Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back, everyone. This is Rashad woods with the Tron podcast. Today I have a very special guest who has carved out time for me on this program, and I cannot emphasize how happy I am that he did so. He's the executive director of Grandma. The Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives, a man who is a very established historian appraiser. Mr. George Bayard III. Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate your time.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Thank you, Rashad.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: You know, I don't want to obviously over talk your accomplishments. You know, you can obviously speak for them yourself. You're. You're a filmmaker. You know, you're a documentary filmmaker. You started in arts, and you started the Grand Rapids African American Museum in 2015, but you did a lot of things that predated that as well, too.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Well, yeah, we. Before that, we were art gallery owners. We were part of the arts community and Grand Rapids and Detroit. I mean, we got all our friends down at the National Conference of Artists down there, and some of the galleries that we frequented there. Many of the artists we had here, we. We coddled them in Detroit. We collected their works and tried to give them a voice here on the western side of the state.
But. But beside that, I mean, what that entailed, we had called Bayard Gallery of Fine African American Art, basically an art gallery, but we did everything else. We did picture framing, we did appraisals.
We slowly added books and collectibles, then African artifacts, and we became a cultural hub for the community, branching out from that.
Everything that encompassed our culture, we did. I mean, Juneteenth, Kwanzaa, we developed a festival, which we called Soul the City. So we were very engaged with the community. We've always been. I'm personally not from Michigan. I was born. Yeah, I was born in Delaware, went to school in Philadelphia. My wife is from Ohio. So we kind of got here on a circuitous route to get here to Michigan.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Congrats to your Eagles, by the way.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Huh?
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Congrats to your Eagles.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I just took off my Eagles gear.
I have my Eagles hat on, my stuff. My brother's sending me stuff in the mail, so. So I'm like, okay, yeah, we can still celebrate. But, yeah, yeah, we. We were, you know, was such a difference moving from the east coast to Michigan because everything out east is a hundred years older. And so, you know, where you would come here and see things from the 1800s, you know, in museums and things on the east coast, you know, things are from the. The earlier centuries, you know, and so there's.
There's There's a getting used to this, of it, of coming here to the Midwest. And we found that because I think my wife had an opportunity to work either in Detroit, Flint or Grand Rapids. And she took Grand Rapids and then I followed shortly after that. So that's how we got here. And as I said, it's always been part of our culture. If I go back before that, in my town of Wilmington, Delaware, we lived in what I think is the very first suburban black community in the country.
It was right after World War II.
A community where in other parts of the country they were taking black GIS benefits and not turning them into property or anything. They couldn't get their benefits here.
They worked a deal with the duponts, who basically run Delaware and, and the federal government to create a housing community that was based on the suburban trend that was happening in the late 50s. And we had a. Literally an all black neighborhood. I mean, it was, it was created. There are older black neighborhoods, you know, around the country, but this was a suburban post World War II neighborhood.
All of our streets were named after African Americans, right? And most of them were living at the time. So, you know, we had. I lived on the corner of Ralph Bunch Boulevard, Mary McLeod Bethune Drive, and they were both living at the time, a street named after Jackie Robinson, Marian Anderson, and then some of the colleges, Morehouse Talladega drives. And so it, it gave us a really strong roots in African American culture because we were there. I mean, we all went through one school, you know, it from K to K to 8th grade, I guess, and everybody lived in the neighborhood. We had entrepreneurs, business people.
And so it was kind of ingrained. And so when we got to school and segregation started, you know, we were like, why we have to get bus? So in a lot of cases. So it was, it was, it was something that, that we just, I, for me personally, I just continued on with my life and, you know, ended up, you know, being a collector, an art dealer and artist.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: I, you know, in your story, you know, when I was looking at where you came from and how you, you know, you've been involved in the arts and you used to collect comic books and you've always been a collector of sorts. And so when I went to the museum, which I had the privilege of going two years ago, I saw, you know, the blackface exhibits. Now there's lots of topics, obviously, that, you know, I could probably ask you questions forever, but. But that was one of the ones that piqued my interest. And I wanted to just go through the History of it from the expert, you know, that, that, that you are, and I have a little understanding of it. But how did, how did blackface actually start?
