Black Nouveau

(bright music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Black Nouveau".

I'm Earl Arms and this is our November edition.

Last month, Racine native Caron Butler was enshrined in that County's Sports Hall of Fame.

We covered the event and we'll have more.

"Building the Black City: The Transformation of American Life" is a new book by historian Joe William Trotter.

We'll talk with him about how African Americans built and rebuilt thriving cities for themselves, even as their unpaid and underpaid labor enriched the nation's economic, social, and political elites.

But we begin with "Marie and Rosetta", two soul sisters with gospel roots who helped usher in the early days of rock and roll.

It's currently on stage at the Milwaukee Rep until December 15th.

Didn't it rain Rain, oh my Lord Didn't it, yeah Didn't it, you know it did Didn't it Whoa, oh, my Lord Didn't it rain Well, it rained 40 days It rained 40 nights - [Everett] Bethany Thomas and Alexis J. Roston are no strangers to the rehearsal halls at the Milwaukee Rep. (Bethany singing in French) Summertime and the livin' is easy Fish are jumping And the cotton is high Audiences have seen their talent on display in numerous productions.

This time they're sharing the stage to bring two music legends to life in George Brant's play, "Marie and Rosetta".

It's a take on the true story of two black gospel singers who helped create the music we call rock and roll.

I seen it rain, children Rain, oh yes Didn't it just Didn't it, you know it did, didn't it On my Lord, oh This is Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

This train don't pull no liars, this train This train, don't pull no liars, this train And this is Wisconsin native, Bethany Thomas, as Rosetta Tharpe.

- Rosetta Tharp and Marie Knight were collaborators that became best friends and kind of helped each other push the boundaries of their respective styles, and I think that's why they got along so well.

I think they brought out a lot of the best in each other.

No, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was already an established star when she met Marie Knight, she met her, saw her singing somewhere, and she said, "I like that voice, I wanna see what that voice does with my voice."

And so, that's how they came together and that's kind of what the play is about, it's kind of about we're set in that first meeting where they've decided to play together.

Now they're in a rehearsal room about to go play their first gig and they've gotta figure out what each other do.

- Could I hear you alone first?

- You stalling.

- You're so close to me like this.

- In my world, there ain't no time for stalling.

- Please just one song, please.

Up above my head There's joy in the air - [Everett] This is Marie Knight.

Up above my head I hear music in the air I hear music in the air Up above my head Up above my head I hear music in the air I hear music in the air And this is Chicago Native Alexis J. Roston as Marie Knight.

- Marie Knight, Marie Knight was the powerhouse that was paired with Rosetta Tharpe, making gospel hits in the very beginning of where we would call the birth of rock and roll.

And because Rosetta had this wild, raucous sound, this big booming, amazing guitar sound, you know, she needed to find a way to get back into the graces of the gospel world, who, you know, some people weren't ready for that.

They weren't ready for a shocking guitar because we know that started rock and roll, right?

And so, that seems like a little stretch from gospel for rock and roll.

So she paired up with Marie Knight, who was a devout Christian, you know, who played actually and sung a little more like Mahalia, you know?

But not so much so that Rosetta was like, "Oh no, that's not gonna work."

When she heard that sound, it paired very well with her voice and her playing paired well with her guitar playing and so they became this dynamic gospel duo.

- Where are we?

(chuckles) How do we start this, Lex and Bethany?

- [Everett] E. Faye Butler directs "Marie and Rosetta".

She has her own ties to the history being told on stage.

- We're talking about a woman who was so far ahead of her time, even within the African American culture, she was ahead of her time.

And so many people resisted her because she was a gospel singer and a lot of people don't realize that, but she was a gospel singer that couldn't stand still in the traditional sense of a Mahalia Jackson, who was her rival and my godmother.

(chuckles) And so, that rivalry struck her in a different way because they thought that Mahalia Jackson became the bigger star because she was upstanding and she was just straight, you know, and Rosetta would come in and she'd swing and people said, "You gotta stop swinging like that, that's not godly."

And she said, "Who says it's not godly?"

She says, "The Bible says, you know, we make sounds with trumpets and anything we can, anyway we make sound."

