Brent Leggs: How Can Seeing Black History As American History Begin To Make Amends?
MANOUSH ZOMORODI, HOST:
It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. And to mark the achievements, the excellence and accomplishments of Black Americans this Black History Month, the team and I want to dedicate this episode to three truly inspiring people whom we've had on the show, people who deserve to be celebrated for their ideas and the work they're doing to protect the history, health and rights of African Americans. We want to start with a trip I took to Birmingham, Ala., exactly one year ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: You are standing at ground zero of the 1963 civil rights struggle in Birmingham, Ala.
ZOMORODI: In the heart of downtown, spread over just a few small blocks, is the Civil Rights Historic District. There's Kelly Ingram Park.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOGS BARKING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: It was a struggle marked by attack dogs, police batons, high-pressure water cannons...
ZOMORODI: Just across the way from there is the 16th Street Baptist Church.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: September 15, 1963 - bundles of dynamite set by Ku Klux Klansmen ripped through the side of the 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four little girls.
ZOMORODI: And one block away from that is the A.G. Gaston Motel, the first Black-owned motel in Alabama.
BRENT LEGGS: Most individuals could pass a building like this and have no idea the history that is embodied in these walls and this brick and this wood. And they look at a vacant motel that's in a condition like this and couldn't imagine that Jim Crow ended because of the sacrifice and the community organizing in Birmingham.
ZOMORODI: This is Brent Leggs. He heads the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.
LEGGS: At the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And my work is to elevate the significance of African American history in American history.
ZOMORODI: And he does that by preserving historic places and buildings, like the A.G. Gaston. Right now the motel is boarded up and rundown, but it wasn't always that way.
It really looks like your quintessential, stereotypical American motel, like a Howard Johnson's, that split-level motel - and people, I can imagine in the '50s and '60s hanging out on their balcony...
LEGGS: Yeah.
ZOMORODI: ...Maybe having a smoke. But was it, like, a fancy - like, motel is a drive-in.
LEGGS: Yeah.
ZOMORODI: Was it nice? Do you know?
LEGGS: It was. So Jet magazine said that it was one of the most luxurious Black motels in all of America.
ZOMORODI: It was also where Martin Luther King Jr. stayed when he was in Birmingham. And from his motel room, he helped organize sit-ins, boycotts and marches that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
LEGGS: Right here was Room 30.
ZOMORODI: Right here in the corner?
LEGGS: Right there in the corner on the second floor is where all...
ZOMORODI: That's where Dr. King was?
LEGGS: It was. Dr. King, that was his room. It was the largest room in the motel. And it's where...
ZOMORODI: Can I just say, like - and I can't explain it. But there are shivers. Like, I just got goose bumps.
LEGGS: Yeah.
ZOMORODI: Like, there's something really weird about thinking, like, oh, right here where my feet are walking, Dr. King was walking up these stairs to the second level on the corner, where his room was. And he made a plan to change the - to change America, like, right there.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Dr. Martin Luther King.
(CHEERING)
LEGGS: It happened right there.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: Thank you very kindly, my very dear friends.
LEGGS: And some of the protest marches literally started from right here.
ZOMORODI: Coming out of the motel?
LEGGS: Coming out of the motel, yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KING: As long as we keep moving like we are moving, the power structure of Birmingham will have to give in.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LEGGS: Right here on the side of the building, near King's room, is where a bomb exploded.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: And on May 11, a bomb was detonated at the Black A.G. Gaston Motel.
LEGGS: It was an assassination attempt on King's life.
ZOMORODI: Oh, my Lord.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ZOMORODI: That bombing was one of over 40 bombings targeting the Black community in Birmingham from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. They were scare tactics to keep Black people from organizing or moving into white neighborhoods.
So what did they do? Like, how did they even function? There's bombs going off around here. Like, how did they keep this motel in business?
LEGGS: I know. It's hard to imagine living in a community where bombs were going off at nighttime, in the daytime, that you had no idea whether or not you would be able to go back home to your family because you were involved in activities that, in your opinion, was helping to make society better.
ZOMORODI: I mean, the resilience of this neighborhood.
LEGGS: Yeah.
ZOMORODI: Like, just walking around here, it's so calm. The madness that was happening on a daily basis in terms of people being arrested and bombs going off and hostile interactions with police. Like, there must have been such a steeliness to - and they're meeting in motels where the - who knows what could happen? They could be assassinated at any moment.
LEGGS: Yeah. That's what I think is beautiful about this story, is the fearlessness of the activists here.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KING: In spite of the difficulties - and we're going to have a few more difficulties - keep climbing.
LEGGS: Through violence and fear, the Black community had a resolve, and they moved through that fear to shape the consciousness of our nation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KING: Keep moving. If you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl. But by all means, keep moving.
(CHEERING)
ZOMORODI: I've been thinking a lot about my trip to Birmingham, the A.G. Gaston Motel, my conversation with Brent. And I just keep thinking, history is repeating itself.
LEGGS: I think some of the cultural conflicts that we see that's rooted in race and that's rooted in a legacy of slavery has yet to be fully acknowledged. So when we preserve a place like the A.G. Gaston Motel that tells a civil rights story, we are reminded that we still have a long way to go to be inclusive as a country and to respect all of our citizens and their contributions.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: Hands up.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Don't shoot.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: Hands up.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Don't shoot.
