WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.899 Welcome back to the deep dive. You know, we often 00:00:02.899 --> 00:00:06.879 talk about people who have second acts in their 00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:09.039 life. Right. Like maybe a lawyer who becomes 00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:12.679 a baker or a tech CEO who goes into philanthropy. 00:00:13.099 --> 00:00:15.740 But today we are jumping into our source material 00:00:15.740 --> 00:00:19.170 on a figure who He didn't just have a second 00:00:19.170 --> 00:00:21.829 act. He had three or four distinct lives that 00:00:21.829 --> 00:00:23.750 were so different, they almost feel like they 00:00:23.750 --> 00:00:25.550 belonged to totally different people. It really 00:00:25.550 --> 00:00:28.149 is a dizzying biography to look at. If you just 00:00:28.149 --> 00:00:31.789 looked at his resume in chunks, you would absolutely 00:00:31.789 --> 00:00:34.009 assume it was three different men. Exactly. We 00:00:34.009 --> 00:00:37.009 are talking about Ewert Kinier. And for a lot 00:00:37.009 --> 00:00:39.869 of you listening, that last name, Guinier, probably 00:00:39.869 --> 00:00:42.310 rings a bell because of his daughter. Lani Guinier 00:00:42.310 --> 00:00:44.890 was a huge figure in legal scholarship. Yes, 00:00:44.890 --> 00:00:47.049 she was. But her father. His story is really 00:00:47.049 --> 00:00:49.109 the prequel that explains everything. It really 00:00:49.109 --> 00:00:51.609 is. And it's a story that spans the entire 20th 00:00:51.609 --> 00:00:54.969 century struggle for racial justice. But it's 00:00:54.969 --> 00:00:58.829 not a straight line. It is a jagged, messy, fascinating 00:00:58.829 --> 00:01:01.079 arc. To give everyone sort of the quick version 00:01:01.079 --> 00:01:03.520 before we really dive into the details of the 00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:05.540 biographical records and historical accounts 00:01:05.540 --> 00:01:08.920 here, our mission today is exploring how one 00:01:08.920 --> 00:01:11.260 man's life connects the dots between Caribbean 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:14.359 immigration, the U .S. labor movement, and the 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:16.719 fight for black studies in the Ivy League. Which 00:01:16.719 --> 00:01:19.739 sounds like a lot to pack into one life. It is. 00:01:20.060 --> 00:01:22.319 We are talking about a man born in the Panama 00:01:22.319 --> 00:01:25.569 Canal Zone. who immigrated to Boston, got into 00:01:25.569 --> 00:01:28.230 Harvard, was forced to drop out, became a freight 00:01:28.230 --> 00:01:31.510 elevator operator, rose up to be a massive labor 00:01:31.510 --> 00:01:33.890 leader in New York, got purged during the Red 00:01:33.890 --> 00:01:36.629 Scare, and then... And then in a twist that you 00:01:36.629 --> 00:01:38.230 really couldn't write in a movie because it would 00:01:38.230 --> 00:01:40.489 just seem too fake. Right. He returned to Harvard 00:01:40.489 --> 00:01:42.930 40 years later to become the first chairman of 00:01:42.930 --> 00:01:45.069 their Afro -American Studies department. It is 00:01:45.069 --> 00:01:47.620 the ultimate irony. The institution that rejected 00:01:47.620 --> 00:01:49.939 him basically had to hire him to fix their problems. 00:01:50.239 --> 00:01:52.219 Yeah, but I think what we need to explore today 00:01:52.219 --> 00:01:54.420 isn't just that comeback narrative. It's how 00:01:54.420 --> 00:01:57.200 all those pieces actually fit together. You literally 00:01:57.200 --> 00:01:59.840 cannot understand the way black studies exist 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:02.280 in the Ivy League today. without understanding 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:05.079 the trade union battles of the 1940s. So let's 00:02:05.079 --> 00:02:07.120 start at the very beginning. The records show 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:10.659 he was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1910. 