most commonly, he keeps buying cheap horses, which he has to trade in because they're either crazy or sick. And his neighbors are all laughing at him. Oh, my goodness. I'm loving the context you're giving this.

Because horses like cars. Right. They had that issue, too. You know, horses don't walk right. Horses won't act right. Yes. Too damn skinny, too weak, all kinds of issues with horses, just like we got now with cars. And he details all of them.

It's so it's a good comparison to cars because it's like this horse, I didn't realize how to tell how old it was. This horse, like it's just, he keeps just, and he becomes known as if you have a bad horse, go take it to Oscar. He doesn't know the difference. So everybody's just like laughing at him. Right. And then also, speaking of his neighbors, none of them will talk. talk to him. They don't even bother to learn his name. They just call him the colored man since he's the only one. And he's really lonely. Yeah. He reads all the time and he writes articles for

black newspapers explaining how cool it is to own a homestead. And he hopes that this will inspire more black people to move to South Dakota. You're shaking your head. Poor bastard. Yeah. Yeah, I can relate to that. You can? How so? How so? like me. Out here way out in the middle of nowhere in a homestead. Only black person out here. Missing chocolate all the time. You know.

Okay, so what he's kind of what's inspiring him right now is about 15,000 black people lived on homesteads across the Great Plains in places like New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, but the overwhelming majority do it together. And they moved into what were called colored colonies.

The most famous one being in Nicodemus, Kansas. But there was one in South Dakota a few days' ride away from Oscar, and it's called the Sully County Colored Colony. And it has 200 black people, 8,000 acres of land, a restaurant. They have a huge Emancipation Day celebration and no loneliness. So Oscar wants to get one going in Gregory, but there's no takers, and even his parents moved to Kansas instead of South Dakota.

So he's just really in his feelings. But he refuses to quit this, and he refuses to let anybody see him as lazy. So he grinds for like a year. He works harder than anybody had ever seen. People are like, is he crazy? Because he would be out there rain or shine, in the snow, in the heat. He would not stop. He learns from his mistakes.

He makes all this progress. He gets his land going. And eventually his neighbors are like, respect. And they finally will speak to him and hang out with him. For the next three years, Oscar's living an adventure, like in one of his books. By day, he's building his home,

and then at night, because people are finally talking to him, he's going to the saloon. And Oscar's happy to not be so physically alone, but he's still the only Negro around. It'll be hard for a single man to build a house like that on his own. He really did need a wife,

and she wouldn't be no dainty woman, or y'all couldn't survive. She would have to go out there. help you push them down logs, period. He does have some money from being a Pullman Porter. So here and there, he's able to hire help. And the frontier is such an interesting place because it's people from all over the world are out there.

And a lot of them are poor. And a lot of them don't have anything. So he's kind of doing a step above a lot of other people because he has this little bit of Pullman Porter money. And he learned from white people and he gets really smart about, about how to take the money and grow it and where to invest it, so he's careful. He doesn't have a lot, but he's very, very careful.

And speaking of wives, at the end of the day, he goes home and there's no one to discuss his novels or his life or the farm or his dreams with. And in those moments, his thoughts would turn to Jesse. Because throughout the three years, he and Jesse have been writing each other sometimes every day. And Jesse gives him really good advice. She's a teacher now, so she's been working towards her goals,

and Oscar's really excited about that. all his great heroes have a great love. And he knows now that Jesse is his. So he decides it's time to marry this woman, bring her out here, get this color colony going. And like you said, what's that? What are you laughing? What do you think is going to happen? Yeah, you know, his, yeah, I would assume his motives were beyond just, you know,

for the greater need of the black community. I did by himself. our ancestors were still humans of flesh. Hell, that's the hardest part. You can't be real selective. He was lucky to have known a woman ahead of time. Yeah, I mean, whoa. Yeah, so okay, lucky guy.

He's poetic. He uses his skills to convince her to come out here to middle of no damn where. So Oscar arrives at Jesse's family home in Murphysboro, Illinois, Illinois. It's Christmas time. Jesse comes in the room. He hasn't seen her in three years, but he's like, she's still fine. I'm so happy.

Her eyes are dreamlike. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. At first, her mom and sister chaperone, but finally they make an excuse. They go to town, so they're alone. Jesse comes and sits next to him on the setty, and he takes her hand,

and then he puts his arm around her. He's like so nervous, so he, like, puts his arm around her waist, and then she's like, that's fine. And then he tells her, I love you. And she says, I love you too. And they don't kiss, but they're like, we are in love.

