Lisa Woolfork and Kendall King

00:00 Hi, this is Lisa. I am 52 years old. I live in Charlottesville, Virginia, and today's date is July 21, 2022.

00:10 This is Kendall. I'm 25 years old, and I just moved to Somerset, Virginia, from Charlottesville. It's in Orange county, about 20 miles north. Wonderful. So I want to thank you both for joining us in the studio today for a one small step conversation and also to discuss more specifically the five year anniversary of the Unite the right rally in Charlottesville. Before we kind of dive into those topics, I do want to ask what inspired you to want to come and record this conversation and what you're hoping to gain from the experience.

00:49 I wanted to do it because I think that StoryCorps is a really beautiful project. I think it's important to have archival records of the voices of people who were impacted and contributed and were resisting what happened in Charlottesville in 2017 that entire summer. And so that was something that felt important to do.

01:14 Yeah. I want to echo Lisa's sentiment about the importance of archival material. I think the person who asked me to do this interview is Jelaine Schmidt, who I trust a lot. So that was a big inspiration to do this interview. And further, I'm working with Jelaine on an exhibit at special Collections, which is a library at UVA, about student and community organizing during the Unite the right summer in 2017. And it's been really hard to collect objects and information, archival material about that time because so many of us just didn't save it. So, you know, better late than never. Here we are. I feel like I'm trying to contribute to that. Absolutely. And we appreciate you taking the time to relive some of the most painful moments of recent history and sharing your stories with us. Typically, the people who enter the studio are strangers and don't know each other. I know you both are acquainted with one another, but for the sake of the process and to open some avenues of new conversation, we encourage our participants to read out the bio of their partner so that you can take a moment to be in their shoes and know what's important to them. So, Lisa, if you'll read Kendall's first, and then, Kendall, I'll have you read Lisa's, and then we will dive into some questions.

02:38 Awesome. Y'all, this is so exciting. I get to tell you about Kendall. Kendall is an artist and community organizer in Charlottesville, Virginia. She studied popular culture and printed making at the University of Virginia, and she is currently co director of Visible Records, an artist run gallery and studio space in Charlottesville, where she bottom lines the studio side of the gallery's mission to provide national and local artists with the space and tools to expand their practice and build creative community. King is an avid gardener and coordinates volunteers for common field, community garden, and the Solitary Gardens Project. She has led community organizing groups in Virginia for seven years, galvanizing support for action and resource redistribution on racial justice and climate change.

03:27 Lisa is hard to follow. Okay. Lisa is an associate professor of English at the University of Virginia, where she specializes in african american literature and culture. The founder of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black Lives Matter, she is also the host and producer of Stitch Please, a weekly audio podcast centering black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. In the summer of 2017, Professor Woolfork became a founding member of Black Lives Matter. Charlottesville, resisting the white supremacist incursion. Wonderful. Well, thank you for introducing each other. I want to give you each a few minutes to ask any questions you have about the initial information you shared, or to discuss some of the background of how you got to be where.

04:20 You are right now. Kendall, what about your first memory of politics? Is that an interesting story for you, your first memory of politics?

04:30 I think it's interesting because I think I felt in the moment that it felt so superficial or bad. And the memory is that my third grade teacher told us to have a little mock election within our classroom. And it was 2004, so it was the presidential election between Bush and Kerry I had to google this before I came in here to make sure I remembered that it was Kerry But then it clicked in my mind that I had a memory of sitting in the car listening to the radio, and the discussion was about the haircut scandal, I think with Kerry John, Kerry got a really expensive haircut, maybe. And so we were in class doing this voting, and it just felt like a circus or something. It felt really silly, and it also felt very powerless, I think, just knowing that it didn't matter what we wrote up on the board, and I don't remember who won the election, but that's my distinct first memory of politics.

05:30 That is so interesting to me that yours came from a presidential election, because mine did, too. I think the first thing I remember about politics was when Jimmy Carter was elected president. And I did not Google, because I'm just gonna let the researchers that do the notes for the show Google it. But I think what I remember vividly was Jimmy Carter. He was my first president that I ever remembered. I was ten in 1980, and so I don't know if all of these memories are just blurring altogether. But what I just distinctly remember was, oh, no, it might have been Reagan's presidency, but it was some point. My father and I, we used to argue, not like bitter battles, but just, you know, it was a form of. I see it now as a form of rhetorical training. Right. You have to learn to kind of make good arguments. And I remember him saying, this is a white man's world. And this was something that he would say a lot, not because he believed it, not because he thought white men were great people, but he was just explaining that we lived in the south and that there were lots of forces that were arrayed against us, and there were things that were easier for white people to do than it was for us to do. And I remember telling him specifically, it's not, it's not a white man's world, because I'm a black woman and I am here. If I'm a black girl and I'm here in the same world as everybody else, what makes that a white man's world? Like, I don't understand that. And so I'm wondering about, like, that as a form of resistance built into a political discussion. Right. And this is probably why I always separate, like, electoral politics from just the politics of daily living. The things that affect people, you know, like the way that we live our lives normally, that that itself is also operating under a certain type of politic that's beyond who might be president or not.

07:38 Yeah. Where did you grow up?

07:40 I grew up in South Florida, and it was so funny growing up there, because I didn't know white people even lived there. I didn't. I didn't. I grew up in a segregated community. My parents went to a segregated school. My parents friends became my elementary school teachers. And I went to an all black elementary school, eventually got bused to a white junior high, which was a nightmare and horrible, and then was able to go to an all black or mostly black high school. But like everybody I was around was black. My mother's friends were black. My father's friends were black. Our church was black. I did not even know that white people had sororities and fraternities until I went to graduate school.

08:25 Whoa.

08:26 I was a whole adult.

08:28 Yeah.

08:28 And I was. I went to school in Madison, Wisconsin, and they had these big fraternity houses and stuff.

08:34 Uh huh.

