1 00:00:00,480 --> 00:00:03,700 ["New York Close Up"] 2 00:00:08,660 --> 00:00:13,240 There’s something that, if you’re quiet enough and you listen, 3 00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:19,820 you’re being guided or directed to uncover specific bits of information. 4 00:00:21,420 --> 00:00:23,900 There’s always this act of digging, 5 00:00:23,900 --> 00:00:28,560 kind of like resuscitating life back into those lost fragments. 6 00:00:29,700 --> 00:00:33,480 ["Abigail DeVille Listens to History"] 7 00:00:36,300 --> 00:00:39,880 [The Contemporary at the Peale Museum, Baltimore] 8 00:00:39,940 --> 00:00:44,720 The materials that I choose are already speaking-- 9 00:00:45,440 --> 00:00:51,440 speaking to the past through internal intuition. 10 00:00:56,900 --> 00:00:59,640 History is deep. It’s dark. 11 00:00:59,860 --> 00:01:04,320 It affects everything that’s happening, even at this very moment. 12 00:01:04,320 --> 00:01:05,860 It’s like a rock. 13 00:01:06,420 --> 00:01:11,460 You can try to tease out little bits in trying to make your way through material 14 00:01:11,460 --> 00:01:14,100 or make a way through space. 15 00:01:18,080 --> 00:01:21,740 [Abigail DeVille, artist] History is the tale of the victor, right? 16 00:01:21,740 --> 00:01:22,820 It’s garbage. 17 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:24,920 It's garbage. 18 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:37,320 Like George Washington's "wooden teeth" were actually teeth from slaves. 19 00:01:37,320 --> 00:01:39,060 God! 20 00:01:39,060 --> 00:01:40,690 It's nauseating. 21 00:01:40,690 --> 00:01:43,520 It's like the more you don't want to know, you know? 22 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:44,560 [National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, Baltimore] 23 00:01:44,570 --> 00:01:49,310 Well I think the first thing to go in history is the atrocities. 24 00:01:49,310 --> 00:01:50,479 Nobody wants to remember that. 25 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:53,520 That’s the stuff that has to get swept away. 26 00:01:56,180 --> 00:02:05,320 Cover up--whitewash--is all attributed to the inability to get over slavery. 27 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:08,620 It's the hangover that is not going away. 28 00:02:15,260 --> 00:02:18,300 There’s merit in the attempt to make something 29 00:02:18,300 --> 00:02:21,160 that could talk about something larger than yourself. 30 00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:24,620 People are messy, history is messy. 31 00:02:24,620 --> 00:02:27,080 The work needs to… [LAUGHS] reflect that. 32 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:33,540 Thinking about bureaucracy and things just piling up. 33 00:02:39,460 --> 00:02:42,760 Thinking about all the voices that were lost. 34 00:02:44,380 --> 00:02:47,180 When things are painful, people don’t want to talk about them. 35 00:02:47,190 --> 00:02:51,650 But we can’t forget about the class of invisible people 36 00:02:51,650 --> 00:02:55,970 that were present at every single juncture and every single moment 37 00:02:55,970 --> 00:02:59,800 in the formation of this country and its myths. 38 00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:20,320 One of the incredible beauties and strengths of African Americans 39 00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:25,420 is this propensity for joy and endurance-- 40 00:03:26,260 --> 00:03:27,940 despite all. 41 00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:40,800 There’s joy to occupy space in direct opposition or contrast of the dominant narrative. 42 00:03:44,100 --> 00:03:47,560 ["The New Migration," Harlem, New York] 43 00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:49,200 [SINGING AND PERCUSSION] 44 00:03:50,340 --> 00:03:54,000 "The New Migration" processionals have been more human-scale. 45 00:03:54,900 --> 00:03:58,879 They’re usually guerilla performances that happen. 46 00:03:58,879 --> 00:04:00,420 They’re unannounced. 47 00:04:00,420 --> 00:04:03,040 You encounter them or you don’t. 48 00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:05,600 [SINGING CONTINUES] 49 00:04:22,960 --> 00:04:24,880 [DEVILLE] --What inspired me to do that? 50 00:04:24,880 --> 00:04:27,180 [DEVILLE] --It’s based on migration of people. 51 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:31,940 [MAN] --I get your concept, but where do I fit into that? 52 00:04:31,940 --> 00:04:33,700 [DEVILLE] --Oh, where do you fit into it? 53 00:04:33,700 --> 00:04:35,140 --Where do you want to fit into it? 54 00:04:35,140 --> 00:04:36,680 [MAN] --I don't want you to answer that... 55 00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:38,180 [DEVILLE] --That’s for you to figure out! Yes... 56 00:04:38,180 --> 00:04:39,340 [MAN] -- ...but it’s what I ask of myself all the time. 57 00:04:39,340 --> 00:04:40,620 [DEVILLE] --Oh, all right! [LAUGHS] 58 00:04:51,060 --> 00:04:54,780 From 1914 to 1970, the Great Migration happened 59 00:04:54,790 --> 00:04:58,150 and six million African Americans came up North 60 00:04:58,150 --> 00:05:00,260 looking for better opportunities. 61 00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:04,360 What’s happening now is this kind of reversal-- 62 00:05:04,370 --> 00:05:08,120 of people being pushed out of places that they moved to. 63 00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:11,840 Just because it was north didn't mean that the racial tensions had gone anywhere. 64 00:05:11,840 --> 00:05:16,880 Well yeah, because white supremacy is what's for dinner, you know? 65 00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:25,200 [SINGING & MUSIC] 66 00:05:28,500 --> 00:05:30,840 ["The New Migration," Anacostia, Washington, D.C.] 67 00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:33,920 Dragging. 68 00:05:35,060 --> 00:05:36,400 Walking barefoot. 69 00:05:36,680 --> 00:05:40,600 It’s the invisible weights that people are walking around with. 70 00:05:43,700 --> 00:05:45,600 The weight of history holds you down. 71 00:05:50,240 --> 00:05:53,500 I thought it was important to insert people where 72 00:05:53,500 --> 00:06:00,000 nobody knows about what Black people have contributed to the history of society. 73 00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:03,000 [SINGING & MUSIC] 74 00:06:11,500 --> 00:06:13,420 [SINGING & MUSIC CONTINUES] 75 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:42,370 In Martin Luther King’s last speech-- the "Mountaintop Speech"-- 76 00:06:42,370 --> 00:06:46,640 he says, "Somehow, only when it’s dark enough can you see the stars." 77 00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:55,600 I was immediately drawn to the fearless optimism. 78 00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:12,460 Love feels like this powerful force 79 00:07:12,460 --> 00:07:18,060 that actually could enact change more than hate ever could. 80 00:07:18,660 --> 00:07:22,000 I think hate causes a kind of exhaustion. 81 00:07:29,020 --> 00:07:31,900 It's something for me never to lose sight of-- 82 00:07:31,900 --> 00:07:34,820 or to constantly be reminded of-- 83 00:07:34,820 --> 00:07:37,140 that we, as a people, we're going to get there.