Chris Jackson of Hamilton on Broadway for our 100th episode

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:00:00</time>
And then, the second part of your question.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:00:01</time>
No, I had never given any thought ever to portraying George Washington.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:00:06</time>
I had seen probably the few movies were made for TV movies that they had made.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:21</time>
Welcome to talk with history.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:23</time>
I am your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jenn.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:26</time>
Hello.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:27</time>
On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired, both travels,

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:31</time>
YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:35</time>
with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:39</time>
Now, Jenn, this is our hundredth episode.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:41</time>
We've been doing this for a couple of years now, and we have a very

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:44</time>
special guest joining us today.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:46</time>
So we.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:47</time>
Really have a guest who needs no introduction, but I'm

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:49</time>
going to give him one anyways.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:00:55</time>
He originated the iconic role of George Washington in the groundbreaking

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:00</time>
musical phenomenon, Hamilton, his powerful vocals and nuanced performance

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:04</time>
captivated audiences worldwide.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:06</time>
And his portrayal of the first president sparked important

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:09</time>
conversations about history.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:11</time>
From there, he only picked up steam, continuing on his career on the

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:14</time>
silver screen of television and I'm making his career very, very

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:17</time>
short, but most importantly, the most important thing about our guest

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:21</time>
is he has a passion for history.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:23</time>
So welcome, Mr.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:24</time>
Christopher Jackson.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:25</time>
Thank you so much for joining us on talk with history tonight.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:01:28</time>
Thank you for having me.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:01:29</time>
Happy 100th.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:30</time>
Thank you so much.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:31</time>
this

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:01:31</time>
What a, milestone.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:32</time>
a, this is a great milestone for us.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:34</time>
Especially kind of bootstrapping a podcast in our living room whenever we can.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:39</time>
So thank you so much for joining us and, we're really happy to have you.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:46</time>
just so people know kind of how we got connected with, with you we'll

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:50</time>
kind of tell our audience Hey, how the heck did you guys get connected

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:53</time>
with, with Christopher Jackson?

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:01:54</time>
Yeah,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:01:55</time>
it was honestly, Chris, it was amazing experience for me.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:01:58</time>
I am even wearing my history has its eyes on you t shirt.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:02:03</time>
I love

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:03</time>
was driving back from a friend's house in Uniontown, Pennsylvania,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:06</time>
and I was driving past Fort Necessity, which if you know the

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:10</time>
song, history has its eyes on you.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:12</time>
George Washington is talking, I'm, I'm younger than you are

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:15</time>
now given my first command.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:17</time>
So I stopped there and I just did those lines real quick.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:21</time>
And I talked about what George Washington is talking about learning

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:24</time>
in that moment and how lucky he is to learn because he didn't get killed.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:29</time>
And he didn't lose his command, which were two things that

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:32</time>
probably should have happened.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:33</time>
And so he, he's talking about how lucky he got in that moment and how he's

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:38</time>
trying to teach that to Hamilton, that you don't always get to learn from your

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:43</time>
mistakes, but if you do like really bring it, take it on and, and, and change,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:49</time>
people's lives for the, what you learn.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:51</time>
And you had reached out, you saw that reel and you said you never

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:56</time>
got a chance to visit it before.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:58</time>
You.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:02:58</time>
Took the role, but then you and then you said you were a fan of

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:03:02</time>
mine, and I almost lost my mind

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:04</time>
Sure.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:06</time>
I mean, you guys, I mean, it's so cool.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:09</time>
I grew up in Southern Illinois, so being, that's, I grew up

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:13</time>
in, I was born in Metropolis, Illinois, inside of Fort Massac.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:18</time>
So, when I was, When I was young, they had they had two pair of Buffalo, like

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:24</time>
actual Buffalo that they had in a small pen that you could drive down and just

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:30</time>
park and watch the Buffalo sort of graze in a, in a, in a paddock, if you

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:34</time>
could call it, that was so small, but Fort Massach and in, and then later

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:39</time>
I moved to Cairo, which was, Which is at the southernmost point of Illinois.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:43</time>
So there's a lot of history baked into and into that area,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:46</time>
especially around the civil war.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:48</time>
And so for, for me, it was just always so intriguing to know that, General

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:51</time>
Grant stated Magnolia manor, the cupola, because there was no other tall buildings,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:55</time>
he could see the confluence of the rivers and blah, blah, like it was just

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:03:58</time>
always that's, that's where I learned.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:00</time>
I got into the arts because I think of my interest and passion for history.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:05</time>
It was just.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:05</time>
Always.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:05</time>
So the humanity of it was always the most

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:08</time>
Oh, of

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:08</time>
course.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:09</time>
And so, so watching you walk through Fort necessity and it looked

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:13</time>
very much like a Fort Massac or Fort Defiance, like all of these sort of, you

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:18</time>
could still see the, the, the, the dirt from the readouts, but it was, it was nice

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:23</time>
to know it was really cool to know that.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:26</time>
Real people built those things and a hundred and some ideas later, they're

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:29</time>
still here and there was significant.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:31</time>
And why were there significant?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:32</time>
And then, then you dig and then it's, it's, you walk through

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:34</time>
just like what you're doing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:04:35</time>
And I think that's

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:36</time>
Yeah That was like that's the whole importance of the channel is

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:39</time>
to take you to the location Like walk you through history Like I wanted you

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:42</time>
to see what it was like and to stand in the footsteps of those history

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:46</time>
makers Like what were they seeing?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:48</time>
What were they thinking?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:49</time>
So when you were first approached to plage George, Washington

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:53</time>
Washington what was your reaction?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:54</time>
What did you know about him?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:04:56</time>
And how did you feel about portraying that person in history?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:02</time>
Honestly I found out.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:05</time>
About the project that Lynn was doing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:08</time>
I, I want to say somewhere like in 2011 ish or 2010, excuse me, we were

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:15</time>
still doing in the Heights on Broadway.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:17</time>
And so the first, the first, I've told the story the first time I heard

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:19</time>
anything about it, Lynn had come back for vacation and he had talked to Tommy

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:23</time>
and, and he bought this biography, which, there's a picture of him in a

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:27</time>
hammock or a floaty in a pool somewhere in the Caribbean where he was reading

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:31</time>
this book and he was really intrigued.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:32</time>
And, when we started Heights Tommy and Lynn and I were all reading a

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:37</time>
team of rivals at the same time.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:39</time>
It's just sort of, Tommy was like, read this.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:41</time>
And I was like, Oh yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:42</time>
And it was of course a page turner

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:44</time>
for those of you that have read it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:46</time>
and w it was fantastic.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:47</time>
And we all just we love a good read.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:50</time>
We're always intrigued.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:51</time>
But the fact that he found, this idea for a show he, we were actually on stage

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:56</time>
and performance when he told me about it, like it was in the middle of the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:05:59</time>
show, in the first act of in the Heights.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:02</time>
Well, so the inside of Broadway, right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:05</time>
You you have moments when you're upstage and there's at that time, there's a

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:09</time>
number that's going on in front of us, but we're sort of like in character,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:13</time>
but we're up in, kind of in the dark and that's when we, would catch up on the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:16</time>
day or whatever, tell a joke, whatever.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:18</time>
But we had, we had three and a half minutes to just talk and

