Ida B. Wells at the World's Columbian Exposition, 1893

Pack your proverbial bags and hand over your room key, we’re leaving the Expo. 

Show notes here

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

If you've been a fan of the 1893 World's Fair, this might change your opinion just a little bit on how dope it was. Let's talk about the 77 Flavors. Let's get it.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Hello. Yeah. And welcome back to another episode of 77 Flavors of Chicago. If this is your first time listening, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, wrapping up the World's Fair. We had a mid-episode there that was uh for Juneteenth, a special one. But this is where, you know, we're we're wrapping up uh the series that we started on the World's Fair, but every week we dive into a piece of Chicago history and uh beyond, I will say. Uh-huh. It's a little Easter egg for the future. What is what foreshadowing? There it is. Uh, if you're not new here, welcome back. Thank you so much for joining us. And we're so happy you're back. Um yeah, that's all I got for the uh for the intro. Uh if you are new here or if you're old here and you don't follow us on socials, make sure you follow us everywhere at 77flavors at C H I Chai for Chicago. And we post a lot of really cool content uh from the podcast, from all over the neighborhoods. There's some fun things in there if you uh want to find cool things to do around the city. Also, uh it's a it's an array of a variety of content. Um, and if you are also not subscribed to our Substack, you can do so through the um uh website, or you can go directly on Substack and uh subscribe to us there. I will everything is linked in the show notes, which that is what you get. So the show notes are uh what I send out weekly, but if you don't want to go and find them, they will come to your inbox every week.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

So something else I'll add is that the Apple Podcast experience has gotten better. Yeah, you can watch us on video now. Yeah, you can watch the video of us, which is really cool. Um, and it's super simple. If you already you ain't gotta do nothing different, like no nothing. Just all you gotta do is like load up your Apple Podcasts like you normally do, and then uh it'll so I I think it'll start playing video.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

I believe so.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

Um, and then you have the option. If you said I ain't trying to look at them, you can you can just you know press the little button and say go back to audio.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Lock your phone.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

No, I think if you like, I think it's still play. I don't know. I don't know. We but but either way, you could just uh yeah, you could you can swap it, and it might be vice versa. But yeah, that's pretty fun. It it took us a little while to get the the subscription thing, you know, like to have that feature added. Apple Apple made it kind of kind of tough. If you don't got nobody that's doing this for you, this is this could be yeah, it could be challenging.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

It's easier if you're a part of a larger network, uh, because they have like direct uh people that's attacks and like yeah, stuff like that. So it's just me and Dario.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Yeah, right. Figuring it out. Figuring it out because we'd have figured literally everything out about this podcast.

SPEAKER_04 2:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Like from from putting it, publishing it to editing. Anyone wants to buy this podcast? No, no, I'm just no no, we got if you want to be a sponsor, that's different.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

There it is, we'll probably be hiring someone soon and an editor, hopefully.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Yeah, because we is summertime boy summertime just kick off and it just ain't no looking back until October.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

I know, like no looking back. And uh it's getting busy, there's a lot going on in the city. Um again, Substack is I I don't include this in the show notes, but the Substack does have like things to do around the city. And then if I have any like discount codes or anything like that for events and uh like shows and stuff, I'll put those in the Substack, but I will not put them in the show notes per se. So that's another another reason for you to sign up for that. Um, but uh one thing that we got to preview this week that is uh for next season is uh lyric operas uh fall well 2026-2027 season, which I can't believe we're already there. Right. Like I feel like we just watched uh the 26 yeah 25-26 preview. Yeah. Obviously, we went through the whole season, but it's kind of crazy how quickly it was was crazy October through May.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Yeah, what's crazy is um seeing like learning what they do on the off-season. They really don't have to have an off-season, like like internally, they move it. You know what surprised me is when dude said that in the summer they go six to eight weeks where they will dry run the show with tech run. No actors, right, just the set to tech run, and they just move in the set just to get this this the rhythm down of the for the hand stage hands and all the directors and everything.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

The like cues and everything.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Uh to me, that it was mind-blowing because like, bro, like they are literally just doing it with how do you do that with no people? Doing it with people is hard, right? Doing it with no people and just knowing, all right, we gotta, this is how we do it. But I figured, you know, you gotta figure out how to how this stuff works at some point. But like, I didn't, I did not know. For some reason, it's it was really cool to see.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

And we got to go on stage, we got to it was it was just Dario threw some washers at the wall. Hey, if you if you want to see that video, it'll be up on our Instagram this week.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Um I almost made it. Almost made it. It hit the hole.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Yeah, apparently the stage hands while the show was going in the back, they play this game where they throw washers at the wall, and it's like, I don't know, a 20-foot ceiling. Uh more, more, more way more, more. It's on the it's technically the second floor. So the second floor of the ceiling, yeah, there's a hole in the wall, and if you make it if you make the little washer in the hole, you got a piece of tape with your name on it put up on the wall. And there's only three pieces of tape up there. Dario got really close.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

It it so y'all, it hit the edge of the hole. Like, I I was like centimeters off from getting my name up there. I don't know if they would have put my name up there, but we would have had it on video.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

But I like I was uh video proof, and that was my last throw too.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Um, but there's actually a ton of stuff that Lyric does throughout the summer, too, in the neighborhoods. There's like Lyric in the park, they do a show in Millennium Park in a few weeks, I th I think uh kind of like another preview of their Ryan Opera Center, which is their like up and coming uh performers. And I don't know, it's a really we also do have a code that they give us at the beginning of the season that we'll share. And I think it gives you 10% off any ticket you want, which uh also a hot take, not hot take, hot tip. Uh if you buy tickets the same day, uh you can get them for pretty cheap. But like you can find tickets for like 30 bucks.

