¶ Intro / Opening
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¶ Episode Introduction and Overview
Hello everyone and welcome to Amonpur. Here's what's coming up.
We need just and lasting peace and having a refocus on these debates is extremely important because people are dying everywhere.
And peace in the balance. I asked the President of the UN General Assembly, Annalina Baerbach, for a reality check on Trump's Iran agreement, Ukraine's resilience against Russia, and the future of the United Nations. Then I
I have lived with the stories and the journey of my parents and uh and the pain of displacement and exile my whole life.
To mark World Refugee Day, I hear from the International Rescue Committee's Shireen Ibrahim and a former refugee now star of the acclaimed TV show The Pit, Sepidemouafit. Also ahead, A Family Secret No More. Reporting on her own history, journalist Suzanne Solny tells Michelle Martin the story of two black brothers, one living under Jim Crow laws, the other passing as white.
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Welcome to the programme everyone. I'm Christiana Manpoor in London.
¶ US-Iran MOU: Appeasement Concerns
A win-win or a capitulation? This week G7 Allies praised President Trump for his agreement with Iran as he signed his very own Versailles Treaty at a dinner with them on Wednesday night. But even many of his own Republican supporters are highly critical. Here's his former vice president, Mike Pence.
I do have concerns about the memorandum of understanding now that we see it and uh the terms about what's in it and and and also what's not in it. Uh suggest to me that it does smack of the kind of appeasement that our administration rejected in the Obama-Iran nuclear deal.
The MOU is an agreement to deal with the biggest challenges ahead, especially the nucleophile. But it is front-loaded with immediate concessions to Tehran, notably to waive sanctions on its oil exports, with billions of dollars then flowing back into the regime's coffers. And no mention of human rights for the Iranian people.
¶ Ukraine War and UN's Role
Is this a case of a superpower misjudging its less powerful adversary, like Vladimir Putin has done with his invasion of Ukraine? This week the G7 committed to supporting Ukraine and strengthening sanctions on the Kremlin. And Kyiv has pounded Moscow with his heaviest drone barrage of the war, forcing the capital to temporarily close its airports. And the latest from the front, it is Ukraine now incrementally pushing Russia back.
Now that the Iran agreement is signed, perhaps Trump will turn his attention back to negotiations between Putin and Ukraine.
But
Where has the United Nations been all this time? Historically, it is the global conflict resolution mechanism.
¶ UN President Baerbock on Iran Deal
Annalina Baerbock is a former German Foreign Minister and now President of the UN General Assembly. I spoke to her this week to discuss the state of war, peace, and the future of the United Nations. Annalina Baerbock, welcome back to our programme.
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
So there are big issues that are being talked about right now. Issues that are not just global but also very pertinent to the United Nations. Let me ask you first about what you think. is going to be the result of this MOU between the United States and Iran. What do you think it's going to lead to?
Hopefully to more peace and uh ending the consequences all round the world, uh because ending hostilities, ending a war is always a good thing. Yet we have to be very honest to ourselves, uh, to see where the world stood uh before February twenty eighth and some of the dramatic consequences will be felt uh even in months after.
fertilizers not getting to different parts of the world, especially to those who need it most, will be uh consequential for the poorest around the world, uh not having the harvest the they should have. Also the energy prices hit the uh poorest uh most. And we should not forget about uh the people of uh Iran. demanding freedom uh for themselves uh for a very, very long time. Uh and therefore a ceasefire, an end of war, an end of hostilities is always
uh very important is always the best we can achieve. Yet we should not ignore that uh the reasons uh after this war and also that uh the Secretary General and I called uh immediately uh to everyone that the charter is not optional, but that there's a reason uh that uh Member States should settle their disparates peacefully should be one of the strongest reminder of the last uh month.
¶ Iran Nuclear Deal, Human Rights
Because the nuclear issue is also so important to the United Nations, this is still to be negotiated. Uh Iran is going to pledge or it has pledged that it will not seek a nuclear weapon. Uh of course this was its position and it was on the table before the war as you say. But I'm interested in what you just said about the Iranian people because as you know, uh the President of the United States, uh the Prime Minister of Israel, both of them went to this war together.
Talked about liberating the people. And instead, the deal has been made to keep the current Islamic Republic of Iran regime in power. And not only that, one of the main points Suggests or says that both Iran and the United States will respect each other's territorial sovereignty, integrity, and pledge not to interfere in each other's affairs. That seems to me how I read it as no more attempts at regime change and the Iranian people are on their own.
