- Today on "Extra Credit," we visit the hometown of one of the greatest American authors of all time and learn about a very unusual instrument.

Stay tuned.

(upbeat music) Welcome to "Extra Credit" where we meet interesting people, explore new ideas and discover fun places together.

I'm your host Iyan.

Today's show focuses on the history, heritage and the cultural contributions of Black Americans.

First let's meet Mr. Quincy Stewart, a Michigan teacher who uses music to teach Black history.

(upbeat music) - I'm famous in room 213.

That's the only famous I am is I'm famous in room 213.

My name is Quincy Stewart III.

I'm 59 years old, and I'm the band director here at Detroit Central High School.

I'm a musician.

I went to school for music.

That's what I love to do, and I perform and play and all that kind of stuff.

But funny things happen on the way to what you want to do.

Today is my first hour class, it's a music appreciation class.

(Quincy singing) That whole church gospel feel has gone from that to incorporating R&B.

This music appreciation class deals with music and history.

(upbeat music) Now, that's the civil rights, that's kind of the civil rights thing.

And you heard this a lot during the civil rights movement, choir-style songs.

It doesn't make sense to teach a music appreciation class and say, okay, this is Coltrane.

This is Charlie Parker.

This is Duke Ellington.

This is Jimi Hendrix.

This is the Delfonics.

And you don't even know what framed that music.

What caused them to write that?

What time were they living in when they wrote this?

And it explains volumes about why that music exists.

So you're hearing more determination here.

This is right in '65 with the Edmund Pettus bridge incident, where blacks were beaten by state troopers.

For a young Black kid to know about the things that occurred in our history that are still happening today, it seems to always be some kind of reticence about that.

(upbeat music) Anybody ever heard this song before?

Never?

Listen to the words.

I'm a Black man first, not a teacher first, and as a Black man, knowing our history and knowing what it is that we have to do for these kids to be educated about their history, it's an easy combination for me to put the music and the history together.

They work hand in hand.

Never heard this before?

It's kicking though, ain't it?

Aw, you mean to tell me, y'all ain't feeling that?

Y'all so far gone, that you don't feel that?

- Since I've taken this class, I've become more aware of how to find certain messages within music.

They may say, I'm like a bird, and it means more than just I'm like somebody who flies.

It means that I can be free, or I can go where I want.

My destination isn't far because I have the power to fly.

- On 12th and Clairmont, everybody know where that is?

You know what Clairmont is right?

Today we're gonna be looking at the music of the 60s, but we can't take a look at that unless we take a look at what occurred here in Detroit on July 23rd, 29th, 1967.

And you can't say it was a riot because a riot is something aimless without a goal, without anything in mind.

What does the word rebel mean?

You know, I've had kids walk out, say mister, I didn't even know that, man.

They should have taught me that.

And they feel a sense of gratitude and outrage.

And I think both are legitimate.

Gratitude that they're getting it, outraged that they didn't get it before now.

You're in the 12th grade, and you don't know who Marcus Garvey is.

Marcus Garvey is a general figure.

That's, but they know who Benjamin Franklin is.

They know who Thomas Jefferson is.

So let's look at the actors in this scenario.

Lyndon B. Johnson was the President, Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Let me give you some background on Lyndon B. Johnson.

Lyndon B, Johnson was a Southern, well, he was a Southern white guy, has always been somewhat of a liberal.

By 1967, Lyndon B. Johnson had done some pretty good things.

He had gotten the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed.

He got the 1964 Civil Rights Bill passed.

He worked with Dr. King against a lot of Southern resistance who basically called Lyndon B. Johnson a white Uncle Tom.

So Lyndon B. Johnson in his own way did some things to assist Black votes.

To be honest with you, he did more than Obama's done, which is really interesting, isn't it?

- Before I had these classes, I didn't know a lot about African-American history.

I'm glad that it's now instead of never.

