What Happened In Alabama?

We have a special episode for you today. We’re sharing an episode of the podcast She Has A Name. Set against the backdrop of the drug epidemic in 1980s Detroit, She Has A Name blends elements of investigative journalism, memoir, and speculative fiction to tell the story of Anita, a sister that Tonya learned about more than a decade after she went missing. It’s a story of loss and redemption, mending broken family ties, and facing the trauma experienced by countless individuals who've lost loved ones to violence. In this first episode, Tonya begins her quest to unravel how a sister she never knew about could end up as a Jane Doe. Here is Episode 1. If you’d like to hear more, you can find She Has A Name wherever you get your podcasts.

In the final episode of What Happened In Alabama, Lee considers the man his father became, despite the obstacles in his way. Later, Lee goes back to Alabama and reflects with his cousins on how far they’ve come as a family. Now that we know what happened, Lee pieces together what it all means and looks forward to the future.  ---------------------------------------- Over the last nine episodes, you’ve listened to me outline the impact of Jim Crow apartheid on my family, my ancestors and me. I’ve shared what I’ve learned through conversations with experts, creating connections to how the effects of Jim Crow manifested in my own family. In the process of this work I lost my father. But without him, this work couldn’t have been accomplished. My name is Lee Hawkins and this is What Happened In Alabama: The Epilogue  Rev. James Thomas: You may be seated. We come with humble hearts. We come, dear Jesus, with sorrow in our hearts. But dear Jesus, we know that whatever you do,dear God,it is for your will and purpose. And it is always good.  We buried my father on March 9, 2019. His funeral was held at the church I grew up in. Mount Olivet Baptist Church in St. Paul Minnesota. Rev. James Thomas: Dear God, I pray that you would be with this family. Like you have been with so many that have lost loved ones and even one day we all know we are going to sleep one day.Thank you for preparing a better place for us. Mount Olivet’s pastor, Rev. James Thomas, knew my parents well, especially since my father was part of the music ministry there for 30 years. It was a snowy day, but people came from all over Minnesota and from as far away as Prague to pay their last respects. I looked at the packed parking lot and all the cars lined up and down the street, and I felt a sense of gratitude in knowing that my dad had played such a strong role in so many people’s lives, not just the lives of his own children and family. Rev. James Thomas: Brother Leroy is probably playing the guitar over there. We can hear him with that squeak voice “yeeeee.”  Jalen Morrison: We could talk about Prince, we could talk about gospel music. He was even up on the hip hop music, too, which kind of shook me up. But I was like, okay, Grandpa [laughter]  Naima Ferrar Bolden: He really just had me seeing far beyond where I could see. He had me seeing far past my circumstances. He really changed my perspective, and that was just life altering for me ever since I was a little girl.  Herman Jones: He just had the heavy, heavy accent. He still had that booooy. But you know,he was always smiling, always happy all the time. You know, just full of life. As I sat and listened to all the speeches that came before my eulogy of my dad, I couldn’t help but recognize both the beauty of their words and the extent to which my father had gone to shield so many of the people he loved from the hardest parts of his life—especially Alabama. It was as if he didn’t want to burden them, or, for most of our lives, his children, with that complexity. Most people remembered and honored him as that big, smiling, gregarious man with the smooth, first tenor voice, who lit up any space he was in and lit up when his wife, children, grandchildren, family, or friends walked into a room. He loved deeply; and people loved him deeply in return. And though he was victimized under Jim Crow, he was never a victim. In fact, after he sat for those four years of interviews with me for this show, opening up the opportunity for so many secrets to be revealed, he emerged as even more of a victor. In our last conversation, he told me he wasn’t feeling well and that he had been to the doctor three times that week, but was never tested for anything. And Dad,  after that third visit, he just accepted it. I do wonder if there was ever a time in those moments that he had a flashback to his mother being sent home in a similar way - 58 years prior - but from a segregated Jim Crow Alabama hospital. I don’t know. I’ll never know. Tony Ware: Yeah. Mine. You know, I would always ask my mom, you know, about Alabama. You know, she was one of the five that came up here.  That’s my cousin Tony Ware. His mom was my Aunt Betty. The “five” that he’s talking about were my Dad’s siblings who migrated to Minnesota from Alabama -  my aunts Helen, Toopie, Dorothy, Betty, and my Dad.  Tony Ware: They kind of hung around together and they would always have sit downs where they would talk. Get a moon pie, a soda. Hmm. Some sardines. Lee Hawkins: Cigarettes.  Tony Ware: Cigarettes, sardines. And they would start talking. And some white bread. And they would sit there and talk and we would hear some of it. I sat in my mom's lap, and you know, they're talking about this, and it's like they just went into a different world.  When I was a kid in Minnesota, I loved when my dad’s sisters and their kids would come over. Us cousins would play hide-and-seek and listen to our music while our parents sat around the dining room table, talking and laughing, and listening to their own music. Our soundtrack was always great – Prince, Michael Jackson, New Edition, Cameo – but theirs was, too, with Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Butler, Johnny Taylor, and Bobby Womack. The food was even better. They’d talk over one another, smoke clouding the air under the chandelier, and my allergy-sensitive nose could detect that smell from three rooms away. Sometimes, I’d sneak a quick sip from an unattended can of beer in the kitchen. Despite the bitter taste, getting away with it always gave me a thrill. But then, someone would mention the word “Alabama,” and that festive energy would suddenly vanish. Tony Ware: But I heard Alabama. I heard this. I heard names that I never, you know, heard, you know, because all I knew was my aunt Dorothy, Lee Roy, you know, all I knew was. But then I heard certain names, uncles such and such. And I'm like, Who? Who, what, what?  To us as kids, "Alabama" was more than a place—it was a provocative word that brought a suffocating heaviness to our lives. My cousin Gina remembers, even as a child, that mysterious word and the weariness it triggered in her mother. It left her feeling utterly helpless. Gina Hunter: And I would just sit there and listen to them talk about home and all the things that bothered them. Oh, my God. And yeah, it would hurt my feelings because I would see my mom just break out and cry for nothing. They would be talking and a song would be playing and Betty would just kind of get, she'd well up.  Lee Hawkins: Yeah.  Gina Hunter: And I'm like, Why are they so sad? Why are they so depressed? They they're together. They've got their kids. We're visiting, we're having fun. But it wasn't fun for them. That veil of secrecy our parents kept around Alabama, prevented us from seeing it as anything other than ground zero for, in our family, dreadful despair. Even when they talked about the happy memories— the church revivals that they called “big meeting,”  and picking fresh strawberries right off the vine – it seemed like a thread of fear just wove through almost every story.  Tony Ware:I knew something was going on more than what I knew here, you know, at a young age. So. I was always interested in finding out. But through my mom, you know, she she would talk about how nice it was down there, how beautiful it was down there. But she never wanted to go back there. And as Gina remembers– and I agreed– it  colored every facet of how they raised us. As she spoke, I just sat there, marveling at the fact that she could have replaced her mom’s name with my dad’s name, or any one of those siblings, and her observations would still be spot on.  Gina Hunter:My mom was and Aunt Helen, they were super, super close. And there was always just a deep seeded paranoia of people in general, just like everything. And I would think, why are these people why are they so scared and nervous and afraid of life and people and experiencing things? It seemed like it led them to live a super sheltered life. The central question of this podcast is, "What happened in Alabama?" What happened was Jim Crow apartheid—a crime against humanity committed by the American government against five generations of Black families like mine. This apartheid lasted for nearly hundred years, officially ending in 1964, and created generations of people who perished and millions who survived. I refer to these individuals as Jim Crow apartheid survivors. However, America has yet to acknowledge that Jim Crow was apartheid, that it was a crime against humanity, and that the millions of people who lived through it should be formally recognized as survivors. In the prologue, I explained that so-called Jim Crow segregation was not merely about separate water fountains and back-of-the-bus seating. Through the accounts of family trauma I’ve shared, we now understand it was a caste system of domestic terrorism and apartheid, enforced by a government that imposed discrimination in every aspect of life through laws and practices designed to maintain white supremacy. The myth of "separate but equal" masked a reality far more sinister and pervasive than what most of us were taught in school. We often think of white supremacy as fringe hate groups, but we’ve overlooked its traditional and far more damaging form—a government-imposed system that oppressed Black people for a century after emancipation. This isn't a distant academic concept or an opinion or a loaded political statement; it’s a fact. This is recent American history, and it deeply impacted our families, controlling every aspect of our lives physically, mentally, and emotionally for five generations after slavery. Since 1837, every generation of my family in America has had a member murdered, often with no consequences for the white perpetrator. The fear, caution, and grief were passed down by those who stood around the caskets, including my father. The daily indignities only compounded this grief, leading to accelerated aging and chronic stress that I believe ultimately killed my father. Yes, Jim Crow apartheid killed my father. Still, I’m encouraged because I have the platform to tell this aspect of the story. Sharing this story has been extremely difficult, but I’ve been lifted not just by my faith and ancestors but also by my family, their support, optimism, and determination. With this new information, we live with the awareness of the effects of slavery and Jim Crow, striving to break their negative cycles and be empowered by the accomplishments of our families who found ways to thrive despite the oppression caused by those crimes. Telling this story has fortified my resolve, reminding me that our past is not just a story of struggle, but of relentless triumph and dignity. For generations, we have managed to thrive together as a family. By infusing even more consciousness and evolution into our families with each generation, we can continue to thrive. That’s why I’m grateful for my cousins, including my first cousin, David Stanley, the son of my dad’s sister, Aunt Weenie, who articulated this sentiment powerfully during an interview with my cousins, my father's sisters' children. David Stanley: I think it’s a new form of freedom, OK. And even though they faced the backwardness of Jim Crow and all those things that our ancestors went through, they still had their dreams and dignity. And no matter what happened, it's not about the environment around you, it’s the environment inside of you. ‘You're not going to stop us. We're going to continue to grow. So by doing that, they said, ‘Okay, you know what? We are going to plant the seed, our offspring, okay?’ You can do this in our generation during this time, but guess what? There's another generation coming up.’ And that triggers all the way to us today. And then you got your nieces and your nephew, and then you got grandkids, et cetera.  Lee: Yeah. And your kids have all master's degree and PhDs. And then your wife is a superintendent of a school district.  David: That's right. Yep. So they left their seed, they left their vision. And my point is that I believe that they are all up in heaven smiling down on us and really proud of us. David: I have to go and take that trip to Alabama and bring my children with me and my grandkids with me, because it's vital. Because you put that out there, I really appreciate that. That’s something that’s definitely going to be done ,and I think that’s something that we all need to do, to rekindle and reconnect and do those things. The past can’t hurt you, but my point is that by being in the present right now, now we can solidify our future, you know what unapologetically. And do the things they were always yearning to do, in their lives. And they couldn’t do them. But they can do them through us. Lee Hawkins: A lot of it is facing your parents' fears,that’s what it id. for them as well. My dad really loved Alabama. He did. And my dad would talk about that in a very nostalgic way, but also the fear was still there. And so when I started going to Alabama, I was going for him as well. Not to mention, I have had a couple of people in the family say, ‘Oh be careful down there.’ And Aunt Toopie even said, ‘You went in that field? You went to that cemetery?’ That fear was on me when I first went to Alabama. The last trip that we went to, I did it with family. Walking through the cemeteries and the landscapes of Alabama alongside my family who live there transformed my mission, helping me to finally lay my father’s fear to rest.  Lee Hawkins: Mary Ruth’s Southern Food for Southern People Made with Love. I love that. That slogan.  Marvin Smith: Welcome to Mary Ruth's. Thank you for coming.  Lee Hawkins: You got some grits on the griddle huh.  Marvin Smith: Oh I got it all. Got me some grits, cheese grits, patty sausage, salmon croquettes, link sausage, bacon. Whatever you ask for we'll cook it. Pancakes, whatever. Hey, we aint Burger King but you can sure get it your way though.  Group: [Laughter]  There’s so much energy in the cafe.  I feel the family. My family.  We spend a couple hours eating together. Mapping family connections. People come into the cafe, some grab their food and take a seat, some join us. A woman walks in the door and she recognizes me…. not because she knows who I am, but because of my resemblance to her husband, he’s also a Pugh.  Erica Page: Y'all got a line that will not just go away. It's strong genes. You'll have strong and strong. Yes, cause I have a daughter and a grandson. Oh, God. Looks just like him  Her name is Erica Page.  Lee Hawkins: You know, Uncle Ike Pugh?  Erica Page: We went to the house several times. At one point, someone pulls out a family reunion book. It’s a laminated, spiral bound scrapbook. Someone put a lot of work into making it.  We’re flipping through the pages together…. Lee Hawkins: My grandma was Opie Pugh. Erica Page: I know the name.  Lee Hawkins: She was. Well, she was Ike's sister.  Erica Page: I know. I know the name.I means she's in the book.  We find pictures of our Pugh ancestors, Uncle Ike and my dad’s mom, Grandma Opie. I’ve seen these photos before through my research into the family tree. But suddenly, Alabama feels different from the times I visited before for research.  I am not surprised that the shift in my relationship with Alabama was guided by my family members who chose to stay rather than migrate north. They stayed and evolved Alabama to the point where both Montgomery and Birmingham now have African American mayors. They, and the millions of Black people who stayed, led a movement that benefits all Americans today.  In discussing the hardships my family endured there, it is important to recognize that the progress of our people and our nation is largely attributable to the activism of the courageous Black Americans who stayed and fought. These same Black Americans welcomed me back to Alabama with open arms and support, encouraging me to move forward with this project. They reminded me not to be resentful or afraid to come home, to give Alabama a chance, and to offer it the same benefit of the doubt and acknowledgment of complexity that I give my country. Understanding that it was our families, the Black descendants of American slavery, who led the movement that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending Jim Crow apartheid and bringing America closer to liberty and justice for all, reinforces the reality that, despite significant trauma, we have remained a solutions-oriented people, some of the most effective activists this nation has ever known. Their legacy and courage have shaped Alabama and America and their spirit of irrepressibility continues to inspire me. In my forthcoming book, "I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family History Set Me Free," published by HarperCollins, I will strive to capture not just the stories of trauma but how we can continue to conquer it as a family, a Black American community, and a nation. Inspired by the spirit of my ancestors and my father, who transcended the limitations Alabama tried to impose on him, I will continue my journalism on several issues discussed in this series.   These include exposing and addressing the long-term effects of corporal punishment in homes and schools, the impact of childhood trauma on the health and well-being of children, encouraging school districts to implement policies of mandatory consequences for hate speech and harassment, and highlighting economic and health inequities along racial lines. I will also focus on the plight and power of Jim Crow apartheid survivors as they strive to quell the ripple effect of historical atrocities on their families. The question now is, what can we all do as a nation to recognize Jim Crow as a crime against humanity and to support the millions of Americans over 60 who lived in the South during this unfortunate period? How can we make our homes, schools, and society safer for the generations of children and grandchildren coming behind them? Together, we can acknowledge our past, honor the strength of those who came before us, and build a future filled with hope, determination, and joy. Let us rise with the resilience of our ancestors and create a world where every child can dream freely and every family can thrive.  Lee Roy: You've run the game and you know the Lord and you're doing your thing, man. And that's the best you can do as far as I'm concerned. You have to keep your heart and your head up. I don't know this thing about being proud. I know the Lord and I know the Lord loves me. So if I'm proud, man, please forgive me and if I shouldn't be, but it is a poor dog that don't wag his own tail, son, when you're trying to reach your goals, I'll put it like that, you know.  Lee Jr.: Right on. Well, okay buddy, I'm going to hit it, but I'll be in touch, okay?  Lee Roy: Yeah, keep going, man, I'm loving it. I'm loving what we're doing, Lee.  Lee Jr.: Okay, love you, Dad.  Lee Roy: Okay man. Love you. Bye. CREDITS

