00:04:08.260So you're talking about it came out of the Civil War, but it wasn't until the early 1900s that it started being reported on or people knew it was happening? Is that what you said?
00:04:17.860At least from my take on the research in terms of the national scale. Of course, people living in this environment knew what the stakes were with Jim Crow. But with certain institutions such as the NAACP, there were a lot more active attempts to report and make known on a national, international stage.
00:04:36.020This is what African-Americans are going through. The newspaper that's actually featured in the book, The Chicago Defender, was a really great advocate for reporting on the atrocities happening in the South. The Chicago Defender had an incredibly wide publication. Their audience spanned the entire country and even other parts of the world.
00:04:52.460and they did an exceptional job on making sure that Black Americans in the South could see what
00:04:59.360the world was like outside of the South, but also vice versa. For readers who were in more what we
00:05:04.940may call progressive, but truly it's more of a superficial progressivism, as we may talk about
00:05:10.100a little bit later with Chicago, but that they could see what was happening in the South and
00:05:13.760what people were living with, what people were dealing with, how dire the straits were. So I feel
00:05:18.980as we went into the 1900s, the media attention on Jim Crow became a lot more prevalent. But of
00:05:24.700course, the essence of Jim Crow was existing in the 1880s, 1890s, 1870s. So the newspaper that
00:05:31.880you talk about in the book, so we'll talk about your main character. So Nellie, she is a lady0.88
00:05:37.240journalist, which is the sort of character I always appreciate. It just makes me think of so
00:05:42.000many classic movies about like a lady reporter. But so the Chicago Defender that she's writing
00:05:47.720for that. I didn't realize, I just assumed that you had made that up, but that's a real newspaper.
00:05:51.980Yes, yes. And it's still in circulation, still in publication. It is, when you talk about
00:05:57.140the civil rights movement and then the history of social justice around Black lives and the Black
00:06:04.020experience in this country, the Chicago Defender is a foundational element of that. The way that
00:06:10.520they reported on the different facets of what it meant to be Black in America. And really,
00:06:16.840when you talk about the Great Migration, which for those that might not be aware was there were
00:06:21.520about two periods of Great Migration where Black Americans in the South really did in essence
00:06:26.760migrate out of the South because of the oppressive laws, because life there was just becoming so0.98
00:06:31.680dangerous and difficult where, you know, you saw Black Americans spread all throughout the country.1.00
00:06:37.040Chicago became a kind of representation of what the Great Migration looked like in terms of where1.00
00:06:41.880a lot of Black Americans ended up migrating, but you were seeing Black Americans going into the
00:06:46.240East Coast. You saw Black Americans going into the Midwest and the Far West just to really escape0.97
00:06:51.880the terrible conditions that they were being forced to live under, that we were being forced
00:06:55.600to live under in the South at that time. So the Great Migration, in essence, when you're talking
00:07:00.560about the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Defender was a great way for Black Americans in the South
00:07:05.880to read and see what kind of opportunities existed in places like Chicago. A lot of people
00:07:11.240do consider that newspaper to be one of the driving forces behind the Great Migration,
00:07:15.420just to give readers a view of what opportunities exist and what life could look like and really
00:07:21.320encourage people and give them places where they can go, people that they can connect with once
00:07:25.780they're there to make the prospect of leaving the South all the more doable and realistic and
00:07:31.740achievable. So let's talk about Chicago itself, which I mentioned before, it's like, oh, I love
00:07:39.260like books about Chicago in the 20s, but I've never read a book about like Chicago in the 20s
00:07:43.060in the Black community there. So that was a whole other side of things that I wasn't,
00:07:46.960that really helps illustrate so much more was going on there than what, you know,
00:07:51.540I'm just thinking about like old Al Capone movies or whatever. But so talk about the Chicago of your
00:07:57.740book. Well, the Chicago of the Mirror of Maxwell Street is, as you were saying earlier, it's all
00:08:02.020the things that we love about, you know, 1920s narratives. It's very flashy, very boozy, very
00:08:06.020provocative, beautiful clothes, fast cars driven by fast women. But it's also a, what I attempted1.00
00:08:13.020to capture was the great diversity in Chicago at the time. Chicago was incredibly diverse,
00:08:18.340ethnically, socioeconomically. Immigrant population in Chicago was vast and spanned a lot of different
00:08:24.000kind of origin countries. You know, in the book itself, we see the Greek Delta, which was a
00:08:29.300source for a lot of Greek immigrants that were coming to America at that time, really before
00:08:34.6001920s and early 1900s, but well into the 1920s as well. You see a lot of Eastern Europeans,
00:08:40.580You go to the actual Maxwell Street Market, which was mostly known for its Jewish representation.
