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September 27th, 2024. From

1:01

Peachfish Productions, it's the gist. I'm Mike

1:03

Peska. I wanted

1:05

to talk about, since there's so much miserable-ism

1:07

in the world, and I am embarking on

1:09

an against miserable-ism world tour pretty soon. But

1:15

here's a thing, here's a development that makes me happy.

1:19

And it's not something that anyone tinkered with

1:21

in a lab or in a hospital. It's

1:23

not something that anyone tinkered with in a

1:25

lab. It's not something that society

1:28

got together and decided on. It's

1:30

certainly not something that members of an Ivy

1:33

League institution said, oh, this would

1:35

work. It's not even something that

1:37

people said, let us now change a

1:39

social norm. All it is is

1:41

an expression that has changed,

1:44

and I think pretty naturally, pretty

1:46

organically, it's changed for the better.

1:49

And the expression is, I appreciate

1:51

you. You know, we used

1:53

to say, hey, appreciate it, or I'd appreciate

1:55

it if you would knock it off. But

1:57

now, instead of the it,

2:00

or the even the dashed off not even mention it,

2:03

appreciate it, which is like I love you. It's not

2:05

not a real expression of love or really anything. It's

2:07

sort of obligatory. Now people say

2:09

they will say I appreciate you

2:11

and I don't know how sincere they are. I

2:14

think that maybe after you've heard it a couple

2:16

hundred times, you just think that's

2:18

the way to say it. It becomes natural.

2:21

It becomes insincere, but it seems a little

2:23

more sincere than appreciate it. It seems like

2:26

an advance forward in our derogor

2:28

expressions because we've had several advances

2:30

backwards. I've talked about this standing

2:33

online and someone will say, Following

2:36

customer. Can I help the following customer?

2:38

That's not right. It's can I help

2:40

the next customer? We're only following as

2:42

relation as in relation to people who

2:45

went before us. Anyway, that expression will

2:47

probably die as standing in line at

2:49

retail establishments themselves die. But I

2:52

like appreciate you. It seems much

2:55

more directed at me, the individual. I

2:57

mean, it's not like I say it.

2:59

I like receiving it, but I do

3:01

wonder if it is meant or sincere.

3:04

And I think back to the very first time

3:06

I ever heard the phrase. Know what I'm saying?

3:09

I remember exactly where I was. I was at

3:11

a nobody beats the whiz in the Green Acres

3:13

Mall and I had returned from Korea and I

3:15

was trying to get electronics. Maybe

3:17

a pager this before the whole Hezbollah

3:20

thing and I went in and oh,

3:22

no, I think actually it was. I was

3:24

getting maybe a CD man, a

3:26

CD, a single CD player,

3:28

the Walkman version of CD, which

3:30

was great because you could jog and it

3:33

would only skip every single time. So I

3:35

went in and the salesperson there, although back

3:37

then we call them the salesman there, who

3:39

is the sales guy, was constantly

3:41

saying to me as I was explaining what

3:43

I wanted. You know, maybe it could skip

3:45

only like every third step. He

3:48

was saying, yes, well, here are

3:50

our CD players. You know what I'm saying?

