#7 - Mothers of Gynecology: Art As Reparations

TRANSCRIPT

TONY  0:37 

Starting in 2020, we were hearing a lot of reports about how Black people were distrustful of the medical profession, wary of taking the vaccination for COVID. So, Adam, any idea why you think so many Black people might distrust the American medical system?

ADAM  0:54 

Well, maybe it's because our medical profession has a horrendous history of abusing and neglecting Black people that goes back hundreds of years.

TONY  1:02 

That pretty much sums it up, you know, going back hundreds of years and continuing today. There was the infamous and horrific Tuskegee syphilis experiment, starting in 1932. That lasted for 40 years, nearly 400 black men were unknowingly infected with syphilis by the United States government. Yeah, not given any treatment for it, for the medical folks examining them to see what the effects of syphilis would have on people. And an interesting side note, this is one of the few examples in American history where black people were actually awarded reparations of some sort, but a hefty price to pay at the hands of the American medical profession. We've also seen studies that black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes than white women.

ADAM  1:51 

Yeah, while in medical care, like at a hospital right?

TONY  1:54 

At a hospital or, you know, after receiving medical care.

ADAM  1:58 

Yeah, that's crazy.

TONY  1:58 

We've also seen reports that black people are consistently under treated for pain as compared to white people. Yeah, part of that must be the fact that doctors and other medical professionals just aren't believing us when we say that we're in pain. Yeah, we're suffering.

ADAM  2:14 

So why do you think that is? Where do you think this, this comes from this weird difference in how black and white patients are treated and believed about their pain?

TONY  2:21 

Yeah, I think it's rooted in historical context going way back. When, you know, enslavers felt that enslaved folks were just impervious to pain.

ADAM  2:33 

Or at least they said that, right?

TONY  2:34 

said that. And I also think that some folks might have even believed it. There's this mythology that black people experience pain differently than white people. Right? We have a higher higher tolerance, you know, the human body's human body. I'm no fucking doctor. But Pain is pain.

ADAM  2:50 

Yeah, and it's amazing how this stuff persists over so many years, this whole myth of there being any genetic differences between the so called races you know, and, and where that all came from. That's a topic we're gonna come back to in future episodes. And, you know, spoiler alert, it's all bullshit. And there is no biological difference. There is no such thing as race. It's just something we've all been taught. And it's some eugenics bullshit.

TONY  3:15 

Well, it's a fiction that's been used to control and subjugate and divide, right,

ADAM  3:21 

there you go,

TONY  3:21 

and it's worked effectively.

ADAM  3:22 

And in today's episode, we're going to look at part of this history of the medical profession with black people. And we're going to look at the legacy of a guy named Dr. J. Marion Sims. He was one of the most famous surgeons of the 1800s, credited with inventing the vaginal speculum. He's often given the title "father of gynecology," with at least six statues around the country that honor him.

TONY  3:46 

Yeah, but today, we're going to hear the real story about Dr. Sims and his so-called research. It turns out that he was in enslaver, who among other things forced several young black women to serve as human subjects for his experiments, without anesthesia. He was also a shameless selfp-romoter. Largely through his own propaganda he was credited for several "medical advances" that came about from the use of torture.

ADAM  4:11 

Yeah, so today's special guest is an artist based in Montgomery, Alabama, named Michelle Browder. She made national news in 2021, when she unveiled an amazing monument to three of the enslaved young women who were forced to endure Sims's experiments on their bodies. She calls the work, "mothers of gynecology," and we're going to dig into that because it's a really an incredible work with these three larger than life statues she created, in close proximity to the statue of Sims that still sits there near the capital of Alabama.

TONY  4:45 

Yeah, we were completely blown away when we discovered her - both by the stories that she's telling and the way that she's going about doing it. Yes, so today's guest, Michelle Browder, grew up in Alabama. Where she discovered her creative talents at an early age. She attended the Art Institute of Atlanta. On top of creating compelling art. She also operates the "more than" tour company that has exposed nearly 10,000 people to the true history of Montgomery, Alabama. She also runs the More Up campus, which brings together art history, health, and youth empowerment. Michelle was honored as one of USA Today's 2022 Women of the Year. And we're delighted to have her to share with us on pay the tab.

TONY  5:29 

Michelle Browder. Welcome to pay the tab. Adam and I have been really looking forward to this conversation with you. It just an inspiring, dynamic, creative forces doing a lot of great work in the world. And so it's pleasure to be in conversation with you today. So, welcome to pay the tab.

MICHELLE  5:45 

Thank you. Thank you all for having me. For inviting me to the table, to the tab!

