Tour Guide: Okay, everybody, now I want ya'll to face the house. I've seen it before, so grab your photos. You are standing in front of the iconic Mount Vernon, the home to our first president. I think you could probably show a picture of this to someone in any country and they could recognize it as George Washington's home. But actually, there's another story to be told here. The very first mention of slavery in Virginia is a letter written by John Rolfe to the Virginia Company in London. This is in the early 1600s. Now I asked a student once, "What does that tell us?" And they said, "George Washington didn't invent slavery." Well, it wasn't exactly what I was going for, but I thought, fabulous answer. He didn't invent slavery. In fact, Washington becomes a slave owner at the age of 11. His father dies, and part of his inheritance are 10 slaves. He owns them, just like you own your pair of shoes. You can do with them what you want, you can sell them, give them away, gamble them away, or rent them. Now it's interesting because of course people say—one of the big questions here—is, was Washington a good slave owner? Washington was actually a pretty typical Chesapeake slave owner. I can tell you how he differed. Washington recognized marriages. Don't forget, chattel property—like your shoes—don't have rights; and, of course, one of those rights are marriage, it's a right! Washington recognized families and marriages. And very early on Washington decided not to separate families and to honor those marriages. That is a significant way in which he differed from other Chesapeake slave owners. Now, we're going to head over and we're going to talk about daily lives of slaves here at Mount Vernon.

Tour Guide: In archaeology we see the real hidden lives. So we're going to go around and see where they lived. Saida Patel: I've never been to Mount Vernon before, and when you walk through the mansion or the slave quarters, you see that most of the places are defined by the people and I've never really communicated that with my students. I've never told them that place is defined by people. I hope to use that in different units that we do and talking about different places and how you can learn about people through studying those places and how people define those places as well. Tour Guide: Well, don't forget, you lived where you worked. Who were the skilled workers? The men. And most of the females are agriculturists. Samantha Brewer: The tour was really like, this is the information, this is the history, I'm going to tell it to you. Tour Guide: Now, Washington really wanted there to be positive incentives for working. Samantha Brewer: And the activities were much more what can you as an observer, as an intelligent person who has some amount of background knowledge, deduce from this without me telling you anything, just what can you see in the situation here. Voice off-screen: Who has the clipboard? Teacher 1: Alright, we're looking at things. Alright, start talking and I'll start writing. We do have some guiding questions, do you have your detective hats on, I don't notice them. Teacher 2: It's close quarters, just a common little cough, common little sneeze, could infect everybody here. Teacher 3: And there's not really a lot of ventilation. Teacher 4: Right, and it's dark. Teacher 2: Dark and a little damp. Teacher 3: They wouldn't have had these lights. Teacher 5: The window is like cross ventilation there. Teacher 3: Yeah, but that's the only—'cause there are these windows but— Visitor 6: 'Cause I was thinking the stairway from the kitchen that might have been where the main slave woman in the house that might be—have been her quarter. Multiple Visitors: Oooh. Saida Patel: We were supposed to put what we knew behind. So, we went with a clear mind and we were assigned into groups. We had daily life with the slaves. She told us to go in as "foreigners" and look at the objects there and analyze them: Why were they used? Why do you think this was here? What is this? Which I really enjoyed and I think it would be great to use with the students as well because it engages them automatically with the material. Samantha Brewer: It's really transferable to any sort of place, even if it's some place that we haven't studied or a place that I personally don't know a lot about going into it.

Meagan Rafferty: Sometimes you're going to have a teacher that comes in and their only thing that they really what to do here and take away from here is seeing the mansion. And other teachers say, you know, it meant everything to me to go on a slave life tour and learn more about the history of the enslaved community. And then still others say, you know, I just really wanted to do a hands-on workshop and walk away with these materials that I know I can just translate right into my classroom. Often times the group leader will have different expectations than the group members themselves. And so the way that I try to mitigate that is I try to put something in the schedule for everyone. Esther White: One of the things that we've been talking about a whole lot is, you know, when you go into these places every single thing that's there, it's all there for a reason. Someone has thought about even the direction that it will be placed on the thing and what is next to it and why it's there and every single one of those objects is supposed to sort of tell you a whole story about something. Teacher 1: One thing I found a little bit hard was the shaving kit, the actual little brush that people used to put the shaving cream on their face— Esther White: What I'm going to give you this afternoon is our internal memo that kind of goes through all the highlights of what's actually there and some of the decision-making processes that the curators used to get stuff back. So, yeah, the shaving kit is based upon a period shaving kit. Samantha Brewer: It's really not enough to just say this is what history was. You really have to ask people—kids—to really think about it and draw their own conclusions and take their own interpretations and that the process of evaluating different sources and different places really leads them to a much deeper, richer understanding of history that really stays with you and gives you things that you can actually work with in everyday life.

Esther White: I know probably on your slave life tour, right, it came up—let's see, what always comes up? Was George Washington a good master? I don't even know why we have to talk about that, right, he owned slaves. How do you put "good" with that, right? That's just a funny—

But I think then the challenge is how do we take that and expand the story? Expand it out. We're starting with that idea that, you know, yes, there are slaves here. Fact. There's either 316 or 317 depending upon the way you count the census, so I'm always a little bit fuzzy about that. But there's, you know, over 300 enslaved folks here. Now, you guys were looking at two bunkrooms, right?

Teacher 1: I would think showering is more of a maternal thing.

Teacher 2: And shaving would indicate male quarters.

Teacher 3: And the children, you know, if you think about it—

Esther White: What did you guys observe about work, or free time, from looking at the stuff in the those quarters?

Visitor 1: Well, I guess one thing we said, that some of the things that they might have been doing that were part of work could be used also for leisure, like knitting or sewing, you know, cooking food. We did see some other activities related to children in women's quarters, like marbles, and we noticed that there was a doll.

Esther White: Maybe a lot of leisure activities cross over. From stuff you're doing maybe for fun or for relaxing and stuff you're doing for work.

Visitor 2: We noticed also that what they did for work they also had to do for their home, as you could call it, if that's what it was. What they did for work—they also had to do laundry, mansion [laundry and] laundry for themselves; cooking at the mansion, cooking for themselves. Like she said, some of those kind of crept over into leisure—not really leisure, but you know what I mean.

Esther White: But that's not really leisure, right? Where's Group Two?

Teacher 3: Oh, right here.

Esther White: What themes did you guys have?

Teacher 3: Food.

Teacher 1: Washington's stuff is in the bags over there.