And they spend the next week hanging out. He even meets some of her friends, including a coworker named Orleem McCrackham. Oscar's the happiest he's ever been. He tells Jesse, I'm going to go get the homestead perfect. And then I'll propose to you. Jesse's like, what? No, just propose right now. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, it has to be perfect.

Now, you are a man. I feel that this is something men say all the time. What is that? Like, everything has to be perfect before I propose. What's that about? You know, he might, he might have a side chick, you know. He's trying to weigh his options, you know, right now, you know, saying that, because he, that's a serious delay.

I have known a few brothers, not to put all the brothers on blast, you know, who even today work within that kind of, that framework. As soon as I get, get my life together, as soon as I find out about this promotion, as soon as the career gets off the ground, then it's just me and, you. you there's a small chance that he honestly was trying to get his shit together but i don't think so you're skeptical you know he's probably uh better looking he's got more education and probably a little bit more dollars than the average guy in town he probably in that top you know one 10 percent of men and he might got options well his big sister hears about this his delay in proposing and

And she's like, Oscar, here's what you need to be thinking about. There's another dude in town that makes $3 a day, which is $100 a day now. And he would marry Jesse right now. So you don't want to mess around and lose your girl. You need to make some moves. And when he hears this, Oscar becomes obsessed with the idea that Jesse would consider leaving him for a guy that makes $3 a day. Now, he knows that that's not what his big sister said. that she was going to leave him.

He knows that all of this is hypothetical. He says it. He's like, I know I'm tripping, but he just spirals from there. So he goes back to the homestead. He works all day. He works all night. All he's thinking about is, I thought Jesse got my vision of making a name for myself and building us an empire.

And she would throw all that away for some guy that makes $3 a day. He gets another property, and he arranges for his grandmother to come live out on the land because he said that she has an adventurous heart. and she'd always love to do something like that. So he's got everything he needs to be able to put things together and get with Jesse. What would you want to see him do next? I would want to see him, hurry up and bring that girl there and marry her. But my spidey senses, I would think a man of his age would be more primal in his desire to want her there.

and may even work against logic, because that's what young people do. That's true. The animals. We want each other. We're going to get married Ray fucking now. That's how love works. Well, this is what he does.

He feels like he's been insulted by her. So he stops writing or responding to her letters. He decides, as a man, he's not going to be in competition with another man that only makes $3 a day. He wants to find a woman who understands his worth and a woman who will be charged. true. This problem doesn't exist. His sister said, marry her. Yeah, she put it in his head, but

she's speaking like a woman. You might want to listen to your sister, you know. And marry her. He should have married her right away. Yeah, because she's available. She's that type of, you know, other men. Yeah, that $3 guy, he won't her. He would put in that effort. But you can't. The other day I was on a walk and listening to an episode of the podcast that wasn't in my textbook. The episode was titled The First American Heroes, A History of Black Cowboys. And through host Toya's conversation with guests there in Burnett, I learned that before the Civil War, one in four cowboys was black, and that these men and women helped shape the American frontier

and redefine freedom in the post-Civil War West. Now, our Oscar wasn't technically a cowboy, boy, but this is a world that he was very adjacent to, so I think you're really going to like this episode. And in general, if you want to learn more about stories of black history that you probably weren't told in school, check out, that wasn't in my textbook, wherever you get your podcast. Now it's 1905. It's been four years since he's been on the homestead, and a few months after he stopped talking to Jesse. And he's had a couple other romances here and there. There was actually a white girl thrown into the mix, but he was like, I don't want to betray my race. So, but it's no wives. Like, he's like, I can't marry these women.

They can barely read. It's not the right fit. So he's like, I have to do this. I have to find my great love. And so he starts traveling from Illinois to New York City and back again, just stopping at any house being like, he really wants a farmer's daughter, but he's like, I'm desperate now. So I got to at least talk to some of these city girls.

So he's going from house to house trying to find his girl. He goes to Chicago. And the same year that he gets there, 1905, the Chicago Defender has just started. And the Chicago Defender was founded and edited by Georgia native Robert Singh Stack, Abbott. And it quickly became the most red paper in America. They cover all the things black papers cover, local, national, international headlines, arts, entertainment, sports and politics. But they also have a lonesome hearts section where people can write in there.