TONY  5:50 

That's right. That's right. So you know, given that you're doing all kinds of great work, and we'll get into a good bit of that, as we go through the conversation, we could start anywhere, but we thought we'd start with the story of Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey, and Sims. So three enslaved women, Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey, and one white doctor. What we understand is that the women were each enslaved on different plantations near Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1840s, that at some point, they each developed a very painful condition after childbirth, that resulted in the loss of the control their bladder, and bowels, a condition for which there was no cure at the time. So if you could, you know, kind of help lay out just lay out the story from there, what that entailed and their interaction with Sims and kind of how all that went down. I think that'd be a good place for us to kind of jump in.

MICHELLE  6:48 

Yeah, well, thank you, first of all, thank you for giving space for us to have this conversation. Because for so long, these girls were overlooked from history. You know, people are acting really shocked, you know, to know that this doctor experimented on these young ladies. And so you know it for this for, you know, the awakening to happen in the midst of all that we're going through with COVID and autonomy and Roe and it's just the right time in the right season for this conversation. So thank you for inviting me on to have it.

MICHELLE  7:24 

But yeah, so you know, Marion Sims, actually, and I always talk about the fact that they were girls, let's just start there. These were children that were sexually trafficked, that were stolen, kidnapped, you know, they're descendants of enslaved people, and to have contributed so much to health care and women's health and black women. And to be largely marginalized, overlooked, and placed in a silo if you will. It's just my number one goal is to talk about where we are today using these girls, these women. And so with J. Marion Sims, being the father of gynecology, I first heard about him, if y'all want to know, when I was in college, I was just literally a year older than these girls that he tortured and I was in college at the Art Institute of Atlanta. And I saw a Robert Tom painting that - Robert Tom was an artist, he was an illustrator that was commissioned to create this, or not just one, but it was 45 paintings, of you know, healthcare and the evolution of it. And so in 1952, there's this painting of these two girls peering behind the sheet one on a gurney, in front of a white doctor, and with his arms crossed. Now we all know what that you know, that's in defense mode. And then these two other doctors, you know, looking on, and it's stuck with me just to see that image and the fear on their faces. And I'm like, What is this?

TONY  9:07 

And you had no idea about this story, or Sims or anything prior to that, right?

MICHELLE  9:12 

No, because, you know, coming from Alabama, you know, the only history that we got here was Dr. King had a dream and Rosa Parks had aching feet. Okay, they didn't talk about enslaved people. They didn't talk about the fact that, you know, people were sexually trafficked, and, you know, brought here to cultivate the land for sugarcane, rice and tobacco, when they were talking about these issues. I started doing research on the iconography, and these, you know, the statues around our city - only to learn that there are white men who created crimes against humanity, fought in wars and committed treason. And I was just overwhelmed - and to know that these people were still at our state's capitol. They welcome you. In every picture, do you go to the state capitol J. Marion Sims is right there underneath the tree to be in your photo, you know, and So I'm like, we have to change this. But even as a kid, even when I saw this image, I knew that change. I wanted to do something about this.

TONY  10:08 

Well, yeah, there was a movement at some point to try to get the statue that's on the Alabama State House lawn, get that removed. And lo and behold, Alabama passed the law, right in 2017 prohibiting the removal of statues on public property that had been there for more than 40 years. So how, how maddening is that I mean, how wack is that actually?

MICHELLE  10:30 

Well, it's telling, it's telling as to where we are today. It's 2022. But we still have the mindset or the people that run and rule over Alabama, still have the mindset of that of 1865. Right? It's, you know, to rule not only with an iron fist, but to make sure that white supremacy is in its place, which is our state's capital. You can go to prison now for 10 years for defacing one of these monuments, right?

MICHELLE  11:00 

Well, he had an office there. And then he actually owned two parcels of land. And then in the back of his office, he built a makeshift hospital. And plantation owners were having an issue with their quote, property. This is chattel slavery. These girls were replenishing the stock - 1808, transatlantic slave trade, we're not going back to these places to enslave people. But they started breeding, right? They were breeding these these babies, these children. And so they were developing this hole that you had mentioned earlier, the fistula, but the word had gotten around on these plantations that he was able to cure the property, cure the fistula,

TONY  11:44 

and he was performing this experiment without anesthesia, right?

MICHELLE  11:47 

without anesthesia. So we can't even argue - you can't argue consent because they were enslaved.

TONY  11:53 

Well, they had they had no ability to consent, right?

