S2E8: It's Our Turn w/Jaha Avery

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This is Stonewritten. I'm your host, Dr. Ron. Hello.
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I'm really just super excited. So I want to tell the audience a little bit about who you are.
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So I've done a little bit of internet sleuthing, just a little bit.
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And you tell me if any of this bio that I kind of pulled from multiple places
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is incorrect, but you grew up here in North Carolina.
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My memory is that your roots are in Asheville. Is that right?
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That's correct. So you came to Carolina for your JD, not for undergrad,
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but you came to pursue the law and then you did something very different.
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So I'll get there in a second. But you're from North Carolina. You're from Asheville.
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I feel like my memory of that time, which I didn't look this up,
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but was it civil rights and constitutional law? Yes.
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That was a really fascinating part of our thread. I know that you've been in
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the tech world for a little bit and then you've been freelancing.
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You've been writing for places like Vanity Fair and the New York Times and even
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something I remember it because it was just so like an outlier in terms of places.
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And I was like, Architectural Digest?
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I was like, I've written for all these places. So you're a professional writer.
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I think you would probably say by trade, but I would say that you're a professional
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storyteller and you love to travel because I stalk you voluntarily.
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It's not really stalked because you let me follow you on Instagram.
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So I know that you love to travel and you travel as much as you can.
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Some of that is because you're writing and you're traveling to write or maybe
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you're writing to travel.
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I don't know. But the point is that you're doing all these things.
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But I was so struck because of how you talked about growing up with your grandparents.
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So you were raised by your grandparents who had these expectations and you were like.
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I have something else that I feel called to do. So that's part of why I wanted you to come.
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So Jaha and I met because I was invited as a faculty member to attend a dinner with alumni.
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And I think the Alumni Association puts this on and they invite people to come.
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And I think once they get nine or ten people with faculty and we just sit down
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at a table and have dinner, we just break bread and parlay. Yes.
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And it was just incredible because the conversations that evening,
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you know, of course, you kind of led the conversation or started out by leading the conversation.
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But then everyone kind of contributed based off of their own background and their own experiences.
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And so it was a great conversation, great company.
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And the food was actually pretty good. The food was good.
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They invited me literally under the pretext of, hey, just come and talk as a faculty member.
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Talk about your work and how you came to Carolina.
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And I told that story about being recruited to come to Carolina to lead the
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Stone Center. And our conversation was really good that night,
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and we have just stayed in touch.
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And I knew from that conversation, because the way you talked about your background
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and the way we talked about the unexpected moves that happened to Carolina alum,
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that was really the turning point in our conversation.
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And when you started telling your story, Jahat, I mean, it was really profound and.
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You talked about who you are.
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So let me just say, in addition to doing the freelance work that you've done,
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you've published at least two books.
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Those Who Saw the Sun, African-American Oral Histories from the Jim Crow South,
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which in this moment has more relevance than you probably ever wanted it to have.
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Right. We want our books to be relevant, but we don't want them to be relevant
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because history is repeating itself. But then you also have a picture book called
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I Heard, An American Journey.
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Is that technically billed as a children's book? Is it a young adult book or
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no? Tell me how they billed that.
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So it is in the category of a picture book, but I like to call it more of an
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illustrated poem because it is written in rhyme.
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It spans over 400 years of African-American history in rhyme,
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and it was initially written as a poem.
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So I call it an illustrated poem. Yeah, an illustrated poem. I love that. I love that.
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So, I mean, not that you have to categorize yourself, but how do you describe
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yourself? I think of you, again, as a.
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Professional storyteller. You tell stories and you figure out how to get those stories out.
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When people say, oh, what do you do for a living? What do you say?
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I do tell people that I am a storyteller or I will tell them that I'm a griot
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because that's really the foundation of all of my work.
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And so part of being a griot, of course, storytelling is a big part of that.
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But research is also a big part of being a griot because someone has to tell
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you what you then contextualize and share with others.
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That's what I tell people. And then I go a little more into it and let them
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know, hey, I'm a journalist. I am an author.
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Most recently, I am a harpist. Yeah, I saw that too, that you picked up the
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harp. And I was like, why the harp?
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I saw a Black woman on Instagram playing the harp.
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Yeah. And I thought to myself, So I don't think I've ever seen a black woman playing the harp.
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So I DMed her and I said, can you teach me how to play the harp?
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Wow. This was in the middle of the pandemic, of course. So I faced so many challenges
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because, of course, you can't just go out and buy a harp. It's a big instrument.
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Like, what kind of vehicle are you putting this harp in? What kind of vehicle?
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You know, the barrier of entry to begin playing the harp is very, very high.
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But I am in the very beginning phases of learning how to play a traditional
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West African harp, kora, and that has been a completely different experience with the instrument.
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And so both of them have been very fulfilling to me.
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Oh, my God. Okay. So many things.
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So listeners, now you know why I'm talking to Jahan because all of these wonderfully rich and dynamic,
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pieces of who you are. I strive to live my life so that I don't have to piecemeal myself together.
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And I want to create environments for people to be able to be their whole and full selves.
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And so here you are, you're like, no, I'm a storyteller. I'm a griot.
