February 25, 2025 • 21 mins
It's the last episode of the season, and Akilah is thinking about her home, Florence, Kentucky. Over the course of our reporting, we've been told how much the town and county are changing, how much more diverse they're getting. What does the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration and diversity mean for Florence? What does it mean for all of us? One last open record request underscores what we're up against, even as the battle feels larger than ever.
To view a selection of the open records we received from the school, along with bonus content for other episodes, visit our new website: https://rebelspiritpodcast.com
If you have a racist mascot at your high school or are an alumni of a high school with a racist mascot and want to share your own experience, please email us at [email protected].
We would love to talk to you!
Correction: We reference Linda McMahon as Education Secretary in this episode, as of publishing she is just the nomination.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My own black a droller has gone on overlight I know,
Ninth Planet Audio con we're overlanding, you're going over.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Listener. This is it our last episode of the season,
and so I thought maybe we'd take it back to
where it all began. Florence, Kentucky.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah, I guess like talking about how everything has changed here.
It's like, it is kind of amazing how the only
constant here is Jane. It's nice that they have a
sidewalk now didn't always. They've put in a lot more medians.
I feel like they've really fixed the roads.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Florence is where in nineteen fifty four, students at Boone
County High School named themselves the Rebels. It's where the
water tower on I seventy five reads Florence y'all. It's
where the Florence y'all's played baseball. It's where the Florence mall. Yeah,
this is going to take us. I think to the mall.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
You know, want to pay for the gym and you've
got gym shoes.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
There's water on them.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, the mall is seen better days. It's where land
that used to be farms now gives you the opportunity
to eat at an Applebee's, a Rafferty's, and a cracker barrel,
all without leaving a single block. And Florence is where
I grew up. Florence is where I went to high
school as one of only a handful of black kids.
(01:31):
And Florence is where I first met mister Rebel, the
Confederate general that served as the mascot of our school
for years. By by what, and yes, Florence is where
I left to pursue a career that felt impossible in
the suburbs of Cincinnati. But for better and worse, Florence
(01:51):
has always been home.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
The last time I was here, I drove past my
old house and the only difference was there were these
two like one hundred year old oak trees in the
front yard and they just cut them down. It's like, well,
there's nothing.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It just looks like every house. And so for this season,
ender listener, let's go home.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
I was a leady Rebbel, like.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
What does that even need? The Boone County Rebels will
stay the Boone County Rebels.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
But the image of it right here in Black and
White and Friends.
Speaker 7 (02:24):
Alien Biggers is a flag or mascot. Anytime you're trying
to mess with tradition, you get to be ready for
a serious.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Background from Ninth's Planet Audio. I'm Akila Hughes and this
is Rebel Spirit, Episode twelve erasures. Over the last year
(02:52):
and a half we've been working on this podcast, there's
one thing we've been told about Florence over and over.
It's growing more diverse by the day, in large part
by immigrants.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
About the time that I was getting there, the socioeconomics
of the community were starting to change.
Speaker 8 (03:08):
A higher percentage of the population that was coming in
was non white.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
The school district has just exploded. Everything is just bigger,
far more diverse.
Speaker 9 (03:18):
The Boo County Peewey Football League is funny because it
used to be like all these white hillbilly men.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Right, yeah, lor It's used to be nothing but white
hillbilly's for sure.
Speaker 9 (03:28):
Yeah, And now it's drastically changing as the players are
black or Hispanic, and.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
Now Boone has the most diversity in the county, right
it is. And if you were there, if you see
the demographic of.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
County now it's different.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I was like, I can't believe every shade of beige, brown, tan, dark, like.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Oh, oh my goodness.