(upbeat music) - We have a soundtrack to our lives, the tune "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye.

The time I was 14 years old, the Vietnam war was raging.

Of course, the Algiers motel incident in 1967, with three young black men killed by the police in cold blood.

"What's Going On" to me culminated all of that for me, it kind of brought it all together.

It's a question, and it's not a rhetorical question.

It is a real question being posed by Marvin Gaye.

What is going on?

And until we get an answer to that question, I think it's a song that's gonna last through history.

(upbeat music) (soothing drum music) - I am Demetrius Thomas.

I live in Detroit, Michigan, born and raised.

These are the steel tongue drums.

These were made in a city outside of Moscow, Russia.

I use these for meditation classes or yoga classes throughout the city.

Each tongue is laser cut out.

Every tongue has a different note.

It took me about less than a year to study every sound.

But the best thing about these drums, you don't have to be a professional musician.

You just play your heart out, listen to every note and come up with your own melody.

Well, a friend of mine, I played one of his steel tongue drums, and I got completely addicted to it.

I saved up the money to get one, and I just practice every day.

And I knew this drum was gonna change my life.

I can only imagine just sitting in an island every time I play and just really letting go of all the stress from work from home or whatever's going on in the world.

And I can just sit under a tree and just play this drum.

And I know everything is going to be fine.

If you ever get a steel tongue drum, just remember, you do not have to be a professional to play this drum.

Practice as much as you can.

Play by ear, and if you have a song in your heart, just play it for the people, and the people will love it.

The best thing about this drum, even if you believe you made a mistake, nobody will know.

Just play your heart out.

(upbeat music) (dramatic music) (upbeat music) - Zora Neale Hurston was the quintessential charismatic maverick.

She is really raw.

She's different from everybody else.

- This is the greatest thing I hear.

Yeah, I heard about Eatonville.

I know Zora.

Zora's from Eatonville.

Oh my gosh!

- At one point she was the most prolific and well-read African-American woman of her time.

I think she's underrated if anything still.

(upbeat music) - Well, you know, she was born in Alabama, Notasulga, Alabama, and her father moved the family when Hurston was very young.

- God knows what her family went through just moving, not knowing if they were gonna be stopped, if they'd end up dead being lynched, but they made it here in the atmosphere that was totally black.

Everyone looked like her.

So I think it set the atmosphere for her to just think, dream and write.

- She grew up in Eatonville, which is the oldest incorporated all Black township in the United States.

And she wrote, she wrote the story of Eatonville.

- Eatonville is so much a part of her cultural and literary narrative.

- She was a modernist, a realist.

She was trying to capture the authentic life of the people.

- She really wanted people to know what an amazing and valuable and vibrant culture she came from, and I think she did that.

(upbeat jazz music) - She wrote "Their Eyes Are Watching God" very quickly.

She wrote it after a romantic experience with a younger man.

- It is a book about African-American people within their own community, and I think she's one of the earliest writers in America to really do that.

It is a tragedy of a love story.

- Jamie is born in Alabama.

She comes to Eatonville with her family.

Her grandmother arranges a marriage with someone who treats her like a mule.

She leaves him for another man who is like the founder of the town of Eatonville, and he dies, and then she ends up with a kind of a drifter type of guy.

- They are caught in the hurricane, the great hurricane of the late 1920s.

And he is bit by a rabid dog.

She has to kill him.

She goes to trial.

The white jury acquits her, and so she tells her story to her good companion Phoebe.

- It's not only a great story, but it's the language and the style that really makes it a great work of American literature.

- Anyone who works with words, you know, you respect the craft, the craft that her writing represents in "Their Eyes are Watching God."

- "Here was peace.

"She pulled in her horizon like a great fish net, "pulled it from around the waist of the world "and draped it over her shoulder.

"So much of life in its meshes.

"She called in her soul to come and see."

What she does with narrative is really interesting.

Her characters are fascinating.

