>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
All of the library I want
to welcome you all here today
for this Open Mic Series.
The Open Mic Series I
actually like to think
of a tributary of the
Botkin Lectures.
It's a little bit more informal and
discussion-oriented and allows us
to have conversations with
artists, with leading scholars
and researchers who are working
in folklore, ethnomusicology,
cultural heritage studies and
the like -and oral history
as we're going to find
out more about today.
It is also a great strategy for
us to increase our collections
and build our collections.
This discussion today will be taped
and will become a permanent part
of our archives and will eventually
make its way onto our website
so that individuals around
the room; around the room!
Around the world a little
bigger room [brief laughter]
and individuals in the future
will be able to listen to this.
So with that said, if you
do have any devices turned
on like cell phones and the like,
please turn it off right
now and I'd appreciate it.
So, today we're having a
little focus on StoryCorps.
StoryCorps is a partner of
the American Folklife Center
and it was founded in 2003 by
Dave Isay and started as a booth,
recording booth, in Grand
Central Station and now has turned
into this beautiful Airstream
that is parked behind the Jefferson
building right now and since 2003,
or actually since 2005
when they became mobile,
they've been traveling around the
country documenting, interviewing
or allowing individuals to come
together and interview each other
and share their stories and all of
these stories are actually deposited
in the American Folklife Center.
So today, among all of
the collections we have,
today we don't really
have many interviews
with the individuals
who do the interviewing.
So today we are going to do
switch, or turn the tables here
and have an opportunity
to hear what interviewers,
and what the interviewers
from StoryCorps,
have been doing overall these
years, roaming around and traveling
and how they learned
to do what they do
and their experiences along the way.
And I want to thank StoryCorps,
I also want to thank WAMU
who is a partner with this
residency here with StoryCorps,
who will be here until
about mid-May.
They've already been here a
couple of weeks, so we're thrilled
to have them and thrilled to be a
partner and I'm going to turn this
over to Nancy Groce, American
Folklife Center a folklife
specialist, who will tell
you a little bit more
about the individuals that
are going to be talking.
Thanks.
>> Nancy Groce: Great, thank you
Betsy and thank you all for coming.
So established in 2003,
StoryCorps is one
of the largest oral history
projects of its kind in the world.
In 2005, StoryCorps
converted an Airstream trailer
into a traveling recording studio
which you called a mobile booth,
right, and launched its first
cross-country tour visiting cities
and towns across the
country to record stories
of the American people, partnering
with local radio stations,
cultural institutions and
community-based organizations,
StoryCorps invites pairs of
participants to spend an hour
in the mobile booth
recording their stories.
Each week millions of
people listen to excerpts
of these compelling conversations
on NPR's Morning Edition.
How many people here listen
to NPR's Morning Edition?
Ah, okay there you go and there's
also the StoryCorps Listen Page.
In recognition of its activities,
the Brooklyn-based nonprofit has
already received numerous awards
including two Peabody
Awards and in 2015,
its founder David Isay,
received a TED Prize.
In 2015, it also launched the
StoryCorps Apt, an innovative tool
for collecting stories that we're
going to be talking about today,
but before we get there,
I want to introduce
for four StoryCorps
members, staffers,
who have been nice enough to come.
I'll start with Naomi
Blech, who began work
with StoryCorps' Mobile Tour after
earning a degree in sociology
from Barnard College, and
Naomi is all the way at end.
As a facilitator, Naomi strives--
according to what's on the webpage
and we always believe the
webpage-"to create a space
for all individuals to
meaningfully share their stories."
She's particularly interested in the
intersection of personal narratives
and ethnographic research.
Talya Cooper is the archive
manager at StoryCorps and has been
with the organization since 2007.
She holds Masters in
Library Information Sciences
from Pratt Institution
and a Bachelor's degree
in anthropology from Barnard.
Felix Lopez began his time
with StoryCorps in the prints
and animation Department before
starting his current role
as a bilingual mobile facilitator.
Prior to working with StoryCorps,
Felix worked in art and education,
sorry, worked in arts and education
administration; is that right?
