Pod Insights Snap Judgment A Love Story for the Ages! from Our Ancestors Were Messy About this episode Three epic romances, but only one of them makes it into the time capsule. Nichole, Zakiya, and Emmanuel must choose the best Black Love story for the world of the future.
This week on Snap, we're featuring an episode from our friends at Our Ancestors Were Messy. https://thesecretadventuresofblackpeople.com/our-ancestors-were-messy
Our Ancestors Were Messy https://thesecretadventuresofblackpeople.com/our-ancestors-were-messy, is a podcast covering the gossip, scandals, and pop culture that made headlines in the Black newspapers of segregated communities during the pre-Civil Rights era. On each episode, host Nichole Hill and her guests follow the story of an ancestor in search of opportunity, adventure, love, and a way to beat Jim Crow. Hill and her guests learn the mess - and eventual history - their ancestors make along the way.
You can listen to this incredible show on any podcast platform!
Our Ancestors Were Messy https://thesecretadventuresofblackpeople.com/our-ancestors-were-messy is hosted by Nichole Hill (@nicholewthanh). This episode feautres Emmanuel Dzotsi (@newsmanual_) and Zakiya Gibbons (@zak_sauce). Executive Producer A. A. Hernandez. Sound design by Helena de Groot https://www.helenadegroot.me/about. Story Producer Martina Abrahams Ilunga (@m_tina). Research Producer Chioke I'Anson https://www.chiokeianson.com/. Story Editing by Shonte Hill. Show Art by Aseloka Smith https://www.instagram.com/naturallyherown/.
Season 16 - Episode 21
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:53 Glynn Washington? Discover the best deals happening now at ember.com/snap. Go to ember.com right now. And when you're asked where you heard about them, let them know it was Snap Judgment. That's ember.com/snap. Okay, okay, it's almost, almost gift giving time. And because gift giving time is cold outside time, it's want to stay by a fire time. I like giving something cozy and nobody, but nobody does cozy like Quince. What's better than one for them, one for me, or you?
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2:17 Glynn Washington? It often comes early in the morning or late at night, around a kitchen table with cousins you just met and elders who swear they wiped your bottom when you were a baby. It starts with a story, the back and forth, the bob and weave, the call and response, testimonies, church. The elder becomes the griot. The family becomes the chorus. It's not a lecture, it's a performance. And when the griot says those magic words, "Come to find out", the room erupts. Laugh, or tears, gasp, clap, stomp, because stories are not just told or passed down.
2:59 Glynn Washington? And today, around the Snap Kitchen table, we're reaching back through time to bring on the griot, to shine light on stories the history books forgot, but granny never did. I'm proud to introduce you to Nichole Hill, host of the incredible podcast, "Our Ancestors Were Messy", yes, messy, not dignified, not statues on a pedestal, but real, full of life, gossip, scandal. Nicole digs into black newspapers from America's apartheid years, from Harlem to Houston, and uncovers pop culture and community from back when you had to fight just to have a paper in the first place.
3:42 Glynn Washington? And today, Nicole sits down with Tia Gibbons and Emmanuel Jogi, and together, they channel the ancestors, uncovering stories of love, survival, joy, even in the shadow of Jim Crow. So be comfortable. Grab your tea and whatever you put in your tea, because ancestors have something to say.
4:09 Glynn Washington? Nichole Hill, take it away.
4:14 Speaker 01 Have you ever made a time capsule or been part of the making of a time capsule?
4:20 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, I have.
4:23 Speaker 01 OK, what? Tell me a story.
4:24 Speaker 02 So I spent part of my childhood in Belgium. And the school I went to there in like the year to mark the millennium, like 2000, decided that we're all gonna put something in there and bury it. And I went back to that school for the first time in like years and years, like maybe two years ago, and the school doesn't exist. It's a housing development.
4:49 Speaker 01 Damn.
4:49 Speaker 02 Built over it. I'm never getting that.
4:52 Speaker 01 Damn.
4:53 Speaker 03 Oh, no.
4:55 Speaker 01 Do you know what you put in there? Do you remember?
4:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, I do. It's kind of embarrassing. You know how like teachers used to ask you to like write letters to yourself like years later?
5:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:06 Speaker 02 Nobody asked me to do it, but I just did that.
5:08 Speaker 01 Oh.
5:09 Speaker 02 But what's embarrassing is I do remember what the first line was. It was pretty bad. It was like, hey, Manuel, if you're reading this, this may be the smartest thing you've read in quite some time.
5:28 Speaker 01 Oh, my God. Just to know that that letter is underneath the housing development right now.
5:34 Speaker 02 Keep it buried. Keep it buried.
5:37 Speaker 01 So we are in the 1920s.
5:39 Speaker 03 OK, this is like also the time period of like finger wave, hair.
5:43 Speaker 01 Oh.
5:44 Speaker 03 Prohibition.
5:45 Speaker 01 100% flappers.
5:46 Speaker 03 Flappers, OK.
5:46 Speaker 02 I was gonna say like, we're talking full on pimp suits.
5:49 Speaker 03 Yes.
5:50 Speaker 02 Like, I love it.
5:56 Speaker 01 So 1920s, we've got the vibe. We've set the scene. OK, we're all archivists. You're an archivist in a flapper outfit, Zakiya. You're an archivist in a pinstripe pimp suit.
6:05 Speaker 02 OK.
6:06 Speaker 01 Like, Emmanuel, we've got the, we've got the vision. And we have been tasked with putting one item into a time capsule that is going to be opened in the year 2030.
6:16 Speaker 03 Ooh, OK.
6:17 Speaker 01 Somebody else is gonna do the civil rights part. Don't worry about it.
6:20 Speaker 02 OK.
6:21 Speaker 01 What we, the archivists, have been tasked with is figuring out the one right story to include that will demonstrate how Black people thought about love in the 1910s, 1915s, 1920s.
6:36 Speaker 03 Mmm.
6:37 Speaker 01 This is meant to be representative of our approach to love. And ideally, it'll be timeless. It'll have some message that the children, the citizens of 2030 will be like, "Thank you so much. It's all so clear to me now."