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Well, blackface, I mean, I guess we start with Thomas Wright. He was considered the godfather of minstrel. And he, he made a song called Jump Jim Crow.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: And he was a white guy that painted his face black and started imitating or best imitating what he thought African Americans did his song for, for whatever it was, hit charts or anything, I don't know, went to number one. And everybody in the country kind of embraced it. And so by embracing the song, they embraced him. And you know, like anything else, once something happens and people start making money off of it, then you, you get the, the copycatters. So shortly after that, a number of other groups decided that they were going to do the same thing and a lot of individuals were going to do the same thing. So you're talking probably 1830s.
So this was probably the beginning of vaudeville. And so when we look at entertainment in those days, you're looking at mainly theater type groups, vaudeville acts. Certainly it was the rise of P.T. barnum and the circuses and carnivals.
Those were people's everyday afternoon. Of course, baseball was a big part of that too. Got a whole session on baseball we can do later on.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: But really, really.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Yeah, but the Negro, Negro leagues didn't start until a little bit later. But there were a lot of barnstorming teams at the time. But the main way that people had entertainment was go to a theater and see these acts. And okay, the popularity just exploded between 1930 and 19 probably was the, the starting a meteoric rise of minstrel shows.
The whole theme of the minstrel show was, let me say right off, as demeaning to black people.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: It wasn't Al Jolson too, the big movie star at the time.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, Al Jolson, Eddie Kanter.
There were a number of them who, who took that route for, for, for entertainment.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: But when you go back and look at the original minstrel shows, they were usually started out kind of as groups of, of whites that would paint their face black with burnt cork to imitate black people. There was a very set, regimented program, a three part, three act program that these minstrel shows would have. And they were all based on making fun of black people, degrading black people and uplifting plantation life. So these were all parts of the components. Now about the same time there were black groups doing minstrel shows and they, they didn't call it mistral shows. They were Simply called jubilee shows. They were generally spiritual in nature, right? The Tennessee State Jubilee Choirs and things like that with tour, they didn't initially black in their faces. They were already black. So they didn't have the black in their faces. But that. That metric caught on so much that they couldn't even get booked into places without literally blackening their already blackened faces. And so.
So you started to get a kind of a parallel where you had white groups with black faces and black groups with black faces competing for the entertainment dollar, so to speak. And so that was how it really got started.
Within that time, what you started to get were independent people who kind of broke off doing their own thing. They didn't adhere to the strict minstrel show program, but started to do other kinds of things.
And that's how your Al Jolson's and people like that got. Got got into it. One of the black entertainers that people may have heard of is Bert Williams. Now, Bert Williams is a. Is a great example of somebody who's taken it to the next level. He was. He and his friend George. George Walker is. Walker and Williams, they were like a dual act. And they started out as regular entertainers, you know, doing tap dancing or. Or singing. And, you know, they were scooped up by this whole minstrel thing so that they started blackening their face. But not only were they doing it, they were the best. I mean, they sold out shows when other people didn't sell out shows. And there's always a thing. He's got an interesting story to his life because he had this.
This rage. It's not rage. I guess it was just a fight inside of him about, you know, blacking in his face and acting foolish like. Like stereotypes, say, or taking the stuff off of his face and just singing like a normal. A normal person. He could do both. And so people would always wonder, well, why. Why are you even doing it? Why did. Why are. Why did you do it?
And he did it because it was. It was kind of what people did. I mean, I think fast forward a little bit to. To current times. And here in West Michigan, the city of Lowell had what was called the Lowell Showboat. And they had a Mistral show on that. Now, I'll get back to that later. But we interviewed man who were part of that minstrel show and. And their whole thing was we were just acting. We, you know, we were just play acting. And it was like, well, didn't, you know, you were being derogatory. Didn't you know, it hurt the feelings of black folks. There they really could care less. They thought they were in a show, acting. And that was the excuse that we got for a lot of.
From a lot of the men that we interviewed that were doing minstrel shows. But when we go back to Burt Williams.
Burt Williams also broke into other things. He. He and his. His friend recorded. They were some of the very first people who recorded records. They were some of the very first to write their own music. And they were some of the very first to. To appear in film. Okay. And Bert Williams, toward the end of his life.
I. I think I read a. Quoted a number of different ways. He was literally the first black millionaire. I mean, when you. When you. When you break down what he was getting per album or per. Because, I mean, they were just outrageous numbers. I mean, it said when. When records first started coming out.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: That, you know, if you. If you sold 10,000, you had a really good day. He was selling like 200,000 records. And so. So, you know, he was. He was unusual character. One of the stories was that he did a show. Everybody at the show went to a bar that was next to the theater.
