'The People Can Fly' examines the history of Black prodigies from poets to professors

Summary

NPR’s Book of the Day: 'The People Can Fly' Explores Black Prodigies and the Power of Reimagining Brilliance

Date: May 19, 2026
Host: Michelle Martin (NPR)
Guest: Joshua Bennett (MIT professor, poet, and author)
Book: The People Can Fly: American Promise, Black Prodigies, and the Greatest Miracle of All Time

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Overview

In this episode, Michelle Martin interviews Joshua Bennett about his latest book The People Can Fly, which blends memoir, cultural history, and folklore to explore Black prodigies—those whose extraordinary talents challenge and redefine societal expectations. The conversation delves into how cultural narratives, historical oppression, and personal experiences shape what we recognize as brilliance, and how Bennett’s family, especially his neurodivergent brother, expanded his view of giftedness and success.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Genesis of the Book

• Inspiration from Parenthood

  • Becoming a father during the pandemic inspired Bennett to seek a different educational vision for his son, different from his own upbringing (01:48).
  • Bennett contrasts his son’s suburban upbringing with his own and his parents’ experiences—his father attended a newly integrated high school in Jim Crow Alabama.

• Navigating School and Representation

  • From a young age, Bennett felt placed on the defensive in school spaces, feeling both the pressures of representation and the necessity to navigate teachers’ biased perceptions (01:48).

“My mother instilled this idea in me that when I went to school I was always on the defensive end of things… representative of the race in a certain way.”
—Joshua Bennett (01:48)

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2. Redefining the Prodigy: Context & Complexity

• Historical Erasure and Complexity
  • Bennett points out that Black brilliance is often overlooked or complicated by a historical discourse that denies Black interiority (02:57).
  • He spotlights figures such as Phillis Wheatley and Thomas Fuller—enslaved individuals whose intellect defied dehumanizing social structures.

“Part of this fundamental tension at the center of the book is, well, how can you, on the one hand, have something like chattel slavery… and on the other hand, have these geniuses?”
—Joshua Bennett (02:57)

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3. Measuring Brilliance: Beyond Conventional Metrics

• Narrowing Definitions
  • Michelle Martin raises concerns about today’s increasingly narrow definitions of giftedness—equating brilliance with measurable, monetizable skills often tied to elite institutional success (04:03).

"I just worry that we're now in a cultural moment where our sense of what it is to be brilliant is ever narrowing...”
—Michelle Martin (04:03)

• Bennett’s Response: Luck, Advocacy, and Community
  • Despite his own institutional achievements, Bennett emphasizes the precariousness and contingency of his path—he almost “fell through the cracks” multiple times, saved only by supportive mentors and family (05:07).

"At every step along that journey, I almost fell through the cracks, if not for the courageous interventions of my teachers and parents..."
—Joshua Bennett (05:07)

• Expanding the Circle
  • The conversation explores the moral imperative to redefine giftedness beyond traditional academic or artistic achievement—making space for diverse forms of intelligence and expression.

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4. Neurodivergence and Giftedness: A Personal Lens

• Bennett’s Brother Levi
  • Bennett describes how his younger brother, diagnosed with autism at age three, reshaped his understanding of value, imagination, and achievement (06:08).
  • He perceives profound lessons about ability and “gifts” in observing his brother’s struggles and triumphs.

“I just had a very different sense of the kind of limits on our current vocabulary for the way we talk about people with disabilities in general, neurodivergent people, and even people who are designated as neurotypical.”
—Joshua Bennett (06:25)

• Challenging the 'Genius' Standard
  • The expectation to display brilliance in narrow modes—eloquence, science/math gifts—excludes many equally meaningful capacities.