6:49 Speaker 02 OK.
6:50 Speaker 01 This is what we're looking to do.
6:52 Speaker 03 Oh, I love this. OK.
6:53 Speaker 02 OK, yeah.
6:54 Speaker 01 All right, so we're both on board. All right, we have before us three love stories that were published in turn-of-the-century Black newspapers. And we're gonna read all three and then select just one to send ahead of us to 2030. So what are we looking for in our ideal stories?
7:12 Speaker 02 I'm looking for some, like, great migration, long-distance, like-
7:17 Speaker 01 Oh, we want drama.
7:19 Speaker 02 Love and duty got in the way type of stuff, you know? Like, yeah, that's what I'm looking for. But also, yeah, also some steam, you know? A little heat, you know? Prohibition, people dancing the jazz and doing all kinds of stuff.
7:33 Speaker 03 I mean, I feel like this is a cop-out because this show is called "Our Ancestors Were Messy." But I'd want a little mess. I wanna like clutch my pearls a little bit. I wanna gasp like, "Oh, oh," you know?
7:44 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
7:44 Speaker 03 Um, some steaminess would be good. I love a twist. I love a turn. I also love a villain.
7:51 Speaker 02 Mmm.
7:52 Speaker 01 Ooh.
7:53 Speaker 03 I don't know, someone where I'm like, "Oh, I don't know about you," you know?
7:58 Speaker 01 OK, so we want like the future citizens of 2030 to be entertained. We're like, "Attention, Black community, lean in."
8:04 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
8:04 Speaker 01 Here we go.
8:05 Speaker 03 And also maybe like a lesson to be gleaned.
8:08 Speaker 02 OK.
8:09 Speaker 01 All right, I like it. So our letters are coming from one of two papers today. The first being "The Colorado Statesman." So let me tell you a little bit about this paper.
8:17 Speaker 02 Yes.
8:19 Speaker 01 The Colorado Statesman was officially founded by two men. Founder number one was the first black man to be admitted to the Colorado bar. His name is Edwin Hackley. Founder number two, Joseph Dee Dee Rivers. Oh, the names. Everybody always has such a good name. He also studied law and he ran a real estate business and he was a journalist. Because back then, you needed to be like three to four things. This is a talented 10th. Their job is to save us all. You cannot have one job. Their parents were slaves. Nobody is impressed with one job.
8:50 Speaker 03 I feel like we kind of do that now. At least I'm a host, story editor, writer, dog walker, blah, blah, blah. You know, I feel like we've been staying on that tip.
8:57 Speaker 01 This is where we got it.
8:58 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:59 Speaker 01 So they found the paper. Now, these other two aren't officially credited by historians, but both men do credit their wives. So that's Mrs. Ritchie Rivers and the famous opera singer, Miss Azalea Hackley.
9:10 Speaker 03 Ooh.
9:10 Speaker 02 Wow, okay.
9:13 Speaker 01 So the Colorado Statesman's based out of Denver, and its purpose was to serve the black community of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and New Mexico in the 1890s. That's when it started. And they were serving them some of the only news that they could access about the fight that black communities across America were staging for civil rights and for equal justice and for like common human decency. This is how they find out about it. Because the white press, of course, is not going to cover that. So that's on the front page. The rest of the paper is one of my favorite ones to read for fun because I feel like these two dudes or these four people were just looking around the earth and being like, what a time to be alive. Like, wow, just look at this new tech in Cleveland on the docks. Can you believe it? I was opening all these libraries. Wow.
9:57 Speaker 01 That's like a lot of what I read in there. And I just think it's sweet. I feel like that's how I feel.
10:03 Speaker 03 We love a gratitude practice. Love that.
10:05 Speaker 01 Yes, exactly. And they have that. Now, they're very respectable and stuck up. But then they're also, if you read between the lines, they're just being like, wow, what a country, you know? So the couples, they've launched this paper. They're also launching mutual aid organizations all over Denver. They're doing, everybody has to be doing everything they can for the community at this time.
10:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:24 Speaker 01 But Azalea is our famous opera singer, and she can't be in Denver all the time. So sometimes she goes away to Europe and all around America, and she sings, sings, sings.
10:33 Speaker 03 Oh, wow.
10:34 Speaker 01 And Edwin's like, boy, am I lonely. Uh-oh.
10:41 Speaker 01 So he starts writing letters to a friend that he's made, Chicago's premier investigative journalist and a fellow newspaper editor herself, Miss Ida B. Wells.
10:50 Speaker 02 Oh, okay.
10:52 Speaker 03 Okay.
10:52 Speaker 01 Everybody's like, you guys are sending each other a lot of letters. Like, maybe at first they were about the business. Obviously, they're both in the newspaper journalism business. He's a lawyer, so they're probably talking about cases. They're both heavy into mutual aid. So maybe it started out professional.
11:08 Speaker 02 Oh, they were heavy into mutual aid.
11:14 Speaker 01 Well done. Well done.
11:17 Speaker 02 Thank you. I was waiting. I was lying. I said, there's an opening here. There's a joke to be made.
11:21 Speaker 01 Here I go. So people are whispering, and Azalea hears about this. And she's like, I hate Ida B. Wells. You know I don't want you talking to her. What are you doing? Beefing, beefing, beefing. Eventually, they split. And Edwin's like, you know what? I've been more of a playwright this whole time anyway. So he moves to Philly and does that. And he's like, Joseph, you take the paper from here. Wow. So Joseph and Richie keep the paper going for the next 40 years, until he passes away. And then the paper continued on until 2017. So that's 132-year run.
11:55 Speaker 02 Wow.
11:56 Speaker 03 Wow. Talk about legacy media. That's incredible.
12:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, they change hands a lot. They change names. But with these black papers, people really do try their best to keep them going for as long as they can.
12:08 Speaker 02 Huh.
12:09 Speaker 03 Yes.
12:10 Speaker 01 So that's incredible.
12:12 Speaker 03 Also, I'm just still stuck, I'm sorry, I'm just still stuck on someone having beef with Ida B. Wells. Like, I just did not ever imagine that, like.
