← Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
Changing the Narrative
00:57:25
This week on SELECTED SHORTS, guest host DeRay Mckesson presents four works that consider the Black experience in America from bold perspectives. Former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm recalled her historic victory in her essay “Unbought and Unbossed.” An excerpt is read by Crystal Dickinson. James Baldwin’s powerful letter to his nephew, “My Dungeon Shook,” is read by Christopher Jackson. Poet Sonia Sanchez recalls a life-altering encounter with Malcolm X in “Homegirls on St. Nicholas Avenue,” read by Marsha Stephanie Blake, and Percival Everett turns the tables on Southern racists in “The Appropriation of Cultures,” read by Wren T. Brown.
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- [00:01]
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- [00:30]
McDonald's Advertiser
You've made it on time for the McDonald's breakfast menu.
- [00:33]
James Baldwin (narration)
You think to yourself, finally, I can start my day.
- [00:36]
McDonald's Advertiser
But what if breakfast could be even
- [00:38]
Deray McKesson (host)
more perfect with the hot honey sausage egg biscuit?
- [00:41]
McDonald's Advertiser
It finally is. Go to McDonald's and get it. While you.
- [00:54]
Deray McKesson (host)
When James Baldwin, Shirley Chisholm, Sonia Sanchez and Percival Everett want to tell you something about America's past and its future, you listen. I'm your guest host, Deray McKesson, and on this select is shorts, fiction and essays that shake up the American story. Stay right where you are. You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. I'm Deray McKessing, your guest host for this episode of Selected Shorts. I'm an author, educator and activist, and someone the producers knew would connect to the material in this week's program in no uncertain ways. Being in the street in 2014 in Ferguson changed my life, and it was reading and seeing people talk about the world around them and imagining a better world that kept me hopeful and kept me in the street. Americans think a lot about progress, about how to make things better, how things got the way they are, and what we could do to live in a different world. Honestly, we can be a little obsessive. Where exactly is the nation heading and is it truly moving forward? If not, what is the course correction? Without a doubt, an important conversation. But that kind of single mindedness can also cause us to lose sight of how it is we got to where we are. The truth is, many salient moments of American progress would not have been possible without first looking back. History has demonstrated time and time again that if you're going to point the way forward, it's nearly impossible to do so without confronting and recontextualizing the past. And that's what today's edition of Selected Shorts is about, people who rethink those narratives. We tell ourselves over and over about who we are and what we stand for as a nation, and maybe just as importantly, what we believe we are not and can never be in the company of some powerful Black authors and politicians. We will look back at our shared history in hopes of changing some of the lazy narratives that don't serve us. And in doing so, we may find new possibilities for progress. Let's get to our first election by Shirley Chisholm, who was elected to Congress in 1968. She was also the first Black woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, though sadly, she didn't make it past the Democratic National Convention. This excerpt from her memoir, Unbought and Unbossed, takes place during her congressional campaign as she pounds the pavement and subsequently paves the way for politicians such as Kamala Harris. Her story, to me, is a reminder of what's possible even when other people can't see it. That also is a reminder of organizing, that talking to people and building relationships with people is the way that we build and maintain power. Reading from Chisholm's Unbought and Unbossed is Crystal Dickinson. She's a Broadway performer who has appeared in Clabburn park and you'd Can't Take it with youh. She's also a shorts regular and recently appeared in Lena Waithe's Showtime series the Chai. And now Crystal Dickinson delivers an excerpt from Shirley Chisholm's Unbought and Unbossed.
