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- [00:00]
Announcer
This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive. For more. Capella University's Flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella. Edu.
- [00:15]
Tonya Mosley
This is FRESH air. I'm Tonya Moseley. My guest today, actor Wendell Pierce, is taking on a part he's wanted to play for years, Shakespeare's Othello. One of the most demanding roles ever written for the stage, the classic is a story of a celebrated military leader who is slowly manipulated into doubting his own wife until jealousy and deception consume him. Pierce is known to many as Detective Buck Moreland on the Wire and Antoine Batiste on HBO's Treme. On Broadway, he became the first black actor to play Willy Loman in Death of a salesman, earning a 2023 Tony nomination for the role. His range these days runs just as wide. A police captain on CBS's El, a CIA officer in Jack Ryan Ghost War and a villain in Raising Canaan on Stars. He plays Othello at the Shakespeare Theater company in Washington, D.C. until June 28th. Wendell Pierce, welcome to FRESH AIR.
- [01:17]
Wendell Pierce
Thank you for having me, Tanya.
- [01:19]
Tonya Mosley
Okay, so we are talking just a few hours before you go on stage there in D.C. as Othello. And what is your head like a few hours before you take on this role?
- [01:32]
Wendell Pierce
Oh, it's really rest and relaxation because I have a couple of hours that I have to prepare for. But I try to relax and warm up and mind, body and spirit, prepare for the journey. You know, I always think of these roles, you know, these iconic roles and large roles like the beginning of
- [01:58]
Tonya Mosley
a
- [01:59]
Wendell Pierce
hike up Mount Everest. So I'm at base camp at this time of the day.
- [02:04]
Tonya Mosley
That's a good that's a good analogy or metaphor, whatever you want to call it. Because, I mean, this role you said has challenged you like few ever have. What is it about Othello?
- [02:18]
Wendell Pierce
Well, first of all, just the playwright himself, Mr. William Shakespeare is a great challenge. You know, I try to do the trifecta, as I call it, do television and film and theater every year. You know, the great trifecta and all of the different mediums. But I think I'm going to expand that to quartet because I would like to do a Shakespeare every year if I can, because first of all, detective work, I call it, of mining the text for all of its understanding. And everything that Shakespeare was is telling you not only about the characters but how to portray them and what's happening. And that's with the in the verse and the iambic pentameter. But it's also in the onomatopoeia of the words sounding like what they are. The monosyllabic words denoting a slower pace and the opposite being true multi syllabic words, a faster. That's just the technical aspect of doing a classical text like that. And then you have the emotional work that you have to do in the connection with the other actors and characters and the love that I have for Desdemona and actually the discovery in this role is the love that I have for Iago, which has been key for opening up Othello for me. Normally he is just seen as the villain and manipulated by Iago, but actually that is a part of the love story too. He is, in my interpretation, he is the person that I've known and loved and trusted all of my life. Because I'm orphaned. I am an outsider and I'm orphaned since a small child. And so you build that up and then you have to have the physical and then the vocal strength for a three hour production. So the challenge is physical, it's intellectual and it's emotional.
- [04:29]
Tonya Mosley
You mentioned a little bit ago that you do a trifecta every year, but is that an intentional thing that you're making for yourself this year? I'm going to make sure I'm doing one of these three things now. The fourth one. Making sure that you do a Shakespeare play.
- [04:48]
Wendell Pierce
Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm in the third act of my career, I think, you know, and I'm challenging myself. It's not just to go from job to job, but be intentional about the jobs I take. And I try to plan out the year that way. I still have to hope that someone hires me to do it and I have to be good enough to get the auditions and get the offers and all. And then also just as an actor, you want to be as diverse as possible. And that's been the reason I've been able to have a 40 year career working in New York and Los Angeles and doing television, doing film, doing theater, as many different places. I've produced a play in Uganda. I've in Kampala, Uganda, at the National Theater there. I try to make it as diverse as possible. A great challenge. And that's what the journey is all about.
- [05:53]
Tonya Mosley
I'm hearing the words you're saying, Wendell, but I saw all the things that you're doing right now and I thought, whoa. I mean, this is like these. You're doing more in a year than many people do in five Years. It seems like as you get older, you're almost riding yourself even harder.
- [06:13]
Wendell Pierce
Well, you know, that ticking clock of mortality kind of helps.
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Commercial Narrator
Yeah.
