Transcripts
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Amy Martin:Welcome to Threshold, I'm Amy Martin, and
Amy Martin:this is the second part of our three episode deep dive into
Amy Martin:fundamental questions about industry: how, or if our key
Amy Martin:industrial processes can be reimagined to prevent a climate
Amy Martin:catastrophe. We're using the steel industry as a case study.
Amy Martin:Steel is one of the most useful materials humans have ever
Amy Martin:created, and we're going to need a lot more of it to build the
Amy Martin:infrastructure of a renewable energy economy. But making steel
Amy Martin:requires huge amounts of coal and releases stunning amounts of
Amy Martin:planet warming gasses, so steel production has become dangerous
Amy Martin:to the planet, and as we learned last time, it's dangerous in
Amy Martin:other ways too.
Amy Martin:Does it feel like a safe place to go in and work?
Mark Lash:It's not a marshmallow factory.
Amy Martin:This is Mark Lash. We met him on our last episode.
Amy Martin:He's the president of the United Steelworkers Union Local 1066 in
Amy Martin:Gary, Indiana.
Mark Lash:We're making really hard stuff with really high
Mark Lash:temperatures and all kinds of other stuff. So I worked here 27
Mark Lash:years, and personally know four people who came to work one day
Mark Lash:and didn't go home.
Amy Martin:Workplace injuries and even deaths are just a part
Amy Martin:of life in Gary, and in our last episode, Lori Latham talked
Amy Martin:about how industrial pollution has also heavily impacted
Amy Martin:workers and the whole community. These conditions help explain
Amy Martin:why the workers in the steel mills of Gary in the first half
Amy Martin:of the 20th century came from two main groups, newly arrived
Amy Martin:immigrants, like Mark's grandparents, who came from
Amy Martin:Serbia and Russia, and African Americans who had moved up from
Amy Martin:the southern United States, like Lori Latham's grandparents.
Amy Martin:These were people who were hungry or even desperate for
Amy Martin:opportunity. They were often fleeing harsh realities
Amy Martin:somewhere else, and because of that, they were willing to work
Amy Martin:very hard in loud, dirty and often dangerous jobs. They had a
Amy Martin:lot in common, but they were divided by something that got
Amy Martin:mentioned in our last episode, but needs more attention:
Amy Martin:racism. Racism is a big part of the story of Gary and the story
Amy Martin:of global industrialization in general.
Mark Lash:You know, the high school I went to when I
Mark Lash:graduated, I want to say I had four or five African Americans
Mark Lash:in my class of 600.
Amy Martin:Mark grew up in the town of Merrillville, which
Amy Martin:borders Gary to the south. When he graduated from high school in
Amy Martin:the 1980s, Merrillville was almost exclusively white and
Amy Martin:Gary was 70% black, and Mark says everyone knew where the
Amy Martin:line was dividing the two communities.
Mark Lash:Merrillville started at 53rd Avenue. Gary was from
Mark Lash:first to 53rd and at 53rd Avenue, it went from all white
Mark Lash:to all black.
Amy Martin:This separation of the races was not accidental.
Amy Martin:Merrillville was initially just a neighborhood on the southern
Amy Martin:side of Gary, but in 1971 the predominantly white residents
Amy Martin:there voted to incorporate into their own city so they could
Amy Martin:segregate themselves from Gary, where the population had just
Amy Martin:recently become majority black, and for a while, the people of
Amy Martin:Merrillville were successful in creating a whites only enclave.
Amy Martin:10 years after it was incorporated, the town had a
Amy Martin:population of almost 28,000 people, and just 36 of those
Amy Martin:people were black. Mark was just a kid at the time.
Mark Lash:I mean, I guess I noticed it, but I didn't
Mark Lash:understand the dynamics of what it was or how it happened. And
Mark Lash:then you grow up and you realize, and you take classes.
Mark Lash:You see that these systems kept these things in place.
Amy Martin:Systems like housing discrimination, denying black
Amy Martin:families credit or just refusing to show them homes in certain
Amy Martin:areas. In a 1983 report by a federal civil rights commission,
Amy Martin:white realtors in Merrillville are quoted as saying that they
Amy Martin:would face repercussions from their clientele if they sold
Amy Martin:homes to black families. But slowly, over the decades, things
Amy Martin:have changed, and black families have increasingly been buying
Amy Martin:homes in Merrillville.
Mark Lash:And instead of everyone just said, Okay, this
Mark Lash:is a great thing, everyone just kept moving south.
Amy Martin:Mark says now that it's clear that the project of
Amy Martin:keeping black people out of Merrillville has failed a lot.
Amy Martin:Of the people he grew up with are leaving for other whiter
Amy Martin:towns.
Mark Lash:You know, and I argue with people all the time because
Mark Lash:they're like, Well, you know, Merrillville has gone to hell.
Mark Lash:And no, Merrillville hasn't gone to hell. Go drive through
Mark Lash:Merrillville. I grew up there. I went to school there. I'll drive
Mark Lash:through those neighborhoods. And the lawns are well manicured.