- [04:13]
Crystal Dickinson (performer as Shirley Chisholm)
It is my great pleasure to speak the words today of Ms. Shirley Chisholm, unbought and Unbossed. Starting in February, I spent 10 months doing the only thing I could do. I tramped the streets of Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant, telling my story to the people. I didn't have the money for a conventional congressional campaign. I had to make up for it with hard work. But I was determined to show them. People had to know that it was possible for someone with decency and a fighting spirit to overcome the system by beating it with its own weapons. For years in Brooklyn and New York City and Albany, I watched the rotten political system that stands in the way of change because its operators are beneficiaries of the status quo. They're committed against change because they have things wired for their benefit. Now changing the system to benefit the people more would mean that they would not be the kingmaker in the wheelers and dealers any longer, these men who put themselves forward as leaders and guardians of the people. This is the insidious thing we have to fight. So I campaign the hard way, in the streets, indoors, with a selected audience. You have control, but out on the street corners with the people in the housing projects, in the parks, you are under fire constantly. If you are insincere or have something to hide, you will be found out. I wrote a slogan and said it all. Fighting Shirley Chisholm. Unbought and unbossed. I hammered on this. The weekends were the precious time. On Friday nights through Sunday evenings, led by Thomas R. Fortune, my district leader, I traveled with a caravan of 20 to 50 cars manned by volunteers, men, women and children. On both sides of each car we put a picture with the legend Vote for Chisholm for Congress. Unbucked and unbossed. We had shopping bags with the same inscriptions all week long. On the streets, in the markets, at the clinics, you could see people with my shopping bags. We gave them out to everyone who would take them. With a package of material on my biography and an assembly record and a souvenir, a handkerchief or pin inside. The main stops were the housing projects. There are 10 big ones in the district. We also stopped at churches, at parks and on street corners to talk to anyone who would listen. I shook hands, answered questions and listened to what people had to say. During the week, I went to endless little house parties and teas given by women in the black neighborhood. I ate chitlins in the Jewish neighborhood, I bagels and lox. In the Puerto Rican neighborhood, Arroz con pollo. We contacted every neighborhood woman leader we could find. Bring your women in, I would urge them. Sometimes a woman would tell me that she would like to have a party for me. But she. She couldn't afford it and I would provide the money for her. I went to all kinds of homes. I wasn't interested in style. While I was campaigning in the streets and living rooms of the district. Willie Thompson was so sure he would win with the organization behind him that he was up at Cape Cod vacationing. White leaders who had said they were going to keep their hands off were going around working for him. He felt secure because of the proportion to higher white vote as contrasted to the black vote. Although numerically, the district had a greater number of black and Puerto Rican voters. When they counted the primary votes with a very small turnout. I won by a thousand votes, Dolly Robinson. As a result, it didn't cut into my vote, if anything, into Willie's. I carried the four white districts. Men always underestimate women. They underestimated me and they underestimated women like me. If they had thought about it, they
- [09:19]
Birch Lane / Ritual Zero Proof Advertiser
would have realized that many of the
- [09:21]
Crystal Dickinson (performer as Shirley Chisholm)
homes in black neighborhoods are headed by women. They Stay put, raise their families and registered to vote in greater numbers. The women are always organizing for something, even if it's only a bridge club. They run the pta. They are the backbone of the social groups and civic clubs more than the men. So the organization was already there. All I had to do was get its help. I went to presidents and leaders and asked can you help me? If I succeeded in convincing them they were ready to help and able. It was not my original strategy to organize women power to elect me. It was forced on me by the time, place and circumstances. I never meant and never mean to start a war between women and men. It is true that women are second class citizens just as black people are. Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt. It is stupid and wrong. And I want the time to come when we can be as blind to sex as we are to color. But that time is not here. And when someone tries to use my sex against me, I delight in being able to turn the tables on them as I did in my congressional campaign. Discrimination against women in politics is particularly unjust because no political organization I have ever seen could function without women. They do the work the men won't do.
- [11:04]
Birch Lane / Ritual Zero Proof Advertiser
I know because I have done it all.
- [11:06]
Crystal Dickinson (performer as Shirley Chisholm)
For years I stayed in the wings and worked to put men in office, even writing their speeches and cueing them on how to answer questions. They would still be exploiting my abilities if I had not rebelled. Increasingly other women are reaching the same conclusion. Besides my women organizations, I had other assets that Mr. Farmer and his big Republican backers had not counted on. One was my fluency in Spanish, my minor in college. At first I was more confident of the support in the Puerto Rican communities than the black ones. The result bore me out. I carried the Spanish speaking sections of the district decisively. Farmer and I had several public debates. I'm sure he expected the contrast between his muscular male assurance and the poise and and his opponents little school teacher appearance would do him a lot of good. Turned out the other way. When I got on a platform I am transformed. I have even been called messianic. At any rate, people know I'm there. In our first debate at Pratt Institute, Farmer came out with enormous self confidence. Before the evening was over I could see he was getting worried. Since then I have heard that he thinks he outshone me in the debates. Somebody must not have thought so because I beat him in the November election. 2 0.5 to 1.