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:20</time>
it, it built into the show.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:22</time>
nobody knew what we're talking about.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:24</time>
And, the famous, the, the, the sort of the notable thing is he, he looks at me,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:28</time>
we're Right before we're about to go out into the, like the big first act number.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:31</time>
And he's I think I got my next thing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:32</time>
And I'm like, what?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:34</time>
He's yeah, it's something about the treasury.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:36</time>
Say it's a hip hop concept album about the treasury secretary.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:40</time>
And then off we went I mean, it was literally that quick.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:43</time>
I didn't think anything of it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:44</time>
I don't know how much time passed between that moment and the next conversation

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:48</time>
we had about it, but at some point Tommy Kail approaches me, I'm on stage

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:52</time>
doing my warm up before the show.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:54</time>
And he's coming across the stage, Tommy Kail, our director, and

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:56</time>
he said, Hey, what's up G dubs.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:58</time>
And I'm like, what?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:06:59</time>
you just

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:06:59</time>
threw it out there.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:00</time>
What?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:02</time>
Well, yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:04</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:05</time>
I mean, and they had

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:06</time>
the idea, these are my

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:06</time>
best

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:07:07</time>
Sure.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:07:08</time>
So you

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:08</time>
the shorthand the shorthand is real, but he was like,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:11</time>
Hey, I didn't audition for it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:13</time>
That was the purpose was to have me do.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:16</time>
The role.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:17</time>
So that's the first time that I kind of like it started to cook for me.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:22</time>
And then, the second part of your question.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:23</time>
No, I had never given any thought ever to portraying George Washington.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:28</time>
I had seen probably the few movies were made for TV movies that they had made.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:32</time>
And, and sort of, it's, it was always sort of a version of of these, these very lofty

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:40</time>
upstanding men who were just sort of like a, a step away from, from the statues.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:47</time>
The marble busts or the portraits and the whole idea behind the casting of of

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:52</time>
Hamilton was to to change them enough that that folks would see them in a in a human

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:07:57</time>
way and that we as actors would be able to portray them in a very human way and

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:03</time>
and the given circumstances that we were.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:06</time>
Given in the script and in the score would, would then

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:09</time>
motivate us to move through.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:11</time>
And then everything that I based Washington on was really based on

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:14</time>
just the, what I knew and what I was able to research respectfully about

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:20</time>
what is it that stands a soldier up?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:22</time>
What are the things that are important to, to a soldier?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:26</time>
And, and, and then one step beyond that, an officer, Washington

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:29</time>
certainly did not come by.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:31</time>
By merit in the way that we understand it, right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:34</time>
He came, but there were a lot of different things that contributed

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:37</time>
to him taking that, that command.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:40</time>
But we were the same age when he assumed command of, of the army

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:44</time>
outside of Boston and our show opened and I became George Washington.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:48</time>
So I, I, I tried to figure out the things that we, that we did have in common.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:54</time>
He had a lot of, a lot, most of much of his life was defined

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:08:57</time>
by loss in his early life.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:00</time>
His father was gone, his older brother died, and his best friend

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:02</time>
all died by the time he was 16.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:04</time>
And that defined much of what, and the rest of it was aspirational.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:08</time>
Who's more aspirational

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:09</time>
than an actor?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:09:10</time>
that's true.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:11</time>
My father was not a, was not a presence in my life, but I

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:13</time>
was fortunate to have really strong and wonderful mentors that, that came

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:18</time>
through and kicked me when I needed it, and lifted me up when I needed it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:22</time>
Gave me guidance and the rest of it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:24</time>
I just kind of figured out on my own at, 18 in New York studying acting.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:28</time>
So it was the confluence of, of, understanding what leadership meant,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:31</time>
what and, and what appearances.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:34</time>
Mean,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:34</time>
right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:09:35</time>
And then incorporating

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:09:36</time>
No, Chris, what I love about that is George Washington was a big risk

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:09:41</time>
taker and he had a lot of aspirations for himself and you, you found that as

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:09:46</time>
a commonality, one of the things I loved about Hamilton and I saw Hamilton 2018.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:09:53</time>
like third row.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:09:54</time>
It's a funny story behind it.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:09:55</time>
But Scott gave me like this Christmas present and he was like,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:09:58</time>
I'm going to get you to Hamilton.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:09:59</time>
I'm going to find a way to get you to Hamilton.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:01</time>
At the time we lived in Tennessee too.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:03</time>
So it was funny.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:04</time>
But when I went for the first showing George Washington was,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:08</time>
and you're a man of color.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:09</time>
George Washington was played by African American man.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:11</time>
You're African American.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:12</time>
I loved that and for me to see a man of color play Washington,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:18</time>
men of color built Washington.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:21</time>
George Washington is standing on the shoulders of men of color.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:24</time>
And so to see a man of color play him, I thought it was.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:27</time>
Perfect.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:28</time>
I really did.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:10:29</time>
It's what I think about when I go there.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:31</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:10:32</time>
It's what I think about when I see the Washington Monument.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:10:34</time>
I, I, I mean, I, I'm there and I'm in Washington eight to 10 times a year.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:10:39</time>
I literally think about it every

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:10:41</time>
That's amazing.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:10:47</time>
One of the things that we like to ask, ask folks when we talk to them

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:10:51</time>
about history is, and you kind of actually already touched on it, was, How we

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:10:56</time>
all tend to learn history, even though it's the same, we learn it a little

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:00</time>
differently, we learn it through our own lens, we learn it depending on what part

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:03</time>
of the country we live in and we've, the more we've been online and kind of doing

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:09</time>
walks with history and talks with history and meeting other people from around the

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:12</time>
country talking about the same historical event, we'll all say oh, that's not what

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:16</time>
I learned when I was younger, that's not what I focused on when I was younger.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:20</time>
So.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:20</time>
When it came to that for you, you said you were from, from Illinois,

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:24</time>
when it, whether it came to, to

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:11:26</time>
Southern Illinois.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:11:27</time>
Huge distinction.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:11:29</time>
Huge distinction.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:30</time>
For, for you kind of growing up in Southern Illinois, what do you remember?

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:35</time>
You kind of had a little bit of a passion, semi early on, what are some of the things

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:40</time>
you remember from, from your childhood?