00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:12.939 Now I know my geography, but I feel like the 00:02:12.939 --> 00:02:16.159 Canal Zone in 1910 is a very specific type of 00:02:16.159 --> 00:02:18.879 place. Oh, it was essentially a colony. It wasn't 00:02:18.879 --> 00:02:21.800 just Panama. It was a strip of land controlled 00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:24.319 entirely by the United States. And because it 00:02:24.319 --> 00:02:27.340 was run by the U .S. in 1910, they imported the 00:02:27.340 --> 00:02:29.900 U .S. social structure. Meaning Jim Crow segregation. 00:02:30.280 --> 00:02:32.419 Precisely. They exported segregation right down 00:02:32.419 --> 00:02:34.819 to the tropics. They had a gold role for white 00:02:34.819 --> 00:02:36.840 American employees, so they were paid in gold, 00:02:36.979 --> 00:02:39.360 had better housing, better schools, and they 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:41.020 had a silver role for the Caribbean workers. 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:43.099 And his parents were Jamaican immigrants, right? 00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:44.840 Exactly. So they were on that silver roll. They 00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:47.360 were paid in silver, lived in substandard housing, 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:50.400 and were strictly segregated. So Ewer Guignere 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:53.000 is born into American segregation without actually 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:55.319 being in America yet. That completely sets the 00:02:55.319 --> 00:02:57.919 stage for everything. He knows the system before 00:02:57.919 --> 00:03:00.740 he even gets on the boat. But his family eventually 00:03:00.740 --> 00:03:03.240 leaves. Yes, but it's born out of tragedy. His 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:05.439 father, who was actually quite educated, he was 00:03:05.439 --> 00:03:08.180 a lawyer and a real estate agent, died when Ewert 00:03:08.180 --> 00:03:12.159 was only nine years old. That was in 1919. Wow. 00:03:12.340 --> 00:03:14.979 Yeah. So his mother, struggling to make ends 00:03:14.979 --> 00:03:18.139 meet, moves to Boston to find work. Ewert joins 00:03:18.139 --> 00:03:21.740 her there a few years later in 1925. He's 15. 00:03:21.780 --> 00:03:24.300 He's in a new country. And the climate shock 00:03:24.300 --> 00:03:26.439 alone, going from Panama to Boston, must have 00:03:26.439 --> 00:03:29.039 been brutal. Oh, absolutely. But the academic 00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:31.639 shock didn't seem to faze him at all. He goes 00:03:31.639 --> 00:03:33.699 to Boston English High School and just crushes 00:03:33.699 --> 00:03:36.620 it. And in 1929, he gets accepted into Harvard 00:03:36.620 --> 00:03:39.180 College. Which is a massive achievement. We really 00:03:39.180 --> 00:03:41.659 have to contextualize this for you. In 1929, 00:03:41.879 --> 00:03:43.740 the number of black students at Harvard could 00:03:43.740 --> 00:03:46.319 probably be counted on one hand. It was an incredibly 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:48.039 isolating environment. And this is where I ran 00:03:48.039 --> 00:03:49.960 into a detail in the historical accounts that 00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:51.439 really stopped me in my tracks. It's called the 00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:53.800 Phantom Letter. I mean, I've heard of ghosting, 00:03:53.819 --> 00:03:56.340 but this is next level bureaucratic gaslighting. 00:03:56.419 --> 00:03:58.219 Can you break down exactly what happened here? 00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:01.340 It is so insidious. So Guigné is a freshman, 00:04:01.620 --> 00:04:05.020 he's poor, he needs financial aid, and he really 00:04:05.020 --> 00:04:07.460 needs a place to live. So he applies for a room 00:04:07.460 --> 00:04:09.319 in the dormitories, just like every other incoming 00:04:09.319 --> 00:04:11.719 freshman. But then he receives a letter from 00:04:11.719 --> 00:04:14.319 the administration. and the letter very politely 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:16.959 informs him that his request to live off campus 00:04:16.959 --> 00:04:20.019 has been approved. But he never asked to live 00:04:20.019 --> 00:04:22.519 off campus. No, he