First of all, it's not up to me to comment on the specifics uh of uh bilateral negotiations yet. It's my role to uphold the charter. um the Charter of the United Nations which makes very clear that every Member State's uh has a sovereign right. to their own territorial integrity. And then we have other documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is by name Universal, underlining that every person around the world has the right to live in freedom, in dignity.
uh in security and express their opinion uh freely. And upholding these principles is more important uh in these uh times than uh hardly ever before. And uh therefore this has to be part of the current discussions as well. We saw how many people died in the last months and also before February. And this is also a global responsibility to stand up for human rights.
to stand up for the charter and the territorial territorial integrity of every country. And thank you for raising the point of the nuclear safety as well. This is one of the most severe global threats. This is one of the reasons why this institution, the United Nations, was founded uh eighty years ago, uh with the consequences uh of uh using a nuclear bomb.
and therefore the point around uh the the securing of uh Iran applying um the international um rules on nuclear safety and also non proliferation has to be uh followed up uh immediately in the upcoming days.
¶ UN's Challenges Amidst Ukraine War
Let's talk about Ukraine, which you were very involved with when you were Germany's foreign minister in the aftermath of the uh full scale invasion by Putin. And obviously it's a big issue for the United Nations'cause it goes to the heart of the UN promise that there will be no more m more war and that countries will not invade their neighbors and break international borders. They at the G seven they all pledged again to turn their attention back to Ukraine and to try to and to try to help.
But it appears that Russia is becoming, I don't know, it's being described as maybe more desperate, maybe Putin more paranoid. All sorts of activities are being blamed on Russia, right here in the UK, for instance. uh in the in the English Channel, uh they're blaming Russia backed arsonists for damage against properties connected with the British Prime Minister. All those things are going on.
What do you think the UN can do about it, given that Russia is part of the Security Council and has a veto and the General Assembly, which you're president of, doesn't have that power to constrain a member state?
This is the big challenge of the United uh Nations. This institution was as one Secretary Sen General said at the beginning, not built uh to bring humankind to heaven but to prevent it from hell. and it's uh in the hands of the Member States, one hundred and ninety three to follow up on the principle they all signed.
uh back eighty years uh ago. And if a permanent member of the Security Council, which is by definition responsible for upholding peace and security around the world, is violating that charter by itself.
uh an institution like the UN, uh which doesn't have any preceding uh powers, um, cannot uh solve this problem alone. And this is why Uh the debates within the United Nations in the General Assembly by 193 Member States are so crucial that the vast majority of member states with no that the uh charter is their life insurance, that any breach uh of the sovereignty of another state, of neighbors, is also a direct threat for themselves.
because they are not sure whether they might be next uh in the future and therefore the m majority of the General Assembly has made very, very clear in all the last years that this is a fundamental breach uh of the Charter of the United Nations, that uh Russia has to withdraw their troops, that we need uh just and lasting uh peace and having a refocus on these debates is extremely important because people are dying every well every day and as you uh mentioned
Uh this is a hybrid uh warfare. We see uh the consequences again all around the world with regard uh to in the past uh grain prices with uh also energy prices. but also as we saw for example in Romania, uh where a drone uh hit a civilian uh place uh even in the territory of the European Union.
Yeah, I mean it makes me want to ask you about Article five of the NATO pact because Romania is part of NATO and it hit a NATO country and it was you know, the mantra is not one inch. Uh do you fancy uh expressing yourself on whether NATO should have reacted to that?
¶ UN Principles Under Direct Attack
Again, my current position is the President of the General Assembly and this is uh why I defend the charter of the United Nations with everything uh I have. yet we have to also call out uh violations uh of uh the Charter. And this underlines again that neutrality in a situation of injustice is not neutrality, but it always supports uh the aggressor. And therefore taking aside, taking aside uh for humanity, for peace and uh for protecting uh the charter should be in the interest uh of all.
Let me now go back to the sort of founding principles of the UN. And we're talking at a time when the UN has been struggling to assert its legitimate and historic positions on the world stage. Uh the United States current administration uh kind of s sidelines the UN to a great extent. uh and you are facing a upcoming election for the next Secretary General of the United Nations. Now you obviously know uh Thant Mint U. He's the grandson of one of the founding UN General uh Secretaries General.
And he's basically just written that the UN's founding strength was not institutional. It's not just because you're called the UN. It was based on two convictions. One, that wars of aggression are intolerable, and two, that empires must end.
And he says that both those principles are eroding with the you know, we've talked about Russia, we've talked about uh Iran and all the rest of it. Do you think, do you agree that those principles, you know, the the founding sort of, you know, m uh the f the founding principle of stopping wars of aggression and and that has been somewhat watered down or a lot watered down.