And he earned his bachelor's degree
in Chinese language and history
from the University of Michigan.
And finally, Stacey Todd is a
native of Michigan and claims--
you've sailed extensively
on the Great Lakes?--
you put that on your bio so, is that
what you wanted to be known for?
We're quoting; exactly
why we're here.
She earned her bachelor's degree in
linguistics from Brooklyn College
and she's been with StoryCorps since
2013 and you all...now let's see:
Three of you: Stacey, Felix
and Naomi are facilitators
for the Mobile Booth, and Talya
is here from the Brooklyn office
where you're less mobile
is that right?
>> Talya Cooper: Yes, I'm immobile,
but I work with the archive
so that's what brings me
to my connection here.
>> Stacey Todd: You're mobile today.
>> Talya Cooper: Yes.
>> Nancy Groce: So this is in some
ways sounds like a fascinating job.
So we're going to talk to you just
about what it's like to actually go
around the country and
record stories and what it's
like to also make them available;
because it's not just recording
them, it's sharing them
with the people that's also
getting them on media so people sort
of value the stories and then,
of course, from the Library
of Congress' view, getting them
to the American Folklife Center
so that they can become
the permanent narrative,
our permanent collection our
permanent archive and part
of record of the American people.
So, let me start with sort
of a softball question.
Actually I just went back a minute;
for all of you how did you hear
about StoryCorps and did you,
were you always interested
in listening to stories?
Yeah, why don't you start?
So you've been with
StoryCorps how long Naomi?
>> Naomi Blech: I started
as an intern this past June.
So I guess it's coming
up on a year now.
In fact, this is actually my
first stop on the mobile tour
so I've been recording with the
mobile tour for about two weeks now.
Yeah, so I'm, probably won't have
that many stories or may not be able
to answer your questions,
but I heard about StoryCorps
after graduating with a
bachelor's in sociology and sort
of being interested in
nonfiction creative storytelling
in different ways to amplify
the voices of marginalized
of disenfranchised communities,
both to empower those individuals
but also to share those
narratives and make them a part
of our historical records.
>> Nancy Groce: And how about you
Felix, how did you hear about this?
>> Felix Lopez: So I think
I was still in education
and I was doing a lot of education
with museums and I was listening
to a lot of podcasts at this
point and I was really in-tune
with storytelling based
on my Caribbean family.
We just over celebrations or what
not I would just tell a story
and with descriptions and it's
this art of really celebrating life
and I really got in-tune with
not just history but oral history
when I got into Chinese language
and culture and how in-tune
that culture is to storytelling
with its long history and I wanted
to get involved with
the organization
that not only tells the history,
but kind of changes the narrative
and gives it back to the
people and gives them ownership
of what they want to say
and how they want to say it.
And that's when I got into
StoryCorps and I saw--
and I've been with this past June
so it's almost coming up to a year
and seeing the different facets
of what StoryCorps does not just
seeing it in a broadcast light,
but all the different perspectives
and missions that StoryCorps does
to amplify the voices
of everyday Americans.
>> Nancy Groce: Now, how about you?
>> Stacey Todd: Sure.
Let's see, I've always
been a people person.
I've always been very curious,
ask a lot of questions.
I had a nonlinear path to school,
so was in the service industry
for ten years, so I'm a big
customer service person.
I ended up working at
StoryCorps for two years
in the Public Information
and Services Department.
So I was the person that people
went to when they had questions,
which people have a lot of
questions about StoryCorps.
So I worked very closely with Talya
in the Recording Archives
Department,
the Education Department, you
know, all of our different booths
across the country
fielding questions,
sending organization towards them.
But then in January of this year,
I started as the manager
of the Mobile Booth.
But yeah, I studied
linguistics at Brooklyn College
and that did not lead me
necessarily to StoryCorps.
I needed an internship in
my last semester of school
so I was an intern with StoryCorps.
>> Nancy Groce: Which
is in Brooklyn.
It's in downtown Brooklyn, right?
>> Stacey Todd: Yes.
Yes, in Fort Greene.
It's a fantastic place
to be an intern.
They're very in demand
these internships.
A very large number of StoryCorps
staff members were interns.
