On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather Friends Media. Today's episode for Great Art we grateful. Obviously we have this podcast right and it's about black storytelling, so that means that we care about black storytelling.
Yes, one would assume. Do you agree?
You're on a stand right now. So all of this that we do on this podcast is based on gratitude, I would say, because we wouldn't be talking about black storytelling and wanted to share it in the ways that we do and learn about it in the ways that we do, and think critically about it in the ways that we do unless we were thankful for it. Today we are specifically talking about gratitude. So how do you feel about gratitude in general?
Like?
Is it as an emotion in a state of being? Is it something that you're connected to?
I say, I would probably need to lean into it more. But it's like sometimes you're definitely grateful for what you have, but you also take it for granted and you only realize you're grateful for it when it's not there.
I guess I never know what you got, So let's go that's me. I know I got it. Oh no, what y'all?
Long?
I don't know I got it. I've e bulshin, But yeah, it's definitely a practice that I need to lean into more. I'd say, how about you.
I think I'm pretty good at it, and I'm better at it now. It's been easier for me to get better at it over time because with life comes experience, and with experience comes a lot of loss over time. So I'm grateful for everything that I've gone through. You know, I feel like it's easier to step back now at this point in my life and look at.
Like, oh, like I'm here, that's what's up.
Like I could have really not been here right now, because not all of life is easy, like many parts of it, our struggle not just by virtue of all the identities that we show up in but like in our own individual lives. So long answer, but the short answer is I think I'm decent at it.
Okay, humble, humble gal.
But we got to give it up to all the black storytellers and the black stories that we learn from and we love from because the gratitude. I know, I just made that really serious, But gratitude doesn't always have to be such a serious thing. Sometimes it's serious, yes, and sometimes the black stories are life changing, they're world changing, they're about really serious parts of people's lives. People want
to share them for really big and bold reasons. And then sometimes it's just like the stories that we're grateful for are just like it made me feel better that day. Yeah, I'm grateful this exists exactly, it.
Exists in the world.
So today we like to shout out a few stories that we're thankful exist in this world, Like we are so lucky they didn't just remain a thought in their creator's mind, shared it with us, and are we better for it? Stories big and small are worthy of our flowers. So this episode is just a little reminder to reflect on the stories that we appreciate.
So, Eaves, what story are you grateful for that has been told?
The black story that I brought today is Carrie May Wiams's Kitchen Table series. So I picked this because it had a real emotional effect on me when I first saw it, and I think that is a very important
part of the things that we value. You know, of course, there are always the ways that it's impactful and maybe political or social ways, and of course all of those are valid, but there is an unexplainable emotion that came up in me when I first saw the Kitchen Table series, and I react that way to a lot of Carrie May Wims's work. I think the first time that I saw her work in person was at Spellman at their art museum many years ago, and I just could not
stop staring at it. But with the Kitchen Table series, just so everyone who hasn't seen it, it is photographs and then it has accompanying text. So she started taking the photographs in nineteen eighty nine and then finished the series in nineteen ninety, and she took the photographs before she came up with a text. I think her story is that she went on a long drive, took her recorder with her as she always did, and then came
up with the text for it afterwards. So if you look at the photographs, there are all black and white photographs, is twenty of them, and she's the main character. But then she has a cast of other people around her. So there's like her lover, there are her daughters, there are her friends that are in the photographs with her, and she presents herself in a variety of scenes. So every single scene is set around this table, this butcher
block table. There is a single light of pendant light with the like triangular lampshade hanging over it, so it's black and white, but you can tell that the light
is lit. So you're looking down on this table as if you're on one side of the table, and you have these long lines leading on either side of the table to the end of what seems like a pretty small room or small small area of the room, and the people who are in it are usually they're on that side of the table, closer to the opposite walls, and so every one of the photographs is taken from that perspective. Some of her doing things like putting lipstick
on with her daughter. Another one of her interacting with a bird in a bird cage. There's another one of her comforting her lover who's in the picture. There is another one of her laughing with her friends, playing cards, smoking, They are half empty alcohol bottles in the pictures and things like that. So they are domestic scenes. There are scenes of camaraderie and kinship. There are scenes of family life.