¶ UN's Role: Civilian Protection
Without question, the UN is not only under pressure, uh and I made that very clear at the beginning of this year, it is under direct attack. if uh member states who have the responsibility due to their permanent seat in the Security Council uh are not protecting the charter but are even in violation of the Charter, obviously this uh is a not only challenge, but this is dramatic for the United Nations. But the United Nations can only be as strong as their commitment of their member states.
It is a sum of one hundred and ninety-three. And therefore the call by some of arguing now, well if they are not uh delivering on the principles, maybe we should get uh rid of the United Nations is uh playing in the hands of those
who are in violation of the Charter. Because what would be the alternative? If we would say, well then we should just not uh engage in the United Nations anymore, no single day would the world be better off because then even more uh countries would be encouraged to use uh force to uh uh come forward with their uh interests. And also on the other hand, the United Nations was uh mainly b built to protect uh civilians. And on this part
There's no other actor around the world who can deliver on that one. We saw it also uh with proposals uh like for example the Board of Peace. And also uh the proposals of saying we organise now the humanitarian aid for Gaza. We see that this cannot be done uh by a group of some, but it needs the power of the whole United Nations. And without the UN and all its sub agencies
For example, uh millions of people would literally starve without the United Nations and UNICEF. Million of children would not go to school. Look at the example of Ebola without the preventive by an international organization, we have outbreaks uh of health crises again, which we are dealt with successfully when everybody joined hands in the past.
and did not cut so heavily uh on funding. So if we n want a strong United Nations, we need a strong commitment by Member States, especially those having a special right and therefore a special responsibility within the Security Council.
¶ Critical Funding Cuts to UN
Well what if they don't want a stronger United Nations and particularly your strongest backer and your strongest uh uh fundraiser uh which is the United States. And I know you're talking obliquely, but it's the United States which has cut all of this aid uh especially to the UN, especially in humanitarian uh affairs, uh particularly around the Ebola breakout. And um and we also see the Board of Peace is a US construction and the uh director of that has said in his own words that despite
Six months or more now of the ceasefire in Gaza, there are quote no recovery in Gaza, eighty percent of the buildings destroyed, no reconstruction barely begun. Israeli forces now control up to sixty or even more percent of the strip. Uh well beyond the line the ceasefire was supposed to bring them back to Palestinians, at least nine hundred and eighty have been killed since the ceasefire. I mean isn't that a slap in the face to the United Nations?
Well I would rather say uh it shows. that alternative uh organizations obviously cannot deliver as the United Nations. By all its imperfection of the UN, without any doubt, yeah I've uh worked now for a couple of months in this uh system. We need a deep r reform. Yet The strength of the United Nations is that every country, no matter how big or small, how strong uh or how weak, has a equal seat uh at the table. That different than the uh institution you mentioned.
Uh you don't
ca or you cannot buy yourself into uh this club, but everyone is equal and this sometimes take longer because if you have to agree with one hundred and ninety three or if you need a majority with nine one hundred ninety three, it's harder. If you have the whole commitment of the world, you can also deliver better. But yes indeed, the heavy cuts by Member States which you mentioned are dramatic and we should not sugarcoat.
People are dying because of that. And we even have aid in warehouses which cannot b be delivered uh to uh infants for example. And uh we have to ask also ourselves. At this moment, why are we endangering all the successes from the past? I mentioned Ebolo. Another example is HIV 8. Uh this was one of uh these global diseases uh more than thirty years ago where the world wood did not know what to do. They joined hands.
we managed to control it and now we are on the edge of uh destroying the success at the last miles because the cuts uh are being uh so heavy. But to be frank and open, it's not only uh the US Uh the US is one of the biggest donors because of their size and uh the non payment uh by the US is dramatic as I describe.
Uh also other Member States did not pay yet uh full uh and definitely not in time, so it's a fundamental uh discussions which we have to have in the United Nations about uh the funding system itself.
¶ Future UN Secretary-General: Women's Role
Well, uh many of those who back you and back the United Nations believes that whoever is the next Secretary General needs to actually really insert themselves and to exert the moral bully pulpit and all the things that you can actually do. at the United Nations. So my question to you is, would a woman for the first time as Secretary General be able to do that?
quote the current uh Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Uh not after eighty years it's time for a woman. It has been uh time twenty years ago, it has been time uh even uh eighty years uh ago because women are uh half of the world's uh population. We know if uh you include a woman in peace building negotiations, peace treaties last longer, we know if you have equal representations.
uh in businesses, in your economy. Economies uh grow stronger and uh better. Uh we know that education races if women are uh engaged and this is why uh two years ago all Member States It's a bit of surprise. Uh in unity called for strongly nominating women. And we have now even more women candidates uh because uh more applied in in the last uh days.