SPEAKER_03 6:43

Yeah, if you if you can get them, yeah. If they if they stay there, right there. And if they stay there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

That was that was really cool. We also went to uh JB Pritzker, uh had a happy hour for Pride, and that day was actually insane. We started out the day in Hillside by uh interviewing the mayor of Hillside, which that is uh a series coming soon. That's our next series. We're gonna be in the beyond part she tried to tell y'all about. We're gonna be in Oak Park and Beyond. So it's Oak Park and the neighboring uh villages. So that's coming soon. We interviewed the mayor of Hillside, which he is a very cool guy. Dope dude. Oh my god, I can't wait for you to experience that. There's so much in that area that I I feel like we never even uh think about because Chicago is so rich in history. But that those surrounding towns have played a huge part. A huge part. I mean, obviously they have their own history, but like Capones. I mean, it was it was just very, very cool.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Yeah, yeah. I mean, what's really cool is that you the more you venture out, you realize how much these other neighborhoods uh go hand in hand with Chicago.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

A lot of ties to it, a lot of times it was an escape from Chicago, whether good or bad.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

You know, right? They had to escape uh from and they went to these towns and they made the town. You know what I mean? Families lived there and and made the you know the towns where they were.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

You know, you know what I uh I think is really interesting. We didn't talk about it last week, but the week before we we went to a uh church with uh Landmarks Onoi was having a programming at a church uh that uh recently was given Landmark status. And they always talk about this idea of like history is only interesting because people love a place, right? Like you preserve places that mean something to people. At the end of the day, it could be some people might think it's beautiful, some people might think it ugly it's ugly, but it's like what matters to people, right? And I think when we're you know, being in Chicago, you kind of like it's such a cool place of history for so many people, you know what I mean? Like it's like we can all collectively agree that architecture in Chicago is gorgeous, right? But like when you go to Hillside and you visit like their town hall was a seminary, right? Like just because it's um further out or like not as much in the mainstream, like these stories still matter to so many people. It's just like on a smaller scale, because like the towns were like six thousand people or seven thousand people or twenty thousand people, like the where I went to univers school, Illinois State, like it was the largest population was on campus, which was twenty thousand students, yeah, and like the town was so small, but it was also just a ton of history.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Yeah, I mean what's really cool for us is that we get to like expand our knowledge. I exactly find these, you know, if if it lends to it, the tithe to Chicago. If not, that's fine too. You know, we just start we just build on the knowledge in you know the area too. You know what I mean? Like because this we know this was native land, so right figuring out what what that was like. It's it's just really cool to be you know kind of going down this path now. Right. Yeah, I like it a lot.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

It was it was really fun. So yeah, that same day we interviewed the mayor of Hillside, and then Daria was on on a panel with the city clerk, yeah, uh, and our friend Anna Deshaun, uh, who's now joined City Cast, which is really cool, but she does uh queer news, and uh it was a panel about again listening to the uh uh audio archives of the uh um city hall what is it what is it called again?

SPEAKER_03 10:18

City hall, council hall.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Yeah, the council, yeah, city council, city council meetings from the 70s to the 2012. Um, and it was uh specifically about because we're in June, it was for pride. Um, and that was another really cool conversation. And then we bopped over to JB Pritzker.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Boped, yo. We we down the street. That was the crazy thing is like not well the the uh missionary baptist church wasn't uh this week, but we did a lot this week. Yeah, like now that I think about it. First I was like, what did we do? We did a lot. We did a lot. We bought a bunch of records. Yeah, we bought a bunch of records. We bunched, we bought a lot.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Also, shout out to Animal Records in Evanston.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Uh I don't think they know who I I know they don't don't know who we are, which is totally fine, but uh we love their records shop. They're actually are just moving over like next door because they over like they outgrew, but their prices are super fair, they have some really cool things. Like I often look for Arabic records because they're so hard to find. And they every time I've gone there, they've had at least one or two that I could like grab. So, and the owner is super nice. He waited until his kids uh went to off to college, and his wife was like, Okay, now you can fulfill your dream of owning a record shop. He's successful. I'm so happy for him.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Yeah, they got a lot of stuff in there. He got a lot of stuff in there. He got a promotion going on. I don't know what the promotion is. Maybe you could put it in the show notes.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Um, it's uh uh 50% off the basement or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

Something like that. Because everything is five dollars and below. So that's what it is. Everything is five dollars and below in the basement, and he got a lot down there. Oh my god. So they I'm sure he's trying to clear that out just so he can have more space for the other stuff. So um we should go back to it. Yeah, we uh yeah, yeah, sure. I ain't mad at it. I ain't mad at it, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Um, but that's all I have. I'm I'm kind of a I'm kind of uh anxious to get into this one. It's gonna be a very interesting episode.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Yeah, this is uh this is gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

So here at Lyrics Opera for a preview of their new season, and there's already so many cool shows happening. My favorite thing about lyrics is that not all of the shows are just classical lyrics, but not classical operas like you would expect to see. There's some really fun shows happening this year, and I can't wait for you to learn all of them.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

