Earlier this year, the “Listen, St. Louis with Carol Daniel" podcast and the Missouri Historical Society launched a new digital series called “Black History is St. Louis History.” Host Carol Daniel and Cecily Hunter, public historian at the Missouri Historical Society, discuss historic Black towns, businesses, changemakers and more.
Daniel shares how this series came to be:
“I got ‘em all around. I’m constantly writing.” Cedric the Entertainer said when describing the notebooks in his office.
The actor, comedian, author, BBQ sauce purveyor and St. Louis native me during a recent podcast interview that he keeps several notebooks in his office to jot down and keep track of his ideas.
The star and Executive Producer behind the sitcom “The Neighborhood,” now in its seventh season on CBS, says he is constantly thinking of ideas, jokes and things he wants to do next in the entrepreneurial space. I am certainly no Cedric The Entertainer, but I too, am constantly thinking of ideas, of people, places and things to talk about on the podcast as well as ways to connect with viewers and listeners.
One day, the thought crossed my mind, ‘Could I partner with the Missouri Historical Society to record a series of history vignettes about the known and little-known history of the enslaved and formerly enslaved in St. Louis?” I emailed all the contacts I had for them. Can I tell you how nervous I was to ask this venerable institution to share its research with me? They have done and would do all the heavy lifting. I would simply sit in my seat in the studio and say something like, “Welcome, Cecily Hunter, Public Historian, African American History Initiative with the Missouri Historical Society. Cecily, tell me about Elizabeth Keckley, the enslaved woman in St. Louis who eventually became the dressmaker and confidante for Mary Todd Lincoln?”
But of course, Nine PBS is also a venerable institution, and I already had a connection with several on staff, including with Missouri Historical Society President and CEO Jody Sowell, who took part in our 314 Day celebration last year. But still I was asking them to bring all of their research onto my podcast! Who did I think I was? I am a Senior Producer and host with a great idea! They readily agreed! Next, we had to decide the schedule for recording all the interviews, which historic photos would be added to the videos for our YouTube channel, the order of their air dates and how each would be edited. Once all that was determined during a series of Zoom calls and emails, we kicked production into high gear. The resulting series is called “Black History is St. Louis History.”
Historian and descendant of two U.S. presidents, Henry Brooks Adams, once said, “History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.” Anti-apartheid activist, theologian, and South African Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu once said, “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”
I hope you will watch, listen, be enlightened and as amazed as I was by the resilience of these remarkable people. I hope you develop a renewed sense of pride in how we have all overcome the difficulties and outdated thinking that plagued us. And I hope above all, that the series honors the humanity of those who struggled for freedom.
Contributed by: Carol Daniel, Leah Gullet and Molly Hart