And uh therefore this becomes also a question of uh credibility for the United Nations itself. So if they call in consensus for strongly nominating women, it will be really hard to explain afterwards uh why. uh in a time uh of twenty twenty six uh it was not possible uh again.
And this lies really in the hands of the Member States. And the General Assembly, at least more than one hundred uh fifty heads of states made very clear in September in the general debate that they really want to see um that the UN is standing up to its own principles also by appointing the next uh Secretary uh general.
You've made your point. Annalina Baerbach, President of the UN General Assembly, thank you for being with us.
Thank you.
Stay with CNN, we'll be right back after the break.
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Yeah.
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Thank you.
¶ World Refugee Day: Global Crisis
Now in a world plagued by war, crises, and climate change, it's vulnerable communities that are hurt the most. Official UN figures show almost 118 million people are displaced. That is double the number since 2014. So this year's World Refugee Day, the International Rescue Committee, is trying to raise awareness. Sepide Mouafi was born in a refugee camp in Germany after her family fled Iran.
Following the revolution. And now she's an actress best known for her role in the hit series The Pit. She's also an ambassador for the IRC. And she joined me along with senior IRC official Shireen Ibrahim. Sefideh and Shirin, welcome to the program.
Thank you for having us.
¶ EU Migration Law and Asylum
Let me start with you, Shereen. I wanna get your your reaction to what the EU has just legislated. The Parliament there has approved the strictest ever migration uh you know law in decades this week. It apparently allows the EU countries to set up Deportation centers outside the EU itself. Sort of return hubs they're calling it. Do you know what this is all about and and and what is your assessment of it?
So thank you, Christian. Uh obviously we are still trying to understand the implications of uh of uh these decisions.
Thank you.
We as the IRC call Where whether they are the US or within the European Union to make sure that they preserve access to asylum and refugee resettlement programmes and people uh who uh who seek that asylum or seek that resettlement opportunity have safe and dignified pathways to
Do so.
Because what we are do we are seeing is that people go to great lengths and risk their own lives to get to other shores. So uh so that is important for the IRC to make sure that asylum and refugee resettlement are safeguarded.
¶ Global Displacement Figures Nuances
So just to continue, because there need there are uh uh millions of refugees who need to be um settled. Uh the UNHCR Shireen says that for the first time though in a decade. The total number of forcibly displaced people has declined. Uh do you buy that? I mean declined, you know, over the last year.
So
I think uh
Um there is room for optimism, but we also have to see the nuance of uh of these figures. UN figures are telling us that there are one hundred and eighteen million forcibly displaced people globally. Uh today, you know, as we look at twenty twenty six numbers, we can celebrate that fourteen million people have returned to their homes, so displacement figures are declining.
However, on the flip side of that, Christiane, you also have fourteen million newly displaced people just this year alone as a result of new wars and shocks. So I would I would take that obviously that figure or that optimism and really dig into it a little bit uh more deeply. What we're feeling as humanitarian organisations.
especially as you know I represent the I uh the international rescue committee. We're feeling that this doesn't feel optimistic. It doesn't feel like recovery. It feels like a revolt
Thank you.
or people returning but more people de being displaced. And unfortunately, the displacement experience takes much, much longer to resolve. So even though we have an optimism today, uh this number may see an increase uh in the very near future if uh wars and uh climate disasters continue.
¶ Sepide Mouafi's Refugee Journey
We'll keep an eye on that. Let me turn to you, Sepide. You are now incredibly well known in the United States. Uh Uh for many things, but on the back especially of the pit on HBO. But you also have been a refugee. You were apparently born in a refugee camp after your parents fled the Islamic uh revolution of nineteen seventy-nine. So talk to me about what you remember from that experience and why you decided to become a special ambassador for the IRC.
Well
Christian, my lens on the world was forged by how I entered it. Um my parents were both political activists in Iran fighting for democracy. Um my father was actually imprisoned under the reign of the Shah and then after the Islamic Revolution with the rise of the Islamic Republic. Um as you know, repression became much more brutal. Um many of my my parents' friends were imprisoned, executed, and yet they continued their activism until they were forced to flee.
Um they left their home with nothing more than a suitcase and my older sister in hand and fled to Turkey where they sought asylum. and then lived across refugee camps in Germany. Um w at the time it was East and West Germany and I was born in Regensburg at a refugee in a refugee camp. Um and so I was still a baby when we came to the United States and were ultimately granted asylum.
but I I have lived with the stories and the journey of my parents and uh and the pain of displacement and exile my whole life and this has fueled my advocacy work and my work as an artist. Um I simply can't separate my parents' story and our journey.
um to the United States from the hundred eighteen million displaced people around the world and their stories. And so um I've been a longtime admirer of the work that the International Rescue Committee does. I started by donating in high school, um, whatever small amount I could and then about seven years ago they invited me to be an ambassador where I help amplify the incredible work that they do to help refugees and displaced people around the world.
uh survive, recover and rebuild their lives.
