Lee Hawkins unpacks family history and intergenerational trauma in new podcast

Journalist Lee Hawkins grew up in Maplewood, Minn., but Alabama has always haunted his family.

In a new podcast, Hawkins uncovers his family history, his father’s painful nightmares and the long-lasting impacts of Jim Crow far beyond segregation.

What Happened in Alabama? is a long-form limited series podcast about the intergenerational ripple effect of slavery and his efforts to heal.

Hawkins is also the author of a forthcoming book, “Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free.”

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with Hawkins about the podcast, out May 15.

And join MPR News for a free event Wednesday, May 22, as Angela Davis and Lee Hawkins explore the topic of intergenerational trauma in the Black community at a North Star Journey Live event: Ending cycles of trauma in Black America. Get your tickets at MPRevents.org.

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Click the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

I want to begin by going back a little bit to your teenage years here in Minnesota. You grew up in Maplewood. But what do you think made you want to become a journalist as a teenager or as a young man?

So when I was a kid, my grandfather read all kinds of newspapers. He was a railroad railroad worker at Burlington Northern. And at night, he was also a janitor at Montgomery Ward’s, and he was really into the union. And so he followed the news. And he had me reading newspapers at a very young age. And my great grandparents grew up in the Rondo area. And they were actually the landlords for Carl, T. Rowan, who was a legendary journalist. And they had told me all about him.

I didn’t realize until later that he lived with them, because he could not stay in the University of Minnesota dormitories at that period of time, because Black people were not allowed to stay there. But they talked about Carl, they talked about Gordon Parks. They talked about all of the great writers and the creators that came out of Minnesota. That just made it clear that I could do it. And my grandfather, the other one was the one who got me to actually start reading the Wall Street Journal at around 12 years old. And then I ended up working there.

You were a reporter at The Wall Street Journal for 19 years. Yeah, and people I think people should know that this is one of the most prestigious newspapers in the country. But then a few years ago, you left so I want to know, like, what made you make such a change?

First of all, it’s the best financial newspaper in the world. So I was really blessed to be there as long as I was. I left in 2021. And around 2015, I took a DNA test through ancestry.com. And I started getting into genealogy, and I started calling my father and sharing what I was finding. And then next thing I knew, you know, I was spending about three years determining if there was a book here and there, ended up being a book there. I sold the book while I was at the Wall Street Journal, and the research for “Nobody Slave” took almost seven years and so I planned this whole thing, and I was talking with American Public Media, and many other companies before I actually left. So when we got the deal done, it was great.

And by the way, American Public Media is nothing to snuff at. I mean, it’s a wonderful organization, as you know. And the Wall Street Journal to American Public Media and Minnesota Public Radio where I’m from. It’s just such a blessing. Because they get the project, you get the project because it’s right in my backyard.

I want everybody to know a lot more about the new podcast you’re working on. The first episode comes out next Wednesday, May 15. It’s called What Happened In Alabama, because Alabama, is where your family is originally from. And the stories you’re exploring in this podcast, as well as in the forthcoming book, they’re very, very personal, very intimate, you are telling all of the family business. I just need to know why? Why the decision to do that?

I think the decision came from wanting to know my family’s place in America, in the American story, when I watched the movie Roots, and I was a very young person at that time, just a kid. And I remember seeing, you know, the saga of Koonta Kinte. And all of the way that this family showed all of the resilience and the strength and all of that. I wondered about my family’s place in that story.

I think it’s important not only to tell the family business, but to tell the American family business and to get the story right. That the founding of America was about business, right? And the fact that my family worked as free labor, and then under an apartheid system for another 100 years and still thrived. The fact that my great grandfather, Ike Pugh Sr., was murdered for basically daring to own land and to be an entrepreneur as a farmer. That’s important because he was killed and that was my grandmother’s father. He was killed when she was nine years old. And that murder was hidden from every generation. And over time, that 100 years that that murder affected our family, it affected the way that I was raised.

How did your family handle the news of this project? Did they have any reservations about you wanting to share the good and the bad things that happened in your family?

I think so I think initially, my dad especially knew that he was unpacking very painful information. But overall, my family came around like so many people participated, including all my family members, my nuclear family members, and the older people.

It was really the ancestors, people who are now ancestors who passed away after giving these interviews that pushed me along and said it’s important for you to do this. And mainly because of Ike Pugh Sr., and the fact that he was murdered 100 years ago — and on my birthday, as a matter of fact — by a white man who was never brought to justice. And now I’m a journalist and I have the power to tell this story.

