(upbeat music) (upbeat fast paced music) - Hello everyone and welcome to "Black Nouveau."

I'm Earl Arms and this is our September show.

Two of the eight remaining Tuskegee Airmen visited Wisconsin recently.

We talked with them about their careers, which included combat and three wars.

MPS superintendent, Dr. Keith Posley, joins us to talk about the 2022 school year and some of the challenges posed by COVID-19.

On another health note, Wisconsin broadcast journalist, Vivian Elle King, recounts overcoming a stroke in her book, "When the Words Suddenly Stopped."

She'll share her three-step plan for overcoming medical challenges.

Next month, the Milwaukee Symphony will celebrate the opening of its new home as Alexandria Mack introduces us to the ensemble's principal flutist, Sonora Slocum, and her journey of making a mark in the world of classical music.

(upbeat music) (Sonana plays the flute) - My playing style is based on sound.

It's all about sound.

That was kind of given to me when I was born.

My father played sonar drums and my mom took that and made it my name.

My name is Sonora Slocum, and I am Principal Flute of Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

(Sonara plays flute) I grew up in New York City.

I was raised by a very musical family.

My parents are professional musicians and my grandparents were professional musicians, jazz and classical.

So I had a lot of influence and I had a lot of choice in which direction to go.

(Sonara plays flute) I fell in love with the flute, but it was more a calling.

Once I tried it, I was just hooked.

I felt like I actually had a good sound on the flute and I wanted that to be kind of what defined me.

(Serenade for Flute, String Trio, and Harp, Opus 30 plays) The way I've been able to make space for myself in classical music is just by being me and unapologetically myself in no matter what environment I'm in, that's been a challenge.

It's really hard to get a job, period.

(Sonara laughs) It doesn't really matter who you are.

It's one of the hardest things you can do.

It's a huge triumph if you're able to achieve it.

And that's why it's important once you've actually won a job to stay in that place of gratitude.

And remember how hard it was to get there in the first place, because there are just very few jobs and lots of musicians, especially for flute.

Getting this job was one of the biggest moments of my life.

I still remember the day, I remember everything that happened.

And I was lucky to have a committee and a music director who were able to receive me fully, were able to hear my talent and weren't going by the way I look.

(orchestra plays classical music) I am under no illusions about what I represent being now the only black person in the orchestra for them to come in and see me in the center of the orchestra.

(orchestra plays classical music) These initiatives, to diversify all of these institutions I mean they're needed.

We need to have that commitment and we need to have the difficult conversations.

And so myself in the MSO, I have been the voice to kind of offer the perspective that is needed here and I would encourage anybody else in their institutions to do that as well, because it's really hard for people to understand your experience if they don't experience it.

(orchestra plays classical music) People should come to see the MSO because the MSO rocks, okay?

We're really good and we have been good.

And I feel like maybe some of the other orchestras have been sleeping on us, like, we're really next level.

(orchestra plays classical music) A lot of exciting new composers, new repertoire, new sounds, and also the classics because we know our audience loves the classics and we do too.

And so, it's going to be a mixture of both of those things.

With the opening of the new hall and the release of my album in the fall, it's all kind of coming full circle.

I'm finishing my editing now.

And actually right after this interview, I'm going to have my photo shoot for my album cover.

They're going to have me on the second stair, and then close to the right hand rim.

For me, it's a really exciting re-entry time.

And I'm grateful that the MSO is collaborating with me on this release because mutually beneficial relationships are what this industry needs to be.

My goal has always been to bring in more audience members of color, more queer audience members.

And when I see, I sometimes scan the audience and when I see a few black and brown people peppered through, or some gay couples on a date, I get really excited and I play for them.

This is Milwaukee's home.

(Sonara plays the flute) It's for everyone.

And we're really trying to emphasize that with everything that we do, with our programming, with our hirings, and we want to bring the city together through music, which is the unifying force in this world.

(Sonara plays the flute) (upbeat music) - You may remember Vivian L. King as a TV journalist at Channel Four here in Milwaukee, then as a spokesperson for Roundy's and then Aurora Health Care.

She joins us now wearing another hat, that of author.

Her book is "When the Words Suddenly Stopped, Finding My Voice Again After a Massive Stroke.'

We're so privileged to have Vivian King with us.

Vivian, thank you so much for joining us.