¶ Art Reflects Humanitarian Experiences
So could I ask you because I know that for the IRC you have uh visited the Zatari refugee camp for Syrians that is in Jordan and even with the fall of Assad and so many people already gone back. There are still many, many thousands of people still there. But did this experience you've just told me about? Uh was it did it inform your role in the pit? You play in the pit in the second season, Doctor Baran al Hashimi, and before you you know, you come to the pit
Your story is that you worked uh with Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan. So the whole humanitarian landscape where you would have met, you know, all all these people who we're talking about right now, refugees and the most vulnerable.
Yes, absolutely. I mean some of the people even before the pit, some of the people that I admire most and and who I'm lucky enough to call my friends are humanitarian aid workers and humanitarian doctors who work in conflict zones. And so um for me it was it was about absorbing as much uh information and experience that I could from from my friends and people that I spoke to, uh, to understand, you know, what kind of person it takes to То лиф, то ли фамилии а на комфортю.
and um really just go to an unfamiliar place in a an unknown uh place and risk your life to help where help is needed most. I mean it takes a a particular kind of person, character to do such selfless acts. to go to places like Gaza and uh Lebanon and Afghanistan, um, some place that my character serves. Um and and go to these areas where in some cases entire cities are seemingly one continuous emergency department where
resources are scarce and the need is overwhelming. And something that moved me that I I layered into this character was was that across the board anyone who I've talked to or anybody who I've I've seen or read um speak when they come back uh from having been deployed talks about despite the horror, despite the destruction and death, they would go back in a heartbeat because even in the depths of darkness,
uh they witness these extraordinary acts of courage and solidarity and generosity. And so for me it was it was so important for this character to to hold the voices of of her colleagues that that she's left behind.
¶ Advocating for Stigmatized Refugees
to um to hold their practice in her own practice. And I think I think this detail gives a a specific gravity to this character in the world of the pit.
I mean Shireen, uh to have somebody uh like uh Sepide being an ambassador and an advocate must actually help you, right? Because we know there's this whole global fatigue and you know with one thing after the other in terms of global crises, some of these really important stories get very short shrift.
Absolutely, absolutely. And I was I wanted to bring to this conversation um, you know, of the voice of another uh uh displaced person, a refugee that I'd recently met. uh Christian. And and she spoke about very similar senti sentiments to what Sepide was talking about. You know, she expressed to me that she felt that her life had been uprooted.
that her future and that of her children had been jeopardized, that her protections had been compromised, that everything was quite you know, felt quite unknown. And the only thing that sort of
uh helped her come to helped her and her family uh you know survive uh this displacement experience was the solidarity and the empathy and the compassion that comes with this experience. So it does take a solidarity to come uh um uh to to address these experiences and I'm very thrilled that Cepide uh does uh does the work uh and calls for the change that we need to see in this world of massive crisis.
¶ Refugee Resilience in Camps
Yeah. And and again I'm just gonna say it, I don't know whether you would, but we live in a world where refugees and migrants are some of the most pushed back against uh communities right now. Everywhere you look in Europe, the United States, everywhere, nobody has a soft spot for refugees. And this Iran war has exacerbated the issue of displaced, I think. So has the war on
on on uh Lebanon. I just want to play you, Shereen, a soundbite from an elderly man who saw his entire home and possessions uh destroyed in the in the in the city of Tyre. Here take a listen to him.
بدروح شغرأت والله العظيم وهي توليد
I wanted to go and see the house. I swear to God, by my children's lives. I went on foot from here to Tyre. When I saw the scene, I started to cry. I'm telling you, I couldn't. You couldn't even look at a single room. We had a shop with millions worth of goods. It is all gone. Not a single lira is left. Yes, indeed. Thank God. Thank God my children remained safe and we were not hurt.
I mean it is just extraordinary. This man was actually is actually ninety years old. Just briefly, Shreen, tell me uh the state of what's happening in Lebanon. I was just there recently, but you were there in March actually seeing this particular crisis and and what become of people displaced by the war in Iran.
Um well a couple of things. Uh in Lebanon itself, uh you know we have a and you've experienced it, over one point two million people displaced uh since the latest escalations of March the second. Um and many, many, many of these uh people are displaced um uh into locations that you know are unforgiving, sometimes unwilling.
