- Will you consider this?

He wears many hats, both literally and figuratively, and, this time, he's wearing the storyteller hat and educating us all on Black History Month.

I'm Christine Zak Edmonds.

Don't go away.

(upbeat music) We've all seen him and heard him many, many times, and he's officially teaching these days.

However, for us this time, we are the students.

Please, welcome back Garry Moore, who is here to enlighten us on Black History Month.

Hi, my friend.

- Hey, how are you?

- It's always... - I...

I am absolutely adequate.

- Yeah.

- Yes, okay.

- I like that.

- So, first, let's start with...

So, you were here before, and we were talking about just Garry Moore post News 25.

- Right, and then you said, "You gotta come back and tell us some stories."

- Yes, and so here you are, but, in the meantime, really fast, you're also teaching someplace.

- I am teaching.

I'm teaching at Quest Middle School, the fifth through eighth graders.

I'm teaching music, which I love, and we're having a lot of fun.

We're right, at the present time, we're learning "Happy" by Pharrell.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Okay.

- Because I'm happy.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] You are happy.

- Yeah, I am happy.

- And, always have been.

So, you're teaching music just on the drums, or are you teaching all the instruments?

- No, I've been teaching piano, some horn, drums, of course, snare and hand drums, got the xylophone.

I taught a class at ISU years ago from Africa to hip hop, and it covered history and culture of the music.

So, all genres.

So, they learned African drum and dance, the rituals and ceremonies, the core of the xlophone, talking drum, thumb piano, the kalimba, and then we go to the plantation, field hollers, ring shouts, the Negro spiritual.

And, then we go to blues.

It's interesting, when we were teaching blues, I had a little Muddy Waters chord, da da da da da, my school bus, my school bus, da da da da, it's always late, da da da da da.

When others are leaving, da da da da da, I have to wait, you know?

So, the kids do blues, and then we go to jazz, and you could spend years doing jazz.

And, then we move up to rock and roll, R&B, and then eventually to hip hop.

And, so I kinda... Kinda scaled that down a little bit for middle school.

And, so along with the music, as you know, you can't teach, I can't, without doing a little bit of history and culture... - [Christine Zak Edmonds] Exactly.

- Along the way.

But, yeah, I'm not a piano player, but I can play the piano and I can teach chords.

And, so that, and the drums, they definitely get... And, then with the horns, I rely on my buddy at the high school and some other people have come in to help me.

So... - Good for you.

- [Garry Moore] Yeah, it's great.

- Alright, so Black History month, February, every year.

When was...

Pardon me, I forgot to look this up.

When was it declared officially Black History Month, or do you know?

- So, Carter G Woodson is considered the father of Negro History Week.

And, this goes back to those 20s and 30s time.

Carter G Woodson was a contemporary of Dr. Romeo G Garrett.

Dr. Garrett, as we know, touched base and rubbed shoulders with a lot of those historical figures.

WB De Boise, he took classes from him.

And, Garrett took that concept of Negro History Week, brought it to Peoria, and used to do a little article in the Traveler.

So, Negro History Week eventually evolved into Black History Month.

And, the reason why they chose February was because Lincoln's birthday was there.

You also had some historical figures who had birthdays and stuff in that month, in that particular month.

People joke that it's the shortest month, and why did they pick that one, but, yeah, that was that.

Now, I asked Dr. Garrett, God rest his soul, should there be just a Black History Month?

Or, should we do the African American history throughout the year in the school curriculum?

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] And, what was his thought?

- And, without hesitation, he said both.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Ah-huh.

- He said both.

He said, yes, you need the African American History Month, because of the contributions that African Americans have made, but more to the point of American history, and this is an important thing, our struggle, our journey in America, in the words of John Lewis, serves as sort of a redemption of American values.

Jefferson and Washington were slave owners.

When they wrote this beautiful stuff, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, all men are created equal... - All men are created equal.

Correct.

- All this other stuff.

These were, okay, so this country got off to a hypocritical footing, right?

I mean, you're talking about freedom, justice, and equality for everybody, and you got people who are enslaved, who will remain enslaved for a couple 100 years, right?

- Right.

- And, so how do we reconcile that?

What did Dr. King say?

We want what you said on paper.

Let's hold America up to a mirror and say, how close are you to these ideals?

How do we make these ideals real?

How do we make this dream real?

