Behind the Scenes Minis: It's Not Unprecedented

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Behind the Scenes Minis: It's Not Unprecedented (Feb 13, 2026)

Main Theme & Purpose

In this behind-the-scenes "minisode," hosts Tracy B. Wilson and Holly Frey reflect on recent discussions about Anthony Burns and related historical precedents, particularly in light of current events. They examine the reactions to governmental actions considered “unprecedented” by the public, debunk that myth using various historical examples, and discuss the continued relevance of historical narratives today. Personal insights, research anecdotes, and moments of candor give listeners an intimate window into the research and recording process.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Contemporary Events & Historical Precedent

• “Unprecedented” Language in Today’s Coverage

  • Tracy reflects on recent news involving ICE and Border Patrol, pointing out that the media often calls such actions “unprecedented.”
  • Quote: “I need to say it is not in any way unprecedented. We have many episodes of the show that are about precedents for things like throwing American citizens into detention.” (Tracy, 06:35)
  • Holly and Tracy note that history is replete with similar examples—Japanese internment during WWII (Executive Order 9066), extrajudicial killings, and mass deportations of citizens and residents.
  • Quote: “This is not something we need to look to other countries or the incredibly distant past to find examples of.” (Tracy, 06:59)
  • Holly adds that widespread video footage might make current events feel new:
  • Quote: “I think for some people, they're perceiving it that way because we have so much footage of what's going on.” (Holly, 07:09)
  • Tracy references the Bracero program and mass deportations named with racist slurs as another historical parallel.
  • Quote: “Also had a lot of people who were either citizens or legal residents who were deported. That's just like another precedent.” (Tracy, 08:53)

• Public Perception and Video Evidence

  • The hosts observe that outrage over recent events seems amplified, especially when white victims are involved or when video is widely circulated.
  • “There is footage from World War II. But we haven't seen in the modern era footage of people with our own eyes just murdering people in the street in this way under the guise of government.” (Holly, 07:55)
  • Past incidents, despite coverage or internal documentation, often failed to resonate widely due to lack of visual evidence or public attention.

• Government Lies and Shifting Norms

  • Tracy comments on the pervasiveness and boldness of recent governmental falsehoods.
  • Quote: “The last couple of weeks... have felt like just a whole new level of absolutely obvious, easily contradicted by multiple angles of video footage. Lies in a way that feels a lot more obvious and a lot more bald.” (Tracy, 09:37)

2. Research Process and Personal Insights

• Anthony Burns and Archival Challenges

  • Tracy describes wanting to read the full text of an oft-quoted abolitionist letter held by the Massachusetts Historical Society but ultimately not making the trip due to constraints.
  • Memorable Moment: Tracy recounts a dream where she visits the Historical Society but forgets how to write, a reflection of overthinking her research responsibilities. (04:40-05:13)
  • Quote: “I overthought it so much that I had a dream that I went to the Historical Society and got there and could not remember how to write.” (Tracy, 04:59)

• Anthony Burns's Writing and Agency

  • Both hosts express gratitude that some of Burns’s own writing survives and discuss its importance.
  • Quote: “I like that we have that example of him speaking for himself.” (Tracy, 14:58)
  • They talk about the value of first-hand narratives and the tragic loss of further writings due to his early death.
  • Holly reflects on the “whip smart” nature of Burns and how enslaved people exercised agency even within constraints.
  • Quote: “He was constantly thinking about the logistics of escape and the ways that he had to move throughout the structure of slavery to minimize the number of people that could recognize him...” (Holly, 16:42)
  • Quote: “He was so smart and also had such an incredible hard to fathom story... the writings he could have done for years and years would have... been deeply informative.” (Holly, 17:30)

• Emotional Weight of Historical Research

  • Holly mourns the wasted potential and difficult decisions forced on people like Burns, highlighting how systemic oppression robs not only individuals but historiography itself.
  • Tracy stresses the need to recognize both large and small acts of resistance and agency among enslaved people.

