Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen

Unveiling History Through Poetry: Glenn North

• Kathleen Brandt • Episode 2539

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Join us with Glenn North, Director of Inclusive Learning and Creative Impact at the Museum of Kansas City, as we talk about the vital connection between art, history, and social justice. 


Visit Glenn's site at: 

https://www.glennnorthpoetry.com/


Lynch Family by Joseph Hirsch

https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/24036/lynch-family


Be sure to bookmark linktr.ee/hittinthebricks for your one stop access to Kathleen Brandt, the host of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. And, visit us on YouTube: Off the Wall with Kathleen John and Chewey video recorded specials.

Hittin' the Bricks is produced through the not-for-profit, 501c3 TracingAncestors.org.

John:

Ladies and gentlemen from the depths of flyover country in the heartland of America, the Kansas City, on the other side of the mighty Moe, welcome to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. I am John, your humble hubby host, and today we'll be talking to author and poet Glenn North. He is the director of inclusive learning and creative impact at the Museum of Kansas City. There's a lot to cover, so let's start Hittin' the Bricks and action.

Kathleen:

So, john, today we have Glenn North with us, and Glenn has a very interesting background which I'm going to let him introduce himself to our listeners. But I have a thousand questions for him, as usual. So Glenn's used to me doing this to him, but it still can be rather uncomfortable. So the two of you need to try to control me, okay, tell us about yourself.

Glenn North:

Yeah, yeah, so my name is Glenn North. I am currently the Director of Inclusive Learning and Creative Impact here at the Kansas City Museum. Well, we just recently rebranded. Let me correct myself we are now the Museum of Kansas City. In most museums, that job title would be Director of Education, so I do all of our education programs. I'm also the poet in residence here at the Museum of Kansas City. I oversee a series of poetry programs that we have here as well.

Kathleen:

So you oversee poetry programs? Is that a concentration at the Museum for Kansas City?

Glenn North:

Because it is my background, I was able to fold it into my scope of work. My scope of work, what we do at the Kansas City Museum, is all kind of under the umbrella of restorative practices. So all of our methodology, our programming, just the way that we do business, our North Star is restorative practices, which is an offshoot of restorative justice. But what that means in the museum space is that we are really concerned about building relationships, whether it's interpersonal relationships or relationships with the community. We're interested in doing the work of repair when harm has been done so really quickly.

Glenn North:

For instance, I just had a meeting with our curators who are working with NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, to make sure that all of the artifacts that we have in our collection, all the artwork, any objects that we have that come from various indigenous people, that those items were acquired ethically and in some of that investigation. When they haven't been, we want to do the work of returning those items to where they belong. So far as it kind of plays out in a broader sense is, we want to make sure that we are amplifying the voices of people, groups, that have historically been overlooked in the museum space. Our tagline is home of the whole story, including yours, so that's what we do. I like that yeah.

John:

Love it.

Glenn North:

On a broader scale but in terms of the poetry programming that I've been doing under the Restorative Poetics Initiative is bringing in poets who are using poetry as a vehicle for either social justice or highlighting historical narratives that have been overlooked or distorted in some way, and so there are a lot of poets that are using history as inspiration for their work, and so trying to connect with those poets and giving them a platform here and having conversations around their work is something that I'm really excited about. But we also do programming for high school students, who just this past weekend had the Poetry Out Loud regional championship.

Kathleen:

Glenn, I just read about the Kansas City chapter of the Louder Than a Bomb Youth Poetry Festival. Is that part of this or no?

Glenn North:

No, so Louder Than a Bomb underwent a lot of changes. That was a citywide youth poetry festival that I helped to found, and I was the artistic director of oh gosh from 2012 to 2021. But the pandemic and some other kind of administrative changes meant that we couldn't continue the program in that same way, but that is something that we are trying to reimagine under this umbrella of restorative poetics, because it was so. So poetry out loud was, is, is students who are reciting classical poetry, so it's a recitation kind of a contest, and students are judged on, first of all, accuracy Did they memorize the poem correctly and then, secondly, interpretation and demonstrating that they understand the content of the poem. That kind of thing. Louder than a bomb was students competing with their own spoken word pieces, and so it just had a different kind of vibe, and so both are valuable and important, absolutely. There has been a lot of conversation around how we revitalized the Louder Than a Bomb Poetry Festival.

