Bobby Norfolk is a story performer and teaching artist from St. Louis. He visited Columbia’s Armory Sports and Recreation Center in June to perform in honor of Juneteenth.
There were about a dozen people in the classroom, and his voice boomed and waned as he told stories about the world’s history and where Black folks had a part. To him, re-telling history is key to human progress.
“It's been said by Marcus Garvey, the black militant, a person with no knowledge of themselves, and their culture is like a tree without roots," Norfolk said. "In order to know where you're going, you need to know where you've been.”
Norfolk said he shares and celebrates Black history through performance because he believes it’s easier for any person to absorb information while being entertained.
“So I go into the really white schools and I talk to 300 or 400 white kids and maybe four or five Black students in there, a couple of Asians. But (the teachers) want these kids to know, because these are true teachers," Norfolk said. "They're not trying to dust it up under the rug like it'll go away. Because, you know – we're not going away.”
During Norfolk’s performance, he called out to Larry Brown, a Columbia-based storyteller. Brown has been performing for about 40 years and taught at the University of Missouri’s geography department for 25.
He’s a white man with mostly German ancestry and said he’s committed to social justice.
“We're the most powerful minority in the world, and that conjures up all sorts of guilt and responsibility," Brown said. "I can't let that position justify my exclusion of others.”
He discussed the history of Germans in Jefferson City who were also against Black exclusion. Many were abolitionists. One minister in Jefferson City secretly officiated weddings for enslaved people. In the 1920s and 30s, there were German Catholics who worked to stop members of the KKK from being elected to political office.
“We need stories of diverse people coming together in cooperative ways," Brown said. "That's the kind of stories that need to be told to counter the powerful stories being told of divisiveness.”
And even that story of cooperation from Germans is complicated. State Historical Society of Missouri Executive Director Gary Kremer said many Germans in mid-Missouri, while opposed to slavery, still shared the racial biases of the time.
“Many were just opposed to Black people, generally slave or free, but they were opposed to slavery because they came to this country as intense believers in capitalism and the free enterprise system," Kremer said.
He said he’s worried about the moves by leaders across the country limiting the scope of race-based programs that celebrate diversity, and its impacts. In August, the University of Missouri dissolved its inclusion, diversity and equity office, even though no state law mandated it.
“The hostility toward affirmative action, toward DEI, the sense that if the truth is painful, it should be disregarded. Or glossed over. History is messy. Always has been, I suspect it always will be, and I think a historian has to deal with that messiness," Kremer said.
And as school was beginning at MU, the university made the Legion of Black Collegians change the name of its Welcome Black BBQ to the Welcome Black and Gold BBQ. University officials said the name change ensures that the event won’t seem exclusive. But it also altered a decades-long tradition of celebrating Black students and Black culture at MU.
The university has maintained that these actions are necessary in light of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s interpretation of last year’s Supreme Court ruling that outlawed race-based admissions. Yet other lawyers in the state have called this interpretation – which has now spread to university-funded programs – broad and unnecessary.
Yet even in the face of institutional pressure, storytellers and historians say continuing to tell stories that amplify marginalized voices and highlight allyship across races can remind people of the good that can come from acknowledging both differences and injustices.