It's like, it's like Tinder. And you write in your profile and people can swipe left and right. What do you know about the Chicago Defender? Tell me about it. Most of the black newspapers of the era included those as part of the entertainment in the newspaper. You know, people wanted to read those. They looked for them. But there's a class issue there.

You know, you got to be articulate enough to write it. But it's interesting, though, isn't it? I love reading them. Pictures would be interesting, and if they could have done that, you know? They let's use the. The papers always say, like, you can send in a picture with your letter. Yeah. Sometimes people demand it.

They're like, you have to send a picture with this letter. So maybe that's why he got his picture taken. Oh, yeah. That would have been a big damn deal, and that's a really nice picture. I think people would have swooned over that. So he could have gone through the Lonesome Hearts column, but he probably didn't because he did find the defender in particular to be too radical. The defender made it their mission to not only organize against racism and violence against black people,

but to call for resistance when necessary. This is not Oscar's attitude. at all. He's not into it. Also, they're in everybody's business. So this is very standard of black papers at the time. As you know, they treat the community as like a household. Oscar does not like that. He doesn't love for people to be in his business. But whenever people came or left town, got married, had a baby, got divorced, saying well at a recital, bought a bunch of land in South Dakota. They were in the papers. So he travels to a town right outside of Murphy's Borough, which is Jesse's hometown, but he goes to the next town over,

and there's this girl named Daisy. She's a socialite, like an influencer type, and he finds her annoying, and he thinks she looks like a catfish, but she is single and country. So he tells her family, I own two properties in South Dakota. I'm looking to acquire a third. I will purchase it in her name and give it to her, and all she has to do is move to South Dakota and be my wife.

And Daisy's like, okay, and her family's like, fine. And then she tells everybody that they're engaged, but he's like, we're not engaged yet. I just was sort of like running it by you to see what you think. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But everybody just keeps saying they're engaged, they're engaged, rumors are flying.

He's not feeling good about his decision. So he gets on a train to go back to South Dakota and the conductor mentions Murphy Spurrow. That's where Jesse lives. On impulse, he just goes to her house. And he's like, Jesse, I've made a terrible mistake. I love you. I loved you all along.

My sister said a thing about a $3 a day, dude. I was tripping. I shouldn't have done that. I hope you can forgive me. And Jesse says, yes, I can forgive you. And he's like, amaze. Do you want to be together now? And she's like, well, my family has fallen on hard time, so we're broke, and I feel like we would be a burden to you. But he's like, no, you wouldn't because I have this new land and your family can live on it. We can get our colored colony going. We can be together. She says, yes, he finally kisses her. They're so in love. End scene. He gets back on the train, and then he goes to.

goes to see Daisy. He's supposed to be ending things with Daisy. But when he gets there, she's like immediately suspicious. She's like, have you been kissing somebody? And he's like, uh, uh, I don't know, I don't know what to do. So he kind of just doesn't really end it. He just leaves it vague and then he leaves. People start saying they saw Oscar at Daisy's house. So Jesse starts hearing this. And Jesse's like, well, Daisy is rich and I am broke. And he is a very ambitious man. So I guess he probably chose Daisy. And so she goes and she marries another dude that's 42. And they're like late 20s. So she writes to Oscar and she's like, Oscar, I know you pick Daisy. I understand. I have married this other man. Oscar's furious. He's like, what are you talking about?

I was about to marry you. I just had to get things ready on the prairie. She's like, I'm so sorry, it's done. Daisy's like, I'm also out. I found somebody else. So now he's all alone and he's really mad. But he remembers that Jesse had this friend, a teacher named Orlean McCracken. So he writes to her. And she tells him Jesse's loss is my gain. She's a city girl and she's in Chicago, but he's like, she's the one. He shows up at the McCracken family home in Chicago. He's greeted by her mom.

He likes her right away. And her sister, who he calls a human devil. Then Orling comes in. He doesn't mention how she looks. He's like, she's a teacher. Fine. They're both in their late 20s, so he's an eligible bachelor. but she is a spinster, fine.

He tells the mom, I will marry her right now. I have land. I want to buy it in South Dakota, but somebody has to be living on it. So we get married, we split our time between homesteads. Are you into this? And the mom is like, that is not romantic, and we have to wait for her dad to come before I, to get permission. He's a reverent. He's off preaching. Oscar's like, okay, fine, but I'm not kidding.