Speaker 9 (03:48):
Right, the actual people that control this place. They have
no clue how different it is on the ground. Now,
we are the fourth highest recipient of legal immigration or
asylum seekers in the United States, So it's like New York, Texas, California,
and then Kentucky. Florence actually has a huge Congolese population.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And it's true. Boone County, largely because of Florence, has
the highest immigrant population in all of northern Kentucky. That
population includes a recent influx of asylum seekers from the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia who join a steadily
growing number of Mexican, Central and South American immigrants. Drive
(04:34):
around Florence and you can see the impact of this
population everywhere in churches that offer services in other languages,
in new businesses that open up to offer a little
bit of home to recent immigrants, and of course you
see it in the schools.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Our foundational commitment is to encourage and inspire.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Our students through education, to become.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
Contributing citizens of the world.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
We these core beliefs are central to Boone County schools.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Boone County High School is the most diverse school in
the county, with nearly forty percent of the school population
being non white, a huge change from when I was
there twenty years ago. That today there are more than
fifty languages spoken among students at Boone County is a
point of pride, and it should be. But listener, last episode,
(05:27):
we promised you more open records. We'd received nearly four
hundred pages of emails from the school district, along with
a presentation of possible mascots and team names to finally
put the rebel to bed. Option one is just keeping
the rebels and making it into a bison. The second
(05:48):
option is a bison, and it's the same kind of
generic bison logos. But last episode we discovered those records
were incomplete ended in August of last year, and so
we filed another open records request for the rest and
(06:10):
we may not remember then of education in Kentucky history, Well,
it was mostly more of the same. It was another
few hundred chaotic pages of reproductions of our emails to
the school in the district, of angry letters about me,
of entirely random and unrelated things that probably someone should
have weeded out but didn't like. The certificate of insurance
(06:31):
for the company renting the high school cafeteria for a
public meeting, but among everything they sent us, the possibility
of a new mascot at Boone County High School was
almost nowhere to be seen. The momentum we uncovered in
the email's last episode of meetings and presentations last spring
had clearly died out, but why was unclear. Once again,
(06:53):
we tried to reach out to Principal Stacy Black and
the new superintendent of Boone County, Jeff Houswald, to find
out what it stops the momentum, and once again we
heard nothing back. But there was one email in the
stack about the mascot from a member of the mascot
committee assembled last spring. It was sent to Principal Black
on November fifteenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6 (07:17):
Stacy, I know a few weeks ago you told me
to cool my jets, but I can't quite let it go.
I know there's a lot of things going on with
you and the topic, some pressures, no doubt of which
I am not aware. So my impressions at this moment
bulls no just no Bisons. I've always felt uneasy about
(07:39):
the Bison mascot that carries the Moniker rebel. For me,
it's Bison's whole or nothing. Rebels. There seems to be
reinvestment this year in rebels across announcements, events, building wide, vibe, apparel,
et cetera. So I'm returning at least for the moment
to the dog. I've amended this slide from some time ago.
(08:00):
Check out my paint three d edits. Honestly, I like
the great dog more of a mongrel a metaphor for
a diversity more than a pitbull.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Thanks the mongrel as a metaphor for diversity, literally and
insult for a dog to represent diversity. Seriously, this is
a teacher at Boone, someone who interacts with the school's
(08:29):
diverse student body every day, and this is someone who
thinks he's helping. He even made a PowerPoint of his
dog mascot where he made it a point to once
again point out that the dogs and I quote uncertain
breed represents our diversity. And yes, of course we filed
an open records request for his PowerPoint, and yes it's
(08:50):
up on our website at rebelspiritpodcast dot com. But listener,
after twelve episodes, after a year and a half of reporting,
this is what we're up again. This is what the
kids at Boone County High School are up against. This
is what folks that want to see change in Florence
are up against. The mongrel as a metaphor for diversity.
(09:12):
But that's not the only challenge. We'll be right back
after this break. It's been barely more than a month
since Donald Trump became president, and he got right to
work destroying what progress has been made in this country.
And he started with immigration.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
There is a report that the incoming Trump administration will
begin massive immigration raids next week, and they will start
in Chicago.
Speaker 7 (09:39):
HS secretary conducting raids here in New York last night, Camella,
what do we know about how these roundups are being conducted.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
ICE isn't just conducting its round ups in places like
Chicago and New York. Though, that big, diverse influx of
immigrants that has begun to transform the face of Florence,
well that's made it a target for immigration raids too.
Our new fears about immigration raids and whether they may
happen in Kentucky communities. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, in
the first eleven days of President Donald Trump's administration, one
(10:11):
of the region's only immigration detention facilities saw a surge
in immigration detainments, that detention facility. It's the Boone County Jail.
Boone County voted sixty eight percent for Donald Trump in November.
They voted to lock their neighbors up in their own jail.
And that's not the only thing voters have done. As
we record this episode, Trump and Elon Musk are attempting
(10:33):
to dismantle the Department of Education. Guess which state is
in the top five for federal funds per student. Yep,
it's Kentucky. Looks like that funding might be drying up
real soon. And then there's this.