There are scenes that feel like things are unsaid, like you can tell something's going on because one person's in the background with their arms crossed looking at another person while they seem to be in some sort of distress,
So you can tell there's conflict. Just by looking at the pictures, you can feel the tension that happens between people, and to me, it feels like there's so much tenderness and warmth in the photos because even though they're black and white, the lighting that she uses and the postures that she uses give it that feeling. And they are staged photos, they're not candid photos. So all of the
choices that were made were choices for sure. So as part of the series, there were also fourteen text sheets and that had its own narrative, and I am so grateful that she ended up adding those to it because I really like the balance between the photos and the text.
The text essentially tells this story of her and her lover and how she felt about it, how she was reflecting on things like marriage and monogamy and partnership with people, relationships, motherhood, all of these huge topics that she boiled down into these fourteen slides of text to further illustrate the story that was happening throughout the course of these photos. Because
you can from the story. The photos alone, see this story of a woman moving through life, and that there is a larger world outside of the world that was taking place in this kitchen right, which in itself is already a such a rich storytelling place, you know, like it's a kitchen, Like you know, there's so much about patriarchy and patriarchy and so many other things that are centered around the kitchen around in storytelling, things that happen
around dinner tables, like often important conversations, really hard conversations happen around kitchen tables. They are rich places for family life. All of those things that are elements of storytelling come up in just one photo. When I first saw it, I didn't have the language for that. I was younger, I hadn't gone through the things I'm going through now. It's like when you're a kid and you singing the R and B song, You're like, yeah, I lost my.
Man, I'm too damn full of and he won't come back.
But you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I really received that work. But you know, I don't really know much about it from a live experienced perspective yet. But the thing is, it's like, that's what work. That affects you. Does It's like it brings this thing out of you before you even know it's in you. Yeah, And I feel like now at this point in my life, I've been able to evolve with it, like and I see it in different ways now that I go back and read the text.
In her work.
So, for instance, at one point, she's talking about how she goes to her mom for advice because she's struggling in her relationship. So throughout this narrative, she's talking about the ups and downs with this man. She's like, you know, he didn't want kids, but she wanted kids, and she was working and he wasn't working, and he was feeling a way about the way she was out and about and he wasn't out and about. And there's a point where she goes to her mom for advice about her relationship.
This is what her mom says to her, quote, you got to give a little to get a little. That's the story of life. So there's another part where she talks about children. So she's using the third person when she's talking about the woman who's present in these photos. So they're not autobiographical photos. I should say, OK, it's not an autobiographical story, but she uses herself as a stand in to be this character that people are following,
this muse in order to represent universal themes. She says, quote, oh yeah, she loved the kids, she was responsible, but took no deep pleasure in motherhood. It caused deflection from
her own immediate desires, which pissed her off. And then there is another part where one of my favorite parts of the text narrative of the series is a big chunk paragraph where she's calling back to black songs to illustrate her struggle with her man, like go tell it on the mountain, like going down by the river, and all these things. From a storytelling perspective, I really appreciate that all her call back that, even if I don't know intimately it didn't grow up with, those songs are works.
They're part of the of the language, of the shared language. But all of that said, now that the scene has been set for everyone. I chose this one and gratitude for it just because I felt like it was an entry point for me in terms of how I viewed art about black women who was in the photographs and in art, how I could express myself in my own art so I felt like everything was so delicate. I had an immediate response to looking at it that made me feel like there was a knowing before I even
knew for myself. So there was an interview that she did in Bomb many years ago with dog Bay, and she said in that interview quote another thing that's interesting about the early work is that even though I've been engaged in the idea of autobiography, other ideas have been more important. The role of narrative, the social levels of humor, the deconstruction of documentary, the construction of history, the use of text, storytelling, performance, and the role of memory have
all been more es central to my thinking than autobiography. So, knowing that she says that, also knowing about her background in folklore, I really appreciate all of the story within a story and the nodding to larger stories in the work that she did.
All of the myths.
That came together in one and all of the archetypes that she had in there that she represented through the narratives that she was telling in that work really served as an inspiration to me for being able to so elegantly and authentically mesh all of those things together and tell a story that was impactful and beautiful but like still real.