- [13:10]
Deray McKesson (host)
That was an excerpt from Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's Unbought and Unbossed, performed by Crystal Dickinson. While that piece is a kind of documentary of the life on the campaign trail, the underlying feeling really is of someone rewriting American politics is a two time outsider, someone who is both black and a woman. It is at its root a story of the power of relationships, that people have relationships with people, and as we build relationships, we also build power. Next, let's look at American life from another angle with writer and activist James Baldwin. His well known works of fiction include Go Tell it on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room, while his incisive essays are just as potent potent now as they were in the 60s and 70s. This piece featured in his collection the Fire Next time with the title My Dungeon Shook was a letter to his nephew about the unavoidable challenges of life as a black man in America. It is performed by actor, singer and composer Christopher Jackson. Jackson is featured in series including and Just like that and Bull and originated the role of George Washington in the musical Hamilton. Now Jackson brings us My Dungeon Shook letter to my nephew on the 100th anniversary of the emancipation by James Baldwin.
- [14:34]
James Baldwin (narration)
My dungeon shook. I have begun this letter five times and torn it up five times. I keep seeing your face, which is also the face of your father and my brother. Like him, you are tough, dark, vulnerable, moody, with a very definite tendency to sound truculent because you want no one to think that you are soft. You may be like your grandfather in this, I don't know, but certainly both of you and your father resemble him very much physically. Well, he is dead, he never saw you and he had a terrible life. He was defeated long before he died because at the bottom of his heart he really believed what white people said about him. This is one of the reasons that he became so holy. I am sure that your father has told you something about all that. But neither you nor your father exhibit any tendency towards holiness. You really are of another era, part of what happened when the Negro left the land and came into what the late E. Franklin Fraser called the Cities of Destruction. You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a. I tell you this because I love you. Please don't ever forget that
- [16:10]
McDonald's Advertiser
I have
- [16:10]
James Baldwin (narration)
known both of you all your lives, have carried your daddy in my arms and on my shoulders, kissed and spanked him and watched him learn to walk. I don't know if you've known anybody from that far back, if you've loved anybody that long, first as an infant, then as a Child. And then as a man, you gain a strange perspective on time and human pain, effort. Other people cannot see what I see whenever I look into your father's face, far behind your father's face as it is today, or all those other faces which were his. Let him laugh. And I see a cellar your father does not remember. And a house he does not remember. And I hear in his present laughter, his laughter as a child let him curse. And I remember him falling down the cellar steps and howling. And I remember with pain his tears, which my hand or your grandmother's so easily wiped away. But no one's hand can wipe away those tears he sheds invisibly today, which one hears in his laughter and in his speech and in his songs. I know what the world has done to my brother and. And how narrowly he has survived it.
- [17:30]
McDonald's Advertiser
And
- [17:32]
James Baldwin (narration)
I know which is much worse. And this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, indeed, one must strive to become tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death. For this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man. But remember, most of mankind is not all of mankind. But it is not permissible that the authors of Devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime. Now, my dear namesake, these innocent and well meaning people, your countrymen, have caused you to be born under conditions not very far removed from those described for us by Charles Dickens. In the London of more than a hundred years ago. I hear the chorus of the innocent screaming, no, this is not true. How bitter you are. But I am writing this letter to you to try to tell you something about how to handle them. For most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions under which you were born, for I was there. Your countrymen were not there and haven't made it yet. Your grandmother was also there and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocents check with her. She isn't hard to find. Your countrymen don't know that she exists either, though she's been working for them all their lives. Well, you were born here. You came something like 15 years ago. And though your father and mother and grandmother looking about the street through which they were carrying you, staring at the walls into which they brought you, had every reason to be heavy hearted, yet they were not for here. You were big, James, named for me.
- [19:53]
McDonald's Advertiser
You were a big baby.
- [19:57]
James Baldwin (narration)
I was not here. You were to be loved. To be loved, baby.
- [20:05]
McDonald's Advertiser
Hard.