Speaker 8 (10:49):
My son is in a public school. He takes a
class called African American History. If you're running an African
American history class, could you perhaps be in violation of
this core of this executive order.
Speaker 7 (11:03):
I'm not quite certain, and I'd like to look into
it further and get back to you on that.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
That's Education Secretary Linda McMahon refusing to answer whether or
not teaching black history would violate Trump's executive orders against diversity, equity,
and inclusion. Anyone plays in bets. The erasure of history
is happening all around us. It's happening across the federal
government as offices scramble to enact the president's racist orders
(11:28):
by taking down Black History Month posters, removing pronouns from emails,
and taking the t out of LGBT. On the National
Park Service web page for the Stonewall National Monument, which
marks the riot at the Stonewall Inn that was led
by Marsha P. Johnson, a transgender black woman, References to
transgender and queer people have been removed from the Stonewall
(11:49):
National Monument section on the National Park Service website, and
it's happening across society as the NFL race to paint
over end racism in the end zones before the super
as Disney rewrites the content labels that it put before
some of its more problematic animated films in twenty twenty,
and as Target walked back the diversity commitments it made
(12:10):
in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, who
at the time the CEO said could have been one
of my Target team members. As distressing as it all is,
this shouldn't come as a surprise to those of you
who have been listening to this podcast for the last
six months, because when you move past the mascots and
the biscuits. That's really what it's been about, about history
(12:34):
and about the erasure of that history. We're backtracking as
a society now because we refuse to address how we
got here. But it's more than that too. Through all
of our reporting, when people push back against changing rebel mascots,
it's always about how the white kids would feel. And
it's the same thing when Trump and his crew talk
about DEI. It's about white feelings. It's about white men
(12:58):
suddenly not being the only people in the room and
feeling like, well, if I don't have an advantage, then
they must have an unfair one. But of course it's
not any more unfair than asking why a school with
a near majority minority population should still have to run
around with a Confederate nickname on their shirts. It's good
to ask, We have the right to ask, and we
(13:19):
would be better off as a society for having the conversation,
for having all of these conversations. But instead we're backsliding
because they refuse to have them.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
I have lived in Boone County all my life and
still live here. The person making the request hasn't lived
here for years and probably doesn't have her heart in
this county or school she.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Wants to change a name, start with a new school,
preferably where she lives currently, not where she lived, loved,
and lest she.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
Is not part of our community and is in fact
two thousand miles removed from this issue.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
When I read over the dozens of emails sent to
the school district about me, written almost exclusively from alumni
from fifty years ago, their overall refrain was that I
wasn't from Florence, and so I shouldn't be listened to.
So I'll say it again, Florence is my home. And
yet here was person after person making me an outsider.
(14:23):
When Barack Obama became president in two thousand and eight,
Donald Trump made a name for himself by saying that
Obama wasn't really from here. Obama, according to Trump, was
an outsider.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
Another political story making news this morning donald Trump's growing
poll numbers on a list of possible presidential contenders. Since
he first appeared on GMA last month, he's been taking
to the airways to continually question President Obama's birth certificate.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
The birth certificate was produced in twenty eleven. You continued
to tell the story and question the president's legitimacy in
twenty twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, as recently as January.
Speaker 7 (15:00):
I want to go on to what.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Donald Trump said after he said this is out and everything.
He said, we need to look at his grades and
see if he was a good enough student to get
into Harvard Law School. That's just code for saying he
got into law school because he's black. This is an
ugly strain of racism that's running through this whole thing.
We can hope that that kind of comes to an
(15:23):
end too, but we'll.
Speaker 9 (15:24):
Have to see.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Can black people ever be considered insiders in America? Can
black people ever be from somewhere? Do we get a say?
Of course, we do more. After this quick break, travel
just a little ways up I seventy five from Florence
through Cincinnati, and you'll reach the town of Lincoln Heights, Ohio.
(15:50):
Founded in nineteen twenty three, Lincoln Heights was a haven
for black folks moving north following the promise of working
Cincinnati's burgeoning factories. The jobs were there, but the housing wasn't,
thanks of course, to racism, which saw neighboring communities bar
black people from moving in. Finally, developers bought the land nearby,
originally called the Cincinnati Industrial Subdivision, and sold it to
(16:13):
black people who began to build a home for themselves there.
