-Hello and welcome back to Book Lust.
I'm Nancy Pearl, my guest today at Folio in Downtown Seattle
via Zoom is Dan Berger, whose new book is called “Stayed on Freedom,
The Long History of Black Power Through One Family's Journey.”
Dan teaches at the University of Washington, Bothell,
and I'm so happy to welcome him to the show.
Dan, thanks for taking time from grading
final exams for,to talk to us today.
-Thanks so much for having me.
It's really a great pleasure.
-Dan, your most recent book, “Stayed on Freedom,”
gives readers a different view
of Black of the Black Panthers.
Would, would you would you would you agree?
And would you expand upon that?
-Yeah, well, I'll tell you that it gives the readers
a different view of Black Power,
because people often tend to
to associate Black Power with the Black Panther Party,
which is an unquestionably important organization in the history of Black Power.
But one of the things this book does is locate Black Power in
the civil rights movement.
And so it's a biography of two long-time but little-known organizers
who met in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
and who were both instrumental alongside many others
in developing these ideas that we now associate with Black Power.
And so the Panthers make very, you know, brief cameo appearances in the book.
But it's you know, it's a book about Black Power that
has very little about, about, about the Panthers.
-Mm hmm. -And because I
wanted to show the larger ecosystem
that Black Power existed within and how,
you know, everyday people
and the kind of folks who so rarely make it to the history books
are actually the driving forces of change, even of something as grand
and kind of world transforming as the idea of the Black Power.
-Mm hmm.
Because when, when, when most people think about the Black Panther Party,
we think about Chicago, you know,
the Chicago convention, and we think about the leaders.
You know, and the the big, big, big
the big ideas that were.
But, but what you've done in this book so well
through focusing on this couple is
partly is to show that
that anybody can make a difference,
you know.
-That’s exactly right.
And you know the book follows these two people, Michael Simmons and Zohara
Simmons, who are now a divorced couple, but lifelong friends,
um, through their own their own journeys of becoming activists.
And one of the one of the, you know, idiosyncratic ways that, that
they sort of found themselves involved
in political social justice activity,
but also what kept them going because so often
these stories that we have a pretty narrow focus.
You know, we talk about the ‘60s,
you know, either as a decade or even sometimes as a micro decade
of the civil rights movement from, you know,
1955 to 1965 or 1960 to 1964
or these are so often our stories of the movement.
And so, you know, knowing these, these people,
as I have for many years, I knew that they were still involved.
And I know
that they
both began involvement in different ways as teenagers.
And so, you know, now they're, they're both close to 80.
So, you know, we have
more than six decades of experience to draw from.
And I think it tells a much more interesting
and a much more dynamic story
of the civil rights era of the Black Power movement,
when we can look at the, you know, the quote unquote, foot soldiers,
the kind of unheralded figures who actually were
on the front lines of a lot of this social justice activity.
-Mm hmm. How did you find these, these people?
-Yeah, I mean, you know, in some ways, it's it's enough to make one believe
in fate or kismet or even
some larger force.
So Zohara Simmons dropped out of school
in 1964 to be a full time activist.
Went back to school later in life to finish her
bachelor's degree and ultimately got her Ph.D.
And she started as a professor at the University of Florida
the same year I started there as a freshman.
And so I heard her speak because she was a guest
speaker in a history class on the civil rights movement.
And I was just blown away by her story.
And it was really inspiring both to hear, to hear her story,
but also it was sort of literally inspiring.
And I would hear her speak.
And then I marched to the campus librarian and checked out all the books
that I had.
And really, you know, at 18,
I just inspired me to want to learn more about history.
And when I graduated college, I moved to Philadelphia,
which is where Michael Simmons was, is from.
And though he no longer lived there, he would still visit quite frequently.
And I met him pretty soon thereafter.
And it was a similar experience of being just, you know, blown away
by the intricacies of his story
and really by how much both of them,
their stories had not been captured by the historical record.
And, you know, there was a lot that that had been
a lot of those of their experiences that are shared by their generation,
you know, being outraged and moved to action by the murders of Emmett Till.