Mark Lash:The houses are well taken care of everything. If you drove
Mark Lash:through Merrillville at night, you couldn't tell if it was 1984
Mark Lash:when I was going to high school, or today. The only way you can
Mark Lash:tell is if it's daytime and everyone happens to be outside,
Mark Lash:because everyone who's outside now is black, everyone who's
Mark Lash:outside then was white. You know all of this, that everything's
Mark Lash:gonna go to hell once all the whites move out, is bullshit,
Mark Lash:you know what I mean. But you can't. You just can't. You can't
Mark Lash:get it into people's heads.
Amy Martin:I asked Mark how people respond to him when he
Amy Martin:gets into these kinds of discussions.
Mark Lash:As soon as you start talking about racism, they, they
Mark Lash:"Oh, you're accusing me of being a racist!" Then they get all
Mark Lash:defensive, and it's, it's just hard to have the conversations
Mark Lash:when you get to that point, and that's the only way we're going
Mark Lash:to get this stuff turned around is, is to have those
Mark Lash:conversations and have people that are willing to have those
Mark Lash:conversations.
Amy Martin:Mark is so right about this, we need to have more
Amy Martin:and better conversations about racism for so many reasons, and
Amy Martin:one of them is climate change, because we can't solve the
Amy Martin:climate problem unless we understand what truly created it
Amy Martin:at the root level, and racism isn't just a footnote in that
Amy Martin:story. It's a central feature of how the modern industrial
Amy Martin:economy took hold and spread around the world. So in this
Amy Martin:episode, I want to have one of those conversations. I want to
Amy Martin:think together about the intersection of racism, industry
Amy Martin:and the time to 1.5.
Amy Martin:Dr. Matt Thompson: We know that there are links between people
Amy Martin:working here in the 18th century and people who have financial
Amy Martin:interests in the transAtlantic slave economy.
Leslie Harris:African enslaved labor was the best way to make
Leslie Harris:these economies work.
Lori Latham:Why is it that African American children are so
Lori Latham:much more likely to be exposed to not just lead, but other
Lori Latham:toxins?
Amy Martin:We're going to start out with a brief return trip to
Amy Martin:a place we visited in our third episode this season,
Amy Martin:Coalbrookdale, England. It's a quaint little spot tucked into
Amy Martin:the wooded hills of English countryside. At a glance, you
Amy Martin:wouldn't think Coalbrookdale has much at all in common with Gary,
Amy Martin:Indiana, which is crisscrossed with train tracks and highways
Amy Martin:and dominated by massive factories. But actually, the
Amy Martin:story of Gary is very much tied to the story of Coalbrookdale
Amy Martin:and both places have a lot to tell us about the connections
Amy Martin:between industry and racism.
Amy Martin:Dr. Matt Thompson: We see generations of families who are
Amy Martin:working here and have steel works here, they have iron works
Amy Martin:here. Iron and Steel really start the story off.
Amy Martin:Historian Matt Thompson was my guide to
Amy Martin:Coalbrookdale. And just to quickly recap coal brookdale's
Amy Martin:importance here, this is the place where a guy named Abraham
Amy Martin:Darby figured out how to use coal in the process of making
Amy Martin:iron way back in 1709, that's why Coalbrookdale is considered
Amy Martin:one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution and the
Amy Martin:climate crisis. We're still using Darby's 300 year old
Amy Martin:process in the making of iron and steel today, and that's bad
Amy Martin:news for the climate the steel industry is responsible for
Amy Martin:approximately 10% of global annual carbon dioxide emissions.
Amy Martin:But of course, Abraham Darby had no idea about any of that. He
Amy Martin:just had a bunch of ironware to sell, and happily for him, he
Amy Martin:also had easy access to the River Severn, the longest river
Amy Martin:in Great Britain, and the defining feature of this valley.
Amy Martin:Dr. Matt Thompson: Traveling and moving material by land in the
Amy Martin:past was incredibly difficult. Whereas a river, you know,
Amy Martin:you've got that transport, you can get raw materials in, and
Amy Martin:you can get your finished products out, and if your
Amy Martin:finished product happens to be made of iron, it's heavy, right?
Amy Martin:You know, you're gonna need a lot of horses to get it out and
Amy Martin:get it somewhere, whereas here you can put it on a vessel,
Amy Martin:these special kind of barges called trows, and they would
Amy Martin:take it right downstream to Bristol. From there, it could go
Amy Martin:right round to London or what have. You get it onto the river
Amy Martin:here, and suddenly you've got mobility to get your goods to
Amy Martin:market.
Amy Martin:And what were those markets? Where were they and
Amy Martin:what was being traded there? Or perhaps I should ask who was
Amy Martin:being traded there.
Amy Martin:Dr. Matt Thompson: So, you know, I just said this river connected
Amy Martin:to the city of Bristol. What's Bristol best known for in terms
Amy Martin:of trading? Slavery.