- [06:18]
Wendell Pierce
You want to build a body of work. You want to, you know, subconsciously that probably is a part of it, but also it's not all at the same time. You know, right now, Jack Ryan Ghost War is out. But that was last summer and spring when we shot that in Dubai, in London. And then Elsbeth just ended the season. We do that during the course of the regular television season from September to March. And now while I'm doing that, I was planning out Othello for as soon as we got finished to do that, to come to Washington D.C. and do Othello here and then raising Canaan. We had already shot that prior to last year. It was been in the can for like a year. So it's all fortunate that they're all coming out at the same time. So it seems like I'm doing them at the same time, but I break. But you know, all these jobs an actor's life is in. Well, I've discovered they're kind of in quarters of the year, you know, first, second, third, fourth quarter. And that's how I think of my planning. Because we work in three month periods. You know, a play in three months, you know, a full season of television is maybe six months. So. And a film is three months. So you're constantly planning and it's constantly changing. But I'm a journeyman actor and some people say I shouldn't say that, but I actually embrace that. That's something that is a. I wear with pride. I love to call myself a journeyman.
- [08:01]
Tonya Mosley
Is there a stigma to being a journeyman actor?
- [08:04]
Wendell Pierce
Some people think so. They say, oh, Wendell, you shouldn't say that, man. You know, you've established yourself in, in the industry as someone significant. You know, I guess people are thinking of some star system or whatever. And I said, you know, there's the joke that we have as actors is of the five stages of your career, there's who is Wendell Pierce? Get me Wendell Pierce. Get me someone like Wendell Pierce. Get me a younger Wendell Pierce. And then the last and final and fifth stage is who is Wendell Pierce?
- [08:50]
Tonya Mosley
So you're racing against not being who
- [08:51]
Podcast Promo Narrator
is Wendell Pierce to that stage, right?
- [08:54]
Wendell Pierce
Yes.
- [08:55]
Tonya Mosley
Do you have a favorite scene from Othello?
- [09:01]
Wendell Pierce
Oh, no, I have favorite. Oh, there's too many. It's so rich. You know what's interesting is Desdemona and Othello don't have any love scenes. They literally do not have any love scenes. And it's one of the things that I really love about our production, that in the midst of scenes of strife, of conflict, of war, we find the moments to show our love for each other. But, you know, the first time is they're going to war. And I have to say, this is why I married her. This is what the intention is. I talk about my love for her, and then I get to war. I say, get to Cyprus, and I realize that she's there. And I go, thank God. You know, I've made it through it. But what is normally arousing speech of on the. On the battlefront? I. I make it into a declaration of love to Desdemona because she's there and present. And I don't care what others around me at this time and moment are saying. And, you know, I say, if it were now to die, twere now to be most happy. You know, I cannot speak enough of this content. It stops me here. It is too much of joy. And I'm only talking about her, right? And it's normally played as, you know, I made it through the battle and I made it here, and all of you guys are here. And I happen to have my wife, too. And it's a really wonderful thing. We've done it. The war is done, you know, And I'm like, no, it's a love scene.
- [10:47]
Tonya Mosley
Wendell, I'm noticing a theme in your work. You're drawn to roles that take you somewhere dark and deep. And of course, Othello does that. And so did Willy Loman, which you played back in 2022 when you became the first black actor to play him in Death of a Salesman on Broadway. He is an aging traveling salesman chasing success. He really wants to be well liked. How did you find your way into Willy Loman?
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Wendell Pierce
The first man I thought of was my father. My father had a great work ethic. He was a man, very simple laborer who had wanderlust, loved to travel. He kind of instilled that in us. He said, you can be whatever you want to be. And he also warned us that there are going to be people who will do everything possible that you won't succeed. And so it was always there that I started to think of Willy Loman. And what is so tragic about Willy Loman is for men like that, the American dream was still something that was denied them at every step of the way. We achieved part of the American dream, but it was through an extreme difficulty, and that's what. And that can Break people. That can destroy people's psyche and destroy their heart, destroy their mental facility. And I think that's what happened with Willy Loman. Right. Because he was a black man in America that loved the country, that loved the economic ethos and idea of the American dream. But then that dream was a nightmare for him. He was placed in his expectations far out, lasted and grew far past what was available to him. And out of that desperation, he destroyed himself and he destroyed his family.