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:42</time>
That was focused on in, in your neck of the woods where you

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:11:45</time>
were growing up in Illinois.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:11:51</time>
So first I would say that.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:11:52</time>
Most of my historical education, both in, in school and, and just sort of in,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:11:58</time>
in the local zeitgeist was kind of the, I'd like to say a holdover from the great

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:03</time>
sort of propaganda moment in history.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:06</time>
We've got a, we've probably got a good 65, 70 year span where Our nationalist

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:13</time>
identity, especially I think leading up to the decades leading up to, and then

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:16</time>
when we finally arrived in 1975 and it's the centennial and it's just sort of

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:21</time>
like, so you're, I was born and it's it was like, I think at its greatest, the,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:25</time>
at the Zenith of everybody kind of, dug in and that became the curriculum, right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:30</time>
It's we kind of codified.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:32</time>
All of the things, all of the, like the blatant lies that historians

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:35</time>
knew, but didn't want to burn.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:37</time>
It's almost as if they didn't want to burden children with the truth.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:41</time>
If as if, as if that wasn't, if, as if the truth wasn't already interesting

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:45</time>
enough, I think that it was sort of a wash in slogan and I don't want to say

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:51</time>
propaganda as if, as if it's not, I don't want to be Pollyannish about it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:54</time>
Propaganda is a huge part of how governments.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:12:57</time>
Support themselves and the public and, and, and make things easier for

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:02</time>
the, the greater amount of people to learn the population to learn and,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:06</time>
and sort of hold on to I had the benefit of being raised very early on.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:10</time>
My mom was still finishing her teaching degree.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:12</time>
When I was, I think she, when I was like five or six, so the first six years of

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:16</time>
my life, the real formative years, we spent a lot of time with my grandparents

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:21</time>
who were both black entrepreneurs.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:23</time>
They came out of sort of that the Booker T.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:26</time>
Washington sort of like bootstrap, go to technical school, get a trade.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:30</time>
They were, they own funeral funeral homes Jackson funeral homes.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:34</time>
And they, they were.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:37</time>
Self made.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:38</time>
It's not even doesn't really begin to describe them.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:40</time>
They were old enough that the old ways were still very much an everyday thing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:44</time>
So I remember my grandmother making her own, washing powder out of lye soap

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:50</time>
and our, our body soap was lye soap.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:52</time>
And I used to cut the, get to cut the blocks of lye, soap like

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:56</time>
that was all a part of my life.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:13:57</time>
And then on my mom's side of the family, they were all farmers.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:00</time>
And so, I, I grew up, I spent half my time with my, with my father's

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:05</time>
parent, my father, some of my paternal grandparents, and then with my maternal

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:08</time>
grandparents, they were very much farmers.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:11</time>
It was, they lived in and around and on the land.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:14</time>
And so I got that education as well.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:17</time>
I mention that because culturally and historically, both of my

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:22</time>
grandparents placed a great deal of importance on understanding what.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:26</time>
I was a part of and where I came from.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:29</time>
So I was ever aware of the importance of knowing who and how the civil, how exactly

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:36</time>
the civil rights movement not only came to be, but was sustained and how it was.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:43</time>
Changing shape.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:44</time>
I remember watching Jesse Jackson at the democratic convention.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:48</time>
I remember his, I am somebody speech.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:50</time>
I was watching it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:51</time>
I remember those moments and they were codified because my grandparents set me

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:55</time>
down and explained it to me in real time.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:14:58</time>
I was four or five years old, you know what I mean?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:00</time>
So those kinds of things, like I always had a sense of what was happening in the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:06</time>
world and what I, not only what my place was in it, but what was expected of me.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:11</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:12</time>
As a citizen, as a black man, as someone who was through, through my

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:20</time>
life circumstances, forced to move between both sides of my family.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:25</time>
And it's still in, in, in a still very segregated.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:29</time>
Emotionally and mentally part of the country.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:32</time>
And so I learned how to code switch.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:34</time>
I learned how to go along to get along.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:36</time>
I learned how to push slightly and softly.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:39</time>
I learned how to push loudly and, and not so not, not without with a lot of

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:44</time>
nuance and it was a great benefit to me.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:48</time>
So as I moved through, my schooling.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:51</time>
History made sense because I had already received an education of foundation in

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:57</time>
that and taught how important it was.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:15:59</time>
I always took, I always took history very seriously, second only to music.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:05</time>
That was, that's just how it had that and lunch, but that's how it kind

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:09</time>
of, that's how it kind of formed.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:11</time>
That's how it kind of formed me.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:12</time>
And I, and I I've, I've been ever grateful especially in this Hamilton

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:16</time>
experience, because I felt I was.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:17</time>
Primed already to understand the context of it, and really play it with commitment.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:22</time>
That was the,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:16:23</time>
It's the two things you love.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:16:25</time>
Now your paternal grandparents, your African American grandparents, were

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:16:28</time>
they part of the great migration?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:16:30</time>
Did they?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:16:31</time>
Were there families from the South?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:38</time>
So this is the funny story that I meant to tell you.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:40</time>
I promise I'll give you the short, shorter answer than the last two.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:43</time>
So my wife and I get on ancestry.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:45</time>
com the other night.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:47</time>
I have avoided it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:48</time>
I have avoided it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:49</time>
I have avoided it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:50</time>
My last name, there's not a lot of touch points that are, that are positive,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:16:56</time>
but it turns out that we're in the same bloodline as, as, as old Andy.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:00</time>
Which is crazy to me.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:02</time>
He and his wife didn't have kids, but his his parents are, are in

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:06</time>
my family's bloodline is crazy.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:17:12</time>
you got to come to Tennessee then.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:17:13</time>
That means you got to come to the hermitage.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:15</time>
But, but then go back even further because John Jackson, who was

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:18</time>
a captain in back in the colonies was a member of the, the Prince Phillips war.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:24</time>
Who was also, I mean, that whole anti native American thing runs all the way.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:30</time>
There's two genocidal maniacs in my family tree.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:33</time>
And I'm like, yo, this is, this is nuts.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:35</time>
But so we're, so cool.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:37</time>
Yes, they were a part of the great migration.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:39</time>
One of the reasons why they both went to mortuary school was from the Booker T.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:43</time>
Washington sort of bootstraps, a talented 10th kind of ideal.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:49</time>
And, on my, on my grandparents back parlor, there were four

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:53</time>
portraits hanging on the wall.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:55</time>
There was, there was a black Jesus Christ.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:57</time>
There was Martin Luther King jr.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:17:59</time>
And there was Mary McLeod Bethune and there was Booker T.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:01</time>
Washington.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:02</time>
They were very much.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:03</time>
I mean, that was, that was the back wall of their parlor.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:07</time>
And so growing up and seeing and knowing that, My, My, every, it's

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:12</time>
every generation prior to mine, each, each couple had like at least

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:17</time>
nine kids, every single generation.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:21</time>
it's it's insane.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:23</time>
But they, they were mostly from the northeast northeast Arkansas area.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:29</time>
I mean the, the, the northern east most corner right next to Memphis.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:34</time>
So they weren't really that far from where they mostly settled,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:37</time>
which was Metropolis and, and Cairo.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:40</time>
But it was all close to the river, and I grew up going to Memphis.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:43</time>
Going to mud Island.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:44</time>
And, I was there, I was there when the, when the, the Memphis bell movie

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:47</time>
had come out and they had nine B 17s.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:50</time>
I was

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:50</time>
Oh my gosh.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:51</time>
Oh, no

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:18:51</time>
way.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:51</time>
I got, I got sprayed in oil that yell.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:54</time>
Yeah, it was amazing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:18:55</time>
I

