New Year Update

Published Jan 28, 2025, 8:05 AM

Akilah sits down with her producers, Dan and Elizabeth, for a check in on where the journey has taken them since airing the initial episodes. Though there hasn't been much movement from Boone County High School, they have heard some updates from local supporters. Additionally, the team shares an overview of what they plan to share in future episodes.

If you have a racist mascot at your high school or are an alumni of a high school with a racist mascot and want to share your own experience, please email us at rebelspiritpodcast@gmail.com.

We would love to talk to you!

My own black a dollar has gone on overland I don't know, I know, Ninth Planet Audio con we're over landing.

I was a lady rebbel, Like, what does that even be?

Any of the Boone County Rebels will stay?

The Boone County Rebels with the image of right here in black and white were friends.

Figures is a flag or mascot. Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition, you get to be ready for its serious.

Backgrounds from Ninth Planet Audio. I'm Akhila Hughes and this is Rebel Spirit New Year Update.

Okay, so we are all here together doing kind of another check in talkback episode. The last time we did this was right before the podcast came out, so just kind of wanted to all get together again. Now that all of our main episodes have come out, we're still kind of doing some reporting and you know, following up at the school. But now that everything is out, I'm here with Dan, our producer, Akila, our host and fearless leader of this. Yeah. So now that all the episodes are out, I just kind of want to hear how you're feeling with the response, kind of the the journey of that and kind of reflecting back on you know, now that everyone's heard everything, how does it feel.

Yeah, I mean it feels good. I think that, you know, we've made something really impressive. And I it's not lost on me that like this doesn't exist, you know what I mean. Like it's not like we're doing the ninetieth interrogation of a murder podcast. We're like actually doing the work to lay the story of why these kinds of schools exist, and you know, the uphill battle of trying to get people to just be accepting and move forward. So those sorts of things, like completely honestly are incredibly heartening, and I think that, like I am just happy that like this as a document exists, and I'm really proud of what we've been able to do. Like I do think that it's like necessary work, and so it's nice to feel like the thing that you're working on matters, and I feel like it does. So that's where I'm at. But obviously the elephant in the room is you know, Donald Trump was inaugurated. We are recording this on the twenty third, so it's been a couple of days. He's wasted no time, and of course, shock surprise, civil rights are sort of under attack, and so I think that, like, of course, that's top of mind for me as we're you know, still in this still trying to tell the story while also trying to make real change, and now we have a much deeper hill to climb. And so just with that, how are you guys feeling?

Very much same? I have thought a lot about the last the tenth episode that came out was originally going to come out on election Day, and we we put it out a week later just because who was going to listen to that during election day? And you know, the final bit of that, you know, we kind of present the kind of the larger story of revel Spirit as that of the battle between you know, moving forward and moving back, and you know, I can't when I'm feeling low sometimes I feel like right now that battle doesn't feel like one we're winning. Yeah, but it does resonate as being the defining battle of right now. You know, it's just uh, as you said, it's a little bit more of an uphill battle than I think we thought when we wrote those lines.

Definitely, definitely.

Yeah. It also kind of has recently reminded me of like the interview with Ronan Pharaoh and him kind of talking about in the end. So much of kind of what you know, keeps him going is like just wanting to be a good person, like in the end of all of this, and so there is I think kind of that through line of just continuing on, which is so hard to do, and even you know, I think some of our other interviewees on our kind of pep talk episode had the same thing of you know, time marches on and you kind of have to to continue, so kind of to that, I think, you know, a lot of the questions we've kind of had from from listeners and people who have heard all the episodes and followed along is where things now? And I know we're definitely gonna do a little bigger, deep dive into this, but the specific one is like has the school responded? Where are things at? And you know, the overarching thing is like, no, not really, but if you kind of want to, you know, talk a little bit about you know, some of the reaction from the school, which is not much, but also kind of you know locally what you've heard or like heard from friends who are kind of there with the show coming out.