Kathleen:

Wonderful. So, john, one of the reasons I wanted Glenn on the program is because, as you know, tracing Ancestors, which is our not-for-profit that sponsors our podcast, hitting the Bricks with Kathleen our emphasis is in community work and I have to admit I know nothing really about the space that you're in and that's why I have so many questions for you. One of the questions I have is the fact that you and I had done also a program at the Nelson Art Gallery, so I want you to tell me a little bit about that podcast also, because I think you also have a podcast with the Museum of Kansas City. Is that correct?

Glenn North:

We don't necessarily classify it as a podcast, but it has a podcast feel. It's a virtual program. So we classified it as a virtual program. So I'll talk a little bit about both. There were two parts to that question, so I'll start with what we are doing here and then I'll move into what has been happening with the Nelson. So during the pandemic, when people couldn't gather in person, the museum came up with the concept of Restore KC so that we can continue to do programming and build community in the virtual space. So the idea behind that was to just interview people from all different walks of life, whether they were experts in the area of history or social justice, various areas that the museum is concerned with to keep programming going and to somehow try to connect. During the pandemic and then once we reopened, that program kind of fell to the wayside and our director would like for us to revitalize that. So in our relaunch, kathleen, you were going to be our first guest. So shameless plug for that.

Kathleen:

Thank you. Oh wow, thank you. I didn't know I was the first guest for that, so thank you.

Glenn North:

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I immediately thought about you after we met and I heard your discussion about genealogical research and I felt it would definitely be appropriate, as part of kind of what we did for Black History Month. We classify it more as a virtual program than as a podcast.

Kathleen:

And that program is called what again?

Glenn North:

Restore KC. So, with the Nelson, I had done a lot of work with the Nelson and my relationship with the Nelson is kind of complicated and I'll just give you a quick backstory. Back in 2009, 2010, I was asked to do an ekphrastic poetry workshop for the Nelson, asked to do an ekphrastic poetry workshop for the Nelson, and ekphrastic poetry is just a big fancy word for poetry that's written in response to artwork, or poetry written in response to a visual image. So the idea was that I would take participants through the various galleries of the Nelson, they'd pick a piece that spoke to them and they'd write a poem in response to that and I would guide them through the process.

Kathleen:

So this isn't fair so far, Glenn, because you're answering my questions before I get to it.

Glenn North:

So one of my questions was the vocabulary?

Kathleen:

What is it drastic exactly? And how do you do that? So in the meantime I watched you do a piece on the Lynch family blues. So I'm kind of stopping you. We'll go back to the Nelson. But the Lynch family blues was because the Nelson purchased this photo by Joseph Hirsch. Right, yeah, it's actually a painting. It's a painting. I loved your piece on that and that was an original. About the artwork I don't normally get that excited about either art or poetry, but I found myself looking up. I looked up the painting on the Lynch Family Blues and actually the Montreal Star has something about it in 1940. And then somehow the Nelson Atkins got it around 1947 or 8. I was more than intrigued that. I listened to your piece twice on that and I went back to make sure is that really what this picture is talking about? So I researched the picture, the artist and you and the piece.

John:

Not to lie.

Glenn North:

But what's so interesting, kathleen, is all of this comes together in answering your initial question, because all of this is what led up to the podcast. Because when the education director at the Nelson called and asked me if I'd be interested in doing an acrostic poetry workshop, I didn't know what it meant, but thank God for computers I looked it up as we were having the conversation and, although I didn't have the language for it, I had done that kind of work before.