So many families have these family secrets. You know, painful parts of the past that people just don’t want to talk about. But it is important to get it out because that’s part of the healing process. Right?

I think it is for America, especially because I think we’ve been in denial that for all but 60 years of our existence in this country, white supremacy has been the law. And that’s not a political statement. That is a fact. That my father was born into Jim Crow Alabama and lived under a system of apartheid.

So the impact that that has having the empathy and sensitivity to understand why previous generations did not want to talk about certain things they went through. And the fact that also, there are millions of Black Americans in this country who lived through Jim Crow apartheid, who are alive today. Any Black person who’s over 60 years old, who grew up in the South is a Jim Crow survivor. That’s what I call them survivors of American apartheid. And I think that’s important. It’s important to teach our children and to study the impact that it has had on families in the American family of all races.

I know you want to talk about something, the term ‘integration generation’ that you told me that you consider yourself to be part of the integration generation. So what does that mean?

I’m really curious. I was very curious about going back and looking at the experience of Black people who grew up in Minnesota, especially in the suburbs. You know, we were the first generation of kids after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, to actually integrate schools and neighborhoods. And our parents integrated companies. And that experience, what was that experience like? I know that there are thousands of people of all races, people of color, who are listening and understand that challenge.

Being from Minnesota, I know that it was not easy. We went through a lot of hate speech. We went through a lot of experiences, but still managed to thrive. And so I think that unpacking that experience, and helping people understand how integration affects identity, for people of color and how we have to navigate through. That’s important.

And I’ll just say this last thing: St. Cloud, Minn., I spoke there as the MLK speaker this year, and I was just blown away by the diversity there. Because when I was a kid, we called it “White Cloud.” And now it’s St. Cloud. It’s changed and it’s really a superpower for them. I told the mayor: Think about all of the different companies who would want to come and hire this employee base, because there are so many people the best and brightest from all over the world. And it was just beautiful to see. And I was very, very proud to see that in my home state of Minnesota. Rochester too. I feel the same way.

You’ve done some reporting for MPR News, and I want to talk about a story that you did that was very impactful. A few years ago, you told the story of a substitute school teacher here who helped you feel less alone as a Black kid and a predominantly white school. His name was Mr. Bridgman.

What was it like talking to Mr. Bridgman? After so long, and then revisiting some of your childhood, your school memories?

Well, it was incredible. You know, I was a third grade student at Madeline Weaver Elementary School. And on one day, this substitute teacher walks in, and everybody thought he was my dad. And when I walked in the classroom, I saw why. Because he was Black. And so having that Black teacher, that was a tough year for me. And having that Black teacher that one day had a profound influence on me because I felt alone. And I felt like, you know, Mr. Bridgman, and seeing his example, really empowered me and I never forgot his name.

And so I ended up going back and finding, you know, just navigating through the network in Minnesota, and finding Mr. Bridgman and being able to speak with him. Just to say, “thank you,” you know. Gratitude is a big part of my life, I try to express gratitude, as much as possible. And that’s what that interview was about.

But what was really powerful was how different our experiences were, because my parents felt that they didn’t have the luxury to not tell me about racism, because we were in that school district every day. And there was a lot of fear that my dad had left over from Alabama, that made him fear for us and want us to be able to navigate through situations involving racism on our own.

I know that you still follow what’s happening in education today. Here in Minnesota, across the nation, we still have, you know, a huge lack of teachers of color, particularly in Minnesota, we know that most students in Minnesota will graduate, well, they’ll go K through 12, without ever having a teacher of color.

You hit on a great point, it significantly increases the likelihood that you’ll graduate from college, if you had a Black teacher. And it is very important, not just for Black kids either.

And he was your substitute for one day?

For one day, and I never forgot him.

What was some of the feedback you got after that report aired, and was shared? Did you hear back from folks?

I heard from a lot of people all over the state, who were telling me thank you for doing that. Because many of us go through our entire education without having a Black teacher, and especially a Black male teacher, I think they represent less than 2 percent of the teachers in America.

And that’s important. It’s important for people to see, to have a diverse base of educators so that they can, you know, use that as a skill to be able to relate to a broad cross section of people. When they leave Minnesota and they go to college or wherever they go in their life. We need to really look at diversity as a superpower.