Welcoming.
There are, you know, over 700 collective shelters, but they are only housing a fraction of the people who are displaced.
Let's talk to Sepide because Really importantly, I mean look, you're in the United States. Right now there is according to CNN maybe some plan afoot to strip some 250 uh American migrants of or immigrants of their US citizenship. And you know the word alien is used. I think you yourself were uh teased or bullied by the fact that as a foreigner you were an alien somehow and the White House uses that now as its own sort of weird memes on its on its website.
So th the atmosphere around migration and refugees, particularly through your own experience in the United States.
I mean uh it's it's overwhelming as somebody w who's has close proximity to a lived experience and and somebody who's bearing witness. I I uh my experience at um for example you mentioned Zatari refugee camp. Um i the people that I met, I mean a a refugee camp is meant to be a temporary settlement, uh an emergency shelter. And uh I met so many people who had lived there for years and years.
um women mothers who who had given birth in the camp and and whose children were now nine, ten, eleven years old. I mean fifty percent of the camp was was children. And and it's the international community's fault. We are to blame because we have turned our backs and we have rejected and refugees are stigmatized. But but I will say that despite this reality, um
These people at Zotari ha have have taken a plot of land in the middle of the desert in Jordan and blossomed life there. What was once a tent settlement turned into a bustling city, um bustling with life. Um I I met artists there um who who invited me into their creative process. I met um um health clinic managers, Hulud al-Khamasa and Mohammed Jok Johadar was the artist.
um who who gave me a tour of the facilities and I met budding entrepreneurs and students and educators and and many of the IRC staff who who are working there. Are refugees themselves and and are supporting and servicing the communities that that they are from. And so while I was deeply moved, I was also uh disturbed because um you know the best refugee camp is a camp that doesn't need to exist and it is incumbent upon all of us.
to do everything we can to to find safe pathways for people to return home if that's possible and if not to um resettle them and to with welcome open arms um into our countries. And and that's where the IRC's work comes into play, that they not only do invaluable work on the ground providing life saving aid and resources and care but but also helping refugees resettle and this is why I'm so committed to the organization because uh they not only help
uh displaced people uh you know change their their story in the media, they help them resettle and rebuild their lives and thrive in their lives. So their their work is more important than ever right now.
Um, Sepide, thank you so much indeed. Uh and of course we thank Shireen uh Ibrahim as well. I just think it's so moving to hear you talk about all those I mean professionals. They've become professionals in their uh thriving what used to be a tent city in in Amman. And we tend to forget that they're so rich in human resources and potential and I think I think it's really great that you've been able to highlight that. So thank you so much indeed for joining us.
Thank you so much, Christian. It's my pleasure. Thank you.
Thank you, Christian.
¶ Uncovering Family's Racial Passing
We'll be right back after this short break.
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We turn now to a deeply personal story of race in America. 100 years ago, two black brothers from New Orleans were separated by the harsh reality of the Jim Crow laws. One lived as a black man in Louisiana, the other, with lighter skin, moved to Chicago, passing as white. Journalist Susan Solney uncovered this story by tracing her own ancestry, and she joins Michelle Martin to discuss the legacy of this long-buried family secret.
Thanks, Christiane. Susan Salny, thank you so much for talking with us.
Thank you for having me.
And I understand that you are joining us from a very meaningful and very beautiful location. Wh where are you?
I'm in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans, I'm on Pretania Street, inside the home, believe it or not, of my great great grandfather, Colonel Joseph H. DeGrange.
Amazing. Amazing. And one of the reasons this is amazing is that your article begins with a family mystery. And it ends with a family reunion.
Union was right here.
Right there in that house. So let me start with what was the mystery?
Well, my grandfather and his brother spent time in an orphanage in New Orleans in the nineteen tens, and it was a pretty grim existence. Uh, they aged out of the orphanage at a time of harsh segregation in the South. And one of the brothers, Edward, who was just a few shades lighter than my grandfather, George, decided to take a chance on a better life in Chicago as a white man, and his skin color allowed him to do that. My grandfather, being just a shade or two darker,
didn't make that choice. I don't know if he wanted to or chose not to, but the reality is he stayed in New Orleans and lived as a black man. So what we have from that point are parallel lives of one brother living in New Orleans and having children and grandchildren, and one brother living as white in Chicago and having children and grandchildren. We have a very neat one hundred year arc to look at.
So that Edward left the family and passed for White in another city, that was the secret. That was the secret that I've known since I was a little girl and we were taught not to talk about.
That's so for uh I have so many questions. Um How did this come up when you were a child?