Amy Martin:Bristol was one of the most important cities in the
Amy Martin:British slavery economy. Hundreds of ships were built in
Amy Martin:Bristol, made to transport enslaved people and the products
Amy Martin:they produced. It was a major hub for investors in slave trade
Amy Martin:voyages and sailors looking for work on those trips throughout
Amy Martin:the 1700s while three generations of Darbys were
Amy Martin:producing huge numbers of iron products here in Coalbrookdale,
Amy Martin:people downstream in Bristol were growing wealthy off of the
Amy Martin:trade in human beings.
Amy Martin:Dr. Matt Thompson: You know, they might be selling cast iron
Amy Martin:pots here, but are those, and this is a question, this is not
Amy Martin:a statement, are those parts going to people who are involved
Amy Martin:in the transatlantic slave economy? Are they, perhaps,
Amy Martin:items that are maybe going to the west coast of Africa and
Amy Martin:being traded for people? You know, because metal goods were
Amy Martin:being traded for people. So these are questions, right? But
Amy Martin:we know that there are links between people working here in
Amy Martin:the 18th century, family links, business associations and people
Amy Martin:who have certainly financial interests in the transatlantic
Amy Martin:slave economy.
Amy Martin:I want to note that the Darbys were Quakers, a
Amy Martin:Christian group that believed in human equality and opposed
Amy Martin:slavery. But even if an individual person was against
Amy Martin:slavery, whether they were Quaker or not, it was almost
Amy Martin:impossible to disentangle oneself from it, kind of like
Amy Martin:how it's really hard to not use fossil fuels today, because as
Amy Martin:the Industrial Revolution revved up and took off, slavery was
Amy Martin:increasingly embedded into every aspect of the emerging economy.
Amy Martin:Matt says, to understand those connections, what we need to do
Amy Martin:is...
Amy Martin:Dr. Matt Thompson: Follow the money, but be prepared to find
Amy Martin:things that might be quite challenging I think.
Leslie Harris:Many of the slave produced goods, sugar, cotton,
Leslie Harris:these all fed the development of industry. All of these things
Leslie Harris:are intertwined. They're not separated from each other.
Amy Martin:Leslie Harris is a professor of history and African
Amy Martin:American Studies at Northwestern University that's located just
Amy Martin:north of Chicago and Gary Indiana in Evanston, Illinois.
Leslie Harris:The main body of my work is around the history of
Leslie Harris:slavery. I teach the history of the enslavement of African
Leslie Harris:Americans in the new world, but I also talk about the moment
Leslie Harris:right before the transatlantic slave trade in Africa, in
Leslie Harris:Europe, and what led to the use of that labor.
Amy Martin:Slavery has existed for thousands of years, but
Amy Martin:Leslie says it looks very different in different times and
Amy Martin:places before the transatlantic slave trade began, she says,
Amy Martin:slavery had mostly been part of warfare. It was about capturing
Amy Martin:people and adding them to your realm. Being enslaved was, of
Amy Martin:course, never a good thing, but enslaved people could often move
Amy Martin:out of their low position over time.
Leslie Harris:Before the transatlantic slave trade,
Leslie Harris:people who were classified as slaves would be incorporated
Leslie Harris:into the nation. They might be soldiers, they might be part of
Leslie Harris:the royal court. They might be wives. So you have women who are
Leslie Harris:also bearing children. Those children become part of the
Leslie Harris:family and part of the family's wealth.
Amy Martin:But this started to change in the 14 and 1500s when
Amy Martin:the Portuguese and the Spanish began kidnapping people in
Amy Martin:Western Africa or purchasing people who'd been previously
Amy Martin:captured by warring groups in modern day Angola, Senegal and
Amy Martin:other countries in the region. Some of those people were taken
Amy Martin:to Europe, others were moved to Brazil in the Caribbean, where
Amy Martin:they were forced to work on plantations producing sugar and
Amy Martin:rum. The British got involved in slavery early as well. In the
Amy Martin:1600s, they started taking enslaved people to Caribbean
Amy Martin:islands they had captured and to the colonies they'd established
Amy Martin:in North America. And Leslie says, as the Industrial
Amy Martin:Revolution began to accelerate, the slavery system began to
Amy Martin:speed up and change too, human beings became commodities in
Amy Martin:ways they'd never been before.
Leslie Harris:It's really in the Americas that it becomes
Leslie Harris:more so about buying and selling people, chattel slavery, rather
Leslie Harris:than about this idea of conquering and incorporating
Leslie Harris:people and making them part of your nation, even if they're at
Leslie Harris:the very lowest level. Of course, on this side of the
Leslie Harris:ocean, there's no way to escape slavery.
Amy Martin:The transatlantic slave trade had huge lasting
Amy Martin:effects on every society it touched. We're going to focus on
Amy Martin:the intimate ties between enslavement and the
Amy Martin:industrialization of the United States.
