Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em Podcast 218. Paul Kix on How Civil Rights Heroes Taught Him to Live -- and Maybe Even Die.
Nancy and Sarah interview journalist Paul Kix, author of the award-winning book on the Civil Rights movement, You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live. Paul writes about the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s ten weeks in Birmingham through fully realized characters and complicated detail, and he tells us how the experience changed him.
We also talk about Paul’s 2023 personal essay, “Liberals Once Embraced Interracial Marriages Like Mine. What Changed?” The conversation skip-hops around race, spirituality, faith, discipline, journalism — and Paul makes Nancy cry (twice!).
Also discussed:
* Marfa, too many metal chairs and cement surfaces
* The Disappearance of Hotel Bathtubs: A lamentation
* How Sarah changed Paul’s life
* Summer 2020: Oh, how it transformed us
* “There’s a liberalism that abandoned me”
* Can a white man tell a black story?
* “Mis·ceg·e·na·tion” “Man·i·chae·an” “Hag·i·og·ra·phy”
* George Floyd, quite the football player
* How the Eagles’ Glenn Frey knew Jackson Browne was the real deal
* “Bombingham”
* Humanizing Bull Conner
* Would you allow your children to get fire-hosed for a righteous cause?
* Harry Belafonte, the George Soros of the civil rights movement
* New Yorkers love to say “No”
* “In the wake of war is the big beating heart of love”
* How to bet on yourself
* “What cause would you die for?”
Plus, Sarah falls into a Weather Underground rabbit hole, an argument for more art told from the perspective of a resentful loser, why Paul kept a photo on his fridge that looked like Billie Dee Williams, and much more.
This is one of our favorite episodes xx