Hi, I'm John Clayton, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music Today we're on the grounds of the State House in Concord, New Hampshire, where in June of 1999, the bill recognizing Martin Luther King Day was finally signed into law.

I'm going to find out a lot more about Doctor King on tonight's program.

And we're also going to learn some life lessons from a teacher named Ruby Houlihan.

And Canada was always considered a Freedom Land for the slaves, because that was the one place that they could go and know that they could have freedom.

In the fifth and sixth grade, my favorite thing was to play schoolhouse when I got home with my sisters and my cousins and some other friends in the neighborhood.

And we played school, and I was always the teacher, the teacher mom.

And I knew right then and there I wanted to be a teacher.

Then we'll hear a touch of the blues from musician TJ Wheeler.

Left foot, peg foot, travelling on.

Follow the drinking gourd.

So everybody sing.

Follow The musical contributions are just one example of thousands of the contributions that African-Americans have made, that have enriched all of our lives.

Mama don’t allow no jug band round here But first, it was here on the statehouse grounds where the bill honoring Doctor Martin Luther King with his own holiday was finally signed into law.

I had the honor of covering that event, and I was not alone here.

Hundreds from throughout New Hampshire came to ring in a new era.

Jim and Polly Curran from Hancock were among those people.

It's a hot day.

I am truly honored to be here.

And I just want to thank the governor, the state legislature, and all the men and women and children that worked to make this day become a reality.

On that warm June day, we all made it to the statehouse grounds for the signing of the Martin Luther King Bill.

And I'm wondering, Jim and Polly, you first Polly, why was it important that you be there?

It was important to be there to recognize, to celebrate the fact that New Hampshire was joining the rest of the country in acknowledging what we owe as American citizens to Martin Luther King.

He held us together peacefully during a terrible time that might have turned into a horrible race war.

And I've seen the equivalent to a racial Cold War in South Africa.

I've lived with it for almost five years.

So I was petrified.

And when he came along and used his civil disobedience, nonviolence and his, following his beliefs in Mahatma Gandhi's teaching of nonviolence, I knew we were in the hands of a good man.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring Anyhow, Doctor King, yeah, I think that he is one of the great Americans of the century.

Really, right up there in the pantheon with Roosevelt and, I don't know, I might even, might, even though I'm an Irish American I might put him ahead of Jack Kennedy, believe it or not.

Yeah.

Because I think that what he did was so, so important.

You know.

The combination of the passion for justice and the nonviolent approach.

And I suspect, because he got a lot of hate mail.

We know that he got death threats and lots and lots of awful hate mail.

And the FBI was, you know, bugging him, literally, and persecuting him, so to speak.

But I'm not I'm not suggesting any sort of conspiracy theory.

I have my thoughts about that.

But he must have, he must have felt that he had a strong possibility of meeting a violent end.

And even even so, he persevered.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And if America’s to be a great nation, this must become true.

Do you think we're better able to appreciate his legacy as time passes?

Well, yeah, I think it unfolds as time goes on.

And I think, as people really reflect on what life in this country was like before and what it's like now, God knows it's not perfect now for people of color, but it's certainly better.

And to think that he had a major part in shaping that, you know, that’s, as the kids say, awesome.

Yeah.

I mean, it, it really is.

We will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing, in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last.

Free at last.

Thank God almighty, we are free at last.

We'll learn more about the day that bill was signed into law.

But first we're going to meet a teacher.

Doctor Ruby Houlihan grew up in Mississippi during the height of segregation and the lessons she learned during those troubling days, she shares today with her students.

One of the Underground Railroad houses I know of is up in Lisbon.

And someone told me there's another one someplace up Linc, up, up near Lincoln.

I am of Ruby Lee Houlihan.

My maiden name is Magruder.

And I grew up in, in Alligator, Mississippi.

Music I remember very vividly as though it was yesterday, in the fifth and sixth grade, my favorite thing was to play schoolhouse.

When I got home with my sisters and my cousins and some other friends in the neighborhood.

You say neighborhood, it was a very rural neighborhood.

And we’d play school.

And I was always the the teacher, the teacher mom.

And I knew right then and there I wanted to be a teacher.

Now, one other thing that I also shared with you in these notes, that is not on this overhead projector notes, is how Canada was considered a freedom land for slaves when they were using the Underground Railroad, and they went to - Ruby's been a teacher for more than 25 years.

Her classrooms have varied in settings, from public schools to maximum security prisons.

Today, she works as the director and principal of the North Country Alternative School in Laconia.

We sure did!

I'm giving you enough - I've given you enough time to put those - Many of the students who’ve attended Ruby’s classes have come here because they were experiencing problems in their own public schools.

I enjoyed school.

I used to love school until I went to the middle school.

It's when you go from being in fifth grade in a safe elementary environment and being put into the middle school more or less thrown in with children who are mature, too mature.

It causes a lot of stress, a lot of tension.

Ryan's grades went from A/Bs to Cs and Ds.

Now, somebody take the next part there, please.

He's been here two months.