Glenn North:

I just didn't call it that. And so, anyway, in the process of me doing this workshop, I had to pick a piece at the Nelson to write a poem in response to, if I was going to guide the participants through that process, and that particular painting spoke to me. And so the painting by Joseph Hirsch, who's a Jewish painter, depicts this woman who's obviously distraught. She's just bent over in grief and she's holding a baby. That's kind of raising. He's got a rattler in his fist, but he's kind of raising it almost kind of in the black power fist, if you will. It was before the black power fist was a thing, but that's what it puts you in the mind. Power Fist was, you know, a thing, but, but that's what it puts you in the mind of. And so I was immediately drawn into, you know, wanting to understand this painting. The fact that a Jewish painter had done it, I thought, was just an incredible demonstration of empathy, in that in the 1940s, jewish people didn't have it so great either. They were being oppressed as well. So for him to demonstrate that empathy and to create this painting that, in this very kind of quiet way, spoke to the horror of lynching, was just really intriguing to me.

Glenn North:

The other part to this story is, as I'm going through this process, the director of education calls and says hey, and you could just hear kind of this kind of apologetic tone in her voice. You know there are a couple of people who have some concerns and they would like to meet with you about, you know, the content of your workshop and what you plan on doing Now. Not to say that you know I'm the most consummate professional in the world most consummate professional in the world. But I never really had to prove my capability, you know, when I had been asked to do other workshops, and at that time you know I had a pretty I would say, decent reputation in Kansas City for doing that work, which is why the director of education had called me to do it in the first place. So I meet in front of this panel and I immediately feel kind of this tension that you sometimes feel and I just I'll just say it plainly like it felt like this was kind of racially motivated, like they were kind of questioning my pedigree and my competency because I was black and although that was never stated, that's just how it felt and that exchange was very uncomfortable. But I left that meeting feeling like I really needed to show them that I was capable of doing the job I had been asked to do.

Glenn North:

And so engaging with this poem, I mean engaging with this painting, the poem Lynch Family Blues is what I came up with and if you kind of visualize the painting, the poem says went out swinging last night, baby, hope you didn't wait up for me. Said I was swinging all night, baby, did you stay up late for me? I wasn't swinging in no joint, darling, I was out on the limb of a tree. Joint, darling, I was out on the limb of a tree. Now I'm walking on air. Baby Feels almost like I'm free, my feet steady, kick in the wind. Yeah, I'm close to being free. And for the first time in my life, darling white folks is looking up to me. Hear me, son. Your daddy loves you. Keep hanging on to hope you. The man of the house now Got to help your mama cope, daddy won't be coming home, no more.

Glenn North:

I reached the end of my rope and so that's the poem that the painting inspired. The workshop went incredibly well, and then from that point on I've done all of these different projects with the Nelson, including the podcast that you asked about. Also, during the pandemic, the pandemic inspired Restore KC, the virtual program that we do here at the Kansas City Police Department. During the uprisings that occurred after the murder of George Floyd knew that there would be protests that would be going down, cleaver headed towards that fountain Well, it used to be the JC Nichols Fountain, yeah, but that's where people would gather and so the police asked if they could stage at the Nelson to just kind of be prepared for any incidents that might occur. But tempers and emotions were at such a fever pitch. The fact that the police were staging at the Nelson was just really kind of bad optics and people started accusing the Nelson of wanting to protect their precious institution and not being empathetic to the protesters.

Glenn North:

And this whole narrative just started to catch on on social media and so the Nelson wanted to address that in some way and they came up with the concept of doing a podcast and initially had just asked if I would meet with them to see whether or not I thought it was a good idea, just to kind of weigh in, because I'd done other projects with them in the past and after we had that meeting and I had shared this story, some of them had not known how far my history went back with the Nelson in terms of my experiencing kind of some negative energy as it pertained to race from the Nelson, and so that in some way, I think, inspired them to want to go ahead and confront that really difficult history and to not use the podcast as a PR kind of.

John:

Right, there's some real content.

Glenn North:

Yeah, exactly.

John:

And real intention.

Glenn North:

Right and so.

Kathleen:

Glenn, as far as the podcast at the Nelson, it really is the Nelson Art Gallery. No, it's called the what is the full?

Glenn North:

name of it, it's called the Frame of Mind.