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I'm learning the harp, but I'm also going to the quora, right?
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I write. I'm a journalist, but I'm also a researcher.
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Unapologetically North Carolinian, Southern born and bred.
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Yeah. I'm a member of the Afro-Southern diaspora.
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And that is a very specific culture that we should be very proud of. I'm very proud of it.
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You know, I'm not going to let anybody make me, you know, people have such a
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proclivity to look down on Southerners.
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And I think it's ridiculous because Southern culture, though foundational,
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remains relevant, remains influential, especially Afro-Southern culture.
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So, yeah, I tell people I'm a proud Southerner.
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Did you always know that you were going to be a lawyer or wanted to go to law school?
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Would you say you've been delivered from the law? What would you say about this
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law degree that you have that you got from Carolina? What would you say about
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how the, I mean, yeah, how going to become a lawyer has shifted?
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Where does being a lawyer fit into who it is that you are and how you see yourself?
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Let me just say this. I always wanted to be a writer. When I was a kid, wanted to be a writer.
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I always wrote poetry, short stories and everything.
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My family, church, community, everybody was so supportive and encouraging of my writing.
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My grandparents told me, you can't make money as a writer. You don't go to law
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school. You're going to med school. You're going to grad school, something.
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You're going to be a doctor. Something. Lawyer or engineer.
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Throughout the Black diaspora, it's one of these three things that people are
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like, this is the tell of success. I would even say teachers.
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I had a lot of educators in my family. My grandmother was an old school educator.
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So, you know, that was always an option, too.
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I'm not faulting my grandparents or, you know, to me, especially then,
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it was a different world.
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Technology has really removed some of the barriers that previously existed in
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publishing and journalism.
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And I'm not saying that they're completely eradicated, of course,
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but we have access to more people and information than we did even when I was a little kid.
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And so they gave me information based on what they felt I would be able to do
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successfully to be able to have a beautiful life.
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And so I do appreciate them for pushing me in that direction.
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A lot of people have never heard anyone say that before, but I loved law school.
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And the reason that I felt that going to law school was the right choice for me,
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because I've always been interested in how
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can I use my skills and my talents to bring back to my community and create
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spaces for us to become empowered and to become educated and use my skills again to build my community.
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Law school was an amazing experience for me because I was able to learn from
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so many brilliant legal minds.
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I will say Carolina Law has excellent faculty members.
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And I was just, it was an incredible intellectual environment.
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And so when I graduated law school, of course, took the bar and,
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I felt like, OK, I have a law degree. I can I can work in the legal profession.
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Let me just check it out and see how it is. And I lasted for about a month and a half.
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Damn. I don't have the type of personality that does well in the legal profession.
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Even though you're even though you're a type A personality, what do you mean?
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What I mean by that is I'm a person that I need to see impact now.
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I can't work 50 years and see a little bit of impact from that last 50 years.
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I need to be able to do work that I can see and I can feel and the impact is there.
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And that is what really keeps me motivated.
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Well, part of what keeps me motivated in my professional career.
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And I'm like, I just cannot toil away, especially in civil rights law.
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You have to be willing to toil away your entire professional career and,
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You may only see a little bit of progress, but you know you're building something
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for that next generation to then stand upon, that next generation to stand upon.
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But you may not yourself see the impact of your work.
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I don't have the type of personality where I can continue to do that and not
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see the impact of my work.
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And so I thought to myself, you know, where am I going to be able to see that impact?
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So me going into startups was really more me thinking, how can I use this expensive
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law degree that I now have, but also be able to combine that with innovation,
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impact, me doing something that I can see the impact of.
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And that's how I ended up in startups.
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My first job out of law school was at Uber.
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That's an important caveat. Yes.
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When I started at Uber, nobody knew what Uber was. I was part of the team that
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brought Uber to the Southeast U.S.
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And it's funny to think that there was a time where you could mention Uber and
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literally no one knew what it was.
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I remember telling my family, yeah, I got this new job and everything.
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And they were like, okay, so you're basically going to put strangers in the
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car with other strangers and that's your job.
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I'm pretty sure they thought I was completely unemployed and just lying about this new opportunity.
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So I started there. It was exciting.
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It was wonderful at first, but Uber didn't necessarily scale with a lot of integrity.
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And so I ended up leaving Uber.
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And that was a huge lesson for me because I realized that I cannot stay at a
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company that is engaging in behaviors that doesn't match my ideals.
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So I walked away from Uber and trust me, that was a lot of money to be walking away from.
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Wait, so wait, hold on now. There's a step in there because what you said is
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just so profound, like staying at a place that doesn't represent what it is that you believe in,
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right? I work at UNC Chapel Hill.
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Fundamentally, I believe in that mission, but you're leaving money on the table,
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lots of money, lots of resource.
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Where did you get the courage? How did you know that you would be okay?
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Or did you not know and you just took a leap of faith?
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I knew that I was being asked to do things that did not align with my core beliefs.
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And you said something very important.
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You believe in the mission. At that point, I no longer believed in the mission.
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And so I just said, I can't in all good conscience know who I am as a person,
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face myself as a person. And so I left.