Esther White: Did it surprise you guys about the variety of food that there was?

Teacher 3: Yes, I was.

Teacher 4: I was surprised.

Esther White: That's one of the things—

Teacher 5: Well, we couldn't see the variety that was in the sacks.

Esther White: Okay.

Teacher 5: We could assume there was grains, flour—

Teacher 3: And was what was in the sack for them or was that—

Esther White: For elsewhere? Oh, good question.

Teacher 3: Right. It said GW on the bags.

Teacher 5: Because you asked us to try to differentiate foods that were rations and foods that were theirs, we assumed that those were rationed out foods from GW. And is that right?

Esther White: I think that's what they're supposed to be. They are rationed out foods and they are rationed out cornmeal. So all those sacks are only cornmeal.

Teacher 3: And in the women's quarters there seemed to be much more cooking going on. You see the cornbread made, you see some stews. And in the men's you see a rabbit, you see a duck.

Esther White: Yeah, I always notice that when I go in. The man has the rabbit and the women are doing the cooking. So is he going down with his rabbit and saying, you know, what that might be? "Hey, I've got a rabbit. Oh, I'm sweet on you, would you like to cook it up for me?" Or?

Teacher 5: Or I caught the rabbit, you cook it, let's eat it together.

Esther White: Right, because I'd like to spend time with you. Or I'm in charge of hunting and you're in charge of cooking and that's just the way that we have negotiated our spaces up here because we have got to get along. And you can just pull it apart in lots of different ways and begin to really think about individuals and what we know about them and where they're living, and then begin to concoct bits and pieces of their lives.

Rex Ellis: Good morning everyone, my name is Rex Ellis. I am the Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs at the National Museum of African American History and Culture—that's just a long title that says I do whatever they tell me to do. What we’ve tried to do with this exhibition is to suggest three things. Number one, we've tried to grapple with the whole idea of slavery especially in the era of the American Revolution and the paradox of liberty—those who are asking for liberty actually being those who are also slave owners. That's the paradox that we examine and try to talk about. Second thing that we wanted to do was to talk about Jefferson and his life. A little bit about Albemarle, a little bit about his parents, and a little bit about Jefferson the man and the sort of paradox that he is as well. Not only his public life, but his private life as well. There's a third section that happens to focus on the enslaved population at Monticello. That enslaved population reached, at some point throughout his lifetime, over 600 people. And so, we feel that there's—it's difficult to understand Jefferson without understanding his enslaved population. You will be introduced to six families within that larger population. And then finally, there is a section that we are calling, for lack of a better term, "Getting Word," because that is the name of the project that in 1993 two historians at Monticello embarked on to try to find descendants of the enslaved at Monticello. And that section talks about those descendants and where they are and the kinds of things that they are doing. What you see on the outside here are two visions that in some way suggest this whole paradox that we're talking about. Here is Thomas Jefferson and he's behind the Declaration of Independence; and here is Isaac Jefferson, he was a Granger, but he changed his name once he was freed to Jefferson. He is behind a farm book that Jefferson kept from 1770 all the way up until the beginning of the 19th century. That book was supposed to be a sort of diary of his farm and it has turned into one of the most important sources that give us some sense of who the enslaved were and what they did. Because as you see here, there are families that he mentions within the farm book; so with that information we know approximately when they were born, we know what their names were, and we can someway put them into the historical record in ways that we could not if we did not have this information. Also I will tell you that I don't believe Monticello is typical of the slave experience in the Colonial Chesapeake, I think it's very atypical. As you go through it, I think you will see that there are sort of parallels to the larger slave system. But Mr. Jefferson in a variety of ways was a unique man. He was a scholar, he was an author, he was an inventor, he was a farmer—he'd tell you he was a farmer, other folk would tell you no, no, no, he wasn't too good a farmer. But in a variety of ways he was a very, very—that sort of quintessential Enlightenment man who was much more of a Renaissance figure than he was sort of ensconced in the colonial period, as many were. They looked to him and what he said to determine what they should be thinking, in many ways. So as you go through, keep that in mind as well. Rex Ellis: This first area focuses on Jefferson and the idea that in order to see Jefferson clearly you must see him through the lens of his enslaved population. You will see a statue of Jefferson and then behind him you will see a series of names. They are names of over 600 enslaved—that we know—lived and worked in and around Monticello. And the idea here, again, is it allows us to see Jefferson more clearly. You will also see here Jefferson's lap desk, which was what he drafted the Declaration of Independence on. So in many ways that lap desk and the statue of Jefferson and what you see around it—the information you see around it gives you some sense of Jefferson's prominence, not only in the colonial period, but also his prominence as a slave owner. Christopher Hamner: I wanted to do, since we didn't get a chance yesterday, to do a little debrief on the museum and what was particularly useful about it, what changed the way that you thought about the past, what changed the way that you think about this chapter to your kids. Do you remember what the sort of framing is? Teacher 1: It's the Declaration of Independence on the one side— Teacher 2: On the right. Teacher 3: It's slavery— Teacher 4: The farm book on the left. Christopher Hamner: Yeah, right. And just those two images, you have to pick one or two things that go on the outside. And then the title: "Paradox of Liberty." This is all really carefully selected to get you thinking some new way about this person. If you just want to think about context and you want to think about content and this as a source. Think about how different the experience you have of Thomas Jefferson is if you spend 22 minutes in the "Paradox of Liberty" exhibit at the Smithsonian verses 22 minutes at the Jefferson Memorial, which is not very far away. How do you summarize a life if you've got…you can use 61 images, you can have a total of 12 hundred words, and the average visitor is going to spend 18 to 22 minutes walking through there. What parts of the story do you tell and what do you leave out. When I approached it that way I thought, gosh this is an impossible task that they have carried off really well.