The. The bartender knew who he was and was going to make him pay.
Like. Like if drinks were a dollar, they were going. He was gonna make him pay $50 for a drink.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: He whipped out a lot of cash like this and said, buy everybody a drink.
I mean, he was just that kind of guy, but is an interesting character. But like I said, it was. It was really not until film that. That the Mistral shows kind of died out.
They never died out all together, as I was saying, with the people down in Lowell. They had the Lowell showboat here still doing minstrel shows in the 1970s.
And it didn't take. It took.
I think it was Pearl Bailey who they had hired to be, you know, the big headline act. The Would always have a big headline act. And they'd go through this whole minstrel show thing and I think, show Ms. Braille. He said, I'm gonna. If. If you do minstrel shows, I'm gonna cancel my contract and I'm not gonna play. And so Pearl Bailey kind of let him have it. And they decided, well, you know, we. We got her on contract. We already paid her half. Let's. Let's not. Let's not antagonize her anymore. So we're not gonna do Mr. Shows. So I want to think. I want to say from like 70 to 73, they didn't do Mr. Shows. But then they. They brought them back after that. And so it's like, what's wrong with you guys? I mean, to get up maybe. Well, the thing too is that African Americans accepted it too. It was very little pushback. And as I said here in the western side of the state, the numbers of the populations weren't like Detroit or Flint or Saginaw or someplace else. We really didn't have that many numbers of people. Less than, you know, between 1 and 4% were African American. Even, Even up until now. I mean, it's a little more now, but there was always not a lot of numbers of people who would push back and say, oh, I'm offended by that, or I don't think that's a good idea to do that. As a matter of fact, I think when we did our show in 2019, it was as a response from one of the local high schools here had some students who blackened their faces and I think went to a base of basketball game or something like that and taunted some of the players.
And the community was outraged, shocked, you know, that this happened in 2019. And I think just shortly after that, I think the lady on Fox News had just gotten fired for doing blackface and somebody else had just gotten fired nationally for doing blackface. So it's never really went away. I mean, there's still probably cases. I used to have a. Oh yeah, sororities and fraternities are the biggest culprits on college campuses. They don't think anybody's filming. But now that you got cell phone cameras, I used to have a, an app that would just let me know when another blackface news comes up. And it, it still rings every now and then.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: But you have this whole progression, I think, and I think the things that you take away from it is that being derogatory to African Americans was commonplace at the time and that nobody was exempt from it. I mean, when we did our show, we found that there were local churches, local businesses, local corporations, local civic organizations that all did blackface. And even one of our local radio stations had a episode of kind of like Amos and Andy kind of a thing where they had. It's called Abe and Sambo. And Abe was a Jewish looking guy and, and Sambo was a black guy. And so we actually found a photograph of that and say, wait a minute, this is a radio show. Why do you only even need a photograph right. Of them in their get ups? You know, so, so it's, it's unfortunate, it's unfortunate side of history, you know, there's still volumes being written on, on It. Because there were so many groups that did it, and when you start breaking them all down. Yeah. We have a little story here about a guy from Grand Rapids who became. He was one of the very top entertainers, minstrel entertainers, and went around the country. He was born here, learned minstreling from his mother, who was a minstrel, a white. A white woman minstrel. And. And there were women groups. There were. They dress up like Aunt Jemimas and do their thing. So this guy became a.
A celebrity around the country. And I don't know, somebody.
Somebody just went up to him one day and said, man, this is really wrong, what you're doing.
You know, you. You're degrading African Americans. And. And we don't like it. And. And then he. He took the makeup off and stopped and never did it again. And so there's these stories within stories when you start talking about this blackface. And I hope that can. Gives you kind of a little bit about what it's like and maybe some of the things that happened in your travels. If you get up to the Jim Crow Museum on the campus of Ferris State University.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: That was my next one I need to get to.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Yep. Dr. Pilgrim has a probably more extensive collection than we do. He's been collecting for a longer time, and they have actual items, too, to show you that that will convey the story a little bit better.
You know, we've got the makeup. We've. I mean.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: The whole industry.
The joke books. There are whole joke books that are just negative minstrel jokes about black people and Indians and Jewish people.
So it was like a whole cottage industry that cropped up from this. And as I said, it was. It was literally the. The number one entered form of entertainment in the country for. For at least between the.
