[pensive music]
- Linda Plutchak: It wasn't scary.
I mean, I was never scared.
I was just... pretty much astonished
at some of the things I saw.
- Joe McCarty: I started crying because I was so,
you know, I just felt so uncomfortable.
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: It was like, "Okay, go in and let's see what happens.
"If somebody looks like they wanna take my head off,
it's like, I'm not here."
- Allen Kemp: You know, there are a number of things
that coulda happened to the 16-year-old kid
in that place in 1966.
[somber music]
- Joanne Williams: 1966 was just after,
just after the assassination [gunshot, siren] of the president,
and the country was just getting over its shock and grief.
The Civil Rights Movement in the South
was taking a violent turn.
[emergency siren]
Some adults who thought they knew where people should live
and who had the right to speak up when they saw injustice
tossed a bomb into a church one Sunday morning
and killed four little girls whose only crime
was getting to church early.
[police siren blaring, fire crackling]
1966 was just before 1967,
just before cities went up in flames.
That's when I saw National Guard troops with guns
rolling through my neighborhoods.
It was just before the Kerner Commission Report concluded
"Our nation is moving towards two societies,
one Black, one white, separate and unequal."
And it was before the history of African Americans
was considered a big part
of the history of the United States.
- Dr. Robert S. Smith: 1966 presents a very clear moment
where the seeds of resistance are being sown
in a number of ways.
- Christina Kellogg: It was a very exciting time.
I mean, there was a Civil Rights Movement that was happening.
Things were changing.
People were dressing differently.
You know, the change was in the air,
and it felt like we were part of something
that was good and necessary.
- Bernie Hupperts: I'm glad for the opportunities
that it gave us in my classroom
to talk about these things,
because it opened doors
that were not necessarily that easy to open.
- Martin Duberman: You know, the great American myth
that youcanpull yourself up by your own bootstraps,
that there aren't any obstacles to getting ahead,
like race, class, gender.
I mean, it's all myth,
but it remains the centerpiece of American ideology
that anybody who wants to get ahead can get ahead,
and it's nonsense.
- Dr. Robert S. Smith: The problems associated with race and racial inequality
were still very present and seemingly immovable,
and so our cities erupt in riots and urban rebellions
that highlight the longstanding injustices that remain.
[dog barking]
Dr. Robert S. Smith: There are reasons for people to be pissed off
because they have the economic power
to live where they would like to live
and move about how they like to move about,
and there are very clear restrictions present
in our residential landscape and our educational landscape.
- Protestors: Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate! Two, four, six, eight--
- Dr. Robert S. Smith: Because we've seen the benefits of
years of civil rights activism.
We'd seen Freedom Summer.
We'd seen the March on Washington.
We'd seen all the various ways
that protest communities had mobilized.
And then, we're right on the precipice;
we're right at that moment
where that radical element is emerging
and starting to sort of take the lead
around what we would consider movements for equality.
And so, maybe '66 is that pivotal moment
where you can have a racial exchange
that has a meaningful impact.
[thoughtful music]
[projector buzzes]
- Joanne Williams: This story is about a high school student exchange
between Rufus King High School in Milwaukee
and Kaukauna High School up in the Fox River Valley.
And a social studies teacher at Kaukauna High School
wanted his kids to have a broader view of the world.
So, to do that, he was going to have them perform a play.
The play he chose was "In White America,
"the history of African Americans
from slavery to civil rights."
This all happened in 1966.
After the initial exchange, people sort of forgot about it,
but I didn't forget about it.
I had this story in the back of my mind since high school,
which was more than 50 years ago.
And then when I found The King's Pagenewspaper from 1966,
and I looked at the date,
and I saw the pictures of these kids from Kaukauna,
I said, "This is a story, and I'm gonna tell it."
Joanne Williams: "In White America," you wrote it in 1963?
- Martin Duberman: Yes. - Joanne Williams: Why?
- Martin Duberman: It's kind of a long story.
A Broadway producer said,
"We want to do an American version ofThe Hollow Crown."
In other words, we want to do the story
of the American presidency
as told through reliable historical documents.
Knowing that I had written plays,
my agent at Sterling Lord suggested me
to the Broadway producer.
On my way to the meeting in New York,
I was driving,
I had what was one of those traditional... thunderbolts.
Why do the American presidency?
I mean, here we are in the midst of a revolution in this country,
and the courses I was teaching
were slavery and antislavery,
and I was very much involved in the Black struggle.
And I thought, why don't we do, instead,
the story of being Black in white America?
So I arrive at the meeting
all full of enthusiasm and excitement.
And I'm met with absolute cold water.
The Broadway producer said,
"I know what I want to do, the American presidency.
If you don't wanna do it, fine, I'll go elsewhere."
And my agent, she said,
"I really don't think I can get this produced."
I said, "Look, I know this is what I want to do now,
so I'm gonna do it."