As one
profound but significant example.
But then there was so much
that, that was not there and there there's so much that was not, not captured.
Some of it and is, is just about
the problem of narrowing
to a particular time period, as I was saying a minute ago.
But even within that, you know, there were different,
different groups within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
and they both were part of one called the Atlanta Project, which was SNCC’s
first attempt to organize in a big city after having mostly
spending its time organizing rural Southerners.
And, you know, there's very little about the Atlanta project before
“Stayed on Freedom,”
and much of it was pretty dismissive.
And so this was a chance to really dig deep into an aspect of the civil
rights movement that had been overlooked, but one that really,
at the risk of being grandiose, changed the world
because that is an important seedbed
from where the ideas of Black Power were developed and grew.
And so just sort of knowing them and their stories and knowing how much
those insights still carry them all around the world,
they're both globetrotting international human rights activists
into their seventies, was a story I felt like I really needed to tell.
-Did they feel that
their story was worthwhile telling?
Or did you have to sell them on it?
-Yeah. You know, they're both such great storytellers.
They're great people to just, you know, chat with and be at a party with them.
So, and so, you know, they, they had some experience
telling their stories informally in different places, but they both
were quite skeptical that there would be an audience for the book.
And, you know, I mean, as you said
earlier in your question, so many of our histories
are just of the kind of formal recognized leaders
who were giving speeches or in front of the camera.
And, and, you know, they're aware of that as much as anybody.
And so I think that was more of their concern,
whether people would, would
care about the work of these sort of frontline activists.
But it just felt so important to me, you know, talking to my students
or just other people who, who only
recognize these few handful of names.
Well, you know, there's 250,000 people that go to the March on Washington
and there's 450,000 people that boycott New York City schools
in protest of,of racist curriculum and poor funding.
You know,
right before the March on Washington.
Hundreds of thousands of people participated all over the country
and all over the world.
Millions participated in these kinds of movements
and if we only know half a dozen names,
we're missing how that happened and we're missing why that happened,
and we're missing the legacy of all of those efforts.
-Your books are
your earlier books and “Stayed on
Freedom” are, are really
um, focused on,
like person to person interviews.
I mean, you spent a lot of time clearly sitting down
with Zohara and Michael talking to them.
And your earlier books as well are in that.
Your research comes out of, in a way, those interviews.
Is that a,
is that a, a, a format that
that you are particularly comfortable in?
Or did you feel it was the best way to get
the, the meat of what you what you wanted?
-Right. Yeah, You know, a little bit of both, I think
even though I've done a lot of interviews and earlier books, this was a whole
different order to approach a biography and think of it as a biography.
So it's not just sort of slotting interviews into a larger story, but it is
how do you tell the larger story of and through these people's lives?
And so going into it, you know, it was such a benefit and a blessing
to be able to work on a project with and about people who are still alive.
So I knew, you know, and I felt I've done interviews,
I know how to do this, but this was a much
more depth full level of engagement.
Some previous books, I would interview
someone usually just once, so we'd spend a couple hours together.
Some people, maybe we would do a second or third interview,
but this is, you know, years of interviews
on top of many years of friendship and knowing each other.
So it was a level of intimacy and engagement that
that is far different than I realized
it would be when I set out on the project.
-Yeah, And actually, I think that comes through in the book
and the way the book is written and then the
the insights into their marriage
and the insights into the three of you as partners.
-Yeah.
-In, in this book and in, and in the work for social justice which,which you are
still involved in as a,
as a college professor but as a person I think.
-Yeah I think that's something that, that sort of bonded us
and that allowed us to sort of do this project in a different way.
-Are there other people
in the Black Power movement or other people in,
I mean, I know one of your books was on
SDS,
The Weather Underground.
What was that like when you, when you did that?
-Yeah. You know, that was my first book
and I was very young and very new
of the process.
And so I look back on that book with a lot of fondness
because I think I sort of learned how to write a book through
writing it, and also some bit of trepidation
because I was so young.
And then I hope, I hope it stands up.
But, you know, I think that that's certainly an example
where I knew someone
and that was part of my way in.