The 40s and the. The 30s and the 40s, and then into the 50s a little bit, too.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: So I thought it was very interesting, too, because even when I look back at some of the cartoons I used to watch as a kid, like Tom and Jerry. Right. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, my God, this show is like, you. You didn't even notice that as a kid. And then when you started seeing things as. When you got a little bit older, you know, you're like, holy smokes. The mother of Tom and Jerry was a caricature. And, you know, and you just had no idea. Like, it was so. It was so prevalent, it was slipped into a children's cartoon, Right?
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, I mean, if you go back far enough, you'll find it in almost all of them. And some of the earlier ones from the 20s and 30s, they're almost exclusively images of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben kind of images as well as the, I mean, there's, there's a whole vernacular, the, the harlot, the, the sambo, the fallen mud.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: And then their face would come up exaggerated and you're like. And like I said as a kid, you just didn't know. And then you see it when you're older and you're like, oh, this.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Now. It infuriates me when I see it, but.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: You almost, you almost. And I think that's what a lot of people is that at the time. Oh, it was just a joke. Oh, it's just a cartoon. Oh, it didn't, it's because they, they did not respect our feelings and how it, how it affected us and our children. And so it was okay to keep doing it because there wasn't a pushback. And you know, when the 60s and 70s came around and people started pushing back on those kind of things, then, you know, folks took a different look at it because like I said, it already incorporated into films a lot of you, excuse me, a lot of your early films, Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire, Bob Hope, all of those people did blackface. And so, so it was a part of our, our twisted culture that, that these things were allowed to go on and, and be prevalent. And of course, you know, if it makes money, it's going to be a harder, harder to convince people not to do it. You know, they'll still, still do it. They'll find an underground way to do it.
And that's why I said specifically sororities and fraternities still do it in their underground layers and where they don't think it can get out. And so while we think it might be gone, I can guarantee you it still happens different places around the country. And then along with that, it was also popular in Europe and England. And so you had a. Yeah, so you had, you had the same thing happening, you know, as a worldwide put down of black people. And so I'm not sure when the British stopped doing it, but. No, actually the British didn't stop doing. Matter of fact, there's a, there's a show out now that plays or plays in reruns on British TV that has to do with menstrual shows. And they, they're still playing it.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: So you still have Zwarte paint, right? Black Pete.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, people. People still even. I mean, even some of the things I read, to have even equated, you know, Good Times, the Jefferson's, Sanford and Son to that same kind of a genre. You know, it's a. It's a hard argument because, you know, some things that you. You might find just truly funny, you know, are sometimes racist and. And derogatory.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: You know, I think that's why, you know, Robert Downey Jr. Pulled off such an epic, you know, when it came to Tropic Thunder, of being able to straddle that line, because it was absurd. But I mean, I love that movie. I absolutely love the movie. But, I mean, that's a thin line that he played with that character because you're like, oh, is this gonna work? And it did.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: And it really did. Yeah, but it did it over the top in the absurdity of it.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: All right? And, you know, and they. I guess you can do anything if you're willing to take the pushback, if you're willing to take a boycott or you're willing to get your name off the Oscars or whatever. I mean, if you want to go ahead and try it, go ahead and try it. I mean, like I said, there were a lot of firings within the last 10 years of, you know, newscasters and sportscasters and actors who have. Who. Who went down that road and. And didn't have the support of people around them or didn't ask anybody. Is this a good idea? You know, so.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: Right. Well, you know, just really briefly, I know your time is valuable, obviously. I would love to follow up and have an additional conversation when it comes to what we're talking about. I certainly didn't mean to cut you off. What else can people know about the Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives?
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Well, like I said, We're 10 years old. We're here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I will get you a QR code that you can have people scan that'll get us into our social networks. And we're. We're. We're trying to move. We're in a place that's about 2,000 square feet right now, and we've got our eye on a building that's maybe 10 times the size. So that's a big push and big projects for the upcoming year, believe me. I. I've got a little picture of Charles Wright Museum when they were in a little trailer on my desk. And it reminds me every day how. Where you start and where you end up and how long it takes Some time. I know it took them about 60 years to get from that little trailer to where they are now. Took the National Museum 100 years to get to where they are. So we're expecting great things from the community. We have had support and now we're kind of going to some big dollars, funders, national monies. But, you know, now things. Just as soon as you get ready to make that step, you get all your federal funds being frozen or federal grants, anything that has to do with DEI being frozen. So it's a challenging time for museums. And just tell people out there, support any of your local museums, especially if they are purveying African American history and culture.