Lee revisits his father Leroy’s final moments in the hospital, and tries to parse out what really led up to his father’s death. Later in the episode, Lee talks with Natalie Slopen, an assistant professor at Harvard University, about ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and how they can contribute to shortened life expectancy. Lee also speaks with Dr. Nathaniel Harnett, a neuroscientist and the director of Neurobiology of Affective and Traumatic Experiences Laboratory at McClean Hospital, about childhood trauma and how it disproportionately affects Black children. ---------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT My name is Lee Hawkins and this is What Happened in Alabama. This episode is very emotional for me because we’ll be revisiting the details of my dad’s death. My sister, Tiffany, recorded some of our exchanges with the intensive care doctor and nurse in our father’s final hours. It’s difficult to listen to some of it, so sensitive listeners, please take care. I want to understand how the stressful experiences my father had growing up as a child under Jim Crow apartheid affected his health as an adult, and the role I believe racism-related stress played in his death, first in Alabama, but later in Minnesota. The conversations in this episode connect the dots between the Adverse Childhood Experiences of three groups: the twelve generations of enslaved Black people in the US, the five generations of Black people who, like my father, lived through Jim Crow, and the millions of Black American descendants of both who are alive today. But, if you’re joining us for the first time, you’ll get a whole lot more out of this episode if you go back and listen to the prologue first - that’ll give you some context for putting the whole series in perspective. Do that, and then join us back here. Thank you so much. Lee: Don't put our father through any pain with restarting his heart. We know you wanted that and we agreed to that. So now this is where we are… Roberta: We just want our time with him It’s 3:30 in the morning on February 28th 2019. My entire family - my mom, two sisters and me, are in my dad’s hospital room. I had been sleeping in my hotel room down the street when my sister Tiffany woke me up to tell me that the night shift doctor wanted to meet with all of us. Four days earlier, he was rushed to the hospital by helicopter after his heart had stopped at the Buddy Guy concert he’d gone to with my mom. It was a date night. They were celebrating their 50th anniversary. Though they were able to restart his heart a few times, his condition wasn’t improving. The ICU room was slightly smaller than a college dorm room. It had a curtain instead of a door and a window that faced the hospital entrance. Every day, I could see Dad as I approached the room, with a bunch of tubes connected to his upper body. An intubation tube protruded from his mouth, and a breathing tube came out of his nose. An electronic panel behind his head monitored every sign of progress and every setback. Those four days were an emotional whirlwind. My dad still looked youthful with his hair parted on the side as always, and that gave me a little hope. But his kidneys were another story. A dialysis machine had been moved into his room. He wasn’t talking, but there was a good chance that he could hear all the conversations happening in the room. Eventually, the doctor walked in to give an update. “Your father is a very sick man,” he began. “We see cases like this, and the survival rate is very low. There are so many possibilities with this. His lungs aren’t clearing up, and we’re worried he could develop sepsis at some point. He’s on dialysis now, but if we take him off, he’ll stop functioning within two hours. His organs are shutting down.” I thanked him for the information and then gave him our position. Knowing that our father was a God-fearing man who would want us to exhaust every option before pulling the plug, we were standing by our consistent position that we were going to keep praying for a miracle and that we wouldn’t be stopping dialysis at any point. I told him that we appreciated the work they were doing to keep him as comfortable as possible and that we wanted to continue until his situation improved or his heart or organs shut down naturally. We made it clear, once again, that the only way we would allow them to discontinue treatment was if my father’s heart was to stop again. Using a defibrillator at that point would have been brutal. The doctor’s position was that we should just trust him and the medical staff and that every person–including my father–would want his or her family to stop dialysis at this stage. I felt resentment towards them. They were culturally clueless, just blindly assuming that Black patients and their families trust medical institutions. Our decisions to embrace our faith and our father’s faith, and exercise our father’s wishes and our legal rights were paramount. We felt that the doctors weren’t listening to us. Our mother, who had been a nurse herself for decades of her career, knew my dad was likely in his final hours. But as we sat there, we knew she needed a little time and that she’d probably never forgive herself if she stopped dialysis at this stage. She was grieving the likely loss of that handsome boy she met at the beach when they were just fourteen. She’d known and loved this man for nearly sixty years, had children and grandchildren with him, and was squeezing his hand as they loaded him on the helicopter. She just needed to sit with her family, and pray, and think. Lee Hawkins: I know that in the industry there's a lot of concern about that and how families, particularly in our community, you know, are treated. And we appreciate your concern. You know, our position as a religious family and you've dealt with religious families before here. So that's the situation and we really appreciate you. Tiffany: Know it's human nature. It's my heart. My father. I didn't expect to wake up today and get this pain. And so this is why. Lee: And if my father didn't explicitly say. crosstalk: Anything, he wanted to go. He didn't. Lee: Measure that. He didn't if he didn't explicitly say that he didn't want you to do anything, you know, he said he wants. Roberta: And he told us. A doctor ran up to us and told us that, as a last attempt at saving our father, he was going to do something he’d never done in his career before: Put my father on two kidney dialysis machines and run them, simultaneously. He ordered everyone out of the room and commanded his staff to hook the other machine up. Only minutes after they did that, the code blue rang out, and my father was gone. If you check the records, my father’s cause of death was cardiac arrest. He was 70 years old and had survived prostate cancer and Type-2 diabetes for years. But in the end, his heart wasn’t strong enough to withstand his weight, his stress level, and his three decade battle with obesity. In the years since he passed, I’ve realized that it’s much deeper than what was written on his death certificate. This podcast was inspired by my research for a forthcoming book -– I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free, which set the stage for me to interview my dad for four years about his time in Jim Crow Alabama, and to do extensive research about everything that’s been covered in this podcast. Through all of that work, especially the books I read, the related journalism fellowships I completed, and the discussions I had with experts in psychology and neurobiology, I realized that my father’s fate might’ve been determined much earlier than that one day in 2019. As part of my research, I came across a 2014 study from Harvard, published in the journal Epidemiology, that examined the health effects of Jim Crow laws on Black and white populations in the U.S. from 1960 to 2009. Researchers looked at data from all U.S. counties, focusing on people born between 1901 and 2009, and assessed the racial differences in premature mortality, defined as death before age 65. The study found that in 1960 36% of the U.S. population lived under Jim Crow laws, with 63% of Black Americans affected. 1960 was just one year before my father’s mother, my grandmother Opie, died of kidney failure at 56. Her death is why my father moved from Alabama to Minnesota, to live with his older sisters up north. Black folks born between 1921 and 1945 in Jim Crow areas were 20% more likely to die prematurely compared to those outside these areas. Throughout the study period, Black people were about twice as likely to experience premature death compared to whites, regardless of Jim Crow laws. The highest risks were for Black people born between 1901 and 1945, while there was no clear pattern for whites. The study concludes that Jim Crow laws have had a lasting impact on premature mortality among Black Americans, and their abolition has not eliminated the racial disparities in premature death rates over the past 50 years. Born in 1948, my father lived five years longer than age 65, so compared to many other Jim Crow survivors, he was fortunate. But compared to Black men as a whole, my father’s death at 70 fell short of the average life expectancy for a Black man, which, according to the CDC, was 71 1/2 years. In comparison, the life expectancy for a white man was about 76 years. I would have given my life savings for my father to have been given that extra year and a half , and my right arm for an extra 6 years. I believe Jim Crow – for all the chronic stress it caused my father from the moment he opened his eyes in Alabama– took that from me. I can’t prove definitively that Jim Crow killed him, but all of the research, all the science, and the studies I’ve seen– combined with my understanding of the toll racism took and how hyper cautious it made him, I would never rule it out. It would be easy to dismiss the dozens of cities and counties across America that have declared racism a public health crisis as some sort of “woke” agenda, but my knowledge says otherwise. To deal with life’s calamities, secrets, and stresses, my dad didn’t turn to alcohol, cigarettes or drugs. Instead, food was where we found our joy. In fact, the last time I saw my father in-person was at the Old Country Buffet, a place where our family and tons of other Black families would often go after church– dressed in our Sunday best– for food and fellowship. On any and every given Sunday, I made sure to load up on three or four plates of fudge covered ice creams. I was never scolded for that, because my dad was doing it right along with me. And it wasn’t until I became a journalist that I learned chronic stress from childhood trauma and racism can lead to food addiction as a coping mechanism. These stressors trigger the body's fight-or-flight response, releasing stress hormones. Elevated cortisol levels increase cravings for high-fat, high-sugar foods, providing temporary comfort and relief. Food becomes a way to self-soothe, creating a cycle of emotional eating. Additionally, repeated exposure to trauma and discrimination can disrupt the brain's reward system, making people more susceptible to addictive behaviors. In my father’s, my sister Tiffany’s, and my case, this sometimes resulted in compulsive eating. We may not look like it, but just like my father, Tiffany and I have struggled with food addiction too. Tiffany Hawkins: I feel like in some ways, you know, my weight has always fluctuated through my adult life, but it's because of an unhealthy relationship with food. As kids, eating was one of the few escapes we could indulge in and not get scolded for. Tiffany Hawkins: If there is a celebration or getting together with family, there was going to be a lot of food. And that you had to eat. If you didn't eat, they'd say, ‘Oh, you acting funny.’ And it's like, No, I'm just not hungry, but. You're still going to eat anyway. Since our mom was a nurse while we were growing up, she was very conscious of the dangers of processed foods and sugars, and she tried her best to limit them. But this was the 80s, and many families kept soda, potato chips, and hot dogs in the fridge. Our mom refused to buy us the sugary cereals other kids had, but I’d still wait until she wasn’t looking and sprinkle a whole tablespoon of sugar over my Cheerios. If she caught me, she was surprisingly chill about it. Sometimes she’d even give me a rare laugh, and just say, “Put the spoon down, Lee Lee.” Food– even if it wasn’t always healthy– was one of the few things my parents were relaxed about, like a lot of parents and grandparents of that era. Lee Hawkins: We could go in the refrigerator and just stuff our mouths with… Tiffany Hawkins:...as much. As we wanted…. Lee Hawkins: Do you remember the eight packs of Coca-Cola in those bottles that we would tell. Tiffany Hawkins: The bottles that were returnable. Lee Hawkins: Yeah. Tiffany Hawkins: Yeah, they're recycled. Yeah, absolutely. Tiffany Hawkins: And we'd have the crush in that Coca-Cola and yeah, we could pick them. You can mix and match Mountain Dew. Yeah. We always had that in the house In the days after my father died, family and friends started coming to the house from everywhere. Bless their hearts, they were determined to feed us. In the classic spirit of church and the community, they began showing up with piles and piles of food. Tiffany Hawkins: I'm grateful for them reaching out. And people are bringing food to the house and whatnot. But we had so much food, Lee, when dad passed away. Pies, chips. These were from great places, fried chicken, corn man, ribs. And like. Everything, food, food, food, food, food. But I was in. There eating, eating, eating, eating, eating. And probably during that time, I mean, not only from just eating them, but the grief of losing Dad and whatnot, I gained a considerable amount of weight and I had to get off. I was so touched by it, so appreciative. But I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. I just couldn’t. Seeing my dad succumb in the way he did made me research and think more intentionally about the dangers of clogged arteries, and as far as I was concerned, the day he died was the first day of the rest of my life, when it came to my health. I vowed to be even more health-conscious. Tiffany: You were smart. You would bring your own salad over or something. You would stop and go and get something. Lee Hawkins: Sis, I wasn't smart. I was scared. Lee Hawkins: We hadn't buried Dad yet. And then that was when I learned that diabetes makes your arteries weak and you know, and that that led to his cardiac arrest. So I was actually scared. And, mad, like, I agree with what you're saying, I mean I was angry. Lee Hawkins: I said it's like bringing heroin to someone's house who just died of a drug overdose and just bringing heroin and crack and all of the high sugar. That's what was brought to our house. As I stood over the kitchen counter, looking at all the pies, casseroles, and other delicious food, I couldn’t stay angry at our loved ones for long. I was more mad at myself than anything. The only reality separating me from my dad was that I still went to the gym. Inadequate rehab after a knee replacement made even walking painful for Dad. I closed my eyes and thought of all the times he told me later in life, “Boy, stay in that gym. Don’t turn out like me, son.” He kept playing basketball into his fifties, while I gave it up in my thirties in favor of weightlifting, swimming, and running. But I got all of that from my dad. For decades, he was in that gym. He just couldn’t stop eating. And eventually, the food won. If I had stopped working out, I would have been overweight too, because I’ve been addicted to candy and ice cream for most of my life. It all goes back to being that kid. Whenever I’d get a belt whipping from my parents, they’d beat me for five minutes, then walk down the hallway to their bedroom and slam the door. I’d lay there, often not wanting to get up, and the only motivation I had was knowing I had some money in my room and my bike in the garage. I’d get up, grab that money, and tear off on my bike to McDonald’s, ordering a soft serve vanilla ice cream cone or a chocolate fudge sundae. Sometimes I’d have both, or two large chocolate malts. The ice cream was like a memory eraser. I escaped to that feeling of joy, which was just what I needed to ride back home and act like nothing happened. Because if I went home and acted sad, my parents would get mad and accuse me of having an attitude. They called it “acting smart.” Ice cream made the pain fade away. It helped me turn the ache of my heart into a smile. And on some of those nights, as I massaged the raised welts on my arms and legs in my room, I’d walk out and see my dad in the living room, sitting by the record player all alone – quiet – with his eyes closed. He was always playing this one song. Tiffany Hawkins: Yeah, the Sadie song he would listen to and he would listen to it on repeat and it was a song about their mother. Her name was Sadie. And, you know, don't you know we love you, Sweet Sadie. But it's really a sad song. And yeah. Lee Hawkins: Sweet sadie. Don’t you know we love you sweet sadie. [singing] Yeah, of course. And we knew that he had to be reminiscing about our Grandma Opie, his mother – the grandmother we never got to meet. Tiffany Hawkins:I'm sure that it had a lot of significance to Dad absolutely it did. How could it not? And I think just how as a child, like dad was dealing with a lot, Have you thought about like when we would celebrate like Mother's Day or Father's day? Like how he must have felt? And now, when I think about the pain– not just the emotional but the physical pain — that I felt when we lost our father, I can’t imagine how he went through the loss of his mom at 12 years old. My dad was the baby of the family – and a very sensitive man – who was coddled a lot more than I was, and he was much closer to his mother than I was to mine. When he was alive, those memories and death dates of his parents and even the siblings who had died before him would pass by, without him ever saying anything to us about it. I guess he’d mourn in silence, and we were clueless– and now I see that we were insensitive, because we rarely if ever asked about them– and he just kept quiet about it. I think about those days all the time, especially now that our dad has passed away. In the US, we celebrated Mother’s Day and Father’s Day last month and the month before. When Dad was alive and we celebrated those holidays, the loss of his parents was never acknowledged. We never talked about what he went through. Tiffany Hawkins:I wonder how many of those days he did take his aggression out in that way or he ate something that he shouldn't have been eating. It made even more sense years later, when I did a national fellowship for Reporting on Child Well-Being and we studied and heard from experts on the short and long-term effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACES. And it was there that I learned about the ACES test. Anyone can take it and it’s pretty straightforward, like a checklist, a yes or no test. The study measures ten types of childhood adversity, including five types of family dysfunction: witnessing violence, experiencing violence, having a household member who suffers from alcohol addiction, having a household member who has been incarcerated, and experiencing poverty. Later studies expanded the list of potential stressors to include experiences such as social injustice and racial and economic disparities. Each type of trauma, including physical and sexual abuse, was assigned an ACE score of one. For example, a child who experienced racism, lost a parent, and witnessed violence, would have an ACE score of three. The study showed that with each additional childhood adversity, children became more susceptible to obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, marital discord, suicide, and other challenges in adulthood. The more stressors a person experienced, the higher their risk of medical, mental, social problems, chronic illnesses, and early death as an adult. Compared to those with zero ACEs, the study said “Individuals with an ACE score of four are twice as likely to be smokers, twelve times more likely to attempt suicide, seven times more likely to be an alcoholic, and ten times more likely to inject street drugs.” Those with an ACE score of six have a lifespan that is 20 years shorter on average. This research highlights the profound impact of childhood adversity on long-term health and well-being . These are all challenges that Natalie Slopen, an assistant professor at Harvard University, considers critical in shaping the mental and emotional capacities of a child into adulthood. I met Professor Slopen as part of the Fellowship training, since she specializes in research around adverse childhood experiences, or childhood trauma. Natalie Slopen:And this is a phrase that's used to reflect a variety of early childhood experiences that are known to have a harmful impact on child development at the population level. In recent years, researchers and public health advocates have discussed how exposure to racism and discrimination can increase the risk of developing toxic stress and ACE-associated health conditions. Studies indicate that experiences of racism are significantly associated with other ACEs and can exacerbate or compound their effects, leading to negative health outcomes, like the ones I mentioned earlier. At the population level, ACEs are used to understand the prevalence of various health outcomes across different groups of people, like why there are higher rates of heart disease in the Black community. But the implications are what drew me in.That data gave me extremely important context because, for all my life, I’d wondered about my father's siblings and other adults I knew who died in their forties and fifties. Anecdotally, I had many examples of people who’d dealt with heart disease, cancer, and/or Type-2 diabetes at young ages, but I never knew about the role that stress—especially during childhood—could play in raising a person’s chances of developing these chronic diseases so young. I asked Dr. Slopen about the effect that growing up during Jim Crow, or facing racism in a predominantly white environment could have on a person’s long-term health and well-being. Natalie Slopen Experiences of interpersonal or structural racism absolutely fit within the definition of adverse childhood experiences for those types of life experiences that we can imagine, lead to negative health outcomes. What was unique about the ACEs study is that it was able to document this, dose response relationship across a very broad range of health outcomes, mental health outcomes, behavioral health outcomes such as smoking or high risk sexual behavior or alcohol consumption, in addition to chronic disease outcomes that, had not been broadly recognized to be associated with early life experiences, such as cardiovascular diseases or cancers or, inflammatory, conditions associated with aging. After I did the reporting fellowship, I asked my dad if a doctor had ever sat him down and asked him about his childhood or any of the adversity he’d faced. I remember it vividly because, before learning about this, it hadn’t occurred to either of us—or his doctor, apparently—that the stress building up in a child’s system could be inextricably tied to disease later in life. In my father’s case, no doctor knew his background well enough to develop an intervention strategy to help prevent diseases like his diabetes, prostate cancer, and the heart disease that ultimately ended his life. When my grandparents were five and nine years old, both of their fathers were murdered by white men who were never brought to justice. They faced trauma before they even had a chance to live any life. I wonder if that played any role in my grandma dying of kidney complications at only 56 years old. Lee Hawkins Can ACEs kill a person in terms of looking at life expectancy numbers and what we've seen? Natalie Slopen There is data to show that adverse childhood experiences shorten one's lifespan at the population level. All of our work that is typically referenced is talking about populations, and not individuals. But on average, we know that adverse childhood experiences are associated with poorer health and premature mortality. While Dr Slopen’s data focuses on population-level trends rather than individual cases, I recognize that individual stories can illustrate how specific trauma events can negatively affect someone's health. Hearing this helps me understand my father’s situation as a child, so much more. It makes me think about when my dad told me that he slept through his mother’s funeral. As that twelve year old kid, he didn’t know how to process all that grief, so his body just kicked in and took him out of the situation temporarily. But when he woke up, his mother was still gone. And I don’t think he was ever able to find a proper or healthy way to grieve– if that even exists– he just carried it around in his body– everywhere he went, for another 58 years. Lee Hawkins: And what are the symptoms that people can see both as children and as adults? How does it present? Natalie Slopen: When people begin to study this among young children, they often look at social and emotional developmental outcomes, such as ability to learn, ability to self-regulate