Yeah, I wonder if it was like you're because you said you saw when you were younger and hadn't had these life experiences that she was you know, alluding to and portraying. And I wonder if it was like your future self acknowledging that you know, like you're going to get it, but like your spirit got it already when you first saw it.
I do think that's what happened. It felt like a kind of mysticism or like a fortune telling in a way. But that's probably because she's so astutely or critically like thinks about the way we move through life and aims to do that through her work, like to be able to touch that deeper thing that you don't even know that you've touched it or have been able to access. I don't know if I can even fully explain it,
but I think that's okay. And our experience of art is not always about or life in general, like understanding immediately why something makes sense to you in a certain way.
But yeah, I definitely think that's part of it.
On that same train of thought, I'm wondering how you will experience the work when you're ninety and like looking back at all the things that it's portraying that you most likely won't be going through because he wasn't a ninety year old woman making these photos, and she hadn't really experienced life beyond where she was in that time.
I don't know.
That's a good question that I'm kind of like stumped by because I couldn't have even imagined the ways and that I connect to it now. So I don't know how to imagine the ways that I'll connect it to it in the future. But I appreciate the longevity of being able to carry it through so many parts of my life.
Do you think you will connect to it so far into the future, Because there's pieces of art that we like, really like at certain parts of our life and then it's like, oh, this really doesn't resonate anymore.
I think this one will be a long lasting gratitude, but you know, short lived gratitude has its place too, because it's like, oh, clear that what we needed in that moment. So I definitely I don't want to say one is better than the other either, that's fair. Yeah, And I'll also say that this was part this is a body of work that really helped propel her to wider acclaim and audiences, and so there's an impact that
it had outside of me as well. She was able to be an inspiration to others in the art world. So through this work and all of her other work created a legacy that I'm grateful for.
I also think it's important to point out that because you mentioned like a lot of people liking her work, and I think sometimes we have this tendency to only want to say we like very obscure things and not everybody likes Yeah, but it's like everyone likes it for a reason, you know. It's like it's nice and made
a lot of people feel that way. And just because something is popular or a lot of people like it or have seen it or have commented on it, it doesn't make it like less cool to like some Glad you pointed this one out. And for the people that haven't seen it, I think once they do look at it and fall in love with it too. It's like it's more speaking to Carrie may Weed's ability to capture the human experience for all types of people. Yeah, across time,
across time too. Yeah, because there's probably other parts of the series that other people really resonate with, whether it's just like laughing with friends, like oh, yeah, I really remember when I did that and how fun that was, you know what I'm saying, and like it really like sits with them in different ways too.
Yeah, I love that.
And I'll share which story I'm grateful for after the break.
It's O Katie, what work are you grateful for?
I'm grateful for Fanny lou Hamer's nineteen sixty four speech at the Democratic National Convention. So Fanny lou Hammer ran for Congress in nineteen sixty four with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. SO that was a party formed by SNICK, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to expand black voter registration and challenge the legitimacy of Mississippi's all white Democratic Party.
So in nineteen sixty four, the Mississippi Freedom Party came to the DNC intent on unseating the official Mississippi delegation, or, if they failed to unseat them, to gain a seat beside them. So on August twenty second, Missus Vannie lou Hammer appeared before the Convention's Credentials Committee and told her story about trying to register to vote in Mississippi. And one thing that's interesting about this, and I think broadly about black stories, especially in this time when we're talking
about like book banning. President Lyndon Johnson was so afraid of what Fanny lou Hamer was going to say, he called an impromptu press conference. And so, of course, with the President's on TV, no matter what's on TV, like it's going to go to him, and he did that
on purpose so people would not hear her. But she still said the speech and it was still recorded, so it aired later that night and it aired on all the major net work, so it didn't work, but it just showed how scared he was of like truth telling and how scared America is of like black people telling the truth. And so she starts to speech by talking about who she is. She gives her a whole address, which I just love because I'm like, this is a rich test, Like she's like, I'm You're going to know
who I am. And she states where she lives, which is Ruleville, Mississippi, and.
East streets they only Mississippi, Sunflower County, and who her representatives are, so James O.