never made that request. So 00:04:22.519 --> 00:04:24.579 the university just completely fabricated it. 00:04:24.740 --> 00:04:26.660 Exactly. It was a way to exclude him from the 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:29.240 dorms without having a written policy that explicitly 00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:32.680 said, no black students allowed. If they rejected 00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:35.819 him outright, it looks like discrimination. But 00:04:35.819 --> 00:04:38.279 if they just grant his request to live elsewhere, 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:40.740 Well, they're just being helpful administrators. 00:04:40.819 --> 00:04:43.500 That is maddening. It's so polite and yet so 00:04:43.500 --> 00:04:46.579 incredibly destructive. It worked, too. He was 00:04:46.579 --> 00:04:48.660 physically barred from the social life of the 00:04:48.660 --> 00:04:51.199 college. And on top of that, he was also ruled 00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:54.920 ineligible for financial aid. Largely because 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:57.019 of his race, though, they found other administrative 00:04:57.019 --> 00:05:00.540 excuses. So he was isolated, broke, and freezing 00:05:00.540 --> 00:05:02.699 in Boston. And then, of course, the Great Depression 00:05:02.699 --> 00:05:05.769 hits right then in 1929. The final nail in the 00:05:05.769 --> 00:05:08.490 coffin. Without financial aid, he just couldn't 00:05:08.490 --> 00:05:11.550 survive. He finished his sophomore year, but 00:05:11.550 --> 00:05:13.329 he couldn't pay the tuition anymore. He had to 00:05:13.329 --> 00:05:16.209 drop out. I just can't imagine the psychological 00:05:16.209 --> 00:05:18.310 toll of that. You work your whole life to get 00:05:18.310 --> 00:05:21.069 into the best school, you get there, they treat 00:05:21.069 --> 00:05:23.009 you like a ghost, and then you have to leave 00:05:23.009 --> 00:05:24.810 because you're broke. I feel like most people 00:05:24.810 --> 00:05:27.329 would be totally crushed. Disappointed, certainly. 00:05:27.750 --> 00:05:30.110 But this is where we start to see the grit that 00:05:30.110 --> 00:05:32.699 really defines him. He doesn't go back home. 00:05:33.019 --> 00:05:35.560 He doesn't give up. He moves to New York City 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:39.180 and enters what we could call his bootstrap or 00:05:39.180 --> 00:05:41.459 labor hustle phase. This is the part that feels 00:05:41.459 --> 00:05:43.579 like a movie montage. He's not sitting around 00:05:43.579 --> 00:05:46.139 feeling sorry for himself. He gets a job at the 00:05:46.139 --> 00:05:48.720 New York Times building, right? Yes. But not 00:05:48.720 --> 00:05:51.220 as a writer or an editor. He's a freight elevator 00:05:51.220 --> 00:05:53.680 operator. Literally the ground floor. Lower than 00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:56.839 the ground floor usually. But picture this. By 00:05:56.839 --> 00:05:59.399 day, he's hauling heavy newsprint and executives 00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:02.569 up and down a shaft. By night, he's sprinting 00:06:02.569 --> 00:06:05.430 to City College of New York, taking tuition -free 00:06:05.430 --> 00:06:08.350 night classes. And he's not just scraping by. 00:06:08.670 --> 00:06:12.730 He graduates summa cum laude in 1935. Which just 00:06:12.730 --> 00:06:14.930 proves that Harvard's issue with him was never 00:06:14.930 --> 00:06:18.089 about his intellect. Never. And armed with that 00:06:18.089 --> 00:06:21.329 degree, he enters the Civil Service. He starts 00:06:21.329 --> 00:06:23.730 as an examiner and rises up to chief of the Civil 00:06:23.730 --> 00:06:26.569 Service Commission eventually. But early on, 00:06:26.589 --> 00:06:28.529 he gets a job at the New York City Department 00:06:28.529 --> 00:06:31.279 of Welfare. And this is where he encounters the 00:06:31.279 --> 00:06:33.639 actual mechanism of Northern racism. Right, because 00:06:33.639 --> 00:06:35.360 it wasn't the whites' only signs of the South. 00:06:35.480 --> 00:06:37.579 Exactly. It was a temporary employee designation. 