Well, my grandfather still loved his brother, and I think he wished him the best in life. And if Edward thought that this was his opportunity to go chase the American dream, George wanted him to do it. George was a protective older brother, and he wanted us to protect Edward by not talking about it because there was tremendous amount of risk involved.
We're talking about a time when a man, a black man, found to be posing as white, could face enormous violence, mob violence, perhaps even lynching. Uh he could be accused of race fraud, lose his job, lose his home. So in my grandfather's time this secret was truly life and death. And he passed that sense on to his children who knew
That their uncle passed, but that they weren't to talk about it. And then my parents' generation passed it on to me and my cousins, of which there are thirty. So um yes, George created a really big family.
He may not have been rich in possessions, but he was rich in love.
Right. We see that both brothers were able to create things from scratch. In Edward's case, there was a smooth trajectory to the middle class. um and home ownership and buying a car and the children went to college, some went on to law school. Everyone had a nice amount of success and achievement, comfortable lifestyles, summers on Lake Michigan. In George's case, now remember, same upbringing of these boys, um
just a few shades apart in color, George didn't have those opportunities in New Orleans. George couldn't find work except as a bricklayer, and he laid brick Until he retired. was um living in poverty for quite a a l a lot of time during the Depression and I've heard stories about how he burned his own furniture for firewood when it was cold. Or how he would go look for food that had fallen off of cargo ships unloading at the Mississippi River docks.
And this was a man who had a good amount of intelligence and ambition, but you can see how race plays out across time, across families. And that's what I was hoping this article would show that We know passing happened as a historical fact. But what was the emotional toll, the psychological toll, and how did the pain morph and mutate over generations? That's what I was hoping my story would show to add to the conversation.
to see the real lived experiences of an actual family going through this black and white, north and south.
¶ Impact of Passing and Family Reunion
But the Yumini spark, as I understand it, was Pope Leo, the first American Pope. His family had crayol roots in in New Orleans. And how did how how did that make you kind of think differently about your family or or did it?
It did.
I remember when th th the American Pope was announced and the amount of uh excitement I saw in the media all across the country. And then later that night for it to be confirmed by a local historian here in New Orleans and also the Archdiocese of New Orleans. that in fact Pope Leo's maternal grandparents lived in the seventh ward of New Orleans. This is a historic center of Afro Creole culture.
And that they identified as black and mulatto while here, but then as lived as a white family in Chicago, it really it sort of felt like the quiet part of so many Creole family histories was just said out loud. And I thought I could help explain not the Pope's story in particular, but the circumstances of the time that might lead someone to Make a decision that way.
Let's go back to where you are. That is a grand house.
Well, yeah.
How is it that your grandfathers were living in poverty if their grandfather lived in that th in that house. What's what's the story there?
That's a really great question, and that's the crux of it all. So this house was built in the mid eighteen hundreds, and the owner, uh my great great grandfather uh used enslaved labor to build wealth and was someone who fought for the South in the Civil War and he had really uh strong and certain ideas about the separation of the races.
his son thought differently and his son, uh, my great grandfather Ned ended up having a very open relationship with a black woman in the city who lived just a few miles away in Tremay, which is, you know, the historic heart of Creole culture. I would say a lot of white men at the time had second families or secret families, but what was different about this relationship is that Ned and Minerva lived openly. Ned was different for his time and I I've tried to figure out why.
Um and I think that maybe some of his formative years were during Reconstruction and maybe he had a more optimistic spirit about what the future was gonna be like for African Americans. Maybe he thought it would be easier over the long run than indeed it turned out to be. But long story short, Ned and his father had a falling out over this. Um, because you can imagine uh a Confederate veteran uh son who is
openly l living and having children with a black woman, he the colonel who lived here in this house did not approve. And so when the children's mother died young and Ned found himself alone with those children, My great great grandfather who lived here in eight thousand square feet of space did not take them in. And that's how they ended up in an orphanage called the uh La Fawn Asylum for Colored boys.
So how did Edward wind up getting to Chicago? How did that happen?
I think Edward, through his father, had some exposure to the white world and probably picked up on how to pretend to be a part of it. And with his light complexion, I think one day in his late teens or early twenties, he decided there's nothing for me in New Orleans. Uh no parents, no money, no job opportunities, not much education.
I haven't interviewed him since he died in the nineteen seventies, but I'm imagining that he had to make a very hard choice between family and survival, and he chose survival. And I don't know as well, whether my grandfather was upset about this or distraught or supported it, but however he felt, in the end he decided to keep the secret and wish for the best for his brother.
So let's fast forward. Um, you always knew that you had this ancestor who passe blanc, right? You weren't really sure how the For want of a better term, I'll call that the the white branch of the family would react to your queries. What were you anxious about or worried about?