And so, she fused that and she had a very strict mother, COGIC mother, Church of God in Christ for people that sanctified.

So she came from one of the purest forms of, you know, organized religion there was.

- [Everett] "Marie and Rosetta" runs through December 15th at the Milwaukee Rep. Next month on "Black Nouveau", we'll meet the relatives of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who currently live in Milwaukee and are keeping her accomplishments alive.

(upbeat music) - [Camera Person] Good to be back home or what?

- Man, it's amazing, it's amazing.

Man, we traveled far to be here today.

- [Earl] Caron Butler back in Racine and couldn't help but be brought to tears as he was inducted into the Racine County Sports Hall of Fame.

- I was trying not to cry tonight.

- [Earl] After a decorated high school, college and professional basketball career as a champion, all star, and player of the year, he's in his hometown to be immortalized.

- You're hoping and wishing someday if and when it's going to happen, you know, in the back of your mind, as, you know, you retire, you look forward to those moments to see familiar faces.

And you know, for me, my body of work, from a high school standpoint, I only was here a year, so I only got a chance for a year to put on.

And the most of my high school years was played in prep school, and then the other two was spent in correction, so I didn't have the full time to flourish here.

So to be able to do what I did in a year to turn a program around at Washington Park and have the success, win Player of the Year and be honored now, it was just a powerful reflection moment.

- [Earl] Butler had success at every level of basketball.

He's continued that success as a coach, father, husband, volunteer, motivational speaker, and author of multiple books.

But as a teenager, Butler was arrested multiple times and had to spend the majority of his high school career out of state where he'd eventually earn a scholarship to the University of Connecticut.

One moment from his childhood that stands out most was when he found himself on the outside of school, looking in.

- The one that's like super glaring is how I was rejected from Racine Unified, and I always reflect on this particular moment, and that's for all you kids out there that's going through some stuff, you know?

That made some mistakes, and, you know, as you know, like the famous quote, "Broken crayons still color."

It's like I was in this space and I was begging to go back to school after I paid my debt to society and I wasn't allowed to go back to school.

And the way the village of Racine, my family, service workers, rallied around this young kid being myself and just spoke the words that I couldn't articulate at the time to these panels and these board members.

And this one lady, Sheila Jackson, she found it in her heart to vote in my favor and convinced the whole panel to give me a chance, that really just changed my life.

And that's why I'm a huge advocate on, you know, second chance initiatives, second chance this, second chance that, because I know without a ninth chance, (laughs) I would not be here talking to you so profoundly, I don't know where I'd be.

I had to pivot my notes of what I had in my head when I got here because I saw Coach Wop.

(audience laughing) - [Earl] One of the people Butler credits for helping him turn his life around, also happened to be honored this night.

Wally Booker, better known as Coach Wop, was given the Deep Roots Award for his impact as a basketball coach in Racine.

But even he can't help but be impressed with the evolution of Butler from a child to an adult.

- [Caron] What's up, man?

Love you, man.

- Yeah, good, you too, you too.

- You know what time it is.

- You too, you too.

Amazing.

Amazing, because a lot of people thought he was gonna fail, they really did, you know, because all the law incident that he had been in and out of.

But I told him, I said, "You can be anything in life that you wanna be," I said, "you don't have to live on 12th Street," I said, "you can make money for your mother and them, you know?"

I said, "You don't owe anything to anybody but yourself."

You know, and we can see where he's at right now.

- He had really built the pillars of, you know, all the principles of what I, you know, stand on, determination, dedication, discipline, like, my mentorship, my failures and my triumphs is all, like, it's a huge mixture of gumbo of, you know, of my character and what I'm all about and my messaging and what I preach to, you know, young people, older people, people from all different walks of life.

I had to go through a lot, but everything that I accomplished was on the other side of hard, so going through that process in real time and people like experiencing and watching me, you know, in real time going through that process and coming out victorious, I think that's why so many people connect with me, especially in this area.

(upbeat music) - [Liddie] Vietnam era veteran Marshall Williams travels Milwaukee via bus, but nothing compares to a much larger trip he took to connect to the father he never met.

- [Marshall] You made it.