00:08:46.460But also the great thing about the Maxwell Street Market was that it was incredibly diverse.
00:08:52.260When you read narratives about the market during that time and prior, there's a lot of discussion about how diverse that market was, that stretch of road, where it felt like anyone who had something to sell could sell there and actually make a way for themselves in a more equitable environment.
00:09:06.140So I really loved exploring the diversity in Chicago at the time.
00:09:10.580and showing how vast the city was and how so many different cultures and mindsets and ethnicities
00:09:15.980really created the Chicago of the 20s. But also the Chicago of the 20s was deeply corrupt,
00:09:21.340probably one of the most corrupt cities in America at the time. And that was important
00:09:25.100to shine a light on. I didn't want to ignore that. It's what some people expect, of course,
00:09:29.340from 1920s narratives, but it's also very, very true. And the ramifications go beyond, you know,
00:09:34.700Al Capone and prohibition and booze and guns. That level of corruption had a direct effect
00:09:40.380on people's lives, more often than not, on the lives of the poor, of the immigrant populations,0.95
00:09:46.200of the black and brown populations. And that's important to shine a light on as well, that the
00:09:50.900corruption wasn't a victimless crime, that people were truly suffering under these types of
00:09:56.600administrations. Well, and I found that that was part of what, again, like I've read the book,
00:10:01.360and I really love the book. It was a sort of book, I was reading it, you know, during the
00:10:05.700workday or something. And on my lunch break, I'm like, I have to go back to work. Like I need to,
00:10:09.520And it was always some sort of cliffhanger where I ended and I'm just like, oh, what's going to happen next? It's a very dramatic book. But yeah, I think that's what I really, I really got in the book was the sense of just the stakes and how scary it is. Because, you know, when I think about like flappers and prohibition and speakeasies, it's like, yeah, but like, it's actually so dangerous. And your book really makes that clear just how dangerous it is.
00:10:32.720um can you talk about so the main character Nellie who actually there's so much I want to
00:10:37.860talk to you about Nellie I loved her she's just like brave to the point of just like recklessness
00:10:45.220and just like beyond which is such a fun person to read about but just talk about her background
00:10:51.780because she's so she's from this wealthy family which also brings a different element
00:10:56.780of understanding about the black American experience at this time
00:10:59.840yes of course so to give a little bit of a biography of Nellie Sawyer um her parents and
00:11:08.080this is a fictional family this is an entire creation this is not based on any real individuals
00:11:12.140from history um but her family became extraordinarily wealthy through the breeding and selling of
00:11:18.040racehorses in Kentucky and that does have its roots in history in the sense that black Americans were
00:11:23.400a big part of the kind of Kentucky Derby origin story. In essence, a lot of the first jockeys
00:11:29.920were Black. A lot of the best horse trainers were Black until, of course, Jim Crow came about0.78
00:11:34.320and certain white Americans didn't like seeing Black Americans in these positions where they
00:11:39.680were more visible, especially when they were winning and gaining accolades. So Jim Crow kind0.86
00:11:43.680of put a stop to that rise. But what I tried to envision through the Sawyer family was what would
00:11:49.120happen if Black Americans were truly allowed, especially within the Kentucky horse space,0.92
00:11:53.600to follow through on their legacy? What would that look like? And in that vision of the Sawyer
00:11:58.580family, they're an incredibly wealthy family, but they're also new wealth. And within the Black0.84
00:12:03.080elite community at the time, new wealth was something to not judge, but just a level of
00:12:10.240suspicion. Because as you learn about the Black elite throughout the country, throughout its
00:12:14.040history. It's very much an insular community about maintaining the defense against the0.92
00:12:20.220oppression, against the racist policies, where wealth and prosperity and education and business
00:12:26.820can be a way to protect yourselves from what so many are exposed to, what the essence of
00:12:32.260this country is really built on in terms of systemic racism. So when you start inviting
00:12:36.820new wealth into that picture, for these characters in the Black elite at the time, at least in how0.89
00:12:42.360I portrayed them, that could be a threat sometimes to the wall that you've built to protect yourself.0.91
00:12:47.660Once you start showing cracks in that wall, that's when you become more vulnerable. That's when the
00:12:52.220world can maybe take a little bit more advantage of you. So that's a little bit about where Nellie's
00:12:56.280coming from in terms of her family history. She's lived a very isolated life in this pretty well
00:13:03.520protected, isolated environment. She's always had what she's needed. She's always been looked after.