Definitely, I mean, yeah, you're right, like Stacy Black, the principal at Boone County High School, is staying mom. The school board is absolutely not trying to be involved in the fray. And you know, the most recent thing that I've heard is that, you know, we had a person on the board who had expressed at least interest in getting this to a vote. They were expected to be the board chair. I found out today that there was a coup against them. They don't want to be on the record doing a vote, you know what I mean, because they would vote against it. And I think that, you know, it's in many ways to me, just confirming cowardice. So it's like, fine, you don't like you you have these convictions, but you're too chicken shit to stand by them publicly and put your face to just regressive thinking. But I also think like there is you know, it's a down moment. I think that, like I'm also biased. I'm in Los Angeles. We have these fires right now, so it's like there's a lot that is on my mind. But with this project, because it is so personal, you know, I think about the people who are there, who you know, are still going to school there, who have to face the kids there who maybe have parents who are deeply anti anything inclusive. You know, I think about Miss Juneteenth, who as a day job, was a DEI officer who will probably lose her job and was standing in the way of this progress. And I also just think, you know, we touched on in a second ago, but it's like the work continues, and so it's like, I think that what I've heard more of frankly, and I think that people people genuinely just talk to the people they're in alignment with. So it's like, I think that we have had the benefit of getting a lot of emails to the Rebel Spirit email that are people who either grew up in the area and moved away and were like, yeah, no, I went there in the seventies and it was messed up and I see that now, but also like I tried to change it. These people are not going to change, or people who grew up in areas that were very similar, right, who did change and they were like, look, things are better, and I'm glad that we did it, and it's so important that you're telling the story. And so we have that benefit. But you know, we also have some stuff coming up that I think shows the other side who's speaking to their allies against what we're trying to do.

Yeah, I mean I just pulled up emails in terms of just since the last episode, you know, I've reached out to Stacy Black, the principal, three separate times, you know, to no response, you know, just simply asking like, hey, we would love if nothing else, we'd love an update on the things that you told us over a year ago were in motion. You know that we've never seen in any minutes that we've never seen anywhere, you know, the idea that there's a committee or some sort of informal committee or something. You know, it's still so unclear, but just asking for that or asking for you know, just to talk, like we would just love to have somebody to come forward on the record and nothing, nothing, nothing, you know, just as like I try to write the syrup e Ast emails I can in these situations and and and nothing on any of them, you know, And that's it's Yeah, it's frustrating. Yeah, it's frustrating because you want, like all we want is to talk like.

Right exactly at the very least, like you literally can't. You're not willing to have the conversation right of the thing that you are so adamantly against R and it's like, then are you against like I mean, like really, like do you have courage in your convictions or not? Because I just feel like it's really strange to me, I guess, to have such strong feelings against it, but knowing that it's wrong enough to know that you can't go on the record saying so right or even off the right. I mean that's the thing. Not even off the record has been offered, you know.

And every communication is always offered as off and uh then yeah, nothing, it's yeah, it's yeah, it's hard. And right now it feels like, man, you're sticking your neck way further out now, you know.

Totally totally. I mean it feels like, you know, it's so silly. But I used to joke that, like because they were so in many ways regressive. I'm like, they're probably gonna segregate the schools, and I'm like, now, not joking. Now, I'm not joking because I think that they would be willing to have that up for a vote before they'd be willing to talk about changing a mascot. And what does that say about where I'm from in about the country. I think you know in a greater sense. And I guess like something that I've been sort of just thinking about is like, internationally, how small this must seem? Like there are so many other places on the planet where you know, nowhere is perfect. But it's like the fact that we are still having these fights must seem so archaic.

Yeah, I mean, and just end it. Yeah, so much research in the in those ten episodes was about the fifties and the sixties and segregation and then the move toward desegregation, and and and and it's just like, oh that none of that is historical anymore, right, Like that's all actually currently relevant information. Yeah. And yeah, I think about some of the folks that we that we spoke with. I'm unfortunately I'm blanking on her name, but the historian from Denver who who was you know, a little bit elderly and had been involved in the first bussing and and and all of that, and just how right now must feel to her, you know, to have seen as much as she has seen in her time and to then see it all start to roll back.

Yeah.

And that was something we kind of saw more sort of towards the end of our initial reporting period, is seeing schools not only like not change the mascot, but change school names back to you know, Confederate generals and and sort of reverting back to some of those And I did. We have gotten some really great emails and examples sent into the Rebel Spirit Gmail. So for everyone who has emailed us, we appreciate it. But I did want to sort of highlight something interesting there. There's you know a lot of people emailed about former mascots that were like the Indians or even other rebels who have changed. There's one that people should really look up from Abington, Pennsylvania that were they were the Galloping Ghosts. I don't know if we even sent this to Huge Plan, but it's literally it's literally a ku Klux Klan member essentially, like that is the mascot until the late eighties, it literally was that and now they've changed. But the the overwhelming kind of response for the emails is people whose mascots have changed for the most part, like it's it kind of you know, the the the amount of of kind of pushback we've heard and and so much of how difficult it is from from Boone County just does not align with an with the evidence essentially of every other school that has reached out, there's you know, one school that was like the bullets uh in Gettysburg, which they wanted to change, and and there were some really interesting ones that have been you know sent to us. So I I think too, I guess I'm kind of wondering. I think you've been able to kind of see some of these tekila, but just you know, seeing other people who have done it in some of like those mascots, like how does that kind of factor into to the response and like just you know, other people's examples of being able to make it happen.