Kathleen:

It's called the Frame of Mind and the actual purpose of that is for healing the community. Or is that the purpose, or am I putting words in your mouth?

Glenn North:

It was really about looking at the history of race in Kansas City through the lens of an art gallery. So it was really more about the Nelson being accountable and confronting their past as it pertained to race relations and the role that they played in the Kansas City community in that regard, Kansas City community in that regard, but to just kind of generate conversations around race and definitely how art just as we witnessed with Lynch family, that painting how it can create a space for these kinds of conversations to happen. I think healing would. I definitely feel like that is a desired outcome, but I think we all wanted to be kind of realistic in our expectations in terms of how much of an impact a podcast could have.

Kathleen:

So you're thinking it's opening discourse is happening. It's a safe space to ask questions and to learn, right? Is that more?

Glenn North:

Okay and certainly, as I'm saying, I think healing, you know, is definitely a desired outcome. So the joke that Christine, the producer of the podcast, and I had is that our podcast is going to fix racism and we kind of said that jokingly To fix racism. And we kind of said that jokingly, but just kind of, you know, in terms of like, managing our own internal expectations about Right. Obviously we would want it to lead toward healing and community and all those things, but we we had hoped that at least it would generate conversations that people might not have had otherwise and to demonstrate how art can really be an effective tool to ground those conversations.

Kathleen:

Glenn, your family is from Kansas City and Missouri, by way of the South, of course, but you came up through Missouri and you've been several generations here in this area correct, correct, because my family is not With saying that. I also saw that you went to Lincoln University, which is at HBCU in Missouri, in Jeff City, and so I'd like you to touch a little bit about the history of Kansas City, tell us a little bit more about the community, and how are the people who are generationally they're African-Americans and generationally from Kansas City, how are they accepting this outreach from both the Museum of Kansas City and the Nelson Art Gallery?

Glenn North:

There's a lot of things that are in that question, so let me try to pace myself in terms of answering you. So the Kansas City Museum originally opened in 1940 and fell into disrepair by the time the early 2000s rolled around. I've heard stories of families that you know, black students that came here. Families that came here None of them were overtly negative or none of them that you know, black students that came here. Families that came here none of them were overtly negative or none of them that I've heard so far that people feel like they were excluded. So fast forward to, you know, the early 2000s and this idea that we could renovate the Kansas City Museum since it had fallen into disrepair. So in 2014, a renovation effort began and this whole notion of restorative practices became the framework in which the museum wanted to design the exhibits and kind of undergird the way that we do business here. So in our recent iteration, we've been accused of actually being too woke.

Kathleen:

Right.

Glenn North:

So from from certain people who have visited the museum, when we talk about the history of the Nelson, it's kind of similar. There are stories that you know, having done the podcast and just the work that I've done with the Nelson over the years, where there are some remembrances of not feeling totally welcome, but I've not heard any stories of people just being flat out told that you can't come in here, you don't belong here. But one of the things that the Nelson felt that they could do a better job of was really engaging with local artists from all different backgrounds and their first exercise in doing that was with an exhibit that they had called Testimony, with artists from the African American Artists Collective, which I'm a part of, and so from that point on they've been doing exhibits with local artists from all different ethnicities and backgrounds and those programs have been really well received. And when I think about the history of Kansas City, my family and as it pertains to the Black community, you know the Black community originally kind of in that first wave of, you know, migration from the South, a lot of people were actually headed towards Kansas because Kansas was a free state and there was this idea that there would be more opportunities in Kansas and Missouri, having been a slave state. People were kind of passing through, but some eventually stopped here, which is what I had historically been told was the way that my family traveled to Missouri up from Tennessee when the 1920s hit and Prohibition went into effect.