- [13:35]
Tonya Mosley
You know, that's what's so powerful about you playing this character. Because I think that the whole premise, the idea of Death of a Salesman, it is something that everyone can sort of connect to, especially as an American here.
- [13:50]
Wendell Pierce
Absolutely.
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Tonya Mosley
But there's another layer there when you add on you and your identity as a black man.
- [13:57]
Wendell Pierce
Yeah, as a black man in America. I mean, because what happens is there are people that came to the play that thought we rewrote the play. They said, you can't change that. A producer actually came to me just with great concern, like, wait, you change. You can't say. There's the scene where Willy Loman is caught in infidelity with a woman in the hotel by his son. It is the moment that broke all of their lives. And I tell her, listen, go into the bathroom, you know, and be quiet. There may be a law against this. Right? And in our production, I'm having an affair with a white woman. And it's 1937, I think it was. And we're in this hotel, and she is, you know, scantily clothed, and there's a knocking on the door. And I'm thinking it's someone that can expose our infidelity. And I say, you know, there may be a law against this. And I'm thinking of the laws that were of the time that if the literal laws of, you know, you could not marry, you could not be together in an interracial relationship. And then there was the time that so many black men were lynched because they were caught with a white woman. It's one of the most dangerous things that can ever happen. It was the time of the Scottsboro Boys. It was the time of, you know, of danger. And actually, the producer thought we put it in there, right? And I said, no, that's in the play. Because actually, the law at the time is no unmarried couple could be in a hotel together. And that's the law that. They were thinking of that in Boston at this time. You know, you're not supposed to be in a hotel together unless you're married. You know, there may be a law against this. And that simple line rang out like something you had. Had never heard before.
- [16:17]
Tonya Mosley
It felt different. Right? Yep.
- [16:19]
Announcer
Mm.
- [16:22]
Tonya Mosley
The last time that I spoke with you, we were in the pandemic, and you were spending a lot of time with your dad during that time. It was like 20, 21. And since then, he is. He has passed away. And I just want to offer my condolences. First off.
- [16:39]
Wendell Pierce
Thank you. Thank you. I have my dad. He was two months away from his 99th birthday. I literally. He passed in my hands. You know, we were holding hands. I was there with him. And so I had my father for a long time. And those last years I spent, I got closer to my father in the last 10 years of his life than I ever had before. My mother passed, and one of her dying wishes was, wendell, take care of your father. Right. She knew. And, you know, while I was working in Budapest, if I got four days off, I would go home to New Orleans. Right. And spend time with him. It was a blessing. I was traveling the world and being an actor, and at the same time, my home base is New Orleans. And here I would have my father with me for all those years. And he was. He was fuel to my fire. You know, he was reminding me of everything that he taught me. And as I. As I attacked these challenges of these great roles and the different roles that I play, you know, he is very much in my process. This is a man who fought in Saipan in World War II, you know, and came back and was nothis voting rights weren't even protected. And here he was risking his life in the double V campaign in the black community. Victory abroad and victory at home. So he very much believed in that.
- [18:22]
Tonya Mosley
There's actually a moving speech that you gave the opening night of Death of a Salesman, where you're paying tribute to your father. And he was actually in the audience at the time. And I want to play some of it. Let's listen to a little bit.
- [18:41]
Wendell Pierce
When this play was written, a young man came from New Orleans to be a photographer. He decided to go home and raise his three boys in New Orleans, one of which is me. He fought for this country and loved it when it didn't love him back. But he gave me the most precious thing ever.
- [19:12]
Ira Glass
Love
- [19:15]
Wendell Pierce
and time.
- [19:19]
Tonya Mosley
That was my guest, Wendell Pierce, on opening night of Death of a Salesman. And at that moment when you say time, he gave me time. You. You hold up a timepiece and you walk off the stage and you present it to your dad.
- [19:33]
Wendell Pierce
And that was the timepiece pocket watch from the play that you see Willy Loman receive from his brother. It is. And I had presented it to him. And I knew in that moment it was probably the last time he would ever see me on stage. And I just wanted to honor him.
- [20:08]
Tonya Mosley
Our guest today is actor Wendell Pierce. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley and this is FRESH air.