Yeah.
>> Nancy Groce: They just train
up through the organization?
>> Stacey Todd: Yeah.
It's a six month, five-day-a-week
commitment,
a StoryCorps internship, typically.
So, yeah, I think Talya
were not an intern right?
The three of us that are on
the Mobile Tour were interns.
Yeah, mine was from June
to December of 2013.
>> Nancy Groce: And Talya
you, how did you get
to connected with StoryCorps?
>> Talya Cooper: Well, I've
been with the organization
for eight-and-a-half years, so it's
a little bit fuzzy to remember.
But. ...
>> Stacey Todd: How many people
worked with StoryCorps in 2007?
>> Talya Cooper: Probably less than
half the number of people that....
>> Nancy Groce: Yeah, how many
people work for StoryCorps now?
>> Talya Cooper:
About a hundred-forty people
work at the organization.
We have locations across--
so in addition to the Mobile
Tour we have our office New York,
we also have permanent recording
locations in Chicago, Atlanta
and San Francisco and staff
at all of those sites as well.
Yeah, I came to StoryCorps kind
of from a three pronged interest
in being archivist and coming to
work with a really cool collection.
I've also worked in-- I'd worked
in radio and audio and music stuff
so I was just really interested
in sound and sound reporting
and then I also came from a
background in social sciences
and ethnography and kind of the
minutia of everyday life and getting
to be a part of, kind of, bearing
witness to that and preserving
that is something that's always
been really appealing to me.
>> Nancy Groce: So can one of you
walk us or several of you walk us
through what happens in
a StoryCorps interview?
How do people sign up?
How do you get people to come
there and then how do you walk them
through what they're going to do?
Because one of the interesting
things for me as a folklorist is
that your model is not
to have someone who's a professional
interviewer do it, right?
It's to have people who
know each other and most
of whom are not done
this very thing before?
>> Stacey Todd: Yeah, we
prefer it it's not scripted.
We prefer if it's not interviewers,
because that's not
the StoryCorps model.
The StoryCorps is a forty-minute
conversation uninterrupted,
with somebody that you know.
But I'll start with a process
people make a reservation
for an appointment.
I'm sorry to tell you that all
of our appointments are booked
for Washington, D.C. You can get
on our waitlist if you'd like to be
on the waitlist if you're going to
be in D.C. for you know the rest
of our time here, we'd be happy
to have you on our waiting list.
But you need an appointment, so
the way the Mobile Tour works,
a couple of weeks before we get
to town our appointments go live
on our website and people
can make an appointment.
It's a free public service.
So you sign up for an appointment,
you need to have a partner
and then one of the staff members
from our office will call you
and make sure that you
understand what you signed up for
and that you have a general idea
of what you're going to talk about.
We prefer that you don't know
exactly what you're going
to talk about, but you
have a general idea.
So you have a date and a
time for your appointment
and then you [multiple
speakers], exactly.
The appointment takes about an
hour, but you have forty minutes
of uninterrupted recording time.
So you show up, we ask that you show
up ten or fifteen minutes early,
you fill out a datasheet which
is just how we build a profile
of our participants in the archive.
Why don't, do you want to take it
from there Felix what happens after?
>> Felix Lopez: Sure.
Once participants come
in, we tell them to come
in about ten minutes before their
appointment time and a facilitator--
either me or Naomi-- will
come in, will come outside
and introduce ourselves and they'll
fill out a participant datasheet
which is just to build a
profile for StoryCorps.
But usually what we tell them is
what's the most important part
about the datasheet, because
there are some questions
that for some people
may be very particular
and they might be a
little uncomfortable,
is that all those questions
that they fill out are optional.
They can fill out as much or
as little as they like and so
after they fill out the participant
datasheet they come into the booth
and it's always interesting
seeing their different reactions
to the booth: Oh, it's quaint or
it's cozy or do you live here?
>> Stacey Todd: Or it's
bigger than I expected.
>> Felix Lopez: Or it's bigger
than I expected and from there
on out we situate them and make them
feel as comfortable as possible.