[warm guitar music]
I wrote it in a couple of months.
We show it to the first producer,
wants to do it immediately,
and we literally opened seven weeks later.
This theater game is a snap. [chuckles]
Count me in!
Once the play opened, theDaily Newsrefused to come.
They said from what they had heard or gathered
that the play was an incitement to race riot.
They wouldn't even review it.
The very next year, after it opened in New York and was a hit,
The London Times, in its review,
used almost those exact words in denouncing it.
They said, "This play is inflammatory.
"It's going to produce a great deal of anger
and possibly even rioting."
- Joanne Williams: What Martin Duberman wrote in New York in 1963
about the history of being Black in white America
echoed almost a thousand miles away
in the little, all-white town of Kaukauna, Wisconsin.
- Bernie Hupperts: To talk about "In White America"
as a work of literature
that has an impact upon your life, that was important.
The image of the sagging American flag
is exactly what I wanted the kids to see.
- Joanne Williams: People talk about difficult conversations.
This is a springboard
for some really difficult conversations.
[jazzy music]
- Tom Schaffer: I came here in 1963,
and we came up in a little red Renault.
They didn't say "Renault" back then.
And we were known as,
"Oh, yeah, that's the guy with the foreign car."
93% of the town was Catholic;
I was Protestant.
That was a minority.
And you didn't even think about skin color minorities.
So, that's radical.
Now, add to that the level of the idea
that you're going to have hosts
who will have Black kids here.
I think that's radical, too,
for a lot of the people out there.
- Paula Vandehey: I mean, my dad took heat for this.
Not everyone agreed with the idea of this play
and this exchange.
So I know my dad took some heat.
I think he kinda liked that.
'Cause I think it proved his point
that we need this play.
- Ken Barroga: This is not the kind of play that we do.
Normally, it's light comedy.
You know, it'sAnnie Get Your Gun, Blithe Spirit,
you know? [laughs]
So, this was a stretch;
a stretch, maybe a bridge too far.
So, it was...
it was intense.
- Joanne Williams: Allen Kemp and Phyllis Lawhorn
were two of the four Black students
from Milwaukee's Rufus King High School
who went to Kaukauna.
Phyllis stayed with Linda Plutchak in Kaukauna.
Then Linda lived with Phyllis's family in Milwaukee.
- Sarah Lawhorn: Phyllis has always been, from a youngster,
kind of mature-like,
and she kind of used her head
and she would make decisions under pressure.
And I believe Phyllis would make the right decision
if something happened.
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: And I was like, "I don't know...
Where is Kaukauna?"
And "How far up north is Kaukauna?" [laughs]
- Joanne Williams: King student Chuck Holmes
stayed with Joe McCarty and his family in Kaukauna.
In exchange, Joe spent a month
with the Holmes family in Milwaukee.
Joe wore a neck brace all through high school
because of a back problem.
Ironically, it's called the Milwaukee brace.
- Neil McCarty: When you grow up in a small town like Kaukauna,
you've gotta move around a little bit.
You can't just vegetate in a little town like that.
And this was an excellent opportunity for Joe.
- Pat McCarty: I assume that he felt he could depend on us
to back him up.
- Joe McCarty: I was quite hesitant,
mainly because I was quite shy and introverted,
and I was not doing too well in high school.
- Allen Kemp: My parents were-- they had nine kids,
and there was nothing more important in that household
than everybody getting an education of some sort.
So when this opportunity came along,
clearly, they allowed me to participate.
[serious music]
- Christina Kellogg: They were very brave to say, "Yes, we're gonna do this.
"This is gonna be exciting.
This'll be a real adventure."
[teacher lectures in a classroom]
- Paula Vandehey: So, my dad was a social studies teacher
and loved history.
He had a passion for humanity,
and I think one of his things he wanted to teach
is that we're just all people
and we have to figure out how to live together.
And that was just so different in Kaukauna.
'Cause you just didn't really have that diversity there.
- Martin Duberman: Tom would've been the person who really found the play.
We talked about, you know, "How are you gonna do this play?
You have no Black kids here."
The only way that we could think of
that we could make that work
is to develop something with someone
who did have Black students.
And Ruth Thomas is a good friend.
- Pam Malone: My grandmother was concerned about our community,
the community in which she lived,
as well as the outlying communities.
And she achieved much.
She actually earned two master's degrees
and became a schoolteacher here at Rufus King.
There she is.
- Ken Barroga: She was a force to be reckoned with
in a very, very positive way.
But I remember students getting really PO'd [laughs]
because she would, she would push them.
She would say, "Prove it."
She would always say, "Prove it."
- Pam Malone: Growing up in the inner city,
she knew that there was unfair treatment
and she wanted to make a difference
by empowering individuals
that could make a change themselves.
- Allen Kemp: I mean, I look back 50 years now,
and I'm going, "Here was a lady
that was well ahead of her time."