08:34 And there were letters I didn't recognize. I'm like, what is that? And I was like, what do you mean white people have sororities? Why white people have fraternities. What do they do? Don't they already have everything. Like, what do they need a fraternal organization to do what with? Divide up more of other people's property. Like, what is it for? So it was just really interesting to me, the way that I was able to grow up. I didn't realize how thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly black I was able to grow up. And then realized that my mother made that choice on purpose. She deliberately made sure that we lived in black neighborhoods and were surrounded by black folks because she never wanted us to feel like we were other. So what about you? Did you grow up here?

09:19 I didn't know. I moved around quite a lot when I was a kid, mostly up and down the east coast. But I spent my mother's folks settled in and are still in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

09:31 Oh, wow. Yeah.

09:32 And that's where I spent probably my most formative young years, especially high school. And, yeah, I love Tulsa. I think Tulsa is an amazing place, and I love Oklahoma. And coming here was a big shift from that place because I came here in 2014 for college. I had a sister who lived here.

09:54 So you had come to uva through, like, a family connection. I'm so curious about, like, Tulsa. Did you all ever talk about the massacres or anything like that? So it seems funny, like, not funny, but, like, to go from a place like Tulsa and then land in Charlottesville just in time for you to start organizing with UVA SU you know, like, do you recognize any kind of connection there?

10:18 Absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, I grew up in the white suburbs of Tulsa, still a very segregated place. And there's a school there called Booker T. Washington High School, which I was extremely privileged to be a hornet. And I was bused opposite, essentially, to the black school across town, which became a magnet school with the international baccalaureate program in the seventies. And so my parents intentionally wanted me to go to that school. It was an amazing school, amazing history, and amazing teachers, and a place where, of all the places, in Tulsa, I think when I was growing up, explicitly acknowledged the divide in Tulsa and the history of it before that was before Black Lives Matter was a movement, right before the national conversation was pushing that.

11:10 Yeah.

11:11 So I have, I think, a unique upbringing in that I wasn't. Our school talked about. We called it the race riot, but we didn't learn about it in the context of what a white person would present. We learned about it from the people who are the survivors of the massacre, from their history and their oral histories. We learned about it because we had our middle school prom at the Greenwood Cultural center, which is the site of a lot of archival work around what happened in the twenties. So, yeah, I think I was really lucky to be able to not carry with me perspective of history that is wrong, that is racist, and that is intentionally erasive. So, yeah, I think I was primed to understand how, as a white person involved in the building of society, you have a duty and a responsibility and a positionality different than other high school kids. So when I came to college, I think I was ready to get involved in some organizing that bush, the boundaries of the institution to do better for people.

12:24 Yeah, that sounds amazing. And it feels like to me that you were able to come to UVA even though you came from out of state. You were able to come with a certain type of racial literacy that a lot of, I think even folks who are raised in Virginia, white folks, might not have or might not be encouraged to have. So that's really interesting that you kind of already had that.

12:51 Yeah. Like I said, it was a bit of a culture shock because coming from Oklahoma, too, where the environment is different, the physical environment, wealth feels different there. It's newer wealth, it's oil money, and it's suburbs and cities that were built a lot later than when Charlottesville was built, which gives it a different feel. They both have histories of violence and of exploitation, but it's different.

13:20 Yes.

13:21 And then, yeah, the wealth here and the money here of particularly white men feels different than how it feels in Oklahoma. So, yeah, culture shock. And then just. I fell in. I was lucky enough also to make friends and fall in with the right kind of people who taught me how to organize, you know, who taught me that, how to just be upset about these things or learn the history, but transform that knowledge into action. I was really lucky.

13:49 Yeah, it sounds so cool. It's like you came prepared to university with such an open mind and an open heart, but also with deep and careful learning and some bit of humility. And I think that that's also another thing that is sometimes hard to kind of teach. You know what I mean? Explicitly. But I think UVA SU is such a powerful organization, and the work that you all did to lay such important ground for so much that came afterwards, it feels to me like, I know some people ask, like, well, what is the legacy of the fifth anniversary? And you're looking back now, et cetera, et cetera, that there's some organizations that are no longer very active or not active at all, but as if they've kind of served their purpose and now onto new evolutions and new growth and new projects. And I tend to think about visible records as one of them, you know? Do you think that.

14:44 Yeah, absolutely. For context, UVA SU is UVA students united, which is, well, it's no longer active, but was a group of students, I want to say, started in 2012 by a woman named Claire Wyatt and then picked up by a really amazing organizer, one of my best friends, Ibi Hahn. And that group was primarily, and first off, dedicated to reducing student debt and preventing tuition hikes. So a lot of the organizing that UVA SU did was around paying attention to BOV meetings, the board of visitor meetings, and mobilizing to stop them from deliberately increasing tuition for their own essentially corporate gain and maintaining the university as much as possible as a private institution that was supposed to be equitable and accessible for all of Virginians, which it is not. But that group of organizers, and then also a group of organizers called the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition, I think are. And the overlap that existed between those two groups, definitely, yes, you did in a lot of folks, a really strong desire to fight the power and has definitely stayed in the water since in all of our adult lives. And right now, the studio space that I manage, visible records, I'm lucky enough to work for someone who has access to a lot of resources and has said, how can we make this explicitly open and accessible for organizers to use? And physical space is a huge limitation and a huge point of contention for all political organizing, for all organizing. And, you know, we could get into the nitty gritty about physical space and statues and physical space and holding space with the topic that we're focusing on today. But I think that visible records being a space that opens its doors to people who need it to organize, is a vital part of our community right now, which I'm honored to help steward. And I think it's possible because I had relationships with folks prior to the space opening, so there's trust there to be able to use it safely. But that's maintaining relationships and making sure you don't lose folks and that you're accountable to people over time, over a long time, is something I've learned and carry with me right now with visible records. So, yeah, what about you? What are you working on right now that you feel like is rooted in the legacy of that summer?