I'm gonna first be understanding the honey, I'm gonna be playing the following, and I'll be singing the roles of the hunt, please in the heart, and I'll also be singing the role of following in the heart. Just trying to get the words going. Um, hopefully with the rhythm of the summer, we have a great, you know, opportunity to work with the coaches often. We work with them, you know, two, three times a week at least. Um, so you know, we can work on some of those, or we can work on hard as like all of those kind of things, but we definitely have the options most of the time to get a lot more work given what as far as like preparation of other rules.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

You know, Sofronia being from the south side of Chicago, seeing that show for what it was, uh, and what it related to as a cultural piece to me personally, uh is something you I'm never gonna forget because they're never gonna forget that. Those actors they did their fantastic a fantastic job, that the whole stage and staff, everybody put that thing together. It felt like church. That's what Avery was saying. It felt like church, and like honestly, I remember sitting there thinking, damn, I'm like 79th in Polina and 62nd in Campbell, here we are in Lyric Opera. And like two years ago, I wouldn't even know what to do, like at an opera show. And now here we are watching some people that you know I probably ran across, and that's from my neighborhood. So, man, that that was that was one, but I would also say um the Friday was crazy. That was that was crazy, like that was it was good because we had been to Casa Azul in Mexico City. So uh, like seeing the rendition and seeing this part of that story, because like we saw her that if anybody been to Casa Azul in Mexico City, they left that place just the way it was. And so to see her like living again, like in that man, I was like, that is crazy. But man, that those two ever wanted to see the lyric opera from the stage. This is it behind me in all its glory. 3,563 seats. Could you imagine being here and trying to perform? Another fun fact here is if you see these numbers right behind me. I don't know, come a little closer, come a little closer. Those numbers right there, that is how the people on stage know where they are, like distance-wise from the center. So the two and two, you're two feet to the stage left. Over here, you're two feet to the stage right. Crazy, had no clue, but isn't this view beautiful? Y'all, so we talked about all the things of the World Fair. And don't get me wrong, World's Fair, you know, incredible. Incredible, incredible. We got a lot of things from it, a lot of new inventions, um, a lot of uh new things that are still around today. Chicago's culture, part of Chicago's culture was built there, right? You know, we can't deny that.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

I mean, Daniel Burnham's it was basically his uh his like uh application to to plan Chicago.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Yeah, right. It literally was his application. Yeah, but of course, but we gotta talk about everything with the World Fair, and everything includes the people.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Now jump straight to it. Black people weren't involved with this. Right. We weren't involved. We we know. We seen some of the comments, y'all talking about man, the black people, we we know. We know. Here we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna do that by talking about one, Ida B. Wells. Now, Ida B. Wells, if you don't know who that is, I mean, I mean sorry. Yeah, if you don't know who she is.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

I'm sorry. If you drive through Chicago and you've never been like, I wonder who this what this is named after.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

Why does it go Congress and then Ida B. Ida B Wells. What is who is why do people keep talking about her?

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Okay, okay, okay. If you don't know who Ida B. Wells is.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Let me put you on.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

That's that's what we'll do. That's what we'll do. We we're not gonna assume you know everything. Especially, you know what? Well, I was about to say, if you're not from Chicago, you might not know her as much.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Here's the thing. I don't want to, I don't want people to feel uh guilty, guilty for not knowing pivotal pieces of history. I think you should. I think and I think listening to a podcast like this, you are making the intentional choice to learn. To learn, right. And I and I commend that. And as someone that did not know Ida B Wells when I moved here, um and 15 years ago, I mean, we were we here's the thing, we're not taught American history. Yeah, right. I learned European history. That's expected outside of a country. And and we don't know who's who's listening, people from other countries listen to this. So, like, I I I think it's uh absolutely okay that you don't know certain things. And I appreciate that you're making the effort to learn them. Right. And I'm happy that you chose this as the way to learn them. This is um a safe space, but after five years, you should have to go back and go back and listen to our IW Wells episode. I think it was a really fun one. Uh, we also have a few uh videos on our uh page about her.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

So IW Wells born July 16th, 1862. The year before uh the Emancipation Proclamation. Yeah, uh she was born in Mississippi 1878. She moved to Memphis, Tennessee. She became a teacher at the age of 16. At the age of 16, she taught her siblings and she taught uh other other people, mainly her siblings and and herself, really. Uh she became an educator. Uh then she uh her life went into journalism, right? Because she started to learn, you know, like when you enlighten yourself about what's going on in the world, you want to do better.

SPEAKER_04 18:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

You should. You should you should want to do better. You know, you should want to do better. She did, right? It was an incident where and this is cool. Shout out to real quick, shout out to the uh Hannah Holborn Gray Collection, Special Collections over at the University of Chicago. We absolutely love it there. Got our information from, you know, some of our information from this, which is very, very vital. Uh, they got a lot of stuff there, so I want to give them the credit. Um, but there was a she took a train ride, right? On the train ride, you know, the conductor came by, she bought her ticket, she was sitting with the women, she bought a ticket. Uh, conductor comes by and be like, you gotta get up out of here. She wasn't going. She wasn't, she wasn't going. She bit the dude. She bit him. Locked jaw. Just just just got his ass, right? Wow. So much so he was like, Oh, bro, I need backup. So he got like a few more people came. She bit them too. She was like, I got this.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

I want to know what happened that led to her biting them.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

He put a hand on it.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

I'm sure he he grabbed her. Yeah, he grabbed her.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

She was she was like the boy Mike Tysoner.

unknown 19:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. You know, bit bit the hell out of her.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

Yeah, I mean, if someone, if someone grabs you, it's the easiest thing to do is to immediately bite them so they let go.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

