1 00:00:03,063 --> 00:00:04,507 The archive. 2 00:00:05,317 --> 00:00:08,659 One may envision rooms and shelves 3 00:00:08,683 --> 00:00:11,147 stocked with boxes and cartons of old stuff. 4 00:00:11,623 --> 00:00:15,298 And yet, for those who are patient enough to dig through it, 5 00:00:15,322 --> 00:00:18,099 the archive provides the precious opportunity 6 00:00:18,123 --> 00:00:19,877 to touch the past, 7 00:00:19,901 --> 00:00:22,426 to feel and learn from the experiences 8 00:00:22,450 --> 00:00:27,453 of once-living people who now seem dead and buried deeply in the archive. 9 00:00:28,038 --> 00:00:32,363 But what if there was a way to bring the archive to life? 10 00:00:32,387 --> 00:00:35,226 Jon Michael Reese: "The world is thinking wrong about race." 11 00:00:35,250 --> 00:00:38,453 Melissa Joyner: "This country insists upon judging the Negro." 12 00:00:38,477 --> 00:00:40,056 JMR: "Because it does not know." 13 00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:42,049 AYGTK: What if one could make it breathe? 14 00:00:42,073 --> 00:00:44,731 MJ: "By his lowest and most vicious representatives." 15 00:00:44,755 --> 00:00:45,905 AYGTK: Speak. 16 00:00:45,929 --> 00:00:47,968 JMR: "An honest, straightforward exhibit." 17 00:00:47,992 --> 00:00:49,311 AYGTK: And even sing to us, 18 00:00:49,335 --> 00:00:51,752 so that the archive becomes accessible to everyone. 19 00:00:51,776 --> 00:00:54,307 What would performing the archive look like? 20 00:00:54,331 --> 00:00:57,447 A performance that is not simply based on a true story, 21 00:00:58,264 --> 00:01:01,598 but one that allows us to come face-to-face 22 00:01:01,622 --> 00:01:04,188 with things we thought were once dead and buried. 23 00:01:04,212 --> 00:01:05,229 (Piano music) 24 00:01:05,253 --> 00:01:08,006 This is what "At Buffalo," a new musical we're developing, 25 00:01:08,030 --> 00:01:09,188 is all about. 26 00:01:09,212 --> 00:01:12,744 Using collections from over 30 archival institutions, 27 00:01:12,768 --> 00:01:18,572 "At Buffalo" performs the massive archive of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, 28 00:01:18,596 --> 00:01:20,619 the first World's Fair of the 20th century, 29 00:01:20,643 --> 00:01:21,914 held in Buffalo, New York. 30 00:01:21,938 --> 00:01:23,619 Now, if you've heard of this fair, 31 00:01:23,643 --> 00:01:26,942 it might be because this is where then-US president, William McKinley, 32 00:01:26,966 --> 00:01:28,132 was assassinated. 33 00:01:28,156 --> 00:01:30,379 For nearly 17 years, 34 00:01:30,403 --> 00:01:33,474 I've stayed inside the gates and the archive of this fair, 35 00:01:33,498 --> 00:01:35,482 not only because of that story, 36 00:01:35,506 --> 00:01:38,958 but because of a real life-and-death racial drama 37 00:01:38,982 --> 00:01:41,387 that played out on the fairgrounds. 38 00:01:41,411 --> 00:01:44,696 Here, in a place that was like Disney World, the Olympics, 39 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:46,974 carnivals, museums, all in one, 40 00:01:46,998 --> 00:01:51,236 there were three conflicting displays of what it meant to be black 41 00:01:51,260 --> 00:01:52,807 in the United States. 42 00:01:52,831 --> 00:01:55,544 The archive says white showmen presented 43 00:01:55,568 --> 00:01:57,687 a savage black origin, 44 00:01:57,711 --> 00:02:00,846 in the form of 98 West and Central Africans, 45 00:02:00,870 --> 00:02:02,576 living and performing war dances 46 00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:06,160 in a recreated village called Darkest Africa. 