3. Bridging the Past and Present

• Personal Reflection from Contemporary to Historical
  • Tracy draws direct lines between current events and past injustices, emphasizing the continuity rather than separateness of these phenomena.
  • “The unprecedented part is... it is unprecedented for you to realize it, but it's not unprecedented for this to happen.” (Holly, 09:27)
  • They encourage the audience to resist thinking of the present as somehow outside of historical patterns.

4. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Overthinking Research:
  • “I overthought it so much that I had a dream that I went to the Historical Society and got there and could not remember how to write.” (Tracy, 04:59)
• On Historical Precedent:
  • “We have many episodes of the show that are about precedence for things like throwing American citizens into detention.” (Tracy, 06:35)
• On Public Perception:
  • “It is unprecedented for you to realize it, but it's not unprecedented for this to happen.” (Holly, 09:27)
• On Anthony Burns’ Potential and Agency:
  • “He could have produced some really incredible commentary on the whole thing that we don't get now.” (Holly, 17:30)
  • “He made a lot of decisions that might have seemed minor at the time, but were steps that he was taking to... influence his own future within a society where he didn't have rights.” (Tracy, 19:11)

5. Historical Reference: Excerpt from Burns’s Biography

• Tracy shares a particularly fervent passage from the preface to Charles Emery Stevens's biography of Anthony Burns, highlighting the political and violent context leading up to the Civil War.
  • Quote: “As I write these lines, the country is passing through its greatest crisis of peril...” (Tracy, 20:13–21:42)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:21] Discussion opens on public reactions to news & the “unprecedented” label
• [06:35] Tracy cites historical precedent for government abuses
• [08:32] Reference to the Bracero program and mass deportations
• [09:27] Holly reframes “unprecedented” as a matter of public realization
• [14:40] Appreciation of Anthony Burns’ writings and personal reflections
• [16:00] Holly discusses the emotional toll and missed potential of Burns’ early death
• [20:13] Tracy reads from the preface of Burns's biography, tying past and present political crises

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Tone & Takeaways

The tone is candid, thoughtful, and deeply empathetic, blending historical rigor with emotional awareness and personal insight. The hosts stress the continuity of injustices across time and invite listeners to recognize both the historical richness and tragedy in stories like Anthony Burns’s—while urging a more informed and less naive view of present-day events.

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For further listening: Check out previous episodes on Anthony Burns, the Bracero program, and other episodes referenced for deeper historical context on government-led injustices and resistance.

Transcript

[Tracy B. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Narrator for Valley of Shadows]

On June 11, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Hey, if they'll kill a cop and.

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Bury him, what are they gonna do to me?

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What really happened to the missing deputy? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert.

Listen to Valley of shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator for Charlie's Place]

When segregation was a law, one mysterious black club owner Charlie Fitzgerald had his own rules.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Segregation in the day, integration at night. It was like stepping in another world.

[Narrator for Charlie's Place]

Was he a businessman? A criminal, A hero?

Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him.

Charlie's place from Atlas Obscura and visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator for The Secret World of Roald Dahl]

You know Roald Dahl, he thought of Willy Wonka in the bfg. But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, the Secret World of Roald Dahl, I'll tell you that story and much, much more.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

What?

[Narrator for The Secret World of Roald Dahl]

You probably won't believe it either, was this.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Before he wrote his stories. It must have been.

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Okay, I don't think that's true.

[Narrator for The Secret World of Roald Dahl]

I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Listen to the Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Holly Fry]

Welcome to stuff you missed in history class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Hello and happy Friday. I'm Tracy B. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We spent all week talking about Anthony Burns.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, we did.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

After. After. I saw the same quote over and over. I feel like a lot. Very recently, in response to what has been happening in Minnesota. We're currently about two weeks out between when we were recording things and when things are publishing.