3:52

And this over here is a really good model. You

3:54

know what I'm saying? And I had never heard this

3:56

expression before. Maybe it's because I was in Korea for

3:59

an extended length of. time and

4:01

the rhetorical innovations of my homeland

4:03

had bypassed me or I had

4:05

just not noticed that, know what

4:07

I'm saying, had swept

4:10

the universe or the

4:12

American side of the universe. And I

4:14

remember interacting with him as if he

4:16

were sincerely and earnestly

4:18

after and asking for the

4:21

question, do you comprehend what I

4:23

just said? So the conversation went like this. I'm

4:25

looking for a CD player. Oh yeah. I'm looking

4:27

for a stand alone or a walkman. I want

4:30

a walkman. Do you have good models? Yes, Sony

4:32

makes a good model. Know what I'm saying? Oh

4:34

yes, I know what you're saying. Sony

4:36

is one of the leaders in personal electronics. Yeah, yeah,

4:38

yeah. Now they have a high end and a low

4:40

end. You know what I'm saying? Yes. The

4:43

different levels of electronics are often differentiated by

4:45

price point and functionality. And it went on

4:47

like this. I had no idea if he

4:49

just thought I was a little spectromie. If

4:51

I was like the guy in the Bud

4:54

Light commercial, the guy with the big hat

4:56

from Texarkana, who when the New Yorkers were like,

4:58

how are you doing? He was like, I am

5:00

doing well. I don't know if he thought I

5:03

was like, Chauncey Gardner from being there. I

5:05

like to watch. But I was something. Know

5:07

what I'm saying? I think you do know

5:09

what I'm saying. And for knowing that, guess

5:11

what? I appreciate you on the show today.

5:14

I shall bring you a full show interview

5:16

with Wright Thompson. He's one of

5:18

my absolute favorite writers, one of the

5:20

great sport writers, sports or sport, if

5:22

you're British, sport writers of the age.

5:24

He applies his trade on ESPN. And

5:27

he's the kind of guy, well, I

5:29

think we could say of Wright Thompson. If he

5:31

did not exist, we'd have to invent him. He

5:34

is a southerner. He is a

5:36

genteel. He sees his

5:38

own world and our world

5:40

in fascinating and insightful

5:42

ways and spins a phrase around

5:44

it. His new book is

5:47

about the most horrible story that

5:50

we know that comes from where

5:52

he comes from, the Mississippi Delta.

5:54

It is about the

5:56

exact place where Emmett Till

5:59

was murdered. murdered, which

6:01

was before Wright and a few

6:03

others started looking into it, the

6:05

subject of what is generally

6:08

called, and I think this is a

6:10

word that's overused, erasure. But

6:12

in this case, it is an

6:14

apt word though the barn still

6:16

stands as an actual structure. And

6:18

now as a book by Wright

6:20

Thompson, the barn, the

6:22

secret history of a murder

6:24

in Mississippi, Wright Thompson up

6:26

next. So

6:51

Prize Picks is a new site that I've been

6:53

getting into. They have contests. It's a let us

6:56

think of it as a daily fantasy sports app.

6:58

And they have these contests where they give you

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a slate of 10 athletes from

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different sports. And you get to say,

7:04

will Caitlin Clark have more than six

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rebounds in this game? Or will Lawrence

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Butler have one and a half hits?

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That's what I picked because I did

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some research. I did not know who

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Lawrence Butler is. He plays for the

7:16

Oakland A's. That's fine. That's great. I

7:18

won my pick and then I won

7:20

again. And the more that I win,

7:22

the more free winnings they give

7:24

you. There's a lot of free winnings. There's a

7:26

lot of bonuses that Prize

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Picks is giving to listeners of the

7:31

Gist. Cause right now in the world

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of the daily fantasy sports apps, it's

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a rush to tell all potential customers

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how great their sites are. And I'm

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finding Prize Picks to be particularly great.

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So listen to this offer. Please

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you play $5, you don't even

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need to win to receive the $50 bonus. It's

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guaranteed prize picks run

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your game. So

8:11

I work out every day or nearly

8:13

every day and I think I'm doing it

8:15

right. I've been doing it a long time

8:17

but with some of these exercises, I've been

8:19

doing them a long time. So I like

8:21

some variety but I also need to know

8:24

that I'm doing the exercises right. For some

8:26

people, motivation's a big issue and they need

8:28

an accountability partner. Well, FitBod does all that.

8:30

That's not my particular issue. I will feel

8:32

worse if I don't go to the gym

8:34

than if I do but when at the

8:36

gym, you know, how can you

8:38

be sure that you're hitting the right muscle

8:40

groups, that you're hitting them in the

8:42

right way, that you're recovering correctly and

8:44

this is where FitBod comes in. It

8:46

creates a personalized workout routine based on

8:48

my fitness goals, fitness level and the

8:50

available equipment which is really big at

8:53

this crowded gym I go to. It

8:55

tracks muscle recovery. I just used to have

8:57

a vague sense of that. Well, I guess

9:00

it's been three days since I did biceps.

