In this episode of How My View Grew, Greg Thomas describes how jazz saved him from hating so-called "white people" and how he learned to see the Black American experience as a hero's journey that is central to American history and culture.

**Key takeaways**

3:00 Early-life learning about rabid southern racists
9:00 "I gotta pick up an instrument"
13:30 The pathologizing of Black Americans by "white" liberals
16:00 The depth and wisdom of Albert Murray, Ralph Ellison, and Stanley Crouch
19:00 "This history has got my back" and the artificiality of "whiteness"
22:00 The hero's journey
23:30 Amiel's reflections

**Resources**

Jazz Leadership Project
Omni-American Future Project
“King of Cats,” Henry Louis Gates Jr’s long profile of Murray in The New Yorker
The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy by Albert Murray

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Greg Thomas: Can Injustice Catalyze a Hero's Journey?