Yeah, pit bull teeth, too, I bet. She was probably not a little bit more. No, no, no. No, just like she said it. It was Dr. Tyson. She said I had pit bulls. No, she didn't say pit bull teeth. She didn't say that. She did say she locked down. That's what pit bulls do. They just anyway. So she got kicked off. She got kicked off the train, right? Um however, 1884, she sued the rail company.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Yeah, she sued the rail company. She won damages. She won. I'm shocked she won. Now, here's the thing. So was the Tennessee Supreme Court. They was like, they overturned this. They overturned it.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Did they? Yeah, they overturned it.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

They overturned it. Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

However, that jokes out.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Yeah. However, she was the first black person to ever appeal at state court.

unknown 20:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

On the state court, uh, Supreme Court level.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

That that was that's crazy. Now, well, let me finish that. To uh to appeal to state court uh after the repeal of the Civil Rights Uh Act of 1875. So so at that point, they were like, bro, who who do you think you are?

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Yeah, like what's going on? She was still young. I mean, she was youngish. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 21:15

She was young. Yeah, she was under 20, 22 to be exact. Um, pretty young.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

I was I was doing dumb stuff at 22.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

Super dumb. Yeah. Super dumb. I was not appealing for celebrate drinking Sirac. Talking about I'm a Sirac boy. No. Come on now.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

You were not saying that.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

I was saying that. I got pictures. It just matter of fact, just pictures just popping up. That's so embarrassing. It is embarrassing. Pictures just popped up on my, you know, the favorites. I mean the memories. Memories? Yeah, yeah. Just popped up. Your boy was holding, cuddling a bottle of Sirac. Cuddling. I was down bad. I was down bad. Oh my God. I was down bad, man. It was, it was I'm not proud. You've really had a gut. You know what I mean? Like and I had plaid plaid blue shorts on with a with a white. I was so down bad.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

To match the bottle?

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Yeah, your bottle was blue.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Because each one of the Siroc things had seen a Sirac mom.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

If I could find a picture, I'll put it in the episode. Oh my God. So sad that your boy was down in the it is. It really is. Back to back to this. Back to this. Because this that is embarrassing. I don't know why I said that. Um, you couldn't have beat that information out of me. Yeah. Somebody should have beat my ass. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Somebody. And look, this is not an explicit episode. Somebody. Ida B. Well should have beat me. She should have locked out on me.

SPEAKER_04 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

I think I was going through it. I just got broken up with and some shit like that. So your boy was. I was throwing dope parties, though. I was throwing some dope parties. Yeah, yeah. One of the parties was if you came with the uh with the um McFlurry from or the uh this the drink from at the time they had it um uh they had a drink from at McDonald's and it was like a like a drink, but it was a mix. If you came to the party with that, I greeted you at the door with Amaretto Ciroc, and I poured it in your drink. We call it mixed swags because I got it from I hate to say this.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

At the time, we got it from Diddy.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

We got it from Diddy. He was calling the mess because Ciroc was his thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

I spent way too long on this. Anyway, in the 1990s, at least for three minutes. No, it wasn't that long. It wasn't, y'all. Uh uh, 1890s. She started traveling across uh the country because she was on her journalism thing now. She was she was trying to get her activist. This was the start, that was kind of like the start of her activism, right? She started being like, hey, look, we still deal with racism out here, man. Like, we 20 years removed from, you know, the the uh man's premises proclamation. We in the construction area, reconstruction area, and we still going through this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

And Jim Crow is alive and well, yeah, yeah, very much so.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Uh she traveled across the United States and Great Britain. So you should have known about I'm just playing, uh, and Great Britain talking about lynchings and and the violence and and basically what lynchings were doing here in America and and not just what they were doing, uh, because we'll get to it uh a little bit later, but the economic uh the economics behind you know what the lynchings were doing and killing all black folks. Right. So she was so she was like really putting this message out there, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Just putting the message out there, which was very dangerous work.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Very dangerous. I mean, very dangerous.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Like this is uh, I mean, we talk about um the Pullman Porters moving a newspaper on the train was we were thinking that you know they were being beat and you know killed for that. Can you imagine being the person that's going around the country spreading the word about what the United States is doing? And that was being pro and like that all all of that, like she was she was truly putting her life on the line for for this for this message.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Just out of control. Now here's the thing this was after the World's Fair. This is so August, well, during the World's Fair, really. During the World's Fair, but August 4th, 1894, the Daily Inter Ocean put together an an article about her, right? Or what she was doing, right? It was called Against Lynching, Ida B. Wells and her recent mission in England. Okay, and it outlined basically what I said, and again, we'll get to it. Um, now all this prompted, it prompted um the United States to pass the anti-lynching law in the South.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

And uh now you have like global pressure, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

You got global pressure, and she see here's the thing pressure coming from England is is hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

Ironic, if if you if anything, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Especially at that time.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

They were so like, boy, they were thinking about taking up colonizing. They was like, well, we should go rob then.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:59

Um, but they here's the thing. Uh so here's what what she found with the lynchings or after the laws were passed. Lynchings dropped from 235 in 1892, so a year before the World's Fair, they still lynching people, uh, to 107 in 1899. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

I mean, that's not that that's a drastic drop, but the drop should be zero.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Should be should be zero. And before I get to the next point, um, I do want to uh, yeah, here we go. I found it right here. Y'all, I have uh, and and we're gonna get into this book, but this is called uh the oops, the reason the colored American is not in the World's Fair. And uh in this, I'm gonna get this binding.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

This is the correct title, The World's Columbia.