When we get into the recording
part, because there's two rooms
within the airstream
trailer; there's one where we,
the facilitators, "database" and the
other room is the recording studio
and then we really start
talking to them a little bit
about what the process looks like.
Within that sixty minute
appointment, forty minutes is
of uninterrupted conversation
time and the facilitator is--
we're only there just really to
make sure the sound quality is okay.
We're going to be jotting
down notes,
summarizing the conversation every
few minutes or so and then also
like we may have some questions
sometimes, but really it is the time
for participants that
are there to really talk
about whatever they want, and
participants talk from love
to someone in the their family that
just passed, recent proposals....
>> Naomi Blech: I had a proposal
in the booth, yeah, a few days ago.
>> Felix Lopez: So, do you want to?
>> Did she say yes?
>> Naomi Blech: She did say yes.
>> Felix Lopez: Do you want
to continue from there?
>> Naomi Blech: Yeah, sure.
I'd like to say that I may
ask some clarifying questions
like if they bring up Bob
and they've never brought
and they've never brought
him up before just
for archival purposes,
I would say who's that?
Or to invite participants to explore
an area or a topic a little bit more
and in that case it's obviously
always optional, you know,
it's an appointment
between the two of them
to archive their stories together
so they can always skip that,
but I think that you can
sort of tell if they're going
to be receptive to a question
like that and it's often something
that can enrich the experience.
So I feel very privileged to be able
to ask those questions every once
in a while and sort of spark
something in the conversation
that might have gone
overlooked, so I think that's one
of the coolest parts of the job.
And then at the end we
stop their recording,
we give them you know ten minute,
five minute, one minute hand signals
and then we give them a CD of their
recording to take home that day,
which is really neat and we
invite them to archive their story
with StoryCorps and at
the Library of Congress.
It's definitely very optional.
The release forms range from walking
away with the only copy of the CD
to archiving at the
Library of Congress,
some of our partner archives
at that the Smithsonian,
or to just archiving at
the Library of Congress
and not giving StoryCorps
access to your content,
to produce for radio potentially --
which is only less than one
percent of that stories.
But or to use for educational or
promotional purposes and things
like that, but a lot of people
are really excited by sort
of how easily they able
to open up or what came
out in those forty minutes
and are excited to archive it,
so that's also something
that's really neat.
And then we take some photos for
the archive, some group photos
and some individual photos, and we
give individuals the opportunity
to make a small donation to
StoryCorps and that's about it.
>> Stacey Todd: I was just
going to say that we refer
to the recording space as a sacred
space and people are often surprised
by how quickly they are able
to make themselves vulnerable
or share something that
they've never shared before
or how easy it is to ask a
question of somebody who, you know,
you've never asked
that question before.
>> Nancy Groce: Is that
because of the physical space
or is it the event that they've
signed up for and they've agreed to?
>> Stacey Todd: It's a
combination of all of that.
I definitely think the
physical space helps.
It's very dim inside the booth, just
two lights over the participants;
the light near the facilitator
is usually turned off.
It's pretty cozy.
The booth seats are really worn in.
The way its setup is like a booth at
a diner; yeah, we need new cushions
which we're getting, but you
know we have limited resources.
So if our booth seats are a little
squishy that's why, but no I think
that is, think of we've; the Mobile
Tour has been traveling the country
since 2005 nonstop.
So, think of all the thousands of
people who have sat in that space
and had a moment or
shared something, you know.
There are lots of tears.
People always say that the
cry during our broadcast,
well there's a lot of
crying in the booth,
but its happy tears
sometimes, of course,
like people share traumatic things.
It's just, you can, the space has
an energy to it and I do think
that the space contributes to
the quality of the conversation.
>> Nancy Groce: Now, can you guess
what people are going to talk
about by, as they come, by
the way they carry themselves,
the way they look?
>> Naomi Blech: No.
>> Felix Lopez: Definitely not.
Definitely not.
>> Nancy Groce: Give me an example.
>> Felix Lopez: I think I
can like even give an example
from something that
happened yesterday.