I have my little boy back, and he's getting what he needs.

He’s getting an education that he deserves.

They teach from the heart.

And you can see it and you can feel it in the children.

It's just, I’m, it's different.

To best understand why this school is different, well, you need to know the teacher.

Music Ruby grew up in rural Mississippi during the 1950s, and as you can imagine, life was difficult in the heartland of segregation.

In many ways, however, Ruby was fortunate.

She had someone in her life, someone of great influence and importance.

My grandfather was not only a very important person in my life, but a very inspirational person in my life.

From the very beginning, when I can remember myself, my grandfather always talked about the value and the importance of being education.

One of the reason why my grandfather insisted on stress, on stressing education so much was, is because he himself had been a product of what it was like growing up in the South, for a poor black man.

Ruby didn't just survive school.

She excelled at her studies.

She did, however, witnessed the effects that the heated racial climate had on her Mississippi schoolmates.

Many of them dropped out because they just didn't have maybe enough support to keep them in school.

And some of them dropped out because they just didn't have the will to continue to go on.

I'm not trying to boast about myself, but I was a very strong willed person.

I was determined, and I still believe to this day that once you continue and progress and making the best that they can be of themselves, regardless of what that might be.

And, and that's how I felt and that's, that's, that was my strongest and probably the most motivating thing within my mind.

It's that spirit of survival that Ruby has brought with her to Laconia.

Music Is it a set up lesson Wesley?

Where’s, where are those notes?

Oh, okay.

Bring them out then.

What makes a good teacher?

An open-minded one.

And also, being there to help in the most positive way that you can.

And nothing negative about it.

Being truthful with a student, completely truthful.

And also being not only truthful, but honest with yourself.

If you know you have limited capabilities, don't be afraid to let that come out.

It's only saying that you are a human being.

This is what students are looking for.

Okay.

Now question two: describe how the separation of the United States from - My school deals with kindergarten through eighth grade, and attention deficit disorder.

An alternative education.

Jeffrey Petty is the headmaster at the Hunter School in Rumney.

As a guest teacher, Ruby visits the school and shares her history and experiences with his students.

There's a common ground there, and and it's, part of it is racial discrimination.

For these kids who are seriously emotionally disturbed it’s because they’re looked as different, odd, or or interesting, at best.

And so she can relate her, her experiences life experiences down some, down in Mississippi as well as in New Hampshire here, and tell them how they advocate for themselves and what, what are their civil rights, what are their rights in the community and in the Constitution and tp be able to advocate for themselves.

So when there's people who are knock them down because they're different, they can rely on Ruby, Ruby's experiences through school to stand up and advocate for themselves.

On January 15th, 1929, Martin Luther King Junior was born to Mr.

and Mrs.

Martin Luther King in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1935, he started David T Howard Elementary School.

Academically, he's he's doing fantastic.

I mean, as I said, he was basically getting low C's, D's and F's in middle school last last year.

And he's an A's and A and B student with Ruby.

He's really excelling in his artwork as well as his Spanish lessons here with Ruby.

So he's getting a lot of social awareness and multicultural influence.

And that's exciting to see that developing, that interest in him.

Mississippi still lives in Ruby, and because of that, it lives on in the hearts and minds of her students.

My background growing up was a training for what I am to do today.

Well, you have to stay persistent.

You have to stay determined.

You have to stay with the course.

And it's no different than what Martin Luther King have always said.

Keep your eyes on the prize.

(bells ringing, applause) What he really taught us was about the power of love.

Because he said that love could conquer all.

Beth Campbell was here on the lawn at the New Hampshire State House the day the Martin Luther King Bill was signed into law.

It was a little bit warmer, Beth, so that's different.

But you have something with you you had here that day.

Yes.

My friend Sandy Paul, who I work with, brought a bell for me.

We were asked to bring bells so that when the bill was signed, everyone here could let freedom ring in a very positive way.

And so my friend brought this bell for me, and I guess it was kind of loud that day.

They heard me in my office when I rang it.

You made your yourself heard.

Tell me, Beth, where were you when you heard that the Martin Luther King Bill was going to be signed into law?

I was in Washington.

I was in Congress, there for a legislative conference.

My international union, I'm a state employee and a member of the State Employees Union, and I was there for a legislative conference.

And the word got passed down that New Hampshire became the 50th state to ratify Martin Luther King Day.

And, it was a very emotional moment for me.

Later that day, they announced it from the floor of the Congress that the state of New Hampshire had joined the other 49 states in making this, adding Doctor King's name to the existing observance.

So it was, it was very emotional.

It was sometimes difficult saying that I was from New Hampshire and people would say, oh, okay.

No Martin Luther King Day there, huh?

So I was able to hold my head up again and say, yes, I am from New Hampshire.

(bells ringing, applause) For our next story, we're going to travel from Concord to Hampton Falls.

We're going to meet musician TJ Wheeler, who has a special curriculum he calls Hope, Heroes, and the Blues.