17:25 I feel like the thing that is most, I think it's between the podcast and black women's stitch. I think black women's stitch is very much a direct result of the trauma and the loss from that summer of organizing. I think up to that point, I had been sewing with a group of older white ladies where no matter how old I was, I was always the youngest. When I was 30, I was the youngest. When I was 40, I was the youngest. When I was 50, I was the youngest. I was always the youngest, and I wasn't even young. And so one of the challenges became how to. I was just after the attacks, after. On the 11th, I was in the church across the street when you were at the statue. And on the 12th, I was at the corner when the car came through. And after that, it was just like. I think someone described it as the fog of war. You know, like, everything from the night of the 11th, after the night of the 11th, all the way through that next 24 hours, just feels like snippets and flashes and blur. But I do recall exhaustion and overwhelm, and for some ridiculous reason, Kendall, I don't know why I decided to accept these people's invitation to go to a retreat in a city about an hour outside of Charlottesville. And I went and I did that. I was sewing, and the people knew I was there. They had seen me on tv. I was working a lot with media at the time, and they were like, well, you know, we said a prayer for y'all at church, and we took up a coach, et cetera, et cetera. And these are all white ladies. I know. This one white woman was, like, giving me the stinky eye, like, for pretty much most of the time. And so someone said to me, well, Lisa, it's been told that Charlottesville is not to be discussed. Geez, Charlottesville's not to be discussed. And I was like, I did not come here to discuss this with you. All of any people in the world I might choose to discuss it with y'all would be among the last. But people kept coming to me. So this all happens, you know, the weekend goes by, she leaves. The organizer of the event leaves, does not say goodbye to me. About three or four days later, I get an envelope in the mail, and it is my check that I have paid for the next event hosted by that woman. She has returned my check to me in clear indication that I'm no longer welcome. Kendall, when I tell you, I was so hurt. Of course I was so hurt. I was like these women. When my father died unexpectedly, they made me a quilt. When my babies were born, they made me a quilt. When white supremacists tried to kill me, they kicked me out of the group. Then I was embarrassed. I was so embarrassed. How? Who did they think I was? All this time?

20:44 Yeah.

20:45 I'm a professor of african american literature and culture at one of the top universities in the country. Who do you think I am?

20:53 Mm hmm.

20:55 Do you think that I am someone who is just going to accept white supremacists and racist nonsense coming for my children? No. And so after I got the embarrassment and then the shame and blah, blah, blah, I finally said, no more. I said, I'm gonna build what I need. And I created black women, stitch. And it has been amazing. I've been able to have events. I've been able to. I started a podcast just so I could talk to more people. We're on, like, 350,000 downloads that we've got already. Like, it's going really well. More than 150 episodes, you know, like, it's going great. And I never needed them in the first place, but it just feels like that's where I'm putting a lot of my energy. And what I feel like I've noticed is that even as the tides of organizing have shifted, that there have been some really permanent and important changes and transformations that I think have happened. And I think visible records seems to be an example of that. I feel like, you know, the work that people are doing out at fire flower farm is another example of that. Like, all of these things where people, like, this wasn't just, like, a flash in the pan, you know, this was. What was trying to do was to kind of dismantle these harmful institutions. And it also helps me to remember that no is not the only. That's not the last answer we got. So many no's about trying to get rid of the statues. So many no's, so many. This will never happen. These will always be here. Never. I sat in so many meetings with racists, telling me that all I had to do was get used to this genocidal statue or get used to this racist statue or just ignore it if I didn't like it or whatever. And those statues are gone, and we are still here, and that counts for a lot.

23:03 Yes. Yeah. So I want to ask one question just to follow up, Lisa, about when you came to Charlottesville and why you decided to take a job at the University of Virginia.

23:16 Well, I was what they call a unicorn. I got this job right out of graduate school. This was the first job I ever had, and I have been here since the year 2000. So I've been here since 2023. And when the summer of hate kicked off, it was, like, my 17th year. And I thought one of the reasons that I decided to participate as actively as I could was that my grandmother, who was still alive in 2017, was born in 1913. She was born the same year that Harriet Tubman died, 1913. This, to me, suggested that freedom and unfreedom are a lot. These histories are a lot closer than you imagine, you know, a lot closer. And it really galled me, the idea that the Klan would come to town, and I would have to tell my grandmother, who was 103 at the time, that I was prepping to go down to a Klan rally to resist the Klan. To someone who was born in 1913 in the south, who knew and who lived through experiences of forced relocation, you know, who lived through lots of white supremacist racial terror, that is not the assignment of black people in this country. We are not meant to be here and be terrorized eternally. And resistance, I think, is the first step or a constant, necessary reminder of that truth. So that felt important to me and also for my kids, like, it felt to me important as a mother to try to be out here now so that my children won't have to be out here later. And so that was one of the things that kind of really motivated me to participate. And I also totally acknowledge that this is something that people might not expect from faculty. You know, I think Jelaine is another example, you know? You know, that folks seem to have this impression that, oh, if you're a black faculty, you're somehow no longer a black person, which is totally false. We don't live in a separate world. My kids go to public school. You know, my kids have thrived and done well in city schools, and I'm grateful for it. But, you know, the same things about profiling for young people and young black men are something that keep me up at night. I got two boys. You know, I have my own black life. And Sandra Bland was a black professional woman, too, you know? So this. I refuse to kind of tap into this. This exceptionalism, which is just another seduction of white supremacy. You are exceptional. We won't hurt you. Help us keep our foot on everybody else's neck. No, thank you. But how about you, Kendall? What got you started?

26:20 You mean in participating generally in the 2017? I think, yeah. So UVA SU had organized with a group of people in Charlottesville called APOC, the anarchist people of color collective. Yeah. So those folks were very transformational in my political understanding and my politicization, as they call it, I guess. And they were just queuing us off to, you know, there's this young person named Zybryant. She's organizing against the statues. This is the context. And there are. There's this man, Jason Kessler, who's organizing other people who have white nationalist sentiments to be in town. And they taught us the approach and the tactic of no platform for white supremacy is what we called it. You know, it doesn't matter if it's on our campus. It doesn't matter if it's on our streets in the city. No platform for it. And we just essentially. I felt like all of 2017 before that summer had been a constant drill of, there are Nazis on the downtown mall, there are Nazis in the library, there are nazis wherever they are, everybody mobilized. And it just felt like the right thing to do with your friends, and it would be a wild situation. We'd all be out, you know, getting ready to go dancing or getting ready to go out to a party or whatever, and somebody from APOC would call us and say, come now. And we'd all get in Ibby's big minivan and just whip over the downtown mall.