MICHELLE  11:56 

Absolutely. So we don't even talk about that. It was without the anesthesia without proper health care and medical instruments. This guy Sims he goes to a local warehouse to buy a pewter spoon, so that he can get a better look. So the speculum that we have today. I think now they're using more of the duck-billed but there's, you know, illustrations of a wooden pewter spoon that he built so that he can open up the cervix and look inside to see a fistula, this hole. And so it's torture. You know?

TONY  12:34 

Yeah.

ADAM  12:36 

Like you were saying he's sort of known as the father of modern gynecology, but from what we hear, you know, he didn't set out to help women. He wasn't - In fact, they say he didn't even really like practicing with women, that he was promoting his career. He sounded like kind of like a political climber kind of person. And didn't he become like the president of the AMA , later on in his career?

MICHELLE  12:57 

Yes, yes.

ADAM  12:58 

So he's like a politician basically.

TONY  13:02 

An opportunist for sure.

MICHELLE  13:04 

Absolutely. Again, J. Marion Sims was touted as being able to cure this fistula whereas Anarcha had 30 surgeries. Lucy nearly died from her surgery after her 12 surgeries. And then the notion the lie that was told that black women or black people had a higher tolerance for pain was also one of the driving factors. Some people they argue about, oh, well, there wasn't anesthesia. During that time. There's a you know, there's an argument that says there wasn't anywhere anesthesia, so he could not have been as bad, you know, as we make him out to be

ADAM  13:41 

right. And maybe if there's not anesthesia, then maybe you can't do this, maybe, you know, figure out some other ways to be another way. Yeah. Well, we definitely want to start talking about some of your work. So the mothers of gynecology, what was your sort of motivation and driving force and coming up with this idea in the first place, and what you wanted to do?

MICHELLE  14:02 

Yeah, well, again, it was that painting that I saw Robert Tom, you know, art, can really not just change narratives, but it also can, can create a story or an image of a person that's not necessarily true, like the Mammy characters, you know, and what they've done during the, I would say during reconstruction with black folks in the State House, eating fried chicken with the feet propped up and eating watermelon, you know. So art is very powerful, the propaganda that comes from that. And so with this particular painting, that was my driving force that I wanted to change the narrative of what this artists, Robert Tom has painted of these three black girls.

MICHELLE  14:45 

During COVID I felt that it was time and so I had flown to Hawaii in January and had visited some friends there. And I was coming back and I stopped into San Francisco and was visiting a little place called Hayes Valley. There was This tall statue of a woman named Tara made out of metal, she stood about 15 feet tall. And when I hit that corner and I saw her and I said, Ah, that's what Anarcha can look like. That's the height. That's the metal. Literally guys, two weeks later now COVID is starting to come in and people are starting to say, Okay, we're gonna have to sit down. But two weeks later, they called me and said, Hey, we found the woman. They connected me with the artist. Her name is Dana Albany. So I just asked her, Could you teach me how to weld. And by the end of the year, she had read all of the information about the mothers, you know, what I call the mothers of gynecology and the women and what took place? And she said, Send me your drawings. And so literally, I went into San Francisco, and I learned how to weld from really three brilliant women. And then a gang of Burning Man artists wanted to come in and volunteer. No, this is doing COVID - So nobody's doing anything because it's COVID. And they just wanted to come in and volunteer their time and a month and a half later, I drove - my brother flew in to help me drive back to Montgomery, Alabama, and we rented a U haul with a half head, half, you know, an artist head was not fully completed, and, you know, a pair of legs and skeletons and I was able to complete the project at home.

ADAM  16:28 

Just to paint the picture as I understand it, there's the three women are depicted in statues Anarcha is 15 feet tall, I believe. Betsey about 12 feet tall and Lucy nine feet tall. Does that. Is that right?

MICHELLE  16:44 

Yeah, that's it.

ADAM  16:44 

 and there's so many incredible details and aspects of this that maybe you can just give us like a quick overview of like some of the things like the the materials where you got the materials, what your thoughts were on how you use them?