9:02

Although isn't biceps, aren't they also implicated in

9:04

many other types of activities? FitBod is

9:07

great on this and you click on the

9:09

muscle groups and they'll tell you how

9:11

much recovery time you need and the

9:13

best thing for me is the demonstration

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videos because I'm often at the gym

9:18

trying to, you know, properly execute, I

9:20

don't know, a upright row and

9:23

if you get that wrong, it could be bad. So how

9:25

do I determine I'm doing it right? I used

9:28

to just go on, there's this one site called

9:30

YouTube. It's maybe some videos are good but I

9:32

don't know what their qualifications are that someone else

9:34

watched it a lot, that they've got good background

9:36

videos. Forget that FitBod has

9:39

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9:41

videos. You don't have to sit through ads. I

9:44

would say you should lock in and

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stay focused. Join FitBod today and get

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9:56

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9:58

that's F-I-T-B-O-T. dot

10:01

m e slash the gist. Seven

10:04

day free. Got to try that. Let's

10:07

think about what we know about the

10:09

murder of Emmett Till. We know about

10:11

the open casket, a mother's bravery. The

10:13

facts of the case, August 1955, 2

10:15

30am, two men, at least two men,

10:17

white men,

10:22

Roy Bryant, W JW Millam banging on

10:24

a door. We're looking for the boy

10:27

that did the talking. This

10:29

was Emmett Till's supposed crime whistling

10:31

at a white woman. He was

10:33

murdered. He was brutalized. He

10:36

was thrown in the Tallahatchie River. 14 years

10:38

old. We often skip past the

10:40

fact that he was about a month and

10:42

a week just past his 13th birthday. Just

10:45

turned 14. Yeah, just turned

10:47

14. He liked comic books, Mike.

10:50

He liked comic books. That voice

10:52

you're hearing is Wright Thompson, one

10:54

of our great writers in the

10:57

field of sports and history and

10:59

Mississippi. And he's gotten obsessed

11:01

with and written about the

11:04

barn, the secret history

11:06

of a murder in Mississippi. Because

11:08

when I was talking in the

11:10

beginning about all the things we

11:12

know, what we don't know, unlike

11:14

so many other sites of great

11:16

tragedy in American history, well, where

11:18

did it actually happen? He was

11:20

found, Emmett Till was found in

11:22

the river. But here in New

11:25

York City, we have memorials around

11:27

the 9-11 site. You go to

11:29

Stonewall, which stopped being Stonewall for

11:31

many years, and then was reestablished

11:33

as Stonewall, because we thought

11:35

it was important to memorialize prejudice

11:38

and oppression of gay people.

11:40

And yet, in Wright's

11:43

native Mississippi, there is a collective

11:45

forgetting of what happened to Emmett

11:47

Till, where it happened until now,

11:49

Wright Thompson, welcome back to the

11:52

gist. Man, it's a pleasure to

11:54

be back. Yeah, I mean,

11:57

one of the things that struck me when I first

11:59

started was that This

12:02

is a very famous murder

12:05

and there are countless books

12:07

and there

12:10

was a TV show and a movie

12:12

last year alone and the

12:15

stunning total of what we don't know

12:19

really blew me away and spoke to

12:21

the degree to which the erasure of

12:23

this crime has

12:26

been ongoing and intentional. It's

12:29

not like I'm wizard reporter. The

12:32

next person who comes along and does this is probably going to

12:34

find new stuff too. There have

12:36

been so many lies, so many acts

12:38

of intentional erasure around this murder that

12:41

I found

12:44

that the murder weapon was in a safety

12:46

deposit box in a bank in Greenwood, Mississippi.

12:49

I found that all of the file

12:51

folders at the courthouse didn't have anything

12:53

in them. I found that

12:55

the famous Look magazine that has the

12:58

confession at the Ole Miss

13:00

and Delta State and the Delta Libraries,

13:02

the magazine is in the library but

13:04

the confession is torn out. Over

13:08

and over you see that this was

13:10

a crime that people tried

13:12

to erase and the reason

13:14

of course is that in

13:17

the murder of a child and

13:20

what happened in this barn which has

13:22

been written out of the story for

13:25

almost 70 years, you

13:28

find a mirror that

13:31

a lot of Americans, not just Mississippians and

13:33

we'll get to that, but Americans don't like

13:35

to look at. This

13:38

barn physically stands just about at

13:40

the geographic center of the Mississippi

13:42

Delta. Describe it. Describe

13:44

what it was known as before

13:46

people started realizing what it meant.