Rex Ellis: The objectives in this area are several. Number one, to give you some sense of slavery in the Atlantic world, especially in the colonial period. Then to give you some sense of Mr. Jefferson and the kind of background and upbringing he had. Then to suggest some sense about Jefferson's attitude towards slavery. At the beginning on the wall that I'm facing you will see a variety of things that suggest the institution of slavery. There's a small map on the left-hand side of that portrait by George Morland that gives you some sense of the number of Africans who came to the New World. You will see that they came from all portions of Africa, from Senegal to the Bight of Biafra to the Bight of Benin all the way over to West Central Africa, even Madagascar and other places. But the largest number comes from, as you will see, West Central Africa. Somewhere around 5 million Africans disembarked in places like Pernambuco, Brazil, and South America. Somewhere around four million landed in the Caribbean—Jamaica, Barbados, Haiti, Cuba, those areas. Four hundred thousand came to North America. Four hundred thousand. Whether they were dealing with slave ships, building slave ships, and going—and transporting Africans back and forth, the American economy—the agricultural economy of America in some way, directly or indirectly, depended on the institution of slavery. So Jefferson from the very beginning of his life, there was an enslaved person who actually put him on a pillow and presented him to his father, Peter, and his mom, Jane. There was a slave at the end of his life, his name was Burwell Colbert, who actually fluffed up his pillow because he was the only one who understood what Jefferson was saying when he was at the end of his life and couldn't speak. He was the only one who understood that he was uncomfortable and that he needed his pillow adjusted. So, from the time he was born until the time he died, slavery was a part of the world that he lived in. Here you see a series of items that relate to the period of the Enlightenment. You see an inkwell by Voltaire, that's an image of Voltaire's head. You see glasses and you see Jefferson—who was a voracious reader, by the way—you see this revolving bookstand where he could read one, two, three, four, five books at a time. Speaker 1: You know how he had that bookstand, where he could read five books at a time and keep them open so you don't lose your place? And then you walk a couple feet that way, and some guy, his whole day every day is to pound nails. Like, so you get to do all of this fascinating stuff, and the people working for you are pounding nails over and over and over. And you saw, there were like five steps to making a nail and your sole goal is to make the most nails. So you get to be creative, thoughtful, and everybody around you has to be bored? Christopher Hamner: You know, I took away like the "Paradox of Liberty," that there's this really uncomfortable connection there. That some people were free to do all this grand philosophical thinking about politics and government and the nature of morals because other people were bored. You know, the fact that Jefferson—the leisure time that Jefferson enjoyed was on the part built on the backs of enslaved people piling up all this wealth and stuff so that he was freed. Rex Ellis: You will see here some sense of what we're suggesting about his view of enslavement. And you will find out as you read that Jefferson was not—that Jefferson believed in emancipation. He did not believe that emancipation was something that could happen here. He believed in emancipation connected with colonization. So that he felt that blacks and whites could not live together and once they were set free they should be delivered some place else in order to enjoy their freedom. Interestingly, 1791 he has a letter—somewhere around August he has a letter from a man named Benjamin Banneker. He's an African American, he's a scientist, he is an author, a very, very learned person himself. He writes a letter, what he said was he wanted Jefferson to help and to assist in the liberation of his people, he used—he sent him a copy of the almanac, he used himself as a way of saying, "This is what's possible given the help, given the education, given the support, this is what's possible within the black community." Eleven days later, Jefferson wrote him back and said wonderful letter, wonderful almanac, but I don't believe that the enslaved can in any way rise to the level of intelligence and the level of sophistication that you have risen to. So I generally say to folk when they ask me what I think about Jefferson, I say he was a man who was in terms of his intellect, he was ahead of his time; in terms of his morality, he was a product of his time. I think, more than most, though, Jefferson grappled with this issue. Speaker 1: I think that kind of summarized the entire exhibit, was that intellectually Jefferson was ahead of his time, but philosophically he was a product of his time. Speaker 2: And that's so current for today, though. Speaker 3: He did a good job at not giving you the answer for how we should judge him, not saying he was this or he was that. I think what it does effective to us is we're all a product of our time now, we might think that other people are wrong. Two hundred years from now everyone might think we're all wrong. So it kinda makes you step back, too, and think, well, how do I see my time? Christopher Hamner: I think it shows we're supposed to—sometimes we forget but we're a fairly young country. And now we're kind of looking at it and saying, yeah, well, you know we got some things right and we got some things wrong and it's okay to look at both of those so that maybe we can be more right the next time.

Christopher Hamner: What were the objects or the text or—what part did you stop and go, "Whoa." Teacher 1: I thought that the map, the to-scale of his entire plantation in the back was really, really interesting. Christopher Hamner: What was it that kind of— Teacher 1: Well, there were two parts. One, obviously, his house is so built on that hill it's almost on a mountain compared with his farmlands. I thought that's interesting management-wise. He's got kind of like a little town up near his house, and yet he's got these dispersed houses throughout the farmlands. And then I started thinking did he give his slaves who lived in those farmhouses somewhat of an autonomy as they were farming those areas because his house was miles away on top. Rex Ellis: Mulberry Row I think is very important. It's a 13-hundred-foot space on the northeastern side of the house. If this is Monticello here, and this is the north here, and this is the east, here is Mulberry Row. Somewhere around 20 homes is what it had on it, domestic spaces, as well as—there was a nailery, there was a blacksmith's shop, there was a textile shop, there were domestic houses, dairy. You either worked as a domestic, you either worked as tradesman or a craftsman, or you worked in the fields. Generally those were the three areas. Mulberry Row became a real proving ground to determine which one of those might be your fate. Between 12 and 16, Jefferson would engage them in work, males and females, at Mulberry Row. He would use that to make some determination about where the aptitudes were and where he would then assign those who he had working there. Then he brought a variety of people from around the country and even outside of the country, Scottish tradesmen and craftsmen, to teach the enslaved at Monticello a variety of the skills. So a variety of those were sort of determined based on the experience at Mulberry Row. Christopher Hamner: And then how was the other way that you encountered enslaved people at Monticello. Teacher 1: Through their lineage. Christopher Hamner: Okay. Whose? Teacher 1: One of the most famous would be the Hemings. There was— Teacher 2: The Grangers. Teacher 3: The Fossetts. Christopher Hamner: That second part of the exhibit, remember, the six families, that struck me as another choice. You know, what are we going to do? Instead of trying to cover all 600, they made this choice that we'll pick six—one well known and maybe some that are less well known, but we’ll really focus on that, just on those families' experiences. Rex Ellis: Now, these families, George Granger is the only man I know that was actually assigned to be an overseer at Jefferson. During Jefferson's lifetime he must have had over 30 overseers on the property. Granger was the only one that he had that was from the black community. And Granger was one of those that we use at least to suggest that Jefferson wasn't someone who was so struck by color until he didn't understand that it was merit that was the most important in terms of whom he allowed to do work, whom he allowed freedoms, and whom he did not allow freedoms. But there is an argument to be made for the precedent of the Hemings family. There were five generations of that family on the hill, over 70 people in that family on the mountain, started with Elizabeth Hemings who was the matriarch of the family and five generations of her family were at Monticello. The Hemings were treated differently, they were given freedoms no one else was given, several of them were even allowed to not only work, but to live off the mountain, and also to sort of move around as free people even though they were owned by Jefferson. You will find that the Hemings were the ones who did either the least work or worked as domestics or received privileges that others did not receive. And then finally for me the Fossett family. They were also Hemings but they were—Joseph Fossett was the grandson of Elizabeth. Joseph, the reason I wanted to mention him is because Joseph was the only member of his family that was freed in Jefferson's will. He set Fossett free, but Fossett was not free at the time that the auction took place, so he could not bid on his family. He watched his family being sold away. But he also knew some folk in Albemarle County that he had done business with, so he made requests of them that they purchase members of his family, and that, as a blacksmith, he was able to work and he promised and whatever it was that they paid for the price for them that he would then pay them back the price of his family. Somewhere in 1837, he purchased five of his children and four of his grandchildren and they all moved to Ohio. Teacher 1: The Hemings family, there were like these really nice pots from France and I just thought that helped paint a complex picture of Jefferson. Teacher 2: Right, I thought that—I enjoyed learning about the families, it was interesting to see the different dynamic that that plantation would have had than a lot of others. But I thought, too, it kind of focused on the fact that these were his most skilled slaves. They had the chair that that one person built, I know he had a trained French chef as a slave, that's not normal. Christopher Hamner: You get to know those six families really well, but at the same time you lose sight of all these people. And that's a trade-off. Do you want them to learn a couple of people's experience really deeply, or do you want them to get a bigger sense of the whole, the whole enormity of the operation.