27:53 We will get drinks after we get these races out of this restaurant, because they need to not be here. We'll be back.

28:01 Yeah, totally. I mean, it did. It felt almost like a joyous, celebratory thing to do, is to say, we are clearly on the right side of history, and we are clearly asking our institutions, our community spaces, our gathering places, our businesses to take the right side as well. And we don't have any shame in that. And, you know, it felt like a winning. Like a winning wave, kind of like we were doing the right thing. And there's a lot of people who. Yeah, needed some maybe coaching on specifics or needed to learn how to hold nuance a little bit more. But we're, you know, with us and with their own community against the white nationalists. So, yeah, I think UVA SU for sure. And then just the perspective, the place I came from, from Oklahoma, from being lucky enough to be able to attend Booker T. Washington high School and know that history. Booker T. Was a place where people who needed to physically recover from the race massacre were. It was a place where organizers organized together, and we learned that history. And that was powerful to me. And I think, touching way back earlier on, something you said about me coming to the University of Virginia with a different perspective, maybe, than some other white kids have, I think what I've noticed, or Booker T. Made an intentional decision to say, we're not gonna let this school be taken over by white people. We're going to set rigid demographic standards about how many people are allowed to be in this space. And it came from the need to protect that place for black folks in Tulsa.

29:56 Yes.

29:56 And that meant that when you were there as a white person, you weren't living in the dominant culture. Maybe you came from. From your suburb. You were living in a space that was specifically intentionally protected for black folks. And I think it did change my perspective. And then coming here, you're with a lot of white folks who come from white schools.

30:20 Right.

30:22 And, yeah, I think there's good work being done at institutions everywhere to say, if we don't protect how this unfolds, white people will take it over.

30:32 Yes.

30:33 A lot of the times. Cause us white folks don't have our own catch. And I think in the organizing around the summer of 2017, that was a big thing I learned, too, was that intentionality is so important. I maybe didn't fully understand it when I was in high school, but it's important that we're intentionally trying to have a room of organizers where the leaders are not white folks. And then it affected other organizing. I was doing climate organizing, and it also meant that things that had been single issue before had a really concrete reason to not be single issue anymore in Charlottesville.

31:15 Yes.

31:15 Yeah. Like, I was working with a lot of older white women on the fight against the atlantic coast pipeline.

31:21 Yes.

31:22 We were doing these trainings and these things about, you know, racial and gender sensitivity, and they weren't that professional or corporate or anything, but we were trying.

31:31 Yeah, yeah.

31:32 And after, I had a different experience, luckily, where afterwards, our group, who had been doing consistent pipeline work, we just reached out to all of the folks who we had done, the older folks, mostly from Buckingham county, and we said, hey, we're going to do this. And afterwards, they reached out to us and said, oh, my God, we're so sorry this happened. How can we support you? And they made dinner for people. They visited our comrades who were hurt in the hospital.

32:02 Oh, my God.

32:03 It totally transformed them.

32:05 Yeah. This is what community looks like.

32:07 Yeah. Yes. Absolutely.

32:09 This is what community looks like.

32:11 Yeah. It was really moving to so many of us just to be so. And, yeah. Myself, I really was moved to tears several times, looking around the table and just thinking to myself, like, oh, my gosh, this group of older folks is really putting themselves in an uncomfortable position. Yeah. And in a new territory.

32:32 Yes.

32:33 So that. Yeah, that was a long answer, but.

32:36 Because community care really means something. And I think that that's one of the residues of trauma, you know, is that there's definitely a demand and a need for care. It's just sometimes when you're, like, in the middle of it, you don't know how to ask.

32:47 Yeah.

32:48 And so, like, the idea of having, like, I have stories like that, I remember I'm a total nerd. I'm a nerd, as you might imagine, being an english professor. Surprise. Spoiler alert. And it was after the 17th. After 11th and 12th. It was the start of school. My youngest was starting high school. And normally I'm the kind of person that would not only go to staples and get the binders and stuff, I would have cut out and created stickers and color coded all the tabs and put the titles of the class on the bindings and cross listed that with the school schedule. And I totally forgot. I, for that, could tell you how traumatized I was right there. I forgot that my child needed school supplies to go to school. And someone was like, how can I help you? What can I do for you? And I was like, can you go to staples and can you pull that list for 9th grade for CHS? And can you bring those things to my house?

33:47 Yeah.

33:48 And person was like, absolutely no problem. Yeah, no problem.

33:52 One of the topics we actually discussed before we kind of went on air was this idea of identity and how it does play a role in not just politics and political views, but the way that we experience the issues around us, the way we experience injustices or systemic problems, such as structural racism being one of the most obvious ones. So I want to know from each of you, how does your identity impact the work that you do? And specifically, how has that. How has it played a role in your work in Charlottesville?

34:35 So, for me, I think it was my identity as, which is a complicated, not complicated, but I think I couldn't identify one particular aspect of my identity. That was the main motivator. I think my role as a mother, that played a big role. I really felt like I was there protecting my kids future. Like, I wanted. I didn't want them to have to deal with these white supremacist relics being normalized. I didn't want them to have to deal with overt white supremacists marching down the street like, this is totally normal. I did not want to give in to the apathy that had gotten so instrumentalized. There was a time that the apathy was as if it was some virtue, the newspaper, it was just, ignore them, cut off their oxygen, don't feed the trolls. I mean, all of these excuses to allow fascists and Nazis and neoconfederates to march in our streets. And so many people wanted to just ignore it, as if ignoring it was the solution. And it's only a solution because it wasn't a problem for them. And so for me, as a black woman, as a scholar and student of african american history and culture and literature, I knew how dangerous all of this was. And I also felt familiar and had an understanding of the type of time they wanted to try to turn us all back into. They wanted to turn back the clock, and they wanted to have the world looked. They wanted to have the world looked as it used to in their nostalgic imagination of what they think the past was like. And the only big features of that was black subjection. You know? So this idea, this whole make America great thing, that whole dog whistle for, let's go back in a time in the forties where everything was great, you know, my mother would always say, she was like, I lived in the forties. It was not great. I could not dry on clothes at the store. I could not drink out of a water fountain. These were not great times, but they were great for somebody else. And so that is the thing that I think really motivated me. I did not want to leave, and no parent does want to leave their children with the world in a worse shape than they themselves found it.