Leslie Harris:So imagine being kidnapped from everyone you
Leslie Harris:know, going on a journey in Africa for maybe several weeks,
Leslie Harris:being held on the coast. All this time, perhaps naked, abused
Leslie Harris:in numerous ways, held below decks for weeks on rough seas,
Leslie Harris:hundreds of people below decks, the minimum, absolute minimum of
Leslie Harris:food and water necessary to get across the ocean.
Amy Martin:The conditions are truly horrific. You're chained
Amy Martin:to other people in hot, stuffy compartments, unable to stand up
Amy Martin:or even turn around. There's no way to dispose of your waste.
Amy Martin:Beatings from the crew arrive unprovoked at any time, and if
Amy Martin:you become sick or get injured, you'll likely be thrown
Amy Martin:overboard. So many bodies get tossed into the sea, both alive
Amy Martin:and dead, that sharks learn to follow the ships.
Leslie Harris:And then you arrive and you're sold. You
Leslie Harris:stand on this auction block of sorts, and you probably don't
Leslie Harris:know the languages you're hearing around you. You're
Leslie Harris:seeing even the people that you were on board ship with
Leslie Harris:disappearing into the hands of different groups.
Amy Martin:More than 12 million people were taken from Africa
Amy Martin:during the transatlantic slave trade. Scholars believe about 2
Amy Martin:million died on the journey.
Leslie Harris:And it is still the largest coerced migration in
Leslie Harris:human history.
Amy Martin:Those who survived were transported to labor camps,
Amy Martin:also known as plantations. Children, men, and women were
Amy Martin:forced to do backbreaking work from dawn to dusk. They were
Amy Martin:denied adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical care, and
Amy Martin:the threat of beatings, rape, torture and death hung
Amy Martin:constantly over their heads.
Leslie Harris:And then you end up learning this new work,
Leslie Harris:having to do this new work. So it's an incredibly disorienting
Leslie Harris:experience.
Amy Martin:Disorienting, deeply traumatic, and key to the
Amy Martin:industrialization of Europe and the United States. In the early
Amy Martin:19th century in the newly formed United States of America,
Amy Martin:enslaved people worked primarily in the cotton industry.
Leslie Harris:We have to understand that
Leslie Harris:industrialization, much of the industrialization happened
Leslie Harris:through fabric, through the creation of fabric that was a
Leslie Harris:huge source of wealth. It was a huge driver in the industrial
Leslie Harris:revolution. And the production of slave produced cotton was a
Leslie Harris:big driver of that. It was the fuel, in a sense, for
Leslie Harris:industrialization.
Amy Martin:Much of the cotton that was grown and picked by
Amy Martin:enslaved people was shipped to the new fabric making factories
Amy Martin:that were springing up in Britain, aided by James Watts,
Amy Martin:steam engine and other new technologies.
Leslie Harris:Slave produced cotton fed the mills that
Leslie Harris:originated in the US as well as The mills that originated in
Leslie Harris:England, and they're intimately intertwined.
Amy Martin:Similar stories were playing out in the sugar and
Amy Martin:coffee industries. By the mid 1800s around a third of the
Amy Martin:world's sugar was being produced on the island of Cuba by
Amy Martin:enslaved people, and by the end of the 19th century, 80% of the
Amy Martin:world's coffee exports came from Brazil, where three and a half
Amy Martin:million enslaved people were taken, more than any other
Amy Martin:country in the Americas. So slavery wasn't a little sidebar
Amy Martin:in the industrialization process. It was at the heart of
Amy Martin:it.
Leslie Harris:African enslaved labor was the best way to make
Leslie Harris:these economies work.
Amy Martin:Another thing essential to making these
Amy Martin:economies work was the stealing of land. With few exceptions,
Amy Martin:Europeans saw indigenous people throughout the Americas and the
Amy Martin:Caribbean not as owners of territory, but rather as
Amy Martin:obstacles to be overcome. Some indigenous people were enslaved,
Amy Martin:others were killed or driven off in warfare, wiped out by
Amy Martin:European diseases or forced to assimilate. So with vast amounts
Amy Martin:of stolen land, and vast numbers of stolen people to work on it,
Amy Martin:industrialization, slavery and consumption all increased
Amy Martin:together. Europeans and European Americans didn't have to
Amy Martin:personally own enslaved people or invest in slavery-based
Amy Martin:businesses to benefit from the slave trade. All they had to do
Amy Martin:was buy slave produced cotton cloth to make their clothes, or
Amy Martin:put slave-produced sugar in their slave-produced coffee
Amy Martin:while smoking slave-produced cigars. But many people did
Amy Martin:benefit from slavery, very directly, investors in slave
Amy Martin:ships, owners of plantations, white industrialists who grew
Amy Martin:rich on both sides of the Atlantic. These people became
Amy Martin:used to counting human bodies as if they were bales of cotton or
Amy Martin:barrels of rum, individual people with names and families,
Amy Martin:stories and songs, thoughts and feelings and needs and their own
Amy Martin:unique minds were listed in accounting ledgers as assets and
Amy Martin:liabilities.