Rex Ellis: Interestingly, that Joseph Fossett that I was telling you about, Joe Fossett had a great-grandson by the name of William Monroe Trotter, who founded—with W.E.B. Dubois—the Niagara Movement, he was an activist himself, a very, very well educated man. All of the families, the Hughes family, the Fossett family, the Hemings family, all took on responsibilities that in many ways were civic responsibilities. Frederick Madison Roberts, that you'll see on this end, was the first African American legislator in California. You will see also that the descendents of Sally Hemings and of Eston and Madison fought in the Civil War. So that continuation of family, that continuation of faith, Peter Fossett became a minister. It was Peter who said this, "My parents were here in Ohio and I wanted to be with them and be free, so I resolved to get free or die in the attempt." Peter ran away several times and was recaptured. And finally with the help of his family his freedom was bought and he finally rejoined his family in Ohio. Christopher Hamner: I thought this was one of the best museum exhibits that I'd ever seen. And I was particularly impressed because it's really sensitive. Plus, it's the Smithsonian Museum of American History, it's on the Mall, it's yards from the White House, and a stone's throw from the Congress building. There's a sense that this is the official history, it has this sort of weight based on where it is and the fact that it's the Smithsonian. Teacher 1: What struck me, I was wondering if this means how far we've come as a society, because do you think that 50 years ago you could have had an exhibit like this? Christopher Hamner: No, and that's something they didn't talk about, but I love the way that you're thinking in terms of this as a source. If you went back 50 years ago, totally different. Teacher 2: I liked the human touch to it, because they're much more complicated and they have to deal with their times. Rex Ellis: We know a great deal about a small number of the enslaved at Monticello. I told you there were over 600; I've introduced you to maybe 30 or 40 that we know a great deal about. Don't you dare leave thinking that those other 500 are not important as well. The fact that we have their names is a testament to Jefferson's record keeping and also to the history and the historians who have made this all happen. But if you ask me why I would say that Jefferson was anomalous and he was not normal—Jefferson said that he did not want—and I'm paraphrasing—but he said he wanted his enslaved population to respect him; he did not want them to fear him. He tried to keep the families together, he discouraged abroad marriages, he tried to get them to marry on the mountain so that the family was together there. So all of that is what makes me suggest that as a slave owner—Now I don't think that there is such a thing as a "good" slave owner, especially someone like Jefferson—when you think of the fact that he was governor of Virginia, when you think of the fact that he was a two-term president, when you think of the fact that he was Secretary of State, he had a variety of opportunities to do something significant about the institution of slavery. He never did. So, there is that reality to him; but there's also the other reality. And I think the public Jefferson and the private Jefferson are two different Jeffersons all together. In order to see Jefferson clearly, you have to see him through the lens of his enslaved community as well.