It's our duty to fight for our freedom.
No justice, no peace. Prosecute the police.
...And protect one another.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KING: Never in the history of this nation have so many people been arrested for the cause of freedom and human dignity.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: And you're tired of being second-class citizens.
ZOMORODI: The Birmingham campaign, the march from Selma, the Montgomery bus boycott - the same issues that brought people into the streets then are bringing people into the streets now. It's because this country has not faced its past.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: As long as you stay second-class citizens, you will never get the things that you should have.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KING: The thing that we are challenged to do is to keep this movement moving. There is power in unity, and there's power in numbers.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) Oh, freedom...
ZOMORODI: So, Brent, we are at a moment when race is at the forefront of the national conversation. And of course, part of that conversation is about confronting our history. How do you think we can begin to make amends for our country's past atrocities?
LEGGS: Making amends means that Black Americans are appreciated, that our community is recognized for a 400-plus-year contribution, that our history and the physical places where that history is held are preserved. Making amends means that our nation is making new investments to address years of disinvestment and inequity. I believe that making amends is to understand that the Black experience is an American experience.
ZOMORODI: There is a statistic that I read that, really, I found kind of shocking - that there are nearly 100,000 entries in the National Register of Historic Places, but only 2% of those focus on African American history. Can you just help us understand how that possibly came to be?
LEGGS: I think in many ways that our National Register of Historic Places, which is the nation's inventory of historic sites that tell an American story, it really is a mirror. It mirrors social issues. The National Park Service, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and a whole coalition of advocates are working to rectify this inequity and to list more diverse historic places in our national inventory. So the big vision of the Action Fund is to reconstruct our national identity. And our tagline is, tell the full history. And we do that by preserving sites of enslavement but with a deeper focus on helping to preserve sites of activism, achievement and community.
ZOMORODI: I mean, that's a humongous goal - reconstructing our national identity. Do you feel like most Americans are basing what they think it means to be American on an incomplete story? Like, what are they missing?
LEGGS: That's exactly it. When I travel around the country and I meet with citizens or organizations and I bring up individuals like Madam C.J. Walker, America's first self-made female millionaire - in 1918, she constructed an elegant, historic residence that stands in Irvington, N.Y., as a symbol of American entrepreneurship. And many Americans have no idea that a Black woman was the first self-made millionaire. So it's...
ZOMORODI: No (laughter).
LEGGS: Yeah.
ZOMORODI: I did not know that (laughter).
LEGGS: Yeah, yeah. So it's important that Americans know this history because all Americans should be able to see themselves in their history and their potential in the African American historic places that surround them.
ZOMORODI: And so where do you stand in terms of removing Confederate memorials? Do you think that's a way of making amends?
LEGGS: Our position is that we should not erase our history. At the same time, we don't have to revere it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ZOMORODI: When we come back, we'll hear more from Brent Leggs on tearing down Confederate monuments or keeping them. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ZOMORODI: It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. And on the show today, in honor of Black History Month, we're revisiting some powerful conversations with inspiring Black Americans who are working to confront the past so that we can move forward to a better future. And before the break, we were talking to preservationist Brent Leggs about whether removing Confederate statues does indeed rectify our past.
LEGGS: Our position is that we should not erase our history. At the same time, we don't have to revere it. And I think what's exciting is many communities are bringing together their citizens to say, how can we tell a fuller story about our city and about the citizens that have contributed so much to it.
ZOMORODI: Yeah, it almost - I'm starting to picture it in my mind as almost like a manuscript being edited. And, like, some of the people are going in and crossing things out and removing entire passages. And then other people are going in, saying, like, actually, we should keep that sentence and maybe massage that one and that we're in this sort of iterative process, a creative process of recognizing the way that we have told the story of our nation in addition to this new recognition that we have to find a new way to explain how we've gotten to this moment where we - racism still is alive and well in this country.
LEGGS: That is so true. And there is power in truth. And even for the Confederate memorials that stand, if we are brave enough to tell the truth for why they exist, that is empowering to communities. And it begins to help to reconcile our racist past. And I think in many ways, it begins to help diverse citizens relate to one another better.
ZOMORODI: If you do preserve and maintain all of these sites, how far does that actually go in terms of healing this country?
LEGGS: I think it goes a long way. I think it's an opportunity for all Americans to be educated, to reflect on their understanding of history, on the injustices faced by Black people in our country and most importantly, honor all of the contributions that African Americans have made to this amazing democracy that we call America.
We are talking about moments where Americans will - when they're walking down the street and they see a historic marker, or they take a moment to walk inside a historic space and learn and interact with that history. We can create millions of cultural moments for Americans to learn something new about our own history and to walk away more empowered than they were before they were connected with that history.
ZOMORODI: What do you think all those millions of moments can add up to be?
LEGGS: Yeah, I would say all these moments add up to healing and amends, education, respect, acknowledgement. And I think all of those words equal reconciliation.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ZOMORODI: Brent Leggs is the executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. He has helped raise over $23 million to put towards preservation of places important to African American history.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ZOMORODI: On the show today, remembering Black history and looking towards the future.
Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.