- Earl, thank you for having me.

I really appreciate it.

- First off, talk about this book.

What inspired you to write it?

And what specifically about your story did you feel was compelling enough to put it out there?

- The bottom line is that people never thought that I would have such a horrendous health scare.

I was relatively active.

I'm not a fanatic in the gym, but I walk, I exercise, I travel, I do so many different things.

I haven't been sick.

And so when I had a stroke, it was a shock to everyone.

And then finding out what caused the stroke made me know that I needed to tell this story because when you have a stroke, everybody just automatically assumes that you have high blood pressure or you have pre-existing conditions.

And I didn't have any of that.

When I was discharged, doctors told me birth control pills over the age of 40 is what caused the blood clot in my brain over the left part on the left side, on the part of the brain that manages your speech and it bled out and I couldn't talk for three and a half weeks.

And so that's what caused it and when I tell women that, half of them say, "Yes, my doctor took me off birth control pills in my mid-thirties," The other half looked at me wide-eyed and say, "I'm still over 40, and I'm still on birth control pills."

And because there was such a wide difference in how many people knew and how many people didn't know, I felt that that needed to have some dialogue, that people needed to know more about that.

And if I didn't know, and other people didn't know, then we needed to have that dialogue and get the message out.

- So now that you got the message out, you talk about three steps for medical recovery, talk about those steps and why they're so important to you and others.

- Right, when I looked back at my journey, I'm a single woman.

I don't have family in Milwaukee.

And so I know a lot of women like that we're just like we're conquering the world, if you will.

And so, when I looked back at everything that happened, I said, how can I make it easy for people to remember?

And I came up with the three Ps, having a posse, having persistence, and prayer.

And so when I look at that, it's a metaphor for life and any challenge in life, because for anything, you need support, and that's where your posse comes in.

You need persistence, and when I was trying to heal, going through therapy, I had to persist and really do the things that our therapists, my therapist and my doctors told me to do.

And so you really need that persistence in anything.

And then, I'm a faithful woman and prayer is so central.

And when I was in the hospital, I found out that I had so many people praying for me, not just my family, not just my core group, but I'm active on Facebook.

And so I have friends all over the world.

And when I finally looked at my Facebook page and my timeline, people were saying, "I heard what happened, I'm praying for you."

And I said, "Oh, I didn't know, I had so many friends that prayed, but I guess, people who pray attract people who pray."

(Vivian laughs) So, you know, I think prayer is anything.

Prayer is everything.

- You mentioned the posse, I guess another P word, popular.

You've been a pretty popular person throughout the city and throughout the community.

So TMJ4, Roundy's, Aurora Health Care.

When did you have this stroke?

- I had it three months into my job at Aurora Health Care.

- [Earl] Okay.

- So I started in I was getting my plan together for my department.

I had this new Community Relations Department.

And so I had just said, "Hey, you know, here's my plan," to my boss.

And I was invited to this Girl Scouts breakfast, and that's when I collapsed.

I was in the hospital.

I was in Neurological ICU for 10 days and in the hospital for a total of 32 days.

And I had never been in the hospital for that long.

I mean, I was visiting people, but never that long.

And so when I was in the hospital, I just said, "I realize that 99.9% of everything we worry about is really small."

And so my new motto was don't sweat the small stuff, because so many things are small in the whole scheme of things.

- So just a couple more questions for you.

You mentioned your journalism skills helped you to write this book.

How were those skills helpful to you in getting your story out?

- It's funny because I wrote my first chapter.

And if you read the book, it's a short chapter, because it really talks about me waking up and how I got to the Girl Scouts breakfast.

And then after that, I thought, "I don't know what else happened, right?"

Because I'm in Neurological ICU for 10 days.

And then I'm kind of still in a fog.

And it probably wasn't until like three weeks that I realized I had a stroke.

So I said, okay, I need to interview the people who were around me.

So I thought I'll interview about 10 or 11 people who were really in my circle and really doing things to help me and my mom.

And then when I talked with them, they told me about other people who played instrumental roles, like driving my car home because I had driven to the Hyatt.

And so somebody had to drive my car home, somebody had to call my mom.

And so there were so many different people.

And then people were calling other people to get to the hospital because they're like, "We don't know what's wrong."

And so I ended up interviewing 22 people.

