Now that I'm older, so obviously this is blatantly none. In school we just learned about civil rights and we learned about slavery, but that's it, and sometimes early on in school we just learned about slavery and that was it. Yeah, but it's like we more than just the civil rights movement and slavery and we got so many different things that are positive. We're more than those situations in history. We're more than that and I think it's important that we know that.
Speaker 2:
Ladies and gentlemen, and anyone else who is here, my name is Dom Lamour, Happy Black History Month, and you are listening to the Black man Talking to Motions podcast. On today's episode, I speak with my cousin, Cameron Keyes, about Black History Month. You know what you can do. Learn what Black folks have already done and understand how smart and tough you needed to be to survive back then and now Black folks are superheroes. This quote is from Dick Gregory, St Louis legend.
Speaker 2:
Mark Twain prize winner, comedian, activist and author. During his life he wrote 13 books. He marched with Dr King. He donated millions of dollars to Black causes. He even ran for president in 1968.
Speaker 2:
Dick was up and coming with the likes of Bill Cosby, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Flip Wilson, but eventually, instead of being remembered as a comic, he fought for the rights of African-Americans. He wasn't afraid to stand at the front of the crowd, especially when there was a possibility of making a difference in his culture. When he was asked to perform on the Tonight Show starring Jack Parr, he wouldn't accept the invitation unless he was allowed to sit on the couch and speak with Jack. This made him the first African-American performer to speak with Parr. After his set, he moved away from comedy during the 70s and fought for civil rights from then to the day he died.
Speaker 2:
Being a fellow St Louis born performer, I'm inspired by his efforts for people like me. He sat next to Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. He worked with Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali. He touched lives all around the world and he came from the same city as me. With my shows and my podcasts, I try my best to highlight those who came before me, and I will always defend my culture. And I do this because, in the words of Dick Gregory, once I accept injustice, I become injustice. What does Black History mean to you?
Speaker 1:
When I was younger I just knew that we just had a month, but as I got older I realized that it's important things that we're on. We're just learning more about Black history. We are the foundation of a lot. I'll be on TikTok sometimes and they like did you know that Tertiary, tertiary, tertiary was really rooted from slavery and it's like oh, everything results back. It seems like the Black people being a foundation and building up this country and it's really important to me and I enjoy learning about it when you say you go to TikTok, you see these reels where they're talking about Black history and things that just seem crazy, that you would think is taught, but it's not taught.
Speaker 2:
Like, how does that make you feel?
Speaker 1:
It's not taught. It's not taught Now that I'm older, so obviously this is blatantly none. In school, we just learned about civil rights and we learned about slavery, but that's it. And sometimes early on in school we just learned about slavery and that was it. Yeah, but it's like we more than just the civil rights movement and slavery and we got so many different things. That is positive where more than those Situations, and it's really more than that.
Speaker 2:
I think it's important that we know that yeah, I feel like when I was in school, like you said, the things that we covered around Black History Month, silver rights meaning Martin Luther King, rosa Parks, malcolm X, kind of but even then I don't think we really learned about Malcolm X. We got more Martin Luther King than anything. Malcolm X or something you kind of had to learn on your own.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:
They tried to make him seem like he was the opposite of Martin Luther King and they didn't really give you a proper understanding of what that Opposite meant. They just said he was opposite and that was the end of that, right.
Speaker 2:
Park sat on the bus and that was the end of that. Martin Luther King I have a dream speech. He did other speeches as well. He was a lawyer. That's the end of that. And the other two things I would think was tackled was the Harlem Renaissance, like you said. But even then the Harlem Renaissance wasn't really tackled in the sense of we're gonna dig deep into this. I learned more about that from going to Sprague shout out to Sprague, which is the African-American summer camp that I went to and they had classes in there. We have to learn about links and Hughes, different performers who came out of Harlem, out of New York, how important that era was. So it was a Harlem Renaissance, it was Civil Rights Act and it was slavery, like you said. Those are the three things that were tackled, and you don't hear much about what it was like being an African-American in America during the Revolutionary War. You hear about the Civil War because of slavery.