The population grew rapidly quickly into the thousands, and residents
tried to incorporate into a real town multiple times over
the next two decades. Every attempt was blocked by white
voters in the surrounding county. But then in nineteen forty six,
Lincoln Heights was incorporated at ten percent of its actual size,
(16:36):
and it became the first all black, self governing municipality
north of the Mason Dixon line, and for a time
was the largest all black city in the entire United States.
It was such a big deal that Lincoln Heights first
mayor and residents were invited to New York City, where
a ticker tape parade was held in their honor for
(16:57):
all the reasons you would expect, namely, of course, racism,
but also the same plights that have befallen the industrial
Midwest over the last few decades. Lincoln Heights has diminished
significantly since its heyday, but it's still black and it's
still proud, which is why in the wake of Donald
Trump's presidency, when literal Nazis showed up on a highway
(17:17):
overpass bordering Lincoln Heights while the residents weren't having it.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
We're back now with a troubling story out of Ohio,
where tonight a community is uniting after confronting a group
of white supremacists who wave swastika flags on a highway overpass.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Community members quickly confronting the group.
Speaker 6 (17:35):
It is it is not by chance that this happened
in this community at this.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Time, the reverend and dozens of other community members marching
to the overpass to show that Haate has no home here. Listener,
I had friends contacting me from all over the country
to find out more about Cincinnati. After Lincoln Heights' finest chase,
the Nazis back into their U haul van. And what
can I say other than despite everything, this is where
I'm from, and this is why I'll continue to try
(18:01):
and make this place better. Because the Nazis don't get
to decide who stays and who goes anymore than the
aging out population of rebel sympathizers get to decide who
is and isn't from Florence and whose histories get to
be told. This isn't about a mascot. Not really. This
is about place and about who gets to tell stories
(18:23):
of that place, about who gets to take up space
in that place, about who gets to define the lives
we lead in the futures we chart. And so here
we are at the end of the season. And yes,
as of right now, there's still the Boone County Rebels,
but we all know how the Civil War ended, and
(18:44):
so if folks want to keep fighting it for a
little while longer, that's fine. You're still gonna lose. But also, listener,
there's one last thing last fall we were leaked to document.
It was a copy of the facts of a letter
from March nineteen ninety six. It was from the US
(19:04):
Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights to the Boone
County School District and.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Well dear Superintendent Weddingcap. On October seventeenth, nineteen ninety five,
the Office for Civil Rights US Department of Education received
a complaint against the Boone County Public Schools. Specifically, the
complaint alleged the district allowed schools to display symbols that
are negative and create a racially hostile environment to black
(19:29):
and Native American students and patrons.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well, how about that. Here in our hands was a
letter from thirty years ago in which the federal government
says that they received a complaint about the rebels at
Boone County High School and how it creates a hostile
environment for the black and brown kids there thirty years ago.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Now.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
The letter went on to explain that because they had
insufficient information in the original complaint, that they were not
proceeding with an investigation. But still they knew, they knew.
You better believe we had questions. Who filed the original complaint?
Was there an inciting incident in nineteen ninety five that
sparked it? Did the district know? Did anyone know the
(20:14):
links we have gone to get those answers? And the
absolutely wild paths that journey sent us down. I'm not kidding.
Someone died, y'all. Is well a story for another day
until then, I'm Aquila Hughes and this has been Rebel Spirit.
(20:35):
Rebel Spirit is a production of Ninth Planet Audio in
association with iHeart Podcasts. Reporting and writing by me Aquila Hughes.
I'm also an executive producer and the host. Produced by
Dan Sinker, edited by Josie A.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Zahm.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Additional Editing on this episode by Jennifer Dean. Music composed
by Charlie Sun, Sound design and mixing by Josia zahmb Our.
Theme song is All the Things I Couldn't Say, performed
by Bussy and The Basse, courtesy of Arts and Crafts Productions, Inc.