And, so, all of us, I think it's up to all of us, Black, White, whomever, to redeem the soul of America in John Lewis' words, and do what we can to improve upon this, to refine it, to... To make it better.

- But that what was happening back then, so how can we judge them by today's standards?

- I don't think we can, 'cause we're not there.

I mean, we're simply-- - But, it's like, why didn't they get it?

(chuckling) - We're... (chuckling) - I mean, they wrote it.

Why didn't they... - Why didn't they?

Yeah.

But, I think some of them did get it.

I mean, Addams got it.

I mean, there were some other folks in those early days who got it.

And, then yeah, it took Garrison and some other folks later.

I mean, Lincoln had to be kind of dragged-- - [Christine Zak Edmonds] Dragged in.

- Kicking and screaming into it, right?

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] But, he got it.

- [Garry Moore] But, he got it eventually, so yeah.

- Alright, well, now we just had a little bit of lesson there.

Thank you.

(Garry Moore chuckling) Alright, so, but tell me, you have some stories to share with us, because you are a storyteller extraordinaire.

- I do have some stories to share.

And, you know that when I first started doing this, way back when, I used to be the Black History Program in a lot of schools.

A lot of schools did not have curriculum back then.

And, they would bring in Garry Moore and I would do an...

I thought it would just be for that one classroom, and then next thing I know, oh, you're gonna be in the auditorium, and the whole school would come out, you know?

And, so I had to brush up my act.

(chuckling) (Christine Zak Edmonds laughing) It was like I had to really perform and do some stuff.

And, the sad thing, I think I told you this last time, is I would be leaving the schools, teachers would come up to me... - [Christine Zak Edmonds] And, say... - And, say, I didn't know Jefferson had slaves, or I didn't know blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, then I started working more with the administration in different school districts and stuff like that.

And, so, yeah.

But, yeah, so the stories that I brought today, and I'm not gonna do storytelling storytelling, but I'll tell you about the stories I'm telling.

Does that make sense?

- This is a typical Garry Moore.

Alright.

- So, but we always start out with the drum.

- Alright.

- And, I have a little drum here.

I'm gonna reach down here and grab this.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Alright.

- You see this?

Alright, and I usually put it over my head if I don't break it.

- Can I help you in some way?

- Well, no, I don't... Yeah, then you're gonna break it.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Okay.

(laughing) - Okay, and so this is a djembe drum.

It's an authentic African drum, right?

And, it's a djembe.

And, I used to teach drumming.

And, so the song, you remember the song, "Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child"?

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Mm-hmm.

- So, it's a derivative of that, but it uses an African drum pattern called fulafare, which is one of the most complex drum patterns that there is, because you're using both hands, and all the drum sounds.

And, so it goes something like this.

♪ Whenever I feel like a motherless child ♪ ♪ Whenever I feel like a motherless child ♪ ♪ Whenever I feel like a motherless child ♪ ♪ A long way from home ♪ A long from home ♪ I go back (Garry Moore drumming) ♪ To Omali ♪ Back to the Omali the drum ♪ Back to Omali the drum ♪ Will take me back to Omali the drum, ♪ ♪ Will take me back to Omali the drum ♪ ♪ Will take me back to ♪ Omali ♪ Back to Omali the drum ♪ Will take me back to Omali the drum ♪ ♪ Will take me back to ♪ Omali ♪ Back to Omali the drum ♪ Will take me back to Omali the drum ♪ ♪ Will take me back to ♪ Omali (Garry Moore drumming) So, it goes like that, (Christine Zak Edmonds clapping) okay?

So, that's...

This is a little introduction.

I mean, you gotta start out with a drum.

You can't... Yeah, you can't just not... - Just jump in.

- Just jump in.

I mean, you gotta...

Okay, so anyway, so that's that.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Okay.

What's next?

- Well... - [Christine Zak Edmonds] I wanna learn more.

- Yeah, I know you do.

So, you know... You've known me for some years.

In the newsroom, we used to talk about the words that we spoke in front of the camera.

Words are important.

And, I don't know if you remember, we used to have discussions when they came to me, and people would say things like, well, we're doing a story on discrimination, and this person was denied, because of the color of their skin.

And, I would think about that and say, well, okay.

So, he couldn't get through the door, because he was obese, or he couldn't put his... She couldn't put her hat on because her head was too big.