00:06:37.899 --> 00:06:40.180 Break that down for us. How does being temporary 00:06:40.180 --> 00:06:42.600 relate to racism? It was a very clever loophole. 00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:45.160 If you were a permanent civil service employee, 00:06:45.420 --> 00:06:47.819 you had job security, a pension, and a clear 00:06:47.819 --> 00:06:50.660 path to promotion. But the city would hire black 00:06:50.660 --> 00:06:53.560 workers almost exclusively as provisionals or 00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:55.740 temporaries. Meaning they could just be fired 00:06:55.740 --> 00:06:59.089 at any time. Fired without cause. paid less, 00:06:59.490 --> 00:07:01.870 and crucially ineligible for the benefits that 00:07:01.870 --> 00:07:04.610 white workers got. It was a way to maintain a 00:07:04.610 --> 00:07:07.310 segregated workforce within an integrated system. 00:07:08.449 --> 00:07:11.209 Guinea saw this, and he realized he couldn't 00:07:11.209 --> 00:07:13.089 fix it by just being a good employee. He could 00:07:13.089 --> 00:07:15.470 only fix it if they organized. So he becomes 00:07:15.470 --> 00:07:18.449 a union man. And not just a member, he climbs 00:07:18.449 --> 00:07:21.579 the ladder fast. Looking at his biography, there 00:07:21.579 --> 00:07:25.279 are a lot of acronyms here. SCMA, SCMU, UPW. 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:27.699 It's a bit of an alphabet soup. What was he actually 00:07:27.699 --> 00:07:30.079 leading? Well, it starts small. Organizing his 00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:32.519 local welfare office. But he's really good at 00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:34.519 it. He merges his group with others and eventually 00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:36.800 they become part of the state, county, and municipal 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:39.360 workers union, and then the UPW, the United Public 00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:41.819 Workers. Got it. And this is all under the umbrella 00:07:41.819 --> 00:07:44.819 of the CIO. Think of the CIO at the time as the 00:07:44.819 --> 00:07:47.319 militant aggressive wing of the labor movement 00:07:47.319 --> 00:07:49.819 that was actually willing to organize black workers 00:07:49.819 --> 00:07:52.240 when other unions wouldn't touch them. So he's 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:54.300 moving up in the major leagues of labor. Well, 00:07:54.360 --> 00:07:57.720 yeah, by 1948, he is the international secretary 00:07:57.720 --> 00:08:00.300 treasurer of the UPW. That's the second highest 00:08:00.300 --> 00:08:02.560 rank in the entire union. He's representing. 00:08:02.829 --> 00:08:05.209 tens of thousands of government employees. And 00:08:05.209 --> 00:08:07.350 he wasn't afraid to take shots at the boss either. 00:08:07.589 --> 00:08:09.750 There's a quote in the sources from 1951 that 00:08:09.750 --> 00:08:12.769 blew me away. He explicitly stated that the U 00:08:12.769 --> 00:08:15.490 .S. government was the nation's biggest Jim Crow 00:08:15.490 --> 00:08:18.139 employer. It's a devastating critique. because 00:08:18.139 --> 00:08:21.019 it was demonstrably true. He was pointing out 00:08:21.019 --> 00:08:23.740 the sheer hypocrisy of the U .S. fighting for 00:08:23.740 --> 00:08:26.899 freedom abroad while systematically underpaying 00:08:26.899 --> 00:08:29.740 and segregating Black workers in its own federal 00:08:29.740 --> 00:08:32.279 bureaus. He wasn't just asking for a 20 -cent 00:08:32.279 --> 00:08:34.740 raise. He was attacking the structural racism 00:08:34.740 --> 00:08:37.019 of the government. He had serious political ambition, 00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:39.600 too. He ran for Manhattan borough president in 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:42.740 1949. A historic run. He was the first Black 00:08:42.740 --> 00:08:45.200 candidate nominated for that office by any party. 