It's not going to be here forever, folks. And there are doors closing every day that we can see in our connections with other museums around the country because federal dollars have dried up. So they're going to be asking the public to come back and support and please do support your local African American museum.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: I think the work that you do is wonderful. You know, you've, you've been, you know, at the forefront of some of some incredible work that you've done. I was honored to be able to, you know, step foot in that museum and get it. You know, it's one thing to read in a book. It's one thing to go on the Internet. It's another thing to see things in person and be able to actually walk around them. And it was a, you know, really, you know, it's in some way a gut wrenching experience to kind of actually see the images and, you know, up close and watch the, you know, the things that, you know, books and, and what the work that you do, I'm really appreciative of it. And again, your time, since I know it's so valuable, I'm so honored to have had it.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Well, like I said, Rashad, we, we're, we're glad to come through. And you're right, the collecting is the, is the, is the great part of it. I mean, because it, it takes you right to, right to the time, right to the image, right to the person. And that's the thing that I love doing most in this whole museum business. It's collecting the objects and then prying a little bit to find the stories behind them. And I've surprised myself with some of the things that we've run across.
A lady just donated, a clementine hunter. She's an artist from the South, a folk artist, famous because she's probably the most copied artist of all time. Her work's very primitive looking. So anybody thinks they can do it and get away with it. And there were some pros out there that sold them to museums and sold them to galleries and someone just donated an authentic one to us. So, so we're, we're always looking to collect and building our collection to make it tell those stories of people that, that are gone past us and need their story to be told.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Right. And, you know, and so, and I thought, you know, and just briefly, you know, I think it, you know, it was good to see for me what I may have missed when I was younger and what I didn't see when I was actually younger. And you know, it's, I think that when you start diving into that history of, of how this became, you become a better person in understanding of how that actually led up to today. You know, what was a form of entertainment? You, you're like, yo, this is. Whoa. You're like this.
I'm blown away. This was entertainment for people, you know.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and the thing is, too, always talk to young people again, too about collecting because you, you just never know what's, what's, what's going to be valuable 50 years down the road. I mean, like you said, when you're young, you know, you'd have baseball cards or comic books. You throw them away now, they're worth thousands, thousands of dollars. And I mean, I tell kids all the time, I say, you know, you guys got one of these things in your pocket, right? What is this going to look like 50 years from now that you're going to be saying, oh yeah, remember we used to use those apple things, you know, Remember? You know, you have some little thing on your glasses or virtual screen in front of you and, and, and you'll be saying, these will be in museums. And so you never really know. And, and I, I definitely wish I could crank the time back for 30, 40 years. I, I'd be rich now with all the things that, that I know that are quite collective.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: You know, and the, always. The purpose of the Tron podcast, you know, as, as the outro, is to talk to, you know, experts in fields of work and items that are of curiosity and when, whether or not, whatever, whatever you're cur, whatever you're an expert in, I think it's important that you people listen to what you're an expert in the field that you are. And that's the purpose of the show and to get somebody like you with the work that you do. Like I said, I was chomping at the bit, you know, sending, hitting that send button to see what would happen if you guys would, you would reply. And I'm honored that I was able to get a reply and be able to get some time. And I would love to have a follow up about these topics we discussed. Discussed.
[00:34:33] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. We'll, we'll do this again. You know, it's just getting the schedule right and getting in there and I think we can, we can definitely do this again. I'd like to talk to you about a lot more things. You know, there's, there's still a connection here with Detroit and Grand Rapids. Like I said, we, we got a whole thing about Negro League baseball. And one of our owners here that owned the Detroit Stars for a while, we just honored her in a gala a few months ago and she's got a whole story I just did a presentation on. It was called Comstocks Row. It was the very first place that African Americans lived when they came here to Grand Rapids. And it's a whole involved story with that. So there's a lot of things that we'll talk about. I mean, we'll do two or three more shots, I think, in the coming year. And we just, you know, again, reach out to our Detroit audience and say thank you for Rashad for letting us be on your program today.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Thank you so much. I'm very honored and like I said, stay warm and blessings to you and all the great work that you do. Really appreciate that.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: No problem. Thank you.