- [Liddie] His father was a medic during the war, which was a rarity at that time for African-Americans.

Williams, an identical twin, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, January 3rd, 1945.

His father, a World War II Army veteran, was killed February 22nd, 1945.

- It wasn't until my brother and I were almost in our early teens, that we learned, you know, that he was killed in the war.

And strangely enough, my mother never once spoke about our father because I think it was too painful for her to remember.

- [Liddie] Williams has letters his mother and father exchanged that gives proof his dad was not aware his mother may have been carrying twins.

- He talks about one and even, you know, suggesting a name for my brother 'cause I'm twin number two, Michael was twin number one.

Yes, eight minutes older.

(gentle music) - [Liddie] Wanting to know and have a picture of where his father was buried started this journey.

The location, Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium.

They sent him a picture of his father's grave site, which he posted on Facebook.

- Not long after that, some people in the country of Belgium started, you know, I guess inquiring or I guess offering their services to adopt his grave, which is something that the people over in Europe do, you know, for all the members of the military that died.

They honor the military because they liberated their country from Nazi Germany, World War II.

So they have the most utmost respect for the military, and they take care of the graves and the grounds beautifully.

- [Liddie] And then, in 2014, a friend from his church passed away.

- And she is also a citizen of the United Kingdom, Britain, you know, England, and her wish was to be, you know, laid to rest in her native England.

- [Liddie] And the family invited Marshall to come along.

- I told one daughter said, "I can't afford to go over there, you know," and the daughter graciously paid my way to go to England, you know, to help them to lay their mother to rest in her native England.

And that's when I thought of, if I'm gonna be over there, why not take a side trip to Belgium and see my father's grave for the first time?

Which I did.

- What were your thoughts once you were there?

- First, it was crying, it was tears, you know, just to be there.

And to approach the grave site, you know, for the first time, since he passed away 70 years, all I could do was get on my knees and put my hand on the marble cross, you know, that marks the grave, say, "Hi Dad."

Actually, I was waiting for a reply (chuckles) and I knew that it wouldn't be something that that would be audible, you know?

I thought, it would be something in here.

But it was, you know.

I just know he's there, you know, even when we were growing up, when we were going through stuff, me personally, when I was going through stuff, I just sensed that he was there, you know, guiding us through.

- [Liddie] How did the visit to your father's grave site change you?

(gentle music continues) - (laughs) I'm a more spiritual person.

I'm maybe more of him than I was before.

And I think just to go over there just kind of confirmed it or sealed it, you know, the bond so to speak that we have.

Because the only way I knew of him was through letters that he wrote to his mother and to my mother.

But, you know, and to hear the stories that they told about how he was and what he was doing, and to go over there and to just walk on that ground where all those soldiers are and to touch that marble cross just made me feel kind of complete, whole.

(gentle music continues) - In "Building the Black City: The Transformation of American Life" historian Joe William Trotter explains that African Americans built and rebuilt urban communities to serve their own needs in the face of assaults on their civil and human rights.

And Milwaukee is one of the more than 20 cities that the book covers, and we are joined now by Professor Trotter, the Director and Founder of Carnegie Mellon University Center for African-American Urban Studies and the Economy.

Thanks for joining us again on "Black Nouveau", Professor Trotter.

- Thank you for inviting me.

- What makes a city a Black City?

- You know, that is one of the issues that I take up in the book because I know that in thinking about the book, early on in the process, people wanted to know how I was defining the Black City.

And as it turns out, my definition of the Black City is pretty broad and sweeping.

There are some scholars who emphasize the idea of power as a way to think about the extent to which black people exercise power over their environment.

But in my view, that is one dimension of a city.

But in African-American life, we didn't wield the kind of sweeping power over these various cities, but we did manage to gain some influence over the section of the city that we occupied.

And so, I argue that we need to really broaden our notion of the city to include the ways in which African Americans constructed an infrastructure of their own within the city itself, within their own neighborhoods.

And so, that the Black City is really focused on ways in which African Americans occupied space and then transformed that space into an area that included an infrastructure of churches, fraternal orders, businesses, and political movements.

So the definition that I use is pretty broad and it encompasses a variety of elements.

- Well, you talk about those different kinds of organizations.