MICHELLE  17:00 

Yeah. Well, one of the things under the direction of Dana, she said, you know, go to your local scrap yard. And so I would visit a lot of the scrap yards here. And, you know, just find pieces already had sketches of the mothers and what I wanted. And so, you know, I started picking out pieces, a couple of pieces. I actually traveled across the country with them because I wanted to document the story of these pieces and what they make they were discarded items much like these girls, they're discarded. They're thrown away. I flew into Los Angeles where I notified people and told them that I was coming, right. So Gina Belafonte, Harry Belafonte's daughter, I called her up, I'm like, Listen, I'm coming to town, she brings me a spoon that her grandmother had, another young woman brought a teapot that her mother could no longer or that her grandmother could no longer use, but had given it to her. But she wanted to have it significantly placed inside the piece somewhere. One woman brought me some motors and bicycles and bicycle chains. And then as we went into San Francisco, we organized another metal raiser, right? And people started bringing out chandeliers and brass and you know, just things that they didn't want. And the angular screws, you know, I found a whole box of those and I'm like, Oh, this could be hair. Because black women in our hair. It's coiled, right? I took the hinges and made cornrows. I just wanted to make sure that these women, these girls had their dignity, right. And part of our dignity in black culture and with black women. It's our hair. That's our glory. So the first things that I designed was the hair and their adornment.

ADAM  18:41 

And it sounds like there was also some sort of medical instruments and sharp objects and sort of dangerous objects as well. And can you tell us a little bit about that?

MICHELLE  18:51 

Yes. So when I got back to Montgomery, there was a gentleman in the scrap yard right across the street from my studio. And he I went over and he says, Look what I found out. He takes me to the back of his metal yard. So they were all types of medical instruments. There were syringes and come to find out there were some of the gynecological instruments. There were a lot of speculums in there, too. So with Anarcha, you can see, you know, there are scissors, there's medical instruments. One of the things that I also wanted to do was to give them some kind of language. So in Montgomery, Alabama, a lot of enslaved people came from Ghana. So we have the Ghanaian symbols at the foot and also incorporated in the adornment, their necklaces and their brass plates and and so for Anarcha, her symbol is Goddess Supreme, that sees her as a strength because Betsey is pregnant. You know with her. We talked about Kyra Johnson, who lost her life from medical negligence. a black woman, she was not a priority. And she lost her life in 2016. So the maternal health rate, you know, black women are dying three to four times quicker or likely than white women. Why is that, Serena Williams? Let's have a conversation with her. So her name is on Betsey. So the piece is a way to educate on the history on women's health, black women's health, and bodily autonomy and our hair. Right, because there's a crowd. There's some legislation before Congress now that will remove the discrimination against black women and black boys on how we use you know, how we wear our hair or how we participate in sports. Right. So one of the mothers has bantu knots, which is a form of dignity and respect in African culture.

ADAM  20:57 

What kinds of reactions have you seen, you've obviously been there in person for many different viewings. And when you had your unveiling and stuff, what kind of reactions have have folks had to your to your work there?

MICHELLE  21:06 

People weep, they cry, they're triggered. Because there's nowhere in the United States of America where you can find a 15 foot tall, black woman that talks about what black women have gone through as it relates to the trauma and postpartum depression and just the health care system, or sick care that we have here. And so we had one woman, for example, that looked at the mothers and she began to weep and say, you know, I've had to, I've been a mother twice, and my fibroid tumors, choked the life out of my, my unborn child. I'm like, wow, that, you know, and so I had another judge. And so she talked about her fibroids, and how she's never gonna be able to have children because they removed her entire uterus. And so I'm thinking we need to document these stories, we need to have them house somewhere. And so the melon, not the Mellon Foundation, but the monument lab gave us a grant to be able to document the journey of just becoming pregnant. And if you get pregnant, then, you know some of if you're blessed to be pregnant, some of the challenges that we have in giving birth, and then after, so we have mothers like Sabrina Fulton, who lost her son, Trayvon Martin, the mother of the new civil rights movement. So there's things on Betsey, that talk about, you know, women, black women and what they're going through, right now, today, after giving birth and having a child what happens to them when they've lost them and justly so.

ADAM  22:49 

I definitely want to ask you about the more than tours that you started back in 2016. It sounds like - maybe you can tell us what gave you that motivation. And then like where you take people and what kind of stories are you telling folks on those tours?

MICHELLE  23:04 

Yeah, so - Well, I started giving tours, y'all - this thing - I was trying to leave Montgomery, Alabama. After my 10th year being here, it's like, Okay, I'm done. I've done what I think God wants me to do. You know, I had a youth organizer. And, and I had created a tour for some 56 Young people, it was my way to say goodbye and to take them on one last journey. And so I organized a trip with them to the United States Supreme Court to watch Bryan Stevenson. Everybody's boyfriend. And while we were there, those kids were instantly changed by watching this United States Supreme Court case. And when we came back to Montgomery, Alabama, my students were like, Okay, we need more of this. You can't expose us and leave us. What do you mean, you're going to, you know, you're leaving us to go to Chicago, you can't leave us and I was like, I'm leaving - my ovaries. I want to have some children. But this is not the place, Montgoomery, Alabama. And so my students were like, Please, can you just wait? My last one. She was 10 years old. She said, Can you wait until I graduate high school before you leave?