00:13:08.180And this is also something that I wanted to portray in the book because you never, or at least rarely, see Black characters, specifically Black female characters, in the position of prosperity.
00:13:17.400In popular media, Black female characters always seem to be in the midst of the struggle and in the midst of the terror of being alive as a Black woman.0.83
00:13:26.800And Nellie, of course, has not escaped that.
00:13:28.800And that's a lesson she has to learn, that wealth will not save you, prosperity will not save you, that you still exist as a Black woman in this world, no matter where you come from,0.82
00:13:37.180no matter who your parents are, no matter what your family does. But I did want to show readers
00:13:41.960an alternative to what we are conditioned to view as the Black female experience in this country.0.98
00:13:48.180I wanted a young woman who, you know, was driven around in Rolls Royces, who wore
00:13:52.600the most expensive designer clothes from Europe, who lived in a house designed by
00:13:57.800some of the best designers of the day, who went to cotillions and balls and art galleries,
00:14:03.120because that's just to change the status quo,1.00
00:14:05.660just to give readers a vision of a Black woman
00:14:08.800that you might not see often portrayed in media
00:14:11.620and to kind of break down some of those stereotypes.
00:19:02.720I wanted her to come to realizations about, wow, I can't play with people's lives.
00:19:08.200I can't use real people in their situations just to further my own agenda.
00:19:12.780I have to be more aware and conscientious in how my actions are influencing the lives of people who, you know, I just arrive on the scene in their lives and I overturn them.
00:19:23.700And that was something that I really wanted to explore.
00:19:26.300And I love that Nellie's a controversial character because that's exactly what I wanted her to be.
00:26:27.020where people assume he is white, but then Nellie, like she has such feelings about seeing him do
00:26:32.040that. And what does that mean for him? So can you talk about that side of his character or just that
00:26:36.300part of the plot? Of course. So Jay is white passing and he does use that ability to essentially
00:26:45.080be a mirror. He can make himself into whatever people want to see in him. And to be passing
00:26:52.180as a black person or a non-white person. There are certainly individuals of all the
00:26:57.180by POC diaspora who are able to pass, and there still are. And that is such a complex existence.
00:27:05.000And Nella Larson's book, Passing, really does explore this very well. Nella Larson wrote a
00:27:08.860novel actually in the 20s about passing within the black community with the focus being two black
00:27:13.440women. And when thinking about describing that part of Jay's journey and his story and his
00:27:18.900history. I really loved to play up the idea that this is something that people do for options,
00:27:27.240that there's always this stereotypical belief that if somebody is passing, that means they
00:27:32.260want to be white. That is not always the case. As Jay himself says, it's not that I want to be
00:27:36.560them. I want their options. I just want to be free in this life. And that is the only way that I can
00:27:42.200accomplish that in these certain spaces. But it's also very conflicting because he identifies as a
00:27:47.420Black man. He is proud of his legacy and his identity as a Black man. But in certain spaces,
00:27:52.400he realizes he has to let that go in order just to be seen, in order to be accepted,
00:27:56.580in order to just get the job done. And that is a hugely conflicting identity to dwell in,
00:28:02.680where you can never really know who you are. You can never be fully in yourself,
00:28:07.100because you're constantly trying to play to different groups of people,
00:28:10.360just so you can be allowed to exist among them. And that's one of the complexities of Jay.