12:20 Speaker 01 Azalea did not like her. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:25 Speaker 01 Our editors, they're clearly hardworking. They're activists, but they also had love lives. And love stories do regularly appear in the paper, like the one we're about to cover. So without further ado, Emmanuel. I said ado because you're British.
12:40 Speaker 02 No, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
12:42 Speaker 01 You're welcome.
12:43 Speaker 02 Okay. This was published Saturday, October 25, 1913. The headline is "After Many Years" by Janet Rees.
13:01 Speaker 02 Many times he had proposed and just as many times she had refused him, but they remained good friends. It was just after one of the offers and refusals that, half jestingly, half seriously, they agreed to meet in a favourite roof garden, ten years hence, so that each might know what the other had reaped. The girl declared that they must put the finishing touch to a romantic situation by wearing red roses, and the youth laughingly assented.
13:33 Speaker 02 Even if he married, he was to keep the appointment. "It would be but a meeting of one old friend with another," the girl said. She, of course, would be readied to none, not with her glorious career to follow.
13:48 Speaker 02 Five of the ten years passed, and the girl and youth were now man and woman, and had married each other. Fame had come to the woman, misery to the man. The woman had found it necessary to dispense with the man all the career, and it was the man who had been told to go. Damn. Sorry. That woman ruined that for me.
14:15 Speaker 02 Five more years, alternately slipping and dragging away, brought the night of the engagement, made ten years before. The man had not heard of the woman for a long time. The last he had heard was that she was on the continent. She'd written some books, he'd heard of them but had not read them. They had been the cause of his desolation.
14:39 Speaker 02 With a low, mirthless laugh at his own foolishness, the man took the elevator to the roof garden, a red rose nestling in his buttonhole. And with an odd, choking sensation, he sought and found the little corner which she had liked, a corner screened by drooping palms so that the two could be alone with the stars and music. He came with no thought that the woman would be there. No doubt she had forgotten the romantic agreement of ten years ago, but it pleased his fancy to keep the appointment. Besides, by closing his eyes, he could almost see her on the other side of the table. An imagination appeases the hunger of loneliness for a while. He even ordered the dishes she liked best,
15:23 Speaker 02 remembering with a reminiscent smile her fondness for ice cream. For what seemed like a long time, he sat there. The dinner grew cold, and the waiter cleared it and a large tip away with a curious look at the generous patron. At the far end of the garden, an orchestra was playing, and perhaps it was its heart rending cadence which made him dream of the girl. So alluringly near did she seem that he reached out his arms towards her. But the little table intervened, and she seemed to smile mockingly at his vain attempts. "It's only a dream," he told himself bitterly.
16:04 Speaker 02 And surely the gods were cruel to torture him so. Strange, when he looked again, she was still there. Well, when he tried to crush her in his arms, he would find but thin air, as one dozen dreams. Yet, ah, it was true. As he held her close, he felt the beating of her heart, the cling sweetness of her lips. Only the waiter saw, and he merely smiled. For many strange things happen in a roof garden.
16:34 Speaker 02 Wow, that man was down bad.
16:38 Speaker 03 Oh my god, I was reading Emmanuel, oh my god.
16:43 Speaker 02 It was dramatic, it was written dramatically. The person who wrote that, Janet, she knew what she was, Janet knew what she was doing.
16:49 Speaker 03 I was transported.
16:50 Speaker 02 Janet knew what she was doing.
16:52 Speaker 03 Wait, I'm so, was that a Janet, so this is fiction? Janet wrote that, or this is a retelling of a true story?
16:58 Speaker 01 They just put them in there. So I don't know if it's fiction or not. It could be a dramatic retelling of a true story, but it could also be totally made up.
17:07 Speaker 03 Oh my god, it felt so real the way you said it. I was just, do you think she was there?
17:11 Speaker 01 Oh my god, I was literally on that, to my feet.
17:13 Speaker 03 Was she there? Do you think she was?
17:14 Speaker 02 I don't know. I think she's, this is my tea. I think Janet Reeves is the woman, and I think she is, she knows that she stood in line. And so she's writing, it's like fanfic about her own.
17:30 Speaker 02 Our own curving of this guy.
17:32 Speaker 03 Wait, no.
17:33 Speaker 02 That's what I think it is. That's what I think it is.
17:35 Speaker 03 Wait, that's brilliant. I see that.
17:37 Speaker 02 Wouldn't that be? I think that's what it is.
17:39 Speaker 01 That'd be brutal.
17:40 Speaker 03 Wow.
17:41 Speaker 01 That would be brutal. Wait, okay, wait, I had questions. I got very caught up. Okay. What do you think the story's saying about love?
17:49 Speaker 02 Oh, well, also, one, it's interesting, they did get married. And I just think in any love scenario or love story scenario where you were talking about hypothetically getting with somebody, you basically are really with them.
18:03 Speaker 01 Yep.
18:05 Speaker 02 I think all of us have like a number of great loves in our lives. And, you know, you have those ones that every once in a while, you can picture them and it feels so clear what they meant to you or whatever, but not in your life. And I think everybody has a little one of those, a little heartbreak somewhere within. And unfortunately, this man, his, has him hugging thin air in broad daylight.
18:32 Speaker 03 He really was down bad.
18:33 Speaker 01 He was. The waiter's like, sir.
18:36 Speaker 03 Are you okay?
18:37 Speaker 02 Legitimately.
18:45 Speaker 01 What did it say to you about love, Zakiya?
18:48 Speaker 03 Oh, my gosh. Um, yeah, I agree with you, Manuel. Like, if there is some kind of pact, it's like, just get together. We all like each other. Like, just do it. And I feel like that kind of situationship messiness, but kind of like romantic messiness, that is timeless. It brought a smile to my face, knowing like, oh, people were like this even way back then, you know? And I also, I kind of love to see a man down bad.
19:18 Speaker 01 It is. I do. Yeah, I do too. Who doesn't?
19:21 Speaker 03 So that also kind of was like, lol.