Someone from our outreach
organization came in and it was her
and her husband and they were very,
I mean, they were giddy and happy
and excited, but I think you can't
really assume; one of the things
about being a facilitator is
that you really can't assume what
people are going to come in with
or what they're going to say or what
the conversation is going to be like
and so it's kind of like, just, when
you're meeting a new person, for me,
I feel like when people tell their
stories it's always a present
for me, because I'm humble in
space where I'm part of your life
for forty minutes and I'm
hearing things that not a lot
of people can hear or
will hear in their lives.
And especially with
two people that are
so personally connected I think life
is life and that we have errands
to run and we have things to
do that we never have the space
to have those conversations
or we really avoid those
conversations sometimes.
And so with the space, that sacred
space that Stacey mentioned,
there is that time where people
are like asking those questions
and there's nowhere to go, it's
like you're going to
say, you're going to.
>> Stacey Todd: People
can leave if they want.
>> Felix Lopez: They
can leave, but.....
>> Stacey Todd: That's one thing
we tell people is you have forty
minutes and people usually use it
all and it usually goes really fast,
but you don't have to use it all.
If at any moment you feel
like you're finished,
you can give us a signal
and we stop the recording.
>> Felix Lopez: Exactly.
But it's like not like, oh you,
but like I feel like when it comes
to a very personal conversation,
when someone asks a question
you feel like this is the time
where I'm archiving this and this
is the only time I'm going to talk
about this, why don't
I answer it now?
And so when that couple came
in, they just started talking
about their grandma-- the woman
started talking about her grandma
and by the second or third
question about talking
about her favorite memories
with her grandma in Ukraine,
she started crying and talking
about being a Ukrainian woman
in the United States and
traveling at immigration
and I couldn't assume all that
stuff just by seeing her fill
out a participant datasheet
or saying hello.
So there's always those little
boughts of surprises that come
when you're a facilitator.
>> Nancy Groce: You mentioned
outreach organizations.
Can you talk a little bit
about that, because maybe a lot
of people don't realize
how much thought goes
into who you're interviewing?
>> Naomi Blech: Yeah, so
a few months before we,
before I scheduled stuff, we
start in the office doing outreach
on organizations that are
working with populations
that are underrepresented in
the media or in our archives.
We have different initiatives
for LGBTQ communities,
for Latino voices,
for African-American
and Black stories for;
am I forgetting any?
>> Felix Lopez: Military voices.
>> Naomi Blech: Military voices.
We try to-- we try go
special initiatives
to incorporate voices
that we are noticing.
We notice that we're
represent we're in need of,
but besides that so we'll do
research on the upcoming stop.
We'll look at the demographics
of the stop and we'll reach
out to nonprofits, you know,
community-based organizations,
just individuals who we think have a
lot of connections in the community
and we'll invite them to a community
partnership meeting which happens
about a month before the stop
where one of our colleagues
from the office travels
to the location and meets
with potential point people
from those organizations
to tell them what a StoryCorps
partnership looks like.
And then, if they decide that
they want to be partners with us,
they'll get access to a private
calendar where they can reach
out to people within their networks
and sign them up for appointments,
so about half of our appointments
and more than half in Washington,
D.C. go to people who wouldn't
have been able to sign up,
or wouldn't have known to
sign up for appointments
without this extra
element of outreach,
which is one of the main
focuses in the office one
of the really cool
things about StoryCorps.
>> Stacey Todd: Naomi and Felix
both spend about twenty-five percent
of their time in the office in
Brooklyn, so we have a team,
the Mobile Team has
three facilitators.
Vera is not here today, but
she's in the office in Brooklyn
so they rotate through
and they work mainly
in the office in Brooklyn
is outreach.
We take it very seriously.
>> Nancy Groce: And how long
are you, I know you're here
for five weeks, I believe.
Is that a standard length
of time to be at a site?
>> Stacey Todd: Yeah.
>> Felix Lopez: Yes.
>> Stacey Todd: Four to
five weeks in each city.
>> Nancy Groce: And then you
operate eight hours a day,
you do eight interviews a day?
>> Stacey Todd: Seven.
>> Nancy Groce: Seven interviews
and lunch [multiple speakers].
>> Stacey Todd: Yeah, exact yeah.
