Hi how-to listeners, this is Rebecca Rashid, producer of the How-To Series here at The Atlantic.
And I have a very special guest with me in the studio today.
Hey, I'm Van Newkirk, a senior editor with The Atlantic, and most importantly, I'm
a podcaster.
Hey Van, how's it going?
It's going alright.
If you've kept track of the podcasts we're making here at The Atlantic, you might already
be a fan of floodlines, which Van hosted back in 2020.
Today he has a new show to share with you.
It's called Holy Week.
Van, could you tell our How-To listeners what Holy Week is about?
Yeah, this show is about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
Most importantly, it's about the week after that assassination.
So in over a hundred cities, thousands of people went out into the streets in uprisings
or rebellions or riots, whatever you want to call it, that were the most extensive
in America between the Civil War and actually 2020 when George Floyd was killed.
And why turn to this specific moment in history?
Well, for me, this time has always been one that's really interesting and worth probing
when thinking about the larger arc of American history.
So right now we have a sort of standard narrative of the Civil Rights Movement.
Things are bad.
They got better.
The history's kind of cut things off at like 65 when the Voting Rights Act was passed.
There's not a whole lot about what happened after King was killed.
And to me, the reason why is because that assassination, the fact that it was killed by a white
supremacist, the fact it was killed by white supremacists who worked for George Wallace,
who was then running for president, and the fact that there were all these people, these
black folks in the street, who were clearly not satisfied with the gains and progress
of the Civil Rights Movement.
If you tell that story, then it kind of puts to lie a lot of the things we tell ourselves
about progress in America.
And why did you choose to tell the story of this week as a podcast?
Well, I like podcasting.
But one thing I think was so important to capture was the sound of voices, human voices.
I think you can get these emotions in podcasting and radio that either can go unnoticed in
film or hard to capture when I'm writing.
And so for me, this moment in time, this is a story that I've received most of my life
by storytelling, by people doing our equivalent of oral histories today.
People like my parents, my grandparents who saw it telling me, you know, such as I'd
burned in my hometown on April 5, 1968.
This is what happened.
So I'm trying to honor that tradition of oral history storytelling and also use the
strengths of the medium to convey emotion in this incredibly emotionally charged moment.
Can you give our how to listeners some Easter egg to listen out for in the series?
Well, if you enjoyed floodlines, which if you haven't listened to, I would also recommend
listening to floodlines.
One thing that I love doing is I love describing people's vibes.
I'm trying to describe sort of how a person is in my space, how I'm interacting with them.
So there's a guy in there, John Burlesmith, who was an old radical out of Memphis.
He went to prison on some charges for his radicalism.
And since then, he came out, he's been fascinating in black history and radical black history.
And he's like, you know, totally got the sort of barber shop community college like historian
vibe.
And I say that in the most respectful way possible, that's where I learned all my history.
And like he wears leather can go caps and like trench coats and just totally has his vibe
to somebody who's wise in these different ways that I tried to convey.
Hmm.
A quick vibe check for how to listeners.
What's my vibe right now?
Okay.
Okay.
So how would I describe Becca in a podcast?
Well, I guess I can't use the usual podcast.
I mean, I feel like you're a listener.
You're somebody who like, you know, if you're telling a story, you can tell that you're
invested in it and like with this sort of a piercing attention.
That is a very flattering vibe check.
You can hear all eight episodes of Holy Week on March 14th and can subscribe to the podcast
now.
Let's listen to the trailer, shall we, Van?
Yes we shall.
April 4th, 1968 is remembered by many as the end of the civil rights movement.
A time of loss.
We have been taught about lynchings and school bombings in Rosa Parks.
We have been taught about all kinds of stuff, but we were angry.
We were angry because a white man killed a prominent person in our life.
We were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because
we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because
we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we
were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were
angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were
angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were
angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were
angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because
we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were
angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were
angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were
angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were
angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were
angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because we were angry because
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