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:18:55</time>
We do a whole video on Mary McLeod Bethune.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:18:58</time>
We go to her house.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:18:59</time>
We talk about the 6888.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:00</time>
It's really cool.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:01</time>
She's very important.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:02</time>
An amazing story.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:02</time>
Amazing story.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:03</time>
Burger T.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:04</time>
Washington actually went to school here outside of Norfolk.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:06</time>
He went to Hampton University right here out of Norfolk.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:09</time>
So a lot of, we're, we're crisscrossing the history here.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:12</time>
It's pretty cool.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:13</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:14</time>
And we're talking about huge schools

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:16</time>
of thought too.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:16</time>
Like I'm more of a Dubois I, I, I relate more to what.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:20</time>
W B Dubois, his, his sort

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:22</time>
of philosophy, but I, I've read Booker T and I understand both.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:26</time>
I understand that how, how those, how they both collided diverged

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:30</time>
and then came back together.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:31</time>
There's a lot of ideas in those moments in those, in that period

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:34</time>
of time that still influences us today, though, you've had, you had to

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:38</time>
have read it in order to really

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:40</time>
understand it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:41</time>
But

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:42</time>
it's a lot.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:42</time>
Have you

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:42</time>
It is a lot,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:44</time>
like a thousand pages.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:46</time>
I told my

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:47</time>
I've got the first and I have the first and the second edition.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:50</time>
like, I took a radical African American class.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:53</time>
I said, that's what's radical.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:54</time>
The length of this book.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:19:55</time>
He started laughing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:57</time>
Oh my God.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:19:58</time>
Yeah, I tried to get through his, his Philadelphia not experiment the, the,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:02</time>
the, the treaties he wrote on, on black folks in Philadelphia, which was

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:05</time>
like, it was almost like Deuteronomy.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:07</time>
I was like, I'm, I'm doing my best,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:20:13</time>
so, when you found out you were playing George Washington, what,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:20:16</time>
did you go to any historic places?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:20:18</time>
Did you read any books?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:20:20</time>
What movies did you watch?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:20:21</time>
Or were you just I'm just going to make it my own.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:20:25</time>
I'm going to find my own way here.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:29</time>
The day that Tommy walked up to me and explained to me

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:31</time>
why he called me G dubs, which was like, I think it was later that day.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:35</time>
Actually, I went to the borders after the show.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:37</time>
I went down to Madison Square Garden.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:40</time>
There was a borders there on 34th street and I bought Ron

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:43</time>
Chernow's biography on Washington.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:47</time>
And from that moment till the time that I left Hamilton, I think I made

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:52</time>
it through that book seven times.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:55</time>
So that was my Bible pretty much for the first time.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:20:58</time>
It was the first time in my career that I had been given an opportunity to truly

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:01</time>
research And the, the important part that I found really early on was that, it's not

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:10</time>
called Washington, it's called Hamilton.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:12</time>
So we only really see Washington when his movements intersect with Hamilton's.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:20</time>
So what became super important was knowing exactly what, what was happening with

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:26</time>
Washington the moment before he sees.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:29</time>
Hamilton, the moment before he comes into a scene and knowing what he

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:35</time>
was going into was really important.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:37</time>
So, if you're watching the movie or have you seen the show, like when Washington

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:40</time>
makes his first appearance, it's during my shot, it's during the end of my shot.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:44</time>
Now, those moments didn't exactly line up, but then, but they intersect

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:48</time>
in that Washington does go into.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:52</time>
New York.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:53</time>
And he does see these, these rabble rousers down in the town square.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:21:58</time>
He sees all of that right before he almost loses his entire

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:01</time>
army in battle of Brooklyn.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:03</time>
So like in a series of retreats, right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:05</time>
So, but it was really important for me to know what he went

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:08</time>
through in Boston, Mm hmm.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:11</time>
how everyone was calling it a victory.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:12</time>
And he was consumed with the fact that it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:16</time>
It wasn't a, it wasn't a sound victory that, that he almost, again, at every

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:22</time>
turn, especially in the first, like two and a half years, three years

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:24</time>
of the, of the, the, the war, he was close to losing his army, like Mm hmm.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:30</time>
And I think not only was he, from his papers and writings, like I get

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:34</time>
the sense that he was as equally concerned about the welfare of the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:37</time>
army and his reputation, because.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:41</time>
Posterity was so important.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:43</time>
So it's like I even and even in the telling of this story, it's important

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:47</time>
to me to know that, even though we don't really discuss any specific things

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:53</time>
like he's not just worried about losing the battle, he's worried about losing

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:57</time>
his livelihood and his reputation too.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:22:59</time>
And those are at times equally motivating

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:02</time>
Absolutely.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:02</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:03</time>
And I think that, so to ask the question or to answer the question,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:07</time>
like those humanizing moments.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:09</time>
Because it's not, that's not a glorious, honorable thing to be

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:12</time>
worried about your reputation.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:23:14</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:23:14</time>
Yes.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:23:16</time>
It's a very human thing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:17</time>
But, and for the guy who has to play him, it's really

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:20</time>
important to know that that's a part of, that's a part of it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:24</time>
You know what I mean?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:25</time>
And so all of those moments, the way that they intersect, become

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:29</time>
really, really, really important.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:31</time>
I did get to go to I got to go to Mount Vernon.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:35</time>
The folks at Mount Vernon were incredibly gracious.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:38</time>
We were filming a doc as we were preparing for the, the, the show.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:42</time>
And so I got to go, we got to Mount Vernon about three o'clock in the afternoon.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:46</time>
It was a coldest November day.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:47</time>
I think I've ever experienced in my life.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:49</time>
I think it was November, but it was, it was bone rattling cold, but we

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:53</time>
were there until nine 30 that night.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:55</time>
Oh,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:23:55</time>
cool.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:56</time>
the place down.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:58</time>
We got a private tour.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:23:59</time>
We got access to some things that the public generally don't get to see,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:03</time>
but that they still show that house without a fireplace going is, is wow.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:24:09</time>
Freezing.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:24:10</time>
Mm hmm.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:11</time>
it's

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:11</time>
terrible.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:24:12</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:12</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:13</time>
And I got to go to Valley

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:14</time>
Forge.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:24:15</time>
Yay.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:15</time>
Mm I had never been there after being on the East Coast

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:19</time>
for, 30 years, I'd never been there.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:21</time>
I had no idea that the grounds were the size that they were.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:24</time>
In Illinois, we celebrate Pulaski Day.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:26</time>
My family lives in Alexander and Pulaski County.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:30</time>
So I but to be able to, to see his quarters.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:35</time>
The vastness of, of, of that space and the, the, just the stories

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:41</time>
that the ground will tell you.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:43</time>
And the proximity to Gettysburg was striking to me, this last this last

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:48</time>
summer I gave an appearance at Dickinson college and then had, had another

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:52</time>
gig with with the U S army orchestra.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:54</time>
And so I drove from Dickinson and PA to DC, and I'd never made that drive before.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:24:59</time>
And we drove, I drove, Within 10 miles of the Gettysburg grounds.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:02</time>
And I was like, wow,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:05</time>
It's just the way that it was just very striking.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:07</time>
And because you guys spent a lot of time on the road, obviously the fact

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:11</time>
that those pivotal moments were to our country were so close together is both

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:16</time>
like heartbreaking and just ironic.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:18</time>
You know what I mean?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:19</time>
It was, it