So, the reason why she couldn't do or he couldn't do those things was because there was something wrong with them.

So, these people, Jackie Robinson was denied, or these Black people were denied getting into the school, or whatever, because of the color of their skin.

Now, that's something that's been a part of our lexicon, and people just use that.

Black people say it.

Oh, they denied me because of the color of my skin.

But, I think it puts the blame on the victim.

And, so rather than he couldn't be...

He couldn't get in because of the color of his skin, he couldn't get in because of racism.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Okay.

- He couldn't get in because George Wallace was standing in front of the school.

I mean, that's the reason.

So, let's start calling things the way they are.

So, I... One of the words that I stopped using was the slaves.

The slaves were treated poorly, The slaves did blah, blah, blah, the slaves, whatever, Because I felt like... - [Christine Zak Edmonds] That's labeling them.

- No, no, no, no.

I'd felt like it sounded too much like the tables or the chairs.

It sounded like an inanimate object.

And, we forget that they were people.

And, so, I mean, even if, and so I brought this, so you are gonna unfurl this.

- Okay, let me unfurl.

- Yeah, just a little unfurling there.

- Do we need to move this out of the way?

- Yeah, we probably should move that.

- Alright.

- I think we have this upside down.

- It looks like it.

You unfurl.

I'm old.

- I'll unfurl.

- Alright.

Okay.

- Okay.

So, this is a picture of a slave ship, right?

- Yes.

- And, people will say, oh, it's really sad, the slaves were packed in like sardines, and at the bottom of this ship, and they were chained together, and look at how poorly the slaves were treated, right?

And, you can talk all... About the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and how many people were lost, and the fact that the Underwater World of Jacques Cousteau... - [Christine Zak Edmonds] Right.

- And, I think it was his son or somebody was talking about at the bottom of the ocean.

- But, they... - From the west coast of Africa to the east coast of the United States, at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, you got this trail of bones.

I mean, it's just...

So, you think about how many people... - [Christine Zak Edmonds] Unfortunate.

- Didn't make it, right?

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Right, exactly.

- Okay, so I started thinking, okay, well, the slaves, well, these were people, alright?

So, he was the hunter who captured the boar.

She sold the outfits the school children wore.

These three are Ibo, experts at trade.

He was so proud of the drum his son made.

She was a queen, don't take her to task, and Wiba Maleki wore the elephant mask.

He wore the tall stilts with the bougarabou.

And, at the market, she'd say, no buy one, you buy two.

So... - [Christine Zak Edmonds] They were people.

- They were people.

They had...

They had lives.

They had things going on.

Bambara, he say, God come from seed, Falani, she take only just what she need.

And, it goes on, and we talk about how there was one young lady who experienced some trauma... - In that situation.

- In that situation.

Jumped overboard and said we're better off dead.

The elder, he teaches the tongue of each other, say, we must come together as sisters and brothers.

We start out with many.

But, yeah.

So, it... That goes... That just goes like that.

And, so these are the... - And, so you put humanism with the people who have been enslaved.

- Personhood, yeah.

And, so when, nowadays, I'll say the...

The enslaved people or the people who were enslaved, just to remind people that these were people, 'cause like I said, the slaves, to me, that doesn't do justice to the fact that these were people who had... Who had lives.

- And, that was pretty critical.

- Yeah, there was one.... - He's got his notes, referring to-- - Yeah, well, she had a smile as wide as an ocean, he'd heal your body with herbs and a potion, a champion wrestler, he had nothing to prove.

Guinea girl was a dancer, now she hardly can move.

Iron replaces her bracelets of gold, for 12 rifles, her whole family was sold.

She just cry and she cry.

We believe she was... She wonders if her little brother escaped.

So, you can kind of fill in the blank there.

- Exactly.

- Yeah.

- Exactly.

I don't like rhyming things like that.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

- And, so, yeah, so that's...

So, that's that.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] So, you wrote that?

- Yes.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Alright.

- Yes, I did.

- And, that was to make... Get your point across, especially using your diagram.

- Right, right, right.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] Okay.

- And, so, yeah, and whenever I perform that, I mean, people will come up and say, they never thought of it that way.

They haven't thought about the fact that, yeah, these people had lives before they came.

There was a horrible book who... King Leopold's Ghost, Leopold of Belgium, with the Congo, and the rubber, and all of that, and Stanley, and... - Yeah.