Our production coordinator is Kyle Hinton. Our clearance coordinator is
anasun Andschine. Production accounting by Dill pret Singh. Additional research
(21:12):
support from Janas Dillard. Email reads by Nicole Thurman, Frank
Garcia Hile, Hal Lovelin, John tynan Am, Jenna Ghosh, and
Mason Smith. Executive producers from Ninth Planet Audio are Elizabeth
Baquet and Jimmy Miller. We've put the Mongrel Guy's letter
and presentation, along with the March nineteen ninety six letter
(21:34):
from the US Department of Education Civil Rights Office, up
on this episode's page on our website, Rebelspirit podcast dot com.
My own black a droller has gone on overlight I know,
Ninth Planet Audio con we're overlanding, you're going over.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Listener. This is it our last episode of the season,
and so I thought maybe we'd take it back to
where it all began. Florence, Kentucky.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah, I guess like talking about how everything has changed here.
It's like, it is kind of amazing how the only
constant here is Jane. It's nice that they have a
sidewalk now didn't always. They've put in a lot more medians.
I feel like they've really fixed the roads.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Florence is where in nineteen fifty four, students at Boone
County High School named themselves the Rebels. It's where the
water tower on I seventy five reads Florence y'all. It's
where the Florence y'all's played baseball. It's where the Florence mall. Yeah,
this is going to take us. I think to the mall.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
You know, want to pay for the gym and you've
got gym shoes.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
There's water on them.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, the mall is seen better days. It's where land
that used to be farms now gives you the opportunity
to eat at an Applebee's, a Rafferty's, and a cracker barrel,
all without leaving a single block. And Florence is where
I grew up. Florence is where I went to high
school as one of only a handful of black kids.
(01:31):
And Florence is where I first met mister Rebel, the
Confederate general that served as the mascot of our school
for years. By by what, and yes, Florence is where
I left to pursue a career that felt impossible in
the suburbs of Cincinnati. But for better and worse, Florence
(01:51):
has always been home.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
The last time I was here, I drove past my
old house and the only difference was there were these
two like one hundred year old oak trees in the
front yard and they just cut them down. It's like, well,
there's nothing.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It just looks like every house. And so for this season,
ender listener, let's go home.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
I was a leady Rebbel, like.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
What does that even need? The Boone County Rebels will
stay the Boone County Rebels.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
But the image of it right here in Black and
White and Friends.
Speaker 7 (02:24):
Alien Biggers is a flag or mascot. Anytime you're trying
to mess with tradition, you get to be ready for
a serious.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Background from Ninth's Planet Audio. I'm Akila Hughes and this
is Rebel Spirit, Episode twelve erasures. Over the last year
(02:52):
and a half we've been working on this podcast, there's
one thing we've been told about Florence over and over.
It's growing more diverse by the day, in large part
by immigrants.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
About the time that I was getting there, the socioeconomics
of the community were starting to change.
Speaker 8 (03:08):
A higher percentage of the population that was coming in
was non white.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
The school district has just exploded. Everything is just bigger,
far more diverse.
Speaker 9 (03:18):
The Boo County Peewey Football League is funny because it
used to be like all these white hillbilly men.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Right, yeah, lor It's used to be nothing but white
hillbilly's for sure.
Speaker 9 (03:28):
Yeah, And now it's drastically changing as the players are
black or Hispanic, and.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
Now Boone has the most diversity in the county, right
it is. And if you were there, if you see
the demographic of.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
County now it's different.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
I was like, I can't believe every shade of beige, brown, tan, dark, like.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Oh, oh my goodness.