And it's interesting because they filled in the gaps and as a reporter and a journalist, you want to know the truth.

And so, just finding out everything that they knew, really pulled the story together and told the complete picture.

- All right, Vivian L. King, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

(upbeat music) - 355 Tuskegee Airmen went overseas to fly.

And only eight of us are left.

General McGee is the oldest of the eight.

And I'm the youngest of the eight.

(crowd laughs) I'm 96.

- [Narrator] The Tuskegee Airmen are legendary.

College-educated black men who fought segregation and the Germans during World War Two, but for Brigadier General Charles McGee and Lieutenant Colonel George Hardy, stopping Hitler was just the beginning.

- I was only 22 years old when I got the opportunity to fly.

I had ROTC training in college and learned how to handle a rifle.

But I was glad that when I heard about the aviation, and got a chance to fly, I was hooked.

And ever since then, and I was a lucky enough guy to actively fly 27 of my 30 years of service.

- General McGee flew in three wars in fighter aircraft.

I flew in three wars and three different types of aircraft.

I flew a total of 136 missions of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

General McGee flew 136 missions, at least in three different wars, 136 in each year, it was over that.

But I flew 136 total.

- [Narrator] McGee's 409 combat missions is unequaled in the U.S. military, Hardy saw action in three wars as well, but he also taught pilots to fly.

We caught up with them at the EAA AirVenture, held this past summer in Oshkosh.

Both veterans spend much of their time sharing their stories with aviation enthusiasts, members of the younger generation, and of course, inquiring journalists.

- How has the armed services changed, at least their attitudes towards people of color, since you first were in the service?

- Once the Air Force separated from the ground forces, they determined what their mission was and flying was the name of the game for them.

It wasn't colored skin or who was, who was in the airplane.

They were just glad to be able to do it.

So the Air Force led the service in the integrating flying opportunities.

- So I remember in World War Two, two things, one that would never have a colored person supervising a white person.

That's the way seems to be in the military.

But over the years, things have changed and I remember I was in Vietnam.

I was head of the detachment.

All my pilots were white, and that's what, and we got along very well.

And in fact, we hold conventions now, and this year they've been after me because I missed the last two conventions.

And I want to make sure I come to the next convention, in Fort Walton beach.

- You folks are still going in community and talking about the value of the service.

Why are you still doing this?

- It's so important that a lot of things need to be known, but not repeated, but the opportunity for the young folks who are conscious, future is still important.

So motivating them, telling the story.

So they're aware, it's just important for the future of the country and future of aviation realizing the opportunities where technology has taken us and so on.

So I guess you might say our love of aviation keeps us on that path.

(upbeat music) (classical music) - [Announcer] We want to (indistinct), this is the time where it's okay for family members, especially family to come up.

(classical music) - Every year we give out roughly 20 or so students scholarships from private donors.

So this year, actually we have a record breaking 27 students are getting scholarships and over $200,000 and over 80% of those students are actually first time, first generation college attendees.

- What's next on bucket list?

- I'm going to college.

- Going to college, hey, education.

- I'm going to college And I'm planning to pursue a degree in Civil Engineering.

And this scholarship it gives me the brave to keep going.

I came to America.

I knew nothing about English and everything, but I had to be in ESL, which is English As A Second Language.

And I didn't know anything about that but they provide a lot of stuff, which they taught me English.

And like, I get to know a lot of stuff, yes.

- [Announcer] Very specifically is Kayla Jimenez a proud Reagan High School graduate and first generation college student.

- I'm attending Marquette university, this fall.

My major currently is Political Science with a minor in Performing Arts.

I love theater.

And then after that, I am attending law school in hopes to become a civil rights attorney.

I love advocacy.

That's my passion in life.

And so if in undergrad I could get into more protests or things like that, where I could raise awareness on certain issues, specifically civil rights issues.

That would be amazing.

- Congratulations to all the graduates and now welcome to head of MPS Superintendent, Dr. Keith Posen.

Thanks for joining us.

- James, thank you for having me.

- So last year was challenging.

We had COVID and all those things, but students still graduated.

How do you think last year went?

- I think based on the circumstances that with in the midst of a pandemic, we did exceptionally well to make sure that all of our children have what they need and to prepare for graduation and prepare for life beyond and academically to move forward.

I think we did an outstanding job.

- Okay.