Eastland and Senator Stinnis. So she sat in the stage right for where she is in the country, what's the atmosphere of where she's living and who's representing her. So she has James O. Eastland, who stated that the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four was the most monstrous and heinous piece of legislation that has ever been proposed in the entire history of the AS Congress. So that's what she's coming up against, that's where she's trying to vote. So she sets the stage in that way, which I
think is really important. And also what I loved about Miss Vanny Louhamer is how plain spoken she is, and she's like not putting on airs right, because you know, sometimes you're like in front of Congress, you feel like you have to, you know, speak the way they speak. But she didn't do that. She spoke the way she spoke, and it was powerful because it's like every subject and verb don't have to agree, you know what the fuck
I'm saying, and it's like very powerful. So she talks about how they went to register to vote.
It was the thirty first of all this in nineteen sixty two that eighteen of us travels twenty six miles.
And they it was like so much hypocrisy and unfairness that was going on. They got fined for the bus they were riding in being the wrong color, Like what does that even mean? You know, they were giving poll taxes.
And they only allowed two of us in to take the literaty tests.
At the time, they're turned away. And she's a sharecropper and when she gets back to the plantation that she works on, the landowner says that if you don't go down.
And withdraw your registration, you will have to leave.
She needs to go withdraw her registration or she can't live there anymore. And even if she does, she still might get kicked out because Mississippi isn't ready for that. But she stood up and was like, I am register for you. I registered for me. And I think that takes a lot of courage because like where do you go? And I do think at that time, you know, she was in community, she was an activists, so she had
people who had her back. But at the end of the day, it is like you your husband and your kids, and this is kind of all you known. And it took a lot of courage to lose your livelihood no matter how unfair being a sharecropper is. But lose your livelihood and where you live for this possible ability to be able to vote. So she talks about that, and then she talks about how you know, people were shooting sixteen bullets at the home of mister and missus Robert Tucker,
and that were meant for her. People were after her because of this, and when do you think about even like the book banning, It's like, what are you so afraid of? You know, like you're doing all this so I don't vote, Like you're doing all this so people don't read the words I have to say. So I feel like when people like in this case, like white people of the state are doing these things to stop us from voting, stop us from reading, I think they
don't understand how emboldening it is. Like it's scary, but it's like, if you're getting this mad, I must be onto something.
And this is an account of we want to register.
And I get that from her speech. So she talked about attending the voter workshop and getting pulled over and being booked into jail and like being beat and it's a very you know, graphic description she tells about like state sanctioned violence, like she's getting beat by different cops in the in the jail, it's a stream.
And one white man got up and began to beat me in my head and talent at.
The hook being called a nigger and her dress being hiked up while she's getting beat and then she ends her speech with a very powerful rhetorical question.
It's just Amratha, the line of the Free and the home of the brain. Wow, we have to sleep with our telephones out for the hook because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live. It did some human beings.
In America, and she really forced America to look at itself. And I think there's a long history of black Americans forcing America to look at itself in America really refusing to do so, because when you truly look at what America is versus what it claims to be, it doesn't square. It's very hypocritical. And I'm glad that she told this story. You know, it's first person. Like a lot of speeches are like hypotheticals, like if we don't do this, then
this will happen. But she's like, no, this is what happened to me last week. Type shit so I think that's very powerful, and you know, being in Mississippi at that time, like you know, my grandparents were in Mississippi around that time, and it was just hectic being there. But you get on you know, the world stage and tell what happened to you, you don't know what's gonna happen when you go back Mimsissippi. So I'm glad that she, you know, had the courage to stand up and say that.
I think it's very interesting that the president was so threatened by her, because other people spoke that day too. Martin Luther King spoke. President did not interrupt Martin Luther King speaking, but it was something about Fanny lou Hamer speaking, someone who had you know, a six rade education. It was a share who learned about voting from young activists and was like, I want to do that. That frightened
them so much. And I think it's just really a lesson and you don't have to be, you know, that great man. You don't have to be the main person, the leader, the you know, most educated or whatever superlative that's out there to really shake some shit up. Because she shook some shit up because they didn't get the Mississippi Freedom Party did not get you know, the seats that year, but four years later they did, and I just love that for Fanni Hammer and for all the
people who came behind her. Like, you know, people love to shit on Mississippi, but I'm like, you could never shit on Mississippi because you know, like so many people came up out of that tradition, you know what I mean. So that's the one that I think about about gratitude, Like really just like speaking truth to power, no matter the consequences.