19:23 Speaker 01 Okay, are we worried about what this says about black people? Like, how do we feel about what this will make the future citizens of 2030 think about black people? Do we care? Are we pressed? What do we think?
19:35 Speaker 02 What does it say about black people?
19:40 Speaker 02 I don't know, the thing that I like about it is it makes us, if this was your representation of what black people are, you're like, wow, these guys really were kind of whimsical, you know?
19:51 Speaker 03 Hmm.
19:52 Speaker 02 Like,
19:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
19:53 Speaker 02 in a time when a lot was happening, people were fleeing, like, real racial violence, uh, like, you still have time to, like, you know, go to an expensive restaurant where you don't even know the other person's gonna show up. Uh, you, you can still travel abroad and be somewhere on the continent, so to speak. Like, I don't know. I think it's pretty good.
20:15 Speaker 03 I appreciate that this man is vulnerable enough to be like, I'm gonna show up to this meeting spot and I'm going to openly pine. I will have my arms outstretched to thin air, you know, and be open to rejection. I feel like this man was ahead of his time. And you don't see a lot of that kind of representation. And I don't know, and it just, they just seem also just so classy. Like, imagine just like being like, oh, have you read so-and-so? Have you heard this book? It's like, that's my ex. I don't know, that just feels so like,
20:47 Speaker 02 It's a good look.
20:48 Speaker 03 classy and cool.
20:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:50 Speaker 03 You know what I mean? I don't know, it's just kind of giving like, high society, but also intellectual, but also kind of artsy people. I don't know.
20:58 Speaker 02 Are you just talking about yourself at this point?
21:00 Speaker 03 Yeah.
21:06 Speaker 03 Okay, so this is a maybe. We've got a maybe. I, okay, if I say yes, does that, then I'm voting against mine?
21:12 Speaker 02 Yeah, cuz you were be voting, yeah.
21:14 Speaker 03 But this, I will say, this is very promising. Like, I, I would put this, it's dangling above the opening of the time capsule.
21:27 Glynn Washington? Our ancestors were messy continues in just a moment. Stay tuned.
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23:35 Glynn Washington? Welcome back to Snap Judgment. The Our Ancestors Were Messy Spotlight. Now, when Nicole Hill says she has a story from back in the day, she really means back in the day. Snap Judgment.
23:48 Speaker 01 Let's go to story number two. This is coming to us from The Tulsa Star. Let me tell you about The Tulsa Star. It started in 1912. It operated out of the Greenwood neighborhood in Oklahoma on what we call Black Wall Street.
24:02 Speaker 02 Yes, indeed.
24:02 Speaker 01 Its editor was A.J. Smitherman, who was also Justice of the Peace and an attorney. We've discussed this. You cannot just have one job. He was seen as a leading influence in both connecting and speaking on behalf of the 11,000 members of Tulsa's black community and then across all of Oklahoma. They called the paper Their Voice. So, Smitherman used that voice to advocate for self-reliance and to celebrate anything that any black Tulsa or Oklahoma did at all. Like, if you hosted a nice tea party, birth, trips out of town, your mom came to visit. Like, if you would put it on an Instagram story today, he would publish it in the paper. When the paper is talking about the outside world and everything that's going on,
24:47 Speaker 01 they're denouncing mob violence and lynchings across America, and they're criticizing Tulsa City administration for their discrimination against black citizens. A.J. Smitherman hires a managing editor, the pioneer journalist Theodore Bowman, who'd worked across Texas and Kansas and was now in Oklahoma. So, together, they grow the paper, and it becomes like the town square of the black citizens of Tulsa. Everybody loves it. I like to picture the two of them, like, in their offices, overlooking Black Wall Street, suspenders, obviously, toasting each other, being like, wow, here we are. We're really doing it.
25:20 Speaker 02 Wow.
25:21 Speaker 01 But Theodore was not content with just being a managing editor. He's an ambitious man. So, he's like, I gotta go, A.J. And then he leaves and starts a rival paper called The Oklahoma Sun. Oh, no.
25:38 Speaker 01 Then on May 31, 1921, a white mob descends on their community and they target A.J. and his home and the Tulsa Star offices. They destroy them both. And the black press across America reports on the violence in real time and they call it, as we come to know, the Tulsa Race Massacre.
25:57 Speaker 02 Tulsa Massacre, yeah.
25:58 Speaker 01 A.J. survives all of this. So I like to picture him going to Theo's home, who'd also survived. And Theo's like, "A.J., what are you gonna do?" And A.J.'s like, "I have to leave because the white press and the mob is saying that they burned everything down and killed everybody because of me." Like, they had a lot of reasons, but they said in part it was because of the Star and because he was running his mouth, and that's why they targeted his house and that's why they burned down the paper. So he's like, "Theo, what are you gonna do?" And Theo's like, "I'mma stay." Before he leaves, A.J. sells his one-time friend, one-time rival, the Tulsa Star. And then A.J. moves to Buffalo and he starts the Buffalo Star.
26:38 Speaker 02 Wow.
26:40 Speaker 01 Theo goes to the ruins of the Tulsa Star and he finds their printing press. And he takes that and with that, he starts the Oklahoma Eagle. And with the help of the remaining black citizens of Tulsa, they keep the paper alive. And today, it is the oldest continuously published black newspaper in Oklahoma.
27:00 Speaker 03 Wow.
27:02 Speaker 02 Wow.
27:02 Speaker 01 Should we sing the Black National Anthem real quick?
27:05 Speaker 03 Oh, my god, yes.
27:21 Speaker 01 We're gonna back up six years before the massacre, before the breakup. So Greenwood, Black Wall Street, they're thriving. Theo and A.J., hand in hand, best friends forever. And in the midst of all their race business that they're tending to, they love to talk about love. And so each week, they publish a little love story and with an anecdote to entertain or maybe make their readers think. And Zakiya and I will be bringing you the next story. I feel like you should be Abigail.
27:52 Speaker 03 Wait, is that the daughter? Oh my God, I was actually gonna say I wanted to play the mom.
27:56 Speaker 01 Okay.
27:57 Speaker 03 Because I feel like, but I, but I can.