47 00:02:06,633 --> 00:02:09,069 And across the street, 48 00:02:09,093 --> 00:02:11,966 a happy slave life, 49 00:02:11,990 --> 00:02:15,704 in the form of 150 Southern black performers, 50 00:02:15,728 --> 00:02:17,085 picking cotton, 51 00:02:17,109 --> 00:02:19,355 singing and dancing minstrel shows, 52 00:02:19,379 --> 00:02:24,426 in a recreated antebellum attraction called Old Plantation. 53 00:02:25,284 --> 00:02:26,990 As a response, 54 00:02:27,014 --> 00:02:31,021 the black Buffalo community championed the third display of blackness. 55 00:02:31,506 --> 00:02:32,706 The Negro Exhibit. 56 00:02:33,395 --> 00:02:37,014 Codesigned by African American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, 57 00:02:37,038 --> 00:02:41,673 it curated photographs, charts, books and more, 58 00:02:41,697 --> 00:02:44,626 to show black Americans as a high-achieving race, 59 00:02:44,650 --> 00:02:47,430 capable of education and progress. 60 00:02:48,373 --> 00:02:50,624 When I first encountered this story, 61 00:02:50,648 --> 00:02:52,957 I understood from my own life experience 62 00:02:52,981 --> 00:02:55,997 what was at stake to have members of the African diaspora 63 00:02:56,021 --> 00:02:57,688 see each other like this. 64 00:02:58,046 --> 00:03:02,188 For me, as the child of immigrant parents from Ghana, West Africa, 65 00:03:02,212 --> 00:03:04,156 born in the American South, 66 00:03:04,180 --> 00:03:06,925 raised in Manhattan, Kansas, 67 00:03:06,949 --> 00:03:08,124 (Laughter) 68 00:03:08,148 --> 00:03:11,275 and having attended the same elite school as Du Bois, 69 00:03:11,299 --> 00:03:14,037 I could see that the Buffalo fair effectively pitted 70 00:03:14,061 --> 00:03:16,126 the black Northerner against the Southerner, 71 00:03:16,150 --> 00:03:17,989 the educated against the uneducated, 72 00:03:18,013 --> 00:03:21,195 and the African American against the African. 73 00:03:21,510 --> 00:03:23,298 And I wanted to know, 74 00:03:23,322 --> 00:03:28,369 how did these three distinct groups of black folk navigate this experience. 75 00:03:29,021 --> 00:03:32,871 Unfortunately, the archive had answers to questions like this 76 00:03:32,895 --> 00:03:35,172 underneath racial caricature, 77 00:03:35,196 --> 00:03:38,775 conflicting information and worse, silence. 78 00:03:39,212 --> 00:03:42,307 (Piano music) 79 00:03:42,331 --> 00:03:46,739 Still, I could hear musical melodies 80 00:03:46,763 --> 00:03:48,046 and see dance numbers 81 00:03:48,070 --> 00:03:49,454 and the rhythms of the words 82 00:03:49,478 --> 00:03:51,977 coming off the pages of old newspaper articles. 83 00:03:52,001 --> 00:03:53,675 And learning that this World's Fair 84 00:03:53,699 --> 00:03:57,641 had music playing everywhere on its fairgrounds, 85 00:03:57,665 --> 00:04:01,561 I knew that live, immersive, spectacular musical theater, 86 00:04:01,585 --> 00:04:04,601 with the latest technologies of our time, 87 00:04:04,625 --> 00:04:09,260 is the closest experience that can bring the archival story of the 1901 fair 88 00:04:09,284 --> 00:04:12,060 out of boxes, and into life. 89 00:04:12,585 --> 00:04:15,600 Stories, like Tannie and Henrietta, 90 00:04:15,624 --> 00:04:18,409 a husband and wife vaudeville duo in love 91 00:04:18,433 --> 00:04:21,553 who become at odds over performing these "coon" minstrel shows 92 00:04:21,577 --> 00:04:23,877 while striving for their five-dollar-a-week dream 93 00:04:23,901 --> 00:04:25,918 in the Old Plantation attraction. 94 00:04:25,942 --> 00:04:28,657 Like African businessman John Tevi, 95 00:04:28,681 --> 00:04:30,363 from present-day Togo, 96 00:04:30,387 --> 00:04:33,791 who must outwit the savage rules of the human zoo 97 00:04:33,815 --> 00:04:35,926 in which he has become trapped. 