Suzannah Niepold: Just having lived in this country, you have all the background knowledge, all the tools you need, to analyze this and have some understanding of maybe what the artist is trying to say. It's a good starting point. I want you to use a really basic looking tool called the "Observation/Interpretation Chart," has anyone done anything like this before? Okay, yeah, it's pretty familiar. The goal is just to separate what you see from what you think it means. But it's more challenging for kids than you might think. Hopefully it will give them the tools they need to write a good historical argument, because you're essentially coming up with all your evidence, and then using that evidence to make an argument. So let's just start. Our goal is just to make a long list of observations based on this piece. What is it that you see here? Multiple Speakers: License plates. Suzannah Niepold: License plates. Okay, that's a— Speaker 1: State names. Speaker 2: Does spelling count? Speaker 3: Not for the HSA. Speaker 4: Somebody said state names. Speaker 5: ABC—yeah, alphabetical— Suzannah Niepold: Alphabetical order. The plates are in alphabetical order by. . .? Multiple Speakers: State. Speaker 2: Or district. Suzannah Niepold: There was some stuff over here I missed. Speaker 4: Common colors—white, blue, yellow, green. Speaker 5: It's "We the people of the. . . ." Suzannah Niepold: Ah, so it spells something out on the license plates. Speaker 1: It's the Preamble! Suzannah Niepold: The Preamble of the Constitution. Speaker 5: It's like each license plate has a state theme. Suzannah Niepold: How does it have a state theme? Speaker 5: On some of it. Like Alabama, "Heart of Dixie." Not all of them. Suzannah Niepold: Okay, so some of them have text— Suzannah Niepold: What else do you see on individual license plates? Speaker 6: A year. Speaker 5: Yeah, the year. And the artwork behind, depending on if it's just the plain—some are just two colors, some have three colors, some have like a picture behind it. Speaker 7: It's on the seat of a car, right? That somebody flattened out. Suzannah Niepold: Ah, so looking at the background reminds you of a seat of a car. Speaker 7: Like at a rest stop, or that you'd see in a diner or a drive-in or something. Suzannah Niepold: What do you see that makes you think diner or drive-in? What is it about the— Speaker 4: The metal on the outside of the cushiony seat. Speaker 5: And the color coordination. Suzannah Niepold: So the materials in the background make you think of the diner/drive-in or car seat. Speaker 8: How about six, five, six, six, five, six, five—in terms of how many license plates are in each row. Suzannah Niepold: So there's a pattern, there's not always the same number of license plates in a row, but it does alternate sort of sixes and fives. Speaker 2: Some have natural features on them while others are political statements. Suzannah Niepold: So the types of things chosen by the state, some are natural features and some are political. Speaker 5: It looks like some of them actually have—like Alabama has a tag on when they had to renew it and some don't, like if you look at Colorado, there's no dates on Colorado. Alabama's actually—it depends. And the number one color of the license plates—the background—tends to be white. The dominant color. Suzannah Niepold: That's good. A couple of people are noticing the dates on them, some of them have them, some of them don't, there's a bit of a range. Speaker 10: On most of the individual plates the words don't make sense by themselves. A couple do, like Hawaii is "none" and South Dakota is "this," but for the most part if you just look at one plate it doesn't really make much sense, it's just a couple of letters or numbers. Suzannah Niepold: So, looked at individually it's rare that a single license plate will have a word on it that makes sense. Is there anything else design-wise that is common to the license plates? Speaker 2: They're rectangles. Suzannah Niepold: So all the same shape. Speaker 3: They're bolted in with four bolts. Suzannah Niepold: Bolted in with four bolts, and those bolts are in the same location, right? Speaker 7: Deal with mass production for cars. Suzannah Niepold: There's evidence that these were mass-produced instead of custom made. Alright, are we ready to start moving into this column? Thinking about all of this as evidence, what do we think the artist is trying to say? Why did he put these license plates together to spell out the Preamble? And what does that tell us about our country? Speaker 2: Because all of them together is what shows us what our country is made of and really is the foundation of the nation, that we can't really go back to the Civil War era—we're not divided, we have to be all together. Suzannah Niepold: It's putting them all together is, how did you say, the spirit of the country? Speaker 2: Spirit of the country, basically what makes us make sense. Suzannah Niepold: So we are indivisible, we've come out of the Civil War and we're still part of the Union. Now what—: Speaker 4: It's obviously the shift to car culture, and that, you know, we are a nation of highways that are interconnected and the car is the way we get to places, we move from the cities to the suburbs, we move from Route 66. It's become—we're a nation of cars and highways. Suzannah Niepold: So his choice to use license plates is not random? Multiple Speakers: Right. Suzannah Niepold: He's really using that material to make another point about how we're a car culture. And that's another connection, right? As you mentioned, the highways connect all the states. Speaker 5: I also think it brings out the individual characteristics and history of each state, but yet we're all, as everyone has said, connected and that's what makes us strong. Yet, we each have flavor and things that are unique that make each state special. Suzannah Niepold: Great, so everyone had the theme or the slogan that you noticed, the symbols, whether they're natural environment or political symbols. The "flavor" is a great way to put it, but as he said, we're all indivisible; we're all part of the Union. I think maybe that pattern emphasizes that as well.

Suzannah Niepold: What's going on in this picture? Speaker 1: Relaxing after a hard day of work. Suzannah Niepold: What do you see that makes you say that? Speaker 1: You see both of the gentlemen sitting there who are sort of resting, as well as this younger gentleman over here. The little girl looks like she's kind of tired too. Speaker 2: The boots. Hanging. Suzannah Niepold: There are boots hanging here, okay. Speaker 3: He's got like work clothes on, and they look undone. Suzannah Niepold: Okay, so these look like his work clothes, how can you tell? Speaker 4: There are holes in them. Dirty shoes. Speaker 5: He's smoking a pipe. And the gun resting on the knee of the older gentleman. So maybe they were hunting? Speaker 6: They may be calloused, his hands [have] different coloration. So just outdoor work. Suzannah Niepold: So signs that they spend their time working outdoors. We noticed this man is smoking a pipe, this man is holding a gun. The pipe might add to the sense that they're relaxing after a hard day, and the gun might be an indication that they've been out hunting. Speaker 5: The black one looks like a hunting dog, the yellow one doesn't. Speaker 7: And there's another little one over underneath that the boy's playing with. Suzannah Niepold: This is one that's a little bit harder to see, especially if you're looking at this in reproduction, but there's a little tiny dog over here and then the two in the front. What makes this one look more like a hunting dog than the other two? Speaker 8: It looks like a Labrador. Suzannah Niepold: So it’s a breed we associate with hunting. Speaker 5: The yellow one looks like a herding dog. Suzannah Niepold: The title—which some of you might have noticed, we're not doing as much to cover it up this time—it's called A Dog Swap. What does that tell us about the picture? Speaker 7: So he's saying goodbye to his dog. Speaker 3: Or he's thinking about whether to go through with this or not. 'Cause he looks very pensive and the other guy looks like he's waiting for him to make up his mind. Speaker 8: He certainly has his gun there to make sure that he's— [laughter] Suzannah Niepold: You did something when you said waiting, you went forward a little bit, and I think that this man is leaning forward, which indicates that maybe he's waiting for an answer. As you said, this man is looking more pensive, more thoughtful. Speaker 1: Maybe that's why the little girl is sad? Maybe that's going to be her pet they're giving away. Speaker 5: Look at that little puppy, don't give him away! Speaker 1: They're going to give the black dog away because you can see he's kinda like comforting him, like don’t worry you'll be okay. Speaker 3: I think the little boy is interesting because he's kind of like fading into the background. Speaker 7: He's looking away. Suzannah Niepold: He's looking away, he's faded into the background a little bit. Why do you think the artist might have done that? Speaker 9: Maybe he's attached to the dog. Suzannah Niepold: Oh, he's attached to the dog. So why is he facing away? Speaker 9: It's his dog. Suzannah Niepold: Now what else is the little boy doing? Speaker 7: Playing with the other— Speaker 10: Focusing on a new dog. Suzannah Niepold: Yes, he's playing with this one. Speaker 10: Out with the— Speaker 9: Somebody's already said, we're getting a new dog. Suzannah Niepold: So he's coping with it by turning away, playing with the little puppy. Why do you think the choice of dog is important to this family? Speaker 7: It looks like they're in a field—so maybe, if the other dog is, like she said, a herding dog then it would be more working for them, for their livelihood, I guess. Speaker 10: Maybe this is a stretch, is that a fishing net? Suzannah Niepold: So they're using the land, they've got a fishing net. Speaker 8: You can see fencing in the background. Speaker 9: You've got your cabbage and collards up front. Speaker 7: One would assume that makes it a community kind of situation where people are helping each other; perhaps they are dependent on each other. Hunter-man brings meat, and this family farms. Suzannah Niepold: Okay, so maybe it's a community exchange. Speaker 3: Some kind of sharecropping. Suzannah Niepold: What else can you tell about their daily life and the condition of their home? Speaker 1: A dirt entryway. Speaker 7: You can tell in terms of relationships, Mom's in the doorway kind of hovering in the back with what looks to be the older daughter. So the women are kind of back away from the decision making of this or in the home, so to speak. Suzannah Niepold: So the decisions are being made by the men, the women are a bit farther away. Speaker 7: Yeah, because even the boy is outside. Suzannah Niepold: Someone mentioned sharecropping, this painting is from 1881, the artist is from Warrington, VA, so not too far away. So if this is painted after the Civil War, a little bit even after Reconstruction, what do we know about the lives of these people? Speaker 8: They're very, very tough. Suzannah Niepold: Tough how? Speaker 8: They're having to make their own way in a segregated society where nobody's looking out for them. And sharecropping—very tough, very tough occupation. Suzannah Niepold: Tough life. As you noticed in the beginning, probably working outside, working the land, getting food however they can—whether it's growing things, fishing, hunting. What are maybe some of the advantages though? Multiple Speakers: Free; self-sufficient; freedom Suzannah Niepold: Self-sufficiency, freedom. Speaker 9: Autonomy. Suzannah Niepold: Autonomy. Speaker 7: You have the ability to build relationships, remember we were talking about the community. Before you could be sold off and not have a family and not be a part of a family. Speaker 3: And they're trading property that they have now, which before they would not have been able to. Suzannah Niepold: So they have property. So the dogs maybe represent that. Someone mentioned family; I think that's very important that you have a family group together.