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Is that when you started freelancing? So at this point, I was snatched up pretty
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quickly to come and help build a nonprofit rideshare, which was the first one in the country.
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And so I worked there for four years.
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And then what happened was I got laid off at the very start of the pandemic.
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And so I got laid off. Did you have a nest egg or did you know it was coming?
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Could you feel it? I'm all in your pockets. I'm not pocket watching.
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I'm really just asking because I know that people listening are going to be
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like, hold on, wait, how do I make this choice?
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Because I know that there are people who are sitting in a job that they despise,
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are sitting in spaces that they feel rub against what it is they believe in
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their heart of hearts and their soul of souls.
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I know that they're going to want to know. And let me speak to that a little
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bit more, too, because I want to say that the decision to leave Uber wasn't
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an overnight decision or a quick decision.
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When things started going in a direction that I did not.
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Light. I spent months proposing and working on programs that I felt could kind
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of help tip the balance back in another way.
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Now, I don't believe in the gig economy. And I feel kind of ashamed of even
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having been a part of, you know,
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building one of the biggest companies in the gig economy that ushered in the
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gig economy. I don't believe in that now.
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And I did try to affect positive change from the inside.
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Some of those things were accepted. Some of them were not. And I do feel that
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there's something to be said for being in a space and doing what you can to improve that space,
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especially if you can't leave. You know, leaving is not always an option.
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Literally at the very start of the pandemic, because, of course,
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operations were completely shut down because you didn't know how close you could be to someone.
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No one wanted to be in the car with anybody. Everyone was at home and we were in lockdown.
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So our whole entire product, it was made irrelevant overnight.
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So I was laid off. But that ended up being a really good thing for me in general,
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because we were getting the $600.
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Supplement at that time, the federal supplement. And so I told myself, Jahaf,
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It's now or never. You need to sit down.
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Because I had had things to write about for years, but I just never had the time.
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You know, working in a startup, it's just so hectic. You're always,
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it's a grind. It is a constant grind.
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And I said, I'm at home. We're in lockdowns.
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I don't have to worry about money right now because I'm getting unemployment.
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I'm getting, you know, supplement.
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I'm going to sit down and I'm going to write out everything that I have had
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on my heart to write over all of these years.
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I am going to learn how to get published in some of these publications.
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I am going to learn how to craft letters to editors, pitches.
00:17:29.917 --> 00:17:36.497
I literally used probably about a six-month period of time to just sit there,
00:17:36.737 --> 00:17:41.157
write, craft proposals and query letters and pitches and everything.
00:17:41.157 --> 00:17:44.037
And I just figured it out.
00:17:44.417 --> 00:17:49.497
I, unless literally the hand of God were to tap me personally and said.
00:17:50.237 --> 00:17:55.617
LaRonda, my whole government name, my whole name, I expect you to go into politics.
00:17:55.617 --> 00:17:57.157
I would not be a politician.
00:17:57.397 --> 00:18:03.917
But if I were, I would run on the platform of sabbaticals for everyone.
00:18:04.077 --> 00:18:08.097
What you're describing is exactly what the sabbatical space affords.
00:18:08.097 --> 00:18:15.317
It affords you the opportunity to reset, to prioritize, and it gives you the space, right?
00:18:15.477 --> 00:18:18.457
So it was an unintentional sabbatical,
00:18:18.457 --> 00:18:23.797
but it really did give you a moment to say, what matters to me?
00:18:23.917 --> 00:18:29.157
What is meaningful to me? And I want to commend you for embracing that because
00:18:29.157 --> 00:18:32.497
a lot of times you talked about the gig economy.
00:18:32.497 --> 00:18:36.997
Because we're moving from gig to gig, or we're trying to hustle and bustle and
00:18:36.997 --> 00:18:40.037
shuffle, which doesn't mean that we aren't meant to work hard.
00:18:40.037 --> 00:18:42.917
It just means that that kind of economy,
00:18:44.035 --> 00:18:52.195
It breeds lack of rest, breeds space where you aren't afforded time and opportunity to think and reflect.
00:18:52.535 --> 00:18:57.875
And so I just want to commend you for embracing that in a way that allowed you
00:18:57.875 --> 00:19:03.455
to transition your life. I mean, when I asked you how it is that you describe
00:19:03.455 --> 00:19:05.035
yourself, you said, I am a griot.
00:19:06.735 --> 00:19:12.755
And I'm just like, yes. You're like, I'm not just out here telling stories and
00:19:12.755 --> 00:19:14.235
writing for the sake of writing.
00:19:14.495 --> 00:19:19.955
I mean, the griots in traditional African and African-derived communities,
00:19:20.255 --> 00:19:24.315
the role of the griot, as you mentioned, is instrumental.
00:19:24.615 --> 00:19:31.035
They are the keepers of the stories. They are the continuity of community.
00:19:31.395 --> 00:19:36.775
And so what I hear you saying and what I know because I've read those who saw
00:19:36.775 --> 00:19:38.375
the sun is that's exactly right.
00:19:38.495 --> 00:19:43.395
I mean, you collected, you know, in a very, you know, that word collected.