37:17 Yeah. Oui. I think as a white person and as a UVA student in Charlottesville in 2017, if it was a feeling of this, you know, these are like the Richard Spencer and the Jason Kessler, it's like, these are people who are using the identity that we share to rationalize something that is so obscenely inhumane in my mind that I just. I couldn't fathom not somehow being involved to say, you know, like, absolutely not. And to be there with my friends and comrades and, yeah, I think my. As a white person in racial justice organizing, you gotta be self aware, you gotta take feedback, and you gotta be ready to talk to other white folks about how they are present if they are not being self aware as well, which the specifics of that is a nuanced and long conversation. But I do think in that moment, I was very much like, I'm coming from the background of climate justice organizing, which is having its own racial reckoning in leadership and in just why and who is a part of this movement. And it was very much just on our minds, is like, okay, as young white organizers, it is so important right now for us to show up for this, and so important for us to try and organize other young white people to show up for this and I think we did that. Like, we really tried to say, students, where are you? Let's go. If you're here this summer, this is your support system, and we'd like to see you. And there were a lot of people who didn't show up, which was heartbreaking because it felt so easy. And then there were a lot of people who ended up showing up that I didn't see. And then they told me their experiences after, and it's like, oh, dang, that was, like, so traumatic. Are you okay? Like, thank you. So, yeah, I think it generally is just a reckoning with the long haul of you, where I exist in a body that hasn't experienced the same kind of daily trauma or discomfort as a lot of people. And I feel committed, and I feel like it would be amazing if a lot of white folks were committed to the long haul of transformational justice. And that could look. That could manifest in so many different ways, like moving money. And I think during the pandemic, I saw a lot of folks figure that out a little bit more, figure out how to have more empathy and humanity for people. And it can look like, you know, participating in anti racist action. It can look like occasionally voting. It can look like, oh, man. It can look like partnering with people to envision a world that is more loving to everybody. Yeah, I think that answers the question. One theme that I often bring up with people who do express a deeper involvement in political action or organizing more broadly is about systems of change. Because I think, like I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, unlike our traditional format, where we have strangers with typically different views, you both come from a similar, you know, goal and motivation, but kind of systems of change and how we approach problems can often, I think, differ between people who have different motivations and backgrounds. And so one question within that I want to pose is, like, the premise of this program is to bring together people with different views to come to shared understandings. And, Kendall, you brought up having conversations with fellow white people to try and generate a greater sense of empathy and recognition of humanity. How often do you find yourselves intentionally putting yourself in spaces with people who you have fundamental disagreements with or who don't see eye to eye with you? And how do you manage those interactions if you have them?

41:50 That's a really. It's a great question. And in terms of. And I think this is something that I'm. I just told someone this earlier today. I think I know you were on the line for this, Kendall. I was like, I don't tend to voluntarily put myself into spaces where I know there's gonna be lots and lots and lots of white people and lots of white people that I don't know, voluntarily for fun and pro for fun. Right? Like, I feel as though going to work every day is putting myself into a context with people who probably. Who are not in terms of, like, at least in terms of my identity, are not peers. And so it does find. I do find myself in an institution that is. That is a majority white institution. And so I think the conflict is a little bit different because it's not so much ideological in some ways. It absolutely is ideological, but it has to do with just some fundamental levels of just comfort and ease. And that is not something that black folks working, that I, as a black woman working in a majority white institution of higher education, that is never prioritized. Like, my comfort and ease are not prioritized. Instead, instead, there is the expectation to contribute in a way that does not prompt discomfort or dis ease among other folks. And so that. So, like, so this is one of the things that becomes challenging. In addition, I'm also really fortunate to have some fantastic students. So in the terms of teaching and engagement and the questions that we study and the books that we're reading and the things that we talk about, it's really wonderful and amazing. And I learn all the time with my students and from my students alongside, you know, teaching them and showing things that they don't know. That's my job. And so it's really in that particular role, it's hard to identify, like, opposing or different beliefs. Right? Because I'm not teaching my students my beliefs. I'm not teaching students what to think. I'm never telling them, this is what you should think. That's complete malpractice. Instead, I show you how to think. Right. Here is a problem. Here is how one would approach it. Here is a variety of evidences. When you make your own claims, make sure you are doing these things in order to make them more persuasive. So because of the nature of that work, when it comes to my leisure time or the time that I have, that could be considered free time, it is absolutely important that I'm making decisions that fortify my entire and whole self. And so that really mitigates what I'm willing to do socially. And that's why I have absolute no tolerance to engage with anybody ever, who does not believe that black lives matter. I would never sit down across a person and try to audition my humanity in exchange for acceptance. I don't also, although I do love and believe in the power of story, I don't believe that individual conversations or that I somehow have to convince a bigot that I'm good enough to make him not be a bigot anymore. I don't care. Go be a bigot. I never have to see you again or think about you. And so it just often feels to me that when it comes to reaching across the aisle in life, it is expected that those who have been harmed and marginalized can only achieve unity if they're willing to swallow and accept that which has been given to them by the person that hurt them in the first place. It's too much of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer described as cheap grace, and cheap grace is you want forgiveness without repentance and that I have no patience for. And I just find that type of arrangement to be pretty harmful when it's not. Yeah. And so that's where I land on that. And so in terms of, like, dealing with folks who are, like, maybe not on my side or who maybe think very differently from me, I consider those people white supremacists, neoconfederates, who love, you know, who love the south, and they think that gone with the wind is actually history instead of historical fiction. Like, I'm not going to convert them, and I have no interest in exposing myself to their harm for no benefit whatsoever.