- [20:06]
James Baldwin (narration)
At once and forever to strengthen you against the loveless world. Remember that. I know how black it looks today. For you, it looked bad that day, too. Yes, we were trembling. We've not stopped trembling yet. But if we had not loved each other, none of us would have survived. And now you must survive. Because we love you. And for the sake of your children and your children's children, this innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were thus expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity and in as many ways as possible that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence. You were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do and how you could do it and where you could live and whom you could marry. I know your countrymen do not agree with me about this. And I hear them saying, you exaggerate. They do not know Harlem, and I do. And so do you. Take no one's word for anything, including mine, but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember what they believe as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority, but to their inhumanity and fear. Please try to be clear, dear James, through the storm which raises about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people, and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean this very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand. And until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, for any innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them indeed know better. But as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger in the minds of most white Americans is the loss of their identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You'd be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it is so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar. And as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to the foundations. You don't be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto. Perish? By never being allowed to go behind the white man's definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name, you have, and many of us have defeated this intention and by a terrible law, a terrible paradox. Those innocents who believe that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp on reality. But these men are your brothers. Your lost younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means. That we with love shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. But this is your home, my friend. Do not be driven from it. Great men have done great things here and will again. And we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, the very time I thought I was lost, my dungeon shook and my chains fell. You know and I know that the country is celebrating 100 years of freedom. 100 years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you, James, and Godspeed.
- [26:18]
Crystal Dickinson (performer as Shirley Chisholm)
Your uncle James.
- [26:29]
Deray McKesson (host)
That was Christopher Jackson reading My Dungeon Shook by James Baldwin. The piece was Originally published in 1962, and it's amazing and difficult to believe how contemporary it feels. Some of these ideas can truly remain a clarion call for us today, including one of Baldwin's insistent mandates for his nephew. We can make America what America must become. Baldwin's writing is a marvel of what it means to be a witness and a model of what it means to be a storyteller. When we return, a look at two very different X's, the X and Malcolm X, and the stars and bars of the Confederate battle flag. I'm Terrae McKesson. You're listening to selected shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide.
- [27:19]
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Deray McKesson (host)
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- [28:38]
Deray McKesson (host)
Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. I'm Derea McKesson. Next in our show about changing the American narrative, we're sharing a favorite story by Sonia Sanchez. Sanchez is a poet, playwright and memoirist whose works include Homecoming and Homegirls and Hand Grenades. She is known for her playful linguistic style reflecting the way black folks spoke before this was prevalent in literature. This autobiographical piece depicts a conversion of sorts that pushes the young Sanchez toward her future. It is performed by Marcia Stephanie Blake. She's appeared in series including Orange Is the New Black and When They See Us. The latter earned her an Emmy nomination. And now Marcia Stephanie Blake reads Homegirls on St Nicholas Avenue by Sonia Sanchez.
- [29:34]
Birch Lane / Ritual Zero Proof Advertiser