I will marry her today. I'm not, I got to get this done. So he's hanging out. he's waiting for the reverend to get back, to get permission. He's getting to know Orlean, and then he starts hearing all these rumors about the reverend. He hears that the reverend is a womanizer, that he thinks really highly up himself, that everybody hates him. And Orlean is like, no, he's none of those things. My dad is the best man that there ever was.

Finally, the reverend arrives, and Oscar realizes right away that they were not going to be getting along. So the reverend is six feet plus. He's dark skin, completely white hair, lots of swag. Yeah. He writes and reads, but only newspapers like the Chicago Defender. Oscar's like, ugh, eye roll. He talks too much. He wants to be complimented a lot.

Oscar doesn't like that. The Reverend clocks that Oscar isn't into complimenting him or showing him like signs of respect. And the Reverend, this thing bothers Oscar. The Reverend's saying that he was never a slave, but he's from Arkansas. And he was born before 1865. So Oscar is just like, you were a slave and he's openly skeptical, which is also disrespectful. Bad vibes aside. Oscar says, hello, Reverend. I want to marry your daughter and then do this land deal.

And the reverend's like, oh, you're so rich. And Oscar's very particular about this. He's like, I'm not rich. All my money is in the land. I don't have any cash on hand. I am what you would call house poor. But I could be rich if I get this colored colony going. The reverend's like, okay, rich you rich.

Like, you want to marry my daughter? But okay, that's fine. But you have to throw her a big wedding. And Oscar's like, I'm house poor. I don't have wedding money. I just need you guys to understand that, like, I need to marry her and then do this land deal. And the Reverend and his wife are like, you seem to only care about the land deal. It seems like you don't care about our daughter at all.

And Orlean is also like, it seems like you don't care about me at all. It seems like you only care about the land. Oscar realizes that he's losing the room and he needs to make a passionate speech. like in the books, to win the hand of his maybe great love. So he makes his final pitch to the McCracken family. And I'm going to have you read what Oscar, what he tells them, to convince them to give Orlean's hand in marriage. My dear people, when I first came to see Orlean, I didn't profess love.

Circumstances had not granted us the opportunity, but we entered a mutual agreement that we would wait and see. whether we could learn to love each other or not. I cannot guarantee anything as to the future. We may be happy and we may not, but I hope for the best. Would that convince you that this is the right man for your daughter? You know, with my four daughters, you know,

I didn't like no damn buddy, you know. You come on, I'm not interested in nothing that you're doing. You can come over here and wash my car, cut the damn grass, do some chores, take out some groceries, you know. But, you know, if you married my daughter, then, you know, you got nothing but I love and support. But until then, you ain't nobody. This is not a romantic speech, though. I feel like this is, if I was or late in the room, maybe I love her, maybe I won't, hope for the best.

And still seems like you hedging, man. You ain't, you, you're not acting like you want this woman. Mm-hmm. You keep coming up, you're not being, you ain't doing the love recklessness. That where we might have to hold you back, you know, and say, you know, wait till you get your shit together. Yeah, you can tell that, that letter was written for the whole family to read, you know. Mm-hmm. That would be an example, something read for everybody.

Listen what he's saying, y'all. Look what he's saying. As a group, what we're thinking. Mm-hmm. And as a group, they say, okay, they have a small ceremony in Chicago, and in 1910, the newlyweds travel to South Dakota, where they're greeted at the train station by 60 of Oscar's homesteader neighbors who throw them a reception, where Orlean tells Oscar,

oh my God, thank God, I thought they were all going to be a bunch of racists. So he's finally got a wife. Mr. and Mrs. Orlean and Oscar Michelle move into his home. They get that new plot of land for Orleans started. Then they move his grandma and one of his sisters onto another plot of land. So now there are three land claims that they are traveling. traveling back and forth between. Oscar's on his way to having his colored colony,

but it's just not as romantic as it would have seemed in the books because he's paying everybody's way. He's getting homes built. He's getting farms started. He's buying horses. He's stressed. And Orlean is like, all we ever do is work. Are we ever going to have any fun or just hang out?

And Oscar is like, Orlean, this is what it takes. You want me to just quit? Like, I'm lazy. She's like, who's that lazy? He's like, whatever. He keeps telling her we're house poor. There's not going to be any fun. She's like, how much longer do we have to live like this?