Leslie Harris:And then the mindset appears to be, well, if
Leslie Harris:they die, I can get more. The enslavers, these companies, if
Leslie Harris:you will, are trying to get as much wealth as they can out of
Leslie Harris:these systems.
Amy Martin:The accumulation of wealth through industry, that
Amy Martin:was the primary driver behind the transatlantic slave trade. I
Amy Martin:want to linger on this for a minute, because I think there's
Amy Martin:a way in which, intuitively, it doesn't compute. Slavery is so
Amy Martin:ugly, so morally repugnant, enraging and sad, that we expect
Amy Martin:it to have a cause that's also extraordinarily awful, or maybe
Amy Martin:we need it to have that sort of cause. It would be comforting to
Amy Martin:think that enslavers were evil to the core, motivated by hatred
Amy Martin:and therefore somehow different from us. But actually, the main
Amy Martin:motivation for the enslavement and abuse of millions of people
Amy Martin:was something totally ordinary, something we're all intimately
familiar with:the desire for profit. Slavery was first and
familiar with:foremost an economic institution. In fact, as Ibram X
familiar with:Kendi and other scholars have highlighted in recent years, the
familiar with:whole notion that people can be separated into races and that
familiar with:those categories have meaning was invented to justify the
familiar with:creation of an underclass whose labor could be stolen with
familiar with:impunity. In other words, the economics of slavery created the
familiar with:need for an ideology to rationalize the system, a story
familiar with:that would make it okay to dehumanize indigenous and
familiar with:African people and build systems of oppression. That ideology is
familiar with:white supremacy. It's been woven into the fabric of our
familiar with:industrial economy from the very beginning, and it's still alive
familiar with:and well today.
familiar with:You know, I've been learning about how industrialization kind
familiar with:of really grew out of the Enlightenment and this belief in
familiar with:human advancement. And, you know, there were a lot of people
familiar with:who were kind of leading thinkers of that time who had
familiar with:very high ideals on paper, but yet, this is what was actually
familiar with:happening.
Leslie Harris:Yeah, yeah.
Amy Martin:How do you make How do you think they were making
Amy Martin:sense of that at the time? Were this total cognitive dissonance
Amy Martin:or what?
Leslie Harris:Well, a couple of things. They were at the
Leslie Harris:beginning of a sea change, a massive change in how we think
Leslie Harris:about human life. What does being humane mean? What does
Leslie Harris:humanity mean? What are the basic things that you should not
Leslie Harris:do to humans? And I think slavery is central to that
Leslie Harris:rethinking. The brutality of slavery becomes central to that
Leslie Harris:rethinking.
Amy Martin:This feels extremely relevant to the questions we
Amy Martin:face in the climate crisis. Societal norms can and do
Amy Martin:change. When the United States was founded, slavery was
Amy Martin:accepted and rationalized because it was so important to
Amy Martin:the economics of the new country, and now we're accepting
Amy Martin:and rationalizing the use of fossil fuels for the same
Amy Martin:reason, because it feels unimaginable that we could live
Amy Martin:without them. And yet the truth is bearing down. We're going to
Amy Martin:have to figure out how to make our economy work without fossil
Amy Martin:fuels, just as people had to figure out how to make the
Amy Martin:economy work without slavery. And they did. In the 19th
Amy Martin:century, countries around the world abolished slavery. The
Amy Martin:United States officially banned the importation of people in
Amy Martin:1808, but of course, slavery continued until the Civil War.
Amy Martin:For four terrible years between 1861 and 1865 Americans fought
Amy Martin:each other over the question of whether or not people should be
Amy Martin:allowed to buy, sell and own other people. Three quarters of
Amy Martin:a million soldiers died, along with tens of thousands of
Amy Martin:civilians, until finally, the North prevailed, and slavery was
Amy Martin:ended.
Leslie Harris:After the Civil War, after emancipation, 4
Leslie Harris:million plus enslaved people gained freedom in the south and
Leslie Harris:attempt to live as full citizens with the 13th, 14th and 15th
Leslie Harris:Amendment.
Amy Martin:But the pathway to true freedom for black Americans
Amy Martin:was by no means cleared of danger.
Leslie Harris:Whites rebel against sharing that space with
Leslie Harris:black people, and they as best they can, and they're pretty
Leslie Harris:good at it, strip them of their rights to vote, strip them of
Leslie Harris:economic agency, and in the worst cases, use violence and
Leslie Harris:terror to let Black people know that the only thing they should
Leslie Harris:be doing is working for white people and contributing wealth
Leslie Harris:to white people and not for themselves, and that they should
Leslie Harris:not be in competition with white people as business owners, as
Leslie Harris:educated people, as politicians.
Amy Martin:Southern states passed thousands of so called
Amy Martin:Jim Crow laws aimed at depriving black citizens of education,
Amy Martin:housing, economic opportunities and political power.
