Have you truly grasped the enduring legacy of slavery, or the monumental significance of Haiti's fight for independence? With Dom L'Amour and special guest Storm Freeman, we journey through the multifaceted narrative of Black History Month, unraveling stories that compel us to look beyond the mainstream. Our discussion illuminates the transformative power of firsthand accounts like Frederick Douglass's autobiography, bringing into focus the stark realities of our past. We celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip hop, tipping our hats to Chuck D's fusion of music and activism, and reflect on the personal milestones of educational firsts within our families. It's a dialogue that interweaves personal anecdotes with historical insight, painting a picture of Black history in bold, unapologetic strokes.
As we converse about the challenges and triumphs of teaching Black history, the emotional weight of narratives such as "Roots" and "12 Years a Slave" resonates with us. We acknowledge the delicate task educators face when presenting the chilling realities of slavery, and we share how independent learning spurred by our parents' encouragement has profoundly shaped our perspectives. This episode is an invitation to engage with the rich and complex tapestry of Black history—an educational and emotional odyssey that encourages you to ask how Black History Month resonates with your own experiences. Join us for a heartfelt exploration that not only educates but empowers, reminding us of the undeniable relevance of Black history in today's world.
Have you truly grasped the enduring legacy of slavery, or the monumental significance of Haiti's fight for independence? With Dom L'Amour and special guest Storm Freeman, we journey through the multifaceted narrative of Black History Month, unraveling stories that compel us to look beyond the mainstream. Our discussion illuminates the transformative power of firsthand accounts like Frederick Douglass's autobiography, bringing into focus the stark realities of our past. We celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip hop, tipping our hats to Chuck D's fusion of music and activism, and reflect on the personal milestones of educational firsts within our families. It's a dialogue that interweaves personal anecdotes with historical insight, painting a picture of Black history in bold, unapologetic strokes.
As we converse about the challenges and triumphs of teaching Black history, the emotional weight of narratives such as "Roots" and "12 Years a Slave" resonates with us. We acknowledge the delicate task educators face when presenting the chilling realities of slavery, and we share how independent learning spurred by our parents' encouragement has profoundly shaped our perspectives. This episode is an invitation to engage with the rich and complex tapestry of Black history—an educational and emotional odyssey that encourages you to ask how Black History Month resonates with your own experiences. Join us for a heartfelt exploration that not only educates but empowers, reminding us of the undeniable relevance of Black history in today's world.
If you're like, hey, how do I teach someone about slavery? The best way, in my opinion, would be to read the words of a slave. That makes logical sense and the state for some reason found racial division as a reason to ban Frederick Douglass's autobiography. That's why Black History Month is important. Folks, ladies and gentlemen, and anyone else who is here. My name is Don LaMoure and you are listening to the Black man Talking Emotions podcast. On today's episode, I speak with Storm Freeman about Black History Month. Knowledge, wisdom and understanding don't come out of the microwave. You got to keep moving forward because the evil doesn't sleep.
Speaker 1:
Hip hop celebrated 50 years in 2023. Hip hop, slash rap, whatever you want to call it. It's been a part of my life since day one. My mother and her siblings were always playing the box and your MTV raps Quote you just heard was from Chuck D, the lead rapper of the rap group Public Enemy. This is Charles Broccoli's favorite group. Just fun fact. Chuck D's voice is something that you have to hear to understand. Powerful. You hear it, you listen. Our freedom of speech is freedom or death. We got to fight the powers that be. Chuck D is a rock and roll Hall of Famer, grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner Rapavis, not activists. He used his music to inspire hope and he will defend his culture and hip hop on any stage, including the US Congress floor. If you're looking to enjoy some black history today, cue up Public Enemy's album Fear of a Black Planet Cheers.