But then a lot of the people who I interviewed for that book, you know,
yeah, we spoke a couple of times for, you know, a few hours.
But, you know, that's certainly the project where I learned
what has become my method, I guess, as a writer
and as a scholar,
that is a balance of interviews and archival work and sort of going back
and forth or really putting them in conversation with each other.
-Putting the archival work in conversation
with, with the, with the present, actually.
-Yes. -Yeah. -Yeah.
And being able to sort of draw from people's reflections of
being,
being there, wherever “there” was, that there was a presence or being a part
of the recent past and also being older and read
and you can sort of look back on what you did in your 20s
as someone in your 50s and 60s or something.
And so, you know,
I think I've just really been interested in that kind of, um,
on the one hand,
you know, historical precision in what I am writing,
but on the other hand, a kind of blurring of the past and the present
in the process, I can go through these archival documents
and ask someone who wrote them or who read them and was influenced by them
to, to sort of reflect on their meaning and significance.
-Was there anything in particular
that surprised you about Michael and Zohara’s experience?
I mean, something that illuminated the Black Power movement for you
in a way that it hadn't been?
-Yeah, there's a lot there.
I think one thing when I began the project,
Michael was living in Hungary, where he had lived
for a long time and was where he was engaged
in a lot of human rights work, particularly with Roma communities.
And I, you know, when I began the project, I had been studying
Black studies, African American history for a long time.
I had a
I had a decent sense of a kind of Black internationalism
that connected Black Americans to people
in the African continent, that connected people across the Americas.
But I was still baffled with
how does this Black Power organizer find himself
in Hungary working with Roma communities?
That, to me felt
a bridge too far.
I didn't quite get that piece of it,
um and so I think doing this research and I'm really, you know, sort of digging,
digging deep with, with him and his history and just sort of following,
following the path of how he got there.
It just illuminated
that Black internationalism is not just and has never been just about the,
quote unquote, “Black world,” but it has always been about the world
and that kind of orientation to people who are being oppressed.
And what does it mean to empower them
to fight for, for their own lives and fight for their own communities?
And I think it's something that I understood
so much deeper as a result of doing this project.
-One of the,
when, when we met at the King County
Library fundraiser,
Literary Lions, we were at tables next to each other,
and of course, I was really interested in your book, and I'm so happy
that this worked out that we could talk more about it. But,
but I asked you what you were working on now, and the answer
that you that you what you told me was just fascinating to me.
So can I ask that same question?
So, so Dan, what are you working on now?
-Yeah, I'm embarrassed that I'm not further along in the
in the months in
between, but I'm in the early stages of a of a project
that is essentially an incarcerated people's history of the United States.
So thinking through
what does this country look like from the perspective of those
who it has incarcerated and imprisoned?
And of course, prisons have changed over time.
But I think there is a certain tradition
among the
knowledge and ideas
that get recirculated within
jails, prisons, detention centers, workhouses, um,
that I want to explore in this book.
-And do the same way by interviewing.
-So this book will be a little bit different because it's trying
to go, it's trying to go to the start of the United States from before.
And so it's drawn you know, a lot of my work
has been in conversation with the 1960s
moving forward.
And this I'm going back to the 1760s.
So as I certainly won't have the same kind
of source material and interviews.
As I move more towards the present.
Yeah, certainly the interviews will be,
will be a part of that, but this will be much more archivally oriented.
-Do you feel a kind of, um,
not to put more pressure on you, but do you feel [laughs]
do you feel a kind of pressure that you need to, to get those
the views of those like old, older prisoners,
you know, down in some way?
-Oh, absolutely.
You know, I have long felt that we needed,
That we need a version of the Works Progress Administration,
you know, effort that happened in the 1930s to,
to capture their, capture’s maybe the wrong word, but to record
the voices and experiences of people who had been enslaved.
And that has given us this,
you know, profound, complicated
because of the prejudices of many of the interviewers,
but a profound archive of oral history about slavery.
And, and I think certainly with the,
you know, with less kind of patronizing
and paternalistic attitudes, but I think we need to do similar things
for people who are currently incarcerated or, or are formerly incarcerated.