But before we get to that, in mapping black cities, you break the United States into four districts, the South, which you partition off into two groups, the Deep South and the Upper South, the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West.

Can you briefly explain the groups and their differences?

- Yes, this book is meant to be a very broad, long-due race study, so to speak.

I start with the colonial era and the transatlantic slave trade.

And one reason for me, starting early in the colonial period is because I think there is a misconception about the importance of black life in cities from the beginning of the nation's history, rather than focusing only on the great migration when massive numbers of black people moved into cities, which has really created a kinda bias in the thinking about black urban life.

There is a tendency to think that black urban life is grounded much more in the 20th century transformation that took place with the great migration when black people moved to cities and sort of transformed the black community from a predominantly rural environment into a predominantly urban environment.

- Okay, I'm sorry, go on.

- So for me, I felt obligated to ground the beginning of the black urban experience in that earlier city where black people were enslaved initially, and then gradually before the Civil War created a community that transcended enslavement and started to really reflect the way in which free blacks started to build institutions and, in many ways, in collaboration with their enslaved counterparts.

- Well, you know, you pack an awful lot of history into a book that's about 200 pages long.

- Okay.

- Talk about those institutions and the importance of them in building black cities, whether they're urban or rural.

- Yes, the institutional infrastructure that they built was critical.

And the way I talk about those institutions is to, first of all, show how African-Americans initially occupied land and sort of scattered widely dispersed areas.

And once they were able to sort of occupy land and gain some access to urban living, home ownership, rental property and so on, they almost immediately started to come together to produce institutions that would serve their needs.

And one of the earliest institutional manifestations of the city building process was with the burial grounds across the country, African Americans in these early cities came together and insisted that they needed access to their own burial ground.

And from those burial grounds in societies, you began to see them branching out, building churches, building fraternal orders, and also building entrepreneurial enterprises to serve their needs, and that happened early on and intensified over time.

- Okay, we've got a short period of time.

One of the things that I was impressed with was the way you handle violence, because that's one thing that we don't really get in history is the amount of violence that was perpetrated on black communities, rural and urban.

And you do that in the book and I think it's important because everybody knows about Tulsa, but there's so many places we don't know about.

- Exactly.

Urban violence, violence against African people and efforts to really undercut their capacity to occupy cities is a major theme across regions.

And so, that's one of the things that really, we can talk about distinctions, regional differences, you know, between the Deep South urbanization, Upper South urbanization, Midwestern, Northeastern, and even what I call on the edges of the Deep South, and that's where Tulsa comes in and Houston and Miami.

Wherever we see African Americans building these cities, they're building these cities against the grain of a lot of hostility, a lot of overt violence and attacks on their property and their person.

And so, we do see that as a major sort of cross-cutting theme that brings African Americans together and makes those communities look similar across these regional divides.

- And that's sort of why your book at the end suggests that reparations is the only way to make this country better and a safer place for African Americans.

- I do make the argument that reparations, the case for reparations I make, but this book is really a follow up book to an earlier book I wrote called "Workers on Arrival".

In that book, I really emphasize the way that the case for reparations rested on the way black people were deprived of the fruits of their labor, deprived of their land rights, and so there was a material dimension to that, you know, an exploitation, economic dimension to that.

But in this book, I'm arguing that we need to factor in the creativity that black people also exhibited in the face of all these ways in which their labor was exploited.

And so, in a way, I'm making the argument that black people then double taxed their labor to build something for themselves.

And so, that the case for reparations should be both the deprivation of African American land and labor, but also the way that black people recoup some of their energy to build their own city, which really means that they really should be compensated in a way that acknowledged the way that they made a way out of no way, despite the exploitation.

- Thank you very much for joining us, sir, and thanks for the book.

- Thank you, appreciate it.

- And before we close tonight, a couple housekeeping notes.

Our December edition will air on the third Thursday in December, December 19th at 7:30 PM so be sure to join us then.

Meanwhile, be sure to check us out on all our social media platforms and on our website at milwaukeepbs.org.

For the entire "Black Nouveau" team, I'm Earl Arms wishing you and yours a happy Thanksgiving.

(bright music)