00:19:44.015 --> 00:19:51.155
You curated, you know, stories. You pulled stories of people who had survived
00:19:51.155 --> 00:19:56.035
Jim Crow South because you recognized the value of community.
00:19:56.233 --> 00:20:00.633
Those stories not only being told, but being told from the perspectives of the
00:20:00.633 --> 00:20:02.273
people who lived through it.
00:20:02.493 --> 00:20:06.833
Which isn't the same as the WPA, the Works Progress Administration narratives,
00:20:07.073 --> 00:20:09.393
where people are like going, like the spirit behind the WPA,
00:20:09.473 --> 00:20:13.093
there are lots of problems with that, but the format and how it was acquired,
00:20:13.233 --> 00:20:14.633
etc. And the permissions, etc.
00:20:15.093 --> 00:20:19.873
But the spirit of it is exactly right, that these stories matter,
00:20:20.313 --> 00:20:24.133
that our past matters. The past is never just the past, right?
00:20:24.253 --> 00:20:28.973
The past lives into the present, and we need the griots.
00:20:29.153 --> 00:20:34.273
We need the storytellers to help us to understand, interpret, decipher.
00:20:34.593 --> 00:20:39.953
I mean, you know, griots have as much standing as all of the sacred religious
00:20:39.953 --> 00:20:45.353
figures in these communities, right? Because that role is vital.
00:20:45.893 --> 00:20:49.813
And so preserving our history and preserving our culture, come on,
00:20:49.873 --> 00:20:55.973
y'all, this is the Sonia Haines Stone Center for Research in Black Culture and History.
00:20:56.213 --> 00:21:01.493
And doing that truthfully, oh my goodness, I just want to commend you for committing
00:21:01.493 --> 00:21:07.293
to that because in this moment especially, it is a dangerous thing.
00:21:07.293 --> 00:21:13.633
Who knew that being able to state a truth of fact of the history of enslavement
00:21:13.633 --> 00:21:17.953
in America is actually risky because it is, in fact, true?
00:21:18.233 --> 00:21:23.013
Yeah. It goes back to the saying of those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
00:21:23.013 --> 00:21:27.493
What is happening now is exactly what has happened before.
00:21:27.493 --> 00:21:33.073
We've seen this before in this very country, pretty much following the exact
00:21:33.073 --> 00:21:40.753
same parallels that have happened before, which is why we need to know what those parallels are.
00:21:40.913 --> 00:21:46.673
We need to know how our ancestors resisted, how they found joy,
00:21:46.953 --> 00:21:51.873
how they preserved their culture, how they preserve their mental state,
00:21:51.933 --> 00:21:54.513
how they preserve their spiritual state.
00:21:54.593 --> 00:21:58.473
We need to know all of those things because those are lessons that,
00:21:58.970 --> 00:22:03.130
apparently are becoming more relevant than probably most of us ever imagined.
00:22:03.570 --> 00:22:09.050
My in-laws were visiting not that long ago, and, you know, they're in their 80s.
00:22:10.590 --> 00:22:15.150
And anyone who's in their 80s, you know, they know intimately,
00:22:15.430 --> 00:22:19.390
unfortunately, the perils of segregation. They know.
00:22:19.530 --> 00:22:23.630
And I said to them, I said, can you believe? And they were just like, we cannot.
00:22:24.310 --> 00:22:29.590
Yeah. We cannot believe that we are in this moment back.
00:22:30.010 --> 00:22:32.370
I mean, for them, it is going back.
00:22:32.910 --> 00:22:37.530
And we spent a little bit of time talking about, well, how did we get here?
00:22:37.650 --> 00:22:39.510
Not to cast aspersion or blame.
00:22:39.870 --> 00:22:44.850
And one of the things that we could agree on is this sense of falling asleep
00:22:44.850 --> 00:22:46.730
at the wheel, like, oh, everything is fine.
00:22:46.890 --> 00:22:49.670
You know, this sense of like, it's not that it's not important,
00:22:49.690 --> 00:22:53.450
but in terms of prioritizing the stories that we tell our children.
00:22:53.630 --> 00:22:59.390
We've wanted to protect them from it. And that protection, I think,
00:22:59.530 --> 00:23:05.790
has come at a cost and a potentially deadly one for us, you know, truly, you know.
00:23:05.970 --> 00:23:09.850
There are people, and let me just say this, I never thought those who saw The
00:23:09.850 --> 00:23:11.130
Sun was going to be a book.
00:23:11.270 --> 00:23:13.490
I didn't start doing this because it was going to be a book.
00:23:13.610 --> 00:23:17.590
I started interviewing people in my family because I wanted to document and
00:23:17.590 --> 00:23:19.010
preserve those stories because,
00:23:19.423 --> 00:23:24.603
because people were passing away. And then in hearing their stories,
00:23:24.863 --> 00:23:26.423
because me, I just love history.
00:23:26.623 --> 00:23:29.803
So they would mention something and I'm like, oh, I want to know more about
00:23:29.803 --> 00:23:33.163
this. So let me talk to this person that you talked about in your story.
00:23:33.363 --> 00:23:37.443
And so it kind of just grew from there. But again, it was more of a personal passion.