27:59 Speaker 01 We got pops. I love this.
28:00 Speaker 03 But I can play Abigail. I can play Abigail.
28:03 Speaker 01 Okay, yeah, because I feel like you could be, you can really bring the drama to your role.
28:08 Speaker 03 Okay, so this is from the Tulsa Star. It was published Saturday, October 23rd, 1915. This article is called "Ended the Argument."
28:20 Speaker 01 I'm playing the role of Mama. "Listen to me, Abigail," said Mrs. Wise to her daughter. "Remember, please, that I'm older than you. Wisdom comes only with age."
28:29 Speaker 03 Yes, Mama.
28:31 Speaker 01 "Why are you so cold to Mr. Willing, so distant? He has my endorsement as a suitor."
28:36 Speaker 03 Yes, he proposed.
28:38 Speaker 01 "What answer did you make?"
28:39 Speaker 03 I declined. But he said he wouldn't take that as final.
28:43 Speaker 01 "Of course not. He'll persist with my consent, child. Why did you refuse to go motoring with him?" That's like driving, because cars are a new thing. "Why did you refuse to go motoring with him? He is dissatisfied over your manner, which I fear isn't nice. Has he done anything to offend?"
29:00 Speaker 03 He wanted to kiss me.
29:02 Speaker 01 "And didn't? You refused? Child, when a man pays court to a woman, to a girl, and is serious about it, when his intentions are honorable, there's no harm in a kiss."
29:12 Speaker 03 But Mama, isn't a kiss something that should be mutual? Should a girl let a man kiss her when she has no wish to kiss the man?
29:19 Speaker 01 Certainly. When the man is a man of character and honorable purposes, you mustn't forget that such a match as you can make isn't the fortune of every girl. If your dear father were with us, he'd advise you as I'm advising you.
29:32 Speaker 03 Is a girl to marry a man much older than she is because he's honorable and has money?
29:37 Speaker 01 Perhaps not solely, dear, but Mr. Willing isn't so old, only 45.
29:42 Speaker 03 And I'm 20.
29:45 Speaker 03 You were 20 when you married Papa, weren't you? I think you told me so.
29:49 Speaker 01 Yes.
29:50 Speaker 03 And he was 22?
29:51 Speaker 01 Yes.
29:52 Speaker 03 And you were both poor and worldly goods, and Grandma wanted you to marry a rich baker.
29:58 Speaker 01 But my child, you don't realize that times and manners are very different now. Very different. Now, everything is money. Everybody wants money, and persons without money are absolutely submerged.
30:10 Speaker 03 But people fall in love still, don't they? Young people?
30:15 Speaker 01 They may think they're in love sometimes, child, but life these days dissipates romance. Look at the divorce courts.
30:21 Speaker 03 But I'm talking about a man I don't care a box of candy about. When you were of my age, you-
30:29 Speaker 02 Sorry, sorry.
30:30 Speaker 03 I don't give a box of candy about that.
30:36 Speaker 03 I'm learning. We gotta bring that back. But I'm talking about a man I don't care a box of candy about. When you were of my age, you no doubt thought, just as I'm thinking now, you've even told me you eloped with Papa to escape marrying an old man. You were in love.
30:51 Speaker 01 You aren't in love, and the situation is different.
30:55 Speaker 03 Yes, the situation is different, but I am in love with Charlie Lyman.
31:02 Speaker 01 That boy with no money, no position, no-
31:06 Speaker 03 But haven't we money enough?
31:08 Speaker 01 What foolishness. And I let you go to the tennis court with that chap yesterday.
31:14 Speaker 03 We didn't go to the tennis court.
31:18 Speaker 01 Where did you go, then?
31:20 Speaker 03 We, we got married.
31:24 Speaker 02 Oh, you [BLEEP].
31:28 Speaker 02 Damn. She's like, "Ma, I am no longer a virgin.
31:34 Speaker 02 I'm a wedded woman. Sorry, continue."
31:35 Speaker 03 She said, "I gave my box of candy to Charlie."
31:40 Speaker 02 I'm bad.
31:42 Speaker 03 I was gooped and gagged.
31:43 Speaker 01 That's the end.
31:44 Speaker 03 What a good ending cliffhanger. I wanted more.
31:52 Speaker 02 What is the saying about love?
31:54 Speaker 03 How do I say this without completely putting all my business out there? I feel like I understand both sides. Like I said, you know, I'm an emotional cancer, so I usually love, love. And so I, Abigail resonates with me like, oh, you know, who cares about money? It's all about love. Love is enough. But given the way this economy has been going and in our industry, all of our layoffs, I'm single. I've been struggling so badly financially that now I'm like, I get it. Like, because I historically date unemployed stoners. Because I'm like, oh, but I love their art or they're so funny.
32:39 Speaker 03 Or they're always available to hang out with my, you know, great with my freelance schedule. Yeah, let's get high in the bar.
32:46 Speaker 02 His freelance schedule lines up well with unemployed's.
32:48 Speaker 03 Yes, I would love to get high at Prospect Park at 2 PM on a Tuesday. That's how I had been dating, but then just I've been, you know, these financial struggles are real. And I'm just like, damn, it would be really nice to have a partner who makes money and can help me out with these bills.
33:08 Speaker 02 You went from stoner to let's build together real quick.
33:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, I went from stoner to capitalist, like who's the other half of my power couple? And I hate that term, but I'm like, oh, my God, how the tides have turned. So I don't know. I feel like this story has everything. Also, the twist at the end that she was already married and like repeated her mother's footsteps. So yeah, I was hooked.
33:31 Speaker 02 I'm a sucker for like, you know, a little forbidden love story. I do think, yeah, I don't know. I worry for that girl. I really, really do. I think that man is trifling.
33:44 Speaker 03 You think Charlie is? You don't like Charlie Lyman?
33:47 Speaker 02 Listen, any man that putting on my, you know, earlier 20th century hat here, you've got to come correct, innit? You've got to, you've got to go to mom, pa.
34:00 Speaker 03 That's true.
34:01 Speaker 02 And ask for that hand. You've got to come a call in.
34:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:05 Speaker 02 You've got to call. He didn't do any of that.
34:07 Speaker 03 That's true.
34:08 Speaker 02 He just, and he knew that she, he'd asked for permission to go with her somewhere else and then got married, eloped. That's a no-no. She could be ostracized by her whole community for something like that.
34:21 Speaker 03 That is so true. But I also, and you're ruining me of another point I wanted to make. I also love this story because, especially for back then, I love that there's this young woman who has like a sense of agency and how she was like, kind of like bringing up conversations around consent. But I didn't think about it from that point of view.
34:41 Speaker 01 I didn't think about it either.
34:42 Speaker 03 What kind of man would just like be messy like that? And it's just like.
34:47 Speaker 02 It's giving, it's giving, you know, different race, different time, but it's giving Mr. Wickham. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, it's, it's, it's.
34:55 Speaker 03 Wait, can you explain who Mr. Wickham is?
34:57 Speaker 02 You know, Pride and Prejudice, this bad villain guy, you know, out here taking young girls away from their families, the laws of romantic promises, disgracing them.
35:09 Speaker 01 Disgracing them.
35:10 Speaker 02 And being forced into marriage with them just to retain some shred of their societal dignity.
35:14 Speaker 03 Now we've turned on Charlie. Now we're against him. We're like, Charlie. I don't know what to believe.
35:19 Speaker 01 But Charlie was doing what her dad did. So Charlie is probably a lot like her father because they eloped. She was supposed to marry that faker.
35:27 Speaker 02 But then, but what, but here's the thing, we never get to the answer of why is the mom, what, why doesn't the mom want something different for her? You know? And that, that's telling. That's telling, you know? But, you know, I hear what you're saying, Zakiya. I do think there's a lot of self-actualization there in a way that made me feel like Charlie could be trifling, but in the end, like, you know, she'll be okay. She'll figure it out. Like, if she has to kick him to the curb, she'll be all right.
35:56 Speaker 03 She has to touch the stove to know it's hot. And that's just, I feel like that's just, how old did she say she was? Twenty-two?
36:03 Speaker 01 Twenty-two, yeah.
36:04 Speaker 02 Exactly.
36:05 Speaker 03 That is so twenty-two.
36:08 Speaker 02 And men back then, back then, we didn't live that long anyways. She doesn't even have to, if it doesn't work out, she's just gonna last like another like twenty, thirty years. That man, that man will be dead. Like, it should be fat.
36:26 Speaker 03 We have got one last story coming out of the Colorado Statesman again. But how are we feeling about this one? Is it dangling? Is it out of the time capsule? What are we feeling right now?
36:35 Speaker 02 Listen, it feels real to me. You know what I mean? The other one is very romantic.
36:40 Speaker 03 Hmm.
36:41 Speaker 02 This one is very like, here's what it was really like.
36:44 Speaker 03 Mm hmm, mm hmm. The other one was giving like romance novel that you would find in CBS or The Airport. You know what I mean? Like no shade, but it did feel very fantastic.
36:55 Speaker 02 Nah, it was, it was, it was giving Hudson News.
36:58 Speaker 03 Yes. It really was giving Hudson News, yes.
37:15 Glynn Washington? Snap returns. A special story from a special someone during a special time when the snap judgment our ancestors were messy continues. Stay tuned.
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38:52 Glynn Washington? Today's episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Americans United has spent the last 80 years defending your right to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Through film screenings, speaking engagements, and valuable resources like the Know Your Rights and Public School Guides, AU empowers people nationwide to recommit to the separation of church and state, protecting individual freedoms and strengthening our democracy for all. Freedom without favor and equality without exception. Learn more at au.org/TENC.
39:39 Glynn Washington? Welcome back to Snap Judgment. My name is Sam Washington, and today we're spotlighting love stories from Our Ancestors Were Messy. And next up, host Nichole Hill brings a story of a very special Black Valentine's Snap Judgment.
39:56 Speaker 01 Okay, well, here's our last story out of the Colorado Statesman, published February 10, 1917. Title, "Her Helpful Valentine," by Lee Shippey.
40:10 Speaker 01 Felden had found the one girl, Nellie Hastings. Nellie had great lustrous eyes. When Felden recited his own poetry, she would gaze intently into his face with a rapt expression. When he finished reciting, she would be silent a moment and then murmur, "How exquisite."
40:31 Speaker 01 Felden's family and I looked on his romance with extreme disfavor, but he would brook no criticism from his relatives. That was why he happened to be lodging with me in the studio temporarily. Being only a friend, I knew Felden much better than his family did and was wise enough not to show my disfavor. I knew Nellie, too, and felt sure her union with Felden would not be best for all concerned. Felden was really a fine chap. He was original. He did not even imitate other men in their vices, as most otherwise original men do. He had a fine scorn for philandering and excesses. I felt sure the girl for him would have to be a modern day Athena.
41:15 Speaker 01 But that is just what he thought Nellie was. "She has a wonderful soul," he would cry. "It looks out of her eyes. Every glance is a lyric. Every steadfast gaze, a perfect poem." When a man who tells you his love is too deep for words gushes forth like that about 30 times a day, it usually ends in a life sentence. There's no saving him. Still, we tried hard, the family and I. The family pleaded and stormed and threatened. I tried sundry strategic moves, but all proved futile. Felden and Nellie decided to marry in May. It was early in February when they definitely decided on the date,
42:00 Speaker 01 and then the family and I lost hope. But a few days later, he came in looking so agitated, I felt hopeful of calamitous news. His hair was disheveled, his collar awry, his tie humpbacked. He paid no attention to me, but began at once to pace the floor feverishly, muttering unintelligibly as he walked, and stopping frequently to claw his hair frenziedly. Finally, he sat and began to write. I could not restrain an exclamation of profound disgust. "So it's a mere poem you're working on?" I sneered. "I thought something had happened." "A mere poem," he cried. "This poem should be an echo and a light unto eternity.