00:28:16.100And I hope that as readers go through the story and learn more about him, they add that
00:28:20.300to the tapestry of who he is and why he makes the choices he makes.
00:28:25.540And especially how that brushes up against Nellie, who, as you pointed out, has a lot
00:28:29.840of feelings about passing, who sees it as a kind of betrayal.
00:28:33.440And as she goes through this world of the underground in Chicago, she might herself
00:28:37.760come to understand why somebody has to make those types of choices and not to judge them
00:28:41.380for it, but more try to change the system that forces them to be that way.
00:28:44.540So I just wanted to, because we're almost out of time, but so your book, when this episode comes out on your birthday, so your book is coming out, it's being published. Is it January 31st when your book is published? What's the date?
00:29:02.280January 30th, the book comes out. So it'll have been out for about a week when this episode comes out. And so what do you have planned in terms of like events and meeting with people and book launches and things like that?
00:29:12.460Yeah, of course. So in terms of after the February 7th date, and we're adding to these dates as we go, but the biggest event after that, after the February 7th, will be February 22nd.
00:29:27.280We'll be actually in Chicago at my alma mater, DePaul University, doing a reading room book signing and discussion around the book.
00:29:34.320And I'm really excited about this. I am giddy at the idea of talking about a Chicago book in Chicago, even though I don't live in Chicago.
00:29:42.460Currently, it's my second home. It's where I came into myself as a writer, as a professional, and I'm ecstatic at the concept of really discussing this book with the people of this city, of this community that raised me and made me in a sense.
00:29:57.800so again that's going to be february 22nd it's going to be at de paul university on lincoln park
00:30:02.460campus at six o'clock and it's free and open to the public so um if you hear about this event if
00:30:08.200you're in the chicago area if you're in you know surrounding neighborhoods and you and you would
00:30:12.820like to come out and just join us for a really fun talk about about the book and chicago history
00:30:17.060then then please please join us actually i i recently was just finding out i was doing some
00:30:23.300investigation about whereabouts do most of my listeners live? And there's a big hub in Chicago
00:30:28.080and like that Midwest area. So a lot of people listening are on that area. And so because I'm
00:30:33.500not there, you should all go on behalf of me because I wish I could go. Your book is coming
00:30:38.200out. I mean, so the end of January, but February, we're into Black History Month. So I just wanted
00:30:43.720to just sort of get your thoughts about, I love your book. Like I mentioned, well, just because
00:30:49.540the 1920s up at all. But also you're really illustrating, like you mentioned, about the
00:30:53.600diversity of Chicago in that time. And so I just saw on your website that you have an interest in
00:30:57.820kind of these lesser known pockets of Black history. So I was hoping you could talk a bit
00:31:01.460about that and where you kind of see this book fitting into that sort of the overall Black
00:31:07.220history oeuvre, I guess. Yeah. Well, one of my goals with this book was to do a really,
00:31:14.800as thorough as I can in the time that I have and the space that I have,
00:31:17.680in my knowledge, exploration of the Black elite of this time. You have a lot of cameos of actual0.51
00:31:23.120individuals who are members of the Black elite, who were leaders in industry, who were leaders
00:31:28.160in the diaspora and the Black experience at this time. And I've interacted with so many readers,
00:31:36.620white and non-white, who had no idea that this aspect of American history even existed.
00:31:42.580And I've spoken to other authors as well about how representation of Black life in this country
00:31:47.340is so often mired in struggle and oppression and racism.
00:31:51.780And you never are allowed to really see Black Americans
00:32:07.860with such incredible traditions and strides that they've made
00:32:12.120and the influence that they've had in this country.