Suzannah Niepold: This is a work that I find really interesting because even though it's really an everyday scene there's a lot of maybe kind of misconceptions that feed our interpretation of this work. So I'm interested to see what you can make of it. What's going on in this picture? Speaker 1: There are no men. Suzannah Niepold: There are no men, so it's all women. And what else? Speaker 2: These little girls are fighting. Suzannah Niepold: How can you tell that they're fighting? Speaker 2: Because the one girl is yelling at her, wearing red, and the little girl in blue has her hands at her hips and is like nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah. So, you can tell they're fighting. Suzannah Niepold: So the artist gives us some really clear body language. The girl in the red top sort of leaning forward, mouth wide open, the other girls have kind of squinchy faces. Speaker 3: It seems like school, like parents dropping their kids off or picking their kids up or something. Speaker 4: The moms don't look real happy. Suzannah Niepold: So there's not any sort of bright smiles on any of the women's faces. How about the scene as a whole, what do you think the mood of the whole picture is? Speaker 1: Well, could it be Sunday? Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm thinking it could be Sunday. Because the mother has a flower on her lapel. It could be Sunday. Suzannah Niepold: Without looking at the title, which is going to give it away, how can we tell if it’s a school-related thing, as you first thought, or a Sunday, like church perhaps. Speaker 6: There's no religious imagery in it. Speaker 3: A couple of them have books, but the books are different colors, and they don't say Bible. There's nothing that looks churchy, there are no crosses. Speaker 1: There's nobody wearing hats, that's churchy. Speaker 5: None of them are wearing hats. Speaker 2: Not all of them. Speaker 3: There's one woman in a hat. Speaker 7: Is that a graduation hat? Suzannah Niepold: You know, that's one of the misconceptions again because it has that kind of flat top. But if you look at it closely it's not a mortarboard, it’s a fancy hat. Speaker 7: They're all wearing dresses. Speaker 8: I was thinking '50s. Speaker 5: Girls didn't wear pants back then. Speaker 6: If it's Sunday, where are there husbands and sons and brothers? Speaker 5: It could be a Women's Day; I've gone to Women's Day events before. So it could be Women's Day. Suzannah Niepold: Someone mentioned there are no churches in the background, can you identify any types of buildings in the background? Speaker 5: I don't know—it looks like a school. Suzannah Niepold: But which part looks like a school and how can you tell? Speaker 7: The left. Speaker 5: But a lot of churches are in schools. I went to church in a storefront, so—back then, I don't see a storefront, but I used to go to church here in Maryland in a school. I think it's probably a school or a church event. So it doesn't necessarily have to be "school" because people don't always go—in urban settings, people don't always have access to a church building. They do church in different buildings. Speaker 2: I think their skirts are too short for church. Speaker 9: That's what I was thinking, that one girl kneeling— Suzannah Niepold: Some of the evidence I hear for school is that this fence was built maybe to control people, to keep them in, so maybe the playground is inside the fence. As you said, there's no men, it's all women and female children. The clothing will throw your students off, they're not used to an everyday scene where everyone is in dresses or everyone is dressed up. What else is going on, what else can you find? Speaker 4: It reminds me of Baltimore with the red brick and the stoops and the Federalist architecture. Speaker 6: The obvious thing to me is that there's black and white children and that right central there's an African American woman holding the hand of an African American child and what appears to be a white child has her arm wrapped around that woman. Speaker 3: It seems the African American women are the ones caring for the kids. And maybe the mom's coming to get her? Speaker 5: But they're not wearing maid uniforms. Suzannah Niepold: So the adults, unless I'm getting this wrong, are all African American—or the ones that I can see. Speaker 2: No. Speaker 4: She's raising her hand. Suzannah Niepold: But there are children, there are Caucasian children. Speaker 5: Well, wouldn't the Caucasian children be with their nannies? Speaker 9: That's what I was wondering, are they nannies? Suzannah Niepold: Are they nannies, or what other roles could they be filling? If it's a school scene— Multiple Speakers: Teachers. Suzannah Niepold: If this is a school, what do we know about the school based on the people that we see. Speaker 5: All girls. Speaker 6: It's mixed. Suzannah Niepold: It's mixed, it's not segregated by race, just by gender. Speaker 5: I don't know, African American people are all different colors, so when I see someone who's lighter I don't assume they're white. Suzannah Niepold: That's true, sometimes you can get into dangerous— Speaker 5: I'm not saying they are or aren't at this point, I'm not saying that. Suzannah Niepold: You're right, so we can leave it as an open question mark. But there are certainly children with—just literally white, not even peach-colored. Speaker 6: Right, because that girl with her hand up stands out to me in the back. She's like waving; I can't tell what she's doing. Speaker 7: It's almost designed to draw your attention. Suzannah Niepold: The title is School's Out, so whoever said end of the daym whoever said school, they're borne out by the title. It's 1936. What part of the country would we imagine this to be? You said it looks a little like Baltimore. Speaker 10: Gotta be in the North. Suzannah Niepold: Okay, why does it have to be in the North? Speaker 10: Because of the integrated school. Suzannah Niepold: And why does it have to be a big city? How can we tell that about the image? Speaker 4: Because of the Federalist architecture. Speaker 6: And that's a lot of people. You wouldn't have that many children of that age in a small town school. Suzannah Niepold: This artist—one of the reasons that we always put the birth and the death dates and locations of the artist is to try and give you a sense of where the scene might be and what their background knowledge is. Allan Rohan Crite spent most of his life in Boston. So we think, based on an interview with him, that this is a South Boston school in 1936. If you look at the history of segregation in the schools—because he is an African American artist, this is an African American show—is that the schools were desegregated in the 19th century, but the neighborhoods weren't. So because the schools were just organized by neighborhood they were still vastly majority African American school or white school. So here you see maybe a few who either are light-skinned or are white, but certainly the majority are African American.