Homegirls on St. Nicholas Avenue we were the homegirls on St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem. Grace, Sylvia and I were the good ones who didn't play around or screw the brothers in the gangs. Just casual kisses, flowers, flirtations that led to the front door of an apartment and Nothing else. We were the girls who stood on the stoops and styled our black ballerina shoes and skirts while Bubba and the other brothers looked and laughed and taunted us for our young vanity. And we waited. We were the homegirls who smiled and danced and kept our dresses down because everybody knew we were going to make something something of our lives. And the people on our block waited for their deliverance. The young and the old, the believers and the non believers waited for us to deliver them from some unspoken curse. Sylvia was the prettiest homegirl on our block. Sylvia, the singer who looked like Lena Horne. Her voice was small but sparrow like. She was beautiful in an angular fashion. Sylvia walked her crinoline walk down St. Nicholas Avenue with her long model strides and we, the shorter ones, followed her strides, imitating her angular pace. Sylvia, who eloped at 17 and had four babies in four years. Sylvia, who fell in love with a man as beautiful as she and stopped waiting. Grace and I went to college. We went our separate homegirl ways. She went south to school, graduated magna cum laude, married a wealthy businessman who carried her off to Europe for their honeymoon. Grace, who tripped the light European fantastic each year. A world traveler who wiped her hands on overseas towels and left her footprints behind. I lived at home during college, walked inside stained glass Hunter College doors and exited in a four year flush of females. I borrowed the seasons and fell silent as I set out each day at dawn trying to catch my voice and returned home each night trying to understand my words. The body stayed cold so I packed up my eyes and left. Where to go when you've been educated not to hear your own echo? Where to go when your soul has lost its beat between sleep and waking. I lived. I crowned myself Queen of the Palladium. Remember, oh dancers, if you would, the Palladium sitting on Broadway where we mamboed merengue and calypso till the night fell silent with our rhythms. It was another one of those rallies. New York Corps had planned this rally for weeks. The day was cloudy and gray and wet as we stood in front of the Hotel Teresa. He ascended the platform, a tall red man. Big red they used to call him. Now he was Malcolm X, a man I had seen on two other occasions. A man whose eyes made you restless. I turned towards the core office. I didn't want to hear him. His words made my head hurt. I was content to picket Woolworth and downtown TV stations. Why did he bring his hand grenade words into my space? He stood up and the martial music sounded. I crouched in fear. But I listened on this rainy day, and I saw Sundiata and Shaka walking all the way from Africa spread. And I saw Bubba running to greet them on our Harlem streets. And the day was like no other. Malcolm's voice shook the ground. He demanded, do you know who you are? Who do you really think you are? Have you looked in a mirror recently, brother and sister, and seen your blackness for what it is? Do you know what your blackness means? And something began to stir inside me, something that I had misplaced a long time ago in the classrooms of America. On that cold, wet afternoon, I became warm again. What time of day it was, I do not know. What time of year it was, I do not remember. All I know is that I began to hear voices. Tenets of a long ago past leaped out at me as Malcolm spoke. And his voice was many voices and his face became many faces as he spoke. And my skin began to sweat away the years. And the dead skin shook loose and new skin appeared, darker than before, black in its beauty. And the day was like no other. When he said, when the people create a program, you get action. And the years became shorter when he spoke. We are living in a time when image making has become a science. They say that Malcolm man don't live here no more. They say when a Botswana doctor throws his bones, and when they tell him of a loss so terrible, he says, saling seling seile mo simeng mo baila tupa le siloque moe la tedi. What is gone is gone. It has gone down the hole. The unreachable by a rod. The irrational is he who follows it. I say Malcolm lives in the eyes of the homegirls who wait no longer.
- [35:44]
Deray McKesson (host)
That was Homegirls on St. Nicholas Avenue by Sonia Sanchez, performed by Marsha Stephanie Blake. There's a great line in the piece where to go when you've been educated not to hear your own echo, as the hand grenade words of Malcolm X did for Sanchez. Sanchez's work has helped to make that echo incredibly clear for a new generation. Her stories are a reminder of the power of young people and the power to be called to do work by the elders. Our final piece in this show about revisiting and remaking the American story comes from Percival Everett. Everett is a sharp and satirical writer whose titles include James the Trees and Erasure, which is adapted into the award winning film, American Fiction. This work is wild, playful and not worth spoiling in the least. But suffice it to say it's about a black man who plans to remix the American South. Reading it the Actor Ren T. Brown Brown is a prolific actor whose credits include classic films such as Hollywood Shuffle and series including Whoopi. He was also a founder of the influential Ebony Repertory Theater, and now Ren T. Brown performs the Appropriation of Cultures by Percival Edwards.