00:23:37.723 --> 00:23:39.663
It was more of a personal project.
00:23:39.963 --> 00:23:45.183
And this is something too, let me just quickly segue into saying,
00:23:45.383 --> 00:23:48.123
and the things that are part of our passions.
00:23:48.383 --> 00:23:52.723
Sometimes we want to keep them to ourselves because we feel like I'm not there
00:23:52.723 --> 00:23:54.983
yet. I shouldn't be speaking on this yet.
00:23:55.543 --> 00:24:00.083
I'm not to this certain, you know, mythical point that's going to all of a sudden
00:24:00.083 --> 00:24:02.683
allow me to be able to speak on what I'm doing.
00:24:02.983 --> 00:24:07.203
And I never had to shop a book around.
00:24:07.483 --> 00:24:12.043
My publisher actually came to me after reading one of my articles,
00:24:12.043 --> 00:24:19.063
and I got this mysterious invitation for Zoom chat.
00:24:19.323 --> 00:24:23.843
Who is this? This is obviously spam. I'm deleting this. But I said,
00:24:23.963 --> 00:24:26.743
no, Jahar, I'm going to Zoom, just see what's going on.
00:24:27.083 --> 00:24:29.543
And it ended up being my now editor.
00:24:31.003 --> 00:24:36.923
We chatted about the work that I was doing, the books that he had acquired in the past.
00:24:37.023 --> 00:24:40.823
And I just happened to mention to him, yeah, I've been interviewing Black elders
00:24:40.823 --> 00:24:44.583
for years. is something that is very near and dear to my heart.
00:24:44.783 --> 00:24:50.063
I consider myself a vessel to share their stories for us to learn from.
00:24:50.483 --> 00:24:57.383
And I did not shop it around to any publishers. And so I just wanted to mention that,
00:24:58.214 --> 00:25:01.654
the things that we are interested in, don't keep it to yourself.
00:25:02.014 --> 00:25:05.694
Share it with people because you never know who is watching you.
00:25:05.834 --> 00:25:10.354
You never know who is appreciating who you are, what you're putting out there.
00:25:10.534 --> 00:25:17.574
And I just never thought that me writing this one particular article about the
00:25:17.574 --> 00:25:25.374
place of Black bookstores in the political space would then lead to all of this.
00:25:25.814 --> 00:25:28.654
So that's kind of how that came about.
00:25:28.874 --> 00:25:38.394
But I was going to say, it also goes back to the importance of culturally relevant journalism.
00:25:38.674 --> 00:25:46.134
And what I mean by that is, if you send a white reporter into a situation like
00:25:46.134 --> 00:25:49.774
this, where having that shared culture,
00:25:50.314 --> 00:25:55.694
having that shared background, having that understanding of what.
00:25:56.378 --> 00:26:01.298
These are part of our traditions. Makes a difference in journalism.
00:26:01.298 --> 00:26:06.758
It makes a difference in history and who's telling history and who's going to
00:26:06.758 --> 00:26:08.738
be comfortable in speaking about history.
00:26:08.738 --> 00:26:17.178
I was in Selma, Alabama for the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and 60 years,
00:26:17.438 --> 00:26:19.498
which is not, it's not that long.
00:26:19.698 --> 00:26:22.458
We think of it as being so long ago.
00:26:22.598 --> 00:26:29.338
It feels like this long, this ancient history, but it is very much alive.
00:26:29.818 --> 00:26:34.698
Yes. Two of the original foot soldiers, which are people that actually marched
00:26:34.698 --> 00:26:39.658
on that day, on Bloody Sunday, they were there, their sisters,
00:26:40.038 --> 00:26:46.158
and I kind of stood nearby because they were being interviewed by two young
00:26:46.158 --> 00:26:48.658
white journalists. They were being interviewed.
00:26:49.118 --> 00:26:52.718
I stood there because I was just waiting to tell them I need to give y'all a
00:26:52.718 --> 00:26:56.358
hug and just thank you, thank you, thank you for what you did,
00:26:56.358 --> 00:27:01.218
for the courage that you have that day. And mind you, they were young.
00:27:01.498 --> 00:27:06.338
They were 13 and 16 on Bloody Sunday when they marched. And so I stood there
00:27:06.338 --> 00:27:08.578
just waiting to hug them.
00:27:09.118 --> 00:27:13.838
And I'm overhearing the interviews. And one of them started talking about how
00:27:13.838 --> 00:27:18.438
she was beaten by a police officer to the point where she passed out.
00:27:18.678 --> 00:27:22.798
She blacked out on the Pettis Bridge and she woke up in the hospital.
00:27:23.018 --> 00:27:26.818
To this day, she has no idea how she got to the hospital.
00:27:27.078 --> 00:27:31.798
Mind you, her sister, her younger sister, was looking for her and just told
00:27:31.798 --> 00:27:35.898
the story from her perspective of just the terror that she felt,
00:27:36.118 --> 00:27:40.158
not knowing where her sister was, what had happened, because they lost each
00:27:40.158 --> 00:27:42.698
other, but she saw her sister being beaten.
00:27:42.918 --> 00:27:49.758
And so the trauma that that created and the journalists were doing fine.