You and I are going to be together at the History Center in downtown St. Paul for a North Star Journey Live discussion on May 22. There’s also going to be like a pop up exhibit with photos. Tell us about about that.

The exhibit shows pictures of my family to bring people through the journey from Jim Crow to Minnesota. We were part of what they call the Great Migration. My great grandparents, Sam and Roberta Davis, lived in Rondo. My grandmother was very active. She worked for the YWCA. They belong to Pilgrim Baptist Church. We’re trying to show this one family’s journey so that people understand just to kind of demystify it. And to understand the level of economic, social and political collaboration that happened in that historic Rondo community.

We can talk about the racism. But we also have to talk about the way that Black people proudly, and in a dignified way, responded to it to work together to build this magnificent community. And then of course, it was displaced by the highway. And then we found ways to buy homes from each other and do that. That’s how my family ended up in Maplewood. So this exhibit tells that story.

Are you excited? or are you nervous? If I had to tell my family story in a museum and with a live story, I’d be so nervous.

Well, you know, I’ve been working on for a long time, trace my family history, 400 years. So you know, an opportunity to talk about it in the place that I love in, you know, this iconic, beautiful place with people that I love is just such a great opportunity, and I'm grateful for it.

I’m just thinking about my own family who, I don’t even know if they would still be speaking to me, if I use my journalism background to go, you said you went 400 years back into your family history as you did this research?

Yes I did. And you know, there’s nothing to be ashamed about that Black people have we’ve, we’ve always been a people of excellence. We’ve never enslaved anyone, we’ve never put anyone under apartheid. We were the people who lived under that system. And that shame isn't ours to bear, nor is it to bear for the people who descend from slave owners and the different people who push that agenda.

I mean, it’s history, and this is the way that it affected us. And so, I think when people adopt a more complex understanding of American history, and what I had to do to tell this story, they’re much more open to the idea of me telling it, and I’ve had mainly a lot of support from my family.

You’re right. I mean, it’s that shame and sometimes that guilt that gets in the way from us learning and healing and understanding and maybe, you know, doing things differently, doing things better.

Yes, and that’s important. I mean, we have to a lot of the cycles of this legacy were imposed upon us, it doesn’t mean that we have to keep them alive and to continue to perpetuate them throughout history.

One of the things that I really challenged in this book is the idea of using the belt as discipline, because there is such a strong correlation that I found tracing it all the way to the whip at the very plantation, where it started in my bloodline. And we have 17 states that still allow for corporal punishment in schools, and Black children are disproportionately hit at higher rates all over the country.

I found one example where a young boy was paddled 52 times. 52 different separate incidents of being paddled in schools. And so this is part of a legacy. It was a government imposed practice on Black people. And it’s something that continues to happen today.

I know this is not the first time that you have written about talked about the process of uncovering family history. In 2022. You reported on Minneapolis resident Elton Wright-Trusclair.

You actually won a national award for that report that you did for MPR News and APM. Did Elton’s story guide you on your own journey a little bit?

I think it it validated a lot of the things that I had found like for instance, in my own family, the Blakey family, many people probably know that name in the Twin Cities, Art Blakey. I believe the state headquarters police headquarters is named after him. Our great great grandfather Isaac Blakey, Sr., was actually sold in a transaction in the middle 1800s that split his family apart. As a result of that, our family reunions are three different names, right? So these are brothers and sisters who have came from the same family, but all had different names.

And so when people ask, “well how to something that happened 160 years ago, affect you today?” Well, you can start with our names, right? Black people are carrying these names of enslavers. That really is symbolic for the way the separation affected our families, right? That these were not people who were distant figures to us, the last generation of people who were enslaved. In my case, Grandma Charity and Grandpa Isaac, were people who actually babysat our grandparents. So our grandparents knew the last generation of people to live through slavery.

So working with Mr. Trusclair on his family story and learning more about it just made me realize, “Wow, this isn’t just my family, there are millions of Black families across the country, who are still impacted by slavery, but even more Jim Crow.” And that’s really a discussion that I want to start in this country is for people to start to look at Jim Crow survivors, and finally acknowledge them as a group and to put a name on it. And to make people understand that these are living people who survived, not Nazism, not apartheid in South Africa, but American apartheid on American soil in America, our country that we love — that my father served — did this to us.

Subscribe to What Happened in Alabama wherever you find your podcasts. Find “Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free.”

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