- [Regina] Here's what's coming up.

- [Mark] Next on You Oughta Know, see how a remnant from slavery led to the creation of a Philly museum.

- [Regina] We learn how the owners of South Street Art Mart came up with their idea to highlight local artists.

- [Mark] Plus, they're Philly's hottest pro sports team.

Meet the players of the Philadelphia Phoenix.

- [Regina] And we fire up the smoker for some Texas brisket.

(exciting music) - Hi, I'm Mark Eichmann filling in for Shirley Min.

- And I'm Regina Mitchell.

Welcome to the show.

An idea to bring eclectic art into one place is helping to bring back South Street's nostalgia.

♪ Are you ready for this ♪ - Nicole and I actually met at a craft fair, and we started dating in 2010, so we would vend craft fairs and punk rock free markets and conventions, and we've been doing that ever since.

- We've been together total for 12 years, but we started South Street Art Mart kind of by accident.

We knew somebody who worked for the South Street Headhouse District.

They came to us and they said if we gave you an empty storefront for the holiday season, could you reach out to people you know and fill it?

We reached out to friends in our vending community and we were like hey, I know it's the holidays, which is your busy time, but can you give us some stuff please, and just trust that we'll do our best to move it for you?

And they did, and we got a great reception from customers, from the people that were selling their stuff with us, but mostly from the neighborhood.

We kept getting this same feedback.

This feels like what South Street used to be, and that is the biggest compliment to us.

We were kids from New Jersey who grew up coming to South Street, so to have somebody say that about something we created was just the ultimate.

(punk music) - We inherently wanted to keep that tradition of independent stores and artists and small, quirky, kitschy spaces alive, and that's what we are trying to do here with the Art Mart, is have an outlet for local artists to display their work, but also to keep that independent DIY vibe going strong here on the street.

- So this store, South Street Art Mart, is considered a consignment shop.

What that basically means is that an artist gives us their product.

We are the ones basically running the retail aspect of it and try and make it as mutually beneficial as possible.

- First and foremost, when we started the popup shop and especially when we transitioned to a full time permanent brick and mortar store, the artists absolutely have to come first.

At last count, we have over 150 artists in the store.

We have stickers, we have T-shirts, we have jewelry, we have tote bags, we have light switch plates.

We have pins, we have key chains, pretty much any type of item that an artist makes that we think would make sense in a retail setting, and I think that that's the difference between the Art Mart and art galleries, is that we're still a retail store.

The items in the store have to be accessible enough for folks off the street to want to come in and purchase, and the cool thing is that people can display their artwork on something like a sticker so people can come away with artwork and feel like they got something that's a piece of that artist.

(upbeat music) - Being in this shop has been so inspiring, and they're very straightforward with what they want, what they think is gonna work and sell.

I was making original pieces and I wasn't thinking about prints.

I wasn't thinking about stickers.

I wasn't thinking about buttons.

So doing all that really makes it more accessible, which makes sense.

And then people like that button, eventually they might buy the original that it was based off of.

It's been really motivating and exciting.

- We want to be that place that folks from out of town come and discover, and are like wow, this is Philly.

- It needs to be independent, needs to be punk.

It needs to be DIY.

It needs to be strange.

I think keeping South Street weird is always the goal.

Weirdness is where the fun stuff is.

- The South Street Art Mart is open every day, but check out their website for hours.

- Move over Eagles, Flyers and Phillies.

There's a new buzz around this professional sports team in town.

I'm talking about the only woman-owned pro sports team in the city, the Philadelphia Phoenix ultimate frisbee team.

(exciting music) - Philly on three, one, two, three.

- [Group] Philly!

(exciting music) (whistle tweeting) - The AUDL is a professional ultimate frisbee league.

There are currently 25 teams across the US and Canada.

The Phoenix compete in the east division, and that comprises teams in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Boston, New York and DC, so there are a lot of very good rivalries there.

- Ultimate frisbee is a sport played seven on seven.