- [37:01]
McDonald's Advertiser
Daniel Barkley had money left to him by his mother. He had a house which had been left to him by his mother. He had a degree in American Studies from Brown University, which he had in some way earned but had not yet earned anything for him. He played a 1940 Martin guitar with a Barkas Berry pickup and drove a 1976 Jensen Interceptor, which he had purchased after his mother's sister had died and left him her money, she having had no children of her own. Daniel Barkley didn't work and didn't pretend to need to, spending most of his time reading. Some nights he went to a joint near the campus of the University of South Carolina and played jazz with some old guys who all worked very hard during the day but didn't hold Daniel's condition against him. Daniel played standards with the old guys, but what he loved to play was old time sly tunes. One night some white boys from a fraternity yelled forward to the stage at the black man holding the acoustic guitar and began to shout, play Dixie for us. Play Dixie for us. Daniel gave them a long look, studied their big tooth grins and their beer shiny eyes stuck into puffy pale faces hovering over golf shirts and chinos. He looked from them to the uncomfortable expressions on the faces of the old guys with whom he was playing and then to the embarrassed faces of the other college kids in the club, and then he started to play. He felt his way slowly through the chords of the song once and listened to the deadened hush as it fell over the room. He used the slide to squeeze out the melody of the song. He had grown up hating the song the whites had always pulled out to remind themselves and those other people just where they were. Daniel sang the song. He sang it slowly. He sang it, feeling the lyrics, deciding that the lyrics were his, deciding that the song was his. Old times there are not forgotten. He sang the song and listened to the silence around him. He resisted the urge to let satire ring through his voice. He meant what he sang. Look away, look away, look away, Dixieland. When he was finished, he looked up to see the room full of eyes on him. One person clapped, then another, and soon the tavern was filled with applause and hoots. He found the frat boys in the back and watched as they stormed out a couple of people near the door chuckling at them as they passed. Roger, the old guy who played tenor sax, slapped Daniel on the back and said something like right on or cool. Roger then played the first few notes of Take the A Train and they were off. When the set was done, all the college kids slapped Daniel on the back as he walked toward the bar, where he found a beer waiting. Daniel didn't much care for the slaps on the back, but he didn't focus too much energy on that. He was busy trying to sort out his feelings about what he had just played. The irony of his playing the song straight and from the heart was made more ironic by the fact that as he played came straight and from his heart as he was claiming Southern soil, or at least recognizing his blood in it. His was the land of cotton and hell no, it was not forgotten. At 23, his anger was fresh and typical, and so was his ease with it, the way it could be forgotten for chunks of time until something like that night with the white frat boys or simply a flashing blue light in the rearview mirror brought it all back. He liked the song, wanted to play it again, knew that he would. He drove home from the bar on Green street and back to his house where he made tea and read about Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg while he sat in the big leather chair which had been his father's. He fell asleep and had a dream in which he stopped Pickett's men on the Emmitsburg Road on their way to the field and said, give me back my flag. Daniel's friend Sarah was a very large woman with a very large Afro hairdo. They were sitting on the porch of Daniel's house having tea. The late fall afternoon was mild and slightly overcast. Daniel sat on the wicker rocker while Sarah curled her feet under her on the glider. I wish I could have heard it, sarah said. Yeah, me too. Personally, I can't even stand to go to that place. All that drinking. Those white kids just love to drink. Sarah studied her fingernails. I guess the place is harmless. They seem to like the music. Do you think I should paint my nails? Daniel frowned at her. If you want to. I mean, really paint them. You know, black or with red, white, and blue stripes, something like that. She held her hand, appearing to imagine the colors. I'd have to grow them long. What are you talking about? Just. Daniel and Sarah went to a grocery market to buy food for lunch and Daniel's dinner. Daniel pushed the cart through the Piggly Wiggly while Sarah walked ahead of him. He watched her large movements and her confident stride. At the checkout he added a bulletin full of pictures of local cars and trucks for sale to his items on the conveyor. What's that for? Sarah asked. Think I want to buy a truck. Buy a truck so I can drive you around when you paint your nails. Later, after lunch and after Sarah had left him alone, Daniel sat in his living room and picked up the car sale magazine. As he suspected, there were several trucks he liked and one in particular, a 1968 Ford 3 quarter ton with the one thing it shared with the other possibilities, a full rear cab window decal of the Confederate flag. He called the number the following morning and arranged with Barb Travis wife, to stop by and see the truck. Travis and Barb lived across the river in the town of Irmo, a name which Daniel had always thought suited a disease for cattle. He drove around the maze of tract homes until he found the right street