Speaker 9 (03:48):
Right, the actual people that control this place. They have
no clue how different it is on the ground. Now,
we are the fourth highest recipient of legal immigration or
asylum seekers in the United States, So it's like New York, Texas, California,
and then Kentucky. Florence actually has a huge Congolese population.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And it's true. Boone County, largely because of Florence, has
the highest immigrant population in all of northern Kentucky. That
population includes a recent influx of asylum seekers from the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia who join a steadily
growing number of Mexican, Central and South American immigrants. Drive
(04:34):
around Florence and you can see the impact of this
population everywhere in churches that offer services in other languages,
in new businesses that open up to offer a little
bit of home to recent immigrants, and of course you
see it in the schools.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Our foundational commitment is to encourage and inspire.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Our students through education, to become.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
Contributing citizens of the world.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
We these core beliefs are central to Boone County schools.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Boone County High School is the most diverse school in
the county, with nearly forty percent of the school population
being non white, a huge change from when I was
there twenty years ago. That today there are more than
fifty languages spoken among students at Boone County is a
point of pride, and it should be. But listener, last episode,
(05:27):
we promised you more open records. We'd received nearly four
hundred pages of emails from the school district, along with
a presentation of possible mascots and team names to finally
put the rebel to bed. Option one is just keeping
the rebels and making it into a bison. The second
(05:48):
option is a bison, and it's the same kind of
generic bison logos. But last episode we discovered those records
were incomplete ended in August of last year, and so
we filed another open records request for the rest and
(06:10):
we may not remember then of education in Kentucky history, Well,
it was mostly more of the same. It was another
few hundred chaotic pages of reproductions of our emails to
the school in the district, of angry letters about me,
of entirely random and unrelated things that probably someone should
have weeded out but didn't like. The certificate of insurance
(06:31):
for the company renting the high school cafeteria for a
public meeting, but among everything they sent us, the possibility
of a new mascot at Boone County High School was
almost nowhere to be seen. The momentum we uncovered in
the email's last episode of meetings and presentations last spring
had clearly died out, but why was unclear. Once again,
(06:53):
we tried to reach out to Principal Stacy Black and
the new superintendent of Boone County, Jeff Houswald, to find
out what it stops the momentum, and once again we
heard nothing back. But there was one email in the
stack about the mascot from a member of the mascot
committee assembled last spring. It was sent to Principal Black
on November fifteenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6 (07:17):
Stacy, I know a few weeks ago you told me
to cool my jets, but I can't quite let it go.
I know there's a lot of things going on with
you and the topic, some pressures, no doubt of which
I am not aware. So my impressions at this moment
bulls no just no Bisons. I've always felt uneasy about
(07:39):
the Bison mascot that carries the Moniker rebel. For me,
it's Bison's whole or nothing. Rebels. There seems to be
reinvestment this year in rebels across announcements, events, building wide, vibe, apparel,
et cetera. So I'm returning at least for the moment
to the dog. I've amended this slide from some time ago.
(08:00):
Check out my paint three d edits. Honestly, I like
the great dog more of a mongrel a metaphor for
a diversity more than a pitbull.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Thanks the mongrel as a metaphor for diversity, literally and
insult for a dog to represent diversity. Seriously, this is
a teacher at Boone, someone who interacts with the school's
(08:29):
diverse student body every day, and this is someone who
thinks he's helping. He even made a PowerPoint of his
dog mascot where he made it a point to once
again point out that the dogs and I quote uncertain
breed represents our diversity. And yes, of course we filed
an open records request for his PowerPoint, and yes it's
(08:50):
up on our website at rebelspiritpodcast dot com. But listener,
after twelve episodes, after a year and a half of reporting,
this is what we're up again. This is what the
kids at Boone County High School are up against. This
is what folks that want to see change in Florence
are up against. The mongrel as a metaphor for diversity.
(09:12):
But that's not the only challenge. We'll be right back
after this break. It's been barely more than a month
since Donald Trump became president, and he got right to
work destroying what progress has been made in this country.
And he started with immigration.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
There is a report that the incoming Trump administration will
begin massive immigration raids next week, and they will start
in Chicago.
Speaker 7 (09:39):
HS secretary conducting raids here in New York last night, Camella,
what do we know about how these roundups are being conducted.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
ICE isn't just conducting its round ups in places like
Chicago and New York. Though, that big, diverse influx of
immigrants that has begun to transform the face of Florence,
well that's made it a target for immigration raids too.
Our new fears about immigration raids and whether they may
happen in Kentucky communities. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, in
the first eleven days of President Donald Trump's administration, one
(10:11):
of the region's only immigration detention facilities saw a surge
in immigration detainments, that detention facility. It's the Boone County Jail.
Boone County voted sixty eight percent for Donald Trump in November.
They voted to lock their neighbors up in their own jail.
And that's not the only thing voters have done. As
we record this episode, Trump and Elon Musk are attempting
(10:33):
to dismantle the Department of Education. Guess which state is
in the top five for federal funds per student. Yep,
it's Kentucky. Looks like that funding might be drying up
real soon. And then there's this.
Speaker 8 (10:49):
My son is in a public school. He takes a
class called African American History. If you're running an African
American history class, could you perhaps be in violation of
this core of this executive order.