Glenn North:

Tom Pendergast, who basically ran Kansas City, was known as Boss Tom. His family had a bar in the West Bottoms, a liquor distribution company. So, like at the bar, all of the politicians and the police officers and even some of the organized crime element all kind of hung out there, and when Prohibition went into effect, tom Pendergast was able to leverage all of his political and social connections to create Kansas City as what was known as a wide open town. So prohibition wasn't enforced here. Consequently, kansas City was a great place to open up a jazz club and for jazz musicians to find work. Obviously, the black musicians were, you know, doing an incredible job of creating and innovating that music, and so a lot of the best jazz clubs were between 12th and 18th Street. By the time 30s rolled around, you had 300 different jazz clubs in the greater Kansas City area.

Glenn North:

But as I said, the concentration of the best ones were in the 18th and Vine area. So even during the Depression, the Black community in Kansas City we talked to people like Black people were used to being self-sustaining. They were used to in some instances, even though we're talking about what was an evolving urban area, but they knew how to grow their own food, how to make their own clothes. So Kansas City's black community really did well during that era. And then there were other enclaves of black folks in areas like the Leeds, dunbar District and Steptoe.

Kathleen:

So hold on a second.

Glenn North:

Yeah.

Kathleen:

You've mentioned 18th and Vine quite a bit in talking about this, and then I also saw that you were a Poet Laureate of the 18th and Vine Historic Jazz District.

Glenn North:

Yeah.

Kathleen:

What does that mean?

Glenn North:

That appointment was a huge honor. So quick backstory, no-transcript. I grew up like my music of choice growing up was hip hop. I was not a huge jazz head, but when I when I got the job at the American Jazz Museum, then it became incumbent upon me to learn more about jazz music in general and Kansas City's contribution to it in particular, and Kansas City's contribution to it in particular, and so I really started to fall in love with jazz music and a lot of the poems that I wrote were influenced by you know, either the cadence of jazz music or the themes that I was exploring.

Glenn North:

You know the topics that came up in my poetry related in jazz to some way, and Congressman Cleaver is the one who sought, you know, oversaw the redevelopment of the 18th and Vine area when he was mayor, so it was always kind of near and dear to his heart.

Glenn North:

And so while I was at the Jazz Museum there was a great poetry program called Jazz Poetry Jams. That was really one of the flagship programs at the museum. And then Louder Than a Bomb you know that started while I was at the American Jazz Museum and Congressman Cle Bomb. You know that started while I was at the American Jazz Museum and Congressman Cleaver, just in his observation of how poetry was having an impact on people interacting in the district, thought that designation would be pretty significant, and so he is the one, along with the Jazz District Redevelopment Corporation, who gave me that moniker, and basically the idea was that I would continue doing what I was already doing. But you're kind of using poetry as a way to elevate the visibility and to tell stories about the historic 18th and Rhyme Jazz District.

Kathleen:

So, John, you're not from this area at all.

John:

No.

Kathleen:

I'm not Virginia.

John:

But I'm forever learning.

Kathleen:

You're forever learning. You have questions for Glenn.

John:

Well, actually I did so much of the community involvement that you have Glenn and different programs that you've sponsored or been a part of, and I'm curious as to what drives you in that, because I know a little bit about the type of commitment and effort it takes to do that constant jog and it just seems really remarkable the amount of things you're involved in and I'm just kind of curious how do you do it? What motivates you or gets you up in the morning?

Glenn North:

So, growing up in Kansas City, I went to Addicks Elementary School, which is in the 18th and Vine area, and Addicks was, by the time I started going to school in the 70s, certainly there was no longer. There was de facto segregation, I guess is what I'm trying to say. So Addicts was historically a black school and was still very much a black school when I started attending there in the 70s. So I kind of remember these seeds being planted when I was a kid about having pride about your culture and heritage, even in grade school. But it really became actualized when I was at Lincoln University and I just kind of came into this understanding. I understood racism on a one-on-one basis, right, I understood there are certain white people that don't like black people and there are certain black people that don't like white people, and that on an individual basis, I kind of understood.

Glenn North:

But then when I got into college and I started to understand systemic racism and how it impacts all these areas of human activity, whether we're talking about, like the prison industrial complex or disparities in education, you know the wealth gap, all of these things and so I really felt like how can I affect change? And so I became very much a student activist, got in a lot of trouble I don't think I had a chance to tell you this, kathleen, but I got kicked out of Lincoln University.