47:03 Yeah, I think a lot of those kinds of folks that I've had those conversations with or that have been tough have been my family members. And I feel like, yeah, a lot of, especially my older family members who are all white, in case folks need clarification on that. But they reduce the ideas as well to something that they are not, which is very painful. A lot of the time sharing, you know, this is the powerful work I think I'm doing. And then my great grandfather, you know, sort of chiding me about wanting to join a commune and be a communist or a hippie or just sort of sort of in his own terms, finding ways to not actually address the content that I'm saying, which is, you know, grandpa, I think your generation really fucked this up. And I'm trying to work with my peers to make this a safer, better place. And that's really disheartening a lot of the time. But I do think I put myself in those positions, especially with my family. I don't think I would with somebody who, as many of the white nationalist organizers around the time of the unite the right did, was just threaten physical violence, whether it was directly or indirectly, just by making it clear to us that they had weapons or that they had power over us, even in just their stature and the way that they wanted to gang up. Or the words that they would use to describe us, which are how they dressed. Yeah.

48:32 Like, all the paramilitary stuff. Like, when you would look at these people, you would think they're part of.

48:36 The National Guard, 100%.

48:38 They absolutely looked like they not just come not from, like, Wayne's world yield camping supply. I mean, these were actual military grade. I'm like, did you just keep your uniform from when you were in the service and then just tear off or add, like, the racist patch on your shoulder?

48:56 It looked all, why bother? For tearing the other one off?

48:59 But. Exactly. I mean, it looked like real life. Yeah, I couldn't believe that. Or when they had. Or the tank. They were. The tank on July. An actual tank.

49:10 Yeah. Terrifying.

49:12 The tank that they. That instead of coming to, they had to bring out a tape so they could protect the clan.

49:18 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it was. And, yeah, that was another thing, too. Is, like, they all looked like cops. They all look like police officers, which was really hard to contend with when you were hypothetically what we were or. Yeah. What our idea would have been. Like, the police would do something to intervene in the physical violence, which, of course, didn't happen several times over.

49:39 Several.

49:39 Yeah. Instead, they exacerbated it. And so it just felt like you were up against one single army, literally, because they all looked the same and also because their actions were the same and their threats were the same.

49:49 Yes.

49:50 And so, yeah, the night of August 11, nobody helped us. Nobody but our professors, who were equally unarmed or community members who came. And all they could offer, totally no one's fault or anything, was just support of, do you want to stay here, or do you want to get out of here? Because this is about to be really scary. And then the police just stood and watched.

50:13 Yes.

50:13 And so, yeah, I think if, in my young mind, I was anywhere on the fence about the role of police in protecting people and keeping our communities safe, August 11 and 12th pushed me so hard in a direction of, y'all just, you don't know how to do your job. You're an institution that is founded in white supremacy and racism, and you're not doing what you say you want to do. And if you're failing in that way, and this is your route, you need to be chopped.

50:43 You need to be.

50:44 We don't need you. So, that felt so strong to me around that time and still does today. Cause I just remember immediately looking at the line of police on July 8 or on August 11?

50:57 I have photos, and I have photos on the 12th as well, of just lines of police just standing.

51:02 Standing. Yeah. So frustrating, so upsetting. So, yeah, but I mean, that we had to work with a lot of police afterwards because they wanted to prosecute or investigate, especially August 11.

51:16 Yes.

51:17 That felt like. Because I was so aggravated at that moment, rightfully so, because of the trauma we had experienced and how I felt so abandoned working with the like. That is an example of a time where I felt it was really difficult or impossible nearly to reach across the aisle, and it felt like a betrayal to our shared community of trust. It felt. It caused a lot of issues internally between organizers. But, yeah, I think in those situations, it also feels like any time that there's a group of people who has a monopoly on violence and has proved to threaten that and to use it against people, I feel really not able to reach across the aisle, which I would say, in a lot of instances includes the police.

52:09 And it's interesting, too. Even the phrase reach across the aisle suggests that these are two peer institutions. And I think that was the thing that was getting me so much, and that was making me so angry. This idea that, you know, the false equivalency, it was the false equivalence. Like, really, why do you have to go out there? Either you. You know, what's the big deal? Some people are into white supremacy.

52:39 Yeah.

52:39 Some people are not. Do you cut your sandwiches in the middle to make two rectangles, or do you cut it diagonally and make two triangles? Really, it's all the same. And I think that between that argument that this was somehow not a big deal, that we as organizers were the ones making it worse. Right. If you had.

53:05 Just ignore it.

53:06 If you ignore the Klan, don't go down there. If you ignore the Nazis, don't go down there. And being there, being your actual campus where you're actually enrolled as a student. Student. You know, don't go down to the park. Don't, don't, don't. And if nobody comes, they will just. They'll just leave.

53:24 Yeah.

53:25 And they would have failed in their mission. And it's really you that's the one that's making this so complicated, because if nobody opposed them, what would they do? And I was just like, you clearly have no skin in this game. You are not worried about the future of your children.

53:45 Right.

53:45 Anyone who can say those things, and it was very many people who did. Anyone who is saying that is someone who has nothing to lose. There is nothing on the table for these folks. You know, they have made sure that their kids are taken care of. They have foundations that their kids kids will be taken care of, and that there is nothing in the way of some white supremacist incursion, either a march or a police stop gone bad that is going to derail the future of their children's lives.

54:25 Yeah, I think at that point in time, too, it was hard to hear that argument because it was like, we have this horrific white supremacist as president. You all let this happen, you know, is what it felt like, too. It's like, oh, my gosh, like, this isn't just a little small town problem that we can ignore. It feels way bigger than us.

54:49 Yes, it does.

54:49 And we just, you know, it was like every week that man said something vile.

54:54 It was.

54:55 It was.

54:55 And I think 2016, it was absolutely connected. And I remember, I'm not sure if you remember where you were, but I remember somehow hearing the first time that 45 said it was good people on both sides. I remember the very first time I heard that and I felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice cold water on me and I stood there. I felt like I was just shivering in place. I just could not imagine that the highest office in the land that someone who's supposed to be in charge, allegedly, of this alleged country would say that that would be the outcome. That would be the.