TONY  24:15 

But she put that on you, she put that on you! You weren't going anywhere

MICHELLE  24:21 

And so I said, You know what, let me just finish what we started. Right. And so I found a little clubhouse for them. And so we call it you know, the More Up campus. You know, one of my students stood up on that bus and said, Teach me how to more up I'm third generation housing project. Mother and my mother's mother lives in poverty. And I don't want to be that from my you know, from from my children teach me how to be an entrepreneur how teach me how to to be more than and that's basically what they said to me. So I was like, I'm an artist. I'm a creative. I'm not a grant writer. How are we going to get money to fund this? and hence more than tours, I rented out a clubhouse. I took them with me. We went around, you know, looking for property. I was like, Where would you all feel comfortable. And we found a space that was once used as a very popular restaurant. And we noticed that these tour buses were coming to the space. So I'm like, we need to utilize it. And that's what we did. So the clubhouse turned into a museum. I said, you know, what? It was a tour company. And so I started teaching my students the history, they would give the tours, and it just blossomed. That's how it all started.

ADAM  25:38 

When you give tours to members of the public, what kinds of sort of highlights do you show them and tell them about?

MICHELLE  25:44 

Yeah, well, we talk about the indigenous history of Alabama, we had nearly 42 tribes here, you can't come here and start giving tours and talking about the Civil War. And you know, and Jefferson Davis and all of these cats that are the civil rights movement, and Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Mary Louise, you just can't start talking about this stuff, you have to talk about the genocide that transpired right at the at the riverfront, the displacement and Indian removal. So we we talked about, you know, the indigenous history of Alabama and what Alabama really means and how it started. And then from there, we go to the slave auction, which is in the heart of our city, where black people were bought, sold and traded longside cattle. From there we go, I take people to the state capitol, I show them, you know, how trauma is still before us and white supremacy is still very much a part of our narrative in the state, and then I take him to neighborhoods where, you know, the entire neighborhood was destroyed in order to build, you know, highways. You know, we go there we go to, to the city of St. Jude, we go to Alabama State University. So I tried to immerse people in the true history of Montgomery and not that sanitized version. You know, that Gone With the Wind? Right? No. We tell the truth about it. And it's been a blessing and a curse.

ADAM  27:12 

Yeah, it's probably pretty, pretty difficult. It sounds like each time you you go through those stories, right?

MICHELLE  27:17 

It is, because it's still happening. You can't talk about mass incarceration. You know, and, and not look around us and see that, you know, we have 3 million people in prison. Governor Kay Ivey, when she's building bigger prisons and spending billions of dollars, when we have people sleeping on the street. That's what we're trying to do. We're just trying to enlighten people and show them where we are.

TONY  27:42 

But on a personal note, how do you deal with the heaviness of your work?

MICHELLE  27:48 

To be honest with you, I didn't realize that I was in a critical state myself until COVID. Until the world stopped, and I found out that I had been depleted, I was given these tours three times a day, reliving trauma, three times a day, Montgomery, Alabama right now, today, God love him, and the National Memorial for peace and justice and the Legacy Museum. We're so grateful for it. But we are reliving this trauma. We're thriving now, economically, from trauma, from people coming here to want to hear this, to hear the truth about this history. And I didn't know that I myself was dying until COVID. And so with that, I decided that I would go to San Francisco during a pandemic, to erect a monument to create a monument that was my way of healing. They're born out of not only creative extremism, but out of a way to heal myself.

TONY  28:51 

Yeah, this is all just real, powerful. Thank you for being so open and sharing with us. I want to go back briefly to something you touched upon earlier, which is I think a lot of people believe that some of these medical practices that Sims was engaging in are a thing of the past, long gone by, it's different now. It's modern technology, so forth and so on. But there's obviously, you know, racism in medical care today. You know, we came across a situation at a detention center in Georgia in 2020, where unnecessary procedures including hysterectomies were performed on women, right. So tell us what your thoughts on why do you believe the medical profession has not evolved regarding the care of black people generally, but then black women more more specifically?

MICHELLE  29:44 

Well, look at capitalism. Everything about our country is built on the premise of racism and white supremacy. Let's just be honest - from Indian removal from Japanese internment camps to you name it, it's all to rule and to destroy cultures and people. And so even with health care, it's what only, not only the strong that will survive, but those that have... equal treatment, right? Not even those that have, white folk - because Serena is a millionaire, married to a white man. And they did not believe her when she said that something was wrong with her body. Right? They thought she was being combative. So I would just say that until we just start to have these honest conversations, the sankofa if you will, which is to look back and gain that which is lost. It's also a form of reparations, you know, reckoning with history and what we have done to each other, and how we've allowed that to continue. I just don't see us getting any better unless we take care of the sickness that we have within ourselves. Right. So I hope I answered your question, because my mind started...