00:08:45.379 --> 00:08:47.549 He ran on the American Labor Party ticket. And 00:08:47.549 --> 00:08:49.850 he didn't win, but looking at the numbers, he 00:08:49.850 --> 00:08:52.309 didn't exactly get embarrassed either. No, not 00:08:52.309 --> 00:08:55.110 at all. He lost to Robert Wagner, but he secured 00:08:55.110 --> 00:08:57.909 38 percent of the vote for a black third party 00:08:57.909 --> 00:09:00.350 candidate to pull nearly 40 percent of the vote 00:09:00.350 --> 00:09:04.169 in 1949. That shows he had massive support on 00:09:04.169 --> 00:09:06.190 the streets. He was a powerhouse. But then the 00:09:06.190 --> 00:09:08.909 wind shifts. We enter the 1950s. The Red Scare 00:09:08.909 --> 00:09:11.929 is kicking off. And being a loud, aggressive 00:09:11.929 --> 00:09:14.629 labor leader who talks openly about race and 00:09:14.629 --> 00:09:17.769 inequality suddenly becomes very dangerous. This 00:09:17.769 --> 00:09:20.169 is a major turning point in the mid -century 00:09:20.169 --> 00:09:23.629 labor movement. Cold War anxiety was at its absolute 00:09:23.629 --> 00:09:25.769 peak. And what we see in the historical record 00:09:25.769 --> 00:09:29.169 is that the UPW was scrutinized heavily for connections 00:09:29.169 --> 00:09:31.379 to the Communist Party. Right. And to be clear 00:09:31.379 --> 00:09:33.200 to our listeners, we are just looking at the 00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:35.440 historical facts of what happened here. The political 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:37.899 establishment at the time targeted these groups. 00:09:38.059 --> 00:09:40.740 Exactly. The UPW was one of the most anti -racist 00:09:40.740 --> 00:09:43.399 unions in the country and it was purged. The 00:09:43.399 --> 00:09:45.600 CIO, under immense political pressure, kicked 00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:49.320 the UPW out in 1950 due to those communist affiliations. 00:09:49.799 --> 00:09:52.519 By 1953, the union was effectively dissolved. 00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:54.600 So let's pause on the implication of that. This 00:09:54.600 --> 00:09:57.320 effectively destroyed a massive vehicle for black 00:09:57.320 --> 00:10:00.190 labor power in the public sector. Yes. Guinier 00:10:00.190 --> 00:10:02.669 was left without a union, without a platform, 00:10:03.029 --> 00:10:05.169 and facing intense scrutiny. This is what I'd 00:10:05.169 --> 00:10:07.669 call his wilderness years. Most people would 00:10:07.669 --> 00:10:10.750 have vanished into obscurity here, but Guinier 00:10:10.750 --> 00:10:14.009 just pivots again. He absolutely refuses to disappear. 00:10:14.470 --> 00:10:16.350 He's ousted from national labor leadership, so 00:10:16.350 --> 00:10:18.309 what does he do? He goes back to school again. 00:10:18.529 --> 00:10:21.590 In the mid -1950s, he enrolls at NYU Law School. 00:10:21.649 --> 00:10:24.529 In his mid -40s. Yeah. He earns his law degree 00:10:24.529 --> 00:10:27.850 in 1959. And during this time, he shifts his 00:10:27.850 --> 00:10:30.629 focus to local community organizing. He's involved 00:10:30.629 --> 00:10:32.309 with the Harlem Affairs Committee, the National 00:10:32.309 --> 00:10:35.490 Negro Labor Council. He basically keeps his organizational 00:10:35.490 --> 00:10:38.610 skills sharp. He stays in the fight, even if 00:10:38.610 --> 00:10:40.750 he's not on the national stage. Which brings 00:10:40.750 --> 00:10:43.509 us to the final and maybe most surprising act. 00:10:43.970 --> 00:10:48.330 The year is 1968, 1969. The context here is huge. 00:10:48.889 --> 00:10:51.009 Student protests are everywhere. Demands for 00:10:51.009 --> 00:10:53.350 representation are forcing institutions to change. 00:10:53.580 --> 00:10:55.500 Right. The Urban Center at Columbia is found 00:10:55.500 --> 00:10:57.179 around this time where Guinea actually worked 00:10:57.179 --> 00:10:59.419 briefly. Yeah. And Harvard is not immune to this 00:10:59.419 --> 00:11:01.679 pressure. The students that are demanding a curriculum 00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:03.720 that actually reflects their history, they want 00:11:03.720 --> 00:11:06.139 an Afro -American studies department. And the 00:11:06.139 --> 00:11:08.779 administration is cornered. They have to do something, 00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:11.419 but they need someone to run it. And this is 00:11:11.419 --> 00:11:14.059 where the stars align in the weirdest way, because 00:11:14.059 --> 00:11:15.899 they need someone with academic credentials, 00:11:15.899 --> 00:11:19.480 but who also deeply understands the Black experience, 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:21.919 community organization, and struggle. And who 00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:24.559 is sitting in New York. with a Harvard background, 00:11:24.779 --> 00:11:27.460 sort of a city college degree, a law degree, 00:11:28.059 --> 00:11:30.919 and decades of hardcore organizational leadership. 