It's a long day especially you
know in D.C. now we're commuting
on the train just like we do in
New York, so we leave about 9:00
in the morning and our last
appointment finishes at 6:30 so we,
and then we have databasing
to do at the end of the day.
So we don't leave the booth
until about 7:00 or 7:30.
>> Nancy Groce: And it's all
very intense work, right?
>> Stacey Todd: Yeah.
When people are in there you
really have to pay attention.
>> Stacey Todd: Yeah.
>> Nancy Groce: So what do
you do on your time off?
You're all, your traveling
the country
as a group and that must be.....
>> Stacey Todd: Yeah.
It's interesting.
There's some days-- and each city
also has a different feel to it.
It feels like there's so
much to do in Washington,
D.C. that I don't want to just
like lay around the house.
So I've been going to
museums and going for walks
and you know the weather's
been be beautiful.
But there are days
when, because it is
such an emotionally tiring job some
days, that you just want to like lay
on the couch and watch Netflix.
So it's a variation of different
things and every city that we're
in our living situation is
different, so we're in partnership
with the local public radio station.
And WAMU has found
us a fantastic house.
We feel very fancy.
We have a backyard and a porch and
a front swing on the front porch.
>> Nancy Groce: We can come visit!
We can do some.....
>> Stacey Todd: It's
really-really nice,
so but it's not always like that.
Felix and I, in Las Cruces,
New Mexico this January lived
for a month in a pretty like
mediocre hotel and I ate
so many frozen burritos
in New Mexico,
so I'm happy that we have a full
kitchen and a beautiful house now.
>> Naomi Blech: I'm getting spoiled.
That's true.
>> Felix Lopez: And then in San
Antonio we had our own apartment.
So, in addition to going
to different cities,
the living situation can
be very different also--
whether that be like with
the distance to the booth.
For like in San Antonio we walked
five minutes away from the booth.
In Las Cruces we drove
for like fifteen minutes.
Here, it's like an hour commute
but it is the metro so it's nice
because there are some, there is
some pros of being in the metro.
You can, after the booth we're
already on the Hill so we can
like go out or go to dinner.
>> Stacey Todd: We don't have to
drive here, which is fantastic!
Felix and Naomi are both native
New Yorkers and we're a team
that travels the country
with two vehicles.
So it makes, I'm a Midwesterner
so I, like driving is no big deal
for me, but these two it
makes me a little nervous,
so I'm grateful [brief laughter].
I'm grateful when they
don't have to drive.
>> Felix Lopez: She's right.
>> Stacey Todd: We, I
shouldn't say anymore.
>> Nancy Groce: So, now one
of the ways most people
hear StoryCorps I think is
on NPR and Friday mornings.
How many people again here listen
to this on a regular basis?
So a lot of people.
Can you talk to us
about the relationship
of what you're recording?
How do you select those vignettes
because I assume they're edited?
And so do you, when you're
sitting there listening
through all these stories, do you,
when you hear a really great
story do you sort of mark it or,
how do you filter things?
>> Stacey Todd: Well, we have a
production department that goes
through the archive and
finds what they're looking
for for that particular day.
Talya, do you want to
talk about this at all?
>> Talya Cooper: Sure, yeah.
So I think Naomi, I
think we have a total
of about six-hundred produced pieces
that have been generated for NPR
and our archive has sixty-six
thousand interviews in it.
The broadcast pieces are
about two-and-a-half minutes
on the interviews themselves
or forty minutes.
So as you can tell, it's a very-very
small percentage of our archive
that currently is made
available to the public to hear,
which is something
that we in the archive
at StoryCorps are working very
difficult, working very hard
to change with the
generous partnership
of the American Folklife
Center, which is the only place
that you can currently go to and
listen to interviews in full.
So the way, the production
department has a few
different priorities.
We want to, in producing pieces,
we want to represent diverse
populations and also diverse kinds
of pairings of people, so not have
every single broadcast that goes
on NPR be a grandfather, you know,
giving sound advice to his grandson,
like trying to have different
dimensions, different kinds
of relationships, and
different kinds of stories
and we also do some work, or
the production department rather
which is not my area of
expertise, try and often find kind
of untold stories or kind of
lesser-known historical events
that might relate to
something that's in the news.