00:27:49.758 --> 00:27:54.398
They were doing fine. But me I just knew.
00:27:55.144 --> 00:27:58.964
If they were sharing this story with somebody that looked like them,
00:27:59.164 --> 00:28:05.644
with somebody who has sat in at the kitchen table like they probably have talking
00:28:05.644 --> 00:28:11.624
about interacting with the police, things that you need to do as a black person
00:28:11.624 --> 00:28:13.084
to be able to make it home.
00:28:13.504 --> 00:28:18.404
Those questions, that conversation would have gone much differently.
00:28:18.684 --> 00:28:24.844
And also the end result would have been richer and deeper.
00:28:25.884 --> 00:28:31.404
So it made me just think about the and it goes back to the WPA project to the
00:28:31.404 --> 00:28:35.784
people who were asking the questions, the people who were answering the questions.
00:28:36.364 --> 00:28:39.224
And it's the same thing. It's the same thing.
00:28:39.444 --> 00:28:44.644
And so, you know, there's been very little effort to empower culturally relevant
00:28:44.644 --> 00:28:48.304
journalism across the board. But that's a whole nother topic.
00:28:52.824 --> 00:28:59.324
Yeah Jahan I could talk to you About this all day But there is something That you said that,
00:29:00.015 --> 00:29:05.855
triggered for me something that you wrote in Those Who Saw the Sun.
00:29:05.975 --> 00:29:09.375
And I want to read a little excerpt because it came from the intro.
00:29:09.795 --> 00:29:13.775
And again, you know, for listeners, the book was Those Who Saw the Sun,
00:29:13.955 --> 00:29:16.035
African-American Oral Histories from the Jim Crow South.
00:29:16.175 --> 00:29:22.375
I'll always have references and links to these resources in the notes on the episode.
00:29:22.755 --> 00:29:27.255
And the book came out in 2023. And I just want to read this little part of it.
00:29:27.335 --> 00:29:29.955
And I want your reaction, if you can give me your reaction.
00:29:30.175 --> 00:29:35.235
So it's a second page and you talked about getting all of these stories and
00:29:35.235 --> 00:29:38.635
learning stories from your grandfather and your grandparents.
00:29:38.635 --> 00:29:41.795
And you talked about your grandparents having gone to Shaw University.
00:29:42.115 --> 00:29:46.115
I didn't know if it would come up in the podcast, but it just so beautifully
00:29:46.115 --> 00:29:47.935
fits in. I'm quoting from here.
00:29:48.215 --> 00:29:51.115
Then there were the stories that I couldn't understand.
00:29:51.695 --> 00:29:53.335
They were stories about a world
00:29:53.335 --> 00:29:57.515
that no longer existed, a world that was hard for me to even imagine.
00:29:57.735 --> 00:30:00.515
It was ruled by somebody named Jim Crow.
00:30:01.075 --> 00:30:06.555
In these stories, my grandparents had to jump off the sidewalk when a white person walked by.
00:30:06.975 --> 00:30:11.595
In these stories, when my grandmother visited the Ambassador Theater in Raleigh
00:30:11.595 --> 00:30:16.035
as a college student, she had to sit in the balcony because Black folks weren't
00:30:16.035 --> 00:30:17.435
allowed on the ground level.
00:30:18.209 --> 00:30:23.289
These stories saw my family placed under police protection in the 60s because
00:30:23.289 --> 00:30:28.069
of their work in the civil rights movement, where evil people placed bombs under
00:30:28.069 --> 00:30:30.469
their cars to stop them from protesting.
00:30:31.149 --> 00:30:35.929
I couldn't imagine anyone seeing my grandparents as something other than what
00:30:35.929 --> 00:30:44.009
I knew them to be—kind, generous, exceedingly intelligent, brave, highly capable people.
00:30:44.849 --> 00:30:50.349
Racism, at its core, is nonsensical. And so as a young girl,
00:30:50.589 --> 00:30:52.689
I struggled to make sense of the senseless.
00:30:53.149 --> 00:30:58.149
Why had my grandparents been treated that way? My grandmother passed away in 2011.
00:30:58.329 --> 00:31:02.829
It occurred to me then that if my family hadn't been listening to her stories
00:31:02.829 --> 00:31:05.749
and her life advice, it would have been gone forever.
00:31:06.289 --> 00:31:11.389
I realized then the importance of documenting the things that seem ordinary
00:31:11.389 --> 00:31:16.809
to us, because one day our ordinary will be history to someone else.
00:31:17.509 --> 00:31:22.309
Someone yet to be born will look back and wonder, what was it like?
00:31:23.249 --> 00:31:28.969
This is especially true for African Americans, because for centuries in this
00:31:28.969 --> 00:31:33.029
country, we were not able to document and preserve our own stories.
00:31:33.429 --> 00:31:38.869
Our ancestors were brought to America in chains, torn from their native land,
00:31:39.109 --> 00:31:43.109
languages, and communities. Forbidden from learning to read or write,
00:31:43.329 --> 00:31:47.549
they did what they had to do to survive American slavery.