Suzannah Niepold: So again, just take a minute to observe the detail before we talk about it. What's going on in this artwork? Speaker 1: It's looking kind of at a study of Africa, of African culture. Suzannah Niepold: What do you see that makes you say that? Speaker 1: The books that I can see from here are about—you've got Africa and Asia, The Soul of Africa, the book there Africa Since 1413. Suzannah Niepold: So the book titles are turning into a bit of a clue about the artist's intention or message for the entire work. And something that really pops out to you is Africa. Speaker 2: Americans in particular like W.E.B Du Bois and the language that of course then was used, so you certainly see like the African American experience. Suzannah Niepold: It's an African American experience but tied back to Africa, which is appropriate since we are in the American Art Museum. Speaker 1: Then you have some odd ones that seem out of place, like Pushkin. Speaker 3: And some of covers seem more worn than others. Suzannah Niepold: Some of the books are maybe more worn, more well read than others. Are there any in particular that look more worn? Speaker 3: The Du Bois book. Suzannah Niepold: Because the title is wearing off a little bit. Speaker 4: She has then N and the A Encyclopedias of Knowledge, Culture, and I don't know what that word is on the bottom shelf. Suzannah Niepold: Yeah, it doesn’t always give you the title. So there's a repeated theme in the encyclopedias, that the volumes on the shelf refer to the N words or the A words. Speaker 1: Well the n-word is right there. Suzannah Niepold: Yes. And that is an issue, obviously, if you're using this in schools, and if you want to talk about that we certainly can. I use it only on a kind of case-by-case basis depending on the teacher and the class in school. But this can be kind of a major point of discussion with kids, the language that's used in the text. What more can you find? Speaker 5: I think I'm in debate on "sob," if it's really "sob" or if it's son of a— Suzannah Niepold: So there are these words here that could be read as "sob" or could be read as "S.O.B." Again, with prior approval from the teacher I have taught that acronym to about 300 8th-graders at this point. Doing well! What else do you notice about the words, how are they painted? What are they? Speaker 4: Her thoughts. Suzannah Niepold: Her thoughts. Where do we recognize that as thoughts from? Where do we get that? Multiple Speakers: Comics. Suzannah Niepold: Cartoons, comic books, so that's one kind of influence on this artwork. What more can you find? Speaker 6: She seems to be looking out somewhere. We see this window here, I don't know if she's looking at someone or out the window. Suzannah Niepold: How can you tell where she's looking? Speaker 6: Well, I mean just from the way her face is turned, her eyes are directed someplace other than— Suzannah Niepold: Everything—her face and her eyes are directed up here and directed away from the books. Speaker 7: I don't think it's her house. Suzannah Niepold: Okay, tell me what do you see that makes you say that? Speaker 7: I just look at how she's dressed, she's got on heeled shoes, she might—from where I'm thinking—just be visiting and all of a sudden inspecting somebody else's library. And then she just starts pulling off these books, and then she turns and maybe she just has a question or a strong feeling. Suzannah Niepold: Ah, strong feeling. Well, we see her thoughts. Speaker 4: So she may be listening to someone and thinking. And then she's also sitting on the floor, you're right, she's dressed up, but she's sitting on the floor. Speaker 3: What about those two books on the second shelf? The Slavery of Freedom and Black Women and White America almost as like questioning of the future, what's been lost? Speaker 8: I see bookshelves like this every ay at the office because you're always trying to figure out who the occupant is based on what they're reading. One of the things that kind of connects the books for me is this idea that Africa is interesting and significant as long as it's impacting white people. Africa becomes interesting when we start exporting slaves, Slavery to Freedomm you know it's the ownership of African Americans that makes it important. It's not interesting in and of itself, but only in its implications. Which would make me say either "sob" or "S.O.B." Suzannah Niepold: Yes. That's interesting, first of all because by looking at a bookshelf we can tell a lot about the identity of the owner of the bookshelf, who has arranged or even curated that collection of books. And also that so many of these are focused on Africa after European contact and the impact on this country. All of these books, I don't know if you've ever read any of them, but they are all real. We did end up featuring this in one of our programs I work on with 8th-grade students because the teacher, when selecting works with me, came up and said my parents had the same bookshelf. Not literally the same bookshelf, this very kind of fragile—maybe it's meaningful that the artist put this one spindly leg out there so that the whole history is going to just crash down. But she really related to this and she wanted to kind of bring some ideas together in her classroom and she was comfortable bringing out some of the more uncomfortable history, which, depending on your class and your group and how well you know them, you may not be. So this is one of the more challenging works, but the result, the product we got, we had students write about this work, were in the end deeply meaningful and they found real relevance to their own histories here. So we found it worth it in that situation.