SPEAKER_03 26:54

The World's Columbian Exposition.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

And this is what um we'll we'll talk about what it is in a second.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Yeah, we'll talk about this. But in this, they uh they she Ida B. Wells has a chapter where she talks about the Lynch Law.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

Let me tell you, this shit graphic.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

I couldn't, I honestly couldn't uh get through the whole thing. It was very graphic.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Yeah. Um the the fact that they break down the numbers is just uh is is out of control here, man. Like, like I don't even I don't even want to look at that just yet, but uh we're gonna get into that as as part of what we're gonna be talking about. Where's Alcapone buried? Let's talk about it. All right, so right now we are in Hillside just west of Chicago, and found out where Al Capone is buried, and honestly, I don't know why I said it like that because you can just search it and find it yourself. But we're here to show you in case you've never come out here. He is buried right here. Come right here. Here's Al Capone's brave side, and here's the really interesting thing here. People come all over from all over and they flip stick up and stick away from there's the whole thing right there. We're trying to figure out what the hell is right there. You know, maybe it's because they have been a brother with the full sickness. I don't know. I don't wanna put that on, but uh it's better too, but people come here and drop all kinds of things. The interesting thing about this grace is not just his grace, it is literally his entire family is buried here. His mom is buried right to his left, his dad is buried further to his left, uh, then I'm sure he's got brothers, family, uh uncles, and all that kind of stuff all buried here, right by Al Capone.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

I I do have a quote that kind of summarizes the experience of black Americans at the World's Fair, if you don't mind. I just want to share it real quick. It said, at the World's Fair, African Americans stood as a people without a nation at a gathering of nations.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

And that's a perfect start. Okay, that's a perfect start to where we're going. So this is the uh the pamphlet that was created by four people. Created by four people. It's called The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition. Now, this is a pamphlet outlining why we should, why we aren't, and the ramifications of not having black representation. Just and mind you, this is 1893. Yeah. Okay? This is 1893. We talking like this, and we still talking about it right now. The four people that are um co-author of this pamphlet are Ida B. Wells, Ferdinand L. Barnett, her husband, I. Garland Penn, who was very interested in, he was a journalist, an educator, and uh a lay officer of the Methodist uh Episcopal Church. Yeah, Episcopal Church, uh, all across, you know, especially in the South, right? And then none other than Frederick Douglass, part of the Haitian government, and he was obviously an orator, abolitionist, and uh to argue, probably one of the greatest, the greatest uh civil rights uh activists of the 19th century.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

I I I do want to plug uh Garland Penn's um 1891 book that he published. It's called Um Afro-American Press and Its Editors, and it's actually he he talks about African-American newspapers and magazines published between 1827 and 1891, and it talks about uh, you know, journalism and all that kind of stuff. I think it's a really interesting one. I kind of want to do a deep dive into it because it he talks about like thinking of black journalism in that time period had to be really interesting.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

Yeah, yeah. So this book, and they there's this pamphlet. Well, it's a pamphlet.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

People, people received it.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

Yeah, I'm gonna get to it. I'm gonna get to it because like he the setup for this pamphlet is crazy, right? Um, this, like I said, it outlines everything we talked about, right? Um the it's on the front of it says copy sent to any address on a receipt uh uh on receipt of three cents for postage. So that means she said you paid three cents stamps or three cents at the time, right? That's wild. Um, but it came from uh Ida B. Wells at 128 South Clark Street.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Very interesting there, um, which is right there in the loop, right across from uh Sterling Food Hall now. And uh, yeah, in that little area. But this book starts out, this pamphlet starts out real strong, right? They talk about some graphic stuff. And lynch law is just one thing that they talk about in there, right? They talk about Frederick Douglass talks about he kick off the book. He kicked it off, right? And just start start talking his stuff, right? But how do we get here? They talk of this was made, if I'm reading this correctly, it was made like in early, right? Early 1893 in preparation to be given out at the World's Fair.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

Here's the thing the World's Fair didn't have no black people there, except for except for one that worked the on the grounds, and three that were clerical people. They outline how they how we should, how black people have educated themselves after, you know, the World's Fair, um, sorry, the uh Man's Pacing Proclamation.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

Which were only three decades from that.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

And how we've bettered ourselves and how we're qualified, right? How we are qualified to be in these positions. There's appeals in this book that they say, hey, look, we've tried to appeal to the people that are working the world's fair. We wanted a uh that they approach the national board of directors, yeah, right, and say, hey, why do we have a separate ex exhibition for this for black folks? Yeah, just so we can talk about the contributions as as well as the accomplishments of an America of the United States that touts this is for all the people, and we play perhaps the biggest role in the United States. And so the board said no.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

No, no, even the women's building, which very uh explicitly excluded black women, um they there was you know, because they were approached, they was said, okay, include us in this one. Black women have had immense contributions to the to the history of women. And mind you, women at this point had no rights to vote. Like w women are still fighting for their own right to exist, and they are also being exclusionary of black women in a very explicit way.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

Now, to that point, y'all, this when how the lady board got into it, got it, got in the mix with this, right? And give you some context. We talked about the lady board of managers, right? Lady Board of Managers, obviously the Chicago chapter had uh Bertha Palmer.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