Leslie Harris:And so this moment known as Reconstruction,
Leslie Harris:which was really an attempt to incorporate black people as
Leslie Harris:equals in the nation. It ends in 1877 and inaugurates what black
Leslie Harris:historians call the nadir. There's a particular kind of
Leslie Harris:pain that comes with dashing dreams in this incredibly brutal
Leslie Harris:way. So by the early 20th century, black people have not
Leslie Harris:given up, but they have definitely been beaten back, and
Leslie Harris:I mean that word literally.
Amy Martin:At the same time, the southern economy was
Amy Martin:struggling mightily. The region was recovering from the
Amy Martin:devastation of the Civil War, and the cotton industry was
Amy Martin:collapsing, due in part to the infestation of the boll weevil.
Amy Martin:Times were hard.
Leslie Harris:And so black people vote with their feet.
Leslie Harris:They began to go north. They enact the Great Migration,
Leslie Harris:several million black people from the South moved north. They
Leslie Harris:become laborers in industry and many other kinds of jobs that
Leslie Harris:would not have been available to them in the south.
Amy Martin:And one of the places they went was Gary,
Amy Martin:Indiana. We'll pick up the story there after the break.
Erika Janik:Hey everybody, this is Erika Janik ,Threshold's
Erika Janik:Managing Editor. Did you know that we have a Threshold
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Amy Martin:Welcome back to threshold. I'm Amy Martin, and I
Amy Martin:owe you an apology. We spent an entire episode in Gary, Indiana
Amy Martin:last time, and I failed to tell you one of the most important
Amy Martin:things about it. Michael Jackson is from Gary. Yes, the Michael
Amy Martin:Jackson. He was born in Gary in 1958.
Amy Martin:In fact, it was a Gary label called steeltown records that
Amy Martin:recorded the first songs by the Jackson Five in 1967. A year
Amy Martin:later, the group signed with Motown Records, and the family
Amy Martin:moved to Los Angeles. As I said in our last episode, steel is
Amy Martin:everywhere in our kitchen and cars and wind turbines, and it's
Amy Martin:even in Michael Jackson's life story. Several of his
Amy Martin:grandparents came to Northwest Indiana in the first half of the
Amy Martin:20th century, when the steel industry was booming. They were
Amy Martin:searching for a better life than they could find in the Jim Crow
Amy Martin:South. Michael's dad, Joe, worked in one of the Gary steel
Amy Martin:plants before the Jackson Five took off.
Ed Sullivan:Gary, Indiana, here's the youthful Jackson
Ed Sullivan:Five.
Amy Martin:So before the break, we were talking about how
Amy Martin:industry developed through the oppression of black people, but
Amy Martin:paradoxically, industry jobs also provided a key stepping
Amy Martin:stone on the pathway out of that oppression in the 20th century.
Amy Martin:Families like the Jacksons, working in the steel mills in
Amy Martin:Gary, were finally able to make their attempt at the American
Amy Martin:dream. A lot of the steel they produced went to Detroit,
Amy Martin:Michigan known as the Motor City or Motown.
Amy Martin:Hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved to Detroit in
Amy Martin:the middle of the 20th century, leading to a unique
Amy Martin:concentration of young black talent there. Diana Ross, Smokey
Amy Martin:Robinson, Aretha Franklin.
Amy Martin:From 1910 until 1970, approximately 6 million African
Amy Martin:American people took part in the Great Migration, a mass movement
Amy Martin:away from the poverty and violence of the rural south into
Amy Martin:The industrializing cities of the northern and western US. And
Amy Martin:after centuries of brutal repression, there was a volcanic
Amy Martin:release of creative expression, athletic talent and political
Amy Martin:leadership. Black intellectuals like Angela Davis and James
Amy Martin:Baldwin pointed out the hypocrisy embedded in the
Amy Martin:nation's founding and the inequalities that were being
Amy Martin:perpetuated through the booming industrial economy.
James Baldwin:I don't know whether the labor unions and
James Baldwin:their bosses really hate me. That doesn't matter, but I know
James Baldwin:I'm not in their unions. I don't know if the real estate lobby is
James Baldwin:anymore against black people, but I know the real estate
James Baldwin:lobbies keep me in the ghetto.
Amy Martin:And as African Americans moved north and west,
Amy Martin:they demanded justice for those who were still suffering in the
Amy Martin:south. Elders who had grown up eking out a living as
Amy Martin:sharecroppers washed as their grandchildren led one of the
Amy Martin:most transformative social justice movements the world had
Amy Martin:ever known.
Amy Martin:Martin Luther King Jr.: It is a crime for people to live in this
Amy Martin:rich nation and receive starvation wages.