13:50

The Mississippi Delta is some of

13:52

the most fertile ground in the

13:54

world. It was the last great

13:56

American cotton boom, sort of like

13:58

18. from

14:01

1990 to 1920, and

14:03

it was sort of

14:05

the center of the sharecropper south. The

14:08

barn is its land

14:11

is divided into 36 square

14:13

mile blocks called townships. And

14:16

this was established in the Land Ordinance

14:18

Act of 1785, Thomas Jefferson. And

14:23

each of those townships is divided into 36 sections

14:25

of land. When

14:28

you hear people talk about like 40 acres and a mule, 40 acres

14:31

is a quarter of a quarter section.

14:34

And so the barn

14:36

is Township 22 North Range 4 West

14:38

measured from the Choctaw Meridian. And even

14:40

in the laying down of the grid,

14:43

every political fight we've had in

14:45

America ever since was set

14:48

in motion. You had Thomas

14:50

Jefferson fighting with Alexander Hamilton over what

14:52

was the most land someone be allowed

14:55

to buy and what was the cap

14:57

on the purchase price because

14:59

Jefferson wanted it to go to

15:01

poor subsistence farmers. And Alexander Hamilton

15:04

wanted it to be owned

15:07

by big heavily

15:09

capitalized investors because that's how you grow

15:12

an economy. And so we've

15:14

been having that fight with different words

15:16

and different proxies essentially ever since. And

15:20

so the barn sits at the center

15:22

of the Mississippi Delta Township 22 North

15:24

Range 4 West. And

15:27

what becomes remarkable is all

15:29

of the other things that happened in this same

15:31

36 square mile box

15:34

that start to make you realize that

15:39

that everything is everything. Where

15:41

it's Nathan Bedford Forrest family had a

15:43

farm and his brother actually built the

15:45

road, the barn is owned. Nathan Bedford

15:47

Forrest founder of the first

15:50

Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Dockery

15:52

Farms is with an eye shot. And

15:54

it is where Sun

15:57

House Charlie Patton Robert

15:59

Johnson. and muddy waters, howlin' wolf,

16:01

pop staples of the Staples Singers

16:03

and Mavis Staples. I mean, it

16:06

is the birthplace in many, many ways of

16:08

all of American music. You've

16:10

got one

16:13

of the original architects of all the Jim

16:15

Crow laws had land there. I mean, over

16:17

and over and over, the

16:19

intersections of history in this one square of

16:21

land make this square and

16:24

this barn and this murder without

16:27

much of a stretch, a proxy

16:30

for, I mean,

16:32

frankly, all of American history. Who

16:35

owns the barn in 1955 who has access to the barn? So

16:40

the barn in 1955 is being purchased by Leslie Milam, who

16:46

is the brother of J.W. Milam

16:48

and the half-brother of Roy Bryant. They

16:52

had the same mother, they had different

16:54

fathers. They're so inbred that they had

16:56

different fathers, but they had the same

16:59

great grandfather. Ah. So

17:01

like, they grew up up in the sticks

17:04

in the hills and it's very Appalachian

17:06

feeling. And they,

17:09

he owned the barn, he was buying

17:11

it from the Sturdivant family who

17:14

are big, still are big farmers in Mississippi.

17:17

And they took it, they took

17:19

Emmett there because

17:22

they didn't know anyone else who,

17:25

it was probably not easy for

17:27

them. They took them a long way. They went out of

17:29

their way to go there. And

17:31

it seems to me that they probably

17:33

didn't have anywhere else to take him.