Kathleen:

I saw that. I saw that you finished your degree at UMKC, right right right, right, right, and so that was very upsetting to me.

Glenn North:

So I was really trying to call them to the carpet in a way that really raised awareness with the students, so much so that they said at one point that I had intended to start a riot with the speech that I gave and anyway, that led to me.

Kathleen:

I'm sure you did yeah.

John:

You can qualify all of that as getting into good trouble. I think would be John Lewis's term for it. Yeah, trouble, that's right, you got in good trouble there. I did I did, and so.

Glenn North:

But this is what's interesting. Kathleen and John, those speeches were very I don't want to use that word, but maybe I do. Yeah, I was trying to light a fire. What is it so like? If, with activism, you want to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, that's correct. There was a little agitation in that.

Glenn North:

If I'm being totally honest, what happened was, as I matured, I spent a lot more time and energy number one doing the work of self-interrogation. A lot more time and energy number one doing the work of self-interrogation. Because, you know, I was very judgmental and accusatory in those days and very quick to point the finger and didn't always look at what I was doing. That needed to be improved. And so once I got kicked out of Lincoln University, that was a wake up call for me, and then I just started spending more time investing in poetry in terms of like writing it and studying it on my own. I'd always loved it, but I just became a lot more intentional about it and what I discovered was I could communicate the same ideas that I was communicating back when I was given all of those fiery speeches, and people just received it different when it was clothed that, that they received that content differently in the form of a poem than they did in the form of a speech, and so poetry just began to to be very important to me.

Glenn North:

So in 97, when I heard about all of the revitalization efforts of the 18th and vine District, which had fallen into disrepair after integration, I knew that they'd be opening the Jazz Museum and the Negro League Baseball Museum and they were supposed to be all of these different clubs and kind of recreating all of that excitement that the district had back in the 20s and 30s. And at that point I was saying, hey, I want to be a part of that. How can I be a part of that? And I found a little hole in the wall, jazz club called the Mardi Gras, and I started hosting a monthly poetry reading there. But I really wanted to bring in poets who were interested in art as activism, and so the name of that poetry series was called Verbal Attack.

Glenn North:

You know, I feel very blessed to have had that opportunity, but it was very well received and supported and so that began my relationship with the district in terms of working with the Jazz Museum. And then, while at the Jazz Museum you just meet so many people from all different walks of life. And you know, you get asked to do a poem at this event, or you get asked to write a poem for that, or you get invited to this school to do a poetry workshop with this group of students, and poetry just started opening all these doors for me. Shop with this group of students, and poetry just started opening all these doors for me. And then, once I really saw how poetry was providing me with these opportunities, then I became more intentional about poetry and art as a vehicle to kind of deal with some of these issues of race that had just been so important for me to address, as I became more aware of how systemic it was when I was in college.

Kathleen:

So now John Glenn was our last guest for our Black History Month. Of course, we have Black History and American's History 12 months out of the year.

John:

I was going to say Black History in our house is a little bit.

Kathleen:

It's 365 days I signed up.

John:

I didn't realize it, of course. Almost 30 years ago I signed up for a 30 year course in black history. I hear you.

Kathleen:

You know what?

John:

The thing is that it's amazing. It's an amazing history. I mean, it's so inlaid and braided into American history. When you talk about intent the people who have separated that, who have caused a Black History Month to be necessary that is intentional. That was a systemic issue, because you could not unbraid those histories without it being intentional.

Glenn North:

You can't, and so the other part of that, so poetry is opening all these doors. But poetry is not the most lucrative endeavor. So my day job, thank goodness, has been in these various cultural institutions where you can do that work as well, right? So the Jazz Museum jazz was a way to kind of look at race relations and the history of race relations in America in general, in Kansas City in particular. I went from there to the Black Archives of Mid-America and then on to Bruce R Watkins Cultural Heritage Center, now here at the Museum of Kansas City.