He's like, five to ten more years. That's it. She hates that answer. He's like, this is what he says. He's like, Orlean, my white prairie neighbors had their parents and their grandparents give them business knowledge and resources, but my parents and grandparents were slaves. It's unfair, but I have to work really, really hard to catch up with them. And I can if you will just support me.

Orlean is like, whatever. She gets on her horse and she will ride a day and a half away to her property or to his grandma's place until they have both cooled off. While she was away, he'd get really lonely again. So when she came back, they would promise that they were going to do better. And eventually, just like in his favorite books, they start to find common ground. She's helping with the horses. Like you were saying, she's pushing logs.

She's making their house a home. I imagine they're chatting about all the saloon gossip. They're reading their books next to each other. And they're finally starting to fall in love. They have this dream of starting a family. And then their kids will have kids and they'll own all this land. and then the next great black metropolis is going to be Gregory South Dakota.

That's their plan. So the Reverend comes for a visit. Oscar and Orlean have been together for about a year. Oscar says that he descends on the prairie like he owns the place. He wants to be the center of attention when they go out and at the house, and Oscar feels like he's sowing all these seeds

of discontent between him and Orleans. So they're at the house one night, and Oscar's like, man, I love Bookerty, Washington. Education and vocational training and hard work will get us economic security and acceptance, we're going to be okay. And the Reverend is like, I hate Booker T. Washington. And Oscar's like, oh, no.

He says, you are an acolyte of the educator and philanthropist from the South, aren't you? Who we, of course, know as W.B. Du Bois. He just published Souls of Black Folk, and it had tremendous sales, and in it he'd attacked Booker T. Washington's philosophy. On top of that, he's popularized the term of the town to 10th, this idea of the special 10% of Black Americans who are going to lead the race to freedom.

And he puts all this emphasis on higher education and thinks we shouldn't have to earn our civil rights because we're entitled to them under the Constitution. Oscar's like, how is he going to help us? How is Harvard educated, never been a slave, born and bred black elite, a man who has never had to get his hands dirty a day in his life? How is he going to help farmers and homesteaders and the illiterate and the impoverished, like the people that I come from. He's like, Booker T. Washington at least gave us a practical plan and a way to survive today. And he thinks that history is going to forget WB because he's too intellectual and theoretical. And the Reverend is enraged by this. Oscar doesn't detail his argument, but

people who were riding for WB at the time would have said it's not theoretical because Dubois and his homies have just started a group called the NAACP and they're fighting for equal rights and privileges and protections for black people under the law, and they're calling out race prejudice, especially in the South, because it can't be overcome with hard work. The culture and beliefs of people have to change, white people. And Oscar hates this kind of talk. He's like, first of all, everyone has just started a group to combat racism.

They're not going to last. Second, of course, we deserve equal protections and equal rights, but we have to eat today. And I don't understand what WB and NAACP's plan is to help us, us right now. And third, all white people aren't the problem is just the ones with race prejudice. And isn't it more practical to try to win those people over with your hard work and your upstanding, decent behavior than screaming in their faces that all white people are evil and demanding that they give us our rights? And the reverend's like, remember, he's probably a former

slave. He's like, I don't think that's more practical. How do you feel about this argument? What's going through your head right now? If I was a young man or a young woman, person in that era, I would definitely more strongly be leading toward Du Bois. But Washington would have been the only black leader most of us could have related to in the South. As a leader, we don't, you know, books, we don't know nothing about that. But we do know that we have a black man down here that white people don't lynch. They say he reasonable and smart. Maybe he knows something. I imagine that when they went off to college, though, and in intellectuals started to meet. They started hearing these ideas of Du Bois going way to the

minute. We could do what? So they're fighting. Orlean cannot take it anymore. So they stop for the night. She apologizes to Oscar for her, on her dad's behalf. She says he just gets these ideas from these black papers. Oscar's like, I'm not worried about him. But he will come to believe that this is the moment that the Reverend starts to plan his demise. Thank you to everyone that sign up to be a member of The Household. That's the donor community that's helping to keep this indie production going. I appreciate you nerd and out with me over bonus scenes. My director's commentary, behind the scenes footage. It's a very good time for me. If you'd like to join the household and the fun, visit our Ancesters Were Messy.com. Now, new episodes of this show will air every other week.