“There are so many other beautiful, incredible moments that are available to us that have nothing to do with… the ability to access that part of our minds. That's something that my brother has taught me that I don't imagine I'll ever forget while I'm here on Earth.”
—Joshua Bennett (07:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On expanded visions of education:

  “I felt like I needed a radically different vision of education for my son than the one I'd had for myself."
  —Joshua Bennett (01:48)

• On representation and expectation:

  "A prodigy is not only an outlier, they shift the bar of our collective expectation. They tell us a new story about who we are and who we have the potential to become."
  —Michelle Martin (02:39)

• On falling through the cracks:

  "Part of why it needs to be bigger than that is I don't think we can bank on the idea that everyone will have this kind of cloud of witnesses behind them to root for them."
  —Joshua Bennett (05:07)

• On lessons from family:

  “It very much expanded my idea of what it meant to live a valuable life, to be imaginative and certainly to have gifts, because I saw my little brother grow … and yet I saw him triumph.”
  —Joshua Bennett (06:25)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:02 — Introduction to Joshua Bennett and the book’s central theme
• 01:48 — Bennett discusses his inspiration for writing, rooted in fatherhood and family history
• 02:57 — Explores the paradox of Black prodigies thriving amid systems of oppression
• 04:03 — Cultural critique on narrowing definitions of brilliance and success
• 05:07 — Bennett shares the fragility of his academic journey and advocates for broader support systems
• 06:08 — Discussion about Bennett’s brother and expanding the vocabulary of giftedness

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Conclusion

This conversation with Joshua Bennett illuminates how the stories of Black prodigies unsettle and enrich our assumptions about genius, success, and the meaning of a life well lived. The episode underscores the ongoing need for inclusive, expansive visions of education and talent—visions that honor the full humanity and creativity of every individual.

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Book featured:
The People Can Fly: American Promise, Black Prodigies, and the Greatest Miracle of All Time by Joshua Bennett
Host: Michelle Martin
Guest: Joshua Bennett (MIT Distinguished Chair of the Humanities, poet)

Transcript

[Alyssa Nadworny]

Hi there. I'm Alyssa Nadworny, and you're listening to NPR's Book of the Day. What and who is brilliant? That's one of the central questions in the book the People Can Fly, a memoir in Cultural History written by MIT professor and author Joshua Bennett. In it, he explores the stories of black prodigies. Bennett talked with NPR's Michelle Martin about how becoming a father planted the seed for the book.

[Pop Culture Happy Hour Narrator]

New shows, new music, new movies, keeping up with pop culture sometimes feels like a full time job. Thankfully, over at Pop Culture Happy Hour, it's literally our job. We break down what's actually worth watching, listening to and pretending you already knew about. So the next time someone says, did you see that? You can say, yeah, obviously. Follow NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour wherever you get your podcasts.

[Michelle Martin]

What is the relationship between promise and perception? What does it mean to be a virtuoso when nobody expects anything? And what if what we recognize as gifted is often more about what we can monetize or measure than about what might truly make a difference in the world? Those are just some of the complicated questions the poet and writer Joshua Bennett asks in his latest book, the People Can Fly. In it, Bennett, a professor at mit, weaves together folklore, history and memoir to sort through what it means to be a prodigy, especially a black prodigy such as Phillis Wheatley, Stevie Wonder and himself. And he is with us now. Professor Bennett, thank you so much for joining us.

[Joshua Bennett]

Thanks for having me.

[Michelle]

Michelle.

[Michael]

How'd you get interested in this? Was it your own story of being understood to be really gifted at a really young age and then going to schools and sometimes people acting like you're dumb and you couldn't even do basic work, which obviously turned out not to be true.

[Michelle Martin]

How did you get interested in this?

[Joshua Bennett]

Some of it had to do with becoming a father in 2020. I felt like I needed a radically different vision of education for my son than the one I'd had for myself. So from the time I was very young, my mother instilled this idea in me that when I went to school I was always on the defensive end of things, right. That school was sort of an elaborate labyrinth and I had to navigate teachers perceptions of me. There was also this idea that I was representative of the race in a certain way. So in becoming a father who's raising my children in a very different sort of context in suburban Massachusetts, not in the Bronx and in South Yonkers, and having very different experiences than my parents did, you know, my father integrated at his High school in Jim Crow, Alabama. I just started to think, what's the full breadth of what I've inherited around this idea of what it means to pursue an education? And that's really what inspired him.

[Michelle Martin]

You write that a prodigy is not only an outlier, they shift the bar of our collective expectation. They tell us a new story about who we are and who we have the potential to become.