within, you know, in peer to peer settings, in schools or at home. As children become adolescents, often, we can observe associations between adverse childhood experiences and mental health outcomes, as well as physical health outcomes such as sleep, weight gain, as well as, there can be changes, to the expression of certain genes potentially that could alter trajectories of health with implications for later chronic disease outcomes. You know, I think there's a lot of questions in the scientific literature about how it's the case that some people experience tremendous hardships and still manage to be excelling and highly functional in ways that others who have experienced similar hardships are not. You know, we don't fully understand how some individuals are more resilient than others yet, but that's an area that people are really trying to learn a lot more about, because it could give us insights and strategies to be able to help individuals, experiencing early life trauma to, to go on and have healthier futures. Even as a kid, I never thought complaining or expecting anybody to ever come and save me from anything would serve me well. And while I did have to endure challenges like constant belt whipping, hate speech, and needing to have a police escort to school because of those white supremacist letters, my family was economically stable, I had two parents, and was also rooted in a strong, Black community. Yet, I was still considered "at-risk" by some standards. I didn't fit the usual idea of an "at-risk" kid since I grew up in the suburbs with both parents. What set me apart and kept me from becoming just another statistic were the people who supported me. Unlike many kids who suffer long-term effects from childhood trauma, I had a dedicated support system, mostly from my Black community and a few white teachers who genuinely believed in me. That support made all the difference. Without that support, I probably would have had a much harder time as a child navigating through all that, because disparities in race and income often play a role when it comes to ACEs. Natalie Slopen: So we know that exposure to adverse childhood experiences is not distributed equally across the population. So, individuals from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds and marginalized racial and ethnic groups, tend to display higher ACE scores in our epidemiologic literature, even using the traditional ACE measure that we've talked about that may even miss types of childhood adversities that may be more common among certain subgroups of the population. Lee Hawkins: What do you think our listeners need to know about ACEs to understand why it is important? Natalie Slopen: It's really important to understand that early life experiences affect health and development across the entire life course, so childhood provides this foundation for everything that follows. Our entire life course is rooted in our early experiences and these experiences shape our opportunities to learn and to develop physiological systems to maintain health over time. I also think it's really important to emphasize that there's strong literature to suggest that supportive, healthy relationships can be protective in the face of experiencing adverse childhood experiences. And so we don't want to create a fatalistic story around adverse childhood experiences. On average, children who experience adversity are at risk for worse outcomes. But this does not have to be the way things unfold. And there are things within social environments that can be done to protect individuals and to help promote positive health even in the face of adversity. I believe my grandmother’s insistence that her youngest children be moved out of Alabama made all the difference for my dad. None of his older brothers who stayed back in Alabama made it to age 70. The question now is, how much of the trauma we experience comes from environmental factors? There’s a growing camp of researchers investigating the extent to which trauma can be transmitted epigenetically. That means that trauma can cause changes in how our genes work without changing the genes themselves, often due to environmental influences. This raises the possibility that the effects of trauma could be passed down to future generations, impacting their health and wellbeing even if they haven't experienced the trauma directly. While I hope it is not the case that we can inherit the trauma of previous generations, I am curious about it. I consider it an extremely worthy area of study that could significantly impact our understanding of trauma and its intergenerational effects, and how it can be addressed in the future. I asked Dr Slopen about this too. Natalie Slopen: There is a lot of research, actively being pursued in both unique samples of adults as well as animal studies to understand the intergenerational transmission of trauma experiences and how epigenetics may be one pathway by which trauma may have consequences across generations. So people have been doing this work, looking at epigenetic changes in samples related to with Holocaust survivors. So it may be the case that trauma leads to changes in gene expression. If we find that there are epigenetic intergenerational effects, families who might be impacted include those who survived atrocities such as slavery, Jim Crow, the Holocaust, internment camps, genocides, and personal traumas like having family members murdered. These families could benefit from comprehensive support systems including mental health services tailored to address inherited trauma, educational programs that acknowledge and teach about these historical events, and community resources to build resilience. Early intervention programs focusing on childhood development and family support could help break the cycle of trauma. Promoting healthy lifestyles, including proper nutrition and regular exercise, can also counteract negative epigenetic influences. Additionally, policies aimed at reducing socioeconomic disparities and ensuring access to quality healthcare can further support these families in overcoming the lasting effects of their ancestral traumas. Lee Hawkins: Thank you - I really appreciate you so much. Natalie Slopen: My pleasure. As a child, my father would have scored high on the ACEs study. While the ACEs study looks at populations, not individuals, it’s clear that the traumatic events my father and grandparents endured reflect the kinds of experiences the study examines. The grief from those losses devastated them and influenced the hyper-cautious way they raised my father and his siblings in the South. The reality of never feeling safe in Alabama shaped my father’s view of America and its racist laws and practices. These experiences led my father to traumatize me at times, believing that his harsh methods were necessary to prepare me for life. That’s the intergenerational aspect of this. Reflecting on my grandparents and my father’s experiences in Alabama, and the impact on me, I wonder about the mental health implications. I wasn’t the only Black kid with Jim Crow survivor parents who thought as my dad did. I’m not naive enough to believe that the parents of today, many raised by Jim Crow survivors, wouldn’t take a similar approach with their own children. Even though times have changed, the problems and inequities facing our community often haven’t. That’s why, in thinking about mental health, I wanted to know if and how these experiences impact Black children disproportionately. I was pleased to find that one researcher has studied today’s Black children to measure the effects. Dr. Nathaniel Harnett is a neuroscientist and the director of Neurobiology of Affective and Traumatic Experiences Laboratory at McClean Hospital at Harvard. His work focuses on how a traumatic and stressful event impacts the childhood brain. Nathaniel Harnett: How does it affect the structure of the brain? How does it affect the way that we respond to other events in our lives? And part of the goal of my work really is to understand or figure out if we can figure out how trauma impacts the brain. Can we then use that information to figure out who's likely to develop PTSD after they get another traumatic event or experience something that's highly stressful. His latest research looks at how these kinds of experiences in childhood are tied to racial disparities. Nathaniel Harnett: So the study that we're talking about looked at about 12,000 kids, from across the country who are white or black. And we looked at a number of measures related to structural inequities that might be tied to structural racism, things like the relative advantage of environments that kids were growing up in and how much conflict there was in the home. What were the incomes like of their caregivers? And so part of the work that we've been doing over the last three, four, five years now is really trying to get at how do these sort of adverse childhood experiences that we might have had when we were younger shape how we respond to another traumatic event? And does that affect our likelihood of developing PTSD? And what is it really doing to the brain at a fundamental level? The data showed that Black children were subject to more material hardship and had less access to resources as a result of structural and institutional racism. Harnett: And what we're finding really is that that disparity, those discrepancies in experience, directly impact brain regions that we know are important for regulating how we respond to stress and for determining sort of our outcomes after a traumatic experience. For the kids that we looked at they're still so young that the differences we're seeing don't exactly look just like PTSD. But they're also, again, they're really young. We looked at the number of PTSD symptoms they had. And there was a difference between white and black kids, where black kids endorsed more PTSD symptoms. But we're talking about like 1 or 2 symptoms, not like the whole cacophony needed for a diagnosis of PTSD, but the patterns that we're seeing in childhood part of the worry is that if we're able to see these differences at this age, at really only nine, ten years old, and they stay in these environments, they stay in these deprived neighborhoods, they stay in areas where they're going to experience more racism, they're gonna experience more hardship that those differences might accelerate as they get older. And then it really is going to look a lot like what you see in individuals with PTSD. It's important to understand that racism-inspired trauma can transcend class boundaries. Throughout my life and career as a journalist, I have come across many Black children who weren't struggling financially but still dealt with significant trauma. These children often faced abuse at home or as the result of being physically beaten by educators at school, racism in their communities, and were frequently punished more severely in school settings. I don't use the word "microaggressions" when talking about Black kids in suburbs because there is often nothing "micro" about the aggression they face when they are one of the few students of color, and this impact often goes unnoticed and unprotected. I've met children in suburban areas who endured outright hostility and others who experienced racial profiling by law enforcement despite their family's affluence. I've also known Black kids who were murdered by other Black people from our own community, who came from families with solid financial footing. The reality is that systemic racism, violence, and intraracial discrimination can affect Black children from any socioeconomic background, leading to significant psychological stress and trauma. Lee Hawkins: You know, obviously racism transcends the economic experience. Is there any room for you to study kids who are Black who are, you know, even in boarding schools or or in prep schools. I mean, because the black we see it in corporate America with black people being the only person in the room a lot of the time. Is it possible that some of these experiences also affect the minds of black children, like being the only black kid in a school? Nathaniel Harnett: Yeah, I think the racialization of an individual and the then associated racism really does transcend economic class. It interacts with class and poverty and money and things like that. But it's unique in those different situations. And I agree with you that we can study the impacts of poverty, of outcomes of structural racism, but we're going to need to start to think more intersectionally as to, you know, how do black individuals at different socioeconomic classes deal with the racism that they're experiencing or the different impacts. And how might that be different between black men and black women who have to shoulder different burdens? I think as our research matures, as we move forward, we really do want to get more granular, more in-depth, more intersectional, and really start to tease apart what's happening so that we can best represent all individuals. Lee Hawkins: Yes. And I thought it was interesting and critical that high up in your announcement, when you announced the research, you said physicians and scientists tried to demonstrate that African-Americans were inferior to justify discrimination and systemic racism. Challenging that narrative with data is incredibly important. We need to rewrite that unfair history, right? And that's often what people miss when they talk about, you know, black people in America as the inequalities amd the foundational aspects of the way that, you know, social and economic stratification, white supremacy and all of that being inextricably tied. Why was that important to make sure that you said that so high up in your release? Nathaniel Harnett: I think that as you sort of mentioned, one thing that we like to do in psychiatry and medicine, in dealing with mental health disorders is we like to treat everything as if it's an individual problem. Right? Like if someone has PTSD, it's because they were exposed to a traumatic event. And what we have to do is we have to give them yoga or medicine or cognitive behavioral therapy or something to treat them in particular. The reality of the situation is that the neighborhoods that people are growing up in, the experience that they're having, they're not random. You know, these are a result of historical. They have strong historical roots. There are policies set in place to segregate people so that they would have different experiences. And that has long standing effects even now. But we have such a tendency in our field in medicine to be like, well, these are just different groups at base level, right? There's white and there's black. There's nothing else to think about there. But really, I think it's not that people's skin color determines how their brain is going to function. It really is the case that it's the experiences they've had that are driving that brain function. And if we can accept that, if we can understand and really come to terms with the fact that the experiences that people are having are not random, it means that in order to fix these disparities, to fix these discrepancies, to fix these effects on the brain, we have to take much more of a structural approach. We have to actually change systems to bring about better brain health. Lee Hawkins: Have you been able to when you talk about kids being exposed to violence and family conflict, was corporal punishment any part of your research? Nathaniel Harnett: That’s such a good question. Corporal punishment was not something that we looked at in particular in this study. We know that things like corporal punishment can lead to or contribute to the development of other psychiatric disorders, and poor emotional regulation habits. And so is it the case that what parents end up doing to try to help their kids in some way hurts them, too? I think that's a really important research question as we think about how do we really understand all the impacts of early life adversity on the brain. Corporal punishment is legal and prevalent in many homes across the nation and seventeen states still allow educators to hit students in public schools. I wonder if the fact that Black children experience higher rates of corporal punishment contributes to higher rates of PTSD among Black children. And frankly, it bothers me that this possibility isn’t being extensively researched. But I also wonder, how would this research be perceived, especially since because of racism, so many people believe physical punishment is a necessity for Black children. Would this research be controversial and criticized? And, if so, would any institutions still support it? In 2019, the American Academy of Pediatrics' took a stance against spanking. That same year, the New York Times published an article from author and journalist Stacey Patton, about Black pediatricians opposing the stance. The doctors felt the policy didn't separate spanking from abuse and could unfairly target Black communities, increasing fears of law enforcement and child protective services. The fact that even some Black pediatricians fought to defend corporal punishment against Black children, despite all the science proving the harm it causes, underscores how deeply rooted this practice is. Nathaniel Harnett: I think that the reaction to the research has been mostly positive, but a little bit mixed. On the one hand, there are a number of people who I think are reacting to this and saying, yeah, we knew this. We didn't really, did we really need a study to tell us something that we already knew? We knew that racism and structural inequities were harming us. So why do we need this? We need to focus on doing something. And I'm not going to say I entirely disagree with that, I understand. Differences in prioritization. Lee Hawkins: I disagree with it though. I'll say I disagree with it. Why do we need studies about cancer? Why do we need studies about diabetes? Why do we need … so we can solve the issue. And if there's no real empirical data to back up. Nathaniel Harnett: Right. Lee Hawkins: Then how do we solve it? Right? I mean, can you explain, I mean, can you explain why you did this research right? Nathaniel Harnett: No. And I think you're you're absolutely right. We really just need data. But I think that having a body of work that just show people, look, when we have unchecked structural racism, when we have unchecked individual racism, we have all these inequities in the country. They're having a real impact on our kids' health. And if we want to fix that, we have to do something about it. Lee Hawkins: So does some of this coincide with the Adverse Childhood Experiences data that shows that if you have 4 or 5 adverse experiences, you're likely to have shortened life expectancy, cancer, diabetes or heart disease. I mean, it seems like this is all part of, all part of that, like understanding how all of this is inextricably tied. Nathaniel Harnett: Yeah. No, I think you're right. I think this is all connected. I think the discrepancies we see across medical outcomes, across mortality, across psychiatric disorders, it's all tying back to these experiences that we're having as we're kids and younger. And of course, the unequal distribution of those childhood burdens that disproportionately affect black and brown individuals. Lee Hawkins: And what will this arm us with now? What are the solutions? Nathaniel Harnett: I think that's always the hard question of what can the brain actually tell us about what we should do next? I think if anything, the most … the most immediate thing that I would hope for is that this data serves as a call to action for people that want to address childhood adversity, structural racism, other aspects of systemic inequities that affect black and brown individuals and really affect all kids. Because I think that, as I mentioned before, just having individual solutions to these problems like therapy or medication, that's not really going to help the structural issues. Getting medication isn't going to help the fact that you're growing up in an area that has been historically redlined, and therefore you don't have access to quality education or other things that are going to set you up well for life because of things that were set in place in this country that are now outside of your control. Doing yoga doesn't stop the fact that there's police brutality. I think part of what I'd like people to do with this work is recognize there is a real whole body brain impact from these effects, and that we really need to start stepping up to move towards actual structural change. Lee Hawkins: Nate! Keep it up, brother. We just need you more than ever. So thank you. Nathaniel Harnett: Thank you so much. Lee Hawkins: Seriously, man Nathaniel Harnett: Thank you so much again for having me. I appreciate it. Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences helped me better understand the trauma of my grandparents, my father, and my own. Jim Crow's racial violence took my grandparents' fathers and health inequities led to my grandmother’s early death, causing my father to lose his mother as his parents did. This trauma, from an early age, made them aware of the caste system’s injustice, causing my grandparents to fear for their children and my father to fear for me. This fear led to me receiving over 100 beatings as a child. That fear is why it took me years to stop having nightmares about them, as a grown adult. These beatings made me a jumpy, nervous child and haunted me into adulthood, despite having more basic rights and privileges and economic stability and opportunities than my father and grandparents. Still, some form of post-traumatic stress haunted each generation, dating back to my enslaved ancestors. In modern times, if beatings at home and school could be contributing to trauma in Black children today, it's tragic. But there's hope. If research were to show it to be true, our community would be able to consciously reduce this disparity by rejecting this as part of our identity and by fighting to give our children a reprieve from violence, at home and at school. I hope for a future where the impact of ACEs, especially those related to systemic racism, is fully acknowledged and addressed to an even greater extent. This means more research focused on Black communities and creating culturally sensitive support systems. By doing so, despite the factors beyond our control, we strive to help reduce the cycle of trauma and to provide healthier environments for all children.