Speaker 2:
Well, you don't hear about after the Civil War, right before Jim Crow. You don't get much about that Reconstruction, african-american Lifestyle. You don't learn much about those African-American communities and everyone talks about Black Wall Street. That's the one that everyone goes to, but you and I are from St Louis and in Kirkwood when it all it is African-American communities in Missouri is me to impart and that's an area where our grandma nanny used to hang out and be from and family is From and all of these people are from that area.
Speaker 2:
Frederick Douglas high school is in Webster Grove. That's what African-American Community in our area where we grew up, that's what they went to high school. Stuff like that wasn't really illustrated. I lived in Kirkwood, didn't learn about Frederick Douglas high school from my high school. I learned that from my family. I have nothing about that. I heard nothing about people being desegregated in the area. I felt like that was something I would have loved to learn. What was it like in Kirkwood During these times? What did they do to my people? And we weren't taught that and it was almost like that was an untouchable Subject. How do you feel that was for you? Was it the same way? A?
Speaker 1:
lot of my African-American history. Black history. I know about that. I found out about outside of slavery and the civil rights movement was learned just like through the family. You know a lot of time talking to butch, and butch tell me you know how things were and then I'll talk to Nanny and then.
Speaker 1:
I had a teacher in eighth grade named Mr Minner who just would just talk to us about black history and stuff all the time. It was just like a regular like so they splat. We didn't learn from the book at all. The whole year we was just in there and he was telling us just about, like the real world and what we need yeah, what we need to be paying attention to, and he was just talking about black people in this country and what we need to do.
Speaker 2:
But we didn't learn anything from the book those are the unsung heroes, in my opinion, what you just said, cuz I had a teacher like that. I had multiple teachers like that. Miss Miller, my best friend skydy, who's been on the podcast shout out to Ramona Mona, as we call her. She worked at our high school and she was the head of the black achievement culture club that we would go visit HBC use. She would kind of, you know, drop knowledge on us throughout all of our high school Experiences. If you just went and hung out with miss Miller, she was telling you how it was and the things that was going on in her classes. She was very unique compared to other teachers in middle school. I had miss Irby and I had mr Gilbert just those African-American teachers who Understand. They're like this is stuff You're not getting, cuz I'm your teacher and I understand what they're telling me to teach you, but this is what you also should be learning.
Speaker 2:
And those unsung heroes truly help a lot of people Grow and learn about their history, and also white people and Mexican people, asian people learn about African-American history and how we are a part of this big world as well. Because I say this, african-american history is so Important? Because I understand how much is not really told about other history. Asian history is such an interesting thing that we don't get a full picture of. You hear about them coming over and Helping with the railroad Early 1900s and helping building that up, but you don't really hear about the the camps day were put in During World War two and it is this crazy?
Speaker 2:
the stuff that I kind of learned more About after school. I heard small things.
Speaker 2:
I remember, we'll do a day in history. You'll hear about this one thing that happened and the teacher would even tell us in class you know, do more research on yourself on this. This is really important stuff that happened in our history and as a high school kid or as a middle school kid, when your teacher says you should do more research on your own time, you don't want to fucking do any more research on your own Time. Going to the crib, I'm gonna go. I'm in theater, sports, I do this, I do that. I'm not trying to learn more about fucking Asian history or black history on my own time.
Speaker 2:
But it's like that's what we should do or because schools aren't built to truly give us the full picture of what's going on.
Speaker 1:
I agree. I think it is important to know you're all researching, try to find the full scope. I really enjoy learning new, different facts and stuff, especially if I wasn't expecting to learn something new about a certain subject. If I hear about something, I actually do the research now and look up things, try to figure out what's the world before me.
Speaker 2:
I want to thank you for listening to the black man talking emotions podcast. The opening quote goes to Dick Gregory. Shout out to camphor being on the pod and follow cam at underscore C a m e r o n K e y s on Instagram. If you are in the st Louis area, get your tickets for a show at the helium comedy club February 25th. You can go to the link in his bio on Instagram and get tickets now. This show will sell out. Go Support my guy. Please subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast and give us a good rating five stars, please, and thank you. You can support the show by clicking the link at the bottom of the episode description. Also, tell me your plans for the coming year. We should collaborate. Follow me at D o m l underscore a m o. You are on Instagram or at Dom Lamor com. I'm Dom Lamor, much love.