42:43 Speaker 01 It should symbolize the most perfect love which ever existed between human beings. Saint Valentine's Day is coming, you dolts." That day, I am to pour out my heart in a poem to Nellie, and she hers in a poem to me. I exclaimed, "I didn't know she wrote such stuff." He said, "Her every thought is a poem." For a week, Felden labored incessantly over that poem. He would hop out of bed in the middle of the night to change a word or to put in a comma. He revised it a dozen times every day. It was truly a beautiful thing when he sent it away by messenger the morning of Saint Valentine's Day. The same messenger brought back Nellie's valentine.
43:32 Speaker 01 What sounded like the gasps of a dying man called me to Feldon's side five minutes later. He had fallen back pale and limp on a couch. I propped up his head and ran for a stimulant, but he waved me away. "Don't save me," he pleaded. "Life is all too taunting a mockery. I thought I had found a soul perfectly responsive to harmony and melody and beauty and symmetry, but just look at what she wrote." He held up Nellie's valentine and I read, "This valentine to you doth say, I'm yours all the time, forever and for yea. So when this you see, do not forget to remember me. Your own, Nellie."
44:17 Speaker 01 And like, Nellie's like, "Nellie." So that it's two syllables.
44:22 Speaker 02 Wow.
44:25 Speaker 02 That's it?
44:27 Speaker 01 That's it. Mm-hmm. That's the poem.
44:28 Speaker 02 You know what? Honestly, [BLEEP] him a little. What a snob.
44:31 Speaker 01 Wait, no, the story keeps going, but that's the poem.
44:33 Speaker 02 Oh, okay. So I'm like, that's the end of the story? My bad. Sorry.
44:37 Speaker 01 Feldon shamelessly deserted Nellie, leaving for an extended trip through the West without stopping to say goodbye.
44:44 Speaker 02 Damn.
44:45 Speaker 01 Both his family and I felt greatly relieved. Shortly after, I married Nellie myself, and ever since then, the dear girl has made handsome living for both of us by writing lyrics for popular songs. The end.
44:58 Speaker 02 Wait. What? What? What?
45:03 Speaker 02 Wow. Wow.
45:09 Speaker 02 That man played himself. But I do get it. I do get it.
45:15 Speaker 01 What? What do you mean?
45:15 Speaker 02 But he's still a snob. Like, I don't know. This man was like, oh, I'm gonna get such a wonderful poem, and I've written such a wonderful thing, whatever. And then, you know, the poem he got was corny. And it was, so he got the ick.
45:31 Speaker 01 He did.
45:31 Speaker 02 And he just, so he's like, nah, fam. But then, not the, not that he wrote it being like, yeah, so I married that girl. And that girl made me a lot of money.
45:45 Speaker 02 Like I, yeah, I, I don't know. I, I couldn't be with someone who's, ah, I don't respect. I feel like that's very difficult.
45:57 Speaker 03 Yes.
45:58 Speaker 02 I don't know how you could navigate that.
46:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
46:01 Speaker 02 Like, I want my person to be my biggest fan and I want to be their biggest fan.
46:06 Speaker 03 Like, I too would fall out. And just be like, oh, oh, oh, oh. My friends are like, what's wrong? Like, he's cringey. I have the ick. No, getting the ick is debilitating.
46:18 Speaker 02 It is.
46:18 Speaker 03 It's so, and it's like, it like destabilizes you. You thought this was your person and all of a sudden you're like disgusting. So I get that. I get that. Dramatic, but I too am dramatic, so. And for the best friend to swoop in? Where did that come from? Like, was it like?
46:36 Speaker 02 Nowhere. Nowhere.
46:38 Speaker 03 Oh, my gosh.
46:40 Speaker 02 I mean, have you ever swooped like that? Like, waited?
46:43 Speaker 03 Have I swooped?
46:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, well, I mean, swoop does in like, you know, you wait a respectable amount of time and then you're like, well, you know, you, you got the ick, so.
46:51 Speaker 03 Oh, I have.
46:52 Speaker 02 You've never done that?
46:52 Speaker 03 I've nev-, I'm somebody you've swooped.
46:54 Speaker 02 Emmanuel, you're like, what's the big deal?
46:56 Speaker 03 You're a swooper. Who did you swoop?
46:58 Speaker 02 So I would, I would not characterize this as swooping.
47:02 Speaker 02 But yeah, you know, I've, I've, I've dated, I've dated people who've dated my friends. We've, we've, we've done that.
47:10 Speaker 03 Have you like talked to your friends about it before? Did you give them a heads up?
47:14 Speaker 02 On one occasion where it was a serious relationship, yes. But the other times?
47:19 Speaker 03 You didn't?
47:19 Speaker 02 It was, I mean, I told them, they've been in my life. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going out with so and so.
47:23 Speaker 03 And the guy friends are like, go for it.
47:24 Speaker 02 Yeah. Well, they're like, oh, okay, that's what you want to do? But not in a like, oh, our friendship's at risk, more than just a like, I told you why I got the ick, right? Kind of way? And each time they were right, they were totally right.
47:37 Speaker 03 Oh, my God. Wait, so then, yeah, why did you, why did you want to swoop? Cause they were hot and you're like, maybe with me it'll be different?
47:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
47:46 Speaker 03 Oh, my God, I have so many follow up questions.
47:49 Speaker 02 I wish it was more complicated than that, but that's, that's, that's good for me.
47:52 Speaker 03 Oh, my God. Yeah, I've never, I've never swooped.
47:59 Speaker 01 We do need to make some decisions.
48:02 Speaker 03 Oh, right.
48:03 Speaker 01 It is decision time.
48:05 Speaker 02 OK.
48:06 Speaker 01 We only get to put one timeless message to the citizens of 2030.
48:11 Speaker 02 That's hard.
48:12 Speaker 03 That is so hard.
48:13 Speaker 02 Because I do want the citizens of 2030 to know that you can swoop and make lots of money as a result.
48:22 Speaker 01 That's really important to you?
48:23 Speaker 02 It's important, man. The young men of tomorrow need to know.
48:28 Speaker 02 That girl can make you rich.
48:32 Speaker 02 We're losing recipes, OK? We're losing recipes.