[Holly Fry]

So I shuddered at the end.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The world is moving. Yeah, world is moving so fast. Who knows what will happen between this moment and when the episode comes out, but I have seen a lot of stark, mad abolitionist quotes recently in response to things happening in Minnesota, the public response to things happening in Minnesota. But I actually think the first time I saw it was months ago when Ross Baraka, mayor of Newark, was arrested, which now feels like that happened eons.

[Holly Fry]

I'm like, was that a whole month ago?

[Tracy B. Wilson]

It was in, I feel like May of last year. It was a long time ago.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I don't know if it was actually May. I did not refresh my memory on when it happened, but, like, it was a while ago. And then it has, like, I've seen it again and again on my social. I am very curious about what the rest of the letter says. Yeah. And I, I could not find a scan of this letter anywhere. It is in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. And I thought about going there to try to read it and did even take preliminary steps toward that end, but it was not critical to the content of the episode. And I also just realized that the episode was gonna be two parts, which means it's going to take longer to finish the writing on because it's two episodes worth of writing. And no matter which way I could have tried to get to the Historical Society from my house, it would have been probably the whole of a morning or the whole of an afternoon to get there, look through boxes of documents, get home again. And that was just not an amount of time that I had for that. Also, I overthought it so much that I had a dream that I went to the Historical Society and got there and could not remember how to write. Yes. Sometimes I just think. Yeah, just think too much about my job. So I, I, I stopped trying. Maybe one day I will go satisfy my own personal curiosity. Going to, to read it one day when, when the schedule is not quite as packed as it was. Just doing this.

[Holly Fry]

Maybe when it warms up a little bit.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah, that was the other thing because they are open some hours on Saturdays. And I was like, what if I went on Saturday morning? Because I do like to have a little to Boston proper sometimes for different reasons. And the high that day I think was going to be 10 hard pass. And spending the Saturday morning on work and also doing it in a, a high temperature of 10. I was a little more, yeah, little more than I wanted to do. Regarding the news that has led so many people to share this particular quote. I saw multiple articles, literally this morning, as of when we're recording this, that described the conduct of ICE and Border Patrol and these Other agencies as unprecedented. And I need to say it is not in any way unprecedented. We have many episodes of the show that are about precedence for things like throwing American citizens into detention.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Such as Executive Order 9066, when along the west coast, immigrants from Japan and their children who were citizens were put in literal concentration camps. Like, this is not something we need to look to other countries or the incredibly distant past to find examples of.

[Holly Fry]

No. I think what has made some people. I'm not gonna. Blanket statement. Cause everybody's got their own biases and whatever. I think for some people, they're perceiving it that way because we have so much footage of what's going on.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

And that's a big part of it. I think that's also. Unfortunately, there has been a disparity in outrage over the killing of two white people versus people of color that were killed prior to that.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yes. Which.

[Holly Fry]

Some of that is a racism problem. But I do think some of it is also video footage that is making people feel more outraged, upset, whatever the right word is. Everybody's having their own reaction. But I do think that's part of it. Even though it is incorrect to say it's unprecedented.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Like. Right.

[Holly Fry]

They haven't ever actually witnessed. I mean, we've seen old footage.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Right.

[Holly Fry]

There is footage from World War II.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

There's.

[Holly Fry]

But we haven't seen in the modern era footage of people with our own eyes just murdering people in the street in this way under the guise of government.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. We have had many other, like, extrajudicial killings of people by law enforcement. And in some cases, there was footage like the officer's body camera. But I think people are not putting those together as part of the same.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Spectrum, necessarily.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Which is part of the unprecedented. Also, like, we have an episode about the Bracero program, which was a program to bring Mexican migrant workers into the United States. And part of that episode is about the mass deportation effort that was literally named a racist slur.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