00:11:32.909 --> 00:11:35.789 So in 1969, the man who was bureaucratically 00:11:35.789 --> 00:11:38.629 gaslit out of the dorms returns as a full professor 00:11:38.629 --> 00:11:40.870 and the first chairman of the Afro -American 00:11:40.870 --> 00:11:43.070 Studies Department. It's incredible vindication. 00:11:43.309 --> 00:11:45.830 It is. But we can't let the feel -good headline 00:11:45.830 --> 00:11:48.350 fool us. He wasn't walking into a victory lap. 00:11:48.409 --> 00:11:50.409 He was walking into a new battleground. Right. 00:11:50.409 --> 00:11:52.370 He had a quote about this time that was just 00:11:52.370 --> 00:11:54.309 incredibly vivid. He said, the faculty council 00:11:54.309 --> 00:11:56.149 expects me to run the department as I would run 00:11:56.149 --> 00:11:59.190 a race. They bind my feet, tie my hands, gag 00:11:59.190 --> 00:12:01.649 and blindfold me, and then want me to do a good 00:12:01.649 --> 00:12:04.779 job. He knew exactly what was happening. You 00:12:04.779 --> 00:12:06.639 have to understand the traditional Harvard faculty 00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:09.299 largely looked down on black studies. They didn't 00:12:09.299 --> 00:12:11.320 think it was a serious standalone discipline. 00:12:11.740 --> 00:12:13.639 They thought it should just be folded into existing 00:12:13.639 --> 00:12:16.919 departments like history or English. This led 00:12:16.919 --> 00:12:19.980 to a huge public clash, didn't it? The records 00:12:19.980 --> 00:12:22.539 detail a televised debate he had on a show called 00:12:22.539 --> 00:12:26.740 Positively Black in 1973. He was debating another 00:12:26.740 --> 00:12:29.379 black professor, Martin Kielsen. This debate 00:12:29.379 --> 00:12:32.500 is crucial to understanding the era. Martin Kilson 00:12:32.500 --> 00:12:35.200 was a professor of government at Harvard, and 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:38.179 Kilson argued the integrationist view. He essentially 00:12:38.179 --> 00:12:40.419 said we shouldn't segregate ourselves into a 00:12:40.419 --> 00:12:42.700 separate department. We should be part of the 00:12:42.700 --> 00:12:44.440 history department, the political science department. 00:12:44.759 --> 00:12:46.759 That's how the field gains legitimacy. Which 00:12:46.759 --> 00:12:49.279 on paper sounds reasonable to some. Why isolate 00:12:49.279 --> 00:12:51.600 yourself right? But Guinear came back with the 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:55.110 ultimate labor organizer reality tech. He pointed 00:12:55.110 --> 00:12:57.009 out that it's impossible to integrate when those 00:12:57.009 --> 00:12:59.409 departments, like English and Economics at Harvard 00:12:59.409 --> 00:13:02.830 at that very moment, had zero black faculty members. 00:13:03.649 --> 00:13:06.490 Zero. So his argument was, if we don't have our 00:13:06.490 --> 00:13:08.750 own house, we're just going to be guests in someone 00:13:08.750 --> 00:13:11.029 else's house. Someone who historically hasn't 00:13:11.029 --> 00:13:14.409 even wanted us there. Exactly. He argued fiercely 00:13:14.409 --> 00:13:17.220 for autonomy. His mission statement was that 00:13:17.220 --> 00:13:20.059 he wanted to study the Black experience from 00:13:20.059 --> 00:13:22.159 the point of view of the people who have lived 00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:24.279 that experience. That phrase, from the point 00:13:24.279 --> 00:13:26.299 of view of the people who have lived that experience, 00:13:26.419 --> 00:13:28.820 that's the key, isn't it? It's about agency. 00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:31.899 It is all about agency. And remember his background. 