- And, there's a little section in that book where one of the people in one of those entourages, the Europeans who came into the Congo, he's in his diary talking about how we observed the women were pounding a meal, and the children were doing such and such, and the men were building a hut, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And, then he says, I started the party with a volley into the man's chest.

And, the next thing I know, everybody poured in, and then blah, blah, blah.

Stuff like that.

- And, what year was that?

- Well, King Leopold, he was end of the 1800s-- - Right, into the 1900s - Into the 1900s.

- Yeah.

- But, the African history, and you know the story that I do about the house, for the little kids, I don't get into that kind of trauma.

- [Christine Zak Edmunds] No, they don't need to know that.

- Right.

And, so there one was a beautiful house, and it had beautiful doors, and beautiful windows, and beautiful lights.

And, one day somebody came along and said, the doors on that house look really nice.

I think I want to take those doors to my house.

So, they came and they took 'em.

And, then somebody came and said, hey, the lights on that house look really nice.

I think I wanna take those lights to my house.

So, they came and they took them.

The windows on that house look really nice.

I wanted to take those windows to my house.

The people worked really hard on that house.

I think I wanna take those people and have them work on my house.

So, now what does the house look like now?

Does it have any doors?

No.

Do they have any windows?

No.

Do they have any lights?

No.

Is it a beautiful house?

No.

Well, no.

They say when something is beautiful, it's not always what you have, but what you give.

So, if you look down the street, you see the doors from that house at one house, you see the lights at another house, you see the windows at another house.

So, it's a very beautiful house, because of what it gave to the other houses.

- Okay.

- And, the name of that house is Africa.

Okay, I didn't say slavery.

I didn't say... - Do they understand that though?

Do they get it?

Do they grasp it?

- Yeah, because then... Because, then what I do is I'll bring a student up, I'll put a little kente stole on 'em, and you're gonna be my African prince, and I'll give them a little instrument to play.

And, then I'll say, so I'm gonna play, and then you shake your instrument.

How many of you all like to ride your bicycle?

What are your tires made outta?

Rubber.

What are your parents' cars made out of?

Rubber.

Did you know that there are no rubber trees in the United States?

But, in Africa, there's a place called the Congo and they got all this rubber.

And, so then I give this kid another instrument.

And, so this made our prince happy, 'cause he had all this rubber.

And, so now he's playing that.

How many of you all have seen your parents wear diamonds?

Well, in the South Africa and the Ivory Coast, they got...

There's diamonds.

When I was in South Africa, they took me to a place that had the world's biggest diamond.

And, so this made our prince very happy, 'cause he had these diamonds.

And, so and then I'm loading this kid down with the diamonds, gold, he's got all these natural resources from Africa.

- Right.

- And, then I say, now what happened to the stuff in the house?

It got taken.

Okay, so somebody comes up and say, hey, how you doing?

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] I like that diamond.

- I like that diamond.

Here, here's a lint ball out of my pocket.

I'll give you that.

And, then, or, hey, that's a nice little piece of chocolate you got there.

Hey, there's a... And, then before you know it, he doesn't have anything.

And, then I said, then what happened to the people in the house?

They got taken too.

And, then, you know what?

I told this story when I was in Champaign and it was like 2,500 students there packed into the University of Illinois, I forget what the auditorium was, but they were from different schools and stuff.

And, when I got to that point of the story and went to the kid, this kid took off running.

- The little kid you were loading up?

- Yeah.

- Oh, my gosh.

- He took off running.

- He didn't want it anymore.

- And, I ended up running after him into the... And, people are kind of halfway laughing, but the seriousness of it was he got it.

He realized that... - He was gonna be taken.

- He was gonna be taken, and he had been stripped of all of his stuff, and he took off running, and came back, and I had to assure him... - [Christine Zak Edmonds] God love him.

- I'm not gonna do anything to you.

- But you were a stranger, so... - But, I was... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, so, but that's one way.

- [Christine Zak Edmonds] To illustrate.

- To illustrate.

And, it concerns me.

And, we don't have to get into a deep, nasty political conversation about, what is it called?

Critical race theory or people thinking that you're doing revisionist history if you're teaching about these kinds of subjects, but it's like, come on, we gotta... - [Christine Zak Edmonds] Get a grip.