Suzannah Niepold: Some of you jumped right into this, but what's going on in this picture right here? Speaker 1: Segregation. Suzannah Niepold: Segregation. What do you see that makes you say that? Speaker 1: The big wall in the middle of the room. Suzannah Niepold: Big wall in the middle of the room. What more can you find? Speaker 1: Not equal. You've got the fan on the one side; the bartender is on the white side. Suzannah Niepold: The bar tender is on the white side of the bar; the fan is on that side of the bar. Speaker 2: Is the bartender holding a paper? Speaker 3: Yeah, I was trying to figure that out, it kinda looks like a face. Suzannah Niepold: What about his face? Speaker 3: No, this looks like a face, like, I feel like it's one of those cartoons, this is like the nose. We're trying to figure it out. Suzannah Niepold: Yes, it almost looks like there's a profile in possibly the newspaper he's holding; the shadow creates the image of a face. If that was intentional, what do you think the artist was trying to do there? What could it mean? Speaker 4: Have the white man looking at himself and actually reflecting upon what he's created, essentially. Looking at himself in the mirror, so to speak. Suzannah Niepold: Looking at himself in the mirror and reflecting on what he's created. And what has he created? Speaker 4: A segregated society, inequality, and divisiveness. Speaker 5: Unhappiness from the looks of all the people. Suzannah Niepold: So divisiveness, unhappiness, inequality. Are these kind of separate but equal? We talked about the fan and about the fact that he's sitting on this side of the bar. Is there anything else you notice that's different about the two sides? Speaker 3: There are physically more people on that side versus this side. Speaker 6: Am I mistaken, is this a woman on this side? Suzannah Niepold: In red, I believe. I would read that as a woman. Speaker 6: Okay, so that means something—I'm not sure what. Speaker 7: I don't know whether the character is either—I think he's dancing. Suzannah Niepold: The man with his hand up this way? Okay, that's one way to sort of read that pose. Speaker 7: And then over his shoulder there's another face. Suzannah Niepold: So there's maybe someone facing him and dancing with him. What does that tell you about this side of the room? There's a woman here, and maybe a second woman dancing with the man. Do you get a sense of the mood or the personality of this side as opposed to this side? Speaker 8: This one looks much more happy. This one, everyone looks angry or shady, or like something's going down. Suzannah Niepold: Shady, what do you see that makes you say shady? Speaker 8: I mean, this guy's like looking over his shoulder, that guy has his hat pulled down. And this side as much as it's not equal, they don't have the fan and things, I feel like they're having a better time. It's almost like they have their own—it's a different type of freedom. Suzannah Niepold: So some of the expressions and poses on this side are very—hat pulled down, over the shoulder, kind of angry looking or "shady," as you said. Speaker 9: The back of the bar's like lopsided—I don't know if that makes sense. Suzannah Niepold: How—well, tell me about the lopsided idea. Speaker 9: Well, it's not equal—it's not straight, I don't know. Speaker 10: I think it's really the white guy's perspective, too. You can tell that he's over here, if he's looking at it. So he painted himself on that side of the picture. Suzannah Niepold: So the artist put himself on the white half of the picture so that the person looking at it sees off to one side. We're not looking at it straight on, with the wall just being a thin shape, we're seeing the line of the wall. Speaker 1: A lot of bars have mirrors on the back, so, actually, the artist could be sitting— Suzannah Niepold: Yes, could be facing the mirror. Speaker 10: What's the year? Suzannah Niepold: 1941. Speaker 11: And the doorways, maybe it's just the angle, but the doorways are shorter—one's larger than the other, it appears. Suzannah Niepold: But we notice there's two doorways. Speaker 11: There's two doorways, exactly. Suzannah Niepold: Okay, so what else does that tell us? Multiple Speakers: They have separate entrances. Suzannah Niepold: Okay, so separate entrances. Almost trying to create two entirely separate spaces. What's interesting about the date this work was created is that Lawrence, as a Northern artist—he's born in New Jersey, he moves to Harlem, spends most of his life in Harlem. This is his first trip to the South, so it's his first experience with segregation. And he chooses to paint this. This is the year after his famous Migration Series, and if you know that series you know he's painted the South a great deal; he's kind of told those stories but he's never actually been there himself. So this is representing his first experience of being in a segregated place.

Suzannah Niepold: Next to this is another Jacob Lawrence, he painted this as a study for a mural for New York State on the theme of "Community." Notice again, it’s hard to see unless you come up a little bit closer to it. How is the mood of this piece maybe a little bit different from the mood of this piece? Speaker 1: It’s a little bit lighter; everyone’s together. Suzannah Niepold: Lighter, everyone is together. There’s not that big wall in the middle. Speaker 2: Lots of smiles. Suzannah Niepold: Yes, really exaggerated smiles on the faces of the people. Speaker 3: A sense of cooperation, people are bringing their tools, somebody’s already started working. Suzannah Niepold: So it’s a cooperative, productive environment of creation. Speaker 4: It’s not so much social, versus professional—for lack of a better term. Suzannah Niepold: And then the other contrast we can draw on this wall is this piece over here. This is later, this is 1962. And it’s interesting having it in the context of other works by African American artists, especially dealing with civil rights, because it is, of course, very different—it’s abstract. How can you read—in fact, come up closer, I'm sorry to make you keep moving, but you really need to see. What do you notice about this piece here? Speaker 1: Red, white, and blue. Suzannah Niepold: Okay, so red, white, and blue—we associate with America, American flags. Speaker 2: We’re looking at regionalism here in the United States? I don’t know. Speaker 3: Each color is in its own area. Suzannah Niepold: So how would you—where does the United States fit into this? Where do you see that? Speaker 2: Red, white, and blue, but then I can take West Coast, I can take the North, the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast. Suzannah Niepold: So are you saying that you see the shape of the country? Speaker 2: If you wanna see it you can, yeah. Suzannah Niepold: That is the joy of abstract art, right? No, you’re not the only one to see the shape of the country in the colors; so maybe we’re looking at regional differences. Knowing that this is about civil rights, does anything start to emerge with the colors? Speaker 4: Upside-down peace symbol? Speaker 5: Abstract Klansmen. Suzannah Niepold: Can you point any out specifically? Speaker 5: I don’t know, that kind of strikes me— Speaker 6: Horsemen there, and this turns into flames when you put— Suzannah Niepold: So then the white maybe represents the white robes of the Klan, what might the other colors start to represent? Blood, flames, smoke, absolutely. So the red, white, and blue is kind of transformed into something very different. The title of the work is “Evening Rendezvous.” Why choose the title “Evening Rendezvous” rather than, you know, "Meeting of the Klan"? Speaker 7: It sounds a lot better. Suzannah Niepold: But it sounds better in what way? Speaker 7: I mean, it doesn’t sound bad. Speaker 3: Nothing bad is happening. Suzannah Niepold: Nothing bad is happening, it’s part of what’s going on. Speaker 8: They did things in secret; if people knew they were coming, they’d probably run.