We'll be back with more great attitude after the break. Speeches are such a powerful part of black storytelling and Black history. But this specific speech that you brought, I like that you brought it because it's not this one that's like I'm speaking at you, as so many speeches often are, because that's the role, that's the job that you're given, you know. This one it feels like more of like a testimony, which is a Black Southern tradition.
So I really.
Appreciate it that you brought that as a form of storytelling because it's such a deeply important form of storytelling for black people, and this is something that could have happened in a small interior space and to call back to like this kitchen table from earlier for carrying may Ween that happened so much for black people in home spaces and interior spaces like that. But this was such
such an exterior space. It's being televised, it's being recorded, and it's in front of people who you know don't have your best interest at heart, and you laying it all on the line. Like, yes, the work that she was doing, like as an activist, was her laying it all on the line. But like, telling your story in front of people who don't want you alive alone is already like you laying your life on the line. You're
already giving something up. You know, when we choose to share our stories with people in such a public and vulnerable way, we're already choosing to give something up. So I really appreciate it that you brought this kind of story to the table, and I can tell that it really meant a lot to you, and I know it meant a lot to so many other people too.
Yeah. I mean, I grew up learning about Fanny lou Hammer, but the first time I heard this particular speech when she's describing being beat by the Negro officer and being held down by the Negro officer and being beat till the first one was too tired to beat her and so they get another person to beat her. And just thinking about like all that she personally went through, but like all black people have gone through. I feel like kind of like how you felt about the Kitchen Table series.
I feel like my future self was like, girl, you need to hear this. Yeah, so you're ready, you know when she it go down to know like what your ancestors went through, and you know, like recent ancestors. You know, Fanny Louhammer was not that old when she died, like she could still be alive today, but because of all the racism, all the beatings she endured, she had a lot of health problems. But having that knowledge of like, this is what they went through, and you need to
hear these words. And they tried to make it so you couldn't hear these words, and I think that makes it even like more of an imperative that we hear it and then we also share it too.
For people who are thinking about creating works, you know, and who don't know if their voices are quote unquote important enough to be heard or if they're maybe fearful around sharing what they have to say, Like it's just so important because you never know how somebody might be affected by it. So I think that's another thing that I think about in gratitude, Like it's recognizing and acknowledging
and honoring like what we do have. We know that when it comes to black story specifically, so many more that are out there that are waiting.
To be told too.
So it's like I have this like future of gratitude for like the fact that we still exist and we have the capability of like creating and sharing so many more stories.
And now it's time for role credits. Eves, who are what are you giving credit to?
I want to give credit to the South because you talked to about Mississippi and how people be banging on Mississippi. But people bang on the South in general, and people bang on the South who be from the South. People bang on the South from international locations, and I ain't never been to the South. There is a construction and conception of the South that is inaccurate in so many ways. But you know, I'm biased because I'm from the South, So I mean I see it fully though, and I
am also proud of my southernness. I respect my southernness. I'm grateful speaking of gratitude for my southernness and for the South and.
The South has.
It's obviously a complex place like so many others are, but so many people who have done amazing things have come from the South, just like FAMILYE.
Hamer. That's what I want to give credit TOUE. Today the South shout out the South.
So for my raw credits, I want to start by saying that we started on theme for it to be a dialogue not between just us, but between our listeners and people who love black stories. And so I want to give credit to one of our listeners, Andy Davis eighteen. That's Andy an Die Davis eighteen. They created a Instagram reel in response to one of our episodes, to our first episodes, talking about beginnings, and they not only just talked about liking the episode, but I feel like they
really added to it. They mentioned the first line of the Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid. So yeah, I really love the conversations that we have with each other, with our guests and with our listeners. So I encourage folks that if you want to add to the conversation, go ahead. There's many ways to do that, you know, there's social media, there's the reviews, there's our email. So I'm grateful for folks who are doing it.
So I think that's oh, we have this week, right, Katie.
We'll see you next week. Bye, Hi, y'all.
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison.
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