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:19</time>
was really

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:20</time>
It really was.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:21</time>
And I, I just went to Valley Forge myself.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:23</time>
I went to Washington's headquarters.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:25</time>
You went on a cold day in um, to Mount Vernon.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:27</time>
I went on a freezing cold day in December to Valley Forge.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:30</time>
And I, it kind of reminiscent of the army freezing.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:34</time>
there in December anyway, and I got to be alone in Washington's headquarters

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:38</time>
because no one was there that day.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:40</time>
And they told me all the stories about Washington being there and being with

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:44</time>
all of his aides, including Hamilton.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:46</time>
With Hamilton downstairs in the park, in that

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:25:48</time>
little room, that little tiny room piled with papers and close Yeah.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:52</time>
they were like, Washington touched bannister in Washington.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:54</time>
So, and then they told me Martha came and moved and stayed with them.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:25:58</time>
And I said, did they share a wall with his aides?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:02</time>
And they're like, yeah, I'm like, if I was a Martha, the first thing I

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:05</time>
would be is like, push this bed away

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:07</time>
from the Yep.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:08</time>
Yep.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:10</time>
Yep.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:10</time>
Aren't the aren't the Rangers.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:11</time>
They're amazing

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:12</time>
though.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:13</time>
Like it was, they are so engaged and, and, and know so much.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:17</time>
It's, it's really, it's a really cool.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:19</time>
It makes it so much, so much just more awesome to get that

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:23</time>
kind

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:23</time>
of, you

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:23</time>
know,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:23</time>
And you can feel it.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:24</time>
I always say you can feel the history.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:26</time>
Like I could.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:27</time>
I, to be in the space of where it happened, it was just

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:31</time>
really amazing to be there.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:33</time>
So it's great that you got to go to, to the, both of those um, but you

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:36</time>
still haven't been to Fort necessity.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:38</time>
So we, you have to

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:39</time>
no, no.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:40</time>
But I'm going to, I'm going to starred on my map.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:42</time>
And now that I know that, that it's not quite as far West as I thought it was.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:48</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:49</time>
I don't do a lot of cross country traveling, driving anymore, but yeah,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:52</time>
I'll, I know I'll, I'll find my, I'll make

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:53</time>
my way out there

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:26:54</time>
for

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:54</time>
Yeah, like a Pittsburgh trip.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:55</time>
When you go to Pittsburgh, it's a

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:57</time>
good.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:26:58</time>
And if you want to visit uh, the United flight 93, it's kind of close

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:27:02</time>
to that memorial is where so it's, it's

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:27:04</time>
kind of, yes, exactly in Shanksville.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:07</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:07</time>
So, so I, I love to kind of you know, away from, from the shows.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:12</time>
I love the personal stories when I get to talk to people on the One of the things

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:21</time>
that I've enjoyed, I joke all the time.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:24</time>
Um, And and for folks who are who are new to the podcast is I'm

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:27</time>
actually not the history buff, right?

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:29</time>
Jenn's the history nerd.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:30</time>
I kind of married into this and I have, I have learned a

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:33</time>
lot since we started walk with

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:27:35</time>
I bet.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:27:37</time>
I bet.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:37</time>
so much.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:38</time>
I can, I, I sound so much smarter than I used to.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:41</time>
, But one of the things that, that, that we love to ask on talk with history,

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:45</time>
again, different people, different perspectives , is what's the, kind

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:48</time>
of the first major historical event that you remember from your childhood.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:53</time>
That kind of first moment where that that that bubble was really kind of broken

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:27:58</time>
because when you're young, you're kind of, for lack of a better word, it's all you.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:03</time>
You're the center of your own universe.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:04</time>
And then there's that one event That everybody remembers and all of

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:08</time>
a sudden they're like, Oh my gosh, the world is, is a bigger place.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:11</time>
Something happened.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:12</time>
That's major.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:13</time>
It's that flagpole moment in your life.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:15</time>
For some people, it's personal.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:17</time>
For me, it was, I'm from California, so it was a major earthquake, right?

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:20</time>
When the A's and the giants had that, that um, during the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:23</time>
I was watching.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:24</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:24</time>
I was watching the

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:25</time>
so, so what's something like that for, for you,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:33</time>
probably

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:34</time>
probably the challenger

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:35</time>
because Krista McAuliffe was from

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:37</time>
Kentucky

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:38</time>
yeah.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:28:38</time>
Oh,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:38</time>
and where in Kentucky she was from.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:40</time>
I don't quite remember, but like where I was growing up, Kentucky

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:43</time>
was right across the river.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:45</time>
So she may as may, may as well have just been living on the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:47</time>
other side of the bridge there.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:49</time>
And we were all watching it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:50</time>
They had wheeled the wheel, the TVs into, the cafeteria, the classroom.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:55</time>
We were in a classroom.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:56</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:28:57</time>
Yeah, that was, I think, the first, probably, yeah, that first moment where

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:03</time>
the world changed a little bit for,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:05</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:06</time>
So, so I didn't answer

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:07</time>
because you and I are close to the same age, Chris.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:10</time>
I was born in 77.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:11</time>
I'm older than Scott.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:13</time>
I call myself a Puma.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:14</time>
I'm not a full cougar.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:15</time>
I'm only five years older, but so I didn't want to

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:18</time>
You're, you're, you're only

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:19</time>
bragging on Scott's taste.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:20</time>
It's all good.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:21</time>
It's all good.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:22</time>
Your life does not suck, Scott.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:24</time>
Yes.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:25</time>
This we can

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:26</time>
I didn't want to like taint it because that's the

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:27</time>
first thing I remember too.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:29</time>
Same thing.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:30</time>
I remember them willing in the televisions.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:32</time>
I remember it exploding, but they're not, didn't say that's what happened.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:37</time>
I remember my

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:38</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:38</time>
The confusion of it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:29:39</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:40</time>
and then just going back to the classrooms and we were so

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:43</time>
excited, but now we're not excited.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:45</time>
So I didn't quite understand what had happened right in that moment,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:49</time>
but I knew later that night when watching the news with Reagan and my

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:53</time>
parents, I kind of put it all together.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:29:55</time>
But in that moment it wasn't, One of the things I loved about Valley Forge

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:03</time>
and one of the great stories they tell is there's like 200 men of color that fight

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:08</time>
for Washington during the Revolutionary War, and most of them are free.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:12</time>
There's a lot of there's enslaved and there's free.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:15</time>
So here's Washington leading men of all different backgrounds.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:20</time>
And You know, people always wonder about him as an enslaver, but here

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:24</time>
he is leading free men of color and then after death, uh, Martha sets his

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:29</time>
enslaved free and people always wonder, well, how do you wrestle with these two

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:34</time>
things to, like, look at somebody and be inspired by them, but also look at.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:39</time>
They, the biggest, probably the biggest sin of American history is enslavement.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:43</time>
And so to have someone who's done both is hard for people to wrestle with.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:48</time>
And as a historian, I always try to tell people, you don't have to judge them.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:52</time>
You don't have to wrestle with them.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:54</time>
You don't have to try to come to terms with that.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:56</time>
All you need to do is know the truth.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:30:59</time>
That's it.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:31:00</time>
And then from there, you can decide.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:31:02</time>
You can look at some things and go, I'll learn from that.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:31:05</time>
I'll learn to do it this way, or I'm going to learn from