She was taking these little bitty Black kids
at Rufus King High School and making themdo things.
I mean, they were made to do theater.
They were made to read and read a lot of the classics,
made to go to thethenPabst Theater
and watch King Lear
and figure it out.
- Pam Malone: My grandmother was very subtle in her approach,
almost calculated.
And that came through in the exchange student program.
She thought about how she can make a difference
without going out and being arrested,
but the impact was very similar
in that it brought awareness,
and it was, it was almost startling.
- Allen Kemp: And maybe we were an experiment for her,
make us look at life differently.
And this was an opportunity to look at life differently.
- Christina Kellogg: It was a hugely powerful event and I was 18 years old,
a senior in high school
at Rufus King High School.
That February, that "In White America" was produced...
[whispering] It's gonna make me cry.
[laughs] Let me say that without crying.
[projector emits loud fan noise, film clicks in sprockets]
- Yes! There it is. - Man: Yeah, cool.
- Woman: There it is!
[1960s dance music with three-chord progression]
- Allen Kemp: I got there on Sunday,
and it was sunny.
Ain't not a cloud in the sky,
and there was plenty of snow on the ground.
It was cold,
and there was a 'smell in the air' that was unusual.
I just remember my parents driving me up there
and going to Tom Schaffer's house.
- Paula Vandehey: I specifically remember sitting on my father's lap.
I remember him trying to explain to us
that we were gonna have visitors to our house
and that they were gonna be a little different.
In Kaukauna, 50 years ago,
this would've been first time that we would've seen
really anyone that wasn't of white descent.
So, they were very much in unknown territory,
I think, away from their families.
I think they were a little bit scared.
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: Well, this does sound interesting.
Be something new and different.
Why not?
[laughs]
And once I said, "Why not?"
It was like, okay, go in, and let's see what happens.
- We all have our biases.
And through the years, through the contacts we've made
with people who aren't part of our family,
we make decisions.
We make judgments about people.
People have to learn about each other
before they make decisions about each other.
And that takes some work.
- Jerome Kroll: We felt that the important thing
would be an opportunity for some Milwaukee students
to come to Kaukauna High School from a larger school system,
metropolitan area to come into smaller community
like Kaukauna and a smaller school system.
This would be a good exchange of ideas
with the students from the large community
to the students in Kaukauna.
- Mary Seleen: I think in 1966, the Black population of Kaukauna was one.
And that would have been the younger brother
of a good friend of mine
who was born in Milwaukee and adopted.
So, the population was one.
- Joanne Williams: Did you get any objections, any blowback,
any questions from your friends and neighbors here
for your participation?
- Pat McCarty: I don't think so.
At least nobody would've said anything to us.
[chuckling]
- Neil McCarty: It was confusion, more confusion than anything
among the part of people who hadn't been out and around.
- Joe McCarty: There was, like, a television interview,
and they picked one of the, I think at random,
they picked some kid,
and he kind of badmouthed about,
"We don't need these people up here,"
or something like that.
- Mary Seleen: But I know that my mom
lost a few friends over...
over the experience.
- Linda Plutchak: It's really hard to know
who's a good guy and who's a bad guy.
And I can understand somebody
feeling very skeptical about coming.
- Bill Derricks: I think it all came out in the papers.
They're wondering who those people were,
almost like an oddity or something
that everybody looks 'cause you don't never saw 'em here.
- Allen Kemp: Well, you know, it's two different cultures.
I'm sure they were looking at it from my perspective.
Well, no, it's rather strange coming up into a small town.
Milwaukee is a large town, and, well, Kaukauna is very small.
You have to get used to it.
It's very hard to adapt to.
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: My parents had always told me
that you don't group anyone together.
One person is no different than another person.
No better, no worse than you.
And so, you take people on individual basis.
I don't know.
I learned a lot about-- before, I thought a lot of people
were very snobbish, and they sort of look down on you,
but they don't-- they wanna, you know, go out and meet you,
but they-- they're sort of afraid.
- Joe McCarty: he worst thing--
we felt really horrible about this.
There was a big pep rally
for the upcoming homecoming game or something, and he said,
"I want those bleachers filled all the way up into nigger heaven."
That was just extremely embarrassing.
And here, you know, these exchange students
were right there in there.
If he just blurted this out
because he'd said it a hundred times
or if he was doing this to hurt what we were trying to do.
- Bill Derricks: Well, I'm enjoying it right now.
This play is slightly different
than anything I've ever done before
and, well, the kids that have come up here from Milwaukee,
we have a lot of fun together.
You know, we stay in our group
and have parties and all that stuff.
[playful 1960s rock 'n' roll]
- Allen Kemp: And the funny thing is we would go out on a Friday night
that there's some burger joints, no McDonald's or anything.
And when we'd go into the burger joints,
the smaller kids would look at me, this, you know,
tall African American, young male in high school.
And they say, "Do you play with the Green Bay Packers?"