So on the weeks that there isn't a new episode, I will share bonus content with the household. next week I will bring you a messy family story that Ray told me some details of Oscar's story that didn't make the final piece and my family's reaction to this episode for those of you that have heard their reaction to episode one stay tuned to see if they like this ending any better join the household today at our ancestorswemessy.supercast.com So about a year after this visit, Orlean gets pregnant.

She and Oscar are so happy. about it. But a month before the baby is due, Orlean starts to get really nervous that somebody might try to contest her land claim. She's like, I know I got to make it the five years because I've been pregnant. I haven't been on the land as much. So she's like, let me go. I need to go have the baby on the land to be sure we're good. And Oscar really doesn't want her to. They go back and forth. He asks his neighbors. They're like, listen, her stressing out about this is not good. So just let her go have the baby on the land. So they agree that she is going to go. go out there in the middle of February in South Dakota and have the baby on the land.

The baby's coming in about a month. So he brings his grandmother down. He loads both the women into the wagon, gives them tons of extra blankets. He sends them off to the house. The neighbors near the claim are like, we got you. When she gets out here, we're going to watch out for her. And then her parents are going to come as soon as the baby is born. So Oscar's like, all right, and I'm on my way.

I'll be there really soon. He just has to wrap up some work. So he buys a coal stove. he sends it out to Orleans place. She says it's great. He says great. He tears down a couple of buildings on his property. He fixes a broken wheel on his wagon.

He waits out a storm. And then he gets on his horse. He goes out to Orleans. On the way, he runs into a neighbor, and he's like, everybody has been calling you. But he was on the road. Right. He says, Orlean is very, very sick

and your baby was born dead. Oscar is like, oh, my God. He rushes to the house. Orlean's in bed. bed, their baby boy is all wrapped up and he looks at him and he looks exactly like Oscar. And Orlean tells him that she prayed and prayed that he would live and that she thought her heart was going to break. When she's a little stronger, they bury the baby in the yard on her land and they grieved

together the passing of their son. Oh, they've been so excited to be the parents of Gregory South Dakota's first colored child. Even back there, you know, with infant mortality being really high, I would assume that people had all the hope in the world that your baby was going to make it. So after that, the Reverend arrives. This time he brings Orleans little sister, aka the human devil, and they're furious with Oscar. They tell him this is all your fault.

The sister says you were away when your child was born. Oh, you're so practical. You're so practical. You and your Booker T. Washington ideas. They're so mad. A doctor visits Orlean and says that while she's okay physically, the stress of this battle between her family members is too much for her to bear. She has to have a break. And her dad's like, she needs to come to Chicago to recuperate because all these country doctors don't know what they're doing. She needs a city doctor. Right. And Orlean is very hesitant to leave her husband, but the Reverend is very insistent. people throw shade and blame on you even today, you know, with modern technology that if you

would have did this or that, maybe your baby would have lived. And not a lot, but that can happen now. But back then, given all the the angst that they had with him and their worries and concerns, okay, they finally get married. Oh, we got a baby coming. All our worries are resolved. My goodness, it certainly worked out, and then the universe takes the baby away from them. And they're reaching out to blame some damn body in a world that they lived in. Why could it not be because he wasn't there in their world? That's not beyond their thinking. And they're looking out and to grieve and she is just probably that her depression must be so low.

And for him, I mean, all of his dreams. I also see this as, you know, couples can bond forever around these kind of tragedies or they break up. Mm-hmm. Their lives can't withstand it. This is probably the greatest test that they had to their relationship. But all the blame coming in, too? Mm-hmm. His wife is sick.

People blaming you. Your dreams have been destroyed. How do you come back from that? Mm-hmm. So he doesn't want to see his wife go to the city. to recuperate, but he's outnumbered, and she is just too tired to fight anybody anymore.

And so she decides that she's going to go back to the city with her dad. And so they exchange, I love you, they say goodbye, and she heads to Chicago. When she gets there, Oscar, they write each other all the time, and at first it's like normal how it's always been,

but then eventually her letters get really accusatory. She starts saying, oh, you were abusive towards me, and you were neglectful, and you were notewful, and you were there when our baby died. And she won't even speak to his grandmother. And they loved each other. And so Oscar

is like, what is going on? So he goes to Chicago to try and see her. And she's staying with the Reverend, of course. So he shows up at the house with a doctor to check on her. And the Chicago defender catches wind that something is going down

at the McCracken House. And so they sent a reporter to stake out the place and they catch Oscar and the doctor's arrival. And then they report the following. The two gentlemen, Mr. Misho, and Dr. Daly were standing waiting for the door to be open. But after our reporter stood for about half an hour waiting to see what was to be pulled off, the two gentlemen descended the steps and proceeded up the street.