98 00:04:35,950 --> 00:04:39,490 And stories like Mary Talbert, 99 00:04:39,514 --> 00:04:41,990 a wealthy leader of the black Buffalo elite, 100 00:04:42,014 --> 00:04:43,216 who must come to terms 101 00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:45,879 with the racial realities of her home town. 102 00:04:45,903 --> 00:04:47,928 MJ: "The dominant race in this country 103 00:04:47,952 --> 00:04:49,990 insists upon judging the Negro 104 00:04:50,014 --> 00:04:52,545 by his lowest and most vicious representatives." 105 00:04:52,569 --> 00:04:54,879 AYGTK: Like Old Plantation and Darkest Africa. 106 00:04:54,903 --> 00:04:58,093 MJ: "... instead of by the more intelligent and worthy classes." 107 00:04:58,117 --> 00:05:00,558 AYGTK: When fair directors ignored Mary Talbert 108 00:05:00,582 --> 00:05:04,117 and the local black Buffalo community's request to participate in the fair, 109 00:05:04,141 --> 00:05:06,275 newspapers say that Mary Talbert 110 00:05:06,299 --> 00:05:08,887 and her club of educated African American women 111 00:05:08,911 --> 00:05:11,252 held a rousing protest meeting. 112 00:05:11,276 --> 00:05:13,093 But the details of that meeting, 113 00:05:13,117 --> 00:05:15,410 even down to the fiery speech she gave, 114 00:05:15,434 --> 00:05:17,426 were not fully captured in the archive. 115 00:05:17,450 --> 00:05:21,212 So, "At Buffalo" takes the essence of Mary's speech 116 00:05:21,236 --> 00:05:23,421 and turns it into song. 117 00:05:24,251 --> 00:05:27,122 (All singing) We must, we are unanimous. 118 00:05:27,744 --> 00:05:31,527 We must, we are unanimous. 119 00:05:31,551 --> 00:05:34,003 MJ: We've got something to show -- 120 00:05:34,027 --> 00:05:37,717 we're going to teach a lesson in Buffalo. 121 00:05:37,741 --> 00:05:41,302 It would benefit the nation 122 00:05:41,326 --> 00:05:45,365 to see our growth since emancipation. 123 00:05:45,389 --> 00:05:51,445 Colored people should be represented in this Pan-American exposition, 124 00:05:51,469 --> 00:05:55,064 it would benefit the nation 125 00:05:55,088 --> 00:05:59,492 to see our growth since emancipation. 126 00:05:59,516 --> 00:06:05,988 (All singing) They made a great mistake 127 00:06:06,351 --> 00:06:11,951 not to appoint someone from the race. 128 00:06:13,382 --> 00:06:16,103 We must, we are unanimous. 129 00:06:16,844 --> 00:06:20,325 We must, we are unanimous. 130 00:06:20,349 --> 00:06:21,915 We must, we are unanimous. 131 00:06:21,939 --> 00:06:26,423 AYGTK: Mary Talbert successfully demands that the Negro Exhibit come to the fair. 132 00:06:26,805 --> 00:06:29,162 And to have the Negro Exhibit in Buffalo 133 00:06:29,186 --> 00:06:33,868 means that the musical must tell the story behind why Du Bois cocreated it ... 134 00:06:35,694 --> 00:06:40,234 and why Mary and the black elite felt it was urgently needed. 135 00:06:41,933 --> 00:06:45,123 JMR: "The world is thinking wrong about race. 136 00:06:46,980 --> 00:06:50,577 They killed Sam Hose for who they thought he was. 137 00:06:51,966 --> 00:06:53,910 And more men like him, every day, 138 00:06:53,934 --> 00:06:57,694 more Negro men, like him, taken apart. 139 00:06:59,169 --> 00:07:01,856 And after that -- that red ray ... 140 00:07:02,980 --> 00:07:04,647 we can never be the same. 141 00:07:05,665 --> 00:07:09,204 (Singing) A red ray 142 00:07:09,228 --> 00:07:10,481 [A man hunt in Georgia] 143 00:07:10,505 --> 00:07:12,435 cut across my desk 144 00:07:12,459 --> 00:07:14,648 [Mob after Hose; he will be lynched if caught] 145 00:07:14,672 --> 00:07:16,918 the very day 146 00:07:16,942 --> 00:07:20,224 Sam's hands were laid to rest. 147 00:07:21,974 --> 00:07:28,951 Can words alone withstand the laws unjust? 