You have to throw the disc, and that's how you move the disc on the field.

You catch the disc in the end zone to score.

One goal is worth one point.

It's four 12 minute quarters, and whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.

(whistle tweeting) (exciting music) (whistle tweeting) - I am the Fun Czar for the Philadelphia Phoenix.

Fun Czar is in charge of making sure that everybody that walks through the gate gets their money's worth and then some.

It means that the people that are attending the game have the best time they can have at a sporting event in Philadelphia.

The game is so exciting.

The action is nonstop, and it's just electrifying.

(exciting music) - Being a captain of this team is awesome.

(exciting music) It takes the main, big plays of basketball, the diving catches of football and the continuous running of soccer and combines them all into a really awesome sport.

Hardest part is conditioning.

It's a normal football field.

Normally there's 11 football guys out there.

This, it's only seven V seven.

- Diversity is really important.

What we're trying to do as an organization is to make it accessible and spread it to everyone.

(upbeat music) We run eight week afterschool programs for the kids to come and learn ultimate, and through community engagement with a team.

We've partnered with community programs like Beyond the Bars this season.

Beyond the Bars is a program where children who have parents who are incarcerated or have experienced a loss of a parent have found healing and growth through music.

We've partnered with them to bring entertainment to Phoenix games and become part of the Phoenix community.

Part of our mission really is to expand the sport and share it with everyone.

We want to continue to spread the sport that we love to all communities.

We want to bring a championship to Philadelphia.

(upbeat music) - The Hot Birds, as they're referred to, are currently in the driver's seat for a playoff spot.

To learn more about their Youth Ultimate Academy and the Pass the Disc program, or to get tickets, check out their website.

Well, from frisbees to fire.

We fired up the smoker for some brisket with Scott Hanson, creator of North by Texas for this segment.

Welcome to the show, Scott.

Great setup here.

Now I've thrown some hamburgers, maybe some chicken on the grill, but we're way far beyond that in terms of level of complexity here.

How'd you get started in the brisket business?

- I guess maybe 20 years ago, just bringing food to potlucks for my kid's soccer and baseball tournaments.

It evolved into making it at parties, and one night I happened to have made brisket for a party and another one of the dads said oh, this is the best brisket I've ever had.

And I said oh, thanks, and other people had said that before.

Some of the other dads said you should open a food truck or something, and I never did, but I didn't know who this fellow was at first, but turns out he owns seven restaurants in town.

- He knew what he was talking about.

- He did, and I kind of blame him for pushing me down this road.

- So that first brisket turned out great, or you had to make some modifications to your recipe?

- Well I've been tinkering with it for I guess two decades now, and I started out like a lot of people did with just the kind of char-grillers that you find at Lowe's or Home Depot.

I had two of those side by side for quite a few years, and they worked fine and I got the most out of them, but gradually realized I would need something a little more professional, a little bigger, especially when Steven Simons, the restaurateur I mentioned said why don't you do a popup with my restaurant group?

And I was like, wait, what?

That's when I knew I needed something a little more heavy duty, and so I think the one that they have some pictures of it, the producers do.

That's what I have now.

- [Mark] And that's part of the challenge, kind of scaling this up from sort of the backyard to now a much more professional level.

- That's right, and it's got stainless steel grates so it's food safe and meets various restaurant standards and so on.

- Well, it smells great.

I know you can't smell it at home, but can we taste a little bit?

- [Scott] It's scratch and sniff, right?

- That's right, and you wish you could smell this, 'cause as soon as you open this up, man, it just really popped out with that smokey, that flavor, the smokey aroma really came through right away.

I've been known to enjoy some good food, including Delaware's delicacy of muskrat, but I'm far from a brisket expert, so we found somebody who is.

WHYY's Dave Davies, a Texas native, is gonna join us for a little sampling of this.

Dave, why don't you come on in here?

Dave, you take the first bite.