When Lee’s parents moved to Maplewood in the mid ’70s, they were part of a wave of Black families integrating into majority white suburbs. They were seeking opportunity and safety, but were often met with hostility and racism. In this episode, Lee sits down with Christopher Lehman, a professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud State University, to understand what pushed Black families to want to integrate white suburbs and how they were received. Later, Lee sits down with some childhood friends who grew up in Maplewood, to break down what it was really like being a Black boy in a white Minnesotan suburb in the 1980s and 1990s. ---------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT We wanted to give a heads up that this episode includes talk of abuse, and acts of violence. You can find resources on our website, WhatHappenedInAlabama.org - listener discretion is advised. My name is Lee Hawkins and this is What Happened in Alabama. Today we’ll be going back to Maplewood, in particular my high school days. I have many fond memories of that time. I was elected class president all four years, I had a bunch of friends and my weekends were always full, but there were a lot of difficult times too. The racism I experienced in Maplewood was rough. And I wasn’t alone. Today, I’m joined by some brothers I grew up with. Not my biological brothers, but we’re united by our shared experiences. I call them the Maplewood Crew and we’ll be breaking down what it was like to be a Black boy in Maplewood in the 80s and 90s. But, you’ll get a whole lot more out of it if you go back and listen to the prologue first - that’ll give you some context for putting the whole series in perspective. Do that, and then join us back here. Thank you so much. When my dad moved to Minnesota from Alabama, his family settled in the city of St. Paul, in a neighborhood called Rondo. After he married my mom, they purchased a home in a suburb called Maplewood. Other black families had started moving into the community after the development of a highway cut through Rondo and displaced more than 600 families. My parents were just under 30 when they got to Maplewood. They were young, hopeful and growing a family. To them and other black families who moved there in the 60s and 70s, Maplewood represented opportunity and upward mobility, a chance for their kids to flourish in ways they weren’t able to. And, we did flourish. As a student leader, I was in the news quite often. Everybody was proud… My parents, my friends, my favorite teachers, and my coaches. But some people hated it. Sophomore year, I was doing a lot of guest speaking at schools, churches, and public events. I was doing a lot of acting back then. This time, it was a one-act play, where I delivered the last speech that Dr. King gave to a group of Black Sanitation workers in Memphis, the night before he was killed. And that generated publicity. That year, there was an article in a Minnesota paper headlined, “Student Brings Meaning to Black History Month,” with a big picture, after I spoke to some kids at a school. A few days later, I got called down to the principal’s office. I figured it was about a student council matter, or sometimes the news camera crews would call about doing a story. But when I got to the office, those nice sweet ladies who worked in the office said hello and handed me a manila envelope that was addressed to me. I’d never received mail at school before, so I opened it right away and inside of it were letters, and cut out pictures of my face, with bible verses written all over them. The sender didn’t sign their name. I can still feel the eeriness, standing there, looking at myself on the page. In my photo I had a flattop and a young, naive smile. In that moment, I realized someone out there had to be stalking me. All the letters repeated the same theme: That so-called race-mixing was a form of racial genocide akin to the holocaust. They warned that God did not create mixed race people – that sinful man did – and to destroy God’s races is to hate God. I read this trash and I kept thinking about my parents, and how they told me as a kid, “Somebody’s always watching you, so watch yourself.” It could have been anyone. Neighbors across the street, teachers at the school, the police, really, anybody. I didn’t know who to trust, so I took the letters home. I was almost afraid to tell my parents, out of fear that they would tell me I told you so, and that all my activism and speaking out against racism had led to this, and was going to get the whole family killed, as they’d always feared. I knew they would be scared. And man, they really were. Lee Hawkins: So, you know, that white man that sent me those letters? These letters gave my father flashbacks to his life in Jim Crow Alabama in the 1950s. That only made my parents even more determined to believe that by cracking the whip and enforcing the rules, they could keep us safe. Eventually, it was decided, by the police and my parents, that I would need a police escort to school. My whole family was on high alert. For a few days, as I rode to school with that officer, I asked him to let me off at a side door because I didn’t want my classmates to see me getting out of that car. I tried my best to hide the fact that I was on edge, because I assumed the letters could be from someone with ties to the school, and I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing they had gotten into my head. I only told a few classmates, those who I, for some reason, believed would never send me that racist propaganda. [PAUSE] The letters continued to come in for the next few days and eventually, they stopped. What I didn’t know was that the person who sent those letters was under investigation by the FBI. And in 1988, they finally found him. Lee Hawkins: He was at West Publishing for many years. Lee Sr: Oh, okay. That sounds right. Lee Hawkins: Yeah. Elroy Stock. Lee Sr: Wow. What's his name? That’s me and my dad reflecting on this period during one of our many interviews. Elroy Stock had sent over 100,000 letters to people over the years. His letters didn’t just focus on Black people. He clipped out articles about indigenous people and whites. And he lamented the number of Asian and Indian children entering the country for adoption. And to find convenient targets, he scoured and clipped newspapers – sports articles, wedding announcements, birth announcements, and then mailed out his racist rants. [PAUSE] It all took a toll. I stressed, but I accepted it as a part of life for any Black person who wanted to excel in a white world. I’d read stories about the pioneers who had fought racism, like Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson faced, and I just assumed that anybody who was Black and breaking barriers was going to get hated on. But being Black in a neighborhood that was more than ninety percent white was a new phenomenon for my dad. Though the population of Minnesota as a whole was largely white, the Rondo neighborhood, the part of St. Paul that he and his sisters moved to when they first came to Minnesota when was 12, did have a strong Black community. So when he grew up and had his own family and moved to Maplewood, it had to be a bit of a culture shock. When my parents made the move from St. Paul to Maplewood in 1975, they were part of the wave of Black families who’d left cities for the suburbs. Between the 1960s and 1970s, the suburban Black population increased nationally by almost 30%. CHRIS LEHMAN: And so it was important that after African Americans had the chance to finally do what they had aspired to do and spread their wings and make opportunities available to their children. That’s Christopher Lehman, he’s a professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. In my research, and speaking out to my Maplewood friends and cousins, I began to understand the distinct nuances of growing up Black in a white suburb in the 1980s. I reached out to Professor Lehman to get a better grasp of the factors that led to Black families moving into white suburbs and the racial dynamics they faced when they arrived. My research and my personal experiences show me that because my dad was raised under apartheid in Alabama and racism was waiting for us in Maplewood – our move to the suburbs was loaded with all kinds of tension between the parents and the children. They were thrusting us into a world they knew nothing about – one they were often afraid of. And that made them more afraid for us, especially when we began to thrive socially and academically. This world that was so unfamiliar to them was one we thrived in – and that, I believe, is what both mystified and frightened them. But at the same time, they wanted the American dream. My dad used to say, “when those teachers teach the white kids, they can’t make you close your ears. If you’re in the same classroom, they can’t deny you the education they’re giving their kids.” My parents were determined to give us every opportunity they didn’t get. Lee: My father had a family tragedy, and he was one of the many Black people who moved north and then to the city of Saint Paul from Alabama when he was 12. And he and my mom purchased one home and then another home in Maplewood before they turned 30. I mean, they were very young. There were other Blacks that we knew who had already moved, and they were very focused on pursuing the suburban American dream as they saw it. Some Blacks had made the move earlier, but the few Blacks we knew who moved to Maplewood and other suburbs did so in the 1960s, in the early 70s. What were the reasons that led Back people to move into the suburbs? And how does that connect to the Great Migration, and also to the breaking up of Black communities across the nation? Lehman: From about WWI until the 1970s. The African-Americans who had the means to leave the oppression of the Jim Crow South did so. But moving to the North did not mean that African-Americans could live wherever they wanted to in the North, and cities set aside neighborhoods just for African-Americans. And then the smaller cities, or small towns, some of them were sundown towns that banned African-American residents from within their borders altogether. There were some sundown towns in which African-Americans could go in and work from 9 to 5 and just have to be out of the town once the 5:00 whistle blew. And then there were other, more severe sundown towns where African-Americans were just not allowed to set foot at all, no matter what time of day. And the Civil Rights Act of 1968 made sundown towns illegal, it made illegal the practice of redlining, in which the federal government withheld money to go to FHA loans in specific neighborhoods that were African American. So once the Civil Rights Act of 1968 makes the worst aspects of discrimination against African-Americans and housing illegal, that opens up all sorts of neighborhoods in which African-Americans are finally able to tap into greater wealth and resources of a higher quality. Lee: And even though the federal government made those measures to open things up more to Black people to move into suburbs, they still faced a great deal of resistance, correct? Lehman: Yes. That's right. One of the things that African-Americans faced when moving into these segregated neighborhoods was white flight. There were European Americans who decided that they needed to move to another suburb, one in which they believed that they would have their property values protected because they believe that if a neighborhood became desegregated, no matter how many African-Americans moved in, then the property value of a house in that neighborhood would plummet. Lee: What dynamics were at play? What was the racial climate like and how were we received? Lehman: It depended on the communities. There were some that were either indifferent or perhaps even somewhat welcoming to their new African-American neighbors. Worst case scenarios would be outright hostility and violence. And perhaps the most infamous case of this doesn't even have to do so much with people moving into a neighborhood but just with the issue of bussing in 1974, in Boston, and this was not even about people moving into each other's neighborhoods, but just going to different neighborhood schools. And that was enough for students, and sometimes their parents be throwing bricks at kids that were on buses and so forth. So it it depended on the location, but it could, it could get very violent. Lehman: African-American parents had to deal with the issue of safety, because moving into this suburb, they had to figure out, where can we take our children in town besides where we have to take them, the school, where they can be relatively safe. And so it would take parents a while to try to figure out who could they trust in town to be sociable, if not pleasant, around them and around their children. And who can they go to if they need some kind of respite as well, especially other African-Americans who have paved the way. Looking back now, I’m realizing how much of a culture shock it must have been for my dad. First, he came from a totally different culture in Alabama– to icy cold Minnesota. And then, from a city with a relatively healthy Black population into a one of the whitest places in America. Though my dad was friendly and kind to everybody, it didn’t matter the race, he was hard-wired to innately distrust white people, and now he was moving his young family to a place that was basically Scandinavia 2.0. My family was part of an organization called Jack & Jill of America, which is basically a national group of Black mothers working for the betterment of Black children. And when I was a teenager, I became the teen president of Jack & Jill’s Midwest region, so I became friends with Black kids from all of the country – and it was my first time visiting and knowing Black families who lived in suburbs that were largely Black….just outside of Detroit and Chicago and Philly. And I used to feel so happy for my friends from those places, because they got to live where they wanted to without having to sacrifice all the good music and all of the Black culture that we had to leave Maplewood to get. They used to have to send me the house music mixes from their cities because the signal of the Black radio station in Minneapolis didn’t reach Maplewood. That’s how white it was. Lee: Can you explain the similarities and differences between the experiences of Blacks who moved to largely white suburbs, as opposed to those who moved into the suburbs that had more Blacks? Lehman: Well, certainly when you had – when there were African-Americans who moved into exclusively European-American suburbs, then they are the ones who are breaking the the color barrier, as it were. So they don't have any models or any previous African-American neighbors to to try to draw from, they have to set the template themselves. And they have to create the resources that other people can later use when they move in. So when you have places when or where African-Americans are moving into suburbs that have an African-American population, however small, then they can at least network with each other, they can pool their resources, and they can figure out ways in which they can cope with living in this community, where there are not a whole lot of people who look like them, but at least there are a few. Lee: Yes, and that was our experience. You know, we, my parents, I told you my parents purchased two homes before they turned 30. The first home was in a predominantly white area, and the next home was in this, still in a very white community, but in our little enclave there were more black people. There was some black families who had purchased homes in that area, and there was a lot of collaboration and a lot of camaraderie between us, and we looked out for each other. So I definitely see that as something that I look fondly on as a matter of fact, because it was really hard and it would have been a lot harder without the other black people who lived in our midst. And obviously we read a lot about the Little Rock Nine and Ruby Bridges and the hyper visible, more iconic black symbols, symbols of integration in the South. But my own experience informs me that there were thousands of black kids integrating schools and communities across the nation, and many of them, like me and my sisters and my friends. You know, we didn't have a lot of visibility, but we were experiencing racial vitriol and hate speech every single day almost, without the benefit of a police escort or a National Guard troop behind us. We had to figure it out. And at times it could be very disillusioning for us and also for our parents. I think it’s noteworthy and really quite fascinating that Professor Lehman and I lived in different parts of the country but, because we were Black and living in the suburbs in this period, we had a lot of similar experiences. He gave me an academic structure to the lived experiences of my family and many others, across the United States. I call my generation the integration generation. There’s a lot that goes into that term, but one attribute of this group I’ve defined is that we were among the first Black children to integrate America’s suburbs, which, for many of us, was a major step forward for us and our families. But we also faced the racist backlash of being the first. And that backlash was quite often fierce. We were constantly tested, and if we wanted to be successful in Maplewood and in our lives after, we had to constantly be thinking three and four steps ahead of everyone around us. I recently sat down with three Black men from Maplewood who went to the same high school as me, but at different time periods. There were about four or five years between me and them – older and younger – and we didn’t have precisely the same experience, but, like most Black people in suburbs like Maplewood, we all knew each other and our paths did cross. But what’s funny is, even when our paths weren’t crossing, when we compare notes, we finish each other’s sentences. It was therapeutic for me to sit down with these brothers – not just to validate each other's experiences but also to figure out how to process it all these years later, and to know I wasn’t alone. DiAndre Hodges went to high school with my sister Tiffany. He was several years younger than me, so we weren’t in high school at the same time. He moved to Maplewood from St Paul and he remembers how different Maplewood was, as soon as he stepped his first foot inside the city limits. DiAndre Hodges: I moved to Maplewood ‘86. My sixth grade year. Coming from actually Oakdale. Lee Hawkins: So, John Glenn. DiAndre Hodges: So, yeah, went to John Glenn. My first year there. I think maybe the second half of the year is when everything started kicking off. Lee Hawkins: Right, okay. DiAndre Hodges: So moving there, we're thinking, okay, life is, you know, cool. But it was a culture shock.I'm young, so I don't see the racism until I get to, my sixth grade year at John Glenn, second half of the season, second half of the year n-word started coming out. I didn't know what that word was. Real talk. I didn't know what [n-word] was, so I'm being called [n-word ] and I'm not understanding it. So when I'm going home explaining to my mom, okay, I'm being called [n-word ]. What is that? So now my dad from Mississippi, he sat me down. He's explaining it. He's like, “There's racism.” Um, Dad, I don't know what it is, but I know I'm being called [n-word]. Marcel Duke: It seems like it changed so dramatically, even though I have the same stories. That’s Marcel Duke. I knew him because he lived next door to us, and we literally grew up playing kickball, baseball, and hide and seek with Marcel and his sister. They were some of our day ones. And, you know, even though life moves on and everybody goes in separate directions