[Michael]

But one of the things that you

[Michelle Martin]

point out is that for black prodigies,

[Michael]

that gets really complicated.

[Joshua Bennett]

Yeah, I mean, part of what's complicated is that there's this entire discourse set up around the idea that black people had no interior life. This begins long before the 20th century, which is no small part of the reason that I include not only prodigies like Phillis Wheatley, but also enslaved prodigies like Thomas Fuller, who was a kind of calculating prodigy. And so part of this fundamental tension at the center of the book is, well, how can you, on the one hand, have something like chattel slavery or Jim Crow or segregation, and on the other hand, have these geniuses? How can you hold together the idea both that Phillis Wheatley can be enslaved and that she publishes this gorgeous book of poetry that clarifies, actually, the vast reservoirs of intellect and imagination that she holds within herself?

[Michael]

We're used to thinking of geniuses as people who can, like one of your

[Michelle Martin]

subjects, compute large numbers in his head,

[Michael]

or somebody who has a musical gift that manifests early, or even a linguistic gift, like yourself, that manifests sort of early. But you're arguing that actually we should think bigger than that. Why do you think that matters?

[Michelle]

I just worry that we're now in a cultural moment where our sense of what it is to be brilliant is ever narrowing and that we're failing to make room for, you know, students who might be incredibly gifted painters, musicians, playwrights, dancers, but nonetheless are told that that's not going to eventually get them into an elite college and on the pathway to a life where they can of themselves and their loved ones.

[Michael]

But again, I'm gonna push you on this because you are a person who, by any standard, met that mark. I mean, you were preaching at age 4 or 5, but you were very, very little. And then you went to a. On scholarship, an exclusive private high school, and then you went to an Ivy League college, and then you got your PhD at another elite institution, and then you got tenure at a very young age, and you are now a distinguished professor, very exclusive institution. I mean, you've met all those marks.

[Michelle]

Sure.

[Michael]

And so some people might look at you and say, why does it need to be bigger than that? You've done it.

[Joshua Bennett]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

The system might be working all right. At least for you, right? Yeah. No, I would say to that that at every step along that journey, I've seen people that I loved very much fall through the cracks. But also that at every step along that journey, I almost fell through the cracks, if not for the courageous interventions of my teachers and parents, and when I was as young as five years old, but also again in elementary school, again in middle and high school, again, honestly, in college and graduate school. I almost dropped out of graduate school. My mother was the only person in my family who had ever even gone to college. And so being not just at an elite private school in New York that I lived two hours away from. Right. I was taking two buses and a train every day. So I was very tired in addition to not really having much practice at what it meant to be part of the fabric of these institutions. And so part of why it needs to be bigger than that is I don't think we can bank on the idea that everyone will have this kind of cloud of witnesses behind them to root for them.

[Michael]

You have a whole chapter about your younger brother Levi.

[Michelle Martin]

He was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was three.

[Michael]

He really is central to your understanding of what it means to be a prodigy. So say more about why that is so.

[Michelle]

I grew up with a number of kind of neurodivergent family members. It very much expanded my idea of what it meant to live a valuable life, to be imaginative and certainly to have gifts, because I saw my little brother grow and work through subjects and skill sets that were immensely difficult for him at various points. And yet I saw him triumph. I just had a very different sense of the kind of limits on our current vocabulary for the way we talk about people with disabilities in general, neurodivergent people, and even people who are designated as neurotypical. Right. The idea is, unless you can kind of stand up and impromptu offer some sort of eloquent defense of a topic, or you're a science or math genius, you're just clearly not really seen as that smart. There are so many other beautiful, incredible moments that are available to us that have nothing to do with that, with the ability to access that part of our minds. That's something that my brother has taught me that I don't imagine I'll ever forget while I'm here on Earth.

[Michelle Martin]

Joshua Bennett is an award winning poet

[Michael]

and MIT Distinguished Chair of the Humanities.

[Michelle Martin]

His latest book is the people can fly. American promise, black prodigies. And the greatest miracle of all time.

[Michael]

Professor Bennett, thank you so much for talking to us.

[Michelle]

Thank you, Michael.