Now, disclaimer, y'all, because we don't know this for sure. We can't say that it was all it was uh uh Bertha Palmer. Yeah, we can't just say that, right? Because it was all over the United States. They every every state had a representation. So so I put that disclaimer out there for what I'm about to say now. This the board wanted to, and it doesn't say in here who wanted to do it. They saw the paperwork and all the appeals come through, and it just says that hey, some of they they were able to get far with it because they were listening. Word for word, hands tied. Right, hands were tied, like, hey, y'all, there's nothing we could do.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

It wasn't their decision at all.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

It wasn't, and it wasn't, and so they they were like, hey, we hear you, but ain't nothing we could do about it, right? There's nothing we could do about this. Even prior to that, right? Prior to that, there were only three clerical workers, and black folks are trying to make our way in at any rate. Yeah, here's the three clerical workers M, Dr. uh uh Mr. J. E. Johnson, Mrs. A. M. Curtis, and Miss Fanny B. Williams. Now, all of them, the only appointee was the first one, J. E. Johnson. He was appointed, right, as clerical worker. So they were like, yo, we can pass the paperwork through. The brother, the brother gonna help us out. He left his position. Next person took over. Same thing happened to her. Fanny took over. Now, at this point, they saw Fanny was a great representation. We talked about her. Go back to the uh women's episode, listen to who she was. She was very good at her job and as a person, right? Doing what she did. They were like, hey, look, we got Fanny. What more can you ask for? And again, I'm paraphrasing, but here it is, page 74 of uh the book of the pamphlet. They basically said, Look, you don't take Fanny. What's going on? So there was a resolution adopted, okay? They took resolution, right? They took some of the resolution. The result resolution that that the director general be requested to lay before the local directory the expediciency. Man, that rolled off the tongue. I ain't never seen that word before. You don't want to hear this, okay? No, no, I'm listening. Of having it, you had deadpan. What's going on? Um, of having the Department of Publicity and Promotion employ a colored man and a colored woman to promote the interest of the world's Columbian Exposition throughout the United States. Long story short, they said No. Nah, we can't do nothing about that. It's nothing we could do. They had they made floats, $90,000 made in floats that were uh that were uh to use to be used on opening day, yeah, which the floats were discarded before they finished and never used at all. Entire cost being absolute. Nothing. Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

I I will say that um, because some people are gonna say, well, there were black people there. And the few exhibits that did include black people were so much around social Darwinism, which if you're not familiar with social Darwinism, it takes the biological theories of evolution and uses them in a way to perpetuate racism and uh kind of confirm that uh people of that are non-white are inferior because they look a certain way because of the color of their skin, because of it's horrendous um theories that pretend like they're using science, but it's really just racism coated in a cup in a cloak. Uh and so if you if you remember when we talked about the midway plaissance, we talked about how a lot of what was shown there were the lesser than white people and also the non-white people, like they had and and and I know that you're probably gonna talk about it in a little bit, but a lot of where the Frederick Douglass Ida B. Wells work took place was at the Haitian Pavilion. And the only uh place that was brought reflective of West Africa was Liberia. The Liberian government had sent uh some representation, which if you don't know the history of Liberia, I encourage you to look that up because it is vile um and horrendous. But it there, you know, it they also had to sit through a lot of these conversations about where it was like Confederate people that were support in support of the uh Confederacy and like people that were um imperialists that sat around and talked about colonizing Africa and sending black Americans back to Africa. And they talked about um, you know, the lack of need of constitutional rights for black Americans and uh this the status of the and the future of Liberia and like all and you had people like Ida B. Wells and Freddie Douglas sitting there, or other black Americans that were kind of in in this fight sitting there and having to listen to this insanely racist rhetoric while they were trying to fight for black Americans just showing a little bit of their um kind of accomplishments.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

Yeah. And which which is wild, and you you you said it, the only person in in this regard, the only uh black American, right, that was represented at the Columbian X exposition was Frederick Douglass. Yeah, and the only reason he was represented was because the Haitian government was like, we gotta choose somebody, we gonna choose you right to represent. Here's the last page of the pamphlet, and and it's just an excerpt from it. That it remain that it remained for the Republic of Haiti, Haiti's pill, H A Y T I, uh, to give the only acceptable representation enjoyed by us in the fair. That republic chose Frederick Douglass to represent it as commissioner through which courtesy the colored American received from a foreign power the place denied to him at home. They basically said, we giving him a position he should have had here in the United States. Yeah. And here it is. Now, let's bring it back to this pamphlet in Ida B. Wells. Ida B. Wells was kind of the steward of this pamphlet. Frederick Douglass invited her in to have a space at the Haitian booth just to be there.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

It was the pavilion, no.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

To pavilion. To be there to pass out this pamphlet. She hawked this bad boy, was just giving it out. Anyone that came through, here, take this pamphlet. Read up. Here's why we not represented at this current world's Columbian Exposition.

SPEAKER_04 42:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Now, this is this is going on, right? This is while this is going on, what day is this going on? Because like now, we lost in translation here. Because like we we've talked a lot about racism this episode. We get it. You know, that's to tell the story. There's more, there's more to it.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:23

The a resolution that you never hear, something you never hear about when you're talking about the World's Fair 1893. They gave us a day. They gave black people a day. It was called Negro Day. This was the day Ida B. Wells was like, I ain't participating in that bull junk. We I'm just gonna pass out these uh pamphlets. It was August 25th, 1893, almost at the end of this thing.

SPEAKER_04 42:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

It only ended two months later.

SPEAKER_04 42:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 42:53

You we only had three months uh of doing this, right? Can you believe that they gave it was Negro Day? And it just was, they went to the board and was like, hey, we gonna we're gonna give you this date. I'd be well that Frederick Douglass was like, nah, man. No, bro, we're not doing this. We're not doing this.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

Because what did that even entail?