- [20:15]
Commercial Narrator
This message comes from Progressive Insurance. You're listening to this podcast. So you've got a curious mind. Did you know that drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average? Visit progressive.com and get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12 month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who save with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary. This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana Making. Buying a car 100% online with real transparent pricing and customiz financing that fits your budget. Browse thousands of cars and get yours delivered. Visit Carvana.com today. Delivery fees and terms may apply.
- [21:02]
Wendell Pierce
This is Ira Glass on this American Life. One that we like is a good
- [21:06]
Ira Glass
mystery sometimes about really big things, but
- [21:10]
Wendell Pierce
most times the little mysteries are the best. Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know. I've never seen this happen. This is true.
- [21:19]
Ira Glass
This is true.
- [21:20]
Wendell Pierce
Mysteries of every size each week. This American Life. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:27]
Tonya Mosley
You know, I'm thinking about how you say that you got into the character Willy Loman by really thinking about the journey of your father. And that story you told in your speech just then for opening night, that was a revelation to you, that your father was a young photographer right around the time Death of a Salesman was going out into the world. Because your dad, for the longest time you thought he didn't want this life of a creative for you. You thought he wanted you to be kind of traditional man, a lawyer or a doctor, something safe.
- [22:11]
Wendell Pierce
He was. Oh, man, I went to a very good school, very great college preparatory school. Ben Franklin is the number one high school in Louisiana. And it's, you know, all these great National Merit Scholars and people with scholarships and going to the Ivy Leagues and great careers. And he just when I decided early on in the middle of that I wanted to be an actor at 14, going to this other great school, the New Orleans center for Creative Arts, I had the best of both worlds. Oh, he was so adamantly against it. He's like, let your mama take you to all that stuff. I'm not gonna do it. But he stuck to his guns. His principle was, you do what you want to do, but give 100%. And so he was adamantly against it. But then my brother made me remember that my father was a photographer. And he said, I want daddy's pictures. You know, if anything ever happens, I want Daddy's pictures. I said, what pictures? And he showed me these pictures from an art exhibit my father had done when he had studied as a photographer and he went to New York. I knew he had gone to New York to study photography because that was trade back in the day. We didn't have our phones and Instamatic cameras. You went to a photography studio and got your pictures taken. So the. So when the Instamatic camera came out, actually, an entire industry went away because a photographer was like your. Like a grocer or a dry cleaner. You know, the family got together, they went to the photography studio, and they took pictures. And that's what he was expecting to do, and that's what I thought he was training to do when I realized he had an artistic vocation of being a photographer, like Roy DeCarava or James Van Der Zee and all of these wonderful photographers. When I saw these from his exhibit. So it was a dream deferred for him. So a part of his pushback on my wanting to be an actor was his desire as a father not to see his son go through the hurt and the disappointment that he had gone through. And so that's why he tried to steer me away from being an actor. Early on, when I was in high
- [24:47]
Tonya Mosley
school, you went on to study at Juilliard, which you have said is kind of the most terrifying experience of your life. You made it through there. You could make it through anywhere. But you. There's this other story you tell that you've told many times, but we gotta hear it here. Your most memorable audition. You had just graduated from Juilliard, and you're in front of Bob Fosse.
- [25:11]
Wendell Pierce
Oh, wow. Yeah. That audition I consider one of the highlights of my career. And it was for the Big Deal on Broadway. And I went in and I had come up with. They had already started. And it's a play about a boxer who is being manipulated by the mob. And he's throwing fights, and he takes his life back. He goes, listen, all right, this is it. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm taking my life back. And so he explodes in the middle of. In this one Scene. And so I was going into audition. They had already started rehearsal, and on the break, I was going to go in and do my audition. So as the doors open and they're coming out for a break, I run into the room and I said, all right, listen up, everybody. This is what's going to happen. I'm taking my life back. And I go into the scene, right? Everybody stops. Like, who is this crazy guy? They say, okay, okay. All right, everybody go on break. Bob Fosse clears the room. He says, okay, now do it. The stage manager is fumbling, trying to find the scene. I say, all right, everybody, this is it. I'm taking my life back. He goes, stop, stop, stop. The stage manager was lost. He says. He turns to the pianist and he goes, give me an f. Vamp. Boom, boom, bump, bump, bump, bump. Then he says, give me the script. And he says, okay, start. And I said, all right, everybody, this is how it's gonna grow. I'm taking my life back. And he reads the scene with me. No, you aren't. You're still gonna do what we say. I said, no, it's gonna go this way. Bump, bump. And he circles me, and we read the scene together. And at the end, he goes, oh, you're good, but you're too young. You're too young. Oh, man. But I want to work with you. He calls my agent. My agent calls me and says, what did you do today? Bob Fosse called and said he's going to work with you this year. I said, oh, my God, that's great, but you're too young for this. But he's going to find something. He's going to work with you this year. Later that year, I'm in the hotel room and I see Bob Fosse's picture comes up. And they say, ladies and gentlemen, Bob Fosse died today. And I was like, oh, man. I was gonna work with him. I was gonna work with him. And then I had the epiphany. I did work with him. I did. We did a scene together, had the music behind it. We read, was great. We had an audience of one. But I did work with Bob Fosse. And that's when I realized an audition is an opportunity to share your work. You're not asking for a job. You're saying, this is what I would do with this role. This is what this play is about. This is what this film is about, and just go and do the work. It's opening and closing night, and that's it. And if something comes out of it, the job itself or whatever, then that's then you get to continue to do the work. But that's my Bob Fosse story.