Speaker 1:
You know white people in certain certain ways, white people in certain circles will use this month as the example to point out the same things we always know. Rosa Parks said on a bus. Jackie Robinson played baseball. Martin Luther King had a dream. Malcolm X was his complete opposite, but you need to learn about him, right? I feel like I've really tried my best to continue to learn and push my mental for reading, listening and just trying to absorb as much as I can of the past to avoid repeating it. You know that's they say history repeats itself. And instead of pushing it away because when I was young I used to push black history month away I used to say we don't need it, it's every day, it's our history every day. But don't forget, the more I notice when it comes to our history, we got a force because, weirdly enough, we're in this world where our history is completely whitewashed and the only history we really get at these little nuggets of information on Instagram where someone's like did you know that this was invented by a black man?
Speaker 1:
And it's like I didn't. That makes me happy. It's like why don't we know that already? There's a reason.
Speaker 1:
You know, I'm reading a book now called Black AF History, and the part that I just got off of was them talking about how important Haiti is to the African American history because it was the first black country west of the Atlantic Ocean to be independent from France or Europe or anything. And then in my head, when you hear that, you're like, wow, that's crazy. Why is it the poorest country in the world? And then it proceeded to tell me why.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and learning that history really puts things in perspective for me, helps me understand, helps me not be the kid in the room listening to people say these shit countries or this and that and then being like, well, I don't know anything about it, so I guess they are shit countries. Now I could say no, no, the French made them pay 90 million francs, which translate to $22 billion this day, over years because of lost money for slave owners. That's what they did. They bankrupt this country. They bankrupt this country and, on top of that, merrick helped them. So, learning this history, being able to truly speak up and be like, no like.
Speaker 1:
There's so much more we need to do and there's so much more you need to do helps me understand why Black History Month is important, because this is the history that is not taught. There are things that are still not taught, and I'm always curious to learn what people were taught, so I posed this question to you what does Black History Month mean to you?
Speaker 2:
It is a time to reflect on a lot of the accomplishments that we have gone through as a culture and a lot of the struggles that we had to go through and again, like you say, learning more of how things happen and why things happened and how to not repeat and keep that from happening again. It's cool, like you said, to learn that this person invented something. That's really cool. But essentially, a lot of times I find myself looking at the not so great parts of things that happened to us in history and realizing what man is capable of to his other man, what we have actually gone through and how we've still kept a positive outlook and kept our pride in being of this beautiful skin and working towards still being represented correctly. It's always a time to just reflect on how far we've come and how far my grandparents and their grandparents went through to get me to this position. As a kid, going to college was the big thing for us. We look at any other culture it's like, oh, college, yeah, whatever, but our families was going to college.
Speaker 1:
And most people we know are the first person. I'm the first person in my family to go to a traditional four-year college. So it is a big deal because it's like we're how many generations from slavery and I'm still the first one to go to a four-year Come on. With that being said, I'm always fascinated to ask and hear for you, growing up, what do you remember most from Black History Month, Like, what were you taught? How did they approach teaching Black History Months? What are the things you remember?
Speaker 2:
I had some teachers that I knew were cool, but I had a bunch of white teachers. So we did talk about Martin Luther King, we talked about the marches, we talked about the sit-ins and we talked about the presidents. That affected different things and talked a little bit about Malcolm, but not a lot. It was usually the big points Dr King's legacy up into his assassination. They talked about segregation, they talked about Jim Crow. Lynchings here and there were mentioned that things happened and tragedies would happen here and there, but never too much diving into it. I think that might be also why I focus on some of that, because it was never really like look what also has been accomplished. It took me years before I even knew the history of NASA and the women that helped in that, but you're right, pretty much the same stuff.
Speaker 1:
Did you get any knowledge outside of that from your family, or was that even quiet at home? Where did you get your knowledge on Black History Month, if you got any?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, my parents were very much a here's something that you need to learn. They would kind of give me assignments. They would say I want you to give me a book report on this person. I was like why, and I would like learn. You know, roots was always something we watched a lot and I learned more about Malcolm X on that side from my appearance telling me to go find the information instead of telling me the information. I feel like they helped me yearn and want to learn things on my own instead of just accepting what someone tells to you as the history.