once they get older, you never forget those people. I love those people, because they, well, they’re my people. Marcel Duke: .. like, Mark Haynes and I. Lee Hawkins: Yeah, tell me. Marcel Duke: That's my partner, ace boom. I mean, we did everything together and we'd always walk home on County Road B and my dad would say, “You got to be careful on that road. You got to be careful on that road.” Well, you got called the n-word constantly walking down that street. You know, then cars would slow down and sometimes we’d look at each other, take off running, whatever. And then this particular night we're walking home, it's dusk, and my dad worked for the phone company, and he ran the motor pool downtown Saint Paul. He called it ma belle. And, so he would always take me down there and teach me about cars and stuff because he used to own a garage down on University, and, so, I got good at looking at cars, and I'd always challenge myself to could I figure them out and get the license plate number? So we got called those names so much I used to just okay, everyone that would say that I’d look at the license plate number, look at the license plate number. So this particular we're walking down County Road B and then we go split in the middle. And then he'll go back home. And then I'll you know, right in front of John Glenn. Then I keep walking. Then he'd go back home and we'd take off running and sometimes. And so we hear the n-word, and then we look back and the car does a U-turn. Up by the football fields, by the football field at John Glenn. And then he does a U-turn right there at the right turn. So he dips in, comes back. And so me and Mark are looking at each other. Well, they punch it and then they throw beer bottles. And for some reason we, we jumped on the ground. I want to say Mark got hit in the back with one. So we dealt– we dove on the, in the grass and that was the first time really somebody really threw something like that and really like like they were going to get us, you know, usually they just keep driving N N, N, N [n-word], you know. Right. And then you just like, dang, you know, and you have to go home and talk about it amongst your family and stuff. Right. So this particular day, it just so happened when I jumped on the ground and I look over and Mark, I look back at the car and the car’s stopped, I look at the car. I know the year and the license plate number. And then it, we took off running and they drove off. So I run in the front door. They're playing spades. I run up, he's like “what's up, what's up?” So he, everybody gets up from the dining room table and walks to the front door. I see the car go u left up the hill, big hill up John Glenn on the on the on the west side. there. So, my dad said what happened? So I said, they threw these bottles and they hit Mark and Mark ran home. My dad would always say, did you get the license plate number? I said yes. And so I say it to my dad. They go to playing cards or whatever, and I wouldn't leave the front stairs. And in my mind, being a young person, I just kept saying, the car is going to have to come back. They live around here. Yeah, but in my young mind, I'm just thinking that I'm just like, well, they're going to come… County Road B is the main drag. DiAndre Hodges: Yeah, it's gonna come back. Marcel Duke: And so it's going to come back. Marcel Duke: True story. A car is coming back down the hill, way up there, and I'm sitting on the stairs, it's probably 2 or 3 hours later. I run in the house. My dad said, what's up? I said, dad, the car's coming down the hill towards County Road B. It’s coming down Hazelwood. And so my dad calls my brothers up. We all walk on to the front yard. The car stops at the stop sign. Puts his blinker on to take a left. The passenger calls us all the n-word. Takes a left, and a left into the apartments. DiAndre Hodges: Into the apartments. Crosstalk: Uh oh. Marcel Duke: We all head over there now. Now. My chest is way out, but I'm sixth grade or right? Third, fourth, fifth. You know, we're new money. Marcel: But my brother's... Marcel Duke: I'm sitting there going. Oh, we talk– Lee Hawkins: Talking about the Duke Boys. Crosstalk: Yeah. Right. Right, right, right, right. Marcel Duke: So I wanna see my dad in action.We go through the lot there where the the swing sets and stuff were. So we get over there, and they are sitting on the hood of their car. So we're approaching. So the driver jumps in the car. But the other dude was a little, it was like he he wasn't going to, let's just say run or get in the car. So I, I knew my dad was carrying a pistol. Lee Hawkins: I bet. Marcel Duke: So I remember him putting it in his pocket, though. And I. I just remember him going over on the driver's side, and I thought he was going to strike the driver. But what he was doing is reaching in and pulling out the car keys. So even the dude covered up. But really my dad was strategic. All he did was reach in pull the keys out. Call the police. We waited a few minutes and the Maplewood police came.And treated us like S H I T. Crosstalk: Right wow. Crosstalk: What did you expect? Why did you do that? Marcel Duke: Yeah, because my dad said, I want to do a citizen's arrest. And he made me carry the bottles over and everything. And I knew and I knew everything. And I saw the piece of paper I wrote down the license plate make model, color, all that. And the police acted like, just blew it off. Never took a report. Nothing. So that was our first experience with the Maplewood police. Jason Johnson: At, at that time, a lot of the officers treated us like shit. Marcel Duke: Yes. Jason Johnson was the little brother of a brother and sister that Tammi and I were close to. He lived about five blocks from us, a few houses down from my maternal grandmother and across the street from one of my cousins. In other words, we’re not blood related, and we weren’t in high school at the same time, but we are family. I remember Jason being that tough little fella who used to tag along with his older brother and us, who, despite being so much younger, was never afraid to play tackle football with no pads, and wouldn’t hesitate to take the basketball right up the center to the hoop in games of 21. But when we got together as adults, he told a story I’d never heard before – one that made me sad, both that I wasn’t there to help, and that it happened at all. But I wasn’t surprised. Jason Johnson had a scary encounter with the Maplewood police when he was just 14 or 15 years old. Jason Johnson: DiAndre’s right there. We had some other family members with us, we was all going to the store we was all riding our bikes, and I was the last one behind everybody. Mm hmm. And but so we could see down the road an officer was coming up and he see that everybody was crossing the street. He sped up. Yeah. He said vooooooo, right? So by the time I'm getting in the middle of the street, I'm thinking. I'm thinking I'm about to get hit. I basically close my eyes. I brace for impact because that's how close the car was. It barely grazed the back of my tire. And he didn't even stop at all. It's like he was trying to. If he could hit me, he'd have been like, oh, accident, this and that. And it went right by me. It was the grace of God, the guy didn't bite me. And he he didn't slow down one time. He got to the corner, spread around. We tried to look at license plate. We're all sitting there like, Oh, man, everybody like, man, Jay, you okay? Like, they all thought I was going to get hit too. Lee Hawkins: How old were you, Jason? Jason Johnson: I was like. Like 14, 14, 15. And. And after that, I mean, I was so not only was I scared, but I was I would say for at least two or three days, it was hard to sleep because I was really thinking about me. Man, I can see the middle of the car, I can see the officer I mean, just the look, it was just so fast. And just as I turn my head and I'm like, man, he's about to hit me. I remember hearing that some of the first Black folks moved to Maplewood in the 1950s.The narrative we were taught is that all the racism was concentrated in the South, but some people in Maplewood, like in many suburbs across the nation, tried to keep Black people out by using tactics like putting racial covenants in property deeds that forbade the sale of the property to anyone outside the Aryan race, and even burned crosses and left dead cats on people’s doorsteps. But that didn’t stop Black people from coming. In fact, some Black people lived close to each other, in enclaves. And from that period of the 1950s to when I was there in the 1980s, the few Black families who were there were known for our carefully manicured lawns and pristinely kept houses. I’ve heard that some white people even made up a name up for this. They called it, “the golden ghetto.” Lee Hawkins: We were coming into a community that was really affected by Black success. A white working class, sometimes working poor. Crosstalk: Yeah. Lee Hawkins: Right. Community that would see all of these Black people coming in. And what was it you talked about? Cutting grass. I cut grass. You cut grass. We all cut grass. And why did we cut grass? Because our family wanted our lawns impeccable. Marcel Duke: Yeah. Yeah. Lee Hawkins: Remember that? Crosstalk: Yeah. Lee Hawkins: How all the Black people have beautiful lawns. Beautifully. carefully, manicured lawns. And a lot of that was the pride of who we were. But it was also, we don't want people to say that. Crosstalk: Exactly. Lee Hawkins: That the black people are lowering the property value. Lee Hawkins: I remember when I was a kid, once I really took over the lawn, and that was really my primary responsibility, getting it to be beautiful. And then as soon as the snow would, would melt and we would get it, and all the Black people would have the sprinklers going, and chem lawn. Crosstalk: Yeah yeah! Lee Hawkins: You were ready to get at it, to have the dopest lawn.. Crosstalk: Yup. Yeah. Lee Hawkins: They would drive over our lawn. Marcel Duke: Yeah. Lee Hawkins: And then you would go. And then there would be two tire marks. Marcel Duke: Yeah. Yeah. Lee Hawkins: Across the front of it. All up and down the street. Lee Hawkins: And so then the Black people started putting rocks in front of our house all up and down Hazelwood. Marcel Duke: Yeah we did that too. Lee Hawkins: And then my white friends would come by and say why do you have rocks in front of your house that are that are colored the same color as your house? Marcel Duke: Yep. Lee Hawkins: It was the whole thing, that they – that was the only way we could stop people from driving over our lawns. Yeah. And this was circa 1970s, 1980s Maplewood, USA. We had to be three different people in one day. We were constantly on the look out – watching our lawns, watching for the police, watching for whatever might come our way next, while also striving not to get too cynical or jaded – to still be able to trust that many of the white people in our community were not out to get us. And then, when we crossed into St. Paul’s Black community, that was a totally different experience. I brought the best version of myself to church, and probably the worst self-perception of myself when I went and hung out with some of the kids I knew from my cousins and my friends in the city who had nothing to do with the church, or at least were trying to act and be hard. We had to adapt to certain situations, while striving to be as true to our authentic selves as we could. And looking back now – wow – that was exhausting. And what’s funny is that you could be studious, preppy, and playing the tuba or singing Fiddler on the Roof in the school play, and the chances are that if you raised your voice, a lot of the white boys were going to be afraid of you. I never understood that, but sometimes, I admit, I used it to my advantage. And I thought it was fascinating that Marcel and I had never had a conversation about that, but he said the same thing once we sat down and started reminiscing. Marcel Duke: I would go home and talk to my parents. Why are they afraid of us? I'd always say that to my parents. Why are they always afraid of us? My brothers and sisters…They always are afraid of us. And I can't fight. I've never been in a fight before. No one inherently is born and you know how to fight. But in their eyes, they felt my brothers and sisters and me, were tough guys. We were always tough. And I'm like, I'm not tough. I talked to them about the pressure we often felt to conform to the stereotypes that other people – Black, white and all races – imposed on us, in terms of what defined a real Black man. Studying the Slave Codes and the Black Codes of the past – the rules that governed every aspect of Black life – I now know that rules like forbidding Black folks from reading and writing were internalized by much of American society over the generations. And that, I believe, led up to this feeling that I and so many other Black boys I knew back then held, that we had to live down to these stereotypes at times, to prove how so-called Black we were. If we had only known the history back then. Lee Hawkins [00:31:46] Let's unpack that, because I think that this is the dichotomy of of the Black male experience. You know, Du Bois talked about double consciousness and how, we have to be three different people. Marcel Duke [00:32:00] Exactly. Yeah. Lee Hawkins [00:32:01] On any given day. And I think that. DiAndre Hodges [00:32:04] Even to this day, yes. Lee Hawkins [00:32:05] When I was coming up, it was, you know, I got fed all the positive affirmation of what it meant to be a Black man at church and in the Rondo community. It was excellent. It was being a nerd. It was academics. It was all of those things. But then on the other side, it was a real nigga too. If you wanted to be a real nigga. Marcel Duke [00:32:28] Yeah, yeah. Lee Hawkins [00:32:28] You needed to have. DiAndre Hodges [00:32:30] The aggression. Lee Hawkins [00:32:31] That you needed to show that. Right? Or you weren't real. You weren't a real black person. And that came from the black community, too. And the white people. And I, a lot of times, I believe now I'm not going to say the whole Black community. I'm going to say there were a lot of Black people who were not exposed to the positive side of Blackness and then took their definition of what it mean, what it meant to be Black from racist white people that we went to school with. And so the pressure to always conform, I mean, if you were speaking proper English. Or you got an A on a paper, well, you're acting like a white boy. Marcel Duke [00:33:11] Yeah. I got that constantly. Lee Hawkins [00:33:13] You're not really Black. Marcel Duke [00:33:14] Yeah. Yeah yeah. Lee Hawkins [00:33:16] And tell me about that. Was that ever was, did you ever feel pressure to be hard? Yeah. Because you're a Black man? Marcel Duke [00:33:24] Especially when I got older. DiAndre Hodges [00:33:26] I'll just give an example now. At this age. Yes. A boiler tech over in south Minneapolis. So where I would work over there, it was like, right off of, Linden Franklin and all of that. Marcel Duke [00:33:40] Right? DiAndre Hodges [00:33:41] So over there, I'm cool with, all of my people over there. Right? But I speak proper. Lee Hawkins [00:33:48] Right DiAndre Hodges [00:33:49] So when I speak proper, I'm not Black enough when I'm over there and I'm just. No, I'm just as Black as you are. But I speak proper. That's the way I was raised. Yeah, but if I come out to the suburbs, I'm a threat. I'm a n-word. I speak too Black. You know what I mean? So how do you navigate around that. There is no navigating around it. Just like you just said. Now you have to be three different people. When you pick up a phone or you go to to a job interview, right? You don't have that bass in your voice when you even when you're– “Okay. Yes, I’ll come.” See how the voice changes. Marcel Duke [00:34:23] Right. DiAndre Hodges [00:34:23] If you take the bass out–. Marcel Duke [00:34:25] Yes, I'll. Okay. I'll be there. Yes. Okay. What time. Yes. DiAndre Hodges [00:34:28] And then you show up and then I'm like in Black. Marcel Duke [00:34:31] Yeah. Right. DiAndre Hodges [00:34:32] Well, you, you know. I'm black, Okay. Yeah. See, so then one of the things that we deal with now and, and I think when we were younger, so like the Rondo Day area area, I came from, McDonough projects. Yeah. But my, grandma Roberta, King, she stayed in the Rondo Days. So our house is one of the houses that was taken away. Yeah, when they was building the freeway. So that's how I remember that. Dealing with that side of always being over there was totally different from going back out to the suburbs. I mean, it was like two different lives. Like when you're over there, you fit in with your community of your Black folks. Yeah. But then when you go out to Maplewood now, it's the culture shock again. Lee Hawkins [00:35:19] Right. And I used to say, we used to get built up in the Black community and then torn down in the white community. DiAndre Hodges [00:35:24] Yes Lee Hawkins [00:35:25] Your self esteem had to be very high. I had a lot of people who thought, “Oh he’s so arrogant, he’s so conceited.” You know, and maybe I was, because I had to be. Marcel Duke [00:35:26] Yes. Lee Hawkins: I had to be at a level 11 because I knew, when I walked into the school, my goal was to be the class president, they’re going to try to knock me down to a 7 or 8. Marcel Duke [00:35:57] Yeah, 100%. [break] Lee Hawkins [00:41:15] But what I'm saying when you grow up in this. Yeah. You know, it was, you know, there were, there were some people who were really well off, but it was mainly a white working class community. And there was a lot of resentment with us coming in and, you know, so I was very curious about the other side. Of what was happening to these kids at home. DiAndre Hodges [00:41:40] At their homes? Lee Hawkins [00:41:41] Yeah. Because you knew their parents were racist, too. Right. Because you can't teach, a second grader isn't going to know what a [n-word] is unless somebody taught him that. Marcel Duke [00:41:49] Yeah, right. Lee Hawkins [00:46:48] I have done a little reporting into the lives of some of the kids who used to call us [n-word]. Some of them were in prison. Had parents who were in prison, later in life, because they came from a childhood trauma environment. One kid that I knew had a mother who was a heroin addict, and a father who was incarcerated, and lived with his uncle, and I didn't know why he lived with his uncle. But when I, you know, when we got older, I actually wanted to call him, to have him participate in this podcast and about the time that I was going to call him, he overdosed and died. And so you never know what people, I feel like people were threatened by us. But it wasn't just physical. It was the idea of.. Marcel Duke: Presence Lee Hawkins: Who are these [n-word] in our community? They're taking something from us. DiAndre Hodges [00:49:02] Even teachers would even tell you, you make a good garbage man. You make a good this. You know you won't be this, but not, you know, maybe go be a doctor or something. No, no, no. n-word, how dare you think that you're going to be a doctor? As part of my research, I contacted Cassie Block, a woman who was the little sister of three older siblings who were around the same ages as me and my sister Tammi. She went to school with DiAndre, and they were tight. But I initially called her, because I wanted to get some insight about her brother Nick, who was my older sister’s age, two years older than me. He was known to call Black kids n-words, and it was too bad, because he really could be a nice kid. But I always sensed that he had his own struggles, though I didn’t know what. And wasn’t able to ask, because several years ago, he was killed in a motorcycle accident. Reconnecting with these fellas and other friends from back in the day in Maplewood has been quite cleansing for me. Cassie’s corroboration of the facts that we always knew were true – but would be hard for people outside of our Maplewood experience to believe – is key. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry about this, but the truth is, the word of the white woman still carries a lot of weight in America. We can talk about how racist Maplewood was all we want, but for some people, unless a white woman comes along and vouches firsthand for what she experienced, our sharing of our experiences might just sound like a bunch of Black men complaining, saying woe is me. Lee Hawkins [00:49:46] You know, it’s been really cleansing. It's been really cleansing to look at it. And one of the reasons I wanted you to call in was first to validate, because I think it's going to be really hard for people to accept what we're saying, you know? And so and, of course, you know, the power of the word of a white woman still carries weight in America. Crosstalk: [00:50:08] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Lee Hawkins [00:50:08] So we appreciate that you called in, to validate the word of the brothers right. So, but but also to bring us into the psychology of racism, you know, in, in what it's like to be on the other side. And I know that you and I spoke about some of the things that your brother was going through, that when we were. Cassie Block: Yeah. Lee Hawkins: You know, that it wasn't just that he was a blistering racist, that he had a lot of his own challenges that he was going through as a kid, in childhood trauma, and the role that that can play, and socialization and the way you're raised and the things you pick up on. Everybody in here said, you know, because I said that he used to call me the N-word as a kid and other Black kids. And then, but we all agreed that he changed, that he did evolve, right? Cassie Block: [00:51:09] Right, oh for sure. Lee Hawkins [00:51:09] I was hoping that you could tell me, you know, what is it that makes a third, fourth, fifth grader, say that to a black kid? Cassie Block: [00:51:25] For me personally, and I'm going to assume that my brother faced the same challenge— there was no exposure, to my family, my family, my parents didn't have any Black exposure or, you know, culturally or physical or, you know, their jobs, their life. They didn't interact with folks that were Black But how do you have a perspective on what's good or what's bad if you have zero exposure, you know. It was easy for him to deflect that on, the easy, the easy target. And back then, you know, the easy target was, you know, the minorities. Lee Hawkins [00:54:19] I think that many of the kids that we were brought up with, they were going through their own struggles. Cassie: [00:54:36] Yeah. Lee Hawkins: What was your brother going through, what was it like? Cassie: [00:54:40] All of us were, were kind of poor. I mean, we, our families spent our money how we wanted to, but, so I think that's the kind of the hidden thing there is that we all were working hard. Our families are all working hard to, like, get us into a place where we thought it would be better for our family. That was the one thing we all had in common. Lee Hawkins [00:55:30] What was. So is, was there resentment of the fact that the Black people were coming into and wanting the same thing Cassie: [00:55:39] Yes. Absolutely. I mean, I think it was kind of like, well, how did they get that? How do and why do they. You know, why did they deserve that? And let's make ours better. You know what I mean? Like those. I mean, it it did. It became competition to a certain point. Like especially for my brother. Like, let's show them, we can do better. We are better, you know. They don't deserve the same rights as we do or whatever. [break] Lee Hawkins [01:01:30] There was a part of that conversation where I felt like everybody, kind of getting emotional. DiAndre Hodges [01:02:01] Yeah. Lee Hawkins [01:02:02] And it was no, I thought it was when she was telling the story about that, his stuff really happened. And that we needed her to cosign what we really went through. Marcel Duke [01:02:14] Yeah. I don't believe. Lee Hawkins [01:02:16] It. You see, that's the psychology of white supremacy, too. Is that… DiAndre Hodges [01:02:19] Well, because this right here wouldn't have really went as far as you want it to go, right? Unless you got to see from the lens. From the other side. Lee Hawkins [01:02:29] Right. DiAndre Hodges [01:02:30] You know what I mean? So hearing her side of it. And to cosign what we are already talking about, what we've been through. She watched it. Lee Hawkins [01:03:29] And to put it into context, this was a time when I mentioned prison, And, I was I want to make sure that I'm clear on saying that this was a time where disproportionately they were giving Black men unfair sentences. Marcel Duke [01:03:44] Yes. Big time. Lee Hawkins [01:03:44] And we were also, if you remember the song Self-Destruction. Marcel Duke [01:03:49] Right. Lee Hawkins [01:03:50] We were trying to help our communities, but we were also young Black men in situations where, yeah, we had to watch it in Maplewood, but we also had to watch our own people because we had friends being killed in the streets. And we did try to speak out about it. Yeah, we did try as a community to engage in activism around it, but that didn't mean that we as Black boys were ever safe. We weren't safe from the police. DiAndre Hodges [01:04:22] No, but that was structured by, that was structured by white folks, though. When you talk about, when you look at the gangbanging. And you look at, competing or you're competing within your own culture because we're put in such a small place, with so many of us. Lee Hawkins [01:04:41] Right. DiAndre Hodges [01:04:42] And we're already seeing what they're doing to us. So it started to almost be groomed into us. We have to be the same way toward one another. Because if you think about it, it was always about territory with Blacks. It was all about, okay, you're this color and I'm this color. So you're fighting back and forth for this or this person got this so we over there getting it. Lee Hawkins [01:05:03] The whole idea of haters I got a lot of it was about, people looking in the mirror and hating and. DiAndre Hodges [01:05:09] Hating themselves. Lee Hawkins [01:05:11] They were looking at us. They will look at another Black man, and all of a sudden, you know, you're at the mall and you're getting mean mugged because you have a nice coat on or you're wearing a chain. And now, okay, my dad used to always say, who are these [n-words] over here? Watch out. Here, put your hand in your pocket. Yeah. You know, and I hate to say it like that. Marcel Duke [01:05:32] But it's true. Lee Hawkins [01:05:33] But this is -Now the question is like, what would you like to see happen? Like how, how do you get around this to protect future generations of students of color? Marcel Duke [01:10:56] I think, for my son, who's a Black boy at 16, I would say this - I'm involved. I'm an involved parent. DiAndre Hodges [01:11:25] Yes. Marcel Duke [01:11:26] And I want to say when, back in Maplewood my father would send my sister. He was old school like that, and I don't know why. I never really got the answers why. Marcel Duke: Now they see me. And it's funny because my wife is white and we go to everything. DiAndre Hodges: [01:12:46] Right? Marcel Duke [01:12:46] And, my son is biracial. But he's still a [n-word]. DiAndre Hodges: [01:12:53] 100%. Don’t get it twisted. Still a [n-word]. Marcel Duke [01:12:59] So.. but because they see me and they know me and I'm involved, and I look at them in the face. And I don't care what you want to talk about, I can talk about that. And I'm very involved. Where I think back then my parents weren't. My older siblings were my parents, kind of, and I just, you know, I remember now that I'm married and have kids and stuff like that. I was going to change that. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be involved and they're going to see me. And what I didn't have as a child. I didn't have the confidence like that. Lee Hawkins [01:14:28] What I love about that, Marcel, is you just highlighted a generational shift because I think that, yes, our parents did want to defend us, and they did in many cases. But on the racism piece, I feel like they didn't. I feel like they failed us in the sense that it would have taken too much, they felt, to do that because I feel like they were scared. Marcel Duke [01:14:55] Yeah. Lee Hawkins [01:14:55] Because of the generation that they were from. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to talk down on them. I'm trying to say like, this was the reality, coming out of Jim Crow, Alabama, that my dad came out of, that mindset. And then your stepfather was from Mississippi. I mean, they were coming in and they didn't have what we have now because of them. We have the confidence. And now you're imparting it to your son. But was that part of it that they didn't have the confidence to stand up to these institutions? Crosstalk: Yes. I agree. Jason Johnson [01:15:32] I just think the history of lynching, I remember my grandmother, that's was one thing that she was always scared for us. was to get lynched. You know, be careful talking to white girls. You got to be careful for being late, because in their days, you get lynched in front of the sheriff. The sheriff was there. I mean, all those type of things, you know. [break] DiAndre Hodges [01:15:51] So I have two daughters and Soraya, my youngest, she goes to a predominantly white school, Lee Hawkins [01:15:58] Do you whoop kids? Did you whoop your kids? DiAndre Hodges [01:16:01] No. Well, I'll say, I'll say in the beginning. Right in the beginning. Probably when they were four or five. Lee Hawkins [01:16:09] What made you change? DiAndre Hodges [01:16:12] I found a better way. And the better way was to have conversations. And I got sick of crying after I was done whooping ‘em, because I felt like I only knew that way, but I needed to find a different way. And it had to be whenever I talk to them and I'm teaching them something, there's a question behind it. So is if I say, well, this or this or this or happened, do you understand why I'm saying this? Lee Hawkins [01:16:55] You know I love what you're talking about. Because when I reflect on all of this in our generations, right, the difference between our generations and and the new generation, I feel like in a way, we didn't have a childhood. DiAndre Hodges [01:17:13] Well, we always had to be in fear. Lee Hawkins [01:17:14] Right? We had to be adults, we had to operate as adults. Marcel Duke [01:17:16] Yes. Lee Hawkins [01:17:17] As adults. From the time we were little kids. And I remember, not too long ago, I was at my building out east, and this, this Black woman walked in with her son, and he looked like he was maybe five, maybe five years old. And they walked up to the concierge desk, and I looked and I noticed he was holding a teddy bear. And the first thing I said to myself was, what is this kid doing holding a teddy bear? Crosstalk [01:17:47] Right? (Laughter) Lee Hawkins [01:17:51] How did he, how is she letting him hold a teddy bear? Crosstalk: [01:17:52] That's kind of soft. Lee Hawkins [01:17:53] And then I had to check myself. Yeah. And then all of a sudden I got this really great feeling and I was like, wow. You know, things are changing. He's being allowed to be a kid. Crosstalk: [01:18:04] Yeah. Lee Hawkins [01:18:04] He doesn't have the stress that we carried. DiAndre Hodges [01:18:08] But the fact that you had to stop and think about that.. Lee Hawkins [01:18:12] Yeah, I had to check myself. Because our childhoods were stressful. Crosstalk [01:18:15] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Lee Hawkins: Am I right? DiAndre Hodges [01:18:18] 100%. Aggressive at all times. Adult at all times. Marcel Duke [01:18:22] I think that's the balance. As a parent, I whoop mine. I want to make that clear. Crosstalk: (Laughter) Marcel Duke [01:18:31] So, I believe in that. And if you ask my three boys, they would say that. But I say that to say this. We have an awesome balance, because they know every time someone meets my kids or whatever anywhere in the world we've been, right away, and this might be the sad part, but they always like, oh my God, your kids are so good. So I pride myself on them having to be a certain way with everyone in the world and me. DiAndre Hodges [01:19:15] That comes from slavery too though, whooping our kids. Marcel Duke [01:19:19] Yeah. And I got I got it from my dad and now my brother Andre, he has three kids. Totally different. And he has awesome kids and he's awesome. Lee Hawkins [01:19:33] Marcel, this really quick. Do you believe that your children would be out of line and that they couldn't be reasoned with without the whoop? Marcel Duke [01:19:44] Perhaps. But I look at it. I don't agree with a lot of the way my dad governed us, but I do feel that living in Maplewood when we moved out there, fear of him - helped me. Marcel Duke [01:20:19] I knew that if I messed up that fear, underlining fear of my father, guided me to this day. Lee Hawkins [01:21:19] Yeah. Marcel Duke [01:21:20] And that's how. That's the perspective that I carried to them. DiAndre Hodges [01:21:25] No, And I don't disagree because like I said in the before, in the beginning, I whooped my kids. But that was to put in place... Marcel Duke [01:21:34] Yes. DiAndre Hodges [01:21:35] Of now, the framework, the framework of now the voice comes in and I ain't got to do this no more because now they fear the conversation. Lee Hawkins [01:21:42] I think this is a debate that the Black community is going to continue to need to have. Crosstalk: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. DiAndre Hodges [01:21:48] And sometimes these kids need they ass whooped. Marcel Duke [01:21:52] They didn't get a lot of whoopings. It's the fear. Lee Hawkins [01:21:57] But I'll tell you. Let me just tell you because okay, when you go back into slavery and you see the way that the juvenile justice system after slavery even I, we found some, some opinions from cases that involve young Black boys, okay, juvenile delinquency cases. And there's one judge in I believe it was 1901. They sentenced him and then they said, but wait a minute, we've got to give him 50 lashes, because a Negro cannot be reasoned with and he only understands the lash. And so I'm not. First of all, I would never condemn a Black person who uses corporal punishment on their children because, you know, when it happened to me, I believed in it too. And you know, I know that history and, and when I couple that with the history of what I experienced as a Black boy in Maplewood, having a father who felt literally like at any given time, if a white girl says, you raped her, you raped her. Marcel Duke [01:23:07] Yeah, yeah, Lee Hawkins [01:23:09] We can't do anything. So I'm going to beat you so that you're not even— you’re telling a white girl you can't go to the prom. Right? And so this was the reality that I was up against and that we were, you know, we were socialized into. And so I think as we start to understand history and we start to get a little bit more distance from the brutality of our generation, and we start to allow our children and your grandchildren, when you have grandchildren, to have that kind of secure, safe childhood that we didn't have. Lee Hawkins [01:37:15] This is so powerful. Brothers, I thank you. Thank you so much. Because what you're doing is, you know, this is a hard thing doing a podcast like this. Opening up your whole life, going through and dissecting and remembering certain things that were traumatic and also all of the good things. But the hard part is to really sit down and confront this stuff. And I feel that you all have been like a support group. I needed to hear that you all went through this and we went through it together. Marcel Duke [01:38:09] Yeah, right. Lee Hawkins [01:38:10] And so I wanted America to meet some of my brothers in the struggle. And my brothers in the empowerment, because that's what you are. I left that conversation feeling proud of those brothers – of all of us – because we fought through a lot and hopefully paved the way for the Black and Brown kids who came after us in Maplewood. It was never easy, but we thrived through it as Black boys, as families, and as a community. That experience positioned us to move through society with an ease that mystifies those raised in segregated environments. America is still a patchwork of segregation, and stepping out of a homogeneous world into the unknown can be intimidating for people of all races. But for me, it was all I knew, and I learned to navigate it from a young age, much to the alarm of my parents and many around me. I now realize that the criticism I received – being too Black or not Black enough – often stemmed from others' confusion. Our critics, both Black and white, struggled to accept that we could inhabit both spaces and still be authentically Black. Their discomfort reflected their own insecurities, not ours. We were an anomaly many had never seen before. I knew Black people who had never interacted with anyone but other Black people and whites who had only known other whites. The latter would often turn red-faced, sweaty-handed, and clammy around Black people, unsure of what to say and afraid of saying something wrong. I am grateful to my parents for integrating us into a new community while keeping us grounded in our roots. Our involvement in the church and Black community helped us learn the intricate layers of Black and American history that our suburban schools often refused to teach. Today, I see the advantage this gave me and feel genuine sadness for white children in places like Florida, where diversity and inclusion, and the darkest chapters of Black American history are being erased from curriculums. Our Black and Brown children must learn to navigate the mainstream world, but they also often gain exposure to their history through their own communities. White students, however, denied access to this history, will face a diverse America with little understanding of people who don't look like them, yet contributed to the lives they enjoy everyday. This is not only sad but cruel. When they enter that college classroom or corporate office and see a Black or Brown professor or CEO, they often won’t have the training that Maplewood gave me, and Diandre, Jason, and Marcel. We knew our world and theirs too. We became resilient, able to resist and protest racism unapologetically, without being broken by the struggle. Our experiences in Maplewood prepared us for the challenges and opportunities of 21st Century America. We can thank our parents — and even bigots like Elroy Stock — for that. CREDITS What Happened In Alabama is a production of American Public Media. It’s written, produced and hosted by me, Lee Hawkins. Our executive producer is Erica Kraus. Our senior producer is Kyana Moghadam. Our story editor is Martina Abrahams Ilunga. Our lead writer is Jessica Kariisa. Our producers are Marcel Malekebu and Jessica Kariisa. This episode was sound designed and mixed by Marcel Malekebu. Our technical director is Derek Ramirez. Our soundtrack was composed by Ronen Lando. Our fact checker is Erika Janik. And Nick Ryan is our director of operations. Special thanks to the O’Brien Fellowship for Public Service Journalism at Marquette University; Dave Umhoefer, John Leuzzi, Andrew Amouzou and Ziyang Fu. And also thanks to our producer in Alabama, Cody Short. The executives in charge at APM are Joanne Griffith and Chandra Kavati. You can follow us on our website, whathappenedinalabama.org or on Instagram at APM Studios. Thank you for listening.

