WEBVTT

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The archive.

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One may envision rooms and shelves

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stocked with boxes
and cartons of old stuff.

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And yet, for those who are
patient enough to dig through it,

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the archive provides
the precious opportunity

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to touch the past,

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to feel and learn from the experiences

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of once-living people who now seem
dead and buried deeply in the archive.

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But what if there was a way
to bring the archive to life?

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Jon Michael Reese: "The world
is thinking wrong about race."

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Melissa Joyner: "This country insists
upon judging the Negro."

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JMR: "Because it does not know."

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AYGTK: What if one could make it breathe?

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MJ: "By his lowest
and most vicious representatives."

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AYGTK: Speak.

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JMR: "An honest, straightforward exhibit."

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AYGTK: And even sing to us,

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so that the archive
becomes accessible to everyone.

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What would performing
the archive look like?

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A performance that is not
simply based on a true story,

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but one that allows us
to come face-to-face

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with things we thought
were once dead and buried.

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(Piano music)

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This is what "At Buffalo,"
a new musical we're developing,

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is all about.

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Using collections
from over 30 archival institutions,

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"At Buffalo" performs the massive archive
of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition,

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the first World's Fair
of the 20th century,

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held in Buffalo, New York.

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Now, if you've heard of this fair,

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it might be because this is where
then-US president, William McKinley,

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was assassinated.

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For nearly 17 years,

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I've stayed inside the gates
and the archive of this fair,

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not only because of that story,

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but because of a real
life-and-death racial drama

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that played out on the fairgrounds.

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Here, in a place that was like
Disney World, the Olympics,

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carnivals, museums, all in one,

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there were three conflicting displays
of what it meant to be black

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in the United States.

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The archive says white showmen presented

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a savage black origin,

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in the form of 98 West
and Central Africans,

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living and performing war dances

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in a recreated village
called Darkest Africa.

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And across the street,

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a happy slave life,

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in the form of 150 Southern
black performers,

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picking cotton,

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singing and dancing minstrel shows,

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in a recreated antebellum attraction
called Old Plantation.

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As a response,

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the black Buffalo community championed
the third display of blackness.

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The Negro Exhibit.

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Codesigned by African American
scholar W.E.B. Du Bois,

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it curated photographs,
charts, books and more,

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to show black Americans
as a high-achieving race,

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capable of education and progress.

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When I first encountered this story,

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I understood from my own life experience

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what was at stake to have members
of the African diaspora

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see each other like this.

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For me, as the child of immigrant parents
from Ghana, West Africa,

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born in the American South,

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raised in Manhattan, Kansas,

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(Laughter)

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and having attended the same
elite school as Du Bois,

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I could see that the Buffalo fair
effectively pitted

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the black Northerner
against the Southerner,

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the educated against the uneducated,

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and the African American
against the African.

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And I wanted to know,

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how did these three distinct groups
of black folk navigate this experience.

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Unfortunately, the archive
had answers to questions like this

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underneath racial caricature,

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conflicting information
and worse, silence.

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(Piano music)

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Still, I could hear musical melodies

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and see dance numbers

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and the rhythms of the words

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coming off the pages
of old newspaper articles.

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And learning that this World's Fair

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had music playing everywhere
on its fairgrounds,

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I knew that live, immersive,
spectacular musical theater,

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with the latest technologies of our time,

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is the closest experience that can bring
the archival story of the 1901 fair

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out of boxes, and into life.

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Stories, like Tannie and Henrietta,

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a husband and wife vaudeville duo in love

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who become at odds over performing
these "coon" minstrel shows

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while striving for their
five-dollar-a-week dream

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in the Old Plantation attraction.

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Like African businessman John Tevi,

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from present-day Togo,

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who must outwit the savage rules
of the human zoo

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in which he has become trapped.

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And stories like Mary Talbert,

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a wealthy leader
of the black Buffalo elite,

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who must come to terms

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with the racial realities
of her home town.

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MJ: "The dominant race in this country

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insists upon judging the Negro

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by his lowest and most
vicious representatives."

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AYGTK: Like Old Plantation
and Darkest Africa.

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MJ: "... instead of by the more
intelligent and worthy classes."

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AYGTK: When fair directors
ignored Mary Talbert

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and the local black Buffalo community's
request to participate in the fair,

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newspapers say that Mary Talbert

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and her club of educated
African American women

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held a rousing protest meeting.

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But the details of that meeting,

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even down to the fiery speech she gave,

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were not fully captured in the archive.

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So, "At Buffalo" takes the essence
of Mary's speech

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and turns it into song.

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(All singing) We must, we are unanimous.

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We must, we are unanimous.

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MJ: We've got something to show --

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we're going to teach a lesson in Buffalo.

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It would benefit the nation

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to see our growth since emancipation.

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Colored people should be represented
in this Pan-American exposition,

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it would benefit the nation

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to see our growth since emancipation.

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(All singing) They made a great mistake

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not to appoint someone from the race.

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We must, we are unanimous.

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We must, we are unanimous.

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We must, we are unanimous.

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AYGTK: Mary Talbert successfully demands
that the Negro Exhibit come to the fair.

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And to have the Negro Exhibit in Buffalo

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means that the musical must tell the story
behind why Du Bois cocreated it ...

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and why Mary and the black elite
felt it was urgently needed.

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JMR: "The world is thinking
wrong about race.

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They killed Sam Hose
for who they thought he was.

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And more men like him, every day,

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more Negro men, like him, taken apart.

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And after that -- that red ray ...

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we can never be the same.

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(Singing) A red ray

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[A man hunt in Georgia]

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cut across my desk

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[Mob after Hose;
he will be lynched if caught]

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the very day

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Sam's hands were laid to rest.

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Can words alone withstand the laws unjust?

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[Escape seems impossible]

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Can words alone withstand the violence?

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Oh, no, oh.

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[Burned alive]

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[Sam Hose is lynched]

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Oh, no, oh.

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[His body cut in many pieces]

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Oh, no, oh.

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[Burned at the Stake]

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[Ten Cents Slice Cooked Liver.]

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[Fight for souvenirs]

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(Both singing) Who has read the books?

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Our numbers and statistics look small

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against the page.

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The crisis has multiplied.

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Our people are lynched and died.

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Oh, Lord.

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Something must change.

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AYGTK: Something must change.

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"At Buffalo" reveals
how the United States today

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stands at similar crossroads
as 1901 America.

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Just as the name of Sam Hose
filled newspapers back then,

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today's media carries the names of:

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JMR: Oscar Grant.

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MJ: Jackeline [unclear].

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Pianist: Trayvon Martin.

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AYGTK: Sandra Bland.

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And too many others.

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The 1901 fair's legacies persist

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in more ways than we can imagine.

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MJ: Mary Talbert

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and the National Association
of Colored Women

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started movements against lynching

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and the myth of black criminality,

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just as black women today
started Black Lives Matter.

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JMR: And some of the same
people who fought for

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and created the Negro Exhibit,

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including Du Bois,

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came to Buffalo,
four years after the fair,

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to start the Niagara Movement,

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which set the groundwork
for the creation of the NAACP.

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AYGTK: It's not just black folks

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who had the peculiar experience
at the 1901 fair.

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An official handbook informed fair-goers:

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MJ: "Please remember:"

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JMR: "... once you get inside the gate,"

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AYGTK: "... you are a part of the show."

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Performing the archive in "At Buffalo"

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allows audiences to ask themselves,

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"Are we still inside the gates,

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and are we all still part of the show?"

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(Music ends)

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(Applause and cheers)