That had a lot of the same inhumane elements. Also had a lot of people who were either citizens or legal residents who were deported. That's just like another precedent. I don't remember if I had another thing to say about that besides that fact, but the unprecedented language made me very frustrated. And then, as I said at the beginning of the show, like, you don't have to look outside of this century to see a lot of other things that are either parallels or part of the same spectrum in terms of breaking up families. Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

The unprecedented part is my Darling, saying this, it is unprecedented for you to realize it, but it's not unprecedented for this to happen.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

It does feel like that some of the things that we are being confronted with all of the time are on a slightly different level than before. We have plenty of examples all throughout history of government officials lying to the public. So many of them. So many, so many. But the last couple of weeks, as of when we are recording, have felt like just a whole new level of absolutely obvious, easily contradicted by multiple angles of video footage. Lies in a way that feels a lot more obvious and a lot more bald. Lying. Basically, like just a. Yeah. A step up from the regular lying that has been happening for so long.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Anyway, those were some of the things I just had noted down to talk about regarding the inspiration for this episode, rather than the episode itself. Segregation in the day, integration at night.

[Narrator for Charlie's Place]

When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We didn't worry about what was going on outside. It was like stepping in another world.

[Narrator for Charlie's Place]

Inside Charlie's Place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it.

[Holly Fry]

You saw the kkk.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. They was dressed up in their uniform.

[Holly Fry]

The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here.

[Narrator for Charlie's Place]

Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him.

From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and visit Myrtle beach comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator for The Secret World of Roald Dahl]

You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda and the bfg. But did you know he was also a spy?

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been.

[Narrator for The Secret World of Roald Dahl]

Our new podcast series, the Secret World of Roald Dahl is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans.

[Holly Fry]

What?

[Narrator for The Secret World of Roald Dahl]

And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either.

[Narrator for WSECU ad]

Okay, I don't think that's true.

[Narrator for The Secret World of Roald Dahl]

I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelts, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman? And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock before writing a hit James Bond film. How did the Secret Agent Work wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids? The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator for 6th Bureau podcast]

China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Riegel, Special Agent Bradley Hall.

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This MSS officer has no idea the US Government is onto him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the sixth Bureau podcast.

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No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable.

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This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.

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Listen to the 6th Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator for Valley of Shadows]

On June 11, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing. It's an all out manhunt for John Ajay.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Every search and rescue team in LA county has been called in to help.

[Narrator for Valley of Shadows]

Within days, tips started flooding into the sheriff's department.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

They ruler around the drug scene. Was that a deputy was taken care of.

[Narrator for Valley of Shadows]

Is this the story of a man who just got lost in the desert? Or of a cover up inside the nation's largest sheriff's department?

[Tracy B. Wilson]

A homicide captain saying, detective, do not find out if this guy's guilty or innocent. Who does that?

[Narrator for Valley of Shadows]

Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert.

Do you have any advice for us while looking into this disappearance?

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I wouldn't do it alone.

[Narrator for Valley of Shadows]

Listen to Valley of shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I am glad that we have some writing of Anthony Burns. Yeah, like he said that he did get some assistance with his response to the church in Virginia when he asked for his letter of dismission.

[Holly Fry]

Oh, I love that response too. Oh, I love it.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

And like we didn't, we didn't read all of it. There's more of it there. But I like that we have that example of him speaking for himself. And I also like that we have, I like that we have a biography of him that was written with his involvement at the time. There are always nuances to biographies like that throughout history. We have a lot of biographies of people that were prepared with the assistance of someone else with that biography, then helping that person meet their Expenses in whatever way. But the fact that we have his perspective on more of it, rather than just the legal documents having to do with all of it is something that I. Like I had a moment where I was like, I feel like I've been talking about Boston a lot. Not actually. Sorry about that. A lot of important things have happened in Boston. Did you have any other things that you wanted to talk about from these episodes?