Because the only African Americans up in the Fox Valley at that time
were people that were associated with the Green Bay Packers.
[film projector fan noise] - Interviewer: What else have you found different here?
- Allen Kemp: Well, the kids, they study harder
than the kids in Milwaukee.
The school seems to be the center of the city,
where everybody comes to get together.
Most of the time, the kids up here,
they devote their time to studying,
but in Milwaukee, you can go to different places
and do other things.
And that's a fact. [chuckles]
- Linda Plutchak: I was excited that I could be part of it
because, you know, I hated that I was not
marching with Martin Luther King
and going to the, you know, the Million Man things.
So, I thought I was at least doing my little part.
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: Linda Plutchak's family was a great family,
very similar to my family.
Two boys, two girls.
She was the oldest, I was the oldest.
She liked to sew, I liked to sew.
It was like two peas just sort of fit in the pod together.
People were friendly.
I think most anyone that wasn't friendly
just basically avoided.
And so, you know, there were no problems.
I even got to be a cheerleader. Yay.
[projector motor] - Jerome Kroll: And, of course, as you know,
our students are going to Milwaukee.
And we felt, in turn, this would be a very good exchange
for them to go to a different type community
in a different school system for an exchange of ideas.
This is one thing that we feel is quite valuable
with the whole program.
- Joanne Williams: Rufus King was my neighborhood high school in 1966.
I lived five blocks away.
It was being integrated
as Milwaukee's growing Black middle class
moved into the surrounding homes.
- Male Interviewer: You're going to be going to Milwaukee Rufus King.
It's going to be quite different for you, don't you think?
- Young Bill Derricks: Yes, from what I heard,
it's a slightly larger school than this one here,
and our classes will be somewhat different.
Bill Derricks: We'll just go down there.
We'll put on this nice little production and come back.
You know, that's pretty much my expectations.
I mean, I had nothing else in there to think about.
[energetic funk groove with brass]
That's the first time that I had been introduced
to James Brown music
because it was prominent down there.
I mean, that was a big part of their social group,
even with the white students there,
James Brown was a big part of the music scene,
but it wasn't up here.
And so, that was my first introduction to it.
So my dancing skills down there just weren't anywhere near
where they should have been. So...
- Allen Kemp: And, but we were treated kind, with respect,
when we got to Kaukauna,
and we're trying to do the same down here.
There isn't too much wrong with the program.
Everything is going okay right now.
I had one song to sing in the play
and a number of different characters to play,
but it was my one and only experience of being on stage.
And back in those days, you had to be a big athlete
in order to get all the good-looking girls, you know?
But I found out that there were women
that really appreciated acting. [laughs]
- Christina Kellogg: I just wish I had been involved as a student.
I kind of was on the outside looking in
with my nose pressed against the window,
look at all the cool stuff they're doing.
That wonderful mixing that happened.
People just being people.
It's the way that change is made.
It's the way that people really get to know each other,
and then barriers drop.
- Linda Plutchak: It was the start of the debate unit.
And so, we all got to form our own groups.
I went with a group of kids I knew from Phyllis.
And the teacher came over and said,
I needed to move to this other white group.
And I went, "What is this about?"
And then, that if I stayed with that group, we would get a bad grade.
And Phyllis and I would talk about it,
and it didn't bother her because it's what she was used to.
And she knew what you were supposed to do and whatever.
And I just found it shocking.
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: Well, I'm not a big one to...
dwell on other people's attitudes.
It's like, if you say something,
and I think it's important enough, I'll react.
If I do not think it is very important
or just something stupid,
I just kind of throw it away and go on about my business.
- Sarah Lawhorn: When Linda was at our house,
it was just like having
another child in the house.
Their relationship was that good.
And I treated her just like she was one of my nieces
or my own daughter.
And we didn't make any kind of special arrangements
because she was coming to our house.
We just act like, "Hey, you just another kid.
Just come right on in here, and here we are."
- Joe McCarty: The experience of being in this,
it really kind of tore away the kind of bubble I was in
as far as coming from small town Kaukauna
and from a more middle-class background
and then moving into, you know, in the inner city,
staying there with Mrs. Holmes.
And there was a young Filipino guy named Ken Barroga.
I got to be very close to him during that time.
- Joanne Williams: A classmate of mine, Ken Barroga,
played guitar and sang in 1966.
He remembers the exchange, the play, and the songs.
[upbeat guitar]
- Ken Barroga: It's been a while since I played this.
Well, being a person who was neither white nor Black,
I kind of felt like I was on the inside looking in.
[Ken laughs]
And there were some students,
some white students in Rufus King, who had definite opinions
about this play being done.
You know, "Why are we doing this?
"What's the impact?
"Why are we doing this?
What's the point of this?"
- Linda Plutchak: It was a supposedly integrated high school,
and it wasn't at all.
There were two separate high schools going on,
and everybody was comfortable that way.