Our reporter then went to the Keystone Hotel where Mr. Misho was staying and tried to interview him, but he evaded our reporter. He later found Mr. Misho in the parlor reading the defender. Our reporter struck up a conversation about his land in South Dakota and then asked about his father-in-law's trip out to his home. Mr. Mishio admitted he had a pleasant stay and also admitted his wife returned with her father. But he says she came to spend the summer for she was quite sick. When that's why he was not admitted into the home to see her, he said he thought that they were downtown at the time. We do know that Mr. Misho had only seen.

his wife once during his week's stay in the city. Oh, they just put this man, all these bitters out there, giving them the tea. The family, they've closed ranks around Orlean, and they won't let Oscar see her alone. He leaves him and he comes back to Chicago and he carries out this whole scheme so that he's finally able to get some alone time with her at their friend's house. But when they finally talk, he says that she seemed brainwashed against him. She says that he was a terrible husband and that he never prioritized her

and that he was abusive and that he wasn't there when her baby died. And then the Reverend shows up. And he and Oscar have this one final showdown. They go back and forth over who really loves Orlean and Oscar finally resorts to begging. He says, quote, I ask you for the sake of humanity

and injustice to mankind, do not take my wife. The Reverend, turns to Orlean and he says, you choose. And then sobbing, Orlean picks her father. The two leave the house. The door closes behind them. Oscar never sees Orlean again.

I don't know, you know, I'm sure that her family, poor family, pressured her after the fact you need to get away from this guy. Everything about him is just bad luck. Just bad juju. We told you so. You know, we told you so we never liked him. On top of that, the Chicago defender then reports that a banker hears about the drama and approaches Orlean and the Reverend about wanting to buy Orleans plot of land since she wasn't going to make it the five years. He was like, I'm going to tell the government and you'll lose everything or I could give you $300.

So the reverend's like, we'll take the $300. Oscars like, that land was worth $2,500. So he takes them to court to sue to get the money and the lamb back. Right. But he loses. So our Oscar goes home to the prairie, totally defeated. But this is when he enters into black history. Over the next two years, he writes down everything that I just told you and more.

And then he self-publishes his first novel, The Conquest, Story of a Negro Pioneer. Wow. He dedicates it to the Honorable Booker T. Washington. He keeps everybody's names the same at their first name, but he changes their last name to protect their privacy. Right, right. He sells the book Door to Door, and it's a big hit in South Dakota, which, like, of course it would be,

because everybody's like, oh, my God, what's, like, your drama? It's so there's so much in there. Then he hops on the train, and he starts traveling his old Pullman Porter route and linking up with all his old connects and dropping off his book into black communities around the country, and it takes off. So he writes a second novel, The Homesteader, in 1917. It's like a true crime kind of book.

And it's like a based on a true story. And basically he retells a very embellished version of this Orlean, like Reverend's saga. Right. Where the Reverend is so evil that he drives Orlean crazy and she kills him. It's a hit. Wow. Wow. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons. Right.

Then he's approached by these two Black brothers and they're like, we've started this small movie studio and we're looking for ice. to turn into films. We want to adapt your book. And he's like, okay, but I want it to be feature-length. And they're like, no, no, no. Everybody makes short films right now. We're black.

Like, what are you talking about? And he's like, no. I'm not afraid of hard work, and I want a feature-length film. So Oscar starts his own movie studio with investments from his prairie neighbors. He goes around and they all give him a little bit of money. He writes a script. He hires a crew and actors, all black. He shoots in South Dakota, cuts the film, names it the homesteader,

dedicates it to his mom. the movie, another hit, Black History. Because this movie is our nation's first feature-length film to be written and directed by a black person, and Oscar Michelle is America's first major black filmmaker. Well, I'll be damned. And that's Black History. And that's Black History.

Exactly. He starts churning movies out, one right after the other. Black audiences love it. They cannot get enough. White audiences are also into it. He casts all Black actors in his movie. creating the first black movie stars. Then Birth of a Nation comes out. It's super racist, obviously.