Speaker 1:
When you say roots, that's incredible that you bring that up, my great grandmother's favorite TV show was roots. That's what she put on her 70th birthday questionnaire. That's a true story. Nice, that was her favorite TV show. I remember we watched two episodes, I believe, or one. I'm not sure how much of we watched, but I remember people talking about a kutikinte losing his foot and I didn't understand the joke. I didn't understand it because we didn't watch that episode in school. Yeah, we're not going that far.
Speaker 2:
You're not going to see him cut it you saw the your name is Toby.
Speaker 1:
Yes, we saw that, but it was very small amounts of roots.
Speaker 1:
We did not get a lot of roots and even with the your name is Toby stuff that was cut in half, they we got saw a little and they were like, okay, we don't need to show you how to do getting beat, yeah, which, in a way, I'm like in a way, yeah, that's true, I don't need to see that, but also I kind of need to see it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you know, it's one of those things where I remember when 12 years of slave came out and like I sat myself down and said, okay, you're going to go see this movie while it's in theaters, you're going to watch it once and you're going to do it because you shouldn't know this history. And then I went there and seen it and I was like, yep, it was as horrible as I thought it was going to be. And that's the end of that, the only slave movie I have seen multiple times. I went to see it three times in theaters. It was Django Untamed, and that is because Jamie Foxx was a superhero in that movie. He wasn't truly a story about a man who really was, you know, out there.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Being beaten and uh, yes, to imagine a world where we lived as black people, as property, as property as cattle. People looked at us like we weren't truly men. Even the people who wrote the declaration of independence were very open about the fact that, hey, we weren't talking about black people. Yes, you see all of that. And then now we live in a world where people are talking about all men are created equal. They wrote it in the constitution and it's like but that wasn't about us, we weren't men, we weren't considered men.
Speaker 1:
We weren't even men. Yes, exactly. They would purposefully separate families as a form of punishment. Think about that. It's hard to truly educate everyone about the horrors of slavery, especially when you're the person teaching it and you just so happen to be a white person whose families were doing this stuff. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to truly teach the history. I was just reading the story and this is the last little nugget I'll give you from my recent readings where Charleston was the slave capital of the world at one point. That was the point where the most slaves came in to.
Speaker 2:
America at one point.
Speaker 1:
There was a time where they had some slave rebel and they were fighting against them and the people got so scared that they shut down the trade of slaves for about 10 years because they wanted to focus on breeding American born slaves, because they thought it was a. It was an African thing, since they were coming from Africa. That's the reason why they were rebelling and we need to breed our own slaves here in America so that they can know only us and they'll fall in line. And if I was a white dude and I was looking at, you know, I don't know what four black dudes in class or a full black class, screw it. You're looking at a full black class and you're a white dude and you're telling that story. How, how do you tell that story? How the answer is you just tell it and say this is the true history. That's the answer. But also, you know, zane, yes, yes, yes, yes, it's one of the most cruel things ever in.
Speaker 1:
We live in a society now where Some kids will never even hear stuff like that, because books that even mention the name of slaves or people being whipped because of their race isn't even allowed in the schools anymore. Frederick Douglass is autobiography. It's banned in a state. Think about it. It's banned. I forget what state. I think it's like Pennsylvania or Indiana, some state somewhere? I don't even. It doesn't even. I didn't give it enough time to even learn which state it was, but I saw one state did ban it.
Speaker 1:
If you're like, hey, how do I teach someone about slavery? The best way, in my opinion, would be to read the words of a slave. That makes logical sense. And the state, for some reason, found racial division as a reason to ban Frederick Douglass's autobiography. That's why Black History Month is important, folks, man, and that's the end of that conversation. You really, you really hung in there, storm. You did a great job, man. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:
As you can clearly see I am on one this year. I want to thank you for listening to the Black man Talking Emotions podcast. The opening quote credit goes to Chuck D and Storm. Thank you for being on the pod. Follow Storm at Storm aka Storm on Instagram. 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 collab. Follow me at D O M L. Underscore a M O U R on Instagram or at down. The morecom I'm down, the more much love.