- Bill Derricks: You couldn't get in until the police officer
opened the gates of the front door.
They had the metal gates that slid across them.
And that never happened here.
I mean, it's a school.
You come into school, and it's open in the morning, and you go in.
That was unusual for me,
and felt, "Why is this person there?"
- Linda Plutchak: And there was this very tall man
who stood in the main hall to keep people moving.
Supposedly, that was his job.
But the only people who had to keep moving
were the Black kids.
The white kids could sit on the bench.
The institutionalized racism was huge.
And it shocked me because it was just so blatant
that I was just flabbergasted
that teachers would behave the way they did.
I mean, I could understand
if they were sort of sneaky about it, but they weren't.
- Bill Derricks: In Rufus King at their phy ed classes,
their uniform was white shorts and a white T-shirt.
And in Kaukauna, it's black shorts with an orange T-shirt.
And so, I dressed to go out to the phy ed class.
So, I'm the only white student,
and not only am I the only white student,
I'm the only white student in these colors.
And no one from our production is in there.
What do you do to get integrated into this?
It was about a week and a half before I had
at least a core of people I could talk with
in the phy ed class.
And so now, once in a while,
if I see people coming into a situation
where they might be uncomfortable,
try to have somebody you can connect with,
but it didn't happen until later.
I was still young then.
And it didn't mean that much to me then,
but it meant a lot to me later.
- Ken Barroga: Are we running? - Yeah.
[mellow, upbeat guitar]
- Pam Malone: She (Ruth Thomas) taught everywhere she went.
I felt every interaction,
she left people with something.
[reads fromNegro in the School by Ruth Thomas] "This program was undoubtedly
"the most exciting interracial activity
"in which I have ever been involved.
"It will have far-reaching effects on the Kaukauna community,
"I am sure.
"In Milwaukee, it was successful
"in spite of the lack of interest
"on the part of most of the white faculty members
"and white students who attend King.
"It was valuable because
"it forced the confrontation of each of the students,
"that was both revealing and frightening.
The same attitude was reflected in the white students."
- We had standing-room-only audiences, I think.
And I think we ran for more than one night.
So, there were a good number of people who were exposed
in one way or another.
And this was, again, something that had never been done before,
and a play that was not ever something
that people normally would not have ever gone to this play,
unless the fact that Mr. Schaffer got it.
So, I think it did make an impact.
- Allen Kemp: You know, we got a number of standing ovations,
so they obviously listened very carefully.
They were excited about it,
but it was really quiet, and people were paying attention.
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: If nothing else, it made people begin to stop and think,
"Oh, maybe what I have been thinking
may not be exactly what I want to be thinking."
- Linda Plutchak: So, I think that made me really aware
of the whole white privilege idea
and very aware
of seeing it in other places.
And the thing that's been interesting,
I would say maybe in the last 20, 30 years,
is people were not so blatant anymore.
And a lot of people didn't even think
they were doing something inappropriate,
butthey were.
- Joe McCarty: I think when you do things through the arts,
it often is more effective
than just something that's done
out in the street or in the political arena.
- Christina Kellogg: Yeah, art can do that.
Art can do it like no other thing can do it.
It allows our humanity to shine through
and to connect with other people's.
- Pat McCarty: I think Bernie Hupperts was, you know,
he was really on to something here.
It was an experience for not only our families,
but all the families who had the guests and the town.
- Joanne Williams: And with all the tumult that was going on
in the United States,
this is something that happened that worked.
- Pat McCarty: Well, it did, you know,
considering that Kaukauna is a pretty conservative town,
maybe not, maybe this proves it's not,
that this took place in Kaukauna,
small town Wisconsin.
[pressing music]
- Allen Kemp: I look back on it now, 1966,
Fox River Valley,
I'm 16 years old.
My parents allowed me to do that.
Holy smokes!
Would I allow my child to do that today?
- Sarah Lawhorn: And I think I would think hard about it.
I think I would be concerned about it,
but I might just let her go.
And I'd have to do a lot of praying over it.
- Male Interviewer: Do you think
that there's any important difference
between little city and big city people?
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: In the big city,
they aren't too concerned about one person,
but in the small town, everyone knows everyone else,
and they're very concerned.
- Male Interviewer: Do you like one better than the other?
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: I think I like the big city.
- Male Interviewer: Would you hope to continue this program?
- Jerome Kroll: Well, everything has gone very well this year
in this program.
I certainly would be enthused about seeing similar types exchange
with other communities and other schools.
I think there's real value in it, yes.
[tightly wound strings music]
[energetic R&B music]
- Joanne Williams: 2016 was just after the Black Lives Matter movement began
and before the neo-Nazis demonstrated
in Charlottesville, Virginia.
And in 2016,
Kaukauna and King saw a new production
of "In White America," 50 years later.