It inspires all these moviegoers to go home and join the KKK and lynch their neighbors. And this really shocks Black America. And in response, everyday people, institutions like the NAACP and artists like Oscar protest this movie in any way that they can. After the release of Birth of a Nation, he really focuses his movies on challenging negative stereotypes

about black people. So in the last quote, I'm going to have you read. It's what the NAACP says about the legacy of Oscar Mishot and his films. Michelle used his films, the first by a black American, to be shown in white movie theaters to portray racial injustice suffered by black Americans, delve in into topics such as lynching, job discrimination, and mob violence. Oscar goes on to make 40 films over the next 20 years, and he's a lot of the next 20 years, and

his legendary work ethic and activist views create the blueprint for independent black cinema. I thought this was funny. One of the historians was like he wasn't afraid to call out the hypocrisies of Black America because he always has like an evil reverend character in his movies. I was like, I don't think it was because he was calling out hypocrisy. I think this was like vengeance against the reverend. But maybe by then the Reverend didn't care because in 1917, the year her and

Oscar's divorce was finalized. Orlean is in a runaway carriage accident, and they managed to get her to the hospital, but the doctors refused to treat her because she's black. Yeah. And then she passes away from her injuries. I wonder if this impacted Oscar.

I don't know. They don't say how he reacted to it. But he does go on to enjoy tremendous success. He lives a comfortable life that he'd always dreamt of, complete with his great love, his favorite actress, and white. Alice B. Russell, they stay together for 25 years until he passes away. By then, he'd long since given up on homesteading to focus on filmmaking full-time,

but he still managed to make history there too because the National Park Service cites Oscar's novel, The Conquest, as being an invaluable resource for understanding what day-to-day homesteading life was like and what it actually took to maintain a little house on the prairie. Today, all the colored colonies are gone except for one in Nicodemus, Kansas. July 24, they celebrated their 146th anniversary. There's so much more that happens, but for now, that is the story of one of America's great pioneers, Oscar Michelle. Amazing.

Real life is stranger than fiction. True, right? And life is complicated. I mean, what it can take to go from one place to another place. You never know what that journey is going to be. He had one idea. He sought out perfection. The universe conspired against him.

And had he not had all those negative experiences, he could not have written about them. And if I saw any parallel in my own life, of all the stories that I tell, most of them come from experiences, I would not have asked for. Really? But in the telling, you know, there's some treasure there. Do you have an opinion on the right way that black people should go about fighting for justice and civil rights today? You know, there's all this talk about, like, Booker T was wrong, W.B. was right. Maybe W.B. was wrong. Maybe we're right now. What do you think about that? One thing is, sir, every major movement for social change has ever taken place in the black community has always been with the muscle of young people. Now, generation after generation, we have ideas about how we think these things are going to go,

but we don't seem to make a giant step, take a little step, until the next generation comes ahead and takes that step even further. If I had any thoughts on it, it's I have my old ideas, but I try to keep my ear to the pulse of what young black people are saying and what they're feeling, what their needs are, what they see the future is, you know. I'm trying to look beyond my nose. knows. I'm all for a racial uplift. I'm all for having a strong blue collar work ethic. I think it's enough room for black people to fit into all them spaces, you know, and not be limited.

None of the one things today were. We want them all. This show was written in research and produced by me, Nicole Hill. Thank you to the OG, Dr. Ray Christian. You can hear him on his fan-tastic podcast, What's Ray Sayam? This is an indie show, but that doesn't mean I did it alone. Everyone, please give it up. For my executive producer, A.A. Hernandez. This week's sound designer extraordinaire, Kyle Murdoch, my story producer, Martina Abraham Zulunga, my research producer, and the voice at the top of the episodes leading

into the ads to Chioki Ayansen. My script editor, Shaunce Hill. Thank you for research assistants from Siona Petros and for the show and episode art by Selika Smith. To learn more about the show, you can visit our Ancesters Were Messy.com. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Also, I've been getting listener mail, and I love it. People have been writing in with additional research into the ancestors that I cover on the episode. So if you have any additional research you want to share or messy family stories of your own, email me at our AncestorsWemessy at gmail.com.

And I will share that out. Use a pen name or something. you don't get uninvited from Sunday dinners. Before I go, I just have to say, I'm not a historian or an archivist by training. I'm a storyteller who stumbled across our ancestors' old newspapers one day and was reminded of a quote from Peter Pan. All this has happened before, and it will all happen again.