(audio blurs) The dialect is challenging for people.

- She was not afraid to delve into the dialect, but understanding the time period, African Americans, Negros, colored people did not want to be identified with dialect because white people said that dialect was just an indication of just how backward you people were.

(soulful singing) - There were some members of the African-American community who wanted to show that works of literature were on the same par as other great modernists.

And they felt that dialect was a reversion to the past.

- So there were people, Richard Wright sort of notoriously and famously among them, who felt that she was kowtowing and pandering to whites.

And she thought they were just angry and writing about the same thing over and over again.

And I think history has kind of born her out, right?

- I think she needs to be ranked among the great American literary authors, including Hemingway, Fitzgerald.

I think she's up there with them.

- She is definitely a global icon.

You know, she really, she just would not give up.

- She's named in our hearts.

She's named in the minds of the people of Eatonville.

And when nobody can't say anything else, you can hear a kid say, well, Zora's from here.

And I think that is royally rich that her character allow it to be better than silver and gold.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is a moment in Michigan's African-American history.

Building upon a family history of entrepreneurship, Glenalvin, Wallace and William Goodridge made their mark in the world of photography in 1847 in York, Pennsylvania.

The enterprising brothers took their talents to east Saginaw in 1863.

For nearly six decades, the Goodridge studio captured thousands of images in the growing cities of Flint and Saginaw.

Their legacy includes a collection of extraordinary photos ranging from lumber camps to city scenes to family portraits.

The Goodridge brothers service customers from the white and African-American communities, breaking through the barriers of the Jim Crow era to become extremely successful black entrepreneurs.

This has been a look back at Michigan's African-American history.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Have you noticed that people have differences, even though we are all human beings?

Some people have brown skin, and others have white skin.

Some have straight hair and some have curly hair.

Some people have no hair at all.

Our differences are wonderful because they make every person one of a kind.

Meeting new friends lets us learn about how other people are different and similar to you.

You can be a helper by being proud of your differences and respecting the differences in other people too.

To learn more about meet the helpers, go to meetthehelpers.org.

(upbeat music) - I'm Doug McCray, and I am one of the educators here at the Charles Wright Museum of African-American History.

We have gone through a large part of the exhibit that is called "And Still We Rise."

It takes us from ancient Africa all the way up to modern day America.

And this particular area here has got some fantastic area, information about several different churches.

Without a doubt, any African-American community, you will definitely find some places where people can go and have religious worship.

And faith has been the very thing that has made it possible for our ancestors to survive capture, the trip across the ocean, enslavement, and for us to be standing here today, a matter of faith.

As we move a little bit farther, there's different information that you can see about specific churches that were always available there in the city of Detroit.

So many, many people had a choice of which church they wanted to go into and worship to.

And other people had a choice of which churches they wanted to go to.

But the good thing about it is that the church was always there.

This particular panel that we see here is one I always like to talk about, "Shrine of the Black Madonna."

It definitely continues talking about religion, Christianity, but "The Shrine of the Black Madonna" addresses Christianity in a way that's much, much more revolutionary.

Another panel that I'm sure many, many Detroiters will be glad to see the New Bethel Baptist Church.

This was a church that was pastored by Reverend C.L.

Franklin, who was the father of Aretha Franklin.

Reverend Franklin also was important for the civil rights struggle because he also did lots of things to make it possible for people to have places where they could go and make plans, to arrange boycotts, to arrange marches, things like that.

If not for the church, we would not have been able to do those things and make the changes that we needed with the blessing of God.

We have here, what four or five, nine different photos, but all of these are from different churches, and they all show, if you look at any of these faces closely, you can see on their faces, the devotion and the commitment to their particular church.

A lot of people, it surprises me to learn, but a lot of people are surprised to learn that the Nation of Islam was founded in the city of Detroit.

And the Nation of Islam is talking about separation, totally and completely so that we can have our own country, our own place to do the things for us.