17:35

I mean, there wasn't much of a

17:38

plan it didn't seem like, and they

17:40

were also pretty drunk. So to orient

17:42

everyone, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, they

17:44

are the only two, they're half-brothers. They're

17:46

the only two who stand trial. That's

17:48

right. Acquitted as

17:51

was baked into the cake in the

17:53

judicial system at the time, despite what

17:55

could be the first instance of black

17:58

man standing up in court accused. using

18:00

white people murder and himself not

18:02

being murdered. And but

18:05

there are others there are how many others

18:07

who are directly involved in the till murder.

18:11

Just as an example of serve how so

18:14

much of this remains unknown. Two

18:16

people were tried and acquitted the

18:18

barn was written out of their

18:20

confession and the popular history

18:22

specifically to protect Leslie Milan from

18:25

prosecution. The only reason we know

18:27

Leslie Milan was involved in the

18:29

murder is he confessed to his

18:31

priest on his deathbed and the

18:33

priest told me and the

18:35

priest told the guy in every Anderson. But

18:39

like the so there were

18:42

JW there was Roy

18:44

there was Leslie there were

18:47

2 of JW's farm hands

18:49

to black men. We're

18:52

with him who were forced to help and

18:54

then there were probably

18:58

their brother-in-law Melvin Campbell who's

19:00

married to their sister Mary

19:02

Louise and possibly

19:05

3 other people so

19:07

8 to 10 the filmmaker

19:10

Keith Beauchamp who's made a great documentary about

19:12

this is just you know Keith

19:14

has pushed this ball forward a lot and

19:17

is really somebody I

19:19

admire tremendously he thinks there was many

19:21

as 14. I can't

19:23

get there I can get to usually I can get to

19:25

8. But you

19:28

know nobody knows

19:31

and that to me the

19:34

lack of knowledge is

19:37

a big part of the story because we're

19:39

like that we're just completely covered up in

19:41

a race. Yeah, and with even

19:43

8 or 14 just

19:45

that large number black men forced

19:48

into service think about the

19:50

pebble and thrown into the

19:52

river and all the waves

19:55

that it creates it would seem that

19:57

decades later so many people would have

19:59

not knowledge of this and so many

20:01

people would not be able to contain

20:04

the knowledge of it and there is

20:06

an actual gigantic looming site of this

20:08

murder that everyone looked at and maybe

20:11

many of them knew what it meant and

20:13

no one talked what does that speak to

20:15

so the the only word that

20:17

can describe it and I mean I use

20:19

this word intentionally is America. And

20:23

the so the guy who

20:25

owns the bar now is a dentist his name

20:27

is Jeff. Jeff did

20:30

look and I believe him did

20:34

not know the history of the barn when he

20:36

bought it and immediately after its

20:38

purchase he purchased it his father told

20:41

him which means his

20:43

dad knew the whole time and never

20:45

ever told him. I mean this

20:47

a murder between fathers and sons,

20:49

I mean maybe even especially

20:51

between fathers and sons and mothers and

20:54

sons and daughters. This

20:56

was something that was so

20:59

unspoken that

21:03

during the pandemic when

21:05

I ended up it's a long story

21:07

that involves the Los Angeles Lakers player

21:09

Avery Bradley but I ended up making

21:12

calls around about the till case and

21:15

one of the people I talked to was this

21:18

activist named Patrick Williams who said hey have

21:20

you ever been to the barn and I

21:22

said what barn and it

21:25

occurred to me that if you fundamentally don't know

21:27

the history of the place that you think you

21:29

know best in the world. Maybe

21:32

it's time to start learning. I mean this

21:34

was an obsession before it was attached to

21:36

an assignment. Because you I mean

21:38

if we have any they can't tell

21:40

by your molasses drawl you're

21:43

from how far from there. So

21:45

my family farm is 23 miles

21:48

from the bar. And

21:50

my mother grew up closer. She probably grew up 14

21:54

miles from the barn 16 miles trying to

21:56

math. Yeah and did she even know of

21:58

its existence. No. I told her.

22:01

Yeah. What did she say? What is

22:03

your family? The older generation

22:05

of your family say it. My

22:07

mom is, I grew

22:09

up in a really politically active

22:11

family. My dad

22:14

was a civil

22:18

rights lawyer and political

22:21

guy. We had a

22:23

cross burned in our front yard in 1982, which

22:26

is, you know. And

22:29

like, I didn't know about this.

