By Ron Wynn
National Public Radio special correspondent and former “All Things Considered” co-host Michele Norris told an audience at the Nashville Public Library Saturday she couldn’t have been happier being the featured guest to celebrate the 10th anniversary of “The Civil Rights Room.”
“This is a great honor for me,” Norris said. “There are so many important things that are contained in that room, and everyone should take advantage of it to see and learn from those things.”
Norris was keynote speaker for the Library’s ongoing “Conversations” series, and also talked about her “Race Card Project,” which has gathered more than 33,000 quotes. Contributors must put their thoughts about race into sentences of six words or less.
Norris also admitted that at one point in her career racial conversations weren’t something she cherished. “When you’re one of only a handful of Blacks in a newsroom you inevitably find yourself being asked to cover this story or interview that person in the area of race,” Norris said. “It’s not that you don’t enjoy or want to do those stories, but you start asking why can’t I do the stories on nuclear energy, or on politics, or any other subject. You don’t want to be pigeonholed into a racial corner.”
But she added she became more comfortable and even determined to conduct conversations on the subject. One thing that affected her decision was Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign. Another was the change in direction of a book she originally planned to do on race, which ended up instead being on her family, though it still had very pronounced racial storylines.
“I discovered that my father had been involved in a shooting in Alabama back in 1947,” Norris said. “The courage it took to confront a police officer back then was considerable, yet I had never heard this story. Plus, most of my family didn’t want to talk about it, or the fact my grandmother had a job traveling as one of several “Aunt Jemimas” around the country conducting pancake-cooking demonstrations.”
“What I found out was my parents didn’t want to burden us with the struggles of the past, but it is important to know them,” she added. “That’s why now I’m so interested in getting people to talk frankly and honesty about race. It’s something that can make you happy, angry, sad, upset, but it’s very important that we talk openly about it as a nation.”
Her recent book “The Grace of Silence,” which she signed later in the lobby, further illuminates these stories of her family. She also disclosed during the Q&A period why she chose having people respond to her racial inquiry in six words or less.
“When I was working at the Washington Post I had an editor who used to walk around the room and ask people about their stories,” Norris said. “You could talk your way off the front page if you couldn’t give a quick summary of what your story was and not have to resort to all types of explanations and addendums. The six words forces people to condense their thoughts and pick just the right words to explain how they feel.”
She also asked how many people in the audience knew the story of World War II veteran Isaac Woodard Jr. Only two people raised their hands. “Isaac Woodard was a veteran who was discharged in 1946,” Norris said. “He was later beaten so badly by police officers that he lost his vision, even though they were responding to a story that wasn’t a story. President Truman was so upset about that incident it led to his signing an executive order banning racial discrimination in the Armed Forces.”
She closed by saying that the most important thing she’s learned over her years in journalism is the importance of listening to others. “We must all learn to listen to each other and pay attention to what’s being said, especially when we’re talking about race,” Norris concluded. “That’s the only way we’ll ever move forward.”