00:31:48.029 --> 00:31:53.689
I realized how privileged I was to be living in a time where I can read and
00:31:53.689 --> 00:31:58.909
write, seek higher education, and speak the truth about my own experiences.
00:31:59.329 --> 00:32:04.549
So I decided to use that privilege to do what so many generations of African
00:32:04.549 --> 00:32:08.629
Americans could not, tell the truth about history.
00:32:09.459 --> 00:32:14.599
End quote. Can we still tell the truth in this moment?
00:32:14.979 --> 00:32:18.959
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00:32:49.357 --> 00:32:54.417
And we still tell the truth. Yes, I do it every day. I try to.
00:32:54.737 --> 00:33:00.097
A lot of my work, especially the things that I'm working on in this present
00:33:00.097 --> 00:33:02.117
moment, is still to that end.
00:33:02.977 --> 00:33:07.097
I don't think the question is necessarily, can we tell the truth?
00:33:07.257 --> 00:33:12.037
But it is, what consequences may we face for telling the truth?
00:33:12.217 --> 00:33:15.737
Because you can always tell the truth. I mean, back then they theoretically
00:33:15.737 --> 00:33:19.577
could have told the truth, but what are the consequences going to be?
00:33:19.937 --> 00:33:25.857
And are they consequences that we are ready for and willing to face?
00:33:26.157 --> 00:33:29.097
That's the question. I ask it all the time of myself, like day to day.
00:33:29.397 --> 00:33:34.097
What's at stake and is it worth it? That's exactly right. Part of my plan for
00:33:34.097 --> 00:33:41.377
surviving and thriving over these next few years and however many years it takes.
00:33:42.377 --> 00:33:47.437
Reverberations, yes. One thing that I decided to do, and I had already been
00:33:47.437 --> 00:33:51.377
doing this, but I'm even more committed to it now.
00:33:51.657 --> 00:33:58.197
And that is creating and documenting spaces that are that centered Black joy
00:33:58.197 --> 00:34:03.097
and documenting spaces that are that centered Black joy.
00:34:03.597 --> 00:34:08.057
And and let me be clear. And I do say this in Those Who Saw the Sun as well.
00:34:08.177 --> 00:34:12.777
Our story is not one of trauma. And I think we know that. Yeah. Most of us do know that.
00:34:13.077 --> 00:34:20.257
To me, the African-American story is one of complete joy and resilience and
00:34:20.257 --> 00:34:24.197
creativity and innovation. Yeah. Talent.
00:34:24.597 --> 00:34:26.897
I mean, that is who we are as people.
00:34:27.497 --> 00:34:32.957
Waymaking. I mean, et cetera, et cetera. Yes. It is a story of empowerment for me.
00:34:33.357 --> 00:34:36.837
And those are the things that I try to focus on.
00:34:36.957 --> 00:34:45.837
In my work, I don't contextualize us through the white gaze and the lens of white supremacy.
00:34:46.477 --> 00:34:48.137
I try to...
00:34:49.105 --> 00:34:52.765
Now, of course, we have to engage with those things because we live in America.
00:34:52.945 --> 00:34:58.685
We have no choice but to engage with those things, especially in a historical context.
00:34:59.165 --> 00:35:05.965
With my work, I aim to focus on the essence of who we are and uplift who we
00:35:05.965 --> 00:35:10.985
are as people, spotlight those things, empower those things.
00:35:11.345 --> 00:35:16.905
And so that is the aim of my work. And so I think that that's more needed now
00:35:16.905 --> 00:35:22.385
than ever. I think that telling the truth can mean a lot of different things
00:35:22.385 --> 00:35:24.905
because it's also about who's truth.
00:35:25.245 --> 00:35:32.625
And me as a person who works in oral history mainly, the truth is many different things.
00:35:32.885 --> 00:35:39.925
And so we have to also be open to that idea of engaging with many different
00:35:39.925 --> 00:35:42.905
truths that may exist at the same time.
00:35:43.085 --> 00:35:49.085
But yeah, I 1000% believe that we can tell the truth. I plan to continue telling
00:35:49.085 --> 00:35:56.625
the truth about history and uplifting those truths. I am committed to focusing on that in my work.
00:35:56.665 --> 00:36:02.265
And I think that that is going to be what I have to do to make it in these next years.
00:36:02.305 --> 00:36:07.545
I have to focus on us as a community, us as a people, and the work that I'm
00:36:07.545 --> 00:36:11.725
committed to doing for the ancestors, for ancestral justice,
00:36:11.725 --> 00:36:15.165
as well as for social justice today.
00:36:15.165 --> 00:36:19.745
And so my answer would be yes, emphatically, yes.
00:36:20.045 --> 00:36:24.825
Many people, including many folks who are going to listen to this episode,
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are wondering what the strategies are and should be.
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And I think that you've just given us several that we could take.
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One is about creating joy.
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Well, let's go back. Even before that, your story really is.
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Emphasizes embracing courage, embracing courage to figure out what really is
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meaningful and matters to you, right? So there's that courage piece.
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There's that, you know, I like to call it living in the perpetual sabbatical
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state and embracing that sensibility piece.
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Then there's also the finding joy.