and number. A woman in a housecoat across the street watched from her porch safe inside the chain link fence around her yard. From down the street, a man and a teenager who were covered with grease and apparently engaged in work on a torn apart Dodge Charger mindlessly wiped their hands and studied him. Daniel walked across the front yard through a maze of plastic toys and knocked on the front door. Travis opened the door and asked in a surly voice, what is it? I called about the truck, daniel said. Oh, you're Dan. Daniel nodded. The truck's in the backyard. Let me get the keys. He pushed the door to, but it didn't catch. Daniel heard the quality of the exchange between Travis and Barb, but not the words he did hear Barb say as Travis pulled open the door. I couldn't tell over the phone. Got him, travis said. Come on with me. He looked at Daniels Jensen as they walked through the yard. What kind of car is that? It's a Jensen. Nice looking. Is it fast? I guess. The truck looked a little rough, a pale blue with a bleached out hood and a crack across the top of the windshield. Travis opened the driver's side door and pushed the key into the ignition. It's a strong runner, he said. Daniel put his hand on the faded hood and felt the warmth, knew that Travis had already warmed up the motor. Travis turned the key and the engine kicked over. He nodded to Daniel. Daniel nodded back. He looked up to see a blonde woman looking on from behind the screen door of the back porch. The clutch and alternator are new this year. Travis stepped backward to the wall of the bed and looked in. There's some rust back here, but the bottom's pretty solid. Daniel attended to the sound of the engine. Mrs. Just a little, he said. A tune up will fix that. Daniel regarded the rebel flag decal covering the rear window of the cab, touched it with his finger. That thing will peel right off, travis said. No, I like it. Daniel sat down in the truck behind the steering wheel. Mind if I take it for a spin? Sure thing. Travis looked toward the house, then back to Daniel. The brakes are good, but you got to press hard. Daniel nodded. Travis shut the door. His long fingers wrapped over the edge of the half lowered glass. Daniel noticed that one of the man's fingernails was blackened. I'll just take it around a block or two. The blonde woman was now standing outside the door on the concrete steps. Daniel put the truck in gear and drove out of the yard, passed his car and down the street by the man and teenager who were still at work on the charger. They stared at him, were still watching him as he turned right at the corner. The truck handled decently, but that really wasn't important. Back at Travis's house, Daniel left the keys in the truck and got out to observe the bald tires while Travis looked on. The ad in the magazine said 2000. Yeah, but I'm willing to work with you. Tell you what, I'll give you 2,200 if you deliver it to my house. Travis was lost, scratching his head and looking back at the house for his wife, who was no longer standing there, there. Whereabouts do you live? I live over near the university, near five points. 2,200, Travis said, more to himself than to Daniel. Sure, I can get it to your house. Here's 200. Daniel counted out the money and handed it to the man. I'll have the rest for you in cash when you deliver the truck. He watched Travis feel the bills with his skinny fingers. Can you have it there about four? I can do that. What in the world do you need a truck for? Sarah asked. She stepped over to the counter and poured herself another cup of coffee, then sat back down at the table with Daniel. I'm not buying the truck. Well, I am buying a truck, but only because I need the truck for the decal. I'm buying the decal.
- [48:45]
Deray McKesson (host)
Decal?
- [48:46]
McDonald's Advertiser
Yes. This truck has a Confederate flag in the back window.
- [48:51]
Crystal Dickinson (performer as Shirley Chisholm)
What?
- [48:52]
McDonald's Advertiser
I've decided that the rebel flag is my flag. My blood is Southern blood, right? Well, it's my flag. Sarah put down her cup and saucer and picked up a cookie from the plate in the middle of the table. You've flipped. I knew this would happen to you if you didn't work. A person needs to work. I don't need money. That's not the point. You don't have to work for money. She stood and walked to the edge of the porch and looked up and down the street. I've got my books and my music. You need a job so you can be around people you don't care about, doing stuff you don't care about. You need a job to operate. Occupy that part of your brain. I suppose it's too late now, though. Nonetheless, daniel said, you should have seen those redneck boys when I took Dixie from them. They didn't know what to do. So the damn flag is flying over the state capitol. Don't take it down. Just take it. That's what I say. That's all you have to do. That's all there is to it. Yep. Daniel leaned back in his rocker. You watch old Travis's face when he gets here. Travis arrived with a pickup a little before 4, his wife pulling up behind him in a yellow Trans Am. Barb got out of the car and walked up to the porch with Travis. She gave the house a careful look. Hey, Travis, daniel said. This is my friend Sarah. Travis nodded. Hello. You must be Barb, daniel said. Barb smiled weakly. Travis looked at Sarah, then back at the truck, and then to Daniel. You sure you don't want me to peel that thing off the window? I'm positive. Okay. Daniel gave Sarah a glance to be sure she was watching Travis's face. Here's the balance, he said, handing over the money. He took the truck keys from the skinny fingers. Barb sighed and asked, as if the question was burning right through