-How do you go about finding, how are you,
how are you going about finding the right people to talk to and getting permission?
Actually, I guess that would be another
good question to ask you.
-Yeah, for sure.
And this is where I'm still kind of mapping out
the project in terms of who to include.
And I think it will be,
um, you know, I think there are some people who are
so clearly a significant to the story
of American incarceration that they need to be there.
I've done a lot of research on George Jackson, who remains
although long deceased, remains an influential figure.
So, you know, he's someone who clearly belongs to that story.
Eugene Debs, as
you know, the presidential candidate from prison
to some date, the most successful presidential candidate.
-And we might have another one who knows.
-So, you know, I think there are some takers
who are clearly sort of canonical
in the story.
But, but part of the point in that project, really,
I think a lot of my work is to bring, bring attention
and focus to people who are not well known and, and yet who,
who illuminate some sort of profound truths.
So there is someone who is also deceased,
but a man named Yaki Sayles,
who was a really sophisticated thinker
about changes to, to the inner city
that were happening at this alongside the rise of mass incarceration.
And he was writing in Illinois in the ‘70s and ’80s.
And so, you know, he's someone that I'm really keen to include in the book.
And I'm on the advisory board of this effort called the American Prison
Newspaper Archive, which is an attempt to digitize prison newspapers
from their beginning in the 1800s all the way to the present.
-Wow. -It's really going to be relying a lot on that project as a way to
to identify and work through this kind of literary tradition.
-As someone
who's been interested in and worked
in the social justice movement yourself,
your family, what do you see,
are you a saver in your own in your own life?
I mean, are you, you know, do you like save every,
I guess people aren't getting letters, but do you know what I mean?
Are you somebody because you know the importance of archival material?
-No, there's a reason I have my background blurred on Zoom.
It's because it's a complete mess behind me,
filing cabinets overflowing with papers. And,
you know, more and more prison systems are
are giving some version of email.
But there are still many incarcerated people who only have access to the mail.
I think the work that I have done around
or against mass incarceration, with the work I've done with different
incarcerated people has given me a lifelong love of physical mail.
And so, yeah, a lot a lot of what exists in one of the filing
cabinets behind me is, is letters
and mail, so yeah,
I am a horrible, horrible savior.
-Well, that's probably as a historian, that's probably really,
really good in many ways.
What's the next area?
Do you think that that that the prison that the prison,
the prison work that you're doing, which certainly intersects
a lot with everything else that you've done with the Black Power,
you know, the state on freedom?
Do you do you see yourself sticking with
those two as your kind of life's work or.
Yeah, you know, it's, it's hard to say.
And in some ways I don't I don't have a novel inside of me.
But I think, you know, certainly as a scholar
of African American history, you know, that, that is
the realm of ideas in history,
as I am always working through, thinking through.
And I think there's no way to, to engage
with that field or with our reality
that is not also so principally engaged
with mass incarceration.
-Right. -So I think is ignoble experiment and, and locking people up.
And in some way that feels very much a part of who I am and what I'll be doing.
But the forms that that will take even
I think have changed over time and into generative ways.
-Right. And do you learn a lot from your students?
-Absolutely. Yeah.
And, you know, the Bothell campus of UW is a really special place to be.
And I have a lot of students who are really passionate
about these ideas and also who have different kinds of life experience.
So when I teach about mass incarceration, I frequently have students
who have loved ones who are incarcerated or who themselves have been incarcerated.
And, you know, I wouldn't expect otherwise,
knowing what I know about how many people have, have been
incarcerated in this country, right, if the numbers are what they are,
we should expect every classroom reasonably is going to have someone
with a kind of personal connection to these issues.
-Well, Dan, thank you so much for joining us today and um,
good luck with the new book.
And I just want to say that “Stayed on Freedom”
was a book that I stayed on reading because it was just um,
it was a great combination of the personal,
it's where the personal and the, and the public intersect.
And I thought that was just beautifully done.
So congratulations. -Really tried to do that in this book.
So I’m glad that that comes through.
-Thank you so much. -Thank you -Bye.