Speaker 7 (11:03):
I'm not quite certain, and I'd like to look into
it further and get back to you on that.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
That's Education Secretary Linda McMahon refusing to answer whether or
not teaching black history would violate Trump's executive orders against diversity, equity,
and inclusion. Anyone plays in bets. The erasure of history
is happening all around us. It's happening across the federal
government as offices scramble to enact the president's racist orders
(11:28):
by taking down Black History Month posters, removing pronouns from emails,
and taking the t out of LGBT. On the National
Park Service web page for the Stonewall National Monument, which
marks the riot at the Stonewall Inn that was led
by Marsha P. Johnson, a transgender black woman, References to
transgender and queer people have been removed from the Stonewall
(11:49):
National Monument section on the National Park Service website, and
it's happening across society as the NFL race to paint
over end racism in the end zones before the super
as Disney rewrites the content labels that it put before
some of its more problematic animated films in twenty twenty,
and as Target walked back the diversity commitments it made
(12:10):
in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, who
at the time the CEO said could have been one
of my Target team members. As distressing as it all is,
this shouldn't come as a surprise to those of you
who have been listening to this podcast for the last
six months, because when you move past the mascots and
the biscuits. That's really what it's been about, about history
(12:34):
and about the erasure of that history. We're backtracking as
a society now because we refuse to address how we
got here. But it's more than that too. Through all
of our reporting, when people push back against changing rebel mascots,
it's always about how the white kids would feel. And
it's the same thing when Trump and his crew talk
about DEI. It's about white feelings. It's about white men
(12:58):
suddenly not being the only people in the room and
feeling like, well, if I don't have an advantage, then
they must have an unfair one. But of course it's
not any more unfair than asking why a school with
a near majority minority population should still have to run
around with a Confederate nickname on their shirts. It's good
to ask, We have the right to ask, and we
(13:19):
would be better off as a society for having the conversation,
for having all of these conversations. But instead we're backsliding
because they refuse to have them.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
I have lived in Boone County all my life and
still live here. The person making the request hasn't lived
here for years and probably doesn't have her heart in
this county or school she.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Wants to change a name, start with a new school,
preferably where she lives currently, not where she lived, loved,
and lest she.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
Is not part of our community and is in fact
two thousand miles removed from this issue.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
When I read over the dozens of emails sent to
the school district about me, written almost exclusively from alumni
from fifty years ago, their overall refrain was that I
wasn't from Florence, and so I shouldn't be listened to.
So I'll say it again, Florence is my home. And
yet here was person after person making me an outsider.
(14:23):
When Barack Obama became president in two thousand and eight,
Donald Trump made a name for himself by saying that
Obama wasn't really from here. Obama, according to Trump, was
an outsider.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
Another political story making news this morning donald Trump's growing
poll numbers on a list of possible presidential contenders. Since
he first appeared on GMA last month, he's been taking
to the airways to continually question President Obama's birth certificate.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
The birth certificate was produced in twenty eleven. You continued
to tell the story and question the president's legitimacy in
twenty twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, as recently as January.
Speaker 7 (15:00):
I want to go on to what.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Donald Trump said after he said this is out and everything.
He said, we need to look at his grades and
see if he was a good enough student to get
into Harvard Law School. That's just code for saying he
got into law school because he's black. This is an
ugly strain of racism that's running through this whole thing.
We can hope that that kind of comes to an
(15:23):
end too, but we'll.
Speaker 9 (15:24):
Have to see.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Can black people ever be considered insiders in America? Can
black people ever be from somewhere? Do we get a say?
Of course, we do more. After this quick break, travel
just a little ways up I seventy five from Florence
through Cincinnati, and you'll reach the town of Lincoln Heights, Ohio.
(15:50):
Founded in nineteen twenty three, Lincoln Heights was a haven
for black folks moving north following the promise of working
Cincinnati's burgeoning factories. The jobs were there, but the housing wasn't,
thanks of course, to racism, which saw neighboring communities bar
black people from moving in. Finally, developers bought the land nearby,
originally called the Cincinnati Industrial Subdivision, and sold it to
(16:13):
black people who began to build a home for themselves there.
The population grew rapidly quickly into the thousands, and residents
tried to incorporate into a real town multiple times over
the next two decades. Every attempt was blocked by white
voters in the surrounding county. But then in nineteen forty six,
Lincoln Heights was incorporated at ten percent of its actual size,
(16:36):
and it became the first all black, self governing municipality
north of the Mason Dixon line, and for a time
was the largest all black city in the entire United States.