148 00:07:28,975 --> 00:07:30,263 [Escape seems impossible] 149 00:07:30,287 --> 00:07:35,715 Can words alone withstand the violence? 150 00:07:38,038 --> 00:07:43,109 Oh, no, oh. 151 00:07:43,133 --> 00:07:44,368 [Burned alive] 152 00:07:44,392 --> 00:07:45,727 [Sam Hose is lynched] 153 00:07:45,751 --> 00:07:50,656 Oh, no, oh. 154 00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:52,613 [His body cut in many pieces] 155 00:07:53,426 --> 00:07:56,410 Oh, no, oh. 156 00:07:56,434 --> 00:07:57,831 [Burned at the Stake] 157 00:07:57,855 --> 00:08:00,085 [Ten Cents Slice Cooked Liver.] 158 00:08:00,109 --> 00:08:01,575 [Fight for souvenirs] 159 00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:12,046 (Both singing) Who has read the books? 160 00:08:12,070 --> 00:08:17,006 Our numbers and statistics look small 161 00:08:17,030 --> 00:08:22,124 against the page. 162 00:08:22,148 --> 00:08:25,577 The crisis has multiplied. 163 00:08:25,601 --> 00:08:28,307 Our people are lynched and died. 164 00:08:28,331 --> 00:08:30,688 Oh, Lord. 165 00:08:30,712 --> 00:08:36,509 Something must change. 166 00:08:38,762 --> 00:08:43,371 AYGTK: Something must change. 167 00:08:44,397 --> 00:08:47,633 "At Buffalo" reveals how the United States today 168 00:08:47,657 --> 00:08:51,197 stands at similar crossroads as 1901 America. 169 00:08:51,617 --> 00:08:55,172 Just as the name of Sam Hose filled newspapers back then, 170 00:08:55,196 --> 00:08:57,834 today's media carries the names of: 171 00:08:57,858 --> 00:08:59,521 JMR: Oscar Grant. 172 00:09:00,101 --> 00:09:01,523 MJ: Jackeline [unclear]. 173 00:09:01,910 --> 00:09:03,377 Pianist: Trayvon Martin. 174 00:09:04,021 --> 00:09:05,355 AYGTK: Sandra Bland. 175 00:09:06,133 --> 00:09:07,831 And too many others. 176 00:09:08,834 --> 00:09:12,849 The 1901 fair's legacies persist 177 00:09:12,873 --> 00:09:16,103 in more ways than we can imagine. 178 00:09:18,315 --> 00:09:19,498 MJ: Mary Talbert 179 00:09:19,522 --> 00:09:21,623 and the National Association of Colored Women 180 00:09:21,647 --> 00:09:24,522 started movements against lynching 181 00:09:24,546 --> 00:09:26,537 and the myth of black criminality, 182 00:09:26,561 --> 00:09:30,101 just as black women today started Black Lives Matter. 183 00:09:30,601 --> 00:09:33,481 JMR: And some of the same people who fought for 184 00:09:33,505 --> 00:09:35,357 and created the Negro Exhibit, 185 00:09:35,381 --> 00:09:37,292 including Du Bois, 186 00:09:37,316 --> 00:09:39,920 came to Buffalo, four years after the fair, 187 00:09:39,944 --> 00:09:42,135 to start the Niagara Movement, 188 00:09:42,159 --> 00:09:45,506 which set the groundwork for the creation of the NAACP. 189 00:09:45,530 --> 00:09:47,212 AYGTK: It's not just black folks 190 00:09:47,236 --> 00:09:50,030 who had the peculiar experience at the 1901 fair. 191 00:09:50,403 --> 00:09:53,310 An official handbook informed fair-goers: 192 00:09:53,334 --> 00:09:55,349 MJ: "Please remember:" 193 00:09:55,373 --> 00:09:57,348 JMR: "... once you get inside the gate," 194 00:09:57,372 --> 00:10:00,166 AYGTK: "... you are a part of the show." 195 00:10:01,071 --> 00:10:03,141 Performing the archive in "At Buffalo" 196 00:10:03,165 --> 00:10:05,768 allows audiences to ask themselves, 197 00:10:05,792 --> 00:10:08,307 "Are we still inside the gates, 198 00:10:08,331 --> 00:10:12,929 and are we all still part of the show?" 199 00:10:17,072 --> 00:10:20,485 (Music ends) 200 00:10:20,509 --> 00:10:27,396 (Applause and cheers)