SPEAKER_03 43:12

Right. What you didn't have boots, you know, you didn't have nothing there. You just parading around, like you said, the other braces that were dark skinned.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

You spent months perpetuating the thought that black Americans were less than not worthy of being uh showcased in their accomplishments and showing any population that kind of looked different or was different as quote unquote savage. Yeah. That was the word that that was used. It was and a lot of these articles of the time that describe, you know, the Tribune had an article talking about these savage villages that were were there. I mean, it was uh and Frederick Douglass protested a specific exhibit. Which is the um it was a village that was again West African and it just depicts people as barbarians. And like the newspapers published like pictures of white women looking shocked as these like men walked out in in you know specific outfits that um they they called as like it was um it was so unfortunate that they could not get clothes. Sorry?

SPEAKER_03 44:26

Yeah. This whole the whole thing when it came to vile. In here, um, I didn't write the page number down, but um in here basically uh in this section this section that I just quoted the the piece from was uh by uh Ferdinand Barn Barnett, her his her husband, right? Um he wrote the last pay uh chapter and it was called uh what was it called? It was called um The Reason Why. It was called The Reason Why. In in there, he basically said it's very much uh it's very much so a white city. Uh in every sense of the word. One more thing. One more thing. Just here's the here's the page that talks about the uh August 25th, right? In consideration of the colorproof character of the exposition management, uh, it was the refinement of irony to set aside August 25th to be observed as Colored People's Day, so not Negro Day, because this is Colored People's Day, uh, and this wonderful hive of national industry representing an outlay of $30 million and numbering its employee by the thousands, only two colored persons could be found whose occupations were h were of higher grade than that of janitor, labor, porter, these two uh only clerkships. It goes on, right? It goes, it goes on. Um, it uh that like as I'm as I'm reading it again, I'm I'm chuckling because it's like the the stuff that they black people have to write that. Like that's like that's crazy. I gotta read that. Imagine writing that. You know what I mean? Imagine writing what is going on, and I'm just all I'm doing is reading it back. It's just it's just crazy, man. Um I will say special thank you to uh again the Hannah Holborn Gray Special Collections uh over at the uh University of Chicago. One last interesting piece about this uh this pamphlet. I don't know if it come it came with this. Obviously, it didn't come with this, but they included it in the downloadable PDF, which I think you should leak in the uh show notes. I will leak it in this.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

You do have to make an account to access it, but it's free.

SPEAKER_03 46:51

Yeah, yeah, right. You can do that. You got time. Um, this is a loan receipt from the uh to loan receipt to the uh Chicago Historical Society, Chicago History Museum, and uh shows, you know, I I hereby acknowledge that I have examined the shipment of materials lent to the Chicago Historical Society in the agreement executed under date July 1st, 1976, and that the materials listed below have been returned.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

So this is a like someone borrowed it, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

The the uh Chicago Historical Society.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

What did they borrow?

SPEAKER_03 47:29

They borrowed this, the pamphlet.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Oh, the original pamphlet.

SPEAKER_03 47:32

But it's you scared the dog mind. But it's not from it's not the fact that they got it, it's who it's from. Who Alfreda M. Barnett Duster.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Oh Ida B.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

Wells' youngest daughter.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Yes, she uh loaned it out one of her last few things before she passed away. She passed away 1890, uh 1983.

SPEAKER_02 47:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 47:56

Um, so yeah, she loaned it to him. So she had this 1983. Yeah, yeah before I was born. 42 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 48:03

I was gonna say 90, 90 years after her mom was doing this.

SPEAKER_03 48:07

Ain't that crazy? That's crazy. Ain't that crazy? Wow. Like that's that's wow. 90 years later, she uh she she did that.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

I will say, uh, as as you listen to this and as you reflect about how people are represented in spaces, um, especially when we're coming up on uh a pretty remarkable anniversary for this country. It's America 250, right? And in just a week or so you're going to be celebrating. And uh I think I don't want you to lose hope in this country because that's what they want you to do. They want you to lose hope. I I want us to be hopeful that there's a better future, that things will get better. And this is a space for you to do that. I want people to feel hopeful, but I I think it's really important that we when we listen to this history and we reflect on it, um, that we don't forget these stories. That we don't it's important to realize that this was happening a hundred thirty years ago, and it's still happening in some circles today. Maybe we're not learning about social Darwinism explicitly, uh, but there are people that hold firm beliefs that perpetuate these racist ideals. And um, there are rooms where black and brown people are not represented. And there's spaces that are intentionally exclusionary. And so whenever you're celebrating, whenever you're learning, whenever you're talking to your ch your kids, whenever you're talking to your family, it is a hard conversation, but it doesn't have to be. Uh, I think I I think a lot of people hold some guilt, and so it it it kind of stops them from having these conversations. But step one is to recognize your role and your privilege and um kind of the pla the what role do you want to play in the history of this country? And it starts in your local community, it starts with your family, it starts with the people around you. And I want you to feel hopeful, I want you to feel you know that you can even if it's changing um the perspective, you know, entering a room and and and changing your perspective about how you see certain things. If you go to a museum and you see who's being represented there, the accomplishments of what people are being spoken about, and how um, you know, we're all online, we all see the the vile things that are being said, and when when you log off, what are you taking away from that? Um, so I this is not too far far away from where we are right now. This is not that far back in history, and unfortunately, we are inching closer to it. Um and that the the you don't have to be the next IW Wells, but you can be the clerk worker that wanted to make a difference. You can be literally the smallest part that you want to play is to make sure we don't plummet into oblivion. Yeah. Um, so don't lose hope and make sure you invest in your community and the people around you and you continue to learn because um when you're educated, it's harder for them to silence you. And it's uh easier when you know the truth.