- [28:36]
Tonya Mosley
What a confident young man you were. I'm taking my life back.
- [28:40]
Wendell Pierce
Yes.
- [28:42]
Tonya Mosley
If you're just joining us, my guest is actor Wendell Pierce. He's starring as the title character in Shakespeare's Othello. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH air.
- [28:54]
Commercial Narrator
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- [29:11]
Announcer
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- [29:40]
Ira Glass
on consider this NPR's afternoon news podcast. We cover everything from politics to the economy to the world. But every story starts with a question. At npr, we stand for your right to be curious, to make sense of the biggest story of the day and what it means for you. Follow. Consider this wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:03]
Tonya Mosley
You know, Wendell, so many of the men you play are holding on to dignity within systems who don't fully see them. It seems to be kind of like the through line that I see with so many of the characters you play. And I want to talk for just a moment about Bunk Moreland from the Wire. In a lot of ways, anyone who's seen the show knows it. But I mean, he was the conscience of the show. He took so much pride in his job even inside of this department, that made it kind of hard. And I wanna play a scene that comes after a shootout. It's where one of the women in Omar's crew has been shot dead in the street. And now Omar, who was played by the late Michael K. William, is this fierce kind of stick up man who robs high end drug dealers. And Bunk is investigating that killing and he pulls Omar aside to this quiet, deserted spot and they have this moment that we're about to play. Let's listen.
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Wendell Pierce
I was a few years ahead of you at Edmondson, but I know you remember the neighborhood, how it was. We had some bad boys for real. It wasn't about guns so much as knowing what to do with your hands. Those boys could really rack. My father had me on the street, but like any young man, I wanted to be hard, too. So I would turn up at all the house parties where the tough boys hung. Yeah, they knew I wasn't one of them. Them hard cases would come up to me and say, go home, school boy. You don't belong here. Didn't realize at the time what they were doing for me. As rough as that neighborhood could be, we had us a community, Nobody, no victim who didn't matter. And now all we got is bodies and predatory like you. And out where that girl fell, I saw kids acting like Omar Calling you by name, glorifying your. Makes me sick how far we done fell. Mm.
- [32:29]
Tonya Mosley
I just wanna listen to the rest of the show right now. That was my guest, Wendell Pierce, and the Wire. Wendell, is it true that there was actually a turning point during the height of the success of this show when you thought about leaving it?
- [32:45]
Wendell Pierce
Yes. Yes. There came a point. Someone, during the course of the Wire, people would challenge us all the time. You know, you are only demonstrating the thuggery and the crime, and you're perpetuating this idea that the stereotype that black folks are criminally inclined and violent and all. I remember a woman on the train challenging me, an African American woman who worked on Wall street. And I said, I accept your criticism. We should never lose the ability to be offended. Never lose that ability. So I welcome the challenge, and that's. And the criticism, so I can make sure that we don't fall victim to that criticism. I said, but we have judges, the mayor, the president of the city council, the city council members, police officers, lawyers, doctors, teachers who are all African American. But you're only seeing the criminals. Imagine how tough it is for a little kid in those neighborhoods. They don't see the lawyers or the doctors. If you don't see them as an educated woman, a professional, and you can only see the thuggery. Imagine how susceptible those young kids are to it. And that's what we're trying to tell and the story we're trying to tell. Now, in the fourth season, I almost quit because at our wrap party, a young lady comes up to me. She said, oh, Mr. Pierce, I was on the show this year. I really wanted to work with you. I didn't get. We didn't have anything together. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your work and all. And, you know, this is my only time being on the wire. And I'm going to Brown. I think she was going to on a full scholarship. And I said, who did you play? And she says, I look younger than I am. So I was one of the kids in the middle school and I said, oh. And then she described the character that she played was this out of control young woman who slashes another girl's face.