- We... Really, really.

This is reality and we need to face it, so... - Alright, we have less than five minutes.

- [Garry Moore] Okay.

- You have another story that you need to share so that we can learn a little bit more and understand... You don't have to take anything away from me or load me up with anything, I promise I'll behave.

- Okay.

(laughing) (Christine Zak Edmonds laughing) Well, one story that is a contemporary story.

I brought the Civil War guy here if I needed to do the Civil War guy, but, no, we're not gonna... We're not gonna do the Civil War guy.

The story that I had was called "Bird's Word".

And, it's really a story about media.

You and I are media people, but we're in a different media age now.

- Completely different.

- Completely different.

And, so I'll just race through this, but it goes something like the little birds had little words, but needed a bigger voice, a louder call that spoke to all about their flights and choice.

It was no surprise when they chose wise and eloquent Sankofa.

He'd be a guide and speak with pride when he would sing, bang bopa, bang bopa, hear my words, bang bopa.

His voice was clear, music to ears, anxious to take wing.

But, besides the shrill from winter's chill, birds faced a scary thing.

A mean old cat with clawing paws was hoping for bird stew.

He prowled, and growled, and lept at them every time they flew.

But, Sankofa never let the danger get close to the birds.

From his treetop perch, he'd spy the lurch, and sing the warning words, bang bopa, bang bopa, hear my words, bang bopa.

Just in time, Sankofa's rhyme would cause the cat to miss.

The birds were free to fly with glee in aviation bliss.

In misery, beneath the tree, the mean feline sat hissing.

He told the birds, you too have words, don't you see what you're missing?

And, what should we sing?, one young one asked.

No matter the cat said lying.

Let it out, let go a shout, go ahead, it's worth you trying.

Chirp chirp, tweet tweet, toot toot, tarak tarak.

They all began to sing at once, no leader of the flock.

Whis whis, YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, Googoice, the sound got so loud you could not hear one solitary voice, Sankofa cried for he had tried to warn all in the forest, but his voice too just blended in and added to the chorus.

So, now when the cat, his scheme in place, took aim at any bird, he scored a hit and devoured it, despite Sankofa's words.

One by one, he ate and ate his fill.

Then, fell asleep.

Survivors chirped while the fat cat burped, their songs now just a peep.

And, then the moral of the story I think is something like the birds learned an important lesson that day.

We all have voices and that's okay, but it's okay to follow wisdom.

You don't always have to lead.

Don't talk when you should listen to the voice you need to heed.

And, freedom to speak carries with it responsibility.

Multiverses can be curses for a frail community.

Bang bopa, bang bopa.

- And, that is... We have so many things coming at us right now.

What do you believe?

Who do you turn to?

You have to trust your own truth in a situation like that.

- Yeah.

Well, what the truths that are there that have... That are ironclad, that have been there for... That have guided us.

- The truth is in the middle and we have missed that a lot in today's world, I think.

- Yeah.

- Or, do you remember back in the day, they'd say, okay, well, maybe they said that, but how about what did they say?

And, then we present both sides and let our viewers decide.

- And, then we... - The truth in the middle.

- And, we attribute our sources.

- Had to attribute all the time.

But, I love this.

For a source who shall remain... Is not authorized to speak on this topic.

I'm going, oh, gosh.

(chuckling) What?

- So, you just...

So, you just made that up.

- Right, exactly.

Well, you just don't know.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Well, what other small thing do you want us to remember about Black History Month?

I think we have about a minute left.

- I think it's just important for people to be open.

We all have our journey.

This American story is multicultural, not just one group.

Everybody contributed.

I love the song by Stevie Wonder.

This world was made by all men.

The first man to die for the flag we now hold high was a Black man.

Railroads for trains came from tracking that was laid by a yellow man.

A guide of the ship for the first Columbus trip was a brown man.

And, the...

I mean, he's just... And, this one was a red man.

And-- - [Christine Zak Edmonds] We need to... - So, we all... Yeah, yeah.

- We all make up this world.

- We do.

- Thank you, my good friend.

- Thank you for having me.

- It was so good to see you again, yes.

- Thank you for having me and tolerating my existence.

- We don't tolerate, we appreciate.

So, thank you for being with us as well.

I hope you remember some of his truths.

And, in the meantime, stay safe, and healthy, and hold happiness.

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