her, why do you want that flag on the truck? Why shouldn't I want it? Daniel asked. Barb didn't know what to say. She studied her feet for a second, then regarded the house again. I mean, you live in a nice house and drive that sports car. What do you need a truck like that for? You don't want the money? Yes, we want the money, travis said, trying to silence Barb with a look. I need the truck for hauling stuff, daniel said. You know, like groceries. And he looked to Sarah for help. Books, sarah said. Books. Things like that. Daniel held Barb's eyes until she looked away. He watched Travis sign his name to the back of the title and hand it to him, and as he took it, he said, I was just lucky enough to find a truck with the black power flag Already on it. What? Travis screwed up his face, trying to understand the black Power flag on the window. You mean you didn't know? Travis and Barb looked at each other. Well, anyway, daniel said, I'm glad we could do business. He turned to Sarah. Let me take you for a ride in my new truck. He and Sarah walked across the yard, got into the pickup, and waved to Travis and Barb, who were still standing in Daniel's yard as they drove away. Sarah was on the verge of hysterics by the time they were out of sight. That was beautiful, she said. No, daniel said softly. That was true. Over the next weeks, sightings of Daniel in his truck proved problematic for some. He was accosted by two big white men and a 72 Monte Carlo in the parking lot of a 711 on Two Notch Road. What are you doing with that on that truck, boy? The bigger of the two asked. Flying it proudly, daniel said, noticing the rebel front plate on the Chevrolet. Just like you, brothers. The confused second man took a step toward Daniel. What did you call us, brothers? The second man pushed Daniel in the chest with two extended fists, but not terribly hard. I don't want any trouble, daniel told them. Then a Volkswagen with four black teenagers parked in the slot beside Daniel's truck, and they jumped out, staring and looking serious. What's going on? The driver and the largest of the teenagers asked. They were admiring our flag, daniel said, pointing to his truck. The teenagers were confused. We fly the flag proudly, don't we, young brothers? Daniel gave them a bent arm, black power closed fist salute. Don't we? He repeated. Don't we? Yeah, the young man said. The white men had back to work to their car. They slipped into it and drove away. Daniel looked at the teenagers and with as serious a face as he could manage, he said, get a flag and fly it proudly. At a gas station, a lawyer named Ahmad Wilson stood filling the tank of his BMW and staring at the back window of Daniel's truck. He then looked at Daniel. Your truck? He asked. Daniel stopped cleaning the windshield and nodded. Wilson didn't ask a question, just pointed at the rear window of Daniel's pickup. Power to the people, daniel said, and laughed. Daniel played Dixie in another bar in town, this time with an R and B dance band at a banquet of the Black Medical Association. The strange looks and expressions of outrage changed to bemused laughter and finally to open joking and acceptance as the song was played fast enough for dancing. Then the song was sung slowly, to the profound surprise of those singing the song. I wish I was in the land of cotton. Old times there are not forgotten. Look away, look away, look away. Soon there were several then many cars and trucks in Columbia, South Carolina sporting Confederate flags and being driven by black people. Black businessmen and ministers wore rebel flag buttons on their lapels and clips on their ties. The marching band of South Carolina State College, a predominantly black land grant institution in Orangeburg, paraded with the flag during homecoming. Black people all over the state flew the Confederate flag. The symbol began to disappear from the fronts of Bic rigs and and the back windows of jacked up four wheelers. And after the emblem was used to dress the yards and mark picnic sites of black family reunions the following Fourth of July, the piece of cloth was quietly dismissed from its station with the US and state flags atop the state Capitol. There was no ceremony, no notice. One day it was not there. Look away, look away, look away.
- [57:19]
Deray McKesson (host)
That was Wren T. Brown performing the Appropriation of Cultures by Percival Everett. It is a reminder that we can make new symbols, new stories of hope, that we don't have to celebrate the past, stories that were rooted in the things that were unjust. It's hard not to admire the unexpected revolution in the story. Don't take it down, daniel says of the Confederate flag. Just take it. It's an idea that each of our stories today have touched on and that each of them make entirely possible. History, no matter how painful, just may hold the key to what comes next, if we're brave enough to see it for what it is and embrace the unexpected possibilities it might offer. I'm Daria McKesson. Thanks for joining me for Selected Shorts. Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague I Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimkin, Vivian Woodward, and Magdalene Wrobleski. The readings are recorded by Myles B. Smith. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles, are recorded by Phil Richards. Our mix engineer for this episode is Joe Plourde. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Deierdorf Petersen Group. Selected Shorts are supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.
- [59:11]
Birch Lane / Ritual Zero Proof Advertiser
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- [59:39]
State Farm Advertiser
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