- [35:04]
Tonya Mosley
Oh, I know that.
- [35:05]
Wendell Pierce
Over something trivial. And I said, wait a minute, you played that? And she said, yes. And I said, and what do you do in life? Wait, where are you going? She was like, I'm going to Brown University on full scholarship. And I thought to myself, why are we not telling your story? Why are we not telling your story? And I thought about the criticism and I said, that woman was right. And I said I should leave the show because we're perpetuating a stereotype. And then the episode came on for the fourth season and it was so impactful. And we see exactly where we lose our kids and we see that inflection point where we can save them and put them on the right track and where we can make them the young woman who goes to Brown on a full scholarship and where we lose them and send them into that pipeline into the penal system. And then I said, okay, it's not arbitrary. That's the role we're playing on the wire. We are the cautionary tale. We are, as Shakespeare said, holding a mirror up to nature and calling our dysfunction out in our society that creates the criminality that doesn't celebrate the education of this young woman going to school and all. So it wasn't arbitrary. And then that's the only thing that made me come back.
- [36:48]
Tonya Mosley
Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is actor Wendell Pierce. He's starring in the title role of Shakespeare's Othello at the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, D.C. we'll be right back after a break. This is FRESH air. Every story from Short Wave NPR Science Podcast starts with a question like why do we have nightmares? How does AI affect my energy? Bill at npr, we are here for your right to be curious about the world around you. Follow Short Wave wherever you get your podcasts, because the more you ask, the more interesting the world gets.
- [37:27]
Podcast Promo Narrator
Every episode of it's been a minute, NPR's what's Happening in Culture podcast starts by asking three who, how? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it at npr. We stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow it's been a minute. Wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll break down the zeitgeist y topics that are filling your feed. Your favorite toys are back in Toy Story 5, and they're facing some new competition, the dreaded tablet. How will Buzz and Woody handle kids glued to screens? And how does this new movie compare to others in the franchise? We get into it on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Listen via the NPR wherever you get your podcasts.
- [38:11]
Tonya Mosley
You know, I think anybody who knows you or even knows just a little bit about you knows that you are from New Orleans. You rep it very hard. And you grew up in Pontchartrain park in New Orleans. It sounds so idyllic. You had a pretty idyllic childhood. It sounds like it was.
- [38:36]
Wendell Pierce
I called Punch Train park the Black Mayberry. You know, it grew out of the civil rights movement when there was so many prohibitions where blacks could not participate in the expansion of post World War II, you know, suburbia. And there was a movement to make sure that black folks had access to homes and all. And Puncher Train park came out of sort of an appeasement. It was separate but equal, adjacent to Gentile woods, which was a white neighborhood with the covenant of blacks couldn't move in. And they set aside another 200 acres and replicated that neighborhood in Pontchartrain Park. But right in the middle of it, Joseph Bartholomew designed a golf course, a little municipal golf course. And Joseph Bartholomew was an African American landscape architect who designed most of the courses in New Orleans at the time but couldn't play on them. So it was the yin and yang of fighting the ignorance of Jim Crow segregated New Orleans, but at the same time creating pockets of idyllic communities. And Puncher Train park was one of them, and lawyers and doctors and teachers and janitors and the glass man, Mr. Wagner was a glass man and Mr. Greenwood was the dry cleaner. So it was economic development and everybody's your mother and father and the playground there at Southern University at New Orleans, at a black historic black college right in the neighborhood. So it was really, really idyllic.
- [40:39]
Tonya Mosley
Yeah. So many memories with you and your mom and your dad, your mom who was a schoolteacher, your siblings.
- [40:45]
Wendell Pierce
And she taught two blocks from our home at, at Coghill Elementary School, where I went to elementary school. And for years I was just known as Mrs. Pierce's son because she was so beloved in the neighborhood and she was a part of the community.
- [41:04]
Tonya Mosley
What was that like for you? What was that like for you, though, to be A child of a schoolteacher.