00:32:13.940And I really wanted to just explore that.
00:32:15.540I wanted to give them a platform where they can be seen and understood by the popular reading public.
00:32:22.380And my deepest hope is that after people finish this book or in the midst of finishing, they read a name or a location or, you know, a company like, you know, Black Swan Records was one of the most prevalent Black-owned record companies at the time.
00:32:35.860They only existed for about three years.
00:32:37.380But in those three years, they sold more record labels as a Black-owned record of any company well into the 50s.0.66
00:32:45.120I hope you see that and you're curious and you look into it and you do your own research and you educate yourself a little bit more about just how diverse the history of this country and this region is.
00:32:56.740And in terms of Black history, it's an opportunity to just understand a little bit more about what Black history is.
00:33:03.780Black history is more than the Civil Rights Movement.
00:33:06.720Black history is more than Dr. Martin Luther King or Malcolm X.
00:33:09.320Black history is the full exploration of what it means to be a Black American.
00:33:15.120And this is just another aspect of what it means to be a Black American as it's represented in
00:33:20.300this book. What I really found you really captured so well in this book as well is that sense of,
00:33:26.360so they're in the 1920s and you and I know that World War II is going to come, you know,
00:33:31.960like the civil rights movement is going to be decades after this. But these are people who
00:33:35.500are in that moment. And I think part of what I really love about the 1920s in general is at such
00:33:40.040a time, I think you said this as well, of just kind of the paradigm is changing. Like suddenly
00:33:44.420there's new there can be new opportunities for people and it would have felt and I felt this in
00:33:49.860your book like maybe the options are there for people like they don't know what the future is
00:33:53.740going to bring and I love that your book really sat there you weren't ever being like little did
00:33:58.080they know this is going to happen later no like you really let them kind of live there and thrive
00:34:03.300in the moment and I thought that you captured that so well well thank you and that's as you
00:34:09.660said that's one of the great things about the 20s it was in a decade where it did feel like
00:34:15.000everything was possible that that if you had the will to to make something of yourself if you had
00:34:22.940the will to to leave the cast that you were brought up in that that you could rise above but it's also
00:34:28.700as you were saying little did they know it was also an age of of blatant revelry and without
00:34:34.620the acknowledgement of what happens when all of this falls apart what happens when all of these
00:34:39.100incredible strides towards individualism that we've made are faced with, you know, the complete
00:34:45.420global economic downturn, where all of this guild and gold is just going to fall away.
00:34:50.580And I did want characters to exist in that time. I did want them to feel hopeful because people
00:34:55.560in certain communities did feel hope. But of course, that wasn't the way it was for everyone.
00:35:01.780The roaring 20s did not roar for all individuals living in that time. And I wanted to explore that
00:35:07.080as well, that we love the parties, we love the cars, we love the clothes. But the 20s was also
00:35:13.020an era of unprecedented violence in a lot of areas and unprecedented corruption. And it's
00:35:19.200important to acknowledge that. And I think in historical fiction, characters should be allowed
00:35:23.280to exist in the time that they're in. I don't want my characters to be oracles. I don't want
00:35:29.780them to constantly be weighed down by a dramatic irony of, oh, in a few years, this entire dynamic
00:35:36.680going to change. These are individuals living in a time and a place. And the great thing about
00:35:41.140historical fiction is that you can really step into the minds of characters in that time and
00:35:45.360that place and really imagine what they would be feeling in the moment, how the immediacy of this
00:35:50.220world is reacting on them. And so I'm really glad that that came through for you. I really appreciate
00:35:55.100that. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. Of course. I cannot recommend
00:36:00.920your book enough to all the listeners. I hope everybody reads it. I think it's everything we
00:36:05.020just talked about this is why i was so glad you agreed to come on the podcast because i just really
00:36:08.640wanted to learn more about the thought process and everything that went into it and what the
00:36:12.440real history was but it's such a page turner above that you know like there's all this stuff that
00:36:16.820you're talking about but the book is just like these characters making these choices the world
00:36:20.640so i mentioned i was like my lunch break ended and i'm just like how am i supposed to put this
00:36:24.660book down like it's so readable as well so i so i hope people people appreciate that as well
00:36:29.880but yeah best of luck with the with the launch this is your debut book right like your debut
00:36:34.300novel it is it is yes yeah so yes so it's it's it's very exciting yeah i hope that you can really
00:36:42.380enjoy all of all of the stuff that comes with your first book coming out and connecting with
00:36:46.940readers and all of that yes thank you and this is one of my first podcasts so okay i hope it went
00:36:52.400well i hope i didn't didn't ramble or anything like that but thank you this was such a great
00:36:56.780experience rambling is welcome here it's a very conversational podcast but yeah thank you again
00:37:03.500so much for taking the time to talk to me and best of luck with your book launch.