TONY  30:59 

Very much so. So yeah. You know, and this is maybe more a comment than a question. But it also seems that at least in the medical profession, that there there's still some roots, or notion that, you know, we don't control our own bodies as black folks, A and then B, that, you know, we are superhuman, right, that we can withstand pain, or our skin is thicker, or, you know, we're just impervious to pain. And so that seems to be a pervasive an ongoing and recurring thought process amongst some folks in the medical profession.

MICHELLE  31:31 

Yeah. Well, if you look at people like Susan Moore, the doctor that lost her life during COVID, you know, telling them that something is wrong with her, or she's telling them how to treat her and they thought that she was a drug addict.

TONY  31:44 

And I'm a doctor, please listen to me.

MICHELLE  31:49 

We're not talking about 1845. We're talking about right now, our healthcare system is - we're in a crisis. We're in a crisis today. And I'm hoping that by creating art, that showed a crisis in 1840, and 1832, and 1812, that we can bring it to light on just how systemic racism, the structural aspect of it stems from, we have a lot of work to do, 400 years of dismantling this ideology system.

TONY  32:25 

Yep. Yep. Absolutely.

ADAM  32:27 

You know, one thing about your work, Michelle, that we've looked at some of the different things you've done, and you talk about Dr. King's concept of creative extremism, and that seems to be kind of a driving force for you, right?

MICHELLE  32:40 

Oh, it is.

ADAM  32:41 

you know, I just want to say your work demands attention, you know, the mothers of gynecology, I mean, it's so it's so beautiful, and detailed and large, and sort of in your face about so many things, but to have things done in an artistic way, where it's compelling, it's visual, and it sort of forces people to sit and take notice, you know, and and as a way to, like you say, bring about some awareness. Doing it through art is just so genius. I have to say that that's just incredible work that you're doing. Do you have ideas on other forms of reparations that you might like to see just, you know, not necessarily through your work, but just in general like for, let's say, the, you know, the the atrocities of the American Medical System to black women and black people generally. Have you given thought or had conversations about what those kinds of reparations might look like now?

MICHELLE  33:36 

Yeah, I have. And I'm optimistic. But when you look at what happened with George Floyd, can we just look at that for a second how everyone started saying black lives matter, and they were going in the streets. And now we have diversity, inclusion and equity and inclusion? We're going to start this with our companies. But yet we take 25 steps forward and 50 to 100 steps back when it's as it relates to reparations, right? So one of the things that I'm hoping that we can do as a country is not let this be another fleeting moment like we had with affirmative action, where you know, we will hire black people and we say that we're woking that we're doing something good for black people. Right. So here we are another 2530 years later now we're talking about diversity and inclusion and you know, being better people.

ADAM  34:33 

Amazon saying black lives matter, right?

MICHELLE  34:36 

Come on, and they're trying to get off this planet because it's burning up. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, Black Lives Matter. Right, so we all see what's happening.

TONY  34:51 

So we could segue and get get personal with if you don't mind and talk a little bit about your your family background. So we know that your Father, Curtis Browder was the first black chaplain for the Alabama prison system. And that one of the folks that he ministered to was was Robert Chambliss, the white supremacist who was convicted of murder for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. That killed for four little black girls, right. And your aunt Aurelia Browder Coleman, apparently was arrested a bunch of times for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. First in 1949, which would have been six years before Rosa Parks became known for it - give us give us a sense, you know, we have to imagine that growing up in that environment with those influences that that you know, touched you in influence, you know, your social justice, awareness and activism. So how has that kind of played out in your life and in your career?

MICHELLE  35:57 

You know, going into the prisons at a young age, at the age of nine and 10 years old, it has given me the empathy has given me a spirit of empathy more so towards people that our society deems as unlovable and and so I'm grateful for that. And my father is still in the prisons today, death row, we have 15 guys who are like family now that you know, in the state of Alabama, at the end of your sentence, if you didn't have a home plan, they would keep you in prison. You know, and so, got eight in the bed, that's mass incarceration, you know. But my father would bring them home, literally. And so to see his love for and he's at, and he still goes to death row and walks the tiers. You see how our prison system is - it's nothing. It's nothing about rehabilitation. I wish people would get a glimpse of what happens inside these prisons - is big business, capitalism business. Exactly. Yep. Right. Just like slavery, capitalism. It's all about the money.