I think there are a lot of things I think my grandfather's voice was still in the back of my it was in my ear somewhere saying we we just leave well enough alone. For what reason? Just leave leave things alone. And so I was going against my grandfather's wishes. So just personally, as a granddaughter who's somewhat obedient, somewhat, I was I knew I was doing something that
Great grandpa Grandpa George might not have approved of, right? And then there's the fact that twenty years or so ago I lived in Chicago and I could have reached out to them, but yeah, think of the amount of racial animus in our country right now and the polarization and Um, the fact that hate crimes based on race are are rising and not going down. I remember thinking, mm, maybe this is something I just don't want to touch. Um
I
prioritized it now for a whole host of different reasons that have to do with um, you know, being more mature myself and dropping those assumptions about how the other side would react. And also I thought we're in a society now that is so deeply connected online and in every other way. It's hard to keep a secret these days. I had a feeling that I'd be giving them information that Maybe they already knew or at least had an inkling of, and sure enough, that turned out to be the case.
So how did how did you go about finding them? And you know, of course here's the big reveal, how did they react when you reached out?
Right. Well, I had a a good amount of research help and I thank the New York Times for that. Um so we used all sorts of ancestry tools and beyond that I looked for obituaries.
Yeah.
I looked on social media. Um, we looked in old newspapers. There was a lot written in ancient French in New Orleans. We just tried to gather every bit of information we could about my grandparents and great-grandparents and their descendants. And then it just came down to the very gentle reaching out um and just hoping for the best. And I reached out with
short messages either over um social media or, you know, if I found an email address or maybe in a search we'd come up with a phone number. But I broke through, I say, first with one cousin, her name is Christine. And I got such a positive reaction from her, I was really encouraged to keep going. As soon as she saw the message, she wrote back like uh something to the effect of, Oh hey, yes, of course, I would love to.
When can we talk? And then through Christine, I found out that she had longstanding questions that she wanted answered. And she said, Cousin Lauren feels this way too, and cousin Lauren feels this way too. And so through one person I learned of other people and I just slowly w made my way through the family tree, introducing myself as someone who shared a common ancestor. And also pointing out pretty quickly that I was a writer and reporter and that I'd I'd wanna share our story.
when you first encountered some of the family members, when you all first met each other, there were tears.
Oh yes.
There were
Tears. Yes.
Say say more about that.
When Edward left Louisiana and New Orleans, he left his culture, he left his kinship ties, he carried a secret along with his wife. She was also a very light complexioned Creole from Louisiana who was passing in Chicago as a white woman. So the two of them were bonded by their cover stories. And I think they must have lived with quite a bit of isolation because of fear.
Uh if you get too close to someone, maybe they'll figure something out. So one thing Christine described to me was always wanting extended family and wanting to know more about
where they came from and who their grandparents were and things like that. And they they didn't have that sense that I grew up with in New Orleans of an enormous sprawling family and very clear lineage and I think they wanted that and st when you long for that all your life and then one day it's finally explained to you why you didn't have it and then you have it because we were all there with open arms. I think the emotion of it was just overwhelming to them.
Does anyone not feel that way?
It's a totally understandable and legitimate question. I think anger is among the responses that a person could have, especially in the past. Right. You know, why why him and not us and was it a selfish and escapist thing to do? I think when I was a little girl and I first heard the story of the man in the picture who left the family.
say I'm like eight, nine or ten, I thought, what, we weren't good enough for him? Why did he leave? You know, but um and I may have had these feelings that were anger, but I didn't understand everything then. As I grew up, I understood more and I can see him as a fuller person and with a lot of empathy. And now of course I totally understand that he was stuck in a terrible system.
that forced hard choices on people who I'm sure would have rather do other things with their lives. But I in the system judging people along color lines and then metting out opportunity along those lines is illogical, absurd, and completely arbitrary. And that's what I want to show with this family story and what I'd hope uh, you know, that the story gives us an opportunity to to think deeply about our own racial history in this country and how it plays out in families across time.
Nathalie, thank you so much for talking with us.
My pleasure, Michelle. Thank you.
And finally
Thank you.
Hammering home the resilience of Ukrainians, literally, workers began repairs to the roof of the Pechursk-Lavru Monastery in Kyiv after it was badly damaged in a major attack by Russia on Monday. Now, Putin has long positioned himself as a defender of Christianity. But this Ukrainian cathedral complex is a UNESCO World Heritage Site which traces its roots all the way back almost 1,000 years.
The rush to repair it demonstrates one more time, Ukraine will not allow Putin to break its will. And that's it for now. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.
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