SPEAKER_03 51:28

All right. Hey, so check it out, y'all. Um, we are on on the Sarah's note here. There is America 250 happening uh right now, which is uh the only reason I'm bringing it up. Uh the only reason I'm bringing up the uh celebrations happening uh at the uh Cap was it, the mall? The uh the mall over there, DC. Um it's very similar. It's taking finds from the uh 1893 World's Fair.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

It's the midway place on trying to be.

SPEAKER_03 51:54

It's taking finds from there. So um just uh that's just a bit of history we bring up. It's pretty fun. But I do want to say this. Um we wrap we're wrapping up the uh World's Fair, right? This is this is a I I would like to say, even hearing this, right? Um would I have been there? Probably not. Well, I probably I probably wouldn't have been there, right? However, we look back in the past, not not to like say, hey, look, let's sweep this under rug because we gotta do better, right? You got no better to do better. We got a lot of fun things out of the uh World's Fair, right? That everybody loves. Black, white, brown, everybody. You know, we we all we all enjoy these things that we have, right? From the World's Fair. So it's fun to talk about. It's fun in a sense to learn more about how things came to be and what, you know, you know, whether whether good or bad, because we do need we do need this history to get better, right? We need to we need the history to ultimately just do better. So um we appreciate you uh listening to uh this you know five, six part.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

Yeah, you know, uh this is a longer one.

SPEAKER_03 53:00

It was long, but it was it was necessary because I know this is a joy of yours. You you always want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

And I think it's also like important to approach things with a bit of nuance. Yeah, you know, I think um it's it's hard for me when people are like, this is absolutely wrong and this is absolutely right when it's there's so many layers to I'm not talking specifically about the the uh world's fair, but in general, um, I think some things aren't as uh I I just I just think I wanna I want people to have more nuance when they're when they're dissecting things. Just because we criticize the World's Fair and we talk about these uh racist practices that were happening there, uh doesn't mean that you don't have to or you can't appreciate the things that took place there. Yeah um this is a country that's that's riddled with a a dark history that we can't just not talk about.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 53:55

You know, I think and like it is still happening, it is still our reality.

SPEAKER_03 53:58

Yeah, and you know, to that point, you know, we were at the Obama Presidential Center, and I think uh, you know, the residents who live in that area have a right to have an opinion, right? Of course. You have you have a you have a right to have an opinion. It's the people that's around uh that don't really always have to be able to do that. Or have never been never been. Y'all gotta shut your mouth up. You know what I mean? Like, and and because it's that's the thing, you you're doing it without a perspective, right? I would say educate yourself before you say anything.

SPEAKER_02 54:27

I don't think anyone that listens to our podcast doesn't think that way. Right, right, right, yeah. You know, I think not y'all. I'm talking about like the unlimited amount of comments that we got on on our socials that we had to delete, that we had to block, because it was getting treacherous, horrible, yeah, it was horrifying.

SPEAKER_03 54:44

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 54:45

It was it was actually horrible. It was scary.

SPEAKER_03 54:47

Yeah, man, look, these these punks, here's the thing, it ain't scary to me, man. You know why it's not scary as well.

SPEAKER_02 54:52

It's scary that there are people out there that are comfortable to say these things out loud.

SPEAKER_03 54:56

You know, those are those are people that's not gonna do nothing in real life, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, granted, there's people that that move in that crazy in real life, but yeah, those are keyboard warriors, those are people that are just just some punk punks in real life. But um, I do like I'm glad that we did the uh world's fair because now I feel like I got like a way more knowledge. Matter of fact, I'm glad that we did the world's fair back to back with the plan of Chicago. Yeah, you know, we could have we could have done the world's fair uh first, but I think it was better that we did the plan of Chicago because you got some context as to why the why he did what he did. And and that's that's you know, and before that, we talked about the um the Women's History Month. Yeah, and we talked about all these things played a factor in the World's Fair. Yeah, you know what I mean? And all three of them connect. So um I like I kind of like this uh the the series that we had. I don't know what y'all feel. What if y'all like the series? We got a lot of good feedback on the series. We did. I think uh I like them. But now, now, you know, we talked about the beginning of the show, we get to uh kind of branch off. Branch out.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

So yeah, uh our next series is Oak Park and Beyond, uh, which I'm really excited about. We've already started prepping and and recording that. So I'm I'm so excited for you to experience that one. I think it's gonna be it's gonna be really great.

SPEAKER_03 56:14

Yeah, it's already great. We already, we already, we already filmed one episode. So we we we know that one's good. Um and uh yeah, it's yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to just learn. Honestly, I just can't wait to learn about things.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

Yeah, like that's just that's I want to see, I want to see different archives in different places.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

It's just so cool. Yeah, how does this time to Chicago?

SPEAKER_02 56:34

Exactly. Uh well, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone you love. Um, it is the best way to support us. And um if you don't forget to sign up for the uh Substack, it is on our website, uh, it's in the show notes, it's in all those good places. And if you if there's any topic that you want to talk about or learn about, you can always go to our website and fill out a little form. Tell us what you want to learn about, and uh we'll do our best to kind of touch on it. But until then, we'll see you next time. Peace.