It was such a big deal that Lincoln Heights first
mayor and residents were invited to New York City, where
a ticker tape parade was held in their honor for
(16:57):
all the reasons you would expect, namely, of course, racism,
but also the same plights that have befallen the industrial
Midwest over the last few decades. Lincoln Heights has diminished
significantly since its heyday, but it's still black and it's
still proud, which is why in the wake of Donald
Trump's presidency, when literal Nazis showed up on a highway
(17:17):
overpass bordering Lincoln Heights while the residents weren't having it.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
We're back now with a troubling story out of Ohio,
where tonight a community is uniting after confronting a group
of white supremacists who wave swastika flags on a highway overpass.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Community members quickly confronting the group.
Speaker 6 (17:35):
It is it is not by chance that this happened
in this community at this.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Time, the reverend and dozens of other community members marching
to the overpass to show that Haate has no home here. Listener,
I had friends contacting me from all over the country
to find out more about Cincinnati. After Lincoln Heights' finest chase,
the Nazis back into their U haul van. And what
can I say other than despite everything, this is where
I'm from, and this is why I'll continue to try
(18:01):
and make this place better. Because the Nazis don't get
to decide who stays and who goes anymore than the
aging out population of rebel sympathizers get to decide who
is and isn't from Florence and whose histories get to
be told. This isn't about a mascot. Not really. This
is about place and about who gets to tell stories
(18:23):
of that place, about who gets to take up space
in that place, about who gets to define the lives
we lead in the futures we chart. And so here
we are at the end of the season. And yes,
as of right now, there's still the Boone County Rebels,
but we all know how the Civil War ended, and
(18:44):
so if folks want to keep fighting it for a
little while longer, that's fine. You're still gonna lose. But also, listener,
there's one last thing last fall we were leaked to document.
It was a copy of the facts of a letter
from March nineteen ninety six. It was from the US
(19:04):
Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights to the Boone
County School District and.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Well dear Superintendent Weddingcap. On October seventeenth, nineteen ninety five,
the Office for Civil Rights US Department of Education received
a complaint against the Boone County Public Schools. Specifically, the
complaint alleged the district allowed schools to display symbols that
are negative and create a racially hostile environment to black
(19:29):
and Native American students and patrons.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well, how about that. Here in our hands was a
letter from thirty years ago in which the federal government
says that they received a complaint about the rebels at
Boone County High School and how it creates a hostile
environment for the black and brown kids there thirty years ago.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Now.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
The letter went on to explain that because they had
insufficient information in the original complaint, that they were not
proceeding with an investigation. But still they knew, they knew.
You better believe we had questions. Who filed the original complaint?
Was there an inciting incident in nineteen ninety five that
sparked it? Did the district know? Did anyone know the
(20:14):
links we have gone to get those answers? And the
absolutely wild paths that journey sent us down. I'm not kidding.
Someone died, y'all. Is well a story for another day
until then, I'm Aquila Hughes and this has been Rebel Spirit.
(20:35):
Rebel Spirit is a production of Ninth Planet Audio in
association with iHeart Podcasts. Reporting and writing by me Aquila Hughes.
I'm also an executive producer and the host. Produced by
Dan Sinker, edited by Josie A.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Zahm.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Additional Editing on this episode by Jennifer Dean. Music composed
by Charlie Sun, Sound design and mixing by Josia zahmb Our.
Theme song is All the Things I Couldn't Say, performed
by Bussy and The Basse, courtesy of Arts and Crafts Productions, Inc.
Our production coordinator is Kyle Hinton. Our clearance coordinator is
anasun Andschine. Production accounting by Dill pret Singh. Additional research
(21:12):
support from Janas Dillard. Email reads by Nicole Thurman, Frank
Garcia Hile, Hal Lovelin, John tynan Am, Jenna Ghosh, and
Mason Smith. Executive producers from Ninth Planet Audio are Elizabeth
Baquet and Jimmy Miller. We've put the Mongrel Guy's letter
and presentation, along with the March nineteen ninety six letter
(21:34):
from the US Department of Education Civil Rights Office, up
on this episode's page on our website, Rebelspirit podcast dot com.
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