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:31:06</time>
this and do it better this way.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:31:08</time>
But you don't have to judge them.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:31:10</time>
I mean, like that really isn't your job, but how do you wrestle with that?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:31:14</time>
Do you ever have people say things to you or you know, ask you questions like that?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:31:19</time>
you know, how do you respond to that?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:31:22</time>
I think there's room for all of the, all of the thoughts.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:31:26</time>
Cause I've had all of them.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:31:27</time>
I had them all before anybody knew that Hamilton was ever gonna be a thing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:31:30</time>
So they only freed slaves because they didn't want to place the burden of the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:31:36</time>
tax and the upkeep of those living persons on whomever would be inheriting them.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:31:42</time>
If the person that was going to be inheriting the slaves could not afford

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:31:47</time>
to do that, that was the main impetus.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:31:52</time>
Interesting.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:31:52</time>
Of

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:31:53</time>
And since I've learned that fact or that idea,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:31:58</time>
I found it very important to include that into the conversation.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:01</time>
course.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:02</time>
Because I'm not prepared to venerate Washington or any of his contemporaries

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:07</time>
or any that followed him with any sort of virtue because, well, at

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:12</time>
least when they died, Oh yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:13</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:14</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:14</time>
you're right you know what?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:16</time>
I've also learned that there's a.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:18</time>
There's a process by which we, the history gets, the history is living, right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:23</time>
And then as eras move on, then the story is told, it's codified

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:28</time>
somehow, generally, by sitting out in the sun and drying for a bit.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:32</time>
And then we just kind of like, assume that role, and then we start Promoting it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:37</time>
And we're still not past that.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:39</time>
We're really not past the sort of post civil war slash reconstruction,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:43</time>
construction of the American narrative.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:45</time>
We're still just sort of like the general public is still sort of learning why

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:49</time>
all these statues just got taken down.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:51</time>
And why would you want to take down a statue?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:53</time>
Because it was based on lies.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:56</time>
So we don't, and we don't want to live in that space.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:32:58</time>
So, social change takes a long time to, to actually evolve and, and to happen.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:04</time>
With that, I, when I went to see, when I went to visit Mount Vernon,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:09</time>
the first time I was 11 years

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:11</time>
old.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:12</time>
So everything is just sort of like in a postcard, right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:15</time>
Then the next time that I actually went there was in preparation for this role.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:21</time>
And the first place that I went, As a kid was to see all of the stuff that

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:26</time>
was old, the antiques, the real things.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:29</time>
What did Washington touch?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:30</time>
When I came back the second time, I came back.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:34</time>
And the first place that I had to go to before I would go into that

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:38</time>
house were the slave quarters, Yes, because I had a different

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:42</time>
awareness and there were different things that were important to me.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:46</time>
And instead of thinking about what did Washington touch?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:49</time>
I'm thinking about, well, which slave planted that tree?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:54</time>
And that fence row, that, that stone row that goes on for three

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:33:58</time>
quarters of a mile, who did that?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:01</time>
And Washington's teeth weren't wooden.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:03</time>
They were ripped out of another human being's mouth and sent

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:07</time>
to a dentist in Philadelphia.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:09</time>
Like these are different concerns.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:11</time>
These are, it's a different awareness, right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:13</time>
So, and I, and I make that point because our understanding evolves over time if

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:17</time>
we allow it to, and if we pursue it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:20</time>
You can't just sort of like, let it fall on you.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:21</time>
You got to chase after it much in the work that you do.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:24</time>
People can't know something different unless you show them something different.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:28</time>
And if you are in a position as a history, historian to share that, then

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:33</time>
God bless, because that's the only way to sort of reverse, not undo the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:37</time>
narrative, but just bring it to the sun.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:38</time>
Let it be the real thing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:41</time>
And let it be all of those things.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:43</time>
And there's nothing that I could have ever done or said as an actor or an

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:46</time>
artist portraying this guy's life that would have changed the facts.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:50</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:50</time>
So you can humanize.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:52</time>
I mean, it's not to distract.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:53</time>
It is not Lin's.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:54</time>
Lin's intention was not to distract anyone, right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:58</time>
It just wasn't.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:34:59</time>
It wasn't my intention to portray that.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:00</time>
If someone received that or, or, or took away, that away, I have to live with that,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:06</time>
but that was not, the artist's intention is to paint a picture and the, the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:11</time>
consumer or the, the, the person who comes to experience the art should be provoked

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:17</time>
and And then have a thought and whatever that thought happens to be as an artist,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:21</time>
I'm open to that because that's my job.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:24</time>
My job isn't to tell you how to think or what to think.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:27</time>
It's to show you something that might.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:29</time>
inspire thought that might inspire the next great idea that might inspire

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:33</time>
the next great movement or the next great act of kindness or civil service.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:37</time>
All of that, all of that.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:38</time>
That's, that's my, that's my job.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:40</time>
I know what my job is.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:41</time>
It's, it's, it's as narrowly defined as possible, as it can be.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:45</time>
But Washington Jefferson, Madison, Madison was the biggest slave holder in

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:49</time>
the, in the United States at the time.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:52</time>
What I just learned from this, Michael Harriot's wonderful book,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:35:56</time>
Black AF History, was that the number of slaves from, from the English

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:03</time>
perspective, the number of slaves that you owned, you've got 50 acres of

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:08</time>
land for every slave that you owned.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:12</time>
Which incentivized the practice of shadow slavery from the Africans.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:17</time>
So, and I've been, I've been studying this stuff for a while.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:20</time>
I know a lot, but I never knew

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:22</time>
that one fact, right?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:23</time>
So, it, it, you're all, there's

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:25</time>
always more, you're right, there's always more to learn.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:27</time>
And that's why history provides a really amazing picture because even in

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:31</time>
our research, there's so many people doing it and now you just have to

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:34</time>
get to the information, but I never

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:36</time>
knew that.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:37</time>
And as that translates then to the first thing I thought about was, well, of course

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:41</time>
they owned as many slaves as they could.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:43</time>
Of course they were incentivized to do it in spite of, England banning the practice.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:48</time>
Of course all of this stuff happened and it doesn't, it doesn't it

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:51</time>
doesn't take away from the fact.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:54</time>
The facts, the timelines, the actions.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:36:58</time>
I look at these men and I say, they never lived up to the ideals, but my God,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:06</time>
they, whether they intended to or not created a platform on a piece of paper.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:12</time>
They wrote things down that had never been written before.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:14</time>
And from that, we were able to aspire to all of these very natural

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:20</time>
rights and then, and, and continue the tradition of the enlightenment.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:24</time>
We are lucky that they wrote better than they were.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:27</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:28</time>
That's what I always say.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:29</time>
we're lucky, we're lucky.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:31</time>
And it's not that there weren't people in the, in the Continental

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:33</time>
Congress that weren't already beating the drum, but there were just so few