Yeah, I mean it. The thing is, like I think that that's a very energizing thing to receive this sorts of emails because it's like it didn't the world didn't end, you know, Like the way that they're acting in Boone County is so dramatic. It's like if we changed this, I mean, what would happen? And you know, like there is just so much tied to what they perceive as like their memories. Right, They're like I went to Boone County and I was a rebel and if you change it, that's no longer true. And I'm like that's not how time works. Like we're not going back and accepting your memory. It's like you were the rebels. That's fine, but like, why can you not even imagine a future where someone else isn't that mascot? Like it just doesn't or represented by that mascot. It doesn't make any sense. And it's like it just I think speaks to how small a lot of the ideology is, and like, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that. I try to have empathy for the fact that like a lot of these people have never gone anywhere, they've never met anyone who is different than them. They you know, and that's by design, and they've been you know, Kentucky's a really poor state. It's not like there's a ton of opportunity there. And so I think that like educationally, there's a lot of opportunity to bring people in the twenty first century, but I think politically there's a real concerted effort not to you know, what would it mean if Kentucky was as welcoming as you know, or Boone County even just like as Kelvington or Cincinnati. You know, I think that they have to hold on to something and I don't know that there is a lot of positive stuff to hold on to, so you know, they take what they can get. But it is just wild because I went there, I cheered for the rebels, I competed on behalf of the rebels in all of these different events, and I sang in the choir. You know, It's not like I'm not aware of the fact that I was a rebel when I went there. I'm just saying something better can come. And so like that's what rubs me, is like, why is it these people who are literally a decade from their deathbed act in life acting like nothing's ever allowed to change. I just think it's wild. I'm like, what's the fear? And also like, what is your stake in it? They don't care about you either way, Like the school doesn't have alumni events. It's not like it is a big community thing. I mean we went to homecoming, Like I am an alum from the choir. I didn't receive a single piece of mail saying come singing, oh God. It seemed like anybody could have wandered in. And so I just feel like it is this performative patriotism or like allegiance to something that has really not been as big of a factor. But if you have nothing else going on in your life, this is a hill to die on. And I'm just hopeful that, you know, maybe at some point in my life people will choose better hills.

Yeah. The other thing with homecoming and kind of speaks large to a larger thing I feel like, is, yeah, the only alumni and maybe there was like two or three in the choir, we're seemingly people who still lived there and never left. Like it feels like there's kind of this element of if you leave, then we don't like you anymore. Yeah, you know, Jay kind of talked about that in the episode about BLDG of like, yeah, but what you were looking for wasn't here, so you left and that's okay. And he came back, and it does feel like there is such a this idea that you are an outsider now because you left and didn't come back. But it's like it's your home and so it feels very insular as well. I did want to just highlight one email that we got from someone who is an alumni in ninety five, which I'm going to bring up a little bit later too, of that is an interesting year, but for a.

Lot of reasons.

Yeah. But also she reached out and you both worked at Fazoli's, which is really cool.

Yeah, high stand up, So it's so cool.

But you know, she's obviously older. She graduated in ninety five and and she wrote out and was really supportive of this, and she had known Sean and his brother Dran and part of like knowing them was kind of what she said started her on her anti racism journey and like kind of opened her eyes to like seeing that things weren't great. And you know, she said, like if you ever want local support, I'll lend my voice and kind of to that, I to anyone who has We've had a lot of these types of emails. It's like, just go for it, like yeah, exactly. Yeah, so kind of you know, along those lines, like if you kind of want to just say, if people do locally want to like help right now, what are some things they can do and just kind of you don't need us to tell you to do so, like we do want you to so if you kind of just a little bit on that of like even now, what could be helpful?