Glenn North:

But what I wanted to say to your point, John, is that whenever we leave anybody's story out, we are all disenfranchised, Right? So there have been so many times where I've had, you know, white patrons who come in, and when I was at the Jazz Museum or the Black Archives, I just didn't know this and you can kind of feel like anger in them coming to that, understanding that I didn't know this. But that was by design, you know. And so with poetry being a part of my arsenal and having been fortunate enough to work in these various institutions where I can do that work, it's just been a huge blessing.

Kathleen:

So, Glenn, do you have a poem about you? You?

Glenn North:

Well, you know what? I had a student at a reading that I did who said I really enjoy your poetry. She said but I don't hear a lot of who you are in your poetry. And she was spot on. I've more often than not approached it from kind of a topical angle and you know, sometimes it's been about historical experiences that black people have been confronted with. Sometimes it's been about jazz music. One of the other things that has happened a lot is that I get commissioned to write poems for different events and different occasions. You just told me I was going to be right.

Glenn North:

I'm going to give you a $1 commission.

John:

I have now commissioned you for a total of $1.

Kathleen:

Everybody hears it.

Glenn North:

This is a poem I wrote for a Black History Month publication, a local publication that is done by the Kansas City Public Library and Community Link and the Black Archives of Mid-America, and it was a poem that I wrote specifically for this Black History Month publication and it's called I Sing their Names and I think it ties in to some of the work that you're doing with A3 Genealogy.

Kathleen:

I have it on my paper. I sing their names. I have this on a paper. I saw you perform it, so I mean, can you go ahead and read it to us, and that would be a great sign off.

Glenn North:

I know of a place on the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, originally the home of the Missouri, the Kansas and the Osage people. The place where York, strolling ahead of Lewis and Clark, set his left foot down and the whole world tilted west. A place that called out to my grandfather, basil North Sr, who, at 16, rode a mule 118 miles from Hartville, missouri, to Jefferson City to attend Lincoln University. He later saved up enough money to send for my grandmother. They both became educators, then moved here to Kansas City. Perhaps that is my origin story. Maybe that's why I love this city more than it loves me. Still proud to say it's where I'm from, because I know who came before me, my feet find comfort on their shoulders, those whose light shines brightly beyond February, right into eternity. And so I sing of Langston and Parker, miss Bluford and Mary Lou, old Buck, Leon Jordan, horace and Bruce Sarah, rector Junius Groves, tom Bass and Anna Jones Rector Junius Groves, tom Bass and Anna Jones, count Basie, chester Franklin, bernard Powell and DA Holmes. They are legion, and I chant their names almost as if holy, because you have to be careful about who you allow to tell your history.

Glenn North:

As Malcolm once said, folks that won't treat you right, won't teach you right. We must tell our own stories, reclaim our narrative. We must read research, collect, interpret, curate, archive, document, observe and report. There is a little brown girl in a classroom who has no idea how beautiful her Afro puffs are and she needs to know. There is a little brown boy who doesn't see himself reflected in a biased curriculum so he loses interest, gets labeled with a behavior disorder, drops out, runs across the right cop on the wrong day and becomes a headline and a hashtag. He needed to know. There are little white children in schools all over America being taught that the world revolves around them. Before they grow up to believe that it does, they need to know. I know of a place on the confluence of jazz, blues, baseball and barbecue, home of countless black lives. This certainly mattered. I have no choice but to sing their names.

John:

Well, congratulations, you made it to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for staying. Thanks to Glenn North for chatting with us. Thanks to listeners from Canada, mexico, new Zealand, germany and, of course, america. Thanks to Chewy Chewbacca Brandt, our part-time croissant stealer and full-time fur distribution system, for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for Hittin' the Bricks was written and performed by Tony Fistknuckle and the Stable Diffusion Watch for their next appearance at the Wienerschnitzel in San Antonio. You can find us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Do you have a genealogical question for Kathleen? Drop us a line at hittingthebricks at gmailcom and let us know.

People on this episode

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Kathleen Brandt

Host
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John Brandt

Co-host