So I remember we did a piece on
Orangeburg, where there is a bunch
of people killed in a Civil
Rights protest in South Carolina.
>> Nancy Groce: Orangeburg where?
>> Talya Cooper: South Carolina.
>> Nancy Groce: South
Carolina, okay.
>> Talya Cooper: And that
was something that, you know,
is not a story that a lot of
people know about that is related
to a lot of, kind of, better
known historical events.
So that's something that we do,
or that our production
department does rather,
but then when these folks
are listening to interviews
in the booth there is kind
of different standards,
or not standards but
just different things
that they're keeping their
ear out for which is kind of,
not just interesting content,
but well-told stories: you know,
people who have particularly
compelling voices or something.
And it, you know, we
never want to say
that you know a certain story
is better than another story
because especially from an archival
perspective like even a kind
of dryly told story
has valuable kind
of evidentiary information
or things like that.
That's kind of the, I don't know....
>> Stacey Todd: I do have a couple
of our broadcasts that were recorded
on the Mobile Tour setup,
if you want to play one?
And if anybody's interested
in hearing a story we'd
be happy to do that.
It looks like I see some nods.
>> Nancy Groce: Yeah, yeah.
Let's get a sample.
>> Stacey Todd: Pardon me.
>> Nancy Groce: Okay.
>> Stacey Todd: I should be able
to do it from here, let me see.
Here we go.
So this was recorded in
Jackson, Mississippi.
Our Mobile Tour was
there in 2015, I believe.
This is a father and son
pairing, Albert and Ayden Sykes.
This is one of my favorites.
>> Recording of Ayden Sykes:
Do you remember what was going
through your head when
you first saw me?
>> Recording of Albert Sykes:
I remember when the
doctor pulled you out.
The first thing I thought was that
he was being too rough with you
and he actually held you
like a little Sprite bottle
and he was like "Here's your baby."
That was the most proud
moment of my life.
Don't tell your brothers,
because there's three of you all,
but it was like looking
at a blank canvas
and just imagining what you want
the painting to look like at the end
but also knowing you can't
control the paint strokes.
You know, the fear was just,
I got to bring up Black boy
in Mississippi, which is a tough
place to bring up kids period,
but there are statistics
that say Black boys born
after the year 2002 have a one-in
-three chance of going to prison.
And all three of my sons were
born after the year 2002.
>> Recording of Ayden Sykes: So dad,
why do you take me
to protests so much?
>> Recording of Albert Sykes:
I think I take you for
a bunch of reasons.
One is that I want you
to see what it looks
like when people come together,
but also that you understand
that it is not just about
people that are familiar to you,
but it's about everybody.
Did you know the work that
Martin Luther King was doing was
for everybody and it wasn't
just for Black people?
>> Recording of Ayden Sykes:
Yes, I understand that.
>> Recording of Albert Sykes: Yeah,
so that's how you got to think.
You decide that you
want to be a cab driver,
then you got to be the
most impactful cab driver
that you can possibly be.
>> Recording of Ayden
Sykes: Are you proud of me?
>> Recording of Albert
Sykes: Of course.
You're my man.
I just love everything
about you, period.
>> Recording of Ayden
Sykes: The thing I love the
about you, you never give up on me.
That's one of the things I will
always remember about my dad.
>> Recording of Albert Sykes: Wow,
you said it like I'm on the way
out of here or like
I'm already gone.
>> Recording of Ayden Sykes: So
dad, what are your dreams for me?
>> Recording of Albert Sykes:
My dream is for you to
live out your dreams.
There's an old proverb that talks
about when children are
born the children come
out with their fists closed because
that's where they keep their gifts
and as you grow your hands learn
to unfold because you're learning
to release your gifts to the
world and so for the rest
of your life I want to see you
live with your hands unfolded.
[ Music ]
>> Stacey Todd: I think
that's a good example
of one that's obviously compelling
but the dynamic between the two
of them is really what the story is.
The relationship is the story.