- Erica Allemang-Reinke: "All I am sure of is that the documentary technique
"in theater is worth exploring,
"and even more, that the story of being Black in white America
desperately needs telling."
And that was written on January 12th, 1964.
And could that have been written yesterday?
It sure could.
How passionate I am about diversity and about civil rights,
and just anything to do with helping integration.
So, when you said the title of the play, I said,
"Ah, this must be it. I think this is it.
"I think I'm meant to do this.
I think I'm the perfect person."
- Joanne Williams: This is the script you have,
updated by the man who wrote it.
And he sent a little note.
It says, "Good luck! - Martin."
And there is new material in it.
Now, you're quoting Barack Obama.
[students murmur]
So, there you go.
- Awesome. [group applauds] - You're welcome.
Thank you.
- Alvin Cherry: I was really excited when I found out I finally did get in.
I knew it was gonna be a very big thing
and a very big opportunity for me,
and also, like, a very important thing
for other people to see.
- Sam Kolo: I thought it was gonna be a bit risky.
I was worried about,
you know, my parents, well, like, my mom, especially,
who is very politically opinionated...
"...On both sides," she likes to say.
- Erica Allemang-Reinke: There are a lot of times I doubted, saying,
"I don't think I can do this."
I'm like, this is gonna be a learning experience
with the kids, as well.
And when I said, [sighs] if the kids get this,
it's just gonna be powerful.
- Barack Obama said, "For too long, we've been blind
"to the way the past injustices have continued
"to shape the present.
Those injustices will be faced directly."
- Sam Kolo: If God intended for the races to mix,
he would've done it himself.
He put each color in a different place.
- Joanne Williams: When you saw the script
for "In White America," what did you think?
- Sam Kolo: [sighs] I thought, "I'm gonna have to be a Klansman, aren't I?"
[laughs]
[yelling] "Before the immaculate judge of Heaven and Earth
"and upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God,
"I do, of my own free will in the courts,
subscribe myself to the sacredly binding obligation."
[speaking as Sojourner Truth] - "Look at me, look at my arm!
"I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns
"and no man could head me!
"And a'n't I a woman? Hmm...
"I borne thirteen children
"and seen 'em mos' sold off to slavery,
"and when I cried out in my mother's grief
none but Jesus heard me!"
- Dr. Robert S. Smith: Well, it's very threatening to the racial status quo.
There are very clear examples of practices, behaviors,
attitudes that are-- some folks don't want to admit
are part of our past
and remains a part of our present.
But this also very difficult to teach.
At what age do you teach young people
about some of the more grotesque realities of our past?
That's a very real question
that educators continue to grapple with.
- Male Student: After 500 years of barbaric treatment,
the American Negroes are fed up
with the unmitigated hypocrisy of the white man.
- Sam Kolo: If they got guts enough to come down here,
all they'll get is a lot of buckshot.
The white people have shown remarkable restraint
in not killing niggers wholesale.
I went around the cast asking, "Should I do this?
Should I say this word, this vile, awful word?"
And a lot of them, the majority, said, "Yes.
"This is the nature of"In White America,"
in that it would leave a punch
that would leave a lasting impact on the audience
throughout the rest of the play.
- Alvin Cherry: But an issue thinking what we can say, what we can't say,
and then we were just, like, we can't censor this.
This is real life, what happened,
and people have to know about it.
- But I'm not being tried here for communism.
I'm being tried here for fighting for the rights of my people,
who are still second-class citizens
in this United States.
You wanna shut up every Negro who stands up
and fights for the rights of his people.
I'm always down to express reality
and what's real.
And this is what's real.
- Erica Allemang-Reinke: I've gotten emails saying that
they're not sure why I'm putting on a play like this.
But I have enough support from teachers
that are willing to fight for me and fight with me.
- Emmett Till.
- Trayvon Martin
- Tarika Wilson.
- Kathryn Johnston. - Michael Brown.
- Joanne Williams: So, 50 years later, it was revived
at Rufus King High School
with a new generation of high school students,
a multiethnic cast,
and then a teacher in Kaukauna heard about it, too.
- Male Student: 2018 trip to Kaukauna.
[cheering] - Rufus King Students: Yay! Whoo!
- Joanne Williams: So, Kaukauna High School invited the cast from Rufus King
up to their school to show the community
what it had been involved in 50 years earlier.
[poignant music]
- Amy Xiong: My kids really stepped up.
My Diversity Club kids,
they were, "What do we do? What do we do?"
And the Rufus King kids were...
I think they were a little overwhelmed
when they walked in and didn't really know.
And I just love how it all came together,
and the kids came together,
and I really could take a step back, and just,
they just did it.
Like, the kids from both schools just came together
like they had known each other and just did it.
- Sidney Swenson: When we were talking to the cast,
they mentioned a lot of ignorance,
like, in our society right now.
And I completely agree with that
because like I see it in my life and my friends',
and hopefully, just take what the message is they got
and share them with the people that didn't
have the privilege of seeing the play.