Amy Martin:And of course, the ideology of white supremacy
Amy Martin:didn't stop at the Mason-Dixon Line. As African Americans moved
Amy Martin:into cities like Chicago, Detroit and Gary in record
Amy Martin:numbers, they often faced hostility from European
Amy Martin:Americans at home and at work. In our last episode, Lori Latham
Amy Martin:explained how black steel workers were often funneled into
Amy Martin:jobs with more health hazards and fewer prospects for
Amy Martin:advancement, and as Mark Lash described earlier, as black
Amy Martin:families moved into places like Gary, white families fled. It's
Amy Martin:a story that's been repeated in city after city across the
Amy Martin:United States. But historian Leslie Harris says despite all
Amy Martin:of these obstacles, African American families kept moving
Amy Martin:north and west, drawn primarily by something they'd rarely, if
Amy Martin:ever, experienced, hope for a better life for their children.
Leslie Harris:In the north, you know, even if you are working in
Leslie Harris:manual labor, you can send your children to a much better
Leslie Harris:school, and again, have this hope for the next generation.
Leslie Harris:And of course, we know that that happened, that people got better
Leslie Harris:educations and went on from there. So it really was
Leslie Harris:different.
Amy Martin:So could we say then, in this phase,
Amy Martin:industrialization actually provides some opportunities and
Amy Martin:some ways out of the dominance of white supremacy?
Leslie Harris:Definitely, it gives people immense freedom.
Leslie Harris:Even if you didn't feel that you could access it as equally as
Leslie Harris:white people could. You knew it was there, and it sets your
Leslie Harris:sights higher.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman Wilson is clearly a person who sets her
Amy Martin:sights high. She was the first woman elected mayor in Gary and
Amy Martin:the first black woman mayor in the state of Indiana, from 2012
Amy Martin:to 2019. She was born and raised here, and she still lives in and
Amy Martin:loves Gary. I know this because she's wearing an "I love Gary"
Amy Martin:t-shirt.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: Growing up in Gary was was great. I just
Amy Martin:remember having a really happy childhood, seeing a very vibrant
Amy Martin:city, vibrant downtown area. We would go for blocks and go from
Amy Martin:store to store to store, which is very different today.
Amy Martin:I'm walking with Karen through a park near Lake
Amy Martin:Michigan, which she helped to restore when she was mayor. You
Amy Martin:can hear the wind blowing through the trees around us. She
Amy Martin:was born in 1960 and she says her family thrived here, along
Amy Martin:with the steel industry.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: it's been a tremendous benefit. I mean,
Amy Martin:you know, because of the steel industry, my parents were able
Amy Martin:to send me to school. You know, I didn't have to take out one
Amy Martin:student loan as an undergraduate.
Amy Martin:Karen's life is kind of the classic Great Migration
Amy Martin:success story. Her grandparents moved here from the Jim Crow
Amy Martin:South. Her father worked in the steel mills here for 35 years,
Amy Martin:and she graduated from Harvard University and then Harvard Law
Amy Martin:School. Today, she leads the Chicago Urban League but every
Amy Martin:step along that path toward greater freedom and opportunity
Amy Martin:has been hard won by African American people, and as the
Amy Martin:story of Gary shows, gains can be fragile.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: Gary has the highest number of vacant and
Amy Martin:abandoned properties by percentage than probably any
Amy Martin:other city in the United States. And that is largely because of
Amy Martin:what I referred to as a disorderly departure. There was
Amy Martin:a sequence of events.
Amy Martin:One of the first events in that sequence happened
Amy Martin:in 1967 when Richard Hatcher was elected mayor. He was Gary's
Amy Martin:first black mayor and one of the first black mayors of any US
Amy Martin:city.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: You saw white residents decide after
Amy Martin:Richard Hatcher was elected in '67 that the city was going to
Amy Martin:deteriorate, and there was no real reason. I mean, you had
Amy Martin:someone who was a lawyer, who was a very accomplished member
Amy Martin:of the city council, who was extremely capable, but the
Amy Martin:assumption was that, because he was black, that he would bring
Amy Martin:the city down. And so you had a very accelerated form of white
Amy Martin:flight. So that was in the early '70s.
Amy Martin:White-owned businesses also fled Gary after
Amy Martin:Hatcher's election. The Sears and Roebuck department store, a
Amy Martin:major downtown anchor and Gary moved to the newly formed white
Amy Martin:enclave of Merrillville. And in the early 1980s, with Richard
Amy Martin:Hatcher still in office, the national recession hit, and the
Amy Martin:steel industry went into a tailspin.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: And so you had an industry and its related
Amy Martin:parts that utilize steel from US Steel that were located within
Amy Martin:the city of Gary. And then all of a sudden, that industry went
Amy Martin:bust. Or it didn't go bust. What it did was it changed.
Amy Martin:Automation was the most profound and long lasting
Amy Martin:of those changes, jobs disappeared, and they never came
Amy Martin:back. Unable to pay their mortgages or sell their homes,
Amy Martin:Karen says many people basically fled foreclosure and headed to
Amy Martin:Houston, Minneapolis, Atlanta, anywhere they could get a job.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: Yeah. I mean, they just left everything,
Amy Martin:took what they could and went to other cities.