00:13:32.500 --> 00:13:34.659 He wasn't a traditional ivory tower academic. 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:37.419 He wanted that department to be a hub. He was 00:13:37.419 --> 00:13:39.159 bringing the perspective of the working people 00:13:39.159 --> 00:13:42.059 into Harvard, and the administration often fought 00:13:42.059 --> 00:13:44.570 him on it. But he held that line until he retired 00:13:44.570 --> 00:13:47.750 in 1980 as Professor Emeritus. And we really 00:13:47.750 --> 00:13:49.769 can't talk about his legacy without talking about 00:13:49.769 --> 00:13:52.230 his personal life in the next generation. He 00:13:52.230 --> 00:13:55.149 was married to Doris Cumberbatch and later Eugenia 00:13:55.149 --> 00:13:58.450 Papron, known as Jeannie. And they raised a daughter 00:13:58.450 --> 00:14:00.669 who took that fighting spirit and ran with it. 00:14:00.870 --> 00:14:03.149 Lani Guinia. She became a famous civil rights 00:14:03.149 --> 00:14:05.710 lawyer and a tenured professor at Harvard Law 00:14:05.710 --> 00:14:08.350 School. So the granddaughter of the woman who 00:14:08.350 --> 00:14:10.789 moved to Boston with nothing becomes a tenured 00:14:10.789 --> 00:14:12.909 law professor at the very place that kicked her 00:14:12.909 --> 00:14:16.210 father out. It's incredibly poetic. Lonnie actually 00:14:16.210 --> 00:14:18.370 had a beautiful tribute to her father. She said 00:14:18.370 --> 00:14:20.789 he taught me to speak in my own voice. You can 00:14:20.789 --> 00:14:23.450 see the direct line there. Ewert fought for a 00:14:23.450 --> 00:14:26.009 space to exist and Lonnie fought for the legal 00:14:26.009 --> 00:14:28.950 frameworks to protect that existence. Ewert Guigné 00:14:28.950 --> 00:14:32.269 passed away in 1990. When you step back and look 00:14:32.269 --> 00:14:34.590 at this whole map, from the segregated canal 00:14:34.590 --> 00:14:37.429 zone, to the phantom letter, the freight elevator, 00:14:37.730 --> 00:14:40.090 the union organizing, and finally the Harvard 00:14:40.090 --> 00:14:43.029 chair, what is the big takeaway for you? I think 00:14:43.029 --> 00:14:46.350 his life proves that academic careers and intellectualism 00:14:46.350 --> 00:14:49.450 aren't just formed in libraries. His academic 00:14:49.450 --> 00:14:51.950 perspective was completely informed by his gritty 00:14:51.950 --> 00:14:54.289 labor roots. He showed that the knowledge gained 00:14:54.289 --> 00:14:56.629 from struggle is rigorous, and it's necessary 00:14:56.629 --> 00:14:58.870 for institutions to actually reflect reality. 00:14:58.970 --> 00:15:01.090 And it highlights how the intersection of labor 00:15:01.090 --> 00:15:03.129 rights and civil rights has always been tied 00:15:03.129 --> 00:15:05.649 together. You can't separate the two. You really 00:15:05.649 --> 00:15:07.789 can't. That brings me to a question I want to 00:15:07.789 --> 00:15:11.269 leave you, our listeners, with today. Guinier 00:15:11.269 --> 00:15:14.190 was adamant about having a standalone autonomous 00:15:14.190 --> 00:15:17.309 space for black studies because he knew the existing 00:15:17.309 --> 00:15:20.250 departments excluded those voices. Right. Today, 00:15:20.389 --> 00:15:22.289 in universities and even in corporate structures, 00:15:22.350 --> 00:15:24.850 we hear a lot about interdisciplinary work or 00:15:24.850 --> 00:15:27.669 integration. But looking at the world today, 00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:30.740 Have those traditional structures actually changed 00:15:30.740 --> 00:15:33.600 enough to make Guinier's standalone model obsolete? 00:15:34.240 --> 00:15:37.159 Or is his argument about complete autonomy still 00:15:37.159 --> 00:15:40.120 the only way to ensure the story is told correctly 00:15:40.120 --> 00:15:42.240 by the people who lived it? It's a fascinating 00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:44.419 question to ponder. Something for you to chew 00:15:44.419 --> 00:15:46.639 on as you go about your day. Thanks for helping 00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:49.299 us unpack the incredible lives of Uart Guinier. 00:15:49.620 --> 00:15:51.340 Always a pleasure to be here. And thank you for 00:15:51.340 --> 00:15:53.700 listening. We'll see you on the next Deep Dive.