Because as long as we wait for others to do it for us, it's not going to happen.

If it does happen, it's going to happen in a very, very small way.

Because we have this type of people and another type of people in the same community, it's important that we have a place where those people can go to.

We have made the complete circle, but this is one that is dear to many, many people's hearts.

The Plymouth Congregational Church.

It's very, very important to our community because it did a lot to make it possible for African-Americans to have opportunities that had been denied to them.

And it also, this particular church also made it possible for different things to happen as far as urban renewal, things to be built up in and around the communities.

I remember hearing a long time ago, in the time of slavery, the people who own the plantation would always say that you can tell when they are happy when you hear them singing.

But for some reason, they did not understand that we are singing about escape.

We're singing about being free.

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone.

My name is Jazmine Bass.

I am a dance student at Central Michigan University.

And one of my favorite things to do in dance class is the lateral sweep.

So I wanna show you what that looks like first.

Start up, and you're basically just making one big giant circle back to the top.

Easy, right?

Now you try it with me.

So lift your arms up and reach to the side, you're gonna start bending your knees.

As you bend over, keep your head tucked as you get low.

And then you're gonna start reaching back to the top to the opposite side from where we started from.

Excellent.

Now let's try it on the other side.

Again, reach your arms up.

You're gonna start bending over.

Again, keep your knees bent.

Make sure your head's tucked all the way down.

And now start to reach back up to the side where we started from.

Excellent.

Now we're gonna try it again just a little bit faster.

Okay?

So raise your arms up and go.

Down and up.

Perfect.

Now again on the other side.

Reach your arms up and go.

Down and up.

Perfect.

Now we're going to try it two times in a row.

Okay?

I'm going to start on this side.

Ready?

And go.

Down one and down two.

Excellent job, everyone.

Thank you so much for learning the lateral sweep with me.

Bye.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - When he was nine years old, Ron, without my parents or myself knowing his whereabouts, decided to take a mile walk from our home, down to the library, which was of course a public library, but not so public for black folks, when you're talking about 1959.

So as he was walking in there, all these folks were staring at him because they were white folk only.

And they were looking at him and said, well, you know, who's this Negro?

So he politely positioned himself in line to check out his books.

Well, this old librarian, she says, "This library is not for coloreds."

He said, "Well, I would like to check out these books."

She says, "Young man, "if you don't leave this library right now, "I'm gonna call the police."

So he just propped himself up on the counter and sat there and said, "I'll wait."

So she called the police and subsequently called my mother.

Police came down, two burly guys come and say, "Well, where's the disturbance?"

And she pointed to the little nine year old boy sitting up on the counter.

He says, "Ma'am, what's the problem?"

So my mother in the meanwhile, she was called, she comes down there, praying the whole way there.

Lordy, Jesus, please don't let them put my child in jail.

And my mother asked the librarian, "What's the problem?"

"Well, he wanted to check out the books, "and you know, your son shouldn't be down here."

And the police officer said, you know, "Why don't you just give the kid the books?"

And my mother said, "He will take good care of them."

And reluctantly the librarian gave Ron the books.

And my mother say, "What do you say?"

He said, "Thank you, Ma'am."

Later on as youngsters a show came on TV called "Star Trek."

Now "Star Trek" showed the future where there were black folk and white folk working together.

And I just looked at it as science fiction because that wasn't gonna happen really.

But Ronald saw it at science possibility.

You know, he came up during a time when there was Neil Armstrong and all of those guys.

So how was a colored boy from South Carolina, wearing glasses, never flew a plane, how was he gonna become an astronaut?

But Ron was the one who didn't accept societal norms as being his norm.

I mean, that was for other people, and he got to be aboard his own Starship Enterprise.

(upbeat music) - I had a great time today.

Be sure to check out our website for bonus content.

See you next time.

- [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by Michigan Department of Education, the state of Michigan, and by viewers like you.

(upbeat music)