Yeah, I mean I think the truth is bringing it up at the board is something you can do every single month and you don't have to talk for the whole amount of time. You can literally just say I'm an alumni Boone County High School. I graduated whatever year, you know, ninety five, ninety six, anytime, and I support looking into this because the reality is they're so scared they won't even look into it anymore. And I think that they need to see that people care about this. I also think that, like, you know, something that I've been doing and I don't know if I can actually recommend it, but I'll tell you I've been in the like Boone County Neighbors Facebook group just seeing what people are talking about, and it's a lot of negativity. It's a lot of people fighting with each other, it's a lot of ideological difference. But what I've found is if you push back even a little, if you even ask a question, those people who are so loud and seemingly overrepresented shut down. They know they don't have an argument. You can literally just be like, I don't know, I don't think we should deport all of our neighbors, and then suddenly all of the people who agree with you come out of the woodwork. To be like, yeah, I felt that way, and I'm glad somebody said it, and so I think that, like again, it really to me just comes back to like the courage of your convictions, Like if you're willing to say it publicly, and you should be. I don't know why you wouldn't be, but if you're willing to say it publicly, please do so.

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's the thing that we've we've both been told directly and we've you know, seen through through other means. But the idea that we are outsiders quote unquote outsiders, right, and we're the only ones that care about this, you know, is is what they are using right now to not move it forward as far as we know. You know that, and yeah and I and Elizabeth you mentioned it before, but it's like that the framing of you Akuila as an outsider like makes me so furious because you aren't. You're from there, you went to school there, you know, I mean, it is what roy Wood Junior was like. Where you're from is where you went to high school, your first kiss and yeah, and first fight, right, It's like, but also the love of place that you have for Florence is the reason this exists, right, It's the reason why we do this. It's not because you are some outsider looking to stir up trouble, you know, because you disliked the place and so you want to you know, make it worse or whatever. It's because you care and you care about the kids that are there now and the experience that they are having and how it could be better. And that's I think, you know what, and you when you think about sort of civic pride, Like that's a very civic, very proud thing to do to say, hey, you know what, the folks that are there now, I'm not there now because the opportunities weren't there for me, But the folks that are there now it could be better for them, and I would like to try to make that better. Like that's a really beautiful thing. And it really does make me really upset when I see you sort of cast as an outsider. I mean, I'm an outsider, like I'm from Chicago, right, Like, but you are not right, And the idea that you can leave a place and still care, you know, and leave a place and still want better for it, right, that should be celebrated.

Right. I mean, it's also that's the thing. It sets a really bad example. I think it's like, to me, a shameful point for the community to be so protective of these symbols that they're like, well, if you don't agree or you left, then like you obviously aren't from here, or you don't you know, like you're saying you're coming back to cause trouble. And I'm like, how many of you have ever been to a board meeting?

Yeah, I mean, why.

Would I put in the effort to come and hurt a place? Obviously if I was such a hater, I would just never come back. Like you know what I mean, that's what most people do when they hate a place, is they never go back. Like we've all seen the Lion king, like he came back. And so I'm just like, I don't think I just it doesn't compute on any level. But it's like it's it is seeing all of the defensiveness in all the ways that they are just grasping at straws to push out the progress and change, and it's like, fine, she's not from here, or she doesn't deserve to have a say because she left, or you know, what she has to say must be biased in some way, and I'm like, I don't know. I think I'm probably more objective because I've seen more of the world. Yeah, like if I had stayed, I imagine my life would have turned out a lot different. And I also think that like I would probably resent them a lot more. I would probably resent And that's been my experience in those Facebook groups is they really resent each other. They're not proud of where they're from. They you know, a lot of people join and say I'm new in town, and they leave that group real quick. So I'm like, I think it could be better here. As all I'm saying, I think that you all could be real neighbors. I think you could take pride in a school publicly and put your chest out and say I'm proud of this mascot instead of just tucking your tail and saying the oldest school in this district doesn't get to have one.

And so kind of wrapping things up, I do want to I mentioned nineteen ninety five and it's something that can truly be like a whole season and we've kind of like talked about that, but if you dan just briefly kind of want to touch on some of that that we are going to kind of be looking at even further and then also kind of touch on some of what the continued reporting has been in terms of foyer requests, and like briefly, you know, we're going to do a couple more episodes like what is kind of to come, you know, kind of the deep dive that will eventually be here.

