Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin: A musical that examines black identity in the 1901 World's Fair | TED

The archive.

One may envision rooms and shelves

stocked with boxes and cartons of old stuff.

And yet, for those who are patient enough to dig through it,

the archive provides the precious opportunity

to touch the past,

to feel and learn from the experiences

of once-living people who now seem dead and buried deeply in the archive.

But what if there was a way to bring the archive to life?

Jon Michael Reese: "The world is thinking wrong about race."

Melissa Joyner: "This country insists upon judging the Negro."

JMR: "Because it does not know."

AYGTK: What if one could make it breathe?

MJ: "By his lowest and most vicious representatives."

AYGTK: Speak.

JMR: "An honest, straightforward exhibit."

AYGTK: And even sing to us,

so that the archive becomes accessible to everyone.

What would performing the archive look like?

A performance that is not simply based on a true story

but one that allows us to come face-to-face

with things we thought were once dead and buried.

(Piano music)

This is what "At Buffalo," a new musical we're developing,

is all about.

Using collections from over 30 archival institutions,

"At Buffalo" performs the massive archive of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition,

the first World's Fair of the 20th century,

held in Buffalo, New York.

Now, if you've heard of this fair,

it might be because this is where then-US president, William McKinley,

was assassinated.

For nearly 17 years,

I've stayed inside the gates and the archive of this fair,

not only because of that story

but because of a real life-and-death racial drama

that played out on the fairgrounds.

Here, in a place that was like Disney World, the Olympics,

carnivals, museums, all in one,

there were three conflicting displays of what it meant to be black

in the United States.

The archive says white showmen presented

a savage black origin

in the form of 98 West and Central Africans,

living and performing war dances

in a recreated village called Darkest Africa.

And across the street,

a happy slave life,

in the form of 150 Southern black performers,

picking cotton,

singing and dancing minstrel shows

in a recreated antebellum attraction called Old Plantation.

As a response,

the black Buffalo community championed the third display of blackness:

the Negro Exhibit.

Codesigned by African American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois,

it curated photographs, charts, books and more,

to show black Americans as a high-achieving race,

capable of education and progress.

When I first encountered this story,

I understood from my own life experience

what was at stake to have members of the African diaspora

see each other like this.

For me, as the child of immigrant parents from Ghana, West Africa,

born in the American South,

raised in Manhattan, Kansas,

(Laughter)

and having attended the same elite school as Du Bois,

I could see that the Buffalo fair effectively pitted

the black Northerner against the Southerner,

the educated against the uneducated,

and the African American against the African.

And I wanted to know:

How did these three distinct groups of black folk navigate this experience?

Unfortunately, the archive had answers to questions like this

underneath racial caricature,

conflicting information and worse -- silence.

(Piano music)

Still, I could hear musical melodies

and see dance numbers

and the rhythms of the words

coming off the pages of old newspaper articles.

And learning that this World's Fair

had music playing everywhere on its fairgrounds,

I knew that live, immersive, spectacular musical theater,

with the latest technologies of our time,

is the closest experience that can bring the archival story of the 1901 fair

out of boxes and into life.

Stories, like Tannie and Henrietta,

a husband and wife vaudeville duo in love

who become at odds over performing these "coon" minstrel shows

while striving for their five-dollar-a-week dream

in the Old Plantation attraction.

Like African businessman John Tevi,

from present-day Togo,

who must outwit the savage rules of the human zoo

in which he has become trapped.

And stories like Mary Talbert,

a wealthy leader of the black Buffalo elite,

who must come to terms

with the racial realities of her home town.

MJ: "The dominant race in this country

insists upon judging the Negro

by his lowest and most vicious representatives."

AYGTK: Like Old Plantation and Darkest Africa.

MJ: "... instead of by the more intelligent and worthy classes."

AYGTK: When fair directors ignored Mary Talbert

and the local black Buffalo community's request to participate in the fair,

newspapers say that Mary Talbert

and her club of educated African American women

held a rousing protest meeting.

But the details of that meeting,

even down to the fiery speech she gave,

were not fully captured in the archive.

So, "At Buffalo" takes the essence of Mary's speech

and turns it into song.

(All singing) We must, we are unanimous.

We must, we are unanimous.

MJ: We've got something to show --

we're going to teach a lesson in Buffalo.

It would benefit the nation

to see our growth since emancipation.

Colored people should be represented in this Pan-American exposition,

it would benefit the nation

to see our growth since emancipation.

(All singing) They made a great mistake

not to appoint someone from the race.

We must, we are unanimous.

We must, we are unanimous.

We must, we are unanimous.

AYGTK: Mary Talbert successfully demands that the Negro Exhibit come to the fair.

And to have the Negro Exhibit in Buffalo

means that the musical must tell the story behind why Du Bois cocreated it ...

and why Mary and the black elite felt it was urgently needed.

JMR: "The world is thinking wrong about race.

They killed Sam Hose for who they thought he was.

And more men like him, every day,

more Negro men, like him, taken apart.

And after that -- that red ray ...

we can never be the same.

(Singing) A red ray

[A man hunt in Georgia]

cut across my desk

[Mob after Hose; he will be lynched if caught]

the very day

Sam's hands were laid to rest.

Can words alone withstand the laws unjust?

[Escape seems impossible]

Can words alone withstand the violence?

Oh, no, oh.

[Burned alive]

[Sam Hose is lynched]

Oh, no, oh.

[His body cut in many pieces]

Oh, no, oh.

[Burned at the Stake]

[Ten Cents Slice Cooked Liver.]

[Fight for souvenirs.]

(Both singing) Who has read the books?

Our numbers and statistics look small

against the page.

The crisis has multiplied.

Our people are lynched and died.

Oh, Lord.

Something must change.

AYGTK: Something must change.

"At Buffalo" reveals how the United States today

stands at similar crossroads as 1901 America.

Just as the name of Sam Hose filled newspapers back then,

today's media carries the names of:

JMR: Oscar Grant.

MJ: Jacqueline Culp.

Pianist: Trayvon Martin.

AYGTK: Sandra Bland.

And too many others.

The 1901 fair's legacies persist

in more ways than we can imagine.

MJ: Mary Talbert

and the National Association of Colored Women

started movements against lynching

and the myth of black criminality

just as black women today started Black Lives Matter.

JMR: And some of the same people who fought for

and created the Negro Exhibit,

including Du Bois,

came to Buffalo, four years after the fair,

to start the Niagara Movement,

which set the groundwork for the creation of the NAACP.

AYGTK: It's not just black folks

who had a peculiar experience at the 1901 fair.

An official handbook informed fair-goers:

MJ: "Please remember:"

JMR: "... once you get inside the gate,"

AYGTK: "... you are a part of the show."

Performing the archive in "At Buffalo"

allows audiences to ask themselves,

"Are we still inside the gates,

and are we all still part of the show?"

(Music ends)

(Applause and cheers)