We have COVID and we're still dealing with it.

Students are going to go back to school masked.

What else, what other changes can we expect to see it in MPS as far as COVID is concerned?

- Well, we going to make sure that all of our students are safe.

We're going to make sure that there's frequently hand-washing that is taking place, making sure that our students are staying their distance three feet apart from one another, and making sure that they're wearing a face covering mask to make sure that we mitigate the and control, the COVID-19 as well.

But we also have help of filters in all of our classrooms.

Plexiglass barriers will be found in our classrooms as well as cleaning frequently high touched areas on an ongoing basis to make sure that we are doing our part to make sure that everything is sanitized and safe for our young people, but also windows, windows are open as well as we're bringing in fresh air from the outside, into the building two hours in the morning before school starts and two hours after school ends.

- So what's plan just if a COVID outbreak takes place, will you go back to virtual learning?

What will you do?

- Yeah, we have one thing that we've learned through this pandemic that we are nimble and we can go in person as well as virtual and we're prepared at a moment's notice to switch to our virtual platform.

- You guys received nearly $800 million in COVID relief.

How will that money be spent?

- Well, we got, we call it answer one, answer two and answer three.

About $41 million in answer one, and we have spent that basically on making sure that our buildings were ready, technology, connectivity, hotspots, and things of that nature.

And then with (indistinct), answer two, we are spending that on a number of different things around technology, learning loss, things of that nature.

And we are in the process of working with the community around answer three and those dollars and how those dollars that's $506 million, how those $506 million will be spent.

And we will be taking an item to the Milwaukee Board of School Directors in late September.

Earmarking the recommendations that we're brought forward from various stakeholders around the community.

- When school started, they were roughly more than a dozen or so COVID positive, COVID cases.

So I guess the question is, would you push for all teachers to be vaccinated and on to students who can't or are eligible to be vaccinated to be vaccinated?

- I would say, we know that vaccination, making sure that everyone is vaccinated is a way of mitigating COVID-19.

And I highly recommend a vaccination for all staff that's going to be interfacing with children and those children, 12 and older that are able to get the vaccination.

I would ask that happened as well.

- Will it be a push or is it just merely ask?

- Right now it's totally on a voluntary basis.

However, there are a resolution from one of the board members that are out there, we're going to be taking up this month and actually will vote on it and on Thursday night, so we will see where that goes.

- So getting back to virtual learning, I talked to a number of young people who said that it just didn't work for them.

One young man told me his GPA dropped from a 3.2 to like a 1.9.

What's your take on virtual learning and the impact it had on our students this past year?

- I'll be the first to say nothing can replace in-person, face-to-face learning with the teacher.

So that's number one.

But I would say looking at trends from across the country around virtual learning, we have seen a decline in grades due to virtual learning.

It works for some students and some students it did not work for, that was that group of students that were not totally engaged in virtual learning.

And our goal is to make sure that we meet all of our students' learning needs no matter where they may be.

- So we have to talk about this.

John Marshall High School had a number of incidences so far to kick off the school year with, young people had stolen cars, driving around a playground and nearly hitting a couple of students, what's being done to address that issue?

- First, I would like to say is the total community problem that we've seen all over the summer.

And there's a number of things that we have taken because it come to our campus at John Marshall High School.

And one of the things that we've done, we've brought in boulders to make sure that cars can not get up on the grass as well as we have had stakes that have been placed around the campus, we have barricades with cars to make sure that that doesn't happen.

But what we've also been doing is when our students show up at school in the morning, we hadn't been inviting them directly into the building.

And also we have been allowing our students as at dismissal time, we have been dismissing at various grade levels at a time so that all of our students are not out at one given time so that we can make sure that we ensure the safety of all of our young people.

We've truly been working with the Milwaukee Police Department who has been working closely with us through this, been communicating with families as well as community groups around how we can better safeguard our community.

- Okay.

- Well, we're going to have to stop right there, this part of the interview, but we're going to continue our conversation on this issue.

You could watch it on our website at milwaukeepbs.org.

Thank you.

- Along with part two of Dr. Posley's interview, we have more on the Tuskegee Airmen and black artists in classical music.

Next month, we'll have a special edition as we kick off our 30th season.

Make sure you're joining us then, For "Black Nouveau" I'm Earl Arms, have a good night.

(soft guitar music)