Music There's been so many heroes throughout all history, like Martin and Malcolm who gave their lives to set us free But don't forget the heroes of the blues family tree Who laid down the foundation for musicology From Memphis to Chi-town to Mississippi Yeah The blues will live for all eternity Talk about hope heroes, and the blues I really tried to show that music is a music of hope.

Its original pioneers were no less than heroes for us all.

And the blues, of course, like the song said, blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll.

Blues is the, is at the trunk of the family tree of American music.

heroes and the blues I said hope, heroes and the blues Those are three things, people everybody can use Music You know back then, what you're doing in school every day?

Learn how to read and write and all the education that you're getting?

You know, back then it was illegal for blacks to know how to read and write.

Why?

Because knowledge is power.

But despite all these obstacles, they found ways to pass on the messages of the Underground Railroad.

Like, Following the Drinking Gourd.

Let's try singing the chorus together.

One, two, three.

Follow the drinking gourd.

I say follow the drinking gourd.

For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom if you follow the drinking gourd The drinking gourd is actually the Big Dipper.

And they went the way that the handle pointed to get to freedom.

So there are all these houses, and slaves could hide in them, and then they would go to the next house and the next house every single day and then, until they got to freedom.

because it has different meanings.

And I guess it was a secret code, sort of.

If it's a black audience of young people, the message is basically the same, but the intent may be slightly different.

I might try to really stress, like I was saying, dispelling the negative stereotypes so, so the kids can really have their own heroes that look like them, right?

Getting more in touch with their heritage, you know?

And I'm the first one to say, hey, it may seem funny that a white man is coming here to tell you about the blues, and that usually helps break the ice, and they laugh.

But I tell them, that, did you realize that the music that your ancestors made is the foundation of everything that you listen today, and that it's permeated the whole world?

I could just as easily be from Japan or Germany or Finland or the North and the South Pole, and mostly they don't know that.

And I said, well, let's let's spend the next 45 minutes talking about why you don't know that.

Wherein a, in a predominantly white state like New Hampshire, sure.

It's the same, a lot of times the same songs, the same history, but the emphasis is a little bit more on creating a broader appreciation for how we got here.

Meaning that we did did, as a white people, we did not arrive here by ourselves, you know, and that, that the musical contributions are just one example of thousands of the contributions that African-Americans have made that have enriched all of our lives, no matter if there's not one black person that happens to be in our school or our community.

Nevertheless, our lives have been radically improved.

Why, I mean, America's the only superpower left is, is no accident.

A lot of it came from the, on the backs of African Americans and, as well as other minorities.

A one.

Mama don't allow no jug band in here Mama said that it hurts her ear But we don't care what Mama don't like Gonna play that jug band anyhow.

Mama don’t allow no jug band in here Mama don’t - don’t care what Mama don’t like I originally started making these trips, of course, without the luxury of having a video camera or even a tape recorder for that matter, because I was so poor, as a, as a young adult, around 20 years old, something like that was when I first started going down to Memphis and Mississippi, the deep South looking for, more less on a kind of a blues pilgrimage.

I'd been spending a lot of time back at my home in the suburbs of Seattle, listening to scratchy 78 RPM records and figuring out the music of the Bukka White and Muddy Waters and Furry Lewis, Robert Johnson, etc.. I had a longing to see where the music was cultivated.

So, I found that a lot of the original artists, people like, Bukka White, Furry Lewis, Sleepy John Estes, the late Babe Stovall, Peg Leg Sam, number of other artists.

in the fire, but through the blues, I found hope I, with a lot of the kids, I especially use the analogy of recycling, that the blues is the original, recycling program.

Blues takes what a lot of us consider the junk, the stuff that we don't like to look at, that's inside of us, and it recycles it into something that's positive and that gives hope to ourselves as well as to other people that are listening.

Music Ladies and gentleman, let’s have a big hand for Mr.

B.J.

Johnson.

Music BJ Johnson, who lived here in Portsmouth.

And B.J., probably more than any one person, brought the Blues to New Hampshire.

Music When I decided I was really going to settle down here in New Hampshire, I decided to really try to create and, get involved in, participate in creating an organization that would really try to show to the community just how much blues can do for all of us, blues you can use.

And that's why I wanted to get involved with creating an organization called the Blues Bank Collective.

Because blues you can bank on.

Music Mr.

B. J. Johnson.

Give him a hand!

I said Daddy let your mind roll along.

Let your mind roll along.

Roll on!

Music Give them a nice hand, everybody.

Music In a large way, it it served as the same function as the church.

By recycling people's pain into, into music.

And so you could give it up, you know, you could let go.

The only worst thing that living in a, in aracist society and going through all that is letting it destroy you.

And the music was made by survivors.

Music Yeah!

You gotta face the music.

We hope you enjoyed tonight's edition of New Hampshire Crossroads.

And until next week, I'm John Clayton.

It's not where he stands in times of comfort and convenience.

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Times we must take positions that are neither safe, not popular, nor politic, but we must take those positions because our conscience tells us they are right.

I want to encourage you to always let your conscience be your guide.

Thank you for what you've done, and may God continue to bless you always.

Theme Music