[students murmuring]
- Student: This evening, after working themselves up to the highest pitch,
a party suddenly rushed off,
got a barrel, and mounted some men upon 'em.
- Ian Jacobson: After that performance, it, like, sparked a fire in me.
And it compelled me to
run to be a leader in Diversity Club.
And now I'm vice-president of the club,
and it was like the first time I'd ever been
in that sort of environment,
and I love it.
- Alvin Cherry: Let me live so that when I die, I can advance.
- Joanne Williams: Was it emotional for you?
- Alvin Cherry: A little bit, little bit, little bit.
Yeah. - Joanne Williams: How so?
- Alvin Cherry: 'Cause times can be troublesome
knowing that I can walk out the door
and not make it back home.
I can be pulled over simply because of my skin
for no reason.
- It's not easy.
It's not easy growing up being a Black male.
It's not just that it's in our past.
We carry that with us every day when we walk around,
when we go to school, we carry that.
- Sam Kolo: It honestly sparks a debate of what is moral,
what is the job of like a police officer and stuff like that,
and all these different things inside of our society
that really need to be talked about
because we don't like to talk about these things.
These things are painful.
- I've always wanted to, like, have that mutual understanding
on both sides.
And I'm glad to see that this is actually making it happen.
- Amy Xiong: I think also in those conversations
and the really honest conversations
between the Diversity Club kids and the kids from King,
like when the one student said,
"I am so suspicious of white people,"
and just threw it right in our students' faces,
and then watching as the white people acknowledged
their privilege and acknowledged, yeah,
we see where you're coming from, and we understand,
and I think the Rufus King kids then saw, you know what,
maybe not all people are the same.
Because they admitted they kind of view people
from places like Kaukauna all the same, too.
So maybe they saw that there is hope
for forming relationships
with people outside of their own communities, as well.
[thoughtful music]
- Joanne Williams: The cast from King presented the play again
to the community that evening.
The most moving thing about that
was there were people in the audience
[speaking with great emotion] who had been there 50 years earlier.
And...
- Joe McCarty: Hi. - Mary Seleen: Hi.
Hi, Joanne. Hi, Joe. [smooch, laughter]
- Bill Derricks: Hi, nice to meet you.
- Joanne Williams: Bill, so nice to meet you.
I'm so-- You don't know how happy I am to meet you!
- Linda Plutchak: I knew I had to come, and I knew you were gonna be here.
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: Yeah. - Great, great, great.
And look at you.
- Joe McCarty: Hi, Linda.
- Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson: I can't wait to see the play.
I really can't wait to see the play.
Number one, I'll finally get to see it in its entirety.
Because when you're out there performing,
you don't really know what's going on.
You know, you're saying your little bit
and moving and then whatever,
but you don't really get to see the whole thing.
So, I told the kids,
"Now, they said we made people cry-- even nuns cried!
"So, therefore, I'm waiting.
I'm bringing my Kleenex; now make sure I cry." [laughs]
- Ian Jacobson: And I was like ushering people in the door.
And then, one of the guys came up, and he was like,
"I have the original playbill from 50 years ago."
And I was like, "What?"
Like, 'cause I know I've been to plenty of plays before,
and not once did I think of keeping that playbill.
So, that shows you how special this performance was.
- Mark Duerwaechter: The same play you will be seeing tonight
was performed in this very building in 1966.
We are lucky to have one of the original staff members
from that performance, Bernie Hupperts, to our left.
[audience applauds]
- Bernie Hupperts: It was a naive time with some glimmering of,
"Oh, yes, we need to make a change."
We need to think about what a world would be like
if we all saw each other as equal.
It was the first steps.
It was a healthy exchange.
- Amy Xiong: I grew up in Kaukauna,
so I didn't know how many people were gonna come.
Some of those people are like local celebrities that came;
it really was!
Bernie Hupperts being there,
and some of the older, you know, families and teachers,
seeing them just come together
under something that they're proud of,
they're proud of what happened here 50 years ago.
And you could see that pride,
and you could see the pride in their kids
and to see that, you know, Mr. Schaffer's family there
and representing, and it was really powerful.
- Sam Kolo: The love of justice and the love of country
pled equally the cause of these people.
- Amy Xiong: You have to take a big breath afterwards
and just let it soak in.
So, right afterwards, they didn't know what to say,
I don't think.
And then it was maybe two days later
that they really started a process
and be able to articulate what it meant to them.
- Sam Kolo: And led him off about 200 yards and whipped him.
- Actor: How many lashes did they give him?
- [sighs] I cannot tell you.
- Actor: Did they whip him severely or not?
- His shirt was stuck to his back.
- Ian Jacobson: It was not my proudest moment, [laughs uncomfortably]
let's say.
It was kind of tough to still say that,
"Like, I'm proud to be here," you know?