Amy Martin:When Karen was born in 1960, 178,000 people lived in
Amy Martin:Gary. Now the population is less than 70,000 that's a loss of 60%
Amy Martin:in 60 years. But as the city of Gary has been drained of people
Amy Martin:and businesses, the corporation that started it all, US Steel,
Amy Martin:has continued running and continued making money. It's
Amy Martin:among the top 40 largest steel producers in the world, with
Amy Martin:sales totaling more than $20 billion in 2021.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: they took the best that we had to offer in
Amy Martin:terms of labor that was more dedicated than you would find
Amy Martin:anywhere else in the world. You know, you've got people coming
Amy Martin:from the south happy to get off the farm, glad to work as many
Amy Martin:hours under whatever conditions that you would provide. We made
Amy Martin:steel for the world. And then all of a sudden, now that we're
Amy Martin:on hard times, nobody cares. Oh, you know Gary's armpit of the
Amy Martin:country. You see all of the health challenges that people
Amy Martin:have. You know, nobody wants to say that, well, you're willing
Amy Martin:to risk human life for industry, but that's what certainly has
Amy Martin:happened during the course of US Steel's existence here.
Amy Martin:This is true, not just for US Steel or Gary. This
Amy Martin:is the shadow side of our entire industrialization process. We
Amy Martin:have been willing to risk human life for industry. We've been
Amy Martin:willing to sacrifice places, ecosystems, entire species, for
Amy Martin:industry. And the ideology of white supremacy is one of the
Amy Martin:main gears keeping that industrial machine moving. It
Amy Martin:gives people permission to look away from what it really means
Amy Martin:to work in the steel mills of Gary, the meatpacking plants of
Amy Martin:Iowa, the lithium mines of Chile and the cobalt mines of the
Amy Martin:Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's the Faustian bargain
Amy Martin:of the Industrial Revolution in which some people and places are
Amy Martin:laid on the altar so others can prosper. But the climate crisis
Amy Martin:is exposing this ideology for what it is: a lie. There is no
Amy Martin:one group of humans that's entitled to more safety,
Amy Martin:prosperity and power than any other. Ultimately, we sink or
Amy Martin:swim together, whether you hold that as a moral belief or not,
Amy Martin:it's what the physics of the planet tell us. Karen
Amy Martin:Freeman-Wilson believes Gary can and will rebound, and she thinks
Amy Martin:industry can be part of that.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: What I began to understand probably
Amy Martin:halfway through my tenure, was that we didn't just want to do
Amy Martin:away with industry, we just wanted to get a greener and
Amy Martin:environmentally more sustainable industry going. There's a place
Amy Martin:for everything, but the environment should be considered
Amy Martin:throughout that development.
Amy Martin:when the world decided to bring an end to
Amy Martin:slavery, industry didn't collapse, it changed. So what
Amy Martin:could industry become if it was freed from white supremacy or
Amy Martin:any ideology that serves as a rationalization for abuse? Maybe
Amy Martin:Gary can be brought back to life and health, and maybe we can
Amy Martin:figure out how to make the things we need and want in a way
Amy Martin:that respects the fact that every place is someone's beloved
Amy Martin:home.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: I live here, so I care about this city,
Amy Martin:because this is a place that has given me so much, you know, I've
Amy Martin:gotten a lot from this community.
Amy Martin:And you've given a lot to this community.
Amy Martin:Karen Freeman-Wilson: Yeah, yeah. I mean, yes, mutual, yeah.
Amy Martin:So can we produce steel in a way that's actually
Amy Martin:good for the people who work in the industry and good for the
Amy Martin:planet overall?
Anders Linderg:The world needs steel, and we can deliver it in
Anders Linderg:a climate friendly way?
Amy Martin:We're going to try to answer that question with a
Amy Martin:visit to northern Sweden next time on Threshold.
Maureen McCollum:I'm Maureen McCollum from Madison,
Maureen McCollum:Wisconsin. Reporting for this season of Threshold was funded
Maureen McCollum:by the Park Foundation, the High Stakes Foundation, the Pleiades
Maureen McCollum:Foundation, NewsMatch, the Llewellyn Foundation, Montana
Maureen McCollum:Public Radio and listeners. This work depends on people who
Maureen McCollum:believe in and choose to support it. People like you join our
Maureen McCollum:community at thresholdpodcast.org
Amy Martin:This episode of Threshold was produced and
Amy Martin:reported by me, Amy Martin, with help from Nick Mott and Erika
Amy Martin:Janik. The rest of the Threshold team is Caysi Simpson, Deneen
Amy Martin:Weiske, Eva Kalea, Sam Moore and Shola Lawal. Our intern is Emery
Amy Martin:Veilleux. Thanks to Sarah Sneath, Sally Deng, Maggy
Amy Martin:Contreras, Hana Carey, Dan Carreno, Luca Borghese, Julia
Amy Martin:Barry, Kara Cromwell, Katie deFusco, Caroline Kurtz and
Amy Martin:Gabby Piamonte. Special thanks to Ellen Voss and Hannahbess
Amy Martin:Thompson Laing. Our music is by Todd Sickafoose.