ADAM  37:05 

So much comes back to that, huh?

MICHELLE  37:07 

Oh, absolutely. I think it's just kind of shaped me. And it made me the fierce, fierce competitor in creative extremists that I need to be today.

TONY  37:19 

Yeah well fierce, fierce is an understatement. And we understand that your father was instrumental in pointing you down the direction of being an artist, right? Apparently you were whipping some behind in school and getting suspended. Right? And your father said, look, here's a here's a tube of paint and some T shirts, like make something happen with that?

MICHELLE  37:37 

Absolutely. Absolutely. And he saved me from Tutwiler prison - one of those places that I would frequent with my dad. It was a woman's prison. It still is. It's a it's a woman's prison. And he was like, you're going there. He said, I see you. Because you know, you're too angry. Oh, but moving to Alabama, and suffering, what we suffered as kids and my siblings, I speak on their behalf as well. It's enough to make you angry, you know. And so I remember those women in Tutwiler, and I'm like, I'm not going to talk about how they're - I like being a little girl. And so I started painting and became an entrepreneur at the age of 13. Selling T shirts. And to this day, I've been that's how I've made my living off of my art.

ADAM  38:27 

Wow. You know, they say that art is all about truth and beauty, right? And sort of telling the truth and doing in a beautiful way. And you take it to such a different level of like, you know, when you put in teaching us about history and about ourselves and about how things need to be changed. It is really amazing what you're doing. I just have to tell you...

TONY  38:46 

it really is. And there was one quote that I saw that you said that if you're going to tell the truth about this history, we need to tell it all.

MICHELLE  38:52 

Yes.

TONY  38:54 

You know, and that's what you're doing through your work that you're you know, activism, sharing with us is you know, doing some serious truth telling so we you know, we can't, can't applaud you and and celebrate you enough. I mean, really, really empowering, very inspiring just to just to be here with you and hearing what you have to say.

MICHELLE  39:14 

Thank you. Thank you.

ADAM  39:15 

We really appreciate your time. You've been so generous with us, are there things you can recommend to our listeners who may want to learn more, and also get involved and things that people can do?

MICHELLE  39:26 

You can go to our website, AnarchaLucyBetsey.org and sign up and you know, we'll keep you posted on what we're doing. And then there's a big conference next year, you can come to Montgomery on a pilgrimage and learn of this history. Visit the National Memorial for peace and justice. Just get the history. Open our eyes, right open your eyes to the truth so that we can be free so we could change the trajectory of this country. We're going backwards. We're moving backwards. So yeah, I would I would say get those books read up on it. Come to Montgomery. Visit us a couple of days, and then be healed from it so that you can then go heal others by speaking truth.

TONY  40:08 

Very powerful. So I have one final question if I can squeeze it in Sure. What do we need to do to get you nominated for one of these MacArthur Genius awards?

MICHELLE  40:21 

Oh, yeah. I have no idea what that is. But I don't even know.

TONY  40:27 

Yeah, and I'm for real. I mean, I've met a couple of smart people in my life. And I've met a whole bunch of self-proclaimed geniuses. But the stuff that you're doing is some next, like, next level shit, right? Next level stuff. So yeah, so Yeah, can we can we figure out a writing campaign or figure out who these folks are that pick the geniuses? Because I mean, you really like doing some stuff that's just beyond so just shout out. Shout out. Thank you.

MICHELLE  40:55 

Thank you. No, thank you. Thank you. We're hoping within the next year and a half, that we'll have a campus for you also come just to come in and, and hang out with us and do a live show.

ADAM  41:08 

We would definitely like to do. That's amazing. Yeah.

MICHELLE  41:12 

Yeah. So if you go to our website, you'll see there's a lot of big things on the horizon. But we could use a what is it MacArthur Genius Grant?

TONY  41:21 

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

MICHELLE  41:22 

We could use one of those.

ADAM  41:24 

Yeah, that'd be yes. That'd be right up your alley. Great idea. Wow. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for your time, you've been really generous and kind with us and and everything you're doing is just so inspiring. And I know you probably hear that many times a day. But you're, you're incredible. So thank you.

MICHELLE  41:45 

Thank you so much. Thank you. And I had a wonderful team. So you know, for all of those 15 Burning Man artists that came out. That will be running around in the desert pretty soon naked. I want to just...

ADAM  42:02 

During COVID, you needed some Burning Man artists to be willing to come do that.