- Oh, something smells nice, I'm telling you.

Get a little taste here.

- [Scott] How about that?

- Or can I just go after it?

- Go for it.

- [Mark] Dave, as soon as you put food in your mouth, I'll ask you the question.

What makes a good brisket?

- Well, it's crispy on the top, nice and tender on the inside, and the seasoning.

What's the seasoning in here, Scott?

- It's a lot of kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper, a certain grind, 16 mesh, and some cumin and garlic powder, but then just a lot of smoke, oak smoke.

- Well, it takes me back to my days as a youngling in Texas.

There's a place outside of Austin that I bet Scott knows called the Salt Lick.

[Scott] Of course.

- It's in Hayes County, which is nearby.

We'd go, we'd drive out there.

It's a dry county, or it was then, so you had to buy your beer on the way, but when you got there, everything was served family style, and it was this style of brisket, and I looked forward to it for weeks and loved it.

- Oh my word.

- Yeah, that's kind of how it started.

You know, a lot of meat markets in Texas would take the leftover meats from Friday and then smoke it for Saturdays, and so a lot of Texans, there's a tradition of going to various barbecue joints on Saturday morning.

- So if somebody's interested in sampling some of this as we are, where can they find you?

- I was doing it every other weekend up until the summer.

I'm doing a little bit of travel and so forth, but the next one will be July 9th, Saturday, July 9th at the Chestnut Hill Farmer's Market at the Mermaid Inn.

- Terrific.

Scott, Dave, thanks for joining us.

- Great to be here.

- Well, food is among the many contributors that's helping to bring revival to Wilmington.

Here to talk about it is travel, food and lifestyle writer, Sarah Maiellano, whose Philly Magazine story highlights what's going on there.

Good to see you again, Sarah.

You look great.

- Thank you, it's great to be back.

- I love this article.

It digs so deep into what's going on in Wilmington, and it seems like the turnaround really happened when investors began to see that Wilmington was primed for this new development, right?

- Yeah.

Wilmington's always been a really busy town with big businesses, primarily DuPont, which is really one of the most important American companies.

They populated downtown with so many office workers, and people lived around downtown.

When DuPont left the city, there was a big question mark.

What's gonna happen with downtown Wilmington?

People didn't really want to live there.

There was just a lot of empty buildings and there was crime, and so a couple of local brothers, Rob and Chris Buccini, they're Wilmington natives and they are developers.

They came in and they said we want people to live in downtown Wilmington.

We want to revitalize it.

We'll build apartment buildings.

And so they started building apartment buildings.

Those started filling up with young workers in the various businesses that are based in Wilmington.

And then the question is, how do we get young people to want to stay in this city?

Well, we want to give them the things that they're looking for, so they're looking for restaurants and coffee shops, live music, beer gardens, fun.

- And this is what brought all these small business entrepreneurs to come there and really start, like you said, all these restaurants, and they used to say that they roll up the sidewalks there at five o'clock and now it's like this bustling area.

So you're also a food writer, correct?

What are some of the places that you really enjoy?

Because I enjoyed reading what you wrote about some of them.

- The people who own Bardea actually came from Pennsylvania and saw that there was this opportunity in Wilmington, that the rents were more affordable, the spaces are bigger, the city's very clean.

There were young people moving in, and so Bardea opened a few years ago right before the pandemic started.

It's modern Italian.

Chef Antimo DiMeo, he's so young, maybe not even 30, and already up for two James Beard nominations in his career and a full restaurant every night, and his food is incredibly creative.

It's Italian based, but using ingredients and techniques from all over the world, and he executes everything beautifully, so you can go there and get a really good pizza, you can go and get delicious pasta, or you can go and get a really lovely aged steak and share that with your whole table.

You can get all of these creative, small plates, like a burrata pop tart with sweet onion jam.

- And what I love is that you're also from Philly, and you never really thought about going over there, and now it's like all these interesting restaurants.

And you said that they have vegan options.