Whooping. Spanking. Beating. Whatever you want to call it, corporal punishment was a central part of Lee’s upbringing. Growing up, he was made to believe that it was a Black custom but as an adult he began wondering if it ended up doing more harm than good. In this episode, Lee speaks with Dr. Andrew Garner, a pediatrician who has studied the effects of corporal punishment on children, and how the nervous system is altered by it. Later, Lee speaks with Geoff Ward, a Professor of African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, to discuss how corporal punishment has extended beyond the home, and into schools. ---------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT We wanted to give a heads up that this episode includes talk of abuse, and acts of violence. You can find resources on our website, WhatHappenedInAlabama.org - listener discretion is advised. Hi - this is Lee Hawkins and we’re about to dive into episode seven of What Happened in Alabama. This conversation is about corporal punishment in homes and schools. Beating, spanking, whooping, whatever you call it, that’s what we’ll be talking about. This is very personal to me because it’s how I and so many of my peers were raised. We were taught that it was not only normal, but necessary. Today we’re going to get into the short and long-term effects of corporal punishment on the physical, mental, and emotional development and well-being of children, often following them into adulthood. It’s a heavy and important topic But you’ll get a lot more out of it if you go back and listen to the prologue - that’ll give you some context for the series and this episode. Do that, and then join us back here. Thank you so much. In February 2019, I had my final interview with my dad for this project. We talked for over 3 hrs. I had a deadline to hit, and because I had so many interviews already recorded I did one final interview with him, just to get specific questions answered without having to go back through all that tape. He did the final interview – and he answered some extremely difficult questions, with compassion, regret, and especially grace. Lee: And so how did you get into the whooping thing? Like you beating us with your belt? What made.. Like, where did you get that from? Lee Sr: That I can't say. I don't know, man. It was just a, some kind of a stress that I had, evidently. Lee Sr: it's hard to say how this shit went man. Asking my dad directly about this I realized that families often repeat certain patterns and cycles from generation to generation, without understanding why or where they come from. That four year process of interviewing my father about his upbringing in 1950-era Jim Crow Alabama shined a powerful light on why I was raised the way I was. But while I had gained a better understanding of some of the historical factors that shaped my upbringing, I still needed to understand the forces that prevented my father from breaking the cycle of belt whipping when we were kids. Lee: But what were the stresses that you were going through? Lee Sr: Things that I had seen my mom had to go through with people and shit and that was hard to push it. And so when I thought you guys did something, that was when I would, you know, get out of control like I did man, because that is out of control. I don't give a fuck how you put it. It was validating to hear Dad declare that hitting children with belts was wrong, and something that he profoundly regretted, and was genuinely sorry for, because I struggled for my whole life to understand the sentiment that Black children – especially – need to be beaten, even as I accepted it. I didn’t need much more than to hear my dad acknowledge that no, we didn’t deserve it – Black kids or not. Lee Sr: If it was up to me and the way I feel about things, I would've never done nothing like that. But I don't know how I got out of control like that. Something was back there in my life that did that and I know it. My mom told me that there were nights that my dad came to bed and cried after those interviews. Though I never saw those tears, it doesn’t surprise me. Revisiting painful memories that led my father to try to whip us into perfection out of deep love and concern was obviously excruciating for him. Despite my belief in “honor thy mother and father” and occasionally unnecessary guilt, I didn't feel obligated to shield him from the pain he caused my sister Tiffany and me at times. I accepted that the burden of his actions was not mine to carry. Expecting a victim to accept the blame for a perpetrator's actions, fearing that a grown man might cry, just isn’t fair. I was determined to lead my dad down the path to finally put these generational demons to rest, for both of us and for future generations of our family. If he cried, he cried. When I heard that dad cried, I saw it as a sign of empathy but not a reason to quit researching. As children, I wept, and Tiffany wept, through the hundreds of belt whippings we received. In fact, our mother would tell us: “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to really cry about.” I now realize that perpetrators rarely recognize the extent of a victim's pain because they aren't the ones being beaten. My father's tears didn't change the reality of what they had done to us. His crying may have meant he finally grasped that his childhood impacted mine more profoundly than my parents had ever acknowledged. Our pain stung so much more than the feeling of a belt to the behind. Social justice activists talk so often about how violence impacts Black bodies, but my research, and my memories of my own childhood, have shown me that violence–including within the Black family and community– can also have potentially devastating effects on Black minds—especially the minds of children. With my mental health journalism training, I now understand why I was always on edge, like my parents. They feared the world, and I feared them. Sometimes I'd go to bed fully clothed, with three layers of clothing on for extra padding, preparing for the possibility of being pulled out of bed for a forgotten chore. This made me high-strung and hard to stay calm. Around age eight, I started blinking excessively when nervous. One Sunday in the choir stand, I couldn't stop blinking. After church, one of my Dad's friends mentioned it, "I think Lee Lee's got some kind of nervous tic." Dad dismissed it as teasing, ranting to my mom about it the whole ride home. But his friend was right. My nervous system was firing like crazy. Though I excelled in spelling and reading, I struggled in math that year. My parents thought I was clowning in class and believed more beatings would improve my scores. They'd yell, "You're being the class clown for all those white friends of yours." They didn't realize I needed extra help from a teacher or tutor. Instead of focusing on math, I’d sit at my desk and worry about the belt whipping I could get for writing down a wrong answer, which made me blink even more. Neither my father nor I connected my nervousness to the beatings. We saw the belt as temporary pain. But it hijacked my entire system. As an adult, I've dealt with stress, but nothing compares to the constant stress I carried as a child. I don’t know how I never developed an ulcer. Imagine an adult experiencing the unpredictability of being overpowered and whipped several times a month, then having to perform at their best the next day. That's what I went through… as an eight-year-old. What broke my heart as a child was that my mother told me that she gave my teacher permission to hit me if she wanted to. My teacher never did, but she clearly knew I was getting the belt at home. That trend of many schools failing to protect students from violence, or even exacting violence themselves, impacted me in so many ways. One clear way was the reality that my Dad rarely if ever got hit by his parents, but he did get hit plenty of times at school, which, I believed normalized the idea of child beating in his mind at a young age. And today, Alabama is one of seventeen states that still allow corporal punishment in K-12 public schools, with the schools mostly striking Black children and those with disabilities. In 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the UCLA Center for Civil Rights Remedies reported that Black boys are nearly twice as likely to be hit compared to white boys, and Black girls are struck at over three times the rate of white girls. This, all despite the fact that Black students behave similarly to white ones. Today, hitting school children is legal and most prevalent in states where enslavement was legal. Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas represent over 70% of all corporal punishment in U.S. public schools, according to the SPLC. Children at some schools are hit nearly twice a month. Notably, during the 2015–16 school year, one Mississippi school reported 871 instances affecting 57 students, averaging 15 times per student. Another school in the same state noted 60 instances for just four students, also averaging 15 times per student. A few years back, before my dad died, my Dad and his sister, Aunt Toopie, talked about the beatings they received at school while growing up in Jim Crow Alabama Lee: Did they whoop the kids in school, was it a strict thing? Lee Sr: Yeah, we got our ass kicked every time we were late, I know that. Aunt Toopie: And stand in the corner. Lee Sr: And when you did something in class you got your ass kicked. Aunt Toopie: They had belts in school in them days. Lee Sr: They had that board of education. If I was late for school, you’d go right to the principal’s office, and he’d tell your ass up about three times with that paddle, with holes in it. That paddle was a piece of oak wood, and it had varnish on it and it had holes. They had drills holes in it. It was custom made. It said board of education and he’d have you bend over and man, that thing, them holes in that thing, would leave little dots on your ass.” Being hit at school burned a permanent memory in my dad’s brain - he normalized it when he became a father, handing down the Alabama-born anxiety to another generation, to me. After the conversation with my dad where he apologized for whipping my sisters and me, I tried to have a similar one with my mom. But it went very differently. "We didn’t beat you,” she said. “We spanked you." I was disappointed to hear her deny how severely she and my dad beat my sister Tiffany and me. But I also understood why she would say what she did. There’s almost a collective agreement in society that so-called spanking is supposedly lighter than a beating…kinder and gentler and never abusive or harmful. It’s much easier to stomach the narrative that there are acceptable forms of violence to use against children; even though that same violence would never be acceptable to use against an adult. Which is why I give my dad so much credit for being honest and not trying to minimize what they did. My dad finally understood the full spectrum of damage the American whip had caused generations of our family. We often think the worst of corporal punishment are the welts and physical pain. But through my own experience and my research, I know the real pain is from the belt’s access to the victim's mind. My parents didn’t know these beatings and the mental stress of having to constantly look out for danger all around me, made it harder for me to focus, triggering my nervous system into fight or flight, causing bouts of anxiety that followed me into adulthood. This led me to find experts on the effects of corporal punishment on the body and mind. Dr. Garner: The thing that separates kids from adults is they're still under construction. Their brain, their physiology is still under development. And so what happens in childhood doesn't stay in childhood. That’s Doctor Andrew Garner. He’s a primary care pediatrician in Ohio who has studied the effect of corporal punishment on children. I wanted to talk to Dr. Garner to understand the physiological changes that occur in children when they are hit. Whether you hit them with your hand, a belt, a paddle, regardless of how hard or how often you hit them, it’s all corporal punishment. I'm someone who refuses to get nostalgic about the beatings of my childhood. I would never high-five my friends and say I needed it, I loved it, or credit it as the reason I stayed out of trouble or became a productive citizen. It’s not funny to me, mainly because it took me years to rewire my system. But I don’t want to unfairly judge people either, especially those who don’t have the information. Once I delved into history, I gained a deeper and clearer understanding of why so many people I’ve known—especially Black and white people from the South—have often celebrated and even laughed fondly about the use of corporal punishment. Many have no idea that, when we really look closely at America’s historical foundation, hitting children is akin to setting up a system of white supremacy or a mini plantation in their living room. Later in this episode, I speak with Professor Geoff Ward, a Professor of African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, to discuss how corporal punishment has extended beyond the home into schools across the South, mainly the states and counties where slavery was legal and lynching was most prevalent. We talk about the institutionalized use of corporal punishment and how deeply ingrained it is in our history. But for now, let’s get back to Dr. Garner. The conversation mentions violence and abuse against children, sensitive listeners please take care. [break] Lee: I think there are many people who believe, well, if I just hit the kid a few times on the butt with my hand, that's a spanking. If I hit a kid with a belt that's a beating, or if I don't if I hit a kid with a belt, but I don't hit them hard..as hard as the guy up the street who's hitting his kid with the extension cord, then that's not a beating. Dr. Garner: That's all violence. Right. So, you know, corporal punishment is a negative consequence, for unwanted behavior. But that negative consequence is the use of force and is intended to cause pain or discomfort. So that's violence. So, you know, whether or not you're trying to split hairs between, a spanking or a beating, it's still the use of violence to coerce, and control and modify another person's behavior. And we know that in order to continue changing that behavior, the violence needs to escalate over time. So it's a slippery slope. I can recognize this slippery slope in my own life. My parents started out with a few hits when I was little and over the years it escalated to something much more serious, to the point where getting hit with a leather belt for five minutes was normalized. In fact, their punishment increased to slaps across the face and attacks that were even more severe. And this was from two parents, who, like most of the parents we knew, felt like, if they truly loved their children, they needed to kick it into high gear and show us that life wasn’t going to be fair and that nobody was coming to save us, especially because we were Black. I can see how this happens. Dr. Garner: You may think that in the short term, you're doing a good service to your child because you're trying to teach them something. But in the long run, we know the outcomes are worse. There's clear data, you know, increased risk of child abuse, because you have to eventually increase the negative stimuli to try and change the behavior. Part of the problem with corporal punishment, it's a double whammy. In addition to the anticipation, like you're saying what bad thing is going to happen to me? There's also the loss of safety, because one of the things that the the one of the ways that we buffer adversity is through relationships. And now there's, there can be a loss of trust, in the, in the relationship. And that to me is really interesting that, it's not just the, the, the fear of the pain as you were talking about. It's also the loss of trust that when is this going to happen. Where when am I safe? When am I safe? Lee: Well, never. I was never really 100% safe in my home or outside in the world. Never. There was never a time that I felt safe. And I also feel like my parents did that by design. I don't think they wanted me to ever feel safe, because I don't think they believed that a Black person in America is ever safe. So I believe that they wanted me to feel the hyper vigilance and the hyper cautiousness that they, in the generations before them, felt because they didn't believe enough in the system of America. Another thing is that when you said you have to increase the punishment if you're going to use this system, that's exactly what happened to me. And I know my dad. I know that he…lost control and did not know what he was doing. And I think at that time he got to a point where he realized, what have I done? What have I become? Dr. Garner: I think where we break down sometimes is trying to decide what's more important, you know, is it the connection or is it the structure? Well, they're both important. You need to have connection. So kids trust the instruction you're giving them. But the way I think about it is it's a lot easier to teach a kid what they should do than to keep from doing something you don't want them to do. Lee: But it's also forcing us to understand that children are multiple times smaller than adults. And so we if we apply some empathy here, we have to understand that even if you're hitting a child once or twice, you're still multiple times larger than the child, and the child may not have a bruise. Or the bruise may go away. But it's really this person who's supposed to be taking care of me, who is the only thing in this world I love, and this person who is providing meals and food and shelter for me is hitting me. Oh, he's going to hit me again. But for some reason, children have a different standing in society. They're the most vulnerable in the society, but they have the least protection. Dr. Garner: Yeah. It's crazy. The thing that separates kids from adults is they're still under construction. We know if there is significant adversity, and there aren't opportunities to turn off the body's stress response that can result in a thing called toxic stress. Right. So toxic stress is this inability to turn off the stress response. And it can literally change who we are at the behavioral, at the cellular, even at the molecular levels. We know that adversity can sort of become biologically embedded and and changing the way our genomes work. Lee: And this is just even with just hitting a child once or twice occasionally. Right? Dr. Garner: Absolutely. I mean, that's the point, is that we have to understand the way brains develop. Brain development is an experience driven event. It's the experiences that happen that drive brain development. And so the question is, what are those experiences in childhood, are they adverse in the sense that they're leading to expectancies of bad things and always being on edge, or are they nurturing to the extent that people get me? I have agency and things are going to be positive in the future. So those early experiences are truly foundational and they can influence the way we see ourselves and the way we see other people and the way we see our future. For me, belt whipping taught me not to ever trust anyone, including and especially my parents. I loved them, but I never fully trusted them and rarely confided in them. And that turned me into an adult who simply refused to trust another human being. Despite the active social life I’ve always had, my childhood groomed me to be a rugged individualist, putting all my trust in God and myself. I never put even an ounce of faith in the idea that another person would not be capable of betraying or letting me down. And in relationships with girlfriends -– especially if they wronged me in any way – I developed the very unfortunate ability to be able to walk away from them and never look back and never miss them. And I often wanted to be able to be vulnerable and feel some level of paralysis or regret, but I always could just keep going.The beatings also made me perfectionistic. My mantra became, “if you want something done right, do as much as you can by yourself, because most people will almost always fall short and disappoint.” At a very young age, I just adopted the posture that I was on my own, and that I should not count on anyone or expect anyone to come up with a net and try to catch me if I fell. And also I also believed that you should always keep people out of your personal business, because in most cases, they’ll take your plans, your confiding in them about your most vulnerable feelings or moments, or the smallest mistakes and weaponize them to try and hurt you. And that’s how my father was. And yes, he came from a family of Jim Crow survivors and had family members murdered, but I believe a lot of this view of the world I’ve seen in my family, especially in my case, came from being beaten as children. These beatings – and yes, I have finally given myself permission to call them abuse – just wreaked havoc on my capacity to receive love without skepticism. Even now, I mean, speaking this, I’m wondering if this revelation will somehow be used against me by somebody down the line. But at least I can recognize it now. My new mantra is, “I’m free and I’m safe.” And to be fair, I’m a lot better than I used to be, and I can’t say that the skepticism hasn’t helped me a great deal – especially in the media business – but I wouldn’t wish that level of steel-heartedness on anyone. I asked Dr. Garner to break down what happens to a child’s nervous system when they get hit or know there’s a possibility they’re about to get hit. He said there are three biological pathways. Dr. Garner: The most simplest and the most evolutionarily, primitive is freeze, right? So you may see that the deer in the headlights type thing. Right. And so the first temptation is to freeze, if I be small and don't move, maybe the threat will go away. The second, which you might recognize, is fight or flight. Dr. Garner: And that's where you have a release of all kinds of biological mediators. Cortisol and epinephrine, that basically make your blood pressure high, make you ready to fight or run away. Those hormones are very useful in the short term. So if you see a bear, you can run away fast. But if that if that stress response isn't turned off through the presence of safe, stable, nurturing relationships and that constant bathing in those physiologic mediators of stress is there that results in changes. Changes at the molecular level, changes at the cellular level changes the behavior that really can change who we are. And we call that toxic stress. The third response is to affiliate, that means our ability to collaborate with others, to seek help when there’s a threat. It’s part of the reason humans have existed so long as a species. But Tiffany and I didn’t have that support. There was no escaping the belt. Dr. Garner: Where are my friends? Who's going to help me through this? The problem is, for a young child, the friend is the person who's beating you. So you've really sort of lost that that ability to turn off the stress response from an affiliate response. You're really stuck in flight or flight, and if you're constantly bed with those hormones, again, that's going to lead to a child who's going to be more defiant, more aggressive. Not be able to think things through, not be able to think about the broad perspective because you're. Constantly in fight or flight mode. You're constantly in survival mode instead of relational mode. Lee: Right? Yeah. And if you can think about this to bring some empathy in here for people to understand, if you were hitting a dog and a dog who depends on you for everything, is experiencing this toxicity in this toxic environment, you can actually see a lot of times when dogs are abused because you'll go to pet them and they kind of squirm. Sometimes they might bark, sometimes they might even try to bite you. And that's because they've been abused. Children are the same, right? I mean, children can have some of the same effects that we see, in dogs, that we empathize with. Children who are treated the same way in their home. Can have that same impact. Dr. Garner: But here's the good news. And this is the really fascinates me, is that the more we learn about the biology of adversity, the more we learn about toxic stress and how adverse experiences become biologically embedded and really affect life course trajectories. That same biology underlies how positive experiences get embedded. Right? And that that is the good news, right? So adversity is not destiny in any way, shape or form. In the last few years, there's been a really interesting thing called biobehavioral synchrony, which is a big phrase, but what it means is in those moments of magical connection that you have with another being in particularly between parent and child, there's literally an alignment of the brain waves of the autonomic functions of hormone levels and behavior. Right. And so we sort of know this intuitively that emotions can be contagious. Right? So, if a child's crying, the sibling mates are crying and specters may join an angry mob so it can go in the negative way, but can also go in a positive way, in a sense that engaged and trusted caregivers, they literally have the ability to hack in remotely and turn off the child stress response. Dr. Garner explained that you can see this in action if you look up the still face experiment on Youtube. It’s a famous psychological study that was first conducted in 1975 by the psychologist Edward Tronick. Dr. Garner: Basically they take a young child about a year old, and usually it's a mother, and they bring him into the laboratory and they have three two