[Holly Fry]

The one note I had is tied in a way to his. I mean I wrote the note down earlier as we were recording, but it's tied to his response to the church. And it is that whole issue of like. It breaks my heart to think of him struggling with the morality of escaping.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm glad that he reaches that point where he's like, oh no, that's. This whole concept is completely jacked. But like, just knowing that that's the case. The other thing that sort of breaks my heart is that he was clearly whip smart.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Oh yeah.

[Holly Fry]

You know, the way he was constantly thinking about the logistics of escape and the ways that he had to move throughout the structure of slavery to minimize the number of people that could recognize him, to create scenarios where if he did make a getaway, it wouldn't necessarily be recognized initially. Like those are all so smart. And I think about like if when he was, I mean he was still very young when he died.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Uh huh.

[Holly Fry]

So it's a twosie. It's one. If he was as a young boy and a young man not having to engage with that. What are the things that someone that smart could have been doing?

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Oh sure.

[Holly Fry]

Like if he had not been needing to like fend for his life.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

With every minute like being thinking about the logistics of survival. And then the other thing is that it's so unfair that he did die so early because yeah, again, he was so smart and also had such an incredible hard to fathom for most of us story of how many things he had been through that like the writings he could have done for years and years would have, you know, been deeply informative to our view of enslavement. Now, not that there aren't a lot of really great slave narratives, but we need more always. And you know, he was in a unique place to have the level. I mean like his. Again, we know he got help with that response, but like his writing, the way he thought about things and again, how clearly brilliant he was, I feel like could have, he could have produced some really incredible commentary on the whole thing that we don't get now. That would've been, you know, incredibly important as historical reference points. So that's heartbreaking.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. I think he's also a really good example of the ways that enslaved people could exercise their agency where they had agency. Yeah. Because a lot of times we get kind of a really limited view that that can be misinterpreted as, like, people not taking action for themselves when they knew that taking action for themselves would be dangerous and possibly deadly. Yeah. And it seems like he made a lot of decisions that might have seemed minor at the time, but were steps that he was taking to take for himself to influence his own future, where he was able to take influence on his own future within a society where he didn't have rights as a person in a lot of ways.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

So, yeah. One thing that I just copied and put at the end of my outline here, because I liked it and I thought it tied together this and also last year's episodes on Charles Sumner. But it didn't really fit anywhere in the actual episode. So I left it to read for behind the scenes. And so this is from the end of the preface to Charles Emory Stevens biography of Anthony Burns. And he wrote, as I write these lines, the country is passing through its greatest crisis of peril on the Western frontier. Civil war is flagrant at Washington. A senator lies wounded and disabled, having been stealthily stricken down on the floor of the Senate for words spoken in debate by a member of the House from South Carolina. The whole south, with trifling exceptions, applauds this assault upon the representative of a sovereign state. A national convention of the party in power has given its sanction to the policy of which these events, as well as the extradition of Burns, are the legitimate fruits. And has nominated for the presidency a person who has pledged himself fully to enforce that policy. Should that person be elected and that policy be enforced, the cause of freedom, whether in Kansas, in Washington, or in Massachusetts, would have just reason to apprehend a repetition of similar assaults from the slave power. To avert such a calamity, every good citizen must labor. And I hope that this history, conceived and executed for a more general purpose, may contribute somewhat also to that particular end. And that was like the end of the preface to the biography. I tried to find some more information about Charles Emory Stevens, and I didn't really. So I don't really know what his deal was. Maybe I will return to that at some point in the future. Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Somewhere out there, there is a book.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Maybe. Maybe so. Maybe. Maybe so. Well, whatever is happening in your world, which is in the far away time of two weeks from now, based on when we're recording. I hope whatever it is is going as well as possible, and I hope that you're able to take some time for yourself. Help your neighbors. My helping of my neighbors today was shoveling out the fire hydrants which were buried in snow. So yeah, help one another. Be kind to one another. We will be back with a Saturday classic tomorrow. We will be back with something brand new on Monday. Stuff you missed in history class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast.

[Narrator for Charlie's Place]

Guaranteed Human.