- Yes, there's an amazing vegan restaurant called Go Vegan Philly, and this was opened by people who originally started their business in Philly, hence the name.

It's a take on soul food, but with all plant-based ingredients, no meat, no dairy, and I know that you're vegan, so this is a great place for you.

They have this amazing fried mushroom done in a fried chicken style, and you just can't get enough of it.

- I know when you told me about it, I was like, I gotta go there.

It's great to see the rejuvenation of that area.

It's helping to build up Wilmington, but it also signals that there might be problems with gentrification.

Have you been able to talk to some of the residents who have been there for a really long time to see how they feel about it?

- Yeah, when I wrote the story, I talked with people that have lived there a long time, people that have lived there a short time, developers, people in government, and it is a big question for everybody.

Right now, most of the rejuvenation or redevelopment, like you said, is happening in the downtown area, so in a business corridor where there weren't really people living, all of those apartment buildings.

And the question is, will it expand?

Is gentrification coming?

The city government is concerned about this.

The people are concerned about it.

People don't want to see displacement like we've seen in other cities, like in Philadelphia.

Wilmington is a much smaller city than a place like Philadelphia, so the government really has a lot more say in what kind of developments happen in what neighborhoods, and also the neighborhoods themselves are working really collaboratively with the developers in the city, with their local government, with their neighbors, to make sure that that displacement doesn't happen, and that as developments happen near these neighborhoods, that there's opportunities that come with it for students and for people to be able to find jobs and neighborhood community centers, things like that.

- Sounds really good.

Sarah, this is a great article.

I think everyone should read it.

Thank you so much for being on the show, and we look forward to your next article.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- A local couple took the harsh reality of slavery and turned it into an educational experience they're now sharing locally and beyond.

- This is the first shackle that my husband found that really started his quest in collecting other slave shackles.

This shackle is very rare.

First of all, it has a leather piece inside of this.

It's attached to this long chain, and at the bottom of this chain is this very heavy 40 pound ball.

I'm shorter than the average male, but if this was hanging around a male's neck, this is where it goes, it would hit him in his privates.

It would certainly slow him down, if not keep him from running away at all.

My name is Gwen Ragsdale, and I'm the Curator and Executive Director of Lest We Forget Museum of Slavery.

My husband, J. Justin Ragsdale, who was the founder of this museum, started collecting slave artifacts quite by accident.

His family would send him south every summer to spend time with his great uncle, who lived in a place called Rock Hill, South Carolina.

His uncle's name was Uncle Bub, and my husband loved the stories that his Uncle Bud would tell him about what his life was like growing up in the Jim Crow south.

He talked about Masta all the time.

He thought it was the man's first name.

It wasn't until he got a little older that he realized that he was staying master.

Many years later, he found a shackle in his Uncle Bub's trunk.

When my husband first found this shackle, he decided that he was going to start collecting other slave shackles.

We have an array of slave hardware, which includes slave shackles, manacles, branding irons and other forms of iron wear that were used on enslaved Africans who were captured, brought to America and other parts of the world and held in bondage for hundreds of years.

In addition to our many slave shackles, we have documents that show how enslaved Africans were bought and sold like cattle property.

We have runaway slave advertisements showing how much these slavers put on bounties on the heads of these slaves who would run away.

We have segregation signs that show how colored people weren't allowed entry in the front door or in the drinking fountains.

We have so many items related to the transatlantic slave trade, which gives our visitors an opportunity to really take an absolute pictorial view of slavery from capture to emancipation and beyond.

This mural represents the door of no return.

They had slave dungeons that were located all along the perimeter or the edge of the continent of Africa, and they would put these captives in a dungeon.

Once they walked through this door of no return though, they never saw their country land again.

We take our traveling exhibit all over the country and the Caribbean.

This is not Black history that we talk about here.

It's American history.

I don't want anybody to walk away mad.

We don't share this information to anger one group or to praise another.