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:39</time>
that it didn't permeate through, that at the, at the moment at the time,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:43</time>
but so many of the things that we're fighting for now are, are, are based

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:47</time>
around the ideas that these men.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:49</time>
We're able to get down in spite of themselves.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:52</time>
And that's it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:54</time>
If you're a spiritual person, I will say that is, that is nothing short of

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:37:57</time>
a miracle or an act of God, because men will always find a way to get in their

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:01</time>
own way,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:01</time>
And always find a way to let their, their most base selves be the thing that they

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:07</time>
lead with but like to, to, to come, to, come into all of this enlightened and

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:11</time>
aspirational thought in spite of the things that they were doing on the side

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:16</time>
or, kind of leading with is kind of a

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:18</time>
miracle.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:19</time>
So it's kind of hard to not buy into the whole America or being sort of,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:24</time>
or ordained and especially anointed or appointed to create a space

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:29</time>
where as many people can be free as

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:38:31</time>
possible.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:38:32</time>
That's what I always say.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:38:33</time>
I always say we were, we are reaching towards an ideal.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:38:37</time>
that we've never quite gotten to.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:38:40</time>
We have never gotten to yet, but we keep reaching for it.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:38:44</time>
And we keep trying to be better and we keep trying to learn.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:38:47</time>
And like you said, like you hope to inspire the, what I do with history

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:38:51</time>
is I try to, I don't tell people what to think either, but I try

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:38:55</time>
to teach, teach them how, how to historians show you the information.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:00</time>
what's a primary source, what's a secondary source, right?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:03</time>
Who is saying what?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:04</time>
And like you said, even with how the story changes at Mount Vernon, how the

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:10</time>
focus of the story changes at Mount Vernon, I always tell people, reach back.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:14</time>
History is always there.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:15</time>
You know, The people who made Washington are there.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:19</time>
They're still there.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:20</time>
You reach back and you can find them.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:22</time>
Right now, we're still trying to find their names.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:25</time>
I wrote a whole paper in grad school called Say My Name, Say My

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:27</time>
Name because the names get lost sometimes and even trying to find

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:31</time>
the name is hard, but they're there.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:34</time>
Those people are there and to remember them, to remember what they did, like

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:38</time>
you said, who planted that tree, who made, who put that, we're remembering

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:42</time>
their part in building the country.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:45</time>
And it's just as important as George Washington.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:48</time>
And that's what I think is so great about a person of color playing

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:51</time>
George Washington is like you're showing that they're just as

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:55</time>
important at building the country.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:57</time>
I always say every other person's a woman.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:39:58</time>
They were just as important and is building this country as the

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:40:02</time>
men, even though they don't write

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:03</time>
question.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:40:04</time>
so.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:40:05</time>
They're there.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:40:06</time>
They're just, they're doing their job.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:40:08</time>
It might not be a formal power, but their informal power is still there.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:40:13</time>
And I love that, Chris.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:40:14</time>
I love that.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:40:15</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:16</time>
And you see their, their fingerprints on all of it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:19</time>
Do you know what I mean?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:20</time>
I just feel like now when we tell the story, we get to tell it without

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:23</time>
the cynicism, without the, the, the patronizing tone and the, that, that.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:27</time>
Often.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:28</time>
And in spite of having eight children, she also, what do you mean

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:31</time>
in spite of having eight children?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:33</time>
A woman would bear eight children in, in, in a fairly, really fairly

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:37</time>
primitive setting and yet have a thought and yet teach herself how to read.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:43</time>
I was doing a reading a couple of weeks ago of this play.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:46</time>
And we were the character.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:47</time>
One of the characters I was portraying was a man by the name of Alan Allensworth.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:50</time>
And he was a Colonel in the, in the U S army and around the.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:54</time>
Turn of the 19th century founded a town out in California, but one of the things

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:40:58</time>
that he, this character was constantly saying that the playwright didn't

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:01</time>
know is that, I taught myself to read.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:03</time>
I taught myself to read.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:05</time>
Well, 92 percent of black folks in America couldn't read at the end, the day after

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:09</time>
slavery ended and within 20 years, over 60 percent could, and no time in the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:15</time>
history of, of, of modern man kind of has.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:18</time>
That kind of change ever happened.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:20</time>
amazing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:21</time>
Do you know what I mean?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:22</time>
Like it's, it's knowing these things that will shape your, even

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:26</time>
just the, I'm an actor doing a reading that, a hundred people saw

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:30</time>
cause they're developing something.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:31</time>
But as an actor, knowing Mm hmm.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:34</time>
put me in a position to educate the people that actually wrote the thing Yes.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:38</time>
Yes, know what I'm saying?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:40</time>
So like the importance of just sharing information, especially historically based

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:46</time>
information is such a profound thing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:48</time>
It's such a profound thing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:50</time>
It's such a powerful and empowering kind

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:51</time>
of thing to

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:41:52</time>
do.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:41:52</time>
absolutely.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:41:53</time>
I, I completely agree with you.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:41:54</time>
And you know, Chris, I really thank you for having this conversation with You

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:41:58</time>
know, I find it important to tell the stories that don't want to be told Right.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:02</time>
And like getting deep into the South and I'm, I uncover stuff and I tell

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:06</time>
these and, you know, sometimes people don't want to hear it from, from this.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:10</time>
But I always try to tell them, listen to the history, not me,

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:14</time>
listen to the history, listen to what I'm trying to tell you.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:16</time>
And even if you just want to read it, it needs to be And like Ida B.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:20</time>
Wells was always like, turn the light of truth on it, right?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:23</time>
The truth needs to be told.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:24</time>
It's there.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:25</time>
Just someone's got to shine the light on it,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:28</time>
I love that quote too.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:30</time>
Turn a lot of

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:30</time>
truth on it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:32</time>
I do.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:32</time>
I've

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:32</time>
always loved that

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:33</time>
quote.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:33</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:38</time>
And I will say, Chris, Hamilton inspired so many people to learn history.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:42</time>
Yeah.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:43</time>
I mean, I left school to go to Hamilton.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:46</time>
I left the class.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:47</time>
My professor was like, go.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:49</time>
I was like, I'm going to miss

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:50</time>
Dig.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:51</time>
I'm going to go how much She's like, go.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:52</time>
She's like, Jennifer, go see

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:54</time>
Tell us about it.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:55</time>
Tell us about it.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:56</time>
And then I brought her

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:57</time>
back like stuff from the gift shop.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:42:59</time>
And

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:42:59</time>
Yeah, you did.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:43:00</time>
Yeah, you did.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:43:01</time>
I love

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:43:02</time>
it.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:02</time>
like.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:02</time>
And we stayed staged door and they signed her.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:04</time>
It was amazing.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:05</time>
uh, But she, you know, getting a master's degree of history.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:08</time>
I tell people all the time, everyone's a historian, right?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:11</time>
Everybody, it's hard.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:12</time>
Like, why would I have a master's degree in this?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:14</time>
But I tell people, so I can learn what makes something historically accurate.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:20</time>
How are historians measuring the truth?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:23</time>
Like how there are secondary sources that can get very.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:27</time>
tied into primary sources and they can, you can believe that actually what

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:31</time>
happened, but if you can't find it, like I really had to dig deep because you

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:35</time>
hear some of the same stuff over and over, but what really happened, right?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:40</time>
What was really happening that day?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:41</time>
What was, who really said what?