22:32

And one of the things, my mom is

22:34

really like politically active on Facebook. And I'm

22:36

always telling like, what are you doing? Like,

22:40

who gives a shit? It's the fucking internet. You know

22:42

what I mean? Like, who cares? Like,

22:45

so you went in on, so what? And like,

22:48

you know, I just, she lives

22:50

alone. I'm just worried about some of these crazy

22:52

people, you know? Yeah. And she

22:55

said that she

22:57

realized that the silence when she was, she was

23:00

born in 1947, which

23:02

means she would have been eight

23:04

years old when this happened. She was

23:08

alive during the freedom summer where there was a

23:10

big march in her little hometown of a thousand

23:12

people. And she's like, I didn't

23:14

know anything. And it was all, we just didn't

23:17

speak of it. And she said, I always promised

23:19

myself that I would never

23:21

be silent again. And

23:23

so she said, that's why I engage all these

23:25

lunatics on the internet. And

23:27

so, I mean, it, there's

23:30

a real sense of if we just don't

23:32

talk about it, then maybe, maybe

23:34

it didn't happen. So, okay. So

23:36

then explain to me, let's

23:38

analyze Faulkner as we must when talking with

23:40

a Mississippi writer. Is it the case that

23:43

the past isn't dead? It's not

23:45

even past. It seems like in this

23:47

case, there was every effort

23:49

to make sure the past was

23:52

dead, buried, never spoken of,

23:54

and the word you've used a few

23:56

times erased. Well, and I

23:58

would say that it was that effort that. kept

24:00

the past alive unintentionally. Like in

24:03

the context Faulkner means that is,

24:05

I think, that the

24:08

past isn't dead because we haven't buried it,

24:11

because we haven't had a funeral

24:13

for it. We haven't grieved and

24:15

collectively moved on. And the

24:18

only way for the past to truly be

24:20

the past is for everybody to

24:23

agree on the same set of facts and

24:25

say, this is what happened. And

24:27

for amends to be made, I don't

24:29

mean even financial, I mean like spiritual

24:31

amends. Like let one human being look

24:34

another human being in the eye and

24:36

say, I'm sorry. And

24:41

so the

24:44

past isn't dead because we haven't

24:46

even begun to sort of say,

24:50

this is who we are. And this is what

24:52

happened here. And what is the postage stamp of

24:54

common ground that we can build together to stand

24:57

on and walk into the future? I mean, like

25:00

it's a Mississippi only really

25:03

ended its formal caste system in

25:05

1970 when the schools integrated. It's

25:07

not that long ago. And

25:10

we've just wasted the last

25:13

54 years, because we

25:15

haven't actually started the work yet.

25:18

And as just one

25:20

example of the concerted

25:22

collective erasure, there

25:25

is and was until very

25:27

recently an institution called Strider

25:29

Academy. And Strider is the

25:31

sheriff who ensured that Emmett

25:33

Till's Killers would go free.

25:36

And the Academy is not just named for him,

25:38

it was the school that

25:40

he founded, right? He literally founded it.

25:42

It's across a little highway. I think

25:44

it's across Henry Strider Highway from Henry

25:46

Strider's out. And it's across

25:49

to give you an idea. And

25:51

this is one of these private

25:54

schools established to rebut integration, right?

25:56

So the Mississippi Delta has an

25:58

entire network of what are called

26:00

segregation. academies. So in many ways,

26:02

the school systems remained

26:06

segregated. Some I

26:08

mean, many still are. You

26:11

know, I was sitting

26:14

in a restaurant with the owner of the barn

26:16

one night. And a guy

26:18

comes over to the table and recognizes him, I don't

26:20

know him. And they start talking

26:22

and he sits down and it is Henry

26:24

Strider's grandson. And

26:27

I just was floored. And it was

26:29

interesting because he talked about how much

26:32

like he's really thought about this, you

26:34

know, I mean, this guy sells farm

26:37

seeds and chemicals. I mean, this isn't like, you

26:39

know what I mean? Like, he's like a good

26:41

old boy. But he's thought a lot about what

26:43

this means. And he

26:48

just said, you know, it makes him try to

26:50

figure out where hate comes from. Because he said,

26:52

you know, I read what he said and what

26:55

he did. And I'm just appalled. And

26:57

yet I knew the guy as like a sweet old

26:59

man. And he's like, and

27:01

just trying to reconcile those two things.