00:37:06.700Of course. Well, thank you so much. And I really appreciate coming on.
00:37:15.600So again, the book is called The Mayor of Maxwell Street. When you're listening to this,
00:37:19.900it is available. Avery has a website, which is averycunninghamauthor.com. She's also on
00:37:27.160basically every social media. If you go on Instagram, she's at Avery Writes Big Books.
00:37:31.180there's links all for social media from her website again averycunninghamauthor.com
00:37:35.420but also she has various events coming up so february 15th she's going to be doing
00:37:39.880a q a at lane college in jackson tennessee on february 22nd she's going to be at depaul
00:37:46.420university in chicago illinois i know a lot of you are in the midwest so go there because i can't go
00:37:53.380is what i would encourage you to do but also everyone just you know get your hands on this
00:37:58.000book. You know, you can buy the book from lots of places, but also buy it from your local public
00:38:02.860library. If your local public library doesn't have it, there's always a form you can submit
00:38:06.720to the library to suggest that they buy a certain book. And the mayor of Maxwell Street, honestly,
00:38:11.420it's so good. It's so good. The vibes are just like off the charts. There's like,
00:38:15.880I'm like, oh my gosh, it's about like a lady reporter in like oldie timey Chicago. Like it's0.99
00:38:20.620just got all the things like the, just those things that I especially enjoy in so many books.
00:38:25.460anyway that is that is this week's episode i'm going to be back next week with more
00:38:29.920with another episode as we continue to recognize that february is black history month in both
00:38:35.620canada and the united states and maybe other countries i don't know so if you want to keep
00:38:40.400up with me and this podcast i'm on instagram at vulgar history pod and also you can support this
00:38:47.880podcast on patreon at patreon.com slash ann foster writer so if you pay at least one dollar a month
00:38:52.840you get early ad free access to all episodes. If you pledge at least $5 a month, you get access
00:38:57.760to bonus episodes of Vulgar Peace Theater, where I talk about costume dramas. We haven't done any
00:39:02.640old timey gangster, like 1920s movies, but I should rectify that. Anyway, I talk about costume
00:39:08.480dramas in this bonus podcast on Patreon with Alison Epstein and Landa Wood Johnson, as well
00:39:13.440as there's other Patreon only exclusives there. There's the after show. So this asshole, various
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00:40:03.160at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com transcripts of recent episodes are available at vulgarhistory.com
00:40:10.220Thank you to Eveline Malek for providing these transcripts.0.99
00:40:13.520And until next time, everyone, keep your pants on and your tits out.0.95
00:40:18.920Folger History is hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster and edited by Christina Lumagi.0.98
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00:40:44.700Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale,
00:40:49.480the paranormal mysteries of liminal London,
00:41:34.000And we're the hosts of True Crime Campfire. We set out to make a true crime podcast we'd want to listen to. We get right to the story. We don't do a lot of extra talking, and when we do, it's usually to roast the short hairs off of some loser, murderer, or scammer. You'll laugh, but only at the people who deserve it.
00:41:51.060Like, which serial killer would you most like to shove into a locker?
00:41:55.180BTK and his awful poetry. Dude got caught because he didn't understand what a floppy disk was.
00:42:00.320we look for the stranger than fiction stories