Yeah, definitely, So I mean on the on the on the second thing first, you know, as as we have expressed many times, like we have not heard from the school or the district, no matter how many times we ask, no about how nicely we ask, you know, whether we're there in person, whether or not. And we finally got to the point this probably October or so, where we decided, you know what, there are other ways we can find out what they're thinking, you know, and so along with our researcher, Janis, we started filing foyer requests or open records requests for the district and for the high school and to find out, you know, what has been happening kind of as we've been reporting what's been happening on that side of things. And it's taken a while, but and part of that is just with open records requests you kind of get one little piece. A friend of mine who does them a lot, described it as it's like peeling an onion, you know, and you rarely get the thing you want at the start, you know, but you get a little hint of the thing that you want. And we have a lot now and so we've been that'll be kind of coming up in February will be the results of all of that, which is significantly a large amount of stuff. I printed it out the other day and it's come on page is but uh damn, but but yeah, it's exciting. And one of the sort of weird side quests that came up out of that was this year of nineteen ninety five, which you know, kept popping up in all sorts of different of different ways, and every time it would pop up, you know, again sort of the onion thing, except this time you're like looking at a different onion and you're like, what's that?

Like, what's that?

Looks really big? What's happening there? And so we've also been sort of looking into nineteen ninety five in Florence, but then in all of Kentucky, where there was a remarkable amount of stuff happening around rebel schools in and around the whole state. And so that's been sort of a like I said, it's definitely a side quest, like my little link is well off into a forest on that one. But but uh, but it's it's a lot of very interesting stuff as well. So absolutely, yeah. And it's it's funny because you know, in my various notes to these these guys, as I've been I've been kind of following this, it's like, I think this is a we've got a good episode about nineteen ninety five, and then it's like, actually, I think maybe it's two. And then at some point it's like it's I think we have a mini series here, and then finally it was like, no, I think there's ten episodes. So yeah, hopefully we can do those ten.

I mean, you know, just to sort of touch on what Dan was saying too about nineteen ninety five, like it is sort of its own onion, but it also directly ties into what we are researching about why Boone County is dying on the James Dan Hill. So like, I think that what excites me and what we have to look forward to and all of it, and what's become even more relevant is the history here, and it's like, you know, I'm on blue sky and everybody now is having a conversation about civil rights because they are under a tech. There are executive orders being repealed, you know, law that we believed was settled will probably be challenged, all of those things, and there is just sort of a lack of education that people have about it. Like I think that because you know, Martin Luther King has always been seen as so long ago, and all the footage is always played in black and white, and we're always like, but then he died for our sins, like he's Jesus, and now racism's dead. It's like people just didn't ever see it clearly, and now we have to, like we have to understand the moves that are being made and why, and so that feels really relevant. Like I personally have gone back to episode two several times to be like, yeah, no, this is the timeline, like fifty four kicks off where we are today, Like it's it is like this defining moment and it's all the same people, you know what I mean. It's the people that never got fully shouted down who are now trying to drag us back in time. And I think that it's important for people to recognize that it's important to see our place in that history. But I also just think that like the overarching themes that we keep coming back to, tradition, progress, high school, like it all matters. It's all doing what you can where you are. And I do think that, like it's going to be an exhausting four years if we make it that long, and so like you have to figure out how to be effective where you are, and so like I don't know all of it going forward is still that same mandate to me, it's you know, to really dig deep and to figure out what is true and not shy away from telling that truth to whoever we have to, but also being like precise, Like when they're talking about de Ei, they're talking about civil rights now like at first maybe they were upset because a black person got hired, but now they don't want black people in the government. These are the kind of thoughts that we need to be honest and open about and see you know, the through lines, and so yeah, I don't know, but the next episode is yeah, with the Foyer requests, I can't wait. We got some juicy shit in there, and I'm gonna be honest about it.

Yeah, we're taking it back to the what is it like, emails, timelines, receipt.

Yeah, like.

We have all of it. Yeah, We've got it all.

They can't hid, they can't hide. We know what you said, We know your code words.

Otherwise, just wanted to kind of give an update and check in and thank you guys for hopping on. But more to come.

Yeah, keep your head up. Rebel Spirit is a production of ninth Planet Audio and association with iHeart Podcasts. Reporting and writing by me Akila Hughes. I'm also an executive producer and the host. Produced by Dan Sinker, edited by Josie A zam Our. Assistant editor is Jennifer Dean. Music composed by Charlie Sun, Sound design and mixing by Josie A. Zahm Our. Production coordinator is Kyle Hinton. Our clearance coordinator is Anna Sunenshine. Production accounting by Dill Pretzig. Additional research support from Janie Dillard. Special thanks to Jay Becker and the whole team at BLDG The Florence Yawls, Amber Hoffman and Leslie Chambers. Executive producers for Ninth Planet Audio are Elizabeth Baquett and Jimmy Miller.

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