- [41:09]
Wendell Pierce
Well, it was. All of our teachers lived in the neighborhood too. So the worst part about it is, you know, I would come home from school or come home from the playground, and my mother's sitting there with my second grade teacher and my third grade teacher and my fourth grade teacher, and, you know, and they're having their cocktails after work, you know, so every. All of my teachers I would see on a regular basis socially with my mom, I couldn't get away with anything. But it was great, you know, it was great. The community and totally destroyed by Katrina. One of the deepest parts of the flooding. And I knew how it was first built. The civic advocacy that constructed Pontchartrain park and the civil rights movement, led by AP Turo, one of the great civil rights lawyers of New Orleans and my parents generation. So I put out a clarion call to our generation after Katrina, saying we owe it to them. You know, we owe it to them to rebuild it. And so we have rebuilt it. Our neighborhood, brick by brick, block by block, house by house. And puncher Chain park is back. I led an effort and we rebuilt 40 homes. And that's where I live to this day. I'm still there in Puzzle Train Park.
- [42:40]
Tonya Mosley
You wrote this book out of that, the Wind in the reeds in 2015. I mean, it's a memoir, but it also is this love letter to New Orleans. It's so descriptive about your childhood, but then just about the city and the history. And there's a particular moment you say, decades from now, little kids will ask, Mr. Pierce, what did you know about New Orleans darkest hour? And you will tell them. And that got me thinking about this quote that I'm kind of obsessed with right now from Bryan Stevenson, where he said that basically, our ancestors fought for freedom, our parents fought for civil rights, and our generation's struggle is a narrative one, the honest accounting of what actually happened. And reading your book, I just felt echoes of that. I wonder what you. How you feel about that idea, because you're just so intentional in making sure that this story, particularly about New Orleans and Katrina, stays alive.
- [43:49]
Wendell Pierce
It is the most important thing we have right now in our time and our generation. People are actively trying to erase who we are as a people. I am only minutes away from the Pentagon as I speak right now. And I remember my father admiring General Chappie James Benjamin Chappie James. And to know that they just removed his painting from the Pentagon. And whatever reason they come up with, we all know the reason. It's just racist. And the idea of trying to eliminate any sort of contributions that the African American community has made to this country in the year that we try to celebrate 250, it is so insulting. It is so aggressively, it feels like a visceral attack. My brother was purged out of his job here and in Washington, D.C. i know so many people and it's so many black women in particular, this attack on minorities and women. In a world where we are trying to where people are trying to erase them, we realize that that is our call to duty of our generation, which is we know now that we have to mark our passing on the tree and declare who we are, who we were, what our accomplishments are and have been and what we have created and exercise our right of self determination and declaration of accomplishment. We owe that to our ancestors. We owe that to the generations yet to come because they're those who do not have our best interest at heart.
- [46:04]
Tonya Mosley
Wendell Pierce, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.
- [46:08]
Wendell Pierce
Thank you. I really appreciate it.
- [46:10]
Tonya Mosley
Wendell Pierce stars in Othello at the Shakespeare Theater company in Washington, D.C. tomorrow on FRESH AIR, the rise of masculinism, how the movement, which is now mainstream, aims to fight feminism and restore the primacy of men. We speak with Helen Lewis, who writes about the movement in the Atlantic. I hope you can join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram @NPRFreshAir. FRESH air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show with Terry Gross. I'm Tonya Mosley.
- [47:19]
Up First Host
This week on Up First, President Trump dispatched J.D. vance to peace talks in Switzerland. Now the U.S. and Iran say they have a roadmap for peace. We'll have the latest on any overnight developments. Plus, it's another week of primary elections. We'll discuss the results and what they mean for November. Listen to up first every morning for the top three stories you need to know to start your day on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [47:44]
Ira Glass
This week on Wait, Wait, don't tell me. We talk to best selling author Carol Clare Burke about how it feels to write the hit book of the summer.
- [47:50]
Tonya Mosley
I've been very dissociative so that's a problem for my future therapist.
- [47:53]
Ira Glass
Yeah, I see it. Let's talk about the fact you're not in therapy.
- [47:56]
Wendell Pierce
That's fascinating.
- [47:59]
Ira Glass
Don't miss our full conversation and the rest of our games. Listen to the Wait, wait, Don't Tell Me. Podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [48:07]
Announcer
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