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It's also dealing with the trauma because you didn't say, well,
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we're just going to pretend it doesn't exist, but it's also recognizing that
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we are more than that, right?
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And so it's cultivating joy and doing that even at the expense of risk.
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You know, sometimes that's physical safety, sometimes that's financial safety
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or professional safety. You know, you talk about the ancestral forces.
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Hey, now you're right in my alley. Now we're here, you know?
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Yeah, you know, I've written about that extensively about the power of connecting
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and communing with ancestral forces who have been down these roads,
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who also give us lessons and insights from which we can certainly learn,
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which is why it's so important to tell these truths.
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And I think that people know that, which is also why they're afraid of it.
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You know, I think that's also very, very relevant to this moment that we're
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in. And so, yeah, I'm really grateful for all of those just gems.
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Black truth and Black empowerment has always been a threat to America.
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And so, but that's why we need to lean into it even more.
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Yeah. And in an ultimate sense, it's because it forces accountability.
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We cannot lie about who it is that we say we as a nation are if we look at,
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at the truth of our histories, right? We cannot lie.
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And if we do, we are fooling ourselves and others who would believe that these
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things didn't happen or existed, or that they're so far back in the past.
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Well, actually, they are not.
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And they are resurfacing. I think that if we are not careful,
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which of course is a worry for me occupying and stewarding a space like the
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Stone Center, If we are not careful,
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these stories will be rewritten in such a way that we are not a part of the
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narrative and we simply cannot allow that to be. Yeah, we cannot.
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And I want to say, too, for people who are strategizing on their plan over the next couple of years,
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for every Black person particularly, part of that plan should be talking to elders in your family,
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elders that you know, interviewing them,
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documenting their stories, and gleaning from the lessons that they will be able to share.
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As a millennial who has studied history, who has, you know, such a respect and
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a deep level of knowledge of our history.
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These are times that are unlike anything that I've seen in my lifetime.
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And so it is scary. You know, I there is something to be said about finding
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that courage. But the fact is, it is scary.
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Yeah. And so I'm not trying to minimize that. But I read about the civil rights
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movement and the planning that took place and heard all the stories from my
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grandparents, et cetera, et cetera.
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But I've never had to jump off the sidewalk for a white person to walk by.
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You know, there are certain things that are unfolding before our eyes that are
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things that we as millennials have never experienced.
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And there.
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We're privileged in that way. But with that privilege also comes the responsibility
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of carrying those lessons of our forebears.
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And now they are going to be relevant to us in a way that we probably haven't even seen yet.
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So I think that a part of that strategic plan should definitely include leaning
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back into the oral history tradition that existed centuries before our ancestors
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even heard of America or Europe or whatever.
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And so that, I think, is going to be a powerful strategy, no matter who you
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are, no matter what it is that you do.
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We need to return to the oral history tradition in a way that helps us strategize
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and arms us for what's to come.
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Strategizing for us to have a better sense of what happened,
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arming us for what's to come.
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That is a great insight.
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And it's really sage insight. You're leaning into your griot sensibility.
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I'm tremendously grateful for it. And I know that listeners will also be.
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Well, I also know that time is precious.
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We can't get it back. And we could go. I mean, we could go on.
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And we have lots of TBDs. We have, you know, some collaborations that we have coming up.
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So I'm really excited about all that is to come for us, but also I'm just so grateful for,
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Again, that courage that you have to lean into that sensibility,
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but not just theoretically, but in practice.
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It's clear to me from what it is that I see, but also that I hear and I'm learning
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from you, that it's not just lip service.
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And I'm grateful for all that you are doing in this world, millennial.
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All that you are doing and bringing in this world, millennial with an old soul, y'all, truly.
00:42:20.844 --> 00:42:25.284
Old soul, yeah, for sure. Yeah, clearly Jaha has been here before, as we would say.
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So I'm really, really grateful for you. I wanted to make sure,
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is there anything else that you want listeners to hear or to know?
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I mean, pick up an instrument, keep with practice of some sort.
00:42:36.984 --> 00:42:40.044
It also seems another strategy to lift up.
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Is there anything else that you want listeners to know about you,
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Jaha, Avery, or anything else that you want to share?
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Coretta Scott King once said, and I'm paraphrasing, that freedom must be fought
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and won by every generation.
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It's our turn, y'all. I mean, that is just the bottom line.
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Our four bears did what they were supposed to do. And
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we are in this moment now where we have to pick up the mantle and we have to
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equip ourselves so that we can do that in a way of where we win the fight for
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our generation and empower the next generation for their fight.
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So it's not going to be over.
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I don't think there's ever going to be an end point per se.
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But again, that's the wisdom of the elders that every generation is going to have their turn.
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And this is it. People are going to know where the episode title now comes from,
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because I never know until I'm in the episode, it's our turn.
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That's a great reminder, but also call to action.
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So thank you so much, Jahaf, for all the great work you do.
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Listeners, this is a good, good one. Because not only are we going through geography
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and biography, but also that strategy, giving folks something to take with them,
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some nourishment, I think is also really key.
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Especially in this time, we need as much sustenance as we can get.
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So thank you for giving us such good, good sustenance and for causing good trouble.