MICHELLE  42:07 

Wonderful teachers. And then, of course, you know, my other fabricators that came in and helped me put the skin on the mothers, I always lift him up because literally, I didn't know anything about welding and for them to teach me and be as patient and contribute their gifts and talents. I always lift them up. So thank you.

TONY  42:25 

Yeah. Wonderful.

ADAM  42:31 

Wow, how about Michelle Browder?

TONY  42:33 

Yeah, wow is right. I mean, amazing. Like, that was like, just blew me away with all the she had to share with us.

ADAM  42:39 

Yeah, she has so many different fronts she's working on and her creativity seems to be just kind of exploding in every direction.

TONY  42:46 

You know, there's been a really exciting development in Michelle's world. She recently purchased the building where Dr. Sims perform his experiments on enslaved women. Yeah, yeah, it's a $5 million project, and it will house the mothers of gynecology Health and Wellness Center. And the goal is to provide women's health care and serve as a training center for medical students, doulas and midwives. An interesting twist to that is that the center will feature one of Michelle's really special murals. You know, she shared that while she was in college, she came across a 1952 painting that depicted Sims and two white men in suits. Right? Right. They were examining a black girl, while two other black girls stood nearby. Those three young black girls turned out to be Lucy, Betsey, and Anarcha. And Michelle then flipped that painting on its head by creating this mural, which depicted a naked Sims, on an exam table surrounded by the three young women. And Michelle, when she was recapping how she came to the idea. She said, Yes, she wanted Simms to know what that felt like.

ADAM  44:00 

Yeah, yeah. And I think it says a lot about our, our society how jarring that image is right of this naked old white man on a table while young black women are standing around kind of mulling what to do next. And we'll definitely have a picture of that mural in our show notes. So Michelle does this incredible job of connecting the history going back to slavery times and the practices then to the current issues in our medical profession. Right, right. Like you were saying earlier, the crazy disparities in mortality rates and in treatment for black and white patients fight for Reproductive Justice, unequal access to health care. She breaks it all down.

TONY  44:38 

It's a deep and rich topic that we're going to dig into, you know, in other episodes, yes. Another aspect that Michelle highlighted, which I think is important for us to reiterate is that you know her tours include showcasing properties that were stolen from Native American folks. Yes. And so Michelle reminds us that black reparations is undeniable They're connected to reparations for indigenous peoples. Yeah, definitely.

ADAM  45:03 

And and the issue of native peoples' reparations comes up in almost all of these stories that we're telling in one way or another. And something we haven't really touched on yet. But it's, it's right there at the forefront. Obviously, the history of our country's genocides and thefts and inhumanity goes very deep and very long. And that's not the particular focus of this show. But it's something that is there and definitely needs to be said.

TONY  45:28 

Absolutely. Right. And so yeah, we applaud Michelle for putting that right at the forefront of her conversations and her tours when she's exposing the true history of you know, Montgomery, Alabama, you know, Michelle's art is actually a form of of reparations, the power of who controls the narrative of history, right, that matters, who's telling these stories, Michelle is doing some truth telling with her work. And that has to come first, right, we need education we need recognize before we can actually get get to dollars, right? We can't get the political will for dollars until we until people understand the truth of what actually happened.

ADAM  46:05 

Yeah, exactly. And I love Michelle's approach of like, okay, there's this law that says these statues of these old guys can never come down. So she built these statues that are way taller, like several times taller than the same statue that's at the Statehouse in Alabama. And that basically tower over him and just sort of gets in your face like okay, yeah,

TONY  46:24 

no, I love her attitude, which is like, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna get it on. Let's let's get it on. You know, we can, we can take this out, I'll put my 15 foot statue up against you know, your, your statue. Let's see what it was see what

ADAM  46:34 

I would bet on her anytime when you're having competing artworks, that's for sure.

TONY  46:39 

Absolutely.

ADAM  46:43 

So for listeners who may want to get involved and help out on some of these issues, one of the things we want to let you know is Michelle's brand new center where she just got this new property. She's planning this multimillion dollar incredible education and history and community center there. She could use your help. So you can certainly donate to that. We'll have a link in our show notes on how to connect with Michelle. And that's just a great cause if people want to get involved. We also want to encourage people to think outside the box a little bit about education, right? I mean, Michelle is telling us the importance of telling the truth about reckoning with our history, and a lot of that starts with how stuff is taught in our schools, right. So let's press our local school boards to change their curriculums to start telling the truth and people may want to run for school board if it's not being done right in your district.

TONY  47:39 

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ADAM  47:47 

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TONY  47:55 

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