55:37 Oh, well, yeah.

55:39 Like, it just felt like apathy and worse than apathy, you know, and as a message to other people of how to behave.

55:49 Yeah, yeah. And I will, I guess to sort of tie up the earlier question about conversations across the aisle in this context, I do. I feel like I reference my older brother, who is. Who grew up in a different household than me, a different context, because we are half siblings and we share a father but not a mother, and he's also 13 years older than me, maybe 1513 or 15. He was for a while, an evangelical pastor, and that church holds beliefs that I find to be amoral, not aligned with anyone who could claim that they are a Christian. And we would get in screaming matches about things that I believed and things that I was working towards, whether it was climate change or queer rights or. Yeah, Trump. And I think he voted for Trump in 2020 and. Or, sorry, not 2020. Gosh, jeez, in 20. What was that, 16?

56:58 Yeah.

56:59 So we just. We had a really rough relationship for a while. And I gotta say, I stuck with him. Like, I really was like, I'm your sister. I love you. I think what you're saying is I never let him get away with it. I think is the important thing. Like, I was always on him about it, and he would be on me, too.

57:18 Right, right.

57:19 But he's totally transformed. He left the church. He is grounding his leaving of the church in all the stuff that we would argue about, which is kind of awesome. Like, now he sends me things about pride and stuff, which is kind of amazing. But I do.

57:35 Yeah.

57:35 I do think there's a degree of, you know, of sticking with it that can work if you feel safe and comfortable.

57:43 Yes.

57:43 And that was my brother, you know, and that was possible. That was. That was within my realm of comfort. Like, I could. There were times he made me uncomfortable. There were times he made me feel really upset, but I never felt like my body was gonna be harmed.

58:00 That's right.

58:01 Yeah. And that's important, too. I feel like that a lot of people don't really don't see how the physicality of these folks is so threatening and so scary.

58:13 Yes.

58:15 Yeah. And that. That means that if you hold that trauma, it's really hard to separate it from this. Like, maybe what might be thought of as a loftier goal of bridging some kind of divide.

58:27 Yes.

58:29 Nothing can really help you get over that fear that you have when there's 50 white men marching. No, there were more than that.

58:36 There was more than that.

58:36 There was way more than that.

58:37 There was way more than that.

58:38 It's like 150. They've made 200. I can't remember.

58:40 All I know is that Uva police escorted them so that. Because they were worried about them burning down any trees or historic buildings.

58:48 Right. Yeah. Yep.

58:50 That was a surprise.

58:52 We're just about hitting the hour mark, so I have a couple of last questions I was hoping to ask before we sadly have to kind of wrap up, although I'm sure there'll be lots of conversation to be had later. The first is, you know, you talked about. I mean, I think one of the big conversations happening now about white supremacy is whether. Whether it's, like, a niche subculture that is really a minority or if it's a larger issue that needs to be contended with. And at the center of this conversation, of course, Charlottesville has been put on a pedestal of an example of when, you know, we had to directly confront this issue. And I'm curious to hear from you, since you've both been very actively involved in racial justice efforts since well before and since 2017. How have you felt? I. The work moving in the right direction. But also, where have you encountered obstacles in the last five years?

01:00:16 I guess the first thing I would say is that I don't think white supremacy is a niche issue. I think that I would invite a full reframing of that, because I would argue along the lines of what Nikole Hannah Jones does in the 1619 project, that America, in its founding right here in Virginia, right here in Jamestown, created a system of racial division, started to build laws and policies that expanded one upon the other, to disenfranchise black folks, to make sure that native folks would not have any power or authority in the new government. And from that point on, we have had this separation. It is, as Ibram Kendi says, stamped from the beginning of this nation. And the idea that white supremacy is a teeny, tiny little thing is an idea offered by people who are either intentionally lying to you, which is what I think, or it is a complete misunderstanding. But I don't think it's a misunderstanding. There's absolutely no way that you get a country that looks like America that has laws written and premises written specifically with disproportionate power and disproportionate punishment written in our laws, that there was a law that a white person. That a black person could not carry guns, that a black person could not walk, could not look a white person in the eye, that a black person. If a white person committed an infraction, it would be not an infraction, it would be okay. But if a black person did it, the sentence was death. Like these are these very early things from the 17th century, the 18th century, the 19th century, we have consistently, for hundreds of years of american history, made decisions that fortified the nation's resolve as one that prioritized the needs and interests of white people in general and landed white men in particular. This is a fact, an undeniable fact of our history. To say that now white supremacy is a niche issue or it's fringe or it's only the people who are wearing the uniforms and the Klan hoods is preposterous and false. If anything, those folks are the tip of the iceberg, you know, because white supremacy is embedded in our politics. It's embedded in the air that we breathe. And it takes deliberate effort to identify it, talk about it, and ideally, dismantle it, but this will never happen if folks are somehow convinced that to discuss white supremacy or to talk about racism or talk about marginalization is impolite or uncivil or somehow causing division and breaking up the band. These are the types of responsibilities that get put on the marginalized all the time so that folks have to carry their marginalization as well as somehow the responsibility for that. It is the most powerful and seductive form of gaslighting known, and it is embedded in american culture.