We simply tell you the truth about slavery.

I want people to walk away just more knowledgeable of this period of American history.

- The Lest We Forget Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday.

You can check out their website to reserve your tour.

- Philly AIDS Thrift's newest mural All at Once honors those who have passed on in the transgender community.

We caught up with the artist applying the final touches before the dedication of the mural by Mural Arts and the RHD Morris Home.

Williams shared the importance of this project happening now.

- I'm Ali Williams.

I'm the Philadelphia-based muralist and public artist.

The mural serves to honor the LGBTQ community of Philadelphia, but it also serves as a memorial.

It's great that it's going up in June.

The timing worked out really nicely, but I think it's important that this goes up any time.

(upbeat music) - This month's Good Souls nominee is making a change.

- That's right.

As you'll see, his commitment to Chester is helping to strengthen families and guide young people.

- [Saj] Cory could easily be the next mayor of the city of Chester, Pennsylvania, whether it be from the music scene to now the community, he has been a change maker, literally, like literally.

- [Regina] That's Saj "Purple" Blackwell.

She's an activist and owns an internet radio station in West Philly, and the guy she says could be Chester's next mayor, well that's Cory Long.

- I see myself as a surgeon.

- [Regina] Cory is Executive Director of Making A Change Group based in the city of Chester.

The mid-size nonprofit empowers youth, works with families and connects resources to those who need them.

- I had a group of about a dozen, dozen and a half young people that I would just mentor.

- [Regina] He called it Team MAC, for Making A Change.

Why, because Cory had made a change in his own life to get there.

(rap music) That sound from a mix tape created in the late 1990s by the one and only DJ Corey AK.

Yeah, that's Cory's one time alter ego.

(rap music) - I was in music where I was involved with drugs, selling drugs.

(soft music) It was just drug selling, just drug selling right on my corner.

I grew up watching that every time I came out the house and wound up kind of idolizing it.

- [Regina] So Cory walked that road in his teens and twenties.

That is, until the reality of street beefs, run-ins with the law and the responsibility of a 10 year old daughter opened Cory's eyes to what was happening in his own community.

- And I saw a lot of young people just making choices because they just didn't have guidance.

They just didn't have the tools to help them navigate through difficult situations.

- [Regina] So he became what he needed as a youth.

That was in 2004.

Soon after, he began working as the Violence Coordinator for the city of Chester and was there when gun violence got so bad, the mayor issued a State of Emergency in 2010.

- You just rarely saw a broad daylight murder here in the community, and that was happening.

We saw like four of them in one week.

A large part of preventing violence is preventative programs.

- [Regina] Team MAC provided recreational opportunities, safe events, family support and connection, and fast forward, change has come.

Homicides in Chester are down 63% since 2020.

- I'm just very proud as a community that we can say it's not so many grieving mothers and grieving children that are grieving their fathers that are lost, 'cause it's primarily African American men we were losing, that we were grieving.

- [Kim] Very dynamic, engaging, kind, funny, personable.

- [Regina] That's Kim Schmucki.

She nominated Cory for the Good Souls project.

She volunteers for Making A Change Group and has seen the husband and father of four in action.

That's why she says Cory is a Good Soul.

- [Kim] He just emanates love and positivity and empowerment and connection.

- [Regina] And Saj "Purple" Blackwell calls Cory a solutionary.

- [Raj] You have to be willing to do the action to bring forth solution.

So that is exactly who and what Cory has been.

- Thank you Cory, for putting in that Good Soul work.

You can catch Good Souls with host Cherri Gregg on Mondays at 12:30 and 5:44 p.m. on WHYY 90.9 FM.

And to nominate a Good Soul, log on to WHYY.org/goodsouls.

- Well, that's it for this show.

I'm gonna go bask in the brisket afterglow of a full belly.

- You're gonna go have a food baby.

He has to open up his belt or something.

We will see you all next week.

Goodnight, everyone.

- Bye bye.

(exciting music)