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:44</time>
and so those are the kinds of things that are kind of harder

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:46</time>
for historians to do and harder to pull uh, but I really thank you.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:52</time>
You know, Hamilton meant a lot to me.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:54</time>
I have the shirt.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:54</time>
I have the book.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:43:56</time>
And as a historian, I felt like you really validated my work.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:44:00</time>
And so I thank, I thank you guys for what you did.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:03</time>
I appreciate that.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:04</time>
That's, that's kind of a common thing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:06</time>
Response from true historians.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:09</time>
Cause it's I mean, the majority of the things that as a historian, the majority

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:12</time>
of the things that you do are completely.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:15</time>
by yourself, you're in the stacks reading micro what used to be micro

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:19</time>
fish, but now you're like digging, like you're, you're driving two hours to,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:23</time>
to go, stand next to a pile of weeds.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:26</time>
There has no marker, but you know that this is a place where something

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:29</time>
happened, and the only reason why any of this ground has any value at all.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:33</time>
In our memory is knowing what has happened in certain places.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:37</time>
It's why we venerate battlegrounds.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:38</time>
It's why we commemorate or memorialize places that, you know where things

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:44</time>
that are significant happened so that you don't repeat if they were

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:48</time>
bad, that you don't repeat them.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:50</time>
There was, there was a tremendous amount of, of a racially based

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:54</time>
unrest in, in my hometown.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:44:56</time>
And, my, my hometown is, is South, well, South of the Mason Dixon line.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:01</time>
But it was a pit of vipers for a hundred years.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:06</time>
There was a lynching in my, in my town of a young man who, is

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:11</time>
believed that he was mentally impaired and yet didn't stop them.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:17</time>
And I was, God, I was.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:19</time>
I didn't really, I'd heard ramp rumblings about it growing up there, but I never

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:24</time>
knew the facts of it until, several years ago when I was doing some research and

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:28</time>
came across it, John Lewis marched in our, in our, in our, my hometown I saw

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:33</time>
not six months ago, I discovered pictures.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:37</time>
That John Lewis marched at the, at the public swimming

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:40</time>
pool because it was segregated.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:41</time>
And when a young black boy got in the water, they drained the pool

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:45</time>
and closed it down, filled it with dirt the next, like next week.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:48</time>
But these are things that I never knew.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:50</time>
Thurgood Marshall came to my, came to my town right after he had joined the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:53</time>
NAACP to bail out one of the workers who had been arrested in my hometown.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:45:58</time>
At the local customs house, which is, which held the courthouse.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:00</time>
And I didn't find that out until, several years ago when I was

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:03</time>
researching a project that I'm writing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:04</time>
So like all of these things, like I come from a town of 1500 people, it's

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:08</time>
not that hard to know what happened, someone's always willing, to talk,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:11</time>
but I was 17, when I left there, so 18 years old, I didn't know to ask

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:16</time>
those things and believe it or not.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:18</time>
My history teacher lived there when all was all happening and he still

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:21</time>
didn't bring it up, and I was curious.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:24</time>
I asked questions.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:25</time>
So my point is, is that, once you get a taste of how powerful

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:29</time>
knowledge is, it is absolutely

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:34</time>
infectious.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:35</time>
and if you give into that, from my perspective as an artist, the quote I

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:40</time>
live by is that my job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:45</time>
And historians have a very, a very similar path.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:51</time>
If you're doing it right.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:52</time>
If you're doing it right.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:53</time>
If you're telling stories that didn't happen,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:56</time>
that's something else.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:46:57</time>
But if you're doing it like you are it's just enough to put it there and

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:01</time>
think what you will, say what you will, change how you will, or not.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:07</time>
But you can't ignore it because the burden of knowledge rests upon the bearer of it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:11</time>
Once you know something, you can't pretend

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:13</time>
to not know it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:15</time>
Now you have your own conscience to wrestle with.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:18</time>
That's what it is, but that's what historians do.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:47:20</time>
Oh, I love it.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:47:22</time>
Thank you, Chris.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:47:23</time>
Thank you for giving us this time today.

<cite>Jenn:</cite>
<time>00:47:25</time>
Thank you for liking that video.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:29</time>
Happy to talk to you guys.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:31</time>
I'm telling you you're living a life of artists You're doing stuff that you

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:34</time>
that is interesting to you and that you know is important and it reaches

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:37</time>
people It's just nice to know it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:39</time>
Sometimes it's nice to hear back from the world because you, you make the

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:42</time>
thing and then you put it out in the world and it's making, it's making TV,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:46</time>
theater is a different thing, but making television, it's like you shoot something

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:50</time>
two months ago and then it comes out five, five months later, hope people like it,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:55</time>
you forgot you did it, or you're still living in it, but no one else is there.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:47:58</time>
There's no audience, so it's, it's in the immediate, it's,

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:01</time>
it's great to talk to you guys.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:02</time>
I really enjoy, I do really enjoy what you guys are doing.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:48:05</time>
Thank, thank you again so Chris.

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:48:06</time>
Um, I mean, for our audience, I mean, do you have any kind of things coming

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:48:10</time>
out places to you want people to look you up or anything like that?

<cite>Scott:</cite>
<time>00:48:14</time>
I mean, we're See next?

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:15</time>
Oh, I am I am, you just, you can see I'm in my

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:19</time>
studio right now.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:20</time>
I'm, I'm working on a record.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:21</time>
I'm writing a musical.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:23</time>
I've got three TV shows that are.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:27</time>
In various stages of development.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:29</time>
And one of them is a historical

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:31</time>
drama that is based on the Pullman porters, from George Pullman from of

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:37</time>
railway fame starts four days after the end of the civil war.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:41</time>
And we, it's an anthology which is, which has been a really, it's a fun

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:47</time>
Americana kind of story, which is going to be a lot of fun to, if we can.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:51</time>
ever finish the damn thing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:53</time>
But there's, like I, I have always tried my best and worked really hard at

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:48:58</time>
doing as many things well as I could.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:00</time>
And it's kind of, cause it kind of fills up sort of the curiosity in, in my life.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:05</time>
And it challenges me to try to do things that I'm not good at at all.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:08</time>
But this is what we're doing.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:10</time>
So, Sex and the City doesn't really, we don't pick back up until May

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:13</time>
and it's probably going to be next calendar year before that comes out.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:16</time>
Of course, next year is the big 10 year anniversary for Ham.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:20</time>
So I'm sure there'll be some, things floating around around that too.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:23</time>
But right now I'm, I'm, I'm burning macaroni and cheese in my oven.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:27</time>
And torturing my kids as they watch me eat it, just because I have to.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:32</time>
being a good dad.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:33</time>
And, that's it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:34</time>
That's it.

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:34</time>
And and, and trying to trying to learn as much as I can about as

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:37</time>
much as I can and, and talk to good

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:39</time>
folks like you

<cite>Chris Jackson:</cite>
<time>00:49:40</time>
guys.

The Story