01:04:18 Yeah. What Lisa said to that point, then, how, in Charlottesville, have you seen changes happen and how do you feel about that? Yeah, I think I've got. I've got some. Yeah, I think. Yeah. What Lisa said and just. Just. Yeah, the. I think, and I hope that we're in a point where there's a deeper understanding of history, a better understanding of history. More history is accessible to more people, to give people the concrete facts about how deeply rooted this country is in white supremacy and then be able to piece together. Well, that means that, yes, this small group of people is the tip of the iceberg, and the iceberg underneath is huge, and it's so ingrained. And I hope we're moving towards a point in time where white folks understand that buying into that, that being conned to participate in that is bad for themselves as well. And I don't think that that's going to look like most people, especially wealthy white people, understanding that for a long time. But things that give me hope are mutual aid and resource distribution. I think during the pandemic, a lot of people tied together understanding community care in connection with resource distribution and got a little less protective over their own stolen stuff. And I would hope that that trend continues. I see it still happening all the time, but I also feel like I'm in maybe a bubble, and I'm pretty constantly aware of that bubble. But, yeah, I think I'm seeing more institutions which hold the legacy of white supremacy, but are also government or public service stuff, trying to understand what are we doing? What kind of history are we putting out in the world? Where are we putting our money? And I think that's a huge part of it, is where is the money going? Where is it coming from? And in Charlottesville, I do think that the mutual aid push has been huge and really cool and really amazing. I think that we are now at a really cool moment where the statues are down and there's a public input process with the swords into Plowshares project to determine what does this space look like and what are the possibilities here that lie beyond statues and intersect with art and community and healing. And I'm really curious to see how that manifests. But we. I don't. Yeah, it's really hard to assess it.

01:07:11 And I also think that you know, like the creation of new institutions. And I do think visible records is a really great example. I think that. That it is a space that has allowed for gatherings and for events and for beautiful art and amazing discussions, and they just had something about food justice. It's like there's always something there, and I always feel like if it's happening at visible records, then I think I'm gonna be safe there. No, you know what I mean? And I think that that type of resourcing is really powerful. The work that the Jefferson school is doing, in addition to swords into plowshares, the education work that they're doing with city teachers and Alvin Albemarle teachers, the work that they're doing with the travel program where they go on the bus tour, that's another kind of illustration. Lots of different local galleries and people that have come together to kind of. To do things, to build new things. Prolific. The fantastic running group that's led by will and these wonderful folks. It's a great crew of people that get together and run and walk. And so it's just that Charlottesville is working and people are putting in work. There is, however, still a backlash, and there's the same folks who said, ignore the Nazis and ignore the Klan. These folks are still here and want nothing better than to have Charlottesville be known for its wineries rather than its white supremacy. And they're more concerned about thinking about how tourism might look or, let's paper over this thing or that thing. And so the resistance is. Is still necessary, you know? But I think that there's also a lot of bright spots, and I'm really happy to say that the Jefferson school and visible records are two of them in my mind.

01:09:10 Sorry.

01:09:12 You need some water. Oh, my gosh.

01:09:16 There's, like, a thing in my throat.

01:09:17 Of course. Of course.

01:09:19 I am breathing in my mask fibers.

01:09:21 Oh, my gosh. I.

01:09:23 Did you hear my voice? I feel like I'm dying. I turned your mic down for now.

01:09:29 So you could cough away.

01:09:33 Oh, my gosh. But I think we are coming to the end of our time, too, so I think we'll just have some.

01:09:39 I don't envy you having to kind of go through all of this and. Are you gonna edit it down to, like, 20 minutes?

01:09:45 Um, with help, I have. Okay, I. I have one more thing to add to what lisa was saying, just along the lines of, I do think what you referenced earlier. Oh, my gosh. Wow. I cannot believe. Sorry. You referenced earlier something about. Or we. I mean, we're here. We're here, where uva is, we're here at one of the inceptions of this american project, of this mess. And so it does. I feel often like it's hard to assess progress overall because we're in this specific place that has a lot of. Yeah, a lot of stake in protecting its own image. Yes, it's a huge amount. And it's got the university, which is Thomas Jefferson's legacy, which is so plainly and blatantly racist, sexist, nasty, horrible. And it just feels often like we are in, I'm sure a lot of folks across the nation, in different places that have their own histories of colonization and genocide and things feel like they're in the belly of the beast. But sometimes it feels like that here, too. So hard to see, hard to know how to feel like things are changing when everything feels so specifically old and rooted in a certain kind of perspective.

01:11:07 I see that. I totally see that.

01:11:10 The last. The piece I want us to end on is there are, I think, a lot of people, whether they consider themselves activists or allies or just people in this country, who are looking for advice and for some kind of inspiration to continue doing this work and to be better and to understand their biases. And part of what we hope to do is to create a platform where we can encourage people who are doing the work to share those things. And so I want to end on this note, which is that if you could each offer a piece of advice or a message to those who you hope will be part of this movement, what would it be?

01:12:01 I think I would say that change is possible and that you should look to build support. You don't have to do it alone. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are a lot of amazing books and resources, and I know books are probably people like, I'm sick of books, but they're all amazing resources and people who are doing really powerful work. And by reading these books, you're not just meant to check the list off and go on to the next book, but you probably should. But you're also meant to use that information as a way to find encouragement and support. I think the main thing is reminding people that we can win. You know, it is absolutely winning. This is absolutely possible. But first you've got to recognize that you are in a struggle. This is an actual struggle. And so if you're going to be reading books, I recommend, I've been telling everyone to read Jocelyn Johnson's My Monticello. It is a beautiful collection. And the main, the story, the novella, my Monticello, was built around the terror attacks of 2017 and talks about a kind of a dystopian future that combines both racist crisis and climate crisis. And it's a very powerful and plausible and beautifully written story, and I highly recommend it. I mean, it's very much Octavia Butler level good, which is saying something.

01:13:34 Yeah. Yeah. I think I would say figure out how to rest and not move at an unhealthy speed. I think that is a facet of behavior of a white supremacist society, is to push yourself to go quickly and building trust with people. Building strategy doesn't happen fast. It happens slowly over time. That would be my other biggest piece of advice, is to build trust with people. I think that, yeah, knowing your history, every time that I feel a little bit down in the dumps or discouraged, I do think learning about other movements and how creative people have been throughout time and how courageous people have been, how bold they've been, has always lifted my spirits, has made me feel like more is possible because people have survived some whack shit to get here. So they've done some really cool stuff to figure out how to get this far, which is amazing and very uplifting if you're feeling down. Thank you for sharing, and thank you both so much for your time today and sharing your experiences and your insight. We really appreciate it.

01:14:51 Thank you so much. This was great. Thank you. And it's so good to talk with you, Kendall.

01:14:55 I know you too, Lisa. You're amazing.