But I think despite that, this is our home,
and we still need to know that these different stories
were out there so that we can work
to better the future with them.
[audience applauds]
- Sam Kolo: And it was kind of amazing, actually, 'cause, like,
you don't really expect standing ovations
from performing in a high school play.
It definitely shows that
the play left an impact and left an emotion
with people who viewed it;
an emotion that I hope people who have viewed it
will carry for the rest of their lives,
and not only an emotion, but an understanding.
[cheers and applause]
- Amy Xiong: I think Kaukauna is gradually becoming much better
at delving into diversity topics.
It is getting better.
I think as a country, though,
we do have a long way to go still,
and we need to keep on having these conversations.
And I think the play was a great way to start conversations
in our community again.
[reflective music]
- I'm Bill Derricks.
I was in the original production here.
[group exclaims and applauds]
When you mentioned that, you know,
things really haven't changed,
but I'd like to tell you how they have changed.
When we put this production on 50-some years ago,
when the production was over, it was over.
I don't think we could've done the play
the way they did here, not the reading part,
but the finale and even the discussion.
I don't know if the people that I presented to
would get that same feeling
because that's all it was, was a historical presentation,
nothing that affects them.
It ended with the end of segregation.
It didn't bring it anywhere farther up that it could have
because there were those things going on
even after segregation that it sort of,
"Okay, we're done talking about it now."
- Joanne Williams: In 2016, people were more aware
of how the history of the United States
does mean something to everybody.
And these were people
that they hadn't learned about in school.
These were people that they were probably surprised about.
And so, I think that the reaction in '16
was deeper than it was in '66.
- Alan Kemp: I was 16 years old, so for me, it was
a boost of confidence that I could do anything I wanted to
if I worked very hard at it.
And maybe that was a springboard
to get me to where I was today because, you know,
I knew I could do it if I put my mind to it,
kind of what my father always told me.
- Joe McCarty: This exchange program proved to be the greatest thing
of my high school years.
The seeds were planted there,
and I think I carried them through later on in my life.
I'm on the board
of the Louisiana Council on Human Relations.
I want to kind of stay still involved in some way,
do something that stands for better race relations.
- Bill Derricks: I learned so much about myself from being there.
That I always thought, "Hey, I'm okay.
I got things, and a handle on everything that's here."
But you don't; you sort of have to
look at things and then adjust as you go, you know?
- Linda Plutchak: I think it changed my whole life.
You know, it taught me, I think, some very important things,
made me a better person,
made me a better teacher, made me a better parent.
Oh, you made me the best breakfasts in my life.
- Those biscuits, huh?
- Yep, yeah, yeah.
- Sarah Lawhorn: The Plutchaks invited us, even after the play was over,
they even invited us up there for like a picnic like, you know.
We had cookouts, and just revisited each other,
and we got calls from them, and things.
So, it was a relationship that lasted a while
after the play was over.
It just wasn't the play, and that was it.
- Paula Vandehey: Like, I'm sure my dad,
if he would've thought 50 years from today,
I think he envisioned something better than where we're at today.
I think we, diversity-wise, acceptance-wise,
probably haven't gotten as far
as he would've hoped to see in 50 years.
- Linda Plutchak: Oh, I think that
the kinds of things that Phyllis was willing to say,
"It's no big deal,"
kids today are, are tired of saying that.
- Sarah Lawhorn: There is a lot more change need to come;
NEEDS TO COME, should come.
- Martin Duberman: The story since then of being Black in white America,
I'm sure people could put together another play
that begins where "In White America" leaves off.
I think it would be very dispiriting overall
until you get to Black Lives Matter,
where, once again,
there seems to be real energy
that's generated around the issue of race.
How long we're able to maintain it,
I think, remains to be seen.
- Dr. Robert S. Smith: We should not fool ourselves to think
that we are going to, in some magical way,
get outside of this thing called race and racism.
We're stuck with that.
But that's why we need these important stories.
That's why we need folks who are brave enough to challenge
the color line and the racial status quo.
I think the core takeaway
is that our lives as Americans
are so much richer when we engage cross-culturally.
We've seen it over and over and over.
white Americans have to push themselves
beyond the comfort zone
that is white entitlement and white privilege.
And there is no better example
of how remarkable and brilliant as a nation we can be
except when we are engaging cross-culturally.
And that is overwhelmingly a responsibility
that each of us individually must embody.
- Sarah Lawhorn: Someone said, "Well, how do you feel,
you know, having that white girl in your house?"
And I said, "Hey, you know, I'll tell you how I feel.
"After breakfast in the morning, we eat biscuits,
"and then, when we finish up with Phyllis.
"And then, Linda would kiss me on this cheek.
"My daughter would kiss me on the other one.
And out they go."
And I said, "You know what?
I felt the same when both of 'em kissed me."
You know, it was no different.
[film projector clicking]
[introspective piano]
[wistful piano]
[powerful energetic piano]