27:04

And you know, it, it makes

27:06

you realize that, that the

27:08

people of the South are much

27:11

more nuanced than our idiot politicians.

27:13

And that like, that people are

27:16

trying to deal in some ways in

27:18

this in three dimensions. And then

27:21

there's this, I don't understand this whole urge

27:24

to try to erase this history

27:26

to ban the teaching of it. You

27:28

know, I'll be curious to see how this

27:30

book lands in Mississippi. And you know, it

27:35

it is incredibly counterproductive

27:38

to try to delay

27:40

learning the truth. Because that's

27:42

all these bands are delays.

27:45

I bring I bring up Strider Academy

27:47

to make a

27:49

point that's, that's relates

27:52

and fits in with what you were just talking about. And

27:54

I get it from the book, which is, if

27:58

there is a thought this horrible with

40:00

anything. I think they're brave people and

40:02

I think they're cowards. And

40:05

I mean, there are a few good people

40:07

and a few bad people, you know, the mile

40:09

mile and Bryant were definitely evil, you know, but

40:12

like most of the breakdown is

40:14

not good or bad. Most

40:17

of it is. Braver

40:20

heroic. And you also learn

40:22

you don't have any idea how

40:25

you're going to react until faced with it. Like

40:27

seeing these seeing the people who everything

40:30

about their backstory indicated they would have

40:32

reacted bravely but didn't and seeing people

40:34

who had never done a single thing

40:36

in their lives to suggest they would

40:38

stand up to such an enormous powerful

40:40

machine and shake their fist at it.

40:42

I mean, you just have no idea

40:44

how you're going to react until called

40:46

upon to react. And so it's almost

40:49

sort of like it's just performative and

40:51

silly, frankly, to sort of talk about

40:53

how you would behave because it's like one of the

40:56

things from importing this book is like, you

40:58

just can't tell. Yeah. Last

41:01

question I want to ask you. Yeah. Mississippi

41:03

is usually ranked

41:05

49th or 50th by most

41:08

education measures including literacy. What

41:10

and West Virginia's the other one is either

41:13

49th or 50th. The list

41:15

of West Virginia authors is not that

41:17

impressive. The list of Mississippi authors will

41:19

blow you away from you to Faulkner

41:21

to your door. Well, to take John

41:24

Grisham Richard Wright. What accounts for this?

41:27

I think that we are people trying to make sense

41:29

of what happened here. I

41:32

think this book is my attempt to understand

41:34

where I'm from. I think

41:36

it is a user's manual for my two children.

41:39

I think that Kia

41:42

say layman Natasha Trethewey and Jasmine

41:44

Ward. I mean,

41:46

you start like I think everybody's trying to

41:49

make sense of of

41:52

what happened here. I wish you could drive through

41:54

the Mississippi Delta because the

41:56

stuff that's abandoned, it

41:59

looks like A bomb went

42:01

off. Yeah, you say you've been to Bosnian,

42:03

Ukraine, and war zones. And without that context,

42:05

you couldn't understand it. No. And I

42:08

think it is very clear that there

42:11

was some sort of failed experiment here.

42:14

And this is a place where

42:16

the commodity chain has moved on.

42:18

Imagine going to the Middle East

42:20

once there's no such thing as

42:22

oil. And

42:25

imagine going into

42:27

Texas when oil doesn't exist. I

42:30

think that people are trying to sort out

42:33

what happened here. The

42:36

name of the book is The Barn, The

42:39

Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi. Ray

42:41

Thompson wrote it and joined me. Ray, thanks

42:43

so much. Thank you so much, Mike. And

42:51

that's it for today's show. Cory

42:53

War is the producer of The

42:55

Gist. And Joel Patterson is the

42:57

senior producer. Michelle Peska is the

43:00

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