48:39 Speaker 02 Honestly, I'm gonna, I can't believe I'm saying this out loud. I'm gonna root against my own story. I'm gonna go for that one.
48:44 Speaker 01 What?
48:46 Speaker 02 I'm gonna go for the swoop. I'm gonna go for the swoop.
48:49 Speaker 01 The swoop representation, her helpful Valentine. Your vote is for her helpful Valentine.
48:54 Speaker 02 Yes, the helpful Valentine, for sure.
48:57 Speaker 01 Zakiya, what is your vote?
49:00 Speaker 03 That one's good, but I'm biased. I think like my story, because it is kind of a classic tug of the heart, you know, for love or for money, you know? That's, I feel like such a, like a timeless thing, the mother-daughter of it all. That also, so I like that it's also not just like about romantic love, but it's also about a mother's love for her daughter and wanting better for her daughter.
49:27 Speaker 02 And how about love gets absolutely stomped?
49:30 Speaker 03 Yeah. And it's funny because we don't know how it ends, but we just know Charlie is not a good man. Yeah.
49:37 Speaker 02 Not just that, but also the daughter is like, I don't even love or respect you enough to, I just got married last night.
49:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
49:44 Speaker 02 What do you think of that?
49:45 Speaker 03 But I love the messiness because mother-daughter relationships are messy like that. I feel like across like race, time, culture, it's just the mother-daughter relationship.
49:58 Speaker 01 Okay, let me ask you this, both of you.
50:00 Speaker 02 Yes.
50:00 Speaker 01 Somebody opens this time capsule, right? We don't have like time for dissertation. So you can't do a whole, this is the backstory. This is the context, da, da, da, da. They're gonna read this paper and hopefully get curious enough to look into the history of black love and black people. Which story do you think will inspire all the people of 2030 to
50:22 Speaker 02 To do that.
50:23 Speaker 01 Google more and like really dig into the story of black people and lead them to like, this is who we were in the 1920s?
50:32 Speaker 03 Well, I would just say, so if this is where a time capsule will be opened in 2030,
50:42 Speaker 03 our attention spans are only what? Like, don't they say like seven seconds? I will say, that, that, that, that last article, I did get a little lost because it was very like wordy. The, the other story, it was clear. We had a clear characters, you know, clear narrative. So I feel like if the goal is to capture the attention of people in 2030 and get them curious enough to be like, I need to learn more.
51:10 Speaker 03 I would say, I'm biased, but I would say my story.
51:14 Speaker 02 You don't say.
51:17 Speaker 03 I do say.
51:18 Speaker 02 Man.
51:21 Speaker 02 What to say, wow. You make a good point because their attention span in 2030, which I should know, I'm talking like about it like it's like something I'm not gonna live to see, but it's just a couple of years away.
51:34 Speaker 01 You'll know. We have clues now.
51:36 Speaker 02 But, oh, yeah, like you said, attention spans are already at seven seconds. It'll probably be three personally for me in like a year. So, um, ah, man.
51:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, the second one's pulpy. Okay. It's okay. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying.
51:56 Speaker 03 Have we made our decision?
51:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, I think we have, which is crazy because yeah, swooping, swooping is important, but you know.
52:06 Speaker 03 Swooping is important. What was mine? Mine was the Tulsa. Ended the argument out of the Tulsa Star. I think that it sounds like that is our winner. Is ended the argument at Tulsa Star our official?
52:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, and in the history of the Tulsa's, all this is important, but the history of the Tulsa Star, I feel like is super, super important.
52:23 Speaker 03 Yes, like I just given, you know, yeah, the historical context of Tulsa, Black Wall Street. I love how this story was on theme with that, like black people, economy, money. But like with like a twist. So I feel like it's also just very creatively on theme without being so on the nose because she's like, money is important, but what about love? So yeah, that's my vote. All right, we have a winner. Emmanuel, you've switched sides. We can't believe it. Nobody saw it coming. It's unbelievable, but it's done.
52:57 Speaker 02 It's finished.
52:58 Speaker 03 I just love that each one of these stories truly was so nuanced and messy in a way that like, you know, messy in a way that I like in a sense that it's like, we're not always just, you know, black excellence and perfectionists and martyrs and this and that. Like I, it's really cliched to say. But I genuinely loved how multifaceted and relatable each story was.
53:22 Speaker 02 Black people. Just, I don't know. I just love, I love it. I love every part of it. And I love the, yeah, like you said, like I love the mess and like, yeah, I don't know. It's just good to know that like people were swooping.
53:38 Speaker 03 Most importantly, most importantly, they were swooping.
53:42 Speaker 02 Most definitely.
53:44 Speaker 03 People were swooping.
53:51 Glynn Washington? Thank you Nichole Hill and thank you to everyone featured in these hilariously historic stories. If you want to hear more, check out the podcast Our Ancestors Were Messy. Show about our ancestors and all their drama. There is so much more where this came from. It's available right now wherever you get your podcasts. This show was written, researched and produced by Nichole Hill, the charismatic wonder guests of the hour, were it's Akia Gibbons and Emmanuel Jogi. The executive producer is A.A. Hernandez. The story producer is Martina Abrahams Olunga. Research producer is Yoki Iensin. Scripts were edited by Shante Hill, artwork by Acelica Smith, and the
54:36 Glynn Washington? sound design for that piece was by Helena DeGroot. Thank you so very much. We'll have links to all that is Our Ancestors Were Messy on our website, snapjudgment.org.
54:57 Glynn Washington? If you missed even a moment, know that an entire world of Snap storytelling awaits. In fact, they recently dropped a brand new series. If you haven't heard it, it dives into the world of incarcerated women firefighters battling the flames in California, hosted by Snap's own Anna Sussman. It's called Fire Escape on podcast platforms everywhere right now. KQED in San Francisco is Snap Judgment's Orbiting Hall of Justice on Team Snap. The union represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of
55:35 Glynn Washington? America, AFL-CIO Local 51. And this is not the news. No way is this news. In fact, you could go back in time to read something that was once called a newspaper. Remember those? And you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. This is PRX.
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