minute blocks. The first two minute block is engaging, so they're just playing back and forth. It literally they call it serve and return - the baby coos the mom responds. And it's really this biobehavioral synchrony. You can literally see it happening for you. And then they tell the mom to turn away and then turn back and to not engage for two minutes. And if you watch the video it is viscerally painful because the child noticed there's a rupture in the synchrony and does everything they can to try and get back engaged, everything they can to get back engaged. And then they tell their mom to turn back again, and now to start to repair. And it's palpable. The children's relief immediately. Oh, we're back again. You're back again? I'm safe. You got me. The important thing is, is there repair, right? And the most recent evidence suggests that it's the latency to repair that's associated with secure attachments and distress tolerance, that ability to say the goodness is coming. We're going to get back together again. It's really, really important. And so, again, that's great news for parents. We're not going to be perfect. We're all going to make mistakes as parents. We can't always be perfectly engaged. The important thing is it's all about repair. It's the ability to come back and become back engaged and basically be saying that, child, your perspective is important to me. The relationship's important to me. And it's way more important for me to be kind than right. Lee: Yeah. And I think that that's one of the challenges for me as part of people from the African-American community who had my experience. For me, knowing that my parents loved me and knowing that that love could be shown, but then the next minute I could be being beaten with the belt. And then they're loving me again. And then I'm beaten with the bel,t going back and forth. I do wonder…I do believe that there were there were some kind of protection outcomes that came from the love that was shown, but the unpredictability of it was, was very difficult because the relationship to violence was weird. Like it because violence was almost framed as love. Dr. Garner: Yeah. That's one of the one of the big paradoxes, I think, of corporal punishment is that having been a victim of corporal punishment, that increases your risk of being a victim of other physical violence down the line, which is sort of counterintuitive. But I think it gets at what you were saying there is that leads to what those expectations of what love are. And throughout my research, I found disturbing instances where enslavers used Bible verses to justify corporal punishment and enslavement. This deeply troubled me as both a Christian and a Black man. I've often heard the phrase "Spare the rod, spoil the child," which, contrary to widespread belief, isn't even in the Bible. And even still, this metaphorical use emphasizes guidance and care rather than punishment. Dr Garner’s wife is a Methodist pastor, and I talked to him about how people have often manipulated and weaponized scriptures and proverbs to justify and advance slavery, whipping, and their own agendas. As a result, generations of people have come to believe that it is moral, righteous, and holy to beat children. Dr. Garner: I think it's very upsetting when, these scriptures are being used in a way to propagate violence, when clearly that is not what Christ's intention was. He said, bring the children to me. Bring the children to me. Right. He didn't say, bring them to me so I can whip them. Right. Said, be like a child. Be be like a child. Be empathic. Be full of wonder. Right. And somehow we sort of lost that. So, discipline, you know, comes from the Latin word to teach. Right? So it doesn't mean to punish. Right. And of course there are multiple types of punishment, which actually runs the spectrum right from, a loss of privileges, right. So, you know, if you, you lose your driver's license, if you speed too much, right, to possible incarceration and then all the way to physical harm and even even death. Right? So punishment is the, are those negative consequences. They're imposed for undesired behavior. But punishment is only one form of discipline. And the more we know about it, the more we know it's actually not as effective in the long term and actually can cause potential harm. Lee: And what I love about this research that you've done in everything that you're sharing with us today, is that you're showing that a child's brain is being wired as we go, right, that we're creating the future adult every day when we're working with that child. What do stress toxins do to the body in terms of health? Dr. Garner: Toxic stress, which can be precipitated by any number of different forms of adversity, is associated with basically all of the leading causes of death. Right? So if you want to look at, asthma, you want to look at cancer, do you want to look at suicide and mental health issues. You want to look at obesity. You want to look at substance abuse. Right. So I mean, there's no doubt that, when we are programmed to expect adversity, that we're going to find ways to try and cope. And so if you think about it, you know, people overeat and abuse substances and, are promiscuous for a reason. In the short term, they turn off the stress response. But in the long term, the worse health outcomes down the line. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, I think your point, though, that the brain is, is being made over time is really important, and so are the relationships. And so one way I think to try and frame all of this is affect regulation, how we handle our emotions. Because if you have an angry parent who's spanking a child, the message to the child is when you get angry, it's okay to hit right. And so, that's not what we really want for our kids in the long run. We actually want them, to learn that it's okay to have strong emotions. It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be frustrated. But when you have those emotions, what can we do with them? How can we channel them? Dr. Garner has worked with parents and treated children as a Primary Care Pediatrician for more than two decades. He co-authored the book "Thinking Developmentally: Nurturing Wellness in Childhood to Promote Lifelong Health" and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Policy Statement on Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress and Promoting Relational Health. As a speaker, he focuses on early brain and child development, preventing childhood toxic stress, and promoting early relational health, and he considers himself to be an advocate for all children and their families. Lee: And what do you tell parents when they bring their children in to be treated about corporal punishment? Dr. Garner: One, to heal any wounds that they've had as a parent? Because we've talked before, parents tend to parent the way they were parented. So, I'm going to want to know, what the stressors are in their life with, what the stressors were when they were kids. What a good question often is, what, did your parents do that you want to make sure you do for your kids? But then also, what are the things your parents did that you want to make sure you never do for your kids? As kids get older, I'm going to help them understand, that it's really not the behavior you want to focus on. That a child's behavior is always telling us there's something they need or something they want. And what we need to do is trying to interpret it and help them figure out a better way to have that behavior met. And so this starts really early, you know, with temper tantrums in 3 or 4 year olds. It's really not about the behavior. It's the emotion that’s driving the behavior. And if we can help parents understand that, then we can help parents help their child say, look, you're allowed to be angry. You're allowed to be frustrated, allowed to be disappointed. But when that happens, we're not going to yell and scream. We're going to do the things that bring us joy. We're going to try and, spend some time doing some Legos or some coloring, teach them how to cope instead of just saying stop. The problem with, with corporal punishment and all punishments is it's basically saying, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. And then the child, then in, in sort of in their own mind, thinks there's something wrong with me. Because I feel this way and the message needs to be, you're allowed to feel that way, but when you feel that way, do this instead. If the parent is able to say, I'm so sorry I lost it, I'm so sorry I used those harsh words. I'm so sorry I was demeaning. I'm going to try better and we're going to work together to build this relationship. Then that's what those kids are going to do someday, right? I mean, I tell kids that empathy is a superpower. It is an absolute superpower. Not everyone has it, but we can teach it. And when you have it that allows you to repair, that allows you to have relationships. After speaking with Dr. Garner I want to believe that if more well-meaning parents knew hitting their children can also harm their brains and emotional health as opposed to just being temporarily painful, fewer would do it. However, in a country where hitting children is part of a centuries-long pattern of violence, and amid a system that offers the smallest people the least protection, I understand why many believe hitting children is beneficial, especially for Black children. But now that I’m out of that situation, I do view it as abuse and a legacy of my country’s legal system and culture, and the enslavement and torture of my people. And it’s not just in the home - in 17 states across the U.S. corporal punishment is legal in public schools. Most of these states allow educators to hit students three times in the rear with a long wooden board. And in all states except for just a few, corporal punishment is allowed in private schools. To help me understand it more I reached out to Professor Geoff Ward at Washington University in St Louis. He’s a historical sociologist and the director of the Washington Slavery Project. Some of his work connects the dots between the history of lynching in southern states with the modern usage of corporal punishment in schools today. I’ve had a couple conversations with Professor Ward, the first time was about 2020. I spoke to him again more recently to learn more about the logic of racial violence, how it intersects with our judicial system and how we can break the cycles of racial violence. Lee: You know, before when we talked, we talked a lot about racialized social control. Can you give us a definition, to hold on to here? Prof. Ward: I think a good place to start would be is to recognize that we live in a racialized social system, a society where rewards are allocated along racial lines, where meaning is constructed along racial lines, things like, you know, reliability or, beauty, or intelligence, morality, are riddled with racial logic because we live in a society where race has sort of been infused in the way we relate to and understand each other, the way the society has been organized. And in that context, social control becomes racialized. And social control generally describes the definition and enforcement of norms. And social control can be informal, you know, a sideways glance or a disapproving look. But we also have systems of formal control. And that brings in the State. And our regulatory systems, our courts, our criminal legal system and so forth that are part of the system of social control. And, you know, all of that complex is racialized. I remember reading Professor Ward’s work and being shocked by his citation of a 1901 Alabama constitutional debate over the legality of whipping prisoners, in which a county official remarked that “everybody knows the character of a Negro and knows that there is no punishment in the world that can take the place of the lash with him.” And he noted, that juvenile court records from 1930s-era North Carolina reveal that court-ordered whippings were reserved almost exclusively for Black boys and girls, given “widespread feelings among white county juvenile court judges that whipping is the most effective way of handling delinquent Negros." Another court official noted a common diversionary practice of “sending delinquent Black boys downstairs with a big police officer to have them flogged” prior to release. Prof. Ward: So this was a an example we, we used from the historical record in the article I mentioned where we examined how histories of racist violence, particularly lynching, relate to patterns of corporal punishment in contemporary public schools. Where we found that, that net of other factors, every additional lynching in the history of a county increased significantly the odds that a child would be corporally punished in a school in that county. This was after accounting for things like how, the funding of the school, the racial makeup of the school, whether it's urban or rural, how experienced the teachers are, how religiously conservative the residents of the county are, and so forth. And in that article, we used the story you're referring to to provide some context for how this relationship could come to exist. How is it that contemporary schools, likelihood of using violent strategies of school discipline has anything to do with the history of slavery or lynching in in that county? What is the story there? What are the mechanisms that connect the past to the present? And we cited that example because it speaks to the racial logic of corporal punishment, the idea that African-Americans are not fully human, are not sentient beings, can cannot be, influenced through, you know, appeals to things like morality or decency or logic, you know, white supremacism historically asserted that that Black people could not think deeply about anything. And so you and so this what this judge is saying in this case and we found numerous examples of this, judges, legislators, you know, rationalizing corporal punishment. And was saying that, you have to appeal, you have to reach, you have to address African-Americans through pain. Lee: Yeah. Prof. Ward: Because, because the you can't reach them through the brain. Lee: Yes. And and what I love about your research is that you've really just blown the doors off of this and shown that the public record is full of governmental rationalizations of violence against Blacks, even after emancipation. you show that African-Americans have always been framed as warranting more violent control strategies. And this is deeply rooted in the idea that we are not fully human. Is that something that you just have seen all through your research? Prof. Ward: Well, yeah, it is, I know it has to also be said that that, you know, racialized social systems are contested. You know, this this idea, this attempt to dehumanize African Americans, never actually fully succeeded. It resulted in a tremendous amount of oppression and pain and violence and death and so forth. But, simultaneously, you know, my research is also showing that Black communities and their allies are countering these measures. But even with respect to the juvenile justice system in my book, ‘The Black Child-Savers’ is mostly about how generations of Black women organized, beginning in the 1890s, to dismantle this Jim Crow juvenile justice system. And, they were fundamentally motivated by their own recognition that Black children and people were, in fact, fully human and fully capable of realizing the benefits of a more enlightened approach to social control. One that focused on, on child welfare and development. You know, the system that was being developed for white kids, who were not being subject as much to this, yeah, this brutality. And so they did create, you know, other kinds of institutions and practices that also have to be kept in mind as we think about the sort of how this history unfolded. Lee: You talk about the connection between corporal punishment and the history of lynching, which is really an incredible contribution to this body of work. Lee: Are you still seeing the trend in which, historical areas where lynching was the most prevalent tend to correspond to the amount of corporal punishment that's being done in a particular school district? Prof. Ward: There certainly have been study after study showing that that that histories, area histories of lynching and other racialized violence, predict contemporary patterns of of conflict and violence and inequality. Things like, Black victim homicide rates today and, patterns of vote suppression and white supremacist mobilization, you know, and, white political conservativism, things like Black infant mortality or racially disparate infant mortality, differences in heart disease. I mean, all kinds of contemporary outcomes have been shown by social scientists to be associated with histories of racial violence in, in specific areas. So I would I would imagine that, you know, that that the relationships we saw with respect to corporal punishment in schools, have not suddenly gone away. Understanding how governmental institutions have historically ensured that Black children are subjected to corporal punishment, including in schools, helps me see why my parents feared they had to use violence to protect me. They were conditioned by a system of legal white supremacy to equate violence with love. Like agents of the state, they and generations of Black parents saw violence as a necessity, convinced that nonviolent reasoning wouldn't work with a Black boy. As a result, while my parents were opposed to police violence, they turned our living room into a whipping station, becoming indirect agents of the very police brutality our people protested. Each generation in my family had a hypervisible white police officer who symbolized the need to beat Black children. For my father’s generation, it was Birmingham's white supremacist "Commissioner of Public Safety" Bull Connor. In my generation, it was the officers who brutalized Rodney King, and epithet using Officer Mark Fuhrman from the O.J. Simpson trial. For Millennials and Gen Z, it’s Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd. It felt as if my parents unconsciously partnered with America's most racist police elements to enforce violence and keep their Black son in line. As I delved deeper, I saw similar patterns among some Black educators and religious leaders. Despite the disproportionate use of corporal punishment against Black children, many administrators and school board members advocated for its use. Legendary psychiatry professor Alvin Pouissaint once told me he once traveled to the South to lobby for the repeal of corporal punishment, only to find that Black educators and leaders were some of its most vocal proponents. One of the school board members who once adamantly advocated for corporal punishment in Mississippi was also a prominent pastor in the Black church. He was one of the many people I’d studied who used the Bible to justify their pro corporal punishment stance Prof. Ward: I think one of the issues here, which relates to what we're talking about in terms of Black religious leaders, is there's an issue here of a kind of sovereignty where local community figures in a context of generally diminished power, economic power, political power, are holding on to a form of power that they do have, which is in the home, through the church, and saying, look, don't, let this, you know, social research fool you. And don't listen to these people who aren't from here and don't know our ways and aren't part of our church. We know what works, we've been whipped and we're fine, and listen to me, and I think there is a fair amount of, you know, manipulation on this issue that is about really about power. About holding on to power, holding onto power in community context, but also asserting power, as you mentioned, in the context of the home. In a society where, you know, there is so much humiliation and alienation, and and refusal of influence on things like, policy and practice and so forth. We commemorated Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, and I was part of an event at my university where we specifically focused on his theme - beloved community. And, our conversation is making me think about, you know, some of the basic, you know, fundamental, tenets of this concept of beloved community, which include that we are stuck in a society marked by, you know, a chain of violence, you know, where we're just in this situation where violence is seemingly a constant. It's almost how we communicate. He talked about how our society is organized by fear and resentment and that fear, you know, the politics of fear and resentment... We for good reason often in that in that context, think about, you know, white reactionary politics. But but our conversation today is also about how fear and resentment contribute to other communities and, and their politics and that are, that are part of this larger chain of violence. If we're ever going to realize this idea of a beloved community, you know, that is a community organized by mutual understanding and universal goodwill. And King, King stressed that to get there, we'd have to reckon with these realities of how our politics of difference breed violence, breed fear and resentment. We'd have to get to a place of mutual understanding and goodwill and, and, you know, for example, to see our to see how, we have common interests in an issue like corporal punishment, whether it affects us directly or not, we have interest in creating a society where we aren't, reifying a culture of violence starting in the high chair, or assuming that there is also going to be an electric chair. How do we get to that place where we collectively disavow, violence as a means of social organization? Lee: Geoff Ward, thank you so much. This has been powerful. And we'll keep the dialog going. But thank you for the wonderful work that you're doing. Fabulous. Keep up the good work. Prof. Ward: Thank you. Lee, it's great to talk to you again. Lee: All right, brother. For years, I had an inner voice that told me, "My parents hate me." So much around us in America, from Black comedians who entertain and electrify crowds with their jokes about beating Black kids, tells us that there is often great contempt for Black children – that they hold the lowest standing in society and therefore should be violently punished with impunity. It takes a countercultural, conscious Black parent to see that every Black child deserves life, liberty, happiness, and positive reinforcement every day. These interviews helped me understand that the first step towards breaking this toxic belief—that violence with Black children is a necessity—is recognizing that they possess bodily integrity and innate intelligence and are neither superhuman nor subhuman, even if the broader society doesn’t always see them in that light. We must be careful about internalizing the historical belief that Black children are built differently than white children and can endure more pain. The reams of science proving that corporal punishment has harmful long-term effects apply to them too. I believe that my parents and others unconsciously internalized these classically American beliefs about Black children. We have experienced every facet of America, from its deepest injustices to its greatest achievements. Because of that, it is easy to embrace the prevailing philosophies of this country that we played a heavy hand in building—we are deeply interwoven with its history and its belief system. But those who continue to advocate violence against Black children in homes and schools must reject those racist beliefs and instead embrace a new paradigm that sees and nurtures the full potential and worth of our children. There’s a gospel song that says, “He saw the best in me when everyone else around could only see the worst in me.” We need more Black parents and communities to take the lead in seeing the best in our children. I hope that, armed with information about the generational and ongoing cycle of governmentally codified violence against our children, combined with the ever-evolving neuroscience showing that even the anticipation of being beaten can trigger the brain in ways that lead to anxiety in adulthood, more parents—Black and of all races—and school administrators will make a conscious decision to retire the hand, tree branch, belt, and wooden boards of the slavery and Jim Crow eras. We need to breathe life and affirmation into all children, ensuring they grow up with the support and validation they need to thrive, both at home and in society. If corporal punishment was designed to protect Black children, did it really help when it came to growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood? Black kids and the American Dream - that’s the next episode of What Happened In Alabama… CREDITS What Happened In Alabama is a production of American Public Media. It’s written, produced and hosted by me, Lee Hawkins. Our executive producer is Erica Kraus. Our senior producer is Kyana Moghadam. Our story editor is Martina Abrahams Ilunga. Our lead writer is Jessica Kariisa. Our producers are Marcel Malekebu and Jessica Kariisa. This episode was sound designed and mixed by Marcel Malekebu. Our technical director is Derek Ramirez. Our soundtrack was composed by Ronen Lando. Our fact checker is Erika Janik. And Nick Ryan is our director of operations. Special thanks to the O’Brien Fellowship for Public Service Journalism at Marquette University; Dave Umhoefer, John Leuzzi, Andrew Amouzou and Ziyang Fu. And also thanks to our producer in Alabama, Cody Short. The executives in charge at APM are Joanne Griffith and Chandra Kavati. You can follow us on our website, whathappenedinalabama.org or on Instagram at APM Studios. Thank you for listening.